Mr. Assange likely knows where all of the bodies are buried with regard to Russki interference in the election, even those not found by Mr. Mueller and his team. Were I him, I would scream to anyone within earshot that I am neither depressed nor suicidal, I intend to fight the charges to the very end, and that if I were to be found hung in my cell, that it would not be self-inflicted.
1
If I had a nickel for every time Brooks wrung his hands or uttered a false equivalency ...
... perhaps we could fund a better refugee policy for Central America and even have some money left over for a big, beautiful wall, if you are inclined that way.
No, I'd call the local police, and ICE if possible, and I'd have a loaded weapon ready if they advanced on my house. I would further instruct them to leave my property immediately lest I "stand my ground" considering the perceived threat to my family's safety.
I might suggest that they head for a well-known sanctuary city; let those benighted citizens pay for their well-being.
A close relative who loves to volunteer as an interpreter at a local immigrant shelter told me a family of four from Guatemala recently paid coyotes $7,000 to get them to Juarez -- way more than the cost of plane tickets. I had some friends from Guatemala when I lived in Washington DC 11 years ago and they also paid coyotes. So, while this writer rips Trump, I for one know that this mess has been going on for more than a decade, eight of which years were under Obama, and through more than five 2-year congressional terms. Instead of taking 2 weeks off, Congress should have acted. Adjust the quotas as appropriate and have people apply for admission in an embassy or consulate in their own country.
"This is what happens when the politics of practical action get replaced by the politics of performative narcissism."
My wife and I agree this is your best.
While Brooks makes a few good points early, as usual, he is unwilling to place the blame where it belongs. "It's the Republicans, stupid!" Is the answer that is obvious (just like the old phrase it's the economy, stupid).
The President is Republican and has full responsibility. Efforts to address the issue in the Senate have been dead on arrival due to the unconscionable McConnell. This is a Republican creation that is perpetuated by Republicans.
Choosing to say the Democrats are equally culpable for not capitulating to unreasonable Republican demands and have to share responsibility is the height of demagoguery.
Also, quit using the language of moral equivalence. The GOP hasn't had an original idea since Reagan and has obstructed all Democratic legislation since Gingrich (including some it wanted for political reasons). There is no moral equivalence here, there is just a problem with the very broken GOP. You wanted it, so own it.
29
This egregious bothsidesism is getting very tiresome, Mr. Brooks. You misrepresent the situation in almost every way possible, especially regarding the Democrats intentions who, along with enough Republicans, have already passed a very decent immigration bill (it still sits therecawaiting a Senate vot which would pass), but it was blocked by grandstanding Republicans. AND YOU KNOW THAT. But you try to implicate those who would have -- and still could -- solve the problems rather than lay blame where it belongs, on Republican leaders who prefer a emotional, divisive issue over a humane and endurong attempt at a solution.
So please ...maybe you think you're writing for an uninformed, ignorant audience which doesn't see such false equivalencies for the hackery they are? If so, you should ask for asylum over at a Murdoch rag or maybe his TV network. Maybe you are, in fact, auditioning already?
17
According to Brooks ANY country with a crime wave guarantees ANYONE from that country to simply get over our border and never face the legal system.
7
Los Angeles County has about 10million people, or about 25% of California’s population. There are about 60,000 homeless people who are becoming a real problem because they carry lice and disease. Today I saw a homeless man I have known for about five years. He’s severely mentally ill. His name is Steve. There are thousands of Steves in Los Angeles. He can’t walk and gets around in a wheelchair. He lives on garbage and handouts. He is filthy and fell out of his chair today. Someone called an ambulance. They came and after about ten minutes left without doing anything. Steve was still on the ground. The police came and a few men helped a Steve into his chair without touching him. The police asked Steve to move down the street. I asked the police if there was anything they could do. Was there anyplace Steve could go to get help? The answer was no. So, Steve is on the streets right now with absolutely no hope of getting any help. I’m posting this story because it’s shameful for this country to treat it’s sick citizens the it treats people like a Steve. How in the world can we expect to help immigrants when we turn our backs on our fellow citizens like Steve?
20
"Designing a practical response that wins widespread support is, in theory, not hard."
What ARE you talking about!? A SOLID third of Americans not only don't want to help the refugees, they want them dead! When they see refugees, they don't see humans in need of help, they see vermin. Your Midwestern and Southern blue collar paragons of virtue, see vermin. I've seen the white women at the Texas border screaming at babies being held in their mother's arms! So don't tell me that when they open their doors their hearts "cry." No, they don't. They don't cry, they reach for their guns; or, vote for Trump.
The United States of America is actually the content of Trump's remark about African countries; but by the time we realize what we're standing in, it will be too late.
11
Methinks Mr. Brooks has a bit of “false equivalency “ going on here. It is tough to compromise when one side treats immigrants like subhumans.
13
How about that article the NYT did about the meat packing firm in Iowa? A worker in the '50s could support a family working there. Nowadays, both men and women work round the clock for a pittance of that. But now they have taco trucks! Yum, yum! The miracle of immigration coming soon to you.
The overcrowding and destruction of the environment is to be counted as nothing if it brings in votes. Those who protest will be abused as racist bigots. How many must live on the sidewalk before the revolution begins?
9
As I clicked on the link, I asked myself how soon Brooks would wag his fingers At Both Sides. I predicted the first paragraph, so he managed a bit longer than I expected.
8
Why is everyone, to include the New York Times, parroting the Administration's talking point that we're facing a "flood, crisis, "etc at the border?
If we talk a broader view of history the number of crossings are approximately 80% lower than their peak in 2000.
https://www.factcheck.org/2018/04/the-stats-on-border-apprehensions/
It seems David Brooks wants more "humanitarian" child prisons, more judges to quickly deport people, and faster mechanism to send people back to their home countries. Unless, of course, the immigrant is a polyglot with a Ph.D. in math from Stanford.
Why can't we take these people in? What's the difference between them and the millions of poor immigrants that came here during the last century?
8
Ellis Island handled just as many in proportion to the US population, quickly, efficiently. It didn't accept everyone, but still treated refugees as people, and future assets to the country. My country Ireland sent over millions of famine refugees. They were starving, unkempt, and many did not speak English. No-one then or now calls them illegals, so what's the difference? And their descendants were among the many brave fireman who went into the towers on 9/11. American heroes. Asking for asylum does not make you illegal.
11
Brooks' continuing denial of the purification of his party's morality and competency is on full display here. But for Republican extremism, both Bush (in 2006 & 2007) as well as Obama in 2013 had proposals quite similar to the ideas Brooks advances as his own.
Brooks is King of the "both-sides" fallacy and his consistent simpering empowers extremists in his denial of the disease of neo-populist, so-called conservative radicalism.
7
Brooks loves his disguise as a “moderate” so he can defend his neofascist fight wing buddies by claiming that there is “blame on both sides”. It is hard to find any issue or policy no matter how outrageous that some right wing lackey “moderate” can’t find “blame on both sides” to excuse abominably immoral conduct
11
Brooks loves his disguise as a “moderate” so he can defend his neofascist fight wing buddies by claiming that there is “blame on both sides”. It is hard to find any issue or policy no matter how outrageous that some right wing lackey “moderate” can’t find “blame on both sides” to excuse abominably immoral conduct
3
David Brooks is the Leonardo daVinci of false equivalence. He’s Ann Coulter in a Casper Milquetoast costume. In this column, he spews more ire at Democrats than he’s uttered about Republicans in the last two years. David’s ivory tower sits in the shadow of Trump Tower. He’s become completely tiresome.
8
Our disgrace are white Americans in middle America who never deal with immigration in any meaningful way refuse to support any changes to the system. They have been sold the idea that they are the only America, and if we allow people in from countries we've destroyed with our policies, their America will somehow die. Fox news is particularly guilty of spreading this lie.
The ignorance, bigotry, and faux religiosity of white rural America should die.
Funny, we've been thriving with cross-border trade and Latin culture out west, where California is the 5th largest economy in the world. Coincidence? NO.
5
Who’s disgrace David? Disgrace is borne by the failed leaders and states, such as El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras, that have not been able or willing to address economic, crime, education and a dearth of opportunities in their failed states. Have you been there David? I have seen the conditions. Have you? In Managua, people steal manhood covers and utility plates on the sidewalks. Left uncovered, the locals laugh and call them gringo traps. When I go, I count the ribs showing on dogs and donkeys. That’s my econometric. Cabs and flies are fast in the noonday heat. At night, I do a hooker count on every street corner and darkened doorway. The more hookers, the worse the economy.
6
Not "our"...this sits squarely with cruel trump & mc connell twins.
6
both sides? really?
5
If we don't stop Trump and his stooges, we Americans are no better than them.
3
Our disgrace is at the White House.
Our disgrace is Trump.
9
Where have you gone Henry Clay?
Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
3
Donald Trump is the worst creature to attain high office in this country bar none. He needs to be removed from office by an overwhelming vote of the honest, intelligent, humane people of the United States.
6
This is the issue that needs a " summit" with the leaders of the
Central American nations ,and Mexico, to address this exodus
and find agreeable policies to solve. Cutting off their aid is not an answer.
Trump is so cruel to everyone that I fear there will be no
solution.
What a sad commentary on our nation.
4
Sorry Mr Brooks, the current immigration crisis is all on DJT and the elected Republicans save a few. The truth is that DJT does what his base wants -- build walls and let no one in from Mexico and south no matter how harsh it looks. The Republicans in power simply go along with it as they know who votes for them - the base. To hold Dems as complict in your piece is disingenuous -- after all the Repubs could have done the right thing in the first two years of DJT's term when they had control of the house and the senate. They didn't and that tells us everything we need to know about them.
10
Trump has made a bigger mess of an already serious situation. A wall isn’t the answer when over half of the people arriving in this country do so via airplane and then overstay their visas. We need comprehensive legislation, not a carnival barker. We need solutions, not a president telling people in his administration to break the law. He now, because of his ridiculous rhetoric has backed himself into a political box, with a problem that is only getting worse. No one wants to bail him out. I know that both Democrats and Republicans have ideas to solve this crisis but they won’t do it because anything they do will be upended once Trump turns on FOX News.
Immigration is the life-blood of this nation. It has historically made us more competitive, faster and more economically nimble than any country in the world. Immigrants bring fresh ideas, new hopes and their dreams, and America, at least in the past, was the place that allowed them to fulfill them. Immigration makes us better.
We need to be THAT nation again.
8
The problem is that at some point mass migration from third world countries turns first world countries into third world countries. The rich like David Brooks will continue to live well but the poor, middle class and upper middle class will be economically dragged down to the same level as the immigrants. The other problem is that demographics determine
culture and America will become central America.
10
Mr. Trump in action is a joy to watch. He floats a mischievous plan to send illegals to supposedly welcoming 'Sanctuary Cities', Dems take the bait, they go off like firecrackers--they cry out: No, No! They call it "political retribution" (which it is), then Rep, Correa says, "don't they understand these workers are needed in this country?". What's he really saying? Don't they know employers want to hire illegals below minimum wage with no benefits? Don't cut off the supply! Wait! Aren't Dems for higher wages for workers, doesn't uncontrolled immigration undercut this idea? What are Dems actually doing? They're playing politics for, as they hope, short-term gain at the expense of their own constituents who they claim to want to help. I suspect immigration, an issue Dems think works for them, could blowup in their faces before 2020.
5
Right David, how about the 2013 Immigration Reform act that Obama would have signed and passed the Senate? Blocked by Republicans.
Republicans have too much to gain by blaming immigrants for everything.
There is no equivalence between what Democrats and Republicans on this issue.
And you know it.
5
The border crisis is completely Trump's and the Republicans fault. They held the power for two years and did nothing. Now that the Democrats have one house they're blaming the Democrats. The president has no interest in solving this problem. He is sacrificing families for his own selfish needs.
4
The problem is that Republicans are an anti-democratic faction incapable of good faith negotiation or compromise. Health care is a prime example. Instead of lying about Obamacare’s destructiveness and having an alternate plan for the past nine years, they could’ve been working with Democrats to make it better, like Republicans in previous eras who at first resisted Social Security and Medicare but came around to working with Democrats to refine both programs. The immigration problem is no different because, like health care, they’re not committed to a humane solution. Trump is more interested in exploiting and exacerbating a humanitarian crisis to rally his base. Full stop. There’s nothing Democrats, who only control the House, can do when you have an irrational president and Senate that are taking orders from wingnut right-wing media.
4
Yes, Mr. Brooks. First you start with a soul and a conscience, because then you are motivated to do your best, even if it isn't ever going to be enough.
We may never be able to do enough, with so much hardship, violence and privation in the world. But we can do our best.
And that is what the current administration lacks. Enough soul, enough conscience, enough humanity to believe that the best is necessary, and instead looks to do our very, very worst.
Yeats has it that the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity. What we need to do is to prove Yeats wrong: and show passionate intensity to be better than we are right now as a nation.
4
Great column. Horribly sad situation that could be solved except for toxic politics.
1
While will NEITHER side acknowledge the arguments of the other? I believe that if the Democrats dealt with the border situation that even Obama's DHS head Jeh Johnson agreed is an unsustainable crisis, the Republicans would have to come around. You can't continue like this and you can't declare that these are all valid cases for asylum. If you did, you might as well kiss the economy good-bye, let alone anything resembling stability in the country. Allow it to happen and people from these unfortunate countries will simply come until someone says enough. Your "enough" may be different than mine, but I am confident this is no way to run OUR country.
6
US policies bear a disproportionate responsibility for the continued perpetration of the human carbon pulse that is wreaking economic havoc on Central American agriculture. Guatemala's mainstay is coffee, for instance, and leaf rust fungus (hemileia vastatrix) thrives in the now warmer climate. Coffee leaf rust disease drives farmers into bankruptcy. As farmers become homeless, they join the migration north. Where else can they go? That this causal chain is not part of the beltway debate over the border crisis illustrates the "politics of perfomative narcissism".
3
Sorry, but there is no moral equivalence between Trump and those who oppose his illegal, anti-immigrant stance.
3
David Brooks,
This isn't a problem that happened overnight and when you opening the door. This has been happening for decades. I grew up on the US side of Nogales Arizona and now call San Diego home. This has been a problem my entire life.
A correct answer in not to freely open our borders, which has resulted in millions of people entering into the US with permission.
The answer is to let in who we want into the US and work with Mexico to return these folks from Central America to their home country.
This is not a border problem. This is a Mexico problem. They have thousands of people at our border who should have not been let into Mexico 1200 miles away at their southern border.
Don't let them in. They will stop coming to our borders expecting to get in. Someone needs to work with Mexico to get them to monitor their boards. Clearly this president is not that person. But it is not our disgrace. Its is Mexico's.
5
Yeah, maybe you do have a point. The Democrat "say" they are willing to introduce e-verification and even to invest more than the 7 billion on ramping up facilities or even judges, yet why don't they just start actually "doing" that -- at least in the sense of proposing legislation. Of course, it all "sounds" a lot more compassionate, but in the end, if all these words amount to is to doing nothing and keeping things the way they are, it is ultimately just as cruel as the ugly man projecting his own cruelty and rottenness at the helm.
4
Human beings have ‘migrated’ for as long as there have been human beings on this planet. That, in case anyone cares to remember, is how Europeans swamped the Western hemisphere just a few hundred years ago - the blink of an eye in the arc of history.
Migration has become far simpler in the 21st century. We can cope with it, use it as an agent of change and progress, or wear ourselves out swimming against the tide. We’re hearing the same xenophobic, exclusionary nonsense today that has been heard since the 19th century, when waves of Irish peasants, Italians, Poles, Czechs, Chinese, Eastern European Jews clambered to come here - and did. Just a century or so ago, Donald Trump’s German peasant grandfather himself came here, an unaccompanied minor, dodging military service at home. Stephen Miller’s Jewish peasant family came here, fleeing persecution. They all became part of the fabric of our nation, despite the constant drumbeat of the fearful that these ‘beastly hordes’ would destroy ‘our culture.’
Shame on them for using their good fortune to slam the door, rather than welcome newcomers to our nation, which is anything but ‘full, no room.’ I suggest these folks need to get out more and see how vast this country is, how much work needs to be done to meet the needs of its people, how more laboring hands can enrich us, not diminish us.
5
While attacking Cruel Trumpism, David Brooks proposes replacing Trump's view that America is full with a moderate approach to that view. This reminds me of the movie, "The Boat is Full". https://www.nytimes.com/1981/04/25/movies/the-boat-is-full.html
David Brooks claims his opponents are advocating "Trumpian extremism reversed." How is this not an ad hominem? Is this the best argument the professor's got?
Interestingly, Brooks doesn't recognize this problem or crisis as the result of government, and hence, doesn't question its legitimacy.
We should remind all the proponents of government that the ends do not justify unethical means -- never have, never will.
Please, keep that in mind, while ignoring any Brooks' logical fallacy of ad hominem.
4
Rick Pitino, now coaching in Greece, took a lot of heat from the fans after he joined the Celtics years ago. He replied, “Bird, McHale, and Parrish aren’t walking through that door again.” Hilary Clinton took a lot of heat in the 2016 election for diminishing the importance of blue color jobs. She replied, “Those jobs are not returning. The jobs of the future will require education.” Recruiting immigrants with little education or relevant work experience, who can’t speak English, who bring children who can’t speak English and haven’t been to school on a regular basis, even in Spanish — that’s a bad idea for all concerned. There are thousands and thousands of young Europeans who speak English and have good educations, many with college degrees. Why not pursue them instead?
3
For someone who writes about politics for a living, David Brooks is a really poor political analyst. The reason that Democrats don't put forth constructive proposals to address the surge in Central American migrants is because the Trump Administration's angry floundering works to Democrats' political advantage by alienating moderate voters and supercharging partisan Democrats' anger at Trump. This is the same strategy that worked for Democrats in 2006 and 2008, when they could ride the wave of anger over the failed GOP policy in Iraq to victory in Congress and the White House. When they catch the White House car in 2018, then Democrats can produce a nice comprehensive immigration reform plan to address migrant surges. But until then, they are happy to see Trump lash out and make a fool of himself.
2
Can any adjective be more descriptive of Donald Trump than inhumane? Trump doesn't see refugees as persons. He sees them as an annoying and threatening mob of flotsam and jetsam. I ask, what would a president who is a kind and decent person do?
2
Julian Castro has proposed something like a Marshall Plan for the Central American countries these migrants are coming from. His proposal is far more comprehensive than what Mr. Brooks suggests. Further, his proposal recognizes the profound damage caused by America's interference throughout the region. Here is what concerns me about the "brilliant businessman" living in the White House. If he were truly a business man with any record of true success, he would have sought solutions to the causes of the mass migrations far earlier. But he didn't. And now he proposes to "give" migrants to American sanctuary cities as if they are not even human beings. Morally, he is an empty vessel. Intellectually, he is a fool. His venality is a daily insult to our country's ideals.
6
How I wish you had been more vocal on this issue in the past.
2
Trump's ad hoc policy implementation results in chaos. With no honor, soul, respect, contextual understanding, analysis or care, nothing but more rhetorical violence rains down on the American public. I think it's treasonous.
2
Yes, the response of the government has been disgraceful. But the response of border communities is often commendable. We are finding ways of helping those ragged, hungry people standing at our door through massive volunteer efforts showing extreme kindness to our neighbors in need. In Tucson, a developer has allowed Catholic Social Services use a large facility on his property until his plans to build on the property are finalized---for free. Hundreds of volunteers staff this shelter, helping migrants make travel arrangements, eat, rest, get new (donated) clothing. Hundreds more Tucsonans donate food, clothing, supplies, wash blankets, scour stores for bargains to give, and so much more. It's a shame our government won't assist with money, supplies, help.
5
We must also acknowledge that we NEED immigrants due to our changing demographics and falling birthrates. Our country isn’t “full”; we have a labor shortage in low wage workers, including agricultural, domestic and health care. Who will harvest your food? Who will clean your house and your hotel room? Who will wipe your bottom when you need nursing home care? These are jobs Americans won’t do and there are chronic shortages everywhere. It will get worse as the boomers retire. Many of these immigrants will go on to achieve higher education. They are a good investment for our economy. Open the door! Don’t take everyone, but don’t shut them all out.
3
I believe in diverse communities. Just was in Seattle and saw all the homeless tent cities. Thought to myself what can white, privileged people with all their racism do to help these poor bedraggled souls and the people pouring over the border?
So here we go. I believe we match the poorest families with the richest families. They are responsible for their shelter, care, schooling and healthcare. Their children all go to school together. Their housing is in the same communities as their sponsors. The closer, the better.
No police will be needed because we know that compassion will solve any problems that will arise. So it’s win, win all around!
2
Hey David Brooks. Here's an idea. Why not place the blame where it belongs -- with Mitch McConnell whose relentless pursuit of the right-wing GOP insiders' agenda enables all kinds of drama and nonsense from Trump to distract the hoi polloi. You know perfectly well that the Congress, left to majority consensus, would long ago have reformed our immigration system.
4
Dear David- Thank you for the best column ever. And thank you for finding your true inner self showing empathy and examples of real solutions to today's daunting problems. Welcome to the human race of decency and concern for mankind.
“Others gesture toward the open border crowd with policies like eliminating ICE. This is Trumpian extremism reversed.”
Which Democrats have made such extremist gestures? Care to give us specific examples? I don’t think you can.
2
David Brooks: "hundreds of thousands of people fleeing violence in Central America or seeking economic opportunity. . . . "
I have great respect for David Brooks (one of my favourite NYT columnists), but I cannot applaud him this time. The problem? That nocent (not innocent) little word "or": "Fleeing violence . . . or . . . seeking economic opportunity." A huge difference. If hundreds (let alone "hundreds of thousands") of people turned up on my door in the middle of the night ("Suppose one night there is a knock on your door. You open it to find 100 bedraggled families shivering in your yard — exhausted, filthy, terrified...") my first response would be shock, even fear. If it turned out they were "seeking economic opportunity" my response would NOT be the same as if they were "fleeing violence," and even if they were doing the latter, I would wonder why they were knocking at my door. (I hope, but do not trust, that I would have the wherewithal to remember the difference at 3.00am, when they knocked or hammered or . . . ?). Sorry, David, I am one of your biggest fans, but I CALL YOUR BLUFF. Would you really welcome people at your private home, at an ungodly hour? If so, post your home address right here. I'll put it online and send the refugees your way. (I really mean this. Every. Single Word. Do it, David. Your home address. Or be outed as a cardboard cutout Samaritan, which is, I fear, exactly what you are.)
4
What fuels the gangs, violence and corruption (on both sides of the border) that drives desperate people to our borders and overfills our prisons?
Drugs.
Legalize drugs and watched the noxious fumes deflate out of this perpetual toxic balloon.
Prohibition mark 2 isn’t doing any better than the original prohibition.
2
We need a Marshall Plan for Mexico and Central America. As long as conditions in their home countries are dangerous and violent, or as long as a Mexican citizen can work all day and still not make enough to feed, house and clothe himself and his family, those migrants will keep coming — sort of like the folks who made the dangerous voyages to Plymouth and Jamestown, you people who sneer at Central Americans for supposedly endangering their children. We can do it, or we can let China do it. Which makes more sense: a safe and prosperous set of neighbors who are our allies, or a prosperous set of neighbors who owe allegiance to China? And for the love of God, why can’t we have a rational guest-worker program that allows American business to legally welcome those needed in agricultural jobs that hardly anybody here wants to do anymore? I was raised on a dairy farm, and I know more about the reality of farm work than the vast majority of readers of this newspaper. We need these workers to feed our country.
1
Does anyone remember why immigrants are a subject of hate? It doesn't make sense to me. Nor does much else these days.
2
This is a problem created by and for Trump and his Republican enablers. And still David Brooks relies on false equivalents to blame both Parties. It was majority of Democrats and a minority of Republicans in the Senate who voted in favor of a real immigration reform. It was the Republican House Speaker who refused even to allow it to come to a vote.
Democrats have not demonized immigrants, Trump and his Republican cheerleaders have. The "invasion" Trump is frightening Americans with leaves America far behind Germany, who absorbed, not without difficulty and controversy, millions of Middle Eastern refugees fleeing war and deprivation.
France should ask for the Statue of Liberty back, or at least ask that Emma Lazarus's poem be removed from the base. We are no longer the "Mother of Exiles. (who) From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome." We tell the world not to "Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Under Trump we are a selfish country who values our own good fortune over the misfortune that confronts so many in the world. Shame on us and shame on the President who lacks the human compassion to respond to the suffering of our neighbors.
4
What we need is a Marshall Plan for Latin America. Folks don't uproot themselves without very good reasons.
1
This is just another consequence of electing Dr. Evil to the presidency. What's left to be surprised about?
2
All refugees might be immigrants but all immigrants are not refugees. I’m sure most of the citizens who supported turning away the St. Louis in 1939 had what they thought were good reasons why the human cargo was not welcome refuge in our ports, the 900 Jews on the ship weren’t offered refuge anywhere in the Western Hemisphere.
This isn’t a political issue and to question the motives of people fighting for these people seeking a way out of their desperate situation misses the humanity.
Remember the St. Louis!
3
I haven’t heard the loud and strong evangelical cry for such a devastating human tragedy , where mothers and children end up locked up in cages in the richest country of the world !
3
It's not about cruelty; it's the utter absence of morality while using lies as a cover story. A wall won't solve anything. Playing more golf won't solve anything. Tweeting lies won't solve anything. Even legal immigrants wait years. Put a few billion into fixing that, and then ask for money for a wall.
1
Not for nothing David, but a big reason those countries are in chaos is because of US meddling in their affairs during the Cold War. So very typical of the United States. We go somewhere else in the world, created a huge problem and then walk away and wipe our hands and wonder why this is coming back to bite us. We reap what we sow.
2
Thank you, Mr. Brooks, for another thoughtful and right-on commentary.
How can a disgraceful President and party solve a disgraceful situation? Brooks thinks the arsonist after he burns down the forest is going replant it?The disgrace is not at the border but in Washington. Our tribal politics has come a head and if not put in check is soon to erupt.
1
The irony is that the Trump administration has done absolutely nothing, whether it be West Virginia or the Midwest, to relieve struggling Americans of a horrific truth - that the majority are living hand to mouth, with two, sometimes three jobs and nothing left over at the end of the month for a medical emergency.
This is is the most incompetent and vile administration in American History - yes, I said it. The fact that Trump as figurehead and McConnell as curator uses the desperation of refugees to attempt to scare or enrage their base against “the other” is unforgivable.
These are indeed our neighbors; forty percent of our trade comes from Mexico. How many Mid-Westerners have actually SEEN the border? How many are just afraid that they will not make it month to month?
Gaslighting the American people and preying on a public whose only news is owned by Sinclair, Breitbart and FOX News; threatening to activate the U.S. Military on American soil; using the law to punish his “enemies” should motivate all of us to say enough cruelty and despicable behavior is enough.
3
Trump, Steven Miller and the rest of them are empty men in search of a suit.
1
I know I'm late to the game, but we essentially have Tony Robbins as President with a racist slant. The quote The Clash: what are we gonna do about it?
1
Imagine how bad things must be at home for these poor souls if they’re willing to enter Trump’s America.
2
Once again with the "both sides do it." Please leave off with the false equivocation.
2
With you 100%
Let me think now. The New York Times pays me to support the Republican Party, but its current policies are appalling. What should I do?
Oh I know, criticize the Democrats.
1
It's their disgrace at the border.
Just who do these people think they are.
1
Right on David!
David Brooks’ suggestions are made with good intentions. However, while the procedures he outlined would make for more orderly access at the border, they are an invitation for more migrants to come here. Those arriving would still have hearings months or years from now. During that time they’ll be free to live, and then to escape any real legal oversight, in the US.
The road to the US would be open and well-organized - and paved with good intentions.
2
Great article, and well considered. Thank you.
Refugees and asylum seekers are now a problem for all developed countries, where those who have nothing to lose seek safety and aid following war, torture, persecution etc.
The problem is not going to go away and it will increase as rising sea levels see millions more forced from their homes. Where food production wanes and unbearable heat/cold, including climate disasters, cause a new wave of people needing to relocate.
Now is a time for action and planning and countries working together. Humanity depends on it.
Hopefully some of the politicians will read this and rethink their strategies.
4
All fine and well, but deep inside, you know this will not fix the problem. It will only kick the can down the road.
Unless the US gets involved and cleans up the countries these people must flee to save themselves, nothing will change.
I would say, take them in, have our military train them, then send them back to reclaim their own countries. Then have the peace corps help the country rebuild and prosper.
Just taking in refugees, while the conditions that drove them away continue to fester does not solve the problem.
4
The problem begins in the immigrants' home countries. That is where theUS has to start. Of course we cannot process a population of immigrants which is equivalent to the population of large cities in the US. Instead of keeping troops in Afghanistan, we must insist on oversight, including our troops if necessary, to the countries in Central America these people are fleeing from. And if they refuse, because some in power are benefiting from the lawless governance, the US must insist, as we are the nation being bombarded with entire populations. We must police the immigrants home countries, not the US.
3
The humanitarian crisis at the border is in chaos and begs to be addressed properly. The 2013 border immigration comprehensive plan would be a place to start.
The fact that the president is trying to divert attention from the fact that his failed policies have contributed mightily to this mess by each day offering more chaos, disruption, and dysfunction is unacceptable.
When Trump says the head of the border control will be pardoned if he breaks the law or suggests he will retaliate against sanctuary cities by sending asylum seekers in bulk he is sowing more disorder and disarray, he is using immigrants as a political tool, and his threatening to close the border is reckless and would be economically disastrous.
The US should be sending aid and diplomatically supporting the rule of law and economic opportunity in Central American countries, instead Trump has cut off millions of dollars in aid. Many more judges are needed to bring order to the process for asylum seekers, more border agents are needed at the border crossings since they are currently understaffed.
It is a time for compassion, respect, and to have a family monitoring system as Obama implemented, to as David Brooks writes to cooperate with Mexico to jointly tackle this challenge, to have a more skilled based immigration system, and by increasing the numbers of refuges we take in each year and perhaps it is time to bring together a bipartisan commission to deal with this current humanitarian crisis.
2
My 92 year old father would be happy to host a family, not only because he has a big heart, but because he could sure use some help around the house.
And I know there are many, many people just like my Dad.
Let them all in!
4
You are so right that both parties are failing us in adopting a coherent immigration policy. Unfortunately, Trump's side show approach to leadership has destroyed any real chance of finding viable solutions moving forward. That is on him and the complicit GOP. Climate change will bring further migration issues like none we've seen. It's imperative that we develop a comprehensive and humane plan. The current fixation on the southern border and calls to defy laws with the President offering to pardon law breakers is not policy. It's a coup and it's way past time for the rest of the GOP to stop being "party" to it. Our country cannot exist much longer if we continue to allow a deterioration of our core values and fundamental beliefs as set forth in our Constitution, Bill of Rights, and basic standards of decency as set forth by the U.N.
4
Economic predictions tell us more and more of our jobs will be mechanized in the coming years which suggests there will be upward pressure on unemployment numbers. It seems to me as a lifelong liberal that the plight of the migrants in amnesty consideration should be weighed along with a holistic look at how increasing our population will weigh on Americans' quality of life. This goes for migrants from Northern Europe, everywhere.
This position is not about race or country of origin. It is about an inexorable fact that unending population growth in a closed system (America) is an impossibility. That being the case what is our population goal? 500 million? 1 billion?
If many of our large cities solved there infrastructure problems and built more high density housing we could absorb more people. But sprawling more development out into the distant suburbs is carbon intensive and not a smart strategy. Quality of life will not be improved by more open space loss and longer commutes.
A vital element in quality of life examination is the preservation of our environment. Any sober look at accelerating population growth will inevitably take a toll on natural resources. That alone is a reason to be honest about refugee absorption.
A more honest refugee policy aids the countries of origin to solve their gang problems and support education programs to help the population. Treat the crisis at the source instead of moving the chess pieces around the board.
12
How about making Mexico and Central America fully part of the US politically and economically? They have resources. Can you imagine the economic boom if the 5 Freeway was extended to Cabo and US law and property rights were in force. The UAW could organize the Mexican auto plants.
1
I never thought that I could think this way, but I begin to think that this country does a poor job of caring for our poor and downtrodden citizens. Healthcare, employment, housing education and food security for our poor are abysmal. What convinces immigrants that their lives will be better here?
11
Our disgrace, as Brooks is phrasing it, is that neither right nor left recognizes that this is not the America of the 1800's and early 1900's when immigrant were a welcomed addition to the nation, as so poetically stated by Emma Lazarus.
No, we are living in a smaller, overpopulate world where cultural differences are highlighted, not erased as immigrants make the transition to becoming Americans. America shall maintain its greatness by being for strivers and people who embrace what we the ideal of America. We don't need the malcontents a la Europe where dispirited and angry immigrants bring their political, social and cultural baggage to keep instead of to jettison.
We need to close the borders - now - not just to south but also through the abuse of visas as moderate income and student immigrants make their way here, never to leave.
As President Trump so aptly put it, the country is full.
10
How short sighted and paranoia driven outlook.
It is not at all clear that this is a legislative problem. Prior to the last spending bill, Congress heard testimony from the agencies which are assigned to deal with the influx of asylum-seekers and appropriated over a billion dollars for courts, housing and additional personnel.
The border patrol is currently 3000 officers short of the total number of that the administration has funds to hire, and has apparently done nothing about hiring more. It does not appear that any additional temporary shelters are being built. A couple dozen new immigration judges have been hired, but the administration has not expended any funds for the support services and supplies necessary for those judges to function.
The individual who is responsible for managing this problem instead spends his time railing against the fact that he is constrained by law from punishing those 100 people at our door who have the right to come to us and ask for help.
This is a management problem, not a legislative problem.
6
We have a choice. We can invest in Central America to make it a livable, safe and productive part of our hemisphere or we can tolerate the flow of immigrants knocking at our door at least until Chinese investment preempts our efforts.
Gavin Newsom (California's governor) just visited Guatemala and he reports that the Chinese are making inroads. Just as they are in Africa. By backing out of the Transpacific trade agreement and failing to respond to Chinese economic adventurism in the third world, the Trump administration has virtually guarantied Chinese hegemony.
And while our own government is (currently) nothing to brag about, Chairman Xi's rule is much worse.
4
Glad to hear there is hope. Chinese will deliver peace and prosperity and nobody will want to leave. If the price is Chinese influence in Central America, works for me, they can have it, including the aging Dear Commandante.
2
This issue is tearing a hole in our collective Heart. I have come face to face in Arizona with newly arrived immigrants and, once you see them you want to help them. Hundreds of citizens in Tucson turn out to help the thousands who are shipped here from the border, clothing, feeding and aiding them in their quest to find a home.
At the same time, something in me says we cannot take them all, we cannot take care of our own impoverished citizens. Homelessness is everywhere.
As to the ceaseless flow of migrants from Central America, we have yet to really acknowledge the effects of Climate Change in their decisions to move North. Coffee production in Honduras is in trouble due to drought and plant diseases, as profiled recently by Public Television. Families have lost their jobs and have decided to move to the US. The United Nations calculates the numbers of immigrants worldwide on the move (millions)due to Climate Change, and it will just get worse. Bottom line is: we can't take in everyone and should put a brake on the inflow of immigrants. Our conservatives politicians will not deal with Climate Change. The US will soon enough be full of migrants- most of whom will come from within.
7
@tim storer First of all, bless you for helping. The thousands of volunteers trying to help families at the border are in my mind the only heros in this story. Second you are right that the US cannot just throw open its border and let everyone in. What's needed is temporary accommodation and more resources for the existing asylum screening process. Many families will be turned away but we must do this as quickly and humanely as possible. We must show as much respect and compassion as we can while remaining realistic and practical. Loving but rational.
6
I just want to point out that we have more than enough resources to take care of all of our citizens; we just choose not to. Tax cuts for billionaires are a higher priority.
3
rejection is not loving...you can't sugar coat it.
After reading many of the astute comments here today, I discern, once again, the foundational disagreement, the oft-hidden dilemma, or, at least, unmentioned, is that Democrats want the federal government to solve such problems. Republicans don't.
If you, Mr. Democrat (they say), want to use your money to help others in certain and nearly endless big ways, go ahead. Just don't try to use my money for your ideas, which are legion and bad.
Republicans have a logical and fair point, but it's also heartless, a charge that they would instantly deny, of course. They have other priorities, they'd say, and furthermore they'd proceed very differently.
It seems to me that not until we can convince Republicans that our solutions would help everyone, our efforts, our proposed fixes at the federal level are futile. Do we want to be an ethical nation or a selfish one?
What are our national goals and problems, the ones we can agree on? What solutions would work to both sides' satisfaction?
In this republic, unless we get a consensus, yelling at each other in Congress and on TV is but a huge waste of time and energy.
First, we must hammer out agreed-upon plans, i.e., goals, then work on strategies and tactics.
Now we just quarrel over strategies and numbers without a blueprint -- a proven way to get nowhere fast.
In short, we've got the cart before the horse, so progress is hardly possible. Yet few are willing to return to the drawing board where the roots of the problems lay.
4
Family planning is needed. Crowds of desperate Central Americans did not magically appear seeking help in the U.S. For years there has been no effective effort to create a sustainable environment in Central America. The church is against birth control. People are against sex education. Few are for women’s health and no one cares for desperately poor families. There should be a committee of intelligent experts to guide a solution to the problems. And Central America’s problems are our problems too. Start some pilot projects and see what works.
7
The initial hypothetical, which speculates that the first cry of the heart would be to take random families into one's home or work together with neighbors to find an alternative way to help provide for these families, sounds nice; it's also completely at odds with the reality of who we human beings really are.
By way of example, all of us New Yorkers see fellow citizens in destitute poverty multiple times a day. The nicer ones among us may occasionally give them a few dollars (a small fraction of what we spend on a single meal), but I don't know anyone who even considers housing any of them in their own home much less putting together a team to solve this very dire problem. So are we to believe that Americans have more compassion for non-citizens? I don't think so. The reality is that most people simply walk past homeless people who are undoubtedly in destitute poverty while averting eye contact. It's nice to believe that we're all really nice people to every human being we meet, but the fact is that in reality we spend nearly all of our time and our resources helping out ourselves and our families. I suppose I should feel bad about that, but that's who we are, and I doubt that will ever change.
2
Let's face it, Dems used (and still use) the border problem to poke at GOP/Trump but something has changed in recent days. Suddenly we all realize that there is a crisis without the end in sight. I'm writing this at the moment when the number of comments for the Brooks' article is 950+ but don't see any realistic solution offered. And, sorry, I have just an 'inhumane' one: the US should convince Mexico to open detention facilities on its soil and pay for that as much as Mexico needs, and to explain the US courts that, well, even collective wisdom of the NYTimes readers has no other realistic solution. Well, maybe such solution will appear after I submit mine. Then I'll be happy indeed.
3
We can thank the President and GOP for the demonization of these immigrants. This is huge problem we should have a plan. However, since the authorities are coerced locally by Washington to disregard all the attendant issues of handling this crush of immigrants, these non-native peoples crowding our borders are being slighted.
2
I would do anything to protect my children and grandchildren, go anywhere, cross any border.
We should get ourselves invited into the countries by their respective governments and take down the gangs at the source, and build manufacturing plants to provide jobs to improve the economies.
Stop the violence and create industry and there will be no mass migration.
If we don't, entire populations of central America will try to move into the United States and then we may have a humanitarian crisis that dwarfs this, unless of course we 'create' new cities in the west. We have the room. Drive across the country and see for yourself.
7
If we had an administration that was open to meeting with Central American leaders to see what can be accomplished by creating a plan inside these countries to bolster the economic, political conditions, then maybe we can make a difference. We need to restore the State Department and of course the occupant of the White House to some one with a plan. Congress needs to wake up, 2020 is coming, but it is still a long way off. Julian Castro has some great ideas, develop a Marshall type plan.
12
A Marshall type plan ...like all other aid to Central America it gets stolen and converted to luxury condos in Miami.
1
Trump ending aid to the Central American countries fueling the migration crisis has got to be counter productive.
I think it is likely true that most refugees would rather stay home if they were safe so why can't the American government do what is necessary in these countries to assure security? Wouldn't it be far more cost effective to spend our tax dollars solving the problems at the point of origin rather than absorbing hundreds of thousands of low skilled, destitute, non-english speaking refugees?
It is my understanding that the U.S. has contributed to the instability in Central America by deporting violent gang members back to their home countries rather than imprisoning them here for their crimes. These reconstituted gangs are driving out the citizens who fear for their lives and can be forced to pay for their safety if they even have that option. I know the GOP hates foreign aid but it seems to me a more pragmatic approach to the human flood is to halt the deterioration of conditions at the point of origin. Or help Mexico absorb these folks for a fraction of the cost to us.
If the democrats want to promote a plausible solution let it contain a provision to invest in Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico for the purpose removing the gangs and making these places safe again. Mob rule cannot be tolerated here or anywhere.
8
I could not agree more wholeheartedly with David's observations. All Dem candidates need to take strong positions on immigration and develop practical action plans that address all sides of this dilemma. Working with countries from whence these people are fleeing is at the top of the list. Cutting off aid to them is wrong and counter-productive.
4
You might look into various immigration reform bills and proposals that were never voted on in Congress.
5
Politics under current circumstances is all about ‘good’ appearances and not about ‘good’ results and the American public seems satisfied with ‘all show’ and ‘no go’.
1
All you need to know is illegal immigrant border crossings have soared under the Trump administration. EVERYONE recognizes this is a problem. Perhaps if he wasn't so decisive he would get some support from the other side. Sadly, that ain't ever going to happen.
4
Has any government figured out a way to manage mass migration? Criticizing is easy, coming up with a solution to this ongoing crisis is not as easy. Inhumane treatments of the migrants have failed to deter the migration. I would ask Mr. Brooks the following questions: Does anyone know how many low-wage workers our economy can absorb each month? Does anyone know where low-wage, seasonal workers are needed? Can we register the migrant families by implanting a tracking chip per family, like how we track our pets, and send them onto places where there are jobs for them to do, while they wait for their court dates? The federal government cannot afford to provide shelters, food and health care for them, even in cages. The more we do that, the more will come. Would it be possible to allow NGO's to come in and to set up a few refugee camps on the boarders for these migrants?
2
I don't understand why the UN has not been asked to build refugee camps outside Central America. Today I heard one reporter on NPR suggest that it was time to build tent cities on the Mexican border. Anyone who is watching the local news in Arizona is seeing refugees living along the side of the roads leading to ports of entry, refugees behind gates as in your picture, and listening to stories of some of the refugees let into this country begging for food at fast food restaurants in Texas. And what have I heard all day on CNN? Outrage at the idea that Donald Trump may have supported the idea of transporting refugees to sanctuary cities. Somebody has to come up with an idea to provide for the immediate needs of these people at our border, and with some understanding that our public schools and emergency rooms in the SouthWest and Texas cannot possibly deal with this number of people.
10
Bothsideism arguments like this enable and perpetuate the problem. The Gang of Eight had an immigration reform bill that was both agreed to and hated by all (which is the legislative sweet spot). D's were lined up to accept it and R's backed away out of echo chamber anxiety. False equivalency is counter productive.
11
This is a splendid, insightful column – I agree with it – except in one important respect: Mr. Brooks treats immigration policy as though potential immigrants will come only from Central America. He (and we) are being blinded by the current border crisis.
However, there are people from around the globe who want to immigrate here, and who could make great contributions. Central America is not likely (in the short run) to contribute significant numbers of highly skilled immigrants. If only for this reason, our immigration policy must look beyond Central America.
And that is not the only reason. Simple fairness dictates that Central Americans not hold up people from the rest of the world who have played by the rules by getting in line, so to speak, and who possess valuable skills and attributes. They must not be shunted aside because of this moment’s crisis.
10
CBP processes about 1 million people per day who enter the US via various means (from CBP website). To say we cannot cope with a thousand or so asylum seekers per day is ludicrous, we are the United States and could surely if we chose to allocate resources to treat people humanely and with dignity and respect, process their claims and send them to their loved ones wither by returning them home or to their families in the US. We have made the choice not to and instead like throwing spaghetti at a wall or hammering with jello, refuse to enact the most straight forward humanitarian solutions that are employed worldwide to handle large influxes of millions of refugees. Why are we allowing such cruelty and incompetence?
13
Because trump and his minions thrive on the misery of others. People perceived to he lower on society’s pecking order than them.
1
It is a disgrace. We must find a humane way to send them back to their original countries. We must discourage others from even trying. Show them what a mistake it would be to make this useless trip.
53
@Chris Anderson
You mean, like, taking their children away and putting them in cages? Not only was this cruel and inhumane it also didn't work.
This trip to our border is no picnic. It must mean conditions in their home countries are so terrible that their best choice is months of misery and years of waiting with no guarantee of being granted asylum here.
Since their lives must already be intolerable it's hard to imagine what new hardships one could devise, that aren't cruel and inhumane, that could possible discourage them.
9
@Chris Anderson
Jews Fleeing Nazi Germany on Ships to the U.S.
"It is a disgrace. We must find a humane way to send them back to their original countries. We must discourage others from even trying. Show them what a mistake it would be to make this useless trip."
12
"Our" disgrace?
I don't recall any progressives advocating for Trump's wall and anti-immigration policy.
I do suspect that without the support of national conservative columnists for 50 years that conservatives and Trump would not be advocating for Trump's wall and supporting his anti-immigration policy.
10
I was excited to see your title and subheading and found myself having to pause in my estimation of you, David Brooks. Then I read this:
"Both parties are content to adopt abstract ideological postures. Neither is interested in creating a functioning system that balances trade-offs and actually works."
By not acknowledging that there is nearly zero bipartisan work anymore which is solely the Republicans' fault and that Donald Trump has made demonizing those seeking asylum as a sure fire sop to his base, you continue your 'whataboutism.'
Shame on you.
11
My friends on the left are getting as bad as the right in parroting phrases instead of actually reading and interacting with the details. This column is a perfect example of moderate politics, which focuses on problem-solving instead of wagging a self-righteous finger at the other side. And what do we get? The left squawking "false equivalence, false equivalence, bwack bwack." Exhausting--and demonstrative of precisely the "performative" emptiness of ideology-bound discourse that David is criticizing as inutile.
12
It's not "OUR" disgrace, David. It's Trump's!
As Colin Powell said, "You break it; you own it!"
Trump has broken things at the border! Along with virtually everything else in our government.
10
The answer is blindingly simple. Go back to the policies we had under Obama and the Democrats. They caused illegal immigration to sink to record lows.
Republican policies are causing a surge of migrants that we can't handle. The experiment failed. Time to go back to the policies that worked.
13
@Ryan
The reason illegal "immigration" and "asylum" seeking dropped during the Obama years was due to the economy being in the tank. The reason it is soaring now is our strong economy. It's amazing how intolerable Honduras/Guatemala/El Salvador are when the US economy is clamoring for workers.
3
The whole immigration debate is so tedious and false. We can't take these people in? Says who? And why? If we would stop destroying families and allow people to come here, work, pay taxes, go to school and actually, y'know, join our society, they would benefit us all. This is a HUGE country. We have unemployment rates so low employers are begging for workers, AND we have a very serious long term population problem that can only be solved through mass immigration, not mass deportation. The American birth rate is collapsing, and our economy will too if we don't continue to grow. We need more immigrants, not less.
Ten, twenty, even thirty million people added to a country our size over a period of years is not a disaster. We can take these people in. In fact, we already have because they're here. Let them join our society. If they pay their taxes and don't commit any serious crimes for a decade, let them become citizens. This whole debate is tiresome, silly, and just plain wrong.
14
And let us annex Mexico so we have the resources. Texas and California did pretty well after annexation. Despite Trump and the Russians our system is one of the better ones. That is why surveys shoe the majority of Mexicans would move to the US if there were no border.
"The U.S. cannot take in everybody who wants to come." Why is this stated as a fact without any justification? Didn't we take over a million Irish during the potato famine? We're a graying nation that needs young people to work and tax to pay for us older folk's Medicaid.
10
The disgrace shows at the border. But can't we as a country recognize that the problem(s) are in the country where the migrants / refugees are coming from and then do all we can to help them there? And not because I don't want more immigration (I do) but because I think it the more compassionate thing to do.
The Trump Admin threat to cut off funding for the central american countries will do nothing but exacerbate the problem and drive more refugees to taking the dangerous journey to our borders.
4
Our disgrace at the Border is our failure as human beings. Americans have proven our lack of humanity. More because it's at our own border. We go around the world fighting wars for higher ideals like democracy, human and women's rights. But we forget a basic tenet that charity begins at home or rather our own neighborhood. Instead of fighting beyond time zones after time zones, we should be fighting terrorists who wreak havoc in our own backyard. That would help these asylum seekers from having to flee torture, cruelty and death in the first place. No one wants to leave their home base except those looking for better opportunities. That would be a great step in immigration control without the horrendous saga on our border. For once we'd be fighting in a place where the citizens welcome us, not hate us.
5
We tolerate the cruelty of Trump because we are afraid to speak out. Too many of our neighbors, sipping the Republican cool-aide of hate have bought into racist, fear-mongering vileness of a President without a moral compass and an administration, a Republican administration, fearful of losing its base and the next election.
I am also ashamed of the Democrats who have totally lost their way too. Democrats are so caught up in political correctness and fear of being called out by a rabid President that it has become easier to remain silent and hide rather than stand out and seek relief for hundreds of thousands, indeed millions of immigrants and refugees coming to America.
Today I am speaking out. Mr. Trump is a vile, mentally ill, psychopath. He is cruel monstrous beast. Trump is unfit to be president and unfit to lead this great nation. I am also speaking out against the morally unfit Republican leadership that refuses to break with president who doesn't know the difference between right and wrong or moral and immoral.
Mr. Trump governs using threats, lies and totally false information that misleads while he makes criminals out of refugees and those most desperately needing assistance.
It's time for Democrats and Republicans to gather their courage and take action. We are all better than this. Let's stop being afraid and demand that Trump behave more humanely and with compassion. Let's end the fear mongering. Let's end the vile hate directed to the least powerful.
8
Oh, Mr. Brooks, when is this nonsensical attempt to blame both sides equally is going to stop? You know perfectly well that any sensible and serious attempt in the past was derailed by the ultra right branch of the republican party! Do you think for a moment that any new attempt would have a chance. Please, you are too bright to miss that.
8
Repubs will do nothing on this because immigrants - specifically brown immigrants - are their chosen enemy need to enrage their low-information followers. It is classic right wing strategy - blame the foreigner for all your problems. It has worked for many right wingers over the centuries, and is working for the Repubs now.
Trump will keep lying about the supposed "crisis" the he himself instigated. He is a pure psychopath, as are many of his bootlickers, so he will separate children from their parents and keep them locked up for years - doing great psychological damage, He does not care about people, just his own satisfaction at destroying someone, anyone.
It is absolutely astonishing that all these supposed "christian" right wingers are ignoring the needs of people fleeing catastrophic conditions in their home countries. I will never, ever support any of these "christian" organizations for vote for anyone claiming to be a christian - the are complete frauds.
And as to the immigrants, any business person will tell you they would rather have an immigrant working for them then most "native-born" people because the immigrants work harder and are more reliable.
6
"Our Disgrace at the Border" ... turns out to refer to the *other* border.
4
I wish David Brooks would run for president. His columns are always a chain of quotable quotes. The only quibble I have this week regards skills-based immigration. "The New Colossus" resonates with us because it says we don't discriminate like that. We don't ask other countries to send us their best, or ask them to leave behind the needy.
Ps. "Manly or Woke" would be a great SNL skit.
4
@Joseph Brown
During the Ellis Island years, when this country was actually trying to take in warm bodies, we screened out anyone deemed to be too sick, mentally defective, or likely to "become a public charge". When I took the Ellis Island tour, I recall that 20% of immigrant applicants -- legal, we should point out -- were screened out and sent home.
And this was before the current array of entitlement programs that have all come into existence since the LBJ days. Today, a "public charge" is much more expensive than during the Ellis Island days.
5
David Brooks and Maureen Dowd have in common these days that both have rendered themselves useless even for commenting on the mess that is America, Ms. Dowd because she sacrifices truth to humor and Mr. Brooks because he looks at his old political party with shocking innocence.
5
"detention centers". How about shelters?" And, his priorities would most likely still leave growers and pickers and factories that rely on immigrants looking for workers. In the meantime, the price of a border wall would pay a lot of people that could coordinate the help and interviews of the thousands of people coming across. The need is great. A hand out should not take time to put people into categories, especially ones that are hard to quantify quickly. Yes, we need a plan. So, yes, lets all work on it.
1
While Democrats have no power to pass legislation or implement any policy, it seems pointless to go out on a limb and make a concrete proposal. Even if they came up with something wonderful, McConnel would never allow vote on it.
At some point, candidates may feel the need to take a stand. At present, the opposition is content to watch Trump flail away, managing to be both inhumane and ineffective.
3
The first thing we should do is ignore President Trump and listen to the experts.
In this case, the experts at securing the border are the Custom and Border Patrol agents.
They have a specific plan for almost 300 more miles of fencing.
Why are the Democrats blocking that?
8
There is hardly unanimity among Customs and Border Patrol Agents. Their input matters, but so does that of people living in the border and their representatives. 300 miles of wall will take years to construct. The humanitarian need is immediate.
I can find Mr. Brooks to be pedantic and self righteous, but in this case his editorial critique seems spot on. While threatening to expel refugees to sanctuary cities is political retribution and reality TV toughness for Trump’s base, I suspect mayors can and would do a better job managing this issue than the Federal government which is locked in ideological inaction.
4
And now Trump is proposing to use his pardon power to encourage (conspire with?) the Acting Director of Homeland Security to flout the law and deny asylum seeker access to a judicial review. Isn't the pardon power void if used to commit a criminal act - which I rather think would be the case if Trump is proposing to use his pardon power for a corrupt purpose.
This is truly amazing and harmful to the rule of law in our country. Mitch, are you and your Republican caucus in the Senate listening? When it gets to the point that Trump is again openly flouting the law, It is past time for the Senate to step up and meet their Constitutional obligation to check the President.
5
People that rob banks are the victims of income inequality. The solution, I should deposit more money in the bank.
That does not work for me.
4
My particular response may already exist among these comments, but I'll put my two cents in anyway. The elephant in the room that nobody is talking about is probably this one: the brown people migrating here from Central America, if they are allowed to stay and eventually become citizens, will most likely vote Democratic.
And our president doesn't want that to happen. Neither do his supporters.
Also, "those people" will take goods and services they aren't entitled to because they are the "wrong" color. In America, if a problem can be about race, it is probably about race.
5
In the 1710s-1720s Palatine Germans in war zones along the German-French border traveled down the Rhine River valley, boarded ships and traveled to England seeking refuge. They were housed in tent camps then many thousands were dispersed throughout the Empire - to Ireland, New York, Pennsylvania, the Carolinas. They were sent to work camps and then melded into America and help make this country great.
The Great Plains and Midwest have had gone through a series of devastating floods this year and need help rebuilding and much of America's infrastructure is in poor shape.
Dems should propose a work-for-residency-to-citizenship program and fold it into their $trillion infrastructure plan. The GOP should offer programs for private capital to participate and leverage that $$ into $2-3 trillion. Sure, there will be waste and it won't be perfect, but it will get needed things done, get people moving and in an optimistic frame of mind. A win-win.
5
I feel like David Brooks' role at the NYT is just to make sure that any criticism of the GOP is also cast on the Democrats as well. To honestly say that both parties are simply politically posturing is blinkered at least and a downright mistruth. Democratic lawmakers like Ilhan Omar, Pramila Jayapal et al have been advocating for a humane response to the refugee influx for months. Only listening to your echo chamber Mr. Brooks?
205
@Syed Meer
Representative like Omar and Jayapal endanger comprehensive reform with calls to "Abolish Ice". even if they mean "Reform ICE", that's not what comes through and abolishing ICE doesn't alleviate anyone's concern about actually decreasing the overwhelming numbers at the border.
28
@Syed Meer
And what is a "humane response" pray tell? Does it have anything to do with actually enforcing longstanding immigration law?
9
@Kurfco What about bad laws or ones that don’t do what they are supposed to. Should they be enforced? There is nothing magic about immigration laws. They can be changed to deal with reality. Do we want immigration or not. If so, what should it look like. Should we provide amnesty or not. Who should qualify. Can we have a system that makes a judgement on who can enter within 4-5 weeks. Or must it years. It’s the difference between governing and demogoguing.
13
Donald's threat to punish sanctuary cities by flooding them with new arrivals is similar to his encouraging violence at his rallys.
If he goes ahead with this is a ground for impeachment, and a criminal charge at once.
He is a bully and a lawless thug. He needs to be tremoved from society quickly before he does more irreparable harm.
6
brilliant as usual
2
the disgrace sits in the oval office.
6
The border crisis is a crisis, certainly, but not a disgrace. Everyone knows that it's an attempt by poor, anxious people to enter the US and start a better life.
We can't take them all. And the Democrats won't expound a logical policy to deal with the intending immigrants. The Democrats are losing to Trump on this issue, and this issue may be the one concrete set of images everybody who votes has in mind.
Medicare for all? Too abstract.
4
Well said.
1
Once upon a time, 1939 to be precise, our Coast Guard was tasked by our government to keep a ship, the MV St. Louis, from landing about a thousand Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. White people too. Sent back to their fate. Our government, being performative.
7
I had to look up who was president in 1939 (knew already, but wanted to make sure) it was FDR. The only reason I mention this is that I trust NO political party to represent our Country’s needs...and, I need my Country to be a safe place for everyone.
1
Yes David .. "It’s barbarism to send them back to lawlessness".
But, don't forget, according to Trump and his GOP electorate, these people are rapists .. infiltrated by Sunni extremists .. and infected with leprosy, tuberculosis, and smallpox. They're invaders out to destroy white culture ..
Frankly, this existential tripe, held by millions of Americans is far worse than mere performance narcissism. It is a plague .. pure and simple.
5
I guess that picture illustrates huddled mass 2.0
1
One minor correction, Mr. Brooks: YOUR disgrace, YOUR party, YOUR president.
4
Foreign immigrants cannot vote. So they are a convenient victim + tool to please a hardline base.
1
This issue is really very simple and it comes down to answering one question: do you want this mass of humanity swarming the border or not? If we accommodate it, make it more humane, more comfortable, more welcoming, we will get much more of it. Do you know why parks post signs saying "Don't feed the birds!" It's because they don't want to be overrun with birds demanding to be fed.
If we don't want it, if we want to restore an orderly, functioning immigration system, we must adopt laws that clearly communicate that we have a system and demand that it be followed. As long as the message we are sending de facto is "get in, any way you can, and you can stay", we will never regain control.
10
What about the source of refugees? You say the murder rate in El Salvador has dropped. That may be true, but it is still higher in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras than most of the rest of the world. The problem has not disappeared, and it has been enabled by U.S. support for corrupt dictators and American appetite for drugs that flow through those countries. Conditions in those countries have not substantially improved, so treating the symptom at the U.S. border will not address the issue. This means the White House, Congress, the State Department, DHS, most importantly other nations that have a vested interest, and other organizations capable of providing humanitarian support must work together.
3
At some point Democrats are going to have to face an inconvenient truth: you can not maintain strong social safety nets, a generous welfare state, good schools and good working class jobs with decent wages when there is an endless inflow of desperate, unskilled, illiterate immigrants pouring into the market.
It's one or the other: solid middle class or uncontrolled immigration. Choose one.
Once upon a time not that long ago good liberal Democrats like Barbara Jordan, Bernie Sanders, Paul Krugman and Barack Obama could speak that obvious truth out loud. Now speaking such reality gets you dismissed as a "deplorable."
That "conversation" about immigration, and other issues, is exactly how Trump came to be elected, and the reason so many right wing reactionary politicians are getting traction in the West.
Immigration is THE issue right now. Until liberals stop preening their moral feathers with baby talk and start taking it seriously, they will cede hold control of this issue to the right wing.
10
David! Do something useful: go have an in-depth discussion with AOC and see what you learn from each other!
3
@Larry N
I don’t respect everything David Brooks has to say, but he’s at least five times as smart and knowledgeable as that other person you mention.
3
The components to a “solution”, if there are some, are not just a needed change to US policy at the border, they also involve fixing US policy and support for the countries from which our desperate neighbors flee. We also need to combat climate change which makes fixing the problems where they start more difficult.
What I find unfortunate in D.B.'s column is the easy condemnation of all politicians on this and other issues when people like Julian Castro, Gavin Newsom, Jay Inslee and others are willing and able to talk knowledgeably, thoughtfully and with great compassion about steps the US could take to improve the present crisis at the border and in the countries where the problems start for both the short and long term.
We need to stop casting stones and instead look for those who would gather stones together! Let's celebrate them and maybe more will follow.
1
It’s hard to take any David Brooks column seriously as he is not an honest commenter on anything. This time is no exception as he liberally employs his usual “look at how fair and balanced I am” method of mildly criticizing the Right, then laying into the Left with Republican Party approved alternate facts. He mentions only Trump as an example of the Republicans failure and posturing. He dutifully ignores the fact that all Republican politicians are marching in lock step as they not only refuse to work to solve immigration problems, but show they have no clue how to produce or pass any legislation to solve any of America’s problems. He then paints all Democrats as posturers and members of the Republican-created straw man far left open borders crazies.
If Brooks actually cared about America, he would drop his dishonest Party-uber-alles, win-at-any-cost nonsense and start writing columns condemning Republicans for their mindlessly partisan posturing. He should try using his bully pulpit to tell his morally bankrupt, increasingly deranged Republican Party to stop being evil.
2
Be specific: "showbiz politicians" = GOP
2
Push back on the word and usage of "dump". I see this over and over again: migrants dumped on the streets of blah blah. Many migrants have connections in the US and have a specific location goal. Whether it is an aunt, a sister, or a friend, the household is the goal. From there, they take any job available at dirt wages, enroll their children in schools, and begin their lives anew. They are not dumped. They are not garbage.
2
Millions arrived at Ellis Island with hopes of a job and a future; a relative's address and enough money to meet the minimum requirements. They were given a medical screening and processed. immigrants had to prove themselves to authorities . They eventually built communities and made this a stronger nation. None of them walked across a border. They came on ships owned by wealthy Americans and were often victimized by poor Americans offering to store their luggage in the Great Hall until authorities improved the system. We can do the same today and track every arrival in a database to avoid separating families.
3
@Maureen The point is that they simply showed up and were given access. Why is that wrong today when it was fine back then?
2
Literally decades of posturing on immigration has created a truly man made crisis at the border. When money can be made for campaigns by not resolving an issue, politicians will do so repeatedly. Both parties are at fault and we can only hope that at some point they might awaken from their narcissism.
5
DAVID - I'm having trouble that you also adopted the word "PURITY" to describe the direction of the DEMS. I think you and the rest of us are just so accustomed to the mixed up mess that allows MISH MOSH insurance and NO insurance that we can only think of a good idea as purity. I wish you would pick a different word so we can think about this the way that is necessary for us to achieve MEDICARE for ALL and a lot more. The word PURITY is being used as BAD and unacceptable and I do not think that is true.
1
The only significant sentence in this thumb-sucking column is Brooks' meme that "neither side" has a plan.
Both parties have put forth comprehensive immigration reform; the so-called Republicans have shot down both efforts.
Brooks should return to his above-the-fray philosophical musings. They're safe, they say nothing, and they help him avoid calling out this "administration" for its total and complete failure to address this issue.
2
I think it's important for us to remember that the politicians who we are blaming for these failed policies were elected. The policies will not change until Americans have the will to change them. Mr. Brooks suggests in his opening supposition that "But you'd still do something". Regrettably, many of us don't appear to not be ready to do something yet.
2
Immigration has always been an incredibly complex and fraught issue. Forty five has turned it--just like everything else he touches--into a disaster of monstrous proportions.
However, Americans--led by politicians--have always been hypocrites on this issue. During the second Industrial Revolution, they were brought here by the millions. In the aftermath of WWI, many were deported because they were deemed "communists' or sympathizers. Then came WWII and the Bracero Program was created. In the 1950s, the program was ended. And so on until today.
Of course, we need a plan to deal with the hundreds of thousands now knocking at our door. But no one in politics today has any courage. Forty five has sucked all the air out of the room and shaped the national narrative. "They are killers and rapists." How to counteract the hysteria with reason is the question for our age--and every other.
6
Lost in the partisan horse hooey is an obvious fundamental fact, immigrants work harder than Americans and ask for less. From the tripe being put forth you would think America was built by immigrants who were chosen for merit rather than the obvious truth the nation was built by immigrants fleeing persecution, usually with no money, hello Steven Miller family immigrants. Most immigrants don't have the time to commit crime given the herculean hours they work. If the aim is to save taxpayers money, here is an idea: any American who is over 50 and obese be given a year to drop the weight or be deported, and for every American deported legalize one immigrant for citizenship. Bye bye Social Security finances and Medicare issues.
3
Mr. Brooks, ALWAYS tell your sources when stating statistics (103,000 refugees, etc...) or claims "such and such country is a failed State"...)
Not that I don't trust you but we get enough of random unverified claims from "He Who Should Not Be Named" and his flunkies. Other than that bravo on your ides and pointing out the self serving posturing by ALL the politicians!
2
One of the biggest factor in illegal immigration is that the hiring laws on the books are not enforced. Most of the benefit of hiring illegals is taken by fat cat republican corporations and their donors. The gang of 8 reached a compromise in 2013, but republican speaker of the US House buried that. Mr Brooks simply forgets that and comes up with his eternal both sides are to blame. Nothing new!
Come to think about it, Trump Company has knowingly hired illegals in droves, as per many news stories. Donald Trump used his money powers to sneak in Melania Trump, with no college degree, and used chain immigration to bring in Melania’s parents. Real Transparency!
Now he is using this issue to rile up his base, not to solve a problem.
In some cultures, this behavior is called, ‘Cat goes to Haz after eating 100 rats!’
2
Reading David Brooks these days is like looking at a car wreck. We don't want to look but can't help it. His blind refrain of "both sides do it" once again aids and abets the cynicism that Trump and his extremists are wielding like a societal cluster bomb.
As David writes, and as reported here, many more people are now coming as a direct consequence of the brutal, cruel, inane, inept policies of the present administration. As David writes, the Trump Republican administration has no actual interest in really helping any of them.
David has, however, somehow managed to forgot the bipartisan legislation that was presented by Congress to this Republican president who has refused to sign or even consider it. There was nothing abstract or ideological about that legislation.
David has forgotten that the present administration has changed the rules, and is now denying asylum to many victims of gang violence, of domestic violence. In other words, it is sending them back to certain abuse, murder, rape.
David has forgotten that the administration can't find thousands of the children punitively ripped from their families by this administration. Or that they are still ripping children from their families. Or that they are considering new policies that will continue to rip children from their families.
David cannot bring himself to see any of this. The Republican White House is committing crimes against humanity at our southern border. The national emergency is this White House.
4
Clearly our government's position with regard to all the so called "Americas" is to homogenize them into a cohesed group who all dance to "our" music. While our cadence is still acceptable enough to accompany the marching orders of our latest President, the band doesn't play the tango, rumba, salsa or merengue among others.
It is our "anti- Communist" policies in not only Central America, but throughout the world that foment the very violence so many seek to escape. Rather than military facism governing every nation the world's leaders appoint their own bankers.
Even the nations which espouse Communism, use that social philosophy, like any other of the world's nations use theirs; to financially control the people.
The arguments between remotely reasonable people are of necessity staged, while the madmen of the world, at least for the most part, only subject themselves to the scrutiny of their financial controllers when they are called on the carpet.
Meanwhile, if that word is not subject to copyright infringement, we, the so called working class are expected to make our annual contributions to any of those who hold government contracts.
Still, it is a nice day.
1
What if they did not show up in your yard, but you come home and find they invited themselves in, and were calling their cousins to tell them "its cool".
3
The False Equivalence awards will again be hotly contested this year, but my vote goes to David Brooks. Bravo, bravo!! The ignorant fools on both sides of the aisle must bow down, finally, and accept the 'correct' answer as all good hearted and practical Americans would.
Perhaps a still more correct answer is that there is no equivalence between a racist demagogue's white nationalist core and those who can't quite make out the distinction between "us" and "these people" that Brooks seems to find obvious.
3
David--Take a dose of reality and stop with the false equivalency. Trump and your Republican party say the country is "full" as if it were a hotel with no vacancies. They pander to white supremacists and talk about immigrants as rapists and murderers when we know that they are less likely to commit crimes and American born citizens. You blame the Democrats for not having a plan BUT THE DEMOCRATS ARE NOT IN POWER you fool. The Republicans control the Senate, the White House, the Supreme Court, and the whole machinery of governance. It is incumbent on the Republicans to lead on this issue and they are content to demonize immigrants so that they can win elections and appoint right wing judges and cut taxes and eliminate regulation. It is as simple as that. Please stop thinking that by blaming everyone you can find a solution.
2
The crisis at the border has very little to do with our policies. The people are fleeing northward because they have essentially destroyed their own country, government, economy and environment. The people elected governments that won't do the necessary steps to ensure that their citizens at least live safely, at least that is the most common allegation. The spread of gangs needs to be confronted by either the government or the citizenry. By allowing millions to claim "asylum" is a farce and the Democrats know this. Asylum claims cannot by laid if the very people claiming it are actually part of the problem. They need to be sent home and forced to confront the environment they helped to create. The stupidity of the Democrats is breathtaking. They would rather allow millions of unvaccinated, uneducated, and unverified individuals to flow across our borders because they hate Trump. In reality they are showing their hatred of all Americans with their asinine policies.
4
@Mike They didn't create their corrupt government(s) and failed economies. WE did. Go read some history about the involvement of the US in both political Central America and economic Central America before you spout some AM radio hate screed.
1
The Democrats are NOT ACTUALLY having a purity test, though if you want to fashion a straw man out of the most shallow coverage of the race -- from NY mag, Slate, and MSNBC, and other print and TV generators of "think pieces" -- you have plenty of material, for sure. I do think it's true that the serious candidates -- Mayor Pete, Kamala Harris, a few others -- have to be careful not to take the poison bait put out by the reckless click-seekers of lefty digital media.
2
A couple of things glossed over - in the initial scenario, suppose you were the richest person on the block by a factor of at least ten, and you had a back yard that was 50 square miles. The USA spends 35 million dollars on one copy of a new fighter jet. Can't take them in? Puh-lease!
Second, those people who get in but are waiting for their hearings, do you know where they are? Standing outside a Costco or a Home Depot looking for day labor. Or washing dishes, or busing tables. They work for cash, live in absolute squalor and... Send Money Home!
Criminals? Hardly. They are keeping promises to their families at home, a lot of them. Check on remittances to those countries from the US.
5
David, the champion of False Equivalence.
Spend less time trying to find blame for "those Democrats", and I might believe your concerns are real.
But a hypocrite you are David, and your blind eye to the danger of corrupt authorities, betrays your sincerity on almost every subject.
Those that hide, distort or corrupt Truth; are not on God's team.
Stop the Lying. Release the Mueller report. The people have a right to know.
2
what's a disgrace is how much time Dems pander to these people and how little they seem to care about anything else.
4
Brooks, like many conservatives keep trying to make the case that Republicans and Democrats are equally to blame. Mr. Books is especially committed to the what-about-ism movement. Both President Bush and President Obama tried to enact comprehensive immigration reform that had broad bipartisan support and in both cases the radical right stopped those efforts. Nothing in this country will change until conservatives like Mr. Brooks acknowledge that the Republican Party has gone off the rails and those who call themselves "sensible conservatives" work to vote out Republicans and keep them out of power until a realignment within that party occurs.
2
"Designing a practical response that wins widespread support is, in theory, not hard. But it requires starting with a certain question: What can we do to help them? Much of today’s politics starts from a different question: What posture can I adopt that will reflect well on me? What can I say to prove I’m manly or woke?
This is what happens when the politics of practical action get replaced by the politics of performative narcissism."
America is full! - Full of Bread and Circus BUT not enough citizens to care about the quality of their leadership!
1
Brooks writes as usual with persuasive clarity and compassion. I have a concern however, and it is a significant one, with his tendency in print and elsewhere (love Shields and Brooks with Woodruff) to draw an equivalence between the poison and power of the ultra-extremists on the far right, and the effects of the most "progressive" elements on the left. Right wing ultra-extremists have had a strangle hold on the Republican party for a political eternity, with many of the most prominent players with political power, and in the media, routinely screaming poisonous inanities (remember the absolute outrage over Obama's tan suit, or the smug mocking of his use of tele-prompters?). And now that poison emanates, in its most vitriolic form, from the loudest bully pulpit there is. Yes, the Dems' judgment is being clouded by its purists, and this is worrying, especially if they lose another presidential election that they should own. But until the Republican ultra-extremist fever breaks (to paraphrase Obama), if that is still even possible, democracy in America, and by extension, around the world, will remain in grave danger of extinction, and rational political progress in the US, on any issue, will be next to impossible.
2
Trump and his GOP supporters in Congress are not at all interested in fixing the problem. To the contrary. Scapegoating and demonizing non-white immigrants effectively mobilize the White working class to go along with tax, social benefit and regulatory policies that are counter to their fundamental economic interests. Wealthy conservatives deploy their media outlets like Fox News to distract the masses with inflammatory xenophobic posturing while profiting from their labor and picking their pockets. It works incredibly well, so don’t expect any concessions on immigration reform from the Right. The Dems will have to do the heavy lifting to educate and persuade voters, but it’s a huge challenge to engage people who have been devastated by unregulated global capitalism and an eroded safety net to embrace and empathize with newcomers.
2
No one in a position of authority seems to take this horrendous situation seriously enough to do something proactive and productive about it. Note: Congress is off for a two week break so they don't seemed concerned. Mitch McConnell isn't concerned as he keeps blocking legislation to deal with it. The Dems seem to just publicly wring their hands and then dither.
The one this is working for is djt who seems to relish the cruelty and use the migrants as fodder for his rallies.
A lot of this could have been prevented (past immigration reform for starters ) had well thought out policies been put in place to deal with the inevitable problems. More judges , more facilities, more health care etc. What we have now is not only a preventable crisis on our borders, a stain on our history but the prospect of more disease and hardship for people only seeking what our ancestors sought.
2
I don't think building more detention centers is the right way to start off on reforming the immigration system. The shame of this country's immigration politics no longer is contained to just the border but has reached into our nation at every detention center.
Julián Castro may have the only plan to help change immigration but it is the right plan. Decriminalizing crossing an arbitrary border would take a big step towards viewing immigrants as people instead of criminals. If they are view as people instead of criminals then the most shameful aspects of our immigration system, mandatory indefinite detention, would be neutralized.
It's true that at the Southern border there is a crisis and that the origins of this crisis come from the apathy of our government. But we could all take some of the burden off of the people at the border by no longer viewing them as animals and providing them with medical attention and decency. Not locking them up in more makeshift pens.
2
Growing up in big city India, in some years when there was drought, the poor people from nearby houses and 'slums" who relied on city water dispensed at the street corner tap found the supply inadequate. In our house we had a well that stayed well fed from underground aquifers. So we would let these people line up every day and get water. We organized this because my aunts and grandfather thought it was our duty (and indeed good fortune granted by grace) to be able to help those in need; and also if we did not to do that we could expect more serious consequences since people in need of water will do things that seem to be over the top. Ok, it is gangs and not water; it is maladministration and not drought. But neighbors in need still. Where there is a will there is (bound to be ) a way.
3
@R Rao
Thank you for this reminder of ethics and decency, and civic duty. It is always taking a risk to let people in to your home, so your family was brave and kind to do so. We, as a whole country, can surely do it, since we have numbers on our side.
2
And you better tackle climate change because when there is unrelenting drought people leave. Of course Trump and his henchpeople are doing the exact opposite. A disaster now that is likely to only get worse for the poor in rural Central America.
1
This column fails to address a major issue that underlies our current immigration problem. It's not easy to have an open and honest discussion of many things these days, but in particular it's hard to talk about our failure to adopt and maintain a sane policy on drug usage.
Our drug policy is harsh, punitive, and ruinous: it wrecks the lives of addicts, it grossly inflates our cost of law enforcement, and it is a money-making bonanza for organized crime here and abroad, e.g. in Central and South America.
The vast sums of money that gangs like MS-13 are warring over come from the U.S. and as long as drugs are treated as a moral problem (as they have been for the 50 years) rather than a medical problem, that money will fuel the murderous corruption that is endemic in our neighbors to the south and will disrupt the lives of innocent people.
1
Mr. Brooks, you are the reason I subscribe to the NYT and this article's reasoned and realistic offering, is another example of why I will continue reading and, perhaps most of all, learning. Thank-you.
What bothers me is that these countries might not be in such dire straits if we Americans did not like our recreational drugs so much. It is our actions that fostered the growth of drug cartels that now rule and ruin these countries. Do we owe these poor souls trying to have a normal life nothing? I saw a story on the news this week of a company going out of business because the owner could not get employees. These were jobs on the low scale - the ones immigrants from SA would be grateful to have. If we open our hearts I think new ideas will trickle into our brains. But a closed heart usually supports an empty head. Example: our current president.
3
This is an accurate description of the problem and of our shared moral obligation to address the problem. But it's more than a little perverse to focus responsibility for the problem on Democrats. It is the Trump administration's policy, supported by the Republicans in Congress and in their voting base, that's preventing any constructive action of the kind Brooks describes. Nor do they have any political incentive to do so. Democrats have no power to set immigration policy. Given that Trump and his fellow Republicans got themselves elected in part by exploiting xenophobic fears and creating anti-immigrant hysteria, what's the incentive for Democrats to propose moral and humane immigration policy proposals that a) would never be enacted by the Trump administration and b) would instantly be exploited by Republican politicians practiced in using Democrats' relatively pro-immigration positions to whip up still more electoral xenophobia to be used against Democratic candidates? Until elected Republicans show some sign of willingness to act on some other immigration policy than the current near-absolute prohibition against non-whites and non-Christians, there's almost nothing Democrats can do.
1
I agree with much of your article however, what continues to frustrate me more than even Trump’s tantrums and tweets is that most of the solutions to many of our nation’s problems/challenges are on the tree ready to be plucked if not for one major player stopping everything. Mitch McConnel.
Is there really anyone who tops McConnel for obstruction of real justice? My blood boils thinking of the do nothing thief from Kentucky. Everyone knows what I refer when I say thief.
2
“Designing a practical response that wins widespread support is, in theory, not hard.” Really?
1
Mr. Brooks, how easily you are duped. These are not refugees--they are economic migrants. They are not in fear for their lives, for the most part--they just want better lives. They want to participate in the incredible American economic miracle Trump's policies have wrought.
It' simple really--just because migrants come from another country, speak another language, and are brown--it doesn't mean they're unintelligent. Far from it. They have simply adapted their strategy for gaining entry. They have seen that Liberal U.S. politicians are not only in favor of open borders--they (along with their lap-dog media compatriots), howl like wounded cats at the idea of separating children from those claiming to be their parents. That's why so many invaders are showing up with children tow. They realize that they will be apprehended--and then released into the country. In essence, Liberal policies give them exactly what they want.
So it's not showbiz politicians who are creating the problem--but Liberal politicians and their media sidekicks. So, Mr. Brooks, you're either easily fooled--or complicit in the ruse.
3
There is talk of trump releasing detainees to sanctuary cities as a retaliation to democratic cities that voted against him. The disgrace has been moved from the boarder to the Oval Office.
2
I believe David Brooks has put his finger on the nub of the immigration problem. The phrase “politics of performative narcissism,” fits. Painful though it may be for partisans to admit it, both sides, as we speak, have a defective position on immigration. I converse with and listen to people on all sides of the issue. Both sides have legitimate concerns, fears and even reasons to be angry. However, both sides also have a foggy, unrealistic vision of a solution, one with which they can be totally comfortable. That’s not going to happen. A painful compromise will be required. Whatever the history that got us to this place, both sides seem to be in denial. It reminds me of the Israeli/Palestinian standoff, and we can all see how that is working out.
1
The Dems have created this crises. They've encouraged it. They've facilitated it (sanctuary cities, "let's get rid of ICE," "only racists oppose ILLEGAL immigration," etc.). They've callously used these people as human pawns to advance their own political power. Well. It worked. People are trying to flood across the border in unprecedented numbers and are succeeding in doing so. If individuals believe they can't remain here except under extraordinary circumstances and will be promptly returned if found here illegally, then they won't come. They won't risk the hardship, the crooks and the traffickers. But the Dems have repeatedly argued (until now) that ILLEGAL immigration just fine. They own this crises. They'll lose the presidency again because of it. They'll lose control of the house. Point your finger at Trump all you want. I don't especially like him, but no one really believes his hard line on immigration is the cause of this MASSIVE increase in illegal immigration. Again, the Dems own it.
2
Why not think of what we can do with the situation at hand, if we could have the best outcome possible, and then see what can be done to make that happen.
What do we do when countries around us are failing to sustain a safe society for their citizens? Whose fault it is no longer matters. Whose fault ANY of this is, does not matter any more. These countries are failing and people are fleeing for their lives, or sometimes just because it seems like it would be a good decision to leave. Who can blame them?
We have to deal with this wave of people. We are part of the neighborhood of American states. Our situation is not separate from that of the other countries around us.
Set up more centers of background and physical check ups, residences and preliminary entrance education facilities right now! Much employment here for Americans.
No more catch and release. Keep people safely and respectfully until they either leave and enter our society. A lot of money needs to be thrown at this, and a lot of expertise, no more partisan bickering. The government always has rejected people with health issues or background issues such as anarchism or terrorism. So we need to keep detaining people at the border, but we can do a better job of it. None of this is a partisan issue.
Why isn't the recognized emergency the urgent need to set up better centers for immigration application and care of immigrants before they either qualify for legal entry or are rejected ?
1
@Geranima: because even if we had 100,000 more immigration judges....these illegals WILL NOT LEAVE.
They feel ENTITLED to stay forever, drop anchor babies on welfare and steal jobs.
When they LOSE their asylum cases, as 95% will....they simply run away and blend into the larger illegal communities, especially the Sanctuary States and cities that will not cooperate with ICE.
THEY NEVER LEAVE. They won't leave until we forcibly deport them.
6
@Concerned Citizen
Thanks for your response.
That would not have to be the case, if more care were taken right there, at the border. For instance, we did not have a lot of folks escaping from Ellis Island who were rejected- they were sent back home (easier to keep track of them being on an island- so maybe we need more immigration islands). I am not proposing a warm welcome mat, and then okay, we will turn a blind eye and you run off and get lost in the crowd. Clearly, that is not working. I think we can do much better than that.
The statistics are not that 95% do not have a legitimate claim for entry and are rejected. And just because they are uneducated, which many seeking asylum in this way are, does not mean that they are not going to be useful members of society. Farm workers, restaurant workers, cleaners, construction workers, you know.. infrastructure builders, the jobs our citizens don't want to do. Many would eventually get educations and move out of those jobs, but before they did, they would do what others don't want to do. And this benefits everyone.
We would not have to forcibly deport them, nor would we want to. A few maybe. There are always some bad apples.
The reason the sanctuary city idea does not seem so good is because there are no immigration facilities in those cities to handle that, so they would have to be built from scratch. No one wants to just throw the doors open and let everyone in. That idea is not realistic.
1
Yes, it is important to have a suitable solution for our caravans of refugees.
Calling Democrats out for not having a plan seems specious at this point. Consider the detailed plans Republicans had for "Repeal and Replace" or Trump had for his verdammt wall.
I am not saying we don't need a plan. We desperately do.
But trying to put the burden on Democrats when the party has been in the legislative doghouse for the better part of a decade and equating that with thorough Republican do-nothing-useful dominance for multiple legislative sessions is quite the double standard.
3
@Jacob Sommer
I agree. Simply pointing to Democrats as the cause of this problem (as Trump is wont to do) won't solve it, especially since Republicans have been in charge of the Senate since the days of the previous administration and have done NOTHING except obstruct, obstruct, obstruct.
2
It’s easy to SOUND rational when discussing immigration...Yet even the most liberal plan includes the rejection of some percentage of the migrants...
Yet Who Says those legally-rejected migrants will simply accept their fate? In reality those rejected migrants will simply recalibrate their backstory and return to our border...Or they will try an illegal attempt to cross...
There are no easy answers between Open Borders and a Wall...
I predict that FIFTY years from now Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador will be American states...
3
@Tom And Aunt Polly: you are very wrong.
In less than 50 years....Puerto Rico will be cut loose, as yet another failed Caribbean nation.
Most adult illegals have made 3-4 attempts to get into the US illegally.....part of the reason they can't get a green card or asylum status is they are MULTIPLE offenders and lawbreakers.
The left WANTS such open borders, but decent sane Americans will fight them with the last breath in our bodies.
2
I find it ironic that David, who frequently decries binary thinking, almost exclusively constructs his columns around binary arguments.
False equivalence is not balanced - it is philosophical laziness.
It is true that leadership requires the proposal of solutions rather than just the exposure of problems. By all means David, please continue to propose solutions. However, when your hypothetical solution is demonstrably based on a faulty root cause analysis - the failure of the Republican-led house to consider the bi-partisan 2013 bill - then it is incumbent on you to revisit the assumptions informing your root cause analysis. I'd suggest starting with jettisoning the assumption of equivalence.
3
@catgal Yes, Speaker Boehner, at the time, refused to bring the bipartisan Senate bill to the House floor. The infamous Hastert rule, whereby the Republican speaker refuses to bring to the floor a bipartisan bill that does not have a majority of the majority party in favor of it, put a halt to immigration reform. Truly, an opportunity missed.
Still, that was six years ago. Yes, the Republican house under Boehner deserve the opprobrium. They were instrumental in helping to cause the present humanitarian crisis at the border. We're now reaping what was sown, though we could go back in history even further, to American interference in Central American civil wars during the cold war. Those conflicts have made that triangle of C.A. countries (now including a fourth--Nicaragua) so unlivable for so many.
You're right not to see equivalence here, but does that mean Democrats are let off the hook now? I shouldn't think so, and I doubt you think so either. As dire as things are under the current administration, it's also up to Democrats to stop preening before the purity mirror and get on with proposed solutions. That will necessitate compromises, some of which may be distasteful.
I don't hold out much hope, by the way, for anything constructive to be done. Trump doesn't want to do anything but make a lot of noise. And too many Republicans are willing to listen to it. Trump doesn't want to contribute to solving immigration. He only wants it as an issue. Let's not mirror him.
2
I would like to propose that some outside group write an immigration bill that addresses the issues with our current laws and put that bill out for people to comment on and debate. Perhaps the group could hold meetings with interested parties that could be open to the public and reported on by responsible media. Without comprehensive immigration reform we cannot solve the problems at the border. In a functioning Congress such a bill would be prepared after hearings and study - that is clearly not happening in this Congress. So let's get a debate started outside of Congress and base it on actual data and proposed legislative language. Meanwhile I agree with David Brooks that we need to handle the current crush of migrants in a more humane way and do whatever is necessary to process their claims more promptly.
1
While I agree with the bulk of the sentiment in this piece, Brooks' "both sides are at fault" mantra is getting old. Republicans control the White House, the senate, the courts, and until very recently, the house. The power to solve this problem has been exclusively in their hands, and they quite consciously, deliberately did not raise a finger to solve it, because they need the problem to continue so they can use it as a cudgel against the Democrats, and the "both sides" argument helps them do that.
7
David, I could not agree with you more. It breaks my heart to know that there are people at the border, homeless, separated from family, and in limbo with no future plans.
Compassion should be our first priority, not politics. While there is no simple solution, you've got the right perspective and attitude. Thank you.
1
The Democratic Party should thank him and take David's sound advice and to build a comprehensive plan that includes all the pieces he cites. And, the Party and their Presidential candidates should UNITE around that plan during the upcoming debates. Trump and his base thrive on chaos. The Democratic Party needs to pull the plug on chaos and regain the mantle of sane, rational American leadership on this and other issues to regain the White House and the Senate in 2020. Oh, and David is welcome to switch Parties.
4
@Frank Monachello I agree with you. I agree with David. But any comprehensive plan would be cherry picked by Trump and the Repubs and blasted out of the water. And that should be enough for Trump to hold onto the WH.
2
Democrats need to contribute proposals for solving the border problem. We, of course, wan to see humane and efficient processing of asylum seekers. But since only a small percentage of them qualify for admission, it would make sense for formulate a policy to stem the tide.
We need to persuade the UN to lead in some way to improve the conditions within the countries which are driving people out.
Temporarily, we could furnish faculties in a designated sector of southern Mexico for refugees to live safely pending their return.
4
The Obama Administration offered a plan. Mitch and John Boehner wouldn't entertain it. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/11/20/us/2014-11
1
The following prioritizing makes a lot of sense:
"The U.S. cannot take in everybody who wants to come. So the first task is to set priorities. The victims of violence and persecution get top priority, then those being systemically denied their basic rights because their country has become a failed state, then those seeking economic betterment."
BUT there is a big problem: How do people prove that they have been victims of violence and persecution or have been denied their basic rights because their country has become a failed state? How do we know they are not lying?
2
@Peter Stoopack: they are ALL LYING!
There is no war in Central America.
No famine. No earthquakes. No epidemics or plagues.
There is no religious or racial persecution -- they are almost all Catholics in Catholic nations.
The claims are of bad marriages and mean ex-boyfriends, and local crime.
Those are NOT GROUNDS FOR ASLYUM.
3
David hits the nail on the head with this column. Both parties are more interested in performing for their base than they are in actually solving problems. I had the same realization watching the Republicans belittle the Green New Deal rather than engaging in a meaningful discussion.
This county is lost if we can't somehow get back to governing rather than performing. There are too many urgent problems that aren't being discussed rationally, much less solved.
I’m not sure there’s much for the sides to “balance” with respect to asylum seekers. They are legally entitled, under domestic law that implements treaties, to claim asylum. Republicans simply don’t want to grant asylum, consistent with this administration’s lack of respect for the rule of law.
The administration could process asylum seekers in an orderly manner if they wanted to - one could imagine a civilian refugee corps that helps with the basic needs they have when arriving. They could hire for asylum officers to rapidly screen. But there are no compromises about asylum law that need to be made. The US refugee definition mirrors that in the treaty, and changing it would likely put the United States in breach of its obligations. People who are allowed into the country for humanitarian protection have been found to meet the elements of that definition.
With respect to economic migrants, the legal regime usually dictates that they be deported. But the backlogs in the courts and the massive amount of people without documentation suggest that we have defined too many people as deportable, not that too many people are entering. If the American people really believed that being undocumented is some highly culpable moral wrong, you’d see actual support for the removals of millions of people. Our legal regime should align more closely with the public’s actual moral intuitions, not to mention our labor and demographic needs.
2
David emphatically makes certain we see him as caring, empathic, eager to provide solutions to longstanding immigration snafus, especially since his Republican Party and its president prefer lies and chaos. But then, he must feel obligated to give us two or three paragraphs disparaging the Democrats so he can still claim he is a registered conservative. But his final paragraphs, subtle as a train wreck, do show his scratching at the progressive door:
Designing a practical response that wins widespread support is, in theory, not hard. But it requires starting with a certain question: What can we do to help them? Much of today’s politics starts from a different question: What posture can I adopt that will reflect well on me? What can I say to prove I’m manly or woke?
This is what happens when the politics of practical action get replaced by the politics of performative narcissism.
Donald Trump owns the label "narcissist." Only interested in what makes him look good---and is too ignorant to notice he's failing.
2
Bravo, Mr. Brooks. You advocate a response filled with decency, humanity and a bit of tough love (not the God-awful GOP version) along with cooperation with Mexico and much increased resources. Common sense in an age of social media snark and 20 word outbursts.
My disappointment is with my side. I know that your former party David is hopeless in its descent into the darkness of white nationalism, conspiracy mongering, gun fetish, and general nuttiness. But Democrats are the party of FDR and Bobby Kennedy and that deeply flawed Texan who gave us the Civil Rights/Voting Rights acts and Medicare and more.
Everything you said about our announced candidates is all too true. I do not see anyone sticking their head above the parapet on this divisive issue. No profiles in courage, and I'm hopeful when you know who announces things change.
2
Agreed.
Yet, at the core of this mess is the fact that for decades now both parties have been serving an elite who benefit from uncontrolled immigration.
Why? Because it means low-priced labor. And keeping salaries down means helping the big E economy, the one measured in GDP, profit margins and stock markets. It is the millions of Americans living in the small "e" economy where things like jobs, wages and already overburdened public schools and municipal services are further stretched by masses of illegal immigrants who feel the pain.
Until pointing out the real costs isn't reflexively shouted down with specious charges of "racism!" we will never get a handle on this problem.
Until a real leader starts going after those who employ illegal aliens, be they CEOs, farmers or Beverly Hills housewives, we will never get a real handle on illegal immigration. Huge fees, and jail time.
Fully funding E-verify would be a great start. And helping Central American governments improve conditions for their citizens at home.
7
I'm glad that David Brooks realizes that "Build a wall. Deport them all." is not an immigration policy. I think he should be willing to place a bit more blame on those who insist on that policy.
3
Plain and simple set up a working system that deports speedily those not qualified ( would venture to say those with no skills and education ) and keep those that do , common sense dictates they are those that have businesses or a steady job with a regular salary . Gangs simply are not going to bother the poor with no money to extort and threaten the indigenous native that don't even speak Spanish . Laws have to be changed and the Democrats and Republicans need to agree to work together . We simply cannot take the latter which will stress our social services even more . Definitely agree our country can do more , help these countries to educate and better the lives of their citizens .
1
Sometimes it's not wise to be bipartisan. The fault, Dear Mr Brooks, clearly lies with Trump. Anything put forward by Democrats is dead on arrival. He could fix this in a instant, but he and his administration are incapable of fixing anything. Please put the blame for this mess where it belongs.
4
Having spent time in both Texas and Florida this winter, I am convinced that the privedged, upper class lifestyles in these states would suffer significantly without the infusion of both legal and illegal immigrants. Golf courses would turn weedy and brown. Hotels and private homes would not be cleaned. Restaurants would close due to lack of cooks and dishwashers. Produce and grocery stores would close due to unharvested crops and unprocessed meats. It is completely ignorant to not recognize how integral the work of these people is to our economy. They are the unsung heroes who are the engine propelling our American Dream.
5
@Ljd: and I want all of those things.
I want the rich to suffer without their low paid slave workers from Mexico and Central America.
I want the spoiled rich to learn to cut their grass and clean their own toilets -- JUST LIKE I DO!!!
And if not...then let them pay AMERICANS decent wages and benefits to these jobs.
BTW: only 1% of all illegals work in any form of agriculture. 99% of them live in cities and do the same jobs that Americans used to do -- and could do again, FOR FAIR WAGES.
3
@Ljd
If we didn't have an endless inflow of desperate illegal immigrants willing to work at or below minimum wage without legal protections, the wages for those jobs would go way up and far more Americans would work them. Teenagers would work during summer (remember summer jobs?). The entire American blue collar economy would improve.
Good liberal Democrats like Barbara Jordan, Bernie Sanders, Paul Krugman and Barack Obama used to be able to speak the obvious truth: endless cheap labor pouring into a national marketplace depresses wages.
Even now that speaking this truth is taboo, is done at the risk of being dismissed as a "deplorable," doesn't change the truthfulness of it.
Yes, to the degree we need temporary workers' visas for certain industries, let's do it.
4
Until I saw these pictures, I believed - and hoped - that scenes like these are matters of our past, albeit a shameful past and history of the Second World War: Internment of American citizens of Japanese descent, and the humiliation before butchery of Europeans of the Jewish faith. But no, as long as we retain even a small semblance of evil in our psyche - and even a handful of committed individuals who commit such heinous crimes in our name, we are doomed to live and relive these scenes again, and again.
That these acts are done, supposedly, to protect us from frightened, helpless strangers, seeking shelter at our door, does nothing except to add to our sense of shame. God, when will this nightmare be over?
1
Why would any logical person continue to let people travel a thousand miles past a safe harbor? Canada doesn't want the people we can't handle either. I crossed the McAllen border daily for years. I drove 125 miles each way to work because the begging and pan handling was unbearable. The schools all the way to South Padre Island have teachers that aren't bilingual, and students that can't speak English. If the border cities can't handle the problem, how do you expect cities to teach these kids who can't speak English? The problem gets worse the farther north you go.
5
@Jay: hispanics from Mexico and Central America and THE ONLY immigrant (illegal) group the US has ever had that adamantly refuses to learn English -- even into the third generation and those BORN here (anchor babies).
Most DACA dreamers DON'T SPEAK ENGLISH! or speak it very poorly.
Every other group has learned English, even those from radically different cultures and languages that are NOT based in Latin romance language!!! Hungarians -- Finns -- Cambodians! all learn ENGLISH!
We don't have to print ballots in those languages do we?
Why is it ONLY hispanics who get pandered to?
1
Brooks, you sound like a "socialist" - by which I mean a person who has some compassion and is interested in proposing practical solutions to actual problems. That's the republican definition, right? Wake us when you can identify a single person in your party who might support anything proposed in your column.
1
To label Trump's border policy a failure is to overlook the fact that by making things ever worse through his seemingly incoherent approach he keeps his race baiting winning issue in the news, therefore his importance to his base ever more paramount and unassailable heading into 2020.
1
"Donald Trump just showed how low he'll go on immigration ... what he did was pressure Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to take undocumented immigrants detained trying to enter the country and bus them to sanctuary cities located in the congressional districts of prominent Democratic members of Congress ... this is, at heart, a story about people. People who tried to enter the country illegally, yes. But people nonetheless. And what the President of the United States wanted to do to these human beings was turn them, literally speaking, into political pawns ... when you see people as something less than, well, people you can rationalize treating them in ways that no person should be treated. That's where we are with President Trump on immigration. There is no bottom. He just keeps going lower and lower." (Chris Cillizza, CNN, 12Apr2019)
1
Mr. Brooks,
I'm afraid that your assumption that most Americans would follow the path you lay out if confronted with 100 illegal immigrants (or even one) at their door is absolutely absurd. I suggest that you, your readers, and the NYT staff read "Camp of the Saints."
3
Huge false equivalence from David Brooks here. To conflate the D's "political correctness" with Trump's cruel and chaotic mismanagement of the border crisis, which he is actually making worse, with a few fringe D's who support disbanding ICE or advocate for "open borders" is wrong. Brooks is buying into Trump's demagoguery. Trump owns this, 100%.
3
Our country is NOT "full". The USA is the third largest country by size in the world, and China is just a bit smaller than us. When it comes to population, however, they beat us hands down. The population of China (as of this year) is approximately 1 billion, 420 million people, compared with our approximately 329 million people. As Yogi Berra used to say: "You could look it up".
Our president should do much more reading and much less tweeting! As Yogi would say: "You could learn a lot if you read some books". Nobody ever got smart by tweeting, and nobody ever will.
1
'This is what happens when the politics of practical action get replaced by the politics of performative narcissism.'
This is classic, up there with 'nattering nabobs...'
But Mr. Brooks, your party has abandoned you, and is beyond saving. Haven't you had the near-death experience yet, with the good people ablaze in light, calling you home? Repent, and we will welcome you among the Warriors you profess to dismiss.
2
Ok David.
Let's say 1000 refugee's knocked on your door with another 5,000 a block away.
And 10,000 a 1/2 mile away.
All coming to your door.
Let them all in, right?
That's the humane thing to do, right?
Or...let them stay on the outskirts of town and keep them in a camp where the authorities can feed them and bathe them and give them fresh water until you can find out which among them are legitimate asylum seekers vs. fake asylum seekers.
That's what a rationale, caring, humane person would do.
What you're suggesting is insane. Let 'em all go...which is an invitation for another 100,000 to follow right behind.
When is enough enough?
6
It is pretty clear to me the plan is to create as much chaos as possible, the blame the democrats. The trumpsters will love it.
2
Mr Brooks thank you so much for helping our president shift the focus away from his troubles.
The Republican party and its followers created the "border crisis" for political gain.
It is sad to say, but if you speak to any Republican supporter you will find that they are just as sick as the party and its leaders.
Republican party and its "supporters" are a minority in the country, but, they do have political power and they have no intention of loosing it at ANY cost. Lying, breaking laws, humiliating people and at some point even killing them. Let's all hope that it does not get to that point.
So reading this op ed is a little bit depressing, because I know for a fact that you do not believe the words you write at this point, you are way to smart for that.
1
I worry that the Democrats will lose to Trump in 2020 on this issue. Not b/c Trump is right but b/c at least we all know where he stands. I'm vaguely aware that the Dems have supported something called "immigration reform" but I have no idea what that is–and I follow the news pretty closely.
I keep reading that the way to victory in 2020 for Democrats isn't to show why Trump is terrible (most already know why), but to show why they're better. So come on Democrats–you're the policy wonks. 1) What is the BETTER policy? 2) Now sell it. Please reach out to your Hollywood connections and come up with a good catchy phrase for it. "Comprehensive Reform" is a term I could use to sell orthopedic shoes. And nobody wants those.
237
@Amanda M. I can't disagree, but almost worry that the Democrats WON'T lose to Trump more. We know where he stands, while Democrats seem critical of everything that is said regarding the border - from the wall to illogicially expecting Trump should be able to prevent children being dragged by their parents here and dying enroute.
Other than clutching their kerchiefs and murmuring vague proposals that we must reform, we must do something ... the Dems seem to offer nothing.
28
@Amanda M.
I agree...unless the Dems are able to articulate a sound, solid reasonable approach to the many problems that the republicans refuse to solve, we will be left with this gaping partisan divide. when McConnell refuses to even take a vote on issues- where is the outrage? Stop responding to the bully-in-chiefs jabs and take away his pulpit!
22
@Amanda M.
Coming up with a catchy slogan doesnt solve the problem. We have hordes of people showing up at the parts of the border where there are no walls.
Gee, what would happen if every crossable part of the border had a wall?
Its common sense. Your party is asking you to not believe your own common sense.
5
Really? BOTH parties are to blame? I think I remember a meeting in December where al the parties concerned - and the current occupant of the Oval Office - agreed on a set of proposals, which said occupant then rejected. The Republicans controlled the Presidency, the House & Senate for 2 years and got nothing done. Have you forgotten recent history?
2
If twenty men showed up at my door with five kids each, I would tell those able bodied men to use birth control, go home and fight their own battles. This is what is happening here. There are far too many people in Central America. It's about time they stopped having more kids, used some birth control and stop demanding the right to break our laws.
We are not the cause of Latino migration here nor are we the cause of Latino poverty. These people should go home, fix up their own societies and stop having kids they can't afford to feed.
3
@Enough Already
well with the catholic church ruling in Central America, so no birth control, family planning or access to abortion;
what do you think happens?! MORE KIDS!!!
and in case you haven't noticed, trump and friends are busy closing Planned parenthood clinics, cutting off women's health clinic aid to foreign countries, and talking about executing women for having abortions in Texas. The fact is we ARE the reason this people are in this situation; we have supported dictatorships and dismantled democracy in almost every country in Central and South America. It's called the CIA>
get some books and educate yourself as to why these terrible conditions exist in these countries.
Spewing hatred will not solve the problem, much as trump and Steve miller love to do so.
1
Except it is not 100 people, David -- it's 100,000 people EVERY BLEEPIN' MONTH -- and they are uneducated, illiterate, unskilled and unable to support themselves in a modern high-tech society without a lot of welfare.
On top of THAT, they have average families of 5-7 children (that they cannot support) and a culture of violence. It is not an accident that so many of the phony asylum claims surround mean husbands, bad boyfriends, domestic violence, etc.
If we give them working class jobs or welfare, we TAKE THAT directly away from Americans -- some of whom, as I hope you are aware -- now live homeless on the streets, without even universal health care.
We can't take in ANY MORE of these people, sorry -- they are no poorer or more maligned than 2 billion in Africa! Their proximity does not make them more sympathetic.
We need to take care of OUR OWN POOR PEOPLE FIRST. We already have 25 MILLION illegals (per 2018 Yale University study) -- far more than liberals have claimed for years! -- and that is 25 million too many.
Close the borders.
Deport every illegal!
6
At some point liberals are going to have to decide if they want less restrictive immigration policies or a welfare state, because it's not possible to sustain both.
5
Seven of my relatives, including my grandfather and grandmother, were aboard the German liner St. Louis when it arrived in Havana harbor in May 1939 with 970 other passengers -- most of them Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany -- who were refused permission to land; many of them ended up perishing in Europe after President Roosevelt failed to come to their aid.
My father, who had arrived in Cuba earlier, went to the Cuban police, and tried to get his parents off the ship by claiming they had stolen some jewelry from him. He thought his parents would be better off in a Cuban jail than back in Germany. His plan to bribe his parents out-of-jail once they were arrested failed, but luck was with my grandparents who survived because they were taken to England by the German Naval Captain. Three of the other five members of my family on board the St. Louis -- one of them a 12 year old girl -- were returned to Holland and were not so lucky.
My father never forgave Roosevelt and struggled for the rest of his life to understand why America did not have enough space for a few hundred Jews.
The more things change, the more they don’t.
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005267
5
Would be ideal to help invest-in-to-stabilize countries from which people are fleeing. But instead we cut that $.
How about private-public partnership involving Mexican/US governments with Mexican/US corporations to invest in creating jobs on either side of the border? For the cost of a goofy wall that won't stop any of this, we could do what a truly great and humane country might hope to do. While it may create incentive for more immigration, short of massive investments to solve crime/economic problems in countries, why not invest our tax dollars in humane and potentially productive ventures?
1
Oh, my, what if we had leader intelligent and fearless enough to put forth the policies Mr. Brooks has put forth here? This is the soundest plan I have read yet, and why the Progressives have not suggested it is beyond me.
These are common sense solutions to what, indeed, appears to have become a crisis. It is not the kind of mayhem Trump describes, of course, but it is a humanitarian crisis that we should acknowledge before we can start to really do something about it.
The suggestion that strikes me as the most easily implemented would be to cooperate with Mexico instead of blaming Mexico for the problem. And to give more money to Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala rather than withholding money could be done with the stroke of a pen.
Building new shelters and hiring more staff to help with the vetting problem will take longer, but certainly is what is needed here.
Hopefully, the Democratic candidates will listen.
2
It's interesting to note that when migrants sneak across the border illegally, they are "soaked up" by the economy virtually immediately. And that's because we have a dire emergency in certain industries due to a lack of labor. Perhaps it's time to use a different model to process the flood of immigrants.
Surely, the U.S. Department of Labor Department has fine estimates of those geographic pockets and industries where labor is in short supply. Send the recruiters from the farms and orchards, the hospitality industry, and the food processing plants to the borders to carefully vet the immigrants. Then, bring them and their families to where they'll be instantly employed.
Everybody wins: the migrants; the fully staffed businesses; the local economies, the county and state economies, the national economy; the local, county, state, and national legislators; and the newly unburdened Border Patrol agencies.
Really, the border is an artificial barrier to the efficient flow capital and labor. While it's necessary for political and security reasons, it better to think of it as porous for economic goods.
2
Another great article. However, I think if every Democrat agreed with your ideas the Republicans would block it and so would Trump. Still, I agree with your ideas for solutions to this growing problem. Trump is starting fires again.
1
Mark, Garraty, and L. Levy, are "spot on." The false equivalency that Brooks believes only helps normalize the abnormal, and truly abhorrent, behavior of the extremists that support Trump. Any demonstration of good faith must start with the G.O.P, especially in the Senate. Otherwise, anything first proposed by the Democrats in the Senate that even remotely looks like a minor concession, or even indisputably helpful toward immigration policy improvement and action, or a show of good faith, will be met with "no" by McConnell and company.
Here's a thought for any reasonable Republican or Democrat: rather than make a big show in the media or in Congress, first do the ground work in Kentucky before anything else, then show Mitch his seat is at risk, unless he agrees with the reasonable immigration plan his voters like. Popular democracy can work, but lots of work is what it takes.
1
Classic Brooks, blaming both sides (and contrasting them with his own virtue) when the only obstacle to a humane immigration policy for the last dozen years has been the Republican Party and its fear of its Tea Party base.
4
In the example Brooks uses of 100 poor and hungry people showing up at ones door. However this is not at all the situation at the border. Rather 100 people showed up at your door the month before and you took care of them, so word got out that those who knock on your door will be cared for. And so the next night 200 people came to your door and the next night it was 1000, and the more people you took care of the more came. At some point even the most compassionate person would say that not only am I not responsible for caring for all the world's poor, I do not have the capacity to do so.
Only two years ago Europe dealt with this exact type of situation where they took in asylum seekers because they felt it was the right thing to do. Germany took in a million of them. However the more they took in the more that came till they realized that there will be no end to those coming and that they cannot take in every last person who wishes to come. So they closed their borders and paid Turkey a billion Euros to keep asylum seekers out.
And we here are facing an even worse situation because as opposed to Europe in the US everyone is granted entry and given a court date which they have no reason to show up for. And so asylum seekers from Central America will be just the first of an endless group of people from all over the world who will fly to Mexico and come to the border. So it makes no sense to open our doors just to be forced to shut them a few months later.
11
@Michael Stavsen
It used to be that most of the folks who showed up at the door were men who wanted to work for a while, send $$$ back to their families, and then eventually go back home to the best home on their block. The difference today is that it has become more expensive and dangerous to cross than ever before, now that the wall has created choke points controlled on the Mexican side by the drug gans, so nobody dares leave for fear of having to make the trek again. The caravans are for security (though even then it's dangerous) and the women with children are coming to reunite with family already here. Since we've made cirucular seasonal migration near impossible, this is the result.
1
Not sure what the big deal is. There is a refugee crisis that requires the U.S. to respond with more facilities, judges, etc. Then, there is the issue of 11 M illegals in this country that requires some sort of pathway to citizenship combined with more resources for border control. Finally, an effort needs to be made to help stabilize Central American countries. But it is all being upended by Trump who needs the issue for his Nuremburg-style ralllies. I don't think mainstream Democrats or Republicans are all that divided about what to do.
5
Another opportunity for Brooks to use a national tragedy to continue his equivalence argument between Republicans and Democrats.
9
David, progress could start if Trump told his base that the things he promised them about illegal immigration were not legal. Then the GOP in congress would no longer feel squeezed between Trump and the base. FOX could be an honest broker and educate the president here, but again, they have riled up their base so long with demands for illegal actions that rather than educating their base, they would lose viewers who decamped for Breitbart and InfoWars because FOX was too squishy.
The GOP base is at fault here. And FOX makes money by indulging their self delusions. And the congressional GOP delegation is caught between the delusional GOP base and a delusional president.
There's no way out. We've discovered another flaw in our constitutional system - people willing to delude themselves exist in large enough numbers to control the government.
2
@Djt
Building a wall is legal. That would solve most of the current problem. How come Schumer, Pelosi, Clinton all voted for fencing, but don't want to fund it now? If flaming liberals would just keep the same position they had before Trump was elected, there wouldn't be a problem. Everyone who works on the Border Patrol is being ignored. Close the border until congress acts.
5
@Jay
republicans are the ones not acting.
1
@Jay
HERE ARE THE FACTS. Schumer, Pelosi and Clinton might have all voted for a wall -- just NOT in the way that Trump wants to build it. Not only because of the outrageous expense, but because it wouldn't be as totally effective as this president seems to believe.
That's why there's the need for alternative ways to patrol the borders, including the use of modern surveillance technology.
Trust me.
I'm from Berlin, Germany and I can tell you people will ALWAYS find a way to get past a wall.
2
The fundamental challenge in crafting a humane immigration and refugee settlement policy is that we simply do not treat our own citizens humanely. So any minimal effort to reach out a helping hand to would-be refugees is met by howls of opposition and outrage by low-income, low-information citizens who the American economy has forgotten. Sadly, these citizens are often authors of their own political fate by supporting a Party that holds them in thrall with appeals to racism, nationalism, and gun tribalism on one hand, then steals any hope of upward mobility with the other.
Without a social safety net for our own, we cannot muster the national political will to take care of "foreigners". It is a moral imperative to do both, and every day that goes by without such solutions is another day America's "moral authority" is diminished, if it ever truly existed in the first place.
7
There is a very sane, sensible approach to addressing these issues set out by David A Martin published July 4 2018 by Vox “ How to Fix the Crisis..” which points out that the problem has been dealt with before.
3
Democrats deny there is a crisis, because if they admit that there is ANY crisis, Trump and Fox News will spin it as, "See, this Democrat agrees with me! I'm right, we need to build the wall! Even Democrats agree with me!"
That's why Democrats can offer no reasonable alternative, because any sympathy toward those coming here is immediately labeled as "open borders." And those who feel strongly about this won't be convinced by nuance, won't hear the Democrats out. So, in general, Democrats are avoiding the issue, other than to point out Trump's barbarities, and concentrating on issues that resonate more across the country, such as healthcare and income inequality.
An American opens his front door to see 100 bedraggled families shivering in his yard - exhausted, filthy, terrified. Yes, he does something, he calls the police, especially if those families are a darker shade than he, especially if they don't speak English well.
A few decades of conservative thought has taught a lot of Americans that if you are bedraggled and poor, it's because you deserve it. You did something wrong, made bad choices, didn't work hard enough, you're unintelligent and thus of little value to society. If you were a virtuous person, with the virtue of merit or responsibility, God and our capitalist system would have given you wealth. That's why, we've been told, CEOs deserve those incredible salaries, and also why it's wrong to tax them.
David Brooks sold us this bunk for decades.
3
I generally agree with David Brooks on this issue. But while it is considered an article of faith that the borders must be protected against all comers, etc, etc. I have yet to get my head around any real benefit from this sort of policy... and many all too obvious problems. When my mothers family migrated from Europe around the time of the civil war, they got off the ship from Germany and started a farm in Pennsylvania. Some of the relatives moved up to Canada for some years before moving to Indiana. It was similar for my fathers people around 1900. One went where the work was based on your skills and where your former countrymen had settled. None of this complicated and expensive bureaucracy that has become all the rage in recent years.
And between climate change and the endless wars in various places the pressure for migration is not going to diminish. And cutting off aid to some of these countries to make the local situation worse will not help either.
And we should not forget that most of us were migrants or children of migrants. And most of us came here because it was worse elsewhere. Making the US a hellhole for migrants is not a good foundation for future greatness, IMHO.
2
@Greg Latiak
Yet again: we came here LEGALLY. The illegal part came pouring over our southern border with people who had no interest in what our country offered and represented: only in the goodies."Thanks Onkel Gringo...!!" (My (German) family watched the sad changes in Tucson in about the fifties and sixties...
1
Most rational people would stop for just a second and ask why people cross our border. Like examining conditions in home countries (economic, crime, etc.). But Trump does not do rational. He thinks those reasons are not our concern. We are us and they are them. Their problems are not our problems. It was all part of his campaign and inauguration. This is one reason he wants to jerk funding from the Central American countries. He envisions a big beautiful Donald Trump stamped monster of a wall that is impenetrable by the bad hombres. You might as well continue our wall around the entire US border. I wonder if Trump, in his photo-ops at the border, has ever approached a migrant and had a discussion about why they are there. He would have to give up some of his FOX news viewing time.
3
Why is this our disgrace and not Mexico and the other countries they are leaving???? We cannot take everyone and support everyone. The disgrace is that Congress has ignored this problem for years. No other country lets people walk across their borders and the United States should not either.
8
The other disgrace is our inability to police businesses that hire illegal immigrants. They are a big part of the problem that no one wants to acknowledge.
10
@DMHPerhaps you would like to apply for the jobs they are taking.
1
This column is what happens when someone abandons all principles and good faith.
Maybe Brooks forgets; Harry Reid and a Democratic Senate sent a bill to John Boehner and his republican house; it had some bipartisan support; it was pretty credible from what I read about it. It was immediately buried.
Republicans don't want solutions; they want problems they can exploit to gin up their very base base to vote for them.
So called conservative pundits just keep trying to convince US that both parties are equally corrupt, but the republicans haves some "values" so they must be OK.
I am so sick of Brooks, and Stephens, and Douthat and their false equivalence narrative.
5
David Brooks is wrong on one issue and that is both sides caused this dilemma. Any historian or political scientist in 20 years will tell you that right wing conservative fringe of the republican party and the working class Christian Evangelicals and Catholics enabled Trump to do what he is doing. There is no way to sugar coat this American tragedy. You must blame the current republicans for this debacle. You must sanction and censure their Fox News rhetoric because they harbor racist tendencies not consistent with 60% of the nation. Shame on the conservative republican leaders who allow this to happen. Shame on the Catholic hierarchy and Christian Evangelical silence. And yes, the historians will not only condemn the religious leaders, they will also say that Trump was an anomaly. Thank God.
2
Yet another example of disinformation by the open-borders camp, severely over-represented at the "Times." The murder rates in all the Central American countries have fallen precipitously in the last several years. But the numbers of "refugees" keeps growing. It's not that conditions at home are worse, but they have figured out how to win in our broken immigration game: show up with a child and --given the insane Flores ruling and the indefensible manner in which Central Americans are treated differently from Mexicans -- it's a get out of jail card and a permanent stay in America. These well-organized caravans come complete with immigration attorneys who advise clients on what to tell over-stressed border agents. This argument ad miseracordiam might better be applied to starving Africans or others,
9
Why don't we stop hiring them after they arrive? If we were not hiring them to pick the fruits and vegetables, make the beds in the hotel chains, and work on construction projects then they would not come here. The reason that we hire them is the fat cat Republicans need them. Strange that the beneficiaries of the chaos are our government leaders.
3
It's simple. Just keep them out.
4
@victor That's not a simple solution. It is a simplistic one.
3
Yes, Democrats should have a more coherent, pragmatic approach to dealing with immigration from Central America. But, you know what, trump and his hardliners are in charge so the buck stops there, for now. Do you really expect anything constructive from this corrupt, incompetent regime? Now that the border mess has become a political prop for the hard right, the odds of anything sensible happening are fast diminishing from scant to zero. The only upside I can think of is that this mess will blow up in trump's face.
1
"Both parties are content to adopt abstract ideological postures. "
But only one party is in charge David. That party is your party, the one from which you can't break. No matter the lies, no matter the corruption, no matter the abuse of dark skinned people, especially children. And all of this is their policy, not isolated incidents.
Your "narrative" would qualify for Soviet Union history books. You have had the opportunity to speak out when it mattered, and you didn't.
Both sides don't do this, and you are smart enough to know it. But like most Republicans, it's uncomfortable to admit it.
3
Oh please. The usual false equivalence tropes from the foremost apologist for Republican malfeasance, bad faith, criminality, bigotry and shameless racism. There have been numerous immigration solutions proposed by Democrats, one proposed by President Bush, and all derailed by kneejerk Republican right wing obstructionism led by that fiend McConnell, or his partner in crime Ryan. Mr. Brooks should stop directing his sanctimonious lectures to Democrats and perhaps chastise the people responsible fro this mess and so many other messes in our country: HIS president, HIS party: THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.
4
The Brooks Saga of trying to fit a square peg in a round hole continues.
4
Hear, hear! Will our president and representatives please listen to this man he makes sense
1
Democrats seem to feel that their position politically is to allow the Republicans to thrash about in the current immigration mayhem and to do nothing proactive other than complain. It enables the Republicans lead by Trump because they are then the only party presenting solutions, as horrid and reprehensible as those solutions are. Consequently the Republicans come across as strong and decisive even though their solutions are horrid. Democrats need to get off their butts and and immediately outline a comprehensive immigration policy, publicize it in Congress and make it an important part of the Democratic platform for 2020. I agree with David that any such a program should solve problems and benefit both immigrants and the country while treating immigrants as human beings not criminals. Let the electorate decide who will solve this serious problem.
3
Typical false equivalency from Brooks. Trump is evil and it is all on the dems to fix this problem. No accountability for the republicans who allow the problem to exist and certainly no expectation or requirement that they fix it.
1
If we don’t do something, the next President will win running on a platform of “land mines – paid for by Mexico”.
2
There are 100,000 'bedraggled families' showing up at our doorstep every month. However, there's the righteous empathy when they ask to enter our home, and the righteous anger when they break in. So, tell me Mr. Brooks. When these people show at your door, are you just as happy to help those who wait in your yard as you arrange for assistance, as you are to help those who are breaking into your house uninvited?
4
The 'Border Crisis' was created by President Donald Trump-
For 240 years the USA has had a loose, natural and functional immigration system that, on the whole, has worked very well for all of the inhabitants of the Americas. Trump has changed all that and is reaping the results...
AWorldIntwined.com
1
No, Dave. If I found those families in my yard, I’d call the police and have them hauled to jail for trespassing. I hope they would be locked up and made to pay for any damage they did. This is where all the snowflakes are missing the point: they are _illegal_ immigrants. We have immigration laws; let’s enforce them.
5
Sorry David, but most Americans don't want to live in an overpopulated country constantly under siege by the developing world's constant snafus.
We could solve the problem within a year if the governments of Central America worked with our military to pacify and neutralize the gangs there.
5
Almost all of the issues Brooks raises are operational, which means they could and should be solved by the executive branch, not a pontificating Congress...but we all know that is not going to happen...David knows this as well but seems to think his followers won't pay any attention if he doesn't throw in his usual barbs that both sides are at fault...
1
@Will S. When will the executive branches of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador achieve operational control of their own countries? Or is that asking too much of them? Maybe another hundred years?
2
@Swaz Fincklestein
Good question. And one that I have been asking here on these NYT pages repeatedly -- Nice to see I'm not the only voice in the Wilderness.
2
The significance of the flow of poverty-stricken migrants to the developed world has, I think, been underestimated by developed-world politicians and media. The flow is going to become stronger, resulting in decreasing capability to handle it, complicated by immigration legislation containing extensive asylum invitations that are being taken in in numbers never imagined.
5
@John Corr
That may be true. But you're missing the one true elephant in the room.
Namely, the failure of these Central American countries to deal with the domestic problems of violence and extortion that are forcing their citizens to flee in droves.
2
I think Mr. Brooks starts with the assumption that people agree on the principle of welcome, though not the practicality. While it may be true that most Americans would try to help those who appear on their lawns, I do not believe most Americans agree that this idea translates to help at the border. I feel that America needs to wrap its head around the idea that we morally feel it is right to help those in need - and that we are limited in our ability to do so, practically speaking.
I believe Democrats stay away from forming and publishing a plan because they know that it cannot be implemented in the current political environment. And the longer the crisis goes on, any plan they do form will be a reason to keep talking about something they can't solve. They want to focus on issues that people credibly believe Democrats will help to solve - like health care or climate change - based on their past policies and practices when governing. It doesn't make arriving at a solution any easier.
But I do think there is a little too much blame being thrown around. If hard-right conservatives are continually blocking something, point the finger at them. Dems and even some Republicans have made plans in the past and they were tanked by the maneuvering of the ultra-right despite having broad support. I believe Ryan and McConnell both refused to bring to a vote anything that might win without majority Republican support, even if it would win bipartisan.
2
Hire more judges. Clear the backlog. That’s the answer.
Of course no one wants to do this. The Democrats WANT the system to be overwhelmed and for people to come here illegally so they can later demand an amnesty for all of the millions of illegals. The non-Trump Republicans want the same thing so they can have cheap labor for corporate America.
The immigration bar makes lots of money doing very little work by filing mass petitions and then avoiding hearings until their clients disappear. More judges would mean actually going to court and doing work.
Like David says, Trump just wants to look tough. Although in my mind, toughness is better than being taken advantage of. So until the Democrats are willing to deal, I support Trump’s approach.
4
@Greg Are you OK with clearing the judicial backlog if it results in the deportation of 90% of the adjudicated cases?
2
@Swaz Fincklestein
Yes. That’s how law and due process works.
2
Tiny Lebanon has taken in hundreds of thousands, So has Jordan, and Turkey as well. Or Kenya too. There are millions of refugees around the world and the richest country in the world can't handle it? 6 billion spent building factories in Central America instead of walls in the US would go a long way to solving our problem.
4
Trump defined our new immigration policy on his press interview: "we have too many folks, we can't let any more in" . Really? Thats how a free democratic society sets policy on something as broad reaching as immigration? I think it is time to re-visit our immigration policy in light of current and future conditions. I don't know what that answer should be. But I do know we do not live in an autocracy and allow that policy be defined by one person.
4
To paraphrase history. "have we no shame as a nation?"
We are paying the cost of not having developed a rational immigration policy that recognizes the state of the world and our needs as a nation.
What are we going to do now? Go down the dark hole that is the president and his backers or be the courageous nation we can be?
3
Trump's zero tolerance policy failed miserable b/c democrats blocked it through the courts - not the policy itself. Liberals talk about the Republicans lack of compassion for these folks. You know the truth is twisted. I have enough common sense to know that you can take in every poor and marginalized person in the world. It's not possible. The laws of our country have to be followed for immigration to work. Stop making us out to be "horrible, hateful people" because we believe in the rule of law.
3
@Sunny
If you believed in the rule of law, you would understand that applying for asylum is not an illegal act.
You would know that separating children from their parents and tear gassing them is known as a crime against humanity according to international law. And throwing toddlers into iron cages.
The Republicans do nothing except block every initiative that Democrats make.
1
Not my disgrace. Not my president. Not my GOP.
I'm embarrassed and ashamed of the US government and its GOP leadership, but I deny responsibility for them and the cruelty they inflict on refugees and our own citizens.
Can you say the same, Mr. Brooks?
5
I live near the border. Several times I've had illegals ask for food and water. I'd have gladly put them to work and allowed them to stay a while if it weren't illegal. In the end most of these people would be honest citizens who just want to work hard and have a life free of danger. I do believe we have the capacity to deal with this on a grand scale.
4
Proposal: Lock the original members of the Gang of Eight in a cabin at Camp David to hammer out a comprehensive immigration reform bill that they are sure would pass with the support of their respective colleagues in Congress. Don't let them back to D.C. until they can present the American people with a cohesive solution.
Enough is enough of these disparate and untenable partisan policy positions which are further exacerbated by a self-serving president whose only simplistic and schizophrenic "plan" is to fulfill his campaign promise of keeping those dangerous caravans out of what he calls an already "full" country by building a "big beautiful wall."
Get to work Senators Michael Bennet, D-CO, Dick Durbin, D-IL, Lindsey Graham, R-SC, Robert Menendez, D-NJ, Marco Rubio, R-FL, and Chuck Schumer, D-NY. Although Senators Jeff Flake and John McCain are no longer members of your group, just do it or get out of your elected offices!
4
Logical and good ideas!! Starting from a position of "what needs to be done?" (instead of fear-based, "they're murderers and rapists -- we're FULL" ) opens thought to the good ideas that will see progress unfold.
1
I agree with you 100% David, but I would also add that news outlets like NY Times, Fox News, etc are complicit in this disgrace.
1
Obviously don’t answer until Mayor D vouches for the “knocker” (maybe in writing). Carry on!
What is wrong with staying in Mexico, or going to Costa Rica. Both countries offer asylum, Spanish is the primary language, the cultures are more familar. Here they face being caged, and living in situations which make it difficult to assimilate. Why do they come here ?
8
David,
This is only the tip of the iceberg and America and the World needs to truly acknowledge what has happened an why, this is not a blame game and certainly not in regard to the Democratic Party. This has been exacerbated by the sheer stupidity of trump and company. They don't know governing from a hole in the wall, what they do know is chaos and that is what we have.
The problem in Central America, Africa and the Middle East are all the same, first is fractured or failed Governments with possibly wars, the second is climate change. To change this dynamic these are the issues America and the World truly need to address together.
1
Simple David!? If the only decision is to let them in or barricade the door, the answer is simple. However, if I inquire of the 100 people at my front door their reason for being there, the process becomes not simple and requires me to understand and evaluate various legal terms of art such as “immigrant”, “legal alien”, “asylum seeker”. I ask them to wait while I attempt to understand the terms. Unfortunately, you are no help, as you mix and match these terms with reckless abandon, even though you surely know better. The simple (Republican) solution is to encourage my fear that all 100 are at my door with their babies to take my house, throw my family out or burn it down. Then you attempt to convince me that my Democratic choice of measured action and my Republican neighbor’s “keep out “ choice are equivalent. Sad David.
1
Mr. Brooks, your compulsion to find equivalence on the right and left is, as usual, laughable. Only one side has an immigration platform based on racism, xenophobia and blatant lies. Only one side has been responsible for a "zero tolerance" policy that resulted in thousands of children being separated from their parents and placed in cages. There is no equivalence, and your relentless efforts to spin an "equivalence" narrative are not only dishonest, they appear to be pathological.
2
Trump says America is "full", meaning no room at the inn for asylum seekers or illegal border crossers. After all this time, all this ignorance and cruelty, lies and vengeance, I have had my fill. I have reached Peak Trump.
1
Wait. You're criticizing Democrats for the border problem?
Or doing a "both sides are to blame" shtick?
Look, Mr. Brooks. We have a bigot in the White House, and a Republican Party that has abandoned what few principles it ever had to toady to him. No humane proposal can get past that, and it's not the Democrats' fault.
Your guys are the villains here.
3
This column is a model of ethical policy analysis. Bravo Mr. Brooks. You lift me up this morning.
1
Julian Castro's plan will work really well...at mobilizing all of Latin America to head North for sure.
2
Setting aside your infernal false equivalence, David, this otherwise commendable column, more than any recent other, begs—no screams—the question: How can you possibly continue to call yourself a Republican in today’s Trumpublican Party?
2
This "crisis" is one of loud mouth Trumps own making. If you threaten to close the border, as POTUS mouth w/o a brain proclaimed, everyone south of it who had any inclination to cross it will go now, rather than to risk not getting across later. Cutting US aid to the very countries producing the refugees only exacerbates the situation. One couldn't have imaged a more perfect storm of stupidity from the Oval Office.
Please, take away the phone, take away the TV (Fox and Friends and Sean Hannity), and eliminate the phony "executive time". If this POTUS doesn't want to work (which is obvious) get rid of him.
Thanks, David, for another false equivalence story.
No one has ever explained to Brooks that the job of an opposition party is to oppose - to point out the flaws in the policies of the governing party, to highlight problems the governing party is failing to address. The job of the opposition party is NOT to govern. The governing party cannot say that it has been entrusted by the voters with the responsibility of governing but blame the opposition for failing to come up with solutions to the nation's problems - that's their job. Trump told the nation that he "alone" could fix problems like immigration. Great. Let him.
1
Hmm, the author condemns democrats for not having a border strategy and yet he offers up solutions that are drawn almost word for word from the democratic playbook? I've heard call after call for shoring up the system with more resources as an alternative to Tump's multibillion dollar wall. In other words, we have a system in place that just needs to be funded. When one side is right and the other is wrong, you just need to admit it, regardless of your personal politics.
2
@Number23 I think you have Brooks confused with an actual journalist. A journalist's job is to report facts whether they favor one side or the other. But people like Brooks keep writing false equivalence stories in which they blame both sides - the one that is actually supposed to be governing as well as the one that is not - because they think that makes them seem "objective."
This editorial completely sums up my opinion of this whole affair. We need to focus on helping these people first, and then worry about the politics.
Sorry, not buying these solutions Mr. Brooks. I enjoy your work, but you are way off base on this one. This one starts and stops with Trump. His disgraceful moral attitude toward boarder issues went viral two years ago causing a panic among the constant flow of refugee's at the boarder. His boarder fears and phobia issues have morphed into our boarder crisis.
How do I know this? My bother in-law was a social worker dealing with refugee's at the boarder form 1978 until he retired last month. He's seen many refugee trends at the boarder. some much worse than this current trend. The problem this time is on our side. Trump's fear mongering has infected the refugee's and much worse the people who work at the boarder. Trump, the father of your nation is an abuser? He abuses families, boarder professionals, and children.
2
David, you wrote that we cannot take in all the refugees. Why not? This country is in desperate need of new immigrants due to a rapidly aging population and a low birth rate. I say let them come.
1
Sorry Mr. Brooks but we are being played by these people. If they were true refugees they'd be claiming asylum at the Mexican border. They know how our system is dysfunctional. Their plan - get into the US and then disappear. They'll get free healthcare, education and housing. These people know exactly what they are doing. Now if we only treated our poor citizens this well......
3
Baloney.
The situation for refugees has not changed at all, for more than a dozen years.
All those who present themselves at entry portals and request asylum through standard means are evaluated and admitted as the law provides for.
Illegal immigrants are still allowed to ask for asylum, but because they are still illegal immigrants they are detained until proceedings specified by law are completed.
Any "agony" on this side of the wall is due to poor decision making on the part of illegal immigrants.
Funny, Brooks and the other leftists at the Times never, ever, write about the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who enter this country legally every month.
But then, that would be admitting that the Trump administration might be just as legal-immigrant-friendly as was the Obama administration, and we can't have that, can we ?
But the hypocrisy of the socialists runs deep; witness the Democrats in Albany earmarking $27 million in college aid for illegal immigrants but refusing to earmark more money for the families of fallen veterans.
If socialism is so great, why isn't the caravan headed for Venezuela ?
4
Nanci Pelosi and the Democrats have not shown any interest in coming up with a solution to the border issue with or without Trump. So what have they been doing the past 100 days?
4
@Kurt Pickard
You do realize that any solution "Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats" come up with has to get by your very own Senator and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, don't you? --
Try to shift the blame elsewhere again.
And Good luck with that.
Is there a crisis at the border now? Of course there is and it needs to be ended permanently. Which Party won't even recognize that it exists, much less do something about it. Sorry Mr. Brooks and the NYT, it ain't the Republicans and the President.
2
The solution is not at the border, it should be fixing what is wrong in the countries the immigrants are fleeing. The comparison with Jews fleeing Europe in the late 30's and early 40's has been made. Yes more lives would have been saved by allowing more to enter the US. But millions more would have been saved by defeating National Socialism earlier. Maybe we need the UN to go in and establish order.
Dear Mr. Brooks:
With this paragraph, you made it official--you are not a Republican any more:
"It’s our obligation and joy to reach out to them with a hand of solidarity. It’s barbarism to send them back to lawlessness."
You are the kind of honorable old-fashioned conservative that does not seem to exist any more. Lonely? The Democrats could use your voice. Come on over.
1
I'm confused. Is this an article about how our immigration system can't deal with a problem or how our politicians can't deal with any problems? Very clever, Mr Brookes, but now I truly am wondering about our future or what it will take to bring us back together.
Unfortunately, sometimes it needs to get worse before people drop their egos and start working together. That's what scares me.
Why can't we take in all who want to come? 1. For 189 years -- until 1964 -- anyone born in the Western Hemisphere was not subject to a quota. 2. WE invaded THEM. Texas, California. 3. Market forces will sort them out. 4. They don't all want to come at the same time. 5. WE helped create THEIR situation: United Fruit made their coountries banana republics, which defines our moral responsibility. 6. WE need THEM. 7. They pay our taxes when they work here; taxation without representation is tyranny. 8. THEY are NO THREAT to US.
Come now, Mr. Brooks. The answer is obvious. The last thing the current government (ie Republicans) want is a workable solution to the border and associated immigration "problems". The same could be said for the nation's racial divide, LGBT rights or their opposition to the right to choose. They can't possibly win an election based on their economic policies which are demonstrably intended to do nothing more that further enrich the already rich at the expense of the not-so-rich. So they divert attention from the real agenda by using a wide variety of social wedge issues. The last thing they want is to have these problems "solved" -- then they'd have to invent a a whole new set of red herrings.
FALSE EQUIVALENCE. The autocrat is separating children from parents, doing unconstitutional things, and the like. The Democrats are at this point unable to do anything because Mitch McConnell prefers to avoid having legislation vetoed by his lord and master.
Practical responses await somebody practical in the White House. You seem to prefer the status quo which entitles you to lambast everybody.
1
"The first cry of your heart would be to take them in, but you’d know there were too many. This quote reminded me of the movie 'Schindler's List'. If Oskar Schindler had focused on the entirety of the Holocaust he may never had done what he did. There were 'too many' but he was able to save some.
Maybe there are too many potential refugees on our Southern border. Too many for cities like El Paso and McAllen. But many of our states, cities and small towns are losing population and would love to have the chance to be revitalized by newcomers. Mr. Trump has threatened to send these migrants to 'sanctuary cities'. He sees that as a punishment but cities like Detroit and Dayton might welcome them.
To attempt to equate Democrats’ and Republicans’ motives/actions/reactions regarding immigration is, in a word, outrageous.
To equate anyone’s narcissism with Trump’s (malignant) narcissism is a David vs Goliath comparison.
What I like about this is that you outline a plan, you provide a blueprint for a solution. Good for you!! As self evident as it is, it is so badly needed. We have become so deaf, so jaded to this need. What I continually find objectionable is your false narrative that Democrats are as bad as Republicans on this issue. Has the drumbeat to more effectively treat this humanitarian crisis at the border - has that drumbeat lowered from Democrats? No. It certainly is not covered as much by the media, that is for sure. If Democrats are reluctant to declare the emergency Trump has declared it is because he wants to devote those additional resources to a non-solution: Wall, troops, and denial of access at the border. Your call, and criticism, is aimed at Democrats, however. Why? Why not ask Republicans to also answer the call? Or why not call out to both parties to jointly make the case to the President? Or why not make the plea to corporations and billionaires and the billionaire candidates who just got a huge tax break to Do Something - to point the way. How about a mega Go Fund Me effort to produce the resources needed to "do the right thing". Why simply try to shame Democrats? Shame on everyone for inaction. I think that is a fairer criticism, and one that has a better chance of inspiration action. Action is needed. That is a certainty. Keep raising this issue please, every week, and keep up the good work in focusing our attention on what matters most.
My two cents about the general Trump situation:
This mess of scams and lies and cons seems similar to having an impaired/alcoholic person in your family.
There is constant turmoil and just when you take a breath it happens again....a manic pace of trouble that is draining.
Donald just lives this way...he is extremely impaired.
So what happens? Like the family situation....it can't be fixed. It continues on and on until the impaired person dies or goes to jail or others get so tired of it they give up on him.
In this case there are powerful enablers so this is going to continue until Donald self destructs
Investigations and impeachments and rulings against and consequences unfortunately only make a person like this fight more.
"You cooperate with Mexico to jointly tackle this challenge we face together."......The problem at the border didn't exist when Obama was President. Illegal immigration into the U.S. was at a 40 year low and there were no caravans from Honduras, Guatemala, and Al Salvador crossing the length of Mexico. Something has obviously changed. I wonder, if you repeatedly call Mexicans rapists and murders, if you can't get a fair trial from a judge with Mexican ancestry, I wonder if that has anything to do with the level of cooperation that we might expect from our neighbors in helping to secure our southern border.
1
Funny, somehow we managed 11 years ago (when the numbers were last this high) and 20 years ago (when the numbers were orders of magnitude higher).
What has changed? Trump WANTS a disaster on the border; the Republicans WANT the government to fail. That is their philosophy and they want it to be self-fulfilling. "Look I created horrible conditions and it proves there are horrible conditions!"
Until that changes, nothing good can be salvage from the Republican wreckage.
1
I have said it a 100 times and I will say it again. Scrap all immigration laws then...
1. Every 10 years when the census is done Congress decides how many immigrants a year are allowed in for the next decade.(personally, I do not care if they open the border or pick zero). A lottery will pick that number from anyone around the world that wants in.
2. One time, 4 year student or work visa's with it a felony with a minimum sentence of 4 years if you overstay.
3. The president, each member of congress, and the governor of each state each get 100 slots a year to pick a person (or family of 4) for any reason they like.
4. Every business and person in the USA has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that their employee is legal to be in the USA. Business license forfeiture if you are wrong three times and big fines and mandatory communality service for none business individuals.
A simple plan that would take one page of text. Fair in that geniuses and laborers would all get an equal chance of becoming American's.
Periodically, David comes across with a fine, well thought out point of view. This is one of the moments. Our disgrace is in the white house, its in the GOP, and its in the US electorate. Many Americans just don't care about any of this. Put up a wall, let em die. America has always had a mean streak. Its only that liberals prevailed for so many years that we had the reputation of the "beacon of freedom & liberty". Now that the conservatives are holding sway we see the other side. The dark side.
1
A country of 350 million can certainly take in many more refugees than we are currently taking, in fact we need this kind of low skilled labor, even the president private business rely on them. If you know that countries who are way less affluent than we are have taken in refugees that equal 10 and sometime 15% of their population, the United States have long ways to go to do its fair share of dealing with the refugee crisis. Lebanon, a country of 6 million, has over 1 million refugees, so does Jordan. Turkey opened its doors to over 3 million refugees, Germany took one million. I agree that the politicians of both sides must agree on a plan but how can the democrats sit across the table from someone who label the most vulnerable and needy as criminals and rapists. What common ground can any sane, well meaning politician have with the current president and his administrating of racist, white nationalists. Blame both sides all you want but until the current administration changes the narrative and recognize the crisis as humanitarian and not safety crisis there is no point in talking to this president and his evil followers.
It's pure folly to expect that the Trumpist Republican Party, now racist and nativist by design, might somehow craft an immigration policy that's both fair to would-be immigrants and--equally important--to the concept that it's an obvious responsibility of every responsible nation to adequately control its borders.
That said, there will be no comprehensive reform of an obviously broken immigration system now in place until the Democrats control both House of Congress in January, 2021. The current chaos, left to run its unpredictable course, provides Trump the perfect opportunity to rally his base and perhaps attract more mainstream voters fed up with an on-going, seemingly 'unsolvable' crisis.
However, it's my belief that there will be no Democratic control of Congress in 2021 if the party is unable to articulate a fair and humane border policy--one that most Americans can embrace--and present it as the first order of business after Trump's eviction from the White House.
How ironic the present situation is at the border! In the early Eighties, I was attending an annual conference of our Medical Device Industry in Washington DC in which, among other issues, a worldwide threat assessment was given to us by a three star general from the Pentagon. After this session a crowd gathered around the General with numerous questions being asked of him.
My question was, “ General, of all the world problems what should we be worried about the most?” Without hesitation he said, “Mexico”. We all were stunned. He explained, “What will we do when a million or so folks show up at our Southern border and demand entrance?” He was suggesting that our military might be called upon despite their not to be used as a “Posse Comitatus”.
Perhaps, we are in the moment he feared.
@WSF
There was no NAFTA then. Canada, Mexico, United States. The rest of North America? Forgotten?
LIke a typical military guy, he didn't see people outside our borders as actual human beings, only as a threats. Sad, really.
Humanity is a failed species.
How convenient for most of the commentators below to forget that Obama significantly upped deportations. Aggressive policing of immigration laws began under the sainted ex; Trump has merely ratcheted up the rhetoric.
Both parties pander shamelessly on this issue. Weirdly, both parties (leaving Trump's yap-yap out of the equation) want the same thing...more immigration. Repubs want more cheap labor that won't talk back or get organized; Dems want more voters and, at the technocratic fringe, more workers who will code quietly on a temporary table in a temporary job.
In both cases, the goal is more, cheaper, docile, easily-disposable labor. That's the real immigration story; the 100 families on your doorstep is just claptrap.
I believe the mission statement for America is to be the light of freedom that others can emulate, not the rescue ship to all that gave up. They flee their own homeland because of a lack of rule of law and then bleeding heart liberals feel we should lessen our rules of law these masses so desire just so they can squeeze in. My hat is off to U.S. legal teams that are in these countries attempting to help them establish their own rule of law. A problem is never solved unless the cause instead of the symptom is addressed.
Sorry David, this catastrophe belongs solely to
Trump and the anti immigrant members of the Republican party who have passed on or simply
blocked the many reasonable reforms that have
been submitted in recent years some of which had bipartisan support. This belongs to a very
poor President who is a particularly cruel
human being.
It is the republican party that is at fault. There have been bi-partisan bills that got all but this party's ultra right conservatives to sign on to them with many of the provisions Brooks writes about. (Note: some of these conservatives are also confirmed racists by their past remarks and behavior - just like the President they follow - who as the owner of homes in NY was convicted many times with illegal outsters of people of color from his apartments...all before his deplorable endorsement of white supremacists in Charlottesville being 'good people'). Blaming the Democrats, suggesting they don't have a plan for immigration is like claiming Obama's birth certificate is forged. It is just false. Vote the conservatives out of office, beginning with the Trump apologists and enablers, Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham. Then see how great our country can be, for citizens and those huddled masses longing to be free. We can be great but a nation under Trump will never be.
1
5 billion dollars could go far in building a city using American workers and populate it with refugees.
Or simply upgrade the immigration system to help process those in need of refuge and stem unlawful entering (by boat and plane) of drugs.
Not build a symbolic wall or close the border.
David Brooks: There are already hundreds of desperate, dirty, bedraggled people on my doorstep. They are the homeless, many of whom are elderly veterans, the disabled and/or mentally ill. We've appropriated money in Los Angeles to deal with homelessness but the problem keeps growing. Add to that thousands of asylum seekers and regular citizens are as divided and overwhelmed as our politicians. Here in Los Angeles we have it all. I have admiration for the people on the ground who are trying to make things better for all these unfortunate human beings. I am waiting to hear real ideas from those running for President in 2020, other than simply pointing out the hateful rhetoric and cruelty of Trump and his enablers.
When the history of this time is written who will stand out as the leader of the destruction of American goodness (don't laugh), as the beacon of freedom for all--Mitch McConnell.
The first sentence of this piece is a false equivalence. 100 families outside my door? More like one immigrant in the town square of my small town of 6000 people. Republicans should really avoid math.
1
Border between the U.S. and Canada is OK. But why is the border between the U.S. and Mexico not OK?
These immigrants come to the U.S. primarily to escape problems in their native countries (Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama) which includes a stagnant economy, high levels of crime, political corruption and widespread drug use. There is a legal way to request a green card to enter the U.S., however unlawful mobs entry is not allowed. Shame and disgrace of all these central American countries and their governments who fail to feed their people, to give them medical care, good housing, and jobs. These central American countries and their governments are the ones at fault.
Sorry that your country does not love you anymore. To find true love you need to find and walk on God’s Holy road which will one day open the gate to His Kingdom in Heaven. The road you are currently walking is man made and will only bring you tears and despair, darkness and regrets.
David you need to take off your rose colored glasses and look out your ivory tower window. If you did you would see shivering, hungry homeless people in every major city and most small towns. When they knock on their neighbor's door for help the police are called. Our body politic has a long history of know nothingism littered with political leaders who spoke truth to the power of voters...McGovern, Carter, Mondale, Gore and HRC to name the few in my 70 year life time. I recall how HRC was castigated by just about everyone when one her speeches about creating an EU type of system in the America was leaked. Her idea of letting labor as well as capital move freely among neighbors was red meat for the fox news obsessed. Sorry for the cynicism but neither left nor right are really interested in solutions.
1
"The murder rate in El Salvador has fallen in half since 2015"
According to statistics provided by a failed state.
1
Not so long ago, a bi-partisan immigration reform bill passed the Senate; it would have passed in the House but it was blocked by the "Hastert Rule" (i.e., Republican speaker refused to allow it to come to the floor for a vote because it didn't have a majority within the GOP in favor - it would have - HORRORS! - passed with Democratic support). So please don't whine about "both sides are to blame."
1
Mr. Brooks has correctly identified the immediate short term needs to deal with what he correctly describes as "Our Disgrace at the Border" As to the long term need for a thoughtful immigration policy would he acknowledge that if the Democrats in the House reintroduced the 2013 immigration bill that it would die in the Senate? If so what would he suggest that Democrats should do before the 2010 election?
2
Spot On, Mr. Brooks. As usual, you are the Voice of Reason. Neither party is interested in doing what is right for the legitimate refugees, OR our own country. Thank you for noting that we simply can NOT just open the borders and let anyone walk on in. While I am a moderate conservative, who believes we absolutely NEED to control our borders, (and who enters them), we also need to show compassion for true victims, NOT those seeking economic 'asylum'. I do believe it should start by filtering out all working age, able-bodied men, they should be turned back to go fight to fix their native country, so that the need for any exodus is reduced or eliminated. No reason why we can't offer help, (even temporarily), for women and young children. But NO more anchor babies, OR chain migration.
1
Immigrants are willing to do low paying jobs that Americans do not want, and are willing to move to find them. Americans are less mobile now, with people stuck in decaying Rust Belt towns unwilling to move or take those jobs. I moved from the Rust Belt to find opportunities and a better location, many Trump voters will not or are too old now anyway. In large agricultural states like California, the immigrant labor force has been the backbone of the industry for a long time, Republicans talk the talk but really don't want to disturb that dynamic.
“This is what happens when the politics of practical action get replaced by the politics of performative narcissism.”
It goes even deeper and broader and more insidious than that David.
Those coming in their many thousands month after month from the nightmare to the far south know that they can leverage our chaos and our profound political disability. Trump as their nemesis is actually Trump the enabler.
And now into the season of our greatest
American political insanity — the time of the all encompassing Presidential campaign extravaganza when nothing resembling practical political action will survive for even a nano second.
Brooks has some worthwhile suggestions, but, I agree, the effort to make the Democrats equivalent to the Republicans on this issue is tiresome. Commenters have made the case that there have been bipartisan efforts to solve the immigration problem, but, in fact, the Republicans in power have not been willing to go that route. The current administration is cruel and self-absorbed. Trump is not going to change. The Democrats should continue pushing for constructive immigration reform and show the public that it is Trump and his supporters who are the problem.
4
Most Americans, like everyone else in the West, are convinced that too much immigration, by and large, is a bad thing: "Immigrants are prepared to do the same jobs for less pay", "putting pressure on our public services", etc. even if the reality is different. This is important to understand.
Trump is making sure Republicans own being against more immigration. In the binary US political climate, this automatically positions Democrats on the defense as being pro immigration unless they speak up.
The way out of this trap is to adopt the position of lower immigration numbers, but with a humane and fair treatment of those who arrive at our borders.
1
If the Democratic nominee for president simply criticise Trump's border policies as too harsh and fails to come up with something strong and sensible and serious he or she will lose.
3
It's time for decent self-interest to modulate the tone of progressive politicians. Instead oif preaching "This isn't who we are !" the rationalists must address the political atmosphere, the broad sense of anxiety - that few feel they are safe or have enough as the world changes, populations age, jobs dry up, corporate profiteering favors short term strategies with casualties.
We need a way to handle refugees - soon from environmental as well as economic/civil war disasters- because we want to maintain order, civilization and public health.
Yes- it is also moral to attempt simple decency...but our selfish interests are valid and motivating.
Encampments of homeless tent dwellers are filling city streets- 'domestic refugees' from low wages, poor education, daunting tech jobs & housing costs. Statistically, our 'domestic refugees' are far more impaired than the ones at the border.
2
How many decades has it been that immigration policy has been dominated by politics on both sides. Senator Kennedy, a man I otherwise greatly admire, gave Ireland virtually a free pass on immigration quotas 40 years ago. Lots of potential new Democratic voters there until abortion became an issue. So now Republicans grow alarmed about Central American refugees as future Democratic voters, seeing Latina/o strength growing in Texas and Arizona. You rightly call for a balance between giving refugees more room in the US while admitting immigrants with skills. This can be accomplished only with stricter limits on family reunification. And this is something we Democrats seem not to abide. As you say, we need our hearts tempered by our head. One need look no further than Western Europe.
Ellis Island, a single immigration center on a tiny island in New York harbor, handled as many as 5000 immigrants A DAY. Twelve million over the years. Fairly humanely. One third of us have ancestors who arrived this way. Much later, the US allowed our embassies to do pre-processing. And we can’t, with lots of nice flat land, good roads, computers, medicine and actual huge federal agencies, handle big crowds? Or have our Central American embassies help out?
Lost our way.
4
I was about to excoriate David Brooks for his reference to "both sides." It's a common refrain in his writing.
But this time he has it right (and, yes, it pains me to write that). He has correctly characterized the Trumpist vile cruelty. Well done.
And he has rightly observed that most Democrats are hemming and hawing and waiting to see which way the wind is blowing before taking a stand. Granted, thanks to Trump there are too many issues that have to be addressed, too much damage that he has caused that needs a response and a major correction. But if they claim the moral high ground (though, let's face it, a rabid ferret can claim the moral high ground when it comes to Trump and Republicans), they need to come up with a plan. It may not be perfect, but it should be intelligent, compassionate, and principled. That stand may enhance their candidacy or it may tank it. But Democrats need to stop acting in reactive mode all the time and take the lead.
3
The only workable solution would be to address the economic and social problems in Mexico Central America. Exploitative capitalism and the failed war on drugs have caused the underlying problems while past administrations have spent billions on wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. And of course huge foreign aid packages have gone across the Atlantic Ocean while our neighbors have been ignored for the most part.
1
"The field is wide open for the Democrats to come forth with a decent plan." The problem as Brooks knows is that the Republicans left their decency at the door years ago.
4
The columnist did a jump start and finished at a clear line. The initial argument is true to an extent that an individual has no sufficient capacity to accept the people who come to seek a help as a group. Intentions and efforts are not enough. It would consequentially become as if a thin thread were thrown to those who rush to grab it in mass. On the other hand, charity organizations tend to be entangled into local interests. One cannot be sure how donations are handled. The other factor is that charity entities employ their sophistications fully to illustrate themselves as angelic and successful toward the public. Brooks is right to summarize that the measures need to be operated practically by the governmental authorities. The last line of the column shows his good landing. The abruptness of it was a bit of sunrise (for me), but Brooks drew a line between the electoral strategies of politicians and the urgent needs for actions.
How many Christian communities do have in this country? Mr. Brooks gives us part of the solution in his opening paragraph, why not abbreviate the process time and have these families released to the willing members of these communities throughout this country until the courts decide there fate? Oh, I just remembered these same communities voted for the man who is the antithesis of the golden rule the very man who is screaming at the weary travelers that there is no room at the inn.
1
David - you’re asking for common sense to prevail. We haven’t seen common sense in action for a very long time anywhere in our elected officials - or integrity. Your suggestions are good and ones that anyone would come up with if they really wanted solutions. I suggest locking all the CEOs who benefited for years from the cheap labor coming across the border (hiring them is illegal!) in a room together; they don’t come out until they create a workable, common sense solution to address what is in actuality a real problem. This could have been solved years ago but for the posturing and pandering of elected officials.
The refugee problem is not just at our southern border; it is worldwide and it will only increase. The whole world needs to contemplate what to do with millions of refugees; there should be a world counsel to study this dire situation. We all know that climate change will drastically increase refugee desperation in the near future.
4
David Brooks is partially correct, but the refugees trying to enter the U.S. are really just a symptom of a much, much deeper problem that he mentions but does not address: the violence in these Central American countries, violence that stems in large part from drug gangs.
And what is it that fuels these drug gangs? Drug consumption, largely in the the U.S. Yes, tackle the crisis at the border, but also the violence in their home countries and the drug use in their country of destination.
There is NO easy solution, but doing nothing guarantees that the problems will never be solved.
6
He mentioned both.
1
I would agree with the short term solutions. But why weren’t the long term solutions implemented long ago so they would now be the short term ones. Where is the OAS? Why haven’t the member states viciously cracked down on their murderous neighbors? It seems to me that “wanna be” countries like El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala could be forced to combine for their mutual benefit. If their leaders are too corrupt to eliminate the causes of savagery in their countries, then it should be obligation of the OAS to do it for them.
1
Good article. But not surprising given that this is, and has always been a "showbiz president" -- that's what the Americans who voted for him liked about him.
And granted, Democrats have basically been mum on the subject of immigration well before this recent mass exodus from some Central American countries began.
But then again, Mr. Trump has wasted no time putting words in their mouths, content to make them appear like "un-American" proponents of unlimited migration.
Why else would the White House consider sending asylum-seekers only to 'Sanctuary Cities'?
Still, one must wonder -- would all this anti-immigrant rhetoric be coming from him if they were from Norway? ?
2
David, thank you again for an excellent opinion piece. I hope that your suggestions will be seriously addressed by politicians on both sides of the aisle. The status quo is unsustainable.
1
This is a very balanced column, setting forth a very balanced approach. The Democratic candidate with the sense and courage to adopt this approach should get the nod. if no Democratic candidate will adopt this, or if a contrary approach wins the nomination, then, alas, Trump will win again.
Having said all that, if the people surging North were white, we’d be taking all of them. In fact, the Right would welcome white immigration on this scale.
1
"It’s barbarism to send them back to lawlessness."
Very well said. Agreeing on this should help eliminate a lot of silly ideas from getting much consideration.
"The U.S. cannot take in everybody who wants to come. So the first task is to set priorities."
How do we know this, and, more importantly, how do we reconcile this with the above?
"The murder rate in El Salvador has fallen in half since 2015"
Is this evidence of law and order and personal freedom, or of official or de facto rule by criminals that are now facing far fewer challenges? I have no idea, but on its own this means little. Plucking a statistic out of the air is not a compelling argument.
"Vet children in their home countries"
They are, um, children. Do you want to find out if they steal lunch money from other kids? What happens when they try to leave but are turned back, since this is the kind of things authoritarians and criminal gangs tend to pay attention to? Please refer to "It’s barbarism to send them back to lawlessness."
"You might shift to a more skills-based immigration system while increasing the number of refugees we take in each year."
Removing many highly trained people would contribute greatly to the deterioration of a struggling society, inevitably leading to violations of "It’s barbarism to send them back to lawlessness."
"Over the long term, you help build better police and justice systems in the home countries."
Amen. Let's end on a high note.
This political posturing that is going on in Washington needs to stop! David Brooks has a good plan to relieve the border situation and the immigration situation, but obviously no one in Washington is attempting to even begin to solve the problem. A wall will not do it! Prayers will not do it! Action needs to be taken immediately- but that is a pipe dream. It is so discouraging the situation this nation is in now. Leadership is lacking ! We need a change in attitude and in action on the part of both the Democratic and Republican parties!
1
As a purely practical matter of getting elected the Democrats need to do promote some immigration legislation, or multiple legislative efforts, before the 2020 election – something, anything to indicate to the voters that this issue matters to them. ”There is no crisis” won’t work. It makes no difference if Republicans defeat every measure they put forward; Democrats have to show good faith.
Either that or get ready for four more years of Donald Trump because that’s the issue he is running on, the issue his base understands.
3
What I find most important and good in David Brooks' thinking is his promotion of principle. This what I find so often lacking in today's political circus/quagmire: so little starts we the questions of principle in how we should act and them moving to the pragmatic of what will most effectively accomplish principled goals.
So I say thank you for bringing such discussions by back into the discourse.
President Trump ran on a policy of stopping American wealth from flowing across our borders, keeping it all to ourselves. What did he think would happen? If you take the food off your brother's table, he will come sit at your table. As with all of his policies, he never could see past the slogans. Obama made a start, with a solution for the Dreamers, but if Democrats had come up with a comprehensive solution, Trump would have reversed it by now. Why? Because he can!
There is much talk about the various democratic candidates “picking a lane”. My advice is one of them should pick the immigration lane.
There is a significant crack in Trump’s handling of the crisis. Heck, he just wiped out the entire department whose only fault was following his orders.
The contrast to Trump would be real and consequential. Trump wants $25 billion for a wall to keep “them” out. I’d take that same $25 billion and rather than build a wall, devise a plan that spends the money more effectively.
The Democrat candidate who admits there’s an issue, and then proposes a set of solutions will gain immediate credibility.
I’d start by reminding voters that Mexico didn’t pay for the wall, and that Trump then shut the government down for 35 days in a hissy fit.
If a democratic candidate can’t figure out a way to offer a sensible contrast to Trump’s (and Steven Miller’s) awful ideas, given Trump’s failed promises and total mismanagement of the situation, then that will be a major missed opportunity.
To the 20+ candidates vying for the nomination—this is your chance to make inroads on THEIR issue. Don’t blow it.
3
"The U.S. cannot take in everybody who wants to come." What does this mean? How do we know? On one level, we *could* do so if we wanted to devote resources to it. On another level, the dropping workforce participation demographics suggest that we need more workers, and studies have shown that immigrants contribute far more to the economy than any benefits they use. Finally, the notion that the country is "full" is ludicrous, looked at in terms of geography. Obviously screening is necessary to prevent known criminals from entering, but not many of those said to be escaping hardship are likely to fall into that category. So what is the basis for the judgment that "The US cannot take everybody who wants to come"?
Great link to Sonia Nazario's powerful opinion piece:
"If we turn our backs now on Central American women who are running for their lives, we will be failing to meet the lowest possible bar for human rights."
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/05/opinion/honduras-women-murders.html?module=inline
Mr Brooks chooses making good on our American Leadership claim versus the current emptiness of political will ("Take them all" & "Go away").
Correct, both parties must unite behind Brooks' accurate encapsulation of the necessary Herculean effort: "Over long term, you help build better police and justice systems in the home countries. You cooperate with Mexico to jointly tackle this challenge we face together."
A "more skills-based immigration system"? That's a corporate desire. As a bargaining chip, I'd concede it as a component. Increase work visas/lottery allotments for countries with students studying at our schools. Include reciprocating agreements, so all talented youth can fulfill their potential.
But, big picture? Our corporations can develop talent with paid internships. As for Stephen Miller's "golden ticket" announcement that underpinned the Who-You-Know condo sales by Trump sons in India? That's why it stays a lottery of qualified apllicants. NOT SCORED (i.e. hand-picked) to fulfill the ambitions of property owners & developers and their multi-national corporation clients.
Put "Immigration is not for grifting" stickers on all government vehicle bumpers.
1
This column is "paradigmatic" of the lofty media, print and televised, that hides behind the curtain of "false equivalencies". I am disappointed to find "Both parties are content to ...." in this piece. The Republican Party is a stage four cancer on our Democracy. Trump is dismantling and/or delegitimizing every agency he can, appointing unqualified individuals as "acting" heads of agencies whose only qualification needed is loyalty to him (to keep the job). The House Republicans, when in control and maybe more so now, afraid of being primaried if Trump opposed them, give him undying support. The Senate Republicans, perhaps less afraid than they should be of being primaried (their time will come), support Trump because they don't care what he does so long as he nominates far right, ultra conservative, thirty year old judges to the Federal courts, securing control of the judiciary for the next 50 years. And looking forward to the time they next control the House and Senate. The Democrats, as inept as they have been bringing a pistol to an AR15 gun fight with Republicans, are not the mirror image of the the Republicans. The Democrats held over a hundred hearings with thousands of hours of testimony passing Obamacare. Republicans spent little time and less effort (with no replacement plan) to kill Obamacare. The two parties are not "both". Look at the photo of the newly elected Democratic members of the House of Representative.
Thank you for this piece, Mr. Brooks.
You're absolutely right: "In the age of Trump, national politics is showbiz — self-righteous performance art to make the base feel good about itself."
The way we practice politics in our society is a national shame, of which Trump (our national disgrace) is the, symptom, consequence, and epitome.
3
Thank you, David, for clearly and accurately stating the sad reality. We appear completely unable as a country to address our most pressing issues. Trump is a cruel and ignorant opportunist - a "problem exploiter" not a problem solver, as someone put it. I used to identify as a Democrat, but have been disappointed by just what you say is happening: "The candidates are not sure if they can deviate from wherever the social media warriors have defined the leftward edge." How is this different from Trump only playing to his base? Being an "Independent" in this landscape leads me nowhere, sadly. Important ideas about critical issues, practical plans (even if every last point isn't acceptable to a "base") - this is what we need! Trump needs to be defeated, but I fear no one is stepping up to say "these things are hard, and no one gets everything they want, but here's a plan to start fixing this."
Brooks has described a major motivation for immigration.
The other major motivation is cheap labor.
As long as the voracious demand for cheap labor is not fully acknowledged, this dysfunctional situation will endure.
Good opinion piece, Davis Brooks, and much to sensible in today's political climate. Our immigration system has been broken for decades and through administrations of both parties. Unfortunately, purity of ideology will never get the job done, just exacerbate existing problems. Since compromise has become the equivalent of a 4-letter vulgarity, immigration will continue to vex this country.
We’ve been watching this immigration problem in Europe before it got to such crisis proportions here. Europe never came to a real solution and we haven’t either. We just kick the can down the road.Brooks proposals make too much common sense to ever be adopted. We’ll just keep burying our heads in the sand like ostriches and let chaos rule. It’s a lot like people without tickets crashing the gate at Woodstock. There’s all these employers who say they can”t find workers, so this is just probably economic determinism at work. In the short run, this is going to work out badly. In the long run, maybe not so bad.
"And in that way the border crisis is paradigmatic of our politics right now. Both parties are content to adopt abstract ideological postures. Neither is interested in creating a functioning system that balances trade-offs and actually works."
Brooks just loves his false equivalence.
It's NOT both Democrats and Republicans being "content to adopt abstract ideological postures." It's Republicans rejecting any ideas that might fix the problem.
It's Trump and his merry aide, Stephen Miller, devising the cruelest possible means of discouraging Central Americans from even asking for asylum.
It's a Republican administration snatching little kids from their parents, storing them in cages, then claiming they're only doing what Obama did.
It's Trump declaring he's going to defy a court-ordered cease and desist on the child kidnapping, while defying any measure of good sense by closing the border.
My guess is closing the border would mean deploying every military unit we possess to guard against women and children entering our beloved nation, the country alleged to be the most welcoming of all, the country built by immigrants from everywhere.
Everyone paying even the slightest attention knows those things. David Brooks appears to be paying very nearly zero attention to the disaster his "conservative" friends wrought in 2016.
2
This is the result of politicians who refuse to compromise. This is the fault of an electorate who sends them to Washington.
1
Sorry David. We get a little tired of your "both sides" argument. Comprehensive immigration reform has been negotiated in good faith by bipartisan members of Congress only to be stymied by immigration hardliners on the right (looking at you "Freedom Caucus").
The bones of an immigration deal are there but good luck in forging anything while Trump and Stephen Miller hold the reins of power. The only thing immigrants are good for in their eyes is use as a political wedge.
3
Here's a simple solution: Canada is a huge country with relatively few people in it. Why not offer to transport refugees across the US to Canada, and pay Canada a reasonable amount of money to help settle the refugees there. It seems like it would be cheaper than what we're doing now. Looks like a win-win to me. Multiple studies have show that immigrants are a boost to the economy over the long run. If Canadians aren't willing to do this I'd take a good hard look and wonder why.
1
@Dave Sorry, but Donald doesn't do diplomacy.
1
If Mr. Trump was committed to making the government work he would hire the staff needed to process those seeking refuge in a timely and even handed fashion... but those new hires would be "bureaucrats" in the GOP parlance. The POTUS and his GOP allies prefer to funnel refugees to understaffed points of entry to prove that "government is the problem" and offer "tough policing" and "hardened borders" as the solution. Until a Democrat (or better yet a member of the GOP) is willing to underscore that MORE government is the SOLUTION in this case the manufactured crisis will continue and more and more Americans will see that "government is the problem" and more police and more walls is the solution.
I was in Tijuana yesterday, meeting with pastors, migrants, and deportees. I rarely agree with DB on his opinion pieces. But, this time is different.
Once you're on the ground, meeting with people, hearing their stories, and observing the limited collaboration of the churches and virtually zero-engagement from the state, you realize the enormity of the problems. The extreme solutions do not serve anyone. Blame can be spread around.
Perhaps the worst culprits are those who simply stand back and do nothing. Second worst? People rehearsing Trump: with sincerity. Hearing Mexicans people label Central Americans like DJT was mind-blowing. Most heartening? People of all faiths who decide not to look away, and open their doors: literally. They have not been betrayed, nor violated: and they have joy.
The current policy is not 'toughness and cruelty', it is cruelty thinly disguised as toughness.
The crisis at our border is just the United States version of the migration of people from parts of the world that are ruled by corruption or are being affected by the results of climate change. This world wide problem is going forward without the leadership of the USA because the 'leader' of our country wants to emphasize 'America First'.
Am I my brother's keeper? YES I AM!
2
here's a perfect example of meaningless "ideas": vetting children in their home countries so they don't have to make a fruitless trip.
play that out: encourage migrants to leave their children behind while they come and apply for a status that might take 2 years to adjudicate - less and less likely, whether they are fleeing poverty (what will those kids left behind do for money at their tender ages including babies) or violence (perfect way to hand over innocent child hostages to predators, gangs, and human traffickers). and the idea doesn't promise much for the migrant family head (odds that the trip will be "fruitless" based on what: a roll of the dice?). so the only party it benefits are American immigration critics who don't want to be accused of being unkind to children in the process and a U.S. government who doesn't want to pay for quarantine, holding facilities, food and medical attention for the kids for the duration. So, Not an idea that helps the migrants or their kids one whit. But gee it sure sounds compassionate - Not.
no wonder there is gridlock. you can't just "brainstorm" from an office about real lives and think you are advancing the conversation.
1
David - another example of political false equivalency.
It is a Republican administration that has brought this Republican manufactured ‘crusis’ upon us.
2
"Neither is interested in creating a functioning system that balances trade-offs and actually works."
Actually, in recent years there have been several bi-partisan attempts at comprehensive immigration reform, including legislation passed by the Senate and denied a vote by Boehner.
All have been torpedoed by Republicans.
It's past time for Democrats to revive one of those bills, update it for current circumstances, and put the ball in McConnell's court. In fact they should have had this ready as soon as the new House was sworn in. So yeah, there's blame there too.
1
The disgrace at the border can be explained by one five letter proper noun. Stop trying to breath life into into a preposterous symmetry with the left.
3
"Suppose one night there is a knock on your door. You open it to find 100 bedraggled families shivering in your yard — exhausted, filthy, terrified. The first cry of your heart would be to take them in, but you’d know there were too many.
But you’d still do something."
Wouldn't you just let 'em in your house? Don't worry about the horror stories you might have heard about them. Who knows what their backgrounds are but let's not be gripped by a fear of the unknown! With all the compassion and empathy that flows from the print on the NYT OP-ED pages that would appear to be your course of action. I'm sure you would do that, right? In fact you could probably find "100 bedraggled families" in the NYC area right now. So put your compassion to work and do tell how all that worked out for you.
Or you could just tell yourself, your neighbors and your readers there are no "100 bedraggled families" at your door. Tell everyone it's just fear mongering on the part of old white men who don't want to lose control of their household and fear people who don't look like them. Maybe the 100 will turn into 200, 500, 1000? At that point, you can go back to hammering on the folks in flyover country and talk about their lack of empathy and compassion.
Given that the former probably isn't going to happen as that would require you to walk the talk, you'll go with the latter which will segue into you hammering on the folks in flyover country.
Your analogy was perfect.
2
For the time being, why not resettle the folks in areas which want them? I am sure San Francisco and especially Marin County would happily absorb 50 thousand or so. 😉
4
As the pews fill up on Palm Sunday and the words of Jesus are recited throughout the land, who amongst us will welcome the stranger?
5
@Alice
Thanks, Alice. Such hypocrisy, such refusal to see this as a human tragedy that could be mitigated with some plan that would deal with the issue, not a new one, simply one that has captured the beady eyes of Trump to grab this as a false issue he makes tangible with the cages w/the children, the parents taken away, the rhetoric about rapists and so forth, setting a tone since at least taking office (his own criminality moot now for the time being) so that these strangers will not be welcomed. I think particularly in pews that are upholstered as are the parishoners the words are Jesus are not heard.
"Suppose one night there is a knock on your door. You open it to find 100 bedraggled families shivering in your yard — exhausted, filthy, terrified. The first cry of your heart would be to take them in, but you’d know there were too many."
----------------
Seriously?
If 100 people showed up in my yard, I'd call 9-11. Immediately. My brain would know:
There is something wrong with that scenario in 21st Century America. I'd be very suspicious, and wonder what was going on, what their endgame was in gettting me outside...
How many people exactly make up "100 families"? People in America do not travel in packs like that. I'd take my gun, and keep it close in case they tried to break in before the cops came to figure out what they were doing on my lawn...
I suspect most would do the same, Brooks too.
2
Americans are given the sense that there is a quick fix to this. That just building something or putting an armed guard at the door will end the problem and they can go back to ignoring "those people". Many actually believe these human beings are vermin coming here to infect their pure America. This is no different than the Syrian refugees streaming into Europe. And I ask again....What would you do if you were in their shoes? And what Americans need to open their eyes and recognize is Trump's only response to this crisis is to do the most cruel things he can think of to deter these folks. Kind of like a parent whose child misbehaves so the parent turns on the burner on the stove and puts the child's hand close to the flame. If I were the Democrats I would do the exact same thing. Let the Republicans own this. Let the public see what the Republican plan is and just say to the American people....'.Republicans are an absolute disaster on immigration.We have a plan. It will be the biggest , best immigration plan you have ever seen. Democrats will be the party of immigration reform". And utter not one other word. Because Republican policy is like a pill. Take it and feel better for a little while. Then watch the side effects kick in. And then blame the doctor that prescribed it. "I am not a leader. I just play one on TV."
"Both parties are content to adopt abstract ideological postures." This is blighted sick thinking. Obama pleaded with the GOP-controlled Congress to take action on immigration. They sniggered and refused. He asked again, and finally set a date. By that date, when they had still done nothing, he acted by executive order in an area over which he hoped he had authority: the Dreamers. And the GOP still use that case to excoriate Obama and to justify a raft of executive orders by Trump. Of course, no one is doing enough at the border, but Democrats are fully occupied on pushing-back against the GOP-supported crimes committed by Trump against humanity at the border. David Brooks is on the wrong side of history. “They’re all the same” is a cop out and fits with Trump’s comments on the Neo Nazis at Charlottesville.
2
Barack Obama promised comprehensive immigration reform legislation during his first term in office.
And Obama naively thought that becoming the all time American President evil malign Deporter- in- Chief would cover his ostensible left-wing progressive flank and bring the Republicans to the table to craft bipartisan immigration reform legislation.
Obama did not hear nor understand the son of Confederate Alabama Addison Mitchell McConnell,Jr. promise to make Obama a one term President by saying no to anything the Kenyan Luo Arab Muslim socialist usurper proposed.
Obama waited to the last two years of his second term to issue an executive order dealing with Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals. A tiny fraction of the illegal immigrant population. Most of the 12 million illegals came to America legally and overstayed their visas.
International law in the wake of World War II proved asylum for refugees fleeing ethnic sectarian color aka race conflicts along with autocrats, dictators, tyrants, criminals and terrorists. Eveything but economics, education, health and politics.
With the exception of brown Native American pioneers and blsck enslaved African Americans, the USA was built by immigrants. But for immigrants and black and brown
citizens America would be an aging and shrinking nation.
The white European American Judeo-Christian majority birthrate is well below replacement level. And their life expectancy is going down.
2
David, it is clear from comments today and often that you are the New York Times King of False Equivalence.
Perhaps it is time for you to either answer your critics or write an essay on the History of The Concept of False Equivalence.
Looking forward to it.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
6
@Larry Lundgren
I read that David Brooks doesn't read comments. Based on his columns, I'd have to agree with that--plenty of serious commenters have interesting observations to make that he could learn from, but he just says the same stuff over and over. His opinions are rarely tempered with facts unless cherry picked, and both sides are always equally to blame.
People like him are why we are where we are in this country. When somewhat rational Republicans like Brooks refuse to be truthful, they give cover and credence to the Sean Hannitys and Rush Limbaughs of the world.
@Larry Lundgren
Larry, good to see you are still alive and kicking. However, your comment is off topic here. I love your comments on how Sweden is incinerating garbage to produce steam for district heating. It drives me crazy that Americans cannot get their heads around this very rational concept. Please keep expounding on this, as will I.
Best wishes, my friend.
Our Miss Brooks discovers that cruelty is at the heart of
Trump's immigration policy
He be a very very slow learner
imagine if he read his own paper
2
"Amnesty" Yeah! That's the ticket. Republicans have successfully used a single word to block any kind of immigration reform in the past40 years. "Socialism!" is another single word used to defeat any kind of health care legislation with the single exception of the ACA. We call single words a debate. It's collective stupidity. Oops! That's two words.
1
This problem does not get solved until Republicans are forced to deal with the monster of white supremacy that they created - first with the Tea Party, now with Trump. Until they step up and push those monsters back to the fringe, we cannot even begin to solve the real problems. And it begins by forcing Miller and Mulvaney out of the White House and back under the rocks from when they slithered.
1
And who is responsible for this disgrace? Trump and that poisonous toad Stephen Miller, whose own uncle has disowned him for forgetting that his own forebears were Jewish asylum seekers from Belarus.
2
Perversely, the overwhelming of America's southern border is just what Trump wants. It gives him all the more justification for his racist bile and for his ridiculous wall.
4
How about a New York Times Special Report outlining the history of American control of Central American politics. The financial power of United Fruit: remember "Chiquita Banana"? John Foster Dulles saving Guatemala from the Communist threat of Jacobo Arbenz using CIA manned planes for the overthrow.
President Ronald Reagan fighting the Communist devils with the Contras and the creation of 'death squads'.
I am no historian but I do read the papers; specifically I learned Central American history from the New York Times.
1
Here we go ..... AGAIN. Another column where Brooks slaps the wrists of the GOP and his president then goes after the Dems. Tired and repetitive.
5
Any way you slice it, those Central American folks screwed up their societies. Doesn't matter who is responsible -- that's the way it. So now, having accomplished the feat of transforming their countries into hellholes, they want us to bail them out and rescue them from the consequences of their own behavior. It isn't working because it cannot work.
For an understanding of how it came about and why North America is so different (and vastly better) than Central/South America, do read Nial Ferguson's book "The West and the Rest." The Spanish/Portuguese South Americans came as conquistadores out to plunder and exploit their conquests. The English came as settlers -- they brought their families and made America their home.
In the end, if you pretend that a mass migratory invasion by millions of people from an alien culture is only "immigration," you are deluding yourself. Like it or not, unless changed dramatically, the ongoing situation cannot possibly end well. Too bad.
1
So, NYT is finally getting on board the "crisis" train with the rest of us. Welcome to the disaster Democrats have created for America.
2
@David Kane....When Obama was President illegal immigration into the U.S. was at a 40 year low and there were no caravans crossing the length of Mexico. Why was that?
1
This is kinds of op-eds are frustrating. Nowhere in the world do countries just take hundreds of the thousands of folks in who demand help. This isn't Syria, and there are neighboring countries who can help out. Why is all of the blame put on the US in these instances? The folks have a role in bringing themselves to our country. I truly feel for them, but balance please? All societies globally would implode if they just accepted a limitless amount of immigrants and took care of them. I completely appreciate the compassion, I really do. It's admirable. But I know poor US-born folks who can't get food stamps -- college students -- meanwhile, immigrants here illegally who do have children are able to get them. This isn't OK. We need an immigration plan, sure. Immigration is great for the country. But we need some sanity too, and to stop putting all of the blame on the US.
1
"So the first task is to set priorities. The victims of violence and persecution get top priority, then those being systemically denied their basic rights because their country has become a failed state, then those seeking economic betterment."
You'd think Brooks was writing about domestic policy. Yes, victims of violence and persecution get top priority. Like the progressive women of color in Congress who are facing death threats from right wing bigots. Or black boys and men who are profiled and jailed at alarming rates.
Yes, let's address those being systematically denied their basic rights because we are a failed state. Those who have no health care or will lose coverage because of this administration's hostility to health rights. Or women who are losing their constitutional right to reproductive freedom.
Yes, let's address those seeking economic betterment. Those who work three jobs to pay the rent. Those who are exploited by multinational corporations that pay a wage that leaves workers below the poverty line.
Our inhumanity is not isolated on the southern border.
2
We can send astronauts to the moon, create a photo of a black hole, produce an almost limitless supply of food, but we cannot put in place a rational, fair and effective system for immigration? I'd like to suggest that we put together a panel of our best, most creative and practical individuals (e.g., Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Michelle Obama and George Bush) and charge them with developing a plan for solving the immigration crisis.
Can we accept more immigrants coming for economic reasons?
Well, conventional economics would argue that as long as there are jobs available, there will be immigrants coming to fill them. When jobs are not available, as was the case in 2008-2010, economic immigrants will instead move away.
Just three days ago, the Times published an article that stated that many places in the US badly need more workers, including immigrant workers.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/09/upshot/trump-america-full-or-emptying.html
Today, with our very low unemployment and dwindling birth rates, the country is not "full", as our president opines. Long term, there is a structural shortage in our labor force due to lower birth rates and reduced immigration. For example, it quotes the Republican governor of Vermont saying that the "declining labor force... makes it incredibly difficult for businesses to recruit new employees and expand, harder for communities to grow and leaves fewer of us to cover the cost of state government.”
What surprises me is that so few Republicans, who rely so much on capitalist economic theory when it comes to wages and benefits for native-born workers so ignore the valuable services that immigrants perform at low cost and in such difficult jobs as agriculture and service work, work that native-born workers don't want at any salary. I imagine that they agree we need immigrant labor privately, but publicly are willing to demagogue the issue for votes.
2
As usual, some pensive pondering thoughts from Mr. Brooks:
"Designing a practical response that wins widespread support is, in theory, not hard. But it requires starting with a certain question: What can we do to help them?" It's precisely the right question.
Our hearts do go out to those in such need. To find the "right answer" we need to get our heads together and come up with new and sensible laws. Laws that address those needs and the collective courage to pass and sign them.
1
We do have the personnel, the materials, and the expertise to put in place a system that would, in the short term, alleviate the pain and suffering we see in pictures coming from the border. We also have a number of immigration policies that have been debated and would offer long-term solutions to the immigration issue. So, we have the resources, the system, and the policies that could address the immigration problem---yet, as always, in this great democracy, here we sit---Congress is going on its typical break---they are always on break; the White House shifts on the hour between enjoying their ideological joyride and gross incompetence; and our candidates for office are running around the country that is thick on grand goals and thin on implementation.
1
Immigrants are our neighbors, human persons, and if we were to wake up to find hundreds of immigrants standing in our backyard, I think most Americans would want to help them. Brooks is right: we need the virtue of moderation to treat people with consideration and dignity, even if it means getting kicked around in social media. Brooks's The Road to Character has a brief and wonderful treatment on balance and moderation in his chapters on Dwight Eisenhower and George Marshall.
1
Thank you for this thoughtful piece. Your attention to detail as well as values is much appreciated.
Our country is deeply divided and it is difficult to see a path to better cooperation. This conversation is much-needed to plant the seeds of compassion and practicality.
1
This is such a sound article. My only suggested addition to what M Brooks offers is a further connection to employers in parts of the country where laborers are now scarce. If we could have a way to provide a way for these people to have employment and housing while they wait for their cases to be heard, it would be a complete picture. Well done! And 'come on America! We can do better.'
3
I love how Brooks phrases this column.
“But you’d still do something.” he writes.
It is our problem, but Brooks knows well that he could not truthfully write:
“But I would still do something.”
He sees pain from distances and judges. I propose we send 300,000 Americans up Interstate 35 into Canada and refuse to leave. I bet we csn easily find enough people. Better healthcare, wages, standards, etc. Would Canada take our poor, shivering citizens?
3
Most people who would find 100 bedraggled families in their yard who were there illegally would call authorities to have them immediately removed.
3
Do you think that the work of progressives to counter the wave of racist language and propaganda produced by the White House is insignificant?
Your turn to imagine:
What if progressives had said nothing and let Trump, Miller, Bannon, Sessions, and Bolton, define the language of race relations and immigration?
Would you have preferred that?
No, progressives had no reason to get in the way of that wave, now did they?
* * * * *
Yes, there needs to be a movement backed by every decent person in the country to hire at least a few thousand judges, lawyers, legal aides, translators, human rights activists, medical workers, and mental health experts to process the detainees very quickly (something that we don't offer our own citizens who can't pay bail, but that's another story).
I am sure that during the processing there will be horrible legal battles which will define us as a nation, but that is what we need to face.
As it stands, American border practices virtually guarantee that 75% of immigrants who seek asylum here, must be forced to develop PTSD, before they gain access to our country.
1
This has been going on for decades. Everyone has firmly established their positions. Brooks has nothing new to say. Why should he even bring it up?
1
What if you sold the gasoline and trained the arson to cause the greatest damage in burning down their homes to gain control over their fields and then they all came to your front door? Well if you're David you pretend you had nothing to do with it? And start wringing your hands about the dilemma about who to help, who to turn away and who should be punished (other than yourself and the arsonist).
1
"The field is wide open for the Democrats to come forth with a decent plan... so the Democratic show consists of indignant generalities intended to sound radical while changing nothing."
In an opinion piece just the other day, Ross Douthat (in a fit of tRumpian logic) basically blamed Obama's DACA policy for the current immigrant crisis, saying in essence that creating a policy which gave legal status to illegals encouraged the current wave of refugees of Central American poverty and violence.
Now today, David Brooks is holding Democratic feet to the fire for not coming up with a viable plan, which I imagine he believes should include measures of humanitarianism such as conferring legal status on a class of illegals.
I mean, how paradigmatic can the Times get?
1
" Both parties are content to adopt abstract ideological postures."
David dives down the rabbit hole again.
1
Only Republicans are scared of women and children. Only Republicans are scared of the truth. Only Republicans need to be voted out in 2020.
Save America from Republicans!!
1
Why is our responsibility to take in groups of people who bring little to no benefit to the country; maybe in the future they may be a net plus to the country, but for now they are in economic terms net takers, not assets.
I have sympathy for their plight, but maybe they could stay where they are and fix their own countries instead of bringing their problems here, and costing US citizens money and in extreme cases their lives. In parts of MA, I feel like the foreigner since the majority of places like Holyoke, Lawrence, Milford, etc. are Spanish speaking and the people live like they are in a 2nd world, not a 1st world society.
Why can’t we all be honest and say that we don’t want to be overrun by hordes of people who don’t share traditional US values, and have no idea how to adapt to our society. They want to move their village here and be supported by US taxpayers. They don’t learn English, drive down wages, overburden our schools and commit crimes beyond unlawful presence.
If you want them here, open your home to a family, pay their way and don’t ask me to help assuage your conscience.
1
Wow. Brooks has got it exactly right.
Well said. The democrats are being cowardly.
1
@Lisa Murphy....Until this past January Republicans controlled the House, Senate, and office of President.
1
More “ both sides ism” from Brooks. Please name any actual Dems who are calling for open borders.
2
Please see my earlier comment. Historically, the U.S. has had an important interest in this hemisphere (I'll pass over our horrendous support for the United Fruit Company over/against the interests of the people of those countries, as well as our support of dictators and others in the region--does the name "Somoza" ring a bell? And is Daniel Ortega any better? Do we not remember "Iran/Contra"? Should we talk Nicaragua in the 80s? At least some people have argued that a Marshall Plan for Central and South America should not be out of the question: what would that look like? What would be the incentives/disincentives? What behaviors do we want to encourage, and how should we encourage them? Also important: what do WE do to address the fact that the current incentives encourage drug production, smuggling, etc., and that for decades our "drug control" policy has failed? Why have we failed to address the market we provide for drugs, or even--seriously--why it exists? Or why El Chapo could bribe politicians with (as I understand it) millions of dollars? We don't even seem to be able to understand why the opioid crisis exists, and fentanyl is yet another complication, here. Overall, my question is: Why are we so STUPID? The "stupid" is killing us, and will kill our grandchildren. Do we not care? Are we too addicted to our cell phones and our "social media" to be able to focus beyond those?
Suppose these bedraggleds however came through two other villages that had some modest amount of food to manage the exhaustion and hunger and then claim they should get to live in your house and your village you might say "Wow that seems a little inappropriate". The "something"you do is get them some food in their own homes and help them with the issues in their village
1
Exactly, and narcissism is the new evil. Great story. Something someone can actually read and take in the opinion and facts. Now if this was a youtube commentary....I'm manly or woke? ...3rd line from the bottom.
Suppose one night you forget to lock your door and the next morning you wake up to find eleven million homeless people you’ve never seen before helping themselves to your food and bathroom — with more on the way after they’ve called their friends to o tell them what’s going on. Do you call the police or AOC?
Has anyone in Washington ever even taken a basic high school Civics class? If so, please go back and review your notes. If not, and you’re
allegedly in ‘government’, how come?
Unfortunately, greed. corruption, incompetence, hypocrisy and selfishly ideological partisanship are the only the subjects mastered by the powers to be. Anarchy is right around the corner.
Vote.
1
Mr. Brooks,
When you stoop to both-side-ism to deflect Republican responsibility, you become an enabler and part of the problem.
2
What would I do if 100 bedraggled families wanted into my house?
Well, if my house was the size of a continent, I'd let them in.
1
Oh, Mr. Brooks, you lost me on this piece. I have in the past seen you as a voice of reason, this false equivalence that you spew forces a clearer picture. I see you now standing on the wrong side of the fence and I am sad.
1
As I understand it, eliminating ICE is not about open borders, it's about going back to the INS model, so the agency that handles immigration has better legal oversight and has a perspective balanced by exposure to legal immigration as well. I am certainly not for open borders, but I think eliminating ICE is a no-brainer. So I quibble with that part of Mr. Brooks' column.
2
"And there is no prospect of a plan being put in place from either Republicans or Democrats." And with that, the typical Brooks false equivalence begins, letting the party really responsible off the hook. Trump, McConnell, now Barr... Be honest, be clear, about one thing: on immigration, as on the other consequential issues of our time, the two parties are not remotely the same.
1
I appreciate how David Brooks characterizes these refugees as our neighbors. We need fear and hatred out of the equation and we need any discussion of policy to focus on the humanity of these neighbors.
1
Performative Narcissism...I wonder if our President would even understand what that means? David, you are right...none of our current politicians want to truly address this issue. They are content to just attack Trump. Trump doesn’t have the right answers and his way of dealing with life is sad and divisive. Unfortunately, if some would be willing to sit down and help him come up with a logical plan, they would be met with deaf, partisan, judgmental ears.
Really? Blaming both sides again? When Schumer & Pelosi met with Trump & came t an agreement, who reneged? Mr. Brooks - your party started this mess. Not mine.
3
@alan, it takes a great man to acknowledge that their side is lacking too. I completely am convinced for some reason or the other the democrats have not done enough.
1
I feel strongly that the Trump administration has caused and exacerbated "the crisis at the border." His constant stream
of inconsistent, outlandish threats and actions have panicked desperate people, threatened by an impenetrable wall, or a closed border altogether. I can't imagine a worse administration handling a crisis they've single handedly brought to a boiling point.
2
At issue is more than charity. Read what Noam Chomsky and others have written about the history of the US involvement in violently stopping democratic, progressive movements in Central America over history and as recently as the 1980s. Misery in Central America has US fingerprints all over it, and blood is on our hands. What is justice? It begins with reparations for the countries violated by our government.
This column has some valid points but the persistent reference to these individuals as "refugees" is ridiculous. They are not refugees in the normal sense. They are economic migrants seeking a better life in a wealthier country. They claim asylum because our Open Borders friends have taught them it's the way to get into the United States. Once their bogus asylum claims are exposed, they will disappear or they will say, "But we've been here so long! It's cruel to send us back now!"
No article or column about immigration can be taken seriously if it doesn't first acknowledge that claiming asylum falsely (as the overwhelming majority of these people do) is a fraud against true asylum seekers and American citizens. Fleeing from crime, poverty, and even gangs is not a ground for asylum. If they were true asylum seekers they would apply for it in Mexico, and settle in one of the lovely peaceful places where U.S. and European tourists flock.
My heart breaks not for these blatant liars but for the real asylum seekers who have to wait longer to have their genuine claims adjudicated because the system has been so congested by these economic migrants blatantly lying to gain entry into the United States.
1
"On the one hand, these people are our neighbors. Many of them come to us with harrowing stories of husbands murdered, daughters raped, mass extortion. It’s our obligation and joy to reach out to them with a hand of solidarity. It’s barbarism to send them back to lawlessness."
We cannot eliminate all the barbarism in the world. Evil is inherent in the human condition.
We will destroy ourselves, whoever and whatever we are, if we try to solve every peoples' problems by letting them come here to live. We need leaders with the moral courage to see and understand this and act accordingly with firm resolve.
Trump lies in our faces over and over and over again, leaving most of us with a hard time remembering any of them.
We the American people have been lied to by champion liars in our day, but this man is far and away the worst of them.
2
Yeah, right 'Both Parties Are To Blame' junk again.
Trump Administration for ripping families apart and gratuitous cruelty.
Obama Administration for not solving all problems and leaving them for Trump.
5
Other than "we don't want any more Hispanics because they tend to vote Democratic," I think it's possible to see beyond 2020. An extraordinary number of people in this country, at this point, simply act as if facts don't matter. WHY is there a "surge"? Even aside from Venezuela and its massive problems--which we seem to have ceded to Russia--The countries in Central America from which these refugees are fleeing have been taken over by gangs that simply kill anyone who disagrees with them, and corrupt politicians (clearly, we are innocent of such corruption...richest market for drugs). These are diplomatic issues, and diplomatic solutions. That's long-term; short-term a two-year wait for adjudication of an asylum claim is untenable. And economists and demographers understand that the U.S. is NOT "full," but NEEDS immigrants in many of its industries in which current Americans decline to work...including really nice golf clubs owned by our President--and a declining birth rate. So: two-prong solution--NOT "eliminating judges," but increasing them to address a massive backlog of asylum claims; and diplomatic solutions to "assist" Central American countries in addressing the issues that create the refugees that flee. Sorry--despite other comments, this is NOT difficult. Until relatively recently, one CA country--Costa Rica--has had an enviable record on crime control and reasonable administration. What were they doing right, and what has changed? FACTS MATTER.
You surely choose the lazy way when representing the Dems' views on immigration reform. Purity test notion has already been said. Generalized platforms, already claimed. What do you actually know of Dems' immigration policies? Did you call them and ask? Or, as I said at the start, was it just so much easier to make a sweeping negative claim to sum up what you do and do not know? When it comes to the intellectually lazy, the GOP hold the gold cup. Let Trump rail and sip bourbon is the Republican practice.
1
The crisis at the border is caused by several factors. 1). the ridiculous standards set for credible threat admission as an asylum seeker, then the absurd requirement that only an asylum officer( there are less than 100 in the entire US) can interview an applicant. Economic misery is not a legitimate reason for asylum. 2) the sanctuary city nonsense has encouraged people to come and feel like they can live illegally in the US protected by these cities. 3) the coyotes are taking all of these folks money promising easy entry into the US if you claim asylum. If this fraudulent entry didn't work so well, people would stop trying and the coyotes would be out of business. The law must be changed but of course, the Democrats will never allow this because they think these people's kids are Democrat voters.
1
@James..."2) the sanctuary city nonsense has encouraged people to come and feel like they can live illegally in the US protected by these cities."....Then you need to explain why there were no caravans crossing Mexico when Obama was President.
1
As Thomas Jefferson wrote in a different context:
"Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever: that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest."
I try very hard not to read your column. There is no point because it usually takes no ownership of the Republican party leadership. But this headline is beyond false equivalency. This is not "our" disgrace. This belongs to Trump and his administration and Republican leadership. If you haven't noticed, many Dems have been fighting for immigration solutions and protection. How many Dem legislators have been turned away from the border when they try and research the problem. How many votes won't McConnell have. Where is your support for House oversight?
Own your party's disgrace. For once.
3
I am in agreement with much of this, except for the choice between "manly" and "woke." Really? Real men help their fellow human beings.
This is a nation of immigrants.
The only reason a solution hasn’t been announced is that politicians are more interested in getting re-elected than doing the right thing.
And the reason they keep getting re-elected is because citizens are too apathetic to get out and vote.
What happened to the best and the brightest? They’ve been replaced by mice and bigots.
"On the one hand, these people are our neighbors. Many of them come to us with harrowing stories of husbands murdered, daughters raped, mass extortion. It's our obligation and joy to reach out to them with the hand of solidarity. It's barbarism to send them back to lawlessness." Indeed, the barbarism, cruelty and racism, all for short term political advantage manipulating an ignorant and fearful political base, by McConnell, Trump, Steven Miller and a debased Republican Party of enablers, opportunists and flat out evil people.
More false equivalence from Brooks.
With David, it’’s always “both sides do it” in the face of abhorrent and malevolent Republican policy. He’s a party loyalist through and through, despite his “reasonable” and “centrist” writings.
Trump scapegoats immagrated to rile up his base - period.
1
Careful!
" The murder rate in El Salvador has fallen in half since 2015, while the number of asylum seekers has skyrocketed."
Guatemalans and Hondurans are the two largest groups of asylum seekers these days. Yes, some Salvadorans continue to come; but improved conditions in that country HAVE changed the mix in the current migrant flow. Since the coup in Honduras, however, the opposite is true for that country, which is a failed Marco state now. Help them at home. No one makes that harrowing trip for fun.I
@Teduardo
NARCO state (spell check apparently thinks Sen. Rubio was involved...)
In fact, right now it is hard to get immigration reform because of, as you say, a performative narcissist is in the White House.
But it's not just the narcissist who's the big barrier to immigration reform; it's Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who gets to decide what legislation appears in the Senate. McConnell is largely responsible for Trump & his sorry band of thugs creating the humanitarian crisis at the border, worsening it, and even thinking of fascist policies like sending refugees to sanctuary cities to get revenge on Trump's political enemies. It's why Trump has gotten away with declaring the border a national emergency and then golfing at his resort -- because Democrats won't allow his idiotic, expensive, unrealistic wall to be built.
And while yes, Democrats in Congress and running for POTUS should put forward their immigration plans, you might have noticed Trump keeps assailing the government & citizens with destabilizing threats, policies, and crimes. Democrats were elected to keep him from carrying them out since Republicans refuse to do it.
As usual, Democrats are tasked with preventing Republicans from wreaking even more havoc on the country than they do and then getting blamed for...I guess not completely eradicating the damage the GOP has wrought.
The problem is Republicans allowing and evening egging on Trump to treat people fleeing Central American violence as worse than animals. When will THEY be held accountable?
"It’s barbarism to send them back to lawlessness."
Say what!?
The refugees reaching America's southern border are presently entering a land of barbaric and lawless treatment. Separating children from parents and caging babies is no better than how North Korea treated Otto Warmbier - hideously inhuman barbarism.
Then we learn that Little Tyrant told southern border agents to disregard the law, ignore judges. Pretty much the same as his attacks on judges (think American Judge Curiel with Mexican heritage) when he, who claims to have a very big brain, ignorantly thinks they are not American enough (meaning not white enough, not conservative enough, not subservient enough to him).
Democrats have been powerless to create sane immigration and refugee policies. Every attempt going back two decades has been defeated by Republicans who are more interested in using the issue as a ploy to rally their base. Democrats would need a super majority in both houses of Congress to override Republican exploitation of brown-skinned immigrants and refugees.
Desperation in the face of cynical Republican opposition led President Obama to use executive power to establish DACA. Not a posture! That has led Republicans and Little Tyrant to villainize Democrats ever since.
Both sides are not to blame! Only Republicans stand in the way of establishing sane immigration and refugee policies. Only Republicans and Little Tyrant proudly choose to treat the downtrodden to a kick in the face.
Democrats and their cohorts in the media started, enabled, and are the full cause of this crisis, then they have the absolute gall to lay blame on Trump.
Why all of a sudden this is a problem? We've had many more arrests years ago. Well, as the times have reported in several articles past few weeks, it was all adults crossing the border illegally. They were simply deported. Then Obama issues DACA. Tens of thousands of unaccompanied children migrants came streaming across the border EVERY MONTH in 2014 and 2015. It was labeled a humanitarian crisis back then. Why only kids? If they were fleeing violence, why not their parents too? Because their parents sent them on that trip thinking Obama will let them stay. Didnt matter that DACA didnt apply to them. Jeh Johnson was on video begging parents to stop sending their kids. But since, as a matter of law, we dont deport kids, they all got to stay. Word got out, now parents are coming, dragging their kids with them, knowing full well the second they step foot on US soil, and even arrested, they are in, they wont be deported. Somehow this all Trumps fault? Hes supposed to build larger detention facilities to accommodate all these foreigners? Nobody gets arrested presenting themselves for asylum at a port of entry. The 100,000 arrests stem from families crossing the border illegally, then asking for asylum. The only way to stop this madness is to prevent them from crossing the border. The only way to do that is walls.
I am not a white nationalist. I do not care what color your skin is. I do care that we maintain America for what it is or should be.... a race blind haven of equal opportunity. And the first step towards returning to that is to eliminate identity politics. This congresswomen who considers mass murder as “doing something” is the problem. Allowing immigrants who want to be anything other than Americans first is the downfall.
1
Mr. Brooks just can’t summon up the courage to place the blame for our current border catastrophe where it rightfully belongs: with Trump and his Republican stooges. Unlike Mr. Brooks, I don’t see the refugee crisis as a failure shared by Democrats. I have no doubt that, if Democrats held both the White House and the Congress, we would have movement toward the kind of sane and sensitive procedures for dealing with refugees that Mr. Brooks claims he wants. At least we wouldn’t be putting children in cages. Only Republican intransigence, in the form of a Senate filibuster, could stand in the way.
1
The Earth is a closed system (mostly). The borders defined by man don't matter to C02 or the desperate trying to survive.
There is no wall high enough, maybe we should try a bubble.
1
@the downward spiral. The astronauts who travel in outer space, report the picture of planet earth as this one single entity so beautiful so green. As they get closer to earth they see mountains rivers valleys plateau but no borders. All barriers are man made and mind created.
1
Mr. Brooks, please check your false equivalencies before you submit your op-Ed pieces. I am so tired of reading “both sides need to do more.” As several commenters have pointed out, the main obstacle to getting anything passed - on immigration, infrastructure, gun safety, health care (all the stuff ALL Americans care about) is the bloc of extreme right GOP lawmakers, led by Mitch McConnell, who won’t allow even bi-partisan legislation they don’t agree with to come to a vote. Our nation is suffering needlessly under an incompetent, vindictive administration and a GOP-controlled Senate that won’t do its job. Obviously, voting is the only way to change this, but it would be helpful if pundits like you would stop writing as if both sides are equally at fault. They are not.
By a skills based system you mean only Romanian waiters and Slovenian models, as if there weren’t enough waiters and pretty people already in the US.
1
We get all the way to the third paragraph before we experience the famous "David Brooks Pivot." He once again takes a problem that the Republicans own, lock, stock and barrel, and make the Democrats share responsibility. News flash. The dreaded Nancy Pelosi doesn't run Homeland Security, Trump does. And if Trump can declare a fake emergency to divert base security funds to build his ridiculous wall, he can certainly declare a real emergency and take some money to help these people.
Mr. Brooks, I thought you gave up writing politics in favor of gushing over small town America and its almost Zen Buddhist-like ability to solve all our problems? Stick to your new lane.
Mr Brooks mentioned the name Trump twice in this column; He should have said it 108,000 times.
1
The mask has fallen, this migrant crisis unveils America's true identity : a quasi-police state based on violence and xenophobia, deprived of the slightest respect for human suffering due to the overwhelming influence of evangelicals in government who brush off Central American misery to the residents' lack of 'divine grace'.
Let's go beyond condemnation of America's chronic hypocrisy. Let us examine and attack the root causes of this troubling exodus which undoubtedly has their origin in political chaos and disastrous family planning strategies as well.
1
You can drive for hours through Mississippi and Alabama and see nothing but vast pine forests. This country is not even nearly “full.” We also have an acute labor shortage. So, I disagree with the premise of this article.
2
" So the Democratic show consists of indignant generalities intended to sound radical while changing nothing."
"The Trump show is all about toughness and cruelty. The administration adopted a zero-tolerance policy that was supposed to deter potential immigrants. It failed miserably. Roughly 103,000 unauthorized immigrants reached the U.S.-Mexico border in March, twice as many as in March 2018"
Sure sounds like the same posture towards immigrants from D's and R's ----- Right.
A call to morality that goes unheeded.
Nearly 40 years ago, the Reagan administration supported brutal right-wing dictatorships (places where dissidents disappeared and showed up as mutilated corpses dumped by the side of the road) in Central America while supporting a guerrilla movement against the one country in the region that had overthrown its oligarchs.
All in the name of “anti-Communism.”
Yet not even the most bitter Cuban exiles ever claimed that Cuba had death squads summarily torturing and executing dissidents.
The forces opposing the right-wing governments were suppressed and the governments themselves settled into a sort of economic libertarianism, essentially denying basic services to anyone who can’t pay for them out of pocket. Looking at websites for potential expats, I see that one of these countries advertises luxurious seaside gated communities to North Americans “who are tired of taxes and regulations.” Oh yes, and live-in servants for next to nothing. And if your company wants to operate a sweatshop, the police will quickly “take care of” anyone who wants better pay or working conditions.
In such an environment, joining a gang provides angry young men with an outlet and looks like the only way to get ahead economically. As long as they torment only other poor people, the government looks the other way.
The people at the border are America’s foreign policy chickens coming home to roost.
1
The agony started long before the border
It is US policy in Central America destabilized Nicaragua
And Syria
And Libya
And Afghanistan
And Iraq
And in Somalia
And in Yemen
Both Democrats and Republicans are alike. Obama's declaration "Assad must go" destabilized Syria. And yet,
he did noting to let Syrian refugees into the US
More than one million Syrians, refugees from failed US politics now live in Germany . Merkel did what the US should have done
Don't give me that "both sides posture" nonsense.The entire European Union is now under siege from a right-wing nationalism fueled by demonizing immigrants, and the UK was willing to shoot itself in the head to maintain its threatened "purity". Every other president in modern times has sought a solution for the border; only Trump has used it to get elected. And El Salvador has probably only halved its murder rate because there are fewer people left to kill, or enslave., or the gangs need the remainder to do their dirty work. I don't think David Brooks will be taking a vacation in rest that country any time soon. The fact that 80% of asylum seekers are turned away does NOT mean the rest are "economic" refugees. They are fleeing fear AND destitution, which is not nearly the same thing. They need our sanctuary, or at least our assistance. And they are coming at double last years pace despite Trumps white nationalist rallies and rhetoric, which should tell you something about their level of desperation.
1
Trump has no viable solutions to anything. He just lies all the time and tries to blame anyone but himself. This is a result of his failed policies. He owns this. What is his solution? After years of obstruction Republicans have nothing. NOTHING
2
It would help if someone went through Central America informing the public with the facts. The facts are: you face serious hardship after you arrive at the border, and whoever is telling you that once you get here, we'll take you in--all of you. How much would it cost to discourage those people from making the long journey because they've been misinformed? Perhaps there is another city in Central America where they would live a better life.
Once again, Mr.Brooks pretends that Republicans and Democrats are the same.
Not long ago, a comprehensive, bipartisan immigration reform bill passed the Senate. It was promptly killed in the Republican-controlled House. Today, even Republicans who sponsored the plan, like Senator Rubio, denounce it, while virtually every Democrat who voted for the plan then would vote for it again today.
Immigration is hard. Climate change is hard. Health care is hard. But if you had two centrist parties willing to compromise you’d quickly find solutions — solutions like Obamacare, a free-market, conservative approach to the health insurance market.
But you don’t have two centrist parties. You have one centrist party and one extreme party, drunk on white nationalism and rage against modernity.
Because this is the party that Mr. Brooks spent a career building, his unwillingness to call a spade a spade is understandable. However, it makes columns like these repetitive and pointless.
1
When I wake up in the morning and agree with David Brooks, I wonder what the rest of my day will be like. It’s confusing.
Finally someone from the left is saying it out loud: we cannot take these people. we should not take these people. We have enough of our own people here, who need help.
These migrants are indeed invaders. They need to be turned back. Not held, not considered, but given some bottled water and a sandwich and turned around. We don't need them. They are economic migrants, not refugees. They are here to milk the welfare system. Some will work, of course. Bu we don't need cheap labor which is not cheap, these people take much more than they give. And over generations, at least 2-3 they do not adapt, do not learn English, do not become americans.
we need a new policy, catch and release, but not release inside the US. We need to teach them to not come here.
Sounds cruel? Maybe. We are better off taking in syrian engineers and iraqi doctors than this predatory crowd.
You bring up some very good points David. Years ago, I wrote a song about that, and one of the lyrics was...’Closing our eyes won’t change a thing. Opening our hearts up, opening our hearts, opening our hearts is everything!”
Open borders isn’t now or EVER the answer! Closing the Border is opening a wound that will never heal. If both Republicans and Democrats really wanted to solve the problem, they could. Will they? Probably not! Why? Because most of them aren’t really leaders: They’re followers! Followers of the mob mentality. A true leader shows its constituents a better and right way to do something. In the current political area, good luck with that!
Approaching the crisis is important but protocols need to be put in place to handle the nuanced issues that will arise in the handling of these groups such as cissexism, transracism, and other sociological issues that will arise when more angry white male Americans will interface with their disconcerted 'other'.
In a country that has lost sight of its ideals, a nation where profit is the arbiter of justice and an aberrant president presides over a 1% vs the rest of society contest, it is the crystallization of tragedy.
2
"The U.S. cannot take in everybody who wants to come." This is the fundamental problem. You can. It's the entire basis for US supremacy in the last centuary. Everyone came to you and you let them in. From their work you prospered.
1
100 families showing up in your front yard is a bit of hyperbole; it's more like one family of three showing up on your 10,000 acre farm.
The 'emergency' is fake. The asylum seekers are put into uncomfortable living conditions for two weeks to month -because of administration-induced delays in processing - then released, travel to communities from their indigenous countries, and seamlessly blend in with the rest of the population of Austin, Houston, Dallas, LA or Chicago until their asylum case is heard.
Dear David. I do not understand why you keep with the equivalencies. The right is far more unstable. Look at the performances on the committee hearings this week. It was the republicans that showed no sense of shame with their belligerence, obstruction and stupidity. At least the left ask pertinent questions.
Please stop with the falsehoods or misunderstanding of a modern welfare state. You advocate the Uber life! And that’s no life at all.
How does it benefit the U.S. to take in someone, or a family, with no education and no real skills? How can we release these people on to the streets of America and expect them to return in 2 years for a court hearing? Everyone must wait on the Mexico side of the border for their case to be heard. If that's too much of a hardship, don't come. If these people are fleeing dangerous conditions in their home country why don't they just stop and stay in mexico where it's safe? They won't because they want the money they can earn in the U.S., and then they turn around and send the money back to relatives in their home country. It's a lose/lose situation for the U.S.
1
Mr Brooks: Your party is just fine with separating children from their parents, often very young children,who will be seriously scarred for life. That is a horror beyond horrors. Cat got your tongue on that one, Mr Brooks? Those who write about the border crisis and do not highlight that monstrous fact have a place reserved deep in Dante's Inferno.
3
Both parties?? One party disagrees on positive actions. One party puts children in cages. It's so hard to tell who's at fault here.
1
Here in this country, we face refugees (in reality that is who they are, fleeing from their nations of origin) from Central and South America and Mexico. Elsewhere in Europe, there has been a steady influx of refugees (also known as migrants) from North Africa and south wards. Broken countries like Iraq Syria Yemen have yielded countless refugees who for no fault of theirs, have fallen victim to circumstances they have no control over (corruption, civil war, violence, ethnic cleansing, American occupation, geopolitical wars).
What do these people have in common? They are helpless; they are stuck between a rock and a hard place; they are banking on fellow human beings to rescue them; they are willing to risk their lives so their kids can have a more secure future. If they stay in their own countries, infested with crime corruption rampant mismanagement, they will starve, they will get killed or maimed.
History is witness that throughout human existence, humans have migrated far and wide, in waves. Nothing stopped them, they inhabited the entire earth. Somehow back then, they fought but allowed each space. Western civilization, for all their "values" occupied sovereign nations, forcefully colonizing, forcefully converting religions, then leaving their colonies in utter disrepair. Along with climate change, karma says I am coming, western civilization, whether you like it or not.
1
If the issue really is immigrants taking away good American jobs from Americans, that would be one thing. However, I cannot help but reflect on two things, Alabama and Home Depot.
During the height of the Great Recession (2011), Alabama passed a “Papers Please” law. The result was that almost overnight, “undocumented immigrants” left the the state to find jobs elsewhere, leaving farmers with crops withering in the fields. They tried to get some of the unemployed people in the cities to go work in the fields, but that did not work out. Too few opted to go, and a large majority of them quit after less than a week.
There is an area near my local Home Depot where day laborers wait for someone to hire them for a job. Many of these men are “illegal aliens”. I did not see much, if any, increase in white or black men standing around hoping to get a job on any given day during the Great Recession.
Are migrant workers without proper papers doing jobs that could be done by Americans? Yes, however few Amaericans want those jobs. Even our great Befuddled-in-Chief had his rooms at one of his clubs cleaned for years by migrants who did not have valid papers. A properly working E-Verify system, that was universally accepted and not ignored when convenient, would put a stop to this issue of “illegals taking jobs away from true Americans.”
1
Such intelligent writing. I love reading David Brook’s arguments, how can you possibly disagree with them.
Irony: in 1906, a woman who only spoke Yiddish immigrated to the United States of America since she needed to flee the brutal Jewish pogroms of the Russian Empire in her native Belarus. Thank God the U.S. welcomed victims of horrendous treatment in other countries.
That woman was Steven Miller's great grandmother.
Exactly right.
These asylum seekers are simply illegal immigrants attempting to rebrand themselves as asylees. They've learned the rules of the game, now they're playing it: bring a kid (heck, anybody's kid) and you get in.
But here's a rule that's being ignored: when seeking asylum, you're not allowed to shop around for the best country, and bypass Mexico. Once these "asylum seekers" hit Mexican soil, they're safe. This is Mexico's responsibility.
“Aside from baring his fangs, Trump is uninterested in processing the extra refugees.”
Of course he’s not. Like the vampire he is, Trump has been drawing his political lifeblood from reviling immigrants, dreamers and brown-skinned foreigners in general, for some years now. Without “immigration” to blame for all America’s ills and his rants about “his Wall” Trump would have nothing to use to use to rile up those MAGA hats at his rallies. His political survival depends in large part on the chaos continuing at the border and he and the GOP know it.
David has never recovered from confusion over what a good Republican like himself should do. So he dithers in off point rambling.
I have heard NPR is ready to drop him.
2
What are supposed to do? Take in a billion people. I remind you that the are subcontinent Asians and Africans in the mix at the border now. All it will take is an epidemic spread by non-vaccinated immigrants, and this will be all sorted out in short order.
I take issue with Mr. Brooks characterization and usage of El Salvador as an example of a lowering murder rate and his implied assertion that things are getting better in this part of the world. Guatemala and Honduras, which where a good majority of the refugees are coming from have some of the highest murder rates in the world.
Wow. What an unbelievable example of "both-sidesism". Mr. Brooks is correct that the Democrats and Republicans offer two competing visions. He is also right that extremism on either sides is not the right path.
But make no mistake about it: extremism on the left seeks to shelter, process, welcome, accept, and integrate people fleeing violence and instability. Extremism on the right seeks to put children in cages.
Both-sidesism is an irresponsible reaction.
6
A leader would sit down with whoever is in charge in the triangle countries and the president of Mexico and at least try to jointly develop a short term plan to relieve this human crisis at the border. I can not believe that we do not have the courage and prestige to mandate international cooperation. It is a disgrace that we are turning anyone away to survive on the street. It places the character of the American government and the American people in question. Of course, this administration hasn’t done much better to help our own citizens in Puerto Rico. The problem is not going away and the forthcoming mass migration forced by climate change will only exacerbate the situation.
4
Our disgrace is not at the border. Our disgrace is in the beltway.
568
@CFXK, we send our representatives to the beltway. What happens to them when they get there? They are beholden to the highest bidder, those lining and greasing the Capitol Hill hallways.
17
@CFXK
On both sides of the aisle my friend.
8
@CFXK Indeed! Democrats know they're only one amnesty away from turning a few more states blue and running the table on elections in perpetuity...hence, lax enforcement and more 'sanctuary' cities/states.
4
make no mistake about this, there is a crises at our border and this administration has no plan(s) to address it. it is using it as red meat for its base.
the broader question is:
why have we become so partisan in our discourse that addressing problems in our country has become “us v them”. and the echo chamber, particularly on the right, continually attacks all who disagree. these attacks begin with elected members of congress acting irresponsibly in doing so; absent proof and facts.
1
Our nobility and generosity for the sake of justice, including ministry to the poor, is well-proclaimed but greatly contradicted by our response to the very challenging immigration crisis now faced, particularly at the Mexican border. We as a nation give out of our great abundance, but only to the extent, let’s see it as it is, of not disturbing our comfort. Crumbs from our feasting table. And even at that we want, as unwitting gluttons, more as seen in the rallying cry, “Make America great again.” What Brooks has to offer as a solution to the disgrace we’ve made of ourselves ... better, that we’re exposed by ... looks reasonable on paper. But that’s it ... basically, more talk/ head-tripping. The thing is, and sadly to say: That’s not who we really are. That’s why we have Trump! Authentic caring and sharing are not conditional; these are constitutive. How does a people get there? Abundance has made us poor, probably through addiction.
1
Very good analysis, except one major point. The crisis at the border. For months, the mainstream media, including the New York Times, has been telling us it's a "manufactured crisis," something put on by Trump for Trump. Oops. Now suddenly we seem to have a real crisis, but no journalists are taking responsibility for - dare I say it - the fake news, that there was no crisis at the border. Only Trump has said that there is a crisis at the border and once again (e.g., Russia anyone?), he has been proved right and the mainstream media wrong. That said, what's the solution? Certainly not a wall and certainly not an open border, but some messy hybrid of practical politics that we are never, ever going to get.
2
I think many Democrats have said the same things, already. You should try listening to them, rather than pontificating. Throwing the Democrats under the bus, where the dead bodies of the Republicans are already, seems pointless and just plain wrong. There has been coherent legislation already passed in the Senate. The Republican controlled House and Senate did not do one constructive thing on immigration, and Trump has just made things worse. Yes we can do better, for sure, but that will not happen as long as Trump is in office making the problems worse.
4
I just received a letter from my trash collection company telling me that they aren't able to hire enough workers and that there is an industry wide national shortage.
They stopped short of stating the obvious. And so will I.
4
Not sure if repeating favorite partisan talking points is the best way to eliminate the partisan performance art. Nor is bashing one party but not the party in power.
The Bipartisan solution to long term immigration reform has been on the table since 2013. It is really not rocket science. But Mitch McConnell has prevented legislative action. And Trump has been an unreliable negotiator, agreeing and then backing out when Fox and Friends start crying.
The influx of asylum seekers at the southern border is an immediate crisis, for which Trump should have humane solutions. I am not sure if Democratic candidates should be held responsible for solving Trump’s failures. Especially when they control only one House in Congress and the Senate is controlled by Sen. Obstructor.
The immediate solution is fairly clear. There is a two year backlog of asylum cases. Hire more immigration judges. Find some way to process asylum seekers in the country of origin rather than at the border. Detention centers are not the answer. Give them temporary visas that allow them to work. Keep track of them.
1
Republicans leaning hard right, Democrats leaning hard left, refugees at border in extremis... further evidence of the need for a rational, moderate third party of smart, focused, diligent, caring people seeking solutions. Work & compromise, not political showmanship. Real Americans, not sideshow barkers.
1
Democrats in Congress are working on pragmatic plans to increase the ability of the US to deal with the number of asylum seekers at the border, to allow them to apply for asylum for their home countries, to increase aid to those countries.
That's not convenient for David Brooks who needs to equate Democrats with Trump.
How about Republicans in Congress step up and work with the Democrats? They can't because of Trump. And there's no equivalent of that on the Democratic side. But Democrats can't pass anything pragmatic without Republicans.
The problem is not two extreme sides. Its Trump and the Republicans unwillingness to break with him.
4
No surprise that the Trump "plan" isn't working. He has no plan. I wish a reporter would ask him what he knows about the Chinese Exclusion Act or the National Origins System. He says he alone is running immigration "policy" and he knows nothing about immigration and less about policy.
1
People migrate to survive. It does not matter whether the reason is economic, or war, or failed government, or famine, or natural disaster.
To limit the reason to individuals just “seeking to better themselves” lessens the real life tragedies and life or death decisions made by refugees. They risk their lives, give up everything they have to merely better themselves makes no sound sense.
The grass-is-greener attitude works in economically healthy and stable countries but is a very selfish and narrow view suggesting purposeful arrogance and ignorance of what human beings must do to survive. Citing a 50% reduction in murders in one country does not validate superficial justifications nor does it mean threats to survival have magically vanished.
Addressing complex human problems created elsewhere is a long-term commitment that requires allies domestically and in cooperating countries. The reasons for migration must be identified and addressed. Ignoring these problems will not make them go away, neither will relegating them to mere individual selfishness on the part of refugees.
3
False equivalency once again from Brooks. Proof is that nowhere in this article are there the words: Donald Trump or Kirstjen Nielsen (or the Dreamers). How can Brooks discuss a disgrace at the border and not mention the architects of the child separation policy?
Also Brooks makes no mention of how in March the Democrats sponsored HR 6, the Dream and Promise Act that combines the longstanding DREAM Act, a legalization bill for unauthorized immigrants who came to the US as children, with a proposal to allow some immigrants with temporary humanitarian protections (TPS) to apply for permanent legal status. The humanitarian protectees (TPS and DED holders) who’ve been in the US since fall 2016 would simply be allowed to apply for green cards, which they can’t do right now unless they qualify through other means. After having a green card for five years, they’d be allowed to apply for citizenship, just like any other green card holder.
But the Trump administration is trying to end DACA and to sunset TPS for most of its recipients (most of whom come from El Salvador, Honduras, and Haiti). While HR 6 is extremely likely to pass the House without major changes, it is not going to pass the Republican Senate or be signed by Trump.
The last time Democrats held the House of in 2010, one of the last bills they passed was the DREAM Act.
But Brooks ignores all Democratic policy proposals on immigration reform and instead throws up another false equivalency. Shame on him.
5
You could randomly select a half dozen citizens of this great country and, on the back of a paper napkin, draft out an immigration policy that would be agreeable to most sensible people. This might take an hour or two and would be similar to what David Brooks proposes.
The fact that the elected Congress of this great country cannot do the same on such an important issue is food for thought. Is our Democracy still working as it is currently constructed in today's world?
1
The United States was built on legal, not illegal, immigration. Illegal immigration has been unofficially sanctionned and encouraged by the Democratic party which welcomes illegal economic migration as a means of boosting its electoral voting rolls regardless of the national cost to sovereignty, rule of law, and self-interest. And it makes Democrats feel superior and virtuous to identify with the drama of those who chose not to apply legally for U.S. immigration but instead to make political theater at cross-border points.
The continuing play of 'refugee agony' on the southern border must run well for Democrats. The 'Big Tent' party is solely responsible for this illegal immigration shambles and nothing alienates swing voters more effectively than its Cortes/ Omar 'Twitter' duet.
3
@John Smith
Donald Trump employed illegal immigrants. I am quite certain that out of all the building contractors, meat plant owners, and farmers who have and probably still do employ illegal immigrants, plenty of them are Republicans. Their dirty little secret is that they love a laissez faire system that allows cheap labor to show up at their door (or a convenient street corner) without having to deal with the H-2B visa process. Then when the numbers become politically inconvenient they can just round them up and send them back, at the taxpayers expense.
3
We have one core problem, intolerance given expression through politics. Yes indeed we can bare the burden of humanity. This is how the world worked out. In a year we can look back and say the same thing. Some people need to move. We need to deal with it. The sooner humanity starts helping humanity, the sooner we can all be better off, having worked through the back log.
1
Mr Brooks correctly identifies the migrants from Central America as "unauthorized immigrants," as their numbers soar. The Administration appears to prefer the term "illegal immigrants." The distinction is vast between the two terms, and serves to portray those seeking asylum as breaking the law.
Why has the media not challenged this portrayal?
1
It is important to recognize that the supposed 20% approval rate reflects the legal standard that has almost always (not jut under Trump) rejected gang threats as a basis for asylum (victims not being considered as a "particular social group". And Trump/Sessions took away asylum eligibility for victims of domestic violence, which had been in place for many years. Further, if one studies the brief biographies of recently installed immigration judges, almost all are former DHS prosecutors whose hostility to asylum seekers is nearly guaranteed (there are exceptions). I write this as an attorney who has practiced immigration law for over 43 years and I have never seen, from DHS/CIS as well as the administration, such levels of hostility to immigrants.
4
Yes, a solution must be found that works. It's the same situation in Europe, or Australia, or anywhere that millions of people would like to go if they could. Ideally, legal immigration including refugees seeking asylum has to be the answer, and illegal immigrants just can't be allowed in. So, let's figure it out for the United States. No one, Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, whatever, has a monopoly on the details of the solution.
2
Enough with the false equivalency between right and left. Obviously this helps Brooks sleep at night after holding water for the GOP for most of his career. But anyone looking objectively knows this is a wedge issue leveraged by the GOP (magnified and heightened by Trump) to rule up their base and they have and will NEVER agree to bipartisan solutions because, and especially if it worked, it would contradict their entire propagandist narrative. Doesn’t suit Brooks to make that point as he would have to acknowledge being part of that machine.
8
Despising t'rump, but:
What makes the author say that the zero-tolerance policy has failed to deter, when the cause, he says, the cause is violence and economic failure? The zero-tolerance policy has was not designed to alleviate violence and economic failure.
Cause and effect anyone?
1
It’s important to distinguish between immigration reform, ie those already in the US, vs migration, ie those seeking to enter the US.
migration actually fell dramatically during the Obama years (a Democrat, which I need to emphasize for Mr Brooks), for multiple reasons, but including a focus on helping Central American countries combat gang violence. One could argue it wasn’t enough, but trump (a republican) and a large wing of his party see this as a waste of money and curtailed it.
I see trump’s approach as reflecting a broader republican ethos of ‘compassionate cruelty’, that if one (or a foreign people) has challenges, providing any assistance is the equivalent of Paul Ryan’s ‘hammock’, making them too complacent to solve things on their own. In other words, the unfortunate in our midst and our borders are morally weak and will only improve their lot when faced with more suffering.
In this sense, Children in cages and cuts to food stamps are really no different here... all part of the same philosophy. While democratic candidate positions on migration have fallen short on specifics, it’s absurd to put them on the same level as what we are seeing from the governing party.
4
Yes, but it would help if we start by acknowledging our culpability in this situation. If the US had kept criminal MS-13, created in the USA, in our jails rather than deporting them home to Central America where they overwhelmed civil government, we would not have this mass migration. And it would have been cheaper
Also, in the absence of climate action, we ain’t seen nothing yet. There will be migrations from outside and from inside where there will be no home to go back to.
7
You are right that the situation at the border is inhumane. I'm frustrated by the responses to this crisis, which has been manufactured by the Trump Administration to accentuate xenophobia. Panic over immigration serves Republican political interests. We have hundreds of thousands of unfilled jobs in this country, particularly in low-wage, low-skill sectors. (I saw this first hand when my father was in an assisted living facililty recently, where many positions went unfilled). Medicare and Social Security need more people paying in, not less. My region is underpopulated. Yet Republicans call for limiting legal immigration (and maybe adding temporary work visas)? We need MORE legal immigrants, not fewer, unless Americans are suddenly going to start having huge families again, which doesn't seem likely. Of course we can't take in "everybody," but we are not "full," far from it. Of course we need more immigration judges, but we don't need more (for-profit) detention facilities, as the Washington Post recently advocated: no detention facilities are adequate for familes; any form of incarceration is traumatic for innocent children who have already been through too much. We should increase legal immigration visas for the countries with the highest demand, increase resources for adjudicating asylum cases, and work with sending communities at the grassroots level to improve local infrastructure and opportunities.
6