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Mindlessness Fuels Tyranny

Mindlessness Fuels Tyranny

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Mindlessness Fuels Tyranny Tyler Durden Wed, 10/28/2020 - 03:30

Authored by Barry Brownstein via The American Institute for Economic Research,

It’s no surprise that Dr. Anthony Fauci, with a vested interest in perpetuating the current Covid-19 narrative, has called the Great Barrington Declaration “nonsense and very dangerous.” Just as angry and closed-minded are the social media reactions from some ordinary people. 

We will lose many lives, they warn, if we give credence to the Declaration. The fearful are sure only they, not the signers of the Declaration, care about the lives of others. 

As Don Boudreaux writes, “Much of humanity today appears to perversely enjoy being duped into the irrational fear that any one of us, regardless of age or health, is at the mercy of a brutal beast categorically more lethal than is any other danger that we’ve ever confronted.” 

Those reacting against the Declaration seem to be stuck in time, living in March 2020 when ignorance of the virus’s virulence was peaking. There is so much more we now know about Covid-19, yet the fearful will not consider new information or alternative theories.

The Covid-19 Context Has Changed 

In Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s parable The Little Prince, the prince meets a lamplighter who is continuously lighting and putting out the streetlamp.

The prince asks, “Why have you just put out your lamp?” The lamplighter replies, “These are the instructions,” and then, “he lighted his lamp again.” 

A few more rounds of lighting and putting out the lamp go on. “I do not understand,” said the puzzled prince. 

“’There is nothing to understand,’ said the lamplighter. ‘Instructions are instructions.’”

Then the lamplighter explained his dilemma to the prince. Once, he had a “reasonable” job lighting the lamp in the morning and putting it out in the evening. but then the planet “turned more rapidly and the orders have not changed.” 

As the length of the day changed, the context of a lamplighter’s job changed, yet the lamplighter’s instructions did not.  

Famed Harvard psychology professor Ellen Langer, in her book Mindfulness writes, “A context is a premature cognitive commitment, a mindset.” We think we know, and we miss a lot. Langer continues, “Context depends on who we are today, who we were yesterday, and from which view we see things.”

If we see the world as something to be controlled by big government, it was natural to applaud the March lockdowns. 

Initially, many of those skeptical of big government solutions were also frightened by Covid-19, and then a new context emerged. We know now that Covid-19 death rates are much lower than feared and policies placing Covid-19 patients in nursing homes fueled many deaths. We now know that lockdowns are “overly blunt and costly.” We know now “that children infrequently transmit Covid-19 to each other or to adults.” We know now that we successfully reacted differently to past pandemics.

We know now, as Matt Ridley writes, “the virus spreading among younger people, mostly without hitting the vulnerable, is creating immunity that will eventually slow the epidemic.” Ridley continues,

“If you cannot extinguish an epidemic at the start, the best strategy is for the healthy to get infected first. Lockdowns ensure that the vulnerable and the healthy both get infected with similar probability. School closures, concluded a recent paper in the British Medical Journal, can paradoxically lead to more deaths by prioritising the protection of the least vulnerable.”

Then, why did so many governments adopt the same destructive policies about Covid-19? Why are those same governments refusing to adjust? Fear drives herding behavior, Jeffrey Tucker points out, and leads to political leaders copying each other’s “ignorance and stupor.” Politicians “don’t want to be seen as reversing course on the most catastrophic policies in modern history.”

But enough about politicians who behave like the lamplighter and won’t change even when the context has. A more important question to consider is why won’t your well-meaning neighbor, family member, or colleague consider new information?

Understanding Mindlessness

Mindfulness training is fashionable in personal development. Mindfulness “is awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally,” says Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn.

If mindfulness is being present to reality, what is mindlessness? 

Mindlessness is filtering reality through mental biases. Mindlessness is attending to the transitory noisy thoughts in your head without pausing for a reality check.   

Langer writes, “When mindless, people treat information as though it were context-free—true regardless of circumstances.” To advocate policy towards Covid-19 based on changing circumstances is not to deny the reality of the virus; instead it allows for a more nuanced and responsible response. 

Here is a simple test to self-assess mindlessness. When you are certain your anger is righteous, your anxiety is being generated from the world, or a one-size policy fits all, you may have gone mindless.

In a state of mindlessness, one does not take responsibility. Trump is at fault for Covid-19 deaths. Your partner is at fault for your low mood. The other driver is at fault for your anger.

Take the scenario of a driver who is cut off in highway traffic. Anger swells. His heart races. Mindlessly the driver floors his accelerator. He tailgates the offending driver. 

In an instant, the angry driver sees what he is doing. He remembers a time he was distracted and accidentally cut off someone. He wonders what distracted the driver he is following. 

As the context changes from how dare you cut me off, to a realization of a shared humanity, normalcy returns. Before angry thoughts were placed in a broader context there seemed to be just one option, anger leading to a road-rage conflict. The angry driver had been certain his feelings were caused by the behavior of the other driver, but then he mindfully changed his perspective.

Langer observes that in the grip of mindlessness, “One important way in which we limit our options is to attribute all our troubles to a single cause.” Langer continues:

“Such mindless attributions narratively limit the range of solutions we might seek. In research on divorce… people who blame the failure of their marriages on their ex-spouses suffer longer than those people who see many possible explanations for their situation. 

Similarly, alcoholics who see the cause of their problem as purely genetic seem to give up the control that could help their recovery.”

Importantly, “When we have a single-minded explanation, we typically don’t pay attention to information that runs counter to it.” We claim our goal is to save lives, but then ignore the hundreds of millions that are pushed into dire poverty and starvation by the Covid-19 policies we advocate. We claim we are more empathetic than others and ignore millions who have lost their businesses and careers. 

Why We Want to Be Mindless

Many don’t want to hear theories and facts counter to the conventional narrative. 

Why don’t they want to know? New information would change the context of their personal choices. If they knew, they would have to take responsibility for health decisions for not only themselves but for others. Should I take a Covid-19 vaccine? Should my children? Should I get on an airplane and visit an aging parent? The decisions are endless, and there is no one sure answer.

In her book Counterclockwise, Langer writes,

“When faced with a diagnosis and the medical options for a treatment, the patient is caught in a very difficult dilemma. The impulse to surrender our future treatment wholly to the professional hands of medical practitioners is understandable. Leaving the doctors to make all the choices relieves the existential fear of being responsible for a decision that could in the end hurt us. But not to be involved may hurt us more.” 

Responsibility and freedom go hand in hand. Life is risky and scary. Some would rather not be free. Better to pretend Dr. Fauci and other media-anointed “experts” know best. If something goes wrong, the experts are to blame. 

Importantly, those who want to turn over responsibility to experts often deny the freedom of others to choose. When others make different decisions and stay healthy, they are reminded they have a choice. Since they don’t want to know they have a choice, they will insist that government violently force you to follow their way. And to justify their support for coercive actions, they will mindlessly dehumanize those who don’t follow the instructions. 

Covid-19 policy decisions are impacting the Orthodox Jewish community in NYC. Recently, the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, claimed the fear of his constituents is driving his policy decisions:

“This is not a highly nuanced, sophisticated response. This is a fear-driven response. You know, this is not a policy being written by a scalpel. This is a policy being cut by a hatchet. It’s just very blunt. I didn’t propose this. It was proposed by the mayor in the city. I am trying to sharpen it and make it better. But it’s out of fear. People see the numbers going up—‘Close everything! Close everything!’”

Cuomo has a history of dodging responsibility for his decisions, but his claim that he can’t adopt a nuanced approach because of fear of New Yorkers has some truth. Tyranny is fed by fear. Fear is fed by a mindless refusal to adopt to changing circumstances.

From Mindlessness to Mindfulness

In her book The Power of Mindful Learning, Langer points out how to go beyond living mindlessly on autopilot:

“A mindful approach to any activity has three characteristics: the continuous creation of new categories; openness to new information; and an implicit awareness of more than one perspective. Mindlessness, in contrast, is characterized by an entrapment in old categories; by automatic behavior that precludes attending to new signals; and by action that operates from a single perspective. Being mindless, colloquially speaking, is like being on automatic pilot.”

Schools, Langer observes, “teach us to be mindless” by teaching “us to seek or accept information as if it were absolute and independent of human creation.” 

Resisting the temptation, Langer advises to move quickly from problem to solution by mindlessly drawing on preconstructed categories. The more relevance we give to our preexisting thinking, the less mindful are our actions:

“Rather than moving directly from problem to solution, a person in a mindful state remains open to several ways of viewing the situation. This flexibility allows us to draw on newly available information rather than to rely exclusively on preconstructed categories that tend to overdetermine our behavior. In other words, we have to maintain what some have called intelligent ignorance to make the best of any situation.”

One of the main authors of the Great Barrington Declaration is Harvard’s Martin Kulldorff. Dr. Kulldorff sees beyond either-or categories. He doesn’t favor doing nothing or general lockdowns. Instead, he says developing a policy of “focused protection” will “drastically reduce mortality.”

“Preconstructed categories” mislead people every day. Over the months, more tests have been administered. Positive Covid-19 test results are reported as cases, even when the individual is not ill. Daniel Greenfield writes, “The daily coronavirus reports have become the equivalent of Soviet harvest reports. They sound impressive, mean absolutely nothing and are the pet obsession of a bureaucracy that… has no understanding of the problem.”

This fall on college campuses across the country, students and faculty are being tested frequently. As of October 5, 2020, of 70,000 positive test results on 50 college campuses, there have been three hospitalizations and no deaths. Yet for those with a “premature cognitive commitment” towards evaluating case numbers, rising cases set off alarm and increase fear.  

The Great Barrington Declaration demonstrates a willingness to consider new information and broaden the context for setting policy. Those who want to sell us centralized “hatchet” solutions prefer a public lulled to mindlessness by one narrative. The mindless will follow instructions. If many people continue to look towards one perspective only, without broadening the context, the natural consequence is that experts and politicians on “automatic pilot” will lead us further down the road to tyranny.

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President Biden Delivers The “Darkest, Most Un-American Speech Given By A President”

President Biden Delivers The "Darkest, Most Un-American Speech Given By A President"

Having successfully raged, ranted, lied, and yelled through…

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President Biden Delivers The "Darkest, Most Un-American Speech Given By A President"

Having successfully raged, ranted, lied, and yelled through the State of The Union, President Biden can go back to his crypt now.

Whatever 'they' gave Biden, every American man, woman, and the other should be allowed to take it - though it seems the cocktail brings out 'dark Brandon'?

Tl;dw: Biden's Speech tonight ...

  • Fund Ukraine.

  • Trump is threat to democracy and America itself.

  • Abortion is good.

  • American Economy is stronger than ever.

  • Inflation wasn't Biden's fault.

  • Illegals are Americans too.

  • Republicans are responsible for the border crisis.

  • Trump is bad.

  • Biden stands with trans-children.

  • J6 was the worst insurrection since the Civil War.

(h/t @TCDMS99)

Tucker Carlson's response sums it all up perfectly:

"that was possibly the darkest, most un-American speech given by an American president. It wasn't a speech, it was a rant..."

Carlson continued: "The true measure of a nation's greatness lies within its capacity to control borders, yet Bid refuses to do it."

"In a fair election, Joe Biden cannot win"

And concluded:

“There was not a meaningful word for the entire duration about the things that actually matter to people who live here.”

Victor Davis Hanson added some excellent color, but this was probably the best line on Biden:

"he doesn't care... he lives in an alternative reality."

*  *  *

Watch SOTU Live here...

*   *   *

Mises' Connor O'Keeffe, warns: "Be on the Lookout for These Lies in Biden's State of the Union Address." 

On Thursday evening, President Joe Biden is set to give his third State of the Union address. The political press has been buzzing with speculation over what the president will say. That speculation, however, is focused more on how Biden will perform, and which issues he will prioritize. Much of the speech is expected to be familiar.

The story Biden will tell about what he has done as president and where the country finds itself as a result will be the same dishonest story he's been telling since at least the summer.

He'll cite government statistics to say the economy is growing, unemployment is low, and inflation is down.

Something that has been frustrating Biden, his team, and his allies in the media is that the American people do not feel as economically well off as the official data says they are. Despite what the White House and establishment-friendly journalists say, the problem lies with the data, not the American people's ability to perceive their own well-being.

As I wrote back in January, the reason for the discrepancy is the lack of distinction made between private economic activity and government spending in the most frequently cited economic indicators. There is an important difference between the two:

  • Government, unlike any other entity in the economy, can simply take money and resources from others to spend on things and hire people. Whether or not the spending brings people value is irrelevant

  • It's the private sector that's responsible for producing goods and services that actually meet people's needs and wants. So, the private components of the economy have the most significant effect on people's economic well-being.

Recently, government spending and hiring has accounted for a larger than normal share of both economic activity and employment. This means the government is propping up these traditional measures, making the economy appear better than it actually is. Also, many of the jobs Biden and his allies take credit for creating will quickly go away once it becomes clear that consumers don't actually want whatever the government encouraged these companies to produce.

On top of all that, the administration is dealing with the consequences of their chosen inflation rhetoric.

Since its peak in the summer of 2022, the president's team has talked about inflation "coming back down," which can easily give the impression that it's prices that will eventually come back down.

But that's not what that phrase means. It would be more honest to say that price increases are slowing down.

Americans are finally waking up to the fact that the cost of living will not return to prepandemic levels, and they're not happy about it.

The president has made some clumsy attempts at damage control, such as a Super Bowl Sunday video attacking food companies for "shrinkflation"—selling smaller portions at the same price instead of simply raising prices.

In his speech Thursday, Biden is expected to play up his desire to crack down on the "corporate greed" he's blaming for high prices.

In the name of "bringing down costs for Americans," the administration wants to implement targeted price ceilings - something anyone who has taken even a single economics class could tell you does more harm than good. Biden would never place the blame for the dramatic price increases we've experienced during his term where it actually belongs—on all the government spending that he and President Donald Trump oversaw during the pandemic, funded by the creation of $6 trillion out of thin air - because that kind of spending is precisely what he hopes to kick back up in a second term.

If reelected, the president wants to "revive" parts of his so-called Build Back Better agenda, which he tried and failed to pass in his first year. That would bring a significant expansion of domestic spending. And Biden remains committed to the idea that Americans must be forced to continue funding the war in Ukraine. That's another topic Biden is expected to highlight in the State of the Union, likely accompanied by the lie that Ukraine spending is good for the American economy. It isn't.

It's not possible to predict all the ways President Biden will exaggerate, mislead, and outright lie in his speech on Thursday. But we can be sure of two things. The "state of the Union" is not as strong as Biden will say it is. And his policy ambitions risk making it much worse.

*  *  *

The American people will be tuning in on their smartphones, laptops, and televisions on Thursday evening to see if 'sloppy joe' 81-year-old President Joe Biden can coherently put together more than two sentences (even with a teleprompter) as he gives his third State of the Union in front of a divided Congress. 

President Biden will speak on various topics to convince voters why he shouldn't be sent to a retirement home.

According to CNN sources, here are some of the topics Biden will discuss tonight:

  • Economic issues: Biden and his team have been drafting a speech heavy on economic populism, aides said, with calls for higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy – an attempt to draw a sharp contrast with Republicans and their likely presidential nominee, Donald Trump.

  • Health care expenses: Biden will also push for lowering health care costs and discuss his efforts to go after drug manufacturers to lower the cost of prescription medications — all issues his advisers believe can help buoy what have been sagging economic approval ratings.

  • Israel's war with Hamas: Also looming large over Biden's primetime address is the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, which has consumed much of the president's time and attention over the past few months. The president's top national security advisers have been working around the clock to try to finalize a ceasefire-hostages release deal by Ramadan, the Muslim holy month that begins next week.

  • An argument for reelection: Aides view Thursday's speech as a critical opportunity for the president to tout his accomplishments in office and lay out his plans for another four years in the nation's top job. Even though viewership has declined over the years, the yearly speech reliably draws tens of millions of households.

Sources provided more color on Biden's SOTU address: 

The speech is expected to be heavy on economic populism. The president will talk about raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy. He'll highlight efforts to cut costs for the American people, including pushing Congress to help make prescription drugs more affordable.

Biden will talk about the need to preserve democracy and freedom, a cornerstone of his re-election bid. That includes protecting and bolstering reproductive rights, an issue Democrats believe will energize voters in November. Biden is also expected to promote his unity agenda, a key feature of each of his addresses to Congress while in office.

Biden is also expected to give remarks on border security while the invasion of illegals has become one of the most heated topics among American voters. A majority of voters are frustrated with radical progressives in the White House facilitating the illegal migrant invasion. 

It is probable that the president will attribute the failure of the Senate border bill to the Republicans, a claim many voters view as unfounded. This is because the White House has the option to issue an executive order to restore border security, yet opts not to do so

Maybe this is why? 

While Biden addresses the nation, the Biden administration will be armed with a social media team to pump propaganda to at least 100 million Americans. 

"The White House hosted about 70 creators, digital publishers, and influencers across three separate events" on Wednesday and Thursday, a White House official told CNN. 

Not a very capable social media team... 

The administration's move to ramp up social media operations comes as users on X are mostly free from government censorship with Elon Musk at the helm. This infuriates Democrats, who can no longer censor their political enemies on X. 

Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers tell Axios that the president's SOTU performance will be critical as he tries to dispel voter concerns about his elderly age. The address reached as many as 27 million people in 2023. 

"We are all nervous," said one House Democrat, citing concerns about the president's "ability to speak without blowing things."

The SOTU address comes as Biden's polling data is in the dumps

BetOnline has created several money-making opportunities for gamblers tonight, such as betting on what word Biden mentions the most. 

As well as...

We will update you when Tucker Carlson's live feed of SOTU is published. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 03/08/2024 - 07:44

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What is intersectionality and why does it make feminism more effective?

The social categories that we belong to shape our understanding of the world in different ways.

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Mary Long/Shutterstock

The way we talk about society and the people and structures in it is constantly changing. One term you may come across this International Women’s Day is “intersectionality”. And specifically, the concept of “intersectional feminism”.

Intersectionality refers to the fact that everyone is part of multiple social categories. These include gender, social class, sexuality, (dis)ability and racialisation (when people are divided into “racial” groups often based on skin colour or features).

These categories are not independent of each other, they intersect. This looks different for every person. For example, a black woman without a disability will have a different experience of society than a white woman without a disability – or a black woman with a disability.

An intersectional approach makes social policy more inclusive and just. Its value was evident in research during the pandemic, when it became clear that women from various groups, those who worked in caring jobs and who lived in crowded circumstances were much more likely to die from COVID.

A long-fought battle

American civil rights leader and scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw first introduced the term intersectionality in a 1989 paper. She argued that focusing on a single form of oppression (such as gender or race) perpetuated discrimination against black women, who are simultaneously subjected to both racism and sexism.

Crenshaw gave a name to ways of thinking and theorising that black and Latina feminists, as well as working-class and lesbian feminists, had argued for decades. The Combahee River Collective of black lesbians was groundbreaking in this work.

They called for strategic alliances with black men to oppose racism, white women to oppose sexism and lesbians to oppose homophobia. This was an example of how an intersectional understanding of identity and social power relations can create more opportunities for action.

These ideas have, through political struggle, come to be accepted in feminist thinking and women’s studies scholarship. An increasing number of feminists now use the term “intersectional feminism”.

The term has moved from academia to feminist activist and social justice circles and beyond in recent years. Its popularity and widespread use means it is subjected to much scrutiny and debate about how and when it should be employed. For example, some argue that it should always include attention to racism and racialisation.

Recognising more issues makes feminism more effective

In writing about intersectionality, Crenshaw argued that singular approaches to social categories made black women’s oppression invisible. Many black feminists have pointed out that white feminists frequently overlook how racial categories shape different women’s experiences.

One example is hair discrimination. It is only in the 2020s that many organisations in South Africa, the UK and US have recognised that it is discriminatory to regulate black women’s hairstyles in ways that render their natural hair unacceptable.

This is an intersectional approach. White women and most black men do not face the same discrimination and pressures to straighten their hair.

View from behind of a young, black woman speaking to female colleagues in an office
Intersectionality can lead to more inclusive organisations, activism and social movements. Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock

“Abortion on demand” in the 1970s and 1980s in the UK and USA took no account of the fact that black women in these and many other countries needed to campaign against being given abortions against their will. The fight for reproductive justice does not look the same for all women.

Similarly, the experiences of working-class women have frequently been rendered invisible in white, middle class feminist campaigns and writings. Intersectionality means that these issues are recognised and fought for in an inclusive and more powerful way.

In the 35 years since Crenshaw coined the term, feminist scholars have analysed how women are positioned in society, for example, as black, working-class, lesbian or colonial subjects. Intersectionality reminds us that fruitful discussions about discrimination and justice must acknowledge how these different categories affect each other and their associated power relations.

This does not mean that research and policy cannot focus predominantly on one social category, such as race, gender or social class. But it does mean that we cannot, and should not, understand those categories in isolation of each other.

Ann Phoenix does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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Biden defends immigration policy during State of the Union, blaming Republicans in Congress for refusing to act

A rising number of Americans say that immigration is the country’s biggest problem. Biden called for Congress to pass a bipartisan border and immigration…

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President Joe Biden delivers his State of the Union address on March 7, 2024. Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images

President Joe Biden delivered the annual State of the Union address on March 7, 2024, casting a wide net on a range of major themes – the economy, abortion rights, threats to democracy, the wars in Gaza and Ukraine – that are preoccupying many Americans heading into the November presidential election.

The president also addressed massive increases in immigration at the southern border and the political battle in Congress over how to manage it. “We can fight about the border, or we can fix it. I’m ready to fix it,” Biden said.

But while Biden stressed that he wants to overcome political division and take action on immigration and the border, he cautioned that he will not “demonize immigrants,” as he said his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, does.

“I will not separate families. I will not ban people from America because of their faith,” Biden said.

Biden’s speech comes as a rising number of American voters say that immigration is the country’s biggest problem.

Immigration law scholar Jean Lantz Reisz answers four questions about why immigration has become a top issue for Americans, and the limits of presidential power when it comes to immigration and border security.

President Joe Biden stands surrounded by people in formal clothing and smiles. One man holds a cell phone camera close up to his face.
President Joe Biden arrives to deliver the State of the Union address at the US Capitol on March 7, 2024. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

1. What is driving all of the attention and concern immigration is receiving?

The unprecedented number of undocumented migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border right now has drawn national concern to the U.S. immigration system and the president’s enforcement policies at the border.

Border security has always been part of the immigration debate about how to stop unlawful immigration.

But in this election, the immigration debate is also fueled by images of large groups of migrants crossing a river and crawling through barbed wire fences. There is also news of standoffs between Texas law enforcement and U.S. Border Patrol agents and cities like New York and Chicago struggling to handle the influx of arriving migrants.

Republicans blame Biden for not taking action on what they say is an “invasion” at the U.S. border. Democrats blame Republicans for refusing to pass laws that would give the president the power to stop the flow of migration at the border.

2. Are Biden’s immigration policies effective?

Confusion about immigration laws may be the reason people believe that Biden is not implementing effective policies at the border.

The U.S. passed a law in 1952 that gives any person arriving at the border or inside the U.S. the right to apply for asylum and the right to legally stay in the country, even if that person crossed the border illegally. That law has not changed.

Courts struck down many of former President Donald Trump’s policies that tried to limit immigration. Trump was able to lawfully deport migrants at the border without processing their asylum claims during the COVID-19 pandemic under a public health law called Title 42. Biden continued that policy until the legal justification for Title 42 – meaning the public health emergency – ended in 2023.

Republicans falsely attribute the surge in undocumented migration to the U.S. over the past three years to something they call Biden’s “open border” policy. There is no such policy.

Multiple factors are driving increased migration to the U.S.

More people are leaving dangerous or difficult situations in their countries, and some people have waited to migrate until after the COVID-19 pandemic ended. People who smuggle migrants are also spreading misinformation to migrants about the ability to enter and stay in the U.S.

Joe Biden wears a black blazer and a black hat as he stands next to a bald white man wearing a green uniform and a white truck that says 'Border Patrol' in green
President Joe Biden walks with Jason Owens, the chief of the U.S. Border Patrol, as he visits the U.S.-Mexico border in Brownsville, Texas, on Feb. 29, 2024. Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

3. How much power does the president have over immigration?

The president’s power regarding immigration is limited to enforcing existing immigration laws. But the president has broad authority over how to enforce those laws.

For example, the president can place every single immigrant unlawfully present in the U.S. in deportation proceedings. Because there is not enough money or employees at federal agencies and courts to accomplish that, the president will usually choose to prioritize the deportation of certain immigrants, like those who have committed serious and violent crimes in the U.S.

The federal agency Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported more than 142,000 immigrants from October 2022 through September 2023, double the number of people it deported the previous fiscal year.

But under current law, the president does not have the power to summarily expel migrants who say they are afraid of returning to their country. The law requires the president to process their claims for asylum.

Biden’s ability to enforce immigration law also depends on a budget approved by Congress. Without congressional approval, the president cannot spend money to build a wall, increase immigration detention facilities’ capacity or send more Border Patrol agents to process undocumented migrants entering the country.

A large group of people are seen sitting and standing along a tall brown fence in an empty area of brown dirt.
Migrants arrive at the border between El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, to surrender to American Border Patrol agents on March 5, 2024. Lokman Vural Elibol/Anadolu via Getty Images

4. How could Biden address the current immigration problems in this country?

In early 2024, Republicans in the Senate refused to pass a bill – developed by a bipartisan team of legislators – that would have made it harder to get asylum and given Biden the power to stop taking asylum applications when migrant crossings reached a certain number.

During his speech, Biden called this bill the “toughest set of border security reforms we’ve ever seen in this country.”

That bill would have also provided more federal money to help immigration agencies and courts quickly review more asylum claims and expedite the asylum process, which remains backlogged with millions of cases, Biden said. Biden said the bipartisan deal would also hire 1,500 more border security agents and officers, as well as 4,300 more asylum officers.

Removing this backlog in immigration courts could mean that some undocumented migrants, who now might wait six to eight years for an asylum hearing, would instead only wait six weeks, Biden said. That means it would be “highly unlikely” migrants would pay a large amount to be smuggled into the country, only to be “kicked out quickly,” Biden said.

“My Republican friends, you owe it to the American people to get this bill done. We need to act,” Biden said.

Biden’s remarks calling for Congress to pass the bill drew jeers from some in the audience. Biden quickly responded, saying that it was a bipartisan effort: “What are you against?” he asked.

Biden is now considering using section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act to get more control over immigration. This sweeping law allows the president to temporarily suspend or restrict the entry of all foreigners if their arrival is detrimental to the U.S.

This obscure law gained attention when Trump used it in January 2017 to implement a travel ban on foreigners from mainly Muslim countries. The Supreme Court upheld the travel ban in 2018.

Trump again also signed an executive order in April 2020 that blocked foreigners who were seeking lawful permanent residency from entering the country for 60 days, citing this same section of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Biden did not mention any possible use of section 212(f) during his State of the Union speech. If the president uses this, it would likely be challenged in court. It is not clear that 212(f) would apply to people already in the U.S., and it conflicts with existing asylum law that gives people within the U.S. the right to seek asylum.

Jean Lantz Reisz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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