What does a BIDEN Presidency look like?

[OttoVonBismarck]

Well let me ask you this, why do you think we would let a bunch of "illegal immigrants" hop on a bus and ride around the country? Like I said--there is a lot of manufactured confusion about this that doesn't stand up to any serious examination of our immigration law and systems.

You're asking a question that doesn't make any sense.  We don't check citizenship at intercity bus terminals.  There are currently millions of illegal immigrants living north of the border states, and they all traveled there some how.

A more reasonable question would have been how did the governors of Texas and Arizona manage to round up thousands of illegal immigrants.

Well that's not what happened. They are meeting them as they are released from Border Patrol on an asylum claim. No one has been "rounded up." If we had rounded up illegal immigrants, they would be put into the deportation process, not put on buses to liberal coastal cities.

[Admiral Yi]

Well that's not what happened. They are meeting them as they are released from Border Patrol on an asylum claim. No one has been "rounded up." If we had rounded up illegal immigrants, they would be put into the deportation process, not put on buses to liberal coastal cities.

We're having a nothing debate about a fact I already conceded.  That's probably enough for me.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Looks more like to me I corrected your use of a far right talking point with actual facts, and you got mad that I pointed out you were uncritically repeating right wing propaganda. I didn't realize you'd become so hypersensitive.

[Admiral Yi]

Looks more like to me I corrected your use of a far right talking point with actual facts, and you got mad that I pointed out you were uncritically repeating right wing propaganda. I didn't realize you'd become so hypersensitive.

Your assumption was incorrect.  I've not seen any right wing propaganda on this story.  The video I linked was from Reuters, not a right wing propaganda outlet.  The other source I'd seen this story on was CNN, also not a right wing propaganda outlet.  The gratuitous part of course was your claim that I was swallowing right wing propaganda.

If by hypersensitive you mean correcting your erroneous assumption, I suppose yes.  If you're using it in the normal sense, then i think not.

[Admiral Yi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwBftMI23Lg

$10K student loan forgiveness for everyone making less than $125K.

[Valmy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwBftMI23Lg

$10K student loan forgiveness for everyone making less than $125K.

Nice! Hopefully that will help a lot of people.

Though my problems came from my private loan. My Federal one was much easier to deal with.

[jimmy olsen]

Cook report lists this district as +4R
https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1562283492171472896

I've seen enough: Pat Ryan (D) defeats Marc Molinaro (R) in the #NY19 special election. This is a huge victory for Dems in a bellwether, Biden +1.5 district.

https://twitter.com/heatherscope/status/1562284252007485440

Ryan ran on abortion access/GOP extremism. Molinaro campaigned on the economy

[OttoVonBismarck]

Looks more like to me I corrected your use of a far right talking point with actual facts, and you got mad that I pointed out you were uncritically repeating right wing propaganda. I didn't realize you'd become so hypersensitive.

Your assumption was incorrect.  I've not seen any right wing propaganda on this story.  The video I linked was from Reuters, not a right wing propaganda outlet.  The other source I'd seen this story on was CNN, also not a right wing propaganda outlet.  The gratuitous part of course was your claim that I was swallowing right wing propaganda.

If by hypersensitive you mean correcting your erroneous assumption, I suppose yes.  If you're using it in the normal sense, then i think not.

So the first you have heard of immigration / migrant problems was this busing story? Most neutral news outlets don't gratuitously throw around the term "illegal immigrant" like you were.

That's actually core to right wing disinformation about migration and our southern border. The idea is everyone crossing is it is "illegal and invalid" and it is a "security crisis" entirely the fault of whomever is in the White House (when that person is a Democrat.) Actually, clarifying the truth: that under U.S. law they are entitled, as a matter of right, to claim asylum, and stay in the country for however long it takes for that asylum claim to be processed, gets to the actual heart of the issue. Trump and the Republicans have long tried to portray anyone coming across the border as a "bad, evil person, and inherently illegitimate." The simple reality is: the vast majority of border crossers right now are participating in a legal process.

I would have to double check my facts, but I think the last time most of our border crossers were "illegal immigrants" is back before Obama was President. The nature of border crossing has just changed a lot. Far more are from South and Central America seeking asylum, and for a number of reasons the "traditional" economic migration of the 80s and 90s has fallen off. In part because of NAFTA a lot of American firms have built out factories in Mexico which has decreased at least some of the need to cross. Additionally, the H-2A temporary farm worker visa, to some degree, legalized the seasonal economic migrants as well.

[Josquius]

It is a common fallacy of the right to call assylum seekers illegal immigrants considering you have to cross illegally to claim assylum.

[OttoVonBismarck]

It is a common fallacy of the right to call assylum seekers illegal immigrants considering you have to cross illegally to claim assylum.

Right, but it doesn't serve anyone's interest but theirs to "normalize" their distortions.

Real illegal immigration is someone who crosses the border, with the intent on settling in the United States permanently or temporarily, with no asylum claim. These are your typical "economic migrant", if they are caught with a certain distance of the border, they are literally driven back to Mexico that day. If they are caught further afield, they are deported quite rapidly, sometimes within a few days. This happens every single day, 365 days a year. The idea that Biden or any President in the last 40 years has been "soft" on these people (other than I guess Reagan, who actually gave them a general amnesty), is ludicrous. The mechanisms of our immigration system churn these people out fast, faster now than in the past, in fact.

On the other hand you have asylum seekers--it is portrayed as Democrats being "soft" on immigration that we give them appearance tickets and let them loose. That is an argument that glorifies lawlessness, because it creates an expectation that a President ought act lawlessly. There are several avenues through which Congress could make it so appearance ticket and release wasn't the standard. One would be to fund a vast network of detention camps to house every asylum seeker in pre-hearing detention. Could we afford it? Sure, we have the ability to build and pay for such a system, but it would be a huge undertaking--it would take years just to build all the facilities.

Another option would be to change our asylum law--this for example, is something Trump could have done back in 2017 when his party controlled all the branches of government. Instead, he chose the option of "willfully choosing to break current asylum law", which is not good--we should not normalize the President routinely breaking the law when he decides he doesn't like what the law says. Trump's border control efforts got a boon with covid, because it let him implement additional measures to deal with asylum seekers that under our normal laws, would not be upheld by a court, under the guise of a pandemic national emergency. It is right for Biden to dial back those efforts, because it is not good for the country to speciously operate under national emergencies that are no longer genuinely emergencies.

It looks every bit like the GOP actually wants to make the system not work, so they will always have "the border" as a rallying cry.

FWIW you could probably significantly reduce migration by funneling money to Guatemala and Honduras, and by providing funding for refugee resettlement of Venezuelans and such in Mexico. This is similar to what the EU did with Turkey, Turkey took a lot of the Syrian refugees, and the EU gave them a lot of money in return. This solution might even be cheaper than the idea of building a massive detention camp system stateside (I don't really know, it's a lot of number crunching.) It is certainly more likely to be feasible, because there will be a ton of logistical, implementation, and legal hurdles to building out a huge system of detention for asylum seekers.

Of course the real core issue is this--the GOP doesn't want to acknowledge that most of these people are asylum seekers and refugees, because there is actually a lot of sympathy for refugees--especially from Communist regimes. Even among the religious right (in fact evangelical churches are some of the biggest sponsors of refugee resettlements.) Additionally the GOP wants to continue to muddy the water about how appearance ticket + release works, by suggesting most asylum seekers then just disappear into America and become illegal migrants who never appear in court again. The fact is the vast majority of asylum seekers make their appearances and follow our laws.

[crazy canuck]

This thread reminds me of the picture of an RCMP officer helping to carry the bags of a Syrian refugee family who was technically illegally crossing into Canada because they were not at an official border crossing but once in Canada they could legally claim asylum. There was some gnashing of teeth that the RCMP officer had assisted with an illegal act, but smarter heads prevailed.

[The Minsky Moment]

Changing asylum law in a Trumpian fashion would also result in the US being in breach of international treaties, including the 1967 Refugee Protocol, which passed the Senate on a unanimous vote.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Changing asylum law in a Trumpian fashion would also result in the US being in breach of international treaties, including the 1967 Refugee Protocol, which passed the Senate on a unanimous vote.

Sure--but that's also not even discussed. My point being that if Republicans genuinely wanted to "Fix" this issue it would require a lot of truth telling that right now they do not engage in:

1. Admitting that these people, until their asylum hearing goes against them and they are slated for deportation, are here entirely legally. [The minor civil offense of crossing the border illegally doesn't make their continued presence illegal once they have an appearance ticket.]

2. Making the argument that you "just don't want these refugees here", to the public and American voters.

3. Acknowledging that they are here because of U.S. law, which itself was drafted to comply with a treaty we've signed, and that making it so they just can't be here would require withdrawing from pretty mainstream treaty obligations and repealing U.S. law.

Instead the focus is on "border security" which is a farce, right? You could have 5 million people in the Border Patrol and that doesn't stop the asylum seekers one bit. Because they can step across the border right into the arms of a waiting Border Patrol agent and tell him "I have an asylum claim", and they just start processing them. More physical security does little to stop this, and is almost a red herring for reducing refugee flow since most refugees who opt to cross illegally intentionally turn themselves in right away.

Part of the reason the GOP won't be honest about this and attempt to change the law is they fear if this information was well understood and known, it would undermine support for cracking down on refugees, and undermine the ability of Sean Hannity to foam at the mouth about the "border" every night for 20 years.

[FunkMonk]

https://www.axios.com/2022/08/24/student-loan-forgiveness-debt-cancel-biden

The Biden administration is canceling up to $20,000 in student debt for Pell Grant recipients and up to $10,000 for individual borrowers who make under $125,000 per year, and it's extending the pause on repayments by four months, the White House announced on Wednesday.

Also caps future monthly payments to 5% of the borrower's monthly income.

[Habbaku]

Terrible policy that benefits me. I'll take it.