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Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

As others point out, in the DDR one could not LEAVE. The main reason we have to have large sweeps for people coming here illegally is because administrations other than Obama and Trump turned a blind eye and did little enforcement. The Biden admin went to far as being negligent in their enforcement, so now there is a lot of backlog.

There are very few if any country that does not enforce immigration rules. Let any American try to live illegally in Canada. Sure, they can live under the radar like you can in Mexico too, but if they catch up to you, goodbye. Mexico doesn’t even treat its own returning citizens well. If you have not been a taxpayer you have to assume many things tax paying Mexicans get for free like education and healthcare. People act like we’re an aberration for enforcing immigration laws. We’re not. Go check out South Africa and see how they treat illegals.

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It doesn't bode well for the US to compare itself to others in this regard.

The one place where any hard working person was welcome.

What is the protectionism even for? The US doesn't have a great social system that can be exploited.

Those"illegals"? They were making sandwiches and cleaning toilets, and this is their reward.

I prefer the Japanese way and the Swiss way. Their citizens come first, foreigners come second. The needs of citizens come before the need for cheap labor. Every job is a decent job. No job is so bad that they can only get illegals to do them.

Yes we can have legal immigrants that fill skills gaps. Thats not an issue for 95% of Americans so long as it’s done justly (and not simply a way to pay workers less).

It's less about what they did after arriving and more about border violation itself.

Immigration has an official legal process to follow.

Why is that so bad? If the law needs to change - fine, change it. But allowing people to break the law is to enable collapse of the rule of law.

Ah, the law. Did the Stasi break the law?

Forgive my comparison, but it illustrates the problem.

The law cannot be allowed to become lawless itself, depriving the people of their rights to fast track the pre-determined punishment.

What country does not have immigration laws? We’re not unique in having them nor in enforcing them. Check out Taiwan, China, Singapore, Japan, Egypt, South Africa, Chile, Peru, Canada, etc.

None of those have poorly trained, masked, armed kidnappers snatching people off the streets and shooting their citizens.

None of those are needed for enforcing immigration law. This is a choice, supported by a lot of people who should have known better.

Well, if previous presidencies hadn’t been derelict in their duties (e-verify, timely removals, ineligibility to benefits etc) we would not have been in this pickle. But, especially the Biden admin they _removed_ existing barriers, worked with NGOs to up the numbers of migrants arriving, many ending up illegal, means that there is a large backlog that normally would not need those measures had previous admins not been derelict. In the last 30 years only Obama and Trump enforced immigration laws.

Try just walking into Mexico and staying there indefinitely. You'll have it far worse ... they don't play around.

Has anyone tried that? What happened? I imagine they were deported back to the USA, and probably had a nicer experience than USA deportees.

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