Thursday Tabs
Early day in the office today so just some quick hits.
NYT: “Railroad Unions and Companies Reach a Tentative Deal to Avoid a Strike” – The nature of the settlement is unclear but President Biden and his team deserve credit that they won’t get. It’s hard to sell a crisis averted.
NYT: “In Dramatic Shift, Right-Wing Bloc Wins Slim Majority in Sweden” – Once again demonstrating that the United States is not the only country with a rising tide of right-wing extremism. And also demonstrating how much voting systems matter: the party that got the most votes in this election has been ousted from power.
Fox News: “Ron DeSantis sends two planes of illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard” – Part of a continuing saga of “owning the libs” in the cruelest possible way. There oughta be a law against this but, apparently, there isn’t.
TNR Soapbox: “Mitch McConnell’s Refusal to Seat Merrick Garland on the Supreme Court Is Coming Back to Haunt Him” – Some wishful thinking, I fear.
NYT: “Billionaire No More: Patagonia Founder Gives Away the Company” – The family has “transferred their ownership of Patagonia, valued at about $3 billion, to a specially designed trust and a nonprofit organization. They were created to preserve the company’s independence and ensure that all of its profits — some $100 million a year — are used to combat climate change and protect undeveloped land around the globe.” An interesting if odd way to do philanthropy.
By this point he should be used to not getting any credit, just the blame.
With the 2024 prez nomination in view, DeSantis is in a base pandering contest with Greg Abbott. Abbott had the unfair advantage of a border with Mexico. So DeSantis is doing his poor best to one-up Abbott. Abbott sent illegal immigrants to NY and DC, so DeSantis gathered up a few and sent them to Martha’s Vineyard. If he can afford the air fare he’ll probably send a couple loads to San Francisco.
The funny thing is that Martha’s Vineyard, like many tourist destinations, is short of workers. Could probably put these unwilling immigrants to work. I’d bet every single restaurant on the Vineyard is short bus boys and dishwashers. And if any of these immigrants can cook? A competent Salvadoran line cook on the Vineyard after school is back in and they’ve lost their college kids? He’d have his pick of jobs.
Re the general topic of southern states sending refugees elsewhere by bus and now plane… Current federal practice with people who turn themselves in or are taken into custody is to separate the ones that will be deported immediately from the ones who are determined to be eligible for a hearing in court. The courts are staggeringly far behind (many months), so Immigration simply releases the latter group into the local border community to wait. Local government and charities are completely overwhelmed.
Yes, the governors’ choice of destinations is a political stunt. OTOH, the Biden administration has been seriously considering busing the refugees to other cities and states to reduce the very real problem the border communities/states are suffering. (On the gripping hand, no one talks about the actual solution, that once the federal government admits someone as a provisional refugee, the federal government ought to be on the hook for housing, food, schooling, etc.)
@Michael Reynolds:
The Vineyard has already stepped up and is providing them with water, food, shelter, and clothing.
The thing about employment on MV, though, is that a lot of it is seasonal. Some places shut down during the winter months.
Back in 1980, the Cuban government sent a boatload of undesirable people to the US in order to mock the whole welcome to Cuban refugees that was US policy. Whatever happened with this? We still have the welcome mat out for Cubans running from their regime even if they are not Yasmani Grandal, right? And what has become of the Marielistos forty years later? I don’t live in Florida and don’t hear much about them.
My family didn’t cross the Bering land bridge fourteen thousand years ago to get here, and most of my ethnic cohort actually were considered losers back in Europe. I just wonder what actually happens to people who come here without wealth, possessions, and official resources.
@Michael Reynolds:
These are potential refugees/asylees waiting for the court hearing that will determine their actual status. They are not legally allowed to apply for a work permit until their case has been pending for 150 days, and the permit cannot be issued sooner than 30 days after application.
The US refugee/asylee system is very much not equipped to deal with unsponsored people who simple show up at the border.
Sending refugees to Martha’s Vineyard is more like owning conservatives. The hardest working people in this country are the ones slipping across the border to take two shifts washing dishes, or working construction, or cleaning an office building. There are reasonable policy arguments against immigration, legal or not, but just dumping real human beings who will bust their ass on liberal states is just a self-own. And not only that treating people like shit is not popular. Trump could do it, but he people actually liked him and he enjoyed being liked. When it comes from freaks DeSantis it’s different.
It’s certainly a political stunt, but cruel? It doesn’t appear like people are being forced to get on a plane or bus to go somewhere that is nicer. If you had the choice of staying in some undesirable entry point or get a free ride to somewhere better, what would you do? It’s a bizarre argument, IMO, to suggest that giving immigrants free transportation on a voluntary basis is cruel compared to the alternative, which is to leave them to rot in overcrowded facilities and communities that don’t have the resources to manage them – or force them to make their own way to where they want to go.
If anything, the federal government should be doing this, and on a much larger scale. There are thousands of people crossing the border daily, and the border states and federal government do not have the resources or facilities to handle them. Immigration is supposed to be a federal (ie. national) problem. It makes sense, to me at least, to spread this burden around the country instead of expecting a few communities to deal with it, which they obviously can’t do.
Moving people is what we did with Afghan refugees, who, after processing, were sent and resettled in different parts of the country. A big contrast to what is being done with people who cross the southern border.
GoP governors are taking political advantage of failed immigration policies and execution – which they wouldn’t be able to do if the federal government was able to cope with the problem. The core issue is the federal government is not meeting its responsibilities.
I would point out that transporting people across state lines against their will, or under false pretenses, is kidnapping. Which, of course, is a federal crime. Some law enforcement agencies are allowed to transfer people who are in custody across state lines. It is not clear from the article what the status of these people is/was, if they were considered to be in the custody of an agency authorized to transport people, but man it would be a nice comeuppance to see DeSantis and/or Abbott get brought up on a couple hundred charges of kidnapping.
@Slugger:
Cubans arriving at the border without prior authorization are now treated the same as other nationalities.
So is there any information available about this ratification and speculation on chances of success or failure? The information may be out there, however I can’t find it.
@Jon:
All of the states shipping people out at least go through the motions, and can show paperwork, that the shipped people gave informed consent to be relocated. From what I read, some of Texas’s practices seem suspect. Arizona, sending far fewer people, appears to be doing a reasonable job.
What’s amazing is that the Republicans think that this stund with poor desperate migrants is making them look good.
To already hard core Republicans? Sure.
But to the apolitical gettable voter? I don’t think so.
@Michael Cain: Yeah, I don’t actually think anything would come of this, and I am sure the states have done enough to give plausible deniability; it’s more a “goddam that’d be nice” kinda thing. Cuz I mean really, this is just grotesque.
And there have been reports that at least some of the folks Texas is shipping out have been told they’re being sent for job training, which was a lie. So it actually does seem to come close to running afoul of kidnapping and/or trafficking laws but, again, it seems profoundly unlikely any actual prosecutions would ever take place.
Two busloads of migrants have been dropped off near VP Harris’s home.
@CSK:
I spent two seasons in Ocean City, a sort of low-rent Vineyard. Even the off-seasons now need employees. I used to be the guy hiring waiters. Had you sent two planeloads of people to me in September I’d have been at the airport with cocktails and signing bonuses.
@Michael Cain:
What? Undocumented workers? On the Vineyard? Somehow the restaurateurs and hotel owners of the Vineyard will manage.
@Michael Reynolds:
Well, possibly. I hope so. But the off-season population of MV is 17,000, while the summertime is 200,000.
@Michael Cain:
It could be equipped to deal with them if Congress wasn’t set on the notion that there’s more mileage for both sides in having this be a “crisis.” Governments, especially ones that “quantitatively ease” trillions of dollars of debt, don’t do stuff because ethey don’t want to not because they can’t.
@Jon: ” but man it would be a nice comeuppance to see DeSantis and/or Abbott get brought up on a couple hundred charges of kidnapping.”
Advise against holding your breath waiting for this to happen. Even if it’s possible to bring charges against them, it’s not any more likely than it is for FG.
Maybe they can try all 3 on the same day/in the same court. MSM would like that. Lotta clicks there.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: I didn’t say I expected it to happen, just that it’d be nice if it did 🙂
@Mister Bluster: I saw a headline last night indicating one remaining holdout bargaining group but didn’t click on the article. Usually, these things go into blackout until the vote is counted.
@Michael Reynolds:
Not undocumented. These are the people who convinced at least one official that they had an arguable case for permanent legal refugee/asylee status. They will eventually have a court appearance to settle it. They have papers to that effect. They’re in the databases. The very large majority of them make that court appearance. Things I’ve read make it appear that same majority aren’t willing to risk the potential permanent legal status by working before they can get a permit.
@Andy: I see it as cruel to simply dump them off unannounced on localities that haven’t been prepared. I get that the border states are frustrated at heaving to bear the brunt of the burden because the Feds don’t have the capacity to staff the problem. But it’s a really awful way of handling the problem.
@Andy:
They were, but GOP states sued to make them stop:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/17/politics/desantis-florida-republicans-routine-migrant-flights-immigration/index.html
This is once again a case of the GOP deliberately creating a crisis, blocking any attempts to deal with it, and then blaming the DNC for not cleaning up their mess fast enough.
@James Joyner:
These immigrants and refugees are arriving unannounced in localities that aren’t prepared. What is the difference here on the merits? Why is it cruel for NYC and DC combined to receive about 10k migrants over the course of months, yet it’s perfectly fine for El Paso Texas to receive a thousand almost every single day?
And I don’t get the implication that forcing migrants to stay in overcrowded border towns is humane while sending them to NYC, DC, or Martha’s Vineyard is cruel. If you were a refugee, where would you want to be?
What’s actually cruel here is the federal government failing to adequately address this crisis in the first place, and it’s also cruel that media, pundits, and even bloggers mostly ignore the problem until there’s a partisan political angle to be outraged about. I think the federal government should be doing what these GoP governors are doing, except on a much larger scale and as official policy. Instead, the government is literally dumping people on the streets of overcrowded localities to fend for themselves. That is not humane.
Wasn’t Trump supposed to “secure the border” and fix our underresourced immigration system when he was president? Didn’t he have unified Republican control for his first two years to do so?
What happened? Too busy rage tweeting childish nicknames and cutting taxes for billionaires, I reckon.
Anyway, the next Congress might finally take up a comprehensive immigration bill to throw money and bodies at all related problems. But I won’t hold my breath waiting. Democrats have zero interest, and Republicans just blow hot air and do stunts.
Perhaps we don’t really want solutions? Because the corporate donor class secretly welcomes the cheap labor to exploit? Or what is the reason?
You know, over and over again it’s underlined that immigration issues by and large are money issues.
So much of what is objectionable happens because 1) we believe in giving people trials and due process, and 2) The courts for this are completely overloaded.
We could double the size of these courts by spending a lot of money. I have no ideological objection to doing that. I have one thing I would need in return for my support: Some path to citizenship for DREAMers.
I have a pragmatic observation, though. There is no “correct” size of a law enforcement budget. We set these budgets by asking “what are the current consequences, what would be the potential impact of increasing or cutting budgets”. So, what’s the impact of all these illegal immigrants – the ones we know about, which make up a very large group – in the country? There are wild claims about crime, but I don’t believe them.
Why don’t I believe them? Because those complaints come from the same people who call the cops when a pastor is watering their neighbors flowers because those neighbors are out of town, based solely on “that guy is black, what’s he doing here?”
@Stormy Dragon:
That was a program specifically for unaccompanied minors who, for obvious reasons, can’t be dumped in the streets of border towns like adults can.
That is the kind of program that, I think, ought to be expanded.
@CSK:
When I was living in Ocean City it was 250,000 vs. 5,000. I made more money off-season than in-season, because we did some promotions and The Wild Goose Chase, in January, was balls to the wall.
In OC there are a gazillion rented rooms, apartments, condos and hotels that need cleaning, ditto kitchens and dining rooms. There’s winter-proofing, repairs, re-models, moving shit from A to B. There will be plenty of ‘off the books’ work to be done. And MV has even more serious issues with high rental costs driving out worker bees. If you work OC you can commute in from Berlin (not the German one) or other places on the Eastern Shore. That’s a bit tougher for MV where the nearest ‘reasonable’ rental is West Yarmouth on the Cape.
DeSantis also fucked up his timing in that right now there’s plenty of habitable space available on MV.
A couple of polls this week (AP-NORC and IBD/TIPP) have now shown dramatic ~10ish-point jumps in Biden’s approval rating since midsummer, mostly among indies, disaffected Democrats, and youth voters taking a second look.
Where does student debt relief go to get its apology?
@Jay L Gischer:
A net positive. Cheap labor, increased sales tax revenue, and more bodies at a time of declining birth rates, so future retirees can keep raiding young people’s Social Security trust.
Crime rates among illegal/undocumented immigrants are lower than among native born Americans. For the very obvious reason that they have every incentive to avoid the legal system.
Just don’t say any of that publicly. Doesn’t fit the dumb “They terk our jerbs and raped our wimmins” fake narrative that gins up votes from losers looking for an ‘other’ to scapegoat.
@Jay L Gischer:
We toss words like illegal around so easily. The immigrants we are talking about are not illegal immigrants. They are asylum seekers. They have been screened by CBP/ICE and are awaiting hearings. The ones rejected are expelled. The CBP have had about 2M encounters with potential immigrants this year and have processed and rendered disposition of them. Illegal immigrants are those outside of the system (like those who have expired student visas). The big lie is that borders are open implying there are not encounters or processing going on.
There are many resource bottlenecks in the process that need to be addressed.
One statistic I haven’t seen is how many employers have been fined or jailed for illegally hiring these immigrants.
@Andy:
So your theory is that the Republicans who went to court to shut down the transfer of unaccompanied minor immigrants would be just fine with a far larger program to transfer immigrants in general around the country?
@Andy:
Forced? No.
Tricked? Yes.
Lied to? Almost certainly.
Used as human pawns in a political stunt. 100%
This is not defensible in any way, in my view.
If DeSantis wants to have a debate about how to deal with migrants–have at. If he wants to lobby Congress for a solution, be my guest.
But please don’t provide any cover for this kind of activity. (And I say that in all sincerity).
@Stormy Dragon: This has been the conservative MO for generations now–prohibit people from acting and then complain about the hypocrisy of their inaction. I just don’t see why they can keep getting away with it.
@DK: “Perhaps we don’t really want solutions?”
I can go with that. Besides, the corporate class needs to have SOMEONE to exploit for cheap labor. I don’t think we want CITIZENS in those roles (other than po’ trash of indiscriminate color who don’t deserve better anyway).
@James Joyner:
As has been observed once or twice by others, including Matt Bernius commenting on your follow up post, the cruelty is the point. This wouldn’t impress the MAGAt base if it didn’t impose hardship on the immigrants. And he’s hoping his FL base won’t find out, as you note in the follow up post, the immigrant crisis in FL is so bad he had to go to Texas to find some. What the schoolmarm in Blazing Saddles said of Gov Le Petomane applies to my Gov De Santis, “goes to prove that you are the leading asshole in the state!”
@Steven L. Taylor:
100% this. To put it a different way, if this had been done as a social experiment, then Florida would have had all of its funding pulled because there is a 0% chance that they were able to (or even attempted to) get informed consent from the participants.
(one of the many things about this that pisses me off)
@Stormy Dragon:
Where did I ever say I was speaking for Republicans or that I’m offering any kind of “theory” about them? I stated what I think ought to be done in terms of policy. If you disagree with that, then fine, voice your disagreement, but don’t set up a strawman about Republican hypocrisy and try to get me to defend it. If you want me to say that DeSantis is a fucking hypocrite, then I’ll say that 100%. But then so are the people who claim that it’s cruel for state governments to pay to transport migrants to other states, but is perfectly normal when the feds do it or simply dump them on the street.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Evidence? In the reports I’ve seen that actually interviewed migrants, the vast majority were eager to go and accept a free ride. If this is, as you claim, cruel, then where is the evidence?
So what is your solution besides complaining about political stunts? To me, that is providing cover for the status quo, for dumping migrants on the street of border communities, and for basically ignoring the topic except to criticize the political stunt.
My view is this: Either you have principles and standards for how migrants ought to be treated, or you don’t. And if you do, then those standards ought to be applied and communicated consistently. It’s not clear to me – and maybe you can offer an argument here, why the political stunt of giving migrants free transportation to liberal and sanctuary cities is uniquely bad on the merits compared to what is happening on a daily basis in border communities where people are little dumped on the street, or at bus depots and expected to find their own way with zero resources.
That’s why my view is that the feds ought to be doing what these GoP governors are doing, only at scale. Because this is a national problem, border communities are beyond overwhelmed, and migrants need to be moved one way or another to make room for new arrivals.
@Andy: “And I don’t get the implication that forcing migrants to stay in overcrowded border towns is humane while sending them to NYC, DC, or Martha’s Vineyard is cruel. If you were a refugee, where would you want to be?”
How nice to see that once again you see only good in the motives of Republicans. But if these governors were actually doing this because they cared about what happened to the immigrants or felt they were overwhelmed and needed help from blue states taking them in, then maybe they would have picked up a god damn phone and called the leaders of the other states to prepare them for the arrival, and maybe to work out some logistics that would work for both sides.
Sending planes full of poor migrants to a tiny island which is famously in a housing affordability crisis so severe that most people who work there can’t afford to live there is not a serious attempt to deal with a problem, no matter how much you want to pretend it is. It’s a stunt and a cheap political gag, and if anyone whose politics you don’t agree with ever tried anything so vile you’d be screaming.
@Matt Bernius:
Again, let’s see the evidence that these migrants don’t actually want to go to these destinations.
If you’re going to invoke an “informed consent” standard when it comes to migrants, then that standard needs to apply generally. And are migrants who are dumped on the street in El Paso or wherever getting informed consent for that? Was there informed consent for the government’s program of transporting unaccompanied minors to various states to house them?
@wr:
As should be clear, I am not talking about motivations. I’ve clearly been talking about the merits of the policy, including stating categorically that I think this policy should be done by the federal government. That is different from the motivations of the GoP governors who are doing this.
@Andy: From a linked article in the other post on this subject today:
” Three migrants each separately described to NPR how they were lured onto the plane with promises of help getting work. Each of the three were told they were being flown to Boston and that, once they were there, they could more quickly get work because they were told it is a sanctuary city. Andres Duarte, a 30-year-old Venezuelan, said he had recently crossed the border into Texas and eventually went to a shelter in San Antonio. A woman who he and other migrants identified only as Perla approached them outside the shelter. They say she arranged for some of them to stay at a hotel, offered them food and then got them on a plane.”
It’s possible to be unhappy with federal policies on this (which I am, just as you are), without having to defend this cruelty. Give it up.
@Andy:
I’m not sure that comparing the actions of a US government office, State or Federal, to the actions of black market agents (or even other governments) is a particularly winning line of argumentation, but YMMV.
I tend to be a “hold ourselves to higher standards” (or the standards we hold others to within the US).
This is a more useful jumping off point for discussion. I think the key thing difference to build on is “government program” and “to house them” which is fundamentally different than “dropping them off with no coordination with agencies or plan for what to do with them.”
I think we can draw a lot of issues with the program in question (which have been well documented elsewhere, not to mention the question of informed consent and minors) AND it’s still theoretically a better program than what appears to be currently enacted above.
This gets to the point that the biggest critique (and I need to find a reference to this) I believe I have seen from the states receiving these individuals is the lack of attempt of any coordination to move them into social services systems.
@Andy:
You criticized the government for not doing X. I pointed out that they were doing X and had been blocked by the GOP.
Your response was “well that was just unaccompanied minors”.
Unless you think that was the cause of the GOP block, the fact it as just unaccompanied minors is completely irrelevant.
So you’re right, you’d didn’t say you were speaking for them. You were apparently just spurting out a cloud of gish-gallop squid ink to camouflage you retreat after being called out on your bad faith “the federal government should be doing this, and on a much larger scale” argument.
@Matt Bernius:
Black market agents?
I don’t know the details of the DeSantis flight arrangements, but when it comes to the bus program in Texas and other states, that isn’t at all a black market. And it’s primarily humanitarian groups that are guiding people to the bus program.
As to this:
As I pointed out, the federal government is doing this every day by dumping people on the streets of border communities which is literally “dropping them off with no coordination with agencies or plan for what to do with them.”
@Stormy Dragon:
I don’t know what you’re getting at.
I’ve stated categorically that I think a good policy to consider is for the federal government to do more of this as official policy – and to expand on what it did for unaccompanied minors. Clearly the logic of that position would indicate that I would not agree with people who would opposed that policy – specifically people like DeSantis. Do I really need to spell that out for you?
And now you accuse me of making my argument in bad faith, based on – what exactly? Anyway, who cares at this point. If you’re going to stoop to accusing me of bad faith based on whatever it is you’re basing it on, then we have nothing further to discuss.
@Just Another Ex-Republican:
Where is the cruelty? Do you really think they are worse off in Martha’s Vineyard than in a shelter in San Antonio? Most will get to Boston if that’s what they want.
@Andy:
Apologies… I had a complete brain fart on the “El Paso” reference, There was a total short circuit and I thought you were referring to people being dropped on the other side of the border by coyotes trafficking people up from Central and Southern America.
I’ll respond late on the other points (both here and on the other post) as I’m clearly a bit to distracted to be a good conversation partner (it’s an extra ADHD day here in Rochester).
@Matt Bernius:
Matt, thanks for the clarification, I was a bit confused about the black market reference. I look forward to your response.
@Andy: You cannot possibly be serious. They were in a shelter in Texas, lied to, and dropped off in Martha’s Vineyard onto the street. From being fed and housed to dumped in another location-not the one they were told they were going to and without the jobs they were told would be available. How is that NOT cruelty? Sure, the community rallied and started to care for them, but if you don’t think that’s simply cruel I don’t know what to say. Though I think it says something not very nice about you.
Another complication: If, as seems to be the case, these were asylum cases stuck in a shelter waiting on a court IN TEXAS to rule on their case, who is going to fly them back for that? Sure as hell won’t be DeSantis. Where will the court in Texas send notices for when to appear? The shelter they were supposed to be at. So they end up no-shows, classed as illegals, and deported if caught, all so DeSantis can score some stupid political points with his base by treating these people as garbage pawns.
Again, there are lots and lots of problems with immigration in this country, and it’s even a case where it’s fair to say neither party has covered themselves in glory over the years (though I certainly think one party has been worse). But that in no way justifies what was just done to these people, or makes what happened to them less cruel.
@Andy:
Let’s see the evidence that these migrants DID actually want to go to these destinations. Why do you assume that’s their intended destination?
MV isn’t exactly a common choice and the gated US Naval Observatory certainly isn’t. Even if we accept that they were interested in “DC” or “Massachusetts” as vague destinations like “The US” usually is, those specific locations were chosen by conservatives to cause massive, intentional disruption to an unprepared location. Say what you want about border security but location near the border are aware immigrants can arrive and thus have preparations and facilities; Martha’s Vineyard had to activate their hurricane protocols. These people didn’t sign up to be props – they were certainly lied to about where they were going and that’s a cruelty to someone who may not speak the language you’re asking in.
It’s cruel because conservatives did it to punish “liberals” to “see how they like it” when really it’s the equilvant of snowy northern states sneering at southern states not having snow plows or salt for the streets. If NY started shipping in insulated trucks all the snow and ice they got to dump in front of DeSantis’ door to protest how unfair it is northern states have to pay for snow removal, it would look just as stupid. It would be cruel to dump it on schools and private homes to make a point to conservatives.
For all the people who have seen Judge Cannon’s decision, let me just say that tomorrow I do plan to write a “I was wrong” post.
Please keep your powder dry until then…. Or, heck, it’s an infinite supply online so you be you!
@mattbernius:
And totally wrong thread, but I will leave this here as an IoU.