[pstuart]

Immigrants pulling up the ladder after themselves is a time-honored American tradition.

It's a complicated subject and has been weaponized by the Right, artfully so.

If you actually cared about the law being followed you would be consistent in that -- meaning that the immigrants who were/are here who have been completely legal in that should have been protected by the law, but weren't.

Likewise, you'd care that officers of the law themselves followed the law, and the courts have found egregious cases of that not happening.

And if it was about being fair in allowing immigrants in (specifically from south of the border, versus, say, whites from South Africa), the subject of fairness would have to examine the actions of the United States amongst it's southern neighbors and what impact it's had to cause those people to flee. AKA, "you break it, you bought it".

Now I'm not arguing for wide open gates either, but we had a system in place and the biggest problems with it were that it was poorly funded and staffed. After all, if you want them to be legal about it, there needs to be legal people to make that happen.

> Police consistently poll in the top 3 most trusted organizations in the country

And what about the demographics of such a poll? I recognize the need for some sort of law enforcement but if you had a family member having a mental health crisis would you call the cops? Do you think that the police are properly held accountable for their actions?

Man, the Federalist Society sure is good at their job.

[rayiner]

> Immigrants pulling up the ladder after themselves is a time-honored American tradition.

Because it's rational. If you're from a dysfunctional country--sorry, I mean a "vibrant" and "rich" country--you don't want that following behind you.

> what impact it's had to cause those people to flee. AKA, "you break it, you bought it".

You assume those countries are worth fleeing because of exogenous factors that cannot follow immigration flows rather than endogenous factors that can.

> If you actually cared about the law being followed you would be consistent in that

Like with any law, immigration law is not an end in itself, but a means to an end, i.e. limiting the flow of immigrants and the effects thereof. It's like fishing licenses. You could stop illegal fishing just by mailing everyone a license, but the piece of paper is not the point.

[pstuart]

> Because it's rational. If you're from a dysfunctional country--sorry, I mean a "vibrant" and "rich" country--you don't want that following behind you.

That makes zero logical sense on a couple levels.

1. There's no real difference between the immigrants in Wave A vs Wave B, except Wave A happened first. Same shithole country, just an ordering issue. "I've got mine, Jack!" is not a compelling claim.

2. People bring their experiences with them but doesn't mean that they then apply their history to the present of their new home. America is the shaper, culture brings some flavor.

The other thing you missed was the tribalism of my statement about the latter being pulled up. It really goes like this:

1. Immigrants from Shithole A come as a wave to America and are met with hostility and oppression but persevere and a generation later are established communities; Americans.

2. Immigrants from Shithole B come as a wave to American and are met with hostility and oppression from current population, including the A Shitholers, because it' now their country.

> Like with any law, immigration law is not an end in itself, but a means to an end, i.e. limiting the flow of immigrants and the effects thereof. It's like fishing licenses. You could stop illegal fishing just by mailing everyone a license, but the piece of paper is not the point.

You mean like the laws that we already have? Not perfect but they are there and there was was bipartisan legislation address issues and enhance border security. It was spiked so that it could become a partisan political football.

Again, immigration is broken, but could be fixed if the powers that be wanted it. Look at where most of those undocumented workers end up and take a guess at the political affiliation of those employers. It's not a coincidence.

[mindslight]

I'm going to try something different here. I'm going to respond to one of your points as I believe @rayiner would. Maybe showing him that I actually understand his argument might help him realize that every person arguing with him isn't a coming from some myopic partisan view. Or that it's possible to have read discussion about these topics, analyzed them on their own merits (not merely just rejecting based on progressive dogma), and still walked away not buying into them. Or perhaps even that my criticism of ICE isn't actually rooted in cloaked pro-immigration policy [0]

> 1. There's no real difference between the immigrants in Wave A vs Wave B, except Wave A happened first. Same shithole country, just an ordering issue. "I've got mine, Jack!" is not a compelling claim.

The argument is that the amount of immigration is too high and rate of assimilation is too low, and thus the larger quantity would affect the culture more than the lesser quantity. It is indeed a selfish argument for someone who was in wave A - and while this might invalidate it in your own worldview, that is not universal. So while it's not compelling for you, it is compelling for him (and others).

[0] I'm personally quite ambivalent on most immigration topics. Although I do believe strangling our educational and research institutions is an absolutely bone-headed move. But that has nothing to do with illegal immigration.

[pstuart]

Nobody is saying that volume is not an issue -- he's arguing from talking points not facts.

While they have just enough plausible deniability, the current anti-immigration takes it to a more fervent level: they want to export all the immigrants that are not white, and not just that, those that are not Christian.

Everyone of us here is an immigrant or descended from immigrants and, and the failure to recognize that is a literal moral failing.

And of course there remains the unexamined aspect of the US culpability in creating the conditions causing people to flee and seek safe harbor....

Edit: and on cultural assimilation my point stands: first born immigrants (which I believe includes Rayiner himself) assimilate by design because of human tribal needs. Their parents will always be tied to the old world but they're going to do what they can to fit in.