By Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Michael D. Shear and Eileen Sullivan
WASHINGTON — President Biden was livid.
He had been in office only two months and there was already a crisis at the southwest border. Thousands of migrant children were jammed into unsanitary Border Patrol stations. Republicans were accusing Mr. Biden of flinging open the borders. And his aides were blaming one another.
Facing his bickering staff in the Oval Office that day in late March 2021, Mr. Biden grew so angry at their attempts to duck responsibility that he erupted.
Who do I need to fire, he demanded, to fix this?
Mr. Biden came into office promising to dismantle what he described as the inhumane immigration policies of President Donald J. Trump. But the episode, recounted by several people who attended or were briefed on the meeting, helps explain why that effort remains incomplete: For much of Mr. Biden’s presidency so far, the White House has been divided by furious debates over how — and whether — to proceed in the face of a surge of migrants crossing the southwest border.
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Read the complete article at the link.
Not rocket 🚀 science:
- Note to Susan Rice & Ron Klain: There will be no racial justice in America without immigrant justice.
- Asylum is the law, NOT a “policy option” or a “strategy.”
- The Attorney General has an obligation to insist that the law be followed or to resign.
- How on earth could anyone think that the border can be fixed without addressing the extreme dysfunction and Trump White Nationalist bias in the Immigration Courts?
- How do you run on a promise to restore asylum at the border without having a plan in hand to do that on Inauguration Day?
- Ports of entry “reopened” remarkably quickly for White asylum seekers from Ukraine, using cooperation among the DHS, Mexico, and volunteer groups. So, it’s very “doable.” What’s lacking here appears to be the will and the motivation to treat asylum seekers of color fairly and humanely.
- Is the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ on permanent LOA? What does Kristen Clarke, AAG for Civil Rights, do to earn her paycheck? Whatever happened to Associate AG Vanita Gupta, a former civil rights and racial justice maven, who has turned her back on America’s most glaring and serious racial justice problems, at the border and in her Department’s dysfunctional “courts,” and disappeared into the bowls of Garland’s bureaucracy, never to be heard from again?
- So, following the law and treating persons of color fairly and humanely at our borders will create “chaos” (it should do nothing of the sort, with competent leadership and personnel) and might be “bad politics” for “moderate Dems.” Gimmie a break!
- Why not just consider all asylum applicants to be “constructively White persons” and proceed accordingly?
- Why is appeasing GOP White Nationalist nativists, who wouldn’t support Biden no matter what he does at the border, more important to the Administration than keeping promises to supporters who actually worked to put Biden, Harris, and, derivatively, folks like Rice, Klain, Mayorkas, and Garland in office?
- Repubs do remember who their key supporters are, and act accordingly, even when those actions are illegal, immoral, counterproductive, and often unpopular. Dems, by contrast, are afraid to follow the law and do the right thing to make good on promises to their supporters!
- America actually needs more legal immigrants. Many of them are waiting at the border for justice long delayed. Perhaps, an Administration who can’t see that and turn it into a “win-win” doesn’t deserve to be in office.
🇺🇸Due Process Forever!
PWS
04-10-22