- Trump may be right to highlight the problem, but his own efforts to respond to it are at every step motivated by racism and bad faith (his real goal is to end all immigration from countries to our south). The combination of his xenophobic malice with outright ineptitude leads those efforts to backfire in multiple ways, making a bad situation vastly worse. His polarizing insistence on building a wall along the border would do nothing to improve the situation, since most arrivals are showing up at official entry points. His government shutdown over funding the wall led immigration judges to be furloughed, which only increased the backlog on asylum claims. His attempt to cut foreign aid to the migrants' countries of origins will likely increase the number of people heading north. His threats to close the southern border entirely have produced a spike in those seeking asylum. And his repeated denigration of Mexicans has made the government of Mexico reluctant to collaborate with efforts to address the problem.
That's why a solution will need to come from the left, even though it will cut against the shift in Democratic public opinion over the past decade in the direction of greater immigration liberalization.
I'm willing to be wrong about this, but my reaction to Gargamel's move to dump refugees in sanctuary cities was "...okay."
Sanctuary cities are liberal. Because they are cities, they already have overloaded social services... and while historically any tax increases have been regressive sales or sin taxes, there are plenty of cities with income tax and your average houseless millennial isn't going to squeak too loudly about a property tax increase.
Property taxes and income taxes invariably have the effect of driving down property values and forcing the wealthy out of any community. This tends to push the wealthier into satellite communities... but a liberal state and a liberal city could (in theory) reach a tax-swap structure for any community willing to take on "sanctuary city" status.
If shrinking communities are a problem for demographers and tax rolls, give 'em a boost if they declare themselves "sanctuary cities." Yeah - the Gas'n'Sip is run by Guatemalans but at least it isn't empty.
How terrible an idea is this? What am I missing?
I'm also like, "Yeah... so what? That is exactly why we ARE a sanctuary city: to provide asylum seekers with a safe haven for them to live in, where we respect the founding principles of this country." Practically, I wonder where the asylum seekers would live. Rent is insanely expensive, as is gas and food. They are not allowed to work while they are here, so they have to sit in an $1800/month apartment for more than THREE YEARS until their hearing comes up. I'm not sure how big your pockets are, but I'm not sure where I would carry $65,000 (for rent ALONE) on my person, as I walked across a border leaving my war-torn country. What needs to happen is a "provisional identity card" needs to be issued, so these people can get jobs, and get to work, and begin paying taxes the day they arrive. Then it doesn't matter which city they go to... they become a net-benefit to the community on day 1. (At least they are far more valuable than the 3-of-4 people in high school or college who DON'T have jobs.) If you are an immigrant, you get here with little. You need clothing. Transportation. Housing. Food. Other services. All of these are provided by local businesses and individuals, who make money off providing the services. Plus, immigrants are one of the least-offending demographics in the American population. If you have FINALLY made it to America, gotten a job, and are building a life for yourself, you don't go and jeopardize that by doing Illegal Shit. If the housing situation could get worked out, then a provisional ID for immigrants who have applied for permanent status would be a huge benefit to the local community and economy. (Just had a friend from India go through this whole thing. It's a total shitshow.)
I mean, it's a good idea if the end goal is to benefit the communities where asylum seekers end up. But even a good idea can be completely subverted or sabotaged by failures of execution at any step in the process, and the stated purpose in this case is for "punishment" of cities that have the gall to welcome others in need. The explicitly malevolent intent of the policy makes me think that the administration will try to make it as painful for every party as possible at every step in the process. It doesn't help that Stephen Miller seems to have set himself up as some sort of Bannon-like successor.
And that's really my question - what are the vectors for subversion, what are the critical points of execution, and how could this turn out to be worse rather than better? The point of the article is that immigration is a problem that should be grappled with by people who like immigrants. I watched a Frontline on immigration talking about how horribly we treated immigrants... under Obama. My argument is that if we treat immigration as an asset rather than a pox we might come up with better solutions and that the idea of opening sanctuary cities to immigrants, while definitely a knuckle-rubbing wet dream of the MAGA crew, is actually the sort of thing the rest of us should consider.
Trump Wants to Bus Migrants to Sanctuary Cities. The Mayors There Are Fine With It“I am proud that Cambridge is a sanctuary city,” Mayor Marc McGovern of Cambridge, Massachusetts, told The Daily Beast. “Trump is a schoolyard bully who tries to intimidate and threaten people. I’m not intimidated and if asylum seekers find their way to Cambridge, we’ll welcome them.”
I'll consolidate the daily Trump bullshit here: Source: It was not clear what Mr. Trump meant by his request or his additional comment to Mr. McAleenan that he would pardon him if he encountered any legal problems as a result of taking the action. Is directing a public servant to commit a federal crime with the promise of a pardon in the event of conviction an impeachable offense? Asking for a friend. EDIT: Also, I think the question of dumping immigrants in sanctuary cities is an interesting one, but his motivations behind doing it are, well, deplorable. EDIT2: durrrr, I see it says almost exactly that in the article now, but that was my honest first impression tooPresident Trump last week urged Kevin McAleenan, whom he was about to name as acting secretary of homeland security, to close the southwestern border despite having just said that he was delaying a decision on the step for a year, according to three people briefed about the conversation.