Making sense of immigration policy

[magney]

The United States' immigration policy is dysfunctional. Pretty much everyone agrees on that, with the sole exception of the businessmen who profit from illegal labor. The mutual agreement ends there

Comments

[mackys]

> What did I miss?

Only the obvious. That the debate over immigration is not based on logic, economics, or common sense. It's based on power playing politicians (Republican conservatives pandering to hatemonger rednecks, Democratic progressives pandering to unions) enhancing their power by exploiting emotional outrage.

In other words, the people with the power don't want this situation to change. They benefit from the current fucked-up state of affairs. And since they make the laws, things won't be changing.

Call me cynical. But I doubt we're going to see any action on immigration reform in the next decade.

[magney]

Yeah, that is obvious. I'm under no delusion that anything like this will be seriously proposed or implemented anytime soon. (Though in addition to Republicans publically pandering to hatemongers, there's also the Republicans privately pandering to agri, construction, and anyone else who makes money off an unofficial slave class.)

The whole thing is really more for talking to individuals about immigration. One of the goals of YOYO as a talking point is to deconstruct individual "hatemonger rednecks"' emotional opposition to amnesty, by implicitly asking what really bothers them. I can't think of anything to do about racism as such, but I can at least try to say "let's make it so that the undeserving don't pick your pocket".

I'd actually like to see what a real life "deport 'em all" type person thought of this. Maybe I'll bring up the subject the next time I jump into a Fark immigration thread. Even the trolls might at least give me some idea of how Republican operatives would wharrgarbl their way into opposing the proposal.

[mephron]

I don't usually pay attention to such things because I expect that someone will go jackass at a couple of mach numbers as a result.

Also, as a note, I am in the PacNorWest now if you want to touch base.