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What Steel fails to acknowledge is that the link he posted has Schumer citing concerns over the probable outcome that Republicans would add disagreeable provisions to what is on the surface a seemingly agreeable bill aiming to reunite broken families ("unacceptable additions have bogged down every piece of legislation we've done"), but I guess that doesn't fit Steel's "petty Democrats are worse than Nazis" narrative.
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Not clean? It insists on $25 billion for funding in his silly wall. Thats absolutely holding the kids hostage.
As is typical in these situations, there seem to be a lot of rumors and half-done versions floating around, which people pretend are "real" long before anything actually comes to a vote. The last I've heard is that we're getting a clean, simple bill that allows families to stay together while the situation is reviewed.

I for one hate it when people load up bills with unnecessary stuff and then accuse people who vote no of being against X, where X is the one unobjectionable thing in it. But then, I remember this happening to Republicans countless times before, too. It always sucks. I'd love to believe that, if that happens here, that the turnabout will lead to a cease fire on this shameless, hacky rhetorical move even when power changes hands again, but I'm not optimistic.

And honestly, ALL he has to do is STOP ripping kids away from their families. He can do that ALL by himself. Thus the analogy.
If someone is in the country illegally, we're legally obligated to detain them, yes? At that point, you either detain them the way you would anyone else (nobody gets to takes their kids to jail), or you have some special facility or exception for families in this situation so they can stay together while being detained/reviewed/whatever. The argument here is that there is no real current legal exception, and to whatever degree this didn't happen before was the degree to which we were just sort of making up the law as we went (though many have pointed out that these things were happening before, only they didn't get as much attention).

Anyway, I can't tell from your response if you're genuinely unaware of the debate here, or if you dispute the premises it's based in, or what, so please clarify.

So I JUST dont understand ANY level of arguing about how this is all on the democrats to make things stop.
Will you understand it if they get a clean bill and still vote no?



Well we are actually talking about this as its going on apparently. I JUST heard a "breaking news" report that Trump is going to go ahead and reverse this by executive order? Can anyone confirm?
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Ugh.

There is zero reason to keep expecting Presidents to resolve these things. If the problem is the law, change the law. If a law has so much ambiguity in it that different Presidents can make it seem like entirely different laws based on what they choose to enforce or how, then we've fundamentally undermined the separation of powers.

If this is true, it's an awful situation being resolved via the continuation of an awful precedent.



While I largely agree with that, Im for anything that stops the child torment NOW. Although, if true, this will be a hit against Trump with his base who are full on anti-immigrant. Never thought Id actually see that happen so Im curious what the wording is exactly.



Respectfully, that first sentence is the whole problem here: trying to make exceptions to the integrity of the process because this time it's important. It's important every time. And every time someone will make the case that yeah yeah, the process matters, but not when anything is actually at stake! Even though the process exists almost entirely for those situations, where we're most tempted to cut those corners.

Replace the nouns about immigration with nouns about terrorism and imagine a Republican is otherwise making the same case, to write around existing law because the issue is so important. Does it still sound good?



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This is all politics, each side knowing that Hispanics will vote for Democrats. Trump wants to show his base, especially since he hasn't built a wall, but the Democrats wants Trump to hold on to the firecracker as long as possible. It's never about what it's supposed to be about... I just heard Fox urging Trump to sign the EO, but not because of kids, but because of the "mid-terms, and then impeachment".



Respectfully, that first sentence is the whole problem here: trying to make exceptions to the integrity of the process because this time it's important. It's important every time. And every time someone will make the case that yeah yeah, the process matters, but not when anything is actually at stake! Even though the process exists almost entirely for those situations, where we're most tempted to cut those corners.

Replace the nouns about immigration with nouns about terrorism and imagine a Republican is otherwise making the same case, to write around existing law because the issue is so important. Does it still sound good?
Well you still have the courts who can check anything they feel is too much of an overreach remember. Thats what happened to many of Obama's executive actions as I recall, specifically regarding immigration. And in this case I cant imagine theres anyone (other than sadists and Jeff Miller) who actually thought the act of separating children from their parents was a GOOD thing. So I dont see the problem with stoping that by any means necessary then immediately sitting down and working on immigration legislation while the stove is still hot. I mean I dont even think he needs to actually go this far even. He could just give the word to Sessions to STOP. And interpret it like ALL the other presidents had. To me its really just that simple.



Well you still have the courts who can check anything they feel is too much of an overreach remember.
That's inconsistent at best and incoherent at worst. Just off the top of my head, Obama issued an executive order on immigration, which was allowed by the courts, yet Trump's reversal of said executive order was blocked.

Having people govern by "feel" is the whole problem. We're a nation of laws, not of men, and I'm genuinely shocked to hear otherwise reasonable people be so blasé about this.

And in this case I cant imagine theres anyone (other than sadists and Jeff Miller) who actually thought the act of separating children from their parents was a GOOD thing.
If Congress is constantly falling back on the other branches to correct horribly or vaguely written laws, there is no zero incentive to put serious debate and thought into the laws in the first place.

So I dont see the problem with stoping that by any means necessary
That depresses the hell outta me. Anyone should be able to see the problem, both in theory, and in the way it's already manifesting itself throughout these debates.

then immediately sitting down and working on immigration legislation while the stove is still hot.
Except we may or may not get around to that part, and the incentives'll be all messed up by then.

This isn't how it's supposed to work, and for good reason, and it really doesn't take much imagination to think of how this can (nay, will) be used in situations where you don't like the result.

I mean I dont even think he needs to actually go this far even. He could just give the word to Sessions to STOP. And interpret it like ALL the other presidents had. To me its really just that simple.
From what I can tell, that's not how "ALL the other presidents" interpreted it. There was a photo circulating recently of some child behind a fence, looking miserable. It got halfway around the Internet before someone noticed it was taken years ago. I'm guessing this is one of those things where the curation of our news outlets and friends determines whether we've heard about this over or over, or somehow not heard about it at all. The fact checks on this seem to just be that it was rare before, and is common now.

Laws should not look like totally different laws depending on who's President. I can't believe I have to actually defend this idea.



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The Democrats could have accepted the 1.8 million who'd be CITIZENS (DACA + close family members)... Sounds like they want ammunition for the mid-terms. I don't see anything wrong with ending the lottery, or some security. A wall would be a waste of money. Nothing wrong with bringing in people from Norway - diversity!



If Congress is constantly falling back on the other branches to correct horribly or vaguely written laws, there is no zero incentive to put serious debate and thought into the laws in the first place.
That depresses the hell outta me. Anyone should be able to see the problem, both in theory, and in the way it's already manifesting itself throughout these debates.
I see that the process bothers you but my concern is less about legislative theory and whats ideal and all about rescue the kids NOW. Sorry to disappoint you on that but I frankly feel thats a no brainer. If a building is burning and theres a kid in it my instinct is to get the kid the hell out of the building FIRST before talking about how we should really improve the code issues for this building that caused it to catch on fire to begin with. Im not really concerned that getting the kid out of danger might make us less focused on fixing the problems that result in a higher likelihood of fires. Its just not as important to me. Im just not willing to risk the kids well being for a legal (or legislative) procedure point. Or out of stubborn adhesion to process and procedures. And anyway, if its true that legislators wont have any incentive to fix the problem once kids are no longer in harms way (although they are still in harms way for other reasons) then that’s a problem with either the current system or the current legislators. Or both. And if it’s a problem with the latter or both then the answer is to vote those folks out and vote IN folks who will be more willing to take on these issues withOUT being forced to at gun point only. We don’t need a congress that wont cooperate with itself as a rule. That’s not governing. But I frankly feel that doing ANYTHING other than stopping this harmful practice immediately is tantamount to state sponsored child abuse and is a non starter for me. Are you saying you are willing to allow that to continue because the process of legislating "correctly" is more important in the long run then these kids well being in the short run?

From what I can tell, that's not how "ALL the other presidents" interpreted it. There was a photo circulating recently of some child behind a fence, looking miserable. It got halfway around the Internet before someone noticed it was taken years ago.
Yes, I urge you to read my initial response to captain steel when he insisted all these pictures were actually of Obama throwing kids in cages. The truth is when there was a spike of undocumented minors in 2014 that overwhelmed the system, they had to pull out the chain link fences and create "temporary crowd reduction facilities" or some such. In these cases there WAS NO parent available to pass these kids onto. So they scrambled to find housing and made some facility set ups that seemed cringy out of context. But this was NOT overt active policy on the administrations part like it was with Trump. They were NOT looking to actively purposefully separate children and throw them in cages for political reasons and deterrent reasons. These kids had no parents and there was suddenly THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of them. What options do you have in those situations? So I don’t see Trumps use of cages as even remotely comparable to what went down during 2014 with Obama. That short term solution was not being used and implemented as a means of deterrent and intimidation as it was with the Trump administration. And that is a world of difference.



I see that the process bothers you
Yeah, ya' got me. Thinking laws are important is a real bugaboo of mine.

If a building is burning and theres a kid in it my instinct is to get the kid the hell out of the building FIRST before talking about how we should really improve the code issues for this building that caused it to catch on fire to begin with.
There is no equivalent to just rescuing the kid here. Executive Orders still need to be considered and drafted and all that. A better analogy would be that you want to run into the building to save whichever single kid you run into first without calling the fire department.

Also worth noting that, if you disregard those stodgy old code issues long enough, a whole lot of people end up on fire. So if your goal is to minimize the number of people on fire at any given moment, I'm pretty sure it would involve at least some long-term thinking, even at points where you really really want to just think short-term.

Short-term solutions breed long-term problems. Not theoretical problems, actual ones. Which means not caring about them is not actually being more practical or compassionate: it's just allowing us to feel better in the moment while shifting the responsibility and pain onto some future person.

Im just not willing to risk the kids well being for a legal (or legislative) procedure point.
This is a false dichotomy. If the Congress wants to, it can easily submit and vote on a clean bill quickly. We've done this in times of crisis before.

You'll also find that, in a political culture that actually expects laws to be drafted with precision from the get-go, you won't find yourself in as many of these situations to begin with.

Or out of stubborn adhesion to process and procedures.
How do you feel about the idea of a President Trump who gets to decide which laws are "real" laws that need to be enforced and which ones would just be the "stubborn adhesion to process and procedures"?

Are you saying you are willing to allow that to continue because the process of legislating "correctly" is more important in the long run then these kids well being in the short run?
First, I'm amazed that you can, with a straight face, put "correctly" in quotation marks about the mere act of submitting and passing legislation. As if Congress making law was some kind of arcane parliamentary maneuver, rather than the entire basis for our government.

Second, no, I'm not saying it's more important. I'm saying it's not unimportant, to the point where we can or should brush it off whenever it's convenient. Which is, I've noticed, pretty much any time we want to do anything.

Third, this is so, so amazingly easy to pick apart in any other context. Are you saying you're willing to let a murderer and rapist go free because the idea of an "unreasonable search and seizure" is more important in the long run than getting this dangerous person off the streets?



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
I guess Drumpf got whipped by his in-family "pussies" [his own Access Hollywood reference]. Hopefully his "big star" is setting.
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Yeah, ya' got me. Thinking laws are important is a real bugaboo of mine.
As are children. And human lives.

There is no equivalent to just rescuing the kid here. Executive Orders still need to be considered and drafted and all that. A better analogy would be that you want to run into the building to save whichever single kid you run into first without calling the fire department.
I love that our discussions generally come down to dueling analogies.

Also worth noting that, if you disregard those stodgy old code issues long enough, a whole lot of people end up on fire. So if your goal is to minimize the number of people on fire at any given moment, I'm pretty sure it would involve at least some long-term thinking, even at points where you really really want to just think short-term.
Ok but this goes to my point of rescue the kid in the burning building NOW, AND still come up with a solution to the bad fire coding ALSO. To me its not an either or. I know you have little faith that the latter will happen if we save the kid but as noted that’s an issue about the ineffectiveness of our politicians not the merits of our system necessarily. And Im not willing to sacrifice children to a fiery death in order to make it more likely that the codes get fixed. Any other action than saving the child FIRST is essentially using the childs life for another purpose. Even if you see that purpose as saving more children in the long run.

This is a false dichotomy. If the Congress wants to, it can easily submit and vote on a clean bill quickly. We've done this in times of crisis before.
And if Trump wanted to he could choose not to torment kids for political reasons. But we don’t live in a world of ideals where the best case solution is always undertaken and in plenty of time.

You'll also find that, in a political culture that actually expects laws to be drafted with precision from the get-go, you won't find yourself in as many of these situations to begin with.
Im thinking more and more that you live in some strange unfamiliar ideal democratic utopia where legislators are actually efficient and honest and competent and uninfluenced by anything other than doing the right thing for their constituents and somehow every piece of legislation comes out perfect and is widely accepted by all. I'd love to join you but that’s not the reality Im currently living in. So until we get there Im going to bulldoze through process if need be when it comes to keeping kids from being tormented in my name. But I wont be doing this as a rule. And I will also vote. And express my urgent desire for a legislative solution for the situation even after the kids are out of relative danger. I can do both things. And I expect my politicians to be able to also.

How do you feel about the idea of a President Trump who gets to decide which laws are "real" laws that need to be enforced and which ones would just be the "stubborn adhesion to process and procedures"?
What, you mean like colluding with foreign powers? You could have just stopped that sentence at "How do you feel about the idea of a President Trump..." and Im sure you could fill in my opinion from there. And anyway, to me the process worked here. There was so much pressure on him for the way he chose to interpret this law that he was forced to change course. Which is saying something considering how rarely he backs down no matter how ludicrous or blatantly stupid his choice of action is. So theres always checks from people just going too far with things, even when things fall between the normal legislative cracks. Generally, the true back and forth on issues is in the tight middle. When politicians go to enormous extremes they tend to find themselves checked by the courts (as with his Muslim ban) or by other politicians or by the volume of the public itself.

Second, no, I'm not saying it's more important. I'm saying it's not unimportant, to the point where we can or should brush it off whenever it's convenient.
I fully agree its not unimportant. In fact it may be the second most important thing next to saving the kids. Im thinking this argument is basically boiling down to:

I. Rex: SAVE THE KIDS AND FIX THE LEGISLATION

Yoda: FIX THE LEGISLATION SO KIDS CAN BE SAVED.

Are you saying you're willing to let a murderer and rapist go free because the idea of an "unreasonable search and seizure" is more important in the long run than getting this dangerous person off the streets?
Wait... Are you talking about someone convicted based on illegal or unconstitutional tactics? Then yes of course. You arent? By definition, if they have been convicted based on illegal tactics then they arent actually proven guilty of the crime. Specifically, their case should be thrown out and they should be retried. Although Im not really sure how this is directly relevant to my stance on helping the children first.



As are children. And human lives.
This is probably the third time you've implied that kids are being actively hurt or dying during this process. I'm not sure where that's coming from. The outrage is (justifiably) about parents and children being separated, not parents being detained and children being executed. Please elaborate.

Any other action than saving the child FIRST is essentially using the childs life for another purpose. Even if you see that purpose as saving more children in the long run.
Really? What if that one other action is calling the fire department to put the fire out? You're basically saying "no time for that water nonsense! There's a kid near a fire in there!" Meanwhile, there's a whole 'nother building full of kids next door that has a really big stake in whether or not you make that call.

You can't react to every situation as if it's the last/only situation. Thankfully, as a people we've been clear-headed enough to use the downtime between one crisis and the next to setup procedures that minimize those awful situations.

That's the argument you're actually up against here, not this straw man stuff about letting kids die to prove an abstract point about civics. I realize that's a much easier position to defend, but it's not the actual choice in front of us.

And if Trump wanted to he could choose not to torment kids for political reasons. But we don’t live in a world of ideals where the best case solution is always undertaken and in plenty of time.
Exactly. Your entire argument hinges on the idea that an Executive Order would happen faster than legislation. But that argument lives in that "world of ideals" where Trump would just do what you wanted immediately, rather than the real world where it predictably took days of outrage and hemming and hawing.

I'm not talking about some kumbayah bipartisan pipe dream. This was on the verge of happening already, and very likely would have if people hadn't unilaterally ruled it out.

Im thinking more and more that you live in some strange unfamiliar ideal democratic utopia where legislators are actually efficient and honest and competent and uninfluenced by anything other than doing the right thing for their constituents and somehow every piece of legislation comes out perfect and is widely accepted by all. I'd love to join you but that’s not the reality Im currently living in.
See above. You're playing the "this is the real world" card when talking about a legislative solution, but not with the executive order.

And I can assure you, zero of my beliefs are based on a general faith in the effectiveness or honesty of politicians. That's precisely why the separation of powers are important in the first place.

So until we get there Im going to bulldoze through process if need be when it comes to keeping kids from being tormented in my name. But I wont be doing this as a rule. And I will also vote. And express my urgent desire for a legislative solution for the situation even after the kids are out of relative danger. I can do both things. And I expect my politicians to be able to also.
If you expect them to be able to do that, you can expect them to vote promptly on something important. You're really just arbitrarily fluctuating between expecting nothing of politicians, and saying you should be able to expect X, as the needs of a given argument dictate.

You could have just stopped that sentence at "How do you feel about the idea of a President Trump..." and Im sure you could fill in my opinion from there. And anyway, to me the process worked here.
Well, yeah, that's why I asked: the whole premise of the question is based on the idea that you won't like the way it works out other times, which is why it's not good to favor power grabs in general, even when they produce results you like in a given situation.

I can kinda see how someone could look the other way on executive power when they like the guy wielding it and like what he's doing with it, though that's obviously tremendously short-sighted. But I can't for the life of me wrap my head around how someone could continue to do this while simultaneously thinking the current person wielding that power is dangerous and irresponsible.

Wait... Are you talking about someone convicted based on illegal or unconstitutional tactics? Then yes of course. You arent? By definition, if they have been convicted based on illegal tactics then they arent actually proven guilty of the crime. Specifically, their case should be thrown out and they should be retried. Although Im not really sure how this is directly relevant to my stance on helping the children first.
I thought it was pretty clear, but sure, I'll put it side-by-side:
Are you saying you are willing to allow that to continue because the process of legislating "correctly" is more important in the long run then these kids well being in the short run?
I'm just replacing a few nouns:
Are you saying you are willing to let a murderer go free because due process is more important in the long run then these victims' lives in the short run?
Please explain how you decide which legal issues are expendable in the moment, and which are more important than the outcome of any one situation.



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This is probably the third time you've implied that kids are being actively hurt or dying during this process. I'm not sure where that's coming from. The outrage is (justifiably) about parents and children being separated, not parents being detained and children being executed. Please elaborate.

not sure if this is the kind of thing you were looking for, but i thought this was a fairy informative article about the short term and long terms effects for the children being separated from parents.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-ca...528900?SThisFB
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