US Politics, June 2018: This is a total goat rodeo.

I wish!

"Take me in, Sweden, my country is aggressively stupid stupid and needlessly violent and definitely emotionally distressing! Can I bring my Xbox?"

So asylum is a free for all? That is, you can pick where you want to claim asylum? I mean, obviously you can try for asylum anywhere at any time, but I don't know what the legal standard is.

It’s complicated and subject to change depending on policy and local conventions. There is nothing in the 1951 UN convention that say you have to claim refugee status in the first country you get to. It’s a broadly-applied principle that you should, though, France, for example, has an agreement that a refugee who enters Europe via Greece can be deported to Greece. The US could agree with Mexico that any Hondurans applying could be deported back to Mexico - but this would be subject to challenge as Mexico is notorious for not reviewing cases properly. An agreement is, however, in place with Canada to do this, iirc.

The other question is whether Central Americans are able to claim asylum status in the first place if they’re not being persecuted by the government, and the answer is probably, generally no, but that’s a complicated thing itself.

I know it goes up and down but trump is currently at his highest approval since inauguration (45%) =|

OTOH . . .

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Df_Rfb4W4AYUP1Y.jpg:large

According to Josh's presumed standard, refugees must always flee from their home country by land routes, or if they fly away by airline, then they must simulate fleeing on land by flying only into a neighboring country? Those who find themselves in a distant country with non-contiguous borders to their home country when, let's say, a military coup occurs at home, must find their way back to a neighboring country before seeking asylum? This makes no sense at all to me.

just realized i now officially belong to an age cohort that will almost always be noticeably more wrong about things than the 18-34 demographic

ice agent with probable white supremacist ink, what's on yr ipod

Learn more about HERO Child-Rescue Corps, a program for wounded, injured & ill Special Ops Forces to receive training in high-tech computer forensics & law enforcement skills, to assist federal agents in the fight against online child sexual exploitation https://t.co/g0DpFeb3fE pic.twitter.com/b7qTIbnuRR

— ICE (@ICEgov) May 25, 2018

Rich Lowry says y'all are being too strident.

I think a lot about this study, a finding of which was that the most popular/consensus opinion on immigration by some margin was the most far-right opinion offered: "the immediate roundup and deportation of all undocumented immigrants and an outright moratorium on all immigration until the border is proven secure"

http://stanford.edu/~dbroock/published%20paper%20PDFs/broockman%20approaches%20to%20studying%20representation.pdf

(and by "I think a lot" I mean "it terrifies me")

Let's stick the NRO goons in a cage for a week or two. Sustenance optional.

‘proven secure’ is a frighteningly vague concept

We elected a grifter reality TV star president. Nothing about this country is ever gonna be "secure."

We elected a grifter reality TV star president. Nothing about this country is ever gonna be "secure."

This quote from New York magazine's interview with Ben Rhodes is very, very apt:

What I’ve heard from a number of foreign governments since Trump came to office, including pretty senior people is that, you don’t understand. It’s not just that Trump’s president, it’s that your country elected Trump. And essentially that’s why Trump’s presidency, I think, is more destructive than any one event that will take place under Trump. I think for a lot of Americans, we like to separate ourselves from Trump and say, “This is an aberration.” I think the rest of the world is thinking, “How did this person get elected?” Just him losing the election in 2020 won’t fully correct that something that is broken. America was a country where that wasn’t supposed to happen. To have basically an authoritarian demagogue get elected president.

So I don’t think it’s fully recoverable. The policies are recoverable, right? We can care about climate change again. We can work with our allies again. We can advocate for human rights again, and you can go down the list. But the second troubling thing I’ve heard is that, like, Trump is totally recognizable because yeah, we’ve all had a corrupt leader — and I’ve heard this in Southeast Asia and Latin America — the rich liar with the son-in-law is usually who runs the country.

...

But that makes America just like everybody else. And that’s what China’s argument is, right? I think the biggest shift is going to be be toward America just being another big, powerful country. Maybe even the most powerful country — but something will have been lost. I also think that four years is survivable, and eight years is not, in that the change that you can make take root in eight years is exponentially greater than four. So I think it’s hard to overstate the importance of the next midterm and presidential-election cycles to how the story ends.

No surprise here: Commerce secretary Wilbur Ross didn't divest from his firm. He's in business with companies co-owned by the Chinese government, linked to Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, and a Cyprus bank caught up in the Robert Mueller investigation." https://t.co/HAgO5RB3Eg

— Lily Herman (@lkherman) June 18, 2018

since it's bring brought up...what do y'all think we should do with people entering illegally?

According to Josh's presumed standard, refugees must always flee from their home country by land routes, or if they fly away by airline, then they must simulate fleeing on land by flying only into a neighboring country?

No, I just though it had to be relatively direct. That is, you could fly from Syria or Russia or China direct to the US to claim asylum, but you couldn't fly from Syria to, say, Canada and then cross over to try and claim asylum in the US. Right? But it's all pretty complicated and inconsistent, afaict.

xpost I think it's a tougher question than many angry people think!

since it's bring brought up...what do y'all think we should do with people entering illegally?

Forcibly relocate them...to one of the shitty, empty white-homeland states like Idaho or Nebraska. New York and L.A. and Chicago have enough people already. Let's make Wyoming's population a little more dense. Make 'em earn their two senators.

... Or just let them in, in the vast majority of cases.

In theory I'm cool with that, but ... How many? What benefits will they get? Any requirements? Do they become citizens immediately? Etc.

since it's bring brought up...what do y'all think we should do with people entering illegally?

― frogbs, 18. juni 2018 20:38 (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think it's a tougher question than many angry people think!

― Josh in Chicago, 18. juni 2018 20:44 (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I know I'm a foreigner so of course don't understand anything about the US, but why is it more difficult for you than for the rest of the world? They are asylum seekers, build refugee camps, have the families live there, send them home when their claim is rejected.

Do they become citizens immediately? Etc.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, June 18, 2018 2:52 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah I would go for that so when ppls come back to try and take their citizenship away they have standing in US courts

we like to separate ourselves from Trump and say, “This is an aberration.” I think the rest of the world is thinking, “How did this person get elected?”

It is not possible to draw a straight line from any prior point in US history directly to the election of Donald J. Trump. We got here by the crookedest of paths. He's what we vomited up after ingesting several decades worth of political poison and economic corruption. Let us hope he was a sufficiently emetic dose to cleanse the system, if not back to 'health', at least back to a semblance of functionality.

MIchael Avenatti has just advertised that he's entering the fight against family separation I see.
Hope he isn't just about to team up with the Mooch in other areas though.

People seeking asylum is one thing, I'm talking more about people who cross over in search of a country richer than their own or whatever. Obviously theres got to be some process here.

Trump is so obviously a feature of America, not a bug. Come on. Xps

xpost And some limits, right? The alternative is open borders.

since it's bring brought up...what do y'all think we should do with people entering illegally?

All civilized people should aspire to ending borders tbh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZyBSQC1RZI

imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3eQv9YC6NI

Many xpost recommendation for They Thought They Were Free:
http://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html

for what it's worth "open borders; unlimited immigration" was also an option on the study I linked, but garnered the lowest support, also by a huge margin

Since some of the population of the US is so concerned with lower birthrates, let everyone in who wants to fill out the form.

older ILX thread/poll: open or national borders?

What I’ve heard from a number of foreign governments since Trump came to office, including pretty senior people is that, you don’t understand. It’s not just that Trump’s president, it’s that your country elected Trump. And essentially that’s why Trump’s presidency, I think, is more destructive than any one event that will take place under Trump. I think for a lot of Americans, we like to separate ourselves from Trump and say, “This is an aberration.” I think the rest of the world is thinking, “How did this person get elected?” Just him losing the election in 2020 won’t fully correct that something that is broken. America was a country where that wasn’t supposed to happen. To have basically an authoritarian demagogue get elected president.

Wtf, imotherfucker, we re-elected Nixon, Reagan, and Dubya. How much disillusionment do you need?

Pictures of President Trump and Kim Jong Un in the West Wing of the White House. A few weeks ago, these frames surrounded pics of Trump with Emmanuel Macron, president of France, one of America’s closest allies. pic.twitter.com/RZja99SDnJ

— Michael C. Bender (@MichaelCBender) June 18, 2018

Tough not to support Macron erasure tbh

New: ProPublica has obtained audio from inside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility, in which children can be heard wailing.

Border Patrol agent jokes, “We have an orchestra here.” https://t.co/pkmD8DKYmo

— ProPublica (@ProPublica) June 18, 2018

i don't know if i can bear to listen to that, i'm angry enough

okay i am listening to this and am just sick to my stomach

Wish that was a Current 93 recording, but sadly it's not.

motherfuckers!

so when are people marching ? this is enough of this shit

There's this

Look for an important announcement TONIGHT on @allinwithchris re *major protest against family separation* in DC & nationwide. @RepJayapal, one of our utmost champions, will share plans. All hands on deck. @chrislhayes @MoveOn @domesticworkers @waltshaub #FamiliesBelongTogether

— Anna Galland (@annagalland) June 18, 2018

good, thx Ned

we like to separate ourselves from Trump and say, “This is an aberration.” I think the rest of the world is thinking, “How did this person get elected?”

I hate to break the news but this is far from novel.

Certainly with Dubya, maybe not so much with Reagan but everybody was still laughing up their sleeve about him.

Supposedly Sanders and Nielsen will be giving a joint presser in about half an hour.