The president’s new asylum rule extends his systematic assault on migrants and undermines well-established law, says Marjorie Cohn.
Since his inauguration, Donald Trump has made 600 unilateral changes in immigration policy, more than any president in recent memory.
Pursuant to its “zero tolerance policy,” the administration arrested undocumented immigrants who crossed the border, took thousands of their children away, put them in cages and then lost track of them, in violation of the Constitution’s Due Process Clause and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Trump instituted a Muslim ban, tried to add a citizenship question to the census, reneged on President Barack Obama’s promise to the Dreamers, and is terrorizing immigrant communities with threats of mass raids.
In an escalation of his war on migrants, Trump’s new asylum rule undermines well-established law and prevents refugees fleeing persecution from receiving asylum.
Asylum seeker in Tijuana, Mexico, November 2018. (Daniel Arauz/Flickr)
Violates Right to Asylum
The administration illegally refused to allow people to apply for asylum unless they entered the United States at a port of entry. And a federal judge ruled that the government cannot hold asylum applicants in indefinite detention.
Now the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security have enacted a rule that threatens to virtually obliterate the legal right to asylum for Central American refugees. Many asylum seekers come from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, which are “experiencing extremely high levels of violence from which their governments have proven unwilling or unable to protect the population.”
On July 15, the administration issued a joint Interim Final Rule that creates an enormous bar to eligibility for asylum. Under the IFR, a noncitizen who crosses or tries to cross the U.S. southern border is ineligible to apply for asylum unless he or she: (No. 1) applied for and was denied asylum in at least one country through which he traveled en route to the United States; (No. 2) demonstrates that she is the “victim of a severe form of trafficking in persons”; or (No. 3) has traveled to the U.S. only through countries that were not parties to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, or the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
Most of the asylum seekers from the Northern Triangle countries pass through Mexico as they travel to the United States. Mexico is a party to the Refugee Convention and Protocol and the Convention Against Torture.
Trump’s new asylum rule violates the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and the Refugee Convention. Moreover, the bedrock principle of the right to asylum is non-refoulement, which means that no person can be returned to a country where he or she is in danger of torture or being persecuted.
Still from video showing families separated and caged at Texas border. (YouTube)
Under the Refugee Convention and the INA, a noncitizen has a right to asylum if he or she can demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution in the applicant’s home country due to race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.
A person is ineligible for asylum under the INA only if he or she “was firmly resettled in another country prior to arriving in the United States” or the U.S. has an agreement with a “safe third country” where the individual would have access to “a full and fair procedure” to determine eligibility for asylum. Canada is the only country with which the U.S. has a “safe third country” agreement.
It is well-settled that merely traveling through a third country is not a valid basis to categorically deny asylum to refugees who arrive in the United States. It is also widely accepted in international refugee law that “asylum should not be refused on the ground that it could be sought from another State.”
The IFR makes it virtually impossible for a refugee from Honduras, Guatemala or El Salvador who is fleeing a humanitarian crisis to be eligible for asylum unless he or she entered the United States by boat or plane. More than 12,000 migrants are waiting across the U.S. border in Mexico.
U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said the new asylum rule “will put vulnerable families at risk.” UNHCR, the U.N. Refugee Agency, issued a statement saying it “believes the rule excessively curtails the right to apply for asylum, jeopardizes the right to protection from refoulement, significantly raises the burden of proof on asylum seekers beyond the international legal standard, sharply curtails basic rights and freedoms of those who manage to meet it, and is not in line with international obligations.”
In a lawsuit filed on July 16 in the Northern District of California, the ACLU argued on behalf of four immigrants’ rights groups that the IFR violates U.S. and international law. They wrote that the rule is “part of an unlawful effort to significantly undermine, if not virtually repeal, the U.S. asylum system at the southern border, and cruelly closes our doors to refugees fleeing persecution, forcing them to return to harm.”
Mark Morgan, acting head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, told NPR that the government is expecting the new rule to be enjoined by a judge and he doesn’t think it will ultimately withstand legal scrutiny.
Trump’s War on Migrants
Trump with Customs and Border Patrol officials, February 2019. (DHS/Jetta Disco)
The new asylum rule is part and parcel of Trump’s systematic assault on migrants, which plays well with his xenophobic base. It comes at a time when he is threatening to conduct mass raids in the United States, instilling fear and terrorizing immigrant communities. Meanwhile, Trump is increasing his illegal militarization of the southern border by deploying 2,100 additional troops to join the 4,500 military personnel already there.
Trump launched his presidential campaign by calling Mexicans “rapists” who were bringing drugs and crime into the United States. He is detaining migrants in conditions so squalid they are called concentration camps. His threat to shut down the government if his wall does not get built, his threat to close the border, and his threat to levy tariffs on Mexico if it doesn’t stem the tide of migrants crossing the U.S. border are emblematic of his war on immigrants.
The administration returns asylum seekers to Mexico pursuant to its “Migrant Protection Protocols” program, colloquially known as “Remain in Mexico.” This program began on January 25, 2019. Five months later, the U.S. had returned 15,079 people – including at least 4,780 children – who came mostly from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, to Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Human Rights Watch reported at least 29 instances of harm to asylum seekers in Juárez, including kidnapping, violent attacks and sexual assaults.
After a 20-year-old asylum seeker who fled Guatemala with her four-year-old son was returned to Juárez, she was grabbed in the street and sexually assaulted by two men who threatened to kill her son. She said, “I can still feel the dirtiness of what they did in my body.”
Another asylum seeker from Guatemala who was sent back to Juárez was kidnapped by a taxi driver and freed after paying most of a $1,000 ransom. She was warned, “If you file a report, you know how people die in Juárez.”
The history of U.S. intervention in the Northern Triangle countries has destabilized them and exacerbated the migrant crisis. “[W]e must also acknowledge the role that a century of U.S.-backed military coups, corporate plundering, and neoliberal sapping of resources has played in the poverty, instability, and violence that now drives people from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras toward Mexico and the United States,” Mark Tseng-Putterman wrote.
These desperate people travel thousands of miles at great peril to escape persecution. Yet in defiance of the Statue of Liberty’s entreaty, Trump seeks to turn away rather than embrace “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and a member of the advisory board of Veterans for Peace. Her most recent book is “Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues.”
This article is from Truthout and is reprinted with permission.
My comment appears to have been blocked by your algorithms. Why?
The writer pulls the identity politics trick of blurring the distinction between legal and illegal immigration. But let’s be clear. We are talking here about ILLEGAL immigrants.
Current asylum law is written deliberately to maximize illegal immigration. It frankly doesn’t give a shit about legitimate asylum seekers, the people who face persecution where they live. In order to apply for asylum, they must undertake a perilous 1500-mile journey to the US border. Most of them will be victimized along the way by coyotes, bandits, and drug cartels. Many of the women and girls will be raped along the way.
It would be much more compassionate if they only had to apply at a US embassy in Central America. This would spare them making that long, perilous journey.
However, this would disqualify most of the people who currently apply for asylum. Most of them are not refugees fleeing persecution. They apply for asylum because that is an easy way to get into the country. the current system was deliberately set up that way. Any illegal immigrant need only say “asylum” and they are set free in the US after a hearing date is set. Most of them then disappear into the population. Even most of those for whom the government knows their location — people whose application for asylum has been denied — will get to stay.
We need to change the asylum laws so the legitimate asylum seekers can apply for asylum at home instead of having to travel 1500 mies at great risk. This step will be much ore humane for them while simultaneously making a substantial reduction in illegal immigration.
“We need to change the asylum laws so the legitimate asylum seekers can apply for asylum at home instead of having to travel 1500 mies at great risk. This step will be much ore humane for them while simultaneously making a substantial reduction in illegal immigration.”
The problem with this line of thinking is that for many refugees staying at home is the greater risk. War, drug gangs, death squads, and starvation are often among the reasons for their flight. What would make someone trek 1500 miles across Mexico, or in North Africa climb into a rubber raft and attempt to cross the Mediterranean Sea? Staying at home and waiting for some bureaucracy to get finished shuffling papers is not an option.
The most humane step for us would be to rein in the CIA’s long term program of interfering with the government of any country who chooses an independent path rather than be a lackey for empire.
The message of Democrats has been loud and clear for some years: “Republicans are destroying everything Americans fought and died for over the past 200 years! Vote Democrat, because we’ll do nothing to stop them!”
What comes through so loud and clear in this report is the ruling class’s HATRED. One can argue how that hatred came about. Is it just easier to hate those who you have already abused for personal gain? We know why they come here, which isn’t to say that some who come here aren’t in fact bad people. But we absolutely know that imperialism – aggression for gain for a minority of parasites in the attacking country – is alive and well and can only result in problems like this. People don’t voluntarily and happily submit to abuse. As much as we would like the imperialists to have some compassion, they don’t. I guess that when you’ve self-modified into being a believer in inequality, deceit and violence (aka neoconservative) then that’s what you are, period. Sure, If normal people – who are still imperfect – make a mistake and harm others, intentionally, then they may feel compelled to sort of make up for it. But the ruined people (fascists) who own and run and ruin the world just aren’t normal. But they are Godless. Stay tuned.
We just seem to be at the point (long expected) where the rich do to the middle class what the middle class already did to the poor.
1. as the bumper sticker says: If you’re not mad, you’re not paying attention…
2. not so much ‘mad’, as resigned that stupid sheeple will never rise up to bare their fangs at Empire… bread and circuses has won the day, sheeple are cowed, sauron’s panopticon wet dream is closing in, and humanity is about to feel the boot on their neck forever…
you know, thursday…
3. oh, and go screw yourself, mr tone police… not only do i almost always have reasons I HAVE STATED for why i insult or disregard various posters, i have ZERO problems with getting it in return… AS LONG AS YOU HAVE SALIENT POINTS, are doing reasonable duty in replying and defending, i don’t give a flying flip how much feces the other monkeys are flinging back at me… good on them…
4. again, here is an actual point you can TRY to refute (you can’t, you personally because you appear incompetent, but also because you just don’t have the gonads for the rough and tumble of REAL debate): Empire through its social engineering of the mainstream media has inculcated a false value in you and other weak-minded non-thinkers that so-called ‘civil discourse’ (read: don’t you dare say anything outside the allowable limits of debate, anything difficult, controversial, or remotely critical of snowflakes) is to be promoted and valued at the expense of REAL free speech, which is inevitably messy…
prissy dingleberries think APPARENT, superficial, meaningless comity is more valuable than truth, they are wrong…
free speech is INFINITELY more important than ANYONE’S and EVERYONE’S pwecious, pwecious feelz… if you don’t know and believe and defend that, you are already lost… free speech is our bedrock right upon which all others are dependent… if you don’t have it, you can’t declare, demand, and defend ALL other rights; you are dead in the water…
AND stupid sheeple GLADLY slit their own throats for the ostensible purpose of everyone (um, except Empire) being ‘nice’ to each other, surely THAT powerful emotion will teach the world to sing in perfect three part harmony… richtig ? ? ?
the naivete of sheeple is astounding…
ahhh, another morally-perfected one ! ! !
do you have a newsletter i can subscribe to ? ? ?
*snort*
because morally-perfect beings are supposed to excoriate everyone else, otherwise how do we know they are so morally perfected ? ? ?
1. writer in scare quotes, gosh, that is harsh ! ! ! lordy, lady, if you don’t think that shows what a weird lightweight wimp of a person you are, you will never learn anything… and, *sniffle*, aren’t i sorry you will never visit our poop hole country…
2. you live in a ‘civilized’ country do you ? ? ? bwa ha ha ha haaaaa, you are hysterical… there are NONE left lady, they are all vassals of Empire… urine idjit…
3. i an assure you, if i so chose, i could “write” proper rings around a low-info propaganda victim like yourself; i bet my vocabulary is at least twice yours; *woof*woof* what a joke, like your fact-free non-refutation contains anything of meaning or worth addressing substantively… you fell in the deep end of the pool, lady, go back to your cats…
4. here’s the thing, we met in real life and you didn’t know i was the disgusting senor art guerrilla (aka ann archy), you would think me a swell guy, polite to everyone, self-deprecating, charming as i want to be, and you would like me… you would… however, given you BELIEVE you “know” me, BELIEVE you divine what is in my head and heart from a couple of paragraphs, and BELIEVE i am eee-vil incarnate according to YOUR VALUES, you would let your irrational prejudice override your judgment in real life that i was a ‘good guy’…
yeah, that’s an honest seeker of truth…
*snort*
urine idjit, AND you are boring; i am anything but boring… i can forgive most anything, but not boring… oh, and humorlessness… oh, and people who voluntarily give up their precious rights of free speech… yeah, i really hate those idjits…
1. i don’t ‘hate’ illegal immigrants (and i actually am apparently the last person on the planet who actually ‘believes’ in ‘hate’ as a vital, necessary and valid emotion, as well as deny the moronic newspeak of so-called ‘hate crimes’), i feel sorry for them… sucks to be them…
2. that Empire has raped and pillaged the globe is not to be denied… acting as if each and every individual YOU ‘hate’ (deplorables, all!) is DIRECTLY responsible (OR EVEN DESIROUS OF) EMPIRE’S policies and actions is insane… YOU are EQUALLY responsible as a citizen of Empire; so tell me how much influence you have to dissuade Empire from raping and pillaging the planet ? ? ? urine idjit…
3. um, if there are zero poop hole countries, then why are their inhabitants desperate to leave ? ? ? you can’t have it both ways, eternal sunshine of the spotless conscience…
(or, well, actually, you can: Empire has given you faux pwogtards the okey-dokey to arrogantly and wrongly unperson your adversaries… you overweening, self-preening, left-leaning tards, think it is because you are so freaking morally pure and absolutely on the side of the angels… how stupid do you have to be to NOT see they are only giving you enough rope to hang yourselves at Empire’s convenience ? ? ? having EAGERLY and VOLUNTARILY given away your most precious, vital, bedrock right of free speech, YOU DON”T HAVE A LEG TO STAND ON when Empire comes for you…) class, ecoute et repete: urine idjit…
4. as usual, the blind partisanship on display by the poster and others is doing EXACTLY what Empire wants: divide the 99% on a handful of hot button issues, and they won’t unite against the 1%… its working great, and YOU are one reason why…
UNLESS/UNTIL the 99% unite to tar and feather the psychopathic 1%, Empire wins and laughs all the way to the pedo island…
yes, urine idjit…
You mad, bro?
In all seriousness, please refrain from throwing insults towards those you disagree with, and tell us politely why.
Hate is just an emotion and shouldn’t be made illegal. Hate crimes, for example, are a bad idea. They will be, and are being, used by bad people with power to repress those who don’t like them. And that’s the only point I would make here.
How much Foreign Aid has been distributed to these countries? Look at Puerto Rico and the abuse of money by leaders to repair that country. When does personal responsibility become relevant? Why would you continue to have more babies and you are already struggling to feed the ones you got? The gangs and drug cartels who are their family members more than likely destroying their country too.
Caesar Chavez sent men with clubs to literally beat back illegal immigrants (border hoppers). Was he a xenophobe too? Was he a racist? Was Obama a racist xenophobe for enforcing the immigration laws? The Democratic Party stood for a secure border for decades. People like Ms. Cohn are hurting the chances of winning the elections that need to be won to achieve economic justice for _Americans_.
As to those who expect the laws to be enforced and immigration to be legal and orderly, the author calls them “xenophobic”. Labeling is not reasoning. Labeling is not argument. Labeling is another way people like Ms. Cohn use to shut down opposing speech. It requires an implicit assumption. The assumption that that can be the _only_ reason to support the President’s immigration policies. That assumption is absurd. When 90% of asylum claims are rejected, and when over 90% of those ordered removed do not obey, then something must be done, or else we have de facto open borders. Ms. Cohn doesn’t want to talk about that part of it, does she? As if it’s not a problem.
Travel yourself to Honduras, El Salvador, or Guatemala to see the extreme suffering caused by Reagan/Bush Contra War. Bad enough that H.W.Bush pardoned everyone (including Reagan) over these crimes, but worse that these countries are still suffering 35 years later and we are now denying asylum.
How many billions of dollars in Foreign Aid has been given to those countries n their leaders have misused the funds? Look at Puerto Rico now. It’s always easier to blame someone else. If u are poor why would u keep having babies and being irresponsible and make ur life harder? What about the drug cartel n gang problems wreaking havoc in those countries? Immoral people play a huge part in their demise.
Puerto Ricans are US citizens so not sure what your point is re Puerto Ricans
Don’t confuse GeeGee with any facts! Those ‘ricans ain’t luck us hard workin’ white folk! Even if we own the island, there’re fer’ners.
The xenophobic nonsense that is farted out of the most backward and ignorant elements of US society blames the asylum seekers for the conditions not of their making. This segment of the US can only see what is directly under its nose and lacks critical-thinking skills to understand deeper causes of events. Do the haters of those seeking asylum really think that these desperate people trek a couple of thousand miles across a desert because the US is such a wonderful place? Are they really that brainwashed? Have they not even taken a few minutes to view the world from another’s perspective?
The reality of life in Latin America since the US Civil War has been the the policies of US imperialism and plunder have sucked the natural resources out of the these countries. Atrocities against the peoples of Latin America have increased in their ferocity and savagery to the present day. The coups d’etat that the US instigated along with the death squads the the CIA and special forces troops created and led left hundreds of thousands dead in their wake. Entire villages and towns are destroyed.
It sickens me to read the hate filled comments of people in the US who have never known a single day of hunger, never endured homelessness or witnessed murders and tortures so hideous as they would make anyone with a grain of compassion understand why immigrants are fleeting the places Trump calls “shitholes.”
Build the wall across the southern border.
The Trumpets are on a path to obliterate everything. This is the goal. King Solomon and the baby with two mothers. If I can’t have it, nobody can have it, so cut it in half, which leaves everyone with nothing. This is the way we walk the last 40 years or so.
https://osociety.org/2018/10/05/will-conservatism-end-in-nihilism-conservative-moral-hierarchy-12/
But Consortium News has become very popular with the Trumpers. Funny how the far left and far right find so many things on which to agree
Will-
Your terms “far left” and “far right” are a bit ambiguous. I have noticed that libertarians and true progresses agree about non-interventionism. I think that there should be a healthy, public debate between them on the extent of the role of government in a free society. I personally believe there are valid points on both sides of that argument.
It is also a sad commentary that those you would probably call “moderates” seem to agree that our military murdering innocents all around the world to maximize corporate profits is perfectly fine as long as its done by a “smooth talker”; and have some mild disagreement on whether or not we should have gender specific restrooms in our Starbucks.
How could a president assume absolute power? Any time it appears that a president oversteps the boundaries of his authority, Congress has a sworn duty to intervene. This doesn’t require the consent of all of Congress.
There’s no such thing as a “right” to asylum. Nations have the DUTY to control their borders, for the benefit of their own RESIDENTS. People who choose to migrate without proper authority should be on their own. Caveat migrator.
no, there is a “right” and a legal procedure to *seek* asylum. Trump has been stealing the children of people who are attempting to avail themselves of that legal procedure.
1. former eclectic libtard, not a conservatard, but i am essentially forced to align with my conservatard brothers and sisters since they are the ONLY ONES defending constitutional rights, the bill of rights, freedom, free speech, and the greatest good for the greatest number… libtardia has abandoned those principles for the overriding issue of their pwecious, pwecious feelz, their hypocritical virtue signaling, and some perverse idea they are morally perfected human beans… except the harsh reality is, libtards HAVE NO PRINCIPLES they will not ignore for some one (theoretical) person’s pwecious, pwecious feelz… *snort*
2. ok, i get it, most people are too high strung to even recognize they are adhering to the discriminatory idea of valuing style over substance; it is an easy way to dismiss those you don’t like or agree with… of course it is intellectually dishonest, but we passed that mile marker a l-o-n-g time ago… logic, reason, tolerance, informed discourse, rigorous debate, etc are all passe; ONLY FEELZ MATTER… great, nekkid apes abandoning the traits which advanced them so far.. brilliant ! ! !
the point being, you appear to agree with the points i raise, you just don’t like how baldly i state them… again, it is the perverse tone and tenor of our times, where FAUX civil discourse is the supposed goal, but it is simply a means of cutting off those who are swimming against the received wisdom of our puppet masters, their mainstream mediawhores, and all the rest of the morally perfected human beans who have nothing better to do than preen over their moral perfection and excoriate the deplorables for their imagined imperfections… hey faux pwogwessives : mote/beam, look it up…
3. besides being censored for asking reasonable questions along these lines, the salient issues are never refuted, addressed, or debated by the morally perfected ones… their decisions are unassailable, not amenable to facts, differing opinions or values, or any practical exigencies…. simply carved stone tablets of absolute truth smashed down on the skulls of the chosen victim of the moment…
4. again, the home/nation analogy is not invalid: WOULD YOU, dear homeowner, let ANYONE/EVERYONE simply plop down in YOUR house on THEIR SAY SO ? ? ? no ? of course not ? … and yet you can’t see how the same analogous situation applies to nations as well ? ? ? not a failure of intellect, a PURPOSEFUL failure of will… that is even MORE difficult to respect for me: a person is ignorant of X (as we all are of most things), okay, they can be educated… a person is ‘morally’ opposed to X, but can offer NO REASONS other than their moral aversion, AND they ignore any/all evidence to the contrary; THAT person is impossible…
libtardia has become impossible…
5. of course, the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about (GENOCIDE ! ! !), is that we have a ball of mud we are squeezing dry with 7.5-8 billion nekkid apes on it, yet it is reasonably projected we can only support about 2.5-3 billions at a western level life style… gee, i would have to take off my hobnail boots to use my toes for that higher math, so i will leave the calculation as an exercise for the student…
6. when the hard rain comes: yeah, i am standing with the deplorables with my AR-15… out of curiosity, just *what* do libtards think is going to happen when their -apparently- cherished goal of civil war part deux happens ? ? ? just how do they think they will fare against a heavily armed populace used to shooting, hunting, ex-military, etc; just how do they think that ‘war’ will go down ? ?? further, um, a eensy weensy detail: just which side do you think the police and military are going to fall in such a conflict ? ? ?
geezus, libtards are stoopid…
Brilliant comment! Not sure if any of the libtards would ever read or reply to this, it’s not beneficial for them to engage in a RATIONAL conversation. AS we all know, the easiest way for them and their hurt ‘feels’ would be to call you the usual libtard standard set of derogatory names and claim moral victory. I personally have come to conclusion, that any attempt to reason with them will invariably fail. So, unfortunately the only practical solution might be the AR-15 armed ‘deplorables’ with full support of the law enforcement and military. It will be ugly, but necessary and (hopefully) will not take too long.
So you’re advocating murdering your fellow citizens as the best solution? Wow…I don’t have to call you any of those “derogatory libtard” names.” You have already named yourself.
Build the wall!
“The history of U.S. intervention in the Northern Triangle countries has destabilized them and exacerbated the migrant crisis. “[W]e must also acknowledge the role that a century of U.S.-backed military coups, corporate plundering, and neoliberal sapping of resources has played in the poverty, instability, and violence that now drives people from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras toward Mexico and the United States,””
This is the entire crux of the problem. Until we cease meddling in the affairs of our neighbors to the south, they will be plagued by poverty and violence. The long term solution must be to allow them to build a decent country of their own, and to stop all the evil committed by our so-called “intelligence” agencies at the behest of their corporate rulers. Then these poor people would get to enjoy a good life at home, and have control over their own affairs. Just offering them sanctuary on our side of the border is like putting a band-aid on a gaping wound. We must insist that our government learns to wage peace in a multi-polar world. That is the only real solution.
We’ve controlled our coastal borders for a very long time. Unfortunately we did not develop the same regulations along our contiguous borders. My personal position is that there needs to be some boundaries, some regulations, since our country cannot sustain a flood of immigrants. I say this recognizing how we have impoverished many South American countries in a variety of ways. Fairly recently it was Hilary Clinton as Secretary of State under Obama who supported the military coup in Honduras which made the country more violent, more impoverished, and the Hondurans constitute a large number of immigrants who seek asylum in the US. To a great extent we have our selves to blame for this crisis, but I still feel we have to implement some controls, create some boundaries. I see no difference in what Bill Clinton, or Obama proposed during their time in office, and to a great extent I see this as no more then a political game between the Democrats and the anti-Trump crusade that has been going on in one form or another since he took office.
But Consortium News has become very popular with the Trumpers. Funny how the far left and far right find so many things on which to agree
But who then will wash our dishes and pick our fruit for slave wages?
Informative article
Israel attacked the territory of Syria from the air, reports SANA. According to available information, the incident occurred in the south of the province of Dera’a, in the Tell al-Harrah area. As a result of the incident, material damage was caused. Other data on the attack is not reported.
Israel hit the south of Syria
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova reported an increase in the strength of private military companies from the United States amid the withdrawal of US troops. This is reported by Tass.
According to Zakharova, the number of PMCs in Syria exceeds 4 thousand people. She clarified that the mercenaries are based in the north-eastern regions of the country.
Commentator Victor Gusev gave a forecast for the match “Real” – “Arsenal” in the framework of the International Champions Cup.
Real Madrid:A forecast of Viktor Gusev for a friendly meeting
“In this International Champions Cup, which has been held for seven years now, there has never been such a thing for a team to win all three matches.
By the way, last year Tottenham won. And now Arsenal is very close to success because Arsenal has won two games. And now he needs another victory, and then Arsenal almost guarantees itself the first place and this rather prestigious trophy.
there are numerous people who (quite reasonably) ask those who believe in ‘open borders’ (which presumes there are then no sovereign nations!, how -exactly- does that work ?) to import and house all the immigrants they want, they why don’t they ‘host’ these immigrants IN THEIR OWN HOUSE, and personally pay for their stay…
when you use a fairly valid analogy between a homeowner and a nation, and whether they should allow whoever wants to plop their lame ass in our house/country, and insist on benefits MANY CITIZENS are not afforded, that sounds kind of arrogant and presumptuous on the part of the ILLEGAL immigrants…
even though i have skills that would be highly useful in just about any ‘modern’ country and most all poop hole countries, *I* can’t just plop *MY* lame ass down in *THEIR* country on my own say so, and demand all sorts of benefits, etc… i would not consider doing that to another country in a million years… IF i am going to migrate to another country, i follow their rules, i respect their sovereignty, and i adopt to THEIR culture/society… otherwise, i am a money-grubbing scumbag and (rightfully) ugly american…
sorry, i just don’t buy the ‘oh the poor people’ ‘argument’ (which is not an argument, but emotional bullying), otherwise we would ‘logically’ have approximately 6 billion of the 8 billion people living in the usa… yeah, that would work swell, instead of 100 poop hole countries, we’d have one giant poop hole country…
i will ask this question again of our south/central american brothers and sisters who migrate from poop hole countries to the us : if you are so oppressed (or is it unemployable?), etc in your poop hole country, WHAT is wrong with the half dozen NON poop hole countries (who are spanish speaking) you pass through on the way to el norte ? ? ? is it because THEY don’t want you either ? is it because they are not as stupid as us and don’t allow anyone to plop their lame ass there ? is it because you can’t suck off the state’s golden teat there ? ? ? mexico doesn’t want you ? why not ? i hear that illegal immigrants are ALL 100% totally double-plus good for OUR country, and i simply don’t understand why countries aren’t fighting over these super great people staying in THEIR country instead of us, if they are so freaking great for US…
otherwise, that proposition makes no rational sense… oh, yeah, that’s where we are, i forgot…
Art Guerrilla, when I see you comments with their colorful language, I would guess you are among the HC deplorables. It is entirely possible that your comment is posted not because of the substance but to demonstrate just how deplorable you are. It then makes the argument that it is the unwashed who oppose open borders and if they do, open borders are probably okay. It is even possible that you are not a deplorable at all, but a caricature of a deplorable to make the point that there are troglodytes out there who want to send children into the desert but keep them out of the country.
But dismissing your way of saying it, what you are saying makes sense. Asylum may be a valid reason for trying to get into the United States if it were honestly applied but obviously it is being used to open our borders to people who would just be better off in the United States.
People coming north are very poor where they now live. I saw that first hand when I was in the army in the 50’s and crossed the border into Mexico. On one side of the Rio Grande, the way we live in the United States, on the other the wretched way many people lived in Mexico. Easy to see the accident of birth made a huge difference.
But does that mean we open our borders. It does not but it does mean assisting within our means to lift up the lives of those south of the border.
I know that compassion is one element driving the movement to allow more people to cross the border but it denies the benefits of sovereignty, i.e., just why do we have borders at all. Why does a nation have the right to determine who shall enter their country. It is a complex issues but need to be front and center in the debate.
To those who see the political benefits of unimpeded entrance into our country, I think you do everyone a disservice included those who might suffer from a backlash and have legitimate claims for asylum.
This disgusting “writer” and many of his kind are the reason that I would NEVER want to visit the USA under any conditions, but I am luckily living in a civilised country and am not in danger. As well as the native Americans, the enslaved Black people, other desperate ones plus the white hordes which gave birth to the present US population mean that nearly everyone is an immigrant and the laws on “illegals” are made by those in power.
“Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador,” are three of the most devastated countries which the USA has interfered with for so long, yet the really desperate ones who try to enter the USA are blamed as if there is no link between their plight and the policies of the USA over decades or even centuries.
Yeah, okay. But the unchecked waves of immigrants has got to stop. We wouldn’t be having these discussion if Obama was President. No, open borders are a bad idea. We already have too many race problems now. Sometimes the melding pot gets too spicy and you just can’t eat it.
“Marjorie Cohn is professor emeritas at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers …”
A limousine liberal specialist in snowflake law. Tell me Ms Cohn, how many asylum seekers are camped out on your lawn, are fed from your pantry, or shower in one of the multiple bathrooms in your upscale home? How many mow your lawns, cook for you, do your laundry, take care of your kids, or clean your house?
As an attorney, you specialize in advocacy, which is the practice of cherry-picking only those facts which, dispensing with any regard for “the whole truth”, ends up a narrative betrayal of the truth built on “lies of omission”.
Your brief above exemplifies the chameleon ethics of a profession whose practitioners can with equal ease write a brief in defense of human rights … for free … or in support of torture (Yoo, Bybee, Addington) … when the career benefits are big enough.
You write above: “These desperate people travel thousands of miles at great peril to escape persecution.”
This is a lie. And you know it’s a lie. But as a lawyer that doesn’t concern you, because winning is everything.
The truth: “These desperate people travel thousands of miles at great peril to escape poverty.”
I’ve been a hard left progressive all my life, lived cheek-to-jowl with Mexican immigrants, and have nothing but respect and compassion for them. They are the most decent people in the world. And I would be delighted to have them come here and share in the American Dream (such as it is), but only when people like you who so fiercely advocate for them, show some willingness to step up to the plate and pay for their support. You feel for them, you want to help them, then you give up some of your plush lifestyle and pay for them.
The Americans that are already here, who are citizens, whose parents and grandparents and great grandparents built this country and fought and died for this country, have earned the right to have their nation act with honor by taking care of them ***FIRST***.
Excellent article, had heard the arguments before but well stated here, and the Irish example gives more perspective.
While the 11 million illegal aliens number has been cited for years, recent Yale academic ‘scientists’ put the number at 22.1 million (as of 2016; Plos ONE 13(9): e0201193). There are only four states which have populations near or more than 20,000,000; not coincidentally they also have the highest populations of illegal aliens (California, Texas, Florida and New York.) Not only do these exploited people keep the wages of workers artificially low, they also have profound effects on Census Apportionment of US House of Representatives districts: https://cis.org/Testimony/Impact-NonCitizens-Congressional-Apportionment
While the author of your link stresses the need for punishing employers who exploit illegal aliens (and it’s not just rich big companies, but also suburbanites and small businesses exploiting them for agricultural, landscaping, forestry, slaughterhouses, harvesting, domestic cleaning and essentially raising children for wealthy people who refuse to pay reasonable wages.)
The solutions are many and have been repeatedly proposed since Reagan’s amnesty, but are always stopped by Congress in support of exploitation by their donors. Work permits (like other industrialized countries). Sponsorship by employers, paying federal minimum wage (or better yet $15 per hour). Fining companies and individuals for illegally hiring those who refuse to go through the system (illegal aliens); although as the author notes this has never been enforced.
The author of your link stresses illegal immigration creates a circular system that hurts their home country as well as the workers they compete with in their new country. America has created many true refugees with our crazed unending military adventures, many more than the total who have recently immigrated here; morally those people should be given preference over economic immigrants.
The link below is to the finest article I’ve ever read on the immigration (illegal, legal, etc.) kerfuffle. It’s by an Angela Nagle. (hopefully the link travels ok)
The Left Case Against Open Borders
https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2018/11/the-left-case-against-open-borders/
Excellent article, had heard the arguments before but well stated here, and the Irish example gives more perspective.
While the 11 million illegal aliens number has been cited for years, recent Yale academic ‘scientists’ put the number at 22.1 million (as of 2016; Plos ONE 13(9): e0201193). There are only four states which have populations near or more than 20,000,000; not coincidentally they also have the highest populations of illegal aliens (California, Texas, Florida and New York.) Not only do these exploited people keep the wages of workers artificially low, they also have profound effects on Census Apportionment of US House of Representatives districts: https://cis.org/Testimony/Impact-NonCitizens-Congressional-Apportionment
While the author of your link stresses the need for punishing employers who exploit illegal aliens (and it’s not just rich big companies, but also suburbanites and small businesses exploiting them for agricultural, landscaping, forestry, slaughterhouses, harvesting, domestic cleaning and essentially raising children for wealthy people who refuse to pay reasonable wages.)
The solutions are many and have been repeatedly proposed since Reagan’s amnesty, but are always stopped by Congress in support of exploitation by their donors. Work permits (like other industrialized countries). Sponsorship by employers, paying federal minimum wage (or better yet $15 per hour). Fining companies and individuals for illegally hiring those who refuse to go through the system (illegal aliens); although as the author notes this has never been enforced.
The author of your link stresses illegal immigration creates a circular system that hurts their home country as well as the workers they compete with in their new country. America has created many true refugees with our crazed unending military adventures, many more than the total who have recently immigrated here; morally those people should be given preference over economic immigrants.
This also provides essential context.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/killed-oscar-valeria-inconvenient-history-refugee-crisis/260607/
Needless to say, the crisis is caused by US foreign policy of the republicans and democrats, way before Trump.
That is excellent.
Wow. Thanks for the link. I have been saying the same thing in many of my posts, but much less eloquently. Put simply, we must seek to wage peace and prosperity in a multi-polar world based on national sovereignty. If we continue on our current path, the result is a unipolar empire controlled by a global oligarchy, no doubt resulting in ever increasing income inequality and a neo-feudal world order.