It is an interesting game here and yeah, it's all a game. A wall will not be built. A real border wall would really take hundreds of billions of dollars and probably take 50 years to build in real life, the way it could really get done, with real property owners/rights, cost-overruns, etc.

Yeah. There are ways you can frame it though where it's different. If you were like "Speedy Gonzales has lived in the US as an undocumented immigrant since he was 10, he has a family here and doesnt even remember Mexico. Deport that guy?" Dems would be like 10% support for deportation, I would guess.

It’s a nice idea

But these ****s aren’t going to give anything to get the 5B

Even if they agree to it they will just Charlie Brown the football on you anyway

Excellent read

This number should be way closer to 100%. The potential for abuse of undocumented workers by unscrupulous employers is as high or higher than anything a garden-variety coyote could inflict. There are many documented cases of this which obv rarely get investigated let alone prosecuted.

How about we get a bunch of stuff and charlie brown the wall in 2 years. I mean, there's a ton of planning and stuff before anything happens, right?

Term limits are bad. Someone is going to make the laws. If we handicap, via term limits, the incentive and ability of elected politicians to build up a good institutional knowledge of how to craft and enact laws, you're simply going to shift power to unaccountable/unobservable lobbyists and groups like ALEC.

At least Pence and the boys get their $10,000 pay rises
#everyshutdownhasasilverlining

Same here. I to trend more towards being a super villain than a neo-Nazi though, so that's at least a positive.

1. The R’s aren’t going to give you a bunch of stuff

2. **** their ****ing wall

I remember reading about one state legislature that enacted strict term limits, and within a couple of cycles they were in a spot where they basically had to bring in consultants to help draft that year's budget, because no one actually knew how to do it. Definitely not a good thing.

lol Faux News really going all in on CONGRESSWOMAN CURSING!!!

NSFW, Presidential Language

ALEC already writes most GOP legislation just as Heritage and Federalist decide who gets nominated to be judges so I'm not sure that's a solid argument against term limits

Anyway this needs to happen way before term limits

These bad actors have already developed a lot of power, so let's codify it?

I mean, that's one theory. Another is that, even if these special interest types get their claws into a guy that guy won't be around after two terms and someone cleaner comes in.

Your argument works just as well in reverse. Why reward people who have sold out to special interests with lifetime seats?

With some exceptions, and this is not one, the left-humanists-liberals should never push for more prosecutions.

Documented workers should have rights and be documented (shouldn't be necessary). That's the answer. Not prosecuting anyone. The undocumented need to work and by not prosecuting anyone involved you lessen the potential for abuse. If only criminals are allowed to hire immigrants that won't make things better for them. In the real world this just makes the labor market another black market. It doesn't make it disappear. It just makes it suck.

Being on a poker forum I hope we have all played a game. Politics is a game to a large extent. Not every move needs to be designed to win the game right then and there, but your moves should be designed to win the game at the end or in the long run. That is where the Democrats are so terrible and are failing so miserably. They cling to moves that aren't winners now and that don't help them win in the future either.

Proposing trading meaningful stuff for the wall is a good move because your outcomes are:

1) You get good stuff passed that otherwise you had no chance to pass and Trump gets to crow about a wall that most don't want while the Dems get to crow about DACA/MFA which people actually do want. Yes the wall sucks but 5b isn't going to build it and it is very likely Trump and his cronies are so incompetent it will either never happen or they will screw it up. or;

2) The more likely event occurs and Trump or the Senate won't agree. If this happens it still helps you because you tried to get DACA/MFA passed (which are insanely popular) and they obstructed it. You can use it campaigning in 2020. It also prevents Trump and his minions from shifting the narrative of this shutdown being the Dems fault, or that the Dems are weak on crime/border/etc.

It is a win/win and infinitely better than the Rep strategy of just telling Trump to go **** himself, having a 0% chance of getting anything done the next two years and then hope the spin of all this works out for the Dems in 2020 (Hint: The Dems lose the spin war basically every time).

if the wall ever actually gets built, we would have to massively expand worker visas since there is such demand for illegal immigration.

I get your point but there has to be some consequence to the employer, otherwise the abuses never stop because the incentive to not abuse doesn't exist. (Also minor nit, you mentioned "fines" not "prosecutions" in the op)

This. **** you guys this is why Dems keep losing

I agree just on principle. People should be able to vote for whoever they want. The burden is definitely on people who say that you can't imo. That said, the system where some people in congress have way more power than others just because they've been there a long time sucks.

You don't put the wall money in the CR, you put it in the same bill as MFA/DACA. For someone who thinks the Rs have no leverage I would have thought this would be obvious.

But the abuses don't stop with the fines either. I submit they get worse. Businesses like meat packers hire subcontractors who hire subcontractors who hire the actual workers and all the documentation is faked. You fine or prosecute one group, but that doesn't affect the industry because it's too profitable to operate like that.

Just give the workers the same rights as any other workers. Nothing else is a solution and pretending that you win by clamping down on something here is just like the drug war. When there's enough incentive to have a black market it will happen.

And...the undocumented have to work. This is just another angle to outlaw them, make them desperate and if not take an illegal job, do what? Starve? Dissuade other people from coming here because everyone who does starves?

This is all conjecture, but I'm having a hard time imagining a world where special interests are powerful enough to repeatedly get otherwise-unpopular candidate A elected, but they're not powerful enough to get replacement candidate B elected after A is no longer allowed to run.

Not sure I understand the second point - I'm not advocating for lifetime seats for any legislator. I'd just like the option to keep voting for someone if I think they're doing a good job. Like, if I was on his team I'd vote for McConnell for life.