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0 pointsGeneralMayhem1d ago0 comments

Accepting your dichotomy for the sake of argument, I'm in camp 1, but camp 2 could still be humane and comprehensible. Many countries have strict immigration rules, and while I disagree with that philosophy, it's not necessarily objectionable in the same way.

The Trump administration is not in camp 2.

The Trump administration, as this rule clearly illustrates, is in camp 3: Those who believe that the people who are not currently citizens of your country should never be able to become so, and should be punished for even trying.

The problem is not that the system is "strict" in the sense of holding an incredibly high bar. The problem is that the system is arbitrary - there is no process you can follow that will give you a high degree of confidence that you'll be allowed to enter, or even that a decision _will be made at all_ in a fair manner, no matter who you are (unless you're a personal friend of the administration) - as opposed to you being randomly arrested by ICE halfway through waiting for a decision. And even if there were such a process, you would have no confidence that it wouldn't change retroactively in another week.

It is laughably naive to believe that they are doing this in good faith out of any sense of strictly filtering immigrants. There's exactly one explanation that isn't transparently pretextual, and you and I both know what it is.

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TFNA1d ago

> Those who believe that the people who are not currently citizens of your country should never be able to become so.

This is basically the longtime practice of countries like UAE, and historically it is categorized under camp 2; no need to create a third camp here. It’s not as if no foreigners ever in such countries become citizens – while most immigrants are meant to be guestworkers who eventually return to their own countries, there are still laws to confer citizenship on exemplary foreigners.

elil171d ago

Non-western immigrants in the UAE are essentially enslaved. It is clearly in a camp which is separate from mere "strict immigration laws."

The UAE and the US (as of the last year and a half) don't (just) have strict immigration laws. Instead, they have corrupt and abusive immigration systems which operate outside of national and international laws.

TFNA1d ago

I don’t see why you single out non-western immigrants in the UAE and try to depict this as an outcome of corruption or abuse. Most non-western immigrants are subject to the kafala system, but even if they weren’t, their eligibility for citizenship (or not) would remain the same. After all, citizenship is off the table for even the highly privileged Western expat population that is not subject to the kafala system.

Again, the local laws allow for conferring citizenship on exemplary foreigners, which does happen, and so such countries fit easily into camp 2 by which a country has the right to choose who and who not it wishes to make citizens.

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TFNA1d ago

> Those who believe that the people who are not currently citizens of your country should never be able to become so.

elil171d ago

Non-western immigrants in the UAE are essentially enslaved. It is clearly in a camp which is separate from mere "strict immigration laws."

TFNA1d ago

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