The Grand Illusion
Yesterday, the House Homeland Security Committee approved, along party lines, two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. A floor vote is likely within the next week or so.
Republicans charge Mayorkas didn’t uphold immigration laws, exceeded his authority, risked public safety, made false statements to Congress, obstructed congressional oversight and impeded construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall. Many, if not all, of the charges are likely overstatements of the situation, if not false.
From what I see, Mayorkas – and anyone in his position – is in an impossible situation. The U.S. currently doesn’t even have a legally consistent and unified position on immigration. Neither party has an actual policy that could be legally implemented at present, nor does Homeland Security have the resources to find, stop, process, or reject the vast number of illegal immigrants.
The Republicans are right in demanding a workable and effective immigration policy, but impeaching Mayorkas won’t do anything to improve the immigration mess, because the proceedings are effectively admitting that Congress has failed for decades, under both parties, to deal with the problem, and making Mayorkas a scapegoat for long-standing Congressional failure won’t do anything constructive.
A Senate coalition is making an effort at a comprehensive bill to at least start in dealing with the problem and what do the House Republicans do? Try to impeach a bureaucrat who’s saddled with inadequate resources to deal with the overwhelming number of illegal and legal immigrants, conflicting laws, and a Congress that doesn’t really want to make hard choices.
That’s political posturing, not leadership.
Nearly all Democrats and all Chamber of Commerce Republicans are culpable, the former for wanting to move the US so far to the left that they would be in permanent power, the latter wanting cheap labor.
All of both should be removed from office, whether by formal procedures or at the ballot box.
Fixing the law is necessary but not sufficient. Just having enough more immigration judges to deport fast enough not to need to release anyone on their own recognizance would be a start. But we need walls wherever feasible, more border agents, drones, and more, too. A wall without people manning it won’t last long.
If it were possible without vast sums (most going to corruption) to improve conditions in assorted places south of the border, that would also help; but since some of the countries doubtless want to dump their malcontents (from their perspective) on us, and given the difficulty, I doubt that would be very effective.
Nor should we entirely rule out lethal force. The mere possibility would be a deterrent and probably even if minimally used, kill far less than the desert does.
Hey R. Hamilton, thanks once again for giving us the magic solution to all our problems.
Now that you’ve bored us all again with your fantasy of how to fix everything, let me have a moment.
I’ve got a crazy idea, it’s called compromise. Where representatives of the people get together and come up with a middle ground that won’t be everything that either side wants, but is an improvement.
It won’t be perfect. But here’s the deal. Unlike your fantasies, what I’m suggesting is actually possible.
Leftists are too obsessed with permanent power for themselves to compromise with. And they’re wrong. The whole of us need some undetermined amount of LEGAL immigration, but only that quality (abilities and clean record) and amount that we need, not being the destination for all those struggling or unwelcome elsewhere.
Everything else is invasion, even if the individual invaders don’t think of themselves that way.
Now unlike some, I don’t have a problem with Ukraine aid (given proper oversight); they have corruption issues, but that’s nothing compared to the imperial dreams of Putin, who MUST be opposed, and preferably dead along with all potential successors of like mind. But it’s two separate issues, and I am very doubtful that the left wants real solutions to the border problem – probably not to other problems either, insofar as they serve as foreign distractions from their own domestic failures. Not to say that either side does as long as they can make political hay out of it. Which is why I’ve also reluctantly come around to the idea of term limits for Congress; even though I think people ought to be able to vote for anyone meeting the Constitutional requirements, after awhile most of them will have compromised not so much with each other, but with corruption. Which means that’s also something unlikely to happen.
I must have forgotten to mention that I’d be very glad to see those who knowingly employ illegals doing some jail time (doubtless some of them are Republicans, for all I care). That would be a definite disincentive to more coming. Also serious (we do a little, but not nearly enough) efforts to bring down the human trafficking rings, and to work with various governments to destroy the cartels. And those organized players are more of why it’s effectively an invasion, clearly supported by those like China (fentanyl precursors) and others that want to damage us however they can – which includes as puppets some of the more extreme socialist leaders of South America.
When more than half (the left half plus the weak and corrupt on the other side) are ineffective by choice, it will get a lot more polarizing before it gets better – although term limits MIGHT help prevent that.
“Compromise” is not a concrete suggestion let alone a plan with any details, even if real middle ground (not just something pretending to be) was somehow better or more balanced or, even if nominally more achievable, actually changed anything for the better. It MIGHT be possible to dial back the rhetoric to something less personal (definitely one of Trump’s weak points), but I suspect that would be more of a change of style than of substance.
Wow, R. Hamilton. Just wow.
How far have we fallen as a nation, we are a nation of immigrants and as a melting pot we have grown and to see someone advocating lethal force at the border, you sir do not understand the process for immigration or asking asylum.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Once we had a system that worked together, the current Republican Party has been built on refusing to compromise and until that changes no progress is possible.
We need well qualified freedom seekers in limited (maybe tens or low hundreds of thousands, but not millions a year!) numbers, but we no longer have geographical frontiers to conquer. No matter how high-minded, that poem is obsolete.
Asylum-seekers can make arrangements prior to arrival and arrive in an orderly and lawful manner, or they can be sent back, or could be if we had a lot more immigration judges to expedite processes both for admitting people and for deporting them. A government’s first responsibility is to its own citizens, not all people that wish to join them.
We’re all immigrants (even pre-European humans not having originated on this continent), so that is NOT the problem. But we are not the world’s refuge nor welfare provider, that is not possible, not with any amount of goodwill.
I’m fine with not ruling out deadly force as a last resort on any problem that is out of control and has not responded to other measures. If that’s not pretty, too bad. “Defund the police” clearly didn’t work either; places that have done it are in a downward spiral with businesses and the jobs and services they provide leaving. Not to say there aren’t some few cases of excessive force by police that need systemic efforts to eliminate going forward, but the body count there is far lower than that of criminals (and fentanyl) run wild.
Sometimes limited controlled lethal force is merciful compared to the alternatives. And if that is too unpleasant to hear, so is reality.
N.Parker: It is not clear at whom you aim your comment; it seems to be R. Hamilton.
The pursuit of Mayorkas is similar to our blame of Congress: We The People are supposedly responsible for running our nation yet we do not fully use our voting powers and we fail to do the work necessary to know who and what to vote on locally and nationally! We delegate the administration of our nation to congress, give them cart blanch (even to the extent of permitting them to restrict our voting rights), fail to support the nation financially, and fail to correct our representatives divisions and deviations from bravery and freedom.
Because the immigration/migration messy problem is world-wide should mean that the “solution” is necessarily one to be resolved internationally. Certainly not by building walls around each nation and believing that to be a long term solution. But no matter the resources allotted by our government minimalist congressional “capitalists” nor those thrown at Homeland Security by our congressional “liberalists”, this specific mess will not be solved by our “exceptional” selves.
None the less, until we have some form of near equality amongst the world’s nations and the necessary international group behavior, the sovereign nations will need to protect their dependent populations. The IMF, WEF, World Bank, OECD, WHO etc. are and can be important factors building “sovereign” nations into an international cooperative which would decrease the factors driving the need for migrations. Until such needs disappear, all nations will have problems gaining unwanted populations and losing their needed citizens. Expansion and more importantly the coalescing of the various Groups of 7, TTPS, BRICS, ASEAN, is probably more important.
All of which will take time: so in the US and EU an intermediate term solution is needed which will not increase international divisions and hate. This is clearly beyond me but should not be beyond Yellen, Lagarde, Powell, Neto, Nabiullina, Pan Gongsheng, Shaktikanta Das, etc.
As with global warming but perhaps more importantly, we need solutions ASAP!
https://www.ft.com/content/83ece7e4-cc71-45b5-8db7-766066215612
Inequality of wealth is NOT the heart of problems. Inequality of liberty may closer.
Solutions need individuals more than organizations, because only increase in individual responsibility will scale effectively. That doesn’t preclude individuals cooperating, but any organization no matter its nominal objective ends up being about continuing its own existence rather than succeeding to the point that it can shrink (those that will always be needed) or go away.
Government should be as local as possible, NOT global (again, not to rule out limited accountable cooperation; but most aid to some places ends up in the pockets of those who are NOT needy) regardless of inequities, if with the awareness that local is more quickly corrupted and is the entry point for most wannabe authoritarians. But imagine a global government as corrupt as a banana republic (or some city governments)! That would make all other oppression by either persons or circumstance look like child’s play, because there would be no place to go to escape it, except maybe Mars.