[xp84]

Ok, "destroying" is ambiguous meaning.

But you don't think that admitting, say, half the populations of all the world's best-known failed countries like Somalia, Haiti, Syria, El Salvador, DRC, etc. would be bad for a Western country? A combination of lack of education, different cultural expectations, normalized crime and corruption, etc. means that the citizens from there would be bringing all of their problems with them. A randomly-selected person from those countries is a poor fit to be productive within our alien societal framework (doesn't speak the language, doesn't understand how Westerners conduct business, doesn't have cultural context in so many things). However the problem is, compared to a random person born into a Western society, such a newcomer is well-suited to get ahead by subverting the Western societal framework, such as by taking advantage of our lax approach to property crimes, or as I pointed out in this thread or another, exploiting Western guilt to land years-long rent-free hotel stays.

[supplied_demand]

==But you don't think that admitting, say, half the populations of all the world's best-known failed countries like Somalia, Haiti, Syria, El Salvador, DRC, etc.==

This has never happened, is not happening now, and has not been proposed by any current political party. Open borders is a falsehood that has never existed in our lifetimes and nobody is proposing today. If we are going to discuss the topic, let's stick with reality.

At the same time, my ancestors who immigrated from southern Italy didn't speak English, were very uneducated, weren't considered "white", didn't have the same cultural expectations, and brought all their problems with them. All of this happened during the golden age of American progress and growth (the exact era we are trying to "make again"). I find that interesting.

==such a newcomer is well-suited to get ahead by subverting the Western societal framework, such as by taking advantage of our lax approach to property crimes==

And yet, study after study shows us that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than American-born citizens [0] [1] [2] [3]. Let's move past the fake hypotheticals and discuss the known facts.

[0] https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w31440/w314...

[1] https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/2020-10/working-pa...

[2] https://www.themarshallproject.org/2019/05/13/is-there-a-con...

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/30/upshot/crime-...

[xp84]

> This has never happened, is not happening now, and has not been proposed by any current political party. Open borders is a falsehood

In the UK, the governments of both parties allow anyone who comes on a boat to remain, and they put them up in hotels until their claims of asylum are adjudicated, which takes years. How is that not open borders? Anyone with access to a dinghy can show up without any ID and not only be allowed to walk free, but to get 100% taxpayer-funded housing, when a ton of their citizens can't afford proper housing.

How is that not open borders? That's a no-questions-asked policy. And while it's "temporary" (A) they're on the honor system to show up to court in several years and (B) the citizens impacted by the crime, the draining of public funds, and the downward pressure on wages don't care, even if each migrant did peacefully walk right out 4 years later upon losing an asylum case. Although there are a ton of ways to guarantee a win, such as having a child during your stay, who would be a UK citizen. The ECHR says you have to let them stay, even if they've also shown themselves to be a criminal. https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/1j3zu29/depo...

In America, meanwhile, the orthodox Left viewpoint is that "no one is illegal" and that it's fascist to arrest and deport people for overstaying visas or working in the US without legal status. Does the American Left think we should have the rules saying "the border is not open," yet no enforcement? Because that's how it sounds if you're not willing to actually deport anyone. Personally, I supported DACA (and voted for Obama twice) but I think it's insane to just do what we're doing, which like the UK, is to accept "asylum seekers," releasing them into the US and asking them to promise to show up for their hearings in a few years. Of course, we don't give them hotels, but arguably the impact of a ton of homeless "asylum seekers" every year isn't pretty either. I know Trump has made some changes to the US policies above, but the Left clearly doesn't want to tighten border control, and I'm not making up some strawman here.

> immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than American-born citizens

Even if that's true (I won't be foolish enough to pretend I know better so let's assume they are) we'd be better off with 0 immigrants and 0 crimes than 10,000,000 immigrants and "slightly fewer crimes than 10,000,000 extra native-born citizens would have committed." And the second-order effects of importing as many impoverished people as we can to compete for available housing and jobs is still bad news for the least-wealthy of those already here, which can lead to more crime in that group of people.

Unselective immigration and zero enforcement policies are a major thumb in the eye of poor and working class Americans, but the issue has basically zero negative impact on the elites -- the highly-educated and wealthy people who make up most of the present-day Democratic Party. Hence it's pretty easy for them to overlook the issues. This is why they lost, even to a deeply flawed, corrupt candidate like Trump.

[supplied_demand]

== put them up in hotels until their claims of asylum are adjudicated, which takes years. How is that not open borders==

You answered right before asking, their asylum claim must be adjudicated. If it is denied, what happens?

== Because that's how it sounds if you're not willing to actually deport anyone.==

We do and have always deported plenty of people. Obama (1st term) and Biden both deported more people than Trump did in his first term.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/22/us/trump-biden-immigrants...

== we'd be better off with 0 immigrants and 0 crimes==

Thanks for saying this, it lets us know where you stand regardless of the facts shared.

[xp84]

> You answered right before asking, their asylum claim must be adjudicated. If it is denied, what happens?

I just gave an illustration of what happens. In the UK, the ECHR forces them to let the criminals stay anyway. In the US, many just don't show up for their hearings and there's nothing anybody can do about that. And even if they only stay those 4 years, having a constant 4 year revolving door backlog of supposed "asylum seekers" means there is always a ton of people here to compete for either jobs or government benefits (especially in blue states, where they would think it immoral not to include them in healthcare and other expensive welfare).

> Obama (1st term) and Biden both deported more people than Trump did

Pretty sure that's mainly because of a change to count someone turned immediately away at the border as a "deportation" rather than as nothing, as it was before. Obama didn't have lower net immigration than his predecessor, just higher deportations on paper.

> it lets us know where you stand

I don't think any benefits of unselective immigration and the outright asylum fraud outweigh the costs, no. Those costs are overwhelmingly borne by the poorest Americans (including many legal immigrants), and I prioritize their interests above that of immigrants who don't follow the rules. shrug