Berlin mayor to Donald Trump: 'Don't build this wall'

Ugh my bad, I started by saying 1 million then changed it to what I thought was 100,000 because it seemed far more reasonable. Forgot to remove the million when I went back to change it.

and preventing visa overstays, whether by closer monitoring of visa holders or by making citizenship applications more appealing and viable for poor immigrants.

I can't think of a way we could feasibly accomplish closer monitoring. I also thought one of the concerns was the cost of monitoring and then actually removing illegals. To me it seems like we can nip the whole problem in the bud if we just stop allowing so many people prone to abusing the system in the country in the first place. It makes no sense to say that we want to curtail illegal immigration, and at the same time continue to allow the system enabling them to come in and stay illegally to continue unchecked.

As much as I'm sure a lot of trump supporters would like it, we don't want to discourage legal immigration from mexico, nor do we want to discourage immigrants from becoming citizens.

Why don't we want to discourage legal immigration? Legitimately asking, not a Trump supporter, just feel like we should seriously reconsider the number of people that are coming in since the system is clearly rife with abuse. Why do we want immigrants to become citizens? We have kids starving, people who can't afford healthcare and myriad other problems that adding more citizens will only make even more difficult to address. I have a ton of sympathy for people who want to come here, but a country should make sure it's citizen's are taken care of first. I thought that was the whole point of having a country.

Less of a pain in the ass and more effective than what? Burning the pile of money as a threat?

Yes. I think if we're going to be spending money on the actual border, it would make more sense to spend it on additional agents etc. than a wall. I would like to have secure borders. I know the number of illegals crossing is less than the number overstaying visas, but having such a porous border is still a problem.

And you don't think we could use this 20 billion dollars for the wall (likely a lowball estimate anyway) on infrastructure to benefit actual citizens?

I certainly do think we could use it to benefit citizens. I'm not a wall fan. I also think that we need to seriously address illegal immigration because it is costing us a TON. Again, I sympathize with people who want to come here. I can easily see myself overstaying my visa or crossing the border illegally if I wasn't born here.

The whole thing makes me sad.

I hope you know I don't think anyone is better than anyone else, but that I feel we have a duty to support our own countrymen first.

I appreciate the conversation.

/r/worldnews Thread Parent Link - theguardian.com