New York Times Columnist Says President Biden Should Keep Building the Wall

Looks like they’re considering it at least.

Bret Stephens is an idiot. His way of thinking is premised on the idea that our country can't handle waves of immigrants. We're supposed to understand that "immigrants and asylum seekers are bad, mmmmkay". He never explains what is at stake or why this is a goddamn emergency.

Its such a huge waste of money and surely doesn't help the critters in those regions.

R2 and R3, you’re saying that border fencing isn’t effective?

Is Mexico still footing the bill or is that off the table?

I just can't with the utter hypocrisy of it all. Both sides are absolutely deplorable. A third party please. One with common sense, transparency, and unity.

Any idiot can scale these walls. Biden needs to negotiate with the transit countries and needs to do sth against Maduro.

He should build walls around every red state after letting the Democrats in those states leave and then throw them out of the country, the red states, not the Democrats.

[quote]Bret Stephens is an idiot. His way of thinking is premised on the idea that our country can't handle waves of immigrants. We're supposed to understand that "immigrants and asylum seekers are bad, mmmmkay". He never explains what is at stake or why this is a goddamn emergency.

That's not at all what he wrote. And he does explain what is at stake (for Dems in particular). Clearly your reading comprehension skills are severely lacking.

[QUOTE] Any idiot can scale these walls.

No they can’t, R7. These mothers bringing their children to the border are not scaling the wall.

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People keep cutting through, breaking down, and climbing over Trump’s wall.

What’s the point of spending trillions when it doesn’t

Walls largely aren't that effective, people tunnel under, go over or around, it's just that simple.

Case in point, those two South American "toddlers" tossed over wall earlier this week will be reunited with their Ecuadorian parents who are living as illegal aliens in NYC. Parents "migrated" to NYC illegally leaving their daughters in care of grandparents. Once established parents and grandparents hatched a plot paying smugglers to bring those children to USA. That is exactly what they did by dropping those children over wall.

Those kids will be reunited with their parents and enjoy a vast and bewildering array of benefits from free education to healthcare they never would have received in Ecuador. Lather, rinse and repeat because this is not first nor isolated incident, long as there are huge benefits to reaching USA, and little is done to change that walls won't make a bit of difference.

As part of recently passed NYS budget $2.1 billion USD unemployment fund has been set up for illegal aliens. They will be able to collect up to $15,600 in payments this despite they don't pay income or payroll taxes, and neither do those who employ them either. This scheme mirrors one set up in California and some other states.

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R13, you mean like the huge benefit of Repug business owners giving them jobs? Funny how you left out the main driver of immigration.

R13/R14 link to the New York Post and Fox Noise and expects to be taken seriously. Moron.

R17

It's the truth ass wipe regardless of source.

You think your sainted NYT is going to say anything remotely against illegal immigrants in NYC?

Independent covered the story as well, but they aren't on my local NYC news feed.

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[quote]His way of thinking is premised on the idea that our country can't handle waves of immigrants.

Spoken like a true non-property owner.

If you seriously think the majority of Americans, of either political persuasion, (or indeed the citizens of ANY nation) are prepared to embrace and pay for continuing massive waves of immigrants, you're seriously deluded.

Does People Magazine meet with your liberal democrat standards of journalism you miserable trail of cat sick.

Here's the thing *moron*, regardless of where story appears nowadays it all largely comes from one or maybe two sources, everyone else just tags along with individual reporters for each medium perhaps putting a bit of their own into it, but still bulk including images are largely from original source.

NYT columnist? Idiots all, except for Robert Reich.

If Biden builds the wall, the dumbass Republicans would come out the next day as being against the wall.

He should totally do it.

Immigrants, illegal or not, are less likely to be unemployed and less likely to commit crimes than native born Americans. Remind me again why we are hellbent on keeping them out?

[quiote]Remind me again why we are hellbent on keeping them out?

R24 Because they are lawbreakers. Because allowing them in makes a nonsense of America and its laws. Because allowing them in makes complete fools of all of those LEGAL immigrants who waited years to be accepted.

And most of all, because America is not the dumping ground for people from failed, corrupt, authoritarian societies looking for a far easier life in a flourishing society.

Yet, R21, you can only link to right wing loon sites. Oh, and the hard-hitting news source that is People magazine. You are a fucking moron and just keep proving it.

R17 Should be like you on DL be taken seriously?

Nation states, like lesbians, are built on the concept of boundaries.

The citizens of nation states aren't prepared to tolerate illegal immigration and its traffikers, no matter how many NGO staged photos of weeping and dead children are furnished to the media, or how many bleeding heart dreamers protest.

The fact is: the globe is facing massive climate change and other destablising impacts, and the desire for immigration will be overwhelming. Most of the population of Africa wants to relocate. We are only seeing the very beginning of the battle. It will be massive. You can be absolutely certain rigorous citizen IDing is going to come in and the walls are going to get very very very much higher.

There was never a Wall.

R24 'remind me again why we are hellbent on keeping them out'

ALL THE FUCKING KIDS!

Here we go. Ilhan Omar is not happy that President Biden might continue wall construction.

So much for that. Biden budget ends border wall funding.

The wall is sickening. It should be dismantled

What’s so sickening about it, R33?

People on this thread are exhibiting their utter ignorance of immigration. Most of the immigration stories in the news now are focused on asylum seekers, who enter at ports of entry. Courts have recently ruled against the port of entry requirement. If a federally controlled border doesn’t stop immigration, how is a wall going to do it?

Seeking asylum in the US is 100% legal, according to US and international law. The children and families have a right by law to have their cases heard in court, where the odds are overwhelmingly against them.

As a property owner who rolls his eyes at r20’s ignorance, I also looking at our aging population and the need for a tax base and consumption that will support our profligate spending and dependence on lots of cheap labor. Good luck keeping that going without immigrants.

[quote] Seeking asylum in the US is 100% legal, according to US and international law. The children and families have a right by law to have their cases heard in court, where the odds are overwhelmingly against them.

There is more to international law than just that. A genuine refugee should seek asylum in the "first safe country" rather than the one with the highest benefits. And their odds rise exponentially if they never show up for their hearing. With catch and release you may as well not even have a border.

[quote] Immigrants, illegal or not, are less likely to be unemployed and less likely to commit crimes than native born Americans. Remind me again why we are hellbent on keeping them out?

Imagine if the left adopted this same argument when it came to banning assault rifles. The point is not how many, but how many could have been prevented.

With America’s birth rate at essentially zero, we need all the immigrants we can get.

Who will do all the work?

[Quote] Imagine if the left adopted this same argument when it came to banning assault rifles. The point is not how many, but how many could have been prevented.

Complete non sequitur but thanks for playing

R36, what is the first safe country? Mexico, home of drug cartels?

At any rate, your reading of international law is 100% made up. It is an EU interpretation, not the actual UN Refugee Convention. There is no such obligation. British conservatives tried to make this argument and were overruled.

Build it. I resent the hispanification of America. The don’t want to assimilate.

I'm always cautious about embracing the argument that we *need* immigration because we need their cheap labor. Messed up to be left and support slave wages, no? We don't even have enough jobs for the population without college degrees now, let alone jobs that are going to support a decent standard of living, without needing social services.

So what about the aging population? Maybe we should stop hooking up old people to life extenders like dialysis machines when they're 90 and out of it. Maybe we should also start paying a living wage to take care of them too, since more automation is coming, so there's not a lack of care takers. I don't want a continuous growth with babies. There's too many people now. We can't even get rid of the trash we produce in the US anymore because other countries are tired of getting it dumped on their lands. It's just like older generations to pull that kind of selfish shit, sacrificing the future for the younger people, because they want it all on a golden platter (cheapest labor to wipe their assholes), so what if it comes at a bigger cost to everyone behind them?

It must be nice to be an upper class leftist, not worried about your labor job being underpayed because it's competing with slave pay, or dealing with the crushing taxes for the already decaying infrastructure, that can't handle more abuse. Don't even dare to pretend it's all about picking fruit either, when there's also jobs like construction, nannies, etc., that should be at decent enough pay. It's any jobs that can be off the books.

You can pretend there's lots of room here too, but there's really not, at least no where anyone will want to stay. I'm in the rustbelt, shouldn't exactly be in high demand, but somehow it is, and it's not a good thing. Taxes up 62% in 2 years (I shit you not), with houses being crammed in like sardines, in towns not built for that. The roads are not designed for that much traffic and the wild animals are getting screwed. They're building towns in places bears live at this point, killing them when it inevitably goes south.

Don't try to sell me that bullshit about us all being immigrants once either, because it's a stupid argument, seeing how that turned out for the natives. This is on top of a world population that's grown 3x in size, in just 100 years, with overpopulated areas now being threatened by weather changes.

As a lifelong Democrat and being on the poor end of the class scale, it's absurdly offensive to argue for an influx of more disenfranchised people, when we can't insure citizens now, homelessness is rampant, infrastructure is weathered, education is underfunded and overcrowded, there's a housing shortage, wealth disparity is rapidly rising (to the point where 100k household income is considered being the top 20%), etc.

I'm actually on board with those already established becoming citizens so they can deal with the shitty daily grind we all have to. I'm not supporting a free for all though, or extra help from our taxes. Yes, I know military spending is bloated and the wealthy are the bigger parasites, but guess what? Saying so repeatedly never changes the fact that they'll justify the little guys getting squeezed more to pay for it all. Those barely above water, by not being poor enough for help, but not rich enough to have a quality of life, are exhausted from being the support system to the very rich and very poor, since that's the only way to stay afloat these days.

There shouldn't even be a political divide with this, when the squeeze is happening to the dying middle/ working class in blue and red states alike. A state like NY sucks you dry with everything (vehicle costs, sales tax, etc.), but has no problem handing out help to everyone else but those stuck in the middle. No problem charging taxes that are a fifth of your paltry 50k income, because F U someone else "worse off" can get it, while you're underwater with the mortgage, taxes, utilities, etc.

Geez, give it a rest people. 500+ thousand people died of covid in the last 12 months. It's not unreasonable to accept migrants, they aren't the same impossible to integrate Muslims like Europe's borders are overrun with. Citizenship can be delayed to make sure these people are willing to become law abiding citizens that make an effort to integrate, learn the language and make themselves useful.

The garbage NYT is impossible to parody anymore.

[quote] 500+ thousand people died of covid in the last 12 months. It's not unreasonable to accept migrants

So you think it is imperative to refill the depleted nursing homes with South Americans?

[quote]So you think it is imperative to refill the depleted nursing homes with South Americans?

I think you're stupid and deliberately misinterpreted what I was trying to say.

Imagine being so clueless to “resent the hispanification of America” without a tinge of irony. Hints: Christopher Columbus. See link for a major spoiler in a series that has been streaming for over 500 years.

Christopher Columbus was Italian.

Yes. R48, and so was Amerigo Vespucci. Both voyaged on Spanish-flagged ships. At the time, Italy had no interest in colonization.

If it didn’t impact wildlife, I’d be fine with it. But you just can’t have it without harming wildlife.

[quote] Seeking asylum in the US is 100% legal, according to US and international law.

R35 is correct. The US is obligated by treaties and protocols it signed to accept asylee applications. I’m not sure about refugees. I need to read more.

The answer is a leader who will withdraw the US from the various treaties and protocols that make it a place where asylum may be claimed. America should lead all rich countries in doing that. The post-WW2 international migration legal regime needs to be dismantled completely in the face of massive climate change.

We’re in lifeboats here. Zero-sum game time. Many don’t realize it yet.

Keep letting them in and let’s see if a leader comes who’ll dismantle current international law re migration and asylum. He’ll come to power by riding a wave of backlash as more and more come in.

R51, an asylum seeker becomes a refugee when the claim is recognized as valid. It’s ok - I have heard from a good bitchy source that Madame VP was not aware of the distinction.

Illegals are 3% of America. It’s not a crisis.

They will destroy Rio Grande Valley. Shame on them!

Nobody that lives the border communities want a wall. It’s only outsiders who do.

There was a truck driver on the radio the other day who works the border towns over and over. Crosses into Mexico and back all the time. Spends all his time in the border towns. Said all the bullshit coming from the Repugs is nothing but lies.

People who own land on the border (mainly American farmers) are against having their land taken by the government through eminent domain and chopped up by a wall

That wall would destroy only Americans.

Immigration. It’s what makes us #1. It’s a good thing.

R31 I find it shameful that she wears her oppression on her head.

[quote] LEGAL Immigration. It’s what makes us #1. It’s a good thing.

FIxedi t for you in caps.

That’s why we need comprehensive immigration reform.

Our immigration laws now are a complete mess. The people coming from the south illegally know they have absolutely no chance at all to get in legally. It costs thousands of dollars.

So why not try to get in illegally?

[quote] Our immigration laws now are a complete mess. The people coming from the south illegally know they have absolutely no chance at all to get in legally.

Their chance to enter is not from some flaw in the system or from some snafu. Congress deliberately and appropriately limits the number of immigrants. The illegals are purposely not allowed to be in the U.S.

The laws defining who is allowed to enter are fine, other than H-1B. We need comprehensive reform of immigration enforcement to ensure existing laws are enforced.

A law limiting who can enter the country is no different from a law limiting who can enter the Capitol building. Just because someone feels righteous about entering somewhere they are not allowed, that doesn’t give them the right to do so.

I find whenever anyone talks about "comprehensive immigration reform", what they really mean is amnesty for illegal aliens and visa overstays. I say to them that's how USA got into this mess in first place. The last immigration "reform" gave out amnesty which set the stage for mess we have today.

As you could easily see from some coyote climbing the wall while carrying 2 toddlers and throwing them over the wall, walls are pointless.

[Quote] I find whenever anyone talks about "comprehensive immigration reform", what they really mean is amnesty for illegal aliens and visa overstays.

Um, your wrong.

My friend is an immigration lawyer and she says the laws are a complete mishmash of nonsequiturs that they have to do a whole lot of guessing about constantly.

The reason you may think reform is solely about amnesty is because that’s what gets press. The truth is, immigration laws as they exist now prioritize the Uber wealthy

Biden keeping refugee admissions at 15,000