Is it racist to oppose illegal immigrants?
Is it racist to oppose illegal immigrants?
Is it racist to oppose illegal immigrants?
Maybe. Depends. It's complicated.
No human is illegal
being a nazi should be illegal
deport musk
No, race doesn't have anything to do with it.
If you oppose illegal immigration, though, you should ask yourself why.
If it's solely that you don't want people coming over to your nation illegally, then it's very likely that they aren't able to because of how complicated and exclusive your nation's immigration system is.
Their mode of entry into the UK was illegal but any asylum claims they make will be assessed as being potentially valid. I think you were saying the same thing but not sure.
The reason people are particularly pissed off is that Farage and co. have framed the debate as an issue of fairness. Essentially the charge levelled at the irregular migrants is queue jumping, which we don't look upon fondly in our culture.
no.
however, it is racist to oppose them because they're not your race.
Usually, yes
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Because usually the reason they have to be illegal is racist, and the person complaining about illegal immigration is fine with it.
Nothing makes you more racist than having a legal alibi to hide your racism.
This question reeks of asking if keeping slaves when they were "legal" racist? If it's legal, what's the big deal?
It depends on why. Is it a blind obedence to law, i.e. any law breaking is considered immoral to you? I.e. you oppose speeding, jaywalking, hiding Ann Frank just as much. No, probally not. That is a different issue called Statism.
After that you'd have to get into the countries actual laws and what their intentions and effects are. Is it just a matter of getting documented and agreeing to follow laws and participate in society and people are bypassing that in order to shirk accountabilty? No thats not racist.
Is it because there is a quota based on country of origin in order to shape demographics and so people desperate to move cant do so legally? Yeah, that's probally racist (with current demographics of the world largly affected by a few centuries of racist policy, both colonial and domestic).
Yes because this is all land stolen by illegals. Assuming you're in North America. Canada and United States both literally illegally migrated here. No excuse or logic that would make sense that others shouldnt do the same. The end.
Is your opposition to ilegal immigration based on race or skin color?
If the answer is yes then, yes, you are racist. If the answer is no, then no, you are not racist.
Swede here, absolutely not, around 2015 or so we got hit by the mass migration wave, there were plenty of documented cases of migrants throwing away or destroying their documents to try and claim refugee status when they clearly didn't need it, thus taking spots from actual refugees.
There were also real refugees who did this, they registered in Greece, Spain, Italy or other southern Europe country, but then they kept going north, trying to get to a better country. At that point you are no longer a refugee, but an economic migrant.
I 100% oppose these migrants.
The dumb thing is that the EU would distribute refugees throughout the union, just because you registered in Spain, didn't mean you had to stay there, you would stay for an interim period and be distributed to your proper host country.
I have zero issues with migrants/refugees who come the legal route, learn the language, work, and integrate in the culture.
Why did the immigrants feel the need to do that?
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If you're just going to say greed then I can't take you seriously, since greed would have moved them far sooner.
Maybe there are problems with the immigration system
If you are just going to reject one of the biggest driving forces of human beings, then you don't want a serious discussion.
Greed is absolutely part of it, people want to maximize their gains, be it money, health, security or resources.
But since you don't accept that answer, what is your explanation for a refugee that keeps walking through safe country after safe country before finally finding the specific country they accept?
Why should refugees get to pick and choose a specific EU country to live in?
Why would legitimate refugees's discard their papers?
I feel like if you're asking then you're searching for validation. A sort of way to not feel guilty about being racist. Tell me, what bothers you most about immigrants? This country wouldn't exist if it weren't for immigrants
What "this country"? Lemmy?
And I understand them searching for validation. It might be hard being anti-illegal-immigrant and everyone thinking you racist, even though your reasons are not racist nor xenophobic at all.
You just encountered US defaultism
My issue with them is their existence.
If I had things my way, legal immigration would be easy and fast. This would eliminate the need for people from a starving company to sneak across the border
I am yet to hear a justification for opposing illegal immigration that doesn't tie back into racism or racial prejudice, let alone a justification that actually makes sense if you take it apart.
Someone prove me wrong, and I'll change my mind.
It's not race based, but there are cultures that are less developed and may not blend well with other cultures.
This even happens with the likes of white American tourists in Japan... Or anywhere for that matter. Even in the UK and Ireland, where they are likely the same ethnicity (I know because they never bleedin shut up about it)
For example, in some places, if something is given out for free, it may be normal to take as much advantage of it as possible. Or honesty shops- it might be seen as justified to take advantage of the shop owner because they didn't properly put a guard up, in their eyes, so were "asking for it". The latter attitude can also at times happen towards women and how they dress.
If you have a society with robust social welfare systems - education, healthcare, social security, pensions, childcare, housing etc. etc., mass immigration becomes a massive problem.
Everything is taken care of via taxes, and those taxes come from a productive working population. Slow population growth (whether from births or immigration) allows social institutions to expand at a matching rate over the decades.
Rapid population increases from migration can overwhelm the systems in place and put society in a spot where it is no longer able to maintain them.
Furthermore, when it comes to illegal immigrants, it gets doubly bad. They can't hold down a legal job (at least in my country, and thus not pay taxes either), which inevitably pushes them towards crime or illegal jobs which brings a whole host of other issues.
I agree that there are legitimate reasons to manage immigration, but criminalizing the act is a complete no-go for me. There are other ways to manage immigration by creating incentives and disincentives that would make the criminalization of migrants unnecessary. I also believe that freedom of movement is a fundamental human right and that borders are nothing more than an authoritarian system of control. "Security" is only made necessary by the problems that nation-states create themselves by existing.
Thanks for a thoughtful response. My thoughts:
The thing is, if they are there illegally, they won't be able to benefit from most of these welfare systems. And over straining welfare can also happen for a lot of different reasons (thank you neoliberalism)
I've heard a very compelling one actually. It's not about ilegal immigration but against immigration in general. I heard it in a youtube talk maybe like a decade ago.
It starts stating that the thing a migrant person wants the most is not having to emigrate. No one wants go have to leave their country because they cannot safely live a prosper life there. So the best outcome would be that the origin countries would change, so people wouldn't have leave everything behind to start a new life abroad. The problem is that the country have to change from inside. And the people leaving a country is usually the most qualified to make that change happen. So by leaving the country they make the change harder or even impossible.
I'm not arguing in favour or against this argument. But I do not think it has anything to do with race whatsoever. As it doesn't even talk about anything related to migrant presence in a receiving country.
That's a strawman. And some people are just hustlers and want money and handouts and see it as something they are entitled to.
Thanks for your response! You are making an assumption that most or all immigrants wish they didn't have to immigrate. I will answer assuming this is true, though I am not confident it is. But let's go with it.
Changes in material conditions of a country typically occur due to political action. That may be in terms of voting, political movements, or outside forces like war or sanctions. Addressing each of those:
And last, even if what you quoted is true, I bet whoever said it is likely not considering putting the effort of making their country better in the same way they want immigrants to. Maybe that's not one of the worse forms of racism, but it is one.
But it boils down to "go back where they came from" which is the favourite of racists.
Essentially this. There are no arguments against immigration that arent racist or xenophobic.
Immigration and illegal immigration are two different subjects.
Wouldn't arguing against immigration be xenophobic by default?
I think there are arguments for certain cultural backgrounds where standards or view on morality might be different. Or worldview. So they aren't necessarily all racist
Not intrinsically, but pretty commonly it is driven by bigotry over culture, religion or skin colour.
You know all the people up in arms over the wave of Ukrainian refugees? Oh wait, there's nothing of the sort? Well, there you go.
I think it's very telling that it's not about "How do we allow them in legally" but it's about "Kick them out". If they were simply mad about illegal immigration then the natural discourse would be "Why do they not come over legally then?" The answer there is that of course it's insanely difficult to legally become a citizen of the US, and it can take years - even decades, but people have a family that's hungry now.
The discourse going to "Kick them out" shows that it's not about legal immigration at all, it's that they don't want a specific type of person around them. Otherwise we'd be having fairs and events to help people get their citizenship right now. After all they want to be here, the even want to pay taxes. If they just need to come in legally then the vast majority would, if our process allowed it.
The answer there is that of course it’s insanely difficult to legally become a citizen of the US, and it can take years - even decades, but people have a family that’s hungry now.
Same for other places. Even Canada, which is apparently one of the best destinations, has a system that's poorly designed to the point of maliciousness.
Exactly. In and of itself, criticizing illegal immigration is simply criticizing an illegal act. However, it is usually steeped in racist logic and arguments. Talking about how people who come over our southern border are genetically inferior and prone to crime is racist as fuck. Adding roadblocks to immigration for brown people while simultaneously streamlining immigration of white South Africans (the guys who did Apartheid) is racist as fuck.
Every time I meet someone who opposes illegal immigration but claims to support legal immigration I ask one question. If the law changed so that all immigration was legal, you'd be fine with it, right?
Nobody so far has been fine with it. I conclude that the question of legality is a dodge for people who are embarrassed about their actual motives.
Oh my God the HEMMING and HAWING when suggesting easier immigration to one of these bigots.
They will do anything to avoid answering that question. It's really disgusting
I support legal immigration, I empathize with illegal immigration (and think the laws could use adjustment in both directions)...but I don't think all immigration should be legal.
And no, it doesn't change if they're from "a Western country" or from somewhere that people look different from the majority in my country.
We have rising unemployment among citizens, especially young people, yet corporations are taking advantage of immigrants in various ways. And immigrants of all kinds -- legal, grey area, and illegal immigrants.
We are selling the idea of a lifestyle to people in other countries that isn't attainable unless you're part of the top quintile (or possibly an even smaller group) of income. Then they come here, bringing their university educations, and are competing for jobs against high schoolers.
I'm all about people coming to live in my country. But we're doing a disservice to immigrants through our laws/regulations and our corporations. And people who are here illegally are usually the biggest victims; the most exploited.
I also would not be fine with it.
Having a barrier to entry is what keeps most of the dipshits out. There are dipshits in every country. I don't want to have to deal with another country's dipshits - we have enough to deal with on our own.
Exactly what the barriers to entry are should be reformed so that they make sense and allow all people in easily if they meet some straightforward requirements.
Borders have existed since paleolithic tribes staked out perimeters around their camps and established hunting territory boundaries with other tribes. Is it possible that we will someday live in a world completely free of restricted travel? Sure! But abolishing all barriers to entry across national boundaries tomorrow with a snap of the fingers would be a disaster.
keeps most of the dipshits out
Perhaps, but the undocumented immigrants being rounded up do not seem to be dipshits. Dreamers, day laborers, people here for the past 20 years with no criminal history. Keeping the dipshits out is a nice idea, but our current policies are evicting people I want as neighbors.
I think I understand what you're saying and don't necessarily fully disagree, but the directness at the very start definitely made me brace for xenophobia. In part because "dipshits" can be used as a dogwhistle
However, I would 100% classify trumpers as dipshits
In the US and many other countries, immigration violations are not crimes. Therefore, those immigrants are not illegal. It is actually a civil infraction, like a parking ticket... So, your question reveals hidden xenophobic bias. That alone is immoral. Is it racist in itself? Probably. It is very difficult to be xenophobic without also being racist.
I think those are just semantics.
I get the feeling of not wanting to criminalize the existence of a person.
But it's common language to say that civil infractions are illegal.
You could totally say "It's illegal to park here" even if you would just get a ticket for that.
I get the feeling. But I don't think it is rational to think that anyone writing "illegal immigration" is racist.
No
No, not on it's own, but it's rarely on its own. In the US opposition to illegal immigrants and racism tracks nearly one to one.
One could imagine a country where illegal immigration itself was a distinct problem, where the society was balanced in such a way that legal immigration was at an optimal rate and additional people coming into the country had downsides that outstripped the positives, when though, for example, the immigrants were of the same culture/class/standing as the existing citizens.
The US, on the other hand, is nowhere near an optimal legal immigration rate, even though we benefit pretty significantly from both legal and illegal immigration. Illegal immigrants, for example, contribute significantly to the economy while not drawing 'as many' benefits away. Overwhelmingly the actual arguments against illegal immigration are grounded in cultural differences and language and, to put it simply, the desire for one class to want a reason to consider themselves better than another class by an easily recognizable yardstick.
I wonder how old you are. Seems you're missing the population issue. I can go on and on, but I'm 54 and I've seen demographics and population change radically. Fine with the demographic changes, but I can see some being alarmed that "their" country is being taken away. Don't agree, but I get the sentiment.
As I've seen the planet's population more than double in my life, seen the countryside paved over for strip malls, I'm screaming, "NO MORE FUCKING PEOPLE!" Who's to blame? Can you see how it's easier to blame the "other"?
Blaming the "other" is just tribalism, which has all the same problems as racism. Saying it's easy doesn't excuse it.
There's various reasons why people oppose immigration. I want to present two of them:
I'm skeptical of anyone who says some demographic takes jobs, because it's an intentional misplace of the blame.
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Nobody can take a job, but a company can give away a job.
And strangely you don't see these same people fighting to lower the birthrates of the majority demographics (since high birth rates will cause the same issues at immigration with a little delay).
So how do you phrase your complaint while keeping the blame on businesses?
yeah you're right. i said there are arguments, not that they're 100% waterproof or in all cases true.
the thing you said about lowering birthrates is 100% correct, and businesses share a large part of the responsibility (through neoliberalism).
still, the messages have to get out to the people and be discussed publicly, otherwise there is no progress in the discussion. one cannot just say that a certain thing has to happen or not happen without actually doing the work of discussing all arguments for and against something.
No, but it is racist to assume that a person is an illegal immigrant based solely on their race.
Likewise, i think there is a deeper connection being made, that theres an assumption that an illegal immigrant is a bad person, and i also do not think that is a valid assumption.
To know if a person is a bad person, you have to know the person.
Yes.
Just ask yourself why there is even a barrier to entry in the first place. Prejudices and paranoia.
... Which are justified in many cases. For a start, as a brit, I don't want a mass amount of Americans coming over here and electing their Trumps and bringing their culture war with them.
This very much seems like a Chesterton's Fence issue.
Using the US/Mexico example - if the US didn't have some kind of restriction to its borders, we would expect Mexican cartel influence to spill over the border much more easily.
Or another example - suppose Ukraine had completely unrestricted flow across its border with Russia. Then Russia wants to invade. What do they do? They just have 100,000 soldiers walk across the border dressed as civilians, then launch their attack across the country.
Doesn't lemmy have any sort of "adults only" limit?
It's racist to use immigration law to maintain a racial underclass. For instance, many essential agricultural workers in the US do not have access to the courts or law enforcement to protect their rights. If a citizen assaults one of these workers, the worker cannot safely report the assault to law enforcement without being punished for doing so.
It depends on where you are.
e.g. in NZ, we don't have a problem with illegal immigration, but completely legal "temporary migrant workers".
The issue, isn't the people, it's the load on already stretched infrastructure. Because they are "temporary", they are not factored into the calculations for infrastructure spending.
This wouldn't be a problem, if a short team need was being met, but it isn't... There are always temporary workers, because we as a country can't fill all the jobs from local supply.
With birth rates and other immigration, our population growth is around 1.5%, not the 0.5% we target our spending at.
If we spent at a rate that accounted for the real population growth, everything would work better for everyone.
I wouldn't say it's considered to be racist to oppose outlaws who came here without the proper paperwork, visa, etc.
That's not so much the problem as the other excuses for hating immigrants.
I worry a lot of it is human trafficking or at least human trafficking lite. A lot of employers really like having employees they don't actually have to pay properly or obey workplace safety and other protections for, and who will be afraid to speak up about fraud and other illegal practices.
But to me that would be easily solved if we only made it illegal to hire people without a permit, but never deport or otherwise penalize the workers. And publicize that heavily. So if you don't have a permit and your boss is abusing you, just call the hotline on the billboard and let us know and we'll arrest them and you can go find another sketchy employer and tell on them too when they piss you off.
No one would be hiring people without permits if there were actual consequences for the employer. We wouldn't be stuck with trying to figure out how to deport people and whatnot. They'd only be able to hire people the law is already protecting as workers. but nobody actually wants to hold rich people accountable for having caused all this trouble in the first place.
Fucking. Thank. You.
Anyone hating illegal immigration? I got the most obvious solution you can imagine. Report the employers.
Most of the current immigration laws are due to racist intent. In the 80s they didn't like how many Mexicans were coming across the border each year to do farm work. The workers would come, stay while there was work to be had, and then return home. When new laws were enacted making it harder for workers to get across the border, there came a class of people that would sneak the workers across. And this came with a fee from the workers. Now it costs them more to get here, so they need to stay longer to make up the money. It became easier to just find a place to live in the US all year round.
The US needs the Mexican workers. To simultaneously demand help, and punish them for showing up to help is dumb, and I suspect fueled by racist thoughts. The immigrants boost our economy, help feed our population, and are less likely to break laws that citizens. There's a whole (probably many) book about it, and it's even in comic form. https://www.amazon.com/Open-Borders-Science-Ethics-Immigration/dp/1250316960
While we need to know who is coming across our border to prevent spys and terrorists, the current laws make those entrants easier to hide, as there is now a whole industry to sneak people across.
Not really, but most people's reasoning is racist.
YES.
If you're an American, our entire history of immigration legislation is racism bundled on racism following in the tradition of racism. Were it not for chattel slavery and our betrayal of the native tribes our racist immigration laws would be the most shameful part of our history.
And if you're not American, your own country's immigration laws are almost certainly based on either racism or "nationalism", with the latter mostly being a holdover from when "French" and "English" were considered different races.
Unlawful emmigration to a country should be, at worst, a bureaucratic fine and probation. Anything more is simply bigotry in a polite suit.
Feels like it's a dog whistle most of the time and not a very good one. I've seen people assuming that someone isn't here legally much more often with someone of a different race. A lot of the time people will bring it up for the sake of racism. Inherently? I don't know if it would be racist to oppose them for it's own sake, but you'd have to have just as much a problem with the German guy overstaying a visa. I'd also say that opposing it for it's own sake is unchristian.
Often people who oppose illegal immigration do seem to also be racists.
I think if someone says they oppose illegal immigration and also genuinely feels they have done serious introspection and feel they are not racist, they might benefit from asking themselves what they dislike about illegal immigration and see if those things actually have the negative impacts they fear or if the negative impacts they see are but drops in the bucket compared to other sources of similar impacts.
Not all opposed to illegal immigration are racist, but (obviously) all racist are against illegal immigration (And immigration in general).
First off: technically, almost everyone opposes illegal immigration—the issue is whether it should be reduced by deporting undocumented immigrants, or by changing the laws to legalize more of them. (The exceptions who do support illegal immigration as-is are generally employers who exploit immigrants.)
Second: If the current law is racist, then supporting increased enforcement is racist while supporting reform (probably) isn’t. (And I would describe a law as racist if it disproportionately impacts racial minorities when alternative laws with an equivalent effect on public safety would not.)
No as it's a fair national security concern
In a perfect world, immigration would just be regulated due to welfare and legal reasons, which seems reasonable enough. In reality you might want to question why some legislation actually exists. Is it reasonable, or is its whole purpose to prevent some immigration?
As other pointed out, it is not technically racist to be against illegality, but asking with free will for laws and system with a racist bias to be strictly applied is racist as a consequence (as in, you're not racist by yourself, but you are racist in your speech/action), so in our world, i'd say yes it is racist in a certain way.
Not automatically, unless you're only opposed to illegal immigrants of specific races.
Absolutely not.
I really do believe that America should fix America first before it decides to try and 'help' other nations. The problem is, obviously, the wrong people are in place and doing it all wrong as possibly be.
Illegal Immigration has been a thorn in America's side for a couple decades now in recent memory. The only ones who benefit from it, are obviously corporations who love the idea of cheap labor in the form of modern-day slavery. The immigrants who come here, are not seen as people, they are seen as assets. And it is glaring, how those assets are ironically seen as more valuable than natural born workers who got hired.
Don't believe me? I've witnessed it where someone who immigrated here, got to take multiple months off from work and come back to retain her job. Meanwhile, people like me, have had to practically work and weed my way through the system to make sure I have days off, to make sure I keep my job secure. Tell me how in that way is it fair. There are probably numerous examples where naturally born citizens are sometimes treated lesser than, than those who came here from other countries and picked up similar positions to work.
But certain groups of people brush all of that under the rug and play the label game instead, rather than addressing the problem. It's easier for people to side-step these issues when they aren't the one experiencing them, so it must be comfy to think radically as if they don't exist.
And I don't really buy into the logic that the United States, and ONLY the United States mind you, should have open borders. Countries are allowed to have borders and keep them safeguard, it's been a thing for CENTURIES! But because it's the 2010s or 2020s, no no, we have to discard that ideal and apply it only to the United States. I'm sorry but the United States are as allowed as any other country in the world, to have borders and secure them as they see fit.
My point of the matter is, is that if you're going to migrate to the United States, you're expected to assimilate. Not be cherry picking and expecting people to bow to your will just BECAUSE you migrated, it doesn't make you that special. You don't charge over into places like Japan, Germany or other countries and expect them to bow to your will just BECAUSE you migrated from the United States, do you? If so, you're part of that problem.
And if you don't want to assimilate, then you're best being shipped back. Otherwise, it adds to the problem and I think the whole honeypot melting thing that the US Government has tried pushing around for a while now, has been a fundamental failure. Because now it has been completely politicized and only has made more people argumentative over the issue when it should have just been simpler.
Finally. Someone willing to talk about the issue other than, "ALL IMMIGRANTS GOOD!" And if you don't believe that, you're a racist fuck.
Been beat up, here and on reddit, in past years for stating that, yes, we had a nightmare at the southern border. Officials were overwhelmed and under financed, immigrants faced a fucking humanitarian disaster. People were suffering and dying and what did liberals have to say? "Man, fuck you, it's not true, it's Fox News propaganda." Meanwhile, the population of Chicago flooded in, year after year. How the fuck are we supposed to create the infrastructure and housing for America's 3rd largest city, every year. (I got numbers to back that, but I doubt any here give a shit.)
And JFC, no liberals are bitching about the modern-day slavery aspect. I've seen very few positing that we should go after business owners. "Just pay them fairly!" All for it, but the grocery bill is going to explode. And we're just now seeing the results of running them off, only just begun.
Yes, only Americans are racists for wanting to control our borders. Meanwhile, in Europe, where anti-immigration sentiment and protests are spiking... silence. (I think this is mostly down to overpopulation, but that's a whole 'nother rant.)
Don't start me on assimilation. My wife is Filipino. Her and all of her friends have assimilated nicely, thank you very much. Meanwhile, the dudes at the taco truck can't take an order, from a very limited menu, in English. Had always figured people like that were brand new. We took one of my wife's coworker's kayaking. Cool guy. Gay Honduran, walked 30-days to get here. Fucking tough enough for me! He didn't know words like, "boy", "girl", "year", "please". Assumed he just got here, OK with that. Nah. He has been here for 5 years.
We need immigrants, but we are fucking it up so badly I can't get my head around the stupidity.
Except it's not illegal. Get your facts straight, please.
Not true is any sense, even the technical. Entering the US illegally, or overstaying a visa, is, at best, a civil offense. Still illegal. Diving into what constitutes a criminal offense gets sticky in a hurry.
My wife is a brown, legal immigrant, so I looked this up, read a bit, briefly. Again, it's complicated, and IANAL, so if the laws might apply, give a look. Bit in no case is entering without documents or overstaying "not illegal".
Sorry, not sorry, blocking radicals. You're just energy vampires.
It depends.
It would be racist to oppose immigrants from Sudan whilst welcoming those from Ukraine.
In my opinion, it is not racist to oppose illegal immigration per se. Especially if those immigrants would benefit from a social system that you pay into.
It is wrong, however to blame the immigrants, as it would be the system that is the problem.
Illegal immigrants get jack shit out of our social system. But conservatives tell you they do!
In any case, you're right, it's the system. We've got legalized slavery and how do you fight the rich over that? And how do we actually pay these people without fucking our grocery bill?
I'm afraid it all has to crash, hard, before we reform anything..
Yes
What a weird question.
In chess, it is perfectly acceptable to play opposite of illegal immigrants and not racist at all. Why would you think that?
No.
I’d argue no, if you have valid reasons and lets not kid ourselves even though there is enough wealth in the world to have everyone live comfortably, thats not the game the wealthy and their puppet politicians play. They want us cheap and desperate and immigrants are just another tool to achieve this objective.
No. And I am tired of people assuming I'm racist for not wanting idiots coming over in small boats from france