Skibboleth
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User ID: 1226
Skibboleth
1yr ago
The entire point of sending them to Martha's Vineyard is that it was small and ill-equipped for the problem. Specifically, previous efforts to stir shit by bussing immigrants to major cities on the eastern seaboard failed to draw attention or rile up anti-immigrant sentiment (few noticed and no one cared - little enough surprise, as these are big cities and already have very large immigrant populations, including large numbers of illegal immigrants), so it was necessary to step up the shit-stirring. The defense offered - that this is about sharing the burden that border states have unfairly been forced to shoulder* - doesn't hold up to scrutiny. GOP-run southern states have made no serious effort to arrange for the large-scale transfer of migrants or asylum seekers to northern blue states, which is what you would actually do if you were burdened and trying to redistribute it. Instead they (Abbott and DeSantis) have done it about as inefficiently as possible, sending penny packets at considerable taxpayer expense and without regard for the welfare of the people transferred. That suggests that the point was either publicly owning libs or trying to rile up nativist sentiment.
(As an aside, I will not be at all surprised if it turns out that these people agreed to transportation under false pretenses.)
*whether or not it is actually unfair is another matter, considering the flow of Federal money and economic cost-benefit analysis of immigration.
Skibboleth
1yr ago
but also it's not generally your communities suffering the constant tide of human detritus.
Liberal metropolitan areas are home to the vast majority of illegal immigrants in the US. This has been one of the recurring critiques of conservative nativism over the past decade - that they're complaining about immigrants in places they don't live. The idea that sheltered coastal liberals are forcing southern conservatives to foot the bill for their xenophilia ignores the reality of how illegal immigrants are actually distributed around the country.
The 'public emergency' releases funds to take care of arrivals. That's the extent of emergency here. Most people in DC have no idea this is going on and the people who do know don't care. There are no 'freak outs' - there's public officials annoyed that it was done with zero attempts to coordinate with local authorities. Which goes back to my point: Abbott/Desantis are not making a good faith effort to redistribute immigrants. Being as disruptive and disorganized as possible is the point, so they can talk about how owned the hypocritcal libs are.
Skibboleth
1yr ago
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/03/11/us-metro-areas-unauthorized-immigrants/
The idea that Texas is stuck with all the illegal immigrants while liberal states cheer from their sheltered enclaves is a political talking point, not reality.
my priors tell me that "the vast majority" probably don't have the resources to make it very far past the border into other areas of the country.
It's not that expensive to move around the country once you're in (especially if all you've got is the clothes on your back) and many people crossing the border in the south have friends/family elsewhere in the country who both serve as an attractor and will help them out. Moreover, people physically walking across the border is a minority of illegal immigration to the United States. A majority* are arriving legally and overstaying visas. You can fly to NYC or Chicago, get a tourist visa, and never leave.
*at least as of a couple of years; I don't have a breakdown from this year, but I have no reason to think it's radically changed in two years.
Skibboleth
1yr ago
Diversity for thee, not me me. 'Red' areas, in general, tend to be much more diverse ,especially economically, and culturally , and even racially, compared to wealthier blue areas.
While I'm sure you can find some red county that is more diverse than some blue county, I am extremely skeptical that this holds as a general statement. Red states in the midwest, for example, tend to be somewhere between very and overwhelmingly White (in the 75-90% range). Red states in the traditional South are not as White as the Midwest thanks to substantial Black minorities, but are still distinctly majority White and tend to lack other large minority population. Texas and Florida are the big outliers.
Within-state comparisons tend to be a similar story, e.g. in Illinois downstate is a) very white b) very red, while the purple collar counties and blue Cook/Chicago have large minority populations.
Skibboleth
1yr ago
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/03/11/us-metro-areas-unauthorized-immigrants/
So far I have seen zero evidence for the contrary claim; it simply seems to be taken as a given.
Skibboleth
1yr ago
Massachusetts has ~250k illegal immigrants. They're already living those values.
Skibboleth
1yr ago
Boston, NYC, Chicago, and DC are liberal strongholds where wealthy Dem donors actually live. They're also large cities that don't really have a problem handling a sudden influx of a few thousand people, so they were failing to generate the desired controversy. Martha's Vineyard is small, remote, and unlike Texas doesn't have a lot of Federal money and Federal facilities designed to handle the flow of migrants.
Skibboleth
1yr ago
Rural, Catholic, poor, stereotyped as violent, lazy, and criminal? Maybe not that different.
The closest I can find to a hard number on Irish illegal immigrants estimates it at around 50k. Even if 100% of them were in MA, which they're not, that's still be ~200k other illegal immigrants.
Skibboleth
1yr ago
It's not like border states get a coordinated heads-up.
Border states have multiple federal agencies dedicated to the matter and receive additional federal money (paid for by blue states) to help local agencies. If Texas is having issues and Abbott wants additional assistance, he can ask for it instead of engaging in maximally disruptive stunts.
Skibboleth
1yr ago
This is such a fantastical portrait of American cities it makes me question if you've ever visited one.
Skibboleth
1yr ago
This is just special pleading. They don't seem to have any difficulty slipping through the cracks in Texas. In fact, it seems to me one of the core complaints is that it is too easy for them to slip through the cracks in Texas.
Skibboleth
1yr ago
American nativism is sincere but unserious; they genuinely want to get rid of immigrants but for the most part they're unwilling to pay the fiscal or economic costs required to do so.
In that light, DeSantis' stunt makes perfect sense. For Joe Nativist, its a symbolic middle finger to immigrants and the liberals who support them without incurring any real cost.
Skibboleth
1yr ago
If AZ and MA want to negotiate that transfer and the immigrants agree to it, that's fine. For that matter, if AZ wants to unilaterally set up a program to send immigrants out of state with consent obtained in good faith, that is fine. But neither AZ nor MA have the authority to unilaterally expel unwanted individuals, and they certainly don't have the authority to transport people under false pretenses.
Skibboleth
1yr ago
Texas is a huge outlier compared to other red states (and Austin is quite liberal). LA county is half hispanic and has large Asian and Black minorities as well, and the state as a whole is about 1/3 white, 1/3 hispanic, and about 1/3 everyone else.
I mentioned other forms of diversity: cultural, educational, economic.
And I find this equally questionable. Major metro areas are generally very blue and also the most diverse along almost any axis unless you're engaging in a lot of categorical gerrymandering.
"Do something about the blues" is even less serious than the notion that there's some cheap, easy solution if only the Democratic Party would stop getting in the way*. These sorts of stunts don't have a prayer of convincing anybody; their only utility is to grandstand to your audience about your willingness to be cruel to immigrants and give the middle finger to the Libs. More broadly, nativists have no real leverage to change anyone's mind.
Your analysis assumes that the base problem is actually illegal immigrants.
The base problem is actually that the US is a great deal wealthier than Latin America and so there's enormous incentive to move from Latin America to the US. Restricting the supply of visas simply diverts demand to illicit avenues. So the question is not "do you support or oppose immigration", it is "what are you willing to do and how much are you willing to pay to reduce it?" For American liberals the answer is obviously "nothing". For conservatives the answer so far appears to be "very little". They're happy to pay for symbolic acts and entertain fantasies that Mexico is going to foot the bill, but even with both houses of Congress and a President who ran on an anti-immigration platform, they failed to manifest policy to come anywhere close to funding the necessary enforcement apparatus (what's more, they didn't even try very hard). And that's to say nothing of their lack of willingness to eat the economic costs of cracking down on illegal immigrants.
*I mean, there is a cheap, easy solution, but I doubt it will satisfy nativists.
Skibboleth
1yr ago
A massively expanded and streamlined visas system for Latin American workers would likely soak up an enormous share of illegal entrants. However, I don't see much support for this on the right.
Skibboleth
1yr ago
They will not come if a fifty-foot-tall barrier physically obstructs their route.
Unless the barrier proves trivial to breach or surmount. Or they enter on a legitimate visa and never leave.
Skibboleth
1yr ago
But the people who are most in favor of allowing illegal immigrants to stay are, conspicuously, the ones who never have to live in and around said immigrants. There's consistently a lack of skin in the game with this particular policy prescription.
Do you really think if we polled people in major metro areas (the place where the vast majority of illegal immigrants actually live) on what they think, they'd be in favor of large scale deportation? They have skin in the game and also generally don't care. Conversely, why is it that some of the most intense xenophobia comes out of places in the interior of the country that attract next to no migrants?
Skibboleth
1yr ago
It's a secular declaration of sacred values. Attempting to formulate a counterargument is about as effective as trying to formulate a counterargument to an evangelical's religious beliefs.
Skibboleth
1yr ago
More likely asymmetric escalation - something like blockading Russia or committing NATO airpower directly to the war in Ukraine. NATO doesn't want a nuclear exchange, but it is also strongly incentivized to make it clear that nuclear blackmail doesn't work.
Skibboleth
1yr ago
Gaddafi, Milosevic, and Saddam didn't just lose wars on symbolic home ground - they lost wars against people who were explicitly after them. Gaddafi lost a civil war, Milosevic and Saddam lost to foreign interventions that had their removal as a goal.
Putin's loss scenario in Ukraine is humiliating, but the Ukrainians aren't coming to get him.
For a long time I’ve thought the African American vote and especially the male one culturally belongs in the red tribe.
The Red and Blue tribes are both white. African Americans may have some cultural similarities to Red Tribe Whites, but there are many differences as well. Perhaps more importantly, very different interests. There may be a lot of socially conservative black men, but the GOP is going to have a hard time pulling their votes unless they can actually make a convincing case that they're going to support their interests. That's going to be a hard sell for a poor urban constituency than many existing conservative voters view quite negatively (meaning they're not going to want to make concessions to appeal to them).
Skibboleth
1yr ago
None of them are going to physically invade Russia to apprehend or kill Putin. Merely being disliked by Western elites is eminently survivable. He might have to settle for vacationing in Sochi instead of the Mediterranean, but that ship sailed months ago anyway.
It doesn't. Many pass through Texas and many remain, but the vast majority wind up elsewhere (and many enter elsewhere, notably California).
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