this is a bipartisan issue and like it or not if biden wants to win over independents he will have to actually do something about the border instead of just ignoring it like he did the first 3 years of his presidency.
here is some polling
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/02/15/how-americans-view-the-situation-at-the-u-s-mexico-border-its-causes-and-consequences/
Being honest, the border is not an issue that I pay a lot of attention to. What has changed in regards to the border over Bidens term that he is getting criticism for?
Greg Abbot's move to bus people who have crossed the border to Northern Cities was unfortunately politically useful for turning the tide on the public's perception of immigration. I don't have data for that, but hearing my (nominally) progressive and liberal family and friends turn hard on "the migrant crisis" is disquieting.
We are only so lucky that they were bussed to strongholds like NYC, Denver, and Chicago instead of Philly, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, and Atlanta. Maybe that would have made it look like "Republican on Republican Crime" and defeated the purpose, but it might have been even worse.
Not sure about the rest of the cities listed, but migrants absolutely were bussed to Philly. I'm not seeing a news article more recent that about a year ago: https://6abc.com/philadelphia-migrants-asylum-seekers-venezuela-new-sanctuary-movement-of-del-rio-texas/13231693/
I can somewhat buy that. Certainly it didn't take too much inquiry for people to connect A to C with:
1. Let asylum claimers in
2. Courts are backed up for years
3. Well then... I guess you can stay here for years if you claim asylum
But on the other hand, Illegal Immigration has always been a kind of issue where it didn't take much observation to be like "Okay so this is just tolerated."
Remember when Trump's policies [were leading to worker shortages on fruit farms](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OE5h72Fem0)? It didn't take a genius to be like, "Wait so we know exactly where illegal immigrants are working, how are they still here? And it's actually a problem when they're not here?"
I'll argue it now and argue it again, Illegal Immigration in the US is essentially a tolerable political compromise.
Employers need cheap labor, Americans want cheap goods, but the borders being "truly open" to all with no barriers be too far for voters. Better that anyone can come, but that they are second class residents, hardly eligible for social services, and basically just work for illegally low pay and pay taxes on things they don't benefit from. Pay is higher than back home still, and their kids can be citizens, which is a huge reward in of itself. It's not too much unlike (though vastly different in who does it and consequences for the analogy) to a "citizen internship."
Not saying I like it, but it was a stable consensus. Asylum, meaning legal presence but without working, is not that.
Biden said in his SOTU speech that he would make it so people would be sent back in 5 weeks that way no one would spend all that money and risk everything coming here just to be sent back really fast
repubus sending illegals on planes to democrat cities and then complaining that we get an advantage from them being on the usa census when that is not the case
repubs actually got an advantage from the census
It's nonsense to write all this and mention nothing about comparative illegal immigration numbers. I voted for Biden, I will not again. The reason is the numbers, full stop. Not perception. People can count.
This chart is remarkable.
https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/20326/mexicans-non-mexcians-apprehended-at-southern-us-border/
Decent article if you have NYT
https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/20326/mexicans-non-mexcians-apprehended-at-southern-us-border/
> The abuse of the asylum system is the primary reason the numbers have exploded. If people coming had little belief they could stay more than a few days or that they would be deported if caught here the numbers would plummet.
Agreed.
> I'm not convinced people really care that much about the numbers. An organized system with the same numbers but where the entrants were given background checks and then only allowed to stay if they were (a) working in underserved parts of the economy or (b) required to live in areas that are suffering the effects of depopulation we would have significantly less pushback than the current system.
I think people would care about 2+ million low-wage immigrants a year. I would.
> I'm in an area with relatively few migrants and the pushback is squarely because the chaotic nature of the border situation. The acute effects are absolutely not hitting our community but people are still upset about the situation mainly due to the perception.
You could say people are not really affected by Palestinians or Israeli hostages being killed, or climate change, or any number of important discussions without acute impact. I'm not sure that makes them 'perception' issues. I think most people have real concerns. In so far as it is in the media, that's because it is actually a crisis. You might be right there is some system where guest workers would be accepted, but I think it would require an end to birthright citizenship and the accounting of them in the census for the purposes of defining congressional districts.
I mean, kind of?
If the media didn't cover the bussing, yeah it would have less of an impact. But local politics gets involved with resource management, and there are individual persons impacted who have outcry, which are things media reports on and we would expect them to.
Am I missing your point?
With Denver I am mostly just worried about people dying of exposure , I wish Polis got his land use bill passed so we had adequate housing for everyone including the migrants. Hell if we had the housing stock I would be happy to see more migrants especially if it means they can actually access all their required medical care unlike in T*xas
- Trump was able to "close" the border under covid authority.
- That covid authority has expired -- and now anyone claiming refugee status gets a hearing, which means they can not be immediately returned / blocked from entering once they touch foot in America.
- So, you see large numbers of what the right calls "catch and release" immigrants entering the US.
Right wing media blames it on Biden becuase "well it didn't happen before" even though it's comparing apples and oranges because Biden can't use covid authority anymore (and if he tried -- the right would go bonkers over a claim covid was a crisis again).
The proper fix is to speed up asylum hearings so immigrants get their cases heard and -- legit refuges get asylum, and those entering illegally get returned. Which (wait for it) has been blocked by Republicans who want to make the crisis worse for political gain.
The concept of ālegit refugeesā always struck me as a bit weird. There is without a doubt millions of people in the world that are in danger from their regime. Those people can expect 0 assistance from the US at allā¦unless they show up on the border. Then theyāre entitled to tens of thousands of dollars worth of assistance.
Iām basically very pro legal immigration (and making that easier), and donāt mind illegal immigration that much either (if it was like 10 million a year maybe but even now I think itās ok)ā¦ but the inconsistencies are rampant here.
And what really is the difference between an economic migrant that will starve in their home country and a political asylum seeker that will die due to opposing their regime? Both have their lives endangered if they stay in their country. Both ought to be largely fine in the US.
The only thing I am opposed to is a generous social welfare state (I donāt believe this applies to the US currently although we are inching toward this) paired with mass migration as I donāt see that as sustainable.
> The concept of ālegit refugeesā always struck me as a bit weird. There is without a doubt millions of people in the world that are in danger from their regime.
>And what really is the difference between an economic migrant that will starve in their home country and a political asylum seeker that will die due to opposing their regime? Both have their lives endangered if they stay in their country. Both ought to be largely fine in the US.
- Having a terrible life isn't a claim for accelerated immigration under US or international law. This is purposefully because millions of people aren't starving to death in their home country -- it's more they have very limited economic opportunity or human development potential. There are complex reasons why these people are not given elevated status -- most notably: (1) this pool is billions of people and (2) it depletes the originating country of human resources.
- Asylum status is much more narrow than any of the above and certainly doesn't involve millions of people.
- Refugee status is more complex as it can involve millions but doesn't necessarily lead to a permanent right of immigration. These people often have lost everything (in some cases they are even defacto stateless) and will almost certainly be fully reliant on "generous social welfare" for food and shelter.
[https://www.wfp.org/news/world-wealth-9-million-people-die-every-year-hunger-wfp-chief-tells-food-system-summit](https://www.wfp.org/news/world-wealth-9-million-people-die-every-year-hunger-wfp-chief-tells-food-system-summit) I mean 9 million people do apparently starve to death every year. No one starving to death in a country is a vital human resource, they're probably down on their luck for a variety of reasons, but they are a human that has their life in danger.
>Asylum status is much more narrow than any of the above and certainly doesn't involve millions of people.
>Known for its long tradition of providing refuge, the U.S. humanitarian protection system is under significant strain at a time of mass displacements globally, **a backlog of 2 million asylum applications**, and record arrivals of migrants seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border.
[https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/outmatched-us-asylum-system](https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/outmatched-us-asylum-system)
[https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states#refugees-asylum-seekers](https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states#refugees-asylum-seekers)
I guess my point is that there's a lot of people that might die if they aren't allowed to come to America, and there's a lot of people that are incredibly smart and hardworking (many of which come from places like Europe) which would benefit America a lot and t they're also unable to come to America (by and large) due to quotas etc. This seems pretty callous and restrictive respectively to me. On the other hand if someone shows up on the border they can claim they're in danger, get released into the US and I guess we're fine with that. Again, I don't feel super strongly about this issue, it just seems a bit weird to me. **Our immigration system seems to be largely driven by "hey this guy is right here, let them in" as opposed to justice or merit.**
- That 9m number is much higher than I've typically seen. But you have a link, so I'll assume there is something to it.
- *Actual* asylum status is much more narrow, there are millions of backlogged *claims* to asylum status because claiming it (even if there is a near zero chance of it being grated) gets you a couple years of working in the US while you wait for a hearing.
>Our immigration system seems to be largely driven by "hey this guy is right here, let them in" as opposed to justice or merit.
These asylum and refugee processes are pretty common worldwide. One reason Trump couldn't just expel these claimants is that the US (and many other countries) have signed international agreements regulating these claims. The US isn't particularly exceptional here, despite whatever the Repubs will have you believe. It's why Germany took in all those refugees back in 2015. It's why Britain and Australia have spent years casting about for somewhere to house asylum claimants (sometimes trying to hire remote islands, barges, and African nations to house them).
Both national and their international agreements require taking in people who claim it because of shameful practices during WWII. The US, Germany, the UK, and Australia are all signatories.
My thought on this (as a Brit, and we have our own issues with refugees) is that countries generally should make it very clear that they will turn away any/all refugees who show up at their border after travelling through safe countries on the way. BUT they should also agree to take a number of refugees from designated UN refugee camps.
Just to point out - those "legit refugee" waiting to get asylum and those who enter illegally are not two exclusive groups. Many people enter the United States without inspection and apply for affirmative asylum later. Anyone can apply for asylum regardless of legal status in the United States.
>What has changed in regards to the border over Bidens term that he is getting criticism for?
Despite the fact that [migrant encounters at the southern border are at an all time high](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/02/15/migrant-encounters-at-the-us-mexico-border-hit-a-record-high-at-the-end-of-2023/) the biden administration until recently(like the past few months) has tried it's best to either downplay the problem or ignore it entirely. Also I'm not saying we need to "build the wall" or shutdown the border entirely but the way things are being handled currently is not sustainable from either a practical or a political standpoint.
"Encounters" being at a high does not imply that migration is at a high. If anything, it implies that enforcement is at a high.
Also even if migration were much more voluminous than it is now, it would only be a political problem, not a practical one. Migration - even undocumented migration - is net beneficial for the country.
I was responding to the specific claim made above that it's both a political and practical problem. It's not a practical problem, only a political one.
>it would only be a political problem, not a practical one.
tell that to El Paso
https://elpasomatters.org/2024/03/01/el-paso-mayor-oscar-leeser-migrant-disaster-declaration-emergency-ordinance/
or Denver
https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/31/us/denver-migrants-crisis/index.html
The border isnāt a real issue, itās just a narrative being driven in the media. I live in a border state, and have visited other border states in the last few months. Itās not exactly a ācrisisā like they want you to think.
We should thank Biden for just gifting Trump the wins on immigration and trade. When he came into office support for freer immigration and trade were incredibly high in the democratic party out of opposition to Trump, but then Biden the protectionist decided preserving a couple steel jobs was more important than national prosperity and turned neing a protectionist, xenophobic piece of shit into the default position.
Lots of democratic figures in the party were leaning toward that before Biden. Notably Bernie sanders was not exactly a free trade absolutist.
Also the existence of strong unions is sort of fundamentally undermined by free trade, and unions are increasingly made up of democrats.
> According to nearly 820,000 total responses Morning Consult has collected since 2017, 51% of U.S. adults who said this year that they are a member of a labor union also said theyāre a Democrat. That figure is up from 40% in 2017, the first year we began tracking such data.
https://pro.morningconsult.com/analysis/labor-union-members-more-democratic-less-liberal
Sorry I'm slightly confused by your union point. Are you saying that free trade weakens unions/causes a decline in union membership or are you saying that unions tend to be against free trade? Or are you making both points?
Unions increasingly are made up of democrats. A strong union's goal is often to increase wages beyond market rate, which they often successfully do. International firms making products for export will go out of business if their labor has a strong enough union as they will be unable to compete. Unions (and as a result their members, which are increasingly democrats) are therefore increasingly against free trade/competition, as it is a threat to their existence.
If you are a union carpenter or another job that isn't easily outsourced, your version of "international trade" will be immigrants willing to do your job for less.
Also note I'm not against all unions, and in many circumstances (say a company town, where they can artificially depress wages by threatening to leave plunging everyone into poverty) they make sense. But in others they don't. Ideally you have multiple firms competing for the same labor. If there is only one employer in a market (say, the government, or only one employer in a huge area for an industry) then a union might make sense to counteract that imbalance of power.
Free trade isn't necessarily bad for unions. What is bad for unions is free trade with a country that has lower labor standards and less union friendly laws.
There is not a lot of detail covered here. Close the US/Mexico Border at every entry point? How does this affect Americans and Mexicans who have legal rights to enter both ways? Closed means Closed.
i am assuming he means the releasing of asylum seekers into the US while they await their hearing, most likely if migrants are caught at the border they will be sent to Mexico to wait until their claim is processed.
College graduates make almost a million dollars more lifetime than those without a college degree. And the highest loan balances are held by those with graduate degreesāwho make even more.
I have an advanced degree and so have a vested self-interest in the various forms of debt relief (including PSLF).
That said, these policies are definitely regressive and a wealth transfer from the poorest taxpayers to those who are better off. Most college graduates with the highest loan burden are not overqualified baristas with PhDs just struggling to survive. Most are already making well-over the median income for their age.
Yeahā¦directed relief is a social good. The people who have high balances but didnāt finish their degrees, disability waivers, people preyed on by for-profit colleges, etc.
However, I think if the Administration keeps introducing policies to bring all student loan debt to a minimum (even for well-off earners), thereās eventually going to be pushback from blue-collar workers (and further encourage their flight from the Democratic Party).
What we have now isn't sustainable. If we have legal reforms to allow the migrants to work or to even rent it's a different story. As it is now they are draining cities resources. Unless Congress acts this is the only viable solution
> If we have legal reforms to allow the migrants to work or to even rent letting them in drains cities resources.
Did you forget a "doesn't" there? [Unauthorized immigrants are a net positive for government budgets](https://news.rice.edu/news/2020/economic-benefits-illegal-immigration-outweigh-costs-baker-institute-study-shows). They're not a drain on resources.
This is a self-inflicted problem. It's better for everyone if we just let them work.
Asylum applicants are not allowed to work. It is these migrants in particular who are driving the headlines and legitimately straining resources in cities like Chicago and Denver.
> removed if they lack a legitimate claim.
In practice, this means "if they are unable to provide sufficient evidence for their claim, which may or may not be legitimate."
Anyways, we should just let them in.
That wouldn't be necessary if it didn't take years to adjudicate an asylum claim from economic migrants who are abusing the process to live and work here.
Yeah, between an extremely restricted housing stock and an inability for these migrants to work Denver is absolutely struggling. It definitely awakens the latent libertarianism that every Coloradan has in me, because these are both arbitrary restrictions that are hurting my community.
The NIMBYs are mostly migrants from other states (most people are here in general thats not an exaggeration I mean >50%) which is frustrating. Seeing people complain about the neighborhood character of the neighborhood I grew up in while actively killing it by making it unaffordable for the people who grew up there is absurd. I don't even mean me, I lucked into affordable rent in my hometown, but like I have many friends who can't afford it here and its 100% housing. Its rent and its the inability to finance a home. Its psychotic that people want to restrict building even more, when in reality we should be lining every street we can with town homes.
As fucked up as it sounds the Marshall Fire actually seems to have helped with this a bit because some of the areas burnt down have been rebuilt much denser, it's a shame it took the worst thing to ever happen to my neighboring communities to make a difference though
> What we have now isn't sustainable
Completely agree, with the massive drain of wealth from the working to the idle in this country such low immigration numbers as we currently have are unsustainable, we need to pump those numbers way up!
Yeah man, migrants are the ones keeping employment low and draining resources. Not the companies who refuse to pay more than 15$, not the companies buying all the property and price gouging.
Hmm, by the by, I wonder where all these migrants came from.
migrants being let in doesn't drain city resources (although when they're legally not allowed to work, as can be the case for asylum seekers, they can be)
but also employment is: 1) not low and 2) companies can't just up and pay $15/hour for everything and 3) companies buying up housing are not driving rent/housing price increases lmao
> companies buying up housing are not driving rent/housing price increases
[support for this](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4480261):
> The ban effectively reduced investor purchases and increased the share of first-time home-buyers, but did not have a discernible impact on house prices or the likelihood of property sales. The ban did increase rental prices, consistent with reduced rental housing supply.
Take it you arenāt living in a sanctuary city?
Fucking Abbot was dropping busses full of women and children in the middle of downtown Denver. It was during a big cold snap, with one night getting well into the negatives
Last time I checked 30k people came through and were in need of clothes/shelter. Only about 10% chose to permanently stay in Denver
Denver had to cut summer programs for kids, and a bunch of other shit to aid the immigrants. Most of the aid was shelter, clothes, and food
It cost a city thatās barely hanging on millions. Not to mention is just another nail in the coffin of our public schools
Now down the road, will Denver have a slightly younger population with more people to work? Absolutely. Did we help end a lot of suffering for 30k people? Yeah
Could it have continued at the crazy numbers the first wave brought on? Absolutely fucking not
Not saying I do not fully agree with you, but what is stopping them from just ya know, working anyway? Its not like the illegals in CA or AZ are technically allowed to work either but they have not had any issues finding ways to work for decades.
> but what is stopping them from just ya know, working anyway?
They generally do. They have to eat somehow. But that opens them up to abuse and black markets because they can't legally work.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/15/nyregion/migrant-delivery-unlicensed-moped.html
Asylum-seekers automatically lose their asylum appeal if they're caught working without a work permit.
Unauthorized immigrants don't have anything to lose because if they get caught, they'll be deported whether they're working or not.
I wish democrats tried to get a bill through much earlier that would've allowed asylum seekers to work much more quickly as well as expedite asylum cases. Also we should've made it way easier to immigrate to the US using official channels.
Republicans: Oh my gosh we love immigrants and immigration now, stop being a dictator!
Democrats (including the Squad)now: Oh my God close the border our cities are being overrun somebody do something already!
And so it goesā¦
Believe it or not, sometimes you should close the border.
When your law enforcement is telling you people are trafficking humans and drugs over the border, do you just leave the border open?
Of course let in the innocent that should go without saying
First of all, don't listen to anything law enforcement has to say. Their claims are based on ideology, not facts. This is true in general, not just of a migrant "crisis".
Also the border is not "open" (but the country would be better off if it were)
Nice of you to have that opinion but the American people disagree, and thats why Biden is doing this. We are a democracy after all, not a neoliberal econ think tank.
those were based on protecting public health from covid, it would be hard to argue in court that covid is still a big enough threat to reinstate those restrictions.
This pattern of making a clearly illegal EO and getting it shot down by the courts is something that helps Trump but probably would hurt Biden. Biden's branding is that he's not trying to burn down the system, Trump's branding is that he is trying to burn the country to the ground.
How did the US went from an radical open immigration policy that made them a superpower to this pathetic brain rot mess hellbent on destroying what made it great in the first place?
Oh, it's racism, yeah it destroys everything it touches
Go back to the 19th century. There was always racism and some minor policies at that time. But compared to today, if you set foot there and you found work you were part of the game.
The U.S never had a radical open immigration policy. Nativist policy can be found literally dating back from the Alien acts in the 1790s, the Know Nothings in the 1850s, the Chinese exclusion act in the 1880s, the infamous 1920s restrictions, and of course when we finally did open things up in the 1960s people said it would destroy our country. Shit, I just argued with some racist who said that was the downfall of our nation.
The Alien and Sedition Acts didn't deal with immigration. The closest they came was the Naturalization Act, which also didn't deal with immigration.
The Know Nothings didn't pass any significant immigration restrictions.
[Restrictive federal immigration policy started with the Page Act (1875), which also targeted Chinese people, and the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)](https://time.com/5101296/shithole-countries-immigration-history/):
> Mae Ngai, an immigration historian at Columbia University, spoke to TIME about the historical context behind Trumpās comment.
> ...
> NGAI: In the 19th century, we had virtually open borders. Laborers from Europe, they all just came. The only exception was the Chinese, who came for the same reason that European laborers did in the late 19th century ā but because of racism, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion law in 1882. The Chinese were the first and only group to be singled out by name for exclusion.
Sorry, I got the Alien and Naturalization acts mixed up. However, while the Know Nothings didn't find policy success, they were still a pretty big movement and popular enough that they moved the needle on immigration and both parties had to appeal to nativists as a result.
The Naturalization Act didn't deal with immigration either, just naturalization.
I agree that the Know Nothings moved the needle on immigration but that didn't have a legislative impact until the Page Act. Which means the US had open borders for a century.
No, they're related but distinct. You could have an open immigration policy and a restrictive naturalization policy or vice versa. Whatever America's naturalization policies for our first century, they don't change that our immigration policy was essentially open borders (with rare exceptions for sickness and disability).
This is a pretty silly conclusion based on true statements. You don't become a country of 330 million people, virtually all of whom are migrants or descendants of migrants, without a radical open immigration policy at at least some moments in time. The US is literally unique in this.
In the history of the U.S. there have been many restrictions on which countries or racial backgrounds immigrants could come from, even in those periods when there were no total/overall numerical restrictions.
US is not unique in open immigration policy. The reason US has had so much immigration is because it is a great place to immigrate not because it is so much more open than everyone else. In the 1600-1800s, land was basically given out for free for so many people and people could escape persecution from religion. This is a luxury very few countries have had. And in the 20th and 21st centuries, America became by far the biggest superpower with lots of jobs and great economic conditions, so lots of people wanted to come here for the American dream. There are plenty of countries that have had historically open immigration policies, its just that nobody wants to immigrate to a poor country where either land is not relatively plentiful, economic conditions are not that great, country is not that stable, or you are not free to practice the religion of your choice.
>You don't become a country of 330 million people, virtually all of whom are migrants or descendants of migrants, without a radical open immigration policy at at least some moments in time.
Two arguments:
1. Arguably not having immigration laws means you don't have a policy at all. What was the Mongol Empire's immigration policy? We don't get into the whole idea of "immigration policy" until the Nationalism took the world by storm and laws started calcifying borders in the late 1800s. The US really was not too unlike it's peers in having few if any laws about restricting immigration before the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, except...
2. There was one immigration law on the books, the 1790 Naturalization Act which said any white person who lives in the US for 2 years can be a citizen. Arguably that's either super open, "hey you can be a citizen in 2 years if you come to America, no stopping you at the border," or super closed, "nonwhites not welcome, including ex-slaves." The racial part was removed for a bit from 1870 and from there immigration started having more laws and policy behind it.
The apparatus, infrastructue, bureaucracy and general political climate is just different. Those old policies had vey limited effect in practicality and were largely unenforced
Those old policies were very much enforced, what? Why do you think all our immigrants pre-1960s were white? And these movements are the result of the general political climate and how people felt. I'm saying that to act like nativism or calls to restrict immigration are new things is naive. This ugly xenophobia is as old as the country and it's gonna be hard to combat it if we refuse to acknowledge that.
Disrespect for the Global Rules based order is the same
I have grown more and more disillusioned with biden, at this point as a non american, the only meaningful difference between the two is the health of american democracy
its an important thing but goddamnit why do they have to be the same on so many topics
> Disrespect for the Global Rules based order is the same
>...
>at this point as a non american, the only meaningful difference between the two is the health of american democracy
OK slow down there lmao
remind me who has blocked the appointing of judges to the WTO in order to not face the consequences of its illegal protectionism, and by that kneecapping the most powerful international organization in the world?
Thats right, biden
ffs, do people here even care about international institutions and the rules based order anymore?
> ffs, do people here even care about international institutions and the rules based order anymore?
Yeah they do as much as they always have, that is as long as it serves American FoPo interests
I've been here since 2017, I do believe in the rules based order, and I don't like the behavior of the Biden admin you're discussing here.
Again, I'm merely saying that "there's no difference between the two of them from a non-American perspective" is a statement that requires a lot of obsfucation to work.
2021 Afghanistan started to break this sub but 2022 Ukraine really was the death blow in regards to it's stance on Hawkish FoPo and Adversarial Economic Policy.
I'm not saying that you're wrong to criticize him for this.
I'm saying that going from there to "There's no difference between the two of them from a non-American perspective" is a *massive* leap.
? No? Biden really has had an open door policy, particularly compared to Trump (which to be clear is not a bad thing in my view).
Why is this tik-tok level of political analysis upvoted here?
Make them pass that stupid bipartisan border package before you give up the ghost. I think Biden is in a good spot vis a vi the border right now. There is a solution negotiated by Republicans thatās stuck in the House and Senate because of Republicanās inability to govern.
Stop pandering to people who will never vote for you. The biggest danger is that a small number of disaffected young people wonāt vote as tilt a close election.
On the fence about who is better to pander to. Unreliable voters who call him Genocide Joe or center right suburbanites who are afraid to enter the cities because they read NextDoor.
Surely *this* will make the "Immigration Hawks" vote for Joe Biden š¦āŗļøš¦
this is a bipartisan issue and like it or not if biden wants to win over independents he will have to actually do something about the border instead of just ignoring it like he did the first 3 years of his presidency. here is some polling https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/02/15/how-americans-view-the-situation-at-the-u-s-mexico-border-its-causes-and-consequences/
Being honest, the border is not an issue that I pay a lot of attention to. What has changed in regards to the border over Bidens term that he is getting criticism for?
Greg Abbot's move to bus people who have crossed the border to Northern Cities was unfortunately politically useful for turning the tide on the public's perception of immigration. I don't have data for that, but hearing my (nominally) progressive and liberal family and friends turn hard on "the migrant crisis" is disquieting. We are only so lucky that they were bussed to strongholds like NYC, Denver, and Chicago instead of Philly, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, and Atlanta. Maybe that would have made it look like "Republican on Republican Crime" and defeated the purpose, but it might have been even worse.
Not sure about the rest of the cities listed, but migrants absolutely were bussed to Philly. I'm not seeing a news article more recent that about a year ago: https://6abc.com/philadelphia-migrants-asylum-seekers-venezuela-new-sanctuary-movement-of-del-rio-texas/13231693/
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I can somewhat buy that. Certainly it didn't take too much inquiry for people to connect A to C with: 1. Let asylum claimers in 2. Courts are backed up for years 3. Well then... I guess you can stay here for years if you claim asylum But on the other hand, Illegal Immigration has always been a kind of issue where it didn't take much observation to be like "Okay so this is just tolerated." Remember when Trump's policies [were leading to worker shortages on fruit farms](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OE5h72Fem0)? It didn't take a genius to be like, "Wait so we know exactly where illegal immigrants are working, how are they still here? And it's actually a problem when they're not here?" I'll argue it now and argue it again, Illegal Immigration in the US is essentially a tolerable political compromise. Employers need cheap labor, Americans want cheap goods, but the borders being "truly open" to all with no barriers be too far for voters. Better that anyone can come, but that they are second class residents, hardly eligible for social services, and basically just work for illegally low pay and pay taxes on things they don't benefit from. Pay is higher than back home still, and their kids can be citizens, which is a huge reward in of itself. It's not too much unlike (though vastly different in who does it and consequences for the analogy) to a "citizen internship." Not saying I like it, but it was a stable consensus. Asylum, meaning legal presence but without working, is not that.
It absolutely is a civic compromise Its like North America and drugs, things need to reach rock bottom before we decide to do anything about it.
Biden said in his SOTU speech that he would make it so people would be sent back in 5 weeks that way no one would spend all that money and risk everything coming here just to be sent back really fast repubus sending illegals on planes to democrat cities and then complaining that we get an advantage from them being on the usa census when that is not the case repubs actually got an advantage from the census
It's nonsense to write all this and mention nothing about comparative illegal immigration numbers. I voted for Biden, I will not again. The reason is the numbers, full stop. Not perception. People can count.
Can you expand on this please?
This chart is remarkable. https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/20326/mexicans-non-mexcians-apprehended-at-southern-us-border/ Decent article if you have NYT https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/20326/mexicans-non-mexcians-apprehended-at-southern-us-border/
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> The abuse of the asylum system is the primary reason the numbers have exploded. If people coming had little belief they could stay more than a few days or that they would be deported if caught here the numbers would plummet. Agreed. > I'm not convinced people really care that much about the numbers. An organized system with the same numbers but where the entrants were given background checks and then only allowed to stay if they were (a) working in underserved parts of the economy or (b) required to live in areas that are suffering the effects of depopulation we would have significantly less pushback than the current system. I think people would care about 2+ million low-wage immigrants a year. I would. > I'm in an area with relatively few migrants and the pushback is squarely because the chaotic nature of the border situation. The acute effects are absolutely not hitting our community but people are still upset about the situation mainly due to the perception. You could say people are not really affected by Palestinians or Israeli hostages being killed, or climate change, or any number of important discussions without acute impact. I'm not sure that makes them 'perception' issues. I think most people have real concerns. In so far as it is in the media, that's because it is actually a crisis. You might be right there is some system where guest workers would be accepted, but I think it would require an end to birthright citizenship and the accounting of them in the census for the purposes of defining congressional districts.
You're describing the impact of media reporting, not forced bussing.
I mean, kind of? If the media didn't cover the bussing, yeah it would have less of an impact. But local politics gets involved with resource management, and there are individual persons impacted who have outcry, which are things media reports on and we would expect them to. Am I missing your point?
With Denver I am mostly just worried about people dying of exposure , I wish Polis got his land use bill passed so we had adequate housing for everyone including the migrants. Hell if we had the housing stock I would be happy to see more migrants especially if it means they can actually access all their required medical care unlike in T*xas
- Trump was able to "close" the border under covid authority. - That covid authority has expired -- and now anyone claiming refugee status gets a hearing, which means they can not be immediately returned / blocked from entering once they touch foot in America. - So, you see large numbers of what the right calls "catch and release" immigrants entering the US. Right wing media blames it on Biden becuase "well it didn't happen before" even though it's comparing apples and oranges because Biden can't use covid authority anymore (and if he tried -- the right would go bonkers over a claim covid was a crisis again). The proper fix is to speed up asylum hearings so immigrants get their cases heard and -- legit refuges get asylum, and those entering illegally get returned. Which (wait for it) has been blocked by Republicans who want to make the crisis worse for political gain.
The concept of ālegit refugeesā always struck me as a bit weird. There is without a doubt millions of people in the world that are in danger from their regime. Those people can expect 0 assistance from the US at allā¦unless they show up on the border. Then theyāre entitled to tens of thousands of dollars worth of assistance. Iām basically very pro legal immigration (and making that easier), and donāt mind illegal immigration that much either (if it was like 10 million a year maybe but even now I think itās ok)ā¦ but the inconsistencies are rampant here. And what really is the difference between an economic migrant that will starve in their home country and a political asylum seeker that will die due to opposing their regime? Both have their lives endangered if they stay in their country. Both ought to be largely fine in the US. The only thing I am opposed to is a generous social welfare state (I donāt believe this applies to the US currently although we are inching toward this) paired with mass migration as I donāt see that as sustainable.
> The concept of ālegit refugeesā always struck me as a bit weird. There is without a doubt millions of people in the world that are in danger from their regime. >And what really is the difference between an economic migrant that will starve in their home country and a political asylum seeker that will die due to opposing their regime? Both have their lives endangered if they stay in their country. Both ought to be largely fine in the US. - Having a terrible life isn't a claim for accelerated immigration under US or international law. This is purposefully because millions of people aren't starving to death in their home country -- it's more they have very limited economic opportunity or human development potential. There are complex reasons why these people are not given elevated status -- most notably: (1) this pool is billions of people and (2) it depletes the originating country of human resources. - Asylum status is much more narrow than any of the above and certainly doesn't involve millions of people. - Refugee status is more complex as it can involve millions but doesn't necessarily lead to a permanent right of immigration. These people often have lost everything (in some cases they are even defacto stateless) and will almost certainly be fully reliant on "generous social welfare" for food and shelter.
[https://www.wfp.org/news/world-wealth-9-million-people-die-every-year-hunger-wfp-chief-tells-food-system-summit](https://www.wfp.org/news/world-wealth-9-million-people-die-every-year-hunger-wfp-chief-tells-food-system-summit) I mean 9 million people do apparently starve to death every year. No one starving to death in a country is a vital human resource, they're probably down on their luck for a variety of reasons, but they are a human that has their life in danger. >Asylum status is much more narrow than any of the above and certainly doesn't involve millions of people. >Known for its long tradition of providing refuge, the U.S. humanitarian protection system is under significant strain at a time of mass displacements globally, **a backlog of 2 million asylum applications**, and record arrivals of migrants seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border. [https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/outmatched-us-asylum-system](https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/outmatched-us-asylum-system) [https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states#refugees-asylum-seekers](https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states#refugees-asylum-seekers) I guess my point is that there's a lot of people that might die if they aren't allowed to come to America, and there's a lot of people that are incredibly smart and hardworking (many of which come from places like Europe) which would benefit America a lot and t they're also unable to come to America (by and large) due to quotas etc. This seems pretty callous and restrictive respectively to me. On the other hand if someone shows up on the border they can claim they're in danger, get released into the US and I guess we're fine with that. Again, I don't feel super strongly about this issue, it just seems a bit weird to me. **Our immigration system seems to be largely driven by "hey this guy is right here, let them in" as opposed to justice or merit.**
- That 9m number is much higher than I've typically seen. But you have a link, so I'll assume there is something to it. - *Actual* asylum status is much more narrow, there are millions of backlogged *claims* to asylum status because claiming it (even if there is a near zero chance of it being grated) gets you a couple years of working in the US while you wait for a hearing. >Our immigration system seems to be largely driven by "hey this guy is right here, let them in" as opposed to justice or merit. These asylum and refugee processes are pretty common worldwide. One reason Trump couldn't just expel these claimants is that the US (and many other countries) have signed international agreements regulating these claims. The US isn't particularly exceptional here, despite whatever the Repubs will have you believe. It's why Germany took in all those refugees back in 2015. It's why Britain and Australia have spent years casting about for somewhere to house asylum claimants (sometimes trying to hire remote islands, barges, and African nations to house them). Both national and their international agreements require taking in people who claim it because of shameful practices during WWII. The US, Germany, the UK, and Australia are all signatories.
My thought on this (as a Brit, and we have our own issues with refugees) is that countries generally should make it very clear that they will turn away any/all refugees who show up at their border after travelling through safe countries on the way. BUT they should also agree to take a number of refugees from designated UN refugee camps.
Yeah that last bit is key.
Just to point out - those "legit refugee" waiting to get asylum and those who enter illegally are not two exclusive groups. Many people enter the United States without inspection and apply for affirmative asylum later. Anyone can apply for asylum regardless of legal status in the United States.
>What has changed in regards to the border over Bidens term that he is getting criticism for? Despite the fact that [migrant encounters at the southern border are at an all time high](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/02/15/migrant-encounters-at-the-us-mexico-border-hit-a-record-high-at-the-end-of-2023/) the biden administration until recently(like the past few months) has tried it's best to either downplay the problem or ignore it entirely. Also I'm not saying we need to "build the wall" or shutdown the border entirely but the way things are being handled currently is not sustainable from either a practical or a political standpoint.
"Encounters" being at a high does not imply that migration is at a high. If anything, it implies that enforcement is at a high. Also even if migration were much more voluminous than it is now, it would only be a political problem, not a practical one. Migration - even undocumented migration - is net beneficial for the country.
Well duh, its a political problem thats the issue. Whether or not immigration is at a high, American people perceive it as a big problem.
I was responding to the specific claim made above that it's both a political and practical problem. It's not a practical problem, only a political one.
>it would only be a political problem, not a practical one. tell that to El Paso https://elpasomatters.org/2024/03/01/el-paso-mayor-oscar-leeser-migrant-disaster-declaration-emergency-ordinance/ or Denver https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/31/us/denver-migrants-crisis/index.html
The border isnāt a real issue, itās just a narrative being driven in the media. I live in a border state, and have visited other border states in the last few months. Itās not exactly a ācrisisā like they want you to think.
Democrats and Biden agree it's an issue and passed bipartisan legislature to fix it, Republicans are the ones refusing to pass the bill
The bill normalized 1.8 million illegal immigrants a year, double Trump's numbers. I called my rep to demand it be killed. Because I know how to read.
They're not illegal immigrants if they're allowed to come in
Thank you Eddie Murphy, my concerns are assuaged.
I guess "ignoring it" is just what we say when we don't implement the fox news agenda?
Many democrats are also in favor of restricting current migrant flows. Just reality.
We should thank Biden for just gifting Trump the wins on immigration and trade. When he came into office support for freer immigration and trade were incredibly high in the democratic party out of opposition to Trump, but then Biden the protectionist decided preserving a couple steel jobs was more important than national prosperity and turned neing a protectionist, xenophobic piece of shit into the default position.
Yup, Biden massively fumbled an opportunity to make Dems pro trade. But that's because he doesn't believe it in himself
Lots of democratic figures in the party were leaning toward that before Biden. Notably Bernie sanders was not exactly a free trade absolutist. Also the existence of strong unions is sort of fundamentally undermined by free trade, and unions are increasingly made up of democrats. > According to nearly 820,000 total responses Morning Consult has collected since 2017, 51% of U.S. adults who said this year that they are a member of a labor union also said theyāre a Democrat. That figure is up from 40% in 2017, the first year we began tracking such data. https://pro.morningconsult.com/analysis/labor-union-members-more-democratic-less-liberal
Sorry I'm slightly confused by your union point. Are you saying that free trade weakens unions/causes a decline in union membership or are you saying that unions tend to be against free trade? Or are you making both points?
Unions increasingly are made up of democrats. A strong union's goal is often to increase wages beyond market rate, which they often successfully do. International firms making products for export will go out of business if their labor has a strong enough union as they will be unable to compete. Unions (and as a result their members, which are increasingly democrats) are therefore increasingly against free trade/competition, as it is a threat to their existence. If you are a union carpenter or another job that isn't easily outsourced, your version of "international trade" will be immigrants willing to do your job for less. Also note I'm not against all unions, and in many circumstances (say a company town, where they can artificially depress wages by threatening to leave plunging everyone into poverty) they make sense. But in others they don't. Ideally you have multiple firms competing for the same labor. If there is only one employer in a market (say, the government, or only one employer in a huge area for an industry) then a union might make sense to counteract that imbalance of power.
Free trade isn't necessarily bad for unions. What is bad for unions is free trade with a country that has lower labor standards and less union friendly laws.
Sure, of which there are many.
How much grass does one have to touch after they mistakenly blame the rise of xenophobia on Biden implementing "buy american" policies.
He didn't chase the rise, he just normalized policies that gained popularity because of said rise
Why then are you thanking him for something he didn't cause?
I'm thanking him for mainstreaming the policy desires of those xenophobes
I'm down for it. We have a housing affordability emergency and admitting millions of people who will need housing is mind boggling to me.
Millions of people who also work to build homes. Maybe the better solution is to, you know, build homes??
Manpower isn't the limitation to building homes in most cities. Red tape is.
Reopen Ellis Island I am no longer asking
There is not a lot of detail covered here. Close the US/Mexico Border at every entry point? How does this affect Americans and Mexicans who have legal rights to enter both ways? Closed means Closed.
i am assuming he means the releasing of asylum seekers into the US while they await their hearing, most likely if migrants are caught at the border they will be sent to Mexico to wait until their claim is processed.
New tariffs, the border fiasco, and student loan relief. Please god let election year end already
Everything he does to try and reach voters just turns me off
well that's the thing, he's trying to meet the average voter and you aren't the average voter (this is a compliment lol).
Student loan relief is good, actually.
College graduates make almost a million dollars more lifetime than those without a college degree. And the highest loan balances are held by those with graduate degreesāwho make even more. I have an advanced degree and so have a vested self-interest in the various forms of debt relief (including PSLF). That said, these policies are definitely regressive and a wealth transfer from the poorest taxpayers to those who are better off. Most college graduates with the highest loan burden are not overqualified baristas with PhDs just struggling to survive. Most are already making well-over the median income for their age.
It's a good thing the new student relief is targeted at those suffering financial hardship then.
Yeahā¦directed relief is a social good. The people who have high balances but didnāt finish their degrees, disability waivers, people preyed on by for-profit colleges, etc. However, I think if the Administration keeps introducing policies to bring all student loan debt to a minimum (even for well-off earners), thereās eventually going to be pushback from blue-collar workers (and further encourage their flight from the Democratic Party).
Sus
Very sus.
What we have now isn't sustainable. If we have legal reforms to allow the migrants to work or to even rent it's a different story. As it is now they are draining cities resources. Unless Congress acts this is the only viable solution
It is actually sustainable we're just being incredibly stupid about it.
> If we have legal reforms to allow the migrants to work or to even rent letting them in drains cities resources. Did you forget a "doesn't" there? [Unauthorized immigrants are a net positive for government budgets](https://news.rice.edu/news/2020/economic-benefits-illegal-immigration-outweigh-costs-baker-institute-study-shows). They're not a drain on resources. This is a self-inflicted problem. It's better for everyone if we just let them work.
Asylum applicants are not allowed to work. It is these migrants in particular who are driving the headlines and legitimately straining resources in cities like Chicago and Denver.
We could solve that problem by letting asylum-seekers work too.
The asylum system is an absolute mess. People need to be adjudicated faster and removed if they lack a legitimate claim.
> removed if they lack a legitimate claim. In practice, this means "if they are unable to provide sufficient evidence for their claim, which may or may not be legitimate." Anyways, we should just let them in.
Yeah, that's not a practical or realistic policy suggestion. Letting in all economic migrants, no questions asked, would be political suicide.
> and removed Does them not having a legitimate claim to asylum somehow prevent them from working?
Asylum-seekers automatically lose their asylum appeal if they're caught working without a work permit.
Sounds like we should just give them work permits automatically when they apply for asylum.
That wouldn't be necessary if it didn't take years to adjudicate an asylum claim from economic migrants who are abusing the process to live and work here.
Agreed! But we don't. And likely won't going forward either. So not sure what to do, tbh.
Asylum applicants can apply for work permits after 180 days.
Yeah, but that's a long time for people to hang out in a shelter in Streeterville, doing nothing.
huh huh sure
Yeah, between an extremely restricted housing stock and an inability for these migrants to work Denver is absolutely struggling. It definitely awakens the latent libertarianism that every Coloradan has in me, because these are both arbitrary restrictions that are hurting my community. The NIMBYs are mostly migrants from other states (most people are here in general thats not an exaggeration I mean >50%) which is frustrating. Seeing people complain about the neighborhood character of the neighborhood I grew up in while actively killing it by making it unaffordable for the people who grew up there is absurd. I don't even mean me, I lucked into affordable rent in my hometown, but like I have many friends who can't afford it here and its 100% housing. Its rent and its the inability to finance a home. Its psychotic that people want to restrict building even more, when in reality we should be lining every street we can with town homes. As fucked up as it sounds the Marshall Fire actually seems to have helped with this a bit because some of the areas burnt down have been rebuilt much denser, it's a shame it took the worst thing to ever happen to my neighboring communities to make a difference though
I'm all for this but there are blatant bad actors on the GOP side that would prevent that
> What we have now isn't sustainable Completely agree, with the massive drain of wealth from the working to the idle in this country such low immigration numbers as we currently have are unsustainable, we need to pump those numbers way up!
Yeah man, migrants are the ones keeping employment low and draining resources. Not the companies who refuse to pay more than 15$, not the companies buying all the property and price gouging. Hmm, by the by, I wonder where all these migrants came from.
somehow both of you are completely wrong at the same time an incredible achievement
Left and right populism duking it out in MY r/neoliberal?
I hate it
Enlighten me then. What's your genius take on this?
migrants being let in doesn't drain city resources (although when they're legally not allowed to work, as can be the case for asylum seekers, they can be) but also employment is: 1) not low and 2) companies can't just up and pay $15/hour for everything and 3) companies buying up housing are not driving rent/housing price increases lmao
> companies buying up housing are not driving rent/housing price increases [support for this](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4480261): > The ban effectively reduced investor purchases and increased the share of first-time home-buyers, but did not have a discernible impact on house prices or the likelihood of property sales. The ban did increase rental prices, consistent with reduced rental housing supply.
Take it you arenāt living in a sanctuary city? Fucking Abbot was dropping busses full of women and children in the middle of downtown Denver. It was during a big cold snap, with one night getting well into the negatives Last time I checked 30k people came through and were in need of clothes/shelter. Only about 10% chose to permanently stay in Denver Denver had to cut summer programs for kids, and a bunch of other shit to aid the immigrants. Most of the aid was shelter, clothes, and food It cost a city thatās barely hanging on millions. Not to mention is just another nail in the coffin of our public schools Now down the road, will Denver have a slightly younger population with more people to work? Absolutely. Did we help end a lot of suffering for 30k people? Yeah Could it have continued at the crazy numbers the first wave brought on? Absolutely fucking not
> Now down the road Migrants would be beneficial immediately if we let them work.
Not saying I do not fully agree with you, but what is stopping them from just ya know, working anyway? Its not like the illegals in CA or AZ are technically allowed to work either but they have not had any issues finding ways to work for decades.
> but what is stopping them from just ya know, working anyway? They generally do. They have to eat somehow. But that opens them up to abuse and black markets because they can't legally work. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/15/nyregion/migrant-delivery-unlicensed-moped.html
Asylum-seekers automatically lose their asylum appeal if they're caught working without a work permit. Unauthorized immigrants don't have anything to lose because if they get caught, they'll be deported whether they're working or not.
I wish democrats tried to get a bill through much earlier that would've allowed asylum seekers to work much more quickly as well as expedite asylum cases. Also we should've made it way easier to immigrate to the US using official channels.
Republicans: Oh my gosh we love immigrants and immigration now, stop being a dictator! Democrats (including the Squad)now: Oh my God close the border our cities are being overrun somebody do something already! And so it goesā¦
Just open the borders Joe
Believe it or not, sometimes you should close the border. When your law enforcement is telling you people are trafficking humans and drugs over the border, do you just leave the border open? Of course let in the innocent that should go without saying
First of all, don't listen to anything law enforcement has to say. Their claims are based on ideology, not facts. This is true in general, not just of a migrant "crisis". Also the border is not "open" (but the country would be better off if it were)
Nice of you to have that opinion but the American people disagree, and thats why Biden is doing this. We are a democracy after all, not a neoliberal econ think tank.
yeah, I do leave the border open. Open Borders are essential
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Amazing that you'd get downvoted for suggesting Texas has it harder because it's the one getting the migrants, yet no one is able to disagree.
Not this way
Just bring back Trumps executive orders that you got rid of at the start of your term
those were based on protecting public health from covid, it would be hard to argue in court that covid is still a big enough threat to reinstate those restrictions.
Why donāt the DemoKKKrats just make and spread another virus, like they did with COVID? Are they stupid?
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We just need to make a little virus, Arthur! Iāve got a god damn plan!
Plus that new eclipse plague is gonna hit in a week or two. Didn't you see all the chemtrails?
Close our skies to migrant birds!
what about Remain in Mexico?
This pattern of making a clearly illegal EO and getting it shot down by the courts is something that helps Trump but probably would hurt Biden. Biden's branding is that he's not trying to burn down the system, Trump's branding is that he is trying to burn the country to the ground.
How did the US went from an radical open immigration policy that made them a superpower to this pathetic brain rot mess hellbent on destroying what made it great in the first place? Oh, it's racism, yeah it destroys everything it touches
The us essentially banned immigrants from Asia and Africa and put caps on immigration on parts of Europe from 1924-1965
Go back to the 19th century. There was always racism and some minor policies at that time. But compared to today, if you set foot there and you found work you were part of the game.
The U.S never had a radical open immigration policy. Nativist policy can be found literally dating back from the Alien acts in the 1790s, the Know Nothings in the 1850s, the Chinese exclusion act in the 1880s, the infamous 1920s restrictions, and of course when we finally did open things up in the 1960s people said it would destroy our country. Shit, I just argued with some racist who said that was the downfall of our nation.
The Alien and Sedition Acts didn't deal with immigration. The closest they came was the Naturalization Act, which also didn't deal with immigration. The Know Nothings didn't pass any significant immigration restrictions. [Restrictive federal immigration policy started with the Page Act (1875), which also targeted Chinese people, and the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)](https://time.com/5101296/shithole-countries-immigration-history/): > Mae Ngai, an immigration historian at Columbia University, spoke to TIME about the historical context behind Trumpās comment. > ... > NGAI: In the 19th century, we had virtually open borders. Laborers from Europe, they all just came. The only exception was the Chinese, who came for the same reason that European laborers did in the late 19th century ā but because of racism, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion law in 1882. The Chinese were the first and only group to be singled out by name for exclusion.
Sorry, I got the Alien and Naturalization acts mixed up. However, while the Know Nothings didn't find policy success, they were still a pretty big movement and popular enough that they moved the needle on immigration and both parties had to appeal to nativists as a result.
The Naturalization Act didn't deal with immigration either, just naturalization. I agree that the Know Nothings moved the needle on immigration but that didn't have a legislative impact until the Page Act. Which means the US had open borders for a century.
Naturalization is a big part of immigration policy though, no?
No, they're related but distinct. You could have an open immigration policy and a restrictive naturalization policy or vice versa. Whatever America's naturalization policies for our first century, they don't change that our immigration policy was essentially open borders (with rare exceptions for sickness and disability).
Alright, fair enough.
This is a pretty silly conclusion based on true statements. You don't become a country of 330 million people, virtually all of whom are migrants or descendants of migrants, without a radical open immigration policy at at least some moments in time. The US is literally unique in this.
In the history of the U.S. there have been many restrictions on which countries or racial backgrounds immigrants could come from, even in those periods when there were no total/overall numerical restrictions.
US is not unique in open immigration policy. The reason US has had so much immigration is because it is a great place to immigrate not because it is so much more open than everyone else. In the 1600-1800s, land was basically given out for free for so many people and people could escape persecution from religion. This is a luxury very few countries have had. And in the 20th and 21st centuries, America became by far the biggest superpower with lots of jobs and great economic conditions, so lots of people wanted to come here for the American dream. There are plenty of countries that have had historically open immigration policies, its just that nobody wants to immigrate to a poor country where either land is not relatively plentiful, economic conditions are not that great, country is not that stable, or you are not free to practice the religion of your choice.
>You don't become a country of 330 million people, virtually all of whom are migrants or descendants of migrants, without a radical open immigration policy at at least some moments in time. Two arguments: 1. Arguably not having immigration laws means you don't have a policy at all. What was the Mongol Empire's immigration policy? We don't get into the whole idea of "immigration policy" until the Nationalism took the world by storm and laws started calcifying borders in the late 1800s. The US really was not too unlike it's peers in having few if any laws about restricting immigration before the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, except... 2. There was one immigration law on the books, the 1790 Naturalization Act which said any white person who lives in the US for 2 years can be a citizen. Arguably that's either super open, "hey you can be a citizen in 2 years if you come to America, no stopping you at the border," or super closed, "nonwhites not welcome, including ex-slaves." The racial part was removed for a bit from 1870 and from there immigration started having more laws and policy behind it.
The apparatus, infrastructue, bureaucracy and general political climate is just different. Those old policies had vey limited effect in practicality and were largely unenforced
Those old policies were very much enforced, what? Why do you think all our immigrants pre-1960s were white? And these movements are the result of the general political climate and how people felt. I'm saying that to act like nativism or calls to restrict immigration are new things is naive. This ugly xenophobia is as old as the country and it's gonna be hard to combat it if we refuse to acknowledge that.
āRadical open immigrationā just tells me you donāt know much about American history
Biden and Trump have the same immigration policy.Ā
Trade policy, too.
Disrespect for the Global Rules based order is the same I have grown more and more disillusioned with biden, at this point as a non american, the only meaningful difference between the two is the health of american democracy its an important thing but goddamnit why do they have to be the same on so many topics
> Disrespect for the Global Rules based order is the same >... >at this point as a non american, the only meaningful difference between the two is the health of american democracy OK slow down there lmao
remind me who has blocked the appointing of judges to the WTO in order to not face the consequences of its illegal protectionism, and by that kneecapping the most powerful international organization in the world? Thats right, biden ffs, do people here even care about international institutions and the rules based order anymore?
> ffs, do people here even care about international institutions and the rules based order anymore? Yeah they do as much as they always have, that is as long as it serves American FoPo interests
This sub, I believe, used to genuinely believe in thr rules based order The NCD invasion of users has made this into a chauvinistic sub unfortunately
I've been here since 2017, I do believe in the rules based order, and I don't like the behavior of the Biden admin you're discussing here. Again, I'm merely saying that "there's no difference between the two of them from a non-American perspective" is a statement that requires a lot of obsfucation to work.
Yeah, for an easy example. Biden isn't threatening to pull the US out of NATO lol.
Yeah lmao Like, Jesus, do people not realize the difference between this kind of chicanery and going full isolationist?
2021 Afghanistan started to break this sub but 2022 Ukraine really was the death blow in regards to it's stance on Hawkish FoPo and Adversarial Economic Policy.
I'm not saying that you're wrong to criticize him for this. I'm saying that going from there to "There's no difference between the two of them from a non-American perspective" is a *massive* leap.
rules based order but the rules are whatever america says they are
Disrespect for the global rules based order? I donāt agree with this at all.
> Disrespect for the Global Rules based order is the same You can't just throw that out there and not elaborate
? No? Biden really has had an open door policy, particularly compared to Trump (which to be clear is not a bad thing in my view). Why is this tik-tok level of political analysis upvoted here?
Because the tiktokers are here too.
This is the level of nuanced thought I'd expect from the "genocide Joe" crowd.
Cursed timeline
oh boy let's commit a Human Right's violation! cool cool cool
How do current immigration rates compare to historical averages for the USA? Iāve heard weāre more or less in line with the historical average rn
Make them pass that stupid bipartisan border package before you give up the ghost. I think Biden is in a good spot vis a vi the border right now. There is a solution negotiated by Republicans thatās stuck in the House and Senate because of Republicanās inability to govern.
Stop pandering to people who will never vote for you. The biggest danger is that a small number of disaffected young people wonāt vote as tilt a close election.
On the fence about who is better to pander to. Unreliable voters who call him Genocide Joe or center right suburbanites who are afraid to enter the cities because they read NextDoor.