Danzo

Stepped up enforcement of good laws could be a good thing. However Stepped up enforcement of bad laws would be a bad thing. As I said earlier the law needs to be changed to allow for 1. a realistic legal way to come in to the country (if there is no practical, way to come in the country, people are going to choose an illegal way). The analogy I like to give is imagine you come to a stop light that doesn't turn green. After a while, if you see no police, and you think it is safe you are going to run the stop light and break the law. The stop light has to turn green for a long enough time for you to actually comply with the law. For most of these people there is no green light. 2. There needs to be a statute of limitations on immigration law enforcement. If you can put a statute of limitations on kidnapping, bank robbery and attempted murder, you should be able to put one on immigration enforcement. Once the law has been changed to address those two items, I would have no problem with increased enforcement.

The US doesn't grant a tourist visa if you are a poor person with relatives in the US. (technically if you can't "Prove" strong ties to your home country. Basically if you are a poor Mexican with family here, they won't grant you the visa.

I remember a case when i was working in an immigration law firm. There was a woman from Canada who came to the US as a young woman, married here, and even had Grand Children here. She basically forgot that she was Canadian, so did everyone else in the US. She forgot to renew her green card years earlier and it didn't seem to be an issue (she was white and that helped). One day as she hears that a relative was dying in Canada and she goes up there and all of a sudden they US didn't want to let her back in.

You seem to understand, how can we get SMAC to understand? The US government does not let people come from Mexico to visit family in the US if they are poor and have family here. SMAC doesn't seem to believe this. The only way for some of my immediate family to overcome this obstacle is to apply for permanent residency, even though they have no intention of being permanent residents. They just want to see their families. People who are already hear don't dare leave to go home because it may mean they never see their loved ones again. The only work around for them to be able leave the country is, ironically to become permanent residents of the country the want to leave.

Right away you switch from people coming here legally to citizenship. Not everyone who wants to come here legally wants to become a citizen. It is not the same thing. Lets just start with getting here legally then we can address citizenship. Open borders/Closed borders is a false dichotomy. The openness of a border is is a matter of degree not some binary mechanism I am not for the abolition of visas, I'm for changing the process of getting a visa so that people can have a legal way of getting here. It is pretty clear you are not following what I am saying, I don't know how help you. I keep pointing out absurd outcomes of the current system and You really haven't addressed them. I really have a hard time believe that you understand how the US immigration laws actually, really, work in the real (not internet) United states.

I think that Chat GPT has a way to go before it can be relied on for substantive answers. Most people can't qualify for the Visas mentioned. For you it's an answer from an internet robot. For me, its lived experience. I am not quite sure how to bridge that gap between us. In the fun house mirror of our immigration system, a permanent residency is a ticket home to Mexico. People here wait years in the us for their permanent residency status to they can go home. Does that make sense to you? Can you think of a better way?

I would support deportation as an enforcement tool if there were a statute of limitations. It would encourage enforcement if there were a deadline to do the enforcement. I think the same holds true, even with civil and common law torts. If you have a deadline to do something, you pay more attention to it. If you have forever to do something, sometime it takes forever to get it done.

If we create a law that we don't want to enforce, I would say it is a bad law. Do you believe it is possible to have a bad law? Is it at all possible for congress to create a bad law, even if is for a good purpose?

Does the statute of limitations on the prosecution of bank robbery create a powerful incentive to commit bank robberies? or Sex crimes? or assault? Maybe they do. Is there still value in have the past stay in the past after a certain time period? Especially for a malum prohibitum offence?

for most people there really isn't a big distinction. both involve being forcibly removed from your home and family

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yes. We do the same for bank robbers. and sex offenders, and drug dealers, and attempted murderers and tax cheats.

Which is what I did. The word "Crime" did not come up because it didn't need to come up. as for mens rea, it could probably be argued that it was present, was it sufficient get a conviction? maybe. That would probably be the only real defense, if it were to go criminal. Would the government care? No, they won't take this case criminal (based on policy precedent and experience), unless there are other crimes present. Then they would throw this one on as a consolation prize if they were to lose the other charge or as a bargaining chip for plea bargaining.

In between posting here today, I had a consultation with someone who needed help. He ended up paying me several thousand dollars for work he wanted me to do to help him. because of some mistake he had made there was 1. 100% certainty that he violated a federal statute (more than one actually) 2. 100% certainty that he would incur civil fines as a result of that action 3. 100% certainty that there was a criminal statute that allowed the government to go after him criminally for his actions. 4. 100% certainty that, the government would not go after him criminally for his actions if he did certain steps and there weren't other things that he didn't tell me about. These steps, were it a criminal proceeding, would actually confirm his guilt. would you have told him he was a criminal? Despite having no reason to believe he would be subject to any criminal proceeding? Even though part of the plan we came up with involved telling the government everything? i am interested how you would have handled the situation.

As I have said there needs to be 1. A practical way for people to come here legally. One that someone from another country, could reasonably follow to allow them to come if they don't have anything wrong with their background and enter the US in a reasonable time frame. 2. A statute of limitations on immigration enforcement so that after a certain time here, if the government can't/won't enforce their laws against them, they can move on with life. Crossing the border illegally shouldn't result in a life sentence. If we can agree to have a statute of limitations for bank robberies and attempted murder, I think we can agree to a statute of limitations for crossing a border.