I have a very rough time with Hazer’s thoughts on this being greeted with racist accusations. Not by you incidentally. But I would push back against a few things you’re saying:

- refugee/asylum status. I’m no immigration attorney, but I do believe we play too fast and loose with that concept. Many come here due to specific cases of persecution, I’m sure. Most imo are simply fleeing failed states. It’s one thing if govt targets you - it’s another if you are merely fleeing terrible, gang-riddled impoverishment.

- when people cross the border to hand themselves to authorities, I believe they are most often in violation of the law. We’re supposedly pushing for rules requiring asylum applications to be made in home countries. I think your message is the wrong one - it invites people to trek for weeks through terribly dangerous conditions to come to a border which is worse than ill-equipped to handle the influx - the border is unequipped for it. Immigrants risk life and limb to wreak havoc on communities and cities from the southern border to LA and NYC. Absolutely nobody benefits from it.

- I have trouble with the blame game about American responsibility for failed states to our south. We’ve been less than perfect in pursuit of our own perceived interests over the years, for sure. Our Cold War foreign policy was too black and white, and sometimes which dictators we supported or opposed seemed arbitrary. Those calling themselves communist and those claiming opposition to communism looked exactly alike in terms of the treatment of their people. But these states bear primary responsibility for their own failures.

I support liberalized legal immigration, guest worker programs, paths to citizenship for long time residents, guarantees against deportation for law abiding dreamers, all that. But as a practical matter, even if not a moral one, anything like that must be pared with commitments and actions to secure the border. Even if you don’t buy repub hysteria over invasions by tattered, desperate immigrant families (I don’t), political realities require it. The overwhelming of jurisdictions nationwide by influxes of immigrants is turning attitudes against immigrants. Committing to order at the border is the best thing we can do for everyone - immigrants as much as anyone.

We have to lose this idea that anyone can show up anytime at our border and declare refugee status. Just to stop the really dangerous journeys these poor folks make, sometimes repeatedly. They are risking their lives and their families coming to a country which is, imo, turning against them. Not mostly because of bigotry. Mostly because they want an end to the chaos.