[Bran_son]

"Illegal" refers to a person's presence in the country, not any specific action. If you would prefer to call them "trespassers", be my guest. But "undocumented" is deceptive - it implies they're allowed to stay, and they're just lacking documentation, like losing a passport. When in fact even fully documenting their presence and identity (such as during deportation procedures) doesn't mean they have permission to stay in the country.

[seanmcdirmid]

Passports and documentation are a relatively new concept. Before 1920 or so, you would just show up in the USA for a new life, and if your skin color was the right shade of white, no one would stop you (otherwise you might be interned or otherwise sent back). All immigrants were undocumented back then.

Today, you show up with a passport and a visa, which is easy to get if your skin color is the right shade of white. Somethings never really change.

[Bran_son]

> Today, you show up with a passport and a visa, which is easy to get if your skin color is the right shade of white

Only 18% of immigrants to the US were white in 2015 [1], and the preference towards immigration from white countries was abolished as far back as 1965 [2], so kindly go lie to somebody else.

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2015/09/28/modern-immig...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_Ac...

[seanmcdirmid]

I didn't lie. I said "a passport and visa is easy to get if your skin color is the right shade of white" which does not mean it is impossible to get otherwise.

Try getting an immigration visa as an Indian or a Chinese vs. being an Australian or from the UK, and tell me with a straight face that it is just as easy to get for the former as the latter. Now try that getting that visa as a white Mexican vs a non-white Mexican. American immigration policy is still implicitly racist, and the only reason immigration is skewed that way is because of demand for immigrating into the USA in the first place.

If your family has been in the USA for a few generations, your ancestors more than likely came here as undocumented. Its just now a certain segment of "got mine, scr*w you" America wants to call those same people as illegal immigrants.

[Bran_son]

Yes, that's what a racist, white supremacist country would do: 82% non-white immigration.

> Its just now a certain segment of "got mine, scrw you" America wants to call those same people as illegal immigrants.

It's called a "country", and is not unique to the US. If anything, the US is one of the most* open - that's how they went from 85% white in 1960, to 58% in 2020 [1]. You mentioned China - in that same period, they went from 94% Han-Chinese, to 91% Han-Chinese [2], and they have virtually zero immigration - 0.07% [4], India has 0.4% [5], while the US has 14.5% [6]. And unlike the US, China and India do not grant citizenship by virtue of being born there [7], which means the US undercounts immigration, compared to China and India.

So the country that has proportionally 36x more immigration than India, and 207x more than China, and almost entirely non-white immigration at that, is the one you're accusing of racist xenophobia?

As for difficulty of obtaining citizenship, you greatly overstate the role of race. Whites have an approval rate of 93%, and blacks 90% [3].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_racial_and_ethnic_d...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_China

[3] https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/23/us/black-immigrants-citiz...

[4] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CHN/china/immigration-...

[5] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/IND/india/immigration-...

[6] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/immi...

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli