At The Border

[ancianita]

From The Talk of the Town in The New Yorker, April 5 2021

There are currently some eighteen thousand unaccompanied migrant children in U.S. custody, including more than five thousand who remain in holding cells, as the government scrambles to find space to house them. Republicans who were silent when Trump was separating migrant children from their parents and eviscerating the asylum system are now denouncing “Biden’s border crisis.” The messaging appears to be effective; it’s causing all sorts of confusion.

Biden is turning away forty per cent of asylum-seeking families and virtually all single adults arriving at the border, under a controversial Trump policy known as Title 42, which he has left in place. Even so, everyone from TV news anchors to the President of Mexico is blaming Biden for encouraging more migrants to travel north, because he vowed to stop Trump’s heedless cruelty. Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, tweeted that Biden has “emphasized the humane treatment of immigrants, regardless of their legal status.” He meant it as a criticism...

...in another sense, the situation is worse than much of the public understands, because the issues involved are genuinely complex and nearly impossible to settle as long as policymakers in Washington continue to regard decency as a sign of political weakness rather than of moral strength.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/04/05/biden-and-the-blame-game-at-the-border

I love this magazine because it always understands the complexities of treating suffering humans with dignity.

[LymphocyteLover]

1. I was just going to post a NYT editorial piece that promotes the idea that Biden being less cruel

is bringing record numbers of people to the border.

It's ridiculous as there's no evidence that I know of that immigrants are becoming because of Biden and second, it's not at all clear to me that record numbers of immigrants are coming -- and most sources say it is a normal number.

Not sure why Jorge Ramos doesn't know better.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/02/opinion/biden-migration-reform-mexico.html

[ancianita]

2. I won't argue about why they're coming. For further back than the last

three administrations, the common reason is that they can't change their situations -- political, economic, etc., to make anything better at home.
From a common sense view, America is geographically their best bet to run to.

Thanks for your link. I got the paper and haven't read the opinion section yet.

But if Ramos describes the border as always having been a flashpoint of misery and brotherhood, I have to agree, being a witness from the days when Reagan gave millions amnesty, to pendejo45's xenophobic wall chanting.

Your point about sources saying it's a normal number are not arguable, either. He's probably just speaking to the Right.

So the way I see it, we really can't have an issue with Ramos, who mostly just gives the latest reasons why our southern neighbors are desperate.

I don't think he's putting this on Biden as some fault. He's explaining to the Right that this isn't even a policy fault (which is just stop-gap until Congress can get a new comprehensive immigration law in place). He's saying that humans at the border are themselves saying they're there in hope of Biden's help. 81 million of us probably understand that.

Heck, I understood that 58 years ago when I first took Spanish in 8th grade. When Cubans came we let them in. When Mexicans ran Tejas, Nuevo Mexico, Arizona and California, we let them stay.
All white descendants of America's biggest waves of undocumented immigrants should now grow up and accept that this nation has Hispanic roots older and deeper than European roots.

It's long overdue that public schools revamp history teaching from its Euro-centric framings. Carrie Gibson's El Norte is a good starting point.

[LymphocyteLover]

3. The Ramos piece was mostly fine and I didn't have any problem with it

besides the couple of things I noted.

I really hope this administration can make some real progress on immigration. But god knows he has enough other major problems to fix.

[ancianita]

4. Yep.

The problem for Biden is that he's fixing problems that have been created by a government that has not enforced its own immigration laws ( austerity at work in government? ) on corporations that have practiced undocumented worker hiring, seasonal or whatever, because they don't want to bother with H1B and H2B visas.

Unequal enforcement of law has been the ongoing problem of our rule of law.

All the problems of housing and life essentials at the borders are real. And so is the invisible problem of millions with no rights once they secretly get hired (Their doing what Americans won't do is not a myth.). When you've got haters working at the borders, they complicate and make toxic any system of absorption of foreigners. So, imo, real progress means cleaning all that up first, then processing those who will wait. Then making that process faster.

And don't get me started about these churchy types who tithe but won't adopt or foster foreign children, or domestic unwanted babies/children ... I can't even.

[LymphocyteLover]

5. Agree 100%

We could make so much progress without the republican party blocking everything decent

[ancianita]

6. Well

Several administrations of unenforced immigration law are equally to blame, imo. I just don't see real progress, just cleanup, when all that's dumped on Biden's lap and Republicans aren't about to help him get enforcement manpower and money. The current Congress, DOJ and Homeland have all got to step up on comprehensive immigration laws on a citizenship path, DACA, etc., corporate fines in country, along with border cleanup.

But you're right. He's got to do first things first, and let the noise continue from wall symbol lovers.