Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Monday, February 10, 2020
Alanna Berger
Zack Blumberg
Brittany Bowman
Emily Considine
Cheryn Hong
Krystal Hur
Ethan Kessler
Mary Rolfes
Michael Russo
Timothy Spurlin
Miles Stephenson
Joel Weiner
Erin White
Lola Yang
ERIN WHITE
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Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of The Daily’s Editorial Board.
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EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
KEITH JOHNSTONE | COLUMN
Trump’s two worst enemies you’ve never heard of
O
n Sept. 24, 2019, Speaker
Nancy Pelosi held a press
conference
launching
the official impeachment inquiry
against President Donald Trump.
That day, she introduced America
to the six-headed monster of
committee chairmen who were
investigating Trump. If you pay
attention to politics, you probably
know U.S. Reps. Adam Schiff,
D-Calif., Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y.,
Maxine Waters, D-Calif. and the late
Elijah Cummings, D-Md. Each has
become famous via their frequent
appearances on cable news or viral
clips berating cabinet secretaries
— or, in the case of Nadler, buckets
of fried chicken. However, unless
you’re from the East Coast or pay
too much attention to politics, you
probably did not recognize the
chairmen of the Congressional
Ways and Means Committee and
Foreign Affairs Committee. The
two men, Reps. Richard Neal,
D-Mass., and Eliot Engel, D-N.Y.,
have planted several landmines just
waiting to explode on Trump.
Neal, a grown man who goes by
“Richie,” has spent his entire career
devoted to budgetary and economic
issues. His record is an economic
policy treasure trove, focused on
simplifying the tax code, repealing
the Alternative Minimum Tax and
supporting lower trade barriers.
He operated in Washington under
the radar for years until he came
to prominence in 2007 when he
clashed with another prominent
policymaker,
Rep.
Paul
Ryan,
R-Wis.,
over
the
Alternative
Minimum Tax.
While Neal’s bill eventually lost
out, his new notoriety in policy
circles allowed him to chair the
Ways and Means subcommittee
on Select Revenue Measures the
following year. He then became
the ranking member of Ways and
Means in 2017, once again sparring
with Ryan through the Tax Cuts
and Jobs Act of 2017 — another
fight he ultimately lost. However,
he got the ultimate win over Ryan
by becoming the chairman of Ways
and Means when Ryan left office.
Though he has been quiet,
preferring to operate out of the
public eye, Neal has had a busy year.
First, he and the committee built a
comprehensive legal argument for
subpoenaing Trump’s tax returns
and he is now the lead plaintiff in a
court fight over that subpoena. Soon
after he became one of the leading
Democrats
on
the
President’s
NAFTA 2.0 trade agreement, also
known as the United States-Mexico-
Canada
Agreement
(USMCA).
In his spare time, Neal has been
chairing the Joint Congressional
Committee on Taxation and trying
to pass Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s
prescription drug bill.
Such a large profile prompts one
question: How is he doing? The
answer: Not bad, but there are still
some big issues on the table. The
USMCA passed both chambers,
the Joint Committee released a
large-scale report earlier this week
and the tax returns case is working
its way through the federal court
system. However, the USMCA
contained lower labor standards
than Neal initially set out for, the
prescription drug bill has stalled
and he still hasn’t received those tax
returns. Putting his mixed record
aside, though, Neal could be easily
described as Democrats’ largest
domestic policy asset, and with
China’s “Phase 1” trade deal coming
to the House floor, this might not be
the last time you hear about him.
In contrast to the rank-and-file
Neal, Engel, whose mustache might
be more prominent than the man it’s
attached to, has been one of the few
members of Congress whose career
has been defined by bipartisan
compromises. First elected in 1988
based on his progressive idealism,
Engel was an early proponent
of single-payer healthcare, paid
family leave and an assault weapons
ban.
However,
Engel’s
career
path was altered forever when
he fell in love with foreign policy
in 1996. He came to prominence
in Washington as the leader of
a
bipartisan
group
criticizing
the
Clinton
administration’s
noninterventionism in the Kosovo
genocide. In fact, he became so
intertwined with justice for the
small nation that a street in its
capital is named after him. This
trend
of
criticizing
presidents
from both sides of the aisle
contributed to his credibility in
Washington’s foreign policy circles
as a principled member. This was
especially reflected in 2015 when
Engel vocally opposed the Obama
administration’s Iran nuclear deal.
As the ranking member of the
House Foreign Affairs Committee,
Engel has led bipartisan trips
abroad that tour everything from
war zones to the Munich Security
Conference, which grants him
significant goodwill on both sides of
the aisle. Recognizing his bipartisan
history, House Republicans were
not upset with Engel’s appointment
to the Foreign Affairs chairmanship
after the 2018 midterms.
The Trump administration’s
plethora of foreign policy blunders
have kept Engel busy over the
past year, but none more than the
Ukraine scandal. This scandal and
subsequent
impeachment
saga
threatened to put Engel on center
stage, with his committee being
one of the three allowed to attend
closed-door depositions. When the
televised impeachment hearings
were looming, Engel was faced
with a decision: go on the cable
news circuit or forego the spotlight.
He quickly chose the latter and
allowed Schiff and Nadler to be
mocked nightly by journalistic
paragons like Greg Gutfeld, Tucker
Carlson and Sean Hannity. In the
following weeks, the news cycle
churned on and Engel returned
to his largely thankless day job of
having his subpoenas ignored by
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
However, with about 10 months
until election day and countless
foreign policy decisions, from
Russia to Iran to whatever Jared
Kushner is doing, this is likely not
the last you will hear of Engel,
either.
Simply put, both Neal and
Engel have consciously avoided
the gaze of the general public,
preferring to silently lay traps for
Trump using their high offices
and
large
portfolios.
When
the
administration
inevitably
encounters one of these traps — my
bet is Neal’s tax return subpoena or
Engel’s Ukraine revelations — they
will find a foe with tremendous
respect and without a demeaning
nickname bestowed by Fox News
or Trump’s Twitter feed. That is
the point.
Keith Johnstone can be
reached at keithja@umich.edu.
ALLISON PUJOL | COLUMN
Waiting outside the golden door
P
oet Emma Lazarus’s words
displayed on the Statue
of Liberty will likely be
remembered for decades to come.
The text of her poem “The New
Colossus,” which experts have
praised for both its poise and
defiance, ends with an iconic,
powerful call to action: “ ‘Give
me your tired, your poor, / Your
huddled masses yearning to breathe
free, / The wretched refuse of your
teeming shore. / Send these, the
homeless, tempest-tost to me, / I lift
my lamp beside the golden door!’ ”
While
speaking
to
NPR’s
Morning Edition to announce a
new immigration regulation, Ken
Cuccinelli, acting Director of U.S.
Citizenship
and
Immigration
Services (USCIS), suggested in a
smirking aside to “Give me your tired
and your poor who can stand on
their own two feet and who will not
become a public charge.”
“No one has a right to become
an American who isn’t born here
as an American,” said Cuccinelli,
director of the agency primarily
responsible for immigration and
citizenship
applications
in
the
United States. Many in immigration
policy circles have been attentive
to the recent Supreme Court ruling
about Cuccinelli’s proposed public
charge rule that has restricted legal
immigration in the U.S. Put simply,
the “public charge” rule renders an
individual ineligible for permanent
legal residence status (also known as
a “green card” or LPR) if they receive
in-kind (i.e., non-cash) government
assistance such as Medicaid, housing
vouchers or food stamps. For some,
perhaps the logic seems intuitive
enough: Given that government
assistance is funded by taxpayers,
the cost of thousands of immigrants
qualifying and receiving welfare
every year would be enormous for
U.S. citizens. (Please do note that
non-citizens also do pay taxes, and
that is often a condition to receive
LPR).
The reality is that there are
already fairly restrictive guidelines
in place that determine who can
and cannot obtain legal permanent
residence in the U.S. To have a
decent chance at legal permanent
residency, immigrants need to
produce an affidavit of support that
indicates they or a close relative who
is already a citizen earns a steady,
substantial income. And that’s just
one example — there are many
biometric screening procedures in
place to confirm that immigrants
or their families are considered
adequate
for
legal
permanent
residence.
Now, under the new public
charge regulation, an immigrant
who has received assistance within
36 months (three years) of applying
for legal permanent residence or
seems “likely” to receive assistance
at some point in the future will be
ineligible. For example, a single
mother who receives government
benefits while she searches for
employment in the U.S., secures
a job and then applies for legal
permanent residence would be
ineligible even if she or her children
never
received
government
assistance ever again.
Many supporters of the new
regulation insist that the regulation
is only an extension of prior policy.
Prior to the new USCIS regulation,
immigration
officials
did
not
typically enforce the public charge
rule as it was difficult to assess what
it meant for somebody to be “likely”
to receive assistance and the rule
seemed fairly counter-intuitive. After
all, many immigrants come to the
U.S. in search of better employment,
housing or education opportunities
than in their home countries. Some
immigrants who flee the social or
political conditions in their home
countries may be unable to take
forms of material wealth with them
into the U.S., and it’s unreasonable to
assume that everyone should have
the means to make it in America
immediately upon arriving.
It is also worth noting that
over-arching regulations and bans
are unprecedented in American
immigration law. Both President
Jimmy Carter’s Iran order and
President Ronald Reagan’s Cuba
proclamation,
which
invoked
the need for a national security-
based limit on immigration visas,
adopted a case-by-case approach.
In the dissenting opinion in
Trump v. Hawaii, Justice Stephen
Breyer pondered, “... if those two
Presidents thought a case-by-case
exemption
system
appropriate,
what is different about present
circumstances that would justify
that system’s absence?”
It is important to call out the
new regulation for exactly what
it is. The new public charge rule
sends the message that immigrants
are only welcome if they can
come to the U.S. with substantial
means and resources, which is
both disconnected from reality
and socially irresponsible. Public
health experts are also worried
that the new rule won’t limit
immigration flows into the U.S.
but rather convince immigrants to
stop seeking healthcare through
Medicaid or other public health
benefits.
Allison Pujol can be reached at
ampmich@umich.edu.
NOAH ENTE | COLUMN
Palestine’s missed opportunity
L
ast
week,
President
Donald Trump released
his much-anticipated and
self-titled “Deal of the Century,”
the administration’s framework to
resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict.
With the deal finally published in
detail, a wide spectrum of responses
arose into the discourse. Overall,
there appeared to be approval from
Israel’s government, led (for now) by
Trump confidant and veteran Prime
Minister
Benjamin
Netanyahu,
along with mixed reviews from the
American public and the American
Jewish community. There were also
expected responses of disapproval
and
rejection
by
Palestinians,
among whom Mahmoud Abbas
— president of the Palestinian
National Authority — stood out with
his declaration of “a thousand no’s.”
The use of the term “Arab-Israeli
conflict” to refer to the tension that
has lasted — in one way or another
— for over a century, is purposeful.
Arab states and their leaders
have always played a significant
role in shaping the course of the
conflict throughout the decades.
Such examples include former
Egyptian President Gamal Abdel
Nasser’s casus belli that set both
the consequential 1967 Six-Day
War into motion and the 2002
Saudi-led Arab Peace Initiative that
conditioned the establishment of
formal ties between Israel and Arab
states on the premise that Israel
withdraw to the 1949 armistice
lines, or as they have often been
called, the “1967 Lines.” It is clear
that the position taken by Arab
leaders has proved influential in
determining much of the discourse
surrounding the conflict, if not the
facts on the ground themselves.
With such context in mind,
the response of many important
Arab figures to the release of the
Trump plan is quite notable. On
Jan. 28, when the details of the plan
were put out in full, dignitaries from
many Arab countries either came
to Washington to show support
for the deal or released statements
encouraging the diplomatic efforts
and urging acceptance of the plan
as a basis for ongoing talks. Such
countries include Bahrain, Oman,
the United Arab Emirates, Saudi
Arabia and Morocco. Their support
for the plan as a start to future
negotiations, and even support for
the plan itself, is telling because it
reveals the beginnings of a shift
in the attitude of the Arab world
towards the plight of Palestinian
nationalism.
With each solution that has been
proposed for resolving the Arab-
Israeli conflict, those who now
identify themselves as Palestinians
have received a less generous offer.
Indeed, even plans for peace during
the British Mandate period were
almost
completely
sympathetic
to Arab desires. The 1947 United
Nations partition plan, the design
of which gave Arabs much of the
agriculturally viable and historically
meaningful land and gave Jews the
desert for most of their territory,
was quickly accepted by then-Israeli
Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion
(whose partner, would-be Israeli
President Chaim Weizmann, would
have accepted much less) and the
Jewish Yishuv, and so the formal
framework for Israel’s establishment
was advanced.
Even after the existence of
Israel was solidified through law
and survival from multiple wars of
attempted annihilation, rejections
continued,
leaving
Palestinians
without a state as a result of their
inflexible demands. Negotiations
from the 1990s until 2000 led by
former President Bill Clinton were
known to have stalled due to Yasser
Arafat’s unwillingness to budge,
and Clinton himself has blamed
the Palestinian leader for dooming
peace prospects at the Camp David
summit. Even with all parties under
new leadership in 2008, with a
surprisingly generous proposal that
included Israel ceding its claim to a
united capital in Jerusalem in favor
of establishing it as international
territory, met Palestinian rejection.
The pattern can be seen here,
clear as day. To paraphrase Israeli
diplomat and U.N. Ambassador
Abba Eban, the Palestinians “never
miss an opportunity to miss an
opportunity.”
It is important to know and
recognize
this
history
when
evaluating the offer the Palestinians
currently find in front of them. Yes,
it is significantly less sympathetic
to their demands and desires
compared to previous proposals,
and addresses Israeli concerns
prominently. However, if Abbas
and the rest of the Palestinian
leadership find the “Deal of the
Century”
to
be
unacceptable,
they have only their predecessors
and themselves to blame. They
repeatedly refused compromise
and even a small waiting period to
receive everything they desired,
and now question how they find
themselves in such a predicament.
The reactions by many Arab
states to the release of a peace
plan generally understood to be
favorable to Israel reveal that
their leaders, to some degree, also
acknowledge the true history of
Arab-Israeli negotiations. They
are at least subtly calling on the
Palestinians
to
finally
accept
something after over a century of
dispute that they have perpetuated
through stubbornness, delusion
and often ill will.
Many
Israelis,
Palestinians
and their supporters all have
varying gripes with the terms of
the Trump plan or the future it
may lay out. Yet if the Palestinian
leadership has learned anything
from past or current patterns of
the conflict, and truly wants to
accomplish
something
rather
than simply seeking victimhood,
representatives should at least
come to the negotiating table and
civilly voice their concerns.
After Abbas’s boycott of the
Trump administration following
its recognition of the basic fact that
Jerusalem is Israel’s capital and
the subsequent relocation of the
U.S. Embassy, they have no right to
complain about not influencing the
original formation of the plan. If
they seek to have any control over
their future, Abbas must swallow
his pride and come prepared to talk.
If not, Palestinians will continue to
have only their own leaders to blame
for their current plight.
Noah Ente can be reached at
noahente@umich.edu.
KEVIN MOORE JR. | CONTACT CARTOONIST AT KEVINJR@UMICH.EDU
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in search of better
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