A Realistic Trump Immigration Policy

To start out, the highest rewards for the least effort should come from rescinding all those executive orders and just actually enforcing the laws that are already on the books. And let’s quit using the propaganda term “undocumented.” Getting rid of all illegals is probably impractical though. Those strawberries aren’t going to pick themselves.

So much for “Give me your tired, your poor…”

I am all for a wall that keeps guns flowing from Texas into Mexico. If the maras and the zapatecas and the cartels want guns, they shouldn’t be so cheap and easily bought. Will affect US gun sellers, though. So the wall works both ways.

TBH, it breaks my heart seeing the people riding the Monster into the US. I also want it to stop. I do not want to see so many bodies in the dessert. The only ones profiting from the Long Hike are criminals, indeed, but it is the ones looking for a better future, with guts and willing to sweat, who are caught under the wheels. Or thrown, rather.

But as long as the land South of the border remains a fixed cast system where life is valued according to pedigree and opportunities are scarse, well, things will remain the same. And the truth is that many of those malaises have been fostered by many, among them our neighbors from the North, who like to arrange the world chess as better suits their business. Because, you know, the Law of the Jungle says only the strong survive, and they take what they can. Hence, the consequences. Ying/yang and all that jazz.

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You’re right to point out it’s a 2 way street, just got finished with a couple of seasons of Narcos on Netfilix. The amount of death and destruction Pablo Escobar unleashed was terrifying. One of many unfortunately, from what I hear the gangs have got even worse since then.

Yeah, that’s what you get. Throw sanity out the window, and everything you hold dear will jump out after it.

If we’d had a sane immigration policy all along, it never would have come to this.

  1. Trump is not going to fundamentally change anything. All he is going to do is slow the demographic change in the US. Rather than the flood gates being thrown open and a permanent Democrat majority occuring within four years, it’s simply going to take another generation. All of those “natural conservatives” aren’t particularly; Hispanics and Asians both vote 65% Democrat. Every three entering the country is a net gain of one Democrat vote. It is a complete non-starter to deal with that issue though. As such, the inevitable is merely delayed, not prevented.

  2. Icon: If Latin American countries have such fundamentally broken socio-political systems, what makes you so sure that as the USA becomes more Latin American demographically it won’t become more Latin American socio-politically? Magic dirt? Promised Land?

  3. Also, it’s interesting that you ascribe such a lack of agency to Latin Americans given the trajectory of East Asia in post-colonial, post-Cold War times. Are you saying that East Asians had the agency to change their circumstances but Latin Americans will forever remain a victim class, always acted upon by others, rather than acting upon themselves? Interesting.

There used to be a thing called assimilation. It would just happen naturally when we let it… and kept immigration at a reasonable flow rate.

Ditch multiculturalism and bring back controlled immigration. The ones that get in will vote… let’s just say not so left wing and identity politics, since it’s unlikely the two major parties will exist in recognizable form.

http://supchina.com/2016/11/03/many-first-generation-chinese-immigrants-supporting-donald-trump/

Regarding Asian American support for Trump (and possibly the Republicans more generally), I thought the above article had some pretty interesting comments. While not what I would call a “friendly” characterization of the situation, the author is at least transparent that he is writing from the perspective of one who did not support Trump. Some of the matters he noted, especially regarding objection to affirmative action and opposition to transgender bathroom laws, are consistent with what some first generation Chinese have mentioned to me.

Also, there is a surprising amount (at least to me) of support for gun ownership among many Chinese immigrants I have met. Some, like a family member of mine, just seem to like the outdoorsman/hunting culture and enjoy talking about guns and shooting guns the way some people like working on and driving cars. Others I have encountered seem to have a more “political” overtone towards their gun support. TheIr views are part NRA and part Black Panther in that they strongly support the Second Amendment and have concerns about the government taking away their firearms, but they aren’t worried that they’ll need guns to fight off an overbearing government keen on taking away their liberty. Rather they are worried that the US government has not and will never adequately protect Chinese American and other Asian American communities from crime and violence (and in the view of many first generation Chinese, such violence almost always comes from Black people and other minorities). Thus they need guns to protect the community and themselves by any means necessary (the LA Riots are frequently cited as an example of the need for collective self-defense when the authorities abandon an Asian Ameican community).

I’m pretty “Blue” politically and don’t support the views above, but if the election has shown anything it is that many people like me don’t understand a lot of the concerns of our fellow citizens!

What keeps everything in Latin America the same way as 499 years ago is the economy. You have a monopolical structure, innovation and change are anatemas. The paralysis comes from people being denied entry into the economical system, simply said they cannot participate or function in the economic system beyond decadent structures and strictures. Your birth still determines your job.

The idea of the US as a place where you can still work and make a living and not be punished for it still remains the goal of Latin American immigrants. The problem currently in the US is rampant greed from corporate drones up, and that is beyond racial lines. The sinking of local structures in favor of monopolies that make more money losing the business than keeping it -hence the torpedo mortages and other beuties like crippling real estate or health premiums debt- have already infected the US: people cannot participate fully in the economy if they simply can’t survive. That is what detonated the election, and has no “mental/ideological or racial influence from Latinos residing in the US”.

BTW, I was reading an interesting Washington Post article talking about why Asians make better than Blaks in the US. While they do miss the ever important mafia/loan associations support, they do point out to the increasing positive view of Whites over Asians and hence the better wages earned… hence keeping families together and accumulating wealth allowing further education, often quoted as determining factors for Asian stelar performance. So, if this has any element of reason, the issue of how people perceive Latinos in teh US is alos going to be a determining factor, and this perception is divorced from the actual economics. That will be a bit of a problem if the label of rapists, thieves, or at least, backward, is slapped readily.

I don’t believe that that’s really on the table, however. Despite what anyone might hope or fear from Donald Trump, he’s only going to play around at the margins.

It is worth pointing out a couple of things. Firstly, it took a near complete moratorium upon immigration of two entire generations (1924-1965) to assimilate a whole lot of people who were far closer culturally than what we are talking about now.

“Assimilation” is a bit of a misnomer. Several notable figures in American history were opposed to immigration right from the get-go, and not entirely without justification. Benjamin Franklin did not want non-English. He was strongly opposed to German immigration, for instance. Further to this, each wave of colonists did change the culture, so they weren’t fully assimilated. It is perhaps just that the differences then, in the eighteenth to early twentieth centuries, weren’t anywhere near as big. Indeed, there already existed by the time of Benjamin Franklin several distinct ethno-cultural regional identities that have never entirely assimilated. New England is very different from Appalachia, for instance.

It would have been a much better article if it hadn’t been so snarky. A lot of his arguments seemed to be “these people are so obviously stupid that I don’t need to counter their concerns”. Wasn’t that why the Democrats and the media lost?

I also found it funny that he couldn’t handle the meme magic from other Chinese. That made me laugh and made me think that if they were dropping some dank memes then they’re probably all right.

Where do you think this culture in Latin American countries comes from though, and what role do people have in changing a culture that they supposedly dislike (if they truly dislike it at all)?

To compare things to East Asia, I would say two things. In some cases, East Asians have been able to move beyond the past and do new things, hence their rapid development. They’re not hamstrung by defining themselves as victims, despite having plenty in their history (either domestic or foreign) to which they could credibly cling to as victims if they wanted.

In other cases, we see lots of examples of people complaining about a particular situation, but when you say that maybe they should change it, they turn around and say, “but this is how we’ve always done it”. The two are at odds with one another. I suspect that a lot of people just like to complain.

I could tell you that I want to accomplish X, but if you come back in a year and I tell you again that I want to accomplish X, then you kind of have to doubt if I really do because otherwise I would have already (or would be able to demonstrate progress, at least).

For some people it’s not a contradiction at all: “What really disappoints me about the system is my (or my family’s) position within it, not the system itself.”

Ah. Okay, I see what you’re getting at. You mean that if they were top dog, then they’d be all for a system that they complain about when they’re bottom dog?

It’s often interesting to see people do that in a working or business setting. They put up with lots of nonsense from others and complain about how unfair it is, but when the shoe is on the other foot they frequently treat service staff quite atrociously.

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