🤡🤯AS AMERICA SUFFERS, THE GOP CLOWN SHOW ROLLS ON TOWARD OBLIVION!

Clown Parade
The GOP, in full regalia, heads for the U.S. House. PHOTO: Public Domain

Dana Milbank writes @ WashPost:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/09/22/gaetz-mccarthy-shutdown-house-gop-deadlock/

Martin Luther nailed his theses to a church door. Matt Gaetz displayed his in the men’s room.

Specifically, the congressman (or somebody) left a draft of his “Motion to Vacate” on a baby changing table in a restroom downstairs from the House chamber, where it was found by journalist Matt Laslo. “H. Res. __,” it began. “Resolved, that the Office of Speaker of the House of Representatives is hereby declared to be vacant.”

But Gaetz (R-Fla.) doesn’t need a resolution to “vacate the chair,” as a motion to remove Kevin McCarthy as speaker iscalled. For all practical purposes, the chair is already vacant.

It should have been obvious to all this week, if it wasn’t already, that McCarthy (R-Calif.) is speaker in name only, as his leaderless Republican caucus stumbles toward a government shutdown. Review some of the labels House Republicans hurled at each other over the last few days:

“Clown show.” “Clowns.” “Foolishness.” “Weak.” “Terribly misguided.” “Selective amnesia.” “Stupidity.” “Failure to lead.” “Lunatics.” “Disgraceful.” “New low.” “Enabling Chairman Xi.” “People that have serious issues.” “Pathetic.”

Amid the epithets, Republicans brought the House to another standstill. For the second time in as many weeks, hard-liners blocked the House from even considering a bill to fund the troops. Two days later, they blocked it for a third time. They also forced party leaders to pull from the floor their plan to avert a shutdown — a plan that would do nothing to avert a shutdown even if it passed.

Walking into yet another grievance-airing session among House Republicans this week in the House basement, first-term Rep. Richard McCormick (Ga.) remarked to a colleague: “I think we should call this the Dance of the Dragons.” That was a “Game of Thrones” reference to a civil war in which (spoiler alert) both of the aspirants to the Targaryen throne died, along with several of their children and most of the dragons. McCormick later developed the metaphor for me: “We have a lot of powerful people in one room who are ferocious,” he explained in part, and “it’s going to get even uglier.”

. . . .

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Read Milbank’s full article at the above link.

Dana Milbank
Dana Milbank
Opinion Columnist
Washington Post

Remember, folks, the problem here is NOT “Congress,” as the so-called “mainstream media” would have you believe! No, it’s the GOP — the anti-American party of nihilism, insurrection, lies, and extremism! McCarthy COULD have had an agreement in hand long before now. all it would take is picking up the phone and working with Leader Jeffries and the Dems to come up with a reasonable funding proposal that could actually PASS the Senate! Indeed, McCarthy earlier cut such a deal with President Biden until he violated it under pressure from a few right-wing members of the GOP “wrecking crew” in an act of supreme cowardice (a McCarthy specialty) and total failure to pursue the common good.

Notably, when the House had a REAL Leader, Speaker Pelosi, there was no shutdown during the Trump Administration — even though there were plenty of issues (Dreamers being a key one) that some Dems would have liked her to “go to the mat” on. When the chips are down, Dems believe in governing; the GOP believes in destroying!

Upcoming generations who don’t want to live in a country where conspiracy theories, cruelty, misinformation, hatred, intolerance, false grievances, vengeance, dehumanization, greed, self-aggrandizement, racism, anti-semitism, grotesque fiscal and moral irresponsibility, misogyny, incompetence, and just plain stupidity replace democracy  and governing for the common good had better get energized and busy coming up with a strategy to remove GOP members from every elected position from the national level to local animal control officers. Otherwise, the majority of the next generations will face a bleak future in a nation trying to return to a past that never was with faux “leaders” who demonstrably can’t lead, and don’t even make a pretense of trying to do so.

The “forced birth party” shows little, if any, concern for the well-being of humanity once it has exited the womb! 

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-26-23

😎👍 MAINE REJECTS  “BEGGAR THY NEIGHBOR” PHILOSOPHY IN FAVOR OF HELPING EVERYONE DO BETTER!

Op-Ed From The Portland Press Herald:

https://www.pressherald.com/2023/08/05/commentary-during-turbulent-times-maine-invests-in-its-people/

Commentary: During turbulent times, Maine invests in its people

During the latest legislative session, much was done to ensure that prosperity is within reach of all Maine citizens and residents.

BY LUISA S. DEPREZ AND LISA MILLER SPECIAL TO THE PRESS HERALD

The times in which we live are, and have been, difficult. Turbulence confronts us at every corner, upon every turn. Around us things are constantly changing – economically, politically, medically, socially. There is too often too little upon which to rely to attain and maintain a degree of certainty in one’s life.

As we emerge from the COVID pandemic, we find its effects lingering in large workforce and societal shifts: lost jobs, lost day care, essential care workers leaving the workforce, older workers retiring early or moving into part-time work to stay afloat, small businesses closing, women leaving jobs to care for young, sick and elderly family members, people moving to and from communities, and rents and housing prices skyrocketing. These effects persist; regaining some degree of stability will take time.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Luisa S. Deprez is professor emerita of sociology and the Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine. Lisa Miller is a former legislator who served on the Health and Human Services and Appropriations and Financial Affairs committees. They are members of the Maine chapter of the national Scholars Strategy Network, which brings together scholars across the country to address public challenges and their policy implications.

Yet we now see a glimmer of hope, a light at the end of the tunnel. Definite improvements in the overall economy are emerging: unemployment rates are at a historic low, housing starts are increasing, the manufacturing sector has seen an increase in orders for the past few months, consumer confidence has risen dramatically, and inflationary pressures are subsiding.

Maine’s policymakers are now tasked with ensuring that Mainers share in that rebound – that families and communities can build new pathways to prosperity and well-being. Enhancing and promoting prosperity must be the primary concern of policymakers and elected officials.

Classic views of “prosperity” usually refer to economic success and building wealth. But broader definitions of prosperity include becoming or remaining strong and healthy and flourishing. In other words, thriving. Yes, individual initiative and responsibility is critical to building prosperity, but the assurance to do so is rarely achievable in the absence of government support. Nor is success sustained without such support.

Policymakers and state officials know this well, as seen in recent bills and initiatives that emerged from this past legislative session:

• Workers can take paid family leave to combat illness or care for a loved one.

• New child tax credits provide additional support to low-income families.

• Older Mainers will receive financial support for medical costs and property tax bills.

• Child care gets a boost through improved wages and broader subsidies.

• More affordable-housing initiatives were funded.

• A new business incentive program was created.

• A workforce training tax credit will help employers grow the skill level of Maine workers.

• Additional support for emergency food and shelter was funded.

These achievements should be celebrated as they will certainly contribute greatly to the rebound necessary for individuals, communities, and the state to regain some of the losses.

But there was much left undone to build prosperity for everyone. The Wabanaki nations are still denied rights and protections; immigrants continue to be denied access to MaineCare; health care costs are even more burdensome for an increasing number of Mainers; pay disparities by gender and race remain; agricultural workers continue to be exempt from basic labor laws; workers with low salaries remain ineligible for overtime, and corporate loopholes and tax-avoidance prevail, leaving communities to carry the load for citizen and community investments.

During this legislative session, many organizations and individuals lobbied tirelessly to ensure that prosperity is within reach of all Maine citizens and residents. Both Gov. Janet Mills and the Legislature responded with investment of tax dollars to help everyday people stay in their jobs or seek new ones, become healthier, and be more productive.

Political and moral philosopher J.S. Mill would argue that “societies tend to flourish when individuals have a wide scope for directing the course of their own lives.” Many of the bills passed by the Maine Legislature do just that. But more needs to come. We are not done.

************************
Governance for the common good is what it’s supposed to be all about!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-07-23

⚖️ “SIR JEFFREY” CHASE & CAMILA BUSTOS TAKE ON TOPIC OF CLIMATE REFUGEES IN LATEST “JUST SECURITY!”

Camila Bustos Clinical Supervisor in human rights practice at the University Network for Human Rights, Visiting Assistant Professor of Human Rights at Trinity College. PHOTO: Just Security

Jeffrey S. Chase
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog
Coordinator & Chief Spokesperson, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges

https://www.justsecurity.org/84092/tackling-climate-change-displacement-at-cop27/

As severe weather patterns intensify, climate change will continue to displace communities across the globe. The World Bank estimates that there could be more than 143 million people internally displaced by slow-onset disasters in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia by 2050. Populations with the least capacity to respond and adapt to a changing climate are more likely to suffer from the worst impacts.

States have a responsibility to ensure that individuals displaced because of climate change impacts are treated with respect and dignity. Yet international law does not recognize climate displacement as a subject warranting special protection or status. The 1951 Refugee Convention only recognizes persecution on account of five protected grounds (nationality, race and ethnicity, political opinion, religion, or particular social group), leaving those fleeing environmental disasters under circumstances not attributable to those specified reasons without protection.

Despite the urgent need for action, governments have been slow in creating pathways to protect climate-displaced people. If anything, increasing militarized approaches to migration flows and national security rhetoric has permeated mainstream discourse on climate migration. Discussions about “economic migrants” and which groups are deserving of international protection distract from real solutions that can provide relief and uplift the dignity of individuals displaced by climate. Also concerning is the fact that authoritarian governments have leveraged the ongoing United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) to either greenwash their image or exclude environmental advocates from accessing the climate talks.

Although climate migration is not on its official agenda, COP27 offers an opportunity for international climate negotiators and advocates to tackle the issue in three ways: (1) promote changes in domestic legal frameworks that will protect internally displaced populations; (2) raise awareness of how existing legal protections under asylum frameworks intersect with climate change; and (3) guarantee climate finance pledges are met by mobilizing funds dedicated to adaptation and mitigation.

. . . .

*******************

Read Jeffrey’s and Camila’s article “at the link.” Another classic example of timely “practical scholarship” written in plain English and accessible to a wide range of readers.

It’s discouraging, but not surprisingly, that nations, including ours, wasting billions on gimmicks to AVOID their obligations under the existing, inadequate Geneva Refugee Convention and Protocol are not anxious to engage on the real effects of climate migration. But individuals facing death under sand or under water as our climate changes are NOT going to go quietly and submissively into the night. 

Nations, like ours, whose politicians think that power, cruelty, denial, and misinformation — the “head in the sand” approach — will win the future eventually must confront the realities of climate change and human migration whether they find it convenient and politically advantageous or not. On the other hand, those nations that are able to recognize both the power and inevitability of migration, and are smart enough to “go with the flow,” rather than futilely attempt to “dam it up” or divert it will eventually gain the upper hand.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

11-21-22

🇺🇸🗽⚖️DAN RATHER: FIGHT THE ANTI-DEMOCRACY, ANTI-INDIVIDUAL-RIGHTS FAR RIGHT MINORITY 🏴‍☠️  — BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE:  “To all who feel bereft of hope, I offer the lessons of social movements of the past. Perseverance is power. Organizing inspires optimism. Resilience breeds results.”

 

Dan Rather
Dan Rather
American Journalist
PHOTO: Creative Courtside

FROM “STEADY” FOR July 1, 2022:

A HARD RIGHT TURN

By Dan Rather and Elliott Kirschner

As the United States Supreme Court wrapped up its spring term today, its marbled halls risked representing the setup to an ironic joke — albeit one not funny but rather cruel, dangerous, and foreboding.

The building is supposed to symbolize stability, fairness, and temperance. Instead, it has become headquarters for a majority group of highly partisan, reactionary players who make clear that they are uninhibited by history, precedent, or the will of the majority of the American people.

Their black robes are meant to convey modesty, humility, and wisdom. Yet this collection of politicians demonstrates the direct opposite.

This Supreme Court term will be remembered as the moment a cynical and anti-democratic movement, decades in the making, reached its zenith, empowered by bad faith and opportunism. Now the cabal lords its power over a broken political system from a perch of increased influence and lack of accountability.

This is power politics by unelected actors, appointed largely by men who lost the popular vote for president. Its path was paved by Mitch McConnell’s Machiavellian exploitation of the deaths of two justices. He was a master of shamelessness with a single purpose — to accomplish via judicial appointment what he could never have achieved through democratic means.

The damage he and his hard-right radicals have wrought touches all aspects of society, from abortion rights to commonsense gun control to the environment to what I believe is an overlooked evisceration of the separation of church and state. What we have are the ruins of what many took for granted as our constitutional rights. And nothing suggests these justices are anywhere near sated.

We have now firmly left behind the realm of the theoretical. This is real, and it will get only more so. For years there were those who warned that Roe wasn’t safe, and neither was anything else, that these justices were licking their chops to devour a modern America and spit out a distorted version of the past. Too many of these prophets were dismissed as hysterical, their fears histrionic and overblown. Surely, they were lectured, precedent matters. Certainly there would have to be some legal basis to rewrite America’s social contract and decades of settled rights.

Wrong.

All of you who spoke up, who tried to get others to pay attention, you deserve an apology.

There can be no hiding from it now. All of this is out in the open. The justices aren’t even trying to obscure what they are doing and where they intend to go. But in their transparent power plays, there are still faint glimmers of hope.

I hear from people who in the past had rarely talked about the court. Now, they are suddenly enraged. Many are focused on how, just today, the justices accepted a case for next year that could allow state legislatures to take a torch to fair elections. How many people in the past got so riled up about an upcoming court docket?

The Supreme Court relies on its reputation, and these days, its reputation for humility, fairness, and wisdom is in tatters. Its rulings increasingly seem to be far outside where most Americans are. Wait until they tackle contraception and the privacy of one’s bedroom.

To all who feel bereft of hope, I offer the lessons of social movements of the past. Perseverance is power. Organizing inspires optimism. Resilience breeds results.

In order to solve a problem, you first have to see it, name it, contend with its truth. That is the stage many are in now. But many others have already been there for a long time. This is a movement that already has leadership. Now it has momentum born from a desire to ensure that America goes forward, toward progress, and true to the Constitution and the will of its people.

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The righty Supremes: “an ironic joke — albeit one not funny but rather cruel, dangerous, and foreboding.”

🇺🇸Due Process Forever! Take Back Our America From The Far Right Minority That Seeks To Suppress Human Rights & Individual Rights!

PWS

07-01-22

☠️⚰️ THEIR VOICES DROWNED OUT BY THE NOISE OF WAR, COVID, SUPPLY CHAIN PROBLEMS, & INFLATION, MILLIONS FACE STARVATION!

Tracy Wilkinson
Tracy Wilkinson
Foreign Correspondent
LA Times
PHOT: LATimes.com

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=20ee182f-524e-4e7d-8158-51345f6fd59e

Tracy Wilkinson reports in the LA Times:

By Tracy Wilkinson

WASHINGTON — The scenes witnessed by journalists and humanitarian workers in recent months have been striking: In Sudan, swollen-bellied babies are looking for anything to eat. In Yemen, where warring parties have blocked humanitarian aid, hollow-eyed children and their mothers languish on the brink of death from starvation. In Ukraine, the elderly are collecting rancid rain runoff for drinking water.

Malnourishment and hunger were big problems even before Russia invaded Ukraine in February and cut off Europe’s breadbasket from its markets, sparking a flurry of dire warnings about the world’s food supplies. Dozens of countries across the globe are already suffering from devastating food shortages, so much so that the number of people facing starvation more than doubled in just the last two years, to 345 million, according to United Nations figures.

The causes are myriad: drought and flooding, and the interruption of supply chains triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in China. An estimated 20 wars or conflicts — the latest in Ukraine — have also seriously disrupted access to food and water.

“The current food security challenge that we’re facing [is] due to these three Cs: climate, COVID and conflict,” said Ramin Toloui, assistant secretary of State for economic affairs, one of several Biden administration officials tasked to food-security issues.

The bleak situation drew the attention of powerful diplomats Friday when U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and the foreign ministers of six other of the world’s largest economies met in Germany to map out plans for easing global food shortages. Few observers expect real solutions to emerge but hope the summit will highlight the crisis and boost funding for anti-hunger efforts.

The Biden administration has committed about $8.5 billion to emergency food assistance and related programs, focusing initially on the Horn of Africa, Yemen, Lebanon and Haiti, Blinken said.

“We hear all these numbers; we’ve all cited numbers of this growing food insecurity,” Blinken said in Berlin. “But what we know is this: We know that those numbers are people, real people, real lives, real livelihoods, mothers, fathers, children. … As human beings, all of us have to be seized with this.”

The U.N.’s World Food Program calculates that eight of the 10 largest food crises worldwide are being primarily driven by conflict — in Yemen, Ethiopia, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Such wars force people from their homes into long desperate treks for safety. They devastate farms and wreak havoc on food distribution systems.

In Latin America, food scarcity is also driving tens of thousands of people to abandon parched or hurricane-leveled farms and migrate to the United States.

These were the disasters already in motion when Russia invaded Ukraine. Now, the U.N. says the Russian blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports could lead 40 million more people to go hungry.

. . . .

Caitlin Welsh, a veteran expert in global food security who heads that program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said hunger and famine have consequences for both health and politics.

Hungry people can be angry people, and the rising price of food or fuel have led to coups throughout history. The health effects of going hungry can be far-reaching and insidious, Welsh said.

“The sudden elevation in prices [of foodstuffs like bread] can make people shift from more nutritious food to items of lower nutrition,” she said. And for pregnant women and young children, that can cause lifelong disabilities, Welsh said.

***************************

Read Tracy’s complete article at the link.

War is bad, particularly when those who needlessly start them for their own amusement, ego, and nationalistic jingoism escape accountability. See, e.g., V. Putin.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-27-22

🌎ENVIRONMENTAL REFUGEES ARE ENTITLED TO PROTECTION — BIDEN ADMINISTRATION RECOGNIZES PROBLEM, BUT FAILS TO ACT ACCORDINGLY — Bannon & Far Right Neo Fascists 🏴‍☠️ Plan To Leverage Lies, Hate, Fear, & Loathing To Destroy Civilization! ☹️ — Round Table’s 🛡⚔️ Jeffrey Chase & The Guardian’s 🖋 Zoe Williams Sound The Alarm!⏰

https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2021/11/22/white-house-issues-report-on-climate-change-and-migration\

JEFFREY S. CHASE | OPINIONS/ANALYSIS ON IMMIGRATION LAW

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White House Issues Report on Climate Change and Migration

On October 21, the White House issued a Report on the Impact of Climate Change on Migration which contains a few noteworthy passages relating to the law of asylum.

On page 17, the White House report acknowledges that existing legal instruments for addressing displacement caused by climate change are limited.  Encouragingly, the report advises that “the United States should endeavor to maximize their application, as appropriate” to such displaced individuals.

The report next cites both the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1967 Protocol and their application to climate-induced displacement, referencing recent UNHCR guidance on the topic.  The report then offers three examples in which climate change issues might arise in the asylum context.

First, the report recognizes that where “a government withholds or denies relief from the impacts of climate change to specific individuals who share a protected characteristic in a manner and to a degree amounting to persecution, such individuals may be eligible for refugee status.”

Secondly, the report acknowledges that “adverse impacts of climate change may affect whether an individual has a viable relocation alternative within their country or territory.”  This language relates to the regulatory requirement that in order to have a well-founded fear of persecution, an asylum applicant could not avoid persecution by relocating within their country of nationality “if under all the circumstances it would be reasonable to expect the applicant to do so.”1

The applicable regulations instruct that:

adjudicators should consider, but are not limited to considering, whether the applicant would face other serious harm in the place of suggested relocation; any ongoing civil strife within the country; administrative, economic, or judicial infrastructure; geographical limitations; and social and cultural constraints, such as age, gender, health, and social and familial ties. Those factors may, or may not, be relevant, depending on all the circumstances of the case, and are not necessarily determinative of whether it would be reasonable for the applicant to relocate.2

While the regulatory language is broad and non-exhaustive, the specific mention of climate change factors in the White House report is most welcome, as such circumstances might not otherwise jump out at immigration judges and asylum officers as being relevant to the relocation inquiry.

Thirdly, the White House report states that “[c]limate activists, or environmental defenders, persecuted for speaking out against government inaction on climate change may also have a plausible claim to refugee status.”

Although not specifically cited in the White House report, UNHCR issued guidance on the topic in October 2020.3  Practitioners should file both the White House report and the UNHCR guidance with EOIR and DHS in appropriate cases, as the latter clearly served as an influence for the former, and provides greater detail in its guidance.4  For instance, in discussing how climate change factors can influence internal relocation options, the UNHCR document at paragraph 12 makes clear that the “slow-onset effects of climate change, for example environmental degradation, desertification or sea level rise, initially affecting only parts of a country, may progressively affect other parts, making relocation neither relevant nor reasonable.”  This detail not included in the White House report is important; it clarifies that the test for whether relocation is reasonable requires a long view, as opposed to limiting the inquiry to existing conditions, and specifically flags forms of climate change that might otherwise escape an adjudicator’s notice.

Also, in paragraph 10, the UNHCR document’s take on the White House report’s third example is somewhat  broader, stating that “[a] well-founded fear of being persecuted may also arise for environmental defenders, activists or journalists, who are targeted for defending, conserving and reporting on ecosystems and resources.”5  UNHCR’s inclusion of journalists as potential targets, and its listing of “defending, conserving, and reporting” as activities which a state might lump into the category of “speaking out” and use as a basis for persecution, should be brought to the attention of adjudicators.

Given how early we are in the process of considering climate change issues in the asylum context, the above-cited language in the White House report is important, as it provides legitimacy to theories still unfamiliar to the ears of those adjudicating, reviewing, and litigating asylum claims.  It is hoped that EOIR and DHS will immediately familiarize its employees who are involved in asylum adjudication with the report.  And as EOIR and DHS consider next steps in developing guidance and training, it is hoped that they will consider a collaborative approach, including in the discussion those outside of government who have already given the topic a great deal of thought.6

Copyright 2021 Jeffrey S. Chase.  All rights reserved.

Notes:

  1.  8 CFR 208.13(b)(2)(ii).
  2. Id.
  3. UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Legal considerations regarding claims for international protection made in the context of the adverse effects of climate change and disasters, 1 October 2020, https://www.refworld.org/docid/5f75f2734.html, at para. 12.
  4. Although UNHCR’s views on interpreting the 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol are not binding on the U.S. Immigration Courts, they have been found by the BIA to be “useful tools in construing our obligations under the Protocol.”  Matter of Acosta, 19 I&N Dec. 211 (BIA 1985).  See also INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421, 438-39 (1987).
  5. Id. at para. 10.

See, e.g. “Shelter From the Storm: Policy Options to Address Climate Induced Displacement From the Northern Triangle,” https://www.humanrightsnetwork.org/climate-change-and-displaced-persons.

NOVEMBER 22, 2021

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The Need For Full-Fledged Asylum Hearings

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Jeffrey S. Chase is an immigration lawyer in New York City.  Jeffrey is a former Immigration Judge and Senior Legal Advisor at the Board of Immigration Appeals.He is the founder of the Round Table of Former Immigration Judges, which was awarded AILA’s 2019 Advocacy Award.Jeffrey is also a past recipient of AILA’s Pro Bono Award.He sits on the Board of Directors of the Association of Deportation Defense Attorneys, and Central American Legal Assistance.

Audio by websitevoice.com

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/11/climate-refugees-far-right-crisis?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Failing to plan for climate refugees hands a cheap victory to the far right

Zoe Williams

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The climate crisis could cause mass displacement as land is left uninhabitable – nations have to work together to plan for this

Thu 11 Nov 2021 03.00 EST

Last modified on Thu 11 Nov 2021 03.02 EST

As scientists wrestle to predict the true impact and legacy of Cop26, one speech, given at a rally organised by Global Justice Now, insisted upon a perspective not data-driven but moral. Lumumba Di-Aping, a South Sudanese diplomat and former chief negotiator for the G77, said: “The first resolution that should be agreed in Glasgow is for annex I polluters to grant the citizens of small island developing states the right to immigration.”

It was a tactful way of putting it: annex I nations are those with special financial responsibilities in tackling the climate crisis. They have these special responsibilities because their early industrialisation created so much of the carbon burden. A more pugilistic diplomat might have said “the people who created this disaster have to offer sanctuary to those displaced by it”, but then, he wouldn’t be a diplomat.

Di-Aping went on to note article 3 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.” “Small island states,” he concluded, “should not be drowned alive like Zealandia.”

. . . .

As old debates around the climate crisis and whether or not it is anthropogenic give way to consensus, new ambiguities and uncertainties are constructed around refugees: can they really be called the victims of environmental degradation? We will grapple with any other explanation – they’re actually economic migrants, or they’re the victims of civil strife, or they fell foul of a dictatorship, the one-bad-man theory of geopolitics – rather than trace these proximal causes back to their roots. Most political efforts, currently, are geared towards building a positive picture of a sustainable future; the alternative is despair or denial, neither of which are generative forces for change. A coherent, practical plan detailing the probable scale of displacement and figuring out a just distribution of the climate diaspora will look radical and unsettling.

One group is extremely comfortable on that territory, however: the far right. Steve Bannon sent a chill down the spine in 2015 when he talked about a “Camp of the Saints-type invasion into … Europe”. He made the reference again and again, until finally onlookers were forced to read the source: Jean Raspail’s racist novel of 1973, which one contemporary reviewer called “a major event … in much the same sense that Mein Kampf was a major event”. The title comes from a passage in the Book of Revelation about the coming apocalypse – civilisation collapses when the hordes arrive from the four corners of the Earth to “surround the camp of the saints and the beloved city” – and Raspail took up the idea; it was inevitable, he said, that “numberless disinherited people of the south would set sail one day for this opulent shore”.

Through Bannon and others, this idea has replicated, mutated and engulfed others, to become the “great replacement theory” of white supremacists, which Paul Mason describes in his recent book How to Stop Fascism as the toxic political view that “immigration constitutes a ‘genocide’ of the white race”. Feminists help it along by depressing the birth-rate, and cultural Marxists bring the mood music, by supporting both migrants and feminists.

Other far-right movements are sucked into the vortex of this wild but coherent theory, and yet more are spawned or shaped by it: the cosmic right (embodied in Jake Angeli, the QAnon figure in the animal-skin cap who stormed the Capitol in January, then went on hunger strike in prison because the food wasn’t organic), or the eco-minded white supremacists who make this explicit – you can be a humanitarian or an environmentalist. Choose one.

As fanciful and irrational as many far-right arguments are, they have a rat-like cunning. They find these spaces that are untenanted by mainstream debate – there will be climate refugees and they must be accommodated – and they run riot in them. Nations who ignore Lumumba Di-Aping aren’t doing anything to avert the consequences he describes: their silence merely creates an open goal for the professed enemies of a peaceful and prosperous future.

  • Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist

*********

Read Zoe’s complete article at the link.

Usually White House Reports and other quasi-academic “White Papers” produced  at public expense are accompanied by major press releases and momentary hoopla. Then, they are rapidly consigned to the “Dustbin of History.”

They are widely ignored by politicos and bureaucrats who all too often are pursuing policies with little or no empirical basis, but designed to appease or “fire up” some voting block or to further the institutional self-preservation upon which bureaucracies thrive, expand, and prosper, even at the expense of the well-being of the governed!

This report, however, is one that deserves to be the basis for policy action! Too bad it isn’t!

Obviously, an Administration that failed to restore existing refugee and asylum systems, continues to subject migrants to due process denying “star chambers,” thinks “die in place” is an acceptable and effective refugee policy, and wrongly views asylum as a “policy option” rather than a well-established legal and human right, is playing right into the hands of Bannon, Miller, and their 21st Century nihilist movement! It’s also an Administration that didn’t learn much from World War II and the Cold War.

And, on future inevitable and predictable forced migrations, the world isn’t going to get much leadership from a rich nation that can’t even deal fairly, generously, and efficiently with today’s largely predictable, potentially very manageable, refugee situations. Many are situations that our nation either created or played a significant role in creating. See, e.g., environmental migration.

There is actually “room at the inn” for everyone and creative ways for nations to work together to resettle refugees of all types while prospering and working together for the benefit of humanity. Sure, they contradict the nationalist myths upon which many past and current refugee and migration restrictions are based.

Clearly, the realistic, constructive, humane solutions necessary for survival aren’t going come from the racist far right! And, currently the Biden Administration’s failure to stand up for the legal, moral, and human rights of asylum seekers and other referees isn’t doing the job either! Constructive, democratic, moral leadership and courage, oh where, oh where, have you gone?

We can’t deport, imprison, prosecute, wall, threaten, mythologize, abuse, and hate our way out of forced migration situations. It’s going to take dynamic, courageous folks who can get beyond past failures and lead the way to a better future for humanity!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

11-24-21

@WASHPOST: CATHERINE RAMPELL SAYS IT WELL! — “Contrary to Trumpers’ claims, keeping our word to Afghan allies in trouble is wholly consistent with a philosophy that puts ‘America First.’ Indeed, it’s central to the entire operation.”  — Getting Beyond Bogus Racist Nativism To A Robust, Honest, Expanded Legal Immigration System That Treats Refugees & Asylees Fairly, Humanely, & Generously — As Assets, Not “Threats” — Is Putting America First!

Catherine Rampell
Catherine Rampell
Opinion Columnist
Washington Post

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/26/putting-america-first-would-require-keeping-our-word-afghan-allies/

Opinion by Catherine Rampell

August 26 at 5:56 PM ET

Trumpy nativists, posing as fiscal conservatives, want you to question whether the United States can afford to take in Afghan allies and refugees.

The better question is whether we can afford not to.

The Republican Party has cleaved in recent weeks over the issue of Afghan refugees, specifically those who served as military interpreters or otherwise aided U.S. efforts. On the one hand, Republican governors and lawmakers around the country have volunteered to resettle Afghan evacuees in their states. Likewise, a recent CBS News/YouGov poll found that bringing these allies to the United States is phenomenally popular, garnering support from 76 percent of Republican respondents. Influential conservative constituencies are invested in this issue, too, including veterans’ groups and faith leaders.

On the other hand, the Trump strain within the GOP has been fighting such magnanimous impulses with misinformation.

Xenophobic politicians and media personalities have been conspiracy-theorizing about the dangers of resettling Afghan allies here — even though we had previously entrusted these same Afghans with the lives of U.S. troops and granted them security clearances. And even though they go through additional extensive screening before being brought to our shores.

No matter; if you listen to Tucker Carlson and his ilk, you’ll hear that these Afghans are apparently part of a secret plot to replace White Americans, and that untamed Afghan hordes are going to rape your wife and daughter.

Often these demagogues try to disguise their racist objections to refugee resettlement (and immigration more broadly) as economic concerns. Their claim: that however heartbreaking the footage from the Kabul airport, compassion for Afghan refugees is a luxury Americans simply cannot afford.

Refugees are somehow responsible for existing housing shortages, proclaims Carlson. (This is demonstrably false; the reason we have too little affordable housing is primarily because people like Carlson oppose building more and denser housing.) More refugees would sponge up precious taxpayer dollars, according to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). And in general, refugees — like all immigrants — are a massive drain on the U.S. economy, alleges Stephen Miller.

This is nonsense.

. . . .

***********************
Read Catherine’s complete op-ed at the link!

Thanks, Catherine, for once again standing up to and speaking truth against disgraceful, neo-Nazi, nativist racists like Stephen Miller, Tucker Carlson, and Marjorie Taylor Greene!

As Catherine has observed on this and other occasions, in addition to all of the legal and moral reasons for welcoming them, refugees are good for the U.S. economy. See, e.g., https://immigrationcourtside.com/2018/09/04/forget-trumps-white-nationalist-lies-three-ways-immigrants-have-2-cms-refugees-are-good-for-ame/

By contrast, one might well ask what “value added” folks like Stephen Miller and his buddies, (Miller has largely sponged off of taxpayer funds while looking for ways to inflict misery on others and destroy America) bring to the table. None, that I can see!

Moreover, even beyond the undoubted value of robust refugee admissions, there is good reason to believe that large-scale migration presents our best opportunity for salvation and prosperity, rather than the “bogus threat” posited by Miller & Co.

As Deepak Bhargava and Ruth Milkman recently, and quite cogently, wrote in American Prospect:

. . . .

A “Statue of Liberty Plan” for the 21st century could make the United States the world’s most welcoming country for immigrants. Right now, the foreign-born share of the U.S. population lags behind that of Canada, Australia, and Switzerland. In order to surpass them, the United States would have to admit millions more people each year for a decade or longer. We currently admit immigrants to promote family integration, meet economic needs, respond to humanitarian crises, and increase the diversity of our population from historically underrepresented countries. Under this plan, we could dramatically expand admissions in all four categories and add a fifth category to recognize the claims of climate migrants. As a civic project of national renewal, with millions of people playing a role in welcoming new immigrants, such a policy could reweave frayed social bonds and create a healthier, outward-looking, multiracial national identity.

The politics of immigration, however, lag far behind the moral and economic logic of the case for a pro-immigration policy. The immigrant threat narrative has become so pervasive that many liberals have embraced it, if only because they hope to fend off threats from right-wing nationalists. President Obama not only deprioritized immigration reform in his first term but deported record numbers of immigrants, hoping that such a display of “toughness” might win support for legalization of the undocumented immigrants already here. Hillary Clinton advocated liberal immigration policies in her 2016 presidential campaign but later tacked toward restrictionism. Liberals and leftists across the global North, from Austria to France to the U.K., have offered similar concessions to nativism. But mimicking right-wing appeals is a losing gamble that only serves to legitimize the anti-immigrant agenda and its standard-bearers.

There are promising signs of potential for shifting the debate, however, if progressives lean in. Polling shows that Americans increasingly reject the immigrant threat narrative, largely due to Trump’s shameless cruelty. Last year, for the first time since Gallup began asking the question in 1965, more Americans supported increased levels of immigration than supported reduced levels. A telling barometer of how the sands are shifting is that President Biden’s proposed immigration bill is far to the left of what Obama proposed.

The work of shifting gears toward a more welcoming policy can begin right now by fully welcoming immigrants who already reside in our country. A crucial starting point would be to include a path to citizenship for essential workers, Dreamers, farmworkers, and Temporary Protected Status holders in the American Jobs Plan Congress is considering. This is not only a humane approach, but it also will stimulate economic growth and thus help finance other parts of the plan. A separate campaign by the Biden administration (not requiring congressional action) to simplify the naturalization process for nine million eligible green-card holders would help make the nation’s electorate more reflective of its population.

Getting the politics of immigration right isn’t just important for immigrants. Nativism, built upon the sturdy foundation of racism, remains among the most potent tools in the arsenal of right-wing authoritarians. Any program for economic equity or democracy will be fragile in the absence of a coherent immigration agenda. The antidote to authoritarianism is not to duck, cower, or imitate the nativists, but rather to make the case for opening the door to millions more immigrants.

If slavery and genocide were the country’s original sins, its occasional and often accidental genius has been to renew itself through periodic waves of immigration. Once we expose the immigration threat narrative as the Big Lie that it is, it becomes plain that immigration is not a problem to be solved but an opportunity and necessity to be embraced.

https://www.lexisnexis.com/LegalNewsRoom/immigration/b/outsidenews/posts/why-mass-immigration-is-the-key-to-american-renewal

This, of course, also casts doubt on the wisdom of our current, wasteful and ultimately ineffective, policy of illegally rejecting legal asylum applicants at our Southern Border, rather than attempting in good faith to fit as many as qualify under our current system, as properly and honestly administered (something that hasn’t happened in the past). Additionally wise leaders would be looking for ways to expand our legal immigration system to admit, temporarily or permanently, those whose presence would be mutually beneficial, even if they aren’t “refugees” within existing legal definitions. In this respect, the proposal to modernize our laws to admit climate migrants is compelling.

Remember, as stated above:

Getting the politics of immigration right isn’t just important for immigrants. Nativism, built upon the sturdy foundation of racism, remains among the most potent tools in the arsenal of right-wing authoritarians. Any program for economic equity or democracy will be fragile in the absence of a coherent immigration agenda. The antidote to authoritarianism is not to duck, cower, or imitate the nativists, but rather to make the case for opening the door to millions more immigrants.

NDPA members, keep listening to Catherine and the other voices of progressive wisdom, humanity, practicality, and tolerance. The key to the future is insuring that the “Stephen Millers of the world” never again get a chance to implement their vile, racist propaganda in the guise of “government policy.”

Happily, many Northern Virginians have listened to our “better angels.” Humanitarian aid and resettlement opportunities for Afghan refugees are pouring in, as shown by this report from our good friend Julie Carey @ NBC 4 news:

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/northern-virginia-residents-offer-donations-shelter-to-afghan-refugees/2785567/

Julie Carey
Julie Carey
NOVA Bureau Chief, NBC4 Washington
PHOTO: Twitter

The local couple interviewed by Julie emphasized the impressive “human dignity” of the Afghan refugees! (I also observed this during many years of hearing asylum cases in person at the Arlington Immigration Court.) Compare that with the lack thereof (not to mention absence of empathy and kindness) shown by the nativist naysayers!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-27-21

👍🏼CIVIC ACTION ATTACKS THE NATIVISTS’ BIG LIE: “The truth is life is not a zero-sum game. A growing body of evidence actually shows that inclusion isn’t just compatible witheconomic growth — it’s absolutely necessary.”

Thomas Malthus
“Thomas Malthus was wrong about economics, but he would be delighted with the GOP’s dishonest “beggar thy neighbor” policies!”
Creative Commons 4.0
pastedGraphic.png
If you’ve taken Econ 101, you were probably taught that the economy is a zero-sum game. If I win, another economic actor has to lose. One group’s gains mean another’s losses. The issue with that theory? It’s not only wrong, it’s dangerous: Nationalist leaders around the world have played on voters’ fears by threatening that the economic progress of immigrants and minorities will result in losses for everyone else.
The truth is, life isn’t a zero-sum game. A growing body of evidence actually shows that inclusion isn’t just compatible with economic growth – it’s absolutely necessary.
On this week’s episode of Nick Hanauer’s podcast Pitchfork Economics, JP Julien discusses a report that he co-wrote as a leader of global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company’s Institute for Black Economic Mobility. This think tank isn’t in the business of getting accolades from progressive circles – or conservative ones – it’s focused on the cold, hard data. Here’s what Julien told us about economic inclusion:
When more people can fully participate in the economy, we all win

Julien says that when people from all races and backgrounds are able to participate as workers, entrepreneurs, and consumers, the economy is stronger and more resilient. There’s already plenty of evidence for this theory: Between 1960 and 2010, 40% of GDP growth can be directly tied to women and people of color joining the labor force. “The data speaks quite clearly that the more we get people to participate, the better outcomes we produce,” Julien says.

Economic discrimination hurts all of us

There’s a staggering price tag on economic discrimination against people of color and women in America. In his paper, Julien found that eliminating wealth disparities between Black and white households and Hispanic and white households could add $2 to $3 trillion of incremental annual GDP to the U.S. economy. And if more women join the workforce over the coming years, we could add $2.1 trillion in GDP by 2025.

These gains aren’t zero-sum numbers; they don’t come at the expense of the economic value of white men – those numbers are in addition to that growth. That means America’s missing out on at least $5 trillion of economic activity because whole demographics have been shut out of the economy.
Corporations that focus on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion outperform their peers

From the end of last year to this May, we’ve seen Fortune 1000 companies spend $66 billion in racial equity commitments. That’s because of a growing consensus among Fortune 1000 companies that being good corporate citizens actually creates economic opportunities. In his research, Julien found that corporations with more diverse boards and diverse leadership teams actually outperform their peers. It’s becoming impossible to ignore: DEI policies lead to a better and more profitable workplace.

For centuries, our economy has been constructed around exclusionary policies that shut out women and people of color – and this is discrimination is taking a toll on everyday Americans and our country’s economic growth. We can all win by increasing inclusion in the economic playing field – but we’re going to need all hands on deck to tear down this unfair economic system, and that means we need your help right now.
We’ve created an urgent poll to show support for win-win policies that allow everyone to participate in our economic system. We need 5,000 people to answer this one question before 11:59 p.m. tonight, and we’re counting on you to cast your vote tonight. Tell us now:
Does economic inclusion lead to greater economic growth?
Thank you,

Paul

YES
NO

*********************

“For centuries, our economy has been constructed around exclusionary policies that shut out women and people of color – and this discrimination is taking a toll on everyday Americans and our country’s economic growth.”

Couldn’t help thinking of these words as I listened to insurrectionist/traitor “Cancun Ted” Cruz pontificate about why it’s OK to exploit farmworker labor and mischaracterize a long-overdue and well-earned legal status as “amnesty” in responding to Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) during a hearing yesterday on helping farm workers.

Despite the noxious, racist, White Nationalist bogus rhetoric of Cruz, Gov. Gregg Abbott, and other GOP political hacks from the Lone Star State, Texas and its economy would indeed be in dire straits without the economic and cultural contributions of migrants, both documented and undocumented.  So would the rest of us without the essential services, productivity, and societal contributions of immigrants of all types. Indeed, without immigrants of all types, Native Americans would be the only inhabitants of America.

We need immigration laws and policies built on truth and optimism about the future, not the “beggar thy neighbor” White Nationalist myths of the nativist restrictionists!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-23-21

MAINE’S BRIGHT FUTURE IN A GLOBAL SOCIETY DEPENDS ON ROBUST IMMIGRATION & WELCOMING ATTITUDES! — Professor Joseph W. McDonnell Writes In The Portland Press Gazette

News Day in Maine
Let’s Hope That A New Day Is Dawning , Fueled by Immigrants, For Maine & America After 4 Years of Unrelenting Darkness. The Biden Administration Must Help By Re-establishing Our Legal Asylum Program!

https://www.pressherald.com/2021/05/12/maine-voices-new-u-s-intelligence-report-suggests-how-maine-can-address-global-trends-2/

Maine Voices: New U.S. intelligence report suggests how Maine can address global trends

We’re in a good position to improve the lives of people without college degrees, to welcome foreigners to a democratic society and to diversify our workforce.

. . . .

The Global Trends report provides analysis but not policy solutions. Maine could assist by demonstrating that democracy can work here by taking steps to bridge the ideological divide and reduce political polarization. Maine can become a welcoming state for immigrants by easing their entry into the workforce to replace our retiring baby boomers.

Maine can also develop public-private partnerships to teach workforce skills that raise incomes and improve the quality of life for those without a college degree. Finally, Maine can exercise soft power by welcoming foreigners as tourists and recruiting students from China to our high schools and universities, offering an opportunity to experience a democratic society with both its flaws and freedoms, and to forge friendships between the two contested countries.

Joseph W. McDonnell is a professor of public policy and management at the Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine

********************

You can read Professor McDonnell’s article (along with a couple of comments that show exactly why our hope for the future has to be in immigrants — not that the commenters probably weren’t immigrants of some sort at some point in our history). 

B/T/W Congresswoman Omar (D-MN) is a naturalized U.S. citizen — an example of someone who not only immigrated, survived racial and religious bigotry and bullying in school, graduated from college, established a successful career as an educator and civic advocate, and further had the courage and commitment (which most native-born Americans, including me, do not) to successfully seek elective office and work through the system to make America a better place for all, regardless of whether or not one agrees with all of her views.

The vast majority of immigrants of any status “learn the language” (many better than some native-born U.S. citizens) and become at least bi-lingual if not tri-lingual, a skill set that few native-born Americans achieve. 

Of course, in an intentionally diverse society, important Government documents should be printed in languages that individuals are most comfortable with. You might have become proficient in French in college, but if involved in a legal dispute in France, most of us would need and expect an English translation to be sure we understood and, in turn, were understood. 

I knew enough German to study in Germany during college. I was comfortable going down to the local watering spot and ordering “bauernbrat mit kraut und bier.” But, if I had been involved in a legal proceeding, I wouldn’t have dared to proceed in German.

Also, although undoubtedly some students and foreign workers are exploited by the American system, overall they make huge contributions to both education and our workforce. As an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown Law, my classes are continually enriched by the presence of foreign students and scholars, many of whom are willing to share their own immigration stories and to enlighten us on the culture and legal system they experienced. 

Also, if we have learned anything during the pandemic, it is how very dependent we are on our immigrant and ethnic communities, regardless of “status,” for essential workers. The “exploitation” is an “American home grown problem,” not one caused by immigrants! As a society, we need to stop “shooting the messenger!”

Where we spend much of our summers, Boothbay Harbor in the “Mid-Coast Region of Maine,” the tourism, hospitality, recreational, and resort industries that power this town are highly dependent on talented foreign workers. Their upbeat attitudes, eagerness to learn and contribute, and fascinating multiculturalism is one of the primary factors that comes bursting out in town and throughout this area, making this one of the best summer tourist locations in America. (Obviously, it’s “world famous,” since these folks seek to come here from literally around the world.)

I remember commenting several summers ago about the amazing refugee assistance and appreciation programs generated by the local religious community here in Boothbay Harbor, as well as the impressive social justice awareness and activism of some of the talented local artists who performed at a fundraiser for refugees and asylum seekers.  http://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/07/15/the-new-due-process-army-is-alive-and-well-in-boothbay-harbor-singer-songwriter-john-schindler-friends-inspire-uplift-with-benefit-concert-for-maines-immigrant-legal-advocacy-pr/

Our “next-door neighbors,” here on beautiful Linekin Bay, Larry and Janey Anderson, were long time year around residents of Maine before retiring to “warmer climes” near their family (and us) in Northern Virginia. They were very involved with the African refugee community in Southern Maine, calling me several times for advice on how to get legal help on asylum cases. I well remember on occasions hearing the rhythm of a “drum circle” in which Larry participated with his refugee friends coming from the Anderson cabin. 

It actually made me feel good about the lives I had been able to save and the positive progressive legal changes, precedents, and attitudes that I was able to help, at least in some modest way, forge over a 40+ year career in immigration and human rights, most of it with the U.S. Government.

Of course, I was fortunate enough to have retired in 2016, before the institutionalized White Nationalist, racist, misogynistic, xenophobia of the Trump regime arrived. Unfortunately, they undid some of the hard work that many of us had done to improve the system, further due process, and insure fairness and humane treatment for foreign nationals under U.S. laws. 

However, the lives we were able to save (yesterday’s post about my Arlington Immigration Court/Round Table colleague Judge Joan Churchill and our joint NDPA colleague Deb Sanders is an example) have remained saved! “A life saved, is a life saved,” as I always say! https://immigrationcourtside.com/2021/05/12/ndpa-all-star-debi-sanders-round-table-judge-ret-joan-churchill-featured-in-story-of-inspiring-immigrant-sumera-haque-her-family-from-george-bushs-recent-book-out-of-many-one/

The folks we welcomed under the law, their families, and their descendants continue to make America great despite all the destructive actions and false, misleading hate rhetoric promoted by Tump and his party.

Now, it’s up to the “new generation” of the NDPA to seize the baton and lead the fight to assist migrants of all types in creating a new and better day for Maine, America, and the world! I actually just had inspiring conversations this week with “two of the best out there” in the private/NGO sectors who are competing for positions at EOIR to help return due process, efficiency, practicality, and humanity to a disgracefully dysfunctional and unfair system. These are the folks who are “inspiring a new day for America.” They have already got Professor McDonnell’s message and are working to make it a reality!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-13-21

THE GIBSON REPORT — 05-10-21 —Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group

Elizabeth Gibson
Elizabeth Gibson
Attorney, NY Legal Assistance Group
Publisher of “The Gibson Report”

COVID-19 & Closures

Note: Policies are rapidly changing, so please verify information with the government and colleagues.

 

EOIR Status Overview & EOIR Court Status Map/List: Unless previously specified on the court status list, hearings in non-detained courts are postponed through, and including, June 11, 2021. (It is unclear when the next announcement will be. EOIR announced 6/11 on Wed. 4/28, 5/14 on Mon. 3/29, 4/16 on Fri. 3/5, 3/19 on Wed. 2/10, 2/19 on Mon. 1/25, 2/5 on Mon. 1/11, and 1/22 on Mon. 12/28.) There is no announced date for reopening NYC non-detained at this time.

 

USCIS Office Closings and Visitor Policy

 

TOP NEWS

 

Schumer Readies Plan B to Push Immigration Changes Unilaterally

NYT: Should bipartisan talks stall, the Senate majority leader is exploring trying to use budget reconciliation to legalize millions of undocumented immigrants.

 

Immigration Courts Aren’t Real Courts. Time to Change That.

NYT Editorial Board: If the goal was to empty the United States of all those asylum seekers, Mr. Trump clearly failed, as evidenced by the huge backlog he left Mr. Biden. But the ease with which he imposed his will on the immigration courts revealed a central structural flaw in the system: They are not actual courts, at least not in the sense that Americans are used to thinking of courts — as neutral arbiters of law, honoring due process and meting out impartial justice.

 

Biden fills immigration court with Trump hires

The Hill: The first 17 hires to the court system responsible for determining whether migrants get to remain in the country is filled with former prosecutors and counselors for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as well as a few picks with little immigration experience. See also The Director Of The Nation’s Immigration Courts Has Stepped Down.

 

ICE deportations fell in April to lowest monthly level on record, enforcement data shows

WaPo: ICE deported 2,962 immigrants in April, according to the agency. It is the first time the monthly figure has dipped below 3,000, records show. The April total is a 20 percent decline from March, when ICE deported 3,716.

 

How Police “Gang Databases” Are Being Used to Wage War on Immigrants

InTheseTimes: Gang databases have drawn criticism from national civil rights groups including Human Rights Watch and Detention Watch Network, which co-signed an April 1 petition calling on the Department of Homeland Security to end its discriminatory “prioritization” practices.

 

ICE Subverting Biden’s Priorities For Detention And Deportation

Intercept: A new report sheds light on how, despite orders from the Biden administration to narrow its immigration enforcement, ICE is still casting a wide net.

 

US Officials Have Discussed Asking Mexico To Do More To Stem The Tide Of Immigrants Ahead Of Kamala Harris’s Meeting

Buzzfeed: The proposals that have been discussed include Mexico officials prioritizing repatriating adults turned back by US border officials under a controversial Trump-era policy, increasing apprehensions of immigrants moving through their country to an average of 1,000 per day, and taking in more Central American families turned around at the border, according to the documents.

 

US awards huge shelter contracts amid child migrant increase

AP: In its haste to provide new facilities, the Department of Health and Human Services awarded the largest contracts — worth more than $2 billion — to two companies and a nonprofit without a bidding process and has exempted providers from the staffing requirements that state-licensed child facilities must meet, according to HHS and federal spending records.

 

Department of Homeland Security scraps Trump-era plans to collect more biometric data from immigrants

CBS: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has scrapped plans formed under President Trump to expand the collection of biometric data — including voice prints and DNA — from anyone applying to enter the United States and their sponsors, including children.

 

Lawmakers call to defund immigration cooperation program

RollCall: Led by Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., the lawmakers warned that continued funding of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement program, known as the 287(g) program, will undermine trust in law enforcement within immigrant communities, discouraging undocumented immigrants from calling the police for help or reporting crimes.

 

Biden finally raised the refugee cap. Now comes the hard part.

Vox: After months of indecision and blowback from within his own party, President Joe Biden has finally raised the cap on refugee admissions for 2021 to 62,500 — but he has made clear he doesn’t think the US will actually admit that many people.

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/andyjsemotiuk/2021/05/10/more-immigration-best-solution-to-us-economic-decline-and-continued-world-leadership/

More Immigration Best Solution To U.S. Economic Decline And Continued World Leadership

Forbes: In their publication Room to Grow, National Immigration Forum’s president and CEO, Ali Noorani and his colleague Danilo Zak argue that the U.S. should increase net immigration levels by at least 37 percent, or about 370,000 additional immigrants a year, to prevent a “demographic deficit” stemming from low population growth.

 

San Diego County will provide immigrants with lawyers

AP: San Diego would be the first southern border county in the United States to provide legal representation for those in federal immigration custody who are facing removal proceedings, although more than 40 other places nationwide have similar programs.

 

Trump Policies And COVID Have Left Immigrant Couples Trying To Get Marriage-Based Visas In Limbo

Buzzfeed: The United States immigration system has been gutted by the pandemic — between threats of mass government furloughs during COVID, the near-complete shutdown of consular offices abroad, and former president Donald Trump’s hard line against immigration, the Biden administration has inherited not only a crisis at the southern border, but also a virtual freeze on marriage-based visa applications that has left couples stranded.

 

Democratic Mayoral Candidates Talk Issues of Importance to Immigrant Communities

Gotham Gazette: At a virtual forum on Thursday night, four of the leading Democratic candidates for mayor in the June primary weighed in on issues affecting New York City’s large immigrant population, including housing, education, employment, and participation in the political process.

 

LITIGATION/CASELAW/RULES/MEMOS

 

2nd Circ. Says BIA Wrongly Defined Asylee’s ‘Social Group’

Law360: The Second Circuit revived an asylum bid from a Guatemalan immigrant who witnessed gang violence and helped a law enforcement investigation, ruling that the Board of Immigration Appeals hadn’t properly considered whether he fell into the right social group to claim deportation relief.

 

3rd Circ. Says BIA Can Close Cases, Contrary To 2018 Rule

Law360: A split Third Circuit ruled Wednesday that the Board of Immigration Appeals and immigration judges have the authority to administratively close deportation proceedings, handing a win to a Mexican man hoping to renew his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status after being freed of criminal charges.

 

3rd Circ. Says Immigration Notice Doesn’t Need Hearing Info

Law360: The Third Circuit on Wednesday shot down a native Guatemalan’s challenge to an immigration judge’s jurisdiction over his case on the grounds that a referral notice initiating his removal proceedings did not have the date and time of a hearing, saying regulations do not require such information in that document.

 

20-Year-Old Robbery Blocks Bid For Asylum, 3rd Circ. Says

Law360: The Third Circuit on Tuesday said a more than two-decade-old robbery conviction in New Jersey constituted an aggravated felony under the Immigration and Nationality Act and thus barred a Nigerian man from avoiding deportation amid fears he would face mistreatment in the West African nation due to his bisexuality.

 

CA4 Holds That IJs Have Authority to Grant Requests for Inadmissibility Waivers Under INA §212(d)(3)(A)(ii)

The court held that DOJ’s regulations empower IJs to consider a petitioner’s application for an inadmissibility waiver under INA §212(d)(3)(A)(ii), and that an IJ’s ability to grant such a waiver is consistent with the statutory and regulatory scheme. (Jimenez-Rodriguez v. Garland, 4/29/21) AILA Doc. No. 21050433

 

CA4 Says Petitioner Failed to Exhaust Argument That Pardoned Offenses Do Not Qualify as Convictions Under the INA

Where the petitioner had been pardoned by the state of Georgia for drug and firearm offenses after DHS had sought to remove him based on his convictions, the court held that he did not exhaust his argument that pardoned offenses do not qualify as convictions. (Tetteh v. Garland, 4/27/21) AILA Doc. No. 21050432

 

CA7 Upholds Denial of Asylum to Petitioner Who Feared Retaliatory Gang Violence in Mexico

The court concluded that the petitioner had raised no arguments against the BIA’s dispositive determination that his asylum application was statutorily time-barred, and found that substantial evidence supported the BIA’s denial of withholding of removal. (Guzman-Garcia v. Garland, 5/3/21)

 

8th Circ. Says TPS Grant Does Not Constitute An Admission

Law360: An Eighth Circuit panel on Wednesday denied a Salvadoran man’s petition to avoid deportation from the United States, ruling that a grant of temporary protected status is not considered an admission for canceling removal proceedings.

 

No Error In Illegal Reentry Arrest, 8th Circ. Rules

Law360: North Dakota police officers accused of violating a Mexican man’s constitutional rights acted within their authority when they detained him during a burglary investigation on suspicion of being illegally present in the U.S., the Eighth Circuit ruled Monday.

 

Feds Say Fiance Visa Delay Suit Is Moot

Law360: The State Department urged a D.C. federal court Friday to throw out a lawsuit over the slow processing of K-1 fiance visas, arguing that the case is moot after the department issued a “national interest” exemption to aid the applicants.

 

DHS Ratifies Rule Removing 30-Day EAD Processing Requirement for Asylum Applicants

DHS issued a statement noting that Secretary Mayorkas has ratified a rule that removes the 30-day EAD processing requirement for asylum applicants. AILA Doc. No. 21050745

 

DHS Withdrawal of Proposed Rule on Eliminating Employment Authorization for Individuals with a Final Order of Removal

DHS withdrawal of a proposed rule published at 85 FR 74196 on 11/19/20, which would have eliminated employment authorization eligibility for individuals who have final orders of removal but are temporarily released from custody on an order of supervision. (86 FR 24751, 5/10/21) AILA Doc. No. 21050731

 

DHS Withdrawal of Proposed Rule on Use and Collection of Biometrics

DHS withdrawal of the proposed rule on the use and collection of biometrics in the enforcement and administration of immigration laws, which was published at 85 FR 56338 on 9/11/20. (86 FR 24750, 5/10/21) AILA Doc. No. 21050730

 

ICE Provides Updated FAQs on Sensitive Locations and Courthouse Arrests Policy

Following the issuance of new guidance limiting ICE and CBP civil enforcement actions in or near courthouses, ICE updated its FAQs on sensitive locations and courthouse arrests. AILA Doc. No. 18013142

 

EOIR Announces 17 New Immigration Judges

EOIR announced 17 new immigration judges, including one assistant chief immigration judge and six unit chief immigration judges. The notice provides the judges’ names, courts of appointment, and biographical information. AILA Doc. No. 21050630

 

EOIR Provides Information for Individuals Who Have Come to the U.S. After Waiting in Mexico for Hearings Under MPP

EOIR provided a flyer with instructions for individuals who have come to the United States after waiting in Mexico under the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP). The flyer provides information on the individuals’ responsibilities and phone numbers to reach the immigration court helpdesk. AILA Doc. No. 21051030

 

CIS Ombudsman’s Office Issues Reminder for DACA Renewals

The CIS Ombudsman’s Office issued a reminder that individuals who are eligible to renew their DACA and employment authorization may submit their renewal request between 150 days and 120 days before the expiration on their current Form I-797, Notice of Approval, and on the EAD. AILA Doc. No. 21051035

 

Presidential Proclamation Suspending Entry as Nonimmigrants of Certain Individuals Present in India Who Pose a Risk of Transmitting COVID-19

President Biden issued a proclamation suspending the entry into the U.S., as nonimmigrants, of certain individuals who were physically present in India during the 14-day period preceding their entry or attempted entry. This proclamation is effective at 12:01 am (ET) on 5/4/21. (86 FR 24297, 5/6/21) AILA Doc. No. 21043038

 

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ImmProf

 

Monday, May 10, 2021

Sunday, May 9, 2021

Saturday, May 8, 2021

Friday, May 7, 2021

Thursday, May 6, 2021

Wednesday, May 5, 2021

Tuesday, May 4, 2021

Monday, May 3, 2021

 

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Thanks, Elizabeth!

Of particular interest, and an item I haven’t previously covered, is the article from Forbes recommending that we increase legal immigration levels by at least 37% to remain competitive in the world. But, it certainly echoes and confirms things I have said on this blog.

I have talked about the total stupidity of the Trump White Nationalist war on immigration. To a lesser extent, the Biden Administration is repeating the same mistakes by illegally keeping the Southern Border largely closed, to asylum seekers, while “slow walking” both refugee admissions and a restart of our legal immigration programs.

Many of the great folks we need to get our country back on track and build for future prosperity and success are qualified refugees — asylum seekers in this case — being wrongfully turned around without due process. They are right there, on our borders, coming to us, and we’re too dense and discombobulated to reestablish a legal system to screen and admit those qualified for legal admission.

A fair, properly generous, professionally run and led, and expert-staffed asylum system could harness this power rather than not only squandering the human lives involved but wasting time and money on detention, “deterrents,” “incentives” for other nations to violate human rights, and other misguided and wasteful enforcement gimmicks.

Doubt what I’m saying? You shouldn’t! The last three decades of actual experience bear me out. We have approximately 11 million undocumented individuals in the U.S. right now. The vast, vast majority, probably about 95%, present no threat and are actually productive, often essential, contributing members of our society. 

There’s your 350,000 per year additional that we should have been legally admitting over the past three decades! Of course, it would have been better if we had screened, vetted, and processed them in a timely manner. But, that’s hard to do when 1) our legal immigraton system was designed to intentionally disregard and work against “market forces;” and 2) we’ve wasted incredible amounts of human and monetary capital on counterproductive and wasteful “enforcement gimmicks.”

That’s why it’s high time to reform our legal refugee, asylum and immigration systems to make them much more robust, realistic, and in furtherance of our true national interests, rather than a fruitless pursuit of White supremacist myths. Instead of wasting time and money on expensive, counterproductive, and divisive immigration enforcement gimmicks, immigration enforcement could be targeted at the real problems — smugglers and cartels (whose business opportunities would be diminished by a “real world” immigraton system), and identifying the relatively small number of individuals seeking admission who present an actual (rather than imagined and overhyped) threat to our nation’s safety and security. Jobs in a more rational, focused, humane, and professional immigration bureaucracy would also be attractive to a wider range of Americans seeking employment,

This is hardly a “pipe dream” unless you listen only to right wing media and Trump-type “magamoron” nativist myths. Indeed thoughtful experts and scholars across the ideological spectrum — from the Center for Migration Studies to the Cato Institute — recommend some variation of the robust, courageous, forward-looking approach to immigration I have described above. A bigger problem, as always, is getting politicians to do the right thing.

But, after four years of perhaps the biggest and most preventable failure  to deal intelligently with immigration since the end of World War II, it’s high time we tried a better approach.

Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-11-21

 

🌳CELEBRATING EARTH DAY: Hon.“Sir Jeffrey” Chase Joins Other Scholars In Exploring “Environmental Refugees” — “The White Paper explains that the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras are particularly vulnerable to climate change issues, and that the U.S. bears some responsibility for this fact through its high levels of greenhouse emissions and its historical policies in Central America.”

 

Migrant Mom
America has a not so good history of dealing with climate migration.
“Migrant Mom”
PHOTO BY: Dorothea Lange
Public Realm

 

Kristin Hannah
Kristin Hannah’s latest novel “The Four Winds” centers on the ordeal of a single Mom struggling to save her family during the “Great Migration” of the 1930’s.
PHOTO:WashPost.com

 

Jeffrey S. Chase
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog
Coordinator & Chief Spokesperson, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges

https://www.jeffreyschase.com/blog/2021/4/22/climate-change-and-asylum-law

Climate Change and Asylum Law

Today, Earth Day, Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, and the University Network for Human Rights released an important White Paper on the issue of climate displacement and its intersection with U.S. immigration laws, including the law of asylum.  The report, Shelter from the Storm: Policy Options to Address Climate Induced Migration from the Northern Triangle, is both a call to action by the Biden Administration, and a tribute to the adaptability of international refugee law to address a vast array of serious discriminatory harms, including those related to climate change.

Seventy years after its enactment, the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees has demonstrated its ability to provide protection to victims of domestic violence, female genital cutting, coercive family planning policies, and violence from third-generation gangs, which function in some areas as de facto governments.  It has provided status to those targeted because of their sexual orientation or sexual identity.  It has served to afford protection to those suffering from physical or mental illnesses or disabilities.

Attention is now turning to those displaced by climate change.  The Biden Administration has issued two Executive Orders devoted to the issue of climate change within days of taking office.  The second of those, issued on February 4, included the topic of “planning for the impact of climate change on migration.”  Section 6 of the order requires the issuance of a report on the topic within 180 days.

To present, the U.S. has responded in some instances to rapid onset climate events such as hurricanes and earthquakes by designating impacted countries for Temporary Protected Status.  One of the interesting points raised in the White Paper involves the ordinarily overlooked issue of displacement caused by slow onset climate events.  These  include desertification, rising sea levels, salinization of farmland, and shifts in precipitation patterns.  The issue lends itself to being addressed through an array of legal responses (such as TPS, Deferred Enforced Departure, humanitarian parole, and even the creation of a new climate visa), and the White Paper explains how each of these legal avenues can be employed to provide protection to those displaced by such events.  But the White Paper’s discussion of the idea of analyzing some forms of climate-related harm under our asylum laws is particularly intriguing.

Development of the intellectual groundwork for climate change-based refugee law analysis is underway at the international level.  As the White Paper notes, in October 2020, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees issued an important document setting forth “legal considerations regarding claims for international protections made in the context of the adverse effects of climate change and disasters.”  This follows the 2020 publication of Matthew Scott’s Climate Change, Disasters, and the Refugee Convention, the first full-length treatise on the topic.

It is important to recognize that asylum is not a cure for all harms that arise in the world.  As in the other examples cited above, asylum responds to serious human rights violations from which the state cannot or will not protect that discriminate based on the fundamental characteristics of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.  As one scholar has stated, “international standards generally require that the harm be severe and related to a core right as understood under evolving human rights norms.”1  But “the evaluation of persecution requires a universal but flexible standard, capable of evolving and responding to changing conditions and international norms.”2

In the climate change context, governments undertake projects that impact climate issues such as the availability of water, or the contamination of air or farmland, that may benefit one segment of the population at the expense of another.  Governments also make politicized decisions whether to address slow-onset climate change (which may include decisions regarding whether to regulate non-state industries engaging in business activities with environmental consequences), and in the speed and scope of their relief efforts on behalf of victims of climate-related disasters.  Where these decisions particularly impact a segment of the population in a severe way on account of one of the five statutorily protected grounds, the result may constitute persecution protected under our asylum law.  While the impact of these policies may cause serious harm standing alone, it may alternatively serve as the “last straw” in triggering flight where the climate change factors accelerated the degree of harm already suffered on account of a protected ground such as gender or indigenous status.3

Furthermore, a government’s punishment of outspoken critics of its climate change policies or lack of adequate response to a disaster may constitute persecution on account of a political opinion, as that term is defined for asylum purposes.4

Climate change could also play a more indirect but still important role in asylum determinations.  For example, an asylum applicant who has established a well-founded fear of persecution must also demonstrate that they could not evade persecution through internal relocation within their home country, provided such relocation would be reasonable under all of the circumstances.5   But in its October 2020 Legal Considerations, UNHCR cautions at paragraph 12 that the progressive effect of slow-onset climate change spreading throughout a country may make relocation “neither relevant nor reasonable.”6  Furthermore, where an applicant who has suffered past persecution is shown to have no future fear due to changed conditions, a grant of humanitarian asylum may be merited where the asylum applicant establishes a reasonable possibility of facing “other serious harm” upon return.7  Harm resulting upon return from climate change should arguably constitute “other serious harm” sufficient to meet this standard.8

The White Paper explains that the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras are particularly vulnerable to climate change issues, and that the U.S. bears some responsibility for this fact through its high levels of greenhouse emissions and its historical policies in Central America.9  In the 1980s and 90s, the B.I.A. engaged in logical contortions to avoid providing those fleeing civil wars in the Northern Triangle with the asylum protections it willingly extended to those fleeing similar conditions in other parts of the world.10  And more recently, refugees from violence from third-generation gangs and domestic violence in the region have suffered setbacks to refugee protection through similarly bad precedent decisions of the Attorneys General and the B.I.A.11

As the international community addresses the question of refugee determinations involving factors relating to climate change, it is possible for the U.S. to be at the forefront.  Hopefully, today’s White Paper will provide the present administration with useful guidance towards that goal.

This report was coordinated and written by teams from the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program (HIRC) and the HLS Immigration Project (HIP) at Harvard Law School (collectively “Harvard”) and the University Network for Human Rights, Yale Immigrant Justice Project, and Yale Environmental Law Association (collectively “University Network/Yale”). The coordinators/authors from Harvard were John Willshire Carrera and Deborah Anker.  The coordinators/authors from University Network/Yale were Camila Bustos and Thomas Becker.  I am greatly honored to be listed as a co-author for my work with the Harvard team.

The following fellows participated in researching and drafting the report: Yong Ho Song (Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Fellow at Greater Boston Legal Services) and Fabiola Alvelais (Harvard Law School Henigson Human Rights Fellow and University Network for Human Rights Fellow).

The following Harvard students participated in researching and drafting the report: Rachel Landry (HIRC), Grant Charness (HIRC), Justin Bogda (HIRC), Regina Paparo (HIRC), Mira Nasser (HIRC), Lily Cohen (HIRC), Kira Hessekiel (HIRC), Nicholas Dantzler (HIRC), Shaza Loutfi (HIRC), Ariel Sarandinaki (HIRC), Gabrielle Kim (HIRC), Katie Quigley (HIP), Gina Starfield (HIP).

The following students supervised by and in coordination with University Network for Human Rights participated in researching and drafting the report: Natasha Brunstein (Yale), Alisa White (Yale), Aaron Troncoso (Yale), Rubin Danberg Biggs (Yale), Ram Dolom (Yale), A.J. Hudson (Yale), Rekha Kennedy (Yale), Liz Jacob (Yale), Eleanor Runde (Yale), Eric Eisner (Yale), Juan Luna Leon (Yale), Karen Sung (Yale), Abby Sodie (Wesleyan), Ericka Ekhator (Wesleyan), Gabrielle Ouellette (Wesleyan), Jesse de la Bastide (Wesleyan), Stella Ramsey (Wesleyan), and Luis Martinez (Vanderbilt).

The report was edited by: Sabrineh Ardalan, James Cavallaro, Nancy Kelly, Ruhan Nagra, Gina Starfield, Katie Quigley, and Cindy Zapata.

Notes:

  1.  Deborah E. Anker, The Law of Asylum in the United States (2020 Ed.) (Thomson Reuters) at § 4.4.
  2. Id. at § 4.3.
  3. White Paper at 35.
  4. Id. at 35.
  5. 8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(b)(1)(i)(B).
  6. White Paper at 36-37.
  7. 8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(b)(2)(i)(C).
  8. See White Paper at 33; Matter of L-S-, 25 I&N Dec. 705, 714 (BIA 2012) (holding that “other serious harm” requires no nexus to a protected ground, and can be found in “situations where the claimant could experience severe mental or emotional harm or physical injury.”
  9. White Paper at 4.
  10. See, e.g., Matter of Maldonado-Cruz, 19 I&N Dec. 509 (BIA 1988); and cf., e.g. Matter of Vigil, 19 I&N Dec. 572 (BIA 1987) with Matter of Salim, 18 I&N Dec. 311 (BIA 1982)
  11. See, e.g., Matter of A-B-, 28 I&N Dec. 28 I&N Dec. 199 (A.G. 2021); Matter of A-C-A-A-, 28 I&N Dec. 84 (A.G. 2020); Matter of E-R-A-L-, 27 I&N Dec. 767 (BIA 2020); Matter of L-E-A-, 27 I&N Dec. 581 (A.G. 2019); Matter of A-B-, 27 I&N Dec. 316 (A.G. 2018); Matter of L-E-A-, 27 I&N Dec. 40 (BIA 2017); Matter of M-E-V-G-, 26 I&N Dec. 227 (BIA 2014); Matter of W-G-R-, 26 I&NM Dec. 208 (BIA 2014).

Copyright 2021 Jeffrey S. Chase.  All rights reserved.

Republished by permission.

*******************

Such important work! These are the folks who should be running Government policy, not just writing “White Papers,” no matter how brilliant. 

In this NBC News video from yesterday, Hallie Jackson highlights upper class “climate migrants” already relocating from places like the Georgia coast to Asheville, NC, to insulate themselves from the worst effects of ongoing climate change and global warming.  Things are going to get much more serious when Bangladesh and other sea-level nations and island nations (e.g., Indonesia)  start going under water. Probably not so good for Florida either!

Hallie Jackson
Hallie Jackson
NBC News Correspondent
PHOTO: Sharealike, Creative Commons license

https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/cities-prepare-for-future-influx-of-new-residents-fleeing-climate-change-110693957661

🇺🇸⚖️Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-22-21

🤮🦹🏿‍♀️🤡OUT OF CRUZ CONTROL!

IMG_3738.jpg

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No electricity, no heat, no water? The obvious solution, a few days in warm, sunny Cancun.

How come a “developing country” has these basics, but Texas doesn’t?

Thanks to Debi Sanders for passing this along!

PWS

02-19-21

GETTING BEYOND THE RACIST MYTH OF THE “ZERO SUM GAME ECONOMY” — Heather  C. McGhee @ NYT

Heather C. McGhee
Heather C. McGhee speaks at TEDWomen 2019: Bold + Brilliant, December 4-6, 2019, Palm Springs, California. Photo: Stacie McChesney / TED, Creative Commons License

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/opinion/race-economy-inequality-civil-rights.html

Ms. McGhee is the author of “The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together,” from which this essay is adapted.

Over a two-decade career in the white-collar think tank world, I’ve continually wondered: Why can’t we have nice things?

By “we,” I mean America at-large. As for “nice things,” I don’t picture self-driving cars, hovercraft backpacks or laundry that does itself. Instead, I mean the basic aspects of a high-functioning society: well-funded schools, reliable infrastructure, wages that keep workers out of poverty, or a comprehensive public health system equipped to handle pandemics — things that equally developed but less wealthy nations seem to have.

In 2010, eight years into my time as an economic policy wonk at Demos, a progressive policy research group, budget deficits were on the rise. The Great Recession had decimated tax revenue, requiring more public spending to restart the economy.

But both the Tea Party and many in President Barack Obama’s inner circle were calling for a “grand bargain” to shrink the size of government by capping future public outlays and slashing Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. Despite the still-fragile recovery and evidence that corporations were already paring back retirement benefits and ratcheting down real wages, the idea gained steam.

On a call with a group of all-white economist colleagues, we discussed how to advise leaders in Washington against this disastrous retrenchment. I cleared my throat and asked: “So where should we make the point that all these programs were created without concern for their cost when the goal was to build a white middle class, and they paid for themselves in economic growth? Now these guys are trying to fundamentally renege on the deal for a future middle class that would be majority people of color?”

Nobody answered. I checked to see if I was muted.

Finally, one of the economists breached the awkward silence. “Well, sure, Heather. We know that — and you know that — but let’s not lead with our chin here,” he said. “We are trying to be persuasive.”

The sad truth is that he was probably right. Soon, the Tea Party movement, harnessing the language of fiscal responsibility and the subtext of white grievance, would shut down the federal government, win across-the-board cuts to public programs and essentially halt the legislative function of the federal government for the next six years. The result: A jobless recovery followed by a slow, unequal economic expansion that hurt Americans of all backgrounds.

The anti-government stinginess of traditional conservatism, along with the fear of losing social status held by many white people, now broadly associated with Trumpism, have long been connected. Both have sapped American society’s strength for generations, causing a majority of white Americans to rally behind the draining of public resources and investments. Those very investments would provide white Americans — the largest group of the impoverished and uninsured — greater security, too: A new Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco study calculated that in 2019, the country’s output would have been $2.6 trillion greater if the gap between white men and everyone else were closed. And a 2020 report from analysts at Citigroup calculated that if America had adopted policies to close the Black-white economic gap 20 years ago, U.S. G.D.P would be an estimated $16 trillion higher.

. . . .

I’ll never forget Bridget, a white woman I met in Kansas City who had worked in fast food for over a decade. When a co-worker at Wendy’s first approached her about joining a local Fight for $15 group pushing for a livable minimum wage, she was skeptical. “I didn’t think that things in my life would ever change,” she told me. “They weren’t going to give $15 to a fast food worker. That was just insane to me.”

But Bridget attended the first organizing meeting anyway. And when a Latina woman rose and described her life — three children in a two-bedroom apartment with bad plumbing, the feeling of being “trapped in a life where she didn’t have any opportunity to do anything better” — Bridget, also a mother of three, said she was struck by how “I was really able to see myself in her.”

“I had been fed this whole line of, ‘These immigrant workers are coming over here and stealing our jobs — not paying taxes, committing crimes and causing problems,’” Bridget admitted. “You know, us against them.”

Soon after she began organizing, the cross-racial movement had won a convert. “In order for all of us to come up, it’s not a matter of me coming up and them staying down,” she said. “It’s the matter of: In order for me to come up, they have to come up too. Because honestly, as long as we’re divided, we’re conquered.”

*******************

Read the complete article at the link.

Inability to think beyond racist myths and false narratives is holding America back from realizing our full potential. 

“Dividing and conquering” is the strategy of the modern GOP. If one could get behind the racist stereotypes and white resentment, rural America probably has far more in common with hard-working undocumented immigrants, African Americans, and Latinos than with elitist GOP politicos and corporate moguls — certainly more than with the notoriously lazy, dull, corrupt grifter Trump! But, the key seems to be to promote minority rule by sowing hate and distrust, thereby preventing the common good of the majority from prevailing.

While much of the “beggar thy neighbor” fear mongering comes right out of the current GOP playbook, Dems, including many in the Obama Administration, have also been guilty, as Heather points out. Just read some the alarmist stuff being put out by former Obama economic honcho Larry Summers.   

And, contrary to White Nationalist myths about “job stealing,” much of American economic growth and innovation can be traced directly to immigrants, both documented and undocumented. 

PWS

02-15-21

POLITICS: AS GOP GOES “ALL IN” ON WHITE SUPREMACY, BIDEN MOVES FORWARD TO SOLVE AMERICA’S PRESSING PROBLEMS — “This political void is allowing Biden and the Democrats, who control the White House and both houses of Congress, to respond boldly to the largest social and economic crisis since the Great Depression,” says Robert Reich!

 

Robert Reich
Robert Reich
Former US Secretary of Labor
Professor of Public Policy
CAL Berkeley
Creative Commons License

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/14/trump-impeachment-biden-american-rescue-plan-robert-reich?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

While most of official Washington has been focused on the Senate impeachment trial, another part of Washington is preparing the most far-ranging changes in American social policy in a generation.

The Capitol attack film was brutal. That’s why it must be watched | Francine Prose

Congress is moving ahead with Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan, which expands healthcare and unemployment benefits and contains one of the most ambitious efforts to reduce child poverty since the New Deal. Right behind it is Biden’s plan for infrastructure and jobs.

The juxtaposition of Trump’s impeachment trial and Biden’s ambitious plans is no coincidence.

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Trump has left Republicans badly fractured and on the defensive. The party is imploding. Since the Capitol attack on 6 January, growing numbers of voters have deserted it. State and county committees are becoming wackier by the day. Big business no longer has a home in the crackpot GOP.

This political void is allowing Biden and the Democrats, who control the White House and both houses of Congress, to respond boldly to the largest social and economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Tens of millions are hurting. A record number of American children are impoverished

Importantly, they are now free to disregard conservative canards that have hobbled America’s ability to respond to public needs ever since Ronald Reagan convinced the nation big government was the problem.

The first is the supposed omnipresent danger of inflation and the accompanying worry that public spending can easily overheat the economy.

Rubbish. Inflation hasn’t reared its head in years, not even during the roaring job market of 2018 and 2019. “Overheating” may no longer even be a problem for globalized, high-tech economies whose goods and services are so easily replaceable.

Biden’s ambitious plans are worth the small risk, in any event. If you hadn’t noticed, the American economy is becoming more unequal by the day. Bringing it to a boil may be the only way to lift the wages of the bottom half. The hope is that record low interest rates and vast public spending generate enough demand that employers will need to raise wages to find the workers they need.

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A few Democratic economists who should know better are sounding the false alarm about inflation, but Biden is wisely ignoring them. So should Democrats in Congress.

. . . .

****************

Read the full article at the link. 

Seems like what Democrats need to do here is follow President Biden’s lead and “keep their eyes on the ball.” 

The minority of “non-Trumpist” Republicans, on the other hand, are going to have to decide where they fit in a party without values that has effectively “disowned” them in its embrace of racism, violence, insurrection, conspiracy theories, and corruption.

PWS

02-14-21

🇺🇸LOOKING FORWARD TO JAN 20: How The Biden Administration Can Reach Out To Rural America & Bring Our Nation Back Together! — Rural & Urban Areas Need Each Other To Maximize Growth & Prosper In The Future!

Rob Riley
Rob Riley
President, Northern Forest Center
Co-Founder, Rural Development Innovation Group
Picture: Aspen Group Website

https://www.pressherald.com/2020/12/30/commentary-how-to-make-federal-policy-work-for-maine-and-other-rural-places/

Rob Riley in the Portland (ME) Press Herald:

. . . .

President-elect Joe Biden, who pledged to serve all Americans, can respond boldly to address the needs of large swaths of rural America where people feel left behind. In the first 100 days of his administration, he can prove that he wants to see real change and will act to secure broader prosperity.

Drawing on more than 20 years of working in communities across four rural states, we see actionable, specific opportunities for Biden to make federal policy work for rural places. Here’s what we recommend:

• Engage in genuine conversations in rural places about the role of the federal government. The pandemic aside, fundamental economic changes, limited career pathways and crumbling (or non-existent) infrastructure plague many rural places. These challenges require public-private partnerships, directed by local needs and leadership. Many of the federal programs designed to address the underlying issues in rural places fail because they were designed for the rural reality of 1960, not of today. Let’s get current, understand why programs aren’t working and make them better.

• Elevate rural to the level it deserves in the president’s Cabinet. Rural places are currently served through a web of programs spread across numerous federal agencies. One might think this approach would help address policy deficiencies, but in fact, when everyone is in charge, no one is. The Biden administration can send a strong message that it means business by putting someone clearly in charge of its rural agenda and creating a new Department of Rural Development dedicated to improving, centralizing, and deploying the support and services necessary for rural people and places to thrive.

• Invest in doing economic development differently in rural places. Federal employees work diligently on their mission, providing grants and other services to constituents as directed by statute. And yet, the available tools for solving complicated, systemic and immediate issues are limited. To do economic development differently – and better – we need to eliminate programs that have limited utility, expand others that focus on building capacity in rural places, increase the flexible application of federal dollars and move the measurement of economic development outcomes beyond one-dimensional (and fleeting) metrics like job creation.

• Focus on and communicate about rural-urban connections rather than the divide. Rural places don’t benefit from being talked about as a monolith, a backwater or fly-over country. Rather, we as a nation need to raise up narratives and policies that recognize differences in rural places across the country, and that celebrate and support the natural, community, and economic assets that define those communities and their relationship to nearby urban areas. The stereotype of the American dream is changing. We now have a tapestry of rural, suburban and urban, and an opportunity to focus on collective prosperity rather than competition, exclusion and negative trade-offs.

The first hundred days will show how the Biden presidency will serve all Americans. Yes, there is a pandemic raging, but the widening gulf between rural and urban, rich and poor, red and blue requires a new tone, a new path and new solutions. Let’s get to it.

Rob Riley is president of the Northern Forest Center, a regional innovation and investment partner that creates rural vibrancy across Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York. The center co-founded the national Rural Development Innovation Group with the Aspen Institute and the U.S. Endowment for Forestry & Communities.

**************************

Read Rob’s full article at the link.

These are great, and timely ideas. They also present an outstanding opportunity to use the power of immigration to make our country a better place for everyone.

  • Immigrant entrepreneurs, small businesspeople, and investors can pool their ideas, skills, and resources with rural communities. Innovative rural Americans can help redesign and tailor methods that have worked in other countries for the American situation.
  • Immigrants with experience in agriculture and product marketing can help alleviate some of the labor shortages in rural areas.
  • Immigrants with tech skills can partner with rural Americans to help insure that, rather than sometimes being left behind, rural areas are on the cutting edge of accessible, high speed, state of the art technology that will integrate many educational and commercial activities with those now centered in “urban hubs.” (For example, why couldn’t a high tech area in rural America where land and housing are cheaper and a skilled (or highly motivated and trainable) workforce is eager for work be just as effective as Crystal City, VA as the next big tech hub?)
  • Immigrants with health service backgrounds can assist even more rural communities in insuring that first-class healthcare (and the jobs and economic opportunities it creates) is available everywhere in America.
  • My experience is that immigrants of all types, like rural Americans, highly value education, particularly for future generations. Innovative educational programs can be developed to meet the common needs of immigrant and rural communities. 

There are just a few of the opportunities that come to mind. Obviously, I’m not a labor economist. But, I’m sure that if immigrant advocates concentrate on ways to actively engage and integrate immigrants into solving problems and improving the quality of life in rural and small-town America there are many other great opportunities for success out there just waiting to be tapped.

Immigrants have always been “part of the solution” rather than “part of the problem” in America. After four years of counterproductive unrestrained bigotry, false narratives, and hate-driven lies, its time for “truth, justice, and the American way” to come to the forefront again.

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

 

PWS

01-02-21