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RE: I attacked someone for arguing Trump is not racist

in #politics • 6 years ago

Also, there were 1.18 million legal immigrants to this country in 2016 alone of all races (a fairly typical number). Trump has done nothing in an attempt to curb this.

Children separated from parents at US border held in cages in Texas warehouse

I just haven't seen the racism

'Drug dealers, criminals, rapists': What Trump thinks of Mexicans

6 years ago in #politics by
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     6 years ago (edited)

    Children separated from families has little to do with Trump specifically as this has been policy in certain cases when people are detained crossing the border for many years. Obama did it too as did presidents before him so why are they not accused of being racist? It's true that Trump has separated more but on the other hand Obama detained more. The purpose is in part to avoid putting children in adult detention facilities (though there are limited family detention facilities as well). While the way in which illegal border crossers is handled (and indeed the whole immigration system) needs to be improved, neither allowing it to go unchecked nor sticking kids in adult detention facilities are realistic options. In any case, this has nothing to do with racism. Preventing illegal immigration in the first place would go a long way towards reducing those detained and/or separated. Again, allowing unchecked entry into the country for all is not a realistic option.

    Your second point is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about. At no time did Trump say that ALL Mexicans (or even all illegal immigrants) are criminals, drug dealers and rapists. Although you could argue he did not go far enough to clarify only a certain percentage were (he did say he was sure some were good people or something to that effect), the implication of this headline that he thinks this about all Mexicans is complete BS. It is literally fake news and click-bait all rolled into one. His opponents assume he is speaking for all Mexicans (or whoever he is speaking about) because it fits with their existing hatred or preconceived notions of Trump but a more realistic understanding (or at least what I felt my common sense understanding at the time was) is that he is speaking of particular incidents where illegal immigrants HAVE been drug dealers, rapists and participated in other criminal behavior (murder, theft, etc). I can provide links to legitimate news stories covering those things if you are not familiar with them. The point is that you cannot prevent such people (criminals) from entering the country if you can't or won't control the border and don't know who is entering the country. Many legal immigrants come from Mexico and South American countries every year. That's not who he is talking about either. If this were about race he would want to stop all immigration from those countries, not just illegal immigration.

    Trump HAS made statements of questionable accuracy (e.g. Mexico sending their least wanted across the border). This has some truth to it in that Mexico has strict anti-immigration policies itself but is happy to pass along immigrants from south of their border to the U.S. Trump has also exaggerated to some degree the amount of crime that comes from illegal immigrants, particularly major crime. However, there is a lot of petty crime that is underreported as well along border areas. But in any case, the issue is about ILLEGAL immigration and the nature of those groups in particular. It isn't about all Mexicans or all Hispanics or all immigrants from those countries. Absolutely nobody of any significance (including Trump) advocates preventing the legal immigration of more than 1 million people per year that goes on today. Nobody, including Trump, is calling them criminals. It's not an issue about race, it's about respecting the law and ensuring public safety. At the end of the day Trump can only choose how to enforce the law, he can't make the law himself. Immigration law is a function of Congress.

    Here is a quote from Obama from when he was a Senator, shortly before becoming president:

    “We simply cannot allow people to pour into the U.S., undetected, undocumented, unchecked and circumventing the line of people who are waiting patiently, diligently, lawfully to become immigrants in this country”

    I will not deny that Obama says this with much more eloquence and class than Trump but at the end of the day, they are expressing the same opinion here. The only real difference is that Trump has made an actual effort (no doubt still imperfect and inadequate) to address the problem unlike most of his predecessors.

    The fact is the immigration system really sucks. I don't know how it compares to other countries but I have first hand experience with it here. My late wife was a Canadian citizen and came to the U.S. on a fiancee Visa. To get that Visa was a nightmare and I would definitely go through an immigration lawyer vs. trying to do it myself should I ever be in such a situation again. The service center that processed our paperwork (the Texas service center which also processes immigrants from Mexico) lost our paperwork...twice. It took contacting the office of the U.S. Congressional representative for my district to get it straightened out. This was back in 2000 and my guess is that it has only gotten worse. So the immigration system is a nightmare that nobody is talking about fixing. It is currently completely incapable of handling the number of people crossing the border on a regular basis and ultimately it is Congress that is going to have to do something to resolve that issue, not Trump or whoever the President might be.

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