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>... [We] recognize the grave responsibility that those creating powerful technology have to ensure what they build is used for good, and not for harm.
I don't read hear or read this sentiment nearly as often as I would like.
It’s unethical to require people from other countries that want to enter the US to follow certain, well established, legal protocols before they enter?
I’m all for legal immigration. I guess I just don’t understand all the support for illegal immigration.
Edit: based on the downvotes, there must be some kind of benefit to the US arising from illegal immigration that I’m missing. Could one of you that downvoted this please explain that benefit to me?
> It's unethical to require people from other countries that want to enter the US to follow certain, well established, legal protocols before they enter?
The contents of letter state that it is a reaction to the recent news that babies and toddlers of immigrants crossing the border illegally are being separated from their parents in the hundreds. We have no evidence that these parents have been charged with violent or other crimes of a nature that might justify the separation for the children's safety.
In no way does the letter assert that it supports illegal immigration, as I think your comment suggests. Rather, the letter accuses ICE of inhumane treatment of children in a way that violates international law.
So the letter cosigners might very well be strongly against illegal immigration. I am strongly against homicide, for instance. That being said, I would like our prisons to treat convicted murderers in a humane way. Just because I am against murder, it doesn't mean I want prisoners to be water boarded or starved or what have you.
babies and toddlers of immigrants crossing the border illegally are being separated from their parents in the hundreds. We have no evidence that these parents have been charged with violent or other crimes of a nature that might justify the separation for the children's safety.
When parents commit crimes, they are going to wind up being separated from their children. This is a consequence of breaking the law - you commit a crime, and then you go to jail. Your children can’t be with you in jail, so you get separated. The evidence that they have committed a crime in the case of illegal entry is by default - they couldn’t be arrested by the US border patrol unless they violated the law, because the US border patrol doesn’t arrest people in Mexico, they arrest them in the US.
So, in order to support these parents not being separated from their children, you have to support not prosecuting people for illegally entering the country. That, by definition, means you have to be in favor of illegal immigration.
Sure, lots of people actually are in favor of the sort of illegal immigration where if people seek asylum they are not prosecuted for the misdemeanor border crossing at least until their asylum application is rejected (and maybe they just aren't prosecuted).
But why would the "greatest" country in the world use any nuance when dealing with vulnerable people, right, nuance is for rich people and their powerful lawyers, not for people fleeing death.
I dare you to be specific when you make your arguments about law and order. Own the specifics. Proper procedure is a very important part of seeking asylum and all that. Don't hide behind words like "commit crimes" and "violated the law", actually say "misdemeanor border crossing".
Are misdemeanors not crimes? The term misdemeanor simply means that it is a crime punishable by up to 364 days in prison. Further, illegal reentry is a felony, and in many of these cases, it’s reentry.
Nothing in my comment prompts your question, I don't even come close to denying that misdemeanors are crimes.
My point is that bloviating about law and order when the crime is minor and the danger (in many cases) is real, is pathetic. It'd be less pathetic to make it clear that you think that babies should be taken away from mothers that have merely crossed the border away from an official port of entry.
It'd be less pathetic to make it clear that you think that babies should be taken away from mothers that have merely crossed the border away from an official port of entry.
When did I say that? I just think that mothers shouldn’t be bringing their babies to illegally enter the country in the first place.
Entering the country illegally is a misdemeanor. Is it reasonable to separate children for a few hours to process the adults? Sure. This is what border control does before handing people over to ICE.
But there are 2000 kids that ICE has separated for longer than a week (even months) and even placed in social care.
You wouldn't do that if one was caught speeding, but for illegal crossings it's ok?
Speeding is an infraction (that’s a legal term). Misdemeanors are crimes punishable by up to 364 days in prison. These two things are not remotely close to one another.
I actually started this this with 1 comment genuinely asking how people could possibly endorse illegal immigration. No one actually expressed any defensible position, and they still haven’t. When people reply, I need to respond to those comments.
And what I said stands. I rarely comment here anymore. I have as much right to be here as you do.
I actually did reply to your comment about unethical laws. It isn't a law that children and parents must be separated at the border; that would indeed be unethical. But part of the whole scheme of crime and punishment is that when you break the law, you go to jail. So when these parents choose to break the law, by default, the parents and children wind up separated because the parent chose to break the law and is now in custody.
Actually you just dodged the cogent response you received.
Because many of these people are essentially refugees fleeing violence and extreme poverty in their home countries. Instead of helping these people we're tearing them from their families.
Then you framed your reply in terms of Mexico only, which ignored places like El Salvador, although maybe that’s just more “Mexico” in your mind? Point being, you’ve gotten many good replies, you just don’t like them, which is hardly the same as them being indefensible.
You have every right to be here, but less of a right to throw a tantrum about leaving while being here. That’s just rude. It’s only right to have some respect for the platform and people who use and maintain it while you use it.
I responded to that comment up above. I focused on Mexico because that is by far the largest source of illegal immigrants to the US. Not a single reply has answered my question as to why anyone would endorse illegal immigration. Many countries have many problems, we cannot just take in all of their residents.
I think it’s terrible that families are being separated. But I don’t know of another solution when their parents are choosing to bring their children with them to commit a crime.
The solution is to not separate them. You're not arguing in good faith when you suggest that the two possible binary outcomes are (a) unrestricted immigration or (b) separating kids from their parents.
Many of the illegal immigrants come to the border to flee violence or crippling poverty. They have to bring their kids. If they had the time or the income or the support system to migrate legally, they would.
With regards to your original point, I fail to see why Americans are not within their rights to protest laws that they feel are unjust. The employees understood that they may be fired for their views, but they did it because they could not in good conscience perform the work. You ignored the immediate reply about Jim Crow laws, but it's a good comparison. Would you also be angry with people that did not want to enforce Jim Crow laws?
> You're not arguing in good faith when you suggest that the two possible binary outcomes are (a) unrestricted immigration or (b) separating kids from their parents.
Completely agreed. Furthermore, it's the fact that we've had a lax border that is to blame for people expecting to get through without any trouble (or at least without being separated from their kids).
I have no problem with tightening up border security, but these kids did no wrong -- and to forcibly separate them from their parents is to do evil to them. I'm sure we can find a creative (if unorthodox) solution to this that allows kids to stay with their parents whether or not the parents are prosecuted.
I fail to see why Americans are not within their rights to protest laws that they feel are unjust
So you feel that restrictions on immigration are unjust? The law doesn't say that children must be seperated from their parents at the border. That's simply a natural consequence of breaking the law - the parent goes to jail, and something has to be done with any children they chose to bring to the crime scene. US citizens are jailed everyday, for small things like driving without a license, and if their kids are in the car, those kids go to Child Protective Services. In many cases, the parents can't afford to bail out and the children wind up in foster homes for months or years while the parent serves their sentence and then fights to get custody back.
This is all very ugly, but it all starts with a conscious decision to break the law with children in tow.
Sure I did. Because it's a minor crime and many of the people are involved are fleeing real danger. That's plenty enough reason to take a nuanced approach to dealing with the minor crime.
Most of the world has agreed to simply not charge refugees with entry crimes:
>No one actually expressed any defensible position, and they still haven’t
No, nobody has given you a position you agree with. You can't just say "EVERYTHING I DISAGREE WITH IS INDEFENSIBLE HURR DURR", that's not how things work.
Whether or not you agree is irrelevant, but you clearly can't see that, so arguing with you is just a waste of time.
It doesn't count when people say we should just open up the borders to anyone that claims that their country is poor or that life in Mexico kind of sucks. I feel bad for them, but that doesn't mean we can take care of them over here. So the "let's let all of Mexico in and we can hold hands and sing kum ba yah" position is not defensible.
Also, why the quotes around "illegal"? When you enter a country illegally, you are an illegal immigrant. Has PC culture gotten so out of hand that simply using the proper legal terminology is now offensive?
Where was my personal attack and incivility? Myself and downandout completely disagree but neither of us where uncivil or attacking each other.
I chose to stop responding before it became a flame war, I have no idea why you would go through this thread, and downvote and flag both of us. What are you talking about?
Well, for starters, "So yeah, everything you disagree with doesn't count. Thanks for wasting my time." is entirely uncivil by HN standards. So are "Grow up", "arguing with you is just a waste of time", and other things you've posted. Also, these comments are lacking in information other than that you're irritated, so they're unsubstantive in addition to uncivil.
As we tell everyone, please post civilly and substantively, or not at all. It isn't hard, but it requires wanting to use the site as intended.
That's a pretty nasty imputation so I don't want to let it go unanswered. Obviously "threads full of misogyny" are not fine.
Equally obviously, other people behaving badly doesn't make it ok for you to.
I’m not sure how I’ve done that. I was asking a question; I’m trying to understand a position that many seem to have (being in favor of illegal immigration) that seems unfathomable to me.
ICE under the supervision of past administrations has been been dealing with people entering illegally (including prosecution) for more than a decade.
It has never resulted in mass separation of families until now. For example, in 2014, when large waves of immigrants fleeing violence in central America entered the US illegally and were apprehended by ICE, they were detained in family detention centers where children and parents were together.
Your suggestion that the only two choices are support for illegal immigration or support for separating babies and toddlers from families isn't supported by reality.
I'm unable to downvote, but I'll share my position.
I don't base my political beliefs on what is good for the U.S. alone. There are plenty of things that are good for the U.S. but negative for other people.
As an example, think of Western expansion in the early 1800's and policies directed towards Native Americans and how certain practices were "good" for the US but bad for other people.
Plenty of countries discourage immigration. That is not controversial. No-one splits up people's families and takes their kids away. One issue is a bog-standard legal issue, the other issue is a human rights abuse and is morally despicable. Your edit to your post indicates that you don't seem to get the moral dimension to this issue.
But being separated from your kids is a natural consequence of breaking the law. You commit a crime and go to jail, and your children no longer have parents while you’re in jail.
The child-parent separation that is happening is not a law. It is a new policy by the Trump administration to separate all unauthorized entries into the country as a deterrent to illegal immigration.
It is not an Obama-era policy. It is not a Clinton-era policy. It is not a law from any administration.
Even if it were a law, there is exactly nothing wrong with disagreeing with cruel and unusual behavior, even if it is codified in a statute at any level of government.
It’s a law that people go to jail when they commit crimes, such as illegal entry. When they go to jail, unfortunately they do wind up separated from their parents.
Asking for asylum is not justification for separating children from their parents permanently.
Note that it is only those who are following asylum procedure who are being separated. Illegal immigration is still happening, and those families make it into the US every day, whole. Unseparated.
I am not American, but this is the point in time where you take a stand. Where America needs to fight for it's democracy. This is not the time to be complacent.
Defending our democracy? How about the majorities that passed the immigration laws that are being enforced?
What does democracy have to do with the right to immigrate to America without permission?
Edit: I’m not commenting on the propriety of the Microsoft employees’ actions. They are clearly free to urge their employer to refrain from participating in something they disagree with. That is absolutely part of what living in a free society is all about. I’m commenting on the notion that they are somehow “defending democracy”.
Its part of the democracy. Not working on a particular thing you know is going to be used in a way you disapprove of is a kind of vote.
Hell, even if you approve of how they are enforcing border policy doesn't mean you necessarily want to work on the machinations of it.
If a majority votes to carry out an unpleasant action but then can't find anyone willing to carry it out on their behalf, it might be a warning sign. (Honestly, I don't think we're that far gone though. I think we've just got a case of "We should control our borders... wait, no, not like that!")
> Defending our democracy? How about the majorities that passed the immigration laws that are being enforced?
I feel you are using the word democracy in a very narrow sense of the word: popularity contest. Look no further than the Egyptian government that arose from Arab Spring to see how little such "election winner takes all" democratic governments differ from autocracy.
Democracy, taken in the broader sense of a truly free country, requires much more than just free elections. Human rights and rule of law are just as important. Indeed, our two most important founding documents, the declaration of independence and constitution, clearly outline a vision for a humane country that respects that all individuals possess human rights that our government cannot violate.
I believe the parent is calling on fellow citizens to defend our democracy’s enshrinement of human rights.
> What does democracy have to do with the right to immigrate to America without permission?
Who is claiming these immigrants have a right to immigrate to America without permission? Certainly not the Microsoft employees or anyone in this thread.
The letter doesn't complain that ICE is enforcing immigration laws. It asserts that ICE is doing so in a way that is inhumane to children.
In short, this isn't just an immigration issue. It's a human rights issue.
Haven't we done this ever since we invented jail/prison? Very few countries let criminals bring their kids to prison or require it.
There must be more than one country that puts kids in prison with the parents, but right now I can only think of one: North Korea
Most people consider that to be cruel and inhumane.
In case you were thinking that parents (or all people?) should never go to prison, well... that gets absurd. Unless you have some other punishment in mind, it means that parents literally get away with murder.
The comment was a bannable offense, but please don't make the thread even worse by posting like this. Instead, as the site guidelines ask (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), flag egregious comments and/or let us know about them at hn@ycombinator.com.
>Microsoft has been positioning itself as tech’s moral leader. Mr. Nadella and Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, have publicly said they want to protect user privacy
Hard to take this seriously given what Windows 10 and other new microsoft products subject users to.
With or without Cortana windows 10 search is horrible. The fact that XYZ will come as the first result for XY but will dissapear when you search XYZ is the noticeably horrible ux I've seen since the Zune.
Lately, it's been hard to take anything from the media seriously. It's strange how the media has been treating microsoft with kid gloves while wailing on facebook.
It's a constant battle with windows 10. You could remove apps, update registry/configs, disable as much telemetry as possible but you never know what the monthly update is going undo. Not to mention the differences options you have for Home, Professional, Enterprise, etc.
Then I install net core and vs code on my linux box because "people" were raving about it. It has telemetry as well. You have options for disabling it, but why bother. I uninstalled both. Why deal the hassle. Vim is all you really need if you can get over the steep learning curve.
If Microsoft is tech's moral leader, then what does it say about the rest of the tech industry? Bu if they have the nytimes' seal of approval, who am I to disagree.
It says a lot about the industry. We are not a bunch of scrappy outsiders disrupting businesses anymore. Its turned into a bunch of psychopaths at the head who do anything for money.
I think it's fantastic that highly coveted employees use their status to influence the companies they work for. As the imbalance of power between employers and employees continues to widen, It is one of the few levers we have as tech workers.
I have a list of companies that I won't consider working for due to their current or past behavior that completely go against my morals, even if it means I miss out on a few $$. I relish the fact that If the company I currently work for became something I no longer want to support, I could jump ship extremely easily compared to the typical American worker.
If the company wants to attract and keep their talent, they have to listen to them.
I appreciate that legal immigration (as if people doing so illegally didn't wish this was an option for them, also) is an important issue for you, but other people matter, also.
The kids aren't doing so well right now. You or anyone you care about are not being detained away from family, so let's at least be thankful for that. This to me isn't even a political issue, it's a human rights issue. And to top it off you have an administration that is flat-out lying every chance they get, contradicting themselves in pathetic ways.
They tried and failed pretty recently. It takes a while for people to get on board again when something fails so miserably like that. It took healthcare 15 years to come back after it failed in 94.
It’s sad, but it’s become the neglected step child for both dems (not enough upside) and Repubs (just lukewarm). On the other hand dems have done not quite a 180 but a 170 on illegal immigration because their calculus is that it will resonate with their base, given Trump has taken away their union labor to some extent. Obama had greater numbers in detention but back then it was a too much a third rail issue to bring attention to.
I worked for companies who worked with intelligence services and military. I had no major issues. Concerns maybe but it's hard to know the details and bad things happen in war no matter what... so I didn't really think much of it.
The whole thing with ICE separating children from families, targeting folks with minor past misdemeanors.... it's all so strangely overtly immoral and unnecessary. I could see taking a stand there.
The very act of crossing the border is a misdemeanor, and thanks to Jeff Sessions' "Zero Tolerance" policy, almost every adult is being prosecuted, even if they are not dangerous and even if they apply for asylum.
In other words: A misdemeanor is still required. If you do not have a misdemeanor available, one will be provided for you.
Good on them. Companies like Palantir have thousands of people building these types of systems, it's nice to know there are peers of ours standing up those less privileged.
It would be entirely expected and likely, that were MSFT to cancel their ICE contract, that many other parts of the Federal government would leave MSFT's services.
After all, they too would be only 1 media dustup away from having to deal with finding another vendor suddenly.
The only large tech company with sufficient control over their employees is oracle, and it's unlikely they'll have the necessary capabilities anytime soon. They're still trying to figure out this whole cloud thing.
That's a lot easier said than done. Microsoft might decide to look ahead to a time when Trump is not in office. Are the short-term gains worth the long term reputational damage?
For all we know it's this pattern of behavior that has motivated this current pushback by Microsoft staff. I'm sure you're aware that some political issues attract wider attention than others, and that while people rarely march in the streets to protest the NSA the same is not true of other agencies.
If I had the money, I'd start a non-profit who's goal is to get tech companies, and localities to boycott ICE, NSA and unethical government initiatives. Though, I guess EFF kind of does a lot of that. But, I wouldn't mind devoting all my time to that sort of thing instead of coding all day. :P
I was lukewarm towards the rights of undocumented immigrants prior to Trump. But his actions in dehumanizing a whole class of people who are desperate for help and support as "criminals" have changed my views. As a father, the screams of children being separated from their parents is haunting. I hear the cries of my own daughter. I can't even begin to imagine her trauma if someone forcibly separated her from me. This is barbaric and inhumane at such a fundamental level that I know how anyone can support this.
Thank you for saying so. There are more of us then there are of them. Empathy and equality under the law will prevail.
This is insane, and it is a tipping point that I hope all of us who have studied history will recognize as the moment where we have to act. We are one major terrorist act away from our own Reichstag fire; this democracy is fragile.
Doesnt ICE answer to the President and the laws written by Congress? Is hurting ICE meant to influence the decision making of the Trump admin, and if so, how effective might this move ultimately be?
Its not about hurting ICE, its about being decent human beings. ICE will be ICE regardless, but Microsoft doesn't have to be complicit, and its employees don't want to be either.
That said, if ICE can't find a single company to buy services from, it will reverberate up the food chain
Many people hold the position that if you believe something is immoral you shouldn't assist it. Effectiveness of the protests be damned you're at least not part of the problem.
People have a right to refuse service as long as there is no discrimination against protected categories I think. Also, given this is a response to current events, it's worth noting this is wholly the admin's policy, it's not something instigated by congress.
Who says Microsoft isn't doing more good than harm by helping ICE? ICE will do their job regardless of the tech they use and for all we know, Microsoft is helping ICE reduce mistakes which would otherwise harm the people that ICE needs to manage.
People in general need to be more pragmatic, because we see a lot of emotional reactions which only make things worse.
I always find this argument unconvincing. At its most extreme expression you end up with obviously bogus propositions like "Islamic terrorism is going to happen with or without you, so you might as well join ISIS and attempt to reform them from within."
It's probably unwise in this case to transplant one argument for another and then make a decision about one based on the other instead of assessing them independently. ICE is not ISIS. Illegal immigration is illegal just about everywhere on Earth and for good reason. ICE are simply the enforcement arm of that legal construct.
Interestingly enough, ICE and the border patrol may further reduce the chance of ISIS attacks in the US as ISIS explicitly stated they wanted to hide among undocumented migrants to sneak into countries at a larger scale.
Life is messy and sometimes the solutions have to be too. It's a great place for software to try to keep things as clean as possible.
Immigration laws were passed in America over the past few decades without proper accounting for either the moral implications or the practical enforcement of the laws themselves. Very recently the current administration put pressure on law enforcement to follow closer the letter of the law, and being unprepared to do so many government agencies (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), resulting in unethical action such as separating a large number of immigrant children and placing them in under-provisioned detention centers like prisoners.
Both major political parties have used the situation to attack the others, the conflict itself being a large historical talking point in US politics on all levels, local, state, and federal.
As was your prior post. I live in New Zealand. There is universal disgust here for the current ICE actions - regardless of political stripe. I notice that many Republicans have spoken out against the policy also. Are you seriously suggesting that they are anti-Republican too?
Will the new "moral" Microsoft now cut its ties and end its contracts with the Chinese government and Saudi Arabia? After all, they should not be supporting governments that abuse human rights. How about Myanmar, which is actually in the middle of carrying out a real life genocide?
Why not? Take 'em one at a time. And let's start with our backyard because why not, it's easier to see the damage.
Your rationale seems to be: Microsoft is not consistently moral, so they should not take any moral stances. Well, then, I hate to break it to you, but progress is suuuuuper slow. That doesn't mean we never seek it.
Rants like this will get you banned on HN regardless of what you're ranting about. Please follow the rules, of which you broke a whole bunch here. They are at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
Of course! If an ICE agent breaks the law, they are as guilty as any other US citizen breaking a law. That very notion is emphasized by the fact that our government is setup such that it's a system of checks and balances.
honest question from a non american - how exactly does ICE protect you and yours every day? from my casual understanding they exclusively focus on illegal immigrants. is this mistaken?
That's an egregious violation of the site rules, and you broke several others of them upthread. We ban accounts that post like this, so please don't do it again.
I’m not American and I’ve always found it fascinating how a part of the American population defends the existence of illegal immigrants in American soil. It’s crazy.
I think you're getting it very wrong; this isn't about people saying "let's just allow illegal immigrants the full rights of legal immigrants". There are some people saying that, but they're a small minority.
This is about saying "some people have come here illegally. let's not psychologically torture their children for it" You can be for legal migration and the humane treatment of people at the same time.
What’s the alternative? Anyone else that commits a crime and is imprisoned is separated from their family and children. Why should illegal immigrants get a pass?
The asylum backlog is 600,000 cases. They are not aslyum seekers, they are trying to take advantage of the backlog since under the earlier process they could just wait for their court date and disappear into the country before that. Asylum requests have gone up over 1000% because this exploit has been figured out and it is now the default method of gaining entry. 83% of the kids aren't even with their parents, they are posing as families. Only 2000 kids out of 12000 are actually with their parents. Kids can be held for upto 20 days maximum during which time they arrange for someone for them to stay with - mostly a family member.
The Mexico visa is a lot cheaper than the whole process to get a US green card. I would not be surprised if this becomes the preferred method for many seeking a life there.
2. There is legal process of entry, they should follow it.
3. Illegal immigration drives down wages, crowding out the most vulnerable citizens of the US.
4. A country decides how and when people are allowed in. There are numerous downsides to mass immigration including stress on services like health, social services and accommodation. Again, to the detriment of citizens.
1. Stop believing in your own propaganda. There are nicer places to immigrate to than the US.
2. The only way to be granted asylum is if you're already in the US. The only way to enter the US legally is using an intentionally overloaded system that may require you to wait for months only to be denied entry -- which is not exactly an option if you're genuinely in need of asylum.
3. Corporations drive down wages. Corporations are exploiting illegal immigrants. Maybe the problem is your government isn't cracking down on illegal employment enough?
4a. I see you don't agree with the concept of asylum. That's okay, but it still makes you a terrible human being. Just saying.
4b. Show me a study that proves that immigration is a long-term net negative. There are cherry-picked samples showing short-term negatives, yes, but they're intentionally misleading.
I think you’re vastly overestimating how much people want to move here.
Furthermore, legal immigration would not lower wages. It’s the fact that we don’t provide a legalization process that allows people to charge under minimum wage.
EDIT: If you think this is an unfair comparison, remember that EU citizenship grants you the right to live and work in any EU country. Citizenship in any one member country is effectively for most intents and purposes citizenship in all of the EU.
In other words, driving immigrants underground rather than giving them status (which is practically impossible for most people to get except through marriage) makes it possible for employers to underpay them and abuse them and assume they won't complain.
The fun part about this question is that it's always asked as if it's crazy talk to suggest there could be variation in how different crimes are addressed.... when in fact, there's quite a latitude in how we handle different violations of the law. Or even individual cases.
Not every crime is prosecuted and not every conviction means prison. Why should immigration be different?
(And that's before we even get to the question of reports where people presenting themselves for asylum -- a legal process -- have been treated as if they're breaking the law. Or ways in which recent policy seems to have been tweaked to otherwise gum up legal immigration avenues.)
> Not every crime is prosecuted and not every conviction means prison. Why should immigration be different?
Prosecution of illegal immigration is a bit special as anything short of full enforcement is arguably open borders. It’s unreasonably to expect an illegal entrant to show up for a court date. They’ve already demonstrated they won’t respect the law.
What makes this special versus literally every other case in America?
For example, there are people that have gotten away with driving drunk and killing people. Does that mean we've effectively legalized drunk driving? What kind of twisted logic is it that if we don't prosecute every single illegal immigrant to the absolute full extent that it results in open borders?
Why should people seeking asylum be treated worse than murderers and killers?
Sure, but there are essentially no legitimate claims in the USA because of the requirements for asylum:
1. You are being persecuted for something like religion or ethnicity. Poverty and ordinary gang violence doesn't count.
2. You must declare asylum in the first safe country you reach. Given that both Canada and Mexico are considered safe countries, it is extremely difficult to meet this requirement. You'd pretty much have to sneak onto an airplane without being caught.
People apparently don't know this but being undocumented is not a criminal offense in that it's not even a misdemenor, it is a civil offense, like getting a speeding ticket. We do not separate speeding people from their children.
It is a criminal offense to illegally cross the border, a misdemeanor, but undocumented => illegally crossed is not always true or obvious. For example, one could overstay their visa.
"...
Any alien who (1) enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers, or (2) eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers, or (3) attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the willful concealment of a material fact, shall, for the first commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than 6 months, or both, and, for a subsequent commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18, or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.
..."
I would also suspect, that knowingly demanding/putting ones children into position to protect parent's illegal activities, should be illegal. Although, admittedly, I do no know by which statue.
Illegal entry is a misdemeanor. So is jaywalking in many jurisdictions. Should the government rip away people's children, without trial, for jaywalking? How about pirating a movie (also a misdemeanor in places)?. Prosecutors have leeway on who to charge how much for a reason.
Why are immigrants the ones most frequently separated from their families, not the people employing them and abusing them?
Why are those seeking asylum being essentially entrapped in a web of systems and then being punished for not being lawyers whom memorized every single little detail on the books?
What is it that makes crossing a border seeking refuge from violence worse than people who drive drunk and get leniency, or those that speed or endanger the lives of other people?
And why do people keep making moral judgments as if a law by the virtue of existing makes it just or sound. Every day I guarantee you violate some sort of law and yet even people convicted of misdemeanors never lose full access to their family.
It seems that US admin, at least temporarily resolved this. children will stay together with parents.
Trying to put myself into shoes of those parents or children , the feeling must be horrifying.
I guess the horribleness of the situation, is the same regardless of the nature of the crime.
I wonder if criminal offenders will demand similar treatment, and argue in court, that their offense justifies similar treatment.
Is there a country/policy that allows children and parents to stay together in temporary incarceration or detention?
This is one of those things, I hope none of us would have to experience.
Also, as I am reading more: it seems that there are 2 separate initial positions:
A) one that every illegal immigrant must be treated as asylum seeker, unless proven otherwise.
B) An illegal immigrant committed a crime, and is not an asylum seeker. That is: asylum seeker must report him/herself as such, at the legal border entry -- and let the border agent determine next steps.
This is such a distortion of what’s happening. Crossing into the US illegally is a crime. We are now arresting and charging people who commit it. We do not send innocent children to prison, so the only option is separation.
If you commit any other crime and are arrested, you will be “separated” from your child, because your child does not belong in prison. Why do you expect this to be any different?
We're mostly talking about misdemeanors here. No, in most cases of misdemeanors we don't throw children in cages and take them away from their moms and dads.
Separating children from the adults they are accompanied by is a long-standing practice to prevent human trafficking and there are valid reasons for it that both sides of the aisle support, the difference is that ICE is now treating it as a criminal act requiring the aforementioned remanding into state custody while the details are sorted out.
If there is an increase of "asylum seekers" then the time to process them will similarly increase, and as such children with their "families" are in state custody for a similarly increased amount of time.
There is actually no real evidence about this child trafficking idea. As far as I can tell, it's been merely floated by the right wing as a possibility.
That's an interesting statement considering the rules in place had full bipartisan support when they were enacted, I don't buy that it is exclusive to 'the right wing.'
Not trying to get into a political flame fest here, but honest question: Is asylum seekers the new term for illegal immigrants? Before it was undocumented immigrants. I'll admit it seems like it may be a more effective terminology for garnering sympathy, but it also carries more expectations, some legal.
According to USCIS "asylum may be granted to people who have been persecuted or fear they will be persecuted on account of race, religion, nationality, and/or membership in a particular social group or political opinion". The "fear" part is tricky of course but it cannot be denied that many of these people are crossing the border for economic reasons.
"Asylum seekers" is the term for people who show up at a port of entry and ask for asylum. We don't have to admit all of them to the country, but are obligated by treaty to give their applications for asylum due consideration.
It is also not reasonable to forcibly separate them from their families when their only crime is to ask to be allowed into the country.
To my understanding, the people who actually showed up at an official port of entry are not the ones facing criminal prosecution and family separation. In fact, most of them are simply turned away or told "we're full for the day" or some such. Of course this often prompts them to just attempt crossing in an illegal way.
Regardless, at that point it's no longer a matter of "asking to be allowed into the country".
Point is I've seen the term "asylum seeker" a lot recently in reference to the current immigration crisis and the issue of families being separated. Certainly some of the families who crossed illegally are seeking asylum, but I suspect most are, just as always, people looking to immigrate because of the economic advantages of living and working in the US. Whatever you think of that, asylum it does not make.
Edit: I have read of a few cases where apparently families that showed up at an official port of entry were detained and separated. If this is done without serious reason to believe the children are not actually related to the parents, or are otherwise in danger, of course it is wrong. Still most of the cases of family separation people are complaining about are from illegal crossings. Whether you believe that is right or wrong is another issue.
An asylum seeker under US law is anyone who requests asylum within a year of entry. There is no question that these people are legitimate asylum seekers. Many of them will not meet the criteria to be granted asylum, but that does mean that their requests are not legitimate.
So at what point do they become an illegal immigrant? That is an official term used by the US government. I suspect it would be very difficult to determine how long an "undocumented" has been in the country before asking asylum. Is it if they don't show up for their hearings? Is there any reason an alien immigrant would not claim asylum when caught? Please forgive my ignorance on the nuances of immigration law, I've just seen the term "asylum seeker" pop up an awful lot lately, and not very much at all before.
I don't know if "illegal immigrant" is well-defined enough to come up with a clear rule.
Someone who is not eligible to request asylum could definitively be called an illegal immigrant. Treaties signed and ratified by the US (which have the force of law in the US) require that refugees not be punished for unauthorized entry or presence if they present themselves to the authorities and request asylum, so they would definitively not be illegal immigrants. Someone who is eligible to request asylum but hasn't yet done so would be in a bit of a grey area.
You probably haven't heard of this before because asylum seekers are a fairly small portion of immigrants. The number of asylum seekers per year only crossed 100k/year in the past year or so and prior to about 2015 was less than half of that. The total number of illegal immigrants has been close to 1 million/year at some points. This has only made it into the media because of the recent policy change to take punitive actions towards asylum seekers in direct violation of the US's treaty obligations.
Applying for asylum at a port of entry is not a crime, and none of those people are being detained or separated from their kids. But crossing into the country illegally is a crime, even if you subsequently request asylum.
Edit: Someone1234, I would reply directly but I’m rate limited. The incident you’re pointing out is more nuanced than that. To combat human trafficking, we separate children from adults we suspect may not be their parents, pending further investigation like interviews of the children and interrogation of the supposed parents. That has nothing to do with the recent headlines and is longstanding practice.
Edit: A further reply to Someone1234: you are citing these accounts by advocates on one side of the issue as truth. The official government statements are very clear on the situations in which children will be separated from the adults they are traveling with when claiming asylum at a port of entry. All of them concern either fears of human trafficking or other concern that child is not safe with the adult. Do government employees lie? Yes. But a systematic lie like that, involving the repeated illegal detention of children, would not last very long. If there’s one thing federal judges don’t tolerate, it’s being lied to.
This article goes into detail about several other cases. Quote:
> But there is evidence that even families who seek asylum at ports of entry are being separated. One high-profile case involves a Congolese woman who sought asylum and still was separated from her 7-year-old daughter. In February, NPR's Burnett reported on the legal battle of Ms. L v. ICE.
Since the grandparent is rate-limited, I'll point out for them that the incident you’re pointing out is more nuanced than you seem to think. To combat human trafficking, we separate children from adults we suspect may not be their parents, pending further investigation like interviews of the children and interrogation of the supposed parents. That has nothing to do with the recent headlines and is longstanding practice.
Per my second link, the separation was indefinite while the asylum claim was evaluated, and asylum eligibility appears to be the main criteria rather than establishing parental relationship (which could take as long as DNA tests to come back).
Plus this claim:
> Applying for asylum at a port of entry is not a crime, and none of those people are being detained or separated from their kids.
> Any alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival and including an alien who is brought to the United States after having been interdicted in international or United States waters), irrespective of such alien’s status, may apply for asylum in accordance with this section...
> U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents are systematically violating U.S. and international law by blocking immigrants at international ports of entry on the southern border from entering the country so they can claim asylum.
> The blocking works this way: In the precise middle of the international bridges, CBP agents stand, sentry-like, near the imaginary line dividing the two countries — a line often marked with a ceremonial metal plaque. The agents peer at everyone crossing, looking for people they think might be candidates for asylum. If the people say anything suggesting they might be requesting asylum — if they’re not Mexicans, and especially if they’re from Central America — the agents block their way and say to come back another time.
All the statute you are quoting says is that you may make a proper asylum claim despite already being in the US. The propriety of an asylum claim has nothing to do with the propriety of illegal entry prior to making it, nor does it wipe it away.
Which is not to say that illegal entry is never excusable. Necessity is a general criminal defense, so if you can show that you really had no choice but to cross into the country illegally or face imminent death or serious injury, then you’ll be off the hook for the illegal entry charge.
They are not treated like drug dealers, thrown to the ground and hand-cuffed and tossed into the back of a truck/cruiser. The asylum process is long and drawn out and involves constant communication where personnel resources permit (and like all government agencies they are understaffed and underfunded.)
1. Refugees with legitimate requests are coming from Central and South America.
2. Many of those countries in question were result of US interference in their governments, leading to pro-US dictatorships
3. The refugees have come to the border crossings to petition for refugee status under international law
4. The US is a signatory for said international law
5. When refugees try to petition, CBP agents have actively blocked their entry to do the paperwork as required for claiming said status
6. Some have crossed illegally, and then unlike in prior administrations, criminal charges are levied
7. Families are intentionally being split up into different for-profit prisons
8. Children are split up, and there is no time limit for processing when they can get back with their parents
9. Deportations have been done where the parents are sent back, then the kids are. Nobody knows where they were sent
It's a bit more nuanced. There are massive loopholes in the current asylum process that create a favorable outcome from anyone who tries.
The current backlog is 600,000 cases. You have to wait until your case is heard to determine credible threat to life or whatever your claim is. Till then many disappear into society and are never seen again.
Also 83% of kids didn't arrive at the border with their parents to begin with. They are accompanied by adults who are not their parents. The separation of kids from the adults during the waiting period for asylum affects 17% of kids who are actually with their parents when crossing over.
Between october 2017 to now there has been a 315% increase of people pretending to be families in order to game the system, essentially using kids as a means of getting more humane treatment.
The current outcry is a politically motivated PR campaign against the administration, who is faced with the extremely difficult task of dealing with criminals who are using children to shield themselves from strict consequences, and it seems to be working, thanks to the President's political opponents, who have knowingly taken the bait.
If you wanted to "hack" your way into the USA the steps used to be
1) Sneak across border
2) If not caught, congrats
3) If caught, surrender and claim asylum
4) While waiting for your hearing, disappear
5) Bring kids along to maximize the chance of actually getting asylum, or getting more lenient treatment while being processed or waiting for your trial
Here[0]. Prior to FY 2017, there were 46 cases. Since then, there have been...191 cases. This is out of 31K or so. The 3x of fraudulent cases increase sounds like a rounding error to me and is probably not indicative of a trend. Instead, the admin highlighting it is playing with statistics.
Psychologically torture? Once their asylum claim has been processed, they are reunited with their parents. Either it is declined and they are deported with their parents, or they are accepted and provided temporary asylum with their parents.
The asylum process takes a lengthy indeterminate period of time and their parents choose to apply for asylum -- repeat: their parents are informed of this and they make an informed choice to be placed into custody while this process occurs. They always have the choice to voluntarily be deported with their children back to their country of origin.
Attempting to illegally enter the US is a crime, if that wasn't self-evident enough. Criminals are placed into custody and children are not allowed to be placed into custody with the adults they arrived with.
Yeah well I am American and it's not true. The majority of us who you have been made to believe 'defend' their residing here illegally want to see them treated humanely, and see sensible immigration reform and reasonable paths to citizenship for those who desire it.
I know, and have worked with plenty of people whose papers weren't in order. They are people, just like you or me. I certainly have violated the law in my life, and perhaps with less noble intentions than seeking a better life in another country.
I've done everything from washing dishes, waiting tables, managing 2 coffee shops, landscape work, data entry, to my current work as a mobile developer. And I know where you're going with this, and no I've never had trouble finding work when I needed it.
You'd be right about the profile. But the thought of missed wages doesn't bother me because it was long ago, and if anything, they worked as hard, if not harder than I did. And we were friends doing the same shit work together.
That wouldn't cause me hard feelings, as a person who has worked both as a laborer and in the service industry.
If the level of my income is a function of how many other people are denied the ability to do the same job then I've got bigger concerns than my income level.
Research in the New Zealand context has shown that immigrants improve the economy. They generate a lot work for people helping them settle in and they often work hard themselves.
“Papers weren’t in order” is a hell of a euphemism for crossing into the country illegally or overstaying a temporary visa that is explicitly not for migration.
You do realize that borders are totally arbitrary and that with the stroke of a pen any of these rules could be changed, right? What makes you so convinced that we are completely powerless to change this system that we’ve created? Just repeating “it’s a crime!” over and over again is absolutely no justification for how these people are treated, and I think you know that.
If you don’t believe a nation has the moral right to decide who to admit into itself, then we’re just operating from different axioms and will never agree.
Is it really? Most people I know would probably contend that the illegal status of most of these people is due to flaws in our immigration system. They want this country to be a place where from all over can come to thrive if they are so motivated.
The quote engraved on the Statue of Liberty comes to mind...
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
A) is not what the Statue of Liberty is about, it's about Liberty
B) was added well after the statue's construction and
C) is a poem, not a law of the USA.
If you really knew what Emma Lazarus's (EDIT: wrong last name used at first) views were, it might give you pause... (hint: she hated Ashkenazi Jews and saw them as low-class)
Although you've corrected it since, I heartily encourage HN readers to immerse themselves in the views of Emma Goldman.
As for your hinting, it's BS. Emma Lazarus was Jewish herself, get involved in activism when Jews were suffering pogroms in Russia and many of them began to emigrate to New York, helped found a school for Jewish refugees and wrote numerous advocacy articles on behalf of said refugees. I'm sure you can find an example of something she said that seems cringeworthy 130 years later.
I'm having a hard time grasping the point of this comment. Statues are put in place generally to commemorate the history, culture, and/or values of a people; I don't recall claiming it has any legal implications. Also, I am fairly well versed in Emma Goldman's writings, and she has said much with which I agree. The poem, however, was written by Emma Lazarus.
You're right, I confused the two last names, and corrected it.
We have had some quote it as if were law, which I why I mentioned that. It isn't law, nor is it a foundational/original view of the USA dating from the Revolutionary War.
Are you ok if illegals immigrants move into your neighborhood and compete for your job?
EDIT:
Why am I being downvoted?
I asked a legitimate question. If illegal immigrants moved into your neighborhood and affected the socioeconomic status, school ratings etc of your neighborhood, how will you react? Will you advocate for the same policies you are advocating now?
I have a feeling most of the people who are supporting illegal immigration don't have skin in the game.
P.S. I am not stereotyping all dreamer kids, anecdotally, my wife who works in a school told me some of her best students are dreamers.
The economy isn't zero-sum. Additional workers require additional housing, food, durable goods, entertainment, services, etc. creating additional demand for yet more workers to produce those goods and services. The economy isn't an assembly line with X number of positions to be filled. It is dynamic and growth begets growth.
In fact, as birth rates decline in the first world and countries' populations age, immigration is becoming an important lever to maintain a sufficient supply of labor to fund retiree's pensions and healthcare.
The more goods and capital a society needs, the more jobs there are. If you doubled the population, there would be double the demand for nearly everything, and double the corresponding jobs.
That's true. Illegal immigrants contribute more to the human trafficking economy, the drug economy, & the sub-minimum wage work economy than they get out of it.
The real beneficiaries are the oligarchs pushing the open borders agenda.
Why not make their homelands better places to live instead? Why must all culture & communities be perpetually disrupted with war, economic liberalism, socialism, drugs, human trafficking?
Let's fix the root issues. Most of these people would rather have good homes with intact communities where they are from. Who wants to be a refugee or an illegal immigrant?
Let's be pro-human for a change, without the fake double-speak that destroys culture & families.
---
Edit: Why the downvotes? Are you pro human trafficking?
I agree with your latter parts. For example, the Iraq war takes a lot of blame for the refugee crisis in Europe. For the second sentence, I'm not sure the first bit is true and paints large swathes of people with the worst examples of them.
I'm not talking about generalizations about people. I'm talking about the integrity of systems.
Here's an analogy. What happens when you open the membrane of a cell? Would it be atomist to not allow anything & everything to penetrate into the internals of the cell?
The USA has the benefit of a strong economy & a strong set of laws. When you open the border, the laws are weakened while criminal elements that have been nurtured in states with weaker laws (& weakened culture) are naturally drawn to the strong economy & weakened set of laws.
All one needs to do is look around for the proof. Illegal Fentanyl & Heroin is trafficked through Mexico. Law abiding Mexican people are the victims of gruesome cartel violence.
5 of the top 10 most dangerous cities in the world are in Mexico. All of the top 10 most dangerous cities in the world are in Mexico, Venezuela, and Brazil. Something very wrong is happening & opening the borders in NOT the solution. In fact, it's part of the same system, with the same people being responsible, that is destroying these countries.
We need to look beyond labels (e.g. Humanitarian) and look at the results of the works. Sometimes what is seen as a "good deed" is really a Trojan Horse of misery.
One thing about psychopathy; these people don't care about ideology. They care about dominating others & will collaborate with other psychopaths, across ideologies, to further their aims.
Open Borders is push by wealthy people who don't have to deal with the consequences. They benefit from destroying the surrounding culture because with a debased culture, they can dominate the population. Many are also manipulative. They will encourage outrage over myopic matters, to control the narrative to distract everybody from the real issues at play.
If you went to America, legally, got a work visa etc and got a job, then lost that job to someone who sneeked in across the border or overstayed a visitor visa, you would welcome it?
What advantage is my employer gaining by hiring the illegal immigrant instead of continuing to employ me? Would it be that they can pay them less than minimum wage or avoid paying payroll taxes or avoid paying for mandatory benefits? If so, my problem is with my employer, not with the illegal immigrant that replaced me.
You want to let people in here illegally and once they are here you want to starve them and their kids? That is crueler than any detention.
Also, it is not always corporations that are hiring people. I have a gardener who comes to my house with assistants, some people told me his assistants are undocumented. Am I supposed to racially profile people and ask for their immigration papers? Sounds racist to me.
The most humane policy is to make the expectations very clear to potential illegal immigrants. If you enter this country illegally without a legitimate asylum claim we will deport you without mercy.
>You want to let people in here illegally and once they are here you want to starve them and their kids? That is crueler than any detention.
My comment was a single sentence, and it wasn't about what I wanted but about what many American business sectors do.
Like it or not, the US benefits greatly from illegal labor. Having a "merciless" immigration policy in a country full of immigrants and the descendents of immigrants otherwise happy to exploit illegal immigration en masse is hypocritical.
>The most humane policy is to make the expectations very clear to potential illegal immigrants.
No, the most humane policy is to treat people humanely, not warn them beforehand of your intent to do otherwise.
Except for the natives, almost all of Americans are no more than two degrees separated from an immigrant who may or may not have been legal. It isn't surprising that they would be sympathetic to immigrants.
It's a country founded by immigrants and for much of its history it welcomed them (with some significant caveats). The assertion that America is only for people who are already here is both radical and relatively recent. That's what's crazy.
> The assertion that America is only for people who are already here is both radical and relatively recent.
That's not a very accurate reading of American history. There have been many instances in America's past of anti-immigrant sentiment, and even violence.
You and others who replied to my comment have rightfully pointed out that America's anti-immigration policies have primarily been rooted in racism. Granted. That said, I think you've responded to a point that is related to but different from mine. My observation is that the rhetoric around immigration has noticeably evolved from "Those people aren't allowed in" to also include "The only people who can rightfully be here are already here." The difference is subtle but real, and it has been accompanied by a lot of historical revisionism around the idea that America isn't a country of or for immigrants at all and never really was. That's simply not true, regardless of the racism issues, and I think it's a somewhat radical perspective.
(I was another person who replied) I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment, and it is incredibly frustrating and heartbreaking to watch what is happening around the country for literally my entire life (I was born in '91) but especially today with what is essentially concentration camps for people who want to be part of our country.
There is nothing crazy about saying that people who show up at a port of entry and ask for asylum should not have their children kidnapped and put in concentration camps.
Asking that immigrants be treated humanely is not the equivalent of asking for no restrictions on immigration at all.
You make it sound like it's a solved problem that we're behind the curve on. This doesn't seem accurate to me; it seems like immigration is a divisive hot-button issue in most western democracies right now.
Canada is getting pissed at asylum seekers coming to Canada from the US and tightening up their requirements, sending many away. It’s not really getting the same level as attention as it’s getting in the US.
Would it help if I told you that the entire American economy is built around their labor? I'd also add that this current policy affects asylum seekers (recognized by international law) and the government under Trump has also been canceling visas of legal residents and aggressively reviewing old naturalization papers to find reasons up strip people of US citizenship and deport them.
tldr: I'll be in favor of cracking down on illegal immigrants when people stop hiring them for fear of getting in trouble.
This is a naive reading of the politics. Very few people are actively in favor of illegal immigration. Many people believe the cures (that is, the ones that politicians push for) are worse than the disease. My personal view is that if we really wanted to solve the problem, we would do it on the economic side; there are whole sectors of our economy that everyone knows are propped up by the employment of illegal immigrants. Nobody talks about that because the people who benefit most are strong, organized, and relatable (upstanding well-to-do businesspeople). Instead, everyone goes after the weak, disorganized, and unrelatable (scary foreigners who don't even speak our language).
This. If you really want to stop illegal immigration you go after employers who hire them. But even our president is content with hiring them, just not treating them like humans with certain inalienable rights.
What would the process look like for authenticating individuals that wish to work for your company? Or maybe more precisely, what would meet the burden of proof for any reasonable regulation around such a thing?
This would just drive up the value of stolen identities and make illegal immigrants even more indentured to organized criminals that supply them with such.
Put aside the illegal aliens for the moment. What about all the US citizens who might use stolen identities?
For example, one of your workers disappears and you discover that they walked off with $millions worth of your stuff. You report this grand theft, giving the police the supposed identity. The police later tell you that this person died 3 years before you hired him.
For example, you hire somebody who uses a stolen identity to pass your background check. They just got out of prison for beating their previous boss to death.
For example, you hire a supposed professional with some sort of certification. They might claim to be a doctor, a Professional Engineer, a lawyer, or a Certified Public Accountant. By identity theft, they convince you that your business can depend on them to meet legal requirements and do competent work.
I'm not contesting the importance of correct identity. My point is that there are limited facilities available to authenticate the identity of any given human, and that if we increase the value of being able to identify as a known American, we'll increase the criminal interest in bestowing that upon those that are able to pay for it.
The reason stolen identities are used is because our current processes to allow immigrants to work are purposely limited.
Allow any immigrant to declare themselves. Give them an immigrant specific id so that they can go to an employer and work legally while paying local, state, and federal taxes.
Keeping the system closed is what allows exploitation. Stolen identities are needed to work in the closed system else the boss needs to break the law, and plenty of employers do just that.
I don't think I made any such switch. In fact by opening up and not artificially limiting supply of permits or immigrant work ids you massively reduce the need to hold employers accountable.
Right now the employers are held accountable in many cases. They are the first line of defense to make sure someone we have decided is an illegal immigrant and not allowed to work in the US, doesn't work. We selectively enforce this behavior with laws that punish businesses that allow illegals to work.
Yeah, this is definitely the best counterargument on this point. I do agree that it's very difficult, but it's not like the other alternatives are easy in any way (see the current debacle as exhibit A). If I heard politicians talking about how they've tried and failed to attack this side of the question in different ways, I may be more sympathetic to the alternatives. The deafening silence on this point makes me very skeptical.
It's just a very difficult problem to solve. The drug war has proven you can't just rely on enforcement with laws that run across the economic grain. You need to find a way to align them, and that will take time and massive commitment. Unfortunately we're not collectively interested in that, we're far more interested in proving the other side wrong.
On a side note, a few well-told and politically neutral stories out of Hollywood wouldn't hurt here. We'll likely have immigration solved before we could actually expect that, but a guy can dream.
Yeah I think we agree on all counts. Except that maybe I'm a bit more surprised than you are that people aren't collectively interested in putting in the commitment to actually solve a problem.
It's baffling to me as well. For some reason lots of Americans also don't support ID requirements for voting either. I'm from Brazil and even here we require ID for voters. I really just don't get it.
Because in the US, and unlike Brazil, Voter ID laws are specifically enacted to discourage people from voting. It’s a solution looking for a problem (voter fraud is hardly an issue in the US).
The Voter ID laws are all about putting a barrier in place to prevent $DEMOGRAPHIC from voting, then making it exceedingly difficult for $DEMOGRAPHIC to pass that barrier, even though it’s well within $DEMOGRAPHIC right to vote.
I'm familiar with the laws in Argentina. Brazil has similar laws and reason behind them. A very big difference is that the US doesn't have a national ID to begin with, and a substantial portion of the population would not support the creation of one. Argentina and Brazil provide a national ID to every newborn that is needed for any interaction with the state. Furthermore, procuring a state ID in the US can be difficult for some citizens, as the documentation that would be required for it (usually birth certificates) was purposely "misplaced" due to explicitly racist policies.
I'm very familiar not only with the voting laws but the campaigns laws.
In my opinion, the voting laws in Brazil are not bad.
The US is very different than Brazil. One big difference is that in Brazil the TSE and the TREs and also the electronic ballot are standard. Here, each state has its system of voting and counting vote.
I believe that Brazil's problem is not at the vote, but after the politicians get elected.
Here, there's gerrymandering, vote suppression, Citizens United, super PACs. Very different problems.
But fear not. At the rate the current administration is implementing ignorant, racist and stupid policies, soon we will be just like Brazil.
The irony? The corruption at the highest echelons of the government and people cheering up bad leaders is not what I had in mind when I wished some stuff here was more like in Brazil (I thought more about food and extroverted people).
It's a very different story in Brazil. Trust me. I'm not only from there, I have been involved and know a thing or two about Brazil's politics.
To start, in America the vote is not mandatory like in Brazil. Here, the "ID requirement" is not being implemented as a way to make better elections or prevent fraud, but as a way to suppress and limit the power of minorities, which by many complicated reasons, usually votes do the left.
Also, illegal immigration is/was a product of the prosperity of the country. It only became an economic issue after 9/11, when the government tightened policies and made impossible for people without proper documents to contribute.
Undocumented immigrants can't buy and drive a car (in most states) or be able to pay for health-insurance (it used to be much cheaper when they could). Instead, they drive without a license to feed their families and when they get into an accident or have a health "scare," we food the bill.
Unfortunately, the system seems beyond repair at this point. Some political groups take advantage of the fear and lack of information of parts of the population to gather support for their agendas. Not even children are out of limits, and the top of the pyramid is taking advantage of the situation, throwing even more gasoline on the fire.
Many people in the US have no official ID because there is no standard national ID. Instead, it's common to use things like driver's licenses (which not everyone has... since not everyone drives) or passports (which not everyone has... since you only need it to leave the country).
Plenty of studies have been done on Voter ID requirements.
Almost all of them have come back that (a) they discourage elderly, minorities etc from voting and (b) they have no impact whatsoever on the levels of voter fraud.
If you don't understand something maybe it is better to go read, rather than post. For one thing, going to a point-of-entry and requesting asylum is not a crime.
You may think it's terribly wrong, but that's how at least half of America thinks about the issue. So far, you only provided (soft) ad hominem attack. Attempting to break a law is not much worse than actually breaking a law.
You've been breaking all sorts of guidelines in this thread, but this comment is just dreadfully uncivil. Could you please just stop posting if you can't do it civilly and thoughtfully?
The media is really pushing this child parent separation thing hard. This is nothing new. You commit a crime, you get separated from your child when you're arrested. Every crime is this way citizen or not, the child does not go to jail with the parent.
But that is not what they want. They want the parent to be freed under the guise of the child's rights. There is no sugar coating it, this is a desparate attempt to curb immigration enforcement because the far left is desparate to grow their voting base. They have to import voters from the third world because their agenda is becoming so extreme they are alienating their own native voters.
Really sad that politics is being peddled on this website, thinly veiled behind vaguely tech-related discussion. If I want my leftwing political propaganda I'll read reddit thank you very much.
In a week or so there will be something else for the MSM to outrage everyone about, using yet another extremely one-sided angle about some other policy that started long before Nov 2016. I simply cannot watch/read mainstream news anymore, it's such a joke. You're being lied to and manipulated on a daily basis. Weekly periodicals are the last best source of any kind of non-technical information, and maybe technical too in some cases.
In my opinion, for decades politicians of this country tacitly allowed people to come to this country without adequate paperwork. Now asking them to go back is impractical and cruel. People who are here should be able to conduct their lives without the fear of getting arrested or deported while conducting everyday activities like going to dropping their kids to school or commuting to work. Let us be compassionate and give everyone already here a path to citizenship.
Just like President Obama did for DACA there should be a cutoff date for a path to citizenship. Once the cutoff date is reached we should deport new undocumented immigrants who don't have a legitimate asylum claim.
Honestly I'm fine with people who illegally immigrated to just have a chance to square themselves with the law and be legal without a path to citizenship, then giving citizenship to their children. They did break the law so I think it's fair to have consequences. But they don't need to be afraid of getting deported from the place they've lived the last 20 years.
Let's start with the allocation problem before we get into the scarcity issue.
We're perfectly ok spending millions to pay for bombs. And we were perfectly okay with funding dictators in Central America, for example, all of which led to crises in those countries which led to mass migration. And now here we are.
And btw, Nicaragua -- the same country where contras where illegally funded by the Reagan administration to combat the socialists there -- is now again close to civil war. Their socialist leader (Ortega) gets to use the US as a scapegoat (much like Chavez in Venezuela) and his loyal followers buy that stuff. Frankly, many people still remember what the US did in those countries, so I don't entirely blame them.
So now tell me why you're worried about social programs when our military takes the pie in spending and that clearly hasn't been put to good use?
Could someone help me understand the issue with this whole thing? If you show up to commit a crime with your children in tow, you are going to wind up separated from them while you go to jail for that crime. That is as true for illegal entry as it is for bank robbery.
Why does the Valley feel that it's OK for immigration laws to be violated? Even very liberal countries around the world tend to be tough on illegal immigration. Why are we expected to put up with it in the US? I'm not trying to cause a big political discussion - I'm genuinely trying to understand how intelligent, tax-paying US citizens have arrived at this position.
Edit: So just downvotes then, no explanations or justifications for your positon. Got it. You're the best HN!
Because many of these people are essentially refugees fleeing violence and extreme poverty in their home countries. Instead of helping these people we're tearing them from their families.
Imagine people fleeing a country from a flood or attacking country (like Germany in WWII) we're torn from their children and held separately? Does that seem humane?
I can imagine that there is a war or floods currently going on in Mexico, but afaik neither of those things are actually happening. Yes, it’s a relatively poor country, and they have problems that they need to solve over there. That doesn’t mean we in the US can afford to just open up the floodgates and let everyone from there that wants to come over into our country.
There is a process to come here legally, and I am all for legal immigration. I just don’t see why it’s remotely controversial to enforce our laws against illegal immigration.
Imagine people fleeing a country from a flood or attacking country (like Germany in WWII) we're torn from their children and held separately? Does that seem humane?
I can imagine this, but afaik there are no floods or wars going on in Mexico atm. It would be inhumane to punish people in that scenario, but that isn't the scenario we are talking about. Rather, these seem to just be people that don't like it in Mexico and want to go to the US. I want lots of things too, but I don't break the law to get them.
> Any alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival and including an alien who is brought to the United States after having been interdicted in international or United States waters), irrespective of such alien’s status, may apply for asylum in accordance with this section...
Thanks for the link, however the sub-sections are very important because subsection (a) and (e) are exactly what the Attorney General are arguing on top of if I understand correctly.
In this case the Atty General could claim that it is in the public interest to take in every unaccompanied alien child (defined as such by law [1]) - however that means that every child would basically go to the foster system while their parents were deported. Perhaps that is what is happening, I'm not sure.
In either case, the unaccompanied child and the adult in this case have different processes that the DOJ and in the case of children Health and Human Services, have guidelines to follow.
It's illegal to enter the country without prior authorization, period. See [1]. The rise in families being separated is being driven by the Trump administration's stepped up enforcement of existing immigration law when it comes to illegal border crossings.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html