Comment by timr
10 hours ago
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.
Okay, I'm surprised by how much you are missing the point, so let's imagine a dialog taking place in the 1930s in Europe.
A: Hey, I think we should murder all people of <ethnicity> because they are a threat to national security.
B: I think that your argument in favor of genocide is based on animus and not offered in good faith.
A: How dare you call me a liar! Why don't you actually engage with my argument??
Sorry for the crude analogy, but that is what you are saying. You are completely missing what is shocking about this scenario.
Everyone already knows the arguments for and against legal immigration. We've been having that discussion for decades, or centuries, and there are valid and coherent arguments on both sides. There is no need to reiterate them here.
What is unique about the current situation is that the current administration is not engaging with valid arguments against immigration: they are offering transparently nonsense justifications, which we are not used to seeing from our government to this extreme degree -- even the bad-faith arguments for the Iraq war were dressed up in real argument clothes. No matter how you feel about immigration, you should be shocked by the administration's behavior. Not just that the arguments are unreasonable, but transparently so. Pointing that fact out is completely relevant, as it is IMHO more novel to our society and dangerous to democracy than simple immigration policy. Furthermore, treating the administration's arguments as valid just gives them legitimacy, which they do not deserve.
The people in favor of these policies are not making thoughtful decisions for the good of the nation and it does no one a favor to pretend that they do. They will not be persuaded by the well-reasoned arguments you point us towards because reasoning is not part of their decision making process. That's why everyone in this thread is calling you a tool, and why pointing out the bad faith is completely relevant.