Monthly Archives: November 2019
The price goes up
The biggest complaint about immigrants, whether undocumented, coming the legal way “like my family did”, or through seeking asylum, is that they come bringing crime and with a desire to live freely in this country on the taxpayers’ dime.
If their intentions were correct, many argue, they would become citizens by following the set procedure for naturalization, and become contributing members of the citizenry.
Along with filling out forms and being at least 18 years old and having a Green Card; are able to read, write, and speak basic English; have a basic understanding of U.S. history and government; have lived for at least 3 months in the state where they will apply; have not spent more than one year at a time outside the U.S.; have resided continuously in the United States for at least 5 years as a permanent resident immediately preceding the date of filing the application; have been physically present in the United States for at least 30 months out of the 5 years immediately preceding the date of filing the application; and are a person of good moral character, each applicant pays a fee of $640 to $1,170 fee legal costs and fees associated with legal permanent residency.
Obviously those seeking citizenship would have to have jobs to save up those fees so they can become contributing members of society.
But now the Trump administration is raising those fees to $1,220 to $2,195, a 79% increase and this affects 9 million immigrants eligible to become U.S. citizen, claiming “current fees do not recover the full costs of providing adjudication and naturalization services.”
This increase will disproportionately affect lower-income people who have been following the rules, and applies to asylum-seekers, Temporary Protected Status beneficiaries, DACA recipients, and legal permanent residents.
A $50 fee for affirmative asylum applications will be added, and the required fee that asylum seekers pay for employment authorization will be raised to $490 for those seeking a work permit while their asylum case is pending.
DACA renewals would increase from $495 to $765.
Although the Supreme Court may very well allow the DACA program to continue, raising the fees by $270 or 64% could possibly limit participation, something Trump wants since he has sought a Supreme Court ruling to end it.
Along with the increased fee, $207.6 million funding of the citizenship program is being diverted to ICE.
The overall percentage of lawful immigrants living in the U.S. who have chosen to apply for and gain citizenship is at its highest level in more than two decades.
Mexican American legal residents who were surveyed said they’d like to become U.S. citizens, but one of the barriers is the cost of U.S. citizenship applications.
This U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services proposal is presently in the public comment period until December 16.
Reversed Swirly
It is a very sad state of affairs when, in order to promote what it claims is the moral high ground, a Christian based organization dehumanizes a group of people and pushes its animus of that group by misleading people with lies.
It poisons the minds of others while promoting non-Christ-like hatred by leading people to assume it is legitimate and truly religion based.
People are fooled into believing that the rejection of other people is what Jesus wants when He has nothing to do with it.
In Massachusetts, as elsewhere, when the civil rights of Transgender people were put on the ballot for people to play creators bestowing inalienable rights, humanity, decency and truth were discarded in favor of reducing people to the human need to pee.
Anti-trans groups immediately jumped to the predator scare-mongering tactic centered on restrooms, producing ads with visuals featuring exaggerated images of predators looming over bathroom stalls, slinking into a restroom behind an unaware child, or hiding in a toilet stall as a teenage girl walks in and looking into her stall as she begins to undress when conservative groups decided they would work to undo a recently passed law that had recognized the rights and equality of Transgender citizens.
Voters in Massachusetts saw past this and the vast majority of voters chose to keep Massachusetts Senate Bill 2407, the 2016 measure that enforces protections against “discrimination in places of public accommodation, resort, or amusement.”
They rejected the lie that non-discrimination laws expose women-only spaces to sexual predators.
After the vote, MassResistance, a group that opposed Transgender rights and promoted the falsehood of bathroom predation, stated on its website.
“On November 6, a nightmare happened in Massachusetts. There’s no way to whitewash this. Two-thirds of Massachusetts voters voted to keep a lunatic “transgender anti-discrimination” law in place. It’s a law that punishes people with fines and even jail time if they refuse to treat mentally dysfunctional men wearing dresses as if they were actual women.”
They not only revealed the group had at no time taken any steps to learn any facts about Transgender people, but when they asked, “How did this happen?” they undeniably revealed that what they had done was to lie saying
“Our side concocted the “bathroom safety” male predator argument as a way to avoid an uncomfortable battle over LGBT ideology, and still fire up people’s emotions.”
The group further admitted that in the future, when it comes to any laws favoring GLBT rights, it would give up the bathroom thing and employ “more inflammatory alternative arguments”.
Researchers from the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Public Policy of California found from analyzing data from reports related to assault, sex crimes and voyeurism in public restrooms, locker rooms and dressing rooms that the “fears of increased safety and privacy violations as a result of nondiscrimination laws are not empirically grounded.”
This was in line with the assertions of the GLBT Community and others who had already looked at similar crime statistics going back decades that the bathroom predator trope was unfounded, and, now, those who promoted it publicly admitted that it was contrived to rely on fear to convince people to vote a certain way.
Those claiming the moral high ground had done an abusive and immoral disservice to the people to whom they appealed for support by knowingly deceiving otherwise good people into thinking a threat existed and to act according to it in order to deprive fellow citizens of their rights.
They lied about one group, and deceived another.
Apparently there was questionable activity involved in restrooms, but it was not that of the victims of the lies, but those spreading the lies.
Contrast
a conundrum
There is a somewhat overlooked problem involved with building the wall on the southern border.
Placement.
If the wall is built right on the actual border, one side will be on the United States side, and the other on the Mexico side. Workers and equipment would not be able to do anything such as standing on the southern side to move or secure a section of the wall into place, or drive the heavy equipment in a loop necessary for placing a wall segment into position no matter how tight that loop is, unless they cross the border into Mexico without permission.
We will be illegally invading a sovereign state as we build a wall whose purpose is to prevent an invasion and illegal entry by those from another country into our sovereign state.
The alternative is to move the wall some distance north of the border, even a few feet or yards, an area wide enough to allow for workers and construction equipment, and in so doing, without an act of congress, ceding U.S. soil on the southern side of the border wall to a foreign country, Mexico, making that country bigger and us smaller by returning land this country got as a result of the treaty ending the Mexican-American War.
Mexico becomes larger while the United States shrinks by way of a unilateral ceding of land by one side and the passive acquisition of it on the part of the other.
Not only will Mexico have not paid for the wall, but, when all is said and done, it will benefit by way of a gift of land.
Win/win for Mexico.
another view point
Jim Jordan Esq.
He loves me so
Russia annexes the Crimea. Ukraine is doing what it can not to be consumed by the resurrected amoeba that is Russia. Trump gets caught up in an impeachment inquiry because of a possible quid pro quo involving money okayed by congress to help Ukraine, but possibly withheld and then dangled over the head of Ukraine as a prize if it helps find dirt on one of Trump’s political rivals.
But, while things seem to be going bad for Trump, what with testimony before the House committee not helping his protestations of being innocent of any wrong-doing, good news has arrived.
Vladimir Putin, probably in a lovely letter, has invited Trump to Russia’s annual Victory Day Parade which commemorates the end of World War II and is Russia’s biggest national holiday. This is one of those parades Trump has whined for since he sat next to President Macron in France and decided he would love to be saluted by such a parade back home, a parade with missiles and tanks rolling through DC.
Because of Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine when it annexed Crimea other Western officials have not attended since.
Trump accepted the invitation. How could he not. It’s Vlad inviting him after all.
“I was invited, I am thinking about it. That’s right in the middle of our campaign season, but I am thinking I would certainly think about it. President Putin invited me to the — it’s a very big deal, celebrating the end of the war, et cetera, et cetera. Very big deal.”
Last month, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper had expressed his opinion that illustrated why attendance might not be the best thing.
“Russia’s foreign policy demonstrates a blatant disregard for state sovereignty. In addition to their military incursions in Georgia and Ukraine, their use of cyber warfare and information operations continues to interfere with other states’ domestic affairs. In the case of both China and Russia, their malign behavior, combined with aggressive military modernization programs, puts the international security environment on a trajectory that should concern all free nations.”
And let’s not forget our own problems and concerns with and about election interference.
But Trump won the prize.
Vlad invited him on a play date.
Think about it
When Mary told Joseph
