#trump illegal immigration chart

[mariacallous]

In Butler, Pennsylvania, a billboard read “In Musk We Trust.” A Tesla Cybertruck parked on the side of the road sported a TRUMP 2024 flag.

With a month left in the presidential campaign, former president Donald Trump returned to Butler for a rally less than three months after the assassination attempt on Trump’s life that resulted in the death of one rally attendee. This time, Trump was joined by X owner Elon Musk and vice presidential candidate JD Vance.

“Welcome Back to Butler, Mr. President,” read a message in Trump’s walk-on video.

When Trump started speaking, the same chart about illegal immigration he was referring to in the moments before the attempted assassination appeared on screen. “And as I was saying,” Trump said. He’d timed this moment so that it took place at precisely 6:11 pm, which was when he was shot in the ear on July 13. He also held a “moment of silence” honoring those who were injured or killed during the assassination attempt in July. Opera singer Christopher Macchio sang Ave Maria, and people in the crowd removed their hats, wiped their eyes, and some even took a knee as Trump looked on solemnly.

“Over the past eight years, those who want to stop us from achieving this future have slandered me, impeached me, indicted me, tried to throw me off the ballot, and who knows? Maybe even try to kill me,” said Trump, floating the conspiracy theory that the attempted assassination was orchestrated by his political opponents. “12 weeks ago we all took a bullet for America.”

Trump later invited Musk on stage. The X owner walked on wearing a black blazer over a shirt saying “Occupy Mars” and a black MAGA hat. “As you can see, I’m not just MAGA,” said Musk. “I’m dark MAGA.” Dark MAGA is a memecoin, a type of cryptocurrency inspired by online trends. The valuation of Dark MAGA soared right around the time that Musk spoke.

Musk repeatedly implored audience members and viewers to register to vote. “This election is the most important election of our lifetime,” said Musk. “This is no ordinary election.”

He wrapped up his brief speech with an ominous message: “Get everyone you know, and everyone you don't know, drag them to register to vote,” he said. “If they don’t, this will be the last election. That’s my prediction.”

Musk’s appearance at Saturday’s rally marked a major benchmark in his political evolution. Following the assassination attempt against Trump in Butler, Musk posted on X that he had decided to “fully endorse” the former president, and shortly after announced the creation of a political action committee (PAC) to support Trump’s campaign. Musk initially said he would donate $45 million per month to the PAC, though he has since changed his tune. Musk also hosted Trump for a glitchy live conversation on X Spaces in August.

Musk was previously an Obama, Clinton and Biden voter who donated to politicians on both sides of the aisle but touted himself as someone who generally tried to stay out of politics. At a 2015 Vanity Fair event, Musk said he hoped Trump wouldn’t clinch the Republican nomination for president because “that wouldn’t be good” and “would be a bit embarrassing.” He also told CNBC that he didn’t believe Trump had the “sort of character that reflects well on the United States” while voicing support for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s policy platform. In 2017, Musk donated large sums to Republicans, signaling a possible right-ward shift in his political outlook. And in 2020, he bamboozled many of his fans with a cryptic Twitter post: “Take the Red Pill.”

Musk is one of several right-wing tech billionaires who have thrown their support behind Trump. Billionaire Palantir founder Peter Thiel, is a longtime Trump supporter, and also helped fund Vance’s 2022 bid for his Ohio Senate seat. Before entering politics, Thiel was one of several Silicon Valley funders who backed Vance’s Ohio-based venture fund, Narya Capital. Vance and Thiel are also investors in the right-wing video sharing platform, Rumble.

When Musk, who has described himself as a “free speech absolutist,” took over Twitter in 2022, he almost immediately fired the vast majority of the company’s trust and safety employees, the people who keep hate speech and mis- and disinformation off the platform. The following year, Musk slashed what remained of Twitter’s election integrity team, posting, “Oh you mean the “Election Integrity” Team that was undermining election integrity? Yeah, they’re gone.”

Hate speech on X increased under Musk and last year European Commission Vice President Vera Jourova said that of all the companies under EU scrutiny, X was “the platform with the largest ratio of mis- or disinformation posts.” Musk also reinstated the accounts of people who had been banned from the platform including conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes.

After Musk finished speaking, and Trump thanked him, rally attendees chanted his name.

Moments later, Musk signed back onto X.

He immediately began sharing election conspiracies about election ballots sent to vacant addresses, before writing, “Make sure everyone you know & everyone you meet has registered to vote,” he wrote. “The fate of our civilization is at stake.”

[correctopinionhaver]

why is this election so close?

see chart

US americans as a whole want abortion but don't want illegal immigration and don't want inflation. harris polls well on abortion, trump polls well on immigration and inflation.

People outside america (euros!) care about US involvement in foreign conflicts and climate change, but these are not main issues for americans working at borger factory.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Alex Nowrasteh at The UnPopulist:

Donald Trump’s first mention of illegal immigration in his speech accepting the Republican Party’s nomination for president was how he turned to look at a chart of border chaos at the exact right moment to avoid a bullet fired by would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks that grazed his ear instead of killing him. Other than his account of surviving an attempt on his life—the most serious one against a sitting president or candidate since John Hinckley Jr. shot President Reagan in 1981—his acceptance speech was pure Trump: Part rambling, funny, boring, and focused on his favorite subject: complaining about illegal immigration and crime. [...]

Trump’s speech focused on some heinous crimes committed by illegal immigrants, like the murders of Jocelyn Nungaray in Houston, Rachel Morin in Maryland, and Laken Riley in Georgia. These criminals should be punished to the fullest extent of the law, just like all criminals should be. But they offer no justification for Trump’s plan to launch the “largest deportation operation in the history of our country” if reelected.

Such a brutal domestic campaign would likely raise—not lower—crime rates. Why?

For starters, undocumented immigrants are less likely to be criminals than native-born Americans. The best data on this comes from the conservative border state of Texas, which is the only state that keeps decent statistics on criminality by immigration status. Undocumented immigrants were 37% less likely to be convicted of homicide in Texas than native-born Americans in 2022, the last year for which reliable data are available. Legal immigrants are 63% less likely to be convicted of homicide. Those patterns are similar for all crimes in the state, but those are less reliable. Immigrants are coming to the U.S., and some of them are criminals, but they are bringing less crime than if they behaved like native-born Americans.

One counterargument is that illegal immigrants commit many crimes, but they aren't convicted because they flee back across the border. This is unlikely because police clearance rates, the percentage of crimes solved by police resulting in an arrest, are no lower in states with many undocumented immigrants for homicide and other violent or property crimes. If illegal immigrants were committing many more crimes than they were being convicted of, police clearance rates would be lower in states with many illegal immigrants—but they’re not. But there are two other ways that a mass deportation campaign would backfire and likely raise crime rates.

One: It would redirect state, local, and federal law enforcement toward identifying and removing illegal immigrants rather than solving or deterring real crimes. Locations that aggressively enforce federal immigration laws don’t experience a lower crime (but most of those areas have small populations of illegal immigrants, so the negative effects on other criminal law enforcement wouldn't necessarily show up because massive resources don’t have to be diverted away from prosecuting other crimes). Two: Simply by removing undocumented immigrants who, as a population, are less crime-prone than native-born Americans, the nationwide crime rate would be higher than it otherwise would be. The deportation campaign wouldn’t necessarily expose any individual residing in the U.S. to a greater risk of being a victim of a crime, but, the point is, it wouldn't Make America Safe Again.

Donald Trump’s mass deportation proposals are not only fascistic and immoral, but it also won’t make America any safer and also waste finite police resources.

Such proposals are based on the myth that undocumented immigrants commit crimes at rates higher than US citizens. The opposite is true.

In fact, these proposals are lunacy in leagues with the internment of the Japanese-Americans during WWII.

[darkmaga-returns]

We know what you’re thinking. Why waste any time on Joe Biden? Who cares about him anymore? Well, you should, since the nation will be cleaning up Biden’s messes for years to come.

And one of the biggest was his campaign to usher as many illegal immigrants as possible into the country while lying to the American people about what was going on.

At his first press conference in March 2021 – after claiming that nothing had changed at the border (despite repealing every Trump executive order securing the border on day one) – he said the surge of illegals then underway “happens every single solitary year. There is a significant increase in the number of people coming to the border in the winter months of January, February, March. It happens every year … happens all the time.”

Well, now we know that was a lie. Look at the chart below, which shows “encounters” by border patrol agents at the southern border in January of each year since 2017.

[science-criticaltheory]

How Trump might target DACA recipients and other immigrant groups - Jean Lantz Reisz

Donald Trump shows immigration charts during the Republican National Convention on July 18, 2024. Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

There are 11 million people living without legal authorization in the U.S., and Trump would have the authority, as president, to deport those people. But it would be very expensive to pay for the immigration officers, immigration judges, detention facilities, the plane flights and more that would be required to do so. Estimates on the cost of mass deportation range from US$88 billion a year to more than $300 billion.

The administration is probably going to have to rely on state and local governments to help carry out these deportations. The president cannot legally force state and local governments to cooperate with immigration enforcement. About 10 states, including New York, Massachusetts and California, have laws that prohibit cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE – the federal agency that oversees immigration and deportation – under certain circumstances.

For example, in California, employers may not allow ICE to enter nonpublic areas of their workplace without a proper warrant. Other states also prohibit law enforcement from sharing the immigration status of certain low-level criminal offenders.

The federal government could give more money to a state in order to help it cooperate with federal immigration efforts, and take it away if they do not cooperate. But federal case law says that the president does not have the authority to withhold federal money to coerce a state into cooperating with immigration actions.

Could Trump still send federal immigration officers to a state that does not cooperate, in order to identify and detain immigrants?

States could not prevent the federal government from coming in to arrest and deport people – but they don’t have to help them, and could set up some obstacles. The federal government would have to provide all of its own personnel. Texas and Arizona have recently approved laws that require local law enforcement to cooperate with the Department of Homeland Security and enforce immigration law.

The Department of Homeland Security has the authority to deputize and train local law enforcement to enforce immigration law.

ICE could rely on local sheriffs or police in some states, like Texas, to identify and arrest immigrants and turn them over to ICE to deport. In other states, like Oregon and Illinois, that want to protect immigrants from deportation, they can refuse to cooperate with federal authorities by not providing certain personal information on immigrants.

What are the other risks immigrants might be concerned about?

There are about 580,000 people who are living in the U.S. and are part of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program. DACA gives some people who came to the U.S. illegally as children the right to legally work, go to school and live in the country. The courts have already litigated that a president can lawfully terminate DACA through a certain process.

Currently, President Joe Biden is defending DACA by appealing a Texas district court decision that DACA is an unlawful program. Once in office, Trump can instruct the Justice Department to dismiss the appeal, effectively ending DACA.

People who apply for DACA have to state in their application that they are in the country unlawfully. So the government could prove that DACA recipients can legally be deported, and will have information on where they live.

The next group of immigrants that could be targeted is people from Afghanistan and other countries who have humanitarian parole, which is temporary permission to remain in the U.S. legally. Trump can end all of the parole programs, including those for Ukrainians.

In addition, Trump can end Temporary Protected Status, a law that gives temporary permission to some people to legally stay in the U.S. for up to two years because of an emergency situation in their countries. He tried to do this, but was unsuccessful, during his first administration because he didn’t follow the right legal process. About 1.2 million people are covered under this program, which Biden expanded.

Trump has said he would end birthright citizenship, which is the right for any person born in the country to get citizenship. Could he legally do this?

The Trump administration could order federal officials to stop processing passports and Social Security numbers for people who cannot establish that their parents are U.S. citizens. An ensuing lawsuit, probably brought by individuals denied their documents, would force courts to weigh in on birthright citizenship.

The Fourteenth Amendment gives the right of citizenship to all people born in the U.S. regardless of their parents’ nationality. Challengers to birthright citizenship argue that the Fourteenth Amendment should be reinterpreted to exclude people who were born in the U.S. to parents who are present unlawfully and therefore without the consent of the U.S. government.

To succeed in overturning birthright citizenship, the Supreme Court would have to reverse a 126-year-old precedent, which states that anyone who is born on U.S. soil and not the child of someone engaged in diplomatic service is a U.S. citizen.

Trump has talked about using the Alien Enemies Act as a way to deport people. What does this mean?

Trump has talked about using the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 as a way to get around judicial review and immigration courts and deport people such as gang members and cartel members. This law allows a president, during a time of war, to detain and deport people born in an enemy nation.

One problem with this is that Trump won’t have the authority to deport people under this act, unless there is a war with or invasion by another nation or government. Gangs or cartels are not their own nation or government. For example, Trump could not simultaneously recognize the Mexican government and a cartel also as the government of Mexico – or succeed in legally proving the Mexican government is sending cartel members to invade the U.S. on behalf of the Mexican government.

Another problem Trump would have in using the Alien Enemies Act is that it allows for review by the courts to determine whether an individual is actually an “enemy alien.” It would not likely provide an automatic shortcut to deportation and would end up in litigation.

[scottguy]

(key excerpts)

Trump’s spokesperson repeated: “On Day One back in the White House, President Trump will begin the largest criminal deportation operation of illegal immigrants and restore the rule of law.” Trump’s rhetoric—“getting them out will be a bloody story,” he said at a September rally—is escalating.

Miller also chatted with Kirk about how a Trump administration would fill these camps. “You go to the red state governors and you say, ‘Give us your National Guard. We will deputize them as immigration enforcement officers,’” Miller said. He would have “experienced ICE veterans” leading the operations, with “DEA, ATF, et cetera.” and “state and local sheriffs.” They would “go around the country arresting illegal immigrants in large-scale raids.” Trump has backed up the personnel plan, bluntly telling Time magazine, “We will be using local law enforcement.”

It will separate families: At least 1.1 million are married to a legal resident, and they are parents to at least 4.9 million children. Lives built here over generations could be shattered with one agent’s haphazard decisions, with one vindictive neighbor’s call.

Trump has said the plan is to deport 15 million to 20 million people.

Given the extreme methods proposed, raids would almost certainly involve detaining family members, co-workers, and community members simply for being there when officers descended.

Homan, a Heritage fellow, almost bellowed as he assured the applauding conventiongoers, “No one’s off the table. The bottom line is: Every illegal alien is a criminal. They enter the country in violation of federal law. It’s a crime to enter this country illegally.”

==========================================

Editorializing:

Radicals want to call every immigrant who steps across the border a "criminal" even the ones upon who our food supply absolutely depends. We need them. How can they be "criminals?" Without those immigrants there would be food shortages in all areas and prices will skyrocket.

It's just a political smear to name anyone who steps foot across the border as a "criminal" just for doing so no matter how decent and hard-working they are. It's easy to lock ANYONE up if you simply label them a "criminal."

Coming to ask for asylum is not a crime. It is protected by international law. Of course, Trump is lying massively yet again when he talks about countries "emptying their prisons and their insane asylums", saying anything he can think of to invoke fear.

Americans are far far more in danger from fellow Americans than from immigrants. The statistics support it. Documented immigrants are the lowest on the chart. They don't want to be sent back.

All these "immigrant" policies are really just white supremacists using government to achieve their bigoted ends. Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, and their ilk just want an excuse to start a race war, to declare an emergency, and to start arresting law abiding people upon who America depends.

That immigrant "crisis" will then be extended as an excuse to lock up liberals and anyone protesting the violence that Trump is doing.

America will become a dark dystopian place with free speech snuffed out by the military.

Yes, it's unconstitutional. So was breaking the emoluments clause but Trump did it and no one did anything about it. Don't expect our corrupt Supreme Court to be sympathetic after they gave Trump a pass to Trump on crimes committed as "official duties."

Other countries will mostly refuse to accept millions of immigrants and those innocent people will linger in concentration camps on American soil like the Jews did... until the Nazis came up with their "Final Solution" of murdering and cremation.

If you love anyone Latino, they could be caught up in this. If they live in your household, YOU could be caught up in this for "aiding and abetting a criminal."

As the article pointed out, there is absolutely NO DUE PROCESS in Trump's plan. That's what makes it so terrifying.

Even if you don't know any Latinos, see this for what it is, a ruse to justify military rule, martial law, and military violence unleashed upon protestors should shock and terrify you as Americans.

We Americans are rightfully proud of our freedom and our rights. But, we ONLY have those rights because we don't elect leaders with plans to ignore our constitution and a HISTORY of attempting to overthrow democracy itself.

Trump proved during his presidency that the words of our Constitution on parchment do not automatically protect us from dictatorship just by existing.

The only thing protecting us from dictatorship is the CHARACTER of the person in office who respects our Constitution and noble American rights and values.

Seizing all power as Trump plans is never legal but dictators do it all the time. Dictators just don't care when they control the military and of all the guns.

[allthenewzworld]

Donald Trump told Elon Musk that "illegal immigration saved my life" in a much-anticipated X conversation that was delayed due to technical issues.

The Republican nominee told how he had turned his head to look at an illegal immigration chart during the rally 13 July - meaning gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks missed.

[cksmart-world]

SMART BOMB

The Completely Unnecessary News Analysis

By Christopher Smart

August 6, 2024

SALT LAKE CITY PLANS DRAG QUEEN OLYMPICS

We can't start planning soon enough now that Salt Lake City has secured the 2034 Winter Games. As old timers know when the 2002 Games came to town it was simply amazing. The events, of course, are spectacular, but when a city hosts the Games excitement and fun are off the charts as visitors pour in from around the globe. Salt Lake City has always been a welcoming place. We love immigrants and gays and investment bankers. A special committee is now working to ensure that drag queens not only feel accepted at our Games but will take a prominent role in the festivities. The celebration will make the so-called “Drag Queen Last Supper” at the Paris Olympics look like “Ring Around the Rosie.” Many newcomers may not realize that drag queens played an important role in Utah's history. Brigham Morris Young, one of Brigham Young's sons, was a famous drag performer who was widely known as Madam Pattrini. In the late 1800s drag shows were quite popular and Olympic organizers will focus on the cultural aspects of Utah's history and weave together such things as drag queens and polygamy. Imagine the Opening Ceremony where 26 bearded men on ice skates dressed as Brigham Young's wives welcome the entire world on satellite TV. It just takes your breath away.

LIKE YOUR BLACK JOB?

What is a Black job? The term conjures up all sorts of things, like janitor, maid, dishwasher — doctor, lawyer, engineer, not so much. But Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles was all over it: “I love my Black job,” she said trolling Donald Trump who told the National Association of Black Journalists that undocumented immigrants are stealing “Black jobs” and it's all the fault of Kamala Harris. Black jobs? You're right Wilson, it recalls Jim Crow and segregation — nasty stuff. Willy Horton, where have you gone — Trump campaign headquarters? Down in MAGAville they're talking back to the TV. See there, Irene, there's millions of them illegal Mexicans coming in here and taking all them Black jobs and then what's all them Black people going to do. Them people are going to want our White jobs. It is, of course, Trump Theater: chaos, racism, xenophobia with more than a dash of B.S. tossed in for flavor. No surprise, the Orange Man's performance got a lot of headlines and airtime — success! Who said, “There's no such thing as bad publicity.” Step right up to the big tent, see the famous bearded lady with your own eyes and Kamala Harris the Indian woman who is not Black. Hey MAGA World, it's an us versus them world, so don't forget who “us” is.

“THEY'RE JUST WEIRD” — DON AND J.D. GET TATTOOED

OK Wilson, you and the guys in the band have known your share of weird people. So check this out — everyone is picking up on Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz analysis of Donald Trump and J.D. Vance that they're just “weird.” It does have a ring to it. Since 2015, pundits and politicians have tried to label Trump. Books, news stories and magazines have labored without success to come to grips with the inexplicable Orange Man and his comb-over Teflon. Well, Walz did it in just a word — “weird.” It was one of those “the-emperor-has-no-clothes” moments when suddenly everything comes into focus. Trump is nasty, dishonest, creepy, self-important and on and on. But nothing sticks to his angry jowls like “weird.” The moniker is so right-on that Trump has repeatedly denied it, insisting that he and Vance “are not weird people.” Right, and Barack Obama was born in Kenya. In something of a schoolyard comeback the former president, referring to Democrats, sneered,“they are the weird ones.” Vance, Trump's new Mini-Me, put the icing on the cake when he labeled women without kids as “childless cat ladies.” Ooh baby! That's a bell that doesn't un-ring — he alienated women and cat lovers all in one swipe. Team Trump is on a roll — if the weird shoe fits...

Post script — That's going to do it for another scorching week in Hot Lake City, where the staff here at Smart Bomb keeps track of Mount Rushmore, so you don't have to. Hey Wilson, remember when Republicans wanted to put Ronald Reagan on Mount Rushmore as well as the $5 bill. The Utah congressional delegation just couldn't shut up about it. Well maybe it's a good thing that didn't succeed. Today's GOP, aka MAGA Mob, wants Donald Trump on Mount Rushmore and thinks Ronald Reagan was some kind of elitist who hated Russia and favored clean air. Times change. Ronald Who? South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem is a big proponent of The Donald on Mount Rushmore and even gave 45 a miniature Mount Rushmore with his image next to Washington and Jefferson. But then she wrote about shooting her puppy because... well, because he was acting like a Democrat. Since then, we haven't heard much about Trump's likeness carved into a mountain, but as someone once said: It ain't over 'till it's over. If he gets reelected we may get his picture on all of our currency. And what about a nice monument near the Lincoln Memorial in D.C. A huge Donald Trump carved in stone watching TV and eating a Big Mac. MAGA World would just love it.

It's HOT Wilson and it's going to stay that way. It's so hot you can fry an egg on the hood of your car. It's so hot that people are losing their tans 'cause they can't go outside. Well, of course, you can go out at night. It won't exactly be cool but it is survivable. So you and the guys in the band know what to do, so hit it, Wilson:

Hot town, summer in the city Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty Been down, isn't it a pity? Doesn't seem to be a shadow in the city All around, people looking half dead Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head But at night it's a different world Go out and find a girl Come on, come on and dance all night Despite the heat it'll be all right And babe, don't you know it's a pity That the days can't be like the nights In the summer, in the city In the summer, in the city Cool town, evening in the city Dressing so fine and looking so pretty Cool cat, looking for a kitty Gonna look in every corner of the city Till I'm wheezing like a bus stop Running up the stairs, gonna meet you on the rooftop But at night it's a different world Go out and find a girl Come on, come on and dance all night Despite the heat it'll be all right And babe, don't you know it's a pity That the days can't be like the nights In the summer, in the city In the summer, in the city

(Summer In the City — Lovin' Spoonful)

[gotellitlikeitisus]

'TELL IT LIKE IT IS' Talk Show: Trump’s Misleading Chart on Illegal Immigration https://talktoalabama.tellitlikeitistalkshow.com/2024/04/trumps-misleading-chart-on-illegal.html?spref=tw #2024Elections, #DonaldTrump, #IllegalImmigration, #Immigration, #JoeBiden, #Misinformation, #PresidentialElection2024, #Wisconsin

[newstfionline]

Saturday, March 2, 2024

A muffled boom (NYT) A junior White House economist made a chart last year showing that U.S. energy production, from wind and solar to oil and gas, has boomed under President Biden. The nation is closer than ever to a goal that presidents have pursued for decades: true energy independence. The Biden administration has never published that chart. The president isn’t bragging about record oil and gas production. His reluctance highlights a political problem for him and other Democrats. Biden wants to phase out oil and gas eventually to fight global warming. But domestic oil and gas production is expanding on his watch. That brings political benefits: It helps reduce energy costs, and polls show Americans largely support it. But more drilling also means more pollution—and more fury from young progressive voters.

Texas Wildfires Burn Through the Heart of Cattle Country, Upending Lives (NYT) A vast and growing wildfire, one of several burning in the Texas Panhandle, has now become the largest on record in state history, scorching more than a million acres, devastating cattle ranches, consuming homes and continuing to rage out of control. The sparsely populated area is home to most of the state’s cattle—millions of cows and calves, steers and bulls—spread across ranches whose very size and lack of roadways can make them difficult for people to traverse and easy for fires to take hold. Wildfires are nothing new for Panhandle ranchers, many of whom know how to transform their pickups into makeshift fire trucks in order to battle the blazes that periodically flare. But never before had anyone seen a fire quite like the one given the name Smokehouse Creek. It ignited on Monday, and as of Thursday it was still burning uncontrolled. Two deaths have been connected to the fires so far.

On the Arizona Border, Even a Slow Day Is Busy (NYT) Helen Ramajo, 11 years old, reached the U.S.-Mexico border before the American presidents did. As President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump prepared for the political stagecraft of dueling visits to two Texas border towns, Helen slipped through a gap in the wall in southern Arizona on Tuesday morning, her fuzzy bear-eared hoodie pulled up against the chill. “A dream!” she said. She, her father and older sister left Guatemala a month ago, and they now trudged toward a makeshift camp with other tired, dehydrated migrants to wait beside the wall to surrender to U.S. immigration authorities. Illegal crossings across the Southern border have plummeted in the last month, but even a slow day means dozens of migrants arriving every few hours, a ritual that has come to define life in border towns and nearby cities. Migrant aid workers say they often see around 200 people a day crossing in this area of the border outside the tiny town of Sasabe, southwest of Tucson.

Mexico is about to have its biggest election ever (AP) Campaigning formally starts Friday for Mexico’s biggest election in history. Voters will choose the president, along with the winners of 628 seats in Congress and tens of thousands of local positions. The country of 130 million people has often been marked by its “macho” culture. Now it is almost certain to elect its first woman president. Also at play are escalating cartel warfare, the political legacy of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the long, often tumultuous relationship with the United States. While most eyes are on the presidential race, Mexicans will also vote for 128 senators, 500 congressional representatives and for tens of thousands of local government positions.

Gunfire paralyzes Haiti as powerful gang leader says he will try to detain police chief, ministers (AP) Heavy gunfire paralyzed Haiti’s capital Thursday, and at least four police officers were slain, as a powerful gang leader announced that he would try to capture the country’s police chief and government ministers. The move came during the absence of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who is in Kenya trying to finalize details for the deployment of a foreign armed force to Haiti to help combat gangs. Gunmen shot at Haiti’s main international airport and other targets, including police stations, in a wave of violence that caught many people by surprise. At least four police officers, including two women, were killed. The violence forced the airport, businesses, government agencies and schools to close as parents and young children fled through the streets in panic. At least one airline, Sunrise Airways, suspended all flights.

The Tower of London’s ravenmaster (AP) If an ancient prophecy is right, Michael “Barney” Chandler has just got the most important job in England. The 56-year-old former Royal Marine is the new ravenmaster at the Tower of London, responsible for looking after the feathered protectors of the 1,000-year-old fortress. According to legend, if the ravens leave the 11th-century tower beside the River Thames, its White Tower will crumble and the Kingdom of England will fall. In the 17th century, King Charles II was told of the prophecy and decreed that there must always be six ravens at the tower. “We take that responsibility very seriously,” said Chandler. Chandler, who officially takes up the post on Friday, is one of the tower’s famous Yeoman Warders, part of a corps founded in the 15th century. Also known as Beefeaters, the warders are all military veterans who dress in distinctive black and scarlet Tudor-style uniforms and perform a hybrid role: providing security, leading tours of the tower, and performing ceremonial duties. Chandler is in charge of the health and welfare of the birds, who usually roam freely around the tower grounds by day and sleep in cages at night. He is endlessly fascinated by the highly intelligent birds, which he says are as smart as a 7-year-old child.

Navalny’s family lays the opposition leader to rest (Foreign Policy) Thousands of Russians turned out to mourn late opposition leader Alexei Navalny on Friday to mark his funeral in Moscow. On Feb. 16, Navalny—a vocal critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin—died under mysterious circumstances in a penal colony where he was serving a 19-year prison sentence for charges widely seen as politically motivated. Western leaders and rights activists have accused Putin directly of ordering Navalny’s death, which Kremlin officials continue to deny. Despite the Kremlin deploying a strong police presence to attempt to deter public demonstrations on Friday, large crowds gathered at the southern Moscow church where his funeral took place as well as at the cemetery where he was buried.

A fire at a shopping mall in Bangladesh’s capital kills at least 43 people (AP) A fire at a six-story shopping mall in the Bangladeshi capital overnight killed at least 43 people and injured dozens of others, with several people escaping to the building’s roof, officials said Friday. Health Minister Samanta Lal Sen said the toll could rise as at least 18 critically injured people were being treated in two state-run hospitals.

Back From War, Reserve Soldiers Set Their Sights on Israel’s Politics as Usual (NYT) Gathered this month around a campfire on the edge of a forest in central Israel, the soldiers planned their next mission: saving their deeply divided country from itself. Like many of the thousands of Israeli reservists called to fight in Gaza, the soldiers left for war amid a sudden surge of national unity after the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel. But as the military has withdrawn soldiers from Gaza in recent weeks and the troops have returned home, they have found their country less like it was after Oct. 7 and more like it was before: torn by divisive politics and culture clashes. Now, as these bitter divisions re-emerge, disillusioned reservists are at the vanguard of movements demanding a political reset, seeking unity and repudiating what many view as extreme polarization.

Gaza’s spiraling, unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe (Washington Post) The disaster that unfolded Thursday marked a new low in the Gaza Strip’s unfolding calamity. Local authorities said more than 100 people were killed and more than 700 others injured, accusing Israeli forces of opening fire on a crowd of people in devastated Gaza City waiting for humanitarian aid. An IDF official acknowledged that IDF troops on one end of the convoy fired at members of the crowd who were approaching in, what they called, a threatening manner but said many Palestinians died in a stampede as they sought to reach trucks carrying vital aid. Hunger and disease stalk the land and drive countless Gazans on the sort of desperate, daily searches for food and water that can end in the scenes witnessed Thursday.       The bulk of Gaza’s more than 2 million people face the prospect of famine—a state of affairs that constitutes the fastest decline in a population’s nutrition status ever recorded, according to aid workers. Children are starving at the fastest rate the world has ever known. Aid groups have been pointing to Israel restricting the flow of assistance into the territory as a major driver of the crisis. Some prominent Israeli officials openly champion stymying these transfers of aid. “We must be clear: civilians in Gaza are falling sick from hunger and thirst because of Israel’s entry restrictions,” Jan Egeland, chief of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said in an email statement after a recent visit to Gaza. “Life-saving supplies are being intentionally blocked, and women and children are paying the price.”

Dangerous journeys to flee Sudan (BBC) A vicious power struggle between Sudan’s military and a paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), that erupted last April has forced more than 10 million people from their homes. An estimated 450,000 people have fled to Egypt via a perilous journey through the desert. Ibrahim, a government employee from Khartoum who made it to Egypt last August, told the BBC a man he was travelling with broke his neck and died after the truck they were in hit a rock. The smugglers insisted on leaving his body and burying it in the desert. “Everyone was horrified. I stared at the unmarked grave as we drove away, while the women and children in the truck wept,” Ibrahim said. Robberies are also common.

Fresh from a deadly cholera outbreak, Zambia declares drought a national emergency (AP) Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema Thursday declared the country’s debilitating drought a national disaster and emergency, saying it has devastated food production and electricity generation as the nation battles to recover from a recent deadly cholera outbreak. Like some of its neighbors, the southern African country is suffering a severe drought as the El Nino weather pattern worsens harsh weather conditions attributed in part to climate change. The drought has destroyed about 1 million hectares (2.5 million acres) of the 2.2 million hectares (5.4 million acres) planted with the staple maize crop, he said.

Lightning (The Conversation) A new study published in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society took six years’ worth of lightning strike data to build a detailed map of lightning risk in the U.S., finding that Florida led the nation with 112 lightning strikes per square kilometer in 2023. On average, the United States sees 36.8 million ground strikes per year, sees a grand total of 55.5 million strokes of lightning, and also averages 23.4 million flashes.

[dhaaruni]

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.

[topless-towers-of-ilium]

Pres. Trump missed an appointment with death by all of half an inch, and that solely due to an impulse to turn and look at the Border Patrol's chart of illegal immigration just as Tom Crooks pulled the trigger. There are many unanswered questions starting with why there were no Secret Service personnel covering the factory building just 137 yards from the rostrum, and why the counter-sniper team on the roof of the barn was denied permission to take Tom Crooks out until after Crooks had started shooting.

An utterly shocking turn of events yesterday; condolences to the family of the audience member who lost his life. Wishing the former president well; an excellent show of leadership in a traumatic moment.

[antoine-roquentin]

best result for the gop among asian people since 2008, latinx people since 2004, and black people since reagan got 14%, tying bob dole’s 12% in 1996. weirdly, people are reading blame into these charts when it’s clear that some sober-minded analysis should be done as to why the supposedly more racist candidate doubled his vote among black women. when you remember that biden wrote the 1994 crime bill and that racists like richard spencer, curtis yarvin, rahm emanuel, madeleine albright, bill kristol, max boot, jeffrey goldberg, bret stephens, george will, rick wilson, eliot cohen, stanley mcchrystal, william mcraven, miles taylor, tony blair, rick snyder, david cameron, moe davis, joe lieberman, and others felt comfortable enough to endorse and vote for him, people responsible for untold numbers of deaths, then it starts to make a bit more sense.

this all brings to mind a new york times article from september:

The results are sobering. We began by asking eligible voters how “convincing” they found a dog-whistle message lifted from Republican talking points. Among other elements, the message condemned “illegal immigration from places overrun with drugs and criminal gangs” and called for “fully funding the police, so our communities are not threatened by people who refuse to follow our laws.”

Almost three out of five white respondents judged the message convincing. More surprising, exactly the same percentage of African-Americans agreed, as did an even higher percentage of Latinos.

These numbers do not translate directly into support for the Republican Party; too many other factors are at play. Nevertheless, the results tell us something important: a majority across the groups we surveyed did not repudiate Trump-style rhetoric as obviously racist and divisive, but instead agreed with it.

Hispanics, of course, are no more monolithic than any other group, and internal differences influenced how individuals reacted. The single biggest factor was how respondents thought about Hispanic racial identity. More than whether the individual was Mexican-American or from Cuba, young or old, male or female, from Texas, Florida or California, how the person perceived the racial identity of Latinos as a group shaped his or her receptivity to a message stoking racial division.

Progressives commonly categorize Latinos as people of color, no doubt partly because progressive Latinos see the group that way and encourage others to do so as well. Certainly, we both once took that perspective for granted. Yet in our survey, only one in four Hispanics saw the group as people of color.

In contrast, the majority rejected this designation. They preferred to see Hispanics as a group integrating into the American mainstream, one not overly bound by racial constraints but instead able to get ahead through hard work.

The minority of Latinos who saw the group as people of color were more liberal in their views regarding government and the economy, and strongly preferred Democratic messages to the dog-whistle message. For the majority of Latinos, however, the standard Democratic frames tied or lost to the racial fear message. In other words, Mr. Trump’s competitiveness among Latinos is real.

But our research also suggests good news. There’s a winning message Mr. Biden and his party can deliver that resonates with most Hispanics no matter how they conceptualize the group’s racial identity.

The key is to link racism and class conflict. The pivot we recommend was also the most convincing message we tested among whites and African-Americans.

Democrats should call for Americans to unite against the strategic racism of powerful elites who stoke division and then run the country for their own benefit. This is not to deny the reality of pervasive societal racism. But it does direct attention away from whites in general and toward the powerful elites who benefit from divide-and-conquer politics.

This is the race-class approach that one of us helped pioneer. It fuses issues of racial division and class inequality, and by doing so shifts the basic “us versus them” story — the staple of most political messaging — away from “whites versus people of color” to “us all against the powerful elites pushing division.”

Here’s what this looks like:

We had come so far, but now Covid-19 threatens our families — for instance with health risks, record unemployment and losing the businesses we worked hard to build. To overcome these challenges, we need to pull together no matter our race or ethnicity. But instead of uniting us, certain politicians make divisions worse, insulting and blaming different groups. When they divide us, they can more easily rig our government and the economy for their wealthy campaign donors. When we come together by rejecting racism against anyone, we can elect new leaders who support proven solutions that help all working families.

This message was more convincing than the dog-whistle message among Hispanics no matter how they saw the group’s racial identity. It also beat the dog-whistle message among African-Americans and whites.

To understand why this works, it helps to compare it to the standard Democratic responses to Mr. Trump’s messages stoking racial fear.

One standard reaction is to directly challenge Mr. Trump as a bigot while also condemning structural racism. We tested a message like this. It said, in part,

Certain politicians promote xenophobia, racism and division. And it’s not just their words. It’s their policies, too. We see it in how they rip families apart at the border. And in how the police profile, imprison and kill Black people.

Compared with the dog-whistle fear message, this “call out racism” message lost among whites, perhaps unsurprisingly. It also lost among those Latinos who did not perceive themselves as people of color.

Denouncing racism against Latinos seems like an obvious strategy to those of us who see ourselves as people of color and are outraged by Mr. Trump’s denigrating language and his administration’s violence toward Latin-American immigrants. Yet this approach ignores the fact that our racial self-conception is not shared by a majority of Hispanics, who seem to balk at understanding themselves as people of color under racist attack.

The other standard Democratic response to dog whistling is to sidestep racial issues as much as possible. Let’s call this the “colorblind” approach, which we also tested. Our version partly said,

We live in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, but Covid-19 illnesses and deaths are worse here than almost anywhere else. We must elect new leaders who have a plan and are ready to build this country back, better.

This approach seeks to build a coalition by emphasizing shared concerns, for instance around health care or the economy, while avoiding divisive conversations about racism. But it is dog-whistle racism that cleaved the white working and middle classes from the Democratic Party in the first place, and failing to counter that strategy directly leaves its potency intact. In our research, the colorblind message basically tied the racial fear message among whites as well as the majority of Hispanics.

In contrast, Democrats can build common cause across economic classes and racial groups with a race-class approach.

We tested seven race-class messages woven around different issues, including immigration reform and criminal justice. Among whites — often seen as more likely to be comfortable with messages that avoid challenging racism — all seven race-class messages beat the colorblind narrative. Indeed, five beat or tied the dog-whistle message, something the colorblind message failed to accomplish.

Framing racism as a class weapon also proved effective at nurturing support for racial justice reforms. The race-class approach urges people to view the real threat in their lives as emanating from powerful elites stoking division, not from supposedly dangerous minorities.

[darkmaga-returns]

Unless you have lived under a rock or never dared to venture beyond MSNBC or CNN or the front page of the New York Times as your source of 'news', none of this will come as a surprise at all...

But, for those that have lived blinkered from the truth about the border for the past four years, MSNBC just sent your minds to '11' on the 'cognitive dissonance' scale as they dared to show a chart that - hold your breath here for a moment - shows a massive surge in illegal immigration during Biden's reign (especially compared to Trump's).

"The border was not Biden’s finest moment, frankly," former Obama administration official Steve Rattner sheepishly admits while showing the dramatic chart, shocking his co-host on MSNBC's Morning Joe by admitting that:

"you can see what happened here and Trump is not wrong when he talks about how border crossings were quite low." “They were running about 74,000 a month when he left office. And they, in fact, did shoot up. Some of it was some things Biden said and some ways that they put a moratorium, for example, on deportations.” “But in fact, we did get up here almost to 300,000 a month,” Rattner continued.

Enjoy...

As a reminder, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas claimed that the border is secure on multiple occasions prior to a March 2024 impeachment vote in the House of Representatives, despite the fact that the Border Patrol encountered millions of illegal immigrants since the start of fiscal year 2021, according to figures released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

[millennial-review]

"Unfortunately Donald Trump and company don’t see it that way. They’ve taken the opportunity of the pandemic to ramp up enforcement and continue terrorizing immigrant communities. We need to abolish ICE. " You do realize most crimes are commited by Illegal immigrants?

You’re actually 100% wrong about that. It’s not even close, immigrants commit less crime than natural born citizens across the board.

Here are some handy charts to help you out and a link to the article they’re from (there is a lot more backing this up if you want to do a quick google search.)

As you can see, per 100,000 population, that’s 100,000 “native born”, 100,000 “undocumented immigrant” and 100,000 “legal immigrants”, immigrants commit less crime than native born citizens. 

Here is another chart that shows as the number of undocumented immigrants increased, the rate of violent crime decreased.

Again these are only a few charts from one source, you can find a lot more information backing up the fact immigrants commit less crime, if you choose to look.