American politicians love to talk about deporting illegal aliens (e.g., Bill Clinton in 1995). Yet one of the things that foreigners like to do once in the U.S. is have children. The kids are entitled to U.S. citizenship and, once they turn 21, are entitled to bring their parents back to the U.S. as permanent residents (process explained).
Is the current election debate about immigrants therefore mostly irrelevant? A lot of the stories in the media seem to concern families in which the U.S. citizen children are pretty close to 21 and the parents are undocumented immigrants potentially subject to deportation.
[What about consuming welfare benefits? At least here in Massachusetts, once the parents have green cards they are entitled to free housing through various towns’ public housing programs. They are entitled to free healthcare through Obamacare. Once in the public housing system they can get an Obamaphone (eligibility requirements). So to the extent people are unhappy about paying higher taxes to provide welfare to undocumented immigrants they should be just as unhappy about paying the same higher tax rates to provide welfare to documented immigrants, no?]
Related:
- “US twice tried to deport man killed by police in California” — Maybe not too many people will actually be deported because their native countries will refuse to accept their return. (People who don’t want to be deported could simply ask officials in their original homeland not to cooperate and/or pay a non-cooperation fee.)
The default rule is a 10 year ban from entering the country following a deportation, however, I do suspect the 10 year ban is more related to a desire to collect a waiver fee of a few thousand, than actually perpetuate any justice.
https://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/10-year-ban-due-to-deportation-912826.html
http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/how-long-after-deportation-must-i-wait-before-returning-the-us.html
AFAIK, you don’t ever get free medical care via Obamacare, at best you get a 2/3rds discount. For free you use Medicaid. And that is definitely a possibility for people in those circumstances.
See http://www.financialsamurai.com/subsidy-amounts-by-income-limits-for-the-affordable-care-act-obamacare/
I don’t know why they are called ObamaPhones, since they started under Bush 43.
http://www.obamaphone.com/started-obama-phone-program explains that “Obviously, the roots of the Obama Phone program are in dispute. What’s not in dispute is that the program has grown tremendously during President Obama’s administration — nearly 20 million low income Americans are already benefiting from the program.
Some experts believe that as many as 35% of all Americans may be qualified for the free phones…”
From your cite:
OBAMAPHONE.COM IS NOT AFFILIATED WITH ANY DEPARTMENT OF THE US GOVERNMENT, THE FCC, OR THE LIFELINE PHONE PROGRAM.
> Is the current election debate about immigrants therefore mostly irrelevant?
It’s like the reverse Betteridge’s law of headlines: the answer to this specific question, is always yes.
> Is the current election debate about immigrants therefore mostly irrelevant?
No. You are foolishly doing linear projections, just like you were doing over a year ago when you repeatedly poo-pooed Trump’s chances and the chances of any republican. This is not how politics works and this is why Nate Silver is looking like an idiot now. There is a paradigm shift underway.
If Trump wins there is a solid probability of a resurgent American Ethnic Identity that will be fully backed by the government of the United States, gaining in strength. The 1924 immigration restriction act and the 1965 Hart-Cellar act were both revolutionary moments. With Trump there is a very serious possibility that over the next few years we get another 1924 moment and immigration is meaningfully shut down, people are kicked out, and kept out.
It’s not the 80s and 90s anymore. People over 40 seem to have a hard time grasping this. We are not looking at business as usual over the next 10 years. One or the other of the republican or democrat parties will disintegrate and there will be a major political realignment with widespread ramifications. Already you see the reagan-bush era neocons ruduced to shrill irrelevancy. The last major political revolution was arguably the Nixon Southern Strategy when the white south went from D to R. We are at another such moment. It has happened every 40-70 years in American politics from the very start. We’re due and it appears to be happening.