Interesting: From Congress

 The Congressional pages note:

 The federal government has broad authority over the admission of non-U.S. nationals (aliens) seeking to enter the United States. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the government may exclude such aliens without affording them the due process protections that traditionally apply to persons physically present in the United States. Instead, aliens seeking entry are entitled only to those procedural protections that Congress has expressly authorized. Consistent with this broad authority, Congress established an expedited removal process for certain aliens who have arrived in the United States without permission.

In general, aliens whom immigration authorities seek to remove from the United States may challenge that determination in administrative proceedings with attendant statutory rights to counsel, evidentiary requirements, and appeal. Under the streamlined expedited removal process created by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 and codified in Section 235(b)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), however, certain aliens deemed inadmissible by an immigration officer may be removed from the United States without further administrative hearings or review.

INA Section 235(b)(1) applies only to certain aliens who are inadmissible into the United States because they either lack valid entry documents or have attempted to procure their admission through fraud or misrepresentation. The statute generally permits the government to summarily remove those aliens if they are arriving in the United States. The statute also authorizes, but does not require, the government to apply this procedure to aliens who are inadmissible on the same grounds if they have been physically present in the country for less than two years.

Immigration authorities currently apply expedited removal in more limited fashion than authorized by statute—in general, the process is applied strictly to covered aliens (1) apprehended when arriving at a designated port of entry; (2) who arrived in the United States by sea without being admitted or paroled into the country by immigration authorities, and who had been physically present in the United States for less than two years; or (3) who were found in the United States within 100 miles of the border within 14 days of entering the country, who had not been admitted or paroled into the United States by immigration authorities. Nevertheless, expedited removal has accounted for a substantial portion of the alien removals each year. And in July 2019, DHS announced that it would expand expedited removal within the broader framework of INA Section 235(b)(1) to eligible aliens apprehended in any part of the United States who have not been admitted or paroled by immigration authorities, and who have been physically present in the country for less than two years. A federal district court, however, has enjoined the implementation of this expansion pending a legal challenge.

 

 

Back of the Envelope

 I thought it would be worth a back of the envelope calculation for the "due process" costs for the putative 12 million immigrants. Let me consider just one and you can then just multiply. Now this is a very rough estimate.

Legal costs: Let us assume the Government pays for both their attorney and the immigrants attorney. Let us assume the attorney gets $500 per hour. The attorney then meets the client, prepares a brief, makes a filing, prep the client, prepares several other briefs, goes to court. There may also be an appeal. This can easily be 40 to 50 hours so we have for the immigrant attorney  are the low end $20,000 and perhaps another $10,000 for an appeal. Add in the Governments costs we may reach a fully loaded cost of $50,000

Support Costs: The immigrant had Medicaid, Food Stamps, phones, and other living expenses. Using Government numbers we have $8,000 per year for Medicare, $3,000 for food stamps, $1,000 for phones and often another $2,000 for living assistance. This is a total of $14,000 per year.

Total support costs: Now we assume at the very best the immigrant gets a trial in 2 years and an appeal in 2 years. That is 4 years at $14,000 per year. Let us round it down to $50,000 total.

 Total Costs per Immigrant: Simply $100,000

Total Costs: 12 million time $100,00 equals $1.2 trillion! 

Has anyone done this calculation? I may be off here and there but it may very well be in the ballpark. Who do we send the bill to?

Nothing Is Secure

 In a NY Times piece they note that some anonymous sources state that a certain Secretary had a secure conversation where they spoke with others about a certain action. This secure conversation was leaked. Now just how could that be done you say. Well the US has an agency that examines any and all communications. It can break codes, listen to anyone, looks for certain words or persons etc. The recent past head was relieved of their duty at this organization. Perhaps they might have left behind dome friends who might be upset. Then perhaps these friends sought a remedy and perhaps this Government employee was clueless about how Washington works. 

So maybe we need a more experienced person, ya think! Back in my day in the Evil City in the Swamp one knew whatever you said, wherever you went, whoever you spoke to, there were at least a dozen eyes, ears etc on the lookout! So be careful, But the person in question knows they are a target which means one must be holier than Caesars wife, kind of.

Thomas Merton, Seventy Years Later

The book by Thomas Merton, Seven Storey Mountain, was published in 1948. Merton went on to achieve fame for his theological/mystical writings. I first read Merton’s book in 1955. It was at that time a seven year old text. I was in Catholic School, and was influenced by the Franciscan priest who was saying Mass at our church. As many young men in the 50s I thought of entering the seminary and becoming a priest. The door to that exploration was via the Franciscan Pro-Seminary located but a few miles from my house. I would cycle up the steep hill on Saturdays and spend time understanding what was involved in a vocation as a Franciscan. The priest became a long time mentor but at the beginning he gave me a copy of Merton’s work. I guess he did so to enlighten me by as a young man much so Merton was of a man living a life I could at best dream of. Merton was privileged, educated, uncertain, and at times rambling. But I read it in total. As for the vocation, poverty and chastity were no problem, but the obedience thing really got to me. I gather Merton had no problem there. It would not be until some sixty years later when reading St Francis’ revised Second Rule that I saw Francis saying in a somewhat paraphrased manner; “well the obedience issue can sometimes be problematic, if all else fails follow you conscience”. That to me explained Ockham and the battle with Avignon. But alas Merton never got that far.

 Having now read Merton some seventy years later I was surprised how my life and experiences have dramatically refocused this work. In the 50s Catholicism was strong, well organized and focused. The Mass was in Latin in every country, Catholic schools were everywhere, and Rome ruled unquestioned. Furthermore the Church had its philosopher, St Thomas Aquinas, and the mid century philosophers in Gilson and Maritain. The Church was on a strong foundation. Thus in the 30s, the time frame of Merton, the Church was in much the same condition but the world was in the midst of an economic collapse and anticipating the Huns and their advancement. Thus a 50s reader sees Merton in the timeframe of the 50s, post War and economically secure. Today’s reader sees a weakened Church, political conflict, and a fundamental lack of foundation for Catholic understanding.

 My view today of Merton’s work is massively different than that of the 50s. In the 50s I saw Merton on a path to faith. In today’s world I see Merton as a “posh boy” wandering the world without a care or a job. One wonders how he managed to float across Europe with little cares. His father an erstwhile painter, his mother ill and a fellow follower. He had the good fortune of a well to do grandparents. One now wonders what a normal child of the 30s was like, in the midst of the Depression, seeking to eke out a living with a paper route, washing dishes and the youths journey was at best on the A train from Brooklyn to Manhattan. One wonders what the wistful wanderings of Merton add to his religious enlightenment.

 The on to Columbia, the bastion of Catholic hatred by many of its faculty. He becomes a Communist with no understanding of what a Communist is. One asks if this were to be his true path to God. One reads about his studies at Columbia, and one wonders if this were the 2020s how he could ever afford it? Yet then it was affordable. His studies seem to be what he likes, with no emphasis on getting a job! Again displaying his class as one assured of some form of continued success by means of class.

 The turning point seems to be his reading of Gilson and the Medieval Philosophers. Now Gilson is a Thomist, and Thomism was but one of many philosophical movements in the Church. Merton seems affixed by Thomas and this begins his search for something, some meaning of life. As WW II approaches he fortunately gets a 4F rating for having lost too many teeth. In the 50s that passed me by but now in the 20s it struck me as strange. A somewhat wealthy young man spending time all over Europe and educated with degrees at Columbia having less than half his teeth. That became a symbol of his life to that time.

 He thus begins his journey to Catholicism. The structure, the somewhat Medieval symbolism and ambiance drives him forward. He gets baptized and starts on a path to full participation. The strangest part is his desire to become a priest just after no more than two years. It at first appears as just another one of his jumps. He starts with the Franciscans in New York City. Fortunately the Franciscans are concerned as to his rapid choices, more importantly his motivation and maturity. Why they wonder is this young man so eager to join their order. They see his many jumps in life and are concerned that this may very well be just another. They sensitively turn him down. Rejected his finds an alternative, the Trappists. He follows this path and gives us, the reader, the tale of a monk asking, at first, if he wants to enter, him saying no, and upon his second visit, the monk saying he had expected his return. Thus unlike the Franciscans he had found a home. Thus the end of the journey to his new home, with meaning and security.

 One asks how this book has merit in the current times. For the 50s, devout Catholics could see this as a victory over the worldly lives of the unredeemed. In the 20s of today, one may see a youth wandering with no guidance, yet having the financial support to do so, while the world around is in the midst of financial and political collapse. He seems almost oblivious to this. He seems quite comfortable at Columbia seeking wisdom from the literature presented to him, while a mere 10 blocks north people are barely surviving in the financial downturn. In the 50s one could ignore that view, in the 20s one wonders how this could not have been avoided being seen and commented upon.

Are "Scientists" Really That Smart?

 Nature has an interesting piece on scientists and tattoos! Yep, cool scientists are getting tattooed along with Secretaries of Defense and all the lonely people. Nature notes:

... had wanted a tattoo for years, so when she finished her neuroscience PhD in 2019, she knew it was time. “It made sense that once I had my PhD, I would commemorate it this way,” she says. Barry’s research focused mainly on hearing-loss disorders, such as tinnitus, and she spent a lot of time looking at auditory thalamus neurons, the nerve cells that help to process sound. These were often stained using the Golgi method, highlighting the neuron’s cell body and dendrites that resemble tree roots and tendrils — and would make for a good fine-line tattoo.  In 2021, she got the tattoo — aptly, behind her ear. “I really didn’t expect my tattoo to play as much of a part in my identity, but it just felt right,” says Barry, who is now a research fellow at the University of Western Australia and Curtin University in Perth. She’s not alone. Many scientists mark research accomplishments and career milestones by heading to a tattoo par

However, less than a year ago a Lancet article noted:

 The popularity of tattoos has increased dramatically over the last few decades. Tattoo ink often contains carcinogenic chemicals, e.g., primary aromatic amines, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and metals. The tattooing process invokes an immunologic response that causes translocation of tattoo ink from the injection site. Deposition of tattoo pigment in lymph nodes has been confirmed but the long-term health effects remain unexplored. We used Swedish National Authority Registers with full population coverage to investigate the association between tattoo exposure and overall malignant lymphoma as well as lymphoma subtypes.

 That is not at all surprising. Tattoos elicit a massive immune response, resulting in methylation of histones and resulting in suppression and activation of lymphoma generating genes! Do these scientists have a clue!

Rare Earths

 Some fifteen years ago I wrote about the risk of relying upon China for rare earths. Now we see that China in this trade war is blocking them. The problem is we have unlimited sources but they are blocked by California environmentalists. Perhaps the current Administration could nationalize these sources and manage to get the US back on track.

Fishing and Tariffs

 So what do they have in common. The fly fisher carefully selects the fly, the spot, the time of day, using a select rod, and has great skill and attention. On the other hand the fisher who wants lots and now, takes a piece of dynamite out in a boat, sets it off, gathers lots of fish. 

The Tariff issue is the same. One could look at every country, every trade, consider the positives and negatives then propose something to a Committee. Or, you could just thrown a piece of dynamite and get the answers real quick!