There's a very good video on Yahoo News about the screening and vetting process to the US:
https://screen.yahoo.com/yahoo-news-live-syrian-refugees-184000450.html
Originally posted by Bardock42i'm not so much concerned about national demographic changes as a result of this either
At any rate, a few hundred thousand refugees over the next 3 or 4 years is not going to make much of a difference in the demographic make up of the United States.And while I always find it fascinating when right winger who allegedly believe in America's excellency use the "well certain Muslim countries are intolerant so why shouldn't we be", in general I think there is still are large parts of America that believe in the spirit of freedom, the sense of good in America that it prides itself on, that do not want to stand by as innocent people suffer.
my concern is that it will only take one terror attack that is linked to a syrian refugee to give an incredible amount of political leverage to the right wingers who are opposing letting them in
tbh the reason why i don't quite trust your judgement, or the judgement of other liberals is you guys seem to me to be irrationally optimistic about things like this, based mostly on ideology. i know what it is like to want the liberal narrative to prevail - reality is just a lot more pleasant when diversity is a strength, refugees are a benefit and multiculturalism is excelling without a hitch. it just doesn't always seem to me that this narrative is true. so i am afraid that wishful thinking starts corrode our ability to clearly weigh the pros and cons of a given policy decision.
for example, the stat that people keep bringing up that first generation immigrant are incarcerated more than native born members of their ethnicity. in terms of long term trends... this isn't even a positive sign. it only appears positive on the surface - but if you follow the inherent logic of this stat it means that the descendants of the immigrant population become more criminal than their parents were. this would only be a good thing if we could somehow have all of our citizens be 1st generation immigrants. the problem is that this is impossible... they will have kids and their kids will have kids... and then they will apparently commit crimes at a higher rate, for whatever reason. obviously i'm not saying this stat highlights a negative aspect of immigration... but i don't see how it indicates anything positive either. a truly straight forward and honest approach to whether our current immigration policies will lead to more crime is to look at the demographic changes that are resulting from said policy and then compare the crime rates among the demographics that are increasing in terms of % of the overall population vs the demographics that are decreasing in terms of % of the overall population.
of course the liberal response to this is that this would be dishonest because mexican and latin american communities are on average poorer in the states than their white counterparts... and that this will inflate their crime rates, but that this economic situation will change for them over time the same way it did for the european immigrant populations of the 20th century. and this may be a fair point. but to me, then, this only means that we can't really say for sure what the long term effects of our current immigration policies are going to be. it is basically an experiment, the same way it was in the previous centuries. the results are far from guaranteed. so we should at least be honest enough to admit this fact rather than just asserting again and again that the changes in our demographics that are occurring are going to be a positive or a negative thing.
I think it is clear that we can't predict the future. However like you yourself say, there are a lot of indications, statistical as well asprevious waves of immigration, that point towards the more favourable view, while the arguments for the other sides generally just boil down to "we should be more careful" or blatant racism and xenophobia. So yeah, ultimately we don't know how things will shake out exactly, but the hard evidence favours the liberal view.
eh... once again i'm not necessarily sold on that. i am open to you presenting some sort of data that clearly demonstrates this... the stats i've seen so far do not establish at all what you are saying, in my view. i think i explained why the incarceration rates of 1st generation immigrants vs their descendants isn't particularly helpful in this regard.. so i wouldn't use that one, or at least explain how you think it does help establish your narrative.
with regard to the previous waves of immigration.. i would say that you can't neceesarily assume that any given culture is going to respond the same way to being implanted into america society. we've clearly seen a spectrum of results in that regard... it isn't at all so simple that you can expect to see the same results from the modern latin american immigrants that you saw in the 20th century with european immigrants. that defies common sense. the circumstances are different, as are the cultures in question. we don't even see equal results among modern immigrants. some do much better than others. so clearly a one size fits all approach to speaking about immigrants is inappropriate.
Originally posted by Bardock42
I think it is clear that we can't predict the future. However like you yourself say, there are a lot of indications, statistical as well asprevious waves of immigration, that point towards the more favourable view, while the arguments for the other sides generally just boil down to "we should be more careful" or blatant racism and xenophobia. So yeah, ultimately we don't know how things will shake out exactly, but the hard evidence favours the liberal view.
You are just importing cheap workers to your country because you Germans have an aging population and none of the young people are having more then one kid.
Merkel knows to stay ahead she needs bodies. So she will take them wherever she can get them..
Hopefully it won't blow up in her face.
"This has been a bad week for the United States, folks. France was directly attacked by terrorists and its response was to promise to house 30,000 Syrian refugees; we weren’t and one branch of our government fell over itself to put the brakes on accepting a third of that number. France is defying the very organization that attacked it while we, on the other hand, are doing exactly what that organization hoped we would do. We’re being the cowardly bigots they hoped we would be, and as loudly as possible."
Pretty well said.
Originally posted by Star428
Seriously though... Only women, children, and old men should be allowed in until they can be properly checked-out. Really, only children and their mothers should be allowed.
You do know that background checks are standard for everyone already, right?
'Until they can be properly checked out' means... well, everyone.