ARE ISIS, MS-13, AND AN ELDERLY JEWISH BILLIONAIRE SENDING A CARAVAN OF MURDEROUS JOB-STEALING (BUT *ALSO FREELOADING*) CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM SEEKERS TO DESTROY OUR ONLY-RECENTLY-MADE-GREAT-AGAIN NATION?

The answer may not surprise you!

Hello, it’s your friendly neighborhood immigration attorney back again to help you out with every last possible argument, complaint, troll and/or goofy conspiracy theory about the migrant “scareavan” which somehow became an issue just days ahead of the second most important national election in living memory.

1/ WHY ARE PEOPLE SO AFRAID OF THIS CARAVAN, OURS HAS ALWAYS BEEN A SAFE AND RELIABLE WAY TO GET THE WHOLE FAMILY AROUND

(A) Yes! The Dodge Caravan has been *crushing* the minivan game since 1983.

(B) The Caravan captured the market for consumers who want the roomy comfort of a van with the compact frame and and minimalist aesthetic of a sedan.

(C) Tag yourself, I’m a ’95 silver AWD with woody panels and captain’s chairs

(D) I sincerely wish I were living in a world in which minivans were the most interesting thing I had to share with you today

1. But here we are

2/ IT’S AN INVAAAAASIONNNNN!

(A) It’s not.

1. Really.
2. I promise.
3. It’s thousands of unarmed people and their children peacefully seeking asylum.

(B) Silly scares over “invasions” of dirty foreigners coming to take over are a mainstay of American nativism.

1. Immigrants have been described as “invaders” for as long as there have been immigrants.
2. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 (our first national “travel ban”) passed after years of agitation about how the Chinese were organizing an “invasion fleet” which would show up to colonize the West Coast.
3. Among others, the Irish, Germans, Eastern European Jews, and now Latinos from Central America have all been through this.
4. It’s never been true.
   a. We were most recently invaded by the British in 1812
   b. No serious attempts since then

(C) During the “Golden Age” of American immigration, millions of impoverished Irish immigrants poured into U.S. ports of entry without visas

1. As one did, right up until 1924
2. Yet, somehow, history has failed to record this as an “invasion.”

(D) Proportional to the existing population, immigration rates were still much higher then anything we’ve seen since (even now), and a significantly higher number of people in the U.S. were foreign-born overall.

1. This is not to say that people welcomed or accepted the Irish and other European immigrants — they were treated very much the same way that today’s Central Americans are

a. Often by the ancestors of the same people.

(E) Calling desperate migrants an “invasion force” frames people in need as an actual enemy by dehumanizing and legitimizing physical, mental, institutional, and administrative violence against them.
1. This is bad
2. It goes bad places
3. You are a bad person for doing it

3/ BUT ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IS THE SINGLE GREATEST THREAT TO THE UNITED STATES RIGHT NOW

(A) Really?
1. Like, you actually believe this
2. You can’t… actually believe this

(B) Because you must know that:
1. The Department of Homeland Security has identified cyberattacks as a far greater threat to our national security than any physical attack could be
2. The FBI has identified domestic extremists (specifically white nationalists) to be the single greatest terrorist threat to the U.S. as of 2018.
3. Miami (along with much of NYC, Boston, and several other major American cities) will be underwater before 2100.
4. Social Security and Medicare are on track to collapse entirely, even after Mitch McConnell cut them just enough to pay for the massive wealth transfer to the 1% he helped pass in December.
5. The President of the United States is now entirely beholden to Russia, China, and the Saudis, and they are literally laughing at us
6. Etc.

(C) Look at the list above. Try to consider the relative threat presented.
1. Take another look
2. One more
3. Why not, just one more time
4. Still think it’s Central American asylum seekers?

(D) But hey: 35 percent of Republicans agree with you!
1. Immigration was *the* single most important national problem identified in Gallup polling.
2. For some reason

(E) And *1 in 2* Republicans believe that MS-13, a relatively tiny transnational gang which barely has the drive and organization required to engage in petty drug trafficking, poses “a serious or somewhat serious threat” to themselves or their families.
1. LOL (actual)
2. Wait, hold on
3. Safe to assume that most of the people who answered that question in the affirmative have never been within 10 miles of an actual sworn MS-13 member.
4. I live in (and love) a Boston neighborhood which has had real problems with MS-13 very recently, and I’m not afraid of these people
5. (Not to say that they aren’t terrible, just that they don’t scare me.)
6. So why are you afraid of them

4/ WE CAN’T HANDLE ALL OF THESE PEOPLE AT ONCE!

1. Hundreds of people seek asylum at our borders *every day.*
2. While it’s unusual to have so many at the same time, it’s nothing our system isn’t prepared to handle.
3. There are more than 325 million people living within our borders. And there’s room for plenty more.
4. “We’re America… we can handle it.” — Shepard Smith, Fox News

5/ IF THEY WERE REALLY SERIOUS ABOUT CLAIMING ASYLUM, THEY WOULD GO TO THE AMERICAN EMBASSY IN THEIR COUNTRY AND PUT IN AN APPLICATION *THERE*

(A) This one is my favorite.
(B) It has *no basis in fact or law whatsoever*
i. But people just keep saying it like it’s true.
ii. It is in actual fact NOT true
iii. It’s just not a thing that you can do.
iv. Please just stop saying it
v. You’re making an ass of yourself
vi. Even more than you already were
vii. No, really

(C) Are you maybe thinking of the thing in the movies where someone flees to an American embassy and dives just past the gates as they close to seek protection?
1. That’s called “diplomatic asylum,” and it’s an extremely limited form of protection which has nothing to do with what we’re talking about

(D) Asylum legally requires you to be physically present (legally or otherwise) in a country or to apply at a port of entry

1. No exceptions.

6/ THESE PEOPLE SHOULD JUST COME LEGALLY FROM THEIR HOME COUNTRIES

(A) They… are doing that.
(B) That’s what they’re doing.
(C) Refugees and asylum seekers are legal immigrants
(D) Also, beyond asylum there is virtually no legal option for most would-be immigrants to come here other than through a close U.S. citizen or resident relative.

8/ WHY CAN’T THEY JUST GET IN LINE?

(A) They are.
1. At ports of entry, where they are waiting to be admitted and have their asylum claims processed
2. This is pretty much the one place where immigrants can actually “get in line”
3. It’s an *actual physical line.*
4. Look, here’s a picture

“Why can’t they just get in — … oh.”

9 /WE CAN’T AFFORD TO TAKE CARE OF ALL OF THESE PEOPLE
(A) You mean all of these immigrants who come to the U.S. to steal American jobs?

1. The immigrants who you’re telling me don’t have real asylum claims and are “just here to work”?
2. Just wanted to be sure we’re talking about the same people here.

(B) Assuming that you, like these intending immigrants, are also working and supporting yourself (and this is maybe kind of a strange argument for you to be making if you’re not?) how do we afford to “take care of” YOU as you drive on our highways, use our emergency rooms, and send your kids to public school?

1. Right.
2. So that’s pretty much how we’ll do it, then

(C) Economists pretty much universally agree that — after a few years of adjustment and getting established in a new place — refugees in particular ultimately give back far more than they take from any given society.

1. They are far more likely to start their own businesses than those who come through any other forms of legal immigration
2. Their earnings after a few years typically outpace
   immigrants in most other visa categories.
3. And they pay income, property, sales, and all of their other taxes.
4. Just like you do.

(E) Also: It takes a *lot* to pick up and move to a completely new place, and especially for the grueling journey the caravan is on.

1. Not everyone has what it takes to do it.
2. Those who can are *exactly* the kinds of immigrants the people who are most terrified of the caravan usually say that they want in new citizens: hard-working, law-abiding, and ready to fully take on the challenge of a completely new home.

10/ THEY’RE TRYING TO DESTABILIZE THE U.S.
(A) Do you really think so little of this country?
B) Just… I don’t know, listen to yourself
C. A few thousand people turning themselves in to process through an established system?
D. With the world’s largest border security force and an entire division of the world’s most powerful military waiting for them?

11/ THERE ARE SOME MIDDLE EASTERNS [SIC] IN THERE!
(A) Are we just using “Middle Easterners” as shorthand for terrorists now?
1. Is that really a thing that we’re doing?
2. Seems we are
3. But… why though

(B) I don’t want to humor this, but
1. There aren’t
2. I promise
3. Why would there be?
4. No self-respecting organized terror group would send operatives to Honduras and have them join a march for several thousand miles
5. That’s… that’s just not a thing

(C) Nearly every terror attack in our lifetimes has been domestic, planned and carried out by U.S. citizens (see Oklahoma City, Charlottesville, 41 abortion clinics since 1977, Portland, the Atlanta Olympics, Boston Marathon, Las Vegas, etc. etc.)

1. More Americans were killed by homegrown extremists from 9/12/2001–2015 than terrorists claiming to be motivated by Islam
2. Every one of the major attempted or actual terror incidents involving non-citizens was perpetrated either by someone with a visa or who illegally entered via the *northern* border

12/ BUT I SAW A PICTURE OF SOME SCARY LOOKING BROWN DUDES BURNING AN AMERICAN FLAG
(A) That was at a protest in front of the U.S. embassy from years ago

1. But actually, since you mentioned it:
2. Hondurans have a *lot* of things to protest about in front of the U.S. embassy
   a. Maybe we’ll talk about that later
   b. Would you like that?
   c. I mean. I don’t know, *I* thought it would be nice.
   d. Great! Meet me about five questions down

13/ BUT I SAW A PICTURE OF A MEXICAN POLICE OFFICER WHO HAD BEEN ATTACKED BY MEMBERS OF THE CARAVAN
(A) That photo is also from years ago
(B) It has nothing to do with the caravan
(C) Or immigration at all

14/ THIS WHOLE THING IS FUNDED BY GEORGE SOROS, AND SOMEONE NEEDS TO STOP HIM
(A) Let’s start here: San Pedro Sula, the municipality from which the most Honduran refugees are fleeing, is one of the world’s most dangerous places.
1. Not the kind of town that people need to be paid to leave.

(B) This whole thing started because of a very bad tweet from Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) in which he speculated that a video showing community donations being distributed to refugees passing through Guatemala must have something to do with Soros allegedly inspiring a caravan in Honduras.
1. (It’s not supposed to make sense)

(C) Casually ending a paragraph with “Soros?” is the ultimate dog-whistle politics, except instead of a high-pitched whistle that only dogs can hear you’re activating some of our great nation’s smoothest brains by intentionally libelling and recklessly endangering the life and safety of an elderly Hungarian man.

(D) The truth is much simpler: George Soros donates to organized liberal and leftist groups in exactly the same way that the Koch brothers donate to hard-right and libertarian organizations.

(E) One thing that billionaires don’t tend to be into is sending agents out into the street to distribute small amounts of their money to strangers who may or may not align with their values and goals

1. Like, how would that even work:
2. Hello sir excuse me would you like to leave everything you’ve ever known to hike 2,000 miles through Central American heat, turn yourself in at the U.S. border, be held in a tent camp for 4–6 months and
3. Maybe also somehow be part of this plan we’re still kind of working out to overthrow what’s left of American democracy?
4. I’m authorized to give you *up to ten dollars* for this mission.

(F) FYI, far-right parties have also made George Soros the same kind of silly boogeyman who is responsible for everything they don’t like in Hungary (his native country), Poland, and elsewhere in Europe.

1. Oh, and also Soros is Jewish
2. But why would I even mention that because that *can’t* possibly be relevant to anything
3. It’s actually totally cool and normal to just blame all of your country’s problems (real and perceived) on one elderly Jewish billionaire and “globalists” who supporting him even in situations in which there is clearly no “funding” or “organization” happening at all and/or you are well aware there is no Soros connection whatsoever

(G) The irony is of course that the Trump campaign has absolutely paid people to show up for him, and dozens of Russians have now been indicted for directly interfering in our elections in ways that Soros and the Open Society Foundation have never actually ever done.

(H) Oh, and this: the Open Society Foundation is actually named after a book by Carl Popper, a philosopher who believed that capitalism was the best way to preserve democracy and strongly criticized Marx and Hegel.

1. Popper was, in short, very nearly a “classical liberal” in exactly the same way that today’s newest wave of American conservatives (including the Koch brothers) now describe themselves.
2. The Koch brothers are (properly) blamed for a lot of the worst movements on the right, because we have a pretty good idea of their money is going. Anyone who’s being honest can do the same with George Soros.

(I) Yet no one has ever tried to kill either of the Kochs
1. But someone just tried to kill George Soros
2. And Hillary Clinton
3. And Barack Obama
4. And Eric Holder
5. And John Brennan
6. And Maxine Waters
7. And CNN
8. And Robert De Niro
9. And Joe Biden
10. And Corey Boker
11. For *some reason*

(J) Someone also just viciously murdered 11 elderly Jews in cold blood while they were peacefully worshipping in Pittsburgh *directly because of this caravan story*

14/ THEY’RE NOT REFUGEES! THEY’RE JUST COMING TO STEAL OUR JOBS!
(A) They are refugees

1. Who are also looking for work
2. Little-known fact about refugees: they need to work to support themselves.
   i. Don’t you?
   ii. And so long as they’re here legally processing their claims, wouldn’t you prefer to have them supporting themselves?

15/ THEY’RE JUST HERE FOR HANDOUTS FROM THE GOVERNMENT!
(A) Waaaaaait, aren’t you the same person above who just said that
they’re coming to steal our jobs?
(B) That was you, right?
(C) The guy from #3?
(D) I mean, I’m pretty good with faces
(E) I *knew* it

16/ THEY’RE A DANGEROUS MOB!
(A) Thousands of people peacefully marching are not a “mob”
(B) Thousands of people gathered together to scream meaningless slogans, cheer on violence against protesters and journalists and call for the indefinite detention of political opponents and mass deportations — *that’s* a mob.
1. But that’s really just any given Trump rally.

(C) Also, it’s much safer to travel in large, internally-accountable groups than to entrust your travel to for-profit “coyotes” (often run by drug cartels) and smaller groups of strangers.

16/ THERE ARE NO WOMEN OR CHILDREN!
(A) This is a *classic* myth about refugees intended to diminish any risk of sympathy for them while inferring that they must be dangerous.
(B) Because… men can’t be refugees? I guess?
(C) Also, which pictures are you looking at?

17/ THEY’RE NOT ACTUALLY WALKING!
A. Ok?
B. I mean, I’m not there or anything but it sure *looks* like they’re walking.
C. How are you supposed to arrange transport for 7,000 people?
D. Also, does this… matter?

18/ THEY’RE ALL COMING HERE TO VOTE FOR DEMOCRATS IN THE MIDTERMS!
(A) Bad planning there! Better luck next time, I guess.

(B) But, how? Can you just go ahead and play this out for me?
(C) Voter fraud is vanishingly rare
(D) If Trump’s claim that “3 million” people voted illegally in the 2016 election were true (and I’m not indulging it here), what does it say about us that we still couldn’t get more than 1 in 2 registered voters to the polls? That 2016 was still the lowest turnout in a Presidential election in 20 years?

19/ OH COME ON, WE ALREADY KNOW THAT THEY DON’T HAVE REAL ASYLUM CLAIMS
(A) Didn’t I just see you spend two weeks going on about how a lifelong DC insider deserved “due process” before being denied a promotion from one of the federal judiciary’s most elite positions up to the very highest level of legal practice in the country?

1. “What happened to the Kavanaugh family violates every notion of fairness, decency and due process.”
2. Remember all that?
   i. It was only last month
   ii. I know, right?

20/ WE NEED TO SEND THE MILITARY DOWN THERE TO SHUT DOWN THE BORDER
(A) You don’t actually mean “shut down the border”

1. That’s more than $1 billion in trade every day

(B) But anyway, actually doing that that would be a massive violation of the U.S. Refugee Act as well as the international treaty obligations that all UN member states have to fairly process asylum claims.

(C) If you meant that you just want to send the military down there to *guard* the border to try to stop the caravan from entering, that’s really not going to do much.
1. They’re already planning to walk into the front door, not hop the fence.

(D) Oh, and also: they’ve already come and gone. “Operation Faithful Patriot” may have been the most cynical, politically-motivated use of U.S. forces since that one time that Bill Clinton bombed a Sudanese aspirin factory so we’d stop talking about the Lewinsky scandal

1. This blatant pre-election waste of time, resources, and personnel could cost more than two hundred million dollars by the end of this year.

a. Two

b. Hundred

c. MILLION

d. U.S.

e. DOLLARS

2. The “operation” accomplished nothing, and was done solely for votes.

a. This is bad.

b. You should be angry about it.

c. It might even be a scandal, if the President weren’t already implicated in everything from paying illegal hush money to a porn star to actively trying to help the Saudis cover up a horrific torture/murder/journalist of a journalist with U.S. lawful permanent residency.

21/ ALSO, BIKERS. LET’S SEND HUNDREDS OF FELONIOUS MOTORCYCLE ENTHUSIASTS AND ARMED WHITE SUPREMACISTS DOWN THERE JUST TO MIX THINGS UP
(A) Oh.
1. No, I mean: it’s a good plan
2. If you’re trying to get people killed

21/ THIS IS WHY WE NEED THE WALL!
(A) Ok. What would a wall do here?
(B) This caravan, like all of those before it, intends to seek asylum at an unspecified port of entry. POEs are heavily fortified, and the most secure parts of the border.
(C) I may have mentioned that somewhere up there

22/ DEMOCRATS WROTE THAT LAW
(A) Which law?

1. Do you mean the Refugee Act of 1980?
2. Or the 1967 UN treaty which obligates us to accept asylum seekers?
3. Or the 4,000-year-old Biblical precept that people should be able to take refuge from their persecutors which is the direct ancestor of modern asylum law?

(B) No, seriously — which law were you thinking of?
1. Please, finish that thought

23/ THEY SHOULD STAY HOME AND FIX THEIR OWN
COUNTRIES
(A) That’s a pretty harsh thing to say to anyone whose children are at constant risk of kidnapping, extortion, and every imaginable kind of violence from gangs that the government is simply unable to control

(B) But it’s even worse when it comes to Central America

1. Colin Powell’s “Pottery Barn Doctrine” applies here: “You break it, you bought it.”
2. Americans have frustratingly short memories for this kind of thing, but we have been interfering in the military, social, economic, and political affairs of Honduras (among other nations in the Western Hemisphere) for more than a century.
   a. Right up to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s open support of an illegal coup in 2009 which made things *much* worse
   b. I know.
   c. Pretty bad, right?

(D) We have a moral responsibility to (among others) El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua.

1. Just as much as we do to Iraq and Afghanistan, and for the same reasons

(E) Literally the very least that we can do is take in a few of their asylum seekers.

1. Like, literally.
2. The least.

(F) And yes, I understand that moral considerations haven’t been involved in US government policy within my lifetime
1. But they still could be
2. It’s going to take a totally new President
3. And Congress
4. So let’s maybe get on that.

24/ WE SHOULD CUT OFF ALL FOREIGN AID TO CENTRAL AMERICA
(A) Yes, probably.
(B) Many Central Americans would agree.
(C) But not because of the caravan
(D) Because our money not only isn’t helping, but is likely just making everything worse.

1. US foreign aid to Central America often doesn’t make it to the people and places it should be, for the same reasons that it doesn’t in so many other unstable developing countries
2. There are other forms of reparations beyond money available here, including something like the NACARA program in the ’90s which provided a path to citizenship for certain people who could prove that they had survived one of the many armed conflicts which we funded, trained, and provided weapons for
3. A path to residency and citizenship for people from Central America in the U.S. with Temporary Protected Status (which presently has no such opportunity) would be the best way to carry out a modern NACARA program.
   i. Several different bills have been proposed in Congress in this direction
   ii. So let’s, I don’t know… do one of those?

25/ THEY’RE JUST COMING HERE BECAUSE THEY HEARD ABOUT DACA

(A) Yeah, no.
(B) Unless they’re time travelers
(C) Because they need to have been in the U.S. as of June 12, 2007
(D) There have been no credible reports that these are time travelers
1. Watch this space, I guess?

25/ IF WE’RE BEING HONEST, I MOSTLY JUST WANT TO BE PART OF “A FORM OF POLITICAL BEHAVIOR MARKED BY OBSESSIVE PREOCCUPATION WITH COMMUNITY DECLINE, HUMILIATION OR VICTIMHOOD AND BY COMPENSATORY CULTS OF UNITY, ENERGY AND PURITY, IN WHICH A MASS-BASED PARTY OF COMMITTED NATIONALIST MILITANTS, WORKING IN UNEASY BUT EFFECTIVE COLLABORATION WITH TRADITIONAL ELITES, ABANDONS DEMOCRATIC LIBERTIES AND PURSUES WITH REDEMPTIVE VIOLENCE AND WITHOUT ETHICAL OR LEGAL RESTRAINTS GOALS OF INTERNAL CLEANSING AND EXTERNAL EXPANSION” TO OWN THE LIBS

(A) Thank you for your candor

(B) That is, quite literally, the definition of fascism
i. Fascism thrives on finding and obsessively “othering” foreign evils which threaten us both from within and without

(C) Fun fact: Benito Mussolini promised during his campaign that he would drain a massive swamp just outside of Rome, and draining that swamp was one of his first major public works projects after he took power in Fascist Italy.

(D) Just some things that have been on my mind pretty much on the hour for the past two years
1. Why do you ask

26/ THE CARAVAN IS GOING TO TAKE OVER MY SUMMER LAKE HOUSE IN MINNESOTA!
(A) Oh. Yes. That… that one’s true, actually.