You see how self-referential that is right? Because you have a conspiracy theory, it shows that you're somehow smarter or wiser. Somehow in your mind I'm tied to a political ideology which is, let me see if I can follow this, preventing me from seeing conspiracies? Did I get that right? Honestly I don't even know what that means.
I'm not going to sit here and tell you that immigration (or much of anything at all) lands exactly proportionately on every possible grouping of ethnicity or skin color. So if you're thinking that I don't understand that, for example because something affects poor people, or rich people, disproportionately, that it might also affect other demographics (like according to skin color), disproportionately... well I do understand that. I just don't see why you're so focused on it or why it's some kind of source of self esteem or wisdom behind your worldview. If it is disproportionate, it's because economically it's disproportionate - which is true of all economic things. I find it odd for you to harp on this "nuance". I don't know what the point is. Are you saying democrats are racist because they like immigration or something? That's fairly... contradictory. Are you saying that Republicans actually care about these groups? Because they do insane things like criminalize Hispanic descent and defend it. So that doesn't make sense. It seems like the whole thing is a way to hide the intent.
You're painting it as wisdom but it seems like distraction.
I actually agree with you that police do more good than harm in general to all communities in the US. But that doesn't mean they can't do a hell of a lot better with some pretty basic and important moves - like striking or at least curtailing the insane practice of qualified immunity. More good than harm is not a high bar.
Admittedly, I had to read this a few times to figure out what you're getting at, so I'll try to answer it as best I can. I don't think any political party actually cares about the ongoing decades-old immigration problem. I think their only interest in it, is how they can benefit from it politically to gain more power and influence. I'm sure I'm wrong, but it seems like Republicans have been the most consistent in their stance. Whereas the Democrats, have wavered very significantly from the Clinton era, the early 2000's, the Obama era, the Trump era, and to where we are now. You look at where the democrats were during the Trump era, to just before when Obama was in office, its nearly a complete 180....from a messaging point of view at least. Besides, I've been in enough closed door sessions with some somewhat prominent politicians (they loooooooooove coming by the station and union meetings for photo ops and endorsements come election time...never to be seen again until 4 years later) to know that generally speaking, the person they are when given the ability to let their hair down, is usually not the person they are in front of a camera, or in office. I don't fault them for anything. They're politicians, and politics is their career. It goes without saying that typically, they'll say whatever it takes to get elected - with their actions being that of the least amount of follow-through possible. There's a reason why bad neighborhoods around the country never get better.
It's an interesting perspective when I spend over half my life in these real bad neighborhoods, and get to go home to my little house in a nice, liberal neighborhood. It's literally living in both the world of the "haves" and "have-nots".
Not sure what you exactly mean by my "wisdom", but you have called into question how much I actually care about these communities, and how much I've experienced myself. Not saying my lens is unique at all, but I think it is unique to this audience, as I've proudly worked in these communities since I was 20 years old. Literally have spent more than half my life over the past 20 years in the worst parts of the Los Angeles area, having watched neighborhoods go from bad, to worse. Is it due to illegal immigration exclusively? Of course not. That's ridiculous. But a lot of the sex trafficking, gang violence, drugs (which heavily contribute to the gang violence, regardless of that specific gangs predominant race), DOES stem from America's inability to control our borders over the course of decades. And those border failures do have a palatable impact on these communities, both directly and down-river. My world view has primarily been influenced
and evolved because of what I do, and where I do it, but also because I've been fortunate enough to do a fair bit of traveling - with 99% of it being 3rd world. As it pertains to this immigration conversation I suppose, I've been going down to Mexico since I was 16...and have watched it change significantly over the course of almost 25 years. I've probably spent a total of 4-5 months in Central America over the years (highlighted by a solo trip I took for my 30th birthday, where I spent 27 days making it up and down the coasts of Costa Rica and Nicaragua). Been a few other places that we get a fair bit of illegal immigrants from, but we'll keep it to Central America. Granted, I don't live in these countries and I'm not an immigrant myself, but I feel I have a decent understanding of how they operate, and how bad they can be. Besides, being shaken down at gunpoint by Federales (both real and fake) probably 2 dozen times in my life at the cost of probably a couple grand, and brushing into kidnapping schemes a few times
(ok, I'll admit it....that 'push button motel' incident my first time in Panama was my fault. I know better, and never should have got myself into THAT SORT of situation 😂). Plus, a lot of my off-duty hobbies are done with Cops, Military types, FBI dudes, border patrol peeps - those types of people....as we all tend to find each other over time - probably because we're of the few lucky ones that get to enjoy hobbies at non-peak hours during the weekdays when everyone else is at work. Needless to say, I glean a lot of information from them. So when I give a perspective of how I personally think illegal immigration has affected many different aspects within impoverished neighborhoods be it drugs, gangs, job market loss etc. It's because I actually see it, and talk to these people and ask their opinion. It's not really stuff I read about, or see on TV. But I'm always open to new perspectives.
You can call it wisdom painted as a distraction if you like. I just call it life experience.
If you knowingly hire illegal immigrants to pay under the table, you're guilty of a crime. There's no, "Well...." approach here. They're not supposed to be in the country, therefore, you shouldn't be hiring them.
If they're going to investigate, they're clearly going to need to have a justified & reasonable cause to do so. If the business is found to be harboring illegals for cheap labor, then it has committed a legitimate crime that appears to result in a fine & up to 10 years maximum.
The mere idea of investigating such a suspected crime is a big difference from being a "reminiscent" of the Gestapo who literally sent innocents to their deaths....
You're not going to get an argument from me on this. I'm in 100% agreement. What I was getting at is what does a "mass deportation" of a few million illegal immigrants even look like? I used the gestapo example, because that's what I thought of at the time. Besides, if the liberal media and the more outspoken government officials were smart (which they are), they would frame a mass deportation effort as a version of such.
When looking at what a mass deportation effort would even look like, there's a lot of different moving parts....and many more parts that I'm unaware/ignorant of. Like....who's going to do it. Local law enforcement agencies don't have the resources to do it. I doubt the cops in many of the heavily impacted areas even would want to do it. Not to mention it would be a bureaucratic nightmare with local, state and federal agencies trying to carry something like this out. So it would probably get handed to the US Customs and Border Protection. Ok, you're going to need funding - and a lot of it. That'll need bipartisan support (never going to happen). Assuming that you get the funding, you're going to need a MASSIVE INCREASE in personnel. Barely anyone wants to do anything law enforcement related anymore, so good luck with that. They could use the military, but yeah...the optics on that would be horrible...and I doubt the military brass want any of that sort of press. Then you need to organize and find the illegal immigrants, and that will spawn a new cottage industry of in-country human trafficking and concealment. Then you have to figure out how to punish the business owners that knowingly hire illegals. that'll clog up the court system for years.
THEN....
you have the logistical and financial nightmare of transporting a few million illegal immigrants back to their home country, and you're going to be counting on the cooperation of 3rd world countries that were just as happy to watch them leave....
less mouths to feed kinda thing.
All of this and other reasons, is why I somewhat believe the Democrats are letting this happen on purpose. They know how much of logistical nightmare deporting a few million immigrants would be. They're hedging their bets that it won't take place. And I agree with them. Smart politics if you ask me. What any future handling of this illegal immigration influx will look like, will probably be the finishing of the border wall, as the democrats have already done a 180 on that, and some Obama-era level deportation x5. I think the political issue of "illegal immigration" is worth enough to both parties, that neither of them will complete solve it, but they'll come up with a solution together that will be just enough to satisfy their respective voting basis.
That's just my opinion. But you know, I'm a conspiracist 🙄
Do you?
For each topic that comes up, you seem to dismiss and ignore everyone else's anecdotes and experiences but yours are way more important and definitely true.
Not a cop. Just a fireman. I've worked alongside Police every day since I was 20 in really, really bad neighborhoods. I have enough seniority to pretty much go to as good of an area as I want. But I like where I work. I like the people. I like the action. And the vain part of me likes to think that a these type of communities benefit from having experienced people at their beck and call. I'll be there as long as my body holds up...or when it tells me it's time to start slowing down - it's coming. In 20 years, I've seen a few examples of bad policing, countless examples of good policing, and a lot of situations that "look bad" to the casual bystander. But if you are around this stuff for a living, work in these neighborhoods (fwiw, Los Angeles and California breed a certain brand of criminal, being that actual penalties for breaking the law are spotty at best...and the criminals know that) - you gain a certain level of understanding on my Police do what they do. Not saying that they could do
some things better, because there's always room for improvement. But in my opinion, 98% of the people in these neighborhoods are great people. It's the 2% that screw it up for everyone else. And the way I see it, those people deserve the same level of comfort, safety and protection that I enjoy in mine. Unfortunately, that comes at the cost of policing in ways that sometimes doesn't look good to the casual bystander. Once again, I'm not going to say that I know everything that goes into policing, or exactly what it's like to live in these communities, but I feel like I have a decent understanding.
But the politicians took an extremely horrific incident with George Floyd, and ran it up the flag pole to set a frenzy of villainizing police officers across the country. The result was predictably what anyone with a brain knew it would be. The impoverished communities suffered the most, and are much worse off than they were before. The police officers backed waaaaay off in enforcement because it's not worth scrutiny when you have a family to feed. And it's not like they were getting much support from the more liberally-minded politicians and pop culture either, which consequently has a strong influence over said communities. It's been wild times, indeed. And a lot of these major cities are attempting to walk back their stance on law enforcement, but the damage has been done within the ranks, and not very many young people wants to be police officers anymore. This one will take a bit to un****.
But back to your second point. I don't ignore people's experiences... I try not to at least. I'll mention it again though, when you spend as much time as people like myself do in rough neighborhoods- only to go home to my safe little community where there's not much to worry about, you get an interesting perspective. I will admit though, it can be pretty amusing to listen to my many liberal and conservative friends takes on law enforcement and these communities, when they really have no friggin' clue what they're talking about outside of what they've seen on the news, heard or read. Most
casual takes on policing and how it pertains to impoverished communities, be it a liberal or conservative stance, aren't very accurate...at least in my personal experience. Make of that what you will
