Oh hey, look, politics. Anyway, Biden Administration issues new ICE guidelines, stating that priority should be placed on national threats.

So here’s NPR’s take on it:https://www.npr.org/2021/02/18/969083367/biden-tells-ice-to-chill-new-rules-limit-who-immigration-agents-target-for-arres

Which takes the tone that ICE is just going to do whatever it wants, gosh darnit, no matter what Joe Biden tells them.

Now here’s the ACLU’s take on it:https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-response-dhs-memo-enforcement-and-removals

And some recent history on what has been going on:https://apnews.com/article/biden-administration-deports-hundreds-482889ed56ed3cd02c9c61ebd1e3fbb7

The Democrats are damned good at having the power to do things and just gee golly gosh not being able to get them done because the bad guys just don’t want to work with them, and that’s just not unity, folks.
Doesn’t it seem like a vector that should be closed off? I mean, if you know bad faith actors are going to use a piece of legislation, or an arm of an institution to do truly horrible things, you’d want to put an end to it? Oh, and since the Democrats control all three branches that should be something managed quickly and decisively?

I believe what we’ll get are plenty of excuses, and little effort on the part of the Biden administration. You know why? Because many Democratic leaders are fine with the immigration system, they’re fine with a balance of power between Democrats and Republicans, or I should say a pseudo-balance of power.
I don’t believe in fair play when it comes to rights. If you tell me “we need Republicans to balance out Democrats,” I’m going to laugh at the naivety, because we don’t. We. do. not. need Republicans to balance out the Democrats. That’s like saying you need a little cancer to balance out the healthy cells.

Democrats need to stop running to the middle, they need to stop compromising, they need to stop playing nice because Republicans will not do so in return, they never will. What we’re witnessing each time we tune in to the latest disaster is a system of good cop/bad cop. The GOP are the bad cops, the Democrats are the good cops (see that conversely depending upon your ideology of liberal/conservative), and we always lose. We always lose.

Well, right now, more immigrants are losing. More children are losing. More cold Texans are losing. More black folks are losing. More poor people are losing. More homeless people are losing. More students are losing. We’re all going to keep losing as long as this continues. All of us except the rich. The rich will keep winning, because the rich have a nice government that keeps them rich, and makes sure you and I don’t get our needs met without severe concessions.

This is not a game. When Joe Biden won, some people got to sleep better, but it wasn’t people sitting in cages, or living under bridges. I am telling you, this cannot continue, this system of disregard for humanity. It cannot continue, something is going to give very soon, and we’ll either become better for it, or much much worse, and considering the track record in this country, the latter is FAR more likely than the former.

We cannot let these people do the bare minimum and call it a day. Hold their feet to the fire. MAKE them do their jobs. Call them, write them, scream into the phone, protest outside their homes, engage in civil acts of disobedience that disrupt the economic flow upward to their owners.

If you think that, at this point, these people give a fuck about you, or about the most vulnerable, then I don’t know what else to tell you, because they. do not. care. about you.

Those smiles on TV? Those nice shoes? The white teeth? The grandfatherly platitudes? Lots of nice, cheap words. It costs them nothing to tell you what you want to hear, and that’s what they’re going to give you at the end of the day: nice, cheap words.

They’re going to let you die of starvation, of exposure, of disease, if you’re a citizen, and if you’re not? They’ll deport you, or if you live in another country they’ll just embargo you, or bomb you and take the oil right out from under your corpse.

How much longer can people suffer and be expected to remain silent?

Be angry, goddammit, you have the right. If not for yourself, then at least for the people who are being stepped on and told to wait, wait, wait while no one comes to save them.