8 ms·

Trump declares national emergency to build border wall

31 points by sahin-boydas 8y ago

sahin-boydas 8y ago
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-border-emergency-the-president-plans-a-10-am-announcement-in-the-rose-garden/2019/02/15/f0310e62-3110-11e9-86ab-5d02109aeb01_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-border-emerge...
skh 8y ago
I remember when Reagan signed legislation granting citizenship to millions of illegals. At the time the idea was that in exchange for doing this the border with Mexico would be tightened. Bush II had a decent proposal for addressing the large number of illegals in the country but his party shot down the proposal. Under Obama deportations greatly increased. This is an issue that has been going on for decades and one that resonates with a certain segment of the voting population. I see no resolution as long as businesses profit off illegal labor with impunity. I've come to believe that few in power actually want to change things. Both major parties can flame the passions of their respective bases by keeping the status quo. If the prognostications of the effects of global warming are true then it is rational to want to fix the situation. Mass migrations are occurring and will get worse. The whole issue is a symptom of a broken political system in my opinion.
- fuzz4lyfe 8y ago
  I find to hard to understand what the lefts actual position is on illegal immigration. I know they aren't a monolith but is the idea that immigration laws should still exist but not be enforced (or enforced lightly)? That seems to me to create a caste system where you have legal citizens and illegal citizens with defacto less rights. If people want open borders, or something like it. My view is they should say so proudly and clearly. It's a defensible position even if I disagree. If the idea is we are going to continue to have a slave caste of illegal immigrants without many labor protections and fearful that their employer will call ICE on them if they don't work unpaid overtime, not only is that indefensible I'd be willing to go to war over it just like my ancestors did the last time we had a similar institution in America.
  - skh 8y ago
    Your points are well made. I'd not thought of the status quo as one that effectively creates a "slave caste". I concur. I don't know what left leaning people want on immigration. I'm a very liberal person myself and I think it's rational to want to have control over who gets into the country and who doesn't. I don't think wanting a border wall makes one automatically racist. It does happen to be true that most racist people do want a wall but as the oft quoted saying says, "A broken clock is right twice a day." In the early 90s a friend from Spain told me that it was racist for Reagan to have wanted to build a wall. Of course she ignored the fact that Spain has walls around its African cities.
    - bllguo 8y ago
      The best solution people can come up with in the 21st century is certainly not a primitive giant wall, which would maybe have been state-of-the-art in the 1400s. I find it very disingenuous to suggest it's either a wall or no security at all. As for what left-leaning people want, politicians all have their positions plastered on the internet.
      - krapp 8y ago
        > I find it very disingenuous to suggest it's either a wall or no security at all. The narrative they're trying to sell is that the state of America's border security has been so thoroughly undermined by leftists and socialists and Democrats who want to rig elections by welcoming illegal immigrants that thousands or tens of thousands of people are literally swarming over the southern border every day raping and killing with impunity and stealing our jobs and diluting our culture and only a wall can stop it. The wall is not about actual, effective border security, it's about selling America on xenophobic panic and anti-progressive propaganda through a manufactured crisis that needs "emergency measures." It's shock doctrine.
  - teucris 8y ago
    Definitely no monolithic opinion but my cohort (i.e. those I speak to regularly about this issue) believe there should be major reforms to vastly simplify legal immigration and enable a clear path to citizenship. You might call this open borders, but that implies a free-for-all. I personally think getting a work visa should be pretty easy, taxes paid by all, and employers should be severely punished for attempting to hire under the table. I think you’re right to say illegal immigration causes a caste system. I think that’s artificially created by our strict immigration policies. We need more workers of all skill levels in the US. There are people who want to pursue a better life by moving here. Why get in the way?
- aglavine 8y ago
  Drug legalization (regulated) can be a solution. Also, if things start to improve in Mexico migrations will disminish more, although with Lopez Obrador probably things will get worse.
  - cosmez 8y ago
    How is it going to be worse? He's lowering taxes in the border and trying to convince Central American immigrants to stay in Mexico.
    - aglavine 8y ago
      He supports Maduro.
sahin-boydas 8y ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/15/us/politics/national-emergency-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/15/us/politics/national-emer...
luxuryballs 8y ago
The thing I find funny about some of the media narrative on this topic is the claim that ports of entry are the only places significant drug trafficking is occurring, it’s almost 2000 miles of wilderness... you know what’s going on at entry ports because it’s being monitored, you can’t quantify what’s going through in places you’re not looking, more probably flows through hidden tunnels that are discovered all the time there’s no hyperbole in saying it’s a threat and an emergency, seeing the effects of the drugs and crime, people getting raped/killed, human trafficking... it was an emergency decades ago when they could have done something to prevent it from getting to this point
- amluto 8y ago
  “Emergency” comes from “emerge”. Think “emergent threat”. There is nothing emergent about this situation. Sure, drugs and our nation’s handling of them is a serious problem, but “problem” is not at all the same thing as “emergency”. As a secondary consideration, I find it hard to believe that a fence or wall is going to help much. Some kind of DARPA-like competition-based inexpensive, well-considered electronic border monitoring might be helpful, but there are plenty of examples of people trivially bypassing fences and overpriced virtual walls. (My personal favorite example of a virtual wall completely failing was at JFK Airport: https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Security-Breach-JFK-Jetski-Jamaica-Bay-Airline-165959376.html https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Security-Breach-JFK-Je...)
  - reallydude 8y ago
    > There is nothing emergent about this situation. That's a matter of perspective. If one party unilaterally decides to block the budgeting crisis, on a philosophical and political premise (albeit, the R's creating the situation to illustrate it), you end up with a situation where you cannot address an issue through political means, at any cost. This is a terrible precedent, but it's also logical for the tool at hand. People have shotguns, which can blow through a window. I still lock my doors and close my windows. Walls work to a degree, for most situations intended to block access.
    - 8y ago
simonsarris 8y ago
Trump was elected on a platform with only a few big goals, and one of them was "Build the wall." This became something of a chant for his supporters. Now that Trump is president, shouldn't it be his duty to try very hard to make it a reality? Isn't that one of the most democratic things that he could do, to try and enact what he promised to the people that elected him, regardless of how good or bad an idea it is? (note that this is not an opinion on wall proposals, which from my skimming seem like a colossal waste of money, or the procedural hijinks involved which seem like the bread and butter of American politics)
- krapp 8y ago
  >Isn't that one of the most democratic things that he could do, to try and enact what he promised to the people that elected him, regardless of how good or bad an idea it is? Trump has been quoted as saying he didn't need to declare a national emergency to fund the wall. He just did it because it was more expedient and he didn't want to have to deal with all that democracy and the hassle of having to compromise over it. That's not democratic. If Obama had used emergency powers for such a petty reason, say to fund the ACA, there would already be blood in the streets. Trump is president of the entire country, not just of the people who voted for him. I would hope, although I don't expect, that he could see the bigger picture.
  - beatgammit 8y ago
    Didn't Obama do this with the Flint water issue? That turned a local issue into a national one, likely to score points for the sitting president. I disagree with both usages of the "state of emergency", and I really wish presidents couldn't do it as easily as they can.

31 points by sahin-boydas 8y ago

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-border-emergency-the-president-plans-a-10-am-announcement-in-the-rose-garden/2019/02/15/f0310e62-3110-11e9-86ab-5d02109aeb01_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-border-emerge...

skh 8y ago

I remember when Reagan signed legislation granting citizenship to millions of illegals. At the time the idea was that in exchange for doing this the border with Mexico would be tightened. Bush II had a decent proposal for addressing the large number of illegals in the country but his party shot down the proposal. Under Obama deportations greatly increased. This is an issue that has been going on for decades and one that resonates with a certain segment of the voting population. I see no resolution as long as businesses profit off illegal labor with impunity. I've come to believe that few in power actually want to change things. Both major parties can flame the passions of their respective bases by keeping the status quo. If the prognostications of the effects of global warming are true then it is rational to want to fix the situation. Mass migrations are occurring and will get worse. The whole issue is a symptom of a broken political system in my opinion.

fuzz4lyfe 8y ago
I find to hard to understand what the lefts actual position is on illegal immigration. I know they aren't a monolith but is the idea that immigration laws should still exist but not be enforced (or enforced lightly)? That seems to me to create a caste system where you have legal citizens and illegal citizens with defacto less rights. If people want open borders, or something like it. My view is they should say so proudly and clearly. It's a defensible position even if I disagree. If the idea is we are going to continue to have a slave caste of illegal immigrants without many labor protections and fearful that their employer will call ICE on them if they don't work unpaid overtime, not only is that indefensible I'd be willing to go to war over it just like my ancestors did the last time we had a similar institution in America.
- skh 8y ago
  Your points are well made. I'd not thought of the status quo as one that effectively creates a "slave caste". I concur. I don't know what left leaning people want on immigration. I'm a very liberal person myself and I think it's rational to want to have control over who gets into the country and who doesn't. I don't think wanting a border wall makes one automatically racist. It does happen to be true that most racist people do want a wall but as the oft quoted saying says, "A broken clock is right twice a day." In the early 90s a friend from Spain told me that it was racist for Reagan to have wanted to build a wall. Of course she ignored the fact that Spain has walls around its African cities.
  - bllguo 8y ago
    The best solution people can come up with in the 21st century is certainly not a primitive giant wall, which would maybe have been state-of-the-art in the 1400s. I find it very disingenuous to suggest it's either a wall or no security at all. As for what left-leaning people want, politicians all have their positions plastered on the internet.
    - krapp 8y ago
      > I find it very disingenuous to suggest it's either a wall or no security at all. The narrative they're trying to sell is that the state of America's border security has been so thoroughly undermined by leftists and socialists and Democrats who want to rig elections by welcoming illegal immigrants that thousands or tens of thousands of people are literally swarming over the southern border every day raping and killing with impunity and stealing our jobs and diluting our culture and only a wall can stop it. The wall is not about actual, effective border security, it's about selling America on xenophobic panic and anti-progressive propaganda through a manufactured crisis that needs "emergency measures." It's shock doctrine.
- teucris 8y ago
  Definitely no monolithic opinion but my cohort (i.e. those I speak to regularly about this issue) believe there should be major reforms to vastly simplify legal immigration and enable a clear path to citizenship. You might call this open borders, but that implies a free-for-all. I personally think getting a work visa should be pretty easy, taxes paid by all, and employers should be severely punished for attempting to hire under the table. I think you’re right to say illegal immigration causes a caste system. I think that’s artificially created by our strict immigration policies. We need more workers of all skill levels in the US. There are people who want to pursue a better life by moving here. Why get in the way?
aglavine 8y ago
Drug legalization (regulated) can be a solution. Also, if things start to improve in Mexico migrations will disminish more, although with Lopez Obrador probably things will get worse.
- cosmez 8y ago
  How is it going to be worse? He's lowering taxes in the border and trying to convince Central American immigrants to stay in Mexico.
  - aglavine 8y ago
    He supports Maduro.

sahin-boydas 8y ago

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/15/us/politics/national-emergency-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/15/us/politics/national-emer...

luxuryballs 8y ago

The thing I find funny about some of the media narrative on this topic is the claim that ports of entry are the only places significant drug trafficking is occurring, it’s almost 2000 miles of wilderness... you know what’s going on at entry ports because it’s being monitored, you can’t quantify what’s going through in places you’re not looking, more probably flows through hidden tunnels that are discovered all the time there’s no hyperbole in saying it’s a threat and an emergency, seeing the effects of the drugs and crime, people getting raped/killed, human trafficking... it was an emergency decades ago when they could have done something to prevent it from getting to this point

amluto 8y ago
“Emergency” comes from “emerge”. Think “emergent threat”. There is nothing emergent about this situation. Sure, drugs and our nation’s handling of them is a serious problem, but “problem” is not at all the same thing as “emergency”. As a secondary consideration, I find it hard to believe that a fence or wall is going to help much. Some kind of DARPA-like competition-based inexpensive, well-considered electronic border monitoring might be helpful, but there are plenty of examples of people trivially bypassing fences and overpriced virtual walls. (My personal favorite example of a virtual wall completely failing was at JFK Airport: https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Security-Breach-JFK-Jetski-Jamaica-Bay-Airline-165959376.html https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Security-Breach-JFK-Je...)
- reallydude 8y ago
  > There is nothing emergent about this situation. That's a matter of perspective. If one party unilaterally decides to block the budgeting crisis, on a philosophical and political premise (albeit, the R's creating the situation to illustrate it), you end up with a situation where you cannot address an issue through political means, at any cost. This is a terrible precedent, but it's also logical for the tool at hand. People have shotguns, which can blow through a window. I still lock my doors and close my windows. Walls work to a degree, for most situations intended to block access.
  - 8y ago

simonsarris 8y ago

Trump was elected on a platform with only a few big goals, and one of them was "Build the wall." This became something of a chant for his supporters. Now that Trump is president, shouldn't it be his duty to try very hard to make it a reality? Isn't that one of the most democratic things that he could do, to try and enact what he promised to the people that elected him, regardless of how good or bad an idea it is? (note that this is not an opinion on wall proposals, which from my skimming seem like a colossal waste of money, or the procedural hijinks involved which seem like the bread and butter of American politics)

krapp 8y ago
>Isn't that one of the most democratic things that he could do, to try and enact what he promised to the people that elected him, regardless of how good or bad an idea it is? Trump has been quoted as saying he didn't need to declare a national emergency to fund the wall. He just did it because it was more expedient and he didn't want to have to deal with all that democracy and the hassle of having to compromise over it. That's not democratic. If Obama had used emergency powers for such a petty reason, say to fund the ACA, there would already be blood in the streets. Trump is president of the entire country, not just of the people who voted for him. I would hope, although I don't expect, that he could see the bigger picture.
- beatgammit 8y ago
  Didn't Obama do this with the Flint water issue? That turned a local issue into a national one, likely to score points for the sitting president. I disagree with both usages of the "state of emergency", and I really wish presidents couldn't do it as easily as they can.