There absolutely is a border crisis, just not the type that the right is claiming there is. For the most part, it roots back to a sudden wild spike upwards in the number of people coming into the country, which causes two big problems:
There’s a huge backlog of asylum / deportation cases which means people stay in custody in racist and oppressive overcrowded prisons
We’re rate limiting the people coming into the country (see point #1), which means a lot of asylum seekers who are trying to do it legally wind up waiting for months (maybe years now, IDK) on the other side of the Mexican border, basically just living in a big, dangerous, squalid, crime-ridden open-air field with no facilities for life, and no job, no medical care for anyone no matter how young or old, it’s fuckin dangerous
Then, add to that that the whole agency in charge of the border police is for the most part made of racist people, and then add overcrowding and shortage of resources, and it’s fuckin bad for the people who are winding their way slowly through the system.
Biden is unable to fix the problems, although (aside from the racist police) they do have legislative solutions, because the Republicans block anything he does, even when he tried promising to do some cruel or racist things as a compromise in order to get them to also agree to some badly needed things (mostly, increasing ICE funding so they can at least house the people they have in better conditions, and increasing the number of judges to process cases so people don’t wait for a year before their case is heard).
And, any time he tries to do anything about it, e.g. reducing the rate of people allowed to come across the border or increasing funding for ICE, everyone on the left as far as I can tell thinks he’s just being cruel on purpose for no reason and gets really mad at him.
And, any time he tries to do anything about it, e.g. reducing the rate of people allowed to come across the border or increasing funding for ICE, everyone on the left as far as I can tell thinks he’s just being cruel on purpose for no reason and gets really mad at him.
I’m on the left, and don’t think he lacks a reason for being cruel on purpose.
He’s being cruel on purpose, either in a misguided attempt to get Republican voters to like him, or as part of a demonstration that Republican politicians aren’t interested in solutions, even their own.
But he’s not a Republican; the deliberate cruelty isn’t the point. It’s a means to an end.
The problem is, since he’s not a Republican, Republicans won’t vote for him. And everyone already knows that Republicans aren’t interested in solutions, so no demonstration was needed. So he’s being cruel on purpose for shitty reasons.
I’ll ask you, then, the same thing I have asked a few other people who have made this same assertion: what should Biden do, then? If presumably we can agree that it’s bad people waiting in ICE custody for over a year for their cases to be heard, then what solution to it should he pursue, that you wouldn’t then criticize as cruelty?
I’ll ask you, then, the same thing I have asked a few other people who have made this same assertion: what should Biden do, then?
Nothing. If the only action he can take is deliberate cruelty, he should take no action. It won’t solve immigration, but endlessly trying in vain to appease fascists isn’t going to solve anything either.
There absolutely is a border crisis, just not the type that the right is claiming there is. For the most part, it roots back to a sudden wild spike upwards in the number of people coming into the country, which causes two big problems:
Then, add to that that the whole agency in charge of the border police is for the most part made of racist people, and then add overcrowding and shortage of resources, and it’s fuckin bad for the people who are winding their way slowly through the system.
Biden is unable to fix the problems, although (aside from the racist police) they do have legislative solutions, because the Republicans block anything he does, even when he tried promising to do some cruel or racist things as a compromise in order to get them to also agree to some badly needed things (mostly, increasing ICE funding so they can at least house the people they have in better conditions, and increasing the number of judges to process cases so people don’t wait for a year before their case is heard).
And, any time he tries to do anything about it, e.g. reducing the rate of people allowed to come across the border or increasing funding for ICE, everyone on the left as far as I can tell thinks he’s just being cruel on purpose for no reason and gets really mad at him.
I’m on the left, and don’t think he lacks a reason for being cruel on purpose.
He’s being cruel on purpose, either in a misguided attempt to get Republican voters to like him, or as part of a demonstration that Republican politicians aren’t interested in solutions, even their own.
But he’s not a Republican; the deliberate cruelty isn’t the point. It’s a means to an end.
The problem is, since he’s not a Republican, Republicans won’t vote for him. And everyone already knows that Republicans aren’t interested in solutions, so no demonstration was needed. So he’s being cruel on purpose for shitty reasons.
I’ll ask you, then, the same thing I have asked a few other people who have made this same assertion: what should Biden do, then? If presumably we can agree that it’s bad people waiting in ICE custody for over a year for their cases to be heard, then what solution to it should he pursue, that you wouldn’t then criticize as cruelty?
Nothing. If the only action he can take is deliberate cruelty, he should take no action. It won’t solve immigration, but endlessly trying in vain to appease fascists isn’t going to solve anything either.