BS on the border
Trump’s biggest issue in the campaign is neofascist bupkis
Friends,
The long-awaited bipartisan Senate deal on immigration contains no real reforms, such as a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. It’s all about “securing” the border.
Biden and Senate Democrats have caved to Senate Republican hardliners. Among other restrictions, the bill would make it much harder for people to apply for asylum.
On Friday evening Biden called the bill “the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border we’ve ever had in our country.”
Then Biden went further — endorsing a full border shutdown. He said the bill “would give me, as President, a new emergency authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed. And if given that authority, I would use it the day I sign the bill into law.”
I very much doubt Biden would shut the border if he signs this bill into law.
So what’s going on here? The underlying politics here has nothing to do with funding Ukraine. It doesn’t have to do with reforming immigration. It doesn’t even have much to do with the practical challenge of securing the border.
It has everything to do with the 2024 election, in which border security has become a big issue.
The nation does have to take reasonable action to stem the illegal flow of immigrants. But Trump has stoked American’s fears with lies (see below).
Trump and Biden are engaged in a giant pre-election kabuki fight over the border.
Biden wants to take the border issue away from Trump and figures this bill will do it. Which is exactly why Trump doesn’t want the bill enacted. “As the leader of our party, there is zero chance I will support this horrible, open-borders betrayal of America,” Trump said on Saturday. “It’s not going to happen, and I’ll fight it all the way.”
Trump says he welcomes criticism from GOP senators. “Please, blame it on me. Please, because they were getting ready to pass a very bad bill.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, Trump’s lapdog-in-chief, says the bill is “dead on arrival” in the House. Besides, he now says, it isn’t needed because Biden already has all the authority he needs to close the border.
Um … just last year, Johnson argued that Congress must tighten immigration laws to strengthen the president’s hand. When he was president, Trump sought similar additional authority from Congress.
Meanwhile, House Republicans are about to begin impeachment proceedings against Alejandro Mayorkas, homeland security secretary, for allegedly being too soft on border security — even though Mayorkas worked with Senate Republicans to come up with this hardline border deal.
We need to deal with the border, but Republicans are now the ones sitting on their hands because they’re beholden to Trump. We also need to deal with immigration in a humane way by offering a broad and reasonable path to citizenship, but Democrats seem to have forgotten this basic goal.
The public, meanwhile, is utterly confused by Trump’s demagoguing. Here are Trump’s biggest lies, followed by the truth.
Trump claims Biden doesn’t want to stem illegal immigration and has created an “open border.”
Rubbish. We don’t have an open border. Besides, since he took office, Biden has consistently asked for additional funding for border control.
Republicans have just as consistently refused. They’ve voted to cut Customs and Border Protection funding in spending bills and blocked passage of Biden’s $106 billion national security supplemental that includes border funding.
Trump blames the drug crisis on illegal immigration.
Bull. While large amounts of fentanyl and other deadly drugs have been flowing into the United States from Mexico, 90 percent arrives through official ports of entry, not via immigrants illegally crossing the border. Research by the conservative Cato Institute found that more than 86 percent of the people convicted of trafficking fentanyl across the border in 2021 were U.S. citizens.
Trump claims that undocumented immigrants are terrorists.
Baloney. America’s southern border has not been an entry point for terrorists. For almost a half-century, no American has been killed or injured in a terrorist attack in the United States that involved someone who crossed the border illegally.
Trump says undocumented immigrants are stealing American jobs.
Nonsense. Evidence shows immigrants are not taking jobs that American workers want. The surge across the border is not increasing unemployment. Far from it: Unemployment has been below 4 percent for roughly two years, far lower than the long-term average rate of 5.71 percent. It’s now 3.7 percent.
Trump claims undocumented immigrants are responsible for more crime in America.
More BS. In fact, a 2020 study by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, cited by the Department of Justice, showed that undocumented immigrants have “substantially” lower crime rates than native-born citizens and legal immigrants. Despite the recent surge in illegal immigration, America’s homicide rate has fallen nearly 13 percent since 2022 — the largest decrease on record. Local law enforcement agencies are also reporting drops in violent crime.
Since he entered politics, Donald Trump has fanned nativist fears and bigotry.
Now he’s moving into full-throttled neofascism, using the actual language of Hitler to attack immigrants — charging that undocumented immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” and saying they’re “like a military invasion. Drugs, criminals, gang members and terrorists are pouring into our country at record levels. We’ve never seen anything like it. They’re taking over our cities.” He promises to use the U.S. military to round up undocumented immigrants and put them into “camps.”
The parallels with Nazi Germany are chilling. In 1932, the canny Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels called for “a thick wall around Germany,” to protect against immigrants. “Certainly we want to build a wall, a protective wall.”
Trump and his enablers want us to forget that almost all of us are the descendants of immigrants who fled persecution, or were brought to America under duress, or simply sought better lives for themselves and their descendants.
Immigration has been good for America. As the median age of Americans continues to rise, we’ll need more young people from around the world.
The central question shouldn’t be how to secure our borders. It should be how to create an orderly and humane path to citizenship.
Such a betrayal of our country. Instead of working together to get to a bipartisan bill, Trump orders his lackeys to kill it. Why? Because he wants to use it as a campaign issue. It’s all about Trump, not the country. Vote in November!!!
“Trump says he welcomes criticism from GOP senators. “Please, blame it on me. Please, because they were getting ready to pass a very bad bill.”
Excellent lesson professor. That said, it’s almost as though Trump and Netanyahu have the same campaign teams. During the JCPOA negotiations, Netanyahu would tell everyone, that “any deal” is a “bad” deal. Never specifying why.
I happened to hear it directly from Netanyahu when I visited the Knesset in Israel as part of UJA. You can’t break through to these people. They have a narrative, and the entire team parrots their fearless leader, Netanyahu or Trump; regardless how ridiculous their position is.
And what would Trump know of a “good” deal vs a “bad”deal? He’s the worst deal maker around.
He tried to repeal the ACA, which he promised to do again, even though more American’s have enrolled than ever before (over 25 million) and love it; replacing it with “what”? Exactly!
He betrayed the Kurds after an hour conversation with Erdoğan. He pulled out of the Paris Accords for climate change; apparently because windmills cause cancer. He couldn’t decide whether COVID was real or a democratic hoax, yet, took credit for the vaccines. And when he finally built his 50 miles of new wall along a 2,300 mile border, Mexico didn’t pay for it.
I mention all of these shenanigans because it shows that Trump has no plan. He had the house and senate for his first two years in office, yet couldn’t produce an immigration bill, because immigrants he was told (Stephen Miller), were responsible for all the drugs and crime. Wrong!
He had an infrastructure month every year, yet couldn’t produce an infrastructure bill, or even brought one up for a vote. Yet, watch Trump try to claim credit for every project the bill financed in red states. He wouldn’t be alone. Have you listened to all the republican lawmakers claiming credit and handing out the checks from the infrastructure Bill and the CHIPs and Science Act? They all are going home and bragging about all the pork they brought to their respective districts and states, yet, none of them voted for these bills.
So what did Trump accomplish during his first term? Three things: a perpetual state of chaos. Three fascist SC picks and......wait for it......wait for it ......TAX CUTS for the rich.
So tell me America, what exactly did most of you get from Trump, except a daily migraine, a recession, and an extra $20 to $40 bucks a month in their paychecks?
Now ask yourself was it worth it? Exactly, and the reason we should never choose Trump again! It’s a clown car run by narcissistic sociopath, and a bunch of spineless politicians, who are so obtuse and weak, that collectively, they all couldn’t find the ocean, if they were standing on the beach!