I think it's very telling that it's not about "How do we allow them in legally" but it's about "Kick them out". If they were simply mad about illegal immigration then the natural discourse would be "Why do they not come over legally then?" The answer there is that of course it's insanely difficult to legally become a citizen of the US, and it can take years - even decades, but people have a family that's hungry now.
The discourse going to "Kick them out" shows that it's not about legal immigration at all, it's that they don't want a specific type of person around them. Otherwise we'd be having fairs and events to help people get their citizenship right now. After all they want to be here, the even want to pay taxes. If they just need to come in legally then the vast majority would, if our process allowed it.
The answer there is that of course it’s insanely difficult to legally become a citizen of the US, and it can take years - even decades, but people have a family that’s hungry now.
Same for other places. Even Canada, which is apparently one of the best destinations, has a system that's poorly designed to the point of maliciousness.
It took my dad about 15-20 years in the US to get citizenship. It took my friend about 10 in Canada. Both are fucking terrible, but the US is a special kind of processed garbage
Exactly. In and of itself, criticizing illegal immigration is simply criticizing an illegal act. However, it is usually steeped in racist logic and arguments. Talking about how people who come over our southern border are genetically inferior and prone to crime is racist as fuck. Adding roadblocks to immigration for brown people while simultaneously streamlining immigration of white South Africans (the guys who did Apartheid) is racist as fuck.
Where, and to what degree relative to Arabs or Latin Americans or whatever?
Like sure, you can find someone who said it was bad somewhere, but even in places like Romania or Poland they were never the main target of the xenophobic rage.
Thats because the media didnt try to cause mass hysteria. Man you guys are so easily manipulated by media i think we should force psychological classes so you can see the warning signs of manipulation
Edit: you are the easiest people to manipulate and its already obvious.
Every time I meet someone who opposes illegal immigration but claims to support legal immigration I ask one question. If the law changed so that all immigration was legal, you'd be fine with it, right?
Nobody so far has been fine with it. I conclude that the question of legality is a dodge for people who are embarrassed about their actual motives.
I support legal immigration, I empathize with illegal immigration (and think the laws could use adjustment in both directions)...but I don't think all immigration should be legal.
And no, it doesn't change if they're from "a Western country" or from somewhere that people look different from the majority in my country.
We have rising unemployment among citizens, especially young people, yet corporations are taking advantage of immigrants in various ways. And immigrants of all kinds -- legal, grey area, and illegal immigrants.
We are selling the idea of a lifestyle to people in other countries that isn't attainable unless you're part of the top quintile (or possibly an even smaller group) of income. Then they come here, bringing their university educations, and are competing for jobs against high schoolers.
I'm all about people coming to live in my country. But we're doing a disservice to immigrants through our laws/regulations and our corporations. And people who are here illegally are usually the biggest victims; the most exploited.
I'm not aware that any country (that anyone would want to go to, not like a war zone) has completely free immigration. I'd be opposed to having no more borders from one day to the next for the simple reason that it's a big change. One that's worth trialing and working towards, of course, but not something we can yet know will work afaik. Especially if we're the first country doing this and 2 billion people decide the Netherlands would be a fine place to live in (it is!). I'd not be surprised if it turns out we need a lottery kind of system, or maybe an announcement system, at least for those not in mortal danger, so that we can build living spaces ahead of time. Supply and demand is currently such that the only way to afford a house (even for top, idk, ~2% of world incomes) is to have a house so you can sell it at the inflated price, and while immigration is afaik a net positive to a country's wealth and welfare, this effect is offset in time. The housing crisis will pass again, as it always has, but in general the solution should be sustainable and I'm not aware that it's as simple as "be in favor of unrestricted immigration or else you're a racist"
Having a barrier to entry is what keeps most of the dipshits out. There are dipshits in every country. I don't want to have to deal with another country's dipshits - we have enough to deal with on our own.
Exactly what the barriers to entry are should be reformed so that they make sense and allow all people in easily if they meet some straightforward requirements.
Borders have existed since paleolithic tribes staked out perimeters around their camps and established hunting territory boundaries with other tribes. Is it possible that we will someday live in a world completely free of restricted travel? Sure! But abolishing all barriers to entry across national boundaries tomorrow with a snap of the fingers would be a disaster.
Perhaps, but the undocumented immigrants being rounded up do not seem to be dipshits. Dreamers, day laborers, people here for the past 20 years with no criminal history. Keeping the dipshits out is a nice idea, but our current policies are evicting people I want as neighbors.
I think I understand what you're saying and don't necessarily fully disagree, but the directness at the very start definitely made me brace for xenophobia. In part because "dipshits" can be used as a dogwhistle
However, I would 100% classify trumpers as dipshits
No, but it is racist to assume that a person is an illegal immigrant based solely on their race.
Likewise, i think there is a deeper connection being made, that theres an assumption that an illegal immigrant is a bad person, and i also do not think that is a valid assumption.
To know if a person is a bad person, you have to know the person.
It's racist to use immigration law to maintain a racial underclass. For instance, many essential agricultural workers in the US do not have access to the courts or law enforcement to protect their rights. If a citizen assaults one of these workers, the worker cannot safely report the assault to law enforcement without being punished for doing so.
I am yet to hear a justification for opposing illegal immigration that doesn't tie back into racism or racial prejudice, let alone a justification that actually makes sense if you take it apart.
If you have a society with robust social welfare systems - education, healthcare, social security, pensions, childcare, housing etc. etc., mass immigration becomes a massive problem.
Everything is taken care of via taxes, and those taxes come from a productive working population. Slow population growth (whether from births or immigration) allows social institutions to expand at a matching rate over the decades.
Rapid population increases from migration can overwhelm the systems in place and put society in a spot where it is no longer able to maintain them.
Furthermore, when it comes to illegal immigrants, it gets doubly bad. They can't hold down a legal job (at least in my country, and thus not pay taxes either), which inevitably pushes them towards crime or illegal jobs which brings a whole host of other issues.
The thing is, if they are there illegally, they won't be able to benefit from most of these welfare systems. And over straining welfare can also happen for a lot of different reasons (thank you neoliberalism)
In most cases, illegal immigrants do not benefit from government welfare programs, but they do work and contribute to the economy positively.
In cases where data has been collected, immigrant populations tend to put more into the economy than take through social programs, when compared with native populations. I can provide sources and data on this if you'd like.
Illegal immigrants may often not pay income tax, but they do pay most other forms of taxes that still end up paying more into the system than they get back. I can also provide evidence on this if you'd like.
If tax isn't being collected from someone, when they're willing to pay it, that is 100% the fault of anti-immigration policy, not an immigration issue.
Thanks for a well-written reply. Here's some quick responses:
1... as mentioned the primary costs here come from increased crime which is hard to document. In high trust societies (which social welfare countries usually are) this has a disproportionately negative impact on the economy. Also, in several Scandinavian countries everyone has a right to emergency healthcare, regardless of their immigration status.
2... I believe you're correct when it comes to countries with less social welfare such as the US, however, this isn't the case in countries with robust social welfare systems. As recently as 2023 Denmark assessed the net contribution of migrants and their descendants on the public finances and published the results. The sum total effect of migrants was negative (-19B DKK). Per capita the average Dane had an impact of (22k DKK) per year and the average migrant (-21k DKK). Some migrant/migrant descendant subgroups were better or worse than others (best 52k DKK, worst -109k).
3... Sure, I assume this accounts for other societal costs such as law enforcement and crime?
4... See the response to #2. The taxes don't cover the costs.
Thanks for your response. Your argument is convincing and I have no refutation, I appreciate you taking the time.
The only thing I would say is I bet this is still fixable with policy without having to ban or restrict immigration. But alas, that's a different discussion, and your point that there are valid non racist reasons to criticize immigration is correct. Thanks again!
No worries. I think the more interesting discussion that I'd like to have at some point is how a good system for immigration actually looks. It's not a trivial problem to solve and can't be done in isolation either. Societies are systems where everything is interlinked in one way or another.
I agree that there are legitimate reasons to manage immigration, but criminalizing the act is a complete no-go for me. There are other ways to manage immigration by creating incentives and disincentives that would make the criminalization of migrants unnecessary. I also believe that freedom of movement is a fundamental human right and that borders are nothing more than an authoritarian system of control. "Security" is only made necessary by the problems that nation-states create themselves by existing.
How would you limit immigration without creating laws and stopping people when too many arrive?
Freedom of movement is good in a vacuum but not feasible in our current world. The best would be if developed countries could uplift those that arent and the need for people to move would be reduced.
You've answered your own question, ending imperialism and colonialism so that unequal exchange doesn't create massive wealth disparities between nations and war no longer displaces people en masse, thereby "uplifting" formerly exploited peoples, would remove most of the incentives for mass migration. In a world at peace with itself borders are not necessary. Ask yourself, why is there no need to criminalize immigration between states/provinces within a country such as the US? Because the US, for the time being, is a nation at peace with itself. It doesn't have to be a perfect utopia - the US most certainly is not - to eliminate the need for border security / immigration control. Even a tenuous peace and a dubious justice is enough to eliminate the need for border enforcement.
Edit: This is a good write-up about how the criminalization of migrants does not even serve as an adequate deterrent to migration anyway. It is not only unjust, it's futile.
So clearly you didn't fully read my comment, so why should I expend the effort typing out a response? It would be a waste if you're just going to read part of it and then ask questions I've already given the answer to.
I've heard a very compelling one actually. It's not about ilegal immigration but against immigration in general. I heard it in a youtube talk maybe like a decade ago.
It starts stating that the thing a migrant person wants the most is not having to emigrate. No one wants go have to leave their country because they cannot safely live a prosper life there. So the best outcome would be that the origin countries would change, so people wouldn't have leave everything behind to start a new life abroad. The problem is that the country have to change from inside. And the people leaving a country is usually the most qualified to make that change happen. So by leaving the country they make the change harder or even impossible.
I'm not arguing in favour or against this argument. But I do not think it has anything to do with race whatsoever. As it doesn't even talk about anything related to migrant presence in a receiving country.
Thanks for your response! You are making an assumption that most or all immigrants wish they didn't have to immigrate. I will answer assuming this is true, though I am not confident it is. But let's go with it.
Changes in material conditions of a country typically occur due to political action. That may be in terms of voting, political movements, or outside forces like war or sanctions. Addressing each of those:
Immigrants typically can still vote, so no issue here
immigrants are unlikely to affect political movements when they are immigrating for reasons like work, study, reuniting with other family, or enjoying lifestyle of another country.
Immigrants have little to no effect on wars and sanctions.
And last, even if what you quoted is true, I bet whoever said it is likely not considering putting the effort of making their country better in the same way they want immigrants to. Maybe that's not one of the worse forms of racism, but it is one.
I mean if the axiom is "any negative about immigration is bad = racism" then yes, there's no argument against immigration that could not be racist as those two concepts would be equivalent.
It's just a lot of clever words for hating foreigners. I'm not fooled by it. Apparently you are. The solution to the infrastructure problems is to build more infrastructure. Not elect a bunch of racists and let hate rule your country. Who gives a fuck where people are from? Racists. That's who. People are people.
The solution to the housing crisis is to build a vast amount of council housing, just like we did post war. It makes jobs. It boosts the economy. It removes the upwards pressure on rent and introduces downwards pressure. Who would pay through the nose for a badly maintained private rental property when there's a brand now council house at much lower rent? Landlords would have to fix the house and reduce the rent or sell - reducing upwards pressure on house prices.
So it's the government selling off council houses instead of building more and money-grabbing rich venture capital landlords that cause the housing problem, not some immigrant.
How do you solve the problems of the NHS? Recruit more doctors and nurses. How? Increase the limit on numbers in medical school in the UK (controlled by the government) and for goodness' sake, make sure all the foreign born NHS and healthcare workers feel happy, wanted and at home, because the one think the NHS can't afford is to lose the immigrant workers! Next, bring health and social care and NHS under the same funding roof, either by putting NHS into local authorities or social care under the NHS. Social care is far cheaper than the NHS and a bunch of old people can't get a place in social care because there's not enough funding for it. If it was the same pot of money, it'd be simple - build a bunch of care homes and ease pressure on the NHS. But how would you staff them? I think you're beginning to see where the answers are but you don't want to admit it.
Who gave you money problems? Rich people running corporations to extract as much money as possible from you. Not some poor immigrant.
Immigrants make our country better. Without them it would be worse. Silly racists can sound plausible without using the word "race" or "skin" or "foreigners" as much as they like but their solutions are just about racism and not about making anything better.
Trump is living out the "deport them or lock them up" policy. If you think that's all going well, move to America. Unless your skin isn't pearly white, because they'll lock you up before you can say "ironic" and certainly before you can say "habeas corpus".
I think being anti-all-immigration is xenophobic. But it's completely different from being anti illegal immigration or wanting to, for example, stop the immigration of people in certain job markets to help the country's nationals to get jobs.
What I say is:
"It's better to bring in 100,000 immigrants who want to fill needed gaps in our society, contribute, build it up and create more jobs, than 10,000 immigrants who just want handouts"
I have some fantastic news for you. For some time now, if you enter the UK via an illegal route you already have No Recourse To Public Funds. This means you can't get council housing, you can't get universal credit, you can't get child credit and you're not entitled to free treatment in the NHS. You have to pay for everything yourself.
Why would anyone do that? Ignorance maybe, but usually because it's better than being killed and they already speak some English or have family here.
The last job you got-did you have to supply identity papers such as drivers licence, passport or similar? Employers legality have to establish your right to work in the UK.
So the his news for you is there's already no legal way for illegal immigrants to be paid anything at all in the UK. Automatically destitute. Woohoo. You must be so proud.
Immigration and illegal immigration are two different subjects.
Wouldn't arguing against immigration be xenophobic by default?
I think there are arguments for certain cultural backgrounds where standards or view on morality might be different. Or worldview. So they aren't necessarily all racist
It's not race based, but there are cultures that are less developed and may not blend well with other cultures.
This even happens with the likes of white American tourists in Japan... Or anywhere for that matter. Even in the UK and Ireland, where they are likely the same ethnicity (I know because they never bleedin shut up about it)
For example, in some places, if something is given out for free, it may be normal to take as much advantage of it as possible. Or honesty shops- it might be seen as justified to take advantage of the shop owner because they didn't properly put a guard up, in their eyes, so were "asking for it". The latter attitude can also at times happen towards women and how they dress.
Economic losses they don't cause to citizen workers?
Economic gains to domestic businesses?
The contributions to social security & medicare they don't get back?
Because they're not white?
Because outsiders are convenient scapegoats for politicians to blame & flex power?
It's important to pin down clear, substantiated reasons.
From The Business of Migrant Detention covering the history of anti-immigration policies & its disparate treatment of white & brown immigrants
ARABLOUEI: OK. If federal government's spending all this money to detain and then deport people and a lot of times they're coming back in the country, and it's not actually achieving anything economically in terms of supporting American workers and it's actually hurting American companies, why? Like, why are they doing this if there's no material benefit to the economy or to protecting workers?
NOFIL: To me, it is a core question of sort of who is an American. Immigration detention's roots are in this moment that is so blatantly racist, that sort of - you know, the Chinese Exclusion Act pulls no punches about what it is doing. It is targeted to a specific group of people. But that is where we get the legal precedents that undergird this entire system today. It is a system that has only really ever, to my opinion, receded. Immigration detention is only really ever rolled back when it is seen as threatening whiteness. And it is a system that has, you know, continually expanded and gained public support by, you know, targeting racialized people, by targeting people who Americans are encouraged to imagine as maybe kind of criminal anyway, right? It is doing political work, and it is doing work that I think is, like, really revealing about how the nation sees itself.
Even if the law bars say only pedodiles from entry? Just hung up on the word anyone here. I'm guessing there are some number of people we can all agree should be kept outside of a given sect of people. Even back in the day there would be exile's.
Then if we say some number of people should be bared there would be a "right" way.
I'm not saying immigration policy is good now. Far from it.
Who decides if someone's a pedophile or not? How are you going to track that? Force people to take a test or something? Hell, currently we're in a world where queer people, especially trans people, are called "groomers" and "pedophiles" for the sheer act of being trans. So you call people you don't want to come in pedophiles and then they can't come in. Nope, no trans people allowed because we're all "pedophiles" according to the government.
Okay what, you're going to limit it to people who've been convicted of child sex crimes. Well, then they make the existence of people who they don't like count as sex crimes. Again, as is happening to trans people. Existing in public as yourself is a crime so you're charged and treated the same as a pedophile.
So we've already covered why your logic is completely broken and this idea is stupid. But let's push all of that aside. For the sake of argument, best case scenario, we are only talking about actual genuine pedophiles. Have they committed a crime? Are they in prison? Then they're not crossing any borders since they're incarcerated.
What if they haven't committed a crime yet? Well then we'd have no way of knowing they're a pedophile unless they admitted it themselves. And no these people shouldn't be punished just for having those sexual desires. For one, most people are able to control themselves despite sexual urges. Cases of rapes and sexual assault are the result of power dynamics, not random uncontrollable urges. And two, these people should be given help given this could cause genuine mental distress.
What if they've committed a crime but served their time? Well, what justification is there to stop them? What if they harm another child? Well what if they do it in their own country? That's not going to make a difference. And this also goes into the complex issue that is the prison system and how it's largely useless at doing anything other than containing people as a punishment rather than actually attempting to help reform people.
Anyway no, I don't think there's any justification for restricting any kind of "undesirable" from entering a country. Beyond anything else, it just ends up a loophole to punish any group of people you don't like by branding them as that undesirable. Same for every human right. If it doesn't apply to everyone then it applies to no one.
And if you're a special kind of dumbass who'd say "well what about nazis/the kkk/etc", the answer is that ideologies that are inherently intolerant of other people just for existing do not get the benefit of tolerance themselves.
Not sure where the vitriol is coming from. Did I do something to personally offend you? I'm guessing you are just not fully comfortable with your ideas.
Force people to take a test or something?
"Would you have sex with this child holds up picture of child?" "Yes..." "Well, you are not allowed in." Yeah, I would be okay with that tbh.
anyone
“well what about nazis/the kkk/etc”, the answer is that ideologies that are inherently intolerant of other people just for existing do not get the benefit of tolerance themselves.
Oh so we agree as I said in my original post "Just hung up on the word anyone here" you would prevent some amount of people from coming over... So it's not inherently racist to make nazis/kkk immigration illegal?
Without a one world government that could police people cross border, wouldn't it be all to easy walk in to a country, do a bit crime, and then walk to the next one? Not to mention human trafficking problems if no one was tracked how they travel across countries.
I don't. I would obviously like a world where border control wasn't necessary for travel. And it's obviously not an impossibility considering the schengen area exists. But I don't see tracking influx of immigrants to be a bad thing, if anything so you know how many resources to budget for their care (in the case of refugees) and making sure people don't go missing.
Knowing that the system as it is now is wrong does not make me an expert on how we could prevent issues. But some people being able to "do a bit of crime" easier is probably better than the human rights violations that are occurring now. And even otherwise, open borders doesn't inherently mean nothing with no one checking people. Just means you can freely travel. But also, Europe doesn't seem to have an issue of people popping cross the border to "do a bit of crime" and go home to get off scott free. Because that's not how borders and laws work.
And human trafficking is a problem with the world as it is currently. So that's not stopping anything. And hell, it makes "illegal" immigrants easier targets of this kind of exploitation. Can't really get much help if you're in the country illegally and your family member is kidnapped.
No, not on it's own, but it's rarely on its own. In the US opposition to illegal immigrants and racism tracks nearly one to one.
One could imagine a country where illegal immigration itself was a distinct problem, where the society was balanced in such a way that legal immigration was at an optimal rate and additional people coming into the country had downsides that outstripped the positives, when though, for example, the immigrants were of the same culture/class/standing as the existing citizens.
The US, on the other hand, is nowhere near an optimal legal immigration rate, even though we benefit pretty significantly from both legal and illegal immigration. Illegal immigrants, for example, contribute significantly to the economy while not drawing 'as many' benefits away. Overwhelmingly the actual arguments against illegal immigration are grounded in cultural differences and language and, to put it simply, the desire for one class to want a reason to consider themselves better than another class by an easily recognizable yardstick.
I wonder how old you are. Seems you're missing the population issue. I can go on and on, but I'm 54 and I've seen demographics and population change radically. Fine with the demographic changes, but I can see some being alarmed that "their" country is being taken away. Don't agree, but I get the sentiment.
As I've seen the planet's population more than double in my life, seen the countryside paved over for strip malls, I'm screaming, "NO MORE FUCKING PEOPLE!" Who's to blame? Can you see how it's easier to blame the "other"?
Well the population itself is not even 1/100th 'at capacity' in the US. The distribution of the population is certainly a cause for concern, and infrastructure is sorely in need of upgrade, but those are management problems. These are arguably exacerbated by the the fear of 'who' the increased infrastructure would be for, but it is in no way driven by lack of resources or space. We have huge swathes of crop land subsidized into non-food crops, crazy amounts of unoccupied land, ready access to transportation if we had drivers. Maybe the most restrictive resource is water and workforce. No magic fix for the former, but immigration would directly fix the later.
You may not want more towns/cities, and additional building should be done with pollution in mind, but it really comes down to 'not in my backyard'-ism. There are a lot of people that exist, through no fault of their own, and to say they should live in even more cramped and dangerous environments than you just so you can afford more elbow room is exactly my point. It's not legal or logistics reasons the US doesn't want more immigration, it's primarily culture and racism. Good or bad, i'd be willing to bet when someone moves in down the street with a German accent most people will think, at worst, it's kind of interesting, but if they are dark skinned or speak Spanish, a whole bunch of people that didn't bat an eye at the German immigrant, legal or otherwise, will suddenly have concerns about 'over population'.
Basically. I'm also not against programmes to relieve other countries of their refugees (such as Greece) although I think such programmes should be evaluated for if we have the resources to support them and build them up into functioning members of society
If you oppose illegal immigration, though, you should ask yourself why.
If it's solely that you don't want people coming over to your nation illegally, then it's very likely that they aren't able to because of how complicated and exclusive your nation's immigration system is.
Their mode of entry into the UK was illegal but any asylum claims they make will be assessed as being potentially valid. I think you were saying the same thing but not sure.
The reason people are particularly pissed off is that Farage and co. have framed the debate as an issue of fairness. Essentially the charge levelled at the irregular migrants is queue jumping, which we don't look upon fondly in our culture.
On our side of the pond, it’s becoming more apparent how many ways immigrants can end up undocumented. Of course it’s always framed as drug cartel member sneaking over the border at night to rape the women, or whatever bs stereotypes they can use to frighten people, but
sometimes it’s a college student who dropped out of school and didn’t leave
sometimes it’s a tech worker who got laid off and hasn’t yet found another sponsor
sometimes it’s someone struggling to do the right thing and missed something. Maybe a paperwork thing a decade ago
sometimes it’s an ambush when they are doing the right thing
sometimes they’re refugees from horrible circumstances.
sometimes it’s someone just trying to work
sometimes they’re just trying to live as a family when a cruel system would separate them
If your system, like ours, uses the worst stereotypes to scapegoat all undocumented aliens, deprives them of their rights, uses racial profiling to decide who to attack, “officers” hide their faces and identities and don’t even seem to know the laws they’re supposedly enforcing, use escalating violence for infractions that have always been civil issues, claim they’re deporting “the worst of the worst criminals” while setting ambushes at work sites and immigrant processing centers, then you too may be racist
We’re over here trying to set an example of what NOT to do, apparently.
There are genuine integration issues in the UK so the anti-migrant bloc do have some valid concerns. However, there will be a non-insignificant amount of racists among them.
Weirdly, the "skipping the queue" rhetoric even works with fellow migrants. I have a friend from Iran who I used to work with that moved to the UK ~3 years ago; he's way angrier about irregular channel crossings than the average Scottish person I know. I'd imagine spending a lot of money and years on a waiting list before being given a work visa was a grating experience though.
This very much seems like a Chesterton's Fence issue.
Using the US/Mexico example - if the US didn't have some kind of restriction to its borders, we would expect Mexican cartel influence to spill over the border much more easily.
Or another example - suppose Ukraine had completely unrestricted flow across its border with Russia. Then Russia wants to invade. What do they do? They just have 100,000 soldiers walk across the border dressed as civilians, then launch their attack across the country.
... Which are justified in many cases. For a start, as a brit, I don't want a mass amount of Americans coming over here and electing their Trumps and bringing their culture war with them.
In the US and many other countries, immigration violations are not crimes. Therefore, those immigrants are not illegal. It is actually a civil infraction, like a parking ticket... So, your question reveals hidden xenophobic bias. That alone is immoral. Is it racist in itself? Probably. It is very difficult to be xenophobic without also being racist.
I feel like if you're asking then you're searching for validation. A sort of way to not feel guilty about being racist. Tell me, what bothers you most about immigrants? This country wouldn't exist if it weren't for immigrants
And I understand them searching for validation. It might be hard being anti-illegal-immigrant and everyone thinking you racist, even though your reasons are not racist nor xenophobic at all.
If I had things my way, legal immigration would be easy and fast. This would eliminate the need for people from a starving company to sneak across the border
Short answer yes with an if. The long answer is no with a but.
I'd say it's racist if someone is complaining about illegal immigrants alongside a general contempt of 'foreigners' and not paying attention to the details of why it's illegal for them to migrate the way they did and what options are available for legal migration.
It's not racist to be opposed to those who are in violation of the law, as that is not a racial or ethnic classification. But it is important to be inquisitive as to why the law is the way that it is, and be willing to consider the possibility that just because something is against the law does not mean that it should be. Law has long been used as a tool of systemic oppression and racism, as well as many other horrific abuses inflicted on people.
Most of the current immigration laws are due to racist intent. In the 80s they didn't like how many Mexicans were coming across the border each year to do farm work. The workers would come, stay while there was work to be had, and then return home. When new laws were enacted making it harder for workers to get across the border, there came a class of people that would sneak the workers across. And this came with a fee from the workers. Now it costs them more to get here, so they need to stay longer to make up the money. It became easier to just find a place to live in the US all year round.
The US needs the Mexican workers. To simultaneously demand help, and punish them for showing up to help is dumb, and I suspect fueled by racist thoughts. The immigrants boost our economy, help feed our population, and are less likely to break laws that citizens. There's a whole (probably many) book about it, and it's even in comic form. https://www.amazon.com/Open-Borders-Science-Ethics-Immigration/dp/1250316960
While we need to know who is coming across our border to prevent spys and terrorists, the current laws make those entrants easier to hide, as there is now a whole industry to sneak people across.
Considering the high proportion of the population with ancestors who were illegal immigrants, there's also a question of what you consider as acceptable.
If illegal immigrants in the US are all white Christian beautiful women filling jobs that locals don't want to do in healthcare, is it different than Pedro from Honduras who works in construction but looks like he could be a drug mule.
Not really, but the racist part is opposing measures making it achievable and even simple to do so legally. Then all the terrible treatment along the way.
Kind of like how a lot of anti-poor laws in the USA were targeting former slaves without actually saying it, and poor-white people were collateral damage.
Why would they be migrating illegally when migrating legally would clearly be better for them?
I worry a lot of it is human trafficking or at least human trafficking lite. A lot of employers really like having employees they don't actually have to pay properly or obey workplace safety and other protections for, and who will be afraid to speak up about fraud and other illegal practices.
But to me that would be easily solved if we only made it illegal to hire people without a permit, but never deport or otherwise penalize the workers. And publicize that heavily. So if you don't have a permit and your boss is abusing you, just call the hotline on the billboard and let us know and we'll arrest them and you can go find another sketchy employer and tell on them too when they piss you off.
No one would be hiring people without permits if there were actual consequences for the employer. We wouldn't be stuck with trying to figure out how to deport people and whatnot. They'd only be able to hire people the law is already protecting as workers. but nobody actually wants to hold rich people accountable for having caused all this trouble in the first place.
If you're an American, our entire history of immigration legislation is racism bundled on racism following in the tradition of racism. Were it not for chattel slavery and our betrayal of the native tribes our racist immigration laws would be the most shameful part of our history.
And if you're not American, your own country's immigration laws are almost certainly based on either racism or "nationalism", with the latter mostly being a holdover from when "French" and "English" were considered different races.
Unlawful emmigration to a country should be, at worst, a bureaucratic fine and probation. Anything more is simply bigotry in a polite suit.
There could be many reasons to be opposed to it, not necessarily racist ones.
You can support the rule of law - that's not racist. You may want to support legal immigration, while closing illegal ways that commonly lead to abuse of migrants - this is straight up progressive. You may consider illegal immigrants more dangerous as they didn't go through screening procedures - that's up for debate, but not necessarily racist, etc. And generally, if you consider that same rules should apply to everyone, this is not racist.
However, it's worth considering the laws of your area and the way they can affect legal migration. Going against illegal immigration and at the same time voting to complicate legal one, especially in relation to certain nationals, likely signals of racism (or, rather, ultranationalism). It is one thing to want to make the process transparent and legal and the other - to build more barriers.
It's not racist to take issur with illegal immigration.
It's just not right to oppose the immigrants as people, or say that their situation is the result of some moral failing. These people make the best decisions for themselves and their families.
It becomes racist when you start attributing characteristics or behaviors to their race as fundamental attributes.
First off: technically, almost everyone opposes illegal immigration—the issue is whether it should be reduced by deporting undocumented immigrants, or by changing the laws to legalize more of them. (The exceptions who do support illegal immigration as-is are generally employers who exploit immigrants.)
Second: If the current law is racist, then supporting increased enforcement is racist while supporting reform (probably) isn’t. (And I would describe a law as racist if it disproportionately impacts racial minorities when alternative laws with an equivalent effect on public safety would not.)
The term is a little racist. It is like defining someone as an excon, or ex convict, rather than someone who has spent time in prison. Or as disabled rather than a person with a disability. You define people as a simple thing rather than as a whole person with a feature. It flattens people into less than they are and makes them less than human.
So opposing people who flaunt the rules is a separate question to opposing illegal immigrants. You don't dismiss their humanity, you don't discard them, you say "You breeched the rules and here are the consequences."
The second layer is whether you believe in the rules. Do you believe people from other countries are fundamentally different to you? Are they less because of where they come from? If so, yes, racist. If not, then probably not.
Often people who oppose illegal immigration do seem to also be racists.
I think if someone says they oppose illegal immigration and also genuinely feels they have done serious introspection and feel they are not racist, they might benefit from asking themselves what they dislike about illegal immigration and see if those things actually have the negative impacts they fear or if the negative impacts they see are but drops in the bucket compared to other sources of similar impacts.
Swede here, absolutely not, around 2015 or so we got hit by the mass migration wave, there were plenty of documented cases of migrants throwing away or destroying their documents to try and claim refugee status when they clearly didn't need it, thus taking spots from actual refugees.
There were also real refugees who did this, they registered in Greece, Spain, Italy or other southern Europe country, but then they kept going north, trying to get to a better country. At that point you are no longer a refugee, but an economic migrant.
I 100% oppose these migrants.
The dumb thing is that the EU would distribute refugees throughout the union, just because you registered in Spain, didn't mean you had to stay there, you would stay for an interim period and be distributed to your proper host country.
I have zero issues with migrants/refugees who come the legal route, learn the language, work, and integrate in the culture.
Why did the immigrants feel the need to do that?
If you're just going to say greed then I can't take you seriously, since greed would have moved them far sooner.
Maybe there are problems with the immigration system
If you are just going to reject one of the biggest driving forces of human beings, then you don't want a serious discussion.
Greed is absolutely part of it, people want to maximize their gains, be it money, health, security or resources.
But since you don't accept that answer, what is your explanation for a refugee that keeps walking through safe country after safe country before finally finding the specific country they accept?
Why should refugees get to pick and choose a specific EU country to live in?
Why would legitimate refugees's discard their papers?
what is your explanation for a refugee that keeps walking through safe country after safe country before finally finding the specific country they accept?
Huh? Because it is safe obviously.
Everyone wants a better chance of better living.
And refugees are already moving.
Since they are already moving why not move to a country with better chance of better living?
If they hear "so-and-so country has better chance of better living" of course they are going to choose that, again, because they are already moving.
I didn't say greed can't be part of it, but anti immigration folks position it as the primary or significant motivator, but:
If they were primarily motivated by greed, the would have immigrated long ago.
And their objection seems to be primarily motivated by greed, the want more and they perceive that immigrants will prevent them from getting more. So why is their greed ok but immigrant greed isn't?
What is my explanation? I don't need one, you're the one saying it's greed, it's up to you to prove that in the face of an entirely reasonable counterargument.
But I'll give you one anyways - they're looking for a place that they can belong, which isn't necessarily going to be the first place they arrive. They're looking for the ability to support their family, which isn't greed.
Why shouldn't refugees get to pick what country they move to, like any EU citizen can?
Why would legitimate refugees discard their papers? You tell me, why would having papers be worse than not having papers? That practically screams that something is either very wrong with the system, or that this is simply a dishonest claim.
Yes because this is all land stolen by illegals. Assuming you're in North America. Canada and United States both literally illegally migrated here. No excuse or logic that would make sense that others shouldnt do the same. The end.
Feels like it's a dog whistle most of the time and not a very good one. I've seen people assuming that someone isn't here legally much more often with someone of a different race. A lot of the time people will bring it up for the sake of racism. Inherently? I don't know if it would be racist to oppose them for it's own sake, but you'd have to have just as much a problem with the German guy overstaying a visa. I'd also say that opposing it for it's own sake is unchristian.
It depends on why. Is it a blind obedence to law, i.e. any law breaking is considered immoral to you? I.e. you oppose speeding, jaywalking, hiding Ann Frank just as much. No, probally not. That is a different issue called Statism.
After that you'd have to get into the countries actual laws and what their intentions and effects are. Is it just a matter of getting documented and agreeing to follow laws and participate in society and people are bypassing that in order to shirk accountabilty? No thats not racist.
Is it because there is a quota based on country of origin in order to shape demographics and so people desperate to move cant do so legally? Yeah, that's probally racist (with current demographics of the world largly affected by a few centuries of racist policy, both colonial and domestic).
In a perfect world, immigration would just be regulated due to welfare and legal reasons, which seems reasonable enough. In reality you might want to question why some legislation actually exists. Is it reasonable, or is its whole purpose to prevent some immigration?
Illegal immigrants are of absolutely all sorts, so there is no single human trait that is uniquely only found in illegal migrants.
Also, people don't oppose illegal migrants, they oppose illegal migration as a general thing. Illegal migrants are not the problem, they are simply the cause, and people hate the problems that arise in a society after to much illegal migration.
People need to stop calling everyone they disagree with racists, its so watered down that it completely lost any meaning and weight behind it. Didn't get up to a granny on the bus? Racist. Driving a white car? Racist. Using an iPhone? Racist.
There is a version of illegal migration that I would support and truly leave an open door for everyone: You must adopt the culture, you must learn the language, you must find a job, you won't get any welfare or housing and you can't ask for anything in our society to be "like it was at your home". And voila! Everyone welcome.
As other pointed out, it is not technically racist to be against illegality, but asking with free will for laws and system with a racist bias to be strictly applied is racist as a consequence (as in, you're not racist by yourself, but you are racist in your speech/action), so in our world, i'd say yes it is racist in a certain way.
Are we seriously gonna play the "but what do these words actually mean" card for "illegal" and "immigrant?" Kinda stupid ass takes that give credibility to online age verification. My comment wasn't a serious definition, it was deliberately drawing attention to the absurdity of asking to define a phrase with a total of two words both of which are highly specific, unambiguous and descriptive of the very thing they mean. At the point where phrases like this need to be rigorously explained and defined, we're in a "learning the language for the first time and doesn't actually know what words mean" scenario
Usually the free market place of ideas ensures that the ideas, values and knowledge of all people are refined and weighed against each other. This naturally elevates and expands collective knowledge.
On Lemmy however there are only bad ideas so it works to ensure that everyone is on an equal playing field of truly intellectually deficient opinions. And I'm here for it. Can't have fun on Reddit like you can on Lemmy.
It would be racist to oppose immigrants from Sudan whilst welcoming those from Ukraine.
In my opinion, it is not racist to oppose illegal immigration per se.
Especially if those immigrants would benefit from a social system that you pay into.
It is wrong, however to blame the immigrants, as it would be the system that is the problem.
Illegal immigrants get jack shit out of our social system. But conservatives tell you they do!
In any case, you're right, it's the system. We've got legalized slavery and how do you fight the rich over that? And how do we actually pay these people without fucking our grocery bill?
I'm afraid it all has to crash, hard, before we reform anything..
e.g. in NZ, we don't have a problem with illegal immigration, but completely legal "temporary migrant workers".
The issue, isn't the people, it's the load on already stretched infrastructure. Because they are "temporary", they are not factored into the calculations for infrastructure spending.
This wouldn't be a problem, if a short team need was being met, but it isn't... There are always temporary workers, because we as a country can't fill all the jobs from local supply.
With birth rates and other immigration, our population growth is around 1.5%, not the 0.5% we target our spending at.
If we spent at a rate that accounted for the real population growth, everything would work better for everyone.
The conditions that western powers put their countries in is also illegal :)
If we talk about settler colonial countries found on terorrism like the United States of America, the majority are descendants of illegal immigrants (and the european north americans are not only descendants of illegal immigrants but terrorists, genocidal people who owned slaves)
There's various reasons why people oppose immigration. I want to present two of them:
Economic reasons. Having more people in the country does NOT mean that there will be more jobs. Because immigrants are typically poor, they take jobs but don't spend much money back to stimulate the economy. That takes jobs away from the people who were already in the country, which is very unpopular. This is mostly a concern if there's a lot of people immigrating, since the number of jobs taken by the immigrants is directly proportional to the number of immigrants. You can actually see this phenomenon in real time in agriculture and healthcare. These are typically low-paid professions who are largely done by immigrants. If there were no immigrants, wages would have to rise because otherwise, nobody would do these jobs. Then the people who were already in the country could take these jobs, because they would pay a living wage.
Note that this is NOT a racist argument since it has nothing to do with what kind of people immigrates. Even if they were clones of yourself, this argument would still hold true. It is not about race or culture.
Then there's cultural reasons. (which is what's commonly referred to as "racism"). Some people have a hard time adapting to anything new, and immigrants typically bring new ideas and new ways of doing things, which is a learning experience for everyone involved, and some people just don't like to learn new things. That leads to racism.
I'm skeptical of anyone who says some demographic takes jobs, because it's an intentional misplace of the blame.
Nobody can take a job, but a company can give away a job.
And strangely you don't see these same people fighting to lower the birthrates of the majority demographics (since high birth rates will cause the same issues at immigration with a little delay).
So how do you phrase your complaint while keeping the blame on businesses?
yeah you're right. i said there are arguments, not that they're 100% waterproof or in all cases true.
the thing you said about lowering birthrates is 100% correct, and businesses share a large part of the responsibility (through neoliberalism).
still, the messages have to get out to the people and be discussed publicly, otherwise there is no progress in the discussion. one cannot just say that a certain thing has to happen or not happen without actually doing the work of discussing all arguments for and against something.
I’d argue no, if you have valid reasons and lets not kid ourselves even though there is enough wealth in the world to have everyone live comfortably, thats not the game the wealthy and their puppet politicians play. They want us cheap and desperate and immigrants are just another tool to achieve this objective.
Like I said, I don’t know your euphemisms and usage, but …..
It’s racist when we mean those people. They’re all criminals and druggies and queue jumpers. And you know they’re mostly x. Not like the good ones from Scandinavia that fly in. Those are not the problem.
It reminds me of a term we have here: wetbacks. There are still some idiots who try to claim it’s just descriptive of people who swam across the rio grande river. But we all know it’s those people from south of the border with the darker skin. They’re all illegal, drug smugglers, will rob and rape and steal our jobs. And somehow use up our healthcare and social security that they can’t collect. Even if there was a chance it was descriptive in the beginning, it’s clearly racist and it’s clearly exploited by our Regressives to drive fear and outrage. If there’s anyone who still supports the abuses of our current immigration enforcement thugs it’s because of how successfully that term has been demonized
And this is why allowing people like Charlie Kirk is dangerous. We’re used to saying that people have a right to voice their opinions but the modern world has made it easy to influence millions with the most abhorrent opinions and to escape consequences of voicing them. The modern world rewards with success those who exploit divisiveness, outrage, haired, and we haven’t been able to get past that. He shouldn’t have been shot but in an ideal world would have been shunned and exiled, left alone in ignomy
Difference is that mexico has cartels and stuff. France doesn't. Stop trying to apply your American logic over on us. The Chinese have a term for this. "A frog in a well". Except maybe you lot are more obnoxious than that anyway. Deal with your own problems and stop trying to poke your nose in others, imperialist yank. Your country has caused enough problems on the world stage. A number of weeks ago one of your racist billionaires was trying to meddle with our society by making speeches in London. We don't want anything to do with you lot.
Finally. Someone willing to talk about the issue other than, "ALL IMMIGRANTS GOOD!" And if you don't believe that, you're a racist fuck.
Been beat up, here and on reddit, in past years for stating that, yes, we had a nightmare at the southern border. Officials were overwhelmed and under financed, immigrants faced a fucking humanitarian disaster. People were suffering and dying and what did liberals have to say? "Man, fuck you, it's not true, it's Fox News propaganda." Meanwhile, the population of Chicago flooded in, year after year. How the fuck are we supposed to create the infrastructure and housing for America's 3rd largest city, every year. (I got numbers to back that, but I doubt any here give a shit.)
And JFC, no liberals are bitching about the modern-day slavery aspect. I've seen very few positing that we should go after business owners. "Just pay them fairly!" All for it, but the grocery bill is going to explode. And we're just now seeing the results of running them off, only just begun.
Yes, only Americans are racists for wanting to control our borders. Meanwhile, in Europe, where anti-immigration sentiment and protests are spiking... silence. (I think this is mostly down to overpopulation, but that's a whole 'nother rant.)
Don't start me on assimilation. My wife is Filipino. Her and all of her friends have assimilated nicely, thank you very much. Meanwhile, the dudes at the taco truck can't take an order, from a very limited menu, in English. Had always figured people like that were brand new. We took one of my wife's coworker's kayaking. Cool guy. Gay Honduran, walked 30-days to get here. Fucking tough enough for me! He didn't know words like, "boy", "girl", "year", "please". Assumed he just got here, OK with that. Nah. He has been here for 5 years.
We need immigrants, but we are fucking it up so badly I can't get my head around the stupidity.
Not true is any sense, even the technical. Entering the US illegally, or overstaying a visa, is, at best, a civil offense. Still illegal. Diving into what constitutes a criminal offense gets sticky in a hurry.
My wife is a brown, legal immigrant, so I looked this up, read a bit, briefly. Again, it's complicated, and IANAL, so if the laws might apply, give a look. Bit in no case is entering without documents or overstaying "not illegal".
Not intrinsically, but pretty commonly it is driven by bigotry over culture, religion or skin colour.
You know all the people up in arms over the wave of Ukrainian refugees? Oh wait, there's nothing of the sort? Well, there you go.
I think it's very telling that it's not about "How do we allow them in legally" but it's about "Kick them out". If they were simply mad about illegal immigration then the natural discourse would be "Why do they not come over legally then?" The answer there is that of course it's insanely difficult to legally become a citizen of the US, and it can take years - even decades, but people have a family that's hungry now.
The discourse going to "Kick them out" shows that it's not about legal immigration at all, it's that they don't want a specific type of person around them. Otherwise we'd be having fairs and events to help people get their citizenship right now. After all they want to be here, the even want to pay taxes. If they just need to come in legally then the vast majority would, if our process allowed it.
Same for other places. Even Canada, which is apparently one of the best destinations, has a system that's poorly designed to the point of maliciousness.
It took my dad about 15-20 years in the US to get citizenship. It took my friend about 10 in Canada. Both are fucking terrible, but the US is a special kind of processed garbage
Exactly. In and of itself, criticizing illegal immigration is simply criticizing an illegal act. However, it is usually steeped in racist logic and arguments. Talking about how people who come over our southern border are genetically inferior and prone to crime is racist as fuck. Adding roadblocks to immigration for brown people while simultaneously streamlining immigration of white South Africans (the guys who did Apartheid) is racist as fuck.
There for sure was.
Where, and to what degree relative to Arabs or Latin Americans or whatever?
Like sure, you can find someone who said it was bad somewhere, but even in places like Romania or Poland they were never the main target of the xenophobic rage.
I live in SC. There was a big uproar about it and an even bigger one that the news shrugged its shoulders and went "eh, not really news worth."
Well, that's the where. How big, relative to dissatisfaction over Latin Americans?
I'm pretty sure it's negligible by comparison. Because I know America.
Thats because the media didnt try to cause mass hysteria. Man you guys are so easily manipulated by media i think we should force psychological classes so you can see the warning signs of manipulation
Edit: you are the easiest people to manipulate and its already obvious.
Uh-huh. Straight to forced re-education programs and shadowy conspiracies.
When the fascists send people to argue for them, they're not sending their best.
Edit: Cool cowardly edit.
No no... that's their best.
Yeah, TBF it's not an ideology that really pulls the best and brightest,
Hopefully you’ll be in that class.
Every time I meet someone who opposes illegal immigration but claims to support legal immigration I ask one question. If the law changed so that all immigration was legal, you'd be fine with it, right?
Nobody so far has been fine with it. I conclude that the question of legality is a dodge for people who are embarrassed about their actual motives.
Oh my God the HEMMING and HAWING when suggesting easier immigration to one of these bigots.
They will do anything to avoid answering that question. It's really disgusting
I support legal immigration, I empathize with illegal immigration (and think the laws could use adjustment in both directions)...but I don't think all immigration should be legal.
And no, it doesn't change if they're from "a Western country" or from somewhere that people look different from the majority in my country.
We have rising unemployment among citizens, especially young people, yet corporations are taking advantage of immigrants in various ways. And immigrants of all kinds -- legal, grey area, and illegal immigrants.
We are selling the idea of a lifestyle to people in other countries that isn't attainable unless you're part of the top quintile (or possibly an even smaller group) of income. Then they come here, bringing their university educations, and are competing for jobs against high schoolers.
I'm all about people coming to live in my country. But we're doing a disservice to immigrants through our laws/regulations and our corporations. And people who are here illegally are usually the biggest victims; the most exploited.
Does unrestricted immigration work?
I'm not aware that any country (that anyone would want to go to, not like a war zone) has completely free immigration. I'd be opposed to having no more borders from one day to the next for the simple reason that it's a big change. One that's worth trialing and working towards, of course, but not something we can yet know will work afaik. Especially if we're the first country doing this and 2 billion people decide the Netherlands would be a fine place to live in (it is!). I'd not be surprised if it turns out we need a lottery kind of system, or maybe an announcement system, at least for those not in mortal danger, so that we can build living spaces ahead of time. Supply and demand is currently such that the only way to afford a house (even for top, idk, ~2% of world incomes) is to have a house so you can sell it at the inflated price, and while immigration is afaik a net positive to a country's wealth and welfare, this effect is offset in time. The housing crisis will pass again, as it always has, but in general the solution should be sustainable and I'm not aware that it's as simple as "be in favor of unrestricted immigration or else you're a racist"
I also would not be fine with it.
Having a barrier to entry is what keeps most of the dipshits out. There are dipshits in every country. I don't want to have to deal with another country's dipshits - we have enough to deal with on our own.
Exactly what the barriers to entry are should be reformed so that they make sense and allow all people in easily if they meet some straightforward requirements.
Borders have existed since paleolithic tribes staked out perimeters around their camps and established hunting territory boundaries with other tribes. Is it possible that we will someday live in a world completely free of restricted travel? Sure! But abolishing all barriers to entry across national boundaries tomorrow with a snap of the fingers would be a disaster.
Perhaps, but the undocumented immigrants being rounded up do not seem to be dipshits. Dreamers, day laborers, people here for the past 20 years with no criminal history. Keeping the dipshits out is a nice idea, but our current policies are evicting people I want as neighbors.
I agree. I think our current policies are dumb as fuck.
I think I understand what you're saying and don't necessarily fully disagree, but the directness at the very start definitely made me brace for xenophobia. In part because "dipshits" can be used as a dogwhistle
However, I would 100% classify trumpers as dipshits
Yeah, I mean, I was direct because I was disagreeing with them.
I agree
No, but it is racist to assume that a person is an illegal immigrant based solely on their race.
Likewise, i think there is a deeper connection being made, that theres an assumption that an illegal immigrant is a bad person, and i also do not think that is a valid assumption.
To know if a person is a bad person, you have to know the person.
It's racist to use immigration law to maintain a racial underclass. For instance, many essential agricultural workers in the US do not have access to the courts or law enforcement to protect their rights. If a citizen assaults one of these workers, the worker cannot safely report the assault to law enforcement without being punished for doing so.
I am yet to hear a justification for opposing illegal immigration that doesn't tie back into racism or racial prejudice, let alone a justification that actually makes sense if you take it apart.
Someone prove me wrong, and I'll change my mind.
If you have a society with robust social welfare systems - education, healthcare, social security, pensions, childcare, housing etc. etc., mass immigration becomes a massive problem.
Everything is taken care of via taxes, and those taxes come from a productive working population. Slow population growth (whether from births or immigration) allows social institutions to expand at a matching rate over the decades.
Rapid population increases from migration can overwhelm the systems in place and put society in a spot where it is no longer able to maintain them.
Furthermore, when it comes to illegal immigrants, it gets doubly bad. They can't hold down a legal job (at least in my country, and thus not pay taxes either), which inevitably pushes them towards crime or illegal jobs which brings a whole host of other issues.
The thing is, if they are there illegally, they won't be able to benefit from most of these welfare systems. And over straining welfare can also happen for a lot of different reasons (thank you neoliberalism)
Thanks for a thoughtful response. My thoughts:
Thanks for a well-written reply. Here's some quick responses:
1... as mentioned the primary costs here come from increased crime which is hard to document. In high trust societies (which social welfare countries usually are) this has a disproportionately negative impact on the economy. Also, in several Scandinavian countries everyone has a right to emergency healthcare, regardless of their immigration status.
2... I believe you're correct when it comes to countries with less social welfare such as the US, however, this isn't the case in countries with robust social welfare systems. As recently as 2023 Denmark assessed the net contribution of migrants and their descendants on the public finances and published the results. The sum total effect of migrants was negative (-19B DKK). Per capita the average Dane had an impact of (22k DKK) per year and the average migrant (-21k DKK). Some migrant/migrant descendant subgroups were better or worse than others (best 52k DKK, worst -109k).
3... Sure, I assume this accounts for other societal costs such as law enforcement and crime?
4... See the response to #2. The taxes don't cover the costs.
Thanks for your response. Your argument is convincing and I have no refutation, I appreciate you taking the time.
The only thing I would say is I bet this is still fixable with policy without having to ban or restrict immigration. But alas, that's a different discussion, and your point that there are valid non racist reasons to criticize immigration is correct. Thanks again!
No worries. I think the more interesting discussion that I'd like to have at some point is how a good system for immigration actually looks. It's not a trivial problem to solve and can't be done in isolation either. Societies are systems where everything is interlinked in one way or another.
I agree that there are legitimate reasons to manage immigration, but criminalizing the act is a complete no-go for me. There are other ways to manage immigration by creating incentives and disincentives that would make the criminalization of migrants unnecessary. I also believe that freedom of movement is a fundamental human right and that borders are nothing more than an authoritarian system of control. "Security" is only made necessary by the problems that nation-states create themselves by existing.
How would you limit immigration without creating laws and stopping people when too many arrive?
Freedom of movement is good in a vacuum but not feasible in our current world. The best would be if developed countries could uplift those that arent and the need for people to move would be reduced.
You've answered your own question, ending imperialism and colonialism so that unequal exchange doesn't create massive wealth disparities between nations and war no longer displaces people en masse, thereby "uplifting" formerly exploited peoples, would remove most of the incentives for mass migration. In a world at peace with itself borders are not necessary. Ask yourself, why is there no need to criminalize immigration between states/provinces within a country such as the US? Because the US, for the time being, is a nation at peace with itself. It doesn't have to be a perfect utopia - the US most certainly is not - to eliminate the need for border security / immigration control. Even a tenuous peace and a dubious justice is enough to eliminate the need for border enforcement.
Edit: This is a good write-up about how the criminalization of migrants does not even serve as an adequate deterrent to migration anyway. It is not only unjust, it's futile.
Ok, so just wishful thinking then. The problem is we live in the present, not some utopian future.
Now you're just copying my comment and changing the timeframe lol.
Can you elaborate on how you think turning the world into a utopia would be achievable?
So clearly you didn't fully read my comment, so why should I expend the effort typing out a response? It would be a waste if you're just going to read part of it and then ask questions I've already given the answer to.
You have given a vague idealistic vision, not an answer.
And how exactly would that happen? Id like you to elaborate if you have any ideas
I've heard a very compelling one actually. It's not about ilegal immigration but against immigration in general. I heard it in a youtube talk maybe like a decade ago.
It starts stating that the thing a migrant person wants the most is not having to emigrate. No one wants go have to leave their country because they cannot safely live a prosper life there. So the best outcome would be that the origin countries would change, so people wouldn't have leave everything behind to start a new life abroad. The problem is that the country have to change from inside. And the people leaving a country is usually the most qualified to make that change happen. So by leaving the country they make the change harder or even impossible.
I'm not arguing in favour or against this argument. But I do not think it has anything to do with race whatsoever. As it doesn't even talk about anything related to migrant presence in a receiving country.
Thanks for your response! You are making an assumption that most or all immigrants wish they didn't have to immigrate. I will answer assuming this is true, though I am not confident it is. But let's go with it.
Changes in material conditions of a country typically occur due to political action. That may be in terms of voting, political movements, or outside forces like war or sanctions. Addressing each of those:
And last, even if what you quoted is true, I bet whoever said it is likely not considering putting the effort of making their country better in the same way they want immigrants to. Maybe that's not one of the worse forms of racism, but it is one.
That's a strawman. And some people are just hustlers and want money and handouts and see it as something they are entitled to.
But it boils down to "go back where they came from" which is the favourite of racists.
I mean if the axiom is "any negative about immigration is bad = racism" then yes, there's no argument against immigration that could not be racist as those two concepts would be equivalent.
It's just a lot of clever words for hating foreigners. I'm not fooled by it. Apparently you are. The solution to the infrastructure problems is to build more infrastructure. Not elect a bunch of racists and let hate rule your country. Who gives a fuck where people are from? Racists. That's who. People are people.
The solution to the housing crisis is to build a vast amount of council housing, just like we did post war. It makes jobs. It boosts the economy. It removes the upwards pressure on rent and introduces downwards pressure. Who would pay through the nose for a badly maintained private rental property when there's a brand now council house at much lower rent? Landlords would have to fix the house and reduce the rent or sell - reducing upwards pressure on house prices.
So it's the government selling off council houses instead of building more and money-grabbing rich venture capital landlords that cause the housing problem, not some immigrant.
How do you solve the problems of the NHS? Recruit more doctors and nurses. How? Increase the limit on numbers in medical school in the UK (controlled by the government) and for goodness' sake, make sure all the foreign born NHS and healthcare workers feel happy, wanted and at home, because the one think the NHS can't afford is to lose the immigrant workers! Next, bring health and social care and NHS under the same funding roof, either by putting NHS into local authorities or social care under the NHS. Social care is far cheaper than the NHS and a bunch of old people can't get a place in social care because there's not enough funding for it. If it was the same pot of money, it'd be simple - build a bunch of care homes and ease pressure on the NHS. But how would you staff them? I think you're beginning to see where the answers are but you don't want to admit it.
Who gave you money problems? Rich people running corporations to extract as much money as possible from you. Not some poor immigrant.
Immigrants make our country better. Without them it would be worse. Silly racists can sound plausible without using the word "race" or "skin" or "foreigners" as much as they like but their solutions are just about racism and not about making anything better.
Trump is living out the "deport them or lock them up" policy. If you think that's all going well, move to America. Unless your skin isn't pearly white, because they'll lock you up before you can say "ironic" and certainly before you can say "habeas corpus".
I think being anti-all-immigration is xenophobic. But it's completely different from being anti illegal immigration or wanting to, for example, stop the immigration of people in certain job markets to help the country's nationals to get jobs.
What I say is:
"It's better to bring in 100,000 immigrants who want to fill needed gaps in our society, contribute, build it up and create more jobs, than 10,000 immigrants who just want handouts"
I have some fantastic news for you. For some time now, if you enter the UK via an illegal route you already have No Recourse To Public Funds. This means you can't get council housing, you can't get universal credit, you can't get child credit and you're not entitled to free treatment in the NHS. You have to pay for everything yourself.
Why would anyone do that? Ignorance maybe, but usually because it's better than being killed and they already speak some English or have family here.
The last job you got-did you have to supply identity papers such as drivers licence, passport or similar? Employers legality have to establish your right to work in the UK.
So the his news for you is there's already no legal way for illegal immigrants to be paid anything at all in the UK. Automatically destitute. Woohoo. You must be so proud.
that's not true
simply because somebody who you disagree with says something, doesn't mean that that argument is bad.
it's like if a nazi says that the sky is blue, then you're going to insist that it's actually green or yellow. that's just stupid.
nazis breathe too. does that make breathing bad? no, you need to agree with it and continue to breathe yourself.
Yeah, but if a Nazi says we should send all the immigrants home, I see it for the racist shit it is.
That's not what this discussion is about, though. It's about illegal immigrants. Not immigrants in general.
It wasn't me that changed the subject
https://lemmy.world/post/36507111/19622419
Essentially this. There are no arguments against immigration that arent racist or xenophobic.
Immigration and illegal immigration are two different subjects.
Wouldn't arguing against immigration be xenophobic by default?
I think there are arguments for certain cultural backgrounds where standards or view on morality might be different. Or worldview. So they aren't necessarily all racist
What is your argument? Please explain these moral differences based on culture. Could you provide an example?
Here's an example
What. Are. Your. Arguments?
Put them into words. Dont send me a video.
You asked for an example
It's not race based, but there are cultures that are less developed and may not blend well with other cultures.
This even happens with the likes of white American tourists in Japan... Or anywhere for that matter. Even in the UK and Ireland, where they are likely the same ethnicity (I know because they never bleedin shut up about it)
For example, in some places, if something is given out for free, it may be normal to take as much advantage of it as possible. Or honesty shops- it might be seen as justified to take advantage of the shop owner because they didn't properly put a guard up, in their eyes, so were "asking for it". The latter attitude can also at times happen towards women and how they dress.
Why do you oppose them?
It's important to pin down clear, substantiated reasons.
From The Business of Migrant Detention covering the history of anti-immigration policies & its disparate treatment of white & brown immigrants
look at canada
No human is illegal
being a nazi should be illegal
deport musk
I feel like "illegal" immigration as a concept is inherently racist and being upset and anyone for not coming over the "right" way is also racist.
Even if the law bars say only pedodiles from entry? Just hung up on the word anyone here. I'm guessing there are some number of people we can all agree should be kept outside of a given sect of people. Even back in the day there would be exile's.
Then if we say some number of people should be bared there would be a "right" way.
I'm not saying immigration policy is good now. Far from it.
Who decides if someone's a pedophile or not? How are you going to track that? Force people to take a test or something? Hell, currently we're in a world where queer people, especially trans people, are called "groomers" and "pedophiles" for the sheer act of being trans. So you call people you don't want to come in pedophiles and then they can't come in. Nope, no trans people allowed because we're all "pedophiles" according to the government.
Okay what, you're going to limit it to people who've been convicted of child sex crimes. Well, then they make the existence of people who they don't like count as sex crimes. Again, as is happening to trans people. Existing in public as yourself is a crime so you're charged and treated the same as a pedophile.
So we've already covered why your logic is completely broken and this idea is stupid. But let's push all of that aside. For the sake of argument, best case scenario, we are only talking about actual genuine pedophiles. Have they committed a crime? Are they in prison? Then they're not crossing any borders since they're incarcerated.
What if they haven't committed a crime yet? Well then we'd have no way of knowing they're a pedophile unless they admitted it themselves. And no these people shouldn't be punished just for having those sexual desires. For one, most people are able to control themselves despite sexual urges. Cases of rapes and sexual assault are the result of power dynamics, not random uncontrollable urges. And two, these people should be given help given this could cause genuine mental distress.
What if they've committed a crime but served their time? Well, what justification is there to stop them? What if they harm another child? Well what if they do it in their own country? That's not going to make a difference. And this also goes into the complex issue that is the prison system and how it's largely useless at doing anything other than containing people as a punishment rather than actually attempting to help reform people.
Anyway no, I don't think there's any justification for restricting any kind of "undesirable" from entering a country. Beyond anything else, it just ends up a loophole to punish any group of people you don't like by branding them as that undesirable. Same for every human right. If it doesn't apply to everyone then it applies to no one.
And if you're a special kind of dumbass who'd say "well what about nazis/the kkk/etc", the answer is that ideologies that are inherently intolerant of other people just for existing do not get the benefit of tolerance themselves.
Not sure where the vitriol is coming from. Did I do something to personally offend you? I'm guessing you are just not fully comfortable with your ideas.
"Would you have sex with this child holds up picture of child?" "Yes..." "Well, you are not allowed in." Yeah, I would be okay with that tbh.
Oh so we agree as I said in my original post "Just hung up on the word anyone here" you would prevent some amount of people from coming over... So it's not inherently racist to make nazis/kkk immigration illegal?
Ah so you are that special kind of dumbass.
Without a one world government that could police people cross border, wouldn't it be all to easy walk in to a country, do a bit crime, and then walk to the next one? Not to mention human trafficking problems if no one was tracked how they travel across countries.
So you think every person on the planet should be tracked every time they cross any border anywhere?
I don't. I would obviously like a world where border control wasn't necessary for travel. And it's obviously not an impossibility considering the schengen area exists. But I don't see tracking influx of immigrants to be a bad thing, if anything so you know how many resources to budget for their care (in the case of refugees) and making sure people don't go missing.
Knowing that the system as it is now is wrong does not make me an expert on how we could prevent issues. But some people being able to "do a bit of crime" easier is probably better than the human rights violations that are occurring now. And even otherwise, open borders doesn't inherently mean nothing with no one checking people. Just means you can freely travel. But also, Europe doesn't seem to have an issue of people popping cross the border to "do a bit of crime" and go home to get off scott free. Because that's not how borders and laws work.
And human trafficking is a problem with the world as it is currently. So that's not stopping anything. And hell, it makes "illegal" immigrants easier targets of this kind of exploitation. Can't really get much help if you're in the country illegally and your family member is kidnapped.
No, not on it's own, but it's rarely on its own. In the US opposition to illegal immigrants and racism tracks nearly one to one.
One could imagine a country where illegal immigration itself was a distinct problem, where the society was balanced in such a way that legal immigration was at an optimal rate and additional people coming into the country had downsides that outstripped the positives, when though, for example, the immigrants were of the same culture/class/standing as the existing citizens.
The US, on the other hand, is nowhere near an optimal legal immigration rate, even though we benefit pretty significantly from both legal and illegal immigration. Illegal immigrants, for example, contribute significantly to the economy while not drawing 'as many' benefits away. Overwhelmingly the actual arguments against illegal immigration are grounded in cultural differences and language and, to put it simply, the desire for one class to want a reason to consider themselves better than another class by an easily recognizable yardstick.
I wonder how old you are. Seems you're missing the population issue. I can go on and on, but I'm 54 and I've seen demographics and population change radically. Fine with the demographic changes, but I can see some being alarmed that "their" country is being taken away. Don't agree, but I get the sentiment.
As I've seen the planet's population more than double in my life, seen the countryside paved over for strip malls, I'm screaming, "NO MORE FUCKING PEOPLE!" Who's to blame? Can you see how it's easier to blame the "other"?
Blaming the "other" is just tribalism, which has all the same problems as racism. Saying it's easy doesn't excuse it.
Well the population itself is not even 1/100th 'at capacity' in the US. The distribution of the population is certainly a cause for concern, and infrastructure is sorely in need of upgrade, but those are management problems. These are arguably exacerbated by the the fear of 'who' the increased infrastructure would be for, but it is in no way driven by lack of resources or space. We have huge swathes of crop land subsidized into non-food crops, crazy amounts of unoccupied land, ready access to transportation if we had drivers. Maybe the most restrictive resource is water and workforce. No magic fix for the former, but immigration would directly fix the later.
You may not want more towns/cities, and additional building should be done with pollution in mind, but it really comes down to 'not in my backyard'-ism. There are a lot of people that exist, through no fault of their own, and to say they should live in even more cramped and dangerous environments than you just so you can afford more elbow room is exactly my point. It's not legal or logistics reasons the US doesn't want more immigration, it's primarily culture and racism. Good or bad, i'd be willing to bet when someone moves in down the street with a German accent most people will think, at worst, it's kind of interesting, but if they are dark skinned or speak Spanish, a whole bunch of people that didn't bat an eye at the German immigrant, legal or otherwise, will suddenly have concerns about 'over population'.
Is your opposition to ilegal immigration based on race or skin color?
If the answer is yes then, yes, you are racist. If the answer is no, then no, you are not racist.
Probably still xenophobic though
only if you stipulate your opposition based on individuals.
one can oppose all illegal immigrants based entirely on the legal definition of "illegal immigrant" and be ethically clear.
moralistically.... not so much.
I don't oppose refugees fleeing an unsafe country. I do oppose illegal immigrants coming from a safe country.
so you're ethically compromised but moralistically solid.
good place to be tbh. allows those who desperately need help to find salvation and those who have and can to follow the rules.
Basically. I'm also not against programmes to relieve other countries of their refugees (such as Greece) although I think such programmes should be evaluated for if we have the resources to support them and build them up into functioning members of society
No, race doesn't have anything to do with it.
If you oppose illegal immigration, though, you should ask yourself why.
If it's solely that you don't want people coming over to your nation illegally, then it's very likely that they aren't able to because of how complicated and exclusive your nation's immigration system is.
Their mode of entry into the UK was illegal but any asylum claims they make will be assessed as being potentially valid. I think you were saying the same thing but not sure.
The reason people are particularly pissed off is that Farage and co. have framed the debate as an issue of fairness. Essentially the charge levelled at the irregular migrants is queue jumping, which we don't look upon fondly in our culture.
On our side of the pond, it’s becoming more apparent how many ways immigrants can end up undocumented. Of course it’s always framed as drug cartel member sneaking over the border at night to rape the women, or whatever bs stereotypes they can use to frighten people, but
If your system, like ours, uses the worst stereotypes to scapegoat all undocumented aliens, deprives them of their rights, uses racial profiling to decide who to attack, “officers” hide their faces and identities and don’t even seem to know the laws they’re supposedly enforcing, use escalating violence for infractions that have always been civil issues, claim they’re deporting “the worst of the worst criminals” while setting ambushes at work sites and immigrant processing centers, then you too may be racist
We’re over here trying to set an example of what NOT to do, apparently.
There are genuine integration issues in the UK so the anti-migrant bloc do have some valid concerns. However, there will be a non-insignificant amount of racists among them.
Weirdly, the "skipping the queue" rhetoric even works with fellow migrants. I have a friend from Iran who I used to work with that moved to the UK ~3 years ago; he's way angrier about irregular channel crossings than the average Scottish person I know. I'd imagine spending a lot of money and years on a waiting list before being given a work visa was a grating experience though.
I wouldn't say it's racist to oppose illegal immigration, but it makes me suspect you might be and also makes me think you have very little empathy.
Yes.
Just ask yourself why there is even a barrier to entry in the first place. Prejudices and paranoia.
This very much seems like a Chesterton's Fence issue.
Using the US/Mexico example - if the US didn't have some kind of restriction to its borders, we would expect Mexican cartel influence to spill over the border much more easily.
Or another example - suppose Ukraine had completely unrestricted flow across its border with Russia. Then Russia wants to invade. What do they do? They just have 100,000 soldiers walk across the border dressed as civilians, then launch their attack across the country.
... Which are justified in many cases. For a start, as a brit, I don't want a mass amount of Americans coming over here and electing their Trumps and bringing their culture war with them.
Doesn't lemmy have any sort of "adults only" limit?
In the US and many other countries, immigration violations are not crimes. Therefore, those immigrants are not illegal. It is actually a civil infraction, like a parking ticket... So, your question reveals hidden xenophobic bias. That alone is immoral. Is it racist in itself? Probably. It is very difficult to be xenophobic without also being racist.
I think those are just semantics.
I get the feeling of not wanting to criminalize the existence of a person.
But it's common language to say that civil infractions are illegal.
You could totally say "It's illegal to park here" even if you would just get a ticket for that.
I get the feeling. But I don't think it is rational to think that anyone writing "illegal immigration" is racist.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1325
I feel like if you're asking then you're searching for validation. A sort of way to not feel guilty about being racist. Tell me, what bothers you most about immigrants? This country wouldn't exist if it weren't for immigrants
What "this country"? Lemmy?
And I understand them searching for validation. It might be hard being anti-illegal-immigrant and everyone thinking you racist, even though your reasons are not racist nor xenophobic at all.
You just encountered US defaultism
My issue with them is their existence.
If I had things my way, legal immigration would be easy and fast. This would eliminate the need for people from a starving company to sneak across the border
It really depends on why you oppose them. There is no real answer to that question.
no.
however, it is racist to oppose them because they're not your race.
Short answer yes with an if. The long answer is no with a but.
I'd say it's racist if someone is complaining about illegal immigrants alongside a general contempt of 'foreigners' and not paying attention to the details of why it's illegal for them to migrate the way they did and what options are available for legal migration.
It's not racist to be opposed to those who are in violation of the law, as that is not a racial or ethnic classification. But it is important to be inquisitive as to why the law is the way that it is, and be willing to consider the possibility that just because something is against the law does not mean that it should be. Law has long been used as a tool of systemic oppression and racism, as well as many other horrific abuses inflicted on people.
Most of the current immigration laws are due to racist intent. In the 80s they didn't like how many Mexicans were coming across the border each year to do farm work. The workers would come, stay while there was work to be had, and then return home. When new laws were enacted making it harder for workers to get across the border, there came a class of people that would sneak the workers across. And this came with a fee from the workers. Now it costs them more to get here, so they need to stay longer to make up the money. It became easier to just find a place to live in the US all year round.
The US needs the Mexican workers. To simultaneously demand help, and punish them for showing up to help is dumb, and I suspect fueled by racist thoughts. The immigrants boost our economy, help feed our population, and are less likely to break laws that citizens. There's a whole (probably many) book about it, and it's even in comic form. https://www.amazon.com/Open-Borders-Science-Ethics-Immigration/dp/1250316960
While we need to know who is coming across our border to prevent spys and terrorists, the current laws make those entrants easier to hide, as there is now a whole industry to sneak people across.
Considering the high proportion of the population with ancestors who were illegal immigrants, there's also a question of what you consider as acceptable.
If illegal immigrants in the US are all white Christian beautiful women filling jobs that locals don't want to do in healthcare, is it different than Pedro from Honduras who works in construction but looks like he could be a drug mule.
OP did not mention the US.
Not really, but the racist part is opposing measures making it achievable and even simple to do so legally. Then all the terrible treatment along the way.
Not really, but most people's reasoning is racist.
Usually, yes
Because usually the reason they have to be illegal is racist, and the person complaining about illegal immigration is fine with it.
Where are you coming from with "the reason they have to be illegal is racist"? If you wouldn't mind clarifying.
Kind of like how a lot of anti-poor laws in the USA were targeting former slaves without actually saying it, and poor-white people were collateral damage.
Why would they be migrating illegally when migrating legally would clearly be better for them?
I worry a lot of it is human trafficking or at least human trafficking lite. A lot of employers really like having employees they don't actually have to pay properly or obey workplace safety and other protections for, and who will be afraid to speak up about fraud and other illegal practices.
But to me that would be easily solved if we only made it illegal to hire people without a permit, but never deport or otherwise penalize the workers. And publicize that heavily. So if you don't have a permit and your boss is abusing you, just call the hotline on the billboard and let us know and we'll arrest them and you can go find another sketchy employer and tell on them too when they piss you off.
No one would be hiring people without permits if there were actual consequences for the employer. We wouldn't be stuck with trying to figure out how to deport people and whatnot. They'd only be able to hire people the law is already protecting as workers. but nobody actually wants to hold rich people accountable for having caused all this trouble in the first place.
Fucking. Thank. You.
Anyone hating illegal immigration? I got the most obvious solution you can imagine. Report the employers.
Nothing makes you more racist than having a legal alibi to hide your racism.
This question reeks of asking if keeping slaves when they were "legal" racist? If it's legal, what's the big deal?
Maybe. Depends. It's complicated.
YES.
If you're an American, our entire history of immigration legislation is racism bundled on racism following in the tradition of racism. Were it not for chattel slavery and our betrayal of the native tribes our racist immigration laws would be the most shameful part of our history.
And if you're not American, your own country's immigration laws are almost certainly based on either racism or "nationalism", with the latter mostly being a holdover from when "French" and "English" were considered different races.
Unlawful emmigration to a country should be, at worst, a bureaucratic fine and probation. Anything more is simply bigotry in a polite suit.
There could be many reasons to be opposed to it, not necessarily racist ones.
You can support the rule of law - that's not racist. You may want to support legal immigration, while closing illegal ways that commonly lead to abuse of migrants - this is straight up progressive. You may consider illegal immigrants more dangerous as they didn't go through screening procedures - that's up for debate, but not necessarily racist, etc. And generally, if you consider that same rules should apply to everyone, this is not racist.
However, it's worth considering the laws of your area and the way they can affect legal migration. Going against illegal immigration and at the same time voting to complicate legal one, especially in relation to certain nationals, likely signals of racism (or, rather, ultranationalism). It is one thing to want to make the process transparent and legal and the other - to build more barriers.
That's not so much the problem as the other excuses for hating immigrants.
It's not racist to take issur with illegal immigration.
It's just not right to oppose the immigrants as people, or say that their situation is the result of some moral failing. These people make the best decisions for themselves and their families.
It becomes racist when you start attributing characteristics or behaviors to their race as fundamental attributes.
Not all opposed to illegal immigration are racist, but (obviously) all racist are against illegal immigration (And immigration in general).
First off: technically, almost everyone opposes illegal immigration—the issue is whether it should be reduced by deporting undocumented immigrants, or by changing the laws to legalize more of them. (The exceptions who do support illegal immigration as-is are generally employers who exploit immigrants.)
Second: If the current law is racist, then supporting increased enforcement is racist while supporting reform (probably) isn’t. (And I would describe a law as racist if it disproportionately impacts racial minorities when alternative laws with an equivalent effect on public safety would not.)
The term is a little racist. It is like defining someone as an excon, or ex convict, rather than someone who has spent time in prison. Or as disabled rather than a person with a disability. You define people as a simple thing rather than as a whole person with a feature. It flattens people into less than they are and makes them less than human.
So opposing people who flaunt the rules is a separate question to opposing illegal immigrants. You don't dismiss their humanity, you don't discard them, you say "You breeched the rules and here are the consequences."
The second layer is whether you believe in the rules. Do you believe people from other countries are fundamentally different to you? Are they less because of where they come from? If so, yes, racist. If not, then probably not.
Often people who oppose illegal immigration do seem to also be racists.
I think if someone says they oppose illegal immigration and also genuinely feels they have done serious introspection and feel they are not racist, they might benefit from asking themselves what they dislike about illegal immigration and see if those things actually have the negative impacts they fear or if the negative impacts they see are but drops in the bucket compared to other sources of similar impacts.
Swede here, absolutely not, around 2015 or so we got hit by the mass migration wave, there were plenty of documented cases of migrants throwing away or destroying their documents to try and claim refugee status when they clearly didn't need it, thus taking spots from actual refugees.
There were also real refugees who did this, they registered in Greece, Spain, Italy or other southern Europe country, but then they kept going north, trying to get to a better country. At that point you are no longer a refugee, but an economic migrant.
I 100% oppose these migrants.
The dumb thing is that the EU would distribute refugees throughout the union, just because you registered in Spain, didn't mean you had to stay there, you would stay for an interim period and be distributed to your proper host country.
I have zero issues with migrants/refugees who come the legal route, learn the language, work, and integrate in the culture.
Why did the immigrants feel the need to do that?
If you're just going to say greed then I can't take you seriously, since greed would have moved them far sooner.
Maybe there are problems with the immigration system
If you are just going to reject one of the biggest driving forces of human beings, then you don't want a serious discussion.
Greed is absolutely part of it, people want to maximize their gains, be it money, health, security or resources.
But since you don't accept that answer, what is your explanation for a refugee that keeps walking through safe country after safe country before finally finding the specific country they accept?
Why should refugees get to pick and choose a specific EU country to live in?
Why would legitimate refugees's discard their papers?
Huh? Because it is safe obviously.
Everyone wants a better chance of better living.
And refugees are already moving.
Since they are already moving why not move to a country with better chance of better living?
If they hear "so-and-so country has better chance of better living" of course they are going to choose that, again, because they are already moving.
I didn't say greed can't be part of it, but anti immigration folks position it as the primary or significant motivator, but:
If they were primarily motivated by greed, the would have immigrated long ago.
And their objection seems to be primarily motivated by greed, the want more and they perceive that immigrants will prevent them from getting more. So why is their greed ok but immigrant greed isn't?
What is my explanation? I don't need one, you're the one saying it's greed, it's up to you to prove that in the face of an entirely reasonable counterargument.
But I'll give you one anyways - they're looking for a place that they can belong, which isn't necessarily going to be the first place they arrive. They're looking for the ability to support their family, which isn't greed.
Why shouldn't refugees get to pick what country they move to, like any EU citizen can?
Why would legitimate refugees discard their papers? You tell me, why would having papers be worse than not having papers? That practically screams that something is either very wrong with the system, or that this is simply a dishonest claim.
No
Yes because this is all land stolen by illegals. Assuming you're in North America. Canada and United States both literally illegally migrated here. No excuse or logic that would make sense that others shouldnt do the same. The end.
Feels like it's a dog whistle most of the time and not a very good one. I've seen people assuming that someone isn't here legally much more often with someone of a different race. A lot of the time people will bring it up for the sake of racism. Inherently? I don't know if it would be racist to oppose them for it's own sake, but you'd have to have just as much a problem with the German guy overstaying a visa. I'd also say that opposing it for it's own sake is unchristian.
It depends on why. Is it a blind obedence to law, i.e. any law breaking is considered immoral to you? I.e. you oppose speeding, jaywalking, hiding Ann Frank just as much. No, probally not. That is a different issue called Statism.
After that you'd have to get into the countries actual laws and what their intentions and effects are. Is it just a matter of getting documented and agreeing to follow laws and participate in society and people are bypassing that in order to shirk accountabilty? No thats not racist.
Is it because there is a quota based on country of origin in order to shape demographics and so people desperate to move cant do so legally? Yeah, that's probally racist (with current demographics of the world largly affected by a few centuries of racist policy, both colonial and domestic).
In a perfect world, immigration would just be regulated due to welfare and legal reasons, which seems reasonable enough. In reality you might want to question why some legislation actually exists. Is it reasonable, or is its whole purpose to prevent some immigration?
No,
because it doesn't even fit the definition of racism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism
Illegal immigrants are of absolutely all sorts, so there is no single human trait that is uniquely only found in illegal migrants. Also, people don't oppose illegal migrants, they oppose illegal migration as a general thing. Illegal migrants are not the problem, they are simply the cause, and people hate the problems that arise in a society after to much illegal migration.
People need to stop calling everyone they disagree with racists, its so watered down that it completely lost any meaning and weight behind it. Didn't get up to a granny on the bus? Racist. Driving a white car? Racist. Using an iPhone? Racist.
There is a version of illegal migration that I would support and truly leave an open door for everyone: You must adopt the culture, you must learn the language, you must find a job, you won't get any welfare or housing and you can't ask for anything in our society to be "like it was at your home". And voila! Everyone welcome.
As other pointed out, it is not technically racist to be against illegality, but asking with free will for laws and system with a racist bias to be strictly applied is racist as a consequence (as in, you're not racist by yourself, but you are racist in your speech/action), so in our world, i'd say yes it is racist in a certain way.
Not automatically, unless you're only opposed to illegal immigrants of specific races.
Define illegal immigrant
Someone who immigrated illegally?
I guess nobody ever taught you that rule about not using the word(s) you're trying to define, in the definition itself?
Are we seriously gonna play the "but what do these words actually mean" card for "illegal" and "immigrant?" Kinda stupid ass takes that give credibility to online age verification. My comment wasn't a serious definition, it was deliberately drawing attention to the absurdity of asking to define a phrase with a total of two words both of which are highly specific, unambiguous and descriptive of the very thing they mean. At the point where phrases like this need to be rigorously explained and defined, we're in a "learning the language for the first time and doesn't actually know what words mean" scenario
I didn't ask the initial question
I'm replying to you and what you said
"Stupid Ass Takes" is Lemmy's catchphrase. I swear this place makes reddit look tame sometimes.
Usually the free market place of ideas ensures that the ideas, values and knowledge of all people are refined and weighed against each other. This naturally elevates and expands collective knowledge.
On Lemmy however there are only bad ideas so it works to ensure that everyone is on an equal playing field of truly intellectually deficient opinions. And I'm here for it. Can't have fun on Reddit like you can on Lemmy.
And "nobody taught you" to attack the argument instead of the person
No as it's a fair national security concern
It depends.
It would be racist to oppose immigrants from Sudan whilst welcoming those from Ukraine.
In my opinion, it is not racist to oppose illegal immigration per se. Especially if those immigrants would benefit from a social system that you pay into.
It is wrong, however to blame the immigrants, as it would be the system that is the problem.
Illegal immigrants get jack shit out of our social system. But conservatives tell you they do!
In any case, you're right, it's the system. We've got legalized slavery and how do you fight the rich over that? And how do we actually pay these people without fucking our grocery bill?
I'm afraid it all has to crash, hard, before we reform anything..
Yes
It depends on where you are.
e.g. in NZ, we don't have a problem with illegal immigration, but completely legal "temporary migrant workers".
The issue, isn't the people, it's the load on already stretched infrastructure. Because they are "temporary", they are not factored into the calculations for infrastructure spending.
This wouldn't be a problem, if a short team need was being met, but it isn't... There are always temporary workers, because we as a country can't fill all the jobs from local supply.
With birth rates and other immigration, our population growth is around 1.5%, not the 0.5% we target our spending at.
If we spent at a rate that accounted for the real population growth, everything would work better for everyone.
Why do you oppose illegal immigration
The conditions that western powers put their countries in is also illegal :)
If we talk about settler colonial countries found on terorrism like the United States of America, the majority are descendants of illegal immigrants (and the european north americans are not only descendants of illegal immigrants but terrorists, genocidal people who owned slaves)
There's various reasons why people oppose immigration. I want to present two of them:
Note that this is NOT a racist argument since it has nothing to do with what kind of people immigrates. Even if they were clones of yourself, this argument would still hold true. It is not about race or culture.
I'm skeptical of anyone who says some demographic takes jobs, because it's an intentional misplace of the blame.
Nobody can take a job, but a company can give away a job.
And strangely you don't see these same people fighting to lower the birthrates of the majority demographics (since high birth rates will cause the same issues at immigration with a little delay).
So how do you phrase your complaint while keeping the blame on businesses?
yeah you're right. i said there are arguments, not that they're 100% waterproof or in all cases true.
the thing you said about lowering birthrates is 100% correct, and businesses share a large part of the responsibility (through neoliberalism).
still, the messages have to get out to the people and be discussed publicly, otherwise there is no progress in the discussion. one cannot just say that a certain thing has to happen or not happen without actually doing the work of discussing all arguments for and against something.
I’d argue no, if you have valid reasons and lets not kid ourselves even though there is enough wealth in the world to have everyone live comfortably, thats not the game the wealthy and their puppet politicians play. They want us cheap and desperate and immigrants are just another tool to achieve this objective.
No. And I am tired of people assuming I'm racist for not wanting idiots coming over in small boats from france
Would bigger boats help?
Size doesn't matter. As long as they get their passports checked
You'd have to be pretty desperate to do something like that.
So desperate to get out of France? Or so desperate to have a holiday?
People ride the roofs of trains for fun, or climb construction sites/buildings. You don't have to be desperate to do something dangerous.
While I don’t know your racial euphemisms, “small boats” raises red flags. Maybe it’s not racist, but ….
How is describing the size of a boat racist
Like I said, I don’t know your euphemisms and usage, but …..
It’s racist when we mean those people. They’re all criminals and druggies and queue jumpers. And you know they’re mostly x. Not like the good ones from Scandinavia that fly in. Those are not the problem.
It reminds me of a term we have here: wetbacks. There are still some idiots who try to claim it’s just descriptive of people who swam across the rio grande river. But we all know it’s those people from south of the border with the darker skin. They’re all illegal, drug smugglers, will rob and rape and steal our jobs. And somehow use up our healthcare and social security that they can’t collect. Even if there was a chance it was descriptive in the beginning, it’s clearly racist and it’s clearly exploited by our Regressives to drive fear and outrage. If there’s anyone who still supports the abuses of our current immigration enforcement thugs it’s because of how successfully that term has been demonized
And this is why allowing people like Charlie Kirk is dangerous. We’re used to saying that people have a right to voice their opinions but the modern world has made it easy to influence millions with the most abhorrent opinions and to escape consequences of voicing them. The modern world rewards with success those who exploit divisiveness, outrage, haired, and we haven’t been able to get past that. He shouldn’t have been shot but in an ideal world would have been shunned and exiled, left alone in ignomy
Difference is that mexico has cartels and stuff. France doesn't. Stop trying to apply your American logic over on us. The Chinese have a term for this. "A frog in a well". Except maybe you lot are more obnoxious than that anyway. Deal with your own problems and stop trying to poke your nose in others, imperialist yank. Your country has caused enough problems on the world stage. A number of weeks ago one of your racist billionaires was trying to meddle with our society by making speeches in London. We don't want anything to do with you lot.
yes
No.
You just don't want illegal immigrants. Forget skin color for a second, you could still have an illegal white immigrant and still oppose them.
It just happens to be that a majority of immigrants are not white, and that's the crux of the issue imo
look how many words they need to mimick a fraction of our conference
The crux of the issue is that they're not white? How is that not racist?
That's my point
No.
Finally. Someone willing to talk about the issue other than, "ALL IMMIGRANTS GOOD!" And if you don't believe that, you're a racist fuck.
Been beat up, here and on reddit, in past years for stating that, yes, we had a nightmare at the southern border. Officials were overwhelmed and under financed, immigrants faced a fucking humanitarian disaster. People were suffering and dying and what did liberals have to say? "Man, fuck you, it's not true, it's Fox News propaganda." Meanwhile, the population of Chicago flooded in, year after year. How the fuck are we supposed to create the infrastructure and housing for America's 3rd largest city, every year. (I got numbers to back that, but I doubt any here give a shit.)
And JFC, no liberals are bitching about the modern-day slavery aspect. I've seen very few positing that we should go after business owners. "Just pay them fairly!" All for it, but the grocery bill is going to explode. And we're just now seeing the results of running them off, only just begun.
Yes, only Americans are racists for wanting to control our borders. Meanwhile, in Europe, where anti-immigration sentiment and protests are spiking... silence. (I think this is mostly down to overpopulation, but that's a whole 'nother rant.)
Don't start me on assimilation. My wife is Filipino. Her and all of her friends have assimilated nicely, thank you very much. Meanwhile, the dudes at the taco truck can't take an order, from a very limited menu, in English. Had always figured people like that were brand new. We took one of my wife's coworker's kayaking. Cool guy. Gay Honduran, walked 30-days to get here. Fucking tough enough for me! He didn't know words like, "boy", "girl", "year", "please". Assumed he just got here, OK with that. Nah. He has been here for 5 years.
We need immigrants, but we are fucking it up so badly I can't get my head around the stupidity.
Except it's not illegal. Get your facts straight, please.
Not true is any sense, even the technical. Entering the US illegally, or overstaying a visa, is, at best, a civil offense. Still illegal. Diving into what constitutes a criminal offense gets sticky in a hurry.
My wife is a brown, legal immigrant, so I looked this up, read a bit, briefly. Again, it's complicated, and IANAL, so if the laws might apply, give a look. Bit in no case is entering without documents or overstaying "not illegal".