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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 6, 2024

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I addressed this in the post. To summarize, yes, he could fix it now, to at least some degree. Reimplementing the Remain in Mexico would help. The problem with all of these fixes though is that they're bandaids on bullet holes that don't address fundamental issues like this bill would have.

You talked about it, but that doesn't really address it: If illegal immigration got worse after Biden undid Trump's policies (which is Trump's fault because his PR was mean), why can't Biden just redo them? Why are they bandaids? According to your line of argument: Trump's policies, which didn't do anything, and don't work, prevented the Biden mass influx of immigration, which can't be stopped, unless we adopt some new Biden policies (like building a wall). Mhmmm.

Multiple people referenced the exact same remark shortly after the meeting was over, so I think it's safe to assume he really said it. If you want to keep contesting that specific statement, just choose any of his other ones. His hostile rhetoric towards immigrants wasn't exactly a secret.

Illegal immigrants!

It is also just absurd. So Biden won’t take steps to partially solve a problem because he wants a bigger solution (even though Biden made the problem worse) but the Republicans are stupid for not taking a solution that OP believes will partially solve a problem because Republicans think it will get them a better solution later on?

Who, whom indeed.

Fairly sure you are technically wrong on “illegals immigrants”. Being intellectually honest when these debates were going on the asylum seekers are “legal”. They are allowed to claim asylum without proof but that status makes them legally allowed to be in the U.S.

But I too just call them illegals immigrants for dramatic effect. But the Biden administration has in fact found a way to make them “legal”. It’s embarrassing that illegal is technically wrong.

Read the Trump comments in the piece Ben linked. They were all Trump remarks clearly about illegals. Ben claims Trump was too mean to immigrants, eliding the difference.

If illegal immigration got worse after Biden undid Trump's policies, why can't Biden just redo them?

Again, he could redo them. He could (and should) reimplement Remain in Mexico to at least reduce the current surge somewhat.

But they're mere bandaids because they don't address the root issues, the most major one being the asylum loophole. The best long term fix would be to remove the asylum loophole, which Trump tried to do but failed since he wasn't willing to do more than executive orders on immigration. Remain in Mexico would be better than the status quo, but it would still be subject to periodic legal challenges, as well as Mexico deciding they don't want to keep all these people and helping them enter the US.

Illegal immigrants!

Sure, illegal immigrants. The point is that calling them things like "animals", or saying they're "coming from shithole countries" is needlessly inflammatory if the goal is to pass substantive policy.