So, a lot of leftists are coming out of the woodwork to mildly criticize Biden for calling illegal immigrants "illegals" doing his state of the union, and I do feel a need to push back against this.
A lot of lefties get super self righteous and defensive over issues like this. We know why, it's social justice ideology, an ideology that I'm rejecting more and more as I get older. I get the point, I think it's toxic politically though. And the far left types have this super self righteous opinion that "no human is illegal" and we should be pro illegal immigrant and blah blah blah. The problem of this position is that it is tantamount to endorsing open borders.
And I know some liberals and leftists want that but I'm not one of them. Even if I'm relatively permissive on immigration in theory, I still believe we are a nation of laws with set borders, and we have a right to let in, or NOT let in anyone who we want to. As such, illegal immigration is a thing. We can debate the exact balance we have between humaneness involved with letting people in and harshness based on deporting people and keeping them out, and I am relatively flexible on that balance. But we should have a balance. My economic ideology is NOT compatible with open borders. I consider such ideals to be more compatible with the economic right and neoliberalism, with its limited safety nets, and pro work ideology. It's not compatible with an anti work ideology based on expansive universal safety nets. because it's not sustainable.
As such, I'm a moderate on illegal immigration. Ideally Id probably support some amnesty bill in exchange for tougher border restrictions. Right now, the center of gravity is leaning to the right and even Biden is getting tougher on the border. A lot of lefties dont like that, some even feel betrayed, but I say tough crap. We're gonna lose this election if we dont make this compromise. If people wonder what I meant when I said I'd compromise on immigration if it meant advancing my economic priorities, we're seeing that now. I'll shift to the right on this issue, to undercut the right, to maintain power so I can do good on other issues. SJWs might not like it, but tough.
And the same thing on the language. i think it's perfectly fine to call an illegal immigrant an illegal. I know that people prefer the less loaded "undocumented" term to kind of bypass the fact that they're not legally in this country, but again, they are breaking our laws by being here. And they are, at this time, causing a burden on a lot of state and local welfare systems. Even democratic mayors like Eric Adams of NYC are admitting it. And it is causing resentment and breaking some red lines I have on the immigration issue. So yeah. They have to go. And Biden's bill is, in my opinion, a reasonable compromise. And I'm sorry (well not really) if it offends people to call a spade a spade, but I'm gonna call a spade a spade. They are ILLEGALLY in this country, and as such, are "illegal". The far left is wrong on this one, and their "no human is illegal" virtue signal is...indeed, a virtue signal. The center left is right, and I'm with Team Biden on this one.
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