INSIDE THE ADMINISTRATION’S “KIDDIE GULAG:” Thousands Of Allegations Of Sexual Abuse Surface!

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/26/politics/hhs-documents-minors-sexual-abuse/index.html

Sophie Tatum reports for CNN:

Washington (CNN)The Department of Health and Human Services received more than 4,500 complaints of sexual abuse against unaccompanied minors from 2014-2018, according to internal agency documents released Tuesday by Florida Democratic Rep. Ted Deutch.

In addition,1,303 complaints were reported to the Justice Department during that same time frame, according to the documents.
Deutch addressed the documents during a high-profile House hearing Tuesday on the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy that resulted in thousands of immigrant children being separated from their parents.
He said that the documents “demonstrate over the past three years, there have been 154 staff on unaccompanied minor, let me repeat that, staff on unaccompanied minor allegations of sexual assault.”
“This works out on average to one sexual assault by HHS staff on unaccompanied minor per week,” he added.
Axios first reported the documents.
“I am deeply concerned with documents that have been turned over by HHS that record a high number of sexual assaults on unaccompanied children in the custody of the Office of Refugee and Resettlement,” Deutch said. “Together, these documents detail an environment of systemic sexual assaults by staff on unaccompanied children.”
HHS spokesperson Caitlin Oakley addressed the reports in a statement, saying minors’ safety is a “top concern,” and noted that there are “rigorous standards” in place for employees, which include mandatory background checks.
“These are vulnerable children in difficult circumstances, and ORR fully understands its responsibility to ensure that each child is treated with the utmost care. When any allegations of abuse, sexual abuse, or neglect are made, they are taken seriously and ORR acts swiftly to investigate and respond,” Oakley said.
At the hearing Tuesday, HHS’ US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps commander, Jonathan White, defended his agency against accusations of sexual abuse when asked by Rep. Tom McClintock, a California Republican, to respond to allegations that they were all “but serial child molesters” during a “drive-by slander a few minutes ago.”
“We share concern that I think everyone in this room feels. Anytime a child is abused in the care of ORR is one too many,” White said.
He added that “the vast majority of allegations prove to be unfounded when they are investigated by state law enforcement and federal law enforcement and the state licensure authorities to whom we refer them.”
“It is important to note that I am not aware of a single instance anywhere of an allegation against the ORR federal staff for abuse of a child,” White said.
Some of the incidents that were reported to the Justice Department included allegations against staff members who were accused of having relationships with minors, unwanted sexual touching and showing the minors pornographic videos, according to Axios. Axios also reported that of the thousands of complaints, there were 178 accusations against the adult staff.

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The Administration’s responses sound like a cover up to me. And they were “coaxed out” by GOP Reps who appear eager not to have the abuses engendered by the Administration’s toxic immigration enforcement policies fully vetted. Seems doubtful, based on my decades of Government experience, that “where there are 4,500 reports of smoke, there are no fires.”

Additionally, lawyers from the DOJ were still in court this week advancing specious and disingenuous arguments for avoiding responsibility for unconstitutional child separation that their clients had intentionally caused.

In fairness, these problems also existed under the Obama Administration. But, faced with extensive evidence of a broken system, the Trump Administration “doubled down” on problematic practices.

Eventually, there will be accountability for the detention disaster. And, when it happens both the responsible officials and the GOP legislators who are trying so hard to cover up the truth should face a reckoning.

PWS

02-27-19

GONZO’S WORLD: STILL A BIG LOSER! – He’s Gone, But His Scofflaw Positions Continue To Be Hammered By The Real (“Article III”) Courts! – Federal Judges Smoke Illegal “Sanctuary Cities” & “Transgender Troops” Abuses By Administration!

https://apple.news/Aw1vvPVvPTMGBMle4Z4fXow

Sophie Tatum reports for CNN:

US judge rules against Trump administration in suit over policing grants to ‘sanctuary cities’

Updated 5:21 PM EST November 30, 2018
Washington

A federal judge ruled against the Justice Department on Friday in a lawsuit over withholding federal money from so-called sanctuary cities, the latest blow to the Trump administration’s hardline immigration tactics.

The lawsuit challenged the Justice Department’s efforts to punish sanctuary cities by withholding a key law enforcement grant the department said was available only to cities that complied with specific immigration enforcement measures.

In July 2017, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that applicants for Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grants would have to comply with federal immigration enforcement in ways that were unlike years past, like allowing federal law enforcement agents to have access to detainees in jails for questioning about their immigration status.

According to the ruling, the seven states involved in the lawsuit, as well as New York City, had been receiving the grant money since Congress created the fund for the “modern version of the program in 2006,” and the funds “collectively totaled over $25 million.”

“In 2017, for the first time in the history of the program, the U.S. Department of Justice (‘DOJ’) and Attorney General (collectively, ‘Defendants’) imposed three immigration-related conditions that grantees must comply with in order to receive funding,” wrote Judge Edgardo Ramos, of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, in his ruling.

New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood led the suit and was joined by New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Washington state and Virginia.

Underwood said in a statement on Friday that the ruling was “a major win for New Yorkers’ public safety.” CNN has reached out to the Justice Department for comment.

This isn’t the first ruling of its kind — in April, a panel of three judges from the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ruling in favor of the city of Chicago that blocked the Justice Department from adding new requirements for the policing grants.

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https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/419170-judge-refuses-to-hold-or-limit-ruling-on-transgender-military-ban

Lydia Wheeler reports in The Hill:

A federal district court judge on Friday denied the Trump administration’s request to block or limit the scope of a ruling that temporarily prohibits the government from enforcing its ban on transgender people serving in the military.

Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, a Clinton appointee on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, said the court is not convinced the government will suffer irreparable harm without a stay of the court’s October 2017 preliminary injunction.

The government had asked for a stay pending any potential, future proceedings in the Supreme Court. Bypassing normal judicial order, the Department of Justice asked the Supreme Court last week to review the case before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.

Arguments before the appeals court are scheduled for Dec. 10.

At the very least, the government asked the district court to limit the nationwide scope of the injunction while the court weighs in, but Kollar-Kotelly refused. She said the government had not convinced the court that a more limited injunction is appropriate.

“Without supporting evidence, defendants’ bare assertion that the Court’s injunction poses a threat to military readiness is insufficient to overcome the public interest in ensuring that the government does not engage in unconstitutional and discriminatory conduct,” she said.

“After all, ‘it must be remembered that all Plaintiffs seek during this litigation is to serve their nation with honor and dignity, volunteering to face extreme hardships, to endure lengthy deployments and separation from family and friends, and to willingly make the ultimate sacrifice of their lives if necessary to protect the Nation, the people of the United States, and the Constitution against all who would attack them,’ ” she said.

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Not surprisingly, policies stemming from racism and homophobia being advanced for crass political reasons aren’t doing very well in Federal Courts. There, the judges tend to prefer cogent legal arguments. The latter is something for which Gonzo was never known. Indeed, a number of the biased based positions he advanced in support of the Administration were so outlandish that the judges actually gave the Government additional time to develop a legal rationale. But, that also proved to be time wasted, because there never was any legal rationale for these policies and legal positions. Just hate and bias, and an ignorance of the real meaning of our Constitution.

There’s lots of irony, indeed total absurdity, in Sessions’s audaciously bogus claim that he “stood for the rule of law.” Safe to say that no Attorney General since “John the Con” Mitchell has done so much to undermine our Constitutional system and the real “rule of law.”

PWS

12-03-18

BREAKING: CAN WE BELIEVE THIS? — NBC Reports That Trump & Dems Cut Deal To Save Dreamers Over Dinner!!!

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/politics/Ryan-Deporting-Young-Immigrants-Not-in-Nations-Interest-444252723.html

Jill Colvin reports:

“President Donald Trump told lawmakers Wednesday that he’s open to signing legislation protecting thousands of young immigrants from deportation even if the bill does not include funding for his promised border wall. But Trump remains committed to building a barrier along the U.S.-Mexican border, even if Democrats say it’s a non-starter.
Trump had dinner with Sen. Chuck Schumer and top Democrat Nancy Pelosi Wednesday night, and they reached a deal on DACA, according to a joint statement by the democrats.
“We agreed to enshrine the protections of DACA into law quickly, and to work out a package of border security, excluding the wall, that’s acceptable to both sides,” the statement read.
Trump, who was deeply disappointed by Republicans’ failure to pass a health care overhaul, infuriated many in his party when he reached a three-month deal with Sen. Schumer and House Democratic Leader Pelosi to raise the debt ceiling, keep the government running and speed relief to states affected by recent hurricanes.

Trump ended the program earlier this month and has given Congress six months to come up with a legislative fix before the so-called “Dreamers'” statuses begin to expire.
“We don’t want to forget DACA,” Trump told the members at the meeting. “We want to see if we can do something in a bipartisan fashion so that we can solve the DACA problem and other immigration problems.”
As part of that effort, Trump said he would not insist on tying extending DACA protections to wall funding, as long as a final bill included “some sort of border security,” said Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, who attended the meeting.

“He said, ‘We don’t have to have the wall on this bill,'” recalled Cuellar. “He said: ‘We can put that somewhere else, like appropriations or somewhere.’ But that was very significant because a lot of us don’t want to tie DACA and the wall. We’re not going to split the baby on that one. So he himself said, ‘We’re not going to put the wall tied into this.'”
Trump has made a sudden pivot to bipartisanship after months of railing against Democrats as “obstructionist.” He has urged them to join him in overhauling the nation’s tax code, among other priorities.
“More and more we’re trying to work things out together,” Trump explained Wednesday, calling the development a “positive thing” for both parties.

“If you look at some of the greatest legislation ever passed, it was done on a bipartisan manner. And so that’s what we’re going to give a shot,” he said.
The “Kumbaya” moment appeared to extend to the thorny issue of immigration, which has been vexing lawmakers for years. Funding for Trump’s promised wall had been thought to be a major point of contention between Republicans and Democrats as they attempted to forge a deal.
Democrats have been adamant in their opposition to the wall, but both Pelosi and a top White House staffer indicated Tuesday that they were open to a compromise on border security to expedite DACA legislation.

White House legislative director Marc Short said during a breakfast that, while the president remained committed to the wall, funding for it did not necessarily need to be linked directly to the “Dreamers” issue. “I don’t want us to bind ourselves into a construct that makes reaching a conclusion on DACA impossible,” he said.”

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I have to admit that I’m stunned by this swing of the pendulum. But, I’m pleased and relieved for the great Dreamers if it works. The Devil is often in the details, particularly with immigration.

On this occasion, I’ll have to agree with the President that bipartisan legislation putting the best interests of the country first is a good thing, and a smart way for the President to get credit for some legislative achievements.

We’ll have to see what happens, But, it’s nice to end the day on a more optimistic note.

PWS

09-13-17

UPDATE:

The Devil is indeed in the details!  According to this more recent article from Sophie Tatum at CNN (forwarded by my friend and fellow insomniac Nolan Rappaport) the “deal” is far from done and the White House version of  the meeting is not the same as the Schumer-Pelosi statement:

“White House press secretary Sarah Sanders immediately pushed back on the idea the wall would be dropped.
“While DACA and border security were both discussed, excluding the wall was certainly not agreed to,” Sanders said.
White House Legislative Affairs Director Marc Short confirmed that the President and Democrats agreed to work to find a legislative fix for DACA, but he called Democrats’ claim of a deal that would exclude wall funding “intentionally misleading.”

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/13/politics/chuck-schumer-nancy-pelosi-donald-trump/index.html

Stay tuned!

PWS

09-14-17