It’s About Elections
“The Caravan”
The White House has created a crisis in immigration. It was foreseeable, preventable, and intentional. It started with word that “caravans” were coming from Central America, large groups of immigrants trying to get themselves, and for many their children; away from the violence of the gangs of the cities of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. While they crossed Mexico, the vast majority aren’t Mexicans.
This has happened before. The responses of previous Administrations was to increase the amount of judges and lawyers at the border crossing, in order to more efficiently judge the asylum claims of the border crossers. Legal crossers who passed the first, quick test determining the legitimacy of their claim, were placed out into the communities, often with ankle bands monitoring their location. Illegal crossers claiming asylum were arrested, held for a short period of time, then bailed out as well, their misdemeanor illegal crossing offense punished by time served. They were allowed to work, to try to support their families. Surprisingly, almost all came back for the final adjudication hearing, even though for many it meant going back to their home country.
The Trump Administration determined not to do these things. They did not send lawyers and judges to the border crossings. They in fact, slowed legal crossings at the border, causing even greater pressure on immigrants, trapped in violent border towns, to come across illegally. When most of those illegal crossers presented themselves to the border patrol, asking asylum, they were placed in custody. Their children were taken from them. The backlog of court appearances meant that the adults were held for extended periods of time. Instead of being released into the community pending their asylum hearing, they were imprisoned, some shipped to Federal prisons throughout the country. And those that were previously released, now are not allowed to legally work.
And, as we know, their children were imprisoned as well, all over the United States. And a majority of the country asked the question: WHY? Why did “we” do this?
IT WAS ON PURPOSE. The Trump Administration is convinced that being against immigrants is a winning political position. They have good reason to think so. When Donald Trump came down the “golden escalator” in Trump Tower and talked about Mexican rapists and criminals (and some good people) he tapped into a racist political energy that swept him into office. But once he was elected President, it wasn’t enough to just rail against the Democrats for being soft on immigration. Mr. Trump was President of the United States; he had to show he was tough on immigration. He had to create a “desperate situation” on the border to fan the flames of his base. He engaged in “crisis creation.”
The moves at the border: no additional lawyers or judges, “zero tolerance” for misdemeanor illegal crossing, the separation of children and the incredibly incompetent (or intentionally) slow process of returning them; all were “crisis creation.” From the millions of people who marched last Saturday to “return the children” to the “law and order” posts on Facebook (they broke the law they lose their kids); the President has our attention exactly where he wants it.
But there’s one more twist coming to this saga; another play for the Trump “team.” The Trump Administration is well aware that the clock is running on the children. A District Court in California has already set the deadline; the children must be released. The Administration is doing very little to meet that deadline, and soon the Court will order an expedited process to get them back to their parents.
This will give the Trump camp another political bone to chew: judges intervening and “making up” the law. “President Trump will appoint judges who won’t do that,” they’ll say; “we started with Justice Gorsuch, and we will continue with ______” (fill in the blank on Monday at 9pm.)
The new Justice can now be debated on the grounds that energize Trump followers. He can be portrayed as a Justice dedicated to judicial restraint, not prone to making laws like the “California judges” (the state that gave Hillary Clinton her majority in 2016) did in the case of the children, or the Muslim ban. It reduces the impact of the new Justice’s views on abortion, or gay rights, or labor unions. It is an attempt, and probably a successful one, to make the fall campaign about immigration; not the Mueller investigation, or the EPA Administrator (former), or the multiple other issues created by the President’s actions.
President Trump feels safe campaigning on immigration. He has convinced a portion of America that MS-13 is streaming across the border; and that “Mexicans” threaten us all; neither of which is true. It’s familiar ground for him. It will be up to the Democrats to find ways to try to win this debate, but also to move the campaign to other topics. After all, for both, it’s about elections – though it feels like the we’re deciding the fate of the free world.
