Tag: border crisis

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Local Leader Questions Legitimacy of Trump’s Mass Deportation Threat

CREDIT: Latino Memphis

Latino Memphis

Latino Memphis members distribute immigration information

The leader of a local organization that advocates for the Latino community here called President Donald Trump’s recent threats to remove “millions of illegal aliens” an “explosive” and “divisive” comment, and questioned the verity of the claims. 

On Monday, the president tweeted that Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) agents would begin removing undocumented immigrants from the country next week.

“Next week ICE will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States,” Trump tweeted. “They will be removed as fast as they come in. Mexico, using their strong immigration laws, is doing a very good job of stopping people long before they get to our Southern Border. Guatemala is getting ready to sign a Safe-Third Agreement.

“The only ones who won’t do anything are the Democrats in Congress. They must vote to get rid of loopholes, and fix asylum. If so, the Border Crisis will end quickly.”

Local Leader Questions Legitimacy of Trump’s Mass Deportation Threat

Executive director of Latino Memphis, Mauricio Calvo said Trump’s statement is “another explosive, non-deliverable, and divisive comment from the president.”

“It doesn’t make any sense logistically, economically, politically, and most importantly, it doesn’t recognize that we are talking about people,” Calvo said. “However, deportations and separation of families are very real and a daily tragedy in our city.

“Thousands of Memphians who are among our neighbors, employees, and friends of our children are vulnerable to this reality.”

Calvo said one way to prepare for this reality is to become informed, citing the national immigration defense campaign, We Have Rights. The campaign’s website gives undocumented immigrants instructions on how to protect themselves when encountering ICE officers or when detained.

For example, the website explains that ICE agents are not allowed to enter or search a home without a warrant signed by a judge. Undocumented immigrants have the right to ask the agents to leave if they do not have a signed warrant.

We Have Rights advises those who have been arrested not to sign any paperwork, to remain silent, and to ask to speak to a lawyer even if they don’t have one. See the video at the bottom for more detail. Anyone who is arrested can be located via this site.

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Calvo also encourages people to get involved in the issue by voting for legislators who support immigration reform.

When asked about the president’s tweet and whether or not ICE would execute raids in Shelby County, ICE’s office of public affairs shed little light on next week’s plans.


ICE officials offered this response in an email to the Flyer:

“The border crisis doesn’t start and stop at the border, which is why ICE will continue to conduct interior enforcement without exemption for those who are in violation of federal immigration law,” the statement reads. “This includes routine targeted enforcement operations, criminals, individuals subject to removal orders, and worksite enforcement.

“This is about addressing the Border crisis by upholding the rule of law and maintaining the integrity of the immigration system, as created by Congress.”

Local Leader Questions Legitimacy of Trump’s Mass Deportation Threat (2)

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

No Crisis! You’re the Crisis!

CREDIT: REUTERS | Earnie Grafton

When the orange terror — I mean President Donald Trump — said he was going to build a wall at the southern border, I thought it was a joke. It’s expensive, it’s anti-immigrant, and seems regressively un-American. Not only was it not a joke, but, as of press time, the orange terror is seemingly willing to allow the federal government to be partially shut down indefinitely, halting federal services, hurting people’s pocketbooks, and causing a slew of other disruptions, in order to force the issue of the border wall.

People’s livelihoods are being played with, like this is one big game of Monopoly, all for what the president calls the “crisis” at the southern border.

Merriam-Webster defines a crisis as a “situation that has reached a critical phase” or an “unstable or crucial time or state of affairs in which a decisive change is impending, especially one with the distinct possibility of a highly undesirable outcome.”

REUTERS | Earnie Grafton

The southern border

There is no real crisis at the border. There are crises, however, in our schools, in the health-care system, in the criminal justice system, and elsewhere in this country. And the billions of dollars Trump wants to spend on border security could make a huge dent in those areas. But, that’s a discussion for another day.

The most current crisis is the 800,000 federal employees who are not getting paid. Why should they be punished? Let’s talk about the rent they won’t be able to pay, or the car note, or the groceries they won’t be able to afford for their families. What about the mothers and babies who could stop getting WIC benefits and therefore not have the things they need to survive, the kids whose school lunches will stop being provided, or the immigrants whose court dates have been rescheduled for a time in the unforeseeable future?

The FDA isn’t regulating or inspecting food and drugs, FBI agents are working without pay, food stamps will stop being dispersed at the end of February, national parks are turning into waste zones, and airports are closing entire terminals due to a limited number of TSA agents. And this isn’t even an exhaustive list of all the other chaos the shutdown has caused.

This is the real crisis, which could have, and should have been, avoided.

Trump’s behavior mirrors that of a prepubescent child who throws tantrums when they don’t get their way. That’s all this government shutdown is: one big temper tantrum. When you are a 12-year-old girl, it’s fine and even expected. But, when you’re the leader of the free world and are responsible for the well-being of an entire nation, you need to do better.

Trump seems to have no regard for the millions of people his hissy fit is affecting. That’s a slap in the face to the people who chose jobs, in some cases for an unglamourous amount of pay, who serve the country — and those of us who depend on their service. You can’t just shut down the government of the world’s most prominent country because you didn’t get what you wanted.

The United States looks like such a joke to other countries around the world right now. I mean, I lost some faith in our country the day it elected the orange terror. But now? Trump’s warranted a whole new level of disrespect.

Though it’s unlikely Trump will ever be able to redeem himself from the absolute joke of a president he’s become, he still has the time and opportunity to offset some of the havoc he’s wreaked. If he does, maybe some day the history books can at least say one nice thing about him.

If he backs down now, it would show the world that he has at least an ounce of sense and reasonableness — not much, but some. But, I doubt that’s coming. He’s still talking about declaring an emergency to build the wall. He’s going to have a real emergency on his hands if this continues. What happens when TSA agents can’t survive working like unpaid worker bees anymore? Or when FBI agents decide to stop working for free?

And would a wall even solve the immigration “crisis?” Not unless it’s coupled with updated, strong, fair legislation. A wall won’t fix this country’s problematic immigration system. Good leadership will.

At the end of the day, the United States is a country of immigrants built by immigrants. Those who came here 200 years ago to seek a better life have little room to criticize those who are coming in 2019 for the same reason.

The government shutdown is just another reminder that we are all living in a wonky Twilight Zone, a nightmare episode that, hopefully, we’ll soon wake up from.

Maya Smith is a Flyer staff writer.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

I Really Don’t Care. Do U?

CREDIT: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

In the 1992 campaign, President George H.W. Bush created an unofficial and much-mocked motto for his administration during a town hall meeting in New Hampshire. “Message: I care,” he announced, as if reading aloud the stage directions.

Melania Trump did much the same last week when she went to Texas to see some of the migrant kids who were taken from their parents under her husband’s policy. The now-famous wording on her jacket made her a human billboard for what should be the unofficial motto of the Trump administration: “I really don’t care, do u?”

REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

The administration’s cruelty is particularly prominent lately because of photos of the anguish of the migrant children — and Trump’s accompanying allegation of “phony stories of sadness” and his warning that immigrants, like insects, would “infest” the country. But the current episode, though highly visible, is hardly one of a kind. By now, the administration has amassed an extensive catalogue of cruelty.

On Thursday, Trump doomed the latest attempt to protect from deportation the “dreamers,” those 700,000 people who have known no home but America since they were brought here as children. He tweeted that he didn’t see the “purpose” of the House passing an immigration bill — and, sure enough, the House called off the vote. It was his own executive action that exposed the dreamers to deportation in the first place.
I really don’t care, do u?

On Wednesday night, Trump renewed his assault on Senator John McCain, as he dies from brain cancer. Trump again blamed McCain for the failed repeal of Obamacare.

The administration earlier this month decided not to defend the law against a court challenge that if successful would end protections for Americans with pre-existing conditions. Trump has also ended subsidies to help insurance companies cover low-income people, and acknowledged the Obamacare repeal he championed was “mean.” He gave a green light to work requirements for Medicaid that could deny health insurance even to many poor Americans who work.

I really don’t care, do u?

The Trump administration this month said that fleeing domestic violence and gang violence would no longer be grounds for seeking asylum in the United States.

Trump previously reduced the number of refugees from 110,000 to 45,000 per year — the lowest in almost 40 years; and even fewer are actually being admitted, forcing tens of thousands to remain in refugee camps and return to face persecution or violence in the countries they fled. This is after Trump’s travel ban on several Muslim-majority countries, which resulted in families separated and students and doctors denied entry.

I really don’t care, do u?

Lawmakers complained this last week to Trump’s commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, that the administration’s haphazard implementation of trade barriers is causing havoc for farmers, small businesses, and manufacturers. Ross responded by calling such notions “exaggerated” and “not our fault.”

A week earlier, as The Washington Post‘s Jeff Stein and Andrew Van Dam wrote, Trump’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that wages after inflation have fallen over the past year for production and non-supervisory workers — 80 percent of all privately employed workers. That means economic “gains are going almost exclusively to people already at the top of the economic ladder.” And the tax cuts further widen the gap between the rich and everybody else.

I really don’t care, do u?

Trump’s budget proposal this year, sensibly ignored by Congress, would have cut Medicaid by $306 billion over 10 years, food stamps by $214 billion, nutritional help for mothers and children, and heating assistance for the poor, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The Trump administration is also reducing enforcement of fair-housing laws. And Trump said Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico was not a “real catastrophe” and said Puerto Ricans “want everything to be done for them.” It now appears thousands died.

I really don’t care, do u?

Trump said there were “very fine people” among the neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville last summer. He declared a ban on transgender people in the military and later imposed a partial ban. His administration ordered prosecutors to seek maximum penalties for even nonviolent drug crimes.

I really don’t care, do u?

Now come reports that Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller — architects and leading defenders of Trump’s child-separation policy — were heckled in separate incidents in recent days while dining at Mexican restaurants. Another report this last week highlighted the discovery that Miller’s great-grandfather had his naturalization petition denied because of “ignorance.” I don’t like incivility, or cheap shots. But you know what else? I really don’t care, do u?

Dana Milbank writes for the Washington Post Writers Group;

@Milbank on Twitter.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Make America Hate Again: Trump’s Inhuman Border Policy

CREDIT: Latino Memphis/Facebook

President Trump has built his presidency on a foundation of untruths and a defense of false equivalence. His defenders have followed suit. Now, the lies and the hypocrisy of an administration that cares only about preserving power and privilege for the loyal few are literally tearing families apart.

Latino Memphis/Facebook

It all started before the 2016 election. In October 2016, the Access Hollywood audiotape showed candidate Trump bragging about how status as a “star” gave him the power to sexually assault women. Initially Trump fumbled through an apology, but he quickly switched to what has become a more familiar posture: normalizing his behavior via diversionary tactics, i.e. by claiming that Bill Clinton had said much worse to him on the golf course.

Next, after multiple indictments of his staff, including his campaign manager and his first national security advisor, Michael Flynn, Trump argued that Hillary Clinton’s emails were a more significant scandal, despite repeated FBI investigations, including the recent inspector general’s investigation, finding no basis for her prosecution.

The president’s proclivity for lying is well-documented but is too often met with the familiar refrain that “all politicians lie.” The truth, however, is that no politician in modern times has engaged in such a continuous and willful effort to mislead the public. The Washington Post recently reported that by May 1, 2018, Trump had lied more than 3,000 times in his presidency, averaging 6.5 lies per day. In one 80-minute speech, Trump lied 44 times.

As the daily lies mount, the administration has begun a truly reprehensible campaign against our neighbors to the south. This administration, in a “zero tolerance” policy they alone concocted, is criminally prosecuting every individual who crosses the U.S. border without documentation. Many are crossing to seek asylum as they flee violence, political unrest, and economic despair. This is a new Trump administration policy; it is not a policy developed — as claimed by Trump and his acolytes — by the Democrats. There is no “law” requiring the separation of families.

Instead of treating migrants with dignity, Trump refers to them as “animals.” The administration, evidently, didn’t think the U.S. public would care about dividing up families, poor people, mostly from Central America. They were wrong. Public outcry followed and forced the president to back down; he signed an order last week ending the policy of family separation. But, the ramifications of this policy have been deadly, and the problem isn’t solved by any means.

One Honduran father killed himself after being separated from his wife and child. Child psychologists have warned about the emotional well-being of children who are held in detention centers without parents and relatives. Last week, a heartbreaking photograph of a two-year-old Honduran girl, in tears, witnessing her mother’s arrest became the symbol of Trump’s cruel immigration policy.

In response to complaints about Trump’s policy, Senator Lamar Alexander initially claimed that “Previous administrations have separated children when their parents were detained for criminal charges or other charges that required their detention.” Senator Alexander has since condemned Mr. Trump’s actions as public opposition has grown.

The senator’s reflexive use of false equivalency is telling. President Trump’s border policy is unlike any that the U.S. has deployed in our history. No administration has ever systematically removed children from their parents, simply for crossing the border. Alexander’s initial claim that previous administrations have separated children when their parents were detained obfuscates the fact that previous administrations took such actions only when the parents engaged in criminal activities beyond simply crossing a border to seek asylum and a better life.

The time has come for Republicans and anyone who clings to a moral compass to quit excusing President Trump’s actions. His words have been callous, his actions cruel and unusual, and if Congressional leaders won’t act now, in the face of objective cruelty to children, then the great American experiment is truly at its end stage.

Bryce Ashby is a Memphis-based attorney and board chair of Latino Memphis. Michael LaRosa is an associate professor of Latin American history at Rhodes College.