Thanks for the rec! I’ll give it a listen.

I certainly hope you’re right.

No worries! I get the frustration.

I think things could change pretty quickly if a ceasefire is reached, and reached before another 35,000 people die. If this is still going on when the fall semester begins, it’s going to be ugly.

That’s probably why Biden is at 7% to Trump’s 2%.

Except you’re comparing apples to oranges. The October poll was national while the most recent poll was just done in battleground states.

I imagine watching your extended family suffer under an artificial famine while dodging bombs and shells raises your tolerance for discomfort while punishing those responsible.

59% in 2020 to 25% in 2024 is a decrease of 34% for Biden.

Are you puzzled by these numbers? Are you asking, “How could they think letting Trump win is going to make anything better?” Well, if you genuinely want to understand, read this reporting by Slate.

Here are some highlights:

I heard a similar sentiment from another patron, Fares, a Palestinian man who became a U.S. citizen 20 years ago, and voted for Biden in 2020. “I feel like, whether Republicans or Democrats, it’s all the same,” he said. “I don’t think I’m going to vote for any because it doesn’t matter.” It’s a major shift for him. He was born in Syria to parents exiled in 1948 from what is now Haifa. He told me he hadn’t missed a presidential election before, but now he doesn’t see a point. “If 12,000 dead kids don’t change their hearts, you think you or I will?”

…

In a conversation at Qahwah House, Elabed seemed tired. It had become obvious to her she could no longer support Biden, and she didn’t see why that was so hard to understand. “It is hard for me to reconcile my core beliefs and morals to support a president that dehumanizes my people,” Elabed said. “This is a president that I met in person. That knows my sister. That met my mom, who wore a traditional Palestinian thobe at the White House.”

…

I posed the obvious question, asking if she thought Trump would be better. “What’s worse than genocide?” she retorted. “Maybe if the Democrats lose this election, they’ll learn their lesson. I’m happy to take several steps back if that’s what it takes to take a step forward.” When I argued, I got thousand-yard stares.

A poll published at the end of October 2023 found “only 17% of Arab American voters saying they will vote for Biden in 2024—a staggering drop from 59% in 2020.”

Then a couple weeks ago a NYT poll “found Trump leading among registered Middle Eastern, North African or Muslim voters in the swing states, with 57 percent saying they were planning to back him in November. Only 25 percent said they were supporting Biden.”

My on the ground reporting beats your nothing. But here’s some data for you. The Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee and the Truth Project asked 36,139 Arab Americans and “allied voters” “Who are you voting for in November?” 2,196 people responded. Here are the results:

2% Trump

7% Biden

25% Jill Stein

20% Cornell West

19% Undecided

23% Uncommitted

3% Stay home

A poll published at the end of October 2023 found “only 17% of Arab American voters saying they will vote for Biden in 2024—a staggering drop from 59% in 2020.”

Then a couple weeks ago a NYT poll “found Trump leading among registered Middle Eastern, North African or Muslim voters in the swing states, with 57 percent saying they were planning to back him in November. Only 25 percent said they were supporting Biden.”

Agreed

There’s no honor in being a boot for the empire

If you vote like the Arabic community, you’re throwing them under the bus?

Slate went to Dearborn, MI:

“If it came down to Trump and Joe Biden, I will vote for Trump. Because it doesn’t get worse than Joe Biden,” a man named Salah told me. His friend, Amad, added, “Biden was supposed to be the peacemaker. The comfort-maker. Instead, he became accessory to the biggest genocide in modern history.”

…

“Imagine thinking it’s a good argument to say to a community that has lost 30,000 people, ‘Watch out for the guy that’s going to ban you.’ You’re really asking me whether I’m going to take a ban or a genocide? I’ll take a ban,” Zahr told me.

“I mean, we’ve literally seen our families and our people being thrown into mass graves. Babies blown to bits. It’s not some far-off thing to us,” he said. “It’s been a struggle to declare our own humanity while mourning for our people being massacred.”

…

The truth is Ahmed was one of the only Arabs I could find in Dearborn who openly admitted they actually planned to vote for Biden in November.

Please stop acting like the US isn’t the 500 lb gorilla in international politics

or ovaries or even a pulse at this point

This is another example of the realignment that is happening. Democrats are more and more the party of the college-educated and Republicans the party of the non-college-educated. Race and ethnicity is less and less important.

If you don’t think Python is a good scripting language, what is a good scripting language in your opinion? Bourne Shell? VBScript? PHP?

I did nazi that coming!

Under Biden, ICE has ignored the documented unsafe conditions in the detention facilities it contracts with resulting in the needless deaths of multiple detainees:

During the first year of the Biden administration, DHS worked with oversight agencies to review facilities with substandard conditions… The administration closed out or reduced capacity for some of the worst facilities following this review, but these actions were the “barest minimum” compared to what officials involved in the review had envisioned.[50] In August 2022, another internal DHS study recommended closing or downsizing nine immigration detention centers.[51] However, ICE only ended contracts with two of the detention centers mentioned in that review.[52]

ICE refuses to comply with recommendations from oversight bodies, such as the DHS OIG, when they issue scathing reports about life-threatening conditions. For example, the OIG issued a report in March 2022 on Torrance County Detention Facility which had already failed one Nakamoto inspection in 2021, recommending that ICE immediately stop detaining people there.[54] ICE rejected the recommendation, and continued to keep hundreds of people detained in Torrance.[55] That same month, ICE’s contracting officer also issued a report finding that violations of federal standards continued in Torrance.[56]

Later that year, in August 2022, a young man from Brazil named Kesley Vial, died in the Torrance facility.[59] ICE’s review of Kesley’s death addressed similar failures identified in the OIG report that contributed to his fatal suicide attempt.[60]

At another ICE detention facility in Port Isabel, Texas, the OIG reported in February 2023 on “unsafe conditions,” and found the facility did “not meet standards for detainee segregation.”[61] Months later, on October 8, 2023, Julio Cesar Chirino Peralta died in ICE custody after being detained at Port Isabel.[62]

Under Biden, 12 people have died in ICE custody.[64]

…

Continuing to fund ICE’s detention system is inhumane and misguided. For fiscal year 2023, U.S. taxpayers paid $2.8 billion for ICE detention.[66] Following the end of the Trump-era Title 42 mass expulsion policy in May, the Biden administration adopted a more hardline approach, implementing new “sweeping” enforcement measures, including increasing detention capacity.[67] In doing so, the administration chose to ignore years of evidence showing that punitive enforcement measures do not lead to decreases in migration numbers.[68] Detention numbers spiked, from 22,000 in May to over 39,000 by the end of October 2023.[69] In continuing to expand the incarceration of people facing administrative removal proceedings, the administration ignores clear evidence showing that legal representation and community-based support services are a more humane and effective method of ensuring compliance at immigration court hearings.[70]

The Biden administration is frequently choosing to hold asylum seekers in detention while their case goes through the system instead of just processing them and releasing them with a court date as was the standard practice before Trump:

Biden has also started sending more migrants, most of whom have no criminal record, to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention. [Vox]

This policy has been protested by Human Rights Watch, Amensty International, and a slew of other organizations:

Rights Groups Oppose President Biden’s Expansion of ICE Detention:

April 25, 2024

Dear President Biden:

We write to express outrage over your administration’s expansion of the cruel and unnecessary immigration detention system. Last month, you signed a spending bill that provides historically high funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention - $3.4 billion in taxpayers’ money. Our organizations work with and advocate on behalf of people who have experienced immigration detention. They carry life long scars from the mistreatment and dehumanization they endured because of the United States’ reliance on detention, mostly through private prisons and county jails. Your administration is further entrenching this reliance, marking an utter betrayal of your campaign promises.

…

In an abrupt change of course, over the last two years, ICE has instead increased the number of people in custody. Most of the facilities on ICE’s internal closure list remain open, despite numerous reports from advocates and service providers further documenting the ineffectiveness of detention and the need for a different approach. As the political winds shifted, so did your funding requests to Congress. In October 2023, you requested supplemental detention funding, and your FY2025 budget request sought funding for 34,000 beds instead of the 25,000 sought in the two previous cycles. The result is unsurprising: the FY2024 spending bill you signed provides ICE $3.4 billion to jail an average of 41,500 immigrants per day, historically high funding surpassing all four years of the Trump administration.

…

Detention does not provide an efficient or ethical means of border processing, and it certainly does not indicate to migrants that they are welcome in the United States. It merely exists to further the political goal of deterrence, which is cruel, inhumane and misguided – as even the most punitive forms of detention have been proven not to deter people from seeking safety or a better life.

Sincerely,

18 Million Rising 
…
Amnesty International USA
…
Center for Immigration Law and Policy, UCLA School of Law 
…
Human Rights Watch 
…
Mijente
Muslim Advocates
…
Refugees International
Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights 
Showing Up for Racial Justice 
Sikh Coalition
…
Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice 
…

Under Biden, ICE’s use of solitary confinement violates its own policies and guidelines and constitutes torture according to the standards of UN experts:

This report – a joint effort by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), Harvard Law School’s Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program (HIRCP), and researchers at Harvard Medical School (HMS) – provides a detailed overview of how solitary confinement is being used by ICE across detention facilities in the United States, and its failure to adhere to its own policies, guidance, and directives.

The study reveals that immigration detention facilities fail to comply with ICE guidelines and directives regarding solitary confinement. Despite significant documented issues, including whistleblower alarms and supposed monitoring and oversight measures, there has been negligible progress. The report highlights a significant discrepancy between the 2020 campaign promise of U.S. President Joseph Biden to end solitary confinement and the ongoing practices observed in ICE detention. Over the last decade, the use of solitary confinement has persisted, and worse, the recent trend under the current administration reflects an increase in frequency and duration. Data from solitary confinement use in 2023 – though likely an underestimation as this report explains – demonstrates a marked increase in the instances of solitary confinement.

This report exposes a continuing trend of ICE using solitary confinement for punitive purposes rather than as a last resort – in violation of its own directives. Many of the people interviewed were placed in solitary confinement for minor disciplinary infractions or as a form of retaliation for participating in hunger strikes or for submitting complaints. Many reported inadequate access to medical care, including mental health care, during their solitary confinement, which they said led to the exacerbation of existing conditions or the development of new ones, including symptoms consistent with depression, anxiety, and PTSD. The conditions in solitary confinement were described as dehumanizing, with people experiencing harsh living conditions, limited access to communication and recreation, and verbal abuse or harassment from facility staff.

In the last five years alone, ICE has placed people in solitary confinement over 14,000 times, with an average duration of 27 days, well exceeding the 15-day threshold that United Nations (UN) human rights experts have found constitutes torture. Many of the longest solitary confinement placements involved people with mental health conditions, indicating a failure to provide appropriate care for vulnerable populations more broadly.

The treatment of people in immigration detention facilities and the excessive, punitive use of solitary confinement is not only contrary to ICE’s own policies and guidance but also violates U.S. constitutional law and international human rights law