Who should be granted refugee status in the USA?

Waddy said:

Other Mideast countries should take in Mideast refugees. Other South American countries should take in South America refugees. We should adopt merit based immigration like other sensible countries have done.

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They do and they do. But the bargain among countries is based on burden sharing. Some countries next to conflict areas allow the presence of huge numbers in their territory in exchange for assistance from others and the promise of resettlement elsewhere. For example, when visiting a refugee shelter in Mexico, I was told that Spain had agreed to take a number Salvadoran refugees.

Merit based immigration exists in the US, but it and other immigration are a separate thing from refugee admissions.

Where are you going to put the 1.5 billion people your pool choices are inviting in?

Helix said:

i'd say people who will be in danger if they get sent back to their countries of origin should be first in line for refugee status.

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There you go...

joko104 said:

Any numerical limit to how many? Many people all over the world live in countries where nearly everyone in the country is in danger. Is anyone in Columbia, Syria, Somalia and near all impoverished regions of the world are in constant danger. Any woman in many Muslim countries is in constant danger. Any area of lawlessness or controlled by gangs or drug cartels is in constant danger. N. Korea, many other impoverished areas of S. American and Africa.

What would be the standard of determining the level of danger? The person's word?

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Of course there's a numerical limit. Our system can only process so many at a time, so hard annual limits is one of the realities of life no matter who we agree to take.

chuckiechan said:

Where are you going to put the 1.5 billion people your pool choices are inviting in?

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I've never said we need to take a billion and a half people.
We can only process a set number of people every year before the system becomes overwhelmed.
I think most people acknowledge that as the facts of life.
We can't save everybody, we can only try our best to save who we can save, that's all.

Waddy said:

Other Mideast countries should take in Mideast refugees. Other South American countries should take in South America refugees. We should adopt merit based immigration like other sensible countries have done.

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A lot of Middle Eastern countries have a crappy record on that, sorry.
Of particular interest is the reluctance of other Middle Eastern countries to accept the Palestinians.
There are differing schools of thought as to why there is such reluctance, naturally.

joko104 said:

A couple billion people would qualify.

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Indeed but they would still run headlong into numerical limits no matter what country they are fleeing to, ours or another one.
Countries have refugee and immigrant processing systems that can only handle specified capacity, and beyond that we wind up putting the overflow in detention. I'd really rather we did not turn detention into a cash cow, by the way.

But everyone, no matter what their view on refugees and immigrants, must accept the fact that there are always hard numerical limits.
We can bump the efficiency up and maybe take a few thousand more, give or take a few hundred but generally speaking, the people who work in immigration have a fairly good idea how many the system can process every year, and so do the courts.

If we try our best to be FAIR, and be efficient, and thorough, that's the best we can hope for.

joko104 said:

Persecution for being LGBT also should be on the list, but only 10 are allowed. In probably over half the world LGBTs are persecuted to various degrees. Should we give refugee status to every Muslim in a country that persecuted gays merely for the person saying "I'm gay?" The same for many Muslim countries if you do not strictly practice Islam. That alone could apply to at least 10 million people.

What about Palestinians? Give all Palestinians refugee status? White South Africans?

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In what Muslim country is it compulsory to practice Islam?

joko104 said:

A couple billion people would qualify.

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Very likely.

Worlds a ****ed up place.

Nickyjo said:

They do and they do. But the bargain among countries is based on burden sharing. Some countries next to conflict areas allow the presence of huge numbers in their territory in exchange for assistance from others and the promise of resettlement elsewhere. For example, when visiting a refugee shelter in Mexico, I was told that Spain had agreed to take a number Salvadoran refugees.

Merit based immigration exists in the US, but it and other immigration are a separate thing from refugee admissions.

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As Western nations have begun making efforts to relocate some of the 9 million Syrian refugees displaced by the civil war, critics are questioning whether Arab governments have done their part to help resolve the issue.... The focus of the criticisms has been on the Arab states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and the UAE). The international community has questioned the GCC countries’ contribution to resolving the Syrian refugee crisis in countless social media posts and discussions.

According to a 2014 report entitled “Left Out In The Cold“ by human rights organization Amnesty International, the GCC had not officially resettled a single Syrian refugee since the crisis began in 2011.

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https://www.huffingtonpost.com/chaker-khazaal/no-arab-gulf-countries-ar_b_8280448.html

The three middle east countries that HAVE taken in lots of refugees are Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. The rest have done very little.

https://www.amnesty.org.nz/sites/default/files/Left_Out_In_The_Cold_0.pdf

Saudi Arabia claims to have taken in over 2 million Syrians, but that figure is in doubt. The point is that the Arab countries should be taking in ALL of the Syrian refugees. It only makes sense. They should be taking the lead not only in resettlement, but in ending the conflict. Syria should be a regional issue dealt with by Arabs.

Waddy said:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/chaker-khazaal/no-arab-gulf-countries-ar_b_8280448.html

The three middle east countries that HAVE taken in lots of refugees are Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. The rest have done very little.

https://www.amnesty.org.nz/sites/default/files/Left_Out_In_The_Cold_0.pdf

Saudi Arabia claims to have taken in over 2 million Syrians, but that figure is in doubt. The point is that the Arab countries should be taking in ALL of the Syrian refugees. It only makes sense. They should be taking the lead not only in resettlement, but in ending the conflict. Syria should be a regional issue dealt with by Arabs.

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Good points. Would like to see the US pressure more governments to resettle them. I worked for Amnesty in the asylum arena for 20 years before retirement. Good to see they are keeping the faith.

Many of us applaud Trump hoping he will stop the deterioration of life caused by illegal & legal immigration in our once harmonious society.

As for women who want an abortion and people who need life saving health care, they don't really need refugee status. After all is said and done, they can just return to their home country.

Helix said:

"Illegal migrants" didn't do it. Management did it with the help of workers foolish enough to vote for anti-labor Republicans. And yes, automation is the real threat now for many, many jobs.

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The highest paid packinghouse - union - in the early 1980s was in Republican Texas, a Right To Work state. Your slogans are false. Illegal migrants ("undocumented" if you prefer) in the massive Iowa and Missouri packinghouses is exactly what happened.

The wealthy have ALWAYS supported flooding the USA with unskilled and low skilled immigrant labor. The great era of immigration was NOT motivated by compassion. It was motivated by industrialists not wanting to pay more than a nickle an hour, to be able to fire anyone at anytime, and to be able to break any attempt at unionization.

joko104 said:

Who should be granted refugee status in the USA?

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None of the above.
I would advocate mandatory shelter for:
- Groups targeted for genocide (e.g. East Timor Genocide of 1975).
- People individually targeted by rogue states (e.g. Salman Rushdie).
I would also mandate that the offending nation be considered hostile and subject to immediate sanctions, up to and including a declaration of war.

Anything else is a matter for the sovereign nation to decide, and subject to changing governments. A matter of good-will between men, not by divine right.
I would also mandate that the requirements for permanent residence and citizenship should be agreed upon broadly (say a 75% majority). This is because these are rights that can be granted by a sitting government, but cannot be revoked by the next government (negations of democracy should only be applied with care and overwhelming consensus, or you'll eventually find yourself in a civil war or a dictatorship).

I'm confused. Looking at the poll, we've got one less for religious persecution than for racial persecution. Did someone miss the fact that this is multiple choice?

joko104 said:

This list, if all checked, is probably over half the population on earth. I included the "Latinos only" option for those who want this mostly limited only to people who can get here somehow on their own - meaning you then oppose ethnic and racial diversity in immigration.

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That's just it. The US doesn't have enough room or enough money to support every person in the world who wants to be a refugee. However, I don't accept your last poll answer as is.

joko104 said:

The highest paid packinghouse - union - in the early 1980s was in Republican Texas, a Right To Work state. Your slogans are false. Illegal migrants ("undocumented" if you prefer) in the massive Iowa and Missouri packinghouses is exactly what happened.

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it ain't 1980 anymore. i live in a right to work for less / fire at will state. i have no recourse if they want to fire me for any reason or for no reason at all, organizing a union would be impossible and mostly useless, and my employer can even pretend that i'm not an employee. that was done by Republicans, not refugees.

joko104 said:

The wealthy have ALWAYS supported flooding the USA with unskilled and low skilled immigrant labor. The great era of immigration was NOT motivated by compassion. It was motivated by industrialists not wanting to pay more than a nickle an hour, to be able to fire anyone at anytime, and to be able to break any attempt at unionization.

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i don't disagree there. however, the biggest threats to my job are assholes in upper management who, even after being given a massive corporate tax cut, pocket the money, spend a bunch more on automation, and then want to show the shareholders how many people have been fired for "efficiency" so that the stock price can go up a percent or two.

Helix said:

it ain't 1980 anymore. i live in a right to work for less / fire at will state. i have no recourse if they want to fire me for any reason or for no reason at all, organizing a union would be impossible and mostly useless, and my employer can even pretend that i'm not an employee. that was done by Republicans, not refugees.



i don't disagree there. however, the biggest threats to my job are assholes in upper management who, even after being given a massive corporate tax cut, pocket the money, spend a bunch more on automation, and then want to show the shareholders how many people have been fired for "efficiency" so that the stock price can go up a percent or two.

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Perhaps stock should be a much smaller percentage of management compensation, so they are not incentivized to increase the stock price and then sell theirs.

The Mark said:

Perhaps stock should be a much smaller percentage of management compensation, so they are not incentivized to increase the stock price and then sell theirs.

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that's an idea which i would probably support.

Helix said:

it ain't 1980 anymore. i live in a right to work for less / fire at will state. i have no recourse if they want to fire me for any reason or for no reason at all, organizing a union would be impossible and mostly useless, and my employer can even pretend that i'm not an employee. that was done by Republicans, not refugees.



i don't disagree there. however, the biggest threats to my job are assholes in upper management who, even after being given a massive corporate tax cut, pocket the money, spend a bunch more on automation, and then want to show the shareholders how many people have been fired for "efficiency" so that the stock price can go up a percent or two.

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Think about what you just said. Your opinion is that the wealthy have a moral duty to give up money and if not then their employees having no bargaining power is the fault of the wealthy. Of course, a homeless person with not a dollar in his pocket could by the same logic blame you for how much you have and won't share.

It is just nonsense to claim that lack of generousity is the cause. Not 1 in 10,000 people are truly generous with their money. The problem was that unions no longer could pull off strikes because there were endless "scabs" to take striker's places, while at the same time mega companies were opening solely to benefit from cheap migrant labor. What it takes for wages for blue collar workers to go up is a shortage of workers. All it takes to make blue collar workers wages go down is a gut of potential employees, which also eliminates job security and benefits.

I was there at the death of the butcher's union. They tried on last desperate strike, a protest group who refused to accept the union was dead and gone. The members stuck together like glue. They got not only national but international support. They held on to the bitter end, as truckloads of scabs cross the picket line and other packinghouse union members refused to give up their jobs even with a huge pay cut. In the end, all the strike had done was cost nearly every striker their jobs (and homes, cars, many their marriages etc.)

A union is worthless if it has not teeth, meaning incapable of pulling off a strike. As a result, in many industries union wages are as low or even lower than non-union because the union has no power. The reason the unions have no power is a glut of endless cheap labor and endless scabs to cross a picket line. Without the picket line being a possibility, a union has zero power. Of the trade unions that remain, most (not all) survived by becoming sweetheart deal unions, meaning they make a bad deal with the company for which in return the company will essentially force the employees to pay union dues. The union then claims it is helping the workers by flying in their private jets paid for by the union members to champagne brunches with Democrat politicians - advocating for open borders and millions more uneducated and unskilled cheap labor migrants.

A union can survive and prosper in a right-to-work state. In the early 90s, the highest paid union packinghouse in the USA was in Dallas-Fort Worth Texas. It went under due to the massive migrant labor Iowa and Missouri packinghouses as did the entire national union itself.

This SINGLE greatest shift to a diametric opposite stance of the Democratic Party was shifting from vehemently opposing migrant labor on behalf of their members to vehemently supporting migrant labor on behalf of company management and their own personal political interests. It was for THAT reason I forever dumped the Democratic Party. I do not advocate FOR the Republican Party. I advocate against the Democratic Party as the enemy of working people then and now.

You point to any time the Democratic Party has advocated closing the tax loopholes and subsidies for the likes of Bezos, Koch Brothers, Gates, the WalMart heirs or any other of the mega billionaires. It never happened and it never will. You believe in a stance of the Democratic Party's talking points that the Democratic Party has NEVER pursued since during WW2. Slogans and talking points are nothing, worthless.

joko104 said:

Think about what you just said. Your opinion is that the wealthy have a moral duty to give up money and if not then their employees having no bargaining power is the fault of the wealthy. Of course, a homeless person with not a dollar in his pocket could by the same logic blame you for how much you have and won't share.

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no, i'm saying that i should have a bit of negotiating power, at least a little job security, and my employer shouldn't be able to pretend that i'm a contractor while getting all of the benefits of having a full time employee.

joko104 said:

It is just nonsense to claim that lack of generousity is the cause. Not 1 in 10,000 people are truly generous with their money. The problem was that unions no longer could pull off strikes because there were endless "scabs" to take striker's places, while at the same time mega companies were opening solely to benefit from cheap migrant labor. What it takes for wages for blue collar workers to go up is a shortage of workers. All it takes to make blue collar workers wages go down is a gut of potential employees, which also eliminates job security and benefits.

I was there at the death of the butcher's union. They tried on last desperate strike, a protest group who refused to accept the union was dead and gone. The members stuck together like glue. They got not only national but international support. They held on to the bitter end, as truckloads of scabs cross the picket line and other packinghouse union members refused to give up their jobs even with a huge pay cut. In the end, all the strike had done was cost nearly every striker their jobs (and homes, cars, many their marriages etc.)

A union is worthless if it has not teeth, meaning incapable of pulling off a strike. As a result, in many industries union wages are as low or even lower than non-union because the union has no power. The reason the unions have no power is a glut of endless cheap labor and endless scabs to cross a picket line. Without the picket line being a possibility, a union has zero power. Of the trade unions that remain, most (not all) survived by becoming sweetheart deal unions, meaning they make a bad deal with the company for which in return the company will essentially force the employees to pay union dues. The union then claims it is helping the workers by flying in their private jets paid for by the union members to champagne brunches with Democrat politicians - advocating for open borders and millions more uneducated and unskilled cheap labor migrants.

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as i said, i'm not worried about central American migrants picking produce. i'm worried about robots and greedy management assholes who couldn't be bothered to piss on me if i were on fire. i have also already explained this. i will refer you back to this post if you're still confused.

joko104 said:

A union can survive and prosper in a right-to-work state. In the early 90s, the highest paid union packinghouse in the USA was in Dallas-Fort Worth Texas. It went under due to the massive migrant labor Iowa and Missouri packinghouses as did the entire national union itself.

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unions in my state cannot survive the combination of a never ending assault from Republicans, automation, globalization, and right to work for less. we'll go ahead and agree that it's no longer the 1990s, either, and we'll disagree about the rest.

joko104 said:

This SINGLE greatest shift to a diametric opposite stance of the Democratic Party was shifting from vehemently opposing migrant labor on behalf of their members to vehemently supporting migrant labor on behalf of company management and their own personal political interests. It was for THAT reason I forever dumped the Democratic Party. I do not advocate FOR the Republican Party. I advocate against the Democratic Party as the enemy of working people then and now.

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The Republican party is anti-labor, and the Democratic party can't find its ass enough to win and stop them. who knows if they even would? however, they are my only viable choice to punish anti-worker Republicans, so that's where my vote is probably going to land.

joko104 said:

You point to any time the Democratic Party has advocated closing the tax loopholes and subsidies for the likes of Bezos, Koch Brothers, Gates, the WalMart heirs or any other of the mega billionaires. It never happened and it never will. You believe in a stance of the Democratic Party's talking points that the Democratic Party has NEVER pursued since during WW2. Slogans and talking points are nothing, worthless.

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refer to the above.

Helix said:

no, i'm saying that i should have a bit of negotiating power, at least a little job security, and my employer shouldn't be able to pretend that i'm a contractor while getting all of the benefits of having a full time employee.



as i said, i'm not worried about central American migrants picking produce. i'm worried about robots and greedy management assholes who couldn't be bothered to piss on me if i were on fire. i have also already explained this. i will refer you back to this post if you're still confused.



unions in my state cannot survive the combination of a never ending assault from Republicans, automation, globalization, and right to work for less. we'll go ahead and agree that it's no longer the 1990s, either, and we'll disagree about the rest.



The Republican party is anti-labor, and the Democratic party can't find its ass enough to win and stop them. who knows if they even would? however, they are my only viable choice to punish anti-worker Republicans, so that's where my vote is probably going to land.



refer to the above.

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You are correct about calling employees contract labor to avoid requirements otherwise. But to most this is a superior alternative than working 2 or 3 part time jobs.

The question is why do employers use "contact labor" to begin with and the reason is to avoid ever growing government requirements on employers, particularly for the Affordable Care Act. Many employers shifted many of their employees to part-time, while others shifted to using "contract labor."

joko104 said:

You are correct about calling employees contract labor to avoid requirements otherwise. But to most this is a superior alternative than working 2 or 3 part time jobs.

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i have a post graduate degree and decades of experience in most types of lab science. thanks to this scam, i make a little more than half of what the "real" employees before me made, if what i'm told is correct. i'm not saying that i don't like my job, because i do. however, the setup is kind of ****ed up.

joko104 said:

The question is why do employers use "contact labor" to begin with and the reason is to avoid ever growing government requirements on employers, particularly for the Affordable Care Act. Many employers shifted many of their employees to part-time, while others shifted to using "contract labor."

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spare me the talking points. this **** started around here before the ACA was even being debated. it's a red state. they do it because they can, and they keep the change. if you work here, you had better be in upper management. i also recommend having started your career before 1995 or so.

Helix said:

i have a post graduate degree and decades of experience in most types of lab science. thanks to this scam, i make a little more than half of what the "real" employees before me made, if what i'm told is correct. i'm not saying that i don't like my job, because i do. however, the setup is kind of ****ed up.



spare me the talking points. this **** started around here before the ACA was even being debated. it's a red state. they do it because they can, and they keep the change. if you work here, you had better be in upper management. i also recommend having started your career before 1995 or so.

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Huge numbers of employees were made part time after the Affordable Care Act and immigrants swamped the packinghouse industry so much it destroyed the union, literally, and wages are lower now than 3 decades ago not even adjusting for inflation. But since in appears the only context your messages discuss this topic is in the context of yourself, while I do not see in that singular context, I'll just leave it at that. Too bad Obama didn't give a damn when he controlled both houses of Congress.