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by cherrycherry98 615 days ago
You are trying to draw a parallel between mass deportation and genocide that I do find valid. Rounding up people for deportation may be considered a violent act but not nearly to the degree of intentional mass murder. Also alluding that migrant internment camps (which would be temporary holding facilities for deportees) would be like something akin to Auschwitz (an actual industrialized mass murder facility) feels like more of a smear than a realistic argument.

The law defines the process for legal immigration and many people have broken the law. Either intentionally or through incompetence the government has failed to effectively enforce immigration law. If the people of the USA wanted open borders then they should consent to it via the democratic process.

Illegal immigration is not a victimless crime. It strains local resources to accommodate the influx of people. Housing costs are driven up and labor costs down for the most vulnerable in society. Unvetted criminals or gang members entering pose a threat to public safety.

That being said I don't feel good about the mass deportation and the pain and suffering it would surely cause people who mostly mean no harm to anyone and are looking for a better life.

1 comments

> You are trying to draw a parallel between mass deportation and genocide that I do find valid.

Consider the 10 stages of genocide [1]. The anti-immigration hysteria is probably at stage 6 at this point.

> The law defines the process for legal immigration and many people have broken the law.

There are many categories of so-called "undocumented" migrants and you have to consider each group. Anti-immigration rhetoric from the American right lumps up several groups of documented migrants into the "undocumented" category, including TPS recipients (such as the Haitians in Springfield, OH) and DACA recipients. It's worth considering who DACA recipients are. If someone was brought to the US at 5 months old, they clearly didn't choose to break the law. They likely have never been to their country of birth. They may not even speak the language. In most cases it's utterly inhumane and immoral to deport such a person and if you explain it to people, they will tend to agree.

> Illegal immigration is not a victimless crime.

This is where we get into right-wing propaganda.

> Housing costs are driven up

False [2].

> labor costs down for the most vulnerable in society

Actually undocumented migrants are largely doing jobs nobody else will do. If we snapped our fingers and tomorrow all the undocumented migrants were removed from the US, the agricultural industry would collapse. How do I know this? Because we have data to support it.

So if you really wanted to tackle undocumented migrants, who would you go after, the employee or the employer? Almost always they go after the employer. Undocumented migrants are openly employed in every state. Alabama tried this and it was a disaster [3]. So did Florida [4].

As for driving down wages, the best way to tackle this is to document them. We used to do this with temporary workers aka the Bracero program [5].

If you really want to see how exploitation of undocumented migrants and wage suppression works, look at the chicken producers. Pretty much everyone is undocumented and underpaid. What happens when they start to demand more wages? The chicken farms call in an ICE raid, pay a slap-on-the-wrist fine and rinse and repeat.

The wealthy love undocumented migrants because it keeps wages low and increases profits.

> It strains local resources

Undocumented migrants pay about $100 billion in taxes per year [6].

> Unvetted criminals or gang members entering pose a threat to public safety.

The "migrant crime" hysteria doesn't survive the simplest of Google searches. How many homicide convictions were there in 2023? 20,400. How many of them were committed by noncitizens (note: this includes documented migrants)? 29 [7].

Undocumented migrants are overwhelmingly people simply seeking safety and security. Perhaps we should stop destabilizing the countries they come from like Venezuela.

This is a completely manufactured non-problem based on objective lies.

[1]: https://www.hmd.org.uk/learn-about-the-holocaust-and-genocid...

[2]: https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/housing-prices-f...

[3]: https://www.americanprogress.org/article/alabamas-immigratio...

[4]: https://civileats.com/2024/02/07/a-florida-immigration-law-i...

[5]: https://guides.loc.gov/latinx-civil-rights/bracero-program

[6]: https://itep.org/undocumented-immigrants-taxes-2024/

[7]: https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/cbp-enforcement-statistic...

I completely agree with everything you wrote, with one small exception: Venezuela was destabilized by Putin's goon Maduro. Per-capita GDP has dropped 3/4-fold [1]. This accomplished two things:

- Reduce world oil production, boosting world prices and thus Russia's revenues.

- Create a migrant wave. This was the Western Hemisphere equivalent of the Syrian wave engineered by Assad, another goon. The waves are weaponized into anti-migrant hysteria by Putin's goons in countries that still have meaningful elections.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876/gross-domestic-pr...