More trouble brewing on the southern border

He's the perfect example of racist boys playing out their fantasy of being able to play cowboy and shoot brown people for any reason.

 

If you would have told a Texan 20 years ago that he would align himself with Putin, them would have been fighting words. Donald Trump is the best investment Putin ever made

Top Putin ally says a 'destructive civil confrontation' could happen in the US over Texas border standoff (msn.com)

A former Russian president and ally of Vladimir Putin taunted the Biden administration over the Texas border crisis and suggested a "destructive civil confrontation" in the US could be coming.

Dmitry Medvedev criticized "senile old man Biden" for the high numbers of migrants trying to cross into the US at the southern border in a post on X on Friday.
................................
Medvedev said that the possibility of establishing a "People's Republic of Texas" is getting "more and more real," days after Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene suggested a "national divorce" between blue and red states over the issue of migration.

"This is yet another vivid example of the US hegemony getting weaker, a process that is happening from the inside, and is the result of the Americans' own actions," Medvedev wrote.

 

Yeah Russia, the US is so great we literally have to turn them away at the border.

Meanwhile your country sucks so bad that you need to invade neighbors and steal their children.

 

It could only be a matter of time before Russia builds a wall to keep Russians in Russia not unlike what East Germany did when Vladimir Putin was a KGB officer assigned to that (no longer existing) country.
Russia’s top talent fleeing to other countries

 

https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=df41...LXMtbWV4aWNvLWJvcmRlci1pbi03LWNoYXJ0cy8&ntb=1
Data through 21, doesn't separate men from women but states the overwhelming majority are single adults.

 

https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=79b3...aGljcy1hdC10aGUtc291dGh3ZXN0LWJvcmRlci8&ntb=1
Another on increased crossings and demographics.

 

Steve Vladeck's typically smart short essay on the existing legal landscape of federal -state authority and the role of the Court as the issue goes forward. I would strongly recommend this if one wants to understand the relevant law.
64. Federal vs. State Immigration Enforcement Under Arizona v. United States

 

If your link is a reply to my post below (relevant request only) it's unresponsive since I specifically requested data for 2022 and/or 2023. I would also note that fiscal year 2021 covers the period from October 1, 2020 through September 2021, it's not even limited to calendar year 2021.

I would further add the even your linked data doesn't indicate a majority of immigrants involved in encounters were single adults. While single adults were the largest category, the other categories were family units and unaccompanied children. A family unit by definition includes more than one person and assuming that the average family unit includes at least three people a majority of immigrants that ended up in the custody of the Border Patrol were members of families.

 

Our country is so addicted to governing by Twitter sound bites and “owning” the other party that we’ve forgotten how to govern.

Passing a border bill would be a huge win for Republicans. Typically they would run around the country afterwards screaming “see, we were right about the border”. And the bill would prove they were.

But now everyone runs to X to be the first to tweet “we can’t give the opposing party a win” when in actuality the opposing party is admitting its been wrong.

We’re so dumbed down across the board it’s pathetic.

 

If we are being honest about it, Biden realized a long time ago his border policy was a disaster and needed overhauling. He waited until election year to do his political about face knowing the GOP would likely not come to his rescue. He had both houses of Congress for the first two years of his term. He also has access to the highest level of IC data. Biden intentionally punted the issue to 2024. Of course the GOP are going to resist giving him that W. From a political standpoint, that's the right move and one that Biden knew would happen. Sucks for America, but when has that ever mattered? It is what it is.

 

Similarly and restating what I've said in several other posts over the last couple of years the Republican Party has ceased to be a normal political party and has essentially devolved into a cult focused entirely on the worship of a charismatic demagogue. What's really sad is that a majority of Republican officeholders probably know better. It's just that they have cowered to the point that they're afraid to dissent out of fear of being primaried by an opponent selected by the Dear Leader.

 

Have any of you read the bill? Is it good legislation?

 

I've read the Cliff Notes version of the bill. The bill gives the POTUS the power to "close the border," if immigrant numbers are too high to process. This is a potential disaster on many levels. There is a ton of business crossing the border going in both directions on a daily basis. Not just goods, but people going in both directions that spend money. Mexicans spend about $1 billion a year in the Tucson area, coming to malls and shops that they don't have in Mexico. In the other direction, when the Lukeville, AZ crossing was closed down, it basically shut down Rocky Point, which relies on visits from the US.

Closing the border would hurt everyone. It would create supply shortages, causing inflation. It would hurt businesses on both sides of the border, and hurting business on the Mexican side means less jobs in Mexico. Less jobs in Mexico also means more desperate people heading north for work.

The bill would also add more Border Patrol and asylum judges. The judges are needed, but more BP? We've gone from about 2,000 BP on the border in the 1980s to about 18,000 today. Has it helped at all?

Forcing immigrants who are seeking asylum to cross in designated areas instead of anywhere and then asking asylum isn't bad, as long as there is infrastructure to handle the traffic. That should be part of the bill, in my opinion, and I don't think it is.

Overall, the bill is more bad than good in my opinion. It's not like Trump actually accomplished anything to slow down undocumented immigration; the pandemic did, but not Trump. Giving future a future POTUS like Trump the ability to shut down the border completely? That has disaster written all over it.

 

I have looked at the bill and wasn't sure if all the actual text had come out. I think some of the major concern was the "number" for being too high was 5,000. Just a few years ago it was thought that 2-3000 was a crisis. I don't think that number has anything to do with normal crossing the border.
Last, if the bill is bad legislation, then what is the issue with Trump not wanting it? The fact that some house and senators may feel it is bad legislation also doesn't mean they don't want to fix the problem. A bad bill is a bad bill.

 

I think it's mostly a bad bill because it goes too far, giving the Rs what they want on the border, which is the POTUS ability to shut it all down. Had a bill like this landed on Trump's desk while he was POTUS, he likely signs it. But since it would be landing on Biden's desk, Trump doesn't want to hand Biden the win on the border. Forget what's best for the country! Political expediency dictates there needs to be a border crisis on the border to help Trump get elected.

 

My first thought was the same as yours, that closing the border was a bad idea economically.

But I wonder if beyond stopping the flow, if the intent is also to put more pressure on Mexico to do something about the people going through their country.

Right now Mexico doesn't really have skin in the game. Loss of trade with the US will certainly hurt them as much or worse than it hurts us.

 

I don't believe the bill allows for stopping and closing the border for general commerce and trade and folks crossing for that. I think the only stoppage would be for asylum seekers to keep the numbers to a more manageable amount. As I stated, I'm not sure all the verbiage of the actual bill has been released and all the positive or negative rhetoric is just gamesmanship on both sides till we see the actual verbiage of the bill.

 

I am still unclear on how we "close" the border. I am waiting for an explainer. There are two issues - legal and logistics. I think the "closing" being contemplated is purely legal. I am presuming (and waiting to read) that the treaty that requires an individual adjudication of every asylum claim has language like that we used during the pandemic (Title 42) to suspend or cap the number we will adjudicate on the basis of some finding, in this case exhaustion, being overwhelmed etc. This would allow those retained to be immediately removed (not sure about Mexico's role or treaty rights).

But understand that in no way can you truly "close" the border. That just refers to those detained. It is logistically impossible, not just for the US but for all nations with significant land borders. Plenty still entered during Title 42 "closure".

I am deliberately not addressing unaccompanied minors here. But the point remains that "closing" the border is not logistically possible, and may be subject to legal challenge.

 

Any bill that starts from the notion that the government should restrict immigration for no other reason than not wanting immigrants is likely going to be ineffective. I'd say that I'd be willing to try it to show how it doesn't work, but that is exactly what we have been doing for the last 3 decades, and no amount of failure seems to dissuade those that advocate for these sorts of laws.

When we currently spend 10x on border law enforcement personnel than we used to spend and have spent tens of billions on infrastructure on the border and still have people talking about how the border is "open" and can't provide any concrete amount at which point it won't be open (just "more"), it might be time to admit that the problem is the central notion of immigration control, not the lack of enforcement or focus on the border.

 

How is securing our border a "bad idea economically"?