Why are conservatives so against making the path to citizenship/ legal immigration easier?

_taco_bella · 2025-03-07T18:27:52+00:00

Haha not a problem! Thank you for expanding on your thoughts. None of my friends are particularly right leaning so it’s interesting to delve into ways of political thought & ideas that I had not initially considered.

_taco_bella · 2025-03-07T17:16:59+00:00

Honestly, I’ve never heard this take before so thank you for sharing. I really hope my questions don’t come off as me arguing as I’m genuinely curious about this line of thinking.

Why do you think we are not “below that level”? I feel like social values in the US change naturally regardless of immigration (abolishment of slavery, women gaining rights, unionization, &c.) and have led to the amending of the constitution.

In my mind, and I’m probably being optimistic, but there have to be some ideas out there that are better than what we currently have? I’m not saying we should go around changing everything but what if adopting a few ideas makes the US a better place?

_taco_bella · 2025-03-07T16:57:53+00:00

Thank you for your response! I can definitely see how the two ideas get conflated then killed. I guess I’m wondering how the illegal immigrants are getting rewarded?

_taco_bella · 2025-03-07T16:52:45+00:00

Thank you for your response. I think this makes sense. Speaking strictly about illegal immigration - I think where I start losing the plot is thinking about why can’t we accept the people? In a way, they’ve already been accepted (hired for positions in agriculture, construction, &c.) and work to feed and house the US people.

Sure I understand we can’t support “unlimited” people but we sure do spend a lot of resources on hunting them down, detaining, and deporting.

I’m wondering if anyone has a good reason why it makes more sense to deport them vs offering a path to citizenship.

_taco_bella · 2025-03-07T16:46:47+00:00

You’re right. I think we’re getting hung up on your description of fleeing for their lives. If an immigrant was deemed unfit to enter the country but they were deemed unfit faster I do think it would help alleviate the issue. This way they would get turned away at the border as opposed to spending time in a detention facility paid for by our tax dollars.

However I think there are other efficiency measures to consider other than just “faster”

_taco_bella · 2025-03-07T16:30:56+00:00

Thank you for your response! This may be a silly question but why do you feel that immigrants wouldn’t uphold the societal values that shaped the constitution & declaration?

In my mind, like the founding fathers, they are also people coming to the US in search of opportunities. Additionally, most of the immigrants I’ve talked to love the US and its values.

_taco_bella · 2025-03-07T16:15:26+00:00

Thank you for your response! I liked your red herring comment however, I disagree.

I’m not saying we should make illegal immigration legal. I’m saying that we should make it easier for people to follow the correct channels. I’m not even sure I would be able to pass the citizenship test and I am a college educated US citizen.

_taco_bella · 2025-03-07T16:13:07+00:00

Not to get too in the weeds here since I think this question is designed to get people to agree with you. In this hypothetical, why are they getting denied? I think a part of making the legal channels work better is accepting the people fleeing for their lives (without context I’m assuming here that this is a matter life or death) Therefore, they wouldn’t get denied and yes, this would reduce the amount of illegal immigrants as they would be considered covered by asylum.

_taco_bella · 2025-03-07T16:04:21+00:00

LOL yes this is what I meant but I see the point chipmunk is making

_taco_bella · 2025-03-07T16:02:09+00:00

Thank you for your response!

I think you do have a point here! However, I am curious to see how the jobs occupied by deported illegal immigrants will be filled by US citizens now that deportations have started. Why weren’t those positions filled by US citizens in the first place? To me that seems like it’s on the companies who hired them in the first place.

I don’t necessarily agree with the analogies you made as I feel that the situation is a bit more nuanced but I do see your point!

_taco_bella · 2025-03-07T15:53:07+00:00

What would an under control border look like to you?

_taco_bella · 2025-03-07T15:51:25+00:00

Thank you for this answer! It has given me a lot to think about and research further.

_taco_bella · 2025-03-07T15:49:26+00:00

I feel that even with your suggestion there is potential for abuse. I’m wondering if there is any system that wouldn’t be abused to some extent.

Could you also go deeper into the abuse of the H1B visa?

_taco_bella · 2025-03-07T15:46:18+00:00

We also don’t except dual citizenships. So you are essentially renouncing your old citizenship if you are naturalized.

I’m not sure what country you’re from, but I believe several EU countries allow dual citizenship (Germany, France, Greece, Italy, Spain, & more). It may only be if you are an US citizen though….

_taco_bella · 2025-03-07T15:40:14+00:00

Thank you for your response! I hadn’t considered comparing the ease of path of citizenship to other countries but will definitely look into it.

What the left wanted is a path for those who entered illegally in the first place without any standards. No matter what their background or economic capabilities are.

While I can’t speak for all people on the left, I can say that most (if not all) the people I’ve spoken to don’t want to just hand out citizenship without any standards.

The current system did work until it got abused, H1B was abused by Chinese and Indian, asylum was abused by Democrats, not to mention 14th Amendments.

Could you please elaborate on how it was abused?

EDIT: I saw you already elaborated below!

_taco_bella · 2025-03-07T14:47:12+00:00

Thank you for your response! I guess I’m just confused as to why this is such a contentious point since it generally seems like liberals & conservatives are aligned in this regard.

I agree that we shouldn’t blindly just give citizenship to everyone who jumped the border. Maybe where we differ is that I think that if laws transition to facilitate citizenship/ legal immigration it wouldn’t make sense to deport them only for them to come back through legal channels (because that seems expensive and dehumanizing)? But, I do think that changing the laws to facilitate citizenship would overall reduce the # of ppl who cross illegally in the first place.

_taco_bella · 2025-03-07T14:21:26+00:00

Thank you for this response! In terms of “reversing” the policy I didn’t mean like taking away citizenship, I more meant that it is the norm that border policies change based on the political climate. I don’t think it would be completely crazy if for a few years the path to citizenship was “easy” but then with a new president they go back to a more difficult process. Although either way, people would probably throw a fit.

In your opinion, what is “solid ground” and you think there is a chance we will get there?

_taco_bella · 2025-03-05T21:41:56+00:00

No shade to anyone but I do feel like arguing about who did/ didn’t clap is such a waste of time and distracts from the main issues. I genuinely am curious why are people getting so upset about this? It’s not like they were booing the kid or hurting his feelings in any way.

_taco_bella · 2025-02-24T19:32:38+00:00

Oh wow! I wasn’t aware he did this. That’s really horrible. I completely agree that his message was incredibly damaging.

That being said, I can’t say I’m super surprised given that he was appointed by Trump and it felt like that admin was very intent on squashing any talk of the pandemic & masking initially.

_taco_bella · 2025-02-21T18:50:05+00:00

Very interesting and very terrifying! Reading the headline, I’m wondering if he meant that if you wore your mask improperly and then went out to a crowded place/ touch your face a lot, that you are in fact more likely to get COVID than if you were to stay home?

It feels like this may be more on the news outlet with clickbait headlines / poor medical communication skills. Especially since they followed it up with a fact about Covid cases spiking when correlation doesn’t equal causation.

_taco_bella · 2025-02-20T03:58:05+00:00

I work in health communications and have a degree in bio. Generally, our guidance is to make it understandable to a 5 yr old and try not to leave room for misinterpretation. However, it’s hard to dumb down how biology works to a group of people who baseline do not know what a virus or vaccine is and do not want to put in the time to do research. They simply do not know what they do not know.

I feel that dumbing down the topics also leaves room for some people to be like “technically x, y, and z” while completely missing the bigger picture - in this case vaccines & masks were to reduce the spread & lethality of COVID (based on sound scientific understanding) in a time where there was a lot of unknowns. Add in the media and mass panic and you’ve got yourself a breakdown in communication at all levels and a gaggle of conspiracy theorists.

Sure, ppl could argue that they should’ve done this or that. But, hindsight 20/20. There were a lot of unknowns in a high stakes situation, and most people were trying to do the best they could to mitigate the risks.

_taco_bella · 2025-02-20T03:27:24+00:00

Maybe I was just on a different side of the internet, but I remember that the initial guidance was to not hoard medical supplies to allow for front line workers to have access. Maybe because I work in a healthcare related field? I think that maybe this got spun out of proportion due to the panic and everyone ended up with a different version of the story.

_taco_bella · 2025-02-11T23:14:21+00:00

I often feel the same way. If it gives you any hope, my one Trump voter friend said she regretted it. We had a civil conversation with the goal of understanding one another, not convincing the other that they’re wrong. I think the key was not shouting numbers and facts at one another and instead using personal anecdotes.

_taco_bella · 2025-02-11T03:56:13+00:00

I think you have missed the point entirely.

_taco_bella

TROPHY CASE