Illegal Immigration

[FlyingNarwhal]

OK, I've read everyones responses and this post may be kinda long, so I apologize.

Let's throw caution to the wind and imagine that Trump gets a better Wall than he ever imagined, even in his wettest of dreams.  Fifty feet high, twenty feet thick, machine gun emplacements along the top, and fronted by a 100 foot wide moat, chock-a-block with perpetually pissed off crocodiles. A Wall that is unclimbable, uncuttable, and un-dig-underable.  Such a barrier would have zero effect on illegal immigration into the US.  Why? Because you've got tens of thousands of miles of border that AREN'T walled off.

Clearly, people are willing to form caravans and travel 1500 miles or more in order to get into the US.  Some of these poor sods even go to the extent of paying coyotes to sneak them across the border - I've read that $2000 per head is the going rate, more for kids.  For that kind of money, you can obtain a set of false identity papers and boat passage into the US (there's some evidence that drug cartels are already providing this service).  For a little more, you can get the papers and a flight to Canada, then enter the US.

So, unless you plan to wall off your whole damned civilization, this is an idea that goes nowhere.

Boru

Zero effect?  Really?  0%?  Despite the fact that in areas of the border that we have already put walls there have been noticeable decreases.  And do you really think we would have to wall our coasts and Canadian border?  You all are treating this like a wall either needs to stop 100% of illegal immigration or it is a failed project.  You all are also acting like these immigrants are superhumans that can jump over 30 ft walls and have unlimited funds with which to spend to get into the country.  News flash, most of the people attempting to enter the US illegally are coming for economic reasons.  A large majority of them do not have the funds to hire a coyote to help smuggle them across.  You've read that coyotes are taking people for $2000 per person, more for kids.  Fun fact, most Americans don't have $2000 in their own bank accounts, never mind a poor family from Guatemala or many other Central/South American countries where their local currency is worth shit against the US Dollar.  Let's say a full family wants to come across.  A mother, father, and their child (for the sake of argument lets say in this case a coyote charges the same amount for the kid).  That would be $6000, most of these immigrants do not have that kind of money.   Further, if you think that just because our coasts remain open that all illegal immigration traffic will come in by sea, that is just insane.  A wall will not decrease illegal immigration 100%, but it will take a large chunk out of people attempting each year.  I swear though, if the proposal was indeed as overkill as walling both our southern & northern borders, as well as our coast, you all would argue that illegal immigrants could parachute into the country.

If you can find the article I'd definitely be interested in reading it, but everything I've seen from this administration doesn't show that they are trying to actually hamper the amount of actual asylum seekers into the country.  If you are truly seeking asylum, you can do so at points of entry or embassies.  Most of the people trying to illegally cross are not doing so to actually seek asylum, they are economic immigrants.  And there's nothing wrong with that, but there is a line that they need to get in to enter the country.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morn...itics-say/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/nat...story.html

In his opinion, Sessions wrote, “Generally, claims by aliens pertaining to domestic violence or gang violence perpetrated by non-governmental actors will not qualify for asylum” and that an asylum applicant must generally demonstrate persecution because of affiliation with a “particular social group.”

Sessions told immigration judges, whose courts are part of the Justice Department, his decision “restores sound principles of asylum and long-standing principles of immigration law.” He also said it would help reduce the growing backlog of 700,000 court cases, more than triple the number in 2009.

Two days later, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services issued guidance to asylum officers on how to apply Sessions decision as they assessed the claims of those seeking safety in the United States. Together, the new policies generally made it harder to seek asylum, particularly in the early stage of the process where applicants must demonstrate they have “credible fear” to stay.

Sullivan took aim at much of the new guidance. He wrote there was “no legal basis for an effective categorical ban on domestic violence and gang-related claims,” and he specifically invalidated the general rule that asylum officers should dismiss such claims in assessing applicants’ credible fear claims.

Sullivan also blocked the requirement that applicants alleging harm by someone other than a government must “show the government condoned the private actions or at least demonstrated a complete helplessness to protect the victim.”

So these were actually pretty interesting to read.  The first article (which I'll spend most of my time talking about) is about Jeff Sessions overturning a ruling set by the Board of Immigration Appeals.  I have a problem with reporters that write articles that obfuscate the truth and present a story or article with an obvious bias, which unfortunately this author did.  She cherry picked a lot of her data and quotes which really changes the way that people interpret the actual story behind this.  However she does include links to other articles and sources throughout the article, which you can look at to get a better picture.  The second article is more about how a US District Judge blocked Sessions overturned ruling, and then kind of reiterates what was mentioned in the first article.

First Article:

So the claim of the article is that a woman fled Guatemala in 2005 to the US to run away from her husband, who was violent, threatened to kill her, and had previously raped her.  She also claimed that the police would not arrest this man.  There is no denying that this woman's story is horrific and by all accounts true.  However, to be granted asylum an applicant has to be able to prove two basic requirements. First, an asylum applicant must establish that he or she fears persecution in their home country. Second, the applicant must prove that he or she would be persecuted on account of one of five protected grounds: race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or particular social group.  The author of the article included a link to to decision made by the Immigration Board of Appeals, it's pretty dry to read through but it offers some interesting insight into the case.  For example, the woman who fled had her asylum appeal denied by an immigration judge in 2009 because she a) wasn't a member of a particular social group and b) was not being persecuted by her government on one of the protected grounds.  At the time, DHS also agreed with the court's ruling.  Her legal team was trying claim that her social group was (and I shit you not), “Guatemalan women who have been involved intimately with Guatemalan male companions, who believe that women are to live under male domination.”  Look again, this woman's story is tragic, but that social group is extremely narrow and does not fit well within the spirit of the law.  She was actually denied asylum on the basis that the group she claimed to be of was too narrow, it was “defined principally, if not exclusively, for purposes of” her case.  Come the appeal in 2014, the social group that the woman was claiming to belong to was broadened to “married women in Guatemala who are unable to leave their relationship.”  Still not very broad either, but the DHS decided that they would not fight the ruling by the board.  I'm also just going to throw in there, that the chairman of the board (who was also on the panel for this case's appeal) was appointed by Eric Holder the year before, and both the board and DHS are part of the Executive branch of our government, during which time Obama was being heavily scrutinized for his immigration policies.  Just saying, might not have been the reason people decided to let this case through, could be, who knows.  None-the-less, her appeal was granted, and precedent was set.

Or was it?

Remember how the social group that the woman used in her case was extremely narrow?  It applied to “married women in Guatemala who are unable to leave their relationship.”  The precedent that was set was not that victims of domestic abuse could seek asylum in the US.  The precedent set was that only married women from Guatemala who could not leave their relationship and were victims to domestic violence could gain asylum, and only if the government of Guatemala was unable or unwilling to do anything.  If you were married in Venezuela, precedent didn't apply to you.  If you were a woman living in Guatemala with your boyfriend who was abusive to you, precedent didn't apply to you.  If you were married, but had options to leave your marriage, precedent didn't apply to you.  And finally, if you are a married Guatemalan woman that is unable to leave your relationship, but your government has made steps (however ineffective) to stop domestic violence being committed against you, precedent didn't apply to you.  It was a very shitty precedent.

It summed up in a link that the author provides in their article, which showcases another article that details how the "landmark" case hasn't been effective.  Unfortunately, this was the result of the landmark precedent made:

Out of more than 1,600 asylum cases involving partner violence in which attorneys have sought the center’s assistance, there have been 89 decisions. While 43 were granted either asylum or some similar form of relief, 35 were denied and the rest were sent back to court.

I agree with what Sessions did by overturning the precedent.  There are a lot of things to consider when talking about the policies of asylum.  Obviously there are people that exist outside our country that are suffering for innumerable reasons.  It would be great if we could take them all in but we can't.  And yes, domestic violence is bad, and it's terrible what that woman had to go through, but the reason that we keep our policies on asylum strict is so we can help out those that are most in need first.  Believe it or not we are still taking in refugees at the same rate as during Obama's era.  Jews during the Holocaust would be considered refugees.  Political prisoners from Cuba would be considered refugees.  Married women in Guatemala who are unable to leave their relationship are not refugees.

Second Article:

I'm not going to go to in depth here, like I said before this article mostly has to do a judge blocking Session's decision to overrule the precedent set in the case talked about in the first article.  A couple of things to note, the first being (again) the media bias.  The entire article is doom and gloom, when as I discussed previously, the precedent was not a very effective one.  Yet this article (and the first one) are written in such a way that you would swear we brought women back to the 1950's.  You'll notice this article also mentions asylum seekers fleeing gang violence.  Gang violence had nothing to do with the precedent that was overturned, again as discussed before, the precedent was for married women in Guatemala that could not leave their relationship.  The topic of gang violence was brought up by Sessions when he overruled the previous precedent, given as another reason that would not immediately be accepted as a form of persecution in asylum hearings.  But again, the way the article is written you would think that this was another precedent that had been over turned.

On a side note too, administration has been basically silent on the blocking since the judge ruled in the favor of those seeking asylum.  I wouldn't expect that to stay the case since the ruling was made after Sessions resigned, especially if William Barr ends up being appointed.  The new attorney general will probably follow that up in a higher court.

You likely didn't bring a grappling hook and safety harness with you because a) most of these people are coming from poor countries with barely enough money to eat let alone buy recreational climbing equipment and b) climbing equipment is heavy so you decided not to trek through the desert with it. 

These people pay coyotes thousands of dollars to help them illegally migrate and you think the lack of a rope and grappling hook is going to be a major obstacle?  Hooboy.  Mmmmmkay.

I brought this up at the top.  A large majority of immigrants aren't paying for coyotes.  Also, I included a link about the prototypes that were tested for use, and a lot of them can prevent the use of climbing equipment.  And again, you guys are talking like the people that are immigrating here have special wall climbing powers.  They do not, and by all accounts it will be near impossible to climb without equipment.  Some may decide to bring climbing equipment with them, I doubt a lot of them will since a lot of them seem to get to this country malnourished and dehydrated.  It's hard to walk across a desert with little food or water, while also carrying 60 ft of rope and other climbing equipment with them.  Also, climbing equipment is expensive and most of the immigrants that are trying to enter illegally are poor, they likely do not have the money to spend on it.  Some of the prototypes for the wall can even render certain climbing equipment useless.  Please, tomorrow, everyone find your nearest 3 story building and try to free climb it only in the solid wall portions.  No grabbing window sills or gutters, just climb a straight 30 ft building.  I am looking forward to the results.

---

I think our immigration laws are badly in need of reform and that the quota for our close neighbor Mexico should be higher than for Kazakhstan or Cameroon. And whether we let people cross our border is a separate issue from immigration. Most of the people crossing our borders illegally just need work visas. Our refusal to allow them is a big cause of the situation we're in: We demand labor, but we don't allow the people we need legal entry.  

Understand, under current immigration law, there is no possible way for the vast majority of people south of our border who would want to can ever become US citizens. And if there's no way they can do it legally, the more desperate among them will do it illegally. Our immigration laws are badly broken and the root cause of most of the problems attributed to the destitute people who have to deal with them.

I agree that we should increase our quota for immigrants from Mexico and Central/South America. Most of these immigrants end up getting work as unskilled laborers, and there is a demand for blue collar workers in the US. I think we could increase our quotas, and provide incentives for immigrants to enter trade schools. That would provide those immigrants with skills for higher paying jobs and would benefit the US economy. The question just becomes how much to increase the quotas by. We want people entering the country legally, but we also want to make sure that unemployment doesn't rise due to a massive increase in population, especially in the areas closest to the border.