Trump Defeats His Own Call For Immigration Bill

Ken AshfordImmigration and Xenophobia, Trump & AdministrationLeave a Comment

Trump’s tweets today come as House Republicans have been struggling to wrangle support for a comprehensive immigration bill. Yesterday, Republicans decided to postpone a vote on it for the second time in less than a day. Senate and House leaders have also been trying to find a bill that would end family separations at the border. South Carolina Republican Rep. … Read More

Breaking: Trump Signs Executive Order on Family Separation

Ken AshfordBreaking News, Immigration and Xenophobia, Trump & AdministrationLeave a Comment

What just happened: President Donald Trump officially reversed his debunked argument that he had no authority to stop separations of undocumented immigrant families at the border. Trump’s climbdown came after he faced intense pressure from across the political spectrum and from religious, political and world leaders to halt the separations, which produced days of heart-rending news coverage of crying children … Read More

Baby Jails

Ken AshfordImmigration and Xenophobia, Trump & AdministrationLeave a Comment

Rachel Maddow last night, trying ot read an AP breaking story about detention centers for babies: Rachel Maddow chokes up and cries on air as she struggles to deliver news that migrant babies and toddlers have been sent to “tender age” shelters pic.twitter.com/O6crm8cvyR — Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) June 20, 2018 Former Trump Campaign Chair Corey Lewandowski during a discussion about … Read More

Family Separation Policy Goes To Overboil

Ken AshfordImmigration and Xenophobia, Polls, Trump & AdministrationLeave a Comment

There is no absence of opinion on the Trump Administration’s “zero-tolerance policy” toward immigrants crossing the Southern border — a policy that includes separating children from their parents indefinitely, and detaining them in less-than-stellar conditions (including a “tent city” popping up in a region where the temperatures are often in the high 90s).  All living former first ladies have written … Read More

Ben Sasse – Nine Points on the Trump Family Separation Policy

Ken AshfordImmigration and Xenophobia, Trump & AdministrationLeave a Comment

From his Facebook page: Many Nebraskans this weekend asked me about the kids at the border. Here’s a short version of what I told them. This is a bit over-simplified, but these are broad brushstrokes of how I understand the situation at present: 1) Family separation is wicked. It is harmful to kids and absolutely should NOT be the default … Read More

Separation of Families At The Border Overshadows Everything

Ken AshfordImmigration and Xenophobia, Trump & AdministrationLeave a Comment

Control of the narrative shifted away from the sitting president’s control over the weekend as the Trump administration, unaccustomed to concerted resistance, found itself outgunned and outflanked. The Administration took fire for its policy of separating families at border stations. Teams from Congress and thousands of citizens converged on Texas immigrant processing stations along the Texas border and elsewhere to … Read More

United Nations Human Rights Office Tells Trump Administration To Stop Separating Children From Parents At Border

Ken AshfordForeign Affairs, Immigration and Xenophobia, Trump & AdministrationLeave a Comment

This is how low we have sunk as a nation.  So much for that Nobel Peace Prize. CNN: The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on Tuesday called on the Trump administration to end a policy that could lead to the separation of families detained on the US southern border. Spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani expressed “deep concern” … Read More

Fallout From Trump’s Racial Slur About Immigrants From “Shithole Countries”

Ken AshfordImmigration and Xenophobia, Race, Trump & AdministrationLeave a Comment

“This is CNN Tonight, I’m Don Lemon. The president of the United States is racist. A lot of us already knew that.” <iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/n0y4eJ6N6wQ” frameborder=”0″ allow=”autoplay; encrypted-media” allowfullscreen></iframe> But political reaction? Very little domestically. The White House did not deny the remarks and one anonymous source said it would probably help Trump with his base. Condemnation from the … Read More

Trumpism And Racism: Part Two — Breaking News

Ken AshfordBreaking News, Immigration and Xenophobia, Political Scandals, Race, Trump & AdministrationLeave a Comment

Holy Shit. Washington Post headline: Uh…. when have you ever seen that word in a headline? Story: President Trump grew frustrated with lawmakers Thursday in the Oval Office when they floated restoring protections for immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African countries as part of a bipartisan immigration deal, according to two people briefed on the meeting. “Why are we … Read More

Trumpism and Race

Ken AshfordImmigration and Xenophobia, Race, Trump & AdministrationLeave a Comment

You need to read Charles Blow: Trumpism is a religion founded on patriarchy and white supremacy. It is the belief that even the least qualified man is a better choice than the most qualified woman and a belief that the most vile, anti-intellectual, scandal-plagued simpleton of a white man is sufficient to follow in the presidential footsteps of the best … Read More

Today Feels Like A Test

Ken AshfordCyberbullying, Immigration and Xenophobia, Rightwing Extremism/Violence, Trump & AdministrationLeave a Comment

I don’t know. Everything really is awful. Matt Lauer, long-standing host of the Today Show, was abruptly fired last night, after execs at NBC received notice of a credible claim of sexual harassment.  This #MeToo reckoning, as I’ve said before, but it really is disappointing to see otherwise good people go down.  Perhaps even more disappointing is that the only … Read More

Document Dump: Federal Court Blocks Trump’s Travel Ban… Yet Again

Ken AshfordBreaking News, Courts/Law, Immigration and Xenophobia, Trump & AdministrationLeave a Comment

Tired of winning…? UPDATE: A second federal court rules the same — A federal judge in Maryland early Wednesday issued a second halt on the latest version of President Trump’s travel ban, asserting that the president’s own comments on the campaign trail and on Twitter convinced him that the directive was akin to an unconstitutional Muslim ban.

Trump: Blaming The Victim

Ken AshfordDisasters, Immigration and Xenophobia, Race, Trump & AdministrationLeave a Comment

This is outright inhumane: Trump is laying the groundwork for abandoning Puerto Rico, and blaming it for its infrastructure problems that existed pre-hurricane. Lost in his “analysis” is that the people suffering there (still no power or clean water on most of the Island) are AMERICANS. If Bush was negligent with Katrina response, Trump is being outright punishing. According to … Read More

Hell Hath No Firy Like A Base Scorned

Ken AshfordImmigration and Xenophobia, Trump & AdministrationLeave a Comment

I’m not even sure what Trump did. Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer announced after a dinner with the president Wednesday that they had reached a deal securing the protection of DACA. A “big, beautiful wall” that Trump campaigned on was reportedly not part of the agreement. It’s not a done deal. Trump tweeted so, as did Chuck and … Read More