President Biden: The NEW one and only politics thread

If you're on the copy desk and you're editing such a story, is the immigration status something you'd insist needs to be in the story?.

 

Why is border security and deportation of repugnant people…a compromise? We need to negotiate security with green cards?

 

Depends on the story, the timing, the location, the crime, etc. But if I were a reporter, I'd put it in there, for the sake of answering the question, and overall comprehensiveness.

 

When were those barred from entrance or deported limited to repugnant people?

 

In the '40s the US and Mexico collaborated on the Bracero guest-worker program. It was meant to ease the wartime worker shortage, but it continued into the '60s. The fact that a stopgap intended to be a wartime thing continued that long suggests it was successful. Of course, it ignored corruption on both sides of the border, but hopefully we're better than that now. Hopefully.

The difference between illegal immigration 40, even 30 years ago and now is that people who entered the US illegally to work were mostly men. Women and kids would stay home with the extended family, and the men would support them with income from work up north. Then the Reagan administration upped border security as part of the '86 immigration reform package. It also included an amnesty offer, which shows, I think, that Reagan's heart was in the right place on this. BUT ... Guys who once slipped back and forth across the border to visit family and return to work couldn't do it so easily anymore. What's the answer? Bring the families up north too. So then women and kids joined the exodus.

The situation has devolved totally in Central America with the disintegration of civil order in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. El Salvador is particularly violent, but other forms of upheaval -- plantation agriculture, climate change -- have pushed populations into a state of malnutrition. If you had the means to feed yourself, would you travel more than a thousand dangerous miles to sit in a camp on the Rio Grande?

Here's a little writeup on the situation in Guat. A hunger crisis forces Guatemalans to choose: migration or death

These people are desperate, like Ethiopia, Somalia desperate. We can grumble about how we have no room for them, but we had damn well better do something, because it's only going to get worse.

 

I dunno. Repugnant is Justin’s word.

 

For the record, I'd absolutely require that all who are of age for it receive the COVID-19 vaccine at the borders. Then, at least their lack of such protection couldn't be thrown back at them, and they, as well as everyone else, would be protected as much as possible against the virus.

All the unused vaccines were all the rage in the news not long ago, so I don't know why we're not at the borders with COVID-19 vaccine doses that we're administering, almost no matter what's to happen or be done about them. If you want in, you definitely need to get the vaccine. Why are we not doing that, at least? We have the medication, and it is not racist. In fact, I'd say it would be a useful, helpful, healthful humanitarian act. We're in the midst of a major health crisis, and even this issue is all bound up in immigration now.

 

How do you know they're not vaccinating people that they're letting come into the country? I've read that when Afghans get here the first thing they do is they get their first vaccination.

 

I think the Afghans and the people at the borders are in different situations. I do not know, but have not heard or read, that those at the borders have received, or sought, the vaccinations, as Afghans, by and large, have done, and as has been reported.

I don't think we should only vaccinate people coming in. It should be required of those, but I think we should vaccinate everyone we can, and it should be offered to and encouraged for everyone, whether they end up coming into the country, or not.

 

Because the GOP's definition of repugnant people is....basically anyone trying to get into this country