So how about updating those laws? For example, an H1B who is fired has to leave the country by next day. This has always been ridiculous because: impossible. It wasn't enforced, so people could get new jobs or prepare properly for leaving.
I also hear from people who have gone through the green card process as adults that it is actually not possible to go through that process while remaining legal.
The craziness that is US immigration law (and pretty much anything having to do with damn foreigners) was only kept at bay by discretion, which is now removed.
Side note, looking from the other side of the Atlantic.
I find it crazy that in US you can have 95-page law-like document (in a tiny-font!) produced by executive branch. [1] Especially if a different administration can easily cancel it.
Yes. From the directive that's being talked about:
"all existing conflicting directives, memoranda, or field guidance regarding the enforcement of our immigration laws and priorities for removal are hereby immediately rescinded"
To me, what you referred to is exactly one of those "conflicting directives" that has now been rescinded, but I most certainly could be completely wrong about that.
I don't remember the details, but the whole thing is a multi-step process and there were gaps between the steps where you would be illegal, technically. AFAIK, everybody involved knew it was a bug in the system and therefore ignored those technicalities.
In reading this, I see that there will no longer be any groups that are allowed to remain in the US based on prosecutor discretion (eg: Dreamers, kids/babies who were raised here will be deported), 10,000 more officers will be hired, and they plan to deputize more local police departments to deport people without Customs & Border Protection involvement.
About the only major screwup here for effective mass deportations is the Trump administration is hiring too few people to round up these people. Back in the 1940s when we were rounding up Japanese to send to concentration camps, it took way more manpower to effectively round up that population to send them to squalid, disease filled camps we sent them to, and there weren't 6 million to be rounded up either.
Hopefully this will get more Americans politically active at the very least, as when the food is rotting in the fields due to a lack of farm hands, that is when we will see something similar to what is happening with Obamacare and Republican voters right now.
> Hopefully this will get more Americans politically active at the very least
FWIW, many of us became politically active for the first time in our lives specifically because of the candidacy of DJT and the promises he made to deal with this issue.
A couple questions for HN, that I've yet to see answered without appeal to emotion:
1. By what moral principle do noncitizens have the right to reside in a sovereign country?
2. What is so morally outrageous about a sovereign country choosing to reduce its non-citizen : citizen ratio?
USG is not founded on moral principles. All moral principles were so far overriden by expediency. So the question 1. seems to me beside the point.
Rape, torture, murder, all justifiable in the hands of your government at some point in the name of expediency, with no remorse or reparations provided.
2. All you need to do is watch the implementation carefully. You'll find reasons for outrage soon enough.
There are many answers to this question, that have been rehashed elsewhere. Everything from citizens having more vested interest (skin in the game) in the future of their lands than noncitizens, to the protection of shared cultural heritage, to social cohesion borne of cultural integration and higher-trust societies, etc.
But I'm genuinely interested in answers to my questions devoid of appeal to emotion, not deflection to other questions.
> Everything from citizens having more vested interest (skin in the game) in the future of their lands than noncitizens
An illegal immigrant from a poor country sells everything, and by a stroke of luck is successful in coming to the US. Then they spend some time there (say 15 years).
Surely they have more to lose than a legal qualified immigrant (now a citizen) that spent some 8 years jumping through the hoops? The qualified immigrant could just pick a country at random and have reasonable chance of starting over, while the minimum wage illegal can't do the same (and so has to hope the country doesn't crap itself).
>protection of shared cultural heritage
How much cultural heritage does a white protestant factory worker share with an illegal Chinese immigrant?
Is it more or less than they share with legal Chinese programmer who had recently been granted a citizenship?
The Government is elected by the people, who have specific rights under the Consitution. Once you start letting other cultures, many of whom are hostile to US Culture walk freely across the border, the country won't last very long. You're seeing it play out in Germany, Sweden and other places where mass migrations has disrupted cultures and created pockets of lawlessness because the people have no affinity for their new governments. You might think they would be the most grateful people on earth, but that naive perspective assumes they were all really 'refugees' and that they all can simply forget their old cultures as soon as they cross the border.
>You're seeing it play out in Germany, Sweden and other places where mass migrations has disrupted cultures and created pockets of lawlessness because the people have no affinity for their new governments.
Next you are going to tell me there are no-go zones in European cities, right?
By US Culture my simple definition is the respect of the current laws of the US. The left doesn't respect some laws like immigration, so it's quite logical that they are for the mass influx of others who don't respect them either. That's how cultures change, quickly.
Not sure on "no-go zones", but did you see some jouralists got assaulted [0] when they went to investigate the crazy claims of violent muslim immigrants in Sweden?
>By US Culture my simple definition is the respect of the current laws of the US. The left doesn't respect some laws like immigration, so it's quite logical that they are for the mass influx of others who don't respect them either. That's how cultures change, quickly.
I doubt that the "left doesn't respect some laws like immigration". (I doubt that there even exists such a group as "the left" but that's for another discussion)
There are only people who don't come in contact with illegals very often, people who come into contact with them but don't know about their status, and then the people who employ them while knowing their status (and it would make sense to solve the issue there). After all, who would come to the US illegally when no one would give them a job?
>jouralists got assaulted
Yes, I've seen that clip. It still doesn't indicate a wider long-term issue.
2. The outrage is about the how, not the if. The easiest solution would be to simply nationalize everyone within its borders. Every other distinction falls foul of my sibling's response to your question #1.
What "sovereign country" do you think you're talking about here? Are you a direct descendant of pre-Columbian indigenous inhabitants of the North American landmass?
Because if not, then you are not a citizen of a sovereign country, you are an European illegal alien, trespassing on land to which you have no legal claim of ownership or occupation, let alone sovereignty.
Come back when you have repatriated yourself to your proper country.
...when the food is rotting in the fields due to a lack of farm hands, that is when we will see something similar to what is happening with Obamacare and Republican voters right now.
Wait, I'm confused.
I thought there wasn't enough work for everyone, and we needed Basic Income/welfare/etc so that people wouldn't starve. I didn't realize the situation changed, and now we have a shortage of labor and desperately need people to do work or else people will starve.
Now that the situation has reversed, I guess we should end the welfare state and just redirect unemployed/etc people into these agricultural jobs?
They are cheap labor everywhere, the backbone of this country. When Latinos went on strike (illegal and legal) in Wisconsin to send a message to Walker every restaurant in Madison was shutdown and the farmers were panicking because nobody was there to milk the cows, and that's very bad for the cows.
The ideal result here would probably be to streamline the path to citizenship, make it significantly cheaper, and get these people paying taxes as soon as possible.
For anyone looking into the claim "When Latinos went on strike (illegal and legal) in Wisconsin to send a message to Walker every restaurant in Madison was shutdown", it appears to be a reference to "Day Without Latinos" last year in Madison on Thursday, February 18 (not to be confused with similar events this year).
Pretty much, most of the workers rights gains made by Cesar Chavez have been rolled back, hence why workers are forced to shit in the fields (due to a lack of places to do the needful), thus causing e coli and other outbreaks. Same thing has happened in the meat packing industry, worker protections have been gutted, and conditions there are similar to those described in The Jungle, a book which helped cause that industry to unionize and fight for safe & sanitary working conditions.
Up in Canada, they straight up import workers for low end jobs, hence why at Tim Hortons up north, you will rarely if ever see a native Canadian, its nearly entirely Asians, cause they are there on worker visas. The Canadian Govt has decided their workforce should be doing something better than making coffee or baking donuts, which isn't the worst idea when properly implemented.
If I'm reading this correctly, some memos allowing certain groups to remain in the US based on prosecutorial discretion - in particular, the policy of allowing those who came to the country as children to remain - are explicitly left standing.
> With the exception of the June 15, 2012, memorandum entitled "Exercising Prosecutorial Discretion with Respect to Individuals Who Came to the United States as Children," and the November 20, 2014 memorandum entitled "Exercising Prosecutorial Discretion with Respect to Individuals Who Came to the United States as Children and with Respect to Certain Individuals Who Are the Parents of U.S. Citizens or Permanent Residents," all existing conflicting directives, memoranda, or field guidance regarding the enforcement ofour immigration laws and priorities for removal are hereby immediately rescinded.
> Department personnel should prioritize removable aliens who: ... (2) have been charged with any criminal offense that has not been resolved; ... (7) in the judgment of an immigration officer, otheiwise pose a risk to public safety or national security.
So, if they accuse you wrongfully, or are just having a bad hair day, you're out.
Having the opportunity for arbitrary abuse of power is a magnet for every nobody longing to be somebody. The Department of Humiliation Services will be home to all sorts of creeps.
Does that mean that a legal resident can be removed merely for being charged with a crime, or does it only apply to illegal residents (who can legally be removed regardless).
It does state `removable aliens`, which I would assume would not include a legal resident or nonresident alien. I initially read it as applying to all aliens, regardless of status.
IANAL, but this part seems incredibly open-ended - does anyone know if this is standard? Namely, I'm referring to parts 2, 3, 5, and 6, of which 2 and 3 seem to contradict the idea of "innocent until proven guilty", though I don't know how that applies to non-citizens, and 5 and 6 which seem extremely open to interpretation.
> Additionally, regardless of the basis of removability, Department personnel should prioritize removable aliens who: (I) have been convicted of any criminal offense; (2) have been charged with any criminal offense that has not been resolved; (3) have committed acts which constitute a chargeable criminal offense; ( 4) have engaged in fraud or willful misrepresentation in connection with any official matter before a governmental agency; (5) have abused any program related to receipt of public benefits; (6) are subject to a final order of removal but have not complied with their legal obligation to depart the United States; or (7) in the judgment of an immigration officer, otherwise pose a risk to public safety or national security.
Good luck identifying and transporting 10-20 million people with due process while simultaneously not destroying the businesses that employ them, accidentally deporting citizens, and doing it outside the vision of cameras and youtube who will record thousands of frightened people behind razor wire or packed like sardines in railroad cars. 5-10% of the working population in this country are likely illegals generally working jobs no one else wants for low (and often illegal) pay. Who is going to build a 2000mi wall in Texas in the summer for minimum wage? Certainly no one reading HN.
There is no reason we can't institute work visas like other countries do. Regulate it, have it be based on need and expand it to all applicable countries, not just neighbors.
But maybe if we deport all those people, living conditions will finally get so bad that the actual citizens will enforce their constitutional rights and lead a revolution.
I suspect illegal immigration populations will not go down much -- however -- open employers of illegal immigrants (farms, cleaning companies, construction companies) will simply further abuse illegal immigrants and threaten them with deportation for the slightest of slights.
and potentially opening up ways to force people into slavery. For all the rounding-up, shouldn't there be punishments for people who employ undocumented immigrants?
Totally agree. A sincere effort to stop illegal immigration would include penalties for the employers as well. Which is why the current EO seems disingenuous and more apt to intimidate+oppress rather than actually address all the root causes of illegal immigration.
Obama deported a lot of people and Trump is further expanding the deportations. The problem here is that we need immigration reform, not that we need to stop deporting people who have over stayed visas etc...
Immigrants are self selecting people who want to have a better life. Why the US cannot figure out how to streamline legal immigration has been a failure of the US government for many years. Instead of 10k more officers to implement deportations, a better use of money would have been to use those people to improve/speed up the immigration process.
> Immigrants are self selecting people who want to have a better life.
Being a developer/scientist/entrepreneur whose primary exposure to immigrants is of high-IQ, high-agency, personable people similar to ourselves, it's easy to allow anecdote to obscure the facts.
The facts are that immigrants - both legal and illegal - are far more likely than natives to parasitize the social services of their host country:
The interesting question is not whether poor people use more welfare than rich people but whether poor immigrants are more likely to use more welfare than poor natives. Our research found that poor immigrants are less likely to use welfare than poor natives. The CIS report isn’t very useful because it doesn’t correct for this.
That would be an interesting question if we were answering the purely academic question of "who's a better human being, immigrants or natives?"
I fully agree that on average, the American underclass is terrible and most immigrants are better people. As evidence of this, witness all the left wing types who seem to believe that the American underclass would rather sit around on welfare than do the work that illegal immigrants will no longer be doing.
But that's not the question we're asking. The question we're asking is whether a new immigrant - a person we have the choice of accepting or rejecting - will be a benefit to society or a parasite upon it? Many natives suck, but we're stuck with them. Does that mean we are forever obligated to import more people who suck only slightly less?
(For the record, I think the best solution is to end the welfare state and open our borders. I'm just arguing with bad reasoning.)
>As evidence of this, witness all the left wing types who seem to believe that the American underclass would rather sit around on welfare than do the work that illegal immigrants will no longer be doing.
Also if America were actually such a terrible place for the underclass (because racism, etc) wouldn't the rational left-wing response be to try to get the underclass to emigrate somewhere where they might get "fair" treatment?
> witness all the left wing types who seem to believe that the American underclass would rather sit around on welfare than do the work that illegal immigrants will no longer be doing.
What? Isn't the "welfare queen" a right-wing talking point?
It's a common left wing talking point too: we need to import more Mexicans because "they do jobs that Americans just won't do". See the comment just above mine, for instance. This talking point is correct and I can back it up with Census and BLS stats if you like.
Admittedly, it's only right wingers who bring that talking point up when discussing welfare.
> Why the US cannot figure out how to streamline legal immigration has been a failure of the US government for many years
I hate Trump's immigration policies but he repeatedly promised to streamline the immigration process on the campaign trail (and he used that very word, "streamline", every time, as if to drill it in people's heads). When he first brought up "extreme vetting", he also said he wants to make the process much quicker, and doesn't want people waiting years to get a visa.
This fits the "make a bold first offer, then tone it down before the execution" interpretation of Trump that some people find convincing.
I guess his plan is to be harsher in his vetting in some areas (so, turn away a whole population if even 3% of them could be bad apples) to allow him to be much more lenient in other areas.
> I hate Trump's immigration policies but he repeatedly promised to streamline the immigration process on the campaign trail
Everyone promises that. Sometimes, people even present coherent policies (Trump has not) which make that promise concrete. Those concrete policies don't tend to do much (which is the fault of the proposer) to actually streamline the process, or they tend not to get passed (which may be the fault of other legislative actors).
Promising generalities is very far from delivering an actual actionable plan.
> Why the US cannot figure out how to streamline legal immigration has been a failure of the US government for many years.
The issue is not that the US cannot figure out how to.
The issue is that the US (that is, a sufficient set of those people in positions to make decisions on immigration law) do not want to improve the situation with legal immigration.
"Additionally, regardless of the basis of removability, Department personnel should
prioritize removable aliens who: [...] or (7) in the judgment of an
immigration officer, otherwise pose a risk to public safety or national security."
"Public safety" is surely too important to be left to the judgment of an individual. Why not create a Committee of Public Safety (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_of_Public_Safety) to make these determinations? What could possibly go wrong?
Lots of speculation about food prices etc. America has enough food to feed the world; Iowa grows enough to feed 2 United States. We'll not suffer.
That said, if we're going to have a roundup I hope it targets the biggest illegal alien demographic - middle European males overstaying their school visa. Just to be fair, you know, the white males that are the bulk of the problem should not be overlooked.
Right. That corn is feedstock for making food/ethanol. It's not corn as you would eat.
Saying that Iowa covers the food problem is a little like saying that we've got transportation covered because there are railroads that move tons of stuff.
Student visas have a special dispensation - they're not listed as 'unlawful presence' until the student files for a change in status. This helps make the immigration issue appear to be mostly laborers.
For someone with Trump's wealth, a doubling of all food prices won't mean much, but for the rest of the country that's going to have an enormous economic impact.
I get that these farm workers are technically breaking the law, but they're laws that have been knowingly not enforced for decades.
I honestly think the economic shock of this is going to cause another recession.
I think you're ignoring the effect this will have on lower class wages. Millions of people will replace those jobs taken by illegal immigrants, most of whom were working below minimum wage. That will tighten the labor pool of lower class jobs, and may lead to wage increases for the poorest in the country.
By the same logic you may try to destroy some capital (machines in factories, etc.). That would also place increased demand on labor.
The point is that reduction of capital or labor (in this case) does not cause increase in prosperity overall.
It does not add anything to the economy, it just takes away.
Even in recession, if you're getting poorer, it does not make sense to create pressures for general price increases by taking away stuff or people from the economy. It just makes your slide into poverty faster.
I believe a lot of people could still benefit from reading about Broken Window fallacy, etc. It is still relevant 167 years later. Hint, it applies to labor too.
You can really not, because economy is a complex system where you can never control other factors.
At times, you may get actual reduction in some metric (say GDP), at others you may still get an increase in response to some major intervention into economy, because there are other inseparable overriding factors (like being in the middle of some major advance in technology, or business practices - but you can never know, control for that).
You can only reason apriori about economic forces/interactions.
So how about updating those laws? For example, an H1B who is fired has to leave the country by next day. This has always been ridiculous because: impossible. It wasn't enforced, so people could get new jobs or prepare properly for leaving.
I also hear from people who have gone through the green card process as adults that it is actually not possible to go through that process while remaining legal.
The craziness that is US immigration law (and pretty much anything having to do with damn foreigners) was only kept at bay by discretion, which is now removed.
Did I already say "Oh my god"?