Tag: Economy

🤯 CATHERINE RAMPELL @ WASHPOST: BIDEN IS FAR, FAR, FAR BETTER THAN TRUMP ON THE ECONOMY BY ANY OBJECTIVE MEASURE — TRUMP’S “PLATFORM” — INCLUDING ATTACKING MIGRANTS — WOULD BOOST INFLATION & IMPEDE ECONOMIC GROWTH! — “Wait until you see what [deporting the workforce] does to produce prices.”

Catherine Rampell
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.

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

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.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-07-24

Related posts:

  1. WASHPOST: Catherine Rampell Takes The Measure Of Stephen Miller’s Neo-Nazi View Of American Immigration History – Exposing A Lifelong Hater’s Knowingly False, Misleading & Existentially Dangerous Narrative!
  2. FRED HIATT @ WASHPOST: NOTE TO GOP RESTRICTIONISTS: ANTI-IMMIGRATION = ANTI GROWTH! — “A vote to choke off immigration is a vote for stagnation and decline!” – EXACTLY!
  3. LABOR DAY @ WASHPOST: The Toxic Hypocrisy Of Trump & The Restrictionists On The Labor Issue!
  4. JIM CROW WINS, AMERICA LOSES, AGAIN — WHITE NATIONALIST CLOWN-IN-CHIEF 🤡 HALTS IMMIGRATION TO DIVERT ATTENTION FROM MASSIVE FAILURE OF GOVERNANCE, AS FECKLESS DEMS PROTEST! — Announced By Tweet At Time When Borders Closed Anyway — A “pathetic attempt to shift blame from his Visible Incompetence to an Invisible Enemy,” Says Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) 😰👎🏻

😎👍 MAINE REJECTS  “BEGGAR THY NEIGHBOR” PHILOSOPHY IN FAVOR OF HELPING EVERYONE DO BETTER!

Op-Ed From The Portland Press Herald:

https://www.pressherald.com/2023/08/05/commentary-during-turbulent-times-maine-invests-in-its-people/

Commentary: During turbulent times, Maine invests in its people

During the latest legislative session, much was done to ensure that prosperity is within reach of all Maine citizens and residents.

BY LUISA S. DEPREZ AND LISA MILLER SPECIAL TO THE PRESS HERALD

The times in which we live are, and have been, difficult. Turbulence confronts us at every corner, upon every turn. Around us things are constantly changing – economically, politically, medically, socially. There is too often too little upon which to rely to attain and maintain a degree of certainty in one’s life.

As we emerge from the COVID pandemic, we find its effects lingering in large workforce and societal shifts: lost jobs, lost day care, essential care workers leaving the workforce, older workers retiring early or moving into part-time work to stay afloat, small businesses closing, women leaving jobs to care for young, sick and elderly family members, people moving to and from communities, and rents and housing prices skyrocketing. These effects persist; regaining some degree of stability will take time.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Luisa S. Deprez is professor emerita of sociology and the Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine. Lisa Miller is a former legislator who served on the Health and Human Services and Appropriations and Financial Affairs committees. They are members of the Maine chapter of the national Scholars Strategy Network, which brings together scholars across the country to address public challenges and their policy implications.

Yet we now see a glimmer of hope, a light at the end of the tunnel. Definite improvements in the overall economy are emerging: unemployment rates are at a historic low, housing starts are increasing, the manufacturing sector has seen an increase in orders for the past few months, consumer confidence has risen dramatically, and inflationary pressures are subsiding.

Maine’s policymakers are now tasked with ensuring that Mainers share in that rebound – that families and communities can build new pathways to prosperity and well-being. Enhancing and promoting prosperity must be the primary concern of policymakers and elected officials.

Classic views of “prosperity” usually refer to economic success and building wealth. But broader definitions of prosperity include becoming or remaining strong and healthy and flourishing. In other words, thriving. Yes, individual initiative and responsibility is critical to building prosperity, but the assurance to do so is rarely achievable in the absence of government support. Nor is success sustained without such support.

Policymakers and state officials know this well, as seen in recent bills and initiatives that emerged from this past legislative session:

• Workers can take paid family leave to combat illness or care for a loved one.

• New child tax credits provide additional support to low-income families.

• Older Mainers will receive financial support for medical costs and property tax bills.

• Child care gets a boost through improved wages and broader subsidies.

• More affordable-housing initiatives were funded.

• A new business incentive program was created.

• A workforce training tax credit will help employers grow the skill level of Maine workers.

• Additional support for emergency food and shelter was funded.

These achievements should be celebrated as they will certainly contribute greatly to the rebound necessary for individuals, communities, and the state to regain some of the losses.

But there was much left undone to build prosperity for everyone. The Wabanaki nations are still denied rights and protections; immigrants continue to be denied access to MaineCare; health care costs are even more burdensome for an increasing number of Mainers; pay disparities by gender and race remain; agricultural workers continue to be exempt from basic labor laws; workers with low salaries remain ineligible for overtime, and corporate loopholes and tax-avoidance prevail, leaving communities to carry the load for citizen and community investments.

During this legislative session, many organizations and individuals lobbied tirelessly to ensure that prosperity is within reach of all Maine citizens and residents. Both Gov. Janet Mills and the Legislature responded with investment of tax dollars to help everyday people stay in their jobs or seek new ones, become healthier, and be more productive.

Political and moral philosopher J.S. Mill would argue that “societies tend to flourish when individuals have a wide scope for directing the course of their own lives.” Many of the bills passed by the Maine Legislature do just that. But more needs to come. We are not done.

************************
Governance for the common good is what it’s supposed to be all about!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-07-23

Related posts:

  1. 🇺🇸LOOKING FORWARD TO JAN 20: How The Biden Administration Can Reach Out To Rural America & Bring Our Nation Back Together! — Rural & Urban Areas Need Each Other To Maximize Growth & Prosper In The Future!
  2. MAINE’S BRIGHT FUTURE IN A GLOBAL SOCIETY DEPENDS ON ROBUST IMMIGRATION & WELCOMING ATTITUDES! — Professor Joseph W. McDonnell Writes In The Portland Press Gazette
  3. “Warren Buffett on Immigration Reform: Buffett feels that immigrants (including undocumented ones) have been and continue to be a key part of our prosperity — not a part of the problem.“
  4. O CANADA: TRUMP POLICIES AID CANADIAN LOBSTERMEN AT THE EXPENSE OF MAINE! — CANADA BRACES FOR INFLUX OF “TPSers” FLEEING US!

🐝📈 IMMIGRANTS, BLACKS, HISPANICS LEAD WAY IN KEEPING ECONOMY HUMMING, RECESSION AT BAY! — “If the U.S. economy ends up having a soft landing, it will largely be because immigrants and people of color have kept entering the labor force — helping to keep production going, consumption solid and wage growth (and inflation) cooling to a more sustainable level.”

Heather LongHeather Long @ WashPost writes:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/07/09/employment-black-immigrant-workers-recession/

The U.S. labor market is on a gravity-defying streak. The June jobs report was a tad softer than expected, but the overall trend is so strong that recession fears are fading. Hiring remains solid across many industries, including construction, and companies are largely holding on to their workers.

There’s growing optimism that the country can avoid a downturn. One key reason this is possible is the surge of new workers. Nearly 4 million more people are employed now than just before the pandemic hit. That’s more families with steady incomes to spend, which helps explain the vigorous sales of everything from cars to gardening supplies. There has also been a big upshift in the labor force since the pandemic: Low-paying hospitality employment still hasn’t recovered, as workers have traded up to higher-paying business, health-care and warehouse work. This has brought another boost to incomes and an important mental shift as more workers who used to hop from job to job now see themselves on a steady career path.

. . . .

In contrast, over 2 million more Hispanics are employed now, over 800,000 more Asian Americans and over 750,000 more African Americans. This same trend played out just before the pandemic. Companies were also complaining then that they could not find workers, and experts were saying the nation was at “full employment.” Yet month after month, Black and Hispanic people (largely women) kept entering the labor force and getting jobs. It’s also notable that over 2 million more foreign-born people are employed now than before the pandemic. This means that more than half of the new workers have been immigrants.

If the U.S. economy ends up having a soft landing, it will largely be because immigrants and people of color have kept entering the labor force — helping to keep production going, consumption solid and wage growth (and inflation) cooling to a more sustainable level.

What’s going on is partly a result of low unemployment, what economists often dub a “tight” labor market. Black and Hispanic people often do not get hired until late in a recovery. In the past year, there has also been a strong uptick in jobs in government and health care, sectors in which women of color have historically found employment opportunities. Employers have also expanded their hiring searches, improved pay and benefits, and removed requirements for college degrees for many positions. All of this has helped expand opportunities. This past spring, for the first time, Black Americans were as likely to be employed as White Americans.

“There is sufficient demand that employers aren’t discriminating. They need workers,” economist William Spriggs told me in a conversation shortly before his death last month.

Spriggs spent years pointing out that too many experts were overlooking how many more people of color were ready to work if only employers would give them a chance and the jobs weren’t dead-end ones. As other economists were stunned by the labor market in recent months, especially the gains for Black people, Spriggs had a different take. “It’s not that the labor market is ‘overheated,’” he said. “It’s that the labor market is getting closer to how it’s supposed to work in a textbook.”

. . . .

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

Read Heather’s full article at the link.

Immigrants and minorities continue to over-perform for America! Not surprising to many of us. Just recently, there was an article in the LA Times about the outsized role of immigrant women, many from Ukraine, in boosting the U.S. labor market. https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2023-07-06/new-influx-of-refugees-help-cushion-an-american-economy-strapped-for-workers.

Yet, these groups receive little credit, to a large extent because of racist myths perpetrated and spread by GOP nativists like DeSantis, Trump, Abbott, Miller, Bannon, and many others. Too often these myths and intentionally misleading statements are accepted at “face value” by the media. 

With a tight labor market, one might well ask why the U.S. is spending billions trying to detain and discourage refugees from applying for asylum at the border? Why are we dumping on individuals who, despite the mischaracterizations by both parties, are “trying to do things the right way” by applying through the legal asylum system?

Seems like the resources would better be devoted to figuring our how to fairly and generously process refugees, asylees (an important source of legal immigration), and other immigrants in a fair, robust, and timely manner, both at the border and abroad! Get these folks into legal, work authorized status faster so that they can contribute and help our economy grow!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-11-23

Related posts:

  1. MLK DAY 2018 — DR. KING’S DREAM OF AN AMERICA CELEBRATING EQUALITY & RACIAL HARMONY IS UNDER VICIOUS ATTACK BY TRUMP, PENCE, SESSIONS, AND A HOST OF OTHERS IN TODAY’S WHITE NATIONALIST ENABLING GOP — Who Is Going To Fight To Reclaim The Dream, & Who Is Going To “Go Along To Get Along” With The 21st Century Version Of Jim Crow?
  2. 👹🎃HALLOWEEN HORROR 🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️👎🏻REICHSREPORT: GRUPPENFUHRER MILLER REVEALS “REICHSPLAN” FOR EXTERMINATION OF IMMIGRATION, ASYLUM, REFUGE BY EXECUTIVE DECREE!  — “The Final Solution??”  — Parents, Protect Your Kids, Families, & Your Country From This Grotesque Un-American Monster!
  3. 🏴‍☠️CLOSING THE BORDER TO LEGAL ASYLUM SEEKERS IS A VIOLATION OF BOTH DOMESTIC & INTERNATIONAL LAW — It’s Neither Something To Tout (Biden Administration) Nor A Solution (GOP) (Except, Perhaps, In The “Hitlerian” Sense) — Our Inability To Solve A Humanitarian Situation By Acting Lawfully, Sensibly, & Humanely Is A Sign Of Gross National Weakness Spurred By Unwillingness To See The Human Tragedies We Are Promoting! — And The Lousy, Misleading, & Tone-Deaf Reporting By The Some Of The “Mainstream Media” Is Making It Worse! — Leon Krauze & Suzanne Gamboa With Simple Truths About Human Migration That Neither Pols Nor Nativists Want You To Hear! — PLUS BONUS COVERAGE: Friday Mini-Essay: “Degrading Ourselves As A Nation Won’t Stop Human Migration”
  4. PAUL WALDMAN @ WASHPOST: Why True Bipartisan Immigration Reform In Our National Interest Will Require “Regime Change:” “[I]t’s highly unlikely that we’ll achieve such reform, even reform most Republicans could live with, without both houses of Congress and the White House in Democratic hands. But that will happen sooner or later. Then we’ll see if we can get closer to a solution that everyone can live with over the long run.”

⚖️ THE GIBSON REPORT — 11-07-22 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Managing Attorney, NIJC — HEADLINERS: Analysts Agree: Immigrants Are “Political Toast” Regardless of Midterms’ Outcome — Neither Party Sees Legal Immigration, Human Rights, Rule of Law, Racial Justice As “Electoral Winners!” — Garland’s DOJ “On A Roll” In Courts Of Appeal, Snuffing Asylum Claims in 2d (2x), 3rd, 8th, & 9th Circuits!

Elizabeth Gibson
Elizabeth Gibson
Managing Attorney
National Immigrant Justice Center
Publisher of “The Gibson Report”

pastedGraphic.png

 

Weekly Briefing

 

This briefing is designed as a quick-reference aggregation of developments in immigration law, practice, and policy that you can scan for anything you missed over the last week. The contents of the news, links, and events do not necessarily reflect the position of the National Immigrant Justice Center. If you have items that you would like considered for inclusion, please email them to egibson@heartlandalliance.org.

 

CONTENTS (jump to section)

  • NEWS
  • LITIGATION & AGENCY UPDATES
  • RESOURCES
  • EVENTS

NEWS

 

Analysts Don’t Expect Significant Changes in Immigration Policy After the Midterms

VOA: The three analysts said that no one is willing to form a framework to write immigration legislation because they do not see an electoral advantage. See also Democrats Twist and Turn on Immigration as Republicans Attack in Waves; Canada plans record immigration targets amid labour crunch.

 

Attention Travelers: New Rules Will Require More Caution When Entering USA

Forbes: Evidently, USCBP is eliminating the passport entry stamp to streamline the entry process. So now, foreign nationals will only have access to the Form I-94 website as proof of their lawful immigration status.

 

Abrupt New Border Expulsions Split Venezuelan Families

NYT: The decision to expel Venezuelans under a pandemic-era policy that allows swift expulsions, previously applied mainly to Mexicans and Central Americans, has had the unintended effect of trapping many Venezuelan families on opposite sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. See also Tougher US Asylum Laws Trigger Drop in Venezuelan Migrants Traveling Through Panama; Migrants Encounter ‘Chaos and Confusion’ in New York Immigration Courts; Nearly 500 Venezuelans admitted to U.S., thousands approved via new plan.

Accounts of migrants’ documents being confiscated by border officials prompt federal review

CBS: The department confirmed the review when asked to respond to accounts from migrants who told “60 Minutes” that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials along the U.S.-Mexico border kept their documents, despite agency policy instructing agents to return migrants’ personal property unless they are fraudulent.

 

130+ Civil Rights Groups Call On President Biden To Include Immigrants In Pardon Process

NIJC: More than 130 immigration, criminal justice, and civil rights organizations released a letter today urging the Biden administration to include immigrants in the pardon process.

 

Over 100 Orgs Want Visits For Detained Immigrants Restored

Law360: More than 100 immigrant rights organizations are urging the Biden administration to fully reinstate visitation at immigration detention facilities, saying in a Thursday letter that visitation is crucial for detainees’ mental health and monitoring human rights violations.

 

ACLU condemns Texas Border Patrol agents’ use of pepper balls against protesting migrants

SA Current: The ACLU is condemning the actions of U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents allegedly caught on video firing pepper balls at a group of Venezuelan migrants protesting along the banks of the Rio Grande River near El Paso.

 

LITIGATION & AGENCY UPDATES

 

2nd Circ. Won’t Review Honduran Man, Son’s Asylum Request

Law360: The Second Circuit on Wednesday declined to review a decision denying an asylum application from a Honduran man and his son who claim they will be killed by gang members if they return home, finding the Board of Immigration Appeals properly reviewed the immigration judge’s decision.

 

2nd Circ. Won’t Revive Ecuadorian’s Asylum Bid

Law360: The Second Circuit on Tuesday backed the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeal’s decision to apply a persecution motive standard used in asylum requests to an Ecuadorian’s withholding of removal request, saying it was reasonable for the agency to do so.

 

3rd Circ. Nixes Asylum Over Evangelical Christianity Link

Law360: The Third Circuit on Tuesday knocked down a Guatemalan man’s asylum bid after concluding he failed to back up his fears of violence in the Central American nation based on gang recruitment efforts and his rejection of gangs due to his evangelical Christian faith.

 

8th Circ. Denies Family’s Asylum Bid Over Gang Fears

Law360: The Eighth Circuit has upheld a Board of Immigration Appeals ruling that denied a family asylum based on alleged gang threats for lack of evidence that the government of El Salvador could not or would not protect them.

 

9th Circ. Upholds Ruling Denying Bisexual Man Asylum

Law360: A Mexican citizen who said police and criminal gangs would torture him for being bisexual and suffering from mental illness if he is deported a third time

 

9th Circ. Backs Juvenile Immigrant Adjudication Deadline

Law360: The Ninth Circuit on Thursday backed an order requiring U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to adjudicate Special Immigrant Juvenile petitions within 180 days, rejecting the government’s argument that a lower court relied on “stale evidence” and disregarded hardship considerations.

 

States Cry Foul Over Steep Drop In Title 42 Haitian Expulsions

Law360: Republican state attorneys general accused the Biden administration of violating an injunction requiring it to repel migrants from the border under pandemic-era restrictions, saying a sharp drop in Haitian expulsions indicated the administration was selectively lifting the so-called Title 42 border block.

 

DHS Begins Limited Implementation of DACA Final Rule

AILA: On 10/31/22, DHS began limited implementation of the DACA final rule. USCIS will continue to accept and process applications for deferred action, work authorization, and advance parole for current DACA recipients. Due to litigation, USCIS will accept but cannot process initial DACA requests.

 

EOIR 30-Day Notice and Request for Comments on Proposed Revisions to Forms EOIR-42A and EOIR-42B

AILA: EOIR 30-day notice and request for comments on proposed revisions to Form EOIR-42A and Form EOIR-42B. Comments are due 12/5/22. (87 FR 66326, 11/3/22)

 

EOIR 30-Day Notice and Request for Comments on Proposed Revisions to Form EOIR-31A

AILA: EOIR 30-day notice-and-comment period for proposed revisions to Form EOIR-31A, which allows an organization to seek accreditation or renewal of accreditation of a non-attorney representative to appear before EOIR and/or DHS. Comments are due by 12/5/22.

 

CIS Ombudsman Introduces Revised Form for Requesting Case Assistance

AILA: The CIS Ombudsman’s Office updated the DHS Form 7001, Request for Case Assistance, used for requesting case assistance.

 

RESOURCES

 

EVENTS

 

 

To sign up for additional NIJC newsletters, visit:  https://immigrantjustice.org/subscribe.

 

You now can change your email settings or search the archives using the Google Group. If you are receiving this briefing from a third party, you can visit the Google Group and request to be added. If you receive an error, make sure you click request access.

 

Elizabeth Gibson (Pronouns: she/her/ella)

Managing Attorney for Capacity Building and Mentorship

National Immigrant Justice Center

A HEARTLAND ALLIANCE Program

224 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 600, Chicago, IL 60604
T: (312) 660-1688| F: (312) 660-1688| E: egibson@heartlandalliance.org

www.immigrantjustice.org | Facebook | Twitter

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

Supposedly, the main political issues right now are the economy and inflation. But, the economy and inflation are largely determined by the Fed, markets, global conditions, weather, and a certain amount of pure luck — all things beyond the direct control of the political branches of the USG.  

As mentioned by Chuck Todd on last Sunday’s NBC “Meet the Press,” many experts say that the most effective tool that the Administration and Congress have to improve the economy without triggering a recession is to increase legal immigration — sooner rather than later. But, neither party is interested. The GOP sees an anti-immigrant stance as a key to political success. And, the Dems are “actively disinterested” in the issue. So, the opportunity passes.

But, the reality is that, in the long run, no amount of shipping containers, walls, prisons, family separations, deportations, exclusions to death or despair, hate rhetoric, or restrictive legal roadblocks will halt the future flow of human migration, and not incidentally, the internal relocation in America as certain areas become “unlivable.” 

According to a government report published in today’s Washington Post:

 The U.S. can expect more forced migration and displacement

Already, the authors of Monday’s report said, major storms such as Hurricane Maria, as well as extended droughts that strained lives and livelihoods, have led people to leave their homes in search of more-stable places.

In the hotter world that lies ahead, they write, additional climate impacts — along with other factors such as the housing market, job trends and pandemics — are expected to increasingly influence migration patterns.

“More severe wildfires in California, sea level rise in Florida, and more frequent flooding in Texas are expected to displace millions of people, while climate-driven economic changes abroad continue to increase the rate of emigration to the United States,” the report finds.

Such shifts are inherently complicated and fraught.

Several Indigenous tribes in coastal regions, facing fast-rising seas, have already sought government help to relocate, but have struggled to do so without significant hurdles.

“Forced migrations and displacements disrupt social networks, decrease housing security, and exacerbate grief, anxiety and mental health outcomes,” the authors write.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/07/cop27-climate-change-report-us/

Neither political party appears serious about addressing these migration realities — already underway. The ideas that we can wall ourselves off, invest in “sending countries,” detain, and deport our way out of migration are not  “solutions.”  

Failure to act boldly and expansively on legal immigration will create a huge class of exploitable, disenfranchised, extralegal residents and plenty of work for border agents, internal police, righty judges, and jailers. It will also be a huge boon to smugglers and cartels who basically will “own” the American migration franchise. But, in the long run, building a large “underground humanity” won’t be enough to offset the “downside” of lacking a robust, realistic, orderly, legal immigration process.

Eventually, those nation-states that figure out how to harness, welcome, and distribute the power of human migration will rule the future. Right now, America’s leaders, of both parties, seem wedded to a “sure to fail” approach of either opposing or ignoring the realities and unlimited potential of human migration. Too bad — for all of us!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

11-08-22

Related posts:

  1. THE GIBSON REPORT— 01-02-22 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group — Garland’s Aimless Docket Reshuffling (“ADR”) Squeezes Refugees On Both Ends Of His Ludicrous Backlog, As Those Patiently Waiting Given Court Dates Nearly A Decade In The Future, While Recent Arrivals Mindlessly Rocketed To The “Front Of The Line” Struggle To Find Lawyers & Prepare Cases — Plus Other New Year News From The Dystopian World Of U.S. Immigration!
  2. 🤯👎🏽MORE CIRCUIT REJECTS FOR GARLAND & PRELOGAR — 1st & 3rd Cirs “Just Say No” To DOJ’s Ill-Advised Positions On “Theft Offense” & Derivative Citizenship!  — It’s Part Of A Larger Leadership Failure @ Garland’s Broken DOJ!
  3. ICRC: “Migration is not going to stop. If you try to prevent it or strictly regulate it, people start to pile up at the borders, which is happening in Mexico and other countries.”
  4. ⚖️ THE GIBSON REPORT — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, Managing Attorney, NIJC: Stephen Miller Was Even More Of A Disreputable Scofflaw! — 9th Halts BIA’s “Rote Formula” For Improperly Denying CAT W/O Meaningful Analysis — EOIR In Louisiana Continues To Be “Death Valley” ☠️⚰️  For Asylum Seekers:  “‘I feel that the big problem we face today is that there is a real dehumanization of the entire process,’ said Mich Gonzalez, Associate Director of Advocacy at the Southern Poverty Law Center.”

☹️👎🏽GOP’S ANTI-IMMIGRANT RANT THREATENS NATIONAL SECURITY!

 

Josh Rogin writes in the WashPost:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/02/republican-immigration-preventing-hong-kong-visas-brain-drain/

. . . .

“It’s a debate between those who think our openness as a democratic society is an advantage in the struggle with autocracies or a disadvantage,” Malinowski told me. “One of the central lessons of the Cold War was that it is an advantage. I just hope we choose the same strategy that won the Cold War.”

One thing that has changed since the Cold War is that now these skilled workers who are fleeing Russia and Hong Kong have more options. Some reports say 50,000 to 70,000 Russian tech workers fled to places such as Turkey, Georgia and the Baltic countries in the first weeks of the war in Ukraine. Hong Kong business leaders are decamping for Singapore. Canada has already expanded immigration for Hong Kongers with advanced degrees, and thousands are taking advantage.

The whole world is competing for the talents of those who are fleeing from Hong Kong and Putin’s Russia. Republicans’ excessive fear of immigration should not waste a strategic opportunity for the United States to strengthen itself and weaken its rivals at the same time. Congress should work to ensure that China’s and Russia’s losses are America’s gains.

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

Read Josh’s full op-ed at the link.

As the GOP threatens democracy, suppresses individual liberties, stymies innovation, and spreads White Nationalist fear mongering about immigrants, both documented and undocumented, they make the U.S. sound more and more like the country that “lost” the Cold War.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-04-22

Related posts:

  1. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  2. EUGENE ROBINSION @ WASHPOST & DAVID BROOKS @ NY TIMES: GOP IMMIGRATION RESTRICTIONISTS’ PROPOSALS TO CUT LEGAL IMMIGRATION LEVELS HAVE NO RATIONAL BASIS! – That’s Going To Be A Big Problem In Trying To Forge A “Compromise!”
  3. JAMELLE BOUIE @ SLATE: TRUMP, SESSIONS, MILLER & THE GOP RESTRICTIONISTS HAVE PUT GOOD OL’ 1920S RACISM AT THE FOREFRONT OF THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST IMMIGRATION AGENDA! –“What good does it do to bring in somebody who’s illiterate in their own country, has no skills, and is going to struggle in our country and not be successful? . . . That is not what a good nation should do, and we need to get away from it.” — J. “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions, Attorney General of the United States of America & Unapologetic White Nationalist With A Long History Of Racism!
  4. “CONSTITUTIONAL CASTRATION”– CATHERINE RAMPELL @ WASHPOST: HOW THE FECKLESS GOP CONGRESS IS SCREWING THE MOST VULNERABLE AMONG US BY LETTING THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TRASH THE IMMIGRATION LAWS AND END-RUN THE CONSTITUTION WITHOUT CONGRESSIONAL PARTICIPATION! – “The Trump administration keeps scolding desperate immigrants to shape up and “follow the law.” When will cowardly members of Congress insist that the president do the same?”

😎🗽👍🏼 HOW MAINE HELPS ASYLUM SEEKERS HELP THEMSELVES & HUMANITY — It’s A “Win-Win” That Can Be Replicated!

uhttps://www.pressherald.com/2021/11/14/we-bring-our-dreams-with-us-all-of-us/

Eric Russell in the Portland (ME) Press Herald:

. . . .

Jobs are more plentiful and increasingly well-paying, but asylum seekers can’t work for at least six months, sometimes longer – a willing and able workforce sidelined. They also can’t qualify right away for federal assistance programs like food stamps.

Every so often, staff members hear rumblings from someone in the community who suggests that asylum seekers are being helped at the expense of others, which isn’t true.

“There isn’t anything offered to them that isn’t offered to anyone else who walks through our door,” Guthrie said. “If someone presents, we try to help them.”

. . . .

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

With chronic labor shortages, Maine has benefitted greatly from doing the right thing, setting a great, positive example that could and should be a model for other states. Helping everyone to realize their ambitions and reach their full human potential is the way forward!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

11-16-21

Related posts:

  1. MAINE AND OTHER STATES ARE HURTING BECAUSE OF POPULATION LOSS — The Answer — More Legal Immigration Across The Board — Is Staring Us Right In The Face — But, Trump’s White Nationalist Nativist Agenda Stands In The Way Of Rational Solutions!
  2. PORTLAND PRESS HERALD: “Maine Voices: Refugees know what it means to live with uncertainty”
  3. INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HALEY SWEETLAND EDWARDS @ TIME TELLS WHAT TRUMP, MILLER, COTTON, SESSIONS, & THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST GANG DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW: Human Migration Is A Powerful Force As Old As Human History; It’s A Plus For Receiving Nations; It Won’t Be Stopped By Walls, Jails, Racist Laws, Or Any Other Restrictionist Nonsense; But, It Can Be Intelligently Controlled, Channeled, Harnessed, & Used For The Benefit Of The U.S. & The Good Of The Migrants! — “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.”
  4. NATASCHA UHLMANN: We Shouldn’t Let Restrictionist Terms & Myths Frame The “Immigration Debate” — “What if Democrats approached immigration not as something to be restricted or controlled, but as a basic human right?“

🇺🇸👍🏼🏆NEWS FROM MAINE: US OLYMPIC TEAM’S SNEAKERS MADE IN MAINE BY IMMIGRANT CRAFTSPERSONS WITH ALL-AMERICAN PRODUCTS!

Linekin Bay
Linekin Bay, Maine

Polo Ralph Lauren, Team USA’s sponsor, commissioned Rancourt & Co. in Lewiston to make the team’s sneaker for the Tokyo 2020 opening ceremony.

https://www.newscentermaine.com/article/sports/olympics/team-usas-olympic-opening-ceremony-sneakers-made-by-lewiston-maine-shoemaker/97-fab1e868-9ab6-45bb-93c4-f43a11b4e616

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

The folks saving this Maine industry and making America proud are mostly asylees from Africa. Something to remember and reflect upon the next time you hear GOP “magamorons” and White Nationalist racist nativists claim that legal asylum seekers are a “problem,” rather than a key part of the solution! Indeed, the “problem” appears to be with the GOP White Nationalist restrictionists and nativists!

I’ve personally seen how immigrants of all kinds from all places have rejuvenated Maine with their hard work, culture, adaptability, and energy. Whether it’s the checkout person at the local grocery store, the folks who run the best carry-out in town with the brilliant daughter, or the helpful associate at L.L. Bean, immigrants are a key part of what makes Maine a great place to visit or live.

Go USA! Go Immigrants!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-29-21

Related posts:

  1. MAINE AND OTHER STATES ARE HURTING BECAUSE OF POPULATION LOSS — The Answer — More Legal Immigration Across The Board — Is Staring Us Right In The Face — But, Trump’s White Nationalist Nativist Agenda Stands In The Way Of Rational Solutions!
  2. O CANADA: TRUMP POLICIES AID CANADIAN LOBSTERMEN AT THE EXPENSE OF MAINE! — CANADA BRACES FOR INFLUX OF “TPSers” FLEEING US!
  3. THE HILL: PROFESSOR (& FORMER USCIS CHIEF COUNSEL) STEPHEN LEGOMSKY ON WHY THE TRUMP/SESSIONS FALSE NARRATIVE ATTEMPTING TO DEMONIZE & CRIMINALIZE ALL IMMIGRANTS IS SO TOXIC FOR AMERICA!
  4. NATASCHA UHLMANN: We Shouldn’t Let Restrictionist Terms & Myths Frame The “Immigration Debate” — “What if Democrats approached immigration not as something to be restricted or controlled, but as a basic human right?“

THE GIBSON REPORT — 05-10-21 —Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group

Elizabeth Gibson
Elizabeth Gibson
Attorney, NY Legal Assistance Group
Publisher of “The Gibson Report”

COVID-19 & Closures

Note: Policies are rapidly changing, so please verify information with the government and colleagues.

 

EOIR Status Overview & EOIR Court Status Map/List: Unless previously specified on the court status list, hearings in non-detained courts are postponed through, and including, June 11, 2021. (It is unclear when the next announcement will be. EOIR announced 6/11 on Wed. 4/28, 5/14 on Mon. 3/29, 4/16 on Fri. 3/5, 3/19 on Wed. 2/10, 2/19 on Mon. 1/25, 2/5 on Mon. 1/11, and 1/22 on Mon. 12/28.) There is no announced date for reopening NYC non-detained at this time.

 

USCIS Office Closings and Visitor Policy

 

TOP NEWS

 

Schumer Readies Plan B to Push Immigration Changes Unilaterally

NYT: Should bipartisan talks stall, the Senate majority leader is exploring trying to use budget reconciliation to legalize millions of undocumented immigrants.

 

Immigration Courts Aren’t Real Courts. Time to Change That.

NYT Editorial Board: If the goal was to empty the United States of all those asylum seekers, Mr. Trump clearly failed, as evidenced by the huge backlog he left Mr. Biden. But the ease with which he imposed his will on the immigration courts revealed a central structural flaw in the system: They are not actual courts, at least not in the sense that Americans are used to thinking of courts — as neutral arbiters of law, honoring due process and meting out impartial justice.

 

Biden fills immigration court with Trump hires

The Hill: The first 17 hires to the court system responsible for determining whether migrants get to remain in the country is filled with former prosecutors and counselors for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as well as a few picks with little immigration experience. See also The Director Of The Nation’s Immigration Courts Has Stepped Down.

 

ICE deportations fell in April to lowest monthly level on record, enforcement data shows

WaPo: ICE deported 2,962 immigrants in April, according to the agency. It is the first time the monthly figure has dipped below 3,000, records show. The April total is a 20 percent decline from March, when ICE deported 3,716.

 

How Police “Gang Databases” Are Being Used to Wage War on Immigrants

InTheseTimes: Gang databases have drawn criticism from national civil rights groups including Human Rights Watch and Detention Watch Network, which co-signed an April 1 petition calling on the Department of Homeland Security to end its discriminatory “prioritization” practices.

 

ICE Subverting Biden’s Priorities For Detention And Deportation

Intercept: A new report sheds light on how, despite orders from the Biden administration to narrow its immigration enforcement, ICE is still casting a wide net.

 

US Officials Have Discussed Asking Mexico To Do More To Stem The Tide Of Immigrants Ahead Of Kamala Harris’s Meeting

Buzzfeed: The proposals that have been discussed include Mexico officials prioritizing repatriating adults turned back by US border officials under a controversial Trump-era policy, increasing apprehensions of immigrants moving through their country to an average of 1,000 per day, and taking in more Central American families turned around at the border, according to the documents.

 

US awards huge shelter contracts amid child migrant increase

AP: In its haste to provide new facilities, the Department of Health and Human Services awarded the largest contracts — worth more than $2 billion — to two companies and a nonprofit without a bidding process and has exempted providers from the staffing requirements that state-licensed child facilities must meet, according to HHS and federal spending records.

 

Department of Homeland Security scraps Trump-era plans to collect more biometric data from immigrants

CBS: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has scrapped plans formed under President Trump to expand the collection of biometric data — including voice prints and DNA — from anyone applying to enter the United States and their sponsors, including children.

 

Lawmakers call to defund immigration cooperation program

RollCall: Led by Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., the lawmakers warned that continued funding of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement program, known as the 287(g) program, will undermine trust in law enforcement within immigrant communities, discouraging undocumented immigrants from calling the police for help or reporting crimes.

 

Biden finally raised the refugee cap. Now comes the hard part.

Vox: After months of indecision and blowback from within his own party, President Joe Biden has finally raised the cap on refugee admissions for 2021 to 62,500 — but he has made clear he doesn’t think the US will actually admit that many people.

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/andyjsemotiuk/2021/05/10/more-immigration-best-solution-to-us-economic-decline-and-continued-world-leadership/

More Immigration Best Solution To U.S. Economic Decline And Continued World Leadership

Forbes: In their publication Room to Grow, National Immigration Forum’s president and CEO, Ali Noorani and his colleague Danilo Zak argue that the U.S. should increase net immigration levels by at least 37 percent, or about 370,000 additional immigrants a year, to prevent a “demographic deficit” stemming from low population growth.

 

San Diego County will provide immigrants with lawyers

AP: San Diego would be the first southern border county in the United States to provide legal representation for those in federal immigration custody who are facing removal proceedings, although more than 40 other places nationwide have similar programs.

 

Trump Policies And COVID Have Left Immigrant Couples Trying To Get Marriage-Based Visas In Limbo

Buzzfeed: The United States immigration system has been gutted by the pandemic — between threats of mass government furloughs during COVID, the near-complete shutdown of consular offices abroad, and former president Donald Trump’s hard line against immigration, the Biden administration has inherited not only a crisis at the southern border, but also a virtual freeze on marriage-based visa applications that has left couples stranded.

 

Democratic Mayoral Candidates Talk Issues of Importance to Immigrant Communities

Gotham Gazette: At a virtual forum on Thursday night, four of the leading Democratic candidates for mayor in the June primary weighed in on issues affecting New York City’s large immigrant population, including housing, education, employment, and participation in the political process.

 

LITIGATION/CASELAW/RULES/MEMOS

 

2nd Circ. Says BIA Wrongly Defined Asylee’s ‘Social Group’

Law360: The Second Circuit revived an asylum bid from a Guatemalan immigrant who witnessed gang violence and helped a law enforcement investigation, ruling that the Board of Immigration Appeals hadn’t properly considered whether he fell into the right social group to claim deportation relief.

 

3rd Circ. Says BIA Can Close Cases, Contrary To 2018 Rule

Law360: A split Third Circuit ruled Wednesday that the Board of Immigration Appeals and immigration judges have the authority to administratively close deportation proceedings, handing a win to a Mexican man hoping to renew his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status after being freed of criminal charges.

 

3rd Circ. Says Immigration Notice Doesn’t Need Hearing Info

Law360: The Third Circuit on Wednesday shot down a native Guatemalan’s challenge to an immigration judge’s jurisdiction over his case on the grounds that a referral notice initiating his removal proceedings did not have the date and time of a hearing, saying regulations do not require such information in that document.

 

20-Year-Old Robbery Blocks Bid For Asylum, 3rd Circ. Says

Law360: The Third Circuit on Tuesday said a more than two-decade-old robbery conviction in New Jersey constituted an aggravated felony under the Immigration and Nationality Act and thus barred a Nigerian man from avoiding deportation amid fears he would face mistreatment in the West African nation due to his bisexuality.

 

CA4 Holds That IJs Have Authority to Grant Requests for Inadmissibility Waivers Under INA §212(d)(3)(A)(ii)

The court held that DOJ’s regulations empower IJs to consider a petitioner’s application for an inadmissibility waiver under INA §212(d)(3)(A)(ii), and that an IJ’s ability to grant such a waiver is consistent with the statutory and regulatory scheme. (Jimenez-Rodriguez v. Garland, 4/29/21) AILA Doc. No. 21050433

 

CA4 Says Petitioner Failed to Exhaust Argument That Pardoned Offenses Do Not Qualify as Convictions Under the INA

Where the petitioner had been pardoned by the state of Georgia for drug and firearm offenses after DHS had sought to remove him based on his convictions, the court held that he did not exhaust his argument that pardoned offenses do not qualify as convictions. (Tetteh v. Garland, 4/27/21) AILA Doc. No. 21050432

 

CA7 Upholds Denial of Asylum to Petitioner Who Feared Retaliatory Gang Violence in Mexico

The court concluded that the petitioner had raised no arguments against the BIA’s dispositive determination that his asylum application was statutorily time-barred, and found that substantial evidence supported the BIA’s denial of withholding of removal. (Guzman-Garcia v. Garland, 5/3/21)

 

8th Circ. Says TPS Grant Does Not Constitute An Admission

Law360: An Eighth Circuit panel on Wednesday denied a Salvadoran man’s petition to avoid deportation from the United States, ruling that a grant of temporary protected status is not considered an admission for canceling removal proceedings.

 

No Error In Illegal Reentry Arrest, 8th Circ. Rules

Law360: North Dakota police officers accused of violating a Mexican man’s constitutional rights acted within their authority when they detained him during a burglary investigation on suspicion of being illegally present in the U.S., the Eighth Circuit ruled Monday.

 

Feds Say Fiance Visa Delay Suit Is Moot

Law360: The State Department urged a D.C. federal court Friday to throw out a lawsuit over the slow processing of K-1 fiance visas, arguing that the case is moot after the department issued a “national interest” exemption to aid the applicants.

 

DHS Ratifies Rule Removing 30-Day EAD Processing Requirement for Asylum Applicants

DHS issued a statement noting that Secretary Mayorkas has ratified a rule that removes the 30-day EAD processing requirement for asylum applicants. AILA Doc. No. 21050745

 

DHS Withdrawal of Proposed Rule on Eliminating Employment Authorization for Individuals with a Final Order of Removal

DHS withdrawal of a proposed rule published at 85 FR 74196 on 11/19/20, which would have eliminated employment authorization eligibility for individuals who have final orders of removal but are temporarily released from custody on an order of supervision. (86 FR 24751, 5/10/21) AILA Doc. No. 21050731

 

DHS Withdrawal of Proposed Rule on Use and Collection of Biometrics

DHS withdrawal of the proposed rule on the use and collection of biometrics in the enforcement and administration of immigration laws, which was published at 85 FR 56338 on 9/11/20. (86 FR 24750, 5/10/21) AILA Doc. No. 21050730

 

ICE Provides Updated FAQs on Sensitive Locations and Courthouse Arrests Policy

Following the issuance of new guidance limiting ICE and CBP civil enforcement actions in or near courthouses, ICE updated its FAQs on sensitive locations and courthouse arrests. AILA Doc. No. 18013142

 

EOIR Announces 17 New Immigration Judges

EOIR announced 17 new immigration judges, including one assistant chief immigration judge and six unit chief immigration judges. The notice provides the judges’ names, courts of appointment, and biographical information. AILA Doc. No. 21050630

 

EOIR Provides Information for Individuals Who Have Come to the U.S. After Waiting in Mexico for Hearings Under MPP

EOIR provided a flyer with instructions for individuals who have come to the United States after waiting in Mexico under the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP). The flyer provides information on the individuals’ responsibilities and phone numbers to reach the immigration court helpdesk. AILA Doc. No. 21051030

 

CIS Ombudsman’s Office Issues Reminder for DACA Renewals

The CIS Ombudsman’s Office issued a reminder that individuals who are eligible to renew their DACA and employment authorization may submit their renewal request between 150 days and 120 days before the expiration on their current Form I-797, Notice of Approval, and on the EAD. AILA Doc. No. 21051035

 

Presidential Proclamation Suspending Entry as Nonimmigrants of Certain Individuals Present in India Who Pose a Risk of Transmitting COVID-19

President Biden issued a proclamation suspending the entry into the U.S., as nonimmigrants, of certain individuals who were physically present in India during the 14-day period preceding their entry or attempted entry. This proclamation is effective at 12:01 am (ET) on 5/4/21. (86 FR 24297, 5/6/21) AILA Doc. No. 21043038

 

ACTIONS

 

 

RESOURCES

 

 

EVENTS

 

 

ImmProf

 

Monday, May 10, 2021

Sunday, May 9, 2021

Saturday, May 8, 2021

Friday, May 7, 2021

Thursday, May 6, 2021

Wednesday, May 5, 2021

Tuesday, May 4, 2021

Monday, May 3, 2021

 

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

Thanks, Elizabeth!

Of particular interest, and an item I haven’t previously covered, is the article from Forbes recommending that we increase legal immigration levels by at least 37% to remain competitive in the world. But, it certainly echoes and confirms things I have said on this blog.

I have talked about the total stupidity of the Trump White Nationalist war on immigration. To a lesser extent, the Biden Administration is repeating the same mistakes by illegally keeping the Southern Border largely closed, to asylum seekers, while “slow walking” both refugee admissions and a restart of our legal immigration programs.

Many of the great folks we need to get our country back on track and build for future prosperity and success are qualified refugees — asylum seekers in this case — being wrongfully turned around without due process. They are right there, on our borders, coming to us, and we’re too dense and discombobulated to reestablish a legal system to screen and admit those qualified for legal admission.

A fair, properly generous, professionally run and led, and expert-staffed asylum system could harness this power rather than not only squandering the human lives involved but wasting time and money on detention, “deterrents,” “incentives” for other nations to violate human rights, and other misguided and wasteful enforcement gimmicks.

Doubt what I’m saying? You shouldn’t! The last three decades of actual experience bear me out. We have approximately 11 million undocumented individuals in the U.S. right now. The vast, vast majority, probably about 95%, present no threat and are actually productive, often essential, contributing members of our society. 

There’s your 350,000 per year additional that we should have been legally admitting over the past three decades! Of course, it would have been better if we had screened, vetted, and processed them in a timely manner. But, that’s hard to do when 1) our legal immigraton system was designed to intentionally disregard and work against “market forces;” and 2) we’ve wasted incredible amounts of human and monetary capital on counterproductive and wasteful “enforcement gimmicks.”

That’s why it’s high time to reform our legal refugee, asylum and immigration systems to make them much more robust, realistic, and in furtherance of our true national interests, rather than a fruitless pursuit of White supremacist myths. Instead of wasting time and money on expensive, counterproductive, and divisive immigration enforcement gimmicks, immigration enforcement could be targeted at the real problems — smugglers and cartels (whose business opportunities would be diminished by a “real world” immigraton system), and identifying the relatively small number of individuals seeking admission who present an actual (rather than imagined and overhyped) threat to our nation’s safety and security. Jobs in a more rational, focused, humane, and professional immigration bureaucracy would also be attractive to a wider range of Americans seeking employment,

This is hardly a “pipe dream” unless you listen only to right wing media and Trump-type “magamoron” nativist myths. Indeed thoughtful experts and scholars across the ideological spectrum — from the Center for Migration Studies to the Cato Institute — recommend some variation of the robust, courageous, forward-looking approach to immigration I have described above. A bigger problem, as always, is getting politicians to do the right thing.

But, after four years of perhaps the biggest and most preventable failure  to deal intelligently with immigration since the end of World War II, it’s high time we tried a better approach.

Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-11-21

 

Related posts:

  1. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⚖️🗽🇺🇸FORMER DEPUTY AG DON AYER, JUDGE MIMI TSANKOV AMONG “HEADLINERS” AT TIMELY UPCOMING NY CITY BAR ASSN. EVENT: “Rule of Law Forum – Preserving the Rule of Law in an Age of Disruption” — Register Now, Right Here!
  2. 🇺🇸THE GIBSON REPORT — 11-02-20 — Prepared By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group — Trump/Miller Bogus Public Charge Rule Enjoined Again; CBP Turns Back More Than 13,000 Unaccompanied Kids Using COVID-19 As Cover For Child Abuse; John Oliver With The Incredibly Ugly 🤮 Truth About The Trump-Miller Racist Assault On Asylum & Humanity ☠️⚰️— Other News From America Teetering On The Brink After 4-Years Of Trump Regime Misrule, Cruelty, Corruption, & Undermining Of Democracy!🏴‍☠️
  3. 🗽⚖️THE GIBSON REPORT —  04-05-21 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group — Why Liz & I Are “A Team” 😎🗽 & Our Joint Message To The HNBA Last Wednesday!
  4. THE GIBSON REPORT — 05-17-21 — Compiled By Elizabeth Gibson, Esquire, NY Legal Assistance Group — Continuing To Highlight Garland’s Tone-Deaf Failure To Bring Justice, Due Process, Progressive Expertise To EOIR! — Hey Progressives & Due Process Advocates, Had Enough Of His “Amateur Night At The Bijou” Approach To EOIR? — Get Mad, Make Your Voices Heard, Demand Change, Demand Better! — Much Better!

🇺🇸LOOKING FORWARD TO JAN 20: How The Biden Administration Can Reach Out To Rural America & Bring Our Nation Back Together! — Rural & Urban Areas Need Each Other To Maximize Growth & Prosper In The Future!

Rob Riley
Rob Riley
President, Northern Forest Center
Co-Founder, Rural Development Innovation Group
Picture: Aspen Group Website

https://www.pressherald.com/2020/12/30/commentary-how-to-make-federal-policy-work-for-maine-and-other-rural-places/

Rob Riley in the Portland (ME) Press Herald:

. . . .

President-elect Joe Biden, who pledged to serve all Americans, can respond boldly to address the needs of large swaths of rural America where people feel left behind. In the first 100 days of his administration, he can prove that he wants to see real change and will act to secure broader prosperity.

Drawing on more than 20 years of working in communities across four rural states, we see actionable, specific opportunities for Biden to make federal policy work for rural places. Here’s what we recommend:

• Engage in genuine conversations in rural places about the role of the federal government. The pandemic aside, fundamental economic changes, limited career pathways and crumbling (or non-existent) infrastructure plague many rural places. These challenges require public-private partnerships, directed by local needs and leadership. Many of the federal programs designed to address the underlying issues in rural places fail because they were designed for the rural reality of 1960, not of today. Let’s get current, understand why programs aren’t working and make them better.

• Elevate rural to the level it deserves in the president’s Cabinet. Rural places are currently served through a web of programs spread across numerous federal agencies. One might think this approach would help address policy deficiencies, but in fact, when everyone is in charge, no one is. The Biden administration can send a strong message that it means business by putting someone clearly in charge of its rural agenda and creating a new Department of Rural Development dedicated to improving, centralizing, and deploying the support and services necessary for rural people and places to thrive.

• Invest in doing economic development differently in rural places. Federal employees work diligently on their mission, providing grants and other services to constituents as directed by statute. And yet, the available tools for solving complicated, systemic and immediate issues are limited. To do economic development differently – and better – we need to eliminate programs that have limited utility, expand others that focus on building capacity in rural places, increase the flexible application of federal dollars and move the measurement of economic development outcomes beyond one-dimensional (and fleeting) metrics like job creation.

• Focus on and communicate about rural-urban connections rather than the divide. Rural places don’t benefit from being talked about as a monolith, a backwater or fly-over country. Rather, we as a nation need to raise up narratives and policies that recognize differences in rural places across the country, and that celebrate and support the natural, community, and economic assets that define those communities and their relationship to nearby urban areas. The stereotype of the American dream is changing. We now have a tapestry of rural, suburban and urban, and an opportunity to focus on collective prosperity rather than competition, exclusion and negative trade-offs.

The first hundred days will show how the Biden presidency will serve all Americans. Yes, there is a pandemic raging, but the widening gulf between rural and urban, rich and poor, red and blue requires a new tone, a new path and new solutions. Let’s get to it.

Rob Riley is president of the Northern Forest Center, a regional innovation and investment partner that creates rural vibrancy across Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York. The center co-founded the national Rural Development Innovation Group with the Aspen Institute and the U.S. Endowment for Forestry & Communities.

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

Read Rob’s full article at the link.

These are great, and timely ideas. They also present an outstanding opportunity to use the power of immigration to make our country a better place for everyone.

  • Immigrant entrepreneurs, small businesspeople, and investors can pool their ideas, skills, and resources with rural communities. Innovative rural Americans can help redesign and tailor methods that have worked in other countries for the American situation.
  • Immigrants with experience in agriculture and product marketing can help alleviate some of the labor shortages in rural areas.
  • Immigrants with tech skills can partner with rural Americans to help insure that, rather than sometimes being left behind, rural areas are on the cutting edge of accessible, high speed, state of the art technology that will integrate many educational and commercial activities with those now centered in “urban hubs.” (For example, why couldn’t a high tech area in rural America where land and housing are cheaper and a skilled (or highly motivated and trainable) workforce is eager for work be just as effective as Crystal City, VA as the next big tech hub?)
  • Immigrants with health service backgrounds can assist even more rural communities in insuring that first-class healthcare (and the jobs and economic opportunities it creates) is available everywhere in America.
  • My experience is that immigrants of all types, like rural Americans, highly value education, particularly for future generations. Innovative educational programs can be developed to meet the common needs of immigrant and rural communities. 

There are just a few of the opportunities that come to mind. Obviously, I’m not a labor economist. But, I’m sure that if immigrant advocates concentrate on ways to actively engage and integrate immigrants into solving problems and improving the quality of life in rural and small-town America there are many other great opportunities for success out there just waiting to be tapped.

Immigrants have always been “part of the solution” rather than “part of the problem” in America. After four years of counterproductive unrestrained bigotry, false narratives, and hate-driven lies, its time for “truth, justice, and the American way” to come to the forefront again.

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

 

PWS

01-02-21

Related posts:

  1. NOLAN’S LATEST IN THE HILL: “Undocumented immigrants shouldn’t replace legal ones”
  2. DEBUNKING THE TRUMP REGIME’S WHITE NATIONALIST MYTHS☠️: Furthering & Protecting Immigrants’ Rights Benefits Society — Bogus “COVID-19” Visa Restrictions & Other Nativist Nonsense Enabled By Feckless Congress & Failing Courts Hurts America!
  3. O CANADA: TRUMP POLICIES AID CANADIAN LOBSTERMEN AT THE EXPENSE OF MAINE! — CANADA BRACES FOR INFLUX OF “TPSers” FLEEING US!
  4. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!

BEWARE! — BS BONANZA ON THE WAY — Don’t Be Fooled By The Trump/GOP Liefest About The “Greatest Economy Ever!” — Time To Fire The Maliciously Incompetent Exec!

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/23/opinion/trump-convention-economy.html

Steven Rattner in The NY Times:

. . . .

Job growth in July was less than half the pace of the June increase, and August figures may well show a still smaller increase or — amazingly — no job growth at all. And that’s with only 42 percent of the lost jobs having been recovered so far.

There is evidence that a second wave of layoffs and furloughs is already underway — roughly three out of five workers who had reportedly returned to work have either been let go again or been told they are at risk of being sidelined again.

Much of the damage threatens to become irreversible. According to data collected by Yelp, more than half of business closures that were temporary when the virus outbreak began are now considered permanent. More retailers have gone bankrupt in the first eight months of 2020 than in all of 2008, during the Great Recession. Across all industries, Chapter 11 filings in July surged 52 percent over the same month last year, with no end in sight.

And our economy is in even greater jeopardy because Donald Trump, who proclaims himself the greatest dealmaker in history, can’t make a deal with the Democrats on a much-needed next rescue package.

While the proposals he has tried to bring about by executive action may well be illegal, they are indisputably ludicrous in their construct: A “payroll tax cut” that isn’t a tax cut at all — and even if it were, it would be the wrong way to provide help to the average American. Special unemployment benefits of $300 per week, half the amount lawmakers provided in the first round, the CARES Act. Nothing for schools, nothing for virus testing, nothing for state and local governments.

In the business world, when an employee doesn’t perform, we fire him (although not quite the way Mr. Trump did on “The Apprentice.”)

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

Read the rest of the article at the link!

This November, vote like your life and our nation’s future depend on it! Because they do!

PWS

08-24-20

Related posts:

  1. 😰👹👺🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️🤮“DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN” — Nicole Narea @ Vox With A Glimpse Of Trump’s Second Term: American Apocalypse — Dark, Ugly, Hateful, Violent, Dishonest, Exclusionary, Stupid, Racist, Diminished, Yet Very White & Privileged — Are People Of Color & Their Allies Really Going To Stand By & Watch While Their Past & Our Future As A Strong, Creative, Tolerant, Diverse, Humane Nation Is Written Out Of History By A Racist GOP & Its Totally Wacko Yet Dangerously Evil Cult Leader?
  2. 🏴‍☠️THE TRUTH ABOUT THE “TRUMP ECONOMY” — Good For Trump Family & Other “Fat Cats” — Not So Much For Most Working Folks — Contempt For Workers Runs Deep In Today’s Elitist GOP & The Trump Kakistocracy! — PLUS BONUS COVERAGE: IMMIGRANTS & THEIR ADVOCATES NEED TO MAKE THEIR VOICES HEARD, NOW! (A “PWS Mini-Essay”)
  3. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  4. DEBUNKING THE TRUMP REGIME’S WHITE NATIONALIST MYTHS☠️: Furthering & Protecting Immigrants’ Rights Benefits Society — Bogus “COVID-19” Visa Restrictions & Other Nativist Nonsense Enabled By Feckless Congress & Failing Courts Hurts America!

🏴‍☠️ABUSE OF PROCESS: Trump Regime’s Irrational Threat To Terrorize Foreign Students Withdrawn In Face Of Widespread Bipartisan Outrage, Multiple Lawsuits, & Impending Defeat In Courts!

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-foreign-students-online-classes_n_5f0e0546c5b63b8fc10f86f4

Here’s the deal. America is reeling  from Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic, his divisive racist rhetoric, and his lack of a coherent plan for reopening schools. But, in the midst of these unresolved crises, Trump’s White Nationalist, xenophobic regime found time to issue, without consultation, absurdist rules threatening foreign students whose schools offered only online leaning because of legitimate health and safety concerns for the students, faculty, and staff.

This idiotic, illegal missive threatened to upend the U.S. higher education system and put a $40 billion hit on our economy during a period of unprecedented unemployment and economic disruption. Consequently, numerous educational institutions across America banded together, developed emergency legal strategies, and filed suits against the Trump kakistocracy in numerous Federal Courts. 

This, in turn, tied up legal resources that could have been used more productively, as well as further clogging Federal Court dockets already overwhelmed with various unnecessary suits caused by Trump’s maliciously incompetent attack on immigration. It also tied up Government resources that might better have been used solving real problems.

Faced with certain defeat and the exposition of the total stupidity, not to mention illegality, of these rules, the Trump regime backed down before the first suit even got to hearing. But, this predictable “back off” does not repair the overall damage to our nation caused by Trump’s xenophobic war on legal immigration. Catherine Rampell cogently describes it in an op-ed in the Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/14/even-with-administrations-about-face-international-student-visas-enrollment-is-still-set-plummet/

In the meantime, the problem of abuse of our legal system and the organs of Government by a maliciously incompetent Administration advancing a toxic and unconstitutional White Nationalist agenda remains unresolved. Indeed, the often tone-deaf approach of the Supremes to these gross abuses, particularly in the areas of immigration and human rights, has actually been a large part of the problem.

What could we accomplish if the time and resources now used to prevent a “rogue Government” from destroying democracy were instead devoted to developing constructive, cooperative solutions to our festering national problems? What if we harnessed the power of migration for human progress, rather than futilely and wastefully working at cross purposes with perhaps the oldest and most powerful human phenomenon?🗽⚖️

This November, say “No” to the White Nationalist Kakistocracy!

PWS

07-14-20

 

Related posts:

  1. IT’S NEVER BEEN ABOUT “LEGAL V. ILLEGAL,” “BORDER SECURITY,” “JOBS,” OR “GETTING IN (NON-EXISTENT) LINES” — The Trump Regime Has Always Been About A White Nationalist Immigration Agenda Of Hate!
  2. 😰👹👺🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️🤮“DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN” — Nicole Narea @ Vox With A Glimpse Of Trump’s Second Term: American Apocalypse — Dark, Ugly, Hateful, Violent, Dishonest, Exclusionary, Stupid, Racist, Diminished, Yet Very White & Privileged — Are People Of Color & Their Allies Really Going To Stand By & Watch While Their Past & Our Future As A Strong, Creative, Tolerant, Diverse, Humane Nation Is Written Out Of History By A Racist GOP & Its Totally Wacko Yet Dangerously Evil Cult Leader?
  3. CATHERINE RAMPELL @ WASHPOST:  “Dreamers” Are In The Front Lines Of Essential Workers — Why Is The Regime Persecuting Them? 
  4. 🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️👎🏻KAKISTOCRACY HAS CONSEQUENCES: CLIMATE MIGRATION IS ONE OF THEM! — Trump’s Stupidity & Cruelty On Immigration Climate Science, & Disease Control Promises Horrible Global Human Disaster For Future Generations — Empowering & Enabling A Moron Is Always A Very Bad Idea!  — No Idiotic Wall Or “Drill Baby Drill” Insanity Is Going To Prevent This Human Catastrophe We Are Inflicting On Those Who Follow!

CATHERINE RAMPELL @ WASHPOST: More Stupidity, Cruelty, & Racism Behind Trump’s Latest Assault on First Graders, Families, & Legal Immigration — It’s Not About Protecting American Jobs — Just The White Nationalist, Restrictionist Immigration Agenda

 

Catherine Rampell
Catherine Rampell
Opinion Columnist
Washington Post

By Catherine Rampell

June 29 at 7:16 PM ET

Last week President Trump suspended visas for huge categories of immigrants, allegedly to “protect American jobs.”

To understand how disingenuous this rationale is, consider the case of Vihaan Baranidharan.

Vihaan is stuck in India, where he went to see his sick grandmother for what was supposed to be a short visit. Thanks to Trump’s order, he’s blocked from getting the visa stamp needed to return to Dallas. But Vihaan has not taken, nor has any plans to take, any American’s job. He doesn’t have the experience to be competitive in the U.S. job market — or even sufficient vocabulary.

Because Vihaan just finished first grade.

“What risk could he pose to the U.S. economy?” pleads his mother, Sindhu Turumalla. “He is 7.”

That doesn’t matter to the Trump administration, which is exploiting the economic downturn as another excuse to punish immigrants — whether legal or undocumented, professional or working class, entrepreneur or student, adult or child.

The United States is so far the only country to “explicitly justify mobility limitations not on grounds of health risk, but to protect the jobs and economic wellbeing of” its citizens, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

In an April executive order, Trump suspended issuance of green cards for most people applying from abroad. Last week’s executive order expanded the ban to large categories of temporary, employment-based visas. This included the highly skilled immigrants the administration usually claims it prioritizes, as well as any spouses and minor children who normally accompany these workers.

The U.S. economy is indeed in bad shape. But it’s hard to fathom that the estimated 377,000 would-be immigrants now barred from entry present much “risk to the U.S. labor market,” as Trump claims.

Keeping them out, however, could actually harm the economy in the long run. Vihaan’s family presents a helpful case study.

His dad, an executive handling cybersecurity at a major global bank, has been based in the United States since 2017 on a visa specifically for executives transferred from abroad within the same company. He manages, and hires, U.S. workers. While unemployment overall is in double digits, in his field — computer-related occupations — unemployment has declined since the pandemic began, hitting 2.5 percent in May.

What’s more, economists generally believe that highly skilled immigrants like him create job opportunities for Americans and make the country more competitive, especially in STEM, or science, technology, engineering and math, fields.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of Catherine’s article at the link.

Let’s see, 21 million Americans out of work. 377,000 foreign workers barred. That’s less than 2% — statistically insignificant. But, politically, it’s “red meat” to Trump’s White Nationalist followers.

Beyond that, it’s largely apples and oranges. Among others, Trump is barring intracompany executives and managers, those with specialized business knowledge, skilled professionals, and those coming under exchange programs. But, the hardest hit sectors of the U.S. workforce have been things like hospitality, government, and mining. 

So, Toyota is going to hire an out of work bartender to run a U.S. Division? An international tech company is going to replace its chief information officer with an out of work coal miner? Or, perhaps a laid off government bureaucrat is going to replace a seasonal camp counselor in Maine? Not likely. More realistic that the employer would simply shift the work abroad or just close or reduce the U.S. operations.

During my years in the INS, we went through various iterations of “programs” to notify state and local employment agencies when a major enforcement operation supposedly “freed up” jobs for U.S. workers — usually in agriculture or manufacturing. None of these efforts created meaningful opportunities that U.S. workers were ready, willing, and qualified to take, at least on any systematic, consistent, or widespread basis.

The oft-cited claim that “they are taking our jobs” or that deportations, exclusions, and bars “protect the American labor market” is largely unsupported by hard data. Let’s just take a look at those who advance such basically mythical claims: nativist immigration groups and GOP politicos.

These are the same folks who oppose increases in minimum wages, bust unions, eliminate health and safety protections, don’t believe in health care, weaken anti-discrimination protections, cut unemployment benefits, and support management’s unilateral right to exploit workers to the max. These are not groups and individuals with any real concerns about the health or welfare of U.S. workers except to the extent that they think their claims — supplemented with racist dog whistles identifying the “foreign invaders” as people of color — might win them some votes at election time.

Or let’s take something more basic. I just listened to a news report saying that the simple act of everyone wearing a mask could save the U.S. economy one trillion dollars. That’s real money!

So, if Trump, Pence, and the GOP really wanted to help American workers and the economy in a meaningful way, they would be pulling out all the stops to promote, actually demand, that all Americans wear masks and practice social distancing. They would be strongly supporting governors, mayors, and public health officials urging these uniform practices. Yet, that’s not what’s happening. 

The visa suspension is just another Trump racist ruse. Something to make the gullible think he is concerned about them when fact is he’s never been concerned for anyone in his life except himself. But, it’s dangerous because it promotes the myth of the link between immigrants and America’s economic problems and shifts the attention from the Trump kakistocracy’s “malicious incompetence” that actually was a major contributing factor to our inept, at best, COVID-19 response and the problems and chaos that have followed.

The real situation looks more like this: 1) with the economy ailing, there would be a natural decline in job-based immigration in certain sectors because of market forces, regardless of what Trump does; 2) with America’s well-advertised failure to deal competently with COVID-19 and Trump’s ugly hate rhetoric, “immigrants with choices” may well choose other destinations (Canada is one that is already benefiting from Trump’s obsession with xenophobic immigration policies); 3) with Americans barred from entry into the EU and perhaps other countries, the vital force of immigration and its overall positive effect on the world economy will be muted in the U.S.; and 4) with the legal immigration system, including the refugee and asylum systems, shut down whatever future immigration does occur under Trump is likely to be of the extralegal variety, unscreened, unmonitored, and uncontrolled. 

The latter are likely to be refugees with limited options, driven more by necessity than economics, although for many refugees persecution and economic factors are inextricably intertwined. Even here, the practical difficulties of travel during a worldwide pandemic are likely to have more of an impact than Trump’s elimination of asylum.  

Indeed, our country has long benefitted from asylum seekers’ (now sadly misplaced) trust in the U.S. legal system that leads to their turning themselves in at ports of entry, surrendering near the border, or voluntarily applying at a USCIS Asylum Office in the U.S. With the U.S. legal system now in “full fraud mode” refugees stand a better chance of  losing themselves in the interior than of gaining protection from a system specifically designed to treat them unfairly and abusively.

Trump claims great “success” for his abrogation of the legal immigration system and crimes against humanity. But, who really knows how many folks cross the border without our knowledge and where they end up? And, no ridiculous and wasteful wall is going to stop that.

That doesn’t mean that the extralegal immigration won’t be beneficial — past extralegal immigration has benefited the U.S. overall and often, but not always, the migrants themselves. But, by keeping migrant populations underground, living in fear and uncertainty, and subject to exploitation, we limit the immigrants’ abilities to reach their full potential and to contribute fully to our society. In other words, we limit our own capacity to get the full benefit of the reality of human migration in a global society.

In November, we have a chance to end the stupidity and cruelty and to establish a more just society that recognizes the benefits of equal justice for all and treats migrants fairly, humanely, rationally, and with respect for their legal and human rights. We can’t afford to blow it, again!

This November, vote like your life depends on it!  Because it does!

PWS

07-01-20

 

Related posts:

  1. 😰👹👺🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️🤮“DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN” — Nicole Narea @ Vox With A Glimpse Of Trump’s Second Term: American Apocalypse — Dark, Ugly, Hateful, Violent, Dishonest, Exclusionary, Stupid, Racist, Diminished, Yet Very White & Privileged — Are People Of Color & Their Allies Really Going To Stand By & Watch While Their Past & Our Future As A Strong, Creative, Tolerant, Diverse, Humane Nation Is Written Out Of History By A Racist GOP & Its Totally Wacko Yet Dangerously Evil Cult Leader?
  2. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  3. WASHPOST: Catherine Rampell Takes The Measure Of Stephen Miller’s Neo-Nazi View Of American Immigration History – Exposing A Lifelong Hater’s Knowingly False, Misleading & Existentially Dangerous Narrative!
  4. IT’S NEVER BEEN ABOUT “LEGAL V. ILLEGAL,” “BORDER SECURITY,” “JOBS,” OR “GETTING IN (NON-EXISTENT) LINES” — The Trump Regime Has Always Been About A White Nationalist Immigration Agenda Of Hate!

NATASCHA UHLMANN: We Shouldn’t Let Restrictionist Terms & Myths Frame The “Immigration Debate” — “What if Democrats approached immigration not as something to be restricted or controlled, but as a basic human right?“

 

Natascha Uhlmann
Natascha Uhlmann
Writer, Activist

https://apple.news/AiY6v3tN0SU6ES08RMUe29g

Natascha Uhlmann writes in Teen Vogue:

This op-ed argues that the terms we use to discuss immigration rely on a lot of anti-immigrant assumptions.

The United States has a long history of hostility toward immigrants, from barring “undesirables” (a shifting category that has targeted the nonwhite, the disabled, and women) to turning away desperate asylum seekers who went on to gruesome deaths. Even after these cruel laws have been rolled back (and some haven’t), they’ve fundamentally shaped the way we as a nation think of immigration. A lot of the modern policy we consider “common sense” was directly molded by this history. It means that often the terms of the immigration debate rely on a lot of anti-immigrant assumptions. Even the best-intentioned progressives can fall into these traps, which is why examining how we talk about these issues is so important.

THE NOTION THAT THERE ARE “GOOD” AND “BAD” IMMIGRANTS

One common talking point holds that we should welcome the “good” immigrants while getting rid of the “bad” or “criminal” ones. This framing obscures the realities of the U.S. justice system, which disproportionately arrests, convicts, and incarcerates people of color. Black immigrants make up just 7.2% of the noncitizen population, yet they make up over 20% of people facing deportation on criminal grounds. The “good” vs. “bad” framework also obscures how laws are an expression of class power: Financial crimes committed by wealthy individuals and corporations often go unpunished, while everyday people are often punished for their poverty. And even people convicted of crimes shouldn’t lose their humanity, especially in a system that is incentivized to incarcerate.

Anti-immigration advocates often invoke misleading language and statistics suggesting that immigrants commit more crime, while ignoring a vast legal framework set out to criminalize immigrants for minor infractions. Many studies have found that undocumented immigrants actually commit crimes at lower rates than native-born Americans, but our very definition of what constitutes a crime has grown dramatically over the past few decades. A set of 1996 laws expanded deportable offenses by reclassifying more minor crimes as “aggravated felonies” in the context of immigration. As a result, immigrants can be considered felons for acts like drug possession or failing to appear in court.

DISTINGUISHING “REAL” REFUGEES FROM ECONOMIC MIGRANTS

Another dangerous misconception is the differentiation between “real” refugees (people whose search for safety we consider valid) and “economic migrants,” who are perceived as “gaming the system” to obtain a higher standard of living in America. This is a fundamentally false dichotomy: People, and the systems we live in, are far too complex to fit in these binaries. Who gets to be considered a “real” refugee is significantly informed by America’s ideological attitudes; for decades, the system was based more on Cold War politics than any real concern for the safety of asylum seekers. Those fleeing political or religious persecution are seen as legitimate, while those fleeing violent crime or a lack of economic opportunity — causes that also have political roots — are, too often, not. It’s a pattern that continues today: People coming to the U.S. from countries where America has vested geopolitical interests have historically had a harder time gaining asylum than those from countries the U.S. ideologically opposes, even if they have strong claims of persecution.

This hierarchy has stark consequences. As the bar becomes ever higher for who is a “true” refugee, many who flee certain death are turned away. Meanwhile, those who flee “less serious” violence, like poverty and starvation, often have no avenue for help. Their experiences expose the glaring gaps in our asylum policy. Why should certain types of violence be taken more seriously than others? Who is to say that the fear of gang violence is worse than that of not being able to feed your children?

. . . .

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

Read the rest of the op-ed at the link.

Whether you accept Uhlmann’s conclusions or not, her point that immigrants’ advocates often accept the terms and framework set forth by nativists and restrictionists is basically valid. One false concept that appears to govern much of the debate is that immigration is fundamentally “negative” and therefore 1) must be limited to those who can provide immediate economic benefits to us (leaving aside the range of human interests of the immigrants themselves), and 2) that any increases in “desirable” immigration must be offset by cuts, restrictions, and/or removals of “undesirables.” 

In many ways, this explains the sad failure of the Obama Administration to adopt more humane and effective immigration policies. They apparently never could get over the idea that they had to “prove their toughness” by deporting record numbers of folks and inflicting some gratuitous cruelty on migrants, particularly helpless asylum seekers, to “establish their creds” and get the GOP to the table to discuss serious immigration reform. No chance!

With restrictionists, even record levels of removals and historically low levels of border apprehensions are “never enough.” That’s because they are coming from a place of ideological nativism which is neither fact nor reality driven. It’s driven by inherent biases and nativist myths.

Overall, immigration is both a human reality — one that actually predated the establishment of “nation-states” — and a plus for both the immigrants and the receiving countries. 

That being said, I personally think that immigration should be robust, legal, humane, and orderly. But, I doubt that “immigration without limits” is politically realistic, particularly in today’s climate.

Generally, global “market forces” affect immigration much more than nativists are willing to admit. When the legal system is too far out of line with the realities of “supply and demand” the excess is simply forced into the “extralegal market.” 

That’s why we have approximately 11 million so-called “undocumented immigrants” residing in the U.S. today. Most are law abiding, gainfully employed, and have helped fuel our recent economic success. Many have formed the backbone of the unheralded “essential workforce” that has gotten us through the pandemic to this point. Many pay taxes now and all could be brought into the tax system by wiser government policies.

That’s why the mass removals touted by Trump and his White Nationalists are both impractical and counterproductive, as well as being incredibly cruel, inhumane, and cost ineffective. 

There is a theory out there that although Trump’s uber-enforcement policies might be doomed to long-term failure, he is “succeeding” in another, much more damaging, way. By attacking the safety net, government, education, science, the environment, worker safety, and the rule of law while spreading racism, xenophobia, divisiveness, and maximizing income inequality, Trump has finally succeeded in making the U.S. a less desirable place for “immigrants with choices” to live. 

As Bill Gelfeld wrote recently in International Policy Digest:

This pandemic has laid bare national weaknesses, and these weaknesses will have not gone unnoticed by potential and future migrants. Where they have a choice, and many skilled and even unskilled migrants do indeed have a choice, they will increasingly opt for those locales that have figured out universal health care, pandemic and crisis response, and unified national action, and these are the nations that now stand to gain from this migratory boon. https://apple.news/AiY6v3tN0SU6ES08RMUe29g

In the “post-pandemic world economy,” as our birthrate continues to go down and we need immigrants to fuel continued economic growth, the U.S. might well find itself losing the international competition for immigrants, particularly those we most want to attract. 

The latter is likely if we give in to the restrictionist demand that we cut legal immigration. That simply forces more immigrants into the “extralegal market.” “Immigrants with choices” are more likely to choose destinations where they can live legally, integrate into society, and fully utilize their skills over a destination that forces them to live underground.

PWS

05-25-20

Related posts:

  1. 😰👹👺🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️🤮“DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN” — Nicole Narea @ Vox With A Glimpse Of Trump’s Second Term: American Apocalypse — Dark, Ugly, Hateful, Violent, Dishonest, Exclusionary, Stupid, Racist, Diminished, Yet Very White & Privileged — Are People Of Color & Their Allies Really Going To Stand By & Watch While Their Past & Our Future As A Strong, Creative, Tolerant, Diverse, Humane Nation Is Written Out Of History By A Racist GOP & Its Totally Wacko Yet Dangerously Evil Cult Leader?
  2. 👹🎃HALLOWEEN HORROR 🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️👎🏻REICHSREPORT: GRUPPENFUHRER MILLER REVEALS “REICHSPLAN” FOR EXTERMINATION OF IMMIGRATION, ASYLUM, REFUGE BY EXECUTIVE DECREE!  — “The Final Solution??”  — Parents, Protect Your Kids, Families, & Your Country From This Grotesque Un-American Monster!
  3. 🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️👎🏻KAKISTOCRACY HAS CONSEQUENCES: CLIMATE MIGRATION IS ONE OF THEM! — Trump’s Stupidity & Cruelty On Immigration Climate Science, & Disease Control Promises Horrible Global Human Disaster For Future Generations — Empowering & Enabling A Moron Is Always A Very Bad Idea!  — No Idiotic Wall Or “Drill Baby Drill” Insanity Is Going To Prevent This Human Catastrophe We Are Inflicting On Those Who Follow!
  4. 🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️👎KAKISTOCRACY KORNER: SPOTLIGHT ON AMERICA’S MOST DANGEROUS HATE GROUP: THE RNC!

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON: The “Reopen America” Movement Has Been A Haven For White Supremacists & Neo-Nazis!

Heather Cox Richardson
Heather Cox Richardson
Historian
Professor, Boston College

http://email.mg2.substack.com/c/eJxtkc1u4yAURp8m3iXCYDvOgkWbvyaKPeooTTuziTDc2CQ2ZADXtZ–JJnNSCOBkA4X3ct3OHNQatPTq7YuaC2YoxQ0DlOEUhIIGokwjdNA2uPJADRM1tSZFoJrW9SSMye1uj3AKCYkqGiMyOw0Dac4CpFgiIkZ4uKUwjSNOCpOKLi1ObJWSFAcKHyC6bWCoKaVc1c7Ik8jvPKrAuYqMFx_GckrZoTVamLbwjrGLxOuG19z9bth_RiPMcJoRFZOX0CNyAL6bcjxof_A9WVz1mG2L7tsUQ67-bYrSI7-cpSd33C2yOymqSsx3yTZ_i36sXiN8mEZ57KT7CMffJ3kLwe522-6fJ8NG885Ocg7X88GMQ_73–rs1jXn4XcziYh-nWWccTquWsO789DuX593o1TxNo8X-2Xf5z8mZrP5Zd4eQokvU2OfGgowQlJJuGkunRKJ9a4uB1FqCnxP78ODN2CUlKVNsT-nun6jr2Noz-bVknXH0GxogbxEOUeZu-5u_4KVEFna3AOzAN6exGOE0QC30lor1jR_8X_Df8lvRc

Heather writes:

. . . .

The political conversation is also shifting to benefit the president in a second way: the now repeated warnings that the coronavirus might have a “second wave” and peak again in the fall. Here’s the thing: we never finished the first wave. Our highest daily number of deaths was… yesterday, when 2,909 Americans died. We are still very much in the heart of this first wave, but by shaping this conversation as looking ahead to concern in the future, it rhetorically accomplishes what Trump set out to do just a week ago—convince us that we have successfully lived through the worst part of the pandemic and that it is safe to reopen the economy.

Finally, the political conversation is shifting in way that undermines our nation’s deepest principle. People are actually arguing about whether it might be a good thing to kill off society’s weakest members. A member of a planning commission from the San Francisco area took to Facebook to suggest we should just let coronavirus take its course. Lots of people would die, he wrote, primarily old and sick people, but that would take the pressure off Social Security and lower health care costs. There would be more jobs and housing available. And as for homeless people, when they died it would “fix what is a significant burden on our society….”

This man was removed from office, but his sentiments are not isolated. It is impossible to overlook that the people demanding states ease restrictions are overwhelmingly white, when both African Americans and Native Americans are badly susceptible to Covid-19. In Chicago, for example, 32% of the population is African American; 67% of the dead have been black. Further south, the Navajo Nation is behind only New York and New Jersey for the highest infection rate in the US.

White supremacists are celebrating these deaths, and calling for their supporters to infect minorities with the virus. But even those who insist they simply want society to open up again are demanding policies that will disproportionately kill some Americans at higher rates than others. Some are overt about their hatreds—like the Illinois woman who carried a sign with the motto from Auschwitz and the initials of the Jewish governor—and others simply sacrifice minorities in the course of business, as Trump did when he used the Defense Production Act to keep infected meat processing plants operating, plants overwhelmingly staffed by black and brown people.

If we accept the idea that some of us matter more than others, we have given up the whole game. This country was—imperfectly, haltingly—formed on the principle that we are all created equal, and equally entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If we are willing to admit that our founders were wrong, that we are not equal, that older Americans, Black Americans, Brown Americans, sick Americans, all matter less than healthy white Americans, we have admitted the principle that we are not all created equal, and that some of us are better than others.

This is, of course, the principle of white supremacy, but it does no favors to most white people, either. Once we have abandoned the principle of equality, any one of us is a potential sacrifice.

And then it will not matter anymore what our political narrative is, for it will be as much as our lives are worth to disagree with whatever our leaders say.

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

Read the latest installment of Heather’s “Letters From An American” at the above link.

A real President might have used the Defense Production Act to order “Big Meat”  🥩 to immediately take the necessary steps to insure the safety of its workers in accordance with Federal guidelines so they could return to work. He could have ordered companies to prioritize the production of personal protection equipment for meat workers  to the same degree as that for “first responders.” 

Instead, he basically ordered the workers, usually low paid and heavily made up of minorities, immigrants, and undocumented residents to return to their dangerous and low paying jobs while absolving “Big Meat” 🥩  of responsibility for negligent disregard of their workers’ health and welfare.

Clearly, for Trump and his band, concern for human life stops at birth. The whole premise of Trumpism and the modern GOP has been that some lives matter more than others.

This November, vote like your life depends on it! Because it does!

PWS

05-03-20

Related posts:

  1. 😰👹👺🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️🤮“DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN” — Nicole Narea @ Vox With A Glimpse Of Trump’s Second Term: American Apocalypse — Dark, Ugly, Hateful, Violent, Dishonest, Exclusionary, Stupid, Racist, Diminished, Yet Very White & Privileged — Are People Of Color & Their Allies Really Going To Stand By & Watch While Their Past & Our Future As A Strong, Creative, Tolerant, Diverse, Humane Nation Is Written Out Of History By A Racist GOP & Its Totally Wacko Yet Dangerously Evil Cult Leader?
  2. THE UGLY SIDE OF HISTORY: AMERICA CONTINUES TO TREAT ITS ESSENTIAL MIGRANT WORKERS AS “SUB-HUMAN” — “We cannot help what the virus does; all we can control is our reaction to it, and what we do next. This pandemic has shone a light on the ugliness of our “here.” Until the US treats all its immigrants as human beings, with full equal rights, we will still be far from ‘there,’” writes Maeve Higgins in the New York Review of Books.
  3. 🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️👎KAKISTOCRACY KORNER: SPOTLIGHT ON AMERICA’S MOST DANGEROUS HATE GROUP: THE RNC!
  4. GEORGE PACKER @ THE ATLANTIC: With Failed Institutions & Lousy Leaders, Including a President Leading the Charge to the Bottom, America Faces An Uncertain Future — “A responsible establishment doesn’t exist. Our president is one of the rioters.” — Joe Biden & The Dems Could Be The Last, Best Hope For American Democracy & Real Progress Toward “Equal Justice For All!”

THE UGLY SIDE OF HISTORY: AMERICA CONTINUES TO TREAT ITS ESSENTIAL MIGRANT WORKERS AS “SUB-HUMAN” — “We cannot help what the virus does; all we can control is our reaction to it, and what we do next. This pandemic has shone a light on the ugliness of our “here.” Until the US treats all its immigrants as human beings, with full equal rights, we will still be far from ‘there,’” writes Maeve Higgins in the New York Review of Books.

 

Maeve Higgins
Maeve Higgins
Comedian, Actor, Author

https://apple.news/Ay-5bxf63ML-TZgioC-ixQA

Higgins writes:

While corporations are going on life support thanks to this huge government bailout, undocumented immigrants and their families, among them US citizens, are being allowed to suffer, to starve, and, without access to health care, perhaps even to die. As things already stood, undocumented immigrants were ineligible for any federally funded public health insurance programs. On top of that, the millions who have tax IDs, so that they can work without formal authorization, are now denied help in the form of unemployment benefits—they are the only US taxpayers excluded from the coronavirus stimulus package.pastedGraphic.png

. . . .

It’s also troubling to single out immigrants because of the historic scapegoating of immigrants during other health crises. The historian Alan M. Kraut writes that in the 1830s, Irish immigrants were stigmatized as bearers of cholera, and at the end of the nineteenth century, tuberculosis was dubbed the “Jewish disease.” Scapegoating also obscures a longer thread in a bigger pattern, regardless of which party or administration is in power. According to Professor Viladrich, the American government’s denying assistance to this group of working immigrants is the historic norm.

“A lot of this is related to a labor force that is disposable,” she said. “There is no contradiction here; it is very consistent with ACA, with welfare reform, all of that. The systematic exclusion of immigrants is parallel with the systematic exploitation of immigrants.”

Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, lobbied hard to ensure that people without work authorization would be excluded from the CARES Act. On the Senate floor, he spoke against child tax credit going to people without social security numbers:

If you want to apply for money from the government through the child tax credit program, then you have to be a legitimate person… It has nothing to do with not liking immigrants. It has to do with saying, taxpayer money shouldn’t go to non-people.

His office later said he was referring to people who fraudulently claimed a child in order to reap the federal benefit. Whatever he meant by “legitimate person” and “non-people,” the effect was the same: in the eyes of the law, undocumented immigrants would be non-people.

Giorgio Agamben, an Italian philosopher, used the term “bare life” to describe a life reduced to plain biological facts, the robbing of a person’s political existence by those who have the power to define who is included as a worthy human being and who is excluded. While the labor of undocumented people is gladly accepted, their humanity has been tidily erased by lawmakers in Washington, D.C.

The immigration and legal historian Daniel Kanstroom reminds us that in times of trouble, like wars or national emergencies, immigrants are the first to get thrown overboard. It was in part due to the ban on Chinese immigrants back in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century that the demand for Mexican workers increased dramatically. In his 2007 book Deportation Nation: Outsiders in American History, Kanstroom explained how this ban combined with wartime labor needs in 1917 led to the US government’s systematic recruitment of Mexican workers: “From 1917 through 1921, an estimated 50,000–80,000 Mexican farm workers entered the United States under this program, establishing a legal model and cultural mindset that endured for decades to come.”

Kanstroom cites a line from the 1911 Dillingham Commission, an extensive bipartisan investigation into immigration, that “The Mexican… is less desirable as a citizen than as a laborer.” The precedent was set, and what followed was a cycle of recruitment, restriction, and expulsion. More than one million people of Mexican ancestry were forcibly removed from the United States during the Depression years. Some of the people deported by the government to Mexico were US citizens, but then as now, because of their undocumented relatives, they were subject to the same brutal treatment.

In 1942, as a wartime labor shortage loomed, the US worked out an agreement with Mexico for short-term, low-wage workers to fill in the gap. The Bracero Program, as it was known, continued until 1964, with some 4.5 million Mexican workers legally entering the country during those years. There were enormous contradictions in the way those workers were treated: ad hoc legalization programs designed to help big farmers took place at some times; then, at others, there were huge deportation drives when the demand for labor fell off—most notoriously, the terrifying round-ups of 1954’s so-called Operation Wetback.

According to the scholar of migration Nicholas De Genova, “It is precisely their distinctive legal vulnerability, their putative ‘illegality’ and official ‘exclusion,’ that inflames the irrepressible desire and demand for undocumented migrants as a highly exploitable workforce—and thus ensures their enthusiastic importation and subordinate incorporation.” It is no mistake that there remain millions of “illegal” workers of Latino ethnicity contributing their labor, taxes, and humanity to this country; it suits America very well in the good times, and always has.

. . . .

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

Read the rest of Maev’s outstanding analysis of our sordid history of abusing essential immigrant workers, from enslaved African Americans, to Chinese laborers, to Latino workers who have been propping up our economy and keeping us alive during the time of pandemic. Their reward: dehumanization, degradation, deportation without due process, and sometimes death.

I speak often at Courtside about how Trump’s self-righteous, immoral, scofflaw White Nationalist cabal — folks like Miller, Bannon, Sessions, Barr, Cuccinelli, Paul — have been engineering a vile “Dred Scottification” program to dehumanize, abuse, and exploit the most vulnerable, yet often most essential, among us.

I have also highlighted how the Trump kakistocracy’s efforts to create an extralegal, unconstitutional “Reincarnation of Jim Crow” too often have been supported and encouraged by some of those highly privileged Supreme Court Justices whose job was supposed to be protecting all of us, and particularly the most vulnerable persons, from invidious Executive abuses: Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh. 

The latest example: In the middle of humanitarian trauma, the “socially distant Justices” managed to find time for a little gratuitous cruelty: denying an application to stay the regime’s irrational, racist, and unlawful “public charge rules” that threaten the lives and safety of immigrants, their U.S. citizen families, and U.S. society as a whole. https://apple.news/ABNL4e_DtRPS4eN5m5gx1ug

Amy Howe writes at Scotusblog:

Under federal immigration law, noncitizens cannot receive a green card if the government believes that they are likely to become reliant on government assistance. The dispute now before the court arose last year, after the Trump administration defined “public charge” to refer to noncitizens who receive various government benefits, such as health care, for more than 12 months over a three-year period. The challengers had argued that the rule is “impeding efforts to stop the spread of the coronavirus, preserve scarce hospital capacity and medical supplies, and protect the lives of everyone in the community” because it deters immigrants from seeking testing and treatment for the virus out of fear that it will endanger their ability to obtain a green card. The federal government countered that it has made clear that the use of publicly funded health care related to COVID-19 “will not be considered in making predictions about whether” immigrants are likely to become a public charge.

https://shar.es/aHxGIP

Amy Howe
Amy Howe
Freelance Journalist, Court Reporter
Scotusblog

The Government’s argument doesn’t pass the “straight face” test. The monetary savings from this rule are minuscule; its overriding purpose was to dump on immigrant families and intimidate ethnic, primarily Hispanic, communities. It was the “brainchild” of neo-Nazi Stephen Miller. What greater proof could there be of its White Nationalist purpose? Given the regime’s well-established record of lies and unbridled hostility toward immigrants and communities of color, why would anyone have confidence in the regime’s often hollow or disingenuous “promises?”

Those of us who believe in honoring our immigrant heritage, making our constitutional guarantees reality rather than unfulfilled promises, that human values, empathy, and kindness matter, and that we can and must do better than shallow, often outright evil, folks like Trump, Miller, Cuccinelli, Roberts, Barr, et al. need to retake our Government at the ballot box this November and build a better, fairer, more humane future for America and all persons in our country.

This November, vote like your life depends on it! Because it does!

PWS

04-27-20

Related posts:

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