"The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions; whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment." —George Washington (1783)
Oh, what to do?
Making matters worse, first-quarter GDP growth of 2.2% was better than expected. Headline unemployment dropped to 3.8%, the best since 2000. The U-6 unemployment rate is at 7.6%, the lowest since 2001. Black unemployment hit a record low of 5.9%. Female unemployment is at 3.6%, the lowest since 1953.
So how can Democrats stop this progress toward "Armageddon," as Pelosi calls it? If they don't, it will be Armageddon for their 2018 prospects, as well as for Pelosi's chance to regain the speaker's gavel.
Well, here's an idea!
Create a social media firestorm with a viral image of children in cages, claiming it's "children ripped from the arms of their parents by Donald Trump" and comparing Trump to Hitler — even though the photo in question was taken when Obama was setting immigration policy.
If successful, it will help undermine Republican efforts to pass any meaningful immigration reform legislation, and this faux focus on "the children" will elevate the immigration issue and erode confidence in Trump and Republicans in the midterm election. Hey, desperate times call for desperate measures.
There's only one glaring problem: Democrats don't give a damn about American children, much less immigrant children, unless they can be used to advance the Left's statist political agenda.
Schumer exposed the Demos' indifference, making clear they are just cynically leveraging the issue by refusing to take Senate action to remedy the family separation issue. "There's no need for legislation, there's no need for anything else," Schumer declared after seeing how successful the Demo campaign to smear Trump has been. "If the president's ashamed at what's happening at the border, he can change it. ... [Republicans] are feeling the heat. They are the ones feeling the heat on this issue, and that's why they're squirming."
Wait, I thought the issue was young children "feeling the heat."
The irrefutable fact is, if Democrats really cared about children, they would notcontinue to advocate policies that institutionalize poverty and enslave tens of millions of Americans on their urban poverty plantations, created by their catastrophically failed " Great Society" "welfare" programs. But then, Democrats thrive on "victim constituencies."
(Need I add that, if Democrats really cared about children, they wouldn't redistribute taxpayer income to Planned Parenthood for the forcible removal of more than a thousand children from their mothers every day.)
If they really cared about the children of illegal immigrants, they would've written and passed their own "dream" immigration policies in 2010, when they had full control of the executive and legislative branches.
But they didn't.
Currently, there are about 2,000 children temporarily sheltered apart from their parents (or those claiming to be their parents), but there are also more than 20,000 kids separated from urban-plantation parents because those adults are in prison.
Fact is, Democrat policies have invited a flood of illegal immigration in the last year to their " sanctuary cities" by insisting illegal aliens won't be prosecuted.
How the times have changed!
Before Democrats realized their political future was in jeopardy, Obama insisted: "We are a nation of laws. Undocumented workers broke our immigration laws, and I believe that they must be held accountable. When I took office, I committed to fixing this broken immigration system and began to do what I could to secure our borders. Today our immigration system is broken and everybody knows it. ... We will [add] additional [border] resources for our law enforcement personnel, so that they can stem the tide of illegal crossing and to speed the return of those who do cross over. If you are a criminal, you will be deported. ... We expect people who live in this country to play by the rules."
Obama added, "To those members of Congress who question my authority ... or question my wisdom to act where Congress has failed, I have one answer: Pass a bill."
Schumer declared: "People who enter the U.S. without our permission are illegal aliens, and illegal aliens should not be treated the same as people who enter the U.S. legally. ... When we use phrases like 'undocumented workers,' we convey to the American people that their government is not serious about combating illegal immigration. ... I think it is illegal and wrong."
Hillary Clinton had this to say about DACA legislation: "We have to send a clear message — just because your child gets across the border, that doesn't mean your child gets to stay. We don't want to send a message that is contrary to our laws."
A few years ago, when Demos were still feigning concern for their blue-collar and union-worker constituencies, whose jobs and wages had been deflated by unchecked illegal immigration, they talked tough about illegal aliens. But their proposals were all smoke and mirrors. They routinely made fake political plays for Latino and Hispanic voters while pursuing policies that protected their traditional constituencies.
But as its lower- and middle-income voter blocs began hemorrhaging to Trump's promise (and delivery) of prosperity, the Democrat Party turned its back on those constituent groups and opened a socialist voter pipeline to flood our nation with their most promising future constituency — Latinos. And labor union fat cats, whose member rolls have also been hemorrhaging, see these largely unskilled and low-wage immigrants as their future dues-payers.
Since the implementation of Trump's zero-tolerance policy in April, rather than feed and release illegal immigrants who fail to return for asylum or deportation hearings, almost 2,000 minors, some young, have been separated from their parents at the border. However, as Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen noted, the vast majority of children currently housed in Health and Human Services detention centers — 10,000 of them — are minors who illegally crossed the border without their parents. Notably, she also disclosed, "In the last five months, we have a 314 percent increase in adults and children arriving at the border fraudulently, claiming to be a family unit."
Fact is, the drug cartels, gangs, human traffickers and Middle Eastern nationals are exploiting the border crisis in order to gain access into the U.S. For the record, last year 113 political candidates were murdered in Mexico and more than 50 of their relatives have also been murdered. The cartels and gangs are exporting that violence across our border.
Mexico is one of the most dangerous nations on the planet, and five of its cities rank in the top 10 most dangerous cities, including most notably Ciudad Juarez, right across the border from El Paso. (Last time I was there, seven federal police were killed the night before I arrived.)
Point is, our southern border is a dangerous place, and the Democrat effort to use children to put a smiley face on that fact, after advocating open boarders, is disgraceful hypocrisy.
According to President Trump: "The United States will not be a migrant camp and it will not be a refugee holding facility. It won't be. If you look at what's happening in Europe, if you look at what's happening in other places, we can't allow that to happen to the United States — not on my watch. We want safety and we want security for our country. If Democrats would sit down instead of obstructing, we could have something done very quickly. ... But just remember, a country without borders is not a country at all. We need borders. We need security. We need safety. We have to take care of our people."
National Review's Rich Lowry has written a good summary of the evolution of the enforcement issue related to children: "The Trump administration isn't changing the rules that pertain to separating an adult from the child. Those remain the same. Separation happens only if officials find that the adult is falsely claiming to be the child's parent, or is a threat to the child, or is put into criminal proceedings. The past practice had been to give a free pass to an adult who is part of a family unit. The new Trump policy is to prosecute all adults. The idea is to send a signal that we are serious about our laws and to create a deterrent against re-entry. (Illegal entry is a misdemeanor, illegal re-entry a felony.)"
Of course, immigrant families claiming asylum or refugee status at official ports of entry aren't separated from children. Only those who attempt to cross illegally are separated from their children while being processed through the courts.
As I noted above, American citizens are also separated from their children while justice is served. But those kids aren't good for leftist political agendas.
Just because the Trump administration is now finally enforcing long-standing immigration laws doesn't mean that families being held prior to deportation shouldn't be kept together during legal proceedings. Fact is, most of these illegal immigrants are seeking better opportunities — including "free" housing, schooling and medical care. And they are coming in ever-larger numbers because previous administrations have advertised that they can cross into the U.S. with impunity.
That being said, we should be concerned for the younger minors, those too young to understand why they are being separated from their parents.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has proposed legislation authorizing new temporary shelters to house families together until their asylum requests are processed. In the meantime, it's worth mentioning that the conditions and provisions for those children are infinitely better than the conditions and provisions they had before crossing the U.S. border.
Trump has repeatedly called on Republicans and Democrats to send him legislation resolving the illegal immigration issue. On Tuesday, he endorsed both House immigration bills that build the wall, close legal loopholes, cancel the visa lottery, curb chain migration, and solve the border crisis and family separation issue by allowing for family detention and removal. Agreement on this legislation has thus far eluded Republican consensus. The division in the Republican ranks has been a split over what amounts to amnesty vs. border security and enforcement.
We favor Virginia Rep. Bob Goodlatte's Border Security and Immigration Reform Act over the proposal by House Speaker Paul Ryan, and it will be an extraordinary achievement if the House can agree on how to merge the bills.
Regardless, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has signaled that stand-alone legislation to resolve the family separation issue will pass if one of the immigration bills doesn't.
If Republicans don't pass one of the two immigration bills currently under consideration before the end of the week, Trump is considering an executive order to resolve the short-term issue of family separation. "I'll be signing something in a little while that's going to do that," Trump said Wednesday. "I'll be doing something that's somewhat preemptive and ultimately will be matched by legislation I'm sure."
But that will not resolve the Ninth Circuit Court requirement that the adults be released after 20 days.
Regardless, as I noted, Demos don't want an immigration solution. They want fodder for political talking points to advance their statist agenda and midterm election prospects.
And finally, yesterday morning's incoming email from across the political spectrum included several dramatic Democrat Party fundraising requests. One was from foul-mouthed DNC Chair Tom Perez, inviting me to "Stand against Trump's cruelty to children."
But more amusing was the following appeal from Hillary Clinton: "What's happening to families at the border right now is horrific: Nursing infants ripped away from their mothers. Parents told their toddlers are being taken to bathe or play, only to realize hours later that they aren't coming back. Children incarcerated in warehouses and, according to more than one account, kept in cages. This is a moral and humanitarian crisis."
For the record, the most epic "humanitarian crisis" in decades was the direct result of failed Obama/Clinton Middle East policy. Almost five million people have had to flee Syria and other nations in the region with their families, and another six million remain displaced internally. Recall the dramatic images of a drowned refugee child washing up on a Turkish shore. It's estimated that more than 2,000 refugees drowned during that exodus.
According to Clinton, the detention of children on our southern border "is not happening because of the 'Democrats' law,' as the White House has claimed. Separating families is not mandated by law at all. That is an outright lie. And it is incumbent on all of us, journalists and citizens alike, to call it just that."
Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776
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