If your ideology has differential effects on people by race, then you may well be participating in a racist ideology even if you detest it.
Most notably: current policies are addressed at punishing illegal immigrants, but it's clear that it's being targeted at non-white and mostly Spanish-speaking people. There are numerous incidents of people being racially profiled despite being American citizens, and no steps are being taken to minimize that. The policy is popular with those who are explicit about their racial supremacy.
If you support programs that hurt people of a different race, then calling you a "Nazi" is not inapt, regardless of what you think of the actual Nazis.
> If your ideology has differential effects on people by race, then you may well be participating in a racist ideology even if you detest it.
Mine don’t, I don’t like that people are being unfairly targeted if they’re citizens or have legal rights to be in the country. That said, I don’t want illegal immigrants to be harmed or mistreated. And it’s not just me, many Americans feel the same way.
The issue is more complex than simply a humanitarian cause. The effect of letting in hundreds of people is something you can balance over time, but letting in millions over a relatively short period has both economic and geopolitical ramifications. Besides that, borders exist for more than security, their permeability has implications for national sovereignty as well. For Americans who aren’t racist, the issue is multifaceted and just as important as the plight of an economic immigrant or asylum seeker.
If you look at who is entering the U.S. illegally, it includes people from strong economic powerhouses with healthy growth projections and competitive GDP, like Brazil, Mexico, China, India and so on.
When you just absorb the economic or political issues of other countries by taking in their poor, then you don’t ever let those societies reflect on what they’re doing wrong or right for their people. Countries should be responsible for their people, and if they’re unable to be that way for one reason or another, their people need to examine why and ask their leaders some tough questions. Immigrating to other countries, for jobs, safety, or education, is not a good or sustainable way of doing things, which is why we’re currently having the issues that we’re having.
I also think asylum seekers should be sent to countries that most match their cultural backgrounds, and repatriated when conflict is resolved, or sent somewhere where they have family ties. There needs to be a better way to bring normalcy into the lives of people affected by war or conflict other than turning them away, or indefinitely opening your doors to anyone who claims asylum, where there is a non-zero occurrence of fraud.
Good and responsible governance is the only way to ensure better outcomes for people. Political extremism isn’t going to enable good governance.
> The effect of letting in hundreds of people is something you can balance over time, but letting in millions over a relatively short period has both economic and geopolitical ramifications.
Which specific ramifications? It is interesting how often people stop here.
There’s a lot of information available already, feel free to look it up. No one reasonable says that (legal) immigration is bad, what becomes concerning is mass, unsanctioned movement. I don’t discount the humanitarian crises, which is why I think there needs to be a good faith effort to resolve the issues for people who are impacted by such crises. Sadly, the problem is realpolitikal, and that’s why there is no good faith solution which presents itself.
So the issue isn’t about racism, mass migration from a country is not a healthy indication of state of affairs, and in some way countries tacitly sanction bad governance by others when they absorb the problems of others. No one should have to leave their homelands for economic or safety reasons.