"Non-citizens would never vote." But yet, they do. "More than 15 other defendants, including four whose indictments were unsealed Friday, were charged with falsely claiming U.S. citizenship to register to vote, according to a list the government released of those charged and their nationalities. The two charged with unlawful voting also are accused of false claims of citizenship. Several people also have been charged with naturalization fraud and the misuse of immigration visas and other documents." "In August 2018, the U.S. attorney in Raleigh announced charges against 19 non-U.S. citizens, accusing them of illegally voting in the 2016 election. Prosecutors at the time said the investigation into voting fraud was ongoing."
19 people out of 11 million? Wait. That's 19 out of 11,000,000 people. However will democracy survive? Bruh, what?
So they looked at 20 million voter records and found 19 non citizens who tried to vote? I would rather literally 1 in a million votes be fraudulent than disenfranchise people with restrictive voter ID laws. Also, whether or not they had to show ID likely would not have mattered in the cases. Non-citizens can have photo ID. Pretending that voter ID laws have any purpose other than to discourage voting is just being willfully naive.
If I'm reading it correctly, they requested possibly 20 million records. They received 800. "The state board took issue with the requests, calling them overly broad and unreasonable. The board estimated the subpoenas covered over 20 million records. Voting rights activists worried the records were a fishing expedition before midterm elections. The board said in early 2019 it would provide records for nearly 300 people previously registered to vote in eastern North Carolina and for another 500 people outside the region."
Yeah, you deserved a more respectful response, but I was in a hurry. But when the hell did I ever imply anything like this. I've witnessed eight people become US citizens, celebrated in military ceremonies. It moved me to tears. The problem is not brown people, you're the one that said that.
Here's my point: their status as illegal is an administrative decision that can be done or undone depending on which way the bureaucracy spins. What cannot be done/undone by bureaucracy is their presence here, in our society, now, all 11 million of them (or so). A large number of those 11 million aren't going to linger in an illegal status until they die, they are going to try to work the process to become naturalized citizens. When that happens, are they still villains? I have little doubt that some of them working that process voted, and going by Toytoy's study, a whopping 19 cases were found. When a few hundred million people do a thing, outliers will exist and cracks in the system will be found. Does anyone think these cracks were wide enough to warrant sealing, especially compared to some of the other issues we've got with elections (like, finance reform? fraudulent fundraising? How about soliciting donations for an election you lost to pay your legal bills?)? Blaming illegals for election fraud, is so far down the list of election problems, it's mind-blowing anyone ever brings it up. Except when they need a villain to support some awful legislation. Could this kind of bill get passed without some outrage sauce sprinkled on top? Absolutely not, so the "debate" is "we need to tighten election security, because millions of votes happened illegally!"..."ok, where? Who voted illegally? What evidence do you have?" (Crickets) "Fine, without evidence, we're not overturning this last election." "Well, fuck you libtard, I'll pass legislation that makes all kinds of voting shit illegal!". As if it wasn't already, or that we need more laws. Meanwhile, these bills are shoehorning in the ability to make Trump's 11th hour plea to Georgia to overturn the election results 100% legal. That, to me, is a far bigger issue than the election security: it's hard to fake millions of votes, it's easy to overturn the results based off of a technicality: the GOP has done it before. The list of conservative villains with credibility is running low, and I'm struggling to see illegals as the threat to democracy, voting, or election security that they are made out to be. Not nearly as threatening as y'know, the assholes who tried to overthrow the damned government. And you're right 5S, I'm projecting like a motherfucker. My apologies.
I guess what I want to know is why the gop are so willing to create laws that collectively punish people for essentially non-existent crimes, or crimes that are committed in such low numbers that it’s basically a non-problem, but we aren’t willing to collectively punish all gun owners for the actions of the bad ones, or all cops for the same thing. It’s a rhetorical question because I know the answer. Republicans lose an election when everyone played by their rules. So now the rules need to change again. It’s not complicated. It’s just nonsensical.
I'm totally fine with dealing with illegal immigration: it's not exactly a small problem, at any level of government, and previous administrations have been comfortable kicking sand over the problem for decades (hell, back in the day a TON of them were paying into Social Security, then leaving without ever drawing it back out). It needs to get addressed, because we're looking at the same population cliff Italy, Japan and other developed nations are confronting, and we're one of the few countries that CAN easily solve a population problem with immigration, as opposed to natural population growth. Also, the existing visa system is absolutely fucked up: if any of you have experience sponsoring an employee, it's an absurdly frustrating process, and it favors those who have tons of lawyers and money to throw at it. We, as a country, can do so much better, and the people willing to join us deserve better. I struggle with the "original sin" notion of illegal immigration, that since your status is illegal, every thing you do is a crime. I also laugh at the notion that we can somehow expel millions of people.
HOW DARE YOU SUGGEST THE SACRED JOB CREATORS FACE ACCOUNTABILITY FOR THEIR ACTIONS? YOU MADE BABY JESUS CRY! For real, the e-verify system was supposed to prevent this, until the illegals (and their employers in love with that sweet, cheap labor) figured out how to manipulate the system, like a Special Olympics arms race... I remember being in Dallas, and going "how the fuck are all these houses so big and so cheap", and my companion just went...."illegal construction labor, idiot. It's Texas, they don't have to go far." My family business is masonry contracting, and it's a fucking joke: the legal employers have to pay health insurance, taxes, on and on, and the illegal "subcontractors" can underbid shamelessly because they pay none of that shit. Enforcement? Que pinga hablas, cabron? Now, they simply all do it, because they can't afford not to...and now their masons, aren't "employees", they are "independent contractors", and their work eligibility is verified by some nonsense staffing firm that lets these guys sign away their rights to insurance, etc. It's a fucking shame. To be honest, a lot of illegals come here on a study/tourist visa and overstay it. They get jobs just like anywhere else, and just get out of status. I had a few friends in high school with this issue from the UK, Germany and South Africa. So, the labor aspect of it is bad, but that targets specific industries (construction, farm work). The broad, wide swath of it is folks that aren't necessarily here for work, but find themselves in a legal gray area. My favorite is one of my former Korean students' husband who came over here to establish dual citizenship to get his two sons out of miltary service there and eligible for US universities. I think he came over to work in the medical field (anisthesiologist maybe?), but unloaded his Korean pension and started a small business (gas station or restaurant, something like that). He eventually quit his job, and presumably lost his status, but he has kids and a business here.... I struggle with this, because there's a ton of folks who will "abuse" whatever system we put in place, so I get the caution around doing it correctly and once. But doing nothing seems to be a very shitty premise, given the optics of the last few years, and the issues we're going to confront in the next decade or so.
I 100% agree with this. Farms in California and meat packing plants in the Midwest are crammed with illegals. They come to America because they know that these companies will give them jobs and don’t really care if they’re here illegally. And if they are caught the companies, who essentially recruit illegals, get no punishment. It’s the illegals themselves who are punished. Clamp down on these companies, or issue workers permits. If you’re unwilling to do either, shut the fuck up about illegal immigration.
They do have a point though. There's an entire economy built around looking the other way on a certain segment of migrant workers, and the ultimate driver of that economy is the rest of us insisting on cheap produce and other goods. You've got a bunch of middle class suburbanites throwing a fit at whole foods because the strawberries cost more than $1.99/lb at the same time they post "build the wall!" on Facebook. You ever tried to grow strawberries? If you did a straight conversion between the hours you spend in your garden and your actual salary at your job, strawberries would come out to like three thousand dollars a pound.
To add to Aetius's post, that added price increase would force wages to go up for the rest of us to accommodate it and/or a lot of farmers go out of business. The world's economy is based on an unending cycle of exploited underpaid workers that enriches those that pays as little as they can. It keeps prices artificially low, which makes it easier for the middle class to stomach getting shit for raises for the past few decades, if they get a raise at all. I think one of the biggest problems we face as a society is that large corporations face little to no consequence for exploiting their employees because it keeps prices low. All an Amazon has to do is say, "If we allow our delivery drivers bathroom breaks so they don't resort to pissing in bottles, we'd have to increase the cost of Amazon Prime and delivery times would increase." It's a great way for corporations to ensure we stay all crabs in a bucket.
We're in a middle stint where you're about to need less of that labor and a bunch of robots/automation. Some of the things Spain does to harvest food, for example, is straight up sci-fi shit. The issue is stagnation: something has to propel folks off the status quo to change their operations to need less labor. You'd think that'd be law enforcement, but.... The economic case for illegal immigration is shaky, but it's far from 100% negative. However, I can see some issues with "entire economies built around looking the other way".... I'm also kind of amazed at the margins of the grocery industry in general. 2% margins, yet you need ALL of this bullshit (the signage, the space, the massive footprints) to sell olives, lettuce and potatoes? Fuck, there are parts of Aldi I straight up skip. Given the overlap between illegal immigrants and things like human trafficking, human rights violations and just straight up regular old crime, I can't see a great argument for not fixing it. Sure, "my strawberries are expensive now", but I beg to differ: the fuck are all those farm subsidies about if not for keeping food prices low?
My point was that these companies and these migrant workers have built the system we asked them to build. It is our insistence on cheap goods (food particularly in the case of Mexican workers) that drives these economies. We either need to accept that we want these workers here, in which case we should build a legal guest-worker program, or we need to accept that the economics are going to change without them, and stop whining about how expensive shit is.
My best friend is a farmer, specifically orchards. I picked his brain once about this issue. When I’m free to reply at length, I’ll add some things he explained to me.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/06/us/politics/matt-gaetz-trump-pardon.html Oof, Gaetz shopped for a pardon before trump left office. Doesn’t bode well.
https://theweek.com/speedreads/9760...ns-by-9-percentage-points-thanks-independents "In the first quarter of 2021, 49 percent of U.S. adults identified as Democrats or independents with Democratic leanings, versus 40 percent for Republicans and GOP leaders, Gallup said. "The 9-percentage-point Democratic advantage is the largest Gallup has measured since the fourth quarter of 2012. In recent years, Democratic advantages have typically been between 4 and 6 percentage points." Ruh-roh, shraggy....
Until the absolute crazies stop sucking all the oxygen out of the room, the bleeding will continue. I’m not optimistic the Dems hold the house in the midterms though. The gop will attempt some very aggressive redistributing and the margin is already slim.
I'm curious how many GOP voters won't vote in the midterms though because they're still convinced that the voting is rigged and/or fraud.
The main voice of that insane message was Trump. He barely has a voice anymore. No one else is really able to pull off his act except for him. I don’t see too many current gop members openly telling voters to stay home.