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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 8, 2023

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I have mixed feelings. I want a border that is fully hardened against incursions and to turn away every single person with a bogus asylum claim from south of the border, which in my view is every single person with an asylum claim from south of the border. Nonetheless, framing it as being about the spread of Covid has always seemed like a dirty trick, a way to get around the preference for open borders that many in the bureaucracy seem to hold. On one hand, this trick is fine because it's in response to the trick of using "asylum" to create de facto open borders, on the other hand, I just don't like lying.

I want a border that is fully hardened against incursions and to turn away every single person with a bogus asylum claim from south of the border, which in my view is every single person with an asylum claim from south of the border.

What makes all asylum claims originating south of the border bogus? I'd have thought at least Venezuelans would get some benefit of the doubt.

I'm a Canadian, and I think that all asylum claims originating south of our border are bogus. Once you've escaped whichever hellhole you're running from...you've escaped it. It's done. The refugee system is meant to handle emergencies, and "being processed as a refugee in a safe country" is not an emergency that justifies asylum.

Well, yes. But Canada's southern border is with the US, so the argument that it is a safe country is pretty solid.

While Mexico could be argued to be the same the case is weaker and Mexico alone probably has a lot of potentially-legitimate asylum seekers.

And Texas(probably) wouldn’t be pepperballing migrants at the border if they were from Mexico. They’re from a lot further afield. If you’re coming from Venezuela, you’re passing through Colombia, Panama, and Costa Rica on the way up, all of which are safe countries that don’t happen to be as rich or developed as the US.

Don't forget Nicaragua. Their homicide rate is now down to 7.9/100k: still worse than Texas as a whole, but not as bad as Dallas or Houston in particular, and not even half as bad as such infamous US hellholes as "Philadelphia" or "Columbus".

Nicaragua will never be recognized as a safe country for political reasons(it being a communist dictatorship and all).