Category Archives: Immigration-Migration-Refugees

Election 2016, Immigration-Migration-Refugees, Presidential Politics

As Trump Attempts to ‘Clarify’ Signature Immigration Policy, Clinton Agrees has Remained Same: Inhumane, Undoable, UnAmerican

Hillary for America campaign blasts Donald Trump’s charade to “soften” stance on immigration, stating, “as Trump attempts to distract from his bigotry and disguise his dangerous ideas, he and his own campaign have continued to reaffirm that the defining policy proposal of his candidacy remains the same as it's always been: forcibly remove 16 million people from this country.”
Hillary for America campaign blasts Donald Trump’s charade to “soften” stance on immigration, stating, “as Trump attempts to distract from his bigotry and disguise his dangerous ideas, he and his own campaign have continued to reaffirm that the defining policy proposal of his candidacy remains the same as it’s always been: forcibly remove 16 million people from this country.”

After a whirlwind visit to Mexico to meet with President Peña Nieto, Donald Trump is slated to give a speech on immigration which is supposed to clarify what policy he might implement as President, after a week of attempting to couch his extreme policies in “softened” rhetoric.

“But make no mistake: Trump will always be Trump, and he is the same today as he was on the first day of his presidential campaign,” the Hillary for America campaign stated.”At his campaign launch, he stood in Trump Tower and told the world that, when it comes to immigrants from Mexico, ‘they’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists.’

“From the first days of his campaign, Donald Trump has painted Mexicans as ‘rapists’ and criminals and has promised to deport 16 million people, including children and U.S. citizens. He has said we should force Mexico to pay for his giant border wall.  He has said we should ban remittances to families in Mexico if Mexico doesn’t pay up. What ultimately matters is what Donald Trump says to voters in Arizona, not Mexico, and whether he remains committed to the splitting up of families and deportation of millions.”  

The HFA campaign continued, “While Trump may try to disguise his plans by throwing in words like ‘humane’ or ‘fair,’ the reality is that Trump’s agenda echoes the extreme right’s will – one that is fueling a dangerous movement of hatred across the country.

“So as Trump attempts to distract from his bigotry and disguise his dangerous ideas, he and his own campaign have continued to reaffirm that the defining policy proposal of his candidacy remains the same as it’s always been: forcibly remove 16 million people from this country.”

The campaign wants to remind voters of Trump’s position on immigration, and also state Clinton’s position, which has been “pants-on-fire” mischaracterized by Trump as “open-borders” but is a detailed plan for comprehensive immigration reform that provides a path for legalization and keeping families together:

TRUMP: “I don’t think it’s a softening… I’ve had people say it’s a hardening, actually.” [Anderson Cooper 360, CNN, 8/25/16]

  • TRUMP:“I will tell you we are tougher maybe than ever in a certain respect.” [NH1 News, 8/25/16]

Vice Presidential Nominee Mike Pence: “Nothing has changed about Donald Trump’s position on dealing with illegal immigration… It is going to be fair. It is going to be tough. But there will be no path to legalization, no path to citizenship unless people leave the country.” [State of the Union, CNN, 8/28/16]

Campaign Manager Kellyanne Conway: “It is this week what it’s always been.” [New Day, CNN, 8/25/16]

  • Conway:“He’s said no path to legalization, no path to citizenship and no amnesty. You can return home, and if you would like to go stand in line, like everybody else is… stand in line, wait your turn, go through the normal courses. Then that would be evaluated on a case by case basis.” [Good Morning America, ABC, 8/26/16]

Campaign Spokeswoman Katrina Pierson: “…he hasn’t changed his position, he has changed the words that he is saying.” [New Day, CNN, 8/25/16]

  • Pierson:“There is not a different message. He is using different words to give the message, because everyone on the news is saying that he is a bigot and that he is a racist because of the words he uses.” [New Day, CNN, 8/25/16]

Rick Perry: “Donald Trump is not softening his position on immigration.” [Fox & Friends, FOX, 8/30/16]

Donald Trump Jr.: “He wasn’t softening on anything. He didn’t change his stance on anything.” [CNN, 8/30/16]
No matter who surrounds Trump, his hateful rhetoric about immigrants and dangerous policies remain. He would deport an estimated 16 million, including every single undocumented immigrant and U.S. citizens born here to undocumented parents…

TRUMP: “We’re going to take people that are here illegally, and we’re going to move them out. Got to move them out. We’re a country of laws, and we’ve got to remain that way.” [Florida GOP Sunshine Summit, Orlando FL, 11/13/15]

TRUMP: “We have at least 11 million people in this country that came in illegally. They will go out.” [Republican Primary Debate, Houston TX, 2/25/16]

TRUMP: “We’re going to keep the families together… but they have to go,” [Meet the Press, 8/16/16]
Send a deportation force into schools, workplaces and homes in communities across America…  

TRUMP: “You’re going to have a deportation force, and you’re going to do it humanely…’” [Washington Post, 11/11/15]

TRUMP: “We’re rounding them up in a very humane way, in a very nice way. And they’re going to be happy because they want to be legalized. And, by the way, I know it doesn’t sound nice, but not everything is nice, somebody has to do it.” [60 Minutes, CBS, 9/27/15]

TRUMP: “You know if you back to the early 1950s, Dwight Eisenhower… he moved out 1.5 million people and brought them back to where they came from. They were here illegally. I think — it really does have big precedent.” [Hannity, Fox News, 11/10/15]

TRUMP: “…Eisenhower had the exact same situation and he moved out one and a half million people and very few people talked about it and it was a tough situation, but what he did is he did it. And, you know, I like Ike.” [Mornings With Maria, 11/6/15]
Rescind DACA and DAPA…

TRUMP: “I will immediately terminate President Obama’s illegal executive order on immigration. Immediately.” [Presidential Announcement Speech, New York NY, 6/16/15]

TRUMP: “I’m also going to cancel all unconstitutional orders, executive orders, you’ve been hearing about that. We have a little bit of an excessive executive order president and empower the rank and file ICE officers and border patrol officers to finally do the jobs that they were meant to do.” [Roast N’ Ride, Des Moines IA, 8/27/16]
End birthright citizenship and deport U.S. citizens…

The Trump Campaign’s report Immigration Reform That Will Make America Great Again calls for an end to birthright citizenship, saying it “remains the biggest magnet for illegal immigration.”

Sean Hannity: “One of the important aspects when you hear about his plan — you hear about his plan you hear about visas, you hear about people overstaying them. You hear, for example, no birth-right citizenship, correct?”

TRUMP: “Right.” [Hannity Town Hall, Fox News, Austin TX, 8/24/16]

Bill O’Reilly: “But here is a scenario, ok?  Illegal immigrant mother and father living in Los Angeles, two children who are American citizens, born here.  If you’re president do you order authorities to take that family into custody?”

TRUMP: “We have no choice.  I’m sorry, Bill.  We have to bring them out.” [O’Reilly Factor, Fox News, 8/24/15]
Subject all immigrants to religious tests and ban the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims from entering the country…

“Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.” [Donald Trump Press Release, 12/7/15]

TRUMP: “Take a look at [FDR’s] presidential proclamations back a long time ago, 2525, 2526, 2527. What he was doing with Germans, Italians, and Japanese because he had to do it.” [Trump on Morning Joe, NBC News, 6/27/16]

TRUMP: “On immigration, we will temporarily suspend immigration from any place where adequate screening cannot be performed. Extreme vetting. Remember. Extreme vetting. All applicants for immigration will be vetted for ties to radical ideology, and we will screen out anyone who doesn’t share our values and love our people.” [Trump Campaign Speech, Charlotte NC, 8/18/16]
And build a giant concrete wall along our southern border.

TRUMP: “We’re going to build a wall. It’s going to be a real. It’s going to be a wall that is powerful and that people aren’t going to be going under or up or around or anything else.” [Erin Burnett Outfront, CNN, 11/12/15]

TRUMP: “It’ll be a real wall… I think the height could be 35 to 45 feet. That’s a good height.” [Hannity Town Hall, Fox News, Austin TX, 8/24/16]
What’s more, Trump has deployed lie after lie about Hillary Clinton’s plan for comprehensive immigration reform in an attempt to deceive and exploit voters so they buy into his dark, dystopian, and fabricated view of immigration in America.

Washington Post’s Fact Checker – “Four Pinocchios” for Falsely High Crime Statistics: “Trump’s wild rhetoric over deporting all unauthorized immigrants for bringing crimes like murder into the U.S. underscores a common public misperception that violent crime is correlated with immigration, especially illegal immigration. He continues to assert that crime is spiking because of illegal immigration, this time in California, but this claim remains unsupported…Four Pinocchios.” [Fact Checker, Washington Post, 5/13/16]

PolitiFact.com – “Pants on Fire” for a False TV Ad: “Trump’s television ad purports to show Mexicans swarming over ‘our southern border.’ However, the footage used to support this point actually shows African migrants streaming over a border fence between Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Melilla, more than 5,000 miles away. We rate the claim Pants on Fire.” [Politifact.com, 1/4/16]

Washington Post’s Fact Checker – “Four Pinocchios” for Another False TV Ad – this Time on Social Security: “The Republican presidential nominee makes a bizarre claim that undocumented immigrants will collect Social Security under a Clinton presidency… The broad assertion in this ad is just not supported by facts, and thus earns Four Pinocchios.” [Fact Checker, Washington Post, 8/20/16]

PolitiFact.com – Trump’s Claim “False” That Undocumented Immigrants Will Take Americans’ Jobs: “Trump says Clinton is ‘proposing to print instant work permits for millions of illegal immigrants to come in and take everybody’s jobs, including low-income African-Americans.’… The green cards would be available to students who are already legally in the United States. And given their level of education and expertise, they would not be taking jobs of low-income Americans. Nor is the program aimed at millions of students. We rate the statement False.” [Politifact.com, 8/18/16]

PolitiFact.com – No, Trump, Clinton Will Not Create “Open Borders”:“Trump said Clinton’s immigration platform would ‘create totally open borders.’ This is a huge distortion of Clinton’s proposals… We rate this claim False.” [Politifact.com, 6/23/16]

Clinton Plan for Comprehensive Immigration Reform

Governor Mike Pence recently said that there is a very clear contrast between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump’s immigration policies. He is absolutely correct.

Unlike Trump, Clinton has promised that she will fight for comprehensive immigration reform within her first 100 days that offers a pathway to full and equal citizenship, fixes the family visa backlog, and protects our borders and national security. She will:

  • Fight for comprehensive immigration reform legislation with a path to full and equal citizenship.
  • Defend President Obama’s DACA and DAPA executive actions.
  • Do everything possible under the law to go further to protect families.
  • Conduct humane, targeted immigration enforcement.
  • End family detention.
  • Close private immigrant detention centers.
  • Ensure families can buy into Affordable Care Act exchanges, regardless of immigration status.
  • Promote naturalization.
  • Remove the 3- and 10-year bars to keep families together.

Hillary Clinton: “The truth is, too many people today feel left out and left behind.  That’s not the America we want to be.  Instead of demonizing hard-working immigrant families, we should be giving them a real path to citizenship.” [Clinton Remarks, 1/21/16]

“We won’t be fooled by Trump’s attempts to distract from his bigotry and disguise his dangerous ideas. Donald Trump will be who he has always been: Donald Trump,” the Hillary for America campaign stated.

Immigration-Migration-Refugees

Albania Could Prove Novel Solution in Syrian Refugee Crisis

Albania's countryside is ripe for new villages that could accommodate some Syrian refugees © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
Albania’s countryside is ripe for new villages that could accommodate some Syrian refugees © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

By Karen Rubin, News & Photo Features

With even access to places that only last year were welcoming to desperate Syrian and Iraqi refugees now cut off, new solutions are essential.

Here’s a novel idea that emerged after my recent travels: Albania could be a player in solving the Syrian Refugee crisis, and help itself in the bargain. Here’s why:

Albania has a tradition of helping refugees. I was surprised to learn during my recent visit that during the Holocaust, Albania, a majority Muslim country, protected 200 of its own Jewish citizens and took in 2000 Jewish refugees, harboring them from the Nazis, sheltering them “in plain sight” by blending them into the local population, at grave danger to their own lives. At the end of WWII, Albania was the only European country with more Jews than it had at the start of the war.

Here’s another thing: Albania suffers from under-population. After 50 years of Communist dictatorship when people were imprisoned inside their own country, tens of thousands left the country left as soon as the shackles were released, causing a massive brain drain.

Albania’s economy is stagnant – there is virtually no manufacturing, no export of any kind, no technological development. The biggest industries are construction (roads) and agriculture. There are still unresolved issues of property ownership stemming from the shift from feudal society to Communist dictatorship (when private property was nationalized), back to a vaguely capitalist economy. My idea is that all those who have a solid claim should become “shareholders” or “partners” in property ownership. With the value of things at roughly one-fifth (the median income in Albania is $5,000), a foreign investor can pay off all the claimants, or the partners can share in new ventures. Meanwhile, Albania has plentiful water resources and vast tracts of land – granted much of it is mountainous, but I have seen many villages carved in to the hillsides. USAID has been looking for ways to bolster Albania’s economy.

Albania is a young country, a small country. As one young man tells me, it gets no respect in the world community, but for centuries has always been pushed around by larger powers – the Ottoman Turks for 500 years, the French and Italians minutes after Albania won its Independence from the Ottomans in 1912, the “Council of Ambassadors” who sliced and diced the country to half its size, the Communists after WWII up until 1992. This is a country so craving international attention, that when George W. Bush became the first sitting American president to visit (in 2007), they named a street in the capital city of Tirana for him.

Now here’s an idea: instead of US spending billions of dollars to keep people in horrible refugee camps in Jordan and Turkey where people are frustrated without any ability to work or get educated or have a productive life, how about funding a program to enable families to apply for a resettlement in newly created villages in Albania. The families would be selected based on the skills they bring – doctors, teachers, nurses, engineers, etc. etc., and they would build self-sufficient communities. They would have work visas, and opportunity to apply for citizenship at some point. They would have to follow Albanian law, would not be allowed to impose Sharia law (Albania is majority Muslim but is secular and tolerant of other religions).

The refugees would create their own towns, have their schools and clinics and city-services. They would be offered housing and some initial grant aid to resettle, but would have mortgages and business loans that they would repay – the funding to go back to the coordinating agency.

This would also be a major boon to Albania: the money spent to resettle the refugees would spark the economy. Moreover Albania needs the expertise and the consumer demand the new settlers would bring. The Syrian refugees are a closer cultural match than coming to Western Europe or US.

This is much the same as what was done to settle the American West, with land grants and such, and the American experience has proved over and over that immigrants are a boon to the economy and society – that’s why Germany has been so keen on bringing in hundreds of thousands a year.

For Albania, a tiny country of just 3.5 million population, the money would trigger consumer spending, which ripples through the economy, and create new jobs with new investments and ventures, new innovations and entrepreneurial endeavors. And it would make Albania a player on the world stage.

When I broached this idea to a young fellow whose brother works for the Prime Minister, he agreed it would be a good idea for Albania, but argued that the refugees wouldn’t want to come to Albania, they want to go to Germany where they think the streets are paved with gold. I responded that after years stuck in refugee camps, they would be more receptive, and the program would only take people who wanted this for their families.

The United States, through its involvement with various refugee agencies, might help develop the mechanism to relieve the suffering for at least some of the millions of people stuck in refugee camps in Jordan, Turkey and Greece, some for years, and provide the seed funding.

It would be in the United States’ interest as well, because the refugee problem won’t go away just because the US closes its eyes or its borders, declares undocumented immigrants, migrants and refugees persona non grata or non-persons. The problem will only get worse, possibly destabilize America’s allies and just as global warming impacting faraway places with droughts, floods, and sea level rise, and in the case of public health epidemics like Ebola and Zika, it will come back to hurt the US, as well.

Despite Republicans’ best efforts, the United States is on track to resettle some 10,000 Syrian refugees by October, the end of fiscal 2016, the number targeted by Obama. This is still a small fraction of the 65,000 Obama and Democrats had sought to resettle at the height of the publicity of the refugee crisis, last summer. The international outrage seems to have subsided this year, though the number of deaths of desperate migrants fleeing war and terrorism in Syria and Iraq has actually increased. But Europe – particularly Germany- has tightened entrances, sobered by the mounting political pressure that resulted in the Brexit vote in Great Britain; even Angela Merkel’s leadership has come under attack as right-wingers ascend.

This is the case in the US, as well, with Donald Trump hitching his prospects to become president to anti-immigration and particularly anti-Muslim policies. Trump issued a press release calling Hillary Clinton “America’s Merkel” and noting that Clinton has said she would target 65,000 refugees, then stated, “Assuming her goal is to admit 155,000 refugees each year during a hypothetical first term in office, a Clinton Administration would admit at least 620,000 refugees in just four years – a population roughly the size of Baltimore.. at a lifetime cost of over $400 billion.”

Trump’s despicable rhetoric is already having results in an uptick of violence against Muslims in this country, and very likely factored into the shooting deaths of an Iman and his assistant in Ozone Park, Queens, last weekend.

Many Republican governors have declared their states off-limits to any Syrian refugee resettlement, despite the fact they are powerless to stop the federal government if it chooses to resettle refugees in their state. One of them is New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, where, in defiance,  a group from churches and synagogues have come together to actively support the resettlement of several Syrian families.

With the ability to receive Syrian and Iraqi refugees hampered, the United States’ main involvement in relieving the suffering of the refugees is by spending billions of dollars in aid to support the camps. But there is no life in those camps, where children are unable to go to school, young people can’t get a college degree; professionals are unable to work in their profession if at all. People are desperate, which is why so many are putting themselves in the hands of shady smugglers, launching themselves into unsafe boats to try to make the journey to Western Europe, ideally, the new Promised Land: Germany.

With even access to places that only last year were welcoming now cut off, new solutions are essential.

And for Albania, the US and the refugees, resettlement of families in Albania could be a win-win-win.

See also: Come to Albania Now to See Emergence of a Young Country

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