On the government shutdown

As I type this, the federal government is closed.

This means that some 800,000 federal employees across 9 different departments are no longer getting paychecks as of December 22nd, and they have utterly no idea as to when the shutdown might end and they can expect to get paid again. Most of them will (probably) receive backpay when this ends, but whether contractor employees are paid for "working time they miss" is very much up in the air. And because the Trump Administration has decided that our national parks are to remain open to visitors despite the shutdown, trash and literal shit is piling up due to federal employees who would otherwise supervise these parks being furloughed, per Valley News: 

"With tens of thousands of park employees furloughed, that means many parks have no workers collecting entry fees at the gates, patrolling the campgrounds or emptying the garbage cans and portable toilets. But the visitors keep coming. 

The lack of maintenance and oversight is taking a toll. There are reports of illegal camping and off-road driving in sensitive habitat areas. Unsupervised tourists were harassing elephant seals at the Point Reyes National Seashore, prompting officials to close off part of the beach. 

Visitors have posted pictures on social media of overflowing garbage bins. Empty champagne bottles were left strewn on the ground at Joshua Tree. Yosemite officials had to restrict entry to certain areas of the park after the accumulation of human urine and feces became a health hazard."

It could get worse. In past shutdowns, for example, it was generally agreed upon that the IRS would be unable to process tax refunds. The Trump Administration, in realizing how phenomenally unpopular it would be to deny "more than $147 billion in tax refunds to 48.5 million households," has reversed course and decided that the IRS can process such claims. But this decision is "legally dubious," as the Washington Post article notes, and since nearly 90% of the IRS workforce is furloughed, they'd have to be called back in to handle all the refunds - without pay, of course. 

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said that SNAP benefits (or food stamps) wouldn't be guaranteed beyond the month of February. Meaning, some 38 million Americans who presently receive food assistance will have one hell of a problem on their hands in the event that the shutdown persists past that point, which, Trump has suggested, he'd be perfectly fine with. Meanwhile, over a 1,000 federal contracts between landlords and the Department of Housing and Urban Development have since expired and cannot be renewed until the government opens back up, "which could delay critical repairs and place poor families at risk of eviction, advocates and landlords say," via NBC News. 

And a higher number of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers and air traffic controllers who aren't getting paid are calling in sick, creating headaches for travelers. And why shouldn't they? Their bills and rent don't simply go away because they're no longer getting a paycheck. They have perhaps decided that their time would be better spent working another side job or driving for Uber. 

Because most people agree that these things are pretty bad, the political parties typically put in a great deal of effort pinning the blame on the opposition whenever government shutdowns occur. This time around, however, there's utterly no room for ambiguity - Trump has outright told us he's to blame:

"You know what I’ll say: Yes, if we don’t get what we want, one way or the other -- whether it’s through you, through a military, through anything you want to call -- I will shut down the government. Absolutely...I am proud to shut down the government for border security, Chuck, because the people of this country don’t want criminals and people that have lots of problems and drugs pouring into our country. So I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down. I’m not going to blame you for it. The last time you shut it down, it didn’t work. I will take the mantle of shutting down."

Crystal fucking clear.

Trump's stated objective in all of this is to secure funding from Congress to build new barriers along the southern border. His promise to construct a "big, beautiful wall" (paid for by Mexico), alongside his general demagoguery of immigrants is probably the most memorable aspect of his presidential campaign. I've already written a bit about the wall here, and about immigration policy more broadly here, so I'll simply reiterate two of the most important points in those posts:

• Immigrants (documented and undocumented) are a net economic benefit for our nation.
• Immigrants (again, documented and undocumented) commit violent crimes at lower rates than native born citizens, and geographical areas with higher percentages of immigrants have statistically lower rates of crime. 

Trump began his campaign by characterizing Mexicans as murders and rapists, and that rhetoric is no less putrid bullshit today than it was back then. So too are his justifications for wanting to build said barriers. Take, for example, his assertion that they will alleviate the "growing humanitarian and security crisis at our southern border," as he described it in a Jan. 8th prime time address. 

In fact, "nationwide apprehensions of migrants entering the country without authorization are at some of their lowest numbers in decades," according to the Washington Post. The total estimated number of undocumented immigrants living here has also fallen, all without the help of Trump's majestic wall. The real crisis is the violence and persecution these people face within their home countries of Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala leading them to travel hundreds of miles in an attempt to reach the United States in the first place. But the notion that their numbers represent an existential crisis the likes of which we've never seen before is simply false: 

This is an important point because there's growing speculation that Trump will declare a national emergency, thereby allowing him to divert $13.9 billion that was already allocated, in part, for hurricane relief efforts in Texas and Puerto Rico to the construction of more barriers. Again, the number of people trying to illegally cross the border is not an existential crisis by historical standards, but a president seeking to use money appropriated by Congress in whatever manner he sees fit surely presents a new Constitutional crisis. 

Another problem the border wall would supposedly solve is the flow of illegal drugs, most notably heroin, into the U.S. It wouldn't, however, as most hard illegal substances come in through legal ports of entry, as reported by the New York Times: 

"Most heroin smuggled into the United States does come through the southwest border, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s latest National Drug Threat Assessment report. But most of it is smuggled into the United States through legal ports of entry at the southern border, not through the desert, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s 2018 annual drug threat assessment."

The present heroin epidemic has taken root, in large part, because of the massive amount of legally prescribed opioids flooding the market in the 1990's and early 2000's. A subset of those using legal opioids non medically have since moved on to heroin. It's disingenuous to blame Latin America for the uptick in opioid overdose deaths when the original culprit appears to be 'ole fashioned American capitalism, or, pharmaceutical companies looking to make a buck. And a barrier at the southern border would do nothing to stop a more recent drug problem, as the Times article notes:

"A border wall would not address what experts see as the next, more deadly phase of the opioid epidemic: fentanyl. 

Fentanyl is a narcotic that is used to treat severe pain and is a key contributor the opioid crisis. It is also sometimes mixed with heroin. 

Most fentanyl enters the United States from packages mailed directly from China through traditional ports of entry, according to the report, and through Canada from China. A lower-potency, lower-cost grade of fentanyl is also smuggled across the southwest border from Mexico. The fentanyl directly from China is far more lucrative for sellers because of its higher purity. The fentanyl sent through conventional mail packages has proved difficult for law enforcement to detect. Fentanyl coming from Mexico is often hidden in automobile compartments, much like conventional drug smuggling.

The president’s opioids commission reported last November that “we are losing this fight predominately through China.”"

How strange that Trump isn't proposing a border wall between the U.S. and Canada, given how concerned he says he is about drug smuggling. Would additional barriers prevent suspected terrorists from entering our country from Mexico? Not so much, as suspected terrorists aren't entering from Mexico to begin with, as this CNN article indicates:

"A State Department report from 2016 said there was "no credible information that any member of a terrorist group has traveled through Mexico" to sneak into the United States. 

"I cannot think of a single example of a terrorism case where somebody came over the southern border to infiltrate the United States," said Peter Bergen, a CNN national security analyst who has tracked hundreds of terrorism cases. "It's sort of a non-problem."

Bergen noted that the most notorious case of a terrorist apprehended at the US border is the "millennium plot," when an Algerian citizen with ties to al-Qaeda was arrested at the US-Canada border in December 1999. He hoped to blow up Los Angeles International Airport."

Canada strikes again. It's almost as if support for the wall isn't actually based on a desire to halt tangible threats, but is instead the culmination of xenophobic resentment specifically of our neighbors to the south. 

Finally, there's the issue of the actual money needed to begin building such a wall, or a barrier made of steel bollards which Trump likes to call a wall, as noted by Dara Lind of Vox. The Trump Administration is demanding at least $5 billion (the Republicans in the House, right before control switched to the Democrats, actually allocated $5.7 billion) in funding for what it estimates will cover 150 miles worth of new barriers. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D - CA) and the Democrats have passed a number of bills intended to reopen the majority of federal agencies, but Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell (R - KY) is refusing to even allow the Senate to consider them, as they don't include the $5 billion Trump wants.

The Democrats are open to passing a bill containing $1.3 billion for the Department of Homeland Security that could theoretically be used to build additional barriers, which is in line with what was allocated for barriers back in fiscal year 2018. Going back even further, some Democrats, including then senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, voted for a bill that provided $1.4 billion for fencing along the southern border in 2006. This, alongside prior rhetoric in favor of border security, is supposed to be some kind of 'gotcha' that demonstrates they're only opposed to a wall today to spite the president. But no prominent Democrats have ever voiced support for a full border length wall the likes of which Donald Trump campaigned on, and is still occasionally (!) advocating for:

An all concrete Wall was NEVER ABANDONED, as has been reported by the media. Some areas will be all concrete but the experts at Border Patrol prefer a Wall that is see through (thereby making it possible to see what is happening on both sides). Makes sense to me!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2018

Support for border security does not equate to support for a giant wall. Furthermore, most Democrats and progressive activists have proposed trading additional border security as a means of securing a path to citizenship for the undocumented and those protected from deportation under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). The problem with making such deals is that the president, after getting pushback from nationalist hardliners in his own Administration, like Stephen Miller, and from voices in the conservative media, like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, always backs out. 

And the much broader ideological problem is this: the left and the right don't even remotely agree on what the problem is to begin with. The right really doesn't want those people to the south (and Muslim immigrants from Africa and the Middle East, while we're at it) to come here, period. We know this because the Trump Administration has already dramatically reduced the number of refugees we accept, and is also pushing for a bill that would cut legal immigration by 50% over the next 10 years. This is their end game, as this USA Today article by Jason Sattler lays out:

"What the hard-liners wanted far more than the wall was a plan that would cut legal immigration by half. These “immigration restrictionists” are eager to reduce the legal paths for citizens to bring their family members to this country because America has already made huge steps toward reducing undocumented immigration. It hit a 12-year low in 2016 as the world’s most famous birther was running for president on the premise that our borders were under siege. 

Fences and walls have already been built in the most porous areas of the border. New requirements have made it harder to hire employees without proper documents. The vast majority of unauthorized immigrants in this country have been here for more than 10 years. And immigrants who stay in this country without permission increasingly arrive here legally. 

There’s no deal to be had with Trump and his hard-liners because this isn’t about securing a border, which is more secure than it has been all this century or possibly ever. It’s about the same thing birtherism was about: Re-establishing the dominance of white Americans."

Nobody actually believes that Donald Trump and the Republicans will be satisfied with $5.7 billion in wall funding, which is an admittedly trivial amount for a nation that spends $3.8 trillion every year. They'll come back and demand billions and billions more to cover the territory the $5.7 billion won't cover. Trump supporters and conservatives in the media will insist that they do. Again, their ultimate objective is to prevent those people from coming here by any means necessary. This means slashing rates of legal immigration and refugees as much as it means building a wall. And Trump supporters don't actually care that he has lied repeatedly on this issue, so long as he continues to virtue signal to them that he is still on their side.

His initial promise was that Mexico was going to pay for the wall, that it would be made of concrete, and cover the entire border. He's gone back and forth on all of this. Now, the president is nonsensically claiming that a new trade deal with Mexico and Canada will indirectly finance the cost. Some of his supporters are suggesting that he didn't literally mean that Mexico was going to write out a check to the U.S., yet compelling them to make a one-time payment up to $10 billion was an actual fucking position on his campaign website!

But many Trump supporters don't really give a shit how it's funded or, realistically, about an actual tangible wall all that much so long as they earnestly believe that he's fighting for them and their interests.

He isn't.

The most significant legislative achievement signed into law these past two years was the tax cut bill, which overwhelmingly benefited the very wealthy. Donald Trump appears quite keen on rolling back financial and environmental regulations that protect us while shoveling as much money as possible away from middle and lower income families and towards the rich - and his own businesses. And even though his refugee and child separation policies have done immeasurable harm, it still isn't entirely clear that Trump buys his own bullshit about immigrants coming here to rape and kill us. After all, he still has undocumented immigrants working at his hotels and golf courses! 

The whole thing is a con game, and his predominately white supporters who are inclined to blame all their problems on immigrants and Muslims are the marks. Former President Lyndon Johnson had their number so many years ago when he said “if you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”

Those of us on the political left should oppose the president's immigration policies out of principle, and we should encourage the Democratic Party to keep doing so as well. Immigrants make our country stronger. There are undocumented people who have lived here longer than I've been alive; the notion that these people are less American than I is fundamentally absurd. The geographical circumstances of ones birth should not dictate his or her innate value.

I'm not interested in building more barriers to keep those people out. Rather, I'm more interested in policies that will alleviate the very suffering they endure in their home countries that compel them to embark on the dangerous journey here. It's important to remember that a great deal of what's wrong in Latin America today is the direct result of U.S. foreign policy (which is an issue too broad to tackle in this post). Imagine if that $5.7 billion was instead used to hire more people to process claims for asylum faster, or simply given to agencies such as Citizenship and Immigration Services so that hopeful immigrants aren't waiting years and years and years to become citizens. 

Rejecting Trump's demand for money to build a stupid fucking wall is bigger than, well, a stupid fucking wall. It's the rejection of the political ideology of nationalism that matters most.