The Undocumented

For John, BLUF:  We have an immigration system, given us by Congress but the Biden Administrationo decided to bypass Federal Rules, and it has been a disaster.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Boston whistleblower warns of migrant crime spillover as Trump’s crackdown looms

Here is the sub-headline:

“The Healey hotels were well known for having sex trafficking, domestic violence,' said Fetherston, 'Now, you've opened it up to all of the cities and towns'

From Fox News, by Reporter Peter Pinedo, 30 August 2025, 9:00 am EDT

Here is the lede plus two:

As Democratic leaders in Massachusetts triple down on resistance against federal intervention to clamp down on crime, a migrant shelter whistleblower is sounding the alarm about an increase in crime in neighborhoods across the state and especially in Boston.

Jon Fetherston, who ran one of the state-funded migrant shelters in Marlborough, Massachusetts, and blew the whistle about rampant crime and sex abuse taking place in the hotel shelter system. He now says that since Democratic Gov. Maura Healey closed down the shelter system, there has been an uptick in domestic violence, sex trafficking, shoplifting and even auto accidents.

"The Healey hotels were well known for having sex trafficking, domestic violence. We've reported cases of rape, unfortunately, in there," Fetherston said. "Now, you've opened it up to all of the cities and towns in Massachusetts."

Mr Fetherston further elaborates:

"Governor Healey wants you to think she just snaps her fingers and closes all of the hotels and then disperses people into the communities that the thousand incidents that were reported back in 2024, and the state has refused to release the data for 2025, she just thinks that those serious instances aren't going to happen in the communities that now she's forced people into."

Yes, in the past, we have had immigrants who have formed criminal gangs.  However, the vast majority have come to peacefully build lives based on freedom and family.  This recent wave of undocumented immigrnts, thank you President Biden, seem to be more on the criminal side than the peaceful side.  This makes it harder for them to be accepted by the rest of us.

In the mean time, Democrts seem to want us to just accept these undocumented immigrants as though they had put in the hard work legal immigrants have.  Thanks to the US Congress, legal immigrants have to follow an ardous path to become legal residents and then citizens.  What lesson do the undocumented draw, aside from the partisan disaster on Capitol Hill?

Hat tip to my Friend Randy Gweleman, who recommends i move down South, "while you still have a chance!!"

Regards  —  Cliff

v

Welcoming Immigrants

For John, BLUF:  The photo cut:  Lowell City Councilor Paul Ratha Yem chose items for his family’s Sunday dinner in the New Pailin Market, home to a thriving Cambodian community. The state recently announced that it is moving about 70 migrant and homeless families into the Lowell Inn and Conference Center..  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Lowell is getting dozens of migrant families. Their struggles resonate with Cambodian community.

From Boston Globe, by Correspondent Daniel Kool, 26 April 2024, 5:50 a.m..

Here is the lede plus four:

Vanna Howard watched as Khmer Rouge militants captured her father in the late 1970s during the group’s reign of terror in Cambodia.  She watched as three of her younger siblings and her grandparents were lost to sickness and starvation in a genocide that killed more than 1.7 million people.

Now Howard, a state representative, and other Cambodians in Lowell are watching with empathetic eyes as dozens of new migrant families trickle into Lowell — the latest stop on a harrowing journey that took some through multiple countries in search of opportunity.  She said she sees reflections of her experience in the newest wave of migrants arriving in Massachusetts.

When Howard fled Cambodia, making her way to a refugee camp in Thailand, she walked for “weeks and weeks, similar to the folks who have been coming to our border” in the United States.

“We need to treat this matter with empathy, with compassion,” Howard said, her voice cracking with emotion. “Nobody wants to leave their home country.  The decision to leave their home country — it has to be so bad that you are willing to risk your life to flee."

The state announced last week that it would move nearly 70 migrant and homeless families from Bedford to the UMass Lowell Inn and Conference Center.  Many of those being relocated are Haitian migrants who fled a country consumed by gang violence.

The lead photo shows Lowell City Councillor Paul Ratha Yem, who was on City Life Show this last Friday.  Lowell is a City of immigrants.  I came here 30 years ago. I say to Councilor Yem that while he was born in Cambodia, like me he came here from the Southland (Southern California), where he lived in San Bernidino, and did work in Long Beach, where I did High School.

I am opposed to President Biden's Open borders policy.  For one thing, I don't understand his underlying objective.  He has not been able to articulate the value.  Further, he cannot explain what historians and social scientists know about the ability of this nation to absorb new immigrants and make them successful and proud Americans.

That said, those who are here are here and we, as Lowellians and as Citizens of our Commonwealth need to make these people feel welcome and we need to provide them shelter and food and work.  Even if they eventually return to the nation from which they came, while they are here, they are fellow human beings and we need to help them to do and live their best.  Lowell is a good place for that to happen, and for immigrants to learn, from us, the importancve of human rights and respect for those rights.

Regards  —  Cliff

Immigrants Learning

For John, BLUF:  Just because it was OK where you came from does not mean it is OK here.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

The Discovery From Denmark's Crime Stats That the Left Doesn't Want You to See

From PJ Media, by Comedian Kevin Downey, Jr, 25 March 2024, 3:46 PM.

Here is the lede plus three:

A peek at the Danish crime statistics from 2010-2021 delivered a gut punch to the globalists looking to tear down Western cultures by gavaging "asylum seekers" into Europe and North America. It turns out that Muslims commit violent crimes way more than people of Danish descent.

Back in 2020, Mattias Tesfaye, Denmark's minister for Immigration and Integration, did the unthinkable and decided to create a category for criminals from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), mostly Arab and/or Muslim nations. Guess what Denmark learned? MENA immigrants have a higher tendency for unemployment and violent crime than any other ethnic group in Denmark.

Leftists flipped their wigs when Denmark "singled out" the group — largely Muslim men — for committing the lion's share of crimes.

"Amazing, why not give them a little symbol to stitch on their clothes, so we can keep an eye on them," a social media commentator blasted, trying desperately to compare the peaceful Jews of Europe sent to concentration camps with the violent and unemployed Muslims of Denmark.

The article contains this little gem:  "Muslim/Arab men are convicted for rape in Denmark seven times more than Danish-born men."  This suggests that different cultures may have different values.  This, in turn, raises questions of immigration.  Are you, as an immigrant, supposed to adapt to the host culture, or should you be able to bring your culture with you?

We should be open to other cultures.  The Amish live in the United States without issues.  In the same way, there are Orthodox Jewish Commnunities, like Kiryas Joel, that are an entity, but fit like a puzzle piece in the larger puzzle of the United States.  However, the host nation must make clear that outside the specific immigrant community, host nation laws will be applied.  And sometimes within the immigrant community, for example, Sati (or Suttee) would likely not be tolerated in this nation.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Legal vs Illegal Immigration

For John, BLUF:  The issue of immigration is heating up in this Presidential Primary Season.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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A 2024 Vulnerability

Here is the sub-headline:

The Democrats are out of step with public opinion when it comes to immigration.

From The Old Gray Lady, by Columnist David Leonhardt, 17 January 2024.

Here is the lede plus one:

The first thing to know is that views on immigration aren’t static.  During Trump’s presidency, Americans became more favorable to immigration, evidently in reaction to Trump’s opposition to it.  Consider this:  By the end of his presidency, the number of Americans who favored increasing immigration exceeded the number who favored decreasing it for the first time in six decades of Gallup polling.

That trend has since reversed, as you can see in the chart.  The biggest reason seems to be a surge of illegal immigration during President Biden’s term.  One cause of that surge has been the Biden administration’s approach.  Many would-be migrants now believe — correctly — that so long as they can reach U.S. soil, they will be able to stay for years.

I think I missed the part where the poll looked at the difference between legal and illegal immigration.

I favor increased legal immigration.  Don't you?

On the other hnd, I deplore illegal immigration.

1. In makes a mockery of the work of those coming legally.  I know a Canadian, retired on US Social Security, with Daughters born in the US (thus Daughterscould be President—just the risk they have to take), who is spending several thousand dollars and a lot of time doing it legally.  What a slap in the face to her for illegal immigrants to be walking free in the US, flying on airliners without IDs.
2. While we endured the ever-changing demands of Dr Fauci and company, for public health reasons, illegals come in lacking tests and shots.  The picture in my mind of legal immigrants is a long line of individuals holding chest Xray folders outside the US Embassy in Manila.  My above mentioned friend spent $300 for a chest X-ray to help satisfy the US legal requirements.  Illegal immigrants, maybe never, but if required, for free.
3. Illegal immigration is about human trafficking, which should be abhorrent to decent people.  And, some of it is sex trafficking, including under age girls.
4. Illegal drugs and fentanyl overdose deaths.
5. The Cartels use illegal immigration to reach into US towns and cities, for corrupt purposes, while we weaken police forces.
6. The danger of terrorists infiltrating our nation, so they can give us a dose of 7 October, as a way of weakening support for Israel.  That would be an affront to God, which is a thing I like to avoid.

So, yes, views change over time.  Rep Jerry Nadler wants the bracero program back.  I guess.  But, I want a steady stream of immigrants, at a pace our infrastructure (including schools) can absorb.  People coming here not just as economic migrants, but as believers in our concept of freedom.  That should be rewarded.

As to the last para of the article, it reminds me of the Bertolt Brecht♠ poem, The Solution.

After the uprising of the 17th of June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts.  Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another

Which reminds me of Ms Joy Reid's comment about the Iowa Caucuses and results, noting parts of Iowa are too White and too Evangelical.  Does she wish for them to be redistributed, or just diluted?

Hat tip to my Middle Brother.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  It the name Bertolt Brecht does not ring A bell, think Three Penny Opera, and in particular the Bobby Darin classic Mac the Knife.

Global Migration

For John, BLUF:  I picked this item because of the acronym:  "WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic)".  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

What Cannot be Discussed

Here is the sub-headline:

Immigration and the North-South Conflict

From In My Tribe (Substack), by Blogger Arnold Kling, 3 December 2023.

Here is the lede plus three:

In his new book The Geek Way, Andrew McAfee quotes Marc Andreessen as having tweeted:

The most serious problem in any organization is the one that cannot be discussed

McAfee stresses that when top executives make it clear that a certain topic is taboo, there is a good chance that the firm is vulnerable on that issue, both financially and morally.  He argues that openness and transparency are better for the organization, even if in the short run it makes executives uncomfortable.

I think that we can interpret the political tension in the United States and Western Europe in Andreessen’s terms.  The political elites do not want to discuss the issue of how to handle large-scale migration of people from the global South to the global North.  Underlying this is an unwillingness to discuss cultural differences between the WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) and the rest.  And an unwillingness to favor the former over the latter.  Consequently, these leaders face populist revolts, surprising them with Donald Trump, Brexit, Geert Wilders, and the Irish anti-immigrant riot.

The Blogger then goes on to discuss the recent riots in Dublin, Ireland, over an Immigrant who knifed several people.

The Blogger then describes how the elites differ from the general population on immigration and how the elites try to stiffle discussioon of the subject, demonizing those from the proletariat who do not see immigration as a wonderful moral success.

One of the issues is the ability or willingness of new arrivals to assimilate into the existing society.

But people outside the progressive elites can see with our own eyes that immigrants from the global South into Western Europe are not assimilating.  Right-wing intellectuals use expressions like “invasion” or “great replacement.”  But their fears are not allowed to be discussed in polite company.  As Matt Goodwin has pointed out repeatedly, in the UK even the Tory party is unwilling to raise the issue.

I am optimistic that the assimilation model can still work in the United States. Immigrants from Latin America tend to believe in assimilation.  They do not belong to a Muslim culture that is hostile to ours.  But the Democratic left does not want to champion assimilation, because doing so would concede the conservative proposition that our culture is in some respects superior and worth assimilating into.

Agreed!  He then goes on to talk about illegal immigration.

What annoys many Americans is illegal immigration.  This in turn is encouraged by the perverse way that we deal with asylum requests

I differ with the Blogger in that what annoys me is that those trying to immigrate legally face large bureaucrstic hurdles, hurdles not faced by those who are jumping the Southern Border.  I have been following the plight of a Canadian woman who had previously lived in the United States, and worked here, and has children who live here.  Her path has been long, expensive and bureaucratic.  It is not a path that is a credit to Emma Lazarus and her words "Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free".

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Helping Others While Ignoring Our Own

For John, BLUF:  The US Veterans Administration already has a mixed review, based on what Veterans I know have to say.  This will only make it worse.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Mayorkas looks to divert VA funding to illegal immigrants

From Hot Air, by Reporter JAZZ SHAW, 29 April 2022 9:36 AM ET.

Here is the lede plus three:

When Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas recently unveiled his “six pillar plan” for dealing with the crisis on our southern border, he certainly didn’t mention this truly awful idea.  During his recent testimony before Congress, Mayorkas slipped in one option that Joe Biden is reportedly considering.  In order to provide better care for the tens of thousands of illegal aliens streaming across the border, the White House is looking at the possibility of diverting funding from the Veterans Administration for that situation.  Additionally, some of the doctors and nurses tasked with caring for our veterans could be reassigned to providing care for the illegals.  Our colleague Spencer Brown at Townhall has the details.

During his recent testimony before Congress, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas informed lawmakers that the Biden administration was considering diverting resources from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to deal with Biden’s border debacle.  This includes not just funding but also VA nurses and doctors who are tasked with caring for America’s veterans, and who may now be sent to care for illegal immigrants.

It’s a ludicrous idea and a terrible decision that Biden seems ready to make. Veterans’ health care has struggled in the past — notably during the last time Biden was in the White House as Vice President in the Obama administration.

America’s veterans deserve the best possible care as a small benefit in return for their service to our country and defense of our freedom.  But Biden thinks those who care for veterans can just be shuffled around as his administration flails about trying to handle the border crisis his policies created.

To be clear, any Cartel summgled human being who falls off our Southern Border Wall and breaks a leg, pelvis or skull, deserves medical care.  As does any other Illegal Immigrant.  They are our fellow human beings, found on the road to Jericho, or anywhere else.  But so are our Veterans, who should not be abandoned in the rush to help others.

Perhaps, if Congress can not stop this action, the solution will be for those Veterans denied service by the VA to gather on our Southern Border and create a human shield, preventing illegal immigrants from entering our nation without the proper paperwork in hand.

It would appear we need more creative ways of helping those who flee their own homes, hoping to reach a land flowing with milk and honey.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Fix The Border Now

For John, BLUF:  In our name the Federal Government is allowing conditions to exist which result in immorality being inflicted on those trying to reach the United States outside the legal immigration process.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Seeking refugee status should not be lifethreatening

From The [Lowell] Sun, Letters to the Editor, by Citizen C R Krieger, 22 September 2021.

Here is the lede plus three:

Last month some 200,000 human beings came across our southern border, helping to perpetuate two separate, but related, evils.

The first evil is that people we are willing to accept as refugees are forced to endure a gauntlet of hardship, theft and sexual abuse for the privilege of crossing our southern border.  Amongst those 200,000 last month, we have seen seemingly abandoned children.  We hear reports of rape and extorted sex.  If we pay attention, we hear of child abuse.  Then there are the fees applied by the human traffickers for their “services.”

The second evil is the fostering of cartels in Mexico, which are smuggling drugs into our nation.

These are drugs which harm our population, and in particular our youth and our less fortunate.

The letter goes on to suggest that we help these people by allowing them to self identify in their nation of origin and provide them transportation to the United States, rather than requiring them to run a violent and expensive gauntlet to prove their worthiness to come to the United States.

Space being what it is, the letter does not go on to suggest that an equally effective alternative would be to finish rebuilding the border wall and turning people back, which would have a ripple effect, discouraging others from trying the trek.

The point is that what we are doing now is morally wrong.  Further, it is probably not sustainable.  We, as Citizens, need to reach out to our US Representative and two Senators and say that the present process is not only not working, but is a moral embarrasment.

Regards  —  Cliff

https://enewspaper.lowellsun.com?selDate=20210922&goTo=A07&artid=3

US Kids Trapped in Afghanistan

For John, BLUF:  Immigrant parents in Sacromento, California, thought things were calm enough in Afghanistan to allow them to send their kids back to visit relatives still in Afghanistan.  They were misinformed.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Almost 30 Students From Sacramento Remain Trapped in Afghanistan

Here is the sub-headline:

“FOX40 reached out to the Department of Defense, which did not want to do an interview”

From Legal Insurrection, by Mr Mike LaChance, 3 September 2021, 07:00 pm.

Here is the lede:

As many as 29 students from Sacramento, California, remain trapped in Afghanistan.  This has been known since at least the date of the August 31 deadline, but hasn’t gotten much notice in national media for reasons which should be obvious.

For me these children from Sacrmento are, by definition, American school kids.  Their parents may be immigrants, but they are American school kids.  Their parents may exercise poor judgement (or depend on the Government for valid information), but they are still American school kids.

It appers that the US Department of State did not, and still does not, have a handle on Americans in Afghanistan, be they natural born American citizens, naturalized American citizens or Green Card holding people of various ages.  The long term Foreign Service Officers (FS0s) at Foggy Bottom and stations across the globe should be doing a better job.

And the snarky comments at Legal Insurrection don't reflect well on our Citizenry.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

A Rose By Any Other Name

For John, BLUF:  Is there any child, growing up, who doesn't question his or her name, hair texture, height, eye color or some other trait?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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America Ruined My Name for Me

Here is the sub-headline:

So I chose a new one.

From The New Yorker, by Author Beth Nguyen, 1 April 2021.

Here is the lede plus one:

People have always told me not to change my name. Some insisted that they liked it:  Bich, a Vietnamese name, given to me in Saigon, where I was born and where the name is quite ordinary.  When my family named me, they didn’t know that we would become refugees eight months later and that I would grow up in Michigan in the nineteen-eighties, in the conservative, mostly white, west side of the state, where girls had names like Jennifer, Amy, and Stacy.  A name like Bich (pronounced “Bic”) didn’t just make me stand out—it made me miserably visible.  “Your name is what?” people would ask.  “How do you spell that?”  Sometimes they would laugh in my face.  “You know what your name looks like, right?  Did your parents really name you that?”

I have always envied Asian kids whose parents let them change their names or have separate “American” names.  Phuoc at home could be Phil at school.  But my parents refused to let me change my name.  They said that I should be proud of who I was, and they weren’t wrong, but they were so angry about it that I knew I should keep my worries to myself.  I didn’t want to reject my family’s Vietnamese culture, replacing it with all that TV commercials promised.  And so I stuck with Bich, or let it stick with me.

I sympathize with Ms Nguyen.  Having a non-standard name is a burden.  Growing up, before high school, kids would mimic my name, saying "Hi, I'm Cliff; drop over some time".  I was stationed at Clark Air Base in the early 1980s and the senior NCO at Base Operations eschewed his first name, Clifford, saying in his part of Pennsylania Clifford is a girl's name.  I have never fully settled into my name, sometimes using Cliff and sometimes using Clifford and sometimes my initials, CRK.♠

I wonder to what degree this is a major issue for Ms Nguyen.  She doesn't mention moving to Canada.  She doesn't mention returning to Viet-nam.  She does mention anti-Asian discrimination.  She doesn't mention the split between Cambodians and Viet-namese.  She doesn't mention the Hmong People.

I feel for Ms Nguyen, but, as Rick says to Ilsa, "It doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world."  Beth Nguyen is a lucky woman, with two kids, I presume, a husband, and a flourishing literary career.  And the ability to write interesting short pieces.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  My Wife dislikes, actually, hates her name.  I try not to use it.

The Forgotten

For John, BLUF:  There is no doubt there are problems at the US Southern Border.  Large numbers of people are fleeing problems in their home nations and seeking asylum in the United States.  One wonders why they don't seek asylum in Meico?  In the mean time, millions are trying to do it the regular way, the legal way.  What of them?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Biden and the Blame Game at the Border

Here is the sub-headline:

The issues involved are nearly impossible to settle as long as policymakers regard decency as a political weakness rather than as a moral strength.

From The New Yorker, by Writer Jonathan Blitzer, March 28, 2021 (For the 5 April Print Edition).

Here is the lede plus three:

During the past decade, three U.S. Presidents have each faced a humanitarian emergency at the southern border.  Barack Obama did in 2014, when tens of thousands of children from Central America arrived, without their parents, to seek asylum.  Five years later, under Donald Trump—and the harshest border-enforcement regime in more than half a century—record numbers of children and families overwhelmed federal authorities.  Now, two months into Joe Biden’s Presidency, it’s his turn. Last Thursday, the topic dominated the first press conference he has given since taking office.  “What we’re doing right now is attempting to rebuild the system that can accommodate what is happening today,” he said.  “It’s going to take time.”

There are currently some eighteen thousand unaccompanied migrant children in U.S. custody, including more than five thousand who remain in holding cells, as the government scrambles to find space to house them.  Republicans who were silent when Trump was separating migrant children from their parents and eviscerating the asylum system are now denouncing “Biden’s border crisis.”  The messaging appears to be effective; it’s causing all sorts of confusion.  Biden is turning away forty per cent of asylum-seeking families and virtually all single adults arriving at the border, under a controversial Trump policy known as Title 42, which he has left in place.  Even so, everyone from TV news anchors to the President of Mexico is blaming Biden for encouraging more migrants to travel north, because he vowed to stop Trump’s heedless cruelty.  Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, tweeted that Biden has “emphasized the humane treatment of immigrants, regardless of their legal status.” He meant it as a criticism.

The Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, has predicted that the United States will encounter more migrants by the end of 2021 than it has at any point in the past two decades. He has also, like the rest of the Administration, avoided labelling the situation a crisis.  “This is not new,” he said.  “We have experienced migration surges before.”  What is new, though, is the pace:  for most of March, about five hundred and fifty children have been arriving at the border every day.  Both Mayorkas and Biden have gone on television to announce that the border is closed; at a White House press briefing, Roberta Jacobson, from the National Security Council, made the announcement in Spanish.  But it was directed more at critics in Congress than at people in Honduras and Guatemala, the countries from which most of the families and children are coming.

The word “crisis” is both an overstatement and an understatement of the situation.  There were more families and children seeking asylum at the border under Trump in 2019 than there are now. And the current numbers, if higher than Biden anticipated, are not unexpected.  The pandemic has led to renewed desperation in Central America, as have two hurricanes that devastated the region last fall, displacing tens of thousands of people.  Yet, in another sense, the situation is worse than much of the public understands, because the issues involved are genuinely complex and nearly impossible to settle as long as policymakers in Washington continue to regard decency as a sign of political weakness rather than of moral strength.

The Author is correct, it is a mess at the Southern Border.  And later on he mentions that it is the plan of the Biden Adminisration to help fix problems in Central America, and bypassing oppressive regimes in the process.  Something we should have been doing since the 1950s.

The author tells us of the inequity of it all.  He pulls out the word "Decency" and asks that our political masters show some.  Perhaps because of some word limit, he avoids talking about doing the right thing for the rest of those seeking to come to the United States and become citizens.  There are millions out there who have done the paperwork properly and have had the prerequisite medical examinations, only to be waiting on line for a chance to legally enter this nation.  This extract is from the Migration Policy Institute:

Because of the numerical caps and per-country caps on certain green-card categories, there are significant waits for some categories, with sharper effects on a few countries.  For example, as of April 2019, the wait for U.S. citizens to sponsor adult, unmarried children was more than seven years for most parts of the world, but was 12 years for relatives from the Philippines—and more than 21 years for those from Mexico.  As of November 2018, there were 3.7 million people waiting in line abroad for a family-sponsored green card, and 121,000 awaiting an employment-sponsored green card.

What does decency say we owe those who follow the rules?  What does Mr Blitzer say?

I predict that nothing will be accomplished this Congressional Term, sort of the abolition of the Filibuster, and even then I have my doubts.

Regards  —  Cliff

Wokeness Across the World

For John, BLUF:  The problem with immigrants is they bring the horrors from their home nations with them and react to them when they see the early indicators of same here in the US.  This is bad for Democrats.  Democrats should oppose immigration, except from Commonwealth Nations.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Wokeism Is Not Cool, Chinese People Know Too Well

From The Epoch Times, from Writer Jean Chen, 26 January 2021.

Here is the lede plus five:

Let’s begin with a true story that happened in China.

Mr. Zhang (an alias) was my father’s high school English teacher in the 1960s.  Twenty years before that, he worked as an interpreter for American liaison officers in China during WWII.  He and his wife were from rich families.  After the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took power, they lived a low-profile life in order to avoid troubles that might arise because of their family backgrounds and his experience working with Americans.

In 1966, the Cultural Revolution began.  Young people were encouraged to accuse, turn in, or even beat up their parents to prove their revolutionary devotion, or to break away from their unfavorable family backgrounds.  Those who dared to do that were considered heroes.

Mr. Zhang’s teenage daughter, Ling (an alias), a classmate of my father, put up a poster accusing her parents of dancing the waltz and having capitalist thoughts.  This ignited a ferocious campaign against her father.  Posters attacking him were everywhere, calling him a “monster.”  In front of mass rallies, half of his hair was shaved.  With a big and heavy board hanging on his neck with his name crossed out with red ink, he was beaten, spat on, and cursed at.

As a result, Mr. Zhang’s son went insane and the whole family suffered tremendously.  Ling lived her life with immense guilt.  Two years ago, before her death from cancer, her parents came to visit her.  However, she kept her eyes closed, pretending to be asleep because she didn’t dare look at them.

This is just one of millions of sad stories that happened in China.  Families torn apart, friends betraying friends, teachers beaten to death by students….

Respect for the opinions of others is part of what free speech is about.

On the other hand, attacking people for their opinions, as opposed to reasoning with them, respectfully presenting your own opinion, is tyranny.

Regards  —  Cliff

Queue The Immigrants

For John, BLUF:  Not all immigrants are left leaning, Democratic Party voting, drones.  Some absorb the American myth♠ and vote like they believe it.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Progressives Have an Immigration Problem

Here is the sub-headline:

Actually, they have two.

From Commonweal Magazine, by Book Reviewer Tom Deignan, 7 December 2020.

Here is the lede plus two:

Tucker Carlson, of course, was outraged.

Disorder and chaos were again coursing through the streets of an American city, this time in southern Wisconsin, during the long, hot summer of 2020.  “The mob descended on Kenosha,” Carlson intoned ominously on his highly rated Fox News show.  “Joe Biden’s voters really are a threat to you and your family.”  Carlson then made a point of distinguishing one constituency from the hordes of revolutionary Bidenites.  “[Kenosha] is home to a sizable Hispanic immigrant population.  There’s no evidence they participated in any of this.  They weren’t in the street yelling about the police or BLM.  They’re just here to work.”

Which is quite a statement coming from a pundit—semi-seriously mentioned as a 2024 presidential candidate—who has spent years preaching to the “Build the Wall” choir.  But it’s all the more reason to acknowledge that Carlson’s comments—like the outcomes of both the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections—point to an immigration dilemma for progressives in post-Trump America.  Two, as a matter of fact.

. . .

• Which brings us to progressives’ first immigration problem.  In 2020, Republicans are doing just fine, thanks in no small part to yesterday’s immigrants.  Joe Biden and Kamala Harris managed to woo enough of these “white ethnic” voters to take the White House.  Nevertheless, while MAGA-merica is typically depicted as the tumbleweed states in the middle of the country, the last two presidential elections actually came down to districts outside of urban areas that were once immigrant hubs.
• Which brings us to progressives’ second immigrant problem:  despite all manner of right-wing anti-immigrant bile, some residents of ethnic enclaves are apparently quite willing to dip their toes into more conservative waters.  In 2020, Donald Trump “confounded expectations” by “adding a substantial number of votes in areas with a lot of Hispanic residents,” according to the New York Times, which also reported that Muslim voters “confounded Democratic strategists with their support for Mr. Trump reaching 35 percent.”

I think the author makes good points here.  An article worth the skimming.

The statistics cited by Mr Deignan suggest there is a lot yet to learn about the 2020 election, and about America.  I am looking forward to it unwinding.

Oh, and I like Talk Show Host Tucker Carlson.  He seems a serious person in perilous times.  Yes, he is sometimes a bit over the top, but he is a Talk Show Host.  Few can pull it off being low key and deadpan.  Most do it by being outrageous.  Mr Tucker Carlson seems relatively calm amongst the crowd.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  The American myth is that people came here for freedom and a chance to better themselves.  It included the idea that anyone who worked hard could succeed and it incorporated the idea that we, the Citizens, run the government or elect those who do.  Yes, add the usual caveats and exceptions and other stuff, but you are better off here than in most countries.

People Migrate

For John, BLUF:  I don't think this is a surprise, but it is interesting confirmation—Native Americans didn't spring up here, but migrated across what is now the Bering Strait.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Scientists discover oldest link between Native Americans, ancient Siberians

From United Press International, by Mr Brooks Hays, 20 MAY 2020.

Here is the lede plus one:

Using genomic analysis, scientists have traced the oldest link between the earliest Native American populations and the people of Siberia's Lake Baikal region.

Modern humans have populated the lands surrounding Lake Baikal since the Upper Paleolithic.  Previous studies of the region's population dynamics suggest the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age was marked by genetic turnovers and admixture events, but the timing of the human migrations and cultural interactions that characterized this place and time in human history aren't well understood.

New genomic analysis of ancient remains in Siberia -- detailed this week in the journal Cell -- have offered scientists fresh insights into the movements of human populations across Eurasia and into the Americas at the end of the Stone Age.

"Previous studies observed the genetic differences between individuals from different time periods, but didn't investigate the differences by dating the admixture events," lead study author He Yu, postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany, told UPI in an email.  "Our study reports a 14,000-year-old individual, which actually fills in a large blank of ancient genomes in this region, between 23,000 and approximately 8,000 years ago."

Interesting.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Being an Immigrant

For John, BLUF:  We all carry our past, as in a knapsack.  However, part of being an American is knowing when it is time to discard the knapsack and make yourself a new person.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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When Your Inheritance Is to Look Away

Here is the sub-headline:

My parents, immigrants from China, depicted our pre-America lives as mere prologue. What I got was a mythology of the future.

From The New Yorker, by Writer C Pam Zhang, 7 April 2020.

Here is the lede plus three:

My dad died and I didn’t look at the body.  The decision made a kind of sense, considering the rules of my life up till then, and considering how my dad was found:  a few days after his death, decomposing on the couch of his office, in a squat gray building in Albany, California.  “A few days” was what they said when I showed up in the parking lot, having rushed from San Francisco in the middle of a workday.  As usual, the fog had lifted as I crossed the Bay Bridge from west to east.  Less than a mile from where my dad died, I had gone to high school, lived in a series of cheerless rentals, seen my parents get divorced.  The light in that part of California had always felt too clear, imparting a bleakness that lays every flaw bare.  There was no disguising the meanness of my father’s death:  the bare concrete, the ugly building with its smeared glass doors, and beyond them (I imagined) the stained couch that my dad used as a bed, the hot plate where he cooked desultory meals, the office furniture littered with receipts and takeout containers.

The light was clear, the day a blur.  I don’t remember which officials milled in the lot.  I don’t remember if the person who asked if I wanted to see the body was short or tall, gentle or stiff; I don’t remember the color of their shirt, the cut of their hair.  I remember only that they said “a few days,” suggesting that in that indefinite period my dad’s body had changed.  Did I want to look?

I hadn’t been afraid when I got the call, but now I was—a vague fear, by which I mean a fear of specificity, a fear of seeing too precisely and having that sight haunt me.  I answered automatically, by force of lifelong habit.  “No,” I said, and lost my chance to look.

Obfuscation is my inheritance.  My parents, like many immigrants, depicted their pre-America lives as mere prologue, quickly sketched. Once, we lived in China.  The winters were cold.  You were small.  Now we live here.

That unwillingness to plumb one’s past is unimaginable to me, but, then again, I’m American.  I grew up devouring cold cereal and sitcoms with plots that revolved around girls who preserved the details of their lives in pink satin diaries.  I owned such a diary, in America; in America, every life is an exception, every person worthy of a story.  “Oh!” someone exclaims at a party when I name some American city I’ve lived in.  They have a cousin or a friend from the area, and have I eaten the local food, and what do I feel about the local sports team?  In Lexington, Kentucky, circa 1994, very few questions followed when my parents answered, “China.”  That was the goal, to some extent.  The past became easy to overlook.

"Obfuscation" may be her "inheritance", but she is now an American.  Shouldn't that give her a certain sense of hope, hope for the future?  Her thinking makes me think of the People's Republic of China.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Congress, Do Your Job

For John, BLUF:  Part of our problem with immigration is that the Congress is not doing its job of coming up with an immigration policy that they are willing to support and which State and local governments can live with.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Ninth Circuit Judge to Congress:  'Don't leave the table and expect us to clean up.'

Here is the sub-headline:

Public charge rule goes into effect today.

From Center for Immigration Studies, by Mr John Miano, 24 February 2020.

Here is the lede plus one:

I previously posted a summary of the Public Charge Rule’s legal saga.  In City & Cnty. of S.F. v. United States Citizenship & Immigration Servs., 944 F.3d 773 (9th Cir. 2019), the Ninth Circuit held that the Public Charge Rule was within the authority of the Department of Homeland Security.

Contrary to the disinformation published in the elite media, the Supreme Court did not affirm this decision -- it merely lifted the injunction against the administration's public charge rule, allowing it to go into effect today while the case continues to proceed through the courts.

Judge Jay Bybee wrote both the court’s opinion and a separate concurring opinion.  The lack of attention the nation’s elite media has paid to the latter should not surprise anyone acquainted with the generally poor quality of reporting.  However, the opinion is worth reading in full (citations omitted):

BYBEE, Circuit Judge, concurring, perplexed and perturbed:

I join the majority opinion in full.  I write separately to emphasize two points — points that I feel must be made, but are better said in a separate opinion.

We as a nation are engaged in titanic struggles over the future of immigration in the United States.  These are difficult conversations.  As a court, the Ninth Circuit in particular has felt the effects of the recent surge in immigration.  As we observed last year with respect to the asylum problem:

We have experienced a staggering increase in asylum applications.  Ten years ago we received about 5,000 applications for asylum.  In fiscal year 2018 we received about 97,000 — nearly a twenty-fold increase.  Our obligation to process these applications in a timely manner, consistent with our statutes and regulations, is overburdened.  The current backlog of asylum cases exceeds 200,000 — about 26% of the immigration courts' total backlog of nearly 800,000 removal cases.  In the meantime, while applications are processed, thousands of applicants who had been detained by immigration authorities have been released into the United States.

Because of our proximity to Mexico, Central America, and East Asia, the brunt of these cases will find their way into our court.  And we are well aware that we are only seeing the matters that find their way into federal court, and that the burdens of the increase in immigration are borne not only by our judges, but by the men and women in the executive branch charged with enforcing the immigration laws.

Our court has faced an unprecedented increase in emergency petitions arising out of the administration's efforts to administer the immigration laws and secure our borders.  These controversial efforts have met with mixed success in our court and the Supreme Court.

My first point is that even as we are embroiled in these controversies, no one should mistake our judgments for our policy preferences.  Whether "the iron fist [or an extended velvet glove] would be the preferable policy.  ... our thoughts on the efficacy of the one approach versus the other are beside the point, since our business is not to judge the wisdom of the National Government's policy."

So, where is the Congress on this?  I hear a lot of whinging about the policy, but I don't see new legislation coming out that compromises Democrat and Republican Party views to give us a consensus position we can all reasonably support.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Bernie On ICE

For John, BLUF:  The United States is an experiment, and it is a legitimate question as to if immigration without assimilation can sustain the American experiment.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Bernie Sanders unveils ambitious immigration plan that offers a path for citizenship and dismantles ICE

From The Boston Globe, by Globe Staff Writer Jazmine Ulloa!, 7 November 2019.

Here is the lede plus two:

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders on Thursday proposed dismantling the federal agency that handles deportations as part of the most ambitious immigration plan yet by a Democratic presidential candidate — and the only one crafted with the guidance of young immigrants at the center of the national debate.

Like other contenders for the party’s 2020 nomination, Sanders would decriminalize border crossings and provide a pathway to citizenship for roughly 11 million people without legal residency in the country.  But he also went further, pledging to temporarily halt all deportations, end federal immigration raids and break up two federal agencies, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, that have been at the forefront of President Trump’s family separation policy.

Denouncing what he called Trump’s demonization of immigrants, Sanders said the immigration proposal was personal because his father “came to America as a refugee without a nickel in his pocket, to escape widespread anti-Semitism and find a better life.”

In the back of my mind is the question of the role of culture in the political and economic success of the United States, which acts as a magnet, pulling immigrants from other, less successful nations.  To what degree does cultural dilution impact the success of the United States?  In order to sustain the success of the United States, which attracts immigrants, does the nation need to moderate immigration?

Regards  —  Cliff

Multiculturalism Tested

For John, BLUF:  Culture is important and to lose part of one's culture may mean a move in a positive direction, or in a negative direction.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Merkel says German multiculturalism has failed

From Reuters, by Reporter Sabine Siebold, 16 October 2019.

Here is the lede plus two:

Germany’s attempt to create a multicultural society has “utterly failed,” Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday, adding fuel to a debate over immigration and Islam polarizing her conservative camp.

Speaking to a meeting of young members of her Christian Democrats (CDU), Merkel said allowing people of different cultural backgrounds to live side by side without integrating had not worked in a country that is home to some four million Muslims.

“This (multicultural) approach has failed, utterly failed,” Merkel told the meeting in Potsdam, south of Berlin.

The Germans, between 1944 and 1950, integrated millions of folks who were ethnic Germans or German Passport holders who had previously lived East of the Oder River and were expelled by Soviet (Russian) forces as the front line moved West.  But, while they have done a fair job of integrating Communist East Germany and Capitalist West Germany, but can't integrate immigrants welcomed as Guest Workers (Gastarbeiter) in the 1950s, '60s and early '70s.

This segregation problem seems to exist everywhere, from the US to China.  Professor Joshua M Epstein, when at Brookings institution, working with computer models, came to the conclusion that segregation, not integration, was typical.  That is, entities prefer to "live" close to others similar to themselves, leading to some degree of self-segregating.

The United States does a fairly good job at multiculturalism, but not perfect.  To what extent does multiculturalism mean that the native culture must give way to the newly arriving culture?  And why did the immigrants leave their homeland and what good did they see in the welcoming culture, and would they not which to preserve this culture to which they are moving?  The crude way of asking the question is if one is emigrating to find a better life in a new Homelife, to what extent do the immigrants wish to drag their old culture with them?

Do we have some way of sorting the good from the bad?  Salsa is good, as is spaghetti.  What about an Avocado Cartel?  Is folks not voting in local elections, for cultural reasons, a social good or the opposite?

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

White Supremacy Attracts Immigrants?

For John, BLUF:  Bad as the US may be, where immigrants are from must be far worse.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The Strange Case of ‘White Supremacy’

From American Greatness, by Professor Victor Davis Hanson, 11 August 2019.

Here is the meat of the argument:

Most estimates suggest new American immigrants range from 80 percent to 90 percent nonwhite, the vast majority from Mexico and Latin America, and Asia, and in particular Mexico, Central America, India, Southeast Asia, and China.  Given the dominance of the American media worldwide, the influence of American movies and television, and the ubiquity of American pop culture, most immigrants have a fairly good idea of what life inside America is like.

Why, then, if we as a people are plagued from the outset by an incurable “white supremacy” and “white privilege,” would hundreds of thousands of nonwhite immigrants each year wish to enter such a dreadful place?

The answer to why America appears attractive to newcomers is obvious: what global elites say and what non-elites do are two quite different things.

Certainly, one can damn in the abstract (whether for careerist purposes or from psychological angst) what one desires in the concrete.  For all her expressed disappointment in America, U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) may well have violated U.S. tax and perhaps immigration law in an allegedly felonious effort to facilitate her brother’s entry into America—a fact that resonates far more than her often tired whines about her dissatisfaction with her adopted country.

In sum, millions over the last few decades would have avoided or been barred from entering the United States, as they have avoided immigrating into an exclusionary but prosperous China or Japan—had they believed America was a racist country dominated by overweening white privilege.  Throughout history white supremacist societies—or any other supposedly racially defined nation—have not adopted de facto or de jure immigration policies that welcome immigrants who are 80-90 percent of a different race or ethnic background.

Why are Democrats not urging immigrants to the US to stay home?

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Immigration Nonsense

For John, BLUF:  The linked OpEd is very dishonest.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Why Should Immigrants ‘Respect Our Borders’?  The West Never Respected Theirs

Here is the sub-headline:

Immigration quotas should be based on how much the host country has ruined other countries.

From The Old Gray Lady, by Mr Suketu Mehta (Mr. Mehta is the author of This Land Is Our Land:  An Immigrant’s Manifesto.), 7 June 2019.

Here is the lede plus three:

There is a lot of debate these days about whether the United States owes its African-American citizens reparations for slavery.  It does.  But there is a far bigger bill that the United States and Europe have run up:  what they owe to other countries for their colonial adventures, for the wars they imposed on them, for the inequality they have built into the world order, for the excess carbon they have dumped into the atmosphere.

The creditor countries aren’t seriously suggesting that the West send sacks of gold bullion every year to India or Nigeria.  Their people are asking for fairness:  for the borders of the rich countries to be opened to goods and people, to Indian textiles as well as Nigerian doctors.  In seeking to move, they are asking for immigration as reparations.

Today, a quarter of a billion people are migrants.  They are moving because the rich countries have stolen the future of the poor countries.  Whether it is Iraqis and Syrians fleeing the effects of illegal American wars, or Africans seeking to work for their former European colonial masters, or Guatemalans and Hondurans trying to get into the country that peddles them guns and buys their drugs:  They are coming here because we were there.

Before you ask them to respect our borders, ask yourself:  Has the West ever respected anyone’s borders?

Monday last, on City Life, Mr George Zaharoolis, talking about the Greek Orthodox Church, kept saying Constantinople.  But, today it is Istanbul.  So why does the author not reference that non-respect of borders, some 566 years ago (1453AD).  No mention by the Writer of the Armenians, or the Ukrainians or the Baltics.  Maybe it is not PC.

I wonder where he comes down on the Reconquista?  Who was in the wrong?  Were reparations owed?  And perhaps most interesting, when does a conquest stop being a conquest and becomes accepted social reality?  Have we accepted and adapted to the Norman Conquest of 1066?  On the other hand, do we accept the Roman conquest of the Holy Land, and all that flows from it as fait accompli?

This is rubbish.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

To Be Free and Safe

For John, BLUF:  A Blogger explains the Second Amendment.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Where a Redneck Jew and a Hispanic Catholic write about Gun Rights, Self Defense and whatever else we can think about.

From Gun Free Zone, by Miguel.

Where Miguel tells about coming to this Country to feel safe, protected by the Second Amendment.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff