Here’s a few sources for you. The sources for migrant aid are specific to New York City.

Very interesting. I do suspect NYC is uniquely struggling with these things because of how expensive it is to live in and housing/space being at a premium, whereas areas in, say, the Midwest would theoretically be able to take on a few new families in each smaller town without a huge disruption, like the Haitian immigrants in Ohio (granted there was some adjustment, ofc).

I don’t think the county should import so many people who will become such a burden on our welfare infrastructure when we’re already struggling to take care of our own people.

This is a rational stance to have, BUT I should note that the US struggles to take care of its people in large part because of how we manage things like healthcare. Privatization has made the system awful (as evidenced most recently by UnitedHealthcare) and bloated beyond belief. That said, I don’t think the Republican party will do anything to fix the problem. Their history of cutting government spending and privatization generally leaves worse outcomes for American citizens. Furthermore, the current system for thing such as disability effectively forces people to remain poor, creating a vicious cycle of poverty and lack of proper care (because having healthcare tied to a job screws over those who cannot work). If we made our existing systems more robust by adopting universal healthcare and assisting people who are out of work more, I suspect we’d be more able to absorb an influx of people. Furthermore, the issues of handing things out to migrants such as welfare, I suspect, are because of the difficulties in getting employment for migrants with no means of obtaining jobs due to their status as illegal. Would giving a sort of baseline assistance in getting work and integrating not accomplish the goal of helping people “leave the nest” and pay taxes once they arrive?

That may be true. Granting it, though, is it the best approach? Sure, I believe some leniency should be given to people who have been here for years, like those who were brought here as children and have since grown up. But like the current asylum system, that could create precedent for migrants to enter the country illicitly and get forgiveness easier than they could have gotten permission. Expanding visas and streamlining the process for green cards and citizenship is on the table for sure. But in my opinion, applicants should have to wait in their home countries before entering, and stricter scrutiny should be applied to asylum cases.

I think granting it is at the very least probably cheaper than burning money on going after random individuals in a massive operation that will disrupt the entire economy. Moreover, creating an intake system where people are housed and taught the basics of how to operate in the US for a brief time would likely have better outcomes than simply dumping people into a random town. As for avoiding an influx, you aren’t wrong that it may have some effect, but ultimately, I doubt making things harsher will do much to deter people who are desperate. When it comes to making people wait in their home countries…I don’t think that’s feasible, as a lot of people fleeing are doing so from violence from cartels/gangs, oppressive regimes, and/or problems such as famine/drought/etc. We would effectively be killing many - just as we did to the Jews fleeing the Holocaust in the 30s (seriously, it’s a super fucked up story). We need to design a better process for “holding” asylum seekers somehow, and I am admittedly not sure of the best way to do that, but I am confident we can create an ethical system to do so.

That makes more sense to me as well, but we already have that influx and it’s already causing problems throughout the country. If we start giving blanket amnesty, then this will encourage others to do the same later down the line. It isn’t sustainable.

Well, one of the ways to fix the problem is to take a hard stand on fighting climate change. There is going to be a massive rise in refugees in the next few decades as the effects of climate change worsen, and short of simply massacring people at the border, I don’t really see any other way to fix the problem than integrating them (which may not even be possible if things get as bad as some projections say). Short of some kind of drastic action like colonizing space, we don’t have many options.

There’s only so much that increased efficiency can do with a spike like this. It’s severely dysfunctional at this point, not only because of the influx but also because of the poor allocation of government resources. I’d love for everyone to get the help they need, but we have a huge problem even without the migrant crisis.

The system is incredibly dysfunctional, sure, but really, we don’t have any choice but to fix it. One of the reasons human society has developed so far is because of increases in capacity to solve problems, always outstripping the problems themselves. To accept defeat, so to speak, means we are no longer able to do that, and our civilization is doomed.

Soap boxing aside, it comes down to 2 points: 1) we have a problem that is solvable now that needs addressing before the “real” show starts in a few decades, and 2) the Republican party is fundamentally unable to solve the problem as it currently stands. That’s not to say Republicans are stupid necessarily, but the entire party is in the grips of a personality cult surrounded by wealthy oligarchs. The “simple” solutions offered by “let’s just mass deport them” will not fix the issue and will almost certainly make things worse. The same with monied interests having thoroughly infected our political system (both parties are guilty, but the Republicans have shown to be even more openly against stopping them) - these giant companies benefit from the massive amounts of cheap labor they can exploit out of immigrants, and I highly doubt a massive deportation action will hit them, given how close they are to the centers of power (in fact, I suspect it would be used as a cudgel to smash competitors).

People’s concerns about how to fix the problem of illegal immigration are valid (insofar as they should be addressed with evidence), but at some point, we need to accept that our current system is broken and the fix isn’t to use fear to bludgeon the problem to death - we need real steps taken to address both the social and economic sides of the problem, and we will likely not see that done under a Conservative* government that has been hijacked by the richest among us.