I am going to advance a hypothesis. Local people who feel threatened by the refugee children from Central America are the same people who were anti-immigration to start with, you know, back in the day. Yes, the people who smugly went around touting “Illegal is illegal” and feeling like they had just made some sort of deep observation or said something profound. What does surprise me is the fact that these same people are now attacking children. How stupid on my part. Why am I surprised!?
I have heard all sorts of theories about who these children are and why they are really here. I have heard that the gangs are planting them here as mules. I have heard that they are paving a way for their parents. I have heard that they are all MS 13 gang members. I even heard someone say that you stop being a child at age 12. You name it–I have heard it.
The truth is, the children probably each have a different story to tell. Whatever is driving these young folks to our borders, it has to be a desperate situation. There is nothing like coming to the land of the free, home of the brave and being screamed at in a language you don’t understand. When I see those nasty people lined up along the road screaming at busloads of children, I want to drive to their location just to punch the protestors in the face.
Bullies and child abusers go out and yell at bus loads of children. These are really very small people who would be so disrespectful of powerless, scared children with just the clothes on their backs far away from home and often far away from their parents and those who love them.
I find it truly amazing seeing adult men afraid of 8-year-old little boys and girls.
“Local people who feel threatened by the refugee children from Central America are the same people who were anti-illegal immigration to start with”
– fixed it for you
Please don’t. It was how I wanted it.
What about Governors of states who have refused to take these children? Are they bullies and child abuses as well?
For example, Democratic MD Governor O’Malley recently gave a speech about this crisis and said “Through all of our great world religions, we are told that hospitality to strangers is an essential human dignity.”
Yet at the same time he told the White House not to send any of these children to MD:
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/martin-omalley-border-children-maryland-108959.html
Then there is Democratic CO Governor Hinkenlooper, he also refused the White House request to take in these children:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2691843/Fresh-shooting-pool-Obama-Colorados-DEMOCRATIC-governor-refuses-White-House-request-host-illegal-immigrant-children.html
What should we call these guys?
I don’t know about Hinkenlooper, but I would call O’Malley smart. He doesn’t want those kids put out in the western part of the state. Ever been there? It ain’t Baltimore or Montgomery County.
Furthermore, I haven’t seen either governor out standing in the middle of the road shouting redneck sound bites at bus loads of children.
Really, you do need to read more carefully. Reading in the content areas is a critical skill.
They are attacking government policies that resulted in this disaster and the high handed way that the Feds are deciding to dump thousands of illegal aliens into communities while allowing many of them to wander off with merely a notice to appear for hearings.
They are attacking the federal policies and statements of the President that drew these thousands of children and non-children, coached them in to lying about “refugee” status, and stated that he would not deport children if they met certain conditions.
They are attacking the malfeasance conducted by this administration at destroying our border integrity. Why pay for coyotes when the Border patrol and ICE will move you into the country for free?
They are attacking the actions of a foreign gov’t that refuses to enforce THEIR border laws as long as they can pass those illegal aliens to our borders, knowing that they won’t be back.
They are attacking the entry of “children” that belong to various gangs.
They are attacking a federal government that feels that children are to be used as pawns.
Actually, according to my way of thinking, they are simply rednecks who like to bully children. If they feel that strongly, go protest at the White House rather than bully children.
Your world view on immigration is so lopsided and based on inaccuracies.
“Attacking” is the perfect word. It well describes the diatribes of the Tea Party, Faux News aficionados, and Nativists. It’s easy to bellow at children. How about some solutions. The kiddos are here. They have a right to a hearing. They have to be housed.
Why do the Nativists go ape-shit crazy over immigration issues without working to solve the problem? Don’t say “fence” unless you’re prepared to raise taxes to pay for it.
What I love is that the MD governor, a proponent of the current policies is attacking the policies of the Feds to put illegal aliens in his state.
Governor Hypocrisy.
@Censored bybvbl
Fence. Oh look…we have one. The illegal aliens are coming to the normal spots and letting ICE and the Border patrol apprehend them, knowing that they will not be deported.
And the money has been allocated since Reagan. Yet…the Congress somehow never actually improves the border.
You know….since all of the people are coming from Mexico, they are obviously Mexican.
Because we all know that Mexico enforces ITS immigration laws against illegal aliens staying in Mexico…and they wouldn’t cooperate with sending an invasion size group of illegal aliens to our borders, would they?
Actually, if you look at the article in the Washington Post, you will see that he is opposed to placing the children in a specific spot in Western Maryland. Translation: too many rednecks.
Obama has deported at least 400,000 illegal immigrants annually.
Let’s just cut to the chase. Do you want the military on the border with machine guns?
That’s a rather weak copout, there is one ‘specific spot I Western Maryland’ he doesn’t want kids placed in due to ‘too many rednecks’ (Westminster to be exact) so he refuses ALL kids into his entire state? I’m going to have to call BS on that.
His office claims that “it would be important to get the buy-in of the Congressional delegation and local officials” before making ANY decisions on where to place these kids. Typical stall tactic in an attempt to hold off a decision until/if this blows over. He is thinking about running in 2016 and he knows this could be a difficult issue.
The end result is he doesn’t want these kids in the state of MD, period. Or he would have accepted the kids into Baltimore where there is already a facility that can handle them. The only problem with that is inner city groups, mostly African American, have been strongly opposing this. From Chicago to NY to LA… next, Baltimore if he really wants to help these kids, which he doesn’t.
http://www.ijreview.com/2014/07/156679-video-angry-chicago-residents-say-obama-go/
Actually O’Malley hasn’t said he doesn’t want them in his state. You are ASSuming.
These don’t look like your typical rednecks to me: http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/07/must-see-video-black-americans-confront-pro-illegal-immigrant-supporters-in-murrieta/
What would you call them?
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/17455962-first-black-chicago-anti-obama-rally-around-crime-and-immigration
Are these rednecks as well?
Rednecks come in all sizes, shapes and colors.
@Moon-howler
I think that the National Guard should be activated to PREVENT crossing. If someone crosses the border they are ARRESTED. If that someone is an unaccompanied child, then if the parents are found, they are arrested and charged with neglect. They are then convicted and they serve their sentence and then deported. The child is placed into the protection of their embassy.
If they are teens over the age of 14, they are arrested and held until deported…just like an adult.
If we have to…build a few camps. I hear that FEMA is good at it. Use Halliburton to build it.
Well, spoken like a compassionate American. You are going to go into Honduras and arrest parents? What will the Honduran government have to say about that?
@Moon-howler
“Obama has deported at least 400,000 illegal immigrants annually. ”
Since this administration routinely lies and subsequent press has revealed an unprecedented release of illegal aliens, including criminals, by this administration, that number is very suspect.
You would think Obama lied if he said the sun rose in the east.
I know people who have been deported under his administration.
I think a lot of the right wing crap you read lies.
By the way, the facility in Westminster MD which O’Malley supposedly doesn’t want to send kids to because of ‘rednecks’ has been vacant for decades.
It’s practically falling down and in a serious state of decay, it’s in no condition to house stray dogs let alone children. Have you seen video of it?
Here are a few more Nativists going ape-shit crazy over immigration issues without working to solve the problem:
Both MD Democrat Sens. Barbara A. Mikulski and Ben Cardin, had objected to the proposal publicly. Baltimore Democrat Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake also raised concerns.
“The site they had intended is not being considered at this time,” said Caron Brace, a spokeswoman for the mayor. “However, the urgent need remains.”
@Jackson Bills
What do you expect from the average politician now? If they aren’t sticking their fingers into the wind to check the direction, they’re sitting on their butts collecting a paycheck while doing little. It starts at the local level where some petty demagogue finds an issue that can get the local yokels stirred up. If he succeeds, he turns to the State level and then the Federal. He doesn’t become more open to compromise or finding solutions to difficult problems as he moves along. That would require work. The present Congress has limited itself to the light lifting job of sticking its finger to the wind instead of getting down to business. Most of them are basically manipulative cowards.
@Moon-howler
I didn’t say that people have not been deported.
I said that the “400,000 annually”number is suspicious.
Apparently 400,000 deportations is too low.
http://cis.org/vaughan/obama-deportations-definitely-not-record-breaking
But then, his administration is still not breaking any records with the real numbers.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-obama-deportations-20140402-story.html#page=1
Obama likes the fact that illegal aliens that are “settled” stay in the country.
“Expulsions of people who are settled and working in the United States have fallen steadily since his first year in office, and are down more than 40% since 2009.
On the other side of the ledger, the number of people deported at or near the border has gone up — primarily as a result of changing who gets counted in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s deportation statistics.”
Border patrol expulsions are also up or were up because of increased number of attempt by illegal aliens to enter due to Obama policies to not deport once you were settled.
for far too long ‘we’ have allowed the undocumented to do our business for us. Hire most service business of any type, and the labor is being performed by a non-English speaking fellow. Most likely (but not always) an illegal-immigrant. Why have we allowed this to happen over the past 20 years??
Conservatives fight for asylum for a German family so then can homeschool their children (really, asylum for home schoolers…), but fight to get children out who (some) are fleeing gangs, cartels and violence.
@Pat.Herve
Funny how their parents that are supposed to be here did not apply for asylum, what with all that supposed violence in El Salvador and Guatemala.
That vs the german family that faces arrest and their kids taken away.
By the token that those kids should have asylum due to crime…then we must take in the entire populations of any country that has problems like that.
@Cargosquid
Why does that number seem odd or suspicious to you?
@Cargosquid
Perhaps those settled immigrants aren’t breaking laws. Do you want the cops breaking into people’s houses looking for undocumented immigrants?
@Pat.Herve
I find the disparity rather telling.
This administration has been markedly more aggressive on deportations and border security than any of its predecessors in the last 50 years. As I’ve noted here before, I drove the border from Douglas Arizona to El Paso in 2008 and again (roughly the same route) in 2010. In 2010, the Border Patrol presence was at least double anything I saw the previous trip. That’s andecdotal, but it’s also real. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a problem. There is. But I don’t see it as a result of this particular president. If people could discuss immigration policy without being distracted by their reflexive desires to make the incumbent administration appear wicked, we might get somewhere. But it’s generally just a big electoral marketing ploy. I say we just delegate this to Bill Gates, Sheldon Adelson, and Warren Buffett. Their op-ed piece made the point that you could probably take any handful of competent citizens who had no motivation other than to find a workable approach and come up with something. It is, however, impossible in the current political climate for there to be anything other than hysterical screaming about the issue.
@Scout
Will you leave us that link?
I believe that the Obama administration has finally admitted that their deportation numbers were inflated by counting turnaways caught right at the border and sent back immediately into Mexico without bureaucratic and legal red tape.
@Moon-howler
They are here.
They are working illegally.
They have to be using forged documents.
All of this is law breaking.
@Scout
Not according to the link I have above at #22.
Obama has been below the historical numbers. And it has been revealed that his numbers were padded because they changed how deportations were figured. ICE has revealed that they will not deport “regular” illegal aliens.
Who cares, Cargo? The immigration issue isn’t about who deported the most people. I happen to believe, based on my reading and observation, that this Administration has been the most aggressive I have ever witnessed in that department. But suppose I’m wrong and it’s only the second or third most aggressive? The point has to be that we have thousands of minors showing up here right now and we have moral and legal obligations to process them humanely and intelligently, we have millions of uninspected entrants living in the country, we have an economy that must compete globally to attract immigrants at all skill levels to enhance a strong and vibrant national economy, that we have an immigration system that does a piss-poor job of making entry easy while maintaining security controls to filter out terrorists, that we have a sub rosa economy of hard-working people who must necessarily try to fly under the radar of licensing, health care, taxation, insurance, etc. that our national interests involves encouraging assimilation on some points while preserving our historic richness of cultural diversity on others. Forget the petty politics, man. Join the Buffett/Gates/Adelson approach and stop pettifogging this important issue. It’s not about Obama any more than it was about Bush II, Clinton, Bush I, or Reagan.
@ Moon – you’re asking the wrong guy when it comes to hyperlinks. I’m still walking around with stacks of tree-source newsprint in my hands. It was in the NYT or WSJ several days ago. Sorry I can’t be more helpful. They made the point that they agree on little politically, but they could figure something out just because the country needs it.
@Scout
Got it
Break the Immigration Impass
Its hard to find more different people that Adelson, Buffett and Gates, yet they found common ground. Excellent opinion piece!!!
Thanks for letting me know it was there. I hope everyone will read it.
Now if they will just stop funding politicians who stonewall immigration reform. (Adelson, I am talking to you!)
@Wolve
That sounds like “securing the border” to me. Isn’t that one of he great sound bytes?
Damn that son of a bitch Obama. He has secured that $%^&*() border!!!!
Mexicans apprehended at the border and sent packing. The nerve of that resident!!!!!
@Cargosquid
There are plenty of ways to work without using forged documents.
Having a TIN is one way. Being pad in cash is one way. Having a not so vigilant employer is another.
Are there consequences? Sure. Is it worth it to feed your family? I am sure there are people who think it is worth it. In the grand scheme of things, I am sure being charged with working in the United States is probably not one that is going to get you sent to Hell.
@Moon-howler
And how does one drive a car without a valid license? How does one go about applying for benefits without ID? Paid in cash? Without any W-2’s etc? Illegal.
And the idea that an illegal alien is acting lawfully just because they have a TIN is something only a gov’t that doesn’t want to deal with its own failed polices would invent.
I can tell by your questions that you have had very little experience with immigrants.
1. People either drive without a license, have drivers with licenses, walk or ride bikes.
2. The people I know don’t have benefits for themselves.
3. Many immigrants use case.
I never said anything was “lawful.” You do realize that just being here is a minor civil offense, this far away from a border?
Are you suggesting that those with a TIN should just be excused from paying taxes?
I would rather have undocumented workers paying taxes.
@Moon-howler
1) Illegal immigrants drive without licenses.
2) Who do they have benefits for, then?
3) Many immigrants do use cash. But the legal immigrants still get all the paperwork done legally.
I’m saying that having a TIN should not excuse you for the other crimes being committed.
If they are identified as an illegal alien, then they should be deported.
You and I both know that isn’t going to happen to people who behave themselves. That ship sailed a long time ago.
There aren’t enough trains, planes, or buses to handle that problem. There aren’t enough judges, ICE agents or support personnel either.
I think we have to look at how things really are rather than how you wish they were.
Do you ever ask yourself why people come here undocumented? Don’t you think that they would be legal if they could?
I have friends who have been married for more than a decade. He couldn’t get his status adjusted even though he is married with a child. Why can’t that happen?
Well….someone has volunteered to take ALL of the “refugees.”
I mean, it sure sounds like it, seeing how he’s equating these people with refugees from Nazi Germany. That would make it imperative in his eyes that they be accepted.
I would send everyone there. Its the right thing to do. ALL of them.
http://dailycaller.com/2014/07/16/democratic-massachusetts-gov-links-holocaust-to-border-crisis/
He is not equating anyone to refugees from Nazi Germany. Frankly, anywhere in the world, you will find children in harms way. As a citizen of the world, do you feel you have any moral, (not legal)responsibility to aid them in any way?
@Moon-howler
And why aren’t thee enough trains, etc? Because we kept and keep looking the other way.
I know why they come here. And if they can’t come here legally, they should stay home. My former bro-in-law is a naturalized American from Guatemala. He says the same thing. If he can do it, anyone can do it.
As for your friend getting his status adjusted, frankly, WHY should it happen? Why should he get special treatment?
He is married to an American. Why can’t my friend who is an American marry who she choses and live with him?
I bet your bro-in-law wasn’t 6 when he came here.
She can marry and live with him. In his country if she can get permission. That is how the law works. Or he can go home and work on becoming a legal immigrant. People do it all the time.
I don’t know how old he was…but he came here legally as did his mother. Anybody that puts children on the track to the US for illegal immigration through Mexico should be arrested and tried for abandonment and abuse.
Actually it was a policy change, I have one friend with a legal husband and one friend with an illegal husband It all depends on when you applied for a status adjustment. Doesn’t that sound arbitrary to you?
Are you going to go to Honduras to arrest the parents for abandonment? How is that going to work?
Yep, that is really “securing the border.” That’s why some of the internal Border Patrol checkpoints are located anywhere from 25 to 75 miles from the actual border. A second chance to try to catch some of those who have slipped through the first security tier. Personally, I don’t know how they can produce stats for this thing. How do you count how many you missed and never saw?
But that may be neither here nor there anymore. Heard a Border Patrol union official speculate recently that, with this mass migration and the need to shift BP agents from patrol duties to handle this huge influx, the rest of the border has been left much more open to the usual cartel smuggling operations. He said that we are, in essence, back to the border security status of pre-9/11. Drugs, weapons, more illegal immigrants…….and possibly worse.
What is the Buffet/Gates/Adelson approach? Bring in more foreign IT workers instead of hiring Americans so you can pay the former less and improve the company bottom line?
I have a real problem with importing foreign workers for IT jobs. If we don’t have enough workers, then lets jack up some of the colleges and tech higher education to produce the kinds of workers we need. It is absurd that young Americans go jobless or are underworked while we import workers from Asia for a pittance.
Wages follow value and supply and demand. I see nothing wrong with competing globally for the best technical talent at all levels (from field hands to phsysicists). Get the best people, treat them respectfully, offer them a piece of the rock (permanent residence and a means to attain citizenship on fulfillment of certain conditions). Sure, make our schools and universities competitive too, but it is a strategically wise approach to cherry pick the best the world has to offer (while we still have some ability to do that – America is not nearly as competitively attractive as it once was to high skill workers). There permanent presence here makes the economy and the nation stronger. If we don’t do this aggressively, particularly in the near term when our educational system is not performing well in these areas, we will be left in the dust by nations whose backsides we don’t particularly want to be permanent fixtures in our worldview.
“there” should read “their”. Speed kills.
I see both sides of the IT workers argument. It probably helps us if some of the best and brightest come here. For example this guy – the co-creator of Google’s search engine, which I think is actually mankind’s greatest acheivement to date – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Brin#Childhood_in_the_Soviet_Union