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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   30382 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 8, 2023

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I want a border that is fully hardened against incursions and to turn away every single person with a bogus asylum claim from south of the border, which in my view is every single person with an asylum claim from south of the border.

What makes all asylum claims originating south of the border bogus? I'd have thought at least Venezuelans would get some benefit of the doubt.

Passing through multiple countries that are safe on the way up. Going to the United States isn't about finding refuge, it's a preference to make it to the United States specifically.

I'm a Canadian, and I think that all asylum claims originating south of our border are bogus. Once you've escaped whichever hellhole you're running from...you've escaped it. It's done. The refugee system is meant to handle emergencies, and "being processed as a refugee in a safe country" is not an emergency that justifies asylum.

Well, yes. But Canada's southern border is with the US, so the argument that it is a safe country is pretty solid.

While Mexico could be argued to be the same the case is weaker and Mexico alone probably has a lot of potentially-legitimate asylum seekers.

And Texas(probably) wouldn’t be pepperballing migrants at the border if they were from Mexico. They’re from a lot further afield. If you’re coming from Venezuela, you’re passing through Colombia, Panama, and Costa Rica on the way up, all of which are safe countries that don’t happen to be as rich or developed as the US.

Don't forget Nicaragua. Their homicide rate is now down to 7.9/100k: still worse than Texas as a whole, but not as bad as Dallas or Houston in particular, and not even half as bad as such infamous US hellholes as "Philadelphia" or "Columbus".

Nicaragua will never be recognized as a safe country for political reasons(it being a communist dictatorship and all).

People should not be traveling, and especially not encouraged to travel if they have an “acute medical emergency”.

I personally know people who had acute medical emergencies in Mexico and were explicitly told by doctors there that they had to get back to the states ASAP if they had any realistic hope of surviving due to unavailability of high-level medical care there. And sometimes people have medical emergencies while en route. The point is that we're not going to tell someone in dire need of a doctor that they have to start hoofing it to the nearest Mexican hospital; we're going to put them on an ambulance.

encouraging children to travel alone is child endangerment. Giving special exceptions to children encourages them to do the very dangerous crossing and gets them killed. If you want to save children, take them from the border towns in Mexico - don't make them risk their lives. That is just cruelty.

I don't know that it's any less cruel than turning them away. In any event, I don't think that these new regulations are really going to change much. All the consternation about Biden's border crisis happened during a time when normal asylum rules were suspended due to COVID. The surge they expected hasn't seemed to come yet, which makes me think that the actual rules in place aren't going to change much at best, and at worst are going to encourage illegal crossings. The only real solution seems to be to make it easier for law-abiding foreigners to get work visas and give them official status as economic migrants. Second on the list would be encouraging economic development in Mexico, a growing prospect considering that COVID exposed the logistical problems with relying on China, and the political front isn't going to get any better. Even the Chinese are starting to outsource a lot of their manufacturing there because they see the writing on the wall.

The "being a victim of human trafficking" is a blanket rule to allow all women entry, as everyone traveling with a coyote is being trafficked in some sense

Sane rule would require coercion being part of the deal - otherwise anybody traveling with a guide can be qualified as being "trafficked". Of course, sanity long ceased to be a consideration in immigration law anyway.

for anyone who passes through another country to reach the U.S. border with Mexico without first seeking protection there

Would that rule require people to seek asylum in Mexico itself or Mexico is considered a war zone by default now?

Of course, Trump wanted to do this, but was stopped by the courts. The courts are strangely silent now. One wonders why.

Perhaps because it took effect only 2 days ago.

Or perhaps because the Trump policy was barred because "It is effectively a categorical ban on migrants who use a method of entry explicitly authorized by Congress in section 1158(a)", East Bay Sanctuary Covenant v. Trump, 950 F. 3d 1242, 1272 (9th Cir 2020), whereas the Biden policy, according to your quote, is not a categorical ban, but rather merely creates a rebuttable presumption?

Not everything is a conspiracy against your team.

IIRC most of the people currently migrating to the border had previously settled in one of the nicer parts of Latin America and are now trying to illegally cross the border because they heard facebook rumors that claiming asylum would get you permission to live in the USA.

I mean, the US seems like a nicer country to live in than Chile, but "having to live in Chile" is not a crisis and shouldn't be considered a basis for asylum.

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