Immigration Caravans and Border Issues

[47of74]

Another day, another reich wing wacko

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Carl Gallups is a right-wing Christian pastor, conspiracy theorist (he’s really adamant about telling people Obama was born in Kenya), and was a frequent speaker at Trump rallies during the 2016 campaign. Given his history, you shouldn’t expect his views on immigration to be all that coherent, and he confirmed this on Jim Bakker‘s show last week.

According to Gallups, the migrant caravan that has reached the U.S.-Mexico border is a result of God’s judgement on America — for gay marriage and abortion.

“You go all the way back to the Tower of Babel when the Lord scattered the nations and the Bible says, ‘He set their borders,’” Gallups said, adding nations having borders “was God’s idea.”

“The bottom line is we violated the borders of the womb, we violated the borders of marriage, we violated the borders of sexuality, we’re violating the borders of God’s word and God says, ‘I will violate your borders,’” he continued.

 

[Howl]

Please tell me this guy doesn't have a radio show.....

[Howl]

Well, it's not over yet. CNN reports that Homeland Security has sent a request to Dept. of Defense to extend the border deployment another 45 days beyond Dec. 15.  DoD has not yet signed off on it, but I don't know if that is significant. 

However, because some aspects of the deployment have been completed, the total number of troops may drop. 

Pentagon is asked to extend border troop deployment

[SecularMusic]

one of my Facebook friends posted the attached link on her page asking that we read it and seriously think about whether we should support the would-be immigrants in the caravan. https://stream.org/us-citizen-living-honduras-think-caravan/?fbclid=IwAR2aUzD5JN1OsDYz7nnrIVXYozVXSj3Rzi7liKEQvIWJtZVWQeRa4zjE_Sg

It's written by a US missionary who acknowledges the violence and poverty from which the caravan participants are fleeing, but insists they should stay in their home country. After all, she's worked there for poverty wages and currently lives without a washing machine or dishwasher.

Essentially, blind to the who're privilege that would allow her to leave at any time, she thinks they should just suck it up. 

I'm really starting to dispise evangelical missionaries. 

[hoipolloi]

Boy, she's a piece of work and so are the fundie leghumpers & winged monkeys infesting the comments on that article. 

Here's her bio at the website of the sponsoring organization. It's clear from her commentary and blog that hers is the only true vision of Christianity. 

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Darwin and I were married June 24, 2013 in a Honduran national park by my dear college roommate, and less than five months later we were blessed with three children, ages 13, 9, and 6. Five years later, we’ve parented 11 children/teens in all. We continue to parent 7 (as the other 4 have been successfully reunited with safe biological family members or left our care for other reasons), and we are in the process of legally adopting several of those who remain with us....I am now a full-time momma to 10 kids/teens who are learning for the first time what it means to walk in truth, love and freedom while I also fulfill the roles of: enthusiastic grammar/mathematics/karate/bootcamp teacher/coach in our community homeschool, sex education counselor to all who will listen, teacher of God’s Word in our community Bible study, and visionary/director of the Living Waters Ranch.

I'd have (a lot more) respect for these evangelical missionaries if they actually helped the local people and STFU about religion. 

 

 

[artdecades]

A fundie named Darwin? I want the backstory on that. 

[cindyluvs24]

She needs to familiarize herself with both the US Immigration law and the asylum rules, as well as the Old Testament.

[hoipolloi]

3 hours ago, cindyluvs24 said:

She needs to familiarize herself with both the US Immigration law and the asylum rules, as well as the Old Testament.

Yes, like many fundies she's a practitioner of pick-and-choose legalism.

[Ozlsn]

15 hours ago, SecularMusic said:

It's written by a US missionary who acknowledges the violence and poverty from which the caravan participants are fleeing, but insists they should stay in their home country

To quote Warsan Shire (British-Somali poet)

"no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well"

The rest of the poem is here. Be aware that the content and some of the language gets progressively more explicit through the poem. 

I'm sure that if you asked the caravan the vast majority would prefer to be safe at home, with stable jobs that allowed them to feed their family and no fear of violence against them or their family. 

16 hours ago, SecularMusic said:

After all, she's worked there for poverty wages and currently lives without a washing machine or dishwasher.

And yet I suspect that if the situation deteriorated, if bombs were going off in the market, if militias with guns were threatening to take her children, if her family couldn't afford food, if she had no other options then she might join a caravan and head to Canada where people would abuse her because she should have stayed put. 

You know, it's the lack of empathy, of "there but for the Grace of God" that consistently surprises me about these religious fundamentalists. And of so-called Christian politicans come to that. They would have tear gassed Christ at the border.

[Howl]

First, this went by almost unremarked in the MSM, but Trump has ordered about 3,700 more troops to the border and they will be heading that way in the next few weeks. 

Trump’s troop order to the southern border will cost taxpayers over $600 million 

The stock photo at the top of the linked article shows just how many people in the military of people of color. This article discusses the projected costs and  (briefly) the history of troops deployed to the border under Bush and Obama. 

I hate to do this on a Monday, but The National Butterfly Center on the Texas border posted this depressing news on their facebook page Sunday evening, Feb 2rd: 

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8 law enforcement units around the National Butterfly Center this evening, as the first excavator rolled in & parked on land immediately east of us. Mission PD Officer Cabral was parked on our private property. He said effective tomorrow we will have NO ACCESS to our own land south of the levee. He said, "Effective Monday morning, it is all government land," and they have orders to prohibit anyone from stepping foot on the levee, which sits on our private property. We know this is illegal and will be taking legal action tomorrow. Stay tuned! #RESIST

The National Butterfly's gofundme shows what will be bisecting their property: 

Protect the National Butterfly Center gofundme

 

[Howl]

Again, I hate to share more bad news on a Monday.   This was on my facebook page today, below a photo of surveyors flagging tape: 

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Krista Schlyer

18 hrs

This is the surveyor stake marking the 150 foot “enforcement zone” in the La Parida Banco tract of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge. Every tree and every living thing within will be scraped from the land within this zone. Tomorrow, the next day, whenever Trump thinks he will gain maximum political mileage from it.

While on a walk this morning to take photos and footage for Ay Mariposa Film I saw hawks and egrets sitting in these trees, heard orioles, green jays, gnatcatchers and kiskadees conversing within this forest. About 4% of the native forest is left in The Lower Rio Grande Valley. What remains is rare, precious, essential. That we would think to hew it down, that our elected officials would use our tax money to do it, that the national news media can barely be bothered to pay attention to this destruction aside from the political gamesmanship involved, that members of Congress are haggling in a closed meeting over whether they will call the cause of it a fence, a wall, or a barrier and how much more of it they will fund....just.....no......words.

 

 

[fraurosena]

Yeah, ruin the environment, kill endangered wildlife, because evil murdering immigrants! Oh, wait...

 

[AmazonGrace]