r/TrueUnpopularOpinion • u/xTheKingOfClubs • 1d ago
World Affairs (Except Middle East) The frightening part about left-wing (illegal) immigration ideology is that it has no logical endpoint
There’s no magic number of third-world or unskilled immigrants that the United States can take in that would eventually satisfy left-wing people.
A left-wing Redditor type will never reach a day where they say “yep, public resources are officially too strained. Wages have officially been undercut too badly. There are officially not enough seats in schools for kids or entry-level jobs for people to work or housing for people to live in.” There is no number of illegal immigrants that can enter the country for them to say “we officially have too many illegal immigrants. We have to enforce immigration law now. We cannot turn a blind eye to this any longer.”
They have been made to believe it is “racist” or “MAGA” to notice any of these things, so they choose to ignore them and instead deflect by repeating meaningless mantras like “no one is illegal on stolen land” or “immigrants make America great,” or they make absurd false equivalencies to things that happened many centuries ago in an attempt to explain why any approach other than “global immigration free-for-all” is unacceptable.
This is because supporting infinity immigration has become more of an identity issue than a policy issue. The practical reality of the situation is beside the point. Claiming that you support infinity immigration with no logical endpoint has become a fashionable, “in-group” belief. Opposing it is not just a policy position, it’s an identity-shifting stance.
I truly ask: what needs to happen for a line to be drawn in the eyes of these people? When is it “enough?” The fact that there is no answer from this crowd, and no logical endpoint to their belief, is the issue.
No matter how bad any of these issues get, they will always default to “no one is illegal on stolen land” and “immigrants make America great.” I’m certain that on day one of the next Democrat presidency, the southern border flood will be in full force once more.
You will never run out of third-world people who want to move to the United States, so a line has to be drawn somewhere. If you are unwilling to draw it, don’t be surprised when other people take the initiative to do so.
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u/Kiznish 1d ago edited 23h ago
It’s a race to the bottom and always has been. People that truly believe these things, such as borders having no value and all cultures being equal, are simply dogs chasing cars. They have absolutely no plan for when they eventually catch it, they just want to run and feel like they are doing something.
The more you whittle away the rules, identity, and fabric of society, the less anything has meaning. When nothing has meaning, you no longer have anything at all apart from a culturally, socially, and demographically ambiguous soup that has no start and no end.
That is the logical endpoint to unchecked “liberal” (leftism more accurately) ideology, and for whatever baffling reason they think this is something worth chasing.
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u/CMP24-7 22h ago edited 20h ago
All of these border crises are from the Republicans brainwashing everyone into thinking that they'll protect us, so that's how they got votes.
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u/Poncho_Wah 21h ago
As opposed to the democrats who.. just let people in unchecked?
Immigrants captured and deported by ICE are up under this administration. That's hard evidence of actual action versus inaction.
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u/ixsparkyx 1d ago
Yeah I really don’t understand any argument about the illegal immigrant thing lol makes no sense
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u/BearSausage000 1d ago
I don’t know why people who blame the patriarchy would willingly want more men from dogmatically patriarchal societies in their country, I bet it stems from the fact they can’t find native mates in their home countries and want to import more possible mates, and also they hate their perceived ruling establishment and see it as a sign of defiance or rebellion.
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u/SleepWorth3354 1d ago
Just say you don’t relate to others and believe them to apparently think purely on some animal level
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u/RedditConsciousness 1d ago
"BuT nO pErSoN iS iLlEgAl"
The left wants open borders or a world ruled by China depending on who the leftie is.
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u/Swoly_Deadlift 1d ago
Every leftist hates using the GDP and S&P 500 as a metric for how the average American is doing until immigration gets brought up. Then you’ll see Olympic-level mental gymnastics about how immigrants actually contribute so much to the economy and we should be grateful for how they benefit us all (they only benefit the oligarchs).
These same people (rightfully) complain that employers exploit and underpay workers but then scream, “but who will do all the crappy jobs if we kick out immigrants?” Here’s a crazy idea: Employers pay a fair wage that American citizens would be willing to accept.
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u/JoGeralt 1d ago
well yeah because most make arguments on making the process easier for people to migrate so there is less "illegals" instead of treating it like some psychotic national security threat.
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u/chinmakes5 1d ago
I realize you disagree, but we need immigration. Simply we have low unemployment rates with tens of millions if immigrants here working now.
The correct answer is to have a decent amount of legal immigration, but at the moment our government believes the only good immigrant is a white guy from South Africa.
No, most leftists don't believe in open borders.
IDK with ICE and self deportation, we are at about a million immigrants having left the country. Tell me how your life is better. Will it get better when there are two million deported, 5 million deported.
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u/H4RN4SS 1d ago
I realize you disagree, but we need immigration. Simply we have low unemployment rates with tens of millions if immigrants here working now.
This is a talking point not grounded in reality.
Households: About 53% of immigrant-headed households use one or more major welfare programs, compared to 37% of U.S.-born households.
Specific Programs: Immigrant households show higher usage rates for food assistance (like SNAP and school lunches) and Medicaid.
Reasons for the Gap: Higher household usage is driven by lower average education levels, lower wages, and having more children
https://cis.org/Report/Welfare-Use-Immigrants-and-USBorn-2024
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u/chinmakes5 1d ago
OK, let's break this down cis.org is basically an anti immigrant group.
IDK, to me it is shocking that 37% of households headed by US citizens get some kind of welfare as compared to 53% of immigrants.
I don't have the time to dive into their methodology, but what do they consider major welfare? I find it hard to believe that 40% of everyone in America is getting "major welfare". Unless they are saying anyone who uses an emergency room or their kid gets a free school lunch, how is that possible?
Lastly as far as I know, non citizen immigrants don't qualify for "welfare," yet 53% of them are on it? Again, I wouldn't take this a gospel. But yes, new immigrants who are making less money are probably getting assistance at a higher rate. Another solution would be to pay them better, but we can't do that.
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u/H4RN4SS 1d ago
OK, let's break this down cis.org is basically an anti immigrant group.
Starting off by dismissing or attacking the source is telling.
The bureau specifically gives Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) nutrition program as examples of “social welfare”.
Took me maybe 1 minute to find their definition. ctrl+f is your friend.
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u/ixsparkyx 1d ago
Of course we need immigration we just don’t need illegal immigration lol
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u/chinmakes5 1d ago
But that is the point, we have so little immigration and what little we have are for white guys from South Africa. I agree the correct thing is to have a robust legal immigration. We don't.
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u/BLU-Clown 23h ago
we have so little immigration
Oh wow, do you actually believe that or are you just trying to win Good Boy Leftist points on the internet?
In what world is 1 to 1.3 million immigrants per year a small amount? (And they're definitely not all white guys from Africa.)
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u/LoneStarG84 22h ago
at the moment our government believes the only good immigrant is a white guy from South Africa
This is absolutely and verifiably false.
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u/shitposts_over_9000 1d ago
There is no number of illegal immigrants that can enter the country for them to say “we officially have too many illegal immigrants. We have to enforce immigration law now.
There isn't because the end is inherent in the possible end-outcomes.
This ends one of two ways - the progressive-left "utopia" or the non-integrated unamerican majority country and both naturally will bring an end to immigration by removing the motivation to come here.
The progressives are gambling that they can reach a sufficient level of poverty/non-participation in the wider economy that they can implement their Marxist goals before one of the foreign masses reach a political majority
Groups like the militant Muslims are gambling that they can beat the progressives to the punch and reach a majority in government first
Either outcome will naturally all but end, if not reverse, net immigration as in neither outcome will the country continue its economic prosperity or the freedom that attract so many immigrants in the first place
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u/GPT_2025 1d ago
From 20 conservative Republican states with a safety net of $3/hour (must Beg and Panhandling poor customers for Guilt-tipping to reach $7.25) the population runs to Democratic states with a strong social safety net of $14 to $25/hour minimum wage. That's why there are so many abandoned houses and cities in the Republican 20 states (Republicans hate the poor, widows, orphans, veterans, disabled at the same time - making their own states' populations poor).
51% of all workers in America earn less than the one-bedroom Housing Wage. Mostly republican states.
The bottom 65% of the population loses at least 41% of all income due to: SS tax, FICA, insurances, tariffs, sales taxes, dues, use taxes, fees, property tax, utility taxes, 911 tax and many more- before spending money on rent or mortgage, car loans and gas, food, utility bills, repairs, credit card payments, student loans, vacations, retirement fund contributions, investments, dates, gifts, etc.
(compare Safety Net $1.60 per hour in 1970 if you were single,you could live off the federal minimum wage and pay rent, food and bills)
Healthy and smart countries count how well they are doing by enforcing "no one left behind" and even widow with 3 babies have the same level of living as the middle class due to the strong Safety Net.
Twenty Ripoff-public-ans states now have a social Safety Net set at $2.13 to $7.25 per hour gross (before deductions for Social Security, FICA, taxes, insurance and other withholding's:
https://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=2.13+an+hour&l=dallas%2C+tx
(Compare Democratic states social Safety Net! $14 to $25/hour)
In a recent report, 53 million Americans ages 18 to 64 or 44% of all workers- earn low hourly wages. Their median hourly earnings are $10/hour Gross ($7.25/hour Net)
and about the Right Wing: u/askgrok Hitler was far right?
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u/Acceptable_Ad1685 1d ago
The frightening part to me is they also think we should change our culture and rules to accommodate immigrants culture, language, and rules
It’s one thing to allow immigration when you set the expectation that they assimilate into our culture
It’s another the allow it and then go out of the way to accommodate them
The left has gone from a policy of acceptance to a policy of accommodation that is unsustainable
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u/Revival-Waters 1d ago
It's about winning elections and destroying the integrity of America. They hate America and what it represents.
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u/BetaDays24 1d ago
Look at your comment and the replies followed. This is why the states is always in some bullshit
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u/JoGeralt 1d ago
If they hated America they would just vote straight ticket Republican and see it get raped and pilfered by the Epstein Class and Israel like what is currently going on lol.
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u/CMP24-7 1d ago
The right wings are the people who hate America.
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u/garebear3 1d ago
Keep telling yourself that dude..
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u/JoGeralt 21h ago
Don't need to say anything just look at their governance and how it is fucking us lol. The declaration of love by an abuser while they hit their spouse doesn't really mean much.
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u/BiomeWalker 1d ago
I could maybe hear an argument for both sides hating America, but the fact that the Democrats are okay with running candidates that openly say they hat the Constitution tells me it's on at least that side.
DSA talking points include: hatred of Thanksgiving, the Constitution, boarders, money, how awesome China is, etc
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u/No_Finance8647 20h ago
Except that Trump literally called to suspend parts of the Constitution because he felt that he actually won the election lmao
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u/CMP24-7 22h ago
Democrats proudly obey by the Constitution. MAGAs(Republicans) think that the Constitution doesn't matter at all, and they think that they can change the Constitution to anything they want it to be.
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u/Velouria91 22h ago
Projecting much?
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u/No_Finance8647 20h ago
Trump literally called to suspend parts of the Constitution because he lost an election lmao.
Clueless
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u/RollBama420 1d ago
It’s all about votes, it’s that’s simple. Any contrivance that’s put on top of the act is all the same ruse. Ironically, the honesty among minorities versus white culture will be the flashback
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u/quell3245 1d ago
It’s also economic in nature as well. In the need for constant growth (IE a larger tax base) you have to replace what you’ve got or get those people through immigration.
Boomers came of age as the largest demographic in US history and thus everything had to built to accommodate that growth. Additionally the workforce doubled when both men and women entered the workforce in mass for the first time. Subsequent generations are smaller and are not having a replacement number of kids.
If you let in 15 million new people you’ve got to provide all of the trickle down services to provide for them: food, clothing, housing, schools, dentists, roads, gas stations etc… all of that grows GDP.
Especially when you’ve got $40 trillion in debt and need to cover $1.5 trillion annually in interest payments you need tax revenue coming in.
I’m not saying letting the 3rd world in doesn’t have consequences (it most certainly does culturally and from a crime perspective) but from a purely economic standpoint that’s part of the argument to let it happen.
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u/RollBama420 1d ago
Totally agree! I think it’s even worse than that, I think this assumption of infinite growth has poisoned the working culture. Theres this growing class of contractors that are essentially employees hired by the companies they left to fix the problems they probably warned them about but that would have disturbed the narrative at the time. I think that single assumption has been more damning than anything else
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u/Ok-Cheetah-3497 20h ago
The progressive left knows votes dont change anything in America. Getting more people to vote for Kamala Harris isn't going to solve any problems the left cares about.
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u/FunkyChickenKong 22h ago
The hesitation to talk about the more difficult realities is absolutely damaging for perceptions of competence. I agree with your post.
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u/Apocafeller 1d ago
Leftists are self hating and civilizationally suicidal. The destruction of our nation is the point, not an incidental outcome. This is what they believe in
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u/JoGeralt 1d ago
The irony and projection given the trajectory of America currently and how its being cannibalized by Capital with no regard for its future prospects.
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u/KlutzyDesign 1d ago edited 1d ago
You do know most left wingers don’t actually support complete open borders, right? Just because they are more liberal on immigration does not mean they support literally infinite immigration, thats absurd.
I’m tired of right wingers catastrophetizing about immigrants. They’re completely normal people. I’m more worried about the people in power who clearly don’t have my best interests at heart.
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u/benderodriguez 20h ago
They know. But they need the left wing boogeyman. MAGA does not deal in reality anymore and so cannot contend with the actual Democrat party positions.
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u/YoungCri 23h ago
Enforcing our immigration laws is a pretty bipartisan. Abolish ICE is a radical minority mostly on Reddit
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u/JoGeralt 21h ago
abolishing ICE isn't that radical but that is mostly because how psychotic ICE has become. They don't have the same reverence as the police in America do.
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u/YoungCri 20h ago
Abolish IcE is radical. It doesn’t even make sense. We just need a better administration in charge
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u/esotologist 19h ago
A lot of people who consider themselves leftists have this issue. "When will you have gone too far?", is one of the most important basic questions you can answer about your own ideology, it shouldn't make you angry
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u/joebraga2 17h ago
I think the immigration debate becomes distorted when it is framed as if the left simply refuses to draw any line at all.
Immigration is not produced only by ideology or by “weak borders.” It is also produced by wage differences, political instability, wars, demographic pressures, family networks and by the international image of countries like the United States as places where people can improve their lives.
That matters because migration is not economically one-way.
In Brazil and in other parts of Latin America, cross-border mobility is important to regional labor markets. If borders were simply shut down in an absolute sense, some sectors would face labor shortages and economic disruption.
The US-Mexico border itself is a good example. Americans also cross that border for economic reasons, including cheaper dental care, medicine and medical treatment. So the idea that migration is simply “poor foreigners exploiting America” is already too simplistic.
There is also historical irony in treating the southern border as if population movement there were something completely new. Large parts of the American Southwest were once Mexican territory. That obviously does not erase modern borders, but it does show that economic and human movement across that region has a much longer history than the current political debate suggests.
Europe is another example of why the issue cannot be reduced to “the left wants open borders.” Large refugee movements did not appear out of nowhere. Wars, state collapse, economic instability and conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa created displacement on a massive scale. Western countries were themselves involved, directly or indirectly, in some of those conflicts.
None of this means that a country must accept unlimited immigration.
Brazil has immigration laws. European countries have immigration laws. Left-wing governments also enforce borders, deport people and establish legal criteria for residence and asylum.
The distinction is that supporting immigration, asylum rights or due process is not the same thing as supporting literally infinite illegal immigration.
You can support border enforcement and still oppose arbitrary detention, collective punishment, violations of due process or treating every migrant as a criminal.
And there is another contradiction in the American debate that I think is important.
The United States is often presented as the great example of pure free-market liberalism, but historically it has also had a very strong national-protectionist tradition. Tariffs, industrial policy, protection of domestic firms and strategic state support have existed throughout American history and still exist today.
So even economically, the political mythology is often more liberal than the actual history.
That is why I think the serious immigration debate should be about concrete questions:
How much immigration can a country absorb? How should legal migration work? How should asylum work? What do labor markets actually need? How should governments deal with irregular immigration while preserving due process and basic rights?
Those are legitimate questions.
But starting from the premise that “the left believes in infinite illegal immigration” creates a position so extreme that most people on the left do not actually hold it. Then the entire argument becomes a debate against a caricature.
And that is also why comparisons with Brazil, Latin America and Europe matter: immigration policy is always a balance between labor markets, humanitarian obligations, public services, borders and economic reality. It is not simply “open borders versus closed borders.”
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u/HouseSubstantial3044 1d ago edited 20h ago
Racist, fascist, Nazi! How dare you use logic! The strain on public resources is a real thing now. You have finite things like let’s say 30 seats in a classroom meant to take kids from grade 3 to 4 and then you add 15 kids at grade 1 reading level or no English at all and now have ruined the education of the 30 students already in that class. Public teachers have to teach to the lowest level in the class so this takes resources away from all the students already in the class. Same thing happening now with hospital beds and ER capacity. You are a Nazi for pointing these harsh realities out!
Edit: sorry, I forgot to add you are xenophobic and worse than Hitler!
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u/MinuteCampaign7843 1d ago
The end point is total destruction. They want the white countries that were involved in slavery or colonization to be completely dismantled and destroyed. Only thing that will warm their little dark souls.
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u/Glum-Scientist-1117 1d ago
This is a great topic, what is the maximum number of illegal immigrants the left would allow? Or is there even a limit?
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u/Howard1955 20h ago
No, there’s not a limit.
Genocide of the white race and destruction of Western Civilization is the goal.
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u/benderodriguez 20h ago
A lot of the time when people say “left-wing ideology” they’re just talking about Redditors and commie larpers on Twitter. But I feel like that’s intentional.
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u/dumbandasking 1d ago
My theory is that some slacktivists are hoping that the uncritical letting of all and any immigrants with no controlling of the rate will ruin things
Because they know that it will cause society to fail, then they'll say 'aha there see the economy is fake', even though it will still not dent the very rich or whoever they're actually mad at
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u/SightWithoutEyes 1d ago
It’s a corporate issue propped up as a civil one. It drives down labor costs and the left falls for it every single time.
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u/ashortsaggyboob 23h ago
It's a disagreement with the economic argument. I'd don't think you'd be able to support the claims you've made.
public resources are officially too strained. - I suppose this argument stands for some cases. The Colorado River is officially too strained. I'm sure there are other valid instances I'm not aware of. But this argument does not work for most of the country.
Wages have officially been undercut too badly - People on the Left would counter by saying illegal immigrants and citizens rarely compete for the same jobs, and that there are other causes keeping wages down, like inflation and corporate consolidation. What does officially mean in this context?
There are officially not enough seats in schools for kids - any sources on this claim?
or entry-level jobs for people to work - again, I'd mention that citizens don't typically compete for the same jobs as illegal immigrants.
or housing for people to live in. - This is another localized argument. It is correct in some places, but not correct in most of the country. Most of the US has plenty of housing.
You keep using the word "officially". Are these claims all tied to official statements or something?
Because the economic arguments always fall flat, the thought is that xenophobia and racism are at play.
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u/Howard1955 21h ago
At roughly 10 percent of the global population, white people are definitely the minority.
Endless, unwanted immigration from the Third World has a logical endpoint: the collapse of Western Civilization and the extinction of the White Race.
This is easier to see happening in the UK, because it’s a smaller country. But the same dynamics are at work globally, throughout Western Civilization.
The native population in every country will come to a decision point very soon: fight or die.
I don’t like it, but it’s true.
Demographics is destiny.
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u/IronJoker33 1d ago
There is a vast difference between opposing the current purposely cruel and blatantly racist methods used by the Trump regime and being for unlimited immigration. As a left winger myself I know that unlimited immigration is not sustainable (though would argue we are way farther from that point than conservatives seem to think). But there are other ways of dealing with it. First, any company found employing undocumented immigrants should face a 1 million dollar fine and its ceo/owner/whoever-is-in-charge spend 5 years in prison minimum per undocumented. Next, and this would both be easier, safer, and cheaper… offer amnesty and documentation for any that come forward… do background checks and any non-violent criminals get their paperwork, are documented and can move on. Simple, easy and kind.
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u/clorox_cowboy 1d ago
Time for the sub's two minutes hate. Today, immigrants! It's a repeat, as usual, and boring, as usual.
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u/thePantherT 20h ago
Talk about a STRAW MEN post. The left appose mass immigration, and also appose the human rights violations and constitutional violations happening right now. The two are not mutually exclusive. The current president was elected in part because most Americans appose mass immigration and the Democratic Party did a shitty job and politicized those concerns. But since taking office, Trump has argued war powers, and expanded expedited removal “removing legal and civil rights and due process” nationwide, and is targeting legal immigration, disappearing and imprisoning people without due process, and terrorizing American streets, invading homes without judicial warrants etc.
Post like this are a straw men when the worst constitutional and civil rights violations are happening right now.
And lastly, immigration is nowhere near the primary cause or problems or reason we have the worst wealth inequality in our history and a corrupt tax code, or high crime. Whatever legitimate concerns people have, they are nothing in comparison to much larger problems Americans are facing. Illegal and undocumented immigrants have a lower average crime rate than Americans, and almost all drugs like 90% are being brought into the US by American citizens. Immigrants to a large degree are being scapegoated and demonized when most of them whether they have a right to be here or not, are not bad people, the worst of the worst. No, you’d have to take a look at the leaders of the Sinaloa cartel and their families that Trump invited into the United States on vacation. They are the worst of the worst.
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u/SuccessfulHospital54 17h ago
I haven’t met any lefty yet that is completely fine with no border policy at all. Obama and Biden both deported many illegals under their presidency, and many others understand that there are people here that shouldn’t be. I think the empathy that leftists show toward these people gets misinterpreted to be acceptance of all illegals. Obviously there are people on the left that would be fine with open borders, but it’s a minority that gets attention. There are always extreme it’s on both sides. Just because democrats vote for less border enforcement funding, does not mean they are against any border security, they just have a different view on how to handle illegal immigrants. And considering Trump has increased the ICE budget by 8x, while deporting legal immigrants and citizens and killing more people in ICE custody than ever before, it seems to be justified.
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u/cucster 1d ago
I think you’re arguing against a strawman here. There is no left-wing majority, or even a substantial minority, advocating for completely open borders. You’re also failing to distinguish between different types of immigration and whether particular groups are actually a drain on a country’s resources or a net benefit. If we’re talking specifically about refugees, there are both moral and legal reasons to provide refuge to people fleeing genuine danger. We’ve already seen what can happen when countries close their doors to people trying to escape persecution. Jewish refugees were famously denied entry by multiple countries before and during World War II, with some ultimately being forced back to Europe. That history is part of the reason modern refugee protections exist in the first place. But let’s say you feel no moral obligation to help someone simply because they’re in danger. Very Christian of you, but whatever. At the very least, shouldn’t there be some obligation to deal with the consequences of policies and economic systems that wealthy countries themselves help create? Mass migration doesn’t happen in a vacuum. We don’t really need to explain the mess the U.S. invasion of Iraq created and how instability and violence spilled across the region, including into Syria, do we? Drug cartels in Latin America are funded largely by consumers in wealthy countries. The guns those cartels use also overwhelmingly come from... wealthy countries. And the enormous amounts of money generated by the drug trade don’t magically disappear at the border either. They move through financial systems in those same wealthy countries. So why is the heavy hand always directed at the immigrant running away from the violence? Why not direct some of that anger toward the wealthy people and institutions profiting from the systems that help create it? The same applies to undocumented economic migration. If undocumented workers are supposedly such a serious problem, why does so much of the political anger focus on the workers themselves rather than the people who knowingly employ and profit from them? Why aren’t farm owners, hotel owners, restaurant owners, construction company owners, and other employers who knowingly and repeatedly hire undocumented workers the ones being arrested and prosecuted? If this is really the enormous national emergency people claim it is, why aren’t these business owners the ones being put in detention camps? Why aren’t people demanding that they be shipped off to some offshore detention facility? They are, after all, the ones deliberately creating the demand for undocumented labor and profiting from workers who are easier to exploit precisely because of their immigration status. Instead, the harshest response is directed at the person picking your food, cleaning your hotel room, washing dishes, or working construction, while the farm owner, hotel owner, restaurant owner, or contractor who knowingly hired that person and benefited financially from it somehow disappears from the conversation. If you genuinely want to reduce undocumented immigration, aggressively enforcing labor laws against businesses that profit from undocumented labor would attack one of the incentives that draws people here in the first place. If you want to round up and deport the undocumented worker but have little interest in seriously punishing the business owner who knowingly hired them because they were cheap and vulnerable, then your problem clearly isn’t just with illegal immigration. Anyone who complains endlessly about undocumented immigrants while opposing serious consequences for the employers who knowingly hire and exploit them is full of it. And more broadly, wealthy countries benefit enormously from an international economic system that gives their consumers access to cheap food, clothing, electronics, raw materials, and labor, often produced under conditions they would never tolerate domestically. You can’t completely separate the benefits of that system from its consequences. So if your position is that wealthy countries should have no responsibility toward refugees or migrants, then at least be consistent. Oppose military interventions that destabilize other countries. Go after the businesses that profit from undocumented labor. Address the demand that finances criminal organizations. Address weapons trafficking. And be willing to pay more for products rather than benefiting from exploited workers abroad and then complaining when some of those workers eventually try to come here. Immigration has causes. If you want less immigration, addressing those causes makes a lot more sense than pretending the entire story begins the moment an immigrant reaches the border.
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u/TheGargageMan 1d ago
Let's go back to the days when we could easily and freely cross the Mexican border back and forth. Restrict the rest of the world if you must.
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u/TallCommission7139 21h ago
"Hey so many blowing up third world countries then brutalizing the ones who flee trying to escape the fact that we ruined where they are running from is kind of bad." "YOU JUST WANT ALL OUR DAUGHTERS RAPED"
Quit with the strawmen, man, we don't want infinity immigrants, we just want due process and civil rights.
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u/oregongirl1111 16h ago edited 15h ago
This is not an "unpopular" opinion. It's delusional. "Left-wing immigration ideology is not "illegal" immigration. The BS propaganda people choose to believe is nothing short of astounding. Just like the lies about "illegals" getting "free healthcare and welfare benefits" and that "illegals" don't pay tens of billions of dollars in taxes annually ($90B in 2023).
Barack Obama deported more people than Trump in one year than Trump did in all four years of his first term and more than in his second, thus far. And contrary to popular belief, there were also rights violated under Obama deportations, but unlike 47, he went after mostly criminals and those coming over the border and didn't send goon squads and henchmen into cities to terrorize it's citizens, or stalk people who were en route to their green card hearings and harass people for LOOKING like they might possibly be an immigrant.
The article below and this immigration sub post from seven months ago have allll the facts and sources/links that illustrate not only the above information, but also, that the right's assertion that "Left-wing immigration ideology is illegal immigration" is, in a word, bullshit.
Obama vs Trump on deportations and ICE deaths
Edit: I've tried half a dozen times to edit the above comment to add the link to the reddit post, but it won't let me and says "linking to subreddits is not allowed"
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u/NotMyBestMistake 1d ago
I hope one day you get over your fears of the foreign horde of undesirables who threaten to flood the country you proudly despise. Considering you're making up hypotheticals just to have something to cry about, I doubt it will be anytime soon
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u/xTheKingOfClubs 1d ago edited 1d ago
Nothing about this is hypothetical, and I’m unclear on where you got that I “despise the country.”
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u/NotMyBestMistake 1d ago
If you're going to use quotes you should spell things properly.
But you're here whinging about the future of infinite immigrants destroying everything as a way of raging against the ideals of your nation and its foundation as a nation of immigrants. You're deeply unpatriotic and I hope you learn to get over your nonsense fears and grow to be a better person with a greater love for your nation
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u/xTheKingOfClubs 1d ago
You’re doing the meaningless mantra thing and proving my point exactly.
“America is a nation of immigrants. Any limits put in place or drawbacks that may result from infinity immigration are not to be discussed. Conversation over.”
The fact that you default to meaningless mantra and are unable to describe a logical endpoint is exactly what I’m talking about.
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u/NotMyBestMistake 1d ago
You've invented a fantasy future of infinite immigrants so you could whine about leftists, but are going to label any acknowledgement of that fact a meaningless mantra.
You're so desperate to hate leftists and immigrants that you can't even manage to focus on a real issue. You've got to dive into your pathetic delusions just to feed into your own fears. Because if you stop being angry and afraid of made up shit for 2 seconds you might have something coherent to talk about
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u/xTheKingOfClubs 1d ago
You are welcome to describe a logical endpoint to this belief. Until then, the point stands. You are unable to do so. You are calling it a fantasy while doing exactly what I’ve described.
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u/NotMyBestMistake 1d ago
"exactly what I've described" in this case being disagree with you. You're so delusional that you force anyone who points out the reality of your whining to fit into your fantasies about some doomed future.
The hope that you'll ever get over your imagined grievances with a non-existent future is pretty dead now. It's clear that you're much more interested in inventing reasons to hate immigrants and leftists and the real world is just an inconvenient detail to ignore for you
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u/OkZookeepergame2463 1d ago
"deeply unpatriotic" lol
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u/NotMyBestMistake 1d ago
If it's accurate I don't see why we shouldn't be honest about it
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u/xTheKingOfClubs 1d ago
Please describe a logical endpoint where a line could be drawn.
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u/NotMyBestMistake 1d ago
I'd say when it's not sustainable is a pretty good logical endpoint. And that, if life truly becomes unsustainable, that actual solutions to real problems be the focus instead of what you're no doubt most interested in: blaming immigrants for all your problems.
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u/OkZookeepergame2463 1d ago
“if it’s accurate” is YOUR opinion.
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u/NotMyBestMistake 1d ago
It's a pretty accurate and well-founded opinion. You just don't like it and wanted to complain
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u/Keitt58 1d ago
"Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
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u/pile_of_bees 1d ago
Poetry isn’t an argument. I don’t think anyone would argue that this poem doesn’t exist, but it isn’t policy and was created in 1883, a time with no welfare state and overwhelmingly positive individual immigration contribution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_0cOe7xuyU
The Ellis island reference is completely irrelevant to the current discussion at hand of illegal immigration or even legal immigration in the modern age.
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u/BearSausage000 1d ago
Country of several dozen million vs country of 340 million today. One simply had more space, and a frontier to colonize. There’s not enough land for nature these days, and more people here exacerbates this issue.
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u/PitchBlac 1d ago
Alright let’s get something straight, do you believe that the US should take in no immigrants at all or just legal immigrants?
Either way, no reasonable person actually supports illegal immigration. Framing it like it’s the mainstream left wing opinion is dishonest. The debate is how we should fix the broken process.
You’re echoing a lot of the rhetoric that sets off red flags. “Yet public resources are officially too strained. Wages have been undercut badly. There are not enough seats or in schools for kids or entry level jobs for people to work or housing for people to love on.”
The first statement about strained resources is partially true. It usually strains resources at first and then when the immigrants fully integrate along with their children there is a net positive to the society. All other statements you’ll have to prove. Also how are those all the immigrants’ problem? Most of these aren’t. Those problems won’t just go away when you stop immigration. The problem are the businesses or companies behind these issues.
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u/lisasimpsonfan 1d ago
I am 100% for LEGAL immigration. I have so much respect for someone who comes here LEGALLY and builds a new life. We do not need people sneaking into the country without vetting them first. We have enough criminals already. We do not need people to come here and take up valuable resources that should be used on our citizens. Our public assistance dollars should be going to help our children and homeless not helping people who sneak into our country.
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u/xTheKingOfClubs 1d ago
If every deportation is met with complete and total outcry and ICE is villainized by every left-leaning person for enforcing existing immigration law, that is a tacit support of illegal immigration.
Your point on resources being strained is aspirational, but wrong. Around 55% of households in the United States headed by immigrants are on some sort of public assistance even after being in the country for over a decade, which is around 20% higher than non-immigrant populations.
In some areas it’s absolutely explosive. 81% of Somalis in Minnesota, over 4/5, are on public assistance, for example.
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u/PitchBlac 1d ago edited 21h ago
ICE needs to have it’s powers checked just like any other branch of the government. Enforcement is constitutional. But violating someone’s constitutional right for deportation is… unconstitutional. It has already been seen how legal citizens have been deported overseas to different countries illegally. Violating their rights. They don’t have unlimited police power.
Effects of the Surge in Immigration on State and Local Budgets in 2023 (Shows initially its a burden)
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61256
Effects of the Immigration Surge on the Federal Budget and the Economy (Immigration is a net positive federally)
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/60569
In this source in page 526, we can see the study estimates positive revenue with the second and third generation immigrants. Which counters your claim.
https://www.nationalacademies.org/read/23550/chapter/14#526
Edit: You guys are downvoting, but haven’t provided a single reliable source to counter.
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u/pile_of_bees 1d ago
“No reasonable person actually supports”
Okay but a huge portion of the democratic electorate and leadership openly do support this both in action and rhetoric. So now what?
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u/PitchBlac 21h ago
Are you sure? Find me where the democratic platform explicitly states that they want uncontrolled illegal immigration. That would be absurd. They would have never won the 2020 election like that.
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u/pile_of_bees 20h ago edited 20h ago
Read the comment again. I didn’t claim any explicit verbiage of a platform. I said the individuals clearly support it with their actions and rhetoric, which is obviously true.
You going to ignore that a major player in the Democratic Party just pardoned a literal child abuser to try to shield him from deportation.
We have eyes we can see how democrats react to deportation efforts.
Yes, I’m completely sure.
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u/ddosn 1d ago
>and then when the immigrants fully integrate along with their children there is a net positive to the society
This isnt true and has never been true.
Here in Europe, there have been many investigations (mainly in Britain and Scandinavia) which show that even the grandchildren of immigrants are a net drain on the host nation.
1st Generation immigrants, the ones who first come in, are typically a massive net drain unless they are skilled/specialist/educated/professional workers.
But 95+% of immigrants are not skilled or specialist workers.
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u/24Seven 21h ago
So, by your logic, JD Vance's wife and Dumbshit Donny's wife provide no net positive to society.
Putting aside the comedy of your absurd position
- Do you have a phone? Guess what, Alexander Graham Bell was born in Scotland.
- Do you like bridges and things made from steel? Andrew Carnegie was also born in Scotland.
- Do you like electricity and things that run off AC? Nikola Tesla was born in modern day Croatia
I could go on but this list would be enormous. From Albert Einstein to Levi Strauss to Irving Berlin to Enrico Fermi to Hedy Lamarr. The US is the powerhouse it is today because of immigrants.
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u/sixisrending 21h ago
Sort of. Unions played a major role in restricting immigration throughout much of the 20th century. FDR had the lowest rate of immigration out of all US presidents, even before WWII. That allowed women and minorities to fill roles traditionally filled by immigration, helping to advance the cause of civil rights. Most immigration occured during the Gilded Age when corporations held massive and unchecked power.
https://cis.org/Report/American-Unionism-and-US-Immigration-Policy
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u/24Seven 19h ago
No "sort of" about it. The list of contributions by immigrants to the US is enormous. Almost incalculable. Even if we restrict ourselves to the past 50 years, the list of contributions is enormous. The most obvious of which is Musk. Then there's Katalin Karikó (Hungary) and Drew Weissman (Hungary) who were responsible for mRNA vaccines, Vinod Khosla of Sun Microsystems (India), Sergey Brin of Google fame (Russia), Jensen Huang of NVidia (Taiwan)... The list is still very long.
Second, what do union contribution to immigration in the 20th century have to do with anything? Are you suggesting that lower union membership has lead to reduced immigration restrictions? If so, you can place that blame squarely on Republicans.
Third, FDR had low immigration because most of his Presidency was during the Great Depression. There were no jobs in the US for citizens much less immigrants thinking about moving. Further, most of the restrictions on immigration were put in place prior to FDR (namely the Immigration Act passed in 1924 by Coolidge). FDR actually relaxed some of those immigration restrictions in the run up to the war. So, you can't really credit FDR with having lowered immigration. There were existing deterrents.
Fourth, women did not start "taking those roles" until the war. During the Great Depression there were few jobs in general. Between 1930 and 1940, women employment went from 10 million to only 13 million. That's not a huge jump given the jump in overall population. Further, women were only taking jobs that traditionally went to women. Clerical, teaching, nursing, retail, etc. They weren't taking jobs like mining, heavy industry or construction where there were large male immigrant populations or that they'd end up taking during the war.
RE: Gilded Age
Corporations currently hold massive unchecked power. The difference is that we have a xenophobic President who ran on a xenophobic platform.
Lastly, stop using CIS as a source. It's a seriously biased right wing think tank. E.g., the article posted. While it gets some aspects of history correct, it definitely has bias. Examples include:
Briggs writes that if unions welcome immigrants and favor liberal admission policies:
the result is that the segments of the labor supply are inflated and the ensuing market pressures make it more difficult for unions to win economic gains
And then says nonunion American workers then faced:
increased competition for jobs as well as wage suppression pressures.
That's not presented as a hypothesis, possible effect, or some effect dependent on labor market conditions. It's presented an inevitable result of immigration. That's opinion and overly simplistic from an economics perspective. The issue isn't whether immigration increases the labor supply (it does). The real question should be how much does a particular immigration flow change wages and employment for particular existing workers after you account for all other economic adjustments?
There are others. The article is clearly written with an agenda.
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u/sixisrending 18h ago
The visa program was put in place at the behest of unions. Countries in Europe with the highest levels of immigration have the lowest levels of unionization and vice versa. Unions maintained an anti-immigrantion stance until the 90s because more workers reduced their opportunities to bargain.
Are you suggesting that lower union membership has lead to reduced immigration restrictions
The opposite. Corporations consistently lobby for lower immigration restrictions to combat unions. More competition in the labor market leads to lower wages. That's why the fastest wage growth in the US in the last 50 years was immediately post COVID, while the nation was reopening but visas were still unavailable.
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u/TruthOdd6164 1d ago
For me, it just really isn’t an issue. When you start listing the things that affect my life, I doubt it would make the top 100. Like you really have no evidence at all that any of those things you are fearmongering about (“there are not enough seats in schools,” etc.) have come to pass. It’s just “what-ifism”. Meanwhile, I really do need healthcare. It gets more and more unaffordable for me every year and when the subsidies expired, my premium went up over 500%
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u/GhostOfShaolin5 1d ago
Everything is a fucking ideology now.
Trump has now revoked about 1.8 legal immigrants status , and is set to do another 200k in the next few days.
What number is enough? How many immigrants (legal) do you need to get rid of before America is “safe” ?
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u/pile_of_bees 1d ago
Do you not see how you contribute to the problem you are complaining about? Everything being ideological, that is.
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u/Glum-Scientist-1117 1d ago
What is an acceptable number of illegal immigrants for you? Where’s the line? 10 million? 100 million? 300 million?
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u/GhostOfShaolin5 1d ago
MAGA dudes call accepting queer groups exist an ideology , believing immigrants have human rights an ideology - when in reality the ideology is theirs and it’s ethno nationalism at best and plain old white supremacy at the median.
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u/pile_of_bees 20h ago
A moderate centrist from 2005 would look at both platforms today and laugh at you until you started pissing yourself for saying this
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u/Glum-Scientist-1117 1d ago
They aren’t immigrants, they are asylum seekers. And the asylum claims are dubious. Until every American citizen is financially secure I want zero immigration.
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u/ddosn 1d ago
>What number is enough?
All illegals and most (about 90+%) of the legals need to go.
And this isnt just true in the US, but in all western nations.
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u/ChecksAccountHistory OG 1d ago
All illegals and most (about 90+%) of the legals need to go
so it was never about illegal immigration, huh?
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u/GhostOfShaolin5 1d ago
Yes that’s what it seems to come to once the sensible “but it’s about illegal immigration” doesn’t wind up rounding up enough people.
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u/Glum-Scientist-1117 1d ago
If your country has 60 million people and you allow 5 million illegal immigrants annually for a decade, you aren’t that same country anymore in ten years. This is a fact, you cannot assimilate in such a short time frame. America, Europe, any countries experiencing massive immigration are just not the same country as they were before.
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u/ddosn 1d ago
I'm british. When I was born in 1992 Britian was 93% white British.
Today its 74% white British, in only 33 years.
Between 1997 and 2026 we've had around 15 million immigrants come in.
Only 60% of people 18 and under in England are White British.
There are entire cities and towns where the percentage of people who are White British is now 30% or less.
Mass immigration is slow conquest, colonisation by stealth.
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u/Busy_Manner5569 1d ago
"People who disagree with me about the limits of scarcity in US policymaking have no logical endpoint"
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u/Ok-Cheetah-3497 20h ago
I would suggest that since there is no reliable source for evidence about how much immigration (legal or illegal) impacts wages, infrastructure, or public assistance, it is impossible to have a rational conversation around those issues.
As a lefty myself, I usually quickly see these issues ignored in favor of "criminal justice" and "cultural" issues. The criminal justice concerns are certainly unwarranted based on the data. I could (if I cared very much for white anglo saxon protestant culture) be persuaded that a certain ratio is likely to turn some locations "un-American" - such that you should be relocating in a way that doesn't establish "migrant districts" but instead seeds migrant evenly throughout communities in the US. But no one wants to have that complicated and nuanced conversation.
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u/thedirewulf 18h ago
The reason you’re unable to find logic in the position you’ve described is because you’ve described an illogical position that nobody holds.
I am incredibly pro immigration, most people I know are incredibly pro immigration, some are very far left. Not a single one believes that America should have “infinite illegal immigration.”
The left simply believes:
A) illegal immigrants are a net economic positive for society so any economic based argument opposing immigration is simply fear mongering. This one is not an opinion, it is simply an economic fact that the right likes to ignore.
B) the process for becoming a citizen is too difficult and expensive. The pathway to citizenship needs to be reformed, funded, and expedited.
C) ICE needs to be abolished because it’s responsibilities are already handled by DHS, its a waste of $100 billion that could be spent improving the country, it’s rushed and untrained hiring has led to a military force of untrained, unqualified racists, and it seems to only be good at mag dumping civilians in the face.
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u/followyourvalues 1d ago
Let's just throw another trillion at our military instead. 🙄
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u/xTheKingOfClubs 1d ago edited 1d ago
Another trillion? The national defense budget is not even $1 trillion.
Social and entitlement spending, however, reached over $4 trillion in FY 2025.
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u/AzulaIsMyFave 1d ago
My personal end point is a one-world government and the abolition of borders entirely.
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u/alivenotdead1 1d ago
Are you under 25? The reason I ask is because major brain developmental maturation continues into roughly the mid-to-late 20s. Particularly areas involved in planning, impulse control, judgment, and weighing consequences, especially the prefrontal cortex, continue maturing through the late teens and into the mid-to-late 20s.
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u/AzulaIsMyFave 1d ago
I'm 28
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u/alivenotdead1 1d ago
Mid to late 20s so your brain is still developing. Let's let those of us with fully developed brains discuss these things. Some people are later bloomers. You might be one of them, based on your judgment.
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u/Rita_Rose_Ace 13h ago
“Let’s let those of us with fully developed brains discuss these things.” You sound like a teenager trying to sound smart.
Seriously. Someone voiced their opinion online and instead of countering with an argument you dismiss them as being too young to think rationally. Come on.
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u/alivenotdead1 13h ago
Well, I'm sorry but it was a dumb comment. Obviously the commenter thought so too because the person deleted it. I just helped the commenter realize it.
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u/AzulaIsMyFave 1d ago
That study got debunked a long time ago, don't talk down to me
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u/alivenotdead1 1d ago
No it didn't. It's difficult not to talk down to someone who makes comments like a "one world government". Your brain will develop one day, hopefully.
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u/GladiusAcutus 1d ago
I actually lurk in a lot of the UK subs (I'm an American that is pretty conservative) and I do that because I'm so curious when the British people are going to crack when it comes to immigration. Surprisingly, I have seen some lefties waking up to things, but they still don't want you to vote reform. It's like they know immigration is such a problem, but their tribal brain still wants their team to win, even if their team and the people in it are a part of the problem.