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RE: Cabinet members - Disagree. Most of his people are quite well-qualified. Yes, he aimed to get a diverse cabinet. Yes, in some cases I think he stretched a little too far in that regard and some better choices were overlooked. However, I do think there is significant merit to striving to bring some diversity to a cabinet. At the same time, every last person he brought in was vastly more qualified than some choices by the last administration. Yes, that is a low bar but I think nearly every cabinet member exceeds it by a fair margin. Did Ben Carson have <any> relevant qualifications for being HUD secretary? Betsy Devos? I could go on. Someone will now jump in with "Stop talking about Trump". But unless you will publicly admit that Trump's picks were even less qualified it is germane to the conversation.
RE: The wall, I'm not saying it wouldn't help "some" - I am saying it won't help enough to justify the cost of building it. There are better approaches. I'm all for having immigration conversations, but I'm also not convinced it is anywhere near the problem it is being presented as and we have much more important issues to address right now.
RE: the pipeline. He did kill thousands of jobs. That sucks. Doesn't mean it was the wrong move. Lots of political maneuvers kill (and create) jobs all the time. I think the refusal on both sides to acknowledge the many shades of grey on these issues is part of what is turning things into a ****-show.
The good walls in place already are 90% effective in deterring illegal entry so that's more then just helping "some". It is cost effective also when you consider that illegal immigration costs us over $100 billion a year.
So the crisis on our border right now is not much of a problem? The fact that there are already 11+ illegal aliens in our country already isn't much of a problem? What's more important than our national and economic security?
Well, see the devil is in the details here. It may be they are 90% effective at deterring illegal "border-crossing" but there is significant debate over what percentage of illegal immigration occurs via that method. They're wildly ineffective at stopping people who fly in and overstay a visa. What portion of that 100 billion is attributable to folks running across the border? Certainly not anything remotely close to 100%. Once you start to factor these things in, it starts to get a lot more tricky.
Economic and national security are quite important. Do you really think illegal immigration is the biggest threat to those right now? I find it hard to believe anyone awake for the last 1.5 years could think illegal immigration is the biggest economic threat at the moment. If it increased tenfold, it still wouldn't hold a candle to it. Just one of many examples. Personally, I think bolstering our investment into infectious disease research to make sure we aren't caught with our pants down during the next outbreak would do far more for our long-term economic security than anything related to immigration. None of this is to say immigration reform doesn't need to be addressed, just that the laser-focus some folks have on it seems....misguided. I think its driven by frustration over the fact that even one penny of tax money from people who may already be struggling would go to someone who doesn't "deserve" it. Which in one sense I get, but there is going to be noise in any system. Effective governance has to accept that, then it just becomes a matter of drawing lines.
National security....I'll spare another diatribe but the same principles apply. Could it introduce some risk? Maybe. There are certainly plenty of anecdotes of criminal activity among undocumented immigrants. Does that amount to more than a tiny drop in the bucket of the broader national security threats to the US? I seriously doubt it.
Well, see the devil is in the details here. It may be they are 90% effective at deterring illegal "border-crossing" but there is significant debate over what percentage of illegal immigration occurs via that method. They're wildly ineffective at stopping people who fly in and overstay a visa. What portion of that 100 billion is attributable to folks running across the border? Certainly not anything remotely close to 100%. Once you start to factor these things in, it starts to get a lot more tricky.
Economic and national security are quite important. Do you really think illegal immigration is the biggest threat to those right now? I find it hard to believe anyone awake for the last 1.5 years could think illegal immigration is the biggest economic threat at the moment. If it increased tenfold, it still wouldn't hold a candle to it. Just one of many examples. Personally, I think bolstering our investment into infectious disease research to make sure we aren't caught with our pants down during the next outbreak would do far more for our long-term economic security than anything related to immigration. None of this is to say immigration reform doesn't need to be addressed, just that the laser-focus some folks have on it seems....misguided. I think its driven by frustration over the fact that even one penny of tax money from people who may already be struggling would go to someone who doesn't "deserve" it. Which in one sense I get, but there is going to be noise in any system. Effective governance has to accept that, then it just becomes a matter of drawing lines.
National security....I'll spare another diatribe but the same principles apply. Could it introduce some risk? Maybe. There are certainly plenty of anecdotes of criminal activity among undocumented immigrants. Does that amount to more than a tiny drop in the bucket of the broader national security threats to the US? I seriously doubt it.
Oh geez, this crap again? No one is saying that a wall will stop the visa over stayers! That's not their purpose! They are for the border jumpers. The visa over stayers will have to be dealt with in a different way but we should ignore the border jumpers for them? At least we know who the visa over stayers are but we have no idea what kind of trash is jumping our border. Most illegals in this country are border jumpers not visa over stayers. At any given time there may be 700,000 visa over stayers while we have millions of border jumpers here. Now just what is the bigger problem?
If you don't think that illegals costing us over $100 billion a year isn't an economic threat including stealing jobs or reducing wages then I don't know what to tell you. At least it's a preventable problem if we'd just secure our border and enforce our immigration laws internally. Stop deflecting to other costs in our country also. So now you want to claim that 700,000 visa over stayers is as costly as millions of border jumpers? Did you fail at math?
So now you're deflecting to disease control? We are having a discussion about illegal immigration! Are you lost? We don't need any immigration reform aka amnesty we need to enforce the laws on the book!
It's not only illegals looking for work and benefits that are sneaking through our border but criminals and those from known terrorist countries also, thus the wall! "Undocumented immigrants"? They are illegal aliens! The fact that you have chosen to use PC language instead tells me all I need to know about you! Thanks for giving yourself away.
There are plenty of links on the crime stats of illegal aliens and it's no small potatoes. They are at the very least committing felony ID theft to gain employment or committing tax evasion and that's only the tip of the iceberg. Grab a clue! Most illegal alien sympathizers never do though, unfortunately and you're no exception.
What you would like to hear is irrelevant. The answer is still Trump. After Stalin, all of the Russian leaders looked good, even drunks. After psycho Trump, dozens of Dems would have won.
Any of the Dem governors would have won. People were that sick of him. Joe didn't win the election. Crazy Trump lost it. Trump never made it to a 50% approval rating. What does that tell you?
Trump doesn't have a prayer of a chance to win again. Back in the 50's some diehards were saying "the South shall rise again". Today diehards are saying "Trump will win again". No and double no.
And the stupid people who voted just to hate Trump, elected a truly corrupt, senile, racist, puppet of a man, as our president.
National security....I'll spare another diatribe but the same principles apply. Could it introduce some risk? Maybe. There are certainly plenty of anecdotes of criminal activity among undocumented immigrants. Does that amount to more than a tiny drop in the bucket of the broader national security threats to the US? I seriously doubt it.
Somewhere around 20% of inmates in the Federal Bureau of Prisons are criminal aliens. This is not an anecdotal drop in the bucket.
From fiscal years 2011 through 2016, the criminal alien proportion of the total estimated federal inmate population generally decreased, from about 25 percent to 21 percent (as shown in the figure below). During this period, the estimated number of criminal aliens incarcerated in federal prisons decreased from about 50,400 to about 39,500, or 22 percent. Ninety-one percent of these criminal aliens were citizens of one of six countries, including Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Colombia, and Guatemala.
Part of border security is to prevent the drug smuggling & human trafficking. The drug related gang violence in large (mostly democrat btw) cities is showing up along with homelessness/addiction.
The border x'ing numbers since Biden took office are at all time highs with no relief in sight. One of Biden's first moves was to overturn the co-operative agreements with Mexico.
To downplay Border Security is irresponsible and foolish.
It's apparent that you never read past , "president comments on . .", because that fool can't string a coherent sentence together.
For 50 years in Washington he has never accomplished anything, and now that his mind is mush and he has nothing to do with being in charge and doing his job, now you decide to worship him. You have to be democrat, the party where rational thinking plays no part.
"For 50 years in Washington he has never accomplished anything"
I've asked for a list of the bills he authored that got passed much less became laws.
"It's because he doesn't mean tweet."
The left hates Trump because he went AROUND their left controlled media and controlled what subjects they "reported ON.
And 2nd, Trump is a COUNTER puncher. If you don't know what that is, look it up. If you know how.
I'm sure we could finds lists of all the "mean" things said about Trump, from the left media to celebs, to dem politicians, etc., BEFORE he Tweeted back.
Heck we even have people on here whose screen name IS a "mean thing" toward Trump. tRump. Orange Man, etc.
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No one is saying that a wall will stop the visa over stayers! That's not their purpose! They are for the border jumpers. The visa over stayers will have to be dealt with in a different way but we should ignore the border jumpers for them? At least we know who the visa over stayers are but we have no idea what kind of trash is jumping our border. Most illegals in this country are border jumpers not visa over stayers. At any given time there may be 700,000 visa over stayers while we have millions of border jumpers here. Now just what is the bigger problem? 
We are having a discussion about illegal immigration! Are you lost? We don't need any immigration reform aka amnesty we need to enforce the laws on the book!
