South of the Border Politics

SpaceNut · 2018-07-01 10:01:17

The other topic has been overwhelmed with imagration and little about getting change on the south side of our border to occur.
The Wall does not stop the issues which are there from occuring and will not lessen the overall exodus north from the nations with there problems of corruption and violence. Isolationist say stay out of it and tend to your own problems first but as a world leader we no longer can do that.

Elections are just one part of a course correction for Mexico and others.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_g … tion,_2018

General elections are scheduled to be held in Mexico on 1 July 2018.[2] Voters will elect a new president to serve a five year and ten months term (reduced by two months due to an inauguration date change starting in 2024), 128 members of the Senate for a period of six years and 500 members of the Chamber of Deputies for a period of three years.
Incumbent president Enrique Peña Nieto is not eligible for a second term according to Mexico's constitution.

So change will happen but only if they can command.

Mexican voters going to the polls in historic elections that have been marred by vote-buying and violence

Mexico elections center on disgust with corruption, violence

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/01/worl … h-for.html

choices are https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanielp … -prudence/

Mexico is careening fast towards a critical crossroads. States such as Chiapas and Oaxaca in the country’s impoverished south are experiencing worrisome levels of social unrest. Other states such as Guerrero and Michoacan are still fighting a terrifying criminal insurgency. Militarized organized crime groups and armed citizens groups in these states are challenging state authority and posing a real question about whether or not local governments are failing in their most basic functions. States such as Jalisco and Baja California, which are closer to the US border, have benefited the most during the NAFTA era but even the gains made in these industrial centers seem fragile. Even in the most prosperous cities in Mexico wide swaths of the population still live in poverty.

So an increased Nafta would benefit the US in the long run as less immigrants would be heading north.

SpaceNut · 2018-07-01 17:38:18

Mexican presidential front-runner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador heads into Sunday's watershed election with a substantial lead in the polls and the hopes of a country disenchanted with rampant corruption and escalating violence on his shoulders. Millions of voters have headed to the polls in Mexico, in what is being billed as the largest election in the country's history. Elections in Mexico determine who, on the national level, takes the position of the head of state – the president – as well as the legislature. The President of Mexico is elected for a six-year term by the people. Voters will choose their next president Sunday at a time of disillusionment at unchecked corruption, poverty and violence.

Of course with all of that going on we are also having our own turmoil on what to do.

A former top Border Patrol official was tapped Saturday to be the acting chief of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Ronald D. Vitiello takes over from Thomas D. Homan, who had been the acting chief since the start of the Trump administration. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ronald-vit … n-turmoil/

He takes over at a crucial time for the agency. ICE is under scrutiny as President Trump's "zero-tolerance" policies at the southern border have led to family separations, ultimately sparking nationwide protests Saturday. In recent weeks, a small number of Democrats have even called for ICE to be abolished altogether.

I do believe that using the ICE agents like a secret police is wrong but there job does need to be continued in that they should be part of the process to identify all that cross and given the ability to monitor those that do come for harm and no good reasons.
Those that cross should have documentation created to until they can have cases heard if seeking assylum. We coulkd monitor others by bracelets just the same as house arrest until they are required to report to others for follow up on cases and if they do not the forefiet any do process. They are to follow through with getting the ability to provide for themselves until said time of any descision being made. There travel should also be restricted to say 200 miles from the borders or maybe the distance should be less. They should be required to learn english ect...

The weekend has also been the time of protests across the US with regards to parental seperation and internments
https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/immigr … index.html

A plea heard across America: Families belong together

Void · 2018-07-01 18:26:48

Enjoy this then:
http://zeihan.com/naftas-witching-hour/
Quote:

Second, Trump’s general anti-Mexican mood has put most Mexicans into a general anti-American mood. The United States is hardly the only country with inconvenient elections in 2018; Mexico’s presidential campaign is already heating up, and the full vote occurs next July. While calling an election this far out is silly, a bugaboo from Mexico’s past – one Andrés Manuel López Obrador – is polling disturbingly strongly. Obrador is in essence the Mexican equivalent of a Trump-Sanders mashup when it comes to trade policy and bilateral relations. An Obrador election wouldn’t simply crash NAFTA on the Mexican side of the border, Obrador combined with Trump would sour every piece of the American-Mexican relationship. Everything from cooperation on the drug war to water rights would turn from today’s cold cooperation to pathological hostility.

To be fair, I follow Peter Zeihan and "The Fourth Turning". I also have my own calculations. I am afraid that I believe that this was destined in some form anyway. Not my fault, not your fault, not Trumps fault, not Obrador or Mexico's fault.

I hope that something better will eventually be arriving.

As for Canada, apparently if NAFTA falls, there is still a previous free trade agreement between the USA and Canada. So, I think that is good.

Last edited by Void (2018-07-01 18:28:30)

SpaceNut · 2018-07-01 19:47:25

I am going to call this the lack of law changes and amnesty of the pasts which has lead to a issue for those now facing this.
After ICE raid, a 12-year-old U.S. citizen adjusts to life without parents

He had been afraid to go outside since his mother was detained in an immigration raid 14 days earlier...

Living in fear of whom, might be at the door....

sister Estefany came home alone from work at Corso’s Flower and Garden Center, Alex suspected what had happened, even as his sister began filling in the details: ICE agents had arrived at 7:15 a.m., wearing camouflage and tactical gear, swarming the greenhouses with the help of barking K9s and helicopters, rounding up several hundred employees and then separating them into two lines.
Estefany, who was born in Ohio, had gone into one line for U.S. citizens, and her mother had gone into the line for undocumented workers.
Since the day of the raid, they had been staying in the trailer with a rotation of older relatives — two more children adjusting to a life without their parents as a result of U.S. immigration policies.
In the past few months, ICE has carried out the three biggest workplace immigration raids of the past decade, including one on June 5 at a nursery here in rural Ohio, where 114 gardeners, florists and other workers were detained and put into court proceedings for deportation.
Many of them had lived for several years in a Norwalk trailer park of 74 homes known as Little Mexico, where now aid workers estimate that more than 90 children are missing one parent and at least 20 are left with no parent at all.
Five residents of Little Mexico had been deported, and 34 others remained in detention, including Alex’s mother.
Estefany was old enough to act as Alex’s legal guardian, and she had been trying her best to take care of him with the help of other relatives, even as she was learning how to take care of herself.
She had originally applied to Corso’s for a summer job, hoping to make a little money before starting her final year of high school, but now she was the family’s primary earner, with no plans to return to school.
She had written her first rental check and returned to work at the nursery wearing sunglasses big enough to hide her puffy eyes. Other relatives were helping with cooking, child care and errands, but Estefany considered herself responsible for Alex, even now, as the sky darkened outside their trailer on their 15th night alone.

This is a scene playing out in many American homes...

SpaceNut · 2018-07-01 21:13:29

Not sure of how this will pan out for Americ but I hope this is a step forward for Mexico.

Ruling party candidate concedes defeat to leftist López Obrador in Mexican presidential vote Andrés Manuel López Obrador's victory would be a resounding defeat for outgoing President Enrique Peña Nieto

López Obrador, 64, is expected to move Mexico in a more nationalist direction, exacerbate tensions with U.S. President Donald Trump and unsettle some investors.
He would be the first leftist president in decades in Mexico, and he has pledged to reduce the country's economic dependence on the United States.
Seeking support from economic nationalists, leftist liberals and social conservatives, López Obrador has been vague on policy details. But he vows to reduce inequality, improve pay and welfare spending and run a tight budget.

SpaceNut · 2018-07-04 16:30:57

Usually the church follows doctrine and stays out of worldy issues. Church 'detains' Jesus, Mary, Joseph to protest Trump's immigration policy

fence_0703.png?itok=1VYwPHVA

Christ Church Cathedral says the Holy Family has been placed in "ICE detention," a poignant statement on immigration that has gained widespread attention. Nativity statues of the baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph, which usually mark Christmas, were incarcerated Tuesday behind a barbed-wired-topped, chain-link fence on the lawn of the cathedral of the Episcopal Church's Indianapolis Diocese.
The caged holy family protests President Trump's zero-tolerance policy.

SpaceNut · 2018-07-04 19:28:22

US border patrol boat strayed into Canadian waters chasing migrants: fishermen as a patrol launch out of Maine "attempted to stop" a Canadian fishing vessel in Canadian waters.

Grand Manan is a Canadian island in the Gulf of Maine, right off the coast that hosts the border between the United States and Canada.

Machias Seal Island, a tiny rocky outcrop a dozen miles (kilometers) south of Grand Manan with rich lobster grounds, and whose sovereignty is disputed by Washington, although the Canadian Coast Guard maintains a lighthouse there.

Its funny.. these little disputes... over imaginary lines with a good nieghbor...

SpaceNut · 2018-07-04 20:55:54

New Trump admin order for separated parents: Leave U.S. with kids or without them

Rights advocates say the new directive prevents migrant parents who were separated from their kids under zero tolerance from asking for asylum in the U.S.

After a court order to reunite more than 2,000 migrant children who were separated from their parents in May and June, the Trump administration has instructed immigration agents to give those parents two options: leave the country with your kids — or leave the country without them, according to a copy of a government form obtained by NBC News.

This is more of the I am the law and above the law garbage....making up the law to suit his own desires.

Terraformer · 2018-07-05 04:22:15

imaginary lines

Finally, people are coming around to anarchism! Eventually they'll stop following imaginary laws, too, and obeying imaginary parliaments and congresses!

GW Johnson · 2018-07-05 08:02:41

Terraformer:

There's nothing imaginary about a man in a uniform with a badge, and a gun.

GW

Terraformer · 2018-07-05 10:16:33

There is, however, something imaginary about the badge. Without humans assigning it meaning, it's just a piece of metal or plastic. It's as imaginary as borders are.

SpaceNut · 2018-07-05 16:57:03

Even anarchist feel they have rights Terraformer, which wouild be just as imaginary as the rest of what make us civilized. Being civilized is why we are not like the third world slotter houses where people have no value nor does there property.

The US is now doing DNA tests to aid with verification of whom belongs to whom for child and parents but the same tests can create a data base to use against them in later life should they try to come to America legally.

The other news is the form to which many have be given was to have them sign away there rights to stay if they got there child back or to be deported and the child stays incarsurated until they go before a court many years later if ever....

It seems that Trump is playing law maker, judge and jury for those that dared to come to America.....as none of this is law at all.

kbd512 · 2018-07-05 23:27:22

SpaceNut,

Nowhere is it written in our laws that people who try to sneak across our borders in the middle of the night have some absolute right to come here and do as they please. Furthermore, the same applies to Americans who try to sneak across the border into Canada or Mexico. You're "rights" end where they infringe on someone else's rights. You don't have any "right" to show up to someone else's house and live there without their permission. That same principle applies equally at a national level.

The deal we, as citizens, make with our government grants permission to our government to handle matters related to national security. As part of that deal, our government has substantial authority regarding whether or not foreign nationals are permitted to enter into our country. Our government permits people to travel freely within our own borders, but between our country and other countries, our government demands that travelers present themselves to Immigration and Customs Enforcement to state the purpose for their travel and how long they'll be staying. No reasonable person would look at that as an unreasonable demand on the part of our government if our government will be held responsible for national security. Furthermore, they need to know who they're dealing with and they can't know that when the people who show up have no identification documentation whatsoever.

Where does this idea come from that anyone has some sort of natural right to cross national borders whenever they wish and do whatever they please on the other side?

What other sovereign nation on Earth allows that sort of behavior?

Our laws give our President very wide latitude to make policy decisions regarding border enforcement. Before President Trump was elected, these policies were scarcely questioned by anyone and whimsically enforced. Now that President Trump is President and he wants to enforce the laws we do have, whether other people like what those laws mean or not, an entire political party and political activist members of our judiciary are behaving as if those powers delegated to the President are null and void because they don't personally like who the electorate voted in as President for personal reasons. That's not how our government worked in the past.

This is America and we have laws here. Nobody is forcing anyone to come here, so anyone who chooses to come here can either follow our laws or locate the exit and walk through it. It's as simple as that.

Terraformer · 2018-07-06 04:06:16

The US is now doing DNA tests to aid with verification of whom belongs to whom for child and parents but the same tests can create a data base to use against them in later life should they try to come to America legall

Fair enough. Those who try to come in illegally *should* be sent to the back of the queue for legal immigration.

GW Johnson · 2018-07-06 12:13:32

Refugees seeking asylum have the implied right to step across the border in order to ask a US official for asylum. That is because, generally speaking, there is no US official on the Mexican side to ask.

THAT is what was denied by the recent policy initiative, and what is still being denied with all the actions so far "taken to remedy the situation". The pattern is quite clear: immigrants, particularly brown-skinned ones, are unwelcome for any reason whatsoever.

It fits within a pattern of selecting a group to scapegoat for ills, to be demonized, then abused, finally eliminated. Sound familiar? It most certainly should!

About 7.5 decades ago, this country spent the best part of half a million lives and the bulk of its treasure to eliminate precisely that evil from the face of the Earth.

There are other pieces to the same pattern, including the leader-who-can-do-no-wrong cult, but I think I've said enough. The parallels to 1930's German really creep me out. They should creep everyone out. But obviously, they do not.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2018-07-06 12:15:10)

SpaceNut · 2018-07-06 15:45:34

The only thing is, that they are sneaking across but being caught or not until much later only to which they still are not being processed or given any sort of intake for any claims that they might have to seek entry into the US. That said send people to do the intake and then try to judge them as to whether they fit into the groupings for those allowed to enter and those that do not qualify. The intake should create an identification with blood type, dna information, any stated birth records at least recorded until verified, date of entry across the border ect.... anything to allow for tracking while in the entrance border zone awaiting any judging to be done.

The better suggestion for the wall is to creat towns along the border with many more personel to do this intake. The judges are there but cases are sometimes very hard to gather the needed documentation to prove or disprove the claims that are being made.

A tall chain link fence more inland from the border marks the farthest that any of them can go until being granted entry beyond that. This border are would be filled with business and relocation jobs and course to allow those that want citizenship to get a head start on becoming american. Make young men go through at least some sort of military schooling in addition before granting citizenship and allow any female that should chose to service do so as well.

The border zone is a no birther rights to being a citizen for all those that enter as this must be earned.

Creat law to do this not a policy that can changes at a whim.....

SpaceNut · 2018-07-06 16:07:47

I also saw this article, for those that are american of mexican descent being discharge without due cause.

U.S. Army abruptly discharging immigrant recruits

Some immigrant U.S. Army reservists and recruits who enlisted in the military with a promised path to citizenship are being abruptly discharged...many men and women who enlisted through the special recruitment program have been booted from the Army, but immigration attorneys say they know of more than 40 who have been discharged or whose status has become questionable, jeopardizing their futures.
"It was my dream to serve in the military," said reservist Lucas Calixto, a Brazilian immigrant who filed a lawsuit against the Army last week. "Since this country has been so good to me, I thought it was the least I could do to give back to my adopted country and serve in the United States military."

The ever changing policies...

Eligible recruits are required to have legal status in the U.S., such as a student visa, before enlisting. More than 5,000 immigrants were recruited into the program in 2016, and an estimated 10,000 are currently serving. Most go the Army, but some also go to the other military branches.
To become citizens, the service members need an honorable service designation, which can come after even just a few days at boot camp.

So true in that we did use immagrants to win the war of America so many centuries ago....

"Immigrants have been serving in the Army since 1775," Stock said. "We wouldn't have won the revolution without immigrants. And we're not going to win the global war on terrorism today without immigrants."

GW Johnson · 2018-07-06 16:15:31

Honestly, I don't want some idiot fence across my state. The majority of Texans do not want that abortion.

As for refugees seeking asylum, it is my understanding that these folks did indeed cross over at proper border crossings. You should not conflate those with illegal guest workers, who by and large cross the river not at designated crossings.

The guest workers are another, different problem. They cross illegally because they generally cannot cross legally. The quotas for H1A and H1B visas are factor 3 to factor 10 out of line with the facts on the ground. There are 3-10 million jobs these people fill on the US side. The quota for available guest worker visas is something like 100-150 thousand.

Very inconvenient facts for Trump supporters and Tea Party types, but there they are. Look them up for yourself, if you do not believe what I found when I looked it up. Look it up on something other than Fox and Friends or social media, please. Try the real sources for a change.

GW

kbd512 · 2018-07-06 16:46:30

GW,

That's not what's happening and you and I both know it. The people wandering thousands of miles through Mexico weren't stopped at the Mexican border, nor did they ever attempt to seek asylum in Mexico. These fictitious asylum seekers aren't walking up to border patrol agents. They're hiding in trucks, shipping containers, and walking tens of miles out into the middle of the desert to try to evade US Border Patrol. Since we've been sending people back to where they came from who are most definitely white, your sad attempt at claiming racism falls flat.

Criminals sneaking around in the dead of night aren't being "scapegoated". They're being called out for exactly who they are. 7.5 decades ago, the US fought a monarch that attacked America with his military and a dictatorship run by a criminally insane German Jew who was busy murdering his own people. There are no gas chambers here in America. We don't line up civilians, strip them naked, shoot them or work them to death, pull out their gold teeth, and burn them. Please stop confusing your delusions about one man you don't personally like for your own personal reasons with factual reality.

What really creeps me out are all these disingenuous attempts to demonize someone that certain political partisans don't like because he actually represents the interests of the American people. President Trump is not the "President of the World", unlike what former President Obama thought he was, but wasn't. President Trump is the President of the United States of America. He's in office to represent our interests, not the interests of illegal aliens, frenemies, communist dictatorships, fascist dictatorships, oligarchies, or any other lowlife governments (don't think for one second that I'm putting our government on a pedestal here, since they're the enablers) that have created those "hell holes" that those illegal aliens are trying to escape from.

Congress and a certain political partisan group won't grant the funding required for Border Patrol to properly do their jobs. So, either demand that Congress fund real physical border security, meaning men with badges and guns, or stop complaining about the alternative. The majority of Texans voted for President Trump, so your statement about what the majority of Texans want is not reflective of who Texans voted for. That's another one of those "inconvenient facts" that you refuse to acknowledge. My "source" is the vote tally. What's yours?

SpaceNut · 2018-07-06 17:17:48

I agree that grouping all mexican's into the same category is wrong but that seems to be what Trump is dpoing when taking there children away from them and now is claiming that he does not have the time to give them all back and wants to extend the time limit to get the job done.

DOJ tells court it may need more time to reunite some families at border

On June 26, in response to a lawsuit filed to resolve the separation issue, that court gave the Trump administration 30 days to reunite children and parents. The court gave a July 10 reunification deadline for children under the age of five, and a deadline of July 26 for all other children. As of Thursday, Health and Human Services said "under 3,000" children were still separated from their families.
In Friday's court filing, the federal government asked the court if it will still be in compliance with the 30-day deadline if it struggles to meet it in cases in which it is difficult to confirm parentage. The federal government, the filing said, is now using DNA testing to make sure parents are reunited with children, and that can take time.
"HHS is working diligently to minimize the burdens of confirming parentage, and is expediting DNA verification," the DOJ said in the filing. "But given the possibility of false claims of parentage, confirming parentage is critical to ensure that children are returned to their parents, not to potential traffickers. Although HHS is moving expeditiously to undertake these DNA tests, that process takes meaningful time, even when it is expedited."

The H1 a& B visa's are just another wrong direction to take and I have begun to wonder what Trump is doing with all of his guest workers that he keeps requesting new applicants for?

http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/18/news/ec … index.html

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017 … mar-a-lago

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/pol … -has-cost/

https://crooksandliars.com/2018/06/trum … st-us-more

SpaceNut · 2018-07-07 12:07:03

The border region includes four U.S. states (California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas) and six Mexican states.

"Legal border crossings at the dozens of ports of entries located along the U.S.-Mexican border significantly benefit both the U.S. and Mexican economies, which is why the numbers continue to rise,"

https://www.bts.gov/content/border-crossingentry-data

Legal crossing were 462,793 in fiscal year 2013, 483,501 in 2014, and 507,767 in 2015.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter … g-us-mexi/

"People often live on one side of the border and work on the other and vice versa, with huge movement in both directions," Massey said. "There are also many, many daily trips in both directions for shopping, business and recreation."
The U.S. government also allows Mexican citizens to use Border Crossing Cards to enter the country from Mexico "by land, or by pleasure vessel or ferry."
Border crossing cards allow people to go back and forth at will, Massey said

Visa Overstays Outnumber Illegal Border Crossings, Trend Expected to Continue

The majority of immigrants settling in the U.S. without authorization are first coming to the country legally, raising questions about the effectiveness of President Donald Trump's plan to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border.
Crossing the border is not the way "the large majority of persons now become undocumented," the Center for Migration Studies (CMS) said in a recent report. Two-thirds of those who joined the undocumented population did so by entering with a valid visa and then overstaying their period of admission, the center repored.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/po … /91280026/

https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/sw-border-migration

SpaceNut · 2018-07-07 16:45:51

11/2017 U.S. Illegally Denying Immigrants Their Right to Seek Asylum at the Mexican Border, According to Lawsuit

4/2018 U.S. denies entry to Central American asylum seekers

6/2018 Desperate Asylum-Seekers Are Being Turned Away by U.S. Border Agents Claiming There’s “No Room”

Salvadoran asylum seeker mounts legal challenge of Safe Third Country agreement,The woman and her daughters came to Canada through the U.S. in July 2017 in search of refugee protection, but were deemed ineligible under the agreement

Hundreds Of Detained Asylum-Seekers Could Be Released Due To Court Ruling

Assylum seekers are going into courts now only to find out the rules have changed as to what counts. No longer will demestic abuse or gang violence attacks or threats be enough to gain entry. This goes with all the other refugees that were granted the ability to come to america that Trump has been ousting....

Trump admin lost track of parents of 38 young migrant children under the age of 5

The parents of 19 young children were already deported, and the whereabouts of parents of another 19 are unknown.

SpaceNut · 2018-07-07 19:29:32

Immigrant PhD candidate rocked by sudden US Army discharge received an "uncharacterized discharge," which is neither dishonorable nor honorable.

In 2016, Zhao enlisted in the U.S. Army as part of a special recruitment program offering immigrants in the country legally a path to citizenship. Now, he is one of the dozens of immigrant recruits and reservists struggling with abrupt, often unexplained military discharges and canceled contracts. They traded being willing to risk their lives for the prospect of U.S. citizenship, a timeworn exchange that's drawn linguists, medical specialists and thousands of other immigrants to the military since the Revolutionary War.
It is unclear how many men and women who enlisted through the special recruitment program have been ousted from the Army, but immigration attorneys told the AP that they know of more than 40 recruits who recently have been discharged or whose status has become questionable.

Delayed background checks used to release them....so american could be next...

Judge requests list of migrant children who remain separated from their families by Saturday

Lawyers for the agency argued that meeting an upcoming July 10 court-mandated deadline to reunite children under age 5 and a subsequent deadline to reunite the nearly 3,000 remaining children later this month would be difficult.

All due to requiring a DNA test to show proof which is not proof of parental claim.....

GW Johnson · 2018-07-08 09:36:59

These problems cannot be solved conflating illegal guest workers with refugees seeking asylum. They cannot be solved willfully ignoring facts, either.

There's better numbers out there somewhere, but you can get an idea what ballpark you are playing in, with a fairly simple calculation. The size of the job market these guest workers fill is some fraction of the size of the illegal immigrant population: around 10-12 million. That assumes only that most of these workers really are illegal.

Make a second realistic assumption: each immigrant family is 2 adults and 4 children, with both adults working at jobs in that labor market. In other words, 1/3 of the illegal immigrant population is the number of jobs in that job market: something like 3-4 million. If the number of children is smaller, the number of jobs in the market is actually larger, since the fraction of working adults is higher. It's just math, you cannot argue or deny it.

Now go online and look up the quota caps on H1A and H1B visas: it's around 100-150 thousand each year, for a 1-year term under the notion of "seasonal work". These quotas aren't absolutely enforced, since a few exceptions really are made even after the quota cap kicks in, but the data on visas actually issued really do fall between the numbers I quoted. These are FACTS, they cannot be argued or denied.

The disparity between visas and job market size (100-150 thousand vs 3-4+ million) says two things very important.

(1) it validates the assumption that most of these workers are illegal, because 1x10^5/4x10^6 is 2.5% legal (or even less if the number of children is less than 4 per family). Again, it's facts and math, which cannot be denied.

(2) the quotas are way, way out of line with the actual job market size. This has been going on for decades, back to the Bracero program, almost back to WW2.

Now it is well-established that the jobs are up here, and the workers are down there. It is also obvious that to eat, these people will come up to take those jobs, there is nothing for them down there. Their desperation factor is high enough that they will take the risks to cross illegally, including travel through lethal desert country, and exposing themselves to smugglers, human traffickers, and even the drug cartels.

While those smugglers, traffickers, and druggies are bad folks, the statistics on the immigrant workers themselves actually show a lower rate of criminals among them, than in the American population at large. Again, fact. You cannot argue or deny it. Claiming open borders equates to mass crime is a political fiction. No basis in fact.

Substantive conclusion: we created an enormous population of illegal immigrant workers by very unrealistic policies, maintained for a very long time. This did not need to happen.

Suggested common sense remedy: make the number of guest worker visas more equal to the size of the job market these people fill, and thus let them cross legally. If legal, they will pay taxes. If legal, they cannot be abused so easily into low pay and bad conditions for hard work. If pay rises in those jobs, more Americans might actually take them. That would reduce the size of the population to be tracked over the long haul.

The refugee/asylum seeker problem is entirely different: a much smaller population. For decades policies and laws said these people have the right to come ask an American official for asylum. They have the right to ask, granting is not a foregone conclusion. Because at most ports of entry, the American official they must ask is on the American side, there is an implied right to step across that border without being criminalized for it.

THAT is what the Trump administration has actually done: criminalizing stepping across the border at all, even at ports of entry. What's been done with separations and prosecutions all derives from that small change, plus a super-strict application of rules that previously allowed for some discretion.

The intent is clear from what they have said in public: separate and foster-out or intern the children, and summarily deport the adults. It is egregious and rank abuse, intended to be a deterrent such that other refugees will choose not to come and ask, despite the fact they have that right.

No real distinction is made between refugees vs guest workers, all are mistreated the same. The two problems are deliberately conflated, and the crime risks lied about, for nothing but political purposes. That's evil.

When you check the actual reports, by and large (there are always exceptions), the refugees did come to ports of entry to make their requests. It is the immigrant workers, who are almost entirely illegal because the system is rigged that way, that cross the river or journey through the desert away from ports of entry.

THAT is why the two separate problems are deliberately conflated: for political justification of an abusive policy: "they're all illegal, none deserve help". Some of the refugees actually did ask for asylum in Mexico, although the bulk of the recent caravan came all the way to the US border.

The DACA problem is different still, but would disappear in about a generation if we were to properly solve the guest worker and refugee problems. Meanwhile, for the short term, the statistics clearly show that the bulk of these kids really would make exactly what we think are good citizens. Only the political propaganda claims otherwise. With a vetting process, common sense says we should provide that path. Just rig the vetting such that it cannot be abused the way the asylum process recently has been.

I'm sorry, but facts outweigh political propaganda about these issues, and it really is issues (plural), despite the propaganda otherwise. There is no one "sound-bite" fix. There are only several common-sense things to do, which in the end would eliminate entirely the need for any $25B+ wall. These days, common-sense and politics no longer overlap, which is why we are as sharply divided as we are. That, too, is an evil.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2018-07-08 12:40:13)

SpaceNut · 2018-07-09 17:11:08

‘Where are the babies, Mitch?’: McConnell pursued from restaurant by angry crowd

McConnell's dining companion, Kentucky politician Jonathan Shell, characterized the protesting group as "small" and "extremist."

Why do they always start with name calling a group of people that are against what they are claimin is the right thing to be doing?

McConnell — who supports the Trump administration’s detention of families who illegally cross the border but opposed the president's short-lived policy of separating parents from their children — was having lunch Saturday at Bristol Bar & Grille, angry protesters pursued Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) through a restaurant parking lot on Saturday, berating him with a mixture of immigration rhetoric and personal insults — and at one point an apparent threat to visit his home.
The Louisville encounter was the second time in two weeks that McConnell's private life has been disrupted by a spontaneous protest — and it was the latest in a weeks-long series of confrontations between powerful Republicans and those eager to shame them on camera, wherever they are found.

Well it seems like anti Trump protesting is occuring to the policies that he is implementing berating him with a mixture of immigration rhetoric and personal insults — and at one point an apparent threat to visit his home of which the later was out of place and should warrant a followup by the police on that matter.

This is not the first and will not be the last as Trump's homeland security secretary was spotted dining last month (and then Trump's press secretary and his EPA administrator a few days after that (and McConnell and his wife, Elaine Chao, (who is also Trump's transportation secretary) in a separate incident as they left a dinner two weeks ago) and the Red Hen incident.....

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