Texas Governor Is Pissed At Biden's Border Policies

[Belsnickel]

(04-04-2021, 12:30 PM)masonbengals fan Wrote: Who deserves the most blame though. Opposition media or our President who stood on stage and said.
 
 "I would in fact make sure that there is, that we immediately surge to the border -- all those people are seeking asylum. They deserve to be heard," Biden said. "That's who we are. We're a nation that says, 'If you want to flee and you're fleeing oppression, you should come.'"
 

Still not the open border that the right-wing media claims it is and what the media in Latin America is claiming.

[fredtoast]

(04-04-2021, 12:30 PM)masonbengals fan Wrote: Who deserves the most blame though. Opposition media or our President who stood on stage and said.
 
 "I would in fact make sure that there is, that we immediately surge to the border -- all those people are seeking asylum. They deserve to be heard," Biden said. "That's who we are. We're a nation that says, 'If you want to flee and you're fleeing oppression, you should come.'"
 

Since this is not advocating for an "open border" policy I have to say the opposition media who has repeatedly claimed we had an open border policy.

Or as you put it "98% open".

[Dill]

(04-04-2021, 12:24 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: I do. The lies perpetuated by the right-wing media have spread throughout Latin America and that message of an "open border" has led to many people coming to the southern border of our country thinking that they will be let in.

I stand corrected.

[Dill]

(04-04-2021, 12:27 PM)masonbengals fan Wrote:  You apparently didn't read thru the comments posted in earlier in this thread about conservative media drawing immigrants here. 

 Right & Left wing media both are guilty of disinformation. No side has a monopoly on that. 

 I have no doubt Republicans will do/say whatever they can to get back in power just like the current bunch in control. 

Well if people in Central America are hearing from Hannity that the U.S. has "open borders," then Right Wing Media has played a role in drawing immigrants here. I concede my error on that.

I suppose in some general and suitably vague sense "both sides" of the U.S. media are guilty of "disinformation" if we can find a bad journalist with one news organization and some errors in an article published by another organization.

But at the moment the RWMM is driving disinformation to unheard of levels in the post-War U.S. and has created a "bubble" in which it can be coordinated, maintained and recycled without correction. The Big Lie about the stolen election is one example.  

There is nothing comparable on "the left" or "the mainstream media Mob" as Hannity calls the corporate press. 

And no, the "current bunch in control," arguing for a return to rule of law, did not do or say whatever they could to "get back in power."  That is the kind of false equivalence which undermines ethical judgment in politics. Trumpism is based in part on the assumption that "both sides do it" anyway. They don't.

[GMDino]

(04-04-2021, 12:14 PM)masonbengals fan Wrote: My gripe is Biden brought this onto us by his constant pandering. Just one example below. 

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/03/24/_biden_called_for_the_border_surge_and_now_he_owns_it_145471.html

And as a party the rest of the candidates were even worse. Remember Kamala ? The one supposedly in charge now. What a joke. 

I don't remember a mass of unaccompanied minors until just recently. Do you? 

His carelessness cloaked in compassion has exacerbated this whole mess. 

We couldn't agree more on coming here the right way.

Quote:Unaccompanied minors taken in at the U.S.-Mexico border, by month

March 2021

17,267*

projected

The current projection has a larger amount for this year but it has spiked before.

Whether you "remember" it or not.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/03/22/unaccompanied-minors-immigration-obama-trump-biden/

Quote:In 2014 and 2019, the Obama and Trump administrations faced a similar challenge, the result of desperate conditions in Central America and U.S. laws that limit the government’s ability to swiftly return most minors who do not qualify for asylum to countries other than Mexico and Canada. But Biden has had a markedly different approach than his predecessors to an influx Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said was on pace to be the largest “in the last 20 years.”


The Biden team has primarily focused its efforts so far on adding capacity to shelters and other facilities to absorb the influx, declining to implement policies that would send minors back because the administration considers the policies morally unacceptable.
Unaccompanied minors taken in at the U.S.-Mexico border, by month

March 2021

17,267*

projected

TRUMP
BIDEN
OBAMA
15,000
May 2019
June 2014
11,475
10,620
10,000
5,000
0
Oct. 2009
Jan. 2017

March 2021

Source: U.S. Border Patrol data reviewed by The Washington Post

THE WASHINGTON POST

Nine days into the new presidency, a federal appeals court gave the government a green light to resume President Donald Trump’s use of an emergency public health order to “expel” unaccompanied minors, typically by flying them to their home countries. Biden officials declined to do so and instead allowed these minors to remain in the United States and pursue humanitarian claims under U.S. law.


The Biden administration has continued to use the public health order, Title 42, to expel most adults and some families arriving at the border, a decision that is being challenged in court. Biden officials have, at times, misstated how the Title 42 expulsions generally worked under the Trump administration.


On Sunday, Mayorkas told NBC News that the Biden administration “will not expel into the Mexican desert, for example, three orphan children whom I saw over the last two weeks. We just won’t do that. That’s not who we are.”

During the Trump administration, most Central American minors were flown to their home countries, as Mexico would not allow the return of non-Mexican minors. Three out of 4 minors in HHS’s care in January were aged 15 or over, and only 13 percent were children 12 and under, data shows. About 70 percent were boys. The vast majority of minors are released to one of their parents already living in the United States, or another immediate relative.


The administration does not appear to have prepared or planned for the logistical challenges of accepting thousands of unaccompanied minors.


Legally, children and teenagers must be quickly transferred to the care of Health and Human Services and only stay 72 hours in CBP custody. Shelters run by the HHS are nearly 100 percent full and are holding more than 11,000 teens and children, including thousands at makeshift shelters such as converted oil workers’ camps and a Dallas convention center, the latest figures show. In December 2018, when Trump was president, those shelters hit a peak of holding 14,200 per day.


Another 5,000 minors are waiting for HHS beds in Border Patrol facilities not intended for children or tent facilities like the one shown in photos released Monday, more than twice the previous high of 2,600 in June 2019, data shows. The teens and children have been waiting for transfer to HHS care for 136 hours on average, nearly twice the legal limit.
Referrals to and discharges from HHS custody by week
400
200
0
200
400

Discharges from HHS custody

Referrals to HHS custody
Net difference
Dec. 17
Jan. 21
184

459

March 4

+275

Note: Numbers are weekly averages.
Source: Department of Health and Human Services data reviewed by the Washington Post
The difficulty of caring for so many teens and children is a particular challenge for CBP, whose agents are federal law enforcement officers primarily trained to seize narcotics and intercept adults attempting to sneak into the United States. The agency is ill-suited to cope with the complex emotional, physical and health needs of a youth population comprised primarily of teenagers but also some small toddlers and babies.


Minors in CBP custody must be separated by gender and age. Teenagers can be unruly. Younger children, known as “tender age,” are often distraught and frightened. Toddlers needs intense levels of care. And teenage mothers arrive with infants of their own, requiring separate quarters as they wait for an adult sponsor to take custody of them.


When the Obama administration faced the first major influx in the spring of 2014, Border Patrol stations with detention cells designed for adults were soon overwhelmed. Scenes of families and children spending hours on the ground in sweltering garages forced the government to rapidly add capacity.


President Barack Obama and then-DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson used military bases as influx shelter sites while opening controversial “family residential centers” where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement would detain families while their asylum hearings were initiated. Minors who did not have valid claims would be sent home, Obama said, while his administration prodded Mexico into a crackdown on the large numbers of teens and families riding north on top of freight trains.


The Trump administration faced an even larger surge in 2019, even after it implemented a “zero tolerance” policy that intentionally separated thousands of migrant children from their parents. In June 2019, after video of nearly 1,000 family members and children crossing into El Paso in a single group sent Trump into a rage, he threatened to cripple the Mexican economy with tariffs, coercing its government into another enforcement blitz.

Mexico used National Guard troops to arrest Central American migrants and allowed the United States to send tens of thousands of asylum seekers back across the border to wait outside U.S. territory. Told their cases would be quickly processed, many were left to wait for months in grim tent camps without a response from U.S. courts.


When the pandemic hit, Trump used the Title 42 public health order to effectively suspend immigration laws, and crossings plunged for all demographic groups. The number of minors taken into CBP custody fell to a low of 741 in April 2020, then began drifting upward, increasing more after a federal judge halted their expulsions, and 4,993 teens and children arrived in December, Trump’s last full month in office.


Biden officials have blamed the Trump administration for “dismantling” the U.S. immigration system and hampering its ability to respond to a sudden influx. But the refugee office of HHS expanded its shelter capacity to more than 13,000 beds in recent years, near the highest levels ever, primarily in response to crowding issues and backups that occurred during the 2019 crisis.


After the Trump administration implemented the Title 42 order, the HHS reduced its capacity to roughly 8,000 beds to allow for safer distancing during the pandemic.


When Biden officials announced in late January they would not expel minors, they essentially suspended pandemic protocols before the shelter system had returned to pre-pandemic levels. This month, the administration returned shelter capacities to their original levels, even as the coronavirus continues to be a threat.
“I do not understand why, having pretty good knowledge that you would get increased numbers, facilities and locations weren’t already pre-identified and either made warm or stood up,” said Gil Kerlikowske, who was CBP commissioner during the 2014 surge.


The Biden administration said it has made child welfare a priority, promising to reunite families separated by Trump at the border in 2018 and refusing to expel minors arriving into the United States without a parent.


“It is the best interest of the child that really define our actions,” Mayorkas said March 1.


But in federal court records, the administration has been far less categorical, saying the halt to expulsions under Title 42 was “temporary,” while health officials continue to describe border restrictions as a pandemic necessity.

“The current covid-19 pandemic continues to be a highly dynamic public health emergency,” Rochelle P. Walensky, Biden’s pick to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a Feb. 11 notice.
She said the agency was in the process of “reassessing the overall public health risk at the United States’ borders.” CDC spokesman Jason McDonald said the agency’s review of the Title 42 order is still ongoing.


Child-welfare advocates have applauded the Biden administration for attempting to restore and expand a refugee program for underage Central Americans and for stopping the expulsions of unaccompanied minors, even though their numbers would inevitably rise.


“That was the harder thing. They knew it was going to be harder,” Jennifer Podkul, vice president for policy and advocacy at Kids in Need of Defense, a nonprofit that provides legal services to unaccompanied minors.
But she and others said the administration must move faster to take children out of CBP facilities and into their parents’ homes.


“The White House needs to say: ‘This is the time. We need to do this in a totally different way,'” Podkul said.
“It’s going to be better for the kids. It’s going to be better for everyone.”

[masonbengals fan]

(04-04-2021, 01:25 PM)Dill Wrote: Well if people in Central America are hearing from Hannity that the U.S. has "open borders," then Right Wing Media has played a role in drawing immigrants here. I concede my error on that.

I suppose in some general and suitably vague sense "both sides" of the U.S. media are guilty of "disinformation" if we can find a bad journalist with one news organization and some errors in an article published by another organization.

But at the moment the RWMM is driving disinformation to unheard of levels in the post-War U.S. and has created a "bubble" in which it can be coordinated, maintained and recycled without correction. The Big Lie about the stolen election is one example.  

There is nothing comparable on "the left" or "the mainstream media Mob" as Hannity calls the corporate press. 

And no, the "current bunch in control," arguing for a return to rule of law, did not do or say whatever they could to "get back in power."  That is the kind of false equivalence which undermines ethical judgment in politics. Trumpism is based in part on the assumption that "both sides do it" anyway.  They don't.

I'm no Sean Hannity fan. So please don't tie me to him. 

Both parties will stop short of nothing to gain/keep/remain in power. Never doubt that & you won't be disappointed as much.

[masonbengals fan]

(04-04-2021, 01:26 PM)GMDino Wrote: The current projection has a larger amount for this year but it has spiked before.

Whether you "remember" it or not.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/03/22/unaccompanied-minors-immigration-obama-trump-biden/

We will see where this spike takes us. You may have faith in the current bunch to get things under control. I don't. 

I realize nothing I say or post will change your mind. 

[GMDino]

(04-04-2021, 03:23 PM)masonbengals fan Wrote: We will see where this spike takes us. You may have faith in the current bunch to get things under control. I don't. 

I realize nothing I say or post will change your mind. 

You were wrong that it never happened before...or maybe you just don't remember...so that point you made leads you to believe this is something new.

You are correct that "we will see". 

[fredtoast]

(04-04-2021, 03:23 PM)masonbengals fan Wrote: You may have faith in the current bunch to get things under control. I don't. 

Well since you never even knew it happened before that kind of discredits your opinion.

I am going to side with the guy who has a solid grasp on reality.

[Belsnickel]

Honestly, nothing is going to change at the border until a whole host of things happens. One, we need to actually fund the immigration system in a way that helps us process all of these people trying to get in. We've underfunded the immigration courts and the border security for decades. Congress needs to step up. Two, we need to word with Central and South American countries to help them figure out their systems. We need to not just install puppet dictators and allow our corporations to do the same. We need to work to repair the harms we have caused in the hemisphere and help them get to a better place.

[GMDino]

(04-04-2021, 07:58 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Honestly, nothing is going to change at the border until a whole host of things happens. One, we need to actually fund the immigration system in a way that helps us process all of these people trying to get in. We've underfunded the immigration courts and the border security for decades. Congress needs to step up. Two, we need to word with Central and South American countries to help them figure out their systems. We need to not just install puppet dictators and allow our corporations to do the same. We need to work to repair the harms we have caused in the hemisphere and help them get to a better place.

100%.

But those are real, policy answers.  Very few people in office want policies.  They want chaos to use to keep power.

[Belsnickel]

(04-04-2021, 09:37 PM)GMDino Wrote: 100%.

But those are real, policy answers.  Very few people in office want policies.  They want chaos to use to keep power.

Pretty much. Those are solutions to the issue that would mean it would stop being a political football. Gun control, abortion, etc., etc. Politicians don't actually want things done in those arenas that affect real change because then it would no longer be a campaign issue. It would lose value for winning elections.

[Dill]

(04-04-2021, 03:19 PM)masonbengals fan Wrote: I'm no Sean Hannity fan. So please don't tie me to him. 

Both parties will stop short of nothing to gain/keep/remain in power. Never doubt that & you won't be disappointed as much.

At your request, I have untied you from Hannity.

But I can go no further.  I cannot agree that "both parties will stop short of nothing to gain/keep/remain in power." To agree with that would be to agree that were their positions reversed, Biden could be expected to sabotage the mail service, use government offices to seek dirt on Don jr., push a Big Lie of election rigging in absence of proof, and incite thousands of fanatical Dem followers to march on the Capitol building to challenge the peaceful transfer of power. 

But there wouldn't be thousands of Dem fanatics ready to storm the Capitol because the parties are not asymmetrical mirror images of one another. Just as the MSM is not simply a mirror image of the Right Wing Media Machine, each circulating lies with similar absence of accountability.

The Republican Party is at this moment the illiberal party, committed to defending an authoritarian leader, because a majority of rank and file Republicans back his anti-democratic rhetoric and practice. 

"Both sides" aren't doing it.

[*jason*]

(04-04-2021, 07:58 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Honestly, nothing is going to change at the border until a whole host of things happens. One, we need to actually fund the immigration system in a way that helps us process all of these people trying to get in. We've underfunded the immigration courts and the border security for decades. Congress needs to step up. Two, we need to word with Central and South American countries to help them figure out their systems. We need to not just install puppet dictators and allow our corporations to do the same. We need to work to repair the harms we have caused in the hemisphere and help them get to a better place.

I think ending the drug war would help too.

[Belsnickel]

(04-08-2021, 02:57 PM)jason Wrote: I think ending the drug war would help too.

I just kind of wrapped that into my second point about repairing the harms we have done.

[Tiger Teeth]

(04-08-2021, 02:57 PM)jason Wrote: I think ending the drug war would help too.

[BigPapaKain]

(04-08-2021, 02:57 PM)jason Wrote: I think ending the drug war would help too.

We'd have to alter how our military salutes, because drugs 100% won that war.