Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
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Notes -
I was discussing US politics with my wife, as one does, and immigration laws came up. I briefly told her about sanctuary cities, and in response she asked why anyone would support that. I had no answer.
I googled a bit and got some very bad answers, so I’m turning to the motte.
Can the motte provide some pro-sanctuary arguments, and some pro-illegal immigration arguments in general? Consider that you’re giving these answers to a none-American from an ethno-state that enforces its immigration laws, and generally frowns on immigration to it from different ethnicities.
If you lived in Venezuela, wouldn't you want to illegally immigrate to the United States?
That's the core steelman. If I were them, I would do it too.
I can give economic justifications and preferred policies and we can cite crime stats back and forth. But the emotional core is there but for the grace of God.
Absolutely. I used Venezuela as an example too, when saying who might want to illegally immigrate to the US even if they couldn't work legally. For more context, my family and I are currently staying in the US with a legal working visa, and we had to go through some hoops to get it (we'll be leaving soon, unfortunately). I can put myself in the shoes of the illegal immigrant very easily.
If I understand correctly, then, the pro-illegal immigration Americans are de-facto pro-open borders, or at least pro-open borders from the third world. I can understand the political hardship of changing federal laws to increase legal immigration, so I assume that un-enforcement is a way to achieve that end while side-stepping national politics. Does the pro-illegal immigration camp also campaign for increased legal immigration from the third world?
It's mostly wrong to judge and punish someone for something that I would do too, were I in their shoes.
One of the most mind-blowing things to me was reading a news story about afghan illegal immigrants to Iran: if I lived in Iran I would be seeing to emigrate the hell out of there.
I disagree with you, but I can understand where you come from. I think that one first sentence gives a pretty good answer for me, so thank you. It does imply open-borders from the worst-off countries, though.
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