Trump Laid a Trap on Immigration--And Only O'Rourke Sees It

[DemocratSinceBirth]

Most Democrats are playing into the president’s hands on border security, but the ex-congressman has a different idea.

Beto O’Rourke isn’t known for his wonkish heft. But in his formal announcement for president on Sunday, the former Texas congressman offered one of the most important policy proposals of the nascent presidential campaign: He argued that to solve America’s problems at the border, America’s leaders must “help people in Central America where they are.” In so doing, he began laying a foundation to effectively rebut Donald Trump on his signature issue: immigration.

Every major Democratic presidential candidate decries Trump’s actions at the border. In her announcement speech, Kamala Harris called his policy of putting “children in cages” a “human-rights abuse,” and his proposed border wall a “medieval vanity project.” In hers, Elizabeth Warren said that under Trump, America’s “immigration system … lacks a conscience.” Amy Klobuchar used her announcement to demand “comprehensive immigration reform.” In his, Bernie Sanders called for a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants already in the United States and “a humane border policy for those who seek asylum.”

O’Rourke’s competitors are right to demand a fairer and more humane system for evaluating asylum claims. But an improved asylum system won’t reduce the number of people fleeing violence in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador—Central America’s “Northern Triangle.” To the contrary, the better chance migrants have of gaining asylum, the more likely they are to seek it.

...

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/beto-orourke-has-way-out-trumps-immigration-trap/586201/

I'm starting to like the cut of this young man's jib.

[watoos]

1. Beto better speak louder,

Trump is cutting aid to Honduras, Guatemala, and San Salvador, or is it El Salvador?

[awesomerwb1]

4. San Salvador is the capital city of El Salvador.

[crazytown]

2. Duplicate

https://www.democraticunderground.com/128746035

[Gothmog]

3. I also like Beto

Beto is right on this issue

[Gothmog]

5. From the Washington Post

Beto is no light weight

Link to tweet

Second, O’Rourke has adamantly refused to get sucked into the leftward scramble on issues such as health care. He’s supporting a House plan that unlike Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) Medicare-for-all wouldn’t outlaw private insurance. As CNN reported, O’Rourke told an audience in New Hampshire in late March, “What it says is, if you like your employer-sponsored insurance, you like the network that you’re in, you like the doctors that you can see, you’re happy with that, you can keep it. If you do not like your employer-based insurance and want to enroll in Medicare, you can. If you have no insurance whatsoever or if you are underinsured today, you can enroll in Medicare as well.” That sort of plan is a whole lot more popular than Sanders’s single-payer plan and it’s cheaper, too.

Third, what little he has said about foreign policy sounds reasonable. Every Democrat is going to promise to end long wars. However, he sounded cognizant of the need for U.S. international leadership. He explained in his El Paso kickoff rally Saturday that to achieve goals such as reversing climate change, the United States must “once again reassert our role on the world stage.” He then outlined a very traditional, responsible foreign policy vision

[W]e’ve got to strengthen these historic friendships and alliances, so many of them forged in sacrifice. The service of men and women who put their lives on the line and lost their lives to this country, let’s make sure that that sacrifice was not squandered. Let’s make sure that we strengthen those alliances. Let’s end these love affairs with dictators and strongmen all over the world. Let’s earn, let’s earn the respect of the people around the world, not just by how we treat those in other countries, but how we treat those within our country, and how we treat those who are at the border of our country. If we do that, we can make sure that we once again become the indispensable nation convening the other nations of this planet around some of our shared challenges like climate change, like nuclear disarmament, like ending all of these wars that we are currently engaged in, we can do for ourselves what no other country can.

In other words, democracy and our strategic needs go hand in hand. Retreating from the world, as those on the right and the far-left appear to want, won’t solve our problems. If O’Rourke can talk sense to voters and use his perch to make a case for responsible internationalism, he’ll do his party and the country a favor.

[RLG]

6. He's not a "lightweight"

But the way the press and some supporters of other candidates talk, you'd think he was some guy off the street.