Tariffs, Tarrifs, Tarrifs!

[laklak]

Is anyone going to take a shot at the question? Why shouldn't the U.S. secure it's borders like every other country does?

[Tero]

There are no other countries doing anything different, other than N Korea, a small shithole, and China. You can walk into Russia most places. Almost nobody wants to.

[Svartalf]

dunno, you can drive from France to Germany or Italy without meeting the customs, I remember taking a drive into Switzerland and noticing I was there only when we arrived in the outskirtis of Basel...

[Tero]

Oh yeah and Israel. But since they have palestinians living inside the country, maintaining a pure race is a matter of reproducing faster than the other side

[pErvinalia]

Well Australia certainly has a strong policy. For boat arrivals, that is. But the biggest cohort is plane arrivals overstaying their visas. They're mostly white, so we don't care about them as much apparently.

[Animavore]

The US never cared about immigration until whitey started fearing a demographic shift to non-whites.

White supremacy is at the root of Trump's attempted immigration policies and the rounding up of brown people into ICE concentration camps. To pretend this is done out of any genuine concern is dishonest.

[Tero]

https://ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free- ... odernizing

The United States, Mexico, and Canada have reached an agreement to modernize the 24-year-old NAFTA into a 21st century, high-standard agreement. The new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) will support mutually beneficial trade leading to freer markets, fairer trade, and robust economic growth in North America.

Chapters with Key Achievements include:

Intellectual Property
Digital Trade
De minimis
Financial Services
Environment

Click around all you like, laklak, not a word in there about immigrants or borders or Mexico border patrol.

[Brian Peacock]

Is anyone going to take a shot at the question? Why shouldn't the U.S. secure it's borders like every other country does?

This problem of mass movement, from poor to rich regions, from war-torn to peaceful regions, from oppressive to free regions, is not something unique to the US. It's faced by every nation to some extent, but is something perhaps more pressing and apparent for us when it comes to the movement of people into the Western nations.

The criticism of the current US administration is not rooted in an argument which says that the country shouldn't be allowed to control it's borders but in how it actually assess and addresses the issues - and Trump and his administration's de-humanisation of those looking for a better life in a peaceful, free US as moral reprobates, terrorists, criminals, or any kind of scum you care to find a label for, or the policy of separating families and putting children in cages, or ICE rounding up Hispanic community leaders, or discharging and deporting Hispanic and Asian serving members of the armed forces, etc etc, doesn't, in my view, address either the causes of this ongoing problem or create any real political impetus to develop some kind of coherent, serious policy. It's grandstanding on the back of perpetuating misery and distrust.

Trump has got a lot of negative push-back from his rhetoric and policies like the proposed wall, but he also gets a boost in a kind of social capital from his political and electoral supporters, and perhaps even financial benefits for his real estate interest from construction firms awarded contracts for the biggest civil construction project in US history. In the short-term context of the electoral cycle the positive benefits for Trump seem to be outweighing any negative consequences in the long-term - but then again, politics is all about the short term these days isn't it(?) - but also Trump and his administration's rhetoric seem to reflect real and actual views in society at large about the moral character of immigrants and concerns about the need to protect 'true American' stock from some kind of cultural dilution. Trump is just one part of an ongoing project to cultivate (in both senses, to propagate and to harvest) America's white identity and viscerally pit it against Brown and Black identity at home as well as from abroad. In order to generate and maintain this conflict right-wing operators constantly sow the seeds of THE OUTRAGE!! of which the idea that someone, the 'other lot', want to just open the border to a lumpen mob of immigrants, terrorist, rapists, and criminals is but an example.

In short, the criticism is not of the administration addressing the mass movement issue, but for how it's gone about it and the reasons it's given to justify those actions.

[laklak]

Tero, that's not the droid you're looking for.

White Supremacy. FFS. The 10 largest groups of LEGAL immigrants to the U.S. are....wait for it....Mexicans (over 11 million last year) followed by India, then the Phillipines, China, Vietnam, Korea, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic. Together those countries make up over 24 million immigrants. ALL other countries in the world (18.5 million total)are grouped together under "Other". Not a single one of the 10 largest groups are considered "white".

You have to go back to 1970 to find a time when "whites" (meaning Europeans) were in the majority. It wasn't until 1980 that the Irish dropped out of the top 10. Over 40 million Mexicans have legally immigrated to the U.S. since 1960 (by FAR the single largest group) and have always been in the top 10, so the contention that U.S. immigration policy is driven by "white supremacy" and racism is complete bullshit.

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/program ... -over-time

[laklak]

In short, the criticism is not of the administration addressing the mass movement issue, but for how it's gone about it and the reasons it's given to justify those actions.

But "non-whites" still make up the vast majority of legal immigrants, so the contention that our policies against illegal immigration are driven by racism simply doesn't hold water. The fact that stopping illegal immigration disproportionatly affects non-whites is solely and precisely because non-whites make up almost 100% of illegals. I have plenty of personal experience with the immigration services and I understand anecdote isn't data, but when Mrs. Lak got her citizenship the group she was in was overwhelmingly Hispanic, followed by Asian, followed by blacks. In fact, of the 200 or so people at the ceremony less than probably 10% were white Europeans.

During the ceremony they called out a list of birth countries, and everyone from that country stood up. Mexicans made up about half. They called the list out alphabeticaly, Zambia was the last one, and Mrs Lak was the only one who stood up. There were puzzled looks.

[Seabass]

Is anyone going to take a shot at the question? Why shouldn't the U.S. secure it's borders like every other country does?

This problem of mass movement, from poor to rich regions, from war-torn to peaceful regions, from oppressive to free regions, is not something unique to the US. It's faced by every nation to some extent, but is something perhaps more pressing and apparent for us when it comes to the movement of people into the Western nations.

The criticism of the current US administration is not rooted in an argument which says that the country shouldn't be allowed to control it's borders but in how it actually assess and addresses the issues - and Trump and his administration's de-humanisation of those looking for a better life in a peaceful, free US as moral reprobates, terrorists, criminals, or any kind of scum you care to find a label for, or the policy of separating families and putting children in cages, or ICE rounding up Hispanic community leaders, or discharging and deporting Hispanic and Asian serving members of the armed forces, etc etc, doesn't, in my view, address either the causes of this ongoing problem or create any real political impetus to develop some kind of coherent, serious policy. It's grandstanding on the back of perpetuating misery and distrust.

Trump has got a lot of negative push-back from his rhetoric and policies like the proposed wall, but he also gets a boost in a kind of social capital from his political and electoral supporters, and perhaps even financial benefits for his real estate interest from construction firms awarded contracts for the biggest civil construction project in US history. In the short-term context of the electoral cycle the positive benefits for Trump seem to be outweighing any negative consequences in the long-term - but then again, politics is all about the short term these days isn't it(?) - but also Trump and his administration's rhetoric seem to reflect real and actual views in society at large about the moral character of immigrants and concerns about the need to protect 'true American' stock from some kind of cultural dilution. Trump is just one part of an ongoing project to cultivate (in both senses, to propagate and to harvest) America's white identity and viscerally pit it against Brown and Black identity at home as well as from abroad. In order to generate and maintain this conflict right-wing operators constantly sow the seeds of THE OUTRAGE!! of which the idea that someone, the 'other lot', want to just open the border to a lumpen mob of immigrants, terrorist, rapists, and criminals is but an example.

In short, the criticism is not of the administration addressing the mass movement issue, but for how it's gone about it and the reasons it's given to justify those actions.

Well said, señor Peacock.

[Seabass]

the contention that U.S. immigration policy is driven by "white supremacy" and racism is complete bullshit.

I would agree in general, but the Trump administration's immigration policy is definitely driven by racism. Why else would they be reducing legal immigration? Why are they deporting soldiers who were promised citizenship if they served in our military? Why are they going after Liberian, Haitian, Vietnamese, and Cambodian refugees who've been here for years or even decades?

[Tero]

"we are told"

[BarnettNewman]

Is anyone going to take a shot at the question? Why shouldn't the U.S. secure it's borders like every other country does?

Because it’s the wrong question. You already have secure borders both north and south. The question is, how secure is secure? And what does secure actually mean? The GOP can’t really answer that in any way besides saying “Rapists and Murderers.” They stopped saying “Cuz they’re taking our jobs” because it became plain to even Repubs that that was a lie.

[Tero]

Laklak, it's just an equillibrium. You need to bring your own country down to shithole level. Then the foreigners go back. All the Polish workers left Ireland when the housing bubble crashed. They drove to the airport and left the car, just bought with loan, at the Dublin airport short term parking.