Month: January 2018

TRUMP GOP INTENTIONALLY TORTURES DREAMERS – MESSING WITH AMERICA’S FUTURE FOR NO GOOD REASON!

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/01/why-the-trump-administrations-daca-policy-is-indefensible.html

Eric Levitz writes for NY Maggie:

“There are a lot more undocumented immigrants in the United States than our government can possibly deport (without increasing the size and scope of immigration enforcement beyond even the Trump administration’s wildest dreams). At present, U.S. immigration courts are so severely backlogged, deportations actually went down during Trump’s first year in office, even as the number of immigration arrests dramatically increased.

This context requires the White House to set priorities for enforcing immigration law. Until Congress increases the relevant resources, the Executive branch cannot significantly increase deportations with its policy changes — it can only change the composition of the deportee population. The Obama administration decided that it made little sense to use the government’s limited resources on expelling Dreamers (law-abiding, gainfully-employed undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children). And on Tuesday, Trump’s Department of Homeland Security reached the same conclusion.

“It’s not going to be a priority of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement to prioritize their removal. I’ve said that before. That’s not the policy of DHS,” DHS head Kirstjen Nielsen told CBS This Morning. “If you are a DACA that’s compliant with your registration, meaning you haven’t committed a crime, you, in fact, are registered, you’re not priority of enforcement for ICE should the program end.”

This statement is not surprising. It would be bizarre if Homeland Security did prioritize deporting a category of immigrants that is, by definition, compliant with all (non-immigration) laws, and making productive contributions to society. And the significance of Nielson’s remarks are unclear. There is a big difference between deprioritizing Dreamers, and instructing immigration enforcement agents to leave them alone. Many Dreamers shared their personal information and immigration status with the government when applying for protection from deportation under the Obama administration. If ICE isn’t explicitly prohibited from using that data to make quick-and-easy arrests of undocumented individuals, some agents could take that initiative.

Regardless, Nielsen’s statement betrays the fundamental incoherence of the Trump administration’s policy on Dreamers. Like its predecessor, the Trump White House (officially) believes that Dreamers should not be prioritized for deportation; unlike the Obama administration, it does not believe that the Executive branch should make it easier for Dreamers to contribute to the legitimate economy while they’re here.

Trump has never actually made a policy argument for this position. When the administration ended Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program — which had provided Dreamers with formal protection from deportation and renewable work permits — it claimed to do so on legal grounds: Whatever the merits of the policy, it was simply unconstitutional for the Executive branch to implement such a program without congressional approval.

The problem with that argument, as a federal judge recently noticed, is that “deferred action has been blessed by both the the Supreme Court and Congress as a means to exercise enforcement discretion” and embraced by presidents of both parties for decades. Further, the specific features of DACA, such as work permits, are explicitly allowedunder current law. (Notably, in other contexts, the Trump administration has shown little reluctance to assert the Executive branch’s immense discretion over immigration policy.)

The Trump administration says it does not want to deport Dreamers. A large body of law — and now, a federal court ruling — says that it has the power to unilaterally give Dreamers formal protection from deportation. And yet, Trump refuses to exercise that authority. Thus, his ostensible position is that Dreamers should be allowed to stay in the U.S. — but should be kept in a perpetual state of anxiety, and prevented from securing legal employment — until Congress agrees to pass a long-list of controversial reforms to the immigration system.

In this light, Trump’s DACA policy is not (as Jeff Sessions once suggested) an act of deference to the limits of executive authority. Rather, it is a gross abuse of that discretion: The administration revoked the legal status of 700,000 people, not because it thinks this is defensible as a policy, but solely as a means of coercing Congress into passing legislation that it otherwise would not.”

*****************************************

The Trumpsters are holding the Dreamers “hostage” for a White Nationalist, restrictionist, racist immigration agenda that would be bad for American in every imaginable way.

Levitz also “gets” two things that others sometimes miss: 1) that Trump is actually “over a barrel” because he can’t really remove the Dreamers — just drive them underground and make their lives miserable and less productive (and deprive us of tax revenues) by taking away their work authorization; and 2) the legal underpinnings for DACA are much stronger than Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions would ever admit.

The GOP White Nationalists have created a fake “immigration crisis” that any other Administration with an ounce of human decency, good lawyering, and common sense could and would have avoided. And, all of this is a colossal waste of taxpayer money! “Throw the bums out” at the ballot box!

PWS

01-17-18

Related posts:

  1. GONZO’S WORLD: Sessions Gives Congress The “Scarface Treatment” Again — Then He Jokes About Russia — Will Mueller Eventually Wipe The Smirk Off Gonzo’s Face?
  2. THE NY TIMES TAKES YOU INSIDE THE “NERVE CENTER” OF THE WHITE NATIONALIST EMPIRE: TRUMP’S “GONZO” IMMIGRATION POLICIES DRIVEN BY XENOPHOBIA, RACISM, IRRATIONAL FEAR, FAKE NEWS, MISINFORMATON, AND BIAS! – Trump & Cronies Deny Our Nation’s Immigrant Past While Seeking To Destroy Our Future As A Powerful and Diverse Democracy!
  3. JAMELLE BOUIE @ SLATE: TRUMP, SESSIONS, MILLER & THE GOP RESTRICTIONISTS HAVE PUT GOOD OL’ 1920S RACISM AT THE FOREFRONT OF THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST IMMIGRATION AGENDA! –“What good does it do to bring in somebody who’s illiterate in their own country, has no skills, and is going to struggle in our country and not be successful? . . . That is not what a good nation should do, and we need to get away from it.” — J. “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions, Attorney General of the United States of America & Unapologetic White Nationalist With A Long History Of Racism!
  4. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!

PAUL KRUGMAN IN THE NY TIMES: The “New Know Nothings” Are Killing That Which Made American Great! — Insisting “that the facts have a well-known liberal bias!”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/15/opinion/trump-american-values.html

Krugman writes:

“These days calling someone a “know-nothing” could mean one of two things.

If you’re a student of history, you might be comparing that person to a member of the Know Nothing party of the 1850s, a bigoted, xenophobic, anti-immigrant group that at its peak included more than a hundred members of Congress and eight governors. More likely, however, you’re suggesting that said person is willfully ignorant, someone who rejects facts that might conflict with his or her prejudices.

The sad thing is that America is currently ruled by people who fit both definitions. And the know-nothings in power are doing all they can to undermine the very foundations of American greatness.

The parallels between anti-immigrant agitation in the mid-19th century and Trumpism are obvious. Only the identities of the maligned nationalities have changed.

After all, Ireland and Germany, the main sources of that era’s immigration wave, were the shithole countries of the day. Half of Ireland’s population emigrated in the face of famine, while Germans were fleeing both economic and political turmoil. Immigrants from both countries, but the Irish in particular, were portrayed as drunken criminals if not subhuman. They were also seen as subversives: Catholics whose first loyalty was to the pope. A few decades later, the next great immigration wave — of Italians, Jews and many other peoples — inspired similar prejudice.

Portrait of a young man, circa 1864, representing the nativist ideal of the Know Nothing party.Library of Congress

And here we are again. Anti-Irish prejudice, anti-German prejudice, anti-Italian prejudice are mostly things of the past (although anti-Semitism springs eternal), but there are always new groups to hate.

But today’s Republicans — for this isn’t just about Donald Trump, it’s about a whole party — aren’t just Know-Nothings, they’re also know-nothings. The range of issues on which conservatives insist that the facts have a well-known liberal bias just keeps widening.

One result of this embrace of ignorance is a remarkable estrangementbetween modern conservatives and highly educated Americans, especially but not only college faculty. The right insists that the scarcity of self-identified conservatives in the academy is evidence of discrimination against their views, of political correctness run wild.

. . . .

Clearly, we need policies to spread the benefits of growth and innovation more widely. But one way to think of Trumpism is as an attempt to narrow regional disparities, not by bringing the lagging regions up, but by cutting the growing regions down. For that’s what attacks on education and immigration, key drivers of the new economy’s success stories, would do.

So will our modern know-nothings prevail? I have no idea. What’s clear, however, is that if they do, they won’t make America great again — they’ll kill the very things that made it great.”

************************************

Read Krugman’s full op-ed at the link.

The anti-intellectual, anti-science, anti-arts, anti-progress tilt of the modern GOP is almost as disturbing as their White Nationalism, racism, and xenophobia. It all means trouble for our country.

PWS

01-17-18

Related posts:

  1. JAMELLE BOUIE @ SLATE: TRUMP, SESSIONS, MILLER & THE GOP RESTRICTIONISTS HAVE PUT GOOD OL’ 1920S RACISM AT THE FOREFRONT OF THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST IMMIGRATION AGENDA! –“What good does it do to bring in somebody who’s illiterate in their own country, has no skills, and is going to struggle in our country and not be successful? . . . That is not what a good nation should do, and we need to get away from it.” — J. “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions, Attorney General of the United States of America & Unapologetic White Nationalist With A Long History Of Racism!
  2. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  3. FRED HIATT @ WASHPOST: NOTE TO GOP RESTRICTIONISTS: ANTI-IMMIGRATION = ANTI GROWTH! — “A vote to choke off immigration is a vote for stagnation and decline!” – EXACTLY!
  4. WALL? WHAT WALL? – BUREAUCRATIC BARRIERS BEST BAR TO (NEEDED) IMMIGRATION (Hey, I Could’ve Told ‘Em That!) – But, White Nationalist Goal Of Returning To A “White America” Ultimately Doomed — “You can slow the rate of Latino and Asian immigration, but it won’t make the population whiter,”. . . “It will just become less white at a slower pace.”

ADMINISTRATION BIDS TO “JACK” U.S. COURT SYSTEM BY BYPASSING 9TH CIRCUIT AND GOING DIRECTLY TO SUPREMES FOR “RELIEF” FROM DACA REINSTATEMENT ORDER!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/immigration/trump-administration-appeals-judges-order-that-daca-must-remain-for-now/2018/01/16/41a8c960-f6e8-11e7-beb6-c8d48830c54d_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_daca-appeal-315pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.9e1d11e8d91c

Maria Sacchetti reports for the Washington Post:

“The Justice Department on Tuesday said it would take the “rare step” of asking the Supreme Court to overturn a judge’s ruling and clear the way for the Trump administration to dismantle a program that provides work permits to undocumented immigrants who have lived in the United States since childhood.

The Trump administration said it has appealed the judge’s injunction — which said the Obama-era program must continue while a legal challenge to ending it is pending — to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

But the Justice Department will also petition the Supreme Court later this week to intervene in the case, an unusual action that would allow the government to bypass the 9th Circuit altogether in its bid to phase out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in March.

“It defies both law and common sense” that a “single district court in San Francisco” had halted the administration’s plans, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement. “We are now taking the rare step of requesting direct review on the merits of this injunction by the Supreme Court so that this issue may be resolved quickly and fairly for all the parties involved.”

*****************************************

Read the complete article at the link.

The Supremes seem to have “enabled” the Trump Administration by giving them a highly questionable “early victory” in dissolving the lower court injunction in the “Travel Ban 3.0 Case” without making the Administration go through the normal appellate process. Obviously, Trump & Sessions have taken that as an open invitation to short-circuit the justice system by appealing to the Supremes at will.

Hard to see what the real rush is here, given that the Dreamers have been here for years, aren’t going anywhere, and the Administration won’t even begin the real phase-out of the program until March.

PWS

01-16-18

Related posts:

  1. 🤡CLOWN CAPITOL:  J.R. PRESIDES OVER GOP CLOWN SHOW HE HELPED CREATE — Empowering The Koch Bros, Suppressing Minority Votes, Enabling GOP Gerrymandering, Ignoring Invidious Racial & Religious Motives, Turning A Blind Eye To Lies & Pretexts, It All Contributed To The Arrogant Display Of GOP Dishonesty & Impunity Now On Public Display In The Senate! — Plus Bonus Friday Mini-Essay: “Profiles in Fecklessness”
  2. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 
  3. THE NY TIMES TAKES YOU INSIDE THE “NERVE CENTER” OF THE WHITE NATIONALIST EMPIRE: TRUMP’S “GONZO” IMMIGRATION POLICIES DRIVEN BY XENOPHOBIA, RACISM, IRRATIONAL FEAR, FAKE NEWS, MISINFORMATON, AND BIAS! – Trump & Cronies Deny Our Nation’s Immigrant Past While Seeking To Destroy Our Future As A Powerful and Diverse Democracy!
  4. 🇺🇸🗽😎👍🏼⚖️BREAKING: SOCIAL JUSTICE EEKS OUT A SUPREME VICTORY:  CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS FINALLY RISES TO OCCASION, BACKS HUMANITY, SAVES LIVES, HEADS OFF FURTHER SOCIAL UNREST FOR NOW — Four GOP Justices Remain Shills For White Nationalist Regime, Its Invidiously Motivated Racially-Driven Immigration Agenda, & Promoting Social Injustice Under Law! — DHS v. Regents of U. of Cal. — This Might Be Roberts’s Finest Hour As Chief Justice!

IN 1965, LYNDON JOHNSON GOT CONGRESS TO ABANDON THE BLATANTLY RACIST NATIONAL ORIGINS IMMIGRATION SYSTEM – THE RESULT WAS A VIBRANT WAVE OF NEW IMMIGRATION FROM ASIA, THE AMERICAS, AND AFRICA, AS WELL AS EUROPE THAT HAS POWERED AMERICAN GREATNESS – NOW TRUMP & THE GOP WHITE NATIONALIST RESTRICTIONISTS WANT TO “TURN BACK THE CLOCK” TO THE “BAD OLD DAYS” OF RACIST IMMIGRATION POLICY!

https://www.npr.org/2018/01/13/577808792/president-trumps-idea-of-good-and-bad-immigrant-countries-has-a-historical-prece

 

Tom Gjelten reports for NPR News:

“In a White House meeting with members of Congress this week, President Trump is said to have suggested that the United States accepts too many immigrants from “shithole countries” in Africa and too few from countries like Norway.

Those comments, relayed to NPR by people in attendance at the meeting, set off an immediate firestorm, in part because Trump appeared to be favoring the revival of a discriminatory immigration policy abolished by the U.S. Congress more than 50 years ago.

Trump Uses Vulgar Language To Refer To African Countries, Sources Say

POLITICS

Trump Uses Vulgar Language To Refer To African Countries, Sources Say

From 1924 to 1965, the United States allocated immigrant visas on the basis of a candidate’s national origin. People coming from Northern and Western European countries were heavily favored over those from countries like those Trump now derides. More than 50,000 immigrant visas were reserved for Germany each year. The United Kingdom had the next biggest share, with about 34,000.

Ireland, with 28,000 slots, and Norway, with 6,400, had the highest quotas as a share of their population. Each country in Asia, meanwhile, had a quota of just 100, while Africans wishing to move to America had to compete for one of just 1,200 visas set aside for the entire continent.

The blatantly discriminatory quota policy was enacted on the basis of recommendations from a congressional commission set up in 1907 to determine who precisely was coming to the United States, which countries they were coming from and what capacities they were bringing with them. Under the leadership of Republican Sen. William Dillingham of Vermont, the commission prepared a report consisting of more than 40 volumes distinguishing desirable ethnicities from those the commission considered less desirable.

“Dictionary of Races or Peoples”

In a “Dictionary of Races or Peoples,” the commission reported that Slavic people demonstrated “fanaticism in religion, carelessness as to the business virtues of punctuality and often honesty.” Southern Italians were found to be “excitable, impulsive, highly imaginative” but also “impracticable.” Foreshadowing Trump’s own assessment, the commission concluded that Scandinavians represented “the purest type.”

The main sponsor of the 1924 law enacting the national origins quotas was Rep. Albert Johnson, R-Wash., chairman of the House Committee on Immigration. Among Johnson’s immigration advisers were John Trevor, the founder of the far-right American Coalition of Patriotic Societies, and Madison Grant, an amateur eugenicist whose writings gave racism a veneer of intellectual legitimacy. In his 1916 book The Passing of the Great Race, Grant separated the human species into Caucasoids, Mongoloids and Negroids, and argued that Caucasoids and Negroids needed to be separated.

President Harry S. Truman fought against a national origin quota system, saying it “discriminates, deliberately and intentionally, against many peoples of the world.”

Time Life Pictures/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

The national origin quota system remained in effect for more than 40 years, despite increasing opposition from moderates and liberals. Minor adjustments were made under the 1952 McCarran-Walter Act, which passed over the vigorous objections of President Harry S. Truman.

In a fiery veto message, Truman argued that the national origin quota policy “discriminates, deliberately and intentionally, against many peoples of the world.” After Congress dismissed his criticism and overrode his veto, Truman ordered the establishment of a presidential Commission on Immigration and Naturalization.

In its report, the commission concluded that U.S. immigration policy marginalized “the non-white people of the world who constitute between two-thirds and three-fourths of the world’s population.” The report was titled Whom We Shall Welcome, referring to a speech President George Washington delivered to a group of Irish immigrants in 1783.

In 1965, A Conservative Tried To Keep America White. His Plan Backfired

LAW

In 1965, A Conservative Tried To Keep America White. His Plan Backfired

“The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger,” Washington famously said in that speech, “but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions, whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment.”

That promise was broken by the enslavement of Africans brought to America in chains, but it set forth the ideal by which U.S. immigration policy was to be judged in the 1950s.

. . . .

Support for Johnson’s immigration reform, however, gained momentum after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who had pushed for the abolition of national-origin quotas during the 1950s as a U.S. senator, tied the promotion of immigration reform to the civil rights movement, then at its peak.

“We have removed all elements of second-class citizenship from our laws by the Civil Rights Act,” he said. “We must in 1965 remove all elements in our immigration law which suggest there are second-class people.”

Phenomenon of “chain migration”

With a huge Democratic majority elected the year before, the immigration reform finally passed both houses of Congress in September 1965. Conservatives, led by Ohio’s Feighan, however, had insisted on a key change in the legislation, giving immigrant candidates with relatives already in the United States priority over those with “advantageous” skills and education, as the Johnson administration had originally proposed.

That change, which eventually led to the phenomenon of “chain migration” denounced by Trump, was seen as a way to preserve the existing ethnic profile of the U.S. population and discourage the immigration of Asians and Africans who had fewer family ties in the country.

Trump Denies Using Vulgar Slur; Top Democrat Says He Said It

POLITICS

Trump Denies Using Vulgar Slur; Top Democrat Says He Said It

The key reform, however, was achieved. The new law did away with immigration quotas based on national origin.

“This system violated the basic principle of American democracy, the principle that values and rewards each man on the basis of his merit as a man,” Johnson declared as he signed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty. “It has been un-American in the highest sense. Today, with my signature, this system is abolished.”

For some, the 50th anniversary of the signing of the 1965 legislation, in October 2015, was an occasion for celebration. Muzaffar Chishti, an immigrant from India and a senior lawyer at the Migration Policy Institute, observed at the time that the law sent a message to the rest of the world that “America is not just a place for certain privileged nationalities. We are truly the first universal nation.”

“That may have been the promise of the Founding Fathers, but it took a long time to realize it.”

In the years since 1965, America has become a truly multicultural nation. But with a U.S. president once again saying that immigrants from some countries are superior to immigrants from other countries, the question is whether America will keep its founders’ promise in the years ahead.

Tom Gjelten’s book on how the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act changed the United States is A Nation of Nations: A Great American Immigration Story.”

*******************************************

Read the entire article at the above link.

And here’s a graphic look at American Immigration from Dan Keating and Reuben Fischer-Baum in the Washington Post:

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/immigration-waves

 

*************************************************

Those of us who are committed to a diverse, vibrant America and the promise for the future that robust legal immigration brings should resist and speak out forcibly against the Trump GOP’s toxic plan to restore racism to U.S. immigration policy.  We should also “out” horrid GOP politicians like Cotton, Perdue, and Goodlatte who use euphemisms and bogus restrictionist stats to stoke fear and promote a blatantly racist immigration agenda. They even lied about what “really happened” in the “Oval Office meeting” to promote their vile anti-immigrant views. Don’t let them get away with it!

PWS

01-16-18

 

Related posts:

  1. MLK DAY 2018 — DR. KING’S DREAM OF AN AMERICA CELEBRATING EQUALITY & RACIAL HARMONY IS UNDER VICIOUS ATTACK BY TRUMP, PENCE, SESSIONS, AND A HOST OF OTHERS IN TODAY’S WHITE NATIONALIST ENABLING GOP — Who Is Going To Fight To Reclaim The Dream, & Who Is Going To “Go Along To Get Along” With The 21st Century Version Of Jim Crow?
  2. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  3. COURTSIDE HISTORY: HOW THE FOUNDING FATHERS’ RACISM ERASED A PRESIDENT’S DAUGHTER! — ALSO MY: “FRIDAY ESSAY — FROM MONTICELLO TO TRUMP, MILLER, SESSIONS, AND THE GOP WHITE NATIONALISTS”
  4. GONZO’S WORLD: HIS HIGHLY DISINGENUOUS “TRIBUTE” TO DR. KING WHILE ACTIVELY UNDERMINING MLK’S VISION OF RACIAL EQUALITY IN AMERICA OUTRAGES CIVIL RIGHTS ADVOCATES! — Hollow Words From An Empty Man!

DEPORTING THE INNOCENT – DESTROYING AMERICAN FAMILIES & COMMUNITIES – A TRUMP/SESSIONS/DHS SPECIALTY!

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/deport-man-30-years_us_5a5dc32fe4b04f3c55a56e47

Willa Frej reports for the Huffington Post:

“Jorge Garcia, 39, bid his family farewell Monday under the watchful gaze of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, who required him to return to his native Mexico after living in the Detroit area for 30 years.

Emotional video of Garcia hugging his wife and two children at Detroit’s Metro Airport captured the emotional trauma that deportations can cause for families. Though members of Garcia’s family all are U.S. citizens, he was technically living in the country illegally.

NIRAJ WARIKOO/DETROIT FREE PRESS/USA TODAY SPORTS IMAGES
Jorge Garcia, 39, of Lincoln Park, Michigcan, hugs his wife, Cindy Garcia, and their two children Jan. 15, 2018, at Detroit Metro Airport moments before being forced to board a flight to Mexico to be deported.

“Yes, he was brought here at 10 years old and yes, he entered the country illegally, but he has no criminal record and his case needs to be looked at individually because he deserves to be here in a country that he’s known ― not Mexico,” his wife, Cindy Garcia, told CNN.

During President Barack Obama’s administration, Garcia received temporary extensions allowing him to avert a deportation order from 2009, according to the Detroit Free Press. ICE renewed the order in November and told Garcia he needed to exit the country by Jan. 15.

President Donald Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants includes widescale raids, arrests and deportations. From the time Trump took office until the end of September, ICE removals that resulted from an arrests increased by 37 percent over the previous year, the Department of Homeland Security said. Meanwhile, the number of people apprehended attempting to cross the U.S. southern border dropped to a historical low in fiscal 2017.

Garcia expressed sadness and apprehension about returning to a country he barely remembers.

“I got to leave my family behind, knowing that they’re probably going to have a hard time adjusting, me not being there for them for who knows how long,” he said in an interview with the Detroit Free Press the night before his deportation.  “It’s just hard. It’s going to be kind of hard for me to adjust, too.”

***********************************************

Senseless as it is cruel, stupid, and wasteful. As I’ve pointed out before, if this is how DHS is “setting priorities,” using law enforcement resources, and wasting taxpayer money, they clearly do not need any more agents.

PWS

1-16-18

Related posts:

  1. MLK DAY 2018 — DR. KING’S DREAM OF AN AMERICA CELEBRATING EQUALITY & RACIAL HARMONY IS UNDER VICIOUS ATTACK BY TRUMP, PENCE, SESSIONS, AND A HOST OF OTHERS IN TODAY’S WHITE NATIONALIST ENABLING GOP — Who Is Going To Fight To Reclaim The Dream, & Who Is Going To “Go Along To Get Along” With The 21st Century Version Of Jim Crow?
  2. TIRED OF READING ABOUT THE ANTICS OF BOZOS 🤡 IN THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION? —Here’s The Story Of Cristian Minor, A “Good Guy” Making America Great!
  3. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  4. PREVENTABLE HUMAN DISASTER: THE WANTON CRUELTY, WASTEFULNESS, & TOTAL STUPIDITY OF THE TRUMP/SESSIONS “GONZO” IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT PROGRAM PORTRAYED IN GRAPHIC HUMAN TERMS — The Damage To America Of Mistreating Our Families & Our Citizen Youth Will Long Outlive The Misguided Officials Carrying It Out!

HARD-WORKING, TALENTED SALVADORANS ARE THE BACKBONE OF THE U.S. RESTAURANT INDUSTRY! – SO WHY ARE TRUMP & THE GOP RESTRICTIONISTS TRYING TO DEPORT THEM?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/food/wp/2018/01/15/if-trump-wants-to-really-see-immigrants-contributions-he-should-go-to-more-restaurants/

Tim Carman reports in the Washington Post:

“It’s probably a good thing President Trump dines only at the restaurants inside his own country clubs and hotels. Otherwise, he might find some unwanted floaters in his soup in the wake of last week’s Oval Office meeting, in which the president said he wasn’t interested in protecting immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador or, apparently, any country in Africa.

“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” Trump said, according to The Washington Post story about the meeting. The president then suggested he was more interested in immigrants from countries such as Norway because, he felt, they could better contribute to the American economy.

The comment quickly became red meat for millions of Americans. The president was called a racist by liberals. He was defended by conservatives. The president seemed to deny that he used bad language. Then he was called out for making a false statement about not using bad language. Just another day in paradise.

From my little corner of the universe, I read the president’s comment and had to pick my jaw off the floor. As the $20 Diner for the past five years, I have devoted countless hours to restaurants owned and operated by immigrants. But just as important, I have dined in the kind of restaurants that real estate moguls and other titans of industry love to patronize. You know, high-dollar, high-profile, highhanded restaurants, the ones with a famous chef’s name on the menu.

[The $20 Diner’s favorite cheap eats of 2017]

But no matter which restaurant I frequent, high or low, I can almost guarantee you there are Latinos in the kitchen, prepping the dishes, cooking the dishes, washing the dishes, you name it. This is a widely known fact, more observable than climate change. Anthony Bourdain has been a one-man wrecking crew on this front, demolishing the hypocrisy of executive chefs who hog all the credit while immigrants from Central America do all the work.

Immigrants are the “backbone of the industry,” Bourdain once said. “If Mr. Trump deports 11 million people or whatever he’s talking about right now, every restaurant in America would shut down.”


Chef and co-owner Abe Bayu at Meleket Ethiopian restaurant in Silver Spring, Md. (Dayna Smith for The Washington Post)

I’ve written about many immigrants, including ones from African and Central American countries. They often come here searching for a better life, only to find their paths blocked, or at least littered with more obstacles than they ever imagined. They don’t have the luxury of securing a $9 million advance on their future inheritance. They have to fight for every dollar, often working multiple jobs just to save enough for their first business.

. . . .

Personally, I believe curiosity in all forms — intellectual, social, cultural — tears down walls. Isolation builds them.

Maybe the president should ditch the steak dinners at BLT Prime in the Trump International Hotel and start to explore the local Salvadoran restaurants. Maybe he should get his hands dirty with an Ethiopian meal in Silver Spring. Maybe he should just sit down with chef José Andrés, who can tell him a thing or two about Haitians:

And you know what? If the president made a surprise stop at a pupuseria or an Ethiopian restaurant, he wouldn’t actually need to worry that the kitchen was mouth-cooking his meal. Because the people who run these restaurants have a fundamental understanding of dignity and respect, even if they come from countries that the president despises.”

****************************************

Read Tim’s complete article, containing some individual profiles of the hard-working, “salt of the earth” folks that Trump and the GOP restrictionists bash on a regular basis.

Once again, the Trump Administration’s and GOP restrictionists’ unnecessary cruelty, lack of humanity, and absence of common sense is matched only by their stupidity and lack of ability to govern for the common good.

PWS

01-16-18

 

Related posts:

  1. JAMELLE BOUIE @ SLATE: TRUMP, SESSIONS, MILLER & THE GOP RESTRICTIONISTS HAVE PUT GOOD OL’ 1920S RACISM AT THE FOREFRONT OF THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST IMMIGRATION AGENDA! –“What good does it do to bring in somebody who’s illiterate in their own country, has no skills, and is going to struggle in our country and not be successful? . . . That is not what a good nation should do, and we need to get away from it.” — J. “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions, Attorney General of the United States of America & Unapologetic White Nationalist With A Long History Of Racism!
  2. “Warren Buffett on Immigration Reform: Buffett feels that immigrants (including undocumented ones) have been and continue to be a key part of our prosperity — not a part of the problem.“
  3. WALL? WHAT WALL? – BUREAUCRATIC BARRIERS BEST BAR TO (NEEDED) IMMIGRATION (Hey, I Could’ve Told ‘Em That!) – But, White Nationalist Goal Of Returning To A “White America” Ultimately Doomed — “You can slow the rate of Latino and Asian immigration, but it won’t make the population whiter,”. . . “It will just become less white at a slower pace.”
  4. MLK DAY 2018 — DR. KING’S DREAM OF AN AMERICA CELEBRATING EQUALITY & RACIAL HARMONY IS UNDER VICIOUS ATTACK BY TRUMP, PENCE, SESSIONS, AND A HOST OF OTHERS IN TODAY’S WHITE NATIONALIST ENABLING GOP — Who Is Going To Fight To Reclaim The Dream, & Who Is Going To “Go Along To Get Along” With The 21st Century Version Of Jim Crow?

DEPORTATION TO DEATH — HOW AMERICA FAILS TO LIVE UP TO ITS HUMANITARIAN OBLIGATIONS!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/theworldpost/wp/2018/01/15/lgbt-el-salvador/

Josefina Salomon reports from Mexico fro the Washington Post:

“MEXICO CITY — Cristel woke up on the freezing floor of a tiny room in a detention center in San Diego. She was alone, dirty, hungry and exhausted. It was April. Eight days earlier, she had been arrested on the American side of the border crossing at Tijuana, where she planned to claim asylum. She had been in solitary confinement since then. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers had given her no reason for her detention.

Five years on the run had left her drained. From the floor of that San Diego cell, it seemed like she was out of options. She could not bear the thought of being forced by ICE to return to El Salvador. That would be a death sentence.

Death threats from violent gangs had chased Cristel from her native El Salvador, through Guatemala and Mexico, up to the U.S. border. They kept her awake at night, echoing in the back of her head. In El Salvador and on her journey north, she had been bullied, threatened, robbed, beaten and raped. At one point, she had turned to sex work. She had been kidnapped and abused. She had escaped, but she still didn’t feel safe.

Cristel is not her real name. She is 25 and grew up in San Salvador. As a transgender woman, she has faced discrimination and violence nearly her entire life. My colleagues and I met Cristel half a dozen times over the last 18 months, first in San Salvador, and later at different points along her journey, as she moved toward what she hoped was salvation in the U.S.

Over time, Cristel lost weight and dark circles appeared under her eyes as fear, exhaustion and frustration took hold. Sometimes while we were talking, there would be seemingly unstoppable bursts of tears. Weeks might go by before we heard from her. Had she been hurt, or worse? The question, “What is going to happen to me?”, which she asked at every one of our meetings, became more and more urgent.\

. . . .

Starting in the 1990s, the U.S. was one of the first countries to begin admitting asylum seekers and refugees who were persecuted on the basis of their sexual orientation. While the Trump administration has not sought to change U.S. asylum law, it has made it clear that it aims to decrease the overall number of refugees admitted into the country and to raise the threshold for asylum seekers’ “credible fear” of persecution as a basis for their asylum.

According to figures from the U.S. Department of Justice, the number of asylum claims by people from El Salvador has been increasing dramatically in the past few years. There were nearly 18,000 claims in 2016 alone. While the number of people who have secured asylum in the U.S. increased in that period, so did the number of claims that were denied, abandoned or withdrawn. Many prospective asylum seekers and analysts have said this is because of the arduous process and the harsh detention conditions asylum seekers are forced to endure. The most vulnerable, like Cristel, often have few options but return to the danger they were desperately trying to escape in the first place.

In San Diego, after first being confined to solitary, Cristel was transferred to a cell that she shared with eight men. She was kept there for a month and a half. At her hearing, when it eventually came, she was appointed a pro bono lawyer, but her claim for asylum was denied. She was transferred to another detention center in Arizona, where she was handcuffed, put on a plane and sent back to a nightmare.

. . . .

She had gone back to live at her mother’s house, but the gang found her anyway. The extortion had resumed. Every time she is late with her payments, even by a day or two, gang members beat her. “I’m exhausted of being forced to pay to live. I want to leave but there’s nowhere to go.”

Sobbing, she said, “They are going to kill me.”

******************************************

Read the complete story at the link.

This is what “Trumpism” and “GOP restrictionism” are really about — turning our backs on those in the most need of protection.

One of the most disturbing things about this story is that, as noted by Solomon, the U.S. actually has been fairly routinely granting gender-based cases like this since at least the mid-1990s. See, e.g., Matter of Tobaso-Alfonso,20 I&N Dec. 819 (BIA 1990). In many U.S. Immigration Courts cases like this would routinely be granted, often with the DHS’s concurrence.

So, “Cristel” was unlucky.  She got the got the wrong Court, the wrong Judge, the wrong time, and perhaps the wrong pro bono attorney — and it’s likely to cost her life! That’s not justice, and that’s not a properly functioning U.S. Immigration Court that “guarantees fairness and due process to all.” Instead, the “captive” U.S. Immigration Court is turning into a “whistle-stop on the Trump/Sessions Deportation Railroad!” That’s something of which every true American should be ashamed. We need an independent, Due Process focused U.S. Immigration Court now!

PWS

01-16-18

Related posts:

  1. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  2. NATION OF CHILD ABUSERS: WHILE MANY RIGHT WING APOLOGISTS (ALONG WITH ALAN DERSHOWITZ) PAN NAZI COMPARISON, ACTUAL HOLOCAUST CHILD SURVIVOR YOKA VERDONER UNDERSTANDS THE PARALLELS! — Child Abuse Is Child Abuse —Evil Is Evil — Damage Is Irreparable!
  3. REPORT FROM FBA, AUSTIN: Read My Speech “JUSTICE BETRAYED: THE INTENTIONAL MISTREATMENT OF CENTRAL AMERICAN ASYLUM APPLICANTS BY THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW”
  4. WHEN ARTICLE III COURTS FAIL: U.S. “Orbits” Refugee Families To Dangerous Chaos In Guatemala Under Clearly Fraudulent “Safe Third Country” Arrangements As Feckless U.S. Courts Fail To Enforce Constitutional Due Process & U.S. Asylum Laws In Face Of Trump Regime’s Contemptuous Scofflaw Conduct!

THE GIBSON REPORT — 01-16-18

THE GIBSON REPORT—01

HEADLINES:

“TOP UPDATES

 

DACA Renewals Open Again after Judge Enjoins Recession

USCIS: Due to a federal court order, USCIS has resumed accepting requests to renew a grant of deferred action under DACA.  Until further notice, and unless otherwise provided in this guidance, the DACA policy will be operated on the terms in place before it was rescinded on Sept. 5, 2017. (Here’s a good rundown on social media.)

 

TPS

  • El Salvador – The Secretary of Homeland Security announced her determination that termination of the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation for El Salvador was required pursuant to the Immigration and Nationality Act. To allow for an orderly transition, she has determined to delay the termination for 18 months. The designation will terminate on Sept. 9, 2019.
  • Haiti – Current TPS is valid through January 22, 2018 next week. On November 20, 2017, Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Elaine Duke announced her decision to terminate the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation for Haiti with a delayed effective date of 18 months to allow for an orderly transition before the designation terminates on July 22, 2019. However, USCIS has not yet published additional information on re-registration or EAD renewal.

o   REMINDER: termination of TPS is explicitly listed in regs as an exception to the one-year asylum filing deadline. 8 CFR 1208.4(a)(5)(iv)

  • Syria – TPS is set to expire for Syria on March 31, 2018. Find updates on advocacy efforts here.

 

SCOTUS Grants Cert on Stop-Time Rule Case

SCOTUSblog: Whether, to trigger the stop-time rule by serving a “notice to appear,” the government must “specify” the items listed in the definition of a “notice to appear,” including “[t]he time and place at which the proceedings will be held.”

 

New York Immigrant Activist [Ravi Ragbir] Detained by ICE [and held] in Miami Might Be Deported Today

 

Justice Department Announces Court Order Revoking Naturalized Citizenship, Citing Fingerprint Issue

Rewire: Baljinder Singh, also known as Davinder Singh, is the first casualty of “Operation Janus,” a joint operation by the DOJ and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). It appears that because USCIS failed to use fingerprint records effectively, those who have been granted citizenship without proper fingerprint records, meaning before fingerprints were digitized, may now be subject to having their citizenship revoked.

 

Immigration Court Backlog Tops 650,000

ImmProf: According to the latest case-by-case court records, the backlog at the end of November 2017 had reached 658,728, up from 629,051 at the end of September 2017. California leads the country with the largest Immigration Court backlog of 123,217 cases. Texas is second with 103,384 pending cases as of the end of November 2017, followed by New York with 89,489 cases.

 

World Migration Report 2018

IOM: Current estimates are that there are 244 million international migrants globally (or 3.3% of the world’s population).

 

Every immigration proposal in one chart

ImmProf: This chart looks at what is and isn’t in various legislative proposals.

 

Trump is Quietly Swamping Visa Applicants in Extra Paperwork

Quartz: From last January to November, the office issued around 40% more RFEs than in all of 2016, and 65% more than in all of 2015, USCIS data shows.

 

Unpublished BIA Decisions

·         BIA Finds Aggravated Child Abuse Not Sexual Abuse of a Minor

·         BIA Finds Altering Vehicle Document Is Not a CIMT

·         BIA Upholds Bond for Respondent with Two DUI Convictions

·         BIA Holds Iowa Theft Not an Aggravated Felony

·         IJ finds Haitian not firmly resettled in Brazil on remand (attached)

 

ACTIONS

o   ACTION ALERT: #SaveTPS for Syria!

o   Take Action: Protect TPS Holders

 

RESOURCES

 

 

EVENTS

 

 

ImmProf

 

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

Monday, January 15, 2018

Sunday, January 14, 2018

Saturday, January 13, 2018

Friday, January 12, 2018

Thursday, January 11, 2018

Wednesday, January 10, 2018

Tuesday, January 9, 2018

Monday, January 8, 2018

 

AILA NEWS UPDATE

 

http://www.aila.org/advo-media/news/clips

 

Daily Immigration News Clips – January 12, 2018

Aggregated local and national media coverage of major immigration law news stories being discussed throughout the U.S. on January 12, 2018

National

Quartz Trump is quietly swamping visa applicants in extra paperwork
By Ana Campoy

New York Times These Claims About ‘Chain Migration’ Are Not Accurate
By Linda Qiu

HuffPost U.S. Warns Tourists Against Mexico Travel While Feds Threaten To Send Immigrants Back
By Willa Frej

CBS News Trump says visa lottery rewards the “worst” immigrants. That’s inaccurate
By Jacqueline Alemany

Reuters U.N. rights office decries Trump’s reported remarks as ‘racist’
By Stephanie Nebehay

Reuters Trump questions taking immigrants from ‘shithole countries’: sources

New York Times From Norway to Haiti, Trump’s Comments Stir Fresh Outrage
By Henrik Pryser Libell and Catherine Porter

New York Times Trump Alarms Lawmakers With Disparaging Words for Haiti and Africa
By Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, and Thomas Kaplan

The Washington Post Trump attacks protections for immigrants from ‘shithole’ countries in Oval Office meeting
By Josh Dawsey

The Hill Vicente Fox: Trump’s ‘mouth is the foulest s—hole in the world’
By John Bowden

The Hill Blumenthal: Trump’s ‘s—hole’ comment is ‘racism masquerading poorly as immigration policy’
By John Bowden

Roll Call White House Won’t Deny Trump’s Slur About Haiti, African Nations
By John T. Bennett

AP Congress Is Looking For an Elusive Compromise on Immigration after President Trump’s Meeting
By Andrew Taylor and Alan Fram

Reuters Six senators say they have reached immigration deal

Reuters Bipartisan Senate immigration plan draws quick opposition

Reuters White House says immigration deal has not been reached

The Washington Post The president gives another gift to lawyers challenging his immigration orders
By Derek Hawkins

The Washington Post Trump to fight federal injunction protecting ‘dreamers’ from deportation
By Maria Sacchetti, Patricia Sullivan, and Ed O’Keefe

The Washington Post Immigration talks flounder after White House rejects deal and Trump insults foreign countries
By Ed O’Keefe, Erica Werner, and Josh Dawsey

Politico Trump rebuffs Dreamers deal reached by senators
By Seung Min Kim

CNN Trump rejects bipartisan immigration proposal at White House meeting
By Tal Kopan and Lauren Fox

The Hill Pelosi, Dems accuse GOP of moving goal posts on DACA deal
By Mike Lillis

The Hill WH: No deal yet on DACA
By Jordan Fabian

The Hill Trump hits the brakes on Senate immigration deal
By Jordain Carney

NPR ‘Deport Them’: Arpaio Departs From Trump On DACA Recipients
By Anita Kelly and Domenico Montanaro

ABC News The Note: Trump and GOP fenced in by wall, immigration
By Rick Klein

KAZU Website Puts A Face On DACA’s DREAMers
By Krista Alamanzan

AP Honduras next in line for US decision on protected migrants

Reuters Forcing Salvadorans out of U.S. carries twin risks: Red Cross
By Sophie Hares

Vox Thousands of Salvadoran TPS workers clean federal offices. Now their livelihoods are on the line.
By Alexia Fernandez

AP US Resisting Feb. 2 Deadline For Bond Hearings For Iraqis

AP Immigrant stripped of citizenship under federal initiative

AP News of activist’s detention leads to NYC supporter arrests

Wall Street Journal Immigrants Connected to Sanctuary Movement Arrested
By Ian Lovett and Alicia A. Caldwell

Wall Street Journal Immigration Officials Swarm 7-Elevens, Issue Warning to U.S. Businesses
By Alicia A. Caldwell

The Washington Post Another pregnant immigrant teen asks judge to allow access to abortion
By Ann E. Marimow

The Intercept Private Prison Continues to Send ICE Detainees to Solitary Confinement for Refusing Voluntary Labor
By Spencer Woodman

All Africa Somalia: ICE Abused Somalis for 2 Days On a Plane and Now Wants to Send Them Into Harm’s Way
By Amrit Cheng

Reuters Mexico will never pay for Trump wall: Mexican economy minister

Reuters New York charges 17 with numerous crimes, ties to Salvadoran drug gang
By Peter Szekely

New York Daily News Disgraced ex-sheriff Joe Arpaio shares anti-immigration stance: ‘Deport them’
By Denis Slattery

The Week Trevor Noah peeks behind the curtains of Trump’s immigration show
By Peter Weber

MSNBC Rachel Maddow Quoting Frank Sharry (Part 1)

MSNBC Rachel Maddow Quoting Frank Sharry (Part 2)

Bustle What The New DACA Ruling Means For Dreamers & Other Undocumented People
By Madhuri Sathish

Politico Magazine (Opinion) Buy Off Trump With the Wall
By Rich Lowry

New York Times (Op-Ed) John Kasich and Jeb Bush Jr.: A Bad Idea on Immigration
By Governors John Kasich and Jeb Bush Jr.

The Washington Post (Op-Ed) It’s on Republicans to stop a shutdown
By Senator Bernie Sanders

The Hill (Op-Ed) We must take back DACA debate from political predators
By Derek Monson

Local

Seattle Times Washington state regularly gives drivers’ info to immigration authorities; Inslee orders temporary halt
By Nina Shapiro

The National 6,900 Syrians in US face risk of deportation if Trump ends protection
By Joyce Karam

Southampton Patch Advocacy Groups Blast Proposed End Of Protection For Salvadorans
By Lisa Finn

Charlotte Observer Man gets prison, then deportation for stealing data to make IDs for the undocumented
By Joe Marusak

Wall Street Journal N.Y. City Councilmen Arrested as Immigrant Rights Leader Is Detained
By Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Mara Gay

New York Times Council Speaker Calls Police Response ‘Out of Control’
By Wiliam Neuman and Liz Robbins

Cleveland.com Immigration forum to give context to national, regional sanctuary city discussions
By Emily Bamforth

Texas Tribune (Texas) Texas Lt. Gov. Patrick wants AG Paxton to look into San Antonio immigrant smuggling case
By Julian Aguilar

Longview News-Journal (Texas) Petitions urge Gohmert to back DREAM Act
By Glenn Evans

KING5 (Washington) DACA ruling ‘shouldn’t let Congress off hook,’ WA Dreamer says
By Natalie Brand

Miami Herald (Editorial) Stop punishing TPS recipients

San Antonio Express-News (Editorial) Let these Salvadorans stay

Modesto Bee (Editorial) Denham can help Dreamers, if he wants to

Baltimore Sun (Op-Ed) It’s not too late for Congress to pass a DREAM act
By Karen Gonzalez

 

Daily Immigration News Clips – January 11, 2018

Aggregated local and national media coverage of major immigration law news stories being discussed throughout the U.S. on January 11, 2018

National

New York Times Head-Spinning Days for Young Immigrants as Lawmakers and Judges Debate Their Fate
By Vivian Lee, Caitlyn Dickerson, Sheryl Gay Stolberg

CNN DACA negotiations full steam ahead despite ruling, sources say
By Tal Kopan

The Hill Left fears Democrats will give too much on immigration
By Alexander Bolton and Mike Lillis

The Atlantic What Will the Dreamers Do Now?
By Priscilla Alvarez

The Republic What to know about a federal judge’s order blocking Trump’s decision to end DACA
By Daniel Gonzalez

Reuters U.S. immigration operation targets 7-Eleven stores in 17 states
By Bernie Woodall

The Washington Post Immigration agents target 7-Eleven stores in nationwide sweep
By Nick Miroff

CNN Money ICE immigration officers swoop in on 7-Elevens nationwide
By Julia Horowitz

The Hill Feds raid 7-Eleven stores in immigration bust
By Brett Samuels

Fortune 7-Eleven Stores Targeted In Nationwide Immigration Sweep
By Natasha Bash

AP Trump criticizes federal judge blocking him on immigration
By Alan Fram and Ken Thomas

Reuters How an obscure SCOTUS employment ruling put the brakes on DACA rollback
By Allison Frankel

Reuters Trump blasts DACA ruling, calls U.S. court system ‘broken and unfair’
By Richard Cowan and Mica Rosenberg

New York Times Donald Trump Is Optimistic a Deal Can Be Reached on ‘Dreamers’
By Laura Meckler and Kristina Peterson

New York Times House Republicans’ Hard-Line Immigration Stand Clashes With Trump Overture
By Thomas Kaplan and Sheryl Gay Stolberg

Wall Street Journal Trump Attacks ‘Broken’ Court After Ruling Blocking End to ‘Dreamers’ Program
By Louise Radnofsky and Alicia A. Caldwell

Wall Street Journal Trump’s DACA Overture Worries Immigration Hawks
By Laura Meckler

Wall Street Journal Top Senators Say Judge’s Ruling Won’t Stall Talks on ‘Dreamers’
By Louise Radnofsky and Alicia A. Caldwell

The Washington Post DACA injunction: What a federal judge’s ruling means for ‘dreamers’
By Maria Sacchetti

Politico DACA reinstatement throws lawmakers for a loop
By Seung Min Kim

Politico Democratic leaders face internal mutiny over Dreamers deal
By Heather Caygle and Seung Min Kim

CNN Here are the key players in Congress on immigration
By Ashley Killough and Tal Kopan

CNN Shutdown/DACA state of play: a ‘mess’ with a major twist
By Phil Mattingly

CNN Trump, Republicans face immigration reckoning
By Stephen Collinson and Lauren Fox

CNN What kind of border wall does Trump want? It depends on who’s asking.
By Gergory Kreig

The Hill Ann Coulter torches Trump for immigration meeting
By Max Greenwood

The Hill Bipartisan Senate group ‘close’ on DACA deal
By Jordain Carney

The Hill Trump says DACA ruling reflects ‘broken’ court system
By Jordan Fabian

The Hill Warren: Glad we ‘are moving forward on getting a clean DREAM Act’
By Julia Manchester

The Hill House GOP presses harder-line Goodlatte immigration bill
By Scott Wong and Melanie Zanona

Roll Call Spending, Immigration Talks Entangled
By Lindsey McPherson

McClatchy DC Bureau GOP negotiators say Trump aide Stephen Miller is standing in the way of an immigration deal
By Anita Kumar

Buzzfeed News The Fate Of DACA Recipients May Come Down To Finding A Definition Of “Wall” That Both Parties Can Live With
By Paul McLeod

Fox News Insider Malkin: There Will Be ‘Hell to Pay’ for Trump, GOP If They Cave on Amnesty

NPR Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar On Immigration Policy

CNBC More than 100 CEOs pressure Congress to pass immigration bill by Jan. 19
By Ylan Mui

CNBC Trump DACA compromise would crush Trump’s chances in 2020
By Jake Novak

Bloomberg Politics Trump’s Willingness to Deal on Immigration Adds Urgency to Talks
By Laura Litvan

Vox How the 9th Circuit became conservatives’ least favorite court
By Dylan Matthews

Politifact Julián Castro says nearly all DACA recipients employed, in school or serving in military
By Jasper Scherer

Bustle What The New DACA Ruling Means For Dreamers & Other Undocumented People
By Madhuri Sathish

CBN News As Judge Blocks Trump’s DACA Move, Pressures Mount for Lawmakers to Reach a Deal
By Abigail Robertson

Morning Consult Republicans Want DACA Fix Tied to Border Wall, Bucking Broader Voter Trend
By Eli Yokley

The Intercept DREAMERS WIN IN COURT, BUT UNTIL CONGRESS ACTS, THEIR FUTURES ARE AS UNCERTAIN AS EVER
By Aida Chavez

Reuters Canada telling Salvadorans facing U.S. exit that haven isn’t guaranteed
By Anna Mehler Paperny

Reuters Salvadorans say going home not an option after U.S. axes protection
By Joseph Ax and Mica Rosenberg

The Washington Post Trump wants to remove these immigrants. An ugly bit of history tells us what it could do to the economy
By Andrew Van Dam

The Washington Post Canada to Salvadorans leaving US: Don’t come here
By Alan Freeman

Khaleej Times Stripped of citizenship, Indian faces deportation from US

The Guardian UCSD Student Detained After Accidentally Crossing Border
By Amalia Huerta Cornejo

The Washington Post From Apple to Koch, big businesses say Trump is wrong on immigration
By Heather Long

CNN Trump admin grapples with rise in border crossing numbers it once touted
By Tal Kopan

CNN San Antonio top cop under fire after releasing immigrants to charity
By Eliott C. McLaughlin and AnneClaire Stapleton

Vox The complicated calculus as Democrats debate whether to shut down the government
By Ella Nilsen

Pacific Standard PERCEIVED THREAT DRIVES ANTI-IMMIGRANT BIAS
By Tom Jacobs

New York Times (Editorial) Don’t Deport the Salvadorans

The Washington Post (Editorial) Take a deal for the dreamers. Build the wall.

HuffPost (Opinion) A Blueprint For A National Legal Defense Fund
By Tahmina Watson

New York Magazine (Opinion) Trump Ending DACA Was Never About the Law. A Federal Judge Noticed.
By Cristian Farias

New York Magazine (Opinion) Guess Which Line Was Missing From the Transcript of Trump’s Immigration Meeting
By Margaret Hartmann

Yahoo News (Opinion) How Obama left immigrants vulnerable to Trump
By Rick Newman

New York Times (Op-Ed) President Trump Is Breaking Up My Family
By Rodman Serrano

The Washington Post (Op-Ed) Dana Milbank: ‘Dreamers’ need to get out of their own way
By Dana Milbank

The Hill (Op-Ed) Amnesty will be a poisonous prospect for politicians who support it
By Matt O’Brien

Bloomberg View (Opinion) Democrats, Give Trump a Wall!
By Francis Wilkinson

Irish Central (Opinion) President Donald Trump would have turned away the Famine Irish just like the Salvadorans
By Cahir O’Doherty

WHYY (Opinion) The camera doesn’t lie: On immigration, Trump is rudderless
By Dick Polman

Local

CBS Chicago Five Chicago Area 7-Eleven Stores Part Of National Immigration Investigation

Chicago Tribune Chicago ‘Dreamers’ study, save and plan for the worst while Congress debates immigration relief
By Nereida Moreno

Inland Empire Community News Recent DACA decision gives immigrant groups ‘greater momentum’ for Dream Act
By Anthony Victoria

Sacramento Bee California wins major victory for Dreamers, but is it temporary?
By Anita Chabria

Tyler Morning Telegraph DREAM Act petition with 6,000 signatures delivered to Louie Gohmert’s office
By Erin Mansfield

NorthJersey.com NJ ‘Dreamers’ cautiously optimistic after judge blocks Trump’s decision on DACA
By Monsy Alvarado

AP (New York) NY state offers help to Salvadorans facing deportation

AP (Washington) Spokane decides to outlaw immigrant detention by police

PennLive (Pennsylvania) Man faces deportation after secretly filming women, girls in Pa. pizza shop bathroom
By John Luciew

NY1 (New York) STATE RAMPS UP EFFORTS TO HELP SALVADORAN IMMIGRANTS AT RISK OF DEPORTATION

 

Daily Immigration News Clips – January 10, 2018

Aggregated local and national media coverage of major immigration law news stories being discussed throughout the U.S. on January 10, 2018

National

AP ICE conducts sweeps of 100 7-Eleven stores, targeting employers in immigration probe

CNN Democrats seek to avoid DACA’s isolation in budget negotiations
By Tal Kopan

Time Congress May Be Moving Closer to a Compromise on Dreamers
By Maya Rhodan

Los Angeles Times Federal judge in San Francisco temporarily blocks Trump’s decision to end DACA program
By Joel Rubin, Jazmine Ulloa, and Lisa Mascaro

Reuters U.S. judge blocks Trump move to end DACA program for immigrants
By Dan Levine and Yeganeh Torbati

Wall Street Journal Judge Blocks Trump Plan to End ‘Dreamers’ Program
By Alicia A. Caldwell

The Washington Post Federal judge says DACA can’t end while lawsuit is pending
By Maria Sacchetti

Politico Judge blocks Trump wind-down of Dreamers program
By Josh Gerstein

AP Trump suggests 2-phase immigration deal for ‘Dreamers’
By Ken Thomas and Alan Fram

Reuters White House: Lawmakers agreed immigration bill to focus on four areas

New York Times A Brief Anatomy of Trump’s Immigration Meeting With Lawmakers
By Michael D. Shear

New York Times Trump Appears to Endorse Path to Citizenship for Millions of Immigrants
By Julie Hirschfeld Davis

New York Times Trump’s Negotiation on Immigration, Unfolding on Camera
By Peter Baker

Wall Street Journal Donald Trump Is Optimistic a Deal Can Be Reached on ‘Dreamers’
By Laura Meckler and Kristina Peterson

The Washington Post Trump offers to ‘take all the heat’ on immigration, but also appears to contradict himself
By Ed O’Keefe and David Nakamura

Politico Trump puts immigration meeting on display amid questions about his mental state
By Louis Nelson

Politico Dreamer talks still jumbled after Trump’s freewheeling summit
By Seung Min Kim, Heather Caygle, Ted Hesson, and Rachel Bade

Roll Call Goodlatte to Roll Out Immigration Bill Soon, Trump Says
By John T. Bennett

Roll Call Ample Confusion After White House Immigration Meeting
By John T. Bennett

CNN House conservatives prep own DACA bill
By Tal Kopan

CNN Trump holds meeting with bipartisan lawmakers over immigration
By Dana Bash, Daniella Diaz, and Tal Kopan

CNN Trump contradicts self repeatedly in immigration meeting
By Tal Kopan

CNN After White House meeting, negotiations on DACA continue on the Hill
By Lauren Fox, Deirdre Walsh, and Jim Acosta

The Hill Graham: Meeting with Trump ‘most fascinating’ in 20 years of politics
By Max Greenwood

The Hill Trump, lawmakers agree to parameters of potential immigration deal
By Alexander Bolton and Jordain Carney

The Hill McConnell: No DACA fix in spending bill
By Jordain Carney

USA Today In extraordinary public negotiation with Congress, Trump promises to sign DACA bill
By Gregory Korte, Deidre Shesgreen, and Eliza Collins

Vox Republicans are misleading everyone – including themselves – about how long they have to fix DACA
By Dara Lind

Newsweek THIS IS HOW DEMOCRATS CAN STILL SAVE IMMIGRANTS FROM TRUMP
By Nicole Rodriguez

Raw Story Colbert blasts Trump’s immigration ‘bill of love’: ‘If you love someone, kick them out of the country’
By Noo Al-Sibai

New York Times ‘Trump Effect’ Wears Off as Migrants Resume Their Northward Push
By Caitlyn Dickerson

Reuters Salvadorans say going home not an option after U.S. axes protection
By Joseph Ax and Mica Rosenberg

New York Times El Salvador Again Feels the Hand of Washington Shaping Its Fate
By Gene Palumbo and Azam Ahmed

New York Times Listen to ‘The Daily’: U.S. Ends Protections for Salvadorans
By Michael Barbaro

Reuters Ex-Arizona sheriff Arpaio says he will run for Senate

Wall Street Journal Joe Arpaio Will Run for Arizona U.S. Senate Seat
By Janet Hook

Politico Arpaio running for Senate in Arizona
By Kevin Robillard

CNN Joe Arpaio, controversial sheriff pardoned by Trump, enters Arizona Senate race
By Eric Bradner

CNN Immigration, Trump and you: 5 things happening now, and why they matter
By Catherine E. Shoichet

Rewire Justice Department Revokes Naturalized Citizenship, Citing Fingerprint Issue
By Tina Vasquez

New York Times (Editorial) Joe Arpaio’s Latest Offense – Running for Senate

Wall Street Journal (Editorial) Progress on Immigration

HuffPost (Opinion) Make the Workforce American Again
By Michael Wildes

New York Times (Opinion) Save the Salvadorans
By David Leonhardt

The Washington Post (Opinion) Will Democrats stop Trump’s cruel use of immigrants as pawns?
By Jennifer Rubin

HuffPost (Opinion) The Heartless End of TPS for Salvadorans
By Julio Lainez

Wall Street Journal (Op-Ed) The House Chairmen’s Plan for Immigration Reform
By Representatives Bob Goodlatte, Michael McCaul, Raul Labrador, and Martha McSally

CNN (Op-Ed) Trump administration’s new immigration decision is shortsighted and cruel
By Raul A. Reyes

The Hill (Op-Ed) Congress dithers on DACA, but why?
By Gordon Peterson

Local

The Monitor Democrats face tough challenge in selling Trump’s promised wall

Tampa Bay Times Immigration is a big deal in Florida, so why is the state MIA in meeting with Trump?
By Alex Leary

Cincinnati.com (Ohio) Despite social media outcry, caretaker of paraplegic boy to be deported
By Mark Curnutte

 

Daily Immigration News Clips – January 9, 2018

Aggregated local and national media coverage of major immigration law news stories being discussed throughout the U.S. on January 9, 2018

National

McClatchy Under pressure, Trump team backs off proposal to cull foreign tech workforce
By Franco Ordonez

The Atlantic The Battle Over DACA Reaches a Fever Pitch
By Russell Berman

The Republic How Trump’s wall pledge is complicating a DACA bill for ‘dreamers’
By Dan Nowicki and Deniel Gonzalez

Star-Telegram Immigration advocates: DACA deal likely to give Trump his wall
By Andrea Drusch

Reuters Top Democrats send mixed signals on Dreamers, budget deal
By Susan Cornwell

CNN ‘It’s a mess’: DACA negotiations hit a snag ahead of White House meeting
By Lauren Fox, Phil Mattingly, and Tal Kopan

CNN John Kelly leading White House’s immigration effort in congressional negotiations
By Keving Liptak, Jeff Zeleny, Phil Mattingly, and Dana Bash

CNN Exclusive: Pair of lawmakers unveil bipartisan DACA plan
By Tal Kopan

CNN Republicans can’t avoid Trump’s wall promises in DACA talks
By Lauren Fox

The Hill Texas rep: Most Dems will vote against DACA fix that includes wall funding
By Brett Samuels

USA Today In reversal, anti-immigration groups are open to deal to let 800,000 DREAMers stay
By Alan Gomez

AP Pelosi is optimistic about agreement on budget, immigration
By Andrew Taylor

Center for Public Integrity Trump administration to end temporary protected status for immigrants from El Salvador
By Susan Ferriss

The Guardian US says 200,000 people from El Salvador must leave within 18 months
By Amanda Holpuch

CBS News DHS to end protections for some 260K Salvadoran immigrants
By Geneva Sands

AP US ends protections for Salvadoran immigrants, sparking fear
By Luis Alonso Lugo and Elliot Spagat

Reuters U.S. moves toward expelling 200,000 Salvadorans
By Yeganeh Torbati

New York Times Trump Administration Says That Nearly 200,000 Salvadorans Must Leave
By Miriam Jordan

Wall Street Journal U.S. to End Protections for Some Salvadoran Immigrants
By Alicia A. Caldwell and Laura Meckler

Politico Trump to end protected status for Salvadorans
By Ted Hesson, Seung Min Kim, and Heather Caygle

Roll Call Protected Immigration Status for Salvadorans to End in 2019
By Camila Dechaus

Washington Post ‘We will lose practically everything’: Salvadorans devastated by TPS decision
By Maria Sacchetti

AP Advocates want #MeToo debate to include immigrant detention
By Nomaan Merchant

New York Times To Pay for Wall, Trump Would Cut Proven Border Security Measures
By Ron Nixon

New York Times From Offices to Disney World, Employers Brace for the Loss of an Immigrant Work Force
By Vivian Yee, Liz Robbins, and Caitlyn Dickerson

CNN The political stakes of the immigration fight
By Stephen Collinson

The Hill Refugee admissions down for first part of fiscal 2018: report
By Rebecca Savransky

Fox News (Opinion) Trump’s crackdown on legal immigration is hurting America
By Anastasia Tonello

The Washington Post (Opinion) Trump heaps more misery on vulnerable immigrants
By Ishann Tharoor

The Hill (Opinion) Immigration reform: An Army recruitment opportunity
By Eric Fanning

New Yorker (Opinion) When Deportation Is a Death Sentence
By Sarah Stillman

CNN (Op-Ed) Trump’s Mexico wall would be a gift to the drug cartels
By Alice Driver

New York Times (Op-Ed) A Counterproductive Approach to a Broken Immigration System
By Ben Shifter and Michael Raderstorf

Splinter (Op-Ed) I’m Everything This Administration Hates
By Jorge Rivas

The Hill (Op-Ed) An apology to my sons’ Salvadorian caretaker
By Ezra Rosser

Local

Times-Picayune After El Salvador loses special protections from deportation, local Hondurans fear they’re next
By Maria Clark

Trib Live (Pennsylvania) Trump’s decision that would deport Salvadorans makes little sense, Pittsburgh-area immigration experts say
By Bob Bauder

Salt Lake Tribune (Utah) Fearful of deportation, unauthorized immigrants in Salt Lake City are not reporting crime, police chief says
By Christopher Smart

Texas Tribune (Texas) How a South Texas bureaucrat became a multimillionaire amid the rush to build a border fence
By Kiah Collier and Julian Aguilar

Sacramento Bee (Editorial) Trump targets Salvadoran immigrants. Here’s what Congress must do

 

Daily Immigration News Clips – January 8, 2018

Aggregated local and national media coverage of major immigration law news stories being discussed throughout the U.S. on January 8, 2018

National

New York Times Trump Administration Says That Nearly 200,000 Salvadorans Must Leave
By Miriam Jordan

Washington Post 200,000 Salvadorans may be forced to leave the U.S. as Trump ends immigration protection
By Nick Miroff

New York Times At Least 1,900 Immigrants Were Rejected Because of Mail Problems
By Liz Robbins

New York Times Judge Faults U.S. for Holding Immigrant Defendants Freed on Bail
By Alan Feuer

Wall Street Journal SEC Looks Into Kushner Cos. Over Use of EB-5 Program for Immigrant Investors
By Erica Orden

Wall Street Journal Border Agents’ Searches of Travelers’ Phones Skyrocketed, Agency Says
By Alicia A. Caldwell and Laura Meckler

AP The Latest: Trump sees possible deal on young immigrants

Reuters Senator Durbin blasts Trump for ‘anti-immigrant’ moves in ‘Dreamer’ talks

Reuters Democrats, Republicans trade barbs in tense immigration talks
By Richard Cowan

New York Times White House Immigration Demands Imperil Bipartisan Talks
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Michael Tackett

Politico Playbook Democrats squeezed on DACA

The Washington Post In next round of budget talks, ‘dreamers’ are set to dominate
By Ed O’Keefe, Mike DeBonis, and Erica Werner

HuffPost Dreamers To California Republicans: Help Us, Please
By Susan Ferriss

ABC News ‘This Week’ Transcript 1-7-18: Nikki Haley, Sen. Tom Cotton and Sen. Bernie Sanders

KPCC DACA job permits will begin expiring soon for young immigrants
By Leslie Berestein Rojas

Atlanta Journal-Constitution Nuestra Comunidad: Blind karate teacher faces possible deportment
By Carlos Moreno

AP Court date for immigrant restaurant manager not until 2021

Reuters Illegal immigrant acquitted in California death gets prison on gun charge
By Alex Dobuzinskis

Reuters Trump meets Republican leaders to set strategy for 2018
By Jeff Mason and Richard Cowan

Reuters Trump, meeting with Republican leaders, says welfare reform may have to wait
By James Oliphant

Wall Street Journal Trump Administration Seeks $18 Billion Over Decade to Expand Border Wall
By Laura Meckler

Wall Street Journal Refugee Admissions to U.S. Off to Slow Start in Fiscal Year 2018
By Laura Meckler

The Washington Post Immigrant sentenced in Kate Steinle shooting as Steinle family prepares for next fight
By Abigail Hauslohner and Maria Sacchetti

The Hill Sessions challenges administrative loophole in immigration court cases
By John Bowden

The Hill 5 Dem senators ask administration not to include citizenship question on census
By Julia Manchester

Newsweek Trump’s Anti-Immigration Rhetoric, Policies Killing Tourism to the U.S. Industry Analysts Say
By Nicole Rodriguez

Times Now H-1B rules: US lawmakers oppose Trump’s proposed changes, raise concern over deportation of 7.5 lakh Indians

New York Times (Letters to the Editor) The Immigrants Who Deliver Healthcare

The Hill (Opinion) Democrats Out of Order on DREAM Act
By Nolan Rappaport

New York Times (Opinion) Let’s Try to Get Past Trump
By Gail Collins

National Review (Opinion) DACA, DACA, Bo-Baca . . .
By Mark Krikorian

Local

Public News Service FL House Speaker “Using Trump’s Playbook” to Ban Sanctuary Cities
By Trimmel Gomes

New York Times (California) In Clash Between California and Trump, It’s One America Versus Another
By Tim Arango

Miami Herald (Florida) A year after obeying Trump on immigration, Miami-Dade still waiting for a windfall
By Douglas Hinks

The Intercept (Texas) Texas Police Chief Hands Over Undocumented Smuggling Victims to Local Organizations, Shunning ICE
By Ryan Devereaux

NBC San Diego Lawyer Fights for Student Facing Deportation After Being Detained in San Diego
By Mackenzie Maynard

CBS Sacramento (California) Immigration Attorneys Warn Against Using Marijuana As Feds Change Stance
By Carlos Correa

Vindy Community helps earn deportation delay for Adi
By Graig Graziosi

Cincinnati.com (Ohio) Appeal denied: ICE to move forward with deportation of paraplegic boy’s caregiver
By Mark Curnutte

Vindicator (Editorial) Area businessman a victim of US immigration system

The Monitor (Op-Ed) COMMENTARY: Far-right sentiment hurting businesses in RGV
By Samuel David Garcia

Lowell Sun (Op-Ed) Safe Communities Act sets clear line on immigration enforcement 
By Dina Samfield

Lancaster Online (LTE) Looking for more from Smucker
By Agustina Drot de Gourville

Boston Herald Atkins: Clock ticking on DACA deal
By Kimberly Atkins”

**************************************

PWS

01-16-18

Related posts:

  1. THE GIBSON REPORT FOR 12-18-17 – RECOGNIZING: The Absolutely Amazing ELIZABETH GIBSON Of The NY Legal Assistance Group and ALL She Does For Fairness, Justice, & Due Process! — MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN THE LIVES OF OUR MOST VULNERABLE!
  2. THE GIBSON REPORT — 11-27-17
  3. THE GIBSON REPORT — 02-05-18 — COMPILED BY ELIZABETH GIBSON ESQ, NY LEGAL ASSISTANCE PROJECT
  4. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 

MLK DAY 2018 — DR. KING’S DREAM OF AN AMERICA CELEBRATING EQUALITY & RACIAL HARMONY IS UNDER VICIOUS ATTACK BY TRUMP, PENCE, SESSIONS, AND A HOST OF OTHERS IN TODAY’S WHITE NATIONALIST ENABLING GOP — Who Is Going To Fight To Reclaim The Dream, & Who Is Going To “Go Along To Get Along” With The 21st Century Version Of Jim Crow?

Folks, as we take a few minutes today to remember Dr. King, his vision for a better America, and his inspiring “I Have A Dream Speech,” we have to face the fact that everything Dr. King stood for is under a vicious and concerted attack, the likes of which we haven’t seen in America for approximately 50 years, by individuals elected to govern by a minority of voters in our country.

So, today, I’m offering you a “potpourri”  of how and why Dr.King’s Dream has “gone south,” so to speak, and how those of us who care about social justice and due process in America can nevertheless resurrect it and move forward together for a greater and more tolerant American that celebrates the talents, contributions, and humanity of all who live here!.

*************************************

From the LA Times Editorial Board:

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_popover_share.aspx?guid=186bb118-702e-49a2-a52d-b8dac8aa0cc8

“50 years on, what would King think?

On Martin Luther King’s birthday, a look back at some disquieting events in race relations in 2017.

Nearly 50 years ago, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. went to the mountaintop and looked out over the promised land. In a powerful and prophetic speech on April 3, 1968, he told a crowd at the Mason Temple in Memphis that while there would certainly be difficult days ahead, he had no doubt that the struggle for racial justice would be successful.

“I may not get there with you,” he said. “But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And so I am happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything.”

The following day, he was assassinated.

The intervening years have been full of steps forward and steps backward, of extraordinary changes as well as awful reminders of what has not changed. What would King have made of our first black president? What would he have thought had he seen neo-Nazis marching through the streets of Charlottesville, Va., so many years after his death? How would he have viewed the shooting by police of unarmed black men in cities around the country — or the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement? He would surely have heard the assertions that we have become a “post-racial” society because we elected (and reelected) Barack Obama. But would he have believed it?

This past year was not terribly heartening on the civil rights front. It was appalling enough that racist white nationalists marched in Charlottesville in August. But it was even more shocking that President Trump seemed incapable of making the most basic moral judgment about that march; instead, he said that there were some “very fine people” at the rally of neo-Nazis and white supremacists.

Racial injustices that bedeviled the country in King’s day — voter suppression, segregated schools, hate crimes — have not gone away. A report released last week by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights on inequities in the funding of public schools concludes — and this should surprise no one — that students of color living in poor, segregated neighborhoods are often relegated to low-quality schools simply due to where they live. States continued in 2017 to pass laws that make it harder, rather than easier, for people of color to vote.

The Trump administration also seems determined to undo two decades of Justice Department civil rights work, cutting back on investigations into the excessive use of force and racial bias by police departments. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions in March ordered a review of all existing federal consent decrees with local police departments with the possibility of dismantling them — a move that could set back police reform by many years.

Here in Los Angeles County, this statistic is telling: 40% of the estimated 57,000 homeless people — the most desperate and destitute residents of the county — are black. Yet black residents make up only 9% of the L.A. County population.

But despite bad news on several fronts, what have been heartening over the last year are the objections raised by so many people across the country.

Consider the statues of Confederate generals and slave owners that were brought down across the country. Schools and other institutions rebranded buildings that were formerly named after racists.

The Black Lives Matter movement has grown from a small street and cyber-protest group into a more potent civil rights organization focusing on changing institutions that have traditionally marginalized black people.

When football quarterback Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the national anthem to protest, as he said, a country that oppresses black people, he was denounced by many (including Trump) but emulated by others. Kaepernick has been effectively banished from professional football but he started a movement.

Roy Moore was defeated for a Senate seat in Alabama by a surge of black voters, particularly black women. (But no sooner did he lose than Joe Arpaio — the disgraced, vehemently anti-immigrant former Arizona sheriff — announced that he is running for Senate there.)

So on what would have been King’s 89th birthday, it is clear that the United States is not yet the promised land he envisioned in the last great speech of his life. But we agree with him that it’s still possible to get there.”

**********************************

See this short HuffPost video on “Why MLK’s Message Still Matters Today!”

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/martin-luther-king-jr-assassination-legacy_us_58e3ea89e4b03a26a366dd77

****************************************

Read about how the Arizona GOP has resurrected, and in some instances actually welcomed, “Racist Joe” Arpaio, an unapologetic anti-Hispanic bigot and convicted scofflaw. “Racist Joe” was pardoned by Trump and is now running for the GOP nomination to replace retiring Arizona GOP Senator Jeff Flake, who often has been a critic of Trump. One thing “Racist Joe’s” candidacy is doing is energizing the Latino community that successfully fought to remove him from the office of Sheriff and to have him brought to justice for his racist policies. 

Kurtis Lee reports for the LA Times:

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-pol-arpaio-latino-voters-20180114-story.html

“Yenni Sanchez had thought her work was finished.

Spared from the threat of deportation by the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, she campaigned to oust Joe Arpaio when he unsuccessfully ran for reelection as Maricopa County sheriff in 2016. She knocked on hundreds of doors in south Phoenix’s predominantly Latino neighborhoods to register voters. She made phone calls, walked on college campuses. Her message was direct, like the name of the group she worked with, Bazta Arpaio, a take on the Spanish word basta — enough Arpaio.

But now, the 85-year-old former sheriff is back and running for Senate. Sanchez, who had planned to step away from politics to focus on her studies at Grand Canyon University, is back as well, organizing once more.

“If he thinks he can come back and terrorize the entire state like he did Maricopa County, it’s not going to happen,” Sanchez, 20, said. “I’m not going to let it happen.”

Arpaio enters a crowded Republican primary and may not emerge as the party’s nominee, but his bid has already galvanized Arizona’s Latino electorate — one of the country’s largest and fastest-growing voter blocs.

Organizers like Sanchez, who thought they might sit out the midterm elections, rushed back into offices and started making calls. Social media groups that had gone dormant have resurrected with posts reminding voters that Arpaio was criminally convicted of violating a federal court order to stop racially profiling Latinos.

“We’ve been hearing, ‘Is it true Arpaio is back? OK, what can we do to help?’” said Montserrat Arredondo, director of One Arizona, a Phoenix nonprofit group focused on increasing Latino voter turnout. “People were living in terror when Arpaio was in office. They haven’t forgotten.”

In 2008, 796,000 Latinos were eligible to vote in the state, according to One Arizona. By 2016, that potential voting pool jumped to 1.1 million. (California tops the nation with the most Latinos eligible to vote, almost 6.9 million.)

In 2016, Latinos accounted for almost 20% of all registered voters in Arizona. Latinos make up about 30% of Arizona’s population.

. . . .

Last year, President Trump pardoned Arpaio of a criminal conviction for violating a federal court order to stop racially profiling Latinos. When announcing his candidacy Tuesday, Arpaio pledged his full support to the president and his policies.

On Saturday, Arpaio made his first public appearance since announcing his candidacy, attending a gathering of Maricopa County Republicans. He was unmoved when asked about the enthusiasm his candidacy has created among Latinos.

“Many of them hate me for enforcing the law,” he said. “I can’t change that. … All I know is that I have my supporters, they’re going to support who they want. I’m in this to win it though.”

Arpaio, gripping about a dozen red cardboard signs that read “We need Sheriff Joe Arpaio in DC,” walked through the crowd where he mingled with, among others, former state Sen. Kelli Ward and U.S. Rep. Martha McSally, who also are seeking the GOP Senate nomination. Overall, Arpaio was widely met with enthusiasm from attendees.

“So glad you’re back,” said a man wearing a “Vietnam Veteran” hat.

“It’s great to be back,” Arpaio replied.

Arpaio, who handed out business cards touting his once self-proclaimed status as “America’s toughest sheriff,” said he had no regrets from his more than two decades in office.

“Not a single one,” he said. “I spoke my mind and did what needed to be done and would do it the same in a minute.”

In an interview, Arpaio, who still insists he has “evidence” that former President Obama’s birth certificate is forged, a rumor repeatedly shown to be false, did not lay out specific policy platforms, only insisting he’ll get things done in Washington.

During his tenure as sheriff, repeated court rulings against his office for civil rights violations cost local taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.”

Read the complete story at the link.

******************************************

Professor George Yancy of Emory University writing in the NY Times asks “Will America Choose King’s Dream Or Trump’s Nightmare?”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/15/opinion/martin-luther-king-trump-racism.html

Yancy writes:

“Let’s come clean: President Trump is a white racist! Over the past few days, many have written, spoken and shouted this fact, but it needs repeating: President Trump is a white racist! Why repeat it? Because many have been under the grand illusion that America is a “post-racial” nation, a beautiful melting pot where racism is only sporadic, infrequent and expressed by those on the margins of an otherwise mainstream and “decent” America. That’s a lie; a blatant one at that. We must face a very horrible truth. And America is so cowardly when it comes to facing awful truths about itself.

So, as we celebrate the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, we must face the fact that we are at a moral crossroad. Will America courageously live out Dr. King’s dream or will it go down the road of bigotry and racist vitriol, preferring to live out Mr. Trump’s nightmare instead? In his autobiography, reflecting on the nonviolent uprising of the people of India, Dr. King wrote, “The way of acquiesce leads to moral and spiritual suicide.” Those of us who defiantly desire to live, and to live out Dr. King’s dream, to make it a reality, must not acquiesce now, precisely when his direst prophetic warning faces us head on.

On the night before he was murdered by a white man on the balcony of his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn., Dr. King wrote: “America is going to hell if we don’t use her vast resources to end poverty and make it possible for all of God’s children to have the basic necessities of life.” Our current president, full of hatred and contempt for those children, is the terrifying embodiment of this prophecy.

We desperately need each other at this moment of moral crisis and malicious racist divisiveness. Will we raise our collective voices against Mr. Trump’s white racism and those who make excuses for it or submit and thereby self-destructively kill any chance of fully becoming our better selves? Dr. King also warned us that “there comes a time when silence is betrayal.” To honor Dr. King, we must not remain silent, we must not betray his legacy.

So many Americans suffer from the obsessive need to claim “innocence,” that is, to lie to ourselves. Yet such a lie is part of our moral undoing. While many will deny, continue to lie and claim our national “innocence,” I come bearing deeply troubling, but not surprising, news: White racism is now comfortably located within the Oval Office, right there at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, embodied in our 45th president, one who is, and I think many would agree, must agree, without any hesitation, a white racist. There are many who will resist this characterization, but Mr. Trump has desecrated the symbolic aspirations of America, exhumed forms of white supremacist discourse that so many would assume is spewed only by Ku Klux Klan.”

Read the rest of Professor Yancy’s op-ed at the link.

**********************************************

From lead columnist David Leonhardt and Ian Prasad Philbrick at the NY Times we get “Donald Trump’s Racism: The Definitive List.”

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/15/opinion/leonhardt-trump-racist.html

Donald Trump has been obsessed with race for the entire time he has been a public figure. He had a history of making racist comments as a New York real-estate developer in the 1970s and ‘80s. More recently, his political rise was built on promulgating the lie that the nation’s first black president was born in Kenya. He then launched his campaign with a speech describing Mexicans as rapists.

The media often falls back on euphemisms when describing Trump’s comments about race: racially loaded, racially charged, racially tinged, racially sensitive. And Trump himself has claimed that he is “the least racist person.” But here’s the truth: Donald Trump is a racist. He talks about and treats people differently based on their race. He has done so for years, and he is still doing so.

Here, we have attempted to compile a definitive list of his racist comments – or at least the publicly known ones.

The New York Years

Trump’s real-estate company tried to avoid renting apartments to African-Americans in the 1970s and gave preferential treatment to whites, according to the federal government.

Trump treated black employees at his casinos differently from whites, according to multiple sources. A former hotel executive said Trump criticized a black accountant: “Black guys counting my money! I hate it. … I think that the guy is lazy. And it’s probably not his fault, because laziness is a trait in blacks.”

In 1989, Trump took out ads in New York newspapers urging the death penalty for five black and Latino teenagers accused of raping a white woman in Central Park; he argued they were guilty as late as October 2016, more than 10 years after DNA evidence had exonerated them.

In 1989, on NBC, Trump said: “I think sometimes a black may think they don’t have an advantage or this and that. I’ve said on one occasion, even about myself, if I were starting off today, I would love to be a well-educated black, because I really believe they do have an actual advantage.”

An Obsession With
Dark-Skinned Immigrants

He began his 2016 presidential campaign with a speech disparaging Mexican immigrants as criminals and “rapists.”

He uses the gang MS-13 to disparage all immigrants. Among many other statements, he has suggested that Obama’s protection of the Dreamers — otherwise law-abiding immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children — contributed to the spread of MS-13.

In December 2015, Trump called for a “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” including refusing to readmit Muslim-American citizens who were outside of the country at the time.

Trump said a federal judge hearing a case about Trump University was biased because of the judge’s Mexican heritage.

In June 2017, Trump said 15,000 recent immigrants from Haiti “all have AIDS” and that 40,000 Nigerians, once seeing the United States, would never “go back to their huts” in Africa.

At the White House on Jan. 11, Trump vulgarly called forless immigration from Haiti and Africa and more from Norway.”

The disgusting list goes on and on. Go to the link to get it all!

******************************************************

Also at the NY Times, Charles M. Blow states what by now should have become obvious to the rest of us: “Trump Is A Racist. Period.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/14/opinion/trump-racist-shithole.html

Blow writes:

“I find nothing more useless than debating the existence of racism, particularly when you are surrounded by evidence of its existence. It feels to me like a way to keep you fighting against the water until you drown.

The debates themselves, I believe, render a simple concept impossibly complex, making the very meaning of “racism” frustratingly murky.

So, let’s strip that away here. Let’s be honest and forthright.

Racism is simply the belief that race is an inherent and determining factor in a person’s or a people’s character and capabilities, rendering some inferior and others superior. These beliefs are racial prejudices.

The history of America is one in which white people used racism and white supremacy to develop a racial caste system that advantaged them and disadvantaged others.

Understanding this, it is not a stretch to understand that Donald Trump’s words and deeds over the course of his life have demonstrated a pattern of expressing racial prejudices that demean people who are black and brown and that play to the racial hostilities of other white people.

It is not a stretch to say that Trump is racist. It’s not a stretch to say that he is a white supremacist. It’s not a stretch to say that Trump is a bigot.

Those are just facts, supported by the proof of the words that keep coming directly from him. And, when he is called out for his racism, his response is never to ameliorate his rhetoric, but to double down on it.

I know of no point during his entire life where he has apologized for, repented of, or sought absolution for any of his racist actions or comments.

Instead, he either denies, deflects or amps up the attack.

Trump is a racist. We can put that baby to bed.

“Racism” and “racist” are simply words that have definitions, and Trump comfortably and unambiguously meets those definitions.

We have unfortunately moved away from the simple definition of racism, to the point where the only people to whom the appellation can be safely applied are the vocal, violent racial archetypes.

Racism doesn’t require hatred, constant expression, or even conscious awareness. We want racism to be fringe rather than foundational. But, wishing isn’t an effective method of eradication.

We have to face this thing, stare it down and fight it back.

The simple acknowledgment that Trump is a racist is the easy part. The harder, more substantive part is this: What are we going to do about it?

First and foremost, although Trump is not the first president to be a racist, we must make him the last. If by some miracle he should serve out his first term, he mustn’t be allowed a second. Voters of good conscience must swarm the polls in 2020.

But before that, those voters must do so later this year, to rid the House and the Senate of as many of Trump’s defenders, apologists and accomplices as possible. Should the time come where impeachment is inevitable, there must be enough votes in the House and Senate to ensure it.

We have to stop thinking that we can somehow separate what racists believe from how they will behave. We must stop believing that any of Trump’s actions are clear of the venom coursing through his convictions. Everything he does is an articulation of who he is and what he believes. Therefore, all policies he supports, positions he takes and appointments he makes are suspect.

And finally, we have to stop giving a pass to the people — whether elected official or average voter — who support and defend his racism. If you defend racism you are part of the racism. It doesn’t matter how much you say that you’re an egalitarian, how much you say that you are race blind, how much you say that you are only interested in people’s policies and not their racist polemics.

As the brilliant James Baldwin once put it: “I can’t believe what you say, because I see what you do.” When I see that in poll after poll a portion of Trump’s base continues to support his behavior, including on race, I can only conclude that there is no real daylight between Trump and his base. They are part of his racism.

When I see the extraordinary hypocrisy of elected officials who either remain silent in the wake of Trump’s continued racist outbursts or who obliquely condemn him, only to in short order return to defending and praising him and supporting his agenda, I see that there is no real daylight between Trump and them either. They too are part of his racism.

When you see it this way, you understand the enormity and the profundity of what we are facing. There were enough Americans who were willing to accept Trump’s racism to elect him. There are enough people in Washington willing to accept Trump’s racism to defend him. Not only is Trump racist, the entire architecture of his support is suffused with that racism. Racism is a fundamental component of the Trump presidency.

 

************************************************

Back over at the Washington Post, op-ed writer E.J. Dionne, Jr., tells us the depressing news that “We could be a much better country. Trump makes it impossible.” 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/we-could-be-a-much-better-country-trump-makes-it-impossible/2018/01/14/84bff6dc-f7d4-11e7-b34a-b85626af34ef_story.html?utm_term=.c2151ab89a3c

Dionne concludes his piece with the following observations about our current “Dreamer” debate:

“Our current debate is frustrating, and not only because Trump doesn’t understand what “mutual toleration” and “forbearance” even mean. By persistently making himself, his personality, his needs, his prejudices and his stability the central topics of our political conversation, Trump is blocking the public conversation we ought to be having about how to move forward.

And while Trump’s enablers in the Republican Party will do all they can to avoid the issue, there should now be no doubt (even if this was clear long ago) that we have a blatant racist as our president. His reference to immigrants from “sh–hole countries” and his expressed preference for Norwegians over Haitians, Salvadorans and new arrivals from Africa make this abundantly clear. Racist leaders do not help us reach mutual toleration. His semi-denial 15 hours after his comment was first reported lacked credibility, especially because he called around first to see how his original words would play with his base.

But notice also what Trump’s outburst did to our capacity to govern ourselves and make progress. Democrats and Republicans sympathetic to the plight of the “dreamers” worked out an immigration compromise designed carefully to give Trump what he had said he needed.

There were many concessions by Democrats on border security, “chain migration” based on family reunification, and the diversity visa lottery that Trump had criticized. GOP senators such as Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) and Jeff Flake (Ariz.) bargained in good faith and were given ample reason by Trump to think they had hit his sweet spot.

Trump blew them away with a torrent of bigotry. In the process, he shifted the onus for avoiding a government shutdown squarely on his own shoulders and those of Republican leaders who were shamefully slow in condemning the president’s racism.

There are so many issues both more important and more interesting than the psyche of a deeply damaged man. We are capable of being a far better nation. But we need leaders who call us to our obligations to each other as free citizens. Instead, we have a president who knows only how to foster division and hatred.”

Read the rest of the op-ed at the link.

********************************************

Our “Liar-in-Chief:” This short video from CNN, featuring the Washington Post’s “Chief Fact Checker” Glenn Kessler deals with the amazing 2000+ false or misleading claims that Trump has made even before the first anniversary of his Presidency: “Trump averages 5-6 false claims a day.”

http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/01/15/president-trump-false-claims-first-year-washington-post.cnn

****************************************

Also on video, even immigration restrictionists sometimes wax eloquent about the exceptional generosity of U.S. immigration and refugee laws (even as they engage in an unending battle to undermine that claimed generosity). But, the reality, as set forth in this short HuffPost video is that on a regular basis our Government knowingly and intentionally returns individuals, mostly Hispanics, to countries where they are likely to be harmed or killed because we are unable to fit them within often hyper-technical and overly restrictive readings of various protection laws or because we are unwilling to exercise humanitarian discretion to save them..

I know first-hand because in my former position as a U.S. Immigration Judge, I sometimes had to tell individuals (and their families) in person that I had to order them returned to a country where I had concluded that they would likely be severely harmed or killed because I could not fit them into any of the categories of protection available under U.S. law. I daresay that very few of the restrictionists who glory in the idea of even harsher and more restrictive immigration laws have had this experience. 

And clearly, Donald Trump, Jeff Sessions, Steven Miller, Bob Goodlatte and others in the GOP would like to increase the number of humans we return to harm or death by stripping defenseless juveniles and other vulnerable asylum seekers of some of the limited rights they now possess in the false name of “border security.” Indeed, Sessions even invented a false narrative of a fraud-ridden, “attorney-gamed” (how do folks who often don’t even have a chance to get an attorney use attorneys to “game” the system?) asylum system in an attempt to justify his totally indefensible and morally bankrupt position.

Check out this video from HuffPost, entitled “This Is The Violent And Tragic Reality Of Deportation”  to see the shocking truth about how our removal system really works (or not)!

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/this-is-the-violent-and-tragic-reality-of-deportation_us_5a58eeade4b03c41896545f2

***************************************

Thinking of MLK’S “I have a dream,” next, I’ll take you over to The Guardian, where Washington Correspondent Sabrina Siddiqui tells us how “Immigration policy progress and setbacks have become pattern for Dreamers.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/15/dreamers-policy-progress-and-disaster-has-become-a-pattern-trump

Sabrina writes:

“Greisa Martínez Rosas has seen it before: a rare bipartisan breakthrough on immigration policy, offering a glimmer of hope to advocates like herself. Then a swift unraveling.

Martínez is a Dreamer, one of about 700,000 young undocumented migrants, brought to the US as children, who secured temporary protections through Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, or Daca.

She considers herself “one of the lucky ones”. Last year, she was able to renew her legal status until 2020, even as Donald Trump threw the Dreamers into limbo by rescinding Daca and declaring a deadline of 5 March for Congress to act to replace it.

Martínez is an activist with United We Dream, the largest youth-led immigration advocacy group in the US. She has fought on the front lines.

In 2010 and 2013, she saw efforts for immigration reform, and a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, culminate in disappointment. She rode a familiar rollercoaster this week, as a bipartisan Daca fix was undermined by Trump’s reported – if contested – reference to African and Central American nations as “shithole countries”.

“It feels like a sequel,” Martínez told the Guardian, adding that Trump’s adversarial views underscored the need to hash out a deal. “This same man is responsible for running a Department of Homeland Security that seeks to hunt and deport people of color.”

Negotiations over immigration have always been precarious. Trump has complicated the picture. After launching his candidacy for president with a speech that called Mexican migrants “rapists” and “killers”, Trump campaigned on deporting nearly 11 million undocumented migrants and building a wall on the Mexico border.

He has, however, shown a more flexible attitude towards Dreamers – despite his move to end their protective status. Last Tuesday, the president sat in the White House, flanked by members of both parties. In a 45-minute negotiating session, televised for full effect, Trump ignited fury among his hardcore supporters by signaling he was open to protection for Dreamers in exchange for modest border security measures.

Then, less than 48 hours later, Trump’s reported comments about countries like Haiti and El Salvador prompted a fierce backlash.

“People are picking their jaws up from the table and they’re trying to recover from feelings of deep hurt and anger,” said Frank Sharry, founder and executive director of America’s Voice, a group which advocates for immigration reform.

“We always knew we were climbing a mountain … but it’s improbable to imagine a positive breakthrough for immigrants with the most nativist president in modern America in charge.”

As the uproar continued, it was nearly forgotten that on Thursday, hours before Trump’s remarks became public, a group of senators announced a bipartisan deal.

Under it, hundreds of thousands of Dreamers would be able to gain provisional legal status and eventually apply for green cards. They would not be able to sponsor their parents for citizenship – an effort to appease Trump’s stance against so-called “chain migration” – but parents would be able to obtain a form of renewable legal status.

There would be other concessions to earn Trump’s signature, such as $2bn for border security including physical barriers, if not by definition a wall.

The compromise would also do away with the diversity visa lottery and reallocate those visas to migrants from underrepresented countries and those who stand to lose Temporary Protected Status. That would help those affected by the Trump administration’s recent decision to terminate such status for some nationals of El Salvador, effectively forcing nearly 200,000 out of the country.

The bill would be far less comprehensive than the one put forward in 2013, when a bipartisan group of senators known as the “Gang of Eight” proposed a bill that would have given nearly 11 million undocumented migrants a path to citizenship.

The bill passed the Senate with rare bipartisan support. In the Republican-led House it never received a vote.

Proponents of reform now believe momentum has shifted in their favor, despite Trump’s ascent. The Arizona senator Jeff Flake, part of the 2013 effort and also in the reform group today, said there was a clear deadline of 5 March to help Dreamers.

“I do think there is a broader consensus to do this than we had before,” Flake told the Guardian. “We’re going have 700,000 kids subject to deportation. That’s the biggest difference.”

Read the rest of the story at the link.

********************************************

Finally, John Blake at CNN tells us “Three ways [you might not know] MLK speaks to our time.”

http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/12/us/mlk-relevance-today/index.html

“(CNN)“Every hero becomes a bore at last.”

That’s a famous line from the 19th century philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, but it could also apply to a modern American hero: the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
As the nation celebrates King’s national holiday Monday, it’s easy to freeze-frame him as the benevolent dreamer carved in stone on the Washington Mall. Yet the platitudes that frame many King holiday events often fail to mention the most radical aspects of his legacy, says Jeanne Theoharis, a political science professor at Brooklyn College and author of several books on the civil rights movement.
How MLK became an angry black man
How MLK became an angry black man
“We turn him into a Thanksgiving parade float, he’s jolly, larger than life and he makes us feel good,” Theoharis says. “We’ve turned him into a mascot.”
Many people vaguely know that King opposed the Vietnam War and talked more about poverty in his later years. But King also had a lot to say about issues not normally associated with civil rights that still resonate today, historians and activists say.

If you’re concerned about inequality, health care, climate change or even the nastiness of our political disagreements, then King has plenty to say to you. To see that version of King, though, we have to dust off the cliches and look at him anew.
If you’re more familiar with your smartphone than your history, try this: Think of King not just as a civil rights hero, but also as an app — his legacy has to be updated to remain relevant.
Here are three ways we can update our MLK app to see how he spoke not only to his time, but to our time as well:
. . . .
The country is still divided by many of the same issues that consumed him.
On the last night of his life, King told a shouting congregation of black churchgoers that “we as a people” would get to “the Promised Land.” That kind of optimism, though, sounds like it belongs to another era.
The greatest MLK speeches you never heard
The greatest MLK speeches you never heard
What we have now is a leader in the White House who denies widespread reports that he complained about Latino and African immigrants coming to America from “shithole” countries; a white supremacist who murders worshippers in church; a social media landscape that pulsates with anger and accusations.
King’s Promised Land doesn’t sound boring when compared to today’s headlines. And maybe that’s what’s so sad about reliving his life every January for some people.
Fifty years after he died, King’s vision for America still sounds so far away.”
Read the complete article at the link.
**************************************
There you have it. A brief but representative sample of some of the many ways in which Dr. King’s dream of a “post racist America” is still relevant and why there’s still much more work still to be done than many of us might have thought several years ago.  
So, the next time you hear bandied about terms like “merit-based” (means: exclude Brown and Black immigrants); “extreme vetting” (means: using bureaucracy to keep Muslims and other perceived “undesirables” out); “tax cuts” (means: handouts to the rich at the expense of the poor); “entitlement reform” (means: cutting benefits for the most vulnerable); “health care reform” (means: kicking the most needy out of the health care system); “voter fraud” (means: suppressing the Black, Hispanic, and Democratic vote); “rule of law” (means: perverting the role of Government agencies and the courts to harm Blacks, Hispanics, Gays, women, the poor, and other minorities); “job creation” (means: destroying our precious natural resources and the environment for the benefit of big corporations), “border security” (means: slashing rights for children and asylum seekers, and more money for building a wall and expanding prisons for non-criminal migrants, a/k/a/ “The New American Gulag”), “ending chain migration” (means keeping non-White and/or non-Christian immigrants from bringing family members) and other deceptively harmless sounding euphemisms, know what the politicos are really up to and consider them in the terms that Dr. King might have.
What’s really behind the rhetoric and how will it help create the type of more fair, just, equal, and value-driven society that majority of us in American seek to be part of and leave to succeeding generations. If it isn’t moving us as a nation toward those goals, “Just Say NO” as Dr. King would have done! 
PWS
01-15-18

Related posts:

  1. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  2. JAMELLE BOUIE @ SLATE: TRUMP, SESSIONS, MILLER & THE GOP RESTRICTIONISTS HAVE PUT GOOD OL’ 1920S RACISM AT THE FOREFRONT OF THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST IMMIGRATION AGENDA! –“What good does it do to bring in somebody who’s illiterate in their own country, has no skills, and is going to struggle in our country and not be successful? . . . That is not what a good nation should do, and we need to get away from it.” — J. “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions, Attorney General of the United States of America & Unapologetic White Nationalist With A Long History Of Racism!
  3. MARIA SACCHETTI IN WASHPOST: INSIDE THE “NAG” (NEW AMERICAN GULAG) — CRUEL, INHUMAN, DEGRADING TREATMENT APPEARS TO BE WIDESPREAD IN SO-CALLED “CIVIL” IMMIGRATION DETENTION! — Where’s The Outrage? — Where’s The Congressional Oversight? — Why Aren’t Guys Like “Gonzo” & Homan Who Knowingly Promote Violations Of Legal & Human Rights As (Unlawful) “Immigration Deterrence” Under Investigation For Their Roles In Violating Human, Constitutional Rights!
  4. GONZO’S WORLD: HIS HIGHLY DISINGENUOUS “TRIBUTE” TO DR. KING WHILE ACTIVELY UNDERMINING MLK’S VISION OF RACIAL EQUALITY IN AMERICA OUTRAGES CIVIL RIGHTS ADVOCATES! — Hollow Words From An Empty Man!

THE HILL: PROFESSOR (& FORMER USCIS CHIEF COUNSEL) STEPHEN LEGOMSKY ON WHY THE TRUMP/SESSIONS FALSE NARRATIVE ATTEMPTING TO DEMONIZE & CRIMINALIZE ALL IMMIGRANTS IS SO TOXIC FOR AMERICA!

http://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/367269-trumps-lumps-all-immigrants-together-at-americas-risk

Steve writes:

“As we approach the first anniversary of the Trump presidency, a clear pattern emerges.

A Muslim immigrant and her U.S.-born husband kill civilians. Candidate Donald Trump’s reaction was to propose a ban on all Muslim immigrants.

Some refugees commit crimes. His reaction is to bar all refugees for 120 days and drastically cut refugee admissions after that.

A diversity-visa immigrant commits a terrorist act. President Trump‘s reaction is to call for repealing the diversity immigrant program.

A man is admitted under the sibling preference. His accompanying child attempts a terrorist attack years later. President Trump’s reaction is that all “chain immigration” should be banned.

 

The absurdity of condemning an entire group because of the actions of a single member seems self-evident. If a left-handed immigrant commits a crime, no one would propose banning all left-handed immigrants. The real question is whether there is a causal link between the commission of the crime and either the substantive criteria or the processes of the particular program.

No such link exists. For one thing, everyone who seeks admission to the United States under any of these programs is rigorously vetted. I know this firsthand, from my experience as chief counsel of the federal agency that admits immigrants and refugees.

. . . .

Anti-immigrant groups are fond of pointing out that, if an individual who committed a crime had never been allowed to enter, the crime would not have occurred. And that is true. But that observation could be made about any admission program. No matter how strict the criteria or how rigorous the vetting, there is always some possibility, however remote, that a given individual will one day commit a crime. Short of banning all foreign nationals from ever setting foot on U.S. soil, there is no way to reduce the risk to zero.

As with any other policy decision, the risks have to be balanced against the benefits. And there are benefits in allowing U.S. citizens to reunite with their family members, benefits in attracting workers with needed skills, benefits in diversifying the immigrant stream, and benefits in fulfilling a moral responsibility to welcome our fair share of those who fear for their lives.

Let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Stephen Legomsky is an emeritus law professor at Washington University, the former chief counsel of the federal immigration services agency, and the principal author of “Immigration and Refugee Law and Policy,” which has been the required text for immigration courses at 185 law schools.”

*******************************************

Go on over to The Hill at the link to read Steve’s complete article.

Thanks, Steve, for sending this my way and for these great and appropriate thoughts on MLK Day! It’s important for those of us who have spent a lifetime working in the field and have served the public in our Government to speak out against the various false narratives and perversions of programs that have served America well being pushed by the restrictionists who control this Administration’s immigration policies. Hate, fear, and loathing are not the answers that Dr. King was promoting!

PWS

01-15-18

Related posts:

  1. MLK DAY 2018 — DR. KING’S DREAM OF AN AMERICA CELEBRATING EQUALITY & RACIAL HARMONY IS UNDER VICIOUS ATTACK BY TRUMP, PENCE, SESSIONS, AND A HOST OF OTHERS IN TODAY’S WHITE NATIONALIST ENABLING GOP — Who Is Going To Fight To Reclaim The Dream, & Who Is Going To “Go Along To Get Along” With The 21st Century Version Of Jim Crow?
  2. JAMELLE BOUIE @ SLATE: TRUMP, SESSIONS, MILLER & THE GOP RESTRICTIONISTS HAVE PUT GOOD OL’ 1920S RACISM AT THE FOREFRONT OF THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST IMMIGRATION AGENDA! –“What good does it do to bring in somebody who’s illiterate in their own country, has no skills, and is going to struggle in our country and not be successful? . . . That is not what a good nation should do, and we need to get away from it.” — J. “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions, Attorney General of the United States of America & Unapologetic White Nationalist With A Long History Of Racism!
  3. GONZO’S WORLD: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A DIVERSE “NATION OF IMMIGRANTS” ANOINTS A COMMITTED XENOPHOBE AS ITS CHIEF LAW OFFICER? – Gonzo Is Deconstructing Our System Of Justice, One Day At A Time!
  4. WASHINGTON POST EDITORIAL RIPS TRUMP/SESSIONS “GONZO” IMMIGRATION AGENDA AS “ANTI-AMERICAN!”– White Nationalist Inspired Restrictionism Is Suppressing The Real Dialogue We Should Be Having!

LA TIMES: GOP APPARENTLY ADOPTS TRUMP’S WHITE NATIONALIST RESTRICTIONIST IMMIGRATION AGENDA WHILE ESSENTIALLY DEFENDING HIS RACISM — GOP Now Openly RepresentsThe Forces Of Ignorance & Intolerance In America!

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_popover_share.aspx?guid=c072dbb1-9778-4e79-a635-ce0b9b58b8d4

Lisa Mascaro reports for the LA Times:

“WASHINGTON — The furor over President Trump’s language about immigrants from “shithole countries” has partially obscured the substance of what he was demanding and the profound shift among Republicans beyond opposing illegal immigration to also pushing new limits on legal migrants, particularly of color.

Trump made the remark as he rejected a bipartisan proposal from Sens. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to resolve the status of some 700,000 so-called Dreamers facing deportation. In exchange for protecting them, Trump wanted more restrictions on legal immigrants from Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America, among other changes.

Those demands come as Trump has already put the country on track to remove 1 million immigrants over the next two years. Among them are the Dreamers — young immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children — and more than 200,000 Salvadorans, nearly 60,000 Haitians and others from Central America who have lived in the U.S. legally, in some cases for decades, under temporary protected status that the administration is ending.

The mounting total is a policy reversal for Republicans, who until recently insisted that welcoming new arrivals was vital not just to the fabric of American life but in boosting the domestic economy. Now, many Republicans in Congress have moved to a more restrictionist position, following Trump’s lead.

Trump “has taken our issues off the back burner and thrust them into the spotlight,” said Roy Beck, executive director at Numbers USA, which argues for reducing immigration to midcentury levels, before passage of the 1965 immigration overhaul ushered in a new era of diverse migrants.

Beck marvels at the turn of events.

“The president has done as much as we hoped for,” he said.

Trump’s insistence on immigration restrictions may have increased the odds of a confrontation this week when Congress must vote on a measure to fund agencies or risk a partial government shutdown.”

*************************

Read the complete article at the link.

Aligning yourselves with Roy Beck says it all. The GOP’s push on undocumented immigration has become a smokescreen for a war on legal immigrants from non-European countries. That, in turn, is part of the White Nationalist attack on ethnic Americans, particularly individuals of color.

Trump’s crassness and lack of judgment has just blown the smokescreen and exposed the ugly racist and xenophobic underpinnings of the GOP’s “merit based” immigration charade. Folks who care about America’s future must resist this un-American GOP initiative.

Eventually, the majority of us who believe in a tolerant, diverse, welcoming, unafraid America that can resume its world leadership role must regain power from those driven by the toxic, intolerant views of a minority of Americans who foisted the national disaster of Trump upon our country!

PWS

01-14-18

Related posts:

  1. MLK DAY 2018 — DR. KING’S DREAM OF AN AMERICA CELEBRATING EQUALITY & RACIAL HARMONY IS UNDER VICIOUS ATTACK BY TRUMP, PENCE, SESSIONS, AND A HOST OF OTHERS IN TODAY’S WHITE NATIONALIST ENABLING GOP — Who Is Going To Fight To Reclaim The Dream, & Who Is Going To “Go Along To Get Along” With The 21st Century Version Of Jim Crow?
  2. JAMELLE BOUIE @ SLATE: TRUMP, SESSIONS, MILLER & THE GOP RESTRICTIONISTS HAVE PUT GOOD OL’ 1920S RACISM AT THE FOREFRONT OF THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST IMMIGRATION AGENDA! –“What good does it do to bring in somebody who’s illiterate in their own country, has no skills, and is going to struggle in our country and not be successful? . . . That is not what a good nation should do, and we need to get away from it.” — J. “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions, Attorney General of the United States of America & Unapologetic White Nationalist With A Long History Of Racism!
  3. COURTSIDE HISTORY: HOW THE FOUNDING FATHERS’ RACISM ERASED A PRESIDENT’S DAUGHTER! — ALSO MY: “FRIDAY ESSAY — FROM MONTICELLO TO TRUMP, MILLER, SESSIONS, AND THE GOP WHITE NATIONALISTS”
  4. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!

GONZO’S WORLD: PROFESSOR KARI HONG EXPLAINS SIX WAYS THAT TRUMP, SESSIONS, & CO. ARE THE REAL SCOFFLAWS IN THEIR MISGUIDED CRUDSADE AGAINST SO-CALLED “SANCTUARY CITIES!”

https://thecrimereport.org/2018/01/08/sanctuary-cities-vs-trump-whos-really-breaking-the-law/

Professor Hong writes in The Crime Report:

“As we start a new year, the status of “sanctuary cities” promises to be a continuing flashpoint in the immigration debate. The Trump Administration cites the “rule of law,” and immigrants’ supposed failure to follow it, to justify its crackdown on cities that fail to refer undocumented immigrants who are arrested to federal immigration authorities.

But the president’s attempt to withhold funds from sanctuary jurisdictions doesn’t meet that rule-of-law standard.

Here’s some background. Since 2008, the federal government has sought state and local cooperation in enforcing immigration law under a program originally named Secure Communities, which allows police to check a person’s immigration status in a database maintained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), after he or she is stopped for a traffic violation or arrested for a state crime.

If there is a match, ICE asks the local entity to detain the individual until ICE determines whether an immigration hearing is required, and a judge will then decide if deportation is merited.

Those who support this program, including Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, claim states and cities must use Secure Communities to catch murderers and rapists. Trump issued an executive order deputizing state and local officers to make immigration arrests, and threatened to withhold money from any city and state that does not cooperate.

But ironically, according to four federal judges and a growing number of state courts, it’s Trump’s request that fails to follow the law.

The request flouts the rule of law on six counts.

First, the president seeks to punish “sanctuary jurisdictions.” But only Congress—not the president—can give or withhold federal funds.

The federal government’s lawyers understand the flaws in Trump’s order to withhold funding from jurisdictions. In one of the California cases, the Department of Justice argued that the federal judge should not enforce its order because Trump’s request is unenforceable and should just be ignored. (The judge didn’t buy that argument.)

Second, no one knows what the term “sanctuary jurisdictions” means. When John Kelly, currently the president’s chief of staff, headed the Department of Homeland Security and was tasked with penalizing such jurisdictions, he testified that he “do[esn’t] have a clue” on how to define a “sanctuary city.”

Generally, the term is understood to apply to cities and states that cooperate with the federal government on immigration arrests. But there are no means to define what a failure to act means. It could arise from a decision not to cooperate, but it could also be the result of a lack of opportunity.

That’s like penalizing a backup quarterback for not scoring touchdowns every time the starter plays; it’s simply not his job.

Third, the ICE database is filled with errors. In 2010, ICE detained an individual for three days who was in fact born in Puerto Rico, and therefore a U.S. citizen. This year, ICE agents erroneously detained Mohammed Ali’s son questioning his citizenship. They also detained a visiting Holocaust scholar for violating his visitor’s visa by accepting payment for a speech, not knowing that academics are exempt from that rule.

Fourth, the program is expensive. The federal government requires states and cities to pay for the detention of the non-citizen. Los Angeles stopped doing it after paying $26 million in one year. And when mistakes occur, ICE will not indemnify states or cities.

That means if a state or local police officer detains someone ICE has mistakenly determined is deportable, the state and city will be exposed to a civil lawsuit that seeks monetary compensation for that wrongful detention.

Fifth, even when predicated on correct information, a growing number of stateand federal courts are finding ICE’s requests unlawful and unconstitutional because they do not relate to any ongoing or prospective criminal activity.

Living in the country without status is not a crime. ICE’s requests thus run afoul of the Fourth Amendment’s requirement that the government detain only people who are suspected of committing crimes.

Sixth, the program is ineffectual.

In the nearly 10 years Secure Communities has existed, only a minority of the millions identified have a prior conviction for violent crime. Around 12 percent of the millions of non-citizens identified in this program had been convicted of “serious crimes”, which is a category that includes both violent crimes and non-violent crimes of forgery, fraud, and non-violent drug offenses. Another 25 percent had minor crimes or traffic infractions, such as driving their child to school without a license.

And approximately 40 percent of non-citizens who were picked up in this program had no criminal record.

Under Trump, although the number of immigration arrests increased 40 percent from last year, no more than six percent of those arrested had criminal records.

That low number should not be surprising.

If someone truly is a murderer, rapist, or posed a real danger, they would be rotting in a prison cell. They would not be in the streets, afraid that an ICE officer could somehow discover that they overstayed their visa 20 years ago.

This logic plays out in fact. A recent study concluded that residents in sanctuary cities experience lower crime rates than their counterparts. The case of Kathryn Steinle, 32, who was killed while walking in San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf area in 2015, was used by Trump and immigration opponents as an example of the dangers posed to Americans by undocumented immigrants.

But while the perpetrator was a man who had already been deported five times because of criminal convictions, he proved to be the wrong symbol. Last month, a jury concluded that her death was a tragic accident from a gun misfiring and rejected both murder and manslaughter charges.

Editor’s Note: In response to the acquittal, the Justice Department announced it would file federal charges against the man, and issued an arrest warrant.

Worse, requiring local communities to enforce immigration law is harming its citizenry.

Police chiefs and commissioners have been outspoken in their support of sanctuary policies, arguing they are critical tools to encourage crime victims and witnesses in the immigrant community to cooperate with the police.

Their concerns were well-founded. In the first three months of 2017, the Los Angeles Chief of Police reported that among all ethnicities, only Latino individuals had a 25 percent drop in reporting rapes and domestic violence.

Keep in mind that those with criminal records are not always the so-called “bad hombres,” to use the president’s notorious phrase. Minor crimes have been used to deport combat veterans. A drug crime was the reason to deport a 9/11 volunteer who helped clean up the rubble of the World Trade Center.

Misdemeanors, expunged convictions, and even pardoned state crimes are deportable offenses. And immigration law sweeps in old convictions, so that green card holders who are middle-aged become deportable, regardless of years of proven rehabilitation.

It is too bad that “sanctuary” is the term to describe the jurisdictions that opt out of this program, because it wrongly implies that cities and states are providing amnesty. It would be unimaginable for local police—while issuing speeding tickets or investigating murders—to double check if the driver, the suspects or witnesses had properly filed their respective taxes with all the appropriate deductions, and then detain them until an IRS agent could review their past tax returns.

But that is exactly what is happening with immigration, or at least it was, until four federal judges—and counting—stopped Trump for failing to follow the law.

Kari Hong

Kari Hong

The lesson is clear. Actual criminals are best apprehended and punished by state criminal justice systems. Congress should focus on fixing the broken immigration system that had last seen reform over 20 years ago, and local cities should spend their time and money on local matters.

Casting blame on cities doesn’t solve anything. Forcing cities to do the work of the federal government is truly making things worse.

Kari Hong, an Assistant Professor at Boston College Law School, teaches immigration and criminal law. She founded a clinic representing non-citizens with criminal convictions in the Ninth Circuit, and has argued over 100 Ninth Circuit cases and 50 state criminal appeals.”

****************************************

The concept that Scofflaw Gonzo is “restoring the rule of law” at Justice is a cruel joke. “Gonzo’s law” has no real room for the rights of Blacks, Hispanics, Gays, Immigrants, Women, Muslims, or others who don’t fit his “Bannon-Miller” White Nationalist restrictionist agenda.

PWS

01-14-18

Related posts:

  1. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  2. MARIA SACCHETTI IN WASHPOST: INSIDE THE “NAG” (NEW AMERICAN GULAG) — CRUEL, INHUMAN, DEGRADING TREATMENT APPEARS TO BE WIDESPREAD IN SO-CALLED “CIVIL” IMMIGRATION DETENTION! — Where’s The Outrage? — Where’s The Congressional Oversight? — Why Aren’t Guys Like “Gonzo” & Homan Who Knowingly Promote Violations Of Legal & Human Rights As (Unlawful) “Immigration Deterrence” Under Investigation For Their Roles In Violating Human, Constitutional Rights!
  3. JAMELLE BOUIE @ SLATE: TRUMP, SESSIONS, MILLER & THE GOP RESTRICTIONISTS HAVE PUT GOOD OL’ 1920S RACISM AT THE FOREFRONT OF THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST IMMIGRATION AGENDA! –“What good does it do to bring in somebody who’s illiterate in their own country, has no skills, and is going to struggle in our country and not be successful? . . . That is not what a good nation should do, and we need to get away from it.” — J. “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions, Attorney General of the United States of America & Unapologetic White Nationalist With A Long History Of Racism!
  4. MARK JOSEPH STERN @ SLATE: GONZO’S GONE! — Bigoted, Xenophobic AG Leaves Behind Disgraceful Record Of Intentional Cruelty, Vengeance, Hate, Lawlessness, & Incompetence That Will Haunt America For Many Years!

TRUMP AND GOP RESTRICTIONISTS HAVE AFRICA ALL WRONG – AFRICAN IMMIGRANTS ACTUALLY BETTER EDUCATED, MORE SUCCESSFUL, THAN MOST NATIVE BORN AMERICANS – Racial Bias Distorts Truth!

http://www.latimes.com/world/africa/la-fg-global-african-immigrants-explainer-20180112-story.html

Ann M. Simmons reports for the LA Times:

“Lots of the news from sub-Saharan Africa is about war, famine, poverty or political upheaval. So it’s understandable if many Americans think most Africans who immigrate to the United States are poorly educated and desperate.

That’s the impression that President Trump left with his comments to members of Congress opposing admission of immigrants from “shithole countries” in Africa and elsewhere.

But research tells another story.

While many are refugees, large numbers are beneficiaries of the “diversity visa program” aimed at boosting immigration from underrepresented nations. And on average, African immigrants are better educated that people born in the U.S. or the immigrant population as a whole.

“It’s a population that’s very diverse in its educational, economic and English proficiency profile,” said Jeanne Batalova, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute think tank in Washington and coauthor of a report last year on sub-Saharan African immigrants in the U.S. “People came for a variety of reasons and at various times.”

Overall, their numbers are small compared with other immigrant groups but have risen significantly in recent years. The U.S. immigrant population from sub-Saharan Africa (49 countries with a total population of more than 1.1 billion) grew from 723,000 to more than 1.7 million between 2010 and 2015, according to a new report by New American Economy, a Washington-based research and advocacy group. Still, they make up just half a percent of the U.S. population.

Drawing from U.S. surveys and Census Bureau data, the report found that the majority come from five countries: Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Ethiopia and South Africa.

The Pew Research Center reported that African immigrants are most likely to settle in the South or Northeast, and that the largest numbers — at least 100,000 — are found in Texas, New York, California, Maryland, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Virginia. Many African refugees have also relocated to or have been resettled in states such as Minnesota and South Dakota.

The Refugee Act of 1980 made it easier for people fleeing war zones to resettle in the U.S., and today there are tens of thousand of refugees from Somalia, Sudan and Congo. About 22% of African immigrants are refugees, according to Andrew Lim, associate director of research at New American Economy.

At the same time, the diversity visa program — also known as the visa lottery — has opened the door to immigrants from more peaceful places. Of the sub-Saharan immigrants who have become legal permanent residents, 17% came through the program, compared with 5% of the total U.S. immigrant population, according to Batalova.

Applicants to the program must have completed the equivalent of a U.S. high school education or have at least two years of recent experience in any number of occupations, including accountant, computer support specialist, orthodontist and dancer.

As a result, the influx includes many immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa who are highly skilled professionals.

Batalova’s research found that of the 1.4 million who are 25 and older, 41% have a bachelor’s degree, compared with 30% of all immigrants and 32% of the U.S.-born population. Of the 19,000 U.S. immigrants from Norway — a country Trump reportedly told lawmakers is a good source of immigrants — 38% have college educations.

The New American Economy study found that 1 in 3 of these undergraduate degrees were focused on science, technology, engineering and math — “training heavily in demand by today’s employers.”

That report also found that African immigrants were significantly more likely to have graduate degrees. A total of 16% had a master’s degree, medical degree, law degree or a doctorate, compared with 11% of the U.S.-born population, Lim said.

African immigrants were more than twice as likely than the U.S. population overall to work in healthcare, Lim said. There are more than 32,500 nursing, psychiatric or home health aides, more than 46,000 registered nurses and more than 15,700 doctors and surgeons.

“Overwhelmingly the evidence shows that [African immigrants] make a significant, positive economic contribution to the U.S. economy,” both at a national level and in districts where they are concentrated, Lim said. “They contribute more than $10.1 billion in federal taxes, $4.7 billion in state and local taxes, and most importantly, they have significant economic clout to the point of $40.3 billion in spending power.”

That $40.3 billion pays for housing, transportation, consumer goods and education for their children — “things that actually stimulate the economy around them,” Lim said.

The biggest beneficiary is Texas, where their spending power is $4.7 billion, followed by California, Maryland, New York and Georgia.

“It’s a population that leverages its human resources and contributes to the U.S. economy by revitalizing communities, starting businesses, but also by working in a variety of professional fields,” Batalova said.

Even those with less education who arrive as refugees often fill certain lower-skill niches in healthcare, such as home health aides, researchers said.

“In the communities they were resettled in, they have made significant contributions,” Lim said.

In many towns and cities in the Great Lakes area of the Midwest, for example, they have started new businesses, infused local labor forces with younger workers, and expanded local tax bases, Lim said.

A report last year by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found that immigrants in general had little to no negative effect on overall wages or employment levels for U.S.-born workers, and higher-skilled immigrants in fields such as technology and science had a positive influence on the U.S. labor force.

Still, supporters of stricter immigration policy back the Trump administration’s calls to end the visa lottery as well as programs that allow certain immigrants to sponsor family members to settle in the U.S. They believe that a merit system that selects immigrants based on individual skills should replace the current system.”

******************************************

Truth, facts, and helping American workers have never been part of the GOP restrictionist agenda. The xenophobia is no longer limited to so-called undocumented immigrants; it’s clear that guys like Purdue, Cotton, and Goodlatte really don’t like immigrants of any type, and particularly those of color or from “developing nations.” It’s really all about race with religion and culture thrown in — slowing down the “browning and blackening” of America, attacking the Hispanic American and African-American cultures, and trying to block or limit the immigration of non-Christians (including, of course, Muslims).

Trump’s racist remarks this week (which Perdue, Cotton, and Nielsen are rather disingenuously trying to claim never happened) and the GOP’s basic defense of the idea of drawing immigrants from White European countries rather than Haiti, Africa, or Central America has basically “blown the cover” off of so-called “merit based” immigration being pushed by some in the GOP. Trump was just articulating the hateful White Nationalist immigration agenda that he ran on and many (not all) in the GOP have now adopted under the code word “merit based.” That doesn’t bode well for bipartisan immigration reform of any type or, for that matter, for the future of a diverse “nation of immigrants.”

PWS

01-14-18

Related posts:

  1. MLK DAY 2018 — DR. KING’S DREAM OF AN AMERICA CELEBRATING EQUALITY & RACIAL HARMONY IS UNDER VICIOUS ATTACK BY TRUMP, PENCE, SESSIONS, AND A HOST OF OTHERS IN TODAY’S WHITE NATIONALIST ENABLING GOP — Who Is Going To Fight To Reclaim The Dream, & Who Is Going To “Go Along To Get Along” With The 21st Century Version Of Jim Crow?
  2. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  3. JAMELLE BOUIE @ SLATE: TRUMP, SESSIONS, MILLER & THE GOP RESTRICTIONISTS HAVE PUT GOOD OL’ 1920S RACISM AT THE FOREFRONT OF THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST IMMIGRATION AGENDA! –“What good does it do to bring in somebody who’s illiterate in their own country, has no skills, and is going to struggle in our country and not be successful? . . . That is not what a good nation should do, and we need to get away from it.” — J. “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions, Attorney General of the United States of America & Unapologetic White Nationalist With A Long History Of Racism!
  4. WALL? WHAT WALL? – BUREAUCRATIC BARRIERS BEST BAR TO (NEEDED) IMMIGRATION (Hey, I Could’ve Told ‘Em That!) – But, White Nationalist Goal Of Returning To A “White America” Ultimately Doomed — “You can slow the rate of Latino and Asian immigration, but it won’t make the population whiter,”. . . “It will just become less white at a slower pace.”

DAVID BIER @ CATO IN WASHPOST: ADMINISTRATION’S WAR ON SALVADORANS IN AMERICA IS AS FUTILE AS IT IS STUPID!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/trumps-move-against-salvadorans-wont-make-them-leave–or-help-us-workers/2018/01/11/0fa6aac4-f637-11e7-a9e3-ab18ce41436a_story.html

David Bier of the Cato Institute writes in the Washington Post:

“Trump administration officials announced this past week that the government would terminate provisional residency permits for about 200,000 Salvadorans next year. The decision is part of President Trump’s “America first” agenda, restricting the rights of immigrants in order to protect U.S. workers. But, as previous immigration experiments demonstrate, the policy will not aid American workers. And it certainly won’t make Salvadorans pack their bags. Trump’s order is likely to have the opposite effects.

President George W. Bush granted Salvadorans temporary protected status (TPS) after devastating earthquakes hit El Salvador in 2001. He and President Barack Obama repeatedly extended the status. Beyond its humanitarian impact, TPS provides significant economic benefits. It doesn’t give applicants access to any federal welfare — so there are few costs — but it does grant the legal right to work. And Salvadorans with TPS work at very high rates: Eighty-eight percent participate in the labor force, compared with 63 percent of all Americans.

Legal employment has helped Salvadorans achieve a relatively high standard of living. The median household income for Salvadorans with TPS is $50,000, higher than the roughly $36,000 for unauthorized immigrants. Their higher wages, combined with the lack of public benefits, has been a big win for U.S. taxpayers.

ADVERTISEMENT

Canceling TPS will make it illegal for these Salvadorans to work, but it’s unlikely to force them home. In 1990, President George H.W. Bush granted TPS to some 185,000 Salvadorans during the country’s civil war, and when President Bill Clinton canceled their status in 1996, few returned. Deportations rose only slightly, and many Salvadorans just worked illegally until 2001.

At this point, 28 years since the original TPS designation and 17 years since the subsequent one, the incentives to stay will be too large for any mass migration back to El Salvador. Trump can try to drive them out with immigration raids and increased deportations, as other presidents have tried, but the highest percentage of unauthorized immigrants deported in a given year is 2.1 percent — three times the amount this administration deported in 2017.

Losing the legal right to work doesn’t prevent immigrants from finding jobs. They can use fake or borrowed documents from U.S. citizen family members, or employers can pay them off the books. Illegal employment, however, pays less than legal employment — employers compensate for taking the risk of hiring someone who may be here illegally.”

**************************

Read Bier’s complete article at the link.

I can make a strong argument that Salvadoran, Haitian, and Honduran TPS are some of the most successful and humane Immigration programs in US history. In contrast to asylum adjudication, TPS adjudications cost the Government peanuts. And, the processing fees for periodic renewals of work authorization actually make money for the Government.

TPSers are overwhelmingly law-abiding, industrious, and because of their legal work authorization they pay taxes. Many TPSers work in essential industries like construction where there are not equally qualified “native born American workers” readily available to replace them. Many have US Citizen children and they have integrated into their communities. In my experience, while the majority would like to have a “path to citizenship” they aren’t aggressively agitating for one. Almost all are grateful just for the chance TPS gives them to remain with their families in the communities they call home and to work legally to support their families.

Thus, TPSers contribute much to the US and ask little in return. Their continuing presence here is in no way a “problem.”

In a rational political climate, extending TPS while offering some type of permanent status to TPSers through legislation would be a “no brainer.”  Indeed, a generation or so ago, US enacted a great program called NACARA, which offered Nicaraguans, Salvadorans, and Guatemalan a way of staying permanently and eventually becoming citizens. The program was immensely successful at a minimal administrative cost to the Government.

But, today we have a White Nationalist Administration and an increasingly White Nationalist restrictionist GOP interested more in dumping on Hispanics and Blacks through a bogus “merit based” immigration agenda than they are in doing what’s best for America.

Bier’s right. the Salvadorans aren’t going anywhere. But the Administration and the GOP restrictionists appears fixed on driving them “underground” at great cost to the TPSers and to America. They are likely to remain underground until we have “regime change” and saner heads eventually prevail.

PWS

01-14-17

Related posts:

  1. JAMELLE BOUIE @ SLATE: TRUMP, SESSIONS, MILLER & THE GOP RESTRICTIONISTS HAVE PUT GOOD OL’ 1920S RACISM AT THE FOREFRONT OF THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST IMMIGRATION AGENDA! –“What good does it do to bring in somebody who’s illiterate in their own country, has no skills, and is going to struggle in our country and not be successful? . . . That is not what a good nation should do, and we need to get away from it.” — J. “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions, Attorney General of the United States of America & Unapologetic White Nationalist With A Long History Of Racism!
  2. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  3. MLK DAY 2018 — DR. KING’S DREAM OF AN AMERICA CELEBRATING EQUALITY & RACIAL HARMONY IS UNDER VICIOUS ATTACK BY TRUMP, PENCE, SESSIONS, AND A HOST OF OTHERS IN TODAY’S WHITE NATIONALIST ENABLING GOP — Who Is Going To Fight To Reclaim The Dream, & Who Is Going To “Go Along To Get Along” With The 21st Century Version Of Jim Crow?
  4. KURT BARDELLA @ HUFFPOST: “Make No Mistake, Trump’s Government Shutdown Is About Racism!” — GOP LATINO LEADER AL CARDENAS SLAMS HIS PARTY’S “LACK OF EMPATHY” ON “MEET THE PRESS!”

DHS RESUMES DACA PROCESSING UNDER COURT ORDER

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/daca-renewal-applications_us_5a5b02cfe4b03c418966501f

Dominique Mosbergen reports for HuffPost:

“Days after a federal judge in California temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s efforts to pull the plug on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, the federal government said on Saturday that it would resume accepting renewal applications for the program “until further notice.”
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said in a statement on its website that DACA will be “operated on the terms in place before it was rescinded on Sept. 5, 2017.” That was the date on which Trump announced his decision to terminate the Obama-era program that shielded some 700,000 young undocumented immigrants from deportation.
“Due to a federal court order, USCIS has resumed accepting requests to renew a grant of deferred action under DACA,” the agency said.
Renewal applications will, however, only be accepted from people who previously received DACA and whose deferred action had expired on or after Sept. 5, 2016.
Former DACA recipients whose grant expired before that date cannot request a renewal, but they can file a new request, the agency said. No new applicants will be accepted.
Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, warned on Saturday that the window for renewal applications may be “short.” She urged those eligible for renewal to prepare their applications promptly.”

***************************

Read the rest of the article at the link.

The only time the Trump Administration does the right thing is when ordered to do so by one of the courts despises and disses.

PWS

01-14-18

 

Related posts:

  1. DANA MILBANK @ WASHPOST: KIRSTJEN NIELSEN IS A BUREAUCRATIC SUPER SYCOPHANT! – Duh! Why Do You Think She Got The Job?
  2. “GO POUND SAND” SUPREMES TELL TRUMP & SESSIONS ON DACA – HIGH COURT STIFFARMS DOJ’S FRIVOLOUS TRY TO END RUN LEGAL PROCESS!
  3. NEW FROM TAL KOPAN AT CNN: DACA ON THE ROPES — “Only Congress can enact a permanent solution to the DACA situation!”
  4. THE NY TIMES TAKES YOU INSIDE THE “NERVE CENTER” OF THE WHITE NATIONALIST EMPIRE: TRUMP’S “GONZO” IMMIGRATION POLICIES DRIVEN BY XENOPHOBIA, RACISM, IRRATIONAL FEAR, FAKE NEWS, MISINFORMATON, AND BIAS! – Trump & Cronies Deny Our Nation’s Immigrant Past While Seeking To Destroy Our Future As A Powerful and Diverse Democracy!