Texas’ border standoff

[TheBlackBard]

Okay - wasn't too sure what you meant by that until you elaborated, but that makes sense more so.

I get the humanitarian aspect of it, but personally feel like it's unsustainable the way things are currently set up. I suspect many people feel that problems of other countries should be left to be resolved in other countries. And again, it is sad and it does suck, but we have a broken system in the US and we can't even save ourselves, much less others. It almost feels like the analogy of having just enough resources for your family, but not having enough to help others, but being forced to help others regardless. Personally, I find that expectation to be misguided and dystopian in the sense that it is unlikely that we're going to save everyone and if we keep throwing money or pretending like we can and all is well as long as we try, we're going to collapse. Even if Texas has thought about this, which I'm assuming they have, it doesn't necessitate their goodwill. (As nice as that would be in a perfect world.) At the same time, in this scenario, I don't blame people for fleeing dangerous circumstances, but I also can't blame Texas for not wanting to help. Help should come out of want, not force.

Funny how that works. Texans, many of them proclaiming to be Christians, yet I don't remember Jesus putting razor wire in the rivers to keep people from coming into his country. So what does it say about those people?

Also it should be noted that much of why the system doesn't work for us is due to corporate/political greed and misappropriation of taxes to fund invasions under the guise of freedom to strip other smaller countries of their resources.

 

[Louis Cypher]

I don't know anything tbh about the US asylum/immigration system, but you are only an "illegal immigrant" if you stay in the country after your application has been processed and then turned down? Up to that point there is no such thing as an "illegal immigrant" or illegal asylum seeker?

The normalisation now of "Legals" and "Illegals" and the constant conflation of migrants with asylum seekers is sickening tbh

 

[jaxadam]

and are subject to withholding for workers comp and unemployment, at least in my state.

This is rather misleading. Workers are not subject to withholding for workers comp and unemployment insurance. Those are insurance policies paid for and provided by the employer.

I carry three flavors of workers comp: Workers' Compensation, USL&H, and DBA (Defense Base Act). These are all very different and very expensive policies. Standard workers' comp is paid directly by us as the employer and is prorated based on the W2 employee's payroll. It is audited every year, and the difference in earned premium is adjusted and either paid or credited. There is currently zero chance I can add this coverage for an undocumented worker in the state of Florida.

This does not mean an undocumented worker would not receive workers comp benefits; it will come off of your policy and they will essentially be treated as a 1099. Then you will have an adjusted EMR (Experience Modification Rating) of a non-W2 employee, you will be fined, your policy will be cancelled or flagged for non-renewal, and you will have a difficult time procuring another policy.

USL&H and Defense Base Act are application driven policies that list every worker everywhere, what their roll is, and where they are driving/sleeping/working. There is currently zero chance I can put a undocumented worker on this policy with the exception of what is considered a Third Country National on the DBA.

 

[PuckishGuitar]

I don't know anything tbh about the US asylum/immigration system, but you are only an "illegal immigrant" if you stay in the country after your application has been processed and then turned down? Up to that point there is no such thing as an "illegal immigrant" or illegal asylum seeker?

The normalisation now of "Legals" and "Illegals" and the constant conflation of migrants with asylum seekers is sickening tbh

You’re also an “illegal” immigrant if you overstay your visa… like many Canadians and Europeans do.

The broad strokes that are used to paint all immigrants seeking asylum as “illegal”, even when entering at ports and surrendering for asylum per USCIS policy, has absolutely confused the situation with the public and makes it nearly impossible to move ahead with actual solutions. What is being done now in Texas at the border isn’t a solution, it’s more posturing by Abbott and co. that makes things worse.

The western world is going to have to get used to migrants and figure out how to integrate them as our world changes, whether due to climate change, increasingly unequal economic opportunities, and political/social unrest. Migration has always happened in human history, and outcomes were generally more favorable when the host was willing to incorporate immigrants into their society, rather than treat it as an assault.

 

[TedEH]

I suspect many people feel that problems of other countries should be left to be resolved in other countries.

The problem with that view is that it's selective. The US is a "world power", it shouldn't pick and choose when to mind it's own business (although, of course, in reality it does). The attitude of "we should mind our own business" should either apply in all cases or none.

It almost feels like the analogy of having just enough resources for your family

Except that, generally speaking, the western world has more than enough resources to go around. It's not about how much we have, it's about how it's distributed. There would be no problem helping others if we didn't live in a default mode of competitive wealth hoarding. The barriers to helping refugees, homeless, etc., are entirely man-made, political, and arbitrary.

 

[sleewell]

letting fox news and right wing echo chambers convince you the world is ending. omg priceless.


my company lends to ITIN borrowers. they dont have a social but they work and pay taxes. our deliquency numbers are several times lower than the national average. they pay like clock work. last year we hit our yearly bonus numbers in july and had another record year when the rest of the industry was laying people off and struggling we killed it.

you are focusing on the tiny amount of money we are spending and neglecting the vast, huge amounts they contribute to our economy. you are buying into the bullshit they are feeding you instead of seeing the bigger picture. i've managed restaurants in socal. all of the kitchen staff had 3 jobs and worked harder and more hours than any of the native white folks waiting tables and they were so much nicer and friendlier too.

we have the space. we can build more housing, hospitals and infrastructure. trust me the white guys running fox news will benefit if we can put up more strip malls and housing across the country. they always want another dollar general somewhere. if someone without any education or degree or citizenship docs is taking your job and you have lived here your entire life you are a fucking failure and should man up and do better.

ask yourself when they bust illegals working at a factory why is the story only about the punishments for the workers but the people employ them get off scot free??

 

[Xaios]

Funny how that works. Texans, many of them proclaiming to be Christians, yet I don't remember Jesus putting razor wire in the rivers to keep people from coming into his country. So what does it say about those people?

Texas Christians follow the gospel of Supply Side Jesus.

 

[ArtDecade]

You know things are getting out of control when sex toys are starting to have opinions on the matter.

Hilarious guy.

Are we supposed to take you more serious because you changed your avatar from a sex doll to a bitchin' Camero?

 

[jaxadam]

bitchin' Camero

 

[Drew]

I get the humanitarian aspect of it, but personally feel like it's unsustainable the way things are currently set up. I suspect many people feel that problems of other countries should be left to be resolved in other countries. And again, it is sad and it does suck, but we have a broken system in the US and we can't even save ourselves, much less others. It almost feels like the analogy of having just enough resources for your family, but not having enough to help others, but being forced to help others regardless. Personally, I find that expectation to be misguided and dystopian in the sense that it is unlikely that we're going to save everyone and if we keep throwing money or pretending like we can and all is well as long as we try, we're going to collapse. Even if Texas has thought about this, which I'm assuming they have, it doesn't necessitate their goodwill. (As nice as that would be in a perfect world.) At the same time, in this scenario, I don't blame people for fleeing dangerous circumstances, but I also can't blame Texas for not wanting to help. Help should come out of want, not force.

I mean, I have a whole BUNCH of comments here, but the tl;dr version is nothing happens in a vacuum, so we can't pretend that it does.

Trying to keep this as quick hits and not full paragraphs:

*we're in a period of INSANE labor demand in the US. Super simplistic but workable model is GDP growth = workforce growth + productivity growth. Immigration, legal or otherwise, is a huge source of workforce growth. One major reason the Fed might actually pull off a soft landing right now is that the workforce has now returned to pre-pandemic levels, despite retiring boomers meaning it should have continued to trend down. A resumption in immigrations, legal or otherwise, is a big reason for that, and I for one am happy we had a period of wage growth nf labor force growth and falling inflation, rather than the Fed forcing a recession to get inflation under control.

*A lot of the problems people are fleeing countries have a lot to do with the US. Political violence in Nicaragua is causing a surge of refugees coming to the southern border. That violence is being fueled by a flow of guns from the US to Mexico and from Mexico to the south, as part of the drug trade. If the problem is partly our doing, then we can't wash our hands of it entirely.

*I'm not sure things are really THAT broken here. We're coming out of a period of high inflation, but that's a very new phenomena. For the most part, the quality of life in the US is better than almost all of the rest of the world. Think of it this way - if our system was THAT broken, people wouldn't be fleeing to come here as refugees.

Texas being a conservative, and ostentaciously Christian, state is another factor here when it comes to charity.

 

[Randy]

Heard a guy absolutely losing his mind about this in the grocery store yesterday. "TEXAS NEEDS TO SEIZE CONTROL OF THE BORDER TO SAVE THIS COUNTRY!!!"

The United States is so much larger than most other countries in the world. Heck, most US States are bigger than most countries. Most state economies are bigger than a lot of the country's economies. Some big cities, even.

This fear of immigrants along the border 3,000+ miles away is the stupidest right-wing manufactured fear mongering bullshit ever.

 

[Riff the Road Dog]

This is rather misleading. Workers are not subject to withholding for workers comp and unemployment insurance. Those are insurance policies paid for and provided by the employer.

I carry three flavors of workers comp: Workers' Compensation, USL&H, and DBA (Defense Base Act). These are all very different and very expensive policies. Standard workers' comp is paid directly by us as the employer and is prorated based on the W2 employee's payroll. It is audited every year, and the difference in earned premium is adjusted and either paid or credited. There is currently zero chance I can add this coverage for an undocumented worker in the state of Florida.

This does not mean an undocumented worker would not receive workers comp benefits; it will come off of your policy and they will essentially be treated as a 1099. Then you will have an adjusted EMR (Experience Modification Rating) of a non-W2 employee, you will be fined, your policy will be cancelled or flagged for non-renewal, and you will have a difficult time procuring another policy
USL&H and Defense Base Act are application driven policies that list every worker everywhere, what their roll is, and where they are driving/sleeping/working. There is currently zero chance I can put a undocumented worker on this policy with the exception of what is considered a Third Country National on the DBA.

You must not live in Washington State where employers can and do withhold an average of 20-30% of their premium from worker pay depending on risk class. I know it isn't common in all states which is why I said at least in my state. Additionally, workers comp is a set amount paid for every hour worked by a worker in WA regardless their federal immigration status. Washington is one of four states where a government agency is the exclusive provider of workers comp insurance and one of the 27 that has a state safety division in lieu of OSHA. Federal only applies here when out to sea, on rr right of way, native american and other federal land.

We don't have a private option and rates are not based on wages.

Hiring and not reporting workers is subject to audit and penalties. And hiring workers without having a workers comp account is a Class C felony here though you rarely see anyone prosecuted for a variety of reasons.

Any WA resident who works in WA can file an injury claim, and, yes the costs of those claims go into the actuarial formula for the firm's experience factor the same as pretty much everywhere.

Now you know way more than you ever wanted to about WA.

 

[Briz]

Some comments in this thread are pure comedy gold. Chef's kiss. Tell me that you know absolutely zilch about US politics, geopolitics, the definition of a constitutional republic, congressional maps, the census, quantitative easing, basic micro and macro economics, infrastructure stress testing, state vs federal budgets and the means of acquiring funding, the impact of remittance payments on domestic and foreign economies, resource allocation, civil engineering, immigration law, Constitutional law, sovereignty, and national security without telling me that you know nothing about the aforementioned. Keep the hot takes coming! Hey, who knows, maybe the UN will jump in and investigate why people are forced to flee their home countries, instead of the standard root cause analysis conclusion of "Western countries bad!" Historically, they have no problem condemning countries for political, ideological, and authoritarian purposes.

"Who's gonna pick the vegetables?" and, "Who's gonna cook our food and clean our toilets, hotels, and houses?" might win the award for most racist comments by politicians and pundits for 2023 - 2024.

I probably kicked a hornets nest with my sarcastic take, so imma go play guitar now.

 

[Drew]

Some comments in this thread are pure comedy gold. Chef's kiss. Tell me that you know absolutely zilch about US politics, geopolitics, the definition of a constitutional republic, congressional maps, the census, quantitative easing, basic micro and macro economics, infrastructure stress testing, state vs federal budgets and the means of acquiring funding, the impact of remittance payments on domestic and foreign economies, resource allocation, civil engineering, immigration law, Constitutional law, sovereignty, and national security without telling me that you know nothing about the aforementioned. Keep the hot takes coming! Hey, who knows, maybe the UN will jump in and investigate why people are forced to flee their home countries, instead of the standard root cause analysis conclusion of "Western countries bad!" Historically, they have no problem condemning countries for political, ideological, and authoritarian purposes.

"Who's gonna pick the vegetables?" and, "Who's gonna cook our food and clean our toilets, hotels, and houses?" might win the award for most racist comments by politicians and pundits for 2023 - 2024.

I probably kicked a hornets nest with my sarcastic take, so imma go play guitar now.

The best part of THIS hot take is, I have NO idea which side of the argument he's supporting.

 

[Briz]

The best part of THIS hot take is, I have NO idea which side of the argument he's supporting.

Mission accomplished then!

 

[Drew]

Mission accomplished then!

Well, go play some guitar for me, then - I'm posting from work on my lunch break, with nary a guitar in sight!

 

[Randy]

The best part of THIS hot take is, I have NO idea which side of the argument he's supporting.

In fairness, this seems like a subject pretty ripe for a "there should be no sides" position.

The current border policy that's in place is administered by a Democrat who's held office for 3+ years and I think it'd be hard to find a Democrat that's actually happy with the situation there. I think there's a lot of disagreement on *what* to do, yeah. I think if you extract the "politics" from it, the path forward would be much more straightforward.

 

[Drew]

In fairness, this seems like a subject pretty ripe for a "there should be no sides" position.

The current border policy that's in place is administered by a Democrat who's held office for 3+ years and I think it'd be hard to find a Democrat that's actually happy with the situation there. I think there's a lot of disagreement on *what* to do, yeah. I think if you extract the "politics" from it, the path forward would be much more straightforward.

Very fair. Though politics is also clearly a factor here - attempted border crossings surged after Trump left office, largely because after four years of Trump Biden seemed comparatively way more welcoming to immigrants than the outgoing administration.

So, it's hard to completely remove politics from a problem that came to a head because of politics, you know?

 

[jaxadam]

Now you know way more than you ever wanted to about WA.

Good to know!

 

[CanserDYI]

Is @crimson possibly a @Glades double account?