Saturday, February 25, 2017

Deportation Nation today

Xenophobia is ugly and often stupidly self-destructive. One example: Nathan Fletcher, Trump order drops protection for families of deployed military San Diego Union-Tribune 02/24/2017.

Here's another, Silvia Zuvieta Rodriguez considered suicide after her father was deported PBS Newshour 02/24/2017:



Apparently hassling legal travelers for no good reason is also part of the America First ritual now: Emma Graham-Harrison, US border agents ask Muhammad Ali's son: 'Are you a Muslim?' The Guardian 02/25/2017; Bonnie Malkin, Australian children's author Mem Fox detained by US border control: 'I sobbed like a baby' The Guardian 02/24/2017; Mem Fox, Australian author, gets apology after being wrongfully detained at LA airport ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 02/204/2017.

The ABC story reports, "She said the border agents appeared to have been given "turbocharged power" by an executive order signed by President Donald Trump to 'humiliate and insult' a room full of people they detained to check visas."

Speaking of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation has set up a Trump's America webpage. Here's another of their current stories, Donald Trump: Mexico bristles at US President's 'hostile' new deportation rules ahead of immigration talks 02/24/2017:

Mexico is reacting with anger to a Trump administration plan to deport non-Mexican illegal immigrants over their border if they entered the US from the southern neighbouring nation.

One official called the new US immigration guidelines "hostile" hours before senior Trump administration envoys began arriving in Mexico City for talks on the volatile issue. ...

Mexico's lead negotiator with the Trump administration, Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray, said there was no way Mexico would accept the new rules, which among other things seek to deport non-Mexicans to Mexico. ...

Roberto Campa, who heads the human rights department of the Interior Ministry, said the plan to deport non-Mexicans to Mexico was "hostile" and "unacceptable."
One of the dangerous moves of the Trump government is a push to quickly expand ICE enforcement with contractors, aka, rent-a-cops.(Pilar Marrero, La rápida contratación de agentes migratorios tiene sus peligros La Opinión 02/24/2017) Private security in an office building is one thing. Inadequately trained rent-a-cops on highly sensitive border enforcement is a different thing.

Keeping an eye on the role of private contractors will offer revealing insights the Trump mass deportation. Private for-profit prison businesses will get a cut of the action - and cash, of course! - in the vast new detentions by the Trump Family Business Administration as part of the mass deportation drive. (Madison Pauly, The Private Prison Industry Is Licking Its Chops Over Trump's Deportation Plans Mother Jones 02/21/2017)

It's worth keeping in mind that our anti-public-education Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos' brother is Erik Prince, Yes, the Blackwater guy. (Jeremy Scahill, Notorious Mercenary Erik Prince Is Advising Is Advising Trump From the Shadows The Intercept 01/17/2017) I will be astonished is he doesn't get cut in on some major business in this process, i.e., the mass deportation and the rest of the Trump fiasco.

The risks to Mexico in this mass deportation are enormous. If this Administration does what President Tinyhands proposed to do during his campaign and pushes out 11-12 million undocumented immigrants, and pushes the bulk of them into Mexico, that would be a real humanitarian catastrophe with Mexico bearing the brunt of it.

Olga Pellicer is not impressed so far with the cautious approach Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has been taking to the new US administration so, as she explains in México en la política exterior de Trump Proceso 24.02.2017. She references the multi-city demonstrations on the 12th of February encouraged by Peña Nieto's political operation to show solidarity with the Mexican President against the US that had a notably modest turnout:

La falta de una narrativa convincente que vaya desglosando objetivos, estrategias, costos y logros en el acercamiento al gobierno de Trump es una de las debilidades más evidentes del camino seguido por Enrique Peña Nieto. No hay un discurso que concite el apoyo de grupos amplios de la sociedad mexicana a los objetivos que se fijen para la relación con Estados Unidos. Al no existir ese discurso, los intentos de movilizar a la población para expresar su agravio por los mensajes humillantes de Trump a los mexicanos han sido un fracaso. La falta de claridad respecto de las causas a defender en una marcha explica los resultados tan limitados de las que se llevaron a cabo en diversas ciudades del país el domingo 12.

[The lack of a convincing narrative that breaks out objectives, strategies, costs and benefits in the approach to Trump's government is one of the most evident weaknesses of the [conciliatory] road chosen by Enrique Peña Nieto. There is no discourse that draws the support of broad sections of Mexican society to the objective on which they are focused in the relationship with the United States. Since this discourse doesn't exist, the effort to mobilize the population to express their insulted from the humiliating messages from Trump to the Mexicans has been a failure. The lack of clarity to respect of the causes to be defended in a march explicates the so limited results in the turnoout of those in various cities of the country on Sunday the 12th.]
Here is yet another example of how implemented standard neoliberal Washington Consensus economic policies leaves the public of a country doubtful about whether they can trust the established political elites to get even a critical matter of national interest right.

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