The first forty-eight hours after total knee replacement (TKR) were a blur due to the aftereffects of the surgery and anesthesia. I was well into a small bottle of OxyContin when the news story flashed across the screen on Wednesday morning: Shooter Opens Fire on Dallas Ice Facility. Was I dreaming? Did I read the headline wrong? I was still in the phase of recovery when the pain is so bad, you don’t have the energy to change channels.
Coming on the heels of the Charlie Kirk assassination, this news story was going to be huge I thought. But I was wrong again, this story never took hold because the only people who died were migrants and the shooter himself. The media took a pass and soon enough a lunatic drove into Morman church in Michigan, lit his truck on fire, and started shooting. You don’t see that every day.
The incident in Dallas was ignored by most of the media which continued to hammer the Trump administration over the looming government shutdown and the continued use of national guard deployments to quell the anti-ICE protests. As near as I could tell, after researching the situation as thoroughly as I could from a sick bed, no ICE employees were actually injured in the attack. However, the early story line from the mainstream media included statements such as this: “Three migrant detainees shot while in the custody of ICE.” More proof that most media outlets are nothing more than the public relations arm of the Democrat party.
There was little mention of the irony of the situation which is that the shooter was targeting ICE Agents and yet managed to kill two migrants with his indiscriminate shooting while seriously injuring two others. The horrifying video was released two days later and showed the extent of the chaos at the ICE facility. No one seemed to care that these migrants were the ones terrorized, shot, and seen running for their lives; they were collateral damage from a war being waged against ICE. They simply got in the way like the residents of a worn torn city where there is nothing but deadly chaos every day.
The shooter, identified as 29-year-old Joshua Jahn, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He left various menacing writings and messages behind indicating that this was a targeted attack. Probably a blunt too; he was reportedly a heavy marijuana user. He was looking to terrorize ICE agents, similar to two prior attacks which had occurred in northern Texas weeks earlier. Part of the armed resistance.
Hundreds of “protesters” have been arrested and charged as a result of this criminal activity at or outside ICE facilities in several states. Very few are taking note of the violence or seem to care. Joshua Jahn was acting alone it seems, but in concert with others that continue to pursue this dangerous game with our federal agency responsible for rounding up the criminals that are here in this country illegally.
Many of these individuals protesting the ICE activities are gamers and all are using the same common app to stalk the enemy too. Doxing ICE agents and following them home. Blockading their place of work; not letting the agents in or out. Holding the agents accountable for doing their jobs and threatening them with physical violence round the clock.
The shooter’s social media profiles were wiped clean right after the shooting but not before many noticed his associations to ANTIFA. Still some members of his family insisted that he was not political in spite of the anti ICE messaging on the armor piercing rounds of ammunition that he had procured for the ambush. That speaks volumes on the current state of affairs in America, where roughly half of our population does not see targeting ICE employees and facilities as political actions at all. It’s fair game!
There are not many voices advocating for restraint, just the voice of the current administration, loud and clear, promising to continue the ICE deportations. Trump plans to follow through with his campaign promise to end the open borders policy of the past and to finally do something about the millions of migrants living in the United States illegally. Starting with the worst of the worst— the gang members and criminals.
Obviously, he is not going to relent; Trump doesn’t relent. The courts have been a critical part of the resistance up until this point, but Trump keeps winning on appeal and the hope of the left is waning. Is it any wonder that the violence is expanding across the country and escalating to murder as well? Meanwhile ICE agents are working under the worst kind of conditions, without cover from local authorities and without the cooperation of other law enforcement agencies, fending for themselves in a hostile environment where they are being tracked and hunted like dangerous game.
Early this morning, ten civilian vehicles blocked in ICE at its facility in northern Illinois. The driver of the lead vehicle in the blockage carried a gun. Similar violent activities have been occurring on a nightly basis in Portland Oregon where the local police provide zero support to ICE. These same situations are getting played out in other deep blue cities as well. The violence is spreading.
This is how the resistance has morphed since the Trump inauguration; today the resistance is armed, dangerous, and demonstrating just a feet away from the enemy, the ICE agents, which they have labelled fascist and racist. No one talks about gun control any longer— every interest group out there including the trans right crowd is heavily armed. Some are calling for outright war.
It seems that all of our current political problems lead back to the immigration issue. If we are not arguing about who has a right to be here in this country, we are disagreeing over what rights they have including the right to health care. Many months ago, I wrote about this problem and suggested that we start discussing a framework for compromise.
Of course, that didn’t happen, but because I am still recovering and in an unusually optimistic mood, I am going to make another attempt at peaceful discourse. Here is my original post:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nostalgia has always played an important role in American politics. It is obviously a driving force behind MAGA. Trump tapped into a general despair that our best days are behind us; that our present problems are too big and too complex to solve. Our two-party system is at loggerheads and therefore there are no solutions possible through legislation. Washington DC doesn’t work for the people anymore.
Everything is broken; nothing ever gets fixed. Our country is in decline many believe. Nonsense Trump says, common sense will rule the day. We are about to enter a golden age of America. Now that’s an applause line if I ever heard one.
There are still a lot of Republicans who remember the Reagan era fondly. Issues seemed so simple back then; Regan solved them too. Forget about the AIDs epidemic, big hair rock anthems, and truly forgettable automobiles. What we all remember is the disintegration and collapse of the Soviet Union, AKA “The Evil Empire”, the USSR at the end of 1991, which was a culmination of Regan’s desire to drive a spike through the heart of communism.
Some said it couldn’t be done; then we won, and we started winning Olympic medals again! It turned out to be easier than anyone thought. Regan did it the old-fashioned way, he outspent the communists. That was an applause line too, back in the day.
Today we feel like losers. Examples of our broken systems are everywhere around us; this is a statement that is universally accepted in America unfortunately. Our healthcare system is broken, Social Security is broken, Medicaid and Medicare; our system of property insurance is broken too, we just don’t realize it yet.
According to Ro Khanna, the Democrat Congressman from the great state of California, “the status quo is broken” too. Can anything be worse? Don’t think so. Ro Khanna is obviously a smart guy, but when reading his op ed, it seemed like he was complaining about the Democrats loss of power. That is what has changed dramatically in just a few short months, that is what is broken, the balance of power which has favored Democrats recently.
The two-party political system isn’t working for anyone, except for the politicians who abuse it and make money off the constant bickering. Bipartisan legislation seems as unlikely as world peace these days. ‘In short,” Khanna continues, “Americans are feeling a righteous anger about the real damage that the governing class has done to their lives over the past few decades.” He absolutely nailed it, even though it is an indictment of sorts of his own party, Washington DC, and the administrative state that he has been a part of since he joined congress in 2017.
One of the most obvious and relevant examples of brokenness is our immigration system. Our immigration system may be broken today, but immigration obviously worked in the past— we are all here- a nation of immigrants! Americans are proud of their heritage and our past. Our immigration system was a model for all nations to emulate back in the day. Why can’t the system work again, the way that it used to, what’s up with that?
Immigration is such a simple process; the whole concept involves a single premise which is the act of moving to America, getting a green card, and becoming a naturalized citizen in three to five years. It is not a new concept. Citizenship is not meant to be too easy, but it is meant to be easy enough, so that a million or more people do it successfully each year.
According to our former President Joe Biden, our immigrations system is broken because Trump derailed the bi-partisan Immigration Bill that would have fixed it. That may have the boldest whopper that Joe Biden ever uttered. We all knew it was a lie because the border was secure before he took office and then it wasn’t. In the meantime, another four million people became naturalized citizens during his term while another fifteen million or more snuck in the back door.
It seemed to seventy-seven million or so voters that the Biden administration had no regard whatsoever for our border specifically and for the process of citizenship in general. A system that hasn’t changed in twenty years. A million or so new residents has been the standard of immigration for decades; how did fifteen million or so people just arrive here in America without the necessary paperwork? Inquiring minds want to know.
Biden claimed that there was nothing that he could do about the chaos, that the broken immigration system needed a legislative cure. But the truth is that the laws and rules that have dealt with illegal crossings and unwarranted entry into the United States have been on the books for a longtime; at his direction, and over the past four years, his administration just failed to enforce the rules. A disgrace Trump called it.
That the laws were outdated, that congress had failed to increase the immigration standard since “the gang of eight” adjusted them, was beside the point. The gang of eight was the last serious bipartisan effort to set a wider and more inclusive path to citizenship. For the record one of the eight Senators is in jail, one died, one resigned in disgust and Rubio is now our secretary of State and Chuck Shumer was just the Senate majority leader. Five of the eight Senators are still in politics!
Today we watch what a President can do “with just a pen and cell phone.” to paraphrase Barack Obama. We see the power of executive actions. In less time than it takes to get a colonoscopy scheduled, Trump has reduced the illegal flow of migrants across our southern border to next to nothing. No bi-partisan legislation needed. Problem solved by executive order. Take that Mayorkas.
But the immigration problem is not really resolved is it. What do we do now about the millions of people here in the United States that are not yet participating in the naturalization process as defined by the US Department if Immigration and naturalization (“USCIS”). The millions of migrants who entered the country illegally are not part of the official system, that was established to administer the process through which a person becomes a US citizen.
For the record, this naturalization process has been remarkably consistent and has worked for a long time. About a million people a year become US citizens; a higher number of people apply for green cards or grants of legal residence. Lacking the legislation to authorize it, the Biden administration simply opened the border and allowed millions of people to enter our country without permission. He did that because he could and because congress was powerless to stop him.
Many people wonder why all immigrants do not simply apply for citizenship while living here without a green card? The answer is that there is no line available for current undocumented immigrants and the “regular channels” are largely not available to prospective immigrants who enter the country through unauthorized channels. The current legislation does not allow for it. The problem that has been created comes with no legislative solution.
To date there have been just tens of thousands violent, non-citizens rounded up and deported; that’s a fraction of the estimated twenty million people here without the proper paperwork. Who is against deporting criminals; you would think that Americans would be celebrating the swift action that Trump has taken, and which fulfilled his number one promise to voters, to make America safe again. That’s where we stand today. What next?
How many others here illegally should be shown the door? That is still up for debate. At our current rate of naturalizations, that’s a decade long backlog of potential Americans, assuming that no one else wants to come here. Illegal immigration is a perfect example of a serious problem that was made worse by politicians. “Real damage that the governing class has done” to average Americans according to congressmen Khanna.
By letting millions of migrants cross the US Border and thus circumvent the whole naturalization and immigration policy that we have in place, the Biden administration broke the very system created to manage the process. Now the system has been overwhelmed by a volume of immigration that it was never intended to handle in the first place. Then Biden had the audacity to claim that the system was broken already; many Democrats in congress just do not get it. This was a big reason why they lost. That just wasn’t true.
It is clear that the deportation process will be arduous, distressing, and costly; the US public does not have the will power, patience, or the means to deport everyone. Americans do not want to do this. Deporting everyone here illegally is not a reasonable course of action nor is it humane or the Christian thing to do. It is also quite possible that a lot of migrants came to the US in search of jobs and money and intend to go back home once they have made enough. Some may question if we need to do anything at all? We can have non-citizens living amongst us; we do now.
However, the migration of low skilled workers from around the world has not been good for the economy in spite of what you may have read in the New York Times. That is the way the majority of Americans see it. Without attaining green cards, and not in the legal naturalization process, these new residents in the United States have not materially contributed to growth in the GDP as some have asserted. A reasonable finder of fact, Newsweek Magazine estimated a year ago that the cost of illegal immigration is one hundred and fifty billion per year, not including the government cost of policing the border and enforcing our laws. The cost of illegal immigration dwarfs the expenditures at USAID for example.
The chart above depicts one way to look at the current situation. We are currently borrowing nearly six dollars to create one dollar of GDP growth, our highest level of borrowing ever. Some of that borrowing is done to prop up our broken immigration system. For the record, GDP increased 2.3 percent in 2024, compared with an increase of 3.3 percent in 2023. We’re getting a worse return on investment than ever before, if you buy into the premise that the national debt, is an investment in our future. Migrant workers have added little the US GDP for a variety of reasons including the remittances that they send back to their home countries.
This is not sustainable. After years of relatively stable and predictable growth in government spending, our post covid expenditures are out of control still and on a higher trajectory than ever before. Up 54% since 2019. Current legal statutes of USCIS require that naturalized citizens, and those receiving green cards, are gainfully employed and contributing to our economy. The illegal migrants residing here in the USA today are not. Unfortunately, that is the most significant aspect of the situation that we now face.
One hundred fifty billion is a drop in the bucket for the US budget, but it is a significant percentage of the incremental, increased spending shown in the chart below.
Our current immigration crisis is a self-inflicted wound. Trump has successfully framed the issue as an economic one, and the majority of Americans agree with him. We cannot afford the luxury. The illegal immigration policy of the past administration was a slap to the face of hard-working voters, who else is going to pay off these debts that we have just racked up in the past few years. This is one of the many grievances that Ro Khanna has identified as having angered Americans. It is clearly the most obvious.
Why did we do this? The answer is that some believe that we need the cheap labor. Illegal migrants are the modern-day equivalent of slaves. They do the work that Americans do not want to do, like physical construction work, menial service work, and they do it for wages and benefits that would make most American teenagers blush. They do a lot of the work under the table and without benefits too.
They certainly do not work for a “living wage” as Bernie Sanders would insist if these were US citizens. Taxpayers make up the difference in terms of temporary housing, relocation costs, subsidizing medical benefits (Medicare), and other vital government services that the migrants are reluctant to use but need anyway. Those are the other real costs that are required to live here in America which are not being paid through the wages that these migrants receive from the independent contractors who employe them.
Who benefits from the supply of low-cost migrant workers in America? All of us do to some extent. This cheap labor is built into our food prices, and the cost of housing and our infrastructure. However, a lot of migrant labor supports cheap personal services as well. These workers keep our lawns mowed, our cars, houses, and offices clean, and our restaurants serving us food. Blunt but true unfortunately.
A serious miscalculation was made by the Democrat party; the majority of Americans find little or no value in the services provided by migrant labor. Less than one third of Americans eat out every week for example and 80% of property owners mow their own lawns. An even smaller percentage of households are cleaned by anyone other than the homeowner or resident. Alarmingly, the percentage of Americans with the disposable income, enough to afford these services, is declining at a noticeable rate.
The current economic trends do not predict a change either. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, personal consumption expenditures increased $133.6 billion while personal income increased $92.0 billion in December. In other words, the majority of Americans are deficit spending, had a sense of falling behind throughout 2024. Cheap labor did nothing for these citizens who made up for some of the deficit through a reduction is savings.
For the majority of Americans, the migrants are experienced as a nuisance which explains why otherwise charitable Americans have turned on their unwanted house guests. Migrants compete for food staples; they clog our highways and transportation systems, and they create lines that people do not want to wait in. Having said that, the burden of paying the taxes on this luxury of cheap migrant workers is clearly coming from the top 20% of earners— those who presumably can afford the services.
When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging so the saying goes. Trump has effectively closed down the borders and stopped the problem from getting worse. However, he has hardly solved the whole immigration problem. We are keenly aware of the first goal of the new Trump administration which is to deport the worst of the worst. He is crowing about that every day. But what about the next phase?
If the Democrats want to keep the millions of illegal migrants here working without green cards, they will have to negotiate with the Republicans to keep them. This is on the party of Blue. Protests and human-interest stories in the newspapers, that few people read or pay attention to, will not do the trick this time around. After a brief series of protests in Los Angles and in New York, the activities of ICE have not simmered down. If anything, they are on the increase, and nothing will stop Tom Holman it seems.
We have at least ten million non-citizens to push through our immigration system over the next several years. Clearly the system must be revamped, and capacity must be added, to handle the backlog of those waiting for citizenship. This issue will not get tackled before the budget reconciliation issues that we face, but soon thereafter. Legislators cannot overlook one hundred and fifty billion dollars of unbudgeted discretionary spending that is now out in the open.
The Biden administration broke our immigration system which needs to be fixed now. Trump has no desire or incentive to make more room for illegal immigrants to become American citizens if they want to be. It will be up to leadership of the Democrat party to negotiate a deal to make this happen before the deportation czar and administration ramp up on the deportation throughput. Sad but true. The Republican party could care less at this point.
Since the Democrats own this issue in the eyes of voters, they would be well advised to take the lead on solving the problem. Propose new immigration numbers, compromise over birthright citizenship and a path to legal status. Agree on border security. If we want to fix this broken system, we will need to change it, so that it will work in the future as it did once in the past. It would be a great place to start and a meaningful and significant improvement over the status quo that Americans would celebrate. Common ground.
It is not like this hasn’t been done in the past. The gang of eight resolved the issue in 2005 when they passed significant immigration reform that lasted. It could happen again, but realistically not until we have some clarity on budget and spending issues. But still, Democrats should take ownership of reforming the system. Public pressure in the form of protests and human-interest stories will not cut it this time around. There must be a sincere desire to fix the problem once and for all.
But of course, the real question is can we fix our broken, two-party political system first, so that both sides of the aisle can come together and pass new bipartisan legislation that addresses this expensive problem. It would go a long way to restoring faith in our government. Something in line with our compassionate past? A country where immigrants were valued and welcomed with open arms. A nation celebrating diverse cultures and a rich history of migration.
We’ve gotten used to ruling through executive order. The pendulum swings from administration to administration. The laws favor the position of the Republicans this time around. It looks like it will be brutal. The ruling class in Washington DC will have to confess and then agree to clean up the mess that they made. That will not be easy for the Democrats in the house to swallow but they will have to abandon many of their most cherished principles. US Citizenship is a right and a privilege, not a service that gets bestowed on those that just happen to live here.
Trump is signaling that he might deport ten million or more people. That will be a painful process that should be avoided if possible. The issue of immigration will be priority number one, right after the national debt and our spending. Our political leadership should focus on creating an environment that can produce legislative change that is good for America. A new bill that could resolve twenty years of petty disputes and solve a pretty simple problem. But will that happen? Your guess is as good as mine.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Before our government shut down this past Friday, Chuck Schumer presented an alternative bill, the Democrat Party Continuing Resolution (CR), that would have undone provisions to the recently passed, one big, beautiful bill. Specifically, the continuing resolution would have repealed the rural health care fund and added back in more than a trillion dollars to operate the government for four weeks— mostly increases to Medicaid— the federal health care program that the states administer.
Senate Democrats’ proposed CR would undo Republicans’ reforms to Medicaid in their budget bill that passed in July. The Democrat-proposed CR would force the government to borrow another $1.5 trillion to fund the government through Oct. 31, according to analysis from the Center for a Responsible Federal Budget.
The majority of the $1.5 trillion dollars of spending would go the states in the form of Medicaid relief. Liberal states are rewarded for giving taxpayer-funded healthcare (Medicaid or ACA recipients) to illegal immigrants. Democrats also want able-bodied, working-aged individuals, who refuse to work, to continue getting Medicaid.
That was the official line from the Republicans who detailed and reviewed the Democrats’ proposal before the shutdown took place. The “clean” Republican CR called for the same level of government spending without changes. Zero additional spending in fact.
Each side is doing its best to frame the situation in their favor, but at the end of the day, we are at least $1.5 trillion in additional spending apart. Outside of all of this discussion, you have the unbudgeted Trump tariff revenues that will sum up to 1/3 of a trillion for certain in FY2026. Democrats do not want to acknowledge that as a fact.
Unspoken in the debate so far, and everyone knows this, is that thanks to Trump’s tariff maneuverers, there is going to be a surplus of revenue available to offset additional spending in the future. Trump is talking about checks to everyone; the last thing that he would want is to see the Democrats get their hands on that money in order to spend it on a liberal agenda item such as funding for migrants, PBS, or aid overseas.
Government shutdowns are often resolved after a horrible tragedy and a significant media event which seems suitable to bringing an end to the conflict. In this instance and given the fact that there is an armed conflict between Ice Agents and the Antifa protestors currently in place, one of two things will likely happen next: either an ICE Agent will be killed, or a protestor will die at the doorstep of a federal facility. I hate to say it, but the Democrats are praying for the latter, and the Republicans are hoping for another martyr to celebrate.
We are in this current dangerous situation because the Democrat party and their allies in the news media turned a blind eye to an unprecedented level of illegal activity at our southern border throughout Biden’s term in office. These migrants have been promised, among other benefits of citizenship, healthcare as an inducement to move to this country and to stay here and do the work that Americans do not want to do.
Fortunately, American voters ran the Democrat party out of national offices and a Trump Administration was sworn in. Trump boldly set tariffs and began collecting found money that has turned into a real revenue stream. In spite of the paid political spokespeople like Larry Summers who personally benefit by spewing falsehoods for the party of blue, there have been little or no adverse effects from the tariffs at all.
Now the Democrats, who invested heavily in the campaign to stop the tariffs, are expressing interest in the ill-gotten gains of the Trump administration. It was bound to happen, this is DC that we are talking about where money is power, and the power of the purse is supreme. People like Chuck Schumer, who have never created a dollar of value in their lifetimes, are eager to sign on to the bonanza of found money.
Congress has passed something like thirteen or fourteen so called clean CRs in the past half decade. The only thing that had changed this time around is that the Democrats sense there is money now to be had, and they want their fair share. Between the Doge spending cuts and the unanticipated tariff revenue there is more money to go around. That is what this government shutdown is all about.
The press is lining up on either side, filing their nails and tapping their toes. Waiting for the next shoe to drop. Apple, at least, had the good sense to take down the ICE locating App from their store; corporate America wants no part of this deadly debate. It is going to take something more relevant and timelier than the death of a few migrants in custody to get our government functioning again.