Comment on Vance Says He Will Keep Calling Haitians Legally in Springfield ‘Illegal’
themeatbridge@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Just throwing this out there, people existing aren’t “illegal.” Actions are illegal. It’s not the immigrant that is illegal, it is the immigration. People are legally permitted to come to America for a wide variety of reasons. Entering the country without documentation is illegal. Staying past the expiration of a visa is illegal. Entering into a loveless marriage to skirt immigration laws is illegal. The person is not the crime.
When conservatives talk about immigration, they do their best to dehumanize the scapegoats in the stories they create. Calling them “illegals” is a conscious effort to make it easier to treat them as less than people.
TheOctonaut@mander.xyz 1 month ago
Something many Americans don’t seem to be educated about properly is asylum/refugee status. It used to be considered a good thing that a first world country would provide asylum for those in danger.
Both require the first entry to be an illegal entry, or to have an overstay. If you can enter or stay in a country legally, you don’t need asylum there. You can just, y’know, stay.
America even recognises this by having asylum application stations some way but not very far inside the border, because if you have a massive continent sized country and expect people to go to an immigration office or something, they may not find it or may just not apply even if they have valid reason to.
This deliberate lack of education feels very like how some Americans were never properly educated on the actual purpose of the UN, or how taxes work, or uow “we’re a republic not a democracy” is nonsense, or even what your president does. And they all feel like very deliberate political decisions to make this so.