The Impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas. Panem et circenses

 

April 17, 2024. 

 9.4 million illegal aliens have entered this country under President Biden, 1 million more than the population of New York City and more than 16x the population of Wyoming.

The unprecedented invasion is a direct result of the open borders agenda of 

@POTUS

 and Alejandro Mayorkas.

From a Twitter post of Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis.

Alejandro Mayorkas is not going to be removed from office.  

Moreover, everyone with any political savvy knows this.  Sen. Lummis knows this, as do the other members of Wyoming's Washington representation, one of whom will be a prosecutor in the impeachment trial, if an impeachment trial actually occurs, which I very much doubt.

Rather, the Senate Republicans will screw around with this until the Democrats dismiss it.  

The validity of the impeachment process will be tarnished even more than it has been since the ill-advised GOP effort to impeach Bill Clinton brought us into the modern political impeachment era, and the border won't get address, in no small part because Donald Trump, who is in the first of what will be several trials, would rather have it as issue than address it.

Congress, of course, could have addressed this, but for following the Trump directive to the GOP.  There's utterly no excuse for the GOP failure to act.  If the bill wasn't prefect, it was much better than any others for years, and if they take a two house and Oval Office majority in November, which I doubt they will, they could have improved it.  Indeed, their failure to act not only makes this look incredibly hypocritical, but puts them in jeopardy of losing the House.

We will see a Twitter storm of GOP tweets.  Most will be ignored. The worshiping spectrum of the GOP, the ignorant populists masses, will swoon over every word while the now purifying corpse of the GOP elephant starts to stink even more, actual Republicans and conservatives not knowing how to remove it.

Indeed, on the Twitter Storm, populist far right Nebraska Senator Deb Fischer took to twitter to demand that Mayorkas receive a full trial in the Senate as, she suggested, the Constitution demands, while at least one of her critics noted she didn't feel that way when Trump was up for impeachment.

All this while very little gets done and Americans lose faith in their government, save for a tiny sliver who somehow feel the dissolution of a 200+ year old institution is serving democracy, when in fact it's destroying it.

April 18, 2024

And the Senate dismissed the articles of impeachment, making my prediction of no trial accurate.  I thought there would be a motion to dismiss, and there was.

The motion came up immediately, and Chuck Schumer offered debate time, but Republicans, who apparently have no sense of procedure, rejected that, demanding a full trial, and thereby demonstrating the sort of hubris, ignorance and stupidity that criminal defendants sometimes do. Schumer replied and went right to the vote. 

The vote was down the party line, Republicans who know better not having the guts to vote in favor of the motion.

By this point, the dysfunctional circus that Congress has become now attracts so little attention for even extraordinary events, which this fits into as it's an extraordinary dereliction of duty and common sense by those who voted for it in the House, that it doesn't even make the primary headlines.

No doubt Wyoming's Senators went home and breathed a sigh of relief, being spared acting on this absurdity, and also being spared the pangs of acting in contravention to their conscience.  And the issue is preserved for red meat tweets, texts and speeches, so attacking the Democrats on an issue that Republicans refused to act on, when they had the chance, can still be done.

And hence this circus closed.

Saturday, April 12, 1924. Madeline Blair and the USS Arizona.

The Chief Radio Operator of the USS Arizona discovered 19 year old prostitute Madeline Blair on board the ship when she lingered too long on deck at a water cooler, called a scuttlebutt, while the ship was off of Balboa, Panama, getting ready to pass through the canal.

She had been allowed to stow away and hide on board by sympathetic sialors who bought her sad tale of poverty and the need to go to California.  On board she was hidden in an unused genetaror compartment and charged $10.00/day for lodging and meals, a huge sum at the time, by ship's cooks and she plied her trade at $3.00 per trick.

Going on deck only at night, and dressing in dungarees and blue sailor's work shirt, she'd been earlier discovered by a sailor while watching a movie from a searchlight platform when he'd reached into the breast pocket of the shirt she was wearing and detected her correct anatomy.  While shocked, that sailor had kept his discovery to himself.  The Chief Radio Operator did not.  She was put ashore and then returned to New York on hte Panama Railway Company SS Cristobal, which charged the Navy for her fare.

Twenty-three sailors would be court-martialed and Blair would write her story for The San Francisco Examiner in 1928.

Dawes met with Mussolini, who expressed support for the Dawes Plan.

The House passed the Japanese Exclusion Act.

Friday, April 11, 1924. Closing borders.

920s, 1924, Asia, Blue Laws, Casper Wyoming, German Weimar Republic, Government, Immigration, Japan, Monarchy

Friday, April 11, 1924. Closing borders.

Japan, through its U.S. delegation, warned the US that grave consequences would occur if the Senate passed the Immigration Act of 1924 which limited immigration from Asian nations.

The noted was passed to the Chairman of the Senate Immigration Committee, LeBaron B. Colt.

On April 19, the U.S. Senate voted, 62 to 6, to pass the bill, which had already passed the House.

Arizona closed its border with California as part of an effort to prevent an outbreak of hoof-and-mouth disease.

4,000 Germans staged a demonstration in Breslau in favor of Crown Prince Wilhelm, son of the former Kaiser, to return to Germany as Kaiser Wilhelm III.  On the same day, the German Association of Industry released a statement expressing approval of the Dawes Plan.

Casper was no longer blue.

It hadn't been for very long.

Last prior edition:

Thursday, April 10, 1924. Best dressed in the world?

1920s, 1924, 2010s, Advertising, Casper Wyoming, Clothing, Government, Growing up in the 1970s, Lodging, Petroleum, restaurants and bars, Wyoming's boom and bust economy

Saturday, April 5, 1924. Fighting the KKK in Lilly.

We haven't featured one for awhile, as they haven't been great, but on this day, The Country Gentleman restored the dignity of magazine cover art with a spring theme.

The Ku Klux Klan shot 22 people in Lilly, Pennsylvania, killing two.  The gunfire was sort of the equivalent of a drive by shooting, with the KKK shooting randomly into the town's railroad station after some townsmen, miner workers who were heavily immigrants from Eastern Europe, had "played a stream of water from the town fire hose upon the visitors(KKK) as they were marching back to the station." 

The KKK was in Lilly for one of their ceremonies in a local field and was returning to the station for transport to Johnstown, PA.  They did catch the train, and upon arrival at Johnstown they were met with 50 policemen who arrested 25 Klansman and confiscated 50 firearms.  The next day, an additional four residents of Lilly were arrested. Twenty-nine people were charged with murder.

Lilly was a mining town, and like most of them it had a strong contingent of Catholic and Orthodox miners, members of ethnicities that the Klan didn't like. A strong UMW union town, the residents weren't cowed by the KKK.  A monument to their efforts has been placed in the town in recent years.

Locally, there were concerns about spring floods. And the flight around the globe was suffering delays.

And the accusations against the former Attorney General Daugherty were getting bizarre.

Last prior edition:

Friday, April 4, 1924. Wolves in Albany County.

1920s, 1924, 2020, 2020s, 2024, Animals, baseball, Crime, Prohibition, The Roaring Twenties, Wolves

Illegal Immigration. Part I. Who are they?

This past week, we published this item:

The worst immigration argument

Here we look at the topic of illegal immigration itself.

The number of illegal migrants living in the US was stable, at about 7,000,000, from 2017 to 2020. Then things began to change.  It's important to realize that, as while the situation is bad, it's not quite what it was reported to be.  It is not the case that 8,000,000 people have arrived under Biden's watch.  

It is the case that too many have.

Here are some stats on it, lifted whose sale from the Migration Policy Institute.  What does this tell us?

Profile of the Unauthorized Population:
United States

Demographics	Estimate	% of Total
Unauthorized Population	11,047,000	100%
Top Countries of Birth
Mexico	5,313,000	48%
El Salvador	741,000	7%
Guatemala	724,000	7%
India	553,000	5%
Honduras	490,000	4%
Regions of Birth
Mexico and Central America	7,381,000	67%
Caribbean	327,000	3%
South America	907,000	8%
Europe/Canada/Oceania	440,000	4%
Asia	1,697,000	15%
Africa	295,000	3%
Years of U.S. Residence
Less than 5	2,370,000	21%
5 to 9	1,744,000	16%
10 to 14	2,132,000	19%
15 to 19	2,368,000	21%
20 or more	2,433,000	22%
Age
Under 16	606,000	5%
16 to 24	1,577,000	14%
25 to 34	2,986,000	27%
35 to 44	3,084,000	28%
45 to 54	1,772,000	16%
55 and over	1,023,000	9%
Gender
Female	5,062,000	46%
Family	Estimate	% of Total
Parental Status
Population ages 15 and older	10,513,000	100%
Reside with at least one U.S.-citizen child under 18	3,521,000	33%
Reside with noncitizen children only under 18	806,000	8%
Reside with no children	6,185,000	59%
Marital Status
Population ages 15 and older	10,513,000	100%
Never married	4,057,000	39%
Married to a U.S. citizen	1,314,000	12%
Married to a legal permanent resident (LPR)	654,000	6%
Married to non-U.S. citizen/non-LPR	2,822,000	27%
Divorced, separated, widowed	1,665,000	16%
Education and Language	Estimate	% of Total
School Enrollment of Children and Youth
Population ages 3 to 17	733,000	100%
Enrolled	651,000	89%
Not enrolled	83,000	11%
Population ages 3 to 12	381,000	100%
Enrolled	324,000	85%
Not enrolled	57,000	15%
Population ages 13 to 17	352,000	100%
Enrolled	327,000	93%
Not enrolled	25,000	7%
Population ages 18 to 24	1,411,000	100%
Enrolled	569,000	40%
Not enrolled	842,000	60%
Educational Attainment of Adults
Population ages 25 and older	8,864,000	100%
0-5 grade	1,330,000	15%
6-8 grade	1,444,000	16%
9-12 grade	1,334,000	15%
High school diploma or equivalent	2,136,000	24%
Some college or associate’s degree	1,062,000	12%
Bachelor’s, graduate, or professional degree	1,558,000	18%
English Proficiency
Population ages 5 and older	10,951,000	100%
Speak only English	773,000	7%
Speak English "very well"	2,734,000	25%
Speak English "well"	2,450,000	22%
Speak English "not well"/"not at all"	4,994,000	46%
Top 5 Languages Spoken at Home
Population ages 5 and older	10,951,000	100%
Spanish	7,919,000	72%
English	780,000	7%
Chinese	377,000	3%
Tagalog	290,000	3%
Portuguese	166,000	2%
Workforce	Estimate	% of Total
Labor Force Participation
Civilian population ages 16 and older	10,434,000	100%
Employed	6,829,000	65%
Unemployed	448,000	4%
Not in the labor force	3,157,000	30%
Top Industries of Employment
Civilian employed population ages 16 and older	6,829,000	100%
Construction	1,403,000	21%
Accommodation and food services, arts, entertainment, and recreation	1,092,000	16%
Professional, scientific, management, administrative, and waste management services	946,000	14%
Manufacturing	694,000	10%
Retail trade	547,000	8%
Economics	Estimate	% of Total
Family Income
Below 50% of the poverty level	1,344,000	12%
50-99% of the poverty level	1,542,000	14%
100-149% of the poverty level	1,824,000	17%
150-199% of the poverty level	1,575,000	14%
At or above 200% of the poverty level	4,762,000	43%
Access to Health Insurance
Uninsured	5,823,000	53%
Home Ownership*
Homeowner	3,069,000	28%

 

Source: These 2019 data result from Migration Policy Institute (MPI) analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data from the pooled 2015-19 American Community Survey (ACS) and the 2008 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), weighted to 2019 unauthorized immigrant population estimates provided by Jennifer Van Hook of The Pennsylvania State University.

Note: For U.S. and state estimates of the unauthorized population potentially eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, click here.

Data-related notes
* “Homeowners” are unauthorized immigrants residing in homes that are owned, not rented.

+ Includes the following Colorado counties: Adams, Broomfield, Clear Creek, Douglas, Elbert, Gilpin, and Jefferson, as well as portions of Arapahoe, Boulder, and Weld counties.

++ NECTAs refer to New England City and Town Areas, geographic entities defined by the U.S. Census Bureau for use as alternatives to counties in the six-state New England region.

Estimate for China includes Hong Kong but excludes Taiwan; estimate for Korea includes South Korea and North Korea.

“School Enrollment of Children and Youth” refers to unauthorized immigrants who reported attending school or college at any time in the three months prior to the survey.

For languages, “Chinese” includes Mandarin, Cantonese, and other Chinese languages; “English” includes English, Jamaican Creole, Krio, Pidgin Krio, and other English-based Creole languages; “French” includes French, Patois, and Cajun; “Pacific Island languages” includes Ilocano, Samoan, Hawaiian, Sebuano, Chamorro, Guamanian, Marshallese, Trukese, Tongan, and other Austronesian languages, but excludes Tagalog and Filipino, which are reported separately; “Portuguese” includes Portuguese and Cape Verdean Creole; “Sub-Saharan African” includes Swahili or other Bantu languages, Mande, Fulani, Kru, and other unspecified African languages; “Tagalog” includes Tagalog and Filipino.

For industries, “Other services” are miscellaneous services, not including the following services listed separately: (1) professional, scientific, management, administrative, and waste management services; (2) educational services; (3) health and social services; and (4) accommodation and food services, arts, entertainment, and recreation.

 “-” estimates are zero, not applicable, or not displayed due to small sample size.

Percentages may not add up to 100 due to rounding.

Methodology in Brief:
MPI’s method uses information from the SIPP to assign legal status to noncitizens in the ACS. In the SIPP, noncitizens report whether they currently have lawful permanent resident (LPR) status—i.e., a green card. Those without LPR status may be recent refugees, temporary visitors (e.g., international students or high-skilled H-1B workers), or unauthorized immigrants. Our method maps characteristics such as country of birth, year of U.S. entry, age, gender, and educational attainment between the two surveys, and those noncitizens in the ACS who have characteristics similar to those reporting LPR status in the SIPP are coded as LPRs in the ACS. The remaining noncitizens—who are similar in characteristics to those not reporting LPR status in the SIPP—are classified as either unauthorized or legal temporary migrants, depending on whether they meet the qualifications for H-1B and the other temporary visa classifications. Estimates of unauthorized immigrants are weighted to match control totals (benchmarks) for immigrants from a set of origin countries and world regions. These control totals are calculated by subtracting the number of legal immigrants from the total of all immigrants for each country and region that are captured in the ACS data. The number of legal immigrants is estimated by adding up all legal admissions from each country and region in every year—using Department of Homeland Security administrative data—and then reducing this number to account for deaths and emigration of legal immigrants. Finally, the unauthorized immigrant population estimates are adjusted upward slightly to account for the undercount of this population in the ACS. 

MPI’s overall method was developed in consultation with James Bachmeier of Temple University and Jennifer Van Hook of The Pennsylvania State University, Population Research Institute. For more detail on the methods, see MPI, “MPI Methodology for Assigning Legal Status to Noncitizen Respondents in U.S. Census Bureau Survey Data.” The control totals were developed by Van Hook. These estimates have the same sampling and coverag

Quite a lot, really.

For one thing, the often repeated "8,000,000 have come in", is wrong.  It's more like 3,000,000 in terms of an increase in the illegal immigrant population that was in the country from 2017 to 2020.

That figure, however, was a big increase from the 3,600,000 figure that was present in 1995.  It climbed every year from 1995 to about 2007, when it was 8,200,000, after which it fell for a while.  In 2021, it was 7,800,000.

This also demonstrates that, contrary to some recent reporting, most illegal immigrant in the US, slightly under half, are from Mexico.  This has been the case for a long time.  Recent news reports would suggest they're all Venezuelan, and perhaps this data is just a little too old to reflect a big influx of Venezuelans, but more likely, they're mostly from Mexico and parts to the immediate south of Mexico.  Indeed, this would indicate 18% are from Central America, which we can perhaps boost up to maybe something like 25% now.

India at 4% is a surprise.

Most aren't married, well over 50%.

Close to half can't speak English.

Construction is the biggest employer, at 21%.  Farm work, contrary to what some keep suggesting, doesn't even show up.  Over half are uninsured, but nearly 30% own a home.

Most of these people are economic migrants.

Hardly any are dangerous Arab terrorists, as some propaganda wishes you to believe.

They are illegal, which is illegal, and illegality breeds illegal activities.  Therefore, like it or not, these populations, like most distressed migrant populations, legal or illegal, are associated with crime, as recent Venezuelan gang activity in New York has demonstrated.  The control of dope money in Colorado should have already demonstrated that.  Sinola infiltrating American Indian reservations, which has been going on for many years, but which oddly just hit the press, is another feature of that.

For the most part, what we're seeing here is people who are in a position to pick up and move for work, are doing so. Some are merely opportunistic. Some are flat out desperate.  Very few are asylum seekers in any conventional sense.

Related Thread:

The worst immigration argument