Rational Middle: Immigration’s Post

It’s time for the MAGA Republicans to put up or shut up regarding immigration. It’s the same Bill they crafted and then didn’t vote for due to their dysfunction led by our former president! “The Senate is expected to vote Thursday on a bipartisan border security measure that Republicans blocked earlier this year after former President Donald Trump announced his opposition to it. The bill is likely to fail for a second time, but Democrats will try to use Republicans' resistance to shift public opinion in their favor as polls show voters have been critical of President Biden's handling of immigration. Border security has been a central theme of the Republican platform heading into the November election. "We'll see who's serious about actually wanting to fix the border … and those who prefer to merely talk about it," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a floor speech Wednesday. Sen. Brian Schatz, a Hawaii Democrat, argued that Republicans who vote against the measure "forfeit their right to discuss the border and to turn it into a partisan political issue." After months of negotiations, Republicans and Democrats reached a compromise in February that would have been the first comprehensive border security policy overhaul in decades. It would have given the president far-reaching powers to restrict unlawful border crossings and tightened asylum rules, among other provisions.” #immigration #accountabilty #stoptheinsanity #commonsense #voteoutMAGARepublicans #leadership #integrity #character

Terms of service are not guardrails. Terms of service protect the provider, in this case OpenAI. They do not protect the honest discussion that democracy requires. To protect democracy we need something other than unilateral declarations of limitied liability. We need leadership and proactive mitigation measures. What is #ised #canada #quebec #innovateurenchef #electionscanada #municipalités doing to protect our elections? https://lnkd.in/dQCjMWHM

In addition to addressing the many serious issues at the U.S. #Southern #Border, this deal would fund #Israel, #Ukraine and give #humanitarianaid to #Gazan civilians.   Nothing gets done in #WashingtonDC without #compromise. If no one is 100% happy with a piece of legislation, it means the #Senators who drafted it were doing their jobs. And Congresspeople from across a wide #political spectrum and their diverse constituents all get some positives from this bill.   It would be #political #malpractice for the upcoming #2024elections if #Republicans in the #Senate or #HouseofRepresentatives put #politics ahead of the nation for the sole purposes of having an issue to run on and pandering to one man by killing this deal.   But go ahead and do it. That would kick the door wide open for #President #JoeBiden to issue a sweeping #ExecutiveOrder on #bordersecurity and #immigration.   And then what at are the Republicans going to do, challenge it in federal court? The political optics of that would work wonders for their chances this #election cycle, particularly if they keep moving forward with the impeachment of #DHS Secretary Mayorkas for his alleged failed #immigrationpolicy.

Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, has finally been impeached by the House of Representatives. https://lnkd.in/eGHzUacw While it is almost certain the Democrats in the Senate will not vote to convict Mayorkas on either article of impeachment, the Senate trial itself provides a forum for House Republicans to make the case that DHS has willfully contributed, if not caused outright, the crisis at the southern border that everybody agrees exists—Democrats Kathy Hochul and Eric Adams from New York have both echoed Republican Greg Abbott’s assessment that the border situation is indeed a crisis, and both Hochul and Adams have called upon Democrats in Washington to step up and get control of the border. Will the Democrats in the Senate listen to the evidences presented by House Republicans? Probably not. Will the rest of the country? Possibly—and that may be where the GOP gains a real victory. If the fall election kicks off with voters having a firm impression of the federal government being willfully negligent in securing the southern border, that does not augur well for either Joe Biden or the Democrats in Congress. #Mayorkas #impeachment #GOP #Democrats #BorderSecurity

This will be an important messaging and communications case study. It would seem that the average American would view negatively the idea of allowing the chaos at the border to continue for another 12+ months. It will be very interesting to see if the all-important moderate voters will blame former President Trump for strongly opposing the legislation and allowing the border crisis to continue past Election Day for political reasons, or whether they will just blame President Biden for not dealing with the border situation for the past three years. We’ll soon find out who the best communicator is.

“To illustrate the point, consider that Republicans have also pushed to gut Biden’s parole programs, which admit tens of thousands monthly who apply from abroad. Democrats have rejected this, angering Republicans who insist those programs abuse Biden’s parole authority. But it’s important to understand why Democrats are rejecting this. These parole programs provide alternative legal pathways for migrants to enter the United States by securing a sponsor from afar and then flying into the country. Rather than requiring them to come to the border and seek asylum, this creates an orderly, rules-bound way to enter instead. This is a crucial innovation under Biden: The idea is to shift incentives away from the very sort of migration—crossing the border and then requesting asylum—that is creating the strains on the border infrastructure that Republicans claim to fear and loathe.”

When it comes to the issue of migrants, top federal Democrats, from Biden on down, have engaged in what can only be described as a protracted 18 month-long exercise in willful blindness, deliberately avoiding a massive & obvious governmental crisis to our own peril. The lesson? Acknowledging a problem is the first step to solving it. Democrats win when government works; Republicans win when it fails.  My latest column in The Daily Beast https://lnkd.in/e7tk6AgZ

Trump 2.0: Analysts Predict 17 Key Changes Across U.S. Policies As the 2024 presidential election approaches, political pundits and analysts are speculating about how the country could change under a potential second term for former President Donald Trump. The Republican frontrunner and his allies have publicly discussed some of their plans across various polic https://lnkd.in/dHJJtMWF #2024election #americatransformed #politicalanalysis #trumppresidency #u.s.policychanges

A surge in people hoping to enter the United States to seek political asylum in recent years has strained local, state and federal resources. Beyond those strains, the increase also supercharged political commentary — particularly on the right, given that immigration is a federal issue and President Biden is a Democrat and up for reelection. #Texas #Gov. Greg #Abbott has, in practice and rhetoric, been at the forefront of #combating the #federal #government’s handling of the surge. It’s not surprising that he should be, given how much of his state #borders #Mexico and, as a result, is tasked with accommodating the arrivals. 1) March 2021: Abbott initiates Operation Lone Star. Less than two months after Biden’s inauguration, Abbott announced a crackdown on “the smuggling of people and drugs” into his state. He calls it “Operation Lone Star.” 2) July 2022: Reports indicate that the Justice Department [DOJ] is investigating the operation for alleged civil rights violations. 3) March 2023: Abbott defends deploying 60 miles of razor wire along the border. 4) June 2023: #Mexico sends a diplomatic memo to the U.S. objecting to Abbott’s efforts. The government of Mexico made a diplomatic outreach to the United States to object to #Texas’s use of razor wire and Abbott’s announcement that he would float barriers in the Rio Grande. 5) July 3: A Texas state trooper alleges that he had been ordered in June to push migrants back into the river. In a July 3 email to a supervisor, Trooper Nicholas Wingate described what he called “inhumane” orders he’d been given the previous month. 6) July 7: Texas begins installing floating barriers to block transit across the river. The large orange buoys Abbott had announced the previous month begin to be deployed in the river. 7) July 24: The Justice Department sues Texas over the buoys. 8) August 2023: Two migrants are found dead in the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass. One body was found stuck on the buoys; Texas officials said the body had become lodged there after the victim had drowned further upstream. 9) Dec. 1: A federal appeals court orders Abbott to remove the buoy barrier. A federal appeals court upheld a lower court’s September 2023 decision ordering Texas to remove the buoys from the water. 10) Dec. 18: Abbott signs a law criminalizing illegal entry. 11) Jan. 11, 2024: Texas takes control of river-adjacent Shelby Park in Eagle Pass. 12) Jan. 13: Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Tex.) accuses Texas of allowing children to drown in the river. Soon after, several migrants, including two children, were found to have drowned in the river near Shelby Park. 13) Jan. 22: The Supreme Court allows federal authorities to continue removing razor wire at the border. 14) Jan. 24: Abbott releases a statement defending Texas’s authority. 15) Jan. 25: Other Republicans support Abbott’s cause. Several Republican governors publicly sided with Abbott. The former president also weighed in on the matter.