Enforcing Immigration Laws Isn’t Supposed To Feel Good
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
At a May 15 Senate Government Affairs Committee hearing, Senator Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) grilled Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen about her department’s efforts to enforce immigration laws at the border and in the interior of the country. “I’m extremely concerned about the administration’s repeated attacks on some of the most vulnerable communities, and in particular, children and pregnant women as it relates to the world of DHS,” Harris said in her opening statement, strongly implying that actions by agencies within her department are cruelly separating families.
Secretary Nielsen deftly deflected Harris’s implications by noting that DHS is merely carrying out its responsibilities as mandated by laws enacted by Congress with the intent of protecting the public interest. “No, what we are doing is prosecuting parents who have broken the law, just as we do every day in the United States of America,” replied Nielsen to Harris’s assertion that DHS is maliciously separating children from their parents.
---------------------------------------------
Nielsen might also have reminded Senator Harris that during her own long career as a prosecutor, as District Attorney of San Francisco and has Attorney General of California, she undoubtedly took actions that separated families or which resulted in significant hardships to innocent family members. Like every other law enforcement officer, there were surely times when Harris felt badly about what she had to do, but also understood that it was necessary to protect societal interests and that the ultimate responsibility rested with the people who broke the laws she was sworn to uphold.
---------------------------------------------
Senator Harris’s line of questioning, like a significant amount of media coverage, consists of emotional responses to DHS’s efforts to control our borders and enforce immigration laws in the interior of the country. These blatant appeals to emotion belabor the obvious: Law enforcement – particularly enforcement of civil laws – rarely feels good. But what Harris and others overlook is that what feels good can be harmful and what is necessary is often uncomfortable.
---------------------------------------------
Harris and her congressional colleagues have the power to fix these problems in a way that deters people from breaking our laws and minimizes the hardship to innocent family members and the American public. Until they are prepared to take these steps, members of Congress should think carefully before pointing fingers at federal law enforcement agencies that are forced to clean up the mess Congress is ignoring.
Tags
Who is online
105 visitors
"Breaking" a law of this land isn't supposed to be a trip to Disney Land....all though Liberals would like it to be, depending on what they "Feels good" during vote getting time.
I can't even take you seriously anymore when it comes to laws and what they are supposed to be. Republicans are actually willing to disparage cause grievous harm to our justice system when trying to protect Trump from the consequences of HIS ACTIONS and those around him. Just stop with the pretense you all care about immigration law. Only to further the agenda by using fear and hate of immigrants and other groups.
What are our "Immigration laws " ?
I'll bet "Feelings" aren't part of those LAWS.
Grievous harm to our legal sysem? What? By enforcing the laws that Congress has passed and has been signed by a President? Years ago?
No, Grievous harm to our legal system is when we have a Government that decides not to allow laws to be enforced.
The subject is not Trump, he is simply trying to enforce the laws that protect American citizens. Illegals are not citizens and come here at their own risk. Bringing kids with them is irresponsible.
Yep.
But we do need MORE laws on the books to keep us safe.....so say the "Left" !
"MORE" Must be BETTER.
You talking about legislating taking power from women and their healthcare decisions? Or more laws to make it harder for people (who do have the right) to vote by making them jump through UNNECESSARY hoops to solve a nonexistent problem? Or making laws that make it easier to discriminate against groups they don't like? That kind of "more"?
Since the seed is about "Illegal Immigration and enforcement" , I'd have to say ……. NOT !
Good try though.
So, do you keep your house unlocked all the time? Do you lock your car? Do you allow people to come into your home and take whatever they want? Do you like it when people come into your home, car, office desk, etc. and take whatever they feel like without asking you at all? Because, that is the position that Democrats pushing DACA and opposing the Wall are pushing on ALL American Citizens, that our home (country)should not have any locks on its doors (border) and that illegal immigrants should be allowed to take any and all of our possessions (money, land, housing, jobs, etc.) for their own without us granting them permission (Visas).
The law states that a refugee or asylum seeker may present themselves at a port of entry and apply for asylum as thousands of immigrants from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador without fear of being arrested or having their children taken away but should be allowed to apply for asylum.
"any person who is outside any country of such person's nationality or, in the case of a person having no nationality, is outside any country in which such person last habitually resided, and who is unable or unwilling to return to, and is unable or unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of, that country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion, or
(B) in such circumstances as the President after appropriate consultation (as defined in section 207(e) of this Act) may specify, any person who is within the country of such person's nationality or, in the case of a person having no nationality, within the country in which such person is habitually residing, and who is persecuted or who has a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. The term "refugee" does not include any person who ordered, incited, assisted, or otherwise participated in the persecution of any person on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. For purposes of determinations under this Act, a person who has been forced to abort a pregnancy or to undergo involuntary sterilization, or who has been persecuted for failure or refusal to undergo such a procedure or for other resistance to a coercive population control program, shall be deemed to have been persecuted on account of political opinion, and a person who has a well founded fear that he or she will be forced to undergo such a procedure or subject to persecution for such failure, refusal, or resistance shall be deemed to have a well founded fear of persecution on account of political opinion."
Trump and his racist little elf Jeff Sessions are the ones breaking the law by taking the children away from asylum seekers as punishment for throwing themselves on our mercy. It's shameful, but the half wits, bigots and white supremacists who support Trump and make up a third of his base love it which is why he's doing it.
To bad the expansive Mexican border isn't a "legal port of entry" huh ?
What you are missing, once again (as usual) is that these folks have crossed the border not at a Legal Point of Entry.
I have to wonder if you do that purposely.
" The San Ysidro Port of Entry is the largest land border crossing between San Diego and Tijuana, and one of the busiest land border crossings in the world with 70,000 northbound vehicles and 20,000 northbound pedestrians crossing each day.
Again….with the "one point of entry" stuff....... as if it's a great argument......Yet STILL ignoring the entire border between Mexico and "America".
Good job ?
I simply pointed out one where many of the so called "caravans" had come and presented themselves as the law says they can. That's where they're taking kids away from there parents, not some open dessert area with illegal border crossings, those have been DOWN by huge numbers since Obama became President. Under President Obama the total undocumented immigrant population went down by over 1 million, proof that Democrats actually do care about protecting our borders contrary to the half wits and racist naysayers.
"Between Trump taking office on January 20 and March 13, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 21,362 undocumented immigrants and deported 54,741 people. Compared to the same period last year, this marks both an increase and a decrease. Under Trump, arrests are up by 33 percent, but deportations are down by 1.2 percent.
The comparatively small drop in deportations is not necessarily a sign that the law and order candidate has gone soft. Unlike arrests, deportations are not instantaneous acts. But it signals that Trump so far hasn’t been able to carry out his campaign promises to push for mass deportations and arrests. He hasn’t even managed to beat former President Barack Obama’s record . Under the Obama administration, ICE agents arrested 29,238 undocumented immigrants in the first few months of 2014."
"From 2009 to 2016, his administration oversaw the forcible removal of more than 3 million undocumented immigrants"
"Obama Has Deported More People Than Any Other President"
Even Trump admitted it back in 2016:
"What people don't know is that Obama got tremendous numbers of people out of the country. Bush, the same thing. Lots of people were brought out of the country with the existing laws. Well, I'm going to do the same thing," Donald Trump on Fox News' Bill O'Reilly.
Don't forget, I'm a Liberal NOW !
Just sayin'.
"The Obama White House looked into a plan that would allow illegal immigrants to stay in the United States. The plan called for a million Mexicans to marry a million of our ugliest citizens."
Dennis Miller
Sadly they were all Trump supporters and refused to marry out of their race.
Nice try, but.....oooooo….. that comment from Dennis came during the first four year reign of Obama. Trump wasn't in the picture yet.
LOl, but you did get them slobbering on themselves....
Are you saying those who are Trump supporters today didn't exist back then? They were exactly who they are now, they just didn't know they were Trump supporters yet. They were the same ones picturing Obama as an ape and calling his wife "Mooshelle". They haven't changed much since because to change it would take bettering oneself with a quality education or getting out of their hollars and exploring other cultures.
How do you know that ?
is the media telling you "It must be true ?
Apparently they have plenty of Drool bibs.
Sadly they were all Trump supporters and refused to marry out of their race family.
Fixed it for you...:-)
Sadly they were all Trump supporters and refused to marry out of their racist family.
Just thought I'd make it even more accurate...
Actually it doesn't blow the theory all to hell...The vast majority of minorities did not vote for Trump. I'm American Indian and my wife is white and we did not vote for Trump.
Our neighbors, the husband is white and the wife is black/American Indian and they didn't vote for Trump either.
One case such as yours does not make a movement or a statement.