US Immigration Policy Megathread

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > US Immigration Policy Megathread

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

the 2016 lover posted:

People in this thread often ask for alternatives to detaining and imprisoning migrants in concentration camps. Long before reopening previously closed concentration camps, Joe Biden on the campaign trail expressed an idea:

They are not concentration camps.

# ¿ Mar 31, 2021 04:38

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 10:43

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

Majorian posted:

Why do you believe this?

https://www.britannica.com/topic/concentration-camp

quote:

Concentration camp, internment centre for political prisoners and members of national or minority groups who are confined for reasons of state security, exploitation, or punishment, usually by executive decree or military order. Persons are placed in such camps often on the basis of identification with a particular ethnic or political group rather than as individuals and without benefit either of indictment or fair trial. Concentration camps are to be distinguished from prisons interning persons lawfully convicted of civil crimes and from prisoner-of-war camps in which captured military personnel are held under the laws of war. They are also to be distinguished from refugee camps or detention and relocation centres for the temporary accommodation of large numbers of displaced persons.

DoomTrainPhD posted:

Would you call them internment camps?

No, see above.

# ¿ Mar 31, 2021 05:22

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

paranoid randroid posted:

youre angrier at the terminology than the existence of the camps

The conditions are absolutely unacceptable.

They are not concentration camps.

# ¿ Mar 31, 2021 05:26

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

Majorian posted:

Appeals to authority via dictionaries are not acceptable answers in this discussion.

Everyone, if you're going to engage in this debate, please put effort into your posts and tell us why you think these camps do or don't count as concentration camps.

With all due respect, you asked me why I thought they aren't concentration camps, I provided a citation in the form of an encyclopedic resource that explains very clearly and relatively concisely the actual distinction between a concentration camp and other types of camps such as refugee centers. Posting a definition of a term is not an "appeal to authority." Terms don't suddenly change their meaning based on people's opinions.

I'm gonna turn this back on you, and politely suggest that if anyone else wants to engage in this debate, maybe they should provide counter-citations and we can discuss those. That is, after all, what this subforum has traditionally been about.

# ¿ Mar 31, 2021 05:56

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

Raskolnikov38 posted:

or this argument could stop happening and we could just let people use detainment, concentration, and/or holding as a prefix to the word camps as they personally see fit

I've had family members perish in actual concentration camps, so no, I'm strongly against having people use any term they want to describe the refugee centers at the US border. Because what ends up happening then is that people use the strongest term possible for the purposes of evoking the strongest possible reaction in their ideological opponents, and scoring the largest amount of points with their ideological allies.

GreyjoyBastard posted:

"Concentration camp" is specifically designed to evoke a particular, enraging emotional response that none of the other terms do. Randomly tossing it into an otherwise normal post is a good way to make people angrier at a very low cost, and if nobody is allowed to rebut it then the cost is even lower.

If you don't want people to rebut the terminology, use another term.

Said it better than I could. Thanks!

# ¿ Mar 31, 2021 06:08

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

Lester Shy posted:

Nobody seems to have a problem calling ICE and CBP a bunch of Nazis, so I don't understand why calling the camps they run concentration camps is a bridge too far or is drawing inappropriate historical parallels

Nazis killed millions of people in gas chambers and cremated their bodies in ovens that were specifically designed for that purpose, and spent a lot of time and energy making that funnel as efficient as possible so that they could kill more people faster.

That is why the parallels to the US refugee camps are utterly inappropriate.

paranoid randroid posted:

if the material facts of the matter are that the situation is largely unchanged from when we ought to call the camps by one particular term over another, why should we not be furious and demanding the administration act decisively to end a practice that i think everyone can agree is unacceptable? im sorry i simply dont understand why naming these things as one kind of camp as opposed to another is a worthwhile exercise.

a once-in-a-generation disease is ripping through them and theyre run by sadists that would cheerfully see everyone within die.

The difference is that when a refugee dies in US custody it is a huge loving deal.

# ¿ Mar 31, 2021 06:53

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

paranoid randroid posted:

why should we not be furious with rage that our systems empower this??

why shouldnt we call every racist exclusionary system held over for what it is??

why should we give a sing iota of credit to the monsters and sickos that determine who gets to be an american and who doesnt?

Who isn't angry as gently caress? How does "don't use a term that likens the US refugee centers to Nazi camps" equivalent to "everything is fine and dandy, I'm gonna go get bunch with my fellow liberals now"?

# ¿ Mar 31, 2021 07:04

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

paranoid randroid posted:

why arent you forcing biden left. we have to be as mad as we were when that Sex Pest Austerity Freak Segregationist got the nom, so let me see you war face

How does rageposting on a dying forum push Biden left?

# ¿ Mar 31, 2021 07:06

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

paranoid randroid posted:

how does defending him make his policy good

Who here is defending him?

# ¿ Mar 31, 2021 07:08

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

Reality Protester posted:

Close the camps, release everyone.

You want refugees released into the Texas desert?

# ¿ Mar 31, 2021 17:30

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

Pentecoastal Elites posted:

does this constitute "good faith discussion"?

I mean, I was asking out of genuine curiosity. How is "close the camps, release everyone" a solution? Release everyone... where?

# ¿ Mar 31, 2021 17:58

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

Pentecoastal Elites posted:

Certainly seems, to me, like less of a pressing issue than people convincing themselves that they can relax and don't need to take any future political action as long as Joe and the Blue Team are in charge. Why bother agitating, getting involved with an immigrant rights org, or donating if good ole Joe is doing everything that could possibly be done? Kick back, stretch out! Crack a cold one, it's all under control!

You don't know what people in this thread are and are not doing. Why fling these types of accusations? Who is posting in bad faith now?

# ¿ Mar 31, 2021 18:38

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

joepinetree posted:

In terms of painting the world as black and white, i would suggest that saying that suggesting that it's either camps or letting children die in the desert is pretty grotesque and dishonest.

That's true, there is in fact a third option, according to that poster, which is "release them into cities."

# ¿ Mar 31, 2021 19:24

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

That chart appears to be from this New York Times article, which links to this site, which appears to promote a book. I can't find the chart itself on that site though, so it may have come from the book itself.

Here's a higher quality version:

The data itself is from 2011 as well, so I don't know whether it is even relevant today.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2021 14:58

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

joepinetree posted:

Let me get this straight. I have to not only provide the data that proves the assertion that welfare state and immigration are incompatible is wrong, but I also have to pinpoint the specific policies that need be adopted? I am not your dancing puppet to do research for you.

You posted a single low resolution image of a chart and wouldn't link the source for it even when asked, and when I finally got fed up with zooming into it to try to read the blurry labels and did the digging myself for the original, you childishly responded with, "Oh, hey, someone put in a little bit of effort. Congrats!" You then got incredibly mad when multiple posters pointed out that the chart doesn't even support the point you're making.

I don't think you're in any position whatsoever to tell people you aren't their "dancing puppet" to "do their research for them", because as far as I'm concerned, the opposite is actually happening: you aren't doing your own research and instead are having others to it for you.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2021 17:21

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

sexpig by night posted:

Hi, the holocaust directly impacted my family by wiping out most of a whole branch of the ol family tree, don't hide behind their corpses to avoid calling a concentration camp a concentration camp.

The Holocaust directly impacted my family too, and I find it disgusting when people use the term "concentration camp" either purely for rhetorical effect (as Jarmak correctly pointed out) or out of sheer laziness when referring to US refugee camps. English is a very rich and flexible language, and many alternatives to that term, some of which happen to actually be historically and contextually accurate, exist.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2021 15:23

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

Lester Shy posted:

Are you saying concentration camps existed only during the Holocaust? You can have a debate over whether or not the conditions on the ground at the border qualify as concentration camps, but I've yet to see anyone explain why the term should only apply to the Nazi death camps. There are sadly dozens of examples of concentration camps used by brutal regimes all over the globe over the past century, and for the most part nobody makes a fuss about calling them what they are. Using the appropriate terminology is one way to stop one type of camp from becoming another.

We're arguing in circles, and this point has already been covered: no, concentration camps did not only exist during the Holocaust, but the Holocaust is the most prominent occurrence that featured them and it still occupies a large space in our society's collective psyche. That's why usage of the term implies or strongly suggests similar atrocities. Therefore, continuing to insist on using the term, when, again, many alternatives exist, really comes across as an incendiary and low effort method to evoke a particular emotional response, and a cheap tactic to cudgel ideological opponents with.

Maybe that's not your goal, but most people, when asked not to use a particular term due to its effects on others, will comply with the request, at the very least to avoid coming across as intentionally abrasive. And no, trying to explain to the person why they should not actually be offended is not a good idea � it just makes it worse.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2021 16:27

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

Jarmak posted:

Yep, this is just like the Nazis:

Well, it IS just like the Nazis! Except the part where, for Nazis, "rapid-processing" meant more efficient gas chambers and higher capacity ovens for dead body disposal. But that's just a tiny, unimportant detail.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2021 16:38

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

Andenno posted:

�We must be listened to: above and beyond our personal experience, we have collectively witnessed a fundamental unexpected event, fundamental precisely because unexpected, not foreseen by anyone. It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say. It can happen, and it can happen everywhere.� -Primo Levi

The point is not that America is unique. The point is that the stepping stones to genocide should be recognized wherever they appear. The Holocaust did not go from nothing to death camps. Rendering entire groups of people illegal and normalizing the loss of their rights was an essential stepping stone in the process.

It does not matter what the stated intentions are when those stepping stones happen, only that they enable the next stage of escalating violations.

The "meta" discussion is germane to this thread because the question at heart is: how "dangerous" is this situation?

I can't speak for others' experiences, but in my Jewish education, I was taught that it does not disrespect the memory of the Holocaust to apply its survivor's lessons to our own society.

Okay, but I think you're going to have to try a lot harder to make the argument that US refugee centers are actually "stepping stones to genocide," when their purpose is to process refugees, and to do so regardless of their ethnic or religious group.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2021 16:43

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

Lester Shy posted:

I find appeals to personal experience generally pretty lame as a debate tactic, but as someone who had family brutalized in one of the many other examples of concentration camps in the past 100 years, I find the repeated insistence that I must be invoking the Holocaust equally offensive. Sequestering a very important and simple term to one dark corner of history serves to obfuscate ongoing brutality, to the benefit of oppressive regimes everywhere.

Please read what I wrote more carefully. I didn't say you "must" be invoking the Holocaust.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2021 17:00

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

Jaxyon posted:

ICE is younger than most of the people who post in this thread, by a significant amount. Do you think they're integral to how immigration gets handled?

They may not be integral to the system, but they are pretty tightly integrated to various components in it. Unraveling that rat's nest will take time.

Also, I posted about this before, and the fact of the matter is that when a federal agency gets abolished, its employees don't suddenly all lose their jobs. They get recruited at whatever other agencies that the duties of the abolished agency get transferred to, and in the case of ICE, that would mean those agents would continue to practice and spread their Nazism. So abolishing ICE is not some sort of immediate magic solution � it needs to be planned carefully.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2021 00:19

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

Worth noting that CBP does more than just border protection.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2021 00:24

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

https://twitter.com/NickMiroff/status/1380245802560405511

quote:

With a record number of unaccompanied minors arriving at the border in the past several weeks, HHS quickly filled the 7,700 available beds in its network of permanent shelters, where the cost of caring for a child is about $290 daily and capacity has been reduced by covid protocols.

The administration has raced to set up at least 10 large emergency facilities, creating 16,000 temporary beds for migrant children in convention centers, converted oil worker camps and on military bases. About 8,500 children are living at these pop-up sites, and 4,000 more are waiting to be transferred from cramped border facilities.

The cost of these emergency sites is more than 2� times higher than the more-permanent shelters �due to the need to develop facilities quickly and hire significant staff over a short period of time,� said Kenneth Wolfe, a spokesman for HHS�s Administration for Children and Families. He said the average daily cost per child is �approximately $775 per day based on past experience.�

Reporters have repeatedly asked the Biden administration for cost data associated with the emergency shelters, aside from the $775 figure. Officials have not provided a breakdown by location or indicated whether there are financial savings associated with the use of military bases, for instance, in comparison with other sites.

Teens and children are spending an average of 31 days in HHS custody before they are released to a vetted family member already in the United States or to an eligible sponsor, according to the most recent HHS data, so the government is spending about $24,000 for each minor held at the temporary facilities. That doesn�t include time spent in a Border Patrol facility.

Pretty crazy situation, and it looks like things will get worse before they start to get better.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2021 20:58

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

sexpig by night posted:

Why should any president be forced to continue on the appointment plans of the last administration? Who the gently caress cares about being sued?

Trump didn't care about getting sued because he didn't care about governing. He only cared about causing immense harm and suffering on his enemies and people he perceived as subhuman.

Why should Biden, who got elected to put an end to all of that, proceed to govern in the exact same manner?

sexpig by night posted:

Trump never did and his reward was getting to do whatever the gently caress he wanted because these things take ages to arbitrate.

Not really. The vast majority of his awful attempts to do whatever he wanted (such as repealing DACA) were halted by preliminary injunctions by the court system fairly quickly. That is why preliminary injunctions exist in the first place: the system recognizes that it moves slowly, and puts whatever practice is being litigated on hold while it is sorted out.

# ¿ May 9, 2021 00:12

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

Neurolimal posted:

The opposite of malice and harm isn't procedure. Trump was bad because his actions harmed people, not because he ignored decorum and proper channels.

If your aim is to do good, it is in both your best interest and those of people your actions will affect, to make sure you dot your I's and cross your T's, so that your efforts cannot be undone easily. Again, we saw this with DACA � the Obama administration was super careful when crafting that program, and this bit Trump in the rear end in a big way because he thought he could ignore proper procedure and just undo it by fiat. As a result, hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients today are still protected from deportation.

# ¿ May 9, 2021 00:54

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

AVeryLargeRadish posted:

How can any means be wrong if you can claim that the results of those means will justify it? What means are not justified?

Yes, precisely. The reason "ends sometimes justify the means, depending on what those ends are" is also terrible is because it is subjective. The reason we have laws is because we don't want subjectivity when it comes to governance. We want a set of objective standards. Just because one party has been ignoring those standards (and then getting smacked by the judiciary) is not sufficient justification for the other party to do the same.

And no, sexpig, we don't have an "imperial executive branch," as others have pointed out. Maybe you should stop repeating it, because repeating it over and over does not make it true. It just makes you look silly. If you want to see what an imperial executive branch looks like, there are several examples around the world that I can point at, such as China.

# ¿ May 9, 2021 20:45

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

Reality Protester posted:

Trump fired the head of the fbi and faced 0 consequences

This has to be one of the funniest things posted in this thread.

An epic scandal that prompted the appointment of a special counsel by Trump's own DoJ, followed by two full years of extensive investigations that hung over Trump, his family and his administration like a dark cloud, which caused him and everyone around him immense frustration, misery and embarrassment.

You're right though, zero consequences! :laffo:

# ¿ May 9, 2021 23:09

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

Reality Protester posted:

I think it's true.

Why do you think it's true?

More importantly, can you prove that it's true?

# ¿ May 9, 2021 23:39

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

Discendo Vox posted:

Not replacing your civil service with each party swap is one of the things that reinforces rule of law, and distinguishes the united states from states on the edge of collapse. It's been a foundational aspect of federal government since the post-civil war reforms.

Yep. Republicans kept complaining about "deep state" and this is what they meant: not some sort of grand conspiracy, but rather a professional, non-political bureaucratic corps that refused to go along with whatever bullshit Trump and GOP conjured out of thin air that month, insisted on doing everything by the book and knew exactly how to delay and stonewall things.

# ¿ May 10, 2021 00:48

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

Willa Rogers posted:

I dunno; it might be me but I'd say it's pretty horrifying to not conduct background checks, to not have agencies vetted or overseen, and denying children access to healthcare & education. Kids having to to piss & crap in plastic bags definitely is horrifying.

It's going to be hard finding "primary" sources when media aren't allowed in the concentration camps, and the handful of volunteers who have come forward to tell the truth about the concentration camps have been summarily fired. I trust the AP's reporting, especially about the concentration camps, since they've been following the story over the last few months.

Were you as cavalier about the concentration camps when Trump was running them as you are about Biden running them?

You are right to complain lack of access to the facilities, but regarding lack of vetting or oversight, it's probably due to lack of ability to source those services due to insanely high demand, rather than due to a mix of incompetence, negligence or malice. It seems fairly obvious that the Biden administration is working like hell to get a handle on the crisis (and succeeding in some ways and failing in others), whereas the Trump administration not only didn't care, but also thought that treating refugees cruelly would discourage more from coming.

Once again you'll find that there isn't a single person here who thinks that this administration is doing a great job or anything like that, so I'm not sure why you're constantly trying to stir that pot.

# ¿ May 11, 2021 22:31

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

DoomTrainPhD posted:

If �insanely high demand� is causing a backlog perhaps they can invest more resources into clearing said backlog? It�s not like this has been a secret problem they just found out about last month.

sexpig by night posted:

why are you assuming that it's 'obvious' Biden's team is 'working like hell' when the backlog has been a huge issue for months?

I'm not assuming anything. I've actually been following the issue very closely.

Below are some resources that detail the Biden administration's early accomplishments on immigration.

Lawfare Blog
President Biden�s Immigration Executive Actions: A Recap (March 3, 2021)

This is a really good overview of what Biden has done about immigration so far, which of those actions are limited in scope and where improvements are needed. Importantly, it starts by pointing out that one needs to have realistic expectations, and why:

quote:

While [Biden's] executive actions are a meaningful first step, their scope is limited for a number of reasons.

First, achieving change on the ground will take time. According to immigration law professor Lucas Guttentag�s Immigration Policy Tracking Project, the Trump administration made more than 1,000 policy changes to the immigration system. Biden�s executive orders address only the tip of that iceberg. Moreover, unwinding many of Trump�s regulations will require the government to issue a notice of proposed rule-making followed by a public comment period. This process could take months or years.

Second, enforcement of Biden�s policies is not a guarantee. Even the executive actions that take immediate effect�for instance, Biden�s interim interior enforcement priorities�raise questions about the extent to which Trump�s anti-immigrant legacy will get in the way of concrete change. For example, Biden�s 100-day moratorium on deportations has already been challenged by state officials and enjoined by a federal court. Immigration and Customs Enforcement�s (ICE�s) compliance with the interim enforcement measures will also be an important test.

Third, Trump�s anti-immigrant legacy has left completely gutted systems in its wake, which will take time to restore. The United States Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) is but one example. Understaffed and in complete disrepair, USRAP will need to be rebuilt before it can begin accepting 125,000 refugees per year�Biden�s promise on the campaign trail.

Finally, despite Biden�s directive to suspend the Migrant Protection Protocols, the U.S.-Mexico border remains effectively sealed under a Trump-era pandemic policy. Until Biden addresses this pandemic policy, seeking asylum at the southern border is no longer a possibility for new arrivals.

The whole article is pretty great, but the most important point it makes is that undoing Trump's bullshit is not just a matter of waving a magic wand. The Biden administration has to go about it carefully in order to make sure their cancellation of previous EOs, or the new rules they come up with, are not vulnerable to litigation. And no, let's not do the whole "why care about the law at all, when Trump didn't?" thing because it's tedious as gently caress.

Migration Policy Institute
Border Challenges Dominate, But Biden�s First 100 Days Mark Notable Under-the-Radar Immigration Accomplishments (April 26, 2021)

quote:

...as Biden nears 100 days in office on April 30, he has, with little fanfare, notched accomplishments in other areas of immigration policy that rival and in some cases surpass what his predecessors did in the same amount of time. As of this writing, the Biden administration had taken 94 executive actions on immigration, according to a Migration Policy Institute (MPI) count. This compares with the fewer than 30 taken during the first 100 days of Donald Trump�s presidency, which was arguably more active on immigration than any prior U.S. administration.

The early Biden actions have, among other things, narrowed the scope of immigration enforcement in the U.S. interior, terminated most travel and visa restrictions imposed during the prior administration, extended humanitarian protections, made immigration benefits more accessible, and adopted something of a new approach to border enforcement. Biden also notably pledged his support for sweeping immigration legislation that includes legalization for the nation�s estimated 11 million unauthorized immigrants.

The president�s actions can be divided into two categories: those undoing Trump actions and those aimed at enacting his own new policies to make the immigration system more welcoming. Of the Biden presidency�s 94 executive actions on immigration so far, 52 have set the stage for undoing Trump administration measures, MPI found.

Once again you should read or at least skim through the whole thing because it's very thorough.

Lastly:

American Immigration Lawyers Association
Featured Issue: Early Immigration Actions Taken by the Biden Administration (April 29, 2021)

This page is a useful compilation of various links, and if you care about immigration you should bookmark it. Notably, it also makes the same point as the previous two articles above:

quote:

This featured issue page will track the new administration�s actions during the first 100 days. While we expect many announcements in the initial months, the real, lasting work of overturning the deleterious policies of the Trump administration and implementing a new vision will take time.

# ¿ May 12, 2021 02:11

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

Ghost Leviathan posted:

Cease these bad faith posts.

I don't find that post bad faith. We go in circles every few weeks. People claim Biden has done nearly nothing, and/or that his executive actions are "worthless", and others ask "what can he do instead" and the inevitable response is "just close the camps and release the refugees into cities!!!!" and then others point out how horrifically stupid of an idea that is, and they are accused of being concentration camp lovers.

Look, let's just get real: there's a contingent of people who come running into this thread with every negative immigration story that is published, and they post with the subtext of "hah look! another Biden fuckup!!! we told ya he was bad :smug:

".

There's literally nothing Biden can do, and no well-sourced argument the rest of us can mount, to make these posters go "wow okay, sorry, I was wrong, I gotta hand it to Joe, he is handling it well." People criticizing Biden in this thread 100% don't care about the incredible complexities of our immigration system, and don't care that Biden himself cannot singlehandedly fix its plethora of problems, and won't even acknowledge the significant amount of good he has done that has benefited hundreds of thousands of immigrants.

To them, immigration is just another cudgel with which to smack him and anyone who dares point out he's doing a decent job, even if those people follow that up with "but he needs to do a lot better!"

Do you disagree? Then respond to the three links I posted above, and point by point explain why each of the executive actions and policy changes they describe is actually worthless. Go ahead, I'll wait.

# ¿ May 12, 2021 06:37

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

Fister Roboto posted:

How is this posting in good faith? This is practically indistinguishable from all the chuds who used to whine that liberals just hate Trump for no reason. Also I thought there was a general rule against "posting about posters".

Are you seriously blaming me of bad faith posting because I spent an hour compiling resources about Biden's immigration actions to date, and people just ignored it completely and continued to post their toxic hot takes, and I dared point out that it's a pattern?

# ¿ May 12, 2021 17:46

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

Shageletic posted:

Biden can "wave a magic wand" by implementing earlier discussed executive orders and allowing immigrants to enter the US and go to their waiting friends and family.

Things have already improved a lot in that area. I provided extensive links on the last page that include descriptions. Maybe you should read them?

Here, I'll even include a few quotes from one of the articles:

quote:

The large numbers of migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border have grabbed headlines, and the administration has fallen short in some of its responses, as will be discussed below. Still, Biden did take some notable early steps, most importantly exempting unaccompanied children from the public-health order allowing authorities to immediately expel arriving migrants without providing access to asylum. Children now are being allowed into the country to seek relief in immigration courts, as they were allowed to do prior to March 2020.

The administration also ended the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), also known as the Remain in Mexico program. On February 19, asylum seekers waiting in Mexico with active U.S. court cases began to be admitted into the United States to complete their court proceedings. Approaching Biden�s 100th day in office, MPP enrollee processing was taking place at six ports of entry; 7,200 out of an estimated 25,000 enrollees with active cases had been admitted as of April 15. Migrants undergo COVID-19 testing prior to entering the United States.

quote:

Arguably the administration�s quickest and most dramatic accomplishment was changing immigration enforcement in the U.S. interior, narrowing enforcement much faster than Trump broadened it upon taking office in 2017. On Inauguration Day, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued new, temporary enforcement priorities, which were further fine-tuned and operationalized on February 18. These priorities limited U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to targeting removable noncitizens who are national security risks; who entered the United States on or after November 1, 2020, either illegally or legally and have since fallen into unlawful status; and who are public safety threats with certain criminal convictions or gang involvement.

The results of the new enforcement priorities under Biden have been quick to manifest. ICE arrests have decreased by more than 60 percent, from an average of 6,800 monthly arrests in the last three full months of the Trump administration to 2,500 in February, Biden�s first full month in office. For comparison, by Trump�s first full month in office, ICE arrests increased by 26 percent over the average of the last three full months of the Obama administration.

In addition to reducing the overall number of individuals arrested and detained by ICE, the Biden administration has started to end long-term detention of families. Advocates have been pushing to end this practice since the first family immigration detention facility opened in Leesport, Pennsylvania in 2001. During the Obama administration and the first year of the Trump administration (the only year of the administration for which data are available), an average of 70 people were held there each day. By February 26, all families held in that facility had been released.

...the Biden administration has stated that it intends to turn both facilities into processing centers where families will be held for fewer than 72 hours and then released, though that transition has not yet been completed. As of March, ICE was releasing families from these facilities within ten to 15 days.

quote:

Biden has ended several bans on travel and visa issuance implemented over the course of the prior administration. On his first day in office Biden terminated the travel bans that prevented nationals from 13 predominantly Muslim and African countries from receiving visas. Under a new State Department process, nearly 41,900 people who were denied visas under the bans and were not issued waivers are now eligible to reapply.

quote:

On February 24, Biden terminated his predecessor�s April 2020 ban on all immigrant visa issuance except those for spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens and certain immigrant investors. Separately, he allowed a similar ban prohibiting new visas for temporary workers and exchange visitors to expire at the end of March.

quote:

During its first 100 days, the Biden administration took major steps to protect certain national groups already in the United States from deportation. The most significant was its March designation that Venezuelans were eligible for Temporary Protected Status (TPS), making an estimated 323,000 Venezuelans in the United States eligible for work authorization and protecting them from deportation for at least 18 months. It also designated Myanmar (also known as Burma) for TPS, with an estimated 1,600 Burmese eligible for protection. If all eligible Venezuelans and Burmese were to be granted TPS, the overall number of TPS holders would more than double from the current 319,000.

quote:

Steadily, the new administration has started undoing Trump policies making it more difficult for immigrants to come to or stay in the United States. The most significant of these was the public-charge rule, which subjected green-card applicants and people renewing temporary visas to a forward-looking test to assess whether they would be likely to use public benefits in the future. The rule, issued in August 2019 but in effect intermittently due to court interventions, affected lower-income immigrants and their families. Not only did it result in many more individuals being denied visas on public-charge grounds�nearly 21,000 in fiscal year (FY) 2019 compared to 1,000 in FY 2016�but also had a chilling effect, prompting some immigrants to preemptively withdraw their families from benefits programs out of fear of damaging their immigration cases.

Biden�s administration reversed the public-charge rule in two moves. First, on March 9, it stopped defending it in legal challenges, thus allowing an earlier court order vacating the rule to go into effect nationwide. In practice, this restored the much narrower 1999 guidance for determining whether would-be immigrants are inadmissible on public-charge grounds. Second, DHS then codified this reversion to the earlier guidance without going through a formal notice-and-comment period of rulemaking, arguing that immediate action was necessary to meet the court order. This strategy of deferring to court rulings likely makes the change much less vulnerable to legal challenge than it would have been if the administration had issued a new regulation through the traditional process.

The administration has also rescinded a smattering of other Trump administration policies. Among the most notable: Shelving a new citizenship civics test that was both more time-consuming and more difficult. The administration also has revoked a DHS memo encouraging heightened enforcement against immigrants whose benefits applications were denied.

The MPI article these quotes are coming from is very cognizant of and fair regarding the administration's shortcomings:

quote:

Where Biden Has Hit Turbulence: The Border

The administration has confronted major challenges formulating a consistent policy and appropriate message to deal with the arrival of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. March 2021 saw the highest number of interceptions of unauthorized migrants at the border since March 2001. This included the highest ever numbers of unaccompanied children (nearly 19,000), the third-largest ever number of people traveling as families (nearly 53,000), and the highest number of single adults (nearly 97,000) since at least 2013.

These numbers on their own might not have morphed into a crisis had there been an adequate system to screen and adjudicate migrants� eligibility for protections, paired with sufficient capacity to shelter all the arriving children. However, the Biden administration, like the Trump and Obama administrations before it, was not prepared. It has been slow to expand temporary capacity to shelter unaccompanied children, standing up emergency facilities only in mid-March. And it has not attempted to restructure the asylum system to ensure protections for those found to merit asylum, particularly families, and remove those who fail to qualify. Administration officials have hinted that a forthcoming policy change may address these issues.

In addition to a delayed policy response, the administration�s messaging has led to confusion. For example, officials have repeatedly claimed the border is closed to arrivals and that authorities will expel families who cross the border. However, only 33 percent of arriving families were expelled in March. It is not clear how authorities decide whether to expel a family. As one Tijuana shelter director told the San Diego Union-Tribune, �This isn�t a policy�it�s a game of chance.�

So, just like literally 100% of people in this thread agree on, it's not all unicorns and rainbows. Biden needs to do better. We all want him to.

Again though, y'all are acting like Biden has been a total failure with regards to immigration and that's just a laughable attitude.

# ¿ May 13, 2021 18:52

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

Pentecoastal Elites posted:

Treating what's happening on the southern border as anything other than the human rights disaster it manifestly is constitutes a total failure and "hey listen they're working on it!" just doesn't cut it. Small steps forward in relationship to what should be an all-hands national emergency response isn't good enough and I find it extremely difficult to believe that literally nothing more could possibly be done. People aren't "ignoring" your effortpost because they hate facts and logic, they just disagree with the premises of your argument.

When people complain about what is still, objectively, horrific and dehumanizing immigration process and policy, the pathological need you and others here have to defend the Biden administration is off-putting, to say the least. Tagging your apologia with "we all want him to do better" is pretty thin gruel when the only thing you ever seem to do in this thread is either support Biden or directly challenge the people that think what's going on -- even if it is less abysmally awful than it was a few months ago -- remains totally unacceptable.

The disagreement here is one regarding degree.

The steps taken so far aren't "small." No one is drawing a rosy picture, but actual experts � as in, people working in immigration day in, day out � are giving the administration credit where it's due, and recognizing the major positive impact of the actions taken so far, whether they involve undoing Trump's monstrous policies (which, again, is not simple; see below) or enacting new policies and directions for the agencies involved.

Joe Biden does not have the power to unilaterally declare that immigration constitutes an "all-hands national emergency" in any meaningful sense. The President has broad authority with regards to immigration, but is not the king. Congress makes the laws, and Congress controls funding � without legislation, it is not possible to magically conjure the resources needed to vastly increase capacity to handle the influx of refugees. And with Congress being what it is, with Dems barely in control and using all their political capital to rescue the country from the brink of economic collapse, we unfortunately cannot expect much relief in the area of immigration in the short term. That's not making excuses; it's just the simple, objective political reality.

Here's what Gregory Chen, who works for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, writes:

quote:

President Joe Biden took swift action within the first week of his inauguration against several of his predecessor�s most reprehensible policies on immigration. He rescinded the ban on nationals of majority-Muslim and African nations and the Zero Tolerance policy that resulted in family separations. And the new president declared his commitment to defend the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that provides short-term protection to about 640,000 undocumented people. Those early announcements, among others, were welcome relief for immigrants, their families, and the communities that rely on them, and showed that he remained committed to the promises he had made on the campaign trail to implement an �immigration policy that reflects our highest values as a nation.�

One hundred days later, that initial ebullience has waned. The principal cause for the setback was the political firestorm over the southern border. Although there is a significant seasonal uptick in border arrivals every year, the White House underestimated the extensive, and often uninformed, media coverage and partisan attacks that blamed the president for the influx. Contrary to these claims, government data confirms that the number of asylum seekers started increasing in April 2020, long before Biden was elected or entered office. But the reporting portrayed an image of an uncontrolled border, and opened the White House to criticism.

Public attitudes and media coverage of the southern border should not constitute the full measure of the president�s record on immigration issues, however. It also does not seem fair to judge a president based on events that were set in motion before he took office or that are far beyond his control. Rather, he should be judged by the yardstick of how he confronts crisis and solves problems. Under this test, Biden gets strong marks for problem-solving, an unsurprising result given the many policies implemented to date already by the exceptionally qualified immigration landing team he put in place. On crisis management, however, he has stumbled and been reluctant to follow through on more controversial reforms. As discussed below, the president may ultimately be judged not for creating the so-called border �crisis,� but for whether he remained true to his principles in the face of opposition.

[...]

One important bit that comes later:

quote:

A comprehensive review by the American Immigration Lawyers Association, where I serve, assessing Biden�s first 100 days in office shows that most of the administration�s immigration actions are still in progress or incomplete. One reason many Trump-era policies remain in place is that they are now established in law as federal regulation. Among the �midnight� regulations Trump finalized in his last days in office was a sweeping policy that would functionally eviscerate asylum law. Such regulations cannot be undone with the stroke of a pen. Pursuant to the Administrative Procedures Act, before rescinding a regulation, the federal government must follow a formal process that includes publishing a notice of the proposed change and giving the public the opportunity to comment.

Biden has nonetheless been able to avoid implementing some harmful regulations by delaying rules before they took effect or by altering course on litigation after courts had halted regulations. The asylum regulation that was finalized in December has never taken effect because it was enjoined before coming into effect. Once a regulation is enjoined, the new administration can decide how and whether to defend it in court. This was the case with Trump�s public charge rule, which the Biden administration concluded was not �in the public interest� and chose not to defend any longer.

Bottom line: you're of course free to think whatever you want about this issue, but if you want to make the case that Biden's record has merely been "less abysmally awful" than that of the previous guy, then yeah, you should expect pushback.

Shageletic posted:

If Biden devoted even the tenth of the competency and administrative muscle towards the southern border he has put towards vaccinations then his critics wouldn't have much to stand on.

Congress has allocated enormous resources, both at the federal level and as aid to individual states, for vaccinations. The same cannot be said about immigration.

# ¿ May 13, 2021 20:37

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

misadventurous posted:

Sorry but �Joe Biden Is Bad� vs �arguing against mischaracterization, talking positively about what the administration is trying to do� is a really loaded way to present the conversation. I admit it is hard for me to feel generous, given how much scrutiny is already paid to criticism of the administration in this forum vs blandly positive statements of support

I was intending more to be mildly provocative than put words in his mouth though. Maybe I should have finished my coffee first

I don't think anybody wants or expects you guys to shower Biden with praise. Hell, none of us are doing that.

The particular mischaracterization we are � or at least I am � pushing back against is "Joe Biden has done nothing about immigration" or its functional equivalent "Joe Biden's accomplishments have been merely symbolic." And the particularly inflammatory behavior of barging into this thread with any negative press coverage one can get their hands across, with the byline or subtext of "wow, how come nobody is talking about this?!?"

It has been two pages and four days since I spent more than an hour researching and compiling expert resources on this, and to date, everyone who is "left of liberal", to use your own label from your previous post, has ignored it. Willa, sexpig (RIP), pentacoastal elites, ytlaya... there hasn't even been an attempted takedown of even one of the sources I posted. Pentacoastal elites has kinda sorta acknowledged said post in passing, and claimed that no one is ignoring it, but that is of course false.

Look, in my opinion, if the goal is to have productive conversations in this thread, rather than arguing in circles and exchanging accusations of bad intent, the guideline should be this: you're one hundred percent free to criticize the Biden administration about a failing, but you need to research and explain the reasons and contributing factors behind that failing, rather than automatically and immediately attributing it to malice or incompetence or both. Specialized D&D threads exist to help readers and participants understand those subjects better and gain different perspectives and insights. This is what has always set this forum apart from other forums that also talk politics. This is why "Biden is not withdrawing Trump's job offers to immigration judges!!!" fails to meet this threshold. It is why the mods objected to it: not because it is false but because it is an almost zero effort means of furthering one's preconceived notions about Joe Biden.

So yes, there should be some threshold of effort in these D&D threads. If one feels disinclined to meet that, well... there are other forums for low-brow bashing of liberals and the current liberal administration.

# ¿ May 15, 2021 17:05

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

Timeless Appeal posted:

Not to Kramer in or backseat mod, but I've been lurking this thread and would like to make a suggestion based on experience with education reform initiatives...

I think when posters are pointing out that kids pooping in bags, not having access to education, or other making GBS threads circumstances are correct that it is bad and it shouldn't happen. And I think most people want some version of reform to immigration. So, like how about discussion go in those terms. Because from my experience when you want to have actual productive conversations about reform, there are three elements:

-- Recognizing our current reality

-- Constructing a vision of what should happen

-- Considering what would actually have to happen to get from the current reality to a world that matches the intended vision

I think what kinda happened in this thread is that people pointed at some definitely lovely things that we should all agree should not be happening, but framed the conversation in terms of how this is evidence that Joe Biden is bad or make insinuations that people don't care about the immigration issue anymore because they're hypocrites blinded by partisanship. And then other people sort of push back with evidence that Biden is doing a better job with immigration. And nobody actually talks about the kid pooping in the bag.

And you end up with these sort of meaningless diction based debates around what constitutes a concentration camp.

I think when you have a reform based conversation and really try to anchor things in those three lenses I discussed before then you can have these discussions:

Biden does something well meaning or positive towards immigration: (Vision) Is this actually servicing the longterm goals we should be working towards? Is this effective? Has this been done before?

There is some sort of border crisis that leads to the Biden admin taking on a bunch of short term but questionable measures: (Current Reality) What is going to be the impact of these decisions? What are the underlying issues leading to this crisis? Do we have any control over preventing events like this in the future?

An article comes out about an awful thing in our immigration system: How does this need to change? How can that change happen?

Because right now, it just seems likes people are trying to leverage this topic into arguments they're more comfortable having.

I absolutely, one hundred percent want to know about awful instances like kids having to poop in plastic bags. Such conditions are atrocious and unacceptable.

But I also want to understand why that is happening.

Are these refugee centers/concentration camps/whatever bursting at the seams to such an extent that there are no restrooms available in a timely manner?

Is it because the guards are being abusive/neglectful towards these kids, even when restroom facilities are available?

Is there some other problem, like broken plumbing that cannot be serviced due to covid or whatever?

How widespread is the issue? Did a volunteer see a one-time occurrence of a kid pooping in a bag and blow the whistle, or are we talking about cells full of plastic bags with poop in them?

I think one thing everyone can agree on is that the Biden administration needs to start allowing qualified access to the facilities for attorneys as well as well-known, vetted media organizations. I have no idea what is stopping them from doing that � whose job would it be to give such an order? Someone at DHS? HHS? Would it be determined at the facility level? Can Biden just issue an executive order along those lines and have it go into effect immediately?

# ¿ May 16, 2021 04:56

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

PeterCat posted:

quote:
prompting outrage from immigrant rights advocates who argue that an unelected official should not be allowed to determine the fate of millions of people.

Sounds like a dumb criticism. "Unelected officials" (e.g. judges, various federal agency personnel) determine the fates of millions of people and organizations every day. What makes this different?

# ¿ Jul 20, 2021 19:26

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

Pentecoastal Elites posted:

Because it happens elsewhere, it's good? Is that what you're saying here?

No, I'm asking why it is different.

Why should "only elected officials should make decisions regarding other people's fate" an ideal we should strive for? And how do we work that into the contexts I provided?

# ¿ Jul 20, 2021 20:39

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 10:43

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 4 days!)

Pentecoastal Elites posted:

Elected officials means there's at least a chance that the people directly affected by their decisions might have a say in those decisions, unelected officials removes even that chance.

What kind of "say" would those who are directly affected by this have on this matter anyway? It's not like they can vote. And their friends and loved ones who can vote can do so in the next election if they don't like this decision.

Aside from that, I'm pushing back on it partly (but not only) because the whole "unelected officials are determining people's fate" thing has a very similar... smell... to conservatives complaining about "unelected judges" when those judges issue verdicts they don't like. But those same judges become "patriots" when the decision goes their way.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2021 21:11

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