“illegal immigrants” (whatever that’s supposed to mean)
Attempting to violate constitutional law through executive order is vile, and all law enforcement should be in uniform and identifiable (and held to higher standards than non-law enforcement) so I am completely against everything Trump is doing, but let’s not pretend illegal immigration isn’t a thing as a knee jerk in the other direction.
Illegal immigration is crossing the border without legally passing through customs to establish a legal right to be in that country, or overstaying your legal right to be there (Visa). People who are in a country illegally are rightfully subject to deportation back to wherever they are citizens. Pretending otherwise just helps more moderate people buy into the propaganda and let’s the ratchet work more easily.
We are all rightly complaining about Trump violating the law, so how is it also not a problem for people to violate immigration law? This is the problem I have that leaves me stuck in the middle.
Sanctuary cities that flaunt immigration law are, while not just as bad, still bad. When Trump (lies) and says he only wants to target people here illegally who commit crimes, and a sanctuary city prevents law enforcement cooperation with ICE, that just adds to the narrative of felon illegal immigrants and then you have ICE going after those people at home and grabbing everyone around them as by catch. This only helps the Trump.
how is it also not a problem for people to violate immigration law
Because they don’t give a flying fuck about whether the people they’re disappearing have violated any laws or not.
They’ve disappeared citizens, they’ve disappeared people following the legal process to immigrate, without letting them finish, they’ve disappeared tourists who didn’t even have any intention to immigrate.
They’re fascists. They don’t care about the law. It’s just an excuse to do what they want. Marketing to attract gullible racist idiots to their cause.
But, even if that wasn’t enough, even if you don’t care about their real motives, even if you don’t care whether the law is good or not or how it’s applied, as I said in my previous answer they’re designing their new laws in such a way that it’s impossible for anyone not to violate them.
Even if you were to always carry your parents’ and grandparents’ birth certificates on you, what about your great grandparents?
Everyone in the USA is an immigrant or a descendant of immigrants! (Sure, some got there long enough ago that they were probably the first to arrive and can therefore be called natives, but they’re the wrong colour, so they don’t matter and will be disappeared anyway.)
Ironically, the only people who’ll be able to prove they’re in the country legally (not that it matters, since, as I said, the fascists don’t care) will be those with a green card, properly stamped foreign passport, or similar documents.
Making laws impossible to follow and then applying them arbitrarily to achieve their own goals and not the laws’ has been standard fascist fare since fascism was invented (and, before that, standard autocratic authoritarian fare).
Watching fascists do their thing and pointing at the law and saying that their victims deserved it or should have known better is disingenuous at best, almost certainly malicious, and definitely monstrous.
And I’ll finish with this:
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles.
From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips.
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
Now, I’m not an American, I don’t care about American nationalism or pride, but this is what America, the USA, was supposed to be, what it was supposed to mean. A nation of immigrants, welcoming liberty seeking refugees to her shores. A beacon of freedom and democracy to which everyone could aspire.
Of course, it never really was that. But it was a nice thought.
Something is clear, though; anyone justifying the current government’s actions in the name of defending America, or American ideals or culture is either extremely ignorant or an hypocrite. And they’re most definitely un-American.
And I’ll finish with this
Ah, no, wait, sorry, there’s also this:
This is the problem I have that leaves me stuck in the middle.
There’s no middle ground with fascists.
You’re either actively against them, or you’re part of the problem.
Maybe you’re one of them, or just a useful hateful racist idiot aiding and abetting them while you wait for your turn to be disappeared for not being fascist enough, but if you’re not fighting against them you’re contributing to their crimes against humanity.
And if you’re just a useful idiot, bear this in mind:
You won’t appease them. They won’t stop. They won’t thank you. They won’t hesitate to treat you like any other undesirable (including many who believed themselves to be part of their group). You’ll end up like any other “illegal immigrant” when your turn comes.
And if they’re not stopped, rest assured, it will come.
You’re either actively against them, or you’re part of the problem.
I’ll take this whole section generously as a nebulous “you” and not you directly calling me either “one of them or a useful hateful racist”.
Two things can both be wrong, it’s not a zero sum game between open borders and fascist police states. Treating it as such caused the Democrats to lose some amount of support base, and did contribute to Trump getting reelected. The increase in Trump support from Hispanics and other immigrant groups was partially from resentment with treating illegal immigration as equivalent to legal immigration.
Yes, the poem on the Statue of Liberty is wonderful, and should still apply as the US is and should remain a nation of immigrants. That is not the same as having open borders for anyone and everyone, and it never has been.
When one of those two things is fascism, the other one is irrelevant.
The difference in magnitude between how wrong one objectively is and the other might be is so cosmically vast, that any comparison is moot.
You either stop fascism, by any means necessary, or you (and everyone else) suffers the consequences.
Again, there is no possible middle ground.
There is no possible “yes, but…”.
There are no other priorities.
There’s no possible bargaining, rationalisation, justification, or argument.
Any attempt at such is either irrational or malicious, or most probably both.
When faced with an existential threat, you either do everything in your power to stop it, or you suffer its consequences, and allow everyone else to suffer them.
If you are not actively opposing fascism, you are enabling it.
You are a necessary accomplice and collaborator.
You are effectively indistinguishable from any other fascist, and equally responsible for any harm they cause.
Accept your responsibility and, if you don’t like it, stop trying to justify yourself and start doing something about it.
Attempting to violate constitutional law through executive order is vile, and all law enforcement should be in uniform and identifiable (and held to higher standards than non-law enforcement) so I am completely against everything Trump is doing, but let’s not pretend illegal immigration isn’t a thing as a knee jerk in the other direction.
Illegal immigration is crossing the border without legally passing through customs to establish a legal right to be in that country, or overstaying your legal right to be there (Visa). People who are in a country illegally are rightfully subject to deportation back to wherever they are citizens. Pretending otherwise just helps more moderate people buy into the propaganda and let’s the ratchet work more easily.
We are all rightly complaining about Trump violating the law, so how is it also not a problem for people to violate immigration law? This is the problem I have that leaves me stuck in the middle.
Sanctuary cities that flaunt immigration law are, while not just as bad, still bad. When Trump (lies) and says he only wants to target people here illegally who commit crimes, and a sanctuary city prevents law enforcement cooperation with ICE, that just adds to the narrative of felon illegal immigrants and then you have ICE going after those people at home and grabbing everyone around them as by catch. This only helps the Trump.
Because they don’t give a flying fuck about whether the people they’re disappearing have violated any laws or not.
They’ve disappeared citizens, they’ve disappeared people following the legal process to immigrate, without letting them finish, they’ve disappeared tourists who didn’t even have any intention to immigrate.
They’re fascists. They don’t care about the law. It’s just an excuse to do what they want. Marketing to attract gullible racist idiots to their cause.
But, even if that wasn’t enough, even if you don’t care about their real motives, even if you don’t care whether the law is good or not or how it’s applied, as I said in my previous answer they’re designing their new laws in such a way that it’s impossible for anyone not to violate them.
Even if you were to always carry your parents’ and grandparents’ birth certificates on you, what about your great grandparents?
Everyone in the USA is an immigrant or a descendant of immigrants! (Sure, some got there long enough ago that they were probably the first to arrive and can therefore be called natives, but they’re the wrong colour, so they don’t matter and will be disappeared anyway.)
Ironically, the only people who’ll be able to prove they’re in the country legally (not that it matters, since, as I said, the fascists don’t care) will be those with a green card, properly stamped foreign passport, or similar documents.
Making laws impossible to follow and then applying them arbitrarily to achieve their own goals and not the laws’ has been standard fascist fare since fascism was invented (and, before that, standard autocratic authoritarian fare).
Watching fascists do their thing and pointing at the law and saying that their victims deserved it or should have known better is disingenuous at best, almost certainly malicious, and definitely monstrous.
And I’ll finish with this:
Now, I’m not an American, I don’t care about American nationalism or pride, but this is what America, the USA, was supposed to be, what it was supposed to mean. A nation of immigrants, welcoming liberty seeking refugees to her shores. A beacon of freedom and democracy to which everyone could aspire.
Of course, it never really was that. But it was a nice thought.
Something is clear, though; anyone justifying the current government’s actions in the name of defending America, or American ideals or culture is either extremely ignorant or an hypocrite. And they’re most definitely un-American.
Ah, no, wait, sorry, there’s also this:
There’s no middle ground with fascists.
You’re either actively against them, or you’re part of the problem.
Maybe you’re one of them, or just a useful hateful racist idiot aiding and abetting them while you wait for your turn to be disappeared for not being fascist enough, but if you’re not fighting against them you’re contributing to their crimes against humanity.
And if you’re just a useful idiot, bear this in mind:
You won’t appease them. They won’t stop. They won’t thank you. They won’t hesitate to treat you like any other undesirable (including many who believed themselves to be part of their group). You’ll end up like any other “illegal immigrant” when your turn comes.
And if they’re not stopped, rest assured, it will come.
I’ll take this whole section generously as a nebulous “you” and not you directly calling me either “one of them or a useful hateful racist”.
Two things can both be wrong, it’s not a zero sum game between open borders and fascist police states. Treating it as such caused the Democrats to lose some amount of support base, and did contribute to Trump getting reelected. The increase in Trump support from Hispanics and other immigrant groups was partially from resentment with treating illegal immigration as equivalent to legal immigration.
Yes, the poem on the Statue of Liberty is wonderful, and should still apply as the US is and should remain a nation of immigrants. That is not the same as having open borders for anyone and everyone, and it never has been.
When one of those two things is fascism, the other one is irrelevant.
The difference in magnitude between how wrong one objectively is and the other might be is so cosmically vast, that any comparison is moot.
You either stop fascism, by any means necessary, or you (and everyone else) suffers the consequences.
Again, there is no possible middle ground.
There is no possible “yes, but…”.
There are no other priorities.
There’s no possible bargaining, rationalisation, justification, or argument.
Any attempt at such is either irrational or malicious, or most probably both.
When faced with an existential threat, you either do everything in your power to stop it, or you suffer its consequences, and allow everyone else to suffer them.
If you are not actively opposing fascism, you are enabling it.
You are a necessary accomplice and collaborator.
You are effectively indistinguishable from any other fascist, and equally responsible for any harm they cause.
Accept your responsibility and, if you don’t like it, stop trying to justify yourself and start doing something about it.