Immigration Watch International (2): ‘Biden lied’: Democrats come down hard on border wall backflip

Sunday, October 8, 2023

‘Biden lied’: Democrats come down hard on border wall backflip

Washington: Military veterans, environmentalists and progressive Democrats have hit out at US President Joe Biden after he reneged on an election promise not to build a wall at the US-Mexico border.

One day after the Biden administration announced it would waive 26 federal laws and regulations to allow a border wall to be constructed in an area of south Texas with a high number of migrant crossings, the president has faced an angry backlash, with some members of his own party accusing him of hypocrisy and lies.

The backflip came despite Biden entering office promising “there will not be another foot of wall constructed in my administration” and beginning his presidency by immediately dumping one of his predecessor Donald Trump’s signature policies.

Almost two years later, his government has reversed course as urban cities and regional border towns across the country struggle to deal with the ongoing influx of migrants from South and Central America, and as far as Africa and South Asia.

“This is hypocrisy at its finest,” said Rio Grande Mayor Joel Villarreal, a Democrat whose city is part of the area where construction for a new section of wall was given the go-ahead. About 30 kilometres will be fenced along the Rio Grande that separates Mexico from the US.

“The bottom line is President Biden lied to the American people.”

The policy shift was also met with anger by members of Congress, who demanded the administration reverse the decision and come up with meaningful immigration reform.

“You could build a great big Trumpy wall on the entire US southern border and it’s still not going to fix this problem,” New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said on Instagram.

“The US and US foreign policy is contributing to this problem, and if we do not address the migrant crisis at its root, it is still going to be a problem.”

Common Defence – America’s largest grassroots organisation of military veterans, which represents 200,000 veterans, military family members and civilian supporters – agreed.

“We should be creating safe pathways for people instead,” the group’s climate justice director Perry O’Brien told this masthead.

“We are deeply disappointed and think that this is just playing into the hands of defence contractors and the xenophobes on the far-right who want to turn the southern border into our next forever war.”

The backflip underscores the political and policy challenge that Biden – who has had about 6 million asylum seekers detained or intercepted under his watch – faces ahead of next year’s election.

According to a recent Gallup poll, his overall approval rating sits at a low 42 per cent, but Americans view his performance on immigration to be much worse, at 31 per cent.

While building a border wall was one of Trump’s signature policies, Democrats have traditionally taken a more cautious approach to immigration.

However, the White House has hardened in recent months, coinciding with Republican governors sending scores of migrants to Democratic cities such as New York, Chicago and Washington to goad the president over the crisis.

Biden sought to defend the decision again on Friday (Saturday AEDT), telling reporters at the White House that he had wanted Congress to redirect the funds towards other measures, such as more border patrol agents or drug-detecting capabilities.

However, the money had been appropriated by Congress in 2019, when Trump was still in power, specifically for the construction of the wall. “I was told that I had no choice,” Biden said.

https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/biden-lied-democrats-come-down-hard-on-border-wall-backflip-20231007-p5eag9.html

***********************************

My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

*******************************

No comments:

Post a Comment

Background

Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.

Why is "La Raza" the one Spanish term that is NEVER translated in the American mass media? Because translating it would make it a lot less respectable. It means "THE RACE" -- The mixed Hispanic "race" of Mexico. Racism is fine South of the Rio Grande only, apparently.

The "line" of this blog is that immigration should be SELECTIVE. That means that:

1). A national government should be in control of it. The U.S. and U.K. governments are not but the Australian government has shown that the government of a prosperous Western country can be. Up until its loss of office in 2007, the conservative Howard government had all but eliminated illegal immigration. The present Leftist government has however restarted the flow of illegals by repealing many of the Howard government regulations.

2). Selectivity should be based on "the content of a man's character, not on the color of his skin", as MLK said. To expand that a little: Immigrants should only be accepted if they as individuals seem likely to make a positive net contribution to the country. Many "refugees" would fail that test: Muslims and Africans particularly. Educational level should usually be a pretty fair proxy for the individual's likely value to the receiving country. There will, of course, be exceptions but it is nonetheless unlikely that a person who has not successfully completed High School will make a net positive contribution to a modern Western society.

3). Immigrants should be neither barred NOR ACCEPTED solely because they are of some particular ethnic origin. Blacks are vastly more likely to be criminal than are whites or Chinese, for instance, but some whites and some Chinese are criminal. It is the criminality that should matter, not the race.

4). The above ideas are not particularly blue-sky. They roughly describe the policies of the country where I live -- Australia. I am critical of Australian policy only insofar as the "refugee" category for admission is concerned. All governments have tended to admit as refugees many undesirables. It seems to me that more should be required of them before refugees are admitted -- for instance a higher level of education or a business background.

5). Perhaps the most amusing assertion in the immigration debate is that high-income countries like the USA and Britain NEED illegal immigrants to do low-paid menial work. "Who will pick our crops?" (etc.) is the cry. How odd it is then that Australians get all the normal services of a modern economy WITHOUT illegal immigrants! Yes: Before the pandemic, you usually COULD buy a lettuce in Australia for a dollar or thereabouts. And Australia IS a major exporter of primary products.

6). I am a libertarian conservative so I reject the "open door" policy favoured by many libertarians and many Leftists. Both those groups tend to have a love of simplistic generalizations that fail to deal with the complexity of the real world. It seems to me that if a person has the right to say whom he/she will have living with him/her in his/her own house, so a nation has the right to admit to living among them only those individuals whom they choose.

I can be reached on jonjayray@hotmail.com -- or leave a comment on any post. Abusive comments will be deleted.

Immigration Watch International (2)

Sunday, October 8, 2023

‘Biden lied’: Democrats come down hard on border wall backflip

No comments:

Post a Comment

Background

Other blogs

Blog Archive

Contributors