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:Looks at what happened to Bernie and the current state of America: How's that working out for you guys?

You're very likely right. I'm certainly not going to stand up and claim Trump is pure as driven snow. Or at the very least, that's a part of it, for many of the people who push such a policy.

I think we'd all agree whoever gave the order to have ICE agents dress up in SWAT gear and go door to door wasn't thinking about humanity.

Too bad it's your great grandfather. If it was your grandfather, you'd be eligible for Irish Citizenship.

hahaha I can see the appeal of a free ticket to Dublin and $250 to spend when you get there...

But no you wouldn't qualify as you're a citizen (born in the USA).

For many, I agree. That's also the problem with this sort of policy, it makes no distinction between a migrant poor worker who picks tomatoes or whatever for barely minimum wage and someone who settles in, starts a business, etc.

Deport immigrants with DUIs and violent or financial felony convictions. Beef up the department of labor and go after companies paying people less than minimum wage.

Agree 100% on all.

Then it’s not a matter of jobs or services or crime.

I'm not 100% sure. There's an element of legitimacy to the policy against 'economic migrants', I don't know how big but there's an element.
Let's say you have a difficult and strenuous job. And let's say you have two candidates- a born and raised American, and a Latin American immigrant. If the immigrant has better quality of life here on a minimum wage job than in their home country, they're less likely to demand higher wages or better working conditions because from their POV they've already got 'better'. And that DOES affect the American- if the immigrant will do the job for $8/hr flat and be happy living in a poor neighborhood (because at least there's no cartels like south of the border), but the American wants $12/hr and health benefits, merely having the immigrant there as an option affects the salary the American can get. Because if you remove the immigrant the company will HAVE to raise the wage to $12/hr and offer health benefits. Otherwise the company will hire only immigrants and will keep the wage low.

I recognize this is a generalization and you can't paint all of ANY people with the same brush. You can also flip it around and say forcing the company to hire Americans at the higher wages will increase costs and decrease quality-- say what you want about Latin American immigrants but in most cases I've seen they're pretty much the hardest working mofos around. Thus, having some competition provides incentive for the Americans to work harder.

The problem is, it's VERY hard to have any sort of real discussion on the subject without it being derailed either by accusations of xenophobia or actual xenophobia / racism.

That's the problem- I'm pretty sure you're right. Either that or whoever got the instructions to get rid of undocumented immigrants has no cleverness at all and pushed the only button they can think of (send in jack booted thugs).

Trump may or may not be ignorant but his words fan the flames of racism and xenophobia. And while I think it's possible he's just ignorant, for someone in his position ignorance is no excuse. As President, as a commander, like any other commander he's responsible for the actions of his subordinates when they are following his orders. He doesn't get the luxury of not knowing, not understanding, not being aware of what his orders end up doing.