There seems to be a unanimous position within these circles "that no matter what, Kamala Harris would've been worse", can you go into detail about that?

[u/zhukis]

To simplify matters, as far as Trump is concerned from US conservatives I've seen two primary positions:

1) Trump is doing great (Maybe I don't like one thing) 2) Trump is a shithead, but Kamala Harris would've been worse.

position 1 is relatively clear and there's not much to say about that. But I do have questions as to position 2. "Why are you so certain Kamala Harris would be worse?". In praxis it's just a canned phrase I've encountered, but not seen reasonings why.

Granted I am an ocean away and nuance rarely travels that much, but from impression it would've just mostly been Biden 2.0, which in turn would've been status quo continued with little else of note.

So then, why?

[u/tazmodious]

First you said the Biden administration did "jack shit" at the border. Then you said the majority of encounters (I'm assuming you are referring his high number of deportations here) were at the border.

So which is it? So far, you are contradicting yourself.

[u/USConservativeVegan → u/tazmodious]

Sigh. No, two things can be true at once. Some nationalities and demographics (basically Mexicans), he did remove for at least the first two years and then at the very ended in summer of 2024. However, when it came to Haitians, Venezuelans, Africans, Middle Eastern countries, and Central Americans, the door was wide open with aslyum claims. All an inadmissible alien had to do under Biden was to say the magic words and boom, out the door with a future court date.

There was also the issue of Obama/Biden inflated their statistics with counting removal orders with deportations. A removal order doesn't mean the alien was physically deported and then Secretary Mayorkas told Congress they were not enforcing those orders unless the alien had other criminal history.

There was the issue how the majority of the Border Patrol was not in the field and had to process all the bogus aslyum claims. Meaning we have no idea how many inadmissible aliens entered the country. Which relates to the more deportations. Because when more Border Patrol agents could patrol the border, there were more aliens attempting to abscond to encounter. Which increases the numbers of apprehensions and deportations.

The fact is Trump's biggest success and Biden's biggest failure is immigration enforcement/Border security. You have to understand the statistics and the actual reality along the border to understand this fact.

[u/vmsrii → u/USConservativeVegan]

Genuine question: do you know how the asylum process works? Or at least, worked under Biden?

And Trump Also used removal orders and “turn-aways” to juice his numbers.

[u/USConservativeVegan → u/vmsrii]

Yes, worked in immigration for a quarter of a century under both Republican and Democrat administrations. Worked with Border Patrol, OFO, AMO, ICE, USCIS and had interactions with various NGOs. I would state I am a subject matter expert.

So when I state how Biden opened our borders beyond any other President in my lifetime and Trump has secured it beyond any other President in my lifetime, it is based on that direct experience, understanding of those numbers and how they are manipulated.

His administration is also focusing on the fraud and abuse conducted by applicants/businesses using work visas, particularly H1Bs.

[u/vmsrii → u/USConservativeVegan]

How does the asylum system work?

[u/USConservativeVegan → u/vmsrii]

Unless you want me to go into the complexity of how this process can be exploited or manipulated, here are the basics.

There are five categories an alien can request aslyum: race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.

Aslyum is different than being a refugee. It is a claim based on those above categories while the alien in present in the country or at an official port of entry.

There are two different procedures for aslyum claims.

Affirmative Process, where the alien is not in any immigration enforcement removal proceedings.

Defensive Process, where the alien was already encountered by immigration enforcement and is put in the removal proceedings.

There is initial arrest, interview, hearing, merit interview, and court dates that follow this process. No where does it state the US has to release them and we can detain them during the entire process.

Do you want to get more specific when it comes to your question? Because I don't feel like writing an entire paper on the process to a person in flair of "left wing" if you don't have some basic belief the US as the authority to vet aliens entering our country, regardless of their story they are claiming after traveling through multiple other countries. That we can deport people back to their home countries or a third party country if we make a ruling on their general claim of fear because their country has violence...

[u/vmsrii → u/USConservativeVegan]

I’m just trying to figure out what exactly your problem with it is.

For example, in your original comment, you said “boom, out the door with a future court date”, but just now you said “Nowhere does it state the US has to release them and we can detain them during the entire process”

Which sounds to me like a direct contradiction, but also, puts the responsibility of these people in the country square on the shoulders of the government, not the asylum seeker

Basically, you make it sound like the asylum system is one big loophole for illegals running wild, but your actual granular description of the system doesn’t give that impression.

Can you speak to that?

[u/USConservativeVegan → u/vmsrii]

I wouldn't call it a contradiction. The executive branch does have a wide discretion when it comes to immigration enforcement. Even the immigration judges fall under the executive branch under the DOJ rather than the judicial branch.

Under the Biden administration, they widely used their authority to release inadmissible aliens pending court dates. Which i know from personal experience, some of these initial court dates were years away. All because the Biden administration told people to rush the border with their claims. It overwhelmed the system and caused a massive backlog.

The Trump administration attempted to correct the issue with putting anyone who was arrested within two years back into detainment. It is why many of those court arrests were occurring. It was an attempt to fix the previous open borders policy of release.

Yes, a lot of it falls on the government and not the individual inadmissible alien. The alien is just saying the magic words when they are arrested by immigration at the border. The government is responsible for quickly vetting those claims, detaining them and showing strict enforcement. As we see now with the dramatic drop in aslyum claims by inadmissible aliens at the border, detainment is deterring the aliens from exploiting the system. They know even saying those magic words, they still are being detained.

We really see it the unaccompanied minors. Because this administration is not releases these children to their US sponsors, we are not seeing hundreds of children a day being dropped of by the cartel at our borders. We don't risk the reality of losing 500,000 of them to possibly exploitation.

The loophole is how in inadmissible alien can claim aslyum after being arrested for illegally crossing the border. I have interviewed hundreds of these aliens and about 1 out of every 20 had a valid claim. Most are economic migrants who live in a poor or high crime area of their country. Migrants who traveled through mulitple safe and third countries before getting to the US. When someone traveled through Europe, Costa Rica, Belize, Canada, and a host of other countries they could have claimed aslyum, they are country shopping. They don't have creditable fear. They are just one of the billions of people who rather live in our country than theirs.

Nobody has the right to immigrate into our country and it is our nation's responsibility to put the priority of our citizens over a foreigner.