OK. You like his "economic, military, borders, pro Israel" policies.

Biden has pledged to support Israel and fight antisemitism (here's his policy page on that: https://joebiden.com/joe-biden-and-the-jewish-community-a-record-and-a-plan-of-friendship-support-and-action/)

In terms of the military, Biden said he would decrease the budget but frankly, I doubt it. Obama increased it, and Biden has not taken a strong stance on the issue. Seems like a strange thing to vote on.

Here's an article on that: https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2019/11/18/military-times-questionnaire-former-vice-president-joe-biden/

Let's talk about immigration. I'll run through how the asylum system used to work under Obama and Bush and how Trump changed it.

Asylum seekers are people fleeing their country through fear of persecution. The legal process to claim asylum is as follows: You must cross the border, immediately go to a legal port of entry, and tell the guard that you want to claim asylum. From there, they get handed a court date. Before Trump, we had a policy called "catch and release". Under this policy, the asylum seeker would be allowed to enter the country and come back when their court date arrives. Then, they have a trial, where it is determined whether their claim to asylum is valid or not. If it is, they stay. If it isn't, they get deported. Simple, and it worked effectively.

Trump ended catch and release. Instead of allowing asylum seekers to walk into the country, he put them into detention centers, separated parents from children, and had them wait for their trial. That wasn't good enough. More recently, he ordered guards to catch asylum seekers at the border, so there is no legal way for them to claim asylum in the first place. This way, they can be held in the detention centers indefinitely, in a legal gray zone.

Now, what is your opinion on this? I think it is abhorrent morally, harmful to America is every conceivable way, and unconstitutional.

#1) I don't believe Biden. I want to see him debate and defend his "stances". I know what I have with Trump. He is pro economy, he moved our embassy to Jerusalem, he spends on military, which is important to innovation, he worked with Tim Scott on opportunity zones. The only way IMO to cure racism is through capitalism. Jews don't care about antisemitism all that much because most are rich (hyperbole).

#2) Given what we learned with COVID-19, we need to rethink immigration and asylum policies altogether. I would close the border and meet with experts in the medical/scientific fields and determine how we can best protect the population. What happens if some terrorist from say Iran goes through Mexico and claims asylum and he is infected with a virus much worse than COVID-19? I also believe we should screen all tourists much more diligently. Not sure how to do this. A very difficult circumstance now that we are living in the new normal.

Here are some sources you can read:

Current asylum process: https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-and-asylum/asylum/affirmative-asylum-process

There's a lot of articles about how Trump is changing the asylum process. Here's one: https://www.afsc.org/blogs/news-and-commentary/how-trump-making-it-harder-asylum-seekers

It is irrelevant what his process was or is. We are in a new normal. I would allow ZERO people into this country unless absolutely necessary and they would have to be screened thoroughly. I don't trust the media so please stop posting links. We are dealing with a virus that has prevented me from seeing my own parents. We need to find a vaccine and or cure and then see how we can protect the citizens from other possible threats such as this.

I don't believe Biden. I want to see him debate and defend his "stances".

You don't have any evidence to back this up. This is just a feeling that you have. If Biden goes on stage and says, "I support Israel and I support the troops," you are fine with his stances then? You can't just assume that he's lying about what he believes.

The only way IMO to cure racism is through capitalism.

I'm not even going to get started on this one. I just want to point out that Trump is far from a pure capitalist. The capitalist position is open borders and globalism. Trump is against both of those things. He's a nationalist. You cannot be super nationalist and super capitalist. Strikeout is extremely capitalist, and he's voting libertarian. If you feel the same way, I would respect a vote for Jo Jorgensen.



re the COVID stuff, we can talk about Trump's handling of the virus if you want. In terms of immigration, I agree that borders should probably be more strict as long as the virus is at its peak. We definitely need to test people before they can get in for the time being. COVID isn't going to last forever, though, so we still need to plan on a world without the virus as prevalent in the next four years.

Posted by cccp1014 on 6/22/2020 1:10:00 PM (view original):
It is irrelevant what his process was or is. We are in a new normal. I would allow ZERO people into this country unless absolutely necessary and they would have to be screened thoroughly. I don't trust the media so please stop posting links. We are dealing with a virus that has prevented me from seeing my own parents. We need to find a vaccine and or cure and then see how we can protect the citizens from other possible threats such as this.

I can respect that I guess. Can we discuss what happens after a vaccine is found, say, in late 2021? At that point, we would have three years of either Trump or Biden immigration policy. I want to talk about it then. We can't close borders forever.

I don't trust the media so please stop posting links.

Jeez. What sources do you trust? Or how do you get your news? I want to have a fact-based discussion, so I want to be able to prove or substantiate things. If you don't like certain outlets, I can avoid them. But if we aren't allowed to provide any news or evidence to support our statements, then we are going off of feelings.

#1) If you're not going to read what I write, why debate? COVID-19 is relatively mild. I want a full policy on how we screen all visitors and potential immigrants and asylum seekers. What stops someone from a foreign country of sending an infected person to poison us again. I need more data. I need scientists and medical doctors to opine on how we do that. So for now we close the borders and limit travel from other countries to people who do it for political reasons or the military. I am not sure what the right answer is but keeping things the way they were cannot happen. The whole playbook needs to be scrapped and re-written from scratch. For example Sweden never locked down. I would not allow people from Sweden here until we have a vaccine and then see what we do going forward based on other potential illnesses. Now going forward we have to be prepared for anything and everything. This is the new normal.

#2) Wall Street Journal or anything that is fact based. Nothing opinion based. For example I don't need a link to show you that Israel's embassy is now in Jerusalem. Showing me links from CNN on how evil our border security is...is not productive. I don't trust our media. They lied about COVID-19, they have been lying to us for years. Only media I trust remotely is the WSJ.

#3) I am a COVID-19 survivor and I use that term anecdotally because the media overplayed and over hyped this illness.

We are in a new normal and I will be voting as such going forward.

1. I already agreed that we should test every immigrant before they get in. This should solve the problems we have. I'm not sure why closing borders indefinitely would be better than just testing people. Do you have a problem with this policy?

2. Can you give me a list of every source that you find credible? Or it is just the WSJ? I cited the USCIS, which is a government source, on their own immigration policy, and a source just looking over Trump's changes to asylum. Can you read it over and see what you disagree with? I promise I won't cite CNN or the NY Times.

We can talk about COVID later. I want to stay focused on immigration.

#1) Because what are we testing for? I could be sick today and not tomorrow? It would too expensive to test for 14 days. And what if another disease is brought through? I want a full testing policy vetted by doctors/scientists/military personnel and approved by the CDC before we let anyone else in. So I cannot opine as I am not sure what that looks like. I am less worried about COVID-19 and more about something more sinister. Until then, better safe than sorry. If we have to be isolationist for 12-18 mos., so be it. Won't be forever to your point.

#2) CDC or Gov't sources are fine but the current policies are moot IMO due to #1 above. Imagine if someone comes in with a form of Ebola or something we haven't seen before? We really need to be careful.

#3) We cannot discuss immigration without concentrating on how we prevent diseased persons from coming into the US. Revert to #1. The whole playbook needs to be rewritten. Can no longer do catch and release as you may be releasing sick persons into our country. I would ban tourism for 12-18 mos. too. If people want to go overseas, when they come back they would have to agree to a full 21-day quarantine and full medical examination and clearance before rejoining society until #1 is accomplished and new processes are implemented.

Posted by cccp1014 on 6/22/2020 1:23:00 PM (view original):
#1) If you're not going to read what I write, why debate? COVID-19 is relatively mild. I want a full policy on how we screen all visitors and potential immigrants and asylum seekers. What stops someone from a foreign country of sending an infected person to poison us again. I need more data. I need scientists and medical doctors to opine on how we do that. So for now we close the borders and limit travel from other countries to people who do it for political reasons or the military. I am not sure what the right answer is but keeping things the way they were cannot happen. The whole playbook needs to be scrapped and re-written from scratch. For example Sweden never locked down. I would not allow people from Sweden here until we have a vaccine and then see what we do going forward based on other potential illnesses. Now going forward we have to be prepared for anything and everything. This is the new normal.

#2) Wall Street Journal or anything that is fact based. Nothing opinion based. For example I don't need a link to show you that Israel's embassy is now in Jerusalem. Showing me links from CNN on how evil our border security is...is not productive. I don't trust our media. They lied about COVID-19, they have been lying to us for years. Only media I trust remotely is the WSJ.

#3) I am a COVID-19 survivor and I use that term anecdotally because the media overplayed and over hyped this illness.

We are in a new normal and I will be voting as such going forward.

relatively mild??? tell that to the 100,000 plus who have died, or the millions who have lost their jobs.

How do you know the media has "over hyped" this illness? Since you don't trust the media. Has the WSJ said the illness has been over hyped? What so called facts do you have to back this claim up?

If the media hyped up Covid-19 then why do we need to close our borders to protect ourselves from it? Seems that either the seriousness of Covid-19 is real or you're a racist :)

Posted by wylie715 on 6/22/2020 1:57:00 PM (view original):

Posted by cccp1014 on 6/22/2020 1:23:00 PM (view original):
#1) If you're not going to read what I write, why debate? COVID-19 is relatively mild. I want a full policy on how we screen all visitors and potential immigrants and asylum seekers. What stops someone from a foreign country of sending an infected person to poison us again. I need more data. I need scientists and medical doctors to opine on how we do that. So for now we close the borders and limit travel from other countries to people who do it for political reasons or the military. I am not sure what the right answer is but keeping things the way they were cannot happen. The whole playbook needs to be scrapped and re-written from scratch. For example Sweden never locked down. I would not allow people from Sweden here until we have a vaccine and then see what we do going forward based on other potential illnesses. Now going forward we have to be prepared for anything and everything. This is the new normal.

#2) Wall Street Journal or anything that is fact based. Nothing opinion based. For example I don't need a link to show you that Israel's embassy is now in Jerusalem. Showing me links from CNN on how evil our border security is...is not productive. I don't trust our media. They lied about COVID-19, they have been lying to us for years. Only media I trust remotely is the WSJ.

#3) I am a COVID-19 survivor and I use that term anecdotally because the media overplayed and over hyped this illness.

We are in a new normal and I will be voting as such going forward.

relatively mild??? tell that to the 100,000 plus who have died, or the millions who have lost their jobs.

How do you know the media has "over hyped" this illness? Since you don't trust the media. Has the WSJ said the illness has been over hyped? What so called facts do you have to back this claim up?

#1) Of those who died the majority are from nursing homes and were on death's door. Very few died who didn't have underlying conditions. Relatively means its not a global killer like the Spanish Flu was where ~50mil died.

#2) I know because I had it. I know because if you're healthy it is no worse than a bad cold and most have zero symptoms. My wife only lost taste and smell for a few weeks.

#3) They over hyped it because every outlet made it sound like the black plague.

Posted by coreander on 6/22/2020 1:58:00 PM (view original):
If the media hyped up Covid-19 then why do we need to close our borders to protect ourselves from it? Seems that either the seriousness of Covid-19 is real or you're a racist :)

I said "something more sinister"...I am not as worried about COVID-19.

Sounds to me like you read what you want to read. So me not wanting any tourists or immigrants to come in until we have a new policy in place makes me racist? Then yes, I am racist by your operational definition. Against which race, I am not sure, please specify.

Thank you. I am eager to improve myself.

OK. So let's say that I agree with you that we should shut down our borders for 18 months because of COVID or other illnesses (although I hate to break it to you, but if bioterror happens, it probably will not be through immigrants. If a foreign country wants to commit a bioterror attack, closing our borders probably won't help).

Let's discuss the immigration policy after we re-open. Do you support Trump's asylum policy and why or why not?