Kamala Harris Visits Border To Find "Root Causes"

[BFritz21]

Aside from the fact that Kamala Harris went to the border where there's something like two-and-a-half less border crossings than the hot spots in Texas, how was she going to find the root causes in Texas? Was she going to interview illegal immigrants? Wouldn't she need to go into Mexico to find out that information?

Secondly, aren't the root causes known? Drug cartels forcing people to join gangs, drugs, better economic opportunities, and things like that?

Thirdly, let's say she "finds out" that those are indeed the causes, what's she going to do about it? Invade Mexico? It's a pretty big country and I doubt it would be possible to defeat all of those gangs and drug cartels and how would she get a better grasp of the economic problems and come up with solutions from Texas?

Pretty sure she was just trying to beat Trump down there in another failure of the dumpster fire that is the current administration.

[*Nately120*]

Drugs should be legal so people who choose to do them don't need criminals supplying them. There is your root cause for drug cartels.

[BigPapaKain]

(06-30-2021, 08:56 AM)Nately120 Wrote: Drugs should be legal so people who choose to do them don't need criminals supplying them.  There is your root cause for drug cartels.

I can't remember which country it was off hand (one of the cold ones - Switzerland, maybe?), but they legalized every single drug you can think of (or at least most of them). Crime plummeted, overdoses plummeted, the national happiness index boosted, and the government taxes the shit out of the drugs and funnels it back into the country.

[KillerGoose]

(06-30-2021, 02:05 AM)BFritz21 Wrote: Aside from the fact that Kamala Harris went to the border where there's something like two-and-a-half less border crossings than the hot spots in Texas, how was she going to find the root causes in Texas? Was she going to interview illegal immigrants? Wouldn't she need to go into Mexico to find out that information?

Secondly, aren't the root causes known? Drug cartels forcing people to join gangs, drugs, better economic opportunities, and things like that?

Thirdly, let's say she "finds out" that those are indeed the causes, what's she going to do about it? Invade Mexico? It's a pretty big country and I doubt it would be possible to defeat all of those gangs and drug cartels and how would she get a better grasp of the economic problems and come up with solutions from Texas?

Pretty sure she was just trying to beat Trump down there in another failure of the dumpster fire that is the current administration.

Brad, this has to be one of the best threads you’ve posted. There are legitimate talking points here. I hope this thread doesn’t devolve like other threads.

The root causes are really difficult to solve. You’re right, people are coming up here due to Mexico being a warzone, or their respective countries being in turmoil. Think El Salvador, Honduras, Venezuela. An invasion of Mexico wouldn’t do anything, you’re right. The US military could, and would, annihilate the cartels but that wouldn’t solve the problem. More narcos would rise up.

Really, a big chunk of the problem with Mexico is the United States and our absolutely massive appetite for illicit drugs. One idea that has been floating around for a while is legalizing all drugs and providing locations that safely create these products in labs. This would theoretically curb the overdose issues with heroin being mixed with fentanyl and the tax money earned from these sales could be put towards rehabilitation programs.

The cartels have evolved over time though, and drugs aren’t their only source of income. For some, drugs aren’t even the main source of income. Human trafficking, crops such as limes and lemons, racketeering etc are big sources of income, especially human trafficking. Legalizing drugs would be a big blow, however.

For the rest of the countries, it becomes more complicated. I don’t know much about El Salvador and Honduras, but these countries are highly impoverished. Citizens here are making under $1000 per year in a lot of cases. CAFTA was created as a free trade agreement between the United States and Central American countries, so trade is flowing but the industry there just isn’t very developed which leads to fewer opportunities and money coming in.

Trying to just keep people out isn’t a good solution, either. You might be able to slow illegal immigration, but IMO the cost to implement a border wall isn’t going to bring the value necessary. Illegal immigration via visa overstays is around 40%-50%. I personally know two people who have illegally immigrated here this way. They both flew into the country on legal visas and just never went back.

[KillerGoose]

(06-30-2021, 09:17 AM)BigPapaKain Wrote: I can't remember which country it was off hand (one of the cold ones - Switzerland, maybe?), but they legalized every single drug you can think of (or at least most of them). Crime plummeted, overdoses plummeted, the national happiness index boosted, and the government taxes the shit out of the drugs and funnels it back into the country.

You’re thinking of Portugal. They didn’t legalize drugs, they just decriminalized them. Switzerland used to have a park that provided a location to sell drugs but it was shut down. As far as I know, weed is still illegal in Switzerland.

I don’t believe there are any countries that have legalized all drugs yet.

[BigPapaKain]

(06-30-2021, 09:34 AM)KillerGoose Wrote: You’re thinking of Portugal. They didn’t legalize drugs, they just decriminalized them. Switzerland used to have a park that provided a location to sell drugs but it was shut down. As far as I know, weed is still illegal in Switzerland.

I don’t believe there are any countries that have legalized all drugs yet.

Maybe that's what it was. I could have sworn it was one of those Nordic countries though. Maybe the just legalized the more common drugs?

This is what happens when you try to remember something you read like 6 years ago and don't bother looking into it before talking about it.

[Wes Mantooth]

The root causes for this type of immigration are very simple:

1.) They know they have a decent chance of getting into the country.
2.) They know they have a decent chance of staying in the country.
3.) There are programs in place that ensure that their life here will be better than it was in their native country.

If you have little chance of making into the US then less people would risk it. If you had little chance of staying in the US then less people would risk it. If you had no monetary guarantees your life would improve then less people would risk it.

Now as to why we saw an influx of recent immigration, well the root cause to that is very simple as well: The current adminstration.

I'll do some digging to find them, but there's a plethora of quotes that were given during the primaries and the debates where they were literally calling for people to come.

I'm going to paraphrase this quote but Biden said: "Illegal immigrants should surge to the border. All of those people who are seeking asylum deserve to be heard We are a country that says if you're fleeing opression you should come. That's who were are."

He also said he didn't think illegal immigrants should be deported unless they commited a major crime, and that we need to change the system.

I wish I could find the video (I just looked and couldn't) but there's one on youtube of a lot of DNC candidates using this as a platform. Now it's become a reality, regardless of if they were just trying to score political points against their opponents.

It is incredibly naive not to think that a lot of this rhetoric, and the painting of Trump as Anti-Immigration and themselves as more frendly to it, has caused what we're currently seeing.

For people that are for more immigration, all I ask is for them give me a number; How many more would you like to allow in? Then give me some semblance of plan on how to make that a legal process (Who gets in, do they follow the same path to citizenship as other legal immigrants, what criteria are we using to approve them, etc.)

[*Nately120*]

Illegals will come here as long as we incentivise their actions. The power lies in the people, yet we continue to petition the government to intervene.

[CJD]

(06-30-2021, 02:05 AM)BFritz21 Wrote: Aside from the fact that Kamala Harris went to the border where there's something like two-and-a-half less border crossings than the hot spots in Texas, how was she going to find the root causes in Texas?  Was she going to interview illegal immigrants?  Wouldn't she need to go into Mexico to find out that information?

Secondly, aren't the root causes known?  Drug cartels forcing people to join gangs, drugs, better economic opportunities, and things like that?

Thirdly, let's say she "finds out" that those are indeed the causes, what's she going to do about it?  Invade Mexico?  It's a pretty big country and I doubt it would be possible to defeat all of those gangs and drug cartels and how would she get a better grasp of the economic problems and come up with solutions from Texas?

Pretty sure she was just trying to beat Trump down there in another failure of the dumpster fire that is the current administration.

She already went to Mexico and Guatemala in early June to look into the root causes of the surge in migrants at the border. Even after that, right wingers kept asking why she refuses to go to the border... Going to the border won't actually fix anything, as Kamala rightly knew. There are plenty of people there already and the border isn't causing the situation, so why go there? Because it's an optics thing. 

"If the vice president tasked with helping to resolve the border situation doesn't go to the border, how could she possibly fix the problem?" Is presumably the question that people were asking. So she scheduled the visit, basically, to shut right wingers up.

Which is kind of funny since now you're saying the exact same thing she was implying by going to Mexico and Guatemala rather than the border. You agree with the "lefties" on something, Brad.

Also, the root causes aren't as known as you seem to think. Sure, gangs, drugs etc are driving people away from their countries, but how did those gangs and drugs take over to the extent that they did? Did it, perhaps, have something to do with American orchestrated coups in many Latin American countries that destabilized their governments and allowed corruption to take hold? Was it abject poverty caused by a lack of support from first world nations in the face of multiple weather disasters and climate change? Who's to say? These circumstances didn't just pop up out of thin air, after all.

[BmorePat87]

People apprehended the border are not a homogenous group. Treating them as such doesn't allow you to get to those root causes. Also, border crossings soared in 2019 too so it's hard to blame Biden's policies alone for this.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/03/15/migrant-apprehensions-at-u-s-mexico-border-are-surging-again/

Pew breaks down demographic differences between 2021 and 2019. The big thing to notice is that we have mostly single adult crossers in 2021 (nearly 70%) compared to mostly family crossers (nearly 65%) in 2019. The share of people coming from Mexico versus other Central American nations has risen as well.

There very well may be a belief by immigrants that Biden's policies are welcoming, causing more people to come now that the pandemic has been easing up, but it's important to remember that the Obama/Biden immigration policy was not friendly to undocumented immigrants, with record deportations and staffing in border patrol.

[*michaelsean*]

(06-30-2021, 08:56 AM)Nately120 Wrote: Drugs should be legal so people who choose to do them don't need criminals supplying them.  There is your root cause for drug cartels.

I always think about that, and does that include every drug?  Like we wouldn't need prescriptions for anything?

[*Nately120*]

(06-30-2021, 05:10 PM)michaelsean Wrote: I always think about that, and does that include every drug?  Like we wouldn't need prescriptions for anything?

Just legalizing weed alone would put a dent in the pocketbooks of the almighty alcohol, anti depressant, and pain-relief cartels.  I'm just saying recreational drugs are like booze and guns and when they are made illegal it opens the door for bad people to give us our fixes.

That's the problem with Americans and immigration.  We want our illegal drugs, we want our illegally cheap and powerless labor but we don't want criminals to be involved in our reception of our illegal vices.  We want all the groceries in one bag, but we don't want the bag to be heavy...as I've said before.

Whaddaya want?  Illegal stuff!
Whodoyawanna give it to you?  People who break the law to do so!
Whatelse doyawant?  No criminals in this country!

We're full o' crapola.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

As this thread is on Harris, and rather than start a new thread, I thought I'd drop this here.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/30/kamala-harris-office-dissent-497290

It seems Harris's incompetence and opportunism is being exposed even further in this high profile position.

Aides and allies said Flournoy, in an apparent effort to protect Harris, has instead created an insular environment where ideas are ignored or met with harsh dismissals and decisions are dragged out. Often, they said, she refuses to take responsibility for delicate issues and blames staffers for the negative results that ensue.

and

“People are thrown under the bus from the very top, there are short fuses and it’s an abusive environment,” said another person with direct knowledge of how Harris’ office is run. “It’s not a healthy environment and people often feel mistreated. It’s not a place where people feel supported but a place where people feel treated like s---.”

and

But for some of the people who know Harris best, it’s become an all-too-familiar pattern for a politician who has churned through several iterations of staff on her rise and took office with a team almost entirely new to her.

One of the hallmarks of a shit leader is blaming their subordinates for their deficiencies. Another is not being able to hold on to a core cadre of experienced staff. It appears that the Dem primary voters knew what they were doing when they kicked this incompetent, awful, person to the curb so early. I suppose we should thank Biden for this, Harris is being exposed and, hopefully, her career is dead after her stint as VP.

[CKwi88]

Root causes? How about systemic interference in democratic elections throughout Latin and South America? Habitual backing of coup d'etats to depose democratically elected heads of states in favor of authoritarian dictators? Decades of economic interference directly contributing to the poverty in many of the countries people are fleeing from?

[BigPapaKain]

(06-30-2021, 10:18 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: As this thread is on Harris, and rather than start a new thread, I thought I'd drop this here.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/30/kamala-harris-office-dissent-497290

It seems Harris's incompetence and opportunism is being exposed even further in this high profile position.

Aides and allies said Flournoy, in an apparent effort to protect Harris, has instead created an insular environment where ideas are ignored or met with harsh dismissals and decisions are dragged out. Often, they said, she refuses to take responsibility for delicate issues and blames staffers for the negative results that ensue.

and

“People are thrown under the bus from the very top, there are short fuses and it’s an abusive environment,” said another person with direct knowledge of how Harris’ office is run. “It’s not a healthy environment and people often feel mistreated. It’s not a place where people feel supported but a place where people feel treated like s---.”

and

But for some of the people who know Harris best, it’s become an all-too-familiar pattern for a politician who has churned through several iterations of staff on her rise and took office with a team almost entirely new to her.

One of the hallmarks of a shit leader is blaming their subordinates for their deficiencies.  Another is not being able to hold on to a core cadre of experienced staff.  It appears that the Dem primary voters knew what they were doing when they kicked this incompetent, awful, person to the curb so early.  I suppose we should thank Biden for this, Harris is being exposed and, hopefully, her career is dead after her stint as VP.

None of this comes as a surprise. She was a shit person before she became VP. She'll be a shit person well after being VP. The only endearing thing she's ever done was give Pence those hilarious side eyed looks during the VP debate, and even then it was only because (in my experience at least) those looks preceded someone throwing hands and - I don't know about you - I'd ***** LOVE to see Harris v. Pence in a boxing ring.

[CJD]

(06-30-2021, 10:18 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: As this thread is on Harris, and rather than start a new thread, I thought I'd drop this here.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/30/kamala-harris-office-dissent-497290

It seems Harris's incompetence and opportunism is being exposed even further in this high profile position.

Aides and allies said Flournoy, in an apparent effort to protect Harris, has instead created an insular environment where ideas are ignored or met with harsh dismissals and decisions are dragged out. Often, they said, she refuses to take responsibility for delicate issues and blames staffers for the negative results that ensue.

and

“People are thrown under the bus from the very top, there are short fuses and it’s an abusive environment,” said another person with direct knowledge of how Harris’ office is run. “It’s not a healthy environment and people often feel mistreated. It’s not a place where people feel supported but a place where people feel treated like s---.”

and

But for some of the people who know Harris best, it’s become an all-too-familiar pattern for a politician who has churned through several iterations of staff on her rise and took office with a team almost entirely new to her.

One of the hallmarks of a shit leader is blaming their subordinates for their deficiencies.  Another is not being able to hold on to a core cadre of experienced staff.  It appears that the Dem primary voters knew what they were doing when they kicked this incompetent, awful, person to the curb so early.  I suppose we should thank Biden for this, Harris is being exposed and, hopefully, her career is dead after her stint as VP.

This is what happens when you pick your VP based on optics.

I hope Biden and Harris never run for anything ever again.

There are much, much better options than either of them for any role they may want within the Democratic Party.

[*Nately120*]

(07-01-2021, 07:32 AM)BigPapaKain Wrote: None of this comes as a surprise. She was a shit person before she became VP. She'll be a shit person well after being VP. The only endearing thing she's ever done was give Pence those hilarious side eyed looks during the VP debate, and even then it was only because (in my experience at least) those looks preceded someone throwing hands and - I don't know about you - I'd ***** LOVE to see Harris v. Pence in a boxing ring.

Democrats running an obstinate woman in 2024 would open the door for 78 year old Trump to take over again.  I'd bet on Trump/Lindell to beat her. 

[NATI BENGALS]

Everybody keeps talking about how great we made America again and our open border policy. Who wouldn't want to immigrate here?

[*michaelsean*]

(07-01-2021, 09:20 AM)Nately120 Wrote: Democrats running an obstinate woman in 2024 would open the door for 78 year old Trump to take over again.  I'd bet on Trump/Lindell to beat her. 

Oh Lord.    Dude stuffs a pillow case with leftover couch filling or something and convinces half the country he invented something unique.  

[*Nately120*]

(07-01-2021, 11:02 AM)michaelsean Wrote: Oh Lord.    Dude stuffs a pillow case with leftover couch filling or something and convinces half the country he invented something unique.  

Well now he's peddling ABSOLUTE PROOF.