How long will it before the US Border Patrol shoots real bullets at the refugee caravan (instead of tear gas)?

Or how long until they herd the people at the border into gas chambers? I’m horrified by our country’s actions.

George Takei posted on Twitter yesterday: ”Folks are acting as though we had no choice but to use tear gas at our border. But we have known about this group approaching for weeks. We could have had buses and agents ready to process people in an orderly and humane way. Instead, Trump closed the border and gassed them.”

I can make no guesses as to the timing of lethal force, but there seem to be a lot of folks who will enjoy that. Some of them right here on fluther.

The conservatives here on this site have already admitted that they will be fine with anything that happens to them, because they are “invaders”.
The orangutan could napalm them, and they would cheer.

I hope never but would not be surprised if there was video on the 6 PM news. This country is turning into a bully.

The White House has instructed the Pentagon to use lethal force if confronted with the threat of rocks. It’s like an outgrowth of the “stand your ground” laws.

My over/under on when the first migrant is shot and kiled is Christmas Eve.

Evil stephen miller and trump are praying for a crazed immigrant to pick up a rock and get shot at.

It seems Kelly and Nielsen refused to agree with the order to go lethal until the demonic trump, miller and apparently a third guy prevailed and Kelly signed along.

It’ll never happen. Tear gas will do the job quite nicely.

How long will it be?
May, 2018.
Claudia Patricia Gomez Gonzalez, twenty years young, from Guatemala .

This is such an upsetting situation. I am ashamed for my country. We could have spent all this money on updated processing personnel and handling policies instead of sending the army in.

Obama used pepper spray to drive back illegals in 2013 along the exact same stretch of the border. It didn’t lead to real bullets back then and it won’t now. No one screamed when Obama did it so I assume you all have very short memories. Probably intentionally.

@jaxk – my guess is that you will be proven wrong in the next 48 hours. Trump will order lethal force because he wants to show how tough he is.

@Jaxk, please link to where we confirm that Obama authorized the use f lethal force on asylum seekers.

What a terrible waste! There are millions of acres of forest that need to be raked. ;-)

@canidmajor – The right can’t justify the actions, so it always falls back to claims of hypocrisy.

Yep, Obama was a fucking nightmare regarding immigration (and the 2013 event did happen, although under different circumstances), and it’s why the left, immigration groups and the ACLU fought the administration’s actions. There was a reason he was referred to as the “deporter in chief”.

Now that this is out of the way, can we talk about the current actions taking place on the border?

@notnotnotnot GA!

What rebbel wrote. It’s already happened, before the caravan.

If people attempting to enter the United Sates illegally use leathal force, then personnel protecting the border will likely defend themselves.

@gondwanalon and conversely, if the Border Patrol uses lethal force against the asylum seekers, then the asylum seekers have the right to defend themselves with lethal force as well, right?

Everyone has the right to defend themselves.

Everyone has the right to defend themselves from stupid, immoral and dangerous vote-baiting political stunts like this one.

It only appeals to people’s worst instincts. I need to come up with a new derogatory word just for trump. Evil is not enough.

Vile?

Repugnant. Odious.

A new word describing an “ugly entity of the lowest form but placed in a position of power out of desperation and disregard for decency and honor”

Trump says Mexico has agreed to keep them at the border, though Mexico says no such agreement exists. My take on this – when the shooting begins, T can blame it on the Mexican police.

@YARNLADY – that is PRESIDENT T to you. That’s how he referred to himself this weekend.

I don’t think it will happen (hoping it won’t). I stated on a Different Q that I thought tear gas was likely, and I was right about that, so I hope I’m right about no real bullets flying.

I agree with the quote way above that we could have met these people with employees to process them for immigration rather than what’s going on. We should have been preparing to meet these people in a civil manner and hear each individual situation. We have laws for this sort of thing.

Trump is saying crazy horrible crap about the situation for weeks now, and a lot of democrats are sounding like just let them all in, rather than process them. Very few people with the loudest voices sound like they have level heads and want to utilize our immigration laws.

@JLeslie, most of the people I know are Dems, and I read a lot of liberal opinions and publications, and I have not heard or seen even one suggest that we “let them all in”.
Not one.
I’m not saying you haven’t, but it is so Tate as to not even register on the meter.

Crap. Weird autocorrect or fat fingers. I meant to say “so rare as to not…”

This feels to me politicians are more interested in kicking this can down the road to get votes rather than fixing it once and for all. Americans should be able to deal with this whole legal and illegal immigration issue. And move on to other things which also needs urgent attention.

How long would that be?

Trump seems afraid of immigrants. They aren’t here to steal people’s stuff or to kill them. They just want the opportunity that others before them have received. Why can’t we treat them the way we did the immigrants that flooded into Ellis Island? It makes me happy when I hear of people looking at the records from Ellis Island and finding their grandparents signatures.

@canidmajor Most Democrats I know aren’t suggesting just let them all in either, but I do see enough hysterical people freaking out about the racism and bigotry that they come across as if it is racist to even suggest that the immigrants should be vetted or stopped in any way. I’m not saying being very emotional about what is happening is wrong, I’m saying from the Trump supporter point of view I can understand why their perception is we just want to open the border with no restrictions.

You are watching and reading discussions being done by well reasoned, educated on the topic, people. But, go on Facebook, or the very left leaning shows and the sant is different. It’s just talk about total disgust regarding a wall, or people practically on the edge of a nervous breakdown, because their children are worried about their friends being deported. It’s not reasonable discussion.

What is crazy is voters on both sides aren’t protesting or marching demanding both political parties to discuss, debate, compromise on a bill and pass a law settling the issue for now.

It seems voters would prefer getting control of all the branches of government before anything gets done.

People are paying these representatives hundreds of thousands of dollars a year just to watch them be unproductive and unreasonable.

Call your representatives.

@chyna “Why can’t we treat them the way we did the immigrants that flooded into Ellis Island?” Because it has to stop/end somewhere, sometime or the whole place will be overrun. The living space we may have, the water, the resources, the electricity, the landfill space, isn’t endless. Realistically speaking, it needs to end NOW! Of course, we could always shoot them… There are no other REAL alternatives.

Wow, @kritiper, do you know anything about how the process is supposed to work? Have you ever driven across the US and seen how much viable space, with appropriate resources there actually is? Do you get just how much work there is available for laborers that is going undone because there simply aren’t enough hands to do it?
Peolple were vetted and processed at Ellis Island, not simply let in to run over the top of everyone. This is a HUGE country, a few thousand vetted immigrants isn’t going to stretch our resources.

These “resources” arguments are always based on this fantasy, that everyone is already living on the edge, bordering on squalor.
The reality is that you are living in a country, where 150000 tons of food are thrown away every single day, where the economic system expects you throw away perfectly good electronic devices after a year, to replace it with the newest, shiniest model, and where you sprinkle your lawns 24/7.
One of the richest countries on the planet, with over 300 million people living in it, that wastes its abundant resources left and right, and you pretend that there is not enough to take care of a few thousand poor refugees.
Fucking Bullshit, is what it is.

There is a severe labor shortage in Northern California. Contractors will pay top dollar to anyone willing to be a carpenter apprentice. There are 6,000 homes that need to be rebuilt from the ground up in Santa Rosa, but less than 100 have been done because of not enough laborers.

@canidmajor And just how many years do you think we could keep it up??
For just a single example: “With China’s recent decision to stop importing recycled materials, the U.S. is in danger of running out of space for it’s trash. America has been forced to dispose of 676,000 metric tons of waste this year that would have otherwise been sent to China. At current rates, most Northeastern landfills will be full by 2029; the rest of the country’s landfills will be at capacity by 2036.” -The Outline.com, found in “The Week” magazine, May 25, 2018
It doesn’t end with “a few thousand vetted immigrants.” It goes on and on and on, year after year after year…

@kritiper, your post above mine said “...itneeds to end NOW…” No it doesn’t. Maybe at some point, quite a while from now, but not now.

This is a nation of immigrants; that is how we have grown and thrived. We still need laborers and professional immigrants. My DIL is a highly trained cardiac nurse from the Philippines and her colleagues are Filippinas too.

How long before Republicans stop demonizing illegal immigrants to get votes and lead the way to a solution of stopping if not discouraging illegal immigration without demonizing them to get votes?