https://www.wsj.com/articles/liberals-urge-democrats-to-take-a-hard-line-on-border-11549323945
Kristina Peterson & Louise Radnofsky report for the WSJ:
WASHINGTON—House Democratic leaders held firm through the five-week government shutdown that ended last month. Still, the party’s liberal wing is keeping up pressure on leadership as negotiations over a border-security deal heat up.
A group of liberal House Democrats and advocacy groups are urging Democrats in a bipartisan negotiating committee to refuse further funding for the Homeland Security Department, which oversees the border with Mexico. The group’s 17 lawmakers have less than two weeks to reach a deal before government funding expires again.
President Trump has said several times he is pessimistic lawmakers can reach a deal that he would accept, and he has threatened to take action to build his long-promised border wall on his own, including possibly declaring a national emergency.
Congressional leaders have been optimistic the group of House and Senate lawmakers can reach an agreement, but any bipartisan deal is unlikely to appease some in the party’s left wing.
A letter to House Democrats, written by freshman Democratic Reps. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, and signed by at least three others, criticizes Homeland Security for practices including prosecution and detention of immigrants.
The department and its frontline enforcement units—Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection—have become high-profile targets as they implement the Trump administration’s attempts to step up deportations and the zero-tolerance policy that last year resulted in family separations at the border.
“These agencies have promulgated an agenda driven by hate—not strategy,” the lawmakers wrote. They argue that the agencies’ ability to shift funds makes it impossible to prevent money from being used for policies that Democrats generally oppose.
Refusing funding for the agency housing the president’s top political priority isn’t going to draw Republican support, a House Democratic aide said, which the committee would need to produce a deal.
“It’s totally unrealistic,” Sen. Roy Blunt (R., Mo.), who is in the negotiating group, said of the Democratic letter. “That basically says you don’t want to secure the border.”
Democrats overall say they favor border security, just not Mr. Trump’s border wall, and immigration advocates said their task is to counter the president.
. . . .
******************************************
Read the complete WSJ report from these “emerging stars on the immigration beat.”
There hasn’t been any meaningful oversight of DHS or the mess DOJ politicos have created at EOIR in two years. So, while there certainly should not be additional funding for DHS’s already overused and abused detention system, for now, Democrats should probably work with DHS as the “only game in town” on the Southern Border.
Over the next year, DHS and DOJ politicos should be required to testify and should be held accountable for the absolute, largely avoidable, chaos and inefficiency they have intentionally, incompetently, or maliciously created in immigration enforcement, our Immigration Courts, the refugee and asylum system, and the system for granting immigration benefits.
Then, based on the record, make rational, fact-based proposals for needed improvements in immigration enforcement, administration, and adjudication for the next budget cycle.
PWS
02-05-19
Thanks Paul. My thoughts precisely. What other choice do we have for now? I keep questioning why I feel so radicalized when I once effectively supported draconian laws by my working as a judge compromising my values. And I rationalized it then, telling myself I could make things a little better by zealously applying lenity and strict construction against harsh interpretations of the law, whenever I could, to ameliorate harshness.
But Trump’s xenophobia and the enthusiasm for ethnic cleansing many people I once respected now promote as a necessity has sapped my idealism. The images of Trump’s rallies chanting “lock her up”, and “build the wall, Mexico will pay for it” make me fantasize being Thor the God of Thunder directing well deserved lightning at that mob of assholes.
And I don’t like it because it has ended many long term friendships, etc. I just can’t stand people who keep breaking eggs supposedly to make omelets, when in fact the like breaking those eggs. I hate them. And hate is very corrosive internally.
So I hope that you are right that we may as well just try to make DHS better, rather than smite them ASAP. It may be the better solution, at least emotionally. But it leads to peculiar reasoning that it may be best to not impeach Trump now because that will turn him into a martyr to his band of bigots. Better to crush them in 2020 and many will crawl back under their rocks where Trump found them.
But I am also concerned that given the Democrats recent missteps, Putin’s creative cyber sabotage and the Trumpies perseverance they may win in 2020 with only 40% of the vote. And as Yogi Berra once explained: they “could make trouble for us if they win.”
Well said, my friend!
I think the “line folks” who work for DHS are overwhelmingly dedicated civil servants. But, the leadership and management are simply horrible.
Obviously, it starts at the top with the Chief of the Kakistocracy. Having a vapid dishonest sycophant like Nielsen as DHS Secretary is also a huge problem.
ICE has had horrible senior leadership under Trump. And, allowing someone like Cissna to run USCIS is an insult to everyone who works there and to the public that they are failing to serve.
The “malicious incompetence” at DHS management is helping crash the Immigration Courts and hampering REAL immigration enforcement; not the mindless and wasteful process of pretending like asylum applicants and long time residents, and kids are a “law enforcement” issue. But, picking on the most vulnerable pleases the White Nationalists, generates bogus numbers, and gives rise to made up emergencies.
Meanwhile, some of the things that portions of DHS have been good at, real law enforcement against smugglers, cartels, human traffickers, and fraud rings gets put on the back burner and is actually hampered by mindless and counterproductive “civil enforcement” initiatives masquerading as law enforcement.
There is no doubt that AOC and others are correct in that the corrupt, cruel, and incompetent DHS leadership needs to be challenged, held accountable, and in some cases perhaps prosecuted. The agency needs new management and a complete restructuring of priorities.
But, at the end of the day, we do need competent, rational, and effective enforcement of immigration laws as well as substantive changes to make those laws more realistic, generous, and enforceable. Much of the “raw material” to do a better job is out there at “operating levels”of DHS. But, without regime change and some enlightened leadership they will continue to fail and actually make things worse. The best will leave and take their skills elsewhere.
Trump’s “circus” has actually destroyed any credibility and effectiveness in immigration enforcement, wasted billions, and created needless pain and suffering.
Best,
P