Name:   copperline - Subject:   SBU Date:   6/3/2016 6:21:47 PM

You are minimizing and softening the crux of what he said.  

Banning all Muslims from entering the US extends well beyond Syrians & Iraqi refugees... and would require a religious screening test at each border crossing.   He also did say he would deport some 11 million Illegals, a process that would require rounding up, processing and housing about the same number of people as currently live in New York City.   Dislocating those people, sending them out of country and then letting them apply to return will cause a disruption of the economy on the order of a 2% drop in GNP according to even conservative think tanks. 

I recently had my own experience with Central Americans when I hired a crew of 4 Salvadorans to paint my house... I spent several days with them.  We talked extensively about their country & decision to come to the US.   Salvador has become a war zone, and they were terrified to live there.  It was necessary to pay bribes just to walk safely thru town to whatever work they could fine.   Hernando told me about stepping over bodies in the streets, and the sound of gun fire at night around his home.   I was sympathetic to them, they clearly were fleeing violence and a collapsed country.  We talked about applications for citizenship, and here is the catch:   if you apply for citizenship, you must return to your home country and make reapplication from there.   That means if you have found a job, you must leave it, and find a way to (again) pay for the return trip.  The waiting period is indeterminate, and most of them felt it was a better idea to stay here as long as they could since they did not think they could make it back from Salvador a second time.

Frankly, we do need to clean up the immigration system... I'm all for that.   This also means some limits on immigration.  But it is not wise to uproot and deport millions of people who are already here because of the vast complications (both legal, social, and economic) that this would require.   Obama has been proposeing a pathway to citizenship, plus some actions that would minimize the burden on ICE by reducing the number of people they would be chasing.   That strategy makes more sense to me than internment camps and sweeps thru immigrant neighborhoods, the only way Trump's fantasy can be implimented.