Tag Archives: ICE

local news, national security, State news

Border madness must be handled

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I am going to concede that conditions on our nation’s southern border need attention, they need serious repair, they need an administration that is willing to get tougher than it has been so far.

A neighbor of mine is a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper who is leaving soon for a temporary-duty assignment southeast of Laredo.

He describes the situation on the border as “an out of control mess.”

My neighbor blames President Biden’s administration for it. He didn’t say so directly, but I believe he endorsed the Donald Trump administration policy of rounding up undocumented immigrants, fast-tracking their status while being held and then sending them back to the country from which they fled.

The Biden administration approach is more an “open border” matter. I reminded him that the border isn’t “open” and that Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are stopping illegal immigration every single day.

He acknowledged that but said that the Biden administration’s more tolerant policy is enticing people to flee to this country.

I get that Joe Biden has taken a dramatically different approach to undocumented immigration than the one used by his immediate predecessor. However, I will not accept the notion that our borders are “open” and available for anyone to enter this country.

My neighbor, though, is joining other DPS troopers to assist local and federal law enforcement officials in doing their job. He believes this DPS involvement will last a while, that the situation along our border is too grave to clear up over the short term.

He is a bright young man. I will accept his diagnosis of the problem.

However, I am going to swallow the hook that contends that an “open border policy” is to blame for it.

This matter needs a concerted federal and state effort to resolve. I am going to hold out hope that Gov. Greg Abbott will resist the temptation to hurl blame and insults and will get to working with the president and his team to resolve this matter.

International news, national news

What constitutes immigration reform?

1 Comment

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Some of you, like me who are interested in these things, might be inclined to wonder: What does comprehensive immigration reform look like?

I pose the question in the wake of that visit to the Texas border with Mexico from Republican members of Congress who have decided that the crisis on the border is all President Biden’s fault. They have sniped and snorted over the influx of immigrants fleeing oppression, crime, heartache in Latin America. They are searching for happiness and a new life in the Land of Opportunity and Freedom.

A letter writer to the Dallas Morning News asked of Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, two of the border visitors, whether they were going to stop yapping about Biden’s policies and start offering some comprehensive immigration reform ideas of their own.

What constitutes such reform?

I’ll take a brief stab at it.

  • We ought to establish policies that give a “pathway to citizenship” for those undocumented immigrants who are here already and who have been exposed as front-line workers to the COVID virus. U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif. — the son of immigrants — estimates there are about 5 million out of 11 million undocumented immigrants who fit that description. That’s one idea.
  • Another would be to make the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals a law. Codified it and allow DACA recipients to avoid deportation if they seek citizenship or legal resident status. These individuals were brought here as children — some of them as infants — by their parents who sneaked into the country illegally. Many of the DACA recipients have pursued fruitful careers as U.S. residents. They have excelled academically. They have paid their taxes. They have worked hard. They have raised families of their own.
  • Still another notion would be to reform the Immigration and Customs Enforcement policy of separating children from their parents, which was a hallmark of the Donald Trump administration. I don’t want to see ICE dismantled. It can perform a valuable service in protecting this country. There is plenty of opportunity to make it a more humanely operated agency.
  • And yes, we need to beef up border security.  We don’t need to erect walls along our border. It is too costly and its effectiveness is questionable. This nation has plenty of technological know-how to find and identify those who cross our border in the dead of night. We already are returning many undocumented immigrants already. I have no problem with that policy.

I know this doesn’t cover the whole gambit of immigration reform. I just want to see our elected representatives start dealing forthrightly with some solutions rather than tossing blame at an administration that has made a more “humane” immigration policy its benchmark.

medical news

Human rights, (cont.) …

1 Comment

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Human rights ought to extend to those who reside in a country without proper documentation … and that certainly includes those living in the United States of America.

Therefore, I endorse President Biden’s view that undocumented immigrants are entitled to receive COVID-19 vaccines without fear of being arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

It’s a matter of public health, Biden told Univision television interviewers. Thus, a danger to undocumented immigrants is a danger to all with whom they come into contact while going about living in the United States.

“I want to make sure they are able to get vaccinated and so they’re protected from COVID without the ICE or anyone interfering,” Biden said. “They should… not be arrested for being able to get a vaccination.”

Spare me the criticism that Biden is pandering. The president vows to protect all Americans and, indeed, all residents of this nation.

According to The Hill: The comments follow an announcement from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) earlier this month that said ICE was not conducting enforcement activities at or near COVID-19 vaccination sites.

“It is a moral and public health imperative to ensure that all individuals residing in the United States have access to the vaccine,” the agency said in a statement at the time. “DHS is committed to ensuring that every individual who needs a vaccine can get one, regardless of their immigration status.”

Biden: Undocumented immigrants should get vaccine without ICE targeting them (msn.com)

These individuals’ immigration status can be handled separately, apart from the need to get them vaccinated against a virus that continues to sicken and kill U.S. residents — regardless of whether they are citizens, are here legally or illegally.

It is a human right to be protected against this pandemic.

national news

Immigration ban: mostly for show

Donald J. “Xenophobe in Chief” Trump’s temporary ban on all immigration just doesn’t pass the smell test.

He is signing an executive order that bans for 60 days all immigration into the United States, except for those with temporary work visas. Trump says he wants to prevent the spread of the coronavirus that has killed more than 45,000 Americans.

Sure thing, Mr. President, except that the virus is not being “imported” by immigrants. The overwhelming number of new infections is coming from right here at home, which tells me that that the executive order was issued more than just a tad late in the game.

What’s more, the announcement came — as usual — via Twitter. Trump got into a late-night fidgety spell and blasted out the tweet reportedly without consulting immigration officials, the National Security Council, the FBI or the Department of Homeland Security. Gosh, isn’t it essential that you notify the appropriate agency heads of such drastic matters before you make the public announcement?

Trump’s anti-immigration stance is well known. It’s not just the folks who are sneaking in here illegally that has drawn his ire. He wants to clamp down as well on legal immigration. You know, he doesn’t like all that inbound traffic from what he calls “sh**hole countries,” meaning countries from, oh, Africa and Latin America.

The temporary immigration ban is nothing more than another example of Trump pandering to his base.

Reprehensible.

national news

Fix the DACA mess; restore humaneness to our immigration policy

 ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images)

A Facebook friend, a man I actually know and respect, brought up a point on an earlier blog post that I want to acknowledge here.

He agrees with my belief that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency needs to be repaired, not eliminated, but he cautions about the need to deal with the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals matter as well.

He is correct.

DACA recipients are being punished unjustly only because they were children when their parents sneaked them into the country illegally. The Donald Trump administration wants them deported. The president rescinded an executive order that President Obama signed that gave DACA residents a form of temporary amnesty from deportation.

ICE is under orders to find these folks and detain them.

This isn’t right. It’s cruel and it is inhumane to deport DACA recipients, many of whom have excelled scholastically in the only country they’ve ever known.

I should point out as well two previous Texas governors — George W. Bush and Rick Perry, both Republicans — have all but embraced the idea contained in the DACA executive order that Obama signed. They have supported initiatives, for instances, to grant DACA students in-state tuition at public colleges and universities in Texas. Why? Because they recognize the contributions these young students can make if they are allowed to succeed while continuing to reside in Texas.

ICE can do much good for the country as we seek to reform our immigration policy. I also agree with former Vice President Joe Biden, who’s campaigning for president, that the best way to ensure a thorough and lasting repair of ICE is to change presidents. Donald Trump won’t do it.

Indeed, DACA reform must be part of any effort to re-humanize our nation’s immigration policy.

national news

ICE can be mended

Joe Biden is having trouble finding his footing lately as he campaigns for president, but I want to fully endorse an idea he has put forth about the nation’s immigration enforcement policy.

The former vice president says it is wrong to abolish the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. It can be repaired. Indeed, the best remedy, according to Biden, is to elect a new president in 2020.

I have been troubled, along with progressives, by the ham-handed approach ICE has used to detain immigrants who have entered the United States illegally. However, the principle behind ICE’s formation remains sound. Yes, we need better enforcement along our borders — both north and south, I hasten to add — as well as along our expansive Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf coasts. ICE’s mission is to enact enforcement policies that seek to stem illegal immigration into the country.

ICE critics have taken the argument against the agency’s policy too far, though, by calling for its abolition.

Democratic presidential candidates, such as Elizabeth Warren, say the human rights abuses are a direct result of ICE policy. She’s only half-right. The direct responsibility for that policy flows from the White House, where Donald Trump is currently residing.

I agree with Joe Biden: The best cure for what ails ICE is to replace the president with someone with a semblance of empathy and compassion for those who are seeking to enter this country while fleeing oppression and crime in other nations.

There is no compelling need to abolish ICE. The agency simply needs to be repaired. Let’s start with removing the guy at the top of the chain of command.

national news

Immigration battle bordering now on the absurd

The Donald Trump administration now wants to make legal immigration more difficult for those who want to enter the United States.

You got that? The fight to stem the flow of immigrants has spread to those who play by the rules, abide by our laws and want to work hard to craft a better life for their families.

That’s so very American of the president, yes? Actually, no! It isn’t. It is as un-American as damn near everything he has said or done since taking office.

What’s more, here is where it gets absurd. I saw a social media meme that said the following: Trumpsters yell immigrants are freeloaders, but ICE always raids workplaces. Strange …

Yes. It is strange.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement raided those food processing plants in Mississippi on the same weekend as the El Paso and Dayton massacres. They arrested hundreds of undocumented immigrants. then released many of them almost immediately.

As the meme notes, though, ICE is busting those immigrants who are working for a living, not the so-called “freeloaders” whom Trump insists are “infesting” our nation.

As the grandson of immigrants who came here in the early 20th century with virtually nothing, I resent this abhorrent trend that’s playing out.

All four of my grandparents had little formal education. They sought to build good lives for themselves and their children. I wonder at this moment if they would have qualified for entry under the rules being laid out by Donald Trump.

The absurdity of this debate is astonishing.

International news

Mr. VPOTUS, spare us the platitudes about detainees

This brief comment is directed at you, Mr. Vice President.

I understand you took a tour today of a detention center in McAllen, Texas, where Border Patrol and Customs officials showed you the crowded conditions in which authorities have placed these migrants.

I am going to ask you, sir, to spare the nation any phony platitudes about how “well” the detainees are being treated. You said you “weren’t surprised” at the “tough stuff” you saw.

However, I am half-expecting you to issue statements denigrating the complaints that are coming from other detention centers, such as the one in Clint, near El Paso. Frankly, Mr. Vice President, I wish you had gone to that facility to see up close what all the protests have been about.

But you didn’t.

Mr. Vice President, there are too many reports of mistreatment of children in Clint. You cannot ignore what I know you are hearing. Oh, sure, the president is in full denial and given that you’re the No. 2 man, you must feel the need to parrot what the No. 1 man in the government is saying.

Except that it isn’t true, Mr. Vice President. Yes, you got a taste of what these people are enduring.

For you to downplay, if not outright deny the mistreatment of migrants — especially the children — makes you complicit in the lies that Donald Trump keeps blathering.

Shame on you both.

national news

Trump rattling his fellow Republicans with DHS purge

Donald Trump is on a tear through the agency formed to protect Americans against enemies of our nation.

He has fired (essentially) the secretary of homeland security, gotten rid of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, canned the Secret Service director. There are threats of more dismissals/resignations to come.

Republican senators are shaking their heads, according to Politico. Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa said she thought DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was doing a “fantastic” job.

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said “It’s a mess,” referring to the border situation and the confusion and chaos at DHS.

Yep, it’s a mess, all right.

I believe that is exactly how Donald Trump prefers it.

Cohesion and smooth operation? Forget about it! Yet he calls his administration a “fine-tuned machine.” The president is not hearing the clanks and misfires from the political “engine” he has built.

I guess I’m allowed to wonder how all this tumult at Homeland Security is going to affect the agency’s ability to, um, secure the homeland.

International news

Mend ICE, don’t end it

I happen to agree with a former homeland security secretary who is pushing back against progressive politicians’ call to get rid of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Jeh Johnson, who ran the Department of Homeland Security in the Obama administration, said that ICE needs to be reformed. To end it completely, he said, would compromise national security, given that ICE is a law enforcement agency.

Not at all surprisingly, Donald J. Trump has said progressive politicians favor “anarchy” instead of law and order. Those who holler for an end to ICE only give the president ammo to fire at his political foes.

He is at his demagogic best when given such ammunition. Trust me on this, he has been reckless in the extreme in suggesting that anti-ICE forces actually want the country to be “overrun” by gang members, assorted criminals and anyone who wants to do us harm.

As Johnson wrote in an op-ed in the Washington Post: “Abolish ICE” makes for a good rallying cry on the left. Demanding the abolition of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency also provides President Trump with a useful weapon for bludgeoning Democrats politically. He has said as much, and a good portion of the American public will listen to him.

Read the entire Post essay here.

If there is a way to make ICE a more compassionate law enforcement agency, then let’s look for that solution rather than an outright abolition.