As a Jew, no thanks.
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Pressuring Migrants to ‘Self-Deport,’ White House Moves to Cancel Social Security Numbers
Now, the administration is taking drastic steps to pressure some of those immigrants and others who had legal status to “self-deport” by effectively canceling the Social Security numbers they had lawfully obtained, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times and interviews with six people familiar with the plans.
The goal is to cut those people off from using crucial financial services like bank accounts and credit cards, along with their access to government benefits.
The effort hinges on a surprising new tactic: repurposing Social Security’s “death master file,” which for years has been used to track dead people who should no longer receive benefits, to include the names of living people who the government believes should be treated as if they are dead. As a result of being added to the death database, they would be blacklisted from a coveted form of identity that allows them to make and more easily spend money.
From a review of Hans Günther Adler, Der Verwaltete Mensch: Studien zur Deportation der Juden aus Deutschland* (Bureaucratized man: Studies on the deportation of the Jews from Germany). Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1974, 1076 pp.
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Every time I read something like that I am reminded of Stephen King’s The Running Man, written as Richard Bachman (don’t bother with the movie.) It’s been a long time since I read the book, but there are parts that really stuck with me.
The first sentence in the summary on Wikipedia sounds all too familiar:
In 2025, the world’s economy is in shambles, and America has become a totalitarian dystopia
Of all the writers you don’t want being prophetic, I’m pretty sure Stephen King is near the top of the list. I really wish I could believe the part where the main character’s ongoing success in the game show resulted in an underclass uprising, especially as more of the truth was revealed, but that ship left the port long ago and sank before getting out of sight of land.
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Can you imagine the avalanche of bogus reports?
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“Ideas?” Seriously? What kind of ideas are they trying to stop? (Don’t answer that, I already know. Wish I did not…)
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United Scarfolk of America.
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Several weeks ago, two different immigration attorneys whom I respect greatly communicated to me that they fully expect the administration to arrest immigration lawyers.
None of these people are given to hyperbole. In fact, one of the people this week, we had discussed things two months ago and said didn’t think there was any imminent danger.
The President issued an EO directly accusing immigration attorneys of helping clients perpetuate asylum fraud and directed the government to go after immigration attorneys.
I don’t even know how to process the idea that I need to consider becoming a refugee/go into exile because I zealously and ethically represent people in immigration court.
I don’t know how to process the idea that my using FB to try to illuminate our immigration system and help people know the truth might make me a target.
I don’t even know how to think about the merest chance that my country would act this way.
It’s hard to separate my fear from what is reality. Is my fear well grounded? Are we just on the mad side of paranoia to consider this as a real possibility ? I know many would conclude I should stock up on tin foil so my hat supply is enough. But I also think of the so many Jews in the 1930s who could never imagine their government really going after them and by the time they figured it out it was too late.
I am watching with ever growing concern our government’s complete lawlessness in deporting Abrego Garcia to El Salvador. They even admit it was a mistake. But now they brazenly refuse to act to get him back, even when ordered to do so. And they refuse to give any answers to the Court.
I fully expect that they eventually tell the Court, well we tried, but we can’t force El Salvador to release him and we can’t force them to do so without endangering our foreign policy and national security.
And I wonder, if they are willing to defy a Court there, how safe am I really if I’m on the enemies list just because I do my job or because I try to help people understand our immigration system and laws and policies?
As a follower of Jesus, I know that ultimately God is with me no matter what. But that does not mean he magically stops bad things being done to me.
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Frederick Douglass, 1869:
"I have said that the Chinese will come, and have given some reasons why we may expect them in very large numbers in no very distant future.
Do you ask, if I favor such immigration, I answer I would. Would you have them naturalized, and have them invested with all the rights of American citizenship? I would. Would you allow them to vote? I would. Would you allow them to hold office? I would.
But are there not reasons against all this? Is there not such a law or principle as that of self-preservation? Does not every race owe something to itself? Should it not attend to the dictates of common sense? Should not a superior race protect itself from contact with inferior ones? Are not the white people the owners of this continent? Have they not the right to say, what kind of people shall be allowed to come here and settle? Is there not such a thing as being more generous than wise? In the effort to promote civilization may we not corrupt and destroy what we have? Is it best to take on board more passengers than the ship will carry?
To all of this and more I have one among many answers, together satisfactory to me, though I cannot promise that it will be so to you.
I submit that this question of Chinese immigration should be settled upon higher principles than those of a cold and selfish expediency.
There are such things in the world as human rights. They rest upon no conventional foundation, but are external, universal, and indestructible. Among these, is the right of locomotion; the right of migration; the right which belongs to no particular race, but belongs alike to all and to all alike. It is the right you assert by staying here, and your fathers asserted by coming here. It is this great right that I assert for the Chinese and Japanese, and for all other varieties of men equally with yourselves, now and forever. I know of no rights of race superior to the rights of humanity, and when there is a supposed conflict between human and national rights, it is safe to go to the side of humanity. I have great respect for the blue eyed and light haired races of America. They are a mighty people. In any struggle for the good things of this world they need have no fear. They have no need to doubt that they will get their full share.
But I reject the arrogant and scornful theory by which they would limit migratory rights, or any other essential human rights to themselves, and which would make them the owners of this great continent to the exclusion of all other races of men.
I want a home here not only for the negro, the mulatto and the Latin races; but I want the Asiatic to find a home here in the United States, and feel at home here, both for his sake and for ours.
Right wrongs no man."
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Finally.
The one thing I haven’t seen, that would shut down the conspiracy theories, is proof of life. Even if it’s a terrible one, just show us he’s still there.
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