Tag Archives: immigration

national news

This is a seriously ICE-y policy

There’s heartlessness and then there is a new policy announced by the Trump administration.

Unauthorized immigrants seeking entry into the United States will be arrested and prosecuted, according to Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Fine. I get that.

But their small children will be taken from them on the spot by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. They will be separated from their parents — from their mother and father — and sent … somewhere.

Sessions said, “… we will prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you as required by law. If you don’t like that, then don’t smuggle children over our border.”

Infants? Toddlers? Adolescents? Doesn’t matter. They’re going to snatched from their parents under the new ICE policy.

Critics of this policy are calling it “torture” as defined by the United Nations. According to a Washington Post essay by Jaana Juvonen and Jennifer Silvers: Under federal law, which adopts the United Nations definition, torture is: “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as … punishing him or her for an act he or she or a third person … has committed or is suspected of having committed.” And though in theory any action inflicting such suffering is banned, that is what is inflicted by separating parents and children in border detention.

Read the entire essay here.

Is this how Donald Trump defines the “love” he once said he wanted to use in determining the fate of the so-called Dreamers, the U.S. residents brought here when they were children by their undocumented immigrant parents?

I can answer that one: It lacks any pretense of love when it comes to the treatment of the children of those who are trying to enter the United States. Asylum seekers? Refugees? Forget it, man! They’re going to be rounded up and sent to places where their children cannot join them.

Shameful.

International news

Happy Trails, Part 89

I don’t like doing this, but this post is going to mix a bit of current politics and public policy with another musing about retirement.

You see, I’ve mentioned already that my wife and I intend to visit North America while hauling our RV behind our (now repaired) pickup truck.

What I’ve neglected to say is that North America includes another set of countries. They are south of the United States, starting with Mexico and going into Central America.

We are a bit concerned about traveling into Mexico. It has nothing to do with the people there, or the country. We’ve both ventured across the border. The last time we crossed the border was in 1974, when we drove from San Diego into Tijuana and then to Ensenada. We took a cruise with our sons from Galveston to Cozumel in 2011, but that doesn’t actually count as a “border crossing.”

What is troubling to me is the rhetoric coming from Washington since the inauguration of Donald Trump as president of the United States. He campaigned on a pledge to build a wall across our southern border; he vowed to make Mexico pay for it. He accused Mexico of “sending criminals” into the United States, as if suggesting that the Mexican government is responsible for some so-called deluge of illegal immigration.

He has continued to sound sharply critical of those who live in Latin America.

My fear is the potential fomenting of anti-American bias in that part of the world, which could put tourists — such as, oh, yours truly — at risk of harm by those who might notice the Texas license plates on our RV and our truck.

Do you get my drift? Of course you do!

I ventured to Mexico City in 1997 on a four-day journalism-related trip. I love that city. I want to show my wife the Aztec pyramids I got to climb. I want to take her to the spectacularly colorful Folklorico Ballet that I watched. I want to treat her to tacos the way they are prepared in Mexico.

At this moment, though, I am fearful of hauling our RV there to see those sights.

If only we could cease this in-your-face rhetoric that I suspect is not being lost on those wonderful continental neighbors.

military news

FYI, Mr. President … you need Congress to OK this one

Psst. Here’s a little secret that Donald J. Trump didn’t mention when he said he wanted to deploy American military personnel along our border with Mexico.

The president cannot act alone. He needs Congress to approve it.

Trump has declared that because our immigration laws are “so weak,” he needs to send soldiers to the border to be on the lookout for illegal immigrants sneaking into the United States of America.

Trump wants to military to patrol the border while he commences and completes construction of his “big, beautiful wall” that is going to stop the flood of bloodthirsty criminals flowing across our border. Isn’t that what he says is occurring?

So, he’s thinking out loud yet again. With no thought whatsoever. Did he say he would ask Congress to approve his request? Oh, no! He simply declared his intention to deploy American military personnel to do whatever it is they intend to do on American soil.

This is the kind of thing that requires another branch of government to sign off.

In 1957, President Eisenhower sent troops to Little Rock, Ark., to stand by while local school officials sought to integrate Central High School. Ike asked Congress for permission to do it; Congress agreed, so the president issued the order.

There remains a sequence of events that must occur before a president does something so dramatic — and drastic — as Trump has pitched.

He is merely demonstrating a show of muscle. He isn’t giving a moment of thought or deliberation to add context to what he is proposing.

That’s just Trump.

Hey, he’s “telling like it is,” right?

International news

Idiocy takes new turn: pay for wall with military money

Donald J. Trump’s penchant for idiotic policy pronouncements is utterly boundless.

It’s bad enough that the president wants to build a “big, beautiful wall” along our southern border. The notion of building a wall is as un-American an idea as any Trump has pitched.

Now comes this apparent trial balloon. He is talking openly about paying for the wall using funds dedicated for the Department of Defense. Sure thing, Mr. President. Let’s take money away from equipping our troops to pay for a wall that won’t do a damn thing to stem what Trump says is a “flood” of illegal immigrants bringing drugs, murder and mayhem into the United States.

Oh, and there’s that other thing hanging over the discussion: the president’s pledge to “make Mexico pay” for the wall. That, um, hasn’t gone according to plan. The Mexican government has dug in deeply. It won’t pay for the wall, says Mexico’s president, Enrique Pena Nieto. He and Trump remain miles apart on that particular issue.

The idea that the wall somehow is a matter of “national security,” which in Trump’s mind would justify taking funneling money from the Pentagon to building that wall only confirms what many of us have thought all along.

The commander in chief has so little regard for the military that he would rob it of resources to shore up a promise he made for purely political gain.

And to think the president keeps yammering about his “love” of the men and women who defend our nation.

Idiotic.

national news

SCOTUS gives Dreamers a reprieve; get to work, Congress

Several hundred thousand U.S. residents have just been given a reprieve from a most unlikely source: the Supreme Court of the United States.

The court today declined to consider a Trump administration request to expedite a decision on whether a plan to revoke a Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals directive issued by Donald Trump.

This means the so-called “Dreamers,” those who affected by DACA, have more time to remain in the United States even though they were brought here illegally by their parents when they were children.

According to Politico: The Justice Department had asked the justices to skip the usual appeals court process and review a district court judge’s ruling requiring the administration to resume renewals of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

The Supreme Court declined the request Monday with no justices dissenting. The high court could still weigh in later, but the move suggests the justices want to allow one or more appeals courts to take up the question before considering it.

A federal judge has blocked the administration’s plan to cancel President Barack Obama’s DACA order. The issue is now before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Justice Department wanted the court to allow a sped-up process to resolve it in time for the March 5 deadline that the president had set for Congress to come up with a legislative solution for DACA recipients.

I would have thought the Supreme Court would side with the administration, given its ideological bent. Silly me. The court has given DACA recipients more time to stay in the United States, the only country many of them have ever known.

Now, to Congress, I want to offer this word: Get to work to find a solution. These U.S. residents must not be deported and returned to nations they do not know.

International news

Can we hear an ‘oops’ on chain migration?

Don’t you just hate it when family matters get in the way of public policy pronouncements? I’m wondering if Donald J. Trump is at all concerned about such matters. Oh, probably not, but I’ll weigh in anyway.

The president doesn’t like what’s being called “chain migration,” which enables extended family members to follow others as immigrants to a particular country. Trump wants to end chain migration as part of this nation’s immigration policy.

But, in the immortal words of Energy Secretary Rick Perry: Oops!

First lady Melania Trump’s parents, Viktor and Amalajia Knavs, were able to obtain their green cards as legal immigrants. The natives of Slovenia want to become U.S. citizens.

They want to reunify with their daughter, who’s already become a U.S. citizen and are preparing to do so soon.

But, but, but … the president wants to end this practice. He’s trying to persuade Congress to end “chain migration.” He said during the State of the Union speech — to rousing hoots and jeers from congressional Democrats — that the United States must end a policy that allows unlimited numbers of family members to enter the country under this chain migration policy.

As The Hill reports: The president has repeatedly called for an end to “chain migration” for extended family members and has identified it as one of the four pillars he says must be included in immigration legislation.

“Under the current broken system, a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives,” he said in his State of the Union speech.

I know that the parents of the first lady aren’t “distant relatives.” They’re immediate family members. They’re the grandparents of Barron Trump, the 11-year-old son of Donald and Melania.

Still, does it seem a bit odd to anyone out there that immigration officials might break — not just bend — the rules in direct opposition to the president’s stated desire?

Or has the president changed his mind? Hey, it’s happened already!

national news

POTUS has much for which he must answer

The farther along we stagger forward into the presidency of Donald Trump, the deeper the hole he digs for himself.

I refer to the many statements he has made — as candidate and then as president — that have yet to be substantiated.

A few of them come to mind.

  • He has asserted that climate change is a “hoax,” a fantasy created by China to discredit our fossil fuel industry.
  • Trump has accused “millions of illegal immigrants” of voting for Hillary Clinton in 2016, giving her the nearly 3 million popular vote margin she rolled up over the president.
  • The president has fanned the flames of the phony and slanderous birther movement once again by challenging whether Barack Obama was actually born in the United States of America; he once said that the president is a U.S. citizen, but has all but walked that one back.
  • Candidate Donald Trump said he would release his tax returns once the Internal Revenue Service completed its audit. That was more than two years ago. The tax returns remain a secret. The IRS cannot possibly be conducting that audit to this day.
  • Trump said he wouldn’t have time for golf, that he’d be too busy making America “great again.” He, um, has broken that pledge, too.

I know I’ve missed a few. Maybe many. But I hope you get the point.

The president has made bold pledges. He hasn’t been held to account for them. His base continues to rally behind him. They give him a pass on all of it. They ignore his hideous personal behavior in a way they never would do if the president was a member of the opposing political party.

Others of us out here are seeking to hold this guy accountable for his lengthening list of untrue statements and promises he made.

I don’t expect the president to listen to his critics. He doesn’t care what we think. He cares only about the slobbering support he gets from those who relish the idiotic notion that Donald Trump simply is “telling it like it is.”

national news

Trump would ‘love a shutdown’?

Donald Trump would “love” a shutdown of the federal government.

He’d love it. He said it many times today during a White House meeting on gang violence. The president, quite naturally, blames Democrats if a shutdown occurs. Democrats, he said, oppose border security; they oppose benefits for the military. Democrats are nasty. They’re “un-American” because they didn’t clap for him while he delivered “really good news” during the president’s State of the Union speech the other day.

The president really should not want a shutdown of the government, as Republican U.S. Rep. Barbara Comstock told him during the gang violence meeting. “Both sides” learned that a shutdown hurts them, and the public doesn’t like it one damn bit, she said.

Ah, but the president still would “love” a shutdown.

This is how you “tell it like it is,” right? Trump is the first president in my memory who has said — in effect — that he would favor a shutting down of the government he was elected to administer.

To what end do we close offices and deny taxpayers the full service from the government for which they pay? To build a wall across our southern border.

This is not how you govern, Mr. President. Honest.

legal news

Stand tall, Judge Curiel

This is awesome news!

A U.S. district judge who Donald J. Trump dissed as “a Mexican” has been given the authority to preside over a case involving the wall that the president wants to build across our nation’s southern border.

I cannot think of anything cooler than this — politically speaking, that is.

Judge Gonzalo Curiel will decide the merits of a case that questions whether the federal government can circumvent environmental laws to build the wall.

The Trump administration says it can; plaintiffs have filed suit saying that the administration would violate the law.

The irony of this just drips with richness. Trump disparaged the Indiana-born Judge Curiel during the 2016 presidential campaign, calling him “a Mexican,” alleging that he couldn’t judge another case involving Trump University fairly and impartially. Curiel is of Mexican heritage. However, he is as American as Trump, or me, or you, or anyone whose ancestors came to this country from somewhere else. I believe that constitutes the vast majority of U.S. citizens.

According to The Huffington Post: 

The case consolidates three lawsuits filed last year by the state of California, environmental groups and Rep. RaĂşl Grijalva (D-Ariz.). The suits challenge the waivers granted by Congress in 1996 and 2005 allowing the federal government to bypass certain federal and state laws, including environmental regulations, for border security reasons.

The suits claim the waivers are outdated and should not apply to Trump’s border wall plan. California said the construction of the wall could do “irreparable harm” to the state’s wildlife. Legal experts say the groups that have brought the lawsuits will bear a significant legal burden to prove their case.

Curiel gets to decide who’s right. Isn’t that just outstanding?

I cannot to hear the blowback if Curiel rules against the administration. Nor can I await the reaction if the judge rules in the president’s favor.

As one who believes that judicial matters should be decided according to what the law allows — and if they follow the U.S. Constitution — I will have faith that Judge Curiel will interpret the law fairly.

Also, as one who doesn’t favor construction of the wall, I will accept whatever decision the judge delivers, even if it disagrees with personal political beliefs.

I would hope the president could do the same thing if the ruling goes against him.

He won’t.

national news, political news

Didn’t hear much ‘unity,’ Mr. President

I awoke this morning during a lunar eclipse. But the sun rose in the east — just as it has done since the beginning of time.

However, I don’t believe I awoke to a country more “unified” after last night’s presidential State of the Union speech, which I watched from start to finish.

The president said his speech would “unify” the nation. Judging from what I witnessed on my TV screen, I didn’t see a unified joint congressional session. Republicans stood repeatedly. Democrats sat on their hands.

Is that somehow different? Is it unique to this president in this time? Not at all! Republicans sat on their hands when Presidents Clinton and Obama spoke to them, just as Democrats did during President Bush’s two terms (the president’s post-9/11 speech notwithstanding, when everyone was cheering his rallying cry to a grieving nation).

Donald Trump’s urging of unity was supplanted by mentioning tax cuts, the repealing of the mandates required by the Affordable Care Act, the battle over immigration and construction of “the wall,” the appointment of a new Supreme Court justice. Divisiveness, anyone?

The president took office in the aftermath of arguably the most contentious, bitter campaigns in the past century. He took charge of a nation divided sharply over his election — and it hasn’t gotten any less divided in the year since he took office.

If the congressional response we witnessed Tuesday night on Capitol Hill is indicative of the nation those men and women represent, well, the president has a lot more work ahead of him.