Immigration Issues

[Emily Lake]

I knew exactly what my father meant when he used the n word. Without it being explained to me.

He saw nothing wrong with his word choice, either.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Using a legal term for a non-citizen who is in the country without authorization is just as bad as the n-word now?

No one said or even hinted at that.

Are you well? Are you sober? I ask, because that is a very dumb interpretation which is rare from you in my experience.

I didn't have a dumb interpretation - I picked up EXACTLY what Toni was laying down.

No, she got it. Kinda. It might not be technically as bad as the n word but that don’t make it good or ok.

Yeparooni. Legal terms with absolutely no reference to race or ethnicity are pretty much just as bad as racial slurs. All because Toni can't keep herself from thinking "mexicans" when she hears the term illegal alien.

Wow. Ignorant and not at all accurate.

You may be projecting but I ain’t receiving

Your entire argument rests upon your childhood experience of *someone else* meaning mexicans when they used the term illegal aliens. Therefore, because you have an association with what *someone else* meant, you cannot conceive that other people don't mean that. You have a bias in your own mind that associated the term illegal alien with mexicans, and now *you* automatically assume that the term always means something racist.

It's a defined legal term that means a person who is not a citizen or national of the United States and is present without authorization. That's what it means.

There's been a lot of effort put into intentionally softening terms over the last couple of decades. It might have begun as some well-meaning effort to recognize the humanity of other people, but the reality is that the people being discussed are rarely offended by the terms. It's not homeless people getting bent out of shape about being referred to as homeless rather than "persons without housing" or whatever - it's guilt-ridden middle class people who feel obliged to be offended on their behalf and to insist that everyone else contort our language to avoid offending the guilt-ridden middle class person's feelings about homeless folks. It's not disabled people running point on demanding they be referred to as "differently abled" or "handicapable". It's not hispanics who insist on being referred to as "latinx".

Some of those advocated changes are relatively harmless, but some of them have the effect of obfuscating what's actually being talked about or making it less understandable. This is one of those situations. It seems very nice and compassionate to say "undocumented migrants", but it has the overall effect of masking what's being discussed. It makes it sound as if we're talking about people who are merely passing through on their nomadic route, and just don't happen to have their paperwork with them. Like driving across town and having forgotten to grab your wallet, so you don't have your license with you. But that's not the reality - the reality is that we're talking about non-citizens who have entered the US illegally, and who should not be here. You can feel sympathy for someone looking for a better life - by all means, that's a noble sentiment! But looking for a better life doesn't give anyone the right to violate immigration law and be excused from the consequences of that crime.

 

[Toni]

I knew exactly what my father meant when he used the n word. Without it being explained to me.

He saw nothing wrong with his word choice, either.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Using a legal term for a non-citizen who is in the country without authorization is just as bad as the n-word now?

No one said or even hinted at that.

Are you well? Are you sober? I ask, because that is a very dumb interpretation which is rare from you in my experience.

I didn't have a dumb interpretation - I picked up EXACTLY what Toni was laying down.

No, she got it. Kinda. It might not be technically as bad as the n word but that don’t make it good or ok.

Yeparooni. Legal terms with absolutely no reference to race or ethnicity are pretty much just as bad as racial slurs. All because Toni can't keep herself from thinking "mexicans" when she hears the term illegal alien.

Wow. Ignorant and not at all accurate.

You may be projecting but I ain’t receiving

Your entire argument rests upon your childhood experience of *someone else* meaning mexicans when they used the term illegal aliens. Therefore, because you have an association with what *someone else* meant, you cannot conceive that other people don't mean that. You have a bias in your own mind that associated the term illegal alien with mexicans, and now *you* automatically assume that the term always means something racist.

It's a defined legal term that means a person who is not a citizen or national of the United States and is present without authorization. That's what it means.

There's been a lot of effort put into intentionally softening terms over the last couple of decades. It might have begun as some well-meaning effort to recognize the humanity of other people, but the reality is that the people being discussed are rarely offended by the terms. It's not homeless people getting bent out of shape about being referred to as homeless rather than "persons without housing" or whatever - it's guilt-ridden middle class people who feel obliged to be offended on their behalf and to insist that everyone else contort our language to avoid offending the guilt-ridden middle class person's feelings about homeless folks. It's not disabled people running point on demanding they be referred to as "differently abled" or "handicapable". It's not hispanics who insist on being referred to as "latinx".

Some of those advocated changes are relatively harmless, but some of them have the effect of obfuscating what's actually being talked about or making it less understandable. This is one of those situations. It seems very nice and compassionate to say "undocumented migrants", but it has the overall effect of masking what's being discussed. It makes it sound as if we're talking about people who are merely passing through on their nomadic route, and just don't happen to have their paperwork with them. Like driving across town and having forgotten to grab your wallet, so you don't have your license with you. But that's not the reality - the reality is that we're talking about non-citizens who have entered the US illegally, and who should not be here. You can feel sympathy for someone looking for a better life - by all means, that's a noble sentiment! But looking for a better life doesn't give anyone the right to violate immigration law and be excused from the consequences of that crime.

I don't recall ever using the the word Mexican?

I said I knew what my father meant when he used the N word and I will add, a plethora of other racially charged words. It was fairly ubiquitous where I grew up. As an adult, talking with former classmates who, like me, moved far away from where we all grew up, I learned that our town was well known in Green Books as a place to avoid. My mother's stepfather was a member of the Klan, something we did not know until he had been dead for years but was of zero surprise to me, given what behavior and words I witnessed him say/do when I was about 6 years old.

Frankly, I don't now and never have associated the term 'illegal alien' with someone from Mexico. Although I have heard others make those associations.

I think you may be confusing something I wrote with what someone else wrote? Or else I'm having a dementia moment.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I knew exactly what my father meant when he used the n word. Without it being explained to me.

He saw nothing wrong with his word choice, either.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Using a legal term for a non-citizen who is in the country without authorization is just as bad as the n-word now?

No one said or even hinted at that.

Are you well? Are you sober? I ask, because that is a very dumb interpretation which is rare from you in my experience.

I didn't have a dumb interpretation - I picked up EXACTLY what Toni was laying down.

No, she got it. Kinda. It might not be technically as bad as the n word but that don’t make it good or ok.

Yeparooni. Legal terms with absolutely no reference to race or ethnicity are pretty much just as bad as racial slurs. All because Toni can't keep herself from thinking "mexicans" when she hears the term illegal alien.

Wow. Ignorant and not at all accurate.

You may be projecting but I ain’t receiving

Your entire argument rests upon your childhood experience of *someone else* meaning mexicans when they used the term illegal aliens. Therefore, because you have an association with what *someone else* meant, you cannot conceive that other people don't mean that. You have a bias in your own mind that associated the term illegal alien with mexicans, and now *you* automatically assume that the term always means something racist.

It's a defined legal term that means a person who is not a citizen or national of the United States and is present without authorization. That's what it means.

There's been a lot of effort put into intentionally softening terms over the last couple of decades. It might have begun as some well-meaning effort to recognize the humanity of other people, but the reality is that the people being discussed are rarely offended by the terms. It's not homeless people getting bent out of shape about being referred to as homeless rather than "persons without housing" or whatever - it's guilt-ridden middle class people who feel obliged to be offended on their behalf and to insist that everyone else contort our language to avoid offending the guilt-ridden middle class person's feelings about homeless folks. It's not disabled people running point on demanding they be referred to as "differently abled" or "handicapable". It's not hispanics who insist on being referred to as "latinx".
Some of those advocated changes are relatively harmless, but some of them have the effect of obfuscating what's actually being talked about or making it less understandable. This is one of those situations. It seems very nice and compassionate to say "undocumented migrants", but it has the overall effect of masking what's being discussed.

For a person who isn't bothered by labels... you sure seem to be bothered by labels. Gosh, I remember when the right-wing tried to make Homicide Bombers a thing... instead of Suicide Bombers.

Illegal immigrants - in US without legal right to be in the US
Undocumented migrant - in the US without legal right to be in the US

Not that hard.

 

[Emily Lake]

I don't recall ever using the the word Mexican?

I said I knew what my father meant when he used the N word and I will add, a plethora of other racially charged words. It was fairly ubiquitous where I grew up. As an adult, talking with former classmates who, like me, moved far away from where we all grew up, I learned that our town was well known in Green Books as a place to avoid. My mother's stepfather was a member of the Klan, something we did not know until he had been dead for years but was of zero surprise to me, given what behavior and words I witnessed him say/do when I was about 6 years old.

Frankly, I don't now and never have associated the term 'illegal alien' with someone from Mexico. Although I have heard others make those associations.

I think you may be confusing something I wrote with what someone else wrote? Or else I'm having a dementia moment.

No, you're not having dementia. I inferred it from the subtext of your posts. Particularly the combination of these two:

Words matter, Emily. Unfortunately there are plenty of people who believe that immigrants are all here fraudulently and are not worthy of being considered human beings or treated with respect or dignity or even the same right to life they want to grant to a ball of 16 cells.

So what are you signaling by your word choice?

I am pointing this out to you precisely because my best guess is that you are enough younger than I am that you did not grow up hearing all sorts of terms which were offensive because they were intended to be denigrating towards certain groups. Some of the words and terms were so deeply ingrained in every day speech that I seriously did not know until embarrassingly far into adulthood that ‘jewing someone down’ on a price actually referred to Jews and the stereotype that Jews were extremely cheap. I immediately quit using the offensive term as soon as its meaning was explained to me. I did not struggle to make that change. I was mortified. My intention was never to have used a term that most people knew was offensive. So I quit using that term.

That’s what the term you used reminds me and doubtless many in my age cohort +|- 10 years or so. I see that term used by a lot of people and it is used to imply that anyone with darker than milk skin or ‘funny’ shaped eyes or a ‘weird’ name or accent is not here legally and is therefore suspect and in fact, does not enjoy the same constitutional protections as US citizens ( which is false, btw). I know that you know this. I think that you used a common and imo lazy word choice and expect the rest of us to just ignore it like you are a well meaning aunt with mild dementia or a slow child.

You're correct, you didn't specifically say mexican. But you absolutely are assuming racism. And your assumption is false.

 

[Emily Lake]

For a person who isn't bothered by labels... you sure seem to be bothered by labels. Gosh, I remember when the right-wing tried to make Homicide Bombers a thing... instead of Suicide Bombers.

Nothing has ever managed to interfere in the right's ability to be asshats.

Illegal immigrants - in US without legal right to be in the US
Undocumented migrant - in the US without legal right to be in the US

Not that hard.

There's a difference in what's implied though, and in how the terms are interpreted.

"Undocumented migrant" implies something much more benign, something that's almost an accident. "Undocumented" implies that the documents could exist and simply aren't present. It implies that they're allowed to be here, they just don't happen to have the paperwork. Similarly "migrant" implies a temporary status, an impermanent location. "Undocumented migrant" gives the impression that the individual has done nothing that merits objection, more of an "oopsie, I forgot my papers while I was passing through".

"Illegal immigrant" on the other hand makes it clear that the individual is here against the law with the intention of staying.

 

[Toni]

I don't recall ever using the the word Mexican?

I said I knew what my father meant when he used the N word and I will add, a plethora of other racially charged words. It was fairly ubiquitous where I grew up. As an adult, talking with former classmates who, like me, moved far away from where we all grew up, I learned that our town was well known in Green Books as a place to avoid. My mother's stepfather was a member of the Klan, something we did not know until he had been dead for years but was of zero surprise to me, given what behavior and words I witnessed him say/do when I was about 6 years old.

Frankly, I don't now and never have associated the term 'illegal alien' with someone from Mexico. Although I have heard others make those associations.

I think you may be confusing something I wrote with what someone else wrote? Or else I'm having a dementia moment.

No, you're not having dementia. I inferred it from the subtext of your posts. Particularly the combination of these two:

Words matter, Emily. Unfortunately there are plenty of people who believe that immigrants are all here fraudulently and are not worthy of being considered human beings or treated with respect or dignity or even the same right to life they want to grant to a ball of 16 cells.

So what are you signaling by your word choice?

I am pointing this out to you precisely because my best guess is that you are enough younger than I am that you did not grow up hearing all sorts of terms which were offensive because they were intended to be denigrating towards certain groups. Some of the words and terms were so deeply ingrained in every day speech that I seriously did not know until embarrassingly far into adulthood that ‘jewing someone down’ on a price actually referred to Jews and the stereotype that Jews were extremely cheap. I immediately quit using the offensive term as soon as its meaning was explained to me. I did not struggle to make that change. I was mortified. My intention was never to have used a term that most people knew was offensive. So I quit using that term.

That’s what the term you used reminds me and doubtless many in my age cohort +|- 10 years or so. I see that term used by a lot of people and it is used to imply that anyone with darker than milk skin or ‘funny’ shaped eyes or a ‘weird’ name or accent is not here legally and is therefore suspect and in fact, does not enjoy the same constitutional protections as US citizens ( which is false, btw). I know that you know this. I think that you used a common and imo lazy word choice and expect the rest of us to just ignore it like you are a well meaning aunt with mild dementia or a slow child.

You're correct, you didn't specifically say mexican. But you absolutely are assuming racism. And your assumption is false.

My ‘assumption’ is based on my observation. Which is born out by many of the actions of ICE agents who arrest US citizens who are immigrants or who ‘look like’ immigrants to them, or have dark hair/eyes and a darker complexion. I have friends who do not leave their homes without their US passports. ICE in Minnesota arrested several Native Americans —and continued to hold them illegally in an attempt to force NA tribes to allow access to reservation land. Native Americans elsewhere in the US have been arrested with their tribal IDs confiscated or torn up, ICE insisting they were fake.

Yeah, there is a LOT of racism behind ICE. And behind the drive to round up people and incarcerate them in concentration camps.

 

[Emily Lake]

You're correct, you didn't specifically say mexican. But you absolutely are assuming racism. And your assumption is false.

My ‘assumption’ is based on my observation. Which is born out by many of the actions of ICE agents who arrest US citizens who are immigrants or who ‘look like’ immigrants to them, or have dark hair/eyes and a darker complexion. I have friends who do not leave their homes without their US passports. ICE in Minnesota arrested several Native Americans —and continued to hold them illegally in an attempt to force NA tribes to allow access to reservation land. Native Americans elsewhere in the US have been arrested with their tribal IDs confiscated or torn up, ICE insisting they were fake.

Yeah, there is a LOT of racism behind ICE. And behind the drive to round up people and incarcerate them in concentration camps.

Now explain to me how ICE behaving in unacceptable ways means that I have racist intentions.
How does someone else doing something you think is racist make me a racist?

 

[Toni]

You're correct, you didn't specifically say mexican. But you absolutely are assuming racism. And your assumption is false.

My ‘assumption’ is based on my observation. Which is born out by many of the actions of ICE agents who arrest US citizens who are immigrants or who ‘look like’ immigrants to them, or have dark hair/eyes and a darker complexion. I have friends who do not leave their homes without their US passports. ICE in Minnesota arrested several Native Americans —and continued to hold them illegally in an attempt to force NA tribes to allow access to reservation land. Native Americans elsewhere in the US have been arrested with their tribal IDs confiscated or torn up, ICE insisting they were fake.

Yeah, there is a LOT of racism behind ICE. And behind the drive to round up people and incarcerate them in concentration camps.

Now explain to me how ICE behaving in unacceptable ways means that I have racist intentions.
How does someone else doing something you think is racist make me a racist?

Perhaps we just see different news accounts, different videos of incidents that have happened. My understanding is that there have been some images that were altered to obscure what actually happened re: the Renee Good and the Alex Pretti murders. As far as the Alex Pretti murder, I was catching up via text with a close friend who lives in St. Paul at the moment Pretti was shot: I knew within a couple of minutes what had happened and in perhaps 5-7 minutes I saw video—too quickly and too many videos to have been altered by AI. And I’ve read accounts from people actually present at that shooting.

The ‘official’ ICE account of the murders of Alex Pretti and Renee Good differ sharply with video recordings and eye witness accounts. Not by a few small details that skew things in favor of ICE agents but dramatically contradicting the evidence provided by those there.

Once upon a time, I assumed whatever the government told us was factual, even if it was not always the entire truth.

Then I grew up.

Maybe you’ve never been disillusioned by contradictions between what the official version is and what is later or contemporaneously available.

Maybe you’ve never have not listened to enough from various members of the current POTUS’s cabinet or the man himself to have heard some pretty disturbing and despicable comments that are frankly, racist. Maybe you never saw or heard things first yourself that you knew were motivated by animus against the accused or that animus motivated by racism or sexism. Maybe that does not leap out at you the way it does me.

Truthfully, I was very naive as a young person. I believed that only my home town or my corner of the county was racist, except, of course, for the South. The first place I lived outside of the state where I was born was just outside of Washington DC, and in fact, I worked in DC for a few years, and lived in graduate student housing which was quite international. I lived in a bubble, believing that most people were not really racist. Despite a lot of evidence at work or racism and colorism. I was an idealist. Moving back to the Midwest, I confess that, idiot that I was, I was shocked by the racial divides. Moving to another midwestern state, in a small college town, I saw and heard a lot of things that shocked me and infuriated me. I cannot afford to be naive any more. I could not afford to be naive if I wanted my children to grow up with the ability to think for themselves, to see, hear, read, research and evaluate for themselves.

Maybe your experiences have been different.

 

[TSwizzle]

ICE in Minnesota arrested several Native Americans —and continued to hold them illegally in an attempt to force NA tribes to allow access to reservation land. Native Americans elsewhere in the US have been arrested with their tribal IDs confiscated or torn up, ICE insisting they were fake.

I’ll take “Things That Never Happened” for $500, Alex.

 

[jonatha]

ICE in Minnesota arrested several Native Americans —and continued to hold them illegally in an attempt to force NA tribes to allow access to reservation land. Native Americans elsewhere in the US have been arrested with their tribal IDs confiscated or torn up, ICE insisting they were fake.

I’ll take “Things That Never Happened” for $500, Alex.

You won't be participating in Final Jeopardy. Google "ice arresting native americans".

 

[robnisch]

I don't know about Minnesota but in Alaska Tribal ID is not legal ID to prove age for buying things like alcohol.
It is just to prove your membership to get benefits. But to keep or to destroy it is pointless and may be illegal.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

ICE in Minnesota arrested several Native Americans —and continued to hold them illegally in an attempt to force NA tribes to allow access to reservation land. Native Americans elsewhere in the US have been arrested with their tribal IDs confiscated or torn up, ICE insisting they were fake.

I’ll take “Things That Never Happened” for $500, Alex.

Sure, Jan.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

I'll take "I'm just going to knee-jerk deny it without investigating it because someone I perceive as "woke" claimed it" for $500, Alex.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

But we all know Tswizzle wouldn't care if it happened, even if it was shown beyond a reasonable doubt that it did happen.

 

[scombrid]

ICE in Minnesota arrested several Native Americans —and continued to hold them illegally in an attempt to force NA tribes to allow access to reservation land. Native Americans elsewhere in the US have been arrested with their tribal IDs confiscated or torn up, ICE insisting they were fake.

I’ll take “Things That Never Happened” for $500, Alex.

Sure, Jan.

I thought it was Rene

 

[unapologetic]

Is there a way to filter posts by size?

Why is it that when two posters get into an argument they repete the whole chain of posts in each new post?
They know what was previously posted (one hopes).
And no one else needs or cares for a recap.

 

[TSwizzle]

But we all know Tswizzle wouldn't care if it happened, even if it was shown beyond a reasonable doubt that it did happen.

Try me.

 

[TSwizzle]

Is there a way to filter posts by size?

Why is it that when two posters get into an argument they repete the whole chain of posts in each new post?
They know what was previously posted (one hopes).
And no one else needs or cares for a recap.

There is a feature on some forums that will condense a large quote into displaying into a few lines and a button that allows you to expand the condensed quote if required. Maybe this feature is available, mods?

 

[unapologetic]

On average, strangers that enter houses without permission beat children less often than angry parents do.

Therefore, we shouldn't take action against tresspassers.

Therefore, we shouldn't take action for child abuse, against all tresspassers.

Rump and ICE claim to be going after Killers and rapests. ("worst of the worst")
Buy actually targeting anyone who looks like a tresspasser.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

ICE in Minnesota arrested several Native Americans —and continued to hold them illegally in an attempt to force NA tribes to allow access to reservation land. Native Americans elsewhere in the US have been arrested with their tribal IDs confiscated or torn up, ICE insisting they were fake.

I’ll take “Things That Never Happened” for $500, Alex.

You won't be participating in Final Jeopardy. Google "ice arresting native americans".

Who needs Googling to find out if something happened, when you have vibes instead?