by Sandy » Sun Feb 03, 2019 3:49 pm
Birthright citizenship is as constitutional as the right to bear arms. That's not a part of the constitution you hear much about, but there it is.
The problem is that these discussions focus on a crisis that is a figment of the imagination. The US has a strong set of immigration laws and national security practices related to who gets across its borders and they were working just fine. Differences in the number of people attempting to come across illegally, especially from Mexico related to situation that occur in countries south of the border, not in US politics. You can google information and put together a whole folder full of information that shows exactly how effective United States border security was during the Obama administration. The rhetoric from Trump about shutting down all immigration of any kind until we could "figure out what the **** was going on" was just rhetoric, not based on fact or on even any knowledge of what was happening at the border. He and his base are blithely ignorant of the facts, they are just upset because the number of Latinos in the US is on the rise and they don't like it because they're not white. Period.
There was a time when the number of people sneaking into the US illegally was much higher, enforcement was lax and drug lords took advantage of the lack of security to move their goods. We call that period of time "the Bush administration." It is an example of what happens when you cut the budget to give tax breaks to billionaires. And it wasn't just the Southern border. During that period of time, the 9-11 terrorists came into the US. The figures you can find show the increased drug traffic and the stream of illegals who came in hit the 12 million mark. The Obama administration pretty much cleaned up the mess and restored order, at least, that's what the evidence points to. The whole issue of immigration, the wall and border security is a Trump talking point that he used to keep the mindless occupied and to keep them from getting bored at rallies where he went on and on and on...……….
That being said, US immigration laws can be insensitive and pernicious. We're willing to keep an open door and unlimited quotas for Europeans, and our attitude toward white Eastern Europeans has warmed up as they have streamed into the US in larger numbers than ever since the iron curtain came down. We're also willing to take in a lot of South Asians, particularly Indians, if they have money to invest. Latinos, not so much. And yet they, and the refugees from Middle Eastern countries like Syria, particularly persecuted minorities like Christians, have a much more difficult path to get in legally than others do.