Thread by @Pinboard

When you see the enormous political advantages of maintaining Trump's nativist immigration policies, but want none of the blame

https://twitter.com/ZekeJMiller/status/1439743618944839686

The decision to obey the parliamentarian's rulings is a political decision made by the party in power. On the southern border, in Afghanistan, and now in the Senate, Democrats have shown us for the better part of a year how they feel about immigration. It's time to face the truth

Sorry, parliamentarian ruled I have to drink all your beer

Here is Biden's immigration policy: mounted border guards running down black men at the border as they attempt to carry food to their families. An image straight out of the worst scenes of American history.

Biden is right now conducting the largest expulsion of refugees in decades, bigger than anything Trump attempted, under the cover of a specious public health authority granted to Trump that denies those expelled even the right to open an asylum claim. politico.com/news/2021/09/1…

Those expelled are being flown back to Haiti, even though in May Biden's administration decided "serious security concerns, social unrest, an increase in human rights abuses, crippling poverty, and lack of basic resources" were enough to justify suspending deportations there.

Not only is this new policy a classic Biden U-turn, it's also worse than anything Trump ever attempted on the southern border. I hope the many voices that spoke against Trump's inhuman and cruel treatment of migrants and refugees will also speak out now. washingtonpost.com/world/2021/09/…

If we don't tear into Biden's cynical and hateful immigration policies now, then America First will simply become the bipartisan norm in our politics. Biden is afraid of the political price of decency; we need to make him pay an even bigger political price for his cruelty.

A good stand to make here would be on DACA. Block everything, let the country default and the aircraft carriers rust until people in the US from earliest childhood are granted the pathway to citizenship you have so often promised them. Show some of the grit that refugees show.

Republicans are going to destroy the Democratic party on immigration no matter what policy they pursue. So we might as well wield power when we have it to do what's right, rather than trying to out-Trump Trump on an unwinnable issue. We elected these people to govern, not cower.

While from an aesthetic standpoint I enjoy any Democratic administration that continues the worst policies of its predecessor and fails to pass an agenda of its own, from a more personal perspective an awful lot of people worked to win power, and they should do something with it.

A thing I wish Democrats understood about the right wing living in a world of make believe is that it frees Democrats up to pursue bolder policy goals without paying a political price. If you do nothing, they'll just tell egregious lies about you, so why not do something.