Several people on this thread said that only some people in this country have anything to worry about as far as enforcement regarding illegal immigration. I presumed--as most people seem to--that meant people who look Latino, and asked the question to see if I was right (because the suggestion was that 70-75% of people in our country don't have anything to worry about. But yes, there are immigrants from other places who come here illegally. That's why I also mentioned people from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Canadians (including white Canadians) are also a significant contributor to the undocumented number, but they don't seem to show up in the ads about immigration.
My point is that in the state I live in, only 35% of the residents (and most are citizens) don't fall into one of those other groups. And my state isn't some 800K person state with three electoral votes. 1 out of every 8 people in the country lives here. So 65% of our population is a big portion of it. And if it's only Latinos, that's 40% of our population; 50% of New Mexico's population, 40% of Texans, etc.
So when we talk about who needs to worry about the enforcement here, it may well be that folks in the upper midwest are largely insulated from it--but Texans (and I know there are several on this thread), and Californians, for instance, may not feel quite so safe whether its for themselves or for their friends.
I'm not calling anyone on this thread a bigot. But I am more than happy to call out the incongruity of saying that most Americans have nothing to worry about regarding immigration enforcement, when the people who are likely to be asked to justify their citizenship make up a huge proportion of some of our states--including (at least) two of our biggest. And, as noted before, fewer than 50% of Americans have easy access to proof of citizenship that they can carry with them at all times.
Now, do I really think that roving bands of ICE employees will randomly stop Latinos everywhere in California? No, I don't think that. But I do think that any effort to "round up" millions of undocumented immigrants will necessarily result in a lot of citizens being questioned about their status in their own homeland. And the basis for that will be their outward appearance. That's problematic. And there will also necessarily be mistakes made, as there already have been, which will hurt American citizens. And one of my questions, posed several pages back, is how many of those mistakes we're willing to accept as a people. As noted, in more than half of our states, the people are willing to execute one innocent person for about every 19 guilty people for heinous murders. It surprises me that we are willing to do that, but we are.
So, how willing are we to harass and in some cases mistakenly arrest and deport American citizens?
Some people have suggested we should be able to set aside our care for those fellow citizens because the immigration problem here is so dire. Ok--I don't share that opinion, but--as has also been noted in this thread--the candidates I vote for aren't in the majority, and those that are seem to have a more permissive view on this subject than I do. That's how democracies work (within certain guardrails), but I think it's fair to ask people where they stand on this.
How much is too much, and which Americans are we asking to bear the burden of these policies?
