Jobless Claims Unexpectedly Rise to 898,000
The U.S. labor market stumbled in early October.
After spending several weeks in a rut, barely improving, U.S. jobless claims moved higher in the week ending October 10 to 898,000.
That is 53,000 claims above the prior week’s level. Economists had expected claims to decline to 830,000.
Hopes for an economic support package from Congress have been dashed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s determination not to do a deal with the Trump administration before election day.
Airlines have started laying off thousands of workers due to lack of demand for flights. A deal that had provided them with billions of funding in exchange for keeping workers on the payroll expired at the end of September.
Claims hit a record 6.87 million for the week of March 27. Until a month ago, each subsequent week had seen claims decline. But in late July, the labor market appeared to stall and claims hovered around one million throughout August, a level so high it was never recorded before the pandemic struck.
Now claims have begun rising again, setting off alarm bells that employers have begun to shed workers at a more rapid pace.
The 4-week moving average, which may be a more reliable measure of the health of the jobs market because it smoothes out week-to-week volatility, rose to 866,250, which is 8,000 above the previous week’s revised average. The previous week’s average was revised up by 1,250 from 858,250.
Continuing claims, which get reported with a week’s lag, came in at 10,018,000, a decrease of 1,165,000 from the previous week’s revised level.
The decline in continuing claims may be a silver lining in the report. It indicates that those who have lost their jobs are finding new work. It’s likely that the decline in the level of federal enhancement to unemployment benefits, from $600 per week to $300, has encouraged some workers to seek jobs.
The highest insured unemployment rates are in Hawaii, California, and Nevada.
Jobless claims are a proxy for layoffs and have been closely watched as a signal for how the pandemic is influencing the economy. Prior to the pandemic, weekly jobless claims had been running around 200,000.
Biden:
My Immigration Policy Will Protect Foreign Families… AND SEND THE TAX BILLS FOR
THEIR CRIMES AND WELFARE TO GRINGO AMERICA!
JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images
17 Sep 2020112
3:59
The U.S. government will change its deportation policy to help
keep foreign families together, Democratic candidate Joe Biden promised the Spanish-language
Telemundo TV network.
“There are still thousands of people who are being separated
from their families,” Biden told Telemundo
viewers September 15:
There are going to be no deportations in the first hundred days
of my [presidency]. Freeze deportations for the first hundred days and the only
people [who] will be deported are people who committed a felony while here [in
the United States].
Biden repeatedly emphasized that his presidency would focus on
the needs of foreign families, saying:
I can only imagine what it’s like to see someone in your family
deported. I can only imagine it. To me, it’s all about family — beginning,
middle, and end. It’s about family.
It’s not going to happen in my administration, simply not going
to happen. We’re gonna abide by the law, we’re going to abide by the law. We’re
not going to continue this, this relentless assault on ‘They’re coming up
across the border! They’re going to invade us! These are all people bad
people!’ I mean, it’s just terrible what’s happening. The idea you can’t even
seek asylum on American soil? Can’t even seek asylum in American soil? When did
that happen? Trump. It’s wrong,
But “a good immigration system would be good for American
families,” not just for migrants’ families, countered Kevin Lynn, founder
of U.S. Tech Workers.
When you have a husband and a wife, working to pay a
mortgage and to keep their kids in a good school district, in a good
immigration policy, it would get easier and easier to do that.
But in the current state, what’s happening is that one of the
spouse’s jobs is about to be outsourced and offshored to India. They’re going
to lose their home. Their kids will need to change school. And they will need
to seriously downsize, downscale their lives, going from the middle-class
to lower middle class, with ever-decreasing opportunities available to them.
Biden’s comments were apparently anchored to his view of the
United States primarily as a new home for foreign migrants, not as a home for
Americans and their children.
“We’re a nation of immigrants,” Biden said. “We built this
country because of the courage it took for people to get up on a boat … leave
everything they know for a better opportunity. ”
Biden is pushing the “Nation of Immigrants” claim because he and
other neoliberals “believe in the free movement of people and capital for the
sole purpose of maximizing profits,” responded Lynn, adding:
They know nothing else. His family has not witnessed the carnage
created by these policies, and they never will. They’ve been able to secure
enough wealth from this system — the system that threw working men and women
overboard 30 years ago. They have no idea what the average American goes
through. They have no idea of the insecurity that the average Americans face
when they look at the job market.
Biden’s 2020 plan includes several
proposals to expand the inflow of foreign workers and consumers into the United
States. He promises to let mayors import foreign workers for local jobs, let companies import more visa workers for college jobs, expand the inflow of chain-migration migrants, suspend immigration enforcement against illegals, dramatically
increase the inflow of poor refugees, and also provide more healthcare and other aid to arriving migrants.
The huge inflow of migrants will lower Americans’
wages, transfer more wages to investors, shift jobs from the interior states to
the coasts, reduce investment in wealth-generating technology, and exacerbate
the chaotic diversity that has damaged U.S. society and politics.
In contrast, President Donald Trump says he is pushing a “Pro-American Immigration” policy.
2019 was such a good year for wage earners
that per-household income rose by almost 7%, even as wages rose by just a
little over 2%.
That won't happen again if businesses and progressives get to import even more
workers. https://t.co/gHlh42iUcd
— Neil Munro (@NeilMunroDC) September 16, 2020
Biden’s Coronavirus Plan: Catch and Release Border Crossers into
U.S.
508David McNew/Getty Images
1 May 20201,989
3:45
Presumptive 2020 Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden is
suggesting a restart of the nation’s “Catch and Release” program in the midst
of the coronavirus crisis. The policy would ensure thousands of border crossers
are readily released into the United States.
This week, during an interview with Florida local media, Biden suggested a
return to the previous, decades-long policy of catching and releasing border
crossers into the U.S. as they await their asylum hearings despite public
health concerns over the coronavirus.
“You’ve never seen a time where someone seeking asylum has to
seek it from another country,” Biden said when asked about his immigration plan
in the middle of the coronavirus crisis. “You’ve never seen a circumstance
where we put people in cages. We have to take stock of where we are.”
Biden’s plan would ensure that thousands of border crossers who
have arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border since President Trump’s shutdown of
the region would be released into the country while they await their asylum
hearings — the majority of which take years to hold.
Today, Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy coupled with the border
shutdown has allowed federal immigration officials to swiftly return border
crossers to Mexico in an average of 96 minutes. The
policy means border crossers from Mexico and Central America are processed and
immediately returned to Mexico without setting foot in the U.S. interior.
As Breitbart News reported, federal immigration officials have
said that as of April 10, Trump’s
policy had successfully returned 10,000 border crossers to Mexico.
Analysis conducted by
the Center for Economic and Policy Research shows a continued flow of border
crossers being returned to their native countries in recent weeks.
From March 15 to April 24, ICE Air appears to have made 21
deportation flights to Guatemala; 18 to Honduras; 12 to El Salvador; six to
Brazil; three each to Nicaragua, Ecuador, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic;
and one each to Colombia and Jamaica…
…
Over the last 12 weeks, it appears that ICE has used 22 unique
charter planes for 232 likely deportation flights. Of those planes, 15
participated in confirmed ICE Air deportation flights between October 2018 and
May 2019, the most recent data compiled by UWCHR.
Biden’s plan, though, would reverse such measures, halting
deportations except for convicted felon illegal aliens and allowing those
arriving at the border to await their asylum hearings in the U.S. interior with
the hopes that they show up to court.
The plan proposed by Biden comes even as public health concerns
have circulated around border crossers arriving at the southern border. This
week, an illegal alien from India tested positive for
coronavirus after he snuck across the border into California with a group of
Mexican nationals.
Likewise, data from Guatemalan officials have said about 50 to
75 percent of all migrants returned to Guatemala from the U.S. have tested positive for
coronavirus.
Under Biden’s plan, each of these border crossers would be in a
federal immigration facility or already released into the U.S. interior.
Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy has decimated asylum fraud. In
the first few months of its implementation, the policy ensured that zero of 1,200 total
border crossers ineligible for asylum in Mexico had been released into the U.S.
interior. Most recent reports have
indicated that the Remain in Mexico policy has a less than one percent
asylum-grant rate.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on
Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
Obama: DACA Illegal Aliens Deserve Amnesty During Coronavirus
Crisis
JOHN
BINDERFormer President Barack Obama says the time is now, during the
Chinese coronavirus crisis, to provide amnesty to about 3.5 million illegal
aliens who are enrolled and eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood
Arrivals (DACA) program.
While about ten million Americans have
filed for unemployment in just three weeks, Obama took to Twitter to call for
an amnesty for DACA illegal aliens in the midst of the coronavirus crisis.
“Dreamers have contributed so much to our country, and they are
risking their lives fighting on the frontlines of this pandemic,” Obama said. “They
deserve permanent immigration status and a pathway to citizenship—as they are
Americans in every way but on paper.”
Dreamers have contributed so much to our
country, and they are risking their lives fighting on the frontlines of this
pandemic. They deserve permanent immigration status and a pathway to citizenship—as
they are Americans in every way but on paper. https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/dreamers-risk-lives-on-pandemics-front-lines-while-they-await-court-ruling/2020/04/11/d34a7b58-76c4-11ea-85cb-8670579b863d_story.html …
‘Dreamers’ risk lives on pandemic’s front
lines while they await a decision on their own futures
23K people are talking about this
Center for Immigration Studies Research Director Steven
Camarotta has noted that
DACA illegal aliens make up about 0.2 percent of the nation’s nearly 15 million
healthcare workers. In New York, where a staggering number of DACA illegal
aliens reside, they still only account for about 0.2 percent of the state’s
healthcare workers, according to Camarotta.
Obama’s lobbying for a DACA amnesty in the middle of the
coronavirus crisis comes as House Democrats — including Congressional Hispanic
Caucus Chair Joaquin Castro (D-TX), Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), and Rep.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) — have sent a letter to
the Trump administration demanding DACA illegal aliens have their work
authorizations extended.
“Support of DACA recipients during the current pandemic is
particularly critical as over 200,000 DACA recipients are in occupations and
industry groups that render them ‘essential critical infrastructure workers,’
according to DHS guidance,” the House Democrats wrote in their letter.
A DACA amnesty would put more citizen children of illegal aliens
— known as “anchor babies” — on federal welfare, as Breitbart News reported,
while American taxpayers would be left potentially
with a $26 billion bill.
Additionally, about one-in-five DACA illegal aliens,
after an amnesty, would end up on food
stamps, while at least one-in-seven would go on Medicaid.
Any plan to give amnesty to DACA illegal aliens that does not
also include provisions to halve legal immigration levels — the U.S. admits
about 1.2 million legal immigrants a year at the expense of America’s working
and middle class — would give amnestied illegal aliens the opportunity to bring
an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the country.
At the southern border, a DACA amnesty has the potential to
trigger a border surge that could triple the number of illegal aliens pouring
through the border. Since DACA’s inception, more than 2,100 recipients of the
program have been kicked off because they were found to either be criminals or
gang members.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on
Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
Joe Biden: ‘Absolutely Bizarre’ to Suggest Limit on U.S. Capacity
to Absorb Immigrants
JOEL
B. POLLAKLAS VEGAS, Nevada — Former Vice President Joe Biden campaigned
inside a Chinese restaurant on Tuesday evening, telling supporters it was
“bizarre” to suggest a limit on immigration to the U.S.
Biden promised to expand immigration to the U.S. if elected
president.
“Folks, look — the idea that there’s some limitation on the
capacity of anyone who — on the immigrants in this country is absolutely
bizarre! It’s absolutely bizarre.”
Biden, speaking to a packed crowd inside the Harbor Palace
Seafood Restaurant on the eve of the next Democratic debate, addressed members
of the Asian-American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community, urging them to
turn out the vote ahead of Saturday’s caucuses.
Last month, the AAPI Victory Fund super PAC endorsed Biden
for president, citing his ability to defeat President Donald Trump and his
experience working with immigrant communities from South Asia, East Asia and
the Pacific generally.
Though the AAPI immigrant community is politically diverse, it
has trended Democratic in recent years.
Last year, Breitbart News reported, another local AAPI
organization in Las Vegas expressed opposition to
President Trump’s proposed merit-based system for legal immigration.
On Tuesday, Biden promised, if elected, to allow family
reunification visas.
“We should be able to increase, to three million people, the
people who could come for family reunification. Period, period, period,
period.”
He called the idea that the U.S. could not “reunite” more
families “absolutely bizarre.”
Biden also reminded his audience that Latinos were not the only
beneficiaries of President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood
Arrivals (DACA) program, which applied to those brought to the country
illegally as children.
He said there were “thousands and thousands of AAPI ‘Dreamers'”
who had benefited from DACA as well.
Afterwards, Biden greeted attendees, some of whom proceeded to
the Chinatown Mall to cast early votes before the polling place there closed.
Biden hopes to finish in the top three in Nevada, and to win
South Carolina on Feb. 29, to make the case that he is still a top contender
for his party’s nomination. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) now leads national
polls, as well as Nevada polls.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He
earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy
from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the
2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author
of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter
at @joelpollak.
ICE ignores
California laws and arrests illegal aliens at the courthouse door
In 2018,
California implemented the California
Values Act, which gave special protection to illegal
aliens by mandating that California law enforcement agencies cannot cooperate
with federal immigration authorities. Last week, Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (“ICE”) thumbed its nose at California and arrested two people in
Sonoma County Superior Court.
BLOG:
CALIFORNIA HAS 15 MILLION ILLEGALS!
California has
lots of reasons to hang onto its roughly 2.2 – 3.5 million illegal immigrants.
They provide cheap, easily-exploited labor. They swell the state’s population,
which matters for electors and congresspeople, as well as the distribution of
certain federal funds. As illegal immigrants are fed into the system, they
provide reliable (legal or illegal) Democrat votes. And they make Californians
feel virtuous even as they allow corrupt Latin American states to continue
exploiting their own citizens and destroying their economies by relying on remittances
from people illegally in America.
For these
reasons, California enacted the pompously named “California Values Act.”
Although the act refers to “immigrants,” it’s obviously intended to affect only
illegal aliens because the Act’s entire purpose is to use the agencies of the
state to prevent ICE from gaining access to people illegally in California –
including people who have committed crimes in California. This is the type of
law that could only come from legislators and other virtue signalers ensconced
in comfortable middle- and upper-middle-class enclaves unaffected by felonies
that would never have happened but for open borders and sanctuaries.
Throughout the
Obama administration, sanctuary cities and states were able to get away with
these policies because the Obama administration, despite Obama’s sworn
obligation to upload the laws of the United States, approved of open borders.
Trump promised to change all that.
During the
first three years of his administration, rather disappointingly, Trump was able
to have little effect on illegal immigration or on deportation. However, Trump
was just getting his ducks in a row. He was hampered by a reluctant Republican
Congress, which was superseded by a violently resisting Democrat House. He also
had to deal with “resistance” judges who blocked every immigration initiative
he made.
Finally,
though, things are changing. Trump was able to squeeze money out of Congress
for his wall and, even more importantly, with help from Mitch McConnell, he’s
changing the judiciary:
Great news for the U.S. Constitution! @realDonaldTrump has flipped the 9th Circuit — and some new judges are causing a
'shock wave' https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-02-22/trump-conservative-judges-9th-circuit …
Trump has flipped the 9th Circuit — and some
new judges are causing a 'shock wave'
8,693 people are talking about this
With a
judiciary that believes in interpreting the law, not making it, Trump’s
administration is able to act in accordance with the Supremacy Clause
(Constitution, Art. VI, Clause 2):
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall
be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made,
under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land;
and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the
Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
In other
words, when there’s a direct conflict between state laws and federal laws,
federal laws prevail.
Because the
critical mass of judges is no longer deliberately inserting itself as an
obstacle between federal laws and illegal immigrants, ICE is beginning to carry
out its duty as written under the law:
U.S. immigration agents arrested two people at a Northern
California courthouse, including a man detained in a hallway on his way to a
hearing, flouting a new state law requiring a judicial warrant to make
immigration arrests inside such facilities.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents made the arrests
Tuesday at Sonoma County Superior Court, prompting an outcry from criminal
justice and court officials who said the action undermines local authority and
deters immigrants who are in the country illegally from participating in the
U.S. justice system.
ICE said California's law doesn't supersede federal law and “will
not govern the conduct of federal officers acting pursuant to duly-enacted laws
passed by Congress that provide the authority to make administrative arrests of
removable aliens inside the United States."
“Our officers will not have their hands tied by sanctuary rules
when enforcing immigration laws to remove criminal aliens from our
communities," David Jennings, ICE's field office director in San
Francisco, said in the statement.
At long last,
in Trump’s America, the rule of law matters again. The reliability of law is
one of the essential ingredients of a just and successful civilization. In that
context, if you don’t like the law, you change it through the democratic
process, not through illegal and unconstitutional resistance.
Surge in Illegal Aliens, 500% Increase in Some U.S. Ports of Entry
Judicial
Watch Corruption Chronicles, December 30, 2015
The agency’s own statistics certainly contradict that, showing
that the southern border region is as porous and vulnerable as ever. Other
entry ports that saw large hikes in Central American illegal immigrants during
the first two months of this fiscal year include Del Rio, Texas (269%), El
Centro, California (216%) and Rio Grande Valley, Texas (154%). The Border
Patrol breaks the stats down by “family unit” and illegal immigrants under the
age of 18, referred to as “Unaccompanied Alien Children” or UAC. The Rio Grande
Valley port of entry topped the list in both categories with 8,537 family units
and 6,465 UACs during the two-month period. In all, the nation’s nine southern
border crossings saw an average of 173% increase in family units and a 106%
increase in minors during the short period considered.
Some of the illegal immigrants are Mexican nationals, but the overwhelming
majority comes from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. The government records
show that somehow 4,450 family units from El Salvador evaded our topnotch
border security and entered the United States in a period of only two months.
Guatemala and Honduras had 3,934 and 3,203 respectively. Mexico had 538 family
units. Of interesting note is that, during this period, the Border Patrol reports
35,234 apprehensions in the region of foreigners labeled by the government as
“Other Than Mexican” or OTM. This is a term used by federal authorities to
refer to nationals of countries that represent a terrorist threat to the U.S.
. . .
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2015/12/surge-in-illegal-aliens-500-increase-in-some-u-s-ports-of-entry/
Concrete Evidence of the Continuing Plunge in Both Civil and
Criminal Immigration Enforcement
By Dan Cadman
CIS Immigration Blog, January 23, 2016
Two recent reports from Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access
Clearinghouse (TRAC) reflect the continued erosion of immigration enforcement
under the Obama administration.
On January 20, TRAC reported that criminal prosecution for immigration offenses
fell 22.3 percent from November 2014 to November 2015, and more than 36 percent
over the course of five years, excluding magistrate court (which deals
exclusively with petty offenses).
The following day, TRAC announced that "ICE [Immigration and Customs
Enforcement] Detainer Use Stabilizes Under Priority Enforcement Program".
The Priority Enforcement Program (PEP) is the replacement to the Secure
Communities Program mandated by Homeland Security Security Jeh Johnson as a
part of the president's "executive actions" on immigration. It
significantly restricts the ability of immigration agents to file detainers
against aliens arrested by police on criminal charges.
I have no idea what TRAC means by "stabilizes". A quick look at
Figure 1a of their report shows a more accurate state of affairs, if one
considers the number of detainers being filed over the course of five years,
from a high in April 2011, when Secure Communities became fully effective
nationwide and kicked into high gear, versus October 2015. I would use other
phrases: "plummeted" or "Dropped like a stone". Or, as my
colleague Jessica Vaughan has noted, particularly in relation to detainers
filed at county jails, where the lion's share of criminals of any stripes are
held after being booked for offenses small and large: "a stunning free
fall".
http://www.cis.org/cadman/concrete-evidence-continuing-plunge-both-civil-and-criminal-immigration-enforcement
Biden and the Immigration Trap
'Uncle Joe' Agonistes
By Andrew R. Arthur on May
21, 2020
On
Tuesday, the Washington Post ran an
article detailing the struggles confronting the campaign of presumptive
Democratic nominee for president Joe Biden with respect to immigration. There
are a few things that the article leaves out, but it is notable (and somewhat
shocking) for what it contains. What it ultimately shows is that the former
vice president is boxed into an immigration trap.
Specifically,
the article details the competing forces that are pulling "Uncle Joe"
on immigration as he seeks to wrest the White House from Donald Trump (whose
immigration stance, the paper admits, helped propel him to the presidency in
2016).
On
the one side is the presumptive candidate's desire to capture the votes of
white blue-collar voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin (all won by
Trump in the last election), while on the other is his need to turn out the
Hispanic vote, particularly in Florida and Arizona. The article states that
Latino voters "are expected to become the country's largest nonwhite voting
bloc this fall."
Although
the Post alludes to Biden's immigration
proposals (which are somewhat out
there, as I have described here, here, and here), and discusses his
more outré ideas, such as suspending deportations for his first 100 days in
office and then deporting only felons (which would essentially
nullify much of the Immigration and Nationality Act), the Post simultaneously
fails to note that those proposals would likely not resound with much of the
voting populace, while at the same time contending that these policies don't go
far enough for "significant segments of his own party".
Those
"segments" are, the paper contends, clamoring for Biden to commit to
"removing criminal penalties for those who cross the border illegally,
removing barriers from the border [,and] abolishing Immigration and Customs
Enforcement." There is likely a reason that Biden does not want to talk
about those ideas on the campaign trail.
Polls
don't show support for Biden positions
Polling from
August 2018 — when the "Abolish
ICE" fever was likely
cresting — showed only 24 percent of voters supported the idea, with Democrats,
Republicans, and independents staking out that position about equally. Some 40
percent disagreed, while 34 percent had no opinion.
Not
to say that Democrats wildly supported the agency — 57 percent of Democrats had
an unfavorable view of ICE, with an equal percentage of Republicans in favor of
it, and 46 percent of independents took no view. Many of those opposed to
abolition but who also don't like ICE likely were concerned about the law of
unintended consequences, and by May 2019 Buzzfeed News reported: "'Abolish ICE' Was The Call Of Last Summer. 2020 Democrats
Have Moved On".
Further,
in July 2019, The Hill noted
that a poll found "a plurality of voters, 41 percent, thought those
crossing the border illegally should face criminal punishment, while 32 percent
said it should just warrant a fine." With respect to independents, 36
percent favored criminal penalties, while "33 percent ... think it should
be treated as a misdemeanor, with just a fine as punishment."
I
note that this response shows a certain misapprehension of the current state of
the law (initial illegal entry is already a
misdemeanor, with a fine as an optional but rarely, if ever, imposed
punishment, and most of those prosecuted are sentenced merely to time served
while awaiting prosecution), suggesting that even those voters — if they knew
the facts — would actually want stricter punishment than most aliens who have
entered illegally already receive. No wonder the former vice president does not
want to discuss the issue, let alone make it a key point for his campaign.
On
barriers at the border, the polling is a bit more mixed. In February
2019, Gallup reported
that six in 10 Americans opposed a border wall, but that poll was taken
directly after a bruising government shutdown that largely focused on the
issue. I will note that last Monday, KXAN (the NBC affiliate
in Austin, Texas) released a poll showing that excitement for Donald Trump in
Texas swamped enthusiasm for Biden in the Lone Star State. Most significantly:
When broken down by party, 19.5% of Democrats said they were
extremely excited about Biden and 22.6 said they were "not that
excited." Meanwhile, 49.4% of Republicans said they were "extremely
excited" about supporting Trump and 9.5% reported they were not that
excited about him.
Texas and Arizona are
currently the primary sites for new border wall construction, and if Texans
were that opposed to what is and has been the president's key immigration
proposal, it would likely be reflected in their lack of enthusiasm. It does not
seem to have moved the needle, however, or if it did, it is in Trump's favor.
I
will note that I spoke on the issue in a debate in February before a largely
liberal crowd, and opposition to the wall was an applause point (from an
audience that all but defined the "Dunning-Kruger Effect" on the issue), but a lot has changed in three months. The
Post itself reported on April 28 that
65 percent of Americans were in favor of a temporary suspension in immigration
during the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, with 34 percent opposed.
Polling
found that 83 percent of Republicans and 67 percent of independents were in
favor of temporary restrictions, and Democrats were split 49-49 on the issue.
Significantly, 67 percent of whites, 61 percent of "nonwhites"
(presumably including Latinos), and a majority of 18- to 29-year-olds were in
favor. Now again, "temporary suspensions on immigration" and
"border wall construction" are two different things, but an influx of
illegal entrants during the (traditional) illegal travel season of
April to December while lockdowns are still in place could tie the two issues
in voters' minds, and gubernatorial inter-state travel restrictions may have done so already.
And
voters stuck at home as a result of Wuhan coronavirus restrictions could be
only temporarily less inclined to support the entry of aliens, legal or
otherwise. That said, the transit of the illness from China could give them pause to take a slightly more charitable
view toward Donald Trump's opposition to open borders.
Sound
tough on China, or not?
Lest
you think I am casting aspersions with respect to the last point (I am not, and
consider anyone who blames any American — citizen or immigrant — for the virus
to be an idiot), I am really just channeling the former vice president.
The Post article on
Biden notes: "Some were alarmed when the Biden campaign began airing an ad
in battleground states that accused Trump of having 'rolled over for the
Chinese' amid the pandemic and 'let in 40,000 travelers from China.'" That
is an apt description of the response to that ad on the part of progressives.
In
particular, an April 23 Politico article captioned "Biden ad exposes a rift over China on the left: The former
vice president's effort to hit Trump as soft on Beijing is backfiring among
parts of his base" states:
Joe Biden's effort to outflank President Donald Trump on China
is leading to blowback from within his own political base.
Some worry the rhetoric in a new Biden campaign ad could spur
anti-Asian bias already on the rise because of the coronavirus pandemic. Others
argue that Biden's effort to sound tougher on China than Trump could backfire
diplomatically in the long run.
...
"I acknowledge and understand the need and desire to defeat
and beat Trump, however, my question is 'Who is the Biden campaign willing to
sacrifice along that way?'" said Timmy Lu, executive director of Asian
Americans and Pacific Islanders for Civic Empowerment.
So
why did Biden release the ad? Because he was in a box over his earlier
statements criticizing the president for his response to the Wuhan coronavirus
the day that the White House announced restrictions on
travel from the People's Republic of China. Specifically, Biden, campaigning in Iowa,
stated: "This is no time for Donald Trump's record of hysteria and
xenophobia — hysterical xenophobia — and fearmongering to lead the way instead
of science." (Curiously, the YouTube link to the
video of those comments states: "Video unavailable, This video has been
removed by the uploader." Hmmm.)
The Post notes that Biden
has sought insight into handling the issue of immigration as a candidate from,
among others, Sen. Robert Casey (D-Pa.). Casey fought off Republican Lou
Barletta — an immigration hawk — in a 2018 challenge for Casey's senate seat,
and:
He urged Biden to emphasize the economic benefits of immigration
while pledging to secure the southern border to keep drugs and criminals out.
"You have to make it very clear that you stand for border
security — and not just that you stand for it, but that you voted for it,"
Casey said, citing past measures that have won Democratic backing.
But, at the same time, he said most voters want an immigration
system that is humane and fair. The separation of families at the border was a
wake-up call for some voters, Casey said.
I am
not sure how that border security advice squares with Biden's promise that
"the only deportations that will take place" under his administration
"are commissions of felonies in the United States of America"
(meaning that Mexican cartel members who enter illegally will not be deported,
for example), but for some reason the Post fails to mention
the discrepancy.
That
said, such advice is easier given to the former vice president than it will be
swallowed by the American people, because of Biden's record.
I
would posit initially that recommendations like Casey's are likely the reason
that Biden's immigration
proposals begin:
It is a moral failing and a national shame when a father and his
baby daughter drown seeking our shores. When children are locked away in
overcrowded detention centers and the government seeks to keep them there
indefinitely. When our government argues in court against giving those children
toothbrushes and soap. When President Trump uses family separation as a weapon
against desperate mothers, fathers, and children seeking safety and a better
life.
The Obama-Biden administration's record
Again,
easily said. It will, however, be very difficult for Biden to distance himself
from some very similar policies enacted under the "Obama-Biden
administration".
There
is likely a reason why Biden does not (directly) fall back on the "kids in cages" trope that has become a standard for tendentious
discussions of immigration by political hacks. As I have
previously noted:
Snopes (not exactly a Trump-friendly outlet) examined the
following fact: "The Obama administration, not the Trump administration,
built the cages that hold many immigrant children at the U.S.-Mexico
border." They deemed that statement "true", explaining:
Pictures of children behind chain-link fencing were captured at
a site in McAllen, Texas, that had been converted from a warehouse to an
immigrant-detention facility in 2014. Social media users who defended Trump's
immigration policies also shared a 2014 photograph of Obama's Homeland Security
Secretary, Jeh Johnson, touring a facility in Nogales, Arizona, in 2014, in
which the fencing could be seen surrounding migrants there as well. That
picture was taken during a spike in the number of unaccompanied children
fleeing violence in Central American countries.
That
said, there is a direct line from "children ... locked away in overcrowded
detention centers and the government [that] seeks to keep them there
indefinitely", who cannot access "toothbrushes and soap" and the
decisions of the previous administration to erect fencing in Border Patrol
processing centers to protect unaccompanied alien children (UACs). One that Biden
would likely prefer to be forgotten.
And a
direct line to the Obama-Biden administration's 2014 "blanket policy to
detain all female-headed families, including children, in secure, unlicensed
facilities for the duration of the proceedings that determine whether they are
entitled to remain in the United States," which prompted Judge Dolly Gee of the
U.S. District Court for the Central District of California to find President
Obama's Department of Homeland Security in breach of the Flores settlement
agreement in July 2015.
Plus,
as I have previously noted ad
nauseam, the fact that UACs were stuck in the conditions Biden describes
had everything to do with Congress's (and especially congressional Democrats')
failure to provide funding Trump and his acting Homeland Security secretary had
sought for more than a month, and nothing to do with a volitional decision by
the administration to keep them there.
These
facts may have been elided by a compliant press (the Post did not mention
them at all in its Biden immigration piece), but I doubt that they will escape
notice during a presidential campaign when the president and independent
interest groups can throw money at ads highlighting them.
Pandering
to Latino voters
Then,
there is the pandering by Biden and his surrogates themselves. Much of Biden's
outreach to Latino voters appears to focus on immigration, but is that really
the most important issue to those voters?
In a
June 2019 survey by Unidos US, "jobs
and the economy" was the most important issue an ideal candidate would
address (23 percent) for 1,854 eligible Latino voters in Arizona, California,
Florida, Nevada, and Texas, followed by "healthcare" (17 percent) and
then "immigration" (15 percent). "Gun violence" (8 percent)
and "climate change" (7 percent) together equaled that total.
BLOG: OBAMA FUNDED AND OPERATED LA RAZA 'The Race" NOW
CALLING ITSELF UNIDOSUS FROM THE WHITE HOUSE. IT IS A MEX FASCIST ANTI-AMERICAN
POLITICAL MOVEMENT FOR SURRENDER OF AMERICA TO MEXICO.
Unidos US, for those
who are not familiar, is the current incarnation of the "National
Council of La Raza", which bills itself as "the nation's largest
Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization". Hardly a MAGA front group.
Given
these numbers, it is no surprise that the Atlantic magazine in February stated
that 30 percent of Latino voters support the president, in an opinion piece
captioned "Latino Support for Trump Is Real: And that's a problem for
Democrats" (not to be
confused with the outlet's January 2020 article captioned "Democrats Should Be Worried About the Latino Vote:
Political organizers have a warning for the 2020 candidates").
In
this vein, in early May, Slate ran an article captioned "Biden Has a Real Latino Problem", which stated:
A recent Latino Decisions poll reveals a clear enthusiasm gap
among Latinos for both Biden and the 2020 election itself, with only 49 percent
of registered voters currently committed to choosing Biden over Trump, and just
six out of 10 planning to go to the polls in November.
That
article focuses on Biden's initial reluctance to distance himself from what the
outlet deems "the controversial immigration policy of the first two years
of the Obama administration" (perhaps too good a sales job by a president
whose rhetoric on removals did not match his actions), and Biden's inability to
present himself to Hispanic voters due to the current pandemic.
Speaking
of which, Slate notes that: "According to the Latino Decisions poll,
almost half of all respondents approve of Trump's handling of the coronavirus
crisis, with 47 percent saying Trump was delivering 'clear and helpful'
information about the pandemic." Again, showing that
"immigration" is not the only concern of Hispanic voters.
Back
to the pandering, however. The Post notes that Biden's
"wife Jill, who is learning Spanish while stuck at home by the pandemic,
has begun meeting weekly with small groups of Latino members of Congress,
taking notes on a range of issues to share with her husband" (I don't have
the heart to tell her they speak English), and the article is accompanied by a
photo of Biden "at a campaign stop at King Taco in Los Angeles, with Los
Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti".
The
paper also reports that "Biden campaign officials have promised to
significantly increase outreach to Latinos and further diversify the staff now
that they have raised more money, although," the Post notes, "they
declined to provide target numbers."
I
suppose that a Spanish-speaking spouse, an ethnically diverse staff, and a
documented hankering for regional cuisine may win Biden some votes, but the
fact is he is stuck in an immigration box.
If he
ties himself to the "Obama-Biden" administration on the issue, it
appears that he will alienate both immigration activists and those who favor
the Trump administration's reversal of those policies. But, if he panders to those
activists, he will likely turn off many of the voters in swing states who
supported Trump in 2016 (and especially those who were swayed by the
now-president's promises of border security and immigration limitations).
A January article in the
Post contained a list of "Bidenisms", folksy aphorisms that the
candidate uses on the stump. One is: "My dad had an expression ... 'Joey,
don't compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative.''' Most voters
already know that the president has his flaws and imperfections, but once
voters get to know Biden's immigration record and his proposals, they may pull
the level for Trump as the better alternative.
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