The Wall started as an applause line at Trump’s campaign rallies, and has morphed into one of the dumbest policy debates in the history of American politics. [Christopher Hooks] www.texasobserver.org
Trump’s Wall — Texans Vow to Stop Government from Seizing Land
Texas landowners on Mexican border are vowing to fight the federal government should it invoke eminent domain to seize their property to build Trump’s wall. www.nationalreview.com
Trump calls wall only solution to ‘growing humanitarian crisis’ at border
“President Trump delivered a forceful and fact-challenged televised plea to the nation Tuesday night for his long-promised border wall, declaring “a growing humanitarian and security crisis” at the southern border…. ” [Philip Rucker and Felicia Sonmez] www.washingtonpost.com
Trump is a lying piece of garbage. Immigrants commit fewer crimes than other residents. That’s true of both legal and illegal immigrants.
Also, in a sane universe, the response to a “growing humanitarian crisis” is sending food, shelter, and medical aid. If you’re a piece of garbage like Trump, you want to build a wall so people can suffer elsewhere, and so you and your criminal cronies can make profit from the contracting fees.
A normal person sees a suffering child and wants to mitigate that suffering. Trump sees a suffering child, takes that child from their parents, and puts the child in a cage. Because they’re profit in being a cage contractor.
President Trump Commits to ‘Less Obtrusive’ Steel Border Fence
We’ve gone from build a wall and Mexico will pay for it, to build a fence and the American taxpayers will get stuck with the bill. timesofsandiego.com
If Trump thinks migrants in the U.S. illegally are dangerous, why has he hired so many of them?
Trump the hypocrite warns illegal immigrants are rapists and murderers, but he’s happy to hire them — including one who prepares his own meals. www.latimes.com
Bucking a Global Trend, Japan Seeks More Immigrants. Ambivalently.
KASHIWA, Japan — Vexed by labor shortages in their rapidly aging country, lawmakers relaxed Japan’s longstanding insularity early Saturday by authorizing a sharp increase in the number of foreign workers.
Under a bill approved by Parliament’s upper house in the early-morning hours, more than a quarter-million visas of five-year duration will be granted to unskilled guest laborers for the first time, starting in 2019.
[Motoko Rich] www.nytimes.com
Japan opens its doors wide to immigration
Japan — which was anti-immigration before being anti-immigration was cool — is opening its doors wide to foreigners as its population ages and birthrate declines. (Seamus Bellamy) boingboing.net
Senior White House advisors say that Trump has abandoned demands for a concrete wall at the border, and is instead insisting on “a shrubbery.”
If There’s a Crisis on The Border, Why Is San Diego So Safe?
Despite rumors of a border crisis, San Diego has both the lowest murder rate and overall violent crime rate of the 30 largest American cities in 2018. And other border cities are nearly as safe.
It’s as if the border crisis is a colossal lie told by a President whose previous career was as a con man.
Opinion: If There’s a Crisis on The Border, Why Is San Diego So Safe?
A Betrayal
A Long Island teenager told police all about his gang, MS-13. In return, he was slated for deportation and marked for death. By Hannah Dreier, with Kavitha Surana and Ryan Gabrielson, in a powerful April, 2018 report. features.propublica.org
The way out of the shutdown has been obvious for weeks
Fund the wall in exchange for legalizing dreamers – for good. Yes. www.washingtonpost.com
The wall is a boondoggle and a symbol of cowardly xenophobia. But if this deal can help thousands or millions of Americans come out of the shadows, then it’s a good one.
7-year-old migrant girl taken into Border Patrol custody dies of dehydration, exhaustion [The Washington Post]
ICE and Florida Sheriff try their hardest to deport man born in Philadelphia [Mark Frauenfelder/Boing Boing]
Hillary Clinton calls for renewed Universal Declaration of Human Rights
She was reported as calling for closing borders to immigrants, which is a gross distortion of what she actually said. And now I remember why I enthusiastically supported her campaign.
Hillary Clinton Says Europe Must ‘Get a Handle’ on Migration to Thwart Populism [The New York Times]
Oh, Hillary. No. Just, no. These refugees are fleeing wars that profit the West, supported by the West, but now the West wants to wash its hands of responsibility for those wars.
Month by month, I am becoming more and more baffled by why I enthusiastically supported the Clintons.
Darwin Award winners
Trump’s immigration speech was about bigotry, not economics.
Josh Barro at Business Insider explains.
Reasonable people can argue for restricting immigration on economic grounds. But that’s not Trump’s primary argument. His primary argument is that brown skinned people — specifically Mexicans and Muslims — are violent and dangerous. In reality, immigrants commit violent crime at a lower rate than native born Americans.
Moreover, Trump’s comments about Judge Gonzalo Curiel show that Trump’s bigotry isn’t limited to illegal immigrants.
Trump’s opposition to immigration isn’t about economics. It’s about ethnic purity. It’s about making America white again.
Trump’s supporters are more affluent but come from struggling white enclaves
Trump voters are themselves well off, but their friends, family, and neighbors are struggling. And because they’re older, Trump supporters are likely to have seen their adult children falling behind, according to a Gallup analysis, reported by Max Ehrenfreund and Jeff Guo at The Washington Post.
Also, Trump supporters are most skeptical about immigration but “least likely to actually encounter an immigrant in their neighborhood.” They’re “more likely to be found in white enclaves — racially isolated zip codes where the amount of diversity is lower than in surrounding areas.”
Donald Trump now says even legal immigrants are a security threat
Jenna Johnson, The Washington Post:
At a rally in Portland, Maine, on Thursday afternoon, Trump provided a lengthy explanation of why he thinks the United States needs to be skeptical of immigrants from many countries, even if they follow the legal process.
He has a point. If there had been better immigration controls 100 years ago when Trump’s grandparents came to the US, we wouldn’t be stuck with the Orange Man-Baby now.
Melania Trump had work visa when she modeled in the 90s, former agency says
Melania Trump’s former modeling agent says she obtained a work visa before she modeled professionally in the United States in the mid-1990s. Those comments came in response to questions about Mrs. Trump’s own remarks that appeared inconsistent with U.S. immigration rules….
In interviews earlier this year with MSNBC and for a profile in Harper’s Bazaar, Mrs. Trump’s comments appeared to be inconsistent with holding a work visa.
“I never thought to stay here without papers. I had a visa. I traveled every few months back to the country to Slovenia to stamp the visa,” she said during the MSNBC interview.
U.S. immigration law did not require such trips that Mrs. Trump describes for work-visa holders at the time. People who hold visitor visas would be required to leave the country on or before the end date of their authorized stay. U.S. law does not allow someone to use a visitor visa to regularly live and work in the country.
Mrs. Trump published a statement on Twitter on Thursday, disputing that she violated immigration laws. “I have at all times been in full compliance with the immigration laws of this country. Period. Any allegation to the contrary is simply untrue,” she wrote.
Seems likely that she was here and working legally. Maybe back in the 90s she overcomplied with requirements because she misunderstood them. Or maybe now she is misremembering events of 20 years ago.
(The Associated Press/CBS News)
Somebody built a wall around the Donald Trump star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Reading this makes me proud to be American. No, seriously
Aatish Taseer, a gay South Asian British Muslim immigrant, writes a love letter to the USA, where his now the proud possessor of a green card.
“I was overcome by what must be one of the most unfashionable emotions of our time: boundless, unqualified love for America.”
Hell of an article. Reread it every Independence Day.
(Is Taseer Muslim? Not sure. Doesn’t matter — having a confusing heritage that requires a PowerPoint presentation to explain is the American Way! Ethnic purity is for the Old World — hybrid vigor ftw!)
[The Wall Street Journal]
What it’s like to live within walking distance of the wall between the US and Mexico
Immigrant healthcare
California wants to let undocumented workers buy health insurance through state exchanges under the Affordable Care Act. [Patrick McGreevy – LA Times]
The plan will accrue no additional costs to the state – undocumented workers would use their own money, advocates say.
This won’t be controversial. Nope.