US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported at least 72 people to Haiti on Monday, including a two-month-old baby and 21 other children, in an apparent flagrant breach of the Biden administration’s orders only to remove suspected terrorists and potentially dangerous convicted felons. The children were deported to Haiti on Monday on two flights chartered by ICE from Laredo, Texas to the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince. The removals sent vulnerable infants back to Haiti as it is being roiled by major political unrest.

Last Friday, the administration appeared to gain the upper hand in its attempt to rein in ICE when deportation flights to Haiti were suspended.  But on Monday the immigration agency reasserted itself again with the renewed flights to Port-au-Prince, children and infants on board.

Human rights activists are dismayed by the deportations, which bear a close resemblance to the hardline course set by Donald Trump. “It is unconscionable for us as a country to continue with the same draconian, cruel policies that were pursued by the Trump administration,” said Guerline Jozef, executive director of the immigration support group the Haitian Bridge Alliance.

Immigration advisers are especially concerned about the safety of the Haitian children deported on Monday, given that they are being returned to a country that is embroiled in rapidly mounting political turmoil. The Haitian president, Jovenel Moïse, is refusing to heed opposition calls for him to step down in a dispute over the end of his term – his detractors say he should have left office on 7 February.

Moïse has been ruling by decree for more than a year and has recently cracked down on public protests. On Sunday, the day that opponents urged him to stand down, he announced the arrests of 23 people including a supreme court justice and a senior police inspector whom he claimed were plotting a coup against him.   Two Haitian journalists were reportedly shot with live ammunition fired by the armed forces on Monday in volatile scenes in the Champ de Mars in downtown Port-au-Prince.

The Biden administration has stoked further controversy by backing Moïse in the dispute. The US government has announced it takes the view that the Haitian president has another year to run before he must leave office.

Jozef said it was not safe to return children to this environment. “I fear for the kids being sent into the middle of this uprising. It’s as if there is a house burning, and instead of taking people out for their own safety the United States is sending defenseless babies into the burning house.”

ICE is continuing the deportations under the controversial use of Title 42, a health statute introduced in 1944 that was rarely used until recently. The Trump administration supercharged its application under the guise that it was necessary as a health protection against the coronavirus pandemic. (Washington Post  2/9/21)

My comment:   I would summarily fire the head of ICE for ignoring a Presidential order, but, more important, for submitting little children to the trauma of being expelled and dumped in (dangerous) Haiti. What is wrong with these people?  Have they absolutely no morals or human compassion?  We no longer want or need a heartless bunch of “uncivil” servants.  The peace of mind of children and migrants is as important to them as is peace of mind of the followers of Epicurus.

President Biden’s proposed $15 minimum wage is a key part of setting the economy right. Predictably, however, critics pounced on it as soon as it was announced, making the usual arguments against paying folks decently. This time, however, because we’re  in the middle of a pandemic, these critics are also trying to argue that providing a liveable wage just isn’t possible during the COVID crisis and accompanying recession.

The reasons why they are wrong are as follows: 

The federal minimum wage, $7.25 per hour, hasn’t been raised since 2009, since when  the cost of living has risen all over the US.  Millions  of people couldn’t pay their bills even before COVID struck, and inflation has made what was already nowhere near enough in 2009 downright laughable in our modern economy. Nobody should be working full-time and living in poverty.

A $15 minimum wage is targeted COVID relief. An estimated 40 million workers would get a raise if the measure is passed. That’s a whopping 26.6 percent of the workforce and a full two-thirds of the working poor. With little to no savings and a labor market that has disproportionately cut low-wage jobs, this group has suffered the most during the pandemic and stands to benefit most  from the change. 

Consumer spending drives about 70% of the economy and creates the lion’s share of our growth every year.   If almost half of the population is earning less than $15 an hour, they frankly don’t have any extra money in their pockets to spend on anything but necessities like food, rent, and bills. If we make sure millions of people have just a little bit more cash, then they’ve got a lot more to spend in their local economies, helping American businesses thrive and jumpstarting the entire economy. 

We’ve actually already seen the benefits of a $15 minimum wage play out. When Congress gave out $1200 stimulus checks and approved a $600/week unemployment assistance boost last year, they ensured that millions of those low-wage workers who lost their jobs were making the equivalent of $15 an hour. The result? Poverty was a full 2 points lower in April and May 2020 than it was at the beginning of that year, and consumer spending grew for the first time during the pandemic. 

Despite what the critics might say, raising the wage won’t force tons of businesses to close. There is plenty of research that debunks this oft-cited myth, including an official scoring from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that stated raising the wage to $15 would have little or no impact on employment

A federal minimum wage is the floor – not the ceiling – for what states and localities should do with their wages. Many folks on the left wing rightly point out that for many places in America, $15 an hour is simply too low. The thing is, the federal minimum wage was always intended to be the bare minimum that an employer could pay a worker anywhere in the US, so states and localities can and MUST raise their minimum wages to accommodate for regional differences. Biden’s proposal helpfully makes this a bit easier by indexing the minimum wage to inflation, so that the federal minimum never stays so woefully behind the times as it is now.

Biden’s proposal eliminates the tipped minimum wage, a vestige of slavery that we should all be glad to get rid of. The tipped minimum wage began as a way to justify under-paying Black former slaves  in the post-Civil War economy, and it’s left millions of workers vulnerable to abuse, sexual harassment, and financial precariousness ever since. The tipped minimum wage has been stuck at a shocking $2.13 an hour for nearly 30 years, and it’s encouraging to see the Biden administration commit to phasing out this horrible practice. 

Simply put, raising the wage to $15 is good for workers, good for the economy, and good for our society. We think it’s a no-brainer for the new administration, and we’re delighted beyond measure that they seem to agree. Of course, the proposal will have to make its way through Congress before the President-Elect gets to make good on his promise, but we remain hopeful and ready to make sure this bill gets passed as soon as possible – because we know that millions of our neighbors can’t wait.

(The Patriotic Millionaire, a lively organization comprising very rich people with a conscience, bless them!)