Enforcement – Page 255 – immigrationcourtside.com

POLITICO: Congressional Opposition Grows To Administration’s Proposed Coast Guard Cuts!

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/senators-blast-trump-coast-guard-cuts-235838

Jeremy Herb reports:

“Nearly two dozen senators on Wednesday slammed the White House for proposing major cuts to the Coast Guard’s budget to help pay for President Donald Trump’s border wall and stepped-up immigration enforcement.

“We urge you to restore the $1.3 billion cut to the Coast Guard budget, which we firmly believe would result in catastrophic negative impacts to the Coast Guard and its critical role in protecting our homeland, our economy and our environment,” write 23 senators, led by Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), to OMB Director Mick Mulvaney.
They warned the cuts “would directly contradict the priorities articulated by the Trump administration, in particular the priorities regarding enhanced maritime security needs and desire to invest in our national security.”

In draft budget documents first reported by POLITICO, the Coast Guard’s budget for fiscal 2018 would be reduced 14 percent to $7.8 billion, while the TSA and FEMA would both see drops of more than 10 percent.

The cuts would help fund Trump’s immigration crackdown, including more than $1.9 billion for Trump’s border wall, $915 million for border surveillance technology and $285 million for the first tranche of new Customs and Border Patrol agents and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

Hardest hit would be the Coast Guard’s budget for new helicopters, vessels and other equipment, including the cancellation of a new national security cutter, the Coast Guard’s largest ship class.

The senators — 20 Democrats and three Republicans — argue that the Coast Guard’s acquisition of the cutter and new polar icebreakers should not be sacrificed given its major role in drug interdiction efforts and port security.”

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See my previous post on the proposed cuts to the Coast Guard here:

http://wp.me/p8eeJm-sd

In addition to the other nice things I said about the Coast Guard, as all of us who have spent time in small vessels on the ocean know, the brave men and women of our Coast Guard save lives and enforce important safety rules that protect all of us!

PWS

03/08/17

CNN: Is Trump’s Order To Hire 5,000 More Border Agents a “10-Year Plan?”

http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/07/politics/border-agents-cbp-hiring-slow/index.html

Tal Kopan reports

“Washington (CNN) — Optimistic internal estimates say that it could still take five to 10 years for Customs and Border Protection to hire all the additional agents President Donald Trump has ordered, even if the agency gets a wish list of requests to make hiring easier, according to documents obtained by CNN.

CBP has long struggled to even keep up with attrition in its ranks, and was staffed below currently targeted levels even before the President’s January executive orders called for 5,000 more agents.
CBP’s acting commissioner spelled out a series of steps the agency would need, either from other agencies, its parent DHS or Congress, in order to hire more agents in a memo for the deputy secretary last month, according to a copy obtained by CNN.
But even those measures would only help so much, the memo makes clear.
The hurdles are just the latest practical difficulty faced by Trump’s attempts to substantially increase immigration enforcement in the US. His moves to vastly increase the number of undocumented immigrants detained and deported have rankled Democrats and spread fear in immigrant communities. In addition to his long-promised border wall, Trump has ordered a substantial increase in personnel, including the CBP surge.”

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Read the full article at the link. Let’s see, if hiring 5,000 additional Border Patrol Agents takes DHS as long as 10 years, how long will it take to hire 10,000 additional ICE Agents? 20 years? 25 years?

As Nolan Rappaport has mentioned to me, it’s critical that high standards be maintained. Not only does lowering standards and training to meet goals increase the chances of due process and human rights violations, but it could be an opportunity for corruption and for international criminal cartels and gangs to penetrate the U.S. law enforcement system.

PWS

03/08/17

CNN: Does Sudden Drop In S. Border Stops Mean Trump’s “Get Tough” Policy Is Working? Only Time Will Tell, But DHS Views News Favorably!

http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/08/politics/border-crossings-huge-drop-trump-tough-talk/index.html

Tal Kopan reports:

“Washington (CNN) Illegal Southwest border crossings were down 40% last month, according to just released Customs and Border Protection numbers — a sign that President Donald Trump’s hardline rhetoric and policies on immigration may be having a deterrent effect.

Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly himself announced the month-to-month numbers, statistics that CBP usually quietly posts on its website without fanfare.
According to CBP data, the 40% drop in illegal Southwest border crossings from January to February is far outside normal seasonal trends. Typically, the January to February change is actually an increase of 10% to 20%.
The drop breaks a nearly 20-year trend, as CBP data going back to 2000 shows an uptick in apprehensions every February.
The number of apprehensions and inadmissible individuals presenting at the border was 18,762 people in February, down from 31,578 in January.
It will still take months to figure out if the decrease in apprehensions is an indication of a lasting Trump effect on immigration patterns. Numbers tend to decrease seasonally in the winter and increase into the spring months.
But the sharp downtick after an uptick at the end of the Obama administration could fit the narrative that it takes tough rhetoric on immigration — backed up by policy — to get word-of-mouth warnings to undocumented immigrants making the harrowing journey to the border.”

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Read the full article at the link.

PWS

03/089/17

The Potential Fiscal & National Security Costs of Trumpism — Cutting The Coast Guard To Build The Wall? — Are You Kidding Me?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/to-fund-border-wall-trump-administration-weighs-cuts-to-coast-guard-airport-security/2017/03/07/ba4a8e5c-036f-11e7-ad5b-d22680e18d10_story.html

The Washington Post reports:

“The Trump administration, searching for money to build the president’s planned multibillion-dollar border wall and crack down on illegal immigration, is weighing significant cuts to the Coast Guard, the Transportation Security Administration and other agencies focused on national security threats, according to a draft plan.

The proposal, drawn up by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), also would slash the budget of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which provides disaster relief after hurricanes, tornadoes and other natural disasters. The Coast Guard’s $9.1 billion budget in 2017 would be cut 14 percent to about $7.8 billion, while the TSA and FEMA budgets would be reduced about 11 percent each to $4.5 billion and $3.6 billion, respectively.

The cuts are proposed even as the planned budget for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees all of them, grows 6.4 percent to $43.8 billion, according to the plan, which was obtained by The Washington Post. Some $2.9 billion of that would go to building the wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, with $1.9 billion funding “immigration detention beds” and other Immigration and Customs Enforcement expenses and $285 million set aside to hire 500 more Border Patrol agents and 1,000 more ICE agents and support staffers.”

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Once again, DHS Secretary, Gen. John Kelly, appears to be MIA.

I had a significant amount of interaction with the U.S. Coast Guard during my “Legacy INS” days and found it to be one of the most highly professional, useful, and competent organizations I ever had the pleasure of dealing with. Seems to me like it should be the “Gem of the DHS.” Instead, under the “upside down world” of the Trump Administration, it appears to be headed for the “chopping block.”

PWS

03/08/17

The Human Costs Of Trumpism — Kids In Danger, Abandoned By U.S.!

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/world/americas/trump-refugee-ban-children-central-america.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&_r=0

The NY Times reports:

“SAN SALVADOR — Veronica picked up some modeling clay, molded it into little human figures with her hands — and then dug holes into the sculpture’s face.

“Look,” said Veronica, 9, showing off the creation to her aunt. “That’s how Mamá ended up.”

For more than a year, Veronica and her sister have been in hiding here in El Salvador, hoping to receive refugee status in the United States. The two girls were doing homework at their dining room table when masked men burst in and gunned down their grandparents — the community’s only two health workers — on rumors that the couple had been tipping off the police about gangs in the neighborhood.

Like many thousands of others, Veronica and her sister applied for sanctuary in the United States under a special Obama administration effort to grapple with the violence that has gutted Central America and sent waves of its people on a desperate march toward the American border.

But on Monday, the Trump administration announced a four-month suspension on all refugee admissions to the United States so security procedures can be improved and, perhaps most significantly, cut the number of total refugees allowed into the country by more than half.

“We can’t remain in the same place,” said the girls’ aunt, Reina, who is seeking refugee status for her nieces, witnesses to the double homicide. “We got a call last weekend telling us that they’d find us under whatever rock we were hiding.”

When President Trump first tried to freeze the nation’s refugee program in January, the courts jumped in and thwarted his executive order.

But one vital limit that the courts did allow — and which Mr. Trump’s new order continues — is a drastic reduction in the number of refugees admitted to the United States this fiscal year, from 110,000 under President Barack Obama to Mr. Trump’s revised cap: 50,000.

And those seats are mostly taken already.”

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We supposedly don’t want folks sending their kids on a dangerous journey to the U.S. to escape life-threatening situations in the Northern Triangle. So, the Obama Administration finally creates a very, very modest program for processing refugees (mostly women and children) in the Northern Triangle.

But, the Trump Administration comes along and reduces refugee numbers and suspends refugee admissions. So, why are we surprised that kids continue to make the dangerous journey with the help of smugglers. Basically, what the Trump Administration has done is to 1) endanger kids, and 2) enrich smugglers?

PWS

03/07/17

Proving My Point — The Sessions, Kelly, Trump Claim That More Than 300 Refugees Are Subjects Of Counterterrorism Investigations Earns “Three Pinocchios” From the WashPost “Fact Checker!”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/03/06/trumps-claim-that-more-than-300-refugees-are-the-subject-of-counterterrorism-investigations/?hpid=hp_rhp-more-top-stories_no-name:homepage/story&utm_term=.e6cc017ec4a9

Michelle Ye Hee Lee writes in the Washington Post:

“It’s irresponsible for the administration to tout this number repeatedly without context or giving the public additional information to understand whether refugees are a threat to the U.S. homeland. The burden of proof is on the speaker, yet administration officials repeatedly declined reporters’ requests for more information. Moreover, the administration’s credibility on factual accuracy is open to question, given the frequent false claims made by the president and other senior officials.
This 300 figure, without context, is problematic for three reasons. It represents a tiny fraction of all resettled refugees in the United States per year (83,380 on average), and since the refugee program began in 1980 (3 million). Since Sept. 11, 2001, roughly 190,000 refugees were accepted into the United States from the six countries listed in the immigration executive order. The 300 figure represents a fraction — though unclear how small or big — of the total open counterterrorism investigations (which could be 1,000 or up to 10,000). And we have no idea what charges are involved, or if these investigations will even result in any charges (or convictions, for that matter).

In the absence of context or additional information from the administration, we find this figure highly misleading, worthy of Three Pinocchios. Should the administration decide to share more information to place this figure into context, we’re happy to reconsider the evidence and the rating.”

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Coulda been worse, as in “Four Pinochios” the “Lowest Award.” And, there is always a chance that the Administration could eventually provide real evidence to back up its largely fictional claims that refugees are a major threat to our national security. But, I wouldn’t count on it.

In the meantime, as I suggested in the previous post, Gen. Kelly is likely to see his sterling reputation go down the drain if he continues to go along with the Sessions, Bannon, Miller crowd. All of the latter have spent their lives living in an “alternate universe” largely free of truth, common sense, perspective, reflection, humanity, and common decency (yes, there is a difference between “geniality” and “courtesy” for which Sessions is known and “human decency” of which he has exhibited depressingly little in his long career in public service).

PWS

03/07/17

WashPost: What Cheers A Grumpy Trump? — A Muslim & Refugee Bashing Session With Sessions, Kelly, Bannon & Miller

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-trumps-fury-the-president-rages-at-leaks-setbacks-and-accusations/2017/03/05/40713af4-01df-11e7-ad5b-d22680e18d10_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_trumptumult-830pm:homepage/story&utm_term=.89b3d6c4aad2

Philip Rucker, Robert Costa and Ashley Parker report in the Washington Post:

“That night at Mar-a-Lago, Trump had dinner with Sessions, Bannon, Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly and White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, among others. They tried to put Trump in a better mood by going over their implementation plans for the travel ban, according to a White House official.”

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Kind of sad to see Gen. Kelly go over to the “dark side.” At his confirmation hearings, he actually was one of the few in this Administration to show a nuanced understanding of migration.

But he now seems to have either “bought into” or chosen to “go along to get along” with the fiction that the world’s most vulnerable and needy individuals, refugees, and legal immigrants, most of whom are coming to join family members already admitted to the U.S., are a greater threat to our security than, say, ISIS or disgruntled and/or disturbed native born U.S. citizens walking around with all too readily available military style firearms.

Yes, I suppose that I’d still rather have General Kelly in charge of the DHS than the likely alternatives — unqualified idealogical zealots. But, as time goes on and the problems with the Administration’s nationalistic, unrealistic, and inhumane approach to immigration multiply, Gen. Kelly might find that he will be remembered more for his failure to stand up to guys like Sessions, Bannon, and Miller than his many military achievements. And, that will be an “American Tragedy.”

PWS

03/07/17

THE ATLANTIC: Our Unhappy Immigration History — President Herbert Hoover’s Anti-Immigrant Policies Resulted In The “Mexican Repatriation” — U.S. Citizens Were The Majority Of Those Illegally Removed!

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/americas-brutal-forgotten-history-of-illegal-deportations/517971/

Alex Wagner writes:

“Back in Hoover’s era, as America hung on the precipice of economic calamity—the Great Depression—the president was under enormous pressure to offer a solution for increasing unemployment, and to devise an emergency plan for the strained social safety net. Though he understood the pressing need to aid a crashing economy, Hoover resisted federal intervention, instead preferring a patchwork of piecemeal solutions, including the targeting of outsiders.
According to former California State Senator Joseph Dunn, who in 2004 began an investigation into the Hoover-era deportations, “the Republicans decided the way they were going to create jobs was by getting rid of anyone with a Mexican-sounding name.”

“Getting rid of” America’s Mexican population was a random, brutal effort. “For participating cities and counties, they would go through public employee rolls and look for Mexican-sounding names and then go and arrest and deport those people,” said Dunn. “And then there was a job opening!”

“We weren’t rounding up people who were Canadian,” he added. “It was an absolutely racially-motivated program to create jobs by getting rid of people.”

Why, specifically, men and women of Mexican heritage? Professor Francisco Balderrama, whose book, A Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s is the most definitive chronicle of the period (and, not coincidentally, one of the only ones), explained: “Mexican immigration was very recent. It goes back to that saying: Last hired, first fired. The attitude of many industrialists and agriculturalists was reflected in larger cities: A Mexican is a Mexican.” And that included even those citizens of Mexicans descent who were born in the U.S. “That is sort of key in understanding the psychic of the nation,” said Balderrama.

The so-called repatriation effort was, in large part, a misnomer, given the fact that as many as sixty percent of those sent to “home” Mexico were U.S. citizens: American-born children of Mexican-descent who had never before traveled south of the border. (Dunn noted, “I don’t know how you can repatriate someone to a country they’ve not been born or raised in.”)

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Pretty grotesque. Where’s the apology? Where is the circumspection? Where its the humanity in the Administration’s new “immigrant scapegoating” program?

Thanks much to Nolan Rappaport for bringing this interesting, if disturbing, piece of immigration history to my attention.

PWS

03/06/17

DIFFERING VIEWS OF NEW “TRAVEL BAN” ON CNN: Jeffrey Toobin: It Could Stand Up — Advocates: It Stinks!

Jeffrey Toobin writes:

“CNN)For President Trump and his travel ban, the second time may be the charm.

The revised executive order, revealed Monday during a rare joint appearance by three Cabinet members, addresses many of the legal problems that led Trump’s first executive order to be stymied by the courts.
The new order makes plain that holders of green cards and valid visas are now clearly exempt. There is no longer an exception to allow Christian refugees to jump to the head of the line.

The government’s explanation for why it selected the covered countries does not mention religion; rather, the administration says the six countries — down from seven in the previous order — either support terrorism or lack sufficient controls to identify dangerous visitors to the United States. The order also removes Iraq as one of the countries covered by the order.
The courts, which invalidated the original ban, did so, in effect, because they found the order amounted to religious discrimination against Muslims. This new order, unlike the first, makes no mention of the religions of any applicants to come to the United States.
Still, opponents of the order will insist the new rules are merely pretexts — that the new order once again fulfills President Trump’s campaign promise to ban Muslims from entering the United States.”

http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/06/opinions/trump-travel-ban-toobin/index.html

On the other hand, Lauren Said-Moorhouse reports:

“(CNN)International humanitarian groups have slammed US President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban, which targets six Muslim-majority nations, for sharing many of the same flaws as its predecessor.

Similar to the January order, travel ban 2.0 again prevents citizens from Syria, Iran, Yemen, Libya, Somalia and Sudan from entering the United States for at least 90 days. In this iteration, Iraq is not on the list of barred countries.
The new order, which the Trump administration says is needed to protect the United States from foreign terrorists entering the country, will also suspend the admission of refugees for 120 days and urges US officials to improve vetting procedures for a resettlement program already regarded to be rigorous.
Aid groups, including the International Rescue Committee, or IRC, and Amnesty International USA, quickly condemned the new directive, arguing the ban still does not make the United States any safer.
David Miliband, IRC president and CEO, said in a statement that the revised executive order on immigration “heartlessly targets the most vetted and most vulnerable population to enter the United States.” He added that the new executive order could affect 60,000 people already screened for resettlement in America.

“The ban doesn’t target those who are the greatest security risk, but those least able to advocate for themselves. Instead of making us safer, it serves as a gift for extremists who seek to undermine the United States,” Miliband said.”

http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/06/world/trump-travel-ban-world-reaction/index.html

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PWS

03/06/17

Here Are All The Official Documents On The “New” Travel Ban From LexisNexis

For the new Executive Order click here:

https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/newsheadlines/archive/2017/03/06/trump-travel-ban-2-0-mar-6-2017.aspx?Redirected=true

For other materials from DHS relating to the travel ban click here:

https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/immigration/b/newsheadlines/archive/2017/03/06/4-dhs-documents-re-travel-ban-2-0-mar-6-2017.aspx?Redirected=true

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PWS

03/06/17

IMMIGRATION IMPACT: Katie Shepard Explains How New USCIS Lesson Plans Are Likely To Harm Asylum Seekers!

http://immigrationimpact.com/2017/02/28/changes-may-keep-asylum-seekers-getting-day-court/

“Effective February 27, 2017, new changes to the asylum screening process could lead to an increased number of deportations of asylum-seekers who fear persecution upon return to their home country.

On February 13, 2017, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) revised its Asylum Division Officer Training Course (ADOTC) lesson plans on how to assess an asylum seeker’s credible and reasonable fear of persecution or torture. The lesson plans were revised to be consistent with the January 25, 2017 Executive Order on border security and immigration enforcement and provide guidelines to the asylum officers when conducting credible fear interviews (for those at the border or port of entry who were never previously deported) and reasonable fear interviews (for those who were previously order deported but who later seek asylum).

The changes to the lesson plans are significant and may cause the denial rate to skyrocket, in which case thousands of asylum seekers would be wrongfully denied a meaningful day in court . Not only does the new guidance provide asylum officers with greater discretion to deny an applicant for reasons which may be out of the applicant’s control, but the applicant will essentially be forced to undergo a full asylum hearing with none of the safeguards in place to ensure a meaningful opportunity to present a claim for relief.”

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Read Katie’s complete analysis at the link. You should also look at Dree Collopy’s short video on the changes which I previously posted.

http://wp.me/p8eeJm-qx

If this carries over into Immigration Court where unsuccessful applicants can seek “expedited review,” it would mean that “credible fear reviews” could become more time consuming.

I was usually able to complete them in a few minutes using the Asylum Officer’s notes and asking a few questions. I found that the overwhelming number of those denied had “credible fear,” and probably at least half of those cases eventually resulted in relief. However, over the last year of my career I was primarily on the non-detained docket, so I only did “credible fears” when I was on detail to a detention center or the system was backed up.

As an Immigration Judge, I did not use the USCIS lesson plans. But, I did rely on the Asylum Officer’s notes for a basic understanding of the claim. I then usually asked a few questions to verify that the notes accurately reflected the claim and that nothing relevant had been omitted.

PWS

03/03/17

AILA TV: In Less Than 5 Minutes, Superstar Attorney Dree Collopy Tells You Everything You Need To Know About The Revised USCIS Guidance On Credible/Reasonable Fear — Must Watch TV!

Here’s the You-Tube link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgVJkysse2Y

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Great job by Dree!

Bottom Line: Under pressure from the Trump Administration, USCIS is tilting the system against (largely unrepresented) asylum applicants from the Northern Triangle. The only questions are 1) whether the Immigration Courts will follow suit, and 2) if so, whether the Article III Courts will blow or swallow (as they have done so far in the credible/reasonable fear context) the whistle on due process for the most vulnerable.

A good introduction to reality for anyone who believes that conscientious career civil servants will be able to persevere in the face of the Trump Administration’s all-out assault on due process and fundamental fairness.

Hon. Lory D. Rosenberg Replies To Nolan Rappaport’s VOICE Article On “Appeal Matters”

Here’s Lory’s blog reprinted in full with her permission:

Lory D. Rosenberg on Appeal Matters
Why President Trump’s VOICE is Misplaced and Serves No One Draft Blog Entry Edit Blog Entry
0 Comments
by Lrosenberg, 03-02-2017 at 09:14 PM (0 Views)

The VOICE office announced by President Trump in his SOTU speech on Tuesday night is the most disturbing, offensive, and misplaced priority he could have chosen to address the pressing need for immigration reform.

Moreover, it astonishes me how anyone with an understanding of the reality of the overwhelmingly positive immigrant contributions to our workforce, our communities, and our society as a whole could applaud such folly. It is mind-boggling that a person who purports to understand immigration law can honestly praise its introduction. Cf. N. Rappaport, Opinion Contributor, The Hill, “On immigrant crime, Trump’s right. Americans deserve more data” (3/1/17).

Establishment of such a new office panders to unsubstantiated, and in fact, soundly refuted, fears of an immigrant crime wave, and fosters public hysteria that is utterly unfounded. Are there serious crimes committed by immigrants? Yes, although very few are violent offenses. They generally involve violations of state, not federal, law, and they are duly prosecuted and punished in our courts, without regard to the perpetrator’s immigration status. Any claimed value to the victim in connecting ICE to removable aliens for “information” is pure fantasy.

Moreover, proportionately, the immigrant crime rate is minimal compare to the crimes committed by the native population in the United States. See Ewing, W and Rumbaut, R., SPECIAL REPORT The Criminalization of Immigration in the United States, http://www.americanimmigration council.org/research/criminalization-immigration-united-states. A federal program for victims of crime committed by an immigrant as opposed to a United States citizen, erroneously propagates the destructive misconception that immigrants are mostly criminals. Cf. Spenkuch, Jörg L., Understanding the Impact of Immigration on Crime, 16 American Law and Economics Review 1,177-219 (2014), https://doi.org/10.1093/aler/aht017.

As leading scholar on immigrants and crime, Professor Ruben G. Rumbaut has stated,

“It [the VOICE office] will serve further to drive up fear and to sigmatize entire immigrant populations as criminals, using rare anecdotes to publicize misleading claims, even though every research study over many decades shows exactly the opposite: immigrants, including the undocumented, have the lowest crime (both violent and property crimes) and the lowest incarceration rates in the US.”

What is more, the policy changes anticipated since President Trump’s inauguration may dismantle much needed agency resources that support implementation of critical humanitarian and domestic violence efforts, such as VAWA and other critical programs that have been part of DHS’s portfolio. Those are the most important victim support resources that are needed. Information collection and communication can be achieved easily and made available to victims, policymakers, and scholars alike through accurate agency reporting.

There are more than adequate local police programs, as well as private and faith-based programs, available to victims of all crime in their communities. That is where victims will find the information and restitution they may seek. One would think an administration that seeks to reduce the the federal bureaucracy and rely upon the states to address all but those problems that demand federal intervention would shrink from imposing a duplicative and unnecessary venture that is likely to offer little more than one night of celebrity in a television audience.

Trump’s self-indulgent VOICE office paints a target on the backs of honorable, hard-working immigrants – and others who look like immigrants – in our population. He may derive satisfaction from the publicity of such a pointless gesture, but the office’s establishment does nothing to reform a deeply broken system that victimizes immigrants and citizens alike each day that nothing is done to reform it.

c.2017 Lory D. Rosenberg

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PWS

03/02/17

BREAKING: Sessions Recuses Himself From Russian Investigation!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/top-gop-lawmaker-calls-on-sessions-to-recuse-himself-from-russia-investigation/2017/03/02/148c07ac-ff46-11e6-8ebe-6e0dbe4f2bca_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_gopreax-840a:homepage/story&utm_term=.2d513bee7715

From the WashPost:

“Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Thursday he will recuse himself from any investigations related to the 2016 presidential campaign, which would include any Russian interference in the electoral process.

Speaking at a hastily-called press conference at the Justice Department, Sessions said he had met with department ethics officials soon after being sworn in last month to evaluate the rules and cases in which he might have a conflict.

“They said that since I had involvement with the campaign, I should not be involved in any campaign investigation,” Sessions said. He added that he concurred with their assessment, and would thus recuse himself from any existing or future investigation involving Trump’s campaign.

The announcement comes a day after The Washington Post revealed that Sessions twice met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and did not disclose that fact to Congress during his confirmation hearing.”

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The good news for Sessions is that most experts think that he will not face criminal prosecution for any arguable “inaccuracies” in his sworn testimony to Congress during his confirmation hearings.

But, folks are missing what Sessions really lied about under oath: that he could leave his partisan positions as an “outlier Senator” from a state known for its historic bigotry and poor race relations behind and represent all of the people of the United States as Attorney General. In the short time since he became Attorney General, Sessions has proved that he was at least being disingenuous if not outright lying. He has: 1) withdrawn Federal protections for transgender students, 2) changed the Government’s position in a key voting rights case thus giving the green light to states that seek to disenfranchise African American and other minority voters, and 3) announced that local police will have a free hand to enforce laws even if they have been shown to have a tendency to do so in ways that violate the basic civil rights of minority suspects.

And, Sessions was apparently behind the xenophobic, poorly conceived and executed, and fear-mongering Executive Orders on immigration. In other words, Sessions has squarely aligned himself with the white-power-oriented, nationalistic, xenophobic forces in the White House represented by Steve Bannon and Sessions’s former aide Stephen Miller.

Another article in the WashPost points out Session’s hypocrisy on the issues of “perjury, access, and recusal” when the situation involved the Clintons. What goes around comes around. Here’s a link to the complete article:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/03/02/six-times-jeff-sessions-talked-about-perjury-access-and-special-prosecutors-when-it-involved-the-clintons/?utm_term=.84d5a9024cb4

And here’s an article by Ari Berman in The Nation pointing out the real truth about our Attorney General: “Jeff Sessions Is a Disgrace to the Justice Department
He didn’t just lie about Russia—he’s put the Trump administration on the wrong side of every major issue.”

https://www.thenation.com/article/jeff-sessions-is-a-disgrace-to-the-justice-department/

PWS

03/02/17

GREEN BAY PRESS-GAZETTE: Green Bay, Appleton, Oshkosh Police Chiefs Oppose Trump’s Local Enforcement Initiative!

http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/story/news/2017/03/02/police-chiefs-oppose-immigration-enforcement-duty/98608450/

“GREEN BAY – Police Chief Andrew Smith has joined 79 other law enforcement leaders around the country in calling to keep local police out of the federal role of immigration enforcement.

Smith, Appleton Police Chief Todd Thomas, and Oshkosh Chief Dean Smith were among those who signed a letter to Congress urging “a constructive immigration enforcement approach that prioritizes criminals and not peaceful residents.” Two top officers in Madison also signed the letter.

It was sent in advance of hearings this week by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on the subject. The letter urges the federal government not to use withholding of grants as leverage to force police to enforce immigration laws.

The police chiefs argue that involvement in enforcing immigration laws would hamper their efforts to build community policing relationships and could discourage illegal immigrants who are crime victims or witnesses from cooperating with police.”

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B’Gosh, they “get it” in Oshkosh!

PWS

03/02/17

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