ALL HAIL PRESIDENT TRUMP

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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Kamchatka wrote:

Well if other issues are significantly more important to a person than immigration & amnesty, then support for amnesty depends on who they will vote for; seems like an obvious conclusion.

By the same logic, if other issues are significantly more important to you than abortion, you should decide the abortion issue based on how black Americans tend to vote?

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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CanHasPants wrote:

This. It sets a bad precedence to toy with human lives and establish a sub-citizen class for political gain. Or, rather, that precedence has already been set; it’s been going on for a while. It’s legalized human trafficking, something actual decent people should be opposed to.

Promoting open-borders immigration is indeed worth at least a raise of the eyebrow due to the clear partisan incentive to promote such a policy. However, I think resisting immigration, particularly of the legal variety, deserves equal scrutiny for potential partisanship in the other direction.

Let's say we picked a different partisan issue... how about abortion? In a way you might argue that abortion is a self-defeating issue for Democrats — legalized abortion prevents/ends the lives of hundreds of thousands of likely Democrat voters yearly, with black women demographically the most likely to get abortions. Would you be okay then with Republicans dropping the issue simply because it improves their future electoral outlook?

It's a terrible way to look at issues. I'm not in favor of closed borders at all, even though that would arguably be the most partisan Republican position. I'm actually for amnesty, but as a matter of partisan reality I understand that the GOP can't afford to just give it away without getting a similar demographic concession (ex: repealing "anchor baby" birthright citizenship (which, yes, I'm against)).

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CanHasPants wrote:

establishing expectations of amnesty (historically the case) endorses this sub-citizen class of residency, the exploitation thereof, and the human trafficking industry that sustains it. The only way to fix that is to break the expectation, or deny amnesty.

That is not to say we should deny opportunity to establish citizenship, but that we should not merely wave a magic wand and broadcast to the world that our laws are inconsequential.

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1453R wrote:

How's this work, if being born in America is no longer enough to be an American?

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pneuma wrote:

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1453R wrote:

How's this work, if being born in America is no longer enough to be an American?

I believe the concept is that America, unlike most other countries, is a country based on a creed. We take people from everywhere, but we expect them to want and to abide by our social mores. If anything, the recent X-American trend is tearing that down and separating us, but I won't digress on that.

The things in question are specifically the text of the Constitution and the rights outlined in the Bill of Rights. The concept that all men are created equal, that we have freedom of speech and association, and so on. Big thoughts that propelled us to where we are now.

Ideally it would not be a monetary thing. The money question only comes up in proportion to the welfare we grant, i.e. we are concerned about free-riders. (I'm all for giving less welfare and accepting more people, but most people ignore the reality of that trade-off and want to have their cake and eat it too.)

Money aside, you brought up religion. As long as the religious applicant agrees that women are not property, that murdering people for apostasy and adultery are not acceptable, that there is a separation between church and state, then there's no problem. This is already the case, and e.g. "Americanized" muslims often don't hold such traditional beliefs and immigrate just fine.

So, there is a possibility of a different kind of citizenship somewhere in here. I highly doubt we'll ever move away from the traditional forms of blood or soil citizenship, though, even if someone could prove the benefits of something new. Those models are too simple and too well-understood.