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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   3236 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 8, 2025

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we got extremely close to compromise with immigration bills, but they all failed to pass

I am pretty sure at least 2/3 of the population and probably even 2/3 of Republican voters would be fine with pretty wide immigration and even amnesty, if certain conditions are satisfied:

  • Whatever rules we set up, we actually enforce them and not make mockery of them immediately. This includes getting rid of clown shit like "catch and release".
  • Shit like "sanctuary cities" which low-key secede from the nation and choose which laws they are going to follow and not follow stops like right now. You don't like the laws - vote for people that will change them, just ignoring them whenever you like should not be an option.
  • People that follow the rules get it easy, people who do not follow the rules get kicked out (details debatable, but the principle must be kept)
  • Current illegals suffer some consequences for jumping the line. Maybe not deportation, but something. Maybe like 10 years of permanent residency before they can apply for citizenship and voting rights, maybe fines, I dunno. Something.
  • Anybody illegal with a criminal record GTFO. I'm not talking parking tickets, but any violence or other socially detrimental crime must be hard disqualifier, and it shouldn't take 9-0 SCOTUS decision to deport each one, it should be quick and automatic. They got the due process when convicted.
  • Some kind of filter on the entry that at least has some chance for selecting on alignment with US culture and societal mores.

None of these sound crazy or extreme to me (obviously) but I don't see Dems agreeing (and honestly implementing) this kind of compromise, unfortunately. What they seemed to be offering was more of "we keep the current shitshow maybe with a tiny coat of paint and some money thrown in the general direction of Border Partol budget, and in exchange for that you get mass amnesty for pretty much every illegal that is not on death row for murder right now". Not sure how that'd be a working compromise.

Current illegals suffer some consequences for jumping the line. Maybe not deportation, but something. Maybe like 10 years of permanent residency before they can apply for citizenship and voting rights, maybe fines,

It should quite obviously be fines. A surtax on income, or a set amount. Migrants come to the USA because they can earn more money, let the government and the citizenry wet its beak!

Whatever rules we set up, we actually enforce them and not make mockery of them immediately. This includes getting rid of clown shit like "catch and release".

Shit like "sanctuary cities" which low-key secede from the nation and choose which laws they are going to follow and not follow stops like right now. You don't like the laws - vote for people that will change them, just ignoring them whenever you like should not be an option.

These two are tied together in my mind. Asking cities to tolerate an underclass that the feds refuse to deal with is absurd.

The two work in tandem. The first premise (or, in Dem's hands, anti-premise) is about when Dems are in power - they then would just ignore the immigration law completely and mass-import as many migrants as they can. The whole "illegal" thing loses its meaning because what's the point in the law is the government is refusing to follow it and the courts just shrug and stand aside? It's not a part of legal system anymore, for any practical purpose, just a mockery of what the law is supposed to be.

The second part comes in if Dems temporarily lose some amount of power on the national level. Then they fall back to the local level (there's such thing as "state rights" and contrary to popular - among Dems - opinion, it's not just a mindless Nazi slogan!) and ever if the law tried to reassert itself by temporary slowing down the intake and deporting some of the illegals, they would obstruct it on every level possible. The law is sacrosanct if it serves the Party's purposes, and completely ignorable - moreover, must be ignored - if it contradicts them. In other words, if they don't control the law and it's execution, it's not worth having. Of course, this must be accompanies with demanding the other side to follow every letter of the law (and some that they'd invent on the spot just to make it harder to follow) and exhaust every possible legal delay and perform every triple-checked verification before they take any action.

Taken together, these two parts form a ratchet, which make it very easy to move the policy and the action on the ground towards open borders, and next to impossible to move it to the opposite direction. Little wonder is the Republicans aren't exactly happy with this state of affairs.

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