The process gets longer or shorter depending on the administration, but the general immigration rules have been more less the same. The only thing that I can think of that can apply to what you’re saying is the temporary protection program, but that’s a whole different subject.

What are you even on about lmao? Ever since the Persian Gulf war back in the 1990s, Iraq was heavily sanctioned by the US and immigration was very difficult, and this was doubly so after 9/11 and the 2003 invasion. The US ever since then has had ADDITIONAL layers of mandatory screening, background checks, paperwork, and interviews compared to other countries. The heightened scrutiny that Iraqis had to go through when applying to immigration to the US is iconic. That’s the “special treatment” my family went through. Not to mention that we were Iraqi citizens living in Syria at the time when we did our immigration process so even if there was any of that elusive special treatment, it didn’t cover us. But that’s the thing, you literally know nothing about me, my family, or the immigration process to get here. You’re just making up assumptions to rationalize your ignorance.

Also, If we assume that your story about Venezuelan friend is true, it directly contradicts the very point you made in your previous comment. The OC specifically pointed out how he gets annoyed when illegal immigrants get more entitled than his family, who has struggled greatly to get into this country legally. You immediately accused him and his family of being privileged, wealthy, and having the right background even though you know nothing about OC, his family, what they went through, or what’s required to immigrate here legally. Right after saying this, you go ahead and provide this anecdote where you talk about how your friend ILLEGALLY immigrated here, PAID her way through the system by hiring American lawyers using thousands of dollars of her own money as well as money you lent her, and then had the right background to get accepted in the end. That’s literally the privilege you were accusing the OC’s family of having.

If you have no idea of legal immigration actually works, why are you talking so confidently about it to people who have actually gone through it? It seems your only experience with immigration is a single indirect case of illegal immigration, and your knowledge doesn’t extend past that. Where do you get off telling us what our experiences were like when you don’t even know what you’re talking about? That’s just arrogance.

I noticed over the years that many, if not all, of these collapse enthusiasts are terminally online larpers confined to echo chambers. They’re so detached from reality that they unironically think that the moment society collapses it’ll be replaced with whatever ideology they subscribe to, and this will cause all their personal problems to go away. They never seem to consider any other possibility.

It doesn’t matter whether the immigration system is simple or convulsed. It is still the immigration system of the country, and you have to respect it. Feeling dissatisfied or impatient with it is not a valid excuse to actually smuggle yourself into the country illegally. With the sole exception of genuine asylum seekers, nobody has a moral argument, let alone, a legal one to be in any country illegally. Nobody is entitled to being an immigrant to any country. Immigration is a privilege, always has been and always will be, and you have to respect the customs of the country you want to immigrate to. If they’re reviewing your case then you have to be patient, and if they rejected you then you have to accept that decision.

Also, it’s completely asinine to try passing off illegal immigration as some sort of non issue. That’s just an out of touch take. It is an absolutely MASSIVE issue. Here’s just a few ways where it’s a problem:

• Security: You have random people inside the country that are not known, tracked, and vetted. That’s a major national security threat as it leaves your society vulnerable to smugglers, foreign adversaries’ agents, human traffickers, terrorists, and a whole host of other criminals that could wander in and out of the country with no supervision, approval or consequence.

• Legal: Countries have laws for a reason, they’re there to reflect the public interest and will. Having people blatantly violate them is a serious challenge to the country’s institutions. If these institutions, like immigration, border, and customs agencies can’t enforce the laws they’re tasked to enforce, then their authority and legitimacy have been undermined. If you read any history book, you would know that a country with weak institutions that cannot carry out their basic duties, like enforcing the laws they were created to enforce, is a country that’s headed to towards instability and collapse because it is no longer able to govern properly. The consequences of illegal immigrants breaking immigration laws are very serious.

• Economic: While illegal immigrants technically do contribute more in taxes than they take out, I would argue that it’s a bad thing because their undocumented status makes them vulnerable to exploitation by employers who pay low wages and offer poor conditions, thus creating a shadow labor market that undercuts American workers and erodes labor standards. This two tiered system isn’t just unjust, it incentivizes lawbreaking and devalues citizenship. Prosecuting employers alone won’t fix it, and simply granting undocumented immigrants full rights sidesteps the core issue which is that we’re normalizing illegal entry and undermining the rule of law.

• Moral: Let’s zoom out of the technical aspects and think about morals. Our immigration system, while flawed, is still functional. There are millions of people all around the world from all backgrounds, who are waiting their turn to get into the country legally. Why should these people get shafted in favor of people who chose to cut in line? How is that fair? By illegally migrating, not only have they disrespected this country, but they also insulted all these people who are trying into the country legally as well as all legal immigrants in the country who sacrificed so much to be here. There’s no good argument for illegal immigration, the most common excuse that I hear is that these people come from a place of hardship and they just want a better life, but that’s not good enough. If empathy is the standard, it should be extended first to those who respect the process, not those who disregard it.

All these points are just common sense. It’s absolutely crazy that I even have to argue why basic immigration laws are necessary. I understand Lemmy is off the rails politically, but even then, has the state of our education system degraded so much that people genuinely cannot comprehend the importance of immigration laws? Seeing people unironically defend open borders without understand why that wouldn’t work makes me feel like I’m taking crazy pills.

If you go to dangerous country maybe, but if you go to a relatively safe and stable country, you’ll more than likely be required to carry around documents with you when you visit.

The EU did stop to enforce internal borders

Even you understand you’re being disingenuous with this one. The EU very much enforces it’s external borders, and freedom of movement is exclusively granted to other member states. The EU is after all a political union between very similar countries culturally, historically, legally, and economically. The member states democratically consented to remove barriers (not borders) to allow for freedom of movement among each other.

It clearly would, but in the end the world would be a better place.

If this was the case then this would’ve already happened, but it didn’t and it won’t for a reason. The concept of borders isn’t a product of some ideology, it’s a product of circumstance that was created out of necessity. Sure, there are plenty of modern borders that are nonsensical, but these countries all serve to show case why more proper borders are necessary as all the country with nonsensical borders are all very unstable and plagued with conflict.

What a riveting argument

I agree with you that the country’s migration system needs an overhaul, over being impatient or dissatisfied with the current system is not an excuse to cross into the country illegally.

You know, you could be both against Trump and his moronic politics AND support reasonable immigration laws. Shocking, I know.

You have absolutely no idea how legal immigration to the US works. My family immigrated from Iraq nearly a decade and a half ago. We had NOTHING. We had no property, no savings, no investments, and no money for anything like lawyers or the like. Yet despite our struggles, we kept being patient and did everything necessary to enter the country legally.

If you unironically think that the only way to immigrate to this country is by being extraordinarily rich or by sneaking illegally, then you’re too ignorant for this conversation. This applies doubly so if you can’t even comprehend why illegal immigration is wrong on both a legal and moral level. Not only is it a breach of national security when you have this many people enter the country without documentation or vetting, but it’s also a slap in the face for all the people like my family who went through a lot to get in the country the right way AND to all the people and families out there who are still waiting their turn to get in. Why should they be shafted in favor of people who choose to cut the line, intentionally circumnavigate immigration laws, and still feel entitled to receive the same treatment as legal immigrants?

Immigration is a privilege, always has been and always will be. It is not right and never was. Nobody is entitled to be here or any other country they are not citizens of. My family had the privilege of moving here and so did yours. If people want to move to another country, great, but they have to do it through the legal channels. If they reject you then you have to respect it, and if their system takes a long time then you just have to wait. You can’t just skip immigration laws just because you don’t feel like it. By doing so, you automatically forfeit any sympathy for your immigration case (the only exceptions being genuine asylum cases from either Mexico or Canada). Why should sympathy go to you instead of someone who is going through similar circumstances by immigrated legally or is waiting their turn legally? The answer is it shouldn’t

I 100% agree. Lemmy is full of idiots who have no idea what immigration is like outside of their completely out of touch echo chambers. My family had to immigrate from Iraq through Syria to the US. We literally had nothing and we went through so much to get into the country legally. Seeing people try to cut the line in front of the many families like mine who are waiting their by illegally forcing their way in is infuriating as is, but seeing them feel entitled makes me have no sympathy for them.

Spot on

This is such a Lemmy take. Even a child can comprehend why borders are a necessity. The world is an unequal place that’s filled with scarcity and malice. In order to protect your society’s social coherency, economic prosperity, and values, you have to enforce borders

While you’re right, there’s still a big difference from legal immigrants who were granted temporary residence and illegal immigrants. The former were allowed into the country for a limited duration of time, but the latter weren’t allowed in the first place.

Complete nonsense. Countries have borders and if you cross into another country without the proper legal channels then you’re an illegal immigrant. It’s simple as that. Trying to circumnavigate immigration laws is very much a problem.

Why are you downvoted? This is entirely true. When people visit Japan, for example, they have to carry documents with them everywhere they go, and the police do ask for them if you seem to be doing something sketch.

Calling out people for making stuff up is not sea lioning

I disagree, the Republicans ARE a cabal of idiots. The people who own them and run the party in the shadows, however, are not.

I take issue with your question because it conflates two completely separate things as the same. There’s a very difference between a “system” and an “individual”, especially when that person is a private citizen. Ideally, political violence should be a line that’s never crossed, however, we don’t live in an ideal world. If people are tired of the system they live under, and they have no meaningful way of getting change then violence might be inevitable. However, in these cases people go after the system itself. That means the actual institutions that keep the system in place. Want an example? Look at what’s happening right now in Nepal.

What you don’t do to fight a system is shoot a private citizen over their political views. That’s not meaningful resistance, that’s just violence. It doesn’t do anything or change anything, all it does is help establish a dangerous precedent where violence becomes an acceptable part of political discourse. Don’t like someone’s political views? Shoot them, they probably deserved it anyway… at least that’s what people here are saying to justify it, but what these don’t understand is that it’s a two way street. Just as you cheer and condone political violence, others can as well, including the people you don’t like. You can’t condemn people you don’t like for doing it but then cheer for the same actions when the people you like do it, because you’ll just be a hypocrite and your words will hold no weight. It’s not a defensible position.

It should be noted that for any principle to mean anything, it is absolutely mandatory for it to be applied fairly and universally. If we want to remain a society that values civil liberties, then those have to extend to everyone, including those who you don’t like don’t or don’t agree with, and this includes people with vile views. When a system becomes a dysfunctional mess, it means that it has deviated significantly from it’s founding principles, and a new system needs to take it’s place to embody them. However, if the people no longer believe in civil liberties for all, then we’re looking at a very grim future because we would have tyranny’s pandora’s box.

So you can’t cite a specific example? Nobody is disagreeing that Kirk had vile views, but you made a very specific claim that I want verification for. Give me something, anything that directly shows Kirk actually did this:

He was promoting actual, race-targeted violence domestically and internationally