The former president also told NBC News that spending billions to execute mass deportations of undocumented immigrants is justified because allowing them to remain would cost more.
The former president also told NBC News that spending billions to execute mass deportations of undocumented immigrants is justified because allowing them to remain would cost more.
How much do you know about the legal immigration process? Because it is barely functional and hanging on by a thread right now.
I know plenty about it and it would be very different if I were in charge, but that’s beside the point. What I’m saying is that the damage to the USA from an overly restrictive immigration policy is not “irreparable” because any immigrants denied or deported now can easily be replaced by other immigrants later. I don’t anticipate a scenario where the USA wants to allow in more immigrants but no one wants to come. (Even if that did happen, I’m not sure accepting immigrants in advance would help because they can just leave if it gets so bad here.)
Do you support hefty prison sentences for anyone caught hiring undocumented immigrants?
What does that have to do with anything?
You clearly support deportation of immigrants. Please correct me if my assumption based on your repeated, explicit statements is incorrect.
So if you think immigrant workers are evil and should be prevented, that makes the white people who exploit and profiteer from their labor an entire order of magnitude more evil, right? Therefore we should cut the problem off at the source?
I didn’t express any opinion about whether or not the deportation of illegal immigrants is a good idea. Can you quote my statements that make you think I did?
This shows a total callous disregard for the real human beings involved with this statement. Throwing away the “other” and ripping apart their life, family, and community is what you are supporting, intentionally or not, with your statement.
You are mixing up two separate questions.
Will deporting these people do irreparable damage to the USA?
Will deporting these people be morally wrong?
The answers to these two questions are independent of each other. The first question is about objective reality (if “irreparable damage” is clearly defined) and the second is about moral beliefs which are ultimately a matter of personal opinion. I’m only talking about the first question but you can still oppose deportation on moral grounds even if it turns out that mass deportations wouldn’t decrease American prosperity.
One type of irreparable damage that could occur to the USA as a result of mass deportations could be reputational or our morality therefore these two questions are not independent of each other.
In that case, you’ve still left room in the discussion to address my original question that you haven’t answered: aren’t the white people profiteering off of exploited immigrant labor the real perpetrators that deserve punishment? You can answer that without stating an opinion on the morality of deportation.
I’m dealing with the legal immigration system right now. Your claim that we can “easily” replace anybody with more immigrant is laughable. It’s like a 4 year waitlist right now.
When I say “we” I mean the US government or the nation as a whole. Right now you or I as individuals cannot easily have people immigrate legally because the government has deliberately made it difficult. If the government wanted to replace a bunch of deported people, it could change the rules about legal immigration. There are so many people who want to immigrate legally but aren’t allowed to that by changing the rules, the government could get as many immigrants as it could want.
If the government wanted that, they’d have been making steps towards that goal over the last several years. Instead, they’re thwarting any attempts at a path to citizenship for the people already doing these jobs and actively contributing to our economy.
I’m not saying that the government wants that. I’m saying they could do it if they did want to. The original claim I responded to was that the damage would be “irreparable” and I’m arguing that the USA is such a desirable place to live that such damage could be repaired by allowing in some of the many, many people outside of the country who do want to immigrate.
(A side note: I acknowledge that amnesty for illegal immigrants may be the best policy in practice, but I think that it is a “crime does pay” policy that rewards people for breaking the law and therefore encourages more law-breaking. I would rather deport the people who were willing to break the law and replace them with people who respected it, but that’s probably both expensive and politically unfeasible.)