You mean an economic migrant pretending to be a refugee.

@brentan Not all people coming here are the same, the ones you describe are actually much fewer in number than previously.

@brentan The majority of those at the southern border wanting to come here are refugees from terrorism by cartels. They are traditionally hard workers, and absolutely are the underpinning of vast sections of agrobusiness, home construction, home services, and other non-manufacturing labor services. Crack down on them and prepare to pay a lot more for the above business sectors...

@Dallasdave I agree with everything you said except the first sentence.

@brentan I am a refugee myself, I have escaped from Afghanistan because there has been 40 years of war caused and controlled by refugee taker countries, Islamic fundamentalism has emerged in Afghanistan because of the cold war between two superpowers, the cold war destroyed my country and it's culture, 90% of educated and non religious Afghans have escaped and left the country unwillingly, if there wasn't cold war none of us would leave our country, economic migrants are different from refugees, economic migrants can not apply for refugee status as they will be rejected immediately, that is why most of them work secretly at black markets without applying for refugee status, most of economic immigrants are from countries like India and Pakistan.

@NR92 If you're a genuine refugee, you are fully entitled to refugee status. I think you are saying that even though a person such as someone from Afghanistan has no legal right to immigrate into America, they have a moral right because America caused their problem in the first place. That's an interesting way of looking at it and while I'm sure a refugee or an immigrant is more focussed on survival than moot points about law or morality, the American government must feel,it has no other tool than the immigration/refugee laws to control what would otherwise be a free-for-all. I'm glad you made it out and that someday Afghanistan stops being invaded by all and sundry and people can live in their beautiful country in peace.

@brentan War is not the only reason people leave their country and become refugee, we have political refugees as well, we have religious minority refugees we have stateless refugees like Rohingya, we have natural disaster refugees, if someones life is in danger in a country because some are willing to kill them for any reason can also seek asylum in an other country, the UNHCR is much smarter than we ordinary people to differentiate genuine refugees from others.

@NR92 i wouldn't dispute that but are we not discussing the American immigration/refugee system?

@NR92 There are parallels between Afghanistan and the Northern Triangle countries. In both instances the US was in part responsible for the destabilization you describe.

@NR92, @brentan If the Nothern Triangle refugees had light-colored skin the current administration would be treating them much differently.

@MizJ I think we're dealing with any amount of 'what ifs' versus the legislation in place to control immigration. Mostly I seem to hear one extreme or the other being proposed. What to do right now, in the face of so many illegal immigrants? It's a very difficult problem to solve.

@brentan Detaining them in cages against international law is a travesty, the only ones benefitting are private corrections companies. We should be better than this.

@MizJ I wouldn't argue with that!

@MizJ Exactly, there are thousands of economic migrants from eastern Europe countries in developed countries such as UK, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Canada, US, Australia and Newzealand, and they are benefiting from facilities better than genuine refugees without any kind of war in their home countries and they are treated differently from colored-skin refugees, plus there are hundreds thousands of rich Muslim radicals from Saudi Arabia living in the UK and got their citizenship just because they are rich and can buy properties while they are causing problems and building mosques all over the London every day.