The Great Biden Distraction

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Markk
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Re: The Great Biden Distraction

Post by Markk »

honorentheos wrote:
Sun May 25, 2025 6:57 pm
Markk is just looking for the fastest way to satisfy his "Must I Believe This?" bias. He not only can't accept the Biden administration had a meaningfully positive effect on America, he can't allow any positives to stand because it undermines the idea the Biden administration was an abysmal failure. Dismissal is essential, and the least amount of effort to do so the better for his purposes.

It's more or less the Daniel Peterson defense against the CES Letter.
I actually thought I was going to discuss some of this as you requested. I don't think asking who the author of the fact sheet is is that far fetched of a request.

If you want to compare it to LDS apologetics, it is similar to asking who authored the essays, which is still in my view important. I think asking if you took the time to vet them, given it would as I wrote take a very long time is also a fair question or in this case, maybe a observation. I have spent an hour or two on just two "facts," and am not even sure how long it will take to get to all the rabbit trails required. They were the border and the federal prevailing wage hike. The former is just silly, and the latter which I am familiar with, at least in CA. And wages are determined by union collective bargaining agreements. And there is very strict compliance SOP. So I am not sure exact what Biden did, but my guess is from the reading I have found so far is that it is a Union thing.
Markk
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Re: The Great Biden Distraction

Post by Markk »

honorentheos wrote:
Sun May 25, 2025 6:19 pm
Anyway, regarding the section on border security, here it is again with additional references for your vetting. Enjoy.
SECURING OUR BORDER

(honorentheos' editorial note: This is a summary heading that provides context for the more specific actions that are described under it, which you chose to quote. It is, by nature of being a summary heading, not relying on details evidence. That evidence is supplied under in in the bullet points that followed.)

From his first day in office, President Biden called on Congress to secure the border and address the country's broken immigration system. Over four years, while congressional Republicans failed to act, President Biden and Vice President Harris took action, including by deploying the most agents and officers ever to secure the Southern border, seizing record levels of illicit fentanyl at ports of entry, expanding and creating lawful pathways for those seeking to come to the United States, bringing together world leaders under the Los Angeles Declaration to jointly address irregular migration, and implementing new policies and procedures to make America's immigration system more fair and more just.

Legislative Action

On Day One, President Biden delivered a comprehensive immigration reform package to Congress that included:

- Historic investments in border technology and security.
- Expanded lawful pathways for those seeking to come to the United States.
- A process for Dreamers and farmworkers to seek legal permanent residence in the United States.


reference: https://www.vox.com/22233711/biden-day- ... itizenship

This was legislative direction sent to Congress on Biden's first day in office. It was met with opposition in the Senate and failed to advance. So the Biden administration then followed it with executive actions, discussed later.

In early 2024, the President reached a historic bipartisan agreement with Senate Democrats and Republicans to deliver the most consequential reforms to America's immigration laws in decades. This agreement would have:

- Added thousands of critical border and immigration personnel.
- Invested in cutting-edge technology to detect and intercept illegal fentanyl.
- Delivered sweeping reforms to the asylum system.
- Provided emergency authority for the President to shut down the border when the system becomes overwhelmed.
- Despite a bipartisan deal on this border package, congressional Republicans twice voted against the toughest and fairest set of immigration reforms in decades.


reference: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congre ... rcna136602

You may recall this happening before the election in 2024 where a bipartisan bill was moving forward until Trump told Republican lawmakers that border security was too important of an election issue to give Biden a win so they killed it.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congre ... rcna137477

In other words, immigration is a political volleyball to Republicans. It's not about people being impacted or they would have passed the legislation many of them helped draft and supported.

So, while the two items above are both examples of what could have been, we move now to the executive actions he used to enact policy since congressional Republicans turned out to not be serious about immigration but only wanted to use it to manipulate gullible people. Thank goodness we don't know anyone like that, for sure.

Executive Action to Secure the Border

Given continued congressional inaction, the Biden-Harris Administration took additional executive action to secure the border:

President Biden issued a proclamation on Securing the Border under Immigration and Nationality Act sections 212(f) and 215(a), suspending the entry of noncitizens who cross the Southern border into the United States unlawfully. This proclamation was accompanied by a rule from the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security restricting these noncitizens' eligibility for asylum.

These actions, which are in effect when migration levels are high, were designed to make it easier for immigration officers to quickly remove individuals who do not have a legal basis to remain in the United States. The new procedures include humanitarian exceptions to protect those who are truly in need of protection, including unaccompanied children and victims of trafficking.

Since President Biden announced these executive actions, illegal border crossings have dropped by over 60% and reached the lowest point since July 2020—well before President Biden took office.

reference: https://www.npr.org/2024/06/26/nx-s1-50 ... ve-actions

The Biden-Harris Administration additional key actions to secure the border:

- Published a rule to ensure that migrants who pose a public safety or national security risk are removed as quickly in the process as possible rather than remaining in prolonged, costly detention systems for migrants who attempt to cross the border unlawfully.

- Launched a Recent Arrivals docket to more quickly resolve cases in the immigration court system, helping to reduce a backlog of immigration cases.

- Added prosecutors and support staff to increase immigration-related prosecutions in crucial border region U.S. Attorney's Offices.

- Dismantled smuggling networks through the creation and significant expansion of the FBI's Joint Taskforce Alpha, which led to over 300 domestic and international arrests, over 240 convictions in the United States, and the first ever extraditions from Guatemala to the United States on human smuggling resulting in death charges.

- Imposed visa restrictions on executives of transportation companies who profit from smuggling migrants by sea, and imposed visa restrictions on hundreds of individuals for selling transit visas to migrants who ultimately make their way to the Southern border.

- Operated more repatriation flights per week than ever before, enabling the Department of Homeland Security to repatriate more people in FY 2024 than any year since FY 2010.

- Ensured that fentanyl was not pouring into the country by seizing more fentanyl at ports of entry in two years than the past five years combined, and added 40 drug detection machines across ports of entry to disrupt fentanyl smuggling.


reference: https://www.dhs.gov/archive/news/2024/0 ... nd-support

Executive Action to Improve the Immigration System

The Biden-Harris Administration also took key steps to make America's immigration system more fair and more just.

- Preserved and fortified Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) by codifying the 2012 policy in DHS regulations and vigorously defended it against court challenges.

- Took action to ensure that individuals, including DACA recipients and other Dreamers, who have earned degrees at U.S. institutions of higher education and who have an offer of employment from a U.S. employer in a field related to their degree can quickly receive work visas.

- Rebuilt, strengthened, and modernized the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, successfully resettling more than 100,000 refugees in the United States in 2024—including a new record for refugees from the Western Hemisphere.

- Established new lawful pathways for those from countries suffering humanitarian crises.

- Extended, designated, or re-designated Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) for numerous populations, protecting hundreds of thousands of individuals from being returned to dangerous conditions in their countries of origin.

- Significantly enhanced U.S. companies' ability to fill job vacancies in critical fields and in seasonal industries by publishing rules that modernized and strengthened the integrity of the H-1B program for high skilled workers and the H-Second Amendment agricultural workers and H-2B non-agricultural workers programs.


references:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/immigratio ... -migrants/
https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/news/ ... serve-daca
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/DCP ... 100064.pdf
Okay I will read through this.

Can you concede that what I pasted and given the fact that Trump more of less shut the flow of open illegal immigration off in a matter of weeks, really shed a bad light on the opening statement I pasted?
honorentheos
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Re: The Great Biden Distraction

Post by honorentheos »

The website is part of the American Presidents Project hosted by UC Santa Barbara. It's non-partisan though the majority of the information comes from briefing put by the administrations themselves.

You may not like what it says about the Biden administration and border security but the statements in it are factually accurate.

You also may prefer Trump's approach which includes ignoring the Constitution and violating individual rights in order to placate folks such as yourself. Just remember he also prevented the attempt to enact actual legislation under the Biden administration in 2024 because he wanted to prevent a Biden win on the issue. Even though Congress is supposed to create laws rather than the US be governed through gross executive power. There is more to this issue, vastly more, than some partisan idea of what border security means.
honorentheos
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Re: The Great Biden Distraction

Post by honorentheos »

Markk wrote:
Sun May 25, 2025 7:32 pm
Can you concede that what I pasted and given the fact that Trump more of less shut the flow of open illegal immigration off in a matter of weeks, really shed a bad light on the opening statement I pasted?
Trump is violating the constitution. The Republican led legislature has conceded their role in government to the executive branch. That's not good for America. This idea that shutting down the border is good for the country is a pathology, not a promise, that has afflicted the Republican party.

If you actually cared about legitimate rule of law when it comes to border security you would be angry that Republicans prevented the bipartisan immigration bill from being advanced into law.

Sorry Markk, but I care too deeply about democracy. You are defending the destruction of the American experiment for reasons that you cannot articulate.
honorentheos
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Re: The Great Biden Distraction

Post by honorentheos »

For Markk's further consideration:

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/ ... ens-rights

Folks may remember I live in Arizona. I myself have not seen it but coworkers who have had work near the border have expressed shock at how it has been militarized. The article lays out some of the issues this presents in terms of erosion of separation of powers and the expansion of the executive in dangerous ways.
Last edited by honorentheos on Sun May 25, 2025 8:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
honorentheos
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Re: The Great Biden Distraction

Post by honorentheos »

For cross-reference, see how the new BBB undermines courts which feeds further into this alarming expansion of the executive:

viewtopic.php?p=2895224#p2895224
Markk
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Re: The Great Biden Distraction

Post by Markk »

(honorentheos' editorial note: This is a summary heading that provides context for the more specific actions that are described under it, which you chose to quote. It is, by nature of being a summary heading, not relying on details evidence. That evidence is supplied under in in the bullet points that followed.)

From his first day in office, President Biden called on Congress to secure the border and address the country's broken immigration system. Over four years, while congressional Republicans failed to act, President Biden and Vice President Harris took action, including by deploying the most agents and officers ever to secure the Southern border, seizing record levels of illicit fentanyl at ports of entry, expanding and creating lawful pathways for those seeking to come to the United States, bringing together world leaders under the Los Angeles Declaration to jointly address irregular migration, and implementing new policies and procedures to make America's immigration system more fair and more just.
Okay this is the summary of the bill by your non partisan, who ever they are group....

Here is a cut and paste of the summary from the actual bill presented by Sanchez.
There is one summary for H.R.1177. Bill summaries are authored by CRS.
Shown Here:
Introduced in House (02/18/2021)
U.S. Citizenship Act

This bill establishes a path to citizenship for certain undocumented individuals. The bill also replaces the term alien with noncitizen in the immigration statutes and addresses other related issues.

Specifically, the bill establishes a new status of lawful prospective immigrant. This status shall be available to an applying noncitizen who meets certain requirements, including being continually present in the United States from January 1, 2021, and passing background checks. After at least five years with this status, an eligible noncitizen may apply for and receive permanent resident status.

The bill also provides permanent resident status to certain applying noncitizens, specifically for eligible noncitizens who (1) entered the United States as a minor, (2) were eligible for temporary protected status or deferred enforced departure on January 1, 2017, or (3) worked a certain amount of agricultural labor in the five years prior to applying.

Among other things, the bill also

redefines for immigration purposes the term conviction to exclude convictions that have been expunged or vacated,
requires the Department of State to implement a strategy to advance reforms in Central America and address key factors contributing to migration from the region to the United States,
requires the State Department to establish refugee processing centers in Central America,
requires Customs and Border Patrol sectors and stations to have a certain number of employees with certain qualifications such as paramedic training,
generally prohibits religious discrimination in granting or denying immigration benefits, and
establishes grant programs for providing training and services to immigrants.
The summary in your link starts out that there is a crisis to secure the border, however the actual bill summary does not even mention securing the border.

In your opinion which will help both of us understand where we are coming from, what according to the summary you pasted was the crisis at the border?
honorentheos
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Re: The Great Biden Distraction

Post by honorentheos »

Markk wrote:
Sun May 25, 2025 8:54 pm
Okay this is the summary of the bill by your non partisan, who ever they are group....

Here is a cut and paste of the summary from the actual bill presented by Sanchez.

(see original post above)

The summary in your link starts out that there is a crisis to secure the border, however the actual bill summary does not even mention securing the border.

In your opinion which will help both of us understand where we are coming from, what according to the summary you pasted was the crisis at the border?
Mind noting where the phrase "crisis at the border" is used? Just curious. Are you referring to the quote from Mitch McConnell or something else?

The bill was an attempt to use the legitimate legislative process to address glaring issues with the immigration system including an increase in asylum seekers arriving at the border. And doing it in a way that was aligned with our values and basic human rights.

Is it better that we militarized the border to reduce border crossings, in a way that circumvents the law and erodes the balance of the branches of government including both the legislative and judicial branches in favor of removing checks on the executive branch?
Gunnar
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Re: The Great Biden Distraction

Post by Gunnar »

It looks more and more like Markk's main response to honorentheos is basically sticking his fingers in his ears and saying "neener neener, I can't hear you." Markk, why are you so hell bent to reject any positive information presented by honorentheos about what the Biden/Harris administration managed to accomplish? Are you a part of the ultra-rich one percent who will be the main, if not the sole beneficiaries of the MAGA tax plan?
No precept or claim is more suspect or more likely to be false than one that can only be supported by invoking the claim of Divine authority for it--no matter who or what claims such authority.
honorentheos
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Re: The Great Biden Distraction

Post by honorentheos »

Gunnar wrote:
Sun May 25, 2025 10:04 pm
It looks more and more like Markk's main response to honorentheos is basically sticking his fingers in his ears and saying "neener neener, I can't hear you." Markk, why are you so hell bent to reject any positive information presented by honorentheos about what the Biden/Harris administration managed to accomplish? Are you a part of the ultra-rich one percent who will be the main, if not the sole beneficiaries of the MAGA tax plan?
I don't know that I would characterize it as he is saying he can't hear what is being proposed. It's a normal human response to want to dismiss information that conflicts with one's views by seeking the lowest degree of sufficient evidence to be able to feel one is not obligated to agree with a contradicting view and that seems to be what Markk is seeking currently. He set a rather extreme bar for himself by proposing the Biden administration was a failure and I expect he will narrow that down to being a failure at the border. But that is problematic on its face because:

A) The Trump approach at the border is blatantly disregarding the Constitution and human rights while grossly expanding the power of the executive branch in alarming ways.

B) The Biden administration's attempts to engage in lawful immigration reform was turned into a political football and squashed in the Senate so that Trump could campaign on this issue rather than our having actually tried to address it in a legal and humanitarian manner.

I expect he will continue to find ways to define the border security and immigration issue to something that is narrowly met by the actions of the Trump administration, possibly toss in an agree to disagree or similar, and possibly try to drag the thread into multiple pages of minutiae.
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