Tag Archives: immigration

political news

Immigrant schools Trump on anthem protocol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_GaDLPUFRU

Ohhh, the irony is so very rich.

There they are: the first family of the United States of America. They’re standing on the Truman Balcony of the White House at the start of the annual White House Easter Egg Roll.

The band strikes up the National Anthem. Barron Trump and his mother, first lady Melania Trump, place their hands over their hearts. Then the first lady nudges the right arm of the man to her left, the president, who then places his right hand over his heart.

Why the irony? Well, Donald J. Trump has spoken badly for, oh, the past year or so about immigrants. The illegal immigrants are pouring into the country to commit all manner of crimes, he has said; the legal immigrants are taking jobs from Americans, he adds.

So, what about the immigrant standing next to him on the balcony? His third wife is a native of Slovenia; indeed, two of the president’s three wives have come here from foreign lands.

There’s just a fascinating bit of poetry associated with this brief video and I am pleased to see that the first lady is so attuned to the “optics” of these events.

Take note, Mr. President. I hope he thanked his wife.

International news, national news, political news

Building ‘The Wall’ faces mountain of obstacles

Donald J. Trump’s mouth provides an endless supply of nonsense.

The wall he intends to build to keep an imagined horde of criminals and terrorists from entering the United States of America provides a stark example of his “ready, fire, aim” approach to public policy.

The New York Times, in an editorial published Sunday, took note of the enormously complicated task associated with building a wall across our nation’s southern border.

Did the Republican candidate for president consider any of them before riding down the escalator to announce his candidacy in the summer of 2015? Umm. Nope. No way, man.

The Times asks:

“How do you build a wall along the 1,200 miles of the Rio Grande, the Texas stretch of border? Do you put it on our side and abandon the river to Mexico, or seize Mexican territory for it, or put it in the middle of the river, or do some zigzag compromise? What do you do then about a treaty requiring that both countries have open access to the river?

“How do you make a concrete wall see-through, so smugglers aren’t invisible to the Border Patrol?

“How do you get private landowners to go along? What about the Tohono O’odham Indians, whose reservation straddles the border in Arizona and who want no part of any wall on their sacred land?

How do you wall out deep tunnels, drones and catapults? What about the tons of drugs that pass through existing ports? Did you know that drug cartels have ships and submarines? What happens when drug bales start coming ashore in San Diego, or over from Saskatchewan?

International news

There goes the ‘revised’ Muslim ban

It’s back to the drawing board, or perhaps to another piece of scratch paper, for Donald J. Trump’s effort to ban Muslims from entering the United States of America.

U.S. District Judge Derrick K. Watson today has issued a restraining order that prohibits the president’s revised travel ban from taking effect.

The judge, based in Hawaii, ruled that Trump’s revised ban is just as discriminatory against people of a certain faith as his first ban. Thus, said the judge, the president is violating the U.S. Constitution.

What’s next? The case is likely to return to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld an earlier ruling by another federal judge that struck down Trump’s initial refugee.

The president had a response, according to National Public Radio: Trump, speaking at a rally in Nashville, Tenn., called the restraining order “unprecedented judicial overreach.” He said, “The law and the Constitution give the president the power to suspend immigration — when he deems — or she, fortunately it will not be Hillary, ‘she’ — when he or she deems it to be in the national interests of our country.”

At least Trump didn’t call Watson a “so-called judge,” which he labeled U.S. District Judge James Robart, who struck down the first refugee ban.

Trump sought to soften the ban by removing Iraq from his list of banned countries. He also removed the word “Muslim” from the new order. That wasn’t good enough, according to Judge Watson, who said the order still singles out Muslims, which he said is discriminatory on its face.

Watson then ticked off a long list of anti-Muslim statements Trump made while campaigning for president and while he has served as president.

Those of us who thought the new order was better than the first one, but who remain opposed to the policy itself, are heartened by the judge’s decision.

I have an idea for the president to consider. Yes, he’s concerned about protecting Americans from international terrorists. I get it and I endorse his concern. But Mr. President, why not just instruct our federal security authorities to be hyper-vigilant at every entry point?

That’ll protect us, too.

national news

Congressman makes breathtaking statement

Steve King is a conservative’s conservative, I reckon.

That’s how he might describe himself. The Iowa Republican congressman also tends to say things that flutter dangerously close to idiocy.

Does this clown not understand the very nature of the nation he purports to govern as a member of Congress?

“We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies,” King said. Do you know what he means? I believe he means that immigrants — particularly those from, say, Africa, Asia and Latin America — aren’t welcome in the United States of America.

I believe this country is supposed to stand as a beacon for the rest of the world. It is supposed to be where others come to improve their lives, to seek opportunity, to embrace freedom and liberty. I do not believe the United States restricts entry to those of certain skin tone, or religion, or ethnic background.

King has fired off yet another outrageous remark that belies the very foundation of this great country.

Here is what Politico reports: “King told CNN that ‘there’s been far too much focus on race, especially in the last eight years.’ He accused liberals of ‘looking for hatred’ and being uninterested in unifying the nation’s racial divides.

“’Actually, if you go down the road a few generations or maybe centuries with the intermarriage, I’d like to see an America that’s just so homogenous that we look a lot the same, from that perspective,’ King said.”

We look a lot the same? Utterly breathtaking.

International news

Trump’s new travel ban: better, but still not worthy

I’ll hand it to Donald J. Trump.

At least he can tinker around the edges of a bad policy to make it somewhat more palatable, even if the very principle behind it stinks.

I refer to the revised travel ban he introduced to the world Monday.

He took Iraq off the list of Muslim-majority nations where refugees are banned from entering the United States; he exempts those with current visas from the list; it removes language that grants exemptions for “religious minorities” in the Middle East; it won’t take effect until March 16.

Is this one better than the old policy that was shot down by a federal judge, whose opinion was upheld by a federal appeals court? Yes.

It remains problematic for those of us who just dislike the idea of singling out countries and people who adhere to certain religious faiths from this brand of “profiling.”

The reaction to this revised rule has been far less vocal than the outburst that greeted the initial rule, which the president signed into law via executive order one week after taking office. Accordingly, it’s interesting, too, that Trump signed this executive order in private; no cameras, no ceremony, no hoopla, hype or hysteria.

“This is definitely on much firmer legal ground,” according to a former assistant secretary of Homeland Security. “It’s pretty narrowly applied to new visa applicants, which is probably the place where the president has the most authority.”

Time will tell — probably very soon — whether this one will stand up to court challenges. My guess is that it will, although if I were king of the world I would prefer that the president simply instruct immigration, customs and border security troops to be hyper-vigilant when checking everyone who seeks to come here.

International news

Publicity stunt makes valuable point about a wall

A member of Mexico’s congress has performed a masterful publicity stunt that illustrates something quite nicely about Donald J. Trump’s desire to build a “beautiful wall” along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Braulio Guerra climbed a portion of the wall that’s already been erected. He sat atop it and then boasted about how easy it was to scale it.

He sat 30 feet above the ground.

Hmmm. How does he do that?

The congressman’s point is a valid one. It is that anyone who wants to scale a wall, or tunnel beneath it will find a way. A wall doesn’t protect us any better than what U.S. Border Patrol and local law enforcement agencies already are doing to ensure our nation’s safety.

In a video he distributed, the congressman said, “It would be simple for me to jump into the United States, which shows that it is unnecessary and totally absurd to build a wall.”

I won’t belabor the point that walling us off from our neighbors is patently in-American on its face. Yet the president of the United States keeps insisting that we’re being inundated with criminals of all stripes who are invading the United States for the sole purpose of preying on Americans.

My wife and I recently visited the border region and witnessed up close a tiny part of what the Border Patrol is doing to protect Americans. Officers are stopping every northbound vehicle at points along the Rio Grande Valley. They quizzed us briefly about our destination, then sent us on our way.

Did they stop anyone? Yes. We witnessed them pulling a motorist over, presumably for more, shall we say, “extreme vetting.”

Can we stop every single illegal immigrant from sneaking into this country? No. We’ve never been able to stop all of them.

A wall won’t do it, either.

national news

$20 million in the bank to build wall … where’s rest of it?

Donald J. Trump vows to build a “great, great wall” across our southern border.

It’s going to cost as much as $20 billion — give or take a few billion bucks. How much money does the president have on hand to start the job?

Department of Homeland Security officials say they’ve got about $20 million on hand, in the bank, to start the job.

The gap between 20 billion and 20 million dollars is, um, really yuuuge, man!

Where’s the rest of it going to come from? Trump says Mexico will pay for it. The Mexican government says no … it won’t pay. Can the head of one sovereign government force the head of another one to do something he doesn’t want to do?

I guess we could go to war with ’em, right?

That won’t happen. Quite obviously.

According to Reuters: “Trump has said he will ask Congress to pay for what existing funds cannot cover and that Mexico will be pressured to pay back U.S. taxpayers at a later date.

“Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan has said he will include funding for a border wall in the budget for next fiscal year. He has estimated the cost to be between $12 billion and $15 billion.”

The Ryan estimate falls short of what Homeland Security officials have said; they place the cost at more than $21 billion.

This wall-building stuff is making my head spin.

Trump continues to court the support of fiscal conservatives. But he wants to spend $54 billion additional on defense spending, while cutting other programs to pay for boosting the Pentagon budget; he wants to spend $1 trillion on a road and bridge rebuilding program.

Oh, and he wants to cut taxes, too!

What does that do to the national debt? The annual budget deficit?

Does the president pile more debt on us while blowing the budget apart? Hey, I think he said the Obama administration’s “disastrous” fiscal policy was something he intended to fix.

Construction of this proposed wall, so help me, is going to cause many more headaches than it is intended to cure.

national news, political news

Great speech; waiting to hear specific solutions

Well what do you know? Donald J. Trump can deliver a speech in a traditional “presidential” fashion.

He did so tonight. He hit a lot of high points, drew a lot of applause — mostly from fellow Republicans, which is no surprise to anyone — and resisted the urge to veer too far off the text written and displayed on the Teleprompter.

I’ll give him props for that.

He walked us through many of the points he sought to make. I had read something in advance of the speech that said it would be uplifting and optimistic.

Hmmm. I didn’t feel much optimism or lifting of spirits. I heard some of the stuff he had said about drugs and crime; about illegal immigration; about the alleged failure of the Affordable Care Act; about how our allies need to pay their “fair share” for us to defend them against our common enemies.

The president didn’t offer any specifics. He didn’t tell us:

How he plans to replace the ACA; how we’re going to afford the huge increase in defense spending; how he hopes to do better for our veterans; how he intends build that “great, great wall along our southern border”; how he plans to pay for massive infrastructure improvements.

I am hoping all of this will come in due course. His friends in Congress will demand it of him, which is their right and obligation under the Constitution’s co-equal branch of government stipulation.

No one expected him to deal with the myriad controversies that have plagued his first month in office. I’m quite sure others will bring all of that to the fore.

As far as speeches go, I hereby acknowledge that Donald J. Trump is able to rise to the occasion, to act very much like the president of the United States. There was none of that stump-speech shouting, which many of us have come to expect from this individual.

And, by golly, there were no disruptions provided by Democrats who are still stung by the very idea that Donald Trump is president of the United States.

But … I’m waiting to hear just how precisely the president plans to make all these grand promises a reality.

State news

Happy birthday, Father of Our Country

LAREDO, Texas — They love the Father of Our Country way down yonder in this bustling South Texas community.

I consider it an interesting thing to witness.

Why is that? Laredo sits at Ground Zero of the U.S. immigration debate. The president of the United States wants to build a wall separating the United States from Mexico. It will have a direct impact on this city of 236,000 (and counting) residents.

We drove here to get away from the cold weather that continues to plague the Texas Panhandle. We found it — and then some! — in the Rio Grande Valley. They were setting record high temperatures during our stay at Lake Casa Blanca International State Park.

Laredo this past weekend celebrated its 120th annual George Washington’s Birthday Celebration. The city publishes a glossy magazine commemorating the event, which it describes as “one of the biggest celebrations that contributes to Laredo’s history and a must see in South Texas!”

It began in 1898 when the Improved Order of the Red Men sought to bring together various ethnic groups in Laredo. In doing so, they discovered that George Washington himself was a member of the order.

Princess Pocahontas also became part of the celebration to honor her role in saving the mayor, who had been held captive by Indians who had raided city hall.

It’s all a huge deal in Laredo, where one — such as yours truly — might not expect to see such a huge tribute to our nation’s first president and the commander of the colonial forces that fought the British during the American Revolution.

The event began as a two-day celebration. Now it goes on for several days and it fuses all aspects of a diverse and cosmopolitan community, bringing them all together as one.

Is there a lesson to be learned from this?

I believe so.

If only all American communities could celebrate our founding president’s birthday in such a manner.

International news, State news

Where are the hordes of illegal immigrants?

ROMA, Texas — This is one of those hardscrabble towns strung out along the Rio Grande River just on this side of our border with Mexico.

The main drag is U.S. Highway 83, which is populated with assorted convenience stores, an occasional chain outlet, fast-food restaurants and a flea market.

You see a lot of Spanish-language signage here. We stopped for lunch at a pizza joint and the young hostess who served us there was pleasant and attentive.

We did not see something that one might be tempted to look for: hordes of illegal immigrants.

We did notice two U.S. Border Patrol vehicles parked on the medium just northwest of Roma about a mile or so apart. All was quiet at both locations.

I bring this up only to illustrate what I think has been something of a mischaracterization by some politicians — including one highly notable one — about what appears to be going on along the U.S.-Mexico border.

I understand fully that people are indeed sneaking into the United States without the proper documentation. I also understand that some of them are, um, undesirable.

The president of the United States — Donald John Trump — wants to build a wall the length of our southern border. I keep wondering: how and why?

We stopped briefly at Falcon State Park and noticed a wide and deep reservoir between the United States and Mexico. We didn’t see anyone splashing out of the reservoir behind the Falcon Lake Dam; nor did we see any boats loaded with families.

OK, we are just two people out of many who visit places like this. We were unable to cast our eyes on every mile along our border. We did see a good bit of it from Laredo to Roma.

I am going to presume as well that had we kept going we would have seen more of the same. Which is to say we’d see nothing out of the ordinary.

Life seems to go on in South Texas. It all looks pretty normal to me.

Some pols, though, would have us believe we’re in crisis mode. We’re being overrun by international terrorists, drug dealers, murderers and rapists. That message seemed to resonate with a lot of Americans during the 2016 presidential campaign.

That message was lost on me. Based on what we saw along the border, I understand why.