Althouse

"That ended up not actually helping communicate what people wanted. People want a slimmed-down ICE that is truly focused on security."

Said Senator Ruben Gallego, Democrat of Arizona, quoted in "Abolish ICE? It’s a Slogan Some Democratic Critics of ICE Would Abolish/As Democrats grow more alarmed about the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration raids in American cities, some worry that calls to eliminate the agency will distract from efforts to rein it in" (NYT).

"... by setting up companies that billed state agencies for millions of dollars’ worth of social services that were never provided.... Outrage has swelled among Minnesotans.... Gov. Tim Walz and fellow Democrats are being asked to explain how so much money was stolen on their watch.... Many Somali Americans in Minnesota say the fraud has damaged the reputation of their entire community, around 80,000 people, at a moment when their political and economic standing was on the rise.... Critics of the Walz administration say that the fraud persisted partly because state officials were fearful of alienating the Somali community in Minnesota.... The episode has raised broader questions for some residents about the sustainability of Minnesota’s Scandinavian-modeled system of robust safety net programs bankrolled by high taxes...."

"His reward came in the last election in November 2023 when the PVV became the dominant force in a four-party coalition.... Wilders has maintained an unrelenting focus on immigration. One of his most discussed — and complained about — postings on X juxtaposed half the face of a blue-eyed young woman with long blonde hair labelled PVV with half of an older woman in a headscarf marked PvdA, the initials of the rival Labour party. Underneath it read: “The choice is yours on 10/29.”

From "Dutch towns rocked by anti-immigration protests ahead of election/With polls fast approaching, Geert Wilders has seized upon the recent violence to aid his anti-Islamic agenda" (London Times).

Reuters reports.

lol
pic.twitter.com/G4GSTfijFR

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 2, 2025

The hand-raising at the June 27, 2019 Democratic candidates debate is a powerful visual retort, but when I click the fact-check icon at Franken's post, X's own AI says:

"Standing side by side at a primary debate in June 2019, nine of the party’s candidates for president were asked to raise their hand if they wanted to decriminalize illegal border crossings. Only one of them held still. Six years later, the party remains haunted by that tableau. It stands both as a vivid demonstration of a leftward policy shift on immigration that many prominent Democratic lawmakers and strategists now say they deeply regret, and as a marker of how sharply the country was moving in the other direction."
What can you do to demonstrate/fake sincerity? The old plan was to denounce Trump as a racist, and there are still prominent Democrats like Ayanna Pressley, who's quoted saying: "Democrats have to stop talking about the issue of immigration within a Republican frame. This has nothing to do with law and order. This is about power, control, terror, and it is about racism and xenophobia. Donald Trump wants to make America Jim Crow again, and then some."

I'm reading "French police use knives to puncture migrant dinghies in the sea/The tactic, used for the first time, is a ‘precursor’ to a change of French maritime law that will allow officers greater powers to prevent Channel crossings" (London Times).

"Zacariah Boulares admitted stealing a phone from Genevieve Chenneour, 27, and assaulting another customer when he appeared at Westminster magistrates’ court last month. The Algerian, now 18, has 12 previous convictions relating to 28 offences, magistrates heard, which include stealing a Rolex watch worth £20,000 from a 78-year-old man at Paddington station in May 2023. In July 2023 Boulares threatened to behead Jones, 54, the Songs of Praise presenter, and cut off his arm when he stole his Rolex Daytona watch in Chiswick, west London. He pleaded guilty to robbery and possession of an offensive weapon and was given a 24-month detention and training order. He was released after 14 months...."

I'm reading "Thief who attacked Bridgerton actress was too young to be deported/Zacariah Boulares, who stole from the actress Genevieve Chenneour, has 12 convictions but was not returned to Algeria as he was under 18" in The London Times.

"Oh no, not work!"pic.twitter.com/RSfBNl90j9

— Stephen Knight 🎙️ (@GSpellchecker) June 12, 2025

The lovely black woman also seems perfectly cast.

"... won the largest number of seats in November 2023 elections, sending shock waves through the Dutch political system. Mr. Wilders was able to form a government with three other right-wing parties... after more than six months of wrangling.... Mr. Wilders had aimed to bring the 'strictest migration policy ever' to the Netherlands, something his governing partners had said they agreed with. In May 2024, the four parties reached a deal that included 'the strictest asylum admission policy and the most comprehensive migration control package ever.' But Mr. Wilders said that implementation was not going quickly enough. Last week he said he wanted to add 10 more proposals... includ[ing] calls for a complete halt to asylum, a temporary stop to family reunions for asylum seekers who had been granted refugee status and the return of all Syrians who had applied for asylum or were in the Netherlands on temporary visas. The leaders of the other coalition parties said that while they did not oppose Mr. Wilders’s plans, they wanted him to propose them in the House of Representatives. That would have taken longer and would not have guaranteed implementation...."

From "Dutch Government Collapses Over Migration Dispute/The populist Geert Wilders withdrew his right-wing party from the ruling coalition, saying partners were stalling plans for the Netherlands’ 'strictest migration policy ever'" (NYT).

"And so that's not because I hate the migrants or I'm motivated by grievance, that's because I'm trying to preserve something in my own country where we are a unified nation. And I don't think that can happen if you have too much immigration too quickly."

"Dominated by a giant, futuristic, silver staircase at its centre — to symbolise movement — the Fenix museum is in the eye of a political storm and a populist backlash against mass immigration in Europe and across the Atlantic in the US. The museum is housed in what was once the world’s biggest warehouse next to the port’s famous 'Holland-Amerika' pier, where millions of European migrants left Europe for America in the 19th and 20th centuries.... 'These docks witness the departures of millions, including among them iconic figures like Albert Einstein, the actor Johnny Weissmuller and artists Willem de Kooning and Max Beckmann — and welcomed just as many arrivals, shaping the vibrant, multicultural city that is Rotterdam today,' [said Anne Kremers, the museum’s director]."

From "Tornado-shaped museum invites political storm with art of migration/As Geert Wilders’ government clamps down on immigration, the Fenix museum in Rotterdam aims to show that the movement of people ‘has always been there’" (London Times).

That's the 3rd most highly rated comment at the WaPo article "Vance meets with pope as Francis’s Easter message decries ‘logic of fear’/The visit at the Vatican brought together the ailing head of the Catholic church and a high-profile convert who has criticized the pope’s social teachings."

The NYT drums up sympathy for completely unsympathetic rich people who've been relying on illegal immigration to serve their various needs!

The rich are not the "They" in the headline, "They Help Make the Hamptons the Hamptons, and Now They’re Living in Fear/Latino immigrants care for some of America’s most lavish beachside mansions. Their disappearance would affect the wealthy, too."

Heavens! Affecting the wealthy too. Oh, my!

Maybe the NYT is mocking these people? Nope! The article is well larded with empathy for the migrants who face deportation, but the travails of the rich are presented soberly:

"Untold generations of cowering have written fear into our genes, rendering us hypersensitive to threats of harm. 'If you want to know what someone sees as wrong, your best bet is to figure out what they see as harmful,' [writes Kurt Gray, the director of the Deepest Beliefs Lab]. At another point: 'All people share a harm-based moral mind.' At still another: 'Harm is the master key of morality.'..."

An Indlan reporter is given the opportunity to interview the Dalai Lama about a number of things, but chooses to focus on lmmlgratlon to The West and asks...

Reporter: People from Afghanistan or Africa who want to stay in Europe, shouldn't they be allowed to?

Lama: No, Europe… pic.twitter.com/sNE0nVAlHr

— Dane (@UltraDane) January 5, 2025

People from Afghanistan or Africa who want to stay in Europe, shouldn't they be allowed to? No, Europe will become like Afghanistan or Africa... he he he he he. Like my parents came to The UK from India, that's ok too isn't it? England is small island, 90% become lndian he he he he he he....

The interview is from 2019.

It's funny because the Dalai Lama is world-famous as an icon of compassion, and the idea he's openly experiencing as too silly to deserve anything more than giggling is an idea that we in blue America have been made to feel that we must embrace with great seriousness or we will become social pariahs because of our complete lack of compassion.

"... or because we don’t understand that many of them might face a very difficult situation... but because of the fact that we will never be able to manage the enormous task of integration in the right way if you continue to have such a high influx of immigrants every year. It’s impossible.... What happened during the refugee crisis was that all these very nice words, all this open-heart policy, met a very tough reality.... This turned out to be much more difficult than many people had anticipated. I believe many Swedes knew this already from the beginning but... the questions regarding this were portrayed as being very small-minded."

That's the New York Post, using the cutesy word "firebug," in "Fiend accused of burning woman to death on NYC subway is illegal migrant from Guatemala who sneaked into US after he was deported."

Writes Ruy Teixeira (at Liberal Patriot).

The 4 reasons:

1. Loosening restrictions on illegal immigration was a terrible idea and voters hate it...

2. Promoting lax law enforcement and tolerance of social disorder was a terrible idea and voters hate it....

3. Insisting that everyone should look at all issues through the lens of identity politics was a terrible idea and voters hate it....

4. Telling people fossil fuels are evil and they must stop using them was a terrible idea and voters hate it....

That made me think of this TikTok I saw today, a woman describing what she thinks is "a new breed of conservatives": 

"And so she and the other kids who grew up here who were having issues or struggling in certain things weren’t able to get the attention that they needed — the help they needed from the school.... You can’t just focus all your resources on one group of children and everybody else is falling behind...."

Said the mother of a 16-year-old who dropped out of public school and enrolled in an "online homeschool," quoted in "In Logansport, Indiana, kids are being pushed out of schools after migrants swelled county’s population by 30%:/'Everybody else is falling behind'" (NY Post).