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    OMG!PONIES!Jay Hathaway
    11/12/15 5:36pm

    So Carson’s answer to illegal immigration is to grow GRAIN?!

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      Jay HathawayOMG!PONIES!
      11/12/15 5:37pm

      Make Egypt Grain Again

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      OMG!PONIES!Jay Hathaway
      11/12/15 5:41pm

      Many scientists think that aliens built Chichen Itza but I believe that Cortez told the Mayans to build it to store grain.

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    Jer'Maine MontielJay Hathaway
    11/12/15 5:42pm

    So I was on Twitter during the debate and a woman I follow was amazed at how illegal immigration was a thing to be riled up over, if you’d have looked at the numbers. So I did:

    There were 11.3 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. in 2014. The population has remained essentially stable for five years, and currently makes up 3.5% of the nation’s population. The number of unauthorized immigrants peaked in 2007 at 12.2 million, when this group was 4% of the U.S. population.

    Mexicans make up about half of all unauthorized immigrants (52%), though their numbers have been declining in recent years. There were 5.9 million Mexican unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. in 2012, down from 6.4 million in 2009, according to Pew Research Center estimates. Over the same time period, the number of unauthorized immigrants from Asia, the Caribbean, Central America and a grouping of countries in the Middle East, Africa and some other areas grew slightly (unauthorized immigrant populations from South America and Europe/Canada did not change significantly).

    And also:

    Unauthorized immigrants make up 5.1% of the U.S. labor force. In the U.S. labor force, there were 8.1 million unauthorized immigrants either working or looking for work in 2012. Among the states, Nevada (10%), California (9%), Texas (9%) and New Jersey (8%) had the highest shares of unauthorized immigrants in their labor forces.

    So we build a fence (or wall, if you like that sort of thing) to keep out a measly less than 2% of the population.

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      99Telep☺dpr☹blemsJer'Maine Montiel
      11/12/15 5:52pm
      GIF

      Your numbers will do little to soothe the raging territorial ID of those on the far right. Without a border to piss on and an enemy to throw their shit at, their entire political ideology becomes meaningless.

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      flamingolingoJer'Maine Montiel
      11/12/15 6:32pm

      I was thinking about this recently and have come to the conclusion that it’s not the factual immigration numbers that are riling up the right because, as you document, those numbers are pretty trifling.

      What alarms the right is the fact that undocumented immigrants that are here have become politically mobilized. They’re organizing, writing editorials, agitating for more rights, raising money, trying to influence elections, protesting in high profile ways.

      I don’t think Republicans would be kicking up a fuss about illegal immigration if the undocumented ‘knew their place’, i.e. remained docile, invisible, and therefore highly exploitable.

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    RooseveltsRevengeJay Hathaway
    11/12/15 5:47pm

    By “take away incentives to live in the US” he gave the game away.

    Because his policy proposals would ruin quality of life for literally everyone who isn’t already Scrooge McDuck rich.

    So, “Ruin America - the immigrants will leave!” Is Ben Carson’s campaign strategy. Wow.

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      Pedestrian2000RooseveltsRevenge
      11/12/15 6:31pm

      It’ll be like that scene in Independence Day when Jeff Goldblum drunkenly decides that the best way to stop the alien invasion is to throw trash and bottles around to make Earth dirtier and less desirable.

      And yeah, it didn’t work, but it lowered the branch for him to reach the “computer virus” solution. So come on, give it a chance. It’s gonna take some trial end error to solve this imaginary problem.

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      LobstertailRooseveltsRevenge
      11/12/15 9:05pm

      Carson said he wanted to improve conditions in Mexico, not to make America worse. They are neither the same thing nor mutually exclusive.

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    dothedewJay Hathaway
    11/12/15 5:38pm

    Seems like a sure way to drive yourself to insanity, Jay, is to analyze this nutball’s plans as if they were legitimate ideas. Even debunking them gives them too much credit. I propose that you just use a gif to comment on Carson’s brain farts.

    GIF
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      Eli Manning stars in: Omaha! Omaha! Omaha!dothedew
      11/12/15 5:46pm

      Nobody would have to analyze this guy’s statements if there weren’t literally millions of people who think he would be the best choice for President of the United States.

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      dothedewEli Manning stars in: Omaha! Omaha! Omaha!
      11/12/15 5:52pm

      True. But no amount of rational analysis is going to change the minds of these folks.

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    QuadPoleJay Hathaway
    11/12/15 5:33pm

    Carson’s idea is not far off. It is a supply and demand problem. People come here for economic opportunities. If they have it good in Mexico, why would they risk their lives to sneak into the U.S.?

    The problem with this plan is the U.S. has no jurisdiction over Mexico.

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      Orlandu7QuadPole
      11/12/15 6:07pm

      The problem with the plan is that if America truly is the greatest country in the world, by definition it’s going to have better economic opportunities than everywhere else. The only way it could possibly work is if America no longer has appealing jobs to offer people, which, hey, Republicans are well on their way to accomplishing, I suppose.

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      Snake LipssynkQuadPole
      11/12/15 7:12pm

      If they have it good in Mexico, why would they risk their lives to sneak into the U.S.?

      This generally applies to any country’s citizens.

      Mass migrations of people “seeking better opportunity” or fleeing instability have only expanded across the globe in the last few decades. In that same period neoliberal market reforms (via our foreign policy) have been instituted in every country connected to global markets. These structural changes also helped multinationals internationalize and concentrate the profits from their global war on the middleman (which basically includes the public sector as a whole).

      This is how we ended up with 14.6 million millionaires (2014), 1700+ billionaires (2015), and people running all over the world desperately searching for sustainability.

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    2DollarzJay Hathaway
    11/12/15 5:32pm

    He’s not crazy, you’re the one that’s crazy. Also: Pepsi.

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      DoobyOne2Dollarz
      11/12/15 5:34pm

      Purple Monkey Dishwasher! Therefore, Jaysus. Amen.

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      StoneColdSteveErkel2Dollarz
      11/12/15 5:38pm

      “Just ONE Pepsi! But she wouldn’t give it to me!”

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    DashleyinCaliJay Hathaway
    11/12/15 5:44pm

    Some lovely person tweeted sometime last week that Ben Carson always sounds like he’s giving a 5th grade book report. (Wish I could give proper credit - sorry to whoever it was.) Beginning an answer to a question about our current immigration policy with, “easy question” is a perfect example. It’s like he doesn’t understand that when he’s talking to the press, this isn’t a test he’s being graded on. He’s in a job interview for a position with, uh, some pretty high stakes, and he doesn’t seem to register that if he did become president, these aren’t hypothetical situations.

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      Bonzi777DashleyinCali
      11/12/15 5:53pm

      Yes exactly. It’s the old “Repeat the same words that were in the question in your first and last sentences and you’re halfway there” approach that they would tell you to do on test questions as a kid.

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      PaperSnowGhostDashleyinCali
      11/12/15 6:17pm

      He’s the *smug* 5th grader who the rest of the class hates.

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    KittyReavenJay Hathaway
    11/12/15 5:34pm

    To be fair, trying to help Mexico figure out what it’s doing instead of ignoring it and building a big wall is probably a good idea.

    But not this way lol.

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      mrblergKittyReaven
      11/12/15 5:37pm

      Agreed. The idea of making Mexico a better country to deincentivize people coming to the US makes sense. But yea, I dunno if Carson has a good plan. Other hand? Guy knows about grain silos!

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    DoobyOneJay Hathaway
    11/12/15 5:31pm

    The GOP needs a Palin. Carson is the new Bible Spice.

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      GeorgeGeoffersonLivesJay Hathaway
      11/13/15 3:47am

      We can’t even (or won’t even) find work for our own lower skilled workers who we’ve nearly totally left behind, and we’re going to go in and find Mexico’s much larger percentage pool of lower skilled workers jobs and transform their economy?

      GIF
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