Ahab Posted February 23, 2017 Posted February 23, 2017 If I could I would make it fairly easy for anyone to become a citizen of the USA. Just agree to live by the laws of our land, and you're in. Well, maybe a dunk under some water too, as we do when we baptize people into the Church, but nothing very complicated. And while I was at it I'd also make it fairly easy to excommunicate people from the US of A when do really bad things to stir up trouble in our country.
notHagoth7 Posted February 23, 2017 Posted February 23, 2017 (edited) 13 hours ago, Black Moclips said: The church should support this new policy and help deport these people back to their home countries so that 1) the church can stay consistent with its scriptures *regarding the Constitution* and obeying the laws of the land... Ahem.... "If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is *obligated* to do so,' (Thomas Jefferson) ...Ahem. Edited February 23, 2017 by notHagoth7
Ahab Posted February 23, 2017 Posted February 23, 2017 15 minutes ago, notHagoth7 said: Ahem.... "If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is *obligated* to do so,' (Thomas Jefferson) ...Ahem. There is nothing unjust with enforcING border policies. Illegal immigrants should not be here. I would prefer that we make it easy for them to become legal residents, but whatever it takes it should be legal.
notHagoth7 Posted February 23, 2017 Posted February 23, 2017 21 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said: Here's my take on it, as a Mormon. Israel is Zion for the Jews. America is Zion for the Lamanites.... ...while Nephites and Levites get to stay at the Holiday Inn Express of their choosing... ;o) 1
notHagoth7 Posted February 23, 2017 Posted February 23, 2017 (edited) 13 minutes ago, Ahab said: There is nothing unjust with enforcING border policies. .. Boundary maintenance.... Hmmm. When for-profit prisons are involved, there is *everything* unjust with claiiming the means somehow justify the ends. I forgive you for momentarily siding with Gadianton. Now please cross the aisle promptly....before it is too late. Edited February 23, 2017 by notHagoth7 1
Ahab Posted February 23, 2017 Posted February 23, 2017 5 minutes ago, notHagoth7 said: Boundary maintenance.... Hmmm. When for-profit prisons are involved, there is *everything* unjust with claiiming the means somehow justify the ends. I forgive you for momentarily siding with Gadianton. Now please cross the aisle promptly....before it is too late. Before changing sides I'd first have to see something wrong with a country's representative leaders being the ones to decide what it takes to be a legal resident. Surely the illegals aren't the ones who should be making the rules.
The Nehor Posted February 23, 2017 Posted February 23, 2017 1 hour ago, Storm Rider said: I find that I am in the minority on this issue. I actually, (I know it is a bizarre concept), think that a nation should have borders and they need to be real i.e. if you illegally enter another nation you are ILLEGAL - you don't belong nor should your illegal presence in that nation be used as a reason to benefit the illegal individual. I think that the US should modify its immigration policy to facilitate those individuals deemed worthy candidates for citizenship. I also think that we need to modify our Green Card policies to facilitate workers. I think that no individual should be allowed to stay in a country illegally. They need to be identified immediately, their case reviewed, if they are deemed to fit within our new, modified immigration policies they should be allowed to stay until such times as their Green Card or citizenship is received. What is operative is that no individual is in the country illegally and unknown. I reject the use of the term "refugee" when addressing all immigrants or illegal aliens. There are few refugees while the nation is inundated with illegal aliens that consciously chose to break the law of this nation. If a person cannot enter the nation legally they do not belong in a host nation. Why is this hard to understand? Lastly, the right of citizenship for simply being born on US soil needs to be stopped. Does any other nation offer such a right? Having lived in the Middle East I met countless families who would go to the USA when the wife was near to delivery and stay until their child was born - get a US passport for the child and then return to their own country in the Middle East. All of the children have US passports - I just find that bizarre. I think citizenship has value in any nation, not only the USA. Times have changed and this method of gaining citizenship is no longer viable or desirable. If your parents are citizens of the USA then the child will be a citizen. If not, then the child will have the citizenship of their parents home nation. My family's presence in the United States began as immigrants - legal, authorized immigrants. I don't have any sympathy or any desire to value any illegal act, particularly one where individuals illegally enter another nation. So you think the Mexicans would have been justified in rounding up LDS pioneers and booting them back over the border? You hold President Young as an unsympathetic figure who illegally led a group of refugees across a border into another nation without permission? You believe Pioneer Day is a travesty celebrating a history of lawlessness? Are you consistent about this position? 3
Popular Post Rajah Manchou Posted February 23, 2017 Popular Post Posted February 23, 2017 (edited) 2 hours ago, Storm Rider said: If a person cannot enter the nation legally they do not belong in a host nation. Why is this hard to understand? The problem isn't that people don't want to enter America legally, it is that they cannot enter legally. You can be sure that if it was as easy as handing over your passport for a stamp that there would be ALOT less people doing it the illegal way. Have you ever crossed over into Mexico? Notice how you have to do absolutely nothing as an American to be legal there? Have you ever wondered why Mexicans don't just go to the embassy and get a visa? There's a reason for that. https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/why-don’t-they-just-get-line I was in a US Embassy abroad a few years back to renew my passport. There was a queue of 100+ people waiting to be interview for a simple tourist visa. One woman, who was married to an American, was interviewed right there at the reception desk using a microphone system that reverberated through the waiting room. The immigration officer proceeded to ask her a whole number of very personal questions, including when and where she met her husband, when the last time she had sexual relations with him was, and exactly how much money he makes per month and sends to her. The agents do this on purpose, to intimidate and embarrass the people waiting in line, hoping they'll get scared and cut out. If a person cannot enter America legally without losing their dignity, there is a problem. And don't get me started about the Burmese refugees I see almost daily who have been waiting over 10 years to enter America legally. They've gone through a similar vetting process involving interviews and waiting, waiting waiting. These are decent people who have never committed a crime, most of whom go to Church every day. These are people fleeing war. These are hard-working, compassionate, harmless, human beings. For them, there only two options: (1) sit and wait in a refugee camp for America to allow them to enter legally, or (2) cross the border back into Burma, and hopefully not step on a landmine. Since the recent refugee ban they've been told the vetting process will now be MORE difficult because we want to be sure they aren't drug dealers, rapists or terrorists. It is terribly unjust, bordering on immoral. Edited February 23, 2017 by Rajah Manchou 6
Calm Posted February 23, 2017 Posted February 23, 2017 We cannot require people to use the legal route until we make that accessible to the numbers that we need to come in and the numbers we can take in without overloading the system. We cannot expect others to live by the law when we won't. Save money by putting it into streamlining the process and allowing realistic numbers so illegals dwindle to a trickle and are primarily criminal. We want the immigrants to come in to take low paying jobs that most Americans don't want. Legal immigrants at this point aren't going to be attracted by those very much given the investment they have put into getting in and the fact they are not the desparate poor, so that leaves the illegals. We don't want to pay higher prices, so companies go the illegal route to save and then pass the savings on to us, the consumers. You don't want illegals here...make it impossible for them to get jobs by being willing to pay for products and services at the higher costs that hiring legals requires. If we demand that others abide by the rule of law, then we need to as well, top to bottom and back up again. Even if we don't personally hire illegals, you want to treat them as criminal, then start researching how the companies that sell their products to you and put food on the table get their employees. Boycott those who use illegals, push for laws that fine them big time, don't buy their product/service. Rather than having Mexico pay for the wall or whatever ridiculous tactics Trump and his buddies think will work, get the American businesses and private citizens who hire illegals to clean their yards and homes and be nannys to their kids, work in the fields, factories, etc. to pay for a better system through fining them so it makes hiring illegals unprofitable. Start by going through all of Trump's businesses and all of his people's businesses and homes to make sure no one illegal works for him and if any found, fine them big time. And make it retroactive. And then take all that money and set up small temporary communities for illegals to go to for a week while they get amnesty if they can prove they have a job, housing, etc. and longer so they can get minimal training if they don't...one big job fair hooking up those wanting to live by the law with those who want to hire by the law even if it costs a bit more. Tax incentives for business willing to only hire and train legal criticized. Put the money into making a system where being legal works rather than wasting billions on deporting the same people over and over again and making it so much easier for the criminals to blend in and to make big bucks off the smuggling gig. Tighter, but sloopy laws with vague directions on how to implement it, without limits on what will be allowed by law enforcement is only going to make one group happy...the guys doing the smuggling as it will make their services more valuable, not less. Takes a number of years of messy work, but once people start seeing it work, that the process is intelligent, then support grows stronger and people stop trying to get around it unless they are truly criminal. So yes, if you feel you must, insist that only legal immigrants get to come to the country...then make going legal a more desirable and sensible route than going illegal and not by making people afraid of getting caught and causing massive suffering, tearing families apart, abusing children by dumping them back with their families in countries they are strangers in and likely without family resources to catch up...so destined for poverty. Remove the fear of our neighbors by letting them see that legal immigration is made safer, cheaper, and with short term waits. 4
RevTestament Posted February 23, 2017 Posted February 23, 2017 15 hours ago, Bob Crockett said: Moreover, Americans don't want to hear this, but California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas were stolen from Mexico in a false provocation manufactured by United States citizens living in Mexico. The US consistently refused to take action against Mexico for border skirmishes in Texas until residents there created a false story and whipped up jingoism in the United States to invade Mexico. Today, schoolchildren in Mexico hear all about this story, and how Mexico lost its territory. When you read Henry Dana's book, Two Years Before the Mast, you can see the extensive Mexican communities up and down the coast of California; extensive commercial operations and landholdings with significant peaceful trade between the U.S. and Mexico. The US stripped Mexico of all of that; centuries of landholding and wealth of peaceful Mexican citizens who raised no army in Mexico were lost. Let's not forget that the Mexicans were not the original Natives in the eyes of the Indians, but were themselves imposters who came and stole everything they wanted from the Natives. Some Natives may even have viewed occupation by the US as a liberating event. The Native Americans had a fairly large degree of disdain for the Spanish Mexicans. .
notHagoth7 Posted February 23, 2017 Posted February 23, 2017 (edited) 8 hours ago, Ahab said: Before changing sides I'd first have to see something wrong with a country's representative leaders being the ones to decide what it takes to be a legal resident. Surely the illegals aren't the ones who should be making the rules. (Dude, psst. Zip up. Your apathy is showing.) A last-gasp effort/invitation/encouragement for you (and other so-called Americans) to show some inkling of a beating heart: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/undocumented-woman-brain-tumor-removed-hospital-lawyer-article-1.2979956 And what of the woman a few days ago who went to court in Texas to request a restraining order against abuse from a man...and ICE infiltrated the courthouse and arrested her. Bonus-round question? What truly happens to those who refuse to stand up for the less fortunate? Ahab, if you don't show concrete evidence of compassion here, some evidence that this gov't has removed from its foundations, my formerly-extended forgiveness to you will be promptly revoked. Because so far, your version of patriotism is an affront to those who have promised to defend the Constitution against enemies both foreign *and* domestic. Why defend such principles *here* when self-professed Americans repeatedly show nominal evidence, not even token-effort evidence, of giving a damn? Why not simply defend such principles elsewhere, and erect a banner of freedom *there*? Edited February 23, 2017 by notHagoth7
Atheist Mormon Posted February 23, 2017 Posted February 23, 2017 (edited) On 2/21/2017 at 10:10 PM, smac97 said: From USA Today (emphases added): Here is a link to the actual DHS document. A few thoughts: 1. I am having a difficult time sorting out my feelings on this subject. I live in a neighborhood with many, many Hispanics. Our stake has a Spanish-speaking ward (the fastest-growing ward in the stake by a wide margin). I know and have affection for many people who I know are not in the U.S. legally. Our Spanish-speaking ward is probably 80% or more illegal/undocumented. My father was a branch president a few years ago, and he told me that about 75% of its members were illegal/undocumented, and that most of them were "wonderful people." That has been my experience as well. And yet... Well Smac, while I am 100 empathizing with you here and have similar stories to tell about our Latino friends, Those in the Church who voted for Trump I don't think they will have the same type of empathy & concern. I love the fact that; "you make your bed & sleep on it too". proselytizing will go down the tubes. This has been a horrible ordeal for undocumented people who lived with us forever, Mexico or anywhere is not they know, they lived here most of their lives. I find it disconcerting that Church doesn't come forward and condemn this kind of ICE action, more like they resemble Brown Shirt round up...... Edited February 23, 2017 by Atheist Mormon 1
notHagoth7 Posted February 23, 2017 Posted February 23, 2017 (edited) 7 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said: ...It is terribly unjust, *bordering* on immoral. Gonna tear down that pseudo-border and speak plainly. It *is* immoral. Period. Explanation point. Explanation point. (Did I mention explanation point?) Edited February 23, 2017 by notHagoth7 1
notHagoth7 Posted February 23, 2017 Posted February 23, 2017 (edited) 15 minutes ago, Atheist Mormon said: I find it disconcerting that Church doesn't come forward and condemn this kind of ICE action, more like they resemble Brown Shirt round up...... Beyond disconcerting. Unless changes of heart/action emerge promptly, God *will* arise in tears and fury over ongoing indifference.... https://www.lds.org/scriptures/nt/rev/3.14?lang=eng#13 Edited February 23, 2017 by notHagoth7
rodheadlee Posted February 23, 2017 Posted February 23, 2017 8 hours ago, The Nehor said: So you think the Mexicans would have been justified in rounding up LDS pioneers and booting them back over the border? You hold President Young as an unsympathetic figure who illegally led a group of refugees across a border into another nation without permission? You believe Pioneer Day is a travesty celebrating a history of lawlessness? Are you consistent about this position? Presentism . If I go to Mexico in my sailboat and do not check in and follow the law regarding my entry they will take my boat and throw me in jail.
provoman Posted February 23, 2017 Posted February 23, 2017 9 hours ago, notHagoth7 said: Ahem.... "If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is *obligated* to do so,' (Thomas Jefferson) ...Ahem. What do the teachings of the LDS Church instruct about Ceasar and the laws of the land? I can love my neighbor, practice retaining a remissions of my sins as taught by Mosiah AND follow Article of Faith 12.
Gray Posted February 23, 2017 Posted February 23, 2017 22 hours ago, Black Moclips said: The church should support this new policy and help deport these people back to their home countries so that 1) the church can stay consistent with its scriptures regarding the Constitution and obeying the laws of the land, and 2) those illegal immigrants can spread the gospel in their home countries. Sounds like a win win. Sure, if the church wants to completely abandon its stance on family values, it can support this policy 3
notHagoth7 Posted February 23, 2017 Posted February 23, 2017 (edited) 8 hours ago, The Nehor said: So you think the Mexicans would have been justified in rounding up LDS pioneers and booting them back over the border? You hold President Young as an unsympathetic figure who illegally led a group of refugees across a border into another nation without permission? You believe Pioneer Day is a travesty celebrating a history of lawlessness? Are you consistent about this position? Sixteen centuries ago, similar us-versus-them indifference & ongoing abuses towards beleaguered Goths petitioning to entire an Empire and remain in that Empire in order to simply provide for themselves and their families... ...led to the Goths rising up and putting an end to that Empire. History may well be repeating itself. And most of you know what has been foretold... That's what happens when/if we don't learn from the past. America, PLEASE wake up. Shake off the indifference. Pray for consuming charity as if *your* life depends upon it. (Because it just may.) Edited February 23, 2017 by notHagoth7
provoman Posted February 23, 2017 Posted February 23, 2017 8 hours ago, The Nehor said: So you think the Mexicans would have been justified in rounding up LDS pioneers and booting them back over the border? You hold President Young as an unsympathetic figure who illegally led a group of refugees across a border into another nation without permission? You believe Pioneer Day is a travesty celebrating a history of lawlessness? Are you consistent about this position? CFR that Brigham Young "illegally" entered another nation. CFR that Brigham Young did not have permission to enter the lands along the Mormon Trail.
rodheadlee Posted February 23, 2017 Posted February 23, 2017 How do we go about changing the entry system? To streamline it for those who are here so they can go out and come back legally?
notHagoth7 Posted February 23, 2017 Posted February 23, 2017 (edited) 27 minutes ago, provoman said: What do the teachings of the LDS Church instruct about Ceasar and the laws of the land? I can love my neighbor, practice retaining a remissions of my sins as taught by Mosiah AND follow Article of Faith 12. Mercy. More important than judgment. That's what the gospel I love happens to teach. Again and again and again. From Jesus' brother, whose testimony Luther rashly dismissed as an "epistle of straw": https://www.lds.org/scriptures/nt/james/2.5-9?lang=eng#4 https://www.lds.org/scriptures/nt/james/2.13-17?lang=eng#12 Edited February 23, 2017 by notHagoth7
notHagoth7 Posted February 23, 2017 Posted February 23, 2017 (edited) 26 minutes ago, provoman said: CFR that Brigham Young "illegally" entered another nation. CFR that Brigham Young did not have permission to enter the lands along the Mormon Trail. Utah was part of Mexico then. Yep, it's a headscratcher. (Please wake up to compassion.) Edited February 23, 2017 by notHagoth7 2
notHagoth7 Posted February 23, 2017 Posted February 23, 2017 Now, back to the OP to demonstrate clearly and understandingly how all this relates to church members... https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007392 Either stand up for the less fortunate...or become one. That's the lesson of history/scripture.
notHagoth7 Posted February 23, 2017 Posted February 23, 2017 32 minutes ago, rodheadlee said: How do we go about changing the entry system? To streamline it for those who are here so they can go out and come back legally? Why have them leave? Only to return? Seems like they busywork of ordering someone to dig a hole only to refill it.
Ahab Posted February 23, 2017 Posted February 23, 2017 1 hour ago, notHagoth7 said: (Dude, psst. Zip up. Your apathy is showing.) A last-gasp effort/invitation/encouragement for you (and other so-called Americans) to show some inkling of a beating heart: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/undocumented-woman-brain-tumor-removed-hospital-lawyer-article-1.2979956 And what of the woman a few days ago who went to court in Texas to request a restraining order against abuse from a man...and ICE infiltrated the courthouse and arrested her. Bonus-round question? What truly happens to those who refuse to stand up for the less fortunate? Ahab, if you don't show concrete evidence of compassion here, some evidence that this gov't has removed from its foundations, my formerly-extended forgiveness to you will be promptly revoked. Because so far, your version of patriotism is an affront to those who have promised to defend the Constitution against enemies both foreign *and* domestic. Why defend such principles *here* when self-professed Americans repeatedly show nominal evidence, not even token-effort evidence, of giving a damn? Why not simply defend such principles elsewhere, and erect a banner of freedom *there*? Well, yeah, that is over the top. The feds should not be treating that woman so roughly and they should be waiting until after she gets the emergency medical attention she needs, unless maybe they can transfer her to a hospital in her own country for that surgery without causing more problems. She still does not have a legal right to be in our country illegally but they should not be exacerbatin her urgent medical problems in the process of her deportation. My point is simply that illegal immigrants have no legal right to be in our country illegally. Which means they have no legal right to build a life here as if they were already legal residents. They skipped a step on their efforts to come live in this country legally, thinking they should be entitled to live here as if they were already and automatically legal residents. They side-stepped the legal process. The acted as if our legal requirements were not necessary. As if they were above the law and we should also act as if our laws do not matter. As you stand on your soap box please show that the rule of law does matter to you and that it is important that people come into our country legally, rather than it being okay for people to act as the rule of law is not really important.
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