So yes: a lot of bad stuff is happening this week, especially in #immigrationpolicy.
Just here to remind you that this rollercoaster is about to come to a full & complete stop, & that there is no irreversible damage he can really do in his last few months.
Next: the real work!
It's mid-November. All of the votes are finally in and accounted for, and Trump has just been trounced in an absolutely historic landslide.
Will he act out? Sure. Will he try to do as much damage as possible? Probably.
Will anyone take him seriously? No.
And that of course includes federal courts, which have been both the only thing standing between us and American fascism and the reason that Trump + Miller have ultimately lost nearly every massive change to immigration law they've tried to shove through without Congress
This is *not* to discount the enormous pain and trauma and fear Trump's enabling rhetoric has inflicted on immigrant communities.
But as a matter of policy, these people have lost far, far more than they've won & (w/one major possible exception) failed at any permanent change
That one exception, unfortunately, is the war on asylum in the form of #MPP, #safethirdcountry agreements, + other measures which have pushed asylum seekers far from our borders. Biden claims he will end it, but this will be politically difficult and much easier to maintain as is
Let's hold him to that, and everything else. The post-Trump era can and should begin with one long Inauguration Day executive order which begins the process of revoking, withdrawing, and otherwise undoing every Trump #immigration policy.
ALL of them. One signature.
#MPP, #publiccharge, #asylum regs, AG decisions, #immigrationcourt restrictions/quotas, employment visas, travel + visa bans, the dog-whistle #VOICE office, USCIS funds stolen by ICE, slashed refugee #s--
All of it. Gone.
We're almost there!
And then the real work begins.
We're going to pass the #DREAMAct. We're going to restore the right to asylum. We're going to (for the 1st time!) proactively consider real & meaningful #immigrationlaw in the national interest.
And by "we," I don't mean Joe Biden.
I mean us.
It's on us, & it always has been
The Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, Fair Housing Act, 1965 INA, even #DACA--none of these came from electeds organically, but from long, painful struggles in streets & spaces far from DC
Biden's win will be the *beginning* of our struggle, not the end. Eyes on the prize!
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
1/ The especially frustrating thing about the right-wing opposition to #KeepingFamiliesTogether is that I sincerely believe that even most MAGAs would be fine with it if they only understood what it actually is and why it is necessary.
2/ "If only they knew" is not something I would usually say. I am of the opinion that you can't fact-check bigotry, but even a lot of bigots could be persuaded on this one because it is
(1) definitely legal and (2) addressing a very real (but little understood) problem
3/ Immigration through marriage to a US citizen is, famously, one of the easiest ways in. So long as you originally came on a visa (typically as a tourist) you can live/work in the US unlawfully for decades and still have a fairly easy path to residency through your spouse.
Me, a very clever human: write a @alyankovic parody in the form of a 15th century madrigal about the collapse of FTX and the crypto market
*two seconds later*
#OpenAI: alas tis a lamentable day, the visions of riches have become mere wishes, etc
A notably less weird Al here but otherwise am I the only one who thinks this is all kind of terrifying
I will not print it here but it cheerfully spit out an '80s party rap anthem denying the death of six million Jews in the Holocaust just because I asked it to.
The word "orgy" was consistently censored out of my prompts though so I guess we're looking out for what really matters
N. B.: the author of this fascist manifesto is not some Roman statue "Western chauvinist" account with 76 followers. He is the senior editor of the closest thing the American right has to a journal of record.
"save the country"
"rebuild and in a sense re-found"
"getting used to the idea of wielding power, not despising it"
"compromise with the left is impossible"
when I say this is fascism I mean this literally, it is literal fascism
Very few people outside the system know this, but you need to:
US asylum law knowingly & intentionally requires the deportation to certain death of people who have been on the wrong side of the criminal legal system.
First: I didn't know her, but this is the only publicly available news re: the murder of Melissa Nunez--and more importantly, her life. She was, among other things, a determined advocate who loved horses and traveling and dreamed of living in Puerto Rico
From information available online, I gather she was convicted on charges brought from defending herself against anti-trans violence. This conviction constituted an "aggravated felony," a class of offenses which bar someone from receiving asylum.
This @ similar questions from the @MarshallProj sheriffs survey linked below get to one of the most fundamental problems holding back progress today: a belief that past (white) immigrants had it harder & had to do more to "earn" a place than today's. It's exactly backward
It's only human to want to believe that your ancestors were better and smarter and worked harder than today's immigrants, because that kind of generational progress is such a fundamental part of the golden era American immigrant story. Which is to say the *white* immigrant story
But the reality is that it was hardly any trouble at all to immigrate before 1965--& absolutely no effort before 1921--& the system had nothing at all to do with today's. We are in NO WAY doing anything to make it easier now, only much much harder