SUMMARY:On Tuesday, President Trump signed a memo aiming to bar undocumented immigrants from being included in the census count that determines how many members of Congress are allocated to each state. The census is conducted once in a decade, but it shapes funding, policy and power for years. Lisa Desjardins reports and talks to Hansi Lo Wang of NPR about what this and the pandemic mean for the census.
Editor's note:The guest in this segment misstated that an enslaved person in the U.S. was counted as three-fourths of a person under the Constitution. Enslaved Black Americans were counted as three-fifths of a person.
SUMMARY: Under President Trump, American immigration policy has been in the spotlight. While Trump may talk the most about stopping illegal entry into the U.S., he is also taking action to reduce the volume of legal migrants the country accepts as refugees. But what makes one immigrant a refugee and another simply a migrant? Writer Dina Nayeri offers her Humble Opinion questioning that distinction.
SUMMARY: In times of division, people often turn to faith leaders for guidance and support. Jeffrey Brown spoke to two such leaders, Rev. Mariann Budde, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, and Richard Land president of the Southern Evangelical Seminary, about navigating the current landscape of polarized national politics, what they think of President Trump's rhetoric and how to promote unity.
SUMMARY:New York Times columnist David Brooks and Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart join Amna Nawaz to discuss the week’s political news, including whether there will be real momentum in Congress to enact stronger gun legislation, how President Trump conducted himself visiting shooting victims in El Paso and Dayton and what white supremacy means for our American national identity.
Amna Nawaz (NewsHour): We're now nearly a week on from the two tragedies in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. But the grave questions that have been raised in the aftermath remain, and likely will remain for some time.
How, if at all, will American politics and American society respond?
That brings us to Brooks and Capehart. That's New York Times columnist David Brooks and Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart. Mark Shields is away this week.
Welcome to you both. Thanks for being here.
Let's jump into the big topic for this week. Obviously, gun violence was a big topic of conversation.
I want to go right to a poll. We heard President Trump mention earlier today that Leader McConnell is totally on board with background checks. That would bring him in line with the rest of the country. This is broken down by party support for universal background checks.
The floor there, David Brooks, is 84 percent for Republicans.
Do you see this as the moment that this legislation passes?
David Brooks, New York Times: Well, of course, logically, you want to say yes, but we have been here so many times since Newtown and all — Parkland and all the shootings, that we haven't quite got there.
And so how can something with that kind of support even among Republicans not pass?
First, the NRA has a zero compromise policy, that we won't accept any compromise at all. We're just holding the line.
And so far, for 20 or 30 years, that has sort of been working for them. Second, it's low salient issue. People care about guns on the week after something like this happens. And then you ask them, rank the issues you care about, guns start dropping down.
And then the third, it's turned into a culture war, where, for a lot of people, it's not about guns at all. It's about my culture vs. your culture. And if you want to control my guns, which are part of my gun clubs, part of my community, you're just a bunch of coastal elites coming after me.
And so I hope this is a week when that changes, but we have a right to be a little skeptical.
And the one opportunity — and this is a perverse way to put it — is that we might not have — we might have the same gun debate over and over again, but what's become new this week is, it's a terrorism issue as well, in that the people, especially in El Paso, but in a lot of these other shootings, they are killing on behalf of an ideology that is a little like the ISIS ideology in some ways.
And we could — if we had a discussion, what do we do to combat domestic terrorism, that, we might be able to have a different kind of conversation and pass some of the things we couldn't pass any other way.
Amna Nawaz: The threat might be different there, you think.
David Brooks: You might rearrange the political alliances, because the gun issue, people are pretty baked in.
Amna Nawaz: Jonathan, what do you think?
I mean, we do have this conversation again and again. It's usually right after one of these mass public events. You remember, back in 2012, after kindergartners were murdered…
Jonathan Capehart, Washington Post: Yes.
Amna Nawaz: … we thought, OK, this is the moment. And then it wasn't.
Jonathan Capehart: Right.
If the slaughter of 20 children in their elementary school wasn't enough to move the Senate, to move the U.S. Congress to pass even just background checks — it failed by six votes — then nothing will move them.
To David's point about, a week we will be talking about, we will move on, but I think the momentum in this case will dissipate greatly because the President just left for vacation. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is already on vacation. He's already said the Senate's not coming back.
And so by the time they come back in September, God forbid we're not talking about another mass shooting, but it might not be until another mass shooting that you get the kind of energy and momentum that's needed to push such a heavy rock up the hill.
Amna Nawaz: Do you think if they face — members of Congress are in their home districts. If they're getting questions about it, that could help add to some momentum?
Jonathan Capehart: I mean, look, again, going back to Newtown, the national outrage over what happened wasn't enough to blunt the power of the NRA.
So I don't know how much a town hall is going to — or successive town halls will be to change the momentum.
David Brooks:The cultural issue cannot be underestimated.
I have always loved Mayor Bloomberg, but it wasn't good for the gun issue that the guy spending all the money around the country and becoming a spokesperson for the movement was the mayor of New York City.
This has to be led by a group of red state people who are rock-ribbed Republicans who say, I'm very Republican, I love to shoot, guns are part of my culture, but we got to change.
And until you can get red state leaders doing that, it's going to be a tougher issue.
Amna Nawaz: Let me ask you about something else.
The President did, obviously, make a visit to those affected communities. And his team put out what's basically a highly produced edited video of his visit on the ground in El Paso. You're watching a clip of it right there.
There was a contrast there between some of the reports we heard on the ground from journalists and then another video. It was cell phone video that emerged after the visit. It showed the President on the ground in El Paso talking about his crowd size at a rally back in February and comparing it to Beto O'Rourke's.
Take a quick listen to what he said.
Donald Trump: That was some crowd.
Woman: Thank you.
Donald Trump: And we had twice the number outside. And then you had this crazy Beto. Beto had like 400 people in a parking lot. They said his crowd was wonderful.
Amna Nawaz: Jonathan, there is kind of a tale of two narratives there. In the moment, you don't really know which one to pay attention to.
Jonathan Capehart: Well, the narrative here is consistent.
President Trump is at the center of that narrative, whether it's that highly produced campaign-style-like video of his visits to El Paso Dayton, or it's that cell phone video where he's talking about one of the things that is part of his greatest hits, crowd size.
He has talked about crowd size since the day of his inauguration. And, for him, that is a marker of popularity.
But, in that moment, what I would expect the people of El Paso and Dayton, the people in Ohio, the American people who are grieving — and also Texas — people who are grieving, what they want to see from a President is comfort. They want to see someone consoling them.
I was in New York on 9/11. And President George W. Bush was President of the United States, and I had lots of disagreements with the policies of President George W. Bush. But when he stood on that rubble at ground zero and talked to those workers, and talked to the city, and talked to the nation, that's exactly what we needed to hear then.
When President Obama went to Charleston and impromptu sang "Amazing Grace" at the eulogy for Clementa Pinckney, a state senator who was murdered with eight other people in Mother Emanuel Church, in that moment, he channeled the grief of a church, of a city, of a community, and of a nation.
We didn't get that with President Trump.
Amna Nawaz: David, how do you look at this, really? He's such a divisive figure anyway. There is the standard of the consoler in chief. He hasn't done it yet. It's not who he is. Right?
David Brooks: Yes.
Well, there's a photo, a still from that visit where he's with the orphan baby and two family members, with his wife. And Melania is holding the child. And he's got this grin and the thumb up.
And when I looked at that photo, I thought, the Democrats are having a debate: Is he a racist? Is he a white supremacist?
And I look at that photo, I think, well, he's a sociopath. He's incapable of experiencing or showing empathy.
And, politically, it's helpful for him to target that lack of empathy and fellow feeling toward people of color. But how much have we seen him show empathy for anybody?
And so I look at that as someone who is unloved and made himself unlovable and whose subject is himself, is his own competitive greatness. And so he doesn't do the consoler in chief just because he doesn't do that emotional range.
And that's a burden and a cost for any of us.
Amna Nawaz: You mentioned the white supremacy line there. We have obviously been talking about that a lot in 2019 now.
And Lisa Desjardins was reporting earlier too on the ground in Iowa there. Candidates are being asked about that: Do you think this President is a white supremacist?
Is that sort of a litmus test now for candidates moving forward?
David Brooks: It's an easy emotional inflation, it seems to me.
I thought Biden's answer and Kamala Harris' was pretty good, which is, I don't know, but he's certainly enabling them. And he's certainly speaking the language. He uses the language of invasion when talking about immigration.
Now, I read a lot of the manifestos this week and those who have actually killed in Christchurch, New Zealand, and El Paso. They start with invasion. They go many more steps. They believe that racial mixing really is a cancer. And they have this deep separatism.
I don't know if Trump has that. But he has certainly set an atmosphere where it's easier to talk about human beings as an invasion.
Amna Nawaz: What do you make of all this right now, Jonathan? It's a big topic. This is nothing new in America. And yet it's new in terms of how prevalent it is.
Jonathan Capehart:Right, because — and it pains me to say this, but we're talking about it because the President of the United States is a racist with a white supremacist policy agenda.
He began his political career questioning the legitimacy of the first African-American President. He started his campaign within the first two minutes saying that Mexicans were — quote — "rapists."
He called for a complete and total ban on Muslims entering the United States after the San Bernardino attack during the campaign in December 2016. He's used words on the campaign trail from the midterm elections and continued, invasion, caravans, infestation, animals, to what David was talking about.
In policy and in rhetoric, he is feeding into this environment, this atmosphere, where people such as the shooter in El Paso who has — we have seen the affidavit. He's confessed in doing what he's done, and confessed to targeting — quote — "Mexicans."
That — these things don't happen in a vacuum. Did the President order this person to do this? No. But that person heard in that rhetoric — and we have seen it from New Zealand, around the world, but particularly here, where we are dealing with a domestic terrorism problem, where the primary people committing these terrorist acts are white supremacists.
We're dealing with a situation here where the President of the United States is feeding into it with the rhetoric that's coming out of his mouth, whether it's from a podium at the White House or from a podium at a campaign rally somewhere in the country.
David Brooks: Yes.
I hear you talking, and I think I basically agree with it. Then I — my next question is, well, how do we then do democracy for the next 16 months? Like, there is a presumption that we're all Americans together. There's a presumption of goodwill, that we can have a conversation.
And maybe Donald Trump — but how do we address ourselves to Donald Trump supporters, many of whom are very realistic and are supporters of him for good reasons having to do with their own lives and the dissolution of their own communities.
It's going to be hard to have a conversation once the President has been declared sort of really beneath contempt. And I'm not saying I disagree with you. I'm just saying this is a problem we have to deal with as we try to have a national conversation over this election.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s political news, including President Trump’s personal attacks on Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland and other lawmakers of color, the significance of a wave of Republican congressional retirements and how the 2020 Democrats fared in the two-night debate in Detroit.
Judy Woodruff (NewsHour): That brings us to the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That's syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
Hello to both of you.
So let's pick up on Yamiche's reporting, David.
All this comes after President Trump has been going after Congressman Elijah Cummings, going after Baltimore, calling it rat-infested, this just a few days after he went after four congresswomen of color, the Squad.
Some people are saying the President's being racist. He says, "I'm the least racist person in the world."
How do you see it, and what are the consequences?
David Brooks, New York Times: I think I disagree with the President on that one.
You just look at who he's attacking. It's one African-American or one person of a color after another. It's not dog whistle anymore. It's just straight-up human whistle.
And so it is just pulling at this racial thing over and over and over again. And I don't know how it how much it affects people. I really don't know. I know people don't like political correctness. And when he does that, I think people really get a charge out of that.
But going to clearly racist tropes goes well beyond it. We're walking into Father Coughlin territory. We're walking into George Wallace territory. We're walking into very ugly territory.
And if this is what this election is going to become about, then it becomes, I would think, hard for people of conscience, whether they like Trump's economic policy or not, to wind up with him in however many months Election Day is.
Judy Woodruff: Ugly territory, Mark?
Mark Shields, syndicated columnist: Ugly territory, Judy.
It reached the point where, when it was reported that Congressman Cummings' house had been broken into, the President tweeted, "Too Bad," Elijah Cummings, the crime in Baltimore.
This was too much for Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, former U.N. ambassador, who said, this is — she took the President to task.
Judy Woodruff: Republican.
Mark Shields: Republican, as did Congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.
No, the President — you think of the founder of that great party, the Republican Party, words of Lincoln, with malice toward none, with charity for all, let's bind up the nation's wound, the task we're about.
This is just the opposite. This is salting the wounds. This is sowing division, and all for a very narrow political purpose. I do think that it reaches a point of diminishing returns, because, at some point, you're just not proud to say you're for Donald Trump.
You can say, oh, he's my guy, or he fights my fights, or he's on my side, but Americans want their President to be a comforter in chief and a consoler in chief, as Ronald Reagan was at the Challenger crisis, or in tragedy, or Barack Obama was after the Charleston church shooting.
That's what a President — to unite, to comfort and to bring out — he's the only voice that can speak to us, all of us, and for all of us, and he obviously doesn't want to speak to all of us or for all of us.
Judy Woodruff: But, David, you still have, as you heard in Yamiche's reporting from Ohio, people saying that they don't think it's racist, that they like the fact, as you suggested, that he speaks out.
David Brooks: Yes, well, they do like that fact.
The one thing I have noticed — I was at two conservative conferences over the past month. And they were pretty Trumpy, I guess. And they were 95 and 99 and maybe 100 percent white. And so, if you're conservative worlds, you're just not around minorities anymore. You're not around people of color.
And then you say, well, shouldn't you get some people of color on stage just to hear viewpoints? And they say, well, we don't want — like, I don't see color.
And if you're living in this country, with the culture of this country and the history of this country, you have got to see color. And you have got to affirmatively try to get different people in the same room. And it's just become a habit on the right to not care about that.
And this wasn't always the case. And this is how Trump is influencing the party, and, frankly, how the party is influencing Trump. In the world — in the age of the Bushes, in the age of Jack Kemp, there was really aggressive efforts to try to diversify the party, with some success.
And now that's not even tried. And it's not only Trump. It's up and down the whole apparatus.
Judy Woodruff: And last night, Mark, as we have reported, Will Hurd, the only black Republican in the House of Representatives, announced he's not running again from Texas.
Mark Shields: He did, Judy.
I think it's the seventh this week — sixth this week, ninth overall.
Judy Woodruff: Total of nine, yes.
Mark Shields: And I think there's a couple of factors at work.
I mean, what David mentions is one of them. The Republicans are becoming increasingly a white party. And Will Hurd, who is a former CIA professional and a high-qualified person, but prior to his retirement, or announce that he wasn't going to seek reelection; Susan Brooks of Indiana, who's been tasked for seeking women candidates for the Republican Party, and Martha Roby of Alabama announced their retirement.
And I think what's significant about it is this. Ronald Reagan's last term, half the members of Congress who were women were Republicans, 12 out of 25. Now there are 102 women in the House of Representatives; 89 of them are Democrats, 13 are Republicans.
Two of those 13 have just announced they're retiring.
Judy Woodruff: Are not running.
Mark Shields: I mean, so you see it's a white male party. And that has — that's a finite demographic.
Judy Woodruff: So, you're — I mean, you're both talking — what are the consequences of this, David?
David Brooks: Of course, I think electoral ruin, though people have been saying that for a long time.
And there was a book called "The Emerging Democratic Majority" that was probably 15 to 20 years ago from John Judis and Ruy Teixeira, who took a look at the demographics that were Republican, and they were all fading. And they predicted Democratic reign by now. And that hasn't happened.
And that's because a lot of Latinos, as they assimilate, they become white. And so — and so they are voting Republicans. And whites have swung overwhelmingly to the Republican side.
It's a short-term boon, like the country is 76 percent white, but it's a long-term catastrophe. And that's just talking politics. It's a short-term moral catastrophe for the party.
Judy Woodruff: But in the short run, Mark, this could be good politics for Donald Trump?
Mark Shields: It's hard for me, Judy. They're maximizing a minimum, I mean, is what they're doing.
There's not an inexpensive ceiling on the Trump coalition. It means getting every possible Trump voter out. There's no persuasion. It's all an organization effort. There's not — they're not reaching across the aisle and saying, we want to get you, come join us, we agree on 80 percent.
SUMMARY: President Trump’s language about immigration and lawmakers of color has sparked a national conversation about racism and xenophobia. But every year, hundreds of thousands make their way to the U.S. and begin the rigorous process of becoming citizens. We talk to newly minted Americans at a Virginia naturalization ceremony about what the milestone means during this politically charged time.
SUMMARY: President Trump is verbally assaulting the city of Baltimore. On Monday, civil rights activist Al Sharpton and Maryland Republicans Gov. Larry Hogan and former Lt. Gov. Michael Steele all slammed Trump’s attacks on Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md) and Baltimore, which he [Trump] called a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.” Lisa Desjardins reports on how Trump’s words are again stoking racial tensions.
SUMMARY: President Trump’s recent verbal attacks on Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md) were sparked by the congressman’s criticism of migrant facilities on the U.S.-Mexico border. The White House disputed Cummings’ characterizations. So what do we actually know about what’s going on in these detention centers? Judy Woodruff talks to the National Immigration Forum’s Ali Noorani about a “lack of transparency.”
SUMMARY: President Trump prompted more controversy this week by insulting a lawmaker of color, Rep. Elijah Cummings, and his Maryland district. Trump called Baltimore “filthy” and “infested,” terms he has used before to refer to urban areas with majority black populations. Ahead of Trump's rally in southwestern Ohio, Yamiche Alcindor asked voters there what they think of the President’s rhetoric on race.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s political news, including President Trump’s attack on four congresswomen of color, the Republican response to Trump’s controversial rhetoric, whether race politics is smart election strategy and the battle over health care policy among 2020 Democrats.
Judy Woodruff (NewsHour): And that brings us to the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That's syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
Hello to both of you.
Mark Shields, syndicated columnist: Thank you, Judy.
Judy Woodruff: So let's go back to these attacks by the President. They have now lasted a full week on these Democratic congresswomen, all of them, congresswomen, all members — all women of color.
He has called them a variety of names and he's told them, David, to go back to their countries, their home countries. Of course, they're all U.S. citizens. Three of them were born in the United States.
What does all this tell us about President Trump, about these women member of Congress, about our country? And what does it say about racism?
David Brooks, New York Times:Well, it's racist. Let's get that off the top. It's a pretty clear example of it.
To me, it shows that what Trump wants to do is make this election about what America is. And he has a certain vision of what America is.
And his vision, America is xenophobic. The good people of the heartland are being threatened by outsiders and by Muslims and by people who don't look like them. It's a vision that is nostalgic, looking backward to the past. And it's a vision of a white America, that white Protestants created this country, and the rest of us are here by their sufferance.
And this is the national story he wants to tell. And I think it's up to the rest of us to tell a better story about America, that we're a universalistic country, we're a country defined by our future, what we're building, and not by our past, and that we're a country that's traditionally had a mission to cross frontiers.
And one of the missions we have right now is to create a mass multicultural democracy, where people of all races can be united in one democratic process. And that is a hard thing to do.
But Donald Trump is pointing us in the exact opposite direction.
Judy Woodruff: How do you see all this?
Mark Shields: I see it probably less cosmically than David…… although I agree totally with his historical and philosophical perspective. I don't think Donald Trump has a vision.
I think he has a vision of the campaign. What Donald Trump wants to do — Richard Nixon, who, along with Franklin Roosevelt, only two Americans ever to run five times for national office, and win four times, said of vice Presidents, when you pick a vice Presidential running mate, it never helps you, it always hurt you, because you're either explaining or defending or apologizing for what that vice Presidential nominee said that morning in Portland or Peoria.
Case for the prosecution, Sarah Palin and John McCain. And what Donald Trump is trying to do, in a very cynical and callous fashion — and David's absolutely right about the racist implications of it — is to marry these four freshman members, to make them the running mate, whoever the Democratic nominee is.
And the Democratic nominee then would have to — these — the four of them — let's be very blunt about it — like Donald Trump, are heliotropic plants. Heliotropic plants, sunflowers, seek the sun. They turn to get the sun's rays.
These four women have shown a remarkable facility and gift for seeking cameras and seeking microphones, and winning that attention, just as Donald Trump did.
And so that's what he wants to do. They have said — got there by saying terribly controversial things, by criticizing their own party leadership. And that's what Donald Trump wants to do to whoever the Democratic nominee is.
He knows, if the election of 2020 is a referendum on who he is and his failings, Americans do not like him. They do not trust them. They do not respect him. They do not think that he is an object of inspiration in any way to them or their children. Then he loses. But he has to make it about something other than himself.
Judy Woodruff: But — so, David, does this help the President? I'm asking in part because we watched the cross-section of Republican reaction. Some Republicans were critical.
A few, a number of them embraced him, but a lot of them were quiet.
David Brooks: Yes, there are two theories of how Trump could win this election.
One is — and they're both based on, I, Donald Trump, have to win over people who don't like me, because the majority doesn't like Donald Trump.
[1] The one theory is, he drives the Democratic Party so far left that people think they have no choice but to vote for Donald Trump.
Mark Shields: The '72.
David Brooks: Right.
And by embracing the Squad — and by attacking the Squad, he forces the entire Democratic Party to embrace the Squad, and the Squad becomes the voice of the Democratic Party, at least for a week.
And that's one theory.
[2] The second theory is, I don't like Donald Trump, but I like this economy. And that theory is, you lay low and just let the economy do your speaking for you.
Laying low is not really Donald Trump's style. So he's going with this.
Do I think it will end up working? No, because, fundamentally, the vast majority of America like living in a diverse country. The vast majority of America abhor racism. And so it may work with a small base, but I think, on balance, the evidence is very clear the vast majority of the country finds it repellent.
Judy Woodruff: Well, we had a crowd behind him this week in North Carolina, Mark.
Mark Shields: He did. They were — he was with the crowd, and then he was against the crowd. Now he's back with the crowd, we have learned most recently.
Judy, the vote for President is the most personal vote that any of us Americans cast. We're far more apt to cast a vote based on issues, whether it's the economy, or immigration, or the environment, for the United States senator for Congress.
But in a Presidential race, we have an information overload. We have a feel for who these people are as individuals and whether we would like them, whether we trust them.
Donald Trump is presiding over the greatest economy, in employment terms, in the history of any American under the age of 68. You could say, 50 years ago, it was, you know, almost as good. We were at war then. This is a peacetime economy. It's a remarkable thing.
And yet, Judy, we sit here tonight, and 13 percent of Americans say they're often inspired by what he says. And half of Americans say they're never inspired. Americans do not trust him. I mean, one-third think he's honest and trustworthy.
So, Donald Trump has to make this election not about him. If it's about him, if it's a referendum on him and his qualities, because Americans have already decided. They don't. He's never been a single day of his presidency had a majority of Americans say they approve of him, with this greatest economy ever.
So, I mean, he wants to make it — he doesn't want to make it about him. He was smart, he would just withdraw and go to ground zero and say, look at the economy. I have done it. I'm working on it. That's all I'm doing, and keep — he can't. He cannot.
David Brooks: Yes.
It's worth pointing out that my newspaper had an analysis today by heliotropic on how the Electoral College could differ from the actual popular vote. And the analysis was, Trump could lose the popular vote by 5 percentage points, which is way more than I think the 2.8 he lost last time…
Mark Shields: Ya. Ya.
Judy Woodruff: Ya.
David Brooks:… and still carry the Electoral College.
So this really is about Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.
This IS about people not understanding that racism can, and often is, inconscient. People who have racist tenancies often are not aware of them. It is others, looking from the 'outside,' that see the racism.
SUMMARY: President Trump is defending racist tweets targeting four House freshmen, all women of color. Three of the four lawmakers had recently testified about their visits to crowded border detention facilities, lamenting what they saw there. But despite condemnation from congressional Democrats, some Republicans and even the British Prime Minister, Trump isn’t expressing remorse. Yamiche Alcindor reports.
REMINDER: Three of the 4 women are born Americans, one is a Naturalized Citizen.
Excerpt
SUMMARY:A political firestorm has erupted over tweets from President Trump telling four American women of color in the House to “go back” to where they came from. Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz) joins Judy Woodruff to discuss what Trump is trying to achieve with his inflammatory rhetoric, why Republicans who don’t condemn his tweets “should be ashamed" and how the President has “broken the border.”
SUMMARY:Washington is reeling as a result of racist tweets President Trump made Sunday, in which he blasted four women of color in the House and said they should return to where they came from, although all four are American citizens. Rep. James Comer (R-Ky) joins Judy Woodruff to explain why a “frustrated” Trump’s comments are “overblown” and how he knows his constituents aren’t offended by them.
SUMMARY: Lawmakers continue to react to racist tweets President Trump posted Sunday about four women of color in the House. So far, most Republicans have defended the President or tried to reframe the conversation as about ideology rather than race, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi moved to officially condemn Trump’s remarks. Lisa Desjardins reports and joins Judy Woodruff to discuss an ongoing divide.
SUMMARY: President Trump’s attacks on women of color in the House have launched fierce debate about whether his meaning was racist. There is no doubt, though, that his words echo threats and insults that have been lobbed against perceived outsiders in America for generations. To explore the painful history, William Brangham talks to the University of Minnesota’s Erika Lee, and UC-Berkeley’s Ian Haney Lopez the author of "Merge Left."
My answer, power. Trump's win gave the Republicans more power to remake America in their despicable image.
Excerpt
SUMMARY: It's been a tumultuous week in Washington, amid fallout from President Trump’s racist attacks on four members of Congress, all women of color. On Thursday, Trump held a rally in North Carolina, where his words -- and the crowd’s -- took the controversy to a new level. Former Arizona Senator and CBS Contributor Jeff Flake [R-Ariz] joins Judy Woodruff to discuss what he calls Trump’s "awful" rhetoric and the Republican response.
I am tired of this use of immigrants as being criminals by our obviously racist President. What he has done by slamming the door closed to people that we once welcomed is nothing more that an old dictator's tactic of finding someone to falsely blame for problems to whip-up supporters. The U.S. should be a welcoming nation, especially since today's America is made up of families that were once immigrants.
"Asylum seekers forced to wait across border" by Molly O'Toole & Kate Linthicum, San Diego Union-Tribune 1/25/2019
NOTE:Article form e-newspaper therefore no link.
DHS policy begins today to block migrants from entering United States
The Trump administration said Thursday night that it would start requiring asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while their cases are considered in the United States, a dramatic escalation in its immigration crackdown.
Border officers will start returning asylum applicants back across the border as soon as the implementation becomes operational today, beginning at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, according to Department of Homeland Security officials.
Until now, most migrants seeking asylum were released from detention into the United States while awaiting a court hearing, a process that can take years due to backlogs.
Migrant advocates say implementing the plan will put asylum seekers at risk by requiring them to wait in Mexican border cities with some of the deadliest homicide rates in the world.
On Dec. 20, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen announced the policy shift to force asylum seekers to wait in Mexico, hailing the measure as “historic.” Operations on the border did not change over the past month, however.
On Wednesday, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials briefed asylum workers on how to interview individuals affected under the new policy, saying it would be rolled out imminently, according to a federal employee who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the internal planning.
Arturo Rocha, a spokesman for Mexico’s foreign ministry, said Thursday that U.S. officials had not informed the Mexican government that they were beginning to implement the policy.
“We have not been officially notified by the U.S. government of their intention to implement today,” Rocha told the Los Angeles Times.
Mexican officials said in December, when Nielsen announced the plan, that they would cooperate on a temporary basis, allowing non-Mexican migrants to remain in Mexico for humanitarian reasons.
It wasn’t clear Thursday how Mexico would respond to U.S. officials pushing asylum seekers back, however.
The crackdown comes as President Donald Trump continues to clash with Congress over his demands for $5.7 billion for a border wall, a dispute that led to a partial government shutdown on Dec. 22.
On Saturday, Trump said he would consider a deal to end the impasse that would include temporary deportation relief for some immigrants already in the United States. Democrats have said they will negotiate after Trump agrees to reopen the government.
The new asylum policy could directly affect thousands of migrants from Central America who are stuck on the Mexican side of the border, or are now approaching it in hopes of seeking asylum.
In Tapachula, on Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala, more than 10,000 migrants have applied for humanitarian visas to head north, and the group continues to grow.
“I actually think they encourage the caravans because they want to get rid of the people from their country,” Trump said of Central American countries Wednesday at a White House meeting with conservatives to discuss his immigration proposal.
“We have a lot of very dangerous people that want to come into our country,” he added. “And we’re not letting them in.”
Since December, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services personnel have been stationed at the San Ysidro crossing and other Border Patrol stations in California, and a recent recruitment effort added to their ranks.
They will be charged with carrying out the new policy and conducting interviews to determine whether asylum seekers will be returned to Mexico.
A Homeland Security official said Customs and Border Protection personnel will take applicants who they determine must wait in Mexico to a gate at San Ysidro typically used for deportations.
In her Dec. 20 announcement, Nielsen said the Trump administration had decided on its own to change longstanding immigration policy that enabled most asylum seekers to be released in the U.S. while awaiting a hearing.
Immigrant rights groups opposed the move, saying it violates U.S. and international asylum laws and could potentially face court challenges. “The President thinks he can do this unilaterally,” said Kevin Appleby, a senior director at the Center for Migration Studies. “But it’s a blatant rejection of current law.”
U.S. officials have provided few details about the new plan or how it will be implemented.
On Wednesday, a reminder went out to Citizenship and Immigration Services employees not to leak documents or information, saying it would “risk harm to our operations, create confusion, threaten the safety of the American public and law enforcement, and may even provide an opening to individuals to exploit those seeking to access our immigration system and programs,” according to a BuzzFeed News report.
Before the asylum applicants are released from U.S. custody and returned to Mexico, they will get a date for their hearing on a “notice to appear.”
There will be a hotline they can call for updates on the status of their cases, and the policy of returning applicants to Mexico will not be applied to unaccompanied minors or other vulnerable groups, such as pregnant women or migrants who are ill, Homeland Security officials said.
Asylum processing at the San Ysidro port of entry, between San Diego and Tijuana, appeared normal early Thursday.
U.S. officials accepted 39 asylum seekers, fewer than on a typical day. Families from Mexico, a family from Russia and a man from Eritrea were among those taken in vans by Mexican officials to make their claims for asylum in the U.S.
Violence is on the rise in all of the Mexican border states and a record number of people were victims of homicide last year in Tijuana — more than any city in Mexico.
With 133 killings for every 100,000 people, the sprawling border metropolis now ranks as more violent than the capitals of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, the countries that most migrants who arrive at the southern border are fleeing.
The new approach represents a significant departure from long-standing asylum-screening procedures and comes as the administration struggles to handle a record surge of Central American families coming to the southern border. In fiscal 2018, 107,000 migrant family members were taken into custody by U.S. border security officials, surpassing a record set in 2016.
Trump administration officials have acknowledged that the President’s proposed border wall would have little effect stemming the flow of migrant families seeking asylum as they often surrender to authorities, in accordance with the law, once they arrive on U.S. soil.
The new initiative is one of several measures the administration has sought to implement at the border, including the deployment of several thousand military personnel and the separation of thousands of migrant children from their families — a policy Trump eventually reversed after widespread condemnation.
O’Toole and Linthicum write for the Los Angeles Times. U-T staff writer Kate Morrissey contributed from Tijuana. The Washington Post contributed to this report.
I am Retired U.S. Navy (22yrs) and a Vietnam Veteran. After my Navy retirement I was in the computer related industry, now retired. In 2000 I was a registered Republican and voted for George W. Bush. Six months of having Bush in the Whitehouse forced me to re-evaluate my political stance. I had always thought of myself as a Moderate Republican, but was a Republican by "default" NOT because of close examination of the GOP. Due to what has happened in America since 2000, I now consider myself a progressive, and registered as a Non-Affiliated voter.
*Anti-First Amendment policies that attempt to turn America into a theocracy by enshrining ANY religious belief as law.
* Any attempt to suppress human or Constitutional rights.
* Any law or policy that supports discrimination based on religion, ethnicity, race/color, gender, sexual orientation, or any law that does NOT support Equal Treatment under the law.
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