The Donald's fence - have you seen the one in CA?

[zatoman]

We need to control our borders. That is rule #1 as a nation.

[The Wall]

Just post snipers on the border and start picking them off as they come across. A few rifles would be much cheaper than building a wall. Would create jobs for veterans.

Disgusting.

Not a serious statement. Do you actually think that would be allowed or even considered by the state? Almost as ridiculous as building a wall. If they enforced the laws we already have we wouldn't need a wall.

[The Annoyed Man]

Trump's proposal is NOT single tiered. He isn't suggesting that a wall ONLY is required.

Guys.... there most certainly IS a way to secure our borders, send back illegals and enforce current laws. Don't tell me these things are not possible, they are!

All that is needed is for the public to develop a 'stomach' for it.

Even if we don't succeed completely at first, we MUST make a start. Most of Washington and a good portion of the populace need to be taken out to the 'woodshed'! Our Country can not continue down this path!

Some hard decisions need to be made....... and then implemented.

Sure they are possible, but like you pointed it, it requires the stomach for it. However, the nation won't develop the stomach for it because we (the collective "editorial we") are soft, and more than half of the electorate has lost a due reverence for the rule of law.....and it keeps getting worse, not better.

But I confess to being conflicted. I WANT the law followed, but as I pointed out in my previous interminable post, I fully understand what motivates a Mexican parent trying to raise children in poverty on the "wrong" side of the border to take desperate measures to try and better his family....even illegally. I'm not without compassion for that person. I don't want him to break our laws, but in his shoes, I might do the same thing.

Why? Because:

1. under current law, it is TOO hard to get here legally; and
2. gov't is so massively inefficient that it makes a difficult process that much more difficult and drawn out.

If someone has trouble believing (A) or (B), just ask someone who actually DID come here legally from south of the border just how complicated it is, and then ask them how long it took for the process to complete. And meanwhile, gov't is actually encouraging people to come here illegally. So what possible incentive is there left for an immigrant from south of the border to do it legally? You can't blame it entirely on democrats, because even republicans are in on the scam to essentially invalidate American immigration law by repeatedly passing "amnesties", etc., etc. So what is an illegal immigrant from south of the border to think? He sees an essentially desultory effort by the US gov't to pay lip service to border protection. He sees a deeply divided American electorate on the issue of what's to be done about it. He sees a justice system that essentially abdicates any responsibility for punishing and/or deporting illegals. The message is clear as a bell: "COME ON OVER!!!"

If we want control over this thing, I think we need to make it a WHOLE lot easier, less expensive, and less time consuming to enter the country legally. If we can do that, then when a potential immigrant balances the effort, cost, time, and danger of dealing with a coyote and sneaking across the border with a 100 lb pack of weed or coke on his back on the one hand, against the ease, cost benefit, reduced time, and lowered risk of entering legally, on the other hand, they will begin to do just that - enter legally.

And when they enter legally, we can account for them, weed out and reject the criminals, tax the legal ones, and subject them more easily to the same laws the rest of us are subject to. The proportion of legal immigrants who are good decent people will eventually so outnumber criminals who came in illegally, that it will be a safe bet that criminal aliens can be safely deported without arousing the ire of all the bleeding hearts.

I want to be clear.... I am NOT in favor of an open border. But the current system is badly broken, and the way it is currently configured, it requires a political will that this nation no longer has in order to be effective. Therefore, it will never be effective again. We don't have the will to enforce the law, and we don't have the will to grant amnesty (which I don't think would be a good idea either). The path of least resistance is what, realistically, we can get done - and that is to make legal entry easy enough that people will choose doing that over choosing to risk their lives in the desert southwest.

[flintknapper]

Trump's proposal is NOT single tiered. He isn't suggesting that a wall ONLY is required.

Guys.... there most certainly IS a way to secure our borders, send back illegals and enforce current laws. Don't tell me these things are not possible, they are!

All that is needed is for the public to develop a 'stomach' for it.

Even if we don't succeed completely at first, we MUST make a start. Most of Washington and a good portion of the populace need to be taken out to the 'woodshed'! Our Country can not continue down this path!

Some hard decisions need to be made....... and then implemented.

Sure they are possible, but like you pointed it, it requires the stomach for it. However, the nation won't develop the stomach for it because we (the collective "editorial we") are soft, and more than half of the electorate has lost a due reverence for the rule of law.....and it keeps getting worse, not better.

But I confess to being conflicted. I WANT the law followed, but as I pointed out in my previous interminable post, I fully understand what motivates a Mexican parent trying to raise children in poverty on the "wrong" side of the border to take desperate measures to try and better his family....even illegally. I'm not without compassion for that person. I don't want him to break our laws, but in his shoes, I might do the same thing.

Why? Because:

1. under current law, it is TOO hard to get here legally; and
2. gov't is so massively inefficient that it makes a difficult process that much more difficult and drawn out.

If someone has trouble believing (A) or (B), just ask someone who actually DID come here legally from south of the border just how complicated it is, and then ask them how long it took for the process to complete. And meanwhile, gov't is actually encouraging people to come here illegally. So what possible incentive is there left for an immigrant from south of the border to do it legally? You can't blame it entirely on democrats, because even republicans are in on the scam to essentially invalidate American immigration law by repeatedly passing "amnesties", etc., etc. So what is an illegal immigrant from south of the border to think? He sees an essentially desultory effort by the US gov't to pay lip service to border protection. He sees a deeply divided American electorate on the issue of what's to be done about it. He sees a justice system that essentially abdicates any responsibility for punishing and/or deporting illegals. The message is clear as a bell: "COME ON OVER!!!"

If we want control over this thing, I think we need to make it a WHOLE lot easier, less expensive, and less time consuming to enter the country legally. If we can do that, then when a potential immigrant balances the effort, cost, time, and danger of dealing with a coyote and sneaking across the border with a 100 lb pack of weed or coke on his back on the one hand, against the ease, cost benefit, reduced time, and lowered risk of entering legally, on the other hand, they will begin to do just that - enter legally.

And when they enter legally, we can account for them, weed out and reject the criminals, tax the legal ones, and subject them more easily to the same laws the rest of us are subject to. The proportion of legal immigrants who are good decent people will eventually so outnumber criminals who came in illegally, that it will be a safe bet that criminal aliens can be safely deported without arousing the ire of all the bleeding hearts.

I want to be clear.... I am NOT in favor of an open border. But the current system is badly broken, and the way it is currently configured, it requires a political will that this nation no longer has in order to be effective. Therefore, it will never be effective again. We don't have the will to enforce the law, and we don't have the will to grant amnesty (which I don't think would be a good idea either). The path of least resistance is what, realistically, we can get done - and that is to make legal entry easy enough that people will choose doing that over choosing to risk their lives in the desert southwest.

TAM,

We can not be the worlds's savior. We can not continue to allow illegals to pour into the country by the hundreds (sometimes thousands) every single day. The purpose of legal immigration is to control the number of people adding to the populace as well as vetting them so we don't end up with undesirables. That is the right and responsibility of any sovereign Nation. It must take precedent over 'compassion'. As a nation we can (and do) come to the aid of other countries and cultures. I can think of no more benevolent country than the U.S.A.' I also can think of no more gullible nation... than ourselves.

It is NOT the fault of the USA that Mexico is corrupt and continues have a large portion of its people living in poverty. It's not like they don't have natural resources, we support their tourist industry, we buy their exports, we send and operate OUR businesses over there, etc. etc...

It is high time that Mexico fix Mexico's problems, but they won't. So it is time to play hard ball and make them. There will be time for more 'compassion' after we get things straightened out here. Our nation is about to bleed to death, it must stop. It is not our duty or obligation to insure that no one ever lives in poverty, only to do what we can, as we can...with respect to the laws that govern us all.

Immigration reform, OK, but I submit it should NEVER be easy, just reasonably attainable. Of course, at the current influx rate of illegals... it won't be necessary anyway, since Mexico (and South America) will simply have expanded themselves into the U.S.

No one is stopping any person or organization from donating to the impoverished of other countries. But we don't need to allow unfettered (and illegal) access through our borders under the guise that 'compassion' is the answer. It is not sustainable.

[K.Mooneyham]

I will not post the name of the operation because it will undoubtedly offend some, and you can easily find that out for yourself, and the name itself is of no real importance. However, in the 1950s, President Eisenhower had a significant program for tackling illegal immigration, and made a massive dent in it. The goal CAN be achieved, it has been done before, and it doesn't require a wall along the entire border (though I think that sections of wall, properly built, in select areas, can be helpful). If the American people would require the government to get serious about the subject, it can be done. There is a difference between a nation that slowly changes over a long period of time, and one that ceases to exist in a rather short span because it didn't enforce it's national identity, border integrity, and sovereignty. And with less folks uncontrollably coming across the border, there will also be less criminals coming uncontrollably across the border, and then perhaps that will lessen the chance of some member of this forum being forced into a defensive use of their firearm at some future point.

[psijac]

Build a Fence On Mexico's Southern Border, and Annex all of mexico as a Part of Texas. Reunification we'll call it

[The Annoyed Man]

Trump's proposal is NOT single tiered. He isn't suggesting that a wall ONLY is required.

Guys.... there most certainly IS a way to secure our borders, send back illegals and enforce current laws. Don't tell me these things are not possible, they are!

All that is needed is for the public to develop a 'stomach' for it.

Even if we don't succeed completely at first, we MUST make a start. Most of Washington and a good portion of the populace need to be taken out to the 'woodshed'! Our Country can not continue down this path!

Some hard decisions need to be made....... and then implemented.

Sure they are possible, but like you pointed it, it requires the stomach for it. However, the nation won't develop the stomach for it because we (the collective "editorial we") are soft, and more than half of the electorate has lost a due reverence for the rule of law.....and it keeps getting worse, not better.

But I confess to being conflicted. I WANT the law followed, but as I pointed out in my previous interminable post, I fully understand what motivates a Mexican parent trying to raise children in poverty on the "wrong" side of the border to take desperate measures to try and better his family....even illegally. I'm not without compassion for that person. I don't want him to break our laws, but in his shoes, I might do the same thing.

Why? Because:

1. under current law, it is TOO hard to get here legally; and
2. gov't is so massively inefficient that it makes a difficult process that much more difficult and drawn out.

If someone has trouble believing (A) or (B), just ask someone who actually DID come here legally from south of the border just how complicated it is, and then ask them how long it took for the process to complete. And meanwhile, gov't is actually encouraging people to come here illegally. So what possible incentive is there left for an immigrant from south of the border to do it legally? You can't blame it entirely on democrats, because even republicans are in on the scam to essentially invalidate American immigration law by repeatedly passing "amnesties", etc., etc. So what is an illegal immigrant from south of the border to think? He sees an essentially desultory effort by the US gov't to pay lip service to border protection. He sees a deeply divided American electorate on the issue of what's to be done about it. He sees a justice system that essentially abdicates any responsibility for punishing and/or deporting illegals. The message is clear as a bell: "COME ON OVER!!!"

If we want control over this thing, I think we need to make it a WHOLE lot easier, less expensive, and less time consuming to enter the country legally. If we can do that, then when a potential immigrant balances the effort, cost, time, and danger of dealing with a coyote and sneaking across the border with a 100 lb pack of weed or coke on his back on the one hand, against the ease, cost benefit, reduced time, and lowered risk of entering legally, on the other hand, they will begin to do just that - enter legally.

And when they enter legally, we can account for them, weed out and reject the criminals, tax the legal ones, and subject them more easily to the same laws the rest of us are subject to. The proportion of legal immigrants who are good decent people will eventually so outnumber criminals who came in illegally, that it will be a safe bet that criminal aliens can be safely deported without arousing the ire of all the bleeding hearts.

I want to be clear.... I am NOT in favor of an open border. But the current system is badly broken, and the way it is currently configured, it requires a political will that this nation no longer has in order to be effective. Therefore, it will never be effective again. We don't have the will to enforce the law, and we don't have the will to grant amnesty (which I don't think would be a good idea either). The path of least resistance is what, realistically, we can get done - and that is to make legal entry easy enough that people will choose doing that over choosing to risk their lives in the desert southwest.

TAM,

We can not be the worlds's savior. We can not continue to allow illegals to pour into the country by the hundreds (sometimes thousands) every single day. The purpose of legal immigration is to control the number of people adding to the populace as well as vetting them so we don't end up with undesirables. That is the right and responsibility of any sovereign Nation. It must take precedent over 'compassion'. As a nation we can (and do) come to the aid of other countries and cultures. I can think of no more benevolent country than the U.S.A.' I also can think of no more gullible nation... than ourselves.

It is NOT the fault of the USA that Mexico is corrupt and continues have a large portion of its people living in poverty. It's not like they don't have natural resources, we support their tourist industry, we buy their exports, we send and operate OUR businesses over there, etc. etc...

It is high time that Mexico fix Mexico's problems, but they won't. So it is time to play hard ball and make them. There will be time for more 'compassion' after we get things straightened out here. Our nation is about to bleed to death, it must stop. It is not our duty or obligation to insure that no one ever lives in poverty, only to do what we can, as we can...with respect to the laws that govern us all.

Immigration reform, OK, but I submit it should NEVER be easy, just reasonably attainable. Of course, at the current influx rate of illegals... it won't be necessary anyway, since Mexico (and South America) will simply have expanded themselves into the U.S.

No one is stopping any person or organization from donating to the impoverished of other countries. But we don't need to allow unfettered (and illegal) access through our borders under the guise that 'compassion' is the answer. It is not sustainable.

Flint, I'm actually agreeing with you on principle. My point is that either something has to give, or the status quo remains.

I think you and I can agree on the following bullet points:

1. The current law is not being enforced.
2. This is because of a lack of political will to enforce it.
3. There has not been the political will to enforce the law since about the 1970s or so, when communist farm-worker union organizers began mau-mauing the flack-catchers along with the representatives of other radical groups demanding a restructuring of American society.
4. We currently have a lack of political will to enforce existing law because the political left dominates the nation's political landscape; AND because, even within the (allegedly) conservative Republican Party (which is beginning to crumble), there is dissent over what should be done.
5. The left dominates the nation's political landscape because they control the nation's media, and even (allegedly) conservative politicians want to be popular. Therefore, the message of enforcing the law is unpopular, and only those politicians who don't give a cup of warm spit for their popularity with the leftist media (but I repeat myself) dare to speak the truth about immigration law.
6. The "law and order" Republican Party is crumbling because the national leadership has broken faith with the grass roots.
7. Therefore, nothing gets done - one way or the other. So the status quo of non-enforcement of the law continues. We don't have to like it, but this is pretty much fact. The left sets the narrative, and the right lacks the numbers to effectively resist that narrative. And the vast middle ground doesn't really care one way or the other, as long as they get to buy the latest gadgets, watch the latest episodes of The Batchelor, and suckle at the gov't teat for the state's "benevolence". And they don't mind giving up incremental amounts of personal liberty to have these things. So what does such a feckless population care about illegal immigration? Heck, even if they're kinda sorta against it, many of them don't have a full understanding of how we got to this point. Why? Because they can't be bothered to hold their government accountable for anything. They don't pay attention.
8. Lastly, if WE get nothing done, will Mexico reform itself? No it won't, for the same reason that the chronic welfare recipient won't go get a job until you cut off their welfare. Since we will continue indefinitely to provide a safety valve for Mexico's corrupt gov't, Mexico will continue to be governed corruptly.

My guess is that you would agree with my description of the status quo above. So that leaves the question: "what can we realistically get done?" And that question suggests a second question: "Is it realistic to expect that such a feckless American population will suddenly wake up and begin taking things seriously.......at least without some kind of catastrophic failure of society forcing them to wake up and smell the coffee?" I think we can agree that, all things considered, it would be preferable to solve the problem without having to experience a complete social collapse. I think we can agree that being prepared for such a collapse is a good thing (which is why I am a "prepper"), but that if problems can be solved equitably for all parties concerned without such a collapse, that would be preferable.

I realize that ever since the virus of socialism first began to infect our body politic 120 years ago, every compromise with the left has resulted in shifting the middle ground further to the left. (The left realizes this too, BTW, which is why they are willing to play the long game, which the right has trouble accepting as reality.) But that said, we find ourselves in an impossible dilemma......

1. We lack the political will to enforce existing law.
2. We lack the political will to change the law.
3. We lack the ability to ignore the problem because it really does directly affect individual citizens.
4. Even if we, by some miracle, were to change the law to reflect the realities, we wouldn't enforce THAT law either, just like we have failed to enforce all previous changes to the law, because the left media (but I repeat myself) would follow its masters and criticize the new law as unjust, and DC politicians, in their disconnect from the will of CITIZENS will cave in to the media........like they always do.

So..... What to do? I proposed a way out. I don't like it, but the alternative is "status quo continues" for all of the above listed reasons. Is either of us happy with the status quo? No......at least, I'm not. My thought was that by making legal immigration easier, more people would immigrate legally.....and then we would at least have some control over the situation, which we do NOT have right now. And as long as the status quo continues, we will continue to NOT have that control. Does it shift things further to the left? Yes, it does, but........as long as it is enforced.......it gives some control. But I will also admit that it isn't any more likely to be enforced than any previous immigration laws. So the bottom line is, we are screwed.

This is yet one more reason why I am very pessimistic about the nation's future. I think the Roman example I described above is exactly where we are headed......NOT because we are some kind of empire, but because, like that empire, we refuse to protect our border integrity. Which is why my personal long term forecast describes a situation where the nation devolves into semiautonomous regions of like-minded states which band together for mutual support, and eventually become independent nations. When there is no respect for the rule of law in a nation the size of the United States of America, it cannot long continue as the UNITED States, and it will become Balkanized.

The current lack of political will to enforce immigration law is both a symptom and a cause of this Balkanization.

[Javier730]

There is no arguing of any going on that I see and I know I posted my own opinion, but this topic is beginning to violate forum rules.

TexasCHLforum Rules:
11. Off-topic posts/threads: Since they tend to cause the most problems for other boards, our "off-topic" sub-forum is not an "anything goes" area. Absolutely no discussions of immigration/border security, abortion, race matters, or any other hot-button political issues. (Gun-related political issues can be discussed in the Gun and/or Self-Defense Related Political Issues forum.)

[The Annoyed Man]

There is no arguing of any going on that I see and I know I posted my own opinion, but this topic is beginning to violate forum rules.

TexasCHLforum Rules:
11. Off-topic posts/threads: Since they tend to cause the most problems for other boards, our "off-topic" sub-forum is not an "anything goes" area. Absolutely no discussions of immigration/border security, abortion, race matters, or any other hot-button political issues. (Gun-related political issues can be discussed in the Gun and/or Self-Defense Related Political Issues forum.)

Thank you for the reminder. Actually, the entire thread then violates that rule from the top down. Shame on me for forgetting that rule.