The Trump Administration twice approached ICE to suggest that, hey, when they had asylum seekers or illegal immigrants who needed to be released while waiting their hearings, they ship them off to “to small- and mid-sized sanctuary cities”.
The White House told U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that the plan was intended to alleviate a shortage of detention space but also served to send a message to Democrats. The attempt at political retribution raised alarm within ICE, with a top official responding that it was rife with budgetary and liability concerns, and noting that “there are PR risks as well.”
“PR risks.”
After the White House pressed again in February, ICE’s legal department rejected the idea as inappropriate and rebuffed the administration.
So for all the people suggesting that ICE needs to be abolished and reconstituted as a new agency, their legal department, at least, should be kept intact, or at least given a second chance.
Consider what this means.
- The Trump Administration regularly suggests that illegal immigrants are a significant danger due to all the rapists and murderers and drug lords in their numbers. Also, maybe, Middle-Eastern terrorists.
- The Trump Administration decided to target specific locations (with specific partisan leanings against him) with these dangerous individuals, to “send a message.”
That message would be, presumably, one of blood and suffering and death. Because murderers, rapists, and drug lords (and maybe terrorists).
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the President of the United States and his Administration sought to have political opponents — and ordinary residents of areas that had voted for those political opponents — killed, raped, etc., to send a “message.”
That actually happens to be a definition of terrorism.
Now the reality is that there is no observable correlation between immigrant, even illegal immigrant, populations and violent crime rates. And if there were, one would expect those “sanctuary cities” — where civil authorities do not go beyond legal requirements to cooperate with federal immigration authorities or to administer federal immigration law with local resources — to already be rife with rape and murder. Which they are not.
But if we are to take Trump’s rhetoric at all seriously, he truly believes that these immigrant hordes are highly dangerous. And he wanted to specifically target particular communities he feels are defying him with this dangerous population.
Apparently that’s the new normal in the United States.
And it’s not just rumor or anonymous sources. The specific proposals have been admitted to by both the White House and DHS.
A White House official and a spokesman for DHS sent nearly identical statements to The Post on Thursday, indicating that the proposal is no longer under consideration. “This was just a suggestion that was floated and rejected, which ended any further discussion,” the White House statement said.
Oh, well, I guess that makes it all better.
Of course, one might argue that Trump, or his xenophobic advisor Stephen Miller, apparently the author of this policy proposal, that they don’t actually think these people are that much of a danger, but that they simply want to overwhelm social services and other civic institutions in those locations — in Democratic districts, and/or in “sanctuary” cities.
Is that level of political retribution acceptable, either?
Do you want to know more? White House proposed releasing immigrant detainees in sanctuary cities, targeting political foes – The Washington Post
A narcissistic sociopath does what?
And, of course, once it came out, Donald didn’t dare admit that he’d been turned down; he considers the plan still under consideration:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1116742280919044096 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1116742282286440448
Yes, the man is a sociopath.
Once again, you don’t get him or why he does and says these things. First, he’s keeping the problem at the border in the news. It is a problem, we can’t have an 100k plus a month coming into the system. Just like the sanctuary cities are screaming about(see Cher) they can’t handle the influx and don’t have the resources.
But, it’s okay for all these mayors and governors on the left coasts to stick it to Trump and defy Federal laws about sanctuary cities. But, when asked to take more of these poor, helpless illegal immigrants into their cities, they cry foul when asked to put up or shut up. How dare President Trump use these illegal immigrants as pawns in his chess game. Doesn’t he know only the Democrats get to use women, children, minorities and illegals as their pawns. How dare he! I guess only the Democrats that have to sole rights or claims to use them.
I think you stretch the truth about mayhem and chaos as a form of terrorism, but then you debunk your own prejudice with saying that there isn’t any real correlation between illegals and crime. That’s hard data to collect since the theory by most research institutions believe that most crimes committed by illegals is on illegals.
So, why worry. Take all of them with open arms. Open the gates of your community and take them into your homes. Sponsor them, feed them, cloth them. Or, do you want others to just make them go away, but not in my community.
You like socialism, open borders, come to any major city in California. Also, if the wall is so bad, why not ask Gov. Newsom to take down the wall between Cali and Mexico? I mean, if putting up more walls is a bad thing, shouldn’t we take the Christian approach and love thy neighbor and let everyone into the US. Maybe we can send them to the Mid West.