what is our position on the Caravan

[Bernard Gui]

Just now, The Nehor said:

Okay, part that is very wrong. Crossing the southern border into Mexico frim Guatemala is much more dangerous then crossing the US southern border. We can and probably should do more to point out the hypocrisy of Mexico wanting us to loosen our immigration standards when murder, rape, and theft are not at all rare on their border. It is probably easier to cross now then the in the past. Mexico has shifted its enforcement efforts further north against the cartels but this might be short-sighted as most of the cartel weaponry is being shipped over the border from Central American nations.

So, it is not so simple after all. We should hold Mexico’s feet to the fire. The cartels must be destroyed...I could even be convinced our military should be invited to help. Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador must reform. They were corrupt when I was there in 1966-68, and not much has changed.

[Bernard Gui]

5 minutes ago, MiserereNobis said:

I live on the Mexican-American border. I can cross the bridge at El Paso into Mexico for 25 cents and nothing but my driver's license. When I was a teenager, not even the driver's license was needed (it's funny that in 30 years they haven't upped the price from a quarter).

So yes, I have tried it from our side, and it is about as easy as can be.

And cross Mexico and move on into Central American countries with 7000 of your friends. Right.

Edited October 26, 2018 by Bernard Gui

[Steve J]

1 minute ago, Bernard Gui said:

So, it is not so simple after all. We should hold Mexico’s feet to the fire. The cartels must be destroyed...I could even be convinced our military should be invited to help. Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador must reform. They were corrupt when I was there in 1966-68, and not much has changed.

Isn't there strict national laws in Mexico about US using any type of force within Mexico?(like Mexico gov't even if they wanted to can't ask for our help in physically fighting the cartels without violating their laws)

[Bernard Gui]

9 minutes ago, Steve J said:

These are the tough questions that I am surprised that a usually thoughtful group failed to discuss. I think its easy to see the morality in helping people who are less fortunate than us(some severely) and that there are some economic and societal benefits to immigration that we have seen throughout the history of our country. But to not even see the potential issue of people demanding entry into our country and doing so by knowingly overwhelming our asylum system seems a little bit of having blinders on and not answering actually the tough questions that mass migration poses in the 21st century.

This is the real issue. 

[Bernard Gui]

4 minutes ago, Steve J said:

Isn't there strict national laws in Mexico about US using any type of force within Mexico?(like Mexico gov't even if they wanted to can't ask for our help in physically fighting the cartels without violating their laws)

I said “invited” for that reason. It would be in our national interest and would help honest and good Mexicans.

Edited October 26, 2018 by Bernard Gui

[The Nehor]

20 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

 

The borders of the USA are very secure, and have been for many years.  Propaganda that our borders leak like a sieve is a powerful ploy, but it is false just the same.  What we do have are refugees coming from various nations to our legal points of entry and applying for asylum.  These are legal, orderly processes and can take years to complete.  Other people come from various countries on student and tourist visas and overstay.  They become illegal aliens, not because they are raping and robbing (they do that less than native born Americans), but because they do not have current permission to be here.  Totalitarian regimes seldom have a problem of that kind, both because they are tightly controlled and because people want to leave rather than come.

A free and open society such as ours is particularly vulnerable to people finding a way into this country and then making a home here.  It is illegal, but understandable.  People love America and vote with their feet.  They pay their own way, and are not actually a financial burden on our polity.  They even buttress our failing and falling birthrates with needed workers to help support our aging population.  All of us have ancestors who came here to make a better life.

Unfortunately, U.S. immigration laws in the past have been very discriminatory -- anti-Asian, anti-Hispanic, etc.  We need fair, reasonable immigration laws.

Here is a fun and depressing look at the refugee admission process for those who think it is a rubber stamp.

Warning: Video uses offensive language. Viewer discretion is advised.

Start at 5:00 to get a glimpse of a typical screening process.

 

Edited October 26, 2018 by The Nehor

[Steve J]

6 minutes ago, Steve J said:

Isn't there strict national laws in Mexico about US using any type of force within Mexico?(like Mexico gov't even if they wanted to can't ask for our help in physically fighting the cartels without violating their laws)

The Mexican government statement claimed that the US personnel “do not engage in any operations nor do they carry weapons”, and that their presence and activities were in keeping with “current Mexican legislation” and “full respect” for the country’s “norms and national jurisdiction.”

As the Times article made clear, however, the operation has been crafted by Washington and the right-wing Mexican government of President Felipe Calderon “to get around Mexican laws that prohibit foreign military and police from operating on its soil.”

[MiserereNobis]

7 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

And cross Mexico and move on into Central American countries with 7000 of your friends. Right.

I was responding to your claim that Mexico has "strict entry laws." They do not, at least on the US side. Entry laws is not the same as traveling through the whole country to central America.

Mexico's entry law on the US border is a quarter and a driver's license.

[Steve J]

3 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Here is a fun and depressing look at the refugee admission process for those who think it is a rubber stamp.

Warning: Video uses offensive language. Viewer discretion is advised.

Start at 5:00 to get just the screening process:

 

US Refugee law and asylum law are different. I actually think are refugee number is too low, while our asylum is currently getting abused

Edited October 26, 2018 by Steve J

[Steve J]

1 hour ago, Kevin Christensen said:

Along with the apt message of the Statue of Liberty (Bravo, despite Steven Miller's ethical toxicity on that) it's a matter of "Am I my brother's keeper?" and "Who is my neighbor?"  and "Remember that you were a stranger" and "Whatsoever ye have done unto the least of these they brethren, ye have done it unto me."    And I think of Ammon's people, and Alma's and Limhi's groups in the Book of Mormon.  I think of the idea of America that I was raised in, a nation of immigrants, an idea of freedom, hope, and opportunity for all.

And we have a President who wants the Military to go to the border to prevent people fleeing violence and oppression in their homelands,  due in significant part to bungled US policies,  walking thousands of miles with their families from coming here on grounds that they might want to vote democrat and raise taxes on Billionaires?   I remember when Trump told his followers at the RNC in 2016, "Only I can save you."

The choice of Savior has implications.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg

I hope you can see that political power  and the role in government in our lives (no matter who you support)is much more than an increase of 10-15 % on the super-uber rich... That would be like saying the American revolution was simply fought over someone paying a little bit more in taxes for their tea...

[The Nehor]

18 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

So, it is not so simple after all. We should hold Mexico’s feet to the fire. The cartels must be destroyed...I could even be convinced our military should be invited to help. Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador must reform. They were corrupt when I was there in 1966-68, and not much has changed.

I hate to break this to you but the US has been meddling in Central American and South American countries since the start of the Could War and telling them to fix everything hasn’t worked yet. We could march in and “win” at horrific cost but then we spend the next half a century in a vicious quagmire trying to rebuild them. 

I did not say it was simple but all too often saying a problem is complex is an attempt to shut down the discussion so we can be comfortable doing nothing.

[CV75]

2 hours ago, rodheadlee said:

 what is our position on the Caravan headed to our borders?

 I got so angry watching Fox news last night with those guys and gals invoking God's name praying that the Caravan doesn't reach our border. What are your thoughts?

Either Mapastepec, Mexico or Massapequa, Long Island… Like two Hill Cumorahs, I guess.

[The Nehor]

3 minutes ago, Steve J said:

I hope you can see that political power  and the role in government in our lives (no matter who you support)is much more than an increase of 10-15 % on the super-uber rich... That would be like saying the American revolution was simply fought over someone paying a little bit more in taxes for their tea...

According to my British friends the American Revolution was fought because the British had just aided us in winning the French and Indian War and with no external threat left we turned on our benefactors and insisted that we did not want to pay our disproportionately small cost for the war (look at ratio of British vs American taxes paid before the Revolution and the colonies do look like whiners) that gave us security in the first place. Bunch of ingrate children.  

[Kevin Christensen]

20 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Don’t individual nations have the right to secure their borders and require an orderly immigration process? 

President Van Buren [not Polk, thanks Scott] had the legal right to tell Joseph Smith,"Your cause is just, but I can do nothing for you."   I also think about the 1939 ship load of 900 Jews (the St. Louis) seeking asylum from Nazi Germany who were denied immigration, and who were finally sent back to Germany, where 250 died in the camps.  And did the bureaucrats and policy makers who acted as rubber stamps lose any sleep over that, I wonder?

Legality and morality are not the same thing.  Jesus has a lot to say about that in the New Testament.  And I rather expect that when our time comes he will have quite a lot to say about that to each one of us.  "But I didn't do anything illegal or beyond my right to do.  I didn't know that my conscience had anything to do with it."

And as it happens, the migrants have a legal right to seek asylum.  Why does Trump seem to think that the slow walking migrant caravan calls for panic and a military solution?  Why does not he take for granted the existence of an orderly immigration process that they pursue?   (And did the US have the right as well as moral imperative based on orderly immigration to separate thousands of children from parents and cage them and to have prepared no orderly process for reuniting them?  This was done deliberately as "a deterrent."  No one has gone to jail for kidnapping thousands of children, yet taking one can lead to a life sentence.  So, was it legal, our right to do so, based on our First and Great Commandment requiring us above all other considerations to secure our borders, especially from s_hole countries?)

Does the President have the right to assume without any evidence (let alone, due process and the assumption of innocence) that the caravan must include criminal elements, terrorist elements, democratic funding, and that if and when they make it to the border, that they will all of them, bypass the orderly immigration process?  Or would a reasonable and orderly mind be content to not only wait and see, but provide both aid and legal guidance, rather than threats, and hysteria?

I'm an American because my English, Danish, and Icelandic ancestors came here in the 19th century.  I don't see how that inheritance gives me either the legal or moral or ethical obligation to try to prevent or impede or limit anyone else from enjoying the same benefits and opportunities.  I always thought that being American obligated me to celebrate such opportunities.  Indeed, in the IT industry in which I have been working since 1984, I have been surrounded by people from all over the world who have brought their talents here.

Or is it time to take down our famous lady liberty in New York harbor, or perhaps replace the torch with a middle finger, and the inviting poem with Semper Fi (which is Marine slang for ____ you Jack, I've got mine).

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsuburg, PA

Edited October 27, 2018 by Kevin Christensen
Fix error

[Bernard Gui]

12 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

I hate to break this to you but the US has been meddling in Central American and South American countries since the start of the Could War and telling them to fix everything hasn’t worked yet. We could march in and “win” at horrific cost but then we spend the next half a century in a vicious quagmire trying to rebuild them. 

I did not say it was simple but all too often saying a problem is complex is an attempt to shut down the discussion so we can be comfortable doing nothing.

Nehor....I lived in CA for 2 years and grew up in New Mexico. Ever hear of the interloper Walker? I am not shutting down any conversation, but asking for some reality checks. We can admit all the caravans in the world, but until the situations in those countries is successfully improved, the caravans will not stop coming. That is the truth.

Edited October 26, 2018 by Bernard Gui

[CV75]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

I mean, if my child was a tired and desperate refugee used to rejection and despair and the people of a nation threw open their doors and let them in and nursed them to health and prosperity I would love that nation forever and I can only love as a mortal. I mean......wow, can you imagine what God would pour out on that nation?

As in "kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers... they shall be nursed by the Gentiles, and the Lord has lifted up his hand upon the Gentiles and set them up for a standard, and their children have been carried in their arms, and their daughters have been carried upon their shoulders...?" I think that is at least the spirit in which we operate, given the "image and superscription" we are obliged to work with "for the good and safety of society."

[Bernard Gui]

30 minutes ago, MiserereNobis said:

I was responding to your claim that Mexico has "strict entry laws." They do not, at least on the US side. Entry laws is not the same as traveling through the whole country to central America.

Mexico's entry law on the US border is a quarter and a driver's license.

And my context was a groups of thousands of people crossing the borders twice and trekking the entire length of their country. Are we supposed to be OK with that? A few Lempiras crossing the hands of a Honduranean border guard worked wonders in my day. 

 

Edited October 26, 2018 by Bernard Gui

[let’s roll]

Wouldn’t both the most principled and the most charitable thing to do be to help the countries these immigrants are coming from enable their citizens to feel safe, and have some prospect of economic progress.  The immigrants tell us they want to stay in their countries but don’t feel safe.

If we want to send troops, why not offer troops to the governments of countries in Central America to fight the violence and corruption the immigrants say they are fleeing.

Why do we engage in a discussion of the immigration issue without addressing the reason the immigrants give as the motivation for their exodus?  It’s as if we view corruption, violence and failed economics in these countries as inevitable and intractable.  Frankly it’s condescending, and dare I say racist.

The leaders and citizens of these countries are children of God, proud of their heritage and their nationality.  They are talented and capable, as they demonstrate when the come to this country.  Let’s help them demonstrate those talents and capabilities in their home countries in an atmosphere where they are not in constant fear for their lives.  That is what they have consistently told us they want.

[The Nehor]

30 minutes ago, Steve J said:

I'm a little surprised that there isn't more actual discussion and realization about the impact this type of policy has on both US, Europe, and the host nations that they are migrating from. 

1. The quick silent move from the debate as to whether these people actually qualify under the law for asylum under the law to just platitudes about letting in the tired and hungry masses. As much as you might dislike Stephen Miller and find a moral compass in the Statute of Liberty poem, it is not an immigration policy. And more importantly, it's not the current immigration policy. Therefore, if you want to change that policy than do it through the legal channels. 

2. The quick profiling of all migrants as some super group that is harder working and more compassionate than any US citizens. My work with those in the US illegally is that they run the spectrum of hard working and lazy, compassionate and self-centered, and knowledgeble and ignorant. And guess what? Most are somewhere in between, like a friend who fraudently married to get citizenship and lives with a boyfriend(legal resident and father of their kids) who makes over 100,000, but their kids are under medicaid because the government sees her a single mother making scraps. While many immigrants work tough jobs, there also quite a few who fraud the US taxpayers out of billions of dollars based fraudulent tax returns and other measures. 

3. The societal costs of bringing in mass amount of people with little education and that don't speak the language. This isn't 1890 western Indiana they are moving into... The government in Maryland has financed a special school for just Spanish speakers while other mainly african-American students don't get the same type of financing stuck in low performing schools. 

4. Not just the brain-drain, but the decency drain that is happening in these countries. If like you, I believe that most of these people are good people looking for a better life, who is staying behind? MS-13 and nortenos? Who will possibly build up and stabilize those countries if only gang members and their kids are left? One issue that these countries face is that we allowed their parents to migrate here to work while their kids grew up without parental figures and got recruited into gangs. 

5. While not the majority, I find it odd to think that not a significant number of these mostly young men are not in or were never in gangs. On one hand, we are told the country is full of just gang member, but then we are told none of them are moving here, although basically a quarter of the country has or is currently migrating to the US. 

6. The estimates that in 150-250 million Africans will attempt to migrate into Europe by 2050. (not including those from the Middle East from places like Egypt, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, etc..) Is this type of immigration feasible? Or would attempting to stop people who live in comparable and worse situations still immoral?Or do you think Europe will be actually stronger by the diversity of having  about 30-50 percent of its population 1st generation immigrants from all over the world?

 

These are the tough questions that I am surprised that a usually thoughtful group failed to discuss. I think its easy to see the morality in helping people who are less fortunate than us(some severely) and that there are some economic and societal benefits to immigration that we have seen throughout the history of our country. But to not even see the potential issue of people demanding entry into our country and doing so by knowingly overwhelming our asylum system seems a little bit of having blinders on and not answering actually the tough questions that mass migration poses in the 21st century.

1. I am trying to do it through legal channels by shaming others so they will realize how badly designed our immigration policy is. That is how things work in a democracy.

2. So they are just like US citizens. What is the danger of having a few more?

3. More schools are rightly dumping ESL programs and just going for full exposure. Studies show that has more long term benefit. That is a local and state issue. Get involved if you can.

4. And.....do you think they would not have joined gangs if they stayed homes. People join gangs primarily because they have no sense of dignity and gangs give them that. This is not a problem limited to minorities. We claim to be capitalists but we have people working 40-50 hour jobs and are not making enough to live on. Of course they cannot find any pride in their work and turn to other sources.

5. You seem obsessed with gangs.

6. Europe has to choose its own destiny. Europe’s also has less room and they might be able to fall back on King Benjamin’s exception that you do not give because you do not have anything to give. They are not there yet though.

 

They are tough questions but I am simple enough to believe that if we do welcome immigrants with gladness and nurture them into becoming citizens and cleanse ourselves or our racism that God will give us a way to do what we can. And yes, there will be problems. We will let some bad people in. But part of the boldness of the American experiment is taking that risk. 

That said, I am not that hopeful. The tribalist reactionaries are in charge right now. So I will try to do what I can and wait for He whose Right it is to Rule to return and make an end of all nations including the abandoned American experiment. Still, maybe there is a chance for some light first.

[The Nehor]

8 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

Nehor....I lived in CA for 2 years and grew up in New Mexico. Ever hear of the interloper Walker? I am not shutting down any conversation, but asking for some reality checks. We can admit all the caravans in the world, but until the situations in those countries is successfully improved, the caravans will not stop coming. That is the truth.

I grew up in California and Texas and live in Texas. I am not hiding on the back lines.

And do we need them to stop coming?

[The Nehor]

9 minutes ago, let’s roll said:

Wouldn’t both the most principled and the most charitable thing to do be to help the countries these immigrants are coming from enable their citizens to feel safe, and have some prospect of economic progress.  The immigrants tell us they want to stay in their countries but don’t feel safe.

If we want to send troops, why not offer troops to the governments of countries in Central America to fight the violence and corruption the immigrants say they are fleeing.

Why do we engage in a discussion of the immigration issue without addressing the reason the immigrants give as the motivation for their exodus?  It’s as if we view corruption, violence and failed economics in these countries as inevitable and intractable.  Frankly it’s condescending, and dare I say racist.

The leaders and citizens of these countries are children of God, proud of their heritage and their nationality.  They are talented and capable, as they demonstrate when the come to this country.  Let’s help them demonstrate those talents and capabilities in their home countries in an atmosphere where they are not in constant fear for their lives.  That is what they have consistently told us they want.

How? Another Afghanistan? Another Iraq? Another drug war?

You cannot send in foreign troops to fight corruption unless you are deposing the government.

We can feed and integrate immigrants. We are good at it. We have been doing it for almost 250 years now. We do not have much of a success record in dealing with the kind of operation you describe unless your main goal in regime change is “No commies in power, everyone else is fine no matter how evil they are”.

That being said if there is a way to do what you describe effectively I say we do it. But it is not an either/or proposition. We can still help refugees while building up a nation.

Edited October 26, 2018 by The Nehor

[Scott Lloyd]

29 minutes ago, Kevin Christensen said:

President Polk had the legal right to tell Joseph Smith,"Your cause is just, but I can do nothing for you."   I also think about the 1939 ship load of 900 Jews (the St. Louis) seeking asylum from Nazi Germany who were denied immigration, and who were finally sent back to Germany, where 250 died in the camps.  And did the bureaucrats and policy makers who acted as rubber stamps lose any sleep over that, I wonder?

Legality and morality are not the same thing.  Jesus has a lot to say about that in the New Testament.  And I rather expect that when our time comes he will have quite a lot to say about that to each one of us.  "But I didn't do anything illegal or beyond my right to do.  I didn't know that my conscience had anything to do with it."

And as it happens, the migrants have a legal right to seek asylum.  Why does Trump seem to think that the slow walking migrant caravan calls for panic and a military solution?  Why does not he take for granted the existence of an orderly immigration process that they pursue?   (And did the US have the right as well as moral imperative based on orderly immigration to separate thousands of children from parents and cage them and to have prepared no orderly process for reuniting them?  This was done deliberately as "a deterrent."  No one has gone to jail for kidnapping thousands of children, yet taking one can lead to a life sentence.  So, was it legal, our right to do so, based on our First and Great Commandment requiring us above all other considerations to secure our borders, especially from s_hole countries?)

Does the President have the right to assume without any evidence (let alone, due process and the assumption of innocence) that the caravan must include criminal elements, terrorist elements, democratic funding, and that if and when they make it to the border, that they will all of them, bypass the orderly immigration process?  Or would a reasonable and orderly mind be content to not only wait and see, but provide both aid and legal guidance, rather than threats, and hysteria?

I'm an American because my English, Danish, and Icelandic ancestors came here in the 19th century.  I don't see how that inheritance gives me either the legal or moral or ethical obligation to try to prevent or impede or limit anyone else from enjoying the same benefits and opportunities.  I always thought that being American obligated me to celebrate such opportunities.  Indeed, in the IT industry in which I have been working since 1984, I have been surrounded by people from all over the world who have brought their talents here.

Or is it time to take down our famous lady liberty in New York harbor, or perhaps replace the torch with a middle finger, and the inviting poem with Semper Fi (which is Marine slang for ____ you Jack, I've got mine).

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsuburg, PA

It is not irregular or immoral for a nation to secure its borders or to set orderly procedures in place for immigration. Most, if not all, nations do it. 

And it is not fair to storm the borders and enter a country illegally when others are waiting in line to follow the procedures that have been set in place. 

By the way, it wasn’t President Polk who rebuffed Joseph Smith. It was President Martin Van Buren. Not until later would Polk be elected, he who ordered the enlistment of the Mormon Battallion from the Latter-day Saints who were then in Iowa en route to the Great Basin under Brigham Young’s leadership. 

Edited October 26, 2018 by Scott Lloyd

[The Nehor]

22 minutes ago, CV75 said:

As in "kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers... they shall be nursed by the Gentiles, and the Lord has lifted up his hand upon the Gentiles and set them up for a standard, and their children have been carried in their arms, and their daughters have been carried upon their shoulders...?" I think that is at least the spirit in which we operate, given the "image and superscription" we are obliged to work with "for the good and safety of society."

And the Book of Mormon has some worrying prophecies about the fate of the Gentiles in the New World. The Lamanites will blossom and the image used is a lion defeating the Gentiles with none to deliver. The only escape hatch offered to the Gentiles is righteousness.

So, spoilers (do not read below if you do not want to know how the story ends):

 

 

 

The tribalists who think a wall, restrictive immigration policies, and a beefed up border patrol will save them are wrong.

Edited October 26, 2018 by The Nehor

[The Nehor]

5 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

It is not unreasonable or immoral for a nation to secure its borders or to set orderly procedures in place for immigration. Most, if not all, nations do it. 

And it is not fair to storm the borders and enter a country illegally when others are waiting in line to follow the procedures that have been set in place. 

By the way, it wasn’t President Polk who rebuffed Joseph Smith. It was President Martin Van Buren. Not until later would Polk be elected, he who ordered the enlistment of the Mormon Battallion from the Latter-day Saints who were then in Iowa en route to the Great Basin under Brigham Young’s leadership. 

It is immoral though to have bad immigration policies and procedures that cause undue suffering. And in a democracy we all get to share that guilt.....at least if King Mosiah knew what he was talking about.

[CV75]

6 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

And the Book of Mormon has some worrying prophecies about the fate of the Gentiles in the New World. The Lamanites will blossom and the image used is a lion defeating the Gentiles with none to deliver. The only escape hatch offered to the Gentiles is righteousness.

So, spoilers (do not read below if you do not want to know how the story ends):

The tribalists who think a wall and a beefed up border patrol will save them are wrong.

I think the travelers have the moral right to try, which unfortunately allows for the immoral to try as well, but still worth the risk for all concerned.

A number this large, and it will only grow, to me indicates a humanitarian crisis that political mechanisms are not inclined to address. I think the humanitarians need to get ahead of the curve of political upheaval which in most of the countries of origin means war. That would be nice (imagine a caravan of humanitarians), and better if they do it without anger.

The spoilers didn't show through... maybe try to re-post... But being a Gentile, I've always appreciated the Lord's promises and warnings to us (speaking of spoiler alert: Israel aren't the only ones; "the promises of the Lord are great unto the Gentiles.").

Edited October 26, 2018 by CV75