Immigration....is there no more room for political asylium claimants?

[CathyA]

Well, I do live thoughtfully....which does make me think about the future and how our decisions can affect things that we can't reverse. We'll have to agree to disagree about some things. But that doesn't make me "tragically selfish".

[jp1]

Before you decide that this country is "too full" I'd suggest some world travel. People who think our urban areas are densely populated have obviously never been somewhere like Hong Kong. An entire city that is as dense and crazy full of people as Times Square... And as I suggested before, some internal travel to other parts of our country. Otherwise I'm afraid my original assessment stands.

[mschrisgo2]

As for the housing issue... in the general area where I live, there are at least 3 large shopping malls that are almost totally defunct, i.e. no longer function as a shopping mall. I believe there are some great uses for these developments... housing for seniors, for one. Some of the large expanse of paved parking lot could be used as a real regional transit station, since the bus routes already service the area... and so on. For minds greater than my own to develop.

As for the immigrants, I hear continual reference to "picking crops" much of which is mechanized now.

However, these people are the ones who staff the hotels and resorts and airports (I'm sure including Trump's establishments).
Without that labor, vacations will be a different experience.

[ApatheticNoMore]

https://www.vox.com/2019/3/18/182709...age-workers-us

to believe this when experience teaches otherwise would be both extremely delusional and extremely self-destructive. It would mean I could relax in the certainty I could find work. But I KNOW this is not true. I also literally see salaries falling in recruiter contacts I get recently (so I get recruiter contacts, that means I can find work, well no ... but it's not a bad sign per se of course, but I got them when I was unemployed, and well I played that game but was still unemployed). But anyway it's like wow salaries are falling ... and I don't mean inflation adjusted salaries but nominal salaries.

All I can do to hope to survive is keep pushing, and if that doesn't work accept things have not gone my way to put it mildly, that I have to be unemployed, maybe I have to be dependent, maybe try to do something else, maybe fail at that too because I'm really too old. I'm not marginally attached to working and need to be enticed into the labor market, I am attached to working (doesn't mean I love it, I surely don't, but it definitely beats unemployment), but if I must stoically accept that there is no work for me, then what can you do? I hope to be stoic next time. Better than I managed last time which was not well at all. So the idea of people needing to be enticed into the labor market is beyond my imagining, who the heck are these people anyway?

Demand better wages? Are you literally insane!?! If I was unionized in solidarity maybe, I believe in that. But I'm not. So myself, no, that's crazy talk! And the ever dropping wages the recruiters quote me, if I was more desperate (ie this contract didn't have a while to go still but it does), then it would be sure sign me up! (and understand that this is all just 6 month contract work and the like, it's not full time jobs either)

[JaneV2.0]

Picking crops isn't the only option for newly arrived and less skilled people. We desperately need infrastructure replacement and repair, and there are plenty of jobs opening up in the green economy, as well as jobs in the service industry. If we ever get our environmental act together (and repair all the damage done by the current regime), immigrants could help with clean up efforts.

Sanctuary cities refuse to be a surrogate for ICE, the American Gestapo--they draw the line at having their police officers doing the dirty work of rooting out and terrorizing the undocumented. We need comprehensive immigration reform and some kind of guest worker program.

My concept of simple living doesn't involve pulling up the drawbridge and sitting back in my castle; it's even more Jane-centric than that. I've done my part for ZPG, and in other ways; I'm not interested in proving my bonafides by denying others entry to this country.

We can let our population dwindle, I guess--Baby Boomers will be dying out by the droves soon--and our economy stagnate, but I don't see how we benefit from that.

[gimmethesimplelife]

I will be crossing into Nogales, Mexico, in a few weeks, provided that the US/Mexico border does remain open, something of which I don't have a lot of faith. But we'll see. Obviously I won't be privy to things going on behind the scenes, but I will be able to see the line of asylum applicants - last June they were sitting nest to the line of folks with documents to the enter the US - Mexican day trippers with border crosser cards and those with US passports or Permanent Resident cards.

And I'm guessing that due to Trump and the general hysteria at the border it will likely take longer to cross - no biggie, I save so much money in Mexico over US prices that I'll be happy to take a long book with me - Gone With the Wind or maybe War and Peace - to crack open while I'm in the unnecessarily slow moving line due to US border paranoia. Plus it's a chance to pass out money to beggars and to do some ambassador work for the next US citizen fleeing to Mexico to save money - I'll apologize for Trump to each and every person I encounter - in both English and Spanish. It's what little I can do to smooth the path for the next US citizen to save money and keep some goodwill going (hopefully). Rob

[pinkytoe]

Was reading this morning about how many US policies involving Central America decades ago let to the sad state those countries are in now. CIA and Chiquita is only one.

[bae]

Sanctuary cities refuse to be a surrogate for ICE, the American Gestapo--they draw the line at having their police officers doing the dirty work of rooting out and terrorizing the undocumented.

There's also the unfunded-mandate aspect of the matter. My county is right on the border, and a lot of people come through here. We have only a handful of law enforcement officers, and enforcing federal border regulations would make it impossible for them to do the local jobs we ask of them. So my county, for better or worse, follows sanctuary jurisdiction policies - no warrant, no holding for ICE. We don't have the budget or facilities or staff to do so even if we wanted to.

[ApatheticNoMore]

Of course illegal immigration raids at places of employment actually do take place in sanctuary cities, given what I hear about what is going on locally. I don't know, but I suspect it's a lot less cut and dried than saying one is a sanctuary city. Sometimes much of local government seems to be largely public relations, and I guess being a "sanctuary city" is good PR.

[jp1]

Of course illegal immigration raids at places of employment actually do take place in sanctuary cities, given what I hear about what is going on locally. I don't know, but I suspect it's a lot less cut and dried than saying one is a sanctuary city. Sometimes much of local government seems to be largely public relations, and I guess being a "sanctuary city" is good PR.

I don't think sanctuary cities provide sanctuary in the sense of the way Julian Assange has gotten sanctuary in a foreign embassy in London, but rather, just that undocumented immigrants in them don't have to fear that local law enforcement is a threat to them. Studies have shown that there are less hit and run accidents in sanctuary cities because undocumented people don't have to fear deportation if they caused a fender/bender. Or are a victim of domestic abuse who is afraid to call the cops out of fear of deportation.