gc: “if they enter…
gc: “if they enter the United States illegally they ARE trespassing on the property of US citizens”
What property are they trespassing on? If I own a plot of land adjacent to the border and invite immigrants to cross it (for a small fee) to safely enter the United States, do you claim that the government still has a right to attack them as “trespassers”? Against whom? Clearly not against me, since I invited them. Against “property collectively owned by the citizens of the United States”? Where did they cross onto that? At the border? The border is a dimensionless line, not a plot of land that anyone can own, either individually or collectively.
gc: “What don’t you get? Whether the land adjoining the border is privately or publicly owned, it is ILLEGAL for aliens to cross over without getting permission from the US government.”
I’m well aware of the state of immigration law. What we’re arguing about is whether or not it ought to be illegal. That is: whether or not the government has any right to attack people for trying to move across the border without showing their papers, whether or not they have trespassed on anyone’s land and whether or not they have endangered anyone’s person or property. I emphasize the “whether or not” because you continue to say things like this:
“Your use of the adjective “peaceful” is an inversion of reality. This flow of migrants destroys private property in their wake. They use the land as a toilet. They hijack cars and kill cattle. [… home intrusion, robbery, rape, murder, etc. …] You are totally out of touch with the reality of the situation – it is NOT a “peaceful” migration and I’d appreciate it if you stop using that misleading adjective.”
Let’s try this once again.
You know perfectly well that a substantial number of the abuses that you cite are the direct result of immigration prohibition. People don’t sneak through ranches or fear to stop at a restaurant to go to the bathroom or cut fences or hire violent and dangerous coyotes to smuggle them through the desert if there are clean, safe highways into metropolitan areas that they can take instead. They don’t do these things because they are louts; they do them because they have to sneak around to avoid men with guns and clubs who will attack them if they find them. You could stop the overwhelming majority of these problems tomorrow by abolishing immigration restrictions.
You know this perfectly well, but you don’t care—because what you are defending is a law that uses force to stop immigrants whether or not they have done any of these things. You propose to use violence against undocumented immigrants whether they are peaceful or violent, whether they commit trespassing or not, whether or not they defecate on anyone’s lawn, whether or not they endanger anyone’s life, health, or property. There are already laws on the books, completely independent of immigration policy, against trespassing, vandalism, theft, robbery, carjacking, rape, murder, et cetera. Laws that we are not arguing about. It’s the case of peaceful immigrants that we disagree over. That is why I keep using that adjective, and that is why your continued sensationalist red herrings are wearing more and more thin every time you trot them out.
Anticopyright.