Democrats Demand: Freeze ICE, Shrink Deportations of Economic Migrants

Sanctuary - In this Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2017, photo released by U.S. Immigration and Customs
Charles Reed/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement via AP/File
Neil Munro

Democrats are using the 2019 budget debate to block the deportations of economic migrants who get past border guards while allowing the deportations of some dangerous criminals.

The goal was sketched in a statement from Democratic Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, who is part of the 17-member committee now trying to draft a 2019 budget for the Department of Homeland Security. She represents a Los Angeles district where almost 90 percent of the population is Latino, and which likely includes many illegal migrants who face possible deportation.

Her statement said:

For far too long, the Trump administration has been tearing communities apart with its cruel immigration policies. A cap on ICE detention beds will force the Trump administration to prioritize deportation for criminals and people who pose real security threats, not law-abiding immigrants who are contributing to our country.”

… Right now, the Trump administration is pursuing an out-of-control deportation policy focused on removing immigrants with no criminal records, many of whom have deep roots in their communities. This approach is cruel and wrong.

A cap on detention beds associated with interior enforcement will rein in the Trump administration’s deportation agenda, prevent the Trump administration from shifting more funding to detention beds than Congress has agreed to, and restore immigration enforcement to the levels that were in place at the end of the Obama administration.

President Donald Trump says the Democrats do not want to deport violent migrants.

Roybal-Allard insisted the curbs would not prevent the deportation of violent criminals.

Claims that this proposal would allow violent criminals to be released are false. The Democrats’ proposed cap will ensure that the Trump administration adheres to congressional funding decisions and targets violent felons and other people who pose security risks for deportation, instead of pursuing reckless mass deportation policies that actually make us less safe.

The Democrats have adopted a risky policy, said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies.

If the Democrats lock this into the budget, the word is going to keep spreading” among the millions of foreigners who want to work in the United States, said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies. “You don’t think that Pakistanis and Vietnamese and Congolese are going to get the word?”

Already, a Gallup survey shows that five million people from Central American are trying to decide if they should migrate to the United States in 2019, he said.

Many Americans simultaneously want to oppose the border wall, welcome migrants and have tougher border security, he said. “When 100,000 migrants show up one month and the next month shows 150,000,  those contradictory goals will come into focus,” he said. 

Experienced Democrats recognize the political risk, he said. “They understand this is a danger for them, which is why they keep talking about those [migrants] fleeing danger or being refugees.”

“At some point, the number will get to a level that [voters] are going to react strongly against it,” Krikorian said. For now, ‘the Democrats have no interest in any concessions whatsoever, and they don’t see to be paying a cost yet. Things have to get worse before they pay a political price.”

The Washington Post reported:

The Democrats’ proposal included a new limit on detention beds for immigrants picked up not at the border but in the interior of the country.

Democrats wanted to cap that number at 16,500, which they said is around the level of interior detentions in the final years of the Obama administration, although it’s fewer than the number currently detained under the Trump administration’s enforcement policies.

The Post added that 48,747 migrants were in detention on February 10.

“I’m not confident given the Republicans’ track record that they will hold the line on this,” said Krikorian. He added: “Republicans, in general, are supine in the face of Democrats’ demands.”

Trump’s focus on the wall could distract him from the Democrats’ welcome for migrants. “It is not implausible he will signal to the conference committee that he is willing to accept these very damaging conditions on detention if they get a little bit of wall money. But the limits on detention will cancel out any benefits from the wall, at least partially if not entirely, because they are only talking about 150 miles of new wall.”

GOP legislators do not entirely oppose a cap but are demanding a higher limit on deportations, according to the Washington Post:

Republicans want to exclude a range of immigrants from the cap. These would be people convicted of, or charged with, a variety of crimes, ranging from violent felonies to misdemeanor drug offenses.

Democrats said that would make the cap toothless, because it would allow ICE to round up numerous people without criminal records and also hold an unlimited number of people who, in some cases, have only been charged with misdemeanors.

The Hill.com reported:

An administration official told The Hill that in a leadership staff meeting Saturday Democrats said they wanted to reduce the number of beds Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has available for detained immigrants from 38,000 to 16,000.

“This is ‘abolish ICE.’ That’s what it is,” the official said, characterizing the Democratic position and warning that Republicans are about to “walk” away from the negotiating table.

…

“A cap on detention beds associated with interior enforcement will rein in the Trump administration’s deportation agenda, prevent the Trump administration from shifting more funding to detention beds than Congress has agreed to, and restore immigration enforcement to the levels that were in place at the end of the Obama administration,” the aide said, sending a clear sign the talks have grown more contentious over this issue.

For 2019, Trump asked for 50,000 “detention beds.” ICE needs many beds because judges and migrants’ lawyers try to stretch the time needed to deport each migrant. Many of the lawyers are progressive ideologues who oppose any deportations. So if the progressive lawyers double the time needed to deport each migrant, they also halve the number of migrants who get deported.

Officials normally put a higher priority on deporting violent criminals illegals and illegals caught driving while drunk. But many of the criminal migrants are aided by lawyers eager to slow deportations. If the Democrats can shrink the number of detention beds, then enforcement officials would be unable to deport the many lower-priority economic migrants who are hired instead of Americans.

The cap on detention beds would not “Abolish ICE,” as sought by some Democratic legislators, but would freeze ICE and prevent it from reducing the population of at least 12 million illegal migrants. The plan would create an invisible bureaucratic amnesty for economic migrants who do not commit violent crimes — but who also drive down wages and spike rents for Americans.

For example, the median household income in Roybal-Allard’s migrant-heavy district was just $47,190, including government-provided benefits. Nationwide, median household income in 2017. was roughly $60,000. The “median” term shows the mid-point: Half of the households in an area earn above the median number, and half earn below the median number. this means half the households in Roybal-Allard’s district earned less than $47,1190 in 2017.

Also, the number of migrants who are jailed for crimes — especially for drug sales — far exceeds their percentage of the population:

The Republicans on the DHS panel include Alabama Republican Sen. Richard Shelby, West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven, Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, Texas Rep. Kay Granger, Tennesee Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, Georgia Rep. Tom Graves, and Mississippi Rep. Steven Palazzo.

The Democrats are Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin, Montana Sen. Jon Tester, New York Rep. Nita Lowey, California Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, North Carolina Rep. David Price, California Rep. Barbara Lee, Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar, and California Rep. Pete Aguilar.

The establishment’s economic policy of using legal and illegal migration to boost economic growth shifts enormous wealth from young employees towards older investors by flooding the market with cheap white-collar and blue-collar foreign labor.

That annual flood of roughly one million legal immigrants — as well as visa workers and illegal immigrants — spikes profits and Wall Street values by shrinking salaries for 150 million blue-collar and white-collar employees and especially wages for the four million young Americans who join the labor force each year.

The cheap labor policy widens wealth gaps, reduces high tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts kids’ schools and college education, pushes Americans away from high tech careers, and sidelines millions of marginalized Americans, including many who are now struggling with fentanyl addictions.

Immigration also steers investment and wealth away from towns in Heartland states because coastal investors can more easily hire and supervise the large immigrant populations who prefer to live in coastal cities. In turn, that coastal investment flow drives up coastal real estate prices and pushes poor U.S. Americans, including Latinos and blacks, out of prosperous cities such as Berkeley and Oakland, California.

 

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