NEW MORNING: A very important, auspicious new post!

SUNDAY, JANUARY 28, 2024

Kevin Drum goes to the border: Given recent circumstances, we'd like to give his site a brief rest.

That said, we were thrilled by Kevin Drum's most recent post. Very much just for starters, we were thrilled when, headline included, the new post started like this:

How do we get control of the border?

Immigration, man. I don't know.

We don't know either—and we'll guess that that is true of the vast majority of blue tribe observers. 

Over the course of the past few years, our tribe's pundits have studiously avoided this topic as its salience has grown and grown. 

They've talked and talked—then talked and talked—about the endless legal minutia involved in sending Donald J. Trump to jail. As they've devoted endless time to that sprawling (but pleasing) topic, they've let the border go. 

As a result, we (and many others) "don't know"—don't know about desired solutions or even about elementary facts.

In the main, Kevin is saying that he "doesn't know" about solutions. He provides some very valuable information about some basic facts, even providing some links.

 More specifically, he provides this explanation of the current very high number of (take your choice) "encounters," "apprehensions" or "arrests" now taking place at the border. At this point, we don't even have a common language we can employ in discussing this crucial matter. 

For now, here is the part of Kevin's post where he starts to supply some basic distinctions concerning some basic facts. The italics are his:

DRUM (1/17/24): [T]he problem is that immigration is a really complicated subject, which makes it genuinely hard to know what kind of effect a large bill might have. The new thing among Republicans is griping about Joe Biden's increased use of parole, which is understandable in a way since it lets hundreds of thousands of immigrants enter the country legally with just some paperwork. On the other hand, it also cuts down on border chaos since those hundreds of thousands aren't trying to brave the razor wire in Texas and sneak in.

But the really big difference between now and the past is asylum. Instead of merely trying to evade detection and capture, lots of migrants are now giving themselves up and applying for asylum. That creates a legal thicket, since if you ask for asylum the law says you have to be given a hearing. This is called affirmative asylum. Likewise, if you're in a deportation hearing and declare that you're seeking asylum, a judge has to hear your claim. This is called defensive asylum. Both have skyrocketed in recent years:

A graphic follows at that point. It shows the giant increase in asylum requests over the past fifteen years, but especially since President Biden took office.

We'll direct you to Kevin's full (preliminary) post, in which our tribe is permitted to get a start on basic explanation. First, though, consider today's front-page report from the print edition Washington Post, which appeared online yesterday morning.

The report, by Miroff and Olorunnipa, begins in gloomy fashion. But as far as we know, none of that unflattering assessment is inaccurate, bogus, untrue. Headline included, the lengthy piece starts like this:

Biden pledge to shut down border points to policy shortfalls

President Biden’s surprise declaration Friday that he would “shut down” the southern border when illegal crossings surge to overwhelming levels illustrates how his many other efforts to address immigration have fallen short of their goals.

Biden signed more executive orders related to immigration than any other topic on his first day in office. He’s taken more than 500 executive actions since then, already surpassing former president Donald Trump’s four-year total, according to a recent tally by the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute (MPI).

But one of Biden’s most active areas of policymaking has become one of his biggest vulnerabilities to reelection. The president’s management of the southern border and immigration is his worst-rated issue in polls, and record numbers of illegal crossings have galvanized Republicans, undermined the president’s push for Ukraine aid and played to the perceived strengths of Trump, the GOP front-runner.

Several of the Biden administration’s signature initiatives intended to make the immigration system fairer and more orderly have stalled out or remained too limited to significantly curb illegal entries and reduce chaos at the border, according to analysts, and current and former administration officials.

Oof! That is not a flattering portrait of border management under President Biden. Again, though, as far as we know, none of that unflattering assessment is inaccurate, bogus, untrue.

To that point in the Post report, we weren't surprised by what we had read. But when the following passage appeared in the Post, we realized that we may have misunderstood one basic part of border procedure when we wrote yesterday's post:

Last month 249,785 illegal crossings were recorded along the U.S.-Mexico border, the highest monthly total ever, and Biden officials acknowledge the majority of the migrants were released into the United States with pending claims for protection. The latest influx has worsened strains on New York, Chicago, Denver and other cities whose Democratic mayors are pleading for more federal aid to shelter and assist the newcomers, including the thousands of migrants sent by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R). 

Those 249,785 "illegal crossings" were the crossings which resulted in what the Border Patrol describes as "encounters" and ABC News describes as "arrests." (In its new report, the Post goes on to use the term "apprehensions.") Last month, there were an additional 50,000 people who voluntarily submitted themselves to border authorities to make an asylum request.

Based on what the Post is reporting, the majority of the 249,785 "illegal cross[er]s"—the people who didn't present for asylum—were released into the United States, as are asylum seekers. In the course of yesterday's research, we came away with a different impression. Let it be said that these possibly unattractive matters are not explained in the Border Patrol document to which Kevin's earlier report was linked.

We'll guess that very few members of our red or blue tribes can explain the complexity of these procedures, which are generally disappeared on blue tribe cable and used as fodder on red. That said, this is a very important topic for blue tribe members who want to see Joe Biden get re-elected, and the time has come to declare a new morning and waddle out into the fight.

In our view, our blue tribe has been very badly disserved by the silence of the cable news lambs—by the way our cable news leaders have avoided this topic. 

They talk and talk and talk and talk about sending Trump to jail, or about draining his coffers. They do so in ways which may be perfectly accurate, but which extend into such unusable legal minutia as to suggest that the discussions are being staged to keep blue tribe viewers feeling upbeat, happy, good.

Those trials are major news topics too, though the downside have often been avoided on our blue tribe cable. But the border could easily send Trump to the White House again, and MSNBC corporate owners have disserved the public, very badly, in the way it has pleasured blue tribe viewers while ignoring this dangerous topic.

"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray" that Kevin will continue to try to illuminate the basic facts of this matter. That said, we saw two (2!) anti-Biden discussions of the topic on Fox & Friends this morning which struck us as basically fair. Translation: 

Our blue tribe's performance has been so lazy, so useless, so ratings-devoted that the Weekend Friends don't even have to embellish the facts to paint a very unflattering picture of what the Biden Administration has done.

Last evening, Biden gave a robust speech in South Carolina. We were encouraged by his energy level. The problems tend to arise when he goes off prompter—and yes, they do sometimes arise.

That said, he gave a robust speech last night, making a lot of strong points. But the border is hanging around his neck, and the cable stars we're inclined to trust and love have badly misserved us down through the years.

They've done so going back before Trump, and back before the border. At some point, we plan to discuss that further. 

Our own partisans sometimes get upset when someone makes accurate points of this type. In such moments, we're behaving like the unhelpfully gullible red tribe voters who can't see when they're getting conned by the assortment of full-blown clowns who are now cavorting on Fox.

It's well past time to declare a new morning! November's election could easily be lost. It's time to step back from the profit-seeking schadenfreude and get up on our haunches and fight.

We hope that Kevin continues to explain. Our blue tribe cable stars do, of course, enjoy a much wider reach. 

They need to get off their ascots for once. They need to stop pleasuring us all day long. They need to "rise from their warm beds" and fight.

Meanwhile, this:

What exactly does take place in the aftermath of all those encounters, apprehensions or arrests? We still can't tell you with certainty. Neither can anyone else.

Kevin can become a national treasure. You need to be one too.