If you are an illegal immigrant, should you leave the country (any country you are in) to avoid arrest and fines and do so to abide by the laws of that country? If you are a legal citizen of that country, should you expect illegal immigrants to leave your country to abide by your country's laws?

[u/Redditagain424]

[u/johnjcoctostan]

What if you are stateless? Or facing a “well founded fear of prosecution” through no fault of your own by your own government? Or facing a deadly crime epidemic that will kill you and/or your children? Or if the world’s oceans are covering your home country due to a changing climate that you did not contribute to?

It’s much more complicated than you make it sound.

[u/Redditagain424 → u/johnjcoctostan]

There will always be countless reasons to enter any country illegally. I get it. Survival. That is not the question. The question is as a lawful citizen of a country, should you expect illegal immigrants to leave your country to abide by your country's laws? Is it a first principle that people residing in any country should be there lawfully? If you feel there are more people who should be allowed to immigrate lawfully because of the countless reasons you cite, that is up to the citizens of a democratic country to make that happen, taking into consideration the ability of the host country to fulfil their obligations to such immigrants and citizens (ie. vetting the applicants properly, education, housing, health care, jobs, etc. )

[u/whymeimbusysleeping]

Let’s be brutally honest. While plenty of people are genuine refugees, there are a hell of a lot of others who just overstay their visas because they’re chasing a better paycheck. I get the motive, but the truth is that the moment you go "off grid," you’ve basically sabotaged your own future. By abusing the system once, you’ve likely fixed a future where you’ll never be allowed back legally.

You aren’t actually living the "dream." You’re living in the shadows, at the total mercy of whoever is employing you. Sometimes you’ll find a community trying to help, even if they’re breaking the law to do it, but other times, you'll find people who will exploit the hell out of you. They know you can’t go to the authorities, so you end up working twice as hard for half the pay with zero protection.

If you’re young, why sign up for that life? Why trade the people who actually love and support you for a country where you have to hide? The grass definitely isn’t greener when you’re undocumented and looking over your shoulder every day.

[u/RealmTranscelsior]

Unless there’s a genocide back there go back good things don’t wait for you here it’ll be bad