[Lord-Jobo]

Absolutely not. Without large scale immigration, a slightly important country you may be familiar with wouldn't exist at all. The one where so many of these absolutely rotten-brained zero tolerance takes on immigration become popular.

[basil-rash]

Can you snake a single significant figure in US politics who has actually advocated for zero immigration? Or are you saying zero-tolerance for illegal immigration? And if so, why would that be a bad thing?

[FrustratedMonky]

"significant" is the key.

How these arguments go is, I find a quote, then you say "not that person", or "that isn't what they meant", or "the law is wrong, it should be illegal".

If 'valid immigration' is a-ok, then why produce so much false information re-casting it as 'illegal' in order to advocate stopping immigration?

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2024/jan/11/ron-desant...

https://www.politifact.com/immigration/

[basil-rash]

Who recasted legal immigration as illegal? Your “citation” is of Ron Desantis complaining about too many people illegally immigrating, nothing to do with what you call “valid immigration”.

[FrustratedMonky]

What do you think is happening if he is using falsely inflated statistics?

What is the goal of drumming up hate using false data, to rile up his followers? Is it really to promote 'valid' immigration? Wouldn't it be better to discuss 'valid' immigration, if that was in fact the goal?

I think you have swallowed their dog whistle.

[basil-rash]

You haven’t any provided evidence of your claim that people are calling legal immigration illegal, or that anyone wants to prevent legal immigration. Please do so, or stop claiming it.

[FrustratedMonky]

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/01/greg-abbott-tex...

“The only thing that we are not doing is we’re not shooting people who come across the border—because, of course, the Biden administration would charge us with murder,” the Republican governor told former NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch on her radio show last week. (Check it out at the 11:45 mark.)

“I can’t believe I have to say ‘murdering people is unacceptable,'” wrote Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) in a post on X. “It’s language like yours that left 23 people dead and 22 others injured in El Paso,” she added, referring to the 2019 mass shooting in a Texas Walmart by an anti-immigrant killer.

[FrustratedMonky]

Perhaps it is phrasing.

If today, Republicans are against the number and type of immigrants that are allowed in under the current law, then they can change the law. They do not agree with current law, and feel that there are situations that should be illegal. So they want to change the law, thus changing what is legal now, to become illegal. So, 'calling todays legal immigration, illegal'.

I hate falling back on tropes, but this is the type of 'legal' maneuvering that was done in Germany. A lot of persecution was 'legal', once the laws were changed to make some 'people' illegal.

https://theconversation.com/republicans-are-pushing-for-dras...

""The Republicans’ plan is similar to both a similar rule that the Department of Homeland Security adopted in 2019 and a policy that President Joe Biden is trying to push through.

I am an immigration professor and teach asylum law. I believe it’s important to understand what sets Republicans’ proposed law apart from previous iterations.

The president cannot change the law, but Congress can. If these lawmakers succeed in changing federal asylum law, the law would override the court decisions striking down previous versions. Because Congress has broad power over immigration, the new laws would likely be upheld if challenged in court. ""

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/12/whats-...

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-01-05-republicans-immigra...

https://www.npr.org/2023/12/13/1218935981/republican-candida...