darkknight109 posted...Rasmoh posted...
How is it not equally callous to force our own citizens to bear the burden of unchecked illegal immigration? You do realize that lower and middle class people are the ones who have to deal with the plethora of negatives associated with people illegally entering our country, right? Is it not callous tell someone that they have to deal with increased taxes, even more thinly stretched social programs, increased crime, suppressed wages, etc or they're evil?
So, a couple of things here:
1) Illegal immigrants are net payers into the social welfare system. They pay things like sales tax and payroll tax, just like everyone else, and thereby help to pay for programs that they are ineligible to take advantage of, such as Social Security and Medicare. A study - commissioned by the Trump administration, who then attempted to suppress the results when they discovered that it didn't support their views - determined that illegal immigrants over the last decade paid about $63 billion more into government coffers than they cost. In other words, if, tomorrow, every illegal immigrant in America decided to self-deport, the government would suffer a net loss of about $7 billion a year. The idea that illegal immigrants are a drain on social programs is pure fantasy.
2) The relationship between illegal immigration and crime has been extensively studied and an overwhelming majority of analyses indicate that illegal immigrants commit crime at markedly lower rates than native-born citizens. This, again, makes logical sense. The majority of those immigrating are doing so for the improved economic opportunity the US offers; to that end, it is not in their interest to risk coming to the attention of the authorities and being deported by committing crimes. An influx of illegal immigration has actually been noted to result in a decrease in violent crime.
You can read more about it here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1745-9125.12175
3) The idea that immigrants suppress wages is the only one of the points you brought up that is at least debatable. Studies have shown mixed results, but the general trend is that wage suppression as a result of illegal immigration is either extremely minor or non-existent. In addition, illegal immigrants tend to do work in areas that native-born citizens refuse to work in (such as agriculture), either because of low pay, the brutal nature of the job, or both.
4) Even if you disregard all of the above, you didn't actually address the point raised against you, which is this:
Even if you acknowledge that these people are criminals and the accepted punishment for their crime is deportation, that does not mean you need to be cruel and callous in your application of that punishment. You can deport someone without being a heartless asshole to them, as pretty much every prior administration has managed to prove.
Wait, how do they pay payroll tax when they have no SSN? They're forced to work under the table because of that
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Not removing this until Pat Benatar is in Super Smash Bros. (Started 12/19/2017)