#US - Mexico border

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[probablyasocialecologist]

The 370-page border bill that Democrats signed off on reads like a GOP wish list. Perhaps that’s because Republicans helped write the bill (though many of them promptly turned around and helped tank it after Donald Trump announced his opposition). Among its provisions: $8 billion in emergency funding for ICE, including $3 billion to increase detentions; a mechanism to “shut down” the border if a certain number of people cross; $7 billion in emergency funding for Customs and Border Protection; and a continuation of Trump’s border wall. A few progressive-sounding add-ons aside, like freeing up a limited number of new visas and hiring some more lawyers, the legislation is a complete concession to the worst aspects of Trumpism that Biden and Democrats purportedly ran against in 2020. How do Democrats justify this lurch toward increased brutality at the border? Some appear to view it as a clever maneuver to beat the GOP at their own game. By adopting Republican framing and policy on immigration, and still getting rebuffed, this thinking goes, Democrats will show voters that Trump-driven hysteria is to blame for the supposed “crisis” at the border. It’s a confounding and amoral “gotcha” strategy, in which people seeking to move across the border in pursuit of safety, work, and a new home amount to little more than a mechanism for media narrative point-scoring.

[...]

Do Democrats now agree with the Republican party on immigration, ideologically? Their outward messaging appears to accept the premise that this hard-right bill will “fix the border” (whatever this means), so it seems they do. Top Democratic senators are proudly boosting an endorsement of the bill by the Border Patrol union, a far-right union with a history of promoting white nationalism and avidly backing Trump. MSNBC personality Al Sharpton, much to the right-wing media’s gratification, said in an interview with Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) Tuesday that “we’re looking every day at the invasion of migrants”—positively Trumpian rhetoric. This seems like quite a pivot after Democratic party messaging ran in 2020 on criticizing Trump’s border policies and rhetoric as akin to Nazism. If so, do the Democrats now owe the GOP an apology? Or, do Democrats not really think these far-right policies are good, but are simply “calling Republicans’ bluff” to prove some broader meta-point? And if so, isn’t it quite a gamble to risk the immigration status of millions and stoke nativist fears to get some cutesy hypocrisy gotcha over on the Republicans? If Democrats can, seemingly overnight, radically alter their position on immigration from one that at least pretended to pay lip service to the humanity of those seeking a better life in the US to nonstop tough-guy posturing about “harsh,” “strict,” “tough” “border security,” then what message does this send to other vulnerable groups?

[destielmemenews]

This decision comes after the Supreme Court paved the way for Texas state officials to arrest and detain people they suspect of entering the country illegally. The court had previously issued an indefinite pause on the proceedings.

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[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Officers working for Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security initiative have been ordered to push small children and nursing babies back into the Rio Grande, and have been told not to give water to asylum seekers even in extreme heat, according to an email from a Department of Public Safety trooper who described the actions as “inhumane.”

The July 3 account, reviewed by Hearst Newspapers, discloses several previously unreported incidents the trooper witnessed in Eagle Pass, where the state of Texas has strung miles of razor wire and deployed a wall of buoys in the Rio Grande.

According to the email, a pregnant woman having a miscarriage was found late last month caught in the wire, doubled over in pain. A four-year-old girl passed out from heat exhaustion after she tried to go through it and was pushed back by Texas National Guard soldiers. A teenager broke his leg trying to navigate the water around the wire and had to be carried by his father.

The email, which the trooper sent to a superior, suggests that Texas has set “traps” of razor wire-wrapped barrels in parts of the river with high water and low visibility. And it says the wire has increased the risk of drownings by forcing migrants into deeper stretches of the river.

The trooper called for a series of rigorous policy changes to improve safety for migrants, including removing the barrels and revoking the directive on withholding water.

“Due to the extreme heat, the order to not give people water needs to be immediately reversed as well,” the trooper wrote, later adding: “I believe we have stepped over a line into the inhumane.”

Department of Public Safety spokesman Travis Considine did not comment on all the contents of the trooper’s email, but said there is no policy against giving water to migrants.

Considine also provided an email from DPS Director Steven McCraw on Saturday calling for an audit to determine if more can be done to minimize the risk to migrants. McCraw wrote troopers should warn migrants not to cross the wire, redirect them to ports of entry and to closely watch for anyone who needs medical attention.

In another email, McCraw acknowledged that there has been an increase in injuries from the wire, including seven incidents reported by Border Patrol where migrants needed “elevated medical attention” from July 4 to July 13. Those were in addition to the incidents detailed by the trooper.

“The purpose of the wire is to deter smuggling between the ports of entry and not to injure migrants,” McCraw wrote. “The smugglers care not if the migrants are injured, but we do, and we must take all necessary measures to mitigate the risk to them including injuries from trying to cross over the concertina wire, drownings and dehydration.”

The incidents detailed in the email come as Abbott has stepped up efforts in recent weeks to physically bar migrants from entering the country through his Operation Lone Star initiative, escalating tensions between state and federal officials and drawing increased scrutiny from humanitarian groups who say the state is endangering asylum seekers. The most aggressive initiatives have been targeted at Eagle Pass.

The state has also now deployed a wall of floating buoys in the Rio Grande, which triggered complaints over the weekend from Mexico.

Federal Border Patrol officials have issued internal warnings that the razor wire is preventing their agents from reaching at-risk migrants and increasing the risk of drownings in the Rio Grande, Hearst Newspapers reported last week.

The DPS trooper expressed similar concerns, writing that the placement of the wire along the river “forces people to cross in other areas that are deeper and not as safe for people carrying kids and bags.”

The trooper’s email sheds new light on a series of previously reported drownings in the river during a one-week stretch earlier this month, including a mother and at least one of her two children, who federal Border Patrol agents spotted struggling to cross the Rio Grande on July 1.

According to the email, a DPS boat found the mother and one of the children, who went under the water for a minute.

They were pulled from the river and given medical care before being transferred to EMS, but were later declared deceased at the hospital. The second child was never found, the email said.

The Governor has said he is taking necessary steps to secure the border and accused federal officials of refusing to do so.

“Texas is deploying every tool and strategy to deter and repel illegal crossings between ports of entry as President Biden’s dangerous open border policies entice migrants from over 150 countries to risk their lives entering the country illegally," said Andrew Mahaleris, Abbott’s press secretary. "President Biden has unleashed a chaos on the border that’s unsustainable, and we have a constitutional duty to respond to this unprecedented crisis.”

The DPS trooper’s email details four incidents in just one day in which migrants were caught in the wire or injured trying to get around it.

On June 30, troopers found a group of people along the wire, including a 4-year-old girl who tried to cross the wire and was pressed back by Texas Guard soldiers “due to the orders given to them,” the email says. The DPS trooper wrote that the temperature was “well over 100 degrees” and the girl passed out from exhaustion.

“We provided treatment to the unresponsive patient and transferred care to EMS,” the trooper wrote. A spokesperson for the Texas National Guard did not respond to a request for comment.

In another instance, troopers found a 19-year-old woman “in obvious pain” stuck in the wire. She was cut free and given a medical assessment, which determined she was pregnant and having a miscarriage. She was then transferred to EMS. The trooper also treated a man with a “significant laceration” in his left leg, who said he had cut it while trying to free his child who was “stuck on a trap in the water,” describing a barrel with razor wire “all over it.” And the trooper treated a 15-year-old boy who broke his right leg walking in the river because the razor wire was “laid out in a manner that it forced him into the river where it is unsafe to travel.”

In another instance, on June 25, troopers came across a group of 120 people camped out along a fence set up along the river. The group included several small children and babies who were nursing, the trooper wrote. The entire group was exhausted, hungry and tired, the trooper wrote. The shift officer in command ordered the troopers to “push the people back into the water to go to Mexico,” the email says.

The trooper wrote that the troopers decided it was not the right thing to do “with the very real potential of exhausted people drowning.” They called command again and expressed their concerns and were given the order to “tell them to go to Mexico and get into our vehicle and leave,” the trooper wrote. After they left, other troopers worked with Border Patrol to provide care to the migrants, the email said.

The trooper did not respond to a request for comment Monday. His email was shared by a confidential source with knowledge of border operations. It was unclear whether the trooper received a response from the sergeant he’d messaged.

Considine acknowledged that DPS was aware of the email and provided the additional agency emails in response. Those emails detail seven other incidents reported by federal border agents in which migrants were injured on the wires, including a child who was taken to the hospital on Thursday with cuts on his left arm, a mother and child who were taken to the hospital on Wednesday with “minor lacerations” on their “lower extremities,” and another migrant taken to San Antonio on July 4 to receive treatment for “several lacerations” that required staples.

Victor Escalon, a DPS director who oversees South Texas, wrote in an email Friday to other agency officials that troopers “may need to open the wire to aid individuals in medical distress, maintain the peace, and/or to make an arrest for criminal trespass, criminal mischief, acts of violence, or other State crimes.”

“Our DPS medical unit is assigned to this operation to address medical concerns for everyone involved,” Escalon wrote. “As we enforce State law, we may need to aid those in medical distress and provide water as necessary.”

[thefreethoughtprojectcom]

An internal U.S. Border Patrol memo claiming that 30 percent of camera towers that compose the agency's "Remote Video Surveillance System" (RVSS) program are broken.

Read More: https://thefreethoughtproject.com/government-surveillance/the-many-failures-of-mass-surveillance-at-the-u-s-mexico-border

#TheFreeThoughtProject

[autumngracy]

Biden immigration program for spouses of U.S. citizens declared illegal by judge

A judge has struck down a Biden administration program that would offer legal status to undocumented immigrants married to U.S. citizens. The judge, who was appointed by President-elect Trump during his first term, says the program violates U.S. immigration law.

[aernthearo]

“The U.S.-Mexico border es una herida abierta where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds.” 

-Gloria Anzaldúa

[spotlightstory]

We have terrible news. Seven years ago, 150,000 people paid us $15 to protect a pristine parcel of land on the US-Mexico border from racist billionaire Donald Trump's very stupid wall.

Unfortunately, an even richer, more racist billionaire⸺Elon Musk⸺snuck up on us from behind and completely fucked that land with gravel, tractors, and space garbage.

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[beatrix-morrigan]

Border Patrol is detaining thousands of migrants, including children and the elderly, in the deserts of San Diego County without food, water or shelter when overnight temperatures drop below freezing.

You can donate to the wonderful mutual aid groups - who have been helping them for more than 100 days - right here:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/jacumba-migrant-camps

Read more about what's happening: https://border-aid.github.io/what-is-happening.html or about more ways to help: https://border-aid.github.io/help-out.html (website made by yours truly)

[canonizedandotherwise]

A prayer of the Holy Family

The road we take leads toward the promise of security and stability for we flee not solely in fear, nor do we make this pilgrimage for the pursuit of untold riches. We do not seek to spread terror, for how dearly do we cling on to hope in knowing that goodness abounds wherever we shall land as a unit, but much more than a statistic or a painfully vetted file, rather, a family, peculiar and unusual like any other: united, courageous, holy.

A prayer by Josh Utter, JRS/USA Outreach and Advocacy Coordinator, Inspired by Matthew 2: 13-23

[destielmemenews]

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[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

By James Downie

“If everything’s honest, I’d gladly accept the results.” That was former President Donald Trump on Wednesday, playing cute with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s question over whether he’d accept the outcome of Wisconsin’s presidential election. As my colleague Clarissa-Jan Lim pointed out, Trump has a long track record of similar statements, offering sham justifications to disguise the fact that he doesn’t feel bound by election results. The events of Jan. 6, 2021, laid bare the true consequences of this shell game.

But this latest instance — coupled with statements Trump recently made in his interview with Time magazine — highlight a disturbing and underappreciated aspect of his 2024 campaign. Trump’s approach to election results has become his approach (and his devotees’ approach) to the law more broadly. Even as their policies and rhetoric have become more extreme, Trump and his MAGA acolytes are already lining up the justifications — legal and otherwise — to buttress their extremist and authoritarian agenda in ways that simply didn’t occur to the first Trump administration.

The deportation of millions, the deployment of the National Guard and even the military domestically, the firing of prosecutors, the autocratic expansion of executive authority, the potential weaponization of the Comstock Act to ban abortion: all of these will have excuses that range from “tendentious” to “outright fiction.” Or, as Trump told Time: “I’ll be doing everything on a very legal basis.”

Take, for example, immigration: It’s easy to forget how Trump’s immigration policy has shifted in eight years, even as it has remained consistently bigoted. His 10-point plan on immigration in 2016 consisted of the border wall and a bunch of truisms. (“We’ll build safe zones, which is something I think all of us want to see.”) The military was absent; the word “invasion” was nowhere to be found, and the courts barely merited a mention.

Contrast this with the Time interview, where Trump defends deploying the military both at the border and inland to deport “15 million and maybe as many as 20 million” undocumented immigrants — the equivalent of deporting the entire state of Florida. With bigger autocratic moves come bigger fictions. Migrants are no longer just “bringing crime”; Trump has created a whole separate (and demonstrably false) category of “migrant crime.”

Domestic deployment of the armed forces would seem to violate an 1878 ban on using troops against civilians. But this Trump, unlike the 2016 version, has a legal facade ready to go: Undocumented immigrants are invaders, not civilians, and “I will be complying with court orders.” Those two sentiments may seem difficult to reconcile, given that the former categorization flies in the face of legal precedent. But as recent oral arguments over presidential immunity have illustrated, precedent means little to this Supreme Court.

Immigration is just the tip of a very dangerous iceberg. In close advisers like Stephen Miller and aligned projects like Project 2025, we can see not only the policies but also the underlying justifications and legal authorities they have ready to go. Part of this effort is practical. Trump’s presidency was rife with policy efforts that either never got past the planning stage or wasted months (or even years) in false starts. The reality that Mexico wouldn’t pay for his border wall meant that less than 20% had been built when he left office. His administration spent the better part of a year tossing out different iterations of Trump’s self-described “Muslim ban,” searching for a version that could pass muster in the courts.

Trump’s supporters are determined not to waste time this round. There’s no better example of this than the Comstock Act: Rather than wait for congressional Republicans to pass a new national abortion ban, they could simply resurrect a “zombie law” to criminalize any materials used in abortions and count on the more Trump-friendly courts to back them up.

But mostly this effort is political. As writer Brian Beutler puts it, “To the MAGA core, he offers a bloody revanchism; to the uncommitted, a series of mollifying assurances.” Most of Trump’s signature policy proposals — such as a military deportation force and huge tariff increases — and those of his most devoted advisers are unpopular. So Trump balances the lawless extremes of his ambitions by minimizing how radical his plans sound, hoping to avoid scaring persuadable voters with his authoritarian signals. “When we talk military, generally speaking, I talk National Guard,” he says, as if those two terms are interchangeable. “But if I thought things were getting out of control, I would have no problem using the military.” Just like he’ll accept the results “if everything’s honest.”

“I don’t think they’re bold actions,” Trump tells Time of his policies, “I think they’re actions that are common sense.” But phrases like “if everything’s honest” and “if things were getting out of control” create loopholes as wide as they are chilling. It’s easy to imagine, for example, a deportation force being sent to New York and then beefed up when local residents resist — with horrible consequences. But if the platitudes get him back in the White House, he and his followers will move swiftly to welcome that horror.

[alanshemper]

The party is embracing the idea of the border as a bulwark against a savage horde. As it happens, that’s exactly how Israel talks about Gaza.

Tempting as it might be to view Israel’s brutal campaign of elimination in Gaza as a failure of humanity to transcend the 20th century—a century marked, nearly from start to finish, by genocide—the war may well end up being the first defining conflict of the 21st. Israel, in both its foundational identity and its occupation of Palestine, is often framed as one of the last lingering artifacts of a bygone colonial age. But what we are witnessing in Gaza—a resource-deprived, stateless population pushed to the absolute limits of desperation in a violent confrontation with an advanced military power intent on excluding as many noncitizens as possible—is as likely to be a vision into the future as a reminder of the past.

The conditions that Israel’s 17-year siege has imposed on the people of the Gaza Strip, many of whom are already refugees from previous rounds of Israeli aggression and expansion, will become much more common in the large swaths of the world at risk of severe ecological degradation. Climate-induced food and water insecurity, disease, and unemployment are expected to displace hundreds of millions of people in the coming decades. These refugees will be forced to seek entry into developed states increasingly mired, like Israel, in ethno-nationalism and other forms of jingoism.

Chief among those wealthy countries sinking further into this sort of nationalist frenzy is the United States. Last week, Senate Democrats strongly indicated that the liberal wing of the American political establishment is woefully unprepared to face the future that the US—as both the world’s biggest imperial power and a leading architect of the climate crisis—has helped create. In an attempt to score a win ahead of this year’s federal election, Democrats proposed a piece of legislation that is, in effect, a laundry list of hard-line anti-immigrant policies demanded by Donald Trump and his supporters in Congress. In so doing, they conceded the right-wing framing that an increase in immigrants and asylum seekers at the southern border—already a real phenomenon—represents a “crisis” that requires a series of punitive solutions.

This marks a shift in tone and policy from the Trump years, when Democrats rhetorically placed themselves in opposition to the xenophobia of the White House and tended to downplay the idea of rising immigration pressures. It also reflects an even deeper conception of the border as a bulwark against the savage hordes that would destroy life as we know it if we let our guard down. As it happens, that is exactly how the Israeli government talks about Gaza (and like Gaza is how the American right is beginning to talk about the border).