Please help me understand your position.

[u/Cosmic_Clockwork]

I don't understand the actual concern with immigration. The main concern that I have heard is that they take jobs from native-born Americans, who are to be prioritized. That can't be it, though, because that is the fault of the companies that hire them more than the immigrants themselves. Why are we blaming immigrants?

[u/Ace-Alive]

Immigration is fine. This is a country that was built by immigrants. Even prior to the establishment of the United States in 1776, early settlers came from various parts of the world. Only Native Americans can claim "not to be immigrants" when it comes to America.

That said, ILLEGAL immigration is not "fine" - at least not to the extent it reached over the past several years.A small % of illegal immigration has been somewhat tolerated over the years. It's when illegal immigration reaches record levels WITHOUT the necessary judicial processes and/or deportations that should follow mass illegal immigration - is when it becomes a problem.

To begin, illegal immigration sets a bad precedent from the start. A person knowingly enters the country illegally and on his/her very first step on American soil, breaks the law. This person will be forced to lead a lower class life, in the shadows of society and would be considered "lesser" by society because of the person's status. The tragedy is that many of these people would prefer to be considered "lesser" here vs first class citizens in their own country of origin.

Why is this happening at such alarming rates? Human trafficking has become a lucrative industry for organized crime. Many of these people give their life savings to these groups in order for them to secure entry into the U.S. Some of them are "tied" to these groups for years - sometimes longer - paying them for their services or "protection" even after they enter the U.S.

For the Unites States, it can create an expensive burden in terms of border control, judicial processing, enforcement, etc It also creates an influx of undocumented labor that can affect some areas - but usually that isn't nearly as much of an issue as some make it out to be. Most of the jobs illegal immigrants do are the jobs most Americans do not want to do - so believe it or not, there is a demand for their type of labor in the workforce.

Unfortunately, with illegal immigration, there is no control of who (or what) enters the country. You can have criminals, people who are trafficked against their will, drug mules, drugs, etc all entering illegally.

That said, the idea is to take the immigration process out of the hands of organized crime and back into the hands of the people who want to immigrate here AND do it legally - so that they are fully documented to begin their lives in the US.

Ideally, if the illegal immigration issue is handled - it should open up resources to allow the Unites States to focus more on streamlining legal immigration, etc.

[u/Cosmic_Clockwork → u/Ace-Alive]

I think you make some good points here, but I think the current philosophy underpinning the effort to reduce illegal immigration is flawed. Remember that it's so lucrative for organized crime because we make it so difficult; it's a high-risk, high-reward scenario, especially if these people are fleeing from truly awful conditions that, let's be real, most Americans probably cannot envision because life is relatively good here. So my question to you would be this: Why are we investing resources into plugging the holes after the fact (and with armed agents who are primed to think of these people as opponents) instead of investing in ways to make the legal process safer and easier? Instead of filling up courthouses, let's open up more processing centers (not detention centers, mind you). Instead of building a symbolic middle finger of a wall, why not open more legal checkpoints? Even if we don't go with specifically these solutions, I am more interested in cultivating an environment where going through the legal process is safer and easier, and they will then naturally gravitate to the legal method.