Biden Tries to Thwart Trump Immigration Policies
The honey badger strikes again.
Dueling headlines on memeorandum this morning.
AP, “Trump is planning 100 executive orders starting Day 1 on border, deportations and other priorities.”
President-elect Donald Trump is preparing more than 100 executive orders starting Day One of the new White House, in what amounts to a shock-and-awe campaign on border security, deportations and a rush of other policy priorities.
Trump told Republican senators about the onslaught ahead during a private meeting on Capitol Hill. Many of the actions are expected to launch on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, when he takes office. Trump top adviser Stephen Miller outlined for the GOP senators the border security and immigration enforcement measures that are likely to launch soonest. Axios first reported on Trump and his team’s presentation.
“There will be a substantial number,” said Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D.
Allies of the president-elect have been preparing a stack of executive orders that Trump could sign quickly on a wide range of topics – from the U.S.-Mexico border clampdown to energy development to federal Schedule F workforce rules, school gender policies and vaccine mandates, among other day-one promises made during his campaign.
NYT, “Biden Issues Sweeping Deportation Protections Before Trump Takes Office.”
The Biden administration on Friday issued sweeping extensions of deportation protections for hundreds of thousands of people from Sudan, Ukraine, El Salvador and Venezuela in a move that makes it almost impossible for President-elect Donald J. Trump to swiftly strip the benefit when he takes office.
The extension of Temporary Protected Status, as the program is called, allows the immigrants to remain in the country with work permits and a shield from deportation for another 18 months from the expiration of their current protection in the spring. Late last year, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken recommended the protections be extended in a series of letters.
For decades, Democratic and Republican administrations have designated the protection for citizens of countries that are in upheaval and deemed unsafe to return to. President Biden has expanded who could receive the status, as war erupted in Ukraine and instability gripped countries like Venezuela and Haiti.
“These designations are rooted in careful review and interagency collaboration to ensure those affected by environmental disasters and instability are given the protections they need while continuing to contribute meaningfully to our communities,” said Representative Adriano Espaillat of New York, the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
Mr. Trump has vowed to end the program, at least for certain countries. Immigrant advocates had been urging the Biden administration to extend it for many of those countries before he takes office.
It is a continued flaw in our system that an administration that lost at the ballot box is not only still governing but actively working to thwart the policies of the election winner campaigned on more than two months later.
The AP report notes this, however:
While executive actions are common on the first day of a new White House, as a new president puts a stamp on certain priorities, what Trump and his team are planning is an executive punch unseen in modern times as he prepares to wield power in untested ways, bypassing the legislative machinery of Congress.
My strong suspicion is that many of these executive orders will be quickly struck down. I don’t see how the President has the authority to strip civil service protections enshrined in statute, for example, by fiat. But these are indeed things that he repeatedly promised to do on the campaign trail and he gets to let the courts tell him No.
Good for Biden – better late than never.
Considering the partisan rift currently in our body politic and the nature of the “policies of the election winner,” all I have is boo hoo, that’s sooooo sad. 🙁
We all know Biden isn’t doing these things. It is the Democrats who run the administration in his name.
So now, the Democratic party will own all the rapes and murders by those in the country illegally, or under this TPS program for at least the first half of Trump’s administration.
And in 2028, the Republicans can run ads pointing out that the same people are running on the Democrat side, regardless of the beard they are running at the top of the ticket.
Across the board, we are engaged (yes, on both sides) in political Gresham’s Law. Bad is driving out good.
Rapist and fascist Trump is only still a thing because a) the flaw in our system that first allowed him to govern for four years despite getting 3 million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton, and b) he was first protected by the flaw in our system that gives power to Republican senators representing millions fewer Americans than represented by Democratic senators and c) he was further immunized by a corrupt Supreme Court majority formed by two Republican presidents who lost the popular vote.
I see no handwringing from Republicans that the rules alow them to govern despite owing their power to a flawed system. The rules allow Biden to serve as president till noon on Jan 20, 2025 — and he should prees his priorities until that date, as he was elected to do, despite Trump’s illegal, fascist coup that tried to thwart him.
@JKB:
Careful. Your bigotry is showing.
@JKB:
By your logic, Republican Party will own all the rapes and murders by those in the country legally.
@Bobert: Half of those will probably be committed by Donald Trump and Matt Gaetz.
@Bobert:
Another example of why I refuse to engage with them as if they mean what they say.
They don’t.
The entire edifice of Trumpism is constructed of lies in service to bigotry.
Remember when this time in 2020, Republicans and their sympathizers thought it necessary to remind Democrats that 80 million people voted for Trump and the will of those voters should be accommodated? I never heard it called a “flaw” when the Trump Administration continued to exercise their legal authority until Jan 19 2021.
Fast forward til today—and it’s: ‘Biden should stop Presidenting immediately–screw the 84 million people that voted for him to exercise Presidental authority until Jan 20 2025’
I want Biden to windmill dunk 100 Executive Orders on these simps on 19 Jan 2025. These are not people that are interested in give and take. The only want to take–and shame YOU for not being giving.
Keep flexing on em Joe!
@JKB: [Biden Dunks, puts sack in JKB’s face] You like that Bro?
@Jim Brown 32:
Yes and not just in 2020. All throughout Biden’s presidency there was a constant drumbeat of “half the country voted for Trump” to remind Democrats about why they needed to cater to everyone except their own base. Because only Trump supporters are ‘real Americans’ who must be head-patted and coddled — the rest of us are to be sneered at, ignored, and disregarded.
You and I both know why.
@Chip Daniels:
With my minor modification, Chip, I’ma gonna have to borrow this one.
@DK:
Which Democrats routinely do anyway.
Obamacare helps the “working class white” MAGA, maybe more than it helps Dems. Currently, Trump and other GOPs are whining about aid to CA over fires while Dem prezes routinely just declare emergencies and send aid to red states for hurricanes, tornadoes, etc.
@Flat Earth Luddite: To be complete, it should be “The entire edifice of [GOP] is constructed of lies in service to bigotry in service to cutting billionaire taxes.” Even the bigotry is partially a facade hiding the machinations of the plutocrats.
@gVOR10: Yes, well, plutocracy is part of the platform of the Democrats too. Gotta coddle the wealthy or they’ll use their political speech against you.
@Chip Daniels, @Flat Earth Luddite, @gVOR10:
“Trumpism”, “GOP”, “Plutocracy, Oligarchy” – all distinctions without a difference, if you ask me.
I really think we need to coin a term that makes clear that for the Right in 2025 the cult, the establishment, and the moneyed are inseparable. They all have unique agency, but they are working in concert in ways we haven’t seen since at least the Gilded Age.
From OP:
Since Trump won, isn’t rule by fiat now the will of the people? I think we learned yesterday that Trump & the GOP won’t give two figs about the courts telling him No.
I wish you were right that our institutional guardrails will hold. I also wish for a pony.
@JKB: “We all know ”
And by “we all” you mean you and all the little voices in your head?
@Chip Daniels:
@gVOR10:
@Scott F.:
Well, yes, but to me these are obvious background, like the known facts that I am an oxygen consuming bipedal mammal who superficially resembles a rational homo sapien.
ETA @Scott F.:
Cracker and I frequently note the similarities between this and the previous Gilded Age. That and pre-revolution France.
Again, it’s a good time to be an old man past expiration date. /s/
@Flat Earth Luddite:
I get it, but “obvious background” to you is “motivated ignorance” to others. I’m discomfited by the many who think that if Trump is overcome, normalcy will return. But, like the hydra, all three heads need to be cut off for the beast to beaten.
Though I’m an old man nearing expiration date, I have young adult children. I have a vested interest in avoiding what followed the previous Gilded Age and pre-revolution France.
By whom, James? Who has both the authority and the will to strike down anything Trump does?
@Scott F.:
I certainly understand and agree with you. I wish I could join you in the struggle.
However, my default position is (and has been as long as I can remember) red rage, and my personal default has been extreme violence. I’ve spent the last 40+ years living with the consequences of that mindset, from my teens and 20s to the present (and future) days. Family and friends have had to join me in restrictions on where we live, how and where we travel, and our employment. All y’all are way better situated to solving these issues than I, because society can’t and shouldn’t live with mine.
James: “It is a continued flaw in our system that an administration that lost at the ballot box is not only still governing but actively working to thwart the policies of the election winner campaigned on more than two months later. ”
James, we are living in a system where one entire party looked at their president trying to overthrow the government, and supported that. That just might be a bigger flaw.
Wait, what? Biden is legally making Trump angry?
I feel really bad about this.
That said, I’m pretty sure that Trump will ignore Biden’s Executive Orders, or any other law or legal inconveniences that are in his path.
48 months would have been better, at least for Venezuela. Unless the Maduro government suddenly changes.
(El Salvador TPS is because of a series of severe weather events causing damage — there will presumably be some rebuilding over the next 18 months. Enough? Probably not.)
@Jim Brown 32:
Like Conservatives in UK: wins elections 2019
“Yay. We rulz! 43.6% of the vote! Up yours, socialists! Boris forever! (OK, Liz. All right then, Rishi.)”
Loses election 2024:
“Waah! You must listen to us! Look at the opinion polls! Look at the media editorials! Heed our righteous demands!”
We don’t all know that. I think Biden gets tired easily, but it still mentally sharp, and able to make good decisions.
Also, did you read the part about how Trumps aides are preparing the EOs for him to sign? He’s taking a nap, not working around the clock.