Is your opposition to ilegal immigration based on race or skin color?
If the answer is yes then, yes, you are racist. If the answer is no, then no, you are not racist.
Swede here, absolutely not, around 2015 or so we got hit by the mass migration wave, there were plenty of documented cases of migrants throwing away or destroying their documents to try and claim refugee status when they clearly didn’t need it, thus taking spots from actual refugees.
There were also real refugees who did this, they registered in Greece, Spain, Italy or other southern Europe country, but then they kept going north, trying to get to a better country. At that point you are no longer a refugee, but an economic migrant.
I 100% oppose these migrants.
The dumb thing is that the EU would distribute refugees throughout the union, just because you registered in Spain, didn’t mean you had to stay there, you would stay for an interim period and be distributed to your proper host country.
I have zero issues with migrants/refugees who come the legal route, learn the language, work, and integrate in the culture.
No
I feel like if you’re asking then you’re searching for validation. A sort of way to not feel guilty about being racist. Tell me, what bothers you most about immigrants? This country wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for immigrants
What “this country”? Lemmy?
And I understand them searching for validation. It might be hard being anti-illegal-immigrant and everyone thinking you racist, even though your reasons are not racist nor xenophobic at all.
You just encountered US defaultism
My issue with them is their existence.
If I had things my way, legal immigration would be easy and fast. This would eliminate the need for people from a starving company to sneak across the border
It depends on where you are.
e.g. in NZ, we don’t have a problem with illegal immigration, but completely legal “temporary migrant workers”.
The issue, isn’t the people, it’s the load on already stretched infrastructure. Because they are “temporary”, they are not factored into the calculations for infrastructure spending.
This wouldn’t be a problem, if a short team need was being met, but it isn’t… There are always temporary workers, because we as a country can’t fill all the jobs from local supply.
With birth rates and other immigration, our population growth is around 1.5%, not the 0.5% we target our spending at.
If we spent at a rate that accounted for the real population growth, everything would work better for everyone.
I am yet to hear a justification for opposing illegal immigration that doesn’t tie back into racism or racial prejudice, let alone a justification that actually makes sense if you take it apart.
Someone prove me wrong, and I’ll change my mind.
If you have a society with robust social welfare systems - education, healthcare, social security, pensions, childcare, housing etc. etc., mass immigration becomes a massive problem.
Everything is taken care of via taxes, and those taxes come from a productive working population. Slow population growth (whether from births or immigration) allows social institutions to expand at a matching rate over the decades.
Rapid population increases from migration can overwhelm the systems in place and put society in a spot where it is no longer able to maintain them.
Furthermore, when it comes to illegal immigrants, it gets doubly bad. They can’t hold down a legal job (at least in my country, and thus not pay taxes either), which inevitably pushes them towards crime or illegal jobs which brings a whole host of other issues.
I’ve heard a very compelling one actually. It’s not about ilegal immigration but against immigration in general. I heard it in a youtube talk maybe like a decade ago.
It starts stating that the thing a migrant person wants the most is not having to emigrate. No one wants go have to leave their country because they cannot safely live a prosper life there. So the best outcome would be that the origin countries would change, so people wouldn’t have leave everything behind to start a new life abroad. The problem is that the country have to change from inside. And the people leaving a country is usually the most qualified to make that change happen. So by leaving the country they make the change harder or even impossible.
I’m not arguing in favour or against this argument. But I do not think it has anything to do with race whatsoever. As it doesn’t even talk about anything related to migrant presence in a receiving country.
But it boils down to “go back where they came from” which is the favourite of racists.
I mean if the axiom is “any negative about immigration is bad = racism” then yes, there’s no argument against immigration that could not be racist as those two concepts would be equivalent.
Essentially this. There are no arguments against immigration that arent racist or xenophobic.
In the US and many other countries, immigration violations are not crimes. Therefore, those immigrants are not illegal. It is actually a civil infraction, like a parking ticket… So, your question reveals hidden xenophobic bias. That alone is immoral. Is it racist in itself? Probably. It is very difficult to be xenophobic without also being racist.
I think those are just semantics.
I get the feeling of not wanting to criminalize the existence of a person.
But it’s common language to say that civil infractions are illegal.
You could totally say “It’s illegal to park here” even if you would just get a ticket for that.
I get the feeling. But I don’t think it is rational to think that anyone writing “illegal immigration” is racist.
No, not on it’s own, but it’s rarely on its own. In the US opposition to illegal immigrants and racism tracks nearly one to one.
One could imagine a country where illegal immigration itself was a distinct problem, where the society was balanced in such a way that legal immigration was at an optimal rate and additional people coming into the country had downsides that outstripped the positives, when though, for example, the immigrants were of the same culture/class/standing as the existing citizens.
The US, on the other hand, is nowhere near an optimal legal immigration rate, even though we benefit pretty significantly from both legal and illegal immigration. Illegal immigrants, for example, contribute significantly to the economy while not drawing ‘as many’ benefits away. Overwhelmingly the actual arguments against illegal immigration are grounded in cultural differences and language and, to put it simply, the desire for one class to want a reason to consider themselves better than another class by an easily recognizable yardstick.
I wonder how old you are. Seems you’re missing the population issue. I can go on and on, but I’m 54 and I’ve seen demographics and population change radically. Fine with the demographic changes, but I can see some being alarmed that “their” country is being taken away. Don’t agree, but I get the sentiment.
As I’ve seen the planet’s population more than double in my life, seen the countryside paved over for strip malls, I’m screaming, “NO MORE FUCKING PEOPLE!” Who’s to blame? Can you see how it’s easier to blame the “other”?
Every time I meet someone who opposes illegal immigration but claims to support legal immigration I ask one question. If the law changed so that all immigration was legal, you’d be fine with it, right?
Nobody so far has been fine with it. I conclude that the question of legality is a dodge for people who are embarrassed about their actual motives.
Oh my God the HEMMING and HAWING when suggesting easier immigration to one of these bigots.
They will do anything to avoid answering that question. It’s really disgusting
I also would not be fine with it.
Having a barrier to entry is what keeps most of the dipshits out. There are dipshits in every country. I don’t want to have to deal with another country’s dipshits - we have enough to deal with on our own.
Exactly what the barriers to entry are should be reformed so that they make sense and allow all people in easily if they meet some straightforward requirements.
Borders have existed since paleolithic tribes staked out perimeters around their camps and established hunting territory boundaries with other tribes. Is it possible that we will someday live in a world completely free of restricted travel? Sure! But abolishing all barriers to entry across national boundaries tomorrow with a snap of the fingers would be a disaster.
keeps most of the dipshits out
Perhaps, but the undocumented immigrants being rounded up do not seem to be dipshits. Dreamers, day laborers, people here for the past 20 years with no criminal history. Keeping the dipshits out is a nice idea, but our current policies are evicting people I want as neighbors.
I think I understand what you’re saying and don’t necessarily fully disagree, but the directness at the very start definitely made me brace for xenophobia. In part because “dipshits” can be used as a dogwhistle
However, I would 100% classify trumpers as dipshits
I support legal immigration, I empathize with illegal immigration (and think the laws could use adjustment in both directions)…but I don’t think all immigration should be legal.
And no, it doesn’t change if they’re from “a Western country” or from somewhere that people look different from the majority in my country.
We have rising unemployment among citizens, especially young people, yet corporations are taking advantage of immigrants in various ways. And immigrants of all kinds – legal, grey area, and illegal immigrants.
We are selling the idea of a lifestyle to people in other countries that isn’t attainable unless you’re part of the top quintile (or possibly an even smaller group) of income. Then they come here, bringing their university educations, and are competing for jobs against high schoolers.
I’m all about people coming to live in my country. But we’re doing a disservice to immigrants through our laws/regulations and our corporations. And people who are here illegally are usually the biggest victims; the most exploited.
Not intrinsically, but pretty commonly it is driven by bigotry over culture, religion or skin colour.
You know all the people up in arms over the wave of Ukrainian refugees? Oh wait, there’s nothing of the sort? Well, there you go.
I think it’s very telling that it’s not about “How do we allow them in legally” but it’s about “Kick them out”. If they were simply mad about illegal immigration then the natural discourse would be “Why do they not come over legally then?” The answer there is that of course it’s insanely difficult to legally become a citizen of the US, and it can take years - even decades, but people have a family that’s hungry now.
The discourse going to “Kick them out” shows that it’s not about legal immigration at all, it’s that they don’t want a specific type of person around them. Otherwise we’d be having fairs and events to help people get their citizenship right now. After all they want to be here, the even want to pay taxes. If they just need to come in legally then the vast majority would, if our process allowed it.
The answer there is that of course it’s insanely difficult to legally become a citizen of the US, and it can take years - even decades, but people have a family that’s hungry now.
Same for other places. Even Canada, which is apparently one of the best destinations, has a system that’s poorly designed to the point of maliciousness.
It took my dad about 15-20 years in the US to get citizenship. It took my friend about 10 in Canada. Both are fucking terrible, but the US is a special kind of processed garbage
Exactly. In and of itself, criticizing illegal immigration is simply criticizing an illegal act. However, it is usually steeped in racist logic and arguments. Talking about how people who come over our southern border are genetically inferior and prone to crime is racist as fuck. Adding roadblocks to immigration for brown people while simultaneously streamlining immigration of white South Africans (the guys who did Apartheid) is racist as fuck.
There for sure was.
Where, and to what degree relative to Arabs or Latin Americans or whatever?
Like sure, you can find someone who said it was bad somewhere, but even in places like Romania or Poland they were never the main target of the xenophobic rage.
I live in SC. There was a big uproar about it and an even bigger one that the news shrugged its shoulders and went “eh, not really news worth.”
Thats because the media didnt try to cause mass hysteria. Man you guys are so easily manipulated by media i think we should force psychological classes so you can see the warning signs of manipulation
Edit: you are the easiest people to manipulate and its already obvious.
Uh-huh. Straight to forced re-education programs and shadowy conspiracies.
When the fascists send people to argue for them, they’re not sending their best.
Edit: Cool cowardly edit.
No no… that’s their best.
Yeah, TBF it’s not an ideology that really pulls the best and brightest,
Hopefully you’ll be in that class.
Yes.
Just ask yourself why there is even a barrier to entry in the first place. Prejudices and paranoia.
This very much seems like a Chesterton’s Fence issue.
Using the US/Mexico example - if the US didn’t have some kind of restriction to its borders, we would expect Mexican cartel influence to spill over the border much more easily.
Or another example - suppose Ukraine had completely unrestricted flow across its border with Russia. Then Russia wants to invade. What do they do? They just have 100,000 soldiers walk across the border dressed as civilians, then launch their attack across the country.
Doesn’t lemmy have any sort of “adults only” limit?
No, but it is racist to assume that a person is an illegal immigrant based solely on their race.
Likewise, i think there is a deeper connection being made, that theres an assumption that an illegal immigrant is a bad person, and i also do not think that is a valid assumption.
To know if a person is a bad person, you have to know the person.
It’s racist to use immigration law to maintain a racial underclass. For instance, many essential agricultural workers in the US do not have access to the courts or law enforcement to protect their rights. If a citizen assaults one of these workers, the worker cannot safely report the assault to law enforcement without being punished for doing so.
I wouldn’t say it’s considered to be racist to oppose outlaws who came here without the proper paperwork, visa, etc.
That’s not so much the problem as the other excuses for hating immigrants.
No as it’s a fair national security concern
