"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.
The Lion King by Giles Laurent Creative Commons 4.0 Attribution
HINT: It’s neither the one that let NFL MVP leading candidate Saquon Barkley walk (and proceed to run wild over the league), nor the one that signed Aaron Rodgers to an overpriced contract!
Training and certification in trades, skilled crafts, technology, and other essential occupations are readily available;
Students who seek a four-year degree can earn transfer credentials;
Tuition is affordable;
Work/study is a “norm;”
Those already in the workforce are sought and respected;
Diversity is “self-created” by the students;
Equal educational opportunity is a reality;
All are welcome;
Future employers can have input into the curriculum;
Practical training in real world skills is emphasized;
Adult enrichment and continuing life education are encouraged, not afterthoughts;
Parents don’t need to inflate their kids’ athletic or artistic profiles to beat the “admissions racket;”
More is spent on classrooms and educational support than athletic venues;
The football coach doesn’t make more than the college president!
There’s probably a community college (or colleges) near you. Whether you are a prospective student, employer, retiree, community activist, someone looking to sharpen existing skills or broaden your horizons, or just a curious community member you should check out America’s best educational bargains and the future of affordable, practical higher education!
Here’s a recent timely article from David Kirps, professor emeritus at the Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California at Berkeley, in WashPost on how community colleges are a source for a diverse group of highly-qualified students ready to take their skills and talents to other campuses and the real world:
My only “beef” with Mr. Kirps’s article is the he passes over the important “other cohort” of community college students: Those who don’t necessarily aspire to transfer to a four-year college (at least not immediately), but rather seek the skills training and expertise to immediately enter the workforce in key, well-paying jobs. Our granddaughter, Cassie, who graduated from community college in Wisconsin last spring and is now gainfully employed as a licensed dental hygienist is a good example.
Full disclosure: Our son Will is the Manager, Business Engagement and Industry Initiatives at Northern Virginia Community College, where he concentrates on developing and insuring compatibility and employability for the “other cohort” of students and the employers who need and rely on them as the workforce of today — and tomorrow!
Immigration law and policy are very complex, and truly boring for everyone except those who have to deal with them. But we live in an instant gratification, fast food culture. Immigration is a Hot Topic, folks want a Solution Now, so journalists naturally write about it…some better than others.
David Leonhardt, a senior writer at the New York Times, is a smart fellow who has won awards. But his “wheelhouse,” as the kids say, is mostly business and economics. I wish he (and/or his editors…where were they?) had consulted a panel of experts before hitting “send” on this piece.
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Now, I’m not an expert, but I did practice immigration law for almost 40 years, and today my social media feeds and email listservs are burning up with negative reactions to Leonhardt’s piece from true immigration experts.
Responding to every one of the problems in the piece would make this post too long, and would put you to sleep rather quickly, so I’ll touch on just a few highlights that really chapped my professional hide.
First, Leonhardt said, “Biden … changed the definition of asylum to include fear of gang violence.” That is simply false. The definition of who qualifies for asylum is based on the “refugee” definition, is fixed by statute, and only Congress can change that. Congress did NOT make any such change, and neither Biden nor any president could. Fear of gang violence as a basis for an asylum claim is a continuing subject of litigation at the Board of Immigration Appeals and in the federal courts, but the statute remains unchanged.
Second, Leonhardt states that Biden could have issued executive orders to mitigate the situation at the border. Oh, but “Yes, federal judges might block some of these policies… .” Maybe because they are illegal orders? No matter, “sending a message” is more important than legality.
Third, on the matter of admission into the U.S. via “parole,” Leonhardt implies that Biden expanded the use of parole beyond its “case-by-case” legal limits. Maybe Leonhardt did not know that “parole was … used to resettle over 360,000 Indochinese refugees between 1975 and mid-1980” and that “[b]etween 1962 and the end of May 1979, over 690,000 Cuban nationals were paroled into the country, “the largest number of refugees from a single nationality ever accepted into the United States.” ” – Amicus brief submitted to the Supreme Court in Clark v. Martinez.
Finally, the overall thrust of Leonhardt’s piece seems to be that the border is a “problem” that can and should be “solved” by some combination of legal and physical deterrents. This is a misperception common to educated elites as well as regular folks, and it is based on an ignorance of the full panoply of historical, economic, geographic and political forces that combine to make true border “control” a fantasy. Go to the border, look at the miles of desert, mountain and river and you will conclude that border walls are nothing more than a contractor’s financial wet dream. Talk to a woman from Central America who has risked everything to come here and you will conclude that no laws, no walls, no “message” would have deterred her.
I usually ignore much of what the MSM publishes about immigration, but the Times and Leonhardt carry a certain weight, so here I am, typing away. You’re welcome.
[The Comments are open, so fire away!]
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***************
Professor Karen Musalo Director, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, Hastings Law
Here’s the letter that Professor Karen Musalo, Director of the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies at Hastings Law wrote to the NYT:
Before David Leonhardt writes another piece on immigration, he should make sure he has his facts straight. He erroneously claims Biden “changed the definition of asylum to include fear of gang violence.” Biden did no such thing. What his Justice Department did was overturn a Trump-era ruling attempting to foreclose asylum claims by victims of domestic and gang violence, regardless of their legal merits. That decision was widely criticized, including on your pages in an op-ed I co-authored with Jane Fonda. Attorney General Garland rightfully vacated it, leaving the issue to be resolved by regulations [which to date have not been issued].
Leonhardt is incorrect in his assertion that more “aggressive” moves will mitigate challenges at the border, or score points with voters who overwhelmingly opposecruel and exclusionary policies. The Senate bill touted as a step in the right direction would have codified failed policies that only create more chaos.
Executive actions reportedly under consideration would similarly exacerbate operational challenges and inevitably get tied up in litigation.
And yes, Republicans’ sabotage of the bill was “transparently cynical.” Just as cynical, however, was the president’s choice to back anti-immigrant legislation he knew was doomed. In their attempts to out-Trump Trump, the president and his allies have betrayed their values and the voters who put them in office.
Karen Musalo
San Francisco, CA
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Thanks, Dan and Karen! Turning Leonhardt loose on a subject he’s obviously unqualified to write about — “stunning ignorance” in the words of one world-renowned expert — is nothing short of journalistic malpractice on the part of the NYT!
Immigration is a serious topic with life or death implications for migrants and the future of our nation. It deserves serious, informed, professional journalism by experts who are familiar with the plight of forced migrants and the actual legal requirements for asylum and due process as well as the realities of the border and the anti-immigrant absurdities of our dysfunctional Immigration Courts and non-legally-compliant asylum adjudication system.
There are lots of well-qualified folks around who could inform the public. Needless to say Leonhardt is not one of them. Unhappily, few “mainstream media” journalists have the necessary creds. That’s one reason the toxic national debate is so dominated by right wing White Nationalist media spreading lies and myths with little critical pushback from the “MSM.”
Rachel Siegel Economics Reporter Washington Post PHOTO: WashPost
Ironically, the same day’s Washington Post had an article by Rachel Siegel about how robust immigration of all types has saved the U.S. economy and how many economists believe Trump’s mindless, restrictionist, and likely illegal nativist policies could slow growth, devastate the U.S. workforce, and exacerbate inflation! https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/05/20/trump-immigration-undocumented-economy/. At the same time, he would create chaos and waste billions in public funds.
Recently, I publisheda number of articles by experts debunking many of the very anti-immigrant myths that Leonhardt disingenuously repeats or enables:
In one of many bad moments, Leonhardt uncritically “parrots” the oft-debunked fiction that changes in U.S. immigration policies and “deterrents” like walls, detention, and racially-driven cruelty are primary long-term “drivers” of forced human migration. Undoubtedly, in the complex interrelated world of migration, such policies do have some fairly marginal, largely short-term effects, causing changes in migration paths, adjustments in smuggling methods, changes in smuggling fees, more deaths and unreported irregular entries (when enforcement “gimmicks” are irresponsibly expanded), and enough “statistical variance” to allow proponents of these futile policies to falsely claim “victory” before the system reverts to a new “equilibrium.”
But the truth is inescapable, even if inconvenient for Leonhardt and other dilettantes: Human migration is a complex worldwide phenomenon driven by forces beyond the ability of any single nation, even one as powerful and influential as the U.S., to control by harsh deterrence and restriction, no matter how cruel, deadly, and wasteful.See, e.g., https://immigrationcourtside.com/wp-admin/about.php (“Migrants will continue to flee bombs, look for better-paying jobs and accept extraordinary risks as the price of providing a better life for their children. . . .No wall, sheriff or headscarf law would have prevented [forced migrants] from leaving their homes.”).
As cogently stated by Robert McKee Irwin, an immigration scholar at U.C. Davis:
Leonhardt also suggests, quite incorrectly, that Biden’s (limited) attempts to increase pathways for legal immigration and return to the rule of law at the border somehow benefitted and encouraged smugglers and cartels. NOTHING could be more wrong-headed!
It is Trump and his restrictionist allies and enablers who have been a huge boon for human smugglers! As legal pathways are eliminated or unreasonably restricted, the entire “protection” system falls into the hands of smugglers and other trans-border criminal organizations who become “the only game in town” for those seeking protection! Smuggling prices go up and the risks to migrants increase, even as profit margins for the smugglers skyrocket! Equally bad, law enforcement is diverted from real criminals to playing a bogus “numbers game” at the expense of those who seek only to have their life-determining claims heard fairly, timely, and humanely in accordance with the rule of law!
If our country builds a fair, timely, and humane system for considering asylum claims, something that succeeding Administrations have shamefully eschewed, the majority of asylum applicants will use it, which at the same time would allow border law enforcement to focus on real security issues rather than contrived ones. Similarly, more realistic and robust paths for legal immigration, both temporary and long term, will reduce the pressure and incentives for irregular migration. These measures would also tap into the truth about migration being ignored by politicos of both parties:
These [restrictionist] political reactions fail to grapple with a hard truth: in the long run, new migration is nearly always a boon to host countries. In acting as entrepreneurs and innovators, and by providing inexpensive labor, immigrants overwhelmingly repay in long-term economic contributions what they use in short-term social services, studies show. But to maximize that future good, governments must act -rationally to establish humane policies and adequately fund an immigration system equipped to handle an influx of newcomers.
Notably, the Biden parole program criticized by Leonhardt not only has been upheld in Federal Court, but has generally been praised and recognized by experts as a great, largely under appreciated, success in both creating an orderly process and reducing border pressures while benefitting American families and fueling our economy. See, e.g., https://www.fwd.us/news/chnv-parole/. (I’ll admit to not initially being a “fan,” but hey, results matter so I’ve come around). The most legitimate criticism is that it has been too limited both in terms of numbers and nationality restrictions!
Bad journalism promoting myths like those spouted by Leonhard misleads the public and enables politicos to get away with policies that are not only illegal, but often harm and even kill the very vulnerable migrants we are supposed to be protecting, or at the very least treating with fairness, respect, and human dignity. America and the migrants who still (against the odds) see us as a beacon of hope in a cruel world deserve better from the NYT!
Judge Lister also has a plan to donate patented “healthy, sustainable textile technology” developed during the pandemic that could be used to create good jobs in Mexico and other countries beyond our borders.
Professor Michele Pistone at Villanova Law has developed a “scalable” online training course (“VIISTA Villanova”) that is currently being used to graduate more highly-qualified non-lawyer “Accredited Representatives” to close the burgeoning and critical representation gap in Immigration Court, thus “delivering due process with efficiency.” She believes that with more funding, this program could be “ramped up” to produce 10,000 new Accredited Representatives annually! See, e.g., https://www1.villanova.edu/university/professional-studies/academics/professional-education/viista.html.
With so many brilliant, informed, and involved experts out here, with creative positive ideas for improving immigrant justice and restoring the rule of law, it is very disappointing that the NYT and Leonhardt have chosen to uncritically recycle and repeat cruel, failed, legally problematic proposals by irresponsible politicos that would make things worse. Rather, the media should be consulting the experts actually involved in immigration at the “grass roots level” and pressing politicos on both sides of the aisle and the Administration as to why they aren’t concentrating and investing in humane potential solutions rather than deadly and discredited “deterrence through cruelty!”
As Erica Bryant of the Vera Institute of Justice, someone who, unlike Leonhardt, is actually qualified to write about migration, stated in an article I recently republished:
This November, and beyond, voters need to reject lies that demonize immigrants and demand policies that treat each person with dignity and fairness, no matter where they were born.
Obviously, neither Leonhardt nor the NYT editors got the message. They should!
Thanks again, Dan and Karen, for being the first to speak out and challenge Leonhardt’s dangerous, misleading, and highly irresponsible nativist nonsense!
Peter Schey, who championed the rights of immigrants for more than five decades, winning landmark legal cases on behalf of undocumented children and their families and helping lead the charge against Proposition 187, a California law that sought to deny social services to people suspected of arriving in the country illegally, died April 2 at a hospital in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 77.
The cause was lymphoma, said Melinda Bird, his friend and former wife.
A driven and tenacious lawyer with a workaholic intensity, Mr. Schey had firsthand experience with the American immigration system. His parents were refugees from Nazi Germany, sailing to South Africa during World War II, and the family moved to the United States when he was 15, after he began participating in anti-apartheid protests and worried his parents when his picture appeared in the newspaper.
Working out of an office in the Westlake district of Los Angeles, Mr. Schey went on to take hundreds of human rights and immigration cases while leading a nonprofit organization, the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, and battling Republican and Democratic administrations in Washington.
He was lead counsel in Plyler v. Doe, a landmark 1982 Supreme Court decision that safeguarded the right of undocumented children to attend public schools, and litigated Reno v. Flores, a class-action suit that resulted in a 1997 settlement agreement protecting children in immigration custody. The case transformed the nation’s treatment of young migrants, establishing improved standards of care that Mr. Schey spent years fighting to uphold in court.
. . . .
“When you start being able to refer to other precedents, other cases that you’ve won, it’s a revelation,” [Attorney Carlos] Holguín said in a phone interview, reflecting on Mr. Schey’s career. “You basically are building off a legacy of prior work to move the law even further. Plyler, I think most constitutional law scholars would agree, was the high-water mark of equal protection jurisprudence. We’ve only gone backward from there.”
. . . .
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Peter got a “full page” obit in the WashPost — the kind usually reserved for heads of state, powerful politicos, famous athletes, entertainers, and world-renowned artists. You should read it at the above link. I’m familiar with many aspects of Peter’s career, but I learned things I never knew before!
Plyler v. Doe is one of those cases that has a “real-life impact!” Like all of my former colleagues at the “Legacy” Arlington Immigration Court, I encouraged school-aged children coming before me to enroll and get as much education as possible. I said,“However your case comes out, the education you get is yours to keep, forever!”
I could see how students progressed in their mastery of English and their comprehension from hearing to hearing. Some of them proudly brought in their report cards to show me their achievements. Peter Schey helped make it possible!
“Do you support American taxpayer dollars being used to fly illegal immigrants from countries like Venezuela and Haiti into America to be settled in cities and towns near you? If so, then vote against me. Vote no to preserve this practice of using taxpayer dollars to charter planes that move and import thousands of illegal aliens into your states.”
— Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), in a speech on the Senate floor, March 23
“Have you had to cancel or rethink any upcoming summer trips because of high prices? Don’t worry — your taxpayer dollars will be used to pay for illegal immigrants to fly into a town near you.”
— Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.), chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, in a post on X, April 2
Two lawmakers from Tennessee have issued misleading statements about a Biden administration program that permitted an increased use of a process known as humanitarian parole for migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Hagerty offered an amendment to a spending bill — defeated in a party-line vote — that he said would prevent taxpayer dollars from being used to fly in migrants. Green, on X, posted a Fox News article — headlined “All Senate Dems vote against barring taxpayer funds to fly illegal migrants to US towns” — and made a similar claim.
Under the Biden program, people from these countries who try to cross the border without the proper paperwork are ineligible for parole and subject to expulsion. Instead, before arriving, they must receive authorization to travel to the United States and a statement of financial support from a sponsor.
As of the end of February, the Department of Homeland Security says, more than 386,000 people from those countries had arrived lawfully in the United States and another 19,000 were vetted and authorized to travel. In other words, they are not in the country illegally, despite the rhetoric in the statements.
And beyond the question of whether these immigrants are “illegal,” if you listen to Hagerty and Green, U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill for their travel. That’s wrong.
. . . .
Four Pinocchios Source: WashPost
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Get all the relevant facts in the complete report at the link!
Dems appear “chronically afraid of touting success” when it comes to immigration. These programs show that with leadership, creativity, and coordination, robust, realistic legal immigration programs will garner public support, be cost effective (particularly when compared with expensive, wasteful, ineffective, cruel “detention and deterrence”), take pressure off the border, and maximize America’s ability to capitalize and maximize the benefits of human migration.
Despite the GOP’s disingenuous denial, human migration, including forced migration, is a reality! The countries that eschew “GOP-style” fear-mongering, xenophobia, and nativism to work with and manage human migration in an orderly, fair manner will own the future.
Angel of Death Artist: Evelyn De Morgan 1880 Public Realm The Angel of Death (“AOD”) comes for another asylum seeker at the border. American border policies have needlessly and heedlessly created “full employment” for the AOD!
Arelis R. Hernandez, Mariana Dias, Danielle Volpe report from Eagle Pass, TX for WashPost:
“If they’ve been in the water awhile, their skin gets pruned and webby and starts to peel off. Their eyes, nose and mouth get swollen,” [Sgt. Aaron] Horta said with a far-off look in his eyes. “For a while, I couldn’t sleep.”
By the end of 2022, Horta had recorded 225 deaths. He said it bothers him when no one claims a body, so he tries to do what he can. This past Thanksgiving, 11-year-old Cristal Tercero Medrano of Nicaragua drowned while wearing a bright-yellow Tweety Bird sweater. Horta worked with Border Patrol agents to identify her. Not long after, they found the girl’s family. Relatives sent in a photo of Cristal wearing the same yellow sweater.
“I get mad, as the father of a little girl,” Horta said. “There should be a process that isn’t the river. It gets to me, but I have to be a professional.”
. . . .
As she swiped through the images in her photo album, she landed on one of a boy in his late teens who had been in the river so long that the current had wiped the features of his face away. In another, the braces inside the mouth of a sun-scorched child were still visible. Behind [Justice of the Peace Jeannie] Smith were rows of folders detailing each death.
“River. River. Ranch. Ranch,” she said as she thumbed through the files. “John Doe. Jane Doe. John Doe. Fetus, the mother gave birth at the river, but the baby didn’t survive. They come from everywhere. I say a little prayer for each one.”
. . . .
“There’s no dignity in this,” [forensic scientist Kate]Spradley said. “But this is what our state deems acceptable.”
. . . .
As for the total fiction that immoral politicos dishonestly present (and the “mainstream media” too often mindlessly and uncritically repeats) that “deterrence — even by death” will stop forced migrants from seeking legal refuge:
[Evelin Gabriella] Gue [of Guatemala] said she and her relatives are still struggling with denial and hoping that the body Texas officials found was not her mother. They want her home, if for nothing more than to be absolutely sure it is her as they grieve. Consular officials have confirmed to the family that it is her body, though they have not submitted DNA for further verification.
Cú Chub’s family is still in debt. To pay off the loan they took out for her to migrate, they may soon make the same journey that cost them their matriarch.
So much for the deadly, irresponsible “bipartisan BS” spouted by politicos who have lost their humanity and their sense of decency!
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Everyone should read the stomach-churning complete report at the link.
It has lots of dramatic color photography, so folks can get “face to face” with this preventable human carnage. These are the truths and consequences that should — but aren’t —being heard and heeded as border enforcement is discussed.
For the same amount, or likely much less, that governments at all levels are squandering on uncoordinated “proven to fail, illegal, gonzo enforcement and false deterrence,” that enriches cartels and human smugglers while killing legitimate refugees and harming our national psyche, the U.S. could build a first-class, timely, legally compliant, processing and resettlement system for forced migrants here and abroad that would reduce unnecessary border tragedies while capitalizing on the positive power of migration in today’s world.
“Gagged” Garland’s DOJ has taken extreme steps to stop Immigration Judges from publicly criticizing his dysfunctional Immigration Courts! PHOTO: Public Domain via Creative Commons
Joe Davidson, “Federal Insider,” from p. 2 of today’s WashPost (print edition):
. . . .
In a February email to New York-based immigration Judge Mimi Tsankov, the union president, and Judge Samuel Cole, the union’s executive vice president in Chicago, Sheila McNulty, the chief immigration judge in the department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), said they are prohibited from making public statements “without supervisory approval and any Speaking Engagement Team review your supervisor believes necessary.”
That warning came after Tsankov in October told a Senate Judiciary immigration subcommittee hearing that “Democrat and Republican administrations share the failure of the DOJ’s immigration court management,” saying “immigration courts have faced structural deficiencies, crushing caseloads, and unacceptable backlogs for many years.” Matt Biggs, president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), NAIJ’s parent union, cited Tsankov’s congressional testimony as an example of giving “judges a voice” that’s now silenced.
McNulty referred to a controversial and hotly contested Trump administration action that led to the decertification of the immigration judges’ union, when she wrote “any bargaining agreement … that may have existed previously is not valid at present.”
On Nov. 2, 2020, the day before Trump, who waged war on federal unions, lost his reelection bid, the Federal Labor Relations Authority ruled that immigration judges are management employees precluded from union representation. That means, according to McNulty, they cannot speak out as union leaders because she considers their association to be a “group” and not a recognized labor organization. IFPTE has asked the Biden administration to reverse the immigration review office’s “inappropriate and misguided application of the agency speaking engagement policy.”
This must be an embarrassment to proudly pro-union President Biden, who reversed other anti-federal labor organization policies put in place under Trump.
McNulty’s action drew heated reaction from three Republicans who often vote against union interests. “The Committee takes seriously the Department’s effort to silence immigration judges,” wrote Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), chairmen of the House Judiciary Committee and its immigration subcommittee, respectively. In a letter to the attorney general, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said any effort “to silence immigration judges … is absolutely unacceptable.”
Grassley also noted that McNulty’s order “failed to include the anti-gag provision as required by law.”
That’s a key point in the Office of Special Counsel’s notice.
. . . .
[IFPTE President Matt] Biggs called the Justice Department office’s policy “an outrageous act of censure and an attack on freedom of the press and transparency.”
“Intentionally or not,” he added, the directive “resulted in a not-so-subtle message to rank-and-file immigration judges to think carefully before talking to congressional lawmakers as whistleblowers or otherwise.”
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Hon. Mimi Tsankov President, NAIJ — She “blew the whistle” on the continuing “bipartisan due process mess at EOIR” during recent Congressional testimony. Her “DOJ handlers” were not amused!
Read Joe’s complete column at the above link.
Both Parties, Congress, the Executive, and the Article III Courts share blame for the current untenable mess at EOIR, where Due Process, fundamental fairness, quality control, expertise, and practical efficiency are mere afterthoughts, at best! Although there is no sign that it will happen in the near future, the answer is clear and has been for decades: Congress must put aside partisan differences, stop “jockeying for advantage,” and create an independent Article I Immigration Court with a merit-based selection system for judges and professional court administration. Then, let the system work and the chips fall where they may!
You can’t “run” a court system like a “Vatican-style” bureaucratic agency! How many times does that have to be proved for Congress to finally act? Yes, it’s a “big deal!’ Probably the biggest, most widely ignored, most achievable, most important (millions of lives and futures are literally at stake here) piece of solving the “immigration puzzle!”
Catherine Rampell Opinion Columnist Washington Post PHOTO: Linkedin
Catherine writes:
. . . .
Perhaps most distressing for Democrats, when survey respondents are asked to rate Biden against the likely GOP presidential nominee, Biden fares poorly.
They remember the economy under Trump as being much better than the economy is today, CBS polling found. The last year of Trump’s presidency, when unemployment reached its highest level since the Great Depression, apparently doesn’t count, or has been forgotten.
Voters are also more than twice as likely to say that Trump’s policies helped them personally as they are about Biden’s work, the New York Times-Siena poll found.
And when asked whether a second term from either candidate would lead prices to go up or down, voters are more than twice as likely to believe Trump would push prices down as they are for Biden, per the CBS poll.
This is astounding. Leaving aside the faulty premise of that question — the overall price level almost never goes down; it merely rises more slowly — Trump’s policy agenda would likely worsen inflation. Why? Consider his main economic proposals:
• An additional 10 percent tax on all global imports, plus 60 percent on Chinese goods. As I’ve cited before, four separate studies found that the costs of Trump’s prior tariffs were borne mostly or entirely by Americans via higher prices.
• A reduction in the labor supply by slashing levels of both illegal and legal immigration. For instance, Trump would not only deport much of the agricultural workforce that’s undocumented; he also plans to dismantle the visa program that allows seasonal agricultural workers to come here legally. Wait until you see what that does to produce prices.
• Expansions of the federal deficit through more unfunded cuts to corporate and capital gains taxes (both of which disproportionately affect higher earners). Federal spending would likely rise, too, based on Trump’s (pre-pandemic) record.
• Kneecapping the Federal Reserve, the politically independent agency tasked with maintaining price stability.
Whatever you think of Biden’s record on inflation — and I have some grumbles, mostly related to Biden’s refusal to reverse his predecessor’s policies — each of Trump’s proposed measures would make inflation worse on the margin.
Don’t take my word for it. Analysts at Evercore ISI, an investment banking firm, recently analyzed the first three items above and forecast that another Trump term (relative to another Biden term) would likely require higher interest rates to counteract inflationary pressures. Likewise, Goldman Sachs Economic Research recently wrote a note to clients warning that the potential politicization of the Fed under another Trump administration would raise inflation risks.
Trump has claimed that economic and financial improvements thus far (including record-high stock markets under Biden) are because of his influence, or at least anticipation of his return. This is ludicrous, yet a large portion of the public seems receptive to this message — amnesiac about how he ended his presidency and blissfully unaware of what he’d do if granted another term.
This should be a wake-up call for journalists, who must do a better job of explaining the policy choices Americans face. It’s also a warning for voters, who must think through those choices more critically.
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Read Catherine’s full column at the link.
It appears that many of those polled don’t WANT to understand the realities of the economy. They prefer to regurgitate fictional “sound bites” fed to them by MAGA and the media!☹️
That Biden is head and shoulders above Trump on the economy should be little surprise despite “popular myths” and “false narratives” of GOP economic success. Historically, “By virtually every objective measure, Democrats do better. It’s not even close. So why doesn’t America know it?”https://newrepublic.com/article/166274/economy-record-republicans-vs-democrats.
This is the “reward” that both parties have in mind for migrants who have helped our economy thrive through difficult times. Doesn’t seem right, smart, or rational! PHOTO: Public Realm
Immigration has propelled the U.S. job market further than just about anyone expected, helping cement the country’s economicrebound from the pandemic as the most robust in the world.
That momentum picked up aggressively over the past year. About 50 percent of the labor market’s extraordinary recent growth came from foreign-born workers between January 2023 and January 2024, according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis of federal data. And even before that, by the middle of 2022, the foreign-born labor force had grown so fast that it closed the labor force gap created by the pandemic, according to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
Immigrant workers also recovered much faster than native-born workers from the pandemic’s disruptions, and many saw some of the largest wage gains in industries eager to hire. Economists and labor experts say the surge in employment was ultimately key to solving unprecedented gaps in the economy that threatened the country’s ability to recover from prolonged shutdowns.
“Immigration has not slowed. It has just been absolutely astronomical,” said Pia Orrenius, vice president and senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. “And that’s been instrumental. You can’t grow like this with just the native workforce. It’s not possible.”
Yet immigration remains an intensely polarizing issue in American politics. Fresh survey data from Gallup showed Americans now cite immigration as the country’s top problem, surpassing inflation, the economy and issues with government. A record number of migrants have crossed the southern border since President Biden took office, with apprehensions topping 2 million for the second straight year in fiscal 2023, among the highest in U.S. history. Cities like New York, Chicago and Denver have struggled to keep up with busloads of immigrants sent from Texas who are overwhelming local shelters.
. . . .
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Read the rest of the article at the link.
There are also lots of practical ideas out here for fixing the asylum processing system and other helpful, humane border initiatives that don’t invest exclusively in expensive, cruel, and proven to ultimately fail “uber-enforcement only!” See, e.g.,https://immigrantjustice.org/staff/blog/solutions-humane-border-policy.
Still, politicos of both parties and most media are on a completely different page, unhappily!
“The Dems’ wrong-headed “Miller Lite” approach to immigration and the border would leave Casey scratching his head. With “major league talent” available, they have put an “amateur night at the Bijou” team on the field for what is perhaps the most important season in modern American history! PHOTO: Rudi Reit Creative Commons
As a former president of the United States excoriates immigrants for “poisoning the blood” of our country, as the governors of Texas and my current home state of Florida bus and fly migrants to points north — including my hometown, Chicago — my thoughts turn to baseball.
. . . .
While that inhospitable bunch has been villainizing migrants and refugees as a strain on U.S. resources, I have been marveling at how much foreign-born players have enlivened (and enriched) baseball in recent decades. Far from being poisoned, the sport has been rejuvenated by infusions of immigrants from Ohtani to Soto to Ronald Acuña Jr., Yordan Álvarez, Ha-Seong Kim, the Cubs’ Seiya Suzuki and so many others.
As these non-White non-Americans wow — and earn — millions with their transcendent talents, in a sport still emerging from its startlingly racist past, bigoted fictions about the “blood of our country” are being exposed. It’s true that baseball is still struggling with exploitative international recruiting practices, decreasing numbers of U.S.-born Black players and a lack of diversity among its executive ranks. Yet the increasing number of foreign-born major leaguers now counted among the best in the game’s long history dispels the self-aggrandizing myth that the United States possesses any monopoly on excellence.
The Republican presidential front-runner might argue that undocumented migrants and refugees aren’t elite athletes and are instead “animals” arriving from “s—hole countries.” But such dehumanizing insults are not only guilty of offensive fixation on national origin, ethnicity and race. They also mistake a person’s predicament for a person’s potential.
This is made plain by the origin stories of some of baseball’s biggest stars. Those same players who fashioned makeshift mitts out of milk cartons and cardboard, who rose to the game’s highest levels through arduous, harrowing and near-tragic journeys, might have languished on the other side of a barbed and militarized wall if this country’s right wing had its way.
The politicians who would build those walls, who attack immigrants for supposedly burdening our national resources, need only consider baseball’s explosive growth into a $10 billion industry and the financial value of Ohtani alone to the Dodgers — some estimate the team could make more than $1 billion off his deal over the course of a decade — to see that industries and economies thrive by inclusion, not exclusion.
Even so, ideologues seek to end inclusive practices in private industry and public education. They guarantee endless winning and new revolutions by promising to slash resources and wall off our country — all while whiffing on the most rudimentary of winning principles understood by most every baseball fan in America:
Great teams are made great by deep, diversified rosters. They are built on investment in both homegrown and international talent. And there are no curses except those that are self-inflicted by cheap, regressive thinking.
As the Republican presidential primary churns toward that party’s national convention, coincidingthis July with baseball’s annual All-Star Game, all of this will be evident to anyone ready to take a break from the campaign, take a seat in the bleachers and take in the world’s greatest ballplayers thriving at America’s game.
Jaswinder Bolina is a poet and essayist. His latest book is “English as a Second Language and Other Poems.”
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Read the full op-ed at the above link!
“Mistaking a person’s predicament for a person’s potential!” That’s exactly what Biden’s new-found attacks on asylum seekers and their advocates (his 2020 supporters!) are doing!
It’s painful to watch the errors pile up and the game slipping away from the Dems! 😣 Meanwhile, rather than being out there helping unify and re-elect Biden and Harris, advocates are marshaling their resources and considerable energy to fight tooth and nail in courts against the Administration’s apparent bone-headed intention to violate asylum law and human rights with illegal asylum bars! Energizing former core supporters to fight against your inane and immoral actions during an election year: A “strategy” that only inept, tone-deaf Dem politicos could love!
As the economy has improved and consumers have begun recognizing that improvement, Republicans have pivoted to attacking President Biden on a different policy weakness: immigration. After all, virtually everyone — Democrats included — seems to agree the issue is a serious problem.
But what if that premise is wrong? Voters and political strategists have treated our country’s ability to draw immigrants from around the world as a curse; it could be a blessing, if only we could get out of our own way.
Consider a few numbers: Last week, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released updated 10-year economic and budget forecasts. The numbers look significantly better than they did a year earlier, and immigration is a key reason.
The CBO has now factored in a previously unexpected surge in immigration that began in 2022, which the agency assumes will persist for several years. These immigrants are more likely to work than their native-born counterparts, largely because immigrants skew younger. This infusion of working-age immigrants will more than offset the expected retirement of the aging, native-born population.
. . . .
Instead, GOP lawmakers scaremonger about the foreign-born, characterizing immigration as an invasion. As Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) dog-whistled last week, “Import the 3rd world. Become the 3rd world.”
America has historically drawn hard-working immigrants from around the world precisely because its people and economy have more often been shielded from such “Third World”-like instability, which Republican politicians now invite in.
Ronald Reagan, the erstwhile leader of the conservative movement, often spoke poignantly of this phenomenon. In one of his last speeches as president, he described the riches that draw immigrants to our shores and how immigrants in turn redouble those riches:
Thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity, we’re a nation forever young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, and always on the cutting edge, always leading the world to the next frontier. This quality is vital to our future as a nation. If we ever closed the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost.
Reagan’s words reflected the poetry of immigration. Since then, the prose — as we’ve seen in the economic numbers, among other metrics — has been pretty compelling, too.
Already the media are “at it again,” most attributing Democrat Tom Souzzi’s easy win over his GOP opponent for the House seat vacated by George Santos to his “move right” on immigration. But, as Catherine suggests above, “what if that premise is wrong?”
There is certainly support for a more nuanced view, both anecdotally and in polls.“Suozzi, [a voter]said, would ‘protect us but also be fair to those who are seeking asylum.’” https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2024/02/13/new-york-district-3-special-election-george-santos/. Sadly, and outrageously, the so-called Senate “compromise” border bill that Souzzi touted and which has become the “darling” of the tone-deaf mainstream media does neither. Not even close!
Yet, supposedly responsible journalists are falling all over themselves touting the benefits to Dems of a horrible “Miller-Lite” bill that essentially would have destroyed the right to asylum while turning the border over to cartels and smugglers to exploit some of the world’s most vulnerable who are victims of our own failings. Today’s wrong-headed WashPost editorial is a particularly egregious piece of such media sophistry. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/02/14/immigration-border-suozzi-mayorkas-special/.
So, here’s a more intellectually honest “rewrite” of today’s lead editorial:
POST EDITORIAL BOARD: Death, Murder, Rape, Torture, Assault, Robbery, Extortion, Kidnapping of Hispanics, Blacks, Other Forced Migrants A Small Price To Pay For Bipartisan Deal To Outsource Migration To Gangs, Cartels, and Traffickers!
We Must Not Only “Turn Away The St. Louis,” But Torpedo It So Every Man, Woman, & Child Goes To The Bottom Where They Will Be Effectively Deterred From Ever Again Invoking Our Laws & Moral Obligations!
Nowhere, and I repeat nowhere, are the voices of those with decades of actual hands on experience working with migrants at the border, and the voices of those migrants themselves, being heard and heeded in this “non-debate” that resulted not in a “compromise” but in a “human rights giveaway.” What gives us the right to arrogantly and immorally give away rights and human lives that are NOT ours in the first place as if they were “table favors at a political fundraiser?“
As Beatriz so pointedly said:
Hanging above our heads like a Florida cockroach threatening to fly into our faces was the fact that the Biden administration, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senator Chris Murphy, and Democrats who voted for the bill had officially moved the goalpost on immigration.
Thanks to the moral vapidity of Dem politicos and the Administration the “game” for the lives, rights, future, and human dignity of asylum seekers is now being “played” between the “Good Guys’”goal line and their ten yard line! We are being offered a “choice” between “cruel and stupid” and “crueler and dumber!” Certainly, the Dems and our nation could and should do better!
Supporting fairness, orderly processing, and actions that protect asylum and the community would be a far more prudent choice for Dems than the virulent “death to asylum craze” (the unstated part of which is that it also means “death to asylum seekers”) that currently seems to be “in vogue” with both parties and mindlessly hyped by the media.
It’s quite possible that Souzzi won not because of his extreme position on asylum, but because his position was “less extreme” that that of his GOP opponent and her openly xenophobic party. This conclusion is actually supported by polls that show that while most voters understandably want “order at the border,” they also want to protect the right to claim asylum and a fair process for doing so. See, e.g., https://wp.me/p8eeJm-9hU.
There is opportunity here for Dems to change minds and create a stronger coalition for asylum seekers and other immigrants. NGO experts like Beatriz Lopez need to partner with Congressional Dems who understand asylum and the border (like Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-MI) and Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX)) to reach out and meet with Rep. Souzzi and others like him to explain practical solutions and useful changes at the border that would create order while maintaining and enhancing fair and timely asylum processing.
Beyond that, advocates must explain and model how migrants themselves can help resolve the problems facing Rep. Souzzi’s district and improve the quality of life for all. They must show how migrants are “part of the solution,” perhaps, for example, by establishing public-private partnerships that would involve migrant communities in constructing high-quality, attractive affordable housing that would help the entire community. Working on various civic improvement projects might also be a mutually beneficial option.
Advocates, NGOs, and political supporters of migrants must do more than just point to graphs and cite statistics about the long-term economic and societal benefits of immigration. They must actually model and create practical joint projects and expand opportunities for the benefit of migrants and the communities to which they have been relocated.
Problem-solving needs to be brought into the “here and now” rather than just being presented to U.S. communities as a vague promise of future benefits. My experience is that most people react to what’s before them today rather than than relying on a constructed view of tomorrow, now matter how attractive and statistically supported that future vision might be.
In addition to the misguided “Miller Lite nonsense” from the editorial board and, disappointingly, even the usually responsible and insightful Karen Tumulty, today’s WashPost contained useful observations from Eduardo Porter about the need to get migrants to places in the U.S. where they, their job skills, and their work ethic would be welcomed, appreciated, and useful.
But, both the Biden Administration and Congress have shamefully failed to convert this “low-hanging fruit” into reality. Even worse, that has allowed White Nationalist demagogues like Abbott and DeSantis to waste and divert millions in public funds to make the situation worse and to convert those who want to help America succeed and prosper into hapless “political footballs” being tossed back and forth between GOP nativists and wimpy Dem politicos who long-ago lost their moral bearings. Although NGOs and advocates are weary and overburdened, if they don’t take the initiative to make this happen, on at least some scale, the opportunity will be lost and the nativist myth-makers will prevail.
Only by modeling actual results in real time will we be able to demonstrate the fallacy and counterproductivity of the GOP’s nativist “burden myths.” There’s no time like the present to start!
Blitzer’s villains include “[n]umerous U.S. institutions, bureaucrats, and presidents” who supported and enabled “savage governments responsible for vast numbers of people killed — many of them poor and Indigenous.”
Blitzer has particular contempt for “one of the most ineptly titled American officials ever — the State Department’s assistant secretary for human rights, Elliott Abrams — [who] tried to suppress information about the massacre of 978 people, including 477 children, in the Salvadoran village of Mozote.” Abrams, later was convicted of misdemeanors for withholding information from Congress in connection with the Iran-Contra scandal, but was pardoned by Bush I.
Among Blitzer’s unsung heroes are “relentless US. immigration advocates,” the late Rep. Joe Moakley (D-MA) who “grasped all the nuances of U.S.-manufactured border crises,” and of course, an “array of migrants” who bravely persevered in the face of treacherous, dishonest, ill-informed, and often deadly U.S. immigration policies intended to “break them” and destroy their humanity. That disgraceful process continues today — on steroids!
The review ends on a perhaps unexpectedly optimistic note:
And yet, after reading Blitzer’s book, one can’t help but think that the impossible might be possible — that maybe, just maybe, this could be fixed. He’s not trying to lay out a set of policy solutions. He’s making a more nuanced plea, a rejection of the “selective amnesia” of politics in favor of a deeper understanding of how we — as a nation and as a region — got here.
It is a book with a “mission,” he writes, a nudge for U.S. decision-makers and a platform for voices on the other side of the border, a “kind of go-between: to tell each side’s story to the other; to find a way to bring the Homeland Security officials into the housing-complex basement; and to allow the migrants in the basement to participate, for once, in the privileged backroom conversations that decide their fate.”
Hopefully, those with the power to change things will listen.
Manuel Roig-Franzia is a Washington Post features writer and formerly served as The Post’s bureau chief in Miami and Mexico.
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Following up on the last point — the “seldom-heard and never-heeded by our politicos and media” voices of those whose lives and humanity are threatened by our failed policies, this Thursday, Feb. 15, @ 3 PM EST, Immigration Law & Justice Network & The Hope Border Institute will present a free webinar, “Stop The War On The Border: Migrants Speak:
Stop the War on the Border: Migrants Speak – Detengan la Guerra en la Frontera: Migrantes Hablan
Date & Time
Feb 15, 2024 03:00 PM in
Description
ILJ Network and our partners invite you to participate in this webinar and hear directly from migrants in the northern Mexican border and the U.S. interior on how restrictions to asylum and humanitarian parole impact their lives.
ILJ Network y compañeros de coaliciones los invita a participar en este evento virtual para escuchar directamente de migrantes, ubicados entre la parte Norte de México y el interior de los Estados Unidos, acerca de cómo dichas restricciones al derecho de asilo y de parole humanitario impactan sus vidas.
Information you provide when registering will be shared with the account owner and host and can be used and shared by them in accordance with their Terms and Privacy Policy.
This is very timely! Rarely do we hear from those whose lives, dignity, and safety are being bargained away and devalued as if they were “commodities” at the disposal of disingenuous politicos and interests who have turned their misery and desperation into “profit centers” and political rallying cries.
🏈🏆Finally, on another topic, congrats to Coach Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, the rest of the Kansas City Chiefs, and “Chiefs’ Superfan” Taylor Swift on their second consecutive Lombardi Trophy and third in five seasons.As almost everyone in sleep-deprived America knows by now, KC outlasted the SF 49ers in yesterday’s Super Bowl ending with a thrilling overtime finish 25-22!
For everyone else, including my Green Bay Packers, it’s “wait till next season!”😎
Sarah Jessica Parker will NOT be appearing in the Garland/Monaco production of “Sex And The Courthouse!” Photo by Shawn Miller/Library of Congress. Public Domain.
Law360 (February 5, 2024, 6:23 PM EST) — The U.S. Department of Justice will pay $1.2 million to resolve a suit from a former staff assistant who said a California immigration judge routinely subjected her to explicit, lewd comments and once told her he would “make her straight” if they had sex.
By Grace Elletson
This article is “paywalled.” Those with Law360 access can get all the details.
But, the final settlement agreement is public and should give you a picture of what’s happening inside Garland’s often-secretive and dysfunctional “courts.”
On January 22, 2021, two days after President Joe Biden’s inauguration, then SF Chron reporter Tal Kopan ran an extensive, well-documented expose of the widespread sexual harassment problems at EOIR, the home of the U.S. Immigration Courts at the USDOJ. The story was picked up by other publications. Also, it was highlighted in that day’s edition of “Courtside,” along with a strong suggestion for immediate action addressed to incoming AG Judge Merrick Garland and AAG Vanita Gupta (a former, now very former, “civil rights maven”), both of whom had been nominated but not yet confirmed. Seehttps://immigrationcourtside.com/2021/01/22/🇺🇸⚖%EF%B8%8Fnote-to-judge-garland-and-vanita-gupta-misogyny🤮-is-running-rampant-in-the-eoir-courts-soon-to-be-your/.
Tal Kopan, Deputy Washington Bureau Chief for the Boston Globe. As a reporter for the S.F. Chron in 2021, she ripped the covers off massive sexual harassment problems at EOIR.
Lisa Monaco, Deputy AG. In apparent response to Kopan’s expose, Monaco established a committee to look into sexual harassment at EOIR and the rest of DOJ. But, not surprisingly, the recent $1.2 million settlement with a former EOIR female staff member shows that complaints languish, resolutions are opaque, and wronged individuals have to force action by suing in Federal Court! Official USG Photo, Public Realm
It now appears that Monaco’s efforts at reform have been just as lackadaisical as her implementation of Biden’s Executive order on regulations improving the treatment of gender-based claims at EOIR and elsewhere in Government, and her and her boss’s disturbingly inept approach to EOIR reform generally!
Yet, even with clear notice of the festering problems and an opportunity to address them in a way that would “change culture,” it required the institution of a Federal lawsuit by the plaintiff to obtain action and an effective remedy, almost three years after her termination.
After years of overt anti-asylum bias and misogyny from Sessions and Barr, long suffering respondents, practitioners, and many EOIR employees expected a “due process/good government renaissance” under former Federal Judge and Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. However, despite a few improvements, Garland has “floated above” the chaos and lack of quality control that daily vex and plague those trapped in his dysfunctional, hopelessly backlogged “courts.” PHOTO: Wikipedia Commons
It’s difficult to quantify the actual costs of EOIR mismanagement by Garland and his political lieutenants. After all, how do you put a money value on wrongful deportations, denial of constitutional rights, being subjected to substandard anti-immigrant decision making, bad precedents, “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” (“ADR”) on steroids, poorly trained judges, years stuck in limbo without the relief to which you are entitled, the effect of statistics manipulated to downplay the number of legal refugees stuck in EOIR’s hellish 3 million+ backlog, “courts” intentionally located in obscure inaccessible locations within the “New American Gulag” (“NAG”) run by DHS, and the overall “customer unfriendly” and often intentionally coercive mess to which those who practice before EOIR and those whose fate is in EOIR’s hands are subjected every working day? You can’t!
Nor is the waste of finite USG resources on chronic structural inefficiencies, boneheaded schemes to expedite dockets as “deterrents,” and ill-advised “defenses of the indefensible” in Federal Courts easy to value. But, in this case, we can quantify the cost to taxpayers of Garland’s and Monaco’s poor leadership — $1.2 million!
I wonder how many qualified accredited representatives a real problem solver and due process innovator like Professor Michele Pistone at VIISTA Villanova could train with that kind of money?
The poor leadership of Garland on immigration matters and the lousy performance of EOIR continue to be drags on the Biden Administration and our justice system. It didn’t have to be this way!
No Longer in the Cast: Former Associate AG Vanita Gupta, who left DOJ after three years of “failing to connect the dots” among civil rights, the rule of law, and the glaring violations of human rights and due process taking place at EOIR and the rest of the immigration bureaucracy. Literally, these abuses took place right under her nose, but apparently below her radar screen!
During Gupta’s tenure, the already horrible treatment of asylum seekers and other migrants of color within EOIR and the immigration bureaucracy actually deteriorated in many ways. Gupta is a sad, yet classic, example of what routinely happens to progressives once they are invited into the “halls of power” within the Government: They get co-opted into defending the status quo and the dangerous fiction of “revolution by evolution.” See, e.g., Perry Bacon, Jr., https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/02/06/equity-diversity-inclusion-progressivism-limits/.
Just ask neo-Nazi Stephen Miller how “revolution” really works! He spent every day of his tenure in the Trump Administration single-mindedly working to dehumanize and demonize immigrants, particularly those of color and women, and to strip them of their already overly-limited rights. He paid no attention whatsoever to criticism, naysaying, and resistance from within or without. He took every “defeat” in Federal Court as an invitation to do something even worse and more outrageous.
While Gupta, despite her lofty position and civil right creds, was unable to materially improve the situation of migrants, Miller undid decades of progress on due process, racial justice, gender justice, and good government. Much of the damage he inflicted remains imbedded in the system, at DOJ, DHS, and elsewhere, as do many of those who willingly and enthusiastically assisted him.
The contrast between Gupta’s and Miller’s accomplishments and government “legacies” is a stunning illustration of the difference between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to immigrants’ rights, human rights, and racial justice — the fundamentals of governing. Democrat “political strategists” are belatedly “wondering and wandering” what to do about an “enthusiasm gap” with their core progressive voters who put Biden and Harris in office. The answer is staring them right in the face: Results matter!
We all have heard the story about the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. the night before he was killed. How he’d seen the promised land and might not be with us when we got to the mountaintop. It’s important that we remember King incorporated the good Samaritan story into his speech.
He was in Memphis to aid sanitation workers, who were marching for a livable wage and safe working conditions. He went despite threats to his life and the fact that other civil rights leaders were present to march along with 1,300 Black workers on strike. He went because if not him, who? Here’s where he incorporated a Bible story we’ve heard before.
“And so the first question that the Levite asked was, ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But then the good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’
“That’s the question before you tonight. Not, ‘If I stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to all of the hours that I usually spend in my office every day and every week as a pastor?’ The question is not, ‘If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?’ ‘If I do not stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?’ That’s the question.”
King ended his speech by emphasizing the work we all need to do together to make this nation great, working toward justice not just for ourselves but for all those along the road we come across who require it.
“Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation. And I want to thank God, once more, for allowing me to be here with you.”
This is what I want to remember and honor this Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Jill McKibben, Reston
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Compare this message of self-sacrificing kindness toward fellow humans with the GOP “race to the bottom” taking place today during the totally overhyped and over-covered Iowa caucuses! (One more breathless account of the “enthusiasm gap” among Haley voters — not to mention her double-digit deficit in the endless “up to the minute” polls — could make a person want to puke.🤮)
There, dominant front-runner Trump promises not a better, fairer, more humane America for all, but rather a selfish, grievance-filled, program of hate, revenge, retribution, dehumanization, and exclusion on his “enemies!” And, his floundering GOP “rivals” promise the same nasty, deeply anti-American, agenda, but without the “distraction” of Trump’s “personality.” Hardly a winning message! If Iowa GOP voters want a true bottom-dweller, and it appears they overwhelmingly do, why not go with the “original” rather than “semi-sanitized imitations?”
Thank goodness for NFL playoff games today which should allow the rest of us to avoid the networks insipid “Iowa coverage!”
In the 18 months since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, Republican officials have had ample opportunity to prove they’re not merely antiabortion but also pro-child. They keep failing.
GOP politicians across the country have found new and creative ways to deny resources to struggling parents and children. Take, for instance, the summer lunch program.
Under a new federal program, children who are eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches can also receive food assistance during the summer. The policy, created as part of the bipartisan budget deal in 2022, gives eligible families $40 per month per child, or $120 total over the summer. It often works essentially as a top-up for food stamps, since these families must buy more groceries when their children lose access to nutritious school meals when classes go out of session. (It’s similar to a temporary program offered during the pandemic, though it’s much less generous.)
The federal government pays the entire cost of the benefits associated with this new food program and half the administrative costs. The program isn’t automatic, though; states had to opt in by Jan. 1.
Republican governors across 15 states chose not to, as my Post colleague Annie Gowen reported. Up to 10 million kids will be denied access to this grocery aid as a result.
Why have these governors rejected food assistance, even amid soaring grocery prices and pledges to help families strained by inflation?
Some states, such as Texas and Vermont, cited operational or budgetary difficulties with getting a new system running in time for this summer. These obstacles could presumably be surmounted in future years. In other states, GOP politicians expressed outright disdain for the program.
Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen, for instance, said of the new program, “I don’t believe in welfare.” A spokeswoman for Florida’s Department of Children and Families cited vague unspecified fears about “federal strings attached.”
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds suggested there was no point in giving this grocery assistance to food-insecure children “when childhood obesity has become an epidemic.”
Reynolds is apparently unaware that obesity is linked to a lack of reliable access to nutritious food and that children in food-insecure homes face a higher risk of developmental problems. This suggests withholding this nutritional assistance hurts not only the state’s children today but also its workforce tomorrow.
This is hardly the only time GOP politicians have worked to swipe food from the mouths of hungry children — and their moms.
. . . .
Indeed, if a version of a child tax credit expansion ultimately materializes — and it might in the next few days — that will happen only because Democratic lawmakers explicitly held those corporate tax breaks hostage in exchange for aid to poor kids.
Republicans keep assuring the American public that they really, truly care about helping women forced into bearing children even when they’re not financially or emotionally ready to do so. They claim they want to protect youngsters and invest in their financial future.
Time for the GOP to put its money where its mouth is.
