Border Patrol – Page 23 – immigrationcourtside.com

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S INCREDIBLE INCOMPETENCE OVERSHADOWS EVERYTHING: DHS Is Nowhere Close To Filling EXISTING Border Patrol Vacancies — What Would They Do With More?

http://flip.it/8aoZM_

Molly O’Toole reports for the LA Times:

POLITICS
Trump ordered 15,000 new border and immigration officers — but got thousands of vacancies instead
By MOLLY O’TOOLE JAN 27, 2019 | 3:00 AM | WASHINGTON
A U.S. Border Patrol agent looks along the Rio Grande for people trying to enter the United States illegally. (Larry W. Smith / EPA/Shutterstock)
Two years after President Trump signed orders to hire 15,000 new border agents and immigration officers, the administration has spent tens of millions of dollars in the effort — but has thousands more vacancies than when it began.
In a sign of the difficulties, Customs and Border Protection allocated $60.7 million to Accenture Federal Services, a management consulting firm, as part of a $297-million contract to recruit, vet and hire 7,500 border officers over five years, but the company has produced only 33 new hires so far.
The president’s promised hiring surge steadily lost ground even as he publicly hammered away at the need for stiffer border security, warned of a looming migrant invasion and shut down parts of the government for five weeks over his demands for $5.7 billion from Congress for a border wall.
The Border Patrol gained a total of 120 agents in 2018, the first net gain in five years.
But the agency has come nowhere close to adding more than 2,700 agents annually, the rate that Kevin McAleenan, commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, has said is necessary to meet Trump’s mandated 26,370 border agents by the end of 2021.
“The hiring surge has not begun,” the inspector general’s office at the Department of Homeland Security concluded last November.
“We have had ongoing difficulties with regards to hiring levels to meet our operational needs,” a Homeland Security official told The Times on Saturday, speaking on condition of anonymity. He described the Border Patrol’s gain last year as a “a huge improvement.”
Border security agencies long have faced challenges with recruitment and retention of front-line federal law enforcement — in particular Border Patrol agents — much less swiftly hiring 15,000 more.
In March 2017, McAleenan said Customs and Border Protection normally loses about 1,380 agents a year as agents retire, quit for better-paying jobs or move. Just filling that hole each year has strained resources.
Beyond that, given historically low illegal immigration on the southern border, even the Homeland Security inspector general has questioned the need for the surge.
But administration officials argue an immigration system designed for single, adult Mexican men has become woefully outdated.
“The number of families and children we are apprehending at the border is at record-breaking levels,” another Homeland Security official said. “It’s having a dramatic impact on Border Patrol’s border security mission.”
Since 2015, CBP officers have been required to work overtime and sent on temporary assignments to “critically understaffed” points on the southwest border, Tony Reardon, president of the union representing about 30,000 CBP officers, told the House Homeland Security Committee on Thursday.
After fighting for years for higher pay, staff and a better hiring process, Reardon said the agency needs to hire more officers for the 328 ports of entry.
“All of this contributes to a stronger border,” he said.
On Jan. 25, 2017, five days after Trump was inaugurated, he signed executive orders to hire 5,000 new Border Patrol agents and 10,000 more Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, vowing to beef up border security and crack down on illegal immigration.
“Today the United States of America gets back control of its borders,” Trump said as he signed the orders.
Today, Customs and Border Protection — the Border Patrol’s parent agency — has more than 3,000 job vacancies, according to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office.
That’s about 2,000 more than when Trump signed the orders, according to a Government Accountability Office report on CBP’s hiring challenges.
Border Patrol staffing remains below the 21,360 agents mandated by Congress in 2016, which is itself 5,000 less than Trump’s order, according to the latest available data.
The CBP contract with Accenture, awarded in November 2017, has drawn special scrutiny for its high cost and limited results.
CBP officials told the House Homeland Security Committee in November that only 33 new officers had been hired. Under the terms of the contract, the company is paid about $40,000 for each one.
An entry-level Border Patrol agent is paid $52,583 a year.
In December, the Homeland Security inspector general’s office said Accenture and CBP were “nowhere near” filling the president’s hiring order.
It warned that if problems in the “hastily approved” contract are not addressed, CBP risks “wasting millions of taxpayer dollars.”
CBP subsequently scaled back the Accenture contract from $297 million to $83 million and issued a partial stop-work order. Officials said the agency will decide in March whether to cancel the rest of the contract.
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said the problem-plagued contract “reinforces my doubts” about CBP leadership.
“CBP cannot simply farm out its hiring and spend hundreds of millions without addressing systemic problems at the agency,” Thompson said.
Deirdre Blackwood, Accenture’s spokeswoman, told The Times, “We remain focused on fulfilling our client’s expectations under our contract.”
The first Homeland Security offical defended the contract. “You’ve got to be willing to innovate and try things. … In no way, shape or form was there fraud, waste or abuse.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement canceled a solicitation for a hiring contract with a similar pay structure to Accenture’s last May, citing delays in its hiring timeline and limited funding from Congress.
ICE said at the time it would restart the contracting process by the end of 2018 to help it meet Trump’s hiring order. It has yet to do so.
Homeland Security officials declined to say how much has been spent or how many people have been hired since Trump’s executive orders, saying the partial government shutdown prevented them from accessing the data.
The hiring surge foundered from the start.
In July 2017, six months after Trump signed his executive orders, the Homeland Security inspector general’s office said the agencies were facing “significant challenges” and could not justify the hiring surge.
Officials could not “provide complete data to support the operational need or deployment strategies for the additional 15,000 additional agents and officers they were directed to hire,” the inspector general’s office wrote.
On Friday, Trump signed a bill to reopen the government until Feb. 15, ending the longest shutdown in U.S. history. Tens of thousands of Border Patrol agents and CBP officers, among others, worked without pay.
Experts warned that previous attempts at a hiring surge led to greater corruption, a perennial problem for law enforcement on the border.
Drug cartels and other criminal groups target Border Patrol agents, offering bribes or even sexual favors to allow migrants, drugs and other contraband to cross the border.
To help fight corruption, the Border Patrol set strict vetting requirements, but those measures have slowed the hiring process.
Border Patrol applicants must pass cognitive, fitness and medical exams. They also must provide financial disclosure, undergo drug tests and pass a law enforcement background check and a polygraph test.
ICE doesn’t require the lie detector test, pays its agents more and places most of them in cities, not at isolated posts along the border.
Supporters of the CBP requirements call them necessary safeguards to prevent the scandals of past hiring surges. Critics view them as an impediment to putting more boots on the border.
CBP’s rigorous hiring requirements, including the polygraph test, were put in place by Congress in 2010 after the agency had doubled in size and Border Patrol notched an increase in corruption and a spate of deadly incidents.
The FBI still leads 22 border corruption task forces and working groups nationwide.
In recent years, some lawmakers tried to help CBP get rid of the polygraph test. In 2017, the agency got the green light to waive the requirement for certain military veterans and began to test a version that improved pass rates.
Partly as a result, CBP has increased hiring of “frontline personnel” by nearly 15% and increased its applicant pool by 40% in the last three years, according to a Homeland Security 2019 budget document.
The agency has also cut the time it takes to hire from roughly 400 days to about 270 days. The government’s goal for hiring is 80 days, but CBP has said that’s not feasible.
Part of the problem stems from the Trump administration’s funding disputes with Congress over border security.
“We have to hire to the money that we’re appropriated, at the end of the day,” the first Homeland Security official said.
After Trump signed his executive orders in 2017, ICE requested $830 million to hire about 3,000 new officers and build capacity to ultimately bring on 10,000, according to a Government and Accountability Office report.
Instead, Congress last year gave ICE $15.7 million for 65 new agents plus 70 attorneys and support staff.
Over the past two years, ICE has brought on 1,325 investigators and deportation officers, according to the agency. The agency typically loses nearly 800 law enforcement officers each year, so it has not kept pace and remains far behind the president’s order.
For its part, CBP requested $330 million to hire 1,250 Border Patrol agents and build capacity to ultimately hire 5,000, according to the GAO report.
Congress gave CBP about $65 million in 2017 to improve hiring practices and to offer incentives for agents to transfer to understaffed sites. In 2018, it provided $20 million more than the agency sought for recruitment and retention.
“CBP faced high attrition rates even before the Trump administration made it a polarizing organization,” said Thompson, the House Homeland Security chairman.

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The Trump Administration clearly is the “Gang Who Can’t Shoot Straight!” So why would you give them more bullets with which to shoot themselves in the foot? They have also been totally unaccountable for how money is spent and what results they produce.

Let’s not forget that Trump’s original 15,000 number was totally bogus — made up out of thin air and actually questioned by the DHS Inspector General, given that border apprehensions had dropped significantly even before Trump took office.

And, the current “surge” is equally bogus. It’s not “illegal entrants.” No, it’s primarily family units seeking to legally apply for asylum who line up patiently at ports of entry or immediately turn themselves in to the nearest Border Patrol Agent.

So why does this humanitarian situation that has nothing to do with real law enforcement or the smuggling of drugs or contraband require a wall or more Border Patrol Agents? The answer is simple: It doesn’t! That’s particularly true because neither the wall nor the additional agents will arrive in time to have any effect whatsoever on the flow of legal asylum seekers? How gullible and misinformed can the American public be?

Even if they got the money, these clowns probably couldn’t get the wall built within the next decade. And, everyone forgets that walls don’t maintain themselves. The more they build, the more they will need to maintain and replace. Cartels and smugglers must be laughing their tails off at how Trump’s inane White Nationalist fixation on a largely cosmetic symbol is actually helping them and taking attention away from real law enforcement priorities.

PWS

01-26-19

INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HALEY SWEETLAND EDWARDS @ TIME TELLS WHAT TRUMP, MILLER, COTTON, SESSIONS, & THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST GANG DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW: Human Migration Is A Powerful Force As Old As Human History; It’s A Plus For Receiving Nations; It Won’t Be Stopped By Walls, Jails, Racist Laws, Or Any Other Restrictionist Nonsense; But, It Can Be Intelligently Controlled, Channeled, Harnessed, & Used For The Benefit Of The U.S. & The Good Of The Migrants! — “But to maximize that future good, governments must act rationally to establish humane policies and adequately fund an immigration system equipped to handle an influx of newcomers.”

http://time.com/longform/migrants/

Haley Sweetland Edwards writes in Time Magazine:

But they were willing to do whatever it took. Going back to Guatemala was simply not an option, they said. Monterroso explained that in October, their family was forced to flee after a gang threatened to murder the children if they didn’t pay an exorbitant bribe, five months’ worth of profits from their tiny juice stall. The family hid for a day and a half in their house and then sneaked away before dawn. “There is nobody that can protect us there,” Monterroso said. “We have seen in the other cases, they kill the people and kill their children.” Her voice caught. “The first thing is to have security for them,” she said of her kids, “that nothing bad happens to them.”

All told, more than 159,000 migrants filed for asylum in the U.S. in fiscal year 2018, a 274% increase over 2008. Meanwhile, the total number of apprehensions along the southern border has decreased substantially—nearly 70% since fiscal year 2000. President Donald Trump has labeled the southern border a national crisis. He refused to sign any bill funding the federal government that did not include money for construction of a wall along the frontier, triggering the longest shutdown in American history, and when Democrats refused to budge, he threatened to formally invoke emergency powers. The President says the barrier, which was the centerpiece of his election campaign, is needed to thwart a dangerous “invasion” of undocumented foreigners.

But the situation on the southern border, however the political battle in Washington plays out, will continue to frustrate this U.S. President, and likely his successors too, and not just because of continuing caravans making their way to the desert southwest. Months of reporting by TIME correspondents around the world reveal a stubborn reality: we are living today in a global society increasingly roiled by challenges that can be neither defined nor contained by physical barriers. That goes for climate change, terrorism, pandemics, nascent technologies and cyber-attacks. It also applies to one of the most significant global developments of the past quarter-century: the unprecedented explosion of global migration.

. . . .

They abandoned their homes for different reasons: tens of millions went in search of better jobs or better education or medical care, and tens of millions more had no choice. More than 5.6 million fled the war in Syria, and a million more were Rohingya, chased from their villages in Myanmar. Hundreds of thousands fled their neighborhoods in Central America and villages in sub-Saharan Africa, driven by poverty and violence. Others were displaced by catastrophic weather linked to climate change.

Taken one at a time, each is an individual, a mixture of strengths and weaknesses, hope and despair. But collectively, they represent something greater than the sum of their parts. The forces that pushed them from their homes have combined with a series of global factors that pulled them abroad: the long peace that followed the Cold War in the developed world, the accompanying expansion of international travel, liberalized policies for refugees and the relative wealth of developed countries, especially in Europe and the U.S., the No. 1 destination for migrants. The force is tidal and has not been reversed by walls, by separating children from their parents or by deploying troops. Were the world’s total population of international migrants in 2018 gathered from the places where they have sought new lives and placed under one flag, they would be its fifth largest country.

The mass movement of people has changed the world both for better and for worse. Migrants tend to be productive. Though worldwide they make up about 3% of the population, in 2015 they generated about 9% of global GDP, according to the U.N. Much of that money is wired home—$480 billion in 2017, also according to the U.N.—where the cash has immense impact. Some will pay for the passage of the next migrant, and the smartphone he or she will keep close at hand. The technology not only makes the journey more efficient and safer—smugglers identify their clients by photos on instant-messaging—but, upon arrival, allows those who left to keep in constant contact with those who remain behind, across oceans and time zones.

Yet attention of late is mostly focused on the impact on host countries. There, national leaders have grappled with a powerful irony: the ways in which they react to new migrants—tactically, politically, culturally—shape them as much as the migrants themselves do. In some countries, migrants have been welcomed by crowds at train stations. In others, images of migrants moving in miles-long caravans through Central America or spilling out of boats on Mediterranean shores were wielded to persuade native-born citizens to lock down borders, narrow social safety nets and jettison long-standing humanitarian commitments to those in need.

. . . .

The U.S., though founded by Europeans fleeing persecution, now largely reflects the will of its Chief Executive: subverting decades of asylum law and imposing a policy that separated migrant toddlers from their parents and placed children behind cyclone fencing. Trump floated the possibility of revoking birthright citizenship, characterized migrants as “stone cold criminals” and ordered 5,800 active-duty U.S. troops to reinforce the southern border. Italy refused to allow ships carrying rescued migrants to dock at its ports. Hungary passed laws to criminalize the act of helping undocumented people. Anti-immigrant leaders saw their political power grow in the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Sweden, Germany, Finland, Italy and Hungary, and migration continued to be a factor in the Brexit debate in the U.K.

These political reactions fail to grapple with a hard truth: in the long run, new migration is nearly always a boon to host countries. In acting as entrepreneurs and innovators, and by providing inexpensive labor, immigrants overwhelmingly repay in long-term economic contributions what they use in short-term social services, studies show. But to maximize that future good, governments must act -rationally to establish humane policies and adequately fund an immigration system equipped to handle an influx of newcomers.

. . . .

But protocols and treaties can, at best, hope to respond to the human emotions and hard realities that drive migration. No wall, sheriff or headscarf law would have prevented Monterroso and Calderón, or Yaquelin and Albertina Contreras, or Sami Baladi and Mirey Darwich from leaving their homes. Migrants will continue to flee bombs, look for better-paying jobs and accept extraordinary risks as the price of providing a better life for their children.

The question now is whether the world can come to define the enormous population of international migrants as an opportunity. No matter when that happens, Eman Albadawi, a teacher from Syria who arrived in Anröchte, Germany, in 2015, will continue to make a habit of reading German-language children’s books to her three Syrian-born kids at night. Their German is better than hers, and they make fun of her pronunciation, but she doesn’t mind. She is proud of them. At a time when anti-immigrant rhetoric is on the rise, she tells them, “We must be brave, but we must also be successful and strong.” —With reporting by Aryn Baker/Anröchte, Germany; Melissa Chan, Julia Lull, Gina Martinez, Thea Traff/New York; Ioan Grillo/Tijuana; Abby Vesoulis/Murfreesboro, Tenn.; and Vivienne Walt/Paris •

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I strongly encourage everyone to read Haley’s outstanding article at the link. It is one of the best and most easily understandable explanations of a complex phenomenon that I have seen recently. As I always say, “lots of moving parts.” But Haley and her colleagues have distilled the fundamental truths concealed by this complexity. Congrats and appreciation to Haley and everyone who worked on this masterpiece!

Haley debunks and eviscerates the restrictionist, racist “fear and loathing” baloney that Trump and his White Nationalist gang peddle. The simple truth always has been and continues to be that America needs more immigration.

The only real question is whether we are going to be smart and funnel it into expanded legal and humanitarian channels or dumb like Trump and push the inevitable migration into an extra-legal system. The latter best serves neither our country nor the humans pushed into an underground existence where they can be exploited and are artificially prevented from achieving their full potential for themselves and for us. Right now, we have a mix skewed toward forcing far, far too many good folks to use the extra-legal system.

We’ll only be able to improve the situation by pushing the mix toward the legal and the humanitarian, rather than the extra-legal. That’s why it’s virtually impossible to have a rational immigration debate with folks like Trump who start with the racist-inspired fiction that migrants are a “threat” who can be deterred, punished, and diminished.

Contrary to Trump and the White Nationalists, the real immigration problems facing America are 1) how can we best integrate the millions of law-abiding and productive undocumented individuals already residing here into our society, and 2) how can we most fairly and efficiently insure that in the future individuals like them can be properly screened and come to our country through expanded humanitarian and legal channels. Until we resolve these, American will continue to founder with immigration and fail to maximize its many benefits. That’s bad for us, for migrants, and for the future of our nation.

As a reminder, in the context of Congressional negotiations on border security, I recently put together a list of “practical fixes” to the immigration system which would address border security, humanitarian relief, and improved compliance with Constitutional Due process without major legislative changes — mostly “tweaks” and other common sense amendments that would make outsized improvements and certainly would be an improvement on squandering $5.7 billion and getting nothing but a largely symbolic “instant white elephant” border wall in return. So, here it is again in all its hypothetical glory: “THE SMARTS ACT OF 2019:

https://wp.me/p8eeJm-3E3

SECURITY, MIGRATION ASSISTANCE RENEWAL, & TECHNICAL SYSTEMS ACT (“SMARTS ACT”) OF 2019

Federal Employees

Restart the Government

Retroactive pay raise

Enhanced Border Security

Fund half of “Trump’s Wall”

Triple the number of USCIS Asylum Officers

Double the number of U.S. Immigration Judges and Court Staff

Additional Port of Entry (“POE”) Inspectors

Improvements in POE infrastructure, technology, and technology between POEs

Additional Intelligence, Anti-Smuggling, and Undercover Agents for DHS

Anything else that both parties agree upon

Humanitarian Assistance

Road to citizenship for a Dreamers & TPSers

Prohibit family separation

Funding for alternatives to detention

Grants to NGOs for assisting arriving asylum applicants with temporary housing and resettlement issues

Require re-establishment of U.S. Refugee Program in the Northern Triangle

Asylum Process

Require Asylum Offices to consider in the first instance all asylum applications including those generated by the “credible fear” process as well as all so-called “defensive applications”

Immigration Court Improvements

Grants and requirements that DHS & EOIR work with NGOs and the private bar with a goal of achieving 100% representation of asylum applicants

Money to expand and encourage the training and certification of more non-attorneys as “accredited representatives” to represent asylum seekers pro bono before the Asylum Offices and the Immigration Courts on behalf of approved NGOs

Vacate Matter of A-B-and reinstate Matter of A-R-C-G-as the rule for domestic violence asylum applications

Vacate Matter of Castro-Tum and reinstate Matter of Avetisyan to allow Immigration Judges to control dockets by administratively closing certain “low priority” cases

Eliminate Attorney General’s authority to interfere in Immigration Court proceedings through “certification”

Re-establish weighing of interests of both parties consistent with Due Process as the standard for Immigration Court continuances

Bar AG & EOIR Director from promulgating substantive or procedural rules for Immigration Courts — grant authority to BIA to promulgate procedural rules for Immigration Courts

Authorize Immigration Courts to consider all Constitutional issues in proceedings

Authorize DHS to appeal rulings of the BIA to Circuit Courts of Appeal

Require EOIR to implement the statutory contempt authority of Immigration Judges, applicable equally to all parties before the courts, within 180 days

Bar “performance quotas” and “performance work plans” for Immigration Judges and BIA Members

Authorize the Immigration Court to set bonds in all cases coming within their jurisdiction

Fund and require EOIR to implement a nationwide electronic filing system within one year

Eliminate the annual 4,000 numerical cap on grants of “cancellation of removal” based on “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship”

Require the Asylum Office to adjudicate cancellation of removal applications with renewal in Immigration Court for those denied

Require EOIR to establish a credible, transparent judicial discipline and continued tenure system within one year that must include: opportunity for participation by the complainant (whether Government or private) and the Immigration Judge; representation permitted for both parties; peer input; public input; DHS input; referral to an impartial decision maker for final decision; a transparent and consistent system of sanctions incorporating principles of rehabilitation and progressive discipline; appeal rights to the MSPB

International Cooperation

Fund and require efforts to work with the UNHCR, Mexico, and other countries in the Hemisphere to improve asylum systems and encourage asylum seekers to exercise options besides the U.S.

Fund efforts to improve conditions and the rule of law in the Northern Triangle

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No, it wouldn’t solve all problems overnight. But, everything beyond “Trump’s Wall” would make a substantial improvement over our current situation that would benefit enforcement, border security, human rights, Due Process, humanitarian assistance, and America. Not a bad “deal” in my view!

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PWS

01-27-19

BUZZFEED NEWS: “Our Gang” Leader Judge Jeffrey Chase Blasts Nielsen’s Latest Disingenuous Attack On Legal Asylum Seekers — “Outrageous Move”

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hamedaleaziz/the-trump-administration-will-start-sending-some-asylum

Hamed Aleaziz reports:

SAN FRANCISCO — Central American migrants seeking asylum at the US–Mexico border will be forced to remain in Mexico while their cases in the US are being processed, the Trump administration said Thursday.

The unprecedented policy change will take effect on Friday with the return of the first group of migrants at the border crossing between San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico, according to Vox.

The policy, titled the Migrant Protection Protocols, is the latest attempt by the Trump administration to discourage migrants, including asylum-seekers, from trying to enter the United States. Previous attempts, such as banning asylum for those who crossed without authorization, were blocked by the courts, and this effort also is likely to face a challenge in court.

Under the policy, certain migrants at the border will receive a “notice to appear” in US immigration court and will be returned to Mexico until their hearing, according to a Department of Homeland Security fact sheet. The Mexican government, according to the agency, has provided the ability for those individuals to stay in the country until their court dates in the US. On the day of their hearing, migrants will be taken to US immigration courts for their cases to be heard.

Unaccompanied children will be excluded from the policy and those from “vulnerable populations” may be excluded on a case-by-case basis.

“We have implemented an unprecedented action that will address the ongoing humanitarian and security crisis at our Southern border,” said Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. “For far too long, our immigration system has been exploited by smugglers, traffickers, and those who have no legal right to remain in the United States. The Migrant Protection Protocols represent a methodical commonsense approach to exercising our statutory authority to require certain individuals to await their court proceedings in Mexico.”

A US official close to the process who is critical of the policy told BuzzFeed News it would lead migrants to “revert to sneaking in rather than going to ports of entry” and cause “more deaths in the desert.”

The Trump administration informed the Mexican government that it was going to be enacting the policy based on a statute stating that certain individuals can be sent back to the contiguous country they arrived from.

BuzzFeed News first reported that the administration was considering such a policy back in November.

Trump administration officials have accused asylum-seekers of gaming the US system, requesting asylum that they know they won’t qualify for so that they can remain in the country for months or years while immigration courts hear their cases.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat, said the policy was a circumvention of the country’s immigration laws.

“Today’s announcement creates more questions than answers. Even putting aside the unlawfulness of this action, we do not know where these asylum-seekers will be held, who will be responsible for their safety, how and where their hearings will take place, or how access to counsel will be handled,” she said in a statement Thursday.

Jeff Chase, a former immigration judge, said the move was outrageous.

“We should be allowing asylum-seekers to enter and pursue their claims according to the international legal norms,” he said. “It will obviously be much more difficult for asylum-seekers to obtain counsel and to meaningfully participate in increasingly complex legal claims from outside the country.”

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Right on, Jeffrey! Thanks for expressing our outrage in the dishonest, deceitful, inhumane, and counterproductive actions of shallow Trump sycophant Nielsen. Another mess is sure to follow. Despite her claims, and Nielsen is an established liar, everything I’ve read indicates that Mexico is unready to implement this if it involves more than a few hundred individuals. And, if the program were that small, it wouldn’t be worth doing. The Trump Administration of incompetents has yet to carry out any major new program without screwups.

What if Trump, Nielsen, DOJ, and EOIR just did their jobs by generously and efficiently granting asylum as mandated by the Refugee Act, the Supremes in Cardoza–Fonseca, and, ironically, the BIA’s own well-established but seldom enforced precedent Mogharrabi?

What if we took 50,000 refugees directly from the Northern Triangle, as we easily could and should do?

What if the Administration worked with, rather than against, pro bono groups and NGOs so that asylum seekers could fairly and efficiently move through the system consistent with Due Process?

What if DHS enforcement actually concentrated on potential “bad guys” rather than getting sidetracked by treating refugee families like criminals?

What if Trump treated refugees like the deserving and productive human beings that they have been throughout our history and welcomed and integrated them into our society?

What if he stopped using false narratives and restrictionist White Nationalist racist lies to make policy?

What if he cut the often illegal, always “built to fail,” and grossly fiscally wasteful gimmicks, smoke, mirrors, and job avoidance and just got the job done?

We’d actually be on the way to making America great again. Too bad that neither the Trump Administration nor the GOP seems interested in doing the real work of making government function within the law and advancing the real general public interests!

PWS

01-25-19

THE HUMAN AGONY OF ASYLUM: SPEND 4 MIN. WITH MS. A-B- & HUMAN/WOMEN’S RIGHTS EXPERT PROFESSOR KAREN MUSALO — Beaten, Raped, & Threatened With Death By Her Husband, Hounded Throughout Her Country, Abandoned By El Salvadoran Authorities, She Sought Refuge In The U.S., Winning Her Case At The BIA — Then She Was Targeted For A Vicious Unprovoked Attack By Notorious Scofflaw Immigration Judge Stuart Couch & White Nationalist Xenophobe Jeff Sessions — She’s Still Fighting For Her Life!

https://cgrs.uchastings.edu/news/cgrs-and-hrw-release-video-call-government-restore-protections-domestic-violence-survivors

Professor Karen Musalo

CGRS and HRW Release Video, Call on Government to Restore Protections for Domestic Violence Survivors

Wednesday, January 23, 2019

The United States government should uphold refugee protections for survivors of domestic violence, the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies (CGRS) and Human Rights Watch said today.

In December 2018, a federal judge delivered a sharp rebuke to the Trump Administration’s most significant attempt to undermine asylum protections for domestic violence survivors. A June decision by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions in a case involving a woman whose initials were A.B. attempted to place a sweeping ban on domestic violence claims. Following a lawsuit filed by CGRS and the American Civil Liberties Union over the summer, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the Administration could not impose such a ban and that people who make domestic violence claims must have a fair opportunity to apply for asylum.

But despite Sullivan’s favorable ruling, Ms. A.B.’s case remains in limbo. Until Sessions’ decision is overturned, she and thousands of women like her will continue to face an uphill battle in the courts.

Today CGRS and HRW released a video in which Ms. A.B. shares her story of abuse in El Salvador, the impossibility of finding protection in her home country, and her quest to find safety in the U.S.

“Ms. A.B. suffered brutal physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, and every time she sought protection from the Salvadoran authorities, the police would not protect her,” said Karen Musalo, one of the woman’s attorneys and director of the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies. “In denying her asylum, the former attorney general not only overturned clearly established case law recognizing the right to asylum for survivors of domestic violence, but also repudiated the well-accepted principle that women’s rights are human rights.”

The incoming attorney general should rescind Sessions’ decision, the groups said. If not, Congress should enact legislation that protects the right to asylum for domestic violence survivors and others whose claims have been undermined by the ruling in Ms. A.B.’s case.

Sessions’ administrative decision denying Ms. A.B. asylum overruled the Board of Immigration Appeals’ ruling in a seminal 2014 case, Matter of A-R-C-G-, which recognized that domestic violence survivors may qualify for asylum. Under U.S. and international law, to be eligible for asylum, a person must show a well-founded fear of persecution on the grounds of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. Domestic violence survivors who are unable to secure protection in their home countries have been able to obtain asylum on the ground of membership in a particular social group, among others.

In his December ruling, Judge Sullivan struck down many of the new policies to carry out Sessions’ decision, writing that there is “no legal basis for an effective categorical ban on domestic violence and gang-related claims.”

Under international law, governments have a clear obligation to prevent domestic violence, as well as to protect, support, and ensure access to justice and services for victims. But around the world, in Central America and elsewhere, women struggle to have governments ensure, or in some cases recognize, their right to protection. In some countries, criminal law does not adequately address domestic violence. More often, domestic violence is outlawed but rates of domestic violence, including violence that ends in homicide, remains high as authorities fail to ensure justice.

“This is absolutely the case in El Salvador, where the government’s utter failure to protect Ms. A.B. forced her to flee for her life,” said Andrés López, her co-counsel.

The Trump Administration’s move to severely limit asylum eligibility for domestic violence survivors is consistent with other regressive actions it has taken in recognizing violence against women as a human rights issue. The State Department’s annual human rights country reports since 2017 have excluded detailed analysis of violence against women, as well as reporting on women’s and girls’ reproductive health care.

“The Trump Administration’s fallacious view that domestic violence is a matter between private actors fails to recognize the systemic abuse of women’s rights in countries where authorities cannot or do not protect women threatened with domestic violence,” said Grace Meng, senior US researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The serious and persistent problem of domestic violence cannot be eliminated unless the U.S. and other countries recognize domestic violence, and the related acts or omissions of the government, as violations of women’s basic human rights.”

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

Please check out the great 4 minute video at the link in the press release!

As noted in the press release, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan recently found that much of Session’s twisted and biased ruling in A-B-‘s case violated the Refugee Act, international norms, and directly contradicted Congressional intent.

This is but an example of the egregious attacks on the rule of law and the rights of asylum seekers being carried out by the scofflaw Trump Administration and its minions on a daily basis.

Join the New Due Process Army today and fight to restore the rule of law, human decency, Due Process, and a “guarantee of fairness and Due Process for all” to our broken, captive, and often lawless U.S. Immigration Courts!

PWS

01-25-19

Julia Edwards Ainsley @ NBC: DHS Set To Launch “Wait in Mexico” Program For Asylum Seekers — Expect Another Disaster!

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/dhs-plans-begin-turning-asylum-seekers-back-mexico-await-court-n962401

Julia Ainsley

Julia reports:

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration plans to begin turning asylum-seekers back across the southern border on Friday to wait in Mexico under a new policy designed to crack down on immigration by Central American families, according to three Department of Homeland Security officials familiar with the matter.

Customs and Border Protection officers will begin returning asylum-seekers trying to enter at the San Ysidro port of entry in California from Tijuana, Mexico, where thousands of migrants from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador are already waiting in poor conditions.

Under current policy, immigrants who pass an initial “credible fear” interview are allowed to remain in the U.S. while they wait for immigration judges to decide their cases. Single adults are detained while they await their hearing, but a federal court decision in 2015 mandates that families with children be detained no longer than 20 days.

The Trump administration has blamed that court decision, known as the Flores settlement, for being a magnet that is driving record numbers of immigrant families to apply for asylum at the southern border. Last summer under the “zero tolerance” policy, DHS separated asylum-seeking parents from their children at the border, sparking international outcry.

Overall numbers of undocumented immigrants apprehended or stopped from legally entering the United States are lower than the historic highs reached in the early 2000s.

Children who travel without a guardian, immigrants who appear ill as well as other “vulnerable populations” will be exempt from the policy and allowed to wait in the U.S. for an immigration hearing.

Immigrant and civil rights organizations have threatened to sue the Trump administration over the policy, known as Migration Protection Policy, which Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen announced was coming in her congressional testimony in December.

The policy is a unilateral move by the U.S. and not part of an agreement with Mexico, two officials said, though Mexico has agreed to care for immigrants who are waiting to apply. The Lopez Obrador administration in Mexico has been vocal about its opposition to the policy in the past.

Beginning Friday, the asylum-seekers who come to the San Ysidro port of entry will be sent back to Tijuana with a notice to appear in court in San Diego. On their court dates, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will provide transportation from the port of entry to immigration court. Asylum-seekers will also be given a 24-hour hotline to call for the status of their asylum cases.

SHUTDOWN HAS FURLOUGHED IMMIGRATION COURT JUDGES

Due to a backlog in U.S. immigration courts of more than 800,000 cases, asylum-seekers currently have to wait months or even years to see a judge. DHS has asked the Justice Department to expedite the cases of immigrants waiting in Mexico, and two officials said they expect the asylum-seekers affected by the new policy to wait no more than a year.

Agents fire tear gas at migrants at the border

NOV. 26, 201802:26

The partial government shutdown over President Donald Trump’s plan for a border wall has furloughed immigration judges, however, so the backlog of cases is expected to rise.I

Conditions for Central Americans waiting in Tijuana are already poor. CBP officers on the U.S. side are practicing “metering” where they let in somewhere from 40 to 100 immigrants per day. Shelters for families and children in Tijuana are overcrowded and many are struggling to meet migrants’ basic needs.

They also face backlash from Tijuana residents who do not want their city overrun with Central Americans. Two boys were lured out of a camp and murdered late last year.

Human rights organizations have warned that turning back the small number of immigrants who are allowed to cross into the U.S. to claim asylum will only worsen the problem and force asylum-seekers to either wait in poor conditions or resort to dangerous routes to cross illegally.

Two children died in the custody of U.S. Border Protection in December after traveling with their parents through rough terrain in remote areas.

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

With the Trump Administration, what they say is seldom what you get. Remember sycophant and “frequent liar” Nielsen falsely claiming that there was “no family separation policy.”

So, I would be surprised if officials on either side of the border actually are prepared to carry this out without major problems. Indeed, almost every major restrictionist immigration initiative announced by the Trump Administration has proved to be 1) wholly illegal; 2) partially illegal; and/or 3) incompetently administered, as well as dumb and in many cases intentionally cruel. An Administration of Clowns doesn’t turn into a troupe of trapeze artists overnight. The question really isn’t whether DHS will screw this up, but rather how.

First, it’s not clear what provisions have been made for attorney access. And, of course processing all cases at a few ports of entry, rather than distributing them across the U.S., could limit the pool of available, mostly pro bono, attorneys.

On the flip side, concentrating cases at a limited number of ports of entry might make it more possible for NGOs and pro bono organizations to concentrate resources and create representation programs. Still, a real asylum project carried out by a Government legitimately interested in complying with the law and Due Process would not be implemented without working with pro bono groups in advance to set up a representation and access system. Clearly, the failure to do that shows bad faith on the part of the Administration. Because individuals are entitled to representation (but not appointed counsel) in removal proceedings that, in and of itself, ought to be a reason for enjoining the program on statutory and Due Process grounds until there is a realistic plan for giving reasonable access to counsel.

The second thing that jumps out at me as unlikely is the promise that ICE will “taxi” individuals from the border to their hearings and back. One might wonder why a supposed law enforcement agency is operating a “taxi service.” Beyond that, my experience on the detained docket in Immigration Court was that ICE sometimes struggled to get detainees to court on time when they were residing in the same facility as the courtroom. It seems unlikely that ICE will be able to produce individuals from the Mexican border in a timely manner for their court hearings. And remember folks, these are the clowns who don’t even know how many children they have in their custody and where they all are!

Third, if these cases are “prioritized” by the toadies at EOIR, at the demand of DHS, it will lead to yet another round of “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” and arbitrary delays in the captive and already failed Immigration Court System which the Trump Administration essentially has destroyed and ground into the dirt.

Fourth, since the Administration has already had detainees die in the U.S., and has also allowed individuals to die in Mexico while awaiting intentionally delayed interviews, I hope that advocacy groups are preparing civil suits to hold Nielsen and other officials personally liable for very predictable unconstitutional harm inflicted on individual asylum applicants.

A major recurring problem with running a White Nationalist regime is that policy is built upon false narratives, outright lies, and racist-inspired myths. So instead of working with folks with real expertise to solve problems, they waste our taxpayer money on endless gimmicks and illegal schemes. All are “built to fail” and many are proven failures. But, that’s what a Kakistocracy does.

At some point, Nielsen’s disgraceful record of dishonesty, sycophancy, and incompetence is likely to come back to haunt her. She truly is a “Child of the Kakistocracy.”

PWS

01-24-19

TRUMP’S “OFFER” MIGHT WELL BE A STUNT – BUT, IT’S ALSO AN OPPORTUNITY FOR THE DEMS TO STEP UP, SAVE LIVES, AND GOVERN RESPONSIBLY – They Should Make A Counterproposal – Here’s The “SMARTS Act Of 2019!”

There are opposing “schools of thought” on Trump’s latest immigration statement. For example, the LA Times says it another “Trump stunt to shift blame” that the Dems should resist. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-trump-shutdown-daca-20190119-story.html

Makes sense.

On the other hand, the Washington Post says that notwithstanding Trump’s annoying tactics, it’s an opportunity to reopen the Government and save the Dreamers that the Dems should pursue. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/make-a-deal-to-help-the-real-people-behind-the-rhetoric/2019/01/19/f5b18866-1c17-11e9-88fe-f9f77a3bcb6c_story.html?utm_term=.5b08d589dfa9

Also makes sense.

I understand the Dems reluctance to enable Trump’s “hostage taking” strategy. But, I doubt they can solve that with Trump and the GOP controlling two of the three political arms of Government.

Indeed, a better idea would be for Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader McConnell to get together “when the smoke clears” and see what they can do jointly to take back and fix the bipartisan Congressional budget process and protect it from overreach by Executives of both parties. For two of the major legislative “gurus” of our age in the twilight of their careers, that would be a great “bipartisan legacy.”

But, for the time being, folks are suffering, and lives are in danger: Government employees, those that depend on Government, asylum applicants, Dreamers, TPSers, those in Immigration Court, and the families of all of the foregoing. So, I think the Dems should make a “robust” counterproposal that gives Trump at least part of his “Wall,” but also includes other important reforms and improvements that will diminish the impact of border migration issues in the future. Most important, almost everything in this proposal would save or improve some human lives and benefit America in the short and long run.

So, here’s my outline of the “SECURITY, MIGRATION ASSISTANCE RENEWAL, & TECHNICAL SYSTEMS ACT (“SMARTS ACT”) OF 2019”

SECURITY, MIGRATION ASSISTANCE RENEWAL, & TECHNICAL SYSTEMS ACT (“SMARTS ACT”) OF 2019

Federal Employees
- Restart the Government
- Retroactive pay raise

Enhanced Border Security
- Fund half of “Trump’s Wall”
- Triple the number of USCIS Asylum Officers
- Double the number of U.S. Immigration Judges and Court Staff
- Additional Port of Entry (“POE”) Inspectors
- Improvements in POE infrastructure, technology, and technology between POEs
- Additional Intelligence, Anti-Smuggling, and Undercover Agents for DHS
- Anything else in the Senate Bill that both parties agree upon

Humanitarian Assistance
- Road to citizenship for a Dreamers & TPSers
- Prohibit family separation
- Funding for alternatives to detention
- Grants to NGOs for assisting arriving asylum applicants with temporary housing and resettlement issues
- Require re-establishment of U.S. Refugee Program in the Northern Triangle

Asylum Process
- Require Asylum Offices to consider in the first instance all asylum applications including those generated by the “credible fear” process as well as all so-called “defensive applications”

Immigration Court Improvements
- Grants and requirements that DHS & EOIR work with NGOs and the private bar with a goal of achieving 100% representation of asylum applicants
- Money to expand and encourage the training and certification of more non-attorneys as “accredited representatives” to represent asylum seekers pro bono before the Asylum Offices and the Immigration Courts on behalf of approved NGOs
- Vacate Matter of A-B-and reinstate Matter of A-R-C-G-as the rule for domestic violence asylum applications
- Vacate Matter of Castro-Tumand reinstate Matter of Avetisyan to allow Immigration Judges to control dockets by administratively closing certain “low priority” cases
- Eliminate Attorney General’s authority to interfere in Immigration Court proceedings through “certification”
- Re-establish weighing of interests of both parties consistent with Due Process as the standard for Immigration Court continuances
- Bar AG & EOIR Director from promulgating substantive or procedural rules for Immigration Courts — grant authority to BIA to promulgate procedural rules for Immigration Courts
- Authorize Immigration Courts to consider all Constitutional issues in proceedings
- Authorize DHS to appeal rulings of the BIA to Circuit Courts of Appeal
- Require EOIR to implement the statutory contempt authority of Immigration Judges, applicable equally to all parties before the courts, within 180 days
- Bar “performance quotas” and “performance work plans” for Immigration Judges and BIA Members
- Authorize the Immigration Court to set bonds in all cases coming within their jurisdiction
- Fund and require EOIR to implement a nationwide electronic filing system within one year
- Eliminate the annual 4,000 numerical cap on grants of “cancellation of removal” based on “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship”
- Require the Asylum Office to adjudicate cancellation of removal applications with renewal in Immigration Court for those denied
- Require EOIR to establish a credible, transparent judicial discipline and continued tenure system within one year that must include: opportunity for participation by the complainant (whether Government or private) and the Immigration Judge; representation permitted for both parties; peer input; public input; DHS input; referral to an impartial decision maker for final decision; a transparent and consistent system of sanctions incorporating principles of rehabilitation and progressive discipline; appeal rights to the MSPB

International Cooperation
- Fund and require efforts to work with the UNHCR, Mexico, and other countries in the Hemisphere to improve asylum systems and encourage asylum seekers to exercise options besides the U.S.
- Fund efforts to improve conditions and the rule of law in the Northern Triangle

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

No, it wouldn’t solve all problems overnight. But, everything beyond “Trump’s Wall” would make a substantial improvement over our current situation that would benefit enforcement, border security, human rights, Due Process, humanitarian assistance, and America. Not a bad “deal” in my view!

PWS

01-20-19

NEW BLOCKBUSTER VIDEO: THE MARSHALL PROJECT RELEASES “WE ARE WITNESSES, BECOMING AN AMERICAN” – Includes Video Of Me On “Being An Immigration Judge!” – View It Here!

https://www.themarshallproject.org/we-are-witnesses/immigration

we are witnesses

BECOMING AN AMERICAN

Despite controversies over border walls, separated families and the Muslim travel ban, immigrants are still striving for American citizenship. WE ARE WITNESSES: BECOMING AN AMERICAN tells their stories and the stories of those trying to help and hinder them.

PLAY ALL WITNESSES ABOUT THIS PROJECT

Presented with

Judge Paul Schmidt

Former immigration judge

Alina Diaz

Domestic abuse survivor from Colombia

Zaid Nagi

Yemeni-American immigrant and organizer

Villacis-Guerrero Family

A family separated by deportation

Jose Molina

Legal permanent resident from Panama

Nisrin Elamin & Tahanie Aboushi

An immigrant and lawyer on the travel ban

David Ward

Former Border Patrol/ICE agent

Youngmin Lo

Undocumented immigrant from South Korea

Lee Wang

An immigration lawyer explains how we got here

Teofilo Chavez

Undocumented minor from Honduras

John Sandweg

Former acting director of ICE

Alena Sandimirova

LGBT asylum grantee from Russia

MORE WITNESSES• THE MARSHALL PROJECT• ABOUT• DONATE

The Marshall Project is a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system.

SEARCH

LIFE INSIDE

THE RECORD

THE NEXT TO DIE

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OPENING STATEMENTThe best criminal justice news, delivered to your inbox daily.

WHY THE MARSHALLPROJECT?

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Feedback? support@themarshallproject.org

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

I’m proud to have been a part of this project. Many thanks to Isabel Castro, Ruth Baldwin, and all of the other great folks over at The Marshall Project for making this happen!

PWS

01-16-19

THE HILL: NOLAN SAYS TRUMP HAS THE WRONG “BORDER CRISIS”

https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/424893-there-is-a-border-crisis-its-just-not-quite-what-the-president-said-it-is

Nolan writes, in part:

. . . .

Unfortunately, Trump has made it easier for them by basing his request on claims about who is crossing the border that can be disputed readily, such as that many of them are terrorists or criminals.

He should base his otherwise correct argument instead on the numbers — on the fact that the sheer number of illegal crossings has overwhelmed our immigration courts, creating a backlog crisis that has made it virtually impossible to enforce our immigration laws, and that the border cannot be secured when illegal crossers are allowed to remain here indefinitely.

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

Go on over to The Hill at the link for Nolan’s complete article.

Democrats aren’t destroying Trump’s credibility; he’s doing that himself with his constant lies and false narratives; this is just the latest and one of the most egregious examples;
By all reliable counts, illegal border crossings at the Southern Border are down substantially;
What is “up” are crossings by unaccompanied children and families from the Northern Triangle seeking asylum;
Such individuals present a humanitarian situation arising from a crisis in the Northern Triangle; but, they are not a “security threat” to the US; almost all turn themselves in at ports of entry or shortly after entering to apply for asylum under our legal system as they are entitled to do;
Those (other than unaccompanied children) who don’t establish a “credible fear” can be returned immediately without ever getting to the Immigration Courts (except for brief “credible fear reviews” before Immigration Judges);
The vast majority have a “credible fear” and should be referred to Immigration Court for full hearings on their claims in accordance with the law and our Constitution;
When matched with pro bono lawyers, given a clear understanding of the requirements, and time to prepare and document a claim, they appear for court hearings almost all the time;
Even with the Trump Administration’s “anti-asylum campaign” directed primarily at applicants from the Northern Triangle, and the lack of representation in approximately 25% of the cases, asylum claims from the Northern Triangle succeed at a rate of approximately 20%, https://wp.me/p8eeJm-3oo;
Undoubtedly, there is a “crisis” in our U.S. Immigration Courts — a Due Process and mismanagement crisis;
But, the Trump Administration with its often illegal actions and gross mismanagement, has actually managed to artificially increase the Immigration Court Backlog from just over 500,000 to more than 1.1 million in less than two years — despite having at least 100 additional Immigration Judges on duty, https://wp.me/p8eeJm-3qN;
Indeed, Trump’s shutdown is unnecessarily “ratcheting up” the Immigration Court backlog and initiating a new round of “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” right now;
In addition to not understanding the true complexities of the immigration system, the Administration’s incompetent administration of the Immigration Courts is another reason why Trump might choose to shift attention elsewhere.;
Somebody will have to address the Due Process and administrative mess in the Immigration Courts in a constructive manner, starting with an independent, apolitical, court structure; but it won’t be the Trump Administration.

PWS

01-10-19

FRAUD, WASTE, & ABUSE: Trump’s Bogus Wall Could Be Breached By Anyone With A Ladder, Shovel, The Agility of a 10-Year-Old Child – Or A Saw!

https://apple.news/AymAseB7HTrmR5T9j6JLAIQ

Jacob Soboroff & Julia Edwards Ainsley report for NBC News:

Test of steel prototype for border wall showed it could be sawed through

President Donald Trump has repeatedly advocated for a steel slat design for his border wall, which he described as “absolutely critical to border security” in his Oval Office address to the nation Tuesday. But Department of Homeland Security testing of a steel slat prototype proved it could be cut through with a saw, according to a report by DHS.

A photo exclusively obtained by NBC News shows the results of the test after military and Border Patrol personnel were instructed to attempt to destroy the barriers with common tools.

The Trump administration directed the construction of eight steel and concrete prototype walls that were built in Otay Mesa, California, just across the border from Tijuana, Mexico. Trump inspected the prototypes in March 2018. He has now settled on a steel slat, or steel bollard, design for the proposed border barrier additions. Steel bollard fencing has been used under previous administrations.

However, testing by DHS in late 2017 showed all eight prototypes, including the steel slats, were vulnerable to breaching, according to an internal February 2018 U.S. Customs and Border Protection report.

Photos of the breaches were not included in a redacted version of the CBP report, which was first obtained in a Freedom of Information Act Request by San Diego public broadcaster KPBS.

The photo of testing results obtained by NBC News was taken at the testing location along the California-Mexico border, known as “Pogo Row.”

Responding to the picture from the South Lawn of the White House on Thursday morning, Trump claimed “that’s a wall designed by previous administrations.”

While it is true that previous administrations used this design, the prototype was built during his administration.

“It’s very, very hard — the wall that we are doing is very, very hard to penetrate,” Trump said.

NBC News toured the eight wall prototypes twice before President Trump’s March 2018 inspection. According to San Diego Sector Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott, the versions seen by NBC News and the president, however, were larger than the actual prototypes tested at “Pogo Row.”

In a statement, DHS Spokeswoman Katie Waldman said, “The steel bollard construction is based on the operational requirements of the United States Border Patrol and is a design that has been honed over more than a decade of use. It is an important part of Border Patrol’s impedance and denial capability.”

“While the design currently being constructed was informed by what we learned in the prototypes, it does not replicate those designs,” said Waldman. “The steel bollard design is internally reinforced with materials that require time and multiple industrial tools to breach, thereby providing U.S. Border Patrol agents additional response time to affect a successful law enforcement resolution. In the event that one of the steel bollards becomes damaged, it is quick and cost-effective to repair.

“The professionals on the border know that a wall system is intended not only to prevent entry, it is intended to defer and to increase the amount of time and effort it takes for one to enter so that we can respond with limited border patrol agents. Even a wall that is being breached is a valuable tool in that it allows us to respond to the attempted illegal entry.”

In response to KPBS, CBP spokesman Ralph DeSio said the prototypes “were not and cannot be designed to be indestructible,” but were designed to “impede or deny efforts to scale, breach, or dig under such a barrier, giving agents time to respond.”

In his address to the nation Tuesday, Trump said the steel fence design is “what our professionals at the border want and need. This is just common sense.”

As a candidate, Trump promised to build an “impenetrable, physical, tall, powerful, beautiful” wall on the border that would be paid for by Mexico. Before the Oval Office address, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget sent a letter to Congress requesting $5.7 billion for the construction of 234 miles of steel barrier.

Amid a government shutdown over his border wall proposal, Trump will travel to McAllen, Texas Thursday to make the case for building the additional border barrier.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, D.-Miss., said there is “nothing special” about Trump’s wall design.

“President Trump likes to pretend a wall will solve all our problems, but it’s been clear for some time that it is little more than a very expensive vanity project,” said Thompson. “Whether steel or concrete, there is nothing special about his wall and it will not secure our borders. Democrats are willing to work with the administration to improve our border security, but let’s get back to proven and effective solutions.”

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

Hit the link above for the NBC News videos that go with this report.

One of Trump’s many, many lies is that this is about “border security.” That’s never been a real concern of his. No, it’s all about politics, racist symbolism, power, and vanity. As Chairman Thompson and many others of us have said all along, if we want “border security” there are many smarter and more effective ways to spend $5.9 million, with additional physical barriers playing a relatively minor role.

“Trumps Folly” would take about 10 years to build, do nothing to stop drug smugglers or other criminals, destroy the environment along the border in a number of ways, and have little, if any, long-term impact on extra-legal migration except, perhaps, to raise smuggling fees and kill some more migrants by forcing them to use smugglers employing more dangerous methods or routes. The idea that this is a “national emergency” or that it would be an appropriate response to an ongoing humanitarian situation is simply outlandish, even by Trump’s corrupt standards.

Indeed, Trump’s erratic behavior and inappropriate threats make a strong case that Congress should repeal or severely circumscribe the President’s statutory authority to declare a “national emergency,” and that while they are at it they also should repeal section 212(f) of the INA which was misused to support the bogus Travel Ban (a/k/a “Muslim Ban”).

As others have observed recently, Trump is a walking, talking argument for an end to the “Imperial Presidency” and a return to a more balanced Government where Congress actually lives up to its important Constitutional role.

PWS

01-10-19

BESS LEVIN @ VANITY FAIR: KAKISTOCRACY IN ACTION — America Suffers As Trump Bumbles Along With His White Nationalist, Pro-Kremlin Agenda!

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/01/bye-bye-donald-trump-throws-a-fit-after-pelosi-tells-him-no

Bess writes:

Today is the 19th day of the government shutdown. If it drags on much longer, the U.S. is at risk of losing its triple-A rating, which could increase borrowing costs and put a chill on the economy. At present, 800,000 federal employees are either furloughed or being forced to work without pay, including T.S.A. agents and the Secret Service. Farmers are struggling to get the subsidies they were promised to offset the damage done by the president‘s trade war. Financial-fraud investigations have “ground to a halt.” Human shit and garbage have piled up in national parks. Speaking of shit, food inspections by the F.D.A. have been curtailed, including inspections of food considered “high risk,” raising the possibility of E. Coli and salmonella outbreaks. At the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, 1,523 of 3,531 employees “are considered non-essential,” while D.H.S.’s Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office is reportedly two-thirds empty.

Understanding that Democrats are unlikely to ever agree to fund a border wall—barring getting something major in exchange, like a DACA deal—did the president decide to cut a deal to get things up and running again? Not exactly! Chuck Schumer told reporters on Wednesday that when Democrats didn’t fork over the hostage money during a meeting at the White House, Trump slammed the table and stormed out of the room, like a tween who’s been told she can’t leave the house in a crop top. Shortly after, Trump confirmed:

For those old enough to remember back to mid-December, Nancy Pelosi’s position has not changed—the only thing that has changed is that the president, who told Pelosi and Schumer on December 11 “I’m not going to blame you for [the shutdown],” is now trying to blame the completely unnecessary closure of the government on Democrats. His lies have shifted as well— after claiming that the unpaid federal employees are “mostly” Democrats, ergo he has no sympathy for them, on Wednesday he insisted the workers facing evictionand permanent loss of wages want the wall as much as he does. “You take a look at social media,” the ex-Miss Universe owner explained, “[And] so many of those people are saying, ‘It’s very hard for me, it’s very hard for my family, but, Mr. President, you’re doing the right thing.’”

Elsewhere in delusions, the G.O.P. continues to believe that Trump will get Democrats to bend to his demands by employing the same negotiating skills and business acumen that led him to acquire the Plaza Hotel for $60 million more than it was thought to be worth, purchase the Eastern Air Lines Shuttle for, again, some $60 million more than high estimates said it should go for, overpay for football players as a team owner in the doomed United States Football League, and put multiple Trump companies into bankruptcy, most memorable among them the “the debt-bloated Trump Taj Mahal.” Instead, this is the level of savvy we’re dealing with:

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said that Trump had brought candy to the meeting in an effort to smooth things over.

Who could have predicted Chuck and Nancy wouldn’t immediately write a check for $5.6 billion after being plied with Baby Ruth bars, M&M’s and Butterfingers? That kind of thing totally worked when he was negotiating a licensing deal for Trump Steaks! People were lining the streets to give him money!

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White House decides letting 38 million people starve during shutdown would’ve been a bad look

To be fair, you could see them going either way on this one:

Trump administration officials said Tuesday that the Agriculture Department will be able to pay out food-stamp benefits for the entire month of February—tamping down fears that the partial government shutdown could have resulted in rationing or halting of benefits. . . . Just a few days ago, White House officials had said funds for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program were likely to run out in February if Congress didn’t act, an outcome that would have led to a sharp cut in benefits for millions of low-income Americans who rely on the program to help them pay for groceries each month. Democrats had seized on the White House’s threat as both sides tried to increase their political leverage as the shutdown, now in its [19th day], entered its third week.

This is obviously good news for the people who depend on the SNAP program, assuming they avoid the food that the F.D.A. won’t be able to inspect thanks to the furlough.

Treasury set to ease sanctions on Putin pal’s companies

Aw, we could never stay mad at you (for reasons Robert Mueller’s forthcoming report may or may not reveal):

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will brief lawmakers in the House of Representatives on Thursday about his department’s plan to terminate sanctions on three companies linked to Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. . . . The meeting follows Treasury’s December 19 notification to Congress that it would end sanctions on Rusal, EN+, and EuroSibEnergy in 30 days. Mnuchin said at the time that the decision was made after the companies “committed to significantly diminish Deripaska’s ownership and sever his control.”

Deripaska, a metals tycoon and close friend and ally of Putin, remains sanctioned, meaning no American may conduct business dealings with him directly or indirectly. He has come under scrutiny in the United States for his ties to the Kremlin as well as to Paul Manafort.

In September, we learned that the Treasury had effectively fallen ass-backwards into sanctioning Deripaska and Rusal last April after Mnuchin got flustered and announced sanctions that the administration never intended to implement.

At least some people are benefitting from Trump’s lies

I.e. the people who put money on just how many falsehoods will spew from his mouth at any given moment:

A gambling site is paying out thousands of dollars to people who correctly bet that President Donald Trump would tell more than 3.5 lies in his Oval Office address on Tuesday. Bookmaker.eu asked people to wager on the president’s truthfulness, offering odds of -145 for more than 3.5 lies and +115 for less than 3.5 lies. That means if a person bet $145 dollars that Trump would lie at least four times, they would win $100.

And some people won big. Odds consultant John Lester told BuzzFeed News the site will lose $276,424, with 92 percent of its bettors correctly wagering that Trump would lie a lot.

Lester said that Bookmaker had, of course, expected that Trump would lie but underestimated just how many “alternative truths” would spring from his mouth given the time constraints of the speech.

Bob Mercer will have to find a new way to dodge gun laws

Last April, we learned that when he wasn’t facilitating Brexit or getting Donald Trump elected, former hedge-fund manager Bob Mercer was spending a week each year in Yuma County, Colorado, in order to qualify as a volunteer sheriff, a status that allowed him to carry a concealed weapon in any state or locality. But according to a new report from Bloomberg, the Long Island billionaire will have to figure out an alternative workaround should he wish to continue packing heat in a covert fashion:

The New York hedge-fund magnate and conservative donor had his status as a volunteer deputy sheriff revoked by Yuma County, Colorado, Sheriff Chad Day on Monday, his last day in office. Day lost his re-election bid last year after Bloomberg News reported on Mercer’s role and his purchase of a new pickup truck for the sheriff’s official use.

The arrangement provoked controversy in the prairie county that borders Kansas and Nebraska. Day submitted papers last week ending the appointments of Mercer, 72, and at least a dozen other volunteer posse members, effective January 7, according to documents signed by Day and filed with the county clerk.

This isn’t the first county to force Mercer to turn in his badge: last year, the mayor of Lake Arthur, New Mexico, announced that he was shutting down the volunteer reserve-officer program and requiring existing reserve officers to turn in their credentials. Hopefully this turn of events simply means that Mercer won’t be able to, for instance, walk into Grand Central Oyster Bar with a gun in his pocket, and not that he’ll put those extra six days in his calendar toward helping get another papaya-colored fascist of his choice elected.

Jeff Bezos has a new lady friend

The Amazon founder is reportedly dating Lauren Sanchez, after announcing on Twitter than he and his wife are divorcing after 25 years of marriage. (Bezos and Sanchez did not respond to requests for comment.) Unsurprisingly, various wealth-trackers have already crunched the numbers—in this case, divided by two—and informed us that MacKenzie Bezos stands to become the richest woman in the world, assuming she and Jeff split their $137.2 billion fortune evenly (which, to be fair, is a fairly big assumption!).

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Read the complete “Levin Report” at the link. (Or, better yet, sign up to have it delivered directly to your mailbox — I don’t believe that you have to be a Vanity Fair subscriber.)

Placing the government in the hands of a racist incompetent like Trump and his sycophantic stooge Cabinet Members is a prescription for national disaster. But, that doesn’t seem to bother the “Party of Putin.” The GOP seems to have sold us out long ago.

PWS

01-10-19

SISTER NORMA PIMENTEL: A MESSAGE TO TRUMP FROM THE REAL BORDER

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/01/10/welcome-border-mr-president/

Sister Norma Pimentel in WashPost:

Norma Pimentel, a sister of the Missionaries of Jesus, is director of Catholic Charities for the Rio Grande Valley.

Dear Mr. President,

We welcome you to our community here in South Texas along the Rio Grande, which connects the United States to Mexico. I wish you could visit us. Our downtown Humanitarian Respite Center has been welcoming newcomers for the past four years.

When families cross the border, they are typically apprehended by authorities, held for a few days and released with a court date to consider their request for asylum. After they are released, we receive them at our respite center. By the time they find their way to our doors, most adults are wearing Border Patrol-supplied ankle bracelets and carrying bulky chargers to keep those devices powered up.

Helping these families has been our work since 2014, when tens of thousands of people, primarily from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, crossed into the United States through the Rio Grande Valley Sector, creating a humanitarian emergency in our community. Before the respite center opened, dozens of immigrant families, hungry, scared and in a foreign land, huddled at the bus station with only the clothes on their back, nothing to eat or drink, and nowhere to shower or sleep. They waited hours and sometimes overnight for their buses.

Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley first opened the center at Sacred Heart Church in McAllen and worked collaboratively with city officials and other faith denominations and nonprofits, such as the Salvation Army and the Food Bank, to provide newly arrived immigrants with some basic necessities. We have moved to a bigger facility since.

Every day of the year, from morning to evening, families coming over the border are welcomed at our center with smiles, a warm bowl of soup, a shower and a place to rest. Most families are exhausted and afraid, carrying little more than a few belongings in a plastic bag. They come in all forms and at all ages. Few speak any English. Most are in great need of help. Some days, we see 20 people. Other days, it’s closer to 300. In recent weeks, it has been very busy. Some stay a few hours, but many spend the night before heading on to new destinations. Since we opened, more than 100,000 have come through our doors.

We work closely with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Rio Grande Valley Sector, and our team has cultivated a culture of mutual respect and dialogue. Our center staff, in communication with the Border Patrol, prepares to receive groups of immigrants who have been released. We try to meet the need. It is vital that we keep our country safe, and I appreciate the work of the men and women in the U.S. Customs and Border Protection who are vigilant as to who enters our country. I pray for them daily.

Mr. President, if you come early in the morning, here is what you will see: The families who have spent the night are tidying up their sleeping spaces. Some are sweeping, some are helping prepare breakfast, and some are getting ready for their bus departure to other places in the United States. You will see volunteers arriving to offer a hand either preparing hygiene packets, making sandwiches, cutting vegetables, preparing the soup for the day or sorting through donated clothing. Others may assist with the intake or help a mother or father contact family living in the United States. People come from all over the state and beyond to help.

Later in the day, you will meet some of the children who are playing in our small play yard and the mothers and fathers who are watching over them. Some will be resting, as for many of them this is the first place since they left their home countries where they feel safe.

In the evening, another group of volunteers arrives to cook and serve a simple dinner of pizza or tacos, beans and rice, Sometimes local restaurants donate the dinner. Either way, the families who will remain for the night have a meal and prepare to sleep. In the morning, we send them on their way, a little better off but armed with a sign (that we give them) that reads: “ PLEASE HELP ME. I DO NOT SPEAK ENGLISH. WHAT BUS DO I TAKE? THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP!”

I am energized each day by the families I meet, especially the children. I am energized as well by the volunteers. They come from our local communities but also from across the United States. We witness daily how, working together, people of all faiths can focus on helping the person in front of us. Regardless of who we are and where we came from, we remain part of the human family and are called to live in solidarity with one another.

As the Most Rev. Daniel E. Flores, bishop of our diocese, says, “We must put human dignity first.”

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This is a more accurate picture of Central American asylum seekers which reflects the inspirational qualities of courage, ingenuity, perseverance, gratitude, and industry that I found in the most of the asylum-seeking individuals and families I came in contact with over my years at the Arlington Immigration Court.

Also, Sister Norma paints a more sympathetic picture of the U.S. Border Patrol which reflects some of my experiences when I worked with them at the “Legacy INS.”

Imagine what even a few billion (or even a few million) dollars invested in humanitarian assistance like that provided by Sister Pimentel and her organization could do as opposed to wasteful spending on more largely useless walls and wasteful and inhumane detention centers.

Walls, jails, prosecutions, threats, and disingenuous de-humanizing rhetoric are not effective or acceptable ways of dealing with a humanitarian crisis.

PWS

01-10-19

TAL @ SF CHRON: Dreamer Deal To End Shutdown Seems Unlikely — PLUS BONUS COVERAGE: My Essay “Let’s Govern!”

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Why-a-DACA-deal-to-end-the-shutdown-is-unlikely-13517915.php?t=e29fabd761

Tal reports:

WASHINGTON — A perennial trial balloon is once more floating on the horizon: Could protecting young undocumented immigrants from deportation in exchange for border security money get Washington out of a lengthy government shutdown?

The idea is already rapidly falling back to Earth.

President Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, have both brushed aside suggestions that passing protections like the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program could be a way out of the shutdown, which is nearing the end of its third week with no hint of a resolution.

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DACA temporarily protects many undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. under the age of 16 from being deported. Trump, whose attempt to end DACA is tied up in the courts, said Sunday that he would “rather have the Supreme Court rule and then work with the Democrats” on extending protections for program recipients.

“They’re two different subjects,” Pelosi said last month when asked about trading DACA for Trump’s southern border wall — $5.7 billion for which he is demanding before he will sign any government funding bills for the agencies that have been shut down.

Democrats are not universally against the idea. San Mateo Rep. Jackie Speier told MSNBC last week that she “personally would support it” and “there is a willingness to look” at a DACA-for-wall money deal in the caucus. DACA protections for nearly 700,000 immigrants nationwide, 200,000 of whom are in California, are in limbo, and hundreds of thousands more would be eligible for the program.

But numerous other Democrats — including several on the influential Hispanic, Asian Pacific and black caucuses that have leadership’s ear on immigration — said a DACA deal involving wall money is a nonstarter in shutdown negotiations without serious and uncharacteristic overtures from Trump.

Here’s why it’s unlikely:

Trump thinks time, and the Supreme Court, are on his side. The White House believes the court will ultimately invalidate the Obama-era DACA program or side with Trump’s attempt to end it, which has been blocked by lower courts. When that happens, the administration believes, Trump will have more leverage to cut a better deal with Democrats desperate to keep sympathetic young DACA recipients from being deported, and Congress will be forced to deal with a dilemma it has long avoided.

Democrats don’t trust Trump, who has walked away from a number of DACA proposals in the past year. “Donald Trump is not a deal-maker, he’s a deal-breaker,” said Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz. “We’ve seen this happen numerous times, and we’re not going to come approach him with a deal that he’s only going to take and then reject and then come back and move the goalposts on.”

Pelosi is in touch with her base, and her base isn’t eager to broach that deal. “People don’t want to trade a wall for something that isn’t even real,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “People don’t want a wall, period, and I think there’s no trust that there’s any credible negotiation around something positive on immigration, given (Trump’s) history.”

Trump wants much more on immigration than just physical border security, where there are some areas of potential compromise. A presentation that Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen prepared for congressional leaders last week included calls not just for the wall, but the rollback of a bipartisan bill designed to protect human trafficking victims and a court-ordered settlement intended to safeguard immigrant children. Both of those are nonstarters with Democrats, who say the protections are needed and getting rid of them does not promote border security.

Republicans question whether Democrats are as motivated as they say they are to resolve the DACA issue. They’re skeptical Democrats want to take the political leverage off the table. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, a moderate Republican who has long worked on immigration reform, called the potential to get a deal out of the shutdown fight the “opportunity of a lifetime.”

“It requires the Democratic leadership to actually do something that they have not done in the past,” Diaz-Balart said, “which is match their rhetoric on DACA with actual action.”

Tal Kopan is The San Francisco Chronicle’s Washington correspondent. Email: tal.kopan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @talkopan

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HERE’S YOUR “BONUS COVERAGE” ESSAY FROM “COURTSIDE:”

LET’S GOVERN!

By

Paul Wickham Schmidt

United States Immigration Judge (Retired)

I still think the best deal for America would be some form of “Wall for Dreamers” compromise. To me, the huge downside of “The Wall” would be more than offset by getting 800,000 great American young people — literally the future of our country – out of the shadows and contributing their maximum skills, talents, and creativity to making America really great (not the hollow mockery of “greatness’ peddled by Trump and his base).

But, Tal’s usually got her head “closer to the ground” than I do these days from my retirement perch in Alexandria. So, I’ll assume for the purposes of this piece that Tal is correct and that the “great compromise” isn’t in the cards – at least at this time.

So, where does we go from here? This is crystal clear: Trump can neither govern in America’s best interest nor can he cut any reasonable deal. So, it seems like the only alternative for America is for the Democrats in Congress to get together with the GOP and develop a plan for governing in the absence of a competent Executive. That means passage of “veto-proof” legislation that also places some specific limits and directions on Executive actions.

What could a “veto proof” compromise to reopen Government look like. Well, of course, to start it must fund the affected Government agencies through the end of the fiscal year.

But, it also could include a robust $5.9 Million “Border Security” package. Here’s what could be included:

Additional Asylum Officers;
Additional port of entry inspectors;
Additional Immigration Judges and court staff;
Additional funding for Office of Refugee Resettlement for health and safety of children;
Required e-filing and other management improvements at EOIR (including elimination of counterproductive “quotas” on judges, and providing at least one judicial law clerk for each judge);
Additional Assistant Chief Counsel for ICE;
Funding for counsel for asylum applicants and resettlement agencies;
Additional Anti-Smuggling, Intelligence, and Undercover Agents for DHS;
Smart Technology for and between ports of entry at the border and the interior;
Required improvements in management planning, hiring, and supervision within DHS;
Limitations on wasteful immigration detention (including a prohibition on long-term detention of children except in limited circumstances) and reprogramming of detention funds to alternatives to detention;
Funding for additional border fencing or fencing repairs in specific areas with an express prohibition on additional physical barriers without a specific appropriation from Congress.
Assistance to Mexico, the UNHCR, and other countries in the hemisphere to improve refugee processing and address problems in the Northern Triangle;

Sure, Trump could, and maybe would, veto it – although he’d be wise not to. And, I suppose, that veto, which would be overridden, could be the “red meat” for his base that he apparently favors over the “art of governing.”

But, in the meantime, Congress would fulfill its important role of governing in a bipartisan manner that will keep America moving forward even in the times of a weak and incompetent Executive. And, unlike the bogus “Wall,” the foregoing measures would actually contribute to our country’s security and welfare without wasting taxpayers’ money or trampling on individual rights and legal obligations. In other words, “smart governance.” That seems like a fair and worthy objective for both parties in Congress.

PWS

01-09-19

MORE PHONY BALONEY FROM LIAR-IN-CHIEF!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/01/09/fact-checking-president-trumps-oval-office-address-immigration/

Salvador Rizzo reports for WashPost:

The first misleading statement in President Trump’s Oval Office address Tuesday night came in the first sentence.

Trump, addressing a national television audience from behind his desk, warned of a “security crisis at the southern border” — even though the number of people caught trying to cross illegally is near 20-year lows.

Another false claim came moments later, when Trump said border agents “encounter thousands of illegal immigrants trying to enter our country” every day, though his administration puts the daily average for 2018 in the hundreds. A few sentences later, he said 90 percent of the heroin in the United States comes across the border with Mexico, ignoring the fact that most of the drugs come through legal entry points and wouldn’t be stopped by the border wall that he is demanding as the centerpiece of his showdown with Democrats.

Over the course of his nine-minute speech, Trump painted a misleading and bleak picture of the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border. He pumped up some numbers, exaggerated the public safety risks of immigration and repeated false claims regarding how to fund a border wall.

The appearance, coming as a partial federal government shutdown resulting from the wall fight enters its third week, underscored the extent to which Trump has relied on false and misleading claims to justify what has long been his signature political issue.

One false claim noticeably absent from the speech was the assertion made by the president and many of his allies in recent days that terrorists are infiltrating the country by way of the southern border. Fact-checkers and TV anchors, including those on Fox News, spent days challenging the truthfulness of the claim.

Below are the truths behind Trump’s claims from the Oval Office address:

“Tonight I am speaking to you because there is a growing humanitarian and security crisis at our southern border.”

By any available measure, there is no new security crisis at the border.

Apprehensions of people trying to cross the southern border peaked most recently at 1.6 million in 2000 and have been in decline since, falling to just under 400,000 in fiscal 2018. The decline is partly because of technology upgrades; tougher penalties in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks; a decline in migration rates from Mexico; and a sharp increase in the number of Border Patrol officers. The fiscal 2018 number was up from just over 300,000 apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border for fiscal 2017, the lowest level in more than 45 years.

There are far more cases of travelers overstaying their visas than southern border apprehensions. In fiscal 2017, the Department of Homeland Security reported 606,926 suspected in-country overstays, or twice the number of southern border apprehensions. In fiscal 2016, U.S. officials reported 408,870 southern border apprehensions and 544,676 suspected in-country overstays.

(Kevin Uhrmacher/Washington, D.C.)

While overall numbers of migrants crossing illegally are down, since 2014 more families from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras have begun to trek to the United States in search of safer conditions or economic opportunities, creating a humanitarian crisis.

“Record numbers of migrant families are streaming into the United States, overwhelming border agents and leaving holding cells dangerously overcrowded with children, many of whom are falling sick,” The Washington Post reported Jan. 5. “Two Guatemalan children taken into U.S. custody died in December.”

“Every day Customs and Border Patrol agents encounter thousands of illegal immigrants trying to enter our country.”

Southern border apprehensions in fiscal 2018 averaged 30,000 a month (or 1,000 a day). They ticked up in the first two months of fiscal 2019, but it’s a stretch to say “thousands” a day. Better to say “hundreds.”

“America proudly welcomes millions of lawful immigrants who enrich our society and contribute to our nation, but all Americans are hurt by uncontrolled illegal migration. It strains public resources and drives down jobs and wages. Among those hardest hit are African Americans and Hispanic Americans.”

Some context here: In general, economists say illegal immigration tends to affect less-educated and low-skilled American workers the most, which disproportionately encompasses black men and recently arrived, low-educated legal immigrants, including Latinos.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in 2010 found that illegal immigration has tended to depress wages and employment for black men. However, there are other factors at play, and “halting illegal immigration is not a panacea even for the problem of depressed wage rates for low-skilled jobs,” the commission found.

The consensus among economic research studies is that the impact of immigration is primarily a net positive for the U.S. economy and to workers overall, especially over the long term. According to a comprehensive 2016 report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on the economic impacts of the U.S. immigration system, studies on the impact of immigration showed “the seemingly paradoxical result that although larger immigration flows may generate higher rates of unemployment in some sectors, overall, the rate of unemployment for native workers declines.”

“Our southern border is a pipeline for vast quantities of illegal drugs, including meth, heroin, cocaine and fentanyl. Every week, 300 of our citizens are killed by heroin alone, 90 percent of which floods across from our southern border.”

‘There is no crisis’: Three border-town neighbors react to Trump’s wall demand

With a partial wall near their homes, three neighbors in Penitas, Tex., react to President Trump’s call to expand the barrier on the Mexican border. (Drea Cornejo, Jon Gerberg/The Washington Post)

In 2017, more than 15,000 people died of drug overdoses involving heroin in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That works out to about 300 a week.

But while 90 percent of the heroin sold in the United States comes from Mexico, virtually all of it comes through legal points of entry. “A small percentage of all heroin seized by [Customs and Border Protection] along the land border was between Ports of Entry (POEs),” the Drug Enforcement Administration said in a 2018 report. So Trump’s wall would do little to halt drug trafficking. Trump’s repeated claim that the wall would stop drug trafficking is a Bottomless Pinocchio claim.

“In the last two years, ICE officers made 266,000 arrests of aliens with criminal records, including those charged or convicted of 100,000 assaults, 30,000 sex crimes, and 4,000 violent killings. Over the years, thousands of Americans have been brutally killed by those who illegally entered our country, and thousands more lives will be lost if we don’t act right now.”

Trump warns about dangerous criminals, but the numbers he’s citing involve a mix of serious and nonviolent offenses such as immigration violations. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reports yearly arrest totals without breaking down the type of offense, which could be anything from homicide to a DUI to illegal entry.

Notice how Trump switches quickly from the 266,000 arrests over two years to charges and convictions: “100,000 assaults, 30,000 sex crimes, and 4,000 violent killings.” In many cases, the people arrested face multiple counts, so that switch gives a confusing picture.

In fiscal 2018, ICE conducted 158,581 administrative arrests for civil immigration violations. The agency’s year-end report says two-thirds (105,140) of those involved people with criminal convictions and one-fifth (32,977) involved people with pending criminal charges. Of the 143,470 administrative arrests in 2017, 74 percent involved people with criminal records and 15.5 percent involved people who had pending charges. But these totals cover all types of offenses — including illegal entry or reentry.

In the fiscal 2018 breakdown, 16 percent of all the charges and convictions were immigration and related offenses.

“Last month, 20,000 migrant children were illegally brought into the United States, a dramatic increase. These children are used as human pawns by vicious coyotes and ruthless gangs.”

No government statistic tracks children smuggled in by bad actors, “coyotes” or drug gangs. What Trump is referring to is CBP’s number for family unit apprehensions, a monthly statistic. The family unit by definition must include at least one parent or legal guardian and one minor. (There’s a separate figure for unaccompanied alien children.)

That number was 25,172 in November, the most recent month for which data are available, but it’s wrong to describe it as a statistic that represents children being smuggled into the country.

Trump describes this as 20,000 children, but it could be many more, considering that some families have multiple children. More important, Trump describes this as children being smuggled in by coyotes or gangs, but border officials screen for false claims of parentage. To imply as Trump does that a child’s mother, father or legal guardian is or hired a smuggler, coyote or gang member in all of these cases is wrong.

“Furthermore, we have asked Congress to close border security loopholes so that illegal immigrant children can be safely and humanely returned back home.”

The Trump administration considers the Flores settlement agreement a loophole. That policy requires the government to release unaccompanied immigrant children who are caught crossing the border within 20 days to family members, foster homes or “least restrictive” settings.

The president also wants to tighten U.S. asylum laws generally and the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, with the goal of restricting some immigrants’ opportunities to file asylum petitions. Trump describes these asylum provisions as “border security loopholes,” but supporters call them core provisions of U.S. laws that cover refugees.

“Finally, as part of an overall approach to border security, law enforcement professionals have requested $5.7 billion for a physical barrier. At the request of Democrats, it will be a steel barrier rather than a concrete wall.”

Trump suggests that Democrats requested a steel barrier rather than a concrete wall, but the proposed switch to steel was an idea the Trump administration brought up. No Democrats are on record demanding a steel barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border.

“This is just common sense. The border wall would very quickly pay for itself. The cost of illegal drugs exceeds $500 billion a year, vastly more than the $5.7 billion we have requested from Congress.”

Trump tweeted a similar claim in March, citing a study from the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports more restrictive immigration policies. Essentially, the claim that the wall pays for itself turns on three numbers: a) estimated savings from each undocumented immigrant blocked by the wall, b) the total number of undocumented immigrants stopped over 10 years and, and c) the cost of the wall.

It’s (a) $75,000 multiplied by (b) 160,000 to 200,000 equals (c) $12 billion to $15 billion. So, if the wall actually costs $25 billion, the number of undocumented immigrants halted by the wall would need to be doubled, or one has to assume it would take 20 years to earn the money back. But other experts offer different estimates for each of those numbers.

Plus, as we’ve previously reported, the wall would do little to stop drugs from entering the United States, since they primarily come in through legal points of entry, making the cost of illegal drugs irrelevant to this issue.

“The wall will also be paid for indirectly by the great new trade deal we have made with Mexico.”

This is a Four Pinocchio claim. During the campaign, Trump more than 200 times promised Mexico would pay for the wall, which the administration says would cost at least $18 billion. Now he says a minor reworking of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) will earn enough money for pay for the wall.

This betrays a misunderstanding of economics. Countries do not “lose” money on trade deficits, so there is no money to earn; the size of a trade deficit or surplus can be determined by other factors besides trade. Congress must still appropriate the money, and the trade agreement has not been ratified.

“Senator Chuck Schumer, who you will be hearing from later tonight, has repeatedly supported a physical barrier in the past, along with many other Democrats. They changed their mind only after I was elected president.”

Schumer, Hillary Clinton and many other Democrats voted for the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which authorized building a fence along nearly 700 miles of the border between the United States and Mexico. But the fence they voted for is not as substantial as the wall Trump is proposing. Trump himself has called the 2006 fence a “nothing wall.”

Michelle Ye Hee Lee and Meg Kelly contributed to this report.

(About our rating scale)

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Here is a good summary of Trump’s “Bogus, Self-Created Non-Emergency” (a/k/a “Fiddling While Rome Burns”) from the WashPost Editorial staff:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/here-are-some-real-emergencies-none-of-them-requires-the-president-to-turn-into-a-dictator/2019/01/08/7030a93c-1376-11e9-803c-4ef28312c8b9_story.html

By Editorial Board

January 8 at 4:44 PM

AS CRISES go, the situation along the southern border is certainly a logistical, humanitarian and managerial challenge. Its urgency is accentuated by laws and infrastructure ill-suited to the current flood of families seeking asylum in the United States. But it is not a national emergency, as President Trump has framed it, any more than numerous other challenges we can think of.

The Border Patrol’s average monthly arrests of undocumented immigrants have plummeted by nearly two-thirds from the administration of President George W. Bush to that of Mr. Trump. There is no evidence that terrorists have crossed the frontier illegally from Mexico, as Mr. Trump likes to say. And a wall of the sort the president covets would do little to deter drugs or criminals, most of which enter the country through legal crossing points.

As a legal matter, it’s unclear whether Mr. Trump has the authority to declare an official emergency as a means of diverting funds that would enable the military to build the wall; certainly, he would be challenged in court if he tried it. What is clear is that, as a policy matter, many crises are equally or more deserving of the attention, money and resolve Mr. Trump has focused on the wall.

Start with the opioid addiction epidemic, which the president did designate a national health emergency in the fall of 2017. Unfortunately, there has been limited follow-up from him or his administration since then. Even with more than 70,000 people dying in 2017 from drug overdoses, federal spending remains at levels far short of what experts say is required to fight addiction effectively.

What about fatal motor vehicle crashes, which, despite impressive progress in recent decades, claimed the lives of more than 37,000 people in 2017? That’s more than 100 deaths on average each day — more than twice the rate at which U.S. soldiers were killed during the Vietnam War’s bloodiest year, 1968. A similar number of people died in the United States as a result of firearms in 2016, about two-thirds of them involving suicide. Any other Western democracy would regard that as a bona fide emergency; Mr. Trump barely mentions it.

An excellent case could be made for declaring an emergency over Russian meddling in U.S. elections, the scale and scope of which is only gradually becoming clear. Climate change is a full-blown emergency whose threat to lives and property is poised to rise exponentially.

The right response to all these emergencies would be for Congress and the president together to shape policy responses — not to deny their existence, as Mr. Trump does with climate change, or use them for political gain, as he does with the border. The one emergency Mr. Trump fears is the threat he faces from his own base should it conclude his border-wall promise was a hoax. Thus has the president perverted the public debate and diverted the United States’ gaze from authentic dangers.

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I could have spent all day posting about Trump’s bogus crisis, lies, etc. But, the above two posts really say about all you really need to know about the real facts about the border and Trump’s dishonest attempt to shift attention away from the real crisis he’s caused: The unnecessary and idiotic shutdown of essential Government functions from which it might take us years to recover, if ever! As pointed out by the Post, Trump’s dishonesty and incompetence undermines efforts to address the real problems faced by our nation. That’s going to take some “competence in government” — a feature completely absent from the Trump Administration which has encouraged and implemented “worst practices” at all levels.

I don’t know how we’re going to be able to recruit the “best and brightest” for our Career Civil Service in the future given the way they have been mistreated by Trump and the GOP.

And, Trump’s “kakistocracy,” is a shocking foretaste of what we’re in for in the future if we don’t get some basic competency, decency, and expertise back into our Government Service — at all levels, starting with the top.

PWS

01-09-19

JULIA EDWARDS AINSLEY @ NBC: Trump’s “Border Terrorist” Numbers Are Bogus! — Expect A Barrage Of Lies & White Nationalist Myths In His Scheduled TV Address!

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/only-six-immigrants-terrorism-database-stopped-cbp-southern-border-first-n955861

Julia reports:

By Julia Ainsley

U.S. Customs and Border Protection encountered only six immigrants at ports of entry on the U.S-Mexico border in the first half of fiscal year 2018 whose names were on a federal government list of known or suspected terrorists, according to CBP data provided to Congress in May 2018 and obtained by NBC News.

The low number contradicts statements by Trump administration officials, including White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, who said Friday that CBP stopped nearly 4,000 known or suspected terrorists from crossing the southern border in fiscal year 2018.

Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen told reporters on Monday the exact number, which NBC News is first to report, was classified but that she was working on making it public. The data was the latest set on this topic provided to Congress. It is possible that the data was updated since that time, but not provided to Congress.

Overall, 41 people on the Terrorist Screening Database were encountered at the southern border from Oct. 1, 2017, to March 31, 2018, but 35 of them were U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents. Six were classified as non-U.S. persons.

On the northern border, CBP stopped 91 people listed in the database, including 41 who were not American citizens or residents.

Border patrol agents, separate from CBP officers, stopped five immigrants from the database between legal ports of entry over the same time period, but it was unclear from the data which ones were stopped at the northern border versus the southern border.

The White House has used the 4,000 figure to make its case for building a wall on the southwest border and for closing the government until Congress funds it. They have also threatened to call a national emergency in order to get over $5 billion in funding for the wall.

The U.S. keeps databases of people it believes may have ties to terrorist networks based on their spending activities, travel patterns, family ties or other activities. It is not a list of people who could be criminally charged under terrorism statutes, and it is possible that someone could be stopped because they have the same name as a person on the list.

Julia Ainsley

Julia Ainsley is a national security reporter for NBC News.

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

Check out this MSNBC video with Velshi & Rule and featuring the NY Times’s Caitlin Dickerson explaining all the lies! Incredible and unqualified is the only way to describe the Trump Administration!

https://www.msnbc.com/velshi-ruhle/watch/trump-admin-claims-thousands-of-terrorists-are-crossing-border-1421329475586

Thanks, Julia, for your timely reporting. As most readers probably know, the Washington Post and others recently have exposed what many of us knew all along: The DOJ intentionally used false and misleading numbers to support the racist, xenophobic narratives set forth by Sessions, Nielsen, Homan, and others! And, shamelessly, the DOJ refuses to withdraw its bogus reports!

Once we get real government back again, seems that the DOJ is a prime candidate for a thorough housecleaning! Integrity seems to have disappeared from the DOJ’s mission at all levels!

PWS

01-08-19

AZAM AHMED @ NY TIMES: PERVERSION OF JUSTICE: How Trump Aids Smugglers While Punishing Legitimate Asylum Seekers!

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/06/world/americas/mexico-migrants-smugglers.html

Ahmed reports:

REYNOSA, Mexico — As the human smugglers stalk the bus stations, migrant shelters and twisting streets of this Mexican border town, they have no trouble collecting clients like Julian Escobar Moreno.

The Honduran migrant arrived in Reynosa, Mexico, intending to apply for asylum in the United States. But new policies north of the border have instead driven him into the hands of the city’s smuggling cartels, whose business is booming.

“I honestly don’t want to cross illegally, but I don’t really have a choice,” said Mr. Moreno, 37.

The Trump administration, which has partially shut down the federal government in a fight over funding for an enhanced border wall, has adopted a number of strategies over the last two years to deter migrants and persuade them to turn around — or not to come at all.

Its latest effort is a policy that admits only a few asylum seekers a day, if that, at border crossings. As a result of this metering, migrants are now waiting on the Mexican side of the border for weeks and months before they can submit their applications.

In Reynosa and elsewhere, the delays caused by the policy are prompting many migrants to weigh the costs and dangers of a faster option: hiring a smuggler, at an increasingly costly rate, to sneak them into the United States.

In November, the number of migrant families apprehended attempting to cross the border skyrocketed to its highest levels on record, with some of those caught having turned to smugglers at some point in their trip.

“What we have seen is that no one is getting across the border,” said Hector Silva, the director of a center providing services to migrants that sits near the banks of the Rio Grande, which separates Reynosa from McAllen, Tex. “This forces families, with all the desperation they feel, to go illegally.”

The decision to endure a long wait or illegally expedite the journey to the United States is playing out not only in Reynosa, where the crack of gunfire has become a soundtrack of the city, but across the long sweep of the United States-Mexico border, all the way to Tijuana, where a crisis is unfolding as thousands of Central Americans wait their turn to cross the border.

A visit to a Reynosa migrant shelter quickly makes it clear how many are considering the smuggling option.

“I’m scared to go to the border crossing, because they will deport me,” said Maximo Rene Arana Nunez, a Guatemalan who arrived in Reynosa a few days ago and is looking to cross. “I’m stuck here until my family in the United States can save enough money to pay for a smuggler.”

According to those recently deported, migrants who are attempting to cross and local officials, the price that smugglers can command is rising along with the demand for their services.

For those able to afford it, and willing to accept the risk, finding smugglers in Reynosa is easy. The streets seethe with smuggling cartel agents, who openly pitch their services.

The dangers of an illegal crossing are not enough to dissuade migrants. They are fearful, but many feel they have no other recourse. For many, the calculation is predicated on a simple truth: What lies behind them is worse than what may lie ahead.

“I don’t have an option, I can’t be there,” Mr. Moreno said of his native Honduras. “Our government is totally corrupt, and if the Mexicans or Americans deport me, I’m dead.”

Mr. Moreno now works 12-hour shifts on the outskirts of the city, trying to save enough to pay for a smuggler.

For other migrants in the shelter, the equation was not necessarily of life or death, but of exchanging well-known hardship for vaguer hope.

“Look, we know what the situation is in our country,” said Osman Noe Guillén, 28, who reached Reynosa with his partner shortly after their marriage, having treated the ride on the buses up from Honduras as something of a honeymoon. “We don’t know what will happen when we cross.”

Mr. Guillén gripped the hand of his wife, Lilian Marlene Menéndez, and allowed himself a smile. Blind faith and economic need were enough for them. They did not know how grim and dangerous Reynosa was before they arrived, only that it was the closest crossing from Honduras and therefore the cheapest to reach.

Yes, they had heard the angry rhetoric about migrants coming out of the United States, they said, and knew about the deportations and long waits at the border. But they didn’t care.

“Desperation makes you do crazy things,” Mr. Guillén said. “I don’t think anything would stop me. And certainly not a wall.”

The couple, having priced out the next leg of the journey with local smugglers, said they had accepted the risks of continuing. The smugglers, or polleros, are known to kill or strand migrants who falter in their payments, and to extort those who have families that can mortgage homes or drum up more money.

In recent days, the couple was quoted a price of $7,000 apiece just to make it to the banks on the Texas side of the river.

That appears to be on the higher end; many Central Americans recently have been quoted $5,500 to be ferried to reach the other side of the river. Not long ago, $4,000 was the going rate.

Some of the migrants interviewed who were planning to try the smuggling route said they still intended to apply for asylum if and when they made it to the United States.

While the United States’ revised policy toward asylum seekers is primarily aimed at dissuading Central American migrants from making the trip to the border, it is also affecting Mexican policy and the lives of Mexicans in border cities.

The mayor of Reynosa, Maki Esther Ortiz Dominguez, noted that her city, in the state of Tamaulipas, was already one of the most dangerous in Mexico. She said she is worried the situation in Reynosa could grow even worse, as migrants are either preyed upon by criminals or recruited to join their ranks.

“This policy could at any moment detonate a new crime wave here,” Ms. Ortiz Dominguez said.

In the center of the bridge that connects Reynosa with McAllen, the United States Border Patrol this summer constructed a new booth for prescreening people hoping to make it into American territory. At least two officers are on duty in the tiny structure, asking everyone who passes for their documentation.

More recently, Mexican officials have begun acting as a first line of border defense. As people queue up to cross the bridge, Mexican agents are now pulling Central Americans out of the line, demanding their paperwork and detaining them if they have not filled out the proper documentation.

Some have languished for months waiting for family members to send money to pay the fee for the paperwork.

The new approach by Mexican agents at the border was begun under pressure from the United States, said one Mexican official in Reynosa, requesting anonymity because this person was not authorized to discuss the decision publicly.

It was this new approach by the authorities in Mexico that ensnared Mr. Moreno.

Having been run out of Honduras by the notorious 18th Street gang for refusing to work for them, he believed he had a good case for political asylum in the United States and went to the bridge in Reynosa so he could start the application process.

But moments after arriving with his pregnant wife and three children at the foot of the international bridge, he and his family were stopped by Mexican officials and detained.

A few months ago, Mr. Moreno’s lack of proper paperwork would have been ignored by the Mexican authorities, according to local officials and immigration lawyers. But Mr. Moreno was held in a cell for 20 days and his family was placed in a temporary shelter.

The lure of the smugglers in Reynosa is not limited to Central Americans. Mexicans, too, employ their services, although the cost is lower — the prices charged seem to depend on just how bad the situation is in a migrant’s home country.

On a recent day in a migration office in Reynosa, a group of Mexicans sat waiting to be processed after their deportations from the United States.

“For the migration authorities, it is a job,” said Melvin Gómez, 18, who is from the Mexican state of Chiapas. “For Mexicans and Central Americans, immigration is a dream.”

Mr. Gómez had just tried crossing for the fourth time the day before.

“We have something to live for,” he said, “and that keeps us going.”

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Trump, Sessions, & Nielsen have helped empower criminal gangs in the U.S. and the Northern Triangle with their clueless and racist-driven enforcement policies. Now they are handing out similar benefits to smugglers and human traffickers. And, in both instances, the Trumpsters have discouraged those actually trying to help law enforcement and/or comply with the law.

Yes, our immigration system needs changes. But, the only “immigration emergency” right now is that intentionally manufactured by Trump and his gang of White Nationalist incompetents. Don’t let them get away with their fraud, waste, and abuse!

PWS

01-08-19

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Join the New Due Process Army today and fight to restore the rule of law, human decency, Due Process, and a “guarantee of fairness and Due Process for all” to our broken, captive, and often lawless U.S. Immigration Courts!

PWS

01-25-19

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