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This IS a joke, right? - Page 2

post #51 of 87
5/9/03 at 4:32pm
It beats having them die in a desert, be shot by INS or languish in a jail. If we ended all artificial national borders when it comes to work this would be less of an issue.
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post #52 of 87
5/9/03 at 4:36pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Devin is the Faux Elite:
It beats having them die in a desert, be shot by INS or languish in a jail. If we ended all artificial national borders when it comes to work this would be less of an issue.
There has been an end to "artificial national borders when it comes to work."

They can telecommute!
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post #53 of 87
5/9/03 at 4:43pm
Quote:
Scott Roche:
Quote:
thomas.galvin:
The deaths also could have been prevented by not trying to enter the country illegally. It should be fairly obvious that Humane Borders wanted to put in those water stations to help illegal immigrants; the government is not in the business of aiding and abbetting criminals. Well, ok, that's a lie, but still...

They were forced to do nothing. They choose to attempt a border crossing, they choose the location, etc. Sad, yes, but also their fault.
Where's the grace brother?
Grace has nothing to do with it. Thomas says it right there.

"Sad, yes, but also their fault"

They have to live with that choice. Are Christians commanded to save every man from their choices? No. And thus he should not live in constant dismay when another man's choice leads to his death.

Now if I came across a man, who was obviously an illegal, but was dying of thrist I would find a way to give him water and see him back to health. But I would certainly make sure he is in custody of INS or border patrol before he left me. My duty to man, my duty to my country.

Grace is going to Mexico and helping its people IN the country. There are reasons why we do not condone mass immigration. As citizens of this land we must abide by the laws of this land.

I'm with Kronos though. Close the borders. No more "easy access." Bush has been far too soft on this issue and I hope he does indeed soon address it. Otherwise I will be extremely disappointed.
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post #54 of 87
5/9/03 at 4:46pm
Quote:
CTDeLude:
Are Christians commanded to save every man from their choices?
Ironically, Christians are commanded to take "water to the desert".
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post #55 of 87
5/9/03 at 4:49pm
Refresh my memory, but while The Bible doesn't compel you to give mercy to everyone all of the time, I don't think it ever advocates the denial of mercy to another, does it?
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post #56 of 87
5/9/03 at 4:56pm
Absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand, but would you be so kind as to check your PMs Devin.
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post #57 of 87
5/9/03 at 5:10pm
[QUOTE]Originally posted by CTDeLude:
<strong>Grace has nothing to do with it. Thomas says it right there.

"Sad, yes, but also their fault"</strong>

Grace has everything to do with how we treat others.

<strong>They have to live with that choice. Are Christians commanded to save every man from their choices? No. And thus he should not live in constant dismay when another man's choice leads to his death.</strong>

But if that death were preventable by supplying them with water?

<strong>Now if I came across a man, who was obviously an illegal, but was dying of thrist I would find a way to give him water and see him back to health. But I would certainly make sure he is in custody of INS or border patrol before he left me. My duty to man, my duty to my country.</strong>

Actually your duty is to God in all things. And of course you should turn him over.

<strong>Grace is going to Mexico and helping its people IN the country. There are reasons why we do not condone mass immigration. As citizens of this land we must abide by the laws of this land.</strong>

Where are we told that we must obey every law of the land? The example of going to Mexico is certainly one way to show grace but it is not hte only way.

<strong>I'm with Kronos though. Close the borders. No more "easy access." Bush has been far too soft on this issue and I hope he does indeed soon address it. Otherwise I will be extremely disappointed.</strong>

How shall we close the borders? Do we shoot anyone who comes across illegally?
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post #58 of 87
5/9/03 at 5:19pm
If the government is truly worried about their borders they need to work with Mexico and take a hard stance against the coyote runners. While people trying to cross the border have put themselves in dangerous situations before, it's only with the sudden proliferation of violent coyotes (or maybe it's not sudden, maybe it's just now being publicized) that issues like this are really coming up. From what I've seen of the people who try to cross the border like this, most of them seem so utterly clueless about what they're doing (like Devin mentioned) that they are truly just placing their lives in the hands of cold-blooded coyotes. I don't think these are people who would get themselves in these situations of their own devices, they get themselves in these situations because they pay somebody an astronomical sum of money and then trust that the person will do what they've promised. For the coyote runners, the better business decision is to drop these people in the desert and hope that their bodies are never found. Unfortunately, morals don't seem to really come into the process at all.
There has been a rash of murders of coyote runners lately in Arizona, the police think that they're killing each other off to send messages. I get the feeling it will get worse before it gets better, and the police and INS agents around here seem a lot more concerned with the people trying to get over the border and not so much with the people promising to get them over the border.
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post #59 of 87
5/9/03 at 5:21pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
How shall we close the borders? Do we shoot anyone who comes across illegally?
Actually, at a rough cost of $.33 per round of ammunition, it would be cheaper to continue bussing them back.
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post #60 of 87
5/9/03 at 5:29pm
Here's a pretty good editorial from 2 years ago when things were really bad. Of course, considering the deaths already this year and the fact that it's been incredibly mild so far we might just eclipse 2001.

<a href="http://www.azcentral.com/news/specials/migrants/0826outsiders.html" target="_blank">http://www.azcentral.com/news/specials/migrants/0826outsiders.html</a>
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post #61 of 87
5/9/03 at 5:39pm
Quote:
Devin is the Faux Elite:
That's a stellar idea. All the dirt poor Mexicans who can't read or write or speak English and who are trying to get into America to do horrible manual labor for under minimum wage should hire the lawyers needed to come to this country legally.
Well, they sure seemed to be able to find lawyers to try to get $41 million out of the government.
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post #62 of 87
5/9/03 at 5:42pm
Quote:
Called Poxy in the Munich Circus:
Well, they sure seemed to be able to find lawyers to try to get $41 million out of the government.
Read the article again. It looks to me like the lawyers found them, not vice versa. It appears these people signed the paperwork put in front of them solely because of the promise that they might get a payday out of it, but it doesn't look like it was their idea.
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post #63 of 87
5/9/03 at 5:47pm
Quote:
The victims, all Mexicans ages 16 to 40, paid a "coyote," or smuggler, $1,400 each to lead them through the Arizona desert to a highway where they would be picked up and taken to Phoenix. They were told the trip would take two days.

Instead, they were found dead of heat exposure May 23, 2001, after the smuggler abandoned them in temperatures that peaked at 115 degrees.
Two points:

1)How does the $1400 they managed to scrape up to pay this guy compare to the cost of legal immigration?

2)If this "coyote" fucker was willing to just leave these people in the middle of the desert, are we supposed to believe he'd stop at a water station where he knows he has a good chance of being IDed and tracked?
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post #64 of 87
5/9/03 at 5:50pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Called Poxy in the Munich Circus:
Quote:
The victims, all Mexicans ages 16 to 40, paid a "coyote," or smuggler, $1,400 each to lead them through the Arizona desert to a highway where they would be picked up and taken to Phoenix. They were told the trip would take two days.

Instead, they were found dead of heat exposure May 23, 2001, after the smuggler abandoned them in temperatures that peaked at 115 degrees.
Two points:

1)How does the $1400 they managed to scrape up to pay this guy compare to the cost of legal immigration?

2)If this "coyote" fucker was willing to just leave these people in the middle of the desert, are we supposed to believe he'd stop at a water station where he knows he has a good chance of being IDed and tracked?
NNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

Damn that dreaded LOGIC!!!
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post #65 of 87
5/9/03 at 5:52pm
Quote:
Called Poxy in the Munich Circus:
2)If this "coyote" fucker was willing to just leave these people in the middle of the desert, are we supposed to believe he'd stop at a water station where he knows he has a good chance of being IDed and tracked?
The coyotes leave the people wherever they have the least chance of survival. Usually they will have to cross an equally impossible expanse of desert to get to the border or to decide against the border run and head back in to Mexico. The idea is that when people are dropped into these horrible places they actually follow very similar paths to make it to the border. Placing water along those paths will give them a little better chance of not perishing in the desert.
Unfortunately, I'm willing to bet that coyotes would spend some time draining the water before the trip. If they didn't they might just execute people in the desert. They only reason they don't do it now is it's easier to let the desert take them out, survivors would only threaten their business opportunity.
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post #66 of 87
5/9/03 at 6:02pm
Thread Starter 
In all seriousness, after re-reading the article that Devin posted, it's the lawyer's that should be hunted.

I mention the article that Devin posted, because this is the I read:

Families of 11 dead illegals to sue U.S.
By Steve Miller
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
(if you can't stand the heat...)


The families of 11 immigrants who died illegally crossing into Arizona from Mexico have filed a $41 million claim against two federal agencies, saying the government's refusal to put water out in the desert contributed to the migrants' deaths.
The action filed against the Department of Interior and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service asks for $3.75 million for each of the deceased, whose bodies were found last year in the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge between Tucson and Yuma.
Attorneys for survivors of the deceased said that U.S. Border Patrol policies had shut down more populous portions of the Arizona border and forced illegal aliens to enter through more remote areas.
"What these agencies knew — or should have known — is that by doing this, and with a history of deaths in the desert, these people would cross in these dangerous areas," said A. James Clark, one of the two Yuma lawyers filing the claim. "It would have cost the government nothing to put water stations in, as it had done in other locations."
The claim says the agencies rejected a request made shortly before the deaths by the Tucson humanitarian group Humane Borders to place 60-gallon water stations in the refuge, as it has done in other parts of the desert.
"The agency was on notice that death or serious injury would likely occur," the claim states. "The denial of the agency was based upon concern over animal habitat, which outweighed human life. This decision ran contrary to the stated mission objective of the agency, which is to protect human life on its property."
The claim, which must show the existence of injury and ask for damages, is the first step to a lawsuit under federal law. If unanswered within 180 days, the claim can then become a lawsuit.
A spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Albuquerque, N.M., which oversees the refuge, acknowledged that his agency received the request for water stations last year.
"But of those places they requested to place water stations, none of them would have helped the poor people who perished there," said spokesman Tom Bauer. "In fact, the closest proposed water area for a water station was 12 miles and two mountain ranges away from where the migrants were found dead."
He added that the smugglers who were leading illegal immigrants through the more remote areas were "duping" their clients.
Several unmarked watering holes established by the government, supplied by 10,000-gallon tanks, are placed around the refuge, part of an effort to maintain the Sonoran pronghorn antelope, an endangered species.
"It is criminal that these smugglers are taking people on to that range," said Mr. Bauer, who added that 30-foot poles have been erected at some of the water holes on the refuge.
"The water has been out there for several years," Mr. Bauer. "Our idea is to mark where the water holes are as a humane gesture."
Fourteen persons died in May 2001 when smugglers led the immigrants into an area of the refuge known as the "Devil's Path" near the Mexican border.
The refuge is an 860,000-acre expanse with the closest major highway — Interstate 8 — 300 miles north of the border. Cabeza Prieta abuts a military range and offers little shade. Signs warn visitors that ground temperatures in summer can exceed 130 degrees.
In the past three years, the Immigration and Naturalization Service estimates that more than 1,000 migrants have died of various causes trying to cross into the United States.
One of the smugglers for the deceased named in the claim, Jose Lopez-Ramos, received a 16-year sentence for his role in the deaths earlier this year.
Lopez-Ramos was one of three guides working for a smuggling ring that led a group of about 30 illegal immigrants from Sonoita, Mexico, into the United States on May 19.
Each immigrant paid the smugglers $1,400 for the illegal crossing. They were told the trip would take two days and that they would walk at night to avoid detection and the searing desert sun.
The group got lost and ran out of water during the second day, Lopez-Ramos told authorities. One guide and three immigrants turned back and returned to Mexico.

This is what stuck out to me:
"But of those places they requested to place water stations, none of them would have helped the poor people who perished there," said spokesman Tom Bauer. "In fact, the closest proposed water area for a water station was 12 miles and two mountain ranges away from where the migrants were found dead."
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post #67 of 87
5/9/03 at 6:15pm
Quote:
Devin is the Faux Elite:
I can't imagine how that is undermined. Again, the people who sneak in cannot AFFORD to legally immigrate.
these people can have the economic means to immigrate (they pay a coyote at least $5,000 and up per person). A lawyer anywhere is hispanic america charges way less. the problem is that the american emabssies don't just give visa's to anyone. they (USA) wants someone that is well established in their country to come and visit, perhaps invest... so, unless you prove of some value, they won't even give you a peeka-a-boo visa to come to the USA.
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post #68 of 87
5/9/03 at 6:25pm
Quote:
Devin is the Faux Elite:
It beats having them die in a desert, be shot by INS or languish in a jail. If we ended all artificial national borders when it comes to work this would be less of an issue.
So let that potential Hamas terrorist come on in as long as he's willing to work hard!
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post #69 of 87
5/9/03 at 6:27pm
Quote:
mikah912:
Quote:
Called Poxy in the Munich Circus:
Sorro nails it -- the only possible use for those water stations would be to aid those seeking to cross the border illegally.
This is arguable the same way that passing out condoms to kids or needles to addicts is.

Is it to aid in iniquity or is to show mercy and compassion to in a small way to someone who needs it and will do whatever they're going to do whether you help them or not?
Can they all stay at your house when they get here?
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post #70 of 87
5/9/03 at 6:43pm
Quote:
Nick Luskmonster:
Can they all stay at your house when they get here?
Can this have less to do with anything in this discussion? I wasn't aware that helping a stranger required giving them room and board and pretty much taking responsibility and control over their life from here to eternity.

You must either live on a palatial estate or you're a real asshole.
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post #71 of 87
5/9/03 at 6:54pm
Oh, and regarding the money issue of how they each had $1400 "laying around" or whatever...

When Asian immigrant labor has been brought to America in the past, a similar hefty price-per-person has been levied, which is usually paid by an employer here in America who plans to use it as debt against the immigrant to make them "work it off" at a disturbingly low pay rate.

Not saying that's the arrangement these guys are under, but it's certainly a possibility.
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post #72 of 87
5/9/03 at 7:23pm
Quote:
Called Poxy in the Munich Circus:
How does the $1400 they managed to scrape up to pay this guy compare to the cost of legal immigration?
Well, because my own mother immigrated (legally, I might add) to the U.S. some 30-odd years ago I have the unique opportunity of laughing my ass of at 99.9% of the comments in this thread.

Now that this little detail is out of the way I'll answer Poxy's question, which isn't bad.

The answer is that legal immigration isn't so much costly as it is VERY time-consuming. Like almost everything else it touches, the government has infused the process with a ridiculous amount of red tape and waste. So much unnecessary process is involved. Even those who have "sponsors" (or family) who are U.S. citizens can have the process take many, many months or years. It's been that way since the mid-70's.

Mom came to New York from Trinidad in the Summer of 1971. She was only 17 and came in on a time-based work visa. Lucky for her, she met my Father a year later and they were married soon after that... which obviously sped up the immigration process. To say it would have be harder for her to become a citizen otherwise would have been an understatement. And it's scores tougher/more time-consuming today. She helped my Uncle immigrate about 15-20 years ago and it took YEARS just to get it to where he, his wife, and my cousin could come over on an extended visa. Then it took a few more years for them to become full citizens.

Obviously, if someone wants to come in and can do so "under the radar" without being tracked and monitored by the INS simply paying some shmoe 1400 clams might be worth it.
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post #73 of 87
5/9/03 at 7:47pm
But what did it cost from a financial standpoint? I mean, if these people are serious about wanting to come to this country, they can certainly invest some time in the process. If not, seems to me they're just interested in a quick buck.
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post #74 of 87
5/9/03 at 7:54pm
Well, one could argue that the economy and living conditions in Mexico can produce many situations where time is not on these people's side.
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post #75 of 87
5/9/03 at 8:23pm
Actually this is much a problem of Mexico where they have such a disporportion between the rich and the poor. But Fox doesn't want to do a damn thing to help out the situation because it is easier to have the US deal with this situation. This is more a Mexican issue (or should be) than a US issu8e but because the Mexican government doesn't want to do a thing for its people its causes everyone to want to flee.

There is no reason America should pay for the immense folly of the Mexican government.
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post #76 of 87
5/9/03 at 8:45pm
Quote:
Devin is the Faux Elite:
But if there is one thing CHUD has taught me, it's that geeks are horrifyingly conservative.
But your visit to Dragon*Con should have stopped that notion in its tracks.
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post #77 of 87
5/9/03 at 11:51pm
Just a few thoughts gathered from every post in between my 2.

-We really need some good old fashioned tort reform. That little tidbit (water wouldn't have helped anyway) in the Washington Times article is a good reason to get this passed.

-It is admirable that people would risk death to cross the desert and enter a foreign nation to provide for their families; however, it is not the responsibility of the government to turn a perilous crossing into an easy afternoon stroll. The slippery slope would be to say "the government has water stations out there, but people still die. We need a better way to get them across. How about busses? It's probably fanciful, but I would have thought suing over this was fanciful last week.

-Again, it is admirable to want to emigrate at such a great cost, but at the same time, breaking the law is not a great way to start off in a nation, especially when everybody else who wants to come here has to wait in line for a visa/green card/etc. It isn't fair to those who get their visas and are then turned away from jobs because the businesses can get illegals cheaper.

-If anyone is paying somebody under minimum wage, that is terrible. It may be good business, and the worker may be breaking the law, but to be so harsh is just wrong. What would be even better is to not break 2 laws (minimum wage, hiring illegals) and hire those who used the proper channels to get here. I would like to see some effort from the government to curb this kind of exploitation. It hurts business, it hurts the illegals, it hurts legal immigrants, it hurts everyone.
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post #78 of 87
5/10/03 at 4:23am
It honestly disturbs me to see words like "stupid" and "lazy" and "after a quick buck" thrown around about these people.

Can anyone here imagine a situation so dire that they'd risk walking across a desert, risk dying of thirst, hunger and sunstroke, just to find work? What would it take for you to do that?

Stupid? Lazy? Greedy?

I don't think so. I see utter desperation, a desperation that we can never comprehend, because even our lowest moments don't compare to the third world existence these people eke out under our noses. We can't put ourselves in their shoes, because even the poorest of us live in relative comfort compared to the squalor these people are fleeing.

Crossing a desert isn't something you do on a whim. It's not something you think "Hey, if I just trot across that burning wasteland for a week, I can live it up and grow fat on American welfare. Easy!" To accuse these people of greed and laziness, while we read about their deaths on our PCs, sit in our comfy chairs and eat our third bowl of cereal...the coldness of that attitude boggles my mind.

There are laws in place to deal with illegal immigrants. But this issue has nothing to do with what happens when they get to the US. It's about what happens before they get to the border. You want to stop them getting in, fine. Tighten the border, find the holes and plug them. Once they reach the border, that's when there's a responsibility to stop them. But blocking an attempt by a private concern to offer mercy before that point, knowing that doing so will cause people to die, that's brutal. Watching people die, knowing that a drink of water could've saved their lives, and then calling them "stupid" for risking death for the chance to clean your office floor, empty your trash...I can't understand that lack of compassion. It's alien to me.

I honestly hope that none of us ever end up as a member of those poor huddled masses, so poor and hungry and without hope that you'd risk ending your life just to get the shittiest job imaginable, because only then would we understand what drives these people to do what they do. And it isn't stupidity, laziness or greed.
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post #79 of 87
5/10/03 at 9:04am
Dan nailed it. Completely, utterly, nailed it. Kudos.
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post #80 of 87
5/10/03 at 1:06pm
Poxy and A-pathetic nailed the long-term issue...if the government had allowed the water station, this tragedy would have occured somewhere else. The coyotes in question aren't inept, causing people to die, they do it on purpose. They wouldn't have gone near the water station, stead abandoning them somewhere else.

Maybe the trick is to put in enough stations so that there aren't enough dry spaces to leave someone...but as was pointed out, bullets don't cost much. (Although, legally, there's a difference between abandonment and shooting someone, even though there isn't, morally)

I'm still having trouble seeing how a legal case can be made that the government didn't allow the station being put there is what led to the deaths (unless, of course, the lawyers in question paid the coyotes to drop them off there...hey, they're going to do it anyways, why not make a buck or two in the courts on it? There's a scandal for ya.), because those that died where in violation of the law by being there. This has nothing to do with my personal feelings on the matter (which is that the water should have been allowed to been put there), I just don't see where a legal battle can be won.

*edited because the word "giverment" was not an intentional pun.
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post #81 of 87
5/10/03 at 1:13pm
I don't think they are anything like stupid, lazy, or greedy. However, they know the costs and benefits of a desert crossing. If we were to make a desert crossing easier, by letting people put water stations in the desert, who wants to bet that illegal immigration will go up? We would have to provide, at taxpayer expense, more border patrol agents because we would be eliminating a natural border defense. We could also say we should get rid of our border defenses in places like El Paso and San Diego, because that way people wouldn't have to cross the desert.
Again, no matter how admirable it is for them to risk their lives to come here, we should keep the disincentive of the desert crossing there to deter people from illegally entering the United States.
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post #82 of 87
5/11/03 at 1:31pm
Quote:
Papa Trouter:
You can't label an entire group AND name thier motivations in one or two words. "Deperate" doesnt do it, there is a reason there are whole thesis and reports on this problem.
And yet you're happy to write it off as "stupidity".
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post #83 of 87
5/11/03 at 6:23pm
Other stupid people, according to Papa Trouter:

Magellan
Columbus
Marco Polo
The settlers of the American West
The original hominids leaving Africa to populate the Earth
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post #84 of 87
5/11/03 at 7:41pm
What kind of a person would stop another from giving thirsty people water? It's not even government policy that's being discussed, it's the actions of a charity group. A religious charity group, I might add. To hell with border policies, water is life.

I get the impression some here would watch a boat full of immigrants capsize rather than rescue them so they can be dealt with as the law dictates, however that may be.

This is for them.
<img src="http://www.members.shaw.ca/lylebeaudoin/getawayslap.jpg" alt="" />

I'd still give them water if they needed it, though.
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post #85 of 87
5/12/03 at 12:09am
Quote:
Devin is the Faux Elite:
It beats having them die in a desert, be shot by INS or languish in a jail. If we ended all artificial national borders when it comes to work this would be less of an issue.
Right, because that's what INS does. They have the Border Patrol shoot illegal immigrants for kicks. I'll let you know how many illegal immigrants I shhot per week when I get to San Diego to work for the Border Patrol.

From what I can tell, the government blocked these water stations because it would most likely increase the # of illegal immigrants without lowering the # of illegal immigrant deaths. You'd think we could come up with a better way to spend our tax money (or charity money in this case) than to piss it away on a project that will do absolutely no good whatsoever.
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post #86 of 87
5/12/03 at 3:58pm
Quote:
mikah912:
Quote:
Nick Luskmonster:
Can they all stay at your house when they get here?
Can this have less to do with anything in this discussion? I wasn't aware that helping a stranger required giving them room and board and pretty much taking responsibility and control over their life from here to eternity.

You must either live on a palatial estate or you're a real asshole.
I'm usually considered to be an asshole by people who are victims of their own compassion. You and I agree on a vast number of things politically, but when it comes to illegal immigrants I have little to no compassion. In my opinion there is no way to be realistic about this problem without being a cold-hearted asshole. There isn't room for them here physically, or even more importantly, there isn't room for them here ideologically.

We already have a worker class in this country. There are plenty of people in this nation who deserve, in every sense of the word, a job no better than janitor at Taco Bell. However, they feel that the job is beneath them and will not do it. Industries get away with paying migrant workers less than any American would work for because that migrant labor is available. Fuck those industries and their cost-cutting measures.

Greed and self-important entitlement is going to destroy this country on both sides. The population will continue to explode, motivation for the working class will continue to decline and the bill for the nation's infrastructure and social services will still be placed squarely on you and me, the middle class.

If our industries are corrupt and/or unable to exist while paying their workers proper wages then we, as a nation, should take care of that. If our lower/working class feels that it is superior to the task it is most qualified for, then it needs a reality check in the harshest way possible.

Instead of bombing other countries we should be taking care of the problems we have here. The same is true for illegal immigrants. Conditions in the land they came from will never improve if they run from the fight for righteousness like cowards.
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post #87 of 87
5/12/03 at 4:14pm
Actually, our positions aren't that far apart and I wasn't actually calling you that name, but rather indirectly implying you must never do anything for anyone because I assume you live alone and not with any of these people you've helped and must now take responsibility for - per your criteria.

I think immigration is a problem and I'm not saying that our borders should be opened. On the contrary, they're our biggest security risk at present and they need immediate attention.

BUT when it comes to a situation where someone has already committed to passsing illegally, I don't see why you can't extend mercy and compassion while ALSO denying them entrance. It's just like Haitians who come over in rickety boats. They should be stopped and turned back, but if I knew that a bunch were dying before they could even reach here simply because of a lack of food and some humanitarian group wanted to feed some of them who were adrift in international waters or whatever...I wouldn't stop them. What's the point? If they're that desperate to risk their lives to come here, is putting out food really going to give them MORE incentive? I don't see them needing any if they've made a decision as desperate as the one they've already made.

They're coming. Period. So then, we need to concentrate on stopping them safely and returning them. Not contributing to them prematurely dying on the way over.
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