The immigration debate came home to
me, as it often does in my interpretation work, as I was the interpreter at an asylum hearing for a high school student who came here as an unaccompanied minor and
who is now over age 18. I really cannot say more because of confidentiality
rules, just that I would think such individual cases would pull at the heartstrings
of most observers, even Trump supporters, though maybe not Jeff Sessions.
On June 8, when James Comey was testifying before Congress, I happened to be at
meeting the Amnesty In’tl USA’s DC office and stayed on to see C-Span’s live TV
coverage (I don’t have TV myself). Comey sounded quite credible and sincere.
Republican lawmakers, as usual, seem to be hanging tight with Trump, at least for
the most part, and at the hearing, they tried to steer back to Clinton’s failings,
as if to make them equivalent to Trump’s. SOS to Republicans, Trump, not
Hillary, is president now!! McCain, who actually sounded a bit demented,
especially focused on Hillary’s e-mails. I’m surprised he didn’t mention Benghazi! Later, McCain claimed to have
stayed up late watching a baseball game on TV. Apparently, while Trump’s
overall approval ratings keep falling, a majority of Republican voters still
support him, so I suppose it’s wise of most Republican lawmakers to hang tight
for now.
Trump’s attorneys must have babysat
Trump, because he neither spoke nor tweeted during or right after Comey’s
testimony. Diehard Trump voters think Comey lied, not Trump. After all, that’s
what Trump has been saying. Trump’s legal advisers point out that conviction of
Trump for any crime, such as obstruction of justice, requires intent and it would be hard to prove
Trump’s intent. He is so clueless and
muddled, his intent may be impossible to discern, much less to prove. Nancy Pelosi has a point, Trump needs to sleep more to clear his
mind.
The only way to keep Republicans
honest is to beat them at the ballot box. So far, they are mostly supporting
and making excuses for Trump, although most must have greater private
misgivings. They keep hoping that sticking with him will not only keep themselves
in office, but help them promote their “agenda.” Of course, their constituents
would have to turn against Trump for them to get worried and, so far, most
Trump supporters are sticking by him. Paradoxically, while rural and small-town
folks are most anti-immigrant, they actually have little contact with
immigrants. If they knew them as real people, they might feel differently.
Donald Trump celebrated his 71st
birthday amid little fanfare—maybe not to call attention to his age. “Seventy-one candles on that cake,” said Stephen Colbert.
“Although Trump later said it was ‘over a million candles. Most candles ever.’”
Apparently the Trump administration,
mostly under Sessions’ initiative, is really cracking down on undocumented
immigrants, including now, Iraqi Christians. It’s as if Trump is lashing to
hurt as many people as possible because of his fury over his inability to
cover-up his own wrong doing. If Hillary
had been in office, she would have named different officials and would have
vetoed some of what is going on now in deportations. It’s so short-sighted, not
only harmful to law-abiding families well-established here, but harmful to the
economy by removing workers from certain sectors. White Americans are not
reproducing their ranks—even in red states—let’s face it. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/07/donald-trump-immigration-court-deportation-lasalle?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Outlook
A fair portion of the electorate
indulges in magical thinking (which Trump especially exploits), that is, that
fewer taxes will result in more jobs and in more money in everyone’s pocket.
Has that ever happened? No, fewer taxes have actually meant a bigger deficit, fewer
services, more inflation, higher interest rates, less citizen protection, fewer
jobs, less commerce.
I see
in the Washington Examiner that a Republican congressman wants to
charge 55,000 immigrants $1 million each for Trump's border wall. He is Dana Rohrabacher of California. He also
wants to eliminate the diversity lottery whereby some years ago (in the 1980’s),
three guys here on visitors' visas staying at my house temporarily, all
incredibly won the lottery that year (sometime in the 1980's), one from
Argentina, one from Japan, one from Tunisia. What are the odds? People clamored
to stay with my family after that but none ever won after that.
Trump seeks to reopen cases of hundreds reprieved from deportation
The Homeland Security director has also been quoted as saying he
wants to deport “illegal aliens” before
they commit a crime. Of course, that sort of preemption could apply to any
of us. It reminds me of Cuba’s arrests of opposition figures for “pre-delinquency”—that is to prevent
their future delinquent behavior. Trump is also getting heat for trying to
deport Iraqi Christians.
Meanwhile,
Trump unveiled a new Cuba policy (mostly crafted by Sen. Marco Rubio):
See also: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/15/cuba-power-play-with-colombia-draws-rubio-ire-239587
Trump did seem a little more
human or closer to normal when he went to Camp David on Father’s Day with his
wife’s parents.
I imagine that Bill Cosby’s
wife Camille is firmly standing
by him, despite his admitting to giving drugs to a younger sexual partner in
their own home, because it is in her interest to do so. Given his many
escapades of infidelity, she surely must have been aware of at least some and still
chose to remain married to Cosby because of the benefits she enjoyed as his
wife. Also, she may not want to admit the extent of his misdeeds as that reflects
badly on her. Probably the hung jury has something to do with African American
jurors (even one?) being stubbornly unwilling to convict one of their own, as
happened with OJ Simpson. I’m saying that as someone who has African American
family members and knows their loyalty to each other in a world where they feel
beleaguered and seek some pay-back. Cosby is playing the elderly, blind, and
ill defendant to the hilt.
Vice president Pence met with Honduran President Juan Orlando
Hernandez, a member of the conservative National Party, running for an
unprecedented second term (until now consecutive second presidential terms were
prohibited, but Hernandez pushed through a change in the constitution). He is
likely to win in November because the opposition is divided between the Liberal
Party and a new party created by former Liberal president Manuel Zelaya, ousted
controversially when he wanted to run
for a second term, who is now running his wife Xiomara Castro in his stead. (Nothing
mentioned about any of this in the meeting between Pence and Hernandez.)
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/06/15/readout-vice-presidents-meeting-honduran-presiden
Trump aaounced a new Cuba policy, crafted with the help of Senator
Marco Rubio. The return of “wet-foot/dry-foot” was deemed unlikely in light of
Trump’s anit-immigration stance.
Of course, all sides must condemn the shooting in suburban
Virginia of Congressman Steve Scalise,
as well as the fatal shooting the same day at a UPS workplace in the SF Bay
area. While Trump, reading from a teleprompter, gave a calm response,
Republicans seem to be emphasizing the deceased gunman’s extremist political
views—he was, by the way, an older white male from the mid-west—part of the
usual Trump demographic. Nothing was said about his ability to obtain a firearm
or about the extremist views voiced by Trump and associates that might have
aroused his reaction.
Cuba
must end human rights violations to improve relations, US warns | World news |
The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/13/cuba-human-rights-violations-rex-tillerson-us-relations
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/13/cuba-human-rights-violations-rex-tillerson-us-relations
It is
true—and am witness to that as volunteer Caribbean coordinator for Amnesty
Int’l USA (also author of a book on the subject, Confessions)—that the Cuban
government violates human rights in a wholesale way and has been doing so for
decades, for generations, really. But what is the best remedy—more interchange
or less with that government? The US has
vacillated back and forth without visible improvements in Cuba.
Seven
Republican Congressmen have asked Trump to keep Cuba open: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/house-republicans-send-letter-trump-urging-cuba-remain/story?id=47941330
The Republican congressmen who signed the
letter are Reps. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, Rick Crawford of Arkansas, Ted Poe of
Texas, Darin LaHood of Illinois, Roger Marshall of Kansas, James Comer of
Kentucky and Jack Bergman of Michigan.
Meanwhile,
Cubans, like others, are being deported. For a long time, the Cuban
government failed to accept them, but is now accepting more returnees. https://www.yahoo.com/news/cubans-now-face-same-deportation-risk-other-immigrants-092233678.html
Now every non-citizen in the US must
feel wary, creating an uncomfortable civic atmosphere. And if it’s true that
Canadians most often overstay their visas, why don’t we see ICE deporting
Canadians or putting them into detention facilities? It’s true that the US cannot be a haven for
anyone aspiring to a new life, any more than Europe can be, but long-term
residents who have worked, bought hoes, had children—in short, out down roots
over the years—deserve consideration and it is beneficial to the rest of us to
grant it to them.
Years
ago, when working as a writer and editor of OT
Week, a publication of the Amer. Occupational Therapy Ass’n, I met and
spoke with the emperor and empress of
Japan at a DC event linking environment and health. Now I see that Emperor
Akihito, at age 83, is
stepping down. The royal succession problem is that he only has a daughter and
she is planning to marry a commoner anyway. I think we bowed when meeting each
other—I don’t remember that we shook hands as maybe that’s not permitted for an
emperor. I did take photos, but who knows where they are now? That was before
the internet and keeping photos digitally. I do wish him well and salute his
unprecedented move. It may be tiring to be an emperor. Or any other monarch,
though Britain’s Queen Elizabeth keeps hanging in there while the crown prince
grows long in tooth as well.
Turkey arrested
Amnesty International lawyers in another
anti-Gulen sweep. Yet another dark day for liberty and human rights in the
world
There is an argument occurring now
within Amnesty Int’l about abortion—how
much of a “right” is it and up to what stage? That question within AI has not
been answered, as far as I know, nor is there a good mechanism for doing that
within the organization which is too large and unwieldy, its millions of
members worldwide being a strength, but also a liability, when it comes to trying
to reach consensus. I’ve found it hard to defend AI's apparent pro-abortion
stance, especially when my own enthusiasm is not so great. I'm not sure that AI
has put a limit on its defense in terms of the stage of fetal development. When
you feel movements in your womb, it's hard to say that's just fetal tissue and
not a human life. On the other hand, if someone is of sound mind and has
thought it through for a time, I don’t object to a medically assisted “right to die.”
AI is both an advocacy organization
and a worldwide membership organization with millions of members worldwide,
some more active than others. That creates complications. Every two years,
there is a sort of mini-UN session (I once attended one) where member nations
(“sections”), each with one vote, come together to vote and set policy.
Individual members identifying themselves as such are not supposed to publicly
oppose AI policies that have been adopted. For example, an activist was
chastised and “put on probation,” so to speak, when she wrote a
letter-to-the-editor identifying herself as an AI member and opposing the
organization’s advocacy for the complete decriminalization of all players in
the sex industry, including madams and pimps, and decrying the way the new
policy was apparently rammed through at the international meeting with the
British sex-work industry’s and others’ financial support, using that to
influence the vote of small participant nations. Sex worker decriminalization across the board is another AI policy
that I have not been eager to support—though I and many others would support
decriminalization for sex workers themselves, just not for the other players
who may be controlling and exploiting them. So, yes, even though AI attempts to
be politically neutral, it’s hard to maintain that stance with such a far-flung
and heterogeneous organization involved in so many issues. It was easier when
AI just supporter the peaceful expression of free speech.
AI has also supported gay rights, something not universally
supported worldwide. This was brought home to me by Nigerian visitors, who said
that President Obama, of whom Africans were initially proud because of his
African heritage, turned them off completely when he announced his support for gay marriage. In Nigeria, they said,
public opinion turned against him overnight. How could he advocate something so
bestial, so contrary to nature? I do not oppose gay marriage myself and have a
gay nephew married to his partner, so I had a heated discussion with my two
Nigerians, one Muslim, one Catholic. Certainly their view was widespread until
recently in our own country and Europe and still holds sway in many developing
countries. Certainly in Honduras, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti,
countries with which I am intimately familiar, both through my visits there and
my Amnesty work, gay unions, especially between men, are strongly disapproved. They
also said that the Australian prime minister had married a man. Not so, that
was the Luxembourg prime minister.
Another issue AI has grappled with
is FMG, which certainly most women
oppose, though maybe men in some countries support it. I saw and heard
firsthand about the terrible effects in south Sudan and once it’s done, it’s
hard to remedy.
Of course, all these issues are
matters of cultural beliefs which evolve
and change over time. There are cultures that support plural marriage,
usually for men but occasionally for women; child marriage; and the death
penalty—including for adultery in Saudi Arabia. And the US Constitution evolves
as well. Nothing stands still and never changes. Are there actually universal
human rights? We might like to think so, but there seems to be no agreement on
what they are.
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