Reply #10: interesting question

[noamnety]

What does it take to make people understand there's a difference between coming here legally and illegally?

My guess is it's a matter of convincing people to look at it solely from the point of view of the privileged. You would have to remove any empathy or understanding for why people come here in the first place. You would have to convince them that people born into third-world poverty deserve to remain there, and you'd have to be able to justify believing that they are coming here specifically to screw you over, not because they're desperately trying to find a better life for themselves or their families, or that you wouldn't do the same, given the same set of circumstances. You'd also have to convince people that illegal immigrants are a source of disease - diseases that are acceptable in "those other" countries, but not here, not in America. And you'd have to blame them for not being able to afford preventative health care, and convince us to be angry when their untreated medical problems mushroom into a crisis.