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Comment by mattnewton | Hacker News Reader

I agree, we should revise the laws to reflect what the people actually want- a reasonable path towards citizenship for immigrants working, paying taxes and not causing problems.

But that isn’t what the right wants; a modern coalition of racists who want no immigrants, and opportunists who want a underclass of labor that can’t organize, vote or otherwise fight back currently is in power.

And that coalition is in power after successfully scapegoating immigrants to average Americans who have no idea what the Byzantine legal citizenship process looks like now when they repeat that they want “legal immigrants”.

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The fact you think all your political opponents are racists and evildoers is why the left lost in 2016, and in 2024.

The non-strawman argument is that giving someone citizenship of your country should not be automatic and quick. We want it to be difficult to get in, because otherwise, to borrow your word, “opportunists” find a relatively well-off, trusting society easy pickings to rob, cheat and steal from. And because we don’t want our country to turn into a place that looks like where some of these immigrants come from.

Notice how it isn’t Australians or Germans ending up having to be rounded up by ICE. It’s because they come from a country that believes in laws. And before you say “but that’s because you’re racist!!” I’d like to point out that the same thing applies to people from the Philippines or China who don’t look or speak like white Americans, but for the most part they come here legally.

> The fact you think all your political opponents are racists and evildoers is why the left lost in 2016, and in 2024.

I didn’t say that, I said that the current administration is an ally to racists and business owners who benefit from undocumented labor. This is just established fact at this point.

> Notice how it isn’t Australians or Germans ending up having to be rounded up by ICE.

Plenty of law abiding people who come here legally have been rounded up https://www.cbsnews.com/atlanta/news/south-korean-workers-de...

Which begs the question, why are white South African refuges welcomed by the admin while skilled work visa South Koreans are not?

But I think we agree more than we disagree- there should be a reasonable path towards citizenship that is rate limited. I think we might disagree on the rate limit and the reasonableness of the current path, but that’s an argument I would love to have over the current one we’re having over if the masked federal officers should be allowed to racially profile people and hold them at gunpoint without identifying themselves.

> that’s an argument I would love to have over the current one

I sense that you're somewhat reasonable too. What pains me is that the leftist wing of Team Blue, which now controls its entire agenda, seems hell-bent on preventing those conversations, by shouting down any voices that insist on any limits. They never say "We demand open borders." But they fight anything that amounts to enforcement of any immigration law.

Anyone who shows up with no papers, no ID and simply says "I request asylum"? They demand that we wave that person through and give them a court date on nothing but a pinky-promise. (In the UK they also give them a free hotel room for years, not sure if we're doing that here yet!) If they just never show up for the court date, then they just become yet another undocumented immigrant, together with the visa-overstayers and people who made it past the border.

For that whole group, they don't want state or local police to ever assist in detaining them. They also overwhelmingly don't want a law enforcement agency tasked to enforce immigration to even exist, or to conduct investigations, or to go to places that undocumented people are known to work and ask people for proof they're here legally. So in practice, the border becomes imaginary once you grant these demands. Just claim you need asylum once, and stay in "blue states" and you're free to do stay forever. Even if you get arrested for committing crimes, Democrats will usually say the idea of deporting you is inhumane and racist.

All this does nothing but alienate the moderates like me (a Democrat who walked away less than 5 years ago), who conclude that Democrats are no longer serious. They say they want immigration reform, but in practice, no matter what laws are there, it seems they will always make excuses for anyone who abuses the trust placed in them, and oppose any outcome that includes the immigrant leaving.

So this brings me to answer a question: Why do I even care? If I'm not a racist, what's wrong with just letting tons of immigrants in? It's often trotted out that supposedly, undocumented immigrants commit fewer crimes per capita than the general population. Even if that's true (studies seem to differ, and also I can't understand how we can be certain of the denominator in that per-capita rate), it's asking the wrong question. The people who are victimized by them rightly point out that if the undocumented immigrants were deported, we wouldn't have additional, more-criminal people in their place. We'd just have fewer crimes and fewer people. That would be a better outcome for people like Kate Steinle, who didn't deserve to die. (note: The insane undocumented immigrant who murdered her finally got deported (his seventh deportation!) in 2024[1], nine years after the murder. He said he was sorry, though.)

[1] https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ero-phoenix-removes-mexica...

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