If
President Donald Trump believes in anything, it must be in the imperative to
expel every single immigrant living in the country illegally, right?
This
is one of his core commitments to the MAGA coalition. It’s why he hired
ethno-nationalist Stephen Miller as a deputy chief of staff for policy — to
reassure his followers that he will stop at nothing to shield them from the
murderous filthy criminals lurking just beyond America’s borders. It’s why
his border
czar, Tom Homan, promised “more worksite enforcement than
you’ve ever seen in the history of this nation” to flush unauthorized
immigrants from the workforce.
The
MAGA true believers overlook the fact that Trump’s first and third wives were
born in other countries, his mother was born in Scotland, his paternal
grandfather was born in Germany, and Melania’s parent were able to enter our
country because of a policy known as “chain migration”.
Stephen
Miller’s grandparents, of course, were Jewish refugees who came here just prior
to the stare of WWI. Miller was born on August 23, 1985,
in Santa Monica, California, where
he was raised, the second of three children in the Jewish family
of Michael D. Miller, a real estate investor, and Miriam (née Glosser)
His mother's ancestors Louis W. Glosser (originally named Wolf-Lieb Glosser or
Glatzer/Glotzer) and his wife Bessie emigrated to the United States from
the Russian
Empire's Antopol, in
what is urrently Belarus, escaping
the 1903–06 anti-Jewish
pogroms in Belarus and
other parts of the Russian Empire. When his great-grandmother arrived in
the U.S. in 1906, she spoke only Yiddish, the
historical language of the Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern
Europe. Miller's uncle recalls that, when Wolf-Lieb Glosser reached Ellis
Island on January 7, 1903, with $8 to his name, "though fluent in Polish,
Russian and Yiddish, he understood no English.
And speaking of Stephen Miller ....
Stephen Miller Has Financial Stake in Company Helping ICE With Deportations: Report
According to ethics disclosure reports released by the White House, Miller owns between $100,000 and $250,000 worth of stock in Palantir, Peter Thiel's data and intelligence software company that has a several lucrative contracts with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to track data and conduct surveillance on undocumented immigrants. It's a pretty clear conflict of interest from the man behind much of Donald Trump's immigration policy, in an administration that is already rife with corruption.
A Project on Government Oversight (POGO) analysis of disclosures from several administration figures found that Miller and at least 11 other White House officials and staffers own stock in Palantir, including Gregory Barbaccia, Trump's Chief Information Officer.
Miller's stake is tucked away in a brokerage account for one of his three young children, all of which are under the age of six. The single degree of separation is still a potential violation of ethics laws.
Palantir has been a critical player in the Trump administration's efforts to execute the mass deportation of undocumented migrants. The company received a $41 million government contract in 2014, and created custom software for ICE, referred to as Investigative Case Management (ICM). The platform synthesizes massive troves of data on undocumented migrants from various federal and private law enforcement agencies, creating extremely detailed files that are used to craft deportation cases on individuals, and locate them for arrest and detention.
According to an April report from Wired, ICE awarded Palantir another $30 million contract to create tracking software aimed at providing the agency with "near real-time visibility" into migrants engaging in "self deportation." According to documents obtained by Wired, one of the core functions of the program - dubbed ImmigrationOS - would be to streamline and prioritize "selection and apprehension operations of illegal aliens." The documents noted that one of the difficulties in creating the program was limited access to the biometric data of migrants.
Last month, reports emerged that Miller had yelled at regional ICE field officers because they weren't rounding up and deporting people fast enough, demanding they achieve a target of 3,000 arrests a day.
What's becoming clear is that immigration enforcement officials are no longer carefully sifting through data on undocumented migrants in order to round up the criminals that Trump promised would be the primary targets of his crackdown, but casting a drag net over entire communities.
Several citizens and lawful residents have reportedly been swept up in ICE raids - some held in detention for days or weeks without explanation. One woman, a citizen who was arrested alongside her undocumented husband by immigration authorities, was detained in her ninth month of pregnancy and hospitalized with pains after her release. Another undocumented woman, Iris Dayana Monterroso-Lemus, miscarried in her fifth month of pregnancy after days of pleading with guards at the detention facility she was taken to for medical attention.
This is what Miller and the Trump administration have desired for some time. According to former Trump Department of Homeland Security appointee Miles Taylor, Miller once proposed using predator drones to "obliterate" ships carrying migrants seeking to land on U.S. soil. It should be no surprise that as Miller moves to fulfill his most vile nativist anti-immigrant fantasies, he's ensured himself a cut of the profits.
Trump’s stance on immigration is all for show. The swarm of agents from the Department of Homeland Security at a Home Depot in Los Angeles was a performance. Like presidents over at least four decades, Trump understands the business rationale for protecting America’s large and vibrant illegal workforce. He will do nothing to undermine it.
There is a little secret that everybody in the immigration
enforcement business knows: We have effective tools to prevent unauthorized
workers from working. They are not as telegenic as agents in tactical vests
running across a Home Depot parking lot to catch a dozen skinny guys hoping to
land a plumbing gig. But these tools do have a track record of curbing the
incentive that draws people from around the world: available jobs.
That these tools have not been fully deployed underscores the
fundamental hypocrisy behind America’s immigration policy. Voters may say they
want illegal immigrants to go away. But moms and dads looking for child care,
retirees seeking a caretaker, home builders and farmers and landscapers, and
everyday shoppers picking up strawberries
for their kids’ breakfast — all these
people rely on
unauthorized immigrants’ for their work.
The table below show the employment figures of
unauthorized immigrants in various occupations, but you will notice that the
majority of them are in the construction trades. If you did a little deeper,
you’ll discover that America already has a shortage of affordable housing, and
Trump’s policies will only make that worse.
Occupations
with the highest share of unauthorized workers
Drywall installers
33%
Roofers
32
Painters and paperhangers
28
Other agricultural workers
24
Construction laborers
24
Maids and housekeepers
24
Tile installers
23
Masons
21
Landscaping workers
18
Carpenters
18
Packaging and filling operators
18
Sewing machine operators
18
Laundry and dry-cleaning workers
16
Packers & packagers, hand
15
Food processing workers, all other
14
Dishwashers
13
Manicurists and pedicurists
13
Butchers
13
Chefs and head cooks
12
Taxi drivers
12
Cooks
12
Software developers
12
Tree trimmers and pruners
12
Painting workers
12
Janitors and building cleaners
11
Vehicle and equipment cleaners
11
Housekeeping and janitorial supervisors
10
Total, civilian labor force
Do you remember when Trump said that he was going to drain
the swap?
Ironically, the current plans are to construct a massive
immigration center in Florida – in a swamp.
Florida is building a detention facility for migrants
nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz,” turning an airfield in the Everglades into the
newest — and scariest-sounding — holding center designed to help the Trump
administration carry out its immigration crackdown.
The remote facility, composed of large
tents, and other planned facilities will cost the state around $450 million a
year to run, but Florida can request some
reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Tricia
McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security.
Florida’s attorney general, James
Uthmeier, a Trump ally who has pushed to build the detention center in the
Everglades, has said the state will not need to invest much in security because
the area is surrounded by dangerous wildlife,
including alligators and pythons. A spokesperson for the attorney general said
work on the new facility started on Monday morning.
Trump officials have been pushing
Congress to help pay for more funding to expand detention capacity even
further. Tom Homan, Mr. Trump’s border czar, has said that the number of
detention beds available will dictate the number of deportations that the administration
will be able to hit this year.
I’ve written fairly extensive about immigration issues
before, but the one that came to mind this morning was the bracero
program that started during WWII. Since many of our able-bodied men
were now serving in the miliary, produce growers in various states needed
someone to pick their crops, so they turned to Mexico for help.
https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2021/03/those-darn-mexicans.html
Going back further
in time, we used Irish immigrants to build the Erie canal, and there were an
awfully lot of foreign-born immigrants who worked on our skyscrapers in the
1930’s.
Trump’s deportation plans are not going as smoothly as he would like. For one thing, he has suffered a number of court cases on immigration.
In addition,
individual citizens, as well as corporations, have resisted his efforts. Just last
week in Los Angeles, official for the Los Angeles Dodgers did not allow members
of ICE to enter the stadium.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qAnSkkpLe0
We’d all love to
see Stephen Miller get deported to a remote island, but that is not likely
going to happen. Even if he manages to stay in the country, we’ll eventually
revert back to a more rational approach on immigration, even if it takes an
election or two to get there.
I’m looking
forward to it.
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