It depends on what your definition of IS is.

An example is when the Europeans arrived on the North American continent.

It’s when the US helps destroy other countries and then criminalizes the people fleeing these countries. The criminalization is important to keep a compliant workforce that can be threatened with deportation if they ask for a bathroom break. The criminalization also serves to give something non-material to the working class: the concept of citizenship. And the ruling class can blame the appalling conditions of the working class on the criminalized, rather than the ruling class which is actually exploiting them.

Depends on the person defining it. Illegal immigration I guess is coming to a country without papers and without just cause that meets the parameters of the country’s immigration laws.

Illegal Immigrant is slightly different, people define that in different ways too. Is it anyone in the country without papers? What if they have papers, but not working papers and are working? To me that is illegal also, because believe me they usually get deported when they have a tourist visa and are found out to be working. Deported and not allowed to get another tourist visa for at least ten years usually in the US, I don’t know in other countries.

People who hate illegal immigrants and make them out to be criminals or they view them as bad people are just like people who look down on the poor and think that could never happen to them. Anyone can have bad times happen and need to leave their country or they can lose their economic status. It’s like spitting into the wind to be so judgmental and unempathetic. God forbid they ever have to seek refuge in another country, they are just so smug. Learning the hard way is not fun.

As @hat said…it’s whatever the christian right wants it to be.
Do note, that this is different then the actual truth.

I can abuse people and lie to them to make them believe me because I’m stronger or control them with fear, violence and prevent them from educating, learning and growing as a person. This doesn’t mean I’m actually right…it means I’m currently powerful enough to control what the truth is.

By definition it would be immigration done not in accordance with or contradictory to the immigration laws.

It’s exactly what it sounds like. It’s entering and residing in this country illegally. Does not matter the reasons, causes, blame etc.., it’s still illegal immigration. When people don’t go through the regular immigration channels when entering this country with intent to stay it’s not legal. People seem to have a hard time with this. It’s not that hard, when laws are being broken, it’s illegal. Other countries do not allow this to happen to the extent the U.S. does. While arguments can be made that some of this may be the fault of the US or US based companies it’s certainly not all or even most. If we want to “fix” illegal immigration, and to be clear, we should, it only takes changing the laws. There is real human tragedy happening with people struggling to make it here. Many are taken horrible advantage of en route and also when they arrive. The Us has plenty of enemies and border security needs to be a priority as it is with many other countries. Leaving borders wide open is about as dumb as it gets. We also need to show compassion for people who need it so immigration reform is needed.

When Germany invaded France.

But it isn’t illegal to simply enter the U.S. At what point does it flip over into illegal?

^^ When you do it illegally.

The simple act of coming to the US is not illegal.

There are immigration laws. Crossing the border at a point other than a port of entry is not within the law. Asylum? The correct way would be to go to the port of entry and claim it. Not cross the Rio Grande and then, when you get caught, suddenly claim it. The proper way would be to apply for a visa and then come when it is approved. And even then, entering at the port of entry is the correct way to do it.

@Dutchess_III

At what point?

When you overstay a visa.

When an immigration court rules you can’t stay.

When you enter without going through a border check point and have no intention of turning yourself in to be evaluated for immigration. I don’t expect people crossing to necessarily wind up at a checkpoint, they are crossing desert, often dehydrated, all sorts of circumstances, but if they cross and just hope to live under the radar without papers, then they are in the country illegally.

It sucks, because they know they don’t have papers and they live every day having to worry about it.

@Dutchess_III Are the bulk of immigrants crossing the border presenting passports to enter? If they do are they staying more than 90 days? It’s not open to anyone’s special interpretation, there are specific times and situations when it is illegal to be here and there are protocols that are to be followed if you want to immigrate. We as Americans can’t just go to to any country we want without following their protocols either.

Answer: whatever fits the political needs of the republican party at the moment.

There is far less of a problem than politicians would have you believe.

@Dutchess_III I believe you are mistaken. In order for a non-citizen to enter the U S, they must have written permission in the form of a visa and passport. The documents are called “papers”, and to enter without them is illegal.

Citizens from most countries are allowed to visit the US for 30 days without a visa. Any longer than that without a visa would be illegal.

@Dutchess_III Just flip it around. What do you think would happen if you arrived in a country without a visa? Or, overstayed your visa? What’s your status in that country?

@JLeslie Try over staying your visa in Australia or Russia or China. The police will come after you and escort you to the airport.

@gondwanalon And that only works because they keep tabs on people visiting.

@RocketGuy Just a clarification on entering without a visa. You seem to be talking about the Visa Waiver Program. VWP has pretty good limitations. It isn’t travel from “most” countries, there is a list of 39 countries participating in the program. It should be noted that the only of the Central or South American countries that are part of this group is Chile. Additionally there are other requirements you need to meet prior to boarding the plane to come here. Another correction is that the travel is good for 90 days, not 30 days.

What you are describing is following the legal, established, program. If you were to just walk into the US, you are not covered under these limitations.

Here are the requirements for applying for asylum through the US Government:
(Link from US Citizenship and Immigration Services)

https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-and-asylum/asylum/obtaining-asylum-in-the-united-states

@jca2 I believe you have posted that before. Here’s the part I don’t understand about the whole thing. If you legitimately are seeking asylum, why would it take you a year to get around to telling someone? If I were seeking asylum in another country, I’d go to the port of entry and tell the border patrol there that I needed asylum. If I was on the run and had to enter another country somewhere other than the port of entry, I’d seek out the first official I could find (police, sheriff, BP, etc) and tell them I need asylum. That would be the quickest, easiest, and likely most successful way to do it. I know these rules have changed over time to accommodate illegals, but really…it needs to make sense.

@seawulf575: I haven’t posted it on this thread.

@seawulf575: If you don’t agree with the laws and/or procedure, you should contact your local or national politician(s).

@jca2 No, I didn’t mean this site. But I thought it was you that had posted in a different thread. It’s a good citation, don’t get me wrong. As for reaching out to the national politicians, you seem to think I haven’t done so. I have. I’m a firm believer in reaching out to my senators and Representatives. It’s one of the ways I determine if they are worth re-electing.

@seawulf575: I may have posted it on another thread, which would mean I felt it was relevant to that thread. There’s no guarantee that people that are looking at this thread have looked at the other thread, and maybe the other thread was weeks or months ago, in whicih case, people may not remember it. I am posting it here because people on this thread are talking about what you need to come to the US, so I am posting the link right to the source (not a secondary info link like a blog post or newspaper article, but right from the government), so people can see what is needed exactly to apply for asylum.

As most people here know, I am very big on links and links right from the source, not from media when possible.

I didn’t post it to argue here, because I’m not engaging in an argument. I just posted it for people to have exact information about what is needed for applying for asylum and for people seeking to come to the US.