Donald Trump's immigration deportation is plan will terrorize all minorites!

Echo opinion by Jamelle Bouie in The New York Times:

Trump's failed border wall!  Now he wants export all immigrants. 

Among the worst episodes in American history are those moments when the federal government deploys the full weight of its power against the most vulnerable people in the country: the Trail of Tears and the Fugitive Slave Act in the 19th century and Japanese internment in the middle of the 20th, to name three.

If he is granted a second term in the White House, Donald Trump hopes to add his own entry to this ignominious book of national shame.

Trump’s signature promise, during the 2016, presidential election, was that he would build a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico. 

Worse! His signature promise, this time around, is that he’ll use his power as president to deport as many as 20 million people from the United States.

“Following the Eisenhower model,” he told a crowd in Iowa last September, “we will carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.”

It cannot be overstated how Trump’s deportation plan would surely rank as one of the worst crimes perpetrated by the federal government on the people of this country. 

Most of the millions of unauthorized and undocumented immigrants in the United States are essentially permanent residents. They raise families, own homes and businesses, pay taxes and contribute to their communities. For the most part, they are as embedded in the fabric of this nation as native-born and naturalized American citizens are.

"Mexico will pay for it❓" IDTS❗ 

What Trump and his aide Stephen Miller hope to do is to tear those lives apart, rip those communities to shreds and fracture the entire country in the process.

“The Trump immigration plan,” notes Radley Balko, a journalist who writes primarily on civil liberties, in his Substack newsletter, “would be the second-largest forced displacement of human beings in human history, on par with Britain’s disastrous partition of India, and second only to total forced displacement during World War II.”

What is the plan, exactly? It begins, as Miller explained in an interview with Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk last year, with creating a national deportation force consisting of agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Border Patrol and other federal agencies, as well as the National Guard and local law enforcement officials. The administration would empower this deportation force to scour the country for unauthorized and undocumented immigrants. It would move from state to state, city to city, neighborhood to neighborhood and, finally, house to house, looking for people who, according to Trump and Miller, do not belong. This deportation force would raid workplaces and stage public roundups, to create a climate of fear and intimidation.

Of course, in the heat of the moment, it isn’t actually all that easy to determine who may be an unauthorized or undocumented immigrant. But these won’t be selective apprehensions. How could they be? Instead, what we’ll see in practice is an indiscriminate roundup of anyone who might appear to be an immigrant — a mass campaign of racial and ethnic profiling.

Because it would be beyond the capacity of the federal government to immediately return detainees to their “home” countries, the Trump team also plans to build “vast holding facilities that would function as staging centers” for immigrants on land near the Texas border. Internment camps, essentially.

It is worth remembering here that in addition to its wanton cruelty, Trump’s policy of child separation was also noteworthy for the poor conditions suffered by separated families living in government facilities. Child detainees lacked adequate food, water and sanitation. There were also reports of mistreatment, as in the case of the Border Patrol agents who were accused of telling detained women to drink out of toilet bowls.

Now, imagine the conditions that might prevail for hundreds of thousands of people crammed into hastily constructed camps, the targets of a vicious campaign of demonization meant to build support for their detention and deportation. If undocumented immigrants really are, as Trump says, “poisoning the blood of our country,” then how do we respond? What do we do about poison? Well, we neutralize it.

There are roughly 10.5 million unauthorized immigrants in the United States, according to a recent estimate by the Pew Research Center. Trump’s number of “probably 15 million and maybe as many as 20 million” is pulled from nowhere — an assumption based on the inchoate sense that the official numbers are wrong and there must be more “illegals” to apprehend than anyone truly realizes.

To reach this goal, Miller and Trump would almost certainly have to round up citizens as well. But that is also part of the plan. On the first day of his second term, the campaign has let it be known, Trump will sign an executive order “to withhold passports, Social Security numbers and other government benefits from children of undocumented immigrants born in the United States.”




Neither Trump nor Miller appears to have made any distinction between the undocumented children of undocumented immigrants and the native-born children of undocumented immigrants, which fits their opposition to the Constitution’s guarantee of birthright citizenship through the 14th Amendment. Under the Trump deportation plan, citizenship will not save those who have the wrong background.

The Trump campaign’s promise to detain and deport millions of immigrants, along with many American citizens, is a promise to plunge the country into an authoritarian nightmare. It is also a promise of strife and pervasive civil conflict.

It wouldn’t be the first time that Americans responded to an effort of this sort with violence. With the passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, which essentially deputized all authorities and private citizens in free states as slave catchers required to return all escaped slaves to their enslavers, came widespread, armed resistance to efforts to carry out the law. You did not have to be sympathetic to the plight of the enslaved to be outraged by the notion that you could be dragooned into acting as a bounty hunter for state-sanctioned human traffickers.

The political consequence of the Fugitive Slave Act, to the dismay of Southern lawmakers, was to radicalize countless Northerners against the so-called Slave Power and raise sectional tensions to a point of almost no return. The law did not cause the Civil War, but it was the provocation that set the stage for a decade of conflict that led, inexorably, to war.

Do we not think that a mass deportation program, with roving bands of armed agents, would result in similar upheaval? Do we not think that there would be violent resistance to agents storming homes, churches and businesses to seize and detain people? And do we not think that a Trump who wanted, during his first term, to shoot protesters would see this as an opportunity to do so — a hoped-for chance to invoke the Insurrection Act, mobilize the military and crush his political opponents?

We talk often, these days, of illiberalism. It is has become a bit of a buzzword. Often the focus is illiberalism in elite spaces, usually the classrooms and common areas of selective colleges. Sometimes the focus is on particular politicians. But what we are seeing here from Trump isn’t simply a distaste for liberal values; it is a taste for genuine tyranny and bona fide despotism, one that complements his endless praise for dictators and strongmen.

Rhetoric matters, and what candidates say is not simply for show. 

At every opportunity, Trump has placed the mass deportation of millions of people at the center of his campaign. It is a promise. And the promises a presidential candidate makes while on the trail are the promises a president tries to keep.

Coward Repulbicans follow cult leader former guy citizen Trump - The Do Nothing Congress

Echo opinion letter published in Tulsa World, in Oklahoma:

The spineless congressional Republicans just wrapped up Congress' least productive year since the Great Depression, passing just 27 bills signed into law. 

Cowards "do nothing" Republicans❗

Of those 27, one created a commemorative coin and two renamed medical centers. 😞😧

Thank goodness U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet, (D-Colorado), James Lankford, (R-Oklahoma), Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut), Kyrsten Sinema, (I-Arizona) and Thom Tillis, (R-North Carolina) produced the best border security deal in years  — 👍one which President Biden favors.

Attached to this border security proposal is much-needed aid to Ukraine and Israel and especially sorely needed humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Not really surprising, the former President Donald Trump has a hold over congressional Republicans. He told Republicans to kill the “best deal in years” because he says he will do better if elected president. Oh yeah? Just like Trump said he would build a wall on the border and make the Mexican government pay for it. How successful was that? Zilch!

Mexico denies it will pay for border wall after former guy Trump repeated the false claim.

But congressional Republicans (especially House Speaker Mike Johnson who is at the beck-and-call of his puppet master) don’t have the guts to stand up to the former president. They are more worried about losing their comfortable seats than standing up for the country.

Time for congressional Republicans to grow a spine and stand up to their puppet master and stand up for our country.

Sondra Biggs, Tulsa Oklahoma

Cruz to Loose encore cubed!

So, the litany of Ted Cruz stupidity missteps continues: #CruzToLoose! Ted Cruz mistakes 'Western Australia' for 'Washington State' in botched attack on 'power-drunk' Dems

RawStory echo report by John Wright

And there was this:
Cruz accuses Democrats of playing 'ridiculous theater' in proposals following mass shootings with dozens of preventable fatalities and gun injuries. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R) accused Democrats of playing “ridiculous theater” by proposing universal background checks and other reforms following serial mass shootings, and gun death mortalities, which he claimed would take “away guns from law-abiding citizens.” 

Meanwhile, school shootings in 2021, continue terrifying students, educators, parents, and communities—There have been 34 school shootings in 2021, in fact, 24 since August 1. 

A shooting on Nov. 30, in which a student killed four people and injured seven at an Oxford, Mich., high school, was the deadliest school shooting since May 2018. There have been 92 school shootings since 2018. The COVID-19 pandemic appears to have interrupted the trend line. The 2020 figure, with 10 shootings, was significantly lower than 2019 and 2018, which each had 24.

Plus this: While the Cruz constituents in Texas were literally freezing to death during an ice storm when the state's power grid failed, he took his family to vacation in Cancun, Mexico! Cruz said that his Houston home didn’t lose power, unlike vast swaths of the state, though he said in his Thursday statement that he did end up losing power and heat. 

David Shuster "...confirmed @SenTedCruz and his family flew to Cancun for a few days at a resort they've visited before. Cruz seemed to believe there wasn't much for him to do in Texas for the millions of fellow Texans who remained without electricity/water and  literally freezing."

Rolling blackouts at times meant more than 35% of Texans went without electricity—and many of those without any source of heat.

Cruz to Loose in Cancun Mexico*

Echo report in RawStory:  Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz apparently confused "Western Australia" (WA) with "Washington State" in an attempted attack on Democrats over COVID-19 restrictions on Wednesday night.

On Twitter, Cruz falsely suggested that "Washington State" had banned dancing at private parties on New Year's Eve.

"Blue-state Dems are power-drunk authoritarian kill-joys," Cruz wrote. "Washington State: NO DANCING ALLOWED!!! Any rational & free citizen: Piss off."

Cruz later deleted the tweet, but here's a screen shot:

Cruz was responding to a post containing an image of a comment thread from Facebook. In the comment thread, "WA Government" responded to a question about New Year's Eve COVID-19 restrictions by saying that "Dancing is strictly not permitted."

As it turns out, the comment thread came from the Facebook page of the Government of Western Australia, not Washington state. Cruz may have gotten confused since the postal abbreviation for Washington state is "WA."

"Witness the idiocracy for yourself. This…leader (?) confuses Western Australia (WA) for Washington State. Like he confused Texas for Cancun. https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status"

#SIASD!

*P.S.  So let me get this right?  Ted Cruz was born in Canada.  His father was a Cuban immigrant.  So, how is it that Ted Cruz gets to travel in and out of Mexico without having proof of US citizenship? In other words, do we really have to let him back in after he leaves to visit another country? 

Calgary, Alberta CNN — Ted Cruz’s Canadian birth has become a key campaign issue. The U.S. Constitution requires a candidate for president be a “natural born citizen.” Most experts believe Cruz is a natural born citizen, but no president has ever been born outside of the U.S. and his father was not an American citizen at the time.

And, Maine Writer opinion here- these goofs will not be the end of the #CruzToLoose litany.

/1476356717336309766

American has documented the need for immigrants to support labor needs, now as much as ever!

Immigrants and refugees improve America!  

Here's how they do it in Michigan!

Echo opinion published by John Hiner in MichiganLive

Every story is ultimately a people story, no matter how complex the topic may be. And immigration and migrant labor in the United States is as dense, controversial and multifaceted as topics come.

But the topic comes alive when you meet the worker who mowed the lawn at a Mackinac Island hotel with tears in his eyes, two days after his mother had died in Jamaica.

Or the Syrian refugee who owns an assessing business in southeast Michigan, but still carries a toilet brush to school speaking engagements to illustrate what she had to do to get established in America.

Crossing the international bridge between Juarez, Mexico and El Paso, Texas, May 1937.  America has documented the need for immigrants to support labor needs. 

Or the Mexican young adults whose pursuit of the American dream means staying here to build a life years after their parents were deported.

“We need the real personal stories, because that’s what drives it home for everyone – to see yourself in someone else and to walk in their shoes,” said Lindsay Moore, an MLive reporter who joined colleague Malachi Barrett over the past two weeks in publishing a project that dives deep into the sprawling story of migrant labor.

“There’s a lot of research, there’s a lot of data, and there are a lot of experts willing to talk about this,” Moore said. “But a lot of it was finding people and just being there, being present.”

For Moore, that meant two trips this summer to Mackinac Island, whose businesses rely heavily on a lottery for a limited number of work visas for foreign workers to take service jobs that Americans aren’t willing to do.

For Barrett, that meant interviews with farmers, who have a critical need for migrant labor, as well as trips to southeast Michigan, which has a rich immigrant history and still relies on it to fill sectors ranging from retail to high-tech jobs.

On all those trips, our reporters sought out real people with real stories that illustrate what is at stake – for our country, and for the workers themselves.

“They’re willing to give whatever they’ve got, because they know how good the opportunity is,” Moore said.

The politics of immigration are fraught with contention, and that has touched every part of American culture and community for years: Political, social, economic, business and industry. Everything about it seems tangled in debate and bureaucracy.

But Barrett and Moore’s project cuts through that to show clearly that there is a shortage of labor in general, there are lots of jobs that Americans don’t want to take, and that domestic employers are desperate for changes to the system in order to open the flow of foreign workers.

“Immigrants are more likely to be business owners, they’re more likely to go to college,” Barrett said. “Michigan has long history of bringing in people from outside its borders to fill the gaps in the labor force. Everything from cherries to electric vehicles and everything in between is built on the backs of immigrant labor.”

And in case you think the topic is too complicated or doesn’t affect your day-to-day life, consider the restaurants that close early – or entirely – in your towns because they cannot find workers. Or note the price of produce going up at the grocery store. Or at a macro scale, that Michigan is losing political clout.

“Michigan lost a seat in Congress because our population gains haven’t kept up with the rest of the country,” Barrett said. “Without the stream of immigrants that we have had, Michigan would have actually declined in population.”

That explains why MLive would write these stories: It’s our job to bring context and meaning to important topics and societal shifts. But on this immigrant worker package, Barrett and Moore showed that how we tell the stories is just as important.

“I think we’ve shown through data and through personal stories that this is the future of what our labor force is going to look like,” Moore said. “You can ignore immigration policy because you think it doesn’t affect you, but you can’t escape this.

Humanitarians bringing food to migrants - a team effort

This article should receive international acclaim because people must know that we all can do our part to help the innocent immigrants and migrants who are being caged in concentration camps at the US and Mexico border. We can do something and the Knights of Columbus have stepped up.

Published in The Knights of Columbus Magazine "Columbia" by Daniel Cavazos

Louder than words: Knights bring food, clothing, medicine and a Posada celebration - to desperate migrants on the border.

It's hardly ironic that the Posada celebration is about the Biblical migration of Mary and Joseph, from Nazareth to Bethlehem. 

Las Posadas, (Spanish: “The Inns”) religious festival celebrated in Mexico and some parts of the United States between December 16 and 24. Las Posadas commemorates the journey that Joseph and Mary made from Nazareth to Bethlehem in search of a safe refuge where Mary could give birth to the baby Jesus.

Servando Salinas Rios and a dozen other Knights hoisted the last boxes of food and supplies over their shoulders and carried them to the nearby Casa del Migrante, a migrant shelter in Matamoros, Mexico.

"Helping people who don't have anything to eat, or a place to live, fills me with a lot of joy," said Salinas Rios, 23, a member of the Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe Council 16378, in Matamoros, just across the border from Brownsville, Texas.

Inside the shelter, young mothers holding toddlers balanced music sheets with their free hands to sing during a Posada celebration, hosted by the Knights.

Among those participating in the December 13, event were Bishop Daniel Flores, of Brownsville, who had earlier blessed the truckload of supplies, and Bishop Eugenio Lira of Matamoros.  Bishop Flores noted that Las Posada, an Advent tradition reenacting Mary and Joseph's search for shelter before the birth of Jesus, can be viewed as a reflection of the whole immigrant experience.

"At times, the world closes its eyes and does not want to recognize the difficulties of human existence," Bishop Flores said. "I'd like to thank the Knights for raising awareness and reaching out to people who are on the peripheries."

Matamoros an the event there, was part of the Order's initiative, announced at the Supreme Convention last August, to provide vital humanitarian assistance to migrant families in cooperation with dioceses and councils near the U.S. Mexico border.  Knights in Texas and Mexico have similarly distributed in the Piedras Negras and Ciudad Juarez, where Central American immigrants seeking asylum await lawful entry in the United States.

A Team Effort

This Knights of Columbus border initiative began in El Paso, Texas.  Knights there, in conjunction with local parishes, had spent $54,000 by mid-2019, to purchase food, prepare cooked meals and rent showers for migrants across the border in Ciudad Juarez.

Border towns like Juarez have struggled to accommodate the growing number of men, women and children waiting to be considered for asylum in the United States.

"Parishes and councils were simply running out of money," said Supreme Director Terry Simonton, a past state deputy of Texas.

Simonton approached the Supreme Council for help and his request led to the initiative announced by Supreme Knight Carl Anderson at the Supreme Convention in Minneapolis.

In his annual report, the supeme knight stated, "This is not a political statement....This is about helping people who need our help right now."

In fact, the Knights of Columbus has since delivered more than $270,000 in aid to help meet the humanitarian needs at the border. With each delivery, Texas Knights have been welcomed and assisted by their Mexican brothers.

I can't say enough about our brother Knights from Mexico and the United States, working together to help make the migrants lives a little better," Simonton said.  "The bonds that our brother Knights made at these distributions will never be forgotten."

Armando Gonzalez, a member of the Sacred Heart of Jesus/San Felipe Neri Council 11980 in Hidalgo, Texas, and a former district deputy, said it was gratifying to help those in need who are so close to home.  

"We have helped people in many parts of the world," he said.  "Today, we are helping our Hispanic brothers who find themselves here in Mexico."

The migrants need more than food and shelter, said Servando. Salina Rios, who also helped with the delivery.

"We should support people in need with food and bread," he said, "but more importantly, with love and an embrace- taking the time to meet them and talk to them and listen to what they have to say."

"We are here to give this testimony, that you are to be treated as a person, not a problem, a number, a statistic, that does not have an identity."  Bishop Flores said, "You have an identity that God has given to you as sons and daughters of God."

Joy and Sorrow

Fraternity and love of neighbor were especially evident during the shared Posada celebration, which was followed by a hearty lunch and festivities for the children.  Excited boys and girls swung sticks at pinatas and then scurried to scoop up the candies that had fallen to the floor.

Yet, the joy and fellowship felt at the event were interspersed with painful reminders of what drove the migrants on long journeys from their homelands. Edwin Reyes, a young Nicaraguan barely past his teenage years, spoke emotionally about fleeing the political repression in his country.

"I am one of the people who defends our country, civically and democratically, and yet the government has tried to kill us," he said. "Like many who are here, I am asking for an opportunity, because we fear losing our lives."

Another migrant, Wendy Concepcion Castro Cruz of Honduras, spoke about being separated from her husband and son shile staying at the shelter with her daughter. Her husband and son are awaiting initial asylum hearings in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas.

"It is difficult being apart," said Castro Cruz, who worked daily at the shelter kitchen in Matamoros to show her gratitude.  "We hope to be back together someday and make it to the United States to work hard, do our part and provide for our children."

Moreover, the Knights witnessed the character and resiliency of the migrants, along with their gratitude for the distributon of food, shoes, medicine and hygiene items.

"AT every distribution, the people were so appreciative," Simonton said. "There is no doubt that these events have changed the lives of the migrants for the better. It has also changed the lives of the Knights who have participated."

Bishop Eugenio Lira of Matamoros connected the distribution of aid to the golden rule taught by Jesus, about treating others as we would want to be treated.

"This is what the Caballeros are doing, in expressing love and solidarity, with migrants who are going through very difficult circumstances," Bishop Lira said.  "The testimony of what's actually done is stronger than words."

For Simonton, the response from the migrants says it all.  

"The smiles on their faces and from the children and their parents are priceless," he said.  "I'm so proud of what the Knights have done." 

Donald Trump's stupid trade war is loosing

https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/2019/08/30/texas-is-losing-in-trump-s-trade-war-with-china/?utm_source=pushy

Dallas is calling!  Texas speaks!

Hello White House! Wake up call to the Trump campaign!

Honestly, it doesn't take a rocket scientist (sorry for the cliche) to realize that Donald Trump has never moved beyond his apprentice campaign mode in 2015-16, and into leadership.  His promise to have Mexico pay for a ghost wall that the Mexicans will absolutely not fund and his stupidity about how to leverage trade deals are examples of the delusional Donald Trump political poke bag. Here is a very harsh editorial from Texas!  

DALLAS, Texas editorial- Of all the reckless and ill-advised statements Donald Trump has made during his presidency, perhaps the one he’ll regret most is his March 2018 tweet saying “trade wars are good, and easy to win.” 

Most economists on the left and right would agree that they are neither, and, moreover, the casualties are generally the farmers, manufacturers and consumers that fuel a healthy economy.

The reality on the ground bears this out. In his increasingly damaging trade dispute with China, Trump has now slapped tariffs on $550 billion worth of Chinese imports while Beijing has retaliated with tariffs on $185 billion in U.S. imports. China's list of U.S. products now subject to increased levies includes electronics, cars and auto parts, aircraft and parts, machinery, crude oil, aluminum and steel products, and nearly everything grown or raised on a U.S. farm or ranch.

Last Friday, after China announced plans to hike tariffs on $75 billion of U.S. goods beginning on Sept. 1, Trump responded with a pledge to raise existing U.S. tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese products from 25% to 30% on Oct. 1, while an additional $300 billion in Chinese goods will be taxed at 15%, up from 10%, on Sept. 1. Tit-for-tat protectionist folly at its worst.

Then, in what seemed to be a gross misinterpretation of the powers of the presidency, Trump tweeted that U.S. companies “are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China.” Not surprisingly, the Dow, Nasdaq and the S&P 500 all plunged more than 2% on fears that Trump’s “easy to win” trade war might end the bull market and tip the U.S. into recession.

The markets have regained their composure since Friday. But Wall Street isn't Main Street, and that's where the trade war is taking no prisoners. As the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has made painfully clear, "American businesses and consumers are bearing the brunt of the global trade war. By now, it's plain to see that tariffs are inflicting harm on the American economy and will continue to do so unless the administration changes course."

In Texas alone, where more than 3 million jobs are supported by global trade, $10 billion in state exports are targeted for retaliation from China. Among the hardest hit are liquified propane, with $1.7 billion worth exported annually to China; grain sorghum, with $494 million exported annually to China; and cotton, with $477 million exported annually to China. And those numbers don't reflect last week's salvo of retaliatory Chinese tariffs.

Small, family-owned business are among the hardest hit, especially those that export to or import goods from China. But the toll is beginning to be felt by giants like Apple and Caterpillar, who've seen their stock values tumble as stiff tariffs on technology and machinery are becoming a reality.

But in Texas, a state with more farms and ranches than any other, no one is getting hit as hard as those in the ag industry. In our state and across the country, producers of cotton, soybeans, corn, feed grains and other crops are struggling financially with farm loan bankruptcies and delinquenciesspiking recently due in part to poor weather but also the intensifying trade war.

China's announcement earlier this month that its state-owned enterprises will cease buying any agricultural products from the U.S. was described by American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall as a "body blow to thousands of farmers and ranchers who are already struggling to get by."

According to Duvall, “Exports to China were down by $1.3 billion during the first half of the year.” Now, he says American farmers “stand to lose all of what was a $9.1 billion market in 2018, which was down sharply from the $19.5 billion U.S. farmers exported to China in 2017.”

Duvall said that those in the agricultural industry are “grateful for the Market Facilitation Program payments many farmers and ranchers have received, allowing them to continue farming during this difficult time. Even so, we know that aid cannot last forever. We urge negotiators to redouble their efforts to arrive at an agreement, and quickly. Exports ensure farmers will continue to supply safe, healthful and affordable food for families here and around the world.”

In other words, trade not aid is what farmers — and the rest of American businesses, whether large or small — need to not just survive but thrive in the global marketplace. Yes, China has been a bad actor and violated World Trade Organization rules and the norms of international trade, especially in regard to intellectual property rights and forced technology transfers.

But Trump's scorched-earth negotiating style could be pushing China further away from international norms when the goal is just the opposite. It's times like this that we wish the U.S. had not pulled out of the Trans Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation trading bloc that, with U.S. leadership, would have had more carrots and sticks in its arsenal than Trump going it alone.

Perhaps the best we can hope for under this administration is for the president to tire of his trade war with China, claim victory as he did with the rewritten United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, and move on. For the sake of the Texas (and U.S.) economy, we hope Congress ratifies the North American free trade agreement as soon as possible. For one thing is certain about Trump’s trade wars: There is nothing “good” or “easy” about them.

Donald Trump launches fear as a failed campaign strategy

Trump launched his re-election campaign with fear-mongering
Opinion echo published in the Texas newspaper the El Paso Times

When a candidate is insecure in his electability, fear-mongering and hateful, divisive rhetoric becomes their hallmark. 

Unfortunately, and possibly due to the interference of foreign governments in the 2016 election, this was a winning position for our current president.

Apparently utilizing the theory that “if it works, don’t fix it,” and building upon a well-documented history of lying to the American people, Trump has launched his re-election campaign with the same fear-mongering and hateful, divisive rhetoric that colored his prior campaign and tenure as our nation’s leader.

He began by escalating tensions in our international alliances; separating from time-honored policies that won our nation’s title and reputation of “leader of the free world,” creating more hostilities between the U.S. and our collaborating allies than at any time in history.

Now, we are at odds with Iran, threatening further destabilization of already fragile relations with the majority of Middle Eastern nations. By deploying more troops to the near-Middle East in advance of his campaign rally, it is likely Mr. Trump has created and will continue to create the appearance of aggression on our part, leading us into yet another unnecessary and endless military conflict.

With continuous diatribes against our sister nation of Mexico, the brutal treatment of refugees, asylum seekers, and unaccompanied migrant children, and threats of economic sanctions and disruption of trade with Mexico, Mr. Trump continues to treat Mexico, and the 22 other nations south of the U.S., as enemies. By calling immigrants, refugees, asylum-seekers and unaccompanied migrant children “criminals,” referring to them as a blight upon our society, Mr. Trump continues his creation of an imaginary army of people bursting across the border to take over our nation, our culture and marry our daughters and sons.

But, people migrate from all over the world, both legally and without complying with the immigration processes. 

Moreover, people have historically sought refuge from persecution, poverty, violence, and civil strife by coming to the United States and applying for asylum. It is their right to do so under existing laws and has been for over seven decades. It is the Trump administration violating the existing laws with the “Remain in Mexico” policy, the blockade from approaching the port of entry by Customs and Border Protection officials at the top of the international bridges, and the refusal to timely process asylum applications once received.

And then, he announces that there will be roundups of every undocumented immigrant in the U.S. Good luck with that. The following day, officials from the Department of Homeland Security advised that there is insufficient staffing, detention facilities, and travel accommodations to do so. Agents are focusing on people under recent removal (or deportation) orders — who may not actually even be deportable.

So, Trump tweeted his campaign announcements from a “throne” of power — threatening war with Iran, threatening immediate and massive raids of the homes and workplaces of undocumented immigrants, falsely portraying his accomplishments. And he used these talking points in his campaign rally, lying as is his wont, about his administration’s accomplishments. This is the tone of his campaign — receiving rousing cheers from his supporters.

No surprises here — he has lied to us over 10,000 times, including at least six times in his Tuesday (campaign kick off) speech. He called people inappropriate nicknames, demeaned international leaders. As revealed in the Mueller investigation, he, his family, and his closest political allies have engaged in conduct to subvert the orderly process of elections in our country. He and his family, through their corporations and business entities, have enriched themselves at taxpayer expense. He whips up his base, calling forth the most frightening and hateful aspects of human nature.

All of this to the detriment of our republic. Pay attention, America. We are surely in for another wild ride. 

I hope the result is different this time.

Ouisa D. Davis is an attorney at law in El Paso. She can be reached at Ouisadavis@yahoo.com.

Tennessee echo opinions about the stupid and expensive Trumpzi border wall

Donald Trump claimed that the border wall would be covered in solar panels, “see-through,” anywhere from 30 to 65 feet tall, or any one of the ugly, useless and expensive prototypes he commissioned. But judging from the latest iteration of the stupid project, there is every indication that it was slapped together at the last minute using a gradient and Windows XP clip art. Crazy Trump is increasingly desperate to just get anything up that he can take a photo op with as soon as possible. Enter the “Steel Slat Barrier,” which is not a wall per se but a series of upright metal strips terminating in spikes, says Gizmoto's Tim McKay.

Make the stupid wall issue easy, says Tennessee- just invade Mexico and wall off Canada!

The ugly, ineffective, stupid and expensive useless Trump border wall

Much is being said about building a wall between us and Mexico. Donald Trump promised he would get Mexico to pay for it. 

Well he can: Let’s invade them — again. Remember the Mexican-American War, 1846-1848? That’s how we got (after annexing Texas) Arizona, New Mexico, California, Utah and Nevada.

We may not have money for a wall, but we always have money for war. We take 10 miles from Mexico all across the border, put the POWs and refugees on old buses and send them south, and then burn everything. This will bring the Mexican army to meet our Army, creating a no-man’s-land. This free-fire zone will, effectively, be a wall.

Once this is done, we can look to our northern border and those pesky Canadians. Does anybody really know what they are doing up there? They have been undermining our currency for years with their Canadian quarters and nickels. Let’s put a stop to it with another wall. The northern wall would have to be pretty tall to keep those lumberjacks from building siege devices and trebuchets to unload bags of Canadian coins into our country. It will also stop those Sasquatches from freely roaming back and forth.

After that, let’s put a wall around Alaska to keep the Canadians and the Soviets from migrating. Remember the land bridge? It could come back.

A wall around the eastern coast is a no-brainer with the raft people and drug runners coming ashore at all hours of the day and night. For total wall security, the west coast will need a wall to keep seapeople from seeking a better life in this country.

The only thing that could go wrong with the Mexican invasion is what would we do if they surrendered?

John F. Youhouse, Clarksville

Tennessee echo opinion published in the Leaf Chronicle

Border wall won't help, it will only harm America

"The border wall is not only a waste of money, it will be largely ineffective. Most immigrants are “overstayers,” so they arrive in the country via legal means."

The wall will do nothing to stop this.

Another problem with the wall is that it will destroy the habitats of several endangered species as well as Native American historical sites. We have already destroyed enough of both of those things; we cannot allow it to continue.

This is not the way to put "America first." It will ruin so much of America that is already wonderful, removing important sites from our future generations.

Kasey Boatwright, Clarksville

"...closing of the border would lead to immediate layoffs" - Trump's height of folly

Republican alert- Food prices are already causing budget stress in many homes, but the cost of groceries was removed from the index used to determine the rate of inflation. Shutting down the Mexico border will have immediate negative economic impact. In my opinion, closing the Mexico border is a stupid Trumposity and will cause food prices to soar, may even cause hording. 

"60 percent of all Mexican winter produce consumed in the U.S. crosses into the country at Nogales, Arizona"- Associated Press published in the Ohio newspaper, The Independent.

EL PASO, Texas — Donald Trump’s threat to shut down the southern border raised fears Monday of dire economic consequences in the U.S. and an upheaval of daily life in a stretch of the country that relies on the international flow of not just goods and services but also students, families and workers.

Politicians, business leaders and economists warned that such a move would block incoming shipments of fruits and vegetables, TVs, medical devices and other products and cut off people who commute to their jobs or school or come across to go shopping.

“Let’s hope the threat is nothing but a bad April Fools’ joke,” said economist Dan Griswold at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Virginia. He said Trump’s threat would be the “height of folly,” noting that an average of 15,000 trucks and $1.6 billion in goods cross the border every day.

“If trade were interrupted, U.S. producers would suffer crippling disruptions of their supply chains, American families would see prices spike for food and cars, and U.S. exporters would be cut off from their third-largest market,” he said.

Trump brought up the possibility of closing ports of entry along the southern border Friday and revisited it in tweets over the weekend because of a surge of Central Americans migrants who are seeking asylum. Trump administration officials have said the influx is straining the immigration system to the breaking point.

Elected leaders from border communities stretching from San Diego to cities across Texas warned that havoc would ensue on both sides of the international boundary if the ports were closed. They were joined by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which said such a step would inflict “severe economic harm.”

In California’s Imperial Valley, across from Mexicali, Mexico, farmers rely on workers who come across every day from Mexico to harvest fields of lettuce, carrots, onions and other winter vegetables. Shopping mall parking lots in the region are filled with cars with Mexican plates.

More than 60 percent of all Mexican winter produce consumed in the U.S. crosses into the country at Nogales, Arizona. The winter produce season is especially heavy right now, with the import of Mexican-grown watermelons, grapes and squash, said Lance Jungmeyer, president of the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas.

Nogales border crossing

He said 11,000 to 12,000 commercial trucks cross the border at Nogales daily, laden with about 50 million pounds of produce such as eggplants, tomatoes, bell peppers, lettuce, cucumbers and berries.

He said a closing of the border would lead to immediate layoffs and result in shortages and price increases at grocery stores and restaurants.

“If this happens — and I certainly hope it doesn’t — I’d hate to go into a grocery store four or five days later and see what it looks like,” Jungmeyer said.

Laredo Mayor Pete Saenz, chairman of the Texas Border Coalition, said a closure would be catastrophic.

“Closing the border would cause an immediate depression in border state communities and, depending on the duration, a recession in the rest of the country,” he said.

“Our business would end,” said Marta Salas, an employee at an El Paso shop near the border that sells plastic flowers that are used on the Mexican side by families holding quinceañeras, the traditional coming-of-age celebrations.

Salas said her whole family, including relatives who attend the University of Texas at El Paso, would be affected if the border were closed.

“There are Americans who live there. I have nephews who come to UTEP, to grade school, to high school every day,” Salas said.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration said Monday as many as 2,000 U.S. inspectors who screen cargo and vehicles at ports of entry along the Mexican border may be reassigned to help handle the surge of migrants. Currently, about 750 inspectors are being reassigned.

That, too, could slow the movement of trucks and people across the border.

The effects were evident Monday: Sergio Amaya, a 24-year-old American citizen who lives in Juarez, Mexico, and attends UTEP, said it normally takes him two minutes to cross the bridge. It took an hour this time.

“The Border Patrol agent said it’s going to get worse,” Amaya said.

Instead of ensuring the flow of goods across the border, the inspectors are being put to work processing migrants, taking their applications for asylum and transporting them to holding centers.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said the reassignments are necessary to help manage the huge influx that is overloading the system.

“The crisis at our border is worsening, and DHS will do everything in its power to end it,” Nielsen said.

In addition to reassigning inspectors, Nielsen has asked for volunteers from non-immigration agencies within her department and sent a letter to Congress requesting resources and broader authority to deport families faster. The administration is also ramping up efforts to return asylum seekers to Mexico.

Apprehensions all along the southern border have soared in recent months, with border agents on track to make 100,000 arrests and denials of entry there in March, more than half of them families with children.

Montana point of view about failed Border walls....

https://billingsgazette.com/opinion/letters/why-border-walls-don-t-work/article_e2c81f0b-da3c-5d3f-b9cb-e407c961a73a.html

Why border walls don’t work- echo letter published in Billings Gazette, a Montana newspaper. 

Donald Trump is wasting tax money by building a failed border wall...and Mexico was supposed to pay for it!

Who will pay for the wall?  Who?

Border walls simply don’t work, according to Donna Wiesner Keene, who worked in the Reagan administration and both Bush administrations. 

Tunnels, ladders, smuggling people through legal points of entry in the backs of tractor trailers, all circumvent walls. 

In an article from eight years ago, Keene wrote “The value of a brick and mortar structure in a modern, technologically advanced era is clearly limited, if not altogether obsolete.”

Surely with eight more years of technological advancements and innovations since her article we are even further removed from the efficacy of a brick and mortar structure.

According to David Bier, a policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, “President Trump’s wall would be a mammoth expenditure that would have little impact on illegal immigration.” 

It would also create many “direct harms,” including “the spending, the taxes, the eminent domain abuse, and the decrease in immigrant’s freedoms of movement.”

We have watched ranchers lose land to oil pipelines only to have those pipelines leak all over their land and into their water table: eminent domain abuses really upset us. Many Montanans’ land has been passed down for generations; being caretakers of our land and having access to vibrant, clean public lands are ways of life for us in Montana. We can only imagine what it would be like to have our land used to erect a structure so controversial that even some or our most conservative friends think will be wholly ineffective and a waste of their tax dollars.

For these reasons we support an immediate end to the president’s so-called emergency and call for our fellow citizens to contact their representatives, urging them to oppose a border wall.

Nadine Smith, Billings Montana

When will Mexico pay for the border wall?

Indiana Star Press echo opinion letter

Who will pay for the wall? Who?

Trump's results don't match his claims

Trump claims he has accomplished more than any other POTUS. 

Ha! Trump is long on rhetoric but he is short on results. This is over and above his (treasonous!) conspiracy with Russia.

Mexico was to pay for the wall — not. Health care for all — waiting. Lower drug prices —waiting.

Trump's anti-nuke deal with North Korea was a bust. 

Li'l Kim handed him his hat and is building more nukes. 

Intel tells Trump this, but he is smarter.

Trump is threatening to pull out of NATO and Syria. 

Trump has pulled out of the Iran Nuclear Accord. Only Vladimir Putin, in Russia, wants this. It is so obvious, Trump has been compromised by Russia.

His tax cut was extremely weighted towards the mega-rich. 

So much for his promise to help the middle class.

He announced a company, Foxcomm, would bring 13,000 jobs to Wisconsin. But, they are now reneging after receiving $4.1 billion in subsidies. This is bad enough, but this company pulled the same scam on Harrisburg, Penn., in 2013. Trump has scammed so many people that he should have seen this coming. Of course, he might have received money under the table. It wouldn't be the first time.

Les Marsh  Muncie Indiana

But Mexico was supposed to pay for Donald Trump's stupid border wall! An Idaho echo

OMG, stupid Trump:-  "What If the Border Wall Was Actually a Row of Pointy Sticks" 

Where do we build a border wall?  Hello?  Mexico we are waiting for you to pay for it!

Tragically, Donald Trump shut down the federal government because Congress didn't approve $5.7 billion in funding for his expensive and stupid U.S.-Mexico border wall project.

Trump’s (stupid!) border wall- an echo opinion letter published in the Idaho Statesman newspaper:

Trump campaigned that he would build a wall along the Mexican border, and Mexico would pay for it. 

For some crazy reason Mexico, hasn’t stepped up to the plate. 

Seeing that wasn’t going to happen, Trump pushed for American taxpayers to pay for the wall, but Mexico would pay through a redone trade deal (yet to be fully approved). 

Now, Congress isn’t on board to pay for the wall, so Trump wants to declare a state of emergency (! OMG), and take money for the wall from emergency disaster funding. 

The only state of emergency in this country is that it is being run by a lying, corrupt narcissist, and no one in the Republican Party has the nerve, or love for this country, to stand up to Trump. In the meantime the government is shut down. Government workers are not getting paid for “essential” work, or furloughed, until further notice. As for the wall, it’s gone from concrete to steel. No actual plans have surfaced showing how it would be built. We are all for border security. Let’s work on border security, better processes at the border, and remember what this country stands for. This isn’t America.

From Michael Voloshen, Boise Idaho