Octopus Overlords

Donald Trump is the poster child for the primacy of recency – or endorsing the last thing that someone said to him. And he did it again during his rally in Macomb County, Michigan last week. Evidently, as he was flying into town on Air Force One, members of the Michigan delegation, particularly State Republican representative Paul Mitchell, impressed upon him how the nation-wide labor shortage was hurting Michigan ag and they really needed a guest worker program.

Right on cue, after first regaling the audience with the need for the Great Wall of Trump to make America's borders strong, Trump abruptly pivoted and talked about letting more guest workers in, leaving the audience mighty confused, my friend and former Detroit News colleague Henry Payne reports.

For the farmers, OK, it is going to get good. We are going to let your guest-workers come in…We have to have your workers come in. The unemployment picture is so good, so strong. We have to let people come in. They are going to be guest workers. They're going to work on your farms. We are going to have a lot of things happening. Then they have to go out. We are going to let them in because you need them. You need them. They'll come on H-2Bs. And then they'll leave. In Wisconsin, I was very instrumental in getting FoxConn to come. A good friend of mine and a great guy. They make a lot of that Apple IPhones. They are incredible and incredible company. They are building a fantastic plan. It is under construction now. They are recruiting and getting people. They are doing it professionally. We need people to be able to come in to our country, do your jobs, help you on the farms…Guestworkers....Don't we agree. We have to have it happen.

I and others at Reason have written numerous times, scrapping the 1965 barcero program with Mexico sowed the seeds for America's unauthorized population because it took away the main avenue for hooking up willing workers with willing employers. And implementing a new and improved version of that program is the bestest, cheapest and freedom-friendlies way to stop illegal entries and truly secure the border—not misguided walls.

As walkouts by teachers protesting low pay and education funding shortfalls spread across the country, the small but growing movement to recruit teachers from overseas is another sign of the difficulty some districts are having providing the basics to public school students.

Among the latest states hit by the protests is Arizona, where teacher pay is more than $10,000 below the national average of $59,000 per year. The Pendergast Elementary School District, where Mr. Soberano works, has recruited more than 50 teachers from the Philippines since 2015. They hold J-1 visas, which allow them to work temporarily in the United States, like au pairs or camp counselors, but offer no path to citizenship. More than 2,800 foreign teachers arrived on American soil last year through the J-1, according to the State Department, up from about 1,200 in 2010.

I tried to take a bus down to Seattle, to then take a train to California, to go to a convention and visit a video games developer. The bus crossed the US/Canada border at around six in the morning and unloaded us into a barn-like facility. A border guard asked me if I was on the Seattle bus and I told him I was. He flicked through my passport and was unhappy with the stamps and tickets in it. “Show this page,” he said, flicking to what seemed to be the wrong stamp, and the line moved forward to a desk where another guard asked me about my travel plans. I told him I was going to take a train down to California.

“I don’t believe you,” he said.

Now, here’s a thing: when you’re telling the truth and someone says “I don’t believe you,” your situation is what’s most commonly referred to as A Problem. If that person is in a position of authority and has a gun, ratchet that up a notch. If that person begins to shout at you, to search through all your possessions in front of you and to ask you about all the things you’re carrying, even the things you take for granted and barely think about, dollar bill included, you’re having A Day.

I had A Day.

I saw a lot of things that day. I left the border some time in the late afternoon, after talking to a different guard about everything from my job to my family history. Toward the end of one of several protracted discussions, he leaned back in his seat and said “I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong.” I wasn’t sure what I would’ve done wrong, taking a trip like the many, many others that I had before. The guard’s boss, who ran the whole border crossing, decided I was an “edge case” and that I wasn’t in any trouble, but couldn’t visit the United States ever again in my life without a specialist visa. My passport was also flagged.

I am now, for the rest of my life, on a list, and after being told I didn’t do anything wrong.

(CNN) Claudia Patricia Gomez Gonzalez traveled 1,500 miles to the United States, hoping to find a job and a better future. Shortly after she set foot in Texas, a Border Patrol agent shot and killed her.

Gomez Gonzalez's shooting Wednesday drew international attention after a bystander posted video of the aftermath on Facebook Live, showing her lying on the ground, bleeding.
Authorities changed their account of the incident, adding to the controversy at a time when the White House has cracked down on illegal immigration.

A swarm of immigration agents arrested more than 100 workers at an Ohio gardening and landscaping company Tuesday morning, one of the largest of several recent workplace raids carried out as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration enforcement.

About 200 federal officers blitzed two locations of Corso’s Flower and Garden Center — one in Sandusky, on the shoreline of Lake Erie, and another in nearby Castalia, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement told the Associated Press.

Agents surrounded the perimeter of the Castalia location, blocking off nearby streets as helicopters flew overhead, AP and local television stations reported. They arrested 114 workers suspected of being in the country illegally and loaded many onto buses bound for ICE detention facilities.
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Officials expect to charge the undocumented workers with identity theft and tax evasion. They reviewed 313 employee records and found that 123 were suspicious, agency officials told the AP. ICE is also investigating the role the employer played in hiring the undocumented immigrants but has not yet filed charges against the family business, said Khaalid Walls, an agency spokesman.
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The massive raid came exactly two months after federal officials arrested 97 immigrants at a meat-processing plant in rural Tennessee, in what civil rights groups called the largest single workplace raid in a decade. It follows other workplace raids across the country, including a nationwide sweep of 98 7-Eleven stores, which led to 21 arrests. ICE officials described the January raid as the largest operation targeting an employer since Trump became president.

At the time, ICE’s top official said the 7-Eleven arrests were meant to send a “strong message” to other businesses employing unauthorized workers.
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Department of Homeland Security officials have been receiving tips into Corso’s Flower and Garden Center for years but began probing the business in October, when authorities arrested a woman suspected of operating a document mill, authorities told WNWO. The woman, Martha Buendia-Chavarria, was indicted in federal court in December of last year on charges including possessing false identity documents with an intent to transfer them.

This arrest led officials to employees at Corso’s. Through audits, officials identified more than 100 employees who had documentation issues, such as duplicate Social Security numbers and identification belonging to other people, Francis told WNWO.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions delivered a vigorous defense of the hard-line Trump administration policy that has resulted in immigrant children being separated from their parents after crossing the border illegally during a lengthy interview on Tuesday.

Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, who admitted he was “disturbed” by the separations, pressed Sessions repeatedly about the morality and necessity of the familial separations. But the attorney general stood his ground.

“If people don’t want to be separated from their children, they should not bring them with them,” Sessions said, echoing some of the remarks he made in May when the Justice Department announced that it would begin to prosecuting every person who crossed the border unlawfully, including many seeking asylum. “We’ve got to get this message out. You’re not given immunity.”
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“I don’t think children should be separated from biological parents at any age, but especially if they’re infants and toddlers,” Hewitt, who is also a contributing columnist for The Washington Post, told Sessions. “I think it’s traumatic and terribly difficult on the child.”

Sessions tried to draw a parallel to how the legal system dealt with American citizens.

“And every time somebody, Hugh, gets prosecuted in America for a crime, American citizens, and they go to jail, they’re separated from their children,” Sessions said.
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When questioned by Hewitt, Sessions admitted that he had not visited any of the facilities where the children are housed.

“But I believe for the most part they’re well taken care of,” he said. “We need to get this border under control.”
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Sessions denied that the separation of children from their parents was the goal of the policy. In April, senior immigration officials said that filing criminal charges against migrants, including parents with their children, would be the “most effective” way to stanch illegal border crossings. White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly called family separation a “tough deterrent” shortly after the new policy was announced.

There are two enormous problems with this “it’s just like how we treat other criminals” claim.

First is that U.S. government is ripping immigrant children out of their parents’ arms even when the parents didn’t actually commit a crime (including the crime of crossing the border illegally).

Second, in some cases the government is refusing to return immigrant children to their parents even after the parents are released from jail. That is not something that happens when parents are released from prison for other, non-immigration-related crimes, unless those parents are otherwise accused of being unfit parents. Which is not happening here.

Let’s talk about the first issue: ripping immigrant families apart even when the parents didn’t commit a crime.

There are lots of asylum-seekers who are doing exactly what the U.S. government has instructed them to do if they wish to seek asylum and avoid breaking the law: They are presenting themselves at a port of entry at the border, and not actually crossing illegally.

And yet they are still being separated from their children.

One of the plaintiffs in the American Civil Liberties Union’s case challenging forced separations of asylum-seeking families is a woman listed as “Ms. L.” After fleeing political violence in Congo, she presented herself and her 7-year-old daughter at the San Ysidro, Calif., Port of Entry on Nov. 1, 2017. Ms. L. also passed a “credible fear interview,” the initial screening for asylum-seekers.

She did everything right. She did not unlawfully cross the border. Nonetheless, according to her ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt, her daughter was still taken from her. Ms. L. was sent to San Diego; her daughter, thousands of miles away to Chicago.
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Ms. C. passed a “credible fear interview.” Before her asylum claim could be processed, however, the government charged her for the crime of illegally crossing the border, which is a misdemeanor. She was convicted and spent 25 days in jail. Because the jail could not accept children, her son was sent to a center for “unaccompanied children” in Chicago.

After she was released from prison, in September, she was first sent to an immigration detention center while her asylum claim proceeded. The government refused to release her son to her, even though there are detention centers that can accommodate families.

Then Ms. C was released to a nonprofit shelter for immigrants in El Paso, which was also willing to take her son. The government still refused to release him.

Government officials never alleged that she was an unfit parent or that her son would be in any danger if he were reunited with his mom. Authorities just refused to let them be reunited.

A public defender in McAllen says some migrants are told their kids are going to be taken away briefly to bathe, and then it dawns on them hours later they aren't coming back

GreenGoo wrote: ↑Sun Jun 10, 2018 10:22 pm

Someone else (holman?) posted this another time and I think it's going to become my go-to response for threads like this. I also hotlinked it because I hate Isgrim so very, very much. Or maybe it's smoove. Either/or.

Let me take an aside to discuss concerns raised by our church friends about separating families. Many of the criticisms raised in recent days are not fair or logical and some are contrary to law.

First- illegal entry into the United States is a crime—as it should be. Persons who violate the law of our nation are subject to prosecution. I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order.

Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves and protect the weak and lawful.

Our policies that can result in short term separation of families is not unusual or unjustified. American citizens that are jailed do not take their children to jail with them. And non-citizens who cross our borders unlawfully —between our ports of entry—with children are not an exception.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Thu Jun 14, 2018 8:37 pm I kind of feel bad for her and I have to believe she cries herself to sleep at night, but at the same time (as far as I know) she can just walk away from that job. No one is forcing her to be the mouthpiece for this nonsense. I don't know how anyone could do it, to be honest. The job is difficult during the best of times. For this administration? It has to be taking years off her life.

Holman wrote:

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Thu Jun 14, 2018 8:37 pm I kind of feel bad for her and I have to believe she cries herself to sleep at night, but at the same time (as far as I know) she can just walk away from that job. No one is forcing her to be the mouthpiece for this nonsense. I don't know how anyone could do it, to be honest. The job is difficult during the best of times. For this administration? It has to be taking years off her life.

She's Mike Huckabee's adult daughter. She has had her whole life to decide whether she'll countenance moral posturing for political advantage.

She deserves the contempt she has earned.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Thu Jun 14, 2018 8:37 pm I kind of feel bad for her and I have to believe she cries herself to sleep at night, but at the same time (as far as I know) she can just walk away from that job. No one is forcing her to be the mouthpiece for this nonsense. I don't know how anyone could do it, to be honest. The job is difficult during the best of times. For this administration? It has to be taking years off her life.

Enough wrote: ↑Wed Jun 13, 2018 4:37 pm

https://twitter.com/kasie/status/1006987707292246016

gbasden wrote: ↑Fri Jun 15, 2018 1:13 am I honestly don't understand how people can go to work, do this, and then go home and live with themselves. This makes me murderously angry.

I argue in my book Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others (St. Martin's Press, 2011) that there are two powerful psychological forces that fuel the dehumanizing impulse. One is psychological essentialism. Psychological essentialism is the tendency to think that every kind of living thing possesses a unique essence: a mysterious inner quality that makes it a member of that kind.
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One important feature of essentialist thinking is the notion that the essence of a thing is distinct from its appearance. Put simply, things can seem to be something other than what they really are. This principle is crucial for understanding dehumanization, because it implies that someone can appear to be human appearance but lack a human essence. Think of them as counterfeit human beings.

Scientifically speaking, this is nonsense. There's no such thing as a canine essence or a human essence. Nevertheless, the essentialist mindset is deeply entrenched in the human psyche, and powerfully influences the ways that we make sense of the world

The second psychological dynamic behind dehumanization is the belief that nature is arranged as a hierarchy. In earlier centuries, this was known as the Great Chain of Being. God, the most perfect being, was assigned to the topmost position in the cosmic pecking order, and inert matter was thought to lie at the bottom, with every living creature situated at some intermediate position. We humans (modest beings that we are) have always placed ourselves near the uppermost rank, and have supposed that every other creature is less than human.
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These two factors—essentialism and the belief in a cosmic hierarchy—work in tandem when people dehumanize one another. The dehumanized person is imagined as a human-looking creature with a subhuman essence. They are inferior animals misleadingly dressed up as human beings. This is how European colonists conceived of Native Americans, and how slave owners conceived of their human chattel. This is how the Nazis conceived of Jews, and how Rwandan Hutus conceived of their Tutsi neighbors. This way of thinking is reflected in dehumanizing epithets-referring to whole populations as lice, flies, rats, bacilli, dogs, wolves, monsters, and so on.
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Dehumanization has the function of decommissioning our moral sentiments. In dehumanizing others, we exclude them from the circle of moral obligation. We can then kill, oppress, and enslave them with impunity. Taking the life of a dehumanized person becomes of no greater consequence than crushing an insect under one's boot.

James Martin, SJ wrote:Paul, Bonhoeffer, King and the Law.

Earlier today, in response to the Attorney General's comments yesterday, I asked James Keenan, SJ, professor of moral theology and director of Jesuit Institute at Boston College, about what it meant to follow "laws" according to St. Paul.

"Without a doubt, St. Paul taught that the law was to be seen as an expression of God's will, but Paul also believed that following the will of God trumped all laws. Thus, Paul himself was arrested and according to tradition put to death.

"Clearly, depicting Paul himself as law-abiding conveniently bypasses and truncates the much more accurate understanding of Paul as obedient to the will of God.

"In the twentieth century, the two great witnesses to Paul are Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) and Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968). Both were clearly the most famous preachers of Paul in the twentieth century: the first was executed by the state; the second led for reform of the law precisely by acts of civil disobedience.

"Neither the life and death of Paul nor the magnificent witnesses of Bonhoeffer and King validate the offensive claims of Mr. Sessions."

James F. Keenan, S.J.
Canisius Professor, Director of Jesuit Institute

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Thu Jun 14, 2018 9:48 pm It's just so hard to believe that she could do that job and it's not sucking the life out of her. But assuming she's making that choice to stay, yeah, add her to the pile of people that historians can accurately describe as horrific. I dunno. Maybe someone is threatening her dog. That would at least explain some of it.

Keith Burris became the paper's editorial director in March. Burris did not immediately return a call and email seeking comment. A message left with publisher John Block wasn't immediately returned.

Block told The Washington Post last week the matter "had little to do with politics" or Trump but primarily involved the editing process.

Grifman wrote: ↑Sat Jun 16, 2018 8:26 pm The paper had rejected a number of his more recent cartoons and had taken a more pro-Trump attitude on the editorial page.

"Mrs. Trump hates to see children separated from their families and hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve successful immigration reform. She believes we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with heart," Stephanie Grisham, the first lady's communications director, said in a statement to The Hill.

Grisham's statement was first given to CNN reporter Kate Bennett.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Sun Jun 17, 2018 7:15 pm At least someone in the White House is capable of expressing empathy (through a communications director):

"Mrs. Trump hates to see children separated from their families and hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve successful immigration reform. She believes we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with heart," Stephanie Grisham, the first lady's communications director, said in a statement to The Hill.

Grisham's statement was first given to CNN reporter Kate Bennett.

Also, sick burn Melanie - though I'd disagree that "both sides" need to come together here.

Now, as a result of that decision, young Mexicans are being held for months without charge in shelters across the United States, sometimes without their parents’ knowledge. Since the program began in May, 536 juveniles have been held — 248 of whom have been deported to Mexico after an average stay of 75 days, according to Border Patrol statistics. Mexican authorities say some of these repeat border-crossers have spent as much as six months in U.S. custody while they await an appearance before an immigration judge.

By Joshua Partlow March 11, 2015

Rip wrote:

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Sun Jun 17, 2018 7:15 pm At least someone in the White House is capable of expressing empathy (through a communications director):

"Mrs. Trump hates to see children separated from their families and hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve successful immigration reform. She believes we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with heart," Stephanie Grisham, the first lady's communications director, said in a statement to The Hill.

Grisham's statement was first given to CNN reporter Kate Bennett.

Also, sick burn Melanie - though I'd disagree that "both sides" need to come together here.

Indeed. Only with Trump as POTUS could you lock up the poor kids.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/th ... ddc4f88f14

Now, as a result of that decision, young Mexicans are being held for months without charge in shelters across the United States, sometimes without their parents’ knowledge. Since the program began in May, 536 juveniles have been held — 248 of whom have been deported to Mexico after an average stay of 75 days, according to Border Patrol statistics. Mexican authorities say some of these repeat border-crossers have spent as much as six months in U.S. custody while they await an appearance before an immigration judge.

Oooops.