The closing scenario of this column is chilling, and the last sentence says it all.
Trump's rhetoric is not innocuous.
Some people want to watch the world burn; Trump wants to be the guy who hands out the matches.
53
Mr. Cohen. When you were stopped at the border, your US passport was perused. You were returning home.
What would have been your situation, if you were not allowed to enter the US. Even, being a US citizen, and with a US passport?
4
Trump hates anyone who isn't Caucasian. And he hates a lot of Caucasians too. The man is full of hatred because that's how you become when deep down inside you resides a very frightened little boy. Because if you've lived any time at all on this planet and you have half a brain that functions you know that all hatred stems from fear.
5
The entire Republican philosophy on immigration is based on racism. It is designed to slow down, if not stop the "browning of America." In 20 years or so, Hispanics will be the majority ethnic group in America. That scare the hell out of many white Anglo-Saxons, particularly in the Republican Party. Republicans are trying to fight back this tide with (1) immigration restrictions and (2) with voting restrictions. It drives these people crazy to call a business and get the automated attendant say "press 1 for English and 2 for Spanish."
3
“This guy’s from The New York Times,” she said, turning to the agent next to her. “What should I do with him?”
This is the sort of psycho thing a mobster might say. These people are clearly out of their minds with bloodlust and should not be doing these jobs.
9
The third to the last paragraph? Chilled me to my bone.
1
I hope you got the name of the female border guard, she and Trump need to get jobs that are appropriate for their IQ level and it isn't the current positions.
5
"I thanked her for the warm welcome home." Being flippant and sarcastic while dealing with a low level bureaucrat is not a smooth move. Things could easily go downhill fast.
@John
What live in fear of a petty person that doesn't respect the Rule of Law, that "border" agent should be fired.
6
I've had my own experience with a hostile U.S. border control officer. At the Windsor Canada to Detroit Michigan crossing. The guy was downright openly aggressive and for no discernible reason. Two old people from Oklahoma returning to our hotel in Detroit after a few hours visiting Windsor's Little Italy. He sternly asked me something I'll never forget. "Why are you wearing a suit and tie," he snarled. This after barking at me when I pulled our car up too far at his post. This jerk's Canadian counterpart going into Windsor earlier in the day had looked at our passports, smiled pleasantly and sang to us from the Broadway play "Oklahoma."
44
Maybe your impolite agent wasn’t a Sooner fan.
2
“Everyone here knows Trump hates brown people.””
Every Democrat here thinks Trump hates brown people.
Fact,
Trump employs people from diverse cultures, including women in high job positions.
Too bad for democrats.
6
Build the wall.
Apprehend, Detain, and Deport ALL illegal border crossers.
Arrest Sanctuary State, Sanctuary County, and Sanctuary City elected officials.
Support ICE.
7
Referring to immigrants as "bodies" when they are alive? Reminds me of law enforcement personnel referring to those in jail as pukes; an attempt to dehumanize a fellow human being. These people do not represent me and can seek other employment as far as I am concerned. Let me guess, these same border agents attend mass on Sundays, and don't see the disconnect?
8
Trump's businesses hire illegal aliens. Trump ignores the emoluments clause and instructs his attorney to violate campaign finance laws. Only God and Robert Mueller know what other laws he has flaunted. It would be nice to see some light at the end of this long tunnel.
3
I really admire Roger Cohen, he’s such a mensch
4
Trump doesn't hate brown people, but he knows that his base does. He's been using discrimination to his benefit ever since he was part of his father's real estate business in Queens, and when he put that notorious ad in the newspaper in the 1980's that helped put the (later found innocent) Central Park 5 in jail.
4
You should absolutely read into that "law enforcement vernacular." Both the military and ICE are well aware that human beings are not generally psychologically predisposed to kill each other face-to-face. The Army trains us on human-shaped targets and encourages dehumanization of the enemy precisely so it is easier to kill when the time comes.
That agent called them "bodies" because that's how BP and ICE are conditioning their personnel to kill. That agent will find it easier to shoot a refugee once he gets used to viewing them as objects and not people. That's exactly what calling them "bodies" is designed to do.
Next time, call him out on it.
6
Trumps rhetoric is not only "not innocuous", but let's be clear: it's not true. It's lies. His facts and figures regarding border security are not tr. Read the facts before you judge the situation.
1
if its so good on the other side of the bridge, why come here?
5
Is there any chance here of figuring out causes before proposing solutions that seem extreme ("shoot them at the border" or "open the border fully")?
Current explanation: full blown narco states in Latin America are making lives of people difficult, they want out. An infrastructure in Mexico allows them to pass through unmolested up to the border. They are being told that the US has no choice but to let in people because too many of them are knocking on the border.
Half of America is convinced that the refugees are MS13 gangs, drug dealers, terrorists, and a rough assortment of current or future criminals. A sizeable segment sees no problems at all, and wants to let everyone in. Both segments seem unhinged from reality.
Ignoring causes will not help us solve the problem - immediate or long term.
4
“Everyone here knows Trump hates brown people.”
(Doesn't that statement beg ignorance)
*50,000 apprehensions by Border Agents a month (NYT)
That is 600,000 apprehensions a year. We have a problem here. Fix it! Now!
No, The President doesn't hate anyone. He is just trying to rid the border of chaos.
He doesn't like people breaking the law. It sets a bad precedent.
Legal immigration is a benefit to our society.
Illegal immigration puts stresses on the people who are breaking the law and on our society in general.
8
Good thing you weren't too tan. You might not have gotten back in. I am not kidding.
No, he wants to enforce the laws of th land. Brown people just happen to be those that are violating it.
If it were Germans the only that that switched would be the color.
Illeagal is illegal no matter what color.
4
The first thing you do in training a soldier for war is to dehumanize the enemy. Trump is trying to dehumanize brown and black people in preparation for his war against democracy.
2
Two years into this madness, and it still boggles the mind what President Big Mouth gets away with. How many of those who cheered on his ridiculous nonsense last night knew of his importing and illegal hiring hundreds of people from Costa Rico to work his New Jersey golf club?
3
I’ve always found Roger Cohen’s views of America as slightly, but kindly, not quite about “us.” Always able to step back. Wise. Sanguine. Avuncular.
His points not pointed, but instead broader strokes. Not political, but personal, human. Putting a light on things.
With all his visas, his accent, his Jewish name, I can imagine the disdain with which the Trumpian border guard judged him — as if he were not really an American at all.
And now we see, up close, how much hatred Trump has fomented in his followers for the “liberal fake news.”
It is eerie, America is beginning to feel like Austria in the second half of The Sound of Music.
“You will never be one of them,’ Captain Von Trapp says to Leisel’s “I am seventeen going on eighteen” boyfriend-turned Nazi.
The boy blows the whistle, calling for the Nazi soldiers.
2
If a big wall is so important to Trump, why not ask his Russian billionaire thug buddies or Saudi assassins to pay for it?
2
Trompoudo it is! A brat who had nothing on the ball but a great big mouth and a lot of Daddy's money has charmed the gullible in the US, just like the Pied Piper of Hamelin. They want to follow him down the rathole of racism and throw 5.7 billion US taxpayer dollars away on a useless and divisive wall that is dangerous to local communities, wildlife, and the environment. He's already wasted 64 million taxpayer dollars on weekend jaunts to Mar a Lago with his extended family. Where do the Trumpletons think all this money he wastes like a drunken sailor comes from??? Hint: It's not from HIS pocket!
4
All this hate incited by this vicious beast at the El Paso rally last night cannot end without a potential violence...yesterday the BBC cameraman was attack by his fanatical supporters...
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-supporter-attacks-bbc-cameraman_us_5c629078e4b0ffd8515dd234
Donald Trump Supporter Launches ‘Incredibly Violent Attack’ On BBC Cameraman At El Paso Rally
How many victims will end up being hurt or even worse, until we get rid of this loathsome, sadistic
brute.
3
Beautifully written. And chilling. Articles like this remind us all that this is a time to be courageous and to above all, be truthful about what is happening in our country. Donald Trump is a racist, who as president is pandering to the racism at the core of his base.
We, which is to say the majority of Americans, must bring this era to an end in 2020, at the ballot box!
2
This is the dumbest "crisis" of my lifetime. By far.
There is no crisis at the border. None. Illegal border crossings have been decreasing for years. The peak was 2005. It's been downhill ever since. We currently have negative net migration from Mexico (believe it or not, a lot of the Mexican folks who come here to work eventually return to their families). That our racist president's xenophobic fever dream has taken over our national priorities speaks to the rot of our political system.
And the result: Families torn apart - some forever - and the caging of immigrant children. To our everlasting shame as a nation.
What makes this even more frustrating is that we've had immigration reform deals on the table twice before. Once under Bush, once under Obama. But the Republican party's inability to deal with its xenophobic and bigoted wing derailed both instances.
2
"Just doing my job." That was the same individual justification and defense used during the round up and killing of Jews during World War Two Europe.
2
“This guy’s from The New York Times,” she said, turning to the agent next to her. “What should I do with him?”
Beyond disgusting.
And this is the way they treat white people with U.S. passports. I can only imagine how they treat brown people with green cards.
49
The picture of the longing eyes of this family of 7 makes me melt like seeing the Sicilian immigrants a century ago on the ship entering New York Harbor in "The Godfather" movie, viewing in reverent silence the Statue of Liberty. But all the world's wonderful well meaning desperate families cannot be accommodated by the our country's tax base. There are so many US families that limit themselves to 1 or 2 children maximum with 2 parents working trying to make ends meet who cannot bear the tax increases necessary to take on immigration beyond its mandated quota. Maybe a wall is impractical but what is needed is a well defined, enforceable immigration program articulated and understood by the citizens of our country. It is proper leadership that is needed to draft a plan, explain it to the public, and execute it; and the Executive and the Congress and the Judiciary have been inadequate in providing it.
2
Welcome to the border crossing from Mexico. This hostility is a norm unfortunately. Even as a citizen I find it unnerving to cross into the US from the south, which my husband and I have done innumerable times through Reynosa and Neuevo Laredo. The questions your agent asked you are routine and they feel grilling and menacing. I can't imagine what it must feel like to have another passport or none at all.
1
A small detail I suppose, but when reading the account of Mr. Cohen's account of walking back across the bridge into the U.S. and the border control officer's hostility, I couldn't help but wonder why it is that so often one is treated rudely by U.S. Customs agents, and the airport Customs personnel.
Rudeness seems to be much more frequent on the American side than on the Canadian or Mexican side of our border. Why?
10
And Democrats want to turn America into a Third World country resembling those in Central America. Sorry, I don’t want to live in Central America.
7
@M Until you retire. Then you'll find CA too expensive and get yourself a little place on the water in Puerto Vallarta.
1
Calling immigrants "bodies" helps border guards separate screaming toddlers from mothers, lose track of their' placement with strangers, and cause lifelong damage to their psyches without feeling guilt or remorse.
6
I sometimes wonder if I was teleported overnight to some place other than the United States. When border patrol agents are referring to human beings created in the image of God as "bodies," I am appalled at how low we have gone.
8
I do not think, strictly speaking, it is about brown people. The incumbent has a greater antipathy for poor people—and the way they live. Many brown and black people are impoverished.
Mr. Trump would have no problems with individuals like Jennifer Lopez or Alex Rodriguez or Aliko Dangote.
The most interesting part of your story is your encounter with the female border agent. I sympathize. Many of us have had run-ins with customs officials when traveling, and people in the know have cautioned me about entering the United States at certain ports of entry because they were patrolled by cowboys. There is a remarkable ugliness peculiar to border agents. I have concluded that many simply do not enjoy their jobs and resent travelers headed for more interesting destinations. To be fair, the job also brutalizes.
You tellingly omitted the female border agent’s ethnicity. It matters. She probably resented a number of things about your person: your maleness, your whiteness, your Jewishness, your exotic visas, your relative affluence. That you write for the New York Times did not help, because these folks tend to be anti-intellectual and probably have the newspaper pegged as a rarefied liberal organ.
Oh yes, Mr. Trump also has tremendous antipathy for reporters and journalists.
4
There is no basis to say Trump hates brown people. Only those that are brain washed into saying something will say whatever it is they need to say to make a case to not enter through legal entry points. At least a millions of brown people have entered the USA from all over the world do they all have to say that Trump hates brown people? or is it just the ones that fo not enter the Southern border by bypassing the multiple points of legal entry into the USA?
5
We likely just get confused by all the lying and the racist attacks. Sorry.
1
No one is asking the obvious question: Where are all the Mexicans? Twenty years ago almost all the undocumented immigrants were Mexican. Not now. The only Mexicans I see now are legal visitors who return to Mexico after doing their shopping. Now the illegal migrants are all Central Americans. So what happened to the Mexicans?
The answer is that a young excess Mexican migrant population no longer exists. About 40 years ago the birth rate in Mexico started to rapidly fall. Mexican illegal immigration followed the birth rate, (with a 20 years delay to allow the migrants to mature), until Mexican illegal immigration reached the nearly zero level it is today.
Now the birth rates in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras also are in the process of rapidly falling. Will a collapse in illegal migration again soon follow? I wouldn't bet against it.
3
It all about hatred of brown people. The media
just lets Trump lie with impunity.
El Paso is one of the safest places in America.
2
How about asking Trump Nationalists, Republican Reactionaries, Libertarian anarchists and Tea Party Misanthropes if they favor abolishing th ATF.
“'bodies'” was the favored term.
That says about all I need to know about CBP.
4
Guess this proves what I have thought all along, there is a major problem at our southern boarder that a wall will not fix. First I believe our immigration laws really need to be updated however the real problem is south of the boarder. We should refocus our foreign policy on Central and South America so these people will see a future in their own country.
4
Trump is such a deeply-flawed man that it's hard to pick a single shortcoming that's the worst. But it has to be his CONSTANT lying.
Many of his lies are so easily disproved, but he NEVER admits a mistake or apologizes for anything.
It's difficult to understand how his base--however much they love him--can overlook this.
7
Thanks for your scenes from the Borderland, Roger Cohen. Bigotry and racism are fundamental to Trump's presidency.
We witnessed "Trumpudo's" appearance in front of his monstrous crowd of red maga-capped base in El Paso last night. That sea of his believers was chilling to those Americans who are not racists and white nationalists.
Trump promised his loyalists he'd "set the table" for building his demented wall on our southern border. No matter that the new Congress is compromising as best they can to his demands to build that useless wall between us and Mexico. Stripping people of colour of their humanity is par for Trump's course. Calling human beings "bodies", as his border patrol agents do -- is dehumanizing.
Donald Trump's rhetoric is harmful in the extreme. Our president is a clear and present danger to America. We witnessed the two El Paso rallies last night; Beto O'Rourke, an El Pasoan and possible contender for the 2020 Presidency, and Donald Trump, our unfit and ignorant race-baiting president. We await Congress's compromise on Trump's wall demand, He promised his base the wall victory. That awful kept promise remains to be seen.
3
@Nan Socolow It is not bigotry to refuse to let every single poor Mexican move here!
2
Dear Roger
I too experienced extreme belligerence from ICE agents at the Federal Building In Hartford Ct. on the 6 th floor where I waited in a holding room to visit my friend who had been picked up in a raid of undocumented polish workers in 2010.
They gave Donnata one phone call and she called me.
While it was very threatening ;I stood my ground ,and because I reprimanded the young agent ... a nasty woman....about the nature of respect for humanity ; my visit was cut short!!
I lectured the two agents from the holding area to the elevator to the lobby where everyone could see and hear the ruckus.
All ,while I had my husband ,on my cell phone, to hear it and my daughter by my side ,witnessing true hatred of “ the other” and our broken system.
Yes Roger ,dehumanization is the only way agents can do this disturbing job.
In the end these agents will grow old and have PTSD because of their guilt at being haters for the government and trumpism.
4
I'll bet that Trump trucks in his supporters for these rallies, like the NSDAP did for Nuremberg. After all, he paid $50/head for actors to populate his declaration for presidency back in 2015.
Now this money comes from US. Like American banks...and, perhaps, now Deutsche Bank, Americans realize that investing in Trump and the GOP yields nothing but chaos and trouble. Putin is banking on it.
3
A lot of the posters here seem to disapprove of the policies of the Trump administration.
"When I walked back across the bridge, a United States passport control officer pored over my passport for several minutes: the Iranian visa, the Iraqi visa, the Chinese visa, the Indian visa. She asked what I do, whether I’d crossed the bridge before, why I’d entered Mexico. She was hostile."
Dear Roger,
Even though you are a naturalized citizen, you are still not a native. Plus we fought a war against your relatives, which wasted a lot of tea. Of course, further back in time they were our relatives too, but still.
You should probably cut down on the foreign travel and all those visas. Let me go in your place.
1
"This guy's from The New York Times..."
You are probably more dangerous in Trump's mind than any "terrorist" with a gun. You're a "terrorist" with truth, a weapon more powerful and more dangerous to Trump and his ideology than ten thousand guns. Trump and his lies - they cannot stand when the public knows the real situation. No wonder Trump labels the press, the independent reality-based "MSM" as "the enemy of the people". No wonder Trump tells any he can fool into listening that to be considered his true believers they should disregard anything the learn elsewhere (except perhaps Fox "News") and only believe him. No wonder Trump's speeches so often include the catch-phrase "Believe me!" Trump intends this as his exhortation to reinforce his truths -- I've always considered it similar to adding "not!" at the end of a sentence, negating all before it. Every time Trump says "Believe me!" you can be sure that everything he has said before that is a lie.
I'm sure Trump's speech at the border in El Paso tonight will be full of "Believe me!"'s - and full of lies. Thank you Roger, for being a terrorist for truth, and bringing reality-based facts, and real people who live at the border, into the discussion.
3
Times are tough in Central America. We get it. For those fortunate enough to make it to the United States, legally or illegally, please respect out natural resources. The Chesapeake Bay is gasping enough as it is. This is just one small example.
http://dnr.maryland.gov/fisheries/Documents/RecSuspensions.pdf
3
Are we to allow all of Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and parts of Mexico across the border? And for all the surely hard working illegal immigrants of good heart, at what time do people like Mr. Cohen apologize for subjecting Americans to death, assault, rape and robbery from those who are not of such good character? After all, these Americans pay the price for liberal generosity and the devaluation of American citizenship.
5
What about American citizens who are not of "good character"? They seem to get elected to high office. No one holds the moral high ground here.
5
Far from innocuous; obnoxious is closer.
Roger Cohen virtue-signals from the Mexican border. He derides the border patrol and characterizes a passport agent as "hostile". Mr Cohen's sympathies are with the migrant aspirants.
So be it.
But what is Mr Cohen's plan? Should the United States accept every person who wants to immigrate? If not everyone, then by what criteria? And in what volume?
There are (likely tens or hundreds of) millions of people throughout the globe that would like to move to America. Should we just focus on those who can walk to the border? What should our policy be?
If we are indeed to take on responsibility; potentially for every poor person on Earth, then let's make it a national objective. Kennedyesque, man on the moon. Let's have the debate!
In between his "steaming bowls of tripe-and-bean soup", Mr Cohen takes his obligatory jibes at President Trump. But Mr Cohen (and the NYT) offers no balanced analysis and certainly no solution.
6
Almost every thing I've read about the migrant caravans, most make no pretenses about wanting to work for lack of opportunity in their country.
For those of you who say there are plenty of jobs here, that may be but what kind of jobs?
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/31/books/review/stephanie-land-maid.html
This was a book review from the NYTimes about a maid who is making $9 an hour and on 7 forms of government assistance and how hard it was to survive. I take it from the review that she was a citizen with one child.
How do you think all these families will live on the lowest of wages? I truly ask how you think this is all sustainable in the long run wo adding to the already massive inequality?
3
This is one of the most chilling columns I have read in years. Bodies. Really?
And the poring over the US Passport like an SS or Stasi goon is unforgivable.
What have we become?
These are people, treat them with kindness and respect.
4
How interesting that we want "fluid" borders and virtually free flow of humanity in terms of our edge with Mexico, yet spend untold billions trying to enforce the Pakistan/Afghan border, the Iraq/Iran border, etc. We criticize the Paks endlessly and threaten to reduce military aid for their not doing more to enforce their border. We stay mum about the Israelis building a wall that's not even on an internationally recognized border. Glass houses are the way we live here, rather than huts built of wood pallets and discarded sheet iron.
2
We under the premise laid out here Switzerland should let me in because I could find greater job prospects and a safer environment than the one I live in now. Wait, you telling me I can't just go to Switzerland and stay there? My god, what a social injustice.
4
Have we sunk so low? What happened to "Welcome to America?"
3
Mexico has been a peaceful neighbor for many years. There was no reason to gin up fear against our Mexican neighbors coming to visit except to keep people fearful and afraid, thus unable to think straight.
Trump's deplorable rhetoric is turning into very deplorable action.
4
Why do reporters keep going to the safest, most fortified parts of the border and then report that there isn't a crisis?
The president's has nobody to blame but himself for letting racist rhetoric undermine what otherwise have always been common-sensical, bipartisan, noncontroversial policies to secure the border based on the needs of border patrol.
But one of the things that make this issue so frustrating is that many in the media have matched Trump's immigration reductionism with their own facile coverage that includes interviewing and quoting people who reinforce their own political opinions. The press omits or subordinates inconvenient truths about violence and the effectiveness of security to not give succor to Trump. I'm sympathetic to that impulse. But that's petty.
Trump has a 50 percent approval rating with Latinos, more than he does with whites, according to a poll by NPR/PBS last month.
The reason, I suspect, is because Latinos are diverse in viewpoint and aren't the monolith white liberal reporters objectify in order to show how not racist they are. And perhaps, because they get the gist of Trump's concerns despite his racist rhetoric.
Many things can also be true at one time. We need a secure border, and a barrier might help in some places. We should protect refugees and be compassionate, but in a way that doesn't incentivize illegal immigration. We should be able to address horrifying crimes at the border without generalizing Latinos as criminals.
2
Methinks if only more Americans would travel the world (and I don’t mean going to The Epcot Center in Disney) we will all be a little happier and more tolerant.
3
“Everyone here knows Trump hates brown people."
On the day after the election in 2016, I received the most astute and poignant text from south of the border, from my daughter-in-law, a brilliant woman with two degrees from Harvard. "I don't know how it will feel now to walk down the street in United States as a brown person."
She called it. How does it feel, indeed. The last time she and my son visited and the border control officer at the airport asked if she was traveling alone, she said, "my husband is in the other line, the one for citizens."
"What are you waiting for? Where's your green card?"
"Oh, no," she said. "We don't live in the U.S. He came with me."
I have no idea whether one of the smartest women I know will ever feel comfortable enough to live in the U.S. again. Our loss.
In that first, post-election text, my daughter-in-law also said, "You have no idea how Latin America looks to the U.S. for leadership. This is a disaster. This will have far reaching effects."
Hello, Bolsanaro.
We have to reject the culture of fear and hatred that has been carefully preserved and resurrected in our country, over and over again. If we don't reach for something better, we are going to be engulfed and destroyed, not by some "invasion" but by our own shortness of sight and smallness of mind.
4
The border is a fluid place as those of use know who live and work there.
The Ozymandian efforts to enforce national chastity with a medieval wall notwithstanding, we will need turrets with machine guns and mustard gas to stop immigrants in the future. The only way to stanch the flow is to end support for the international system operating inside their countries, rewarding corrupt elites for cooperating with financiers in the hallowed halls of Washington development agencies. We continue to collect interest payments on debt from these elites. They in turn oppress every effort by patriots in their nations to wrest control of their lands from them. These patriots are the ones we should support if we wish to end the flow. We would have to support revolutions.
So, expect more immigration until the United States learns there is no national purpose anymore. It was surrendered by our multilateral lending agencies after WWII, and has been paid for in blood since then.
1
The one guy got it right: Tear down the Statue of Liberty. It's a fraud. Before Trump builds a wall, he should blow up the statue by declaring a national emergency _ people around the world see the statue, read its words and think we offer opportunity to the poor, huddled masses yearning to be free. What kind of crazy message does that send? Using the military to blow up the statue would offer some honesty about who we have become as a nation.
1
—“This guy’s from The New York Times,” she said, turning to the agent next to her. “What should I do with him?”
He looked me over. “Let him go,” he said. I thanked her for the warm welcome home. “Just doing my job,” she said. —
First I laughed at this anecdote. And then felt queasy and, once again, enraged.
2
So, Roger,
No limits?
Just let everybody come on in?
How is it "hateful" to have limits?
Numerical limits?
And to enforce them?
That's not hateful.
It's common sense.
The world has seven billion people,
rapidly going on eight billion.
Hundreds of millions would come here if we let them.
America already has over 330 million people,
and every year grants one million "green cards",
the right to legal permanent residence,
with a clear path to citizenship,
plus hundreds of thousands more, every year,
of supposedly "temporary" legal visas and residence permits,
most of which somehow endlessly get extensions,
which turn them into de facto permanent residence permits.
Despite that, anywhere from 10 to 20 million are here illegally,
half of them crossing illegally over the Southern border,
and the other half overstaying their supposed "visitor" visas
-- and guess what?
half of those visa overstays are Latin Americans
(that's in addition to nearly all of the illegal border crossers).
America does not need more people.
Not even "brown" people.
Not even women and children,
not even if they are supposedly fleeing "domestic violence"
or "gang violence".
3
“Bodies” is typical Army talk. I’ll bet the Agents refer to numbers of themselves that way too.
1
The saracastic rejoinder; i.e. " I thanked her for the warm welcome home ". Mr Cohen, she's just doing her job. She doesn't get the opportunity to flit about the globe as examplified by the collection of visa stamps in your passport. No wonder average working people hold the media in such contempt.
2
"Bodies, I noted, is a term generally used for dead people. Would it not be better to call them people or human beings, as this is what they are? The agent said he didn’t mean that they are dead, but that “bodies” was the favored term."
This is how racism works.
2
"all part of what Dee Margo, the mayor of El Paso, calls “one region, one culture.”"
Trump's point is that is not so. He opposes the very idea that Mexico and the US are one region and one culture and that there really is and should be no border.
He's got a lot of voters convinced of that. Don't expect him to wander over into Mexico to make the point that he is wrong about that.
4
Glad things are going so well in El Paso. If you guys are so happy and secure, why don’t we just move resources out of your area to the wide open desolate areas used by the coyotes to dump people to fend for themselves. Yes, we could take the fences down in California too and just lay back and watch the fun start. I live in AZ and cannot agree that we should have porous borders. All the border states spend ridiculous amounts to feed, educate and shelter these folks, at the expense of our own impoverished American citizens. I prefer to spend my tax money on caring for our own. Maybe we can eliminate income inequality in a more meaningful way if we did this.
15
@Unhappy J
Glad to see you agree that we should spend the $5.9 billion Trump wants to waste on a wall and use that money to help the American people instead.
1
Oh please. Arizona would rather give more tax breaks to the wealthiest and largest businesses than invest in mere humans.
3
Native El Pasoan here. I think Mr. Cohen's piece demonstrates an extreme naivete from a person who has never spent any significant amount of time at the border. For the record, I'm apolitical. I'm also of Hispanic origin.
1. The city of El Paso is one of the poorest cities of its size precisely because of its high levels of legal and illegal immigration. Look up any economic index for the city and you'll find low pay scales through entire industries.
2. El Paso has one the lowest voter turnouts in the entire country. This is because there is no culture of civic duty. People don't vote. People don't go to jury duty. People don't know what's going on in the country. The lack of assimilation and integration is real. As a result, a tiny minority of mostly white voters decide the city's fate on any number of issues.
3. This results in El Paso lagging behind other cities of comparable size on various fronts. We have poor public transportation. We have overwhelmed hospitals. We have low performing schools, etc. All because of an especially poor tax base that pays little to nothing into the system at all. When's the last time you wanted to visit El Paso? Despite El Paso being larger and more "diverse", Albuquerque is the jewel of the Southwest.
4. El Paso is a warning of what the rest of the USA can turn into, a place with high inequality, low levels of civic engagement from its citizens, high poverty, poor social services, and sense of unearned entitlement.
You've been warned.
21
Like most Arizonans, I have crossed the border for vacations and know of many who have crossed for cheap heallth care, but as a criminal attorney, I know of many who have crossed to transport drugs and illegal aliens. These are two separate groups, one benign and one deadly. To ignore the fact that border crossing is both benign and criminal is to merge two very different groups. It reflects a basic misunderstanding of what the border is about.
This essay misses the entire point. It is oblivious to reality and seems to have been written by a sixth grader.
13
Trump's obsession, lies, and propaganda about the southern border are a disgraceful distraction and abdication of his administration's total inability to address any of myriad issues that demand immediate attention: real tax reform, job training, health care reform, development of some semblance of a foreign policy, etc. His latest threat to again shut down the government is an egregious example of his self-serving, demagogic, politically motivated bullying once again designed to curry favor with a ill-informed base. It should be about time for McConnell and Graham along with the rest of the GOP stalwarts to step up and say, enough is enough.
4
Are we literally not allowed to have immigration laws Mexicans do not like? Is this literally either we allow millions of unhappy Mexicans to move here or we're fundamentally evil? Have Mexicans literally no responsibility for their own lives and own country? If drug dealers are controlling part of Mexico, have Mexicans literally no responsibility to fix the situation?
Are Mexicans really nothing more than children who cannot take any responsibility for their own societies?
15
What gives these people the right to demand asylum? Things are terrible in many places, but that does not give the "right" to asylum. None of these people have the "right" to asylum, and my sympathy for the billions of sad stories ran out about 10,000,000 illegals back. We have a border. We have rules for admitting people. When my ancestors came, they did so legally. Let in people legally, but detect, detain, and deport illegals, and, no gang problems are not a reason for asylum.
24
@GeorgePTyrebyter - They have the right to apply for asylum without being arrested. Because applying for asylum is not illegal.
15
@J.Sutton The majority of asylum claims are denied because they do not meet the criteria.
6
Article 14(1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
5
I've dealt with hostile passport control officers numerous times. All were American and I was coming home from Canada, Mexico, and Scotland. There's something wrong with these people, some psychological quirk where they get a little bit of authority and it goes to their heads. It doesn't enter their minds that in the great scheme of things they're nothings and nobodies. People in law enforcement often act the same way. They all need psychological testing before they get these jobs. Many are unfit to deal with the public.
46
Agree. I’m a dual American/Swedish citizen and many times I have encountered hostile officers at passport control. Even though I have lived in Stockholm for 25 years, for some reason they always say “welcome home” when finished....
6
You need to pass through passport control in Honolulu, the agents are professional but warm and welcoming. The worst one is in Dallas, which is why I will not fly QANTAS through Dallas under any circumstance.
LAX is second worst. SFO third worst. Transferring from a QANTAS flight to a US based airline is a real transition, just sayn’.
1
@happyXpat
What a stunningly beautiful city (and people) you have in Stockholm.
Just two things I want to mention:
Trump is not the problem but the millions thinking just, or even worst, than him. And these are millions.
As far as I can understand, that wall in Trump’s plans is a USA problem and not a Mexico’s one. I cannot feel offended by other nation’s free will to build a wall but by the incompetence of the Mexican governments who have not been able to negotiate a proper treaty for those jobs. I know that many of those willing to go there for working!they don’t want to stay there permanently. Simple logic and math when the family is in Mexico and the US currency value is much better down the border.
So little talent on Mexico’s government side.
4
Fine to let people in to eat, shop, see relatives. Not fine to let people in to stay when they have no legal right to stay. Is that simple enough for you?
Hostile border agents? They’re just doing their job. I get the same treatment whenever I cross from Canada. No big deal.
18
Having spent my entire life in major metro areas, San Francisco, NYC, Chicago, moving here to Northwest Arkansas four years ago was an eye opener. Though the area is far more diverse than one might imagine, its very common to see white people cleaning hotel rooms, working back of house in restaurants, on landscaping and gardening crews, pouring cement, etc. All work that, particularly in CA, is pretty much only performed by immigrants (and no, I don’t mean Chicanos). No knowledge worker in Seattle, or Boston, or NYC (or for that matter Mr Cohen, who as recall divides his time between Paris and London) will ever lose her job to an undocumented 23 year old Salvadoreño living five to a room. It’s all about the money. People advocating for relaxed border security and a detention free asylum process (wherein the applicant quickly melts away into the undocumented labor pool) are voting for Social Darwinism. A race to the bottom for people born in this country so that upper income metro dwellers with zero skin in the game can assuage their guilt. But hey, if you all are comfortable with that, by all means, enjoy your privilege.
29
@Glenn Baldwin
Well stated. Thank you.
9
@Glenn Baldwin
If we would start jailing the people who hire immigrants instead of paying American wages, the immigrants would stop coming. Let's start with the executives at Trump International.
9
@Glenn Baldwin. You said it.
1
This is happening everywhere in the world as over-population pushes people to try and find work. In Thailand, they complain about illegal Cambodians and Burmese pushing wages down. In Burma it's the Rohingya who don't belong, because they are there illegally. In Costa Rica it's the Nicaraguans, in Peru it's the Venezuelans, in Britain it's the Poles, in Germany it's the Turks. While I don't like Trump's tactics, every country has a right to control its borders. The family pictured in this article has several kids, they can't work, they will need to go to school. They will get the flu and earaches, so they will go to the emergency room. The mom will no doubt get pregnant, who will pay for that? The second example given lost her husband seven years ago to drug dealers, but in seven years no harm has come to her and what was her husband doing for the drug dealers? 80 percent of asylum seeks will be denied, but it will take years to process them, so they will have enough time to send home remittances to encourage other relatives to come. All of these people have the opportunity to stay in Mexico, but no, they want to come to the US. If this is about asylum, then we should be sending planes to every country enduring war and poverty and help those people as well. There's a simple way to discourage this, make e-verify the law and lock up anyone employing an illegal. That won't happen, because businesses love cheap labor. Countries have borders, that's what defines them.
26
What walls and fences there are already along the United States/Mexico border, are like a neon sign shining brightly, declaring that US foreign policy towards Latin America has been far from ideal in the past. Unfortunately the fog of the Cold War made a lesser of two evils of the generally good guys. It's all blowback and very regrettable. In a more rational and reasonable world, people would not have had reason to flee their homelands. The US would have acted to help make them stable and prosperous places - and all migration between them and the US would be minimal and orderly.
4
@GRW
Obvious solution --
Ship them (on a boat, not a plane) to Australia.
Australia knows how to deal with "boat people".
And people like you can busy yourself
with lecturing your fellow Australians.
As for "the lesser [or greater] of two evils",
when it comes to Latin America,
it's a tossup between the Spanish Conquest
and the iron-fisted rule of the Incas and Aztecs.
1
Not too long ago, I used to get a "welcome back" from the US customs officer after an international trip. Not any more, sad.
23
Most immigrants journey to the U.S., go to work, start businesses, and integrate into American society. With the U.S. birthrate falling below replacement levels, it will be immigrants who end up funding social programs like social security, medicare, and, yes, agencies like ICE. Ironic, isn't it.
29
@Mae T Bois
Nonsense.
Immigration as a solution to supposed funding problems
of social security, medicare, etc.
is a giant Ponzi scheme --
the mother of all Ponzi schemes.
Some of those immigrants are not so young,
and will start drawing Social Security and Medicare
within 10 or 15 years -- long before the "pay taxes" into the system at a level to support their own benefits,
let alone the benefits of the rest of us.
And when the ones who do actually work and "pay taxes" into the system for a full 40 years start drawing benefits, it will be the same system with the same structural funding problems as now, and that will generate a supposed "need" for still more immigrants.
There are only three ways to "fix" the structural funding problems of Social Security and Medicare --
One is to raise Social Security and Medicare taxes.
Another is to raise the retirement age.
And another is to cut benefits.
I would support one or both of the first two.
6
Raise the eligibility age to what ? Raise the tax rate to what ? Let me guess. You are already drawing benefits. Am I right ?
It's chilling to read that a border official examining the passport of a United States citizen seems to have to be informed by another official that she has to permit that citizen to return to the US. What would she have done if the other official had suggested detaining Mr. Cohen?
19
@Leah Shopkow
But it didn't happen, did it?
And it only very rarely does happen to any actual US. citizen with an actual valid passport.
What's amazing is that more cases do not arise, given tens of millions of entries by U.S. citizens with valid passports every year.
1
"I was only doing my job." Where have we heard that before?
35
President Trump does not like people who do not follow our laws and come here illegally. It has absolutely nothing to do with one's color or race. Most of us feel the same way. Why do these people ignore our pleas to not come here illegally but apply for citizenship the way people have been doing for decades. Those who have come here legally have also come from difficult circumstances but applied the correct way and waited in line.
How can we absorb the many thousands who do not want to wait but just cross into our country illegally. We must remain firm and not let them enter without the proper documentation. They must learn we are serious and if you make exceptions for a few, everyone will want to be that exception. We have rules that must be followed but are not. This is why some kind of border protection is needed. Maybe then these illegals will see we mean business and will decide to apply for legal status. If the wall solves the illegal problem that is out of control, then it must be built.
20
@WPLMMT
Your hypothesis does not explain the Trump Administration ignoring the many more people here illegally from overstaying their work and school visas.
11
@Chrisinauburn That's because it isn't a "hypothesis," it's a weird love-letter and pledge of allegiance to to a cult leader who happens to be the president.
Hey there buddy. These folks who you refer to as illegal immigrants have more right to be here than most of us do...they are descendants of the original inhabitants of the America’s, north, central, south. Their migration routes are ancient. Your ideology is ancient...and better suited to the dark ages.
Its hard for me me to read peoples comments on immigration.
Its as if Americans have no compassion for people struggling for a new life. What if we looked at them as a workforce that might need a little help at first but they are eager to work hard and learn. If they dont, they go back.
All our ancestors had someone that helped them get a job or a place to stay. We all should be more welcoming of immigrants or refugees. Mexico is our neighbors. Where is our team spirit.
28
Well put. May I add, no compassion ends up being hate, at least in this situation.
8
@Therese Stellato
Ancestors were then.
This is now.
2
@Therese Stellato I just started singing Kumbaya. No, actually I started singing America the Beautiful, and that’s how I want my country to stay and not turn into a third world country.
2
Hhmm, "Just doing my job.' How many times has that been used by those who act execrably, if not worse, towards other human beings.
That we have never been taught to better understand, and better harness, the lesser angels of our nature is a testament to just how badly our educational system has failed us. Instead, we learn to memorize, regurgitate and conform while our fears, wants and hatreds too often go unchecked.
Hence, Trump.
22
And its partner in infamy - “just following orders”. A disgusting non-excuse trotted out by henchmen for centuries.
For some time the Trump has been happy to hire brown people, especially if they are undocumented.
That way he could skimp on their salaries, deny them benefits and threaten to deport them if they caused any trouble.
The Current Occupant is a clever guy, operating within the Republican framework on this particular topic.
33
"Presidential powers include the power to manufacture a threat where none exists."
By far the greatest threat to our democracy. Trump will beat it to death, just as he did his pardon power, that for a time enthralled him, like a shiny new toy car.
No, Trump's word are not innocuous. Never have been, never will be.
26
I assume you leave your own doors unlocked every night? And with clothing hanging in your living room and food in the pantry for the taking? I doubt it.
2
But Trompudo knows words, the best words, is a stable genius, and hires the best people..... some going to jail, and others under indictment.
California gained statehood in 1850, Texas in the 1840's, and Arizona in the early 1900's. The Mexican culture is embedded in these states, it is not going away. Over one hundred different languages are now spoken in the high school I graduated.
Trumps wall concept is a concept of division, and he is only succeeding in dividing Americans.
25
Mr. Cohen, it was chilling to hear how you, an American citizen, was treated by the passport control officer on your return from Mexico. It must have felt much like what people traveling from East Berlin into West Berlin encountered when they dealt with the Stasi (just doing their job) before crossing through Checkpoint Charlie to the American side.
I find it tragic to think that the American officer who pored over your passport apparently would have felt comfortable in an East German uniform. Thank-you Mr. Trump and your Sonderkommando - Stephen Miller for enabling these individuals.
59
@Aaron Of London
Spare me the pearl clutching. I for one am glad that visas and passport stamps from hostile countries like Iran are more carefully scrutinized.
1
Yes, so Democrats should demand mandatory use of E-Verify, a system currently used voluntarily by 400,000 US employers to ensure they are hiring people who have a legal right to work in the US.
E-Verify is non-discriminatory and uses no racial profiling. It's a win-win for Democrats and America. No need for The Wall and no racism in the process.
Unless.... Democrats (my party) want to keep certain constituencies happy with a flow of cheap, vulnerable labor and/or by privileging certain national groups to gain their votes.
12
Judy you’re off base here. It’s largely private employers looking for cheap labor that prefer not to use. This constituency is largely Republican.
I own 2 companies, largely vote democratic and use it so I am in compliance with the law.
25
It is mostly Republicans who own the businesses that do not use e- verify services. I think fines and jail time for the employers might slow down the hiring of non legal workers.
10
@David
San Bernardino County and the San Diego suburb, Escondido, decided to use “e-verify” to make sure all their new government hires were authorized to work in the U.S., and to require all city contractors to do the same. A municipality north of L.A., Lancaster, voted to require all employers in Lancaster to use “e-verify” as did a few other California municipalities.
The State of California then said that no city, county or special district could require employers to use “e-verify”, even those that contracted to provide it with goods or services.
California is a “sanctuary state" whose top political leaders do not want employers to know if a migrant is in the country illegally.
13
From San Ysidro (San Diego) to Calexico, California and Algodones near Yuma, Arizona to Columbus, New Mexico, and El Paso and Brownsville, Texas, border communities tend to be safer than other cities (even Chicago) because residents there live side-by-side their Mexican neighbors every single day. They mostly have families and friends on both sides of the Mexican international boundary. Border businesses on the U.S. side thrive because of Mexican consumers who contribute to border state economies year-round. Unless one lives there, they will not understand the unique and dynamic relationship between two bordering sister cities. Trump, Stephen Miller, and their xenophobic brethren love to proverbially stir the pot because of their own passionate dislike of dark-complected people, especially Mexican and other Latin American immigrants.
17
They are fleeing "killers, delinquents and drug dealers." It sounds like Pelosi is betting the house on amnesty. Maybe caution is in order, lest we end up in the same predicament.
Don't our leaders take an oath of office?
8
I thought that comment Trump and his deluded trumpsters should take down the statue of liberty very apropo. All these people have is their precious lives. Very sad trump has stoked raging hatred and fear.
8
Sad so many folks responding to Trump's pandering to racial fears decided to vote this demagogue. Trump was a Birther do folks recall he was saying President Obama was born in Kenya he knew that was a lie but he was pandering to racist his core voters. Trump is ignorant,corrupt,erratic and a racist and has no place in the Oval Office. Putin has him compromised as he supports Putin's policies over our our own intel and military's positions. Trump is compromised by MSB as his family's financial interests are tied into Saudi Arabia's support . When this info is all confirmed by investigations it will be time to have Pence guarantee his family will not be prosecuted and his finances not touched. New York should prosecute them and when proven guilty he can join Cohen in prison.
10
Can't you find some middle ground? Compromise a bit on all sides. Try to see the other guys point of view. Most of the world is dealing with similar border challenges.
Educated middle class people calling working class people bigots every 3 seconds isn't going to improve anyone's lives.
17
There can be no compromise with Trump and his morally bankrupt Republican colleagues, and no quarter can be given to his willfully credulous and intolerant base. They have no sense of American values, and have collectively lost their minds.
Vote them out and move on.
15
Not just "brown people". Trump also hates anyone who lets him know in so many words that he is despicable and that includes many people of many colors. In fact, you could bond with all the good people who are hated by him and be proud of it. To be hated by Trump means that you can tell a lie from a truth - and that is a very good thing.
11
America has been fortunate that would be Trumps could not attain the Oval Office because of your evolution of liberal democracy. The GOP has almost completely destroyed your social fabric. None of the foundational structures has escaped the GOP termites and the only thing that keeps America together is the cynicism that engulfs your entire political spectrum.
When Nixon, Reagan and Goldwater put the new GOP together with the populist Southern Strategy America started its devolution and America will never be again until truth and justice again become solid foundations to your once great nation. With Sophists like Thomas, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh on your highest court, liars like Cruz, Cotton and McConnell in your Senate, lunatics like Gohmert, Jordan and Nunez in your House and hate mongers like Trump, Pence and Bolton in your executive it may not be possible to see trust in your institutions replace the universal cynicism that now exists.
9
this is why all our recent vacations have been to your country.
While Trump is clearly an alarmist, do people really want America to open its southern border just to prove its doesn't hate brown people?
13
"I thanked her for the warm welcome home."
Just imagine how you would have been "welcomed" if you had brown skin.
11
There's no excuse for what's being done at the border.
There is no crisis.
We, here in Texas, know that there is no crisis.
11
It is sad that we have elected a man so bent on sustaining his power that he foments hatred and divisiveness every day.
he scratches at our darkest fears and hidden hatreds and prances around like a latter day Mussolini with a following of fearful people. It is just plain sad.
9
Follow the money. The only thing that will destroy Trump is NYSD and its investigation into 30 years of money laundering for Russia
5
What I have seen no one acknowledge is that we created or helped create the dire situations where people flee their countries. We (the developed world) have engaging in wars, or not engaging in wars (See Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria...) and supplied drug cartels with customers (see South and Central America and especially Mexico) all of which created problems that people fled.
Now, when they are chased from their countries, because of crime, violence and poverty, instead of welcoming them, trump is using them as pawns to rile up his base and try to construct a "national emergency" to detract from the Mueller and other investigations. This national emergency only emerged, of course, when the democrats won the last election and the investigations of getting too close for comfort.
Like Joe McCarthy before him, trump is scapegoating these imagined enemy (commies for McCarthy, Brown caravans and now socialists for trump) to get his base rilled up. It's no surprise that McCarthy and trump shared a famous mafia lawyer, Roy Cohn, expert in these tactics.
9
I live 70 miles from the scary border. And yet, oddly enough my only fear is that some damfool migra will demand my papers, discover I was not born here and ship me to Oaxaca. The danger to civilised human beings of the cultivated ignorance, hatred and fear cannot possibly be overrated. That is the danger that threatens the residents of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. It's all fun campaign rhetoric until somebody - many bodies - get killed.
5
It becomes clear as you read this piece Trump can't be gone soon enough.
8
What, not who, are these boarder agents?
They term immigrants and refugees "bodies?" Not just a term used for the dead, but an abstract term which questions one's humanity.
Do these boarder agents have families? Do they treat their spouses and children the way they treat these immigrants, who by Christian belief are also the beloved children of god?
These boarder agents apparently have no compassion, questionable humanity. They may have been hired for that particular trait. Perhaps they will say they are just following orders - like many German soldiers in WW II, following orders - an excuse that did not speak well of them.
These boarder agents call into question, what does it mean to be human? If you are not white, perhaps you are not human. If you are not English speaking, perhaps you are not human. If you are not American, you must not be human.
Trump is as American as Satan is Christian.
Too many have sold their souls. God does not welcome into His kingdom those who have no hearts, who have no souls.
5
Trump's wall has nothing to do with making us safer - of the 10 most dangerous cities in the USA, not one of them is along the Southern border. The only thing motivating his desire to see the wall built is his fear of looking like a loser to Ann Coulter and his supporters if he doesn't deliver it; it's hypocritical that they are forgiving in some ways (Mexico won't be paying for it), but not in others.
6
Where I come from "trompudo" means "big trunk" --- as in elephant trunk, or even more appropriate, "big snout".
2
Poor Roger needs to be schooled on this subject. The President does not look at skin color. Many from both parties have known Trump for many years and never a racist accusation. What Roger really needs to learn today is that President Trump has done more for "Brown" people in America that any other President before him. The Hispanic jobless claims are stunning. Hispanic employment at all time highs. President Trump has done much more for Hispanics than President " kick the can down the road" Obama ever did.
9
Hope that the more than 50% of Americans who DID NOT bother to vote; get out and “ Rock The Vote”! America cannot have this “ Sepratists” much longer! Way too much: Bitterness, Divisiveness and Polarization and America needs a “ People’s President” that truly represents “ All The People”! Vote Democratic ALL the way in ‘20! Peace, Love and Happiness go a long way!
4
What has Trumpsaid that’s indicates brown people? Perhaps someone’s can explain how they plan to handle the caravanswith thousands of people. This is not a skilled labor force that is invading.
6
Indeed, when the president is a 'trompudo' (in Bolivia we call it 'Boco'n, 'big mouth'), and an arrogant know-nothing, all folks under his baton may behave likewise, abusive to no end. This is not the America I knew years ago, where some humility and a bit of solidarity were still in their lexicon. Trump's rhetoric is not only not innocuous, it is toxic!
3
Dude, I worked for him and his father Fred in the early 1980s. Not just brown people! Don't feel especially picked upon! It will get better. I know not as you need it too. But hopefully soon.
1
Want to know where the "invasion" shows up? On the entitlement rolls. In every state in the country, non elderly Hispanics are on Medicaid at double or more the Hispanic representation in the population.
https://www.kff.org/medicaid/state-indicator/distribution-by-raceethnicity-4/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D
Illegal "immigration" + the continuing lunacy of Birthright Citizenship has produced, and continues to produce, a burgeoning underclass.
11
Yes, the situation at the border is a humanitarian disaster.
Yes, the vast majority of the people who want to cross into the US are seeking economic opportunity, a chance to have their children educated, a way to feel more secure.
They are drawn by people like Trump, who hires people who have no legal recourse when he underpays and/or overworks them. By landlords who profiteer off the poor rental stock that other renters would push to be repaired. And by the chance to have a baby on American soil and thus provide a citizenship rationale for an entire family.
We need to address the drivers for illegal immigration. Invest in the countries of origin to improve the population's safety and start growing a sustainable economy. Fine and above all JAIL employers like Trump who refuse to use E-verify or put up stumbling blocks to postpone sanctions.
And, yes, it is past time to rescind birthright citizenship. It's a vestige of pioneer America whose time has most definitely passed.
7
@Shar
In most places, for most purposes, eVerify is a voluntary program. A few Red States have made it mandatory.
https://www.lawlogix.com/e-verify-map/
When some conservative municipalities in Deep Blue California passed ordinances making eVerify mandatory, the state passed a law making such ordinances illegal.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/oct/16/local/la-me-e-verify-20111017
4
@Shar
Here's the lunacy of Birthright Citizenship: illegal "immigrants" and tourists can't legally work in this country. No matter how we might revise our immigration system, no matter what administration might be in power, it is inconceivable that illegal "immigrants" or tourists will ever be able to legally work. So, this means they can't support kids. How can it make sense for the kids to be US citizens when their own parents can't legally support them?!
1
This is pure nonsense.
If I see a brown-skinned person doing something illegal and I object to it, does that make me a hater of brown -skinned people?
If I see a woman candidate for president whose policies seem insane to me (and I dislike her as a result) does that mean I am anti-woman or a misogynist?
If I believe that thousands of people have been instructed to claim "asylum" at the border as a way to circumvent our laws, overwhelm our court system and cheat ahead of respectful people applying for citizenship, does this mean I
am a xenophobe?
No on all counts.
The leftist press should devise a different method for shaming Trump, like telling the truth.
We have a problem at our southern border and it has nothing to do with anyone's skin color (including white people's)
Not guilty!
54
@Marcia Stephens
One guesses that you don't realize that a far larger problem, legally speaking, is the many more people here illegally from overstaying their work and school visas and being ignored by the Trump Administration.
50
@Marcia Stephens
No, but one could argue that the bulk of the people who do object do so because of their prejudices and hatred.
It's pretty well proven in the psychological scientific literature that how we interpret what we see is hugely influenced by what we expect to see.
So, how does an outside observer tell you, someone with considered opinions based on more or less objective observations, from the masses of people who are, in fact, prejudiced against brown people and women? And, we know, they are legion.
The way I see it is that they only way to cut through this fog is for people like you (and me) to make sure you compliment the "other side" when they do demonstrably reasonable things. Try to go out of your way to show how reasonable you are. Say nice things about Democrats when they deserve it! And you know they will.
I have made a point over the last few years of complimenting my Republican representatives when they do good things, as well as expressing my displeasure when they do not.
Your point is valid and a good one, but it gets drowned out by the voices of the mindless mob,
13
@Marcia Stephens
Well put.
2
If you doubt the cynicism and racism that is fundamental to Trump's stoking fear of criminals and terrorists crossing the southern border, think of the Irish escaping the famine or chronic unemployment, think of the eastern European Jews escaping yet another pogrom, think of the Hungarians in 1956 fleeing political violence or the Cubans, who were gifted with the Cuban Adjustment Act that gave them a path to legal status if they just arrived on our shores. We absorbed them all and the Country has been blessed by their contribution to our culture and development.
If the United States, with all its wealth and space, is no longer a haven for the world's refugees then the French ought to take back the Statue of Liberty.
235
@Marvin Raps If we allow every citizen from a failed state residency in the U.S. I'm afraid we won't have much open space.
Trump is cruel and Dems are stupid. If the stupid doesn't get fixed the cruel will continue.
We don't want to tear fathers or mothers from their children, whether at the border, or within the border, and Trump is doing both.
But Democrats have to clearly state that they don't prescribe to open borders, and that immigration has to be a legal process controlled in a way that serves the interests of American citizens above all else.
As far as saving the world from the tragedy of failed states, the solution is not open borders, it is foreign policy that promotes governments that serve their people, just as ours must.
Our immigration needs to be based on laws. That can include a statute of limitations on people who came here illegally but have established roots in their communities.
Democrats need to clearly articulate what immigration policy they want in realistic terms. Enough bleeding heart emotionalism. It doesn't solve problems.
3
@alan haigh
Alan,
Democrats don't support open borders, yes some nutcases have made dumb statements and it gives Fox fuel to fan the flames.
99.99% of Democrats support controlled border entry. This falsehood Demos want open borders is such a dog whistle, please try watching something other than Fox for just a month and see where the other 70% of the USA resides.
5
@Marvin Raps Amen.
1
“ … where border agents detained an 8-year-old Guatemalan boy, Felipe Gómez Alonzo, in December. He later died in United States custody.”
A Daily Beast article, titled "Father of Dead Guatemalan Boy Crossed the Border to Flee Poverty” said, "In Guatemala, the family reportedly lived in extreme poverty, with Gomez making only about $6 a day to support his six children in a house without floors."
Like the vast majority who are requesting asylum, this family was fleeing poverty. We can understand its desire for economic opportunities but the U.S. is already the 3rd most populated country. Our arable land is limited. Fresh water is already running low.
1. The Ogallala Aquifer supplies the middle third of the country, from S. Dakota to northern Texas. Much of this land is semi-arid, and without industrial pumping of the aquifer could not be used for raising nearly a fifth of U.S. wheat, corn, cotton, and cattle. So much water is being pumped from the aquifer that it is being depleted, and will take centuries to refill.
2. A 1/30 NYT article titled "Tough Times Along the Colorado River: In the face of a prolonged drought, the federal government could step in and reduce water use in the Southwest” said the river which supplies 40 million people across 7 southwestern states, has been experiencing a 17 year drought.
We do not have the natural resources to let in every poor person who manages to reach our borders (especially those who believe in big families).
50
@ann
Factor into your environmental concerns too that the Pipeline was going to go across the aquifer that is drinking water for the reservation. The GOP was all for that pipeline.
Cattle is another problem for water conservation. In South Texas Exxon and the Saudi Gov are doing a project for a plastics plant that will use a millions of gallons of water from a drinking source and recycle into the Gulf of Mexico where there are shrimp and oyster beds. If you are going to look at water issues, look at all of them.
46
@ann
And you can travel to virtually any country in Africa and many in the Far East and see poverty just as bad, if not worse.
10
@Kay Johnson
I agree with you. I am an independent, not a Republican or a Democrat.
6
when Trump pushes for massive penalities on companies that hire non e-verified workers, I will take him seriously. he could start by voluntarily paying fines for his employment of non citizens without work authorization. of course, that's likely only to happen when he releases his tax returns.
10
By now it's no secret that Donald Trump has a problem with people of color; whether they are trying to cross legally or illegally into the United States, or were born and raised here as third, fourth, and fifth generation Americans.
That's also why one doesn't necessarily need a primer to understand his race-baiting speeches and tendency to embrace the old-school white supremacist ideology built on fear and hatred of the "other".
That is, anything that isn't white.
But the saddest part of the discrimination now facing "Brown people" at the border seems to dovetail with the recent episodes of white politicians parading around in Blackface -- and that they both coincide with an emerging picture of this country that is "un-American" -- while being the very epitome of what it means to be "American" today.
And there is a wall that has already been built in the hearts and minds of men.
58
We disapprove of illegal immigrants and want them deported. We also need to stop birthright citizenship of children born to illegal immigrants and also to people not here with a residency permit. And we need to stop chain migration. Nothing hard about this.
20
When will people realize that Trump doesn't want a wall and doesn't care about "brown people"? What he does want is controversy about a wall and "brown " people as a distraction from his money laundering and other criminal or treasonous acts.
31
@Casandra
Unfortunately Trump does want a wall, in fact he feels that he needs a wall so that he can meet his ignominious commitment to build a wall. He can’t wait to pound his chest and say I told you I would build a wall, and all with disdain for the Democrats and bombast for his snarling base.
A chill ran down my spine -- as possibly yours, Mr. Cohen? -- at the border guard's question, “This guy’s from The New York Times,” she said, turning to the agent next to her. “What should I do with him?”
What, indeed, when our President keeps calling journalists "the enemy of the people"? Words have consequences, and I am afraid we will be dealing with the stain of Trump's words for years, even decades, to come.
61
@Judy I crossed 35 borders last year, at each one I was questioned and since everyone is different they arbitrarily removed things I had in my luggage. A lighter in one place, a nail file in another, a pair of nail clippers. I had my temperature taken and had to fill out forms. Sometimes my luggage was unpacked for further inspection. Sometimes I am detained and have to answer questions, because I've been to strange places. That is their job.
2
@thewriterstuff
That's not what I meant, and you know it. Each of those guards knew what they were looking for and did their job -- as should any competent professional. I can't think of a single good reason for anyone to say, "This guy's from the New York Times, what should I do with him?"
4
I used to live in a border town where US Customs and Border Patrol agents for the most part are jerks. They delay and interrogate US citizens not because they are any risk but because they can do whatever they want. They are the schoolyard bullies feared and hated only this time with a badge of impunity.
"I'm just doing my job" they always say, I say different otherwise. How they live with themselves is beyond me, I know I could not or would not.
My sympathies are towards those nameless people who want a better future for themselves and their children.
37
The border agent who made Cohen's life momentarily difficult is not a Trump supporter. His real fear should be of them, as they agree with the President that journalists are enemies of the people.
3
@Jason Galbraith I suspect that the vast majority of border control agents are Trump supporters.
1
A stark , stunning picture of fear, hate and dehumanizing of our fellow human beings that Trump incites and husbands. The telling is worthy of Hemingway himself. For the first time I really feel and understand the Darkness that is President Trump.
15
Everyone who supports illegal immigration and unregulated asylum claims by abused women and under employed men from Mexico and Central America should volunteer to take these people into their homes. Mr. Cohen, I assume, will be the first to volunteer to assist illegal aliens.
One of the reasons that El Paso, TX is so much safer than Juarez, Mexico is that there is almost no law enforcement of any type Juarez, where there were 200 murders last month. Other violent crimes like sexual assault, rape, kidnappings and robbery are common, and go unpunished. The fact that Texas has the death penalty for murder most probably deters Mexican and Central American murderers from killing their drug dealing competitors in the United States.
Illegal immigration is a continuing threat to the United States and American Society. We can not be a refuge for people who are fleeing social and economic problems in their native countries.
Mexico.https://www.dallasnews.com/news/mexico/2018/08/06/juarez-murders-reach-nearly-200-month-mexicos-new-president-prepares-face-violence
13
@John Quinn
No one really supports illegal immigration and unlimited asylums. I for one, support decent treatment of our fellow human beings. And the Trump Administration has made no effort to help these people in their own countries.
Yes, Trump hates brown people. The hatred brings the cheers at his rallies for his massive, corroded black hole of ego and just enough votes in the right places for electoral victory. He will use it as long as he can. The longer he remains POTUS the longer the indictments are held a safe distance away.
You see, to Trump brown people are useful. At his country clubs, hotels and now for votes. He needs them for now. The Wall is just another lie. If brown people are responsible for the opioid crisis, build the wall and viola, addiction solved. Build the wall, employment numbers will skyrocket for the cult members.
Trump and the GOP need the hate and fear. It's really good for gun sales and votes. Trump will make the 2020 election season as nasty as be possibly can. He needs those cheers.
4
It is long past due to have a major crackdown on visa overstayers. This is a large proportion of the illegal "immigration" problem and attacking it would demonstrate equal opportunity immigration law enforcement.
The only reason the face of illegal "immigrants" being chased at the border is brown is because the illegal "immigrants" coming in there have brown faces. That is not US doing. It is their doing.
13
Elixir escaping trump’s hateful dystopian nativism esp directed against Latinos: viewing newsreel footage depicting President John F. Kennedy’s South American pilgrimage. Adoring crowds abound. Unlike texas, safe loving environment.
1
Trump's rhetoric empowers people like the lying Border Patrol agent and the customs officer who is supposed to process your return as a citizen, not make editorial comments.
These people feel free to harass and delay anyone now, particularly journalists who cross the border to report the truth. They hate that and they now keep a list in San Diego to make it such a pain to go into Mexico as a journalist that they no longer go. For every "gesture of humanity" there are 100 incidents that demonstrate there's very little humanity on the border now. Just a lot of bigots with badges.
5
“Everyone here knows Trump hates brown people"
We know that here too.
The more important long-term questions are how many of the 40% of Americans who support Trump feel the same way? And why do the ones who don't feeil the same way think it is acceptable to support him despite his racism?
10
I haven't read this article yet; only skimmed; will do later but love the name Trompudo or big mouth to reference DJT.
The word "invasion" sounds like troops landing at Normandy in World War Two. Trump loves to play it up.
Please no government shut down again.
5
Today the NY Times ran an article on coal mines polluting Appalachia. Please stop. I have the same warm feelings towards Trump voters that they would exhibit towards me, a man of color, an immigrant (yes, legal), Muslim, Liberal and Stanford educated. I believe in the Golden Rule. I use my Stanford degree to automate blue collar jobs, and earn gold. As for the Trump voters losing their jobs, well, they can go ask their messiah for a handout.
6
Why in our culture is it so easy to hate people one has never met? Why is that not culturally Not OK?
In a single breath we may even call bigots hateful while also calling them sick. We cannot hate back, hating the sick, but we need to work toward curing that sickness.
1
Trump is a pot-stirrer and he doesnt have a clue about border politics. He thought San Antonio was a border town for crying out loud. Praised their wall. Whatttt?
There are more criminals arrested at the Canadian border as was reported on 60 Minutes. There was more crime in Trump's own campaign than either border as is shown by a bunch of indictments.
Anybody do their taxes and experience Trump's mirage help to the middle class? Where is the infrastructure?? Time to get this windbag out of office. Stopping payments on his million dollar weekends would help too.
9
My goodness!!! "This guy is from 'The New York Times', what should we do with him?" What were they proposing to do with him, I wonder?...put him in some sort of detention? And then other agent says "Let him go".
Yes, language is a very powerful thing. And it is clear that we have a word smith in the White House who knows very well how that language can be used and distorted to manipulate people and events and successfully cleave this country in half.
3
I haven't read the op-ed yet but I will when I have time. But the title say that "Everyone here knows Trump hates brown people." It has nothing to do with brown people or the color of one's skin/racism. And it has everything to do with overpopulation. Our country is overpopulated and it is unsustainable.
5
@Carol
Then why is the Trump Administration ignoring the many, many people here illegally from overstaying their work and school visas?
Trump’s only hope for re-election is to play the wall card at maximum volume. What has he really accomplished in more than two years as president. In the Clinton era James Carville defined what the election was about. It’s the economy stupid. And it worked. Only Trump’s shrinking loyal base support the wall. The majority of Americans see right through Trump’s wall. They realize that America’s greatness arose from tearing down walls and barriers of all kinds. No more walls.
5
They shoudln't feel too bad about Trump. He really seems to hate about everybody.
2
The photographs make me weep.
6
Having a legal definition of citizenship is racist.
Is there an argument for open borders that doesn't consist wholly of calling the other side racist? I can't hold that position without having my motives questioned? There is no conversation on the subject. It makes me wonder how much faith you really have in your position. If it's not open borders then tell me what limits you would accept.
7
The most chilling part of the article, “This guy’s from The New York Times,” she said, turning to the agent next to her. “What should I do with him?” He looked me over. “Let him go,” he said." That there was any other possibility should make us all worry about the state of our democracy.
452
@Sandy
I agree. I found that part super scary.
17
@Sandy
I kept wondering what would have happened if Mr. Cohen were brown skinned and spoke with a Spanish accent.
12
@Sandy I agree. It was scary and arrogant. Do the border agents think that they can turn away a person with a legal right to enter the US because they don't like how they look or r the visas they have in their passport? What type of training are these agents receiving?
24
These people don't give two squirts of skunk water about Trump. They just want jobs, healthcare, education and a future for their families.
The question is do we allow them to enter under the false pretense of "asylum" ? That's taking advantage of a loophole and I don't think it's fair to people who have legitimate asylum claims.
If they are truly escaping gang violence, abusive partners and political oppression then they should be thanking their lucky stars Mexico is accommodating them..
There are 12 million undocumented residing in the U.S. how many million more are we supposed to allow here? Funding for education, healthcare and social services are already maxed out- There is no more room at the Inn.
I suggest they stay in Mexico and start new lives there. Perhaps one day they will be called to the U.S. to plead their case for political asylum.
36
@Aaron Personally, I don't actually doubt that most of these migrants have legitimate claims to asylum. Simply because I suspect that the majority of the population of the Central American countries live in such awful conditions (by the standards of a developed country) and suffer such injustices that they do indeed qualify, by our current asylum laws. But that's the whole point! There are simply too many people who live in poverty and miserable conditions in those countries (and, especially, elsewhere in the world!) simply CANNOT AFFORD to take in everybody who wants to come here. It's only going to get worse, and we have to start making some painful decisions. Yes, Trump is an irresponsible demagogue. But just because he demonizes illegal immigrants, and just because his administration has authorized some cruel policies that led to the separation of families IS NOT by itself a reason to decide that we must accept everybody who wants to come in either.
10
@Aaron
There are 10.7 million down from 12.4 million 10 years ago. Of that 10.7 million, only one million successfully entered illegally by land over our southern border within the last 6 years. Overall number of undocumented residents has been declining for 10 straight years and majority are now "overstays". Asians are now the fastest growing group. This not a crisis; it is a "problem" that has been slowly solving itself the last 10 years. Trump is using it for political purpose to rile up his base.
9
@Aaron 10 million it has gone down 2 million in the last 20 years.
1
To all those who trot out the tired old Statue of Liberty argument, a few facts:
(1) When Ellis Island was in full swing, potential immigrants were screened rigorously for health, mental acuity, and ability to take care of themselves, so as not to become a "public charge". 20% were rejected and put right back on the ship and sent home.
(2) There were no social safety net programs until the 1960's. Immigrants before then were on their own. They either thrived and contributed to the US, or perished without a mark or a cost. Now, this is no longer the case. Poorly educated immigrants who can't fend for themselves are a drain on the taxpayer, potentially for multiple generations.
19
@Kurfco
Truth teller. Thank you.
1
Judging by the fact that Trump is doing nothing at all to stop the illegal immigrants who arrive by air and never leave; I’d say this the answe is obvious. There’s tens of thousands of illegal immigrants that came here legally.
40
"Mexico officials became concerned about attitudes among the Anglo-Americans in Tejas, for instance their insistence on bringing slaves into the territory. The legislature passed the Law of April 6, 1830 that prohibited further immigration by U.S. citizens" Wikipedia
We're all still hunter gatherers, but with newer technologies. Trump couldn't care less about the "Wall". He desperately needs to distract the public from his myriad legal issues, and the potential of his impeachment.
The issue is over population, and dress on our economic infrastructure. If Trump was serious that's what he'd be talking about. The problem requires a great deal of research and deep thought. How straining!
7
Roger,
I always enjoy your columns. Words matter.
Bodies says much about the state of immigration in the US.
As a graduate student residing in the US for several years, I was classified as a non-resident alien for tax purposes. Non-resident? Alien? Really. I am happily settled in Canada now.
Ashvin
11
@Ashvin I was an Assistant Professor in the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, US status: "legal alien". I loved living NYC for eleven years but am back living in Canada. A big thank you to my ancestors for making me a Canadian.
2
@J. David Burch
Good, stay and enjoy it
The people that complain the most come from rural depressed areas. People fear change. Decisions aren't made for the greater good, contributing to their own self-destruction.
2
Scenes From the Fatherland. It has begun, hating the “ brown people “ first, openly and with hostility.
Thanks, GOP.
12
@Phyliss Dalmatian: I always look for your great comments. I think we could be friends, but I’m not moving to Wichita...or even Kansas.
It's interesting that the border guard had no experience with a passport with so many visas - the folks who present at the border tend to have similar paperwork or no paperwork or "look the same" . A citizen (Jewish man with Jewish name, a citizen) with extensive travel documentation from far off "questionable" places - that guy - that's a guy we need to inspect....
I guess this border guard doesn't read the failing New York Times nor watch CNN or Network television. Perhaps you should go on Fox News Mr. Cohen and expand your "Q"
7
You don't have to live anywhere near the southern border to know that Trump hates brown people.
10
How do you know that Trump "hates brown people? Trump only repeats what his advisors whisper in his ear. But if a country wants to control its borders, it may be that some "brown people" will find themselves at a disadvantage. "It is what it is."
1
@mag2 I don't know, ask any of the foreign workers who have studied in the US legally and working on high-skill jobs. Doesn't matter if you're a Grammy-award winning sound engineer, or a PhD with 10 recommendations. No legal immigration case seems "good enough". And yes, Stephen Miller doesn't get enough credit for this state of affairs.
I frequently travel between Europe and the USA. The attitude of the immigration officers on both sides of the Atlantic can’t be more opposing. Immigration in Europe is efficient, professional and welcoming. In contrast the American counterparts often demonstrate outright hostility and make you feel defensive and flustered. For a brief moment that feels like eternity one seems no different from a fugitive who has no rights and is at the full mercy of the almighty authority of the officer. Guilty until proven otherwise and one rather stays quiet and docile until asked to speak up. I am delighted however when once in a while I encounter an immigration officer who acts in a friendly manner and actually welcomes you back.
13
@Oliver Herfort. Travel is not immigration.
2
@Jackson: not sure what you want to say, but no matter why you enter the country you need to go through immigration and customs
2
The 'what should I do with him' comment reveals everything that stinks with US Border Control. They feel above the law, the American Civil Liberties Union can attest to that with their numerous lawsuits against them, and they have no accountability. The US Constitution does not pertain to them, or so it appears. There is no due process, they act with impunity - even to American citizens returning home. They search for people in buses hundreds of miles from border crossings. They put the fear of God into you as you open the windows of your car as you approach their booth. They way most of them behave is an insult to what America should represent. Enforce the law, yes. Protect our border, yes. But do it in a way that is humane, and basically - American.
12
@Rick Morris
Keep in mind every Federal employee in this country has a bad attitude and zero accountability. Blame that on lifelong tenure. It's almost impossible to fire a tenured federal employee.
The situations of the majority of those claiming asylum is one of desperation and fear, more fear than can be instilled in them by your bigoted president determined to get his wall and keep his base. No matter how unwanted they must feel, they still must feel much safer over what they chose to flee.
There is no doubt you have an issue with immigration, (which needs to be addressed) but these are real people in distress not “bodies” to be counted without empathy or caring.
I thank you Mr. Cohen for walking across that bridge knowing the real differences lie in people's circumstance. Tonight, your president will debase them, criminalize them, fear-monger and promote hate, but these migrants know what real terror looks and feels like, they are brave and they will pray.
7
@Holly
Your country has an agreement with the U.S. which prevents foreigners, who are from a country that is closer to the U.S. than to yours, from going to a formal Canadian entryway and asking your country for asylum. The agreement says that foreigners who want asylum must ask for it in the closest safe country to their own. This shields Canada from Mexicans, Central Americans, and those in S. America who are claiming fear of persecution.
If you look at the murder rate in the Central American countries, you will see they are not much higher than those in many large American cities. Without modern medicine, the latter would be considerably higher. Most migrants settle in these big cities where there is lots of crime.
Rather than fleeing persecution, most of these migrants are looking for economic opportunities.
If you disagree, you could try persuading your government to end it agreement with the U.S. so that these migrants could ask Canada for asylum.
7
“Just doing my job.”
Three cheers for the bodies just doing their jobs.
8
"It is then easier [...] to forget what we Americans are and where we came from.
Perhaps the days of assuming what "we" are or were are gone. There are plenty of "us" who never were what you so generously assume.
3
“You look south and you can’t tell where El Paso merges into Júarez.”
Yes, perhaps in 2019 you can't tell where El Paso ends and Juarez begins. But perhaps that's at the heart of this disagreement when there is the potential for tens of millions of people from Central America to migrate north into the southwest and great plains states. Is it so unreasonable for the American voter to have a say on whether he or she wants a future country where say, there is little perceptible difference between Juarez and Omaha?
10
@Middleman MD. Your logic does not track. If there is little difference between Juarez and El Paso, and the people of El Paso already have access to Omaha, wouldn't they already be heading on over there if it were so much more desirable?
That's actually the point. There is no great danger of Nebraska being overrun, with or without a wall.
57
@Middleman MD
The midwest actually needs people .. and the infrastructure is there from its cities to its small towns to support a good sized population. I guess it is just an issue that these folks might be a bit darker and speak Spanish in public ...
1
Throughout modern times every up and coming despot needs a cause, any cause, that will bind his followers and he into a creed, and mission. Many times we have seen the binder as a group of people, race, religion or country of origin. That binder of the despot and his followers typically means little good will come of those being targeted.
Trump, along with Miller, have identified two groups of brown people that are targeted (with some exception)-those of Hispanic, or Latin American origin, and those dastardly Muslims from certain countries (those Muslim countries that are not rich). Hispanics, Latin Americans, if you will, have little to no exception under the policies of Trump/Miller. One, or the other, or both masters of these policies have painted the peoples from south of our border as rapists, drug runners, diseased, human traffickers. Perhaps some are all of the above. But, as the piece states, those definitions fit all of those people, and with the inciting of the members of the Trump Adoration Club, there is little to no mercy to be shown the brown people of either group.
We see stories from the southern border concerning the people, the culture, the need for relations. Trump sees a cause, a means, to bind his rabidly racist supporters. And those red hatted supporters cheer. Lastly, today in this publication a comment was made equating the brown people to animals, something that Trump/Miller owns. We should thank them for our whiteness. Or not.
5
I love these articles that start with a constructive suggestion for Trump -- in this case taking a stroll across the border into Juarez -- as if he somehow has the capacity for anything approaching enlightenment.
Haven't we seen enough of him for the last few years to know this is even silly to consider possible? He has no more capacity or interest in changing his approach and views on the "brown people" than he did on Obama birtherism, the Central Park five, ...
17
I don't believe Trump hates brown people. And voters don't either. The Rasmussen poll just was released after the SOU and shutdown, with the President receiving 52% from "ALL" voters. This was up 9 percentage points prior to the SOU.
3
@OldTimer, but that isn't an accurate reflection of the President's approval as a whole. A president's popularity typically soars after the State of the Union, especially one that didn't bear too many markers of the divisiveness Donald Trump is known for. Statistics must be interpreted with context.
4
@GV
Nice try but not true - not 9% points! This is voters approval level.
@OldTimer. 538 has Trump at about 40 percent. Up about one percent from prior to the SOU, based on an average of various credible pollsters.
1
'When I walked back across the bridge, a US passport control officer .... was hostile.'
If this is the experience of an American citizen, imagine what it must be for foreigners visiting the US.
Having said that, immigration officers at America's ports of entries seem hostile during the best of times. No smile, no greeting, no 'Welcome to the US.' Just curtly giving orders ('put your right hand on the scanner!', 'why are you coming to the US!'). And heaven forbid a person has some difficulty understanding an American accent, or responds in a foreign accent. Curtness gets replaced by a mix of condescension or hostility.
7
It’s funny how Trump is so concerned with enforcing the law at the border while he’s not concerned about other laws, like the emoluments clause, paying your bills, following the rules of government, having honest people work in his government, paying taxes, honoring business contracts, etc.
No wonder those people are headed here, they want to break the laws like him and get rich.
Trump isn’t worthy to tie the shoelaces of those immigrants. I would much rather have them living next door than him.
18
Thank you! Good read!
My heart purely aches for the parents who just want a better life for their children! That's not much, really! We all get it as citizens. They want to have it! They shouldn't be punished!
17
Here's a question Democrats (and I am one) never answer.
How many poor people from Latin America should we welcome here?
Should we welcome every person who wants to come? Every person who seeks asylum? Every person who manages to make it over the border?
According to Gallup, 5 million plan on trying to come next year. Who takes care of them, houses them, feeds them?
I read recently that California is spending $10 billion a year on ESL classes for kids in public schools--calculated at $10,000 per year for the 1.2 million students (20% of the total) who are English learners.
I am not heartless. But is there a plan for who gets to come here, how, and what happens if we decide they can't stay? If there is a plan, what is it?
23
@Talbot
Well first of all, it is national and especially international law, that all refugees have their claims heard in a timely and equitable fashion (once on American soil). It is also illegal to separate babies/children from their parents.
Having said that, there have been immigration reform bills that have passed. (in 2013 a bill passed the Senate (by Democrats), but was not even brought up for a vote in the house (by republicans)( - it is the reverse now until Democrats take over the Senate in 20' or 22' )
What is required is a rethinking of the failed war on narcotics that has established failed governments filled with corruption.
What is also required is a Marshall plan for South and Central America to firmly establish governments that can effectively take care of people, and offer them a future. (one that is not destroyed by strongmen that have been propped up by the U.S. in the first place)
Just a thought...
14
@Talbot. These are fair questions. Its a question of resources and no, we can't take care of everyone who wants a home here. BUT, whatever we do, it must be done with respect for the dignity of those who want to cross over. We will have to say no more often than we might like....but we must not cause undue harm. We certainly should not rip children from their parents
Where are the anti-abortion activists? Do they not care about the living?
15
@Talbot
Well first of all, it is national and especially international law, that all refugees have their claims heard in a timely and equitable fashion (once on American soil). It is also illegal to separate children from their parents.
Having said that, there have been immigration reform bills that have passed. (in 2013 a bill passed the Senate (by Democrats), but was not even brought up for a vote in the house (by republicans)( - it is the reverse now until Democrats take over the Senate in 20' or 22' )
What is required is a rethinking and retooling of the failed war on drugs that has established failed governments filled with corruption and ''narco'' states.
What is also required is a Marshall plan for South and Central America to firmly establish governments that can effectively take care of people, and offer them a future. (one that is not destroyed by strongmen that have been propped up by the U.S. in the first place)
Just a thought...
3
"When I walked back across the bridge, a United States passport control officer pored over my passport for several minutes: the Iranian visa, the Iraqi visa, the Chinese visa, the Indian visa. She asked what I do, whether I’d crossed the bridge before, why I’d entered Mexico. She was hostile."
Yes, welcome back to the Land of the Free. In support of earlier comments, as a frequent traveler I can confirm that American border agents are collectively the least friendly in the world and have been for many years. This problem precedes Trump and is not strictly limited to foreign nationals or persons of color. Perhaps the American border security program finally has been awarded the president that it has long craved.
Last spring my wife and I spent three weeks touring China. Chinese security agents do very thorough investigations at airports and train stations. And we know that they have installed a ubiquitous Orwellian camera surveillance system to back all this up. But the agents doing the personal inspections were always polite and non-aggressive. Never did we have the sense that they were looking for excuses or openings to behave in a difficult manner. One cannot always say that about the treatment received at American ports of entry.
Trump is undeniably awful. But the good news is he has made it more permissible to challenge the hypocritical mask of official American benevolence. How likely is it that Cohen pens the excerpt quoted above if Obama were still president?
26
@woofer
Indeed. I travel often from Europe to North America, and essentially have two choices. I can fly through Amsterdam into Canada, or I can travel through Detroit, and other hubs in the U.S.
Half of the time, I have the dogs sniffing me for contraband if I go the Canadian route, but ALWAYS, I am interrogated at quite long length going through the U.S. (even being a white male with kids in tow) This is on a sample size of a few dozen times. I prefer the latter of course.
Having said all that, I can only imagine what is like on the southern border, and being of a different skin color, and, and , and ...
25
@woofer
They're not terribly friendly in the U.K. either -
@woofer
Indeed. I travel often from Europe to North America, and essentially have two choices. I can fly through Amsterdam into Canada, or I can travel through Detroit, and other hubs in the U.S.
Half of the time, I have dogs sniffing me for drugs if I go through Canada (obvious), but ALWAYS, I am interrogated at quite long length going through the U.S. (even being a white male with kids in tow) This is on a sample size of a few dozen times. I prefer the latter of course.
Having said all that, I can only imagine what is like on the southern border, and being of a different skin color, and, and , and ...
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"To supporters of the wall, I ask: Is it time to take down the Statue of Liberty?"
If this wall comes to pass, I will donate to a shroud to be draped over Ms Liberty, to stay in place until... ?
Thanks for this thoughtful article.
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"'From my vantage point in El Paso there is no crisis,” Margo, the mayor, told me. “You look south and you can’t tell where El Paso merges into Júarez.'" That, to Trump/Miller, IS the crisis.
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@JackCerf The co-mingling of races? Perhaps that is the problem...
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Ah yes, another Honduran Blitzkrieg, in slow motion, about 1.5 miles an hour. These people are coming to kill us and take our jobs, according to Trump. So, you folks who don't speak much English and have about a grade-school education, be afraid.
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And yet, those nullifying the brown skinned, faithfully enter the tanning chamber. Perhaps tanning is an unconscience, innate yearning to connect with their ancestry.
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I love, love, love Roger Cohen. Love.
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You read stories like this, then you read about Trumps’ possible call for a National Emergency, then the rallies baiting the audience with hate rhetoric, then the concertina wire and thousands of troops at the border, and the children being ripped from their parents, and more and more hate filled rhetoric by the President. And what does it remind me of?
Look at the history of Germany starting in 1933. The rhetoric is similar, and the persecution, they just weren’t “brown” people, they were Jews.
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How unimaginable is it that 1000 children we have separated from their parents will most likely never see them again. It’s lunacy. Trump should be imprisoned just for that. So unconscionable, unAmerican, inhuman. Who would ever believe that could happen here. A disgrace.
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@David J
I think this policy was started under Obama.
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Trump should be tried in The Hague for crimes against humanity. Separating children from their parents with no intension to reunite them is what the US did during slavery. Since this administration does not read, they are unaware that they are repeating history.
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Yes, trump hates brown people yet he spends time under a sun lamp adding color to his pale, pasty white skin. I and so many others wait until late spring to run to the beach and do the same thing.
Trump hates brown people because they are poor. He hates white people too. Trump loves to hate. Without hate he could not live. Trump is one of the most sorry, pitiful humans on this planet.
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People that fall back on "just following orders" when they are acting as authorities with aggressive or reactionary behavior echo the excuses of the otherwise indescript locals deputized as exterminators in Nazi camps. As the face of America at our doors it's no wonder that anyone think twice before visiting. And you don't even need to visit, key architects of these policies can be hired to import this hatred. We might perhaps add a category to our balance of trade calculations.
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Roger, you're increasingly behind the times. You claim that "Trump hates brown people," but another story which isn't getting a lot of print is that liberals/Democrats (whom you defend) hate people like you. Are you aware of this? Your liberalism doesn't matter to them. The anti-white and anti-Semitic sentiment emerging today on the left is blurring the distinctions many people historically believed in. It's time to reconsider your rhetoric and political allegiances.
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Eugene, Roger did not claim that "Trump hates brown people." Roger wrote a column explaining what he saw and heard when he went to investigate the Mexican border at El Paso. One of the things he reports is that a photographer in Juarez told him that "Everyone here knows Trump hates brown people."
Reading comprehension skills are your friends.
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@Eugene I'd challenge you to back your statements up with fact. Instead of making sweeping assumptions about a diverse ideological group, perhaps you could point out a mainstream and pervasive example of anti-white racism, as you proclaim. It's also important to note that anti-Semitism isn't limited to just one political ideology. It's a plague that infects both sides of the political spectrum.
@Eugene. Then how do you explain the overwhelming popularity of Bernie Sanders? Nice try, but no, you are trying to create a hysteria that does not exist.
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If Trompudo can't lie, divide and cheat, how could he get anybody to vote for him? As he has had on full display for decades, he has no other abilities.
Anybody else in 2020.
Anybody else in 2020.
Anybody else in 2020.
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The "wall" is and always has been a con job aimed at mentally challenged bigots. You know, like Trump himself.
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I tuned into Fox News in the last couple things, and saw two things:
--a concerned, worried voice talking about people "lining up" at the border for entry, as if people in a que waiting their turn was some sort of threat; and
--a piece showing all sorts of manpower moving to the border from the State of Texas to counter a threat of a caravan, but no pictures of the caravan itself, as if we should assume there is a real threat because conservatives in the state and federal government send manpower to stand there.
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@Yeah
You cannot have a country without borders!!
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What a well-thought article.
We should be reading this again, as it says so much about the people, not just about immigration.
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Trump has done what any demagogue does - he has weaponized the bigotry against brown people, women, gay people, transgendered, and anyone who looks different from the white male power structure in this country.
In doing so, he has simply said out loud what the Republican Party has been insinuating and exploiting for many decades
to create division and stay in power.
The wall is simply another form of division and hate - the 21st century equivalent of Reagan's welfare queen or Bush Sr's Willie Horton. Not only does Trump need to get thrown out of office in 2020, the Republican Party needs to be swept completely out of power and exiled for the next two decades until the party comes to its senses and a new generation of leaders is ready to take their place.
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It's been quite a few years since I spent a brief time in El Paso. I loved the area. You could not miss the positive vibe. In fact, I might move it up on my fantasy relocation list.
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Hate - Omar hates jews. Trump hates Brown people. I'm over it.
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I'm re reading Bill Bryson, from the late 90's, when he'd just returned after two decades living in England. The Iowa born writer is newly amazed at his spacious country. Unhappy with the conservatives, led by Gingrich, who claim we have too little space, too few resources, to absorb immigrants. They're the same guys who decided to lock up people of color for non-violent drug violations. Texans back then voted down a $750 M bond proposal for new schools. They approved a $1B bond for new prisons. Newt et al got rich investing in those detention centers. Addicts and babies, as long as someone pays Newts pals, they're happy to lock 'em up. The GOP of 2019 is the GOP of 1995. Sleazier, mouthier, more flagrantly hypocrital. Friends, with benefits, to a new group of dictators. Hostile to workers, families, the poor. Bryson wrote, "I would make it a criminal offense to be Newt Gringich". Insert any GOP leader's name and I pretty much agree.
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@winchestereast
No, the Democrats voted harsh sentences for non-violent drug crime.
But anyway, we're sorry! We apologize!
@Longue Carabine NYT 4/10/16 "President Clinton took a different approach, working with like-minded Democrats, including Mr. Schumer and Joseph Biden, who was the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The bill they devised actually reduced sentences for federal drug crimes by exempting first-time, nonviolent drug offenders from the onerous “mandatory minimum” penalties created under earlier administrations. It funded specialized drug courts, drug treatment programs, “boot camps” and other efforts to rehabilitate offenders without incarceration. It allocated more than $3 billion to keep at-risk young people away from gangs and the drug trade.
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@winchestereast Parsing the Clinton Crime Bill - It wasn't about locking up non-violent first offenders -
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/10/opinion/campaign-stops/unlocking-the-truth-about-the-clinton-crime-bill.html
It is not enough for Dems to condemn Trump, they need to agree on and articulate a clear outline of what immigration reform should be.
I believe the majority of us want strict enforcement of immigration laws, including punishment of industries that knowingly hire undocumented workers and methods that will make it easy to know who is documented.
I would also like a bit of mercy similar to a statute of limitations that would allow undocumented residents a path to citizenship that have already established their lives here for many years, especially workers with dependents.
What most of us don't advocate is a policy of open borders where anyone that gets in can stay in. This is what Trump supporters claim Dems believe in, and given the poor communication of specifics by our leaders, no wonder.
When you don't contradict propaganda against you it sticks.
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@alan haigh: Given the aging demographics of the United States, we need more workers, whose taxes will support Social Security. The only people who want to come here are brown people, including Asians. If it did not mean leaving my family, I would seriously consider moving to Europe...if they would have me!
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@alan haigh
I just don't see any point to having immigration laws.
@alan haigh The problem is, Democrats refuse to give Trump a "win" despite having supported the strict enforcement you describe in the past, whether or not the erection of physical barriers would have been included. Unless Democrats really are for open borders, there's no other reason but spite that there is no progress on this issue.
Mexico offered every alleged asylum seeker a visa and work permit. These humans are country shopping. In addition, they know they can not be detained for long if they bring their children with them. We are being gamed and duped - the whole point is to over-whelm the system so their final asylum hearing is so far into the future, they are never deported. Meanwhile, they are in the US, taking working class jobs, destroying wages and working conditions for our low income workers and having anchor babies which we are stuck with.
If we let these people though, expect tens of millions more from Central America.
34
You watch too much Fox News.
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@Enough Humans
These people about whom you write so self-righteously have for generations been doing all the dog work -- including for the current President of the United States -- that arrogant current residents of the U.S. will not deign to do. You might do a bit of reading up on this topic before you get up on your soapbox again.
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@Enough Humans. You need to quit quoting the alternate facts provide by the Trump Administration. The Latino immigrants are NOT taking working class jobs. They take jobs that white Americans will not do. They are the laborers that mow the lawns of homeowners and will do it at an inexpensive wage. They are the agricultural workers whose low wages keep American food prices low. They are the nannies who take care of children and keep house for people who would otherwise be unable to afford those services.
Basically, those immigrants come here and survive because Americans exploit them to maintain their high standard of living. And then we hypocritically whine about them being here.
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The reason Republicans didn't fund the wall during the first two years was because the Republicans in Congress would rather get something through that benefited them and not just Trump.
Funding for the wall only benefits Trump and it would have used a majority of their political capital with no return in the form of kickbacks and campaign contributions for the Republican crooks in Congress.
Therefore, they left Trump to defend himself against the Democrats on fighting for funding for the wall.
15
@mrpisces: Yeah, poor Trump; I feel so sorry for him.
"What shall we do with him?" That one quote says it all. It speaks to the heart of just what an American is. This toxic culture has been bred and nurtured by Trump. It is based upon fear and hatred. It is based on a closed system of racial purity. It is the baseline of fascism.
No we can't just let everyone in. But we can take in many more. There are millions of jobs that are unfilled right now. They aren't in small town rural USA. They are in the big cities. They are in industries that are growing, not coal mining, not in low skilled manufacturing.
Republicans like to counter that immigrant labor pushed down wages and white people won't take those jobs. Just like supply side economics, reality is just the opposite. Wages were pushed down by the elimination of labor unions and the rise in anti-labor legislation that created the low wage environment. Immigrants then filled the void. Besides, we created the conditions that forced the Mexicans to go North.
When NAFTA was enacted, we dumped our corn on the Mexican market and caused millions of farmers to seek employment here in the states. They had nowhere else to go.
The drug cartels are a big problem but who is using all of these illegal drugs? We are. American demand is providing the money to fund their criminal enterprises.
And what about our interference in their elections? We messed the whole place up for the plantation profits.
Maybe it's time we addressed these issues instead of building a wall.
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@Bruce Rozenblit "Wages were pushed down by the elimination of labor unions and the rise in anti-labor legislation that created the low wage environment. Immigrants then filled the void."
Hard for a labor union to exist, when say a construction worker can be picked up for 50 bucks in a Home Depot parking lot. And those unfilled jobs in cities require skilled workers, not people who have no education. If they are not going to rural America, then they will end up in cities like LA and NY which already have critical housing shortages. We don't need to build a wall, but we do need a plan to make sure that people will have opportunities or we will (already have in some places) create an underground economy with a permanent underclass. That is not the promise of America.
5
Maybe if the US stops bombing countries beyond their borders, there will be a lot fewer refuges at the US border seeking refuge.
Why is it ok for the US to cross international borders with military equipment, but not ok for families to cross the US border with suitcases? The US Military doesn’t wait patiently in a queue to obtain a visa to cross an international border to bomb the heck out of foreign families on their own soil.
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@Bruce Rozenblit
We must apologize! All of Mexico's problems were caused by Americans! All of the world's problems were caused by Americans!
So sorry! Come on in, everybody, we're sorry!
2
I agree that Trump's rhetoric is not innocuous. I work in an area where there is a lot of contact between long time Americans and the newly arrived. The atmosphere can be rife with contempt for Latin Americans and, for that matter, with just about anybody from anywhere different.
Hatred is a mental disease that spreads its nasty negativity until some brave soul stands up and says, "not in my name".
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@jimmybudd
We need many more of these brave souls to stand up, especially those in Congress.....Standing silent is the quickest path to fascism.....Maybe we should all brush up on our world history or we will be staring it in the face on our own shores....
12
Mr. Cohen knows full well that our racist President is not going to El Paso on a fact-finding mission and that he will not cross over into Ciudad Juarez to see the peaceful coexistence on both sides of the border.
Trump is there to reiterate his racism, shared fully by his base. He'll lie again about the abrupt drop in crime in El Paso do to the creation of the wall there. Another "alternate fact" for Trump to use to stir up his base.
Trump has believed in racism starting from the racist policies of his father in apartment rentals to black people in New York City. He fully embraced racism then and he believes it now. He will not change and neither will the racists in his base who have always hated brown and black people and who always will.
Continue the Blue Wave in 2020. Get rid of Trump at all costs and take over the Senate. That's the only solution to inbred racism.
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@dpaqcluck
It would be interesting to know how many of those that will attend Trump's rally tonight are citizens of El Paso and how many of them are the groupies that follow him around like a lap dog waiting for their next treat.....
16
As Ruben Garcia said, definitely you should knock down that silly statue in New York harbor with its "bring me your unwashed poor" garbage. Or maybe you could just hang a notice on it telling them to try California instead .
18
@Robin Le Breton I’m surprised someone hasn’t blown it up already. I hope it has adequate protection because it is an obvious target for trouble makers of both left and right persuasions, particularly those from the Middle East.
1
" I thanked her for the warm welcome home. “Just doing my job,” she said. Trump’s rhetoric is not innocuous."
I appreciate your article, its sentiments, and your take.
Small qualm: As someone who's crossed back into the US from Canada 100s of times since my childhood in the 80s, I can tell you border agents have never been anything but brutes. This isn't new or Trumpian. "Welcome home" used to be a sentiment at the airport--I don't recall it ever existing at the border (even before 2001).
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@Allentown Are you aware that the Canadian immigration requirements are infinitely more stringent than US requirements. And I have crossed the same border you have, and found guards/agents usually polite and professional.
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@Allentown
I have crossed the US border with an American passport - or occasionally a driver's license - many times between 1979 and 1999, at Canada, Mexico, New York, & San Francisco. With at most one exception, I found the US border agents treated me very well. Of course, it may have helped that at the time I was young, female, and white.
6
@Allentown I have been subject to much questioning when entering my country, the United States, after travel. Both times I was traveling on official government business with an official business passport.
Yes, at times many of us are given more than one look.
5
trump hasn't the courage, the intelligence or the endurance to spend one day in the shoes of some of these migrants who are fleeing to safety
210
Four deferments says it all.
21
"What should I do with him?!!!"
Kinda says it all.
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Why was Trump's wall not a national emergency during the two years he had a Republican majority? How did it only become a national emergency when the House went to the Democrats? When shutting down the government in December was so unpopular, hurt so many people, and was blamed on Trump and the Republicans, why is Trump willing to do it all over again?
Trump doesn't think things through. He just spouts.
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@Linda: I wondered about that, too. I think it was a deliberate political strategy. Trump knew that Republicans had little interest in funding the wall; if they had, they could have done it easily because for his first two years the GOP owned both chambers of Congress and the Presidency. Getting huge tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires was more important, so there was no point wasting political capital for the wall, not when the wall was something that Trump could save for later, to rile up his base and gin up support for him. This comes in handy now, with the House under Democratic control. Trump can paint Democrats as weak on defense, weak on security, weak on law and order, of favoring letting in illegal aliens so those people will vote for Democrats (never mind that non-citizens can't vote in federal elections, and that fact won't matter to Trump supporters), that these people are poor, disease-ridden, coming to invade us and take good, hard-working Americans' jobs, steal from us by using social services, that they're terrorists and bad people. He can say that Democrats want to take everyone who wants to come here and not vet them and give them everything and make "real" Americans less safe. It will work beautifully--it plays to his base, and it has the added bonus of bringing the GOP on board in states that supported Trump in 2016, while making failures the Democrats' fault. That's why he waited. More political theatre.
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@marybeth - I'm afraid you are giving Trump too much credit for strategic thinking. He was fine with the budget that overwhelmingly passed the House and Senate, even though it did not contain $5.7 billion for his wall - until conservative commentators like Anne Coulter called him a wimp for abandoning his wall. Then he threatened a government shutdown because he thought the Democrats would crumple in fear and give him what he wanted. And when that didn't happen....he simply didn't know what to do. It lasted as long as it did for no result, simply because he lacks the courage to understand that a compromise can work for everyone...and so he can't make one, for fear he will look 'weak'. That's all he cares about, being perceived as "strong" - as someone other people fear and so obey, and whose idea of winning means everyone else has to lose. And when no one else plays that came, he is simply lost. He may keep those of his base that he has persuaded to take on the same mind-set, but even those will fade away as his inability to negotiate starts hurting them.
40
@Linda
I think this idea of legislation not happening during times of a supermajority in Congress is endemic in both parties. It's all political strategy. Why wasn't DACA permanently addressed in Obama's first two years with a supermajority? Along with comprehensive immigration reform? If you look at history, it's all about saving certain issues for political ammo.
5