Im-Politic: Time for an America-First Asylum Policy?

Tags

asylum seekers, Central America, cities, crime, El Salvador, election 2020, FBI, Golden Triangle, Guatemala, homicide, Im-Politic, Immigration, Joe Biden, migrants, murder, New Nationalism.com, Robert Claude, Trump, WorldPopulationReview.com

One of Joe Biden’s central campaign promises has been to reverse Trump administration moves to curb most forms of legal and illegal entry into the United States by migrants from abroad, and one of the biggest complaints he and other supporters of loosening all forms of immigration restrictions has concerned the Trump policies toward those seeking asylum.

In particular, these critics of the President’s charge that the administration has unjustifiably, and even cruelly, restricted the grounds for a valid asylum claim to the longstanding criteria of persecution or fear of suffering persecution due to their race, religion, nationality, “membership in a particular social group,” or “political opinions.” Among the circumstances the administration was overlooking, as the former Vice President’s website explains, has been was the recent outbreak of gang violence in Central American countries that has supposedly forced numerous residents of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras in particular to flee northward for their lives.

As a result,, Biden has pledged to “restore our asylum laws so that they do what they should be designed to do–protect people fleeing persecution and who cannot return home safely” – including expanding the definition of persecution to include (among other threats) victimization or fear thereof of gang and other major criminal violence.

I’ve backed the Trump stance out of concern that such changes would trigger a completely unabsorbable flood of asylum-seekers and recipients who would be granted entry for reasons having little or nothing to do with longstanding U.S. definition of asylum grounds, and prevalent in every country on earth — and everything to do with an understandable but much less dramatic quest for higher living standards.

So I was grateful to Robert Claude, who puts out the very fine New Nationalism blog, for pointing out to me this past weekend an item he posted over the summer pointing out that several American cities recently have suffered from murder rates that actually are as high or even higher than those of major cities in those three Central American countries (which collectively are called “The Golden Triangle).

Because Robert’s figures only went up to 2017, I decided to investigate a little further. And lo and behold – as of full-year 2019, the story remains the same.

It’s important to note that not all major American cities are Central America-like homicide hotbeds. But significantly, four are. Here are the numbers for murders (and other “non-negligent homicides” for the United States) – drawn from the latest of the FBI’s annual U.S. crime reports, from local news organization accounts for cities not included in the FBI surveys, and from the worldpopulationreview.com website. The figures represent murders etc per 100,000 inhabitants:

San Salvador, El Salvador: 59.1

Guatemala City, Guatemala: 53.5

Tegucigalpa, Honduras: 48.0

St. Louis, Missouri: 64.54

Baltimore, Maryland: 58.27

Birmingham, Alabama: 50.51

Detroit. Michigan: 41.45

Moreover, some U.S. cities are uncomfortably close to Central American murder levels. They include Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Louisiana (31.72 and 30.67, respectively), and Kansas City Missouri (30.49).

Some caveats are important. Each of the Central American cities is considerably larger than the American murder capitals – and scale may affect murder and other crime rates. Moreover, the three Central American cities cited are all national capitals. There’s evidence that in smaller cities in the region, the murder rates are somewhat higher. And it bears observing that the U.S. figures are all for the relevant cities proper. For Tegucigalpa, the numbers may include suburbs. The coverage for the other two Central American cities wasn’t specified.

At the same time, even though most U.S. cities are still much safer than most of their Central American counterparts, keep in mind the trends. For many of these U.S. metropolises, the murder rates have gone up so far this year. According to the U.S. State Department agency that monitors crime and safety conditions generally for U.S. travelers, the murder rates for each of the three Golden Triangle countries (data by city isn’t reported) have fallen substantially in recent years. (See here, here, and here.)

The murder rates in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras are still horrific. But so are those for the four U.S. cities with comparable problems — and for those urban centers which aren’t much safer. Which at least logically raises a big question for the Biden-ites if they win the White House: If they’re determined to permit foreigners to come to the United States for fear of getting murdered, would they give Americans facing the same problems the same right, including the same forms of resettlement assistance?

Im-Politic: How Mexico’s Paying for the Border Wall After All

Tags

AMLO, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, asylum seekers, border security, border wall, caravans, Central America, illegal immigration, Im-Politic, immigrants, Immigration, international law, Jorge Ramos, Mexico, Migrant Protection Protocols, migrants, The New York Times, Trump

Here’s quite the spectacular new entry in the “Life is Strange” category: President Trump has turned out to be right in predicting that Mexico would pay for a border wall to curb illegal immigration. Only this victory has taken a form that neither Mr. Trump nor anyone else could have possibly expected. It didn’t even totally entail developments at the border envisioned!

It’s a major win nonetheless, and if you doubt me, then take the word of Jorge Ramos, the well known anchor for Spanish language TV network Univision, a major champion of de facto Open Borders policies, and of course no fan of the President’s. 

For as Ramos has pointed out in a New York Times op-ed piece yesterday, Mexico has created at least the functional equivalent of a wall. He’s referring to the decision (forced by a very effective – though of course widely condemned – tariffs and border-closing threat by Mr. Trump, as Ramos ruefully observed) of Mexico’s new President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (nicknamed “AMLO”) to use Mexican forces to prevent Central American migrants and various other supposed asylum seekers from entering the United States en masse. Nor has Ramos been the only mass immigration advocate to point out this specific Trump success.

Some of these Mexican National Guards personnel are helping the United States enforce its new policy that permits requiring many asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while their cases are judged. This Migrant Protection Protocols program replaces the obligation created by international law that until now has been interpreted to rquire Washington to admit  U.S.-bound asylum seekers’ entry even before evaluation. Although motivated by entirely understandable humanitarian concerns, this measure never anticipated the type of mass migration and related asylum fraud situation faced by the United States nowadays.

Other Mexican National Guards have been deployed to the country’s southern border with Guatemala, where they’ve been unmistakably effective in preventing huge caravans of Central American migrants from traveling through Mexico to reach the U.S.-Mexico border.

The United States has been indirectly financing a small portion of these efforts (through training programs to help for Central American officials better control their own borders). But the vast majority of spending on these efforts is coming from Mexico.

The President is entirely correct in continuing to emphasize the need for more effective physical barriers at the U.S.-Mexico border. But the essence of his famous campaign wall-building promise was to improve America’s own border security greatly, and to make Mexico pay the costs. And that’s exactly what’s now happening to a major extent. Even better – this approach is working. Illegal crossings at the U.S. border are down, and Mexico’s Lopez Obrador says that the migrants groups seeking to enter his country are shrinking.

President Trump has been supplied with abundant material for reelection campaign ads this week (notably, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s ripping up of her ceremonial State of the Union transcript). Jorge Ramos’ op-ed has just given him some more.

Making News: New Spectator Article on Trump’s Mexico Tariffs Threat – & More!

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American Enterprise Institute, Breitbart.com, Claude Barfield, consumers, i24News, inflation, John Carney, Making News, Mexico, migrants, tariffs, The Spectator USA, Trade, Trump

I’m pleased to announce my publication of my newest magazine article.  The piece, which appears in The Spectator USA, explains why President Trump won his bet that a tariff threat would push Mexico to work harder to stop migrants traveling through its territory to the United States – and why he shouldn’t resort to this gambit again.

In addition, it was great to be quoted in John Carney’s post on Tuesday for Breitbart.com reporting that all those supposed experts who predicted raging consumer price inflation resulting from Mr. Trump’s various tariffs were dead wrong.  Here’s the link.

The video is also available of my Tuesday appearance on the American-Israeli TV network i24News.com.  Click here, and press the download button to access this interview on the Trump Mexico tariffs threat.  I also appeared (on short notice) on this subject on i24 on June 5, but unfortunately, the recording is no longer available.

Last Friday, June 7, I debated trade specialist Claude Barfield of the American Enterprise Institute at a lunchtime event at AEI.  The program was not video-ed, though.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

Making News: Back on National Radio on the China Trade Wars…& More!

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Border Crisis, border security, China, Gordon G. Chang, i24News, Immigration, Making News, Mexico, migrants, tariffs, Thaddeus McCotter, The John Batchelor Show, Trade, trade war, Trump

I’m pleased to announce that I’ll be returning to John Batchelor’s nationally syndicated radio show tonight.  I’m not yet sure about the segment’s timing, though, and the best way to find out is to follow me on Twitter (@AlanTonelson) if you don’t so do already.  I’ll be sending out that info via that platform.  The subject, not surprisingly, will be an update of the U.S.-China trade wars.

You can listen live on-line here.  And as usual, I’ll post a link to the podcast as soon as one’s available.

Speaking of podcasts, one’s on-line of my latest appearance on the program – a very short notice interview on Monday night.  Click here for the usual robust discussion involving John, co-host Gordon G. Chang, former Michigan Republican Congressman Thaddeus McCotter, and me.

Also, the video is now available of my Monday night interview on the American-Israeli TV network i24News.  To view this segment, which covered President Trump’s proposed border security-related tariffs on Mexico, click here and then press the download button.  The file will take a few moments to transfer and, at least in this case, you might have to sit through a few more moments of ads before you can open it up.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

Making News: Back on Israeli TV on Trump’s Mexico Tariffs – & a New Podcast!

Tags

border security, i24News, Immigration, Making News, Mexico, migrants, tariffs, Trade, Trump

I’m pleased to announce that I’m scheduled to return tonight to Israel’s i24News TV network to discuss President Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on imports from Mexico if Mexico doesn’t step up its efforts to ease the crisis on the two countries’ borders.  i24News is available by subscription only, but you can see the segment, which is slated to air at 8 PM EST, by clicking on this link and registering for a free trial subscription.

Moreover, I appeared on i24News last Friday, too, to participate in a panel discussion of the subject.  You can access the video by clicking on this link and downloading the file.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

Im-Politic: A Better Way to Pressure Mexico on Immigration

Tags

Border Crisis, border security, Central America, Charles Grassley, illegal aliens, Im-Politic, immigrants, Immigration, Mexico, migrants, remittances, tariffs, Trade, Trump, U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, USMCA

It’s not every day that I praise veteran Republican Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa. In fact, I don’t believe I’ve ever praised him in print. On trade policy he’s often especially especially clueless – his last foray into this field consisted of threatening to use his chairmanship of the Senate Finance Committee to scuttle the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement (USMCA) unless President Trump withdrew his tariffs on metals imports from Mexico and Canada.

(Grassley was upset because Mexico in particular had retaliated by slapping tariffs on some key American farm products exported by states like Iowa. He didn’t seem to realize that, as I’ve written here, the tariffs needed to be global in scope to be effective. Meanwhile, however serious American farmers’ woes, they began in earnest years before any Trump tariffs went into effect.)

So imagine my surprise yesterday upon learning that Grassley has proposed a response to Mexico’s foot-dragging on helping to ease the crisis on its border with the United States that’s much better than President Trump’s tariffs.

According to Grassley, the way to pressure Mexico to tighten its own curbs on the floods of Central Americans streaming through its territory toward the United States is to tax the remittances sent to their home country by Mexicans who have moved northward both legally and illegally.

Remittances consist of money sent by immigrants back to their home country – usually to relatives. They encourage immigration because they come from wages earned by newcomers to the United States that are much higher than those they can make in their countries of origin.

And we’re unmistakably talking big numbers – especially for Mexico. The country’s own central bank pegged them at almost $31.5 billion last year. That’s more money coming into the Mexican economy than it makes from oil exports, and in fact its second largest foreign exchange earner after auto parts exports.

Unlike tariffs, remittances taxes wouldn’t harm Americans who buy imports from Mexico – whether consumers or businesses. All the victims would be Mexicans in Mexico. And because so many poor Mexicans in particular rely on these funds to help maintain and improve their living standards, a smaller flow would squeeze their finances and surely increase political instability in a country that’s long suffered more than its share of turmoil. Don’t think Mexico’s leaders – who are already sounding inclined to make concessions to Mr. Trump to avoid the threatened tariffs – could brush these sanctions off.

At least as important, unlike the proposed tariffs, remittance taxes wouldn’t endanger Congressional passage of the USMCA or undermine the Trump administration’s China trade policies by reducing Mexico’s attractiveness as an alternative export platform for companies looking to move in whole or in part out of the People’s Republic.

The President has actually spoken of taking this step to raise the resources needed to finance a Border Wall, but never followed through. At the time, covert and overt Open Borders supporters charged that the move could be counterproductive, since the remittances increased the well-being of their recipients enough to encourage them to stay in Mexico.

But since these payments still represent only a fraction of the earnings of Mexicans in the United States, it makes no sense to believe that many Mexicans in Mexico seriously contemplating moving across the border would be satisfied by receiving a fraction of a loaf if they thought it was all potentially available.

It’s possible that the Trump tariff threat could suffice to produce enough of a Mexican response to satisfy him on border security and declare victory with no levies. In this vein, it’s significant that Mexico’s president has already signaled his willingness to appease Mr. Trump somehow. But a remittances threat could have accomplished the same goal with much less muss and fuss. If negotiations with Mexico can’t resolve the issue by the announced Trump deadline of June 10, switching tactics to a remittances tax a la Grassley would be an unmistakable no-brainer.

Im-Politic: The Price of Unforced Trump Immigration Policy Errors

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Africa, AP, Associated Press, border security, border wall, Center for Immigration Studies, Im-Politic, Immigration, Kirstjen Nielsen, Mark Stevenson, Middle East, migrants, terrorism, Trump

While piloting the fledgling New York Mets to an historically awful season in 1962, their colorful manager Casey Stengel at one point exasperatedly asked “Can’t anybody here play this game?” Or something like it.

An Associated Press (AP) report yesterday makes clear that the same question needs to keep being asked about the Trump administration’s intertwined immigration and border security policies. The article provided the latest batch of evidence supporting an administration claim about the threat of terrorists entering the United States across the southern border that the President and his aides have repeatedly undercut by incompetently presenting the facts.

The most recent controversy about the terrorism-immigration connection erupted in early January, when, according to press reports, former (and later fired) Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen met with Congressional leaders to lobby for Mr. Trump’s border wall proposal. Her pitch, according to the reports, used the claim that, during the past year, 3,000 terrorists were among those apprehended by border officials as they tried to cross into the nation from Mexico.

The claim was so easily debunked that even supporters of much more restrictive U.S. immigration policies were left shaking their heads. But as explained in this post from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), a related terrorism-immigration threat does warrant major concern – including wall-building – even though the Trump administration rarely mentions it and even on those occasions often botches the matter. It’s the demonstrable presence in groups of would-be border crossers of migrants from countries and regions where terrorism is all too common, including the Middle East and North Africa and their large numbers of jihadists; and/or of migrants on federal terrorist watch lists.

The numbers of actual terrorists even in these often overlapping groups apparently aren’t large in absolute terms. But as observed by CIS’ Todd Bensman, a former Texas State counter-terrorism official, “in this threat realm, small numbers portend major consequences. Just ask German Chancellor Angela Merkel, as she heads for the exit over just a relative few migrants who committed terror attacks in her country after entering among the million migrants she admitted.”

And this is where the new AP story comes in. According to correspondent Mark Stevenson,

“Thousands fleeing conflict or poverty in Nigeria, Cameroon, Bangladesh, Haiti and Cuba have traveled across oceans, through the jungles and mountains of South America, up through Central America, on a route that — so far — ends here: the steamy, crumbling Mexican city of Tapachula, near the Guatemala border.”

Why did they try to enter the United States this way? Stevenson quotes a migrant rights supporter as explaining that stating that their presence owes to the fact that

“word quickly spread through international smuggling networks that Mexico had become more permissive for migrants. Attention drawn to the large caravans meandering north to the U.S. last year, combined with Mexico’s fast-track for thousands of humanitarian visas in January, appeared like welcome mats on the global stage. At the same time, it became more difficult for migrants in Asia or Africa to reach Europe.”

The non-Western Hemisphere migrants interviewed by Stevenson all claimed to be fleeing poverty, violence, and persecution in their home countries, and no doubt many and even most are telling the truth. But how on earth can this be reliably determined? Assuming these individuals have national documentation, do Nigeria, Cameroon, and Bangladesh, for example, really have governments remotely capable of identifying their populations with any precision? Can a reporter verify their stories? Also disturbing: Stevenson’s interviewees were all single men.

On the one hand, the length of the journeys they say they have taken surely complicates the task of bringing along family members, and especially children. At the same time, it’s single men who commit the lion’s share of the terrorist acts and crimes against women that have generated such a backlash in Europe and – to a much lesser extent so far – in the United States.

As noted by Bensman, the former Texas counter-terrorism official, the Trump administration could easily clear up the confusion it has helped create by securing the release of the correct numbers as kept by the FBI and Homeland Security’s National Counterterrorism Center, and by reporting them accurately. But weirdly, the administration has not only declined to take these obvious steps. It’s resisting CIS efforts to force the release of these data through the Freedom of Information Act. In fact, ten days ago, CIS sued the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency to make the data public.

Let’s all hope this legal action succeeds, or that the Trump administration stops the obstruction. Keeping the nation safe from terrorism is too important an objective to tolerate big unforced official errors continuing.

Im-Politic: Trump Should Go All-in on Sanctuary Jurisdiction Shaming

Tags

asylum seekers, border security, election 2020, illegal aliens, Im-Politic, Immigration, migrants, Open Borders, Sanctuary Cities, Trump

Anyone doubting the political and moral genius of President Trump’s so-called threat to transport the migrants flooding the U.S. border to sanctuary jurisdictions throughout the country simply lacks a grip on politics and crucial aspects of morals. At the same time, the President has been missing a potentially crucial opportunity to gain the upper hand (both politically and morally) for good on intertwined immigration and border security issues via the sanctuary jurisdiction angle.

The expressed outrage of many sanctuary jurisdiction leaders at Mr. Trump’s proposal to drop the migrants off within their bounds could not be a more classic case of failing to put one’s money where one’s mouth is. Suddenly, cities and counties and states that have been harping for years at how welcoming the United States historically has been and should be, and advertising how welcoming and therefore signaling how virtuous their welcoming policies have been, seem to have decided that their hospitality and generosity are limited after all.

Further, as numerous immigration-realist commentators have noted, after just as many years of portraying sanctuary policies as not only the height of morality but the height of self-interest – because of all the contributions illegal aliens make to their economies and their cultures – the sanctuary leaders and their fellow Open Borders backers in Congress and the Mainstream Media are now singing a different tune. They’re condemning as especially shameful partisanship measures that could greatly increase these populations.

In fact, the Open Borders types’ reactions to this latest Trump position are simply the latest example of one of their defining characteristics. As I’ve been writing, they’ve long been pushing immigration policies that shower them with outsized benefits and display no interest whatever in paying a proportionate share of the costs.

And this observation brings us to where the President needs to administer a genuine coup de grace. Predictably, some of the debate over his statements to date have revolved around supposed legal and policy issues. According to the above-linked Washington Post article, even Mr. Trump’s own Department of Homeland Security argued that his sanctuary jurisdictions plan would violate the law. But in both political and moral terms, such considerations should be completely beside the point – and deserve to be pilloried as either clueless or cynical distractions.

For if the sanctuary and Open Borders enthusiasts are so convinced of the righteousness of their cause, they not only shouldn’t allow such considerations to keep the President from putting this policy into effect – much less retreat behind them. They should be volunteering to get the ball rolling, offering all the resources at their command – and should have been out in front since the unprecedented scale and makeup of recent migrant flows first become clear.  President Trump, for his part, should have been shaming them into action all the while – and shouldn’t wait a minute longer to start turning these tables on them. 

Moreover, even in sanctuary jurisdictions whose leaders are – verbally, anyway – putting their (taxpayers’) money where their mouths are, an intensified Trump strategy will speak volumes about the loonie-ness of indiscriminately indulgent immigration policies.  Efforts to cope with constant streams of low-skilled, poorly educated newcomers should make for an equally constant stream of head-shaking media reports.  Jurisdictions with large numbers of homeless Americans (like those all along the West Coast) would be in for especially, but justifiably, humiliating coverage.

From time to time, the President has depicted Open Borders and sanctuary positions as boons for the nation’s elites at the expense of middle- and lower-income Americans. The uproar over his new sanctuary proposal is a golden opportunity to turn this insight into one of mos consistent themes – and into a thumpingly winning campaign issue in 2020.

Im-Politic: The Washington Post’s Nazi-Baiting on Trump & Immigration

Tags

Adolf Hitler, asylum seekers, border security, Central America, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Im-Politic, Immigration, Isaac Stanley-Becker, Mainstream Media, migrants, Nazism, Open Borders, refugees, Trump, Trump Derangement Syndrome, Washington Post

Just when I think that I couldn’t become angrier at the bile spewed by some of President Trump’s critics and too often reported as fact or respectable, newsworthy opinion by the Mainstream Media, Trump Derangement Syndrome sufferers keep topping themselves. And this morning I saw a series of such statements so inexcusable that I’ve decided to post about them even though I’ve already expressed my views in a tweet.

The accusations came in a Washington Post article today titled “’Our country is FULL!’: Trump’s declaration carries far-right echoes that go back to the Nazi era.”

Reporter Isaac Stanley-Becker was referring to the remarks made by Mr. Trump last Friday during his visit to the U.S.-Mexico border, where even champions of what I’ve come to call the Functional Equivalent of Open Borders are now finally admitting that flows of migrants mainly from Central America are overwhelming federal government facilities set up to deal with foreigners seeking to cross into the United States.

Stanley-Becker, who is based in London, wasn’t simply content to observe that the President’s language “fits a pattern of far-right rhetoric reemerging globally. Fear of an immigrant takeover motivates fascist activity in Europe, where, historically, the specter of overcrowding has been used to justify ethnic cleansing.”

With the evident endorsement of his editors, he went on to write that “Adolf Hitler promised ‘living space’ for Germans as the basis of an expansionist project….”

In this vein, he sought to legitimize this analysis by quoting an historian (from the University of California at Berkeley) who contended “The echoes do indeed remind one of the Nazi period, unfortunately. The exact phrasing may be different, but the spirit is very similar. The concern about an ethnic, national people not having proper space — this is something you could definitely describe as parallel to the 1930s.”

In addition, Stanley-Becker reported that “The president’s words became even more freighted when he repeated them on Saturday before the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas, saying, ‘Our country is full, can’t come. I’m sorry.’” (Which sounds like an opinion, not the kind of fact that news reporters are supposed to present in their own voice.) And he supposedly documented the follow-on statement that Mr. Trump’s remarks “drew outrage” by citing precisely one tweeter and Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke.

The author was clever enough to slip into his story the kind of qualifier meant to convey objectivity but skated over far too quickly to alert most readers to their potential to invalidate the entire exercise. For example, Stanley-Becker briefly noted that “Hitler promised ‘living space’ for Germans as the basis of an expansionist project, which historians said distinguishes the Third Reich from today’s xenophobic governments.”

But in case you’re tempted to conclude “That distinction seems pretty darned important,” the author hastily added, in a classic example of insinuation, “Still, experts found parallels” (by which he meant the aforementioned Berkeley professor).

Moreover, let’s not forget the towering double standard Stanley-Becker and similar Trump haters have created. For if the President’s words and (prospective) actions “echo” and “remind” of Nazism, what should be made of former President Franklin D. Roosevelt – under whose administration refugees from the Third Reich itself were turned away from American shores? Does this record reveal racist, anti-semitic, xenophobic Nazi sympathies? Or “echo” them etc.? In fact, Roosevelt’s name isn’t even mentioned in the article, even though he received cables from the ship on which they traveled begging for admission.

Does Roosevelt deserve such descriptions – and condemnation?  If not, why not?And to return to current circumstances, President Trump has clearly been reacting against the large numbers of U.S.-bound migrants falsely seeking asylum (which is awarded to those fleeing persecution) who are seeking better material lives. Roosevelt was denying entry to individuals and families clearly seeking to escape a regime that was obviously targeting them because of their identity.

Because this is a free country, Stanley-Becker, his editors, and his publisher have every right to accuse President Trump of using coded, pro-Nazi or Nazi-sympathizing dog-whistle attacks to advance his immigration policies. But their profession’s ethics prohibit them from portraying these views as unvarnished facts in news columns. And common decency demands they have the courage to make these charges openly, rather than using the weasel words and phrases and similar ploys so typical of character assassination.

Im-Politic: ‘Tis the Season – for Immigration Double Standards

Tags

Associated Press, Chuck Schumer, CNN, illegal aliens, Im-Politic, Immigration, Mainstream Media. Nancy Pelosi, migrants, Open Borders, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Trump

All reasonable participants in the often angry national debate about American immigration policy surely agree that the deaths of migrant children in U.S. custody and the killing of a police officer at the hands of an illegal alien are comparably tragic. Why, then, have the Open Borders supporters treated them like night and day, focusing intently on the former and literally ignoring the latter? And why has President Trump so needlessly fed his own critics’ charges of cruelty, racism, and xenophobia on immigration policy with some double standards-setting of his own on these matters?

The discrepancy on the part of Open Borders advocates has been especially dramatic when it comes to Congress’ leading Democrats – who will assume control of the House of Representatives in January. House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, and other major figures in the party (including its likely presidential candidates) have uniformly expressed outrage at the deaths this month of two Guatemalan children held by the U.S. immigration authorities after being brought to the border by parents on long, arduous trips from their home country.  (See, e.g., here and here.)

But the early morning December 26 killing of a Newman, California police officer (and an immigrant himself) by a suspect identified as an illegal alien by local law enforcement officials has elicited no response at all – even from Pelosi, who represents a California district.

The same pattern marks the coverage of these incidents by the Mainstream Media, which has made its Open Borders sympathies abundantly clear in recent years. For example, the Washington Post this morning was still highlighting on its front page the controversy over the children’s deaths. But the police officer’s death didn’t even make the print edition. The killing was mentioned on the paper’s website three times yesterday and today. But all three items were taken from the wire services, meaning that the Post hasn’t as of now assigned one of its own reporters to investigate.  (See, e.g., here.)

The New York Times did cover the policeman’s killing with one of its own correspondents – and ran the story on page 15 of the news section today. But an article on the children’s deaths, which are no longer breaking news, received front page coverage.

Visit the website of the Associated Press, the world’s largest bona fide news agency, and you’ll see an article on the most recent Guatemalan child’s death right near the top of the home page. But you need to scroll way down to find a piece on the police officer’s killing.

CNN also featured a follow up on the most recent child death prominently on its home page. But its coverage of the police killing doesn’t appear anywhere. You need to look for it with the search engine.

In my view, President Trump has dropped the ball here as well. It’s true that his administration has expressed regret over both migrant children’s deaths, is investigating these events, and seeking ways to handle the new flood of migrants more effectively. It’s also true that the administration has blamed the children’s parents in part for putting them in dangerous situations to begin with – and I agree. I also fully support the administration’s insistence that the U.S. government’s responsibilities to its own citizens are qualititatively different – meaning greater – than to citizens of other countries.

But although Mr. Trump has tweeted about the shooting (without condolences for his family or his colleagues) he’s made no comment at all about the children’s deaths. And just as the Open Borders folks exhibited a major blind spot in failing to acknowledge the special shame surrounding the death of a public official who risked his life every day on behalf of others by an individual who commonsense immigration policies likely would have kept out of this country, the President has exhibited a blind spot in failing to acknowledge the special sorrow surrounding the death of a minor who bore no responsibility for his circumstances. And he could so easily have done expressed such sentiments without conceding a single inch of ground in his campaign for the most stringent border security regime.