Category Archives: immigration

“Did That…?

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Minnesota’s Progressive-Democrat Governor Tim Walz posed three questions after he pardoned convicted child molester Tou Lue Vang and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had him immediately deported.

Did that make us any safer? Did that make the children that are left behind any more stable? Did it improve the idea that we can’t all be judged by our worst day?

Ex-Los Angeles Mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt responded in his own way:

If you find yourself defending a child molester, saying: “WE can’t be judged by OUR worst day,” you probably need to have your hard drives checked.

I answer Walz’ in my own way.

Absolutely, kicking that child molester out of our nation made us safer.

Absolutely, it made the children left behind vey much more stable, with the threat from that molester gone from their lives.

The idea that we can’t be judged by our worst day is a cynically offered red herring and nothing else. It is, though, a mark of Walz’ awesome self-importance that he thinks that question is in any way substantive.

Sadly, dangerously, Walz’ attempted cover up plaint and softness toward child abuse and abusers are an all too typical example of Party’s general softness on crime, especially those committed by illegal aliens.

The Pope’s Error

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Pope Leo XIV, sitting on the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa decried the fate of folks who made it that far and others who did not as they left their home countries, mostly in Africa, looking for a better life in Europe.

There are also those who choose not to be a neighbor and those who choose not to make a decision. Those who have lost their lives in this sea are victims both of decisions that were made and of decisions that were not made. Indifference to the common good and corruption in their countries of origin; a global economic system that generates poverty and exclusion; fear that fuels prejudice and contempt; the belief that such problems do not concern us; the criminal calculations of those who profit from the suffering of others; the slow and difficult transition from mere emergency management to the development of comprehensive and shared policies[.]

No. The problem here is not that the European nations are not accepting all of these folks, nor is it that they are beginning actively to block their entry. The correct answer is for Europe to leave off its [i]ndifference to the common good and corruption in their countries of origin and devote the resources those nations are misallocating ins to supporting those folks making it to Europe and to blocking further flows, instead to working the source: the criminal natures of the home countries so those folks don’t feel the need to try to leave.

The Pope sort of recognized this, but with badly misplaced emphasis.

Thanks to its geographical location and institutional framework, Europe is capable of addressing the crisis, in this region, in a comprehensive manner, integrating immediate relief efforts into a long-term strategic plan capable of receiving, protecting, supporting and integrating migrants, while at the same time assisting developing countries so that no one is forced to emigrate.

The Pope further muddles his argument with his insistent conflation of migrants with illegal aliens, which is what most of those making to Europe are and most of those getting to Lampedusa, and other waypoints, want to become.

That geographic location does place Europe conveniently close to the source, but it should be committing those resources exclusively to assisting developing countries so that no one is forced to emigrate. Half measures don’t accomplish anything other than waste and lost opportunity.

Then there could be fruitful trade between those nations and the nations of Europe, and that would potentiate the benefits for those then-erstwhile home nations and their populations as well as work to the economic—and moral—benefit of Europe.

False Dichotomy

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The Wall Street Journal‘s editors are at it again. Their lede lays out their (unrecognized) mistake.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on President Trump’s birthright citizenship order. Win—or more likely—lose, he might take note that the success of the US men’s national soccer team in this year’s World Cup is the product in part of America’s historically welcoming immigration system and automatic grant of birthright citizenship to children born in the US.

Correcting the decades of misapprehension of the 14th Amendment and “birthright citizenship” wouldn’t at all make us unwelcoming. All the correction would do (sadly, the editors are likely correct about the likelihood of a favorable ruling) is eliminate the automatic citizenship granted to babies whose parents, by their own intent and action, hold themselves outside our nation’s jurisdiction, being present only under our nation’s power.

The editors closed their piece with this bit and no trace of understanding of its irony:

America’s World Cup men’s team shows again how bringing in foreign talent can be a win for the individuals and for the country.

Legal immigrants. Immigrant citizens or sons of immigrants (because FIFA’s national teams are required to be citizens, not hirelings), who vastly outnumber the one birthright citizen on the team.

Legal immigrants, after the end of birthright citizenship, would remain highly welcome and encouraged to come and join our great nation. The fact that one of the players on our national soccer team is a birthright citizen is irrelevant to any of that.

The Only Even Remotely Legitimate Move Re TPS

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The Supreme Court heard last Wednesday in an expedited manner (“certiorari before judgment” for the judicial nerds among us) oral argument in a case centered on whether a President’s Executive Branch agency can withdraw, on its own recognizance, Temporary Protected Status from immigration populations who remain here under that status. Several District and Appellate courts have said no, not without (judge-determined) sufficient interagency review of the matter.

The governing statute is quite clear: granting, withdrawing, extending, or not extending temporary protected status for folks from particular nations is not a justiciable matter; courts have no standing to adjudicate these decisions.

The only legitimate recourse those demanding TPS be extended/maintained for Haitians (for instance) is to argue that that governing statute limit is unconstitutional and should be struck. Even this, though, is itself doomed to failure. Here’s Art III, Sect 2, Clause 1 on judicial jurisdictions:

The [Supreme Court] judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity…to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party….

DHS, which is the agency with TPS responsibility within the United States, most assuredly is “the United States” in this context.

Here’s Art III, Sect 2, Clause 2 on judicial jurisdictions:

…the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.

Under the Immigration Act of 1990 as amended, which created the Temporary Protected Status facility, there “is no judicial review of any determination” of the DHS secretary “with respect to the designation, or termination or extension of a designation, of a foreign state.”  That’s a pretty clear act of setting such Regulations—limiting the courts’ jurisdiction—here withdrawing TPS actions from judicial scrutiny.

And Art III, Sect 1:

The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.

Federal District and Appellate courts, being inferior to the Supreme Court are bound by those same jurisdictional limits.

For good or ill, US courts have nothing to say regarding any aspect of Temporary Protected Status settings.

The Act, as amended, can be read here. The Act withdrew references to court jurisdiction and placed that jurisdiction within the State or INS district, or in the main, within the DHS.

The Editors’ Misapprehension

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In writing Wednesday about the (later that day) Wednesday Supreme Court oral arguments for Trump v Barbara, the Wall Street Journal‘s editors have badly misunderstood the situation. Leave aside that the editors completely ignored the matter of birth tourism in the US, wherein pregnant women enter the US, legally or illegally, to give birth and then to return to their home country, with their purpose for being present for birth being wholly and cynically confined to gaining US citizenship for their newborn. The editors’ argument only concerned the children of illegal aliens and the current automatic conferring of US citizenship to those newborn.

The editors correctly argued that the nub of the matter concerns the 14th Amendment’s reference to children born to parents in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, and they agreed with the plaintiff argument that

Under the longstanding definition, undocumented immigrants are domiciled in this country: they reside here, with “an intention to remain[.]”

This, though, is an incomplete definition of “jurisdiction.” The illegal aliens certainly do intend to remain, but by having entered our nation illegally and refusing to correct that illegal status, they continue to hold themselves apart from our laws, outside our legal strictures, and so outside our government’s jurisdiction—making themselves only subject to our government’s power. These people, in the words of the government’s argument, are incapable of and do not owe “direct and immediate allegiance” to the Nation, and so they both may not and cannot claim its protection.

The editors did acknowledge that

the place to fight [illegal immigration] is at the border, and Mr Trump has virtually halted migrant flows.

A place to fight illegal alien influx is at the border, but that’s not the place. Other necessary battlefields exist, too, battlefields that contain incentives for continued efforts at illegal entry, and these include the birth wards of hospitals and our courts. The present courtroom battlefield is an arena in which birthright citizenship for the children of illegal aliens (and of birth tourists) must be ended. That, in turn, will facilitate the successful outcome of the birth ward battlefield.