Category Archives: immigration

Who Works for Whom?

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John Curtice, writing in The Guardian, in the land where John Locke was borne, seems confused on the question.  His proximate piece is his missive on the nature of referenda in Great Britain.  He began that piece with a false premise of very large proportion, and that—as false premises are wont to do—set the tone for the rest of his op-ed.

In the Commons debates on Brexit during the last fortnight, many MPs have found themselves voting for something they do not believe in. Instead of being their constituents’ “representative”, they now appear to be no more than the people’s “delegate”.

Yet, what else can a representative of constituents be but their delegate?  Unless Curtice means an MP must be the front for their constituents—to “represent” by doing in Parliament what he deems best for them regardless of what they might think is best for themselves.

The thing went downhill from there; he identified four aspects of the referendum on Great Britain’s choice to go out from the EU or to remain within its confines that he considered “cause for concern.”

First, the promise to hold one [the Brexit referendum] was only made because David Cameron found it politically convenient to do so.

Because that motive somehow invalidates the concept of the British people having a voice.  Sure.

Second, the campaign period was relatively short. Only five months….

Because a mere commoner is just too ignorant or stupid to understand a simple question like “Do you want to stay in the EU or go out from it?” unless their betters, their…MPs…and the Curtices of the nation complexify the thing and then “explain” it to them.

Third, unlike most previous referendums, voters were being invited to endorse the status quo rather than a proposal for change.

Yeah, that’s a confusing change-up.  Uh, huh.  Oh, and no plan for going out were that choice voted up despite the confusion?  That’s part of the Betters’ effort at complexifying.  The question was go or stay, not what to do if the choice selected were go or stay.

And this:

Fourth, though often forgotten, the EU vote was the second referendum bite at the European cherry. The issue had supposedly been settled by the referendum Harold Wilson called in 1975.

Because once taken, a decision can never be changed.  The grandchildren must never be allowed to change from their grandparents’ path.  Well, I suppose that’d be one way to decomplexify the thing.

…it is time to lay down some systematic rules about when a referendum should be held – and should not.

How else to have the commoners’ Betters keep control of the outcome, after all?

Not allowing referendums to take place when there is no detailed proposal for the change in question might be a good place to start.

Who gets to decide the adequacy of the “detailed proposal?”  Who gets to demand that there be voice of the people, no referendum, until a satisfactory “detailed proposal” is sufficiently in place?  And sufficiently debated (by whom)?

You know who.  Because the people exist just to give the Betters in Government something to do.

Judge James Robart’s TRO

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Some of you may have heard that Judge Robarts, of the Western District of Washington, has issued a Temporary Restraining Order in favor of Washington and Minnesota (which joined the case after its initial filing by Washington) blocking the Federal government from enforcing President Donald Trump’s Executive Order delaying entry into the US of immigrants from seven terrorist or terror-sponsoring nations in the Middle East.  The EO was intended to create a pause in the flow of people from that area into the US until our vetting procedures could be examined and improved as much as might be.

As Robart described in his order, a TRO must meet all of four criteria, and it’s on the plaintiffs (Washington and Minnesota) to prove that each of those criteria are met.  Those criteria are (Robart cited two sets of criteria; they’re functionally the same, per Robart; below is the more detailed description) [quotes omitted]:

(1) that he is likely to succeed on the merits, (2) that he is likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief, (3) that the balance of equities tips in his favor, and ( 4) that an injunction is in the public interest.

Robart then ruled that the plaintiffs had met these criteria:

The court finds that the States have satisfied these standards and that the court should issue a TRO. The States have satisfied the Winter test [the more detailed test described above] because they have shown that they are likely to succeed on the merits of the claims that would entitle them to relief; the States are likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief; the balance of the equities favor the States; and a TRO is in the public interest.

So far, so good.  Then Robart provided his rationale for this finding.

Specifically, for purposes of the entry of this TRO, the court finds that the States have met their burden of demonstrating that they face immediate and irreparable injury as a result of the signing and implementation of the Executive Order. The Executive Order adversely affects the States’ residents in areas of employment, education, business, family relations, and freedom to travel. These harms extend to the States by virtue of their roles as parens patriae of the residents living within their borders. In addition, the States themselves are harmed by virtue of the damage that implementation of the Executive Order has inflicted upon the operations and missions of their public universities and other institutions of higher learning, as well as injury to the States’ operations, tax bases, and public funds. These harms are significant and ongoing. Accordingly, the court concludes that a TRO against Federal Defendants is necessary until such time as the court can hear and decide the States’ request for a preliminary injunction.

That’s it.  No substantiation, nor even claim, that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits, no substantiation, nor even claim, that balance of equities tips in favor of the plaintiffs, no substantiation, nor even claim, of public interest.  Only a claim that irreparable harm is likely absent a TRO—but even here, there’s no real substantiation, just a repeat of the States’ claims.

We’re simply supposed to accept the single, superficial claim of harm as by itself satisfying the other three criteria.  But what about that (I’ll come back to the claimed harm in a bit)?

Likely to succeed on the merits?  Based on what? Robart has failed to present any merits other than his repetition of plaintiffs’ claims.

Balance of equities tips in favor of the plaintiffs?  Suppose, arguendo, that the claimed harms are real.  There was no investigation into balance, no presentation in this TRO that the Federal government’s interest in the nation-wide public’s welfare, the nation’s security, is outweighed by this harm.

And that public interest: see above; Robart didn’t even look into that, or if he did, he chose to omit the outcome of that enquiry from his order.

Now about those harms the States are alleging and that Robart apparently simply accepted withut question.  The Executive Order adversely affects the States’ residents in areas of employment, education, business, family relations, and freedom to travel.  In what way?  Robart declined to say.  Further, a 90- to 120-day delay in reentry into the US imparts no serious education harm, only a delay for those students involved.  This is an inconvenience, not a harm.  To the extent the delay impacts employment (unidentified, but lets assume of the delayed immigrants), that’s a matter between the employee and employer, and to the extent legal relief is appropriate here, that is a separate case.  Freedom to travel?  That’s what borders are: no non-citizen has freedom to travel across borders; noncitizens—even visa holders—must have the permission of the receiving nation prior to entering.  Furthermore, existing permission—those visas—can be suspended or revoked at the receiving nation’s discretion.  Family relations?  Sure, these will be interrupted, and that’s a serious inconvenience.  But it’s only an interruption, and it cannot outweigh the Federal government’s interest in the welfare of all of the public or its interest in the nation’s security.

The extension of these individual harms to the States is too far a reach.  The States by virtue of their roles as parens patriae of the residents living within their borders, indeed, but the people whose travel is being interrupted aren’t known to be residents.  Many of them may well have established residency, but there was no showing that all of them have or even a showing that a significant fraction of them have.  (From this, it’s even not clear that the States have standing to bring their suit—another matter unsubstantiated here.)

Clearly, these matters affect only a subset of the delayed travelers, to the extent they affect any—yet Robart’s order lets in, without delay, those unaffected, too; the TRO is not properly limited to those claimed to be harmed.

The States themselves are harmed by virtue of the damage…inflicted upon the operations and missions of their public universities and other institutions of higher learning, as well as injury to the States’ operations, tax bases, and public funds?  This is an even bigger reach.  Any students affected by the EO are so few in number as to be a drop in the bucket compared to the schools’ populations.  Nor are the States’ governments’ or government facilities’ materially harmed—nor even trivially harmed—by the delayed entry of these travelers.  Robarts declined even to say how these delays impact public revenues.

This is a bad, wholly unsubstantiated TRO, and it should be dismissed out of hand.

False Hoo-Raws and Immigration

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The Left’s and the Democratic Party’s carefully manufactured hysteria over President Donald Trump’s Executive Order titled ROTECTING THE NATION FROM FOREIGN TERRORIST ENTRY INTO THE UNITED STATES is at best irritating, but more likely it’s both an embarrassment and a naked continuation of their efforts to delegitimize an election they lost so…unexpectedly.

Here’s The New York Times:

[R]eflect on the cruelty of President Trump’s decision on Friday to indefinitely suspend the resettlement of Syrian refugees and temporarily ban people from seven predominantly Muslim nations from entering the United States.

Umm, no, and the NYT knows this full well.  What the EO does is continue the Obama administration’s functional suspension of Syrian refugee resettlement in the US.  These are the numbers Obama permitted from Syria over the last years of his administration before in his final lame duck year he decided to tear down our doors and let anyone in who took a notion to come:

  • Fiscal Year 2011: 29
  • Fiscal Year 2012: 31
  • Fiscal Year 2013: 36
  • Fiscal Year 2014: 105
  • Fiscal Year 2015: 1,682

That last year was the start of his ramp-up to 13,000 unvetted “refugees” from war-ruined and so terrorist-laden Syria.

And no, the EO doesn’t ban people from seven predominantly Muslim nations.  It bans people from seven state sponsors of terrorism and failed nations, so designated by Barack Obama himself.

Here’s House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi:

As the Statue of Liberty holds her torch of welcome high, there are tears in her eyes as she sees how low this Administration has stooped in its callousness toward mothers and children escaping war-torn Syria.

But not a tear shed by Pelosi or her version of our Statue of Liberty for Obama’s long-standing ban.  And never mind that we welcome immigrants and refugees with open arms, but not terrorists.  And those from terror-sponsoring, failed, or ruined nations we can’t yet sort out the terrorists—hence the 90-day block on those seven and the indefinite (which means not permanent) block—on folks from Syria.

Here’s Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who has earned himself a Razzie for those overwrought crocodile tears.  He also had this to say:

Tears are running down the cheeks of the Statue of Liberty tonight as a grand tradition of America, welcoming immigrants, that has existed since America was founded, has been stomped upon[.]

Not at all.  All that’s being “stomped upon” is the ability of terrorists to come in with that flow of immigrants.

What the EO actually does is institute a 90-day ban on folks coming in from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen—those seven nations Obama had designated as terror-sponsoring and failed nation entities.

What the EO does is institute a 120 day block on refugees generally so that the vetting process can be improved.  After all, it currently takes two years to vet a refugee.  What clearer demonstration of a system that can’t do what it was intended to do is that?  The 120 days looks like a deadline for the immigration authorities, beginning with DHS, to get their vetting act together and take the matter seriously.

What the EO does is authorize State and DHS to make exceptions to each of those blocks and grant entry visas “or other immigration benefits” on a case-by-case basis to nationals of countries for which visas and benefits are otherwise blocked.

Just to extend an already too long post, here are some key excerpts from the EO.

Numerous foreign-born individuals have been convicted or implicated in terrorism-related crimes since September 11, 2001, including foreign nationals who entered the United States after receiving visitor, student, or employment visas, or who entered through the United States refugee resettlement program. Deteriorating conditions in certain countries due to war, strife, disaster, and civil unrest increase the likelihood that terrorists will use any means possible to enter the United States.

And

The Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Director of National Intelligence, shall immediately conduct a review to determine the information needed from any country to adjudicate any visa, admission, or other benefit under the INA [Immigration and Nationality Act] (adjudications) in order to determine that the individual seeking the benefit is who the individual claims to be and is not a security or public-safety threat.

And

Implementing Uniform Screening Standards for All Immigration Programs. (a) The Secretary of State, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Director of National Intelligence, and the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation shall implement a program…[that] will include the development of a uniform screening standard and procedure….

(b) The Secretary of Homeland Security, in conjunction with the Secretary of State, the Director of National Intelligence, and the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, shall submit to the President an initial report on the progress of this directive within 60 days of the date of this order, a second report within 100 days of the date of this order, and a third report within 200 days of the date of this order.

And, regarding refugee admissions procedures

Upon the date that is 120 days after the date of this order, the Secretary of State shall resume USRAP admissions only for nationals of countries for which the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Director of National Intelligence have jointly determined that such additional procedures are adequate to ensure the security and welfare of the United States.

And

Upon the resumption of USRAP admissions, the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, is further directed to make changes, to the extent permitted by law, to prioritize refugee claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution, provided that the religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individual’s country of nationality. Where necessary and appropriate, the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security shall recommend legislation to the President that would assist with such prioritization.

And

Notwithstanding the temporary suspension [of refugee admissions]…the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security may jointly determine to admit individuals to the United States as refugees on a case-by-case basis, in their discretion, but only so long as…it would not pose a risk to the security or welfare of the United States.

The NLMSM and the Democrats are carefully ignoring these minor facts.  Both groups should be ashamed of themselves—were they rational enough to be so.  Their TDS has gotten the better of them.

The EO can be read here and here.

Sanctuary Cities and Taxpayer Money

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San Francisco has held itself out as a sanctuary city—a city that will take in and protect illegal aliens from Federal law and Federal law enforcers.  Aside from the legal aspects of violating Federal law, this is in keeping with federalism and the 9th and 10th Amendments, and it does not run afoul of Article I, Section 10.  Even were such a thing legal, though, it’s a foolish move, but as the motorboat skipper who currently sits in the Secretary of State’s chair has said, in the United States folks have the right to be stupid.

It’s a bit of a reach, however, for the city to demand taxpayer money to pay the legal expenses of illegal aliens as they’re haled into court to answer for their illegal entry or for deportation proceedings.  San Francisco Supervisor David Campos:

We are proud to be a sanctuary city.  And we’re not only proud to stand up for that, but we’re going to invest the resources needed to make sure that the 44,000 undocumented people who live in the city and county of San Francisco have, at a minimum, legal representation if they’re taken into immigration court.

Leaving aside the…misunderstanding…Campos illustrates—the reason these folks are undocumented is because they’re here illegally—this is a demand for taxpayers to pay for these illegal aliens’ legal costs.  If there’s truly a belief on the part of the (legal) residents of the city that such costs should be covered, there’d be no problem raising the fund out of private donations.

Surely, too, a city that insists on subsidizing housing costs in a limited supply market has better use for the taxpayers’ money.  Beyond that, as any high school student learns in his economics class, when something gets subsidized—when the cost of that thing gets artificially lowered from the perspective of potential customers—demand for that thing rises.  This move by San Francisco isn’t going to make life easier for the existing illegal aliens, it’s only going to get the city even more illegal aliens—adding to the strain on that already limited housing supply and thinning, among other city facilities, the available housing subsidies.

“Former detainees” claim that their “lack of access to an immigration lawyer turned their lives upside down.”  This is inaccurate.  What turned their lives upside down were two things: their decision to pull up stakes and come to the United States—a courageous move and often well done—and their decision to enter our country illegally.  The consequences of that second decision only flow from that decision, they do not at all turn upside down lives that already were so.

In some respects, the concerns of the illegal aliens and those who support them are valid: it should be much easier to enter our nation legally, and our immigration system desperately wants reform in this area.  Such reform, far from contradicting our need to secure our borders, complements such border reform quite nicely.  These, though, are reforms that only the Federal government can achieve.  If the sanctuary cities want meaningful help for their illegal aliens, they should consider spending the funds they want to allocate to “legal representation” on efforts to move the Federal government to effect those two reforms.

That would reduce the number of illegal aliens in the cities’ “sanctuaries” quite nicely.

Vetting Refugees

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Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2013 told the Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago at their Vanguard Luncheon that Jordan, which was (and still is) in its crisis of handling refugees from the Syrian civil war, that had no hope of effectively understanding who those refugees were and which among them actually were jihadist terrorists.

[Jordan has] hundreds of thousands of refugees and they can’t possibly vet all those refugees so they don’t know if, you know, jihadists are coming in along with legitimate refugees.

But she wants to increase the number of Syrian refugees allowed into the US by some 500%, even though our own ability to vet them is no better than Jordan’s: the initial data on these folks just doesn’t exist.

This is something Clinton either has not thought through, or she doesn’t care and is just saying sweet words in order to garner votes.

With her words, though, Clinton did echo Republican Party Presidential candidate Donald Trump’s call for “extreme vetting” of those we let into the US from terrorist-held territory and from terrorist-supporting nations:

We also have to be vigilant in screening and vetting refugees from Syria, guided by the best judgment of our security and diplomatic professionals.

Can we trust her?