Immigration Issues

[laughing dog]

I'm signaling nothing more than that it's absurd to have to type a bunch of extra words when every single one of you knows what is meant.

I am tired of this virtue signaling purity contest.

Does this mean you’ll stop this puerile whining?

 

[Jarhyn]

I'm signaling nothing more than that it's absurd to have to type a bunch of extra words when every single one of you knows what is meant.

I am tired of this virtue signaling purity contest.

Does this mean you’ll stop this puerile whining?

I mean, look at all the extra words she spouts on behalf of not wanting to spout extra words...

That's 36 words and several punctuations all on behalf of defense to save a single word in conversation so as to say something in a way that imputes a new-speak connotation upon people, so that the word being accepted imputes illegality on the referred-to persons by the uniform usage rules.

 

[Toni]

Why do you think that engaging in intentionally misleading use of language gets you a win? This is an absolutely stupid abuse of words. The only people you convince with this "it's not illegal to be a person" are stupid people.

It is not illegal to be a person. That is reality. It may be illegal to in a country that does not make anyone an "illegal". The intentional misuse of language is to call undocumented aliens "illegals".

Yes, it is accepted by nativists, white nationalists, racists, their dupes and their enablers, but that does not make any less of a misuse of the word. And it is done either for political purposes or for stupid reasons.

This is why it's stupid, LD. Everybody knows that it's shorthand for "illegal aliens". Absolutely NOBODY has EVER thought that it implies that being a person is illegal.

So to 1) intentionally misconstrue what one KNOWS to be meant so that 2) one can erect an argument against it... is extraordinarily transparent bad faith. It convinces nobody, it accomplishes nothing. It lets the few people who insist on parroting "it's not illegal to be a person" feel like they're winning because they get back-slaps and high-fives from other people who do the same silly thing. And everyone else merely bites their tongues and silently acknowledges that the entire premise is idiotic.

It's the same for the idiots going on about "All Lives Matter". Like, no shit - we know that, everyone knows that, and absolutely nobody anywhere ever though that BLM implied that anyone who wasn't black didn't matter.

It's absolutely pointless virtue signaling via sloganeering.

Words matter, Emily. Unfortunately there are plenty of people who believe that immigrants are all here fraudulently and are not worthy of being considered human beings or treated with respect or dignity or even the same right to life they want to grant to a ball of 16 cells.

I've noticed that words only matter when it allows some of you to behave in a superior fashion and be snide toward those you've decided are beneath you. Words don't matter when it's your fellow travelers... then it's context that matters and the words are irrelevant.

So what are you signaling by your word choice?

I'm signaling nothing more than that it's absurd to have to type a bunch of extra words when every single one of you knows what is meant.

I am tired of this virtue signaling purity contest.

I am pointing this out to you precisely because my best guess is that you are enough younger than I am that you did not grow up hearing all sorts of terms which were offensive because they were intended to be denigrating towards certain groups. Some of the words and terms were so deeply ingrained in every day speech that I seriously did not know until embarrassingly far into adulthood that ‘jewing someone down’ on a price actually referred to Jews and the stereotype that Jews were extremely cheap. I immediately quit using the offensive term as soon as its meaning was explained to me. I did not struggle to make that change. I was mortified. My intention was never to have used a term that most people knew was offensive. So I quit using that term.

That’s what the term you used reminds me and doubtless many in my age cohort +|- 10 years or so. I see that term used by a lot of people and it is used to imply that anyone with darker than milk skin or ‘funny’ shaped eyes or a ‘weird’ name or accent is not here legally and is therefore suspect and in fact, does not enjoy the same constitutional protections as US citizens ( which is false, btw). I know that you know this. I think that you used a common and imo lazy word choice and expect the rest of us to just ignore it like you are a well meaning aunt with mild dementia or a slow child.

In fact, most of us probably regard you as an intelligent and sufficiently well educated enough person who should be aware that your word choice comes across as being crude, dismissive and potentially racist —or stupid. I don’t think you are stupid or any of those other things.

Before you get all huffy, I should point out that I am a terrible typist ( and my phone hates me) and there are posters who take great delight in making fun of my mistakes. I don’t always like it but I don’t go off on a multiple post rant about how they knew what I meant and are just being a big meanie. I correct my mistake, not always with the utmost grace, and then I move on. And try to do better.

Maybe you could do the same.

 

[Toni]

I’m not necessarily thinking of anyone here although if I thought hard enough, I might have the misfortune to come up with a name or two of members here.

Okay... so even though you're not referring to anyone here... you still need me to jump through linguistic hoops and be subjected to coercive rhetorical manipulation to what... prove to you that I'm virtuous enough to not be subjected to needless and pointless finger-wagging?

Occasionally I accidentally hear Trump’s voice. That’s way past my personal quota of bullshit, without wading through your crybaby I shouldn’t have to use good language because my grammar thinks I’m real cute so you should just let me do whatever I want so there bs.

 

[Emily Lake]

I am pointing this out to you precisely because my best guess is that you are enough younger than I am that you did not grow up hearing all sorts of terms which were offensive because they were intended to be denigrating towards certain groups. Some of the words and terms were so deeply ingrained in every day speech that I seriously did not know until embarrassingly far into adulthood that ‘jewing someone down’ on a price actually referred to Jews and the stereotype that Jews were extremely cheap. I immediately quit using the offensive term as soon as its meaning was explained to me. I did not struggle to make that change. I was mortified. My intention was never to have used a term that most people knew was offensive. So I quit using that term.

That’s what the term you used reminds me and doubtless many in my age cohort +|- 10 years or so. I see that term used by a lot of people and it is used to imply that anyone with darker than milk skin or ‘funny’ shaped eyes or a ‘weird’ name or accent is not here legally and is therefore suspect and in fact, does not enjoy the same constitutional protections as US citizens ( which is false, btw). I know that you know this. I think that you used a common and imo lazy word choice and expect the rest of us to just ignore it like you are a well meaning aunt with mild dementia or a slow child.

No. You are wrong, Toni. I get that this is what it reminds YOU of, and that YOU think the phrase "illegal alien" is something inherently racist and cannot possibly mean what it literally and actually means. I understand where you're coming from.

But your assumption is false. I do not have the same hang-ups about it as you do. I fully understand and intend the words to mean exactly what they are: an alien who is here illegally. An alien is, in legal terms, any person who is not a us citizen or national. That's what it means, and that's all it means to me - and that's all I intend it to mean.

That YOU have internal assumptions about it that are related to race isn't my problem. I don't give two shits what color or eye shape or hair color someone has. Your inability to function in the world without seeing race in everything is your own issue.

In fact, most of us probably regard you as an intelligent and sufficiently well educated enough person who should be aware that your word choice comes across as being crude, dismissive and potentially racist —or stupid. I don’t think you are stupid or any of those other things.

Before you get all huffy, I should point out that I am a terrible typist ( and my phone hates me) and there are posters who take great delight in making fun of my mistakes. I don’t always like it but I don’t go off on a multiple post rant about how they knew what I meant and are just being a big meanie. I correct my mistake, not always with the utmost grace, and then I move on. And try to do better.

I think you should be far less tolerant of people who call themselves rational, compassionate, caring, empathetic skeptics and atheists who delight in trying to intentionally make you feel bad about mistyping for their own petty glee. Why should you be expected to gracefully accept their incivility and rudeness? If we're supposed to be held to a reasonable standard of civility, why should you be expected to pretend that their transparent contemptuousness is reasonable behavior?

Maybe you could do the same.

I've done so for years. It's made no difference. In fact, in the past few years it's gotten significantly more cruel and malicious. Why should I be expected to willfully submit to being a verbal punching bag?

 

[Toni]

Why do you think that engaging in intentionally misleading use of language gets you a win? This is an absolutely stupid abuse of words. The only people you convince with this "it's not illegal to be a person" are stupid people.

It is not illegal to be a person. That is reality. It may be illegal to in a country that does not make anyone an "illegal". The intentional misuse of language is to call undocumented aliens "illegals".

Yes, it is accepted by nativists, white nationalists, racists, their dupes and their enablers, but that does not make any less of a misuse of the word. And it is done either for political purposes or for stupid reasons.

This is why it's stupid, LD. Everybody knows that it's shorthand for "illegal aliens". Absolutely NOBODY has EVER thought that it implies that being a person is illegal.

So to 1) intentionally misconstrue what one KNOWS to be meant so that 2) one can erect an argument against it... is extraordinarily transparent bad faith. It convinces nobody, it accomplishes nothing. It lets the few people who insist on parroting "it's not illegal to be a person" feel like they're winning because they get back-slaps and high-fives from other people who do the same silly thing. And everyone else merely bites their tongues and silently acknowledges that the entire premise is idiotic.

It's the same for the idiots going on about "All Lives Matter". Like, no shit - we know that, everyone knows that, and absolutely nobody anywhere ever though that BLM implied that anyone who wasn't black didn't matter.

It's absolutely pointless virtue signaling via sloganeering.

Words matter, Emily. Unfortunately there are plenty of people who believe that immigrants are all here fraudulently and are not worthy of being considered human beings or treated with respect or dignity or even the same right to life they want to grant to a ball of 16 cells.

I've noticed that words only matter when it allows some of you to behave in a superior fashion and be snide toward those you've decided are beneath you. Words don't matter when it's your fellow travelers... then it's context that matters and the words are irrelevant.

So what are you signaling by your word choice?

I'm signaling nothing more than that it's absurd to have to type a bunch of extra words when every single one of you knows what is meant.

I am tired of this virtue signaling purity contest.

You remind me of my MAGA brother in law who got fired after the umpteenth time he used inappropriate language at work.

 

[Emily Lake]

I’m not necessarily thinking of anyone here although if I thought hard enough, I might have the misfortune to come up with a name or two of members here.

Okay... so even though you're not referring to anyone here... you still need me to jump through linguistic hoops and be subjected to coercive rhetorical manipulation to what... prove to you that I'm virtuous enough to not be subjected to needless and pointless finger-wagging?

Occasionally I accidentally hear Trump’s voice. That’s way past my personal quota of bullshit, without wading through your crybaby I shouldn’t have to use good language because my grammar thinks I’m real cute so you should just let me do whatever I want so there bs.

That's a real special level of hate you've got going on here.

 

[Toni]

I am pointing this out to you precisely because my best guess is that you are enough younger than I am that you did not grow up hearing all sorts of terms which were offensive because they were intended to be denigrating towards certain groups. Some of the words and terms were so deeply ingrained in every day speech that I seriously did not know until embarrassingly far into adulthood that ‘jewing someone down’ on a price actually referred to Jews and the stereotype that Jews were extremely cheap. I immediately quit using the offensive term as soon as its meaning was explained to me. I did not struggle to make that change. I was mortified. My intention was never to have used a term that most people knew was offensive. So I quit using that term.

That’s what the term you used reminds me and doubtless many in my age cohort +|- 10 years or so. I see that term used by a lot of people and it is used to imply that anyone with darker than milk skin or ‘funny’ shaped eyes or a ‘weird’ name or accent is not here legally and is therefore suspect and in fact, does not enjoy the same constitutional protections as US citizens ( which is false, btw). I know that you know this. I think that you used a common and imo lazy word choice and expect the rest of us to just ignore it like you are a well meaning aunt with mild dementia or a slow child.

No. You are wrong, Toni. I get that this is what it reminds YOU of, and that YOU think the phrase "illegal alien" is something inherently racist and cannot possibly mean what it literally and actually means. I understand where you're coming from.

But your assumption is false. I do not have the same hang-ups about it as you do. I fully understand and intend the words to mean exactly what they are: an alien who is here illegally. An alien is, in legal terms, any person who is not a us citizen or national. That's what it means, and that's all it means to me - and that's all I intend it to mean.

That YOU have internal assumptions about it that are related to race isn't my problem. I don't give two shits what color or eye shape or hair color someone has. Your inability to function in the world without seeing race in everything is your own issue.

In fact, most of us probably regard you as an intelligent and sufficiently well educated enough person who should be aware that your word choice comes across as being crude, dismissive and potentially racist —or stupid. I don’t think you are stupid or any of those other things.

Before you get all huffy, I should point out that I am a terrible typist ( and my phone hates me) and there are posters who take great delight in making fun of my mistakes. I don’t always like it but I don’t go off on a multiple post rant about how they knew what I meant and are just being a big meanie. I correct my mistake, not always with the utmost grace, and then I move on. And try to do better.

I think you should be far less tolerant of people who call themselves rational, compassionate, caring, empathetic skeptics and atheists who delight in trying to intentionally make you feel bad about mistyping for their own petty glee. Why should you be expected to gracefully accept their incivility and rudeness? If we're supposed to be held to a reasonable standard of civility, why should you be expected to pretend that their transparent contemptuousness is reasonable behavior?

Maybe you could do the same.

I've done so for years. It's made no difference. In fact, in the past few years it's gotten significantly more cruel and malicious. Why should I be expected to willfully submit to being a verbal punching bag?

Why should we have to put up with you using deliberately racist and inflammatory terms without calling it out?

Yes, things have become more cruel and malicious for anyone not born with white skin and preferably blonde hair and blue eyes and a penis. I have absolutely zero sympathy for white people who are crybabies about being expected to act like decent adult human beings in public.

 

[Emily Lake]

Why should we have to put up with you using deliberately racist and inflammatory terms without calling it out?

Your inability to consider race unimportant in how you evaluate and interact with people does not make me racist, nor does it make legal terms magically transform into racist slurs.

Your name calling and attempts to shame me into kowtowing to your own biases isn't going to make me pretend that an accurate legal term which does not in any fashion involve or reference race can only be used in a racist way.

YOU hear the phrase and YOU think about race - YOU have an implicit bias that it means race. That's what YOU think.

It's not what I think. Your implicit beliefs are not my beliefs.

 

[Toni]

Why should we have to put up with you using deliberately racist and inflammatory terms without calling it out?

Your inability to consider race unimportant in how you evaluate and interact with people does not make me racist, nor does it make legal terms magically transform into racist slurs.

Your name calling and attempts to shame me into kowtowing to your own biases isn't going to make me pretend that an accurate legal term which does not in any fashion involve or reference race can only be used in a racist way.

YOU hear the phrase and YOU think about race - YOU have an implicit bias that it means race. That's what YOU think.

It's not what I think. Your implicit beliefs are not my beliefs.

I knew exactly what my father meant when he used the n word. Without it being explained to me.

He saw nothing wrong with his word choice, either.

 

[Jarhyn]

Why should we have to put up with you using deliberately racist and inflammatory terms without calling it out?

Your inability to consider race unimportant in how you evaluate and interact with people does not make me racist, nor does it make legal terms magically transform into racist slurs.

Your name calling and attempts to shame me into kowtowing to your own biases isn't going to make me pretend that an accurate legal term which does not in any fashion involve or reference race can only be used in a racist way.

YOU hear the phrase and YOU think about race - YOU have an implicit bias that it means race. That's what YOU think.

It's not what I think. Your implicit beliefs are not my beliefs.

I knew exactly what my father meant when he used the n word. Without it being explained to me.

He saw nothing wrong with his word choice, either.

Racist slurs are about saying things which offend the beliefs of others.

It is not about what is implicit, but about what "subjective interpretations" exist in the wild around you. That is where the object of the racism comes to exist, in making others feel or live "small" compared to others on account of the things you say.

It doesn't matter what such folks "intend" to say. What matters is the thing people will hear.

I have a friend who had a hard time talking about a fun park called "digger land" in public, because despite what she would have been intending to say, people would have interpreted it as something offensive, and directed at or around them.

The mere belief someone might have said the word that rhymes with it IS a reason to not say something.

It doesn't matter what Emily believes or doesn't, unless she seriously believes nobody hearing it will hear it that way! Then, I refuse to believe Emily's words about her beliefs anymore, as her repeated actions of support make those words dead on arrival.

 

[Elixir]

Then, I refuse to believe Emily's words about her beliefs anymore, as her repeated actions of support make those words dead on arrival.

Never ascribe to malice …
I think tolerance for cognitive dissonance tends to be extremely high in some people - especially people raised with religion. Compartmentalizing becomes habit, second nature. Others’ failure to buy certain contradictions is just that -their failures.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Is there something wrong with the following?

MSN

​

Anti-ICE Virginia Democrats get another innocent person killed​

Virginia Democrats, including Gov. Abigail Spanberger, are again refusing to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials who want to deport a violent illegal immigrant who recently murdered a Fairfax County mother in cold blood. This is not the first time anti-ICE Democrats have gotten innocent people killed, and it won’t be the last unless they reverse themselves and start cooperating with federal immigration law enforcement officials.

Sierra Leone national Abdul Jalloh illegally entered the United States in 2012. In the decade and more he's been in the country, he has racked up more than 30 arrests, including for assault, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, drug possession, firing a weapon, identity theft, larceny, pick pocketing, rape, and trespassing.

Most recently, in 2023, Jalloh was convicted of stabbing a man in a Fairfax County 7-Eleven parking lot while trying to steal his cellphone. Jalloh had been arrested on charges of stabbing three times before, but this one produced his first conviction, and he served two years in prison before being released by Fairfax County officials, who failed to notify ICE that a violent, convicted immigrant was being let out to mingle with the public.

Jalloh was arrested twice more by Fairfax County officials, triggering a probation violation, but instead of putting Jalloh in jail, Democratic prosecutors not only suspended his sentence but also ended his probation. At any point along this timeline, after the first post-conviction arrest, or the second, or after prosecutors ended his probation and suspended his sentence, Fairfax County officials could have notified ICE that a violent illegal immigrant was in custody and could be picked up for deportation.

Freed yet again by soft-on-crime anti-ICE Democrats, Jalloh was identified by surveillance getting off a bus on Richmond Highway with 41-year-old mother Stephanie Minter last week. Minter’s body was later found stabbed multiple times at the Richmond Highway bus stop. Jalloh was arrested later that day by police for shoplifting and was quickly identified as Minter’s murderer.

It is hoped that with the surveillance video, prosecutors will be able to secure a murder conviction, but given District Attorney Steve Descano’s established record of letting violent criminals, especially violent illegal immigrants, go free, that is far from certain. Even if Jalloh is convicted, anti-ICE Democrats can be expected to release him eventually without notifying ICE.

Asked whether Spanbergeer intended to release Jalloh again without informing ICE, the governor's office said she would demand a judicial warrant before turning Jalloh over to federal law enforcement. This is not how federal immigration law enforcement works. Jalloh did not commit a federal crime when he murdered Minter. While he did commit a federal crime when he entered the country illegally in 2012, the statute of limitations on that crime has long passed. There is no basis for a federal warrant for his arrest.

Unlawful presence in the U.S., as Democrats love to point out, is not a crime by itself. It is a civil infraction, so ICE needs only an administrative warrant to enforce it. Such warrants should be more than enough for state and local governments, such as Virginia and Fairfax County, to honor, so that dangerous illegal immigrants such as Jollah are not released back onto the streets.


Last December, Fairfax County officials released illegal immigrant Marvin Morales-Ortez from custody without holding him for deportation. Morales-Ortez, a citizen of El Salvador, had been arrested seven times by Fairfax County before he was arrested last year for brandishing a gun and assaulting someone. Again, Descano chose not to prosecute Morales-Ortez, and he was released. Less than 24 hours later, he was arrested again, this time for shooting a Reston man to death.

How many more Virginians must be murdered before Democrats, including Spanberger, reverse their policies and cooperate with federal officials to keep violent illegal immigrants off our streets?

My guess is that the above omits some facts which would clarify better what happened in these cases. It appears that in both cases the criminal is now in custody and faces prosecution, so the system does work at least partly, to catch the "worst of the worst" criminals, though it appears superficially that there's a bias toward releasing criminals if they're immigrants. Or rather, there is some mishandling of some such cases. Maybe very few such cases, and yet these get exaggerated into something sensationalist, to feed the populist frenzy to find villains somewhere to beat up on.

How typical are these cases of leniency to violent criminals? There's an impression that there are probably hundreds or even thousands of such cases (immigrants committing violent crimes) happening right now, and many of these criminals let back out onto the streets and likely to strike again, and that the crime rate is higher because of this -- all due to this bias in some states/cities to release violent criminal suspects if they are immigrants.

And yet this makes no sense. No prosecutors or law enforcers intentionally want to see violent criminals released because they're immigrants. What possible hidden or ulterior motive could they have? If they want to pander to public demand for something, they'd do everything to get those criminals convicted, or deported, or anything other than just release them back to the streets.


What's the real cause of the anti-immigrant hysteria?

I think it can be shown that Democrats/liberals/progressives are more to blame than the immigrant-bashing right-wingers. Though the latter are deluded, yet they do have a reasonable demand for stricter enforcement of the immigration laws, which almost everyone agrees with (i.e., everyone agrees that the law should be better enforced). The difference between the Right and the Left is that the Right is now doing an aggressive full thrust toward enforcement, unlike before when everyone seemed to recognize the economic need for the immigrant labor, which the letter of the law disregarded by demanding unrealistic obstructions to immigrant workers.

There is hysteria and hate by both the Left and Right. The Left has deliberately left in place very restrictive immigration barriers (employment barriers), and when these barriers are circumvented (out of economic necessity), they unleash their hate against the employers as the villain, because the Left has a basic hate for employers, or rather, those employers who pay competitive wages rather than artificially-high wages demanded by labor unions.

Left-wing talk-show host Thom Hartmann repeatedly blames employers as guilty and imagines that crackdowns on them would solve most of the illegal immigration problem. Heavy fines and even imprisonment of callous employers -- it's always some dirty capitalist who is to blame for whatever is wrong. And he blames Reagan for having changed federal policy of enforcing the law to punish the employers. But this too would be just another artificial interference with the market, which left to itself responds efficiently to the consumer demand, and that demand can best be satisfied with increased immigrant labor, not a crackdown on employers, which hurts everyone. Equal enforcement of the labor laws for domestic or immigrant labor is reasonable, but not interference with the competition from immigration. More competition is always better.


Immigrant workers are a natural part of the labor supply.

As a result of the artificial restrictions on immigrant labor, the needed workers are obtained illegally because the legal requirements/restrictions leave no other choice. And Democrats/liberals/progressives have had plenty of opportunity to change the restrictions to make the law more open to immigrant workers as demanded by the supply-and-demand conditions of the market.

But are Republicans/conservatives not equally guilty of this? No, they don't preach the false doctrine that "cheap labor" is bad for the economy, and many Republicans in Congress would yield to corporate demand for increased immigrant worker visas. On this point it's the Democrats who are the hypocrites. They do know that more immigrant workers are needed, across the economy, in all sectors. All they needed to do was increase the number of immigrant workers allowed, and a major flaw in U.S. immigration law would have been corrected. But they repeatedly refused to do this, even when they were in power and could have done so (during both the Clinton and Obama and even Biden administrations). The right answer was --

merit-based competitive capitalism, laissez-faire, free-market > more immigration to satisfy market demand.

But instead they stuck to their Marxist anti-capitalist propping-up-wages employer-bashing dogma.

And so the result (almost automatic result, easily predictable) has been that the number of undocumented workers became very high, as a result of the U.S. demand for the low-cost labor. This very high (illegal) immigrant population then gave to the Right-wingers all they needed as a pretext to crack down on immigrants. (This crackdown is not only on the illegal immigrants, but also the legal ones, because even many of these originally entered the country illegally and then successfully changed to a legal process. It's not illogical for the immigrant-bashers to see these also as guilty and needing to be purged.)

And since this is a long-term economic fact of life in the U.S., the Right-wing rage has proliferated over the years, as they recognized a clear lack of enforcement of law ("lawlessness") going on, as a permanent policy. In practice the policy has been to allow the filling of the economic need (more immigrant workers allowed, by whatever means), but without doing it by changing the law (raising the cap on immigrant workers) because the resulting "cheap labor" violates their basic Leftist Doctrine that "cheap labor" is the same as "slavery" and "oppression" and "exploitation" etc. etc. (as handed down by Marxist dogma from the 19th century).

It's this artificial labor dogmatism of the Left which is the main culprit in causing the labor-economy distortion and the anti-immigration backlash among so many Right-wing immigrant-bashers. The economy has performed well under the system of allowing practical immigrant-worker increases (by one means or another), done along with some lax enforcement of the immigration laws. Though the immigrant bashers were offended, most conservatives put a high priority on business and the free market, which favors low-cost labor and increased competition from immigration, and the overall net benefit to the economy from the improved production.

It's mostly the less-educated lower-class conservatives and wage-earner Democrats/liberals who have banded together (not efficiently but in mob fashion) to unleash the severe backlash which has now finally exploded with the new Trump demagoguery. Hopefully Democrats/liberals/progressives will learn a lesson from this, and when the current Washington nightmare finally ends they will finally reform the immigration laws in such a way as to realistically recognize America's need for a large immigrant workforce, meaning they will greatly increase the legal flow of immigrant workers, and then also put in place a reasonable enforcement system (rather than the current chaos), so a smooth legal inflow of new immigrant workers will take place in a regular and equitable manner (to ALLOW the needed immigration rather than artificially limit it). This will be much more efficient and beneficial to all, including especially to consumers.

The real ultimate flaw is the obsession to pander to selected producers (whether workers or corporate-welfare capitalists) rather than to the consumers, who are 100% of the economy. But this does include having the market incentives or rewards to the better performers, i.e., those producers who are more competitive. The competition factor is also absolutely fundamental to making the economy perform better for all.

 

[Jarhyn]

Then, I refuse to believe Emily's words about her beliefs anymore, as her repeated actions of support make those words dead on arrival.

Never ascribe to malice …
I think tolerance for cognitive dissonance tends to be extremely high in some people - especially people raised with religion. Compartmentalizing becomes habit, second nature. Others’ failure to buy certain contradictions is just that -their failures.

I don't have to believe it is gnostic malice for it to be ignorant malice.

The habit of compartmentalization still is creating malice, and a religiously based bias is still a bias even if it's not understood by the holder.

This does not change the reality of the failure. It is still wrong even if the person responsible doesn't understand their actions. They still need to be told to stop and if they won't they still need to BE stopped.

Their failures are still failures that are theirs to own, regardless of whether they are mature enough to actually claim them.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Is there something wrong with the following?

MSN

​

Anti-ICE Virginia Democrats get another innocent person killed​

Virginia Democrats, including Gov. Abigail Spanberger, are again refusing to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials who want to deport a violent illegal immigrant who recently murdered a Fairfax County mother in cold blood. This is not the first time anti-ICE Democrats have gotten innocent people killed, and it won’t be the last unless they reverse themselves and start cooperating with federal immigration law enforcement officials.

Sierra Leone national Abdul Jalloh illegally entered the United States in 2012. In the decade and more he's been in the country, he has racked up more than 30 arrests, including for assault, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, drug possession, firing a weapon, identity theft, larceny, pick pocketing, rape, and trespassing.

Most recently, in 2023, Jalloh was convicted of stabbing a man in a Fairfax County 7-Eleven parking lot while trying to steal his cellphone. Jalloh had been arrested on charges of stabbing three times before, but this one produced his first conviction, and he served two years in prison before being released by Fairfax County officials, who failed to notify ICE that a violent, convicted immigrant was being let out to mingle with the public.

Jalloh was arrested twice more by Fairfax County officials, triggering a probation violation, but instead of putting Jalloh in jail, Democratic prosecutors not only suspended his sentence but also ended his probation. At any point along this timeline, after the first post-conviction arrest, or the second, or after prosecutors ended his probation and suspended his sentence, Fairfax County officials could have notified ICE that a violent illegal immigrant was in custody and could be picked up for deportation.

Freed yet again by soft-on-crime anti-ICE Democrats, Jalloh was identified by surveillance getting off a bus on Richmond Highway with 41-year-old mother Stephanie Minter last week. Minter’s body was later found stabbed multiple times at the Richmond Highway bus stop. Jalloh was arrested later that day by police for shoplifting and was quickly identified as Minter’s murderer.

It is hoped that with the surveillance video, prosecutors will be able to secure a murder conviction, but given District Attorney Steve Descano’s established record of letting violent criminals, especially violent illegal immigrants, go free, that is far from certain. Even if Jalloh is convicted, anti-ICE Democrats can be expected to release him eventually without notifying ICE.

Asked whether Spanbergeer intended to release Jalloh again without informing ICE, the governor's office said she would demand a judicial warrant before turning Jalloh over to federal law enforcement. This is not how federal immigration law enforcement works. Jalloh did not commit a federal crime when he murdered Minter. While he did commit a federal crime when he entered the country illegally in 2012, the statute of limitations on that crime has long passed. There is no basis for a federal warrant for his arrest.

Unlawful presence in the U.S., as Democrats love to point out, is not a crime by itself. It is a civil infraction, so ICE needs only an administrative warrant to enforce it. Such warrants should be more than enough for state and local governments, such as Virginia and Fairfax County, to honor, so that dangerous illegal immigrants such as Jollah are not released back onto the streets.


Last December, Fairfax County officials released illegal immigrant Marvin Morales-Ortez from custody without holding him for deportation. Morales-Ortez, a citizen of El Salvador, had been arrested seven times by Fairfax County before he was arrested last year for brandishing a gun and assaulting someone. Again, Descano chose not to prosecute Morales-Ortez, and he was released. Less than 24 hours later, he was arrested again, this time for shooting a Reston man to death.

How many more Virginians must be murdered before Democrats, including Spanberger, reverse their policies and cooperate with federal officials to keep violent illegal immigrants off our streets?

My guess is that the above omits some facts which would clarify better what happened in these cases.

It's interesting that this is your "guess." The very same web page you copied this article from states it is an opinion from the Washington Examiner staff, a very conservative source that only tells one side and has it as an "opinion." It also disparages Spanberger by trying to connect her to this due to her party membership. It's kind of ridiculous.

So, first before jumping to conclusions and submitting hundreds of words of speculative inferences, try multiple sources from different perspectives or get all the facts.

In this case, here are two issues:

(1) So far as Abdul Jalloh, the prosecutor's big boss, Descano, claims his office contacted the victims but they refused to testify which led to prosecutorial cases crumbling. Follow-up coverage investigated and found most were not subpoenaed and so one might conclude that Descano contacted them, they did not consent to testify and then he not knowing what they might say or assenting to their choice, failed to force them to testify.

(2) "Jalloh was arrested twice more by Fairfax County officials, triggering a probation violation, but instead of putting Jalloh in jail, Democratic prosecutors not only suspended his sentence but also ended his probation." Probation restrictions are very strict. It could be something like a curfew for example and perhaps the convict actually had a work schedule that violated the curfew had told his probation officer about it beforehand but got slapped with violation anyway. So those arrests potentially could be innocuous and then lead to the probation being dropped anyway because the convict appears to be adjusting well and taking his meds and have support from some relatives etc to be on a good path. Who knows?

Secondly, in order to say that these people are being treated differently you'd have to show some statistics of A versus B. I think having him out in society is pretty shitty job by the system, but it is perhaps just as bad when measuring how often bad non-immigrants are let out as well. These are anecdotes meant to scare people into thinking there is a pro-immigrant-criminal bias that goes all the way to the governor so the fascists can boot her. It's like when they accused Bill Clinton of being a communist.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

"They were killed because they refused to cooperate!" isn't an excuse. That's exactly how we know people who trot this line are fascists though, and it directly suggests blind obedience is more valuable than preserving life.

 

[unapologetic]

 

[Emily Lake]

Why should we have to put up with you using deliberately racist and inflammatory terms without calling it out?

Your inability to consider race unimportant in how you evaluate and interact with people does not make me racist, nor does it make legal terms magically transform into racist slurs.

Your name calling and attempts to shame me into kowtowing to your own biases isn't going to make me pretend that an accurate legal term which does not in any fashion involve or reference race can only be used in a racist way.

YOU hear the phrase and YOU think about race - YOU have an implicit bias that it means race. That's what YOU think.

It's not what I think. Your implicit beliefs are not my beliefs.

I knew exactly what my father meant when he used the n word. Without it being explained to me.

He saw nothing wrong with his word choice, either.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Using a legal term for a non-citizen who is in the country without authorization is just as bad as the n-word now?

 

[Emily Lake]

Racist slurs are about saying things which offend the beliefs of others.

You say shit that offends my beliefs all the time. Why don't your own rules apply to you?

 

[Elixir]

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Eeeuuuw!