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Deportation Question.

Could you deport them personally or not?


  • Total voters
    55

ALiberalModerate

Pragmatist
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A man and his wife sneak across the border illegally from Mexico. After they live here for a couple of years they have a couple of kids. The kids are now age 9 and 13 and have lived here their whole lives. They don't speak much Spanish. They are enrolled in school and like all kids have friends and play sports and so on. The parents however have never obtained legal status despite the fact they have lived and worked here for 15 years.

It's entirely up to you, could you personally walk into their home, arrest the parents in front of their kids, bring them up before an immigration hearing where you sit as judge, and then deport them back to Mexico?
 
A man and his wife sneak across the border illegally from Mexico. After they live here for a couple of years they have a couple of kids. The kids are now age 9 and 13 and have lived here their whole lives. They don't speak much Spanish. They are enrolled in school and like all kids have friends and play sports and so on. The parents however have never obtained legal status despite the fact they have lived and worked here for 15 years.

It's entirely up to you, could you personally walk into their home, arrest the parents in front of their kids, bring them up before an immigration hearing where you sit as judge, and then deport them back to Mexico?

The law is the law, send them to prison and after they serve their time DEPORT them.
 
I am all for strengthening security at the border and am closer to the mainstream Republican position on illegal immigration than I am the mainstream Democratic position on it, but despite the fact the parents broke the law in coming here and live here illegally, I don't think I could sleep at night knowing I put a family through that by deporting them. That I think is the fundamental problem with dealing with illegal immigration, many times deporting people does indeed break up families and while its easy to take a hardline in the abstract, its hard to do it if it was actually on you.
 
A man and his wife sneak across the border illegally from Mexico. After they live here for a couple of years they have a couple of kids. The kids are now age 9 and 13 and have lived here their whole lives. They don't speak much Spanish. They are enrolled in school and like all kids have friends and play sports and so on. The parents however have never obtained legal status despite the fact they have lived and worked here for 15 years.

It's entirely up to you, could you personally walk into their home, arrest the parents in front of their kids, bring them up before an immigration hearing where you sit as judge, and then deport them back to Mexico?

Personally, I could. There are lots of crimes committed in our society that aren't solved until years or decades later. We don't tell a murderer his crime doesn't matter because he now has a wife and kids. We don't tell a rapist that all is cool because he now has a good job and is caring for his elderly parents.

These attempts to ignore the laws of the land on the basis of emotional blackmail are really contemptible in my view.
 
A man and his wife sneak across the border illegally from Mexico. After they live here for a couple of years they have a couple of kids. The kids are now age 9 and 13 and have lived here their whole lives. They don't speak much Spanish. They are enrolled in school and like all kids have friends and play sports and so on. The parents however have never obtained legal status despite the fact they have lived and worked here for 15 years.

It's entirely up to you, could you personally walk into their home, arrest the parents in front of their kids, bring them up before an immigration hearing where you sit as judge, and then deport them back to Mexico?

Yep. No problem whatsoever. In 15 years the couple has had ample opportunity to get right with the law. If they chose not to then the matter is on them, not me.
 
A man and his wife sneak across the border illegally from Mexico. After they live here for a couple of years they have a couple of kids. The kids are now age 9 and 13 and have lived here their whole lives. They don't speak much Spanish. They are enrolled in school and like all kids have friends and play sports and so on. The parents however have never obtained legal status despite the fact they have lived and worked here for 15 years.

It's entirely up to you, could you personally walk into their home, arrest the parents in front of their kids, bring them up before an immigration hearing where you sit as judge, and then deport them back to Mexico?

In other words you are asking if they should face the consequences of their decision, and would I be willing to be the one to do it? Yes, assuming I am a border agent or other authority with jurisdiction.

Laws mean something to people. Breaking laws have consequences.

The children are welcome to spit in the faces of their parents for putting them in such a terrible situation as a result of their greed and self centered actions.
 
Personally, I could. There are lots of crimes committed in our society that aren't solved until years or decades later. We don't tell a murderer his crime doesn't matter because he now has a wife and kids. We don't tell a rapist that all is cool because he now has a good job and is caring for his elderly parents.

These attempts to ignore the laws of the land on the basis of emotional blackmail are really contemptible in my view.

I generally find you to be a very reasonable poster on here. So why on earth would you compare someone that comes to this country illegally with murderers and rapists?
 
Yep. No problem whatsoever. In 15 years the couple has had ample opportunity to get right with the law. If they chose not to then the matter is on them, not me.

How are they going to get right with the law once they came here illegally? Its something of a Catch-22 at that point.
 
I generally find you to be a very reasonable poster on here. So why on earth would you compare someone that comes to this country illegally with murderers and rapists?

Because those are two laws that don't have statutes of limitations, similar to illegal entry into a country. If I'd mentioned some other law that has a statute of limitations, then a certain period of time having passed would prohibit prosecution of the crime.

I'm pretty much a law and order conservative who believes that laws should be enforced and penalties should be enforced when convicted. In a democracy, if we collectively don't like those laws or penalties, we can work to have our political representatives change them - that happens all the time - drug laws are an example. Perhaps what should be done is to have illegal entry laws have a statute of limitation where the crime lapses after a certain period, not requiring amnesty which is a dirty word, and then allowing individuals to enter the system legally through certain processes that are outlined in legislation.
 
As long as they are law abiding citizenry (not in the legal sense) I could not deport them.
 
I think that this is an example of something that many people can support in the abstract - deporting illegal immigrants regardless of how long they have been here or what their family situation is here, but few people could do it if was all on them as it would be far too messy and in the end they have to sleep at night.

If it was entirely my decision, looking some kids in the eye as I tear their family apart is simply not something I could live with myself having done and I would suspect that many people that vote yes in this poll could not actually do it themselves either.
 
Change the crime to fraud, say assuming someone else's identity, would you let them slide because they have nice children?
 
A man and his wife sneak across the border illegally from Mexico. After they live here for a couple of years they have a couple of kids. The kids are now age 9 and 13 and have lived here their whole lives. They don't speak much Spanish. They are enrolled in school and like all kids have friends and play sports and so on. The parents however have never obtained legal status despite the fact they have lived and worked here for 15 years.

It's entirely up to you, could you personally walk into their home, arrest the parents in front of their kids, bring them up before an immigration hearing where you sit as judge, and then deport them back to Mexico?

The kids go with them.
 
Change the crime to fraud, say assuming someone else's identity, would you let them slide because they have nice children?

I don't think most people see it as fraud though. Fraud involves cheating others. Most people would not commit fraud regardless of where they are from. However, a lot of people would illegally immigrate to another country if their situation was desperate enough and they saw opportunity there.
 
A man and his wife sneak across the border illegally from Mexico. After they live here for a couple of years they have a couple of kids. The kids are now age 9 and 13 and have lived here their whole lives. They don't speak much Spanish. They are enrolled in school and like all kids have friends and play sports and so on. The parents however have never obtained legal status despite the fact they have lived and worked here for 15 years.

It's entirely up to you, could you personally walk into their home, arrest the parents in front of their kids, bring them up before an immigration hearing where you sit as judge, and then deport them back to Mexico?

Nope. I couldn't vote for somebody to do it either, and I don't.
 
The kids go with them.

Not necessarily as their country of origin has to agree to take the kids. Mexico might would but that doesn't mean that every country someone might illegally come here from would.
 
I think that this is an example of something that many people can support in the abstract - deporting illegal immigrants regardless of how long they have been here or what their family situation is here, but few people could do it if was all on them as it would be far too messy and in the end they have to sleep at night.

If it was entirely my decision, looking some kids in the eye as I tear their family apart is simply not something I could live with myself having done and I would suspect that many people that vote yes in this poll could not actually do it themselves either.

Except you're NOT tearing them apart. The MINOR children would go to CPS custody and then be deported with the parents whose shoulders this falls squarely upon.
 
Not necessarily as their country of origin has to agree to take the kids. Mexico might would but that doesn't mean that every country someone might illegally come here from would.

That's entirely untrue. Show a case where that has ever happened.
 
Nope. I couldn't vote for somebody to do it either, and I don't.

I don't think you have to worry about that because we have yet to have a president that would do it when push came to shove on the issue.
 
A man and his wife sneak across the border illegally from Mexico. After they live here for a couple of years they have a couple of kids. The kids are now age 9 and 13 and have lived here their whole lives. They don't speak much Spanish. They are enrolled in school and like all kids have friends and play sports and so on. The parents however have never obtained legal status despite the fact they have lived and worked here for 15 years.

It's entirely up to you, could you personally walk into their home, arrest the parents in front of their kids, bring them up before an immigration hearing where you sit as judge, and then deport them back to Mexico?

So people who commit crimes shouldn't get arrested if they have kids who have friends and play sports? Dare to dream.

The parents in the example you gave broke the law. The kids you mention seem irrelevant to the story. If I embezzled money from my company, and I got caught, I wouldn't expect to receive a pass from law enforcement and the court system because my kids have friends and play sports.
 
I generally find you to be a very reasonable poster on here. So why on earth would you compare someone that comes to this country illegally with murderers and rapists?

I think the common link is the illegal part.
 
Absolutely I could and I would. Breaking the law is breaking the law, people deserve to be held accountable for their actions, period.
 
So people who commit crimes shouldn't get arrested if they have kids who have friends and play sports? Dare to dream.

The parents in the example you gave broke the law. The kids you mention seem irrelevant to the story. If I embezzled money from my company, and I got caught, I wouldn't expect to receive a pass from law enforcement and the court system because my kids have friends and play sports.

I don't think theft and coming here illegally looking for work is in anyway morally comparable. As to why the kids are relevant, its because while roughly 1 in 30 of us or so are sociopaths, the rest of us have a conscience and thus splitting families up or tearing kids away from all their friends and the only life they have ever known simply because their parents came here illegally decades before, is something that most people could not do if they had to do it themselves.

I have thought lately about why president's as ideologically far apart as Obama, Bush Sr, and Reagan all basically granted amnesty to immigrants that formed families here, and I think its because regardless of one's political beliefs most of us have a conscience and have to be able to sleep at night, and when these things are on you personally, its hard to rationalize breaking up families.
 
I don't think most people see it as fraud though. Fraud involves cheating others. Most people would not commit fraud regardless of where they are from. However, a lot of people would illegally immigrate to another country if their situation was desperate enough and they saw opportunity there.

What is illegal immigration if not fraud by the employee and/or employer? You make it sound like them jumping past many of their fellow countrymen as well those from other nations is no big deal and that they deserve some special break for that illegal (and immoral?) act. Many "see opportunity" when they find a wallet on the sidewalk or in a parking lot - but that is either an opportunity to take the cash and toss it into the trash or an opportunity to try to return it to its rightful owner.
 
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