Luz shares her apartment with her husband, also from Mexico and also undocumented. They met in America. He works in a bar. They have a young daughter who was born in America and is therefore a US citizen.
It doesn’t matter whether the immigration system is simple or convulsed. It is still the immigration system of the country, and you have to respect it. Feeling dissatisfied or impatient with it is not a valid excuse to actually smuggle yourself into the country illegally. With the sole exception of genuine asylum seekers, nobody has a moral argument, let alone, a legal one to be in any country illegally. Nobody is entitled to being an immigrant to any country. Immigration is a privilege, always has been and always will be, and you have to respect the customs of the country you want to immigrate to. If they’re reviewing your case then you have to be patient, and if they rejected you then you have to accept that decision.
Also, it’s completely asinine to try passing off illegal immigration as some sort of non issue. That’s just an out of touch take. It is an absolutely MASSIVE issue. Here’s just a few ways where it’s a problem:
Security: You have random people inside the country that are not known, tracked, and vetted. That’s a major national security threat as it leaves your society vulnerable to smugglers, foreign adversaries’ agents, human traffickers, terrorists, and a whole host of other criminals that could wander in and out of the country with no supervision, approval or consequence.
Legal: Countries have laws for a reason, they’re there to reflect the public interest and will. Having people blatantly violate them is a serious challenge to the country’s institutions. If these institutions, like immigration, border, and customs agencies can’t enforce the laws they’re tasked to enforce, then their authority and legitimacy have been undermined. If you read any history book, you would know that a country with weak institutions that cannot carry out their basic duties, like enforcing the laws they were created to enforce, is a country that’s headed to towards instability and collapse because it is no longer able to govern properly. The consequences of illegal immigrants breaking immigration laws are very serious.
Economic: While illegal immigrants technically do contribute more in taxes than they take out, I would argue that it’s a bad thing because their undocumented status makes them vulnerable to exploitation by employers who pay low wages and offer poor conditions, thus creating a shadow labor market that undercuts American workers and erodes labor standards. This two tiered system isn’t just unjust, it incentivizes lawbreaking and devalues citizenship. Prosecuting employers alone won’t fix it, and simply granting undocumented immigrants full rights sidesteps the core issue which is that we’re normalizing illegal entry and undermining the rule of law.
Moral: Let’s zoom out of the technical aspects and think about morals. Our immigration system, while flawed, is still functional. There are millions of people all around the world from all backgrounds, who are waiting their turn to get into the country legally. Why should these people get shafted in favor of people who chose to cut in line? How is that fair? By illegally migrating, not only have they disrespected this country, but they also insulted all these people who are trying into the country legally as well as all legal immigrants in the country who sacrificed so much to be here. There’s no good argument for illegal immigration, the most common excuse that I hear is that these people come from a place of hardship and they just want a better life, but that’s not good enough. If empathy is the standard, it should be extended first to those who respect the process, not those who disregard it.
All these points are just common sense. It’s absolutely crazy that I even have to argue why basic immigration laws are necessary. I understand Lemmy is off the rails politically, but even then, has the state of our education system degraded so much that people genuinely cannot comprehend the importance of immigration laws? Seeing people unironically defend open borders without understand why that wouldn’t work makes me feel like I’m taking crazy pills.
It doesn’t matter whether the immigration system is simple or convulsed. It is still the immigration system of the country, and you have to respect it. Feeling dissatisfied or impatient with it is not a valid excuse to actually smuggle yourself into the country illegally. With the sole exception of genuine asylum seekers, nobody has a moral argument, let alone, a legal one to be in any country illegally. Nobody is entitled to being an immigrant to any country. Immigration is a privilege, always has been and always will be, and you have to respect the customs of the country you want to immigrate to. If they’re reviewing your case then you have to be patient, and if they rejected you then you have to accept that decision.
Also, it’s completely asinine to try passing off illegal immigration as some sort of non issue. That’s just an out of touch take. It is an absolutely MASSIVE issue. Here’s just a few ways where it’s a problem:
Security: You have random people inside the country that are not known, tracked, and vetted. That’s a major national security threat as it leaves your society vulnerable to smugglers, foreign adversaries’ agents, human traffickers, terrorists, and a whole host of other criminals that could wander in and out of the country with no supervision, approval or consequence.
Legal: Countries have laws for a reason, they’re there to reflect the public interest and will. Having people blatantly violate them is a serious challenge to the country’s institutions. If these institutions, like immigration, border, and customs agencies can’t enforce the laws they’re tasked to enforce, then their authority and legitimacy have been undermined. If you read any history book, you would know that a country with weak institutions that cannot carry out their basic duties, like enforcing the laws they were created to enforce, is a country that’s headed to towards instability and collapse because it is no longer able to govern properly. The consequences of illegal immigrants breaking immigration laws are very serious.
Economic: While illegal immigrants technically do contribute more in taxes than they take out, I would argue that it’s a bad thing because their undocumented status makes them vulnerable to exploitation by employers who pay low wages and offer poor conditions, thus creating a shadow labor market that undercuts American workers and erodes labor standards. This two tiered system isn’t just unjust, it incentivizes lawbreaking and devalues citizenship. Prosecuting employers alone won’t fix it, and simply granting undocumented immigrants full rights sidesteps the core issue which is that we’re normalizing illegal entry and undermining the rule of law.
Moral: Let’s zoom out of the technical aspects and think about morals. Our immigration system, while flawed, is still functional. There are millions of people all around the world from all backgrounds, who are waiting their turn to get into the country legally. Why should these people get shafted in favor of people who chose to cut in line? How is that fair? By illegally migrating, not only have they disrespected this country, but they also insulted all these people who are trying into the country legally as well as all legal immigrants in the country who sacrificed so much to be here. There’s no good argument for illegal immigration, the most common excuse that I hear is that these people come from a place of hardship and they just want a better life, but that’s not good enough. If empathy is the standard, it should be extended first to those who respect the process, not those who disregard it.
All these points are just common sense. It’s absolutely crazy that I even have to argue why basic immigration laws are necessary. I understand Lemmy is off the rails politically, but even then, has the state of our education system degraded so much that people genuinely cannot comprehend the importance of immigration laws? Seeing people unironically defend open borders without understand why that wouldn’t work makes me feel like I’m taking crazy pills.