Stephen Miller had no real talent for policy or people, but brought one enormous advantage in his 4-yr mission to remake US immigration: he wanted to get it done.
If immigration were an actual Biden priority we'd have an actual bill in Congress rn. We don't even have a draft.
For the last 4 yrs Dems knew that (1) Trump's immigration policies were enormously unpopular with all but the most unreachable MAGA base and (2) they would inevitably at some point be back in power and able to pass legislation.
And we don't even have a draft.
Weeks before the inauguration Joe Biden began signaling that immigration would not be a priority for his administration bc those of us who have seen what this system does to ppl and know that change can't wait were asking too much too loudly.
But there was never even a draft.
We have memos & EOs & promises of future EOs & bulleted lists of what will someday be in a future comprehensive immigration reform bill which no one has never seen.
But you don't win until you show your cards, and someone has got to call this bluff
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FYI this* is a common white nationalist talking point used to justify massive federal intrusions into state and local affairs and no one who uses this language should be taken seriously or in good faith
Okay, you might be asking, but didn't federal courts shut down or otherwise limit most of Trump's big immigration policies? Isn't this the same thing?
Hey, thanks for asking.
No.
The executive has all of the power over how, when, where, & why it chooses to enforce immigration law. A state can't just demand that feds enforce it the way that the state would prefer, any more than it can demand them to issue a Gary Buse commemorative stamp or invade Australia
I believe I speak for a lot of my colleagues when I say this:
The last 4 yrs have radicalized me. I don't know now how I so blithely accepted borders & cages & administrative violence of all kinds as a regular part of my life and practice, but I never will again.
I'm only sorry that it took the cruelest and worst-run Presidential administration in at least the past century for me to see what this thing was the whole time I've been practicing, and a deep dive in the immigration history & policy I now teach to see what it's always been.
I still have a lot to learn & am feeling out my own understanding after so many years of basically accepting that things like prisons and detention centers and family visas which take 15-20 yrs "need" to exist, but I'm going to try to put the work in & encourage you to try it too
Anyone else thinking about #immigrationcourt dates scheduled for for clients in 3 yrs and wondering if there will be a federal government to hear them by then, or is that just me
Fun times for someone who grew up believing as a matter of fact that the world would end in his lifetime!
I opened today's class on asylum/refugee policy by reminding everyone that there is no reason whatsoever to assume that the phrase "American refugees" is not something that we will come to know in our lifetimes. Any given country is just a couple of bad leaders/yrs away from it