Maggie's Farm

Jerryskids: Re: Cubans need not apply

Cubans are under the same rules as other immigrants and can certainly apply for asylum once they reach the U.S.

OldCurmudgeon: Unlike other immigrants, however, we actively prevent them from reaching the US.

The U.S. can't physically block people inside Mexico. They do work with authorities in Mexico and Central America to limit migration, but there is a limit to what is practical.

OldCurmudgeon: And unlike other immigrants, most of these actually have a plausible claim of asylum.

A lot of Central Americans have valid claims of asylum, where criminal gangs essentially constitute the government in many of their home regions.

There's a reason why there has been an increase in immigration from Central America, while there is little net immigration from Mexico.

Deport Everyone: With specific exceptions, persecution by criminal gangs is not a ground for asylum, refugee status or withholding of removal and these claims typically fail.

To qualify for asylum, the person has to show persecution due to race, religion, nationality, political opinion or social group (or threat of torture by government officials). Some have won asylum for the political opinion of choosing not to join a criminal gang, or being a member of a social group, a family, that is being persecuted. Women and gays can often win asylum is they can show persecution because of that. But as you point out, many asylum claims are rejected, and people have been returned to their home country to be murdered by the criminal gangs they fled.

Deport Everyone: Persecution means persecution by the government

That is not quite correct. If violence is out of control of the government, then you may qualify. However, if the violence abates, then your claim may be denied. You are correct, however, that asylum claims based only on the criminal environment are denied. The policy was implemented much more stringently during the Trump administration.

By the way, this applies to Cuban refugees, as well. Not everyone escaping Cuba is a political refugee. Most just flee for better conditions. Deport Everyone, you would presumably deport all the Cubans, too.

SK: Your intellectual dishonesty, not your politics, is why no one around here takes you seriously as a commenter.

This is where you show were we were either dishonest or even just wrong.

U.S. courts have held, for instance, that women and children are often targeted by criminal gangs because they are women and children, so may qualify under the "social group" standard. Family members who are threatened may also qualify under the "social group" standard. Those who publicly oppose criminal gangs may qualify under the "political opinion" standard. The results are very dependent on the jurisdiction, however, showing the inconsistency in the asylum law.

Deport Everyone: The phrase is "particular social group" and a bare argument that women and children comprise one is a dead loser.

Except that gender-based prosecution has been held by courts to be grounds for asylum. In any case, more than 4000 people from the Northern Triangle have been granted immigration relief just in 2020, and that was under the Trump administration.

Deport Everyone: Cite the case, rule or statute that states gender alone is a ground for asylum.

Persecution based on gender is the topic. Asylum has been granted on these grounds since the 1990s, but the rules were unclear, and results varied by court. Attorney General Sessions tried to put a stop to it with his opinion in Matter of A-B-.

In 2019, in Orellana v. Barr, the court found that the the petitioner was found to be a member of a persecuted and particular social group.

In 2020, in Hernandez-Chacon v. Barr, the court found that a Salvadoran woman's refusal to submit to sexual violence by a gang member should be considered political opinion resisting the norm of female subordination that pervades El Salvador.

Since then, Attorney General Garland voided the Sessions opinion, and sent it to rule-making for public comment so as to put some consistency and rationality to the process.

Deport Everyone: Did you actually read Hernandez-Chacon?

Yes. They said the lower court should consider her refusal to submit to sexual violence should be considered as political opinion, saying: "She argues that when she refused to submit to the violent advances of the gangmembers, she was taking a stance against a culture of male-domination and her resistance was therefore a political act.

"There is ample evidence in the record to support her claim."

Deport Everyone: Nor did you read Orellana v. Barr

We did. As the appeals court noted: "The BIA upheld the finding of an immigration judge (“IJ”) that Orellana, although persecuted because of her membership in a particular social group, had failed to establish that the Salvadoran government was unwilling or unable to protect her from this persecution." So, she was found to be a persecuted member of a particular social group. She still had to prove that the lack of government protection.

You really need to read the decisions before accusing someone else of not reading the decisions.

{emphasis added}

Deport Everyone: You didn't read anything

Actually, we directly quoted from the decisions.

Deport Everyone: The Bureau of Immigration Appeals and therefore Immigration Courts (which are administrative tribunals roughly equivalent to Article III courts and not under the control of the Executive) routinely reject asylum claims based on gang violence where there is no evidence that the alleged persecution was tied to one of the protected grounds and the government allows or encourages this behavior.

In 2020, during the Trump administration, about 18% of asylum claims from El Salvador were approved, 14% from Guatemala. For comparison, about 40% of asylum claims from Cuba were approved. For all countries of origin, it's about 30%. However, it varies considerably across the court system.

Louis Miller: They would like your help with her root cause analysis of illegal immigration.

Political instability and lawless gangs are a primary cause the violence overtaking the region. Little economic development can occur until the situation stabilizes.

Louis Miller: One could infer from your point that record numbers waited patiently to flee these easily recognized, long-term problems, but it can’t have been due to some encouragement and assurances

Why has there been an increase in immigration from Central America, while there is little net immigration from Mexico?

The Central Triangle has suffered several recent devastating events: hurricane damage, the coronavirus pandemic, drought, and food insecurity. The result has been deterioration of the political situation, and the rise of criminality. Yes, people there hope to find succor in the U.S. Not all will be admitted, but political stability and economic development are the only long-term solution.

Aggie: So here we have a story about nature improving its own ecosystems and creating a new equilibrium, with scientists simultaneously spouting doom, babbling about the devastation of the 'fur trade' from a hundred years ago (??) while they 'rush' to claim credit for beavers appearing where they didn't expect them.

Huh? The beavers are being reintroduced by ecologists: "Doden and several other researchers set out to reintroduce beavers to the drought and fire-stricken land."

Not everything, of course, but the natural world is being significantly impacted by anthropogenic climate change, so scientists are working to understand and mitigate the effects.

Global Warming is Cool: When was the moast perfectest climate evah in the world what we should strive for? Was it in the middle of the Clinton or Obama administration?

Modern human civilization has prospered in a period of relative climate stability, and they have erected huge infrastructures to support a burgeoning population. Instability threatens that infrastructure. Sea level rise threatens to displace millions; changes in climate jeopardizes agriculture; and dislocations of ecosystems imperils humanity's shared natural inheritance.

Global Warming is Cool: The bestest evah climate was in the Cretaceous, when sea levels were 260m higher.

That's illustrates the problem quite well. Here's North America with an 80m sea level rise. Now what happens to all the people who live in coastal cities? Florida is gone. California's Central Valley with all its agriculture is gone.
https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/026/856/945/large/christopher-bretz-noram-80m-sea-level-rise-sm.jpg

Not to mention the flora and fauna were quite different.
https://www.activewild.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/tyrannosaurus-rex.jpg

It's not that human civilization couldn't have evolved in such a landscape. But it didn't. And everything humans have built, and the world's current ecosystems, would be threatened by a sudden change in climate to anything resembling the Cretaceous.

DrTorch: Incontrovertible evidence for that claim is non-existent.

Science rarely deals in the incontrovertible; however, there is strong scientific evidence supporting anthropogenic global warming. That evidence includes the basic physics of the greenhouse effect, observations of Earth's heat budget, and, of course, the fact that the Earth's surface is warming as expected from the increase in greenhouse gases. Indeed, without human emissions, the Earth's climate would probably have cooled slightly over the last few decades.
https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-07/models-observed-human-natural.png

SK: And this, ladies and gentlemen, is THE SCIENCE™.

Well, providing evidence is a stronger argument than "Is not!" even if you repeat it several times. The diagram is from Huber & Knutti, Anthropogenic and natural warming inferred from changes in Earth’s energy balance, Nature Geoscience 2012.

SK: Read your words again--maybe you'll get it. Just maybe--you're fundamentally dishonest, so you won't admit it, but you MIGHT get it.

The evidence indicates that the Earth would probably have slightly cooled, but the margins of error as shown in the diagram may indicate no overall change absent anthropogenic forcing. As also shown, the warming with anthropogenic forcing matches the expectation. You can see that here also:
https://climate.nasa.gov/system/internal_resources/details/original/2299_Updated_CMIP3_Model_Comparisons_Hindcast_Forecast_20210122.JPG

Like all scientific findings, the findings could be off a little, or off a lot, or be completely wrong. However, there is support for anthropogenic warming across multiple disciplines, which would be very unlikely absent human causation.

Our guess is your conflation of incontrovertible with probable, but generally it is up to you to make your meaning clear.

SK: And you know exactly what I'm getting at

If it’s not your confusion over incontrovertible and probable, then, no, we don’t know what you are getting at.

jimg: No, it isn’t.

There is a wide variety of scientific evidence supporting anthropogenic global warming, starting with the basic physics of the greenhouse effect, which has been known for over a century. See Arrhenius, On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground, London, Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science 1896.

Jack Walter: Many species suffer from it, others thrive from it, but you can't apply an ethical conclusion from it.

Beavers generally increase biodiversity which is important to ecosystem stability. Beavers also help preserve groundwater. Both are important for humans. Guess it depends on whether you appreciate humans or not.

Global Warming is Cool: Taxpayers are funding an MS in "translocated beaver ecology"?

Heh. Those crazy scientists. Next thing you know they'll be studying viruses in bats. Then it'll be universal health car for flying rodents!

B. Hammer: Liberals, aka communists

Liberals are not communists.

SK: Flowers aren't roses.

Rather, some flowers aren't roses. Communists (Marxists) are not liberals.

Basic logic:

Roses ⊂ Flowers

Liberalism ∩ Communism = ϕ

Redefining words is not an argument.


Liberalism combines two qualities: liberty and equality, though they are often in tension. A Marxist makes equality paramount, even at the sacrifice of individual liberty.

B. Hammer: I suppose that it isn’t communism that they are protesting in Cuba?

Good example. Cuba is not a liberal society, but communist authoritarian.

B. Hammer: What is sad, is that you really believe marxists believe in equality.

That is exactly what Marx and his followers believed. That they combined their unachievable utopianism with ends justify the means extremism has led to all manner of human suffering.

B. Hammer: Is there any other kind?

While communism normally refers to Marxist communism, communism can be applied more generally to any ideology where society is organized so that there is communal ownership of property, with the absence of classes and money. Varieties include anarchistic, Christian, communalist, etc.

Keep in mind that Soviet and Maoist societies were considered socialist as intermediate states leading towards the envisioned communist utopia. A dictatorship of the proletariat.