I think I agree with Gas? What's going on!?
"That happens quite often, and yet people are always surprised!"
As for my "hatred" of the south it's not that at all. I've lived in Texas my entire life and I consider myself a southerner. Well Texan really (we are measurably better than your average southerner. It is known.).
I, too, make the distinction between the south and the southwest, of which I opine Texas to be part.
But when it comes to the Deep South I don't hate them, I feel pity for them. They are constantly at the bottom of the heap and lied to repeatedly, tricked into voting against their own self interests.
Such is the lot of the impoverished everywhere, not just in the south. It's been a large source of the democrat power base, really, despite democrat policy often harming most that which it purports to help.
And I don't get how, as a fiscal libertarian you can't see their issues (and the other economically fucked states you listed) as being a more important issue than the illegal immigration that isn't occurring in any of those areas (maybe some Trailer Park Boys sneaking into Maine?) Could you explain what you mean here? There's a lot of words but I sincerely can't parse how they are an argument. Don't mean that as a troll, I just don't understand what you are saying here.
It's not that I see one as more important than the other, it's that I see the data as unconnected. That South Carolina gets more federal dollars than it contributes does not mean that illegal immigration is not a problem, or that it needs not be addressed. The ratio of federal dollars in and out of a state is not really a valid indicator of the impact of illegal immigration, nor do I think it should be used as a meterstick for whose problems should be addressed first.
Granted, illegal immigration is a problem getting a disproportionate amount of press time and blame lately, but it is still something that has needed addressing for a long time. And really, the panicked handwringing over recent ICE enforcement efforts is similarly inflated, given that it is much the same as what had been going on during the Obama administration - it's just that now Trump is in charge, A is no longer A, A used to be de riguer enforcement, but now A is apparently a sign of fascism on the march.
But you are right that I got emotional last night. You brought up an incredibly dark topic in a way I felt was flippant. But I'm actually glad you brought it up, because it is so important.
I didn't mean to be flippant but perhaps I came off that way - I'm told I often do, even in person.
So let's talk about the issue of importance here then. Human trafficking. Let's make that the focus. What can we as a society do to end it?
It's a weird one because as far as I can tell literally everyone hates it. It's a fairly non-partisan issue. However at the same time it's also a topic that has pretty much never gotten presidential air time (either right or left).
Hell. Let's even look at it as an immigration issue. So what immigration reforms could realistically help eliminate human trafficking?
This comes back to what I was saying we really need to do - sour the milk. People are willing to immigrate illegally because of two factors: first, they believe there is gain to be had that is worth the risk, and second, they believe there are those that will shelter them from immigration enforcement (or turn a blind eye at the least, for various reasons). We need to focus on the enablers and the exploiters - increased scrutiny of those who would employ, exploit, traffic or otherwise harbor foreign nationals within our borders, and increased penalties on them.
First, we need to make it a completely unpalatable proposition for an American business to employ somone in the country illegally. Fines and other such penalties have clearly not done the job. Prison time would probably do the trick. For the employer, that is, not the illegal alien. Stiff penalties should also apply to those higher up the managerial chain from the one actually hiring illegals, if such a structure exists, so that upper management will be forced to audit and monitor hiring practices more closely, and have no plausible deniability of what is going on "under their watch."
In a similar vein, penalties for human trafficking should also be increased to draconian levels. The name of the game here is to make the reward not worth the risk.
See, the way to deal with illegal immigration and human trafficking is not to chastise those who dash across the border at night in ones and twos, but to go after the structure, those who profit off of providing the incentive. And to go after it so hard, and punish so heavily, that someone would have to be crazy to consider using illegal labor, be it agriculturally or sexually.
Once that happens, word will get out at the lack of opportunity for illegal profit, and the flow will reverse. Less will come, and those here already will begin to self-deport. Human traffickers will be more hesitant when they know getting caught could mean such severe punishment, and they would also find less willing dupes abroad when it becomes known that the US is taking illegal labor exploitation more seriously.
Also, legalizing prostitution wouldn't hurt. Much in the same way legalizing marijuana has drastically reduced the illegal marijuana trade (and the profits to criminal enterprises that entails), ending the stigma and legal prohibition against the world's oldest profession would go a long way to undermining the root institutions of human trafficking.