And Obama Drops the Bomb!

13

Replies

  • KaleidoscopeEyes1056
    KaleidoscopeEyes1056 Posts: 2,996 Member
    I support it, a no-brainer.

    Anyone for mass-deportation should be at top of the list to go, IMO.

    I think I might love you. Are you ok with this? Even if you're not, I'm going to start calling you my boyfriend.
  • eduardo_d
    eduardo_d Posts: 85 Member
    I support it, a no-brainer.

    Anyone for mass-deportation should be at top of the list to go, IMO.

    I think I might love you. Are you ok with this? Even if you're not, I'm going to start calling you my boyfriend.

    Since you are so close to world domination, I would be honored.
  • EvanKeel
    EvanKeel Posts: 1,904 Member
    Ok, these types of executive orders happen all the time in our history. They really really do. Every president makes them. This is just a controversial topic so it's getting a lot of attention.

    If anyone is annoyed and thinks this is Obama being a dictator, keep in mind our system does not require executive orders to have congressional approval. He hasn't done anything every other modern president has done.

    Bush senior prevented deportation of Chinese nationals . Different situation, obviously, but still an executive order.
  • Lozze
    Lozze Posts: 1,917 Member
    My cousins husband was taken into America at eight years old illegally. He wasn't able to go to college, wasn't able to work permanant jobs and had to work his *kitten* off just to survive. He met my cousin in New York. They fell in love and knowing he had no hope in America and he decided to take the gamble and move to Australia with her. She came back before him because she was pregenant and needed better health care. He had to jump through hoops to get here and came here when she was eight months. My uncle sponsored him and because of his 'history' he was escorted by immigration off the plane. Hes been here for eight years, has a great job, they've bought a house and have their fourth child due soon. He loves this country and is now going through the process to become a citizen. In his words 'America is a dying country. Australia is 'home of the free' because they actually practice what they preach'
  • Azdak
    Azdak Posts: 8,281 Member
    Ok, these types of executive orders happen all the time in our history. They really really do. Every president makes them. This is just a controversial topic so it's getting a lot of attention.

    If anyone is annoyed and thinks this is Obama being a dictator, keep in mind our system does not require executive orders to have congressional approval. He hasn't done anything every other modern president has done.

    Bush senior prevented deportation of Chinese nationals . Different situation, obviously, but still an executive order.

    Do we really have that short an attention span as a nation? It was less than 10 years ago. Have we forgotten about the concept of the "Unitary Executive Branch", the idea that the "Vice Presidency is a fourth branch of government" and the 1,300+ "signing statements"?

    I understand disagreement with the decision and the policy. That's absolutely fine. I understand election year politics, so politicians (in this case republicans) are going to wail and gnash their teeth, rend their garments, and predict the apocalypse.

    But I think, at minimum, functioning citizens should be able to have enough intelligence, and knowledge of our system and American history, to see through the kabuki-theater nonsense, not echo it.
  • summertime_girl
    summertime_girl Posts: 3,945 Member
    As someone who was born in the US, but might not have been had my parents not moved a few months earlier, I'm all for it. My mom is a native American, born and raised. My father is from Peru, and they met in college. They married and moved to Peru. They came back shortly before I was born. My dad JUST became a citizen a few years ago, though he was always legal due to his marriage to my mother.

    But I have many relatives who would desperately love to live in this country. There are so many more opportunities. I also have relatives who have been deported.

    Anyone who thinks the immigration system in this country is fair hasn't seen it first hand. It is so much easier for a white, upper/middle class person from a European country to gain legal status here. Try being brown, and from a "less desirable" country. It's nearly impossible.

    Level the playing field. Give everyone equal opportunities.

    And further, this act only applies to people who are Americans in all ways but providence of birth. Can you imagine how awful it would be to have lived here since young childhood, all your experiences, friends, life, language, everything, and because your parents wanted a better life for you, but couldn't legally afford it, YOU lost everything through being deported. Talk about paying for the sins of the father. So wrong.
  • Bahet
    Bahet Posts: 1,254 Member
    I want my kids to have a great life. So tomorrow we're hopping on a plane and going to go move into the Spelling Mansion. I don't care that we'd be there illegally. We're entitled because "we want a better life for our kids". BTW, all of you need to pony up and pay the property taxes for it.
  • macpatti
    macpatti Posts: 4,280 Member
    I want my kids to have a great life. So tomorrow we're hopping on a plane and going to go move into the Spelling Mansion. I don't care that we'd be there illegally. We're entitled because "we want a better life for our kids". BTW, all of you need to pony up and pay the property taxes for it.
    So, living in the Spelling Mansion would give your kids a great life?
  • gchutson
    gchutson Posts: 657
    I want my kids to have a great life. So tomorrow we're hopping on a plane and going to go move into the Spelling Mansion. I don't care that we'd be there illegally. We're entitled because "we want a better life for our kids". BTW, all of you need to pony up and pay the property taxes for it.
    So, living in the Spelling Mansion would give your kids a great life?

    More so than the Mispelling Mansion. Just sayin.
  • Bahet
    Bahet Posts: 1,254 Member
    I want my kids to have a great life. So tomorrow we're hopping on a plane and going to go move into the Spelling Mansion. I don't care that we'd be there illegally. We're entitled because "we want a better life for our kids". BTW, all of you need to pony up and pay the property taxes for it.
    So, living in the Spelling Mansion would give your kids a great life?
    Do the kids of illegals have "a great life" or is their whining always about "having a better life"? My kids would have a better life if they lived in the Spelling Mansion.
  • summertime_girl
    summertime_girl Posts: 3,945 Member
    It's not about a great life. It's about any life at all. So many of these countries that people immigrate illegally from have such abject poverty that you simply cannot comprehend it unless you've seen it first hand. Even the poverty we have in the US is nothing compared to it.

    Sure, we'd all love to have mansions. But you'd better believe I'd move heaven and earth to provide my kids clean running water and access to education, even if I had to go outside the law to do it.
  • EvanKeel
    EvanKeel Posts: 1,904 Member
    I want my kids to have a great life. So tomorrow we're hopping on a plane and going to go move into the Spelling Mansion. I don't care that we'd be there illegally. We're entitled because "we want a better life for our kids". BTW, all of you need to pony up and pay the property taxes for it.

    A country is not an individual's private residence for a lot of reasons. The comparison isn't quite right. Illegal immigrants work in what ways they can, pay rent, and pay sales tax. They are de facto citizens. But for the sake of argument let's ignore that. Why would we punish a child, that has no agency-in the sense that can't really act independently on this-for what we consider to be mistakes of their parents? And it would be a punishment.
  • megmay2591
    megmay2591 Posts: 621 Member
    If there parents had them BORN here, then they need to blame their parents, not the government, for breaking the law.

    This is ignorant....if the children were born here, then it is not illegal. They are citizens of the U.S. if they were born here.
  • lour441
    lour441 Posts: 543 Member
    It's not about a great life. It's about any life at all. So many of these countries that people immigrate illegally from have such abject poverty that you simply cannot comprehend it unless you've seen it first hand. Even the poverty we have in the US is nothing compared to it.

    Sure, we'd all love to have mansions. But you'd better believe I'd move heaven and earth to provide my kids clean running water and access to education, even if I had to go outside the law to do it.

    I think you would be hard pressed to find someone that disagrees with you that one would do ANYTHING to provide a life for their children. That said... If you break the law and get caught don't start complaining about the injustices of the US immigration system.

    Just because a person comes from a country with terrible living conditions does not entitle them and every other person living in the same squalor to immigration to the US. There is a process in place (whether you deem it fair or not) that everyone that wants to enter the US has to follow. If you chose to ignore the process and enter ILLEGALLY be prepared for the rare instance where you might get caught and have to pay for your crime.
  • fbmandy55
    fbmandy55 Posts: 5,263 Member
    Ok, these types of executive orders happen all the time in our history. They really really do. Every president makes them. This is just a controversial topic so it's getting a lot of attention.

    If anyone is annoyed and thinks this is Obama being a dictator, keep in mind our system does not require executive orders to have congressional approval. He hasn't done anything every other modern president has done.

    Bush senior prevented deportation of Chinese nationals . Different situation, obviously, but still an executive order.

    Do we really have that short an attention span as a nation?

    Keep in mind that I have only been legally able to vote since this LAST election. I am 25 and before the last election was too young to give a rat's about politics. I try to brush up on as much history as possible and God knows I know Bush did this (not that two wrongs make a right) but past executive orders aren't my expertise.
  • summertime_girl
    summertime_girl Posts: 3,945 Member
    I think you would be hard pressed to find someone that disagrees with you that one would do ANYTHING to provide a life for their children. That said... If you break the law and get caught don't start complaining about the injustices of the US immigration system.

    Just because a person comes from a country with terrible living conditions does not entitle them and every other person living in the same squalor to immigration to the US. There is a process in place (whether you deem it fair or not) that everyone that wants to enter the US has to follow. If you chose to ignore the process and enter ILLEGALLY be prepared for the rare instance where you might get caught and have to pay for your crime.

    But the children of those who entered illegally have done nothing wrong. They are Americans, for all intents and purposes. Because their parents operated outside the law (in the best interest of the children), why should the children suffer deportation? That's all this remedies. Innocent kids being given a chance. How anyone can begrudge that is beyond me. This doesn't give a legal path to citizenship for the adults who broke the law. It's for the children who never had a choice in the matter.
  • Italian_Buju
    Italian_Buju Posts: 8,030 Member
    I am not American, but I am really glad he did this.

    We that are born in the US or Canada are truly blessed, and both our countries are mixing pots of nations without any REAL roots. Those born in some places in the world, are not so lucky, and I would do anything I could to give my children the best chance at a good life as I could.

    If they didn't make legal immigration so hard and expensive in the first place, this would not happen as much.....

    Edited to add: What I mean by REAL ROOTS, is that almost every one of us are immigrates at some point in our family history, just because we were lucky to get here early, does not make us the be all and end all.......
  • CasperO
    CasperO Posts: 2,913 Member
    If we were serious about stopping illegal immigration we could stop it tomorrow. Easy peasy,,, here's all you gotta do. Send INS into construction companies, small manufacturers, meat packing plants, and larger farms - etc.etc.etc. And mexican restaurants, obviously. Round up all the undocumented workers, put 'em on buses and send 'em back to Guadalajara.

    Then, go up to the office, find the key couple of folks who hired them, ran them, profited from their labor - and seize all their ill-gotten assets and throw their lily white *kitten* in the federal pen for 10 years. When half of the chamber of commerce is picking beans on a federal prison farm in the Alabama sun, the other half will stop hiring undocumented workers.

    They come for work. Shut off the work and you'll stop the immigration. Border Patrol agents will have folks coming up behind them, swimming the river in the other direction. I think it would be a fine program. Except for lettuce going to $12.99 a head,,, that part's going to suck.

    As a Democrat the plan works for me politically too. Most of the "Job Creators" that will lose their ability to fund attack ads ain't on Deb Schultz's Email list, if you know what I mean.


    SO - reality,,, We are not going to pack up and deport 12 million people. We won't, we can't. Something has to be done. At this point it's pretty clear that if Barack Obama asks for a resolution declaring the sky to be blue, the Republicans will filibuster and protest and call him a no good communist socialist fascist muslin (sic) from Kenya. Anything he does is wrong, just 'cause he's the one doing it. (See "Individual Mandate" - Heritage Foundations, circa 1994).

    So the president tried to get something done in the only way he can - exec order. The folks who hate it were going to vote against him anyways, and it might pull in some of the fence sitters that always decide these things. It's pandering, it's political, and it's also the right thing to do.
  • elmarko123
    elmarko123 Posts: 89
    Pretty epic historic revisionism on here.

    The USA is a colony of immigrants from Europe, you can pretend that America wasn't already populated & claimed but you would be wrong.

    The problem with America, England, France & every single other developed country is the people - not immigrants.

    They are simply a political scapegoat - blamed for the failings of the population & the leadership.
  • LastSixtySix
    LastSixtySix Posts: 352 Member
    . . .I have a small modicum of the experience of these young people, and I think this act is a rare example of common sense and compassion trumping political posturing.

    Surely there is more for the US to gain if DREAMers - those who have served in the military or achieved highly under great strains in an academic setting, suggesting they will be creators of tax revenue, can become productive, contributing members of society than there is for it to lose?

    Absolutely! What you speak to is far above the polemic posturing so common in American policy debates, which often seem to have the goal of dividing further instead of uniting. Bravo and well said! U.S. citizens all are, after all, immigrants to this country, whether as first generation OR through ancestry as in my case.

    As for so-called illegal immigration "problem", really? If it's truly a serious problem, we'd be seriously going after the "pushers" of it. I suspect, instead, that there are still too many racist people in this country and "illegal immigration" and focusing all of our angst and hate on the hard-working illegal immigrants themselves diverts the glare of our own racism from our eyes. Besides, historically, as a country, the U.S. treats Mexico as second-class and subservient. We prefer to keep it us versus them, with us, of course, firmly "on top" or in the driver's seat.

    -Debra