German Exchange Students Deported
By now, we’re all familiar with the tumult that is now Trump Washington. The idiotic tweets, nasty insults, petty feuds, and the lies, lies, lies are now fundamental to our daily diet of TrumpWorld’s pollution of the news 24/7. Trump has brought his genetically encoded slum-lord personality to the White House, running the government like he ran his business and television shows. In a word, he’s simply an asshole who couldn’t care less about anything except is own comfort, status, supremacy, and dominance. He’s not governing the US; he’s infesting it as a gigantic parasite sucking the very life out of our society. And his party is following along as lemmings; right before our eyes, we’re seeing politicians supporting policies that are even worse than they endorsed before he burst onto the scene. They celebrate racial and religious discrimination; they endorse disenfranchising millions of voters, taking healthcare away from millions of Americans, and pumping millions of dollars into Trump’s personal empire. Simultaneously, they are looking the other way while Trump accepts graft from foreign governments and demands absolute loyalty from our highest law enforcement officers.
The hardest feature to accept, though? The mindless cruelty. Banning entire populations from the US; slashing programs that only help the poor; insulting everyone who’s not rich, while simultaneously stoking the fires of hatred, racism, and grievance to prop up the base. The latest injustice came to light this week. Eight German exchange students, arriving in Denver for a 4 week English language program in Colorado, were deported on the same day. The program they were to participate in, Rocky Mountain Language Adventure, was designed to improve their English speaking skills by staying with local families in Salida, Colorado while volunteering in local businesses so they could use the language. Up until this week, the program has been bringing in exchange students for 5 years. Why were they deported? Some genius at Customs and Border Enforcement at Denver International Airport decided that, since they were volunteering at local businesses, they were taking jobs away from Americans and should have work visas; their visitor visas weren’t good enough. After making this decision, this idiot orders the students deported back to Germany immediately. Efforts by the governor’s office, Congressmen, and Senator Michael Bennet could not delay or stop the deportations. They’re back in Germany, and will likely never come back.
One would like to believe that this case is just some moron at CBP being over-zealous. But it’s not…this is our new reality under Trump where intolerance creates an environment where arbitrary, unjust, and illogical decisions that impact thousands of lives just happen. Agents of the US government now feel empowered to deny entry to anyone without regard to the impact to people’s lives or even our own reputation as a society. This decision was especially egregious simply because of its cruelty.
Welcome to Idiot America. Please check your brain at the door.
Thanks,
The Management
1How to turn friends into enemies.
This incident, right here in Colorado, is infuriating and heartbreaking.
Some functionary at the airport felt enpowered to over rule the governer and others.
Well, what else can we expect…. Trump is fixing to name his favorite nazi as his communications director, Stephen Miller.
2Is it possible to out this cretin?
3Everything Old Quaker said. How have we become such idiots so quickly? So many people with the least little bit of authority seem determined to exercise it in the most stupid, hurtful ways possible.
4If they’ve been doing this program for 5-10 years and volunteering has always been part of the program, why is this the first time the program is learning they’re in violation of immigration law? I know it’s our responsibility to know the law but it just seems convenient that that aspect of the law has not been enforced for the past 5-10 years. Perhaps previous immigration officials should be investigated for dereliction of duty? Pfft.
5Paul, it is a battle worth waging, when some low level federal employee thinks they “have the power” and ignore the better counsel of governors and senators.
If it’s not too late, at a minimum we should reimburse those 8 young people and offer them a free return trip with our most sincere apologies with some special perks.
6The US has been a malignant, bigoted, violent nation from the beginning. What we are seeing now is simply regression to the mean.
No place on earth is anywhere near perfect, humans being what we are but there are many nations far more civilized than the US. I sincerely wish I’d had the foresight to emigrate to one of them back when I was young enough to do so.
7I’m sorry. I’m so filled with disgust right now, I can’t even write it down.
8This sucks. And someone is going to pay.
“The parents of one student, who has since decided to never set foot in the U.S. again, told Masterson they now understand the meaning of President Trump’s “America first” foreign policy.”
Worked for years with AFS, a foreign exchange program started by WWII ambulance drivers who saw first hand the damage not understanding other cultures could cause. Cultural exchange programs create ambassadors from both nations and create lasting bonds, I still corespond with my former students from around the world, incidents like this undo years of work and cause untold damage. I’m so embarrassed.
9When in FL, my bro-in-law worked daily with his buddy Klaus in Berlin to find beach accomodations for visiting German tourists. You might be surprised how brisk that business was. And now this? Nice way to kill good money from overseas visitors, Trump! Easy to see how most of his ventures went bankrupt.
#notanykindofpresident
10Amy, they’re NOT in violation of immigration law. These exchange students are not “working”. They’re learning English and part of the program is volunteering in a business setting to practice the language. The RULES changed, or at least the interpretation of the rules.
11I loathe trump and every single person associated with him. They disgrace and shame our nation with every breath they take.
12I went to HS with a couple of AFS exchange students.
IIRC, the exchange students told me at the time that their contacts at AFS emphasized that they could not earn a cent of income while in the USA on a student visa. Even direct cash gifts from sponsors were discouraged. If these were truly laws on the books at the time related to foreign teens studying in the US earning inconsequential quantities of incomes, the laws are utterly wrong. If these laws give low to mid level immigration employees such power, that part of the law is wrong as well. (My opinion, ymmv.)
13Sorry but the trumpkin is a nothing clown! The really sad part of trumpkin are the slow witted basically bigoted stoopid people that did and still do support his reign of ignorance & lies. He would be nothing with out all the bigoted ahole rePUKEians and the the bigger ahole bigots of the religious(wrong).
14El Jefe, you are right on the button. the CBP has been given the most extraordinary powers of late. I can feel for the German students. I just hope we don’t go to war with Der Deutschland! And then there are the American citizens arrested, detained and deported and not by mistake. This is deliberate. This happens even when the arrestee has proof of citizenship. CBP will pretend to do a background check to determine citizenship but it won’t work very hard at it. The first name they find that might be a match for the arrestee’s parent is the one they grab even when they know its wrong and will later be proven wrong. And don’t look for any kind of financial compensation for wrongful arrest and jailing. Unless you make your case before a certain time limit, you are out of luck. And if during that time you are stuck in a detention center (jail) and protesting your innocence, you will very likely not have access to a lawyer because CBP cases are considered civil, not criminal. This is nothing less the all the outward signs of a police state.
15Any possibility the ACLU could get involved with this? Absolutely disgusting!
16The whole tenor of the country has drastically changed to one of cruelty and greed. Trump is, of course, one major cause, but the entire Republican Party has been fostering this attitude for years. Now the minions feel empowered to enforce their “America First’ muscles, which transaltes into “me first”.
17Sorry, “translates”.
18Of course the Orange Pimple can hire as many foreigners as he wants to work at his hotels.
19The students came here to LEARN ENGLISH, one of the major factors that the Drumpf admin. is touting in its “legal” immigration plan. Seems that deporting them defeats the whole purpose, or it doesn’t, if the whole purpose is to keep everyone out.
20Welcome to the asshole-ocracy. Of them, by them, and for them.
F*** them all!
Sorry for the rank profanity. There’s a time for a literate, well-reasoned refutation of a government policy. We’re well beyond that stage.
21i have come to the conclusion that since probability theory would expect at least ONE of Trump’s appointees to be either knowledgeable or competent, since absolutely NONE of them are it must be deliberate.
22Trump couldn’t bring himself to shake hands with Angela Merkel so why would we expect an immigration agent to behave properly. He is steering this country to a place where all ugliness abounds and I continue to be afraid for this country. With Mueller breathing down his neck, I expect that we will see him behave even more bizarrely and that will lead to even worse actions and behaviors from his followers – both governmental and civil.
23Mike suggests that “probability theory would expect at least ONE of Trump’s appointees to be either knowledgeable or competent”. Not so. All we can say at this point is that the probablity Trump is not doing it deliberately is less than some very small number. Even if Mike were correct, keep in mind that Trump still has hundreds, perhaps thousands, of empty positions to fill
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