Posts

@Background Pony #01F2
Moreso the government is terrible at their job than they are lax with their paperwork. And you missed their main point: The vast majority of “illegal immigrants” are just people waiting for their visa to get re-approved. The “harmful” ones are much smaller and much less of an issue than you think they are. People aren’t the problem, the system making it hard to legalize immigrants.

@Background Pony #01F2
Secure the border: Never gonna happen.

Give honest hardworking people a chance: Never gonna happen.

Deport ne’er do wells: Will only happen if it makes Trump look good and will eventually stop because Trump doesn’t care.

@Ciaran
These entered legally but were lax with their papers. Not really the group I referred to. But as I said, secure the border, give honest hardworking people a chance and deport ne’er do wells. That’s it really.

Agreed.

They do not.

That’s kind of the point I was trying to make. A lot of the stuff happening now is stuff he could have done something about in his first term, but chose not to.

Last time I looked, most of the illegal immigration is people who overstayed their visas. Like - they came legally, but stayed after their visa expired.

PEW research has some numbers based on indirect evidence. “From 2007 to 2017, the share of newly arrived unauthorized immigrants (those in the U.S. five years or less) from regions other than Central America and Mexico – the vast majority of whom are overstays – increased from 37% to 63%. At the same time, the share of new unauthorized immigrants from Mexico fell from 52% to 20%.”

So … lots of folks who came here legally for work or school but then their visas expired and they’re still here, working or schooling.

I don’t know that is a ‘bad thing’. It’s not idea, and suggests the visa system needs correcting. But if 80% of the problem is people who entered the country legally but their papers have expired, then let’s get that paperwork caught up instead of spending billions deporting people for things that happened in 2018.

@Ciaran
No… The democrats would probably have a better handle on this than Trump and be far more humane.

I don’t know why your example was not deported asap. Does not sound like someone you want around no?

And no, Trump probably wont solve the problem but make some arrests and boast about it. Trump is mostly useless but is right in that illegal immigration is a bad thing. (Probably for the wrong reasons but still there is a point there.)

Ironically, or perhaps unironically and exactly as you’d expect it to be, the ‘done a long time ago’ is sometimes also Trump.

Here’s an example. In Minnesota yesterday, a Cristofer Alexander Ramirez-Olivia was detained by ICE. He had pleaded guilty to fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct in 2018 and was given a stayed sentence and 90 days of electric home monitoring. He served his time, but apparently never became a legal resident.

The White House is really proud of having arrested them. They say it is “This is merely a small preview into the work the Trump administration is doing to secure our nation’s borders.”

ICE is Federal. They enforce immigration laws in the United States. And Trump was president when Cristofer Alexander Ramirez-Olivia was arrested in 2018.

So if ICE didn’t think Ramirez-Olivia was worth deporting in 2018, and didn’t deport them after they’d served their time, then why are they worth deporting now?

And, since they are obviously an example of Trump fucking up in 2018, then why is it being presented as some sort of massive success to be proud of now?

So … again … I don’t see how this is solving problems. It looks like Trump is reaching into his sack of “things he didn’t do or fucked up 7 years ago that he can claim as victories now as long as no one asks any questions”.

And, how is this somehow the Democrat’s fault? All of this was in Trump’s wheel house in 2018.

Update:

Ah! Found it - Ramirez-Olivia WAS detained by ICE in October 2018, and was released in November 2018. So they went through ICE and the Trump administration released them - even though they’d confessed to fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct:

According to Google, Exemption (b)(6) prohibits the disclosure of any record which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy such as information found in personnel and medical files

So … Yeah. Trump had a chance to deport Ramirez-Olivia in 2018, and his administration chose not to deport him.

So … why is he worth deporting now? 7 years later? After Ramirez-Olivia has served his time and according to the news reports hasn’t committed any new crimes?

Do keep in mind - if you’re a person with at least some modicum of empathy for foreigners and who knows where their own class interests lie, the solution is not supporting deportations, but rather elevating immigrants to the same status as citizen workers, absorbing them into the class struggle, and doing the same for workers in countries outside the borders of the US. And this is only the first mile of the conversation, because there is a large group of very powerful, very rich interest groups that want to make sure the world stays miserable as it is.

@Background Pony #01F2
Immigrants don’t spawn out of thin air, they’re human beings with feelings of their own and are rational enough to decide for themselves. Most of these come from dire economic circumstances, where the national economy cannot profitably absorb them, so instead of staying and being subjected to poverty, inflation, joblessness and, in severa, cases, armed violence (often compounded by none other than the US themselves through, for instance, an overabundance of firearms making their way south, i recommend reading The Cartels Do Not Exist by Oswaldo Zavala), they decide to take the risky but immensely profitable way to the United States where, even if they’re in constant fear of being deported as a method of social control (you can’t easily form unions and voice demands if the sword of ICE always hangs above your head), the prospect of being paid a handy sum in dollars is enough to convince them to work the most lowly, manual jobs.
The way i see it, Trump’s mass deportations are not part of a consistent, sound economic plan, but a scare tactic intended to maintain the power and reputation of ICE, appeal to his xenophobic base, and keep the remaining migrant workers in a state of fear. This is, after all, a guy whose own businesses have been accused of using migrant labor in the past, and who must appease big businesses, who have little to no interest in hiring regular, American workers for twice the price of an immigrant.

Immigration IS regulated, to within an inch of its life. The whole reason America has illegal immigration is that they’ve spent decades making the legal path nigh-impossible. Getting into the country legally involves jumping hurdle after hurdle to please multiple government departments, any one of which can send you back to square one on a whim.

Immigration is the one part of America where the folks whining about regulations strangling people actually have a point.

I did hear about this, and have been reaping endless schadenfreude. To my understanding, a Chinese firm released it an an open-source LLM that is about on part with GPT4 in power, but is far more energy efficient and cheaper to use. This torpedoes the narrative that AI companies need to pour more and more money and electricity into ever more powerful GPUs and data centers to advance the system.

As a result, NVIDIA saw almost half a trillion in market value wiped out practically overnight. Now aging Democratic leadership like Chuck Schumer are calling it a “Sputnik moment” and treating this like a Cold War arms race, and promising to double down on developing AI technology.

When Schumer posted that on Bluesky I quote posted him saying that if he has any sort of love for this country, he will retire.

@Background Pony #FCA7
Are you really surprised? Trump is a stupid man-child who doesn’t know what he’s doing. He only cares about himself and just wants to hold endless rallies and have his ego be stroked non-stop

Did anyone hear about DeepSeek and how the NASDAQ fell because of it? What really bothers me is that Trump knows and he said it was “A good thing.” Yea. Okay.

@neutralgrey
You forget screw over the consumers by getting rid of the regulations and people who make sure we aren’t eating human flesh like Concrete Jungle brought to light.

@neutralgrey
That or blame the other guy.

@Background Pony #01F2
I agree that an economy where the worker is safe and paid a living wage is better than the system we have. Too bad we’re never going to get it. Trump will ensure that never happens as he outsources more jobs, cuts regulations to give his masters the opportunity to screw over the workers to save them a few more dollars, and those same workers will sing his praise

@neutralgrey
Nobody under this administration will probably lift a finger to stop them. But an economy where a worker is safe and is paid a living wage is a hell of a lot better than relying on what is essentially slave labour. It’s a goal worth fighting for imo.

@BlitztheDragon
Np. And yes they should. But, it will all be for naught if immigration is not controlled. It does not have to stop but it will need to be regulated.

My apologies if I misread your reply. I’d addressed a lot of what you’ve since said in what I said before about solutions; it just sounded like you were doubling down on “that’s still a problem!” which is why I responded the way I did.

Anyways, bottom line is pathway to citizenship for folks already still here, and covering immigrants of all statuses with our labor laws (and I think unions should work on admitting and protecting them as members too).

@Background Pony #01F2
I’m only using prison labor as an example of a cheap alternative, my point is they’ll find a cheap alternative that’ll be beneficial to them and them alone. They’re always looking for ways to cut corners. Besides, who’s going to stop them? All of their puppets are in office. But this is besides the point, this is just a publicity stunt. It’s not meant to stop illegal immigration, just there so Fox News has something to show off the gullible rubes who voted for Trump so they can continue to sing his praise and stroke his fragile ego

@neutralgrey
You cannot use prison labour for many of the jobs illegals do. Making illegals citizens and ending their pseudo-slave status is the way to go. Some goods and services will cost more but as a whole everyone will be better off. Further immigration needs to be regulated to prevent this problem coming back.

@Background Pony #01F2
It’ll change if we go hermit kingdom, doesn’t mean the change will be good. Like I said, they’ll turn to another cheap alternative like prison labor. Something you gotta learn about reality is that it’s harsh, cruel, and unfair. I’m indifferent to these raids, more numb than anything. I know they won’t change a goddamn thing. Trump is using this as a publicity stunt, either that or enough Corpo ghouls are gonna give him a call and tell him to stop. And of course Trump being their puppet, he’ll say “Yes sir”

@Ciaran
As most things Trump does, it’s messy, but it is a start to something that should have been done a long time ago. I really wish the democrats were the ones in charge of it but alas they are not. The ICE raids are just one part of a much larger effort.

@BlitztheDragon
As I said, that is not a good thing for American workers. And please read my posts carefully before accusing me of racism.

@neutralgrey
As long as the pseudo-slave labor remains plentiful, then no this cannot be changed. Giving illegals a way to become citizens and stopping further illegal immigration will imo curb the problem.

@Background Pony #01F2
I get what you’re saying about the Corpo thing (and I just want to focus on that particular aspect) but Corpos would rather find ways of paying less than giving their employees fair wages if they can help it. Yes, I would like for Corpos stop relying on pseudo-slave labor. Is it ever going to happen? Hell no. Even if the US becomes a hermit kingdom, Corpos will probably just use prison labor to pick fruit n shit.

Newsflash: A big chunk of our economy is BUILT on the backs of immigrants, both legal and otherwise.

There is plenty of room in this country, and much of the “scarcity” of resources is manufactured and imposed by the capital class. Overpopulation is a red herring pushed by ecofascist dipsticks.

And if you think - contrary to what the data says - that immigrants pose a greater risk of committing crime than a natural-born US citizen, congratulations that’s racist!

@Background Pony #01F2
How are the latest ICE raids limiting and controlling immigration?

You need to limit and control immigration otherwise these problems will continue. No state can have endless immigration.