Why Beto is right and Castro is wrong on immigration reform



I had originally hoped that Castro would run and be considered for a Vice President spot. Once I researched Beto's immigration policies I realized that Beto's image of a flighty enthusiast masked a much deeper thinker and policy advocate. I don't back either for a position on the ticket now but would be happy if Beto advanced and his policies became the basis of immigration reform in the Democratic Party. I will never support Castro for any position in the future, he is damaged goods, although I had to admit that for the short term his tactics were effective even if untruthful and unethical. My reasons below:







I) Background

II) The difference between First Asylum/Second Asylum Refugees and Asylum Seekers

III) Why background checks are always needed

IV) What is untruthful in Castro's comments

V) Beto's comprehensive immigration reform, which probably is the best of all the candidates.

VI) Long term solutions to refugee/asylum seekers' desperate situation.







I)Background



Between 1978 and 1988 I worked for what is now called the International Organization for Migration (then ICEM now IOM) in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand (and oversaw resettlement out of Pakistan from Thailand). I became Chief of Operations of the largest refugee resettlement operation since WWII. I was the first American to return to Vietnam in 1978 to discuss migration issues and started the Orderly Departure Program for legal migration in 1978. A total of about 700,000 refugees/migrants were moved under the operations I headed.



Personally everyone in my family has 'migrated' to the US. My wife and children were born outside the US and my three son in laws (one is an ex) are from Haiti, Serbia (undocumented) and El Salvador (Temporary Protection Status - TPS).



Before TPS was a "thing" I started a campaign to educate folks on it. I gave seminars at union meetings, educated resistance leaders in AZ about it and was interviewed by local media before it gained national attention.



When President Carter approached Chinese Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping about political prisoners in China. Deng asked Carter if it would be OK to send the political prisoners to the US. President Carter was delighted thinking he was on the precipice of a major breakthrough. Deng responded "How many millions do you want?" and Carter never broached the issue again.



When talking about support for refugees and migrants it really doesn't mean much until you can quantify just how big a response you support. I think the US should prepare and plan for between 1 and 1 1/2 million refugees and economic migrants a year for the next 30 years. I am not aware of many who want to exceed 40 million over the next 30 years but that's a number that I think is doable, fair and would have dramatic impact on the refugees, the country and the country's of origin.



I am a big supporter of refugees, asylum seekers and economic migrants and that's why I find Castro's actions last night so troubling.



II) The difference between First Asylum/Second Asylum Refugees and Asylum Seekers.



Many people make distinctions between political refugees and economic migrants, etc, but truthfully there is little difference. Very few of the 500,000 Vietnamese Refugees that moved under my office would have really qualified under a strict interpretation of refugee which requires a specific fear of persecution to qualify. They were accepted as political refugees because they had not economic viability because of the political acts of the new regime. Ironically some of the people who had the clearest political argument for refugee status (like the former Justice Minister of the Viet Cong) would not be accepted because while they were now political targets they were on the "other side" during the conflict. This simply means that the lives of Vietnamese Refugees in 1979 are very similar to the asylum seekers from El Salvador in 2019.



First Asylum means that people have reached a country that is providing asylum (ex: Vietnamese Refugees reach Thailand). Second Asylum means that they have been offered permanent resettlement in a third country )(like US).



Asylum seekers enter directly into the country of permanent resettlement.



This is unfortunate in one respect because it makes it more difficult for developed countries to hit the pause button and a) investigate the claim of asylum b) screen for bad actors.



III. Why background checks are always needed



And while I am here to support migration, immigration, temporary work programs, refugees and asylum seekers everyone who has had professional exposure to large numbers know that while the general population of these folks are going to be strong contributors to their new home, there still are a number of bad actors that need to be kept out.



How bad can they be?



Two examples from first asylum/second asylum countries



A small fishing boat with about 35 refugees was rescued by a US flag freighter in the South China Sea. It was obvious that this boat had been lost and wandering for more than 2 months before they were rescued. The 33 women and girls were all near death and the 2 men were sick form exposure but better nourished. When they arrived in Singapore they were granted guaranteed resettlement to the US because it was a US freighter (a requirement by Singapore to take refugees on shore.



There were immediate and obvious questions because of the breakdown of sexes, the difference in weight and the emotional reactions of the women when they reached Singapore.



Investigations showed that the two men were brothers who ran a syndicate in Vietnam where they were serial killers and forced the Viet Cong to offer contracts to kill their opponents (or be killed). When the NVA arrived they posted reward posters to capture these two. They jumped on board a boat just as it was leaving Vietnam and once at sea killed the naval officer and other men on the boat which also caused them to float aimlessly in the wrong direction, back and forth for weeks. They raped all of the women and girls and, when food ran out, would kill and cannibalize the women one by one until rescued.



Norway rescued hundreds of refugees and were willing to trade 1000 refugees under Norwegian guarantee for these two.



During my tenure in Thailand we moved about 100,000 Afghan refugees to the United States. Because they are in camps we are able to enforce extraordinary good application screening before making a final decision. I won't go into the details but the quality of scrutiny of a refugee applicant is 50 times better than someone applying for a tourist, student or regular visa.



After I left IOM opened an office in Kabul. It had 2 functions a) to assist any Afghans in the US who wanted to return to help rebuild the country and b) assist in processing migrants who had a valid reason to go the US, primarily for family reunion. An applicant for resettlement called for an appointment and upon entering the office detonated a bomb inside the office:







https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/08/1016112



KABUL, Aug 1 2018 (IOM) - It is with profound sadness that the United Nations family in Afghanistan confirms that an employee of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) was killed in yesterdays attack on the Department of Refugees and Returnees in Jalalabad.



Our immediate thoughts are with her family and friends.



The United Nations expresses its deep sense of revulsion at this senseless attack that claimed the lives of at least 13 civilians. Among the 20 others injured was another IOM colleague. The UN wishes him and all the injured a speedy and full recovery.



I condemn this heinous crime which has already taken the life of one of our brave IOM colleagues in Jalalabad yesterday and left another grievously injured. It is a loss for IOM, our partners and Afghanistan, said IOM Director General William Lacy Swing.



Equally tragically the attack claimed the lives of at least 13 civilians, including an IRC colleague. My heart goes out to the families of all the victims. Everyone in IOM is thinking of our colleagues working in difficult conditions across the country on behalf of the Afghan people in the aftermath of this senseless attack, added DG Swing.



Our colleagues life was taken while she was working in the noble cause of assisting some of the most vulnerable communities in Afghanistan. There is no justification for such acts of terror. She is one of thousands of Afghans who form the backbone of the daily work of the United Nations in the country to help the most in need, supporting development and contributing to the restoration of peace and stability.



This young woman, who was 22, lost her husband in a bombing in Kabul three years ago. She leaves behind a six-year old daughter, now an orphan.







This wasn't the first attack on an IOM refugee office. Her husband had been killed in an earlier attack.



For these reasons you will find that professional refugee operations officers want to ensure careful screening before permanent resettlement. This is their thinking:



If a country is willing to offer permanent resettlement then the people in that country should be given the benefit to carefully screen everyone getting a permanent pass into that country. If the screening fails and terrible things result then the victims are not just the innocent victims in the resettlement countries but future refugees and migrants that will not be resettled.



With Asylum seekers you really have a one time and very brief opportunity to check backgrounds. You detain them for a short period (48 hours or so) and run a background check.



Under Bush and Obama this was called "catch and release". It wasn't catch and release, it was catch, run a criminal background check and then put them on an ankle monitor and have them show up for a hearing. It wasn't as good as the thorough check you can do in a refugee camp but it was pretty good. The rate of voluntary check in was about 95% under Obama.



The problem is that Trump used that for permanent incarceration with a "no tolerance" application. That was absurd and is causing tremendous suffering.



Castro's suggestion that there be NO option to hold person on a criminal charge means that no one will be held, no on will be checked and Senator McCaskill is correct that a civil only policy will generate a "defacto open border".



If it becomes the position of the Democratic Party then we have opened up the probability that Trump will get re elected.



In the past have their been situations where the US has not had the criminal charge option to hold known murderers who claimed asylum? Unfortunately the answer to that question is Yes and will be explained below.



IV What is untruthful in Castro's statements?



His basic framing of the question about criminal/civil enforcement at the border is essentially a lie. He is stating that we don't need criminal charges because we can use other criminal charges when needed. When he spoke with Chris Matthews he backtracked on his ubher aggressive stage attack on Beto by stating blandly that Beto suggests we need it for a public safety issue because of traffickers and others and suggesting that we can simply prosecute these actors on other criminal charges.



Not true.



1) In the first place you can only charge someone with a crime if you have some degree of probable cause. At that initial point of contact none exists. Let me give you a typical hypothetical:



The Border Patrol locates a group of 50 entering the country trying to avoid detection. Once stopped 20 identify as Mexicans and volunteer for immediate repatriation. Thirty identify as "Other than Mexico" and request asylum. Among the 20 are 4 different males that are suspected as possible human smugglers working for the cartel but no obvious signs show which is the coyote. A dog is brought in and finds a phone that was dropped right before the arrest.



The OTM group is taken to the station with the 4 Mexican males who are suspected of possible cartel associations. Sixteen Mexicans who are not suspected of criminal connections are released back to Mexico. They have 4 suspects and 30 possible witnesses and an unusable phone. While they are processing the 30 women they obtain information on which is the coyote and release the three other men. They charge the cartel member and prosecute.



They are only able to prosecute because they could hold the asylum seekers while they do criminal background checks. This is the way that it was done under Bush and Obama.



Under Castro they would simply be handed a "citation" and released without the chance to investigate.



But there is a much more ominous scenario: We know that they are violent criminals but cannot charge them because the crimes occurred outside the US.



Did it happen?



Yes



In 1980 10,000 Cubans stormed the Peruvian embassy to claim asylum. Castro responded by saying if you want to go - go and 125,000 got on boats hoping to take advantage of the "dry foot policy" for Cubans which stated that if you are intercepted at sea you go back to Cuba, if you make it to dry land you can stay, no criminal charges, automatic refugee status.



Castro (very ironic) also took thousands of violent inmates and some mental patients and mixed them into the boats.



The processed these people and discovered that some of them were found guilty but could not be charged here, no jurisdiction. In the same way if someone suspected of a serious crime in El Salvador walks into the US we cannot detain him for a crime committed elsewhere. We can only use the criminal charge of illegal crossing to hold him to investigate. Castro would take that tool away, just like it happened during the Mariel boatlift (which IOM also assisted in).



Who are some of the 2,000 known criminals that were allowed to live in the US (but denied citizenship)?







Luis Felipe, also known as "King Blood", is a Cuban-American former gang leader and is the founder of the New York chapter of the Almighty Latin Kings (ALKN) street gang.



Born in Havana, Cuba, Felipe came to the United States in the Mariel Boatlift in 1980. Six years later, in 1986, after fleeing Chicago, he founded the New York chapter of the Latin Kings.[1]



In 1995, he was convicted of ordering multiple murders from prison by writing to members of the Latin Kings on the outside











The Happy Land fire was an act of arson that killed 87 people trapped in the unlicensed Happy Land social club at 1959 Southern Boulevard in the West Farms section of the Bronx in New York City on March 25, 1990. Most of the victims were young Hondurans celebrating Carnival, many of them part of the Garifuna American community. Unemployed Cuban refugee Julio González, whose former girlfriend was employed at the club, was arrested soon afterward and ultimately convicted of arson and murder.



Julio González served three years in prison in Cuba in the 1970s for desertion from the Cuban Army.[2] In 1980, he faked a criminal record as a drug dealer to help him gain passage in the Mariel boatlift.[2] The boatlift landed in Florida; he then traveled to Wisconsin and Arkansas and eventually settled in New York, sponsored by the American Council for Nationalities in Manhattan.[2]









Pedro Luis Medina (October 5, 1957  March 25, 1997) was a Cuban refugee who was executed in Florida for the murder of a 52-year-old woman in Orlando











In 2003, Florida fisherman Jesus Mezquia, who had come from Cuba in 1980 in the Mariel boatlift,[14] was arrested in connection with Zapata's murder. DNA evidence was used to tie him to the murder and charges were brought against him.[15] A DNA profile was extracted from saliva found on Zapata's body and kept in cold storage until the STR technology was developed for full extraction.[1] An original entry in 2001 failed to generate a positive result, but Mezquia's DNA entered the national CODIS database after he was arrested in Florida for burglary and domestic abuse in 2002.[13] He had a history of violence toward women including domestic abuse, burglary, assault, and battery







If we are going to offer permanent homes to hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers, and I think we should, then it is only reasonable that we make a good faith effort to do background checks on them and exclude those that are undesirable.



Castro will make simple investigations impossible before releasing them into the public. A short detention to do a back ground check is a prudent measure but you can only detain them with a criminal charge. The problem is not the criminal charge but Trump's zero policy enforcement which isn't aimed at a brief background check but to fill concentration camps with innocent asylum seekers.



V Beto's comprehensive immigration plan







https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/29/how-beto-orourke-would-address-immigration-reform-1346871



As president, ORourke says he would use his executive authority to reverse major planks of the Trump administrations immigration agenda, including its plans for a border wall, policies of separating families who cross the border illegally and a directive mandating that asylum seekers at the southern border remain in Mexico while their cases wind through the courts. He would also increase the number of court staff, clerks, interpreters and judges in the U.S. asylum system and deploy as many as 2,000 lawyers to the southern border.





ORourke says he would work with Congress to pass measures that create a pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants, including Dreamers and those with Temporary Protected Status. He also favors easing naturalization protocols, increasing visa caps and establishing a new visa category whereby communities and congregations can welcome refugees through community sponsorship of visas.



Diplomatically, ORourke says his administration would join with Northern Triangle countries to fight violence and poverty and bolster our shared security and prosperity. ORourke also pledged to be firm with the economic and governing elites of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.



Beto and Castro are in the same "lane" in the primaries and Beto is blocking Castro's advancement which, I believe, was always about getting the VP spot. He set out to destroy Beto's campaign by framing the issue over the simplistic notion that by "decriminalizing" border crossing everything would be solved. It was framed in a way that was unfair and what he said on the stage and afterward with Chris Matthews is simply factually not true.I had originally hoped that Castro would run and be considered for a Vice President spot. Once I researched Beto's immigration policies I realized that Beto's image of a flighty enthusiast masked a much deeper thinker and policy advocate. I don't back either for a position on the ticket now but would be happy if Beto advanced and his policies became the basis of immigration reform in the Democratic Party. I will never support Castro for any position in the future, he is damaged goods, although I had to admit that for the short term his tactics were effective even if untruthful and unethical. My reasons below:I) BackgroundII) The difference between First Asylum/Second Asylum Refugees and Asylum SeekersIII) Why background checks are always neededIV) What is untruthful in Castro's commentsV) Beto's comprehensive immigration reform, which probably is the best of all the candidates.VI) Long term solutions to refugee/asylum seekers' desperate situation.Between 1978 and 1988 I worked for what is now called the International Organization for Migration (then ICEM now IOM) in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand (and oversaw resettlement out of Pakistan from Thailand). I became Chief of Operations of the largest refugee resettlement operation since WWII. I was the first American to return to Vietnam in 1978 to discuss migration issues and started the Orderly Departure Program for legal migration in 1978. A total of about 700,000 refugees/migrants were moved under the operations I headed.Personally everyone in my family has 'migrated' to the US. My wife and children were born outside the US and my three son in laws (one is an ex) are from Haiti, Serbia (undocumented) and El Salvador (Temporary Protection Status - TPS).Before TPS was a "thing" I started a campaign to educate folks on it. I gave seminars at union meetings, educated resistance leaders in AZ about it and was interviewed by local media before it gained national attention.When President Carter approached Chinese Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping about political prisoners in China. Deng asked Carter if it would be OK to send the political prisoners to the US. President Carter was delighted thinking he was on the precipice of a major breakthrough. Deng responded "How many millions do you want?" and Carter never broached the issue again.When talking about support for refugees and migrants it really doesn't mean much until you can quantify just how big a response you support. I think the US should prepare and plan for between 1 and 1 1/2 million refugees and economic migrants a year for the next 30 years. I am not aware of many who want to exceed 40 million over the next 30 years but that's a number that I think is doable, fair and would have dramatic impact on the refugees, the country and the country's of origin.I am a big supporter of refugees, asylum seekers and economic migrants and that's why I find Castro's actions last night so troubling.Many people make distinctions between political refugees and economic migrants, etc, but truthfully there is little difference. Very few of the 500,000 Vietnamese Refugees that moved under my office would have really qualified under a strict interpretation of refugee which requires a specific fear of persecution to qualify. They were accepted as political refugees because they had not economic viability because of the political acts of the new regime. Ironically some of the people who had the clearest political argument for refugee status (like the former Justice Minister of the Viet Cong) would not be accepted because while they were now political targets they were on the "other side" during the conflict. This simply means that the lives of Vietnamese Refugees in 1979 are very similar to the asylum seekers from El Salvador in 2019.First Asylum means that people have reached a country that is providing asylum (ex: Vietnamese Refugees reach Thailand). Second Asylum means that they have been offered permanent resettlement in a third country )(like US).Asylum seekers enter directly into the country of permanent resettlement.This is unfortunate in one respect because it makes it more difficult for developed countries to hit the pause button and a) investigate the claim of asylum b) screen for bad actors.And while I am here to support migration, immigration, temporary work programs, refugees and asylum seekers everyone who has had professional exposure to large numbers know that while the general population of these folks are going to be strong contributors to their new home, there still are a number of bad actors that need to be kept out.How bad can they be?Two examples from first asylum/second asylum countriesA small fishing boat with about 35 refugees was rescued by a US flag freighter in the South China Sea. It was obvious that this boat had been lost and wandering for more than 2 months before they were rescued. The 33 women and girls were all near death and the 2 men were sick form exposure but better nourished. When they arrived in Singapore they were granted guaranteed resettlement to the US because it was a US freighter (a requirement by Singapore to take refugees on shore.There were immediate and obvious questions because of the breakdown of sexes, the difference in weight and the emotional reactions of the women when they reached Singapore.Investigations showed that the two men were brothers who ran a syndicate in Vietnam where they were serial killers and forced the Viet Cong to offer contracts to kill their opponents (or be killed). When the NVA arrived they posted reward posters to capture these two. They jumped on board a boat just as it was leaving Vietnam and once at sea killed the naval officer and other men on the boat which also caused them to float aimlessly in the wrong direction, back and forth for weeks. They raped all of the women and girls and, when food ran out, would kill and cannibalize the women one by one until rescued.Norway rescued hundreds of refugees and were willing to trade 1000 refugees under Norwegian guarantee for these two.During my tenure in Thailand we moved about 100,000 Afghan refugees to the United States. Because they are in camps we are able to enforce extraordinary good application screening before making a final decision. I won't go into the details but the quality of scrutiny of a refugee applicant is 50 times better than someone applying for a tourist, student or regular visa.After I left IOM opened an office in Kabul. It had 2 functions a) to assist any Afghans in the US who wanted to return to help rebuild the country and b) assist in processing migrants who had a valid reason to go the US, primarily for family reunion. An applicant for resettlement called for an appointment and upon entering the office detonated a bomb inside the office:This wasn't the first attack on an IOM refugee office. Her husband had been killed in an earlier attack.For these reasons you will find that professional refugee operations officers want to ensure careful screening before permanent resettlement. This is their thinking:With Asylum seekers you really have a one time and very brief opportunity to check backgrounds. You detain them for a short period (48 hours or so) and run a background check.Under Bush and Obama this was called "catch and release". It wasn't catch and release, it was catch, run a criminal background check and then put them on an ankle monitor and have them show up for a hearing. It wasn't as good as the thorough check you can do in a refugee camp but it was pretty good. The rate of voluntary check in was about 95% under Obama.The problem is that Trump used that for permanent incarceration with a "no tolerance" application. That was absurd and is causing tremendous suffering.Castro's suggestion that there be NO option to hold person on a criminal charge means that no one will be held, no on will be checked and Senator McCaskill is correct that a civil only policy will generate a "defacto open border".If it becomes the position of the Democratic Party then we have opened up the probability that Trump will get re elected.In the past have their been situations where the US has not had the criminal charge option to hold known murderers who claimed asylum? Unfortunately the answer to that question is Yes and will be explained below.His basic framing of the question about criminal/civil enforcement at the border is essentially a lie. He is stating that we don't need criminal charges because we can use other criminal charges when needed. When he spoke with Chris Matthews he backtracked on his ubher aggressive stage attack on Beto by stating blandly that Beto suggests we need it for a public safety issue because of traffickers and others and suggesting that we can simply prosecute these actors on other criminal charges.Not true.1) In the first place you can only charge someone with a crime if you have some degree of probable cause. At that initial point of contact none exists. Let me give you a typical hypothetical:The Border Patrol locates a group of 50 entering the country trying to avoid detection. Once stopped 20 identify as Mexicans and volunteer for immediate repatriation. Thirty identify as "Other than Mexico" and request asylum. Among the 20 are 4 different males that are suspected as possible human smugglers working for the cartel but no obvious signs show which is the coyote. A dog is brought in and finds a phone that was dropped right before the arrest.The OTM group is taken to the station with the 4 Mexican males who are suspected of possible cartel associations. Sixteen Mexicans who are not suspected of criminal connections are released back to Mexico. They have 4 suspects and 30 possible witnesses and an unusable phone. While they are processing the 30 women they obtain information on which is the coyote and release the three other men. They charge the cartel member and prosecute.They are only able to prosecute because they could hold the asylum seekers while they do criminal background checks. This is the way that it was done under Bush and Obama.Under Castro they would simply be handed a "citation" and released without the chance to investigate.But there is a much more ominous scenario: We know that they are violent criminals but cannot charge them because the crimes occurred outside the US.Did it happen?YesIn 1980 10,000 Cubans stormed the Peruvian embassy to claim asylum. Castro responded by saying if you want to go - go and 125,000 got on boats hoping to take advantage of the "dry foot policy" for Cubans which stated that if you are intercepted at sea you go back to Cuba, if you make it to dry land you can stay, no criminal charges, automatic refugee status.Castro (very ironic) also took thousands of violent inmates and some mental patients and mixed them into the boats.The processed these people and discovered that some of them were found guilty but could not be charged here, no jurisdiction. In the same way if someone suspected of a serious crime in El Salvador walks into the US we cannot detain him for a crime committed elsewhere. We can only use the criminal charge of illegal crossing to hold him to investigate. Castro would take that tool away, just like it happened during the Mariel boatlift (which IOM also assisted in).Who are some of the 2,000 known criminals that were allowed to live in the US (but denied citizenship)?If we are going to offer permanent homes to hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers, and I think we should, then it is only reasonable that we make a good faith effort to do background checks on them and exclude those that are undesirable.Castro will make simple investigations impossible before releasing them into the public. A short detention to do a back ground check is a prudent measure but you can only detain them with a criminal charge. The problem is not the criminal charge but Trump's zero policy enforcement which isn't aimed at a brief background check but to fill concentration camps with innocent asylum seekers.



Beto's plan is much more informed than Castro's (which can be seen at the same link above. He details the best policy on the question of use of criminal and civilian enforcement. Castro is saying no criminal enforcement what so ever.







The biggest difference between O'Rourke's plan and Trump's policy would be an end to major detention requirements. Whereas current administration policy calls for most asylum seekers to remain in detention (or in Mexico) during their asylum proceedings, O'Rourke's plan would only require detention for people with criminal records, who might present a danger to communities. This would give asylum seekers the opportunity to await their final court decisions in community- and family based case management systems. These programs encourage asylum seekers to make their court dates by providing access to resourceslike legal counsel, housing assistance, and job trainingas long as asylum seekers remain within the system.







It is compassionate and workable



I have done a lot over the last few months on the different plans and while I don't support Beto for President (at this time) I haven't seen a better plan especially on the long term solutions, discussed below.



VI Long term solutions to refugee/asylum seekers' desperate situation.



During Kyrsten Sinema's campaign I volunteered as much as I could once I saw that the Democratic Party was going full in. They hired 50 full time staffers to work on getting out the vote. I was able to work about 30 days total and was happy to work with the staffer assigned to my area.



During a break time she said that she was doing her Master's on "Human Rights Law" and wanted to do a doctorate on it.



I told her that I had worked on human rights in the field but found, like most disciplines the difference between the academic perspective and the reality on the field is stark.



I asked her what she think we should do with all of the refugees going to bed in a refugee camp somewhere in the world?



HER "Resettle them most of them here and the rest in other countries"



ME: "How many refugees do you think live in refugee camps?"



HER "I don't know".



ME" 24 million, double that if you count displaced persons from internal displacement.



Her face registered shock and I was not surprised, even if she had a Master's in the subject, we have stopped caring for a long time about refugees.



The best solution for refugees and migrants is to return to their home. If that is not possible then resettle. No one is going to offer 500,000 Rohyinga resettlement homes. Finding a solution to help them return is the only answer.



I have tracked all of the candidates and the one that seems to understand this the best is Beto O'Rourke. He has been very specific about attacking the "push factors"







https://psmag.com/news/beto-orourkes-immigration-plan-would-treat-the-problem-more-like-a-refugee-crisis



O'Rourke considers "push factors" to be the primary explanation for the increased number of family arrivals. In other words, he believes the massive increase in family migration has much more to do with the countries that people are leaving, rather than laws or policies in the U.S. In the last decade, the three countries sending the most families to the U.S.Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, which together comprise the "Northern Triangle" of Central Americahave seen some of the highest rates of violence and poverty in the world. During the last five years, El Salvador and Honduras have frequently ranked as some of the most dangerous countries on the globe, with murder rates at higher levels than in active war zones in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen. Though less violent, Guatemala has also experienced a massive and prolonged drought in much of its farmland, pushing already-impoverished areas into famine-like conditions. Because research indicates that the drought has been intensified by climate change, some are calling the people leaving Guatemala "climate refugees."







Watching Castro destroy Beto by untruthfully framing Beto's comprehensive plan and untruthfully stating that there were other tools that could be used I felt an overwhelming sadness that Castro would go on such a low road, especially since Beto had done so much more work and had such a better plan than Castro.



It was nothing more than self interest above all else, in my opinion. I wasn't sure if he really didn't understand how destructive his actions were or if it was a cynical attack ala Nixon. Watching him talk with Chris Matthews he was much more sheepish and wanted to talk about all of the ways that his proposal could be mitigated (which were not true) even though he only wanted to hear a yes or no from Beto.



Sen McCaskill openly stated that Castro's plan would be the equivalent to open borders (and it would, civil citations wouldn't stop anyone) and that if that became the Democratic position then we would have a second Trump term.



She is right. We can be compassionate about refugees and migrants but we should insist on careful screening.



If she is right and Trump wins re election then my wife and I have made the decision to do what so many millions that we admire have done and pack up and migrate, I don't want to live in a country that is only concerned about putting its interest first and can't accept reasonable precautionary steps that are needed to promote compassion so the average citizen can support those policies without being threatened.









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