68% of ______ __________ do not believe U.S. has responsibility to accept refugees

I can understand the desire to complain about people who work harder than folks who sit behind a keyboard and complain about illegals.

Their argument holds no water. Illegals contribute far more to this country than they are willing to admit. They are a net positive and improve our lives. They commit less crime, work hard, add to the GDP, pay more tax than used services, and increase our quality of life.

Why would you be so adamantly opposed to something that was a net good while ignoring the real problems this country faces????

There's only one reason that explains it. And it's not the color of their insides.

 

You should really go read more history. I have no time for people who argue their feelings.

 

offering targeted economic assistance and advising, trade deals, and the sort is not policing... trying to help all the needy is world wide and falls into the realm of lunacy. Where is the limit?

I am open to refugee assistance if there is a small cap and reasonable ways to determine that. But who decides?

 

Defining a limit/cap based on resources that are available is sensible.

The question, then, is what is a reasonable cap given the vast space and wealth the US has relative to other countries in this hemisphere? We have a political process for arriving at answers to questions like this.

 

Why not look at it from what benefits the country? We have more jobs than people to fill them and adding more people lifts the GDP and the standard of living of the average American.

 

Can’t wait for the raids on Sunday!!!!!!!

 

Projection

Ad Hominem Fallacy

 

This is just the adult form of "I know you are but what am I"

Carry on.

 

I'd to think country and borders were more of a thing/concept than abortions and transgender which weren't even medically possible the way they are today than when it was written.

 

Doing OT God's Work.

One tribe.

One bloodline.

Oppress the rest.

 

I've just skimmed this thread and like so much of what is going on it does disturb me. As a non-Christian I'm not going to claim definitive knowledge of what is in or how the Bible should be interpreted and listening to many Christians it does appear that many Christians don't agree on that either. From what I do know about the Bible and what has been told to me from Christians is that Jesus taught to love and care for the stranger and that the Old Testament Jewish people were refugees themselves fleeing wars, slavery and natural disasters themselves. Now some might quibble about the definitions of national boundaries and how they related from Biblical times to our current understanding but it is clear that the people of the old Testament were a displaced people who had been driven / taken from their homelands.

Besides the issues of whether refugees as we think of them existed in Biblical times the Bible does teach the Golden Rule. While we consider us and our country to be largely invulnerable to the chaos and hardship from where most refugees flee from we need to consider that doesn't mean we are immune from something that could make us refugees too. While politically we are more stable and economically vastly more powerful than countries like Syria, Guatemala, and Myanmar that doesn't mean we aren't affected by natural disasters. We've already seen with Katrina and wildfires that a massive disaster can drive many Americans from their homes and keep them from returning for years, if ever. While these people don't qualify as refugees in regard to fleeing across national borders they certainly qualify as "internally displaced people" a definition to define refugees who are still in their home countries but driven out of their home localities. For a place like Houston there was some resentment of people fleeing Katrina yet given that Houston itself is very disaster prone there is the very real possibility of much of Houston being rendered uninhabitable how should displaced Houstonians expect to be treated? Under the principle of the Golden Rule shouldn't we consider that we have a responsibility to refugees in case we or our descendants become refugees ourselves?

The troubling aspect though of debates like these are the view that refugees are only a burden and are sucking up our resources at the expense of Americans. That is ignoring the fact that the vast majority of refugees are willing and eager to work and contribute to this economy. If I can site my own experiences. Where I live in Minneapolis is one of the largest concentrations of Somalis in the US who came here as refugees. What I've seen of them is that they are starting businesses, getting educated, and getting involved in the community. I'm represented on the City Council and in the US House of Representatives by a Somali and while I might not agree with all of their political views have not felt they haven't done their duties. There is a mosque a block away from me but other than parking issues during prayer times have never felt imposed on by them. I've never felt any pressure to convert to Islam or follow Sharia law. In fact the neighborhood bars are thriving and it's not unusual to run into Somalis themselves drinking at some of the neighborhood establishments. In addition to the Somalis Minnesota has one of the largest population of Hmong who fled and Laos and Vietnam during the Vietnam war. Knowing, working with, including some of as my architecture clients they too are adapting too and contributing. While most of the first generation of them came here as illiterate farmers who lived in remote villages with no plumbing or electricity nearly all of the younger generation speak English and they too are getting educated starting businesses, and getting involved in their communities.

Anyway you don't need my own experiences to look at how refugees rather than being a burden on this country have helped to build this country. In the 19th Century Ireland was suffering under the potato famine, religious strife and repression under the British. Many Irish fled to this country in the infamous Coffin Ships. These people were refugees in the exact same sense that Syrians and Guatamalans are refugees now. People being driven across national boundaries. Most of them were very poor uneducated farmers. Then like now many Americans said we had no responsibility to Celtic refugees and that they were going to be a burden. There was more outright hostility to them from political leaders and many others. Yet few would today would argue that without the contributions of those millions of Celtic refugees this country wouldn't be the great country that it is now. It is unfortunate that many of those who are descended from those Celtic refugees now feel the same way towards those risking "coffin ships" of their own to come here as the No Nothings..

 

Big difference betweeen refugee and economic migrant breaking the law. The problem is these have been falsely conflated. Most hostility is against people being called refugees who are actually just economic migrants. The celtic ancestors you speak of largely immigrated legally. The ones that do it today from ireland illegally should be sent home.

 

First, in the OT, there were refugees all the time because of famines and war. That is probably why there is so much emphasis on caring for the foreigner and sojourner -- because it came up a lot. Jacob's family goes to Egypt in the first place because of famine. Israel wandered in the desert for 40 years as refugees from Egypt (these refugees of course go on to kill a lot of people and conquer Palestine). Second, the Bible also laid out how gentiles could be circumcised and accepted into their community (a theocratic naturalization process, I suppose). In Jesus' own time, the Samaritans were foreign and shunned by Jews (though they were both subject to the Roman empire) and Jesus calls them neighbor in the story of the good Samaritan. And at this time, there were Roman citizens who get treated much better than the occupied Jews, including Jesus (Paul and Silas were citizens and got substantial protection from suppression because of it). The known world at the time was occupied by Rome, so they wouldn't have so many refugees from foreign parts, but they did have internally displaced people, as Jesus himself was internally displaced. So not only do I think the ideas of foreigners, refugees, and citizens were very much a concept at the time, I also think the teaching on what a believer is to do is pretty plain.

As generally happens with polls, it is up to respondents to understand "responsibility" the way they want to understand it.

I can agree the concepts of refugee and migrant have been horribly conflated. The right-wing hostility is generated by an opposition to economic migrants. The left-wing antipathy toward immigration control is concealed behind concern for legit refugees. But both sides conflate the two ideas to extend the legitimate arguments regarding one population to effect policy toward the other. The right is fine with painting real refugees as mere economic migrants and denying them the protections we have promised in treaty and in law. The left is fine with painting real economic migrants as refugees as a loophole in immigration control. Meanwhile, businesses continue to run hog-wild flauting labor law to exploit illegals for their labor. There is still no political force that is really serious about fixing the legislative framework. You're mistaken if you think Trump is trying to fix anything by denying real refugees asylum while continuing to look the other way while businesses (including his own!) continue to drive the demand for economic migrants.

 

Yes

 

Are you saying this from some sort of empirical data regarding crime or educational attainment or income? Or is this something you just pulled out of your ass because it sounds good in your premise?

 

I was looking up the origin of the word refugee and found that it originate very specifically to French Protestants who left France for fear of religious precaution, and that it has three Latin roots. One of which is fugitive.




FUGITIVE

fu'-ji-tiv (paliT, from palaT, "to escape"; na`, from nua`, "to waver"; nophel, from naphal, "to fall"; bariach, beriach and mibhrach, from barach, "to flee"):

One who flees from danger (Isaiah 15:5; Ezekiel 17:21); escapes from bondage (2 Maccabees 8:35 (as adjective)); deserts from duty (Judges 12:4; 2 Kings 25:11 the King James Version; compare Judith 16:12the King James Version), or wanders aimlessly (Genesis 4:12,14).

 

Related. Trump follow up with trying to ban asylum.

https://apnews.com/c69a92dd9bf147eaa0b73477f8963067

Under the rules, migrants who pass through another country on their way to the U.S. will be ineligible for asylum. Most of the immigrants arriving at the border this year pass through Mexico — including Central Americans, Africans, Cubans and Haitians. That makes it all but impossible for them to get asylum. The rule also applies to children who have crossed the border alone.

The policy went into effect Tuesday but drew two swift lawsuits from immigrant advocacy groups in federal courts, one in San Francisco and one in Washington, D.C.

“This is the Trump administration’s most extreme run at an asylum ban yet,” said Lee Gelernt of the American Civil Liberties Union, an attorney on the San Francisco lawsuit. “It clearly violates domestic and international law and cannot stand.”