[cherdano]

Richard, I tried to explain it above. If you are a really dumb racist, then you do believe that a merit-based immigration system would automatically prevent immigrants from shithole countries to get visas...

[Winstonm]

This guy is like a headline from The Onion:

Non-racist President Prefers Creamy White Milk Over Shithole Cocoa

[kenberg]

From awm

Quote

Like many countries, the US allows immigrants in for basically three reasons:

1. The immigrants are needed to fill jobs for which no citizen can be hired.
2. The immigrants are close family of a citizen or permanent resident.
3. The immigrants are refugees fleeing a dangerous situation in their country of origin.

I like your entire post, I particularly like a list of reasons for immigration, I generally agree with the reasons and I generally favor immigration. All that being said, I sometimes think the reasons are either not well thought out or not well explained.

One example:

Recently TPS has been in the news regarding immigrants from El Salvador. I had never heard of TPS but it is Temporary Protective Status. As I understand it, many people came in under this program in 2001 based on earthquakes in El Salvador.
Huh? Are they still here based on the 2001 earthquake?
My point is that Temporary Protected Status seems to have morphed into Permanent Protected Status.
It's not just playing with words. There is a difference between on the one hand offering someone help and sanctuary because of the needs of the moment and on the other hand offering them permanent residence and eventual US citizenship. Both are worth doing, but we should know which it is that we are doing in any given instance.

To use a personal analogy, I have lent money to people. Less often, but sometimes, I have given money to people. If I lend it, I expect it back. If I give it, it is theirs and I never mention it again.
With TPS, the name, and I gather the way it is written, indicates that we are offering temporary help, with the expectation that when the immediate problem goes away, the person will return to his home country.


Some people are really opposed to immigration. I am not one of them. I do think that when we offer help to people, immigrants or anyone, we should be clear about our expectations. If they are being invited to stay, then they can accept and stay. If they are given temporary refuge they should expect to eventually return to their home country.

I have been thinking along these lines for quite a while and your posting of the various reasons for immigration prompted me to write it down.

[hrothgar]

kenberg, on 2018-January-15, 22:16, said:

Recently TPS has been in the news regarding immigrants from El Salvador. I had never heard of TPS but it is Temporary Protective Status. As I understand it, many people came in under this program in 2001 based on earthquakes in El Salvador.
Huh? Are they still here based on the 2001 earthquake?
My point is that Temporary Protected Status seems to have morphed into Permanent Protected Status.
It's not just playing with words. There is a difference between on the one hand offering someone help and sanctuary because of the needs of the moment and on the other hand offering them permanent residence and eventual US citizenship. Both are worth doing, but we should know which it is that we are doing in any given instance.

TPS is an interesting case and I have some sympathy with Ken's views. However, I do think that their are additional considerations here

1. Is El Salvador prepared to suddenly accept hundreds of thousands of returnees. (From what I can tell, its not)

2. The suddenness with which this decision to return refugees is being made

3. Whether or not it is safe for refugees to return to El Salvador

[cloa513]

hrothgar, on 2018-January-15, 23:23, said:

TPS is an interesting case and I have some sympathy with Ken's views. However, I do think that their are additional considerations here

1. Is El Salvador prepared to suddenly accept hundreds of thousands of returnees. (From what I can tell, its not)

2. The suddenness with which this decision to return refugees is being made

3. Whether or not it is safe for refugees to return to El Salvador

1. Should El Savlvador have a choice- it is fake country to not accept its citizens.

3. Is it safe for Salvadorian to be in El Salvador- generally no but unless you think the US should take over El Salvador then you don't think all Salvadorians can be protected- really not the US's problem to solve every other country.

[hrothgar]

cloa513, on 2018-January-15, 23:37, said:

1. Should El Savlvador have a choice- it is fake country to not accept its citizens.

3. Is it safe for Salvadorian to be in El Salvador- generally no but unless you think the US should take over El Salvador then you don't think all Salvadorians can be protected- really not the US's problem to solve every other country.

Let's start with #3.

First: I never argued that the US should take over El Salvador nor do I believe this.
I also don't believe that a decision by the US not to deport El Salvadorian refugees created an obligation to "fix" El Salvador.

Please stop inventing straw men.

Second: As a rule, I think that the US should avoid actively making things worse for people and other countries.
In particular, I don't see any great need to ***** up the lives of 200K refugees and place significant amount of stress on El Salvador simply because these refugees are supposed to be temporary.
From what I can tell the overwhelming majority of these refugees are productive members of society here in the US. Suddenly evicting them because of a technicality seems ridiculous.

Third: I don't trust the Trump administration to administer this program in a humane and competent manner. I might feel very different about this program if it were to be phased in over time and provided refugees with time and opportunity to make a successful transition back to their home country. This isn't being done here. Rather, this looks like the gory days of "Operation Wetback" only the tactics are being applied against people who have been living in the US for 15 years.

Now, lets go back to number 1...

Yes, El Salvador is a royally *****ed up.

You know why? First and foremost, US drug policies which have strongly contributed to turning El Salvador into a Narco state
Then, of course, there was that whole proxy war with Cuba that the US decided to fight back in the 80s...

I think that most any country would be placed under enormous stress if 3% of its population got dumped into the main airport with little or no warning.
For a place like El Salvador, which the US has helped to ruin, this will be many times worse.

Maybe this means that El Salvador is a "fake country". I don't really care...

What I do care about is the predictable outcomes of the policies that the US government is taking and whether this are going to help people or hurt them.

It seems very clear that they will hurt them.

And having the US take conscious action that is going to hurt people is wrong.

[kenberg]

hrothgar, on 2018-January-15, 23:23, said:

TPS is an interesting case and I have some sympathy with Ken's views. However, I do think that their are additional considerations here

1. Is El Salvador prepared to suddenly accept hundreds of thousands of returnees. (From what I can tell, its not)

2. The suddenness with which this decision to return refugees is being made

3. Whether or not it is safe for refugees to return to El Salvador

And I agree with this.
So it is a mess.
I think we have repeatedly created messy situations by not adequately thinking through just what it is we are doing.

I realize analogies often cause more problems than they solve, but sometimes a simpler case can be illuminating. So I turn to speed laws in Maryland.
If the posted speed limit is x, you will not be stopped as long as your speed is less than x+10.
Someone told me there is actually a law on Maryland books that no ticket can be given for going less than 10 mph over the limit. I very much doubt that is true.
So what happens? If the limit is 55 I can drive 65, or at least 64. Fine.
But suppose I am passing by a school and the posted limit there is 30. Can I go 40? I don't think anyone knows.
And of course people from out of state have no idea of what the rules are. They see a limit of 55 and they see everyone going 65. Huh?
I was in Michigan a while back and I noticed people follow the posted speed limit so I did too. What a novel idea, having speed limits mean what they say.

Back to TPS. Here is what we have done.
We have passed a law giving temporary permission for people to come here if there is a calamity. The idea, by the law, is that they soon go back, where how soon depends on the calmity.
But then nobody enforces the provision that they are to go back.
So people see that the law apparently doesn't mean what it says and so they stay.
And then, 17 years later, someone says that we will now enforce the law.
That's crazy. Either we meant it when said it was temporary, in which case they should have been required to go back long ago, or we didn't mean it, in which case they can stay.

I and everyone else would feel seriously abused if the cops set up a speed trap on the interstate and gave us all tickets for going 5 mph over the limit. The posted limits don't mean it. And apparently we didn't mean it when we said temporary.

We could have said, in the law, that those who come here for temporary relief would be eligible for a path to citizenship, and then we could have spelled out what that was. I am no expert on the TPS law, but I gather we didn't do that. Nor did we enforce the law as written.

Who gets hurt? Primarily the immigrants. They are told they can come temporarily. Then they learn that temporary is not enforced so they build their lives here. Then temporary suddenly becomes enforced. Not good.

Of course the obvious big time example is Prohibition. We said liquor could not be sold, but we didn't mean it. Or, more recently, medical marijuana. You can use marijuana, in some states, for medical reasons. It's a great source of income for some doctors, certifying the medical need for marijuana. I know people who have received such certification, so does everyone I imagine, so I am not making this up.

We pass laws that, perhaps, sound good. But then we don't really mean what the law says, or we mean only part of what the law says. But worse, we don't enforce it for a while, and then later things change and we do enforce it. The result is not good for anyone.

If someone has been here for 17 years, and during those 17 years we have not bothered to raise the issue of his return to his home country, my view is that it is too late now to bring this up. A couple across the street from us got a divorce when they were in their 50s. He tried making an issue of the fact that his wife had had an affair when they were in their 20s. Sorry, no sale.

[Winstonm]

Until the Republican party turns against Trump, the white privilege ideology will continue to attack civil rights successes and stifle genuine immigration reform in lieu of a dark-skinned discrimination bias.

When discussing Trump's campaign promises and his results so far in office, we often wonder how the Republican voters can still be so pleased with Trump. Slate.com explains it this way, and I am growing more and more convinced they are right:

Quote

But there’s another way to read Trump’s promise—not as a commitment to economic populism but as a statement of racial solidarity. Far from acting as a president for all Americans, he’s governed explicitly as a president for white Americans and the racial reactionaries among them. He’s spoken to their fear and fanned their anger, making his office a rallying point for those who see decline in multiracial democracy and his administration a tool for those who would turn the clock back on racial progress. If those Americans are the “forgotten men and women” of President Trump’s inaugural address, then he’s been a man of his word.

This is why 2018 becomes so critical in the election cycle - unless the Republicans suffer and massive blow there will be no concerted effort to change the direction of their party, and without a more centrist two-party system our form of democracy can only further erode.

[RedSpawn]

https://finance.yaho...-175233235.html

You have to pay for that wage hike from $9 to $11 somehow. The business equation must balance. Why not with corporate layoffs, right?

And the GOP is looking to slash entitlement spending to pay for the $1.2 trillion tax cut. How quaint!

[barmar]

kenberg, on 2018-January-16, 07:36, said:

We pass laws that, perhaps, sound good. But then we don't really mean what the law says, or we mean only part of what the law says. But worse, we don't enforce it for a while, and then later things change and we do enforce it. The result is not good for anyone.

If someone has been here for 17 years, and during those 17 years we have not bothered to raise the issue of his return to his home country, my view is that it is too late now to bring this up. A couple across the street from us got a divorce when they were in their 50s. He tried making an issue of the fact that his wife had had an affair when they were in their 20s. Sorry, no sale.

This is part of why we desperately need a rational immigration policy overhaul. What we currently have is a patchwork that doesn't work well. Obama created DACA for the children who were brought here illegally decades ago, but since it was an EO it only continues at the whim of the current POTUS. And it doesn't provide a path to citizenship, so they're in perpetual limbo. But like the people who have been here on TPS for decades, they don't really know any other life.

But immigration reform is so tied up in partisan politics that it always seems far off. So all we can do is keep applying band-aids like this.

[y66]

Guest post from Paul Krugman:

Quote

I’ve been rereading an important 2012 book, Enrico Moretti’s “The New Geography of Jobs,” about the growing divergence of regional fortunes within the United States. Until around 1980, America seemed on the path toward broadly spread prosperity, with poor regions like the Deep South rapidly catching up with the rest. Since then, however, the gaps have widened again, with incomes in some parts of the nation surging while other parts fall behind.

Moretti argues, rightly in the view of many economists, that this new divergence reflects the growing importance of clusters of highly skilled workers — many of them immigrants — often centered on great universities, that create virtuous circles of growth and innovation. And as it happens, the 2016 election largely pitted these rising regions against those left behind, which is why counties carried by Hillary Clinton, who won only a narrow majority of the popular vote, account for a remarkable 64 percent of U.S. G.D.P., almost twice as much as Trump counties.

Clearly, we need policies to spread the benefits of growth and innovation more widely. But one way to think of Trumpism is as an attempt to narrow regional disparities, not by bringing the lagging regions up, but by cutting the growing regions down. For that’s what attacks on education and immigration, key drivers of the new economy’s success stories, would do.

So will our modern know-nothings prevail? I have no idea. What’s clear, however, is that if they do, they won’t make America great again — they’ll kill the very things that made it great.

[kenberg]

Of course the Know-Nothing moniker reflected a code of silence, not a claim of stupidity, or so I was told in school. But 150 or so years later we remember the name, so probably it had some reflection of reality as well.

We have to encourage thought and creativity. This means that we respect thought and creativity. As I saw it, c. 1956, high school was where I was expected to learn what I was told, the university was where I was expected to think. Of course it was not as straightforward as that, but there was some truth in this. This dissing of colleges is not good. I don't doubt that there are some closed minded professors, you can find closed minded people anywhere. But college was a wonderful opportunity for me and it can be for young people today.

That's my inspiring message for the day, now I will go to bed like a good 79 year old.

[RedSpawn]

http://www.ajc.com/b...5GlWMk3qBuN9TK/

Another potential government shutdown, eh?

Quote

Conservatives balk at GOP plan to avert government shutdown

Disgruntled conservatives threatened late Tuesday to scuttle Republican leaders' plans to prevent a weekend government shutdown, saying GOP leaders now lack the votes to push their proposal through the House. The setback came as a deal between President Donald Trump and Congress to protect young immigrants from deportation also remained distant.


The intransigence by the House Freedom Caucus came as Republican leaders raced against a Friday deadline for pushing a short-term spending bill through Congress. If they fail, federal agencies would start shutting their doors over the weekend — an election-year debacle that GOP leaders and many Democrats are eager to avoid for fear of alienating voters.

The leader of the hard-right Freedom Caucus emerged from a Tuesday night meeting to say its members — and other GOP lawmakers as well — want a short-term bill keeping federal agencies open to contain added money for the military.

"There's not enough support to pass it with GOP-only votes in the House," the group's leader, Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., told reporters. He said he planned to discuss their concerns with Republican leaders.

The GOP focus on keeping government open comes as it's become certain there's no time to cut a deal by Friday on protecting young immigrants.

Those talks were soured by Trump's incendiary remarks about "shithole" countries in Africa last week. Democratic leaders said they would not promise to vote to keep the government open past Friday without a plan to preserve a program that protects the young immigrants known as "Dreamers."

"We don't want to shut down the government. ... We want to keep the government open," Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., told reporters. "But we're not going to be held hostage to do things that we think are going to be contrary to the best interests of the American people."

House Republican leaders tried to win over wary conservatives with a promise to repeal unpopular taxes as part of the bill preventing a shutdown.

They sweetened the plan with a two-year delay on implementation of unpopular taxes on medical devices and generous employer-subsidized health care plans. The taxes, also unpopular with many Democrats, are part of former President Barack Obama's marquee health law.

The temporary funding bill would also include a long-delayed, six-year renewal of a popular health insurance program for children of low-income families. It would fund the government through Feb. 16.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., unveiled the plan at a Tuesday evening GOP meeting. Lawmakers and aides initially said it was received well, raising hopes that a potential shutdown would be sidestepped with relative ease. A Ryan spokeswoman declined later to comment on the Freedom Caucus' opposition.

Many Democrats said they're still unlikely to support the measure without an agreement on immigration. The prospects for such a deal were complicated as Democrats appeared to see scant reason to bargain with a president many in their party view as holding racist views.

"There's no trust there," said Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz.

Negotiations on immigration were to resume Wednesday but Marc Short, a top White House aide, said an agreement was very unlikely to come this week. "We're optimistic that we'll get a deal," Short said. "I think this week would be fairly Herculean."

Even if they succeed in the House, Republicans would still need at least nine Democratic votes to push a spending package through the Senate, which the GOP controls 51-49. Democrats seeking leverage are forcing that bill to require 60 votes for passage.

When the Senate approved a similar short-term spending bill in December, 17 Democrats plus Maine independent Angus King voted to keep the government open. Seven of those Democrats face re-election in November in Trump-won states — including West Virginia, North Dakota and Montana, which have small numbers of minority voters.

Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, said Tuesday he'll vote for a short-term spending bill without a plan to assist the immigrants facing possible deportation. Other red- and swing-state Democrats did not commit.

"I think everyone has the empathy and compassion to want to help these young people who are stranded and we're trying to find that, but shutting down the government isn't going to help them," Manchin said.

Democrats voting against that December bill included some senators — such as Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California — who might seek the presidency in 2020 and would love support from their party's liberal voters.

On the left, liberal groups are ramping up pressure on Democrats to resist any spending plan. Groups like MoveOn, United We Dream and CREDO shifted their focus from Republicans to Democrats earlier in the month, threatening primary challenges and public ridicule for Democrats unwilling to risk a government shutdown to save the program for young immigrants.

Meanwhile, the bipartisan group of senators continued work to build support for a plan to protect the "Dreamers" and toughen border security, including funds to start building Trump's long-promised border wall.

Trump ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, late last year but gave Congress until March 5 to pass legislation extending the initiative created by President Barack Obama. It has protected around 800,000 young immigrants from deportation.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sought to highlight the later deadline, suggesting there was more time to work out a deal. A shutdown now would be "a manufactured crisis," he argued.

___

Associated Press writers Kevin Freking, Marcy Gordon and Steve Peoples contributed to this report.

[Winstonm]

Democrats flipped another red district, this time in Wisconsin, a district Trump won by 17 points. For Republicans, this doesn't say much good about the president's influence on this year's elections.

Quote

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which works to elect Democrats to state office, said that, with the win in Wisconsin, there are 34 districts that have flipped from red to blue since Trump’s inauguration.

[kenberg]

RedSpawn, on 2018-January-16, 23:04, said:

http://www.ajc.com/b...5GlWMk3qBuN9TK/

Another potential government shutdown, eh?

I am so tired of this. In case any congressional staffer is reading this and wants to tell his boss what ken berg, and a great many other people, are thinking let me make it clear. Guys, you all look like idiots. There is this argument about who wlll get the blame if the government shuts down. All of you, isn't that obvious? Maybe some will only look incompetent while others will look like total morons. This will make you feel good? Take a look at the numbers to see what the American public thinks of Congress. Are you thinking that a government shutdown will improve your image? And really, playing chicken to see who veers away at the last moment doesn't look so good either.

At some point, people have had enough of this BS. If the government shuts down I suggest that your paychecks, for each and every one of you, stop, and I further suggest that they do not restart. It's simple. Enough is enough. We will not be deciding who to blame, you can all go home. You can do this job or you can't, and the evidence is that you can't.

[helene_t]

kenberg, on 2018-January-17, 16:35, said:

Enough is enough.

And yet, people keep voting for incumbents again and again.

[barmar]

kenberg, on 2018-January-17, 16:35, said:

Guys, you all look like idiots.

Do you really think they don't know this? They just don't care, the politics is all that matters to them.

When a party is trying to move their agenda forward, threatening to obstruct a spending bill and cause a shutdown is sometimes the only leverage they have, because neither side really wants a shutdown. They're essentially playing a high-stakes game of chicken, with all the government workers stranded between the oncoming cars.

[kenberg]

barmar, on 2018-January-17, 17:43, said:

Do you really think they don't know this? They just don't care, the politics is all that matters to them.

When a party is trying to move their agenda forward, threatening to obstruct a spending bill and cause a shutdown is sometimes the only leverage they have, because neither side really wants a shutdown. They're essentially playing a high-stakes game of chicken, with all the government workers stranded between the oncoming cars.

I understand, but we have to deal with it. When I played real chicken in a car as an adolescent, at least I had the thrill of being the driver. Here I am a passenger with a bunch of adolescent morons at the wheel.

It is tough to deal with, no doubt about that.We must find a way, and expressing our utter disgust is useful, at least as a start. Again thinking of my adolescence, I recall a cop saying, as he had me by the arm, "Kinda old for this aren't you son?". It actually made an impression on me. Something similar is needed here. They are doing their macho bs with our country. They have to stop. Since they are to stupid or too selfish or too awful to stop on the obvious basis that what they are doing is wrong, we have to find a way be more emphatic. Not playing the game of blaming only one side would be a very good start I think. When dealing with children it is often frustrating to determine who is to blame for a problem. If they understand that you will send them all home without bothering to figure out who caused the problem, that can be a good start.

[Al_U_Card]

kenberg, on 2018-January-17, 18:22, said:

I understand, but we have to deal with it. When I played real chicken in a car as an adolescent, at least I had the thrill of being the driver. Here I am a passenger with a bunch of adolescent morons at the wheel.

It is tough to deal with, no doubt about that.We must find a way, and expressing our utter disgust is useful, at least as a start. Again thinking of my adolescence, I recall a cop saying, as he had me by the arm, "Kinda old for this aren't you son?". It actually made an impression on me. Something similar is needed here. They are doing their macho bs with our country. They have to stop. Since they are to stupid or too selfish or too awful to stop on the obvious basis that what they are doing is wrong, we have to find a way be more emphatic. Not playing the game of blaming only one side would be a very good start I think. When dealing with children it is often frustrating to determine who is to blame for a problem. If they understand that you will send them all home without bothering to figure out who caused the problem, that can be a good start.

You are right about there being two sides. The electorate and those that exploit us for their own benefit. It matters not who their minions are for they have the upper hand through their control of all of the essentials of our existence. We serve (them) and they ensure that we are sufficiently distracted or detained or disinformed to be unable to resist their domination.

[RedSpawn]

hrothgar, on 2018-January-16, 00:03, said:

Let's start with #3.

First: I never argued that the US should take over El Salvador nor do I believe this.
I also don't believe that a decision by the US not to deport El Salvadorian refugees created an obligation to "fix" El Salvador.

Please stop inventing straw men.

Second: As a rule, I think that the US should avoid actively making things worse for people and other countries.
In particular, I don't see any great need to ***** up the lives of 200K refugees and place significant amount of stress on El Salvador simply because these refugees are supposed to be temporary.
From what I can tell the overwhelming majority of these refugees are productive members of society here in the US. Suddenly evicting them because of a technicality seems ridiculous.

Third: I don't trust the Trump administration to administer this program in a humane and competent manner. I might feel very different about this program if it were to be phased in over time and provided refugees with time and opportunity to make a successful transition back to their home country. This isn't being done here. Rather, this looks like the gory days of "Operation Wetback" only the tactics are being applied against people who have been living in the US for 15 years.

Now, lets go back to number 1...

Yes, El Salvador is a royally *****ed up.

You know why? First and foremost, US drug policies which have strongly contributed to turning El Salvador into a Narco state
Then, of course, there was that whole proxy war with Cuba that the US decided to fight back in the 80s...

I think that most any country would be placed under enormous stress if 3% of its population got dumped into the main airport with little or no warning.
For a place like El Salvador, which the US has helped to ruin, this will be many times worse.

Maybe this means that El Salvador is a "fake country". I don't really care...

What I do care about is the predictable outcomes of the policies that the US government is taking and whether this are going to help people or hurt them.

It seems very clear that they will hurt them.

And having the US take conscious action that is going to hurt people is wrong.

You are insanely logical, transparent, historically accurate, and authentic in your rhetorical discourse. You left no crumb on the table. Well done! Very well done.