overheard
‘Caravans are heading here.
Must pass tough laws and build the WALL.
Democrats allow open borders, drugs and crime!’
- President Trump, in a tweet April 2, one in a series about US immigration policy and
border security he fired off beginning Easter Sunday. The tweets included threats to
scuttle foreign aid and negotiations on the North American Free Trade Agreement with
Mexico if it did not halt a group of around 1,200 immigrants, mostly Hondurans fleeing
political violence, that was headed toward the US border. Mr. Trump announced a day
later that he would send the National Guard to the border.
‘He’s trying to paint this as if we are trying
to go ... storm the border.’
- Irineo Mujica, Mexico director of Pueblo Sin Fronteras (People Without Borders), which organized the refugee caravan and
others in recent years. The caravans, which have taken place around Easter for the past five years, have a dual purpose: to pro-
vide safety in numbers and to draw attention to the treacherous journey many migrants face. While the most recent caravan
is larger than previous ones, Mr. Mujica told the BBC that fewer than 100 of the group would try to get to the United States.
By April 3, Mexico had repatriated several hundred back to Central America and were offering refugee status to others who
qualified.
‘Today, our planet faces increasing
challenges, [including] climate change
and all its implications.’
- Ford Motor Company executive chairman Bill Ford (pictured) and president and chief execu-
tive officer Jim Hackett in a blog post March 27, explaining why they do not welcome the blanket
rollback of auto emissions standards proposed by Environmental Protection Agency head Scott
Pruitt. Mr. Ford and Mr. Hackett said they instead favor more flexibility in the rules so they could
offer less-costly options. The Obama-era standards aim to have all cars and light trucks sold in the
United States get 50-plus miles per gallon by 2025. California, which has authority to set its own
emissions standards under the Clean Air Act, threatened to sue the EPA over the planned repeal.
‘Let me tell you something: There’s no bigger country
than China, and they just changed the constitution
to give the president an open term, up to life.’
- Imad Eddin Adib, an Egyptian television host, echoing the sentiment among many allies of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah
al-Sisi, whose reelection in a landslide victory (97 percent of the vote) was confirmed April 2. The election was widely seen by
outside observers as a sham in which the only other candidate was one of Mr. Sisi’s supporters. Serious challengers had been
jailed or dropped out. Sisi’s backers have been pushing to alter the Constitution to allow Sisi to stay in power beyond his two-
term limit.
‘All the issues that he raised toward the end of his
life are as contemporary now as they were then.’
- Taylor Branch, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian who has written several books about Martin
Luther King Jr. (pictured), speaking to The New York Times about King’s legacy on the 50th an-
niversary of his assassination on April 4, 1968. Mr. Branch pointed out that Americans generally
focus on King’s earlier efforts, such as his crusade against the segregationist Jim Crow laws in the
US South. Branch points to the deeper – and still current – issues King was tackling just before his
death: income inequality, structural racism and segregation, and wars that drain funds that could
otherwise be spent on a progressive domestic agenda.
APAPAP/FILE