Sure, you might think of it as "people with citizenship of another nation."
But I suspect it's more along the lines of "people who don't look like me."
White Afrikaaners are welcome (we'll even invent persecution and call them refugees), but folk from elsewhere (ie actual refugees), um, less welcome.
The trope about "culture assimilation" also comes up. It's OK for Irish and Italian immigrants to keep their culture, adding to the melting pot, but Mexicans and Africans less so
And sure, lots of people are friendly to "the immigrant they know" while at the same time being very against "immigration". One need look no further than the last few elections to see this in action.
When the Black Panthers armed up in the 60s, that was when California, at the time a Republican state with legal open carry, very suddenly grew the most restrictive gun laws in the country.
As a rather conservative foreigner in the US I find this to be a very presumptive statement. We've made good friends, conservatives and liberals alike - we're people, that's what matters not the policitcal orientation. No conservative I know "hates immigrants." Consider what the policy intends to do rather than blanket-blaming it on hate.
I have a family split along classic ideological lines between the northeast and southeast of the US. If you are unfamiliar with conservative's hatred toward immigration, I suggest you travel more.
> Consider what the policy intends to do rather than blanket-blaming it on hate
It looks like the policy intends to prevent immigration in every way possible, and (along with other policies that have come about recently), kick out as many people as possible; even those that are immigrating here legally (or have already done so).
So, other than a hate for immigrants/immigration, I don't see another possible explanation.
This may not be the intent of some conservative voters, partly because some are plausibly immigration friendly, partly because many movement conservatives have more of a opinion-vibe than a policy position on immigration (among other things).
But conservative voters that don’t want much immigration at all (especially from some places/backgrounds) absolutely exist, and more to the point so does leadership that’s determining policy with that goal in mind.
Perhaps you and your circle reflect the more egalitarian policy-driven view. Commendable if so. But it’s not commendable to deny that conservatism has a xenophobic streak a mile wide right now.
GP seemed to be commenting on the Trump administration, not necessarily individuals of conservative persuasion. The Trump administration diverges materially from traditional conservative doctrine in many ways.
> No conservative I know "hates immigrants." Consider what the policy intends to do rather than blanket-blaming it on hate.
If you look at the rhetoric from the Trump people over the years, they absolutely and clearly do hate immigrants, or are doing their best to seem that way. As an example, consider the following quote^[1] from Trump just a few years ago:
> They let — I think the real number is 15, 16 million people into our country. When they do that, we got a lot of work to do. They’re poisoning the blood of our country [...] That’s what they’ve done. They poison mental institutions and prisons all over the world, not just in South America, not just to three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world. They’re coming into our country from Africa, from Asia, all over the world.
It's trivial to find more like that. Weird white supremacist-adjacent rhetoric. Equating immigrants with animals. Etc.
American conservatives may not hate immigrants, but they sure love a guy who fervently expresses his hatred and disdain for immigrants every chance he gets. They've voted him into our highest office twice, and immigration was a central pillar of his campaign both times. I fully understand that many people who voted for him did so for reasons besides immigration, but at this point if they aren't willing to disavow him after the catastrophic first year-and-change of his second term then I am done giving them the benefit of the doubt, because there must be some reason they still support him, and at this point it sure isn't his performance on inflation, general affordability, etc.
In fact, looking at the Silver Bulletin charts^[2] as of right now, immigration is the only macro issue they track where his approval isn't in free-fall.
That quote you pulled is about illegal immigration. Conflating undocumented immigrants with “anti-immigration” is a false equivalence.
There are no doubt people against immigration entirely but the majority opinion I hear from conservative leaning people is that legal immigration is great and people that skip the system are the problem and the drag on social safety nets.
Interesting that nobody on the conservative side hates immigrants but continue to vote on politicians with platforms built upon the hatred of immigrants. It’s almost as if they’re lying.
I’m tired of people acting so naive past the point of zip-tying entire apartment buildings and building concentration camps. White supremacist manners and politeness are disgusting.
In the nineties usian professor of philosophy Rick Roderick produced a series of lectures for The Teaching Company called The Self Under Siege. Perhaps they might change your view that this is a recent development.
In 2011 the usian professor of political science Corey Robin published a book on conservative thought, which is a pretty succinct and easy read. Here's the second edition:
"Rights" is not the point. You're correct that a country doesn't have to welcome you.
However, the US has been a prosperous country because it welcomes ambitious, hard-working, and skilled people from around the world. They immigrate, build inside the US and for the US, and the US economy grows. This is how the past several decades have worked, and restricting legal immigration would basically destroy this country, its economy, and everything that makes it a great place to live.
I'm a citizen of the US, and I 100% want more smart and hard-working people from around the world to come here and set up shop.
This is not true. It’s a pernicious lie that the United States has always been doors open, and this falsity makes discussing this topic increasingly impossible because it’s like there’s two different realities that aren’t reconcilable. The US became the economic powerhouse and world power it did during the most restrictive period of its immigration history. The amount of immigration over the last 30 years, and especially over the last decade, is completely unusual and unprecedented. I can go to neighborhoods in the city I grew up in where I played baseball as a kid and it is quite literally completely foreign. A lot of people, and you seem to be one of them, think that America’s immigration system is a cosmic vacuum cleaner that scoops up would-be Einsteins from around the planet and plops them in US cities where they churn out unicorns between writing an opera and running a 10k. This isn’t the case.
> because it welcomes ambitious, hard-working, and skilled people from around the world
"From around the world" more like the "world tour" definition
They were welcoming mostly Europeans. First from WASP countries, then for more southern/eastern ones. And then from East Asia (I'll save the rant about the word "Asian" for another time)
Every piece of data shows some groups excel while some groups lag behind
(of course I haven't forgotten about other groups of people that came to the US but most of those didn't come willingly)
I didn't say it's a good policy. I just said it's not some moral failing to not allow immigration. The implication of all these criticisms of the Republican administration's policy on immigration is that if they oppose immigration, they're racist. I find this to be a very manipulative form of emotional blackmail that abuses the racism allegation.
Thinking that immigration should be slow enough that they can be thoroughly assimilated before they change American culture isn’t “hating immigrants.”
Many of the people doing this are themselves children of immigrants. They recognize that individual immigrants can be fine but the large-scale flow of immigrants can create undesirable changes.[1] Don’t assume people are irrational just because they don’t agree with you.
[1] Trump narrowly won the naturalized citizen vote. Saying “you wouldn’t want America to become more like the place you left” is a compelling message to many immigrants.
> immigration should be slow enough that they can be thoroughly assimilated before they change American culture
I support your idea. Would you agree that all immigrants that arrived in America after, let's say, 1493, have to leave America and apply for citizenship?
If you don't agree, can you propose another immigration year after which you'd have to leave America again? Would you agree on 1783?
Your joke inadvertently shows the error in your logic. “America” (in the sense of the nation) didn’t exist in 1493. Various Indian nations existed in this land. British people didn’t “immigrate” to those Indian societies. They created a new society on the land. They were settler colonizers, as the kids say these days.
I like how you think you’re dunking on immigration restrictionists but in your hypothetical you implicitly admit there’s a hierarchy of belonging and claim to a nation, and temporal proximity to its discovery and founding is quite obviously one of the most important.
It slows down the flow, which facilitates assimilation of the smaller pool people who go through the process. You’re much more likely to assimilate if you’re not living in a place with thousands of other people from your origin country.
Stop with your logic, please. Obviously they must complete American Nationalism training, readily available in whatever country they come from, which they can learn from Voice of America.
> ...They recognize that individual immigrants can be fine but the large-scale flow of immigrants can create undesirable changes
You should also consider the other side of the equation, which is that immigration is the only thing that's keeping the US workforce and total population growing.
The size of the workforce and overall population has real economic, fiscal and quality of life impacts that every American feels on a daily basis and there's a very strong argument to be made that if your interest is in maintaining US wealth and "strength" globally, you don't want to become Japan, South Korea, Italy or Germany.
This is not to say that immigration policy should be made thoughtlessly or recklessly, but I rarely see the staunchest immigration opponents mentioning the stark demographic reality that faces the country.
56% of college grads are still looking for their first job 2 years later up from 25% for millennials. If you want to “grow the workforce” why not just hire the people already here?
> Saying “you wouldn’t want America to become more like the place you left” is a compelling message to many immigrants.
There is a very very large Indian community that echoes this sentiment (which you can see in very large expat FB groups) and wants to close the doors. They are extremely vocal and supportive of closing immigration, because their children now have to compete with the continuous influx.
Its just humans being human. Everyone wants to look after their own interests and there are lots of special interest groups, each with their own interests.
Nobody above said people who disagree with them are irrational.
Nobody said immigration should happen faster than anyone can assimilate.
They said preventing people from applying for green cards while on an existing visa will make it much much harder to immigrate legally.
If you think immigrants need more time to assimilate so they don't change your culture but you still think immigration is good then it seems like you'd be against this change. On the other hand if you want to limit immigration to just the wealthy this sounds like exactly the matching policy.
Also, Trump winning the naturalized citizen vote doesn't mean naturalized citizens all think the same way. Even if they all did think the US was perfect and their country of origin was garbage that STILL doesn't mean they think other people from their country are bad, obviously. Being at risk from your government or thinking your government needs to change doesn't imply you think other citizens from your culture are bad.
> you think immigrants need more time to assimilate so they don't change your culture but you still think immigration is good then it seems like you'd be against this change.
It reduces the number of immigrants, which facilitates assimilation and reduces the capacity of immigrants to change american culture.
> Also, Trump winning the naturalized citizen vote doesn't mean naturalized citizens all think the same way.
The point is that it’s not just “immigrant” versus “anti-immigrant,” because immigrants themselves are split in views.
> Being at risk from your government or thinking your government needs to change doesn't imply you think other citizens from your culture are bad.
There’s an assumption baked into your statement: that the government they left is unrelated to the “culture.” That’s hotly debated.
My parents grew up in Bangladesh, and both of them believe that Bangladesh is the way it is because of our culture. Their views on immigration thus are nuanced. They think we should treat immigrants well, obviously. But they are pretty alarmed by Little Bangladesh and the ethnic enclaves that exist now, which didn’t really exist in the 1980s when we came here.
I cannot understand why people downvote otherwise civilized posts they disagree with, so I'll upvote.
That said, you are impressively wrong. If someone doesn't agree with me because they choose to believe obviously false or made-up data, that is being irrational.
Is it rational to suppress large-scale studies of vaccination? If someone says "I am against vaccination because there are no large-scale studies", is that rational?
Non-European origin immigrants, presumably? Like are they against Irish people coming over in small numbers? Just wondering if you’re actually blanket saying they hate immigrants, I hadn’t heard about that.
Well not really. If they make an exception it’s much easier to call them racist. Also what the people in the party or whatever support and what the government actions are are rarely exactly aligned.
Depends on your definition of "immigrants".
Sure, you might think of it as "people with citizenship of another nation."
But I suspect it's more along the lines of "people who don't look like me."
White Afrikaaners are welcome (we'll even invent persecution and call them refugees), but folk from elsewhere (ie actual refugees), um, less welcome.
The trope about "culture assimilation" also comes up. It's OK for Irish and Italian immigrants to keep their culture, adding to the melting pot, but Mexicans and Africans less so
And sure, lots of people are friendly to "the immigrant they know" while at the same time being very against "immigration". One need look no further than the last few elections to see this in action.
My favourite one is second amendment rights are inviolable… unless blacks are owning the guns.
When the Black Panthers armed up in the 60s, that was when California, at the time a Republican state with legal open carry, very suddenly grew the most restrictive gun laws in the country.
So what? No one is forcing you to come to a country you deem hostile to foreigners.
As a rather conservative foreigner in the US I find this to be a very presumptive statement. We've made good friends, conservatives and liberals alike - we're people, that's what matters not the policitcal orientation. No conservative I know "hates immigrants." Consider what the policy intends to do rather than blanket-blaming it on hate.
I have a family split along classic ideological lines between the northeast and southeast of the US. If you are unfamiliar with conservative's hatred toward immigration, I suggest you travel more.
I grew up and live in the southeast. I also lived on the west coast for a decade.
I find your comment completely off base.
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> Consider what the policy intends to do rather than blanket-blaming it on hate
It looks like the policy intends to prevent immigration in every way possible, and (along with other policies that have come about recently), kick out as many people as possible; even those that are immigrating here legally (or have already done so).
So, other than a hate for immigrants/immigration, I don't see another possible explanation.
This may not be the intent of some conservative voters, partly because some are plausibly immigration friendly, partly because many movement conservatives have more of a opinion-vibe than a policy position on immigration (among other things).
But conservative voters that don’t want much immigration at all (especially from some places/backgrounds) absolutely exist, and more to the point so does leadership that’s determining policy with that goal in mind.
Perhaps you and your circle reflect the more egalitarian policy-driven view. Commendable if so. But it’s not commendable to deny that conservatism has a xenophobic streak a mile wide right now.
GP seemed to be commenting on the Trump administration, not necessarily individuals of conservative persuasion. The Trump administration diverges materially from traditional conservative doctrine in many ways.
Do you believe the immigrants in Ohio are eating the pet dogs? Because Trump sure does.
> No conservative I know "hates immigrants." Consider what the policy intends to do rather than blanket-blaming it on hate.
If you look at the rhetoric from the Trump people over the years, they absolutely and clearly do hate immigrants, or are doing their best to seem that way. As an example, consider the following quote^[1] from Trump just a few years ago:
> They let — I think the real number is 15, 16 million people into our country. When they do that, we got a lot of work to do. They’re poisoning the blood of our country [...] That’s what they’ve done. They poison mental institutions and prisons all over the world, not just in South America, not just to three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world. They’re coming into our country from Africa, from Asia, all over the world.
It's trivial to find more like that. Weird white supremacist-adjacent rhetoric. Equating immigrants with animals. Etc.
American conservatives may not hate immigrants, but they sure love a guy who fervently expresses his hatred and disdain for immigrants every chance he gets. They've voted him into our highest office twice, and immigration was a central pillar of his campaign both times. I fully understand that many people who voted for him did so for reasons besides immigration, but at this point if they aren't willing to disavow him after the catastrophic first year-and-change of his second term then I am done giving them the benefit of the doubt, because there must be some reason they still support him, and at this point it sure isn't his performance on inflation, general affordability, etc.
In fact, looking at the Silver Bulletin charts^[2] as of right now, immigration is the only macro issue they track where his approval isn't in free-fall.
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-says-im... [2] https://www.natesilver.net/p/trump-approval-ratings-nate-sil... (paywalled i think, unfortunately)
That quote you pulled is about illegal immigration. Conflating undocumented immigrants with “anti-immigration” is a false equivalence.
There are no doubt people against immigration entirely but the majority opinion I hear from conservative leaning people is that legal immigration is great and people that skip the system are the problem and the drag on social safety nets.
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Interesting that nobody on the conservative side hates immigrants but continue to vote on politicians with platforms built upon the hatred of immigrants. It’s almost as if they’re lying.
[flagged]
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I’m tired of people acting so naive past the point of zip-tying entire apartment buildings and building concentration camps. White supremacist manners and politeness are disgusting.
Every conservative I know centers their politics around hating and demonizing immigrants. I blame Youtube and Elon.
In the nineties usian professor of philosophy Rick Roderick produced a series of lectures for The Teaching Company called The Self Under Siege. Perhaps they might change your view that this is a recent development.
https://rickroderick.org/
In 2011 the usian professor of political science Corey Robin published a book on conservative thought, which is a pretty succinct and easy read. Here's the second edition:
http://digamo.free.fr/coreyrobin2017.pdf
Just FTR conservatives aren't the only ones on the Right
https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/left-vs-ri...
[dead]
Immigration is not a human right. Countries have a right to restrict legal immigration too.
"Rights" is not the point. You're correct that a country doesn't have to welcome you.
However, the US has been a prosperous country because it welcomes ambitious, hard-working, and skilled people from around the world. They immigrate, build inside the US and for the US, and the US economy grows. This is how the past several decades have worked, and restricting legal immigration would basically destroy this country, its economy, and everything that makes it a great place to live.
I'm a citizen of the US, and I 100% want more smart and hard-working people from around the world to come here and set up shop.
This is not true. It’s a pernicious lie that the United States has always been doors open, and this falsity makes discussing this topic increasingly impossible because it’s like there’s two different realities that aren’t reconcilable. The US became the economic powerhouse and world power it did during the most restrictive period of its immigration history. The amount of immigration over the last 30 years, and especially over the last decade, is completely unusual and unprecedented. I can go to neighborhoods in the city I grew up in where I played baseball as a kid and it is quite literally completely foreign. A lot of people, and you seem to be one of them, think that America’s immigration system is a cosmic vacuum cleaner that scoops up would-be Einsteins from around the planet and plops them in US cities where they churn out unicorns between writing an opera and running a 10k. This isn’t the case.
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> because it welcomes ambitious, hard-working, and skilled people from around the world
"From around the world" more like the "world tour" definition
They were welcoming mostly Europeans. First from WASP countries, then for more southern/eastern ones. And then from East Asia (I'll save the rant about the word "Asian" for another time)
Every piece of data shows some groups excel while some groups lag behind
(of course I haven't forgotten about other groups of people that came to the US but most of those didn't come willingly)
You also have a right to become homeless, doesn't suddenly mean you're prospering.
On top of this, do you think legal migrants are equal to your fellow country men?
Why else the need for this non sequitur?
I didn't say it's a good policy. I just said it's not some moral failing to not allow immigration. The implication of all these criticisms of the Republican administration's policy on immigration is that if they oppose immigration, they're racist. I find this to be a very manipulative form of emotional blackmail that abuses the racism allegation.
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Thinking that immigration should be slow enough that they can be thoroughly assimilated before they change American culture isn’t “hating immigrants.”
Many of the people doing this are themselves children of immigrants. They recognize that individual immigrants can be fine but the large-scale flow of immigrants can create undesirable changes.[1] Don’t assume people are irrational just because they don’t agree with you.
[1] Trump narrowly won the naturalized citizen vote. Saying “you wouldn’t want America to become more like the place you left” is a compelling message to many immigrants.
> immigration should be slow enough that they can be thoroughly assimilated before they change American culture
I support your idea. Would you agree that all immigrants that arrived in America after, let's say, 1493, have to leave America and apply for citizenship?
If you don't agree, can you propose another immigration year after which you'd have to leave America again? Would you agree on 1783?
Your joke inadvertently shows the error in your logic. “America” (in the sense of the nation) didn’t exist in 1493. Various Indian nations existed in this land. British people didn’t “immigrate” to those Indian societies. They created a new society on the land. They were settler colonizers, as the kids say these days.
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I like how you think you’re dunking on immigration restrictionists but in your hypothetical you implicitly admit there’s a hierarchy of belonging and claim to a nation, and temporal proximity to its discovery and founding is quite obviously one of the most important.
Certainly not, but it would have been natural for the American Indians to desire this. They lacked the means to carry it out of course.
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How are they supposed to assimilate if they have to leave the country to apply?
It slows down the flow, which facilitates assimilation of the smaller pool people who go through the process. You’re much more likely to assimilate if you’re not living in a place with thousands of other people from your origin country.
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clearly in detention centers
Stop with your logic, please. Obviously they must complete American Nationalism training, readily available in whatever country they come from, which they can learn from Voice of America.
> ...They recognize that individual immigrants can be fine but the large-scale flow of immigrants can create undesirable changes
You should also consider the other side of the equation, which is that immigration is the only thing that's keeping the US workforce and total population growing.
The size of the workforce and overall population has real economic, fiscal and quality of life impacts that every American feels on a daily basis and there's a very strong argument to be made that if your interest is in maintaining US wealth and "strength" globally, you don't want to become Japan, South Korea, Italy or Germany.
This is not to say that immigration policy should be made thoughtlessly or recklessly, but I rarely see the staunchest immigration opponents mentioning the stark demographic reality that faces the country.
56% of college grads are still looking for their first job 2 years later up from 25% for millennials. If you want to “grow the workforce” why not just hire the people already here?
2 replies →
I'm not sure why this is being downvoted.
> Saying “you wouldn’t want America to become more like the place you left” is a compelling message to many immigrants.
There is a very very large Indian community that echoes this sentiment (which you can see in very large expat FB groups) and wants to close the doors. They are extremely vocal and supportive of closing immigration, because their children now have to compete with the continuous influx.
Its just humans being human. Everyone wants to look after their own interests and there are lots of special interest groups, each with their own interests.
What a bunch of misleading and gross noise.
Nobody above said people who disagree with them are irrational.
Nobody said immigration should happen faster than anyone can assimilate.
They said preventing people from applying for green cards while on an existing visa will make it much much harder to immigrate legally.
If you think immigrants need more time to assimilate so they don't change your culture but you still think immigration is good then it seems like you'd be against this change. On the other hand if you want to limit immigration to just the wealthy this sounds like exactly the matching policy.
Also, Trump winning the naturalized citizen vote doesn't mean naturalized citizens all think the same way. Even if they all did think the US was perfect and their country of origin was garbage that STILL doesn't mean they think other people from their country are bad, obviously. Being at risk from your government or thinking your government needs to change doesn't imply you think other citizens from your culture are bad.
> you think immigrants need more time to assimilate so they don't change your culture but you still think immigration is good then it seems like you'd be against this change.
It reduces the number of immigrants, which facilitates assimilation and reduces the capacity of immigrants to change american culture.
> Also, Trump winning the naturalized citizen vote doesn't mean naturalized citizens all think the same way.
The point is that it’s not just “immigrant” versus “anti-immigrant,” because immigrants themselves are split in views.
> Being at risk from your government or thinking your government needs to change doesn't imply you think other citizens from your culture are bad.
There’s an assumption baked into your statement: that the government they left is unrelated to the “culture.” That’s hotly debated.
My parents grew up in Bangladesh, and both of them believe that Bangladesh is the way it is because of our culture. Their views on immigration thus are nuanced. They think we should treat immigrants well, obviously. But they are pretty alarmed by Little Bangladesh and the ethnic enclaves that exist now, which didn’t really exist in the 1980s when we came here.
I cannot understand why people downvote otherwise civilized posts they disagree with, so I'll upvote.
That said, you are impressively wrong. If someone doesn't agree with me because they choose to believe obviously false or made-up data, that is being irrational.
Is it rational to suppress large-scale studies of vaccination? If someone says "I am against vaccination because there are no large-scale studies", is that rational?
I was talking about immigration. The anti-vaxxer people are completely irrational.
Non-European origin immigrants, presumably? Like are they against Irish people coming over in small numbers? Just wondering if you’re actually blanket saying they hate immigrants, I hadn’t heard about that.
Does this rule make an exception for European immigrants? No, so the obvious answer to your question is yes they blanket hate all immigrants
Well not really. If they make an exception it’s much easier to call them racist. Also what the people in the party or whatever support and what the government actions are are rarely exactly aligned.
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