Abbott is trying to kill or injure illegal immigrants coming to Texas

Walls in high traffic automobile areas make sense. Walls in low traffic areas with foot traffic only? Well a picture tells a thousand words.



Again, the majority of crossers come to look for a better life. If we allowed these people to cross legally in a processing center, who is left to cross illegally? Those who we don't want to be here.

As of now, too much of our resources are spent trying to stop everyone. Which is impossible. And very few things have actually helped. Most of the things we tried did nothing but waste money. Like Trump's wall? Which didn't withstand a single monsoon season.

 

Again while I found the events disturbing do you really think that one case involving the returning a child to a parent who has lawful custody of the child is in any way analogous to the way the overwhelming majority of Cuban refugees who made it to the US were treated? I would also add that it is extremely unlikely that Elion Gonzalez would have been returned to Cuba had his mother survived. She and her boyfriend undoubtedly would have been celebrated for their bravery in fleeing from the Castro regime in a small boat had they survived the crossing.

 

So what's your answer?

Work visas? How will that stop anybody who doesn't want to work or can't work from coming? How does it stop the bad people from coming?

It's akin to the stupid leftist argument about guns. "Let's just require all of these things to buy a gun, background checks, etc." That completely ignores the elephant in the room that criminals who want a gun can get a gun with or without the background checks.

That's not to say background checks are bad. They're not, but let's not adopt the delusion that any degree of background checks will end gun violence. It won't. Again, applying neosporin to a guy who just lost his arm.

 

Would you argue that the majority of immigrants crossing the border are being pushed into rivers and barbed wire?

We got into the business of drawing narratives from anecdotes in the first post of this thread. You made a claim that Cubans fleeing Castro were treated as heroes, while Venezuelans fleeing Maduro were treated like pariahs.

Do you have evidence of that which isn't anecdotal?

 

Don't recall this happening to Cuban refugees.
Venezuelan migrants expelled from U.S. under new policy decide next steps in Mexico
Also Venezuelans applying for asylum are still required to establish a well founded fear of persecution. Cubans who made it to the US were considered to have qualified for asylum by definition.

 

Again, 8 million undocumented in the work force all paying $5/week would generate $2 billion in taxes. We could use this money to create processing centers in busy border towns. Immigrants could come, be subject to a background check, and then leave to get a job. We should also have businesses that need immigrant labor at these centers to match immigrants with jobs, and make the businesses pay for transportation.

Meanwhile, we can take some of the $2 billion and use it towards enforcement. Every immigrant on a guest worker Visa would have an ITIN, and employers would have to report on their income. Set up some rules like 3 months and no income and the immigrant loses his guest worker Visa unless there are other mitigating issues, like serious injury or illness, for example. Border Patrol can also do random spot checks. Won't be a perfect solution, but most government programs have a very small fraud incident rate.

Meanwhile, with all the immigrants looking for work now being processed legally in centers, those left to cross the border for other reasons will be easier to catch. A lot less traffic would be coming through the desert or over the river for nefarious purposes. And while background checks at processing centers won't catch all the bad people, it will catch some.

It's not a perfect solution. But 2,000 miles of border, much of which cannot be accessed by motorized vehicle is a very difficult proposition. We have about 18,000 Border Patrol Agents on the Southern border now, and just how effective have they, or Trump's wall been at stopping people? Currently 11 million undocumented in this country today should be your answer.

So we can keep throwing money at the problem on answers that don't help? Or, we can do what two bi-partisan Senate Committees recommended. A perfect solution? No. Again, problem is way too complex. But certainly will improve things.

 

Cubans crossing into US stunned to hear of new asylum limits

"President Joe Biden announced Thursday that Cubans, Nicaraguans, Haitians and Venezuelans will be expelled to Mexico if they enter the U.S. illegally, effective immediately."

 

Not adding up.

 

As far as the first link is concerned it represents a significant change in policy. For more than 60 years Cubans who made it to the US were automatically entitled to asylum.

 

$5 x 52 (weeks) = $260 X 8,000,000 (immigrants in work force) = $2,080,000,000.

 

And how much are they taking in?

Doesn't matter if I'm making 2 billion per year if I'm spending 4 billion per year.

 

New York Times article from 1984.

"Classified as what Washington calls ''excludable aliens'' - people whose mental or criminal past rendered them ineligible for release into the general population - they have been locked up, either at the Federal penitentiary here or in jails or mental institutions elsewhere. They could not be deported to Cuba because Fidel Castro - who though he last week denied it may have purposely loaded some of them onto the boats to help rid his island of social undesirables - had refused to take them back. They could not be released from jail because they were deemed unfit for American society."

FOR CUBANS EXCLUDED, A WAY OUT-OR IN (Published 1984)

Don't you feel the heroism guys?

 

Much more than $2 billion. This article shows Mexicans alone sent $69 billion back home to Mexico. Now, not all immigrants who sent monies back are undocumented. The last number I saw being repatriated by undocumented was closer to $20 billion a year.

$5/week isn't much. It's less than 1 hour of work at minimum wage. If they aren't working, then they aren't paying. And we can deport those people, assuming there isn't a good reason why they aren't working.

 

You crafted all of these numbers (except the $69 billion which is besides the point because I don't care about naturalized citizens for purposes of this discussion) out of thin air and you don't know how much money they're taking in, which is the only way to contextualize any number that they pay into taxes.

 

I would add that the 2,700 Cubans with a criminal or mental health history referred to in the article represented roughly 2% of the 125,000 refugees who made to the US as part of the Mariel boatlift. They were released from Cuban prisons and mental institutions as part of Fidel Castro's stunt. And put even more in context from 1959 through 2017 approximately 1.4 million Cubans fled the Castro regime.

Cuba was the fifth-largest source of immigrants admitted to the United States for legal permanent residence during 2015 (more than 54,000 persons); just six countries had a larger immigrant population in the United States, with some 1,211,000 U.S. residents born in Cuba—nearly 940,000 of whom now live in Florida. In total, approximately 2 million U.S. residents are natives of Cuba or claim Cuban ancestry. This massive and sustained flow—spawned not only by political and economic conditions in Cuba, but also by U.S. policies that have served as a magnet for this migration—has drawn substantial attention from scholars, journalists, and policymakers, particularly in the context of longstanding Cold War tensions between the two neighbors.​

 

And who made up those Cuban prisons? Bad people? Definitely. Good people? Yes as well.

Everyone who knows Cubans in Miami knows Cubans whose relatives were put in prisons purely for political reasons. Now, the well is soiled, you're lumping in the bad guys with the good guys which makes the Justice Department's job more complicated at the time. But
1: I'm skeptical that all of these people were given due process.
2. This hardly paints Cubans as "heroes." For God's sakes look at the language of the article: "undesirables unfit for American society."
3. This does not address the point that the US's relationship with Cuba was unique in that:

• There was a clear Communist regime who would persecute the people leaving.
• That same Communist regime was sending people (without their consent) to the US. Giving political prisoners the choice of prison or the boat is not consent. That's duress and blackmail.
• The only thing separating the US from Cuba geographically is ocean. So the US pretty much had one of two choices: 1) Accept the people coming in... in some form or 2) don't accept them and leave them for dead.

It was nuanced policy treatment that you're characterizing as this red carpet for heroes. It's nothing like that. My family was (and is) grateful for what we had/have, but apparently gratitude falls on deaf ears with Democrats nowadays. You vote Democrat and play the victim or you're privileged even if you were fleeing firing squads.

 

Cubans are the only people who have added incentive to come to the US because of US policy?

 

While all people fleeing communist countries during the Cold War were welcomed into the US and were considered to have valid claims of asylum by definition (they didn't have to establish persecution on an individual basis) because of the geographic proximity of Cuba to the US many more Cubans fled to the US since Castro took over than did citizens of the former Soviet Union, China and the Eastern European countries in the Soviet bloc. I also used Cuba as example because Cubans like Venezuelans fled directly to the US.

 

You are right. I don't know how much the 8 million undocumented in our work force is making. Or paying in taxes. I think $5/week isn't too much to ask to get documentation to be able to remain in this country, and for new arrivals to be able to work here. Heck, that's less than 1 hour of work at current minimum wage. If a person cannot afford $5/week on a guest worker visa, then we have issues. Either they are being paid slave wages. Or they aren't working. Either way, a problem that needs to be fixed.

One way to better track how much undocumented immigrants are making would be to make them documented and give each one an ITIN. Hmm. How can that be accomplished? Maybe through an expanded guest worker program? And again, $5/week? That's not asking much in my opinion. And given the fact that $69 billion was repatriated back to Mexico alone, the money is certainly there.