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"Migrant Caravan" headed to the US border

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ant

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"Migrant Caravan" headed to the US border

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Here's what PolitiFact claims to know about the caravan:

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-mete ... an-headin/


I think this would be a great time for the Democratic Party to truly unite and call on all progressives to open their homes to one, two, or a family of immigrants and help them get on their feet, and perhaps even apply for citizenship.
Opening your mouth is no longer enough.

Remember the call: When they go low, we go high!
Now is your chance to show all the racists on the right progressives not only talk the talk, but are willing to walk the walk.
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Re: "Migrant Caravan" headed to the US border

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I sure hope we stop them. I'm a pretty empathetic person but we need law and order and policies that protect this nation above all else.
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Re: "Migrant Caravan" headed to the US border

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For what it's worth, we're attempting to sponsor a family to immigrate and stay in our home. However, I doubt it's possible under current policies. For example, if we send them any money, we have to certify none of those funds will be used to help them immigrate to the U.S. The father works 60 - 70 hours per week for the equivalent of under $75. USD per month. Impossible situation.

Many people in the migrant caravan have had their families decimated by murder and kidnappings. They are seeking asylum, which is a legal request. It's important for America to block them?
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Re: "Migrant Caravan" headed to the US border

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We can take them in but they cannot just cross the border at will. If we want to help them they should be ID'd and housed, fed, etc... It should be a temporary humanitarian response. I just don't want people crossing into our nation wherever and whenever they please.
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Re: "Migrant Caravan" headed to the US border

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Around 8,000 tired, hungry, unarmed men women and children are walking in a group toward our border. Trump promises to call out the real military, not the National Guard, in enough force to stop them. I can't stop laughing. A few dozen kids from Texas who are good with pellet rifles could stop them.
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Re: "Migrant Caravan" headed to the US border

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Litwitlou wrote:Around 8,000 tired, hungry, unarmed men women and children are walking in a group toward our border. Trump promises to call out the real military, not the National Guard, in enough force to stop them. I can't stop laughing. A few dozen kids from Texas who are good with pellet rifles could stop them.

Except maybe Mexico, right? Maybe they could have used you and your pellet gun.

"tired and hungry" with children, but able and willing to march about 1600 miles

I suspect I'd walk straight through Mexico to if I wanted a shot at prosperity.


How many of these migrants will you be helping, or are you with them in spirit?
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Re: "Migrant Caravan" headed to the US border

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ant wrote:
Litwitlou wrote:Around 8,000 tired, hungry, unarmed men women and children are walking in a group toward our border. Trump promises to call out the real military, not the National Guard, in enough force to stop them. I can't stop laughing. A few dozen kids from Texas who are good with pellet rifles could stop them.

Except maybe Mexico, right? Maybe they could have used you and your pellet gun.

"tired and hungry" with children, but able and willing to march about 1600 miles

I suspect I'd walk straight through Mexico to if I wanted a shot at prosperity.


How many of these migrants will you be helping, or are you with them in spirit?
Well, I don't see what that has to do with Trump talking like he wants to deploy an armored division with fighter cover and artillery support, but okay.

Possibly marching 1,600 miles is what's making them hungry and tired? I dunno. Could be. BTW, none of them have reached the border yet, much less entered the country illegally. It's not like they're hiding and plan to sneak across in the dead of night guided by coyotes.

This is not an invasion — this is a refugee crises. We're going to herd these people into a tent city; charitable organizations like the Red Cross will help the U.S. government feed them and give them a medical once over. Then we'll decide what to do with them at our leisure.

Some cops in riot gear, some border patrol agents, a few Texas Rangers and a couple of police choppers will be more than enough to handle these people. Once we have them in a camp, we have a National Guard unit throw a cordon around it to prevent escapes, problem solved.

Call out the military in force. What nonsense.
These people pose a threat to exactly nothing and no one.

Do I help immigrants? Well, I am an immigrant. Everyone in my family from my generation and my parent's generation is an immigrant. We've belonged to organizations that help immigrants in many ways our entire lives. Am I with them in spirit? I am. I'm also with them physically, financially and emotionally.

There's nothing to be afraid of here. This is just alt-right xenophobia and fear-mongering in an attempt to incite the lowest common denominator into voting.

And yes, a few dozen kids could from Texas who are good with pellet rifles could stop them at the border. These people aren't coming to fight.
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Re: "Migrant Caravan" headed to the US border

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ant wrote:I think this would be a great time for the Democratic Party to truly unite and call on all progressives to open their homes to one, two, or a family of immigrants and help them get on their feet, and perhaps even apply for citizenship.
I know lots of progressives who have sponsored refugees. We were not on our own feet when we left the U.S. and moved to a country where refugees are taken care of by the government. Maybe when we move back next year we will sponsor refugees. I don't know.

One of the frustrating things about being involved in causes is that every one of them thinks their cause is the true test of moral correctness. At some point those kinds of moral appeals start to run right off without penetrating. Part of the importance of a moral orientation to life is the value of making your own decisions about what is important. It isn't easy. We live in a world in which the distress of seeing others is distress is an entire industry, and emotion alone is not enough to sort it out. Poverty porn has been shoved aside by genocide porn. All you are left with if you go by your emotions is compassion fatigue.

As a matter of injecting some rationality, isn't there an important difference between taking care of those who are refugees from violence and those who are "just immigrants" seeking a more affluent life? Both matter, both involve compassion, but surely the refugee case is much more morally compelling.

Of course the modern world is blending the two, more and more. If material conditions degenerate enough, as they did in Syria, people are more likely to risk violent confrontation and trigger the kinds of events that make refugees. State actors are more willing to engage in repression against the poor if giving them "a well-founded fear of persecution" encourages them to leave. At some point we have to acknowledge that the more we want a free, tolerant life in our own country the more we have to invest in other people, outside our borders, and to recognize that those borders do not guarantee safety, wall or no wall.

Maybe we should be sponsoring indigenous people of Central America, to help them get an education.
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Re: "Migrant Caravan" headed to the US border

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LanDroid wrote: For example, if we send them any money, we have to certify none of those funds will be used to help them immigrate to the U.S.
How is it legal for the government to put such a restriction on your ability to send money to someone? What is this certification requirement?
LanDroid wrote:Many people in the migrant caravan have had their families decimated by murder and kidnappings. They are seeking asylum, which is a legal request. It's important for America to block them?
Of course it isn't important. But it is important for us to begin taking enough of an interest in the lives of working people that those who feel economically threatened don't join in the paranoia with those who feel culturally infringed on.
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Re: "Migrant Caravan" headed to the US border

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Litwitlou wrote:There's nothing to be afraid of here. This is just alt-right xenophobia and fear-mongering in an attempt to incite the lowest common denominator into voting.
It wasn't so long ago that people of privilege were deeply worried about Catholics coming into America and changing "our" character. My father-in-law voted against JFK on such a basis, and he had a college degree when that was a rarity. "Lowest common denominator" is probably itself a lowest common denominator of oversimplification.

It's interesting to see the hysteria, and the way the right plays on it like the left-leaning media played on moral symbolism for at least a century. Symbols are potent for a reason, and it isn't always wise to try to use logic and reason to neutralize them. Done sloppily, you end up with idiocy like Robert Bork, a wise and insightful man, going with the logic of states' rights even though it defended the abomination of Jim Crow.

In the end, we are not going to be overwhelmed by caravans of economic migrants. But it probably is wise to gear up with sufficient resources to be able to process their asylum claims, to avoid being cruel about it, and to sponsor lots of refugees around this country of 300-some million.

Dear Leader likes the symbolism of using tanks and missiles to stop them. I think it's safe to say even most Republicans see the foolishness of such an approach. But if they can be convinced that the alternative is "No borders, no ICE" they might be willing to go with it. One aspect I would point out is that it is not very expensive to be able to process the caravans, relative to the cost of high-tech weaponry (which might get left on the airfield and have a hurricane come along and wipe out billions worth).
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