Not sure if this is in the right thread or if it should be in the one about cop shootings, but it looks like there’s some backtracking going on regarding what really happened with that shooting on the border yesterday.
After initially reporting the agent was attacked by migrants armed with “blunt objects,” the federal agency on Friday said only that the group “rushed” the officer after ignoring orders to get on the ground.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/25/us/texas-border-patrol-shooting/index.html
I can’t wait for the 3rd ending where we find out that call from J Edgar Hoover was really for the border agent.
I had another epiphany. Others (Sharpe etc) have written about how the immigration laws are not enforced at the employer level which would be more effective and make more sense (ignoring whether you believe immigration should be encouraged or not)
I realized that ICE serves as a very useful mechanism to keep employees down. Maid steals? Get her deported. Employees at the meat plant want to unionize? Get them kicked out. If you keep your head down, stay clean, are a good worker then it’s all cool, we won’t call ICE on you.
That is, not only does the current immigration policy not go after employers, it de-facto gives them another bludgeon to hold over employees.
(edit: Maybe this only works on nannies and small employers. I don’t know how expensive fines would be for a large plant, for example.)
Posting because I cannot contain my love for Mr Simon anymore! He’s a national fucking treasure, man.
This is a really good thread that drills down on a number that’s being tossed around without a whole lot of explanation – or understanding. It both clarifies what is going on, while still allowing for the idea that what ICE is doing by separating children from families is evil.
Another very good (and very important) thread to read on the “1,500 missing children” story.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/29/opinions/immigration-separation-mother-son-mirian/index.html
After I told the officers that I was here to seek asylum, they brought me into a room and asked me questions about why I had come to the United States. I told them of the danger that I had faced in Honduras – resulting from a military crackdown against protests following a contested presidential election. Each day people were disappearing; I fled just after the military tear-gassed our home.
I turned over documents that showed both my identity and my son’s, including my Honduran ID card, his birth certificate and his birth record from the hospital – and the latter two documents listed me as his mother. The officers kept all these documents, and they never asked any questions about whether he was my son.
We spent that night in a facility – it would be the last night that my son would sleep in my arms for months.
When we woke up the next morning, immigration officers brought us outside where there were two government cars waiting. They said that I would be going to one place, and my son would go to another. I asked why repeatedly, but they didn’t give me a reason.
Things are happening in the House right now, where a DACA/immigration bill is the proverbial wolf that Republican reps are holding by the ears.
There are apparently maybe a dozen – or more – moderate Republicans in vulnerable districts who are willing to join with Democrats on a discharge petition to force a vote in the House, whether Paul Ryan wants one or not. Call this the “Let the wolf go” group. While doing this may help these Reps in their immigrant-heavy districts, the broader worry is that it’s going to piss the Trumper base off, and they’ll just stay home in November.
The keep holding the wolf by the ears faction, meanwhile seems to think that this issue right now isn’t just killing them with independent voters – which it is.They don’t want this thing to come to a vote over what might happen in November if they face a backlash of apathy and disgust from their xenophobic base that they’ve cultivated.
Is the immigration stuff really killing them though?
It’s not really in the news that much any more, often buried under the mountain of other trash that comes out of the administration on a daily basis.
This is an honest question, so please don’t yell at me.
I think it’s impossible to tell what exactly would hurt the GOP House right now. So much shit happens every day that should sink the entire administration, GOP party, Fox News, etc, and yet here we are. On a humanity level, not putting something permanent in place for the DACA folks is just outrageous and no American should be ok with the elected officials that continue to ignore it.
It seems to consistently top the list of “stuff we’re most worried about” with Republican voters. And of course Trump keeps flogging his wall and MS-13 “animals”. Not to mention the recent stories about taking toddlers away from their parents.
It’s bizarre to me that people would list Unemployment as THE top issue facing the country right now. Really?
Ya, but the GOP voters who are worried about immigration aren’t worried that DACA folks are gonna get thrown out.
They’re worried that we have too many immigrants. Which is why most GOP leadership doesn’t wanna touch this.
The Democrats are the ones who actually want to solve immigration issues, but from that list, it kind of shows that immigration isn’t really that high an issue.
This is not hard to parse.
“Immigration problem” means too many Mexicans.
Yeah, I realized that after I looked at it again. Here I am thinking people care about others lol. Supposedly a good number of Republicans are in favor of a humane DACA solution but it’s clearly not their #1 priority by any means.
According to the Market Place Podcast, the issue with unemployment is that wages haven’t gone up, despite the high employment numbers. Also, a lot of people aren’t being counted among the unemployment numbers because they aren’t looking for work.
Oddly enough the argument is that when wages do go up, we will see unemployment go up, as more people decided to look for a job.
I mean I understand that it could still possibly be an issue…but the TOP issue? With all the shit happening daily, it just surprised me.
Republicans spent the last four years of the Obama administration trying to convince us all that the improving unemployment numbers were totally fake and that the reality was a post-apocalyptic hellscape of underemployed wage slaves and people who had just given up. That was the political part.
At the same time, business execs had no reason to contradict them, even in the face of rising revenue, because it’s in their best interests that their employees all think there’s a legion of people salivating to take their jobs at the drop of a hat, and probably at a lower wage. This keeps wages low because employees don’t think they have any negotiating power, even though that’s not true at all.
Everyone knows where their bread is buttered. All the financial networks are beholden to the executive class. They wouldn’t suddenly start suggesting that unemployment is so low that wages are going to have to go up now, would they? Instead, they remind us always about those mythical legions who have given up looking for work and will drop right back into the workplace just as soon as salaries go up.
Boogityboo!!