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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022

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Do Desantis fans actually want illegal immigrants to leave their state?

Desantis could get most illegal immigrants to leave Florida if he really wanted to. Illegal immigrants generally need to work. If an area made it so they could not find work, most illegal immigrants would leave that area. You can make it hard to find work for illegal immigrants by passing severe and immediate penalties for employers that employ illegal immigrants, and boosting the agencies investigating such crimes. For maximal effect, the severe penalities would include jailtime.

If he wanted to, Desantis could sign such a bill in no time at all. Instead he's flying illegal immigrants to Martha's Vineyard.

To be fair, he did sign a law 2 years ago that made e-verify mandatory. That was the headline at least. More specifically, it made e-verify mandatory for public employers and their contractors. Private employers are required to keep I9 documentation for some years if they don't use e-verify. And if you get caught 3 times in 36 months, the employer can lose their licensure. Florida otherwise appears to treat the 1st instance of employing an illegal immigrant as a non-criminal offense, and the 2nd instance as a misdemeanor. In conjunction with loose enforcement activities, this is not how you strenuously deter employers from hiring illegal immigrants. Anyone who cares a out getting rid of the illegal immigrants in their state should be able to see that.

Of course, strongly penalizing the people who employ illegal immigrants would annoy those people. And at least a substantial portion of those people who would be annoyed are Desantis supporters.

So I see why Desantis likes putting illegal immigrants on a plane: it doesn't offend his employer constituency, and it appeals to the anti-illegal-immigrant constituency.

What I don't get why a ordinary joe (or a mottizen) who is concerned about illegal immigration would treat this as anything other than a stunt designed to distract them from Desantis prioritizing business interests over actually dealing with the problem.

It's a national issue - I don't just want them out of my state, I want them out of country. I want them to never try coming back. This requires changing the prevailing national political winds, not just state-level policy that shifts which states illegal aliens prefer to live in. If I lived in Florida, sure, I'd also want a hardline approach that's effective in the short-run, but I would still be in favor of this sort of political gamesmanship.

So does it being a national issue excuse Desantis or Abbot from not taking a hard line against employers within the boundaries they control?

This looks to me like a 2002 Democratic governor pulling some stunt regarding gay marriage while their own state hasnt legalized gay marriage. My reaction would be "screw that! Do what you can in your state and then pull some stunts!"

I dont underatand why people againstt illegal immigration are giving governors a pass when they pull stunts rather than do what they can.

So does it being a national issue excuse Desantis or Abbot from not taking a hard line against employers within the boundaries they control?

No, it doesn't.

This looks to me like a 2002 Democratic governor pulling some stunt regarding gay marriage while their own state hasnt legalized gay marriage. My reaction would be "screw that! Do what you can in your state and then pull some stunts!"

Yeah, that actually worked. No one succeeded in taking that action at the state level, they pulled it off with federal legal shenanigans. I don't think this example works in the direction you're kind of implying.

I dont underatand why people againstt illegal immigration are giving governors a pass when they pull stunts rather than do what they can.

I don't think I'm granting such a pass. I think Desantis and other governors should attack the issue from multiple angles and do so as aggressively as politically feasible. I don't think there's 4D chess going on here or anything, I think Desantis just likes flashy, politically combative maneuvers. Sure, I'd like him to do more on it locally, but I'm still going to be happy to see a culture warrior on my side of the issue.

Yeah, that actually worked. No one succeeded in taking that action at the state level, they pulled it off with federal legal shenanigans. I don't think this example works in the direction you're kind of implying.

Making marriage legal in a state is not equivalent to flying immigrants to MV.

It's equivalent to cracking down on employers in a state. Which no republican governor is willing to do.

Cracking down on employers would be an immoral action, anyway. That sort of thing shouldn't happen; the problem isn't "the illegals have a job", the problem is "the illegals exist". Frankly, employing them is likely helping them keep their ongoing criminality to a minimum.

The only people who should be punished for illegals are the illegals themselves and their advocates.

If no-one employs them, the incentive to come is much reduced. I think you have this entirely backwards. They only come because they can get work and have a better standard of living here. Fixing that is the only long term solution. Smugglers will always find a way, whether it is people or drugs as long as the demand exists.

Enforcement can certainly make it more difficult and reduce numbers. But if you really want none, then you have to stop the demand. Hiring an illegal worker is what attracts said illegal workers.

If no-one employs them, the incentive to come is much reduced.

And no cheap, exploitable under-the-table labor, either. A slave caste is useful, I just don't want it entrenched and influencing society. I'm fundamentally okay with the idea of Hispanic Helots -- I'm just not okay with it in the current world because we have this ridiculous notion of birthright citizenship and endless welfare parasitism.

I would, for instance, agree to support open borders if it came with muscular guarantees that these populations would not ever have voting rights or access to the public's welfare bucks, and would be forcibly kept in appropriate enclaves so as not to spoil the areas the rest of us live in.