Share this page!

M.S. Bellows, Jr. Profile picture
Twitter logo
Nov 25, 2018 • 24 tweets • 7 min read
Re-upping my thread explaining the international treaty and US statute allowing refugees to seek asylum regardless of whether they cross the border unlawfully:
Let's understand the big picture of what's happening at the US-Mexico border today:

• Trump illegally has been turning asylum-seekers away, making orderly application nearly impossible: washingtonpost.com/world/national…
• Then he closed border crossing lanes: fox5sandiego.com/2018/11/13/lan…
1/
• Then he set the table by authorizing the military to use force at the border and threatening to use violence if asylum-seekers became 'uncontrollable':
kfor.com/2018/11/23/tru… and timesofsandiego.com/politics/2018/…

2/
• Then he closed the border crossing altogether, forcing them to cross elsewhere to seek asylum (AS IS THEIR RIGHT UNDER INTERNATIONAL + US LAW; see linked post at top of thread): thehill.com/latino/418157-…

3/
• Then when they did so, he fired tear gas across an international border:
BOTTOM LINE: this isn't criminals invading the US. It's Trump taking careful steps to make asylum-seekers LOOK like criminals to justify US violation of US + international law.
4/4
P.S.: This troll's tweet actually raises an important point. The US legally can restrict asylum applications in time of war or similar emergency. That's WHY Trump has carefully orchestrated things to make lawful asylum applications LOOK like a riot...
... but the "war etc." exception is LIMITED. And a manufactured emergency is no emergency at all:
PPS: Also, while the asylum-seekers camped peacefully in TJ hoping to apply regularly for asylum, they were confronted by neo-Nazis who wore MAGA hats + were signal-boosted by Russia Today + Fox News: hillreporter.com/leaders-anti-c…
Deliberate, systematic pressure to force an "invasion."
PS3: To anyone thinking Trump shutting down the checkpoint, deploying troops, + teargassing toddlers was necessary because this "caravan" is so large it would have overwhelmed the normal immigration processing system: sorry, but that's just mathematically wrong. ...
... There currently are about 3,000 "caravan" immigrants in Tijuana. The total "caravan" (most not yet arrived) has about 8,000. That sounds like a lot, but it's just under TWO PERCENT of the number of people detained or turned away at the southern border in 2017.
Remember, these folks came to the checkpoint in Tijuana because they DIDN'T want to unlawfully cross the border. They wanted to apply, through the normal process, for asylum, fleeing the mind-blowing violence they encountered in Central America. ...
Our normal system, correctly administered, could have handled that no problem. Events today occurred because the normal processing was first throttled down, then shut down, on purpose, to deny them the right to even APPLY. We should be better than that.
PS4: Good explainer of how Tijuana's mayor has inflamed tensions between residents + immigrants, increasing pressure on them to cross the border that Trump shut down (leading to the incidents yesterday): (cont'd)
Tijuana's mayor, Juan Manuel Gastélum, is a member of the conservative Partido Acción Nacional, or PAN. PAN opposes abortion, emergency contraception, most immigration to Mexico -- and strongly supports free trade. That last bit is critical, bec. TJ's LIFEBLOOD is U.S. trade. ...
Trump has made it clear that successful renegotiation of NAFTA 2.0 will be linked to Mexican cooperation with the U.S. to stop Central Americans from reaching the U.S. border to even APPLY for asylum -- and that if they don't cooperate, the entire border will be closed: ...
And when Trump threatens to "close the border," he doesn't just mean to immigrants; he means to US-Mexico TRADE, including cars assembled in Mexico for U.S. automakers: ...
Trump underscored this threat by closing multiple lanes at the border in advance of the caravan, then closing the border crossing altogether for several hours yesterday even though doing so wasn't needed for security. He's sending a message to Mexico: fall in line, or else. ...
So Tijuana's conservative, pro-free-trade mayor, concerned that both his city's and his nation's economic stability will be seriously undermined, is stoking resentment by Tijuana locals against the caravan, hoping to appease Trump by driving them back to Central America. ...
So a Mexican mayor who wears a "Make Tijuana Great Again" hat (newsweek.com/migrant-carava…) has instigated attacks on the caravan by Mexican neo-Nazis wearing MAGA caps: hillreporter.com/leaders-anti-c….

To appease Trump, in response to economic blackmail. ...
Trump's apparent goal is to give the caravan migrants only two options: 1) return home w/o exercising their legal right to seek asylum, or 2) storm the closed border in hopes of touching American soil (where a federal judge has ordered Trump MUST acknowledge their asylum claims).
Either way, the migrants lose: either they return their children to dangerous societies where they will be punished by govt-backed gangs for trying to escape, or (as we see now on RW media) their peaceful march to file lawful asylum claims is misportrayed as a violent invasion.
It's easy to miss the careful construction of the migrants' dilemma, because Trump isn't crafty enough to have thought of it -- but those around him (Stephen Miller?) certainly are. ...
And everything I've outlined above SCREAMS that what we saw yesterday was the endgame of a scrupulously designed, illegal plan to deprive these refugees of their legal + human rights.

/current installment of ongoing rant
@threadreaderapp Please Unroll

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with M.S. Bellows, Jr.

M.S. Bellows, Jr. Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @msbellows

M.S. Bellows, Jr. Profile picture
Dec 29, 2021
Holy HELL, @bootbarn. My wife and I went into your Tualatin, OR store, + as we entered a family of five was leaving – none masked. Then the employee who greeted me (quite cheerfully!) had her mask under her nose...
1/
@bootbarn Then I counted six other maskless customers + another employee with a mask half-off.

We left immediately.

Because we're not stupid, we respect the law, and we don't want to die.
2/
@bootbarn Oregon law requires masks. I understand that some people see going maskless as a political statement, but it's the LAW.

And science is science. If my vet said I needed to mask to keep my animals safe from an infectious disease, I'd wear it. Because science is f*cking SCIENCE.
3/
Read 6 tweets
M.S. Bellows, Jr. Profile picture
Dec 28, 2021
Context thread:
• The defense bill is DOUBLE the COMBINED costs of COVID stimulus + infrastructure + Build Back Better. (Where are the deficit hawks like @Sen_JoeManchin?)
• And it's unnecessary: U.S. defense $ exceed Russia + China + the next 9 countries COMBINED. ...
1/
@Sen_JoeManchin Some will argue, as @BroadbrainTV does here, that it's ok because "the defense bill is a jobs bill." And that's sort of true: the defense industry accounts for at least 800,000 jobs and 10% of U.S. manufacturing. is.gd/Brn8g0 ...
2/...
@Sen_JoeManchin @BroadbrainTV But as a job creator, defense sucks. About 14MM people work in manufacturing; at 10% of total manufacturing, defense should employ about 1.4MM, but actually employs about half that, because defense toys' materials, research, etc. are expensive compared to labor cost. ...
3/
Read 21 tweets
M.S. Bellows, Jr. Profile picture
Aug 15, 2021
History from 2001:

The Taliban weren't involved with 9/11. A council of 600 senior AfPak Muslim clerics – essentially the Taliban's governing body – expressed dismay at the 9/11 attacks and offered to expel bin Laden from the country.

Bush said no. edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asi…
1/
The Taliban acknowledged that 9/11 violated Islamic law – but remember, bin Laden initially denied being behind the attacks. At the time, even the U.S. only labeled him a "prime suspect," stopping short of saying we were sure he did it.

That uncertainty was VERY significant.
2/
Muslim ethics require protecting guests from their enemies – UNLESS the guest has done something to bring trouble on the host. The Taliban COULDN'T surrender bin Laden without evidence he was behind 9/11 (ie, committed a crime while in sanctuary).
usip.org/publications/2…
3/ Image
Read 10 tweets
M.S. Bellows, Jr. Profile picture
Jul 27, 2021
Thread:

Today's testimony by Capitol Police officers about the Jan. 6 insurrection is making me rethink the Boston Massacre, which in hindsight sounds more like 1/6 than a righteous revolutionary act.
1/
Eight soldiers guarding a government building were surrounded by 300-400 angry "patriots" hitting them with clubs, rocks, chunks of ice, oyster shells, lumps of coal; many in the crowd taunting the soldiers to fire, others warning them that if they do, the crowd will kill them;
2
; the crowd close enough to hit the soldiers with clubs; one witness testifies Crispus Attucks actually grabbed a soldier's bayonet (which, true or not, means they were CLOSE).

A stick thrown from the back makes a soldier fall down + drop his gun; he retrieves it;...
3/
Read 13 tweets
M.S. Bellows, Jr. Profile picture
May 30, 2021
.@RadioFreeTom's written an interesting thread here, but I keep thinking back to this old discussion where he said that conservatism's main feature isn't standing for things, but standing against them:
1/
@RadioFreeTom (Thread referenced above:)
2/
@RadioFreeTom That's the classic Buckleyesque statement of conservatism that all '80s college students (including both Tom and I) learned: that a conservative is someone who "stands athwart history, yelling Stop."

It's essentially nihilistic...
3/
Read 16 tweets
M.S. Bellows, Jr. Profile picture
Apr 17, 2021
I just read the Anglo-Saxon/America First Caucus statement of (so-called) principles, and it's clear that the writers used "Anglo-Saxon" only because "Aryan" already was taken. It's the Racist/Nativist Caucus.

Here are some thoughts about "our" "Anglo Saxon" roots:
1/
First, who WERE the "Anglo-Saxons," anyway?

Immigrants and invaders. Germanic ones. Nothing "native" about them.

"Saxon" = "Germanic." "Anglo" = "the subset of Germanics who ran England for a while."
2/
And those foreigners arriving unwanted on British shores didn't respect the culture they found when they arrived: there was "hostility between incomers and natives... violence, destruction, massacre, and the flight of the Romano-British population."
3/
Read 25 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Like this author's thread?

Get emails when @msbellows has new unrolls!

Check out other threads from @msbellows!

Read all threads by @msbellows

:(