Following Up: Sign the Deal – then Seize the Border Security Initiative

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border security, border wall, Congress, crime, criminal aliens, Defense Department, Democrats, detention, Following Up, government shutdown, ICE, illegal aliens, Immigration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, national emergency, shutdown, Trump

From what’s known of it, I’m as angry about the border security deal reached last night by Congressional negotiators to avert a new partial federal government shutdown as much as any immigration realist and/or supporter of President Trump. Even so, I would urge the President to sign it. (If he can win a few small improvements over the next day or two, as he’s just suggested he’ll seek, fine – but nothing achievable is worth sinking the agreement.) Then I’d recommend that he move to keep his promise that “we’ll be building the wall anyway” by using statutory authority to use Defense Department and other federal assets and resources to engage in barrier construction and secure the border in various other ways. In addition, the Trump administration should redouble efforts to keep his opponents on the defensive politically by shining the spotlight even more brightly on border security gaps left wide open by deal provisions they’ve insisted on.

I know that in yesterday’s post I argued that the Congressional Democrats, who have increasingly made clear their desire to gut meaningful border security completely, would both own a new shutdown morally (in terms of responsibility for government workers and contractors temporarily denied paychecks) and possibly pay a heavy price politically. The trouble is, that contention assumed that the Democrats’ latest cynical gambit, a new, goalpost-moving demand to shrivel (further) the federal government’s ability to detain apprehended illegal aliens – including surging numbers of border crossers – until their status hearings are held, would prevent the negotiators from reaching any agreement.

Consequently, any number of such aliens, including convicted criminals, would be released into American society, with little reason to believe many of them would risk a deportation decision (which would not be first for many). The result, as I wrote yesterday, would be a big victory for the Democrats’ principal goal of maximizing the number of migrants who can set foot on American soil to begin with, who consequently could avail themselves of the full range of legal due process protections to which everyone within U.S. territory is entitled, who would be released before their status hearings, and who would be scot-free to live and work in the United States until the Open Borders crowd could implement yet another amnesty.

Instead, the negotiators came to a conclusion that they, at least – if not necessarily many in their respective parties – could accept. There’s no denying that its threadbare reported barrier appropriation figure ($1.375 billion) would leave the current border security situation just about as unacceptable as it is today. So would the reported new quota on detention beds, which represent a big part of Washington’s ability to ensure that individuals arrested for immigration-law and related transgressions show up for hearings.

Final judgment should be withheld until the official text of the deal is released – especially on the beds issue. But some of the worst possible outcomes – from an immigration realist perspective – appear to have been avoided. In particular, although previous votes by Democrats so far haven’t been enough to prevent closet Open Borders supporters like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from declaring walls to be “immoral,” the new agreement will make this childish position more difficult than ever to take. In addition, the current number of border detention beds is being cut, but not, it seems, by nearly as much as the Democrats recently sought, and the Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) agency apparently will retain flexibility in their location.

Further, as its spokespeople have insisted, there’s a strong argument that President has ample legal authority to build and strengthen more in the way of barriers than the deal approves – even without taking the highly controversial step of declaring a national emergency. For example, as noted by one of my Twitter followers (“TruthHunterMan”), in a variety of circumstances, federal law states that “The Secretary of Defense may provide support for the counterdrug activities or activities to counter transnational organized crime of any other department or agency of the Federal Government or of any State, local, tribal, or foreign law enforcement agency.”

Moreover, this statute specifies that one of the purposes for which this assistance may be provided include “the transportation of supplies and equipment, for the purpose of facilitating counterdrug activities or activities to counter transnational organized crime within or outside the United States” and, more specifically, “Construction of roads and fences and installation of lighting to block drug smuggling corridors across international boundaries of the United States.”

In addition, as stated by White House Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, “We will take as much money as you can give us and then we will go find money someplace else legally in order to secure that southern barrier.” So let the search intensify.

Finally, the Trump administration has done a fair job of publicizing the dangers to public safety posed by inadequate border security, but much more is possible. For instance, couldn’t the administration vividly illustrate how limits on detention are forcing the release of dangerous aliens by publishing on a regular basis the names of these individuals and the charges against them? And maybe some mass releases could be conducted regularly, too – with officials reading this information to broadcast news audiences as the migrants in question are set free? That would sure be Must-See TV. 

This strategy would have the added virtues of freeing federal workers – especially low-wage workers employed both directly and indirectly through contractors – of the threat of real economic hardship; of avoiding the forced labor situation that results from requiring essential workers to report to their jobs even if their departments aren’t funded; and of ensuring that the quality of vital services like air traffic control and Department of Homeland Security missions including Coast Guard patrols isn’t dangerously degraded.

Even passage of the latest full Trump proposal wouldn’t have strengthened border security much in the near future. So signing the Congressional compromise clearly wouldn’t produce a fatal setback. The main challenge now before the President is to flip as much of the script as he can, and capitalize on all the opportunities before him to secure as much of the border as America can ASAP.

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Im-Politic: Why Democrats Will Own a Second Shutdown

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barriers, border security, border wall, Congress, crime, Democrats, detention, government shutdown, ICE, illegal aliens, Im-Politic, Immigration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Lucille Roybal-Allard, Open Borders, Trump

With Congressional negotiators still racing to reach a deal, it’s unclear whether or not they’ll be able to reach the immigration and border security policy compromise needed to avoid the second partial federal government shutdown in two months. What’s completely clear, however, is that although President Trump declared that he “owned” the first shutdown, Congressional Democrats will deserve the blame this time.

The reason? In recent days, they’ve removed any doubt that their position has nothing to do with their stated belief that border walls are “immoral,” or even that President Trump’s focus on new barriers of any kind is hopelessly out of date. Instead, these Democrats – or at least their leaders – have now disclosed that their real price is a big step toward gutting any meaningful enforcement of immigration law.

Skeptics obviously haven’t paid attention to the course of Congressional negotiations since Friday. At that point, both Republicans and Democrats were expressing guarded optimism that a deal was in sight that involved keeping the entire federal government open in exchange for including actual funding (i.e., appropriations), for more barriers in the Department or Homeland Security (DHS) budget for the current fiscal year – not the kind of unenforceable promise to authorize certain levels of spending over the course of man years that marked previous recent efforts to keep the whole government open.

Hopes for a deal aren’t dead yet, but over the weekend, the Democrats dealt them a major setback by moving the goalposts. Their major new demand was for an unrealistically low (given the great recent increase in would-be border crossers of all kinds) limit in the number of beds maintained by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency to detain individuals arrested for violations of immigration law.

Congressional Democrats described their stance as an effort to impose sanity on the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement priorities. In the words of California Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, “A cap on ICE detention beds will force the Trump administration to prioritize deportation for criminals and people who pose real security threats, not law-abiding immigrants who are contributing to our country.”

But no one can seriously doubt that crippling immigration enforcement is the real objective. In the first place, although it’s tempting – at least for argument’s sake – the critics’ charges that the Trump enforcement dragnet is too broad, let’s not forget that a key demand of many Democrats in recent months has not been to reform ICE practices, but to abolish the agency.

Second, there’s every reason to view the Democrats’ definition of “criminals” and “real security threats” as far too narrow. For example, many U.S. illegal aliens who hold a job are committing identity fraud in one form or another – including theft of Social Security cards. Critics of strict enforcement of immigration law tend to belittle these violations, and if you agree, that’s your right – but please spare me your complaints the next time you’re victimized by identity theft, or  become upset that constantly rising Social Security outlays are fueling the national debt.

Moreover, closet Open Borders supporters have a long record of defining down below the “serious” level many crimes that physically harm or endanger individuals – including assault, battery, sex offenses, drunk driving, and gun-related crimes.

And these coddlers of illegal alien crimes aren’t restricted to the Mainstream Media. In Montgomery County, Maryland – a suburb of Washington, D.C. – lawmakers introduced a measure to provide taxpayer-funded legal aid to illegal aliens that originally would have extended such assistance to illegals convicted of offenses such as “fraud, distribution of heroin, second- and third-degree burglary and obstruction of justice….” And let’s not forget the indulgent attitudes and practice of the nation’s many sanctuary jurisdictions.

What the Democrats pushing for fewer beds really want is a de facto (at least at first) U.S. immigration policy that prioritizes maximizing the numbers of foreign migrants able to set foot on U.S. soil, to thereby avail themselves of the wide range of due process protections afforded to anyone within this country’s territorial limits, and to then be released shortly after their initial apprehension.

As a result, these migrants – including declared asylum seekers and would-be refugees – will be completely free to skip their scheduled status hearings, and to become eligible for whatever future amnesties the Open Borders crowd has in mind once it regains enough power in Washington.

Of course, it’s one thing to make the case on the merits that the Democrats will own this shutdown. It’s another entirely for Mr. Trump to convince the public. Making this sale could represent his biggest challenge yet as President.