Saturday, January 20, 2024

Migrant Buses and the Governments inability to respond to a crisis - Part 3: Stop the Buses!

The Migrant Crisis is only a crisis of ill preparation and 50 years of Republican perfidy in slashing social services, cutting taxes on the rich, and hollowing out the administrative state.  Dealing with this relatively small influx of people could be handled by the government.  It's not 1909 anymore with Immigration agents asking people to sign cards declaring they aren't Anarchists.  But, taxes have kept low and we can't have large number of government workers on the payroll because Government doesn't Work.

Start thinking of why the people who denigrate government often run to be in charge of it and why they want you to believe government can't handle issues like the migrants and asylum seekers being trucked here under false pretenses from Texas assholes.

Of course, the response from the suburbs in the collar counties has been less than admirable.  Numerous small suburbs have passed ordinances banning the dumping of migrants in their towns.  Especially, when the Kankakee County Sheriff's panicked just before Christmas because 30-40 people were abandoned at a gas station before dawn.

Now, the complaint is small villages in DuPage, Lake, suburban Cook, and the nearby counties aren't equipped to take in large number of migrants might be true, but why is that?

First off, I think villages and everyone of these communities could take in 10-20 people and house them temporarily but, most have allocated zero budgetary funds and have made zero preparations with local churches or charities, and because small suburbs have bitterly resisted building any sort of temporary or homeless shelters because NIMBY.  Thus, fail to plan, plan to fail and all that...

So, as Chicago began to decide buses could not drop off migrants without having coordinated first and began turning away buses full of people.  The suburban response is to tell the buses to keep going.  In my town there was such a panic in December of buses stopping in town that we (i.e. the Police) were supposed to follow them and ensure they don't stop, if the bus did stop we were to ensure the migrants didn't get off.  As far as I know there is no "official" policy from the town board or city manager, obviously due to the fear of lawsuits.  But, in many other suburbs residents have expressed their desire to help.

It's would certainly be better than keeping the migrants on the buses because the sub-zero cold will kill the lightly dressed people.  The bitter negative degree temperatures will supposedly abate by this Monday so we'll see what happens.

Now, I think IDOT, the Illinois State Police, and Secretary of State should have asked for guidance from the Governor's office and treated the busing of undocumented people north as a case of possible human trafficking.  Which means detaining drivers, impounding vehicles, and conducting a thorough investigation, including filing charges against the owners of any companies engaged in a conspiracy.  Now, I read that the migrants who arrive here have supposedly signed affidavits requesting transport but, regulations for shipping people are laxer than those for transporting livestock.

The federal Department of Transportation in conjunction with the FAA and airport authorities at Rockford, Midway, and elsewhere should have taken a stronger hand and suspended the shipping licenses for whatever shitkicker backwater Texas airline/bus company is transporting people as well as investigating the companies for human trafficking.  

But, instead the Texas bus company Wynne Transportation LLC, trucking migrants north filed a federal lawsuit against Illinois for interfering with interstate commerce and for "intentional discrimination".  Chicago is again the second city because New York City did the right thing suing 17 bus companies in Texas for $708,000,000 with Docket No. 01 at the beginning of the year. 

Now, these above ideas obviously reflect my focus in terms of law enforcement but, this is really a question of the soul of the Nation and the perfidious nations Republicans are taking to make white people insane.  It's generally worked, nearly half of the white Republicans in Iowa declared immigration the number on issue.  Iowa... 

And of course, Republicans in Congress openly declare they will fuck up the budget and will hamstring any legislative efforts to address immigration because they've staked their political futures to making white people insane.

Texass, of course, receives billions from the Federal Government for "Border Security" and what have the Republicans governors done in the last 20 years?  Well, shuffle those public monies to private companies.
An investigation by ProPublica, The Texas Tribune and The Marshall Project found that the state’s claims of success have been based on shifting metrics that included taking credit for uncovering crimes that had no links to the border, work conducted by troopers who were in the region before the operation began, and arrests, drug seizures and migrant apprehensions made in conjunction with other agencies. More than nine months into the operation, DPS told the news organizations that it had removed about 2,000 charges it deemed not related to border crime from a dataset of arrests credited to Operation Lone Star. The state faces several lawsuits and calls for investigation from Democrats, lawyers and advocacy groups following media reports detailing alleged civil rights violations and court rulings raising questions about the constitutionality of the trespassing arrests. Despite DPS and Abbott’s office highlighting human trafficking and smuggling arrests, the largest share of arrests are of people accused of trespassing on private property. The Army Times and the Tribune have also reported about poor working conditions and suicides among National Guard members deployed under the operation.
Of course, it's shameless but, that's how Republicans operate.  And the rise of rightwing media and the explosion of social media agitprop grants Republicans a wide latitude and enormous cover to engage in these schemes, shenanigans, and crimes.  And that's they name of the game for Republicans;  having Two Sets of Laws.  For Republican friends and allies everything, for their enemies The Law.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Weird. All these blue states claimed to wanna be Sanctuary States….until it came time to BE a Sanctuary State! All talk until it became a “problem” in their own backyard.

Grung_e_Gene said...

What isn't weird is your racism or inability to read. But, I firmly support stopping Federal funds to Texas and Florida as ports of entry if they won't do their jobs on immigration. I'll glad take those billions in Illinois.