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[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Totally side-stepping the actual legal issue there I see. The US, under Trump, has cut its ceiling for asylum seekers to a third of what it was a couple of years ago, down now to only 30,000 per annum. This leaves Canada taking up a lot of the slack. All your "supposed to"s carry no legal weight in any case, so refer back to above post; the law is what makes something legal or illegal, and by Canadian law a refugee/asylum claimant who has crossed the border in an "irregular" manner is, by the strictest definition of the term, not an illegal immigrant, however much that may annoy bees in various mounty hats.

[ochoill]

Nothing has changed for me.

[Caomhaoin]

Totally side-stepping the actual legal issue there I see. The US, under Trump, has cut its ceiling for asylum seekers to a third of what it was a couple of years ago, down now to only 30,000 per annum. This leaves Canada taking up a lot of the slack. All your "supposed to"s carry no legal weight in any case, so refer back to above post; the law is what makes something legal or illegal, and by Canadian law a refugee/asylum claimant who has crossed the border in an "irregular" manner is, by the strictest definition of the term, not an illegal immigrant, however much that may annoy bees in various mounty hats.

For a limited time, that may be the case. Overstaying tourist visas (typically 90 days), is how the majority of the estimated 50,000 Irish people, with no right whatsoever to do so, are illegally in the USA. For a three month period, they are not strictly illegal aliens, but are undoubtedly so when that visa is no longer valid. Considering I hurled with one or two of them, xenophobic it certainly is not.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Yup, if your visa runs out and you stay on clandestinely, then you're an illegal immigrant. As I said, it exists, it just doesn't apply to irregular, border-crossing refugee claimants...and they're the ones most often in the "goddamn illegal immigrants!!!" crossfire, not your old sliotar belting pals.

[Caomhaoin]

Are they though? The ones who come via Mexico are, for the most part, economic migrants with bogus asylum claims, if any.

Without tarring them all with the same brush, I think the frustration stems from the inevitable lowering of unskilled wages, and the brazen defiance of federal law by so-called 'sanctuary cities' like Portland and San Francisco. If those immigration laws are not enforced or defied, the question must be, why bother adhere to any others. I hate to use the word 'nuanced' (along with bat-shit crazy and resting bitch face, an affront to God), but it's not as simple as 'fuckin' foreigners, beaners, spics' etc. Hilary Clinton tried to make that argument and she paid the price.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

All I'm saying is that the term "illegal immigrant" is semantically incorrect in a large part of its application. I'm saying what is; all of your arguments are about what ye think ought to be. This started with the position that using a term other than "illegal immigrants" was political correctness gone mad, but it took one post to reveal that, indeed, in the large, the target of the ire was in fact non-illegal asylum claimants. It's really that easy to infer someone's politics based on certain battles they choose.

[Caomhaoin]

Do you think even a significant number of border jumpers are asylum seekers though? I seriously doubt it.

'Ones politics' aren't necessarily defined by a position on one issue.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Do you think even a significant number of border jumpers are asylum seekers though? I seriously doubt it.

'Ones politics' aren't necessarily defined by a position on one issue.

If you're fighting essentially for the right to refer to a group of people as "illegal" immigrants, and positioning yourself in doing so against someone you see as the epitome of the politics you stand against, I mean, it's not rocket science. For the record, there's very, very little about Trudeau I like (maybe only the idea of him potentially cuckolding Trump, ha!), but that's more because of his neo-liberalism than his "liberal" stances; same as with Varadkar and Macron.

Anyway:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration_to_Canada
Given Canadian laws on asylum seeking, you'd be mad not to claim asylum as a border crosser, unless you were a convicted criminal. And although it's another favoured right wing trope to claim that a large percentage are criminals, this just isn't the case:

Entering Canada outside of a port of entry is not an offence under the Criminal Code, but regulations under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act do require any person seeking to enter Canada to "appear without delay" at the nearest port of entry. While entering Canada outside of a port of entry may represent an unlawful act, section 133 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act requires that charges related to the crossing are stayed while an entrant's claim is being processed. If the Canadian government grants refugee status, any charges are stayed permanently.

So, while (as you'll see if you read the rest of the article) there's some kind of argument to be made for calling the border crossing itself "illegal" (though it's a weak case, since it's not a criminal offence, but whatever...), there is no case to be made for calling anyone who has sought asylum - regardless of how they crossed the border - an "illegal immigrant", unless their claim has been rejected and they have gone AWOL in order to stay on. In fact, in order to claim asylum, you don't really have any other choice but to cross the border in an "unlawful" way, since you precisely don't have the visa, etc., to cross in by normal channels.

The video in this link explains the recent history of the current situation. It's got almost nothing to do with Trudeau btw:
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/irregular-or-illegal-the-fight-over-what-to-call-the-thousands-of-migrants-streaming-into-canada

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

We may be "legal", but I hope the irony of the fact that all three of us our immigrants isn't completely lost on you, and it's not like I'm living in a country "spared" the question. I just personally don't understand the desire to fight against people choosing not to use frankly dehumanizing language. Is it just the "porn"-like (your word Kev) thrill you get from throwing out the bathwater that makes you oblivious to the baby going with it?? It's intriguing to me, honestly. Means fuck all to you, means a fuck load to those who are labelled. I would say; get over yourselves.

[Caomhaoin]

Is it dehumanizing to call a spade a spade? I mean, if an action breaks a law, then it's illegal. That's not nativist or xenophobic, it's just applying an appropriate word to what is clearly a widespread illegal practice. If you want to go down the 'peoplekind' road with Justin, then I don't t know what to say to you.

I have nothing against anyone trying to get on in life, god knows I'd do it if I was from some lawless hellhole like El Salvador. I'd go as far as to say it shows more balls and ambition than desperation. Asylum seeking is just an arrow in the quiver for the vast majority of illegal immigrants. Sure why wouldn't you, if you knew you couldn't be kicked out immediately? The Afghani and Pakistani lads I came across stranded in Belgrade (none of them had any intention of staying there) were ballsy chancers, clearly illegal economic migrants, but you can be full sure each and every one of them had a story prepared about how they needed asylum. None of that excuses the behaviour of the Hungarian police acting like absolute cunts at the border, playing loud music at night, threatening them and kicking the shit out of, stripping and booting the ones they caught back over the border. Nor the Moroccan police going into migrant camps outside Ceuta and deliberately breaking hands and arms so they boys couldn't scale the fence. That's dehumanising. Calling them illegal immigrants, I'd say, is the least of their worries.

A friend of mine who works in the Spanish 'home office' told me that less than 1 in a 100 asylum claims have any merit, and it's almost blue-moon time when one is accepted, because it's almost always bullshit. She told me some lad tried to bite his tongue off rather than be sent back to Palestine, which is desperate and you'd be cold hearted not to have some empathy with poor cunts that desperate to get away from dysfunctional places like the Hamas run areas there.

Doesn't make them any less illegal immigrants if they sneak into another country illegally.

[Yung Led Zeppelin]

I do remember the time of the Trudeau blackface scandal a while ago, as the story was emerging.

First it was "photos surface of Trudeau in blackface from an event", then  "Trudeau in blackface on two occasions", and then shortly afterwards, with a big collage of Trudeau in said blackface from various events, Trudeau "can't recall how many times he wore blackface makeup". I was fucking crying laughing after refreshing the page, like something out of a demented comedy
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/19/justin-trudeau-wearing-blackface-details-emerge-third-incident

Tucker Carlson though? Not the answer imo, to put it mildly, an obnoxious hateful cunt spouting outrage for viewing numbers. Was at a buddy's gaff in the states last year and the lads were wondering had I seen Fox News before, I said not live and in the flesh, so we threw it on for the laugh. Wasn't much of a laugh, only stuck a few minutes before turning it off.

To be honest the term "illegal alien" may as well be hate speech - that's about the only context where you'll see it used and it's incredibly dehumanising. And that is a real problem, no matter how far we feel we may be removed from it.

[Caomhaoin]

Tucker-porn is amazing. Hateful? How so? He is obnoxious, full of himself and he makes his guests look like imbeciles, although they dig their own graves by defending the indefensible at times. Totally partisan, he makes no bones about it. Enormously entertaining

Buzzfeed, Vox and the Young Turks more your cup of tea?

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Ain't that always the way; you hit someone up with statistics, facts, legal definitions, and they come back at you with anecdotes. Tucker Carlson would indeed be proud. As would the liberal homologues of his you listed. Two wrongs and all that...

[DeletedUsermNqGIiIuGy]

Im that bored today I'm sat here reading all this like..

[Caomhaoin]

You linked a Wikipedia page, which is stretching 'facts, statistics etc' to the limit, wouldn't you agree?

Some filibustering, assumptions about my politics (rightly or wrongly)  and hesitance as to whether or not you believe crossing a border undocumented is illegal or not, I find it hard to take your gleeful 'ha, anecdotal!' concluding post altogether seriously. The 'anecdote' I provided is from the horses mouth, about as valuable as your two click research into Canadian immigration policy.

I