How the US military could build Trump's border wall

Washington (AFP) - President Donald Trump is giving a prime-time address Tuesday, when he will discuss what he calls a "humanitarian and national security crisis" on the US-Mexico border and argue for the construction of a wall.

Trump has said he could declare a "national emergency" that would free up Department of Defense funds for a border barrier.

Here is a look at how the US military could help build Trump's wall.

- How much? -

If Trump declares a national emergency, he would be able to draw on Pentagon construction funds that have already been approved by Congress for 2019.

Currently, that amounts to about $10.5 billion -- but most of that money is already ear-marked for military housing, base improvements and various other projects.

Pentagon officials were scrambling Tuesday to figure out how much cash they have in "unobligated" construction funds that could be easily diverted to a wall mission.

The Defense Department could also scrap or s cale-back planned projects, though such a move would spark the ire of US lawmakers who lobbied for the projects and whose districts would be impacted.

As a candidate, Trump repeatedly vowed that Mexico would pay for a wall.

- Who would build it? -

The Pentagon already has about 2,350 active-duty troops stationed along the border, deployed under a controversial order Trump gave last year ahea d of midterm elections.

Additionally, about 2,200 National Guardsmen are supporting border operations.

The troops' role has primarily been to erect miles of concertina-wire fencing along popular crossing points, though the soldiers are not necessarily experts at building more permanent walls.

Such a task could fall into the hands of the Army Corps of Engineers, which has decades of experience working large-scale projects.

The Pentagon could flow additional troops to the border to help, or the work could be farmed out to private contractors.

- Under what authority -

The National Emergencies Act allows the president to declare a national emergency, providing a specific reason for it.

That then allows the mobilization of hundreds of dormant emergency powers under other laws, and gives access to Pentagon construction funds.

National emergency powers can permit the White House to declare martial law, suspend civil liberties, expand the military, seize property and restrict trade, communications and financial transactions.

- Legal challenges -

Any national emergency declaration is sure to be challenged in the courts and by Democratic lawmakers.

Expect lawsuits from landowners on the border at risk of having their property seized by the government, and from environmental organizations furious that Trump wants to build a wall across environmentally sensitive areas.

Can Trump circumvent Congress to build wall?

January 8, 2019 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

The Trump administration is weighing using a national emergency declaration to circumvent Congress and the budget stalemate and force construction of the president's long-promised southern border wall.

"We're looking at a national emergency because we have a national emergency," President Donald Trump told reporters Sunday amid stalled negotiations. He said during a news conference Friday that he would prefer to win the money he's demanding via Congress, but could "absolutely" call an emergency "and build it very quickly."

Such a move would be a dramatic escalation of the current showdown, which has forced a partial government shutdown that's now in its third week. Here's what we know:

WHY AN EMERGENCY DECLARATION?

The administration has spent months trying to figure out how the president might be able to move forward with the wall – the central promise of his 2016 campaign – if Congress refuses to give him the money.

As early as last March, Trump was publicly floating the idea of using the military for the task. "Building a great Border Wall, with drugs [poison] and enemy combatants pouring into our Country, is all about National Defense. Build WALL through M!" he tweeted then.

But it's Congress – not the president – that controls the country's purse strings and must appropriate money he wants to spend.

Enter the emergency declaration, an option the White House counsel's office is currently reviewing. Among the laws Trump could turn to is Section 2808 of the Title 10 U.S. Code pertaining to military construction.

According to the statute, if the president declares an emergency "that requires use of the armed forces," the Defense Secretary "may undertake military construction projects, and may authorize the Secretaries of the military departments to undertake military construction projects, not otherwise authorized by law that are necessary to support such use of the armed forces."

Pentagon budget officials are currently analyzing the 2019 construction budget to determine how many unobligated dollars would be available to use for the wall in the event Trump settles on a declaration. Under the provision, only those construction budget funds that are not already obligated to other construction projects could be used for the wall.

There are more than 100 such provisions giving the president access to special powers in emergencies. And Congress has typically afforded the president broad authority to determine what constitutes an emergency and what does not, said Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the liberty and national security program at the Brennan Center for Justice.

"Absolutely it's an abuse of power for the president to declare a national emergency when none exists and to use it to try to get around the democratic process," she said. "But we are in a situation where our legal system for emergency powers almost invites that kind of abuse."

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN THEN?

Such a move is sure to spark a flood of legal challenges questioning the president's authority as well as whether the situation at the border really constitutes an emergency. Trump has been trying to press that case in recent days, insisting the situation qualifies as a security and humanitarian "crisis."

He'll also run into other questions.

"The problem for the Trump administration is that border security is fundamentally a law-enforcement issue that does not require the use of the military," said Todd Harrison, a defense budget expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, via email. "So I think they would be on shaking legal ground trying to use emergency authorities this way, and it is almost certain that they would end up in court."

Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said it would be inappropriate for Trump to use Section 2808.

"We are not at war with Mexico, and the proposed border wall has no core [Defense Department] function. Indeed, the Pentagon's most recent National Defense Strategy doesn't mention the southern border as a national defense priority," Reed said.

SO WILL HE DO IT?

It's unclear. Back when Trump dispatched active-duty troops to the southern border ahead of the midterm elections in what critics panned as a politically motivated abuse of power, he described the situation as a "national emergency," but never signed an official proclamation.

But Trump is now under growing pressure to find a way to end the shutdown without appearing as though he's caved on the wall.

After 15 years on Wall Street, I use a 100-year-old psychology framework to show bankers and hedge funders how to get to the top

I am an executive coach for senior professionals in investment banking, private equity and hedge funds. I help them get promoted and make more money in smarter ways with less stress. I was an M&A banker at Goldman Sachs and worked at top funds like Perry Capital and Moore Capital for 15 years before I became a coach. We are all smart and have the technical skills to do the job; getting ahead is about improving how we interact with our colleagues and clients.

I've spent 2,000+ hours listening to my clients talk about the behavior of their colleagues. Here's a simple framework constructed by psychologists 100 years ago that will help you see what I see. You'll recognize each of your colleagues described below, and become aware of your own ticks that may be limiting your perspective and success.

Think of four types of personalities and behaviors:

Dominant: decisive, authoritative

Improv: outgoing, "we will just figure it out"

Steady: wants to help others, accommodates clients wishes

Conscientious: fact-driven, anal retentive

Here's how these four personalities show up:

Investment Bankers

The D decisive banker sells clients with their confidence. They can sell alpha CEOs on their mutual presence, provide a voice for C-type clients or drive direction for I-type clients. When their D goes too far, they are perceived as not listening, and at times as ego maniacs.

The I "improv" banker loves any new idea, meeting or client. A meeting is a potential opportunity to evolve a relationship or win business. It's a 'hands on', 'figure it out in the moment' kind of approach. Once the sale has been made / client engaged, this type of person loses interest and moves to the next exciting challenge. I bankers are often criticized for moving too quickly or being ADD.

The S banker patiently services clients and builds trusting relationships. They create a feeling of loyalty and service with the client. I worked with an incredible partner at Goldman who patiently covered clients, rarely opening a pitchbook and instead engaged in a dialog to help the client get clear on what they needed. It's a different style relative to the Ds or Is bankers who look for a quicker kill.

The C anal retentive banker is all about the details: getting it "right," being thorough, methodically following the pages of the book, following checklists. Order is the key. This banker is ideal for processes with lots of moving parts and other complexities. When lawyers switch into banking, they often take this approach. A too C banker can lose sight of the commercial opportunity at hand.

Note: If I and C can partner, they are a great team to deliver the full package for the client.

Hedge fund portfolio managers and analysts

"I'm right and I'm all over the details"…D&C personalities dominate hedge funds.

Is are wonderful idea generators, but often get shaken out over the life of an investment as the market moves.

S types tend to get runover in the hedge fund world. Your investment opinions are wishy-washy, we will take whatever you choose to give, and we will take credit for your work.

C obsession with detail, process and proof and D stubbornness and confidence provide the foundation to do the fundamental work and hold an opinion through the vagaries of the market's movements.

While good PMs move out of the C into the D (and to I for fundraising), many senior PMs never get out of the weeds, as their focus and magic is in understanding the details. While this may lead to consistent performance and rising assets under management, it's the number 1 source of burnout.

Overly C individuals who actually make it to PMs often have difficulty scaling GMV and adequately sizing positions, for fear of uncertainty and downside risk. Similarly, I types without enough C lack conviction to scale great ideas and tend to track an index.

While a lot of D can be a blessing for many PMs, it can also be their undoing when they become quixotically attached to their conviction despite overwhelming market evidence to the contrary. Bill Ackman is a leading example of this: he will to go on stage with his view, and then ride the position into a world of pain - he'd be so well-served by learning to say "I was wrong." Other PMs like Dan Loeb are a bit more D and I - when the market tells him he's wrong, he's happy to change direction and swim to another wave.

Private equity professionals

Most private equity professionals are D to the core - they are sure of their view, and willing to conduct a campaign to build a consensus around their thesis internally and then drive value at portfolio companies.

The best PE professionals have an ability to modulate between C and I - from all over the details of the numbers and contract/covenants, to politic and friendly enough to build consensus and rapport with management teams. There's not much need for S - PE is about selling expensive capital, deploying assets under management and monetizing results.

Emotional volatility and vulnerability are especially unwelcome here - other personalities may experience these professionals as a bit cold or calculating.

Strategies for dealing with each personality type

When dealing with a D, stay focused on the result. They could care less about your feelings, creativity or need for perfection. They want it done.

When dealing with an I, give them room to run though many ideas at once. Help them tie it all together or extract a theme to create a next step. These types are prolific idea generators, but need to be bridled for maximum impact.

When dealing with an S, tell them how they can help. Thank them for all of their work, and pause to give them room to express their opinions. These are the most valuable, loyal workers, so take the time to water the garden and sustain the relationship over time.

When dealing with a C, use data and don't hope for too much fun or excitement. To help them move towards a decision, ask them what they would need to know to move forward - this will guide the conversation and limit the analysis paralysis.

Justin Doyle is an executive coach who works frequently with employees in the finance industry.

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AP Explains: Can Trump declare emergency to build his wall?

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is weighing using a national emergency declaration to circumvent Congress and the budget stalemate and force construction of the president's long-promised southern border wall.

"We're looking at a national emergency because we have a national emergency," President Donald Trump told reporters Sunday amid stalled negotiations. He said during a press conference Friday that he would prefer to win the money he's demanding via Congress, but could "absolutely" call an emergency "and build it very quickly."

Such a move would be a dramatic escalation of the current showdown, which has forced a partial government shutdown that's now in its third week. Here's what we know:

WHY AN EMERGENCY DECLARATION?

The administration has spent months trying to figure out how the president might be able to move forward with the wall — the central promise of his 2016 campaign — if Congress refuses to give him the money.

As early as last March, Trump was publicly floating the idea of using the military for the task. "Building a great Border Wall, with drugs (poison) and enemy combatants pouring into our Country, is all about National Defense. Build WALL through M!" he tweeted then.

But it's Congress — not the president — that controls the country's purse strings and must appropriate money he wants to spend.

Enter the emergency declaration, an option the White House counsel's office is currently reviewing. Among the laws Trump could turn to is Section 2808 of the Title 10 U.S. Code pertaining to military construction.

According to the statute, if the president declares an emergency "that requires use of the armed forces," the Defense secretary "may undertake military construction projects, and may authorize the Secretaries of the military departments to undertake military construction projects, not otherwise authorized by law that are necessary to support such use of the armed forces."

Pentagon budget officials are analyzing the 2019 construction budget to determine how many unobligated dollars would be available to use for the wall if Trump settles on a declaration. Under the provision, only those construction budget funds that are not already obligated to other construction projects could be used for the wall.

There are more than 100 such provisions giving the president access to special powers in emergencies. And Congress has typically afforded the president broad authority to determine what constitutes an emergency and what does not, said Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the liberty and national security program at the Brennan Center for Justice.

"Absolutely it's an abuse of power for the president to declare a national emergency when none exists and to use it to try to get around the democratic process," she said. "But we are in a situation where our legal system for emergency powers almost invites that kind of abuse."

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN THEN?

Such a move is sure to spark a flood of legal challenges questioning the president's authority as well as whether the situation at the border really constitutes an emergency. Trump has been trying to press that case in recent days, insisting the situation qualifies as a security and humanitarian "crisis."

He'll also run into other questions.

"The problem for the Trump administration is that border security is fundamentally a law enforcement issue that does not require the use of the military," said Todd Harrison, a defense budget expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, via email. "So I think they would be on shaky legal ground trying to use emergency authorities this way, and it is almost certain that they would end up in court."

Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said it would be inappropriate for Trump to use Section 2808.

"We are not at war with Mexico, and the proposed border wall has no core (Defense Department) function. Indeed, the Pentagon's most recent National Defense Strategy doesn't mention the southern border as a national defense priority," said Reed, D-R.I.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, speaking on CNN, said that even if Trump could declare an emergency, it would be a "huge mistake."

"There clearly is no national emergency. But they asked me, 'Can he do it?' Yeah he can. It would be wrong, it would be horrible policy and I'm totally and completely against it. But from a legal standpoint he can do it," said Smith, D-Wash.

He and others agreed that any declaration would surely be challenged in court.

SO WILL HE DO IT?

It's unclear. Back when Trump dispatched active-duty troops to the southern border ahead of the midterm elections in what critics panned as a politically-motivated abuse of power, he described the situation as a "national emergency," but never signed an official proclamation.

But Trump is now under growing pressure to find a way to end the shutdown without appearing as though he's caved on the wall.

Trump "needs to use every tool available to him as the commander-in-chief of our armed services to go and enforce our laws by putting the military on our southern border, by having them build the wall if they need to," his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski urged on Fox News.

Trump will be delivering an Oval Office prime time address Tuesday night in which he plans "to make his case to the American people, talking about how this is a humanitarian crisis and a national security crisis," said White House spokeswoman Mercedes Schlapp. He'll also be traveling to the border Thursday to continue to press his case.

She declined to say whether the president had made up his mind about a declaration, but said his aides have been "working with counsel's office to find resources for securing the border."

How long will it take to build the border wall? Years longer than Trump claims, experts say

President Trump has framed the showdown with congressional Democratic leaders over border security as a "crisis" that must be addressed by funding the construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

But some analysts say the wall could take years longer than Trump has promised to complete.

Trump tweeted Wednesday, without providing evidence, that the wall will be "finished" in "two years."

© Provided by CNBC LLC President Donald Trump (C) is shown border wall prototypes in San Diego, California on March 13, 2018.

President Trump claimed this week that his long-promised wall — the solution for what he describes as an illegal immigration crisis at America's southern border — would be "finished" in just two years' time.

But it's more likely to take years longer than that, construction experts say.

A bitter fight over that proposed barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border has led to a record-breaking government shutdown, which has now stretched well into its second month. The latest attempts to reopen the government failed in Senate on Thursday.

The acrimonious negotiations on Capitol Hill have centered around whether a spending package to reopen nine federal agencies should include billions of dollars to fund a border barrier. Democrats have held firm against providing any money for the wall, and have called on Trump to reopen the government and continue border security negotiations separately.

Trump is demanding $5.7 billion in border wall funding before ending the shutdown, arguing that the so-called crisis cannot be ignored or delayed. Trump has even threatened to declare a national emergency in order to sidestep House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

One expert, however, recently estimated that it could take 11 years for 10,000 workers to build 1,000 miles of steel border barrier, a length Trump had called for on numerous occasions during the campaign.

Ed Zarenski, a construction economics analyst with three decades of experience as a building projects cost estimator, said he arrived at those figures by first approximating the total cost of various materials involved, such as concrete, steel and temporary roads.

He estimated that it could cost $22 billion to cover the whole project — a number he admits is likely "much too optimistic" because it excludes factors including inflation, workers' accommodations and land acquisition.

© Provided by CNBC LLC A construction crew works on replacing the US-Mexico border fence as seen from Tijuana, in Baja California state, Mexico, on January 9, 2019.

He then calculated labor and time, based on what he says is an industry rule of thumb that it takes 5000 to 6000 workers to build $1 billion worth of construction in 1 year.

Adding more workers to Zarenski's formula would shrink the estimated construction time. But Zarenski notes that finding the available workers and materials, distributed over potentially dozens of job sites along the border, would quickly become unrealistic.

"Availability of labor is an issue right now," Zarenski said.

Caroline Clevenger, a construction engineering and management professor at the University of Colorado, said a rough construction rate of two miles per week was a reasonable estimate for Trump's barrier.

She also referenced another border fencing project that took place in El Paso, Texas, in 2009. Reports at the time that structure was built say the "Border K Fence" stretched just 38 miles, cost $170 million (nearly $200 million in today's dollars) and involved 1,100 workers. That fencing also stood at just 19 feet high, significantly shorter than some of the 30-foot replacement border barrier that has been built since Trump was elected.

Like Zarenski, Clevenger said that the logistics of getting workers and materials stretched across the border would likely pose the biggest obstacles to building a wall quickly.

"You have to move people there. You have to make sure they have housing," Clevenger said. "It's not as if we're producing something in a factory."

Wall to wall

The $5.7 billion that Trump has been fighting for would only be enough to build a fraction of the wall — about 234 miles of new steel barrier, according to a Jan. 6 letter from the Office of Management and Budget. It's hardly enough to plug every hole, as Trump has recently said is required for a wall to be effective.

"We can't let [there be] gaps," Trump said at the White House in early January. "Because if you have gaps, those people are going to turn their vehicles, or the gangs — they're going to [be] coming in through those gaps. And we cannot let that happen."

To be sure, Trump had also proposed less than two weeks beforehand that perhaps only 500 to 550 miles of new or replacement barrier were necessary.

The Trump administration currently says that roughly 762 miles of new or updated barrier are needed along the 1,954-mile-long border, according to a department official, who requested anonymity. Zarenski said that the 1,000-mile estimate he used could be re-proportioned to match the DHS' 762-mile figure. That would clock the construction of the wall closer to eight years.

It was unclear which measurement Trump was referring to when he tweeted Wednesday that the wall will be "finished" in "two years."

Trump's claim was "just ludicrous," Zarenski said, no matter which measurement one assumes Trump to be referencing.

© Provided by CNBC LLC Migrants from Honduras, part of a caravan of thousands from Central America trying to reach the United States, climb a border fence to cross illegally from Mexico to the U.S., in Tijuana, Mexico, December 21, 2018.

Neither the Homeland Security Department nor the White House provided clarification or evidence to substantiate the president's claim in response to CNBC's questions about that tweet.

While some estimates of the duration of the infrastructure project exceed Trump's two-year time frame, it can be a challenge to make any precise estimates about the cost or length of the project, as some crucial variables have changed drastically since Trump first vowed to build the wall on the campaign trail.

Trump's oft-repeated promise in 2016 that Mexico would pay for the wall electrified many of his supporters, even as Mexican officials rebuffed the claim. But the current deadlock over the partial government shutdown stems from Democratic leaders' refusal to accept Trump's request to spend $5.7 billion in U.S. taxpayers' money as part of a deal to fund the full government.

Trump maintains that Mexico is still paying for the wall indirectly through new revenue and savings from a multilateral trade deal pending approval in Congress — though it's unclear how the U.S.-Mexico-Canada-Agreement, USMCA, would pay for the barrier.

"Obviously I never meant Mexico would write a check," Trump said Jan. 10 during a visit near the Texas-Mexico border. The new line is a far cry from 2016, when the Trump campaign considered multiple ways to "compel Mexico" to "make a one-time payment of $5-10 billion" to keep the U.S. from cutting off other funds it sends Mexico.

The structure of the barrier also appears to have changed. Trump reportedly described a concrete wall on the campaign, but his administration built multiple non-concrete prototypes in 2017. In December, Trump tweeted that "we are not building a Concrete Wall, we are building artistically designed steel slats," adding that they will "go up fast." On New Year's Eve, however, he reasserted that "An all concrete Wall was NEVER ABANDONED."

"Some areas will be all concrete but the experts at Border Patrol prefer a Wall that is see through," Trump said.

Trump has more recently referred to a "wall or steel barrier" in his tweets.

Some immigrants fight the push to make their future a piece of Trump’s desired border wall

With several differing and complex immigration proposals offered as a way to permanently end the government shutdown and help immigrants and asylum seekers, many members of those groups have a simple answer:

No thanks.

On Friday, Jan. 25, President Donald Trump announced the government would reopen for three weeks while negotiations continue on how to secure the southwestern border.  The short-term deal with congressional leaders includes no money for a border wall. But if by Feb. 15 there's no deal that includes border wall funding, the president said he will shut down the government again or declare a national emergency, bypassing Congress.

"We really have no choice but to build a powerful wall or steel barrier," Trump said in the Rose Garden.

For many immigrants and their advocates, that's a problem.

Here's their take: The ideas pushed by Trump and some Republicans to fully reopen the government – including plans to change immigration laws in exchange for funding a border wall – are nothing more than a sham that will hurt those who have the temporary protections or will seek them in the future.

Riverside resident Dianey Murillo, 25, is a leader with the California Immigrant Youth Alliance, where she serves as southern regional coordinator based in the Inland Empire. This photo was taken Oct. 10, 2017. (Photo by Rachel Luna, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

About 200 advocates organized by the Korean Resource Center rallied March 4, 2018, in Irvine in support of DACA. Meanwhile, a small group of counter-protesters also showed up. One is displaying his "NO DACA" sign in the background. (Photo courtesy of Ashley Yu, Korean Resource Center.)

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Korean Resource Center leader Timothy Phan leads a pro-Dream Act rally in front of Mimi Walters' office in Irvine on Thursday, November 9, 2017. (Photo by Kyusung Gong/Contributing Photographer)

Trump supporters protest against DACA supporters rallying to defend the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, DACA, in San Bernardino, Calif. on Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2017. (Photo by Rachel Luna, The Sun/SCNG)

Trump supporters protest against DACA supporters rallying to defend the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, DACA, in San Bernardino, Calif. on Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2017. (Photo by Rachel Luna, The Sun/SCNG)

Santa Ana resident Jose Servin is a leader with the California Immigrant Youth Justice Alliance. Servin is a DACA recipient and has temporary deferment from deportation. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Trump supporters protest against DACA supporters rallying to defend the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, DACA, in San Bernardino, Calif. on Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2017. (Photo by Rachel Luna, The Sun/SCNG)

Approximately 200 DACA supporters marched to Riverside City Hall from First Congregational Church to rally against the Trump's administration announcement Tuesday September 5, 2017 to end the program. ((Will Lester-Inland Valley Daily Bulletin-SCNG)

"You're trading minimum protections for a symbol of white supremacy and nationalism. It's not what we want. It's not what we need," said Santa Ana resident Jose Servin, a leader with the California Immigrant Youth Justice Alliance, the largest immigrant youth-led organization in the state.

"We're being used as a bargaining chip," he added. "And time and again, we've demanded that both the Democrats and the Republicans not use us as bargaining chips."

Servin, 25, has temporary deferment from deportation under a program known as DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

On Jan. 19, Trump offered Congress a deal: He would extend DACA for three years in exchange for ending the shutdown with $5.7 billion for the border wall he campaigned on.

But immigrant rights advocates describe the plans as a form of bait and switch.

On DACA – which the Trump administration has sought to rescind – the offer won't mean a real extension but, instead, will result in a gutting of the program thanks to various proposed changes, they said. And Trump's plan also would hurt another program, known as TPS, or Temporary Protected Status for people who can't return to their countries because of natural disasters or civil war. It also would effectively shut down access to asylum for Central American minors, they said.

As the government shutdown moved into its sixth week, the longest in U.S. history, the Senate voted on two proposals Thursday, Jan. 24, to open up the government. Both votes failed.  One of those bills was crafted along the lines of the White House plan to include funding for the border wall in exchange for extensions to DACA and TPS.

"There is no way that this bill could be interpreted as a genuine attempt at a compromise to end the shutdown," said immigration attorney Belén Gómez, based in Fullerton.

Changes to DACA?

The young immigrants who make up the DACA pool are the ones brought up the most frequently as debate fodder.

Because those eligible for the program were brought to the United States as children, and have grown up knowing the United States as their home, they're viewed with some sympathy. Even the president, who has tried to abolish the Obama administration-created program, has at times expressed sympathy toward them. At one point, he called them "absolutely incredible kids."

But that argument – the so-called good immigrant vs. bad immigrant narrative – is rejected by many of the people who qualify for the program. That ideal, some DACA recipients say, paints their parents as the bad guys. And leaders of many DACA groups have long argued they don't want federal protections if it means deportation for their parents, who don't meet the requirements for DACA.

"It should be all of us or none," said Riverside resident Dianey Murillo, 25, a DACA recipient and a leader with the California Immigrant Youth Alliance.

DACA is providing some 700,000 young people the right to work and live in the country, temporarily, without fear of deportation. And, in all, about 1.3 million people are believed to be eligible for the program, according to the Migration Policy Institute – meaning they were brought to the U.S. in their youth and meet certain requirements, including no serious criminal records. When President Barack Obama created DACA in 2012, it was supposed to be a short-term measure until Congress came up with a more permanent plan. But those proposals stalled repeatedly, and faced lawsuits from many GOP-leaning states.

Meanwhile, the DACA program changed lives.

"As soon as I got my DACA … I felt like a normal 21-year-old who could go to school, get a job and not worry about being deported," said Riverside resident Najayra Valdovinos Soto, 23, youth engagement coordinator for the Inland Empire-Immigrant Youth Collective, which provides DACA workshops and offers other services.

"DACA meant everything. It opened so many doors for me. It gave me the courage to come out and be open with my status. It gave me more confidence in myself and my abilities," she said.

Under Trump's plan, it will be harder to qualify for DACA.  Among the changes: The application fee would nearly double, a new income minimum would be required for anyone who is not a student and those with a deportation order would no longer be able to apply, according to various analysis by attorneys with the American Immigration Lawyers Association and the CATO Institute, a D.C.-based Libertarian think tank.

"Under this bill, only a fraction of my DACA clients would qualify for a one-time, three-year protection from removal," said Gómez, the immigration attorney based in Fullerton.

DACA has been under fire since Trump became president. He attempted to end the program but the courts have kept it alive. Last week, the conservative-leaning U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the matter in this session, which gives advocates some breathing room.

"For us, having this non-decision (from the U.S. Supreme Court) allows us to continue renewals, potentially up to 2020, when the earliest ruling would come up if the court takes it up in the fall," said Sheridan Aguirre, a spokesman for United We Dream, the largest immigrant youth-led coalition in the nation.

Other changes

More is at stake for immigrants than just the DACA program.

The president's plan also would require that future applicants for Temporary Protective Status be lawfully present in the United States, excluding those who are here illegally, the majority of TPS recipients, according to immigration attorneys. (The Trump administration has attempted to terminate TPS for nationals from various countries, including Haiti, Honduras and Sudan. Numerous lawsuits filed against the government are pending.)

"In the past, having a removal order did not prevent them from getting DACA or TPS. This could affect hundreds of thousands of people," said Los Angeles immigration attorney Sabrina Damast.

Another drastic change is being proposed for Central American minors seeking asylum in the United States: They would have to apply in their homeland, and only if they have a qualifying relative living in the United States.

"Can you imagine if you told someone, 'My life is in danger in El Salvador. I need protection,' and you're told, 'Fine. But you have to stay in El Salvador to apply for asylum for however many years it takes us to process it," Damast said.

The asylum process is the most difficult in immigration law, Gómez said, and "it is next to impossible to present a strong case while still living under the government you fear."

"Could our country really claim and pride itself in being a free country that protects human rights, when we gut those protections for others, especially children?" Gómez continued.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security reported Thursday that is ready to implement an "unprecedented action" to address a humanitarian and security crisis at the Southern border. Beginning Friday, Jan. 25, some asylum applicants will be returned to Mexico to await the processing of their requests.

The plan pitched by Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would set a cap on the number of asylum cases it will accept: 15,000 a year. And it would make all unaccompanied minors from Central America arriving at the border subject to expedited deportations without court review.

"What really offends my sensibilities as a human being is that this was all presented to the public as an extension of benefits," said Damast, the immigration attorney based in L.A.  "It's a misleading campaign."

Trump has gotten heat not only from Democrats but also his base. Some conservatives have taken him to task for making any offers at all that involve DACA holders, insisting they don't want the president to offer anything they see as amnesty for people who are in the country illegally. Some remind him often that he ran on a pledge of building a border wall, one that Mexico would pay for.  Ann Coulter, the well-known conservative political commentator, has been keeping a "border wall construction update" tally that always ends in "0."

On Friday, Coulter blasted Trump over his agreement to reopen the government – even temporarily – without getting funding for a border wall, tweeting, "Good news for George Herbert Walker Bush: As of today, he is no longer the biggest wimp ever to serve as President of the United States."

In the meantime, some 800,000 federal workers on furlough or working without pay are returning to their jobs.

And DACA holders, asylum seekers and other immigrants wait to see how the next phase of negotiations affects their fate.

How To Make an Iconic Super Bowl Ad

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Each year during the Super Bowl, advertising has its one day on the stage. Bryan Buckley, director of 59 Super Bowl ads, explains what makes a 30-second ad iconic. Photo Composite: Volkswagen/Getty/Ro...

GOP Rep. Andy Biggs suggests how Trump can build the wall WITHOUT national emergency

In a Fox News interview Monday, Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., predicted that Congress would not come to a deal on border security with wall funding by its February 15 deadline but suggested that President Trump may have a way to build the wall without Congress and without a national emergency declaration.

"It's gonna be pretty hard, quite frankly, because I think the Democrats … they're really locked in. They don't want to put up any physical barrier," Biggs said.

"The president probably is going to have to declare that [the border] is an active drug trafficking corridor pursuant to Title 10 of U.S. code, and if so, he's going to have access to billions of dollars to build the wall, some roads, and infrastructure, I think."

Biggs is not referring to a national emergency declaration. Rather, as Conservative Review's Daniel Horowitz has written, he's talking about a section of law that would permit President Trump to construct roads and fences "to block drug smuggling corridors across international boundaries of the United States."

From Horowitz:

[Trump's] authority is even stronger in the field of combating drug smuggling, even without the declared health crisis. 10 U.S.C. § Section 284 allows the secretary of defense, upon request from federal or state law enforcement dealing with drug trafficking, and in conjunction with the secretary of state, to "provide support for the counterdrug activities or activities to counter transnational organized crime." Subsection b(7) allows the DOD to provide help in the form of "construction of roads and fences and installation of lighting to block drug smuggling corridors across international boundaries of the United States."

This is not some parsimonious loophole for an excuse to build a wall. This is the whole enchilada, folks. The main reason we need a wall is to combat the smugglers and the cartels who use the migration to bring in their contraband and dangerous criminals. Last October, the DOJ designated MS-13, Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG), Sinaloa Cartel, and Clan del Golfo as transnational crime organizations (TCOs).

Fox News' Shannon Bream moved on from this discussion, but it really ought to be the main focus of advocates for Trump's legal authority to build a wall. Many conservatives are concerned that declaring a national emergency to build the wall, though lawful, would set a precedent expanding executive power that a future Democratic administration could abuse. For example, some might warn, a future President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would declare a national emergency of global warming and usher in her Green New Deal socialist policies without Congress.

Using Title 10's statutory authority makes the point moot. Trump has the specific statutory power to deal with a specific problem on the border and to build border security infrastructure. No national emergency declaration necessary.

It's baffling that the administration is not taking this approach.

Author: Chris Pandolfo

Chris Pandolfo is a staff writer and type-shouter for Conservative Review. He holds a B.A. in politics and economics from Hillsdale College. His interests are conservative political philosophy, the American founding, and progressive rock. Follow him on Twitter for doom-saying and great album recommendations @ChrisCPandolfo.

Send tips and hate mail to [email protected]

Lets say Trump declares a national emergency to start building the wall

If the President calls a national state of emergency to use the military to build a wall, Trump will have to prove there is an emergency. Not an easy sell given illegal crossings are at 40 year lows, crime is at near historic lows and border cities are safer than comparable sized non-border cities. There are also 8 million illegals in our work force at a time with only 6 million unemployed. What's the emergency?

Additionally, unless Trump can show the non emergency is a military threat, the border is clearly a civilian issue. The use of the military would be Constitutionally forbidden. Trump, or any President, cannot use military personnel or funds for civilian projects unless there is truly imminent danger. If there was truly an imminent danger, why has Trump waited over two years? Why wait the 36 days for the shut down? Or the three weeks we now have?

Last, the wall is ineffective and expensive. It's also a potential ecological and environmental nightmare as about 10 0 endangered species live in the border area. And much of the border area are subject to annual floods in the summer. People have always found ways to go over, under, around, or through walls, and over 90% of illicit drugs enter through legal entry points. A wall won't help.

The Ds already offered $1.3 billion in border security enhancements for better tech that will actually help and be a lot less expensive. Trump would be wise to accept it. Or if he wants more, he needs to give up more, like a permanent DACA solution, and not a 3 year bandaid with poison pills.

How Does HR Support Data Scientists to Build Inclusive AI Training Sets?

Every company is a tech company these days. With the rise of e-commerce, cloud computing, big data, machine learning and mobile devices, companies are realizing the value of, not just a presence on the web, but the advantages of empowering their customers and partners to do business directly over the internet.

One of the biggest benefits of the new world of cloud-based business operations is the ability to collect transactional data in real time. When a consumer walks down the aisles of the local retailer, there's no way for the business to accurately understand their interests. Shopping online is different because each page or product that is rendered on the web leaves a digital footprint. Companies can aggregate this information and are able to determine, for example, that 80% of their visitors checked out the new sweater or book or coffee maker – and of those 80%, 66% of them put it in their online cart for potential purchase, and 40% of them went through with a purchase.  This level of insight into consumer and partner behavior has been a game changer for years. Obviously, there are privacy concerns and lots of discussion about what is appropriate.

Huh? What do Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and Predictive Analytics have to do with this?

Think about your daily commute. Do you drive? Take the bus? Stop for a coffee? You probably do roughly the same thing almost every day. How about the grocery store? Over the long term, you probably tend to buy many of the same items. If you buy generic brand 2% milk every two weeks, it won't take long for someone to be able to predict when you will buy milk again. This is the essence of ML and predictive analytics. What's different now is the wealth of behavioral data – big data.

What is a Training Set?

So, if you were to ask someone to predict your future milk purchases today, without any data, they would be guessing. Do you buy a half gallon? Is it fat-free? Organic?  The likelihood of their predictive "algorithms" being accurate would be very low.

However, if they had the history of your milk purchase patterns for the last five years, that would improve the accuracy of their prediction. Your milk purchase history is a "set" of "training" data that would train the machine algorithms to help predict your behavior. But it's more than that – because more data from other sources can improve accuracy that your own data cannot.  What if you are married and about to have their first child? Or moving to a new home? How does your milk-purchasing behavior change? Do you switch from generic to brand name? Organic for the new baby? – Your own personal historical data won't help there, but if there was training set data from a million other milk purchasers, then the algorithm could predict your most-likely behavior.

How can HR Professionals Help?

As an individual data scientist who is gathering data to train the machine algorithms to make these predictions, you are interested in an accurate prediction and want as much data as you can get your hands on. You are probably interested in including all the data you can get a hold of - including gender, race, age, work history, criminal history, salary information, marital status, family size, economic status, employment status, political affiliation, or educational background – to name a few – as influential factors in your model – you want your training data to include everything.  As an HR professional, would you like to advise the data scientist about whether to considering these sources?  The data scientist's model might show that criminal history is the most significant factor in predicting milk purchase behavior for new families. Is that ethical?  What if your company is pushing ads or coupons for expensive brand name organic milk to unemployed single mom's wi th high school education – because that's what the algorithm predicted based on the selection of the training data? This is where HR professionals can take a role in shaping the future of AI, ML, and predictive analytics!

Summary

We live in a brave new world and the coming machine age will change things dramatically, sometimes in a frightening and draconian way. The seed of the machine intelligence lies in the individual engineer who is writing the code, the data scientist who is performing the queries and creating the algorithms.

HR professionals can help guide and advise, not just from a privacy perspective, but from a human perspective – how do we ensure a future world where the values and integrity are built into the algorithms that change the world.

The machines are going to learn from training data. HR professionals owe it to the world to oversee the collection and creation of the data sets that the machines will learn from. If humanity is going to avoid falling prey to machine overlords, we have to start with HR oversight of the data and algorithms from which the machines will learn.

 

Ross Smith really enjoys getting a paycheck to "play" with software for 25 years now, over 20 at Microsoft. In September, 2014, he was nominated and accepted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts. He is one of the authors of "The Practical Guide to Defect Prevention" and holds six patents. 42projects has aspired to promote cultural change, "bring buzz and laughter to the hallways". He is a member of the leadership council for the Anita Borg Institute. He was also part of the organizing committee for TEDxSeattle, and has recently been working closely with iUrbanTeen.org and Spreeha. In addition to his passion for creative techniques to improve the quality of the experience of using software, he's explored organizational trust, enterprise gamification, management innovation, diversity and the future of education through games and with the Skype in the Classroom program. In December 2011, he was invited to the White House for a discussion on women in STEM. He was the keynote speaker for the American Road and Transportation Builder's Transovation event in Fall 2014. The work of his teams have been mentioned in Forbes, The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, PSFK, the American Journal of Play, Harvard Business Review, and the London School of Business. He is a blogger for the Society for Human Resource Management's SHRM Blog and regularly posts on management innovation. He is most excited by the current work on Skype Translator.

The SHRM Blog does not accept solicitation for guest posts.

Trump renews call to 'build the wall' after reopening government, warns 'both parties very dug in'

© Provided by Fox News Network LLC President Trump on Saturday promised supporters that the wall on the southern border will be built, a day after he agreed to temporarily reopen the government for three weeks without funding for a wall — but warned that "both parties [are] very dug in."

"21 days goes very quickly. Negotiations with Democrats will start immediately. Will not be easy to make a deal, both parties very dug in," he tweeted. "The case for National Security has been greatly enhanced by what has been happening at the Border & through dialogue."

TRUMP SIGNS BILL TO END PARTIAL GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

"We will build the Wall!" he added.

Trump signed a short-term spending bill Friday night reopening the government, which has been partially shut down for 35 days in a fight over Trump's demand for $5.7 billion in funding for the border wall. Democrats had balked at that number, instead offering $1.3 billion for more general border security. Trump had announced that he would sign such a bill earlier Friday, and Congress passed the measure hours later, sending it to Trump's desk.

Trump said Friday that he wanted negotiations for border security to continue ahead of the Feb. 15 deadline, and threatened to use the "very powerful weapon" of declaring a national emergency if negotiations came to naught. That move would give him extra powers to build the wall via executive power.

Trump has floated the idea of a national emergency before, something that would receive opposition from Democrats and some Republicans. But some Republicans backed Trump Friday, noting that he has agreed a week earlier to extensions of protections for illegal immigrants who came to the country as children and those from unsafe countries.

ANN COULTER RIPS TRUMP OVER BORDER WALL ON BILL MAHER'S SHOW

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News Friday that Trump had made concessions, and that if Democrats won't negotiate then Trump would be right to declare a national emergency.

"Here's what I think come February 15th, if the Democrats still say 'Go to hell on the wall you get a dollar. That's it.' They basically tell Trump 'I'm not going to do with you what I did with Bush and Obama' then I hope he will go the emergency route. We don't need to shut the government down," he said.

Trump has faced criticism from some conservatives for backing down, for now, in the stalemate and on Friday he responded by saying that it was "in no way a concession."

"It was taking care of millions of people who were getting badly hurt by the Shutdown with the understanding that in 21 days, if no deal is done, it's off to the races!" he tweeted.

However, prospects for a deal looked bleak. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Friday that Democrats "remain fully against a wall" but also said that Democrats would approach the negotiations in good faith.

On Friday, Trump spent much of an address in the White House's Rose Garden talking about the dangers that illegal immigration poses, namely the influx of drugs and criminals into the country. On Saturday morning, Trump was back to issuing those warnings, particularly about a caravan of migrants heading toward the border.

"If we had a powerful Wall, they wouldn't even try to make the long and dangerous journey. Build the Wall and Crime will Fall!" he tweeted.

Fox News' Elizabeth Zwirz and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

After surrendering in shutdown standoff, Trump again vows to build wall

Brady Dennis

Reporter focusing on environmental policy and public health issues

January 26 at 12:26 PM

A day after President Trump surrendered in his standoff with congressional Democrats and agreed to reopen the federal government, he continued to push back against the notion — including criticism from political allies — that the episode represented a major defeat.

Trump had insisted for more than a month that he would not let the government shutdown end without securing money for his promised wall at the U.S.-Mexico border. But on Friday, he reversed course in the face of mounting public pressure, declining poll numbers, escalating air travel delays and anger from the FBI director whom he selected. The deal struck with congressional leaders reopens the government through Feb. 15, while creating a committee meant to negotiate a border-security agreement.

On Saturday morning, the president took to Twitter, saying that "21 days goes very quickly" and once again vowing that the promised wall would be constructed.

"Will not be easy to make a deal, both parties very dug in," he wrote. "The case for National Security has been greatly enhanced by what has been happening at the Border & through dialogue. We will build the Wall!"

He also had tweeted Friday night that the deal "was in no way a concession."

[Inside Trump's reversal to end the shutdown without a wall]

Trump's efforts to spin the episode as a victory — or at least a momentary pause on the way to a victory — came amid an immediate backlash from conservatives allies, criticisms the image-conscious president had no doubt seen.

While some of his backers rallied around the president, stalwart Trump allies joined in the criticism. Lou Dobbs, the Fox Business Network host, sharply criticized Trump's move and said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) "just whipped the president of the United States." On Saturday, Dobbs predicted the president's approval ratings would drop even more. Ann Coulter, the conservative commentator, suggested Trump was "the biggest wimp" to hold the office. Far-right websites described Trump as caving.

The White House on Saturday tried to counter that image.

Asked during an appearance on Fox News whether the president had caved on the shutdown fight, White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said, "One hundred percent no. He stood up for the American people. He reopened the government."

Gidley said Trump had repeatedly asked for the sort of border funding that U.S. security officials said they needed, only to encounter intransigent Democrats in Congress.

"Democrats would not negotiate. They would not come to the table," Gidley said. He predicted that some Democrats would be willing to cut a border-security deal in coming weeks that includes money for a wall, even as party leaders have said they have no intention of funding Trump's border wall.

"The lesson I hope that the Democrats learn here is that they can't just not negotiate. They can't offer nothing and expect something to get done," Gidley said, adding: "They weren't doing anything on behalf of the American people. They used federal workers as pawns. Regardless of what they try and say and the tears that stream down their cheeks, they did nothing to protect the American people."

[How the shutdown ended: Americans had enough]

Despite that argument, the shutdown's end was widely seen in the capital and beyond as the president giving in, which played out in media coverage: The Washington Post described Trump's "capitulation to Democrats" as "a humiliating low point in a polarizing presidency." The New York Times depicted Trump as "backing down," while the Wall Street Journal called Trump's move "a retreat."

Trump had fretted about the shutdown's impact on the economy and his personal popularity. A Washington Post-ABC News poll released Friday found that public disapproval of Trump had increased to 58 percent as most Americans held him and congressional Republicans responsible for the shutdown.

In recent days, Trump had sought to point fingers, blaming fellow Republicans and even his staff for failing to help him achieve his campaign promise to fund a border wall.

The man who had campaigned as a business savant and master dealmaker emerged from the unprecedented shutdown looking, above all, ineffective. It was that image that he and the White House seemed to be trying to avoid Saturday, insisting instead that the wall would still be built and that the president deserved praise for reopening the same government he had brazenly closed more than a month earlier.

For the 800,000 employees who have not been paid during the 35-day shutdown, that pain will not end immediately. It will likely take until late next week before they receive their payments, delays that will cause continued hardship for the employees who struggled to pay bills during the longest shutdown in history.

How to Build a Better Great Wall

In my last column, I touched on the fact that much of the government was still shutdown due to the impasse over border wall funding. Truly, I thought that it would all be resolved by now. But with no end in sight, I wanted to talk about using technology—specifically artificial intelligence and drones—to create an impenetrable defense along our borders that would be mostly invisible and yet highly effective. Much of the technology needed to support such an endeavor already exists today, and such a system might just be acceptable to both sides of the great wall debate.

First off, it's important to mention that walls by themselves have never been effective at stopping humans from moving through, over, under or around them. The most famous wall ever built, The Great Wall of China, did not prevent Mongol raids into Chinese territory, or later Han Chinese migration into Manchuria, in sections where the wall was unmanned. During the Ming dynasty, over 25,000 watchtowers were added to the wall, along with thousands of troops to man them. There were even army units stationed nearby, who could respond to signal fires and other alerts sent from the watchmen. Only then did the wall become an effective counter to both migration and invasion, though at an incredible cost in both materials and manpower.

But let's look at walls on a smaller scale, say in prisons. Obviously, the point of a prison wall is to keep those convicted of crimes inside. But how effective do you think they would be if we sent all the guards home, and just let the inmates walk around the prison yard unsupervised? I would predict that within a couple days at most, the prison would be empty.

People are extremely clever, and even the dullest human can outthink a static defense. Give a person unlimited time, and eventually they will find a way to destroy or circumvent any wall that just sits there. As such, the problem has really always been, going all the way back to the fourteenth century, one of manpower.

While it's not feasible to take the ancient Chinese approach of building thousands of manned watchtowers backed up by army units, we do have the technology right now that could lock down the entire border with or without a wall. There would be two main components in such a system, drones to run the patrols and artificial intelligence to process everything that the drones are seeing and detecting. There would also need to be human border guards, but if the first two components are working properly, then humans would only be responding to locations where they are needed, not wasting their time on patrolling and not responding to false alarms.

The first component, the drones themselves, are practically an established technology at this point. Drones have already proved highly effective in public safety roles, searching for fires or lost people, and netting quite a few high-profile success stories. At the recent Consumer Electronics Show, there were many new drone models offering long flight times, rugged durability and some level of artificial intelligence. One company is even starting to sell personal home security drones that will automatically patrol your property.

So drones would not be a problem, though they may require a series of base stations be built where they could periodically recharge. The trickier part would be providing artificial intelligence to process everything that the drones are finding on their patrols, and also to fly them so that teams of human pilots would be unnecessary. Here too, a lot of work has already been completed, at least on a smaller scale.

Several years ago I was shown a demonstration of artificial intelligence being applied to surveillance camera feeds. The AI was able to determine, for example, if someone was behaving outside of the normally seen behavior for that area. That might mean they were walking in the wrong direction down a one-way hallway, or milling about while everyone else was moving. It could also scan for things like weapon profiles, and if attached to a database, could use facial recognition to search for both the identity of the person being watched and to check to see if they had any outstanding warrants. That technology has already been used to protect things like political conventions and sporting events, and is rumored to have been heavily leveraged inside New York City's Domain Awareness System since it launched in 2014.

Another critical component to such a system would be protecting it from hacking or manipulation, and ensuring that the feeds the drones and other devices are submitting are valid, and have not been tampered with in any way. For that, the Homeland Security Department wants to see if blockchain can be used. Homeland Security recently awarded a company called Factom a $192,000 grant to test blockchain's ability to protect surveillance feeds in a real-world environment alongside Customs and Border Protection agents.

At some point, humans would need to be brought into the border protection loop, but a wall of intelligent drones could ensure that nobody could illegally enter the country without being spotted, and those responding officers would know exactly what kind of situation they are facing each time. And because the drones could patrol up to 20 miles or more into the interior, nobody would be able to tunnel under their protection. For example, if someone suddenly pops up in the middle of nowhere ten miles past the border, then they likely got there using a tunnel, which would trigger an alert.

The idea of creating a robust, intelligent technology barrier as opposed to a static physical one has been floated before. Back in 2017, Rep. Will Hurd, a Republication from a border region in Texas, proposed the Secure Miles with All Resources and Technology Act, which would have deployed "the most practical and effective technology available (such as radar, tunnel detection technology, unmanned aerial vehicles, and sensors) to achieve situational awareness and operational control along the U.S. border." Although it had some bipartisan support, it never left the subcommittee phase.

Even with a technology wall, perhaps some kind of physical barrier would be useful, if nothing else than to warn people that they are about to enter the United States illegally—and that they will be identified and caught if they proceed. But it could be a picket fence and be just as effective as a stone block. So long as the technology behind the barrier is solid, having a wall or not really doesn't matter, and is no excuse to keep our government hobbled and shuttered.

John Breeden II is an award-winning journalist and reviewer with over 20 years of experience covering technology. He is the CEO of the Tech Writers Bureau, a group that creates technological thought leadership content for organizations of all sizes. Twitter: @LabGuys

Venezuelans offer to build Trump his wall - and paint it for him, too

Latin American nations throwing off communist dictatorships can be very witty in their protests, starting with that staple of Latin protests, the pot-banger, or, cacerolazo, which is the specter of angry housewives beating on pots and pans originally done to protest Marxist dictators. It was a practice started in Chile in 1971, when angry housewives protested Cuban dictator Fidel Castro's little pawn in Santiago, Salvador Allende, and all his signature shortages of socialism, by chasing his minions around, beating on pots and pans. It's what got the ball started in the current unrest in Venezuela and has been used on Marxist dictator Nicolas Maduro quite a bit. Here another funny one from Honduras dating from its effort to throw out a detested communist dictator, Hugo Chavez's pawn, Mel Zelaya, in 2009. At the time, Hondurans were being reviled and sanctioned by the Obama administration and much of the west for their courage. Some of the response was humor. I've also seen good stuff at Miami protests against Castro. My favorite sign? 'No Castro, No Problem.' Miami Cubans even made that into a bumper sticker, and the left screamed.

Now Venezuelans have come up with a good one, this time explicitly addressed to President Trump:

The Venezuelan protestors are offering Trump a deal. Trump likes deals, right? In this one, they ask him to help them get rid of Maduro, and in gratitude, they will not just gladly build his border wall, they'll throw in a paint job, too.

Given Mexico's unconscionable support for the brutal dictatorship in Caracas, they have every right to be disgusted with Mexico - and now owe them nothing. What better way to get Trump to keep supporting them (he already is, but this humor) than to offer to build his wall?

Viva Venezuela!

Image credit: Twitter video screen grab

Latin American nations throwing off communist dictatorships can be very witty in their protests, starting with that staple of Latin protests, the pot-banger, or, cacerolazo, which is the specter of angry housewives beating on pots and pans originally done to protest Marxist dictators. It was a practice started in Chile in 1971, when angry housewives protested Cuban dictator Fidel Castro's little pawn in Santiago, Salvador Allende, and all his signature shortages of socialism, by chasing his minions around, beating on pots and pans. It's what got the ball started in the current unrest in Venezuela and has been used on Marxist dictator Nicolas Maduro quite a bit. Here another funny one from Honduras dating from its effort to throw out a detested communist dictator, Hugo Chavez's pawn, Mel Zelaya, in 2009. At the time, Hondurans were being reviled and sanctioned by the Obama administration and much of the west for their courage. Some of the response was humor. I've also seen good stuff at Miami protests against Castro. My favorite sign? 'No Castro, No Problem.' Miami Cubans even made that into a bumper sticker, and the left screamed.

Now Venezuelans have come up with a good one, this time explicitly addressed to President Trump:

The Venezuelan protestors are offering Trump a deal. Trump likes deals, right? In this one, they ask him to help them get rid of Maduro, and in gratitude, they will not just gladly build his border wall, they'll throw in a paint job, too.

Given Mexico's unconscionable support for the brutal dictatorship in Caracas, they have every right to be disgusted with Mexico - and now owe them nothing. What better way to get Trump to keep supporting them (he already is, but this humor) than to offer to build his wall?

Viva Venezuela!

Image credit: Twitter video screen grab

Building bridges instead of walls: How we can create a more empathetic society

While the vast majority of political events at the UW in the past two years have resulted in peaceful and civil discourse, those that grabbed the headlines most quickly portrayed the UW as a violent and divided place. From the 2017 inauguration day shooting to heated confrontations in Red Square just before the 2018 midterm elections, the university, along with the rest of the country, seems to have grown into a more hateful place.

With such heightened political polarization and many people seemingly unable to understand “the other side,” some believe improving empathy could help heal a divided country.

UW political science professor Mark A. Smith said that viewing anyone with beliefs which differ from your own as delusional or a bad person is not conducive to good dialogue and problem-solving. “But if you have empathy, that means you try to understand the other person, so you say, ‘Well maybe there’s a reason they believe what they believe,’” Smith said.

Research shows that while empathy is hard-wired in humans, with at least 10 percent determined by genetics, there is potential for people to learn and improve their empathetic response.

Most of this learning is accomplished in early years, when a child’s brain is malleable and absorbs information and social cues like a sponge. The environment in which a child grows up has profound effects on how developed their empathetic response is. Some parents purposefully model empathetic behaviors such as helping others and validating emotions in an effort to instill empathy in their children.

While it is proven that children’s empathy can be nurtured and improved, little research has been done into how adults can increase their empathy, and it seems that it is even harder to build empathy between those of differing cultures, opinions, and political affiliations.

The UW Center for the Science of Social Connection (CSSC) does research on how people build closeness with one another. Some of their applied research includes studies on how building close relationships (which includes developing empathy) changes how people interact with those who are different from themselves. The results of this research suggest that it absolutely is possible for adults to develop empathy.

An example of this research is a small preliminary study conducted in 2017 which put college students of differing political beliefs through a workshop where they were encouraged to be vulnerable and disclose information about themselves that they felt was important to their identity. This sharing of vulnerable information was intended to help people recognize others as individuals with their own personal truths rooted in experience, thus increasing understanding and closeness. After sharing personal stories, people felt closer to others and seemed to be more understanding of differing political views.

Adam Kuczynski, a Ph.D. student at the CSSC, described how everyone has reasons for the things they believe and the ways in which they act, though others may believe and act in completely different ways. “There’s a kernel of truth in what everyone says, no matter how small it may be,” Kuczynski said.

Being open to finding others’ kernels of truth is key to improving empathy.

In order to try to repair deep political divisions, people must first understand and respect the positions of those on the other side of the debate and recognize the emotional background that often informs people’s opinions.

If research suggests adults can in fact  build their empathy, how can we do so?

In 2011, author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote that in order to help us understand one another, we don’t need a “soft, hand-holding empathy” but a “muscular empathy rooted in curiosity.” He defines empathy not just as being kind, but as thinking deeply about the full extent of another person’s circumstances, and instead of asking why they act the way they do, asking yourself why you would act any differently.

If empathy requires such deep thought, spreading a culture of empathy may seem like a daunting task, as humans are not particularly conditioned to think so deeply about things. However, all hope need not be lost.

Maya Nader, a certified Compassion Cultivation Trainer who has taught Compassion Cultivation Training classes at the UW, recommended that we “not lose sight of the humanness of the other.”

In an email, Nader described a study done by Princeton University psychology professor Susan Fiske which showed that after thinking of people different to themselves having normal human emotions (such as contemplating what kind of vegetables that person might like), people showed increased signs of empathy.

“This softening of perceptions, from not acknowledging the person at all, to [thinking] ‘they are us, under different circumstances’ is good news,” Nader said, referencing the results of the study. In other words, though it may take some conscious effort, easy self-reminders that other people make the same mundane decisions, and experience the same joy and pain as us can help us build our empathy and contribute to a kinder society.

While it may be difficult, if many individuals take the initiative to improve their own empathy, it is possible America could create a culture of kindness and understanding, moving us toward more peaceful everyday and political discussions which aim to build bridges rather than walls.

Reach writer Emily Young at wellness@dailyuw.com. Twitter: @emilymyoung7

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The Wall We Need to Build

A fitting epitaph for the tombstone of our current president would be, "Here Lies Donald Trump ... Still Lying."

Never has one president hurled so many big lies with such force at so many in such short time. From fibs to whoppers, he's No. 1, as documented by a daily Trump Tracker maintained by The Washington Post to document his record of achievement. It shows that in his first 732 days in office, our champion of presidential prevarication has uttered 8,158 untrue statements — an astonishing average of more than 11 a day! Here are just a few of his linguistic twists and turns on his favorite topic: "the wall."

Trump frequently screeches that the U.S. is under an "invasion" by dangerous "aliens" crossing the Mexican border illegally and creating a national security "crisis." FACTS: Illegal immigration across the border is at a 50-year low. Far from dangerous, the migrants now crossing are mostly Central American women and children fleeing abuse, repression and abject poverty back home, and they're legally seeking asylum here.

Still, Trump recently flew to the border city of McAllen, Texas, to dramatize the need for "a big beautiful wall" to cut the crime rate and "stop heroin" from entering the U.S. FACTS: Today's crime rate in McAllen is the lowest in 34 years, and Trump's own drug agency reports that nearly all heroin enters by smuggling it in trucks, trains, etc. that go right through inspection stations, so a multibillion-dollar wall would be useless to stop it.

Price is no barrier, declared the dealmaker, because "Mexico is going to pay for the wall." FACT: There was not a prayer of that happening. So, The Donald now claims, "obviously I never said this, and I never meant they're going to write out a check." FACT: He did say just that, many times, promising Mexico would "make a one-time payment of $5-10 billion." So, he's lately been trying a double backflip lie, claiming that his new North American free trade agreement deal with Mexico requires the country to pay up. FACT: No such language exists. And if it did, why would he still be demanding that we — us, you and I — shell out $5.7 billion for his boondoggle?

It's not simply that Trump lies, but that his presidency is a lie, dependent on his self-deceptions and his pitiful attempts to deceive us.

It's time for a pop quiz on Trump's humongous wall that he wants us taxpayers to build as a monument to his raging megalomania.

Question 1. How much will it cost us? Trump and company say the price tag is $5.7 billion. That's a lot, but — pssssst — that only buys a starter wall of 230 miles, covering barely a tenth of our 2,000-mile Mexican border. The dirty little secret is that the full barricade Trump wants will cost us at least $25 billion — for something that isn't needed and won't work.

Question 2. By shutting down the government of the United States in a petulant attempt to make Congress pony up his wall money, isn't he hurting families who come to tour the capital city, hoping to visit the Smithsonian, the National Zoo, the Air and Space Museum and other iconic national treasures? Yes, but — pssssst — there is one exception. The clock tower of the historic 1899 Old Post Office got a special reprieve from the National Park Service to remain open to tourists throughout the presidential shutdown. Why this one exception? Because the president is Donald Trump. In 2014, he converted the Old Post Office into one of his luxury hotels, and closing the clock tower would be ... well, bad for business. Indeed, even the tower's souvenir shop remains open, so tourists can stock up on Trump chocolates, hoodies and other merchandise.

Question 3. Where is this president's empathy for our federal workers? Trump has said that he empathizes with the hundreds of thousands of government workers whose paychecks he suspended, because he has suffered, too. But — pssssst — before consoling the poor president, note that his pain differs from the financial squeeze other federal employees have endured. He tweeted on Christmas Eve, "I'm all alone (poor me) in the White House waiting on the Democrats to come back and make a deal." He later tweeted of the furloughed workers, "I don't care that most of the workers not getting paid are Democrats."

This guy is a public menace, so let's move him permanently to his Mar-a-Largo golf resort in Florida — and build a beautiful impenetrable wall around it.

Populist author, public speaker and radio commentator Jim Hightower writes "The Hightower Lowdown," a monthly newsletter chronicling the ongoing fights by America's ordinary people against rule by plutocratic elites. Sign up at HightowerLowdown.org.

Photo credit: at Pixabay

Poll: 7 percent back building border wall if it's only way to end shutdown

Only 7 percent of voters say they support constructing a wall along the southern border if it's the only way to reopen the federal government, according to a new poll published on Wednesday. 

In the new Politico–Morning Consult poll, 72 percent of voters said they oppose putting funding toward a wall even if it's the only way to end the government shutdown.

The poll also found that 43 percent of respondents support the construction of the wall while 49 percent oppose building the wall.

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About a third of voters, 34 percent, said they support dedicating funding to border security — but not specifically a wall — to end the shutdown. Slightly more than half of the voters, 51 percent, oppose that plan, according to the poll.

The poll also found that President TrumpDonald John TrumpCoast Guard chief: 'Unacceptable' that service members must rely on food pantries, donations amid shutdown Dem lawmaker apologizes after saying it's never been legal in US to force people to work for free Grassley to hold drug pricing hearing MORE's disapproval rating sits an all-time high as the shutdown has dragged into a second month.

The poll's results are based on surveys of 1,996 registered voters from Jan. 18 to 22. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

The shutdown, which began on Dec. 22, was sparked over Trump's demand for more than $5 billion in funding for the wall. Democrats have refused to offer more than $1.3 billion in border security funding.

Trump has refused to sign any bill to open the government that doesn't include his request.

The Senate plans to vote Thursday on two proposals to reopen the government, including a proposal from Trump that includes funding for the wall.

EXCLUSIVE: This Former Border Federal Special Prosecutor’s Shocking Stories Will Make You Want To Build The Wall Yourself

Matt C. Pinsker (JD, LLM) - author, national security expert, criminal defense attorney, US Army Reserve officer, and homeland security professor at Virginia Commonwealth University - is in a unique position to provide valuable insight on how desperately the United States needs a physical barrier on its southern border. During his service as a federal special prosecutor (SAUSA) on the border prosecuting thousands of cases involving illegal immigration and cartel activity, Pinsker has witnessed far more than your average journalist clamoring for a border photo-op (looking at you, Jim Acosta), and was happy to answer a few questions for our readers.

As far as you are allowed, can you detail some specific cases that the public would be particularly struck by?

I can cite multiple cases and observations that would horrify the public. One involved a 17-year-old child bride who was 8 months pregnant being smuggled into the United States by her 35-year-old husband who had a criminal record in the U.S. 

In another, two adults tried to fake their asylum claim by pretending to be married along with a 8-year-old they falsely claimed was their child.

I also had multiple cases where convicted child molesters were arrested illegally reentering the United States. 

In a 6 month period, I prosecuted some of the same people three or four different times for illegally entering the United States.

I had multiple cases where the Mexican cartels abducted innocent Mexicans and, after beating and torturing them, forced them to illegally enter the United States, sometimes carrying drugs. One guy who initially refused and was stabbed lifted his shirt up in court to show the wound. 

Many times defendants in court who were charged with illegal entry had scars on them which were the results of having been tortured. There were large groups of illegal aliens being held hostage in the US by cartels, being kept as prisoners in "safe houses" until their family could pay their "release fee." When the families had difficulty, the aliens would be tortured.

What would you consider your greatest success?

My greatest success may have been getting a judge to realize the severity of the actions of a defendant who was smuggling children into the United States, resulting in a heavy sentence.

Would you say progress is being made? If so, how?

Progress is not being made. In fact, we refer to it as "Groundhog Day" because it is the exact same thing, day after day. If anything, while I was down there the situation got worse.

Do walls work? Explain.

Walls absolutely do work. They work for multiple different reasons, but not for the reasons people often think. Interestingly, there is not a single mile of wall where I served, though nearly every Border Patrol agent wanted one in certain areas. However, right on the border itself is a community college that was having a major problem with illegal aliens and drug traffickers coming over the river and then cutting through their campus. They almost completely stopped it by erecting an eight foot high fence around the campus.

Currently, we are catching about 30% percent of all aliens illegally entering the country. Even if a wall were to result in a modest improvement to just 40 percent, that is an additional 1 million more people who will stopped over a 10 year period.

Here is what people misunderstand about walls. They are not 100 percent perfect barriers where if you simply put them up no one can get through them. Instead, they work because: 1.) They add just a couple extra minutes to an illegal alien's entry into the country. Although this does not sound like much, this means that Border Patrol has a couple more minutes to arrive in time to stop the person. The problem we often have is that Border Patrol responds to motion detectors, but because of the vast distances they cannot get there in time, so the aliens are gone by the time they get there. 2.) If, rather than scale a wall, aliens go around it, this decreases the total amount of border which must be patrolled, thus allowing Border Patrol to more effectively deploy its limited man-power in what are essentially "choke points" between walls.

Additionally, a border barrier can severely affect the powerful Mexican drug cartels in ways most people aren't aware of, forcing them to spend time and resources on entering the country rather than abusing people. A wall drives up the operating costs of the cartels, decreasing their power. They must purchase more equipment to get around or through it, and pay more for personnel. For example, a foot guide who now demands $1,500 to take a group of 15 people might now demand $3,000. Even a modest increase in the chances of getting caught forces the cartels to pay significantly more to get people to work for them (essentially, hazard pay). By driving up their costs, fewer people will be able to afford to hire cartels to illegally enter the United States, thus making human trafficking itself less profitable.

What struck you most about the situation at the border that most law enforcement and even lawmakers might miss?

What struck me most was that 99.9 percent of all persons illegally entering the country are being trafficked in by the cartels. Many people mistakenly believe that illegal immigration is when people decide to come to the United States and sneak across on their own. Ironically, the cartels have done what the United States has not, which is secure the border. If they find an alien on their territory trying to cross without having paid their "fees," they'll murder them. It is a part of organized crime, and people who are routinely abused, tortured, and exploited are the product.

Another thing that struck me was just how many persons illegally entering the United States have criminal records. They enter illegally because they cannot enter legally, and the reason why they cannot enter legally is because they have criminal records.

Matt Pinsker Disclaimer: Views expressed are my own, and not that of the government.