Ilhan Omar: We Should Debate Whether to Eliminate All Border and Immigration Enforcement Agencies
By Matt Vespa
Townhall.com, July 5, 2019
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2019/07/05/ilhan-omar--we-should-debate-whether-we-need-border-patrol-at-all-n2549507
DEMS DETERMINED TO LEAVE AMERICA BORDERLESS
And hence, defenseless.
July 1, 2019
The quintessential example of “Chutzpah” is the young man who kills both of his parents and then pleads for mercy arguing that he is an orphan.
The Democrats have succeeded in providing an even more egregious example of demonstrating chutzpah by betraying their oaths of office and betraying their constituents and, indeed, all Americans.
The official report, 9/11 and Terrorist Travel begins with the following paragraph:
It is perhaps obvious to state that terrorists cannot plan and carry out attacks in the United States if they are unable to enter the country. Yet prior to September 11, while there were efforts to enhance border security, no agency of the U.S. government thought of border security as a tool in the counterterrorism arsenal. Indeed, even after 19 hijackers demonstrated the relative ease of obtaining a U.S. visa and gaining admission into the United States, border security still is not considered a cornerstone of national security policy. We believe, for reasons we discuss in the following pages, that it must be made one.
The Democrats continue to refuse to provide the funding for DHS to address the border crisis that exists along the dangerous and highly porous U.S./Mexican border while complaining about the conditions in which illegal aliens, particularly alien children, are being housed in detention facilities that were never designed to handle the number of aliens currently being housed within their over-crowded confines.
On June 25, 2019 Fox News reported, “Dem-led House passes $4.5B bill to aid migrants at border, setting up showdown with GOP-led Senate.”
While the Democrats balk at the funding of a border wall that would deter the massive tsunami of unprecedented levels of illegal immigration and drug smuggling, their “leaders” are happy to spend huge sums of tax-payer provided cash on caring for illegal aliens who should not be here in the first place!
Of course I would be remiss if I fail to point out that the money for the border wall and other immigration law enforcement efforts was not provided by the Republicans when they controlled the House of Representatives, either.
Here is how that report began:
The House approved a $4.5 billion supplemental spending bill on Tuesday night to address humanitarian issues at the U.S.-Mexico border and to provide additional funding for food, water, medical services and stronger protections for unaccompanied children, among other things -- setting up a showdown between the Democrat-led House and the Republican-led Senate.The House bill, which passed 230-195, included specifics that would prevent the Trump administration from allowing any funding to go toward beefing up Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel at the border, likely to become a point of contention with Republicans.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has outrageously and disgustingly compared immigration detention facilities with “Concentration Camps.” In one fell swoop she managed to trivialize the Holocaust, stopping just short of denying that it even happened and comparing valiant immigration law enforcement officers with the Gestapo of Third Reich notoriety.
She coopted the expression “Never again” that is the rallying cry to make certain that a Holocaust is never again permitted to occur, and has now voted against the spending bill that would fund any ICE- related functions, calling for the total dismantling of ICE, a sentiment echoed by many of her Democrat “fellow travelers.”
That she could make such outrageous remarks difficult enough to accept, but that Pelosi and Nadler, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and a Jew, have refused to call her out but actually ran to her defense is beyond any comprehension!
As an American, as a Jew and as a retired INS Agent I am triply infuriated by Ocasio-Cortez’s statements.
To provide a bit of clarity:
The Third Reich used its soldiers to round up citizens of the countries where the concentration camps existed. They were deemed “undesirable.” These troops would pull their victims, men, women and children out of their homes at gun point and transport them to the Nazi concentration camps that are also appropriately referred to as “Death Camps.”
The victims of the Holocaust who were held in the concentration camps were turned into slaves to build the Nazi war machine and, when through overwork and starvation became ill and unable to work, were slaughtered.
Other victims of the Holocaust were used as the subject of barbaric and horrific medical experimentation.
Many concentration camps had crematoria that operated constantly to incinerate the remains of the inmates, most often Jews.
Although the mainstream media has been quick to refer to the illegal aliens being held in immigration detention centers as “migrants" and “immigrants” and “asylum seekers,” they blithely ignore that these individuals are aliens who are illegally present in the Untied States.
Some “Migrant Workers” who toil on American farms are actually United States citizens. The term migrant refers to workers who travel from job to job irrespective of immigration status.
Immigration detention centers exist solely to prevent illegal aliens from being able to gain access to our nation. These aliens are held to protect national security, public safety, public health and the wellbeing of America and Americans.
Most of the aliens who apply for asylum disappear within the interior of the United States when their applications are denied- not because the United States lacks compassion, but because their applications for asylum lack merit.
Many of these hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens are not criminals but should be thought of as economic refugees who will flood America with cheap exploitable labor, thereby displacing American and lawful immigrant workers. Many will seek health care and various costly benefits and education for their children further burdening our public school systems that already lack the resources to provide quality education for hapless American and lawful immigration children.
Some may suffer from dangerous communicable diseases threatening public health. And finally some may well be aliens with criminal histories and/or affiliation with violent gangs and narcotics trafficking organizations. Finally, some may be involved with terrorism and may be “sleeper agents” seeking the opportunity to embed themselves in the United States until called upon to carry out a deadly attack or are tasked with a preparatory assignment to scope our locations, seek to recruit others or commit crimes to fund terrorism. This is not conjecture by are issues that were raised during a series of congressional hearings conducted even before the terror attacks of 9/11.
Yet funding has never been provided to effectively enforce our nation’s immigration laws.
Having raised the nexus between failures of the immigration system and terrorism at the beginning of my commentary, it is important to note that on June 25, 2019 Fox News reported, “Sept. 11 first responders call sit-down with McConnell 'one of the best meetings we've had.’”
Here is how the report ended:
The House Judiciary Committee passed a reauthorization bill for the 9/11 Victims’ Compensation Fund on Wednesday, where it will now move to the full House and is expected to pass with bipartisan support.Advocates have rallied to keep the bill alive until 2090, the expected lifespan of first responders who developed illnesses from inhaling toxic fumes during recovery efforts and while clearing rubble at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pa. following the terrorist attacks in 2001.More than 2,000 firefighters, police officers, federal agents and other first responders have died from 9/11-related diseases and that number is expected to climb over time, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's World Trade Center Health Program.Critics have opposed making the bill open-ended, while advocates have cited the terminal illnesses that many first responders continue to face. More than 40,000 people have applied to the fund and over $5 billion in benefits have been awarded out of the $7.4 billion fund with about 21,000 claims still pending.
The slogan “Never forget” that implores and exhorts us and our leaders to make certain that America is kept safe from future terror attacks, is being completely ignored by politicians who refuse to fund meaningful immigration law enforcement.
These politicians are willfully undermining national security and public safety.
Exclusive–Mo Brooks: Healthcare for Illegal Aliens Latest Democrat Effort to Turn U.S. into California
3:34
Providing free, American taxpayer-funded healthcare to all illegal aliens is just the latest effort to use mass immigration to turn the United States into the sanctuary state of California, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) says.
As Breitbart News reported, the majority of 2020 Democrat presidential candidates have endorsed a plan to force taxpayers to pay for free healthcare for all 11 to 22 million illegal aliens living across the country. The plan would cost taxpayers at least $660 billion a decade.
Brooks told SiriusXM Patriot’s Breitbart News Tonight that Democrats’ “primary motivation” behind offering healthcare to illegal aliens is not compassion, but rather an effort to transform the U.S. into the state of California through mass illegal and legal immigration.
LISTEN:
Brooks said:
The motivation for all for this is even worse. They don’t have compassion for these illegal aliens. That’s not their primary motivation. Their primary motivation is the desire to acquire raw political power. That’s what it’s all about. [Emphasis added]If you limit votes to American citizens, Democrats do not fair to well with us. So what they’re trying to do is import people who do not understand the foundational principles that have combined to make America a great nation and who … are much more likely to vote Democrat once Democrats give them voting rights. [Emphasis added]
Brooks detailed how California, the state where former President Ronald Reagan was governor, has been forever changed due to the country’s mass illegal and legal immigration policy that imports about 1.5 million foreign nationals a year.
“Let’s learn from history. California used to be a purple state. Remember, Ronald Reagan came from there … the Democrats have flooded California with noncitizens,” Brooks said. “And why do noncitizens vote Democrat so often? Well, let’s look at illegal aliens. The data shows that 70 percent of households that have an illegal alien in them are on welfare. The data shows that 60 percent of households that have a lawful immigrant in them are on welfare. So, you’ve got three different themes that the Democrat Party now relies on: One is racism, two is sexism, and three is socialism.”
“In California, what used to be a purple state, now out of 53 congressional seats, only seven are Republican … 46 are Democrat and seven are Republican,” Brooks said. “So they have seen how that strategy of importation of foreign voters has worked in California. They’re trying to do it in Texas, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, in every state where they can possibly do it. They want to flood the voting booths with people who are dependent on welfare and who do not understand the principles that have made us a great nation. That’s how they change the voter pool and they’re doing it successfully.”
Health insurance expert Linda Blumberg told the New York Times that any of the Democrats’ plans that offer free health care to illegal aliens is could likely to drive a mass migration of foreigners with “serious health problems to enter the country or remain longer than their visas allow in order to get government-funded care.”
Likely U.S. voters, by a majority, said they oppose being forced to pay for the healthcare of millions of illegal aliens living in the country, as Breitbart News reported. The latest Rasmussen Reports poll found that 55 percent of voters said they opposed such a plan, including 8-in-10 Republican voters, about 6-in-10 swing voters, and 62 percent of middle-class voters.
In the next two decades, should the country’s legal immigration policy go unchanged, the U.S. is set to import about 15 million new foreign-born voters. About eight million of these new foreign-born voters will have arrived through the process known as “chain migration,” whereby newly naturalized citizens are allowed to bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the country.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
Harris Top Choice of Hispanic Dems After Criticizing Obama on Deportations
4:19
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) emerged as the top choice of Hispanic Democrats this week days after she criticized President Barack Obama’s deportation agenda during last week’s presidential debate.
As Breitbart News reported, a Univision poll released on Tuesday found that Harris, who was in sixth place before the debate at 6%, is now in first place among Latino Democrats with 22% support.
Latino activists have long been upset at Obama’s deportation policies. Janet Murguia, the CEO of UnidosUS (formerly the National Council of La Raza) labelled Obama the “Deporter-in-Chief” while former Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) routinely criticized the Obama administration’s deportation and detention policies.
After telling debate moderator Jose Diaz-Balart last week that she was not in favor of deporting illegal immigrants who have not committed additional crimes in the United States, Harris smoothly pivoted and said: “[T]his was one of the very few issues with which I disagreed with the [Obama] administration, with whom I always had a great relationship and a great deal of respect.”
“But on the secure communities issue, I was attorney general of California. I led the second-largest Department of Justice in the United States, second only to the United States Department of Justice, in a state of 40 million people,” Harris continued. “And on this issue, I disagreed with my president, because the policy was to allow deportation of people who by ICE’s own definition were non-criminals. So as attorney general, and the chief law officer of the state of California, I issued a directive to the sheriffs of my state that they did not have to comply with detainers, and instead should make decisions based on the best interests of public safety of their community.”
Harris said the Obama administration was deporting “parents, people who had not committed a crime, even by ICE’s own definition.”
“The problem with this kind of policy — and I know it as a prosecutor. I want a rape victim to be able to run… in the middle of the street and wave down a police officer and report the crime against her,” Harris continued. “I want anybody who has been the victim of any real crime… to be able to do that and not be afraid that if they do that, they will be deported, because the abuser will tell them it is they who is the criminal. It is wrong. It is wrong.”
Erika Andiola, one of the most prominent Dreamer activists who has been a fierce critic of the Obama administration on deportations, last week on MSNBC blamed Obama for creating “a big, strong immigration enforcement machine that was taken by Trump and that was made even bigger.”
Andiola, who is now with RAICES, said amnesty activists are trying to figure out what Democrats would do differently than Trump on immigration because activists do not want more “Obama-type actions” from Democrats.
“Are they going to stop detention of immigrants, are they going to stop the treatment of children in this way at the border, but even deeper, how are we actually going to solve the problem?” she asked while calling on all Democrats running for president to denounce Obama’s deportation policies. “People are fleeing for a reason. What are they doing to solve the problem and not re-creating another you know, like I said, Obama Administration. I keep saying Obama, because he was a Democrat and today we have a Democratic debate.”
Attacking Obama, who is beloved for obvious reasons by the party’s critically important black primary voters, during the primary cycle is a tricky task, even though some on the left blame him for being too centrist. Former Vice President Joe Biden still holds a significant but shrinking lead among black voters, and black voters in South Carolina have told pollsters that they support Biden because he was Obama’s loyal vice president.
Biden, after saying it he found it “immoral” to compare Obama to Trump on immigration, defended the Obama administration’s record on deportations during the debate, saying Obama “did a heck of a job.”
Biden’s answer, though, may not suffice after South Carolina votes. And if Harris is viable after the first-in-the South primary in the Palmetto State, her criticisms of Obama’s deportation policies may give her the upper hand when states like California, Nevada, Texas, and Arizona vote.
THE NEXT MEXICAN INVASION IS AT HAND:
"Mexican president candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador called for mass immigration to the United States, declaring it a "human right". We will defend all the (Mexican) invaders in the American," Obrador said, adding that immigrants "must leave their towns and find a life, job, welfare, and free medical in the United States."
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/07/mexican-president-andres-manuel-lopez.html
"Fox’s Tucker Carlson noted Thursday that Obrador has previously proposed granting AMNESTY TO MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS. “America is now Mexico’s social safety net, and that’s a very good deal for the Mexican ruling class,” Carlson added."
"Many Americans forget is that our country is located against a socialist failed state that is promising to descend even further into chaos – not California, the other one. And the Mexicans, having reached the bottom of the hole they have dug for themselves, just chose to keep digging by electing a new leftist presidente who wants to surrender to the cartels and who thinks that Mexicans have some sort of “human right” to sneak into the U.S. and demographically reconquer it." KURT SCHLICHTER
Billionaire Mexicans tell their poor to JUMP U.S. OPEN BORDERS and LOOT THE STUPID GRINGO… and loot they do!
Billions of dollars are sucked out of America from Mexico’s looting!
1) Mexico ended legal immigration 100 years ago, except for Spanish blood.
2) Mexico is the 17th richest nation but pays the 220th lowest minimum wage to force their subjects to invade the USA. The expands territory for Mexicans, spreads the Spanish language, and culture and genotypes, while earning 17% of Mexico's gross GDP as Foreign Remittance Income.
Mexico: Where Is Your Shame?
At a demonstration Wednesday in Mexico City against Arizona's law.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Immigration: Mexico's government gloated triumphantly after a federal judge's injunction blocked Arizona's immigration law. But it's no victory for Mexico. In fact, Mexico's leaders ought to be mortified.
As radical immigration activists crowed with glee and the Obama administration claimed victory, Mexico's government joined the applause.
Calling Judge Susan Bolton's injunction Wednesday "a step in the right direction," Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa declared: "The government of Mexico would like to express its recognition for the determination demonstrated by the federal government of the United States and the actions of the civil organizations that organized lawsuits against the SB 1070 law."
In reality, it ought to be ashamed. Supposedly framed as an issue of federal power pre-empting state power, it's hardly Mexico's business. But Mexico made a big show of saying its interest was in protecting its nationals from the dreadful racism of Arizona that its own citizens, curiously enough, keep fleeing to.
Espinosa said her government was busy collecting data on civil rights violations and her department had issued an all-out travel warning to Mexican nationals about Arizona.
That's where Mexico's hypocrisy is just too much.
First, Mexico encourages illegal immigration to the U.S. Oh, it says it doesn't, but it prints comic book guides for would-be illegal immigrants and provides ID cards for illegals once they get here. In Arizona alone, Mexico keeps five consulates busy.
That's not out of love for its own citizens, but because Mexicans send cash back to Mexico that helps finance the government.
Instead of selling its wasteful state-owned oil company or getting rid of red tape to create jobs in Mexico, Mexico spends the hard currency from remittances. It fails to look at why its citizens leave.
According to the Heritage Foundation-Wall Street Journal 2010 Index of Economic Freedom, Mexico's big problem is — no shock — government corruption, where it ranks below the world average.
That's where Mexico's cartels come in.
Mexico's encouragement of illegal immigration undercuts its valiant war against its smuggling cartels. The cartels' prowess and firepower have made them the only ones who can smuggle effectively across the border. U.S. law enforcers say they now control human-smuggling on our southern border.
Feed them immigrants and they grow more cash-rich — and right now, immigrant smuggling is about a third of the cartels' income.
Mass graves and car bombings are signs of criminal organizations getting bigger, and more powerful. Juarez, which has lost 5,000 people this year, bleeds because cartels fight over not just who gets the drug routes, but who gets the illegal-immigrant smuggling routes, too.
Aside from the cartel mayhem in Mexico, the bodies are piling up in the Arizona desert and U.S. Border Patrol rescues of abandoned illegals left to die have risen.
It's not the desert's fault, and it's certainly not Uncle Sam's fault, as activists claim. No, it's the fact that Mexicans are encouraged to emigrate. Criminal cartels don't fear abandoning their human cargo in the desert, as long as Mexico does nothing and blames Uncle Sam.
Hearing Mexico's government now cheer the Arizona ruling, which will only encourage more illegal immigration, gives the country's regime a pretty inhuman face.
If Mexico had any decency, it would do all it could to discourage illegal immigration and keep a respectful silence about Arizona.
It needs U.S. support for its war on cartels. Instead of insulting American citizens, Mexico should confront directly the reasons why its people are so desperate to leave, and do all in its power to destroy the cartels that are slowly killing the nation. That includes defunding the murderous gangs by halting illegal immigration.
WHAT DOES MEXICO DO WITH THEIR OWN ILLEGALS???
THEY DEPORT THEM ON THE SPOT!!!
Mexico has a single, streamlined law that ensures that foreign visitors and immigrants are:
1.) in the country legally;
2.) have the means to sustain themselves economically;
3.) not destined to be burdens on society;
4.) of economic and social benefit to society;
5.) of good character and have no criminal records; and
6.) contributors to the general well-being of the nation.
The law also ensures that:
7.) immigration authorities have a record of each foreign visitor;
8.) foreign visitors do not violate their visa status;
9.) foreign visitors are banned from interfering in the country’s internal politics;
10.) foreign visitors who enter under false pretenses are imprisoned or deported;
11.) foreign visitors violating the terms of their entry are imprisoned or deported;
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
GET THIS:
12.) those who aid in illegal immigration will be sent to prison!!!!!!!!!
BORDER AGENT RESCUES DROWNING MIGRANT INVADERS…. Mexico ships them back over the border to register Democrat and collect their anchor baby welfare!
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/12/pelosis-open-borders-border-patrol.html
*
"The newly elected president, Andrés López-Obrador, was gleeful during the election when he told his compadres they should all move to America, illegally. His encouragement along with his pro-poverty policies will set the stage for another tsunami of illegal immigration." COLIN FLAHERTY
*
"They will destroy America from within. The leftist billionaires who orchestrate these plans are wealthy. Those tasked with representing us in Congress will never be exposed to the cost of the invasion. They have nothing but contempt for us who must endure the consequences of our communities being intruded upon by gangs, drug dealers and human traffickers. These people have no intention of becoming Americans; like the Democrats who welcome them, they have contempt for us." PATRICIA McCARTHY
*
The immigration debate has been raging for years. Advocates for open borders can be found on both sides of the political aisle and in a wide variety of special interest groups who have come to see the immigration system that delivers an unlimited supply of cheap and exploitable labor, an unlimited supply of foreign tourists, and unlimited supply of foreign students and, for the lawyers, an unlimited supply of clients. MICHAEL CUTLER
VICENTE FOX OF NARCOMEX SAYS “MUCK AMERICA!!! YOU BELONG TO US!
BUT DOES FOX BELONG TO THE LA RAZA HEROIN CARTELS?
"Also, Rubin did not mention the moral responsibility of the child’s father who brought her through the desert in an apparent effort to use the catch-and-release Flores loophole to get past border guards. The loophole was created by Judge Dolly Gee who has ordered border officials to release migrants after 20 days if they bring a child with them."
THE INVASION SPONSORED BY THE DEMOCRAT PARTY
Congressional Democrats are apparently fine with catch-and-release policies because they see the likely electoral benefits. According to Customs and Border Protection (CPB), of the 94,285 Central American family units apprehended last year, 99 percent of them remain in the country today. CPB also reports that 98 percent of the 31,754 unaccompanied minors from the Northern Triangle of Central America remain in the country. CAL THOMAS
THE NARCOMEX INVASION OF AMERICA…. By invitation of the Democrat Party
HOW MANY HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS WILL WE LET MEXICO SUCK OUT OF OUR OPEN BORDER?
There are many reasons why, for the first time, the government of Mexico would agree to work cooperatively with the United States over an extremely serious immigration-related issue. It is likely, of course that President Trump was not just posturing when he said he would cut off aid to Mexico and other countries who permit the United States to be invaded by illegal aliens.
*
Under Guzman’s leadership, the Sinaloa Cartel became the largest drug trafficking organization in the world with influence in every major U.S. city.
*
The allegations against Pena Nieto are not new. In 2016, Breitbart News reported on an investigation by Mexican journalists which revealed how Juarez Cartel operators funneled money into the 2012 presidential campaign. The investigation was carried out by Mexican award-winning Journalist Carmen Aristegui and her team….The subsequent scandal became known as “Monexgate” for the cash cards that were given out during Peña Nieto’s campaign. The allegations against Pena Nieto went largely unreported by U.S. news outlets.
THE INVASION!
MEXICO UNDER, OVER AND OCCUPYING AMERICA AT STAGGERING COSTS
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2019/04/mexico-in-meltdown-narco-state-pouring.html
"While other witnesses at Mr. Guzmán’s trial in Federal District Court in Brooklyn have testified about huge payoffs from traffickers to the Mexican police and public officials, the testimony about Mr. Peña Nieto was the most egregious allegation yet. If true, it suggests that corruption by drug cartels had reached into the highest level of Mexico’s political establishment."
*
The former president of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, took a $100 million bribe from JoaquÃn MEXICO’S INVASION, OCCUPATION and LOOTING OF AMERICA by INVITATION OF THE GLOBALIST LA RAZA SUPREMACY DEMOCRAT PARTY for WIDER OPEN BORDERS TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED
"Fox’s Tucker Carlson noted Thursday that Obrador has previously proposed ranting AMNESTY TO MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS. “America is now Mexico’s social safety net, and that’s a very good deal for the Mexican ruling class,” Carlson added."
"The man likely to be the next president of Mexico just called for mass migration to the US" RICK MORAN
“And soon, very soon — after the victory of our movement — we will defend all the migrants in the American continent and all the migrants in the world,” Obrador said, adding that immigrants “must leave their towns and find a life in the United States.” RICK MORAN
Guzmán Loera, the infamous crime lord known as El Chapo, according to a witness at Mr. Guzman’s trial. ALAN FEUER
“Mexican drug cartels are the “other” terrorist threat to America. Militant Islamists have the goal of destroying the United States. Mexican drug cartels are now accomplishing that mission – from within, every day, in virtually every community across this country.” JUDICIAL WATCH
Immigration Is Still the Democrats’ Biggest Vulnerability
Senate Democrats/Flickr
There’s nothing quite like getting concern-trolled by both Andrew Sullivan and David Brooks on the same day. Both writers are warning the Democrats that they’re in danger of throwing away an eminently winnable election in 2020 by moving far to the left of the American people, particularly on immigration policy.
My problem is that I’ve been very reluctantly coming to a similar conclusion. If I needed fresh evidence, I received it yesterday when Nancy Pelosi was forced to capitulate on the emergency border funding bill in the face of a revolt from centrists and “problem solvers” in her own caucus. The flood of asylum seekers at the border is overwhelming our resources, and that would be true even under a humane president intent on doing their best to manage what amounts to a humanitarian crisis. The Democrats are rightfully focused on the deplorable response of the Trump administration, and there are excellent reasons for Congress to insert itself into the policy debate using the power of the purse as its leverage. The progressives are not wrong about this. Even on the politics, highlighting the brutal treatment and child abuse and endangerment can turn decent people against the Republicans.
But the policy response of the party leaders and presidential candidates seems deeply out of touch with the opinion of even most Democratic voters. Pollster Stanley Greenberg monitored the reaction of 210 Democrats during the two nights of debates, and here is what he found:
Unsurprisingly, the voters said their most important issues were health care and drug costs, by a wide margin. And that issue only became more important to them as the candidates spoke. Other topics that grew in importance over the course of the two nights: “getting immigration under control” and climate change. Climate change was also a singularly animating topic for unmarried women toward the end of the second debate.
The candidates didn’t actually spend a ton of time talking about “getting immigration under control.” They focused much more on the plight of would-be immigrants as they competed to offer the most generous welcome possible. This varied from offering free health care to undocumented workers, to decriminalizing illegal entry, or to granting citizenship to everyone who makes it here and subsequently commits no crimes.
I don’t think this is how most Americans are viewing the crush of asylum seekers at the border. I think they’re closer to Trump’s view that something ought to be done to dissuade them from showing up in such large numbers. For Sullivan, the main problem is the overly generous terms on which we’re willing to consider asylum cases. Those terms incentivize people to show up and apply, and then skip out and stay if the ruling doesn’t go their way. He’s contemptuous of the idea that anyone who lives in a violence-prone country or is a victim of domestic violence should be presumptively qualified to become a U.S. citizen. Yet, he claims his main concern is that the backlash to these kinds of policies is a new form reactionary and fascistic politics which is on the rise in Europe and here in the United States. He supports a bill called the Northern Triangle and Border Stabilization Act that is currently circulating in Congress.
It proposes increased U.S. aid to Central American countries, to tackle the problem at its roots; a big investment in border facilities to ensure far more humane treatment of asylum seekers; a much stricter monitoring system to keep track of them after processing to make sure they turn up for their court hearings; many more immigration judges to reduce the massive backlog of cases; and it allows for asylum claims to be made in home countries, rather than at the border.
David Brooks goes into less detail, but he also focuses on how left-wing parties have been losing elections over immigration issues.
Democrats are wandering into dangerous territory on immigration. They properly trumpet the glories immigrants bring to this country. But the candidates can’t let anybody get to the left of them on this issue. So now you’ve got a lot of candidates who sound operationally open borders. Progressive parties all over the world are getting decimated because they have fallen into this pattern.
As much I find their scolding tone annoying and insufferable, I can’t deny that they have some solid points on the politics. Voters want to hear not just how we’re going to treat people who arrive on our borders but how we’re going to get at the underlying problems that are causing the crush. They don’t think it’s a fake crisis, so a successful challenger to Trump needs to meet the American people where they are on this, and then perhaps they can show a humane path forward.
One thing this week showed is that the Republicans are much more united on this issue than the Democrats, and that should be a giant warning sign rather than something people just brush off or complain about. Immigration is what Trump will campaign on, and the Democrats cannot afford to lose that argument.
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