> Advocate for the rights of American citizens and not of those streaming illegally across the borders.

Yes, indeed, if the democrats were only more performatively cruel to illegal immigrants then I am sure they would win more elections. Why even tack that comment at the end? Do you really think democrats are supporting illegal immigrants at the expense of Americans?

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cryzinger 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Not to mention that the current immigration policies ("policies" almost feels too generous) are polling poorly overall:

> In Silver Bulletin’s polling average, the president is now behind by 4.2 percentage points on his handling of immigration-related topics, where he was once above water by seven percentage points at the beginning of his term. It’s clear why: the images of chaotic and sometimes violent ICE raids across the country have spurred outrage; in a Washington Post/Ipsos poll this week, the raids were the strongest issue motivating disapproval of the president, with 20 percent of voters who said they disapproved of Trump’s overall performance citing “immigration” issues as “the worst thing Trump has done” so far in office.

Although some people were always going to cheer on the cruelty they were promised:

> The reason for the more staggered decline (compared to other issues) was also prominent in the Post’s polling: 55 percent of respondents who said they approved of Trump’s overall job performance cited immigration as the “best thing Trump has done” since taking office. The seemingly disjointed result can be explained thusly: while Trump is gradually seeing his support base shrink on immigration-related issues, those Americans who remain in this camp are strongly supportive of the crackdowns.

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-polit...

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orochimaaru 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes. They are. The very fact that you had such a flood of people coming across the border from 2021-2024, were given asylum and funding to remain in the US means democrats are supporting them at the expense of citizens.

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pron 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

How much of an unprecedented "flood" the post-covid rise in border encounters (and subsequent bump in expulsions) actually was is debatable, and it was Republicans who blocked a bill to fund expanded border security.

More importantly, the claim that immigration (illegal or otherwise) is at the expense of citizens is at the very least highly debatable, and not what most economists think. E.g. here's Paul Krugman:

> Until the 1990s many economists, myself included, believed that immigrants with limited formal education were substituting for native-born workers. As a consequence, we thought that immigrants would put downward pressure on the wages of less educated native-born workers. Most of us changed our minds in the face of evidence that immigrants were taking very different jobs from native-born workers with similar education. This meant that they were complements, not substitutes, even for low-education native-born workers, and probably raised their wages. For example, more immigrants to pick fruits and vegetables translates into lower food prices and higher real wages for native-born workers.

That is not to say that Americans must accept illegal immigration or even legal immigration, but the claim that it's at their expense is far from established.

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AnimalMuppet 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

True, but to be fair the stream didn't start in 2021.

	▲	orochimaaru 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It actually did. It was stopped by Trump by adding remain in Mexico restrictions during Covid. The Democrats just needed to find a way to extend that instead of lifting it. Granted the Obama years and years before were an issue as well. But Obama was a lot more efficient at deportation. Tom Homan was obama’s top person for removal.

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SmirkingRevenge 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The country isn't like a life boat stranded at sea where we have to ration our resources and rescuing another survivor is choice to run out of supplies faster. This way of thinking needs to die.

Immigration - legal and illegal - high skill and low skill - are net positives to the economy and even our social safety-net programs. American citizens come out way on top in this whole deal by far.

And if you think giving immigrants a few bucks to get started is expensive, it's a pittance next to the costs of mass detention and deportation. They increased ICE's budget by 15x and it's now the most well funded law enforcement agency in the world.

It's true that border crossings surged in the Biden years. The apprehension rate however, was the same as Trump's. The vast majority of illegal border crossings end up in ejection or deportation. Over the whole 4 year term I think we have something around 2.5 million people who were actually released into the country while their cases go through the immigration courts.

And there's some research out there that suggests the immigration surge helped stave off a post-covid recession and softened inflation relative to the rest of the world

Now under Trump, we're projected to have the yearly first decline in population in ages.

	▲	orochimaaru 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The problem with legal immigration is misuse rather than unfunded liabilities. My point is simply - put it to a vote that the US will accept a certain limited number of people who walk across the border every year and the states will be required to fund them. Codify it into law if that’s what needs to happen. Or maybe we just need better labor reform for transitory foreign labor like the Arabian gulf nations. Make it a law so that citizens are aware of impacts - socially and financially. The US admits 1million legal immigrants every year. This is in addition to people on a valid work visa and folks who are illegally here.