Quote (Black XistenZ @ Dec 19 2019 12:37pm)
Just hypothetically: imagine california over the next years takes in a further 40m illegal immigrants from latin america, doubling CA's population count - would it be fair that this would gift democrats 55 additional votes in the electoral college and the corresponding number of house seats, and thus cement Democratic dominance in presidential and House elections?
Now, that's obviously an unrealistically high number, but the principle is the same even with much lower numbers. A criminal act diluting the political power of american citizens on the other side of the country is a big fucking deal and has cumulative effects of its own. This is not something with a very limited, focused scope.
I personally believe that decoupling illegal immigration and partisan politics as much as possible would really make all these discussions around immigration a lot less toxic and polarizing. In a similar vein, amnesty would be a lot more achievable politically if conservatives didnt have to fear that it would lead to Democratic dominance or to their tax dollars being spent on people who are only in the country because they broke the law.
but the principal isn't the same with lower numbers. having a slight edge in the electoral counts isnt the same as having a trump card. 55 votes isn't the same as an extra 3.
is it fair to citizens of states that we limit highway, educational, hospital, etc funding because they live in a state with a lot of illegals?
the fairness cuts both ways tbh. and the moral question of whether electoral votes should be based on real population or citizen population is anything but decided. there are pros and cons in both directions.
honestly if ICE can't apprehend illegals because they dont have census data telling them approx how many illegals are in a certain area they're doing a shitty job. with the citizenship question houses with illegals simply wont report them as such, so there's no road map to illegal houses in any case.