Trump is Lawless on the Border

[_subgenius]

Anyone else wonder just why in the world NOW he's grown a conscience? HRM....

- Doc

On the topic of the OP, the conscience seems to have grown solely because "Trump!"... must have just been gestating during those Obama border years.

[_Gunnar]

You think KG would abuse and take advantage of White people the way he does Brown people who are in a subordinate power dynamic? I think you need to open your eyes, and see what and why he posts the way he does. It's unconscionable.

- Doc

Sorry, but my eyes are wide open, and I read almost all of his posts. I still think you are as wrong as you could possibly be on this issue.

[_Kevin Graham]

For eight ____ years our resident racist and wage oppressor didn't say JACK ____ about Brown folk and their relationship to the Presidency. Now, all of sudden, despite millions of impoverished immigrants being granted asylum, deferred status, and citizenship (not to mention turning a blind eye to them) he found his voice.

Anyone else wonder just why in the world NOW he's grown a conscience? HRM....

- Doc

Since eight years ago!?!? "Brown folk and their relationship to the Presidency"?? What the hell does this even mean?

It is always telling when you become so unhinged and get all personal just because you can't handle being refuted on various issues. No one else wonders the dumb crap you claim to be "wondering" because you're not wondering anything. You're just pouting like an infant because you want acknowledgment and acceptance on a damned message board. That's pretty pathetic.

You're bitching about why more people don't agree with you about me being a racist? It is because you're an idiot who argues it is racist to hire a brown person who speaks Spanish to do contract work without buying him a health insurance policy. Yes, this is the depths of stupidity you've reached now.

[_Kevin Graham]

Let's recap shall we. I started this thread to point out the illegality of Trump's actions on the border.

Current federal law (implemented in 1980 to bring us into compliance with international law we accepted back in 1951) allows anyone within US borders to request asylum upon entry whether they presented legally at a point of entry or entered illegally. Trump tried to implement a law automatically denying asylum to those entering illegally and a federal judge issued a restraining order, declaring his law an illegal attempt to circumvent federal law. Make no mistake: Trump is directly and knowingly violating the law in an effort to stoke the fires of ethnonationalism, and the below are among the many victims of his bigoted lawlessness. No one who barks that we are a nation of laws has a leg to stand on regarding support of the Trump administration. He has flagrantly flouted the law since before he was even elected.

Doc accuses the group of 3000+ of "reject[ing] asylum and then try to bum rush a sovereign nation's borders." That's an idiot's talking point with no relation to reality and reflects his bigotry and stupidity.

Subs immediately jumps in with an edited photo deriving from a far Right conspiracy source, insisting the whole thing is a staged hoax. I refuted that with a detailed piece written by Snopes, but there are other sources that have done this as well. He then goes on to beat a straw man about tear gassing being done under Obama which is entirely irrelevant to what the thread is about.

cinepro misses the point of the thread and beats a straw man about "open" borders, which is another favorite talking point on the Right which has no basis in reality either.

While I'm typing up a response to cinepro, and cutting/pasting two other posts from other sources, Jersey Girl posts a short question which I totally missed. I noticed her question quoted in cinepro's second post and I responded. That wasn't good enough apparently and so Jersey Girl goes off on me. After realizing I did answer her question, she rephrases it to make it sound like I didn't:

What the ____ do you think the ____ Trump adminstration should do RIGHT ____ NOW when faced with upwards of 5 thousand ____ refugees trying to get across the goddamn border at one ____ time?

This is a rephrase but it is asking something that has already been answered.

If she read the sources I provided she'd know that aren't 5000 refugees trying to cross at "one time." There were fewer than 100 individuals who were trying to get through, and that was only after they were waiting for weeks to file a claim. That's less than 2% of the migrants who acted in frustration for traveling so far just to find out their legal rights were being neglected. The law breaking began when the Trump administration denied them their legal right to file for asylum.

Jersey Girl then insists there are, without a shred of evidence to back it up, an "estimated 2,000 tagalongs." She then goes off tangent: "how in the bloody hell do we know what their motives are and how do you expect the ____ Trump admin/border patrol/freaking guard...to shelter them all at once so they can be vetted?"

This idea about "tagalongs" is pointless because "tagalong" or not, if you have no legitimate claim to asylum then you're going to be sent back. If some Mexican man is "tagging along" with a Honduran Mom and her kids, this is something that can be easily determined via the vetting process. They're not just taking their word on what they say, these migrants have to literally prove they have legitimate claims to asylum. This is the second time I've said this.

And now the question shifts to "How did Obama handle it"?

The Obama administration handled the caravans by doing precisely what I suggested. They ramped up resources. The controversy over immigration during the Obama administration was about detention centers holding families that were waiting too long to have their claims processed. But at least they were getting processed, and though families held for months were getting depressed, they said they were being treated well and it was much better than being back in Honduras.

But Trump wants to say “F” IT to more resources. He refuses to get more judges involved which is something Obama did to expedite the asylum claims.

[_Kevin Graham]

Notice the date on this article written in June 2014.

How the White House is surging enforcement to deal with migrant families

The Obama administration announced Friday that it was taking several steps to "surge" more resources to the US-Mexico border to address the wave of migrants from Central America — many of whom are unaccompanied children, or parents with young children.

The government says that since October, Border Patrol agents have already apprehended 52,000 unaccompanied child migrants (as of June 15th) and 39,000 adults with children (as of May 31st). The majority of unaccompanied children are coming from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador; while there isn't data on where families are coming from, reports indicate that many of them are coming from Central America as well.

So here are three steps the government announced it was taking today to address the issue:

1) Hearing asylum claims from adults quickly — and deporting them immediately if they lose their cases

The issue: Under international law, the government is required to hear the case of anyone who "credibly" fears going back to his home country, to see if he qualifies for asylum.
But because that process goes through the immigration courts — which had a years-long backlog even before this current Central American "surge" — it's impossible for the government to act quickly to deport someone who doesn't quite meet the standards for asylum.

What DHS is doing: DHS announced today that it's deploying more immigration judges, Immigration and Customs Enforcement lawyers (who act as prosecutors in immigration court cases), and asylum officers to work on the asylum claims of Central American adults without children. Furthermore, DHS says, if the government hears an asylum case and determines the immigrant doesn't qualify for asylum, he'll be immediately deported.

2) Detaining more families, and monitoring the rest

The issue: At the moment, many immigrants who get apprehended are given a "Notice to Appear" in immigration court (which starts the deportation process) and then released until they show up for their court date. In fact, reports last week showed the government was just dropping off busloads of immigrants at Greyhound stops in Arizona, without water, food, or guidance about what to do next.

What DHS is doing: There's currently only one immigration detention facility that's suitable for families: a former nursing home in Burks County, Pennsylvania. DHS announced today that it is "actively working to secure additional space to detain adults with children apprehended crossing the border," in the words of Deputy DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Families who aren't being physically put in detention are going to be "monitored" using "alternatives to detention," like ankle bracelets, to make sure that they're showing up for their court dates.

3) A second "surge" of immigration court officials to deal specifically with families
The issue: If thousands of families are being held in immigration detention facilities, it's even more crucial that their cases be heard quickly — rather than waiting for months or years in a facility that's often jail-like.

What DHS is doing: Once DHS has been able to find suitable family detention facilities, Deputy Secretary Mayorkas said today, it will send an "additional surge" of judges, prosecutors, and asylum officers to focus on the cases of families. Deputy Secretary Mayorkas assured reporters today that DHS would work to process families' cases "both fairly and as quickly as possible."

=====================

So basically they were doing exactly what I said needed to be done. More resources are needed to accommodate the influx of migrants coming to the border. More bed, more facility space, more detention centers, more case workers and more judges.

[_Kevin Graham]

Contrast those measures taken more than 4 years ago with Trump's approach:

Trump rejects calls for more immigration judges: 'We have to have a real border, not judges'


Also relevant, from 2016:

A Rush of Central Americans Complicates Obama’s Immigration Task

... Homeland Security officials had started in June to reconfigure the two Texas centers, after mothers and children had spent long months in confinement.

Then in August, Judge Dolly M. Gee of Federal District Court for the Central District of California ordered that migrant children could not be held in a locked detention center and had to be released, with their parents, “without unnecessary delay.” But the judge made an exception for an emergency due to an “influx,” for which she permitted children to be held for up to 20 days. Homeland Security officials seized on that exception, arguing that an influx existed even before the recent spike.

By doubling asylum officers and speeding legal procedures since late October, officials have been completing most initial asylum screenings in the two detention centers here in South Texas and releasing families within the 20-day limit.

From 2015:

Hope and Despair as Families Languish in Texas Immigration Centers

“I would be lying if I said they didn’t treat us well,” said Y.G.G., a 27-year-old woman who has been at the camp here since February with two children, ages 9 and 6. She said she had fled Honduras after vengeful drug traffickers murdered five of her relatives and told her that she was next. Like the other women interviewed, she asked to be identified only by her initials because asylum cases are confidential.

“But I can’t sleep because I have such a headache from thinking about being trapped in here,” she said. “My children get so sad, and they ask me, ‘Mama, when will we get out of here?’ After all they went through, they are traumatized again.”

At the nearby center in Karnes City, Tex., which Mr. Johnson will visit on Monday, lengthy stays for some women have led to simmering unrest and at least two reports of suicide attempts.

Mr. Johnson ordered the opening of new facilities last summer, after many families crossing the border illegally said they had been spurred by word reaching Central America that parents with children were routinely released by border agents to stay in the United States.
The centers were designed to hold the women while they fight their cases in the immigration courts, part of the administration’s expansion of family detention to more than 3,000 beds nationwide, from only 95 a year ago.

What Obama did with migrant families vs. what Trump is doing

[_Kevin Graham]

So in a nutshell, people who are captured at the border and have no legitimate claim to asylum SHOULD BE DEPORTED.

I can't think if a single Liberal I know who believes in "open borders."

But due process is required.

Obama was known as the Deporter in Chief. I don't know why anyone thinks I'm a hypocrite for not criticizing Obama on immigration simply because he detained and deported illegal immigrants. That's just following the law. Obama never denied anyone the right to file for asylum. Trump is doing this right now and he thinks he has the authority to do so. That is what this thread is about. The illegality of Trump's actions regarding the refugees on the border.

It isn't about whether or not tear gas was ever used before Trump. Of course it was. It isn't about whether we should have open borders. Of course we shouldn't.

[_ajax18]

It isn't about whether we should have open borders. Of course we shouldn't.

But if what you're data and statistitics proving illegal immigration is a net benefit to the economy were true, why shouldn't we have open borders?

Even if illegal immigration ultimately lowered the average native born Americans' net income by 40%, to attempt to enforce the border is still racist since we're all immigrants and none of us have a right to set a limit on immigration. That's what you believe, right?

[_EAllusion]

It isn't about whether we should have open borders. Of course we shouldn't.

But if what you're data and statistitics proving illegal immigration is a net benefit to the economy were true, why shouldn't we have open borders?

If "open borders" is defined as allowing anyone into the country, then the answer you'll find is that the US should reserve the right to screen out dangerous people such as those with serious prior felony convictions, those carrying dangerous diseases that cannot be quarantined, those with provable intentions to commit terrorism, etc. Otherwise, yeah, the net economic benefit of immigration to the US is a good reason to have relatively open immigration. And that is factually the case. Taking up the contrary position in willful ignorance of the evidence is no virtue.

If you look at polling, people who want "open immigration" are relatively rare, but people who want much more open immigration with an easier path to naturalization than what the US current has are a substantial majority. Public opinion is wide, but not deep, so it's hard to read too much into this, but public sentiment is thoroughly opposed to you wanting to go in the opposite direction.

[_canpakes]

Even if illegal immigration ultimately lowered the average native born Americans' net income by 40% ...

This figure seems strangely arbitrary. Can you shed some light on the rationale behind it?

From your own perspective, how would a flood of immigrants affect your own income by this percentage? Is there a horde of Central American optometrists gathered at the border and ready to infiltrate the profession?