That page is a joke. Ignoring reality does not manufacture a new reality. Four million might be the legal migration count, hard to say.
We had caravans of tens of thousands of people constantly streaming into the US for four years. The video evidence is out there for everyone to see. News outlets that did not engage in hiding reality and promoting falsehoods had crews at the border every day for four years collecting video evidence of what was going on.
If you care about understanding the truth, go to the US Customs and Border Protection website and look around. You can also cross check with Homeland Security and other official sources. And, yes, you will find data that predates the Trump administration...so you can't blame bias. For example, if I remember correctly, there were over THREE MILLION unauthorized entries in 2024.
Imagine how long a caravan with an extra 8 million people would be. I mean, I’ve been to a Huskers football game and seen what the exit looked like, and this would be 100x more.
If such a thing were being reported by multiple reputable sources, I’d be less inclined to roll my eyes at the preposterous idea.
We had an average of 250K people per month coming into the country for 48 months by land an air. The relevant government agencies have published the statistics, even going back to Biden era reports. You can believe anything you want, but thinking that it was only four million is a delusion.
OK, even if I play your game and we say it was "only" four million (ridiculous). Here's the problem:
That means 88K people per month for 48 months breaking our laws. Four million people entering the country without permission has a very simple name: Invasion.
Even worse, unless we create 88K new jobs per month for 48 months, these people are, by definition, unemployed. Our published unemployment statistics somehow conveniently ignore this fact. And, the other fact that we ignore is that the US has not created an additional 88K jobs per month over the 48 months of the Biden administration. The best we did was to recover the 10 million jobs lost during the pandemic.
At 12 million, that is 250K new jobs required to support them. The US is NOT AT ALL anywhere close to that growth rate, not even enough for 88K new workers per month.
That aside, as a resident of Los Angeles, I have seen the increase in crime (a neighbor's home, for example, was broken into by a couple of illegal immigrants). In addition to that, these destructive demonstrations full of Mexican, Guatemalan and Salvadorian flags are as tone deaf as can be. Throwing cinder blocks at police officers on the road and highway (surprised nobody died) isn't going to do anything positive for anyone's cause, justified or not.
This is madness and it has to stop. What's worse, is that these people are protesting (and wanting to protect) criminals. The government of the state and city are also on the side of criminals. Here's a partial list of who was detained in Los Angeles and who these demonstrators want released into our city:
A DHS post from 2025 is not reliable information, just reading the headline should be enough to notice that. The number of unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. has been more or less stable for the last 20 years: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/22/what-we-k...
What percentage of the 10 million recovered jobs were taken by incoming immigrants?
People died and permanently retired during the pandemic. It's possible the 10 million number represents a restored workforce; it's also possible it represents a changed workforce.
If the latter, that illegal immigration allowed the US to recover faster than it would have otherwise and the lesson from history is we're a stronger nation for easing immigration restrictions.
> illegal immigration allowed the US to recover faster than it would have otherwise and the lesson from history is we're a stronger nation for easing immigration restrictions.
There is no question whatsoever that immigration, legal and done correctly, is a force for good. As a legal immigrant, it understand this very well.
In fact, I understand the entire process very well, including the illegal immigration part. You see, when I was six years old, my parents overstayed their tourist visa in the US. They were then told to leave and my entire family left. Two years later, after going through proper channels, we obtained permission to come to the US legally.
I truly do not understand how people twist themselves into a pretzel to justify illegal entry into a country. Actually, it is worse than that, the only country where they seem to think this is OK is the US. Every single person who is for illegal immigration in the US understands why you cannot just move to New Zealand, for example, to stay and work there without permission. They also understand New Zealand's points system for the selection of who is granted permanent residency. Not in the US. Of course not.
Proponents also say that not enough people are let in legally or that it is too slow. Two points to be made here. The entire planet wants to come to the US, so, yeah, it will take a couple of years (as it did for my family). Second, when millions of people enter illegally, the annual quota for legal immigration cannot be increased. Doing so would exacerbate the problem. So, illegal immigration actually hinders changes and growth of the legal immigration system.
Finally, proponents of illegal immigrants are of the same ilk as those who propose raising tax rates for everyone except themselves. And, when they do include themselves, they don't lead by example and simply send more money than they owe to the government. Same with immigration. How?
I break into your home with my entire family while you are on vacation. I start paying the bills; power, water, insurance, heck, I even pay the mortgage.
Can we all stay in your home forever? You are welcome to come back from your vacation and share the home with us?
Of course not. Nobody of sound mind would accept such a situation.
How is breaking and entering into a country --any country-- justified and elevated to almost be a virtue?
While not a perfect analogy, of course, this does illustrate a fundamental idea: You don't get to grab things (your iPhone, car, home, residency, benefits, etc.) by force and keep them just because you did. If the world worked that way we would all be walking around with a firearm strapped to our leg and blood would run down every street in the nation. Violating these fundamental rights is nothing less than destructive to society.
> Every single person who is for illegal immigration in the US understands why you cannot just move to New Zealand, for example, to stay and work there without permission
Yes, of course, and this is not contradictory. "American Exceptionalism" means different things to different people, but broadly speaking: as a nation built of immigrants, there's no particular "right" time to pull up the ladder and say "That's enough immigrants now." Most people who support this position (not all, but enough to be concerning), when you peel back the veneer, support it because they want America to be "A nation of X" and America facing the reality of more people with different world experiences threatens that goal. There's a reason the protests in Charlottesville turned from being about the history of the South to chants of "Blood and Soil."
Regardless of what the law says: the reality on the ground is the American economy is relying on the labor provided by the undocumented, and they are our friends and neighbors for years running. Sometimes, when a law bends too hard against what the people actually want, you ditch the law. A government fails to grasp that to its peril; hopefully, it only results in tea wasted in the harbor.
> when millions of people enter illegally, the annual quota for legal immigration cannot be increased
Untrue; these are rules we make up for ourselves. Congress could set the number to zero tomorrow. Or infinity. It's entirely up to us.
> Finally, proponents of illegal immigrants are of the same ilk as those who propose raising tax rates for everyone except themselves
I think we'd have to agree to disagree. I, for instance, am in favor of raising taxes on myself and people in my tax bracket, as well as basically everyone above my tax bracket. No strong opinion on lower brackets. And I do send more than I owe to the government. And buy bonds.
Your meta-argument is "These people don't see the problems;" I think you are mistaken. People see the problems, they just think they're better handled with community service than with truncheons and planes to some other country.
> I break into your home with my entire family while you are on vacation. I start paying the bills; power, water, insurance, heck, I even pay the mortgage.
> Can we all stay in your home forever?
I mean, that's an argument about "squatter's rights," not immigration, but for what it's worth... yes? The law in many states does recognize your right to keep using the land if you develop it and it's de-facto abandoned. If I own so much land I can't use all of it and you find a better use for it, that's on me.
The nature of immigration is so divorced from this analogy as to make it worthless. Try this one instead: You come here, build a house, raise a family. Five years later, I come along and try to kick you out because you didn't cross an 'i' on some paperwork in 2019. Is this just, or should I leave you the heck alone because you're not hurting anyone?
> You don't get to grab things (your iPhone, car, home, residency, benefits, etc.) by force and keep them just because you did
I'm sure you're not arguing "America should be returned to the Native Americans..." But that is the argument you are making here. Are you sure you mean it?
... FWIW, I'm sorry your parents were forced out. In an ideal world, that shouldn't have happened. That would have been, what, roundabouts the Reagan presidency? Reagan's administration set us on the path to where we are today by deciding a lot of laws on the books suddenly needed enforcement where little had happened. To all our detriment.
Well, time to exit this thread. The problem with HN having become a monoculture forum is that it is impossible to have conversations. I never downvote or flag anyone, particularly those who disagree with me. The same is not true on the other side, if you don't tow the line you get attacked, downvoted and flagged mercilessly until you shut your mouth. So, yeah, you win. Have a good day.
Oh, my mistake. They got got by Nixon. Nixon set up the playbook that Reagan ran with on immigration. He needed to make your parents the enemy to sew up Southern votes. To be honest, it probably would have worked for another four years had he not been so paranoid that he spied on his political opposition and got caught out for it (back when that sort of thing mattered in American Presidential politics).
I appreciate seeing your vantage point on this topic. While we do not agree, It is helpful to see other people's takes.
Just in case you misinterpreted my story, I think it was 100% correct and proper for the US to ask my family to leave, apply for permission to come back legally and finally do so. My parents did not do the right thing by overstaying their visa and working. In other words, I do not agree that they should have been allowed to stay.
When they did obtain authorization they had to agree to not be a burden to US taxpayers for five years. I also agree with this.
Legal and orderly immigration is essential for societies to function. This is true everywhere on this planet.
The people chucking cinder blocks and protestors are unaffiliated. That is guilt by association, a logical fallacy.
Seeing immigrants and perceiving an increased in crime, and citing that they are related is post facto rationalization fallacy.
Let's see... what other logical fallacies are in here. Oh.. people emigrate and die, so the accumulation of numbers is not valid nor does that handle double counting.
AFAIK a strong US economy generates around 250k jobs per month. Further, there were more jobs created under Biden than were lost during the pandemic.
I'd also suggest if this all were a big deal, illegal entry ought to be elevated from a civil infraction. It is more severe in the eyes of the law to drive 25 hour than it is to overstay a visa.
> The people chucking cinder blocks and protestors are unaffiliated.
I didn't say they were and you have no clue if they are or are not. Even if you were personally there to demonstrate peacefully, no have no clue what forces are operating behind they scenes. And we know that part is true. One way to put it is that aspects of this is organized crime. They will eventually be discovered and held to pay for what they have done in a court of law.
> Let's see... what other logical fallacies are in here
Not a logical fallacy, but the most incomprehensible development over the years is that somehow large numbers of people think it is OK for people to just pour into the US as they wish, no controls, no admission criteria, nothing. And yet, the same people understand that this is not acceptable anywhere else in the world.
Clearly there's nothing I can say to help people who are firmly chained inside the cave looking at shadows. The indoctrination is way too powerful. Some of us try, but, sadly, the only way this insanity will pass is for people to gain clarity on their own. Not sure what it will take. Time will tell.
Perhaps this is your idea of what this country needs to become?
> Not a logical fallacy, but the most incomprehensible development over the years is that somehow large numbers of people think it is OK for people to just pour into the US as they wish, no controls, no admission criteria, nothing
Actually, it's the other way around.
The US southern border was very porous for most of its history. Around 1986, a combination of moral panic about Latino influence on the culture and concerns about drug trade enabled the Reagan administration and Congress to tighten immigration law into something approximating the structure we have today in terms of enforcement (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5049707/).
This backfired spectacularly. Let people bop back and forth to Tijuana, and they bop back and forth to Tijuana. Force them to struggle to cross the border, to declare nationality, start evicting them if they over-stay... And now they have reason to choose and to fight for the choice. The result of closing the border is undocumented immigration went up (secondary statistics strongly suggesting that this was actual immigration, not enforcement resulting from more tracking of undocumented immigrants).
Regardless of the law on paper, under-enforcement was the behavior of the land for nearly a century, and this new regime is an experiment that has strongly suggested the law was sourly anti-human to begin with.
(As a meta-comment on law: you're talking to a generation that watched the War on Drugs happen. Don't be surprised Americans have soured on the notion, in general, that law and morality are closely interlocked).
Why then bring up the cinder block issue if it's unaffiliated?
> Some of us try, but, sadly, the only way this insanity will pass is for people to gain clarity on their own. Not sure what it will take. Time will tell.
I'd say it would take sound arguments. Meanwhile, your arguments are not sound. You did not address what I wrote. To rebut a 'guilt-by-association' criticism, you said "I didn't say they were [affiliated]". That confirms the criticism.
You did not address the post-facto rationalization criticism at all.
I also saw a person in a pokemon costume too. Until we can have some sound arguments and facts, it's very much a choose-your-own-adventure situation. Are we here to just yell at each other? I personally do think the country needs to maintain rule-of-law (with notable mention of the 1st amendment), and the full rule-of-law goes for everyone, police, protestors, and opportunists.
I understand your position. There is nothing I can say that will change it. Only time and life experience will, maybe.
Not here to yell at you or anyone. Having lived in multiple cultures and countries across the world, I bring to the table a perspective that most Americans simply do not have. I have no clue if you are American, BTW. I have had the experience of being in fear for my life while detained by military thugs as a teenager. I have seen and lived the pain and misery leftist ideologies bring to populations first hand.
Any immigrant who has actually lived these realities cannot comprehend how it is that the US does not simply laugh these people off the stage. And, to be sure, the extreme right is just as destructive, yet that is not a reality in the US at all (despite the media pushing that narrative into people's brains day after day).
So, like I said, nothing I can say to you or anyone else, that much is obvious. There are things you learn about society and ideology that can only be learned from experience. Maybe the US needs to live through a leftist utopia for a period of time for everyone to come out smarter. That would be tragic, of course, but it might also be necessary. If California does not scare the shit out of the rest of the nation I don't know what will.
California is scaring the shit out of people, but not for the reasons you seem to suggest.
Rolling in the National Guard and Marines on a peaceful protest is, quite frankly, un-American. It's massive federal overreach that has led to violence in the past. Would be nice if the current administration knew its own history.
They were throwing molotov cocktails, rocks, scooters, mortar-like fireworks, bottles with urine and chemicals and who knows what else. They were destroying and looting stores and vandalizing everything in sight. I don't know how many Waymo cars they destroyed (it looked like five). Far from peaceful.
The moderate or peaceful majority is never the reason for enforcement actions. These are triggered by a militant and violent minority, some of whom are actually paid to cause disruption. So, you have a couple of choices. The first is to do nothing and just let it burn. We have seen that happen before. The second is to bring forward an overwhelming show of force to dissipate that violent element (and bring them to justice). That's what happened.
This is no different from control system theory. The ideal critically-damped feedback loop does not exist when dealing with mobs. Either you crank up the dampening early or you pay the consequences of doing it too late. We can't have entire business districts destroyed by thugs. You have to stop them as soon as possible. As it stands, these animals caused a massive amount of damage in just a couple of days.
Yesterday showed the contrast very well, there was a peaceful (truly, not the fake "peaceful" pushed by the media while shit is burning) protest that seemed to number in the thousands of people. Perfect. No problems. That only happened because thugs (the minority) learned within a day or two that they would suffer severe consequences for their actions.
The third option is proportionate response, which the administration danced right over. Why? Why roll in the federal forces when the governor says it's not needed? They didn't show up to protect those shops or Waymo cars anyway, so that's irrelevant; as per the Secretary of Defense's own testimony today (https://youtu.be/10itk-W8DV4?feature=shared&t=128), they were dispatched to protect law enforcement attempting to enforce immigration law against a city that does not want their citizens kidnapped off the street by an unaccountable government.
Violence happened, but not to any scale that makes a military deployment on American soil in peacetime make sense.
> This is no different from control system theory.
Rolling out the Marines is turning the `I` knob, not the `D` knob. It's teaching protestors "if you're gonna show up, come armed to deal with soldiers." Incredibly dangerous in a country where that firepower is in so many private hands.
I don't know when we became a nation so cowardly that we have to point military firepower at our own citizens. When strangers are turning out into the streets to thwart federal enforcement, maybe the problem is the law not the criminals?
The sources you consider "reputable" lie all the time...by cherry-picking, obsfucating, mis-direction, distorting, half-truths etc. They of course, flat-out lie too quite regularly too.
This is a bad argument because it could very easily go either way. Post any source of yours for the 12 million number and I'll just as easily say it's fake too.
> Ignoring reality does not manufacture a new reality.
I wish we could tell that to Trump.
>We had caravans of tens of thousands of people constantly streaming into the US for four years. T
Okay, and Biden deported more people than Trump's first term. Is that fact a joke too?
>go to the US Customs and Border Protection website and look around.
Okay, what am I looking for? The most recent news update was June 5th about building a wall in Arizona. I thought that 2016 narrative was over?
>if I remember correctly, there were over THREE MILLION unauthorized entries in 2024.
And
>In Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, there were 271,484 individuals removed from the US by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). This number represents an increase of nearly 90% compared to the previous fiscal year. This data includes removals by ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO).
And your talking points thrown out like some kind of analysis-ending gotcha have shielded you from seeing the truth. It matters much less that Biden was mentally unfit because responsibilities were delegated to advisors and a professional bureaucracy. That was the group project dynamic of our system of government that we took for granted.
Now that bureaucracy has been smashed in favor of autocracy, and we're suffering the other demented guy - not merely as a figurehead, but getting straight raw dogged by his rotting brain as he destroys what's left of our distributed economy with a national sales tax, orders the American military to attack American cities, and preps for a uuuuge North Korean style parade.
As Americans, we have a right to protest. That right does not go away when other people damage property, government property especially. Remember January 6, where there weren't even real ideals at stake but just a crowd riled up on fake news campaign propaganda that turned out to be utterly false?
When things do get out of hand, which is far beyond a few destroyed government vehicles, it is up to the local police forces to set the balance between restoring order and that still existing first amendment right to protest. Despite LAPD having been doing this just fine, Trump is illegally escalating the situation to look strong for the useful idiots still following him, to distract from his hissy fit with Musk, and most importantly to take the focus off his Big Ugly Deficit Spending Inflation Bill poised to bankrupt our country.
It seems like you need to have the realization that just because you've caught one tribe's media lying does not mean that you've found pure truth.
> your talking points thrown out like some kind of analysis-ending gotcha have shielded you from seeing the truth.
Typical. Diminish the other person by claiming that everything they say are talking points. In other words, they are mindless drones simply repeating what they are told. The minute you take that perspective the only thing you can believe is your own bullshit, because everything else is dismissed as talking points. Brilliant.
> It seems like you need to have the realization that just because you've caught one tribe's media lying does not mean that you've found pure truth.
I'll repeat what I said in another comment:
Having lived in multiple cultures and countries across the world, I bring to the table a perspective that most Americans simply do not have. I have had the experience of being in fear for my life while detained by military thugs as a teenager. I have seen and lived the economic and cultural destruction the left loves to use to control societies. They love the poor so much they multiply them. I have seen and lived the pain and misery leftist ideologies bring to populations first hand. No leftist society in history, anywhere, has elevated their population. Before you say China, that was done by the CCP grabbing onto external capitalist forces, without which they would still be an agrarian society.
To be sure, the extreme right is just as destructive, yet that is not a reality in the US at all (despite the media pushing that narrative into people's brains day after day).
Any immigrant who has actually lived these realities cannot comprehend how it is that the US does not simply laugh these people off the stage. Or, how it is that Americans are so easily duped by these professional manipulators.
There's nothing I can say to you or anyone else to have you see the reality that has been playing out, that much is obvious. There are things you learn about society and ideology that can only be learned from experience.
Maybe the US needs to live through a leftist utopia for a period of time for everyone to come out smarter. That would be tragic, of course, but it might also be necessary. If California does not scare the shit out of the rest of the nation I don't know what will.
> Typical. Diminish the other person by claiming that everything they say are talking points.
Your comment was better before you edited it to have this. The criticism isn't of you personally, it's of using a cookie-cutter argument that sidesteps talking about the actual topic. Do you not see how it's a non-sequitur to talk about now-out-of-office Biden's mental incapacity as a response to Biden being mentioned as the nominal figurehead for a set of policies?
> I have had the experience of being in fear for my life while detained by military thugs as a teenager
Is the problem here not the military thugs and the lack of individual rights and freedoms, not whatever political narratives are being professed by the people ruling with the thugs?
> I have seen and lived the economic and cultural destruction the left loves to use to control societies
Why is it just "the left" ? Why not all authoritarians ? It seems to me that authoritarians will use any ideology as a backbone for driving hypocritical "do as I say" power.
> To be sure, the extreme right is just as destructive, yet that is not a reality in the US at all
This is the crux of your bait and switch, where you've heavily focused on how bad the power-descendant "leftists" could be, but now give a pass to the different flavor authoritarians that are currently attacking our society. By my own analysis of seemingly undisputed facts, we have or have had:
- Tariffs further destroying our economy, implemented and dialed back with seemingly no actual rationale or goals besides shaking down other countries for personal enrichment.
- Significant destruction of the US bureaucracy which had been somewhat constraining authoritarian power. The problem with bureaucratic authoritarianism wasn't the bureaucracy but rather the authoritarianism.
- Destruction of US scientific research capacity because the communities doing the research had the wrong politics. And for what remains, the implementation of a right-flavored Lysenkoism.
- American soldiers in an American city pointing guns at American citizens exercising their first amendment constitutional rights, against the express authority of that state's government.
- International isolation through alienation of our long-term allies by telling them we might side with their adversaries instead, or even outright attack them ourselves.
- A weaker Dollar based on political instability
- A massive deficit spending bill on the table, continuing the long trend of Republicans complaining about monetary inflation while actually being the worst offenders.
If and when "leftists" get back into power, all of these liberty-destroying trends will be gleefully embraced and expanded under the banner of leftism "fixing" what rightism did, just as they're currently being justified as rightism "fixing" what leftism did. In reality it's all just individual-liberty-destroying authoritarianism. What has changed is that you are now gleefully supporting it.
> If California does not scare the shit out of the rest of the nation
How is this not just another cliche talking point? I've spent some time in LA a while ago. It wasn't for me - self absorbed, entitled, group-performative politics as a coping mechanism for societal problems. Affluenza where all the white people don't even know which end of a screwdriver to hold because they pay an immigrant underclass to do anything beyond changing a GU24. Oh, and you actually find yourself getting sick of sunny days because there is no damn weather. I could go on!
But "scare the shit" ? If you don't want to live in that culture and environment, don't go there? Despite my distaste, individual choice seems fine to me.
We had caravans of tens of thousands of people constantly streaming into the US for four years. The video evidence is out there for everyone to see. News outlets that did not engage in hiding reality and promoting falsehoods had crews at the border every day for four years collecting video evidence of what was going on.
If you care about understanding the truth, go to the US Customs and Border Protection website and look around. You can also cross check with Homeland Security and other official sources. And, yes, you will find data that predates the Trump administration...so you can't blame bias. For example, if I remember correctly, there were over THREE MILLION unauthorized entries in 2024.