Bunny trail on borders

[haithabu]

Ethnicity vs Nationality, Chinese Canadians exist.

So do European Canadians, who probably moved in starting in the 1500s or so. Should they be allowed to stay?

Since no one on either side of the political spectrum has advocated kicking immigrants out, I'm not sure where your question is coming from - unless you believe that would be immigrants who have entered the country illegally should be counted as immigrants and allowed to stay.

If you do believe that they should, then we have identified a substantive point of disagreement.

[Robert]

[video][/video]

[Josh]

Ethnicity vs Nationality, Chinese Canadians exist.

So do European Canadians, who probably moved in starting in the 1500s or so. Should they be allowed to stay?

Who said anything anything about expelling people? The question is if large demographic changes should be allowed or promitted.

[Bootstrap]

Ethnicity vs Nationality, Chinese Canadians exist.

So do European Canadians, who probably moved in starting in the 1500s or so. Should they be allowed to stay?

Whoa - we weren't talking about kicking anyone out yet. The Chinese people in Canada are a significant part of our multicultural mix.

I was responding to Josh. If the Indians had maintained their original ethnic mix, we wouldn't be here.

To me, these discussions can sometimes feel like we are saying that "people like us" belong here, and "people like them" don't, "people like us" are the real Americans or Canadians, "people like them" aren't. This gets very pronounced in some of the politicized rhetoric that surrounds us, I have heard several conversations where people used the word "Americans" to distinguish themselves from blacks who seemed equally American to me. Most of our ancestors came here as immigrants.

And of course this got very pronounced in places like Charlottesville, where whites were shouting "you do not belong here" to blacks and Jews as well as immigrants. Ugly stereotypes are being used to spread hatred against various groups. I think we need to be aware that this is in the water all around us.

And this infects the immigration debate too. If you read the Lawfare blog or read Foreign Policy or other useful resources, most of what they say is about policy choices and evidence. But most of the popular emotional news sources basically swap stereotypes instead. Each side has its own stereotypes. As Christians, I think we need to be ready to embrace Samaritans and Gentiles, and we need to be very wary of "us" versus "them" along ethnic or national lines.

[Bootstrap]

Who said anything anything about expelling people? The question is if large demographic changes should be allowed or promitted.

Name me a time in the history of the United States or Canada when there weren't large demographic changes. It seems to have worked reasonably well for both countries over the past few centuries.

I think it's important to screen people to prevent terrorism, and it's quite reasonable to consider how many people to let in. But most of the debate isn't really about that, we've always had limits and we've been pretty good at screening out terrorists. And most of the debate in the news isn't a policy debate at all. On the one side, it's imagery depicting Mexicans as rapists and people from the middle East as terrorists. On the other side, it's imagery depicting Trump as a Nazi. It's hard to have a rational discussion about policy in that kind of setting.

And maybe we don't have to. Maybe the most important thing for Kingdom Christians is to do our Kingdom thing, loving people wherever we can.

[Josh]

Okay, Bootstrap, is it okay for Americans to feel the majority of America should stay people born and raised in America, or is that intrinsically immoral and should Americans be replaced by people born in other countries who for some reason don’t want to stay around people of their own language and culture?

I never said anything about race or ethnicity. This is about people born and raised in a country vs. people who are foreign to that country wanting to immigrate to it. And it’s also about who has a vested interest in acquiring large swaths of low-paid workers. The biggest driver behind large scale immigration right now is big business.

[Josh]

Who said anything anything about expelling people? The question is if large demographic changes should be allowed or promitted.

Name me a time in the history of the United States or Canada when there weren't large demographic changes. It seems to have worked reasonably well for both countries over the past few centuries.

I would say it worked very poorly for Native Americans and for First Nations peoples.

[Bootstrap]

Okay, Bootstrap, is it okay for Americans to feel the majority of America should stay people born and raised in America, or is that intrinsically immoral and should Americans be replaced by people born in other countries who for some reason don’t want to stay around people of their own language and culture?

That word "replace" is a meme being promoted by white supremacists. "You will not replace us!" - that's what they shouted in Charlottesville. And you also said two other things that are being promoted by white supremacists, the notion that foreign-born people will soon make up the majority and the notion that immigrants won't adopt American language and culture. I am worried by the extent to which white supremacists have changed the language and imagery of this debate. I think these things clearly imply that some people are not welcome here. And immigrants are hearing this message loud and clear, it worries them.

Benjamin Franklin was worried that German immigrants would replace American's predominantly British culture. We were worried that Irish and Italian immigrants would replace our Protestant culture. Poles, Jews, Chinese were all seen as too different to become real Americans. And guess what? The first generation does not assimilate, the second generation does, by the third and fourth generation nobody is too worried about it any more.

And what percent of Americans are foreign born? It's 12.9% according to the Census Bureau. That's not particularly unusual if you look at our history, but it has been going up.

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[Bootstrap]

Boot, most refugees are economic migrants, plain and simple.

Could you please back that statement up with a little source material?

Since this isn't about Anabaptist separatism, let me provide some information here.

U.S. Refugee Admissions Program FAQs

The Department of Homeland Security has the authority to make this decision. Under U.S. law, a refugee must have a well-founded fear of persecution based on one of the five “protected grounds”:

• Religion

• Political opinion

• Race

• Nationality

• Membership in a particular social group

Furthermore, a refugee must be deemed admissible to the U.S. and not be firmly resettled in a third country.

For a list of grounds that would disqualify a refugee from being admitted to the United States, please visit the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website.

[haithabu]

I don't have a particular issue with immigration per se, or with demographic replacement. I do have an issue with cultural replacement, since I believe that our host (Anglo) culture is the one which best safeguards the social qualities which make our countries the best places in the world to live.

Excessive immigration over too a too short time period can threaten that because it tends to produce unassimilated enclaves. Identitarian movements which encourage people to remain culturally distinct and not identify with the general American population do also. As do attempts to disparage America's traditional melting pot approach. Put all three together, and I can understand why many Anglos are wanting to dial the whole immigration thing back a bit.

There also other issues around immigration which have been festering for awhile. One is the wide spread business use of of illegal immigrants to keep wage costs down. Another is the Democratic push during the last administration to normalize illegal immigration through foot dragging on border enforcement, catch and release and more recently the promotion of sanctuary policies. Clean up the enforcement, including at the hiring office, and it will give people more of a sense that things are under control and they just may be more supportive of legitimate immigration.