Travel Ban 2.0 – Page 6 – immigrationcourtside.com

MARK JOSEPH STERN IN SLATE: Rule Of Scofflaws! — Trump, Sessions Have No Regard For Law Unless It Suits Their Disingenuous Purpose!

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/09/the_trump_administration_s_lawless_attacks_on_sanctuary_cities.html

Stern writes:

“The Trump administration’s latest attempt to punish sanctuary cities hit a snag on Friday when a federal court ruled the Justice Department cannot withhold public safety grants from jurisdictions that refuse to assist federal immigration authorities. Attorney General Jeff Sessions had attempted to prevent cities and states from receiving these funds unless they cooperatedwith immigration officials’ crackdown on undocumented immigrants. The court held that Sessions in fact has no power to attach new restrictions to the grants, rendering most of his new rules unlawful.

MARK JOSEPH STERN

Mark Joseph Stern is a writer for Slate. He covers the law and LGBTQ issues.

Friday’s decision marked the second time a court has blocked Sessions’ attempts to penalize sanctuary cities by depriving them of federal grants. It also comes on the heels of a sweeping ruling that froze the most controversial provisions of Texas’ new anti–sanctuary cities bill. Earlier this month, the White House declared that Donald Trump is “restoring law and order to our immigration system.” But in their haste to adopt a restrictionist immigration regime, Trump, Sessions, and their fellow Republicans have shown a consistent disdain for federal statutes and constitutional protections.

Consider Sessions’ latest sanctuary cities imbroglio. In July, the attorney general created new criteria for Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance grants, which dispense hundreds of millions of dollars to state and local law enforcement. Under these rules, jurisdictions would not be eligible for Byrne grants unless they collaborate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. Most pertinent here, law enforcement officials would have to give ICE agents access to local jails and, if the agency is interested in detaining an undocumented immigrant, notify ICE 48 hours before that person is set to be released. Chicago sued, alleging that the new rules were illegal.

Where does Sessions get the authority to impose these conditions on Byrne grants? Nowhere, as Judge Harry D. Leinenweber of the Northern District of Illinois pointed out in his ruling siding with Chicago. The Constitution grants Congress, not the executive branch, authority to impose conditions on federal funding. And Congress has never authorized the Justice Department, which is part of the executive branch, to force Byrne grantees to work with ICE. Sessions simply usurped Congress’ authority to make new rules.

When Chicago sued Sessions over the Byrne conditions in August, the attorney general put out a Trumpian statement asserting that the city “proudly violate[s] the rule of law” by protecting undocumented immigrants. But as Leinenweber explained on Friday, it was Sessions, not Chicago, who was acting lawlessly.

It’s surprising that Sessions would try to meddle with Byrne grants given that his first foray into sanctuary city–bashing failed so spectacularly. In Trump’s first days in office, the president issued an executive order directing the attorney general and Homeland Security secretary to withhold all federal grants and funding from sanctuary jurisdictions. Multiple cities quickly filed suit to defend their sanctuary policies. Sessions’ Justice Department, which apparently realized this order would violate multiple constitutional provisions, told a federal court that in reality, the order was nothing more than a narrow warning to sanctuary cities that the government would enforce current grant conditions.

In April, U.S. District Judge William Orrick blocked the order as an unconstitutional abomination. In his decision, Orrick essentially mocked the Justice Department, writing that he would not accept the DOJ’s “implausible” interpretation as it would transform Trump’s order into “an ominous, misleading, and ultimately toothless threat.” Instead, he analyzed the text of the order and found that it infringed upon constitutional separation of powers; coerced and commandeered local jurisdictions in violation of the 10^thAmendment; and ran afoul of basic due process principles.

The White House promptly complained that Orrick “unilaterally rewrote immigration policy for our Nation” in an “egregious overreach.” Ironically, that is almost exactly what Trump had done through his executive order, illegally attaching new conditions to federal funds without congressional approval. Orrick had merely enforced the law; it was Trump who tried to change it unilaterally.

Neither of the Trump administration’s unlawful immigration power-grabs is as startling as SB 4, a Texas bill targeting sanctuary cities that Sessions’ Justice Department has defended in court. Confident in their measure’s legislative success, Texas Republicans turned SB 4 into a compendium of the most draconian possible attacks on sanctuary jurisdictions. The bill compelled local police to enforce immigration law, cooperate with ICE agents, and detain potentially undocumented immigrants; it also censored local officials who wished to speak out against the law. Law enforcement officers who ran afoul of SB 4 would face massive fines, jail time, and removal from office. Government employees who criticized the measure could also be fined and stripped of their positions.”

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Let’s get this straight: the “rule of law” to Sessions means laws aimed disproportionately at Latinos, Blacks, Muslims, undocumented migrants, non-white immigrants, LGBTQ individuals, ethnic communities, jurisdictions that voted for Democrats, legal marijuana users and businesses, innocent victims of civil forfeitures, and “leakers” (many would say “whistleblowers”) who are career civil servants. In other words law enforcement that in some disturbing ways parallels the “Jim Crow” laws in Alabama and other Southern States to which Sessions would apparently like to return (only with a greater emphasis on targeting Latinos, rather than Blacks, although he has little use for the latter now that the confirmation process is complete during which he “conned” a couple of Blacks into saying he wasn’t a racist.)

I remember from my youth hypocritical Southern racists like George Wallace asserting the false mantle of “the rule of law” and “states rights” for enforcing blatantly discriminatory racial laws while stomping on the actual legal and constitutional rights, and often lives, of Black citizens. Sessions has little or no intention of enforcing laws relating to civil rights protections, voting rights, protections for LGBTQ individuals, protections against local police abuses, due process for migrants in and outside of the U.S. Immigration Court process, environmental protection, constitutional conditions of detention, and ethics. Sessions is clearly a liar, if not a perjurer (which he might be) under legal definitions.

We should all be concerned that this totally unqualified and disingenuous individual has been put in charge of the U.S. justice system. I’ve commented earlier on the glaring unsuitability of individuals like Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton to be governing a state with a significant Hispanic population.

And, Stern’s article didn’t even raise Trump’s greatest and most audacious abuse of the rule of law: his totally unjustified and inappropriate abuse of the Presidential Pardon authority by pardoning the unrepentant, unapologetic “Racist Joe.” Think about what “Racist Joe” stands for, as described by a U.S. District Judge who found him guilty of contempt of court after trial for his continuing, knowing, and intentional abuses of the constitutional rights of Latino citizens and prisoners, among others. In what way does “Racist Joe” deserve a pardon? How would you feel if you were a Hispanic citizen or a detainee who had his or her constitutional rights intentionally violated and was victimized by this arrogant, bullying, racist? The innocent suffer while the guilty go unpunished. What kind of “rule of law” is that?

Then think of all the GOP “politicos” who “palled around” with “Racist Joe” and his toxic sidekick Kris Kobach and even sought their endorsements! That’s because it would help with the racist, White Supremacist “core vote” that has allowed the GOP to gain control of much of the U.S. governing structure notwithstanding the party’s extremist views and generally destructive agenda.

This is very reminiscent of how the “White Southern racist base” helped the Democrats maintain a stranglehold on government for the bulk of the mid-20th Century. Assume that the “Trump base” is 20% of the electorate and only 15% fit my foregoing description. That means without the racist White Supremacist vote, the GOP and Trump would have polled around 31% of the popular vote, not enough to win even with the idiosyncrasies of our electoral system that favor the GOP minority!

PWS

09=19-17

IMMIGRATIONPROF: Dean Kevin Johnson Gives Us The Supreme’s “Immigration Lineup” For Oct. 2107 — It’s Much More Than Just The Travel Ban!

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2017/09/sessions-v-dimaya-oral-argument-october-2-jennings-v-rodriguez-oral-argument-oct-3-trump-v-intl-refugee-assistance-p.html

Dean Johnson writes:

”The Supreme Court will hear four oral argument in four cases in the first two weeks of the 2017 Term. And the cases raise challenging constitutional law issues that could forecever change immigration law. Watch this blog for previews of the oral arguments in the cases.

Sessions v. Dimaya, Oral Argument October 2. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in an opinion by the liberal lion Judge Stephen Reinhardt, held that a criminal removal provision, including the phrase “crime of violence,” was void for vagueness.

Jennings v. Rodriguez, Oral Argument, October 3. The Ninth Circuit, in an opinion by Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw, found that the indefinite detention of immigrants violated the U.S. Constitution.

Dimaya and Jennings are being re-argued, both having originally been argued before Justice Scalia. One can assume that the eight Justice Court was divided and that Justice Gorsuch may well be the tiebreaker.

The final two immigration cases are the “travel ban” cases arising out of President Trump’s March Executive Order:

Trump v. Int’l Refugee Assistance Project. Oral Argument October 10.

Trump v. Hawaii. Oral Argument October 10.”

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Go on over to ImmigrationProf Blog at the above link where they have working links that will let you learn about the issues in these cases.

PWS

09-18-17

THE GIBSON REPORT FOR 09-18-17

GIBSON REPORT 09-18-17A

HEADLINES:

TOP UPDATES

SCOTUS Immigration Cases This Term
· Sessions v. Dimaya, Oral Argument October 2.
· Jennings v. Rodriguez, Oral Argument, October 3.
· Trump v. Int’l Refugee Assistance Project. Oral Argument October 10.
· Trump v. Hawaii. Oral Argument October 10.
· In travel-ban case, justices stay Ninth Circuit ruling

NY Governor Issues Executive Order Restricting Inquiry Into Immigration Status
ImmProf: “New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo has issued Executive Order 170 that prohibits state agencies and officers from inquiring about or disclosing an individual’s immigration status unless required by law or necessary to determine eligibility for a benefit or service. Law enforcement officers will also be prohibited from inquiring about immigration status unless investigating illegal criminal activity.”

Trump Administration Loses Again in “Sanctuary City” Funding Case
ImmProf: “In a ruling with national impact, a federal judge in Chicago on Friday blocked the Trump administration’s rules requiring so-called sanctuary cities to cooperate with immigration agents in order to get a public safety grant.”

The Administration Is Late on Sudan/South Sudan TPS
CNN: “The Department of Homeland Security is overdue for a decision about Sudan and South Sudan; there are 1,039 temporarily protected immigrants from Sudan in the United States and 49 from South Sudan, according to data provided by US Citizenship and Immigration Services. Their status is set to expire November 2, and federal law requires a decision 60 days before the deadline and timely publication of that decision.”

ICE Wants to Destroy Its Records of In-Custody Deaths, Sexual Assault, and Other Detainee Files
The Nation: “In July, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)—the agency charged with maintaining records produced by the federal government—published a request made by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to begin destroying detainee records, including those related to in-custody deaths, sexual assault, and the use of solitary confinement. The request has been preliminarily approved.” The request predates the current administration.

Drastic drop in US admissions is bad news for Muslim refugees
Frelick: “This August, just 913 refugees were resettled into the U.S., the smallest monthly total in 15 years, according to the State Department’s refugee database.
The religious identity of refugees resettled to the United States also shifted dramatically.”

ICE Confirms Deportation Officers Arrested Four At Brooklyn Courthouse
Gothamist: “Three plainclothes agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement entered Brooklyn Criminal Court on Thursday morning, “lurked,” and made multiple arrests outside, according to attorneys with Brooklyn Defender Services [BDS], a public defender organization.”

CALLS TO ACTION

· Monday September 25th a DACA Day of Action: AILA and NYLS Pro Bono DACA Renewal Clinic Volunteer Sign-Up link.

· Four Easy Ways to Advocate for the Dream Act

· Tell Congress to Stand Up for Refugee Resettlement: Right now, the Trump administration is deciding how many refugees we welcome into the United States next fiscal year.

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PWS

09-18-17

OPTIMISTS’ CORNER: Thinking Ahead To A Post-Trump World! — WashPost Book Review: “One Nation after Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet Deported” by E.J. Dionne, Jr., Norman J. Ornstein, and Thomas E. Mann!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/imaginative-optimism-about-life-in-america-after-trump/2017/09/15/b8b3cc00-94c6-11e7-8754-d478688d23b4_story.html?utm_term=.b261a1306421

Reviewer Beverly Gage writes:

President Trump is not forever. At some point in the not-too-distant future, he will no longer be president, and it will be time to asdamage and begin the recovery process. We don’t know when this will happen: this year or next, in 2021 or 2025. And we don’t know how it will occur: impeachment, resignation, being voted out of office or simply finishing out two terms. But it will happen, and the people in the best position to take advantage of that moment will be those who are already thinking about where we ought to go next. [Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem.] That is the imaginative task behind “One Nation After Trump,” a dense but good-spirited and thoroughly readable exercise in envisioning a better America. The book is a team effort by three well-respected Beltway thinkers: the liberal Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr., the American Enterprise Institute’s more conservative Norman J. Ornstein and Ornstein’s longtime co-author Thomas E. Mann, of the Brookings Institution. Their bipartisan — or, perhaps, tripartisan — work seems intended to send the rest of us a message: It’s time to find some common ground before obstructionism, demagoguery, fake news and racial resentment become the dominant features of our national politics. They call upon the old but good Latin phrase “E pluribus unum” to express those aspirations. “Out of many,” they hope, Americans can still find a way to act as “one.” The book begins with an assessment of the 2016 election, asking how on earth we ended up with our reality-star “Normless President.” Its emphasis is less on Trump, however, than on the long-term structural and cultural changes that made his election possible. The authors have no patience for a “both sides” argument about the degradation of our political culture. They lay the blame firmly within the Republican Party, where a process of “radicalization” that began in the 1980s has now resulted in a “Jurassic Park”-style disaster, with the creators of that change unable to control their own monster. “One Nation After Trump,” by E.J. Dionne Jr. and Norman Ornstein (St. Martin’s Press) While Republicans in general — and conservatives in particular — come in for censure, the authors also stress how seemingly neutral aspects of our political system have conspired in recent years to produce an ominous trend toward undemocratic “minority rule.” The electoral college is perhaps the most obvious example; in two out of the past five presidential elections, the popular-vote winner lost the electoral count. Add to this partisan gerrymandering and the two-senators-per-state rule, and we begin to see a national government that does not fully reflect the will of the national majority. In 2012, the authors note, Democrats won 50.5 percent of the major-party votes in House elections but only 46.2 percent of the seats. And such statistics only begin to capture the scope of the challenge. The same structures that weight votes heavily toward rural and Republican areas also discourage voting in the first place, forever reminding individual voters that they don’t matter unless they live in a few key swing states or congressional districts. So what is to be done? If the book’s first half focuses on the sorry state of things today, the second half focuses on how to not make the same mistakes in the future. The authors claim to be genuinely — if tentatively — hopeful about what Trump’s election may ultimately yield for American civic life. “We believe that the popular mobilization and national soul-searching he has aroused could be the occasion for an era of democratic renewal,” they write. But that will happen only if Trump’s opponents across the political spectrum come up with “a hopeful and unifying alternative.” The authors present an impressive list of policy ideas designed to do just that and perhaps even to dispel some of Trump’s allure within the MAGA base. They make a distinction between the “legitimate” (read: economic) grievances of Trump voters and the illegitimate expression of those grievances in the politics of racial and nativist resentment. They chastise Democrats for paying insufficient attention to the real pain of working-class voters, sidelined for decades by deindustrialization and now by an incomplete recovery from the financial crisis. But they insist — rightly — that any attempt to address those problems cannot come at the expense of other social justice movements. Many of their proposals are at once ambitious and reasonable, attempts to make the government work better for its citizens and to deliver a measure of economic justice to those left behind. They group these ideas into a Charter for American Working Families, including a GI Bill for American Workers, designed to revive the all-but-dying dream of economic mobility, and a Contract for American Social Responsibility, aimed at getting corporations to take their public obligations seriously. “Warm feelings are not the same as coherent policies,” they warn. At the same time, they can’t help but dream that the two need not be mutually exclusive. It is hard to object to much about these plans, with their emphasis on fairness and comity and partisan goodwill. And yet there is something incongruous about the authors’ belief that good policy, judiciously presented, will yield the desired political transformation. As the authors note, one of the more depressing lessons of the 2016 election was that policy simply didn’t matter much. Nobody, including his own voters, thought Trump had much policy expertise. On the campaign trail, however, his abuse of wonks and elites and bureaucrats seemed to work in his favor.”

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Read Gage’s complete review, with original and much better formatting, at the link.

I’ve made the point before that those of us who believe in the goodness of America and the strength of a nation based on diversity of backgrounds, cultures, and talents, that is, the majority of Americans, have somehow found ourselves in the unhappy position of being governed by a President and a Party that largely represent the disonent views of a (often unjustifiably) “disgruntled minority” that does not share that vision. There is actually plenty of room for that minority to peacefully coexist and prosper in the majority worldview; but little room for the more humane and tolerant views of the majority in this minority’s crabbed and too often largely self-centered worldview.

Somehow, over time, that has to change for our country to continue to move forward and accomplish great things for ourselves and, perhaps even more important, for others throughout the world. And, there will always be plenty of room for that “disonent minority” regardless of how long it take them to, or if they ever do, “see the light.”

PWS

09-16-17

TRUMP SPREADS “FALSE GOSPEL” WHILE IGNORING REAL THREAT “RIGHT” IN FRONT OF HIM!

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/15/opinions/trump-call-white-supremacists-losers-opinion-obeidallah/index.h

Dean Obeidallah writes on CNN:

“As part of the Trump administration’s extreme vetting, they are now examining the social media accounts of people applying for visas to see if they have ties to ISIS-related groups. Well, they must do the same to determine if a person seeking to enter our country has any ties to white-supremacist or neo-Nazi organizations in their home countries.

No one wants anyone with ties to ISIS allowed in the United States. We must also guard against allowing those with ties to dangerous white supremacist groups from setting foot on our soil. They, too, are a potential threat to the people of our nation.
This sick ideology is not just limited to America, as we saw in January in Canada when a young white man described as an “ultra-nationalist white supremacist” walked into a Quebec mosque and shot and killed six Canadian Muslims as they prayed.

And after Charlottesville, white nationalist groups in various European nations cheered the attack by the man who killed Heather Heyer. Do you really want people with those views granted visas to visit our country?

Although, to be blunt, the greatest threat likely comes from white supremacists already within our own borders.

If you think Charlottesville is the only deadly white supremacist terrorist attack in recent times, you haven’t been paying attention.

In May, we saw a self-professed white supremacist in Portland, Oregon, stab two people to death on a train after they stood up to his anti-Muslim tirade directed at a young Muslim-American woman. In March, a 28-year-old white man who was a reader of white supremacist websites traveled to New York for the sole purpose of killing African-Americans. He killed one black man before being arrested and charged with terrorism by the Manhattan district attorney.

In December, another white supremacist was sentenced to 30 years in prison for plotting a domestic terrorist attack involving a radioactive device that he planned to kill Muslims with in New York state.

All of these domestic terrorist attacks prove that it’s time that Trump take the deadly threat of white supremacists as seriously as the threat that ISIS poses. And one big step he can take — in addition to enacting policies and allocating resources to fight their hateful ideology — is making it clear on Twitter that he views white supremacists as “losers.” The lives of Americans depend on it.”

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Read the complete article at the link.

Trump never speaks to or deals with the “real” America: the diverse, multicultural, multitalented, multiracial, ecumenical America where the majority of us live. Not surprising, perhaps, considering that this is the America that by and large didn’t vote for him. Yet, it’s also the “majority America” that a much less diverse minority of Americans elected him to govern.

No, instead Trump chooses carefully orchestrated “campaign-style rallies” where he speaks to crowds of “True Believers:” nearly all white folks wearing red baseball caps, waving American flags, and chanting inane nationalist slogans like “build the wall” and cheering wildly as Trump does things like heap praise upon the racist, scofflaw, hate-monger “Racist Joe.” Whipping up destructive and divisive passions while spreading a false narrative praising the myth of the “Great White America” is a “clear and present danger” to our national security and our national values.

Meanwhile, the Administration doubles down on the contrived message that we should fear visa holders and exhaustively vetted refugees from a few Muslim countries. When will those charged with protecting us turn their attention to the real security threats among the far right and how their own ill-conceived actions and inflammatory words actually increase the danger to all of us?

PWS

09-16-17

BRET STEPHENS IN NYT: Right Finally Getting The Trump They Deserve!

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/15/opinion/trump-conservatives-democrats-daca.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region%C2%AEion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region&_r=0

Stephens writes:

“Who are the “cuckservatives” now?

I use the epithet — “cuck” is short for cuckold — since it’s the one Trump’s most vociferous supporters hurled at mainstream Republicans they accused of caving in to the moral bullying of liberals, especially on the subjects of race and immigration.

But now it’s the president who is doing exactly that, making the case for DACA beneficiaries in terms his base most condemns: as “good, educated and accomplished young people who have jobs, some serving in the military” and who don’t deserve to be thrown out of the country simply because their parents brought them to the United States as children. It’s the kind of thing Nancy Pelosi — or, worse, John McCain — might say.

It’s also the kind of thing that could make for a successful presidency, if only Trump could follow his pragmatic instinct, banish his inner Steve Bannon and shelve the worst promises of his candidacy, as he already has with his threats to exit NATO.

Next steps could include pairing an infrastructure bill with tax reform, eliminating budget sequestration and the debt ceiling, restoring funding to the State Department and cutting it to the United Nations, and saving the nuclear power industry through deregulation and federal subsidies — in the name of combating climate change.

But Trump’s move toward the Democrats on DACA — just as his earlier move toward them on the debt ceiling — isn’t about pragmatism. It’s not even about the plasticity of his convictions.

It’s about his addiction to betrayal, his contempt for those who bend their knee to him, his disdain for “losers” (especially when they’re on his side) and his desperate need to be admired by those who despise him most simply because they have the wit to see through him. This is a presidency whose defining feature isn’t ideology, much less policy. It’s neurosis.

In other words, there is no “pivot” at work in the presidency, in the mold of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s leftward turn during his governorship of California. There’s a mood swing.

That might comfort the Trump true believers who fear their president is abandoning them. It shouldn’t: He feels about as much loyalty toward them and their convictions as he’s felt toward his several wives. Remember that, as recently as 2012, he denounced Mitt Romney for an excessively harsh attitude toward immigrants, calling the Massachusetts governor’s policy of self-deportation “crazy” and a turnoff to “everybody who is inspired to come into this country.”

All of this is fun, since it’s always delightful to see blowhards and bigots get their comeuppance at the hands of their idol. The ideologues of the right are left to make do with their jester and his antics. I hope they have a sense of humor about it.

But there’s also a lesson for conservatives who mistook Trump’s bluster for seriousness. Not least among the conservative “Never Trump” objections to the candidate is that he would be a disaster to the Republican Party — not just because his beliefs, such as they were, were anathema to the party’s best traditions, but because at heart he was a destructive opportunist with no core convictions beyond his own immediate advantage.

The president’s newfound good sense on DACA is good news for the country, provided it lasts. Nobody should count on it whipping any sense into those conservatives who fell for him, also known as cucks.”

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Read Stephens’s full column at the link.

Stephens chooses to be a bozo on climate change (controversy ups readership, I suppose), but he sure does understand the evil dynamics of Donald Trump. Believe in nothing, be loyal to nobody, but require absolute belief and loyalty from others. That’s why Trump is such a danger to our country and to our national security. He doesn’t believe in the Constitution, humane values, democracy, or the free world for that matter. He is his own “Cult of Personality” and his erratic self-centered behavior certainly is reminiscent of guys like Mao (although to be fair, The Donald hasn’t ordered the liquidation of his “enemies” — just public humiliation, dissing, twitter shaming, threats of political retaliation, and occasionally calling for baseless criminal prosecutions).

Any time overhyped Neo-Fascists like Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, Steve King, and Sean Hannity as well as ideologue White Nationalists like Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions, Stephen Miller, and Steve Bannon are up in arms, you know that the country is moving in the correct (can’t use the term “right” here) direction.

PWS

09-16-17

THE REAL HUMAN COSTS — AND THE COSTS TO OUR HUMAN VALUES & NATIONAL CONSCIENCE — OF TRUMP’S BOGUS REFUGEE BAN!

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/somali-refugees-american-dream-hold-trump-ban-debated-49866974

Tom Odula reports for the AP from Nairobi, Kenya, where the unnecessary human suffering caused by the Trump Administration is a daily reminder of how our national soul was diminished by Trump’s election:

“Somali refugee Asho Manangara Ibrahim has a dream. She wants to educate herself and her children in the United States. For 10 years she went through a rigorous process of interviews and screening and finally she was cleared to travel to the United States.

But Ibrahim’s hopes have been dashed. The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the Trump administration to maintain its restrictive policy on refugees. The court agreed to an administration request to block a lower court ruling that would have eased the ban on refugees and allowed up to 24,000 refugees to enter the country before the end of October.

Ibrahim, a 30-year-old mother of four children, escaped war-torn Somalia in 2007 after three men forced their way into her house and assaulted her.

She trekked for three days with her 2-year-old daughter to reach the sprawling Dadaab refugee camp in neighboring Kenya where she stayed for three years. She was relocated to Kakuma refugee camp where she learned that she could apply to be resettled in a third country. By the time she was cleared to travel to the U.S. on July 19, she had three other children from a second marriage.

After years of patiently waiting to be resettled, the news that she may not be allowed into the U.S. because of the Trump administration restrictions has devastated her.

“I feel shocked. I forget things now,” she told The Associated Press last month through an interpreter.

She and her three daughters and small son pass their days in a makeshift home of mud walls, sticks and battered sheets. The children sit on woven plastic rugs covering a cracked-earth floor amid the barest of possessions: plastic water jugs, metal basins, a simple stove.

Ibrahim is one of about 500 people among the hundreds of thousands in Kenyan refugee camps who are ready for resettlement in the U.S. but are now stranded, said Jennifer Sime, senior vice president with the International Rescue Committee, an organization that helps resettlements.

The fear and rhetoric that refugees are a security threat or terrorists looking to infiltrate the U.S. are unfounded, Sime said.

“The probability of dying from an act of terrorism committed by a refugee is unbelievably low. Refugees have not perpetrated terrorist acts,” she said. The chance of being murdered in a terrorist attack committed by a refugee is one in 3.64 billion a year, she added, citing 2016 figures from the Cato Institute.

Globally about 45,000 refugees have been approved for resettlement in the U.S. and 2,000 are ready to board planes but this has been put on hold, Sime said. Many gave away their hard-earned belongings to start a new life, she said.

Tuesday’s court order was not the last word on the travel policy that President Donald Trump rolled out in January. The Supreme Court justices are scheduled to hear arguments on Oct. 10 on the legality of the bans on refugees anywhere in the world and on travelers from six mostly Muslim countries.

It’s unclear, though, what will be left for the court to decide. The 90-day travel ban lapses in late September and the 120-day refugee ban will expire a month later.

The Trump administration has yet to say whether it will seek to renew the bans, make them permanent or expand the travel ban to other countries.

For now Ibrahim, like many in limbo, must wait to see if her American dream of education for her family will become a reality.”

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Maybe, moral leadership doesn’t end wars or prevent famine. But, we have graphically demonstrated over the past four decades the inability to solve problems by use of military force. Moral leadership is still a useful thing to have. And, by electing Trump and his intellectually shallow, unqualified, amoral minions we have diminished ourselves in the world’s eyes!

PWS

09-15-17

FORMER DHS SEC MIKE CHERTOFF TELLS HOW CUTTING REFUGEE ADMISSIONS HURTS AMERICA AND ENDANGERS NATIONAL SECURITY!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/cutting-refugee-admissions-hurts-americans-heres-how/2017/09/14/c7c8b5e6-9987-11e7-b569-3360011663b4_story.html?utm_term=.268b590d8b01

Chertoff writes in the Washington Post:

“President Trump will make another decision this month that will affect thousands of people: How many refugees will the United States admit in fiscal year 2018?

The president already cut refugee admissions by more than half this year, from more than 100,000 down to 50,000. By way of comparison, the highest ceiling under President Ronald Reagan was 140,000. The president has also signaled, through his executive orders and in his budget proposal, that these cuts will carry over to next year. And in fact, some in his administration are trying to convince him to cut even further.

This would be a mistake. Cutting refugee admittances would not only be a moral failure but also damage our national interest abroad and our economy.

Of course, security is an imperative, and the refugee resettlement program is secure. U.S. security and intelligence agencies conduct multiple reviews on every refugee admitted, and only those approved for admission by the Department of Homeland Security are granted refuge in the United States.

There is also the humanitarian imperative: We are in the midst of the greatest refugee crisis on record, with more than 22 million people seeking safety from violence, conflict and persecution all over the world. The vast majority of refugees — nearly 90 percent — are hosted by poor and middle-income countries. Only the most vulnerable — those whose safety cannot be assured in their countries of first refuge — are selected for resettlement. For these refugees — widowed women; orphaned children; survivors of rape, torture and brutal religious persecution — refugee resettlement is a lifeline.

But what’s in it for the United States?

Strategic allies located near crises host the largest refugee populations in the world. Jordan, Turkey, Pakistan and Kenya are among the top refugee-hosting states. Their willingness to host millions of refugees contributes greatly to regional stability and security, all in regions where U.S. troops are deployed. As our military works to contain terrorist insurgencies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and the Horn of Africa, forcing refugees to return to unsafe and unstable countries would make countering terrorism more difficult.

That’s why in 2016, when the Kenyan government threatened to close the Dadaab refugee camp and forcibly return more than 250,000 Somalis to an unstable Somalia, then-Secretary of State John F. Kerry got on a plane to Kenya. It’s also why the United States should be concerned that more than 700,000 Afghan registered and unregistered refugees have been returned to Afghanistan since 2016 — a threefold increase from 2015 — at a time when growing instability in Afghanistan and terrorist gains are forcing an increase in U.S. troop levels.

If we’re not willing to do our fair share, how can we ask front-line allies to do more?

Maintaining resettlement commitments is also critical to our military, diplomatic and intelligence operations abroad. Tens of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan nationals have put their lives on the line to support intelligence-gathering, operations planning and other essential services. Terrorist groups openly target these individuals because of their cooperation with Americans. Resettlement is instrumental to ensuring their safety — a testament to the U.S. military’s commitment to leave no one behind on the battlefield.

And in a proud American tradition, Republican and Democratic presidents have used refugee admissions to signal support for those who reject ideologies antithetical to U.S. values. In the past few decades, we have raised our admissions ceilings to take in those fleeing communist uprisings, religious persecution and tyranny.

Today, the United States must provide unwavering support for Muslims who put their lives at risk to reject terrorist ideologies, many of whom refused to join or be conscripted into terrorist groups, militias and state security forces persecuting their fellow citizens. The Islamic State considers all those who flee its rule as heretics subject to execution. Those who risk their lives — and their children’s lives — to reject terrorism must know, as a matter of our fight against extremism, that the United States supports and welcomes them.

Even in the wake of 9/11, the worst terrorist attack in our country’s history, President George W. Bush deliberately and explicitly maintained a refugee admissions ceiling of 70,000 annually, affirming the United States’ great humanitarian tradition.

Finally, refugees enrich and are deeply supported by our communities. Hundreds of mayors, faith leaders and business leaders have attested to the contributions refugees make. Thousands of Americans donate volunteer hours, in-kind goods and services, and private dollars to support refugees. One study estimates only 39 percent of the costs of resettlement are covered by federal dollars.

Despite being among the most vulnerable and destitute when they arrive, refugees thrive. Entrepreneurship among refugees is nearly 50 percent higher than among U.S.-born populations, creating jobs for Americans. More than 57 percent of them are homeowners.

Our values and our national security interests argue for raising our refugee ceiling, not lowering it. The president should seize the mantle of Reagan and fortify U.S. leadership on refugees.”

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

I’ll admit to not always being a Chertoff fan. In particular, his failure to support internal efforts to institute a strong prosecutorial discretion program at ICE that would have empowered the Chief Counsel to control the Immigration Courts’ growing docket was unfortunate, given his legal and judicial background.

But, I agree with what Chertoff says here. Just compare the power, logic, and moral authority of his statement with the mealy-mouthed, cowardly, morally vapid lies flowing from the mourths of xenophobic, disingenuous, fear mongers like Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions, Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, Rep. Steve King, and the rest of the White Nationalist crowd!

Refugeees make America great! White Nationalist xenophobes, not so much!

PWS

09-15-17

WELCOMING REFUGEES SHOULD BE A “NO BRAINER” FOR U.S. — What Does That Say About What’s Between The Ears Of Pols Who Vilify Them & Seek To Slash Legal Admissions?

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/14/opinion/welcoming-refugees-trump-america.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region®ion=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region

David Miliband writes in the NYT:

“Many Americans, and the American government itself, have expressed shock at the treatment of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. The Trump administration has also said it is concerned about persecuted religious minorities in the Middle East. For his part, the president has said he wants to defend the rights of the Castro regime’s opponents in Cuba.

Yet all these protestations will be for nothing if, as the deadline approaches for the White House to make its determination about the number of refugees to be admitted next year, the administration decides to decimate the United States refugee resettlement program. At stake are not just the lives of tens of thousands of victims of war and persecution who dream of starting a new life in America; at risk also are American values, the United States’ reputation and American interests around the world.

Every year, the president decides a refugee admission number. Since the 1980 Refugee Act, the average annual admissions ceiling under both Republican and Democratic presidents has exceeded 95,000. For the fiscal year 2017, President Barack Obama decided the number should be 110,000, against the backdrop of a global refugee population that numbers some 22.5 million. President Trump’s two “travel ban” executive orders already intended to cut the 2017 number by more than 50 percent.

Now a decision is expected on the number for fiscal year 2018. Inside the administration, there is a debate between fact and fiction.

The facts are that the vetting for entry to the United States as a refugee is tougher than for any other means of arrival. Not one of the three million refugees to the United States since 1980 has committed a lethal act of terror on American soil. The Cato Institute has calculated that a United States resident has a 1 in 3.64 billion chance of being killed by a refugee.

Meanwhile, some 60,000 Iraqis who have supported the American military and diplomatic effort in Iraq — as, for example, interpreters — are waiting to know if the promise of safe passage to the United States is to be honored.

To put the reduced number of admissions the Trump administration will permit for 2018 in a larger context, the king of Jordan, an American ally, has said that his country of some 9.5 million inhabitants is at a breaking point, with 650,000 registered refugees and, by some estimates, as many more unregistered. Last year, the United States helped resettle more than 19,000 of those most vulnerable Syrians from Jordan. Besides relieving pressure there, this crucially countered the Islamic State’s narrative that America will never offer dignity to Muslims.

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Some more facts. Providing sanctuary is not charity: Researchers have found that over a 20-year period, those who were admitted to the United States as refugees between the ages of 18 and 45 (and more than half of refugees are under 18) will pay $21,000 more in taxes than they will receive in benefits.

American leadership is a vital part of the story. This time last year, the Obama administration’s response to the refugee crises led to a doubling of refugee admissions pledges by wealthy nations. This year, America’s retreat from its commitments has contributed to a nearly 60 percent fall in the global resettlement total so far this year.

The question is whether the Trump administration cares about the facts. Because fiction has its backers. The fiction that the vetting is done by the United Nations, not the United States. That refugees are economic migrants in disguise. That America bears an unfair share of the global burden.

The reverse is true: According to Amnesty International, the world’s top 10 refugee-hosting countries, places like Uganda, account for only 2.5 percent of global income. Uganda has received more than 600,000 refugees alone from the war in South Sudan since 2016. When I asked its leaders in June if they were going to put up the shutters, their answer was simple: “It could have been us. These are our fellow human beings. We cannot turn them away.”

If Uganda can welcome refugees, a country like the United States has no reason to upend a great national tradition. From among its refugee population, America has benefited from entrepreneurs like Andrew Grove and Sergey Brin, entertainers like Gloria Estefan and public servants like Madeleine Albright.

The people waiting to know their fate are from every walk of life and every station in society: students, factory workers, accountants, widows. What they have in common is that they have lost everything, including in some cases their husbands or wives, sons or daughters. They have heard the professions of concern and looked to the United States as a beacon of hope. Now they want to know if the words mean anything.

The test for this administration is simple. Set a refugee resettlement number around the past level of multiple administrations of 75,000, and this will show that the White House has a head as well as a heart. Gut the refugee program, which the Senate, in the last week, again funded, and the administration will lose any claim to strategy or to humanity.

Crocodile tears are the worst aspect of diplomacy. Real lives depend on this fateful decision.

David Miliband (@DMiliband), a former British foreign secretary, is the president and chief executive of the International Rescue Committee.”

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

Historically, refugee admissions have been an area of strong bipartisan agreement. We should not let White Nationalist, xenophobic, “know nothings” like Jeff Sessions and Stephen Miller diminish America’s greatness with their false messages of hate and fear masked as bogus national security and economic concerns.

PWS

09-15-17

THE WORLD HAS MORE REFUGEES THAN AT ANY TIME SINCE WWII; REFUGEES NEED THE U.S. TO SAVE THEM & WE NEED REFUGEES’ ENERGY, BRAVERY, & TALENTS! — THE RESPONSE OF WHITE NATIONALISTS LIKE MILLER & SESSIONS IS TO RECOMMEND CUTTING REFUGEE ADMISSIONS TO AN ALL-TIME LOW OF 15,000! — Don’t Let These Racist Xenophobes Get Away With It!

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/09/trump-considers-cutting-refugee-cap-to-lowest-in-decades.html?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Intelligencer%20-%20September%2013%2C%202017&utm_term=Subscription%20List%20-%20Daily%20Intelligencer%20%281%20Year%29

Adam K. Raymond reports in New York Magazine:

“In 2016, the last year of President Obama’s administration, the U.S. accepted 85,000 refugees and set a goal of bumping that number up to 110,00 this year. Those plans changed with President Trump’s so-called travel ban, which set the refugee limit at 50,000 for 2016. Now, the administration is considering setting that number even lower for 2018, despite the worst refugee crisis since World War II.

The President has until October 1 to set a refugee ceiling and, the Times reports, there’s a debate raging in the White House about whether the number should be reduced to numbers not seen in decades. Leading the arguments against cutting the totals is Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller, an immigration hawk and ally of Steve Bannon and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Miller has reportedly produced cutting the number all the way to 15,000. The Department of Homeland Security has proposed its own cut to 40,000.

The Times explains their purported thinking:

Two administration officials said those pushing for a lower number are citing the need to strengthen the process of vetting applicants for refugee status to prevent would-be terrorists from entering the country. Two others said another factor is a cold-eyed assessment of the money and resources that would be needed to resettle larger amounts of refugees at a time when federal immigration authorities already face a years long backlog of hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers.
This reasoning doesn’t align with the facts. Refugees are far more likely to be victims of politically motivated attacks than perpetrators. Limiting refugees does not keep America safer because refugees are not dangerous. It’s difficult not to see nativism as the motive behind pretending that they are: fear makes it easier to convince people that suffering people should be excluded from the United States. As for the cost concerns, the GOP’s feigned fiscal prudence should never be taken seriously.

By setting the refugee cap at 50,000 this year, Trump has already pushed the number lower than it’s been in decades. In the 37 years since the Refugee Act of 1980 gave the president a role in setting the cap, it hasn’t slipped lower than the 67,000 President Reagan set in 1987.

Cutting the refugee ceiling would leave tens of thousands of vulnerable people out in the cold, the International Rescue Committee said in a report last month. The humanitarian organization advocates for a ceiling no lower than 75,000 people. “An admissions level of at least 75,000 is a critical signal to the world that the United States remains a safe haven for those fleeing persecution, terror and ideologies antithetical to American democratic values,” the report says. “Anything less would be to turn our backs on the United States’ humanitarian tradition and global leadership.”

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

Under the last three Administrations, the US has made an absolute muddle out of two ill-advised wars and Middle East policies in general. The idea that guys like Trump, Tillerson, Miller, Bannon, Sessions, and even “the Generals” can come up with a constructive solution borders on the ludicrous. Nope. They going to to fight the 21st Century version of the “100 Years War” with similar results.

If there is a solution out there that will help achieve stability and provide a durable solution to the terrorist threats, it’s more likely going to be coming from one of today’s refugees who have a better idea of what’s actually going on and how we might become part of the solution rather than making the problems worse.

Refugees represent America’s hope. The Sessions-Miller-Bannon cabal represents America’s darkest side — one that threatens to drag us all into the abyss of their dark, distorted, and fundamentally anti-American world view.

PWS

09-13-17

SUPREMES SIDE WITH TRUMP — LEAVE REFUGEE BAN IN PLACE (FOR NOW)!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-agrees-with-trump-administration-says-some-refugees-can-be-barred-for-now/2017/09/12/f38d5884-97ee-11e7-82e4-f1076f6d6152_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_travelban704pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.69d624f195a7 Continue reading SUPREMES SIDE WITH TRUMP — LEAVE REFUGEE BAN IN PLACE (FOR NOW)!

ROGER COHEN IN THE NYT: From 9-11 To Humpty Dumpty — The Fear That Continues To Grip America — Where Is FDR When We Need Him?

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/12/opinion/9-11-trump.html?em_pos=small&emc=edit_ty_20170912&nl=opinion-today&nl_art=2&nlid=79213886&ref=headline&te=1&_r=0

Cohn writes:

“I watched my president perorate at the Pentagon and all I could think as he held forth about heroism on the 16th anniversary of 9/11 was how did we end up with Humpty Dumpty.

It was Humpty Dumpty, of course, who declared: “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.” At least Humpty Dumpty said it without that repetitive thumb-to-stubby-forefinger gesture of our esteemed leader.

Words cascade from that pinched mouth and they mean nothing, because when a man of moral emptiness tries to exhort a nation to moral greatness the only thing communicated is pitiful, almost comical, hypocrisy.

Between a hero and a huckster, between speaking and mouthing, the distance is great. Watching the esteemed leader’s head turning jerkily, like an old electric fan, from teleprompter to teleprompter, I almost felt pity. His is the Age of Indecency.

. . . .

We’ve had a big fall. For the perpetrators of the attack on America, the biggest success has been the injection of fear into the national psyche. Not even they could imagine how social media could turn fear into contagion and how the politics of fear would help propel a buffoon with feral instincts to the White House.

. . . .

It’s hard to shrug off the darkening skies. The worst of 9/11, almost a generation on, is the feeling that the perpetrators won. They didn’t buckle Western freedom and democracy, but they injured them. They disoriented the West. They sucked some of the promise out of a new century.

The assassins of Abraham Lincoln and Mahatma Gandhi and John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King took the lives of great men but did not destroy their ideas. Perhaps they reinforced the immortality of those ideas. The assassin of Yitzhak Rabin and the mass murderers of 9/11 dispatched by Osama bin Laden were, however, more successful.

Yigal Amir, Rabin’s killer, uprooted the Oslo seeds of peace by assuring that Israeli Messianic-nationalist religious ideologues got the upper hand over secular pragmatists. They have never relinquished it. Bin Laden sapped America’s confidence, wove fear into the nation’s fabric, and inspired a metastasizing form of jihadi fanaticism that continues to terrorize the West in the crazed pursuit of a restored caliphate.

And Humpty Dumpty wants to build a wall he can sit on to contemplate xenophobia and Islamophobia.

. . . .

Adele was very brave through the spinal tap. Today she’s a brave young woman. They are out there: the brave, the stoical, the imaginative and the decent. Despite everything, they will have their day.”

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

Yes, I believe “the brave, the stoical, the imaginative and the decent” (like the “New Due Process Army”) will eventually win out and put America back on the path to greatness. But when, and at what cost, willthe forces of light prevail over those who would envelop us in darkness?

PWS

09-12-17

CONTINUING SAGA OF TRAVEL BAN 2.0: Justice Kennedy Issues Temporary Stay!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/justice-dept-again-asks-supreme-court-to-allow-broad-enforcement-of-travel-ban/2017/09/11/6c3853ae-970b-11e7-87fc-c3f7ee4035c9_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-more-top-stories_travelban-255pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.23095c0b5b6e

Matt Zapotosky reports in the Washington Post:

“U.S. officials can at least temporarily continue to block refugees with formal assurances from resettlement agencies from entering the United States after the Supreme Court intervened again Monday to save a piece of President Trump’s travel ban.

Responding to an emergency request from the Justice Department, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy stopped an earlier federal appeals court ruling that had allowed refugees with a formal assurance to enter the country.

Kennedy, who handles cases on an emergency basis from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, ordered those suing over the ban to respond by noon Tuesday, and he indicated that the appeals court ruling in their favor would be stayed “pending receipt” of their response.

The Supreme Court’s decision came not long after the Justice Department asked the justices to act. That filing, by Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey B. Wall, demonstrated the lengths to which the government is willing to go to impose its desired version of the ban, even before the high court takes up in earnest next month whether the measure is lawful at its core. At issue is whether the president can block a group of about 24,000 refugees with assurances from entering the United States after the Supreme Court decided in June to permit a limited version of his travel ban to take effect.”

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

Read the full at the link.

The beat goes on!

PWS

09-11-17

THE ECONOMY: What America REALLY Needs: More Legal Workers, No More “Gonzo” Immigration Enforcement — More Immigrant Workers Needed To Save Our Economy — And They Don’t Have To Be Rocket Scientists & PhDs: Construction & Service Industries That Support US Economy Need “Entry Level” Workers!

http://host.madison.com/wsj/business/wisconsin-businesses-grapple-with-a-growing-worker-shortage/article_3ef1000e-c18b-5f72-bbcd-720ee2456111.html#utm_source=host.madison.com&utm_campaign=%2Femail%2F&utm_medium=email&utm_content=26CD42536544E247751EC74095D9CEDC67E77EDB

The Wisconsin State Journal (Madison) reports:

A Madison restaurant has raised pay for entry-level chefs in recent years more than 50 percent to $14 an hour, but still closes on Sunday evenings — not because of a lack of customers, but because workers are scarce.

Those and countless other stories across Wisconsin are symptoms of a growing worker shortage that is expected to worsen over the next decade, according to Wisconsin State Journal interviews with dozens of employers, economists, advocacy group experts and state political and economic development officials.

“We are right at the brink of the crisis,” said Ann Franz, director of the Northeast Wisconsin Manufacturing Alliance in Green Bay. “There just aren’t enough human beings in Wisconsin with baby boomers retiring. Just driving down the road there are constantly signs hiring. I’ve seen them on billboards: ‘Come to our car dealership and buy our car. Come so we can give you a job.'”

Employers from a broad range of industries are reporting difficulty finding workers — and not only for skilled professionals such as nurses, welders and computer programmers, who require a strong education and training system, but also for workers with a high school diploma and some additional training at restaurants, farms, construction sites, factories, senior care facilities, retailers and other businesses.

“I would call it Wisconsin’s mega-issue,” said Kurt Bauer, president of Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the state’s largest business group, which recently found 77 percent of members surveyed had difficulty finding workers, up from 53 percent two years ago. “All other issues, they may be important, but they are subordinate to workforce.”

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

Read the rest of the article at the link.

In this context, terminating DACA, thereby depriving existing productive American workers of work authorization, is not only cruel, but also crazy. And supporting the RAISE Act — specifically designed by White Nationalist restrictionists to lower legal immigration while limiting the remaining opportunities largely to White, English speaking individuals with college degrees — is simply insane.

Legal immigration is good for America in many ways (beyond the economy) and we need more, not less, of it. Indeed, had we developed a more rational and realistic legal immigration system, most of the Dreamers and their families would have been admitted in an orderly fashion under the legal system years ago.

Guys like Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions who worked as an effective legislative minority to block sensible immigration reform through parliamentary maneuvers, are now falsely claiming that deportations, “gonzo” arbitrary enforcement, and a reign of terror are the only solutions to a fake crisis that they largely created.

But, in fact, there is no crisis. Most of the 11 million migrants here without documentation are working hard, in jobs we need, part of American families, English speaking or learning English, and fitting well into American communities. Indeed, they are far less disruptive to society than are ICE’s arbitrary and fear spresding enforcement policies. That’s certainly the case here in Alexandria and Northern Virginia. And even more of them would pay taxes if we simply made it easy for them by granting legal status.

The relatively small minority of undocumented migrants who are engaging in anti-social behavior can be identified and removed with some reasonable readjustment of existing resources. For example, more money allocated to the U.S. Immigration Courts, training, technology, community-based policing, and focused “smart”enforcement instead of wasteful and inhumane detention, unfocused arbitrary enforcement, unneeded walls, and filling prisons with minor immigration violators. ICE prosecutors should be authorized and encouraged to use their discretion to prioritize their Immigration Court dockets with a focus on due process and bettering society while recognizing that judicial time will always be both precious and limited.

The current scare tactics and dire, but false, scenarios being pushed by the Trump Administration will neither aid our economy nor serve America’s real needs. They would make us both less safe and less great as a nation.

PWS

09-10-17

OPTIMISTS’ CORNER: Five Reasons Why DACA Legislation Could Pass!

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/09/5-reasons-why-a-dreamer-bill-could-really-happen.html?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Intelligencer%20-%20September%208%2C%202017&utm_term=Subscription%20List%20-%20Daily%20Intelligencer%20%281%20Year%29

Jonathan Chait writes in The Intellingencer as reprinted in New York Maggie:

“Not just a dream? Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
“If they pass a straight-up Dream amnesty,” says Mark Krikorian, an anti-immigration activist, “they will go into the elections having failed to repeal Obamacare but having passed amnesty.” When you put it like that, it sounds crazy, doesn’t it? And indeed it would seem bizarre for Donald Trump’s sole legislative achievement to be the negation of his central campaign theme. But in recent days, the implausible has become suddenly plausible.

1. Trump doesn’t really care about restrictionism. The president has many prejudices but almost no actual policy commitments. He rode anti-immigrant sentiment to the presidency, but his use of the theme was largely instrumental. Trump has alternated his nativist lurches with professions of sympathy for the Dreamers. “I have a love for these people and hopefully now Congress will be able to help them and do it properly,” Trump said recently. “And I can tell you, speaking to members of Congress, they want to be able to do something and do it right. And really, we have no choice.”

2. He’s in a bipartisanship groove. The president cares more about positive feedback and good press than anything else. His bipartisan deal to lift the debt ceiling for three months might have been substantively contentless, but he liked the response from the media. As a creature of impulse, he will probably want to tap the bar for another pleasure hit.

3. The cult of personality protects him. Previous efforts to protect the Dreamers have all fallen prey to conservative revolts. But the Trump imprimatur has unique power to give Republicans political cover. A glimpse of the strange dynamic came into view when Trump cut his debt-ceiling agreement with Democrats over the objections of the GOP leadership, and enraged conservatives took out their anger on … Paul Ryan.

Trump catered to his base by tapping into primal ethno-nationalist resentment. Having proven his tribal loyalty, he is perfectly positioned, should he choose, to bring along his base. A large segment of the party-messaging apparatus seems prepared to follow along. “Nobody wants to kick a bunch of kids out of the country, right?” Rush Limbaugh said Tuesday. “I don’t care if they’re budding little Al Capones. People just don’t want to do it … There needs to be a price, and it would be a great thing, couple this, say, with building the wall. I mean, you do all-in on border enforcement.”

4. The bill will materialize. There is almost certainly a majority in both chambers for a Dreamer bill. The trick is getting the bill to the floor. When Ryan ran for the Speakership, in 2015, he promised he would not bring immigration legislation to the floor unless it commanded a majority of his own party.

What might do the trick, however, is attaching DACA — Deferred Action of Child Arrivals — to an unrelated bill. There will be at least two measures to increase the debt ceiling. Those bills, crucially, will rely heavily on Democratic votes, since a large portion of the Republican base refuses to vote to increase the debt ceiling. This essentially circumvents the informal requirement that the GOP only brings up bills that most Republicans support, opening the door for passing something mostly with Democratic votes.

“There’s no way,” Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas says of a DACA vote. “We will take that up. I’m confident. But there’s no way that it will stand alone.” But it’s not standing alone any more.

5. Ambiguity is their friend. The ability of both sides to claim a deal does different things is the classic lubricant of any political negotiation. In this case, the grounds for ambiguity are obvious. Trump has made the symbolism of the wall a political fetish, and Democrats oppose it on similar grounds. The way around this standoff is to tie DACA to border-security measures that Trump can call a “wall” and Democrats can call “not a wall.”

After all, Democrats have previously supported border-security measures like increased drone surveillance and added fencing. What is the conceptual distinction between a fence and a wall? Not much.

The safest bet, of course, is that nothing happens, because that is almost always the safest bet in modern Washington. But the window of possibility has opened quickly. All of a sudden, helping the Dreamers is not just a dream.”

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

Let’s keep our fingers crossed. It would be nice.

One potential problem is that Trump doesn’t appear to have any immigration expertise in his Administration that’s not part of the restrictionist White Nationlist cabal. He’d probably have to get down to the career level at USCIS to find someone to work on the legal details of a Dreamer bill.

Clearly, White Nationalist restrictionists like Sessions and Miller would have to be screened out of any bipartisan process. And, Chief of Staff Kelly showed little or no appreciation for promoting constructive legal immigration programs during his short DHS tenure. Indeed, he appearss to have overridden sound internal advice and counsel and suppressed evidence in supporting the Sessions-Bannon-Trump disingenuous “Travel Bans.” That’s the trouble with a politically biased Administration that neither appreciates nor has the ability to work with experts in the career civil service.

PWS

09-09-17

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