On Saturday, President Trump tweeted:
Democrats in Congress must help the Republicans (we need their votes) to end the horrible, costly and foolish loopholes in our Immigration Laws. Once that happens, all will be smooth. We can NEVER allow Open Borders!
Late on Sunday, he turned his dyspeptic gaze from the immigration laws to the resignation of the administration official chiefly responsible for carrying them out. He tweeted:
Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen will be leaving her position, and I would like to thank her for her service. I am pleased to announce that Kevin McAleenan, the current U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner, will become Acting Secretary for @DHSgov. I have confidence that Kevin will do a great job!
Although Nielsen’s resignation came under intense pressure, her departure had to be counted a resignation rather than a dismissal because Trump has repeatedly made it clear that, despite years of dress rehearsals on The Apprentice, he lacks the nerve to fire anyone personally. It was widely reported that the core of Trump’s unhappiness with Nielsen—and Nielsen’s discomfort in the job–lay in her refusals, made as tactfully as possible, to carry out various unlawful orders. Thus, she became a victim of the “loopholes” against which Trump has endlessly ranted and for which he holds Democrats responsible.
Then three hours later Trump was back to complaining about those loopholes:
Country is FULL! System has been broken for many years. Democrats in Congress must agree to fix loopholes – No Open Borders (Crimes & Drugs). Will Close Southern Border If necessary.
Yet in all the extensive media coverage of Trump’s fulminations and Nielsen’s resignation, no one seems to have asked exactly what loopholes Trump is referring to and exactly how he would propose to close them. Many observers have suggested that Trump wants to make immigration a central theme of his reelection campaign. Fair enough. Let him tell us what he has in mind beyond the spewing of nasty rhetoric.
Trump’s absurd claim that “the Country is FULL” implies that he would like to terminate all immigration or, at least, entry by any and all who seek asylum. What may be “FULL’ are our existing facilities for detaining asylum seekers, but the answer to that is to provide more facilities and appoint more immigration judges so that claims of asylum can be adjudicated more rapidly. Obviously, however, neither remedy has any appeal for Trump.
A complete bar of asylum seekers, or even all asylum seekers at the Southern Border, would be a moral outrage and violate U.S. treaty obligations. Such a radical closing of loopholes would be more than even his Republican enablers on Capitol Hill could stomach. Nevertheless, if that is what Trump wants, let him have the courage to say so. Or if he and his Immigration Svengali, Stephen Miller, have something slightly more delicate in mind, let them tell us that also.
In the meantime, Trump’s instinct for Government-by-Tantrum seems to be gathering momentum. There are widespread reports of a continuing purge of senior officials at the Department of Homeland Security, alarming and perplexing Republicans on Capitol Hill. Among those alarmed is the senior Republican member of the Senate, Charles E. Grassley. “The president has to have some stability and particularly with the number one issue that he’s made for his campaign, throughout his two and a half years of presidency,” Grassley said. “He’s pulling the rug out from the very people that are trying to help him accomplish his goal.”
None of the foregoing is to suggest the Democrats should be let off the hook. It is easy to condemn Trump’s policies as malicious in concept and clumsy in execution, but more difficult to propose concrete reforms. Democrats quite properly reject the slur that they are for “open borders,” but what are they for? After a survey of Democratic candidates, the San Francisco Chronicle summed it up: “[A]side from condemning Trump’s “immigration policies as cruel contributors to the problem, Democrats have largely avoided talking about border-security ideas.”
We do not have an infinite capacity to admit the thousands fleeing domestic violence or gang violence in Central American, let alone those who may make such claims to gain entry for economic reasons. Carefully structured aid to Central American countries may, despite Trump’s petulant resistance, provide a partial solution by alleviating the conditions that impel flight. But such aid will require patience to realize its effects and is unlikely ever to be a complete answer. In the meantime, we must determine what standards should be applied to asylum seekers and how those standards can be administered effectively and humanely. Nothing Democrats propose will be enacted prior to 2020, but they should begin to speak up now with their ideas.
This is my second response, but I wanted to share this. It’s from the recently published 20th anniversary edition of the newsletter The Hightower Lowdown, as Jim Hightower looked back on an item from their January 2008 issue:
“We’ve had experience here in Texas with the futility of tall border fences. Molly Ivins reported a beer-induced incident in 1983. Walling off Mexico had been proposed back then by the Reaganauts, and a test fence had been built way down in the Big Bend outpost of Terlingua. This little town also happened to be the site of a renowned chili cook-off that Molly helped judge, and it attracted a big crowd of impish, beer-drinking chiliheads. There stood the barrier, 17-foot tall and topped with barbwire. It didn’t take many beers before the first-ever “Terlingua Memorial Over, Under, or Through the Mexican Fence Climbing Contest” was cooked up. Winning time: 30 seconds. “
Yes, let’s get some specifics from both sides of the aisles. The Trump administration evidently had some money for border security that went completely unused during the first year in office. Surely it could have been utilized well – most Republicans as well as Democrats know a wall is by no means the sole answer or need at our border with Mexico. But that’s so uninteresting! Instead, Trump’s boorish attempt to put an end to asylum seekers was to treat them so badly – separating them from their children without telling them where the children were being sent, without letting children know when they would see their parents again – that he was certain this cruelty would put an end to asylum seekers at our borders. Yet their numbers have grown. Clearly the situation in their Central American homelands is terrible enough to still see America as a better opportunity. So why is cutting aid to their countries a good idea? I haven’t heard.
The flip side to this outlook on immigrants is that we can USE them! It can be a win-win. Help them get job training in the industries where we need workers, pay them through payroll (not under the table) so they can contribute to Social Security with each paycheck. When they have worked sufficient quarters and the age to qualify for SS, they will have helped our country and themselves for many years and deserve whatever monthly amount they have earned. Current laws allow foreign citizens to get Social Security that live and work in the US with that approach, so this does not require a change Americans are having few children, and the percentage of tour older population is growing. From that perspective, an infusion of younger workers and families is a boon! Stop seeing these desperate families as enemies…embrace them not just out of basic humanity, but for a valuable service they can provide for us as well. America is primarily a land of immigrants and their descendants. This is not new … nor are we “full”.
Democratic candidate Julian Castro, former HUD Secretary and former Mayor of San Antonio, TX, spoke with Laurence O’Donnell about his vision of how to deal with immigration: replace cruelty with compassion. Up the number of refugees we let into the US, provide better pathways to legal citizenship, end family separation (which has now been blocked by the courts), and work to create a type of Marshall Plan for the Central American countries where lives are so difficult, so impoverished and frightening, families take the dangerous journey to America in hopes of a better life for themselves and their kids.
There may be people who wonder why Central America’s problems are ours to solve, but when their problems create issues for us, and past strategies have not worked, it seems reasonable to try new ideas.
Doug,
As usual, your commentary is right-on-the-money.
Do you happen to know what an asylum-seeker must establish in order to prevail under current law? Does anyone? I don’t mean Trump, who knows nothing about anything, but I’ve never heard anyone else articulate the standard either…only the “procedural” requirement that the USA must entertain an asylum claim made by anyone who sets foot on our soil…and that while adult claimants may be held in detention until their applications are vetted/adjudicated, courts have ruled that any minor children accompanying such adult claimants may not be detained for more than 20 days. Do I have this rght? Meanwhile, it has been reported that there’s a “backlog” of a million asylum claims currently pending in a manifestly understaffed Immigration court system, so claims can remain unresolved for years.
Ted Cruz (of all people) was perhaps the first elected official (and one of the few, to my knowledge) who publicly called for the hiring of more Immigration judges, which as you point out, would be the most sensible first step in addressing the situation…and Trump hooted him down.
Meanwhile, the “debate” (if one could call it that) about who should qualify for asylum proceeds in a vacuum, with no one referencing what the current law provides. Trump asserts that terrorists and gangsters are using unidentified “loopholes” in the asylum law to pour over our southern border, while the lefties wail that we must be compassionate, citing the inscription on the Statue of Liberty (which, last I looked, is not the law).
So, what is the law? (Maybe I could attempt to research, but I’m much lazier than you are.) If we don’t know, we can’t have a rational discussion of how/whether it should be changed and how it might be most efficiently and fairly enforced.
Best,
Monica
The tragedy at the border is squarely in the Congress’ responsibility. Blaming the President for administering Obama’s laws as the executive branch while stalling and politicizing the situation will bring a backlash to the Democratic candidates. The American public knows who wants to fix the border tragedy NOW despite media bias from some TV stations. 2020 is too far to wait.
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