Yes, democratically elected representatives need to work to build a coherent immigration system. The problem is the amount of propaganda coming from conservative extremists (that Stefanik and MAGA Republicans) have embraced creates roadblocks in resolving the problems.
In his old age, his activities limited by Parkinson’s disease, my father spent less time in the garden or going for walks and more time watching Fox News and their steady diet of anti-immigration rhetoric. He began talking about all the problems that immigrants create for this country. I reminded him … wait for it … that he was a Moslem immigrant - exactly the type of person Fox was presenting as a danger to America. He said, no, that HE did it the right way. I countered that in his case the “right way” was in marrying an American woman and having what Fox would call “anchor babies,” including myself. I asked if the “right way” was like how his brothers came here, with forged papers that they flushed on the airplane and then claiming political asylum when they reached JFK. He responded that each of those cases were legitimate but many other cases, cases of other people (people he did not know) were not legitimate. How he knew that is a mystery to me, except that people of Fox would say stuff like that.
But in fact, we have a process for sorting out who is a legitimate immigrant and who is not. What we have seen is that Republican elected officials work to defund that system, to make the system inefficient. Then they go back to their constituents and claim that the system (the one they worked to break) is broken. It is a fundamentally dishonest position, especially when so many of those same people claim we are a “Christian” nation (we are not) and our laws are based in Judeo-Christian values. I would love to have people post the 10 Commandments in places Republicans hang out - maybe even in a church - so that they can read “you shall not bear false witness.”
As someone with roots back to the 1600s, Stefanik sounds a little bit newcomer to me. I’m not an economist, but I know the birth rate is low, we have an aging demographic and businesses are crying for workers. The diner I wanted to have brunch at on Friday was closing at 11, just as I got there, due to being short staffed. Quite sure many of those migrants DeSantis used in his performance art of cruelty would love to make an omelet and home fries for me.
Since the GOP is consigned to Trump, QANON and nihilism in general now, I doubt they care one way or the other about the fate of either refugees from communist dictatorships or the future of the US economy.
Congrats to Judge and Yankee fans on the historic year he’s having. As a Nats fan, it’s been hard to pay a lot of attention this year. First Trea Turner, then Juan Soto! Maybe in the Spring. All things are possible then.
Well said. Washington County has many hardworking immigrants working on three year visas with no path to citizenship. Come visit the Slate Valley Museum in Granville to learn the stories of immigrants who were able to settle here. As a result, our community thrived.
I worked with the children of migrant workers in Florida for years. These parents took a bus at 5:00 in the morning to pick fruit and didn’t come home until 6:30 at night. They worked harder than many Americans to provide for their families and be able to stay in our country. Without them the cost of oranges would have been insane because Americans didn’t want to do the jobs. They were grateful for so little and believe me they lived with very little. I know it can be complicated but we need to figure this out. Sadly, many don’t want to even try because if they came up with a solution there would be nothing to complain about.
Thanks for your thoughtful piece. We all need to become better educated about immigration past and present. Understanding the past will help us to make more informed and better decisions for today and not be swayed by anti-immigrant rhetoric.
I hesitated reading this, not because I thought you might be wrong, but because I knew you would be right.
Not because another republican did another heinous thing, but because I would be reminded of how heinous stefanik has become.
It is not hard to see this, I wish it was perspicacious (Merriam-Webster word of the day) to notice these actions. Whatever the antonym of perspicacious is (ignorance, but it isn't so highfalutin), are her supporters.
What is so sad, the republicans have twisted our core values --- dar I say our cristian values. (I am an atheist but know enough about the bible to know you are supposed to have compassion and care about the downtrodden).
Ultimately the republicans have created a dialog of deception. Doing so by attacking problems, not with solutions, but with a sledgehammer of misrepresentation.
I am not sure if stefanik ever tells the truth.. now it just comes down to the degree of what she is saying is not true.
If you go to any stefanik, and I supposed most republican, social media, you will see droves of the not so perspicacious. I post a lot often with facts and links. Now I suppose those facts and links could be proven wrong... but never are.. Her supporters know but can not present anything resembling facts.
Nor, I suspect, do they want to, they want the adrenaline of their fear. They want to have guns to protect them from the imaginary boogie man. They want to believe no one will replace them, because of their skin color (ignoring they aren’t very smart or lazy)
I think the solution to the country’s problems is to make ignorance illegal. Sure stefanik would be in jail, as would most of her supporters.
Or they could join the rest of us that understand facts, logic and cognitive thinking.
** Ironically I was wondering about moving away from the United States. Would/could I do it.
Would I move to someplace that is cheaper to live.. like a country in Central America? To do so, would mean hoping that country is more stable than the US.. I mostly think no, but then I look at stefanik and how she wants to unravel democracy.
stefanik's fanatics often say - "then move to Russia" as if free speech wasn't the first amendment (though ironies of ironies, they work to squash the first amendment)
But one has to remember, in the 60's many Americans did immigrate to Canada, because of an unjust war.
The republican party has lost it's way... and even if a candidate is the best, are they? If they believe the 2020 election was stolen.. is that the kind of conspiracy leader that is best.
It is pretty clear that stefanik does NOT want t o debate.. Because of bias -- aka, questions about why she is lying.
My mother is from Northern Ireland so I’ve considered spending some time there, but they have a whole host of political issues as well. And I would have to watch soccer.
I agree that it’s a failure of policy. Biden and Congress are weak on this extremely important issue. BTW did you see in last nights Haulocaust program that it seemed to be newspapers who were responsible for turning around the country against the antisemitic rhetoric of Charles Lindbergh?
Immigration reform has been a problem that has been a "pass the buck" issue for numerous administrations. George W. Bush had a workable plan, it was something he really cared about and knew from the bottom up (as he had been governor of Texas). But members of his own party, the Republican Party, along with some Democrats, killed the bill. It does no one any good to criticize the sitting president when everyone knows that nothing will happen if Congress continues to fail, fail, fail. Congressional Representatives and Senators won't even talk to each other, let alone try to find solutions to problems that are as old as our country.
The current massive waves of immigrants are due to global instability. Note that many more refugees from Nicaragua and Venezuela are fleeing autocratic regimes. Note that poverty in Latin American countries is increasing as the global economy is weakening. Note that people from African nations are flying into Colombia and crossing into Mexico and making their way to our southern border. The problem is multi-faceted, but one easy thing to do would be for Congress to pass legislation that allows visas for temporary workers to work parts of the year when farm laborers are most needed. This would solve a labor shortage and give stability to the individuals who work and to the numbers of people coming in. If people don't want to do farm labor, then they have to have some other skill, but not a top level skill that is needed in their home country. What we must NOT do is skim the cream off the top and take the most educated and most skilled away from developing countries. Doing so just adds to more instability globally. Poor countries need their doctors, engineers, educators more than we do.
Yes, democratically elected representatives need to work to build a coherent immigration system. The problem is the amount of propaganda coming from conservative extremists (that Stefanik and MAGA Republicans) have embraced creates roadblocks in resolving the problems.
In his old age, his activities limited by Parkinson’s disease, my father spent less time in the garden or going for walks and more time watching Fox News and their steady diet of anti-immigration rhetoric. He began talking about all the problems that immigrants create for this country. I reminded him … wait for it … that he was a Moslem immigrant - exactly the type of person Fox was presenting as a danger to America. He said, no, that HE did it the right way. I countered that in his case the “right way” was in marrying an American woman and having what Fox would call “anchor babies,” including myself. I asked if the “right way” was like how his brothers came here, with forged papers that they flushed on the airplane and then claiming political asylum when they reached JFK. He responded that each of those cases were legitimate but many other cases, cases of other people (people he did not know) were not legitimate. How he knew that is a mystery to me, except that people of Fox would say stuff like that.
But in fact, we have a process for sorting out who is a legitimate immigrant and who is not. What we have seen is that Republican elected officials work to defund that system, to make the system inefficient. Then they go back to their constituents and claim that the system (the one they worked to break) is broken. It is a fundamentally dishonest position, especially when so many of those same people claim we are a “Christian” nation (we are not) and our laws are based in Judeo-Christian values. I would love to have people post the 10 Commandments in places Republicans hang out - maybe even in a church - so that they can read “you shall not bear false witness.”
To Mike Parwana, In my humble opinion, you just hit the nail on the head. Best comment I have ever seen on this subject!
As someone with roots back to the 1600s, Stefanik sounds a little bit newcomer to me. I’m not an economist, but I know the birth rate is low, we have an aging demographic and businesses are crying for workers. The diner I wanted to have brunch at on Friday was closing at 11, just as I got there, due to being short staffed. Quite sure many of those migrants DeSantis used in his performance art of cruelty would love to make an omelet and home fries for me.
Since the GOP is consigned to Trump, QANON and nihilism in general now, I doubt they care one way or the other about the fate of either refugees from communist dictatorships or the future of the US economy.
Congrats to Judge and Yankee fans on the historic year he’s having. As a Nats fan, it’s been hard to pay a lot of attention this year. First Trea Turner, then Juan Soto! Maybe in the Spring. All things are possible then.
Well said. Washington County has many hardworking immigrants working on three year visas with no path to citizenship. Come visit the Slate Valley Museum in Granville to learn the stories of immigrants who were able to settle here. As a result, our community thrived.
I worked with the children of migrant workers in Florida for years. These parents took a bus at 5:00 in the morning to pick fruit and didn’t come home until 6:30 at night. They worked harder than many Americans to provide for their families and be able to stay in our country. Without them the cost of oranges would have been insane because Americans didn’t want to do the jobs. They were grateful for so little and believe me they lived with very little. I know it can be complicated but we need to figure this out. Sadly, many don’t want to even try because if they came up with a solution there would be nothing to complain about.
Thanks for your thoughtful piece. We all need to become better educated about immigration past and present. Understanding the past will help us to make more informed and better decisions for today and not be swayed by anti-immigrant rhetoric.
I hesitated reading this, not because I thought you might be wrong, but because I knew you would be right.
Not because another republican did another heinous thing, but because I would be reminded of how heinous stefanik has become.
It is not hard to see this, I wish it was perspicacious (Merriam-Webster word of the day) to notice these actions. Whatever the antonym of perspicacious is (ignorance, but it isn't so highfalutin), are her supporters.
What is so sad, the republicans have twisted our core values --- dar I say our cristian values. (I am an atheist but know enough about the bible to know you are supposed to have compassion and care about the downtrodden).
Ultimately the republicans have created a dialog of deception. Doing so by attacking problems, not with solutions, but with a sledgehammer of misrepresentation.
I am not sure if stefanik ever tells the truth.. now it just comes down to the degree of what she is saying is not true.
If you go to any stefanik, and I supposed most republican, social media, you will see droves of the not so perspicacious. I post a lot often with facts and links. Now I suppose those facts and links could be proven wrong... but never are.. Her supporters know but can not present anything resembling facts.
Nor, I suspect, do they want to, they want the adrenaline of their fear. They want to have guns to protect them from the imaginary boogie man. They want to believe no one will replace them, because of their skin color (ignoring they aren’t very smart or lazy)
I think the solution to the country’s problems is to make ignorance illegal. Sure stefanik would be in jail, as would most of her supporters.
Or they could join the rest of us that understand facts, logic and cognitive thinking.
** Ironically I was wondering about moving away from the United States. Would/could I do it.
Would I move to someplace that is cheaper to live.. like a country in Central America? To do so, would mean hoping that country is more stable than the US.. I mostly think no, but then I look at stefanik and how she wants to unravel democracy.
stefanik's fanatics often say - "then move to Russia" as if free speech wasn't the first amendment (though ironies of ironies, they work to squash the first amendment)
But one has to remember, in the 60's many Americans did immigrate to Canada, because of an unjust war.
The republican party has lost it's way... and even if a candidate is the best, are they? If they believe the 2020 election was stolen.. is that the kind of conspiracy leader that is best.
It is pretty clear that stefanik does NOT want t o debate.. Because of bias -- aka, questions about why she is lying.
My mother is from Northern Ireland so I’ve considered spending some time there, but they have a whole host of political issues as well. And I would have to watch soccer.
on the other side -- when your Irish decedents immigrated here, they were treated much like those from Central America are now
Not only is that true, but my grandparents didn’t approve of the marriage to my mother because she was Catholic. That’s in the next book.
I agree that it’s a failure of policy. Biden and Congress are weak on this extremely important issue. BTW did you see in last nights Haulocaust program that it seemed to be newspapers who were responsible for turning around the country against the antisemitic rhetoric of Charles Lindbergh?
Saw Part 1, but now I’m really looking forward to Part2.
Immigration reform has been a problem that has been a "pass the buck" issue for numerous administrations. George W. Bush had a workable plan, it was something he really cared about and knew from the bottom up (as he had been governor of Texas). But members of his own party, the Republican Party, along with some Democrats, killed the bill. It does no one any good to criticize the sitting president when everyone knows that nothing will happen if Congress continues to fail, fail, fail. Congressional Representatives and Senators won't even talk to each other, let alone try to find solutions to problems that are as old as our country.
The current massive waves of immigrants are due to global instability. Note that many more refugees from Nicaragua and Venezuela are fleeing autocratic regimes. Note that poverty in Latin American countries is increasing as the global economy is weakening. Note that people from African nations are flying into Colombia and crossing into Mexico and making their way to our southern border. The problem is multi-faceted, but one easy thing to do would be for Congress to pass legislation that allows visas for temporary workers to work parts of the year when farm laborers are most needed. This would solve a labor shortage and give stability to the individuals who work and to the numbers of people coming in. If people don't want to do farm labor, then they have to have some other skill, but not a top level skill that is needed in their home country. What we must NOT do is skim the cream off the top and take the most educated and most skilled away from developing countries. Doing so just adds to more instability globally. Poor countries need their doctors, engineers, educators more than we do.