Lets try this. Name 2 things that the other side does that you wish your side would adopt.

Is it bad I read this in your avatar's voice?

 

What "security improvements" do you think would make any difference? @slayerxing, this conversation is only proving my point.

 

According to the platform in a previous post there's a plethora of them and yet nothing has been done.

 

Actually, Biden has delivered on that.
Fact Sheet: Border Funding in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Legislation

 

Point to the work that has been done that delivers the desired results.

 

#1 Federal Marijuana decriminalization.
#2 Increased mental health resources across the board.

 

Okay, what security program would "work" and how much would you spend on it? Or is every "security" plan just a gigantic waste of money, like it has been for decades, because your beloved big government plans can't stop immigration?

 

So your assessment is the issue is no worse than it has been in the past? In my mind it's time to claw back those allocations and start doing something else. People want to know what is being done to stem the tide and they want to know what works and what doesn't. Sending them all back to where they came from is a start. Increasing patrols and building a wall where appropriate is a start. Does it mean we will stop them all? No. Does it mean it will stem the tide? Most likely.

 

We have 5x the agents that we had in the early 90s. And we have tons of walls/fencing. So why aren't they working if that is such a good solution? Why would the next 5K extra agents work if the last 15K increase didn't?

 

Net Neutrality is an easy one that comes to mind for me. Also ending the war on drugs.

 

The infrastructure law passed last year. These things don't happen overnight. But again, you're proving my point. All of these policies pretending that more "security" will deliver the desired results are performative. If you want to make a real difference, you have to address the root causes of migration.

 

And that infrastructure does very little for any of this. If anything at all. This administration even failed to finish the pieces of the wall that were waiting to be completed. To say the wall has no effect when the border patrol in areas says otherwise is bogus.

As to the root cause it is the current policies that entice immigrants to cross the border. A backlog of hearings that will not be heard for years. Asylum claims that are dubious and of course those that do not get caught.

Meanwhile the hoards of people increase in number. The government transports them across the nation and acts as though this is no big deal.

 

Because the "wall" is a waste of money that indeed has no effect. If the "wall" mattered, why after four years of Trump building parts of the "wall" did it do nothing to stop people from coming?

I also am laughing my butt off at you claiming that the current policies are enticing immigrants to come after I literally just showed that most of the "current policies" are the Trump border policies. Again, thanks for proving my point.

 

I didn’t mean to make this a discussion of immigration. But…

So it’s about a 2000 mile border. About 500,000 people and 200,000 cars legally travel across the border every day.

it would cost a significant amount of money to effectively police that entire length and search every vehicle appropriately, and that doesn’t even count ports or illegal entry. Do it anyways.

I have always been of the opinion that one of our priorities as a major power should be keeping things in order in the Western Hemisphere. That means helping keep shit stable in Central America especially.

So honestly I would recommend taking a more aggressive interventionist stance in Central America and Mexico. Part of that is completely closing the southern border to illegal entry as much as possible. That being said we could still grant asylum to anyone that comes up and asks for it, but I think it would help win over moderate voters if they knew there was a process in place and people weren’t just wandering in.

then they could say I’m strong on the border and tout a strong America first policy in the Western Hemisphere which imo is something we need to be more proactive about. I know plenty of moderate republicans that would like all of that except for the asylum stuff.

something like that. That was off the cuff and idk maybe it’s the wrong call. Just something different would be nice.

 

There was a process in place. Trump shut it down. And his judges won't let Biden restart it. The problem is that even with the process in place, some people aren't going to make use of the process. Partially because the process is inadequate (we need immigration reform to pass Congress to offer the needed process). Partially because they don't want to jump through those hoops.

If you look at the data, we're actually catching a significantly higher percentage of illegal border crossers than in the past. But it's impossible to effectively police the entire border. It's impossible to shut it down. As you noted, the best way to address this is to deal with the root causes of migration.

But my greater point here is that no matter how much we talk about border security, it'll never be enough for the folks who truly get worked up over it (as this thread shows). They won't care about the rhetoric we're using, they won't care about the policies in place, and they won't care about whether the admin is delivering on the promises it made.

The border is a politically convenient cudgel for them to use to bludgeon us for things that are outside the control of the President. If a Republican President deals with issues at the border, all they have to do is lean into more punitive anti-immigrant measures. With a Democratic President, absent us taking the exact same PUBLIC stances as a Republican, it doesn't matter what we're doing. It's our fault.

 

no democrats will ever win over maga idiots. But I think moderate are reachable with better optics it’s all I’m saying. I hear everything you’re saying tho.

 

To you it is a waste to the border patrol and many others it is not. I get that. From my perspective unless you're willing to man the border where these issues occur it is neglecting national security.

As for people coming we have had this issue well before former President Trump. Are you going to stop them all? No. What we have now is a forget about it don't stop any of them so they come in waves and thumb their noses as they walk on by. In my opinion it is better to plug the holes and stop the sieve. You repair a dam you don't let the city flood. Same should hold true for the borders of our nation.

As for current policies laugh all you want. You've proved absolutely nothing and the border remains a sieve.

 

This really derailed the whole thread lol.

I think the wall is a waste of money. I think there are cheaper options that take advantage of our technology that would allow us to more effectively manage the border than building a static wall that will require constant repair. Its 2000 miles. That is just not a realistic length to build a wall effective enough to prevent people from just climbing over.

Right now we have 20,000 border patrol agents. That means you could literally put 10 people every 1 mile of the border. I think this is more of an issue how we use the resources we have. We are spending 15.3 billion a year on border protection right now. That should be PLENTY. That's more than the GDP of 80 countries and the total budget of 16 US states. We spend that much but we can't control the border?

Back to my original point - I think for democrats another easy way to score points on this is just spend a bit more money, they like to do that anyways, and tell everyone loudly how important it is to manage the border process in a more humanitarian way, and part of that is ensuring that people who come to this country for asylum don't have to feel like they have to sneak in.

 

Ignorance is a choice at this point. I've posted articles discussing the Trump-era policies that Trump judges are still requiring Biden to enforce. The claim that we're not stopping them from coming in is directly contradicted by the apprehension data and by the existence of Title 42. The cliché about plugging holes is empty rhetoric rather than a real solution.

You made your mind up, and facts aren't going to change your opinion. That's fine. I'm not here to change your mind. Indeed, you refusing to budge on your unfounded border opinions only supports what I was telling Slayer. So thanks for the help. Enjoy your day.