United States of America is not a great country because of any specific person or leader but rather due to the solid institutions. Read Mr. Nissim Nicholas Taleb who is a very wise modern thinker.
What we call “the West” is not a spiritual entity, but an administrative system first and last. Is is not an ethno-geographical ensemble, but a legal and institutional system: it includes Japan, S. Korea, and Taiwan. It mixes the thalassocratic Phoenician world of network-based trade and that of Adam Smith, based on individual rights and freedom to transact, under the constraint of social progress. In the United States, the difference between Democrats and Republicans is minor when seen from a different century. Both sides wants social progress, but at different rates of growth.
On the other hand, nationalism requires the All-Mighty Centralized –worse, Hegelian — State, and one that curates cultural life to weed out individual variations.
Nativists have done unimaginable harm to the American systems and institutions. One wrong person like Mr. Donald Trump was not just incompetent but deeply harmful who promoted individuals and ideas that caused the centuries old institutions to crumble. We saw crazy people walk into the Capitol Hill on Jan 6 but more than that we saw crazy people take over nearly all major institutions.
Lunatic leaders attract more lunatic politicians
Few years ago it was not possible to imagine that any American politician would advocate starving little babies using completely false propaganda.
Joe Biden continues to put America LAST by shipping pallets of baby formula to the southern border as American families face empty shelves.
This is unacceptable.
American mothers and their babies shouldn’t suffer because of the #BidenBorderCrisis.https://t.co/zgWHz84lkZ
— Rep. Elise Stefanik (@RepStefanik) May 13, 2022
The crazy talk here implies that:
- Federal government should starve infants in its detention.
- Somehow shortage is caused by these little infants in need of food.
There are only couple of thousand babies in detention. The amount of formula they need is probably less 0.01% of total formula demand in USA. But the nativists are living in a post-fact world.
The collapse of Border Patrol.
It is not clear how exactly trump gutted this agency and turned into some kind of paramilitary wing of nativists in USA. They key job appears to be threatening little kids and catching 20 year olds desperately trying to cross the border.
If there was no title 42 or MPP, most of these crossers would have surrendered themselves legally at the border check posts any ways.
Border Patrol is a glorified housekeeping service. Their job is to implement the US laws which require processing of asylum seekers as per the law. However over years this agency appears to have attracted the worst of American society and their union openly takes political positions.
We've been saying it for months. The #BidenBorderCrisis is intentional. Massive amounts of taxpayer money being thrown away to facilitate an open border. Biden Admin demonizes BP agents and cheers on illegal aliens. All part of the plan. https://t.co/PhZiW5nDaq
— Border Patrol Union – NBPC (@BPUnion) May 6, 2022
How USCIS is in complete disarray
This portal has several times exposed the deep racism, incompetence and the rot inside USCIS. Ur Jaddou’s failure to manage this agency is simply appalling. The agency appears to be a massive sinking ship while the leadership is busy playing their violins on the deck.
What company on earth can remain in business while making you wait for an application for 3 years ? How is 3.5 years a normal processing time for an application ? Why does this delay exist ?
The delay is not just because the leadership is incompetent. They indeed are but it is because as a system it has collapsed long back. Trump first appointed Fransis Lee Cissna who was probably picked by Stephen Miller. He gutted the system internally by making process changes that increased the red tape needlessly and harassed legal immigrants.
My lawyer (belonging to one of the most reputable law firms) told me not to file an immigration application in premium because the agents would issue a frivolous RFE in order to delay the approval. This was the official position of the whole law firm and they filed everything in non premium.
This indicates the very immigration lawyers knew how deep was the rot and the corruption in the agency.
Cissna eventually left the position or was rather asked to resign by Stephen Miller because he was still seen as inefficient. Turns out Cissna was well aware of the immigration law and his own limitations as USCIS chief. The next USCIS chief was Ken Cuccinelli who was appointed illegally.
Cuccinelli was very evil towards immigrants but his bright side was that he was completely and utterly incompetent. It was said that Cuccinelli mistakenly believed that ICE was under USCIS and started visiting ICE offices for photo ops.
As time passed the guy proved himself to be a complete wet pillow unable to get anything done at all and whenever he tried anything it was quickly reversed by courts because just like him his minions were also completely clueless and incompetent.
Ken Cuccinelli continues to open his mouth even today and keeps embarrassing himself.
In his new anti-H1B screed, former-USCIS fake acting head Ken Cuccinelli says Congress "continues to prioritize the interests of non-citizens and big businesses.. within various visa programs… includ[ing]… the *H-1A* nursing visa program." H-1A program expired in 1995! 😂 pic.twitter.com/i6xvDxcKq3
— David Bier (@David_J_Bier) May 26, 2022
While Cuccinelli appears to be an idiot these days, he was never like that before. There are clear videos where he advocated for H1B visas and other visas claiming that they are good for USA.
What changed ? The nativist brain rot set in. As the Trump administration spread its cancer of nativism the institutions got rotten too. There was a clear incentive to behave how someone like Cissna or Cuccinelli would behave.
The unhinged rhetoric and desire to break laws and do illegal things (such as illegally appointing Cuccinelli) eventually led to good employees quitting or taking transfers. Those who remained realized that not working or working makes not impact on anything. Why process something when no one really pressurizes you to process anything ? When the leadership or the entire organization is not interested why should that agent do his/her job properly ?
When there is blatant racism in the whole process, where the leadership is secretly pushing blatantly illegal ideas such as issuing frivolous RFEs just to avoid approving a perfectly good application, there is no incentive for the individual employees to have any integrity of character.
Here is an absolutely shameless and illegal behaviour by USCIS to get one of the litigants deported because they did not want the lawsuits to proceed.
A USCIS lawyer pushed ICE to start removal proceedings to get a naturalization delay case dismissed. ICE arrested the guy at USCIS's request, then later admitted he wasn't removable in the first place! USCIS lawyers then lied and told the judge he wasn't eligible for citizenship. https://t.co/AwNKBIQShr pic.twitter.com/NfMCsoWnUt
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@ReichlinMelnick) May 20, 2022
My guess is that Stephen Miller really gutted Citizenship and Immigration Services, and they just don't have the capacity to process everything right now. https://t.co/GU3HDFdFaX
— Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇦 (@Noahpinion) May 2, 2022
Department of State : Busy spoiling USA’s relations with rest of the world
DoS is supposed to be USA’s representative in rest of the world. If anything it has become a joke and a symbol of American apathy, corruption and racism.
Department of State in India that is, the American consulates in India have created a completely needless concept of dropbox appointments which has raised a havoc among Indian immigrants.
But they have put a red carpet for student visas. This is because students bring in money and later can be trapped into H1B visa renewals.
They do not want to uphold the American law and would rather operate as their own little kingdoms. They are not transparent, arbitrary and inefficient.
Check how they are tricking Afghan refugees:
Unbelievable! @StateDept is tricking Afghan #DV2023 selectees to choose Kabul as their default interview location, even though no US flag has flown at that facility for more than 8 months! Afghans who fall for this stupid scam, will not be interviewed for visas. #FireBlinken pic.twitter.com/5gWRcFVD5J
— Curtis Morrison (@curtisatlaw) May 10, 2022
Further more how DoS illegally trashes diversity greencards
The #Biden State Department explains why it wants to trash green cards authorized by Congress that it was supposed to issue and then illegally chose not to issue. https://t.co/aI9sJRpuox
— David Bier (@David_J_Bier) May 4, 2022
All this eventually harms Americans lot more than immigrants.
Good talented immigrants will get rich fast in USA one way or another. They may then chose to move to better countries like Canada. It does not matter to them that much.
But a corrupt and collapsed USCIS/DOS will lead to reduced respect for law and a belief among immigrants and their family that the law does not work. It will increase sympathy for illegal immigrants and eventually complete apathy towards immigration law itself.
At that point it becomes a struggled between ordinary people and a corrupt rent seeking government bureaucracy. It becomes a bit like war on drugs or prohibition where misplaced enforcement conflicts with what citizens see as just and moral. It leads to criminalization of innocents and radicalization of politics.
In just 8 years we have seen massive increase in law-suites against USCIS/DHS/DOS on immigration issues. We have seen power struggles between different branches of government and CBP/USCIS/DHS. Something as innocuous as baby formula became a flashpoint.
Lies, rumour, fake allegations, unhinged talk becomes the new normal. This is how institutions collapse and take down entire nations with them. The America First people are either First in anything nor they have American interests at heart. They engage in all kind of whataboutry, falsehoods and sheer nonsense that will help them win those few fringe votes even if it means complete destruction of basic decorum.
These are the dwarfs who have gotten elected to fill the halls that were once populated by the likes of Jefferson or Hamilton.
How does a statesperson behave?
De Gaulle stopped his campaign from revealing embarrassing facts about his rival, then Mitterrand.Why? His answer was that it would weaken the dignity of the French presidency should Mitterrand win the election.
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) January 17, 2021
