An important moment in the shutdown showdown

Before it's buried in the daily flow of scandal and corruption news, it's worth remembering that Trump tweeted this on Sunday, June 21, the second day of the shutdown and the day before the first weekday of it:

This was a threat escalation on Trump's part. It also meant that there was a good possibility that the Republicans might bypass the brief delay that the Democrats' stand over DACA was causing.

If the Republicans had done that, the Democrats would still have lost on their stand. But they wouldn't be seen as clearly capitulating.

Here the show business and professional wrestling experience serves the Orange Clown well. After they folded their cards on Monday, he knew how to claim that he had punked the Democrats:

Big win for Republicans as Democrats cave on Shutdown. Now I want a big win for everyone, including Republicans, Democrats and DACA, but especially for our Great Military and Border Security. Should be able to get there. See you at the negotiating table!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 23, 2018

Even Crazy Jim Acosta of Fake News CNN agrees: “Trump World and WH sources dancing in end zone: Trump wins again...Schumer and Dems caved...gambled and lost.” Thank you for your honesty Jim!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 23, 2018

Nobody knows for sure that the Republicans & Democrats will be able to reach a deal on DACA by February 8, but everyone will be trying....with a big additional focus put on Military Strength and Border Security. The Dems have just learned that a Shutdown is not the answer!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 23, 2018

Cryin’ Chuck Schumer fully understands, especially after his humiliating defeat, that if there is no Wall, there is no DACA. We must have safety and security, together with a strong Military, for our great people!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 24, 2018

Maybe Chuck Schumer and the Congressional Democrats will come across their missing collective spine before the next round in three weeks.

But right now, they are looking like a Resistance that doesn't actually, you know, resist.

Democrats cave on the Dreamers

I try to be optimistic. But Monday's concession by the Democrats looks like a real defeat to me. And possibly one with serious long-term consequences.

The Dreamers' fight isn't over, by any means. We're talking about 800,000 or more people who have been officially recognized by Congress and the previous White House as being Americans in all but name, having been brought to the US as children and having grown up here as part of American society. They don't need to "integrated," a popular buzzword on immigration in Europe. They're already Americans in realty. It's the cynical immigration system the US has maintained for decades that "segregates" them as technically non-citizens.

Deporting 800,000 or more Latinos who had been covered by DACA and have been effectively members of American society for most of their lives would be a barbaric act.

Today's Democrats have no problem condemning putting Japanese-Americans in prison camps (yes, it's legitimate to call them concentration camps) or the Trail of Tears Indian removal, both under Democratic Presidents of yesteryear. But will they go to the wall to stop this? They didn't on Monday.

I hope someone reminds the weenie caucus of Joe Manchin and Dick Durbin and others that the "sweep" they're all counting on in November depends on a large turnout from Latino voters, who are looking at having 800,000 of their friends and relatives soon deported out their home country.

And if the Trumpists get away with that, Trump also promised to exile all 12 million or so undocumented residents. Rick Perlstein warned in Donald Trump and the “F-Word” Washington Spectator 09/30/2015:

Trump has now provided more “specifics” about his immigration plan: a forced population transfer greater than any attempted in history, greater than the French and Spanish expulsions of the Jews in 1308 and 1492; greater than the Nabka of approximately 700,000 Palestinian Arabs from British-mandate Palestine; greater than the 1.5 million Stalin consigned to Siberia and the Central Asian republics; greater than Pol Pot’s exile of 2.5 million city-dwellers to the Cambodian countryside, or the scattering of Turkey’s Assyrian Christians, which the scholar Mordechai Zaken says numbers in the millions and required 180 years to complete. Trump has promised to move 12 million Mexicans in under two years––“so fast your head will spin.”

Depending on how you define it, the mass expulsion of ethnic Germans from eastern Europe after the Second World War involved around 12 million.

Neither an initial expulsion of 800,000 or a subsequent exile of 12 million is something any decent person could want to see happen. Even aside from the fact that it would mean a catastrophic collapse in US agriculture and the construction industry.

Monday's DACA cave-in seems like a new edition of the "Gang of 14" show the Democrats staged in 2005 as a cover for caving in on filibustering Shrub Bush's awful judicial nominees. (Carolyn Lochhead, Senate ends filibuster for judicial nominee SFGate.com 05/24/2005) They basically gave the Republicans everything they wanted in exchange for a vague and meaningless concession.

And I don't call hearing any Democratic leader make the argument that Josh Marshall spells out here (Stop Whining, Move Forward TPM 01/23/2018): "If your takeaway here is that Democrats were trying to shut down the government what you’re really saying is that Democrats must vote yes on any continuing resolution no matter what is contained in it. That is obviously an untenable position. What we’re losing sight of here is that, yes, Republicans control the entire federal government. This amounted to legislative hostage taking in reverse."

But Josh is taking an optimistically Mugwump position on whether the Democrats blew it Monday. "They will have the same leverage and, critically, face the same decisions in three weeks as they did over this weekend." That's true. But so is the reverse. They had the same leverage yesterday they will have in three weeks.

So far, Monday's surrender seems very similar. Charlie Pierce wasn't impressed with Monday's performance (The Question Is Simple: Do You Trust Mitch McConnell? Esquire Politics Blog 01/22/2018):

Not to harsh the mellow of Susan Collins, but it’s going to be very interesting to see exactly when this whole thing falls apart. (The same goes for Senator Joe Manchin, whose “tough-guy moderate” act is getting older than the Appalachians. Who precisely belongs to what Manchin refers to as “the far-left” of his party that so pressured him? Almost a million Dreamers who are still in limbo?) President John Kelly or co-President Stephen Miller could step in and put the kibosh on it. The Freedom Caucus whackadoos in the House could yank on the choke-collar they have on Speaker Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny starver from the state of Wisconsin. Or Mitch McConnell simply could be bullshitting the entire nation, again. (I’m going to wait to hear Merrick Garland’s opinion on that one before making any final judgment.) My money remains on the insane monkey asylum on the other side of the Capitol. Those people could screw up a one-car funeral if you spotted them the hearse, and they have a dozen ways to feed this arrangement into the woodchipper.

The Democrats tried before the shutdown to get the Republicans to pass a measure to continue soldiers' pay during the shutdown, which the Republicans had previously agreed to do under Obama. But the Republicans refused. So once the shutdown approached, they started accusing the Democrats of trying to strand the troops in danger zones without pay. Although it was entirely predictable, the Dems didn't seem to have any pushback ready other than to vaguely blame the Republicans for stranding the troops. The Republicans took the CHIP program hostage, a program popular among Republicans which they would almost certainly have passed anyway. But they were willing to play parliamentary hardball. While the Democrats just said, well, gee, we got the CHIP program funded by throwing the Dreamers under the bus.

But staging political fights is a critical part of politics. The Democrats chose the DACA renewal as a major stand they were willing to make. And I'm afraid it will look to the general public and to Latino voters a lot like it looks to me: that they weren't serious about the DACA renewal, but they do hope to cruise to a "sweep" in November based on their pretense of caring about it.

And even if Mitch McConnell keeps his word this time, it's useless unless the Orange Man-Child in the Oval Office signs it. So the only real leverage they have is to be willing to impose another shutdown in three weeks.

The Democrats staged this fight over the past week without being ready to fight it. The outcome so far is bad.

Democrats and the DACA showdown

Joe Scarborough and Cenk Uygar agree on something. That if the Democrats aren't willing to have the Republicans shut down the government over their stand against deporting the Dreamers, they will lose enormous credibility as the party of opposition to Trump and Trumpism.

Joe's Message To Democrats On DACA: #NoDreamersNoDeal Morning Joe/MSNBC 01/16/2018:

Even Republicans Can't Believe How Weak Democrats Are The Young Turks 01/16/2018:

Rachael Bade et al in House Republicans coalesce behind plan to avert shutdown Politico 01/16/2018 talk about the Republicans maneuvering over the shutdown.

There's no guarantee of how it would play out. But the Republicans have long since established themselves as the government-shutdown party. As
Dyle Cheney and Elana Schor write in Shutdown would backfire on GOP, Republicans say Politico 01/17/2018:

“The perception of most Republicans is that a shutdown does not accrue to Republican benefit. It’s a relatively tough sale,” Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) said in an interview. “It makes it that much harder for Democrats to acquiesce on a deal because they feel like they have the upper hand.”

The last time federal agencies shuttered, in 2013, Democrats controlled the Senate and White House. But with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and fellow conservatives pushing for a shutdown in order to whack funding for Obamacare — a popular cause among the Republican base, but not beyond — the GOP could not escape blame in the public eye.

During the 17-day shutdown of 2013, “the Republican Party’s favorable rating dropped 10 points in a matter of days, and it took a year to fully recover,” said Whit Ayres, a veteran GOP pollster. “It would take an act of extraordinary political agility to avoid a similar fate today.”

Andrea Drusch makes what sounds an awful lot like a Republican tactical argument for the Dems to capitulate in Can Democrats force a litmus test on DACA? 01/16/2018. The pitch comes down to, well, gee, Democratic Senate candidates have to act like Republicans in order to get elected as Democrats.

That was the conventional pundit wisdom not long ago about Doug Jones in the Alabama Senate race.

Drusch's description of the Democrats as the "party of minorities" also sounds very much like Republican framing.

Digby on Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III and DACA

Digby on the Trump Family Business Administration's DACA policy as announced by Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (Another step toward Making America White Again Hullabaloo 09/05/2017):

Trump and Sessions and the people who back them are dangerous racist fascists. And the only people who can stop them at this point [i.e., the Republican in Congress] are just as bad. They had their chance to fix this for the last five years and didn't do it. DACA wouldn't have been necessary if they'd passed Comprehensive Immigration Reform or the DREAM Act.

Maybe they'll do it now. But I wouldn't be too sanguine. So far they have not been able to show they can get anything done, much less something that their base hates with a passion. Does anyone believe that after the failure of Obamacare Repeal these people will legalize a bunch of Latinos?

Maybe they'll surprise us. I certainly hope so. This is a nightmare.

Trump and DACA: hideous xenophobia

Trump just announced that he is discontinuing the DACA ("Dreamer") program effective in March 2020: Sabrina Siddiqui, Trump ends 'Dreamers' program, leaving fate of 800,000 uncertain Guardian 09/05/2017; Gobierno de Trump termina con DACA La Opinión 05.09.2017

This shows a complete lack of compassion on his part and on the part of his segregationist Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III.

Siddiqui:

The majority of Daca recipients are from Mexico, comprising roughly 78% of the program, according to the to US Citizenship and Immigration Services. California is home to more than 22,000 [sic; 200,000 was likely meant] initial Daca recipients, the highest in the country, followed by Texas, which has more than 124,000 recipients, and Illinois, with more than 40,000 recipients.

Recently, a bipartisan pair of pro-immigration reform senators, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Dick Durbin of Illinois, revived the Dream Act while urging Trump to address the young pool of immigrants with sympathy.

Among other parts of this atrocity, the March deadline could mean that college students in the DACA program would not get to finish the school year.

Trump's Week One anti-immigrant policies

Oliver Laughland reports for The Guardian that US could face human rights crisis after Trump's xenophobic immigration orders 01/26/2017. A human rights crisis that will also mean more profits for the private-prison industry, one of the most miserable offspring of the dominance of neoliberal economic policies since the 1980s:

The US will now mandatorily detain any migrant that is caught crossing the border without documentation. Doing away with the era of so-called catch and release that allowed immigration authorities greater freedom to release those claiming asylum ahead of proceedings in immigration court, the order paves the way for a huge expansion of detention facilities at the southern border and is likely to have devastating humanitarian effects.

Nearly 60,000 unaccompanied minors and close to 80,000 families were apprehended at the border in 2016, the vast majority of whom came from countries in Central America plagued by violence.

Now these groups of migrants, who received a degree of flexibility under the Obama administration, will be kept in detention by order.

Advocates routinely report substandard medical care and poorly managed basic facilities in these centres, many of which are operated by for-profit security companies. Coupled with this, the order instructs the US justice department to assign immigration judges, who are already in short supply and heavily overburdened, to these centres.

This in effect makes it far more difficult for these vulnerable migrants, many of whom are likely to have claims for asylum, to reach independent legal counsel and will mean many more are likely to face deportation – perhaps in violation of America’s legal obligations under the UN Refugee Convention.

Trump's new policies lay the groundwork for a literal reign of terror in Latino communities. Inclduing a drastic change in federal policy on the treatment of even legal immigrants and residents:

Trump’s orders also implement aggressive enforcement action inside the country, away from America’s borders.

The president repeatedly claimed throughout the transition period he would deport between 2 million and 3 million undocumented migrants in the country who he claimed were serious criminals. That notion itself is a fallacy, as there are nowhere near that number of undocumented migrants with felony records in the US (researchers estimate the number is closer to 300,000).

Indeed, elements of Trump’s second immigration order acknowledge that fantasy by essentially broadening the definition of serious criminality, giving Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents a vast remit to target almost anyone within undocumented communities and perhaps even those holding visas as the order simply targets “removable aliens” – a broad, catchall term that could encompass non-citizens as well. [my emphasis]

Anne Brice discusses the effects of Trumpist anti-immigrant policy on the DREAMers in For undocumented students, Trump era brings fear and uncertainty Berkeley News 01/25/2017:

DACA [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals], a 2012 executive order by President Obama, allows children of undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. by their parents to receive temporary protection from deportation, work permits and a path to citizenship if they haven’t committed any crimes.

Students would face special hardships, says Meng So, who directs the Undocumented Student Program at Berkeley. Without DACA, he says, students would also lose work-study, leaving big holes in their financial aid packages. For graduate students like Fernandez, it would strip them of their tuition and fee remissions for their graduate research.

So also points to students’ heightened fears about what the government will do with the personal information they were required to provide when they applied for DACA.

And it gives ICE broad discretion in treatment of Latino residents:

Not only will Ice agents be allowed to target immigrants with any sort of criminal conviction on their record whatsoever, from minor misdemeanours such as trespassing or vandalism to serious felonies, they will also be able to apprehend individuals who have simply been accused of crimes and subject to investigation.

But the order goes broader even than that, allowing Ice officers the ability to target people they assess to be a “risk to public safety or national security”. The order offers no guidance at all on how such a broad definition could be applied, leaving it to the “judgment” of individual Ice agents. [my emphasis]

Brice reports that the leadership of the University of California and of UC-Berkeley is committed to protecting the DREAMers:

In November, UC President Janet Napolitano said in a statement that UC’s 10 campuses will “protect the privacy and civil rights of undocumented students and will continue to welcome and support students, regardless of their immigration status.”

And the Undocumented Student Program promises to do what it takes to support these students. “We’re going to stand with our students,” says So. “We’re going to fight with them. We’re going to prioritize the highest degree of safety and security for them and their families.”

“Losing DACA would be like going backwards in time,” says Fernandez. “Instead of moving forward, like you thought you’d be — establishing your life, settling down, moving forward — now it feels like a lot of that is being taken away from you.”

So, however, says his program’s commitment to students and their families remains steadfast, and promises to do what it takes to support them.

“We must prioritize courage over comfort” he says, “and keep moving forward in a direction of growth and compassion.”

I hope they University leadership is serious about this.