![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 15 to 39 of 39. Go back in thread:
Posted by alexandra_k on May 31, 2019, at 23:51:28
In reply to SOS from the US, posted by beckett2 on May 25, 2019, at 12:41:59
> Instead we will fight each other and tear everything apart.
yep. that's the plan.
if i can't have any kind of life worth living than i really have nothing to lose. why wouldn't i want to tear y'all down with me, if there is no way whatsoever that my prospects can improve in life.
there's nothing here
Posted by alexandra_k on May 31, 2019, at 23:54:29
In reply to Re: SOS from the US » beckett2, posted by alexandra_k on May 31, 2019, at 23:51:28
so...
someone gets a large research grant.
do they use that money to hire a post-doctoral fellowship?
naw. now's the time to be flying to locations a couple hours drive away.
environment be damned.
patron of the arts be damned.
using the excess one has to help provide meaningful work for others be damned.
wonderful wonderful people we place in charge!
awwwwwwww when i grow up i wanna be just like you!!!
i'd rather shoot my face off.
and there's the problem.
it's hard to hide the... repulsion.
and it's hard to hide the... gloat.
?
for the good of us all.
mmm hmm
Posted by alexandra_k on May 31, 2019, at 23:55:22
In reply to Re: SOS from the US, posted by alexandra_k on May 31, 2019, at 23:54:29
so people just leave.
and these are the people who are left.
i didn't ask to be born.
Posted by alexandra_k on June 1, 2019, at 0:14:11
In reply to Re: SOS from the US, posted by alexandra_k on May 31, 2019, at 23:55:22
Sigh.
Sorry. I am in a foul mood, today.
Making changes to my thesis.
Very angry and resentful about my thesis since my supervisor lied to me about it being a 120 point program of study that could be completed in 1 year... Then (when it was too late for me to pursue a different path) she did everything in her power to stabotage my enrolment / timely progress / completion.
'With friends like these who needs enemies'.
For sure.
Nasty, nasty, nasty business.
I suppose they only hire them so people will run away screaming. People will not voluntarily do business with them. That way the people who collect up all the money (by treating the people in their care as badly as they think they can get away with) can persist on with their cunning plan to make things worse and worse and worse and worse and worse and worse for everyone.
Because the only thing we wanted to know was `and how low can we go'?? F*ck*ng horrible rubbish heap of the world that is New Zealand.
Posted by alexandra_k on June 1, 2019, at 0:20:31
In reply to Re: SOS from the US, posted by alexandra_k on June 1, 2019, at 0:14:11
what they just genuinely don't seem to understand is that they would have got a better job out of me if they had have not tried to be as f*ck*ng obstructive as they have been...
but i guess that's the f*ck*ng point of the 'how low can we go' strategy. by flunking out the genuinely skilled and talented kids and promoting those who only repeat back what their superiors say they make themselves look better and that is their primary concern.
if nobody is able to produce work around them then they don't look as underproductive as they actually are. the biggest production they do is preventing the production of others. writing reports of changed required whether for peer review or review of their students work. a basic inability to focus on the actual goal.
there is a genuine inability to focus on the actual goal. on the win-win outcome. there is a genuine inability / unwillingness to *aim* to figure out a win-win outcome. people are so very wedded to this 'you lose therefore i win' life strategy.
how low can we go?
it appears to know no bounds
Posted by alexandra_k on June 1, 2019, at 0:29:26
In reply to Re: SOS from the US, posted by alexandra_k on June 1, 2019, at 0:20:31
because someone wants to play 'you lose therefore i win'.
because they win.
and because...they get a kick out of you lose.
people will not voluntarily play with them.
it isn't fun playing with people who are trying to make you lose because they find you losing something intrinsically pleasurable for them.so then they become very invested in making sure that the people they like to play with cannot get away.
nasty nasty nasty nasty people.
they spout all kinds of nonsense rubbish in some kind of attempt to justify what they are up to / what they are doing. but it is just confabulation.. b*llsh*t... nonsense...
they aren't interested in playing a different kind of game.
they often seem... somewhat resigned to things when the tide turns and they lose.
that's why... was it karen horney? I don't remember... someone thought that people genuinely did have a death instinct. that there was an urge or motivation to die.
that is the flipside of that kind of game.
that game...
doesn't allow for medicine.
because that game is all about taking advantage of others if one can get away with it. that's basically the antithesis of helping others.
people don't understand what helping others means.
they don't expect others to help them...
only they do.
they don't question tehir 'health professionals' they trust that their health professionals are acting in their interests.
but why would they think that?
would they do that if they were employed as health professionals?
?
no.
it is hypocracy. there is something irrational about it. stupid. short-sighted. etc.
Posted by beckett2 on June 1, 2019, at 0:52:26
In reply to Re: SOS from the US, posted by sigismund on May 27, 2019, at 0:27:09
> You are mourning the destruction. And the stupidity. I thought of you when I read this. Lots of people are no doubt feeling the same. It makes narcotic addiction feel rational enough.
>
> "What were left with as this strange bastard empire slouches towards Bethlehem to die in a hail of bullets is a colossal landmass of lost souls without purpose. As we cling to the wreckage of our manufactured mass tribes we descend deeper and deeper into nihilistic violence and self destruction. We are ravaged by plagues of mass shootings and narcotics addiction. While our mandarins continue to start unwinnable crusades in a sad attempt to revive their past glories, we stand as a nation on the brink of a societal collapse unlike any seen since the Roman Empire. But in this crisis I cant help but to see great opportunities. Every apocalypse presents an opportunity, however fleeting, for utopia."Is this Hedges?
I'm feeling a little better. When there is news of trump and the money hoarders triumphing and all that goes along with it, I dip into the grief I experienced during 2016.
If you haven't seen this already: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5wgaBOyvJA It's a majority report, and the way Gorka speaks brings back the nervous giggling I suppressed during latin mass as a child.
Thank you for the links below. I'll read them this weekend.
Posted by beckett2 on June 1, 2019, at 0:53:47
In reply to Re: SOS from the US, posted by alexandra_k on May 31, 2019, at 23:54:29
Gaaah. What happened?
> so...
>
> someone gets a large research grant.
>
> do they use that money to hire a post-doctoral fellowship?
>
> naw. now's the time to be flying to locations a couple hours drive away.
>
> environment be damned.
>
> patron of the arts be damned.
>
> using the excess one has to help provide meaningful work for others be damned.
>
> wonderful wonderful people we place in charge!
>
> awwwwwwww when i grow up i wanna be just like you!!!
>
> i'd rather shoot my face off.
>
> and there's the problem.
>
> it's hard to hide the... repulsion.
>
> and it's hard to hide the... gloat.
>
> ?
>
> for the good of us all.
>
> mmm hmm
>
>
Posted by beckett2 on June 1, 2019, at 0:57:01
In reply to Re: SOS from the US, posted by alexandra_k on June 1, 2019, at 0:29:26
Never have to apologize for being in a foul mood to me. There are innumerable reason.
Nothing like school bureaucracy makes one want to tear one's hair and rent one's clothes in a public square.
Are you feeling any better tho?
Posted by beckett2 on June 5, 2019, at 19:39:49
In reply to brought to you by the home of the free, posted by beckett2 on May 23, 2019, at 22:59:28
Posted by sigismund on June 5, 2019, at 23:58:44
In reply to good advice then and now, posted by beckett2 on June 5, 2019, at 19:39:49
Try checking the news just once a day!
Limit climate science videos to twice a week!
I am just putting a solar hot water system on my roof with the FRANKING CREDIT REBATE government cheque!
Anyway, the coalition will have to wear this, whichever way it crumbles.
Posted by alexandra_k on June 6, 2019, at 17:30:52
In reply to Re: good advice then and now » beckett2, posted by sigismund on June 5, 2019, at 23:58:44
No, i am not feeling any better.
I didn't have a problem coming back to New Zealand. I thought I could work my way up, again. I thought things would be okay. People would realise that I was smart and I was a hard worker and things would be okay.
But those traits are not valued, here.
I would love to move back to America -- but I'm not playing the whole 'in however many generations' game. Because there is no way I would inflict this (horrible horrible horrible life I did not ask to be born) on someone I supposedly 'love'. That really makes no sense, at all.
It isn't mental illness. It is just people ignoring me and treating me like garbage indefinately because it is fun for them and because they think they can get away with it.
So...
I've seen nothing but corruption in our education system since I came back, here. People seem intentionally selected to teach because they are incompetent at getting their own work done.
People just will not play the game of doing their job to the best of their ability. It's all about 'how low can we go'. How little work they can get away with doing -- while seeking more money / promotion, of course.
I would rather die than be like them.
And they can see that / tell.
And there we are.
Posted by alexandra_k on June 6, 2019, at 17:41:35
In reply to Re: good advice then and now, posted by alexandra_k on June 6, 2019, at 17:30:52
And this whole thing of intentionally selecting for psychopaths. People who will say whatever you want them to say and feign feel however you want them to feign feel for...
For what?
For why?
What kind of character does that / can do that?
Can present a different face to the world so well?
Some psychotherapy person had clients from that population base... Someone wrote about that... Trying to remember...
I suppose we select FOR them because we know other people select AGAINT them. There's this whole attempt to be game theoretic 'smarter than you' and by thrusting forward all the people the overseas ones won't want so much you...
You...
Force them to take the ones you want to get rid of.
I guess.
Then you gotta ask 'what's the plan'?
I guess it's likely to be to get the family out. When you consider the whole developing 'how low can we go' trajectory that New Zealand is on then it's failry clearly something like that...
Hence the whole 'how's / who's the family' mentality about the whole thing.
You don't get to not have a herd / tribe / pack in these parts.
It's like Paupa New Guniea. It's not safe for people anymore.
Everyone involved in my MPhil is pretending to be an idiot. Pretending to not know the most basic things about what their job is and what they are supposed to be doing. Feigning incompetence. Dragging their heels.
Because that's their job. THey nailed it.
Their job is to make sure that the kids of the ones who are picked to do Law or Medicine or Engineering or whatever... It is to ensure that those kids will not stray from what their life path has been determined to be. If they picked to do something in the Arts for fun... Then the idea is that it will be so awful and the kids who do best in the Arts are only the kids who are never allowed to do well in anything else...
So everyone runs back to their 'proper place'.
That's our genius plan to boost GDP.
How low can we go??
Though...
How low do other nations want us to go?
I guess that's the idea, too.
How bad do things have to be in.. I don't know. Mexico. New Zealand. Before people want to move to America and... I don't know. Clean your toilet for you?
Tis a nasty business all around.
Posted by alexandra_k on June 6, 2019, at 17:51:12
In reply to Re: good advice then and now, posted by alexandra_k on June 6, 2019, at 17:30:52
I am imaginging having the kind of parents who would have been good to have. I am imagining what they would say to me / how they would advise me, given what I know, now.
I think...
My not having been born is probably the best thing that could have happened to me.
This isn't a whim or anything like that. I have been banging on about precisely this, repeatedly, for years now. Documented evidence here... All over these boards.
Oh, what's that? Other people prefer me to be alive. Like to kick at me. Like to withhold the resources I need from me. Like to see me beg for food and like to force me to live with others 'for my own good' and so on...
Yeah...
Tis a wonderful life, for them.
Well... That's what they get. THey decided to chase the money. NOw they have the money. That's why they chased it. They wanted it. They wanted teh things that money can buy. The power to maek it such that other people cannot get away from you.
Help me...
They say sometimes.
Mostly they say...
Kill me.
People in these parts don't want to live. That's why they don't want Medicine and Surgery. They don't want informed consent. THey want to chase the money and get the money and inflict what it is that they want on people. They want the people around them to do a half-*ss*d job of pretending to like being bullied and treated like garbage. It doesn't have to be flawless because they actually like seeing the... SPirit. I guess that's maybe what it is. That's why people are so awful to me. Because I didn't sell out for the money. Because I won't lie to their face like they want me to. Because I won't play in to their game.
I think about how low productivity is. HOw not much is being produced. I think about how my supervisor had to ask 5 people before she found 2 examiners for a thesis and how one of the people sent their report back late. Her response was to... Not do her job of working with me to get the changs signed off on within 10 weeks. Instead, she insists on sending it back to htem... SO they play football of nobody doing their job for as long as possible. Until the Univesrity is forced to decide whether to fail me out or grudgingly give me the qualification because it is losing me either way.
And that's how it's done in these parts.
Which is why Auckland has this whole 'the qualification must be done in the minimum time' requirement.
So they can say 'ineligable!' and cull the applicants who are not their own babies.
Tis genius.
In a land fill of psychopathic foetal alchohol affects syndrome tribal chieftan leaders!
f*ck*ng genius
Posted by sigismund on June 13, 2019, at 17:38:57
In reply to Re: good advice then and now, posted by alexandra_k on June 6, 2019, at 17:51:12
https://therealnews.com/stories/targeted-by-the-inquisition-rai-with-matthew-fox-5-8
Posted by sigismund on June 13, 2019, at 22:11:44
In reply to Mathew Fox, posted by sigismund on June 13, 2019, at 17:38:57
Posted by alexandra_k on June 16, 2019, at 2:17:51
In reply to President Trump and Queen Elizabeth II, posted by sigismund on June 13, 2019, at 22:11:44
it seems to me that it is the people who do not wish to let the monarchy go.
the people who leave gifts. who turn out in the streets to mourn or celebrate. who buy the tabloids to read all about it.
an ideology.
but they sell it.
i am fairly curious about the marketing whereby the chick from the TV series `Suits' gets to be princess. As in, the new Lady Diana. Much beloved by the people. Everybody wants to be her but nobody is jealous of her (or she's protected from that, somehow) partly by being so... Nice. The role was very scripted...
We feel sad for her because she knows what it is like to work so very very very hard for something... Or to want something so very very much and then not get it. Not get to Harvard. So we don't mind that she gets to be princess. She deserves something nice in her life... She's minority group (black father).
Brilliant marketing, really.
Like Trump on 'The Apprentice'. My mother liked the way he said 'your fired!' she thought 'that guy knows how to fire the dead wood. He'll be good for the economy'.
Brilliant marketing, really.
So it isn't just that the people want them / like them / won't let them go.
But they were sold to the people.
Constructed for the people.
The whole Clancy thing from that Philip K Dick book. What would clancy do. This idea of a leader who is an... Ideal... An ideal or ideology of a leader. An actor. For public performance. Who knows about the actual man or woman. About their genuine personality. What makes them laugh or cry.
I expect they are selected largely for their ability to laugh or cry on demand.
Actors.
Who the script writers are is interesting...
It is interesting the things they say. It does matter. What the avatars say does matter. Because it is an ideology or whatever that is presented.
I have to sit the UCAT soon. The whole thing is a joke. It is designed to select the High School students who will go on to do best at University level science and eventually Medicine. Apparently the test is most useful for predicting performance at University science.
I get to do the test because...
Given that I do well at University level science that means the test should be calibrated towards me. Towards what I say.
Haha.
Only...
I'm thinking now of the A minuses and the B's I get.
I'm thinking now of questions like 'which of the lateral ventricles is the first ventrical' Left. Right. About how questions like this are 'high end distinguishers' that determine the difference between A and A+ grades or whatever...
How I hemorrhage marks because...
My ID number tells them I'm not the typical first year.
It's so f*ck*ng obvious.
And what are you going to do about it?
That's the way things are, here.
Things have gotten worse.
Objectively there are things you can measure...
Like how there used to be good books in teh libraries. Books that were donated when the libraries were founded and stuff like that. Paintings and arts.
The stuff gets blocked off from public access supposedly for it's own good. For security. But then people cannot access it at all. Then it's sold off / gone.
The Universities... Everything...
It's all been gutted from here.
Posted by alexandra_k on June 16, 2019, at 2:42:59
In reply to Re: President Trump and Queen Elizabeth II, posted by alexandra_k on June 16, 2019, at 2:17:51
i keep wondering what is going on. what is going wrong. why is it that things repeatedly go wrong for me...
i think the things were supposed to go... maximum time. that's the idea. there are international laws. or... there are local laws or regulations or whatever that are only in place becuase we needed to put them there in order to have international accreditation or whatever so that we could take money from international students in the name of offering them a tertiary education.
when it comes to undergraduate degrees it needs to be possible for the students to complete the degree in the minimum time. that means that they need to be able to complete their 3 year degree in 3 years. we can't say they need to complete this compulsory 3rd year course and then only offer that course every alternative year so they need to hang about for another 6 months or a year in order to complete requirements for their degree. it needs to be possible for them to complete the degree in the minimum or normal time.
when it gets to graduate level study apparently there are no such regulations, however. so the universities have it into their heads they are allowed to take the maximum fee payments from the students, or they can require the students to take the maximum amount of time.
it starts out by strongly encouraging students delay submitting their thesis for 6 months. in other words, they try and encourage students to voluntarily agree to reenrol for 6 months at the start. they spring on them at the last minute something that the student didn't plan for in their timeline and try and make the student feel bad like they don't deserve to complete in a timely fashion or whatever... if the student won't voluntarily be cowed into handing over another 6 months fees at the submission point then the outcome of the examination will be interpreted by the university as requiring the student enrol for another 6 months to revise the thesis and then resubmit it again.
so, either way, an additional 6 months fees will be paid on every graduate level qualification. teh student will either voluntarily agree to it or the university will make them and say that the examiners required this of them.
even in my case there the examiners did not require this of me, at all.
i wonder in how many cases they try it on both ways to get an additional year's worth of fees...
they think they are entitled to keep you for the maximum time. with you throwing money at them or they will fail you out / not give you your qualification.
that's graduate school in new zealand.
who would want to play that game?
if you want to apply to medicine one route is to complete a degree in nz in the 'minimum time'. they don't tell students that nobody completes graduate degrees in the 'minimum time'. there are ungraded graduate degrees, too. pass / fail. no grades. so how do they calcuate your gpa? there is this rumour that goes around. that it is 9.0 (maximum). a rumour that was started by some mischevious person to persuade people not to work at undergraduaets 'that's okay i want to do a phd anyway so i'll apply from there'. it actually doesn't contribute to the GPA so it only gives you eligability and not GPA. but it doesn't contribute for eligability because nobody is allowed to complete their graduae degrees in the minimum time.
so the graduate qualifications from new zealand are worthless. everyone will wonder why you are so f*ck*ng slow you can't do any work on time. because the people around you are only interested in having you stick around indefinately getting yourself into more and more debt to pay for their continued and increased incompetence.
i guess the idea of medical selection is once again to extract the maximum that can possibly be extracted.
what does that mean?
that means students are required to apply the maximum number of times they may apply before gaining a place.
except for all the legacy places.
but the legacy places can only get you so far... more particularly, the legacy places will have no clout in the overseas specialist training programs. because your daddy is not on the selection panel for that. so it can't be so. it can get you into medical school... but that's it. i would imagine.
otherwise it's just all about extracting the maximum.
i guess that's what i saw from australia. the phd students over there who went on to do med. from australian phd. australian phd wasn't going to help me with med selection to nz though. i needed to do a nz qualification. which is next to impossible because nz doesn't make hiring decisions on the basis of productivity.
i guess there was a thing about haha i was always going to have to wait just one more year.
it wasn't smart of me to have run when the population health idiots failed me because i refused to attend an individual meeting and suck their dick -- or whatever equivalent they had planned for me... i was supposed to apply and have my application declined. then that would have been one failed application. which was what i needed for the next one to have been accepted.
i expect that is it.
and that is why i am stuck 'just one more year'.
i am thinking of when anybody has ever taken my medical history. when anybody has ever done a physical exam. not since prior to puberty.
i am thinking of how much time i spent on the psych ward before i became convinced i would do a better job of it than 99 per cent of the psychiatrists the DHB hired to do that job.
i know already they plan to teach us nothing...
the MCAT sociology stuff tries to teach that it is the absence / lack of organisation. rather than malevolent intent.
i don't know.
we talk about the invisible hand driving the market in good directions. why not the invisible hand for bad.
i am sick of philosophy.
i am sick of having to cry to the welfare office every week because they don't give me enough to live as a person (instead of an animal). i am sick of not having my basic human rights met in this country. i am sick of peole who don't know what a closed door / locked door means. i am sick of people passing themselves off as having authority when they have none. i am sick of people continually pushing pushing pushing what is your name and your age and your date of birth and your work and income number and your password for this, that, and the other thing... i am sick sick sick sick so very very very sick of here.
and the district health boards rubs it's hands in glee that it is doing such a fantastic job of growing it's business there will be pay increases all around for all board members next year!!
we don't have basic public / social services in this country anymore. firefighters isn't a thing. ambulance is private unless it is wellington. putting on a show for vising politicians 'wellington free ambulance'. no other region has a free ambulance service. police... yeah... well...
Posted by alexandra_k on June 16, 2019, at 2:58:23
In reply to Re: President Trump and Queen Elizabeth II, posted by alexandra_k on June 16, 2019, at 2:17:51
I don't suppose that there will be accountability because they've managed to distribute things.
Firstly, you have grades. You have the fact that grades aren't given fairly anymore. Work isn't blind graded, often. University level academics have the students name (racial information often) and ID number (year they first enroled with the University so information on first year, second year, third year, or more)...
There are people who have been picked out already as the 'high achievers'. Identified from High School. They are at University on scholarship already and their way is paid. They are often from wealthy homes. But the decision was made to keep them in NZ, I guess, and not to send them overseas on scholarship, or to pay for an overseas (e.g., US or British) education. The Prime Minister... John Key's son... Went to University in France, I believe. From his first year out of Secondary School...
Those kids would be basically untouchable, I reckon.
Other kids grades are reverse engineered. Pretty sure I have seen evidence of not being given marks for things I should have been given marks for. I mean... I have seen the short answer marking schedule and various answers I provided were word for word perfect and legible. The course convenor said she didn't know why the lecturers marked me wrong wrong wrong... Then said they justified it in speech to her and my (lower than it should have been) grade stuck. Would stick. What was I going to do about it?
So the grades are dubious. The correct answer is hidden more and more and more so students cannot check for accuracy. Often there will be essays to try and hide / conceal the fact that things are not graded properly anymore.
So that's grades.
One part of selection.
Another part of selection is performance on the UMAT. It used to be. But then it got to obvious it was reverse-engineered to give the private school kids the best grades and so on. Location location location decile rating of your home address. Crap like that. The UCAT isn't going to give us information to check anything at all. They give us an absolute score. The University (apparently) says it's method is the uncheckable by us amount our score differs from the mean. But we aren't told what the mean is. So... It's just a way of trying to trick / fool / con people into believing they are stupid and incompetent. Unless they have been previously picked to be a 'chosen one' in which case it is supposed to be adding to that...
So that's another meaningless marker added to the previous.
The third is interview. Which is to check you don't have 3 heads. No, it's not. That would be discrimination. It's something non-discriminatory. Obviously.
And that's it.
It would be hard to bring disrepute to something that is doing such a terrible job of making itself reputable.
I mean... Trying to pass stuff off as reputable when it isn't... What's that called?
Up is down and so on and so on and so on...
And the point of student essays is so the students can write the lecturers course content for them.
And it's just a hoop to get through quickly quickly quick as you can.
So you don't become one of them.
I don't know why it has to be so.
Posted by sigismund on July 6, 2019, at 19:03:29
In reply to Re: President Trump and Queen Elizabeth II, posted by alexandra_k on June 16, 2019, at 2:58:23
Posted by sigismund on July 6, 2019, at 19:06:04
In reply to Solidarity, from FDOTM, posted by sigismund on July 6, 2019, at 19:03:29
Hmmm, why does that not work? Is someone plotting against me?
Posted by sigismund on July 6, 2019, at 19:10:39
In reply to Re: Solidarity, from FDOTM, posted by sigismund on July 6, 2019, at 19:06:04
Maybe it's that wretched thing where words, old fashioned decent ones like sh*t, have to be blocked out?
You can look anyway. The stuff about Xanax and drinking were nice.
When he left Crikey they said they had rescued him from a Launceston call centre. Perhaps that is the data analysis?
Posted by alexandra_k on July 9, 2019, at 2:54:04
In reply to Re: Solidarity, from FDOTM, posted by sigismund on July 6, 2019, at 19:10:39
I couldn't follow either of the links.
Posted by beckett2 on July 13, 2019, at 18:25:36
In reply to brought to you by the home of the free, posted by beckett2 on May 23, 2019, at 22:59:28
Trump Is Poised to Sign a Radical Agreement to Send Future Asylum Seekers to Guatemala
Jonathan Blitzer
Early next week, according to a D.H.S. official, the Trump Administration is expected to announce a major immigration deal, known as a safe-third-country agreement, with Guatemala. For weeks, there have been reports that negotiations were under way between the two countries, but, until now, none of the details were official. According to a draft of the agreement obtained by The New Yorker, asylum seekers from any country who either show up at U.S. ports of entry or are apprehended while crossing between ports of entry could be sent to seek asylum in Guatemala instead. During the past year, tens of thousands of migrants, the vast majority of them from Central America, have arrived at the U.S. border seeking asylum each month. By law, the U.S. must give them a chance to bring their claims before authorities, even though theres currently a backlog in the immigration courts of roughly a million cases. The Trump Administration has tried a number of measures to prevent asylum seekers from entering the countryfrom metering at ports of entry to forcing people to wait in Mexicobut, in every case, international obligations held that the U.S. would eventually have to hear their asylum claims. Under this new arrangement, most of these migrants will no longer have a chance to make an asylum claim in the U.S. at all. Were talking about something much bigger than what the term safe third country implies, someone with knowledge of the deal told me. Were talking about a kind of transfer agreement where the U.S. can send any asylum seekers, not just Central Americans, to Guatemala.From the start of the Trump Presidency, Administration officials have been fixated on a safe-third-country policy with Mexicoa similar accord already exists with Canadasince it would allow the U.S. government to shift the burden of handling asylum claims farther south. The principle was that migrants wouldnt have to apply for asylum in the U.S. because they could do so elsewhere along the way. But immigrants-rights advocates and policy experts pointed out that Mexicos legal system could not credibly take on that responsibility. If youre going to pursue a safe-third-country agreement, you have to be able to say safe with a straight face, Doris Meissner, a former commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, told me. Until very recently, the prospect of such an agreementnot just with Mexico but with any other country in Central Americaseemed far-fetched. Yet last month, under the threat of steep tariffs on Mexican goods, Trump strong-armed the Mexican government into considering it. Even so, according to a former Mexican official, the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador is stalling. They are trying to fight this, the former official said. Whats so striking about the agreement with Guatemala, however, is that it goes even further than the terms the U.S. sought in its dealings with Mexico. This is a whole new level, the person with knowledge of the agreement told me. In my read, it looks like even those who have never set foot in Guatemala can potentially be sent there.
At this point, there are still more questions than answers about what the agreement with Guatemala will mean in practice. A lot will still have to happen before it goes into force, and the terms arent final. The draft of the agreement doesnt provide much clarity on how it will be implementedanother person with knowledge of the agreement said, This reads like it was drafted by someones internbut it does offer an exemption for Guatemalan migrants, which might be why the government of Jimmy Morales, a U.S. ally, seems willing to sign on. Guatemala is currently in the midst of Presidential elections; next month, the country will hold a runoff between two candidates, and the current front-runner has been opposed to this type of deal. The Morales government, however, still has six months left in office. A U.N.-backed anti-corruption body called the CICIG, which for years was funded by the U.S. and admired throughout the region, is being dismantled by Morales, whose own family has fallen under investigation for graft and financial improprieties. Signing an immigration deal would get the Guatemalan government in the U.S.s good graces, Stephen McFarland, a former U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala, told me. The question is, what would they intend to use that status for? Earlier this week, after Morales announced that he would be meeting with Trump in Washington on Monday, three former foreign ministers of Guatemala petitioned the countrys Constitutional Court to block him from signing the agreement. Doing so, they said, would allow the current president of the republic to leave the future of our country mortgaged, without any responsibility.
The biggest, and most unsettling, question raised by the agreement is how Guatemala could possibly cope with such enormous demands. More people are leaving Guatemala now than any other country in the northern triangle of Central America. Rampant poverty, entrenched political corruption, urban crime, and the effects of climate change have made large swaths of the country virtually uninhabitable. This is already a country in which the political and economic system cant provide jobs for all its people, McFarland said. There are all these people, their own citizens, that the government and the political and economic system are not taking care of. To get thousands of citizens from other countries to come in there, and to take care of them for an indefinite period of time, would be very difficult. Although the U.S. would provide additional aid to help the Guatemalan government address the influx of asylum seekers, it isnt clear whether the country has the administrative capacity to take on the job. According to the person familiar with the safe-third-country agreement, U.N.H.C.R. [the U.N.s refugee agency] has not been involved in the current negotiations. And, for Central Americans transferred to Guatemala under the terms of the deal, theres an added security risk: many of the gangs Salvadorans and Hondurans are fleeing also operate in Guatemala.
In recent months, the squalid conditions at borderland detention centers have provoked a broad political outcry in the U.S. At the same time, a worsening asylum crisis has been playing out south of the U.S. border, beyond the immediate notice of concerned Americans. There, the Trump Administration is quietly delivering on its promise to redraw American asylum practice. Since January, under a policy called the Migration Protection Protocols (M.P.P.), the U.S. government has sent more than fifteen thousand asylum seekers to Mexico, where they now must wait indefinitely as their cases inch through the backlogged American immigration courts. Cities in northern Mexico, such as Tijuana and Juarez, are filling up with desperate migrants who are exposed to violent crime, extortion, and kidnappings, all of which are on the rise.This week, as part of the M.P.P., the U.S. began sending migrants to Tamaulipas, one of Mexicos most violent states and a stronghold for drug cartels that, for years, have brutalized migrants for money and for sport.
Safe-third-country agreements are notoriously difficult to enforce. The logistics are complex, and the outcomes tend not to change the harried calculations of asylum seekers as they flee their homes. These agreements, according to a recent study by the Migration Policy Institute, are unlikely to hold the key to solving the crisis unfolding at the U.S. southern border. The Trump Administration has already cut aid to Central America, and the U.S. asylum system remains in dire need of improvement. But theres also little question that the agreement with Guatemala will reduce the number of people who reach, and remain in, the U.S. If the President has made the asylum crisis worse, hell also be able to say hes improving itjust as he can claim credit for the decline in the number of apprehensions at the U.S. border last month. That was the result of increased enforcement efforts by the Mexican government acting under U.S. pressure.
Theres also no reason to expect that the Trump Administration will abandon its efforts to force the Mexicans into a safe-third-country agreement as well. The Mexican government thought that the possibility of a safe-third-country agreement with Guatemala had fallen apart because of the elections there, the former Mexican official told me. The recent news caught top Mexican officials by surprise. In the next month, the two countries will continue immigration talks, and, again, Mexico will face mounting pressure to accede to American demands. The U.S. has used the agreement with Guatemala to convince the Mexicans to sign their own safe-third-country agreement, the former official said. Its argument is that the number of migrants Mexico will receive will be lower now.
Posted by alexandra_k on July 15, 2019, at 4:45:28
In reply to Immigration, land of the free policy, posted by beckett2 on July 13, 2019, at 18:25:36
Oh, Dear.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=effmUm_OGz0
I expect the solution is to arrive with paper, really.
I am not at all sure what is going on with / for me. I suppose I am being examined. Possibly I am being taught how to follow regulations / document violations of others by way of the school of hard knocks.
I don't know.
This is the end of the thread.
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