Lately I forgot to take photos while out trail walking. I carry my mobile device with me. Maybe I’m distracted. Maybe the sight of Canadian Geese sunning themselves on a jetty is too commonplace. I did, however, have pleasant walks on the trail before rain started again on Friday. I used an old photo on this post and it serves.
Senate Republicans rejected the strongest, most comprehensive bipartisan border bill we’ve seen in decades. They do not want to solve problems at the Southern border. Period.
The New York Times has been reporting Trump edging Biden in polls for about eight months. Here’s the rub. They have a squishy way of saying who they polled. First it is registered voters, and then it is voters who cast a ballot in the 2020 general election — two very different parts of the electorate. As Nate Cohen reported for the Times, “President Biden has actually led the last three New York Times/Siena national polls among those who voted in the 2020 election, even as he has trailed among registered voters overall. And looking back over the last few years, almost all of Trump’s gains came from these less engaged voters.” An unbiased news outlet would put all this information out in front. The Times buries it and therefore, their reporting is not trustworthy.
Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court published a decision in Alexander vs. South Carolina Conference of the NAACP, about political gerrymandering. The headline in the Cedar Rapids Gazette read, “Justices find no racial gerrymandering in S.C.” It is political gerrymandering, the high court said, and that is apparently okay because drawing districts is a political process. If you believe that, stand on your head. The majority opinion was written by George W. Bush appointee Samuel Alito who has been in the news this week for his flag-displaying propensities.
We woke early this morning to the sounds of local sirens warning about a tornado watch. We followed our standard procedure of gathering electronic communications devices downstairs and monitoring the process of the storms. At one point we had a desktop, two laptops and two phones in action. It’s how we Iowans do when it comes to severe weather.
In Iowa when the local severe weather sirens go off, we gather on the lower level with all the electronic communications devices. Friday, May 24, 2024.
Like clockwork, the American Civil Liberties Union, along with other groups and individuals, sued in federal court over Senate File 2340, one of the worst, most far-reaching immigration laws ever passed in the state of Iowa. They said the law is unconstitutional. It is common sense the state has no primary role in policing immigration. I expect the ACLU will prevail and the governor has to know it.
Maybe if the Iowa delegation to The U.S. Congress had done their job on immigration this year, things would be different. Instead we have this crappy law and civil rights groups are not going to let it stand.
While states can pass legislation to deal with federal immigration concerns, if the U.S. Supreme Court has a shred of honesty in jurisprudence left, they will reject these state laws when they trickle up to the high court.
I made the post below, called “Rain and Immigration Reform,” on Jan. 29, 2013. It shows in eleven years the country has gotten exactly nowhere on immigration reform.
LAKE MACBRIDE— The sound of rain tapping against the bedroom window woke me this morning. At 4:30 a.m. it was 55 degrees. This broke the record high temperature of 53 degrees set in 1919. According to weather.com, today’s forecast is to hit a high of 60 degrees around 11 a.m. this morning, then temperatures start to fall to below freezing in the next 24 hours. Today is more temperate than the heat last summer, however, it is a variation on a theme of being freaked out because of our changing climate and dealing with adaptation.
Equally freaky was yesterday’s public statement by a bipartisan group of eight U.S. senators in an effort to find common ground on how the country should move forward on immigration reform. They said in a written statement,
We recognize that our immigration system is broken. And while border security has improved significantly over the last two Administrations, we still don’t have a functioning immigration system. This has created a situation where up to 11 million undocumented immigrants are living in the shadows. Our legislation acknowledges these realities by finally committing the resources needed to secure the border, modernize and streamline our current legal immigration system, while creating a tough but fair legalization program for individuals who are currently here. We will ensure that this is a successful permanent reform to our immigration system that will not need to be revisited.
I have written a lot about immigration reform. Dealing with the 11 million undocumented people who live in the United States, many of whom have been here for decades, is a long standing problem and political lightning rod. That the senate’s bipartisan framework calls for a path to citizenship for these long-term residents, and an effective employment verification system, gets to core problems. Particularly, recent history has shown that if there is available employment in the U.S., undocumented people will come to fill those jobs. If the path to getting a job is restricted by better verification of applicant status, the number of people crossing our borders will be reduced.
Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama have attempted to reform immigration, but met resistance. What has changed?
The demographics of the 2012 electorate are now known and President Obama won 70 percent of the so-called Hispanic vote. Hispanics accounted for 10 percent of the votes cast for president. It is a political reality that Republicans cannot walk away from this large and growing segment of the population if they want to remain relevant. Immigration reform is a key issue for Hispanic voters.
Senator John McCain was featured in corporate media sound-bites, reading these three sentences from a press statement yesterday,
What is going on now is not acceptable. In reality, what has been created is a defacto amnesty. We, the American people, have been too content for too long to allow individuals to mow our lawn, serve us food, clean our homes and even watch our children while not affording them any of the benefits that make our country so great.
If the political component of immigration reform was the focus yesterday, there is another issue, related to agriculture. Undocumented immigrants and legal guest workers provide low-cost agricultural labor that natives seem reluctant to offer. In his Jan. 5, 1967 inaugural address as governor of California, Ronald Reagan set the theme on immigration that would follow him through to his presidency, “restrictive labor policies should never again be the cause of crops rotting in the fields for lack of harvesters.” Reagan advocated for and signed into law the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which was intended to permanently address immigration reform.
Any immigration reform faces an uphill battle in the Congress. That’s why nothing has been done since 1986. That states like Iowa are taking matters into their own hands is laughable. It is also am injustice to immigrants who have been here for years. It is cynical political posturing by which Republicans hope to cement their power in government. Will the problem continue unaddressed for ten more years? Something has to give and the states cannot be the driving force in immigration reform.
Editor’s Note: This was posted on May 22, 2008 while the author served on the county board of health. Working with migrant communities was part of our public health outreach.
Each year 2,500 or more migrant workers come to Iowa to detassel seed corn, walk the beans, prune plants and trees and pick melons, apples and strawberries. This has been going on for as long as I can remember. Today, I saw the public health aspect of this cultural phenomenon.
In places like Conesville, Williamsburg, and Laurel, migrant families come to work in the fields, living in dormitories, motels and converted buildings. The hourly wages are about $9.00, often paid in cash. If anyone is impoverished, these people are. It turns out about 60% of them also seek medical treatment while they are here.
The list of health issues sounds like those of many Americans. 50 percent of patients are treated for obesity. In descending order of frequency, hypertension, diabetes, acute upper respiratory ailments and foot fungus are also treated. Women have a higher frequency of dehydration than men. The medical treatment is part of the culture as there are many patients who seek treatment year after year.
It is clear that many of these workers are not documented, and from a public health perspective, that doesn’t matter much. Would the Immigration and Naturalization Service come in and raid the quarters of these folks? Probably not.
Yet, who should be responsible for the health care of these 2,500 workers? On $9.00 per hour, they could not afford it. The employers would say they could not afford it either. Some would argue that the small budget of the agency should not go to undocumented migrant workers at all. It is a key issue in public health.
The life of migrant workers seems much like the life of birds living in the wetlands. Following the receding water line, they eke out a living that comes naturally, but is in delicate balance between shore and water…it hardly seems permanent. Social change around the immigration issue, a slight change in law enforcement or a change in funding for the agency could change migrant workers’ lives dramatically. At the same time, my sense is that they can adapt to change and do what it takes to create a society that lives along the recurring procession of the agricultural season.
In this way, migrant workers are like us: living each day in its delicate balance.¨
Happy Saint Patrick’s Day to those who celebrate! It is hard to celebrate anything these days with all the Republican fear-mongering. In any case, Saint Patrick’s efforts to convert the Pagan Irish does not rank very highly in the life of this descendant of people who lived in North America since before the United States was a thing.
Republicans cannot help themselves about the border and immigration. After President Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address, Governor Kim Reynolds released a statement that included, “Three years of Joe Biden has led to an open border…” among other things. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks says in a recent social media advertisement, “The crisis at our southern border poses a serious threat to our national security.” My Republican State Senator Dawn Driscoll gave the border a mention in her most recent newsletter, saying, “Every state is a border state now.” She explained,
Immigration reform remains a critical issue that concerns many across our nation, highlighting the urgent need for effective solutions to address the challenges at our borders. These challenges have led to increased human trafficking, the spread of illegal drugs, and other crimes, affecting communities far beyond those directly on the U.S.-Mexico border.
The Driscoll Dispatch by Senator Dawn Driscoll, March 8, 2024.
Scary. Driscoll is not as scary as my State Representative Brad Sherman who was working on legislation titled, “A Resolution affirming the state of Iowa’s support for the state of Texas and condemning the federal government’s immigration policies.” What a waste of time.
To counter Republican claims, the U.S. Congress, in which most responsibility for immigration reform lies, has done little to address it since the Reagan era. They recently negotiated a bipartisan immigration reform bill that was rejected out of hand by the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Which is it? Open border, or lack of Republican political will to do something meaningful about it? Biden clearly pushed the Congress to do something about the southern border, and I’d wager he is not done.
Art Cullen pointed out in his Feb. 12, 2019 column in the Washington Post, “Here in Storm Lake, Iowa, where the population is about 15,000 and unemployment is under 2 percent, Asians and Africans and Latinos are our lifeline. The only threat they pose to us is if they weren’t here.” Rural Iowa needs immigrants, he said.
The point of Republicans like Governor Reynolds is that immigrants are scary, not that we should do anything about the so-called “open border.” The duplicitous, political nature of Republican positioning is enough to make a person’s head spin. I may have to find a glass of green beer today and have some me time. Even so, I doubt that will make them stop.
We need to vote Republicans out of office at every level. Not only to work on real solutions to the immigration problem, but for everything else they do to stir up irrational fear before the November election. In this, I may have discovered why Americans favor an alcoholic drink on Saint Patrick’s Day.
The United States is a country where we constantly balance security and liberty. During my youth, we were taught to believe that a large nuclear weapons arsenal, with a triad of land-based missiles, aircraft-dropped gravity bombs, and submarines would deter the Soviet Union from attacking us. When the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 happened, we shifted to a concern that a small group of terrorists had brought havoc on the country by bombing three locations with hijacked aircraft and could do it again. We subsequently gave unprecedented authority to the President to manage our security.
While it seems unlikely that one of the nuclear armed states would initiate an attack with nuclear weapons in the sort term future, the reality of ease a terrorist group has of constructing a single nuclear weapon with fissile materials collected from across the globe is as present as ever. Osama Bin Laden notably consulted with nuclear engineers at his last residence in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Terrorists have said they would use nuclear weapons if they could get the materials to make them and likely would. In the United States, we are free as long as we defend against this possibility.
What are Iowans doing to protect us? On Monday, Aug. 21, the governor’s office issued a press release saying Governor Kim Reynolds had joined four other governors at Eagle Pass, Texas to “ban together to secure border. The typo/misspelling aside, Reynolds had serious intent:
Texas is ground zero, front and center of the border crisis,” said Governor Reynolds… “On day 1 of the Biden Administration, they reversed policies that protect the sovereignty of this country and its citizens. Iowa is located at the intersection of two major interstates, and it is a pathway for Mexican cartels and humans traffickers in the Midwest.
Governors Reynolds, Abbott, Pillen, Stitt and Noem Ban Together To Secure Border, Office of the Iowa Governor, Aug. 21, 2023.
During this brief moment of grandstanding, the Republican governors seem to have forgotten the Biden administration has been working on the causes of illegal immigration, almost since day one. Vice President Harris has been charged with determining what can be done with the governments of Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, and others as people in those countries, including children and families, fled in record numbers. Migration from the region has spiked due to a web of factors, including poverty, corruption, racism, disease, natural disasters and gang violence, according to the Los Angeles Times. Governor Reynolds didn’t mention or acknowledge what the administration is doing because her trip was more about winning the 2024 election by scaring the electorate.
Let’s not forget that drug dealers won’t be stopped by improved security across the southern border. They have the resources, staffing, and technology to create innovative solutions to deliver their wares to the United States, including submersible ocean-going vessels, and aircraft that don’t touch land until they arrive in country. Republicans belied the complexity of dealing with threats from Mexico and Central America at their Eagle Pass photo opportunity. They distract us from other, more realistic threats to our security and liberty. They are going to have to do something other than point an accusing finger at the president to be credible.
Among our biggest threats to security are proliferation of assault-style weapons. There are droughts, derechos, tornadoes and heat waves made worse by climate change. The threat of terrorists securing enough fissile material to make a nuclear bomb, continues to be an issue. What about all these threats to our security? The governors did not mention them at Eagle Pass and more’s the pity. It is time to band together with fellow Democrats to ouster the governor when she is up for reelection in 2026.
In the meanwhile, to get involved with Iowa Democrats, click on this link.
IOWA CITY–Johnson County announced acceptance of applications for a new Community ID program on Wednesday. The county seeks to become more welcoming, and to resolve a practical public safety issue problem—undocumented residents prefer to stay in the shadows.
“Johnson County will be the first community in the Midwest, and the first outside a major metropolitan area, to offer community-issued identification,” according to a press release. “The Community ID program is designed to help people who may have difficulty getting a state-issued ID, such as seniors who no longer drive, the homeless, people in poverty or transition, and new immigrants. A Community ID can help these people interact with law enforcement, local government, pharmacies and banks.”
Rod Sullivan, Johnson County supervisor, explained the public safety aspect of the program in an April 9 email.
Why do we need a Community ID? I have a very personal story. After years of doing nothing, a few years ago, the board of supervisors finally began taking action against the criminals that own Regency Mobile Home Park. State law severely limits the ability of the board to intervene, but there were dozens of credible reports of fraud coming from Regency.
Johnson County detectives swooped in, gathered all the info they could, and began following up on leads. Then they ran into a stone wall. Most of the people they needed to speak with refused to talk to them. These folks saw law enforcement coming, and they went the other way–even when they were innocent victims!
I spoke at length with the lead detective on the case, and he said that this avoidance of law enforcement was common. When I asked why, he said it all came back to a lack of ID.
This illustrates the number one reason for instituting a Community ID – public safety. We need victims and witnesses to come forward in order to solve crimes and see to it that justice is served. The Community ID will help with this.
There have already been hundreds of applications for Community IDs. The program requires both documentary proof of identity and proof of residency. It is an open question whether the victims and witnesses Sullivan referred to will actually come forward to secure a Community ID, or change their behavior.
In an unrelated incident undocumented immigrants made news Wednesday when Rep. Steve King (R-Kiron) condemned the concept of “Sanctuary City” for the umpteenth time in the wake of the murder of Kate Steinle in San Francisco. The accused is a seven-time felon who has been deported to Mexico five times, according to the story.
“Sanctuary cities exist because of the left, because of the open border policy,” King told Newsmax. “Yes, there is blood on their hands and San Francisco is at fault. All of California is a sanctuary state today, and many states have these jurisdictions like this.”
Having a Community ID is not the same as being a Sanctuary City, but it may represent what is possible in governing the undocumented.
The U.S. Congressman from Iowa’s fourth district made some comments about immigration recently. Actually, he’s made a lot of them over the years. We can’t let him frame the discussion or worse, re-distribute his memes. For why, read Mark Karlin’s interview with George Lakoff, “Progressives Need to Use Language That Reflects Moral Values.”
The idea of building a fence around the U.S. border is as lame as a joke about corn at a 4-H meeting, funny though those jokes may be. Proponents of what Senator John McCain of Arizona called the “dang fence” across the southern U.S. border, don’t get the humor. In 2010, I wrote about immigration,
The author believes that as long as we maintain borders, we create a form of apartheid where the haves (in the U.S.) will use the have-nots (in Mexico, China, India and Africa) to do their menial work here or in their countries, largely without social justice. The borders serve to keep them out, when we should be letting them in. America will grow stronger with open borders, even if most Americans and some Arizonans don’t believe it.
Troll activity on Blog for Iowa was heavy after that post, mostly from organized groups who favored restricting immigration, illegal immigration particularly. The same folks who gave us Arizona’s SB 1070.
To deny the global reality of population growth is plain dumb. To think the U.S. can keep everything to ourselves reflects a lack of understanding about who we are as a people, and how we fit into the global village.
To deny the effects of our wars on the creation of conflict migration is to ignore the vast amount of U.S. blood and treasure invested in our endless wars.
To deny climate change is to lack an understanding that it will impact not only small island nations like Tuvalu and the Maldives, but will result in tens of millions of people needing someplace to go.
To deny the economic reasons why undocumented people from Mexico, Guatemala, and other places in central America come north is evidence of a misunderstanding of the role U.S. policy and the North American Free Trade Agreement played in creating economic reasons for the migration.
There is nothing new in these denials and a lot to learn.
What we learned in grade school that applies is from the Great Wall of China. Our teachers taught us that while the wall may have been successful in keeping nomadic groups and warlike people out of China, the unintended consequence was that Chinese culture calcified during the period. Whether what our teachers taught us is historically accurate, I can’t say, but it makes sense. The United States will be the less for building a fence to keep people out.
So as we hear outrageous comments about immigration in the media, and in conversations in society, I urge you to refrain from repeating their memes. Instead, work toward solutions. There is no single resolution to the need for immigration reform in this country. But it begins with each of us, individually and collectively.
While you’re at it, and while I’m being a bit preachy, read Derrick Jensen’s article in Orion Magazine, “Forget Shorter Showers: Why personal change does not equal political change,” and get involved in local politics.
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