ROUNDTABLE MEMBER HON. PAUL GUSSENDORF IN BALTIMORE SUN:  “Trump abandons U.S. leadership role regarding refugees”

Paul Gussendorf
Hon. Paul Gussendorf
U.S. Immigration Judge (Ret.)

https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-1016-immigration-policy-20191015-qnkp7gdtfre3zbh5iqkqv3iwnq-story.html

Trump abandons U.S. leadership role regarding refugees

By PAUL GRUSSENDORF

BALTIMORE SUN |

OCT 15, 2019 | 11:04 AM

Ever since Donald Trump assumed the presidency on a tide of vile hatred and racist attacks upon Mexican migrants, the administration has been chipping away at our asylum laws and protections for refugees. As someone who has been part of this system for decades as an immigration judge and refugee officer and most recently a supervisory asylum officer, I have an up-close view of just how destructive Mr. Trump’s chipping away at the system has been — and how despicably dishonest and mendacious his stated rationales for it really are.

It is most disturbing to see our great nation surrendering its historic commitment to refugee protection during a period of the greatest world-wide refugee crisis since World War II. The Refugee Act of 1980 was the U.S.’s domestic response to our treaty obligation under the U.N. Convention on the Status of Refugees. Congress declared at that time that “the historic policy of the United States was to respond to the urgent needs of persons subject to persecution in their homelands.”

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This administration’s family separations policy — ripping children from their parents to serve as a deterrent to asylum seekers, and detention of children in unsanitary cages without adequate supervision — reached levels of cruelty unmatched in modern history. Multiple attempts to block refugees from even reaching our southern border have been implemented. The white nationalist cabal that is running the president’s immigration policy is pulling all the stops in turning a system of humanitarian protection into one of rejection.

The director of the asylum division in the Department of Homeland Security, one of the most respected managers in the agency, has been replaced because he was an experienced advocate for the rights of asylum seekers. The so-called Third Country Transit Rule bars practically all asylum seekers arriving at our southern border who haven’t first sought asylum in hyper-violent countries such as Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador or Guatemala, even though none of those countries can provide safety for their own citizens, let alone for refugees, and even though none of them have an adequately functioning asylum administration that would make the rule meaningful.

Where are the days when Ronald Reagan welcomed refugees to our shores? Mr. Trump continues to claim that the entire asylum system is fraudulent, that it is a “big, fat con job.”

A man sells candy as pedestrian commuters make their way across the Paso del Norte Bridge at the Mexico-US border in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on September 12, 2019. – The US Supreme Court on September 11, 2019, allowed asylum restrictions by President Donald Trump’s administration to take effect, preventing most Central American migrants from applying at the US border. (PAUL RATJE/Getty)

When I was interviewing Salvadorian minors in San Salvador in 2016, as part of our government’s Central American Minor (CAM) program, I heard hundreds of painfully credible cases of teenage kids who had been given the ultimatum of either joining criminal gangs or being killed; of parents who had been told that they could either turn over their daughters to an ultra-violent gang or see the eradication of their whole family; of children who had witnessed the violent deaths of parents or siblings, and been informed that they would be next if they didn’t agree to sell drugs or serve as look-outs for gangs.

The so-called Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), which requires that asylum seekers at the southern border be warehoused in Mexico pending their scheduled appearance in immigration court, has resulted in the return of some 50,000 migrants to border cities where they are subject to assaults, kidnappings and murder.

During the last year of the Obama administration the U.S. refugee admissions ceiling was increased to 110,000 for 2017. However, on the heels of Mr. Trump’s Muslim ban the administration has whittled down refugee admissions to a ceiling of 18,000 in 2020. The U.S. has effectively withdrawn from the field, sending the signal that we no longer consider ourselves as leaders in the world for refugee interests.

Mr. Trump’s remarks about migrants from “s***hole countries” have resonated around the world. The question posed — Why has the U.S. abandoned its leadership role in refugee protection? — can perhaps best be answered with another question. Earlier this year I had the privilege of visiting schools in Lome, Togo, in West Africa to discuss with the students the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and the significance of his humanitarian message internationally. At one school, when I took questions, a 10-year-old boy asked, “Why does Donald Trump hate Africans?”

Paul Grussendorf (pauldgrussendorf@hotmail.com) has been an immigration judge, a refugee officer for the UN Refugee Agency and a refugee officer for the U.S. government. He just retired from his position as supervisory asylum officer for the U.S. government. His book is, “My Trials: Inside America’s Deportation Factories.”

 

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Thanks, Paul, for all you are doing for America. Paul’s next assignment will be as a UNHCR contractor in Rwanda.

 

PWS

10-15-19

 

“BIG MAC’S” LEGACY IS A PREVIEW OF “COOCH COOCH’S” PLANS FOR FURTHER “WEAPONIZING” DHS AGAINST HUMANITY — Child Abuse, Illegal Actions, Contempt For Court Decrees Likely To Ramp Up Under Spectacularly Unqualified White Nationalist “Statue Of Liberty Denier!”

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/immigration/story/2019-10-14/cbp-holds-migrants-longer-than-it-is-supposed-to-lawyer-claims?utm_source=SDUT+Essential+California&utm_campaign=516be9d215-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_10_15_12_56&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1cebf1c149-516be9d215-84889485

Gustavo Solis
Gustavo Solis
South Bay Reporter
San Diego Union-Tribune

Gustavo Solis reports for the San Diego Union-Tribune:

Customs and Border Protection may be violating the law by holding asylum-seeking children longer than the agency is allowed to, according to lawyers who represent migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border.

By GUSTAVO SOLIS

OCT. 14, 2019

 

6:29 PM

Lawyers are accusing Customs and Border Protection in San Diego of breaking their own policies and potentially the law by holding migrant children in custody longer than the agency is allowed to.

Under the Flores Settlement Agreement, the federal government generally cannot detain migrant children and their parents together for more than brief periods. The agreement states CBP should not hold children for more than 72 hours and Immigration and Customs Enforcement should not detain them for more than 20 days.

However, asylum-seeking children are routinely held for more than 72 hours in San Diego, according to Erika Pinheiro, a staff attorney with the nonprofit Al Otro Lado.

“We are seeing cases of prolonged detention every day,” she said. “There is no rhyme or reason to it. Sometimes they are released the same day, sometimes it’s a week later. We’ve had cases of people in CBP custody for three weeks.”

Many of the people being held in CBP custody are part of the Remain in Mexico program, which forced asylum seekers to live in Mexico while waiting for their cases to be decided in immigration courts.

The latest example involves a 9-year-old asylum seeker and her mother who have been in CBP custody since Oct. 4, as first reported by KPBS.

The mother and family were released from CBP custody Monday afternoon, Pinheiro said.

That case is particularly disturbing because both the child and mother are reportedly sick — suffering from stomach pain and diarrhea — which could be a separate violation of the Flores Settlement Agreement, the lawyer added.

Apart from limiting the amount of time children can be in federal custody, the Flores Settlement Agreement also establishes basic standards of care that include access to medical care.

A CBP spokesman declined to answer specific questions about the 9-year-old’s case or more general questions about Pinheiro’s claims that the agency is violating the law.

The spokesman said that the agency treats those in its custody with, “dignity and respect,” while striving to, “process individuals as expeditiously as possible,” and noted that, “most individuals are in our facilities for 72 hours or less.”

President Trump has called the Flores Settlement Agreement a “loophole,” that allows immigrants to be released from immigration detention centers. In August, the Trump administration unveiled proposed regulations that would replace Flores.

Specifically, the new policies would abolish ICE’s 20-day limit on detaining families and establish new minimum standards of care for people held in detention centers.

According to CBP’s own policies, “detainees should generally not be held for longer than 72 hours in CBP facility and every effort must be made to hold detainees for the least amount of time required for their processing, transfer, release, or repatriation as appropriate and as operationally feasible.”

Immigration attorney Rose Thompson has seen multiple asylum seekers spend more than 72 hours in CBP custody, including a case of a mother and her adult daughter spending 12 days in CBP custody.

Another asylum seeker said the conditions inside CBP custody were so poor that she asked to be sent back to Mexico, Thompson said.

“It’s horrible,” she said. “It’s not an area that’s intended to detain people for longer than 48 or 72 hours because it’s not comfortable. I don’t know even if there are beds.”

An August 2019 report of conditions inside federal custody noted that the average length of detention for asylum seekers here in San Diego was 3.4 days and more than eight percent of migrants surveyed in the report were held in custody for five days or more.

That report, published by the U.S. Immigration Policy Center, noted that more than 10 percent of asylum seekers in custody reported experiencing medical issues in detention.

The Flores Settlement Agreement also requires the federal government to provide basic care for children in custody. It stipulates that minors most be treated with, “dignity, respect, and special concern for their particular vulnerability.”

Similarly, CBP guidelines regarding medical treatment state that officers are required to report illnesses to a supervisor and document them in an electronic system of record while also seeking or providing medical care in a timely manner.

However, Pinheiro claims that CBP is also violating this aspect of both the Flores Agreement and the agency’s internal policies.

She points to the mother and daughter released from detention on Monday as just the latest example of migrants not receiving adequate care while in custody.

“I have never had a client say they saw a doctor while in CBP custody,” she said.

Conditions of migrants in CBP custody made headlines in June, when a group of lawyers in Texas asked a judge to issue a temporary restraining order and a contempt order calling for CBP to “immediately start processing children for release to parents or relatives,” and provide children with, “basic necessities including adequate food, clean water, medical care, and access to sleep.”

 

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There is a fairly simple solution for the problem of a Government that disobeys the law. Federal Judges should start throwing “Cooch Cooch,” his subordinates, Barr, and the DOJ lawyers advancing untrue and unethical arguments in support of their “clients’” indefensible positions in jail for contempt of court. In the case of lawyers, like “Cooch Cooch,” Barr, and his subordinates they should also be referred to their respective state bars for disbarment proceedings.

Until these thugs are held accountable, the child abuse and other human rights outrages will continue.

 

PWS

10-15-19

 

 

 

 

 

“IRREPARABLE HARM” – Trump’s Treachery Unleashes A Totally Predictable Military & Human Rights Disaster In Syria, Hands Another Victory To Putin!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/trump-had-one-foreign-policy-success-he-just-threw-it-away/2019/10/14/165c96cc-ee87-11e9-89eb-ec56cd414732_story.html

From the Washington Post:

 

By Editorial Board

Oct. 14, 2019 at 5:24 p.m. EDT

UNTIL NOW, it was possible to hope that the damage caused by President Trump’s terrible incompetence, ignorance and impulsivity in foreign policy was largely theoretical, and possibly reparable. That is no longer true. The cost of his latest Syria blunder is unfolding before our eyes: Innocent lives lost. U.S. servicemen and -women betrayed. Butchering dictators emboldened. Dangerous terrorists set free. A ghastly scene is playing out, and it almost surely will get worse.

How often have Mr. Trump and his Republican enablers in Congress berated President Barack Obama for allowing Syria to cross his “red line” without dire consequences? None of them is entitled ever to mention that again.

Mr. Trump — with no consideration, no warning, no consultation with allies, no regard for the other nations that have fought alongside the United States and risked their men and women in the fight — has turned tail. In the past two years, courageous U.S. troops cooperated with our Kurdish allies to defeat the deadly Islamic State caliphate. These allies lost more than 11,000 men and women killed; the United States, a dozen. It was a rare U.S. success in the Middle East.

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The president has thrown it all away. His surrender is so hasty that U.S. forces could not execute a long-standing plan to take dozens of high-profile Islamic State detainees with them; we can expect to hear from those terrorists before long, in the region, in Europe or in the United States. The Islamic State is likely to exert its malign force again. The allies who fought alongside us are being slaughtered, and noncombatant women and children, too. Iran is strengthened, which threatens Israel. The murderous Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad is strengthened, too. Russia is taking charge. America’s adversaries could not have scripted a better outcome.

 

Mr. Trump likes to preen and posture as a champion of American fighters. But what more bitter medicine could any commander in chief administer to U.S. troops than ordering them to abandon the comrades who fought alongside them? He likes to preen, too, as a great enemy of Iran, and even as he runs from Syria he is ordering1,800 U.S. troops to Saudi Arabia, ostensibly to deter Iran. But that deployment, while proving the utter incoherence of his claim of “ending wars in the Middle East,” will have far less effect on Iran than the U.S. pullout from Syria, which opens the door for it to swell its influence there, on Israel’s border.

And speaking of preening: Republican senators such as Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.), who have cheered and celebrated Mr. Trump and his national security team, now huff and puff about imposing sanctions on Turkey as punishment for its invasion. Mr. Trump said Monday that he now supports such sanctions. But only one week ago he greenlighted Turkey’s incursion, and on Sunday he further encouraged it with his announcement of a hasty U.S. withdrawal. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan bears responsibility for Turkey’s depredations, of course. But if there is any coherence — or morality — in Mr. Trump’s position, he is doing a good job of concealing it.

 

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All the King’s horses and all the King’s men won’t be able to put Humpty Dumpty together again! And certainly “economic sanctions” won’t stop the Turkish onslaught. The only thing that might stop it is an alliance among the Kurds, Assad, and Putin. Obviously, Trump has handed Vladi another big victory.

Courtside had this one pegged from the git go!  https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/10/08/sycophant-sen-l-graham-r-sc-wakes-up-after-two-year-slumber-shocked-that-trump-has-betrayed-our-allies/.

 

PWS

 

10-15-19

 

DESIGNED TO FAIL – PORT “COURTS” ARE A MOCKERY OF JUSTICE BY THE TRUMP ADMINISTATION – Congress & Feckless Article III Appellate Courts Are Enabling This Gross Denial Of Due Process & Human Rights!

Kim Hunter
Kim Hunter, Esquire
Lawyers for Good Government
John Bruning
John Bruning, Esquire
Lawyers for Good Government

 

https://apple.news/AC6USa7dsRTGNaJ54E8-T6w

 

From The Hill:

By Kim Hunter, Katharine Gordon and John Bruning, opinion contributors – 10/13/19 04:00 PM EDT

 

The immigration system is designed to fail

The Trump administration’s latest efforts to block as many asylum seekers as possible from entering the U.S. have expanded exponentially with the implementation of “port courts.”

Tens of thousands of refugees have been forced to remain in Mexico in order to request any protection from persecution, rather than be permitted to enter the U.S. to await their hearing dates. For their hearings, they enter port courts, which are literally in tents and trailers that have been hastily put up in southern border cities.

We are part of a group of attorney volunteers who recently returned from assisting asylum-seekers in Matamoros, Mexico. One of us accompanied two new clients to the port court in Brownsville, Texas. Neither the judges nor government attorneys are physically present, instead appearing by video and hidden from public view as press and observers are barred.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is solely responsible for this. The Department of Justice (DOJ), which employs the immigration judges, notes that the Justice Department will follow the regulation that requires hearings to be public. However, since DHS operates the port courts, DOJ has capitulated to the ad hoc rules which deny transparency.

At every step of the way, refugees and the handful of attorneys who represent them are reminded that this “system” is designed to fail. There are no marked entrances to the Brownsville court, which resembles a concentration camp in its design and layout.

Instead, attorneys must already know where the entrance is and ask to be let in by privately contracted guards who monitor it for DHS. Forms with client signatures are required to gain entry. Attorneys are escorted by guards from the front gate to client meetings, to attend court and even to access the restroom.

Attorneys are not allowed to bring electronics into the tent complex, which means they cannot access their calendars or legal research. Meanwhile, DHS lawyers maintain access to their technology as they sit off-screen. Only the immigration judge and interpreter are video streamed into the port courtroom.

In order to even schedule the next hearing, the attorney must request a recess so that they can leave the court complex, go to their car to access their calendar on their phone and go through the security process all over again to get back to their hearing.

Immigrants with hearings and their children are also subjected to security screening in order to enter. Their shoelaces are confiscated by DHS and not returned. Some refugees report being subjected to cavity searches just to attend court.

Unless the immigrant is represented, the families wait for a “group advisal” of their rights, which is interpreted only in Spanish. Many refugees speak indigenous languages and have no way to communicate that in the face of a video link via a Spanish interpreter. Yet, in order to secure a full hearing on their claim, they must submit applications and all supporting documents in English.

Individuals with attorneys do not have their full hearings interpreted. At most, procedural matters are translated at the very beginning and end. For a client to know what is happening, their attorney must translate for them while making legal arguments and responding to the DHS attorney and the immigration judge.

At the conclusion of one of our clients’ hearings, the contracted guard tried to force counsel from the courtroom without giving him an opportunity to explain the non-interpreted hearing that had just taken place.

The attorney had to involve the judge, who intervened and asserted some control over the courtroom to allow our client access to counsel. Meanwhile, DHS’s position is that attorneys have enough time to speak to their clients before the hearing, and can meet their client in Mexico later to explain what happened.

To meet with clients in Mexico, attorneys must violate the State Department’s travel advisories, which categorize Matamoros as a level 4 security risk, which is the category reserved for the most dangerous places on earth, including active war zones like Syria.

As volunteer attorneys we were allowed to cross the border exclusively in a group during daylight hours. We conducted our work within 100 yards of the border crossing point which makes client confidentiality impossible. In case of cartel violence, we were instructed to drop everything and sprint for the crossing on our group leader’s signal.

The harms refugees suffer due to our official U.S. government policy of rendering them homeless includes deaths by drowning in the Rio Grande (even while bathing), multiple documented instances of kidnappings within minutes or hours of being returned from the U.S. The toll of surviving on the streets of Mexico is amplified by the due process farce refugees face in post courts.

As tempting as it is, we cannot give in to our exhaustion and cynicism: We must hold this administration accountable for the ongoing illegality that is engulfing the border. It may take decades or longer to repair what we have lost under this administration and there is no time to waste.

Kim Hunter, Katharine Gordon and John Bruning are immigration attorneys working on behalf of Lawyers for Good Government.

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Lawyers, mostly working pro bono, are the only ones involved in a concerted effort to make our immigration system function. They deal daily with a system intentionally and maliciously stacked against them and their clients, a disinterested Congress, and spineless Federal Appellate Courts who mindlessly sign off on the results of these illegal, immoral, and unconstitutional atrocities.

These are crystal clear denials of the right to assistance of counsel of choice, guaranteed by statute and Due Process. So, what happened to Congress and to the reviewing courts?  Look at the Ninth Circuit’s disgusting and cowardly performance in Innovation Law Lab v. McAleenan and the Supreme Court’s disgraceful decision in Barr v. East side Sanctuary Covenant. Derelection of duty costs lives! How do these guys get away with it?  How do they sleep at night?

Human rights lawyers also suffer endless abuse by cowardly, dishonest officials of the Trump Administration carrying out an unconstitutional White Nationalist attack on America and its courageous defenders:

As tempting as it is, we cannot give in to our exhaustion and cynicism: We must hold this administration accountable for the ongoing illegality that is engulfing the border. It may take decades or longer to repair what we have lost under this administration and there is no time to waste.

The good news is that members of the “New Due Process Army” are in it for the long run!

DUE PROCESS FOREVER!

PWS

10-14-19

 

HUMANITY REVILED: THE HUMAN COSTS OF TRUMP’S INTENTIONALLY CRUEL & INHUMAN POLICIES CARRIED OUT BY DHS – Mica Rosenberg @ Reuters & Friends With Three Timely Reports!

Mica Rosenberg
Mica Rosenberg
National Immigration Reporter, Reuters

I wanted to share our latest exclusive reporting that found some 16,000 children, nearly 500 of them infants under 1 year old, have been sent back to Mexico under the “Migrant Protection Protocols” to wait out their U.S. court hearings in often precarious living conditions. The government would not share a demographic breakdown of who was being sent back under the program so we sought the answers ourselves:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-babies-exclusive/exclusive-u-s-migrant-policy-sends-thousands-of-babies-and-toddlers-back-to-mexico-idUSKBN1WQ1H1

 

Separately, we just completed a multimedia project that took months of work and lots of cross-border collaboration to follow the diverging fates of several migrants who travelled with the caravans last year:

https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-IMMIGRATION-PROFILE/0100B2FK1NP/index.html

 

I am also following the developments in the U.S. refugee resettlement program:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-refugees/all-i-can-do-is-pray-a-family-in-limbo-as-us-slows-refugee-admissions-idUSKBN1WI0XV

 

Please read and share and stay in touch with more story ideas!

All the best,

Mica

 

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Mica Rosenberg

Reuters News

National Immigration Reporter

www.reuters.com

 

 

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Thanks Mica & team for the great in-depth reporting highlighting the human costs of the Trump Administration’s scofflaw policies.

It’s also what “Big Mac With Lies” actually stood for and went along with during his tenure at DHS. Things to remember when, somewhere down the line, Big Mac inevitably tries to “reinvent himself” as “the voice of reason” or an “internal resistor” to Trump’s grotesque anti-human rights campaign and his “political weaponization” of DHS.

DHS actually has a duty to insure that refugee laws are fairly and generously applied, as intended, to protect those fleeing persecution and torture. Not only did Big Mac fail to carry out that responsibility, but he actively undermined, mocked, and further endangered those needing protection under our laws. And, it was all part of a blatantly racist, White Nationalist, restrictionist Trump agenda that Big Mac fully understood and willfully advanced. He presided over a highly corrupt, unprofessional, politicized, weaponization of DHS. By this time, the damage appears to be irreparable.

 

PWS

 

10-13-19

COURT REPORT: A Great Day For America Is Another Bad Friday For Trump’s Ugly White Nationalist Agenda!

Nick Miroff
Nick Miroff
Reporter, Washington Post

Nick Miroff reports for WashPost:

Federal judges in New York, Texas and California sided against two of the Trump administration’s key immigration initiatives Friday, the latest lower court ruling against the president’s push for new physical and administrative barriers to migrants.

In El Paso, the court ruled the Trump administration’s attempt to reprogram military funds for the construction of border fencing was a violation of appropriation laws, a decision that could freeze work on the barrier in that area.

And in separate rulings in New York, California and Washington state, judges partly blocked the implementation of the “public charge” rule that aimed to disqualify immigrants from receiving green cards if they use public benefits or the government considers them likely to do so.

The decisions were the latest setbacks to the administration’s broader attempt to tighten the legal immigration system at the same time the president is seeking to erect hundreds of miles of towering steel barriers along the Mexico border using billions of dollars diverted from military budgets.

[‘He always brings them up’: Trump tries to steer border wall deal to North Dakota firm]

In the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Judge David Briones sided with the plaintiffs — El Paso County and the Border Network for Human Rights — and gave them 10 days to file a proposal for a preliminary injunction. Briones, a Clinton appointee, denied the administration’s motion to dismiss the suit, which was filed in April.

The decision Friday is the first instance of a local jurisdiction successfully suing to block construction of Trump’s border barrier. El Paso County authorities argued it would inflict harm to the local community’s reputation by creating an impression that the city is dangerous and unwelcoming.

Trump visits U.S.-Mexico border wall

On Sept. 18, President Trump visited the U.S.-Mexico border wall in Otay Mesa, Calif. to examine the construction. (The Washington Post)

David Bookbinder, an attorney for the plaintiffs, called it a “nice, neat, small ruling” that avoided broader constitutional questions about the president’s authority. The ruling instead zeroed in on what the judge said were violations that exceeded the executive branch’s authority to divert money appropriated by Congress for a specific purpose.

Bookbinder said it would take his clients “a few days” to determine what government activity they will seek to halt. The injunction probably would extend beyond El Paso County into areas of New Mexico, he said.

“It’s going to be a question of geography,” he said. “We’re going to have to specifically describe the areas of the border where the president will not be able to construct the wall.”

Trump this year diverted $3.6 billion in military construction funds to pay for hundreds of miles of 30-foot-tall steel bollard fencing. The administration has built 71 miles of new barriers so far, but Trump has promised to complete nearly 500 miles by the end of next year.

El Paso County Attorney Jo Anne Bernal said the county commissioners took a potentially risky step in suing the president but said the action was necessary because his portrayal of the border as a dangerous area was damaging the economy and other important aspects of community life.

“You have the president of the United States declaring a national emergency, and we can look outside and see that there’s no national emergency,” Bernal said.

At a meeting last month led by White House adviser Jared Kushner, administration officials discussed a plan to reprogram another $3.6 billion in Pentagon money if lawmakers do not provide funds for the barriers through the appropriations process.

The Trump administration is expected to appeal the ruling. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In New York, Judge George B. Daniels blocked the Trump administration’s “public charge” rule, calling it “unlawful, arbitrary and capricious.”

A 93-page ruling in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California rejected the government’s arguments on similar grounds, but with a more geographically limited scope.

Ken Cuccinelli, the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which was preparing to implement the public charge rule this month, suggested the government would appeal.

“An objective judiciary will see that this rule lies squarely within long-held existing law,” he said in a statement. “Long-standing federal law requires aliens to rely on their own capabilities and the resources of their families, sponsors, and private organizations in their communities to succeed. The public charge regulation defines this long-standing law to ensure those seeking to come or stay in the United States can support themselves financially and will not rely on public benefits.”

U.S. immigration laws have long held provisions allowing the government to bar immigrants who are considered at risk of becoming dependent on public support, but the Trump administration’s initiative would expand the types of benefits that could be taken into consideration, including Medicaid, food assistance and federal housing vouchers.

Immigrant advocates and officials in several jurisdictions have claimed the measures have had a chilling effect even before their implementation, discouraging families from seeking medical care, shelter and food.

New York Attorney General Letitia James, one of the plaintiffs suing the government, celebrated the ruling. “Once again, the courts have thwarted the Trump administration’s attempts to enact rules that violate both our laws and our values, sending a loud and clear message that they cannot rewrite our story to meet their agenda,” she said in a statement.

Robert Moore in El Paso contributed to this report.

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Who knows what will happen on appeal. The U.S.Courts of Appeals have sometimes “taken a dive” on Trump and sometimes stood up against his illegal actions. 

But, at least for the moment it puts some monkey wrenches in Trump’s racist plans and his ongoing abuses of our legal system..

PWS

10-13-19

“BIG MAC WITH LIES” OUT AT DHS — Implementing White Nationalist Agenda & Parroting Anti-Immigrant False Narratives Failed To Win Him Favor With Trump, Miller, & Other Neo-Nazi Extremists Running Administration’s All-Out Attack On Due Process & Human Rights!

“BIG MAC WITH LIES” OUT AT DHS — Implementing White Nationalist Agenda & Parroting Anti-Immigrant False Narratives Failed To Win Him Favor With Trump, Miller, & Other Neo-Nazi Extremists Running Administration’s All-Out Attack On Due Process & Human Rights!

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

immigrationcourtside.com 

Oct. 11, 2019. Acting Homeland Secretary Kevin McAleenan’s resignation was announced by Trump this evening. It contained the minimal “faint praise” for his efforts and the standard disingenuous bureaucratic BS about wanting to spend more time with the family and pursuing interests in the private sector. At least Big Mac has a family left, unlike those asylum seekers who died seeking legal protection, illegally separated children, abused asylum applicants living on streets in Mexico, and mindlessly deported long-time residents who suffered under his corrupt, yet inept, leadership at DHS. 

Some news reports claim it was Big Mac’s decision. But, that seems unlikely, since he never was on the “Trump/Miller A Team.” It’s more likely that Big Mac actually was forced out by the White Nationalist Cabal lead by neo-Nazi Miller.

While cruel, corrupt, and complicit, Big Mac didn’t appear sufficiently ideologically committed to Miller’s racist restrictionist hate agenda. He certainly willingly abused human rights, but he didn’t do it with the obscene glee and delight in unnecessary human suffering consistently exhibited by Trump, Miller, and “Cooch Cooch.”

The DHS Secretary position has been a parade of horrors for the American Constitution, the Rule of Law, human rights, and human decency. McAleenan, like his predecessors General John Kelly and Kristjen Nielsen, came to the job with an undeserved reputation for professionalism and bipartisanship. In practice, he followed in the footsteps of his predecessors by performing like a typical political hack and Trump sycophant.

Illegal child separations, deaths in substandard detention conditions, misappropriation of funding for the Wall, totally absurd and dishonest “Safe Third Country” agreements with some of the most dangerous and “asylum free” countries in the world, abuse of legal asylum seekers under the “Let ‘em Die In Mexico” program, disrespect for and hindrance of attorney representation, bogus claims about failures to appear, expansion of the “New American Gulag,” illegal regulations aimed at indefinite detention of families and children, trashing the U.S. Refugee Program, illegal attempts to impose discriminatory “public change” requirements, illegal use of unreliable information to apprehend individuals, false imprisonment of U.S. citizens, mindless deportation of long-term residents who were actually benefitting America, tremendous backlogs of applications for legal stratus, overloading the Immigration Courts with improvidently commenced cases, schemes to discourage legal immigrants, insults to Federal Judges, lack of candor in dealing with Congress, and disrespect for Congressional Representatives are just some of the abominations that took place on Big Mac’s watch.

Indeed, in the past month lower Federal Courts have slammed as illegal at least five of the racist gimmicks that Big Mac and the DHS have tried to foist on the migrant community at the urging of Miller, “Cooch Cooch,” and the other White Nationalists. Some of Big Mac’s most egregious actions came in connection with the “in your face” regulations that DHS & DOJ presented to Judge Dolly Gee in the Flores litigation. Those regulations proposed unlimited abuses to be inflicted on detained children in unregulated facilities during indefinite detention, which was just the opposite of what Judge Gee had ordered. The DOJ’s unethical arguments in support of Big Mac’s indefensible position left Judge Gee incredulous.

Undoubtedly, he will be replaced by someone with a more overt ideology of racism and hate. Neo-Nazis like Ken “Cooch Cooch” Cuccinelli, now illegally serving as head of USCIS, or some of the DHS underlings who have been competing for Miller’s attention with public statements of cruelty, anti-immigrant sentiment, and disrespect for the law are strong possibilities. Trump has a penchant for finding and selecting the worst that humanity has to offer to serve him. 

Indeed, it’s quite likely that Trump’s next choice will be so spectacularly unqualified and unpalatable, even to some in the GOP (see, “Cooch Cooch”), that “Moscow Mitch” might balk at pushing the nomination through. But, since Trump prefers to flaunt the Constitution and to operate with “acting toadies” anyway, that probably won’t make any difference. 

The Trump Administration is a kakistocracy. So, expect the worst, but be prepared for something far more grotesque and absurd. In the meantime, Big Mac should be remembered for the laws he broke, his attacks on human rights and human decency, his intellectual dishonesty, his immorality, his cowardice in the face of tyranny, the cruel and unnecessary pain he inflicted on legal asylum seekers invoking our laws, and the many lives that he needlessly ruined in service to the worst and most unqualified President in U.S. history.

PWS

10-11-19

MYSTICS BRING FIRST WNBA CHAMPIONSHIP TO DC! — Talent, Teamwork, Coaching Pay Off As Washington Downs CT Sun 89-78!

Washington Mystics
Washington Mystics
2019 WNBA Champs

MYSTICS BRING FIRST WNBA CHAMPIONSHIP TO DC! — Talent, Teamwork, Coaching Pay Off As Washington Downs CT Sun 89-78!

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

immigrationcourtside.com Sports Exclusive

Oct. 11, 2019.  They finally did it! After falling just short last year, and trailing much of the way last night in Washington, the Mystics seized control and beat the Connecticut Sun 89-78 in the decisive game five of the WNBA finals. Current and two-time WNBA MVP Elena Della Donne and Coach Mike Thibault jointly celebrated their first crown. It was a particularly sweet moment for Thibault, the winningest coach in WNBA history, who had never won the big prize. Thanks to Delle Donne and friends, his legacy is now complete.

But, it wasn’t easy. The home team team didn’t take the lead for good until about the five minute mark of quarter four. And, they had to withstand a dominating performance by the “Bahamian Behemoth,” Sun star Jonquel Jones (who played at George Washington) had a game-high 25 points, grabbed 9 rebounds, and almost single handedly kept the Sun in the contest. Indeed, the turning point was midway through quarter three when Jones was on the bench with four fouls and the Sun saw their 9 point advantage slip away.

For much of the final series the Mystics overall talent advantage was negated by an untimely, debilitating back injury suffered by Delle Donne, causing her to miss most of game two and limiting her play in games three and four. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Mystics lost two of  those three games. 

But, last night, the MVP returned to form, scoring 21 points and capturing 9 rebounds. She had lots of help. 6’5” “Playoff Emma” Meesseman  lived up to her nickname by coming off the bench with 22 points and earning the Finals MVP Award, the first reserve do so. Natasha Cloud hit two big threes and chipped in 18 points. Veteran Kristi Toliver, a former Maryland Terps star, added another 18. After a tough start, Toliver settled down, draining all 7 of her free throws, including some clutch ones to seal the victory.

In addition to the overall high level of play, constant energy, and outstanding teamwork, an impressive feature of the WNBA is that the players actually make free throws. The Mystics shot nearly 88% for the season. By contrast, the best free throw shooting team in the NBA last season, the San Antonio Spurs, were at about 81% and the Mystics NBA brothers, the Wizards, shot only about 77%. Speaking of the Wiz, it was great to see stars John Wall and Bradley Beal, both sporting Toliver jerseys, enthusiastically pumping up the crowd and leading the cheers for their good friends.

Delle Donne came over from the Chicago Sky, where she had reached the finals without success, with the goal of bringing a long-awaited championship to DC. She has done exactly that, by being great on the court, humble off it, and making everyone around her better. Along with fellow superstars Alex Ovechkin, Ryan Zimmerman, Anthony Rendon, and John Wall, she has established herself as one of the “faces of Washington sports excellence.” 

Congrats to Mike Thibault and the women of the Mystics for a season well-played and consistently showing how teamwork, leadership, perseverance, and sportsmanship can be a winning combination. That’s a positive example from which many others in our nation’s capital could learn.

PWS

10-11-19

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) @  THE HILL: Trump’s Racist Attacks On Immigrants Are As Stupid As They Are Cruel: “[T]he Trump administration’s demonization of immigrants is profoundly un-American, and its efforts to block all immigration to this country would do enormous economic harm.”

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.)
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.)

https://apple.news/AYuMdPVeaT7-NRmGl8ycDzQ

Nearly every family in America has its own immigrant story. Whether we came over on the Mayflower or on an airplane, almost all of us initially came here from somewhere else. There is no question that our current immigration system is broken and in need of serious repair. But the Trump administration’s demonization of immigrants is profoundly un-American, and its efforts to block all immigration to this country would do enormous economic harm.

I make this argument as an immigrant, myself – although I didn’t have much choice in the matter. My parents arrived here from New Delhi, India when I was only three months old. My father came in search of a higher education, having been accepted into the engineering graduate program at the University of Buffalo. He pursued his studies and supported our family as a teaching assistant. Enamored of the opportunity that life in America presented for himself and his children, he and my mother eventually applied for citizenship.

Unfortunately, the recession of the early 1970s hit our family very hard, just as it hurt millions of other families across the nation. For a time, our family had to rely on public relief. But my parents never gave up their hope or belief that America was the land of opportunity. Eventually, my father found a job as a professor in the engineering department at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill., where he has worked for 40 years.

We didn’t know anything about Peoria before we moved there. And there weren’t many other Indian-American families in town. But our neighbors accepted us as full-fledged Americans, and my brother and I enjoyed an all-American upbringing that included football games, school plays, and fireworks on the Fourth of July.

Thanks to the great education afforded us by Peoria’s public schools, my brother attended medical school, and I obtained both engineering and law degrees. We owe our success to our hardworking parents and the generosity this great country provided. We have both tried to give back in our own way: my brother through his medical service for children and families in inner-city Chicago, and me through a career in public service. I am grateful every day that my parents brought me to this country and struggled for the opportunities provided to me.

That is why I am so disappointed that our current president constantly portrays immigration as a threat to our nation rather than the bedrock of its success. Many of his policies aimed at immigrants are needlessly cruel. We all know about the forced separation of children from their parents – some of them infants still in diapers. Court rulings and public revulsion forced the reversal of this policy, although many children still have not been reunited with their parents. This is shameful and must never happen again.

Unfortunately, the Trump administration has continued to pursue similarly cruel policies that have received less attention. For example, it recently took steps to end a deportation relief policy that allows some undocumented families with serious medical conditions to remain in the U.S. While the administration abandoned this plan under pressure from my colleagues and me, this would have denied needed medical care to people with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses, sending them back to countries without the means to treat their conditions. It would have been a literal sentence for immigrant families needing medical help.

These measures seem purposely designed to discourage potential immigrants from seeking U.S. citizenship. They replace a message of opportunity and hope with one of cruelty and fear. They might have discouraged families like mine from pursuing a better life in America while simultaneously denying our contribution to its future through educating students, treating veterans, and passing laws in the halls of Congress. We would all be poorer if those opportunities had been lost.

Yes, let’s fix a broken immigration system. The basic outlines for reform were established in a bipartisan bill that passed the U.S. Senate only a few years ago. But let’s not turn our backs on a fundamental principle of our nation — that welcoming aspiring people from other lands contributes to the strength of our own.

Raja Krishnamoorthi represents the 8th District of Illinois.

These measures seem purposely designed to discourage potential immigrants from seeking U.S. citizenship. They replace a message of opportunity and hope with one of cruelty and fear. They might have discouraged families like mine from pursuing a better life in America while simultaneously denying our contribution to its future through educating students, treating veterans, and passing laws in the halls of Congress. We would all be poorer if those opportunities had been lost.

Yes, let’s fix a broken immigration system. The basic outlines for reform were established in a bipartisan bill that passed the U.S. Senate only a few years ago. But let’s not turn our backs on a fundamental principle of our nation — that welcoming aspiring people from other lands contributes to the strength of our own.

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

Cruel, stupid, counterproductive, anti-American. That’s Trump and his GOP White Nationalists.

PWS

10-11-19

CONGRATS TO THE NATS: Howie Kendrick’s 10th Inning Slam Banishes Demons, Sends Washington To The League Championship Series For The First Time! 

Howie Kendrick
Washington Nats’ Howie Kendrick Slams Dodgers!
10-09-19
Photo by Robert Hanashiro-USA TODAY Sports

CONGRATS TO THE NATS: Howie Kendrick’s 10th Inning Slam Banishes Demons, Sends Washington To The League Championship Series For The First Time! 

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

immigrationcourtside.com Sports Exclusive

October 10, 2019. Nightmare! That’s the only way to describe Howie Kendrick’s playoff series against the LA Dodgers. The normally reliable, hard hitting, 36-year-old “utility star” had a spectacular regular season, leading the Nats with a .344 average (although lacking sufficient at-bats for the NL hitting crown) and many clutch hits. He is also one of the Nats’ veteran leaders who helped guide a team with some up and coming young stars to the playoffs after the team’s disastrous start to the 2019 season.

But, things took a nosedive for Howie against LA this October. Inserted into the starting lineup for consecutive games, he committed three untimely errors, an egregious base running mistake, and his failures at the plate left key runners stranded. Yet, Nats’ Manager Davey Martinez stuck with the flailing vet.

When Howie arrived at the plate in the top of the10th inning of a 3-3 tie to face Dodger reliever Joe Kelly, he was 0 for 4. That included two strikeouts and a rally-killing double play. His series batting average hovered just above a pathetic .200. Indeed, so convinced were the Dodgers that former teammate Kendrick was their patsy, that Kelly intentionally walked young slugger Juan Soto (who had homered earlier) to load the bases and bring up Kendrick. Obviously, the Dodgers were thinking double play or at least another strikeout.

At that point, Nats’ fans were hoping against hope that Howie would return to form long enough to hit a sacrifice fly to the outfield to score Adam Eaton from third and give them their first lead of the game. But, Howie, with perhaps his last shot at post-season glory on the line, had other things in mind. Behind in the count 0-1, he took a mighty swing, squarely connected with a Kelly fastball, and sent a beautiful towering 400 foot blast over the center field wall for a grand slam putting the Nats ahead 7-3. As Howie triumphantly rounded the bases, Kelly hung his head, and the Dodger fans sat in stunned silence, some even heading for the exits, as the visiting dugout and the few Nats’ fans in attendance went berserk! 

The Nats sent rejuvenated reliever Sean Doolittle to the mound for the bottom of the 10th, and he set the clearly dispirited Dodgers down in order. The game ended on a spectacular catch from another “forgotten Nat,” Michael A. Taylor, who had been inserted into the lineup only because of an injury to regular Nats’ center fielder Victor Robles.

Howie’s heroics capped an amazing comeback by the “never say die” Nats. After a gutty, but not up to usual high standards, effort from starter Stephen Strasburg, the Nats faced a 3-1 deficit going into the eighth inning. Baffled most of the night by Dodgers’ starter Walker Buehler, the Nats faced future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw, normally a starter, appearing in a rare relief role. With only six outs to go in their season, things looked dim for the visitors — for a moment. Then, on consecutive pitches from Kershaw, MVP candidate Anthony Rendon and Soto slammed homers to tie the game at 3-3 and send a shell-shocked Kershaw to the dugout.

So, the Nats, who started the season 19-31, appeared dead in the water, and had many fans screaming for Martinez’s head, move on to face another traditional nemesis, the St. Louis Cardinals, in the NL League Championship Series, starting in St. Louis tomorrow night at 8:08 pm on TBS. The Cards are fresh off a 13-1 humiliation of the Atlanta Braves, ending the game early with a remarkable 10-run first inning.

And, the Dodgers, who had a league-best 106 regular season victories, are done for this postseason, their dreams of World Series rings dashed. The Nats and their long suffering fans know that feeling of disappointment well — “been there, done that.” Thanks to Howie and a real “team effort,” this year is different in DC. 

PWS

10-10-19 

MAX BOOT @ WASHPOST: Trump’s Not the Only Grossly Corrupt Public Official – The “Sleazy Three,” Pence, Pompeo, & Barr, Have Also Betrayed Our Nation & Should Go Down!

Max Boot
Max Boot
Columnist
Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/10/09/pence-pompeo-barr-deserve-be-impeached-too/

President Trump has no one but himself to blame for the fact that he is on the verge of being impeached. He recognizes no legal or moral limits on his “absolute right” to do whatever he pleases — including pressuring a foreign country to intervene in U.S. politics on his behalf. But his most senior aides have done him no favors by acting as accelerators rather than brakes on his unconscionable conduct.

Three senior officials, in particular, could have tried to dissuade the president from misusing his office for personal gain, but there is no evidence that they ever attempted to do so. History will record their names along with Trump’s in the annals of ignominy. The president’s principal accomplices in his brazen assault on the rule of law are Vice President Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Attorney General William P. Barr.

Pence has been Trump’s most prominent proxy in his attempts to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to cough up dirt on Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and to absolve Russia of hacking the 2016 election. Trump told Pence not to attend Zelensky’s inauguration in May so as to turn the screws on the Ukrainian president. When they finally met in Warsaw on Sept. 1, Pence again pressured Zelensky to take action on “corruption,” a code word for investigating Biden and the former vice president’s son Hunter.

Pence has adopted the Sergeant Schultz defense: I know nothing! His protestations of innocence are unconvincing, given that the president’s lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, publicly proclaimed his desire to get dirt on the Bidens from Ukraine. Moreover, Pence’s national security adviser listened in on the now-infamous July 25 call between Trump and Zelensky that another participant described as “crazy” and “frightening.” Pence himself was given a readout of the call, yet he claims to have seen nothing wrong and is still sticking to the discredited cover story that Trump was pursuing a legitimate investigation of corruption. Pence will be saved from being remembered as the worst vice president in history only because Spiro Agnew had to resign after being charged with tax evasion and bribery.

Pompeo is now officially the worst secretary of state in history — wresting that uncoveted title from his predecessor, Rex Tillerson. As former secretary of state Colin Powell notes, “Our foreign policy is a shambles right now,” and Pompeo bears part of the blame for failing to stand up to Trump. He did not offer his resignation when the president proclaimed himself “in love” with the dictator of North Korea or when he abandoned the United States’ Kurdish allies. Pompeo subordinates the United States’ national interest to his own political interests; he is said to be interested in succeeding Trump.

Pompeo was fully aware of how unlawful Trump was acting — he was also on the July 25 call, though he pretended during interviews that he had no idea what had transpired. There is no evidence he did anything to stop Trump. Instead, he has endorsed the crazy conspiracy theory that it was the Ukrainians, not the Russians, who interfered in the 2016 election. Pompeo is now leading Trump’s coverup: He has refused to allow State Department employees to testify to Congress, denouncing Congress’s request as “an attempt to intimidate” and “bully” the career professionals. If anyone is bullying Foreign Service officers, it is Trump; witness the president’s firing of a respected ambassador in Ukraine because she wouldn’t help Giuliani frame Biden. Pompeo stood by as this happened.

No wonder State Department employees are so disgusted and demoralized. “The mood is low and getting lower,” Thomas Pickering, a distinguished former ambassador, told the New York Times.

But wait. If you think that’s bad, Barr says “hold my beer.” The attorney general has already misled the country about the findings of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation by falsely claiming that the president had been absolved of collusion and obstruction of justice. Barr then refused to investigate complaints that a crime had been committed during Trump’s call with Zelensky. Now, he is flying around the world to pressure allies to cooperate with his politically motivated probe designed to show that the investigation of Trump’s ties to Russia was actually a “witch hunt” by the so-called deep state — just as Trump claims. Barr’s highly improper requests have stirred a backlash in Italy, Australia and Britain — close allies that have no desire to be thrust into U.S. domestic politics.

By waging war on the dedicated professionals in his own department at the behest of a law-breaking president, Barr is ensuring that he will be remembered as the worst attorney general ever. He has even eclipsed in awfulness his immediate predecessor, acting attorney general Matthew Whitaker, a political hack who was previously a hawker of toilets for “well-endowed” men.

Impeaching Pence, Pompeo and Barr would be an unneeded distraction from the necessary impeachment of their boss but, on the merits, all three richly deserve to join Trump in the dock. They have betrayed the country and their oaths of office. They have even failed Trump by not acting to save the worst person ever to occupy the White House from his worst instincts.

 

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

Yup. Public service doesn’t get any worse than this, although “Big Mac” could easily be included (and Stephen Miller, but he’d be part of the “Trump package.”) Unlikely to happen, of course. But, it should!

 

PWS

 

10-09-19

 

 

DIALOGUE? – Shot In The Head In Guatemala, He Sought Legal Refuge In the U.S. – What He Found At DHS Was Something Quite Different — “Some days, Rolando would bleed out of his eyes, ears and nose. Other days, he’d lie on the floor, dizzy or barely conscious.”

Sam Levin
Sam Levin
L.A. Reporter
The Guardianj

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/oct/08/us-immigration-ice-asylum-seeker-detention-rolando?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

 

Sam Levin reports for The Guardian:

 

This asylum seeker was shot in the head. Ice jailed him and gave him ibuprofen

US immigration

Rolando, an indigenous man who survived a shooting and torture in Guatemala, was suffering blinding headaches when he arrived in the US

Sam Levin in San Diego

 @SamTLevin

 

 Email

Wed 9 Oct 2019 01.00 EDT

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Some days, Rolando would bleed out of his eyes, ears and nose. Other days, he’d lie on the floor, dizzy or barely conscious.

But every time the jailed Guatemalan asylum seeker sought help from a doctor, staff at his US immigration detention center offered the same treatment: ibuprofen.

The 27-year-old migrant survived a gunshot wound to the head in Guatemala and was suffering from excruciating headaches and possible brain hemorrhaging when he presented himself at the San Ysidro port of entry earlier this year. US authorities responded by isolating him in solitary confinement and jailing him for months at the Otay Mesa detention center in San Diego, giving him sporadic access to medical staff and medicine, his records show.

“I feared I was going to die,” Rolando, who asked not to use his full name due to threats against his life, told the Guardian. “I thought in this country, there is really good medical care … but I wasn’t getting any treatment.”

Rolando made it out of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention alive, but his battle isn’t over. He’s still fighting to get asylum, based on the physical torture and persecution he fled as an indigenous Guatemalan. Every step of his journey has collided with the Trump administration’s aggressive attacks and expanding restrictions on migrants and refugees.

Now, the White House is moving to block Central Americans like Rolando from presenting their cases at the border, a move that experts agree will have devastating and fatal consequences.

“I came to the United States because I’d like to at least make it to 30,” Rolando said.

An orphan who escaped death: ‘I don’t have anyone left’

When he met the Guardian on a recent morning, Rolando carried the charger for his ankle monitor, which asylum seekers awaiting hearings are frequently forced to wear. He’s often worried about it running out of battery.

Seated inside the small legal services office of Al Otro Lado, above a pizza shop in San Diego, Rolando looked down and wove a bracelet with his hands as he talked, a practice he developed inside detention to pass the time and distract from his health problems. His native Mayan language is Qʼeqchiʼ, but he talks to his attorney in Spanish, which he was forced to speak in jail.

Rolando was born into chaos in 1992 in the Petén region of northern Guatemala. His father had been a member of the armed forces but resigned and became a supporter of the pro-indigenous movement. He was killed as a result, just after Rolando’s birth, and his mother died soon after “from the trauma”, he said.

He was an orphan at age one: “My brothers and sisters couldn’t take care of me … and they gave me to neighbors.”

Rolando became homeless and later a frequent target of violence by the people who he believes killed his father. Police tortured him when he sought help. According to his asylum application, that included placing nails in his hand and foot and burning his arms with hot knives.

In 2016, while at a soccer game, assailants shot Rolando in the head and left him with a written death threat that referenced his father’s murder. He survived, was forced into hiding and was unable to get medical attention. He said he had to remove the bullet himself. Police later refused to help and assaulted him, according to his file.

“I don’t have anyone left,” he said, adding that fleeing to the US was his only option: “Giving me an opportunity to be here is giving me an opportunity to stay alive.”

He escaped to Mexico and joined a caravan last year, eventually making it to Tijuana. Then the waiting began.

As part of a vast crackdown on migration, border patrol under Trump has instituted a policy known as “metering”, which limits the number of people who can apply for asylum each day. In Tijuana, this has led to a waitlist that has more than 10,000 people, with a few dozen allowed to cross daily, creating a wait time of roughly six to nine months, lawyers estimate.

Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy has also resulted in nearly 50,000 migrants from Central America being returned to Mexico while their cases move forward. That has translated to overcrowded shelters, tent encampments and a struggle to access medical and legal services.

It also leaves migrants like Rolando vulnerable to the same violence they were escaping in their home countries. Rolando said he was beaten in Tijuana, suffering injuries to both his arms and forcing him to wear a cast.

In February, he was finally able to enter the US through the San Ysidro port of entry. In his initial processing, authorities took his injured arms – and placed him in handcuffs.

In detention, in agony and without treatment

The latest major Trump resignations and firings

 

Read more

Once he was in custody, Rolando’s health problems worsened. More than 150 pages of Ice’s medical records paint a picture of repeated health crises and his persistent struggle to get help.

Rolando regularly was bleeding from his eyes, ears and nose – the cause of which was unclear to doctors but might have been related to his gunshot wound. Rolando said he was bleeding soon after he was taken into custody and that as a result, he was placed in isolation: “They said, ‘We don’t know what’s wrong with you.’”

It’s unclear how many days he spent in solitary, but he said he had difficulty getting any treatment while isolated, and that he would spend all day in a small cell with no window to the outside. Staff would pass him meals through a small slat.

“I didn’t even know what was night and what was day,” he recalled. “I was sick already, but I was starting to get worse … Nobody was coming to see me.”

Once in the general population of Otay Mesa, Rolando continued to suffer periodic bleeding, and at times his head pain was so severe, he would lose consciousness, or he would lie on the ground so that he would not injure himself if he passed out.

Rolando would frequently sign up for “sick call” to visit medical staff, but he said the appointments did little to help. Records show that on one visit, a nurse told him to drink more water and “wash hair/head thoroughly”.

Eating the facility’s meats also started to make him sick, but he often struggled to get alternative food options, even though the medical staff said he needed to change his diet. Sometimes he made bracelets and sold them to other detainees so he could buy instant soup, he recalled.

The records show that the main form of treatment Rolando received was prescriptions for ibuprofen – in increasingly high doses as his pain worsened. Sometimes, he said, he ran out of ibuprofen and had difficulty getting a refill. He also received an ointment for his eyes.

Anne Rios, his attorney with Al Otro Lado, said she was stunned when she was finally able to get a copy of his medical records: “It seems unbelievable, almost too absurd to be true, but it’s not only documented, it’s the government’s own records.”

By August, Ice had twice refused to release him while his asylum case was pending even after dozens of medical visits, including multiple to the emergency room. One ER doctor had written that he was a “serious patient that presents with significant complexity of risk”, adding that he might have some kind of brain hemorrhage.

He had no criminal history or immigration violations.

Rolando grew increasingly desperate. At one point, he considered giving up and deporting himself back to Guatemala – a certain death, Rios said, recalling him telling her on one visit: “‘I’m gonna die here or in Guatemala, so I would at least rather go to my home country … I just can’t take it any more.’”

After a third request by Rolando’s attorneys, a judge ruled that he could be released – but only if he paid a $5,000 bond.

“For many, $5,000 might as well be $5m,” said Rios. “They come here with nothing, no resources, no family members, absolutely no way to pay for that.”

Rolando was only able to get out when Al Otro Lado found a way to cover the amount through its bond fund.

Ice declined to comment on Rolando’s case, citing his privacy. A spokeswoman said “everyone in our custody receives timely access to medical services and treatment”, including a full health assessment with two weeks of custody, daily sick calls and 24-hour emergency care. A dietician ensures detainees’ “unique health (included allergies), dietary, and religious needs are met” for each meal, and all food “must be visually appealing, palatable, and taste good”.

A final plea: ‘I followed the rules and I am telling the truth’

Rolando struggles to understand why the US has treated him like a criminal: “I followed all the rules and I asked for admission.”

Trump, however, is working to make the asylum process much more restrictive than what Rolando has experienced. His administration passed a policy in July banning migrants from seeking asylum at the US-Mexico border if they came from another country, saying they must first seek protections elsewhere.

 

Rolando was released in September and is awaiting an asylum hearing scheduled for next week. He said he wanted to speak out because he was particularly upset about the treatment he saw other detainees face at Otay Mesa. Some were disabled and unable to walk to the cafeteria to get food, he said, noting that he got reprimanded when he tried to bring them food.

“They abuse their power with us,” he said.

Otay Mesa has repeatedly faced accusations of severe medical neglect. Last week, a detainee died in custody.

Rolando said he wanted the government to understand that people seek asylum because they have no other option – and that officials should believe him: “When you’re asking for asylum, you’re swearing to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I am telling the truth.”

 

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

Following the rules and telling the truth seems to make little difference these days in an America where the Administration pointedly does neither, and the institutions that are supposed to enforce the rule of law and insure at least a modicum of accountability from the Executive Branch have largely gone “belly cup.”

A prerequisite to any true “dialogue” would be an end to MPP (“Let ‘Em Die in Mexico”), cancellation of the bogus “first country” regs and the illegal “Safe Third Country Agreements” with the failed states of the Northern Triangle, and an end to inhumane and intentionally coercive detention. At that point, there could be at least the beginnings a “true dialogue” on how to work within existing law to solve Southern Border issues, rather than intentionally aggravating them! And that could eventually lead to the necessary legislative changes to make our immigration laws more sensible, generous, due-process-oriented, and in the real national interest (rather than the exclusive interests of a White Nationalist minority).

 

PWS

 

10-09-19

 

CATHERINE RAMPELL @ WASHPOST: “Twofer” — Trump Combines Assault On Healthcare With Attack On Legal Immigrants!

Catherine Rampell
Catherine Rampell
Opinion Columnist
Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-found-a-way-to-simultaneously-sabotage-our-health-care-and-immigration-systems/2019/10/07/6fb734dc-e943-11e9-9306-47cb0324fd44_story.html

President Trump sabotaged the health-care system. Separately, he’s sabotaged the immigration system.

And now, in a presidential twofer, on Friday night the administration found a way to sabotage both simultaneously.

Unable to repeal Obamacare, the Trump administration has worked to make it less functional and more expensive. It has done this by zeroing out the individual mandate, expanding the availability of cheap but worthless junk insurance and curtailing the annual open-enrollment period, among other actions.

The cumulative effect of these policies has been to reduce the share of people who have (real, non-junk) insurance; those still motivated to seek comprehensive insurance tend to be sicker and more expensive to cover. The predictable result? Premiums hundreds of dollars higher than they would otherwise be, according to estimates from health-care analyst Charles Gaba.

 

And, unsurprisingly, those who don’t qualify for the subsidies that shield enrollees from these price hikes are dropping out of the individual market altogether because they can’t afford the insurance.

But no worries. For years, administration officials and fellow Republican lawmakers have argued this is merely an expansion of a fundamental American freedom — the freedom to go uninsured.

Simultaneously, of course, the administration has also been undermining our legal immigration system. Emphasis on “legal” here: For all of Trump’s vitriol for undocumented immigrants, he’s also been targeting people who are trying to come to this country lawfully.

Among the creative, non-legislative ways the administration has sabotaged the legal immigration system: huge and arbitrary delays in visa and citizenship application processing; cruel and inhumane treatment of families seeking asylum; reductions in the refugee admissions cap to its lowest level on record; and, of course, the travel ban placed on several majority-Muslim countries.

And then there are all of the policies intended to penalize legal immigrants whom the Trump administration claims are a financial burden.

To be clear: Immigrants are in fact a net fiscal boon to the United States, according to a  report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, and their children are “among the strongest economic and fiscal contributors in the U.S. population.” But Trump and his aides are convinced that immigrants are, and will forever be, a drain on society.

Or, as Trump’s acting U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services director Ken Cuccinelli  put it: “Give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet.”

Cuccinelli was talking about a new administration rule — currently being challenged in eight lawsuits — that makes it harder for immigrants to receive green cards if they have ever used or might someday need safety-net benefits such as food stamps or Medicaid. But it’s actually one of several policies the administration has devised to drive down immigration numbers under the guise of fiscal prudence.

The latest such development was rolled out Friday night. This new policy, issued via presidential proclamation, bars issuance of visas to immigrants unless they can prove they will obtain health insurance within 30 days of their arrival in the United States, or otherwise demonstrate that they can pay medical expenses out of pocket.

That’s right, the Trump administration has brought back the individual mandate, but for immigrants only — the GOP’s supposed commitment to “freedom” notwithstanding. The Migration Policy Institute estimates the change could end up excluding about two-thirds of future immigrants.

The new policy is vague about how would-be immigrants would even be able to prove they meet the new requirement. Maybe they’d need to somehow buy insurance before they leave their home countries, while still waiting in that interminable visa queue; maybe not.

What’s more, if they get subsidized insurance through the individual exchanges, Trump’s proclamation says it won’t count. This is yet another way the administration is sabotaging Obamacare, which explicitly allows immigrants to purchase subsidized exchange insurance. It also places low- and moderate-income immigrants in an impossible position, since they’re now stuck buying insurance at the sticker prices that the Trump administration has helped jack up through its earlier rounds of Obamacare sabotage.

Under the proclamation, immigrants could instead buy junk insurance. But, as the administration also surely knows, these Trumpcare plans cover almost nothing. So forcing immigrants to buy such policies seems unlikely to shield taxpayers (or hospitals) from immigrants’ emergency medical costs — which is allegedly the goal here.

Of course there is also a fundamental tension between arguing that uninsured immigrants impose huge costs on the country but uninsured native-born Americans don’t cost anyone anything. But no one said consistency was this administration’s strong suit — aside from its consistent desire to find new ways to destroy as many institutions as possible.

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Yup! Catherine nails the GOP’s disingenuous approach to almost everything. But, perhaps there are unifying principles of the GOP: hate, dehumanization, cruelty, selfishness, intolerance, intellectual dishonesty, and short-sightedness.

Of course the requirements of the new “policy” are “vague.” That’s because the intent is not to have immigrants get insurance coverage before they come. The real intent is to keep them from coming at all even though they meet all of the legal requirements. It’s just another aspect of the Trump GOP’s racist, extralegal assault on all migrants, legal and undocumented. The next time you hear one of his GOP or bureaucratic sycophants disingenuously claim that they are “in favor of legal immigration, just not unlawful migration” call out “BS” at the top of your voice!

Catherine’s column “connecting the dots” supports my own observation that the Trump GOP’s attack on migrants is just a “placeholder” for attacks on the majority of Americans who don’t fit the GOP’s toxic White Nationalist agenda.

PWS

10-09-19

BIG MAC SHOULD HAVE BEEN ALLOWED TO PRESENT HIS LITANY OF LIES & TOTALLY DISINGENUOUS INVITATION TO “DIALOGUE” (ABOUT THE ENFORCEMENT PROGRAMS IMPLEMENTED BY DHS WITHOUT ANY PUBLIC “DIALOGUE” WHATSOEVER & AGAINST THE OVERWHELMING ADVICE OF PROFESSIONALS & EXPERTS, EVEN AT DHS)  — Then, He Should Have Been Questioned About His Knowingly False Restrictionist Narratives & Human Rights Abuses! – Here’s What He REALLY Stands For, & It’s Got Nothing To Do with “Dialogue!” — “This president has helped create a humanitarian crisis,”. . . . People are living in squalor.”

Molly Hennessy Fiske
Molly Hennessy Fiske
Staff Writer
LA Times

 

https://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/dynamic_article_popover.aspx?guid=d5727889-43e3-4481-bedb-dd0055e280af&v=sdk

 

Molly Hennessy-Fiske reports for the LA Times from the Southern Border:

 

. . . .

 

In addition to the asylum seekers returned to Mexico to await their hearings, more than 26,000 are on waiting lists to enter U.S. border crossings and claim asylum, according to Human Rights Watch. Many on the lists are from Central America, but in recent weeks, large groups have been arriving from rural areas of Mexico’s interior, fleeing drug cartel violence.

The camp at the foot of the bridge in Matamoros has grown to hold more than a thousand migrants, most camped in scores of tents. Many have children and babies, and meals and water are sporadic, provided by volunteers.

“This Remain in Mexico program is a complete disaster,” Castro said after touring the camp next to the Rio Grande, where he saw migrants bathing near half a dozen crosses honoring those who drowned this summer while trying to make the dangerous crossing. “People should not be living like this.”

As Castro left the river, migrants standing in the reeds called to him in Spanish:

“Our children are sick!” said one man.

“We’ve been here for months!” said another.

“Our next court date isn’t until January!” said a woman.

“I’m sorry,” Castro replied in Spanish. “I know you’re suffering.”

Castro, who served as Housing and Urban Development secretary and San Antonio mayor, isn’t the first candidate to join asylum seekers at the border. In late June, former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas met with migrants returned to Mexico at a shelter in Juarez. Days later, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker accompanied five pregnant women in the Remain in Mexico program across the bridge from Juarez to El Paso.

Castro called on the Trump administration to end the Remain in Mexico policy, noting that he had met several vulnerable migrants who should not have been returned, including a woman who was seven months pregnant.

“This president has helped create a humanitarian crisis,” he said. “People are living in squalor.”

By 5 p.m., all 12 asylum seekers who had crossed with Castro had been returned to Mexico.

“I feel so defeated,” said Rey, a 35-year-old Cuban who had joined the group only to find himself back in Matamoros by evening.

Dany was upset when she was returned to the camp at dusk. As migrants gathered, she told them that the U.S. official who had interviewed her by phone had been unsympathetic.

“I told him I was in danger in Matamoros. That didn’t matter to him,” she said. “There’s no asylum for anyone … the system is designed to end with us leaving.

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Read Molly’s complete report at the link.

 

LGBTQ, sick, disabled, pregnant, the cruelty of the “Let ‘Em Die In Mexico” program touted by Big Mac and his flunkies knows no bounds.

 

One can only hope that someday, somewhere, in this world or the next, “Big Mac” and his fellow toadies carrying out the Trump/Miller unprecedented program of intentional human right abuses against the most vulnerable individuals (and actions directed against the pro bono lawyers and NGOs courageously trying to help them) will have to answer for their “crimes against humanity.”

 

How do you have a “dialogue” with someone like “Big Mac” whose insulting, condescending, false, and “in your face” prepared remarks, that he never got to give at Georgetown, in fact invited no such thing.

 

You can read Big Mac’s prepared compendium of lies that he never got to deliver here:

 

https://www.dhs.gov/news/2019/10/07/statement-department-homeland-security-following-acting-secretary-s-appearance

 

Here was my immediate reaction:

 

He falsely minimizes the powerful push factors, maximizes the pull factors (which his “maliciously incompetent” enforcement has contributed to), blames the legal system (the Constitution and refugee protection statutes that implement international treaties) and Congress (that is, Democrats, who have stood up for human rights), lies about failures to appear (this should be particularly galling to the many members of the Georgetown Community who have taken part in pro bono activities and know that pro bono representation actually solves that problem), ignores all reasonable solutions, and engages in mindless (and expensive) enforcement that maximizes the ability of oppressors while dehumanizing and killing some of the victims and virtually guaranteeing that there never will be a humane outcome. Seems like the “All-American solution” to me.

 

That being said, I wish folks had heard him out and asked him questions about his misstatements and lies during the Q&A. I actually would have liked to hear his answer when confronted by the studies that show that almost everyone who has a chance to be represented shows up for the hearings and why he is blocking, rather than facilitating, one of the key solutions — pro bono representation?  Why it’s OK to negotiate Safe Third Country agreements with countries that essentially are war zones and have no functioning asylum systems? Why he claimed that detention conditions were improving and more detention was necessary when his own Inspector General said just the opposite? Why he took a contemptuous position before Judge Dolly Gee that indefinite detention of families addressed her requirements, when it clearly didn’t? Why he blamed Judges and laws for problems he has either caused or aggravated? There wouldn’t have been enough time, I suppose.

 

Talking about free speech, it’s not like the Trump Administration engages in any type of dialogue with the public or professional experts before unilaterally changing policies. And, it’s not like they provide any forum for opposing views. Indeed, even U.S. Legislators, Judges, State Officials, and their own Asylum Officers who speak out against the Administration’s biased and wrong-headed views are routinely attacked, threatened, slandered, mocked, and denigrated.

 

Yesterday, I did a Skype training session for D.C. Affordable Law. There, I actually had a “dialogue” with those attorneys courageously and selflessly trying to help asylum applicants through the unnecessarily complicated and intentionally hostile environment in Immigration Court and at the BIA that Big Mac and his propaganda machine along with scofflaws Sessions, Barr, and McHenry have created. There are many “winnable” asylum cases out there, even after the law has intentionally been misconstrued and manipulated by the Trump Administration in a racist attempt to disqualify all asylum seekers from Central America.

One thing we all agreed upon was that nobody, and I mean nobody, without competent representation and a chance to gather necessary documentation would have any chance of getting asylum under the current hostile environment.  That means that when “Big Mac” and others tout “immediate decisions at the border” (sometimes by untrained Border Patrol Agents, no less, rather than professional Asylum Officers) what they REALLY are doing is insuring that few individuals have access to the necessary pro bono counsel and legal resources necessary to actually win an asylum case under today’s conditions. That’s an intentional denial of Constitutional, statutory, and human rights by Big Mac!

Then, Big Mac has the audacity and intellectual dishonesty to use bogus statistics generated by a system he and others have intentionally manipulated so as to reject or not even hear very legitimate asylum claims as “proof” that most of those claims are “without merit.” While I’m afraid it’s too late for those killed, tortured, or suffering because of Big Mac’s wrongdoing, I certainly hope that someday, someone does an assessment of all the improperly rejected, denied, and blocked asylum, withholding, CAT, SIJS, T,  and U claims that should have been granted under an honest interpretation of asylum law and a fair adjudication and hearing process.

A real dialogue on solving the Southern Border would start with how we can get the necessary professional adjudicators and universal representation of asylum seekers working to make the system function fairly and efficiently. And that probably would mean at least 20% to 25% “quick grants” of strong cases that would keep them out of the Immigration Court and Courts of Appeals systems without stomping on anyone’s rights. It would also enable asylees to quickly obtain work authorization and start making progress toward eventual citizenship and full integration so that they could maximize their great potential contributions to our society.

For the money we are now wasting on cruel, inhuman, and ultimately ineffective enforcement gimmicks being promoted by “Big Mac,” we could actually get a decent universal representation program for asylum seekers up and running. Under a fair system, rejections would also be fair and as expeditious as due process allows, making for quicker and more certain returns of those who are not qualified and perhaps even sending a more understandable and acceptable “message” as to who actually qualifies under our refugee and asylum systems.

It’s highly unlikely that there will ever be any real dialogue on immigration and human rights as long as Trump and neo-Nazi Stephen Miller are “driving the train” and “Big Mac with Lies” and other like him are serving as their “conductors” on the “Death Express.” Trump and his policies have intentionally “poisoned the well” so that debate and constructive solutions are impossible. As long as we start, as Big Mac does, with a litany of lies and fabrications, and reject all truth and knowledge, there is no starting point for a debate.

 

PWS

10-08-19

 

 

 

 

SYCOPHANT SEN. L. GRAHAM (R-SC) WAKES UP AFTER TWO-YEAR SLUMBER, SHOCKED THAT TRUMP HAS BETRAYED OUR ALLIES!

From USA Today:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2019/10/07/trump-defends-syria-withdrawal/3896039002/

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Here’s Trump’s brilliant plan. Allow notorious Turkish strongman Erdogan, who happened to show up at a Trump Hotel opening in Turkey, to annihilate our loyal allies against ISIS (and before that Saddam), the Kurds. Then, destroy the Turkish economy because they annihilated the Kurds like they said they would do. That way, we wipe out two of our dwindling number of allies in the Middle East and insure the re-emergence of ISIS. We also should be able to guarantee the death of many refugees in Syria and cruel and inhuman abuse of others. What could possibly go wrong?

As for GOP bottom-feeder Graham, Trump’s betrayal of American institutions, illegal attacks on his American political opponents, insult to the memory of John McCain, taunting of Congress, dehumanization of immigrants and asylum seekers, his overt racism, and his 10,000+ documented lies, “No problemo.”

But, betray an ally halfway around the world, that’s “crossing the line.”

LG’s learning the “downside” of enabling a kakistocracy led by a dangerous, deranged clown. But, I’m sure that won’t stop him from serving as Trump’s caddy on their next golf outing, while Kurds are being slaughtered by Turks.

PWS

10-08-19