Tag Archives: illegal immigration

national news

It’s all right, really, to say you made a mistake

Donald J. Trump’s famous resistance to saying he’s sorry for anything has come into play once again.

The president signed an executive order that rescinds his policy that allows the separation of young children from their parents at the border. It was part of his “zero tolerance” policy on illegal immigration.

He had said repeatedly that he couldn’t do it. He said Congress was the only authority that could change the policy. He blamed Democrats for enacting a law — that doesn’t exist!

But … today he walked all of that back. The executive order was done by one man: the president.

So, why doesn’t he just acknowledge he was mistaken? Why doesn’t he tell us that he had the authority all along?

He doesn’t want to look “weak.” He doesn’t want to give anyone any ammo to shoot at him — politically, of course.

But you know what? His refusal to acknowledge the obvious only gives his foes even more grist to use against him.

Donald Trump wants to be seen as a strong leader. However, the president’s insistence on looking strong only weakens him.

Go figure.

national news

Trump ends family separation … now what?

Donald J. Trump today heeded the din of dissent across the nation over a policy that separated young children from their parents at the nation’s southern border.

The president’s executive order ends the policy in a 180-degree reversal. Families won’t be separated. Children won’t be delivered to camps to await some disposition of their fate while the government decides what to do about their parents’ illegal entry into the United States.

I am glad to see the president react in this manner. His rhetoric today, though, continues to sound defiant. He lays blame for this situation on his predecessors in the Oval Office.

So, the question remains: What happens now?

Republicans in Congress joined their Democratic colleagues in calling for an end to this inhumane policy. I am heartened to hear the bipartisan outrage, just as I am heartened to witness Trump backing down from his previous statements.

I am left to wonder, too, why he would say today that he “didn’t like the sight” of families being separated. When did that “sight” upset him? Did it just happen? Or was he upset all along? If it’s the latter, then why continue to implement such a policy?

Well, he acted today as he should have done before this crisis erupted. Now it’s time to find a comprehensive solution to the nation’s immigration policy.

Get busy, Mr. President and members of Congress.

International news

More shallow idiocy from POTUS

Check out this image from a meeting today that the president of the United States had with small business leaders.

He was talking to them about his “zero tolerance” policy, the one that allows children to be taken from their parents at the border. Donald Trump equated all illegal entrants into the United States with vicious gang members intent on bring death and destruction to this country.

He made no mention, of course, of those who are fleeing persecution in their own country or their pursuit of a better life in the Land of Opportunity.

Then to show how much he loves the nation he was elected to govern, the president decided to hug the flag. Yep. He hugged Old Glory. He wrapped the Stars and Stripes in his arms in some sort of childish demonstration of his patriotic fervor.

He made me laugh. Out loud.

A quote from the famed author Sinclair Lewis has been making the rounds, in which he said, “When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a bible.”

That’s a big harsh, in my view.

However, the president’s shallow demonstration — with that goofy flag hugging routine — while it plays well to his base, illustrates a level of superficiality I’ve never seen in the Leader of the Free World.

Until now.

International news

Heartlessness on the border must end

Heartless public policy is an ugly thing to watch unfold.

Especially when it involves children, often young children … toddlers and infants.

Donald J. Trump actually said he hates the sight of children being taken from their parents at the nation’s southern border. Then the president blurted out yet another lie, that congressional Democrats are responsible for enacting a law that the administration is following.

Except that there is no law. What is unfolding in front of us is an administration directive under a “no-tolerance” immigration policy.

Now we hear that first lady Melania Trump has weighed in on this tragic event. As Politico reports: A spokeswoman for Melania Trump said Sunday that the first lady “hates to see children separated from their families” and hopes both parties can reach a solution. “She believes we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with heart,” the statement said.

This is a heartless, callous and totally unnecessary policy. The administration enacted it to “deter” illegal immigrants from entering the country. It figures that undocumented immigrants will think twice or thrice about entering the United States if they face the prospect of their children being taken from them at the border.

But … seriously? Do we really want to be known around the world as the nation that separates children from their parents with no clear plan on when, where or how they will be reunited?

This isn’t the basis on which this country was founded. It isn’t the basis for the rest of the world pursuing the dream of hope, liberty and opportunity in the Land of the Free.

A nation that, in the words of the first lady, “governs with heart” can find a solution to this hideous public policy.

One way to start would be to persuade the president to stop lying while he blames this crisis on Democrats.

International news

Irony just doesn’t disappear

I cannot get past the irony of the U.S. attorney general citing Scripture as a justification for a policy that came from the Donald J. Trump administration.

It is fair to presume that AG Jeff Sessions was speaking on behalf of the president when he cited Romans 13 — a New Testament passage — to justify a policy that allows border security agents to take children from their parents who enter the United States of America illegally.

When Sessions told us how the Apostle Paul instructed his listeners to follow the government’s law, I was struck by this thought immediately: Has there been any U.S. president in the past century who is less familiar with biblical teachings that Donald Trump?

Thus, if Sessions was speaking on Trump’s behalf, are we then to believe that the president (a) endorsed what the AG said or (b) even knows what Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans.

I should note, too, that Romans 13 also has been used to justify human bondage, such as slavery. Given the president’s seeming tolerance of white supremacists (such as what he displayed in 2017 in the wake of the Charlottesville, Va., riot) then maybe it’s not such a stretch after all.

I was offended in the extreme to hear Sessions cite New Testament  Scripture to defend the policy that has resulted in roughly 2,000 children being separated from their parents while enforcing this so-called “no tolerance” immigration policy.

It is inhumane, cruel and about as non-Christian as it gets. What in the name of all that is holy and sacred would Jesus Christ himself think of this policy? None of us was around when Jesus walked the Earth, but those of us who know anything about the Bible might conclude he would be aghast at such a policy.

For the attorney general, speaking on behalf of arguably the most amoral president in U.S. history, to use the holy word to justify an inhumane public policy is shameful on its face.

International news

Late-night wisdom on child-parent separation

Stephen Colbert is a comedian with a political point of view he delivers nightly from the Ed Sullivan Theater stage in New York City.

He was spot on in a diatribe against Donald J. Trump’s immigration policy that instructs border security agents to wrest children from their parents who enter this country illegally.

Perhaps the most poignant point that Colbert made is that the United States is the only country on Earth that has invoked such a heartless policy.

Yet the president contends that it’s a “Democrat bill” that congressional Democrats need to fix. One problem. There is no law on the books. This policy came from an executive branch instruction.

Listen to Colbert’s take on it. Yes, he’s a comic. He’s also a well-educated man who happens to be a husband and father who feels deeply about this issue.

International news

‘Democrat bill’? Umm, no, it isn’t

The president of the United States sauntered toward reporters this week and began tossing out more whoppers than they do at a well-known fast-food burger joint.

This is one of them: “If you notice when I came over they were all saying about separating families. That is a Democrat bill. That is Democrats wanting to do that.”

OK, Mr. President. It isn’t a “Democrat bill.” It is no bill at all. We are talking today about a policy that the Trump administration decided to impose. The policy is a “no-tolerance” initiative regarding illegal immigration.

It has resulted in the separation of young children — including toddlers and infants — from their parents who are caught entering the nation illegally from points south.

Donald J. “Liar in Chief” Trump has pulled this “Democrat bill” idiocy straight out of his backside.

Let me stipulate once again that I favor stricter border security. I favor the president’s goal to crack down on illegal immigration. I want people seeking entry into the United States to do so properly, legally and with all the requisite documentation.

I oppose categorically the hideously cruel notion of taking children out of their parents’ arms, sending them somewhere while arresting Mom and Dad and holding them apart from their children.

Congressional Democrats did not enact a bill that creates that situation. This humanitarian crisis is the creation of the Trump administration as explained by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

For the president to call it a “Democrat bill” once again is yet another demonstration that the head of state appears to be pathologically incapable of telling the truth.

Donald Trump is a liar.

Maybe I should try to understand that a pathological liar cannot help himself. Aww, no. I don’t intend to cut the president any slack on this habit. I won’t even try.

national news, political news, religious news

Scripture does not justify cruelty

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s use of the holy word to justify a cruel government policy simply boggles my mind.

It also boggles the mind of many other Americans.

He stood in front of a nation and declared that the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans said that we all must obey the government. Therefore, the AG said, the Donald Trump administration’s policy of separating children from their parents who enter the United States illegally is justified by New Testament Scripture.

What an absolute abomination! What a profoundly offensive use of the Bible to justify cruel treatment of children.

Sessions cited Romans 13. Yes, Paul instructed us to obey the government. But that’s not all that his letter said. Paul refers to the Old Testament commandment to “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Look, the idea that the attorney general would invoke Scripture as a justification is insulting and demeaning on its face.

The Trump administration has decided to get tough on illegal immigration by taking children, many of them infants, from their mothers and fathers if they are caught entering this country without proper documentation. Hundreds of children have been separated from their parents with no assurance of when they will be reunited — if ever!

Someone has to tell me how that kind of policy is in keeping with the love and compassion that Jesus Christ taught the world while he was walking among us.

And think of the irony here. Sessions is the chief law enforcement officer in an administration led by a man with zero demonstrated commitment to the teachings brought in Scripture.

Therefore, does anyone actually believe that the attorney general is speaking for Donald John Trump while invoking a passage from the New Testament?

Shameful.

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

No, Mr. President, they aren’t ‘animals’

Donald John Trump really and truly doesn’t like those who come into this country illegally.

The president laid some pretty harsh language on them during a White House meeting this week. His description? He calls them “animals.”

There you go, Mr. President. Many of the undocumented immigrants who have come to the United States have managed to, um, graduate from college (some with academic honors), rear their families, pursue fruitful professional careers, serve in the U.S. military (and dying for the country in the process).

These are who the president of the United States calls “animals”?

According to National Public Radio: During a White House roundtable discussion with law enforcement officials and political leaders, Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims expressed frustration that California law signed last year by Gov. Jerry Brown forbids informing U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement of undocumented immigrants in the state’s jails, even if police believe they are part of a gang.

Trump’s response: “We have people coming into the country — or trying to come in, we’re stopping a lot of them — but we’re taking people out of the country, you wouldn’t believe how bad these people are. These aren’t people. These are animals,” the president said.

The White House meeting dealt with sanctuary cities, where municipal officials have declared their communities to be safe havens for those who enter the country without proper documentation. Trump wanted to make some idiotic generalization about every person who sneaks into the country.

As usual, the president’s overheated hyperbole is inaccurate, unfair and without any basis in fact.

I understand fully that some undocumented U.S. residents them come here and commit violent crimes. They harm others. Has it been proven, though, that undocumented immigrants do so at a more frequent rate than U.S. citizens?

The president continues to speak only for those who comprise his political base. He doesn’t speak for me.

Disgraceful.