President Joe Biden’s activist deputies are pushing for an increasingly “ideological” immigration policy, according to a report in the Washington Post .
“The basic tools of immigration enforcement — detention, deportation and strict bans on who can enter — remain … unacceptable to former activist leaders who now hold key positions in the White House,” the newspaper reported July 17.
Biden is “in a vise, caught between the [politically] costly reality of a historic border influx and supporters who erupt in anger when his administration hints at tighter controls,” the article claims.
Amid the rising cross-border inflow, Biden is looking for ways to improve his sinking migration polls, the newspaper reported:
The official, who maintains close ties to the Biden team, described the president as “super concerned” about the political ramifications of the tumult at the border. “He knows the damage this can do and what a gift this is to Republicans,” said the official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private discussions.
The report also included a comment from a border state Democrat who is endangered by his voters’ opposition to Biden’s semi-open border:
“Biden is a centrist, but he depends on his staff like any other president,” said Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Tex.), who represents a border district and has urged the administration to toughen its approach. When it comes to immigration policy, Cuellar said, “the more ‘open borders’ vision is winning out at the White House.”
The article noted that at least one claimed moderate is leaving the administration, which “could mean more [pro-migration] ideological figures are in place, while relatively pragmatic ones are not.”
The article cited several of the former activists, including Alida Garcia, a long-standing supporter of Vice President Kamala Harris, and most recently, a top lobbyist at Mark Zuckerberg’s FWD.us investor group. The lavishly-funded FWD.us group runs a huge network of astroturf groups to surround Democrats — and Republicans — with pro-migration voices.
Another named activist was Tyler Moran, who previously directed the Immigration Hub group. That group was formed by billionaire amnesty advocate Laurene Powell Jobs.
The article did not mention Zuckerberg, Powell Jobs, or the investors who created FWD.us. The Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos, whose deputies have lobbied hard — often in cooperation with FWD.us — for the inflow of more consumers and white-collar workers.
The article also did not mention Alejandro Mayorkas, who was picked to run the Department of Homeland Security — with political support from FWD.us. His agency is now implementing a pro-migration policy by extracting migrants from many poor countries for use in the U.S. economy by Zuckerberg’s allies and other Wall Street investors.
The article also ignored Biden’s chief of staff, Ron Klain. Before being hired by Biden, Klain worked for two co-founders of Zuckerberg’s FWD.us.
Breitbart News has extensively reported on the investors’ influence over the progressives, and throughout the Biden administration, including in the Oval Office:
The article noted that the pro-migration faction is promising to fix illegal immigration by legalizing the illegal migrants by opening many bureaucratic and regulatory side-doors in the immigration law :
Administration officials also say they will reduce illegal migration by making it easier for temporary workers and immigrants’ relatives to come to the United States legally. They plan to implement a new system to expedite asylum claims. And they hope to expand the use of electronic monitoring, so migrants will not have to stay in detention while awaiting a ruling on their asylum claims.
But converting illegal migrants into legal migrants will only exacerbate the economic damage of migration on Americans’ job opportunities, workplace conditions, wages, salaries, and rents.
In general, migration moves wealth from employees to employers , from families to investors , from young to old , from children to their parents , from homebuyers to investors , from technology to stoop labor , from red states to blue states , and from the central states to the coastal states such as New York .
The administration’s record suggests that Biden sympathizes with both sides, and has been unable or unwilling to resolve the contradictions of his rhetoric or the policy battle between the rival West Coast investor faction and his East Coast moderate staffers.
Biden has repeatedly defended migration, he has not rebuffed the FWD.us and the other investors, and he has not rebuked Mayorkas and his other pro-migration deputies. His January amnesty bill includes nearly all of the investors’ demands, including a law that would allow Fortune 500 companies to hire an unlimited number of compliant foreign graduates and then pay them with government-provided green cards.
The breadth of investors who founded and funded FWD.us was hidden from casual visitors to the group’s website sometime in the last few months. But copies exist at the other sites .
Yet Biden has also repeatedly suggested steps to curb migration that his pro-migration deputies have ignored. In March, Breitbart reported :
In Biden’s first presidential press conference, on March 25, Biden appeared to reverse his administration’s border policy, saying that all migrant families should be sent back into Mexico: “They should all be going back, all be going back,” he said.
That dramatic statement was met with silence throughout the D.C. establishment and media …
Biden also hinted in his press conference that he would change policy on “Unaccompanied Alien Children” (UACs) in border shelters, saying, “I asked my team … [to] focus on the most vulnerable immediately,” Biden said.
Also, Biden has repeatedly called for a tight labor market that would raise Americans’ wages, even as his deputies are importing hundreds of thousands of cheap workers. In May, he declared:
Rising wages aren’t a bug; they’re a feature. We want to get — we want to get something economists call “full employment.” Instead of workers competing with each other for jobs that are scarce, we want employees to compete with each other to attract wrk. We want the — the companies to compete to attract workers.
[…]
Well, wait until you see what happens when employers have to compete for workers. Companies like McDonald’s, Home Depot, Bank of America, and others — what do they have to do? They have to raise wages to attract workers. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.
In May, Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies, argued that the policy zig-zagging is just PR:
The administration would like nothing more than to fully implement FWD.us’ agenda — but it is just that they have political concerns. They’re not stupid, they read the polls , they know that immigration is the President’s major weakness with voters.
[…] It’s a theatrical performance where they pretend to be reluctant and ambivalent while the outside groups like FWD.us push them [for more]. That serves both of their purposes because the administration gets to say [to voters]; “Look, we’re not crazy, we’re in the middle.”
In other areas, Biden — or his deputies — are making 180-degree turns to fix declining poll numbers. For example, the White House is ditching its lax law-enforcement rhetoric so it can blame the GOP for the rising murder rate. It also seems to be backtracking on the public advocacy for racially divisive education curricula.
Still, while the GOP officials have been aggressively using Democrat-driven crime and racial divisiveness to rally their supporters, they have been loath to make the popular and non-partisan economic case against Biden’s wage-cutting, rent-raising, immigration policies.
Without a Biden intervention, the White House’s radical faction of entwined progressives and investors is now pushing harder to win a sweeping amnesty — and more — in a rushed budget reconciliation bill.
The escalation makes sense to investors who now gain from federal policies that encourage the export of manufacturing and research jobs to China and the import of consumer demand and real-estate customers from poor countries.
But in 2013, the investor push for amnesty backfired disastrously and cost the Democrats five seats in the Senate. That crushing defeat helped a New York real-estate investor to jump into the race and provided him with a GOP Senate majority for four years while Democratic leader Sen. Chuck Schumer fumed from the sidelines.
The Democrats may be heading for the same disaster in 2022 because of the investor-driven push for reconciliation amnesty in 2021.
For many years, a wide variety of pollsters have shown deep and broad opposition to labor migration and the inflow of temporary contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates. This opposition is multiracial , cross-sex , non-racist , class-based , bipartisan , rational , persistent , and recognizes the solidarity Americans owe to each other.
Unlimited immigration. Obama issued an unconstitutional executive order – an action he repeated routinely to counter Congressional action – that instituted mass immigration of poor, uneducated third-world people into the U.S., not to assimilate with our culture but to keep their own and demand that U.S. taxpayers subsidize them. Deportations of illegal immigrants under the new policy were dramatically reduced, even as scores more poured across the southern border as the number of border patrol agents decreased.
EDUARDO MUNOZ ALVAREZ/AFP/Getty Images The Unhinging of America
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/08/the_unhinging_of_america.html
By Anthony J. DeBlasi
Since my return from the war in Korea (1950-53) I have witnessed America sink into a state of insanity unknown in its history:
Kids shooting classmates at school, people like zombies gazing at little screens while they walk, stand, sit, shop, talk, drive cars, watch TV telling them what to think, women blaming men for not being treated like men, men having their genitals “replaced with vaginas,” women leaving dependent children behind to join the military, mothers having their babies killed when they are ready to be born . . .
By the 1980s the moral and cultural swamp that America was sinking into made me wave red flags in newsletters I published. The acceleration toward and past the turn of the century has been breathless! Many Americans have wondered what happened to America?
Well, to begin with, anti-American activists have pushed hard to fulfill a mission launched by early 20th century Marxists to establish a new world order. It would be a God-free world under a global government run by amoral men smarter than everybody else in the world, past and present. Soon after the start of the 21st century, Barack Obama, latest edition of this breed of visionary, positioned himself to lead the team in Washington to help “transform America” – make it ready, that is, for the new world order.
There has never been a place in my mind for anyone in public office who would harm America and the people he or she is elected or appointed to serve, which is the inevitable consequence of pushing for a moral-free, God-free world. Such action, no matter how packaged, serves evil. They who use their talents to harm their fellow human beings – they’re known as traitors – are placed by Dante in the deepest circle of hell [ Inferno ].
Now there was someone who wanted to be president who could and would utilize Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals – a book that salutes the devil in its opening pages – to take down America, while pretending to make it better than ever!
Could Obama in truth and honesty have, as president, served “one nation under God, with liberty and justice for all”? Could he have been sincere when he took the oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States”? I don’t think so.
My worst fear, that Americans might lose their country if they did not stand up to and shout down the God-haters and Leftists undermining their country – what culture warriors have been fighting for decades – seemed closer than ever to becoming a reality.
Among the warriors “with balls” who saw what was happening, the firebrand Andrew Breitbart rallied converts and fighters against political traitors scheming to destroy America, a first step in establishing their New World Order. (I called it Global Oz.) By the time Breitbart crashed into media and news reporting, a bloated and flabby federal government had enabled the anti-American Obama to run for president. Breitbart was ruthless in exposing this two-faced candidate for president. Shortly after he pledged to release a video showing college-age Obama alongside notorious Weather Underground terrorists, Breitbart died in Los Angeles.
And so a treacherous candidate for president beat a “she’s-not-fit-to-be-president” (Obama.’s words) Hillary Clinton to the White House. Well, Hillary became part of the “America-transforming" team as Secretary of State and Obama, with solemn face and ready platitude, repeated the lie that he would unify America and transform it into a better place for all.
The deeds did not match the words. Regarding unity, Obama stoked the fires of racial division, using his bully pulpit to turn every news event that could be spun into “discrimination against blacks” into an official denunciation of racism. And the corporate media did their part to help bring about a hatred of cops that heedlessly endangered the lives of men and women who daily put their lives on the line to ensure the safety of a public increasingly divided.
Regarding improving the lives of all, the following overview of Obama’s “transformation of America” is based on “The 10 Ways Obama has actively sought to destroy America” by J. D. Heyes (Natural News, December 25, 2015):
ObamaCare was sold on false pretenses by people who knew it wouldn’t work as promised. Failed scheme or intentional failure? The bill was so sloppily crafted that Democrats were basically signing blank sheets of paper when they rushed it through Congress. [“We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what’s in it,” said Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.] ObamaCare’s designers precipitated a constitutional crisis with a provision to cut subsidies for states that didn’t set up health-care exchanges – a provision that would have killed the entire program stone-dead if it had been enforced as written. And whoever was uninsured that did not enroll had to pay an annual penalty fee!
Unlimited immigration. Obama issued an unconstitutional executive order – an action he repeated routinely to counter Congressional action – that instituted mass immigration of poor, uneducated third-world people into the U.S., not to assimilate with our culture but to keep their own and demand that U.S. taxpayers subsidize them. Deportations of illegal immigrants under the new policy were dramatically reduced, even as scores more poured across the southern border as the number of border patrol agents decreased.
The Constitution. Obama was a bigger enemy of our founding document than any president in history. Acting dictatorially, Obama unconstitutionally “legislated by executive order” whenever his will was in conflict with that of Congress or the constitution. [His “liberal” activist judges would back him up, if needed.]
Military madness. Obama pushed social experimentation in the military to a level that could cause lasting damage, such as permitting people to serve who have no idea what sex they are, and allowing women to serve in combat roles despite increases in injuries, mental health issues, effectiveness and morale problems.
Packing the federal courts. Obama “packed” the federal court for the D.C. Circuit with activist, like-minded judges [who place themselves above the Law of the Land they are charged to uphold].
Economic damage. Obama issued more regulations than any president before him, with tens of billions in burdensome new costs such as those incurred by the expensive EPA regulations. His packed D.C. Circuit ruled against states suing to get those rules tossed.
Changes to society. Obama’s open-border policy and unlimited importation of third-world poor and Middle Eastern “refugees” [a gateway to anti-American terrorists] could change the face of the country, culturally and economically.
To object to any of this insanity is a way to get hit with a legal penalty.
The founders of our country and its legion of heroes surely tossed and turned in their graves over the America they had struggled, sacrificed, and died for.
If there is a silver lining to the dark clouds hanging over America it is the hope that the young of every description will turn on the mindless haters of America and launch a course correction. A reset for any semblance of progress starts with a return to the Constitution and the forces that inspired it, which include age-independent Judeo-Christian wisdom.
Anthony J. DeBlasi is a veteran and lifelong defender of Western culture.
Image credit: Abductit, via Flickr // CC BY-SA 2.0
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.
EDUARDO MUNOZ ALVAREZ/AFP/Getty Images
Joe Biden: ‘Absolutely Bizarre’ to Suggest Limit on U.S. Capacity to Absorb Immigrants JOEL B. POLLAK
LAS 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
By Andrea Widburg
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:
Tom Fitton
✔ @TomFitton
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/sto ry/2020-02-22/trump-conservative-judges-9th-circuit …
Ten new judges in 3 years have turned the federal appeals court far more conservative than it has been in decades. And the full effect hasn't hit yet, judges say.
latimes.com
EDUARDO MUNOZ ALVAREZ/AFP/Getty Images
20.5K
6:42 AM - Feb 22, 2020
Twitter Ads info and privacy
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’s Coronavirus Plan: Catch and Release
Border Crossers into U.S. 508 David McNew/Getty Images
JOHN BINDER
1 May 2020 1,989
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 .
