If they become citizens, they can vote. They might be likely as a whole to vote for or against things that bother certain groups in Congress. That by itself will be a reason for those parties to prevent them from being citizens. We see the same thing with the islanders.
How many people would become citizens under this law though? I doubt it would be a significant amount in terms of voting in or out certain politicians.
I disagree with using "Congress" as a euphemism for the political party one is in opposition to. Clearly a majority of Americans believe in their own senators and representatives. It's the "other guys" who are bad. Call a spade a spade.
Americans killed all the natives, then they killed all the Mexicans in California (ok "expulsed" some). And now everyone must believe they are the good ones and kicking Latinos is the right thing. You know what, fuck you, prove you are different than ISIS, prove you are rightfully the world police .
>Americans killed all the natives, then they killed all the Mexicans in California
That's long time ago. The mind set and cultures were different back then. If you want to use history as some sort of mockery or prove a point. Every countries/citizens in the world can be blamed for something.
Actually the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo extended citizenship to the formerly Mexican citizens of California at the end of the Mexican-American war, 90% accepted this offer. Legally the United States considered individuals of Mexican heritage, "white". America certainly has a difficult history, however it is incredibly misleading to say that they killed all the Mexicans in California. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Guadalupe_Hidalgo
The majority of (living) Americans had nothing to do with those things. But yeah, as an American I should be doing more to improve the world and in response to your vitriol I will try to do better.
You've chosen a nice arbitrary point to start judging people. Europeans didn't disturb some idyllic peace in the Americas. The natives were slaughtering and conquering each other left and right. The difference is that the Europeans had the advanced technology and culture to win.
Unwitting biological warfare helps too. Conquest is a whole lot easier when something that gives your people the sniffles more than decimates your enemies.
But yeah, the Aztecs and the Incas didn't become great empires by sitting around the campfire and singing kumbaya. Which is part of the reason Cortez and Pizarro were able to beat them with such small armies of Spaniards... backed up by tens of thousands of native allies.
Yeah, the Aztecs were particularly brutal. They would actually hold off from fully conquering some neighboring tribes to use them as punching bags for ritual warfare and the taking of captives for human sacrifice.
“There wasn’t a lot of education to adoptive parents in the earlier time about naturalizing their children or even what papers to keep, said Kessel, whose organization is helping push for bills in the House and Senate.
Some of these people had US passports. US passports! If I had a US passport it would not cross my mind that I was not a US citizen and that I needed to do even more paperwork.
If he was entitled to citizenship at the time of his adoption, and his adoptive parents failed to file the paperwork, then he should be entitled to citizenship regardless of his age. There are certainly many ways to abuse the system, but I prefer to err on the side of good faith.
Usually though good faith and bureaucracy don't mix. It is dangerous to have faith in bureaucracy. In a way that is what the parents did, how the girl at the end said her parent just believed common sense would prevail and even if there is a missing paper here and there, someone sitting across the desk will understand and fix the error eventually.
I thought an executive decision is all it's needed but apparently not.
Interestingly, there is a special law to expedite naturalization for those who "made an extraordinary contribution to the national security of the United States or to the conduct of United States intelligence activities". But even there it's a 5 person per year maximum.
I was wondering why they need a quick citizenship and why a green card wouldn't be sufficient. Guessing could be in case of defectors maybe their original country would revoke their citizenship or at least their passport. So they might be left for years in kind of a limbo.
I know a girl that had to leave the U.S. >24< years after her parents brought her there ( she was a baby ).
The story ( as far as I can remember ) is that a family of Germans moved to the U.S. with their 1 year old child. 24 years later the child graduated university and ... needs to apply for a green card or permanent VISA.
US government refused, so she had to come back to Germany.
I've never understood why U.S. is so protective in terms of citizenship. In most of the EU countries you get naturalized ( receive citizenship ) if you spend certain amount of time in the country and pass a test ( Germany I think it's 7 yrs ).
What are these rules that you refer to? I know a lot of people who could benefit from such rules having come to the United States legally and spending 10 years and has to leave because their visas were expiring.
In the US you can begin the naturalization process after five years of permanent residency.
A green card is what establishes permanent residency. (I don't think we have permanent visas, but I could be wrong.)
I can only speculate how your friend was allowed to live in this country that long without ever obtaining permanent residency, but regardless, it's an example of the system failing, and that's a really terrible thing to happen to someone.
Well as far as I can remember the story, their parents were there with a working VISA ( extended through time ) and she got at one point ( I think at 18? ) a study VISA until it all expired after university.
Forgive me if this sounds harsh but shouldn't she have applied for a green card as soon as she turned 18?
I don't know the ins and outs of immigration but that's because I'm a citizen. If I wasn't, I'd sure as hell know what I needed to do in order to stay in the only country I'd ever known as home.
It's not harsh, but your reply just proved the point of either how little Americans know about their immigration system or how it much nonsensical it is.
According drinchev, I can assume that when his/her friend turned 18 she would have had to go through the process to apply for green card just as if she never lived in the US.
I know someone who was in a similar situation, grew up in America, his parents were diplomats, when he turned 21 he could not longer be a dependent of his parents' status, and the amount of time he lived legally had no benefit in giving him eligibility to apply for a green card.
Brought over an immigrant myself. The fact is you MUST ensure you've done everything correctly. You don't trust, you verify. Diplomats should have known better. People who adopt from overseas need to know. You can't just do whatever you want in terms of bringing new bodies from foreign lands. That's the administrative reality and there's no reason to have exceptions when these people should have been responsible. If you don't have consequences, then people don't follow administrative rules. If you don't have administrative rules and laws, good luck having order, good luck managing. Good luck collecting taxes, good luck having a country.
Why are we so quick to blame the USA, or blame our own country when these things actually aren't all that difficult. There are forms for everything. And where there are challenges, there are lawyers. Can't afford a lawyer or figure it out yourself? Guess what you just proved you're not prepared to bring over an immigrant regardless of their age.
It's okay to foist an injustice upon someone because they were ignorant or lazy? We should be making our social systems fail-safe when the consequences are so severe. It shouldn't be possible to eject someone like that without round after round of appeals and second chances to get good paperwork, and if they were eligible for citizenship, and in good faith relied on the idea that they were citizens, then by all rights they should be one.
I think that's how it works today. In my personal experience, USCIS goes above and beyond to get citizenship for citizens. It's possible the above comment leaves out some crucial detail.
You're actually calling justice / rules 'injustice.' You clearly have never done any of this type of paperwork. It's not actually that hard for one. And there are consequences for things you don't do, whether you're a nice guy, whether you didn't realize something was prohibited.
Sucks for some yes because they don't take care of business. But it also sucks when we don't have protective measures in place. And it's both unfair and extremely difficult to have exceptions for everything subjectively.
Are we also expected to pass with an A+ everyone who had good faith that they knew course material? Are we supposed to loosen up all regulation as well because we 'trust' a company will handle things fine because somebody's cousin owns the company?
You know when somebody leaves the scene of an accident, they sometimes do it because they don't realize they are supposed to stay, sometimes they don't even realize they knocked a cyclist down nearly killing them. Guess what, they still get charged with leaving the scene of an accident even if they were completely oblivious.
I too always like to start my day with a fresh breath of legalism.
You do have some points, but your examples aren't so good.
1. In your test example, the students didn't know the course material, they just thought they did. They don't actually qualify for an A+.
2. In the scene of the accident, the rule there is in place because there is an incentive to leave the scene of the accident. Ideally, someone who didn't know the law would get a less harsh penalty than someone who did (so intent matters).
In the case above, there is something special happening. The rights of citizenship are on a much higher more protected plane than other rights (as other fundamental rights, voting, residency, amongst others are derived from them). We are allowed to use strict liability for leaving the scene of an accident because it's a shitty thing to do regardless of the law and because while it does affect the fundamental rights of liberty, it is based on something that the person did to deserve a punishment.
In the case of citizenship, if they technically qualify and act as though they do, that should be enough to at least give them the option of taking it retroactively. It's too fundamental for the most simplistic interpretation of bureaucratic rules to suffice.
How exactly are you going to apply for a green card at 18? It's not like most 18 year olds have the necessary university degrees to qualify for an employment based green card. And 18 is a bit young to be getting married to qualify for a marriage based green card.
Part of the problem is more that she might not have had grounds for a green card. Study gets her through school, but afterwards? She'd have to have a job or marry or something similar to be in the programs. And things can go wrong with all of this. The system just doesn't have much to deal with this sort of situation.
And sometimes, these sentiments are easy to say when you are 30, but not so easy to see these things when one is 18, not so easy during the next 4 years as they are in college... and suddenly, crisis.
Perfectly understandable for the US to behave that way. After all, they have barely any living space, have trouble feeding the citizens they do have, nothing in the way of natural resources (mineral, agricultural, or other), a very weak economy, live in the shadow of an oppressive and warlike neighbour, and don't have so much as a statue welcoming migrants to their shores.
> I've never understood why U.S. is so protective in terms of citizenship.
We've got a lot of racist assholes, basically. Particularly ironic for a country that was founded on immigration. These laws, and their heavy-handed enforcement, are mainly targeted at keeping out Mexicans. European and Asian immigrants are collateral damage, essentially.
Europe, unfortunately, is starting to go the same way. I think it was Switzerland that denied citizenship to a couple of teenage Muslim girls because they didn't want to swim with boys in mandatory co-ed swim class. They've also banned minarets on mosques, apparently--I have no clue how they pretend to justify that. Xenophobia makes people do ridiculous things.
Assuming that the story you've told actually happened. Yeah, two kids in a school didn't want to enter the pool, and they've sent them packing back to (where?) because of that. Have I understood well what you described?
Yes, I follow the news, and they are not the same as what you described. By the Swiss law, any aspirant for the Swiss citizenship has to show (among other things) that he/she is integrated into Swiss culture and society. The immigrant family clearly does not want to accept that, so they did not get citizenship. No right has been denied to them: they are still in Switzerland, and are free people who can do whatever they like, and, what's more, are allowed to fully practice their religion, which I understood is most important to them.
So, TL;DR: a family, actively, defiantly, on purpose, failed one of citizenship tests and were not granted citizenship.
Citizenship is not something that guests are entitled to. It's practically an award by the host. Mind you, I am not a Swiss, nor US citizen, nor an EU citizen. I would like to be, since it would benefit my situation considerably, but I was born in another country. So, why any of these countries would be obligated to grant me their citizenship?
It was a decision of the girls ( or their father ) [1] not to be naturalized. They could've just did the swim with the boys and they would've got their citizenship.
On the other hand my friend had NO CHOICE in her 24 year stay in the U.S. to get a citizenship ( although she followed all the rules / laws of the country ).
If you think underage muslim girls are normally going to go against the wishes of their father then you clearly don't know much about the kind of patriarchy they are exposed to. Fathers word > law.
You'd think so but in plenty of those households when you cross the threshold you might as well be in the middle east. I've had plenty of contact with Muslim families living in the West and the range is very wide, given that these girls were not allowed to swim with the boys it isn't a wild guess at all that their family is on the traditional side of the spectrum.
Ironically, according to the BBC, Brexit requires so much in the way of negotiators, and they're suspicious of pulling retired negotiators back into work (as they're overwhelming on the Remain side) that Whitehall is probably going to end up hiring foreign negotiators.
>Europe, unfortunately, is starting to go the same way. I think it was Switzerland that denied citizenship to a couple of teenage Muslim girls because they didn't want to swim with boys in mandatory co-ed swim class.
Behave like us, or get the hell out. Is that racist to you? Then I have bad news. You'll start to see that more and more often with time.
And, unless the elites react in time, you'll see a purge in ~30 years.
Societies are (thankfully) not homogeneous. Some women may feel comfortable going topless at beaches in countries that permit it and it may even be the norm. Does that mean that all women should be okay with that? Where do you set the bar?
I completely support what Switzerland did. If you don't want to be part of the culture you are joining, they don't have to let you in. Note that they are not expelling the girls-they are denying them citizenship. Citizenship for Switzerland means shared values.
Ping me when Saudi Arabia allows Jews to become citizens.
>I've never understood why U.S. is so protective in terms of citizenship.
The American electorate believes unemployment is caused by an improper ratio of people to jobs, and it can be solved both by increasing the number of jobs and decreasing the number of people.
In this theory, your friend's expulsion was a victory for the American who took over her job, and for the unemployed person who entered the labor market (if not directly, then via a domino effect).
We are comparatively loose with immigration statuses that don't permit work. Tourist, student, etc. visas are relatively trivial to obtain. We have programs that allow work which doesn't compete with Americans, such as international performing arts groups on tour. We even have programs to fill jobs that Americans aren't available to fill (H1B for highly skilled labor, seasonal farm workers, etc).
The moat is built around statuses that permit competition with Americans for jobs in general. It remains this way because Americans do not generally consider or believe Econ 101 ideas like that trade necessarily benefits both sides of the exchange (or they would not make it), more workers also means more consumers, cheaper labor => cheaper goods and services => higher standard of living, etc.
>It remains this way because Americans do not generally consider or believe Econ 101 ideas
It's not at all clear this violates "Econ 101". Supply and demand set prices, and wages are basically the price for labor. Increasing the supply of labor should necessarily decrease wages, and vice versa.
Imagine the extreme, worst case scenario. If the US opened it's borders completely, and imported every poor worker in the entire world into its borders. Do you really believe that average American worker would be better off? That they could compete with that, and be able to demand a decent wage?
>trade necessarily benefits both sides of the exchange
True, but extremely misleading. E.g. f you move factories overseas for cheaper labor, the local workers lose out, even though other classes may gain. The benefits of trade are not distributed among the entire population.
>cheaper labor => cheaper goods and services
Sure, but if everyone is making proportionally less money, they can't afford the cheaper services, and on net they are poorer.
> It's not at all clear this violates "Econ 101". Supply and demand set prices, and wages are basically the price for labor. Increasing the supply of labor should necessarily decrease wages, and vice versa.
Increasing the supply of labor also increases the demand for other goods. Workers have to eat! If you kick someone out of the country, you reduce demand for food, clothes, etc., eliminating the local jobs that would have gone towards satisfying that worker's needs.
Not that I'm arguing against the possibility of more workers lowering wages. They might, to some degree (studies are unclear on to what degree they do), but it's not a zero-sum game, here.
But does the benefit make up for the cost? It would be really unlikely if 100% of a workers wages went into the local economy, let alone local workers. Many products they buy may be from overseas, for instance.
The fears of globalization are various and not as simple as a GDP or employment rate. It promotes an uprooting and destabilization of people's lives as everything becomes more competitive. There is no guarantee that you stay near home, work in a familiar culture, build lasting ties in your career. These things aren't strictly a matter of globalization, and their value is not easily measured against the known benefits of bigger markets. But the status quo is to ram free trade down the precariat's throat without allowing protest or negotiation, with a paternalistic "we'll all be better off if you take it on the chin."
>We are comparatively loose with immigration statuses that don't permit work. Tourist, student, etc. visas are relatively trivial to obtain.
That's a weird statement, I feel like you lack wider context. As an Australian, pretty much the only place in the western world where I need a visa /at all/ to be a tourist is the USA. In something like 50% of the the world, I can just show up at the border whenevs and they'll let me in on the promise that I'm going to leave in a few weeks.
Your standards are actually pretty anal compared to almost everywhere else. China and Russia are really the only comparable places.
> I've never understood why U.S. is so protective in terms of citizenship.
In some ways it isn't: merely being born here grants citizenship. That's no longer the case in any EU country: Ireland repealed birthright citizenship years ago.
It means that simply flying to the US on a tourist visa before your baby is born will grant it citizenship. But living in the US on a work visa for 18 years after your baby is born? That doesn't grant anything.
> I've never understood why U.S. is so protective in terms of citizenship. In most of the EU countries you get naturalized ( receive citizenship ) if you spend certain amount of time in the country and pass a test ( Germany I think it's 7 yrs ).
I think it's more complicated than that. My gf has lived more than 10 years in France now and she has to renew her visa every year, they never granted her the 10 years visa, let alone citizenship (she was discouraged to apply for it...).
On the other hand, I have a bunch of friends that obtained their US nationality quite easily. They started as illegal immigrants, got married, which gave them a green card and after a few years they obtained their citizenship.
These are just anecdotes, just to say that it's not so clear that it's harder to get US citizenship.
The more bizarre part is how the various federal agencies do not coordinate. For example, the "fear they will be unable to collect Social Security benefits they have paid into." This means these people are paying taxes to the IRS who collects SS money from them yet they are "not eligible" to work in the US. This is "impossible" but the tax man doesn't ask questions when people send him money.
I think if someone has paid, say, 20% of their total lifetime earnings, with a minimum of $50K over ten years, in taxes to the US government, and they have not committed any crime, they should be given citizenship. This gives the USG ten years to find anyone they'd rather not have in the country, and let them leave before they contribute more than their fair share to a country that rejects them.
I like the idea, but it firstly makes "purchasing citizenship" a thing (as if it is not already) and it has an underlying principle that is more useful - if you spend ten years openly in a country and are not a criminal, then you get to stay, which is a much better principle.
The problem with that is that it penalizes legal residents waiting for their citizenship
My brother has been in the US for nearly 20 years. Started out as a grad student, then as a H1-B. Took him more than 10 years just to get a green card, then 5 years more to be eligible for citizenship.
All this while, he must have paid several hundred thousand dollars in taxes (6+ figure income over 15 years)
Why should another immigrant get the same benefits as him faster than he could by paying even less in taxes?
> penalizes legal residents waiting for their citizenship
How does another person receiving a benefit penalize your brother?
By the same logic, we should all insist on vicious assaults on new military recruits, because that's how it was done years ago.
As a society we should seek to improve the way we treat people, maximizing practical utility (tax-paying illegal immigrants are benefiting society) and seeking fairness. Chasing fairness as a primary goal is a fruitless endeavor.
I think it's awful for both your brother and society that he was required to wait so long to get his citizenship. Should we repeat the same mistakes out of a misguided attempt at fairness?
The most curious instance I've heard of this was a man who came in as a young child and joined the Army (perfectly legal for non-citizens). While in the service he was an MP and then took a job as a police officer after finishing his service. The problem came that without citizenship he couldn't legally work as a LEO and all of his arrests were technically invalid. As an MP, though, he was working under the exclusive authority of the executive and no such conflict was present.
What was most shocking to me was that some of these kids managed to get U.S. passports without being citizens. How does that happen? I'm a first generation immigrant. My parents were naturalized when I was 10. AFAIK that means that I automatically acquired their naturalization. But I do not have a naturalization certificate of my own, and I don't have a copy of my parents certificate. I do hold a U.S. passport, but that is apparently not ironclad proof of citizenship. I'm frankly not sure what I would do if Trump gets elected and the brown shirts show up no my doorstep to haul my ass back to Germany because my passport is invalid.
Ironically, my situation is a little less tenuous because I am the biological child of naturalized immigrants rather than the adopted child of natural-born citizens. Like so many things about this story, that seems so wrong.
I know the inexorable pull of Godwins Law, but this is a reasonable fear - Trump is standing at the top of a slippery slope, Berlusconi is further down the same slope, and the history of the 20th C shows where the slope goes.
Putting up warning signs, even contentious ones, at the top of the slope is reasonable.
(I read the same article and it is worth noting that a decade ago, every Italian I spoke to began conversations with "I am sorry about Berlusconi ...")
I am not advocating ignoring all discussion of issues raised by Trump or (trumping?!) all his issues with the Nazi card, but it is a part of his background and appeal and should be calmly assessed along with other issues of protectionism, labor rights and more.
Franklin D. Roosevelt rounded up those of Japanese descent and put them in internment camps.
Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy invaded, proceeded to rounded and murder and otherwise caused the death of up to 3.1 million Vietnamese in the Vietnamese Resistance War against America.
Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Kennedy are literally Hitler.
> Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Kennedy are literally Hitler.
Clearly not. But neither are they the unambiguously virtuous "good guys" that Americans like to imagine that they are.
Let's stop taking everything to extremes. Will a Trump presidency lead to mass executions of civilians in gas chambers? Probably not. Will it lead to innocent people -- mainly Muslims and people with dark skin -- being deported, separated from their families, tortured, and killed? Very likely. Trump has explicitly promised to do all of these things, and I see no reason to doubt him on this. Do I think it will happen to me? Probably not, but that's only because I'm a rich white guy. But I take little comfort from that because once xenophobia takes root it tends to grow like kudzu. I'm a rich white guy, but I'm also Jewish, so there are absolutely some Trump supporters who would like to see me go back to where I came from along with the Muslims, the Mexicans, and the niggers. The best way to keep those people out of power is to keep Trump out of power. And if pointing out the parallels between Trump and Hitler helps to do that then Godwin be damned. Sometimes the Nazi shoe fits.
[UPDATE:] FWIW, it's not just me making this argument:
So for example, the Mexican Army being used to round up hundreds of drug cartel members makes them equivalent to the SS then? Rounding up large groups of people is not a sufficient condition for being equivalent to Hitler.
Actually it has everything in common with the Nazis. The Nazis were the law-and-order party of their day. Very nearly everything they did was legal. That is why they documented everything so meticulously. They really believed they were the good guys. The main reason the Nazis are the iconic villains is not because what they did was that much worse than other atrocities that humans have committed through the ages, but because they lost the war. Stalin killed vastly more civilians than Hitler, but you don't hear as much about that because Stalin was a Winner.
I think the Nazis can serve as iconic villains mainly because a lot of their value system seems so alien compared to what we have in the western world today.
Besides, many people like to believe they are the “good guys”.
Everyone thinks they're the good guys. Even the ISIS folks think they are the good guys, that they are fighting the good fight against the infidel for the greater glory of God. That's the whole point. That's the reason that, "It's OK because we're the good guys" is not a valid argument, because everyone applies it to themselves.
"Sending people back who came illegally [is OK]" is a thinly disguised argument of that same form because we are the ones who decide what is legal. In that respect we are like the Nazis. They thought that what they were doing was OK because it was "legal", because they were "just following orders." Well, no, it was not OK. And deporting people who grew up here "illegally" through no fault of their own but rather because their adoptive parents didn't fill out the right paperwork and xenophobia happens to be running amok is likewise not OK no matter what the law says.
just because somebody wants laws enforced doesn't make them 'xenophobic' And to say having immigration laws with consequences means the U.S. is like the Nazi's? I mean at this point there's really no point to consider you as thinking rationally.
> just because somebody wants laws enforced doesn't make them 'xenophobic'
That is certainly true, but Trump has said much more than just calling for law-and-order (which, by the way, is a very loaded term in American politics: the phrase was first used by Richard Nixon as a deliberate code phrase intended to signify solidarity with southern white racists in the 60's). He has also, for example, called out Mexicans for being "rapists" and called for a "total ban on Muslims entering the U.S." Comments like those are xenophobic. The combination of xenophobia and law-and-order is very reminiscent of early Nazi rhetoric. That doesn't necessarily make Trump a Nazi, but it does make it not entirely unreasonable to raise the question.
Trump probably did not intend "law and order" to be a coded racist message. His profound ignorance almost certainly does extend to this branch of American political history. But that's irrelevant. A loaded term is loaded whether or not the speaker intends it to be. Nixon denied it too:
"Nixon publicly denied that the phrase was a code for racism — the very accusation implied a "reverse racism," he said, as if the critics were suggesting that "the Negroes" didn't want law and order, too. But the message was clear enough in Nixon's references to a "city jungle" that threatened to swallow the affluent suburbs. His TV ads showed a middle-aged white woman walking nervously down a city street at night, where the assailants who might be lurking in the shadows presumably weren't hippies or demonstrators."
Just because some villains started out being for law and order doesn't mean being for law and order makes you a villain. Being for law and order is the "we're the good people" disguise that villains hide in until they show themselves to be villains. But NOT being for law and order doesn't make you a "real good person". The correlation is probably strongly negative even.
> Just because some villains started out being for law and order doesn't mean being for law and order makes you a villain.
That is certainly true, except for two things. First, the phrase "law and order" is a loaded term in American politics. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_and_order_(politics) And second, Trump has made many xenophobic statements, both implicit and explicit. He called out Mexicans for being rapists. He called for a "total ban on Muslims entering the U.S." He failed to distance himself from endorsements by white supremacists. These things do not make Trump a Nazi, but they do make it fair to draw attention to the similarities.
> Do we need to compare everybody to Hitler?
Trump's policies are eerily reminiscent of Hitler's. Seriously, go look up some transcripts of Hitler's speeches, especially the early ones, and substitute "Muslim" for "Jew" and compare the results to Trump's rhetoric. Better yet, show the results to some Trump supporters and ask them if they agree with the sentiments.
But I don't really care what color their shirts are. What I care about is: by what process do we decide who gets thrown out and who gets to stay. Trump's policy is: throw out everyone who can't prove they're here legally. Well, if a passport isn't good enough proof (and it manifestly is not) then I'm not sure I can prove I'm here legally.
Will it be "that bad?" Maybe, maybe not. But if history teaches us anything it is that the time to speak up is before the answer becomes apparent.
ehhh No. Every election cycle sees both sides compared to hitler. Hitler hyperbole is immature. And if you look at enough speeches or statements from anyone you can compare to a dictator. Not that hard. You're also blatantly excluding the things he's said about legal immigrants and muslims that are overwhelmingly positive. You've made that choice to ignore positive statements.
> "Trumps policy is...."
No. Trump has said time and again, we have immigration laws and we need to follow them. That includes having more reinforced border fences or walls. Already law. The end of sanctuary cities, which are basically localized laws breaking federal law.
> No. Trump has said time and again, we have immigration laws and we need to follow them.
That's true, but that's not all he has said. He has also said that Mexicans are rapists, that Muslims should be banned from the U.S., and that he "doesn't know" about white supremacists. Among many, many other examples that I could cite.
Trump is not an idiot. He's not going to grow a little mustache and call for a "final solution to the Muslim problem." But it is definitely fair to compare him to the Nazis because the Nazis provide a data point of what can happen when you give political power to xenophobes, which Trump most certainly is.
You're referring to a speech, when Trump was specifically talking about illegal immigration and yes there are rapists and murderers among them. He also brought on stage mothers who have lost their children to these criminals. Fact: illegal immigrants make up a significant portion of the prison population.
Trump is also concerned with radical islamic terrorism. There is a case for banning immigration from specific countries. We already do it, we also already prohibit U.S. businesses from doing business in specific countries. You can say his take on islamic terrorism / and islamic immigration is too hardline. I don't agree. There are clearly trends of actual radicalization within even second generation muslim immigrnts that require vigilance.
Also the "doesn't know" statement regarding supremist groups was him partially hearing in his ear piece in a remote interview Tapper talking about disavowing "groups" Why would Trump "not know" when his daughter is married to a Jewish man? I noticed how you didn't bring up David Duke either and that's because you know full and well Trump in 2000 said disparaging things about Duke not that some 'disavowal' was needed. He has no association with any of them.
So you're saying it's fair to compare him to Nazi's when his daughter is married to a Jewish man and he has many muslims living and staying in his buildings and that he has repeatedly said he holds in high regard. Time to face facts.
"There are rapists and murderers among them" is a very different statement than "they are rapists", which is what Trump actually said. There are rapists and murderers among the citizenry as well. That does not make "Americans are rapists" a true statement.
> There is a case for banning immigration from specific countries
But that is not what Trump has proposed. He has proposed a ban on Muslims. Muslim is a religion, not a nationality.
> partially hearing
That excuse has be thoroughly debunked.
> his daughter is married to a Jewish man
Jews are not the targets this time, Muslims are.
> he has many muslims living and staying in his buildings
Because he is not legally allowed to discriminate against them. Yet.
1. you're not taking entire context of that speech, it was entirely about illegals. 2. Has proposed and clarified many times. Btw Muslim ban would be legal but he's not gonna do it so who cares. 3. No not 'debunked' besides you're not thinking logically from a pov if he was who you thought. 4. White suprems don't like Jews. again you're simply not thinking. 5. Worthless comment and you're now ignoring facts of what he's said and lying.
Yes, of course we're talking about "illegals" (another loaded -- and offensive -- term, BTW). You seem to have completely lost the plot here. We are talking about people who are in the country "illegally" but through no fault of their own. They were brought to this country by their adoptive U.S. citizen parents when they were babies. They have no recollection of the event. (Certainly none of them had any control over it!) They have no memory of their native land, language or culture. They grew up as Americans believing in good faith that they were and are American citizens. And the only thing that makes them not American citizens is some paperwork that their parents failed to complete. But Trump would throw them out along with the rapists and the murderers and anyone else whose papers were not in order.
Trump's policies are eerily reminiscent of Hitler's. Seriously, go look up some transcripts of Hitler's speeches, especially the early ones, and substitute "Muslim" for "Jew" and compare the results to Trump's rhetoric. Better yet, show the results to some Trump supporters and ask them if they agree with the sentiments.
But I don't really care what color their shirts are. What I care about is: by what process do we decide who gets thrown out and who gets to stay. Trump's policy is: throw out everyone who can't prove they're here legally. Well, if a passport isn't good enough proof (and it manifestly is not) then I'm not sure I can prove I'm here legally.
Will it be "that bad?" Maybe, maybe not. But if history teaches us anything it is that the time to speak up is before the answer becomes apparent.
[NOTE: I posted this comment in the wrong place in the comment tree, but someone posted a reply before I noticed so now I can't delete it. I re-posted it in the right place: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12418441]
Both my grandparents survived the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. The only time my grandmother mentioned Nazi Germany to me was when Schindler's List was in theaters and she asked if I've seen it yet. Hitler didn't just start killing Jews and others. He slowly progressed to that. Of course, each step towards the final solution didn't seem like a large jump from the previous one. That is what I was told the power of the movie was, that it captured the slow progression. It started when Jews had to register all family members and had to move to ghettos in major cities or leave the country. Trump wants to start with step 1 with Muslims and Hispanic people. Trump is literally Hitler right now. What Trump wants is literally the first scene from Schindler's List. We are in 2016. We should be past this by now.
I have read arguments of the form “It is [the current year]. We should be past this by now.” a lot lately, but I do not understand how referring to time provides a useful starting point for an argument about morality. Can anyone tell me?
In 1933 anti-semitism was a respectable political position. Hitler didn't have to hide the fact that he was anti-semitic. He explicitly ran on anti-semitism, and the German people voted for him because of his anti-semitism, not in spite of it. It was only when faced with the reality of what it actually means to carry this moral position to its logical conclusion that the world finally recoiled in horror and said, "Never again." That is what it means to say, "It's 2016." It means that we live in a world where someone actually did this experiment in the not-so-distant past. It didn't end well. And so we should be able to see that doing the same experiment again with Muslims standing in for Jews might not be such a hot idea.
The legal history of the concept of citizenship in the United States is remarkably circuitous. The original text of the constitution referred only to citizens of individual states, never to citizens of the United States. Consequently, federal law and jurisprudence lacked any conception of national citizenship until the decision of Dred Scott v. Sanford in 1856, in which Chief Justice Roger B. Taney created the concept from whole cloth for the purpose of declaring Scott, a slave, not to be an American citizen and therefore not entitled to petition a federal court. The precedent held until the constitutional amendments of Reconstruction rectified it, explicitly introducing the concept of national citizenship into the constitution as a side effect.
There has remained a great deal of ambiguity about who is entitled to American citizenship by birth. Although the constitution as amended grants certain rights only to national citizens, the amendments that made national citizenship a part of the constitution failed to describe comprehensively who is entitled to citizenship. As a consequence, the question of who is and who is not a citizen, rather than being been decided on constitutional grounds, has been left to Congress. The odd result is that ordinary federal law, not the constitution itself, decides who is entitled to many fundamental constitutional rights and protections, including the basic rights to live in the United States and vote in national elections.
An interesting series of changes to the federal laws governing national citizenship occurred in the years after World War II. Because thousands of American soldiers and sailors were for the first time being permanently stationed abroad, there arose the question of whether their children born abroad had a right to citizenship. Federal law had previously granted citizenship to all children of American citizens, but during this period the laws were re-written to exclude the illegitimate children of military men with foreign women from citizenship in most cases. Today the law deciding the citizenship of children born abroad to a single American parent is a tangle of considerations of the marital status of the parents, when the child first visits American territory, how long he or she stays, etc.
I've sometimes wondered what the world might have been like in another several generations if those exclusions hadn't been made; by that time, due to the wonders of sexual reproduction, it's likely that tens or hundreds of millions of people outside the United States would be able to find an American in their ancestry, and therefore to claim American citizenship. Eventually, almost everyone would be an American. What would the world be like if everyone were entitled to vote in American elections (and obligated to pay American taxes)?
129 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 198 ms ] threadhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CesHr99ezWE
That's long time ago. The mind set and cultures were different back then. If you want to use history as some sort of mockery or prove a point. Every countries/citizens in the world can be blamed for something.
But yeah, the Aztecs and the Incas didn't become great empires by sitting around the campfire and singing kumbaya. Which is part of the reason Cortez and Pizarro were able to beat them with such small armies of Spaniards... backed up by tens of thousands of native allies.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11972135
The reason the law was that way is to prevent loopholes like someone adopting a 30 year old person and then using this law to naturalize them.
Usually though good faith and bureaucracy don't mix. It is dangerous to have faith in bureaucracy. In a way that is what the parents did, how the girl at the end said her parent just believed common sense would prevail and even if there is a missing paper here and there, someone sitting across the desk will understand and fix the error eventually.
Interestingly, there is a special law to expedite naturalization for those who "made an extraordinary contribution to the national security of the United States or to the conduct of United States intelligence activities". But even there it's a 5 person per year maximum.
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2011-title8/html/USCODE...
Congress can change the laws obviously, wonder what the turnaround there could be.
The story ( as far as I can remember ) is that a family of Germans moved to the U.S. with their 1 year old child. 24 years later the child graduated university and ... needs to apply for a green card or permanent VISA.
US government refused, so she had to come back to Germany.
I've never understood why U.S. is so protective in terms of citizenship. In most of the EU countries you get naturalized ( receive citizenship ) if you spend certain amount of time in the country and pass a test ( Germany I think it's 7 yrs ).
[1] https://www.uscis.gov/us-citizenship/citizenship-through-nat...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalization#.C2.A0United_St...
A green card is what establishes permanent residency. (I don't think we have permanent visas, but I could be wrong.)
I can only speculate how your friend was allowed to live in this country that long without ever obtaining permanent residency, but regardless, it's an example of the system failing, and that's a really terrible thing to happen to someone.
I don't know the ins and outs of immigration but that's because I'm a citizen. If I wasn't, I'd sure as hell know what I needed to do in order to stay in the only country I'd ever known as home.
According drinchev, I can assume that when his/her friend turned 18 she would have had to go through the process to apply for green card just as if she never lived in the US.
I know someone who was in a similar situation, grew up in America, his parents were diplomats, when he turned 21 he could not longer be a dependent of his parents' status, and the amount of time he lived legally had no benefit in giving him eligibility to apply for a green card.
Why are we so quick to blame the USA, or blame our own country when these things actually aren't all that difficult. There are forms for everything. And where there are challenges, there are lawyers. Can't afford a lawyer or figure it out yourself? Guess what you just proved you're not prepared to bring over an immigrant regardless of their age.
Sucks for some yes because they don't take care of business. But it also sucks when we don't have protective measures in place. And it's both unfair and extremely difficult to have exceptions for everything subjectively.
Are we also expected to pass with an A+ everyone who had good faith that they knew course material? Are we supposed to loosen up all regulation as well because we 'trust' a company will handle things fine because somebody's cousin owns the company?
You know when somebody leaves the scene of an accident, they sometimes do it because they don't realize they are supposed to stay, sometimes they don't even realize they knocked a cyclist down nearly killing them. Guess what, they still get charged with leaving the scene of an accident even if they were completely oblivious.
You do have some points, but your examples aren't so good.
1. In your test example, the students didn't know the course material, they just thought they did. They don't actually qualify for an A+. 2. In the scene of the accident, the rule there is in place because there is an incentive to leave the scene of the accident. Ideally, someone who didn't know the law would get a less harsh penalty than someone who did (so intent matters).
In the case above, there is something special happening. The rights of citizenship are on a much higher more protected plane than other rights (as other fundamental rights, voting, residency, amongst others are derived from them). We are allowed to use strict liability for leaving the scene of an accident because it's a shitty thing to do regardless of the law and because while it does affect the fundamental rights of liberty, it is based on something that the person did to deserve a punishment.
In the case of citizenship, if they technically qualify and act as though they do, that should be enough to at least give them the option of taking it retroactively. It's too fundamental for the most simplistic interpretation of bureaucratic rules to suffice.
And sometimes, these sentiments are easy to say when you are 30, but not so easy to see these things when one is 18, not so easy during the next 4 years as they are in college... and suddenly, crisis.
This stuff is common sense for most agencies to deal with. Lived over 24 years here, born a baby - lets solve this.
Its tragic to be honest. More than anything else, seeing that crumble is disheartening. More than wars, more than Trump.
Oh... wait a minute...
We've got a lot of racist assholes, basically. Particularly ironic for a country that was founded on immigration. These laws, and their heavy-handed enforcement, are mainly targeted at keeping out Mexicans. European and Asian immigrants are collateral damage, essentially.
Europe, unfortunately, is starting to go the same way. I think it was Switzerland that denied citizenship to a couple of teenage Muslim girls because they didn't want to swim with boys in mandatory co-ed swim class. They've also banned minarets on mosques, apparently--I have no clue how they pretend to justify that. Xenophobia makes people do ridiculous things.
Wanting to keep national character is respecting culture. Switzerland is right to defend equality
As of the story breaking at the end of June, they had not yet been expelled from Switzerland, but we both know what "denied citizenship" means.
So, TL;DR: a family, actively, defiantly, on purpose, failed one of citizenship tests and were not granted citizenship.
Citizenship is not something that guests are entitled to. It's practically an award by the host. Mind you, I am not a Swiss, nor US citizen, nor an EU citizen. I would like to be, since it would benefit my situation considerably, but I was born in another country. So, why any of these countries would be obligated to grant me their citizenship?
It was a decision of the girls ( or their father ) [1] not to be naturalized. They could've just did the swim with the boys and they would've got their citizenship.
On the other hand my friend had NO CHOICE in her 24 year stay in the U.S. to get a citizenship ( although she followed all the rules / laws of the country ).
[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/switzerland-c...
If the patriarchy family understood the idea of education better, maybe they would've thought their children that the law > father word.
If they do understand that idea, but don't like it. Well they should vote on their next election for someone that doesn't support it.
What they should not do is go against the law and do something on their own. Because that's what makes us all citizens.
No-one does irony as well as the Brits.
> http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-37190357 "In such a febrile atmosphere Whitehall is likely to recruit some negotiators from other countries."
Behave like us, or get the hell out. Is that racist to you? Then I have bad news. You'll start to see that more and more often with time.
And, unless the elites react in time, you'll see a purge in ~30 years.
Is this a trick question?
Depends on the level of behaviour. But largely yes that is a fairly racist sentiment.
Ping me when Saudi Arabia allows Jews to become citizens.
The American electorate believes unemployment is caused by an improper ratio of people to jobs, and it can be solved both by increasing the number of jobs and decreasing the number of people.
In this theory, your friend's expulsion was a victory for the American who took over her job, and for the unemployed person who entered the labor market (if not directly, then via a domino effect).
We are comparatively loose with immigration statuses that don't permit work. Tourist, student, etc. visas are relatively trivial to obtain. We have programs that allow work which doesn't compete with Americans, such as international performing arts groups on tour. We even have programs to fill jobs that Americans aren't available to fill (H1B for highly skilled labor, seasonal farm workers, etc).
The moat is built around statuses that permit competition with Americans for jobs in general. It remains this way because Americans do not generally consider or believe Econ 101 ideas like that trade necessarily benefits both sides of the exchange (or they would not make it), more workers also means more consumers, cheaper labor => cheaper goods and services => higher standard of living, etc.
I really wish everyone could be as enlightened as yourself.
It's not at all clear this violates "Econ 101". Supply and demand set prices, and wages are basically the price for labor. Increasing the supply of labor should necessarily decrease wages, and vice versa.
Imagine the extreme, worst case scenario. If the US opened it's borders completely, and imported every poor worker in the entire world into its borders. Do you really believe that average American worker would be better off? That they could compete with that, and be able to demand a decent wage?
>trade necessarily benefits both sides of the exchange
True, but extremely misleading. E.g. f you move factories overseas for cheaper labor, the local workers lose out, even though other classes may gain. The benefits of trade are not distributed among the entire population.
>cheaper labor => cheaper goods and services
Sure, but if everyone is making proportionally less money, they can't afford the cheaper services, and on net they are poorer.
This assumes everyone is taking jobs and noone is creating them. America has a strong tradition of immigrants building businesses.
Increasing the supply of labor also increases the demand for other goods. Workers have to eat! If you kick someone out of the country, you reduce demand for food, clothes, etc., eliminating the local jobs that would have gone towards satisfying that worker's needs.
Not that I'm arguing against the possibility of more workers lowering wages. They might, to some degree (studies are unclear on to what degree they do), but it's not a zero-sum game, here.
Analogies to the enclosure movement come to mind.
That's a weird statement, I feel like you lack wider context. As an Australian, pretty much the only place in the western world where I need a visa /at all/ to be a tourist is the USA. In something like 50% of the the world, I can just show up at the border whenevs and they'll let me in on the promise that I'm going to leave in a few weeks.
Your standards are actually pretty anal compared to almost everywhere else. China and Russia are really the only comparable places.
In some ways it isn't: merely being born here grants citizenship. That's no longer the case in any EU country: Ireland repealed birthright citizenship years ago.
It means that simply flying to the US on a tourist visa before your baby is born will grant it citizenship. But living in the US on a work visa for 18 years after your baby is born? That doesn't grant anything.
I think it's more complicated than that. My gf has lived more than 10 years in France now and she has to renew her visa every year, they never granted her the 10 years visa, let alone citizenship (she was discouraged to apply for it...).
On the other hand, I have a bunch of friends that obtained their US nationality quite easily. They started as illegal immigrants, got married, which gave them a green card and after a few years they obtained their citizenship.
These are just anecdotes, just to say that it's not so clear that it's harder to get US citizenship.
I think if someone has paid, say, 20% of their total lifetime earnings, with a minimum of $50K over ten years, in taxes to the US government, and they have not committed any crime, they should be given citizenship. This gives the USG ten years to find anyone they'd rather not have in the country, and let them leave before they contribute more than their fair share to a country that rejects them.
My brother has been in the US for nearly 20 years. Started out as a grad student, then as a H1-B. Took him more than 10 years just to get a green card, then 5 years more to be eligible for citizenship.
All this while, he must have paid several hundred thousand dollars in taxes (6+ figure income over 15 years)
Why should another immigrant get the same benefits as him faster than he could by paying even less in taxes?
Because it's not a zero-sum game.
One person's right to citizenship does not erode another person's right to citizenship.
In this hypothetical scenario would your brother not have paid $50k and been granted citizenship much sooner than the other?
How does another person receiving a benefit penalize your brother?
By the same logic, we should all insist on vicious assaults on new military recruits, because that's how it was done years ago.
As a society we should seek to improve the way we treat people, maximizing practical utility (tax-paying illegal immigrants are benefiting society) and seeking fairness. Chasing fairness as a primary goal is a fruitless endeavor.
I think it's awful for both your brother and society that he was required to wait so long to get his citizenship. Should we repeat the same mistakes out of a misguided attempt at fairness?
Ironically, my situation is a little less tenuous because I am the biological child of naturalized immigrants rather than the adopted child of natural-born citizens. Like so many things about this story, that seems so wrong.
I read an article recently that says he's more of an American version of Italy's Berlusconi, and that seems more reasonable to me.
Putting up warning signs, even contentious ones, at the top of the slope is reasonable.
(I read the same article and it is worth noting that a decade ago, every Italian I spoke to began conversations with "I am sorry about Berlusconi ...")
I am not advocating ignoring all discussion of issues raised by Trump or (trumping?!) all his issues with the Nazi card, but it is a part of his background and appeal and should be calmly assessed along with other issues of protectionism, labor rights and more.
Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy invaded, proceeded to rounded and murder and otherwise caused the death of up to 3.1 million Vietnamese in the Vietnamese Resistance War against America.
Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Kennedy are literally Hitler.
Clearly not. But neither are they the unambiguously virtuous "good guys" that Americans like to imagine that they are.
Let's stop taking everything to extremes. Will a Trump presidency lead to mass executions of civilians in gas chambers? Probably not. Will it lead to innocent people -- mainly Muslims and people with dark skin -- being deported, separated from their families, tortured, and killed? Very likely. Trump has explicitly promised to do all of these things, and I see no reason to doubt him on this. Do I think it will happen to me? Probably not, but that's only because I'm a rich white guy. But I take little comfort from that because once xenophobia takes root it tends to grow like kudzu. I'm a rich white guy, but I'm also Jewish, so there are absolutely some Trump supporters who would like to see me go back to where I came from along with the Muslims, the Mexicans, and the niggers. The best way to keep those people out of power is to keep Trump out of power. And if pointing out the parallels between Trump and Hitler helps to do that then Godwin be damned. Sometimes the Nazi shoe fits.
[UPDATE:] FWIW, it's not just me making this argument:
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/trumps-mass-deportatio...
Besides, many people like to believe they are the “good guys”.
"Sending people back who came illegally [is OK]" is a thinly disguised argument of that same form because we are the ones who decide what is legal. In that respect we are like the Nazis. They thought that what they were doing was OK because it was "legal", because they were "just following orders." Well, no, it was not OK. And deporting people who grew up here "illegally" through no fault of their own but rather because their adoptive parents didn't fill out the right paperwork and xenophobia happens to be running amok is likewise not OK no matter what the law says.
That is certainly true, but Trump has said much more than just calling for law-and-order (which, by the way, is a very loaded term in American politics: the phrase was first used by Richard Nixon as a deliberate code phrase intended to signify solidarity with southern white racists in the 60's). He has also, for example, called out Mexicans for being "rapists" and called for a "total ban on Muslims entering the U.S." Comments like those are xenophobic. The combination of xenophobia and law-and-order is very reminiscent of early Nazi rhetoric. That doesn't necessarily make Trump a Nazi, but it does make it not entirely unreasonable to raise the question.
http://www.npr.org/2016/07/28/487560886/is-trumps-call-for-l...
Trump probably did not intend "law and order" to be a coded racist message. His profound ignorance almost certainly does extend to this branch of American political history. But that's irrelevant. A loaded term is loaded whether or not the speaker intends it to be. Nixon denied it too:
"Nixon publicly denied that the phrase was a code for racism — the very accusation implied a "reverse racism," he said, as if the critics were suggesting that "the Negroes" didn't want law and order, too. But the message was clear enough in Nixon's references to a "city jungle" that threatened to swallow the affluent suburbs. His TV ads showed a middle-aged white woman walking nervously down a city street at night, where the assailants who might be lurking in the shadows presumably weren't hippies or demonstrators."
That is certainly true, except for two things. First, the phrase "law and order" is a loaded term in American politics. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_and_order_(politics) And second, Trump has made many xenophobic statements, both implicit and explicit. He called out Mexicans for being rapists. He called for a "total ban on Muslims entering the U.S." He failed to distance himself from endorsements by white supremacists. These things do not make Trump a Nazi, but they do make it fair to draw attention to the similarities.
> "Trumps policy is...."
No. Trump has said time and again, we have immigration laws and we need to follow them. That includes having more reinforced border fences or walls. Already law. The end of sanctuary cities, which are basically localized laws breaking federal law.
That's true, but that's not all he has said. He has also said that Mexicans are rapists, that Muslims should be banned from the U.S., and that he "doesn't know" about white supremacists. Among many, many other examples that I could cite.
Trump is not an idiot. He's not going to grow a little mustache and call for a "final solution to the Muslim problem." But it is definitely fair to compare him to the Nazis because the Nazis provide a data point of what can happen when you give political power to xenophobes, which Trump most certainly is.
Trump is also concerned with radical islamic terrorism. There is a case for banning immigration from specific countries. We already do it, we also already prohibit U.S. businesses from doing business in specific countries. You can say his take on islamic terrorism / and islamic immigration is too hardline. I don't agree. There are clearly trends of actual radicalization within even second generation muslim immigrnts that require vigilance.
Also the "doesn't know" statement regarding supremist groups was him partially hearing in his ear piece in a remote interview Tapper talking about disavowing "groups" Why would Trump "not know" when his daughter is married to a Jewish man? I noticed how you didn't bring up David Duke either and that's because you know full and well Trump in 2000 said disparaging things about Duke not that some 'disavowal' was needed. He has no association with any of them.
So you're saying it's fair to compare him to Nazi's when his daughter is married to a Jewish man and he has many muslims living and staying in his buildings and that he has repeatedly said he holds in high regard. Time to face facts.
> There is a case for banning immigration from specific countries
But that is not what Trump has proposed. He has proposed a ban on Muslims. Muslim is a religion, not a nationality.
> partially hearing
That excuse has be thoroughly debunked.
> his daughter is married to a Jewish man
Jews are not the targets this time, Muslims are.
> he has many muslims living and staying in his buildings
Because he is not legally allowed to discriminate against them. Yet.
Yes, of course we're talking about "illegals" (another loaded -- and offensive -- term, BTW). You seem to have completely lost the plot here. We are talking about people who are in the country "illegally" but through no fault of their own. They were brought to this country by their adoptive U.S. citizen parents when they were babies. They have no recollection of the event. (Certainly none of them had any control over it!) They have no memory of their native land, language or culture. They grew up as Americans believing in good faith that they were and are American citizens. And the only thing that makes them not American citizens is some paperwork that their parents failed to complete. But Trump would throw them out along with the rapists and the murderers and anyone else whose papers were not in order.
Trump's policies are eerily reminiscent of Hitler's. Seriously, go look up some transcripts of Hitler's speeches, especially the early ones, and substitute "Muslim" for "Jew" and compare the results to Trump's rhetoric. Better yet, show the results to some Trump supporters and ask them if they agree with the sentiments.
But I don't really care what color their shirts are. What I care about is: by what process do we decide who gets thrown out and who gets to stay. Trump's policy is: throw out everyone who can't prove they're here legally. Well, if a passport isn't good enough proof (and it manifestly is not) then I'm not sure I can prove I'm here legally.
Will it be "that bad?" Maybe, maybe not. But if history teaches us anything it is that the time to speak up is before the answer becomes apparent.
[NOTE: I posted this comment in the wrong place in the comment tree, but someone posted a reply before I noticed so now I can't delete it. I re-posted it in the right place: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12418441]
I have read arguments of the form “It is [the current year]. We should be past this by now.” a lot lately, but I do not understand how referring to time provides a useful starting point for an argument about morality. Can anyone tell me?
There has remained a great deal of ambiguity about who is entitled to American citizenship by birth. Although the constitution as amended grants certain rights only to national citizens, the amendments that made national citizenship a part of the constitution failed to describe comprehensively who is entitled to citizenship. As a consequence, the question of who is and who is not a citizen, rather than being been decided on constitutional grounds, has been left to Congress. The odd result is that ordinary federal law, not the constitution itself, decides who is entitled to many fundamental constitutional rights and protections, including the basic rights to live in the United States and vote in national elections.
An interesting series of changes to the federal laws governing national citizenship occurred in the years after World War II. Because thousands of American soldiers and sailors were for the first time being permanently stationed abroad, there arose the question of whether their children born abroad had a right to citizenship. Federal law had previously granted citizenship to all children of American citizens, but during this period the laws were re-written to exclude the illegitimate children of military men with foreign women from citizenship in most cases. Today the law deciding the citizenship of children born abroad to a single American parent is a tangle of considerations of the marital status of the parents, when the child first visits American territory, how long he or she stays, etc.
I've sometimes wondered what the world might have been like in another several generations if those exclusions hadn't been made; by that time, due to the wonders of sexual reproduction, it's likely that tens or hundreds of millions of people outside the United States would be able to find an American in their ancestry, and therefore to claim American citizenship. Eventually, almost everyone would be an American. What would the world be like if everyone were entitled to vote in American elections (and obligated to pay American taxes)?