WAPO: A Political BOMB Is About To Blow Up In The Democrats’ Faces

[Segami]

This scoop from Jerry Markon and David Nakamura is going to scramble the politics of immigration in the presidential race, and it may create more problems for Democrats than for Republicans:

The Department of Homeland Security has begun preparing for a series of raids that would target for deportation hundreds of families who have flocked to the United States since the start of last year, according to people familiar with the operation.

The nationwide campaign, to be carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents as soon as early January, would be the first large-scale effort to deport families who have fled violence in Central America, those familiar with the plan said. More than 100,000 families with both adults and children have made the journey across the southwest border since last year, though this migration has largely been overshadowed by a related surge of unaccompanied minors.

The ICE operation would target only adults and children who have already been ordered removed from the United States by an immigration judge, according to officials familiar with the undertaking…The adults and children would be detained wherever they can be found and immediately deported. The number targeted is expected to be in the hundreds and possibly greater.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/us-plans-raids-to-deport-families-who-surged-across-border/2015/12/23/034fc954-a9bd-11e5-8058-480b572b4aae_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_immigration-920pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

Read the rest for the details, but the short version is that there has been vigorous internal debate inside the Obama administration about this policy, and it has not been signed off on officially. The administration has long signaled that families crossing over illegally who do not qualify for asylum will be deported. But advocates have been urging the administration to treat these migrants as refugees, because experts believe that violence in Central America is a key reason for their efforts to cross the southern border.

In a preview of more to come, a leading immigration advocate, Frank Sharry of America’s Voice, told me that there will be intense pressure on the Democratic presidential candidates — particularly likely nominee Hillary Clinton — to denounce the new policy. Sharry pointed out that this could force Clinton to decide whether to align with immigration advocates and Latinos, as she’s been doing in hopes of winning the Latino vote by a huge margin in the general election, which would mean breaking with the Obama administration and adopting a position that Republicans will attack as weak on immigration enforcement.

“This will be a political nightmare for the Democrats,” Sharry told me. “The specter of raids picking up families and sending them back to violent countries is going to put Hillary Clinton in a difficult position. She’ll have to choose between protecting refugees from Central America, a demand of the Latino community, or standing with the law-and-order position of Obama and Republicans.”

Clinton has faced a similar predicament before. In 2014, when the crisis of unaccompanied children crossing the border dominated the news, Clinton triggered an outcry from immigration advocates when she suggested that they should be “sent back.” Clinton subsequently clarified her position, arguing that the process should be improved so those children who are genuine refugees would be recognized and treated as such. But the episode called into question whether Clinton can take Latino support for granted.



cont'

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/12/24/a-political-bomb-is-about-to-blow-up-in-the-democrats-faces/

[WillyT]

1. K & R !!!

[cali]

2. Hillary will be as vague as possible on this in a typical attempt

to have it both ways.

[Segami]

3. Her vagueness won't work.

Concerned families will want to hear where she stands with clarity, absent of political double talk.

Nice Christmas gift to immigrant families deeply concerned where their families will be tomorrow............

[CorporatistNation]

19. Fibs, Lies, Misrepresentation of Facts Are ALL Standard operating Procedure for Mrs. Clinton

OVER HER ENTIRE CAREER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Motown_Johnny]

4. I hate playing politics with this kind of thing, but....

since the entire post seems to be about the political impact this may have, the only choices are to address the politics or be off topic.


IMO, shining a light on just how bad the immigration policies of this nation are can only help us. If Boehner had brought up the Senate reform bill in The House then this might not have happened.

[Trajan]

5. IT"S A POLITICAL NIGHTMARE !@

OH NOES !

What will we ever do ?

Shall I just up and quit now ? ... Is all lost ?

Shall I prepare to Welcome Donald 'Herr Fuehrer' Trump as our shoe-in President ?

I mean, after all .. HE hates those damned aliens as much as any WAPO reporter ...

Poor Bernie ... Caught in an inescapable web of political intrigues and machinations - He is POWERLESS against fear inducing headlines !

I am now so fearful .. I can barely move ...

Um .. Is that a donut ? .... GLOMP !

What was a saying ?

[NCTraveler]

6. Focusing on our disastrous immigration policy will help us greatly...

And boost Clinton.

Sanders voted multiple times against a pathway to citizenship for over ten million people. He didn't even want it to have an up or down vote. With one of the cloture vote coming within four votes of moving forward, and the leadership people claim Sanders possesses, it's clear he could have swayed three more of his republican colleagues he was siding with. We had the votes if it got past cloture. Get that. Sanders didn't want it to even have a fair vote.

Clinton, Kennedy, Boxer, Biden, Obama: All voted for it. Millions of these great Americans would be citizens today if it weren't for Sanders opposition. That's if you believe he is the leader his supporters claim he is.

Yes, economics came first. So many are still living in the shadows because of Sanders leadership in opposing a pathway to citizenship for over ten million people. We were so damn close.

[nashville_brook]

9. wow -- how disingenuous -- here's the facts for anyone interested

http://www.epi.org/blog/bernie-sanders-is-correct-on-immigration/

Sanders is strongly in favor of legalization and citizenship for the current unauthorized immigrant population, which will raise wages and lift labor standards for all workers, and he’s against expanding U.S. temporary foreign worker programs, which allow employers to exploit and underpay so-called guestworkers. Limiting guestworker programs will reduce wage suppression and improve labor standards for U.S. and migrant workers alike.

[Luminous Animal]

11. He voted against the slave like conditions of racist guest worker progams and people know this.

http://www.ontheissues.org/2016/Bernie_Sanders_Immigration.htm

Q: In 2007, you voted against immigration reform. Why should Latino voters trust you now?

A: I voted against that piece of legislation because it had guest-worker provisions in it which the Southern Poverty Law Center talked about being semi-slavery. Guest workers are coming in, they're working under terrible conditions, but if they stand up for their rights, they're thrown out of the country. I was not the only progressive to vote against that legislation for that reason.

I highly recommend the Southern Poverty Law Center's report on guestworker programs titled:

Close to Slavery: Guestworker Programs in the United States

https://www.splcenter.org/20130218/close-slavery-guestworker-programs-united-states

Under the current H-2 program overseen by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), employers brought about 106,000 guestworkers into this country in 2011 — approximately 55,000 for agricultural work and another 51,000 for jobs in forestry, seafood processing, landscaping, construction and other non-agricultural industries.

But far from being treated like “guests,” these workers are systematically exploited and abused. Unlike U.S. citizens, guestworkers do not enjoy the most fundamental protection of a competitive labor market — the ability to change jobs if they are mistreated. Instead, they are bound to the employers who “import” them. If guestworkers complain about abuses, they face deportation, blacklisting or other retaliation.

Bound to a single employer and without access to legal resources, guestworkers are routinely:

Cheated out of wages

Forced to mortgage their futures to obtain low-wage, temporary jobs

Held virtually captive by employers or labor brokers who seize their documents

Subjected to human trafficking and debt servitude

Forced to live in squalid conditions

Denied medical benefits for on-the-job injuries.

Former House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel put it this way: “This guestworker program’s the closest thing I’ve ever seen to slavery.”

Bernie's stance on immigration and immigration policies have been and will continue to be the most humane policies proposed.

A Fair and Humane Immigration Policy

https://berniesanders.com/issues/a-fair-and-humane-immigration-policy/

[CorporatistNation]

20. How Can We Inform The Latinos So That They Understand Clearly WHO Is Really Their Advocate?

Hillary Gets Away With This Shit Because The CORPORATE MEDIA Is Censoring the truth and substituting Bullshit Lies and Propaganda.


Please note #6 of the 14 Characteristics that Define A FASCIST State...

http://www.rense.com/general37/char.htm


6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

[JunkyardAngel83]

23. Wow, that's not patronizing at all...

[Human101948]

26. You're right...it's not patronizing, its factual...

Our corporate media is another arm of the oligarchy which doesn't give a shit about immigration policy. The bottom line is CHEAP LABOR. Doesn't matter whether it's citizens or immigrants.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. It's time for the abuela to speak up to protect her nielos.

[artislife]

27. What if she is the mean grannie?...you know there is one. nt

[Truprogressive85]

8. Oh my

These raids will focus on Central American who fled their homelands and escaping violence WTF

Where is the compassion in this country and we have a so- called front runners one has called for a mass deportation and building a wall the other is on record calling for "sending child migrants back" to their where they were trying to escape from.

[restorefreedom]

10. my first question, politics aside,

wft is obama thinking?

[Kentonio]

14. Indeed, I really don't get him sometimes.

What does he have to lose at this point by taking the moral path?

[restorefreedom]

16. he gets critcized either way

so as you say, there is no harm in doing the right thing. plus, when its the right thing, thats a bit of a plus, too esp for those affected by this wretched (imo) decision.

[jwirr]

22. Yeah that is my question. Why now and what for? They have

been here all this time - what other than Trump is going on now?

[restorefreedom]

25. sadly, this prez continues to disappoint me.

i just don't get it, those women and children are a real threat.

[darkangel218]

12. Thats horible.

[elleng]

13. Something like that.Martin O'Malley ‏@MartinOMalley 3h3 hours ago

@DHSgov holiday plans for raids to round up/deport Central American refugees fleeing death are wrong. We are a better nation than this.

[restorefreedom]

17. plus a million....tell em, big O! nt

[ms liberty]

31. Good on O'Malley! Great to see this response from him

I like him a lot.

[AZ Progressive]

15. And even more disastrous is if the hispanic media starts talking about Hillary's possible role in...

the Honduras coup.

[treestar]

18. if they have already been ordered removed by an immigration judge

then what is the problem? That's merely enforcing the law. Might as well condemn the administration for collecting taxes, too.

[madville]

21. Why not just disband ICE then

I'm trying to figure out why we are spending billions on ICE and special immigration judges if they shouldn't being doing their jobs, doesn't make sense to me.

Is everyone just going "open borders" Libertarian these days? Laws against illegal immigration don't carry much weight if we don't actually catch people doing it and deport them so why bother.

[KingCharlemagne]

24. would you have favored returning escaped slaves to their owners pre-1860? Dredd Scott

SCOTUS decision was the 'law'. So, really, what was the problem?

[treestar]

32. really bad argument

If they have been ordered removed already, they had their hearing. The Scott decision has nothing to do with it. It was later admitted wrong, but so far none of the immigration laws have been found similarly wrong. So if they asked for refugee status but were denied and did not appeal, what is wrong with removing them? If you think we should have no laws at all, then advocate for that. But as of now the law does provide restrictions on who can legally be here. So if a person is not legally here, gets their hearing and has no ground on which to be here legally, why should we not enforce the law and deport them?

[KingCharlemagne]

34. Oy very - so if something is 'legal,' it is therefore 'moral,' eh? As long as

a judge has ruled thus and such, you have no problem with the ruling being enforced???

[treestar]

35. Do you have a problem with the legal system and the rule of law?

Judges should not follow the law but do the "moral" thing as you see it? You've now officially agreed with Kim Davis.

[KingCharlemagne]

36. And you have aligned yourself with the odious SCOTUS Chief

Justice Taney and the infamous Dred Scott decision.

[treestar]

37. No I have not

Their decisions were overruled later.

And you haven't answered my question - you clearly don't respect the rule of law in the least and think if you had power you would misuse it to do what you want - not follow the law. You're just like Kim Davis in that.

So every immigration judge's decision should simply be ignored and ICE agents should do "the right thing" and ignore those judge's rulings.

It follows you believe any immigrant has the right to stay here regardless of our laws. We may as well repeal the laws we have. You could advocate that change in the law. No restrictions - whoever wants to come can come. Zero restrictions. Good luck with that. In the meantime, public servants must enforce the law. If their conscience bothers them, they can resign.

[KingCharlemagne]

39. Yes, you have. By your own logic, you would have had ZERO

problem with the Fugitive Slave Act and its enforcement up until it was rendered moot by the Civil War. That's the problem with making law the supreme arbiter of what is moral or just.

You also would have had ZERO problem with Plessy v. Ferguson for the 50-some years it was the supreme law of the land.

[Luminous Animal]

29. Few actually have representation. Access to legal representation is scant. But for

those lucky few who do get legal representation (not profit, charity funded), 98% get asylum. And those who advocate and practice immigrant asylum suspect that they would be able to deliver similar numbers if they had the assists.

A person facing and immigration judge rarely has competent representation. They are in for a minute with MAYBE a court appointed lawyer who just got dump with 175 files that morning.

Justice.

[treestar]

33. It's civil, so there is no right to the likes of a public defender

Still there comes a point where you have to stand up for yourself. Or get a lawyer on your own. You can't just roll over and then act like it is an outrage that the result is as it is.

Is there any link to the 98% figure? Any proof of that.

[snot]

28. WHY? This is nuts. Hasn't Obama already deported a lot more than Bush?

[cantbeserious]

30. The Triangulation Will Strangulate The Establishment - Good TV News To Watch - Popcorn Ready

eom

[Betty Karlson]

38. Latinos should never be taken for granted.

And DHS is behaving thuggish and should be condemned.