Hermit wrote:Are you seriously suggesting that a candidate for the US presidency is suitable for the job when one of his few concretely announced policies is to expel all of the 10 or 15 million Mexicans, build a 3,145 km (1,954 miles) long wall to keep them out and make Mexico pay for it? Apart from the utter absurdity of it, has Trump even spent a minute speculating about the consequences such as how the US will cope without harvesters, lawn mowers and domestic helpers?
In all fairness, expelling illegals would not expel harvesters, because seasonal workers come to the US legally. There is a special category under NAFTA originated rules that apply to those folks.
Lawn mowers and landscaping services are typically legitimate, legal folks. I live in Florida, and my landscaping company is owned and run by Americans. The one I had previously was owned and run by an immigrant, yes, but he was from England. The vast majority of domestic helpers are legal, too. The US would manage just fine without the ones who came here on visas and overstayed, or the ones who crossed the Rio Grande.
Now, expelling 10 or 15 million illegal aliens is damn near impossible and building a wall, I think, is un-American. But, the notion that the US is a country like any other and has the right to control its borders is not. At the moment, the US has among the most porous borders. We certainly accept the most legal immigrants on an absolute and per capita basis than any other country in the world and even if we shut down illegal immigration, that would still be true.
No other country is asked to tolerate the degree of illegal immigration the US is. If the same percentage of the French, German or British populations were flooding into those countries as are flooding into the US, it would be seen as totally reasonable for those countries to do something about it.
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar
