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Comment by nxm | Hacker News Reader

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That may be, but everyone is afraid to openly criticize it because they're afraid of being accused as racists.

It's not just talking about it. It's how and also how much you talk about it.

Well, some people are far more affected by it than most people. I'm in an area with a huge influx of Somalis in proportion to our population and I've heard many vague hushed conversations about it but our newspapers are filled with stories about how great our diversity is.

What are the specific factors that make you, in measurable terms, a person affected by this issue? And from your perspective, what makes this issue so significant compared to others?

what planet are you living on? “border control with pathways for immigration” (and variants) polls consistently high among both US parties

Except for the majority of voters who elected Trump.

> It’s not, it’s only the far-left’s desire

Bernie Sanders (since you're presumably talking about the US) doesn't even support open immigration or H-1Bs, let alone open borders.

Bernie isn't the only member of the left and has positions that are a little idiosyncratic among that group; this is one area where he diverges.

Structurally speaking, being left and pro-open borders is incoherent. The left is about collective power controlling labor supply and using it to tamp down corporate overreach. Open borders and H1B that allow corporations to side-step local worker bargaining power are squarely antithetical to being Left.

I think 'liberal progressives' that are mainly concerned with identity representation, not working class power, are rhetorically bundled as 'far-left'. To people who buy that, Bernie Sanders (a Leftist) and Kamala Harris (a Third Way liberal progressive) are both far-left. It's incoherent but rhetorically potent.

I'm not sure I've heard anyone claim that Harris is "far left" (other than people arguing against her during an active campaign, which doesn't really say much)

Perfectly encapsulating how silly it is that so many posters in this thread are trying to make immigration policy a left vs right thing.

Well certainly the two US political parties associated with “left” and “right” certainly have very different immigration policies.

Indeed, but the posturing/behavior of the USA's two, not-particularly-diverse political parties should probably not define the meaning of the words "left" and "right" (in a political context). There is more to politics than Democrats and Republicans.

The far left as represented by Joe Biden’s administration.

Biden wasn't "far left". The "far left" in US politics is basically Bernie Sanders and AOC's "squad", neither of which have ever come close to running the country.

On immigration there was no daylight between Biden’s views and theirs.

The Biden admin was not far-left. Biden was basically a mainline Liberal Democrat and much closer to the center than far-left. The far-left basically hates mainline Liberal Democrats like Biden.

nobody wakes up in syria and thinks "drowning in the mediterranean sounds like a fun way to fulfill the far-left's desire." people leave because the alternative is worse, and the alternative being worse is often something the west had a hand in. quick tour of the "desire" pipeline: iraq 2003, invaded over weapons that didn't exist, army disbanded, vacuum becomes ISIS. syria, proxy-funded civil war, 6+ million refugees, the actual engine of the 2015 europe wave. libya 2011, NATO topples gaddafi with no plan for after, failed state and migration corridor. afghanistan, twenty year occupation then an abrupt exit. the migration is downstream of the bombing. you don't get to set the kitchen on fire and then file a complaint about people leaving the building

and that's before the boring stuff that drives migration everywhere and always, wage gaps, no economy, dead farmland, family already abroad, the same reasons europeans showed up in the americas by the tens of millions without anyone filing it under "desire." you can have a real argument about capacity and integration, how many people a system absorbs and how fast, thats legitimate. but "it's the far-left's desire" mistakes the symptom for the cause, the people making that trip have their own reasons that have nothing to do with anyone's domestic politics

Ooo ooo don’t forget the US’s hand in the South American drug trade, or toppling numerous South American governments because we didn’t like who was in charge, even if it had been done democratically!

To think “the west” could make so many messes and not worry about cleaning up after ourselves - the absolute hubris!

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