US Politics Mega-thread - Page 5015

On June 09 2025 16:42 Jankisa wrote:
I'm on the left, I'm not from the USA and I would have no problem with any government dealing with people in the country illegally if it was done in the correct way as prescribed by the laws of the country in question.

However, what is and has been happening in the US is quite unique.

We have a country that has had, for many decades a very fast and loose approach to illegal immigration, there is a whole shadow economy (billions of taxes paid by these people) of millions upon millions of people who come to the US for work, there is not enough (deliberately) time for the courts to process them and there are huge waiting lists. These people came to the US with this in mind, they know this is how it works for decades and they came as low paid labor, low paid exactly because of their illegal status.

Now you have a "movement" based on racism, that should be very clear to everyone, like any other right wing movement it needs an enemy and "the illegals" have been a nice little scapegoat for Republicans for all of these decades. Now it's escalating and people who welcome these folks, people who have been friends and neighbors with them for, again, decades are resisting these people who tried doing everything right, brought money into the economy and in the case of California greatly contributed to it being one of the most prosperous and biggest economies in the world are being whisked away by masked federal agents, often without any due process.

That is why people are rightfully angry, there was a social contract for decades that everyone understood and it's changing, it's OK for it to change if the country voted for that, but the way that it's being done is fucked up and people are angry.

People who do violence, burn cars and riot are, as always, completely detrimental to this and fuck them, no violence and damage to property is justified when there are peaceful means of protest available.

People who pretend like poor Republicans did everything to curb illegal immigration and evil Biden did open borders are, as usual, completely full of shit.

Republicans voted down a law supported by the president and the opposition party because their god king said they should do so so he has a political talking point for elections, so every single right wing sympathizer here who's pretending like this is all a left side problem is, as usual, completely hypocritical and full of shit.

The biggest victims are, of course, the people who came to your country, went through the actual process and didn't complete it in time so they get picked up by these vile goons while attending the process, of course, the black holes of empathy that are defending ICE here don't give a fuck because their are either brainwashed, too cynical or just straight up racist.

On June 09 2025 22:10 Introvert wrote:


I admit i find much if what you post absurdly histrionic but I would like to commend this post in particular, or at least the first few paragraphs, for it's honesty and for its condemnation of violence. The thing is, lots of people would agree with the thrust of your argument! At least wrt letting people stay. Until recently that was the majority polling position. Part of what Biden's border crisis and its effects did was change public opinion to be massively more in favor of internal enforcement. And make no mistake, from the very first week where Biden revoked Remain in Mexico, to the last year when he began using the CBP One app to "pre-parole" thousands of border crossers, Biden was implementing bad policy with disastrous consequences. In many cases these choices (such as the mass paroling) was using a statute in way it was never meant to be used. And of course the idea that it wasn't his fault is also belied by the fact that Trump returned to office and the crisis disappeared!

But that aside, many, though never all, were ok with the current arrangement. but the flood during the last four years was in itself a violation of that implicit agreement. And it's not just white racist Republicans, some of the areas that swung the hardest towards Trump were Latino immigrant communities, especially along the Texas border. So while I find much of what you wrote at least arguable I would say your analysis of people's motivations to be underdeveloped.

On June 09 2025 22:10 Introvert wrote:


I admit i find much if what you post absurdly histrionic but I would like to commend this post in particular, or at least the first few paragraphs, for it's honesty and for its condemnation of violence. The thing is, lots of people would agree with the thrust of your argument! At least wrt letting people stay. Until recently that was the majority polling position. Part of what Biden's border crisis and its effects did was change public opinion to be massively more in favor of internal enforcement. And make no mistake, from the very first week where Biden revoked Remain in Mexico, to the last year when he began using the CBP One app to "pre-parole" thousands of border crossers, Biden was implementing bad policy with disastrous consequences. In many cases these choices (such as the mass paroling) was using a statute in way it was never meant to be used. And of course the idea that it wasn't his fault is also belied by the fact that Trump returned to office and the crisis disappeared!

But that aside, many, though never all, were ok with the current arrangement. but the flood during the last four years was in itself a violation of that implicit agreement. And it's not just white racist Republicans, some of the areas that swung the hardest towards Trump were Latino immigrant communities, especially along the Texas border. So while I find much of what you wrote at least arguable I would say your analysis of people's motivations to be underdeveloped.

On June 09 2025 22:59 Jankisa wrote:


I would like to know, since you are obviously very much in the weeds on this conversation how does this all interact with the voting down of a bipartisan immigration bill in 2023?

I'm not an expert but from a cursory look at this article:

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-collapse-of-bipartisan-immigration-reform-a-guide-for-the-perplexed/

I can see that some of the things that you had a big issues with and mentioned such as the parole thing would be removed, it would, for all extents and purposes be the most strict immigration bill since Regan and it had full support of Democrats and Biden.

The person who torpedoed this bill was Trump. I also mentioned that in my initial comment but for some reason you skipped over it in order to attack Biden again.

I think everyone here would agree that Biden's immigration policy was an incredible own goal, but the fact is that someone who thinks and actually believes that "the flood" of immigration to the US is a crisis and one of the biggest problems for the country ever would not sabotage the bill that was created by both Republicans and Democrats in order to curb that.

For me, from outside looking in, deliberately stopping a bill that would prevent more people from getting in and then using cruel and highly questionable methods to "fix" this problem is incredibly problematic and fucked up.

On June 09 2025 22:59 Jankisa wrote:


I would like to know, since you are obviously very much in the weeds on this conversation how does this all interact with the voting down of a bipartisan immigration bill in 2023?

I'm not an expert but from a cursory look at this article:

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-collapse-of-bipartisan-immigration-reform-a-guide-for-the-perplexed/

I can see that some of the things that you had a big issues with and mentioned such as the parole thing would be removed, it would, for all extents and purposes be the most strict immigration bill since Regan and it had full support of Democrats and Biden.

The person who torpedoed this bill was Trump. I also mentioned that in my initial comment but for some reason you skipped over it in order to attack Biden again.

I think everyone here would agree that Biden's immigration policy was an incredible own goal, but the fact is that someone who thinks and actually believes that "the flood" of immigration to the US is a crisis and one of the biggest problems for the country ever would not sabotage the bill that was created by both Republicans and Democrats in order to curb that.

For me, from outside looking in, deliberately stopping a bill that would prevent more people from getting in and then using cruel and highly questionable methods to "fix" this problem is incredibly problematic and fucked up.

On June 09 2025 22:59 Jankisa wrote:


I would like to know, since you are obviously very much in the weeds on this conversation how does this all interact with the voting down of a bipartisan immigration bill in 2023?

I'm not an expert but from a cursory look at this article:

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-collapse-of-bipartisan-immigration-reform-a-guide-for-the-perplexed/

I can see that some of the things that you had a big issues with and mentioned such as the parole thing would be removed, it would, for all extents and purposes be the most strict immigration bill since Regan and it had full support of Democrats and Biden.

The person who torpedoed this bill was Trump. I also mentioned that in my initial comment but for some reason you skipped over it in order to attack Biden again.

I think everyone here would agree that Biden's immigration policy was an incredible own goal, but the fact is that someone who thinks and actually believes that "the flood" of immigration to the US is a crisis and one of the biggest problems for the country ever would not sabotage the bill that was created by both Republicans and Democrats in order to curb that.

For me, from outside looking in, deliberately stopping a bill that would prevent more people from getting in and then using cruel and highly questionable methods to "fix" this problem is incredibly problematic and fucked up.

On June 10 2025 10:08 Introvert wrote:


So from what I recall there were three big, closely related objections to the bill put forward...

1) Biden didn't need it. Under the laws as they existed Biden could have kept the border secure. His argument that Congress needed to give him more authority was a political pass-the-buck excuse. I think the state of the border pre and pos Biden make this argument at least facially credible.

2) It would have codified a worse state of affairs. That bill made a bunch of detrimental changes that would have codified a worse set of laws (including setting explicit targets for what counted as too many encounters in a certain time frame) that would have set a terrible precedent.

3) Biden was untrustworthy. He was already stretching and abusing the language of the relevant laws and there was great distrust of him for it, with the belief being that any deference given the president would be abused and even ignored.

Did Trump oppose it for political reasons? Sure. But the whole point of the bill was political, it was to pass off to Congress (and Republicans who would oppose it) the mistakes of the Biden administration. Recall they refused to call it a crisis for YEARS. They wouldn't even acknowledge what was happening! All that even while Biden's approval on the matter was tanking.

Finally, I will mention something briefly hinted to in the article. GOP voters are incredibly skeptical of Democrats and most other Republicans on the issue of borders and immigration. Reagan did make a deal on amnesty, but Congress (with Dem house) was supposed to follow up the amnesty part with tough border measures to make sure the problem would be solved. Congress, mainly because of Democrats, went back on that and never passed it. It's been reported, although I don't recall by who, that one of Reagan's biggest regrets was not getting the border security part done and letting it be split from amnesty. Ever since, even those Republican voters who favor a path to citizenship, have been very distrusting of anyone they suspect of being a squish. So therefore being a Republican in Congress who supports a bill without incredibly rigorous security measures and amnesty delayed until *after* the border is secure is taking a big risk. So it was always in thin ice, because the voters for these GOP senators were going to scrutinize them very carefully anyways.

On June 10 2025 10:08 Introvert wrote:


So from what I recall there were three big, closely related objections to the bill put forward...

1) Biden didn't need it. Under the laws as they existed Biden could have kept the border secure. His argument that Congress needed to give him more authority was a political pass-the-buck excuse. I think the state of the border pre and pos Biden make this argument at least facially credible.

2) It would have codified a worse state of affairs. That bill made a bunch of detrimental changes that would have codified a worse set of laws (including setting explicit targets for what counted as too many encounters in a certain time frame) that would have set a terrible precedent.

3) Biden was untrustworthy. He was already stretching and abusing the language of the relevant laws and there was great distrust of him for it, with the belief being that any deference given the president would be abused and even ignored.

Did Trump oppose it for political reasons? Sure. But the whole point of the bill was political, it was to pass off to Congress (and Republicans who would oppose it) the mistakes of the Biden administration. Recall they refused to call it a crisis for YEARS. They wouldn't even acknowledge what was happening! All that even while Biden's approval on the matter was tanking.

Finally, I will mention something briefly hinted to in the article. GOP voters are incredibly skeptical of Democrats and most other Republicans on the issue of borders and immigration. Reagan did make a deal on amnesty, but Congress (with Dem house) was supposed to follow up the amnesty part with tough border measures to make sure the problem would be solved. Congress, mainly because of Democrats, went back on that and never passed it. It's been reported, although I don't recall by who, that one of Reagan's biggest regrets was not getting the border security part done and letting it be split from amnesty. Ever since, even those Republican voters who favor a path to citizenship, have been very distrusting of anyone they suspect of being a squish. So therefore being a Republican in Congress who supports a bill without incredibly rigorous security measures and amnesty delayed until *after* the border is secure is taking a big risk. So it was always in thin ice, because the voters for these GOP senators were going to scrutinize them very carefully anyways.