This is outrageous 2 15.38%

This doesn't matter at all 4 30.77%

There's a government shutdown? 4 30.77%

It's worth it, we need to save DACA! 3 23.08%

Oh brother...



It this point it's a wonder if he even understands how a toilet flushes. (And not even the "complicated" parts.)


Given all that go on about other people and their supposed "feels," it's amazingly ironic that here is a guy who wants to 'rule' this country largely based on whims and gut feelings. I guess no one ever told him that impulsive decisions aren't a good way to run a government. Or near anything for that matter.

But don't worry... he "can relate."

Illegal immigration is Definitely not at an all time low. In fact the illegal immigration population has tripled in size since the 90's. But it looks like it has actually stabilized and even gone do slightly the past few years.

Source: https://www.factcheck.org/2018/06/il...on-statistics/

I agree with everything else Voltron. From my understanding most illegal immigrants come through legal means and many simply overstay when they were legally allowed to be here, example cars.(Don't know if this is a majority or minority of illegal immigrants.)

This money would be better spent on repairing failing infrastructure and schools. I believe expanding border patrols and ICE's budget to help enforce existing laws would be more beneficial and effective. (IMO)

A wall sounds like a good idea at first and it worked for China but in this day of age and with this specific problem I feel like the Wall would be ineffective.

Trump's "Address" in a nutshell

And again, illegal immigration "reports" are based on the ones they managed to catch. How on earth can they track all the ones who sneak into and stay here and are never caught? Or can there be any data on that? There are thousands upon thousands here in WA. I literally know of 90% more illegal immigrant Mexicans than I do legal ones and that's just out here in the city.

It'd be like saying, "people that break into my garage and drink water from my faucet at 3 AM is down 20% this year" when you don't have any cameras in the garage and you have no way to track how much water was taken or how many people came, other than the fact that you see footprints.

I mean, think about it. They can easily track and see who got visas to come here, came here (yes, on a plane most likely), let them lapse, and then show no record of them returning home. This is data we have, yes, because it is data available to us.

It is very easy to say the leading illegal immigration is people that came here with visas with ZERO data on the ones that simply cross illegally on foot or vehicle through soft or open spots in the border. Because there is no paper trail. We can count the ones they catch... but that tells us nothing about the bigger picture.

Are you saying we have no idea how many illegal immigrants are currently in the United States?

Would it be safe to assume that ANYONE I meet in my daily life may be, in fact, an illegal immigrant here to steal my job and usurp my place in my family?

Andrew. . . a-are you an illegal immigrant?

Also, friendly reminder: please don't double post. Use the edit button to add to an existing post.

At least the Democrats support building the wall! ...Right?


Isreali Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, I'm sure would love to hear how ineffective walls are for a country's security.

Absolutely. Tell me how they would, otherwise. Almost all illegal immigrants that make it in have some semblance of family already here at this point that help them out. And they stay under the radar and waste no time having anchor babies and look forward to making a killing come tax time. For a while now it is a network that feeds itself... I see it everyday. These (most) aren't bad people but they are breaking the law and this isn't anything we should be rolling the red carpet for even more than we already are.

Your place in your family? That's a very strange thing to say. What do you mean by that? In terms of steal your job... not necessarily, but possibly. In terms of the hiring process, and slightly dependant on your trade.

And "steal" is probably not the right word. Most of the ones I know have some semblance of papers they "got" and have worked enough bouncing around that they've built up a genuine resume with references... so it's yours vs. theirs. But when they legally shouldn't even be here to begin with...

Nope. My mother is a 100% legal South American Colombian immigrant who fought long and hard to come here until her application was approved and she did. You know, actual (legal) immigration. She met my father here, a Boeing electromagnetic engineer, and now here I am. The push to award sneaky border crossers (note: not asylum seekers with legitimate cases, which account for 10% of those claiming that) the same privaleges she fought tooth and nail for years the right way sickens her... and sickens me, too.

Maybe it's just me but there appears to be a growing disconnect about the education on immigration. i.e., a whole generation is thinking that immigration is just barging into the U.S. and hopefully they can stay, that that's the only way. Or barring that, the only other immigration routes are asylum or refugee status. It's very strange. Applying for actual, legal immigration to the United States is a very real thing and has been here for decades.

But now we have the typical liberal agenda attempting to control the language. "Illegal immigrants" become "undocumented immigrants" in the media so people become unclear and just lump the illegal immigration in with the legal... when those are pretty freaking worlds apart.

Andrew I am "assuming" they are drawing numbers from the national census, number of captures, number of border captures, number of visas applicants that did not leave. The statistics could be drawn from any of these or a combination of all them. The article I listed in previous post shows some pretty good educated estimates.

The numbers are not precise, but I believe they give a good representation of the illegal immigration population.


Also in regards to your family backstory I cannot only imagine illegal immigration being a slap in the face to those who worked so hard to legally immigrate to the U.S. and to ultimately become citizens.

It did, and it didn't, in the end the Mongols and others just went around it, and eventually through it when it was properly tested.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-border-mexico

Some interesting comparisons as you brought the Wall up.

But to hark back to previous points, a wall by itself can be deterrent but in today's age, with drugs coming into the US from Mexico anyhow, it won't eventually keep out the determined people. Sure, yes, it may deter the casual fence hopper, but as already noted, most illegals never entered illegally. They came via legal routes and never went back.

It's somewhat equivalent to a Brexit discussion point in a way. Many people voted for Brexit because they were "sick of people coming here and taking our jobs". Sound familiar? The key point was though that despite migration from Europe to the UK had been increasing, immigration from the rest of the world to the UK has always been higher since we joined (1973) and we have complete control over that! The fallacy was about taking back control, and we always did for the majority of this. Lies and more lies.

Now when I come to the US, I have to give an address of residence while here. Does that also apply to Mexicans crossing on foot into the US via a border point? Don't need a visa, just a passport? Half a million people cross at San Diego EACH DAY btw, it's the busiest border crossing in the world. Unless you massively increase manning, you're going to have to rush things a bit to get everyone through in time. So better pre-checks and more people so you can check more thoroughly.

And quite easy to give a false address, you are relying on peoples' honesty. Like when the ESTA form asks if I've been a terrorist, kidnapped anyone or been a member of the Nazi party...!

I'm going to say something, and I hope it doesn't come across too crass.

You know the Trump administration expanded the practice of stripping naturalized citizens of their citizenship, right? It's called denaturalization.

I mean, what then? What if someone decided your mother was a "bad hombre"? It's not outside the realm of possibility. Would you put your faith in people who feel that neo-nazis are "fine people"?

According to some of them, she's not an American citizen. I mean, not really. Not to them.

And to be clear: I am not insinuating that Ithink this. But there are people out their clamoring for a big, expensive, mostly useless wall. And those same people have SS tattoos on them. And they have ethnocentric ideals that very much put immigrants and foreigners in the cross hairs.

That's who you're throwing your lot in with. Not saying you're a Nazi, or a racist, or some "deplorable". But those kinds of people would be really happy to hear you talking about it.

But bear in mind: these people aren't doing it for some noble reason. They're doing it because their ****ing nuts. They are racists and bigots and generally rotten people who only want to hurt other people.

Anything we give them on this issue is a step in the wrong direction. Every inch they take just makes them bolder. And while there is a discussion to be had about immigration and border control, this isn't it. It shouldn't be framed like this. An ineffective wall sold to the American people through lies by a noted conman is not an option here. It never will be.

What if Trump does get it? Then what? He's going to want something else. Those terrible people will still want something more.

Read the last bit of this article. This, to me, encapsulates the pathos of what we're dealing with really well.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/07/u...-marianna.html

At what point does this become too much for you to ignore? At what point does this stop being zero-sum politics and start being a discussion about smarter, less destructive ways to live together?

Unfortunately, it seems to be a very popular option. But you did a great job of summarizing.

Again, none of those things can have ANY data on the illegal immigrants that came here across the border illegally successfully. There is NO paper trail for these people.

How do you get numbers on something where there is no way to track it? You don't. Comparing said nonexistent numbers against ones that do exist (the visa applicants that don't leave) as proof positive to prove a point is pretty stupid. Certainly meaningless.

It really sounds like you're taking a very left-media, paranoid stance on matters. One unsubstantiated by anything that's actually happened and based on the "w-w-w-w-what if!" of sensationalist journalism and the talking heads on the "news" that are trying to tell us what we should be taking away from everything, ever. The same voices that told us Trump was going to deliver us into a certain nuclear war with North Korea.

Oh, I'm not worried about my mother, she'll be fine. The actual story is that Trump had lawyers looking into naturalized citizens that lied on their applications. My mother neither lied or had anything to lie about and that was 40 years ago.

There are no stories of naturalized citizens like this being scrutinized and stripped of it. That's not a thing.

You're kind of insinuating that. And this sounds a lot like the rationale around the time of the election that Trump is a horrible person because the KKK endorsed him. If I ran for governor tomorrow and they endorsed me unbeknownst to me, that hardly has anything to do with me or is any reflection on me.

Now we're just talking about "the feels." I don't have anything in common with those people and, again, "illegal immigrant" is not a race.

I think one of the contributing factors or problems is that perhaps the bureaucracy and timeline for becoming a legal immigrant has greatly expanded in the last generation or two? But that's hearsay and an assumption on my part. I've got ancestors going back to the Civil War, so it's nothing I've ever personally experienced nor do I have any family history (that I know about).

In my personal experience, the argument about illegal immigration in my state is often fueled by racism. Or, at least, the racism becomes a bigger part of the argument than the facts. So I'll freely admit I'm not as educated as apparently some of you are; my stance can easily boil down to "I'm not one of THOSE Texans."

Actually, I'm finding this a very educational thread.

As if the US needs to "stripping naturalized citizens of their citizenship", you just need to be a couple of shades darker then transparent and ICE might be all over you, detain you for days and drop your ass in Mexico despite never been to Mexico. Like what they did to Mark Lyttle.

Did you mean "I can only"? Or did you mean to add a "but also" and just forgot? Because "I cannot only" is confusing.

Many Mexicans don't have dark skin at all, you know. Just saying.

And they might be less likely to be deported like Lyttle was, despite Lyttle being a US-born citizen.

For my fellow U.S. members, be mindful of what you're eating guys...

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...ctions-n956716

Seems the shutdown has impacted the FDA's food safety inspections. Article suggests they want/plan to try to get it going at least to some extent, but that requires getting some of their workers to return sans pay.

Soooo, yeah, maybe wash and cook stuff really good. (And aim for pre-shutdown packaging dates on things that can't be?)

Mayhem that comment about the wall you quoted was supposed to be a joke

and also if you look at the link I provided in the post it actually indicates the majority of illegal immigrants actually entered illegally to begin with. I think it said about 55 or 60% came in illegally and the other 40-45% came in legally and never left.

The Brexit comparison is an interesting comparison.