US Immigration Policy Megathread

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Slow News Day: Jul 4, 2007

sexpig by night posted:

hey can you at least explain how 'wave a magic wand' and accusing anyone who disagrees with them of being some secret shadow cabal of posters who runs in to just say we hate biden and be smug is 'good faith'

Because you still haven't responded to effort with effort.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ? May 12, 2021 17:25

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# ? Jun 5, 2024 12:34

Fister Roboto: Feb 21, 2008

Handsome Ralph posted:

I didn't think I'd have to repeat myself on the same loving page, yet here we are.

Thorn Wishes Talon posted:

Look, let's just get real: there's a contingent of people who come running into this thread with every negative immigration story that is published, and they post with the subtext of "hah look! another Biden fuckup!!! we told ya he was bad ".

There's literally nothing Biden can do, and no well-sourced argument the rest of us can mount, to make these posters go "wow okay, sorry, I was wrong, I gotta hand it to Joe, he is handling it well." People criticizing Biden in this thread 100% don't care about the incredible complexities of our immigration system, and don't care that Biden himself cannot singlehandedly fix its plethora of problems, and won't even acknowledge the significant amount of good he has done that has benefited hundreds of thousands of immigrants.

How is this posting in good faith? This is practically indistinguishable from all the chuds who used to whine that liberals just hate Trump for no reason. Also I thought there was a general rule against "posting about posters".

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ? May 12, 2021 17:29

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy

Fister Roboto posted:

How is this posting in good faith? This is practically indistinguishable from all the chuds who used to whine that liberals just hate Trump for no reason. Also I thought there was a general rule against "posting about posters".

Are you seriously blaming me of bad faith posting because I spent an hour compiling resources about Biden's immigration actions to date, and people just ignored it completely and continued to post their toxic hot takes, and I dared point out that it's a pattern?

# ? May 12, 2021 17:46

the_steve: Nov 9, 2005; We're always hiring!

Drop it or I'm going to keep Ralph's streak alive.
Focus on immigration stuff, not Spider-Man_pointing at_Spider-Man'ing about who is posting in bad faith with each other.

# ? May 12, 2021 18:21

Cactus Ghost: Dec 20, 2003; you can actually inflate your scrote pretty safely with sterile saline, syringes, needles, and aseptic technique. its a niche kink iirc

the saline just slowly gets absorbed into your blood but in the meantime you got a big round smooth distended nutsack

Owlspiracy posted:

actually I'll just do it for you: the immigration apparatus that trump helped construct was so monstrously evil that biden has a moral responsibility to get rid of it, even if it means violating labor norms and federal employee protections, particularly because most of these immigrants are fleeing disastrous conditions largely created by the us in the first place. i recognize that this might create a dangerous precedent that later republican presidents can abuse, but the immediacy and extent of the current crisis justifies this action.

i agree with this, and also have zero expectation that biden will act on that moral responsibility. biden's only concern right now is to get reelected, like all first term presidents. firing trump's appointees is difficult to clearly understand and therefore easy to spin, it's tit for tat in a way that non-party-affiliated "moderates" turn their nose up to, and the benefit is slim to none because liberals will never notice or give a poo poo, meaning his political capital with his base will be unaffected. the morality of his actions and the consequences they have on marginalized people never enters the equation. this would very likely be the same action taken by any of the democratic primary candidates, including bernie.

e: and, to be clear, that does not in any way make it any less hosed up and reprehensible, nor any less worthy of criticism and scorn

Cactus Ghost fucked around with this message at 23:39 on May 12, 2021

# ? May 12, 2021 23:35

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

Biden can "wave a magic wand" by implementing earlier discussed executive orders and allowing immigrants to enter the US and go to their waiting friends and family.

# ? May 13, 2021 18:27

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy

Shageletic posted:

Biden can "wave a magic wand" by implementing earlier discussed executive orders and allowing immigrants to enter the US and go to their waiting friends and family.

Things have already improved a lot in that area. I provided extensive links on the last page that include descriptions. Maybe you should read them?

Here, I'll even include a few quotes from one of the articles:

quote:

The large numbers of migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border have grabbed headlines, and the administration has fallen short in some of its responses, as will be discussed below. Still, Biden did take some notable early steps, most importantly exempting unaccompanied children from the public-health order allowing authorities to immediately expel arriving migrants without providing access to asylum. Children now are being allowed into the country to seek relief in immigration courts, as they were allowed to do prior to March 2020.

The administration also ended the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), also known as the Remain in Mexico program. On February 19, asylum seekers waiting in Mexico with active U.S. court cases began to be admitted into the United States to complete their court proceedings. Approaching Biden�s 100th day in office, MPP enrollee processing was taking place at six ports of entry; 7,200 out of an estimated 25,000 enrollees with active cases had been admitted as of April 15. Migrants undergo COVID-19 testing prior to entering the United States.

quote:

Arguably the administration�s quickest and most dramatic accomplishment was changing immigration enforcement in the U.S. interior, narrowing enforcement much faster than Trump broadened it upon taking office in 2017. On Inauguration Day, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued new, temporary enforcement priorities, which were further fine-tuned and operationalized on February 18. These priorities limited U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to targeting removable noncitizens who are national security risks; who entered the United States on or after November 1, 2020, either illegally or legally and have since fallen into unlawful status; and who are public safety threats with certain criminal convictions or gang involvement.

The results of the new enforcement priorities under Biden have been quick to manifest. ICE arrests have decreased by more than 60 percent, from an average of 6,800 monthly arrests in the last three full months of the Trump administration to 2,500 in February, Biden�s first full month in office. For comparison, by Trump�s first full month in office, ICE arrests increased by 26 percent over the average of the last three full months of the Obama administration.

In addition to reducing the overall number of individuals arrested and detained by ICE, the Biden administration has started to end long-term detention of families. Advocates have been pushing to end this practice since the first family immigration detention facility opened in Leesport, Pennsylvania in 2001. During the Obama administration and the first year of the Trump administration (the only year of the administration for which data are available), an average of 70 people were held there each day. By February 26, all families held in that facility had been released.

...the Biden administration has stated that it intends to turn both facilities into processing centers where families will be held for fewer than 72 hours and then released, though that transition has not yet been completed. As of March, ICE was releasing families from these facilities within ten to 15 days.

quote:

Biden has ended several bans on travel and visa issuance implemented over the course of the prior administration. On his first day in office Biden terminated the travel bans that prevented nationals from 13 predominantly Muslim and African countries from receiving visas. Under a new State Department process, nearly 41,900 people who were denied visas under the bans and were not issued waivers are now eligible to reapply.

quote:

On February 24, Biden terminated his predecessor�s April 2020 ban on all immigrant visa issuance except those for spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens and certain immigrant investors. Separately, he allowed a similar ban prohibiting new visas for temporary workers and exchange visitors to expire at the end of March.

quote:

During its first 100 days, the Biden administration took major steps to protect certain national groups already in the United States from deportation. The most significant was its March designation that Venezuelans were eligible for Temporary Protected Status (TPS), making an estimated 323,000 Venezuelans in the United States eligible for work authorization and protecting them from deportation for at least 18 months. It also designated Myanmar (also known as Burma) for TPS, with an estimated 1,600 Burmese eligible for protection. If all eligible Venezuelans and Burmese were to be granted TPS, the overall number of TPS holders would more than double from the current 319,000.

quote:

Steadily, the new administration has started undoing Trump policies making it more difficult for immigrants to come to or stay in the United States. The most significant of these was the public-charge rule, which subjected green-card applicants and people renewing temporary visas to a forward-looking test to assess whether they would be likely to use public benefits in the future. The rule, issued in August 2019 but in effect intermittently due to court interventions, affected lower-income immigrants and their families. Not only did it result in many more individuals being denied visas on public-charge grounds�nearly 21,000 in fiscal year (FY) 2019 compared to 1,000 in FY 2016�but also had a chilling effect, prompting some immigrants to preemptively withdraw their families from benefits programs out of fear of damaging their immigration cases.

Biden�s administration reversed the public-charge rule in two moves. First, on March 9, it stopped defending it in legal challenges, thus allowing an earlier court order vacating the rule to go into effect nationwide. In practice, this restored the much narrower 1999 guidance for determining whether would-be immigrants are inadmissible on public-charge grounds. Second, DHS then codified this reversion to the earlier guidance without going through a formal notice-and-comment period of rulemaking, arguing that immediate action was necessary to meet the court order. This strategy of deferring to court rulings likely makes the change much less vulnerable to legal challenge than it would have been if the administration had issued a new regulation through the traditional process.

The administration has also rescinded a smattering of other Trump administration policies. Among the most notable: Shelving a new citizenship civics test that was both more time-consuming and more difficult. The administration also has revoked a DHS memo encouraging heightened enforcement against immigrants whose benefits applications were denied.

The MPI article these quotes are coming from is very cognizant of and fair regarding the administration's shortcomings:

quote:

Where Biden Has Hit Turbulence: The Border

The administration has confronted major challenges formulating a consistent policy and appropriate message to deal with the arrival of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. March 2021 saw the highest number of interceptions of unauthorized migrants at the border since March 2001. This included the highest ever numbers of unaccompanied children (nearly 19,000), the third-largest ever number of people traveling as families (nearly 53,000), and the highest number of single adults (nearly 97,000) since at least 2013.

These numbers on their own might not have morphed into a crisis had there been an adequate system to screen and adjudicate migrants� eligibility for protections, paired with sufficient capacity to shelter all the arriving children. However, the Biden administration, like the Trump and Obama administrations before it, was not prepared. It has been slow to expand temporary capacity to shelter unaccompanied children, standing up emergency facilities only in mid-March. And it has not attempted to restructure the asylum system to ensure protections for those found to merit asylum, particularly families, and remove those who fail to qualify. Administration officials have hinted that a forthcoming policy change may address these issues.

In addition to a delayed policy response, the administration�s messaging has led to confusion. For example, officials have repeatedly claimed the border is closed to arrivals and that authorities will expel families who cross the border. However, only 33 percent of arriving families were expelled in March. It is not clear how authorities decide whether to expel a family. As one Tijuana shelter director told the San Diego Union-Tribune, �This isn�t a policy�it�s a game of chance.�

So, just like literally 100% of people in this thread agree on, it's not all unicorns and rainbows. Biden needs to do better. We all want him to.

Again though, y'all are acting like Biden has been a total failure with regards to immigration and that's just a laughable attitude.

# ? May 13, 2021 18:52

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

Removing Title 30 instead of amending it for children would make a much bigger impact. And I see you mentioned green card holders and temporary status immigrants, which is different from refugee and asylum seekers that the US is legally supposed to accept. But if you're going to mention that then I think it's only fair to mention that the Biden admin is currently defending the Trump era rule banning TPS individuals from getting greencards in front of the SupCT: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/04/19/supreme-court-debates-immigration-biden-confronts-border-crisis/7110647002/

It's hard to argue that the Biden approach to immigration isn't largely a conservative one.

# ? May 13, 2021 19:14

Pentecoastal Elites: Feb 27, 2007

Thorn Wishes Talon posted:

Again though, y'all are acting like Biden has been a total failure with regards to immigration and that's just a laughable attitude.

Treating what's happening on the southern border as anything other than the human rights disaster it manifestly is constitutes a total failure and "hey listen they're working on it!" just doesn't cut it. Small steps forward in relationship to what should be an all-hands national emergency response isn't good enough and I find it extremely difficult to believe that literally nothing more could possibly be done. People aren't "ignoring" your effortpost because they hate facts and logic, they just disagree with the premises of your argument.

When people complain about what is still, objectively, horrific and dehumanizing immigration process and policy, the pathological need you and others here have to defend the Biden administration is off-putting, to say the least. Tagging your apologia with "we all want him to do better" is pretty thin gruel when the only thing you ever seem to do in this thread is either support Biden or directly challenge the people that think what's going on -- even if it is less abysmally awful than it was a few months ago -- remains totally unacceptable.

# ? May 13, 2021 19:16

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

If Biden devoted even the tenth of the competency and administrative muscle towards the southern border he has put towards vaccinations then his critics wouldn't have much to stand on.

# ? May 13, 2021 19:18

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy

Pentecoastal Elites posted:

Treating what's happening on the southern border as anything other than the human rights disaster it manifestly is constitutes a total failure and "hey listen they're working on it!" just doesn't cut it. Small steps forward in relationship to what should be an all-hands national emergency response isn't good enough and I find it extremely difficult to believe that literally nothing more could possibly be done. People aren't "ignoring" your effortpost because they hate facts and logic, they just disagree with the premises of your argument.

When people complain about what is still, objectively, horrific and dehumanizing immigration process and policy, the pathological need you and others here have to defend the Biden administration is off-putting, to say the least. Tagging your apologia with "we all want him to do better" is pretty thin gruel when the only thing you ever seem to do in this thread is either support Biden or directly challenge the people that think what's going on -- even if it is less abysmally awful than it was a few months ago -- remains totally unacceptable.

The disagreement here is one regarding degree.

The steps taken so far aren't "small." No one is drawing a rosy picture, but actual experts � as in, people working in immigration day in, day out � are giving the administration credit where it's due, and recognizing the major positive impact of the actions taken so far, whether they involve undoing Trump's monstrous policies (which, again, is not simple; see below) or enacting new policies and directions for the agencies involved.

Joe Biden does not have the power to unilaterally declare that immigration constitutes an "all-hands national emergency" in any meaningful sense. The President has broad authority with regards to immigration, but is not the king. Congress makes the laws, and Congress controls funding � without legislation, it is not possible to magically conjure the resources needed to vastly increase capacity to handle the influx of refugees. And with Congress being what it is, with Dems barely in control and using all their political capital to rescue the country from the brink of economic collapse, we unfortunately cannot expect much relief in the area of immigration in the short term. That's not making excuses; it's just the simple, objective political reality.

Here's what Gregory Chen, who works for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, writes:

quote:

President Joe Biden took swift action within the first week of his inauguration against several of his predecessor�s most reprehensible policies on immigration. He rescinded the ban on nationals of majority-Muslim and African nations and the Zero Tolerance policy that resulted in family separations. And the new president declared his commitment to defend the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that provides short-term protection to about 640,000 undocumented people. Those early announcements, among others, were welcome relief for immigrants, their families, and the communities that rely on them, and showed that he remained committed to the promises he had made on the campaign trail to implement an �immigration policy that reflects our highest values as a nation.�

One hundred days later, that initial ebullience has waned. The principal cause for the setback was the political firestorm over the southern border. Although there is a significant seasonal uptick in border arrivals every year, the White House underestimated the extensive, and often uninformed, media coverage and partisan attacks that blamed the president for the influx. Contrary to these claims, government data confirms that the number of asylum seekers started increasing in April 2020, long before Biden was elected or entered office. But the reporting portrayed an image of an uncontrolled border, and opened the White House to criticism.

Public attitudes and media coverage of the southern border should not constitute the full measure of the president�s record on immigration issues, however. It also does not seem fair to judge a president based on events that were set in motion before he took office or that are far beyond his control. Rather, he should be judged by the yardstick of how he confronts crisis and solves problems. Under this test, Biden gets strong marks for problem-solving, an unsurprising result given the many policies implemented to date already by the exceptionally qualified immigration landing team he put in place. On crisis management, however, he has stumbled and been reluctant to follow through on more controversial reforms. As discussed below, the president may ultimately be judged not for creating the so-called border �crisis,� but for whether he remained true to his principles in the face of opposition.

[...]

One important bit that comes later:

quote:

A comprehensive review by the American Immigration Lawyers Association, where I serve, assessing Biden�s first 100 days in office shows that most of the administration�s immigration actions are still in progress or incomplete. One reason many Trump-era policies remain in place is that they are now established in law as federal regulation. Among the �midnight� regulations Trump finalized in his last days in office was a sweeping policy that would functionally eviscerate asylum law. Such regulations cannot be undone with the stroke of a pen. Pursuant to the Administrative Procedures Act, before rescinding a regulation, the federal government must follow a formal process that includes publishing a notice of the proposed change and giving the public the opportunity to comment.

Biden has nonetheless been able to avoid implementing some harmful regulations by delaying rules before they took effect or by altering course on litigation after courts had halted regulations. The asylum regulation that was finalized in December has never taken effect because it was enjoined before coming into effect. Once a regulation is enjoined, the new administration can decide how and whether to defend it in court. This was the case with Trump�s public charge rule, which the Biden administration concluded was not �in the public interest� and chose not to defend any longer.

Bottom line: you're of course free to think whatever you want about this issue, but if you want to make the case that Biden's record has merely been "less abysmally awful" than that of the previous guy, then yeah, you should expect pushback.

Shageletic posted:

If Biden devoted even the tenth of the competency and administrative muscle towards the southern border he has put towards vaccinations then his critics wouldn't have much to stand on.

Congress has allocated enormous resources, both at the federal level and as aid to individual states, for vaccinations. The same cannot be said about immigration.

# ? May 13, 2021 20:37

Cactus Ghost: Dec 20, 2003; you can actually inflate your scrote pretty safely with sterile saline, syringes, needles, and aseptic technique. its a niche kink iirc

the saline just slowly gets absorbed into your blood but in the meantime you got a big round smooth distended nutsack

Ok, but you understand that liberal politicians have been telling marginalized people to be grateful for the bones they're being thrown for sixty years, right? You can understand how telling them to wait because the powerful are working as fast as they care to rings hollow, right?

# ? May 13, 2021 20:43

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

If we're gonna mention immigration advocates

quote:

�The lived experience of a person who is making their way through [the] immigration system right now doesn�t yet feel much different than it did six months ago,� said Heidi Altman, director of policy at the National Immigrant Justice Center.

While Biden has signed a flurry of executive orders seeking to dismantle Trump�s immigration legacy, many of them direct the Department of Homeland Security to study issues in order to determine what should replace them down the line.

The slow pace of change has created a disconnect between Biden officials, many of whom were immigration advocates before joining the administration, and the advocacy community, which has sometimes reacted with disbelief at Biden�s perceived foot-dragging on immigration.

"The disconnect is an operational one, as boring as that may be. I think the administration aims to [open more legal avenues of immigration], but they are not yet staffed, and those channels are not open yet," said Marielena Hincapi�, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center.

Some of the moves most criticized by immigration advocates are the administration's slow release of temporary worker visas and an initial attempt to maintain former President Trump's refugee admissions cap of 15,000. Advocates are also frustrated by a reluctance to grant Haitian nationals temporary protected status and use of a Trump-era policy to expel migrants at the southern border.

Immigrants encountered crossing the border illegally can be immediately expelled to Mexico because of the COVID-19 pandemic under a provision known as Title 42 that the Trump administration applied to all foreign nationals. The Biden administration has exempted unaccompanied minors.

Collectively, the effect of those policies is that the administration has avoided granting hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals the right to live and work in the United States despite being empowered by Congress to do so.

�It�s actually astonishing the Biden administration kept [Title 42] in place and are using it to expel people seeking refuge without even allowing them to pursue their claims,� said Sirine Shebaya, executive director of the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild.

# ? May 13, 2021 20:55

Sarcastr0: May 29, 2013; WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE BILLIONAIRES ?!?!?

OMGVBFLOL posted:

Ok, but you understand that liberal politicians have been telling marginalized people to be grateful for the bones they're being thrown for sixty years, right? You can understand how telling them to wait because the powerful are working as fast as they care to rings hollow, right?

If you are going to demand solutions, and then not believe it when people tell you those solutions are forthcoming, you are demanding the impossible.

It�s a neat way to get mad at someone, but doesn�t seem to me a very productive line of discussion.

# ? May 13, 2021 23:18

Goatse James Bond: Mar 28, 2010; If you see me posting please remind me that I have Charlie Work in the reports forum to do instead

Shageletic posted:

If we're gonna mention immigration advocates

I mean, one of the major points in that quote is "apparently the Biden administration doesn't have the staff yet to do better on this thing", which isn't a rapid thing to fix at the federal level. It also dovetails with what I have anecdotally seen as far as federal job notifications. It's not a Trump admin "lol why would we staff these offices or do these things" protocol.

Pentecoastal Elites posted:

When people complain about what is still, objectively, horrific and dehumanizing immigration process and policy, the pathological need you and others here have to defend the Biden administration is off-putting, to say the least. Tagging your apologia with "we all want him to do better" is pretty thin gruel when the only thing you ever seem to do in this thread is either support Biden or directly challenge the people that think what's going on -- even if it is less abysmally awful than it was a few months ago -- remains totally unacceptable.

based on this post the proposed remedy is to occasionally post "I am very mad at Joe Biden", which is obviously neither very interesting nor very productive

or to not argue against mischaracterizations and not talk about what positive things the Biden admin is trying to do, which sorry, that's not an acceptable norm to establish in this thread

Goatse James Bond fucked around with this message at 23:30 on May 13, 2021

# ? May 13, 2021 23:27

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

Incompetence or purposefully doing it the result is the same.

You also skipped the things like rescinding Title 42 that would help people RIGHT NOW.

That isnt incompetence. Thats a policy choice.

# ? May 13, 2021 23:36

Goatse James Bond: Mar 28, 2010; If you see me posting please remind me that I have Charlie Work in the reports forum to do instead

sure, those other proposals seem either objectively good, or like things i don't adequately understand to have an opinion on

(does rescinding title 42 lead to putting people in already overcrowded facilities before processing? is that nevertheless preferable to what they do if turned away? I have no idea! and therefore I have no opinion)

Goatse James Bond fucked around with this message at 23:39 on May 13, 2021

# ? May 13, 2021 23:37

Fritz the Horse: Dec 26, 2019; ... of course!

Pentecoastal Elites posted:

When people complain about what is still, objectively, horrific and dehumanizing immigration process and policy, the pathological need you and others here have to defend the Biden administration is off-putting, to say the least. Tagging your apologia with "we all want him to do better" is pretty thin gruel when the only thing you ever seem to do in this thread is either support Biden or directly challenge the people that think what's going on -- even if it is less abysmally awful than it was a few months ago -- remains totally unacceptable.

This seems pretty strawman-y based on what I've read from posters itt. Virtually everyone agrees it's "still, objectively, horrific and dehumanizing immigration process and policy" and that the situation remains unacceptable. I don't see a pathological need to defend the Biden admin from anyone? It's possible both to acknowledge that the Biden admin has done a number of good things* but also that there is a long, long ways to go. I for one am going to keep bringing up the need for comprehensive immigration reform legislation and my desire that the Biden admin makes that a priority.

The main areas for disagreement seem to be whether Biden deserves credit for making some progress (and how much) and what the path forward to tackle the (huge volume of) remaining bad immigration poo poo ought to be.

edit: *and bad things. I guess it seems to me like you're characterizing this as "Biden BAD" vs. "Biden GOOD" where both can be true to a degree and specifics are hand-waved away in favor of insisting on that dichotomy. Also, very few if any posters are arguing that Biden is purely GOOD on immigration.

Fritz the Horse fucked around with this message at 00:13 on May 14, 2021

# ? May 14, 2021 00:06

BougieBitch: Oct 2, 2013; Basic as hell

I mean, if nothing else, the rallying cry at the end of March was that Biden was keeping too many people in the overcrowded CBP facilities, and that is objectively no longer happening - and progress was already being made on that front before the end of April: https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/29/politics/border-patrol-unaccompanied-minors/index.html

The next one was the refugee cap, which was the new problem for the first half of April, and the responses was that they would make adjustments, monitor the situation, and make a final change to the cap a month later. They did raise it, to 62500, with the promise of further doubling that to 125000 for the budget year starting in the fall.

It's fine to point out the next problem on the list, but pulling a complete 180 on the CBP processing blockage in the time frame that they did is pretty impressive in its own right, even if it is just taking us from a 1 to a 2 on a scale of 10 in terms of where we would like to see things. Don't stop pushing for better, but do recognize the amount of progress that happened there - if the administration had ignored activist pressure there would be no reason to be hopeful for further improvements, but given that the situation has been addressed within a month in both of the major cases so far, maybe you could extend the smallest iota of good faith to statements made by the admin on these issues? Certainly the US has a history of being terrible on basically all fronts, but I don't think there's much basis for believing that the Biden admin of 2021, with the powers of the presidency and the parts of the executive branch that are staffed, has been slacking on making improvements in general or on immigration specifically. There's always another problem, and it's fair to expect him to do something to address the most current one, but it's also okay to spend some time talking about positive resolutions and how those successes could be built upon and scoped up

# ? May 14, 2021 00:34

Slow News Day: Jul 4, 2007

Shageletic posted:

Incompetence or purposefully doing it the result is the same.

Incompetence is defined as lacking the qualities for effective action.

How do we know that the crisis at the border has persisted due to the Biden administration's incompetence, as opposed to or at least in part due to lack of resources such as funding and qualified, vetted people?

Didn't that last part get raised as a concern literally yesterday or the day before, when some of you complained about how people without proper background checks seem to be put in charge of caring for refugees, and without proper oversight? How does that not scream "lack of resources" to you? Filling the gaps in staffing has been so challenging that other agencies are sending their staff to fill the gaps at HHS/DHS. And you dare chalk everything up to "incompetence"?

# ? May 14, 2021 01:43

Cactus Ghost: Dec 20, 2003; you can actually inflate your scrote pretty safely with sterile saline, syringes, needles, and aseptic technique. its a niche kink iirc

the saline just slowly gets absorbed into your blood but in the meantime you got a big round smooth distended nutsack

BougieBitch posted:

I mean, if nothing else, the rallying cry at the end of March was that Biden was keeping too many people in the overcrowded CBP facilities, and that is objectively no longer happening - and progress was already being made on that front before the end of April: https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/29/politics/border-patrol-unaccompanied-minors/index.html

The next one was the refugee cap, which was the new problem for the first half of April, and the responses was that they would make adjustments, monitor the situation, and make a final change to the cap a month later. They did raise it, to 62500, with the promise of further doubling that to 125000 for the budget year starting in the fall.

It's fine to point out the next problem on the list, but pulling a complete 180 on the CBP processing blockage in the time frame that they did is pretty impressive in its own right, even if it is just taking us from a 1 to a 2 on a scale of 10 in terms of where we would like to see things. Don't stop pushing for better, but do recognize the amount of progress that happened there - if the administration had ignored activist pressure there would be no reason to be hopeful for further improvements, but given that the situation has been addressed within a month in both of the major cases so far, maybe you could extend the smallest iota of good faith to statements made by the admin on these issues? Certainly the US has a history of being terrible on basically all fronts, but I don't think there's much basis for believing that the Biden admin of 2021, with the powers of the presidency and the parts of the executive branch that are staffed, has been slacking on making improvements in general or on immigration specifically. There's always another problem, and it's fair to expect him to do something to address the most current one, but it's also okay to spend some time talking about positive resolutions and how those successes could be built upon and scoped up

they're now in overcrowded HHS facilities. which, yeah, HHS has child welfare people on staff and isn't a white supremacist paramilitary, but "we're not cramming as many kids into cattle pens staffed by an agency that hires child molesters" isn't exactly praiseworthy. it sure as poo poo doesn't absolve them of criticism, especially with reports emerging that the HHS facilities aren't as great as HHS and the admin have been telling us:

https://mobile.twitter.com/stevanzetti/status/1391039711507099654

# ? May 14, 2021 02:39

Cactus Ghost: Dec 20, 2003; you can actually inflate your scrote pretty safely with sterile saline, syringes, needles, and aseptic technique. its a niche kink iirc

the saline just slowly gets absorbed into your blood but in the meantime you got a big round smooth distended nutsack

Sarcastr0 posted:

If you are going to demand solutions, and then not believe it when people tell you those solutions are forthcoming, you are demanding the impossible.

It�s a neat way to get mad at someone, but doesn�t seem to me a very productive line of discussion.

it's intellectually dishonest to disregard sixty years of precedent telling you "expect half measures and don't believe anything til you see it."

# ? May 14, 2021 02:43

Sarcastr0: May 29, 2013; WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE BILLIONAIRES ?!?!?

OMGVBFLOL posted:

it's intellectually dishonest to disregard sixty years of precedent telling you "expect half measures and don't believe anything til you see it."

I don�t think being hopeful that a new admin in a country with an ever changing electorate might do something different is intellectually dishonest.

Politics are not static.

# ? May 14, 2021 03:03

Fritz the Horse: Dec 26, 2019; ... of course!

OMGVBFLOL posted:

they're now in overcrowded HHS facilities. which, yeah, HHS has child welfare people on staff and isn't a white supremacist paramilitary, but "we're not cramming as many kids into cattle pens staffed by an agency that hires child molesters" isn't exactly praiseworthy. it sure as poo poo doesn't absolve them of criticism, especially with reports emerging that the HHS facilities aren't as great as HHS and the admin have been telling us:

https://mobile.twitter.com/stevanzetti/status/1391039711507099654

That's paywalled so it's hard to make much of it. The HHS facilities are still unacceptable, yes. Building detention capacity is a short-term stopgap, I'm sure we can agree that "build more detention facilities" is not the right solution long-term. Instead what we need is more staffing to speed safe placement of children with family or foster care.

I'm not sure where the disagreement is. The HHS facilities are better than CBP but they still aren't remotely acceptable conditions. Your objection seems to be with whether the improvement in conditions is praiseworthy or not?

# ? May 14, 2021 03:25

Parakeet vs. Phone: Nov 6, 2009

The article doesn't seem to be paywalled? :shrug:

Just close the nag box. Or at least I couldn't manage to trigger a paywall after re-visits.

Anyway, the article's point is that it's not really an improvement at all. Poor quality and overly rationed food, still no transparency, HHS ignoring complaints while telling people to just file complaints if they see an issue, bad for-profit management and prison-style housing.

quote:

Perhaps the most disturbing complaint: volunteers say Culmen does not provide adequate quality and amounts of food, leaving some of the kids hungry. �Numerous children have told me they are hungry and have begged me for additional food even after they have had a meal,� Chilstrom told The Daily Beast. �The food quality is subpar at best... Culmen pays for separate meal service for their employees and they throw out anything that they don�t use."

Hodges bolstered that contention, noting that many children have mentioned they go hungry. �The rationing is not proper,� he said. The Culmen employee echoed their concerns.

Emails reviewed by The Daily Beast sent by a different volunteer to representatives at HHS suggested the food situation amounted to �negligence� and �child abuse,� and specifically pointed to how Culmen ordered separate meals for their staff. The HHS representative responded by saying the concerns would be shared with Culmen, which is responsible for managing and distributing the budget for food. They also instructed volunteers to file incident reports for any maltreatment they witness.

Likewise, Hodges and Chilstrom both relayed stories they said they heard from migrants about how they would wake up to find that others had been transferred in the dead of night, with no explanation of whether they were sent to a sponsor or to another facility. �I would ask them what happened to so-and-so, and they would say, �I don�t know, they just came in the middle of the night and took them somewhere else,�� Hodges said. The Culmen employee corroborated these stories.

Volunteers also described how a paucity of mental-health services and education has taken a serious toll on the kids. For over a month, they have been confined inside the convention center, where their movements are highly regimented. They have to ask permission to use the restroom and are only allowed to leave the main room where they sleep to eat and shower, according to three volunteers and the Culmen employee.

Source from a few volunteers breaking policy to leak to the press after they were ignored.

# ? May 14, 2021 04:11

Fritz the Horse: Dec 26, 2019; ... of course!

Your bolded bit seems kind of like vague sensationalizing? The volunteers heard stories from migrants that other migrants were transferred in the dead of night. The other migrants weren't told where the transferred migrants went.

Why would other migrants be informed of a destination?

Obviously it's meant to imply something nefarious going on but literally all the information presented is "I heard from volunteers that heard from migrants that other migrants were transferred in the middle of the night and they weren't told why." That could be anything from completely mundane transfers to sponsors or other facilities all the way to pizzagate child trafficking rings or whatever.

I guess I'd say we need a lot more transparency about conditions in the camps. Direct access to journalists from several independent outlets would be best. I've no doubt the conditions are lacking, I'm just cautious about vague insinuations from a handful of volunteers.

Fritz the Horse fucked around with this message at 04:36 on May 14, 2021

# ? May 14, 2021 04:32

Ytlaya: Nov 13, 2005

Konstantin posted:

What would you prefer be done instead? You can't wave a magic wand and have thousands of good foster care facilities pop up. Should we release the kids to people claiming to be family without doing proper vetting? Ask for volunteers to take care of the kids? Deport them? What specific actions would you have the Biden administration take?

Let's look at this a different way. When bad things happen under Biden, the response from you and others with similar opinions seems to essentially be "can you give hard proof that they could have done something to fix this (or that they're not already doing their best to do so)? If no, then it's not fair to blame them." I think this is a fair description. This same standard is very obviously not applied to Republicans, or the actions of governments in countries that we consider Bad.

So the question is "where does this assumption of good will come from?" Why would you extend such good will to the man who was the VP to the President who created most of these conditions?

As I think I've said before, the burden of proof here should be on people to prove that the Biden administration is making a serious and genuine effort to fix things. I will openly acknowledge that this is a difficult (and sometimes even impossible minus the benefit of hindsight) burden of proof, but that's the consequence of spending your long political career being a terrible person who has contributed to the killing and immiseration of millions of people (or at least it should be, if people were actually serious about holding the principles they claim to hold). Any reasonable perspective on our government from a remotely left-wing perspective (that isn't clouded by a lifetime of exposure to partisan US political discourse) should view this administration with hostility. Such a lack of good will isn't somehow illogical - it's just the result of having different principles and ideology that influence the assumptions you have about certain public figures and institutions (in the same way I imagine you guys probably view Republicans through the lens of "there's no way in hell this person is acting with good intentions" - such an uncharitable view isn't unreasonable given the history and prior actions of the people in question, and the belief of myself and others is that the same standard should also be applied to Democrats).

# ? May 14, 2021 04:37

Slow News Day: Jul 4, 2007

Ytlaya posted:

Let's look at this a different way. When bad things happen under Biden, the response from you and others with similar opinions seems to essentially be "can you give hard proof that they could have done something to fix this (or that they're not already doing their best to do so)? If no, then it's not fair to blame them." I think this is a fair description. This same standard is very obviously not applied to Republicans, or the actions of governments in countries that we consider Bad.

So the question is "where does this assumption of good will come from?" Why would you extend such good will to the man who was the VP to the President who created most of these conditions?

As I think I've said before, the burden of proof here should be on people to prove that the Biden administration is making a serious and genuine effort to fix things. I will openly acknowledge that this is a difficult (and sometimes even impossible minus the benefit of hindsight) burden of proof, but that's the consequence of spending your long political career being a terrible person who has contributed to the killing and immiseration of millions of people (or at least it should be, if people were actually serious about holding the principles they claim to hold). Any reasonable perspective on our government from a remotely left-wing perspective (that isn't clouded by a lifetime of exposure to partisan US political discourse) should view this administration with hostility. Such a lack of good will isn't somehow illogical - it's just the result of having different principles and ideology that influence the assumptions you have about certain public figures and institutions (in the same way I imagine you guys probably view Republicans through the lens of "there's no way in hell this person is acting with good intentions" - such an uncharitable view isn't unreasonable given the history and prior actions of the people in question, and the belief of myself and others is that the same standard should also be applied to Democrats).

The proof you are asking for has already been provided in the form of extensive lists, written not by advocates or activists or journalists who heard stuff from volunteers or whatever, but by actual immigration lawyers and legal experts who know both the immigration system and the workings of government inside out. These articles have described in detail the positive effects of Biden�s immigration actions to date, as well as areas in which the administration has fallen short. In other words, they have provided an objective and balanced view of what is reasonable and realistic to expect from the executive branch, what has been done and what still needs to be done.

You could have gone and read all that and actually learned something, instead of posting this frankly weird diatribe about how Biden is just a terrible person with a terrible history of creating or contributing to these issues. Since you obviously can�t be bothered to do that, perhaps you should at least cease complaining about how the rest of us always rush to Biden�s defense because that�s just a pot-kettle situation and it�s pretty sad.

# ? May 14, 2021 05:01

BougieBitch: Oct 2, 2013; Basic as hell

Parakeet vs. Phone posted:

Anyway, the article's point is that it's not really an improvement at all. Poor quality and overly rationed food, still no transparency, HHS ignoring complaints while telling people to just file complaints if they see an issue, bad for-profit management and prison-style housing.

Well, no, that's not quite it either. This is specifically the conditions at the Dallas facility, one of the ones that was never intended to be anything close to long-term. It opened in the middle of March and is closing at the end of this month, meaning it has existed for about 2 months and will be open for 2 more weeks. The conditions in this facility are certainly below what anyone would consider to be adequate, but that doesn't establish much about the other facilities are like, necessarily. It's certainly better than the conditions in the CBP - the overcrowding issues, at the least, are resolved. It's also worth noting that this article, from the 8th, is already hugely outdated. The number cited is 1400 children, but this article says that the HHS number as of May 11 is 793:
https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/l...41-297c48b3af7e

In other words, almost half of the children that were there at the time cited in the article have already been moved to other facilities or matched with their families within 3 days. It doesn't track, then, that there are some huge number of children in these conditions for the entire period that they are with HHS - it makes a lot more sense to assume that the process now looks like:
1-3 days in CBP custody -> 7-10 days in overflow HHS facilities -> 3ish weeks in fully-staffed HHS facilities

It's still not great, but it's much better than when step 1 was taking 5 or more days.

The "full normal capacity" numbers for HHS are 13500 according to this article from March:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/05/politics/immigration-border-crowding-covid/index.html

Towards the end of April, the number of children HHS is responsible for was 21000:
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2021/04/politics/biden-administration-border-crisis/

This fact sheet from HHS has the updated number of 22264 for May 2: https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/uac-program-fact-sheet.pdf

Given that, the expectation is that probably 2/3 of children are in "adequate" conditions, while 1/3 of children are in "overflow" conditions. With sites like the Dallas convention center scheduled to close, the expectation is that the transfers "in the dead of night" are probably either moving children to the permanent bed spaces or pairing them with relatives/sponsors. They aren't going to try to move the remaining 800 all at once on the 31st - I would expect they are not moving anyone else into this facility, and it will be a matter of moving them out 50-100 at a time as beds open elsewhere. The ratio of "permanent" to "overflow" is the basis for my timeline above, with 10 days:21 days being roughly in line with the current numbers.

BougieBitch fucked around with this message at 05:13 on May 14, 2021

# ? May 14, 2021 05:07

Cactus Ghost: Dec 20, 2003; you can actually inflate your scrote pretty safely with sterile saline, syringes, needles, and aseptic technique. its a niche kink iirc

the saline just slowly gets absorbed into your blood but in the meantime you got a big round smooth distended nutsack

Slow News Day posted:

The proof you are asking for has already been provided in the form of extensive lists, written not by advocates or activists or journalists who heard stuff from volunteers or whatever, but by actual immigration lawyers and legal experts who know both the immigration system and the workings of government inside out. These articles have described in detail the positive effects of Biden�s immigration actions to date, as well as areas in which the administration has fallen short. In other words, they have provided an objective and balanced view of what is reasonable and realistic to expect from the executive branch, what has been done and what still needs to be done.

You could have gone and read all that and actually learned something, instead of posting this frankly weird diatribe about how Biden is just a terrible person with a terrible history of creating or contributing to these issues. Since you obviously can�t be bothered to do that, perhaps you should at least cease complaining about how the rest of us always rush to Biden�s defense because that�s just a pot-kettle situation and it�s pretty sad.

you're being condescending and dismissive about whistleblowing from people on the ground in an hhs facility, and his "weird diatribe" is actually a great breakdown of why a reasonable person may not give this admin the benefit of the doubt.. you seem more invested in winning at posting than communicating.

# ? May 14, 2021 05:54

Slow News Day: Jul 4, 2007

OMGVBFLOL posted:

you're being condescending and dismissive about whistleblowing from people on the ground in an hhs facility, and his "weird diatribe" is actually a great breakdown of why a reasonable person may not give this admin the benefit of the doubt.. you seem more invested in winning at posting than communicating.

Contrary to what you may believe, there is no winning or losing at posting. The only thing that matters here is that one side is providing extensive citations written by, again, actual experts, while the other side is ignoring all that and is instead getting on their soapboxes and ranting about how Biden is a terrible person who has not only failed to accomplish anything of value, but does not care or intend to.

# ? May 14, 2021 06:06

Fritz the Horse: Dec 26, 2019; ... of course!

OMGVBFLOL posted:

it's intellectually dishonest to disregard sixty years of precedent telling you "expect half measures and don't believe anything til you see it."

"It's intellectually dishonest" I say as I make sweepingly reductionist generalizations about sixty years of politics in order to short-circuit any discussion of the specific policies at hand.

OMGVBFLOL posted:

you're being condescending and dismissive about whistleblowing from people on the ground in an hhs facility, and his "weird diatribe" is actually a great breakdown of why a reasonable person may not give this admin the benefit of the doubt

"What you call a 'weird diatribe" is actually a great breakdown of why any reasonable person cannot give this admin the benefit of the doubt." You've simply agreed and declared anyone who might give this admin benefit of the doubt as "not reasonable" without any additional exposition or support.

OMGVBFLOL posted:

.. you seem more invested in winning at posting than communicating.

# ? May 14, 2021 06:13

ArchRanger: Mar 19, 2007; I'm tired of following my dreams, I'm just gonna ask where they're goin' and meet up with 'em there.

Fritz the Horse posted:

"What you call a 'weird diatribe" is actually a great breakdown of why any reasonable person cannot give this admin the benefit of the doubt." You've simply agreed and declared anyone who might give this admin benefit of the doubt as "not reasonable" without any additional exposition or support.

Real cool how you edited what they said to make it sound far more aggressive and insulting and then took insult from it.

# ? May 14, 2021 06:18

Cactus Ghost: Dec 20, 2003; you can actually inflate your scrote pretty safely with sterile saline, syringes, needles, and aseptic technique. its a niche kink iirc

the saline just slowly gets absorbed into your blood but in the meantime you got a big round smooth distended nutsack

Fritz the Horse posted:

"It's intellectually dishonest" I say as I make sweepingly reductionist generalizations about sixty years of politics in order to short-circuit any discussion of the specific policies at hand.

"What you call a 'weird diatribe" is actually a great breakdown of why any reasonable person cannot give this admin the benefit of the doubt." You've simply agreed and declared anyone who might give this admin benefit of the doubt as "not reasonable" without any additional exposition or support.

that's not what i said. calm down

Slow News Day posted:

Contrary to what you may believe, there is no winning or losing at posting.

that's not what i believe, nor did i say it was.

Cactus Ghost fucked around with this message at 08:29 on May 14, 2021

# ? May 14, 2021 08:26

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

GreyjoyBastard posted:

sure, those other proposals seem either objectively good, or like things i don't adequately understand to have an opinion on

(does rescinding title 42 lead to putting people in already overcrowded facilities before processing? is that nevertheless preferable to what they do if turned away? I have no idea! and therefore I have no opinion)

Allowing adults to immigrate to the US as refugees (something the US should be following as its a part of international human rights law) would at least allow these kids to still have their guardians with them, instead of being left to the vicissitude of indifferent security guards and overwhelmed public officials.

Personally I think just allowing these people to come over the border without being collected up, in essence decriminalizing it, would benefit these kids than staying in cold cavernous rooms where they're only allowed to shower once a week.

# ? May 14, 2021 14:06

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

BougieBitch posted:

I mean, if nothing else, the rallying cry at the end of March was that Biden was keeping too many people in the overcrowded CBP facilities, and that is objectively no longer happening - and progress was already being made on that front before the end of April: https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/29/politics/border-patrol-unaccompanied-minors/index.html

The next one was the refugee cap, which was the new problem for the first half of April, and the responses was that they would make adjustments, monitor the situation, and make a final change to the cap a month later. They did raise it, to 62500, with the promise of further doubling that to 125000 for the budget year starting in the fall.

It's fine to point out the next problem on the list, but pulling a complete 180 on the CBP processing blockage in the time frame that they did is pretty impressive in its own right, even if it is just taking us from a 1 to a 2 on a scale of 10 in terms of where we would like to see things. Don't stop pushing for better, but do recognize the amount of progress that happened there - if the administration had ignored activist pressure there would be no reason to be hopeful for further improvements, but given that the situation has been addressed within a month in both of the major cases so far, maybe you could extend the smallest iota of good faith to statements made by the admin on these issues? Certainly the US has a history of being terrible on basically all fronts, but I don't think there's much basis for believing that the Biden admin of 2021, with the powers of the presidency and the parts of the executive branch that are staffed, has been slacking on making improvements in general or on immigration specifically. There's always another problem, and it's fair to expect him to do something to address the most current one, but it's also okay to spend some time talking about positive resolutions and how those successes could be built upon and scoped up

The problem hasn't been solved. Attorneys visiting facilities reported this at the end of April:

quote:

Attorneys visited the Donna facility to ensure that the Flores Agreement, a policy that dictates standards for the treatment of minors in Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) custody, was abided by. These attorneys later spoke with CNN, and described the overcrowded conditions and the hygienic problems stemming from them. CNN was told that the children get to shower only once a week, and that it is not uncommon for the facility to run out of soap.

https://tcnjsignal.net/2021/04/28/has-biden-lived-up-to-his-immigration-campaign-promises/

# ? May 14, 2021 14:08

Willa Rogers: Mar 11, 2005

GreyjoyBastard posted:

I mean, one of the major points in that quote is "apparently the Biden administration doesn't have the staff yet to do better on this thing", which isn't a rapid thing to fix at the federal level. It also dovetails with what I have anecdotally seen as far as federal job notifications. It's not a Trump admin "lol why would we staff these offices or do these things" protocol.

based on this post the proposed remedy is to occasionally post "I am very mad at Joe Biden", which is obviously neither very interesting nor very productive

or to not argue against mischaracterizations and not talk about what positive things the Biden admin is trying to do, which sorry, that's not an acceptable norm to establish in this thread

I'm having troubled parsing the meaning of the bolded part; can you please clarify, as a mod, what this means?

# ? May 14, 2021 18:06

Willa Rogers: Mar 11, 2005

Fritz the Horse posted:

That's paywalled so it's hard to make much of it. The HHS facilities are still unacceptable, yes. Building detention capacity is a short-term stopgap, I'm sure we can agree that "build more detention facilities" is not the right solution long-term. Instead what we need is more staffing to speed safe placement of children with family or foster care.

I'm not sure where the disagreement is. The HHS facilities are better than CBP but they still aren't remotely acceptable conditions. Your objection seems to be with whether the improvement in conditions is praiseworthy or not?

The disagreement is because "out of sight, out of mind" is not an acceptable excuse for handwaving unvetted third parties from running the top-secret HHS concentration camps, and due to the banning of media/lawyers from seeing the kids we have no idea whether HHS concentration camps are an upgrade from the CPB concentration camps.

According to the few reports we've gotten from whistleblowers the HHS concentration camps don't sound like much of an upgrade--and they are even allowed to elude oversight to which the CPB concentration camps were subjected.

I'd be a lot happier with the administration if there were unfettered legal access, stringent & public oversight, and far more media access. (The technology is there to anonymize the children in the concentration camps, as far as that concern goes.)

# ? May 14, 2021 18:14

misadventurous: Jun 26, 2013; the wise gem bowed her head solemnly and spoke: "theres actually zero difference between good & bad quartzes. you imbecile. you fucking moron"

Willa Rogers posted:

I'm having troubled parsing the meaning of the bolded part; can you please clarify, as a mod, what this means?

It�s not ok to say �I�m mad at Joe Biden� but it is ok to say �I�m actually pleasantly surprised at Joe Biden!!�

Basically just reifying incrementalism as the preferred approach to politics and the acceptable level of discourse. Not surprising in the slightest but still exasperating to see a mod just come out and say it. You would want to think that the priority would be challenging the rosy image this administration desperately wants to project, instead of reinforcing it and making GBS threads on any relevant criticism as �not very productive�

It remains ludicrous to expect that left of liberal posters on SA are obligated to come up with a solution to the immigration crisis in this country just to be taken seriously in a forum conversation, when the best our own government can give us is �we�re working on it okay?! (quietly hires the same people trump did)�

# ? May 15, 2021 14:12

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# ? Jun 5, 2024 12:34

Solkanar512: Dec 28, 2006; by the sex ghost

misadventurous posted:

It�s not ok to say �I�m mad at Joe Biden� but it is ok to say �I�m actually pleasantly surprised at Joe Biden!!�

Basically just reifying incrementalism as the preferred approach to politics and the acceptable level of discourse. Not surprising in the slightest but still exasperating to see a mod just come out and say it. You would want to think that the priority would be challenging the rosy image this administration desperately wants to project, instead of reinforcing it and making GBS threads on any relevant criticism as �not very productive�

It remains ludicrous to expect that left of liberal posters on SA are obligated to come up with a solution to the immigration crisis in this country just to be taken seriously in a forum conversation, when the best our own government can give us is �we�re working on it okay?! (quietly hires the same people trump did)�

You're just putting words in this mod's mouth on a Saturday morning.

# ? May 15, 2021 14:38

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > US Immigration Policy Megathread

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