SirEDCaLot

Because the man you don't like got elected we should shred the 1st Amendment right of free expression? Or do I misunderstand you?

I say this with respect- but that's a bit of an 'ivory tower intellectual' position that doesn't consider how things work in the real world.

I'm not just talking about ABUSE, which DoL should prevent. I'm talking about personal drive and demand of upward mobility.

For example- let's say you have a company committed to following the rules, who will pay what the market demands and treats workers with respect. You have two candidates for a job. One is an immigrant- lives in a lower end neighborhood, but is thrilled he can feed his family 'only' working 60 hours a week and his daughter can walk to school without being abducted and raped. He'll do the job as long as it's offered for $10/hr and be thrilled at that. The other is an American who wants upward mobility, they want to do this job for 1-3 years max before being promoted to something bigger, and if he doesn't get promotion he will leave.
There's no abuse and nothing illegal happening here. Just supply and demand.

If you're the corporation, which person do you hire?
Almost every company I know would hire the immigrant, because he'll work hard, he's thankful to have the job, his lower-middle-class lifestyle is better than what he had before so he has no need to demand more.
But if the immigrant isn't there, they'll have to hire the other guy, have to pay him more, have to provide promotion opportunities or train new workers when he finds something better.

There's nothing for department of labor to do there, because there's no violations happening. This isn't a legal problem. It's a socioeconomic one. No government agency can force the immigrant to demand higher wages, or force the company to pay above minimum wage.
(Minimum wage should probably be $10-$15 today, but that's a separate issue).

And that’s all without the macro economic point of view that points out having more consumers in your country means more economic activity which means more jobs.

That only holds if those consumers have disposable income. And those consumers only have disposable income if they're demanding wages high enough to afford luxuries.
If you have workers who will settle for very low wages, that depresses wages across the board. That means less disposable income for everyone, and can mean overall LESS economic activity because wages will decrease, consumer spending will drop, and money will accumulate as profits for large companies that reap higher profits from overall depressed wages (sound familiar?). I'm not blaming immigrants for that (I blame Congress and the absurdly low minimum wage) but the point stands.

Bottom line- if you have two groups of people, one says 'I'm happy with what I get' the other says 'I want more', more of the first group means less wages for both groups. Supply and demand.

You're very likely right. I'm certainly not going to stand up and claim Trump is pure as driven snow. Or at the very least, that's a part of it, for many of the people who push such a policy.

I think we'd all agree whoever gave the order to have ICE agents dress up in SWAT gear and go door to door wasn't thinking about humanity.

hahaha I can see the appeal of a free ticket to Dublin and $250 to spend when you get there...

But no you wouldn't qualify as you're a citizen (born in the USA).

Still care about MP3- it's the bog standard, the thing EVERYthing supports. Like the shitty SBC codec on Bluetooth. I've still got tons of MP3s and they aren't going away anytime soon.

Everything I get new though is high-res FLAC.

Then you are serving the needs of people like Trump, Murdoch, and other billionaires / CEOs / shareholders who'd rather have us fighting each other than working together to restore the American dream.

For many, I agree. That's also the problem with this sort of policy, it makes no distinction between a migrant poor worker who picks tomatoes or whatever for barely minimum wage and someone who settles in, starts a business, etc.

Deport immigrants with DUIs and violent or financial felony convictions. Beef up the department of labor and go after companies paying people less than minimum wage.

Agree 100% on all.

Then it’s not a matter of jobs or services or crime.

I'm not 100% sure. There's an element of legitimacy to the policy against 'economic migrants', I don't know how big but there's an element.
Let's say you have a difficult and strenuous job. And let's say you have two candidates- a born and raised American, and a Latin American immigrant. If the immigrant has better quality of life here on a minimum wage job than in their home country, they're less likely to demand higher wages or better working conditions because from their POV they've already got 'better'. And that DOES affect the American- if the immigrant will do the job for $8/hr flat and be happy living in a poor neighborhood (because at least there's no cartels like south of the border), but the American wants $12/hr and health benefits, merely having the immigrant there as an option affects the salary the American can get. Because if you remove the immigrant the company will HAVE to raise the wage to $12/hr and offer health benefits. Otherwise the company will hire only immigrants and will keep the wage low.

I recognize this is a generalization and you can't paint all of ANY people with the same brush. You can also flip it around and say forcing the company to hire Americans at the higher wages will increase costs and decrease quality-- say what you want about Latin American immigrants but in most cases I've seen they're pretty much the hardest working mofos around. Thus, having some competition provides incentive for the Americans to work harder.

The problem is, it's VERY hard to have any sort of real discussion on the subject without it being derailed either by accusations of xenophobia or actual xenophobia / racism.

That's the problem- I'm pretty sure you're right. Either that or whoever got the instructions to get rid of undocumented immigrants has no cleverness at all and pushed the only button they can think of (send in jack booted thugs).

Trump may or may not be ignorant but his words fan the flames of racism and xenophobia. And while I think it's possible he's just ignorant, for someone in his position ignorance is no excuse. As President, as a commander, like any other commander he's responsible for the actions of his subordinates when they are following his orders. He doesn't get the luxury of not knowing, not understanding, not being aware of what his orders end up doing.

Well there's a lot of information and different positions, most of which doesn't fit into a single post. Can you explain what specifically you think I've missed?

Funny thing is this could be done way more cheaply and humanely.

Have an amnesty. If you're in the country illegally, turn yourself in. You get $250 cash and a free ticket to wherever you came from.

Promise that'll cost less than arresting everyone and jailing them.

You are mixing up your 'they's. There are multiple theys each with their own motivations. Frequently their interests align. Not always.

I don't expect anybody with money and power to play by THE rules, but everybody plays by SOME rules. Understand the rules each player is playing by, and you understand the game a lot better.

I don't for a second think Trump's motivation behind deporting people is pure as the driven snow. I'm sure for many people behind that policy, perhaps including Trump himself, there is a lot of thinly veiled racism or not so thinly veiled racism and a bunch of xenophobia too.

That doesn't mean it's impossible that it will work, and bring about some sort of positive result.

For me, the big problem with illegal immigration is it creates an easily exploitable underclass. A group of people who will work themselves to the fucking bone for peanuts, who can be exploited at will because they can't call the government to enforce labor regs. That creates a situation for employers that they can hire these people by the thousands, treat them like dirt, pay them barely anything, have them work in horrible conditions, and then basically toss them on the street. That situation is bad for everybody. It's certainly bad for Americans because if those exploitable people are available as labor why wouldn't an employer hire them rather than an American who will demand higher wages and better working conditions?

Ending that system of exploitation will suck, it will be a painful process that will destabilize food and labor markets. And knowing Trump, I'm quite sure there will be a lot of civil rights abuses, which I am strongly against. Everybody deserves to be treated with humanity and respect, including undocumented people who are being deported. But I also think that before we dive 100% into saying the whole thing is a bad idea, we should consider potential long-term effects. And if the result over the entire American labor market is there is no longer a cheap exploitable under-class, I think that's a good thing for everybody.

100% this.
I'm not a fan of the hamfisted way Trump and Musk are going about all this.
But at the same time, I look at this and have to wonder the outcome...
If agricultural corporations can't hire cheap undocumented Latin American people to work the farms, they will have to pay more to hire Americans to do the same job. Yes that will drive up grocery prices, but on some level, if that means more Americans are able to afford those groceries isn't that sort of maybe a good thing?

Every time I see a company complain of labor shortage, it is obvious to me that the problem isn't labor the problem is the company doesn't want to pay what the labor market demands. You tell me you can't find anybody to hire, so I ask if you offered $100/hr for this job would your inbox be overflowing with applicants? If the answer is yes, then the problem isn't that you can't find anybody, it is the supply and demand of the labor market and your only problem is you don't want to pay the market rate for labor. That's not the market's problem.