So much for the President halting all immigration to the US during the on-going Chinese virus crisis. See yesterday’s post.
Today we have Politico(of all places) describing what is believed to be the direction President Trump’s executive order on immigration might take when it is revealed possibly today.
Trump’s immigration pause falls well short of full ban
On Monday night, President Donald Trump vowed he would suspend immigration into the United States during the coronavirus outbreak.
On Tuesday, he unveiled his plan. It was far short of a full ban. Trump announced that he will sign an executive order blocking most people for 60 days from receiving a permanent residency visa, or green card. But the order will still allow the government to continue processing visas for hundreds of thousands of temporary employees, including farm workers, landscapers and crab pickers — the largest source of immigration.
The order is also expected to carve out additional exemptions for so-called essential employees, including health care workers, and immigrants who come into the United States through immediate family members, according to a person familiar with the situation.
Trump, who will sign the executive order as soon as Wednesday, said the measure will be reassessed in two months.
“It would be wrong and unjust for Americans laid off by the virus to be replaced with new immigrants, labor flown in from abroad,” Trump said at the daily White House briefing, nodding to the 22 million Americans who have filed for unemployment in recent weeks. “We must first take care of the American worker, take care of the American worker.”
[….]
The move angered conservatives who were hoping the president would go further. The Trump administration has already paused most routine visa processing and refugee cases during the coronavirus pandemic, meaning the president’s executive order may be redundant for many already-stalled cases. Moreover, a majority of immigrants seeking green cards are already living in the U.S.
“Briefly delaying green cards for people, most of whom are already in the U.S. and working, and ignoring work visas doesn’t help U.S. workers and doesn’t ease pressure on hospitals, “ said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies.“Can’t know for sure until there’s actually something official to read, but this looks more like a political gesture than a serious policy move.”
[….]
“To continue most immigration at this time would show a callous disregard for those Americans who are enduring deep economic suffering,” said Roy Beck, president of NumbersUSA, which supports immigration restrictions.
[….]
Trump’s announcement had his critics decrying the move as a transparent attempt to rile up the president’s base in an election year, while distracting from the ongoing criticism of his coronavirus response.
Sorry I have been remiss in posting here, but see my posts at RRW on foreign-owned BIG MEAT companies (crooks indeed!), a longtime favorite topic of mine at Refugee Resettlement Watch. (click on the headlines)
The meat giants lobby for cheap immigrant labor (you support those low wage workers with taxpayer-funded welfare) while they change the character of the American heartland!
Editor: This is a guest column by my friend Bob Enos of Willmar, Minnesota. Regular readers of Refugee Resettlement Watch may remember Bob who compiled a great deal of information on the economic cost of migrant and refugee labor and wrote several articles for RRW in the past.
Go hereto read previous posts at RRW either written by him or about his work.
As the hysteria-driven lockdowns of coronavirus persist, constitutional conservatives are slowly emerging from under their beds. Spear carriers for social isolation and economic constriction in America have reacted to critics with the same derision accorded wearers of red MAGA hats. In less than thirty days, Americans have been persuaded to swap Constitutionally-guaranteed civil liberties in exchange for the illusion of protection from a virus that has touched a relative few.
This is not to say that the virus does not exist, nor that pockets of America do not suffer disproportionately from the health consequences of COVID-19.
However, neither the vast majority of Americans, nor family, friends, or neighbors, have been infected by the virus. Yet, the American public is expected – no, required – to support a one-size-fits-all national response that, to this writer, is akin to killing a flea with an elephant gun.
As international travel is acknowledged as the world’s COVID-19 courier, I’m led to an inescapable conclusion:
COVID-19 is, first and foremost, an unintended consequence of three factors, in order of significance: Open Borders movement, business globalization, and international tourism.
Presently, the nation of Sweden has the most relaxed posture in western Europe regarding COVID-19; she has no lockdown whatsoever. Many media pundits are nearly gleeful in reports of higher infection rates in Sweden compared to the rest of Europe. However, in its daily briefings on the virus, the Sweden Department of Public Health insists that its infection rate would be much lower, had the government enacted screening measures early on, for Swedish vacationers returning from Italy.
According to the state department of health here in Minnesota, our rate of infection as a percentage of the population is the lowest of any state in the nation.
The mean age for deaths attributed to COVID-19 here is 86. Pre-existing health problems accompany nearly all the fatalities, and the majority have been residents of nursing homes.
This past week, several meatpacking companies throughout the Midwest – names like Smithfield, Cargill, Tyson, and Brazilian conglomerate JBS – reported closures of plants in which anywhere from 20 to 80 employees tested positive for corona virus. What do nursing homes and meatpacking plants share in common? The majority of workers in both industries – industries hard-hit by labor shortages- are recent arrivals from third-world nations; populations for whom international travel is commonplace.
New York City – the epicenter of COVID-19 in the United States – is also America’s symbol for the “nation of immigrants.” Additionally, she is a preeminent international business center. Business travelers from across the globe travel in and out of New York City by the hundreds every single day.
Finally, New York City may be the most popular tourist destination in America for foreign travelers. Walk down Fifth Avenue on any given weekend in Autumn if there is any doubt.
Is it any wonder, then, that COVID-19 fatalities in the New York Tri-state area make up as much as half of the nation’s COVID-related deaths?
What we are witnessing is the unintended consequence of unbridled, open borders migration, be it for business, escaping third world poverty, or tourism.
Globalists are hard at work on damage control. Their messengers of doomsday scenarios will claim victory regardless of the outcome. If the death count is high, they’ll say “we told you so”. If the death rate is low, they’ll take credit for convincing the world to heed their warnings.
And let’s not forget the icing on the cake.
Leftists the world over are not about to pass up an opportunity to exploit a crisis that could hurt the President’s re-election campaign. If turning a blind eye to civil liberties sends President Trump packing and derails the conservative/national sovereignty contingent, well, you gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette. Collateral damaged be damned.
And the collateral damage? There are many versions of death. Nearly all agree that economic recovery will be long and drawn out, at best. The fallout will certainly be the death knell for many rural towns throughout the Midwest that have been hanging on by fingernails for years as it is.Hospitals will go broke. Record numbers face unemployment. Children are kept from schooling. Small retail businesses and the hospitality industry are crushed, many for good. Socializing is verboten. All in the name of containing a virus for which attributable deaths in New York’s Tri-state area (a population of nearly 20 million) make up roughly FIVE ONE HUNDREDTHS OF ONE PERCENT of its population.
My late mother, a nurse, had a one-liner of dark humor she picked up on the hospital floor: “the operation was a complete success, and the patient died.”
Officials release 1,000 inmates to ease crowding, slow spread of COVID-19 at Dallas County jail
DALLAS – Jails across the country are seeing more and more inmates and workers infected. In Dallas County, there is an effort to control the spread by releasing some inmates.
The Dallas County Sheriff’s Office has confirmed 42 positive cases of COVID-19 in inmates. That’s 30 more than were reported this past week. Another 16 detention officers and deputies have contracted the virus, although two of those officers have returned to work.
About a thousand inmates have been released from the Dallas County jail to help reduce the risk of transmission of COVID-19 inside the facility. Inmate advocacy groups applaud the move, but still have concerns.
They say only non-violent offenders have been released. See the whole story here.
However, a lawsuit filed by prisoners held at the jail filed last week seeks to have all prisoners over the age of 50 released.
Dallas County inmates file federal lawsuit asking for release amid soaring coronavirus cases
A group of inmates at the Dallas County jail filed a federal lawsuit Thursday to demand immediate release for inmates who are over 50 and considered “medically high-risk” for the coronavirus.
The suit also calls for the jail to implement social-distancing guidelines and provide COVID-19 tests at no cost.
[….]
The federal lawsuit claims the jail has “failed to protect the present population of detainees, employees and the larger community against the racing spread of COVID-19.”
Okay, okay, so what does this have to do with the notorious Kenyan Killer Billy Chemirmir?
The State of Texas, in a brief seeking to intervenein the federal case, cites Chemirmir, the alleged murderer of over a dozen senior citizens housed there awaiting trial, as exhibit A of why the case filed by inmates seeking to release all prisoners over the age of 50 due to COVID-19 fears is ridiculous.
Plaintiffs would have the Court order injunctive or “habeas” relief releasing a class of individuals defined as “[e]veryone in the Dallas County Jail.”1 Their requested relief covers killers, rapists, arsonists, and armed robbers. Plaintiffs want this Court to empty the jail and in the process ignore (1) state court judgments imposing custodial sentences; (2) detainer and transfer requests from other sovereign governments; and (3) state court bail orders. And they ask for this extraordinary relief without certifying a class or trying to satisfy any of the Prison Litigation Reform Act’s requirements.
The effect of Plaintiffs’ ask is extraordinary. It would include Billy Chemirmir, possibly “one of the state’s most prolific serial killers.”2 Chemirmir is accused of murdering 12 women—all between ages 75 and 94—by smothering them to death and making off with their jewelry. A state court judge set secured bail at $13.6 million.3 The federal government, moreover, has filed an immigration detainer *** with the Dallas County Jail, which means Chemirmir will be deported in the very unlikely event he ever steps foot outside of jail again.4 And now Plaintiffs ask this Court to consider setting him free because he, and others like him, might possibly be exposed to COVID19. It is obvious that releasing Chemirmir, and other violent felons, threatens the public’s safety, something echoed by law enforcement and victim’s rights advocates.5 That alone demonstrates the State’s interest in this case.6
The release of more than 5,000 prisoners during a state-wide pandemic not only places law-abiding citizens at risk of re-offenses, but also imperils the State’s efforts to effectively protect the public health in response to the spread of COVID-19 because the added strain that it would place on law enforcement.
The State of Texas, the Governor of Texas, and the Attorney General of Texas(“State Intervenors”) seek to intervene to defend the continued custody of Plaintiffs’ would-be class. Because this case implicates State law at every turn, the State Intervenors have an interest in the outcome. They also have an interest in protecting the public’s health and safety in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. These interests are unrepresented in this case.
I fervently hope the victims’ families will one day see this man in court. Death by COVID would be too easy for him.
*** Interesting to see that they acknowledge his illegal status in the US!
This is an update of thestory I posted a week ago from Tennessee about how a man described as a truck driver, for reasons supposedly still unknown, stabbed to death three women at a Pilot truck stop in Knox County.
Mama says he wasn’t mentally ill! Seems that leaves only one explanation, right!
Did Knox County Pilot attacker commit another stabbing in Millington?
Did the man who killed three employees at a Pilot Travel Center in Knox County also stab a nurse nearly to death outside a mental health clinic in Millington, Tennessee?
Millington Police Chief Mark Dunbar said a mugshot of Idris Abdus-Salaam, the 33-year-old deemed responsible for last week’s triple homicide, resembles a sketch of the man who committed perhaps the most bizarre, brutal attack he’s seen in his decades-long career.
No one else witnessed the attack, Dunbar said. No camera caught it on video.
Investigators had nothing to go on but the words of a woman who had been stabbed over and over by a man she had never met.
Still, the nurse did well in helping police create a sketch of her attacker, Dunbar said.
The chief stressed that, although he believes the sketch resembles a 2018 booking photo of Abdus-Salaam, “that doesn’t mean it’s the same individual. We’re working with TBI trying to backtrack this,” he added, “and there may not be anything to it.”
Although police said at the time the Millington suspect might have been mentally ill, that statement was based more on common sense than concrete evidence, Dunbar said.
“If you stab somebody that you don’t know,” the chief said, “you’ve got a problem.”
Much remains unknown about Abdus-Salaam and what sparked the attack at the Pilot. Authorities said he killed Joyce Whaley, 57; Patricia Denise Nibbe, 51; and Nettie Spencer, 41.
Abdus-Salaam’s mother, Walidah Abdus-Salaam, told Knox News his family had no indication he was mentally ill. She described her son as a practicing Muslim and said she didn’t believe he had become radicalized by any sort of religious fanaticism.
The TBI initially described Abdus-Salaam as a truck driver from Durham, North Carolina, but on Wednesday wouldn’t comment on the details of his employment history.
The agency also declined to comment on whether he had ever been treated at a mental facility, as well as whether mental illness might have been a factor in the violence.
“That is part of our investigation,” a spokeswoman said in response to several questions from Knox News.
