@Jazzhead
Acting responsibly would be protecting America and American citizens,NOT turning America into the northernmost outpost of the 3rd world.
@sneakypete I give you credit for being more honest than most - you acknowledge that the problem you have with immigration is that the faces are brown.
America needs immigrants to grow and to keep the economy humming. (In a story posted on the board this morning, whites in America are dying faster then they're being born.)
Of course I'm advocating increased legal immigration, not the illegal kind. As for enforcing the law, let's drill down and understand that the solutions depend on the kind of "illegals" we're talking about. "Illegals" fall into three broad categories:
1. Those who come here to work and for the opportunity represented by America;
2. Those who come here to engage in criminal mischief; and
3. Those fleeing desperate situations who are seeking asylum.
The second category we can all agree upon - throw the bums out, as quickly and expeditiously as possible. MS-13 cannot be tolerated - and their greatest menace is to our immigrant communities.
The first category I tend to defend, not because I don't recognize they've broken the law, but because they have done so for benign reasons, at the behest of employers who value their productivity, and so many of them have contributed meaningfully to American life. For these, I support a path to normalcy rather than retribution and "zero tolerance". I think most Americans agree with me.
The third category is the one that's at the heart of the current crisis, because the Trump administration wants to treat asylum seekers as criminals, holding them in custody and (because the law requires it) separating parents from children. This is a situation the optics of which are catastrophic for the Republican party.
But cutting to the chase, why do so many "conservatives" refuse to recognize the humanity of folks from South and Central America - Catholics, not Muslims - fleeing chaos and oppression and risking everything to get to America? I'm not suggesting an open door, but the attitude of so many here toward migrants is unremittingly hostile, as if we cannot afford in this rich and prosperous country to cut at least some of these courageous folks a break. By the very fact they have risked their lives and fortunes to get to America, they have demonstrated the sort of character that strikes me as good for America - the kind of drive and ambition that spurred our own ancestors (my grandparents, in my case) to leave their shithole countries and start new lives. Lives that, especially when the first generation becomes the second and third, produce good, solid American citizens.
