Comment by hackyhacky
15 hours ago
> The only question I have asked is for you to make an affirmative argument.
You asked us to consider the reasons why conservatives vote for politicians with platforms built on the hatred of immigrants, besides hatred of immigrants. Remember?
> You asked us to consider the reasons why conservatives vote for politicians with platforms built on the hatred of immigrants, besides hatred of immigrants. Remember?
No, that is literally not what the comment said. I'm actually sort of amazed that you can get that from what I wrote, and treat is as some kind of "gotcha", when it's the top of this thread, and literally the same message I've been repeating throughout:
> Or maybe, when you say that the platform is “built upon hatred”, that’s just your opinion, and the other side actually has reasons that you haven’t bothered to consider?
> I don’t like this policy, but engaging in exaggerated rhetoric, then calling the other side liars because they disagree with your rhetoric, is everything that is wrong with political debate in the US right now.
To wit: stop calling people liars. Make an argument instead.
The fact that the current US administration lies is indisputable. I'm not calling them liars because they "disagree with [my] rhetoric" but because they have been shown to have repeatedly lied. Saying that Trump is a liar is not "calling names" but reminding of a well-known fact. But ok, I'll indulge your bad-faith argument:
1. The administration has claimed to oppose only illegal immigration in order to encourage legal immigration. [0]
2. The administration has consistently lied about and demonized immigrants who came legally. [1]
3. Recent policies have made legal immigration more difficult. [2]
4. The effect of these policies will be to reduce legal immigration, contradicting the administration's earlier stated goals. [3]
5. The administration has repeatedly expressed white nationalist sentiment. [4]
[0] https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/05/trump-state-of-the...
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHycpIhnFcU
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/23/us/politics/trump-legal-i...
[3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2026/01/20/trump...
[4] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/01/stephen-miller-...
I didn't ask you to make an argument that the administration has lied. That's trivial. And though you're getting closer with "the administration has lied about immigration issues in the past", again, that's trivial and non-responsive. And telling me that the administration is against immigration is telling me that water is wet. So what if they are? Elections have consequences, and this is not a sudden discovery.
I asked you to rebut the arguments in front of you, instead of just calling people liars. It isn't hard, if you're even a little bit intellectually curious. I'm tired of responding, so I'll just model the behavior for you, and then I'm done.
First, five reasonable arguments against this change, none of which involve calling people liars:
1) It targets the very people who are most likely to contribute positively to US society.
2) It's clearly against the intent of the original status adjustment legislation.
3) If it's actually applied to H1B visas (which is unclear), it's clearly against the intent of the 1990 immigration reform act, which established dual-status visas.
4) It seems intended to eliminate / dramatically reduce green card issuance without legislative intervention. I am against this because it is unconstitutional.
5) It discourages smart people from moving to the USA.
OK, 6:
6) It's especially cruel to families where one family member is already a US citizen or permanent resident.
Now, five arguments in favor of it:
1) It's appropriate to ask people on non-immigrant visas (e.g. tourists, students) to return home at the end of those visas, rather than creating a limbo class of people who are sitting around waiting for status transitions, which is both real (i.e. I personally know people in this situation) and a problem.
2) It distributes the review load around the world. Obviously true.
3) It was never the intent of the 1960 status adjustment legislation to allow non-immigrant visas the ability to transition directly to permanent residence.
4) However blunt the approach, it does eliminate a major incentive problem for gaming the short-term immigration system, if you know that you have to return to wherever you came from, and wait for approval.
5) While I don't think it's appropriate to make this change for pending applications (and to be clear: we don't know if that's what's happening), I think it's completely fair to announce it as a policy change going forward.
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