Presidential Election

i see it differently, although i'm not exactly the target audience for trump so maybe i'm off.

i agree that the idea of going to mexico to speak with their president is a good one in theory as it is the kind of things presidents do.  however, the problem is what happens when you get there.  trump has made a big deal of this wall that mexico is going to pay for.  ste aside, for a minute, that this is probably the dumbest friggin thing that a candidate has ever been said by a candidate this close to the election.  if you ask the mexican president to pay for the wall, which apparently he did, of course the guy is going to tell you to get f*cked and then your plan looks even dumber, if that is at all possible. 

if you don't ask the mexican president to pay for the wall, which is what trump said happened, you look like a complete box. 

to me, taht was a no win situation.  and then, after looking like a box when faced with actual mexican people, you come back to AZ and pretend to be mr tough guy again.

how does that attract one normal person to vote for trump?

i'm not exactly sure what trump's immigration plan is (i have a feeling he has no idea how our immigration system works, like most people) but keep in mind that the idea that we are going to deport all of the illegals in this country is as feasible as building a wall along the canadian border and making guatemala pay for it.

I would add a statement that is also a question.....

Where on the list of priorities to voters in FL, PA, MI, OH, VA, or NC is immigration? Is it in the top ten? How has his campaign turned in to such a lopsided weight on immigration as the primary topic?

Are people so racist that immigration is more important than things like health care and foreign policy?

Count me as dumbfounded.

i think it's basic psychology that it's fairly easy to get a certain segment of the population irrationally fearful of a group of people, especially if they are different in one or more ways.  also, it's a simple issue that people can wrp their brains around- us good, them bad.  whereas, healthcare, foreign policy and other issues are complicated.

once people become irrational, it's easy to get them to think and act a certain way.  anyone who thinks trump might build a wall and mexico is going to pay for it won't have any problem thinking they are more in need of protection from mexicans than healthcare.

Not naive enough to dispute a racial component to immigration issue or that trump is trying to exploit it.   From my perspective, however, the key to Trumps chances r tied to all the issues noted.   Regardless of any racist component, this doesn't change that the immigration system is completely broken and a joke.  Same w healthcare and foreign policy.  It should not be difficult to reach a reasonable consensus approach that the majority of us can live w but we can't do anything because Washington is completely broken.  Regardless of qualifications or temperament, the chance of HRC fixing these problems is probably zero.  This should be focal point of trumps campaign, but he is 2 much of a clown to execute it.   

i'm not sure i agree with the immigration system being broke.  i know what you mean but i think a more accurate way to say it is that the immigration system is not designed to handle the current problems.  it's like having a drainage system for a light rain and then getting hit by hurricane katrina, only you know the hurricane is coming and rather than prepare for it, you welcome it.  and now we are left to deal with the flooding using buckets rather than an integrated drainage system. 

not to focus on one word but to say it is broken implies that if we fixed it, then it would work reasonably well.  there is no fix because we don't have a viable system to fix that is designed or capable of handling our immigration issues.  there's nothing to fix.  we either continue doing what we can with what we have or we create an entirely new system and infrastructure. 

The immigration system cannot work,if laws that are in place are not enforced..and if the laws don't make sense or don't work ..Congress needs to change the laws..

But,when you have the President of the United Stated tell law enforcement officials... enforcing immigration law “isn’t smart,” and directs immigration police to minimize enforcement of illegals living far from the border....then the system is being broken on purpose and will not have a chance to work.

I guess I understand your point dirt but creating a new system is a fix to the problem and what is needed.   Until the US addresses the demand for cheap labor and drugs there is little point in trying.   to use a sports analogy, Until major leagues attempted to address PED issue the players had little choice but to use.   We have to develop some type of ID system and then as noted by slim enforce the existing laws (i.e. Until u start penalizing eers for using illegal immigrants there can be no solution). 

The immigration system cannot work,if laws that are in place are not enforced

this is also true.  some due to the fact that we really can't enforce them completely and some because no one seems to want to. 


penalizing employers would be a start and one of the easier (but not easy) methods to attack the problem if we devoted more resources to it. 

I don't mind Trumps immigration plan, only problem is how is he going to pay for it, with a Congress that refuses to increase spending? And if Congress decides that some extraction force is worth spending on but not giving states relief to retain teachers or police officers, I will be disgusted. 

yeah, mostly semantics, i believe.


but here's one example of what i'm talking about in the context of post 563 and trump's "plan" such as it is.  granted i'm not familiar with the entiretly of it, but if he says he is going to create some extraction force, that's not a plan, that would be one step that is meaningless without other steps.

set aside the problem of how many are here and how you find and identify them on the front end, first, we already have an extraction force.  it was the ins and now it's a division of ice.  the problem is there just aren't very may of them. 

anyway, let's assume this new extraction force finds a bunch of people they think are illegal.  you don't just throw them over the wall because some extraction force thinks they are illegal and they don't have their papers on them.  we have a constitution and everyone has a right to their day in court.  and immigration law is very complicated and we have a million laws so whether someone is illegal is not always going to be that simple.  so, you need a place to keep these people for months until the ice prosecutors can prove they are illegal.  you need ice prosecutors to do that.  you need immigration courts and judges to make these determinations.  and then you need some mechanism to take these people back to wherever they came from. 

that's oversimplified but we don't have any of that in any sort of proportions necessary to even begin to deal with how many illegals we have here.  essentially, we'd have to create that entire system and infrastructure. 

so, the extraction force sounds great and it is a step in the process, but it is meaningless without everything else, as long as we have a functioning constitution. 

Agree wholeheartedly ..plus there are things that can be done that don't cost money, but actually safe money ...Stop sanctuary cities.. improve our ability to recognize forged documents that allow illegal aliens to receive benefits...these falsified documents by illegal immigrants makes them eligible for and to get Obamacare.......and stop giving illegal aliens grants,, loans,unemployment benefits, and tax credits from state and federal agencies for starters..

That's easy,, he can do the same thing Hillary say's she's
 going to do to pay for the $1.1 trillion over 10 years proposals for new expanded government programs ...tax the rich....and Wella !!  problem of cost fixed.

might be a bigger deal in florida than the others. it certainly plays to his base of uneducated whites. if, however, he plans to do better than, say, Romney did (and needed to in order to win) with non-whites and college educated whites, it seems a dumb ploy.

GW Bush got 44% of the Hispanic vote. Romney nowhere close. Trump less presumably. A lot less maybe.

Yeah romney's attempt at a class war actually made sense to me because less people were on a govt check than not. 

Logistics of finding arresting and deporting 11 million people.

And then how does this stay with in the confines of protect the innocent. Simply put a citizen gets into a scrape loses his wallet and wakes up Shanghaied . or finds himself or herself on the other side of the wall ? Depending on which nationality their ancestors came from ?

    Has to be the funnies post of the year so far...