I’m headed to L.A. to join Real Time With Bill Maher this evening, for a discussion that will include Reason editor Katherine Mangu-Ward. Katherine’s also a staunch defender of speech rights, and has written about a lot of other themes touched on in this space, so it could be interesting. Since it might come up, I’m curious to know any thoughts you might have on immigration - is there anything obvious the U.S. could or should be doing differently, policy-wise, something we maybe don’t hear from pundits? Anyway, back soon, and apologies for going dark for a few days.
This isn't something I haven't heard a pundit talk about. Peggy Noonan opened my eyes on this issue in August of 2016. But as far as I'm concerned it's the most important thing to discuss vis a vis immigration.
I'll preface these observations by pointing out that I am an open borders guy. Not in the backdoor "catch and release" manner of Democrats, but rather in the philosophical belief that charting one's own destiny is the most fundamental of all people's rights. If people *want* to come here, I think they're likely to be better Americans in the end than many of the people I grew up with.
But that doesn't mean I'm ignorant about the downsides of this philosophy. For all of the positives I can list ... economically ... philosophically ... historically ... there are many downsides that are always ignored by we of the open borders mindset and ignored even by people who SAY they don't support open borders but whose ACTIONS indicate tremendous support for open borders.
To sum up ... we have tens of thousands of people coming to our borders every month. Look at where they are going. Just track it for a few hours one day in all of the articles that talk about finding "affordable housing" for immigrants and refugees. "Affordable housing" ....
They are not moving in next door to Joe Biden. Nancy Pelosi. Alexandria Cortez. Or any of the virtue signalling "We must welcome these people seeking refuge!" politicians currently trying to harness this issue for political gain.
They are moving in next door to poor white, hispanic and black neighbors with the least resources to absorb this cultural change. We are asking the people with the least capacity to absorb societal and cultural change to do all the changing. Always. It's who we always ask.
And then we call them racists when cultural differences lead to confrontations. Because when a fight breaks out at the dumpsters over a cultural difference, it will be the working poor citizen that will be the bad guy. Not the rich politically connected elite who pulled strings and arranged things bureaucratically to place the immigrant next door to the working poor citizen. Finding the non citizen "affordable housing" while the citizen struggles to pay the rent.
While the virtue signalling wealthy elites continue their lives uninterrupted and write yet even more speeches castigating the working poor citizenry for not being tolerant and inviting and accepting.
I don't know what or if there is any solution to this conundrum. But at the very least it should be acknowledged. It should be discussed.
And we should stop listening to the speeches of politicians spreading hate about our citizenry on this issue and perhaps start listening to our citizenry before we wind up with someone far worse than a carnival barking clown in charge of our immigration system.
We just had an election in Canada and as I was at the voting booth showing my electoral card and photo ID (e.g. drivers license or Medicare card) to prove my identity, I tried to understand again the argument that instituting voter ID in the US would somehow be racist. We Canadians have always required ID to vote, and have never thought anything of it. It seems like a no brainer to me. It’s funny how the left down there constantly talks about emulating our health care system but conveniently ignores the fact that we also have voter ID and merit based immigration for that matter.
In my 20+ years of first-hand knowledge of immigration policy, I can tell you it absolutely rewards the scofflaws and punishes those who play by the rules.
I went through the years-long process with my wife - an educated, law-abiding woman who speaks four languages. An asset. Meanwhile she knew people who jumped ahead of her with fraudulent marriages or illegally crossing the border. In one case a guy from a well-to-do Senegalese family came here falsely claiming asylum, got in, and later fraudulently married an Algerian to get her in. He currently sells counterfeit goods on eBay. He's not an asset.
Meanwhile, my brother and sister-in law, both professional, educated, hard-working, law-abiding and lovely people would love to emigrate here. If I were to sponsor their visa, it would take at least 14 years.
Good luck, Matt! I point out to people that it seems too coincidental that our "immigration policy" makes it relatively hard to come here legally and permanently, but relatively easy to come illegally and stay for a shorter time, during which the undocumented person is maximally vulnerable to exploitation. I dont think its a mere coincidence that our failure to meaningfully reform our immigration policy results in a default situation that happens to be great for the business community, but is one more thing working to disempower labor rights in the US. The fact that the democratic party not only ignores that angle, but actively tries to smear that conventional, labor party perspective as inherently racist and xenophobic, when its actually rooted in a compassionate and practical awareness of the economic realities in a capitalist society, tells you who the democratic party is truly serving these days.
I've worked on refugee and migration issues globally for 20 years. The main reason they keep coming illegally is called pull factor. Simply put the USA keeps allowing it. Once they get here and there are no consequences and they get jobs then everyone back home finds out and more come. It basically is now reached the point where it is totally out of control. It started off like a small storm and now spun out of control into a Cat 5 hurricane. The media and advocates never want to talk about pull factor. The other thing the media never talks about is that most countries actually do protect their borders and do not allow illegals in. When they need workers to fill jobs, they issue work permits and visas and they hold the employers and immigration sponsors responsible for the immigrant. Once they are done working they retire and go back to their country. Until you hold everyone accountable the system will remain broken. The other thing they don't talk about is that probably about 50 to 90 percent of the people claiming asylum are just making it up and scamming the system. I do care a lot about refugees but ultimately the scammers and rule breakers and the ones that end up hurting the real refugees that try to follow the rules. Until we approach this broken system we are headed toward being a 4th world country where anything goes and there is no common culture. That always ends in dysfunction and violence.
Last month, I returned from an international human rights delegation in Honduras exploring the root causes of migration.For 10 days, we met with a range of Honduran communities including rural communities, subsistence farmers, Indigenous groups, community radio leaders, feminist activists, and relatives of disappeared migrants. We asked these communities – What can the United States do to mitigate the violence, combat corruption, and stem the flow of outward migration?
First, the United States must end its funding for the Honduran military and security forces. This aid is sold to the American public as necessary to fight gangs and organized crime, but what we saw is that the guns, training, and drones that we supply are used to suppress activists, organizers, and political opponents who are defending their land and rights.
Second, the United States must end its economic aid to Honduras. This aid is not helping the ordinary people of Honduras. Instead, it is fueling massive development projects such as hydroelectric dams. These projects foster corruption among elites, cause environmental damage, and displace people from their land ultimately resulting in outward migration.
While we only visited Honduras, I think the lessons from our delegation apply to other countries in the "Northern Triangle" (i.e. Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador).
US-based Latin American solidarity groups are pushing Congressional action. There was an amendment introduced by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (MI-13) to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to prohibit “capacity building” funds for foreign security forces (Section 333) in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Unfortunately, that amendment failed a couple of weeks ago and the NDAA passed the House. However, there are still important resolutions in Congress such as the Berta Cáceres Human Rights in Honduras Act (H.R. 1574) and the Honduras Human Rights and Anti-Corruption Act of 2021 (H.R. 2716, S.388) that should be passed.
Demanding justice for Berta Cáceres and so many other Hondurans affected by the US military and security aid to Honduras is the first step towards addressing the root causes of migration.
You’re too young to remember, but in the ‘80s people openly discussed in the press:
- What’s the optimal rate of immigration for economic growth?
- Where does immigration depress wages (its effects are NOT all benign despite the gross national averages I’ve heard you quote; ask construction workers in the southwest)?
-Why shouldn’t we demand skills to resettle here the way “progressive” countries like Canada do?
-What is the cost or benefit of concentrated immigration from a single country or region? Why shouldn’t immigrants be more diverse?
-What is the justification of privileging family relations?
-Should voters really have no say at all in immigration policy?
Yes, these topics actually appeared on TV and in newspapers and magazines. Imagine.
Let’s get back to focusing on LEGAL immigration. Good, honest, hard-working people all around the world are waiting obediently for their green card applications to be processed. Meanwhile we are rewarding throngs of illegals by releasing them into the country, most of them never to be heard from again.
First generation legal immigrant / naturalized US citizen- been here since 1993.
1. H1 B Visa is a huge fraud committed by corporate America to depress wages, fire people at will, replace IT departments with outsourced labor etc etc - just follow what Disney did to their IT department it'll be enough to make your blood boil - all native born, legal immigrants need to fight H-1B tooth and nail.
2. Increased immigration of all kinds legal and illegal will lead to labor suppression, recent immigrants of all kind will be willing to work for less in more difficult conditions that makes things harder for all a good field we just slash working conditions
3. Just Google and find out how many grad students in US universities are foreign born I bet it will be more than 80%
The reason universities have these programs open even though they cannot attract any native born/legal immigrants is because they can charge full out of state tuition to grad students who after the finish their studies by paying full tuition will want to stay in US to get H1 b and hopefully green cards - however they use a loophole called OPT that lets them stay in the country for 2-4 years after they finish their graduate studies till they get H-1B / green card - this is adding a large number of students on OPT student visa extension who are willing to work for almost peanuts that depresses wages for everybody else
I have nothing against foreign students however this does two things - it's supports the already obscene tuition that universities charge,( don't get me started on higher education and high tuition scam in this country 😡😡) supports graduate programs that none of the native born / legal immigrants want to join, feeds huge number of additional bodies into the labor force that corporates love because it gives them the upper hand to continue to screw people
I build homes and do remodeling for the elite in the Washington DC suburbs. Most of the people on my constructions sites these days are Latino and usually only the crew lead speaks English. Since these are all subcontractors I have no idea of citizen status but my guess is a significant portion are here illegally. When I was in my teens on job sites working for my dad (about 25 years ago) the job sites were a mixing bowl of races and cultures. As a result of this huge influx of cheap and illegal labor, pay for those jobs, especially starting pay for apprentice positions have stagnated. Most of those positions are no longer solid blue collar jobs unless you have tons of experience. The working class people I know from all backgrounds, including Latino hate it. They don’t dislike illegal immigrants themselves but they hate what the huge influx of cheap labor has done to the job market. Add the additional burden it puts on the school systems in mostly poorer areas and it’s a disaster.
You have to control the border and set some type of merit based system. People tend to confuse merit based with education but that isn’t the case. Merit based is looking at labor shortage data and bringing those types of workers in, whatever that skill set might be. You just have to be careful to not make the same mistake with the h1b visa program where tech companies used it as a way to bring in cheaper labor even though labor existed here, just at a higher price. Those coming into the country under a merit based program must be paid equal to their American counterparts.
None of this means we can’t accept refugees or have allotments for other types of immigrants, it just means the bulk majority should be by a merit based system that protects American salaries. Also, 90% of republicans I know support allowing people to stay that have been here a long time and contribute to our society. They also support DACA.
It seems the major talking point on the left is that all these poorer white Americans became trumpers because they just woke up and realized they were racist but it’s so far from the truth. They just got sold a really crappy set of goods from Democrats. The combination of tilting too much power to unions, combined with horrible trade deals evaporated most of these “good paying union jobs) Then add in a huge influx of cheap manual labor via our immigration policy (if you can call it that) and blue collar, manual labor Americans saw their livelihoods, most of which was passed down through generations disappear over the last 30 years. You’d be pissed too.
As far as deterring illegal immigrants from making the trip, I don’t really see a great way to do it that isn’t going to be incredibly unkind to the people trying to enter our country. It’s kinda the nature of deterrents, they are unpleasant.
The other option is really holding companies responsible for hiring employees that are illegal, the penalties should be steep.
I have a question. How do Haitians afford the time and money to get to the Mexico / Texas border? Who is funding this? And why here? If the USA is a systemically racist, white supremacist, cops hunting down black people such that Lebron is afraid for his and his progeny's lives ... why would anyone from Haiti come here?
We have a country that is now a net importer of both food and energy and we have open borders? Let me repeat that. We can no longer feed the people who live here with the food we grow ourselves. We also are no longer capable of manufacturing the majority of the products needed to run our country, ourselves. We have a water shortage in America that is growing. We've passed peak food on the planet and peak conventional oil. And people are actually debating whether or not open borders is a good idea? Pinch me. There's a complete disconnect with reality, going on here. This is going to end badly. Very, very, badly.
I know it’s not fashionable these days, but how about simply enforcing the imigration laws on the books. I recall the President took an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution”. The Constitution provides that the President shall “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed”. Seems Biden’s policy to ignore Congress’ statutes is facially unconstitutional…why isn’t anyone taking him to court on this? Reminds me of an old HL Menckin quote: Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it GOOD AND HARD!
Something you don’t hear from the pundits on immigration is that much of the trade/foreign policy the u.s. imposes on some of these countries can Be very politically and economically disruptive And directly result in immigration.
So, look into cia involvement in Central American in recent years. Or how big u.s. agricultural subsidies and trade policy puts the Mexican agricultural worker out of a job. Then they come up to the u.s., get this, to work in agriculture.
If you don’t want immigration from these countries, stop implementing policies that cause immigration. Seems obvious to me but you never hear pundits say this. It usually something along the lines of they are coming here because they want our jobs, etc.
Anyway, hopefully that’s helpful....let me know if you want more details.
We've been looking into citizenship in Canada, Ireland, and France. If one is young and in a desirable field, chances seem fair to good. In Quebec, which I love, one has to speak French- if you are over 40, forget it. In most Western countries, older applicants must show proof of considerable funds, pay for health care, and in many cases "invest" in the host country to the tune of $500,000 to $ 1 million. Above all else, applicants may not be a burden on host country citizens. That is fair for the country's own citizens. The amounts also seem extortionate. Want to get out of the US? Hand over a million. In some countries, you get it back after 5 years. One realizes that America has been enormously generous and open-the same America that's constantly accused of being racist. At the same time, it's obvious that that generosity has been abused, that immigrants, not the United States, are determining our policy by flouting laws. There's a difference between being generous and overrun. Compared to other Western countries, the U.S. hasn't much cared about its own citizens for quite a long time. It's time to care, and time to cut back. In terms of cohesion, things are pretty much a mess, thanks to CRT and precursors. The activists stoke division. That's a shame; many Hispanics are enterpreneurs-- they like capitalism.
We should admit those who can be self-sufficient, educated, are needed by industry, who apply legally, who will not be a burden on U.S. citizens, who either pay for their own health insurance or who have jobs lined up. We should spread out the countries applicants come from. With leftists pitting groups against one another, California protests with raised fists and shouting the primacy of "ethnic studies," we need to worry about cohesion and stability-- a bona fide refugee program, legal immigration based on U S need, and enforce the law.
1) U.S. should have a points system for potential immigrants like Canada and Australia. The Green Card lottery is a joke.
2) Mass immigration has been a key component in the war on the middle class. What happens when you increase the supply of anything? The price drops. Letting China into the WTO and immigration, both legal and illegal, have devastated the wages of the American middle class. And "the elite" who have benefited are laughing all the way to the bank.
We must be the only country which is easier to immigrate into illegally than legally. But it is too much of a political windfall for both parties for them to fix it. We could accommodate many more legally and avoid some of the border issues if we wanted to.
I am an immigrant who has lived here for 30 years. I am also very conservative so I believe US laws need to be respected and enforced. That being said there seems to be a great need for labor force and there are jobs that Americans don't want to do or don't do well. It includes me.
I believe there is one thing we can do to resolve this issue. Something Eisenhower did in the 50s. Most of the immigrants coming here from Central and South America don't care about the citizenship or being able to live here. They are here for purely economical reason-they want to work, earn and support their families. Why cant we offer them multiple entry work visas. They wont have to deal with coyotes, will earn fair wages and pay taxes. What's most important they can leave their kids at home knowing that they can come and go any time they want to. It is expensive to support their extended families here. Dollar has a lot more value at their home countries. This way they don't have to live of the government tit, we know exactly who is here and where. Doesn't this seem like a sensible solution? Both Repubs and Dims will lose their election talking points. It will help the economy even if they send their earnings home.
The reality is that both sides of the aisle are complicit in this mess. The reason that the GOP objected to Trumps logical wall strategy was because they are in the bag with big manufacturing to meet the need for low wage worker supply. These manufacturers want to keep the flow of illegals for their own economic reasons but on the face of it scream to the rafters when the duplicitous dems want them here to fill voter pools. What’s clear to everyone is that speeding up the legal immigration process and placing restrictions on the standards and qualifications we use for assessing new citizens needs to be reevaluated and enforced. Right now no one really wants this fixed because it serves too many useful purposes both financial and political for a solution to be implemented.
Go get em Matt! Not sure my wiring allows for watching a full episode of BM but at least he, like yourself, has begun to recognize the dangers and inconsistencies of the progressive movement. On immigration it is not that hard. Dont tell me you are not all in on open borders when every policy prescription you advocate directly results in just that. It is also glaringly obvious that Trump was far better at managing this situation than any of his predecessors and certainly better than the current clown car. It is amazing, given their supposed concerns gor the Black community specifically and lower class Americans generally, that allowing millions of unskilled laborers into the country is a hill they are willing to die on. Every hardworking Mexican I know is steadfastly against this policy and the polls of the last month indicate that my random sample is consistent with the broader trend. What are the D’s possibly thinking? As I disagree with their approach to governance in general, i take solace when their fecklessness plays out so openly for all to see. So please dont be too hard on them. What is that old maxin for dealing with adversaries? Never interrupt them when they are digging their way out of a hole? Safe travels.
Simple - do what we can to stop all illegal immigration, and deport thoe who are here illegally.
I am a blue-collar worker and these hordes of 3rd world people depress wages for people like me. You journalist types can sit in your ivory towers and type on your keyboards and you are unaffected.
Meanwhile, the big corporations feed off of this source of cheap labor and make oodles of profit, allowing them to squeeze out small businesses.
Just admit it already - Trump was right. We need to build a wall. And we should have done it decades ago.
Since Bill had become so completely out of touch - a limousine liberal - I’m hoping you bring some subversion to the table. Please shoot for something between a full-on Greenwald and a Krystal Ball smirk.
America cannot remain America if it does not have secure borders. It will, and already is becoming, something else. It’s the same with the Constitution, it’s only value is in people willing to follow its statutes. If you desecrate the very tenets that make America and it’s Constitution worthy, as many are, then you destroy those protections that gave you the right to destroy it. In other words we are experiencing self destruction, we are the enemy within.
I'm a legal immigrant to Britain (25 years now). What needs to happen is that the government gives a sh*t about its own people. As soon as wages in one sector go down on account of mass immigration, this sector needs to be protected. You see it in reverse right now. There is a painful absence of lorry drivers which means we experience fuel and some food shortages (food shortage = you have to select from fifteen rather than sixteen different types of cheddar).
The Remainer psychodrama unfolds like this: we warned you this would happen with Brexit! Those wonderful Eastern Europeans have all left ... they don't want to live in your racist, homophobic hellhole. Three cheers for the country going to the dogs!
The truth is that of course companies were hooked on cheap labour and dreadful working conditions, and now wages and conditions need to correct (upwards), which might mean that your latte costs five p more.
I think a state should operate along the assumption that they owe their citizens if not a living, then at least the conditions to earn one.
Sincerely appreciate the invitation, but when are we average Americans allowed to have thoughts on immigration? I would love to hear the rationale for why American nurses, 12-year olds, NBA players, and pregnant women are required to be vaxxed and masked, but thousands of illegal border crossers with unknown medical histories are put on mass transit and shipped throughout the country. I would love someone to tell me why Afghans are willing to hand off their infants over walls to American soldiers, why millions of people of color are coming to this country, if it is so racist. I am entitled to know why I am supposed to follow every BS directive from my government, which by its immigration non-enforcement is an accomplice to the misery that is human trafficking. The only thing we average people get from the current regime and the pundits is, "shut up and sit down." And, you must wear a mask.
I have many thoughts about immigration but not a lot of time for more than a drive-by right now.
Biggest issue though is that the same people pushing for mass immigration - whether low-skilled illegal or higher skilled H1-B - is that the people that get the benefits aren't the ones paying the price. In the case of low-skilled illegal immigration, it's the poorest neighborhoods that pay the price via lowered wages, raised rents, costs on pressure on schools and hospitals. For higher skilled H1-Bs, it's the US population who have spent the money for a STEM education only to be laid off and replaced. The ones who get the benefits as a result of cheap labor award themselves virtue-signalling priviliges, while the ones who can least afford it pay the price.
One solution -which i generally offer to the sound of crickets - is for those who benefit to absorb some of the costs for a change. Open up their neighborhoods to the newcomers by building low-cost housing for them, welcome them into their schools, pay for their medical care.
Just because one may loathe Trump doesn’t mean he was wrong about everything. He seemed to have good control of illegal immigration before his admin left. New admin was hell bent on undoing everything he did because it was all demonized in the campaign. Biden admin needs to suck it up and go back to prior admins policies on this issue —“remain in Mexico” for one. Maybe even (dare I say ) finish the wall. Del Rio seems to be in obvious need of a barrier.
I've directly worked in the immigration system within the USG. One of my main pet peaves undiscussed amongst the punditry is the single-minded focus on undocumented/illegal aliens patently excludes all the stakeholders seeking to immigrate LEGALLY to the United States. I did a quick review of this backlog in 2020, which has only gotten worse post-pandemic:
In the F1-F4 immigrant visa category alone, there are 3.76 million future immigrants (not including their derivative families), which means there are close to an additional 3.76 million Amcit/LPR petitioners. (Note: This does not include the priority IR1-5 priority categories of immigrants - spouses, minor children, and parents of Amcits). If you total all of the potential accompanying family members derivatives together (plus the 215K employment-based immigrant visa beneficiaries waiting in line), there are likely well over 10 million stakeholders in the immigration debate who have been completely ignored -- stakeholders who have paid high fees, navigated the cumbersome bureaucracy, and most importantly waited patiently in line.
Nothing I've seen in the current media coverage or congressional immigration reform proposals (from either side) address these people, focusing the debate solely on illegal/undocumented immigrants and asylum claims. As a legal immigrant myself, and also someone who has filed immigrant visa petitions for family, the complete lack of respect for those who waited in line seems offensive and smells like virtue-signalling. Tell that to the 1.22 million Mexican nationals who are currently patiently waiting for their legal immigration documents (which doesn't even include their derivative family members). Tell the Filipino sibling who has waited and unbelievable 25 years (!) for his immigrant petition to be interviewed. Without PRIORITIZING debate about these 10 million+ foreign and Amcit stakeholders already following the rules in our system, we are not really serious about immigration reforms.
A common argument by my Liberal colleagues is “how can you be against immigrants, weren’t your parents immigrants?” To that I always answer “my grandparents came through Ellis Island and were documented. No one is against immigration, what we are against is the conscious violation of our border to “skirt” the system. Biden’s policy supports Human Trafficking, the very thing that Obama set out to defeat. Human trafficking isn’t just young women in the sex slave trade, its paying $8,000 to a Coyote who might leave you in a sweltering trailer to die if he sniffs the authorities.
While all human beings should be, and legally must be, treated in as dignified a manner as possible and granted the ability to apply for - and receive when appropriate - asylum in the US, large scale movement of peoples is a symptom of a wider issue.
US foreign policy, both overt and covert, in particular through hard power such as military action, sanctions, coup plots and even 'aid', as well as via exploitative economic treaties such as NAFTA have played a major, if not the major, role in destabilising country after country in Latin America for generations.
The US behaves like an empire. A neo-colonial empire. And if people want to the reduce the flow of men, women and children from South to North then they should demand that the US (and other states) cease and desist all policies of exploitation and destabilisation towards those countries from which those human beings are fleeing.
Global warming and climate change is also fueling conflict and undermining the sustainability of life in many places already.
So, end imperialism and deal with global warming and we'll see a major reduction in people desperately fleeing their own societies and communities.
Most obvious thing is we need to stop contributing to the problems that create the necessity for large groups of people to flee their home countries. We are largely responsible for the problems in several Central American countries and Haiti.
Ending the war on drugs. Profits from the black market drug trade are the primary funding source of the violent cartels and gangs in many central and South American countries. The violence they are committing are in service of securing their territory and future drug trade profits. This is in turn the violence that pushes so many migrants to flee these countries.
End the war on drugs and you end a major driver of refugees fleeing violence from Latin America.
I get a sense that the Democrats and Republicans are particularly dishonest on 2 issues; immigration and abortion. They both appear to find it convenient not to resolve these issues so that they can use them as distractions during their campaigns.
In what universe is an "America first" foreign policy/immigration policy a bad thing? Would love to hear how a lefty kook answers that, aside from the comically predictable word salad with hamina-hamina-hamina dressing.
On immigration, My grandparents came here in the early 1900’s, went through Ellis Island and made their way to lower Manhattan to start their new lives. My wife is a first generation American so I am not anti immigration. Back in those days we had a much smaller population and a wide open country. Today we have 330 million or so citizens and over 11 million illegals. We can’t continue to just let everyone who walks in the door the ability to stay. Also, it is a little known fact but, back then you had to have a medical exam upon arrival and we either quarantined or sent back to the country you came from. We sent back over 1 mm people for various reasons. So first we need to enforce our border and adhere to the laws we have on the books. Then and this is not going to be popular in some circles but, most coming here illegally are not asylum seekers. They are simply trying for a better live. We need to stop giving illegals drivers licenses , free medical treatment, free education and in some instances other welfare that are for US citizens. That will discourage people from coming here illegally.
Now the real hard part, come up with new laws that make the process to immigrate to the US easier and faster. Our system has been has been broken for a long time. Politicians use immigration as a political football.
This is a great country, that’s why people continue to risk their lives to get here. This will take courage that unfortunately our current politicians lack.
We immigrated here back in mid-80s and I remember lots of requirements and paperwork needed to be met which took years. I took notice of a particular document titled “Affidavit of Support” and asked my father what it was. He simply answered that as the principal petitioner, he would be responsible for us (his family) and not the government. And if he lost his job or if he was in any kind of financial trouble, there should be another source of support, like his relatives. Even though it was a different time and climate, the US Immigration was pretty much strict and by the book. Which it should be.
Free speech is one of the topics? All my life, I’ve considered myself apolitical. I stayed away on any discussion about it just like religion. And then, they started to cancel stand-up comics… etc, and this new culture has gone off the rails. Thanks to a handful of journalists like yourself, still exist. who I can depend on to get my unbiased source of information.
I think the solution is for the US to quit overthrowing governments and let the people who are flocking here have their country back and that means their government and their resources and their land. We overthrow their governments, put puppets in who let us take their resources and leave nothing for the people to live on, land and resources including food. And then there was NAFTA. We sold corn to Mexico so cheap that 3 million farmers lost their land. Which our corporations then proceeded to buy up. What were those people suppose to do. Sit down and die. They came here to be able to live. This is how the US operates and then wants to throw immigrants under the bus. We suck
Thanks Matt! I'm so glad you are going to get another chance to stand up for free speech -- I really hope you share some of your most recent piece with a larger audience (how the media is the new religion)!
Also - would you please help draw attention to the awful treatment given to Lt. Col Schiller -- the military has thrown him in jail for daring to ask for accountability in the upper ranks.....it's outrageous - and the mainstream media is of course ignoring it.....Please help if you can to push back on this!
This isn't something I haven't heard a pundit talk about. Peggy Noonan opened my eyes on this issue in August of 2016. But as far as I'm concerned it's the most important thing to discuss vis a vis immigration.
I'll preface these observations by pointing out that I am an open borders guy. Not in the backdoor "catch and release" manner of Democrats, but rather in the philosophical belief that charting one's own destiny is the most fundamental of all people's rights. If people *want* to come here, I think they're likely to be better Americans in the end than many of the people I grew up with.
But that doesn't mean I'm ignorant about the downsides of this philosophy. For all of the positives I can list ... economically ... philosophically ... historically ... there are many downsides that are always ignored by we of the open borders mindset and ignored even by people who SAY they don't support open borders but whose ACTIONS indicate tremendous support for open borders.
To sum up ... we have tens of thousands of people coming to our borders every month. Look at where they are going. Just track it for a few hours one day in all of the articles that talk about finding "affordable housing" for immigrants and refugees. "Affordable housing" ....
They are not moving in next door to Joe Biden. Nancy Pelosi. Alexandria Cortez. Or any of the virtue signalling "We must welcome these people seeking refuge!" politicians currently trying to harness this issue for political gain.
They are moving in next door to poor white, hispanic and black neighbors with the least resources to absorb this cultural change. We are asking the people with the least capacity to absorb societal and cultural change to do all the changing. Always. It's who we always ask.
And then we call them racists when cultural differences lead to confrontations. Because when a fight breaks out at the dumpsters over a cultural difference, it will be the working poor citizen that will be the bad guy. Not the rich politically connected elite who pulled strings and arranged things bureaucratically to place the immigrant next door to the working poor citizen. Finding the non citizen "affordable housing" while the citizen struggles to pay the rent.
While the virtue signalling wealthy elites continue their lives uninterrupted and write yet even more speeches castigating the working poor citizenry for not being tolerant and inviting and accepting.
I don't know what or if there is any solution to this conundrum. But at the very least it should be acknowledged. It should be discussed.
And we should stop listening to the speeches of politicians spreading hate about our citizenry on this issue and perhaps start listening to our citizenry before we wind up with someone far worse than a carnival barking clown in charge of our immigration system.
We just had an election in Canada and as I was at the voting booth showing my electoral card and photo ID (e.g. drivers license or Medicare card) to prove my identity, I tried to understand again the argument that instituting voter ID in the US would somehow be racist. We Canadians have always required ID to vote, and have never thought anything of it. It seems like a no brainer to me. It’s funny how the left down there constantly talks about emulating our health care system but conveniently ignores the fact that we also have voter ID and merit based immigration for that matter.
In my 20+ years of first-hand knowledge of immigration policy, I can tell you it absolutely rewards the scofflaws and punishes those who play by the rules.
I went through the years-long process with my wife - an educated, law-abiding woman who speaks four languages. An asset. Meanwhile she knew people who jumped ahead of her with fraudulent marriages or illegally crossing the border. In one case a guy from a well-to-do Senegalese family came here falsely claiming asylum, got in, and later fraudulently married an Algerian to get her in. He currently sells counterfeit goods on eBay. He's not an asset.
Meanwhile, my brother and sister-in law, both professional, educated, hard-working, law-abiding and lovely people would love to emigrate here. If I were to sponsor their visa, it would take at least 14 years.
That's bullshit.
Good luck, Matt! I point out to people that it seems too coincidental that our "immigration policy" makes it relatively hard to come here legally and permanently, but relatively easy to come illegally and stay for a shorter time, during which the undocumented person is maximally vulnerable to exploitation. I dont think its a mere coincidence that our failure to meaningfully reform our immigration policy results in a default situation that happens to be great for the business community, but is one more thing working to disempower labor rights in the US. The fact that the democratic party not only ignores that angle, but actively tries to smear that conventional, labor party perspective as inherently racist and xenophobic, when its actually rooted in a compassionate and practical awareness of the economic realities in a capitalist society, tells you who the democratic party is truly serving these days.
Ask Maher why he’s afraid to have Glenn Greenwald on his show.
I've worked on refugee and migration issues globally for 20 years. The main reason they keep coming illegally is called pull factor. Simply put the USA keeps allowing it. Once they get here and there are no consequences and they get jobs then everyone back home finds out and more come. It basically is now reached the point where it is totally out of control. It started off like a small storm and now spun out of control into a Cat 5 hurricane. The media and advocates never want to talk about pull factor. The other thing the media never talks about is that most countries actually do protect their borders and do not allow illegals in. When they need workers to fill jobs, they issue work permits and visas and they hold the employers and immigration sponsors responsible for the immigrant. Once they are done working they retire and go back to their country. Until you hold everyone accountable the system will remain broken. The other thing they don't talk about is that probably about 50 to 90 percent of the people claiming asylum are just making it up and scamming the system. I do care a lot about refugees but ultimately the scammers and rule breakers and the ones that end up hurting the real refugees that try to follow the rules. Until we approach this broken system we are headed toward being a 4th world country where anything goes and there is no common culture. That always ends in dysfunction and violence.
Last month, I returned from an international human rights delegation in Honduras exploring the root causes of migration.For 10 days, we met with a range of Honduran communities including rural communities, subsistence farmers, Indigenous groups, community radio leaders, feminist activists, and relatives of disappeared migrants. We asked these communities – What can the United States do to mitigate the violence, combat corruption, and stem the flow of outward migration?
First, the United States must end its funding for the Honduran military and security forces. This aid is sold to the American public as necessary to fight gangs and organized crime, but what we saw is that the guns, training, and drones that we supply are used to suppress activists, organizers, and political opponents who are defending their land and rights.
Second, the United States must end its economic aid to Honduras. This aid is not helping the ordinary people of Honduras. Instead, it is fueling massive development projects such as hydroelectric dams. These projects foster corruption among elites, cause environmental damage, and displace people from their land ultimately resulting in outward migration.
While we only visited Honduras, I think the lessons from our delegation apply to other countries in the "Northern Triangle" (i.e. Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador).
US-based Latin American solidarity groups are pushing Congressional action. There was an amendment introduced by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (MI-13) to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to prohibit “capacity building” funds for foreign security forces (Section 333) in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Unfortunately, that amendment failed a couple of weeks ago and the NDAA passed the House. However, there are still important resolutions in Congress such as the Berta Cáceres Human Rights in Honduras Act (H.R. 1574) and the Honduras Human Rights and Anti-Corruption Act of 2021 (H.R. 2716, S.388) that should be passed.
Demanding justice for Berta Cáceres and so many other Hondurans affected by the US military and security aid to Honduras is the first step towards addressing the root causes of migration.
You’re too young to remember, but in the ‘80s people openly discussed in the press:
- What’s the optimal rate of immigration for economic growth?
- Where does immigration depress wages (its effects are NOT all benign despite the gross national averages I’ve heard you quote; ask construction workers in the southwest)?
-Why shouldn’t we demand skills to resettle here the way “progressive” countries like Canada do?
-What is the cost or benefit of concentrated immigration from a single country or region? Why shouldn’t immigrants be more diverse?
-What is the justification of privileging family relations?
-Should voters really have no say at all in immigration policy?
Yes, these topics actually appeared on TV and in newspapers and magazines. Imagine.
Let’s get back to focusing on LEGAL immigration. Good, honest, hard-working people all around the world are waiting obediently for their green card applications to be processed. Meanwhile we are rewarding throngs of illegals by releasing them into the country, most of them never to be heard from again.
First generation legal immigrant / naturalized US citizen- been here since 1993.
1. H1 B Visa is a huge fraud committed by corporate America to depress wages, fire people at will, replace IT departments with outsourced labor etc etc - just follow what Disney did to their IT department it'll be enough to make your blood boil - all native born, legal immigrants need to fight H-1B tooth and nail.
https://www.epi.org/blog/disney-h1b-scandal-in-spotlight-meet-american-workers-whose-jobs-careers-were-destroyed/
2. Increased immigration of all kinds legal and illegal will lead to labor suppression, recent immigrants of all kind will be willing to work for less in more difficult conditions that makes things harder for all a good field we just slash working conditions
3. Just Google and find out how many grad students in US universities are foreign born I bet it will be more than 80%
The reason universities have these programs open even though they cannot attract any native born/legal immigrants is because they can charge full out of state tuition to grad students who after the finish their studies by paying full tuition will want to stay in US to get H1 b and hopefully green cards - however they use a loophole called OPT that lets them stay in the country for 2-4 years after they finish their graduate studies till they get H-1B / green card - this is adding a large number of students on OPT student visa extension who are willing to work for almost peanuts that depresses wages for everybody else
I have nothing against foreign students however this does two things - it's supports the already obscene tuition that universities charge,( don't get me started on higher education and high tuition scam in this country 😡😡) supports graduate programs that none of the native born / legal immigrants want to join, feeds huge number of additional bodies into the labor force that corporates love because it gives them the upper hand to continue to screw people
I build homes and do remodeling for the elite in the Washington DC suburbs. Most of the people on my constructions sites these days are Latino and usually only the crew lead speaks English. Since these are all subcontractors I have no idea of citizen status but my guess is a significant portion are here illegally. When I was in my teens on job sites working for my dad (about 25 years ago) the job sites were a mixing bowl of races and cultures. As a result of this huge influx of cheap and illegal labor, pay for those jobs, especially starting pay for apprentice positions have stagnated. Most of those positions are no longer solid blue collar jobs unless you have tons of experience. The working class people I know from all backgrounds, including Latino hate it. They don’t dislike illegal immigrants themselves but they hate what the huge influx of cheap labor has done to the job market. Add the additional burden it puts on the school systems in mostly poorer areas and it’s a disaster.
You have to control the border and set some type of merit based system. People tend to confuse merit based with education but that isn’t the case. Merit based is looking at labor shortage data and bringing those types of workers in, whatever that skill set might be. You just have to be careful to not make the same mistake with the h1b visa program where tech companies used it as a way to bring in cheaper labor even though labor existed here, just at a higher price. Those coming into the country under a merit based program must be paid equal to their American counterparts.
None of this means we can’t accept refugees or have allotments for other types of immigrants, it just means the bulk majority should be by a merit based system that protects American salaries. Also, 90% of republicans I know support allowing people to stay that have been here a long time and contribute to our society. They also support DACA.
It seems the major talking point on the left is that all these poorer white Americans became trumpers because they just woke up and realized they were racist but it’s so far from the truth. They just got sold a really crappy set of goods from Democrats. The combination of tilting too much power to unions, combined with horrible trade deals evaporated most of these “good paying union jobs) Then add in a huge influx of cheap manual labor via our immigration policy (if you can call it that) and blue collar, manual labor Americans saw their livelihoods, most of which was passed down through generations disappear over the last 30 years. You’d be pissed too.
As far as deterring illegal immigrants from making the trip, I don’t really see a great way to do it that isn’t going to be incredibly unkind to the people trying to enter our country. It’s kinda the nature of deterrents, they are unpleasant.
The other option is really holding companies responsible for hiring employees that are illegal, the penalties should be steep.
I have a question. How do Haitians afford the time and money to get to the Mexico / Texas border? Who is funding this? And why here? If the USA is a systemically racist, white supremacist, cops hunting down black people such that Lebron is afraid for his and his progeny's lives ... why would anyone from Haiti come here?
We have a country that is now a net importer of both food and energy and we have open borders? Let me repeat that. We can no longer feed the people who live here with the food we grow ourselves. We also are no longer capable of manufacturing the majority of the products needed to run our country, ourselves. We have a water shortage in America that is growing. We've passed peak food on the planet and peak conventional oil. And people are actually debating whether or not open borders is a good idea? Pinch me. There's a complete disconnect with reality, going on here. This is going to end badly. Very, very, badly.
I know it’s not fashionable these days, but how about simply enforcing the imigration laws on the books. I recall the President took an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution”. The Constitution provides that the President shall “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed”. Seems Biden’s policy to ignore Congress’ statutes is facially unconstitutional…why isn’t anyone taking him to court on this? Reminds me of an old HL Menckin quote: Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it GOOD AND HARD!
Something you don’t hear from the pundits on immigration is that much of the trade/foreign policy the u.s. imposes on some of these countries can Be very politically and economically disruptive And directly result in immigration.
So, look into cia involvement in Central American in recent years. Or how big u.s. agricultural subsidies and trade policy puts the Mexican agricultural worker out of a job. Then they come up to the u.s., get this, to work in agriculture.
If you don’t want immigration from these countries, stop implementing policies that cause immigration. Seems obvious to me but you never hear pundits say this. It usually something along the lines of they are coming here because they want our jobs, etc.
Anyway, hopefully that’s helpful....let me know if you want more details.
We've been looking into citizenship in Canada, Ireland, and France. If one is young and in a desirable field, chances seem fair to good. In Quebec, which I love, one has to speak French- if you are over 40, forget it. In most Western countries, older applicants must show proof of considerable funds, pay for health care, and in many cases "invest" in the host country to the tune of $500,000 to $ 1 million. Above all else, applicants may not be a burden on host country citizens. That is fair for the country's own citizens. The amounts also seem extortionate. Want to get out of the US? Hand over a million. In some countries, you get it back after 5 years. One realizes that America has been enormously generous and open-the same America that's constantly accused of being racist. At the same time, it's obvious that that generosity has been abused, that immigrants, not the United States, are determining our policy by flouting laws. There's a difference between being generous and overrun. Compared to other Western countries, the U.S. hasn't much cared about its own citizens for quite a long time. It's time to care, and time to cut back. In terms of cohesion, things are pretty much a mess, thanks to CRT and precursors. The activists stoke division. That's a shame; many Hispanics are enterpreneurs-- they like capitalism.
We should admit those who can be self-sufficient, educated, are needed by industry, who apply legally, who will not be a burden on U.S. citizens, who either pay for their own health insurance or who have jobs lined up. We should spread out the countries applicants come from. With leftists pitting groups against one another, California protests with raised fists and shouting the primacy of "ethnic studies," we need to worry about cohesion and stability-- a bona fide refugee program, legal immigration based on U S need, and enforce the law.
1) U.S. should have a points system for potential immigrants like Canada and Australia. The Green Card lottery is a joke.
2) Mass immigration has been a key component in the war on the middle class. What happens when you increase the supply of anything? The price drops. Letting China into the WTO and immigration, both legal and illegal, have devastated the wages of the American middle class. And "the elite" who have benefited are laughing all the way to the bank.
We must be the only country which is easier to immigrate into illegally than legally. But it is too much of a political windfall for both parties for them to fix it. We could accommodate many more legally and avoid some of the border issues if we wanted to.
I am an immigrant who has lived here for 30 years. I am also very conservative so I believe US laws need to be respected and enforced. That being said there seems to be a great need for labor force and there are jobs that Americans don't want to do or don't do well. It includes me.
I believe there is one thing we can do to resolve this issue. Something Eisenhower did in the 50s. Most of the immigrants coming here from Central and South America don't care about the citizenship or being able to live here. They are here for purely economical reason-they want to work, earn and support their families. Why cant we offer them multiple entry work visas. They wont have to deal with coyotes, will earn fair wages and pay taxes. What's most important they can leave their kids at home knowing that they can come and go any time they want to. It is expensive to support their extended families here. Dollar has a lot more value at their home countries. This way they don't have to live of the government tit, we know exactly who is here and where. Doesn't this seem like a sensible solution? Both Repubs and Dims will lose their election talking points. It will help the economy even if they send their earnings home.
The reality is that both sides of the aisle are complicit in this mess. The reason that the GOP objected to Trumps logical wall strategy was because they are in the bag with big manufacturing to meet the need for low wage worker supply. These manufacturers want to keep the flow of illegals for their own economic reasons but on the face of it scream to the rafters when the duplicitous dems want them here to fill voter pools. What’s clear to everyone is that speeding up the legal immigration process and placing restrictions on the standards and qualifications we use for assessing new citizens needs to be reevaluated and enforced. Right now no one really wants this fixed because it serves too many useful purposes both financial and political for a solution to be implemented.
Go get em Matt! Not sure my wiring allows for watching a full episode of BM but at least he, like yourself, has begun to recognize the dangers and inconsistencies of the progressive movement. On immigration it is not that hard. Dont tell me you are not all in on open borders when every policy prescription you advocate directly results in just that. It is also glaringly obvious that Trump was far better at managing this situation than any of his predecessors and certainly better than the current clown car. It is amazing, given their supposed concerns gor the Black community specifically and lower class Americans generally, that allowing millions of unskilled laborers into the country is a hill they are willing to die on. Every hardworking Mexican I know is steadfastly against this policy and the polls of the last month indicate that my random sample is consistent with the broader trend. What are the D’s possibly thinking? As I disagree with their approach to governance in general, i take solace when their fecklessness plays out so openly for all to see. So please dont be too hard on them. What is that old maxin for dealing with adversaries? Never interrupt them when they are digging their way out of a hole? Safe travels.
Simple - do what we can to stop all illegal immigration, and deport thoe who are here illegally.
I am a blue-collar worker and these hordes of 3rd world people depress wages for people like me. You journalist types can sit in your ivory towers and type on your keyboards and you are unaffected.
Meanwhile, the big corporations feed off of this source of cheap labor and make oodles of profit, allowing them to squeeze out small businesses.
Just admit it already - Trump was right. We need to build a wall. And we should have done it decades ago.
Since Bill had become so completely out of touch - a limousine liberal - I’m hoping you bring some subversion to the table. Please shoot for something between a full-on Greenwald and a Krystal Ball smirk.
Enforce the laws! The government should not be subsidizing cheap labor.
America cannot remain America if it does not have secure borders. It will, and already is becoming, something else. It’s the same with the Constitution, it’s only value is in people willing to follow its statutes. If you desecrate the very tenets that make America and it’s Constitution worthy, as many are, then you destroy those protections that gave you the right to destroy it. In other words we are experiencing self destruction, we are the enemy within.
Please push Maher on BDS censorship.
I'm a legal immigrant to Britain (25 years now). What needs to happen is that the government gives a sh*t about its own people. As soon as wages in one sector go down on account of mass immigration, this sector needs to be protected. You see it in reverse right now. There is a painful absence of lorry drivers which means we experience fuel and some food shortages (food shortage = you have to select from fifteen rather than sixteen different types of cheddar).
The Remainer psychodrama unfolds like this: we warned you this would happen with Brexit! Those wonderful Eastern Europeans have all left ... they don't want to live in your racist, homophobic hellhole. Three cheers for the country going to the dogs!
The truth is that of course companies were hooked on cheap labour and dreadful working conditions, and now wages and conditions need to correct (upwards), which might mean that your latte costs five p more.
I think a state should operate along the assumption that they owe their citizens if not a living, then at least the conditions to earn one.
Sincerely appreciate the invitation, but when are we average Americans allowed to have thoughts on immigration? I would love to hear the rationale for why American nurses, 12-year olds, NBA players, and pregnant women are required to be vaxxed and masked, but thousands of illegal border crossers with unknown medical histories are put on mass transit and shipped throughout the country. I would love someone to tell me why Afghans are willing to hand off their infants over walls to American soldiers, why millions of people of color are coming to this country, if it is so racist. I am entitled to know why I am supposed to follow every BS directive from my government, which by its immigration non-enforcement is an accomplice to the misery that is human trafficking. The only thing we average people get from the current regime and the pundits is, "shut up and sit down." And, you must wear a mask.
I have many thoughts about immigration but not a lot of time for more than a drive-by right now.
Biggest issue though is that the same people pushing for mass immigration - whether low-skilled illegal or higher skilled H1-B - is that the people that get the benefits aren't the ones paying the price. In the case of low-skilled illegal immigration, it's the poorest neighborhoods that pay the price via lowered wages, raised rents, costs on pressure on schools and hospitals. For higher skilled H1-Bs, it's the US population who have spent the money for a STEM education only to be laid off and replaced. The ones who get the benefits as a result of cheap labor award themselves virtue-signalling priviliges, while the ones who can least afford it pay the price.
One solution -which i generally offer to the sound of crickets - is for those who benefit to absorb some of the costs for a change. Open up their neighborhoods to the newcomers by building low-cost housing for them, welcome them into their schools, pay for their medical care.
Just because one may loathe Trump doesn’t mean he was wrong about everything. He seemed to have good control of illegal immigration before his admin left. New admin was hell bent on undoing everything he did because it was all demonized in the campaign. Biden admin needs to suck it up and go back to prior admins policies on this issue —“remain in Mexico” for one. Maybe even (dare I say ) finish the wall. Del Rio seems to be in obvious need of a barrier.
Incentivize companies to manufacture and create jobs in Central America rather than China.
I've directly worked in the immigration system within the USG. One of my main pet peaves undiscussed amongst the punditry is the single-minded focus on undocumented/illegal aliens patently excludes all the stakeholders seeking to immigrate LEGALLY to the United States. I did a quick review of this backlog in 2020, which has only gotten worse post-pandemic:
In the F1-F4 immigrant visa category alone, there are 3.76 million future immigrants (not including their derivative families), which means there are close to an additional 3.76 million Amcit/LPR petitioners. (Note: This does not include the priority IR1-5 priority categories of immigrants - spouses, minor children, and parents of Amcits). If you total all of the potential accompanying family members derivatives together (plus the 215K employment-based immigrant visa beneficiaries waiting in line), there are likely well over 10 million stakeholders in the immigration debate who have been completely ignored -- stakeholders who have paid high fees, navigated the cumbersome bureaucracy, and most importantly waited patiently in line.
Nothing I've seen in the current media coverage or congressional immigration reform proposals (from either side) address these people, focusing the debate solely on illegal/undocumented immigrants and asylum claims. As a legal immigrant myself, and also someone who has filed immigrant visa petitions for family, the complete lack of respect for those who waited in line seems offensive and smells like virtue-signalling. Tell that to the 1.22 million Mexican nationals who are currently patiently waiting for their legal immigration documents (which doesn't even include their derivative family members). Tell the Filipino sibling who has waited and unbelievable 25 years (!) for his immigrant petition to be interviewed. Without PRIORITIZING debate about these 10 million+ foreign and Amcit stakeholders already following the rules in our system, we are not really serious about immigration reforms.
https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/Immigrant-Statistics/WaitingList/WaitingListItem_2020_vF.pdf
As an Immigration Officer in the Department of Homeland Security...yes, I have thousands of thoughts on the matter. :-(
A common argument by my Liberal colleagues is “how can you be against immigrants, weren’t your parents immigrants?” To that I always answer “my grandparents came through Ellis Island and were documented. No one is against immigration, what we are against is the conscious violation of our border to “skirt” the system. Biden’s policy supports Human Trafficking, the very thing that Obama set out to defeat. Human trafficking isn’t just young women in the sex slave trade, its paying $8,000 to a Coyote who might leave you in a sweltering trailer to die if he sniffs the authorities.
Matt you were such a gentleman on the show last night. You gave Bill the rope and he hung himself.
While all human beings should be, and legally must be, treated in as dignified a manner as possible and granted the ability to apply for - and receive when appropriate - asylum in the US, large scale movement of peoples is a symptom of a wider issue.
US foreign policy, both overt and covert, in particular through hard power such as military action, sanctions, coup plots and even 'aid', as well as via exploitative economic treaties such as NAFTA have played a major, if not the major, role in destabilising country after country in Latin America for generations.
The US behaves like an empire. A neo-colonial empire. And if people want to the reduce the flow of men, women and children from South to North then they should demand that the US (and other states) cease and desist all policies of exploitation and destabilisation towards those countries from which those human beings are fleeing.
Global warming and climate change is also fueling conflict and undermining the sustainability of life in many places already.
So, end imperialism and deal with global warming and we'll see a major reduction in people desperately fleeing their own societies and communities.
Piece of cake, I know.
Most obvious thing is we need to stop contributing to the problems that create the necessity for large groups of people to flee their home countries. We are largely responsible for the problems in several Central American countries and Haiti.
Any discussion of immigration policy is absolutely pointless until we can get enough people to agree that we're even a nation with borders.
That said, I'll DVR it.
Mayor Pete's creation of a 'no fly zone' so no media drones could film the mess was particularly egregious.
Bill Mare interrupted Matt over and over when he was owned by Matt’s arguments…what a joke.
Ending the war on drugs. Profits from the black market drug trade are the primary funding source of the violent cartels and gangs in many central and South American countries. The violence they are committing are in service of securing their territory and future drug trade profits. This is in turn the violence that pushes so many migrants to flee these countries.
End the war on drugs and you end a major driver of refugees fleeing violence from Latin America.
I get a sense that the Democrats and Republicans are particularly dishonest on 2 issues; immigration and abortion. They both appear to find it convenient not to resolve these issues so that they can use them as distractions during their campaigns.
How about just enforcing the laws that we have already. Then, if we want to adjust, then Congress should do their job and modify the law.
In what universe is an "America first" foreign policy/immigration policy a bad thing? Would love to hear how a lefty kook answers that, aside from the comically predictable word salad with hamina-hamina-hamina dressing.
How else will Bezos and WalMart find their nonunion workers?
On immigration, My grandparents came here in the early 1900’s, went through Ellis Island and made their way to lower Manhattan to start their new lives. My wife is a first generation American so I am not anti immigration. Back in those days we had a much smaller population and a wide open country. Today we have 330 million or so citizens and over 11 million illegals. We can’t continue to just let everyone who walks in the door the ability to stay. Also, it is a little known fact but, back then you had to have a medical exam upon arrival and we either quarantined or sent back to the country you came from. We sent back over 1 mm people for various reasons. So first we need to enforce our border and adhere to the laws we have on the books. Then and this is not going to be popular in some circles but, most coming here illegally are not asylum seekers. They are simply trying for a better live. We need to stop giving illegals drivers licenses , free medical treatment, free education and in some instances other welfare that are for US citizens. That will discourage people from coming here illegally.
Now the real hard part, come up with new laws that make the process to immigrate to the US easier and faster. Our system has been has been broken for a long time. Politicians use immigration as a political football.
This is a great country, that’s why people continue to risk their lives to get here. This will take courage that unfortunately our current politicians lack.
Maher is such an egotistical shit-lib, painful to watch as usual... Even with Matt on there...
We immigrated here back in mid-80s and I remember lots of requirements and paperwork needed to be met which took years. I took notice of a particular document titled “Affidavit of Support” and asked my father what it was. He simply answered that as the principal petitioner, he would be responsible for us (his family) and not the government. And if he lost his job or if he was in any kind of financial trouble, there should be another source of support, like his relatives. Even though it was a different time and climate, the US Immigration was pretty much strict and by the book. Which it should be.
Free speech is one of the topics? All my life, I’ve considered myself apolitical. I stayed away on any discussion about it just like religion. And then, they started to cancel stand-up comics… etc, and this new culture has gone off the rails. Thanks to a handful of journalists like yourself, still exist. who I can depend on to get my unbiased source of information.
I think the solution is for the US to quit overthrowing governments and let the people who are flocking here have their country back and that means their government and their resources and their land. We overthrow their governments, put puppets in who let us take their resources and leave nothing for the people to live on, land and resources including food. And then there was NAFTA. We sold corn to Mexico so cheap that 3 million farmers lost their land. Which our corporations then proceeded to buy up. What were those people suppose to do. Sit down and die. They came here to be able to live. This is how the US operates and then wants to throw immigrants under the bus. We suck
Thanks Matt! I'm so glad you are going to get another chance to stand up for free speech -- I really hope you share some of your most recent piece with a larger audience (how the media is the new religion)!
Also - would you please help draw attention to the awful treatment given to Lt. Col Schiller -- the military has thrown him in jail for daring to ask for accountability in the upper ranks.....it's outrageous - and the mainstream media is of course ignoring it.....Please help if you can to push back on this!