It's the central issue of the history of the USA

That's the thing: climate change is the issue of our century, and us messing it up means migration is also the issue of our century

Talk to Bernie Sanders about this, please. www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf-k...

I live in California and our economy would grind to a halt without immigrants. I could care less about their legal status. I grew up on a farm in a farming community. We would not have food without these hardworking souls. Food wouldn't be cooked without these people. We are *blessed* to have them.

do you recommend any books about the western anti immigration wave?

If we allow them to start building camps in the age of thousands, where will we hide in the age of millions (serious climate migration)

This is from last year and it’s already 100% of the way to reality

you’re not wrong, they were halfway to that point before trump even got elected

Then we should secede NOW

kind of off topic but it's bullshit that Chicago is on here. like, in no way is it within 100 miles of the border

it’s all those woke criminals coming in thru lake michigan

Border Patrol could've caught them at the Straits of Mackinac

but they can’t terrorize communities that way

It’s not just the very real horrors they are inflicting and will inflict on migrants, it’s the border regime as the worm in the apple of democracy, the entryway for fascism, the seeds it grows from

It's so obvious that's why they've started there. Because our xenophobia had so rotted our liberal norms, that most of the abuses they're heaping on non-citizens—detention sans crime, denial of rights, deportation to unconnected countries—existing law had already said this was all permissible.

They are maximizing the cruelty possible under the system. And pushing it past even the already broad legal bounds. But the rot started long before Trump. We long ago ignored our founding principles and decided that common human dignity did not extend to those who had the wrong birthplace or papers

People decided that development of land was greedy and destructive and restricted it heavily. Things are very different now and if you want to change that you have to change the balance.

Western societies permitted the existence of a regime within democracy where your life relies on having the right papers and the secret police can break down your doors at dawn - if you’re a migrant that regime is now metastasizing into the body politic

eruditely put

aye had to double check how to spell metastasizing

Yep. I have arrived at "we've got to broadly open the borders" via several different lines of thought. But prominent among those pathways right now is that the carceral immigration system we have built in lieu is simply incompatible with a free and open society.

Not just in the US! Frontex, the Home Office, ICE, in every country and every continent

The border has been diffused throughout the UK since the hostile environment *at least*

and the Belarus migration trail and what Poland and the Baltic states are doing in response

I once met some extraordinarily brave Polish anarchists supporting people on that border. It was an honour to have met them

I know some of them personally

I watched a TV series (I forget the name) that had this as a sub-plot.

I recommend Agnieszka Holland's movie Green Border:

🫡❤️‍🔥🫡

when people talk about how American liberals would be right-wingers in Europe, I remind them that at least when it comes to migration, basic American libs are to the left of anyone in Europe except the anarchists, though

Yup. There's also been a bunch of disability rights stuff where the US has been much better. And other disability rights stuff where it's been much worse, it's really a mixed bag.

(and how in Poland PO was protesting the inhumane treatment of migrants there while PiS was in government, but when they're in government, they're doing even worse and their followers are silent or full of praise)

(it's mainly about migrants from Middle East and Africa trying to get into the EU via Belarus, not about Belarusians, for those not in the know)

it's not even constrained to the west despite white nationalism being the biggest example of it for obvious historical reasons; fucking -everywhere- hates immigrants

I suspect that there are so many exhortations to treat migrants well in various moral and religious traditions just because people so often don't do it tbh.

(Bit like Umberto Eco's joke that you can make a guess about the conduct of a typical Knights Templar by looking at all the things their Rule forbade them from doing, but much much less funny.)

"Regulations are written in blood"

Yes. Someone traveling, without access to kinship networks and possibly shoddy grasp of language, was probably most vulnerable someone could be.

Yeah -- in the Hebrew Bible iirc it's usually some combination of the poor, widows, orphans and foreigners whose mistreatment is called out, and those last three categories would be vulnerable for all sorts of reasons.

Evangelizing religions probably most likely to emphasize this too, on the basis that travel is important to evangelizing.

Horrors and nightmares www.theguardian.com/law/2023/aug...

Mexico doesn't hate immigrants that much per se but also they have been doing the US's dirty work to stay in the US's good graces. And of course the rumors are the same, these people show up and get free government money while the locals get austerity.

The next generation of liberal political parties needs to act in basically total coordination around the globe to destroy right wing political parties

Sometimes it feels like immigration is the last test of liberalism. Like once you beat "can you not keep other humans as livestock" and "can you recognize the people you just released have the same rights as you", you get "but really, doesn't everybody?".

well it’s non sense

Its very depressing to me that America, country of immigrants, can't market immigration to its population.

Zoning laws didn’t exist in the wave of immigration that ended in 1924. Since our housing supply is flat these days, increased immigration leads to increased prices. This is why immigration is unpopular, despite being part of our founding narrative.

If we had a significant surplus of housing, the immigration politics in the US would be flipped.

Similarly depressing that the non-fascist political party can't or won't make a positive case for immigration

Like: "My ancestors were immigrants. Some of them, from places like Italy and Ireland, faced discrimination when they got here. We now appreciate that those immigrants helped build our country into the nation it is today. Prejudice against immigrants is just as wrong now as it was back then."

Funny how the blame falls to the left instead of on the fascists. This isn’t a marketing issue. This is a racist nazi issue. Misplacing the blame is part of the problem.

Big time.

I disagree. Migration is. Migration and the idea that no state owns the people.

This is why housing needs to be the single most important priority in liberal politics, because otherwise competition for housing will continue to raise prices on literally everything and that will inevitably allow another demagogue to rise Trump-style.

Yeah I've been saying for ages that the conservative approach to climate change is just genocide.

nearly every bit of american history that i know (a selection i guess) is laced through with immigration stories — it’s what’s interesting about the stories, often

Why doesn't humanity defend it? It will never end because climate change will never end and people need food and water.

The grim lesson for the Global North in this century, if not decade, is that their wealth built on the backs of the Global South will mean the people of the latter will want a share of that wealth themselves. The climate crisis will compound on this further.

What will be left after the wars are over?

Entirely correct.

gender, immigration, and housing are the three cleavages driving the current wave of democratic backsliding around the world