Warning: WH seeks to limit/deport immigrants using ACA and other gov. services

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FIRE 2018
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Re: Warning: WH seeks to limit/deport immigrants using ACA and other gov. services

Post by FIRE 2018 »

Bigato,

Reasons the USA has a two party system.

The U.S. Constitution created the 2 party system.
Americans share few of the same basic ideals principles and beliefs.
The nation has sharp political divisions based on economic class, social status, and national origin.
Much of American election law is written to discourage non major party candidates.

prognastat
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Re: Warning: WH seeks to limit/deport immigrants using ACA and other gov. services

Post by prognastat »

First past the post systems seem to trend towards a 2 party system so as long as this is the voting system I don't think there will be a change in the current way things are in the US nor do either of the two parties have any interest in changing the system as it would only lessen their power.

@Seppia
I also don't think accusing people of racism is a useful strategy. It isn't going to win people over to your side from the supposed racists and will rather push them farther away. Don't see how this will effectively further your goals politically if you believe your side has the right answers. The only thing it will do is make you feel self satisfied, but that doesn't really achieve much of use. I would say a not insignificant reason Trump won last time around is because the people you are calling racist were growing tired of being called racists and felt Trump was a big middle finger back at those people.

George the original one
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Re: Warning: WH seeks to limit/deport immigrants using ACA and other gov. services

Post by George the original one »

ffj wrote:
Sat Jul 20, 2019 6:17 pm
Do legal immigrants get deported for utilizing government benefits? Seems that question needs to be answered before we get into ethics of something that may or may not be happening or whether it is legitimately anticipated down the road.
No, however the current administration has actively taken every step possible to get there. For instance, if you're an immigrant who recently married a US citizen, the process to get your green card is molasses and that's by WH policy. "Send them back" is another manifestation of this.

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Mister Imperceptible
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Re: Warning: WH seeks to limit/deport immigrants using ACA and other gov. services

Post by Mister Imperceptible »

jennypenny wrote:
Sun Jul 21, 2019 10:38 am
I was on a date recently and the woman brought up abortion criminalization legislation and was expressing indignation. She pressed for my opinion and I told her that it seemed highly unlikely to me that Christian conservatives could ever be convinced that abortion is not unethical, while it also seemed highly unlikely that those who believe in a woman’s right to choose could ever support legislation to make abortion the equivalent of murder. I said that making abortion fully legal/not criminal would preserve a woman’s sovereignty, and defunding Planned Parenthood or making it funded by private charities only would stop the argument from those opposed to abortion from feeling that they are subsidizing immorality and irresponsibility. Each would be free from the other and to exercise their own choices.

The woman exploded in a fit and left the restaurant right there. No opinion was acceptable but her own. Abortion must be legal and Planned Parenthood must be a free service provided by the government. (She did not thank me for picking up the tab.)

I related this story to a guy at work and he called me a chicken shit and said abortion was murder. No opinion was acceptable but his own.

Framing every issue as either/or, whether it be abortion, immigration, etc. has been a very effective strategy implemented by the elites to divide and conquer. The corporate media is complicit in the strategy. There is no desire by the elites to see the rhetoric toned down, because then we could actually focus on solving problems that they do not want to see solved.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Warning: WH seeks to limit/deport immigrants using ACA and other gov. services

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@MI:

Who brings up the topic of abortion on a date? Wow, that's even worse than the old guys who tell me their PSA numbers and their net worth in the same sentence.

I think the main problem with political discourse is that it is increasingly running further and further behind reality. Like pretty soon candidates will have to dress up in costumes representing which former era they would like to re-enact if elected. Meanwhile, in some lab in China...

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Re: Warning: WH seeks to limit/deport immigrants using ACA and other gov. services

Post by jacob »

http://internations.org does an annual survey of called Expat Insider. The word expat suggests some freedom of choice in terms of where to live. Expats don't think of themselves as immigrants, emigrants, or refugees. Rather they tend to be highly mobile, highly educated, and high income/value generators wherever they live. Because of that they basically have the ability to exercise some choice and pick the country they want to live in because many countries are willing to adopt them.

As far as my lens goes, this is it.

As late as 2014, the USA ranked 5th in the world in the expat survey. It was considered the land of opportunity. Yet since 2016, it has dropped precipitously and is now near the bottom ranking 47th out of 68 or so. The UK is now in the bottom 10 for similar reasons (BREXIT).

The loss of so-called political stability accounts for most of this ranking loss. Total ranking loss for the US would have been worse insofar the survey hadn't added a new category of internet connectivity, where the US is ranked #10.

Again, we're talking the opinions of mobile and educated immigrants/visa-holders that are generally making above or much above median salaries and who have the choice of working in several different countries. So not desperate people at the border nor immigrants with a one-shot chance to turn their student visa into a green card to escape where they're living or work a few years in a foreign country to send money back to establish a nest egg. Expats are simply leaving, staying away, and telling their colleagues about it when they no longer feel welcome. It makes sense that they would be proactive about their choices. Metaphorically, if politicians are pouring gasoline on their adopted home, they are not the ones to wait around to confirm an actual fire as far as their risk analysis goes. I have no desire to be a case study or be a newspaper feature article of someone whose innate optimism was run over by the system.

Also, I think the damage extends beyond people simply staying away. If we look at it in terms of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, what the WH administration is doing is compromising the bottom of the Maslow hierarchy of needs pyramid hitting non-citizens' sense of safety and belonging/desire to be part of this country. I can't help but think that this might adversely affect the higher Maslow levels like esteem and self-actualization, that is, creative work and meaningful contributions [to the economy/country/world]. That has certainly been the case for me. Since 2016 I have spent much more time than I would otherwise have looking at real estate in other countries; how to rearrange my financial matters to make it easier to leave in case it became important; and generally selling off my stuff and getting ready to move just in case.

I think the conflation between legal and illegal immigrants is a real problem in this debate. Extend this to expats and also to refuges and the confusion is complete. Scapegoating is a big part of populism. Racism was brought up above, but I don't think that most people being accused of racism actually feel racist. They feel no personal animosity towards individuals from other countries or with another skin color (The typical cringe worthy "I have friends who are black" come to mind as an expression of good-will, albeit embarrassingly oblivious) but what goes unseen (like the broken window fallacy) is the consequences of supporting policies that are structurally racist, such as the travel ban, the detention centers, the calls for wall building, the delay of processing. To someone abstracting the personal consequences from the political rhetoric, there's little difference. Therein lies the calls for "Flight93"-style votes, especially from those with a European background. We've seen or at least been severely indoctrinated in terms of what such structural policies can lead to and thus take it far more seriously than the American voter who has a completely different image of what WWII was about---"the good guys coming to the rescue" (the general US self-image of US foreign policy in the 20th century) not a battle against nationalism + populism turned fascism so that it never happens again which is how Eurasia sees it. It's just that many Europeans have a very aggressive immune system when it comes to such things, while most Americans do not. It's conceivable that Americans have to learn this lesson for themselves. Fair enough. It's not up to the world to tell a country what to do (at least not since the treaties of Westphalia), but at least some individuals have the option to opt out of participating.

I think this is why it has come to the point where it is now and why expats disfavor the US now.

Note: There's also the economic dimension between the tension between capital and labor which add further complications and expresses itself in the re-emergence of socialism on the left and nationalism on the right or some combination of the two that goes perpendicular to the typical left--right axis. I'm not going to expound on that here since it would further complicate the situation and possibly cause this thread to explode. Regardless, I'm aware of it.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Warning: WH seeks to limit/deport immigrants using ACA and other gov. services

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

I agree that there is good reason for the U.S. drop in ranking, but the reasons why, for instance, Bahrain is number 1 might also merit some looking into. One thing to be the ex-pat enjoying drinks at sunny cafe. Another thing to be the ex-pat cleaning the cafe toilets.

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Ego
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Re: Warning: WH seeks to limit/deport immigrants using ACA and other gov. services

Post by Ego »

jacob wrote:
Thu Jul 25, 2019 10:12 am
Since 2016 I have spent much more time than I would otherwise have looking at real estate in other countries; how to rearrange my financial matters to make it easier to leave in case it became important; and generally selling off my stuff and getting ready to move just in case.
This from a European who is married to an American, has lived in the US for most of his adult life and knows the country very well. Now imagine what is going through the head of a machine learning algorithm developer from India, a stem cell engineer from Taiwan or a world-renowned bacteriophage researcher from Chile.
ffj wrote:
Wed Jul 24, 2019 9:17 pm
Now I can see this perceived threat used as a scare tactic to influence behavior, I'll let you decide what is ethical or not, but these vague articles filled with innuendo are scare tactics in and of themselves. And again, I'll let you decide what is ethical or not.
Bombastic threats from the top have benefits and costs. They make a Salvadorian refugee reconsider the journey to the US but also make the world-renowned Chilean bacteriophage researcher reconsider coming to work for a US biotech company.

Weigh the short-term benefits of deterring Salvadorians with the long-term costs of deterring the Chilean. Of course, that assumes someone is actually taking into account the best interest of the country. It assumes that the statements are not made for short-term political gain regardless of the long-term costs.

Now consider the statement, “We will reform legal immigration to serve the best interests of America and its workers, the forgotten people. Workers. We’re going to take care of our workers.”

You may shrug and say, meh, he doesn't really mean it, he's just riling up his base and provoking the media. And you may be right.

Jacob's reaction seems reasonable to me. If I were the Chilean I would look elsewhere.

IlliniDave
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Re: Warning: WH seeks to limit/deport immigrants using ACA and other gov. services

Post by IlliniDave »

jennypenny wrote:
Sun Jul 21, 2019 8:51 am
... Picking one flavor of crazy over another doesn’t solve the problem. IMO the bravest thing a person can do in this environment is to stand their ground in the center and refuse to be pigeonholed into positions they find untenable.

Personally, I refuse to be cowed into taking a position I disagree with just to prove I disagree with a different position. It's playground-level political behavior ...
I agree pretty strongly with this--well put. Really, I have no choice but to be me, and starting in 2015 it started "costing" me friends (have to question whether they really were friends to begin with). The widespread acceptance of logical fallacy (often by people who present themselves as the best of critical thinkers) is stunning to me. It's a good thing I'll probably wind up holed up in the woods somewhere. 8-)

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Re: Warning: WH seeks to limit/deport immigrants using ACA and other gov. services

Post by jacob »

Any complex situation will ultimately coalesce into just two sides if deemed serious enough, but not everyone deems it "serious enough" at the same time/level. Therein lies the challenge and risk of navigating world history in real wall-clock time. Those who are old enough probably remember GWB post 9/11 telling the world that you're either with us or you're with the terrorists at a point in time when that situation from the US POV was rather black and white whereas the rest of the world had some^H^H^H^Ha lot of sympathy but ultimately saw a complex situation with somewhat more nuance + the sentiment of "I'm not gonna get into this shitshow". Well, what do you do in such a situation? The current situation is perceived similarly except the shoe is now on the other foot. Remembering what was felt then by them and what is felt now by us might allow for some empathy/reaching across the aisle or talking things out before "getting into this".

George the original one
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Re: Warning: WH seeks to limit/deport immigrants using ACA and other gov. services

Post by George the original one »

ffj wrote:
Wed Jul 24, 2019 9:17 pm
Maybe I just view this stuff through a different lens, but if he hasn't built a single mile of fence or effectively done anything to stop illegal immigration, then how in the hell is he going to deport legal citizens? For using government services to which they were legally entitled? Think about what it would require for that to happen.
He has already tried to circumvent due process and he will continue to do so. Look at the current case where he tried shutting down the legal way to seek asylum and is now railing against the judge who declared his action illegal.

IlliniDave
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Re: Warning: WH seeks to limit/deport immigrants using ACA and other gov. services

Post by IlliniDave »

George the original one wrote:
Thu Jul 25, 2019 4:03 pm
He has already tried to circumvent due process and he will continue to do so. Look at the current case where he tried shutting down the legal way to seek asylum and is now railing against the judge who declared his action illegal.
That's an interesting case, because if someone is passing through other country(ies) that offer them asylum (which I believe Mexico has generally), then what immediate danger are they in that would substantiate an asylum claim to further enter the US from the third country? Sadly, a ruling from a federal district/circuit judge no longer impresses me on the surface as something that is consistent with federal law (disclaimer: I haven't read that decision and probably never will). It was a such a ruling against the Obama admin that created the current mess, and inadvertently led to both the trafficking of children and parents exposing their children to danger while breaking US law.

The frustrating thing is that it could be fixed relatively easily if the so-called leaders in our legislature were not so interested in replaying the 2016 election and more interested in doing what is right. This shouldn't be something that should be played out as a executive order vs select district/circuit courts game. Obama (aka the Deporter in Chief) was left in that predicament, and now Trump is stuck there too.

FIRE 2018
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Re: Warning: WH seeks to limit/deport immigrants using ACA and other gov. services

Post by FIRE 2018 »

I wish it was that easy for leaders in Washington who we elected to Congress to do what's right. However most of if not all elected officials will support party lines if they want to seek reelection.

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Re: Warning: WH seeks to limit/deport immigrants using ACA and other gov. services

Post by Campitor »

Judge Tigar's ruling: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1je6-S5 ... 0MZ-m/view

It appears that his denial is based off US Immigration Law that requires that a 3rd country provide a fair system for asylum petitions. Judge Tigar said that since this 3rd country would most likely be Mexico, which in his opinion treats asylum seekers unfairly/violently, denies many asylum petitions ,and practices forced repatriation, it doesn't satisfy US legal requirements hence the restraining order barring Trump from deporting asylum seekers back to Mexico who have entered the US via Mexico.

Here is a PDF that stipulates why Mexico should not be considered a safe place for refugees: https://www.humanrightsfirst.org/sites/ ... ET_PDF.pdf

An excerpt from the PDF: As detailed in Human Rights First’s 2017 report and updated in a 2018 fact sheet, refugees and migrants face acute risks of kidnapping, disappearance, sexual assault, trafficking, and other grave harms in Mexico. Refugees in Mexico are targeted due to their inherent vulnerabilities as refugees but also on account of their race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and other reasons. Certain groups—“including the LGBTQ community, people with indigenous heritage, and foreigners in general”—face consistent persecution in Mexico and are often forced to seek protection outside of the country. Gay men and transgender women, for example, flee discrimination, beatings, attacks, and a lack of protection by police in Mexico. Some refugees have been trafficked into forced labor, while women and girls have been trafficked to Mexico’s southern border where they have been exploited in bars and night clubs that cater to police, military, and other forces.

The rulings seems to be pretty strong and I don't see it being overturned because the law is pretty clear on the matter. Other human rights and international organization corroborate bad treatment of refugees in Mexico. Mexico sounds like a pretty bad place. Thank God we're screening those bad people out with strong border enforcement and stringent asylum reviews. :roll:

FIRE 2018
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Re: Warning: WH seeks to limit/deport immigrants using ACA and other gov. services

Post by FIRE 2018 »

I think Obama did something good to limit migrants coming to the USA illegally. The ridiculous and racist "Wet foot dry foot" policy. He stopped the program. It allowed Cubans to gain entry however if Haitians tried to enter the same way they were turned away.

Campitor
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Re: Warning: WH seeks to limit/deport immigrants using ACA and other gov. services

Post by Campitor »

FIRE 2018 wrote:
Fri Jul 26, 2019 2:47 pm
I think Obama did something good to limit migrants coming to the USA illegally. The ridiculous and racist "Wet foot dry foot" policy. He stopped the program. It allowed Cubans to gain entry however if Haitians tried to enter the same way they were turned away.
Before the policy was ended but interdiction at sea was a high priority, I know a few Cubans who came in via the Mexican border. They told me that Mexico is the place to go to sneak into the US. Canada was too expensive to fly to and harder to get permission for. Ending the policy saved a lot of lives - too many people drowned at sea from over capacity boats or makeshift rafts.

But I have to applaud Alex Morales. The guy windsurfed from Cuba to the USA like a boss and was picked up by the Florida governor's boat returning from a fishing trip. Morales had to complete 18+ hours of windsurfing to get to the US. https://boards.co.uk/features/alex-mora ... urfer.html.

IlliniDave
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Re: Warning: WH seeks to limit/deport immigrants using ACA and other gov. services

Post by IlliniDave »

Campitor, I did not realize Mexico was so bad. It's a shame we leave the loopholes in the system that incentivize vulnerable ones to put themselves in so much danger. I knew the area adjacent to the US border was bad/controlled by cartels, guess I had a naive perception that the rest of Mexico was in good shape.

Campitor
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Re: Warning: WH seeks to limit/deport immigrants using ACA and other gov. services

Post by Campitor »

@IlliniDave

Mexico is a Narco government. The Country is controlled by 5 cartels with specific territorial boundaries; each have their own style of justice and business/political rules. The entire Mexican government is so overrun by cartel cronies that you have police stations where cops never take off their masks for fear of cartel reprisals - you have different police departments working for rival cartels and sometimes they get into firefights with one another.

The cartels are so bold they have even attacked the Mexican military (https://www.cleveland.com/world/2010/04 ... an_ar.html). There are a lot of bad actors and many of them are setting up narco funded business in the USA as well as human trafficking rings. It so sad that our southern border is so porous and has become a political widget to toss about and to use for virtue signalling. And mexican cartels have even kidnapped US citizens on US soil: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexi ... feedType=R. None of this is secret and is widely known. I started reading up on Mexico's issues about 5 years ago when I stumbled upon a State Department warning about cartel kidnappings in US border states.
Last edited by Campitor on Sun Nov 10, 2019 11:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

FIRE 2018
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Re: Warning: WH seeks to limit/deport immigrants using ACA and other gov. services

Post by FIRE 2018 »

The flow of migrants and drugs go North to USA , the flow of guns and money profits go South to Mexico. It is a vicious cycle. With the exception of New Jersey I believe (only allowed to buy 1 firearm every 30 days) , one who passes the very easy background check in other states, the person can buy an unlimited amount of assault rifles, handguns, shotguns etc etc. It is a fact that the cartels even pay commissions for American citizens to buy and transport the items to Mexico. I saw when I went to the local gun range for target practice, many homeowners were buying assault rifles that have incredible stopping power.

Campitor
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Re: Warning: WH seeks to limit/deport immigrants using ACA and other gov. services

Post by Campitor »

@ FIRE 2018

US citizens are funnelling illegal guns to Mexico but that only accounts for civilian caliber armaments. The likely source of the military grade weapons is the Mexican government and corrupt foreign officials which gets the munitions and arms from the US and other countries via legal channels. The military grade arms are then funnelled to the cartels by corrupt officials.

US military weaponry being used by drug cartels in Mexico

Narco News presents convincing evidence based on Wikileaks cables and their own investigations that seriously heavy weaponry used by the US military is finding its way, sometimes legally sometimes otherwise, to Mexico and the cartels. This is military-grade weaponry and is not available in gun stores. (That semi-auto AK you can buy in some US gun shores is comparatively, a pea shooter. Full auto AKs, while legal in some areas, are strictly controlled by the federal government and require a special license. They are also very expensive, like $15,000 vs. $100 in Somalia. Thus, they aren’t trafficked in the States.)

The State Department cables recently made public by WikiLeaks do seem to confirm that the U.S. government is very aware that much of the heavy firepower now in the hands of Mexican criminal organizations isn’t linked to mom-and-pop gun stores, but rather the result of blowback from U.S. arms-trading policies (both current and dating back to the Iran/Contra era) that put billions of dollars of deadly munitions into global trade stream annually.

Two U.S. Army Soldiers Allegedly Tried to Sell Stolen Weapons and Explosives to Mexican Drug Cartel

Former U.S. Army soldier Tyler J. Sumlin and Sergeant First Class Jason W. Jarvis were charged with eight felony counts after trying to sell multiple firearms, military grade equipment, and C-4 plastic explosives and detonators to undercover agents with Homeland Security Investigations, an investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, in El Paso, Texas, according to a criminal complaint reviewed by Newsweek

Army Recruiter Slapped With 17 Years For Selling Guns To Mexican Drug Cartels

According to the federal indictment filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas in January 2016, the firearms trafficked by Prezas included a dozen N-PAP M70 rifles, a dozen PAP M92 PV pistols; four HG pistols manufactured by Serbian arms company Zavasta; four Anderson AR-15 lower receivers; and a dozen Del-Ton DTI-15 rifles.

The complex picture behind the military arms behind many violent crimes in Mexico (Charts)

In Mexico, military-style arms are frequently diverted and leaked from official arsenals. In some cases weapons are sent to the wrong customers altogether. For example, a recent high-profile case involved 9,000 firearms shipped illegally to Mexico by a German firm.

Honduran Military Supplied Weaponry to Cartels

...according to a 2008 U.S. diplomatic cable first obtained by WikiLeaks and recently released by McClatchy, the Honduran military has “lost” several U.S.-supplied military weapons in recent years.

The cable, available below, cites a Defense Intelligence Agency report entitled “Honduras: Military Weapons Fuel Black Arms Market,” which noted that the serial numbers on light anti-tank weapons recovered in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico and San Andres Island, Colombia, matched the numbers on guns that had previously been sold to Honduras. In addition to the guns, U.S. authorities seized a number of M433 grenades from criminal groups in Mexico, which were also traced back to the Honduran army.

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