"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, Music, Politics, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals PAUL WICKHAM SCHMIDT and DR. ALICIA TRICHE, expert brief writer, practical scholar, emeritus Editor-in-Chief of The Green Card (FBA), and 2022 Federal Bar Association Immigration Section Lawyer of the Year. She is a/k/a “Delta Ondine,” a blues-based alt-rock singer-songwriter, who performs regularly in Memphis, where she hosts her own Blues Brunch series, and will soon be recording her first full, professional album. Stay tuned! 🎶 To see our complete professional bios, just click on the link below.
“WASHINGTON — The furor over President Trump’s language about immigrants from “shithole countries” has partially obscured the substance of what he was demanding and the profound shift among Republicans beyond opposing illegal immigration to also pushing new limits on legal migrants, particularly of color.
Trump made the remark as he rejected a bipartisan proposal from Sens. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to resolve the status of some 700,000 so-called Dreamers facing deportation. In exchange for protecting them, Trump wanted more restrictions on legal immigrants from Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America, among other changes.
Those demands come as Trump has already put the country on track to remove 1 million immigrants over the next two years. Among them are the Dreamers — young immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children — and more than 200,000 Salvadorans, nearly 60,000 Haitians and others from Central America who have lived in the U.S. legally, in some cases for decades, under temporary protected status that the administration is ending.
The mounting total is a policy reversal for Republicans, who until recently insisted that welcoming new arrivals was vital not just to the fabric of American life but in boosting the domestic economy. Now, many Republicans in Congress have moved to a more restrictionist position, following Trump’s lead.
Trump “has taken our issues off the back burner and thrust them into the spotlight,” said Roy Beck, executive director at Numbers USA, which argues for reducing immigration to midcentury levels, before passage of the 1965 immigration overhaul ushered in a new era of diverse migrants.
Beck marvels at the turn of events.
“The president has done as much as we hoped for,” he said.
Trump’s insistence on immigration restrictions may have increased the odds of a confrontation this week when Congress must vote on a measure to fund agencies or risk a partial government shutdown.”
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Read the complete article at the link.
Aligning yourselves with Roy Beck says it all. The GOP’s push on undocumented immigration has become a smokescreen for a war on legal immigrants from non-European countries. That, in turn, is part of the White Nationalist attack on ethnic Americans, particularly individuals of color.
Trump’s crassness and lack of judgment has just blown the smokescreen and exposed the ugly racist and xenophobic underpinnings of the GOP’s “merit based” immigration charade. Folks who care about America’s future must resist this un-American GOP initiative.
Eventually, the majority of us who believe in a tolerant, diverse, welcoming, unafraid America that can resume its world leadership role must regain power from those driven by the toxic, intolerant views of a minority of Americans who foisted the national disaster of Trump upon our country!
“As we start a new year, the status of “sanctuary cities” promises to be a continuing flashpoint in the immigration debate. The Trump Administration cites the “rule of law,” and immigrants’ supposed failure to follow it, to justify its crackdown on cities that fail to refer undocumented immigrants who are arrested to federal immigration authorities.
But the president’s attempt to withhold funds from sanctuary jurisdictions doesn’t meet that rule-of-law standard.
Here’s some background. Since 2008, the federal government has sought state and local cooperation in enforcing immigration law under a program originally named Secure Communities, which allows police to check a person’s immigration status in a database maintained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), after he or she is stopped for a traffic violation or arrested for a state crime.
If there is a match, ICE asks the local entity to detain the individual until ICE determines whether an immigration hearing is required, and a judge will then decide if deportation is merited.
Those who support this program, including Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, claim states and cities must use Secure Communities to catch murderers and rapists. Trump issued an executive order deputizing state and local officers to make immigration arrests, and threatened to withhold money from any city and state that does not cooperate.
But ironically, according to four federal judges and a growing number of state courts, it’s Trump’s request that fails to follow the law.
The request flouts the rule of law on six counts.
First, the president seeks to punish “sanctuary jurisdictions.” But only Congress—not the president—can give or withhold federal funds.
The federal government’s lawyers understand the flaws in Trump’s order to withhold funding from jurisdictions. In one of the California cases, the Department of Justice argued that the federal judge should not enforce its order because Trump’s request is unenforceable and should just be ignored. (The judge didn’t buy that argument.)
Second, no one knows what the term “sanctuary jurisdictions” means. When John Kelly, currently the president’s chief of staff, headed the Department of Homeland Security and was tasked with penalizing such jurisdictions, he testified that he “do[esn’t] have a clue” on how to define a “sanctuary city.”
Generally, the term is understood to apply to cities and states that cooperate with the federal government on immigration arrests. But there are no means to define what a failure to act means. It could arise from a decision not to cooperate, but it could also be the result of a lack of opportunity.
That’s like penalizing a backup quarterback for not scoring touchdowns every time the starter plays; it’s simply not his job.
Fourth, the program is expensive. The federal government requires states and cities to pay for the detention of the non-citizen. Los Angeles stopped doing it after paying $26 million in one year. And when mistakes occur, ICE will not indemnify states or cities.
That means if a state or local police officer detains someone ICE has mistakenly determined is deportable, the state and city will be exposed to a civil lawsuit that seeks monetary compensation for that wrongful detention.
Fifth, even when predicated on correct information, a growing number of stateand federal courts are finding ICE’s requests unlawful and unconstitutional because they do not relate to any ongoing or prospective criminal activity.
Living in the country without status is not a crime. ICE’s requests thus run afoul of the Fourth Amendment’s requirement that the government detain only people who are suspected of committing crimes.
Sixth, the program is ineffectual.
In the nearly 10 years Secure Communities has existed, only a minority of the millions identified have a prior conviction for violent crime. Around 12 percent of the millions of non-citizens identified in this program had been convicted of “serious crimes”, which is a category that includes both violent crimes and non-violent crimes of forgery, fraud, and non-violent drug offenses. Another 25 percent had minor crimes or traffic infractions, such as driving their child to school without a license.
If someone truly is a murderer, rapist, or posed a real danger, they would be rotting in a prison cell. They would not be in the streets, afraid that an ICE officer could somehow discover that they overstayed their visa 20 years ago.
This logic plays out in fact. A recent study concluded that residents in sanctuary cities experience lower crime rates than their counterparts. The case of Kathryn Steinle, 32, who was killed while walking in San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf area in 2015, was used by Trump and immigration opponents as an example of the dangers posed to Americans by undocumented immigrants.
But while the perpetrator was a man who had already been deported five times because of criminal convictions, he proved to be the wrong symbol. Last month, a jury concluded that her death was a tragic accident from a gun misfiring and rejected both murder and manslaughter charges.
Editor’s Note: In response to the acquittal, the Justice Department announced it would file federal charges against the man, and issued an arrest warrant.
Worse, requiring local communities to enforce immigration law is harming its citizenry.
Police chiefs and commissioners have been outspoken in their support of sanctuary policies, arguing they are critical tools to encourage crime victims and witnesses in the immigrant community to cooperate with the police.
Their concerns were well-founded. In the first three months of 2017, the Los Angeles Chief of Police reported that among all ethnicities, only Latino individuals had a 25 percent drop in reporting rapes and domestic violence.
Keep in mind that those with criminal records are not always the so-called “bad hombres,” to use the president’s notorious phrase. Minor crimes have been used to deport combat veterans. A drug crime was the reason to deport a 9/11 volunteer who helped clean up the rubble of the World Trade Center.
It is too bad that “sanctuary” is the term to describe the jurisdictions that opt out of this program, because it wrongly implies that cities and states are providing amnesty. It would be unimaginable for local police—while issuing speeding tickets or investigating murders—to double check if the driver, the suspects or witnesses had properly filed their respective taxes with all the appropriate deductions, and then detain them until an IRS agent could review their past tax returns.
But that is exactly what is happening with immigration, or at least it was, until four federal judges—and counting—stopped Trump for failing to follow the law.
Kari Hong
The lesson is clear. Actual criminals are best apprehended and punished by state criminal justice systems. Congress should focus on fixing the broken immigration system that had last seen reform over 20 years ago, and local cities should spend their time and money on local matters.
Casting blame on cities doesn’t solve anything. Forcing cities to do the work of the federal government is truly making things worse.
Kari Hong, an Assistant Professor at Boston College Law School, teaches immigration and criminal law. She founded a clinic representing non-citizens with criminal convictions in the Ninth Circuit, and has argued over 100 Ninth Circuit cases and 50 state criminal appeals.”
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The concept that Scofflaw Gonzo is “restoring the rule of law” at Justice is a cruel joke. “Gonzo’s law” has no real room for the rights of Blacks, Hispanics, Gays, Immigrants, Women, Muslims, or others who don’t fit his “Bannon-Miller” White Nationalist restrictionist agenda.
“Lots of the news from sub-Saharan Africa is about war, famine, poverty or political upheaval. So it’s understandable if many Americans think most Africans who immigrate to the United States are poorly educated and desperate.
That’s the impression that President Trump left with his comments to members of Congress opposing admission of immigrants from “shithole countries” in Africa and elsewhere.
But research tells another story.
While many are refugees, large numbers are beneficiaries of the “diversity visa program” aimed at boosting immigration from underrepresented nations. And on average, African immigrants are better educated that people born in the U.S. or the immigrant population as a whole.
“It’s a population that’s very diverse in its educational, economic and English proficiency profile,” said Jeanne Batalova, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute think tank in Washington and coauthor of a report last year on sub-Saharan African immigrants in the U.S. “People came for a variety of reasons and at various times.”
Overall, their numbers are small compared with other immigrant groups but have risen significantly in recent years. The U.S. immigrant population from sub-Saharan Africa (49 countries with a total population of more than 1.1 billion) grew from 723,000 to more than 1.7 million between 2010 and 2015, according to a new report by New American Economy, a Washington-based research and advocacy group. Still, they make up just half a percent of the U.S. population.
Drawing from U.S. surveys and Census Bureau data, the report found that the majority come from five countries: Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Ethiopia and South Africa.
The Pew Research Center reported that African immigrants are most likely to settle in the South or Northeast, and that the largest numbers — at least 100,000 — are found in Texas, New York, California, Maryland, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Virginia. Many African refugees have also relocated to or have been resettled in states such as Minnesota and South Dakota.
The Refugee Act of 1980 made it easier for people fleeing war zones to resettle in the U.S., and today there are tens of thousand of refugees from Somalia, Sudan and Congo. About 22% of African immigrants are refugees, according to Andrew Lim, associate director of research at New American Economy.
At the same time, the diversity visa program — also known as the visa lottery — has opened the door to immigrants from more peaceful places. Of the sub-Saharan immigrants who have become legal permanent residents, 17% came through the program, compared with 5% of the total U.S. immigrant population, according to Batalova.
Applicants to the program must have completed the equivalent of a U.S. high school education or have at least two years of recent experience in any number of occupations, including accountant, computer support specialist, orthodontist and dancer.
As a result, the influx includes many immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa who are highly skilled professionals.
Batalova’s research found that of the 1.4 million who are 25 and older, 41% have a bachelor’s degree, compared with 30% of all immigrants and 32% of the U.S.-born population. Of the 19,000 U.S. immigrants from Norway — a country Trump reportedly told lawmakers is a good source of immigrants — 38% have college educations.
The New American Economy study found that 1 in 3 of these undergraduate degrees were focused on science, technology, engineering and math — “training heavily in demand by today’s employers.”
That report also found that African immigrants were significantly more likely to have graduate degrees. A total of 16% had a master’s degree, medical degree, law degree or a doctorate, compared with 11% of the U.S.-born population, Lim said.
African immigrants were more than twice as likely than the U.S. population overall to work in healthcare, Lim said. There are more than 32,500 nursing, psychiatric or home health aides, more than 46,000 registered nurses and more than 15,700 doctors and surgeons.
“Overwhelmingly the evidence shows that [African immigrants] make a significant, positive economic contribution to the U.S. economy,” both at a national level and in districts where they are concentrated, Lim said. “They contribute more than $10.1 billion in federal taxes, $4.7 billion in state and local taxes, and most importantly, they have significant economic clout to the point of $40.3 billion in spending power.”
That $40.3 billion pays for housing, transportation, consumer goods and education for their children — “things that actually stimulate the economy around them,” Lim said.
The biggest beneficiary is Texas, where their spending power is $4.7 billion, followed by California, Maryland, New York and Georgia.
“It’s a population that leverages its human resources and contributes to the U.S. economy by revitalizing communities, starting businesses, but also by working in a variety of professional fields,” Batalova said.
Even those with less education who arrive as refugees often fill certain lower-skill niches in healthcare, such as home health aides, researchers said.
“In the communities they were resettled in, they have made significant contributions,” Lim said.
In many towns and cities in the Great Lakes area of the Midwest, for example, they have started new businesses, infused local labor forces with younger workers, and expanded local tax bases, Lim said.
A report last year by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found that immigrants in general had little to no negative effect on overall wages or employment levels for U.S.-born workers, and higher-skilled immigrants in fields such as technology and science had a positive influence on the U.S. labor force.
Still, supporters of stricter immigration policy back the Trump administration’s calls to end the visa lottery as well as programs that allow certain immigrants to sponsor family members to settle in the U.S. They believe that a merit system that selects immigrants based on individual skills should replace the current system.”
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Truth, facts, and helping American workers have never been part of the GOP restrictionist agenda. The xenophobia is no longer limited to so-called undocumented immigrants; it’s clear that guys like Purdue, Cotton, and Goodlatte really don’t like immigrants of any type, and particularly those of color or from “developing nations.” It’s really all about race with religion and culture thrown in — slowing down the “browning and blackening” of America, attacking the Hispanic American and African-American cultures, and trying to block or limit the immigration of non-Christians (including, of course, Muslims).
Trump’s racist remarks this week (which Perdue, Cotton, and Nielsen are rather disingenuously trying to claim never happened) and the GOP’s basic defense of the idea of drawing immigrants from White European countries rather than Haiti, Africa, or Central America has basically “blown the cover” off of so-called “merit based” immigration being pushed by some in the GOP. Trump was just articulating the hateful White Nationalist immigration agenda that he ran on and many (not all) in the GOP have now adopted under the code word “merit based.” That doesn’t bode well for bipartisan immigration reform of any type or, for that matter, for the future of a diverse “nation of immigrants.”
David Bier of the Cato Institute writes in the Washington Post:
“Trump administration officials announced this past week that the government would terminate provisional residency permits for about 200,000 Salvadorans next year. The decision is part of President Trump’s “America first” agenda, restricting the rights of immigrants in order to protect U.S. workers. But, as previous immigration experiments demonstrate, the policy will not aid American workers. And it certainly won’t make Salvadorans pack their bags. Trump’s order is likely to have the opposite effects.
President George W. Bush granted Salvadorans temporary protected status (TPS) after devastating earthquakes hit El Salvador in 2001. He and President Barack Obama repeatedly extended the status. Beyond its humanitarian impact, TPS provides significant economic benefits. It doesn’t give applicants access to any federal welfare — so there are few costs — but it does grant the legal right to work. And Salvadorans with TPS work at very high rates: Eighty-eight percent participate in the labor force, compared with 63 percent of all Americans.
Legal employment has helped Salvadorans achieve a relatively high standard of living. The median household income for Salvadorans with TPS is $50,000, higher than the roughly $36,000 for unauthorized immigrants. Their higher wages, combined with the lack of public benefits, has been a big win for U.S. taxpayers.
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Canceling TPS will make it illegal for these Salvadorans to work, but it’s unlikely to force them home. In 1990, President George H.W. Bush granted TPS to some 185,000 Salvadorans during the country’s civil war, and when President Bill Clinton canceled their status in 1996, few returned. Deportations rose only slightly, and many Salvadorans just worked illegally until 2001.
At this point, 28 years since the original TPS designation and 17 years since the subsequent one, the incentives to stay will be too large for any mass migration back to El Salvador. Trump can try to drive them out with immigration raids and increased deportations, as other presidents have tried, but the highest percentage of unauthorized immigrants deported in a given year is 2.1 percent — three times the amount this administration deported in 2017.
Losing the legal right to work doesn’t prevent immigrants from finding jobs. They can use fake or borrowed documents from U.S. citizen family members, or employers can pay them off the books. Illegal employment, however, pays less than legal employment — employers compensate for taking the risk of hiring someone who may be here illegally.”
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Read Bier’s complete article at the link.
I can make a strong argument that Salvadoran, Haitian, and Honduran TPS are some of the most successful and humane Immigration programs in US history. In contrast to asylum adjudication, TPS adjudications cost the Government peanuts. And, the processing fees for periodic renewals of work authorization actually make money for the Government.
TPSers are overwhelmingly law-abiding, industrious, and because of their legal work authorization they pay taxes. Many TPSers work in essential industries like construction where there are not equally qualified “native born American workers” readily available to replace them. Many have US Citizen children and they have integrated into their communities. In my experience, while the majority would like to have a “path to citizenship” they aren’t aggressively agitating for one. Almost all are grateful just for the chance TPS gives them to remain with their families in the communities they call home and to work legally to support their families.
Thus, TPSers contribute much to the US and ask little in return. Their continuing presence here is in no way a “problem.”
In a rational political climate, extending TPS while offering some type of permanent status to TPSers through legislation would be a “no brainer.” Indeed, a generation or so ago, US enacted a great program called NACARA, which offered Nicaraguans, Salvadorans, and Guatemalan a way of staying permanently and eventually becoming citizens. The program was immensely successful at a minimal administrative cost to the Government.
But, today we have a White Nationalist Administration and an increasingly White Nationalist restrictionist GOP interested more in dumping on Hispanics and Blacks through a bogus “merit based” immigration agenda than they are in doing what’s best for America.
Bier’s right. the Salvadorans aren’t going anywhere. But the Administration and the GOP restrictionists appears fixed on driving them “underground” at great cost to the TPSers and to America. They are likely to remain underground until we have “regime change” and saner heads eventually prevail.
“If Congress cannot agree on a budget plan by Jan. 19, the government will shut down. This isn’t the outcome anyone wants. But Democrats ought to start steeling themselves now: If the Republican majority’s budget plan leaves the “dreamers” in limbo, fails to supply desperately needed aid to Puerto Rico and coastal states battered by natural disaster, or allows the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to wither away, Democrats need to be ready to shut the whole thing down.
It is necessary to recognize the damage a shutdown could cause in the course of recommending, as I am, that the Democrats prepare to let it happen. If the outcome were sure to be harmless, the possible costs would be small. But the moral stakes of this budget negotiation are extraordinarily high. Taking a stand for dreamers, children and disaster-stricken citizens will come with a price.
Trump has said a shutdown could be politically useful for him, and Democrats seem nervous. It’s hard to predict, at this point, which party (if either) a shutdown would benefit: Republicans could wind up with the blame, but they could also gain from underscoring the notion that government is broken. As Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and a Post contributor, warned me on Wednesday: “These government shutdowns feed into a narrative that is not politically neutral.”
There are practical concerns, too. “The biggest impact tends to be on people who work for the government [and] are nonessential employees,” Bernstein said. During past shutdowns, nonessential employees have been paid after the fact, but there is no guaranteeCongress would elect to do the same this time. Bernstein added that a shutdown would be “a ding to the economy” and “massive inconvenience,” putting all kinds of activities — from sorting out Social Security questions to visiting national parks to getting passports renewed — on hold. A shutdown wouldn’t grind daily life to a halt. But it would affect millions, with serious ramifications for many.
But there are potential strategic upsides for Democrats. For one, triggering a shutdown could demonstrate that Democrats take the interests and desires of the American people seriously. “The public wants CHIP, Puerto Rico and Texas to get relief, and wants to protect dreamers,” said Ben Wikler, Washington director of MoveOn.org. “Keeping all these priorities on hold in a perpetual game of kick-the-can doesn’t actually line up with what most Americans want.”
In an October Kaiser Family Foundation poll, 62 percent of respondents said Puerto Rico has not received the help it needs in the wake of Hurricane Maria; a November Kaiser survey likewise found that 62 percent of Americans consider funding CHIP a top priority — far above tax reform or strengthening immigration controls. In that same poll, only 16 percent of respondents said dreamers shouldn’t be allowed to remain in the country. Likewise, a Post-ABC News poll found that 86 percent of Americans want dreamers to be allowed to stay.
But it isn’t just the premise of democracy or the possibility of 2018 advantage that demands relentless commitment to these three causes. It’s ordinary morality.
The beneficiaries of CHIP, disaster aid and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals are innocent insofar as none of them brought onto themselves the statuses that have made them vulnerable. It is important to understand them as innocents at the mercy of a merciless faction; otherwise the harms they face might appear more morally complicated than they are. As the Roman Catholic Archbishop José Gomez recently wrote: “It would be cruel to punish [dreamers] for the wrongs of their parents, deporting them to countries of origin that they have never seen, where they may not even know the language.” It would likewise be cruel to allow children with diabetes to die for lack of insulin or to plunge poor families deep into debt because they happened to have a child with a disability. The same can be said for those who had the misfortune of living in areas struck by storms, the ne plus ultra of situations one didn’t cause and cannot prevent.
A shutdown would cause real problems for real people. It is, in the words of Wikler, “something to be avoided if possible, but not at the expense of fundamental priorities.” What is remarkable about the priorities at hand, however, is that they have no business being articles of compromise. These aren’t ordinary policy squabbles; they constitute a choice between America as a humane nation with democratic principles and America as a negligent sovereign with a dim future. The protection of innocents shouldn’t be up for debate. But it is. And Democrats can’t back down.”
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As a “Retired Fed” and a lifelong “Good Government” advocate who values the career Civil Service and what it does for America, I sure hate Government shutdowns! I’ve been through a number of them, some as an “essential” Senior Executive and some as a “non-essential employee.”
But, I think Breunig makes a strong argument that there are some issues that can’t really be “compromised” because they cross over strongly held moral and ethical values.
Republicans have introduced a DACA bill, the Securing America’s Future Act (H.R. 4760), but the ACLU may be right in describing it as a “collection of hard line provisions designed to sabotage, rather than advance, the possibility of a bipartisan breakthrough.”
Josh Dawsey and Matt Zapotosky report for the Washington Post:
“Attorney General Jeff Sessions is trying to find his way back into President Trump’s good graces.
For months, Sessions has asked senior White House aides to make sure the president knows what he is doing at the Justice Department, two White House advisers said, and has told allies he hopes policy decisions that garner news coverage will please Trump. Sessions’s team at Justice has crafted a public campaign to highlight the work it is doing to advance the president’s agenda. The department has also begun looking into matters that Trump has publicly complained are not being pursued.
Top Trump advisers, including White House counsel Donald McGahn and counselor Kellyanne Conway and former chief of staff Reince Priebus and former strategist Stephen K. Bannon, have at times joined the effort and pressed Trump to give his attorney general a second chance. They note that his department has helped reduce illegal border crossings and carried out a number of the president’s initiatives, such as cracking down on leaks and targeting the MS-13 street gang.
But Sessions, who was one of Trump’s earliest backers and gave up a safe Senate seat to join the administration, has, by all accounts, been unable to repair his relationship with the president. Trump has dismissed praise of Sessions, according to four White House officials and advisers, as he continues to rage about the Russia investigationand Sessions’s decision to recuse himself from the probe into Moscow’s meddling in the 2016 election and whether there was any coordination with the Trump campaign.
“He’s one of the most active Cabinet secretaries there is,” one White House official said. “He’s done a fine job. Does it wash away the sin of recusal? I don’t think so.”
. . . .
At the Justice Department, officials have tried to publicly tout their successes, hopeful that political allies and the president, a frequent television viewer, will take notice. They have done work that — in their view — should appeal to the president and his base, such as settling lawsuits with tea party groups, issuing guidance on religious liberty, cracking down on illegal immigration and rolling back various Obama-era guidances, including one advising courts to be wary of imposing heavy fines on those who can’t afford them.
“We’re trying to get our successes out in the ether,” one department official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss dynamics with the White House.
The official said Justice has communicated with some conservative constituencies, like law enforcement groups, and was recently heartened when the Fraternal Order of Police issued a statement praising Sessions’s decision to make it easier for U.S. prosecutors to enforce federal marijuana laws in states that had legalized the substance, advisers said.
“It’s that kind of stuff that you figure will lead to this tipping point where the audience of one says, ‘Wow, that’s pretty impressive,’ ” the official said.
But the official acknowledged that the department can’t seem to overcome the president’s frustration over Sessions’s recusal, and even some publicizing of successes can lead to mixed results. The department has allowed its top spokeswoman, Sarah Isgur Flores, to make television appearances, but while half of the interview will be about work officials want to promote, the conversation often turns to the Russia investigation, which is not helpful to Sessions, if Trump is watching.
. . . .
One department official said Sessions had no real option under federal regulations but to recuse himself. Even a number of top White House lawyers and aides argued to Trump that Sessions needed to step aside.
. . . .
Sessions is widely disliked among liberals, who say his policies are rolling back decades of social and civil rights progress. But among conservatives and those on the far right, Sessions is a strong spot in the administration.
A few months ago, Leonard Leo, a legal adviser to Trump, said the president asked him about Sessions. Leo said he told the president he was impressed by the department, particularly its “religious liberty” guidance and the performance of the solicitor general’s office. Leo said Trump largely listened to his assessment.
“For conservatives going into the Trump administration, the question was whether the department’s morale could be restored and whether there would be a greater sensitivity to respect for the rule of law in the department,” Leo said in an interview. “I think Attorney General Sessions has done a good job of creating the right atmosphere in the department.”
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Read the complete article at the link.
Poor Gonzo! Here he thought that a heavy dose of White Nationalism, racism, voter suppression, xenophobia, and scoffing at Constitutional rights like abortion at the DOJ would overcome a single unavoidable act of acting ethically and following the law. Boy, was he wrong! What Trump really wanted was a complete toady dedicated to protecting Trump, his family, and a few of his friends from the natural consequences of their inappropriate behavior. Gonzo should have taken Mike Pence’s class in “Toadyism 101” before accepting the job!
“When it comes to President Trump and race, there is a predictable cycle. He makes a remark that seems racist, and people engage in an extended debate about whether he is personally racist. His critics say he is. His defenders argue for an interpretation in which race plays a secondary role (such as: Haiti really is a worse place to live than Norway).
It’s time to end this cycle.
No one except Trump can know what Trump’s private thoughts or motivations are. But the public record and his behavior are now abundantly clear. Donald Trump treats black people and Latinos differently than he treats white people.
And that makes him a racist.
Is it possible to defend some of his racially charged statements by pointing out that something other than race might explain them? Sure. Is it possible that he doesn’t think of himself as a racist who views white people as superior to nonwhite people? Yes.
But the definition of a racist — the textbook definition, as Paul Ryan might say — is someone who treats some people better than others because of their race. Trump fits that definition many times over:
• He spent years claiming that the nation’s first black president was born not in the United States but in Africa, an outright lie that Trump still has not acknowledged as such.
• He frequently criticizes prominent African-Americans for being unpatriotic, ungrateful and disrespectful.
• He called some of those who marched alongside white supremacists in Charlottesville last August “very fine people.”
• He is quick to highlight crimes committed by dark-skinned people, sometimes exaggerating or lying about it (such as a claim about growing crime from “radical Islamic terror” in Britain). He is very slow to decry hate crimes committed against dark-skinned people (such as the murder of an Indian man in Kansas last year).
• At the White House yesterday, Trump vulgarly called for less immigration from Haiti and Africa and more from Norway.
For more on this topic, read my colleague Nick Kristof wrestling with the topic during the 2016 campaign: “Here we have a man who for more than four decades has been repeatedly associated with racial discrimination or bigoted comments about minorities,” he wrote. “While any one episode may be ambiguous, what emerges over more than four decades is a narrative arc, a consistent pattern — and I don’t see what else to call it but racism.”
And Slate’s Jamelle Bouie: “It’s impossible to know what’s in his heart. But what Trump feels is less important than what he does.”
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Meanwhile, elsewhere on the NYT editorial page, Professor Roxane Gay, a distinguished Haitian American writes:
“I could write a passionate rebuttal extolling all the virtues of Haiti, the island my parents are from, the first free black nation in the Western Hemisphere. I could write about the beauty of the island, the music and vibrant art, the majesty of the mountains, the crystalline blue of the water surrounding her, the resilience of the Haitian people, our incredible work ethic, our faith. I could tell you about my parents, how they came to this country with so many other Haitians, how they embraced the American dream and thrived, how I and so many first-generation Haitian-Americans are products of our parents’ American dreams.
Or I could tell you about the singular, oppressive narrative the media trots out when talking about Haiti, the one about an island mired in poverty and misery, the one about AIDS, the one about a country plagued by natural and man-made disasters, because these are the stories people want to hear, the stories that make Haiti into a pitiable spectacle instead of the proud, complicated country it is. I could tell you how I have spent an inordinate amount of time and energy, throughout my life, educating people about Haiti and disabusing them of the damaging, incorrect notions they have about the country of my parents’ birth.
On the eve of the eighth anniversary of the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake that devastated Haiti, the president, in the Oval Office, is said to have wondered aloud why he should allow immigrants from “shithole countries” like Haiti, El Salvador and African nations to enter the United States. Mr. Trump has tweeted a denial that he made this statement. “He said those hate-filled things and he said them repeatedly,” Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, who was in the room, said Friday.
But the president has to know that even if video footage of the comment existed, there wouldn’t be any political consequences for him. He has to know, like we all do, that xenophobic commentary plays well with his base, the people who were more than happy to put him in office because they could seamlessly project their racism and misogyny onto his celebrity persona. It’s no wonder Fox News hosts have defended the comment.
Now, in response to the news about the reports of the vile remark, there are people saying “vote” and highlighting the importance of the 2018 midterm elections, as if American democracy is unfettered from interference and corruption. There is a lot of trite rambling about how the president isn’t really reflecting American values when, in fact, he is reflecting the values of many Americans. And there are entreaties to educate the president about the truth of Haiti as if he simply suffers from ignorance.
But the president is not alone in thinking so poorly of the developing world. He didn’t reveal any new racism. He, once again, revealed racism that has been there all along. It is grotesque and we must endure it for another three or seven years, given that the Republicans have a stranglehold on power right now and are more invested in holding onto that power than working for the greater good of all Americans.
What I’m supposed to do now is offer hope. I’m supposed to tell you that no president serves forever. I’m supposed to offer up words like “resist” and “fight” as if rebellious enthusiasm is enough to overcome federally, electorally sanctioned white supremacy. And I’m supposed to remind Americans, once more, of Haiti’s value, as if we deserve consideration and a modicum of respect from the president of the United States only because as a people we are virtuous enough.
But I am not going to do any of that. I am tired of comfortable lies. I have lost patience with the shock supposedly well-meaning people express every time Mr. Trump says or does something terrible but well in character. I don’t have any hope to offer. I am not going to turn this into a teaching moment to justify the existence of millions of Haitian or African or El Salvadoran people because of the gleeful, unchecked racism of a world leader. I am not going to make people feel better about the gilded idea of America that becomes more and more compromised and impoverished with each passing day of the Trump presidency.
This is a painful, uncomfortable moment. Instead of trying to get past this moment, we should sit with it, wrap ourselves in the sorrow, distress and humiliation of it. We need to sit with the discomfort of the president of the United States referring to several countries as “shitholes” during a meeting, a meeting that continued, his comments unchallenged. No one is coming to save us. Before we can figure out how to save ourselves from this travesty, we need to sit with that, too.
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Thanks primarily to the African-American Community in Alabama, we all were saved from the nightmare of having racist, xenophobic, homophobic theocrat Roy Moore thrust upon the U.S. Senate. But, “White Folks” are going to chip in big time to save the country from Trump and his GOP apologists/handlers/fellow travelers. No less than the future of American Democracy and that of the so-called “Free World” is at stake.
“Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Friday that he heard President Donald Trump make “hate-filled, vile and racist” comments to lawmakers that the president is now denying.
Durbin, who was at the White House meeting on Thursday to discuss immigration, is the first to go on the record confirming reports that Trump referred to African nations as “shithole countries,” and that the U.S. should “take … out” Haitians currently living in the U.S. Trump reportedly also commented that the U.S. should accept more immigrants from Norway.
Trump on Friday claimed on Twitter that he didn’t use the language attributed to him about Haitians, but neither he nor the White House has directly denied his comments on African countries.
Durbin, speaking to reporters on Friday, contradicted Trump’s claim.
“I cannot believe that in the history of the White House, in that Oval Office, any president has ever spoken the words that I personally heard our president speak yesterday,” Durbin said. “You’ve seen the comments in the press. I’ve not read one of them that’s inaccurate.”
Durbin added: “He said these hate-filled things and he said them repeatedly.”
Trump made the comments during an immigration meeting with Durbin and six Republican lawmakers: Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), David Perdue (R-Ga.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.); House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), and Reps. Bob Goodlatte, (R-Va.) and Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), according to MSNBC.
Durbin and Graham pitched Trump on the outlines of a deal they and others in a six-senator bipartisan group made to resolve the legal status of Dreamers, the young undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children.
Nearly 700,000 Dreamers are at risk of losing deportation relief and work permits ― or already have ― because Trump ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.
Democrats want protections for Dreamers included in a measure on government spending, which must pass by a Jan. 19 deadline to avoid a government shutdown.
Trump has said he wants to help Dreamers, but only if he gets something in return: his border wall and other security measures, an end to the diversity visa lottery, and limits on family-based visas, which the president derisively refers to as “chain migration.”
Trump has falsely claimed that other countries use the diversity visa lottery to send their “worst people” to the U.S. A large proportion of diversity visa lottery recipients come from African nations.
Durbin, Graham and their allies drafted a plan that would eliminate the diversity visa lottery as Trump demanded, but would allow some immigrants currently in the U.S. under temporary protected status, which lets people stay in the country after natural disasters or other crises in their home nations. The Trump administration is ending those protections for people from Haiti, El Salvador and Nicaragua, and suggested it will do the same for Hondurans.
Durbin said that’s when he told Trump about the numbers of people who hold temporary protected status from various countries, including Haiti.
“He said, ’Haitians, do we need more Haitians?’” Durbin said.
Trump then made “vile and vulgar comments” about African nations, Durbin said, calling them “shitholes.”
The slur was “the exact word used by the president ― not just once, but repeatedly,” said Durbin.
Graham spoke up, confronting Trump’s harsh language, which Durbin said “took extraordinary political courage.” Graham hasn’t publicly commented on the meeting.
Durbin also recounted a “heartbreaking moment” when Trump and others “scoffed” at his comments about the importance of family-based immigration. The president and his allies have said the U.S. should move to a “merit-based” system rather than admitting people based on family ties, referring to anyone but spouses and minor children as “extended family.”
“Chain migration” as a term is offensive, Durbin said he told the president.
“I said to the president, do you realize how painful that term is to so many people? African-Americans believe that they migrated to America in chains, and when you speak about ‘chain migration,’ it hurts them personally,” Durbin said. “He said, ‘Oh, that’s a good line.’”
In a statement after Trump’s comments were first reported, the White House did not deny them.
But Trump on Friday insisted the reports were inaccurate.
“The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used,” he tweeted. “What was really tough was the outlandish proposal made – a big setback for DACA!”
Trump addressed Haiti, but said nothing about his reported comments on Africa.
“Never said anything derogatory about Haitians other than Haiti is, obviously, a very poor and troubled country,” Trump tweeted. “Never said ‘take them out.’ Made up by Dems. I have a wonderful relationship with Haitians. Probably should record future meetings – unfortunately, no trust!”
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) was not among the lawmakers in the White House meeting, but tweeted Friday that he heard about Trump’s comments “directly following the meeting by those in attendance.”
The remarks “were not ‘tough,’ they were abhorrent and repulsive,” Flake tweeted.”
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Trump’s total meltdown might well kill any budget deal for the time being, almost guaranteeing a USG shutdown.
At the same time, it “blows the cover” from the White Nationalist, restrictionist agenda that some in the GOP have been pushing under a bogus claim of “reshaping the immigration system in the interests of the United States.” No, it is, and always has been about unnecessarily and unwisely restricting and limiting legal immigration while directly attacking people of color, non-Christians, and other minorities. And, the bias and racism isn’t limited to immigrants — it also carries over to the views of many in the GOP about ethic Americans. When the GOP allows itself to be driven by a racially charged hate-based agenda, it makes “compromise” difficult, if not impossible.
The majority of us who believe in a diverse, tolerant, generous, welcoming America and a vibrant social and economic future for our country must over time retake power from the White Nationalist driven minority that now seems to be in charge! Every election, local, state, and national is critical! “Just Say No” to candidates, on every level, who promote, advance, or aid and abet the White Nationalist agenda.
PRESIDENT TRUMP says he is optimistic a deal can be struck to shield “dreamers,” the young undocumented immigrants whose lives he put in jeopardy by stripping them of work permits and deportation protection, beginning March 5. His price, and that of many Republicans, is up to $33 billion in border-security measures, including Mr. Trump’s “beautiful” wall.
If that’s the deal — not one freighted with a laundry list of other items on the GOP wish list — Democrats should take it.
Granted, Mr. Trump once told Americans that a border wall, paid for by Mexico, would cost $4 billion. After that, he said $6 billion or $7 billion, and later $10 billion. Now his administration says it’s really $18 billion for 722 miles of wall, of which just 316 miles would be a brand-new structure along the 2,000-mile southwest frontier. Oh, and Mexico’s credit card seems to be missing.
The wall is a dumb idea. It won’t do much to suppress illegal border crossings, which in any event have been falling for decades. And the additional border-security spending proposed by the administration, including thousands of new Border Patrol agents, is largely a waste. Rather than seriously addressing the opioid epidemic, or mounting cyberwarfare threats, or America’s crumbling infrastructure, the president wants to fortify a border where illegal crossings, as measured by Border Patrol apprehensions, are already at their lowest point since the Nixon administration.
But consider how rare it is that a dumb idea in Congress actually buys something smart in return. In this case, the return on that dumb idea would be huge. (And betting that the courts will save the dreamers is too risky, notwithstanding a federal judge’s ruling Tuesday freezing dreamers’ protections — for now.)
The wall’s $18 billion price tag would be spread over a decade. If a few billion dollars annually is the trade-off that provides certainty — a pathway to citizenship or permanent legal status — for nearly 700,000 young immigrants brought to this country as children by their parents, it’s worth it. Because the alternative — all those lives ruined, all those jobs lost, all that education and promise cut short — is much worse.
Democrats who choke on the wall, loath to hand Mr. Trump a political triumph, might ask themselves what other deals they might strike that would do so much tangible good, for so many people, so immediately — and at such a relatively modest price. The likely answer is: very few.
Some Republicans are angling for more than half a loaf. Using the dreamers as hostages, they want to decimate legal immigration, slash family reunification visas and dissolve the lottery system that provides visas for people from Africa and other regions that generate relatively few immigrants.
Those measures would inflict real harm on real people. By contrast, spending billions on border security, while profligate, has enjoyed bipartisan support in the past. In 2006, many prominent Democrats, including then-Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, voted for 700 miles of fencing at the southwest frontier, albeit at a time when illegal crossings were more than three times greater than they are today.
Many in Congress may have lost the muscle memory required to strike a compromise, but here’s a reminder: In politics, as in life, compromise is often painful. That doesn’t mean you refuse it.”
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Meanwhile, over at CNN, Tal and her colleague Ashley Killough file the following reports:
“Lawmakers compete to carry President’s mantle on DACA as talks continue
By: Tal Kopan, CNN
If the “four pillars” that emerged out of the White House immigration meeting spurred anything Wednesday on Capitol Hill, it was a fresh PR strategy.
A variety of competing factions continue to pursue their proposals on resolving the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, a policy President Donald Trump is seeking to end that protects from deportation young undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children.
As the lawmakers touted their proposals Wednesday, though, they made an effort to explain just how their own push is the one that meets the President’s wishes — even as all of them took different approaches. The marketing underscored how essential Trump’s approval is to any deal — and how much lawmakers believe he can still be convinced.
The White House meeting settled on four check boxes for Trump’s signature, although he told lawmakers he’d sign whatever the group came up with:
A fix for DACA recipients.
Money for border security.
Dealing with “chain migration” or family-based sponsorship.
Ending the diversity lottery.
As lawmakers sought to fill in the details Wednesday, they made sure to explain how their proposals related to the President’s guidelines.
Here are the key players in Congress on immigration
By Ashley Killough and Tal Kopan, CNN
As President Donald Trump led the widely-televised bipartisan meeting at the White House on Tuesday, he was surrounded by a flock of lawmakers from both parties and both houses of Congress.
A massive issue like immigration has many competing interests at stake, drawing in groups of lawmakers who work on competing proposals
In just one effort to streamline the process, the four second-in-command congressional leaders — Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn, Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer — got together Wednesday afternoon to try to sort through the efforts.
“We are not going to default to existing groups. There were too many groups to count and they were basically getting nowhere,” Cornyn told reporters. “So that’s why, I think, the need to move to this level.”
But Sen. Jeff Flake, a Republican member of another group, says it’s his “Gang of Six” that’s leading the way. “Somebody has to put forward a document. Somebody has to put forward a bill,” he said. “That’s what we’re doing.”
A variety of formal and informal groups are still meeting and doing their own work, some designed to find the middle ground and some designed to pull talks to the left or right. Here’s a look at the key players across the political spectrum that have taken the lead.
I’ve been saying for some time now that a “Wall for Dreamers” deal might be the best the Dems can do. As the Post points out, although the “The Wall” probably is “overkill” in terms of border security, at least the money gets us something in return: the Dreamers are one of our country’s most valuable assets. People over “things.” Or, as we used to say in college, “nothing gets broken, no-one gets hurt.”
Whether or not the “deal” outlined by the Post is actually out there to be “closed” remains to be seen. It apparently would only address two of the four “pillars” described by Tal and Ashley. That seems entirely reasonable to me; but, of course, I’m not one of the negotiators. And, Trump said he would “sign anything that Congress sends him” on the topic.
The Trump administration is pointing to a recent uptick in illegal border crossings as evidence that it needs more authority — even as it continues to tout a longer-term decrease as proof of the effectiveness of its policies.
Illegal entries to the US have risen substantially over the past few months.
In a rare statement on its monthly report of apprehensions and rejections at the border, the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday both praised the numbers and said work remained.
“The final border apprehension numbers of 2017, specifically at the southern border, undeniably prove the effectiveness of President Trump’s commitment to securing our borders,” said DHS spokesman Tyler Houlton, noting the numbers over the last year were 40% below the final year of President Barack Obama’s tenure.
But, Houlton said, the recent increase spelled trouble.
“The significant increase over the last month in the number of family units and unaccompanied children coming across the border illegally highlights the dire need for Congress to immediately adopt responsible pro-American immigration reforms. … The Secretary will require fixes to these loopholes as part of any immigration package negotiated (in a meeting Tuesday) at the White House.”
But starting in the summer, crossings began to again approach historic levels. With 40,513 apprehensions and rejections at the southern border in December, the total numbers are behind fiscal years 2016 and 2017, but surpass crossings in fiscal years 2013, 2014 and 2015.
The administration has employed aggressive rhetoric and spoken consistently about securing the border and cracking down on undocumented immigrants in the US. Arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement are up — but little has operationally changed at the border and deportations last year lagged behind the last year of Obama’s presidency.
Trump is pushing for aggressive policies as part of a deal to protect the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, as conservatives argue that allowing undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship will only add incentives for potential illegal crossings in the future.”
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We’re clearly dealing with “Amateur Night at the Bijou” here! Anybody with even passing familiarity with or competency in immigration policy would know better than to do the “victory dance” based on a couple of months of DHS enforcement data. It’s not like DHS is renowned for either the accuracy of its enforcement statistics or the depth and quality of analysis thereof.
First, and foremost, the increased arrivals of families and children from the Northern Triangle presents no real security issue. Most turn themselves in at the border or the nearest Border Patrol Station and seek asylum. Indeed, if anything, the unrelentingly negative rhetoric of the Trumpsters probably leads a few individuals who would otherwise turn themselves in or apply at the port of entry to try to get inland to avoid more or less mandatory detention.
Clearly, the driver here is conditions in the Northern Triangle, which continue to deteriorate, notwithstanding the absurd political determination by Secretary Neilsen that it was” A-OK” to send long term residents from El Salvador back there. The solution is definitely not more militarization of the border or more unnecessary and inhumane detention.
No, its a combination of 1) working to improve conditions that force folks to flee the Northern Triangle; 2) working with the UNHCR other stable countries in the Americas to distribute the flow more evenly among “receiving countries;” and 3) developing either a temporary refuge program or a more realistic, generous, and easily administered program to grant asylum, withholding, and/or relief under the CAT to those many who meet the legal requirements properly interpreted.
At bottom, there really isn’t much difference between these folks and waves of Cuban refugees whom we accepted, processed, and successfully integrated into our society with greatly beneficial results for both the Cubans and America.
Time to be done with the xenophobia and the racially-inspired bias against Central Americans fleeing for their lives. No, this Administration is unlikely to do that. And, that’s why the problems caused by irregular migration are likely to continue long into the future no matter how much “tough guy” rhetoric Trump or anyone else spews out and how much we spend on unnecessary border militarization.
Yes, there are real security and law enforcement problems at the Southern Border. For sure! But more women and children fleeing conditions in the Northern Triangle aren’t among them. If anything, the Trump Administration’s fixation on those who aren’t a real security problem deflects focus from the real problems of drug and human smuggling and the possible entry of those who would actually be risks to our safety and security.
“(CNN)A federal judge in California late Tuesday temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Judge William Alsup also said the administration must resume receiving DACA renewal applications.
But the ruling is limited — the administration does not need to process applications for those who have never before received DACA protections, he said.
The Trump administration announced the move to draw down the program last September with a planned end for early March. DACA protected young undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children from deportation.
The fate of DACA and the roughly 700,000 “Dreamers” is the subject of heated negotiations in Washington, where President Donald Trump, Republicans and Democrats are searching for a way to allow Dreamers to stay while also addressing border security concerns. It is not clear how the order will impact those talks.
In his 49-page ruling, Alsup said “plaintiffs have shown that they are likely to succeed on the merits of their claim that the rescission was arbitrary and capricious” and must be set aside under the federal Administrative Procedures Act.
The judge said a nationwide injunction was “appropriate” because “our country has a strong interest in the uniform application of immigration law and policy.”
“Plaintiffs have established injury that reaches beyond the geographical bounds of the Northern District of California. The problem affects every state and territory of the United States,” he wrote.
In response to the ruling, the Department of Justice questioned the legality of DACA, calling it “an unlawful circumvention of Congress.” DOJ spokesman Devin O’Malley said that DHS “acted within its lawful authority in deciding to wind down DACA in an orderly manner” and implied that the legal battles aren’t over yet.
“The Justice Department will continue to vigorously defend this position, and looks forward to vindicating its position in further litigation,” O’Malley said.
‘A huge step in the right direction’
California’s Attorney General Xavier Becerra hailed the ruling as a “a huge step in the right direction” in a statement. A coalition of attorneys general, including Becerra had also filed suit against the federal government over ending DACA, maintaining that it would cause “irreparable harm to DACA recipients.”
In contrast, Mark Kirkorian, the executive director of Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that advocates for lower immigration, described the ruling as “our lawless judiciary” in a tweet.
The plaintiff, the University of California said in a statement it was “pleased and encouraged” by the judge’s ruling, which would allow DACA recipients to stay in the US as the lawsuits make their way through the courts.
“Unfortunately, even with this decision, fear and uncertainty persist for DACA recipients,” said Janet Napolitano, president of the UC school system and was the Secretary of Homeland Security in 2012 who established DACA.
While the ruling that orders DACA renewals is “a sigh of relief,” it’s a fleeting one, said Karen Tumlin, legal director of the National Immigration Law Center, which advocates for rights of immigrants.
“It is important to remember, however, this is temporary relief by a single federal district court judge, it should not take the pressure off of Congress to do the right thing and enact a permanent solution for these young people.”
Lawmakers are racing toward a January 19 deadline for government funding and a host of issues, including DACA are tied to the negotiations.
“Dreamers deserve permanence they can count on, not legal thrillers. Congress needs to bring that home,” tweeted Tumlin.
CNN’s Sonya Hamasaki, Emily Smith, David Shortell and Catherine Shoichet contributed to this report.”
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We now essentially have a conflict with a much earlier ruling from USDJ Hanen in Texas who found that a different, but related, Obama-era program called “DAPA” was illegal. That case was affirmed by the Fifth Circuit in a split opinion and went to the Supreme Court where an equally divided Court let the ruling below stand. So, unless new Justice Neil Gorsuch sides with the plaintiffs in this case, its likely to eventually be a loser (and a winner for the Administration) before the Supremes. Hopefully, Congress will resolve this in a way that ultimately makes further litigation unnecessary.
“President Trump met with a bipartisan group of Congress members at the White House on Tuesday in an effort to revive stalled talks over immigration, urging lawmakers to pass a “bill of love” to protect some undocumented immigrants from deportation.
Trump expressed confidence that a deal over the fate of the “dreamers” — immigrants who arrived in the country illegally as children — was within reach ahead of a March 5 deadline he set before work permits issued under an Obama-era program to nearly 700,000 begin to expire in mass. The president reiterated his demands for border wall funding and curbs to some legal immigration programs, but he said he would defer to lawmakers to hammer out the details and sign whatever bill they put in front of him.
“I really do believe Democrat and Republican, the people sitting in this room, really want to get something done,” Trump said.
“My position is going to be what the people in this room come up with,” he added. “I have a lot of respect for people on both sides. What I approve will be very much reliant on what people in this room come to me with. If they come to me with things I’m not in love with I’m going to do it.”
Lawmakers in both parties have said they are waiting for the Trump White House to specify its demands before the negotiations can move forward. Democrats and some moderate Republicans have resisted funding a border wall at a time when illegal immigration over the Mexico border is at record lows.
In an unusual meeting, Trump allowed reporters to remain in the Cabinet Room for more than 50 minutes as he and the Congress members laid out their bargaining positions. Trump challenged the group to “put country before party” to get a deal done.
“Lives are hanging in the balance. We’ve got the time to do it,” said Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), an original sponsor of legislation to legalize dreamers.
During the meeting, Trump also addressed other news, saying he believed a presidential run by media mogul Oprah Winfrey would be fun, but predicting she would ultimately chose to forgo a White House bid despite some enthusiasm among Democrats after she gave a rousing speech at the Golden Globe awards this week.
“I don’t think she’s gonna run,” Trump said, responding to a question from a reporter. “I know her very well.”
Trump announced in September his plans to terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, but he gave lawmakers a six-month window to pass a legislative deal before the temporary work permits begin to expire at a rate of nearly 1,000 per day. (About 122 immigrants a day already are losing their work permits after failing to renew their applications last fall.)
But negotiators have been at an impasse over how to proceed. Democrats and some moderate Republicans are eying a Jan. 19 deadline for a must-pass government spending deal as leverage to get a deal done on DACA. But the talks are deadlocked over Trump’s demands for the wall and cuts to legal immigration, including ending a diversity visa lottery and ending what the president calls “chain migration,” the practice of Americans sponsoring extended family members for green cards.
Democrats have balked at accepting major new border security provisions, saying the administration’s call for $18 billion in funding for hundreds of miles of a border wall is costly and unnecessary at a time when illegal immigration levels have plummeted.
Lawmakers from both said expressed confidence that the meeting had been productive and said the group had succeeded in narrowing the framework for discussions — yet both sides defined that framework in different terms. Democrats suggested they were open to some border security enhancements, but they emphasized that they agreed with Trump that broader talks over additional changes to the immigration system must be done after a deal over the dreamers is completed.
But Republicans said they expect Democrats to address four areas — border security, the fate of the dreamers, the diversity visa lottery and curbs to “chain migration.”
During the talks in the Cabinet Room, Trump appeared at one point to agree with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who said Democrats are seeking a “clean” DACA bill without additional border security provisions. House Majority Leaders Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) then interjected to insist that Republicans want security included.
“Mr. President, you need to be clear, though,” McCarthy said. When we talk about just DACA, we don’t want to be back here two years later. We have to have security.”
Trump responded: “I think that’s what she’s saying.”
Further confusing matters, Trump also said he hoped to pursue a “comprehensive” immigration bill after lawmakers strike a deal on the dreamers. Comprehensive bills, which would deal with work visas and other elements of the immigration system, failed on Capitol Hill during the tenures of both Barack Obama and George W. Bush.
Republican leaders of the House Judiciary and Homeland Security committees said they will introduce a bill Wednesday that will represent a purely Republican solution to the DACA dilemma, offering legal status to immigrants who had participated in the DACA program alongside a suite of measures that go well beyond the parameters of the bipartisan negotiations. Two Republicans familiar with the bill say it is expected to include several measures Democrats have roundly rejected, such as sanctions for “sanctuary cities” that do not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement agencies.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said the bill would be a “good foundation” for the bipartisan talks and that more would have to be done after the initial deal is struck,
Trump indicated during the meeting that he would accept a border wall that includes elements of fencing and surveillance tools, such as aerial drones, in the place of a steel or concrete structure. Democrats said they were supportive of additional border security but declined to say whether they were open to supporting funding for a wall.
“That’s all part of the negotiations,” McCarthy said. “What today was about was bringing the narrowing of solving this problem and finding common ground.”
He said negotiators for both parties were scheduled to meet Wednesday to continue the talks.
Mike DeBonis contributed to this report.”
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And, here are the latest reports from Tal Kopan and her colleagues at CNN, who are on top of the DACA story.
Trump contradicts self repeatedly in immigration meeting
By Tal Kopan, CNN
President Donald Trump appeared to contradict himself multiple times in a meeting on immigration with a bipartisan group of lawmakers Tuesday — a reflection of growing frustration from Capitol Hill about the lack of direction from the White House on the issue.
The President at times suggested he would be looking to sign everything from a stand-alone fix for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — set to expire in March — to comprehensive immigration reform, often appearing to being guided by lawmakers in the room to modify his positions.
The comments came during a nearly hour-long conversation between the roughly two dozen lawmakers, the President and White House staff that the press was allowed to record — a window into the difficult negotiations that still surround the issue of replacing DACA, which protected young undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children from deportation, and border security.
At the end of the session, Trump suggested that ultimately, he would sign whatever he was presented with.
A group of House conservatives are set to introduce their own proposal on immigration this week — a move that could seek to pull ongoing bipartisan negotiations to the right.
Reps. Bob Goodlatte and Raul Labrador said the bill was expected Wednesday — with Goodlatte telling President Donald Trump about the effort in a White House meeting with bipartisan lawmakers Tuesday and Labrador speaking with reporters earlier in the day.
The meeting with Trump was largely focused on resolving the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, which Trump has opted to end but says he wants preserved legislatively in exchange for border security and immigration reforms.
According to a source familiar with the effort, the bill was discussed in Republican conference on Tuesday and will include virtually the entire wish-list of conservatives.
The bill comes from a handful of conservative Republican members from Speaker Paul Ryan’s immigration working group — though not some key moderate members of that group. The team had a meeting at the White House the Tuesday before Christmas, which included Reps. Mike McCaul, the House Homeland Security Committee chairman; Goodlatte, the House Judiciary Committee chairman; Labrador, the chairman of the immigration subcommittee on Judiciary; Martha McSally, the chairwoman of the border subcommittee on Homeland; and Mark Meadows, the conservative House Freedom Caucus chairman.
Lauren Fox, Phil Mattingly, & Tal Kopan report for CNN:
“(CNN)Republicans and Democrats will sit down with President Donald Trump in a bipartisan meeting Tuesday aimed at moving closer to protecting hundreds of thousands of immigrants from deportation, but a long-entrenched partisan divide over immigration policy and a looming budget deadline are threatening progress.
Republican and Democrats involved in negotiations over the must-pass January spending deal say that DACA — the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — has become the key to unlocking any funding agreement and some are frustrated with how negotiations are unfolding. Republicans charge that Democrats have all but halted talks on spending caps until there is a resolution on DACA, which gives undocumented immigrants who came to the country as children a chance to stay, work or study in the US without fear of deportation.
“Seems to me that Democrats are holding that deal hostage for a DACA negotiation and we are meeting at the White House tomorrow on a bipartisan basis with the President to see what that might look like,” said the Senate’s No. 2, Texas Republican John Cornyn. “But I think that’s going to make the January 19 date pretty hard to hit.”
“It’s a mess,” said one person directly involved in the negotiations.
A separate GOP aide said the broader environment for both parties simply “isn’t in a good place right now.”
Democrats argue the White House hasn’t been fully engaged to the degree it needs to be and say that a long and broad policy wish list released last week just further irritated Democrats working closely on the immigration compromise. One Democratic aide argued the White House’s list was “out of the realm of reality.”
Republicans can’t avoid Trump’s wall promises in DACA talks
“No wall,” said Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris of California. “Listen, I believe in border security. I think it’s very important that we have a secure border, but spending billions and billions of dollars on this wall because of a political promise and a campaign promise is ridiculous.”
What Tuesday’s meeting means
The meeting at the White House on Tuesday was expected to — at the very least — symbolize that Trump was growing more serious about finding a bipartisan resolution. But adding more tension to the anticipated meeting for Democrats is the fact the White House invited GOP lawmakers Democrats view as openly hostile to finding a consensus deal on DACA.
In the background, details are still being worked out on what a plan to help recipients of DACA would look like, and a bipartisan group of Senate lawmakers led by Democrat Dick Durbin of Illinois and Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina continues to negotiate.
However, the tensions that existed in December but had been overcome with a holiday deadline are playing out in real time now between the two parties.
“I think this is going to be the flexion point where we get some things done or we don’t,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a Republican from Illinois, said Monday afternoon on CNN.
On Capitol Hill, bipartisan talks have been ongoing for months and the group of senators led by Durbin and Graham acknowledge they need Trump to lay out clear priorities to move forward.
The thinking is that Trump — who secured the Republican Party’s nomination by promising mass deportations and a border wall — can offer political cover for Republicans who may be fearful of backing any immigration bill that is viewed as amnesty among their base. With Trump’s blessing, Republicans believe they can find a way to move ahead on DACA. Without it, the votes are compromised.
The bipartisan meeting at the White House on Tuesday comes after Trump met with Republicans last week at the White House and Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona refused to attend, citing the lack of bipartisanship.
White House chief of staff John Kelly, formerly the secretary of homeland security, will also be in the bipartisan meeting Tuesday and has been leading outreach to lawmakers on Capitol Hill on the ongoing talks.
Also on the list Tuesday are a host of lawmakers who would be expected, including Durbin and Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, a 2013 immigration reform veteran. But the list also includes red state Democrats like Sens. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Jon Tester of Montana, as well as Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, who frequently votes with Republicans on immigration and border issues — a sign that the White House is looking to pick off as many Democrats as it can even if it can’t work with the party’s key negotiators.
The key for some negotiators attending the meeting is to convince Trump to keep any deal on DACA narrow. The agreement that is taking shape in Durbin and Graham’s group would offer a path to citizenship to DACA eligible immigrants, would include money for border security, would address the “chain migration” — or family-based sponsorship options — of the covered population and would end the diversity lottery in favor of reallocating those visas somewhere else, possibly to include a fix for Temporary Protected Status.
Flake told CNN he’s prepared to tell Trump on Tuesday that this DACA deal cannot include a whole host of immigration policy changes but instead has to be narrowly focused if Republicans want to succeed.
“This is not a comprehensive reform bill,” Flake said. “We can’t do one before March.”
More than one group pushing immigration plans
In addition to the bipartisan working group, conservatives including Cornyn and Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa are having their own conversations, and Republican Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and James Lankford of Oklahoma are also going to be at the White House on Tuesday.
In the House, multiple efforts are underway as well, many led by rank-and-file members. Republican Rep. Will Hurd of Texas and Democratic Rep. Pete Aguilar of California have released their own bipartisan framework for a deal after weeks of negotiations. Aguilar is the whip for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. That deal focuses on DACA and border security, but the lawmakers hope additional measures could be added if necessary to finalize a deal.
The bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus — including Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo of Florida, a longtime DACA advocate — had also been working to reach a compromise that before the break was similar in concept to what the Senate group was working on.
And, as in the Senate, a group of more conservative Republican lawmakers are working on their own proposal, including House Homeland Security Chairman Mike McCaul of Texas and House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, which would be strongly to the right of most of the bipartisan compromises. Both men will also be at the White House on Tuesday.
CNN’s Ted Barrett and Dana Bash contributed to this report.“
For more than a year now, I’ve been hearing from people in the inner circles of official Washington – GOP lobbyists, Republican pundits, even a few Republican members of Congress – that Donald Trump is remarkably stupid.
I figured they couldn’t be right because really stupid people don’t become presidents of the United States. Even George W. Bush was smart enough to hire smart people to run his campaign and then his White House.
Several months back when Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called Trump a “fucking moron,” I discounted it. I know firsthand how frustrating it can be to serve in a president’s cabinet, and I’ve heard members of other president’s cabinets describe their bosses in similar terms.
Now comes “ Fire and Fury, ” a book by journalist Michael Wolff, who interviewed more than 200 people who dealt with Trump as a candidate and president, including senior White House staff members.
In it, National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster calls Trump a “dope.” Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus both refer to him as an “idiot.” Rupert Murdoch says Trump is a “fucking idiot.”
Donald Trump’s hair blows in the wind as he boards Air Force One on November 10, 2017. JIM WATSON/AFP/GETTY
Trump’s chief economic adviser Gary Cohn describes Trump as “dumb as shit,” explaining that “Trump won’t read anything — not one-page memos, not the brief policy papers; nothing. He gets up halfway through meetings with world leaders because he is bored.”
When one of Trump’s campaign aides tried to educate him about the Constitution, Trump couldn’t focus. “I got as far as the Fourth Amendment,” the aide recalled, “before his finger is pulling down on his lip and his eyes are rolling back in his head.”
Trump doesn’t think he’s stupid, of course. As he recounted, “I went to an Ivy League college … I did very well. I’m a very intelligent person.”
Yet Trump wasn’t exactly an academic star. One of his professors at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and Finance purportedly said that he was “the dumbest goddamn student I ever had.”
Trump biographer Gwenda Blair wrote in 2001 that Trump was admitted to Wharton on a special favor from a “friendly” admissions officer who had known Trump’s older brother.
But hold on. It would be dangerous to underestimate this man.
Even if Trump doesn’t read, can’t follow a logical argument, and has the attention span of a fruit fly, it still doesn’t follow that he’s stupid.
There’s another form of intelligence, called “emotional intelligence.”
Emotional intelligence is a concept developed by two psychologists, John Mayer of the University of New Hampshire and Yale’s Peter Salovey, and it was popularized by Dan Goleman in his 1996 book of the same name.
Mayer and Salovey define emotional intelligence as the ability to do two things – “understand and manage our own emotions,” and “recognize and influence the emotions of others.”
Granted, Trump hasn’t displayed much capacity for the first. He’s thin-skinned, narcissistic, and vindictive.
As dozens of Republican foreign policy experts put it, “He is unable or unwilling to separate truth from falsehood. He does not encourage conflicting views. He lacks self-control and acts impetuously. He cannot tolerate criticism.”
Okay, but what about Mayer and Salovey’s second aspect of emotional intelligence – influencing the emotions of others?
This is where Trump shines. He knows how to manipulate people. He has an uncanny ability to discover their emotional vulnerabilities – their fears, anxieties, prejudices, and darkest desires – and use them for his own purposes.
To put it another way, Trump is an extraordinarily talented conman.
He’s always been a conman. He conned hundreds of young people and their parents into paying to attend his near worthless Trump University. He conned banks into lending him more money even after he repeatedly failed to pay them. He conned contractors to work for them and then stiffed them.
Granted, during he hasn’t always been a great conman. Had he been, his cons would have paid off.
By his own account, in 1976, when Trump was starting his career, he was worth about $200 million, much of it from his father. Today he says he’s worth some $8 billion. If he’d just put the original $200 million into an index fund and reinvested the dividends, he’d be worth $12 billion today.
But he’s been a great political conman. He conned 62,979,879 Americans to vote for him in November 2016 by getting them to believe his lies about Mexicans, Muslims, African-Americans, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and all the “wonderful,” “beautiful” things he’d do for the people who’d support him.
And he’s still conning most of them.
Political conning is Trump’s genius. It’s this genius – when combined with his utter stupidity in every other dimension of his being – that poses the greatest danger to America and the world.
Robert Reich is the chancellor’s professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley , and a senior fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. He served as secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, and Time magazine named him one of the 10 most effective Cabinet secretaries of the 20th century. He has written 14 books, including the best-sellers Aftershock, The Work of Nations and Beyond Outrage and, most recently,Saving Capitalism. He is also a founding editor of The American Prospect magazine, chairman of Common Cause, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and co-creator of the award-winning documentary Inequality for All.”
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Trump is a “danger to America and the world.” Let’s just hope we survive him and his nasty, would-be authoritarian regime!
