The former president also told NBC News that spending billions to execute mass deportations of undocumented immigrants is justified because allowing them to remain would cost more.
The former president also told NBC News that spending billions to execute mass deportations of undocumented immigrants is justified because allowing them to remain would cost more.
You are mixing up two separate questions.
Will deporting these people do irreparable damage to the USA?
Will deporting these people be morally wrong?
The answers to these two questions are independent of each other. The first question is about objective reality (if “irreparable damage” is clearly defined) and the second is about moral beliefs which are ultimately a matter of personal opinion. I’m only talking about the first question but you can still oppose deportation on moral grounds even if it turns out that mass deportations wouldn’t decrease American prosperity.
One type of irreparable damage that could occur to the USA as a result of mass deportations could be reputational or our morality therefore these two questions are not independent of each other.
In that case, you’ve still left room in the discussion to address my original question that you haven’t answered: aren’t the white people profiteering off of exploited immigrant labor the real perpetrators that deserve punishment? You can answer that without stating an opinion on the morality of deportation.
I can talk about my views on that issue if you’d like to hear them, although I still insist that they have no bearing on the truth or falsehood of my original claim in this thread.
With that said, I don’t see the issue in terms of perpetrators and punishment. Many, many people in the world are much poorer than even a poor American is, and so their desire to come to the USA by whatever means is available to them is quite reasonable. Employers want to hire labor at the cheapest possible price, which is also reasonable. Finally, the general public wants cheap stuff but does not want either competition for jobs or taxes spent on supporting immigrants. That’s all reasonable too.
I think a well-designed guest-worker program combined with increased measures against illegal immigration would maintain the rule of law, protect national security, and satisfy American employers and the American public while still providing economic opportunities for some foreigners who want them. This sort of approach works in other countries and it used to have some bipartisan support but I don’t see it going anywhere in today’s political climate.