Immigration

America’s addiction to illegal drugs and cheap labor are the cause of illegal immigration

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A critical point missing from the media hyperventilation over the child refugees arriving from Central America is “what is the cause of Central American countries having devolved into violent narco terrorism states run by drug cartels and gangs?”

RefugeeChildrenOh, you already know the answer, but you are unwilling to admit it. Nothing pisses me off more than people who defend so-called “recreational” use of illegal drugs. They always claim it is a “victimless” crime.

Anyone who works in the medical profession, or the law enforcement and legal profession knows this is just self-serving rationalization. We have seen how drug use can destroy people’s lives and families.

So fuck you Spicoli, your recreational use of illegal drugs is not a victimless crime. The victims of the drug cartels and gangs you support with your purchase of illegal drugs are now arriving on your doorstep seeking safety and refuge, and your sorry ass wants to turn them away? You owe these children.

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Forget photo-ops – Congress do your damn job, and pass an immigration reform bill

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Tea-Publicans demanded that President Obama do a symbolic photo-op at the Texas border that even they acknowledged would have no practical impact. The courtesan Beltway media villagers who take their cues from the conservative media entertainment complex obliged by playing along, e.g., the Washington Post’s The Fix, In defense of “photo ops“, and Arizona’s own media villagers, E.J. Montini, President Obama should — he must — go to the border, and Laurie Roberts, Obama should visit border then visit Congress.

This is why we should never allow media villagers to determine public policy. They are too easily distracted by bright shiny objects, and focus on the trivial and the mundane. They would spend a week writing about and talking about this photo-op to fill column space and air time, and at the end of the day what will the courtesan media villagers have accomplished? Not a goddamn thing.

Image: Latinos protest in favor of comprehensive immigration reform while on West side of Capitol Hill in WashingtonDo you know what the media villagers should be spending their time on with a laser-like focus? There is a comprehensive immigration reform bill passed by the U.S. Senate more than a year ago sitting on the desk of the TanMan, Weeper of the House John Boehner. He could schedule that bill for a vote today in the House, and it would likely pass on the strength of Democratic votes and the few remaining GOP House members who do not take their marching orders from the conservative media entertainment complex and Sen. Ted Cruz.

The comprehensive immigration reform bill contains provisions to address the current child refugee crisis on the border. Congress could always add an amendment to strengthen those provisions, and if they were actually interested in solving this humanitarian crisis, Congress could pass a conformed bill by the end of next week.

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The science is in: “Moderate” voters are a myth

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

moderate def

Vox‘s Ezra Klein covered some interesting new research involving ideological stances of average voters.

What happens, explains David Broockman, a political scientist at the University of California at Berkeley, is that surveys mistake people with diverse political opinions for people with moderate political opinions. The way it works is that a pollster will ask people for their position on a wide range of issues: marijuana legalization, the war in Iraq, universal health care, gay marriage, taxes, climate change, and so on. The answers will then be coded as to whether they’re left or right. People who have a mix of answers on the left and the right average out to the middle — and so they’re labeled as moderate.

“”These people look like moderates but they’re actually quite extreme””

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ACLU Files Suit on Behalf of Refugee Children

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ACLU refugee children The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed suit on behalf of the 1000s of refugee children being held in detention centers in the southwest.

The ACLU suit claims that the children should have legal representation when they go through their deportation proceedings.

I have witnessed several immigration hearings for people with and without lawyers. Setting aside anxiety and potential Spanish/English/indigenous language barriers, judges and lawyers have their own lingo and their own rules. Even adult non-lawyers can get tripped up by the legal system. These deportation hearings are literally a life or death matter for the refugee children. There is a fine line between being label a refugee who is fleeing violence and persecution in her homeland (OK, you can stay) or a migrant who broke US law and crossed the border (Hasta luego).

Providing them with lawyers is the humanitarian thing to do to. I also believe that the government should make every effort to hook up these minors with relatives who are in the US. (I have this to say to the people who claim the US can’t afford to care for these children and treat them humanely: TAX THE RICH.)

From the ACLU..

Eleven-year-old Luisa was too young to apply on her own for a visa to come from Guatemala to the United States where she hoped to be reunited with her mother. But since federal immigration authorities detained her last year in Texas, Luisa has learned that she is apparently not too young to act as her own lawyer as federal immigration officials move to deport her back to her native Guatemala.

During a recent hearing in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom, Luisa and more than two dozen other children crowded into a small room where the U.S. government has begun deportation hearings against them. Some sat quietly, feet dangling from benches. Others, who spoke indigenous languages and understood little Spanish, looked nervously around struggling to understand the proceedings.

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A Truly ‘Christian’ Nation Would NOT Deport Refugees (video)

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Honduras violence
Screen capture from a video by Phoenix videographer Dennis Gilman. Full video below.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness…
— US Declaration of Independence

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
— Emma Lazarus’ poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty

… One nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.
— US Pledge of Allegiance

It sucks when our national public relations story doesn’t match our actions.

On Monday– just a few days after the US celebrated the signing of the Declaration of Independence– our government released a statement saying that thousands of the unaccompanied child refugees who crossed the US-Mexico border fleeing violence and seeking safety and family members will likely be deported.

This is unconscionable. If we send these children back home to die, we must scratch Emma Lazarus’ poem off the Statue of Liberty and take “God” out of our political speech.

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