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For one, I actively advocate for little beyond treating each other better and sometimes I wade into debates on COVID. It's quite rare that I write about culture war topics. I don't consider myself particularly knowledgeable about the border or immigration.
If you're just asking what policy I would support, then no, I don't agree with letting anyone into the country. It seems like there was some agreement that border security was necessary as recently as the Clinton years, and I suspect that if you pressed the median democratic voter rather than the serially online or activist class most would say as much. While expressing some sympathy for the plight of migrants. I'd personally support increased efforts towards developing and stabilizing the countries these people are coming from, but this could either have been shown to be ineffective or is already happening and I'm ignorant of it.
I have a more favorable view towards skilled immigrants legally applying for citizenship, as well as refugee programs.
Let's pretend for a moment that we respect the sovereignty of other nations, and aren't going to colonize them for their own sake. What are some domestic policies you'd put forth to deal with the migrant issues?
I accept you're not pro-open borders. I'd love to hear what you're cool with us doing to remove these people and keep them out.
Economic aid and whatnot may be helpful. Illegal immigration is less and less appealing to Mexicans as their country has developed. Complicated by obvious problems, corruption, unwilling local governments, etc.
That's difficult for me to answer without knowing the efficacy of any given policy relative to the harm/brutality involved. For example, you want ICE agents to hunt down and smash open the doors of every illegal immigrant in America. Well:
With 20,000 ICE agents they'd have to deport 550 illegal immigrants each, not counting the time to track them down, not counting another 0.5-2 million per year. Yes, you could hire more agents, deputize other enforcement agencies, etc, although that all costs money. At a certain point, would it just be cheaper to pay people living on the border a stipend?
After apprehending them, do you just drop them off across the border only to have them walk across it again? I assume this would be paired with other policies.
Would this harm the economy, and particularly the food supply (I assume you'll forgive me stereotyping) if they're integral to harvesting produce? Would this drive inflation, and/or would you have a plan in place to give them more legal, temporary work visas? If you gave out those visas, would the same people be in the same border-ish towns making you angry? Would red tribers approve of this policy if it meant their produce bill doubled?
Probably other externalities I'm not even thinking of at the moment, not to mention the suffering imposed on the people being apprehended, the ICE agents/illegal immigrants that would inevitably get shot, etc.
I'm strongly against anything that explicitly causes bodily harm or deprivation to migrants; i.e. anything with border agents shooting them on sight or something, however effective at Bringing Number Down that may be.
If you could make a case for the efficacy of any given policy, or show me someone who has done this kind of data-driven analysis, I could probably be persuaded one way or the other.
I'd apologize for giving a potentially unsatisfactory answer, but I suppose I'd be accused of feminine concern trolling so.../shrug. That's the best I've got for you at the moment my man. I should also warn you that that's my answer for most things outside of the niche subjects I consider myself somewhat knowledgeable about.
So this is a lot of explaining why you can't do things to fix the problem with a couple vague and halfhearted overtures to possible ways to fix it, maybe, you have to think about it more.
I thank you for going along with what I asked, and you are correct, the answer is unsatisfying -- but also completely expected. I've been accused lately of bad faith and making assumptions, so I thought I'd explore the next leftist's ideas rather than go with what I presumed.
Of course, in the end, my assumption would have been correct: you aren't explicitly open borders or for illegal immigration, but... yeah, you support it.
Well, we all learned a lesson, here: basic pattern recognition works and assumptions are reliable.
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