Immigration officials arrest 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy after surgery

[Lord Admirale]

Anyways, I’m a bit repulsed by Jacobin continuing to use the ill and deceased for his agenda. It’s like how conservatives use the victims of terror attacks to push an absolute ban on refugees.

You sure do seem to have a hard-on for me. It's quite flattering, actually. But I'm sorry, AP, I'm a taken man.

Yeah, but is he wrong?

For having a hard-on for me? Nah, I would too if I was him.

Not really, thin-skin and narcissism isn’t very attractive, and I’m not interested in guys.

[The Dowager Mod]

Cool it with the personal stuff.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

The left has to choose. Either you have universal healthcare or you let the whole world into the country. Can't have both, not in the long run. But emotional stories about children always work wonders for the immigration lobby.

Ultimately however, this fails the morals of most thinking leftists. Most left-wingers want equality of opportunity, to allow all people to reach their potential and provide for their families regardless of the situation they are born in; and the reality is the global border regime (in the long term) entrenches division and, yes, toxic identity politics.

Emotional stories are useful because it serves to personalise a grim reality that we chose to ignore. I know why we all wince, and some people here splutter and complain; it's really no different from the guilty feeling you get as a Westerner when you read about third world sweatshops. If we are to accept that hard borders are not just a present aberration, but a permanent fixture of society; we have to accept these stories - people's entire lives altered and ensnared by pen-pushing bureaucrats, families pulled apart by arbitrary decisions by elites, people who have not done anything "wrong" from a moral standpoint being considered criminals and the entrenchment of global inequality and poverty -  as a permanent reality.

And I'm not saying that's inherently wrong. Maybe you've weighed up the options - you believe a welfare state will immediately collapse upon looser borders (rightly or wrongly, although it is hilarious how often people will state this as a FACT while providing no actual evidence), and this is worth the aforementioned, err, problematic realities of borders. That's fair enough. But it's not a good look to choose to be blind because you find reality inconvenient.

[DavidB.]

I'm not sure whether I qualify as a leftist, but I believe that the nation-state is the polity in which mankind functions best: social cohesion and solidarity are highest because people care most about those who they perceive to be most similar to them. This means only these countries can become full-fledged welfare states in which every member of society, no matter one's background, can aspire to become who and what they want to be. In order to maintain this necessary social cohesion and solidarity, immigration has to be limited, and newcomers have to have similar cultures and values. But my argument is not only consequential: I think nations have a right to preserve their own cultures.

I do feel guilty about bad living and working conditions in the third world to the extent that "we" in the West are guilty of creating or sustaining them, but I do not feel guilty about the existence of borders and strict immigration policies and I do not think hard borders are an "aberration" at all.

[Figueira]

A lot of "moderates" in this thread are showing their true colors.

[Kringla Heimsins]

Stopping an ambulance then wasting dozens of man-hours on taxpayer dollars to prevent a child with cerebral palsy from fleeing the hospital? All of the people who defend this are insane.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

A lot of "moderates" in this thread are showing their true colors.

[Rookie Yinzer]

ICE did the right thing. Unfortunately, being a sick child does exempt one from the law, nor should it. Don't forget that the reason why her parents weren't in the medical transport with her was that they knew about the immigration checkpoint it would be going thru. Also, as an illegal immigrant, the child never should have been on Medicaid to begin with. This is not the case that those who favor relaxed immigration laws in this country want highlighted. It speaks directly to the concerns that those want to close the borders have. Her parents came here illegally specifically to get their child care at the expense of our government and our taxpayers. Both she and her parents should be deported, and I speak as someone who thinks DACA should've become law long ago and that we should increase the amount of legal immigration allowed.

[TDAS04]

This is not right. 

[dead0man]

This one of those issues where you can very easily separate smart people from emotional people.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Horrible optics but here's another take to those on the far left: let's fix Medicaid's explosive cost growth by letting in even more illegal aliens to use it and make it more expensive per annum. It makes all the sense! /s

If you are here illegally, you are here illegally, whether that is a parent, a child, sick or healthy. If the US wants to stop this, we should provide more money in terms of foreign aid to Mexico to help them provide for themselves.

And not rip up NAFTA, which would kneecap has kneecapped the Mexican American economy

FIFY

[publicunofficial]

This one of those issues where you can very easily separate smart people from emotional people.

You're neither.

[Fuzzy Bear]

The left has to choose. Either you have universal healthcare or you let the whole world into the country. Can't have both, not in the long run. But emotional stories about children always work wonders for the immigration lobby.

I choose universal healthcare.

[Kingpoleon]

This one of those issues where you can very easily separate smart people from emotional people.

Not really - it’s hard for me to make a decision here. I know what my heart says here and what my head says, but both tug and pull, pull and tug.