Immigration Ban

Fair enough. Who I grew up with probably played a big role in how I view this issue. I lived in a small to medium-sized town in Iowa that had a lot of Hispanics come in for work at the Farmland plant, a good deal of which were probably undocumented.

Yet, I went to school with them all the same & as a whole they didn't seem to have a negative effect on our culture. If anything I think they improved it by exposing me to a lot of stuff I otherwise wouldn't have had exposure to. They paid taxes like the rest of us but can't collect all the same benefits as documented citizens.

I've just always had a moral issue about being a rah-rah "round 'em up & enforce the rules guy" even though I know what the law is. As a member of not just the U.S. but the world community, it didn't seem right to send them back to the levels of crime & poverty in Mexico if they are productive members of society not bothering anyone here. Luckily Mexico's economy has vastly improved since NAFTA & net immigration has been negative from Mexico for several years. 

Btw I think you're right about the green card thing. From everything I've read legally immigrating here (or even getting a green card) can take years & years.

 
Good read.  Immigration was perfectly legal in every form for more than a century. Then bigotry took over, and we started passing laws. 

The Birth of ‘Illegal’ Immigration

Until the late 19th century, there wasn’t any such thing as “illegal” or “legal” immigration to the United States. That’s because before you can immigrate somewhere illegally, there has to be a law for you to break.

American immigration didn’t really begin until the late 1700s, when the United States became an independent nation. Before that, Africans had unwillingly entered the Americas as enslaved peoples and Europeans had entered as settlers—which is something totally different. While immigrants are beholden to the laws of the land they migrate to, settlers come to disrupt the current system and implement their own laws, write the scholars Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang.

But once the U.S. made its Constitution the new law of the land, immigrants flocked to the country with few restrictions. This didn’t mean that they were welcomed in the “New World.” In the beginning, when immigrants came mostly from northern and western Europe, anti-Irish and anti-Catholic sentiment were rampant. By the mid- to late-19th century, people from southern and eastern Europe as well as China were coming over, and Americans resented the presence of Chinese, Italians, and more Catholics.

Asian exclusion continued with the 1924 Immigration Act, which banned all people who could not become naturalized citizens per the 1790 Naturalization Act. That naturalization law had originally said that only free white people could become naturalized citizens. Yet by 1924, previously excluded groups like Mexicans, black Americans, and Native Americans had won citizenship rights, and the law really only applied to Asians.

But the biggest change the 1924 act made to immigration policy was introducing numerical caps or quotas based on country of origin. These quotas gave enormous preference to people from northern and western Europe over those from southern and eastern parts of the continent. Turns out, the previous restrictions on Asian immigrants had made “very little impact on the growing levels of immigration to the United States,” Hsu says, because the vast majority of immigrants came from Europe. These new quotas were meant to address “a sense of crisis” that America was accepting too many immigrants, particularly too many non-Anglo Saxon ones.

The 1924 act resurfaced in the news in September 2017 when United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the U.S. would end DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), a policy to give people who came to the U.S. as undocumented children a legal avenue to stay. Sessions had earlier stated that the 1924 Immigration Act “was good for America.”
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I don't believe we should simply throw open the borders and let anyone in and make them a citizen, but I also think our immigration process is too onerous, obviously bigoted, and not in the best interest of America. 

 
Bornhusker said:
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/crime/329589-the-truth-about-crime-illegal-immigrants-and-sanctuary-cities
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An opinion piece that makes tons of unsourced claims. My favorite part:

I am also a forensic criminologist who is a subject matter expert in violent crime who advocates for facts and evidence. Here are some verified crime facts and statistics with you so that you will know the truth about the precarious relationship between violent crime and illegal immigrants.
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And then doesn't give a means to verify those facts and statistics. Just take it on faith because "I'm an expert!"

 
That's called appeal to authority & it is a logical fallacy. 

I didn't really read all the way through the article because it was too many numbers flying at me at once. 

But someone must posted a report yesterday ripping the DOJ for tweeting out misleading statistics to portray immigrants in a bad light. How are we to know if this guy isn't just using similarly misleading statistics to bolster his argument?

 
Bornhusker said:
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/crime/329589-the-truth-about-crime-illegal-immigrants-and-sanctuary-cities
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Here is the source in the opinion article that this author bases all of his numbers and assumptions on statistically:

Research conducted by the federal government oversight organization Judicial Watch in 2014 documents that 50 percent of all federal crimes were committed near our border with Mexico. 
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Because of this one single data set, all of the crimes are disproportionally amplified.  Like this statement:

75 percent of all criminal defendants who were convicted and sentenced for federal drug offenses were illegal immigrants.
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According to this Pew Research Center article on the same data set, there are very specific reasons why 50% of federal crimes in 2014 were committed on the Mexican border:

The figures, [...] do not include arrests made by state and local authorities, which make the vast majority of U.S. arrests each year (nearly 99% in 2014).

[...]

While the 2014 data do not necessarily reflect current trends, they highlight a growing focus on immigration offenses on the part of federal law enforcement agencies.

[...]

In fact, just one agency within DHS – Customs and Border Protection – made more arrests in 2014 (64,954) than all of the agencies within DOJ combined (58,265). 

[...]

The growth in arrests by Customs and Border Protection coincides with a significant staffing increase within the agency, particularly during the mid-to-late 2000s. Between 2004 and 2010, the number of Border Patrol officers almost doubled, rising from 10,819 to 20,558.

[...]

The federal government’s increasing focus on immigration offenses is evident in other aspects of the Bureau of Justice Statistics data.
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Read the article, if you care to.  It's easy to bend statistics when you have an agenda.  op-eds aren't the best place to look for good data.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/10/immigration-offenses-make-up-a-growing-share-of-federal-arrests/

 
Moiraine said:
Have you driven 26 mph in a 25 mph zone? Sped up when you saw an increase in speed before you got to the sign? Walked across a street not using a crosswalk when there was one available in view?
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So, then you don't know anything about me.. Right, like I said.. don't make claims about me when you know nothing about me.

To those examples, I can pay a fine and move on. You want me to except the lawless into this country and be happy with it. If they want to leave and then go through proper channels to get here legally then you would have the equivalent to your examples. if not, then it isn't the same at all!

 
Bornhusker said:
So, then you don't know anything about me.. Right, like I said.. don't make claims about me when you know nothing about me.

To those examples, I can pay a fine and move on. You want me to except the lawless into this country and be happy with it. If they want to leave and then go through proper channels to get here legally then you would have the equivalent to your examples. if not, then it isn't the same at all!
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You are pretty bad at interpreting posts. I didn't say a thing about you. I asked you a question. Maybe you're confusing me with Landlord, and if so you should take more time making your responses.

If you've done those things you are also lawless. If you happened to be driving 26 mph in a 25 mph zone and the police didn't pull you over, would you voluntarily go and turn yourself in and/or pay a fine?

 
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Moiraine said:
You are pretty bad at interpreting posts. I didn't say a thing about you. I asked you a question. Maybe you're confusing me with Landlord, and if so you should take more time making your responses.

If you've done those things you are also lawless. If you happened to be driving 26 mph in a 25 mph zone and the police didn't pull you over, would you voluntarily go and turn yourself in and/or pay a fine?
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My point was to show the other poster, you don't know me at all..

Wrong, if I break the law I break the law, I can pay a fine/make restitution and be clear... it is done with.  Illegals are here everyday, and by being here everyday they are continually breaking the law.. day in and day out. The only restitution for them is leaving, thus they are no longer breaking the law, and coming back through proper legal channels.

 
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Bornhusker said:
Wrong, if I break the law I breake the law, I can pay a fine/make restitution and be clear... it is done with.  Illegals are here everyday, and by being here everyday they are continually breaking the law.. day in and day out. The only restitution for them is leaving, thus they are no longer breaking the law, and coming back through proper legal channels.
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The same exact thing applies with my example. I would guess 90% of drivers under the age of 70 speed every single time they drive. And they keep doing it, day after day. They don't pay a fine every day. They pay a fine when they get caught. They are breaking the law day in and day out.

 
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