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grantcart

(53,061 posts)
Sun Feb 12, 2017, 11:48 AM Feb 2017

Trump has erased the line that separated the US between President Obama and Dictator Putin

Thoughtful people watching Trump run for President realized that each time he would bellow some authoritarian populist pablum that he was either approaching or crossing some invisible intellectual line, but it would receive a huge reaction from the angry herd that he corralled into his rallies. We kept hearing from ‘normal Republicans’ that Trump would ‘pivot’ after he got the nomination, after the first debate, after this point or that.

When we watched in horror as Trump was soundly defeated in the election but had won one of the most improbable electoral college wins the part of America that thinks about the country an inch deeper than the most sentimental platitudinous tripe realized that the chances were good that our government would cross the line and eventually become an abuser of power that imposes the power of government to brutally destroy innocent lives.

That line was crossed on Thursday.

Eight years ago I was interviewing a Border Patrol Agent in Las Cruces New Mexico. He was angry that the Obama administration had drawn a line and that the Border Patrol, Customs and ICE would “no longer be able to enforce the law”.

I asked him what he meant and he said that they were ordered not to go into Las Cruces and arrest known illegals ( Border Patrol range of 100 miles next to the border put the city within their normal area of operations). “We know where they are, they are working on construction sites in full view of everyone, but we can’t go after them.”

I answered, “So you signed up for the Border Patrol so that you could be like Tony Soprano”. He had a shocked expression. He had told me that he had worked in construction in San Diego.

I asked him if, while he was working construction in San Diego, he had ever worked on a project an as it was approaching completion ICE would show up and arrest dozens of illegals. He said, “all of the time”.

I explained to him that the employer knew who the illegals were and had never paid their social security taxes and as they approached the end of the project missed a couple paychecks promising a big bonus ‘next week’. His face showed surprise as I explained that it was the contractor who had called ICE in order to cover up their own illegal actions and pocket hundreds of thousands of illegal profits. These criminal contractors didn’t even have to pay a “Tony Soprano” type, they could call ICE or the Border Patrol to do the job. “Is that why you signed up for the Border Patrol?”. He gave me a sheepish “No”.

President Obama drew a line of decency that put ICE/Border Patrol on the side of finding and removing real criminal aliens. Using those services to focus on dangerous criminals made all of us safer. Trump has erased that line to brutalize innocent families and all of us are more at risk because instead of chasing gangs ICE is now chasing mothers of US citizens.



Within hours of losing the appeal in District 9 on the Muslim ban Trump has showed that he is capable of matching Putin in using brutal state power.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/arizona-woman-deported-possibly-first-under-trump-immigration-orders-n718986

Immigration officials deported a mother who had been in the U.S. illegally since she was 14 years old on Thursday, in what some activists say is the first deportation under the new immigration policies of President Donald Trump.
Guadalupe García de Rayos was removed from the country to Nogales, Mexico after authorities attempted to deport her late Wednesday. They were unable to move the van she was in because protesters were blocking it. One man wedged himself in the wheel well.



There is no doubt that Trump made the decision to erase the line that President Obama installed to use the forces of border security to concentrate on criminal elements and has now directed them at innocent undocumented workers who supporters of Secretary Clinton have worked for after losing in the courtroom in Seattle.

Erasing the line protecting the sanctity of Family Reunification

The one unifying principle for Republican and Democratic politicians on migration and refugee policies over the last 7 decades has been focused on “Family Reunification”. Trump has threw that away and instructed ICE to take the next undocumented person they could find and throw them out of the country and ignore President Obamas’ previous orders.

Republicans like to say “If you outlaw guns only outlaws will have guns” and there is an element of truth to that. It is also true that if you have ICE chase down law abiding undocumented aliens then they will get those who report in as instructed and the illegal violent aliens will be left alone. Trump’s actions were aimed at destroying an innocent family but it also means that the government’s resources are no longer focused on aliens with criminal records, and we are all less safe because of that.

I have no doubt that the actions against Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos and the hundreds that have been detained by ICE since then are a pique of revenge for losing his appeal on the Muslim ban. Trump has personalized the instruments of state power and is using it to concentrate his personal position. It is exactly how has Putin has ruled.

Right now the Department of Homeland Security’s ICE investigation unit is not looking at intercepts for the violent gang that was their objective. I guarantee you right now that DHS investigators have been instructed to find some connection with undocumented aliens and Nordstrom.

Tomorrow hundreds of law abiding families, many of them with US citizens in the family, will face the brutal force of government law enforcement officers that should be used to protect us. One of the reasons that they are being targeted is that we support them. It is Trump’s payback.

I know that this is a long post but there is one more element that needs to be pointed out. Guadalupe García de Rayos was arrested based on a raid by former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio in 2008 when she worked at Golf Land in Phoenix. What triggered Arpaio’s raid? Maybe it was a competitor to one of his supporters. Maybe one of the customers were angry at how they were treated.

After she was arrested Guadalupe followed all the instructions that the court had given her. Why was she even instructed to go to the ICE office while others arrested were told that under President Obama’s instructions they were to be ignored? Because the AZ prosecutor had over charged her with a felony for using a Social Security number to get an ID. Because it wasn’t a violent felony she was safe behind President Obama’s line of reason.

All of the 7-10 million undocumented workers who show up to work have provided a fictional SS number so that they can work. What is the result or harm of this action? We have 7 million people contributing into the Social Security Trust fund who will never be able to claim for the benefits that they are paying for. It is one of the unspoken reasons why, even though Americans are living a decade longer and paying out much more than the original calculations anticipated, there is so much money in the Trust Fund. This is Guadalupe’s crime, she has been helping pay for our Social Security with no chance of getting the benefit.

Thousands of families in the US will be attacked this week but millions are now living in fear because Trump has crossed the line. It is the line that separated us from President Obama and the dictator Putin.
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Trump has erased the line that separated the US between President Obama and Dictator Putin (Original Post) grantcart Feb 2017 OP
The exploiters are still in business SHRED Feb 2017 #1
The immigration "problem" could be solved immediately. Dave Starsky Feb 2017 #3
THIS is what should be reported in the nightly news. cliffordu Feb 2017 #2
 

SHRED

(28,136 posts)
1. The exploiters are still in business
Sun Feb 12, 2017, 12:35 PM
Feb 2017

It's never the exploiters who are held responsible

Corporations, companies, businesses, and everyday citizens who hire illegally get slaps on the wrist if that.

The company that Guadalupe García de Rayos worked for at the time it was raided in 2008 is still in business.

We have a sick society that blames, condemns, and destroys the exploited, the defenseless. We have a sick society that has no problem with families being torn apart while those doing the exploiting and their greedy selfishness of illegal hiring is barely noticed.

From the everyday citizen hiring house keepers nannies and yard care, construction companies who hire illegally, all the way up to corporations like Wal-Mart. These are the hypocrites. These are the exploiters.

Dave Starsky

(5,914 posts)
3. The immigration "problem" could be solved immediately.
Tue Feb 14, 2017, 07:04 AM
Feb 2017

Prosecute the people who hire them, to the fullest extent of the law.

You could even scale it. Get caught hiring an undocumented nanny? Two months of community service for you. Get caught hiring an entire work crew on a large construction project? Three to five years in the state pen.

It's shocking, just SHOCKING, that no one in our government has thought of this.

cliffordu

(30,994 posts)
2. THIS is what should be reported in the nightly news.
Tue Feb 14, 2017, 03:52 AM
Feb 2017

But posting his idiot tweets as news is easier.
No thinking has to be involved anywhere in the chain.

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