Hard Line on Immigration Resonates Less with Young Republicans, Surveysays

Protesters at a Donald J. Trump campaign event at the Flynn Theater in Burlington, Vt., on Jan. 7.Credit Ian Thomas Jansen-Lonnquist for The New York Times

Article: http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/03/29/hard-line-on-immigration-resonates-less-with-young-republicans-survey-shows/
Survey: http://publicreligion.org/research/2016/03/survey-how-americans-view-immigrants-and-what-they-want-from-immigration-reform-findings-from-the-2015-american-values-atlas/#.VvwzNxJlBJ9

A survey by the Public Religion Research Institute has yeilded interesting results. The survey data shows that a significant number of Americans from the age of 18-29 believe that the impact of immigrants strengthens American society rather than threatens it with a ratio of 68% believing positively and 19% believing negatively and 13% undecided or no preference. It's no shock that younger Americans would seem more accepting and liberal that their elders, it's in fact fairly typical of society for the younger generation to be more liberal.

The fact still remains that even as the survey polled older Americans a significant number still believe that immigrants had a positive impact on society. 30-49 years: 53% positive, 31% negative, 15% neutral; 50-64 year: 42% positive, 43% negative, 15% neutral; 65 and older: 36% positive, 44% negative, 20% neutral. Although the percentage of individuals that believe the presence of immigrants is a positive does indeed decrease, it still remains a significant percentage. At the age range of 50 and above, approximately a third of the individuals still believe in the positive.

Another interesting statistic originates from another graph by the PRRI. 

This graph indicates that the individuals polled ranged in beliefs and yet again even with those who most oppose the positives of the presence of immigrants, white evangelical Protestants, still retain a  percentage that acknowledges the positives.

 And the percentage of all Americans believing in the positives is concurrent with the previous graph. 50% of all Americans acknowlege and believe that immigrants have an impact that strengthens American culture.

There's an interesting spin from the NY Times article, it seems that the author blended the information from two graphs to support their consensus that the younger republicans were more likely to support the the idea of allowing immigrants to attain citizenship as opposed to deporting them.

I understand being content to pull information from the NY Times article can be satisfying enough for someone, I encourage taking a look at the RPPI list of graphs and statistics. It much more satisfying comparing the differing values yourself than reading about someone else forming an argument from them. 

Private Prisons are Becoming an Unfortunate Trend for Refugee Detainment

Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/25/opinion/private-prisons-are-cashing-in-on-refugees-desperation.html?_r=0

The South Texas Residential Center in Dilley Texas.

If there's one thing I'm not big on it's certainly got to be decisions made based of ill-concieved logic. This is especially true when those decisions effect so many people so negatively. Reading the article with give you all the clarification you need but I'll spell out what is essetislly the bottom line in this situation.

According to the New York Times, "Advocates of private immigration detention claim they are saving taxpayers money. But that seems unlikely. The American government spends more on immigrant detention today than it did 10 years ago, when the number of border crossings was higher."

Refugees, people who have needed to uproot their entire lives due to a war or a crisis or religious persecution, they are all being treated like prisoners. These "detention centers" as they very cheek-in-tongue like to call themselves, are not fooling me nor the NY times. These are prisons, for refugees whose only crime may very well be living in the wrong country at the wrong time. And once again the NY times provides a clear comparison between these detention centers and prisons. 

According to Antony Lowenstein of the NY Times, "State-run detention centers don’t necessarily guarantee more respect for human rights, but there is evidence that government control brings improvements: A 2014 report by the American Civil Liberties Union, for example, found that private immigration detention centers in the United States were more crowded than state-run ones, and detainees in them had less access to educational programs and quality medical care. And public centers, while still flawed, are more transparent."

Britons Liken Trump to Enoch Powell in Policy

There is no proper caption I can type to describe this stupidity.(Selman Design; photographs by Ross D. Franklin/Associated Press and Popperfoto, via Getty Images)

Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/23/opinion/campaign-stops/donald-trump-and-the-rivers-of-blood.html?ref=topics&_r=0

There are few words that can describe my emotions while reading this piece other than an endless stream of dark chuckles. It’s difficult to keep track of half of the dimwitted statements regular politicians make in any given number of debates, let alone Donald Trump. This piece from the NY Times discusses the policies of a man whose political opinions start coming back after hearing Trump’s ridiculous claims. 

According to the NY Times, Trump’s blathering is reminiscent of a British politician who was once just as against immigration, if not slightly more effective in gaining support. Enoch Powell was a British politician who was appointed minister of health in the Conservative government in 1960. He would later become the Opposition’s chief spokesmen on defense, a position he would then lose following what came to be known as the “River of Blood” speech. 

The impression NY Times article gives me concerning this that scare tactics played a big part in winning over his supporters. Sarfraz Manzoor, writer of the article, writes,

“For immigrants like my father, who arrived in Britain from Pakistan in the early 1960s, it wasn’t Mr. Powell’s words that were frightening so much as that so many seemed to agree with them.”

The use of scare tactics is a fallacy that many speakers employ to strike up a shock factor, making their words more compelling to those who might have already been associated or inconvenienced by an issue. Trump and many politicians use scares tactics today, usually they take the forms of startling statistics (sometimes inaccurate), slippery-slip claims, apocalyptic warnings and the like.

The use of scare tactics by these kinds of politicians all circle back to the idea that if they’re elected or appointed, the issue will be resolved and everyone will live better with them at the helm. Obviously as a fallacy scare tactics should be frowned upon when hearing a speech but they can have their effect.

They did back then with Powell and they could very well work again with Trump. All I know is that that picture of Trump and Powell creating a form reminiscent of a Hindu god is extremely stupid. As is Trump. 

Enoch Powell's "River of Blood" Speech: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/3643823/Enoch-Powells-Rivers-of-Blood-speech.html

Sudan Receives TPS Extension

Articles: https://www.uscis.gov/news/temporary-protected-status-extended-sudan

The word of the last few weeks in international news has been Refugees. Whether made refugees recently, 1 year ago or 5 years ago, the issue of protecting individuals from a possibly volatile situation in their country. Several countries are facing the challenges of bearing the kindness that is helping this individuals but as the world is a large place there are endlessly differing opinions on assisting the refugees. 

Well it appears that we've got good news for refugees that are seeking asylum in the U.S as of late. The U.S has extended Temporary Protected Status for Sudan, "The extended designation is effective May 3, 2016, through November 2, 2017." According to the USCIS and. Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson the reason for this extension is the continued conflict in Sudan. It's in theme with other countries, the continued support of individuals in troubled situations and it's obvious that this extension won't be the ultimate solution. It's apparent that many strategies of approaching these issues will prove less effective then they should be but that's the reality of crises.

Overall, the continued issues of asylum and immigration are best approached with precaution and planning and positive  news in the protection of individuals is refreshing. Still, let us not forget that these situations are delicate.

Stricter Refugee Screening, Deceptive Writing & a Small Story in a Wave of Emigrating Individuals

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, at a news conference in Washington on Wednesday.

New Yorker Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/21/us/politics/senate-refugee-screening-bill-syria-iraq.html?_r=0

So legislation is a complicated body to process. Without delving into the more convoluted  aspects of the process I'll inform you that according to Jennifer Steinhauer of the New Yorker, the Senate has blocked a bill passed by the House of Representatives that, "would have required that the director of the F.B.I., the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and the director of national intelligence confirm that each applicant from Syria and Iraq poses no threat, which the White House denounced last year as 'untenable.' "

From the start the issue at hand is clearly addressed, we live in a time in which the need to answer for refugee asylum is a major concern of many countries, Germany, Australia and France included. Yet the further we move into discussing what the separate parties plan to do and how the vote on this issue and that issue, the more confusing and quite frankly petty the article becomes. The issue at hand is the blocking of a bill that would place stricter screenings on refugees, the most probable purpose of the bill being a concern of National Security. In part of the stricter bill, the mention of a visa program that is undercut by the new bill adds to the want for clarification. 

"Under that new measure, with certain narrow exceptions, the United States now bars residents of Iraq, Syria, Iran and Sudan and foreigners who have traveled to those countries since March 2011 from participation in the program." 

The aforementioned visa program allows certain citizens of countries to enter the U.S without a visa for a period of time, about 90 days and that seems practical and fair, there are other requirements for the visa waiver program that go into better detail within the article.

Now, I’m going to switch gears slightly and discuss a small discovery I made accidentally in the past few days. In discussing immigration and the issues faced by refugees now I happened upon on a story in the midst of this world of moving people.

Her Story: https://www.youcaring.com/kamelliah-476495

Apparently a young women by the name of Kamelliah is seeking asylum in the U.S from her abusive family in Saudi Arabia. I’ll allow you to read more about her story and form your own opinions yourselves. However, in reading her story I couldn’t help but realize how desensitized I was to issues such as Kamelliah’s. She’s one asylum seeker in our society among thousands of other refugees. Whether they're from Syria, Iraq or Sudan, there are people around the world seeking to start their lives over, or to simply continue their lives safely. The sheer amount and density is enough for a bystander to become desensitized to the issues, but that doesn’t mean we should allow ourselves to become that.