Post New

“NYC high school students forced into remote learning as 2,000 migrants sheltered in school instead”
SNIP
“Nearly 2,000 migrants being sheltered in a tent shelter in New York City are being transferred to a nearby high school, where the students will have to pivot to remote learning due to the disruption it is causing – sparking outrage from residents and local politicians.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ office said it is moving 1,900 migrants from the tent shelter at Floyd Bennett Field for safety reasons due to the incoming storms and potential high winds. According to the New York Daily News, Adams told reporters that it was being done out of an "overabundance of caution."”

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/nyc-high-school-s...


Mayor Eric Adams: "We want to make sure people are safe," he said

Poster Comments from a different blog, not Fox.

“The question is, which people?”

“The bathrooms......ick”

“Suffering for the sins of their parents.
(voting democrat)”

“Not sure a high school has enough showers for 2000 people.”

“Embrace the suck New Yorkers”

“Spreading disease, peeing in corners of classrooms, robbing, destroying and eyeing the good looking guidance counselor”

“Said a local dad, “How do you feel stealing American tax money?””

LM: I can sympathize with Mayor Adams, he is caught between a rock and a hard place...
The root cause for this and other horrible situations is President Joe Biden.

Yo mom, don't share from Fox, the usual suspects will never believe it, find the story reported by CBS like I did !!

LM: I can sympathize with Mayor Adams, he is caught between a rock and a hard place...
The root cause for this and other horrible situations is President Joe Biden.

As we've discussed ad nauseum, the root cause for this situation is the mismatch between our current immigration laws and funding levels and the now-changed sources of immigration. We have a border control regime that devotes a ton of resources to trying to catch people sneaking into the country for work, but instead today we face huge numbers of people openly turning themselves in to claim asylum. With the former group, you don't need to worry about what happens after you catch them; with the latter group, that's the central problem. We don't have enough resources to manage hundreds of thousands of people waiting years for their asylum hearings.

That problem is not caused by Biden. That problem won't be fixed by a President Trump. Only Congress can fix it, and immigration politics is so divided that they can't do anything.

"" That problem is not caused by Biden. That problem won't be fixed by a President Trump. Only Congress can fix it, and immigration politics is so divided that they can't do anything."" Are you saying this is just a continuation of what happened during the trump years ? Thank you.

Are you saying this is just a continuation of what happened during the trump years ? Thank you.

Yep. Immigration numbers were trending upwards, and the last year before the pandemic hit (2019) border encounters showed a huge jump under Trump as well. You can see the massive spike in the 2019 numbers in the graph here:

https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/sw-border-migra...

It's not like migrant caravans didn't exist in 2018 and 2019, either:

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1WP1GB/

The pandemic mitigated that. A lot. Emergency protocols to halt the spread of Covid stopped a ton of movement generally, and provided legal justification for sealing the borders even against asylum claimants.

Now that Covid's become endemic, that temporary slowdown in migration flows is over. The tools that were briefly available to slow migration flows are now gone. So we're now back to the root causes. Terrible circumstances in certain parts of Latin America are driving people to seek asylum in the U.S., and we haven't adjusted our border processing institutions to handle that higher load. So now we have a huge backlog of asylum cases, and no way of efficiently managing all those people while they await the hearings they're legally entitled to.

<<2,000 migrants sheltered in school instead>>

Migrants. They are NOT migrants. They are NOT 'undocumented'. They are illegals. Illegals are illegals are illegals.

Migrants are folks who follow the law, apply for residency and citizenship. FOLLOWING THE LAW.

The issue is not a minor point. Either we follow the law or...

(Get a law passed in Congress and signed by a president that allows the lawlessness going on today and we can stop having to complain about this important issue! I'll hold my breath til then.)

Migrants. They are NOT migrants. They are NOT 'undocumented'. They are illegals. Illegals are illegals are illegals.

Except they're not. Under the law, asylees are legally permitted to remain in the country while awaiting the resolution of their asylum claims.

""Yep. Immigration numbers were trending upwards, and the last year before the pandemic hit (2019) border encounters showed a huge jump under Trump as well. You can see the massive spike in the 2019 numbers in the graph here:"" Come on man, I'd rather get my info from Alex Jones than from govt websites under Mayorkas. This is on team Biden, end of story. Google Jeh Johnson interviews the past three years, don't cherry pick one sentence. Thank you.

Come on man, I'd rather get my info from Alex Jones than from govt websites under Mayorkas. This is on team Biden, end of story.

That report was published by the Trump administration. It's from 2019.

If you prefer, here's the archived version of the report from when it was first published in November 2019:

https://web.archive.org/web/20191130011905/https:/...

It hasn't changed. I know it conflicts with the conservative framing of the issue, that a GOP President is all that's needed to deter migrants from trying to get into the U.S. But Trump presided over one of the largest single-year increases in border encounters in history. Not because he did anything wrong, either. It's just that the U.S. President has very little control over the decision-making of people living in horrible conditions that might choose to come to the U.S.

So no, this is not on Team Biden. Massive numbers of migrants are fleeing those terrible conditions in various Latin American countries, and they're overloading the system. Biden didn't create the factors leading them to flee, doesn't have the legal ability to modify the system for dealing with asylum seekers (who are allowed to remain in the U.S. pending their claims), doesn't have the power to increase the budget allocations to either increase the number of immigration courts/judges or to set up detention facilities to feed and house hundreds of thousands of people, and can't authorize the use of force on the Mexico side to physically repel them from getting into U.S. territory.

That problem is not caused by Biden. That problem won't be fixed by a President Trump. Only Congress can fix it, and immigration politics is so divided that they can't do anything.

Baloney.

While the Border situation has never been perfect Biden by proclamation undid a number of
President Trump’s policies he had put in place having some control at the border.

If perchance Trump is again elected president or another republican candidate, God only knows how they will be able to undo at least a small part of the problems caused by Biden.

If Biden or perhaps Michelle O in waiting is elected president, kiss America as we know it, good-bye.

Trump's immigration numbers are irrelevant as the number of border crossers has doubled under Biden.

I'm wondering if a simple executive order could suspend the amnesty process entirely.

"" That report was published by the Trump administration. It's from 2019."" When it comes to the border, I trust and respect Jeh. If you want to insist Jeh is lying, we can just agree to disagree, this is on team Biden. Jeh has been warning us for four years, period.

While the Border situation has never been perfect Biden by proclamation undid a number of
President Trump’s policies he had put in place having some control at the border.

That's just not true. The only two significant ones weren't undone by Biden - they were undone by circumstances.

Title 42 ejections were justified by the Covid pandemic - once the pandemic health emergencies were over, there was no longer any legal basis for maintaining the program.

The same is true of "Remain in Mexico." Because such a large proportion of the migrant population isn't Mexican, that requires the co-operation of the Mexican government - which has been withdrawn.

The other policies Trump had were either useless against the problem (like The Wall), or just window dressing. Again, since you can't build the Wall on the border, it can't stop people from getting into U.S. territory and just waiting for CPB to come pick them up - which could be useful if the problems were being caused by people trying to sneak into the U.S., but is utterly useless for dealing with people who intend to apply for asylum the moment they get here.

Which is why a "future GOP President" isn't going to be able to "undo" any of these problems - because the problems weren't caused by President Biden. They're caused by an exogenous shift in the composition of migrant flows from people seeking to enter undetected to people who intend to turn themselves in and claim asylum the moment they get here. So our entire border control regime is misaligned - it's set up to try to catch people, rather than to process asylum requests.

Trump's immigration numbers are irrelevant as the number of border crossers has doubled under Biden.

They're not irrelevant. They show that this is a problem that had already started under Trump and that his border policies were ineffective to stop the increase from getting going. It's continued to increase, but it's obvious that these flows are due to exogenous factors and not the particulars of U.S. border policy that are under the control of the President.

I'm wondering if a simple executive order could suspend the amnesty process entirely.

This has nothing to do with amnesty. The current problems are stemming from the asylum process, not amnesty.

Assuming you meant asylum rather than amnesty, the answer is no. The asylum process is a function of statute. Asylees are legally entitled under U.S. law both to request asylum and to remain in the U.S. until their application is heard. The President cannot suspend that process through executive order.

Title 42 ejections were justified by the Covid pandemic - once the pandemic health emergencies were over, there was no longer any legal basis for maintaining the program.

Migrants are brining TB and Lord knows what else across the border. Inventing a justification for a medical screening hold on the border is a perfect example of something the administration could easily do...

...if it wanted to.

When it comes to the border, I trust and respect Jeh. If you want to insist Jeh is lying, we can just agree to disagree, this is on team Biden. Jeh has been warning us for four years, period.

I'm not insisting Jeh is lying. I didn't say anything about Johnson, and I'm not aware that Johnson has ever stated that we didn't see significant increases in immigration flows from 2018-2019. Has Johnson claimed that we didn't see the first massive spike in migrants during 2019?

You can shut your eyes and not look at the data, if you like - but it doesn't make it go away. Nor does the fact that the current Administration still hosts the website publishing the Trump Administration's own report - you can look at the archives, and see that it hasn't changed. The change in immigration trends that we're dealing with today started during the Trump Administration. Despite his policies, and despite his rhetoric, that's when they started coming in droves.

You are right, though, in that Jeh Johnson has been warning us for four years. But you're forgetting that four years ago, Trump was President. So here's Jeh Johnson at a roundtable, right before Covid hit, pointing out that you can't solve this problem with "border security" because the migration patterns are due to push factors in Central America:

JOHNSON: Yes, [the Trump] administration believes fervently that a deterrent message, or “consequence delivery,” as they refer to it, is the principal way to reduce illegal immigration. We want to make things so terrible for you that you would never think of coming here. But no deterrent message can overcome the desire to flee a burning building. That’s why we have to address the underlying causes.

* * *

JOHNSON: It has to be at least a 10-year project. There’s no quick fix to poverty, violence and corruption. We started this in 2016 with $750 million, really a drop in the bucket, but the money was helping coffee growers deliver coffee to the market, for example. It was beginning to have an effect. But the [Trump] administration has turned that money off now — the exact wrong thing to do.

The moral of the story is, there’s no amount of security you can throw on the southern border to end illegal migration. You have to address the push factors, period.

https://www.carnegie.org/our-work/article/border-b...

hclasvegas: When it comes to the border, I trust and respect Jeh.

We already went over this Jeh Johnson nonsense in another thread in which, when confronted by the fact that Johnson's solution to the migrant crisis is through massive financial aid in Northern Triangle countries to address the poverty, violence, and corruption there, hclasvegas fled the thread to play pickleball.

https://www.shrewdm.com/MB?pid=568489218&wholeThre...

They're not irrelevant.

They're irrelevant. Biden's numbers are close to double Trumps.

Double. Not up by a little bit, double.

The current problems are stemming from the asylum process, not amnesty.

Okay, asylum. In either case, Biden should think about suspending it entirely. He can do that in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief.

Migrants are brining TB and Lord knows what else across the border. Inventing a justification for a medical screening hold on the border is a perfect example of something the administration could easily do...

...if it wanted to.

No, it can't. The regulation isn't based on the mere fact that an individual might have a communicable disease - it's based on whether the country they're coming from has an especially high incidence of the disease that it poses a justification for shutting the border to that country. And TB incidence in those countries just isn't all that high. Unlike Covid, TB is relatively under control in the Americas - it's mostly rampant in sub-Saharan Africa.

It would never hold up in court. They were able to do it for Covid, because Covid was a real pandemic emergency. For TB, or other illnesses that are no more severe in those countries than they have been in the 80 years since Title 42 was first adopted (and never applied in this context), there's no way they'd be able to do it.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC76447...

"" We already went over this Jeh Johnson nonsense in another thread in which,"" watch all of Jehs interviews, or watch the View, I can't hold your hand pal.

In either case, Biden should think about suspending it entirely. He can do that in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief.

No, he can't. Again, the asylum process was created by Congress. The President can't just decide not to follow the laws just because he's also the Commander-in-Chief. If an asylee files an asylum request, and the Administration says "We're not going to follow the law because the President controls the military and says we don't have to," the courts will simply order them to follow the asylum laws.

The President isn't a king. He has to follow the laws, and his Executive Orders (and commands to the military) have to be consistent with the laws.

As we've discussed ad nauseum, the root cause for this situation is the mismatch between our current immigration laws and funding levels and the now-changed sources of immigration. We have a border control regime that devotes a ton of resources to trying to catch people sneaking into the country for work, but instead today we face huge numbers of people openly turning themselves in to claim asylum. With the former group, you don't need to worry about what happens after you catch them; with the latter group, that's the central problem. We don't have enough resources to manage hundreds of thousands of people waiting years for their asylum hearings.

That problem is not caused by Biden. That problem won't be fixed by a President Trump. Only Congress can fix it, and immigration politics is so divided that they can't do anything.

Your 'on point' responses to the 'open border biden bad' posts are becoming increasingly succinct, yet dismissed the same as the earlier,lengthier explanations.

Perhaps it's time to assign a number to the explanation (a guy walks into a crowded bar and wonders why everybody laughed when a patron yelled "ELEVEN!").

The President isn't a king. He has to follow the laws, and his Executive Orders (and commands to the military) have to be consistent with the laws.

And when has he done that?

hclasvegas: ...watch all of Jehs interviews, or watch the View, I can't hold your hand pal.

You have not yet articulated Johnson's positions or solutions. You're like Gomer Pyle on the Andy Griffith show reruns on TV Land yelling "Citizen's arrest! Citizen's arrest," except you're yelling "Jeh said it was a crisis! Jeh said it was a crisis!"

We all know it's a crisis.

And as I and albaby1 have pointed out repeatedly, Johnson's policy position is the exact opposite of the Trump position and more in line with the Biden administration's position: It has to be at least a 10-year project. There’s no quick fix to poverty, violence and corruption. We started this in 2016 with $750 million, really a drop in the bucket, but the money was helping coffee growers deliver coffee to the market, for example. It was beginning to have an effect. But the [Trump] administration has turned that money off now — the exact wrong thing to do.

You've added nothing to this discussion. Perhaps it's time for a nice game of pickleball.

It would never hold up in court.

Since when has ANY democratic administration worried about that? We have a glaring national security and potential public health problem along the border.

The Obama administration was especially skilled at using federal rulemaking to push through huge policy goals through. Their use of the "Waterways of the United States" is a masterclass on how to take advantage of fairly innocuous legislation to get what they want.

Biden can declare a public health crisis at any time. He can declare a national security emergency just based on the number of known terrorists they're catching on the border.

And when has he done that?

Almost always. There are always disagreements about what the laws require. When that happens, those affected by those disagreements have access to the courts. Every President ends up doing things that end up being overturned in court at some point. Trump lost cases in court, Biden has lost cases in court - whoever the next twenty Presidents are, they will end up doing things they claim are legal, but which end up being overturned in court.

When looking at what policy options are available to the President, we generally are talking about what options are within his legal authority, as will likely be determined by the courts.

In this situation, the President's authority as Commander-in-Chief in no way would relieve him from the requirement to follow the asylum processes that have been set out by Congress. He has to follow those laws. If he doesn't, the courts will order him to do so - and the fact that he is also the CIC will not change that.

" You have not yet articulated Johnson's positions or solutions." You want the cliff note version of Jehs opinions and solutions for the past four years? Get real man, then you will claim I misquoted him. Watch his interviews or refuse, who cares ? I think trump and biden should both retire and share a condo in Miami, and the Dems should ask Jeh to run, period. Cross examine another opinion.

Biden can declare a public health crisis at any time. He can declare a national security emergency just based on the number of known terrorists they're catching on the border.

No, he can't.

I mean, sure, he could say there's a public health crisis. But there isn't, so it would never hold up in court. You can't point to the fact that TB rates are slightly higher in Mexico than in the U.S. as a reason to close the border just to asylum seekers altogether. Several hundred million people cross the Mexican border every year as part of routine traffic, there's no evidence that TB rates are going up in areas where migrants are present, the Administration has the power and ability to both screen migrants for TB (and other illnesses) and detain any migrant they want for any length of time if they have an illness. It's so obviously pretextual it would never hold up in court.

The same is true of any "national security emergency." What's the emergency? Is there any particular reason to think that if terrorists wanted to get into the U.S. for the purpose of committing a terrorist act, the way they would do it is by walking in and surrendering immediately to the Border Patrol? Rather than, say, getting on a plane so they can enter without immediately being detained by the authorities (like all the 9/11 terrorists did)?

At some point, your lawyers have to be able to stand in front of judges and persuade them that your actions that you claim are justified by public health crises or national security emergencies are in fact those things and not a backdoor effort to try to address immigration issues. During Covid, those measures had a legitimate public health basis, as the U.S. was implementing border control policies in a host of circumstances, barring entry (and imposing additional entry requirements) to everyone, asylee or not. Those circumstances are long, long gone.

I mean, sure, he could say there's a public health crisis. But there isn't, so it would never hold up in court

So? Making it stick isn’t the point. Buying time is.

Is there any particular reason to think that if terrorists wanted to get into the U.S. for the purpose of committing a terrorist act, the way they would do it is by walking in and surrendering immediately to the Border Patrol?

Yes.
This is how you would do it.

This is EXACTLY how you would do it.

So? Making it stick isn’t the point. Buying time is.

You can't buy any time. The Administration would announce the new policy, someone would want into court challenging the new policy, and the court would issue a TRO staying the implementation of the new policy.

This is EXACTLY how you would do it.

Do you have any evidence for that? Anything you can say to a judge that you could say that asylum-seekers pose a different and heightened threat than the other millions of people we let into the country every year? You can't just walk into court and say that because it is possible for a terrorist to enter the country this way that suspending asylum requests is related to a national security emergency, in a way that continuing to allow all other normal border crossings (by land from Mexico, by air and sea not only from Mexico but every other Latin American country) should proceed as normal but not these entries? Keeping in mind that all the other terrorist attacks of late did not involve people entering the country that way, but just arriving normally at a port of entry?

sano: Your 'on point' responses to the 'open border biden bad' posts are becoming increasingly succinct, yet dismissed the same as the earlier, lengthier explanations.

While it's interesting to watch republicans write "Why doesn't Biden just do X, Y, and Z" and then read albaby1 calmly explain in detail why doing so would be illegal and the courts would prevent his actions -- in fact, have already done so -- it also reveals how little republicans know about the facts and the law with respect to immigration.

And it is increasingly understandable exactly why these same republicans support a man who said he wants to be a dictator: laws and the Constitution mean nothing to a cult that believes that Orange Jesus is the Chosen One and that the end justifies the means.

Pssst: you have other better choices in the caucuses and primaries than Trump (no, not Ramaswamy).

Why doesn't Biden just do X, Y, and Z"

The question is, Why doesn’t Biden undo the damage he has done?

The question is, Why doesn’t Biden undo the damage he has done?

Because the damage hasn't been caused by anything that Biden did, so it can't be undone by anything Biden can do.

The damage is caused by Congress not adapting the immigration and border control apparatus to match current conditions. Until they do, neither Biden nor a future GOP President can do anything meaningful.

There was some talk of putting some actual changes to the immigration process into the government funding bill, but I don't know whether any of that made it into the final deal. But again, any solutions would have to be authorized by Congress, not something that the Executive can do unilaterally.

You can't buy any time.

Yes you can. democrats at the state level pull this in the courts all the time with Second Amendment stuff. All. The. Time.

Do you have any evidence for that?

Think about it.
If I wanted to smuggle somebody into the country, am I going to

A) Fly them into an airport, where they'll need to scan a valid passport at the source airport and pass through US customs when they get to the US?
B) Walk them across the border and have them throw their real passports into the Rio Grande when they get to the US?

Option B. All day, every day.
If the border patrol catches them...so what? They're doing very minimal screening in an uncontrolled space.

By contrast, airports are VERY much controlled spaces.

You can't just walk into court and say that because it is possible for a terrorist to enter the country

They already know of several terrorists they've caught along the border.

Because the damage hasn't been caused by anything that Biden did, so it can't be undone by anything Biden can do.

Yes it has.
Biden can put back in place some of the Trump policies Biden so stupidly struck down.

You speak lawyer talk and I speak average citizen talk. Two different languages.
Difference is average citizen talk has common sense.

Yes you can. democrats at the state level pull this in the courts all the time with Second Amendment stuff. All. The. Time.

No you can't. Remember Trump's so-called "Muslim Travel Ban"? There were actually two Executive Orders that he issued. After the first, the EO was enjoined by the court within five days. The second was enjoined by the court in eight days.

"Second Amendment stuff" can often stay on the books longer, because to get a temporary injunction you have to prove up that you have a reasonable chance of success on the merits. Here, we are (by construction) talking about an action that is clearly contrary to the law. The TRO hearing will be held within about a week of the policy being enacted.

You can't "buy time" this way.

If I wanted to smuggle somebody into the country, am I going to

A) Fly them into an airport, where they'll need to scan a valid passport at the source airport and pass through US customs when they get to the US?
B) Walk them across the border and have them throw their real passports into the Rio Grande when they get to the US?

Considering that both of the major terrorist attacks in the U.S. (the WTC bombing an 9/11) happened under Scenario A, that seems far more likely for someone that was trying to enter the country for the purposes of committing a terrorist act.

It's worth recalling that not even Trump tried this little maneuver. Again, when he adopted his travel bans, he had the sense at least to adopt the ban on everyone coming in from those countries - he named the nation as a threat, and then everyone was prohibited from coming in, whether they had a valid visa and passport or not. Because it's going to be nearly impossible to convince a judge that the threat from the migrant population claiming asylum is going to be significantly different from the threat profile of the population at large.

They already know of several terrorists they've caught along the border.

Did any of them claim asylum? Again, if you're a terrorist who wants to enter the country illegally, your best bet is to try to do it without being caught - and then if you're caught, to just accept deportation and try again. Formally applying for asylum and sitting down for additional background checks and interviews is beyond foolhardy.

Biden can put back in place some of the Trump policies Biden so stupidly struck down.

You speak lawyer talk and I speak average citizen talk. Two different languages.
Difference is average citizen talk has common sense.

And ignorance of the law. Labelling something which is illegal as "average citizen talk" doesn't make it possible. It just means you're unaware of the legal constraints that make that "common sense" proposal the purview of the Congress, not the Executive.

Name the policy that Biden stupidly struck down that he could put back in place. It can't be Title 42, because the Covid emergency is gone and the courts (in response to conservative lawsuits) have adopted several new rulings that limit the ability to use medical emergencies to exercise Executive authority. It can't be Remain in Mexico, because Lopez Obrador has made it clear that he's not going to do that again, and his domestic political incentives have change. And it can't be building the Wall, because the Wall can't be effective against people who are not trying to evade detection when entering the U.S. (which is the problem population right now).

So what is it? What's the policy that you think Biden can unilaterally put back in place that would actually have a meaningful effect on migration flows?

No you can't. Remember Trump's so-called "Muslim Travel Ban"? There were actually two Executive Orders that he issued. After the first, the EO was enjoined by the court within five days. The second was enjoined by the court in eight days.

And as we learned, democrats are way better at this than Repuiblicans are.

Come on. You don't seriously believe that the egregious BS gun control stuff that states like California and Washington pass was done with an earnest look at the Second Amendment in mind and in light of recent Supreme Court decisions, do you?

I'll answer for you: they know damn well what they're passing is BS but they pass it anyway because they know it'll take years to work through the courts.

You can't "buy time" this way. Again, it takes years.

Oh, boy:
Considering that both of the major terrorist attacks in the U.S. (the WTC bombing an 9/11) happened under Scenario A, that seems far more likely for someone that was trying to enter the country for the purposes of committing a terrorist act.

And what's happened since then? We've cranked up airport and travel security big time.
But what haven't we cranked up? Border security.

You're thinking about this like a lawyer who's hands are tied by the rules. The real world doesn't work that way. At all.
Team Biden needs to start getting creative and artful with respect to the administrative rulemaking they employ.

Here's a very, very simple one:
No one is permitted to have an asylum claim entered into the system until they've had a blood test performed.

Did any of them claim asylum? Again, if you're a terrorist who wants to enter the country illegally, your best bet is to try to do it without being caught - and then if you're caught, to just accept deportation and try again. Formally applying for asylum and sitting down for additional background checks and interviews is beyond foolhardy.

Wrong.
When someone walks over the border with no ID, then what? They get a quick interview, maybe their picture is taken and maybe they swab some DNA. If somebody coming over the border ISN'T in a US database that step is useless.

Meanwhile under the current system the prospective terrorist is over the line and is officially in the system...and in the wind.

<<LurkerMom
Number: 11399
Why doesn't Biden just do X, Y, and Z"

The question is, Why doesn’t Biden undo the damage he has done?>>

Undo the damage? That's the rub.

The damage he has done is virtually undoable. A diligent effort 'might' find and eject 5% to 10% of the illegals.

Of the other 90%, they'll skate. Some will have their precious anchor baby, born on US soil**, granting them as parents automatic 'squatter rights'.

(**Thank you USSC justice Brennan for your contribution to convoluting the Constitution, the law, in this country.
http://humanevents.com/2010/08/04/justice-brennans...
Justice Brennan’s Footnote Gave Us Anchor Babies)

Rounding up others: Some who are LEGALLY in the country will be salted with fellow minorities and swept up; when they're caught in the web and deported will impair the effort.

The damage that the flood of illegals has done to this country is a massive wound. It would be nice touch if diligence could be undertaken to ensure they don't end up registering to vote. Good luck with that.

It would be nice touch if diligence could be undertaken to ensure they don't end up registering to vote. Good luck with that.

We've seen how in Arizona at least there's nothing stopping them from registering to vote for the 2024 election. The only thing that can be done is to carefully look for big surges in voter representation in swing counties.

And ignorance of the law
No, not ignorant of the law, just citizens understanding the stupidity of Laws previously passed
by a democrat majority in Congress when Biden became president.

Name the policy that Biden stupidly struck down that he could put back in place

What does it matter at this point?
Biden is asking for Mexican help to stop the record surge of migrants. Mexican President López Obrador is asking for the moon in return. He has Biden over a barrel.
Biden ended Trump-era ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy. Big mistake imo.

Come on. You don't seriously believe that the egregious BS gun control stuff that states like California and Washington pass was done with an earnest look at the Second Amendment in mind and in light of recent Supreme Court decisions, do you?

Most of the time, yes. And certainly the stuff that actually passed the initial request for a temporary injunction. Unlike Trump's travel ban (and the facially illegal stuff we're talking about hypothetically in these last few posts), generally the legislative leaders in a state will vet their proposed legislation with their lawyers ahead of time. Even if they suspect that the bill will eventually get struck by the courts, if they want it to have some effect until that happens they will figure out how far they can go to possibly avoid the initial temporary injunction.

That doesn't happen by accident. If you want the bill to go into effect for a while pending resolution of the merits, you pay attention to what the contours of the law are. If you pass something that's clearly illegal, you're not going to get more than a few days (if that) of effectiveness.

When someone walks over the border with no ID, then what? They get a quick interview, maybe their picture is taken and maybe they swab some DNA.

....and no guarantee of being released after that. Remember, applying for asylum doesn't mean you get to go free in the U.S. It simply means you won't be deported. The government can always hold you in detention for as long as they want (unless you're a child, which isn't really relevant here). And not having any documents at all puts you at a vastly higher risk of them holding you for a few months while they check you out. It's a phenomenally stupid move for an actual terrorist (as opposed to someone who's simply one of the two million people on the watch list) to not have any ID. Just get a fake or improperly issued Mexican passport and border crossing card and drive through a checkpoint, like literally millions of people every year.

And again, you'd have to actually show some evidence that this was happening or likely to happen - not merely that it was possible, if if you wanted to shut down the asylum process on a national emergency basis. That there was some actual, credible threat that a terrorist would use the asylum process as opposed to any of the far less detectable ways to get into the U.S. Again, given the extreme unlikelihood that someone who had tried to get into the U.S. for the purpose of committing terrorism would respond to being caught by asking for asylum - thus continuing their interaction and detention with authorities for even longer - I can't imagine that this argument has any chance of getting past a judge.

You speak lawyer talk and I speak average citizen talk. Two different languages.
Difference is average citizen talk has common sense.

Laughable BS.

No, not ignorant of the law, just citizens understanding the stupidity of Laws previously passed by a democrat majority in Congress when Biden became president.

We're not talking about the stupidity of the laws. You're asserting that there is something that Biden can do that would meaningfully affect these immigration problems. Something within the purview of the Executive. Something that he can unilaterally implement that he's failing to do.

Whether the laws are stupid or not, they are the laws. The President can't just ignore the laws (he can try, but actions that simply ignore the laws will be stopped by the courts within a matter of days).

What does it matter at this point?

Because you claimed that the real question was what Biden could do to undo the damage he had caused. For that to be the real question, there has to be something that Biden did and can now undo that caused the damage.

But there's not. Whether you characterize it as "common sense" vs. "legalese," the President doesn't have the authority to just do whatever the heck he wants to do, which is why it's not uncommon for them to lose in court when their actions are challenged. Since Congress writes the immigration laws and sets the budget for various aspects of the border control apparatus (like how many immigration judges there are), material solutions to border problems lie almost entirely with Congress - not the President.

<You speak lawyer talk and I speak average citizen talk. Two different languages.
Difference is average citizen talk has common sense.>

LOL Thanks for the laugh!

More like, he speaks lawyer talk and you speak conspiracy-theory-cult-member vernacular.

Most of the time, yes. And certainly the stuff that actually passed the initial request for a temporary injunction. Unlike Trump's travel ban (and the facially illegal stuff we're talking about hypothetically in these last few posts), generally the legislative leaders in a state will vet their proposed legislation with their lawyers ahead of time.

Uh, huh. I think you and I have a different view on what "vet" means. Post Heller and Bruen AWB's are no-go's but that didn't stop these states from passing them anyway.

....and no guarantee of being released after that.

Riiiight. Say, let's ask Mayorkas about that:

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mayorkas-tells-bo...

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Monday admitted to Border Patrol agents that the current rate of release for illegal immigrants apprehended at the southern border is "above 85%," sources told Fox News.

Mayorkas made the remarks when meeting privately with agents in Eagle Pass, Texas, according to three Border Patrol sources who were in the room and heard the remarks themselves.

They're not holding anybody: Biden is paroling these guys right on into the US.

Again: Biden has to get creative.

A simple exec order mandating that a blood test is require for all asylum seekers before they may be paroled into the US would do the trick.

Terrible circumstances in certain parts of Latin America are driving people to seek asylum in the U.S., and we haven't adjusted our border processing institutions to handle that higher load. - Albaby

---------------------

Why is the only solution to provide unlimited processing facilities to handle whatever load these non citizens who self select to come here.

How about this, require asylum seekers to apply at a US embassy or whatever equivalent is in your area. Once they get their ticket punch there, they report to an official US Port of Entry. If you got the paperwork, come on in, if not stay out. The US Port of Entry will stamp you paperwork as you pass through.

Now, 100 ot 1,000 miles away if you don't have those credentials then you are here illegally and subject to immediate deportation to your home country. Maybe with a DNA sample so if we see you again, we can get progressively more medieval before sending you back. As I have said before, word will spread.

But by adhering to a process, the hordes will queue up elsewhere than the USA. Hate to overwhelm our embassies the way we have our beleaguered border agents but it IS the lesser of two problems.

Except they're not. Under the law, asylees are legally permitted to remain in the country while awaiting the resolution of their asylum claims. - albaby

---------------

Fine, does that come with a right to define the immigration process they will use?

Post Heller and Bruen AWB's are no-go's but that didn't stop these states from passing them anyway.

You misunderstand Heller, and there's a colorable argument about Bruen. Heller merely held that a state can't prohibit gun ownership altogether - there exists a 2A individual right to own a gun. It said nothing about whether a subset of guns can be prohibited or not. Bruen said that restrictions have to be consistent with the nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation. It's pretty easy to see how if you hit the right judge, you might find one that will rule (at least initially) that there's an argument that AWB's are consistent with historical firearm regulation, since firearms with the characteristics of modern assault weapons didn't exist back in the day and there have existed over the years limits on some types of classes of firearms. SCOTUS might want to roll back restrictions on concealed carry, but they might not be open to letting people manufacture/own brand-new fully automatic weapons.

They're not holding anybody: Biden is paroling these guys right on into the US.

A simple exec order mandating that a blood test is require for all asylum seekers before they may be paroled into the US would do the trick.

Your own quote says that's not true - they're holding about 15% or so of them, give or take. If you show up at the border with no ID at all, you've got a pretty good likelihood of ending up in that 15% who's detained for further investigation. Which is why it's, again, one of the dumbest moves ever for someone who is actually involved in terrorist activity to try to get into the country this way.

As for the blood test - do what trick? What are you screening for? And how are you going to administer, and pay for, bloodwork and labs for that many people?

How about this, require asylum seekers to apply at a US embassy or whatever equivalent is in your area.

You could certainly do that, if you changed the law. But that's not what the statute provides. If they show up here, you can't send them back. So while Congress could do something like that, Biden can't.

Massive numbers of migrants are fleeing those terrible conditions in various Latin American countries, and they're overloading the system - Albaby

--------------------

And hidden among those migrants is just a smattering of terrorists, Chinese spies, ISIS wannabees, Iranian sponsored cell's, etc. You know they are there. Occasionally some stats come out about some number of downtrodden migrants were found to be on terror watch lists and arrested by Border Control.

This open borders stuff is dangerous in a way it wasn't 20 years ago.

Fine, does that come with a right to define the immigration process they will use?

I mean, somewhat? They have a right to have their cases decided by an immigration law judge, with all the attendant rights that come with that (right to receive notice of the hearing, right to provide evidence to support their claim, etc.). And they have a right to have their case decided on the legal standards in the statute. And of course, all of the things that generally apply to how the government treats people would apply to them - the government can't steal their stuff as part of the process, for example.

But they don't have a right to move freely about the country, if that's what you're asking. They can always just be detained. But while the Administration has the legal authority to detain asylees pending their hearing (except for kids), they don't have the resources to do it. The wait time is too long, and there's too many of them. They don't have the budget to do that.

And hidden among those migrants is just a smattering of terrorists, Chinese spies, ISIS wannabees, Iranian sponsored cell's, etc. You know they are there. Occasionally some stats come out about some number of downtrodden migrants were found to be on terror watch lists and arrested by Border Control.

This open borders stuff is dangerous in a way it wasn't 20 years ago.

Again, as I asked Dope, why on earth would those folks choose to enter the country by turning themselves in and seeking asylum, rather than trying to sneak through either with falsified documents or trying to evade detection? Walking up to Border Patrol and handing yourself in is an idiotic move for an actual terrorist (as opposed to the two million people who are on the terror watch list, which doesn't mean they're actually terrorists, just people we want to keep an eye on).

You misunderstand Heller, and there's a colorable argument about Bruen.

Not really, but that's not the point of this argument.

Your own quote says that's not true - they're holding about 15% or so of them, give or take. If you show up at the border with no ID at all, you've got a pretty good likelihood of ending up in that 15% who's detained for further investigation. Which is why it's, again, one of the dumbest moves ever for someone who is actually involved in terrorist activity to try to get into the country this way.

Sure about that? 85% of millions of people are millions of people they've let go.

As for the blood test - do what trick? What are you screening for? And how are you going to administer, and pay for, bloodwork and labs for that many people?

No offense, but you're really, really bad at this.
The point is you wait as long as possible on the blood test you require.

But they don't have a right to move freely about the country, if that's what you're asking.

They're paroling them into the country. Literally nobody is looking at what they do after that.

JOHNSON: Yes, [the Trump] administration believes fervently that a deterrent message, or “consequence delivery,” as they refer to it, is the principal way to reduce illegal immigration. We want to make things so terrible for you that you would never think of coming here. But no deterrent message can overcome the desire to flee a burning building. That’s why we have to address the underlying causes.

--------------------

That is a good point. But keeping with the burning building metaphor, the immigrants are driven from their building by the flames and seek asylum at the local church. But not satisfied with simply being safe from the flames, they hear their is a place where you can get a whole lot of goodies and also be flame free. And that almost everyone is admitted, just get there.

It seems to me there is a pull factor apart from the danger the asylum seeker faced in their home country. Someone said we can't have both open borders and a generous welfare state. I think that lesson is coming home to roost.

Not really, but that's not the point of this argument.

Yes - Heller didn't have anything to say about AWB, and Bruen doesn't foreclose them. Which is why those regulations are sometimes able to pass a preliminary request for temporary injunction, while a facially illegal action (like just ignoring the asylum statutes) wouldn't.

Sure about that? 85% of millions of people are millions of people they've let go.

15% of millions are also still millions (or hundreds of thousands) of people they haven't let go. That's why it's just dumb beyond imagining for an actual terrorist, trying to enter the U.S. to commit some heinous act, to try to do it by showing up at the border with no ID and claiming asylum. As opposed to the way that all the actual international terrorists did, which is to get some falsified travel documents and come in through an airport.

No offense, but you're really, really bad at this.
The point is you wait as long as possible on the blood test you require.

Why bother? Again, there's no legal prohibition on detaining these people indefinitely. You don't need subterfuge. If you want to lock up all the asylees in detention camps, you can do it. The problem is, as always, the logistics of it. You need Congress to authorize the funds necessary to build detention facilities for hundreds of thousands of people, to provide food and clothing and medical treatment for them, and to staff all of them. And find some way to solve the problem of children, who can't be detained indefinitely. Congress doesn't want to do that, and it's kind of dumb to spend billions of dollars to put people in years of detention instead of just speeding up the asylum review.

They're paroling them into the country. Literally nobody is looking at what they do after that.

Parole means something different, in the immigration context - but the point is that they are choosing to release them into the country, mostly because they don't have anything else they can do with them. I was answering BHM's question about the rights of the asylees. They don't have the right to be released on their own recognizance until their asylum hearing, but the Administration doesn't have the resources (the buildings, budget, or personnel) to keep them locked up in detention for years and years, nor the resources to speed up the asylum hearing dates.

It has to be at least a 10-year project. There’s no quick fix to poverty, violence and corruption. We started this in 2016 with $750 million, really a drop in the bucket, but the money was helping coffee growers deliver coffee to the market, for example. It was beginning to have an effect.

-----------------------------

Drop in the bucket is right. Does he really have the hubris to suggest the USA can prop up the economies to extent crime dries up in all of Central and South America. That is a fool's errand. I'll bet $10T would be soaked up with very little sustainable change. As long as we offer a welfare state to all comes, the pull factor will remain strong.

read albaby1 calmly explain in detail why doing so would be illegal and the courts would prevent his actions -- in fact, have already done so --

It's worth sticking around to read Albaby's patient step by step explanations. It's frustrating that they are so often proverbial pearls before cultists of the orange rapist.

They remind me of a conscussed individual who, on the way to the ER, would ask repeatedly,
"sano, where are we going?"
"The ER, man."
"Why?"
"You fell off your skateboard, man, and hit your head...hard."
"Oh."

1 minute later....

"sano, where are we going?"
"The ER, man."
"Why?"
"You fell, man, and hit your head...hard."
"Oh."

1 minute later:
"sano, where are we going?"
"The ER, man."
"Why?"

all the way to the ER...

...and at the ER window,
"sano, why are we here?"

But keeping with the burning building metaphor, the immigrants are driven from their building by the flames and seek asylum at the local church.

Sure, if the local church will have them.

Here, the local church is (presumably) Mexico. And there are a lot of immigrants that seek permanent asylum there. Applications for asylum in Mexico have risen a thousand-fold. From 1,200 in 2014 to 120,000 in 2022. The Mexican system is also being heavily strained, which is a big part of why Mexico is no longer receptive to a 'Remain in Mexico' program.

https://immigrationforum.org/article/mexicos-asylu...

15% of millions are also still millions (or hundreds of thousands) of people they haven't let go. That's why it's just dumb beyond imagining for an actual terrorist, trying to enter the U.S. to commit some heinous act, to try to do it by showing up at the border with no ID and claiming asylum. As opposed to the way that all the actual international terrorists did, which is to get some falsified travel documents and come in through an airport.

You're thinking like a lawyer. You need to think like a terrorist. Your statements are just flat out wrong here.
If I'm smuggling people in the United States, I'm sending them over the border. I'm blending them in with groups of little kids. I'm thinking up ways to get into the country with the explicit purpose of exploiting this rotten asylum program that we have.

Terrorists are driven and smart. You need to understand that.

As opposed to the way that all the actual international terrorists did, which is to get some falsified travel documents and come in through an airport.

and there's no better illustration than 9/10/2001 thinking than this statement.

Why bother?
Because we have an acute security problem on the border, right here, right now.
You tell them, "Before you can enter your asylum claim, you need to take a blood test for TB and <insert some random disease> at the border. Anyone who does not take this test shall be deported immediately".

Then you just...take your sweet time providing the tests.

Guess what that buys you? Leverage on Lopez Obrador. Big time.

bighairymike: Does he really have the hubris to suggest the USA can prop up the economies to extent crime dries up in all of Central and South America.

Tell it to hclasvegas... he's the one pumping Johnson.

Parole means something different, in the immigration context - but the point is that they are choosing to release them into the country, mostly because they don't have anything else they can do with them.

Yes, they do: they can not process them in in the first place by coming up with creative ways to block entry.

Biden is figuratively standing at the border waving a red cape and watching the bull charge on by.

And then read albaby1 calmly explain in detail why doing so would be illegal and the courts would prevent his actions -- in fact, have already done so -- it also reveals how little republicans know about the facts and the law with respect to immigration. - CO

------------------

I will admit to that. I have learned a lot about the nuances and why things are the way they are from reading this and other threads on this forum. So, I thank you for that. But it seems insane that a country with our strengths and resources cannot control it's borders. We are the mercy of infinite immigrants from around the world in whatever numbers they choose to arrive in and all we an do is build more processing capability. It doesn't have to be this way. It can't be this way because.... math.

Formally applying for asylum and sitting down for additional background checks and interviews is beyond foolhardy. - Albaby

----------------

Not when your passport is floating in the Rio Grande.....

I will admit to that. I have learned a lot about the nuances and why things are the way they are from reading this and other threads on this forum. So, I thank you for that. But it seems insane that a country with our strengths and resources cannot control it's borders. We are the mercy of infinite immigrants from around the world in whatever numbers they choose to arrive in and all we an do is build more processing capability. It doesn't have to be this way. It can't be this way because.... math.

I don't grant them this.
Al has provided valuable insights into the law, but has been very rigid when it comes to understanding 1) the stakes involved 2) the motivation of the people coming to do us harm and 3) in assuming there's zero that can be done. There is plenty that can be done; there are a lot of moving pieces here in play that we could do.

Here's another one. Drug screen the persons and possessions of everyone coming in. While that happens they can sit in Mexico and become Lopez Obrador's problem.

Not when your passport is floating in the Rio Grande.....

Exactly. Terrorists aren't going to come across the border and present their resumes. "Oh, prior experience? Well, I'm currently between jobs, but last year I trained with Houthis in Yemen and before that I was with the ISIS guys in eastern Syria helping to re-educate little kids".

Nah. That's not what's going to happen. They're all going to have cover stories of being oppressed/chased/misgendered/whatever by some evil host regime.

In fact if I'm doing it I teach them some basic Bible verses and instruct them to tell the Border Patrol they're fleeing Muslim atrocities in say, Nigeria. This isn't that hard.

If I'm smuggling people in the United States, I'm sending them over the border. I'm blending them in with groups of little kids. I'm thinking up ways to get into the country with the explicit purpose of exploiting this rotten asylum program that we have.

Why would you do that? There's no benefit to trying to "blend them in" with groups of little kids - they'll be separated away from the kids immediately as they all go into government detention and an interview with a federal DHS official. There's no blending at all. You want to blend them in with a plane full of ordinary tourists (also with a bunch of kids) that are just going through ordinary customs. The whole point is to not get detained by the government - starting off detained by the government. You're detained until you can have your credible fear interview, which is far more intensive than what Customs would ask you if you were just on a plane. And you have to be successful in bluffing your way through through the credible fear determination with no documentation, passport, fellow-travelers, or even a cover story - else you can be put into summary removal hearings. It's foolish to the extreme. The "rotten asylum program" is only rotten because it's under-equipped to deal with hundreds of thousands of people who need to have asylum hearings before an ILJ, not because you walk out of ICE the day after Border Patrol picks you up with no real examination.

Just the dumbest plan....you're better off just trying to cross the border in the dead of night, rather than turn yourself into the Border Patrol. And vastly better off just doing what every other person who is actually trying to come to the country with a meaningful plan to do harm on behalf of a foreign terrorist group or enemy intelligence agency - just get some travel documents and fly in, like a normal terrorist/spy.

Then you just...take your sweet time providing the tests.

Guess what that buys you? Leverage on Lopez Obrador. Big time.

How?

You can't make them take the test before they enter the country. Because we're catching all these people on the U.S. side of the border. Because you can't physically prevent them from crossing the border, for the reasons we've discussed. You just catch them literally immediately after (and they're usually just turning themselves in anyway).

Once they're here, you can't prevent them from making their asylum claim. The statute allows them to do it. You can delay processing it while you wait for a blood test. Or after the blood test. Or just delay it a lot - again, we're already doing that, to the tune of 4.5 years. But they're already in the U.S., and you can't summarily deport them.

So how does that put any leverage on Lopez Obrador? Or accomplish anything at all? Again, if you just want to detain them until their asylum hearing, you already have the legal ability to do that - you just don't have anywhere to house them or the money to feed and clothe and attend to their medical needs.

I literally don't understand what introducing a blood test into the equation actually accomplishes. Are you imagining that they would have to await their blood test in Mexico? There's no legal way for the Administration to do that - again, these are all people who are already physically present in the U.S.

Yes, they do: they can not process them in in the first place by coming up with creative ways to block entry.

Let's hear one of these creative ways to block entry.

Remember, once they're on U.S. soil, they have the legal right to request asylum. So you have to prevent them from physically getting to the U.S., without being able to build a wall or fence on about 75% of the border (since it's in the middle of the river).

So what's your plan?

Dope: Inventing a justification for a medical screening hold on the border.

The courts have said no, no pretexts to keep people out. You also run the risk that if a court does see it as a pretext, you might just have increased the pass rate.

But it seems insane that a country with our strengths and resources cannot control it's borders.

Once more, with extreme emphasis:

We can change our border policy at any time. But it's Congress that has to change it. Not the Administration.

Our country has lots of tools to control its borders, but Congress is in charge of creating or allocating new tools. The Administration can only use the tools that have been previously approved. And those tools were designed for a different border population. The GOP is busy presenting all of this as Biden's fault, which is great politics for them, but since Biden doesn't have the authority to make major changes to the laws or resources at the border, it's kind of a misdirected effort.

Not when your passport is floating in the Rio Grande.....

No, it's still incredibly stupid. They're not going to let you out of detention before your credible fear interview, and without your passport or any other form of ID it's going to be hard for you to pass that. You're vastly better off having a falsified passport and just flying in, like all the terrorists who were involved in the WTC and 9/11 bombings. Or even just trying to sneak in across the southern border. Turning yourself in to Border Patrol with no ID, thinking that you can bluff your way into being released (rather than being in the 15% that's held in detention, which your "no ID" makes you a prime candidate for), is an idiotic plan.

Why would you do that? There's no benefit to trying to "blend them in" with groups of little kids - they'll be separated away from the kids immediately as they all go into government detention and an interview with a federal DHS official.

Because if I'm a terrorist and I'm studying my enemy, I know there's pressure to keep families together.

I literally don't understand what introducing a blood test into the equation actually accomplishes. Are you imagining that they would have to await their blood test in Mexico? There's no legal way for the Administration to do that - again, these are all people who are already physically present in the U.S.

That's exactly what I'm saying.
If I sum up everything you've posted, you're saying that there's literally nothing we can do except process 100% of the people who show up at the border and let them in.

That's crazy.

Let's hear one of these creative ways to block entry.

I gave you one. Health checks including blood draws. You give them a choice: Sit in a detention area or wait it out in Mexico.
You can also delay interviews.

There is plenty that can be done; there are a lot of moving pieces here in play that we could do.

Again, I'm waiting to hear one of these great suggestions of what the Administration could do.

Your drug screening test idea can't work the way you want, because you can't make them sit in Mexico while they wait. If they're in the U.S. and in our custody, they're our problem - not Lopez Obrador's.

hello albaby. you are a smart person...

"The thing about smart people is that they seem like crazy people to dumb people." ~Stephen Hawking

Again, I'm waiting to hear one of these great suggestions of what the Administration could do.

I've given you several. We're going to have to agree to disagree at this point as you aren't willing to entertain literally any possibility of an outcome other than just letting people walk right in.

"As long as we offer a welfare state to all comes, the pull factor will remain strong."

I have yet heard anyone provide a good explanation why it is the ...obligation... of the United States and its citizens to provide sanctuary and financial support to any and every person on planet Earth who decide to come here. Noone can name any other country who also accepts and shares this ...obligation ... to the entire population of planet Earth.

Because if I'm a terrorist and I'm studying my enemy, I know there's pressure to keep families together.

Yes - but you don't have a family. You're just in a group of people that includes some kids - but they're not your kids. They're someone else's kids. They're not going to keep you together with them.

If I sum up everything you've posted, you're saying that there's literally nothing we can do except process 100% of the people who show up at the border and let them in.

Not at all. There's a million things that Congress could do to change the situation. They could modify the asylum laws to authorize deportation of asylees pending their claims. They could allocate funding for the construction and operation of new detention facilities that can hold several hundreds of thousands of people. They could allocate funding for more immigration law judges and attorneys so that these cases get heard quickly enough that we can just use the detention facilities we have. They could adopt the funding and legislative wish list that Lopez Obrador might want to solve this problem for us. Etc.

What I'm saying is there's virtually nothing that the Executive can do on his own to fix this. He doesn't have the legal ability to change asylum criteria or processes that are set by Congress. He doesn't have the budgetary authority to just build massive detention facilities. He doesn't have any of the tools that you would need to actually solve the problem.

Congress has the power to solve this, in a host of different ways. Unfortunately, the political incentives are such that as long as the GOP can successfully attack Biden for the issue, Congress is extremely unlikely to act.

"You're thinking like a lawyer. You need to think like a terrorist. Your statements are just flat out wrong here.
If I'm smuggling people in the United States, I'm sending them over the border. I'm blending them in with groups of little kids. I'm thinking up ways to get into the country with the explicit purpose of exploiting this rotten asylum program that we have."

No, he is thinking like so many Americans with little worldly terrorist experience.

I gave you one. Health checks including blood draws. You give them a choice: Sit in a detention area or wait it out in Mexico. You can also delay interviews.

Again, that doesn't do anything. You can't make them wait in Mexico. And you can make them sit in a detention area for as long as you want already. You can delay the interviews for as long as you want, too.

You don't need the fiction of a blood draw to keep them in detention. What you do need is the billions of dollars required to build, operate, and staff all the new detention facilities you have to have if you start doing this. Which, again, has to come from Congress.

>>How about this, require asylum seekers to apply at a US embassy or whatever equivalent is in your area.<<

You could certainly do that, if you changed the law. But that's not what the statute provides. - albaby

--------------------

??? Congress is known for passing vague laws and relying on the Administrative State to regulate the minutiae of implementing the legislation. Are you telling me the Admin has no control over the procedure the immigrant uses. Does each immigrant get to define his own port of entry?

The legislation actually nails down this detail?

I've given you several.

You haven't given me a single one. None of your suggestions can work to deny them entry, because they're already physically present in the U.S. when you catch them. And you don't need anything new to keep them in detention once you've caught them.

Once again, the issue isn't letting people walk right in. It's what you do once you catch them right after they walk in.

Because you're not looking at the right problem, none of your solutions work. We can keep people from physically crossing the border at entry points - we're not letting them stroll across. But we're physically unable to keep them from getting onto the stretches of U.S. soil between the Mexican border and the first point at which we can build a wall or fence. At which point they are allowed to claim asylum and legally stay in the U.S. until the claim is resolved.

The problem is that our border control apparatus is aimed at the wrong problem as well - how to catch people who try to sneak into the country, and not how to deal with people who don't try to sneak but claim asylum.

Are you telling me the Admin has no control over the procedure the immigrant uses. Does each immigrant get to define his own port of entry?

The legislation actually nails down this detail?

Yep. 8 USC 1158(1)(a):

"Any alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival and including an alien who is brought to the United States after having been interdicted in international or United States waters), irrespective of such alien’s status, may apply for asylum in accordance with this section or, where applicable, section 1225(b) of this title."

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1158

Unlike virtually every other immigration application, the U.S. Code explicitly allows asylum requests from anyone who is physically present in the U.S. regardless of how they entered. For almost any other immigration application, arriving outside of a port of entry and crossing the border illegally disqualifies you from the request. But not asylum. Says so right in the statute.

But they don't have a right to move freely about the country, if that's what you're asking. - albaby

---------------

Sorry, I should have been clearer. There is a well defined process once they are accepted into the system. My question has to do with, can the Biden Admin declare the process is the would be asylum seeker can only present themselves at a port of entry?

Does the law require each potential immigrant to define his own personal POE?



Meaningless unless you back it up with anyone caught crossing at other than a POE, will be deported and forfeit their right for future immigration.

My question has to do with, can the Biden Admin declare the process is the would be asylum seeker can only present themselves at a port of entry?

Does the law require each potential immigrant to define his own personal POE?

As answered in the previous question, the law expressly provides that people can seek asylum even if they didn't declare at a port of entry. The Administration cannot prevent anyone who is physically present in the U.S. from requesting asylum. At all, whether they came in at a designated port of entry or not.

sano: It's worth sticking around to read Albaby's patient step by step explanations. It's frustrating that they are so often proverbial pearls before cultists of the orange rapist.

They remind me of a concussed individual...

The discussion of asylum seekers, refugees, and border security has certainly been a depressing revelation of how poorly republicans understand those issues and that the power to "solve" them rests not with the president but with Congress.

I, too, had a friend who was severely concussed, his concussion the result of rolling over a convertible Beetle after falling asleep at the wheel. He also kept asking what had happened over and over again. The discussions here between albaby1 and the republicans is much the same: albaby1 explains the facts and the law to them and asks them what the president might do differently and they give a variation of the same answer... and none of those answers keep migrants out, or remove them from, American soil.

But since it's likely none of these folks have been recently concussed, I think WTH is right and his observation about Trump's nonsensical presidential immunity argument applies to the border discussions -- "The idiocy of these arguments should also be obvious to any American citizen with an IQ above 75" -- which Neuromancer also immediately understood: "I think I see the problem..."

Yes - but you don't have a family. You're just in a group of people that includes some kids - but they're not your kids. They're someone else's kids. They're not going to keep you together with them.

*Bangs head on desk*
You think there aren't operations running right now where coyotes are trafficking kids across the border with Uncle So-and-so posing as their parent or guardian?

What I'm saying is there's virtually nothing that the Executive can do on his own to fix this.

This is where we'll just have to agree to disagree. We've seen all sorts of instances where creative rule making and clever usage of the administrative state could move mountains. The most recent example is Operation Warp speed to get vaccines delivered.

What's missing are the creativity to do it and the willpower to try.

You haven't given me a single one. None of your suggestions can work to deny them entry, because they're already physically present in the U.S. when you catch them. And you don't need anything new to keep them in detention once you've caught them.

LOL. YOU'RE the guy bragging how fast the Border Patrol was on the group that swam the river behind Speaker Johnson's press conference.

Again, as I asked Dope, why on earth would those folks choose to enter the country by turning themselves in and seeking asylum, rather than trying to sneak through either with falsified documents or trying to evade detection? Walking up to Border Patrol and handing yourself in is an idiotic move for an actual terrorist (as opposed to the two million people who are on the terror watch list, which doesn't mean they're actually terrorists, just people we want to keep an eye on). - albaby

------------------

Who says they are walking up? Some are probably, some try to sneak in and are caught. Others may disappear into the wind as a gottaway.

The Borer patrol periodically announces they caught five or ten of them who were on the watch list. They never detail the split between walk up's vs caught skulking in the desert. Don't see how that matters. The point is they are present in the population and pose a danger to us, more-so the more you let in, it's a numbers game.

We've seen all sorts of instances where creative rule making and clever usage of the administrative state could move mountains. The most recent example is Operation Warp speed to get vaccines delivered.

What's missing are the creativity to do it and the willpower to try.

No, what's missing is the type of statutory language that allows that sort of thing.

There are places in the statutes where the Executive is given a lot of wiggle room, and there are other places where they don't have it. Operation Warp Speed is an excellent example of that - the CARES Act (in response to Covid) gave the Executive a massive pot of money to use in almost any way he wanted to fight Covid, and the FDA statutes have all sorts of provisions that allow the rules to be bent in cases of emergencies - most notably the Emergency Use Authorizations (EUA's) that allow drugs to be rushed along in case of an actual emergency.

The provisions of the immigration laws don't have any of that stuff, which is why Donald Trump (who certainly didn't lack for willpower on this issue) wasn't able to push asylees out of the country either. The statute doesn't provide any flexibility to the Administration - people who are physically present in the U.S. get to ask for asylum, you can't send them back to their home country while it's pending, and you can't remove them to any other country unless you get that other country to enter into a bilateral agreement to take them.

Again - have you run across one of these creative ideas? What's your proposal for dealing with the massive number of people who gain physical entry to the U.S. (because you can't stop them from getting into the "swale" between our border fences and the border), and therefore have the right to request asylum without being removed?

LOL. YOU'RE the guy bragging how fast the Border Patrol was on the group that swam the river behind Speaker Johnson's press conference.

What does that have to do with the question? As I pointed out in that thread, the Border Patrol caught them instantly - on our side of the border. Because the Border Patrol can't enter Mexico.

That's exactly the point. All Border Patrol can do is catch them when they're already in the country. All a fence or wall can do for most of the border is keep the asylees on the "swale" and prevent them from having free access to the interior....but they're still already in the country. So they have a right to request asylum.

We're already allowed to keep them in detention for as long as we're willing to pay for it (to provide shelter, clothing, food, medical care, etc.). But we can't send them back home - or require them to take a drug test prior to applying for asylum - once they're physically in the country.

So again, what's your idea for dealing with them?

No offense, but you're really, really bad at this.
The point is you wait as long as possible on the blood test you require. - Dope

-----------------

That means we have to take care of them while they wait. That means tent cities for 100,000 or so. I am OK with that but prepare for the screams from the left.

I thought about this the other day as an amusing idea to post and discuss. So this reminded me and here it is.

Assume 100,000 immigrants need a certain amount of sustenance, food clothing, shelter, medical care whatever.

That consumption of resources would be vastly more efficiently delivered if all the recipients were consolidated, economies of scale and all that. Distributing them all over the US onto communities unable to handle them just mistreats the migrants and the cities that attept to serve, epecially whne 60% the don't have a valid claim.

Whatever the cost of vast housing at the border near POE's it would be less than is being spent now. The thing is, by dumping onto the cities, the true cost cannot be tracked.. $400 a night hotel rooms does add up.

And who knows, you could set up some immigration courts right within the holding areas, service would be FIFO so some long waits in holding would certainly arise. But as word spreads maybe not so many will decide to come here when it includes a one to two year wait in quarantine.

I can dream can't I? But somehow we need to meter the flow and buffer the difference in places designed for that purpose.

The Borer patrol periodically announces they caught five or ten of them who were on the watch list. They never detail the split between walk up's vs caught skulking in the desert. Don't see how that matters. The point is they are present in the population and pose a danger to us, more-so the more you let in, it's a numbers game.

It matters, because while it is plausible that someone might want to sneak into the country, it's implausible that they would voluntarily submit to the asylum process rather than other alternatives (like flying in on falsified documents). Which makes it exceedingly unlikely that any Administration could convince a judge that suspending the asylum process is necessitated by a national emergency. Which is why even DJT didn't do that, even as he was claiming a national security need to impose other "travel bans" in 2017 and 2018. Because it's implausible that you would allow the massive and extensive amount of entry through airports and seaports, but find the asylum process too porous. Because again, unlike travelling through ports of entry, an asylee is not only evaluated by federal officials also, but is subject to immediate and indefinite detention for any reason at all for as long as the government wants.

There's no way you could convince a judge that asylum applicants (as opposed to people sneaking across the border who just get deported when they're caught) pose a greater likelihood of containing bad guys than any other mode of entry.

Again - have you run across one of these creative ideas? What's your proposal for dealing with the massive number of people who gain physical entry to the U.S. (because you can't stop them from getting into the "swale" between our border fences and the border), and therefore have the right to request asylum without being removed?

Okay, fine.
Start making random audits of businesses tax information to figure out where some of these folks are working and make a few high profile busts. That's well within the authority of current law to do so. You don't have to bust every business; just pick an egregious violator and make an example of them.

Next I start flagging Tik Tok and social media accounts of coyotes (they have them) and start tracking these people down.

Then I have somebody in Mexico have a quiet word with the cartels. Let them know that unless they help tone this down there the gringos might do something unfortunate.

The point of the exercise(s) are to send a message that the party is nearing an end.

Congress doesn't want to do that, and it's kind of dumb to spend billions of dollars to put people in years of detention instead of just speeding up the asylum review.


------------------

Unless the review is instantaneous, you still have a housing problem.

LOL. Talk about giving the game away
https://twitter.com/EndWokeness/status/17443441007...

NY Congresswoman Clarke (D) saying the quiet part out loud about the border:

"I need more people in my district just for redistricting purposes."

Remember, it's a crime for them vote, lol.

And hidden among those migrants is just a smattering of terrorists, Chinese spies, ISIS wannabees, Iranian sponsored cell's, etc. You know they are there. Occasionally some stats come out about some number of downtrodden migrants were found to be on terror watch lists and arrested by Border Control.

Sources?

And your simple minded fantasy is that Trump has a magic fix. He does not. Congress needs to address immigration and asylum issues/policy. But the MAGA crowd is led by the nose into believing nonsense by Trump and the right wing media.

We can change our border policy at any time. But it's Congress that has to change it. Not the Administration.

No matter how many times you tell them, they just won't listen! Because they want this to be a reason to hate Biden.

Start making random audits of businesses tax information to figure out where some of these folks are working and make a few high profile busts. That's well within the authority of current law to do so. You don't have to bust every business; just pick an egregious violator and make an example of them.

How does that help? Many of them aren't working anyway, and stopping them from working just increases the burden on the communities they live in (because now they can't provide for themselves, so they need public housing and food, etc.).

Next I start flagging Tik Tok and social media accounts of coyotes (they have them) and start tracking these people down.

And do what, exactly? As you point out, these folks aren't hard to find. The reason they operate with relative openness is because the U.S. can't take any action within Mexican territory without the cooperation of the Mexican government.

Then I have somebody in Mexico have a quiet word with the cartels. Let them know that unless they help tone this down there the gringos might do something unfortunate.

If they were actually worried about the gringos doing something unfortunate, they wouldn't be in the cartel business. It's long been a far higher priority for the U.S. to stop the narcotrafficantes than it is to cut down on having too many impovershed Hondurans. As with the coyotes, they know the U.S. isn't going to do anything meaningful in Mexican territory - because the Mexican government will not (and cannot) be seen allowing the U.S. military to operate in their jurisdiction. They're a little tetchy about that, you know. They'd sooner agree to another round of "Remain in Mexico" than allow a foreign power to operate in their territory like that.

We've seen all sorts of instances where creative rule making and clever usage of the administrative state could move mountains. The most recent example is Operation Warp speed to get vaccines delivered.

Magical thinking. Sheesh.

Unless the review is instantaneous, you still have a housing problem.

A much more manageable one, and one that might not actually require increasing resources by all that much. We have lots of detention facilities along the southern border, and an existing budget to operate them. Some were the facilities where the controversial "kids in cages" images came from. The reason that they're inadequate for this purpose is because it takes so long to get people through the system. If each claim takes 4.5 years to process, then your population will be about 4.5 x the annual number of applicants.

If you hire enough judges to get that time frame down to a more reasonable six months or so, then you've reduced the number of people that would need to be housed by 90%, or roughly have a year's worth of asylee applicants. A vastly smaller number. And even if you don't detain 100% of them, the number of asylees who are not detained while awaiting their hearing will be a much more manageable number as well, and won't crush the communities they live in while awaiting their hearings.

How does that help?
By removing some incentives.

Okay, no more rock fetching. Other than putting it all on Congress to fix, is your position that there is absolutely nothing that the Biden administration is responsible for?

If you hire enough judges to get that time frame down to a more reasonable six months or so, then you've reduced the number of people that would need to be housed by 90%, or roughly have a year's worth of asylee applicants. A vastly smaller number. And even if you don't detain 100% of them, the number of asylees who are not detained while awaiting their hearing will be a much more manageable number as well, and won't crush the communities they live in while awaiting their hearings.

Hire 1 million asylum judges and process the cases instantaneously at the border.

The bureaucracy isn't the problem. It's the fact that more people are coming that we as a country can absorb. What's your plan to address that?

GOOD GOOD GOOD.

BUT>.........

We need to keep this up and the next stage is this should hurt the affluent white schools of NYC.

And neighborhoods.


I still say: It's time for Prom Night: Migrants, and hot yoga chicks at night in the Whole Foods parking lots.

Wellness for all....

If an one feels that's too harsh fine - but then - let La Reconquista continue and stop complaining.

Unlike virtually every other immigration application, the U.S. Code explicitly allows asylum requests from anyone who is physically present in the U.S. regardless of how they entered. For almost any other immigration application, arriving outside of a port of entry and crossing the border illegally disqualifies you from the request. But not asylum. Says so right in the statute. - Albaby

----------------
Wow, that is pretty clear and specific. Thank you for nailing this down. I wonder if the people who wrote this language knew that such abuse could result.

Other than putting it all on Congress to fix, is your position that there is absolutely nothing that the Biden administration is responsible for?

Of course not. There are plenty of minor aspects of the border control system that Biden has some discretion in implementing. It's still his Department under his managerial authority, after all. If Congresspeople aren't being communicated with well, if they're not managing expectations or communications with communities that are being affected, if they're not allocating resources efficiently or effectively....all those things can have a modest impact at the margins of the issue. Whatever the fixed points of the immigration statutes and the budgetary resources, the Administration can play the hand they're dealt either badly or well.

But the fundamental core problem can't be addressed unilaterally, because (again) the core structure of our border control apparatus is just not set up for this problem. Our laws and the border patrol are geared mostly towards apprehending people who cross the border unlawfully or physically preventing them from getting more than a hundred yards into the country. Even that was always thought inadequate (people have been complaining about illegal immigration for decades), but it was a somewhat non-crisis level of inadequate - because most of the time, catching the people was enough. Because you just deported them.

Now that's changed. There's too many people who aren't trying to sneak into the country, and don't even try to get more than a hundred yards in before being apprehended. They're turning themselves in. And we don't have the laws or the resources to handle those people. All our resources are focused on catching them or keeping them stuck at the border. And that can't work under our current laws.

If you want the problem fixed in any meaningful way, Congress has to do it. If you want to leave the problem fundamentally unfixed, but criticize the Administration for not handling the unfixable problem better, there's always going to be room to find some areas of criticism. Even an unfixable problem can at least be responded to either well or poorly. But it's foolish to expect the Administration (any Administration) to actually fix the problem without Congressional action.

Hire 1 million asylum judges and process the cases instantaneously at the border.

Democrats would approve that in a heartbeat. You don't need a million, obviously, and you can't do it instantaneously (the government needs time to prepare their case against asylum). But if Congress wanted to try a tenfold (or more) increase in immigration judges to get the processing time down to a few months or less, progressives would be 100% on board with that.

It's the fact that more people are coming that we as a country can absorb. What's your plan to address that?

If there are genuinely more people coming than we have the capacity to absorb, then there are some relatively uncomplicated ways to address it. Amend the laws to tighten the criteria for asylum. Add a "safe third country" requirement that isn't dependent on a bilateral agreement. Add more judges so there are fewer people in the country legally awaiting their asylum hearing.

There are more complicated (and uncertain) ways to address it as well. Come up with a mix of legislative and funding 'goodies' to blow AMLO's socks off so he agrees to Remain in Mexico. Engage in massive development aid and resources to lift the Central Triangle countries out of their hellish conditions. Or increase the capacity of the country to absorb more people, annually (we're a nation of 330 million and have had vastly higher proportions of immigrants in the past, adding >1% of the population per year shouldn't really be unmanageable, Canada manages to do it just fine).

All of these implicate different values in immigration policy, and different political groups prioritize and emphasize different values. Politically, there probably isn't a majority coalition for any single one of them. Which is why none of them get done, even though there's lots of different ways to handle it.

"The bureaucracy isn't the problem. It's the fact that more people are coming that we as a country can absorb. What's your plan to address that?"

Why is it the ...obligation...of the US and its citizens to absorb and support every person on planet Earth who chose to come here on their own volition. Name any other country who accepts this ...obligation.. to take in the peoples of the entire world.

Wow, that is pretty clear and specific. Thank you for nailing this down. I wonder if the people who wrote this language knew that such abuse could result.

Not all statutes are clear and specific - this one is. Which if you look at the problem, shouldn't be all that surprising. If even the DJT Administration couldn't find a way to keep asylees from filing claims when they had crossed illegally, you have to suspect that there's a good reason why not. There had to be a pretty clear law preventing them from stopping the asylees.

Which, again, is why it's kind of foolish to blame Biden and think Trump can achieve something materially different on the issue of asylees.

This provision was drafted as part of the Refugee Act of 1980, when the overwhelming number of refugees and asylees were Vietnamese and Cambodians who were fleeing the rather indisputable horrors of the new regimes there. I suspect that the people who wrote the language might not have anticipated that it would take so long for claims to be adjudicated - or even that very many of them would need to reach immigration judges, instead of being granted by immigration agents (you don't need a judicial hearing if asylum is granted administratively). Pol Pot's regime was so murderous, and it was so clearly the position of the U.S. that the newly-created Socialist Republic of Vietnam was a horror show, that nearly all of the asylum cases would have been pretty clearly approvable and supported by the U.S. public. I don't think they anticipated that one day people would regard folks coming to the U.S. to present colorable requests for asylum and protection as "abuse."

You don't need a million, obviously, and you can't do it instantaneously (the government needs time to prepare their case against asylum). - albaby

-------------------

That is something I never thought of. Are you saying it is a DOJ lawyer is acting as the prosecutor, the one trying to get the judge to deny asylum? If so, is the prosecution expected to prepare a case against granting asylum? So there is an opposing lawyer on every case heard?

Boater: Why is it the ...obligation...of the US and its citizens to absorb and support every person on planet Earth who chose to come here on their own volition. Name any other country who accepts this ...obligation.. to take in the peoples of the entire world.

Jeebus, you people are clueless.

In October 2023, EU+ countries received some 123,000 asylum applications, marking for the second month in a row, the highest level since the refugee crisis of 2015-16.

Germany maintained its position as the foremost destination for asylum seekers in the EU+, receiving more than a quarter of all applications lodged in the EU+.

At the end of October 2023, there were about 4.3 million beneficiaries of temporary protection in the EU+ who fled Ukraine following Russia’s full-scale invasion. Notably, Czechia hosted the most beneficiaries per capita, with 34 for every 1,000 inhabitants.

Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania, Poland, Norway, Netherlands, Italy, Ireland, Greece, Germany, France, Finland, Denmark, Bulgaria, Belgium, Austria, and others accept asylum seekers.

And that's just the EU.


https://euaa.europa.eu/latest-asylum-trends-asylum

Why is it the ...obligation...of the US and its citizens to absorb and support every person on planet Earth who chose to come here on their own volition. Name any other country who accepts this ...obligation.. to take in the peoples of the entire world. - boater

==================

I have reluctantly come to understand, through albaby's patient explanations, that we are in fact obliged to take in the peoples of the world. The goods news and also the bad news at the same time is the obligation is self imposed. We just need the leadership to change it.

Jawboning for change with all the enthusiasm as he does for global warming would be something Biden could be doing, that is if he cared, which he doesn't.

We are the mercy of infinite immigrants from around the world in whatever numbers they choose to arrive in

Dial back the hyperbole.

and all we an do is build more processing capability. It doesn't have to be this way. It can't be this way because.... math.


It is the way it is until, as has been explained over and over, congress acts.

So tell it to MTG, Matt Gaetz and the rest of the clown car drivers spinning circles in the center ring.

Are you saying it is a DOJ lawyer is acting as the prosecutor, the one trying to get the judge to deny asylum?

Yep. Or at least, I was - like you, I assumed it would be DOJ. Turns out that DHS has its own legal department, the Office of the Principal Legal Advisors (OPLA), with more than a thousand lawyers. I never knew. So the OPLA lawyers, not DOJ, are the ones that represent DHS in immigration court:

https://www.ice.gov/about-ice/opla#

As for whether every case has an OPLA lawyer - apparently not. I would have thought that the DHS would have counsel in each and every proceeding, asylum or not, but apparently they exercise discretion in whether to choose to send a lawyer to any given hearing. Not just asylum, but any hearing on any matter. For asylum, the government definitely can take an adverse position on asylum cases, and will even appeal the decision sometimes. I imagine that any of those cases would definitely be staffed by an OPLA lawyer, as well as any that involved novel or complicated legal issues. But for routine, run-of-the-mill asylum cases, apparently they might choose not to send counsel. I imagine that the government would then just appear directly through a DHS officer, but I couldn't find anything that actually says what happens then.

As for whether every case has an OPLA lawyer - apparently not. I would have thought that the DHS would have counsel in each and every proceeding, asylum or not, but apparently they exercise discretion in whether to choose to send a lawyer to any given hearing. Not just asylum, but any hearing on any matter. For asylum, the government definitely can take an adverse position on asylum cases, and will even appeal the decision sometimes. I imagine that any of those cases would definitely be staffed by an OPLA lawyer, as well as any that involved novel or complicated legal issues. But for routine, run-of-the-mill asylum cases, apparently they might choose not to send counsel. I imagine that the government would then just appear directly through a DHS officer, but I couldn't find anything that actually says what happens then. - albaby

--------------------

This is a fascinating tidbit. As the prosecution, does the DHS have to assemble a case on why asylum should not be granted? And in that role has to gather evidence to support its case? That could take a lot of investigative manpower, perhaps easier to waive them though with superficial screening. Or DHS being part of the Biden Admin could be going light on the prosecutions because... politics.

Banksy, whoever you are get back in the corner, sit on your stool and put
your dunce hat back on. Stop trying to interact with the grownups.

Sorry I have a medical emergency with my husband..

LurkerMom: Sorry I have a medical emergency with my husband..

Good luck with that.

Oh, no! Hope everything is okay.

"I have reluctantly come to understand, through albaby's patient explanations, that we are in fact obliged to take in the peoples of the world. The goods news and also the bad news at the same time is the obligation is self imposed."

I understand this, I am really asking to point out the general stupidity of this policy foisted off on the American people by their common sense challenged elected leaders.

"Jeebus, you people are clueless.

In October 2023, EU+ countries received some 123,000 asylum applications, marking for the second month in a row, the highest level since the refugee crisis of 2015-16."

Speaking of clueless, there is a huge difference between 123,000 applications spread out over a number of countries and 3-5 million and counting over a single country. Also, the EU countries you reference have exercised limits on accepting these people unlike the US who feels obligated to accept an unlimited number of Earths population.

Boater: Speaking of clueless, there is a huge difference between 123,000 applications spread out over a number of countries and 3-5 million and counting over a single country.

That's 123,000 per month in the EU, over one million annually. Plus, the bulk of those cases are in a handful of the larger EU countries.

And are you suggesting the U.S. gets 3-5 million asylum claims per year? In 2023 there were 478,885 asylum applications. And as albaby1 established earlier, about 40% of those claims are granted.

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/asylum-...

Wow, that is pretty clear and specific. Thank you for nailing this down. I wonder if the people who wrote this language knew that such abuse could result.
***
Many times.....

The Google Jockeys and Campus Bubble people.........have little clue about what really happens.

They wrote it, it was in a binder or now on some digital space and that's just the way things are.

"That's 123,000 per month in the EU, over one million annually. Plus, the bulk of those cases are in a handful of the larger EU countries."

123,000 applications, not acceptances. Many of these countries have capped the numbere of migrants they will accept unlike the US which feels obligated to allow in anyone who physically shows up.

"And are you suggesting the U.S. gets 3-5 million asylum claims per year? In 2023 there were 478,885 asylum applications."

I am suggesting that we don't know how many actual people we have in the country as a result of this foolish policy. The estimate of Gotaways alone is in the 1-2 million range, and that is just the ones we know about. The number of unvetted people that have been released into the country is also an unknown quantity such that the 400K figure of yours doesn't line up with the reported daily estimate of incoming people.

Jeebus, you people are clueless.

That's what happens to people who live in the right wing media bubble.

LurkerMom: Sorry I have a medical emergency with my husband..

Sorry to hear that.

Boater: Many of these countries have capped the numbere of migrants they will accept unlike the US which feels obligated to allow in anyone who physically shows up.

Then provide their caps.

In 2023, 351,915 asylum applications were registered in Germany, a country about the size of Montana. The majority from Syria (104,651), followed by Turkey (62,624), Afghanistan (53,582), Iraq (12,360), Iran (10,206), Georgia (9,399) and Russia (9,028).

Immigration isn't, as republicans love to claim, only a "U.S. with it's open borders giving away stuff" problem. Most countries are struggling with the masses of asylum seekers.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germany-sees-...

As the prosecution, does the DHS have to assemble a case on why asylum should not be granted? And in that role has to gather evidence to support its case?

Probably not, at least for the overwhelming majority of cases. Asylum, in this context, is a defensive claim - the person is claiming that because they meet the criteria for asylum, they should prevail in their removal proceedings and be permitted to remain in the U.S. as an asylee. The burden of proving that will be on the claimant. So I would expect most of the 'vanilla' cases will simply turn on whether there's sufficient evidence to support the individual's claims or whether those claims meet the categories of persecution necessary to qualify under the statutes. For most cases, I doubt the DHS needs to assemble too much affirmative evidence of their own. Plus, so many of these asylees are coming from the same handful of countries, making the same claims, that the 'vanilla' cases will often share a whole lot of similar facts. After doing a few thousand asylum hearings for families fleeing Guatemala, both the DHS officials and the immigration judges themselves will have a pretty solid understanding of the circumstances that asylees will cite in their arguments.

Undoubtedly there will be cases that are more complex, with either claimants or arguments that warrant assembling affirmative evidence on behalf of DHS' position. So I'm sure that there are cases where the DHS does put together a case in those hearings.

Immigration courts aren't Article III courts - they're administrative proceedings, so the formal rules of evidence and procedure don't apply. Generally, those proceedings are less formal, and probably more conducive to a non-lawyer DHS official being able to adequately present the government's position. But I am not an immigration lawyer, so I don't know the details.

This is how some EU countries feel about open asylum

Denmark
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/03/denm...

Poland
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1852064/polan...

Hungary
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59748173

Denmark:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57156835

And are you suggesting the U.S. gets 3-5 million asylum claims per year? In 2023 there were 478,885 asylum applications.

Thos people are not the problem. It's the two or three million per year who don't qualify. They languish on our country. consuming services, for four or five waiting on their hearing. Then many of know they won't qualify and don't show up. Or they do show up, get served a deportation order, but don't leave. Maybe they go down to the flea market buy a new identity and start the cycle anew. Some do leave no doubt, but it is by no means certain.

:""Yep. Immigration numbers were trending upwards, and the last year before the pandemic hit (2019) border encounters showed a huge jump under Trump as well. You can see the massive spike in the 2019 numbers in the graph here:"" Come on man, I'd rather get my info from Alex Jones than from govt websites under Mayorkas. This is on team Biden, end of story. Google Jeh Johnson interviews the past three years, don't cherry pick one sentence. Thank you."

People like you are why this country is falling apart.

You prefer getting information from sources that will tell you what you want to hear rather than inform you with actual information. You do not want to be educated. You want your views reinforced.

Democracy requires a well-informed populace. Unfortunately, there is a large segment of the population that does not understand what well-informed means.

Do better. Educate yourself. Become a more responsible citizen. Stop effing up the country with ignorance.

unlike the US who feels obligated to accept an unlimited number of Earths population.

Population. Boom.

The USA has been historically attractive as the 'land of immigrants', 'land of opportunity.' Change that and we become just one more country looking out for itself; at odds with all the rest of the nations. Americans will no longer be able to travel the world with the relative impunity we enjoyed.

So what's different now? Jets. Satellites. Nuclear subs. Missiles. Depleted marine protein. Rising seas. Droughts. Pollution.

And, dare I say it.... human overpopulation competing with robotics.

AI feeding the masses with information.

If the USA becomes isolationist, puts major military power on the southern border, 1) we will no longer be that 'shining beacon on a hill.' 2) Nations seeking expand (China, Russia, Korea) will do so with impunity, and
3) Israel will be wiped out and God only knows what will happen to the remainder of the the Jewish diaspora as Christian nationalists.

Bigotry, misogyny, racism will increase.

Maybe it's already cooked into the overpopulation pie.

Whiskey's for drinking, water;s for fightin' over.

It was fun while it lasted.

..and you gotta know that, just as Hitler blitzed Europe, there are a few strongmen leaders that would just love it if the USA became isolationist, turning a blind eye to the mayhem that would be sure to follow.

Solution?

Maybe there is none. We cannot afford to police the world as the rest of the world is no longer toothless in the wake of WWII.

Sadly distopian.

.and you gotta know that, just as Hitler blitzed Europe, there are a few strongmen leaders that would just love it if the USA became isolationist, turning a blind eye to the mayhem that would be sure to follow.

Solution?

Short term? Hire those judges and speed up the process. What's in it for the right? Less time for migrant to earn money, analysis shows higher chance of passing if you are represented by counsel. Don't give 'em a chance to earn enough to pay counsel, less pass. Right is happier.

Short term? Hire those judges and speed up the process. What's in it for the right? Less time for migrant to earn money, analysis shows higher chance of passing if you are represented by counsel. Don't give 'em a chance to earn enough to pay counsel, less pass. Right is happier.

I'm not sure that's enough to get the right to support this. Which is why it hasn't happened.

The right believes that immigration is strongly affected by pull factors - even among asylees. They generally believe that if you make things horrible for asylees - even if you make them unnecessarily horrible for asylees - you'll get fewer of them. As Jeh Johnson put it in the quote upthread:

"JOHNSON: Yes, [the Trump] administration believes fervently that a deterrent message, or “consequence delivery,” as they refer to it, is the principal way to reduce illegal immigration. We want to make things so terrible for you that you would never think of coming here. But no deterrent message can overcome the desire to flee a burning building. That’s why we have to address the underlying causes."

So even if there's an argument that an expedited hearing process might result in fewer successful applications, immigration hawks believe you'd still end up with more immigrants than if you force them to endure a years-long delay, because more people would make the journey and apply. Even though the delay imposes enormous pain on the communities these asylees end up living in, it's worth it to reduce the number of approved asylum applications.

So even if there's an argument that an expedited hearing process might result in fewer successful applications, immigration hawks believe you'd still end up with more immigrants than if you force them to endure a years-long delay, because more people would make the journey and apply. Even though the delay imposes enormous pain on the communities these asylees end up living in, it's worth it to reduce the number of approved asylum applications.

This is simplifying the right's position a bit.
Yes, we want fewer incentives for illegals to come here. The plain fact of the matter is that we can't sustain the numbers of people we're seeing cross the border. Yes, I know our history.

The notion of hiring more judges and making it faster to get through the asylum process only works if there were ironclad assurances that the Biden administration (or any future democrat administration, for that matter) wouldn't all of a sudden game the system, change the rules, and keep the floodgates open. The democrats have earned that level of distrust as they've been inconsistent and duplicitous partners since the Reagan years (where Reagan agreed to a 1-time amnesty in exchange for border security. The democrats got their amnesty and never gave security in return).

Here's Chuck Grassley on the process back in 2013

https://www.cairco.org/news/grassley-lessons-learn...
Unfortunately, we aren’t enforcing the laws we have on the books today. The American people don’t trust that we will enforce these laws in the future. We provided amnesty overnight in 1986 and didn’t fulfill the other parts of the equation. Border security, enforcement measures, and legal immigration reform need to be the first things on our agenda in 2013.

The notion of hiring more judges and making it faster to get through the asylum process only works if there were ironclad assurances that the Biden administration (or any future democrat administration, for that matter) wouldn't all of a sudden game the system, change the rules, and keep the floodgates open.

I'm not sure why.

I understand the quid pro quo demand for amnesty. You want to make sure that in exchange for a one-time normalization of the immigration status of every one in the country unlawful, there will be a successful effort to prevent future people from entering unlawfully. Because the purpose of the amnesty is to solve the problem of people being here unlawfully. You don't want it reoccurring.

But hiring more judges so that the hearing process works properly....isn't like that? The problem you're trying to solve is that people are waiting too long for their hearings (because that causes adverse impacts in the communities they're in). But solving that problem itself prevents the problem from reoccurring. If you have sufficient judges to handle asylum hearings, then you have sufficient judges to handle asylum hearings. You don't need ironclad assumptions about some other part of the immigration system. Fixing the problem fixes the problem - the hearings get handled timely.

Am I missing something there?

it's worth it to reduce the number of approved asylum applications. - albaby

======================

I may be speaking for myself but I personally don't care how many are approved as far as that goes.

My concern is that we have shot ourselves in the foot by making it so easy for people to claim asylum.

And we are stuck with astronomical support costs while having zero legal authority to constrict the inflow. All self-imposed, it is insane. The entire world will eventually drag down the lifeboat.

I may be speaking for myself but I personally don't care how many are approved as far as that goes.

My concern is that we have shot ourselves in the foot by making it so easy for people to claim asylum.

And we are stuck with astronomical support costs while having zero legal authority to constrict the inflow. All self-imposed, it is insane. The entire world will eventually drag down the lifeboat.

Seems pretty unlikely to "drag down the lifeboat," honestly. As noted above, under the current regulations we see about 30-40% of asylum applications approved. There were just under 500K applications filed last year. We currently approve about 20K-30K asylum requests per year (we don't process all the applications timely, which is why there's a backlog). So if we timely processed all applications within the same year they were filed, you would end up with between 120K-180K additional new legal residents, in a country of 330 million people. Which would be about 0.5% of the U.S. population. We would go from having about 1.1 million new legal residents per year to 1.2-1.3 million new legal residents per year (again, in a country of 330 million people). There might certainly be some costs associated with that - but some of those costs would be offset by benefits, and they couldn't possibly be large enough to support that metaphor.

So if we timely processed all applications within the same year they were filed, you would end up with between 120K-180K additional new legal residents, in a country of 330 million people."

Personally, I am more concerned about the 1-2 Million illegal Gotaways who have been allowed into our country that we have no idea who they are or why they are here. These people and their resultant actions are on The Democrats and the Biden administration.

Seems pretty unlikely to "drag down the lifeboat," honestly. As noted above, under the current regulations we see about 30-40% of asylum applications approved. There were just under 500K applications filed last year. We currently approve about 20K-30K asylum requests per year (we don't process all the applications timely, which is why there's a backlog). So if we timely processed all applications within the same year they were filed, you would end up with between 120K-180K additional new legal residents, in a country of 330 million people. Which would be about 0.5% of the U.S. population. We would go from having about 1.1 million new legal residents per year to 1.2-1.3 million new legal residents per year (again, in a country of 330 million people). There might certainly be some costs associated with that - but some of those costs would be offset by benefits, and they couldn't possibly be large enough to support that metaphor. - albaby

=================

Well, I have come around to your way of thinking, that the only available option is to expand the courts as necessary. However, the legislation that authorizes the courts must also modify the criteria for asylum to put some limits in place and by limits I mean some caps on the number of new applications that will be accepted linked to the current backlog in the courts. We must bring intake and processing capacity into equilibrium.

Apart from that, a lot of people will be necessary to staff the court operations plus temporary housing, food service, etc. I assume multiple processing center every 100 miles or so along the border. That would take 20 centers to be built and staffed. Living in the desert at one of these centers may make it hard to attract and retain employees.

Boater: These people and their resultant actions are on The Democrats and the Biden administration.

No, those people and their resultant actions are on the republican-led House which turned down Biden's budget request which included funds for CBP to hire an additional 350 Border Patrol Agents, $535 million for border security technology at and between ports of entry, $40 million to combat fentanyl trafficking and disrupt transnational criminal organizations, and funds to hire an additional 460 processing assistants at CBP and ICE.

So, it's on you and the representatives you voted into office.

The entire world will eventually drag down the lifeboat.

Hooray for the self-righteous conservatives, koran kreeps, bible thumpers, misogynists, homophobes, and the rest of the anti-family family planning, anti-contraception, anti-abortion regressives for the cozy quarters.

Remember what you are voting for as the water starts spilling over the gunwhales, the hordes frantically shifting their weight from one side to t'other.

The entire world will eventually drag down the lifeboat.

If it was exponential, we would be seeing graphs of that and everyone wold be alarmed. We can place restrictions on how many asylees pass but you are actually going to have to work with Dems and compromise. The idea that if you hold out you'll get everything you want has brought us to here - where neither of us wants to be. If you work with Dems we want to be humane - I won't back sending a message of "we treat you horribly so don't come". The goodwill we have in the world is extremely valuable, no squandering it, OK?

I found it interesting that no matter how much detail you provide regarding the law, and supporting links, some people insist that a potus can just bypass all that.

They seem to refuse to accept that congressional action is necessary.

They should be screaming at their congress-critters and threatening to vote THEM out.

I found it interesting that no matter how much detail you provide regarding the law, and supporting links, some people insist that a potus can just bypass all that

Hugely frightening. Those people seem to think we are already a dictatorship. So if Trump came in, got his way and turned us into a dictatorship, it seems the bulk of his supporters wouldn't even know that anything changed. The conditions are ripe for that to happen.

I found it interesting that no matter how much detail you provide regarding the law, and supporting links, some people insist that a potus can just bypass all that.

That's not what's being said.

Those people seem to think we are already a dictatorship.

No. The challenge was to find administrative ways to stem the tide at the border, a challenge laid out by al.

The rest of you are playing to the stereotypes you have and using it as fuel for your paranoia. I for one don't have time for that, so...<click>

I found it interesting that no matter how much detail you provide regarding the law, and supporting links, some people insist that a potus can just bypass all that.

They seem to refuse to accept that congressional action is necessary.

------------------

I have come learn that congressional action is necessary. The president cannot hide from the issue claiming congress is the problem. Fine, you recognize their is a problem, a leader overcomes problems. POTUS can and should be out there, advocating legislation, pushing, shaming proposing, at every opportunity.

Instead Biden is silent, he made a day 1 proposal that was a non starter and has been silent on the subject since. Telling us how mean the conservatives are or how Abbott is demon is not what I a talking about. Biden does plenty of that. I mean he could be advocating for legislation with some open mindedness to incorporate conservative ideas into the plan.

Trump was up against the same legislation that Biden is. But that didn't stop Trump, you knew he was trying. No so much with Joe.

So if Trump came in, got his way and turned us into a dictatorship

---------------

Common talking point, can't happen, people who literally believe this is possible have no faith in our institutions. The generals and the military enforcing martial law. The states with their national guard and state police siding with the new dictator to suppress the population. 95% of citizens are freedom loving Americans and would never just lay down and comply. You think Jan 6 was an insurrection, hold my beer.

One common theme with authoritarian regimes is the elimination private ownership of firearms and preventing populists from running in future elections. Which party is attempting these things?

BHM: Common talking point, can't happen, people who literally believe this is possible have no faith in our institutions.

That should be "highly unlikely." I was disturbed to find out how much of our government ran on norms. Now you have 2025 making lists of people to replace other people. I'd rather not see their product, and all I have to do is vote against Trump. Simple.

Trump was up against the same legislation that Biden is. But that didn't stop Trump, you knew he was trying. No so much with Joe.

Some of that is perception, not reality. Because Trump and Biden face very different political incentives.

For example, one of the things that Trump tried to do was to adopt by administrative rule a "First Safe Country" requirement - basically the one that many folks think is already part of international law (but isn't) that a migrant has to apply for asylum in the first country they get to where it's safe for them. Of course, that was shot down by the courts.

When immigration levels started to rise after Covid receded, Biden also tried to implement that same policy. They tweaked it to try to get it past the courts, but it was essentially the same. But again, the courts have held it's illegal (again, for many of the reasons we've discussed at length on this thread):

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/judge...

But the difference is that Trump has a very different political position than Biden. On immigration, Trump gains if he can fail loudly; Biden gains if he can succeed quietly. Trump has every incentive to make sure that everyone knows he's trying, as you point out. His base wants to reduce the number of asylees, for reasons apart from reducing the collateral impacts of the "waiting around for hearing" population. He gains politically if he has a very restrictive administrative rule that fails. So his team made sure everyone knew about it - that everyone "knew he was trying." And if you get even some of your news from conservative-leaning media, they would have run that story heavily.

Biden has the opposite incentives. He wants the problems of the "waiting around for hearing" population to actually get solved, but he doesn't really want his base to know that he was doing anything to make immigration policy stricter. He just needs to fix the problem (so it disappears from the headlines), not have anyone think he's an immigration hardliner. So when he does the exact same thing as Trump, and the exact same thing happens, Biden doesn't have any incentives at all to have anyone know about it. So his team isn't out there trumpeting the proposed rule and letting everyone know that Biden tried and failed. And conservative-leaning media isn't going to let their audience know about that, either.

I found it interesting that no matter how much detail you provide regarding the law, and supporting links, some people insist that a potus can just bypass all that.

Yes, you require a blood test, then delay taking that, which leads to the question - what do we do with all those people until you draw the blood? Do they go to Mexico? But AMLO has said no. So do we shut down all border traffic until AMLO relents? Sweeten the pot till he changes his mind?

I think he thinks of it as a spigot you can turn off - and those who don't agree with him aren't clever enough to see what he sees. So he proposes to make serial administrative changes, throwing multiple pretextual road blocks up, possibly throwing the trade at the border into chaos, and use the leverage to shut off the spigot.

Enquiring minds want to know the details of this fabulous plan.

I found it interesting that no matter how much detail you provide regarding the law, and supporting links, some people insist that a potus can just bypass all that.

This is not uncommon. Nor limited to conservatives. It even has a name - the Green Lantern Theory of the Presidency. Ezra Klein wrote a nice summary of it (in the context of the Obama Administration). Here's the core:

According to Brendan Nyhan, the Dartmouth political scientist who coined the term, the Green Lantern Theory of the Presidency is "the belief that the president can achieve any political or policy objective if only he tries hard enough or uses the right tactics." In other words, the American president is functionally all-powerful, and whenever he can't get something done, it's because he's not trying hard enough, or not trying smart enough.

https://www.vox.com/2014/5/20/5732208/the-green-la...

Many people, on all points of the political spectrum, don't really acknowledge that there are very real constraints on the power of the Presidency. When a President from their coalition gets elected, they really want to believe that all of their preferred policies are now possible to get elected. When a President from the opposing coalition gets elected, they really want to believe that all of the negative things happening in the country (or the world) are that President's fault. The very real limits on Presidential power caused by checks and balances, the inertia of existing laws and budget allocations, and the tensions caused by irreconcilable positions within the two major-party coalitions are....well, they're annoying and upsetting.

It doesn't mean they think the President is a dictator, or should be. They just don't really think about the fact that we have a kind of weird form of government that gives the head of government a lot less power than in Parliamentary systems, and that being the Leader of the Free World doesn't mean that you have god-like powers to dictate foreign events.

They should be screaming at their congress-critters and threatening to vote THEM out.

And they seems to get herded away from that by blaming the Dems. Seems at odds because there are times where the Repubs control everything and should work on immigration, but apparently it's too lucrative a vote getter - so there's really no incentive to fix it - and a disincentive to fix it as its an easy vote getter. When was the last time a serious attempt was made to fix it that failed? Why did it fail?

So everything points to - we are stuck and there is no way out. We've been screwed for some time. Fairly bleak.

When was the last time a serious attempt was made to fix it that failed? Why did it fail?

Serious attempts are assayed almost every Congress. Often they break down before there's a bill that can get enough votes to pass a floor vote. The last one to pass one chamber was the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013.

They all fail for the same reason. While there is a large majority that would like to change the status quo, there is no majority support for any specific change to the status quo, and there isn't really a compromise that any majority regards as being better than the status quo. The current system is an inelegant kludge, but it's an inelegant kludge that until very recently ended up in a rather stable balance between immigration hardliners and migrant activists and business interests and the various centrist voters.

While all sides criticize it as a broken system, the de facto aspects of the current situation actually may achieve a better and more lasting balance between the policy preferences of those various factions than any legal de jure system could.

So here's the great mystery for America to solve.

How do ALL of the following assumptions fit into the same brain at the same time without causing some sort of cosmic scale implosion?

* Joe Biden is completele senile, addled and inneffectual in his role.
* Joe Biden and his former crack-head son mastermind a multinational grift extracting bribes from foreign leaders.
* The federal government and law enforcement are a bunch of jack-booted thugs bent on taking our guns and destroying freedom.
* The federal government needs to sieze millions of acres of private land and create a Korea style DMZ around the entire US to keep out "fereners".

In any properly functioning brain, that collection of thoughts undergoing processing in the brain would normally cancel each other out and result in a more moderate view of reality.

Regarding this,

Biden has the opposite incentives. He wants the problems of the "waiting around for hearing" population to actually get solved, but he doesn't really want his base to know that he was doing anything to make immigration policy stricter. He just needs to fix the problem (so it disappears from the headlines), not have anyone think he's an immigration hardliner.

What is the evidence that Biden would secretly like as hardline of an approach on immigration as Republicans? Let's divide this question into two explicit parts:

1) Does Leader X want to drastically curtail / eliminate "headache" immigration (asylum immigration requiring months / years of court hearings, flat-out undocumented immigration)?

2) Does Leader X want to drastically curtail / eliminate LEGAL immigration (apply first from abroad, H1-B work visas, immigration to follow US spouse or parent)?

I think all parties publicly CLAIM they support category #1. Of course, the legislative behavior of Republicans makes it clear they absolutey want this ISSUE but do not necessarily want to SOLVE it. At the moment, being "tough" on immigration is a perceived positive attribute of Republicans and a perceived weakness / ineptitude on the part of Democrats so perpetuating the status quo appears to be a political win for Republicans.

It is absolutely clear Donald Trump is also in favor of #2. The actual consequences of #2 if ever achieved fit perfectly with the racist, xenophobic white Christian nationalism / facism that Trump has been pushing since 2016 and has taken over what seems like 80% of all remaining Republicans.

I honestly don't know what Biden's internal thinking is on immigration. As a relatively moderate liberal with a relatively good read on labor aspects of economics, I suspect Biden is ABSOLUTELY not in favor of a total ban on immigration (like it could ever happen) and I am sure he is NOT in favor of UNLIIMITED immigration. I suspect he thinks the correct yearly volume of immigration into the United States is somewhere BETWEEN

* the current yearly count of LEGAL, completed immigrations (about 123,000)
* the current yearly count of ATTEMPTED (legal + illegal) immigrations

It's difficult to find consistent stats year over year showing how many people were granted citizenship (completed immigration), how many were issued green cards (in process migrations), how many are in earlier phases of paperwork and how many "encounters" occur at the board with ICS. One statistic referenced about 1,00,000 green cards per year. Another referenced about 1.5 million total immigrations per year. Yet another referenced about 3.8 milion "encounters" per year -- obviously most of those were turned back if the other numbers are correct.

The question is which number should it be closer to?

The US lost 250,000 workers between the ages of 21 and 65 due to COVID deaths. There could be another 1.5 million workers in that age group who contracted COVID, lived through it, but now experience long-haul COVID problems such as brain fog, exhaustion, etc. that prevent them from working in their original capacity. Not all immigrants may be able to step into those shoes at all levels of the work force but allowing more immigration can allow labor markets to recover from the shock induced by the pandemic.

While America has many economic, political and social benefits to offer any potention immigrant, current Americans are failing to recognize it is HIGHLY UNUSAL for an arbitrary person to decide they want to leave everything that is familiar to them, many leaving virtally EVERYTHING they own behind, to come to ANY new country. It seems likely only about 10-15 percent of current immigration maps to people who are leaving behind an okay existence for the dream of a fantastic existence in America. The vast majority of immigrants are FLEEING horrendous social conditions and collapsing economies.

Someone stated upthread in this god-awful long thread something about the United States no longer being able to both act as the world's policeman (protecting shipping, etc.) and act as the world's social worker. For decades, the US attempted both roles while also interfering in the politics of foreign governments on behalf of perceived US economic / military interests (see Iran, Chile, Central America for starters). In many cases, the current turmoil causing these dislocations is tied to blowback from America's prior meddling. Either way, the current situation is proof we need to look at the ENTIRE chess board. Solving "immigration" in the Western Hemisphere will be impossible if we don't help tackle the problems generating the desire -- corrupt governments, drug trafficking violence and climate related issues.


WTH

Many people, on all points of the political spectrum, don't really acknowledge that there are very real constraints on the power of the Presidency.

So, in essence, many people think the President is already a dictator with absolute power. Thus, they have no problem voting for someone who proclaims that they will be a dictator once elected!

Some of that is perception, not reality. Because Trump and Biden face very different political incentives.

Trump's motivation is also very different. He performs for audience response at rallies, polls and ratings. He is obsessed with his image, the responses to his performances. Politics is his current reality show; no different to him than relationship with McMahon's WWE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXodzjw4l1k

If the people (and/or right wing media) cheer, he feels he is successful. Actual results are of secondary importance to him.

What is the evidence that Biden would secretly like as hardline of an approach on immigration as Republicans?

To clarify, I don't believe he does - or that anyone thinks he does. My point was in the context of that specific discussion - whether Biden is trying to solve the problem posed by very large numbers of migrants entering the U.S. to seek asylum.

There's certainly evidence that he making some efforts to do that. He re-adopted the same administrative rule that Trump tried to get through, trying to re-impose the "First Safe Country" rule as a matter of federal code. It failed, in the same court and under the same arguments that Trump's effort did. He's done other things - like temporarily closing a handful of border crossings under the pretense of staffing issues until Mexico restarted some of their efforts to control flows along Mexico's southern borders. So the fact that Trump is perceived as "trying," and Biden is criticized as not trying at all, is due in part to perception.

There's a ton of other aspects of immigration policy where Biden is absolutely not on the same page as Republicans generally, and Republican hardliners specifically. But in terms of trying to mitigate the problem of more asylees than the system can handle, Biden is pretty overtly trying to take steps to do that. Those steps are simply limited by the many constraints on his ability to act unilaterally in this space.

Yes, you require a blood test, then delay taking that, which leads to the question - what do we do with all those people until you draw the blood? Do they go to Mexico? But AMLO has said no. So do we shut down all border traffic until AMLO relents? Sweeten the pot till he changes his mind?

I think he thinks of it as a spigot you can turn off - and those who don't agree with him aren't clever enough to see what he sees. So he proposes to make serial administrative changes, throwing multiple pretextual road blocks up, possibly throwing the trade at the border into chaos, and use the leverage to shut off the spigot.

Enquiring minds want to know the details of this fabulous plan.

LOL. You were one of the ones that WANTED to hear administrative proposals to help stem the tide. I've now come up with several.

And yes, several of your compatriots either forgot that or just don't understand the nature of high level interactions between nations or how high stakes negotiations with lots of variables play out.

For the record: this exercise has taught me how diabolically clever some of our laws are from the point of view of creating situations where we as a nation are held hostage by our amnesty policy. I strongly disagree that walls aren't the answer; and by "walls" I mean enhanced border security using natural barriers in places where you can't build a physical one.

And another thing, to further the point.

TX Gov Greg Abbott is illustrating administrative actions that can be taken by state governors along the border. A President serious about controlling things calls up all the border state governors and says "You folks can do these things and I'll look the other way" or instruct DOJ lawyers to not exactly fight tooth and nail in court if it comes up.

I do agree that we need serious immigration reform in this country, starting with tightening up asylum laws and procedures.

For the record: this exercise has taught me how diabolically clever some of our laws are from the point of view of creating situations where we as a nation are held hostage by our amnesty policy.

There's nothing especially clever about these particular laws. Sometimes Congress clearly and specifically says what the law is; and sometimes they leave it vague or give the Executive a lot of discretionary power. This is one of the laws where Congress has just pretty specifically said what the law is.

Again, that's probably just a result of when the law was drafted. In early 1980, the amnesty population was overwhelmingly fleeing Vietnam and Cambodia. Given our involvement in the wars there, our government's official policy towards the new governments there ("They're evil and Communist and they're terrible!"), and the fact that they genuinely were evil (the horrors of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge) made for an asylum population that had a lot of sympathy among the American public across the political spectrum.

This was a very clear moral question (of course people who are fleeing persecution should be able to take refuge here - we're not going to redo the MS St. Louis), and so the law provides very clear direction. It would be an ahistorical mistake to project present policy debates back forty years into the past.

AL: Serious attempts are assayed almost every Congress.

I see I'm going to need a better descriptor than 'serious". Maybe serious that had a decent chance? 2013?

While there is a large majority that would like to change the status quo

Well there's a bright spot. I'll take it.

the de facto aspects of the current situation actually may achieve a better and more lasting balance between the policy preferences of those various factions than any legal de jure system could.

My past idea that we could build processing in Mexico and keep everything over there probably won't work if we hire a bunch of judges to speed up the hearings/trials of the asylees. They'll want to be stateside. But you're right, that's our best option. I don't see how we can hire that many without Congress agreeing to it in a law. And fat chance we'll get a law.

So our local rw will vote for the Green Lantern powers of Trump, and he will fail loudly, blaming Dems, rinse - repeat. Now they're against alliances too.

If it's any consolation, you must be a good guy. Because you'd be a terrible bad guy or terrorist. You'd get caught and jailed in a heartbeat.

As a terrorist, you'd want to avoid detection. Not present yourself to border patrol. Add albaby said, it would be an idiotic plan to try to bluff your way through the asylum system.

I must be a not so good guy because I can think of a lot of ways to attack this country which would be fast more effective. Which I will not specify here, though any terrorist with his salt probably has thought of them too.

As a terrorist, you'd want to avoid detection. Not present yourself to border patrol. Add albaby said, it would be an idiotic plan to try to bluff your way through the asylum system. - 1pg

-----------------

You and albaby keeps saying this, sort of to rebut the threat the embedded terrorists might present. OK. But the fact is that DHS had announced on several occasions, they had arrested some number of border crossers who were on the terror watch list.

You may say yabbut, those guys were sneaking in with no intent to turn themselves in. Perhaps, but the fact is the massive throngs provide cover and distract the border agents from patrolling and instead they are stuck at the processing center handing out bottled water and processing paperwork. The massive number of the turn-ins indirectly contribute to the gottaway problem, which most assuredly included terrorists and other criminals that we would rather no

They just don't really think about the fact that we have a kind of weird form of government that gives the head of government a lot less power than in Parliamentary systems,

Most Americans don't understand the different parliamentary systems. I can remember when I was first introduced to the idea that with a vote of no confidence, a parliament can dissolve and new elections are held. Dissolve? What do you mean? Like the House of Representatives and the Senate dissolve? I cannot keep everything there straight, or which country has what system.