Gen. John Kelly – Page 9 – immigrationcourtside.com

BUST: ICE Nabs Mother Of 4 With Minor Driving Violation!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/salvadoran-mom-of-2-detained-by-ice-in-fairfax-no-criminal-record-advocates-say/2017/05/18/afcbe0ce-3bec-11e7-a058-ddbb23c75d82_story.html?utm_term=.92d83e15b9c6

Maria Sacchetti and Antonio Olivo Report in the Washington Post:

“Federal immigration officials detained an undocumented woman from Falls Church who came to their offices for a routine check-in on Thursday, drawing angry protests from advocates who say President Trump should focus on deporting those who pose a public-safety threat.p

The arrest of Liliana Cruz Mendez, 30, a mother of two from El Salvador, comes a day after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement released statistics showing a significant increase in deportation arrests since Trump’s inauguration, mostly involving undocumented residents with criminal records.

While immigration hard-liners are applauding Trump’s efforts, advocates for those here illegally say ICE is defining the term “criminal” so broadly that many minor offenders — including Cruz Mendez, who has a misdemeanor conviction for driving without a license — are being torn from their U.S.-born children.

The agency also more than doubled the arrests of noncriminal immigrants, to nearly 11,000, about a quarter of the arrests reported Wednesday.

“This is the real face of what ICE is doing,” said George Escobar, senior director of human Services for CASA, a Maryland-based nonprofit that is aiding Cruz Mendez. “They are shattering families and children’s lives.”

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This is making America safer and better? This is a good use of enforcement resources?

PWS

05-19-17

DEATH WATCH: Average 1/MO Dies In ICE Custody — And It’s Only Just Beginning, As Another ICE Detainee Dies, This Time In Atlanta!

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/17/us/ice-atlanta-detainee-dies/index.html

Catherine E. Shoichet reports for CNN:

“Atlanta (CNN) A man in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody has died after being hospitalized for shortness of breath, officials said Wednesday.

Atulkumar Babubhai Patel was pronounced dead at Atlanta’s Grady Memorial Hospital on Tuesday afternoon.

The 58-year-old Indian national’s death is the second death of a detainee in ICE custody this week — and the second this week in the state of Georgia.

Officials said complications from congestive heart failure were ruled the preliminary cause of death.

Patel arrived at the Atlanta airport on May 10 on a flight from Quito, Ecuador. Authorities denied him entry into the United States because he did not have the necessary immigration documents, ICE said.

He was transferred to ICE custody in the Atlanta City Detention Center on Thursday, according to the agency. An initial medical screening at the time determined he had high blood pressure and diabetes. Two days later, Patel was transported to the hospital after a nurse checking his blood sugar noticed he had shortness of breath, ICE said. He died on Tuesday afternoon.

In its statement announcing Patel’s death, officials said fatalities in ICE custody are “exceedingly rare.”

“ICE is firmly committed to the health and welfare of all those in its custody and is undertaking a comprehensive agency-wide review of this incident, as it does in all such cases,” ICE said.

Second death this week

Patel is the eighth person to die in ICE custody this fiscal year, which began in October.

Authorities are also investigating the death of another immigrant detainee in Georgia. Jean Jimenez-Joseph, 27, was found unresponsive in his cell on Monday with a sheet around his neck. The preliminary cause of death was self-inflicted strangulation.

Immigrant detained at Stewart Detention Center dies in apparent suicide

He’d been in solitary confinement for more than two weeks at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia.

The recent deaths have drawn sharp criticism from immigrant rights activists, who have long decried conditions in immigration detention centers and called on the government to close such facilities.

US President Donald Trump has called for increasing detention as part of his crackdown on illegal immigration. And Congress recently upped its funding for immigrant detention, approving a spending bill that pays for an average of more than 39,000 detention beds per day.

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“Exceedingly rare?” Like in two deaths in one week in ICE custody in Georgia? In addition to ruined lives, the Trump/Sessions/Kelly vision for an “American Gulag” is certain to cause more preventable deaths in DHS custody, in light of the well-documented substandard conditions in such facilities, particularly those run by private contractors and local jailers. I guess each member of the “Triumvirate of Death” is well enough off so a few million in civil judgments wouldn’t be a problem. But, the taxpayers are likely to be shelling out megabucks for some tort claims.

PWS

05-17-17

ICE Gets Jollies By Busting More Non-Criminals, Adding to Immigration Court Backlogs!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/immigration-arrests-up-during-trump/2017/05/17/74399a04-3b12-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html

Maria Sacchetti reports in the Washington Post:

“Federal immigration agents are arresting more than 400 immigrants a day, a sharp leap from last year that reflects one of President Trump’s most far-reaching campaign promises.

In Trump’s first 100 days in office, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 41,318 immigrants, up 37.6 percent over the same period last year, the agency said Wednesday. Almost 3 out of 4 of those arrested have criminal records, including gang members and fugitives wanted for murder. But the biggest increase by far is among immigrants with no criminal records.

“This administration is fully implementing its mass-deportation agenda,” said Gregory Chen, government relations director for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “They’re going after people who have lived here for a long time.”

. . . .

Acting ICE director Thomas Homan said the statistics released Wednesday show that agents still prioritize lawbreakers: 30,473 criminals were arrested from Jan. 22 to April 29, an 18 percent increase from the same period in 2016.

Meanwhile, arrests of immigrants with no criminal records more than doubled to nearly 11,000, the fastest-growing category by far.

“Will the number of noncriminal arrests and removals increase this year? Absolutely,” Homan said. “That’s enforcing the laws that are on the books.”

What is less clear is what is happening to the immigrants who are being taken into custody.

Overall, deportations have fallen about 12 percent this year, to about 56,315 people, which Homan attributed to a severe backlog in federal immigration courts. He also said it can take longer to deport criminals than those without criminal records, because those in the former category may have additional court proceedings. The Trump administration has called for additional immigration judges and detention space to speed deportations.

Homan did not say how many of the 41,318 people whose arrests were announced Wednesday have been deported, remain in custody or have been released.

Unlike criminal arrests, records of immigration arrests — which are considered civil violations — are not publicly accessible.

The secrecy allows immigration officials to pick and choose which examples of their work to highlight. On Wednesday, they said the immigrants arrested since Trump’s executive order include Estivan Rafael Marques Velasquez, an alleged MS-13 gang member from El Salvador captured in New York in February; Juan Antonio Melchor Molina, a fugitive wanted for a 2008 murder in Mexico who was arrested last month in Dallas; and William Magana-Contreras, another reputed MS-13 member arrested in Houston last month. Magana-Contreras is wanted for aggravated homicide in El Salvador, officials said.

Some advocates questioned whether ICE is truly prioritizing the most serious criminals.

Parastoo Zahedi, an immigration lawyer in Virginia, said ICE is actively trying to deport one of her clients to Italy because of a conviction for possession of a small amount of marijuana. He has lived in the United States nearly all his life.

“It’s not criminal aliens,” Zahedi said. “It’s anyone that they can catch.”

Ava Benach, a D.C. immigration lawyer, said ICE agents are “empowered, emboldened and . . . eager to enforce the law aggressively.”

Advocates also questioned the wisdom of arresting thousands more immigrants — especially those who pose no known public safety threat — when immigration courts are severely backlogged. But Homan said that is the agency’s job.

. . . .

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Let’s put this in plain language. We have a law that doesn’t work, and a system that is broken. There are an estimated 11 million undocumented individuals residing in the U.S. Most of them work, pay taxes (in some form), and contribute to the economy. Many have immediate relatives who are US citizens or otherwise in the country legally.

Because everyone can’t possibly be removed, the “unfocused” enforcement advocated by Homan on behalf of the Trump Administration turns out to be highly if not completely arbitrary. In most cases of those without serious criminal records, removal would be a net loss to our country.

Moreover, the Administration has reassigned U.S. Immigration Judges away from their regular dockets to work on detained cases, which, understandably, are the highest priority. By mindlessly “jacking up” the detained docket, the Administration guarantees that backlogs will continue to build on the “non-detained” dockets.

The Immigration Courts now have a backlog approaching 600,000, and it continues to grow by leaps and bounds even though there are more Immigration Judges on duty now than in past years and productivity has remained constant over the past few years (although Immigration Judges still complete multiples of what other similarly situated Federal Judges do, and far more cases than the
“ideal”). This is because of the “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” — ADR — foisted on the Immigration Courts by the past two Administrations.

While, at the very end of the Obama Administration ICE was making some progress toward smarter, more focused use of enforcement resources, which took into account the finite limits of Immigration Court dockets, the Trump Administration has returned to a policy of random irrational enforcement. They have also limited the discretion of individual ICE Assistant Chief Counsel to exercise discretion to get what should be “low priority” cases off the docket — in other words, to exercise “prosecutorial discretion” — “PD” — as other prosecutors do.

PWS

05-17-17

9th Cir. Panel Grills Both Sides In Travel Ban 2.0 Case!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/another-appeals-court-to-weigh-trumps-revised-travel-ban/2017/05/15/5f188d56-3946-11e7-a59b-26e0451a96fd_story.html?utm_term=.038612a73dbd

Gene Johnson for AP reported in the Washington Post:

“SEATTLE — Federal judges on Monday peppered a lawyer for President Donald Trump with questions about whether the administration’s travel ban discriminates against Muslims and zeroed in on the president’s campaign statements, the second time in a week the rhetoric has faced judicial scrutiny.

Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall, defending the travel ban, told the three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the executive order should be reinstated because it falls well within the president’s authority.

“No one has ever attempted to set aside a law that is neutral on its face and neutral in its operation on the basis of largely campaign trail comments made by a private citizen running for office,” he said.

Further, Wall said the president had backed off the comments he made during the campaign, clarifying that “what he was talking about was Islamic terrorist groups and the countries that sponsor or shelter them.”

Neal Katyal, who represented Hawaii, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, expressed disbelief at that argument and said Trump had repeatedly spoken of a Muslim ban during the presidential campaign and after.

“This is a repeated pattern of the president,” Katyal said.

The 9th Circuit panel was hearing arguments over Hawaii’s lawsuit challenging the travel ban, which would suspend the nation’s refugee program and temporarily bar new visas for citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The judges will decide whether to uphold a Hawaii judge’s decision in March that blocked the ban.

Last week, judges on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments over whether to affirm a Maryland judge’s decision putting the ban on ice. They also questioned whether they could consider Trump’s campaign statements, with one judge asking if there was anything other than “willful blindness” that would prevent them from doing so.

Dozens of advocates for refugees and immigrants rallied outside the federal courthouse in Seattle, some carrying “No Ban, No Wall” signs.”

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Read the entire article at the link. Challenges to District Court orders enjoining parts of “Travel Ban 2.0” are pending on both coasts — in the 9th Circuit and the 4th Circuit. stay tuned!

PWS

05-16-17

DC Superintendent Of Education Understands Students’ Immigration Fears — She Was Undocumented Herself!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/05/08/i-know-the-fear-of-immigrant-families-because-i-was-once-undocumented-myself/?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-d%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.b49dee569961

D.C. Superintendent Hanseul Kang writes in the Washington Post:

“The mother was serious as she approached the principal of her daughter’s D.C. school. Would the principal consider becoming her child’s legal guardian in the event she was deported, so her daughter, a U.S. citizen, could stay in the country?

It was a surreal question but one rooted in real fear.

The political rhetoric about immigration, along with high-profile enforcement actions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has instilled palpable anxiety in immigrant families across the country, elevating a background level of uncertainty to an urgent concern. In the days after an ICE raid in Las Cruces, N.M., in February, more than 2,000 students were kept home from school. A Los Angeles community is reeling after ICE agents arrested a father moments after he dropped off his 12-year-old daughter at school.

Confusion is exacerbating fear, especially in young children, who may not fully understand the concepts of countries, borders and citizenship. During a class discussion at that same D.C. school, a student worried aloud that he’d be forced to move back to where he came from. When asked where he was from, he said Florida.

We haven’t seen any spikes in absences in the District, where Mayor Muriel Bowser has affirmed her commitment to being a sanctuary city and protecting the rights of immigrant residents. But ICE arrested 82 people in the region in a five-day sweep last month. Our schools have hosted “know your rights” workshops and fielded questions from panicked parents. At one meeting I attended, teachers pledged to parents that they would be arrested themselves before allowing ICE officials into the building. Still, it’s hard for families to know whom to trust.

I have some sense of what that’s like.

I was born in South Korea and came to the United States when I was 7 months old, on Christmas Eve, 1982. When I was 16 — excited to get a driver’s license and apply to college — I learned that I was undocumented.

In one afternoon, my world turned upside down. With all the trappings of a high school overachiever, I had assumed I could attend pretty much any college or university. But without access to federal financial aid, I might not be able to go at all. I couldn’t work, couldn’t drive, couldn’t travel outside the country. Even worse was the terrifying possibility that my family might be discovered and deported.

. . . .
That is my concern about the impact of this latest shift in rhetoric and policy on immigrants: that as a country we will convey, especially to our students, that we question their value and their abilities. Not only is that message dehumanizing, but it discourages the talent and leadership we need to continue to thrive as a nation. Even as many have spoken out in support of preserving Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, I worry that in advocating for a small exception to U.S. immigration policy — albeit for young people in a uniquely vulnerable position, those who came to the United States without legal documentation, or who fell out of legal status, as children — we miss the broader value of immigrants to our country.

Educators can be an important source of support for students and their families. They were for me. But it should not fall on an individual principal or teacher to protect a child or a family from immigration enforcement, and no parent should have to ask them to. We have to do better for our students and for our nation.”

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

Superintendent Kang is a wonderful example of why Jeff Sessions and his white nationalist cohorts are wrong in failing to value the contributions of all types of migrants to the prosperity and success of the US. What kind of nation, with what kind of national values, intentionally creates a climate of fear among its youth who are the hope for the future?

PWS

05-13-17

Trump On Verge Of Another Travel Ban Loss?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/us-judge-in-dc-signals-readiness-to-become-third-to-order-halt-to-revised-trump-travel-ban/2017/05/11/af41537e-365f-11e7-b412-62beef8121f7_story.html?utm_term=.525536a419ad

Spencer Hsu reports in the Washington Post:

“A federal judge in Washington on Thursday signaled her willingness to become the third judge nationwide, if needed, to order a halt to President Trump’s revised executive order banning new visas and immigration from six Muslim-majority countries.

U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan postponed ruling on two combined challenges to the White House action by Iranian-American organizations and a Shi’a Muslim group, saying she would wait for decisions expected after federal appeals courts arguments this month on halts imposed March 15 by judges from Hawaii and Maryland.

But Chutkan said she was persuaded by arguments that the groups’ missions and the lives of more than a dozen individual plaintiffs would be unconstitutionally harmed by the travel ban.

“Upon consideration of the parties’ submissions, the court is inclined to agree with Plaintiffs that they are likely to succeed on the merits of their claims. However … The existence of two other nationwide injunctions temporarily casts uncertainty on the issue of whether the harms Plaintiffs allege are actually imminent or certain,” Chutkan wrote in a two-page order that did not delve into the arguments.

A 13-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond is expected to issue a ruling after becoming the first appellate court to hear arguments on the question Monday. Arguments before a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit in San Francisco are set for May 15, Chutkan noted.

She concluded: “In the event that both existing injunctions are overturned, this court is prepared to issue a ruling without delay.”

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Looks like this issue is unlikely to go away any time soon. The Trump Administration is fueling a litigation bonanza for lawyers.

PWS

05-13-17

DEADLY CARE: Trump Immigration Detention Policies Could Be Life-Threatening For Vulnerable Migrants!

http://www.businessinsider.com/immigrant-detention-centers-condition-2017-5

Business Insider republished a recent report from Christie Thompson of The Marshall Project:
“Even as the Trump administration prepares to loosen oversight over immigrant detention facilities, medical care already can be so substandard that cancer is treated with ibuprofen, schizophrenia with Benadryl and serious mental illness with solitary confinement, two new reports found.

Human Rights Watch, along with the nonprofit Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement, asked outside medical experts to review 18 deaths in immigration facilities between May 2012 and June 2015 — and found alleged medical neglect contributed to the early deaths of seven detainees, according to their joint report released Monday. The nonprofit organizations also interviewed 90 current and former detainees for the report.

Their findings come on the heels of a survey of 83 detainees about conditions in two for-profit detention centers in Georgia, released last week by a separate group of nonprofit organizations. The detainees claimed, among other grievances, that their requests for medical care were often ignored and even landed some in segregation.

A spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the agency will review the Human Rights Watch and CIVIC report to determine if any changes needed to be made.

“ICE is committed to ensuring the welfare of all those in the agency’s custody, including providing access to necessary and appropriate medical care,” said spokeswoman Jennifer Elzea, who added that all detainees had access to licensed mental health providers. “At no time during detention will a detainee be denied emergent care.”

ICE spokesman Bryan Cox in Georgia said both centers there — Stewart and Irwin — were in compliance with ICE’s detention standards and subject to regular inspections. “The Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General and ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility investigate all allegations of abuse,” he wrote in an email.

Immigrants can be held in ICE-funded facilities or in local jails that are paid contract fees. As it ramps up enforcement against undocumented immigrants, the Trump administration has been hunting for more jailers to hold detainees — and perhaps lowering the bar to find them. The New York Times reported last month that the Department of Homeland Security was planning to loosen requirements for county jails that hold immigrant detainees. Three of the deaths identified by Human Rights Watch happened in a local facility.

The Department of Homeland Security has also closed the Office of Detention Policy and Planning, which was tasked with leading ICE’s effort to reform its detention facilities. Elzea, the ICE spokeswoman, noted that oversight is still provided by on-site detention service managers, as well as several other offices within the agency.

Advocates fear conditions will worsen. “The records revealed ICE’s failure to monitor and correct problems even when they themselves identified them,” said Grace Meng of Human Rights Watch, one of the authors of the report. In three deaths at Eloy Detention Center in Arizona, for example, staffers delayed calling 911 because they weren’t sure who was allowed to make the call under the facility’s protocol, Meng said.

“I’m even more concerned now that we have an administration that wants to cram more people into these broken detention centers,” Meng said.

Human Rights Watch and CIVIC detailed the suicide of another woman who was repeatedly held in solitary confinement without mental health treatment. “The medical staff kept doing the same thing, expecting a different outcome. That she finally killed herself should not have come as a surprise,” wrote one of the doctors reviewing ICE’s records.

In both reports, multiple immigrants reported seriously inadequate mental health care; one detainee in Georgia told advocates that the mentally ill were locked in a segregation cell in handcuffs and a helmet.

Immigrants and their families have few outlets for relief. Immigrants told Human Rights Watch that the grievance forms are written only in English and Spanish and that grievances, once filed, often disappeared without any response. “I have no idea if there are mental health services here, nor do I know how to file a grievance,” an immigrant at Stewart Detention Center told Georgia advocates.

Others alleged they were punished, even put in solitary confinement, for complaining. Few detainees have access to an attorney, which means filing a lawsuit is generally beyond their reach.

“By not properly tracking and investigating each complaint, our government sends a message that medical neglect of immigrants will be tolerated,” said Christina Fialho, co-executive director of CIVIC.

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I think that migrants are likely to die or be seriously harmed by poor conditions in DHS detention. Taxpayers then will be on the hook for some big damage awards. Additionally, in light of the available information, including internal reuports on poor conditions in detention, I believe that some high-ranking officials at DHS and DOJ could be subject to “Bivens suits” for knowingly and intentionally violating the constitutional rights of civil detainees.

PWS

05-13-17

Someday, These US Citizen Kids Will Be Voters, Quite Possibly Government Officials Themselves — Will They Show Others The Compassion, Respect, & Consideration Denied Them?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/when-your-child-needs-you-and-you-are-far-away/2017/05/12/e0c53742-1622-11e7-ada0-1489b735b3a3_story.html?utm_term=.34b1122f70c7

Maria Sacchetti reports in the Washington Post:

“In a church hall in Northern Virginia, a father of two named Jose sat at a long table and stared at the legal document before him. It was a road map for life without him.

He initialed the clause that said that if he and his wife were arrested or deported, the person they were choosing as a guardian for their girls would make decisions about their schooling.

With his index finger tracing each line, he read how the guardian would bring the girls to school and day care, decide who will pick them up, and have the power to book airline tickets on their behalf so the children could reunite with their parents in Central America.

The next line highlighted the power to make decisions if either girl was hospitalized. At this, Jose froze.

“That’s when they need me,” he said to himself. “What if I’m not there?”

It is a question thousands of undocumented immigrants are asking across the United States, in the apple orchards outside Spokane, Wash., the blueberry fields near Grand Rapids, Mich., and at churches and community centers in Maryland and Virginia.

On Spanish-language television and online, immigration lawyers and foreign consulates are responding to a widely publicized immigration crackdown by the Trump administration, and urging undocumented parents who could be deported to leave clear instructions for their bank accounts, real estate holdings and — most of all — their children.

About 5.1 million children in this country have a parent who is here illegally, according to estimates from the Migration Policy Institute. Nearly 80 percent of those children are U.S. citizens.

Hector Quiroga, a Spokane immigration lawyer, said that after Trump took office his call volume peaked at 300 calls a day from people seeking to protect their children and assets. He hired three new secretaries, but could not keep up. Then he posted the instructions for selecting a guardian online. The video had been viewed more than 35,000 times.

“People are petrified,” Quiroga said. “They’re desperately trying to get these documents.”

Lawyers caution that custody rules vary by state, and they are urging parents to consult with nonprofits and family lawyers before signing any documents. In Virginia, for instance, immigrants can assign temporary caretakers for their children by signing powers of attorney documents before a licensed notary. But in Maryland, someone designated by the parents would have to go to court to seek guardianship.

Even in states where the laws are complex, lawyers say parents should craft an emergency plan that appoints someone to take charge if they are detained.

“I would definitely say to take the safety precautions,” said Michelle Mendez, an attorney with Catholic Legal Immigration Network Inc., based in Baltimore. “Anybody can get detained and deported right now.”

That was clear to Jose and his wife, GG, as they watched news footage of immigration arrests in the weeks after Trump’s inauguration, sitting on pushed-together couches in the living room of the tidy Northern Virginia colonial they share with their daughters, Jose’s parents and his sister and her family.

Jose is a welder from El Salvador. GG, from Honduras, works at McDonald’s. The couple asked that their full names not be published, out of fear that such exposure would make it easier for deportation agents to find them.”

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

Read the rest of the story at the link.

For the sake of their descendants, immigration “hardliners” had better hope that these U.S. citizen kids grow up to more generous and humane than the “hardliners” have been. “Alienating” a significant portion of our younger generation of Americans can never be a good idea.

PWS

05-12-17

THE HILL: N. Rappaport Says Trump May Be “Step Ahead” Of Texas On Sanctions For Sanctuary Cities!

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/immigration/332771-texas-bans-sanctuary-cities-but-trump-may-be-a-step-ahead

Nolan writes:

“State action was needed to deal with noncriminal illegal immigration in the interior of the country when Barack Obama was the president. He focused his immigration enforcement efforts on aliens who had been convicted of serious crimes or who had been caught near the border after making an illegal entry.

In addition to leaving interior immigration problems up to the States, this created what I call a “home free magnet.” Aliens wanting to enter the United States illegally knew that they would be safe from deportation once they had reached the interior of the country, unless they were convicted of a serious crime.

President Donald Trump destroyed this magnet with his Executive Order, Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States, which greatly expanded enforcement priorities and the scope of expedited removal proceedings.

The expanded expedited removal proceedings will make it possible to deport millions of undocumented aliens without a hearing before an immigration judge. And no deportable alien is safe under his enforcement policies.

President Trump has attempted to put an end to sanctuary cities by withholding federal funding, but that program has been tied up in litigation. I expect that meat-cleaver approach to fail.

His next step might be to prosecute officials under the harboring provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act who go too far with sanctuary policies. These provisions make it a capital offense to conceal, harbor, or shield undocumented aliens from detection if the violation results in the death of any person.

It does not specify what actions constitute “harboring,” and the courts have not settled on one uniform definition. But the most frequent characteristic the courts have used is that “harboring” makes it easier for aliens to live in the United States without lawful status, which is one of the main objectives of sanctuary cities.

Ironically, although a sanctuary city is supposed to make undocumented aliens safer, it makes them more vulnerable because so many of them live in the sanctuary cities. When the Trump administration launches its expedited removal proceedings round-up, it almost certainly will start with the sanctuary cities.”

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Read Nolan’s complete article over on The Hill at the link.

The point of so-called “sanctuary cities” (an amorphous, undefined term to be sure) is to resist the “climate of fear” being promoted by the Trump Administration and to continue to encourage cooperation between local law enforcement authorities and ethnic communities that has been successful in reducing crime. In fact, by all reports, immigrant communities are some of the most “low crime” around.

I haven’t seen specific stats, but anecdotally it seems that many law enforcement officials in cities were perfectly content with the “pre-Trump” level of cooperation with the DHS and believe that the Trump/ Sessions plan will actually make their jurisdictions less safe. Additionally, I have yet to see a statement by any state or local official saying that they would refuse to turn a serious criminal over to DHS if a legally sufficient detainer were filed.

In my view, the concept that Trump, Sessions, Kelly, and company have any genuine concern about reducing crime is almost preposterous. They have no interest whatsoever in working with responsible state and local officials on programs that actually could succeed in further reducing crime (already at historically low levels in most parts of the country).

Nope! It’s all about whipping up xenophobia and appealing to white nationalism. In other words, satisfying the “Trump base.” Certainly this is a political strategy that has proven fairly effective, at least in the short run, but which has very little, if anything, to do with actually combating crime.

PWS

05-10-17

MARJORIE COHN IN HUFFPOST: Destroying American Justice From The Inside — The “Gonzo-Apocalypto Era” Takes Hold At The USDOJ!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jeff-sessions-department-of-injustice_us_590dd80ee4b0f711807244f1

Cohn writes:

“Motivated by his deep-seated biases and those of President Donald Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions is pursuing a draconian agenda on voting rights, immigration, crime, policing, the drug war, federal sentencing and the privatization of prisons.

Sessions, now head of the Department of Justice, which is charged with enforcing the Voting Rights Act, once called the act “intrusive.” In 2013, after the Supreme Court issued a decision in “Shelby County v. Holder” that struck down the section of the act that established a formula for preclearance of jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination, Sessions called it “a good day for the South.”

Sessions and Trump tout the existence of what the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School calls a “phantom crime wave.” While this administration scaremongers about high crime rates, in reality, national crime and murder rates are at a near-historic low: 50 percent less than they were at their peak in 1991.

Trump’s campaign mantra was “law and order,” a euphemism for tolerating excessive force by police officers, often against people of color. Trump speaks of “American carnage” in the cities and a “war” on the police. His bogus rhetoric is aimed at Black Lives Matter, which arose in response to increasing numbers of police shootings, particularly of nonwhites.

The president depicts police reform measures as “anti-law enforcement” and Sessions is fully on board with this framing. In 2015, when he was a senator, Sessions said that police reform movements endanger public safety and hinder police work.

Sessions opposes consent decrees, which are court-enforced agreements aimed at eliminating racial profiling and excessive force by police in agencies that demonstrate “a pattern or practice” of violating civil rights. Sessions says the federal government should not be “dictating to local police how to do their jobs” (except when it comes to immigration enforcement, that is).

Amnesty International warns that Trump and Sessions’ “law and order” rhetoric could lead to higher levels of mass incarceration, long sentences and prolonged solitary confinement.

. . . .

Trump and Sessions are not disappointing the white nationalists who favor using immigration policy as a wedge to further their “alt-right” program.

Kevin de León, President pro Tempore of the California State Senate, noted, “It has become abundantly clear” that Sessions and Trump “are basing their law enforcement policies on principles of white supremacy ― not American values.”

From January to mid-March of this year, immigration arrests have increased by 33 percent. Since Trump’s inauguration, the number of arrests of immigrants with no criminal records has doubled. Roughly half of the 675 arrested in early February raids had either driving convictions or no criminal record at all, according to data obtained by The Washington Post.

Sessions drastically increased penalties for illegal reentry into the United States and ordered immigration officials to charge undocumented immigrants with higher-penalty crimes.

Although Sessions’ heavy-handed actions are based on Trump’s spurious claim that immigrants disproportionately murder and rape US citizens, studies have shown that immigrants actually commit fewer crimes than citizens.

Agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are arresting immigrants who come to the courthouse. This egregious practice motivated California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye to complain in a letter to the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security that ICE agents “appear to be stalking undocumented immigrants in our courthouses to make arrests.”

Terrorizing immigrants with frightful measures discourages immigrant witnesses from reporting crimes, and discourages victims from seeking legal measures and services that are meant to protect their own safety and well-being.

By March, the Los Angeles Police Department had seen a 25 percent drop in the number of Latinos reporting sexual assault and a 10 percent decrease in Latinos’ reports of domestic violence. By early April, there was a 42.8 percent drop in the number of Latinos who reported rapes to the Houston Police Department. And a health care center in Los Angeles reported a 20 percent decrease in food stamp enrollments and a 54 percent drop in enrollments for Medicaid.

The Trump administration has been arresting ― even deporting ― “Dreamers” who relied on Barack Obama’s assurances they would be protected if they came out of the shadows and provided their personal information to ICE. Dreamer Juan Manuel Montes Bojorquez is a registrant in Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, and was the first DACA recipient to be deported. Bojorquez, who is now in Mexico, is suing the US federal government.

On January 25, 2017, Trump signed an executive order to halt federal funding to municipal governments that don’t facilitate federal immigration enforcement. Trump’s order is aimed at “sanctuary cities” that protect immigrants from deportation.

In March, Sessions threatened officials in nine jurisdictions with losing their 2016 grants if they failed to certify by June 30 that they were in compliance with a law that forbids local authorities from forcing officials to withhold information about immigration status from federal authorities.

But the majority of sanctuary policies do not cover information sharing. Most address how to handle “detainers,” where federal immigration officials request that state or local authorities continue to detain people who are eligible for release. Courts have said jurisdictions cannot be forced to honor those detainers.

Trump’s January 25 order is blocked, for now. US District Judge William H. Orrick III issued a nationwide preliminary injunction that forbids the federal government from withholding funds from municipal governments that don’t fully cooperate with immigration agents.

Orrick also ruled the federal government can’t legally force counties to hold undocumented people beyond their release dates. The judge concluded Trump’s order likely violates due process, the separation of powers doctrine, and the 10th Amendment, which prevents federal interference with state and local self-government. Only Congress can limit spending, Orrick wrote.

This is Trump’s third executive order halted by federal courts. His first and second Muslim bans are now pending in the 9th and 4th Circuit Courts of Appeals.

. . . .

After Trump nominated Sessions for attorney general, Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Illinois) stated, “No senator has fought harder against the hopes and aspirations of Latinos, immigrants and people of color than Sen. Sessions.”

Indeed, no one is worse equipped to lead the Department of Justice. Sessions’ racism is prominently on display in every action he has taken during his short tenure in Trump’s cabinet.

It is critical that “we the people” continue to resist, in every way we can, the Trump-Sessions pattern and practice of injustice.

Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild and deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. Her books include The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration, and Abuse; Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law; and Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues. Follow her on Twitter. Copyright Truthout. Reprinted with permission.”

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

Read the entire article over on HuffPost.

So much damage in so little time. And, I’m sure the worst is yet to come. Most impressive in a depressingly negative way! Senators Liz Warren, Cory Booker, and others were right!

PWS

05-07-17

THE RAPE THAT WASN’T — MD Prosecutors Drop Charges Against Two Hispanic Students At Rockville High In Case That Administration “Tried” Without Facts In Attempt To “Whip Up” Xenophobia!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/rape-charge-against-immigrant-teen-in-maryland-case-will-be-dropped-defense-lawyer-says/2017/05/05/a4806c02-312f-11e7-8674-437ddb6e813e_story.html?utm_term=.cc30dc476886&wpisrc=nl_buzz&wpmm=1

The Washington Post reports:

“Maryland prosecutors said they will drop rape and sex offense charges against two immigrant teens accused of attacking a 14-year-old classmate in a high school bathroom stall in a case that attracted international and White House attention and stoked the debate about illegal crossings into the United States.

After a court hearing Friday morning, prosecutors said they will drop the sex-assault case against Henry Sanchez Milian, 18, and Jose Montano, 17.

“The facts of this case do not support the original charges filed,” said Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy.

Defense lawyers had said for weeks that the sex acts were consensual and that text messages and school surveillance videos did not substantiate the girl’s claims she had been pushed from a hallway into a bathroom at Rockville High School on March 16 and that the suspects took turns assaulting her as she tried to break free.

As prosecutors moved to dismiss the rape cases, they began pursuing cases of child pornography charges related to images discovered on cellphones during the course of the investigation, according to court records and defense attorneys.

Prosecutors did not describe the content or path of the exchanges of the images. Defense attorneys said they were willingly shared by the girl with one defendant, who passed them along to the other.

Sanchez Milian’s attorney, Andrew Jezic, called the charges “selective prosecution of elective promiscuity,” adding that “it is hardly uncommon behavior for teenagers.”

Montano’s attorney, Maria Mena, said the child pornography laws are made to go after adults. She called the new charges “egregious.”

The developments Friday stood in stark contrast to the reports that pushed the case onto the national platform.

The severity of the reported assault — the girl originally told police the suspects held her down as she cried and repeatedly told them to stop — and that the two accused teens had entered the United States illegally only months earlier drew heated comments from the White House to the Maryland State House and to activists in the county.

Montano came to the United States from El Salvador, and Sanchez Milian from Guatemala. They were stopped at the border, detained, then allowed to continue on to relatives before they enrolled at Rockville at a ninth-grade level.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer was asked at a daily briefing about the cases in its early days and said, “The idea that this occurred is shocking, disturbing, horrific.”

“Part of the reason that the president has made illegal immigration and crackdown such a big deal is because of tragedies like this. . . . Immigration pays its toll on our people if it’s not done legally, and this is another example,” Spicer said.”

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

Read the entire article at the above link.

Always a good idea to wait for the legal system to operate before passing judgment. And, the idea that anyone in the Trump Administration would give “two hoots and a holler” about a rape victim is facially absurd.

Nope. It’s all about revving up xenophobia. And, the targets aren’t just those who arrived recently and made claims for protection. Xenophobia, like racism, is an ugly phenomenon. In the end, the Administration’s “white nationalist” agenda threatens all Americans in one way or another (ironically, it even threatens those who think that they stand to benefit from it).

PWS

05-07-17

Two New Pieces From N. Rappaport: Perhaps “Lost In The Shuffle” — Trump’s Plans For An Expanded Travel Ban & “Super Expedited” Removals!

Nolan is one of the “hardest working op-ed writers”in the field! Here’s the intro to what he had to say in HuffPost about an expanded “travel ban.”

https://www.linkedin.com/redir/redirect?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ehuffingtonpost%2Ecom%2Fentry%2F5894ed61e4b061551b3dfe64&urlhash=nmYz&_t=tracking_anet

“Too much attention is being paid to a 90-day travel ban in President Donald Trump’s Executive Order Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States (Order). While it is a serious matter, the temporary suspension of admitting aliens from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen into the United States is just the tip of the iceberg. Other provisions in the Order may cause much more serious consequences.

Section 3(a) of the Order directs the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in consultation with the Secretary of the Department of State (DOS) and the Director of National Intelligence, to determine what information is needed “from any country to adjudicate any visa, admission, or other benefit under the INA (adjudications) in order to determine that the individual seeking the benefit is who the individual claims to be and is not a security or public-safety threat.” This applies to all countries, not just the seven that are subject to the 90-day suspension.

Those officials have 30 days from the date of the Order to report their “determination of the information needed for adjudications and a list of countries that do not provide adequate information (emphasis supplied).”

Section 3(d) directs the Secretary of State to “request all foreign governments that do not supply such information to start providing such information regarding their nationals within 60 days of notification.” Section 3(e) explains the consequences of failing to comply with this request. Note that this also applies to all countries, not just the seven that are subject to the 90-day delay.

(e) After the 60-day period described in subsection (d) of this section expires, the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State, shall submit to the President a list of countries recommended for inclusion on a Presidential proclamation that would prohibit the entry of foreign nationals (excluding those foreign nationals traveling on diplomatic visas, …) from countries that do not provide the information requested pursuant to subsection (d) of this section until compliance occurs (emphasis supplied).

This is far more serious than the 90-day ban on immigration from the seven designated countries. With some exceptions, President Trump is going to stop immigration from every country in the world that refuses to provide the requested information. And this ban will continue until compliance occurs.

Does the President have the authority to do this? Yes, he does. The main source of the president’s authority to declare such suspensions can been found in section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the pertinent part of which reads as follows:

(f) Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.

The Order permits the Secretaries of DOS and DHS to waive the restrictions on a case-by-case basis when it is in the national interest.

DHS Secretary John Kelly has applied this waiver to the entry of lawful permanent residents. In a statement released on January 29, 2017, he says, “absent the receipt of significant derogatory information indicating a serious threat to public safety and welfare, lawful permanent resident status will be a dispositive factor in our case-by-case determinations.”

The ACLU Executive Director, Anthony D. Romero, claims that the Order is “a Muslim ban wrapped in a paper-thin national security rationale.”

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

I understand Nolan’s point that President Trump could be within his rights to invoke the travel ban. Nevertheless, in a recent blog on this site, former State Department visa officer Jeff Gorsky pointed out that historically the section 212(f) sanction of suspension of visa issuance has been used in a very narrow and focused manner. http://wp.me/p8eeJm-Hr

The prospect of large-scale visa suspensions in the current context also seems like unusual policy to me. Let’s take the most obvious example: Iran, a country with which we have famously strained relations.

Why would Iran want to provide us with any useful information about its nationals? And, if they did, why would we trust it?

For example, if there is a real “Iranian spy” out there I’m sure the Iranian Government will give him or her a “clean bill of health.” On the flip side, if there are some Iranian democracy advocates who are annoying to the Iranian Government but want to travel to the U.S., Iran would likely plant false information to make us believe they were “terrorists.

Hopefully, in Iranian visa cases we are getting our “vetting” information largely from sources other than the Iranian Government. Consequently, like so many of the Trump Administration’s actions, it is hard to take a threat to ban visa issuance as a serious effort to protect national security. It’s likely that national security is just a “smokescreen” for other possible motives. Who knows?

I’m incurred to think that if Trump decides to “go big” with 212(f) visa suspensions, at least some lower Federal Courts are likely to adopt the “Gorsky view” that “he can’t do that.”

You should read Nolan’s complete article in HuffPost at the above link!

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

Next, Nolan writes about the Administration’s “expedited removal campaign” in The Hill:

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/immigration/332110-on-illegal-immigration-trump-puts-an-end-to-obamas-home-free

“As of the end of January 2017, the immigrant court’s backlog was 542,411 cases. Even if no additional cases are filed, it would take the court two-and-a-half years to catch up with its backlog.

President Trump finessed his way around this problem by expanding the use of expedited removal proceedings with his Executive Order, Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements.

In expedited removal proceedings, which are conducted by immigration officers, an alien who lacks proper documentation or has committed fraud or a willful misrepresentation to enter the country, will be deported without a hearing before an immigration judge, unless he requests an asylum hearing.

Asylum hearings, which are conducted by immigration judges, are available to aliens who establish a credible fear of persecution. An asylum officer determines whether the alien has a credible fear of persecution.

The alien cannot have assistance from an attorney in these proceedings, and, because detention is mandatory, his ability to gather evidence in support of his case is severely restricted.

Moreover, Section 208(a)(2)(B) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) limits asylum to aliens who have been in the United States for less than a year (with some exceptions).

If the asylum officer rejects the credible fear claim, the alien can request an expedited review of his credible fear case by an immigration judge, which usually is held within 24 hours but in no case later than seven days after the adverse credible fear determination.

Federal court review is available, but it is restricted to cases in which the alien makes a sufficient claim to being a United States citizen, to having lawful permanent resident status, or to having been admitted previously as a refugee or an asylee.

A federal judge recently held that asylum denials in expedited removal proceedings are not reviewable in federal court and the Supreme Court let the decision stand.

Previous administrations limited expedited removal proceedings to aliens at the border and aliens who had entered without inspection but were apprehended no more than 100 miles from the border after spending less than 14 days in the country.

The Executive Order expands expedited removal proceedings to the full extent of the law. Section 235(b)(1)(A)(iii)(ll) of the INA authorizes expedited removal proceedings for aliens who have been physically present in the United States for up to two years.

It is likely to be very difficult for aliens to establish physical presence of more than two years, and if they do, they will be faced with the one year deadline for asylum applications, which in many cases is the only form of relief available to an undocumented alien.

President Trump will be able to use expedited removal proceedings to deport millions of undocumented aliens without hearings before an immigration judge.

The only way to stop him is to find a way to work with him on a comprehensive immigration reform bill that meets the political needs of both parties, and time is running out.”

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

I’m all for comprehensive immigration reform. But, if it doesn’t happen, I’m not so sure that Trump, Sessions & Co. won’t “push the envelope” on expedited removal to the point where the Supremes “just say no.” After all, even noted conservative chief Justice John Roberts seemed unenthusiastic about giving the DHS total prosecutorial discretion in a recent citizenship case. See this earlier blog: http://wp.me/p8eeJm-Lv.

PWS

05-076-17

How The Trump Administration Deliberately Uses The Term “Criminal” To Dehumanize Migrants!

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/opinion/who-is-a-criminal.html?em_pos=small&emc=edit_ty_20170501&nl=opinion-today&nl_art=6&nlid=79213886&ref=headline&te=1&_r=0

From Jason Stanley’s op-ed in the NY Times:

“In the United States, Donald Trump rode to victory with a call to expel “criminal aliens.” In his announcement of his run for office, he spoke of Mexican immigrants as “rapists.” Since he has taken office, he has harshly targeted immigrants in the United States; at his rally on Saturday in Harrisburg, Pa., he compared immigrants — as he did last year — to poisonous snakes, to great applause. It is worth noting that this tactic of dehumanization — referring to humans as animals — has historically been used to foment hatred and violence against chosen groups. In the lead up to the Rwandan genocide, for instance, Tutsis were regularly described as snakes.

The author’s grandmother, right, at age 10.

While President Barack Obama set deportation priorities by making a distinction between undocumented immigrants with serious criminal convictions and everyone else, Trump’s executive orders vastly expand the criminal category — so much so that it essentially criminalizes anyone in the country who is without status and makes the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States a top priority for deportation. Between January and March of this year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 21,362 immigrants, a 32.6 percent increase from the same period last year. Of those arrested, 5,441 of them had no history of violating a law.

The administration’s hard line on the standard for criminalization has gone so far as to alarm several members of the Supreme Court, as demonstrated during an argument before the Court last week (Maslenjak v. United States), in which a Justice Department lawyer argued that, as The Times reported, “the government may revoke the citizenship of Americans who made even trivial misstatements in their naturalization proceedings,” including not disclosing a criminal offense of any kind, even if there was no arrest. To test the severity of that position, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., confessed to a crime — driving 60 miles an hour in a 55-mile-an-hour zone many years ago without being caught. He then asked if a person who had not disclosed such an incident in his citizenship application could have his citizenship revoked. The lawyer answered, yes. There was “indignation and incredulity” expressed by the members of the Court. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy told the lawyer, “Your argument is demeaning the priceless value of citizenship.” Roberts put it simply. If the administration has its way, he said, “the government will have the opportunity to denaturalize anyone they want.”

EXILE FROM ONE’S HOME is historically considered one of the worst punishments the state could employ; it was, after all, one of the traditional Greek and Roman punishments for murder, their alternative to the death penalty. In the opening pages of her book, my grandmother speaks to its harshness, as well as to the complex relationship between expulsion and death:

“With millions of others, I was singled out to live two lives. One day, which seemed to be like any ordinary day, I was told: ‘“Stop just where you are. This life of yours is finished. Fulfilled or not — it stops right now. You are not going to die — go and begin another.’ ”

She continues:

“My roots were stuck deeply in their native German soil. Perhaps a part broke and remained there, for how am I to explain that my heart at times seems to be drawn by a force thousands of miles away?” The pain of being torn from her roots, she wrote, stayed with her throughout her life “as the stump of an amputated leg causes a man to say, ‘My foot hurts’; and yet he knows there is no foot to hurt.”

The president and his administration regularly stoke fear of immigrants by connecting them to criminality. Again and again, we are presented with the specter of “criminal aliens” — and not just in remarks but also in official documents, like the announcement of a new office in the Department of Homeland Security devoted to helping “vi ctims of crimes committed by criminal aliens.”

The word “criminal” has a literal meaning, of course, but it also has a resonant meaning — people who by their nature are insensitive to society’s norms, drawn to violate the law by self-interest or malice. We do not generally use the term to describe those who may have inadvertently broken a law or who may have been compelled to violate a law in a desperate circumstance. Someone who runs to catch a bus is not necessarily a runner; someone who commits a crime is not necessarily a criminal.

Politicians who describe people as “criminals” are imputing to them permanent character traits that are frightening to most people, while simultaneously positioning themselves as our protectors. Such language undermines the democratic process of reasonable decision-making, replacing it with fear. Discussion that uses terms like “criminal” to encompass both those who commit multiple homicides for pleasure and those who commit traffic violations distorts attitudes and debates.

Deliberately obscuring the crucial distinction between someone who violates a law and someone whose character leads them to repeatedly commit serious crimes is an effective strategy for masking gross injustice. Our current administration is vigorously employing that strategy, and history suggests that it is rarely constrained to just one group. If we look away when the state brands someone a criminal, who among us then remains safe?

FEAR WORKING? — Trump Showing Doubters That “Tough Talk & Actions” Can Alter Migration Patterns!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/amid-immigration-setbacks-one-trump-strategy-seems-to-be-working-fear/2017/04/30/62af1620-2b4e-11e7-a616-d7c8a68c1a66_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_trumpimmigration-710pm-1%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.f8b003fef8f7

David Nkamura writes in the Washington Post:

“In many ways, President Trump’s attempts to implement his hard-line immigration policies have not gone very well in his first three months. His travel ban aimed at some Muslim-majority countries has been blocked by the courts, his U.S.-Mexico border wall has gone nowhere in Congress, and he has retreated, at least for now, on his vow to target illegal immigrants brought here as children.

But one strategy that seems to be working well is fear. The number of migrants, legal and illegal, crossing into the United States has dropped markedly since Trump took office, while recent declines in the number of deportations have been reversed.

Many experts on both sides of the immigration debate attribute at least part of this shift to the use of sharp, unwelcoming rhetoric by Trump and his aides, as well as the administration’s showy use of enforcement raids and public spotlighting of crimes committed by immigrants. The tactics were aimed at sending a political message to those in the country illegally or those thinking about trying to come.

“The world is getting the message,” Trump said last week during a speech at the National Rifle Association leadership forum in Atlanta. “They know our border is no longer open to illegal immigration, and if they try to break in you’ll be caught and you’ll be returned to your home. You’re not staying any longer. If you keep coming back illegally after deportation, you’ll be arrested and prosecuted and put behind bars. Otherwise it will never end.”

The most vivid evidence that Trump’s tactics have had an effect has come at the southern border with Mexico, where the number of apprehensions made by Customs and Border Patrol agents plummeted from more than 40,000 per month at the end of 2016 to just 12,193 in March, according to federal data.

[Blame game: Trump casts immigrants as dangerous criminals, but the evidence shows otherwise]

Immigrant rights advocates and restrictionist groups said there is little doubt that the Trump administration’s tough talk has had impact.

“The bottom line is that they have entirely changed the narrative around immigration,” said Doris Meissner, who served as the commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in the Clinton administration. “The result of that is that, yes, you can call it words and rhetoric, and it certainly is, but it is changing behavior. It is changing the way the United States is viewed around the world, as well as the way we’re talking about and reacting to immigration within the country.”

. . . .

“One thing this administration has done that the Democrats’ message has to recalibrate for is that it’s not credible to the American people to say enforcement plays no role in [reducing] the numbers of immigrants coming illegally,” Fresco said. “Some have tried to perpetuate a myth that it is not linked. To the extent the numbers stay low, one thing the Trump administration has been able to say that is a correct statement is that enforcement does factor into the calculus.”

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

Read the entire article at the above link. President Trump might be losing the battles, but winning the war. That, in turn, might force Democrats to revise their views on immigration enforcement as part of long-term immigration reform.

PWS

05-01-17

DR. NO? — DHS Appoints Restrictionist To “Ombudsman” Position!

https://thinkprogress.org/uscis-ombudsman-877d18a67d97

Dan Kowalski at LexisNexsis Immigration Community forwards the following item from Think Progress:

“The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is set to announce the appointment of a controversial former leader of an anti-immigrant policy center to be its ombudsman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on Monday, according to two sources aware of the news.

Between 2005 and 2015, Julie Kirchner worked first as its director of government relations then as executive director at the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), an organization founded by an alleged white nationalist who advocates for stricter immigration. During her time at FAIR, the organization proposed efforts to end birthright citizenshipand reduce legal immigration levels. She left FAIR in 2015 to become an immigration adviser on then-presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign.

Immigrant advocates are worried Kirchner’s role as ombudsman will give her direct access to include or exclude stakeholders with an immigration nexus who may shape her formal recommendations based on how the agency should exercise authority over policy implementation.

“The appointment of Kirchner to the position of CIS ombudsman is extremely troubling when you consider the fact that she spent 10 years working for FAIR, a group founded on racist principals that has spent decades demonizing and vilifying immigrants,” Heidi Beirich, the director of SPLC’s Intelligence Project, told ThinkProgress in an email.

USCIS public affairs officer Katie Tichacek told ThinkProgress the agency “does not comment on potential personnel announcements. The two people who confirmed information of Kirchner’s appointment were one current DHS employee and one former DHS employee.

Congress created the role of the USCIS ombudsman under the Homeland Security Act of 2002 as an “impartial and independent perspective” to the agency housed within DHS, according to a DHS agency website. Among tasks like meeting with external stakeholders, ombudsman are responsible for resolving problems with pending immigration cases, sharing feedback on emerging trends in migration patterns, and issuing formal recommendations and proposals to address concerns. They cannot make or change USCIS decisions.

In her 2016 annual report to Congress, former USCIS Ombudsman Maria M. Odom said engaging with external stakeholders was “integral to our full understanding of the issues and their impact on the USCIS customer.”

January Contreras, a former USCIS ombudsman between 2009 and 2012 described her role as a DHS “watchdog.” She now works as the CEO of Arizona Legal Women and Youth’s Services (ALWAYS), which provides pro bono legal services for trafficking survivors and young people.

During her time, Contreras met with a wide variety of people that spanned the immigration spectrum, including human resource and vice presidents looking to expand high-tech visas, undocumented immigrants, and former refugees who pointed out which processes they had trouble with.

“[The role] is someone who is listening outside the DHS bubble,” Contreras told ThinkProgress Friday. “My job, when I was the ombudsman, was to listen to people who were dissatisfied at what was going on at the DHS. Sometimes people would bring complaints, sometimes they would bring ideas, sometimes they were long-simmering issues and sometimes they were rather new issues.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has labeled FAIR as a hate group, pointing to a series of racist memos written by the organization’s founder John Tanton warning of a “Latin onslaught.” In the past, Tanton and other supporters promoted radical population control measures like sterilizing Third World women and making wider use of an abortion pill. FAIR has received $1.5 million from the pro-eugenics organization Pioneer Fund. Tanton also founded NumbersUSA and the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), two organizations that consulted Trump or senior administration officials during his campaign.

“At the end of the day, the ombudsman is still accountable to Congress to improve services, not restrict services,” Contreras said. “So in fact if there’s an ombudsman in place interested only in restricting immigration I hope that Congress will have some conversations, whether privately or publicly, to make sure they’re doing the job they’re hired to do.”

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

Wishful thinking on Contreras’s part, I’m afraid. With the GOP firmly in control of the political branches of Government, and Secretary Kelly proving to be a “shill” for Sessions and the restrictionists, I wouldn’t bet on any meaningful oversight of the Ombudsman position.

Quite to the contrary, I expect the Ombudsman to become an extension of the VOICE program for “victims of crime” or, perhaps, a conduit for anonymous “tips” on how to locate individuals who potentially are removable from the U.S.

PWS

04-30-17

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