Category: Dreamers

Senator Cory Booker Is Skeptical That Jeff Sessions Will “Seek Justice For All” As AG!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/jeff-sessions-has-made-his-case-to-be-the-attorney-general-now-the-senate-will-hear-from-supporters-and-detractors/2017/01/10/5683ce24-d796-11e6-9a36-1d296534b31e_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_sessions-1225p%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.60a27c7babe2

In an unprecedented move, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) became the first U.S. Senator ever to testify against a colleague during a confirmation hearing.  In the above account from the Washington Post, Senator Booker charged that:

“If confirmed, Sen. Sessions will be required to pursue justice for women, but his record indicates that he won’t,” Booker said. “He will be expected to defend the equal rights of gay and lesbian and transgender Americans, but his record indicates that he won’t. He will be expected to defend voting rights, but his record indicates that he won’t. He will be expected to defend the rights of immigrants and affirm their human dignity, but the record indicates that he won’t.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee also heard testimony from a number of Sessions’s supporters, including former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who said, according to the Post:

“Sessions is “thoroughly dedicated to the rule of law and the mission of the [Justice] department.”

The Post also reported that the Committee heard testimony from Oscar Vasquez, a former undocumented individual, who expressed the fear of many so-called “Dreamers” that as Attorney General Sessions will support the revocation of their protected status and use the information that they voluntarily furnished to the USCIS to institute removal proceedings.

During yesterday’s hearing, Senator Sessions took a somewhat ambiguous position on Dreamers.  He indicated he would have no problem if President Trump decided to revoke the Executive Order establishing the DACA program, while at the same time acknowledging that there was no plan in the offing to actually place Dreamers into removal proceedings.

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Notwithstanding Senator Booker’s reservations, and those of many others in the civil rights, human rights, women’s rights, and immigrants’ rights communities, Senator Sessions will be the next Attorney General. At best, therefore, Senator Booker’s testimony was a “marker” in the event that once confirmed, Senator Sessions abandons his promise to seek justice for all Americans (which includes lawfully resident immigrants and undocumented individuals residing in the United States) and returns to the much narrower view of civil rights, human rights, women’s rights, and immigrants’ rights that he has often expressed and defended during his long Senate career.

It’s a tall order for Senator Sessions to rise above the limitations of his past and take a broader, more inclusive, more humane view of the U.S. legal system.  But, for the sake of all Americans, I sincerely hope he can pull it off.

PWS

01/11/17

 

Related posts:

  1. DOJ PLANS TO CUT U.S. IMMIGRATION COURT BACKLOG IN HALF BY 2020 — CONTINUES TO PRESS BOGUS CLAIM THAT BACKLOGS DRIVEN BY PRIVATE ATTORNEYS — THE TRUTH: BACKLOGS DRIVEN PRIMARILY BY POOR DECISIONS BY CONGRESS (E.G., USG SHUTDOWN) & “AIMLESS DOCKET RESHUFFLING” BY THE DOJ OVER THE PAST THREE ADMINISTRATIONS, INCLUDING THIS ONE!
  2. JASON JOHNSON @ WASHPOST: YES, TRUMP IS A RACIST, AS ARE MILLER, SESSIONS, BANNON & THE REST OF THE WHITE NATIONALIST CREW — “If you think a racial slur is the only way to determine if the president is racist, you haven’t been paying attention, and you don’t understand what racism is.”
  3. 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!”
  4. COLBY KING @ WASHPOST: The “Original Dreamers” Were Disenfranchised African Americans! — “That fight must continue on behalf of today’s dreamers, the disenfranchised, the demeaned and left out, and all freedom-loving people in this nation.“

Sessions Gives Few Specifics About Immigration Role During First Day of Hearings — Offers Neither Support Nor Solution For Dreamers, But Doesn’t Consider Them Removal Priorities — Defends Hard Line Positions, But Says He Would Like To Work Together On Solving Difficult Problem In Compassionate Manner

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jeff-sessions-dick-durbin-immigration_us_58751aa5e4b02b5f858b5c4a

“The attorney general is not in charge of most deportation efforts ― that falls to the Department of Homeland Security. But should he be confirmed, Sessions would still have plenty of power to affect immigration matters, from shaping the resources immigration courts receive and how they make decisions to pressuring local law enforcement to assist in deportation efforts.

Sessions said that Durbin was “wrong” about what his record indicates he’d do as attorney general, but he also defended his support of limiting immigration and increasing deportations.

“I believe the American people spoke clearly in this election,” Sessions said. “I believe they agreed with my basic view and I think it’s a good view, a decent view, a solid legal view for the United States of America that we create a lawful system of immigration that allows people to apply to this country and if they’re accepted, they get in; if they’re not accepted, they don’t get in.”

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Senator Sessions seemed neither sympathetic to, nor understanding of, the difficult situation of “Dreamers.”  On the plus side, he seemed to recognize that the Dreamers, and similarly situated individuals who have successfully integrated into the community of the United States, probably aren’t going anywhere, but offered no specific suggestions as to how they should be treated if DACA is withdrawn.

I was somewhat encouraged by the Senator’s recognition of the complexity of the immigration issue — something many enforcement-oriented individuals refuse to acknowledge — the need to work together to solve problems, ideally through legislation, and his use of the term “compassionate.”  He also seems to appreciate that being the Attorney General of the United States is a markedly different role than representing Alabama in the Senate  — it’s a bigger picture with a much border, more diverse constituency.

As far as I can tell from reading press accounts, Senator Sessions was neither asked about nor did he reveal his plans for what is probably going to be his biggest problem when he assumes the leadership of the Department of Justice — the total meltdown of the U.S. Immigration Court System.

PWS

01-11-17

 

Related posts:

  1. MLK DAY 2018 — DR. KING’S DREAM OF AN AMERICA CELEBRATING EQUALITY & RACIAL HARMONY IS UNDER VICIOUS ATTACK BY TRUMP, PENCE, SESSIONS, AND A HOST OF OTHERS IN TODAY’S WHITE NATIONALIST ENABLING GOP — Who Is Going To Fight To Reclaim The Dream, & Who Is Going To “Go Along To Get Along” With The 21st Century Version Of Jim Crow?
  2. GONZO’S WORLD: Sessions Gives Congress The “Scarface Treatment” Again — Then He Jokes About Russia — Will Mueller Eventually Wipe The Smirk Off Gonzo’s Face?
  3. 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!”
  4. FROM THE HEIGHTS OF KASINGA TO THE DEPTHS OF AMERICA’S DEADLY STAR CHAMBERS: Will The Biden Administration Tap The New Due Process Army To Fix EOIR & Save Our Nation? 

“Dreamers” Worry About Fate of DACA — Under Trump Administration, What Will Happen To The Lives They Have Built In America?

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2017/0104/For-immigrant-Dreamers-an-uncertain-future

“There is much at stake, too, for undocumented immigrants like Brady, who have grown up, gone to school, and struggled to make sense of their futures.

“I was just a kid when I came, and I really didn’t know what immigration status really meant,” says Brady, who grew up and attended public schools in Washington Heights, which New Yorkers often call “Little DR” because of the many Dominican immigrants who live there. “I wasn’t really worrying about it until my senior year in high school when I had to start thinking about colleges.”

“But when I started to really understand what my life was going to be like, I started freaking out, I started to panic,” she continues. “Why was I going to school? What is the point of going to college if I couldn’t get a career if I was an illegal immigrant?”

She pressed on, doing what a lot of low-income New Yorkers do. She volunteered at a home for the elderly, she attended summer academic programs, she made her high school honor roll and tutored younger peers.

And after getting accepted to John Jay College of Criminal Justice, she worked long hours as a bartender, off the books, to pay her way. It was overwhelming, she says, until she got a scholarship from a local civic group. “I was over the moon, full of joy and crying and happy after getting it,” she says.

She loved her days tutoring and eventually decided to become a teacher.

“As cliché and corny as this sounds, it’s like some people just have their calling,” the graduate student now says. “It took me a while to figure it out, but it truly makes my heart happy.”

Yet she still felt that she was “living in the shadows, being a part of something, but not really,” during her 20 years coming of age in the United States. Now married to a US citizen, she says Obama’s order finally helped her become “DACA-mented,” as many Dreamers call it, and be authorized to teach math in New York City public schools.”

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The possibility of a legislative compromise to help the “Dreamers” while beefing up immigration enforcement is discussed in this article by Nolan Rappaport in The Hill:

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/immigration/311243-gop-immigration-bill-gives-dreamers-a-break-hardliners-a-bone

It was also discussed in my blog of 12/30/16.

PWS

01/05/17

Related posts:

  1. THE HILL: NOLAN UNIMPRESSED BY “GANG OF SIX’S” DREAMER COMPROMISE EFFORT!
  2. NOLAN RAPPAPORT @ THE HILL: PERHAPS, THE PARTIES NEED TO COME UP WITH A NEW SYSTEM THAT COMBINES “FAMILY REUNIFICATION” WITH “MERIT-BASED” FACTORS!
  3. PAUL WALDMAN @ WASHPOST: Why True Bipartisan Immigration Reform In Our National Interest Will Require “Regime Change:” “[I]t’s highly unlikely that we’ll achieve such reform, even reform most Republicans could live with, without both houses of Congress and the White House in Democratic hands. But that will happen sooner or later. Then we’ll see if we can get closer to a solution that everyone can live with over the long run.”
  4. TAL @ CNN SAYS “GANG OF SIX” STILL WORKING FURIOUSLY TO GET BIPARTISAN SUPPORT AS BUDGET CRISIS LOOMS EVER CLOSER!

More From Nolan Rappaport in “The Hill” on How the Trump Administration and Congress Could Agree on Immigration Reform

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/immigration/310078-to-control-immigration-trump-needs-to-think-outside-the-wall

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/immigration/311243-gop-immigration-bill-gives-dreamers-a-break-hardliners-a-bone

I found some common themes:

  1.  The Trump Administration needs to “Think Outside the Wall.”  Without some fundamental changes from Obama Administration policies and Trump rhetoric, nothing is going to change.
  2. There must be some type of legalization for “Dreamers” and others to get Immigration Court dockets back under control.
  3. Interior enforcement must be reinstated and employer sanctions enforced to cut off the “magnet” for undocumented immigration.
  4. Everyone involved must work together and compromise for our immigration system to be credible.

PWS

12/29/16

Related posts:

  1. PAUL WALDMAN @ WASHPOST: Why True Bipartisan Immigration Reform In Our National Interest Will Require “Regime Change:” “[I]t’s highly unlikely that we’ll achieve such reform, even reform most Republicans could live with, without both houses of Congress and the White House in Democratic hands. But that will happen sooner or later. Then we’ll see if we can get closer to a solution that everyone can live with over the long run.”
  2. N. RAPPAPORT IN THE HILL: DEMS’ DREAMER BILL OFFERS FALSE HOPE!
  3. NO SURPRISES HERE – “GONZO” IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT IS BAD LAW ENFORCEMENT!
  4. JULIAN CASTRO: A Democrat With A Sane & Sound Immigration Plan!