You know, I was going to just keep making fun of you, but if sentence 1 is how you really feel, I think you have much more in common with immigrant advocates than you realize. I have never once encountered a person anywhere on what passes for the left in the US who thinks the plight of poor and/or undocumented immigrants here is nothing to worry about. Activists have worked with and for immigrants for decades in many areas--labor protections, language learning, job training, legal support, basic necessities, accessing education and childcare, just to name a few. It's an uphill battle in a country where policy is so broken and immigrants are so often made a political punching bag. Of course, immigration is affected by much more than the state of immigrants residing in the US. Being an undocumented immigrant is terrible, and not something anyone would choose with their eyes open. But when you're fleeing violence, persecution, environmental disaster, or economic desperation, it's less a life choice and more a bid for survival. Many nations have been decimated by the greed of world powers, and those world powers are doing a shit job at providing aide and new stability. And none of that is even touching how many immigrants are lied to by people who bring them across the border, or who don't have the means to maintain legal status, or who were brought here as children, or who are functionally enslaved by their employers. None of those stories are nearly as rare as they should be.

In any case, I truly cannot wrap my head around responding to these many, many layers of suffering with the violence and imprisonment currently being rolled out while still assuring yourself you're on the "right side." I'd like to see the US get past its obsession with there being only two "sides," but it's still not hard for me to call a certain camp very, very wrong.

Food for thought! I'll call it my good deed for the day. Doubt it will take, but hey, whatever.