America cages innocent people who don't have certain pieces of paper. Families are broken up and children separated from
Mothers.
But yea, long overdue monkey rights.
But yea, long overdue monkey rights.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21100636 and marked it off-topic.
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We show compassion for animals, and also brutalize them. We care for the environment, and destroy it. We fight for human rights, and ignore human rights, and actively abuse human rights. A lot more people need to move towards the good sides of those spectra. This is a small and local movement, probably not one that will have a major effect; we shouldn't let it distract us, obviously, but I think we can still appreciate it.
It's reasonable to say that the overall efforts towards things should be proportional to the amount and degree of injustice, but it's not useful to mock people who are concerned about a specific problem.
If we were to follow your logic we'd never make any progress in any laws.
But I suspect your lack of support for the rights in this case is not actually connected to the false equivalence you have drawn to undermine it.
They are not innocent, they are trespassers.
edit: I debated posting and then deleting this with myself quite a lot, but I'm going to leave it because I think it's important to consider more than just first order effects to protect child welfare, which is something we (I hope) all want.
In the case of legitimate refugees seeking asylum, fleeing war-torn areas, the worst case outcome of ending up in a prison in the US may be a better outcome than near-certain death at home, which is why asylum seekers do so, and why the program exists in the first place. I think very few people in the US actually internalize and recognize this.
It's also important to remember that some half of all illegal immigrants in the US are visa overstays, and assuming they did intend to leave when they originally spoke with a border guard, merely being in the US while out of status is not a criminal matter, it's a civil matter, like a traffic ticket. This was addressed in 2012 in Arizona v. USA. Congress has repeatedly refused to criminalize unlawful presence. It's a criminal matter if you lie to a border guard, if you enter without inspection, or try to re-enter after deportation. [1]
[1] https://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2017/mar/15/fl...
"Government custody" in that case will most likely not involve being crammed into an overcrowded cage without sufficient food, blankets, or sanitation for weeks. When we get angry about border detention today, it's not because it exists, as it has for decades. It's because the way detainees are treated has changed suddenly and dramatically for the worse.
And there's a huge difference between a robber bringing their baby along, and a parent struggling to get their children out of a broken nation where their health and survival are at risk. Nobody jumps the border for funsies. The law has no obligation to treat these people and bank-robbing thugs exactly the same.
Have you ever met a refugee? I suspect not. Every refugee I’ve ever met had no interest in leaving their country but felt they had to for the safety of their family. They’re well aware they’re breaking the law and the consequences they face if they get caught. But when you’re desperate even the possibility of your family being separated and caged and treated entirely inhumanely is a better prospect than sticking around a war-torn country or a dangerous political environment.
Should we jail the starving person who steals a loaf of bread? The homeless person who “camps” without a permit? The old man with cancer and without health insurance who politely and half-heartedly attempts robs a bank in order to get access to health care[1]? Maybe that last one, sadly. But my point is that desperation can make a “criminal” out of anyone.
Edit - Link to the unfortunately true story for anyone interested.
[1] https://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/nc-man-allegedly-robs...
(At the risk of wading into a topic that can easily go off the rails, I'll preface this by saying that I'm absolutely in the minority here, but...)
I really wouldn't have a problem with open borders at all. In fact, I think it makes sense from a humanitarian and an economic perspective.
We have open borders between and among the states in the U.S. and it works great. Same goes for the E.U. And the internet is basically a giant borderless market for information. I'd even go so far as to say that the internet has suffered real harm over the last decade or so as governments have been forcing internet service providers to arbitrarily "recognize" borders more frequently.
Free trade is good economic policy. Why does that somehow not apply when it comes to the free movement of people? And for the most part we actually do allow "people" to freely cross borders - as long as they're a legal person and not a natural person. A corporation can enter just about any market with an afternoon's worth of paperwork.
I'm just not sure I see the distinction that justifies the free movement of information, goods, and services but not the free movement of labor.
And, of course, economics aside, I'm one of those "crazy" people who believes that if we have the means to help someone, we should. If we have the choice between showing hospitality or hostility to an uninvited guest I'd much rather take the opportunity to make a new friend.
Where I see a lack is in jobs and job growth. But jobs will definitely be created in response to the demand created by new people. Immigrants are even better than population growth through having babies because immigrants come from a distribution of ages. So demand growth isn’t concentrated at things babies want but closer to what all people want.
Edit-this is particularly helpful to grow the social security revenue.