1. There is an ebb and tide to immigration on the southern border. Large influxes of asylum seekers happen as a direct result of untenable dangers and hardships in their homes. Like now and like in 2014. They are seeking refuge for their families. For their children.
2. Are we not supposed to be a refuge for those who need it? The founders believed so. I believe so, but we’ve done a poor job at times. Fear takes root in societies and can be nurtured into indifference, hate and blame.
3. In reality, refugees and undocumented immigrants pay taxes, add to our economy, and, quite frankly, take jobs and lower wages that keep many businesses and industries afloat. Why do you think the Koch Bros aren’t rallying against immigration?
4. Are they taking jobs from you? I doubt it. Industries hit hardest by global employment issues aren’t generally hiring undocumented immigrants. That’s a completely different issue. And most job losses at the non-skilled level are due to automation.
5. What about crime? In reality, 1st generation immigrants have a significantly lower crime rate than Americans. You can cherry-pick out cases, as DT loves to do, but the statistics simply don’t back it up.
6. Laws are laws...they shouldn’t be coming illegally, right? No, but we should be offering the chance to appropriately seek asylum. We’re not even doing that right now. We’re telling people in fear for their lives that there’s no room at the inn.
7. Zero-Tolerance, prosecution, family-separation, internment camps. For a country designed to be a refuge for those seeking freedom from oppression - a superpower...the superpower - this seems grossly privileged, cold and hypocritical.
8. Those of you who voted for DT bought into his hard-line anti-immigration rhetoric. You thrived on the fear and eagerly lined up to blame brown people for your problems. You believed him when he told you we needed ‘a Wall’. You believed him when he said Mexico would pay for it.
9. Of course, that idea is long gone. He wants $25 BILLION for this wall - paid for by the American people. The ‘tent cities’, detainment centers, etc, cost tax-payers a fortune. Yet, sending more judges and staff to expedite proceedings for detainees is too expensive.
10. As we know, he’s so driven to have this ridiculous wall, he was willing to use traumatized children for leverage. The GOP immigration bills have a trigger mechanism that if the funding for the wall is lessened, the Dreamers will lose their path to citizenship.
11. His obsession with physical borders isn’t rooted in any kind of logic. Physical borders are not a normative thing with a few exceptions...the Berlin Wall, the Great Wall of China. Most say it’s logistically impossible. Yet, here we are.
12. He wanted to pull money from CHIP. We can’t afford healthcare, Medicaid is being cut, Social Security is on the chopping block, the tax cuts will likely explode the deficit...yet here we are. $25 BILLION...for a wall.
13. If this administration and GOP Congress is so determined to throw money in the issue of mass asylum seekers, then perhaps we should put money into helping these countries improve their situation - particularly since we have some culpability in it.
14. Between 2010 and 2015 we spent $2.6 Billion in foreign aid to Central American countries - mostly through the Bureau for International Narcotics Law Enforcement. Perhaps the State Department should consider how this $25 Billion might be better allocated.
15. Countries make mistakes...and we’ve made quite a few in Central America - mistakes that have hurt democracy and strengthened compromised regimes. We can and should do better.
16. I believe this is a topic that needs to be explored. Money to build a wall is not a solution to the problems south of the border, nor an adequate solution to how America deals with asylum seekers and those desperately seeking safety for their children.
