No Trump defenders left ...?

[_Chap]

... do we have an illegal immigration problem in the USA?

Pretty well every country has some measure of illegal immigration, whether from simple illegal border-crossing or overstaying visas.

However, the financial and manpower resources that any country can or should devote to law enforcement are always limited. Rational countries make decisions as to what issues of illegal behaviour deserve the allocation of significant resources on the basis of harm done.

Has it been shown that illegal immigration is a crime that scores high enough in terms of harm done (when compared with hard drug trading, armed robbery, trafficking of women for sexual exploitation, internet fraud and a whole lot more) to justify a major increase in expenditure devoted to reducing it significantly?

I'd like to see the data.

[_ajax18]

... do we have an illegal immigration problem in the USA?

Pretty well every country has some measure of illegal immigration, whether from simple illegal border-crossing or overstaying visas.

However, the financial and manpower resources that any country can or should devote to law enforcement are always limited. Rational countries make decisions as to what issues of illegal behaviour deserve the allocation of significant resources on the basis of harm done.

Has it been shown that illegal immigration is a crime that scores high enough in terms of harm done (when compared with hard drug trading, armed robbery, trafficking of women for sexual exploitation, internet fraud and a whole lot more) to justify a major increase in expenditure devoted to reducing it significantly?

I'd like to see the data.

Still waiting for Kevin. I've seen him tell Markk we don't have an immigration problem. Themis's accusation that i'm lying about Kevin's view is bunk. Answer for us Kevin so we can demonstrate that.

[_canpakes]

Still waiting for Kevin. I've seen him tell Markk we don't have an immigration problem. Themis's accusation that i'm lying about Kevin's view is bunk. Answer for us Kevin so we can demonstrate that.

Meanwhile ...

New Jersey's attorney general allegedly has evidence that President Donald Trump's Garden State golf club may have committed immigration crimes by handing out fraudulent green cards and Social Security numbers to undocumented employees.

Anibal Romero, counsel to several undocumented immigrants who worked at the Trump National Golf Club, told the New York Daily News about the evidence in a report published on Saturday. He said that special counsel Robert Mueller and the FBI are also aware of the evidence and have been involved in the state's probe into the golf club.

There’s your hero, ajax. Using you hard.

[_Gunnar]

They've already raised 18 million canpakes.

18 million canpakes may not be enough to dissuade to dissuade Trump from his obsession with building the wall, but raising more people like canpakes will certainly help to vote idiots like Trump out of office!

[_Chap]

... do we have an illegal immigration problem in the USA?

Pretty well every country has some measure of illegal immigration, whether from simple illegal border-crossing or overstaying visas.

However, the financial and manpower resources that any country can or should devote to law enforcement are always limited. Rational countries make decisions as to what issues of illegal behaviour deserve the allocation of significant resources on the basis of harm done.

Has it been shown that illegal immigration is a crime that scores high enough in terms of harm done (when compared with hard drug trading, armed robbery, trafficking of women for sexual exploitation, internet fraud and a whole lot more) to justify a major increase in expenditure devoted to reducing it significantly?

I'd like to see the data.

Still waiting for Kevin. I've seen him tell Markk we don't have an immigration problem. Themis's accusation that i'm lying about Kevin's view is bunk. Answer for us Kevin so we can demonstrate that.

OK, my response was water off a duck's back. I'll be more explicit.

Ajax18 asks 'do we have an illegal immigration problem?' That question is however, a good example of the kind of loaded questions that ought to be dealt with in a high-school course on critical thinking. It bundles together two questions:

(a) Does illegal immigration into the US take place?
The answer that any reasonable person gives to that question has to be 'yes', as it would be if 'US' was replaced by the name of pretty well any other country. I mean, even North Korea probably has some illegal immigration.

(b) Is it a 'problem'? Well, that's a pretty vague word, and I suspect it is used precisely because it is vague. It is designed to bounce anybody who does not deny that some illegal immigration takes place into sounding as if they believe that there is an urgent issue that demands a solution NOW, which may involve extraordinary measures like wall-building, sending in the military, and so on and so forth.

In reality, however, whether or not illegal immigration into the US does enough harm in comparison with other illegal activity to require an increase in border enforcement, checks on people's status, and so on, depends on a careful balancing of priorities. As I said above,

Has it been shown that illegal immigration is a crime that scores high enough in terms of harm done (when compared with hard drug trading, armed robbery, trafficking of women for sexual exploitation, internet fraud and a whole lot more) to justify a major increase in expenditure devoted to reducing it significantly?

I'd like to see the data.

[_Gunnar]

I am sure that Trump's obsession over that wall will eventually prove to one of his biggest embarrassments. One of the biggest reasons that is inevitable is that, as EA and others have pointed out, property owners along the border are vehemently opposed to their land being appropriated for the wall, and will fight that in court, tooth and nail. It seems highly likely to me that these cases would be in litigation for longer than Trump will remain in office, by which time Democrats in both the House and Senate will have enough power to successfully repeal any legislation concerning the building of a border wall.

[_moksha]

The far right had always been Trump's guns. The far right is who elected DJT, not Brackite, Paul Ryan or Mitt Romney, and he's being true to his promises.

Trump whistles the most stirring rendition of Dixie in the last fifty years!

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

I am sure that Trump's obsession over that wall will eventually prove to one of his biggest embarrassments. One of the biggest reasons that is inevitable is that, as EA and others have pointed out, property owners along the border are vehemently opposed to their land being appropriated for the wall, and will fight that in court, tooth and nail. It seems highly likely to me that these cases would be in litigation for longer than Trump will remain in office, by which time Democrats in both the House and Senate will have enough power to successfully repeal any legislation concerning the building of a border wall.

His confusion over The Wall is a look into his own Narcissistic Personality Disordered (NDP) brain. He made something up, that Federal workers support the shutdown. Then when he was informed that Federal workers support being paid for their work, instead of admitting he was wrong, he just made something up again. This time all Federal workers are Democrats and therefore don't support him anyway. This means that now they aren't getting paid as punishment for not believing in Trump; it's zero-sum life he leads. He now believes he's doing the right thing by hurting his enemies <- Anyone that does't do what he says to do in the moment.

Because, as someone who ought to have their picture next to the DSM-V entry for NPD, that's what he'll do. He'll always just make up a bit of a story that allows him to justify that his actions are right. That's all that matters to him. That he's right.

Oh. And money. He wants that sweet, sweet laundered money flowing through his properties because he's a disgusting piece of crap human garbage bin.

- Doc

[Guest]

I agree, Doc Cam, with everything you said about his narcissistic personality. That is only becoming ever more obvious. I am incredulous over how many still can't or refuse to see that glaringly obvious reality. He is like a petulant, highly spoiled child!

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

I agree, Doc Cam, with everything you said about his narcissistic personality. That is only becoming ever more obvious. I am incredulous over how many still can't or refuse to that glaringly obvious reality. He is like a petulant, highly spoiled child!

The problem with Trump is it's hard to break down in digestible bite-sized posts just how deeply damned corrupt him and his family is. His relationship with Putin and Putin's ingress into our power structures is just so murky and extensive that it's hard to untangle it in a way that doesn't require endless linking to various persons, connections, government, PACs, and business structures. And that's just the Russians. The Saudis have made similar inroads, but to a lesser scale.

On top of that he deals with our government the way he dealt, personally, with his businesses. He's damned running it into the ground and the "Conservative" powerbrokers are actually happy he's doing that. The problem is you have to, again, start showing the influence and inroads people like, say, the Koch brothers have made with the GOP and how their gameplan is playing out.

It's so complex and so multi-layered that it's virtually impossible to make it consumable for the idiots who voted for Trump. This is why the Left just dumbs down their approach to Trump and his policies as 'racist' because they know they can't really dumb down complex financial business arrangements that resonate with their base, and will educate Trump's base. Just look at how truth, facts, links, sourcing, and dialogue goes with them on this board. It's an impossible task so we're left with bottom line couplets.

It's incredibly disappointing that in this day and age, with information heretofore NEVER available to the masses, we're still essentially headlining these things. It all boils down to the human brain and its capacity to consume information. The sad truth is we're designed to be ruled, lied to, and manipulated and that's a hard thing to overcome.

- Doc