President of the United States of America

[Psycho]

Trump has stated multiple times he wants to deport illegal immigrants. Nothing inherently racist about wanting to enforce borders. The fact that most of the USA's illegal immigrants are non-white is inconvenient though, because now wanting to legally enforce your borders means instant racism apparently.

Coincidentally, out there the people calling him racist for his proposed deportation policies are also the people assuming that every person with a single non-white drop of blood is an illegal immigrant, even those whose grandfathers obtained citizenship.

[Tinibombini]

Coincidentally, out there the people calling him racist for his proposed deportation policies are also the people assuming that every person with a single non-white drop of blood is an illegal immigrant, even those whose grandfathers obtained citizenship.

Are you saying that the people that the people calling Trump racist for his deportation policies are the same people who assume that every person with a single non-white drop of blood is an illegal immigrant? That appears to be what you are saying but I would think that would actually be two very distinct groups of people with no overlap if you were to map them on a Venn diagram.

[Forestradio]

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/20 ... n-the-u-s/

non-white drop of blood

Everyone's blood is red last time I checked.

Deporting non-citizens who have committed crimes is fine so we don't have more incidents like this.

Figuring out what to do beyond that is going to take a lot more thought beyond "make them all citizens" or "build a giant wall and make Mexico pay for it."

[Psycho]

The tongue-in-cheek comment meant to imply overlap between said groups, and I'm not sure if I'm detecting sarcasm there with all the fearmongering about Trump deporting all hispanics and blacks that has gone around. Hell, twitter was flooded with said victims of fearmongering thinking they were gonna be deported.

And I guess Forest is right, time to deport everyone. Even the animals. The plants can stay, though, since they don't have non-white blood.

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[Atlas]

It's just obvious that before any real discussion on what is to be done on illegal immigrants is discussed, we must first stop the source. While I don't really think the wall is going to fix all that, Trump is actually right on this part. Much stricter enforcement of existing policies, whether they are moral or not, would go a long way towards reaching some conclusion here.

Amnesty, or "make them all citizens" as Forest puts it, then becomes an actually viable option instead of just kicking the can down the road. Heck, even just going all Eisenhower/Obama on them from there should do it.

But above all else, the problem's progress needs to be halted.

[Psycho]

I'll just copypaste something from someone who talked about the matter and surely says it better than I would myself.

"If you're referring to amnesty, that sets a terrible, terrible precedent. To grant amnesty would send this message to our citizens and people worldwide: "If you commit a crime here and commit it long enough, you'll be rewarded for it."
If you're referring to expedited citizenship as they're already in the country, it's the same deal. The domino effect would be unreal. If a nation's physical borders don't have to be regarded, then why its legal boundaries? This'd be like a parent catching their child with his/her hand in the cookie jar, then giving them the cookie jar instead of sending them to their room.

Not to mention there are people who've waited for years upon years to legally enter this country, and many are still waiting. Amnesty would be the biggest middle finger you could throw in their faces. It'd be chastising them for using legals means when criminality was a justifiable choice.
If we'd remained strong on enforcing our laws, misinformation and discrimination on this scale would be a non-issue. But we didn't. So I'm afraid it won't be a sing-along by the campfire for everybody. Some folks will have to withstand a bit of heat until the undesirables are smoked out.
Half-measures are like a Band-Aid for a broken bone. They're why we're in this mess and I'm afraid they won't get us out of it."

Basically, coming to the US illegally consists of a crime they themselves understood very well, so a punishment is in order in the shape of deportation, as the alternative is just discreditting the law system far more than it already is among a myriad of other unforeseen consequences.

[Flash]

Any nation has the right to and should enforce its borders. I'm with you on that. Economic migration has to occur through the legal system. Interestingly Obama has deported 2.5 million illegals over his two terms. It should also be noted that net illegal immigration reversed under his administration. The best way to fix the issue is to crack down on companies who hire, exploit, incentive illegals. Biggest area is in agriculture in the southwest. The problem with Trump and wanting to deport people is two fold. First he campaigned on it being done immediately. That's just flat out impossible. Well at least while upholding rule of law and not become an autocratic state. That level of deportation in say a year is a logistical nightmare. Everyone deportation is required to have a court case if I remember right. Well why don't we get rid of that? Because the system would be too easy to abuse. Deportation must be done lawfully and in accordance with our constitutional protections and redress under law. This sidesteps the whole anchor babies and the emotional angle of ripping a family apart. Practically speaking there are a lot of kids born here who, if there parents are deported and they stay become wards of the state. That's expensive. Plus shitty. There will be no doing away with birthright citizenship either, its too important equality and democracy. Otherwise you would have political machinations over who can actually vote. Both parties would try and game the system more than it currently is.

Secondly Trump made plenty of racist statements and did not discourage such from his supporters either. That is matter of public record. That does not lend itself to unbiased motives nor to lawful conduct in regards to how this would be conducted. We cannot have "oh you look kinda Hispanic, therefore you're illegal and out you go". We cannot have a "purge", even if non violent.

Expense wise, deportation is very expensive, as is having illegals. Full integration and a path to citizenship is cheaper. (Not necessarily advocating for this mind you. It just might be most practical).

Conclusion. It's complicated and Trump has promised an easy solution. it won't work.

H1B does need to end though. I agree with Trump on that.

[Cyris]

It's complicated and Trump has promised an easy solution. it won't work.

This. Times like a million. Trump offered "down to earth, easy to explain, black and white solutions" to problems that simply cannot be solved in such ways.

They feel good, they sound good, they make good sound bites. They just aren't going to work in the really real world of shades of grey and teeming masses of humans with conflicting goals. In fact, we tend to get mad at people who tell us the truth; problems are complicated, compromise is the best path, and in the end no one will be truly happy.

See - bring back industrial jobs (never gonna happen), end the "war on coal" (coals time is past), stop the rising tide of crime (it isn't happening), immigrants stole your jobs (lol, no), uppity blacks need to be reigned in (seriously?) and so on.

[Gorbles]

I've seen far more violence than that, maybe you're just not looking in the right places?

Also, Trump has just committed to deporting between 2 and 3 million people. So, uh, I'd say concerns about the existence of minorities within the US is a legitimate concern. You might not think it is, but other people have the right to disagree.

Definitely, I've since heard of violence and intimidation from both sides.

Trump has stated multiple times he wants to deport illegal immigrants. Nothing inherently racist about wanting to enforce borders. The fact that most of the USA's illegal immigrants are non-white is inconvenient though, because now wanting to legally enforce your borders means instant racism apparently.

The illegal immigrants his hotel chain runs on, and the definition of which can (and is) twisted at the state level to include racist screeds? It's not a clear answer, it's not a clear policy. It's populist rhetoric. Immigration is a complex issue that isn't solved by blanket-deporting several million people.

How much do you know about the US immigration process? About what qualifies you as an "illegal" immigrant regardless of your status and / or participation in the legal process of emigrating to the US? It's not that deporting people is automatically racist. It's that targeting people based on their race is the definition of racism. A more nuanced approach is needed, but you need to be open to that nuance.

It's like here in the UK when the Tories run on a platform of "controlling immigration". We already control immigration. We have controlled immigration. What the Tories actually want is the ability to further limit immigration to the point of closing it entirely for racial and cultural demographics of their own choosing. Which yes, against, is discriminatory. What the platform, or the President-Elect actually says, is not actually what will happen in practise. Unless people have suddenly started trusting politicians, now.

You don't "fix" immigration that easily. As others in this thread have also said!