Saturday, February 03, 2024

Border Derangement Syndrome threatens to plunge the US into fascism -- part 2 of 2

In my previous post I launched into a rant about what I call Border Derangement Syndrome, or BDS, which, though not listed in the DSM, is apparently making hundreds of thousands of people completely crazy and threatens to plunge the USA into fascism if DJT is re-elected in November 2024 -- which he very well could be, based on the prevalence of BDS.

This is for the most part a serious topic, and I'll get back to the serious stuff in a while, but there is some comic relief as well. It comes to us in the form of a much-publicized protest whose participants, by and large, are (to put it charitably) just a few wheels short of a semi.

Christofascist convoy on a mission to "take our border back"
Back in February 2022, I wrote a post about a series of Covidiot protests in which masses of truckers and random conspiranoids descended upon Ottawa, Washington DC, and other cities in order to protest Covid vaccine and mask mandates and other mitigation efforts (which, in some cases, had actually been lifted already). The protesters, who didn't accomplish anything except to disrupt traffic, were driven by righteous anger, abject ignorance, and just plain idiocy.

And now, as you've no doubt noticed, we have another convoy of crazies in the news. This lot, clearly suffering from BDS, are on a mission to "take our border back," and, as Vice.com stressed in a January 26, 2024 article, they claim to be doing so in the name of The Almighty (and his Only Begotten Son, of course). Coming in from several red states, they're riding in support of the latest craven political stunts perpetrated by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, aka Guv'ner Assbutt on this blog, and a larger Christofascist agenda. Some promoters of the event claimed that there could be as many as 700,00 trucks participating. From the Vice article:

The organizers of the “Take Our Border Back” convoy have called themselves “God’s army” and say they’re on a mission to stand up against the “globalists” who they claim are conspiring to keep U.S. borders open and destroy the country.

“This is a biblical, monumental moment that’s been put together by God,” one convoy organizer said on a recent planning call. “We are besieged on all sides by dark forces of evil,” said another. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God. It is time for the remnant to rise.” (The remnant, from the Book of Revelation, are the ones who remain faithful to Jesus Christ in times of crisis).

Experts say that the Christian nationalist overtones in this rhetoric adds a dangerous dimension to an already fraught situation. 

“When people believe that they are working on behalf of God, they might be willing to resort to relatively extreme measures,” said Ruth Braunstein, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut and author of “Prophets and Patriots: Faith in Democracy Across the Political Divide.”  ”And so you have a politically volatile situation that could become much more so, in part because of this rhetoric.”

The convoy departed Virginia Beach on Monday, January 29, with plans to stop over in Jacksonville, Florida to pick up more soldiers for God and Jeezus, and then head on out to Eagle Pass, Texas. The ultimate goal was to split up on February 3 into three separate border rallies in Eagle Pass, Yuma AZ, and San Ysidro, California.

It's February 3 as I write this, and this is still a story in progress, but let's take a look at what has happened over the past few days.

First off, despite some viral social media posts that in reality used photos and videos from 2022 in an effort to make the event seem a lot bigger than it has so far turned out to be -- and others that used images from a German farmers' protest -- the whole thing appears to be on the road to becoming a yuuuge flop, at least if you're gauging its success by the number of participants so far.

According to another piece in Vice, dated January 29, 2024, the dearth of dolts could be due at least in part to their characteristic conspiranoia.

Paranoia about federal entrapment is looming large over the “Take Our Border Back” convoy, which departed Virginia Beach Monday morning and plans to arrive in Texas later this week.

By noon Monday, after a few hours on the road, the convoy had amassed just a few dozen participants—so far, predominantly men over the age of 60. The convoy’s promoters promised over 700,000 participants. 

The low numbers could be due, in part, to conspiracy theories riddling Telegram channels for the convoy. Would-be participants are expressing fears that the demonstration could be a “psyop” or “honeypot,” spearheaded by the federal government and undercover agents with the goal of ensnaring right-wingers into a violent event. This is the basis of the Jan. 6 “fedsurrection” conspiracy theory, which around a quarter of Americans believe, according to recent polling. 

“I have 3 former associates doing lengthy prison sentences because of the J6 setup,” one person wrote in the Telegram channel for the Texas contingent of the convoy. “I know first hand, even if they don’t have charges they can pin on you, they will make some up.” 

Wired.com (January 30, 2024) noted that the convoy was already "a complete mess" as of the first day, and warned that promises that the event would be "peaceful" should be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism.

On Monday morning, the organizers of the Take Our Border Back convoy kicked off their road trip to the Texas–Mexico border in Virginia Beach. Though they claimed that up to 40,000 trucks would be joining, only 20 vehicles made up the convoy as it rolled into Jacksonville, Florida, 14 hours later. The promised support had not materialized—not a single truck showed up, tires were reportedly slashed, participants got lost, and paranoia struck the group. In short, the convoy was a complete mess...

...The organizers also repeatedly stated that the event was peaceful, though online chats in a related Telegram group show members discussing “exterminating” migrants. A known white nationalist who was kicked out of the People’s Convoy in 2022, Ryan Sanchez, is among those most active in the group. Sanchez was previously a Marine Corp reservist who says he was kicked out after he was reported to have been demonstrating alongside the Rise Above Movement, an alt-right street-fighting group that took part in the neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, which led to the death of one counterprotester.

Given all of the above, nobody should be the least surprised if the final turnout turns out to be a tad underwhelming -- as was the case with the convoys in 2022. Truth is, the promised figure of 700,000 trucks was never more than an inflated fantasy fabricated by various grifters. From The Daily Kos, January 30, 2024:

It’s unclear where the 700,000 number came from in the first place, but it’s ridiculous. For one thing, there are only 4.06 million semis in service in America. Getting 700,000 of them to the border would require enlisting almost 1 of 6 trucks now delivering goods across the nation, and most of those are owned by trucking companies who don’t seem likely to put their businesses on hold so Abbott can escalate his scuffle with the Supreme Court.

In their promotions of the convoy, organizers and right-wing media used images from the 2022 “People’s Convoy” which itself managed only about 1,000 vehicles, most of them private pickups or cars. After a month of pointless driving around the perimeter of Washington, D.C., and slowing vehicles on the Beltway, that convoy fell apart, having achieved absolutely nothing other than ending with a few arrests and the leaders running away. Another call for a big trucker rally in Washington, D.C., completely fizzled.

Amassing 700,000 trucks was never more than a fantasy. It was a number spit out to make right-wing media give the organizers some desired attention and maybe convince a few of the most gullible to open their wallets. The group certainly has gotten attention on the right and according to Yahoo News, convoy organizers have raised $138,000. That’s enough to put one tank of gas in about 300 semis … if they had 300 semis actually participating. 

So again, don't be surprised if the Christofascist convoy fizzles out, even with the support of mega-celebs such as Sarah Palin and Ted Nugent.

A sparse turnout would be just fine for law enforcement officials as well as residents in the targeted area in Texas. While some republican "leaders" have insisted that the convoys are welcome (as long as they're "peaceful"), some Texas sheriffs and some residents have begged them to stay away.

...Goliad Sheriff Roy Boyd, who leads an Operation Lone Star Task Force along a major smuggling corridor, is urging the convoy not to come to Texas.

“If the desire of protests like the convoy are to make an impactful difference, there are better ways to do so,” Boyd told The Center Square. “Unfortunately, driving to a border town is not the best way to make an impact. If a group wants to bring attention for the mainstream media to report on the protest, the convoy would be better off showing up on the streets of New York City or Washington, D.C.”

The convoy will impede law enforcement efforts that have been targeting 18-wheeler and other truck drivers smuggling people from the border, he and others, say.

“Increased traffic, especially commercial vehicle traffic, works to the benefit of smuggling organizations by providing them with more opportunities to blend in while reducing the likelihood of loads being stopped,” Boyd said.

Of course the points above could be mostly moot, given the disappointing numbers and comical mishaps we've seen so far. One of my favorite writers on Xitter, Marine and former republican Ron Filipkowski, has been snarking steadily about God's Great Convoy since it launched, and on Meidastouch.com (of which he is editor-in-chief), he has published an amusing summary of the first three days of the event. His posts and the article are worth a look for the videos alone, such as this one, about a formidable soldier in God's army trying to recruit more soldiers. Or the video in this post, regarding convidiots' efforts to bring folks to Jeezus via baptism (though there are doubts about whether the real emphasis was on Original Jeezus or Cheeto Jeezus). Don't forget to read the snarky comments too.

But again, as I'm writing this on February 3, 2024, this is still an event in progress. You might want to track it yourself.
[Update, February 5, 2024: The grand total of attendees of the "Take Back Our Border" rallies in three states -- Texas, Arizona, and California -- was, apparently, only a few hundred. From Yahoo! Finance, February 5, 2024: "While hundreds of thousands of vehicles never materialized as the convoy moved across the country, about 100 passenger vehicles, recreational vehicles and trucks towing campers arrived in Texas, according to NBC News."]

The Saboteur In Chief is rooting for border chaos (and a failed US economy)
The cretinous convoy may be comic relief, but that doesn't negate the seriousness of the issues that are front and center in the current news cycle. Regarding the border, as with all too many matters in American politix these daze, all roads lead back to Donald Trump, who is apparently doing everything in his power to sabotage any bipartisan border efforts if they are backed by President Biden. From Forbes, January 28, 2024:

...Trump appears to not want Biden to notch any success—and his pressure campaign appears to be working: House Speaker Mike Johnson called any bipartisan Senate bill “likely dead on arrival” on Friday [January 26], instead sending a letter to Republican colleagues that he would continue to support the GOP’s “Secure the Border Act” which failed to get any Democratic support when it was introduced in May.

And, though I may be overstating the case I already made in Part 1 of this post, Trump's motives for wanting any present border deal to crater couldn't be clearer. A major part of his campaign shtick is that there is a swirling nightmare at the border, which is endangering the country and every American, and is (of course!) the fault of Biden and the Dems -- and that Trump alone can fix it. Unfortunately, as also mentioned in the previous Whirled post, only a few republicans have been willing to publicly acknowledge Trump's true motives. Also from Forbes:

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), called Trump’s actions “appalling,” telling reporters that “he does not want us to solve the problem at the border, he wants us to lay the blame of the border at Biden—and the idea that someone running for president would say ‘please hurt the country so I can blame my opponent and help my politics’ is a shocking moment.”

Trump's border campaign goes far beyond politics as usual; like so many other things he has done, his rhetoric and actions are endangering the security of the US. From Time, January 27, 2024:

Getting any border package through both chambers of Congress was always going to be a challenge, but Trump’s urging of Republicans to refuse to help the Biden administration address the situation is prompting predictions that the issue may be dead until after the November election.

Such an outcome could exacerbate an already dangerous dynamic on the border, say immigration experts and lawmakers.

“It continues to hamstring the administration in establishing effective border control,” says Doris Meisner, a former commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and now a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute. “To not provide additional funding means it will continue to be extremely difficult to process people at the border, to place people that don’t have valid asylum claims into removal proceedings, to have funding to do return and deportation flights.”

Not that Trump really gives a damn about those trivial little details; he's just in it to win it. And so he continues his fearmongering campaigns to keep the MAGA electorate in a lather. From Forbes, January 23, 2024:

Former President Donald Trump, increasingly focusing on the migrant crisis at the southern border, wildly claimed there was a 100% chance of a terror incident because of the increasing number of people entering the country illegally.

The former president said millions of people were entering the U.S. and “a lot of terrorists are coming in.”

Trump then said it was “100% certain” there will be “some horrible acts, terror acts,” because of that increase in migration—a claim he then attributed to [Sean] Hannity.

Forbes was unable to find any transcripts of Hannity making the claim, and has reached out to Fox News for confirmation.

And back in December of 2023, Trump made wild and baseless claims about Democrats allowing "unvetted migrants" to vote. That's just another instance of a repeated Trumpublican lie about voter fraud.

I could go on and on and on, but you get the point: Trump's entire border/immigration narrative is framed around fearmongering, gross exaggerations, and outright lies. And he has been pushing this narrative for years; here's a link from 2018, when he lied about migrant caravans from Central America, as well as telling lies about President Obama's immigration policies and practices.

As if his ongoing project to keep the border in chaos weren't bad enough, Trump has also said the quiet part out loud regarding the American economy, which by most measures is booming under Biden. In early January 2024, Trump publicly expressed hope that the economy will crash in the next year. From MSN, January 9:

has expressed his hopes for an economic crash within the next year to boost his chances in the upcoming election.

"When there's a crash, I hope it's going to be during these next 12 months, because I don't want to be Herbert Hoover," he said, referring to the 31st US President who took office just before the Great Depression.

In a chat with ex-Fox Business host Lou Dobbs, Trump was frank about his desire for a significant economic downturn to damage President re-election prospects.

"We have an economy that is incredible," the former President stated. "We have an economy that is so fragile. And the only reason it's running now is it's running off the fumes of what we did - what the Trump administration did. It's just running off the fumes..."

Pants on fire, Donnie. Any "fumes" associated with Trump are those emanating from Trump himself, but I digress. In any case, the Biden administration hit back. From USA Today, January 9, 2024:

The White House and President Joe Biden's reelection campaign said Trump and the Republicans are willing to hurt the middle class for their own political benefit.

White House spokesman Andrew Bates, noting that consumer confidence is rising, inflation is falling, and employment is up, said "a commander-in-chief’s duty is to always put the American people first; never to hope that hard-working families suffer economic pain for their own political benefit."

Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Biden's campaign manager, said that “Donald Trump should just say he doesn’t give a damn about people, because that’s exactly what he’s telling the American people."

That is, indeed, exactly what he is telling the American people. If only more of them would truly listen, they'd see the malignant narcissism that Trump doesn't even try to hide.

Biden isn't sitting on his ass; he's actually doing something to address the problems
Meanwhile, President Biden, in addition to presiding over an economy that has greatly exceeded most expectations, is actually trying to address the border issues. But he is not a dictator, and, unlike Trump, he doesn't appear to want to be one. Here, from CBS News, is some perspective on what President Biden does and does not have the power to do to regarding the border and immigration.

One point to keep in mind, particularly in light of Biden's recent vows to "shut down the border" on the day he signs the bipartisan legislation into law, is that he is only referring to shutting down immigration at the border temporarily when the amount of migrants coming in surpasses a certain number. Even under that temporary "shutdown," trade would continue, and people who are citizens and legal residents of the US could still go back and forth between Mexico. After all, shutting down the Mexican border completely could cost billions, and nobody who truly cares about America wants that.

On February 1, 2024, David Leonhart at The New York Times wrote about the recent efforts President Biden has made with Mexico's President Obrador regarding the border problems. I am quoting this in its entirety as it appeared in the free NYT newsletter to which I subscribe, so I'm not trying to violate any paywalls.

The article explains that the Biden administration's humanitarian effort to expand parole and asylum criteria has been a major factor in the increased numbers of migrants in recent years, and that those policies were in large part an effort to counteract the effects of Trump's lies about immigrants and his cruel immigration policies. (In fact, as reported in 2022, the Trump administration's cruel policies were actually intended to be even harsher.)

But -- and this is important -- the NYT piece also notes that Biden is now taking steps to stem the tide and ameliorate the problems that his more lenient policies have helped create. Some presidents apparently learn from their mistakes.

On the Thursday before Christmas, President Biden called Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and asked for help. The number of migrants crossing into the U.S. — about 10,000 per day — had reached the highest level of Biden’s presidency. The surge was creating major problems, including lockdowns at a New Mexico high school where migrants were streaming across the grounds and the closure of a rail bridge over the Rio Grande that carried commercial goods.

López Obrador responded by telling Biden to send a delegation of top officials to visit him in Mexico City. The next week, that delegation, led by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, arrived for talks. Partly in response, Mexico soon began to enforce its own immigration laws more strictly, making it harder for migrants from other countries to use Mexico as a route to the U.S. Among other things, López Obrador’s government has increased deportations of migrants to their home countries and disrupted bus networks run by cartels that funnel migrants from other countries toward the U.S. border.

The crackdown has made a noticeable difference, too.

Migration flows at the U.S.-Mexico border fell more than 50 percent in early January, according to data that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency released last week. The numbers have since risen somewhat, officials have told me, but are still well below the December levels.

Mexico’s crackdown doesn’t come close to solving the migration problem, of course. Illegal immigration remains far higher than it was in the 2010s. Many migrants now believe that they will be able to remain in the U.S. for years, so long as they reach the border — regardless of what of the law says. Voters are unhappy about the situation. So are mayors and governors from both parties who are struggling with housing and social services.

Nonetheless, Mexico’s recent efforts offer a reminder: Stricter enforcement of immigration laws really does tend to reduce migration flows.

Cost vs. benefit
That point may seem obvious, but it’s one that many politicians from both parties question. In recent days, House Republicans and Donald Trump have criticized the outlines of a bipartisan Senate deal that would significantly tighten border security. Trump suggested it was “worse than no border deal.” (The most plausible explanation for his stance is politics — namely, that continuing border chaos could increase his chances of beating Biden in November.)

Many progressive Democrats, for their part, argue that border security is ineffective at stopping illegal immigration. The way to make a difference, they say, is to reduce poverty and oppression in other countries and to make people less interested in moving to the U.S.

But the evidence belies these arguments. The security of the border both directly and indirectly affects migration flows. In the short term, a less porous border allows fewer people to enter the U.S. For example, the migrants whom Mexico recently deported — including some who had arrived by airplane from outside the Western Hemisphere — might otherwise have made it to the U.S.

Longer term, a more secure border changes the calculation for people contemplating a harrowing journey toward the U.S. If entry to the U.S. — a far richer country than most — seems likely, many more people will attempt it. If it seems unlikely, the costs of the journey will dissuade more.

Biden’s novelty
Mexico’s recent crackdown is merely the latest evidence of this pattern. Biden’s presidency is an even bigger example.

In response to Trump’s extreme opposition to immigration — including his lies and racist insults about immigrants — Biden and other Democrats moved far in the other direction. As The Economist recently wrote, Trump “radicalized” some Democrats on immigration. The party’s 2020 platform said nothing about border security and was devoted largely to making entry into the U.S. easier, mostly through legal pathways but also by going easier on illegal immigration.

I want to emphasize that most Americans have long believed, and still believe, that their country should be a haven for people fleeing political repression. The Biden administration’s approach has gone further, however. In the name of humanitarianism, it has broadened policies that were historically focused on political refugees, changing them to admit more migrants who are attracted to the U.S.’s high living standards.

“What’s novel about the Biden years has been the vastly expanded use of parole and asylum in boosting immigration by those who could not hope to get through normal legal channels,” John Judis has written for the Liberal Patriot newsletter. In response, migration jumped far above the levels during Trump’s or Barack Obama’s presidencies.

(Social media videos, showing migrants who have made it to the U.S., also play a role, my colleague Miriam Jordan points out. Her latest article focuses on migrants’ belief — often accurate — that the country’s dysfunctional asylum system will allow them to stay indefinitely.)

A new approach
In recent months, Biden has begun to change his initial approach, recognizing the problems with a more open border. Last week, he promised to “to shut down the border” if Congress passed a bill that allowed him to do so.

It remains unclear whether Republicans will agree to such a deal — or, mostly for political reasons, will choose to let the problem fester. Without a deal, Biden is likely to look for ways within current law to tighten border security. They exist but are more limited.
Either way, the Biden administration appears to be on the verge of doing the same thing that it recently urged Mexico to do: enforce existing immigration laws more tightly.

To put it simplistically, immigration issues are anything but simple: every action, or lack thereof, has unintended consequences, and there is always going to be someone who's pissed off about this or that policy on immigration (or any other major issue, for that matter).

In an essay published on the George W. Bush Institute web site (Winter 2018), SMU Professor of Political Science James F. Hollifield offered a primer on why immigration reform is so difficult, even in "normal times."

In normal times, such as when the last major immigration laws were passed in 1986 and 1990, the debate about immigration revolved around markets — how many migrants should be admitted and with what skills? — and rights — what status should the migrants have? Should they be temporary guest workers? Or should they be allowed to settle, bring their families, and get on a “path to citizenship?”

All pertinent questions, but cultural concerns such as the origins of the immigrants often trump markets and rights. And the tradeoffs are more intense in some periods and in some countries than in others. 

For example, throughout much of U.S. history, immigrants were selected on the basis of race and cultural compatibility. From the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Gentleman’s Agreement of 1907-1908 that effectively banned Japanese immigration to the United States, to the National Origins Quota Act of 1924, race and ethnicity were the primary criteria for admission to the U.S.

Not until the 1950s and ‘60s did the U.S. begin to move away from selection by race. The break came with the repeal of the national origins quota system and the 1965 passage of the Hart-Celler immigration act. (The 1965 act’s quota on immigration from the Western Hemisphere froze out many Mexican and Central American immigrants, and lead to a surge in unauthorized immigration from south of the border.)...
 
...The immigration policy game involves tradeoffs between markets, rights, culture, and security. This makes it difficult to build coalitions for reform. President Trump’s immigration and refugee policy, for example, is couched in cultural, ethnic, and civilizational terms. Christians and Jews are pitted against Muslims, and Mexicans and Hispanics are pitted against whites. Symbolic and racial politics allow him to shore up elements of his political base, but the President has created a perfect storm of opposition to his policies at the international, national, state, and local levels.

It's a good essay, and well worth the few minutes it takes to read it.

There are legitimate reasons to criticize or be upset with the Biden administration's handling of the border and immigration problems, and, as I noted in Part 1 of this post, being concerned about what's going on at the border is not Border Derangement Syndrome.

Nor is it racist or xenophobic to question exactly how the US is going to handle an unprecedented number of migrants -- how they will all be housed, and other issues related to how they can be assured a decent standard of living when so many US citizens, despite a roaring larger economy, are still struggling with housing and food insecurity and lack of health care. As I've said previously, these issues do worry me.

On the other hand, to claim that Biden has done nothing about the border situation, or that he and his officials have deliberately acted to make it worse, or that the border is "wide open" because of his administration's policies, are not just distortions, they're part of a big fat MAGA lie. Unfortunately it is a lie that too many people believe, and it is endangering US democracy in a way that desperate migrants could never do.

Combating the lies and disinformation about the border and immigration
If, in an effort to get to the unvarnished truth about the border and immigration issues, you have done any research about these matters, you may have found yourself as frustrated as I've been. It's often difficult to get the straight story about what's really going on at the border because so much of the content is skewed politically.

I'm not trying to play a game of both-sides-ism because I honestly believe that the republican spin is so much more destructive and dangerous than the Democratic narratives. I do think that Democrats/liberals (including me) have at times understated the crises at the border. But republicans/conservatives/fascists have consistently overstated them.

Here are a few links that might help put matters in perspective.

1. Myth vs. Truth: Dissecting the Republican narrative about the border: Published on The Hill site, this opinion piece by Virginia Democratic Representative Gerald E. Connolly is from February 2023, but it provides good background information about the distorted border narratives that are causing such rancor. One example:

MYTH: The Biden administration has implemented an “open border” policy that has created chaos at our border with Mexico.

TRUTH: President Biden inherited an immigration system in tatters. The Trump administration cut off legal pathways to citizenship, leaving would-be migrants with fewer lawful methods of entering the country. They cut funding to Central American countries in 2019 as they splurged on an ineffective, costly wall. 

It was the Trump administration that tightened sanctions on Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, exacerbating the macroeconomic crises that have led hundreds of thousands to flee and arrive at the southern border. When they pulled the rug out from various, essential assistance programs, they made the problem worse. 

But our immigration system has been broken for many decades — long before Joe Biden or Donald Trump took the oath of office. Time and again, Democrats have proposed solutions to fix the immigration system in a reasonable, humane way. And time and again, Republicans have opposed these efforts at every turn.

One might recall that in 2013, House Republicans thwarted comprehensive immigration reform after an agreement was reached in the Senate. Many of those same House Republicans who prevented that legislation from passing are now intent on blaming irregular migration, an issue our country has dealt with for over a century, solely on the Biden administration.

There’s only one problem with their affinity for blaming Democrats — it doesn’t hold up to basic scrutiny. In fact, between December 2022 and January 2023, the Biden-Harris administration halved the number of encounters at the border and reduced the number of Cuban, Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, and Haitian migrants by 97 percent.  

I urge you to read the rest of the article.

2. Assessing Republicans’ Claims About Immigration During Border Visit: A more recent fact check, this short piece was published by The New York Times on January 3, 2024, following a performative visit to the Texas/Mexico border by a group of 60 House republicans that included Speaker Mike Johnson. One example of a fact-checked statement:

WHAT WAS SAID
“We have lethal drugs that are pouring into our country at record levels.”
— Mr. Johnson

This needs context. It is true that large amounts of fentanyl and other deadly illicit drugs have been flowing into the United States from Mexico. But the majority is trafficked through official ports of entry, not on the backs of economic and asylum-seeking migrants like those who have been coming to the country through Eagle Pass.

For example, in December, federal officials at the Ysleta port of entry in El Paso discovered 123 pounds of fentanyl and methamphetamine over three days, hidden in vehicles coming from Mexico.

The other two fact-checked statements in the piece concern terrorist activity, an issue that is rife with republican distortion.

3. Immigration roars back in headlines. Time finally come for reforms? From the Harvard Gazette, dated February 1, 2024, this interview with migration law scholar Gerald L Neuman provides food for thought and some common-sense suggestions for fixing one of America's longest-standing problems. The interview begins with a perspective on migrant numbers.

Q. The record number of migrants trying to enter the U.S. — more than 3 million “migrant encounters” in 2023 — has led to a humanitarian crisis. How did we end up there?

A. It’s important to mention that these encounters overstate the number of people involved. When agencies talk about “migrant encounters,” they include people who are found or sent back and who try again, which was especially common during the first part of 2023 — when Title 42, the U.S. COVID-19 border restriction, was being employed. I say this because there is a tendency to exaggerate the numbers to attract attention.

The current crisis indicates a cumulative backlog. Some of it goes all the way back to the Obama years, but it also reflects the chaos of the Trump years, with attempts to undermine asylum and the shutdown of the border during COVID. The COVID shutdown involved sending people back without even listening to their claims for protection. But the flows of migrants arise mainly from political instability, repression, gang violence, and economic disruption in their home countries.

Following that, Professor Neuman provides a brief history of immigration reform in America over the past few decades. It's important reading because it helps explain how we got to where we are today.

The interview also provides questions and answers about possible solutions. For example:

Q. What should be done about border security, enforcement, and the immigration court backlog?

A. In terms of enforcement, there is no easy solution. A border fence is merely a symbol and no solution. Clearly, the adjudication system needs more resources, and adjustments to improve both efficiency and fairness. For both sides, justice delayed is justice denied, and that should be an important part of the focus.

Another priority, contrary to some claims, is to reduce reliance on detention. The U.S. is engaged in arbitrary detention of migrants who really don’t need to be detained; they could be subject to surveillance.

The country should also respect its international obligations not to send people back to countries where they will be persecuted, tortured, or killed. It cannot suspend its international obligations on that front, and it should not openly violate them, as it did under COVID.

Professor Neuman also stresses that reducing the flow of migrants into the US from the Southern border is not a problem that the US can solve unilaterally. It must be a regional solution, meaning that, to state the obvious, Mexico has to be a partner in the solution. Judging by President Biden's words as well as his actions, he and his administration are acutely aware that we need Mexico's cooperation to solve the migrant crisis and other border-related issues. This is in stark contrast to Trump and his republican allies, who have suggested such "solutions" as bombing Mexico to stop the flow of fentanyl.

United we stand, divided we fall
As the border battle rages on both national and state levels, it's important that we don't gloss over the threat this issue poses to US democracy and, indeed, to the entire concept of a united country. As noted in Part 1 of this post, Texas Governor Abbott is using the same arguments used by secessionists in the run-up to the Civil War, and he has the majority of state governors and attorneys general backing him up. Never mind that Guv'ner Assbutt's use of "compact theory" and other arguments are legally unsound. He and his republican allies are on the warpath, and damn the consequences to "a more perfect union." From the Route Fifty web site, January 30, 2024:

Steve Vladeck, a University of Texas law professor, questioned the potential consequences of Abbott’s legal reasoning.

“Texas’s reading would effectively allow for the governors of the states under direct assault to assert strategic and tactical control over the response,” Vladeck wrote for Lawfare. “Suffice it to say, the parade of horribles that would result from Texas’s interpretation of Article I, § 10, Clause 3 is a long one—regardless of how one feels about current U.S. immigration policy. And that’s all the more reason for all of us to be cautious before we ignore the text, structure and history of the Constitution in our response.”

Indeed, [University of Maryland law and government professor and constitutional law expert Mark] Graber and [University of Texas law and government professor Sanford] Levinson said Abbott’s legal reasoning could open the door for states like Illinois or New York to erect barriers at their borders to prevent the entry of migrants on buses from Texas. It could empower the Democratic governors of other border states to tear down barriers or walls that the federal government erects along the border. “Why not?” Levinson asked...

...“Politically, [Abbott] is playing with fire,” Levinson warned. As someone who worries that polarization in the country could devolve into civil war, Levinson described a scenario involving the current situation where that could conceivably happen. “If hotheads from Texas, or from Oklahoma or other states, send people to Texas in order to help Texas defend itself against the illegitimate national government,” he said, “and shoot an American soldier who is trying to cut the barbed wire in the middle of the Rio Grande ….” Biden would then have to decide whether to retaliate, he said.

“That is the fire that I think Abbott is playing with,” Levinson said, “and it has precious little to do with the law.”

One point on which Americans seem united is that there is indeed a problem at the border, with the majority of Americans surveyed in a recent poll wanting at least a compromise solution before the 2024 election. Here are the details about that poll.

Elon Musk (no big surprise) is making BDS much worse
What we can count on in the run-up to the election, unfortunately, are stepped-up efforts to make Border Derangement Syndrome even worse, to whip the voters into a bordermaniacal frenzy in the service of restoring Trump to power. A major instigator is bloviating multi-billionaire Elon Musk, the world's richest man, who is aggressively using his Xitter platform to spread lies and distortions about immigrants and Biden's border policies. Recently he has been pushing the bizarre narrative that Biden is trying to get as many "illegals" in the country as possible in order to create a "one-party state," the one party in question being the Democratic one, of course.

Not only does Musk have no basis for those wild claims, but he also doesn't seem to be at all worried about the very real evidence that if Trump is restored to power, America will be on the fast track to fascism under a single party, the Trumpublican one. Maybe that's because Musk, who under the banner of "free speech" re-opened Xitter to all manner of fascist, racist hatemongers, has strong fascist tendencies himself. He has all but embraced the viciously fascist and racist Great Replacement Theory, according to a January 5, 2024 report on Rolling Stone:

Since the end of December, Musk has left a graph pinned to the top of his profile on X (formerly Twitter) that claims to show how more migrants are now arriving at the southern border than there are babies being born to American mothers. “Almost no one seems to be aware of the immense size and lightning growth of this issue,” he wrote in his post. But the data he’s quoting, as the Washington Post reported, is misleading: the number of monthly migrant encounters at the border is always higher than U.S. births, and besides, many of those migrants are turned away before entry, quickly expelled or sent to detention...

While it’s true that migration into the U.S. has reached record numbers of late, creating large encampments and straining the support services of sanctuary cities, Musk’s choice to focus on this disingenuous framing — migration somehow overtaking domestic birth rates — puts him in alignment with the racist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory.

This notion, according to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a political advocacy group that combats extremism, holds that the national “identities” of Western nations “are under threat due to increasing immigrant populations.” Related narratives concern fears of declining birth rates among whites (Musk has warned of “population collapse” if people don’t start having more babies, though demographers have dismissed this likelihood), which in tandem with fears of non-white immigration have allowed far-right extremists to paint a false picture of unfolding “white genocide” (Musk has also dabbled in this conspiracy theory).

All told, then, the Tesla CEO and X owner has long been receptive to racist, far-right talking points alleging some erosion of Western white identity. In the past few days, however, he has embraced them more fully, to the point of seeing an orchestrated plot. On Thursday, he took to X to agree with Geert Wilders, a Dutch political leader notorious for harsh rhetoric against immigrants and Muslims, that “a collapse of our own culture and Western values due to open borders” and “an uncontrollable amount of non-western asylum seekers” was the “biggest problem we face today.” He also evidently accepted Wilders’ claim that “weak politicians advocating cultural relativism” shared in the blame for this imagined issue.

My big hope is that regardless of the outcome of the fights over border legislation, and notwithstanding the flood of ludicrous and dangerous lies about the issues, sanity will prevail and will be reflected in the polls in November 2024. Preventing Donald Trump from returning to office is paramount. It is my hope that the Border Derangement Syndrome sufferers who have been poisoned by MAGA distortions, misinformation, disinformation, and outright lies will not prevail on Election Day. The threat of fascism in America should Trump be re-elected can never be overstated.

Update on bipartisan border bill, February 5, 2024

This post has been amended and updated several times since its initial publication on February 3, 2024.

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