Im mostly with you until #5. Thats a false choice, you either agree with your solutions or you aren't a conservative or a Christian, and you want to screw over brown people, like theres no answer in between or other answers. Last I checked, people all over the political and religious spectrums have disagreed on how to handle situations with others with similar beliefs and it did not prohibit them for still having those general ideologies. I will come back to this in the morning when I am well caffeinated.
Do you think a wall is the most cost-effective means of preventing illegals and drugs from entering the country? Why?
Why don't we line all our roads with giant pillows? If it even saves one life, it's worth it. What if we could save 1000 lives by using the same money to offer free vaccines to children? Isn't that 1000x more worth it? My taxes dollars are not in infinite supply. I prefer the government focus on creating the greatest good for the most people with that money. I've never seen anyone even try to present a reasonable case that a massive wall has the best return on investment.
What I said earlier in the thread. Moreover, and I may be wrong in this assessment, but I see a whole lot of screwed up countries out there....with many of those respective citizens looking at quickly getting into the US as their hope in life. That's fine, just do it legally, please. Oh, and you can't go hop-skip countries getting here, either. Seek asylum in Mexico first, then see where that goes.
None of my neighbors offered to pay for half of their portion of my new fence. I am not going to bill them for it. However, when Mexico agrees to pay for a nearly useless Wall out of their money then I will smile and let them go ahead hoping they'll learn their lesson and choose more wisely on how to spend their money in the future. Some people have to learn the hard way. The truly sad part is that some people, all too many people, never learn. I think the Trump cult fits into the category of never learning.
I wonder if you realize what you're saying is kind of silly? "do it legally, please". The people seeking asylum are doing it legally, yet are being turned back (and/or separated from their families at the border). How can you, as a Christian, be ok with tearing families apart, and separating children from their parents? REGARDLESS of what you think about them taking children across countries to get here (and let's be honest, the people who are migrating in the "caravan" are not the people we should be worried about), how can you be ok with that practice? Doesn't matter which president started it (since everyone says Obama did it...even though it's disingenuous to bring that up).
I believe the issue and new laws stems from folks country-hopping to get here. This issue is much more far-reaching than our southern border. I hope and trust that Trump and his administration will continue to seek to find some happy mediums. IMO, that shouldn't preclude them from building the wall/technologies, though.
Look, I understand have a completely different view than most of you on this matter. I'm doubting we're not going to change each other's minds. And, that's OK.
Still, entering at a check point and requesting asylum is totally legal except under Trump's eyes. Trump views it as more rat infested, diseased, MS13 infiltrated, ISIS terrorist immigrants not being worthy of due process, toothbrushes or even showers. And then there's the issue of depriving immigrant children from their families.
I'd have to see reports of that. Feel free to send. Perhaps, it's a capacity issue. Anyway, I only watch FoxNews, so I'm pretty certain I'm getting brainwashed.
Why do we talk about Illegals like they aren't people? That's what bothers me. They're talked about like they are lower than us because their mothers expelled them out of their bodies in the "wrong" place (which apparently is anywhere but here). Where I agree with @SlyPokerDog is that much of the "issue" is that they are an exploitable workforce, who are willing to do jobs most people don't want to do, for less than what they should get paid, all while being off the government's tax grid, so it comes down to money. I'd say that drug trafficking and sex trafficking and the like are really just small pieces of the puzzle and distraction tactic used to say how bad illegal immigrants are. Since you guys brought up how a "Christian" should think in your perspective, I believe you have it wrong. Christians should love them like they would anyone else, it shouldn't be a political issue of if they should be here or not, that's not our place to decide. There's no "go back where you came from" for a Christian, there is you're a person and therefore you have the same value on this earth as I do. It should never be about the money and exploiting them, or dang it they took our jobs (thanks Southpark), or whatever all of that is secondary. When it comes to the matters of money, if we are going to invest billions of dollars into something, spending those billions on feeble attempts to keep people out, we should be incentivizing businesses to hire citizens and illegals to become citizens, I'm not sure I have great ideas on how to do that, but I'm sure we could come up with ideas.
Here you go. I thought this was common knowledge. https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/asylum-united-states
Hmmmm.... Asylum is a protection granted to foreign nationals already in the United States or at the border who meet the international law definition of a “refugee.” The United Nations 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol define a refugee as a person who is unable or unwilling to return to his or her home country, and cannot obtain protection in that country, due to past persecution or a well-founded fear of being persecuted in the future “on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” Congress incorporated this definition into U.S. immigration law in the Refugee Act of 1980.
Correct, it is in both International law and American law. Trump illegally impedes refugees from entering at check points to request asylum.
And the top ten countries whose citizens were granted asylum in the U.S. included (from most to least): China El Salvador Guatemala Honduras Mexico India Nepal Ethiopia Somalia Eritrea China alone accounted for an impressive 36% of the asylum grants in 2016, and it has topped the list in every one of the last several years... El Salvador comes in next at a mere 8.6%. The overall grant rate is on the decline, and was at 48% in 2016. https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclop...t-people-granted-asylum-the-us-come-from.html
Personally, I think we should be working towards compassionate measures to solve our own refugees issues before adding to those woes...