Jim Crow Laws – Page 93 – immigrationcourtside.com

NOLAN’S LATEST IN THE HILL: “Undocumented immigrants shouldn’t replace legal ones”

http://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/390812-undocumented-immigrants-shouldnt-replace-legal-ones

Nolan writes in The Hill:

President Bill Clinton’s 1995 State of the Union included the following remarks:

“All Americans, not only in the states most heavily affected, but in every place in this country, are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country. The jobs they hold might otherwise be held by citizens or legal immigrants. The public service they use impose burdens on our taxpayers.”

“We are a nation of immigrants. But we are also a nation of laws. It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years, and we must do more to stop it.”

Clinton is not the only Democrat who has spoken out against illegal immigration. The Republicans provide a number of examples in a blog they posted recently: “The Democrat Hard Left Turn on Illegal Immigration.”

In 1993, then-Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev.), said, “When it comes to enforcing laws against illegal immigration, we have a system that will make you recoil in disbelief. … Yet we are doing almost nothing to encourage these people to go home or even to deter them from coming here in the first place.”

In 1994, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) ran a political ad showing illegal immigrants crossing the border and promised to get tough on illegal immigration with more “agents, fencing, lighting, and other equipment.”

In 2006, then-Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said “Better fences and better security along our borders” would “help stem some of the tide of illegal immigration in this country.”

In 2009, during a speech at Georgetown Law, Senator Chuck Schumer(D-N.Y.) said, “When we use phrases like ‘undocumented workers,’ we convey a message to the American people that their government is not serious about combating illegal immigration, which the American people overwhelmingly oppose.”

The blog also provides video clip links, including one that shows Clinton receiving a standing ovation for his remarks about Americans being disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering the country.

. . . .

A recent report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) on the labor laws California has enacted to protect unauthorized immigrant workers indicates that many of the immigrants who have been attracted to California by its sanctuary policies are being exploited by unscrupulous employers.

In fact, the main beneficiaries of California’s sanctuary policies are the employers who exploit undocumented immigrant workers and deportable immigrants in police custody who otherwise would be turned over to ICE when they are released.

California has had to enact seven laws to protect undocumented workers from being exploited by their employers.

EPI found that the ability of U.S. employers to exploit unauthorized workers undercuts the bargaining power of U.S. workers who work side by side with them. When the wages and labor standards of unauthorized immigrants are degraded, it has a negative impact on the wages and labor standards of U.S. workers in similar jobs.

In reality, we could meet all of our immigration needs with legal immigration. We do not need nor ultimately benefit from uncontrolled illegal immigration.

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Go on over to The Hill to read Nolan’s complete article.

I’m all for replacing the uncontrolled flow of undocumented migrants with legal migrants. That’s why I favor a “smart” immigration policy that would:

Legalize the vast majority of those currently here without documentation who are working in needed jobs, law-abiding, and contributing to our society. Legalization would allow them to be screened, brought into the tax system (if they aren’t already), and protected by U.S. labor laws.
Expand legal immigration opportunities, particularly for so-called “non-professional,” manual labor skills and jobs that are badly needed in the U.S. and which now often are filled by undocumented labor. That would allow screening of visa applicants abroad, a controlled entry process, and protections under the labor laws. To the extent that undocumented migration is being driven by unfilled market forces, it would decrease the flow of undocumented individuals, thus saving us from expensive, unneeded, inhumane, and ineffective “enforcement overkill.” Immigration enforcement would be freed to concentrate on those who might actually be a threat to the U.S.
Create more robust, realistic refugee laws that would bring many more refugees through the legal system, particularly from the Northern Triangle. This, along with cooperation with the UNHCR and other nations would reduce the need for individuals to make they way to our borders to apply for asylum. Asylum processing could be improved by allowing the Asylum Office to review and grant “defensive” as well as affirmative applications, thus lessening the burden on the Immigration Courts.
More investment in Wage and Hour, NLRB, and OSHA enforcement to prevent unscrupulous employers from taking advantage of workers of all types.
We have full employment, surplus jobs, a declining birth rate, and we’re losing the “STEM edge” to the PRC, Canada, Mexico, the EU and other nations that are becoming more welcoming and attractive to “high skill” immigrants. We’re going to need all of the legal immigration we can get across the board to remain viable and dynamic in a changing world.

PWS

06-06-18

TAL @ CNN – TOP “KAKISTOCRAT” JEFF SESSIONS ENTHUSIASTICALLY IMPLEMENTS TRUMP’S IMMORAL, OFTEN LAWLESS, AND PROBABLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL WHITE NATIONALIST IMMIGRATION AGENDA – This Should Disabuse Everyone, Including Federal Article III Courts, Of The (Fictional) “Independence” Or “Professional Responsibility” Of The USDOJ!

Sessions, Justice Department take lead as public face of Trump’s immigration policy

By: Tal Kopan, CNN

If there’s one person besides President Donald Trump who’s associated with his immigration policies, it’s Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Regardless of whether it’s his agency’s core jurisdiction.

Sessions and the Justice Department have taken a lead role in announcing and defending the administration’s immigration efforts on a number of fronts — including some that only tangentially involve the department.

It was the Justice Department press office that put out a “fact check” statement Tuesday responding to Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley’s publicized border trip to visit detention facilities run by components of the Departments of Homeland Security and of Health and Human Services, and it was Sessions who went in front of cameras the day the DHS announced the policy that would result in more families separated at the border.

Even going back to September, it was Sessions who announced on camera the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, which was rescinded by the DHS citing legal guidance from the Justice Department. Sessions has made immigration and border security at least a passing reference in most speeches he’s given and has made multiple trips to the border to highlight the issue.

His investment in the issue doesn’t mean other agencies aren’t involved, nor that his shouldn’t be. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has vocally defended the policies in front of Congress and in public appearances. At the time of the DACA decision, the DHS was led by an acting secretary, Elaine Duke, who was not a mouthpiece for the administration’s immigration policies. And Sessions has certainly explored every way his agency could be a player in immigration policy.

But in numerous instances, Sessions has been associated with policies his department would otherwise not have a large role in — and the Justice Department seems to relish taking it on.

Asked for comment, a Justice Department spokesman said Sessions is “proud” to execute the administration’s agenda “in lockstep” with Nielsen. The DHS declined to comment.

A former Obama administration Justice Department immigration official, however, said the department’s hand in making policy is counter to what has traditionally been its role — serving as the government’s lawyer to defend policies.

“It’s unclear what the purpose is of talking about Sen. Merkley at all at the Justice Department,” said Leon Fresco, who served in the Obama administration and is now in private practice. “I think in many cases that agencies are best served by the Department of Justice being perceived as a neutral arbiter on all policies and the agencies being the ones who drive the policy-making agenda. When those roles are blurred, it becomes much harder for the lawyers who have to go to court to have to argue that they don’t have a vested interest in the policies that are being advocated.”

Much more: http://www.cnn.com/2018/06/05/politics/sessions-justice-ownership-immigration/index.html

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It’s no surprise to those who have followed Sessions’ career. Even in the Senate, he was an outspoken voice in the immigration debate, largely to the right of most of his Republican colleagues.

“While Jeff Sessions may have wanted to be attorney general, the area and issue he cared about the most was immigration,” said Peter Boogaard, a former Obama administration spokesman for the White House and DHS who is now with the pro-immigration group FWD.us.

“It’s not something when I worked in the Department of Homeland Security that Justice was trying to do. They were focused on big, large-scale counterterrorism efforts, and big large-scale efforts on public safety and national security,” Boogaard continued. “The Department of Justice did not engage in immigration issues in this capacity and it is surprising that DHS has ceded that ground of authority. But this is not a new trend; this is something that has been the case since the beginning of this administration.”

Pretty much says it all. Sessions “hanging tough” following Trump’s criticism on the Mueller investigation has nothing to do with integrity (gimmie a break — he’d be violating clear ethics and, perhaps, criminal rules if he “un-recused” himself — he’d certainly lose his law license) or protecting the (largely fictional) “independence” of the Justice Department. It has everything to do with a mean and nasty guy with a White Nationalist Agenda wanting to take full advantage of the “chance of a lifetime” to inflict maximum, and perhaps lasting, unnecessary pain and suffering on migrants, women, children and other vulnerable individuals who don’t fit within his “White Nationalist universe.”

Sessions’s tenure “proves beyond a reasonable doubt” that the current Immigration Court system is neither fundamentally fair nor independent and it is incapable, in its current form, of delivering and guaranteeing Due Process for migrants. If and when Congress and/or the Article IIIs are going to recognize the obvious and “do the right thing” is a different question — — one where “the jury is still out.”

PWS

06-06-18

JEREMY STAHL @ SLATE: THE BIG UGLY – SEPARATION OF FAMILIES & DETENTION — TRUMP, SESSIONS, NIELSEN = LIES, IMMORALITY, ILLEGALITY!

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/06/trumps-child-separation-policy-is-a-moral-and-constitutional-abomination.html

JURISPRUDENCE

A Moral and Legal Abomination

The government has offered no substantive legal justification for the Trump administration’s policy of indefinitely separating children from their parents at the border.

By JEREMY STAHL

JUNE 03, 20187:30 PM

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On Thursday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein proposed a law that would bar the intentional separation of asylum-seeking parents from their children when they cross the border. “It’s hard to conceive of a policy more horrific than intentionally separating children from their parents as a form of punishment,” the California Democrat said in a statement publicizing the move.

Affidavits from a February lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union show precisely what Feinstein describes. The Congolese asylum-seeker at the center of the case, known as “Ms. L,” described having her 6-year-old daughter taken away by the U.S. government without explanation. “She was taken into another room and then I heard her screaming: Don’t take me away from my mommy!” the woman wrote. In court filings, the government questioned whether Ms. L was in fact her child’s mother. The woman had her child returned only after the suit was filed and the government was made to conduct a DNA test that proved her parentage.

“[T]hese terrible policies call into question whether we are in violation of our own laws and our obligations under international law,” Feinstein said in proposing a law to stop the practice of splitting up families at the border. Feinstein is right: There seems to be no coherent legal justification for separating children from their parents, some of whom—like Ms. L—presented themselves at a port of entry as asylum-seekers and have not been charged with any crimes.

The rationale top Trump administration officials have stated publicly—that such a practice will deter undocumented immigrants from seeking asylum at the border—appears to be so patently unconstitutional that the government’s own lawyers have renounced it in court. If the broad outlines here sound familiar, that’s because the legal fight over the policy is shaping up as a replay of the battle over President Donald Trump’s disastrous first travel ban, which was quickly struck down as a blatant violation of due process rights.

A federal judge in San Diego is set to rule any day on the question of whether the government is lawlessly abducting immigrant children at the border. The ACLU is seeking a classwide preliminary injunction to put a stop to the practice. Based on a close reading of legal filings in the case, the public statements of policymakers, and a transcript from a critical hearing last month, it’s difficult to fathom how the judiciary could possibly rule in favor of the government.

In court proceedings last month, Judge Dana Sabraw indicated that the case, Ms. L v. ICE—filed by the ACLU on behalf of Ms. L and other asylum-seeking parents who have had their children taken away—should hinge on the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment. Under a series of Supreme Court precedents, family integrity has long been considered a “fundamental” due process right. Among other rulings, the ACLU’s lawsuit cited the Supreme Court’s opinion in 2000’s Troxel v. Granville, which stated that there is “a fundamental liberty interest of natural parents in the care, custody, and management of their child.” This precedent mandates both that the government show a compelling government interest in separating a child and parent—preventing child abuse, for instance—and that it is using the least restrictive means to fulfill that interest.

In the ACLU’s case, the government has not shown a lawful basis for its policy of indefinitely separating immigrant children from their parents at the border. In fact, government lawyers have denied the existence of any such policy at all. In response to Sabraw’s question about whether the government “has a practice, or perhaps even a policy, of separation of families as a deterrence mechanism,” Justice Department attorney Sarah B. Fabian asserted, “There is not such a policy.”

This claim directly contradicts the administration’s publicly stated reasoning. When asked by CNN in March 2017 about the possibility of separating children from their parents at the border, then–Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly said, “I am considering, in order to deter more movement along this terribly dangerous network, I am considering exactly that.”

Per the New York Times, that policy was put on hold at the time because it was deemed too controversial. But in the last several months, as Trump has reportedly put intense pressure on his Cabinet to reverse an uptick in border crossings by undocumented immigrants, such a policy appears to have been put into place. Last month, the Washington Post reported that a pilot version of a program of separating families had occurred “in the Border Patrol’s El Paso sector, which includes New Mexico, between July and November 2017, and [the administration] said the number of families attempting to cross illegally plunged by 64 percent.” And in a pair of speeches last month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions seemed to herald the launch of a formal policy, calling it a “zero-tolerance” immigration measure. “If you don’t want your child separated, then don’t bring them across the border illegally,” Sessions said. “It’s not our fault that somebody does that.” Kelly, now Trump’s chief of staff, stated again last month in an interview with NPR that the purpose of “family separation” is deterrence. “The name of the game to a large degree … a big name of the game is deterrence,” he said.

The current secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, did not provide a direct answer when asked by NPR if “family separation at the border … [was] meant to act as a deterrent,” explaining that it’s very common for adults to get separated from their children when they commit crimes. In testimony before Congress in April, Nielsen said, “When we separate, we separate because the law tells us to, and that is in the interest of the child.”

In April, the Post reported that portions of the separation policy had been memorialized in a memo—a document that described the maneuver’s deterrent effect:

In a memorandum that outlines the proposal and was obtained by The Washington Post, officials say that threatening adults with criminal charges and prison time would be the “most effective” way to reverse the steadily rising number of attempted crossings. Most parents now caught crossing the border illegally with their children are quickly released to await civil deportation hearings.

“Such a policy would mean separating parents and children, because the parents would be placed in criminal detention, where children cannot be held,” the Post noted.

In a statement provided to the Post, Homeland Security spokeswoman Katie Waldman said, “DHS does not have a policy of separating families at the border for deterrence purposes.” Waldman did justify the splitting of families, though, by claiming it was necessary to combat child smuggling as well as to “protect” children from their own “nefarious” border-crossing parents. “DHS does … have a legal obligation to protect the best interests of the child whether that be from human smugglings, drug traffickers, or nefarious actors who knowingly break our immigration laws and put minor children at risk,” she said.

While the government denies the existence of a concrete policy, the numbers tell a different story. “Customs and Border Protection informed me that 658 children were taken from 638 parents during a 14-day period in May,” Feinstein reported on Thursday. This is a huge uptick from the six-month period between October and April, when the New York Times reported that “more than 700 children”—roughly 120 per month, as compared to 658 in 14 days—were reportedly separated “from adults claiming to be their parents.”

Let’s imagine that, based on all this evidence, Judge Sabraw—who was appointed by George W. Bush—determines there is in fact a new government policy of separating children and parents at the border. The court would then need to examine the government’s stated rationale for enacting such a rule. For the policy to pass constitutional muster, the government needs some legal justification for the indefinite separation of parents from children, even when the parents and children are undocumented immigrants. The Supreme Court held in 2000’s Zadvydas v. Davis that due process rights apply to undocumented immigrants. This holding suggests the government may not separate asylum-seekers from their children indefinitely and without cause. During last month’s arguments, it sounded like the judge believed the policy justification stated by Kelly—deterrence of illegal immigration—was clearly unconstitutional. “A policy of deterring families from entering the United States by separating them … would [that not be] a clear substantive due process violation?” Judge Sabraw asked of Fabian, the government attorney.

“If it was done without any otherwise authority to cause the separation, I think, we might be closer to that problem,” she acknowledged, claiming the government does have such authority stemming from the Immigration and Nationality Act. When Sabraw responded that the government still hadn’t presented a substantive due process rationale, Fabian said the government has a right to separate parents who are jailed for violating the law from their children while those parents are behind bars. The ACLU, in this lawsuit, is not contesting that fact. What it is contesting is the government’s apparent policy of refusing to return children to parents once they’ve served their time—generally around a month for misdemeanor illegal entry—and of taking children from parents who present themselves at a U.S. port of entry seeking asylum and have not been charged with any crime.

When confronted about the legality of these practices, the government has merely asserted they are legal without providing a substantive justification. “They can’t come up with a justification because the truth is that the only justification that makes sense is their perceived view of the deterrence value,” Lee Gelernt, the ACLU attorney litigating the case, told me.

Having reviewed the transcript from the hearing, and having read the government’s legal filings, Gelernt appears to be correct. At May’s hearing, the judge repeatedly questioned Fabian about whether a substantive due process violation had occurred. Fabian asserted it had not. The judge then made clear that the government had to offer an actual argument. “Simply saying there is detention and … therefore the family integrity gives way doesn’t address specifically what’s happening in this case,” Sabraw said. “Doesn’t there have to be some determination in order to comply with Fifth Amendment rights before separately detaining family members?”

Fabian, at this point, simply stated: “We don’t agree that that has to be made.” She then said that when a minor and parent are separated, the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act dictates that the minor be placed with another custodian. But she didn’t explain why the decision to indefinitely separate the minor from the parent would be made in the first place.

Later, the judge specifically addressed those situations in which a person has been convicted of an unlawful entry misdemeanor, had their child lawfully separated from them while they were incarcerated, and then been detained by immigration officials separately from their children while awaiting asylum. “Is there any process that [the Department of Health and Human Services] has or DHS has where after a person has served their time, efforts or a process exists to explore the lawful options of reuniting the parent with the child?” Sabraw asked. “There is not a process that would reunite them at that time because she is in ICE custody and remains unavailable,” Fabian responded. “Shouldn’t there be” some process for reuniting “after a person does their time?” the judge asked. Fabian then argued that it is in the best interests of children to remain separated from their detained parent because such a parent is “not going to be a suitable custodian.”

The notion that a child is better off without his parent not only flies in the face of logic, it also contradicts government policies that allow the detention of some undocumented asylum-seekers with their children. If such parents have historically been considered suitable custodians—and in some cases are still considered suitable custodians—how can other similarly situated parents not be considered suitable custodians?

The government ultimately leaned on the argument that DHS must make decisions in a hurry. “The goal is not to prolong that process but to get folks to the location where they can be housed long-term if that is what is going to happen,” Fabian argued. Again, this argument is illogical: It wouldn’t take any longer to decide to keep parents and children together than it would to decide to separate them. Sabraw also asked if DNA testing might help the government distinguish biological parents from child smugglers, as it had in the case of Ms. L. Fabian said she didn’t know if that was “a feasible option.”

The ACLU has asked the court to allow it to add more plaintiffs to Ms. L v. ICE, which was previously filed with two plaintiffs. One of the motions seeking class certification includes affidavits from several other immigrants who’ve had their children taken away at the border. Those affidavits offer more examples of what it looks like when kids as young as 18 months old are literally ripped away from their parents.

Testimony of Mr. U:

All I can remember is how much my son and I were both crying as they took him away. I do not recall anyone questioning whether I am really his biological father or whether I was a danger to him or abusive in any way. I even had my son’s birth certificate proving I am his father. … It has been six months since I last saw my son.

Testimony of Ms. G:

Shortly after arriving, I was told that I was going to be separated from my daughter. There were no doubts expressed that I was my daughter’s biological mother and I have a birth certificate to show our relationship. They did not say that I was a danger to my daughter or was abusive. … I know that [my children] are having a very hard time detained all by themselves without me. They are only six and four years old in a strange country and they need their parent. I hope I can be with my children very soon. I miss them and am scared for them.

Testimony of Ms. J. I. L.

That day, March 13, a woman came to pick up my kids. I was given only five minutes to say goodbye before J.S.P.L. and D.A.P.L. were torn from me. My babies started crying when they found out we were going to be separated. It breaks my heart to remember my youngest wail, “Why do I have to leave? Mami, I want to stay with you!” … In tears myself, I asked my boys to be brave, and I promised we would be together again soon. I begged the woman who took my children to keep them together so they could at least have each other. She promised she would, and she left with my boys. … I am particularly worried about my older son J.S.P.L. who was not doing well back in El Salvador after he saw MS gang members beat me and threaten me. He did not even want to leave my side to go to the restroom. … Both of my sons need their mother. I do not know if they are eating, sleeping, or even going to the restroom.

Testimony of Mirian:

The U.S. immigration officers then told me that they were taking my [18-month old] son from me. They said he would be going to one place and I would be going to another. I asked why the officers were separating my son from me. They did not provide any reason. … The immigration officers made me walk out with my son to a government vehicle and place my son in a car seat in the vehicle. My son was crying as I put him in the seat. I did not even have a chance to comfort my son, because the officers slammed the door shut as soon as he was in his seat. I was crying too. I cry even now when I think about that moment when the border officers took my son away.

Nielsen has said the government is acting as expeditiously as possible in such cases. “It’s not our intent to separate people one day longer than is necessary to prove that there is in fact a custodial relationship,” she told NPR last month. These affidavits call that claim into question.

Gelernt added that he has never seen anything this dramatic in his many years of working on immigration cases and doesn’t believe the public outrage has been nearly commensurate with the actions taking place.

“I just feel like the debate has become so abstract,” Gelernt told me. “If any policymaker could sit in that room for a day and watch these kids begging and screaming not to be taken away, I don’t know how they could continue this practice.” He says he fears the general population is already forgetting about the stakes of this case: “Roseanne will make another comment and the kids will be sitting there for another eight months, and no one will remember them.”

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Join the New Due Process Army. Fight the Trump/GOP Immigration Abomination!

PWS

06-04-18

LEGAL ANALYSIS YOU CAN USE FROM JASON DZUBOW AT THE ASYLUMIST: “INTERNATIONAL GOLD STANDARD” TO ANTI-ASYLUM SCREED – The Disturbing Fall Of U.S. State Department Country Reports & Why Advocates Must 1) Disabuse Courts Of The View That They Are Reliable; & 2) Develop & Present Objective Alternatives

http://www.asylumist.com/2018/05/02/disingenuous-state-department-report-seeks-to-block-refugee-women/

Disingenuous State Department Report Seeks to Block Refugee Women

by JASON DZUBOW on MAY 2, 2018

The 2017 State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices is out, and the news is not good. The Report makes clear that the Department of State (“DOS”) has joined our government’s effort to block asylum seekers by any means necessary–including undermining their claims by lying about conditions in the home countries.

A lie is a lie, no matter how many times they try to tell you otherwise.

Let’s start with a bit about the Report itself. Each year, the State Department issues a human rights report for every country in the world. Information in the Report is gleaned from U.S. diplomats “in country,” and from other sources. The U.S. government uses the Reports in various ways, including to help evaluate asylum cases. So when a Report indicates that country conditions are safe, it becomes more difficult for asylum seekers to succeed with their claims.

There have always been issues with these Reports. From the point of view of advocates like me, the Reports sometimes minimize a country’s human rights problems. When that happens, we can submit other evidence–NGO reports, expert witness reports, news articles–to show that our clients face danger despite the optimistic picture painted by the DOS Report. But the fact is, whatever other evidence we submit, the DOS Report carries a lot of weight. It’s certainly not impossible to win an asylum case where the Report is not supportive, but it is more difficult. I imagine that’s doubly true for pro se asylum applicants, who might not be aware of the Report, and might not submit country condition information to overcome it.

That’s why this year’s DOS Report is so disappointing, especially with regards to certain populations. The group I am concerned with today is female asylum seekers from the Northern Triangle (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras). Countries in the Northern Triangle are very dangerous for women. As a result, many women from this region have come to the United States in search of protection.

Over the past two decades, the U.S. government has grudgingly recognized that some such women meet the definition of refugee. But even so, it is still very difficult for most such women–especially if they are unrepresented–to navigate the convoluted path to asylum.

The Trump Administration is working on several fronts to make it even more difficult for women from the Northern Triangle to obtain asylum. For one thing, the Attorney General seems to be reconsidering precedential case law that has cracked open the door for female asylum seekers. He is also moving to charge some “illegal border crossers” with crimes (though it is legal to seek asylum at a port of entry). And now, the 2017 DOS Report is undercutting the factual basis for such claims by whitewashing the dangerous conditions faced by women in Central America.

Just looking at some basic statistics, it’s obvious that something is up. The below chart compares the number of words in the “Women” portions of the 2016 and 2017 DOS Reports for Northern Triangle countries. In each case, the length of the Women’s section has been dramatically reduced:

Country 2016 Report 2017 Report % Reduction

El Salvador 1364 423 69%

Guatemala 1212 283 77%

Honduras 1235 365 70%

As you can see, the “Women” sections of the 2017 Reports are more than 2/3 shorter than in the 2016 Reports. But numbers alone tell only part of the story. Let’s look at some of what the DOS has eliminated from the 2017 Report in the sub-section called “Rape and Domestic Violence” (and, by the way, DOS has entirely eliminated the portion of the Report devoted to “Reproductive Rights,” but that’s a story for another day). The Report for Honduras is typical, and so we’ll use that as an example.

The 2017 Report for Honduras states:

The law criminalizes all forms of rape of men or women, including spousal rape. The government considers rape a crime of public concern, and the state prosecutes rapists even if victims do not press charges. The penalties for rape range from three to nine years’ imprisonment, and the courts enforced these penalties.

Sounds pretty good, aye? The government of Honduras seems to be prosecuting rapists, including spouse-rapists, and the penalties for rape are significant. But here are a few lines from the 2016 Report that didn’t make it into the most recent version:

Violence against women and impunity for perpetrators continued to be a serious problem…. Rape was a serious and pervasive societal problem. The law criminalizes all forms of rape, including spousal rape. The government considers rape a crime of public concern, and the state prosecutes rapists even if victims do not press charges. Prosecutors treat accusations of spousal rape somewhat differently, however, and evaluate such charges on a case-by-case basis…. Violence between domestic and intimate partners continued to be widespread…. In March 2015 the UN special rapporteur on violence against women expressed concern that most women in the country remained marginalized, discriminated against, and at high risk of being subjected to human rights violations, including violence and violations of their sexual and reproductive rights….

So basically what we have is this: The 2017 Report is not a human rights report at all. Rather, it is a report on the state of the law in Honduras. Of course, when the law is not enforced and persecutors enjoy impunity (as indicated in the 2016 Report), laws on the books are not so relevant (and it’s really quite a bit worse than what I’ve indicated here, since the 2016 Report already minimized the violent environment in Honduras–for this reason, in our cases, we often rely on the more honest U.S. Travel Advisory and the OSAC Crime & Safety Report, both created by DOS for U.S. citizens traveling abroad).

How this new Report will impact asylum seekers, we don’t yet know. At a minimum, people will need to supplement their applications with evidence to overcome the rosy picture painted by the DOS Report, and for those asylum seekers who are unable to obtain such evidence, the likelihood of a successful outcome is further reduced.

I’ve said this before, and I will say it again here: What bother’s me most about the Trump Administration’s efforts to block asylum seekers is not that they are making it more difficult to obtain protection–they were elected on a restrictionist platform and they are doing what they said they would do. What bother’s me most is the blatant dishonesty of this Administration, and now of the State Department. If you want to reject female asylum seekers, reject them honestly. Don’t pretend that they are economic migrants and that you are returning them to safe places. At least have the decency to tell them–and the American people–that you are returning them to countries where they face extreme danger and death.

Frankly, there’s nothing too surprising about the new DOS Report. President Trump has made his views on refugees and on women quite clear. But what’s so sad is that the Report represents further evidence that the Administration’s lies have infected yet another esteemed government institution. Not only is this Report bad for asylum seekers, it’s bad for the State Department, which is now complicit in the Administration’s mendacity. Indeed, I can’t help but think that the fate of these asylum seekers is inextricably tied to the fate of the DOS, and the new Report doesn’t bode well for either of them.

Special thanks to Attorney Joanna Gaughan for the idea for this piece. Ms. Gaughan works for the Farrell Law Group in Raleigh, NC. Her practice focuses largely on asylum cases, and she can be reached at joanna.m.gaughan@gmail.com.

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The outright lies, distortions, intentional misuse of statistics, and knowingly false narratives from Trump, Sessions, Nielsen, Miller and the rest of the White Nationalist crowd is all part of the “de-humanization effort.”

Truth be told, the two previous Administrations returned refugees and others entitled to protection to countries where they were in danger. This Administration has ramped up the deadly, illegal, and inhumane program. De-humanization is just part of the effort to mask the full scope of their human rights violations. Not that Trump supporters care too much about human rights, Constitutional rights, or indeed anybody’s rights except their own (which are by no means safe from Trump if he turns on them, as he is wont to do — just ask Jeff “Gonzo Apocalyoto” Sessions or Steve Bannon). Selfish Government for selfish people.

But, the key message here is that the advocacy community needs to inform courts about the biases of the Country Reports and present viable alternatives!

PWS

06–03-18

UNFORTUNATELY, AMERICA HAS A LONG HORRIBLE HISTORY OF INFLICTING CHILD ABUSE ON FAMILIES OF COLOR: Don’t Kid Yourself, That’s Exactly The Ugliness Of Our Past That Trump, Sessions, Nielsen, Miller & Their Restrictionist Apologists/Enablers Are Recreating Today! – The Only Real Issue Is How Many Of Us Will Be Complicit In Their Ugliness?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/05/31/barbaric-americas-cruel-history-of-separating-children-from-their-parents/?utm_term=.90aaf24758e8

DaNeen Brown writes for the Washington Post:

A mother unleashed a piercing scream as her baby was ripped from her arms during a slave auction. Even as a lash cut her back, she refused to put her baby down and climb atop an auction block.

The woman pleaded for God’s mercy, Henry Bibb, a former slave, recalled in an 1849 narrative that is part of “The Weeping Time” exhibit at the Smithsonian’s Museum of African American History and Culture, which documents the tragic history of children being separated from their parents during slavery. “But the child was torn from the arms of its mother amid the most heart-rending shrieks from the mother and child on the one hand, and the bitter oaths and cruel lashes from the tyrants on the other.”

Her mother was sold to the highest bidder.

Enslaved mothers and fathers lived with the constant fear that they or their children might be sold away.

“Night and day, you could hear men and women screaming … ma, pa, sister or brother … taken without any warning,” Susan Hamilton, another witness to a slave auction, recalled in a 1938 interview. “People was always dying from a broken heart.”

The Trump administration’s current crackdown on families that cross the border illegally has led to hundreds of children, some as young as 18 months, being separated from their parents. The parents are being sent to federal jails to face criminal prosecution while their children are being placed in shelters operated by the Department of Health and Human Services. Often, the children have no idea where their parents are or when they will see them again.

[Trump’s ‘zero tolerance’ at the border is causing child shelters to fill up fast]

The policy has generated outrage among Democrats and immigration advocates. And it has conjured memories of some of the ugliest chapters in American history.

“Official US policy,” tweeted the African American Research Collaborative over the weekend. “Until 1865, rip African American children from their parents. From 1870s to 1970s, rip Native American children from their parents. Now, rip children of immigrants and refugees from their parents.”

Henry Fernandez, co-founder of the collaborative and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, said he drafted the tweet based on his research into several periods in U.S. history when government officials sanctioned the separation of children from their parents, including during slavery.

[Missouri v. Celia, a Slave: She killed the white master raping her, then claimed self-defense]

Another period of family cruelty, Fernandez said, began in the late 1800s and lasted well into the 1970s, when indigenous children across the country were forcibly separated from their families and sent to “Indian schools.” At the boarding schools, the children were required to assimilate. They were stripped of their language and culture. Often they were physically and sometimes sexually abused.

“In each case, we look back at the programs as barbaric,” Fernandez said. “History will similarly consider the Trump administration’s ripping children from their parents as an unconscionably evil government action.”

According to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, beginning in the late 1800s, thousands of American Indian children were sent to government-run or church-run boarding schools.

“Families were often forced to send their children to these schools, where they were forbidden to speak their Native languages,” according to the museum.

The exhibit includes a quote from Richard Henry Pratt, founder of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School: “In Indian civilization I am a Baptist,” Pratt wrote, “because I believe in immersing the Indian in our civilization and when we get them under, holding them there until they are thoroughly soaked.”

A teacher and students at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania in 1901. (Library of Congress)

At boarding schools, “children were forced to cut their hair and give up their traditional clothing,” according to the museum. “They had to give up their meaningful Native names and take English ones. They were not only taught to speak English, but were punished for speaking their own languages. Their own traditional religious practices were forcibly replaced with Christianity. They were taught that their cultures were inferior. Some teachers ridiculed and made fun of the students’ traditions. These lessons humiliated the students and taught them to be ashamed of being American Indian.”

“They tell us not to speak in Navajo language. You’re going to school. You’re supposed to only speak English. And it was true. They did practice that, and we got punished if you was caught speaking Navajo,” John Brown Jr., a Navajo who served in World War II as a code talker, using his Navajo language for tactical communications the Japanese could not decode, told the National Museum of the American Indian in a 2004 interview.

“When we got talking, ’cause we’re not allowed to talk our tribal language, and then me and my cousin, we get together and we talk in Indian, we always hush up when we see a teacher or faculty coming,” Charles Chibitty, a Comanche code talker, told the museum in 2004. “And then we always laughed and said, ‘I think they’re trying to make little white boys out of us.’ ”

Government Indian school on the Swinomish Reservation in La Conner, Wash., in 1907. (Library of Congress)

Until the end of the Civil War, it was common for slave owners to rip families apart by selling the children or the parents to other slave owners.

“Along with ongoing rape and the use of the whip to discipline human beings,” Fernandez said, “destroying families is one of the worst things done during slavery. The federal government maintained these evils through the fugitive slave laws and other rules which defined African Americans as property with which a slave owner could do whatever they wanted.”

Each of these U.S. policies, Fernandez said, begins with the assumption “that the idea of family is simply less important to people of color and that the people involved are less than human. To justify ripping families apart, the government must first engage in dehumanizing the targeted group, whether it is Native Americans, African Americans or immigrants from Central America fleeing murder, rape, extortion and kidnapping.”

Trump, he noted, dehumanized immigrant children by saying, “ ‘They look so innocent. They’re not innocent.’ ”

“There is no question these children are innocent,” Fernandez said, “but Trump associates them with the idea that these are not like your children and thus less than human.”

Slave narratives reveal the heart-wrenching stories of children taken from families.

According to the Maryland State Archives: “For most slave children, the separation from their parents and the siblings was the hardest aspect of being sold. Slaves went to great lengths to keep their family together, but there was often limits to what they could do.”

[Hunting down runaway slaves: The cruel ads of Andrew Jackson and ‘the master class’]

The report includes a narrative from Charles Ball, who was enslaved as a child and remembered the day he was sold away from his mother.

“My poor mother, when she saw me leaving her for the last time, ran after me, took me down from the horse, clasped me in her arms, and wept loudly and bitterly over me,” Ball recalled. “My master seemed to pity her and endeavored to soothe her distress by telling her that he would be a good master to me, and that I should not want anything.”

Still, his mother would not let go. She walked beside the horse, begging the slave owner to buy her and the rest of her children.

“But whilst thus entreating him to save her and her family,” Ball recalled, “the slave-driver, who had first bought her, came running in pursuit of her with a raw hide in his hand. When he overtook us, he told her he was her master now and ordered her to give that little Negro to its owner and come back with him. My mother then turned to him and cried, ‘Oh, master, do not take me from my child!’ Without making any reply, he gave her two or three heavy blows on the shoulders with his raw hide, snatched me from her arms, handed me to my master, and seizing her by one arm, dragged her back towards the place of sale.”

After the end of the Civil War, thousands of former slaves looked for lost relatives and children who had been sold away from their families. They placed thousands of ads in newspapers.

Mary Bailey searches for her children, Nancy, Ben, Polly, Tempa and Isham Bailey. The ad ran in the Daily Dispatch newspaper in Richmond on Nov. 24, 1866.

Those ads are now being digitized in a project called “Last Seen: Finding Family After Slavery,” which is run by Villanova University’s graduate history program in collaboration with Philadelphia’s Mother Bethel AME Church.

[‘My mother was sold from me’: After slavery, the desperate search for loved ones in ‘last seen ads’]

The ads started appearing about 1863. By 1865, when the Civil War ended, they were coming out in streams, thousands of “Information Wanted” notices in black-owned newspapers across the country, seeking any help to find loved ones.

Mothers looked for their children; children looked for their mothers; fathers placed ads for lost sons; sisters looked for sisters; husbands sought their wives; wives tried to find their husbands.

The ads often gave detailed physical descriptions of the missing, names of former slave owners, locations where family members were last seen, and sometimes maps, tracing how many times they were sold from one owner to the next until they were so far from family members all they had to cling to were sketchy memories.

Elizabeth Williams, who had been sold twice since she last saw her children, placed a heart-wrenching ad in the Christian Recorder newspaper in Philadelphia:

“INFORMATION WANTED by a mother concerning her children,” Williams wrote March 17, 1866.

In four column inches, the mother summed up her life, hoping the details would help her find the children. She listed their names — Lydia, William, Allen and Parker — and explained in a few words that she last saw them when they were “formerly owned together” by a man named John Petty, who lived about six miles from Woodbury, Tenn.

She explained how her family was split apart when she was sold again and taken farther south into captivity.

“She has never seen the above-named children since,” the ad said. “Any information given concerning them, however, will be gratefully received by one whose love for her children survives the bitterness and hardships of many long years spent in slavery.”

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

Resist the toxic, inhumane, immoral, and illegal immigration policies of Trump, Sessions, Nielsen, Miller, and the rest of their White Nationalist Gang. “Just say no” to the “Make America Grotesque Again” Mob. Join the New Due Process Army and stand up for the Constitutional rights of everyone in America, regardless of color, creed, or status!

PWS

06-02-18

LAW YOU CAN USE: ALL-STAR PROFESSOR LINDSAY MUIR HARRIS TELLS US HOW TO STOP THE TRUMP, SESSIONS, NIELSEN PLAN FOR A “NEW AMERICAN GULAG:” “CONTEMPORARY FAMILY DETENTION AND LEGAL ADVOCACY” — 136 Harvard Latinx Law Review Vol. 21 — “This is our time to act and proudly join the brigade of “dirty immigration lawyers” to ensure protection and due process for the most vulnerable!”

FULL ARTICLE:

SSRN-id3179506

ABSTRACT:

Abstract

This essay explores the contemporary practice of detaining immigrant women and children — the vast majority of whom are fleeing violence in their home countries and seeking protection in the United States — and the response by a diverse coalition of legal advocates. In spite of heroic advocacy, both within and outside the detention centers from the courts to the media to the White House, family detention continues. By charting the evolution of family detention from the time the Obama Administration resurrected the practice in 2014 and responsive advocacy efforts, this essay maps the multiple levels at which sustained advocacy is needed to stem crises in legal representation and ultimately end family detention.

Due to a perfect storm of indigent detainees without a right to appointed counsel, remote detention centers, and under-resourced nonprofits, legal representation within immigration detention centers is scarce. While the Obama Administration largely ended the practice of family detention in 2009, the same administration started detaining immigrant families en masse just five years later. In response to the rise in numbers of child migrants seeking protection in the United States arriving both with and without their parents, and with the purported aim of deterring future flows, the Obama administration reinstituted the policy of detaining families. The Ad- ministration calls these detention centers “family residential centers,” while advocates use the term “baby jail.”

The response from the advocate community was swift and overwhelming. Lawyers and law students from all over the country traveled to the detention centers, in remote areas of New Mexico and later Texas, to meet the urgent need for representation of these asylum-seeking families. This essay calls for continued engagement by attorneys throughout the nation in filling the justice gap and providing representation to these asylum-seeking families and other detained immigrants.

The crisis in representation for detained immigrants is deepening. Given the success of intensive representation at the family detention centers discussed in this article, advocates are beginning to experiment with the same models in other locations. For example, at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, the Southern Poverty Law Center, in conjunction with four other organizations, launched the Southeast Immigrant Freedom Initiative in 2017. This initiative enlists and trains lawyers to provide free legal representation to immigrants detained in the Southeast who are facing deportation proceedings. The American Immigration Lawyers Association and the American Immigration Council have partnered to create the Immigration Justice Campaign, where pro bono attorneys are trained and mentored when providing representation to detained immigrants in typically underserved locations. Given the expansion of the volunteer model of providing legal services to detained immigrants, opportunities will continue to arise for lawyers, law students, and others to engage in crisis lawyering and advocacy. This article provides the background to understand the government’s practice of detaining families, to the extent that it can be understood, and to emphasize a continuing need for legal services for this population.

The introduction explains the population of asylum seekers and the law and procedure governing their arrival, detention, and release into the United States. The essay then traces the evolution of the U.S. government’s most recent experiment in detaining families from the summer of 2014 to present. The next part outlines the access to counsel crisis for immigrant mothers and children in detention and highlights the difference that representation makes. The article concludes with a call to action to attorneys and non-attorney volunteers nationwide to commit and re-commit to providing services to detained immigrant families and individuals.

MY FAVORITE QUOTE:

We are in an era of incredible need for immigration legal services. That need is most acute within detention centers located outside of major metro- politan areas, including within the family detention centers.

Ultimately, neither the Trump nor the Obama administration can claim to have won or be “winning” with the policy of family detention. The vast majority of women and children still receive a positive result during their credible fear interviews, because they are indeed individuals fleeing persecu- tion under the Refugee Convention. It is a poor use of resources, then, to continue to detain this population. Instead, tax-payer dollars, government energy, and resources, should be invested in providing representation and case management for this population to ensure that they appear in court and follow all required procedures to pursue their claims for protection.125 In the current era of intense immigration enforcement, combined with the Trump Administration’s plans to increase detention bed space and Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Session’s clear attacks on asylum-seekers,126 family de- tention is, however, likely here to stay.

In light of this reality, crowdsourcing refugee rights, as Stephen Man- ning articulates, is more important than ever.127 It is heartening to see the expansion of the model of lawyering within immigration detention centers expand to centers in Georgia and Louisiana, where asylum grant rates are dismal, conditions of detention dire, with a historical extreme lack of access to counsel. Lawyers are needed to ensure that individuals can properly ac- cess their due process rights and to help the immigration court system run more smoothly.128

Lawyers, specialized in immigration or not, must arm themselves with the knowledge and tools to join this fight. Just as non-immigration lawyers quickly rose to a call to action in January at the airports,129 lawyers must again rise, and continue rising, to provide representation for families and individuals held in immigration detention. This is our time to act and proudly join the brigade of “dirty immigration lawyers” to ensure protection and due process for the most vulnerable.

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

Lindsay is “one of the best.” We were colleagues at Georgetown Law when I was an Adjunct Professor and she held the prestigious “CALS Fellowship” working with Professors Andy Schoenholtz and Phil Schrag (of “Refugee Roulette fame”). Lindsay was a guest lecturer in my Refugee Law & Policy class, and I have since returned the favor at both George Mason Law and UDC Law where she now teaches with another of my good friends and superstars, Professor Kristina Campbell. Indeed, my friend Judge Dorothy Harbeck and I are “regulars” at their class and are in the process of planning another session this fall.

Lindsay and Kristina “talk the talk and walk the walk.” They appeared before me frequently at the Arlington Immigration Court with their clinical students. The have also gone “on site” at some of the worst immigration detention facilities in the country to help refugees in need.

In a truly unbiased, merit-based, independent, Immigration Court system (of the future) they would be ideal judges at either the trial or appellate level. They possess exactly the types of amazing scholarship, expertise and “hands on” experience representing actual individual clients before our Immigration Courts that is sorely lacking in, and in my view has largely been systematically banished from, the 21st Century immigration judiciary, to the detriment of our Immigration Courts, Due Process, and the entire American justice system. That’s one reason why our Immigration Courts are functioning so poorly in basic areas like efficiency, deliberation, quality control, and fundamental fairness!

Some important “take aways” from this article:

Contrary to Administration propaganda and false narratives, most of the recent arrivals who have lawyers are found to have credible claims for protection under our laws.
Similarly, if given fair access to competent counsel and time to prepare and present their claims in a non-coercive setting to a truly unbiased decision-maker, I believe that majority would be granted asylum, withholding of removal, or protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”).
This is the truth that Trump, Sessions, & Company don’t want revealed: most of the folks we are so cavalierly mistreating are, in fact, legitimate refugees, even under current legal rulings that have been intentionally and unfairly skewed against asylum applicants from Central America for years!
Even those who don’t currently fit the arcane legal categories for protection probably have a legitimate fear of harm or death upon return. They certainly are entitled to fully present and litigate their claims before being returned to life-threatening situations.
Finally, a better country, with better, wiser, more humane leaders, would devise ways of offering these individuals fleeing the Northern Triangle at least temporary protection, either here or in another stable country in this hemisphere, while doing something constructive to address the severe, festering, chronic human rights problems in the Northern Triangle that are sending us these refugees.
The “enforcement only” approach has failed over and over in the past and will continue to do so until we get better political leadership in the future.
In the meantime, join Lindsay, Kristina, and the other “Charter Members of the New Due Process Army” in resisting the evil, immoral, and illegal policies of the Trump Administration.
Due Process Forever! Harm to the most vulnerable among us is harm to all!

PWS

06-02-18

“DUH” OF THE DAY: Official Policies Of Child Abuse, The “New American Gulag,” & Routinely Denying Constitutional Due Process Fail To Stem Refugee Tide On Southern Border!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/illegal-border-crossings-remained-high-in-may-despite-trumps-crackdown/2018/06/01/aab543ae-65a9-11e8-a768-ed043e33f1dc_story.html?utm_term=.3943d1d60e43

Nick Miroff reports for WashPost:

The number of migrants attempting to cross illegally into the United States remained high last month, according to administration officials and Border Patrol agents, an early indication that “zero tolerance” measures separating parents from their children and President Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops have not had an immediate deterrent effect.

The Department of Homeland Security is expected to publish its closely watched monthly arrest totals in coming days, and Trump administration officials are bracing for a new eruption from the president. He has treated the statistics as a gauge for the success of his hard-line immigration policies, and when border arrests fell to historic lows in the months after his inauguration last year, Trump touted the decrease as a personal triumph.

Since then, migration trends have reversed. In March and again in April, border arrests exceeded 50,000, the highest monthly totals of Trump’s presidency, sending him into fits of rage, aides say. Trump unloaded on DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen during a Cabinet meeting May 9, scorching her for nearly 30 minutes over the spike in illegal crossings, while demanding she “close” the border.

The Trump administration is preparing to renew its push for an $18 billion border wall plan that would also tighten asylum procedures and overhaul other laws Trump officials say are encouraging illegal behavior. Trump has threatened to shut down the government this fall if Democrats don’t provide the funds.

But with midterm elections approaching and the president preparing to campaign on his border crackdown, Nielsen and other Homeland Security officials do not appear to be satisfying his strict enforcement targets. May’s arrest totals are expected to be at least as high as the previous two months, administration officials and Border Patrol agents said.

Large groups of Central American migrants have been taken into custody in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas in recent weeks, according to Border Patrol agents, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss operations. During one 24-hour span last month, 434 migrants were processed at the Border Patrol station in McAllen, agents said.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and President Trump have had a contentious relationship as illegal border crossings increase. (Patrick Martin/The Washington Post)

“The numbers have been very high,” said one agent assigned to the Rio Grande Valley, the nation’s busiest corridor for illegal migration. “It’s to the point that we have had to bring in buses to come out and load these folks up, or send four of five vans at a time.”

Another agent said so many migrants were apprehended in the Rio Grande Valley last month that many were diverted to other sections of the border for processing. The Justice Department has reassigned additional prosecutors to the border region to increase the number of migrants it charges with federal crimes, but one veteran border agent said it was “too early to tell” if the tougher enforcement measures were giving pause to migrants thinking of making the journey from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.

“It’s going to take longer for the message to get back to those countries,” the agent said.

On Friday, Homeland Security officials would not say whether the tougher enforcement measures were meeting their goals. They said the May border arrest totals were not ready for publication, and they would not confirm whether the figures have been sent to the White House.

“The bottom line is Congress needs to act and close loopholes that serve as a tremendous pull factor for illegal immigration,” said Tyler Houlton, a DHS spokesman. “The Trump administration is restoring the rule of law by increasing prosecutions of illegal border crossers.”

According to a Trump adviser, the president was warned this spring that illegal border crossings were likely to increase. Trump said at the time he would not be satisfied with any such surge and everything needed to be done to block it. That led to the decision to deploy the National Guard.

The number of illegal border crossings “is going to go higher and higher yet,” said the adviser. “You’re going to see a line that goes up all summer long.”

Trump has not been briefed on the May arrest numbers yet, two advisers said.

In a statement late Friday, Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller blamed Democrats for blocking the president’s immigration overhaul.

“The illegal migrant crisis is the exclusive product of Democrats’ shameless refusal to close catch-and-release loopholes that cartels exploit to smuggle illegal aliens into the United States at great cost in taxpayer dollars, jobs and, too often, lives,” Miller said.

Weak border enforcement remains the biggest incentive to illegal migration, according to Miller. “We must end catch-and-release by reforming our asylum laws, and establishing expedited removal, to stop the smuggling and defend the nation,” he said.

As in recent years, many of those taken into custody last month were teenagers or parents traveling with children, and the administration has triggered broad condemnation for separating more families with its push to prosecute anyone who crosses illegally.

More than 10,800 migrant children were in federal custody as of May 31, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, up 21 percent since the end of April. The agency’s shelters are 95 percent full, and HHS officials say they are preparing to add thousands of additional beds to cope with the increase.

A Border Patrol agent in South Texas said the family separation measures were not being applied as broadly as assumed. Some parents who face federal charges are apart from their children for only several hours, then released and assigned a court date, the agent said.

“To us, that’s still ‘catch-and-
release,’ ” the agent said. “People are going to continue to come.”

Arrests along the Mexican border peaked at more than 1.6 million in 2000, then fell sharply during the Obama administration. During the government’s past fiscal year that ended in September, U.S. agents made 303,916 arrests, the lowest total since 1971.

Trump’s fixation is driven, in part, by a view that border security is paramount to his most fervent supporters and that immigration is a winning issue for Republican candidates in November’s congressional elections.

“I’m very proud to say that we’re way down in the people coming across the border,” Trump said in January. “We have fewer people trying to come across, because they know it’s not going to happen.”

The arrest numbers began shooting upward soon after that, from 36,682 in February to 50,296 in March. The yearly total for 2018 is on pace to approach or exceed 400,000, a level more consistent with migration patterns of the past five years, DHS statistics show.

[Trump ‘zero tolerance’ at the border is causing child shelters to fill up fast]

During a visit Thursday to the Nogales border crossing in southern Arizona, Nielsen called the increase in illegal migration a crisis and said Homeland Security officials were working to “end this lawlessness.”

The country’s borders are being violated “by criminals, by smugglers and by thousands of people who have absolutely no respect for our laws,” she said.

“This is changing, it will change, and we will do all that we can to change this,” Nielsen added, emphasizing that the “zero-tolerance” approach announced in April will be applied as aggressively as possible.

“If you come here illegally, whether you’re single, whether you have a family, whether you’re a smuggler or whether you’re a trafficker, you’ve broken the law, so we’re prosecuting,” she said.

On Friday, Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Nielsen and Attorney General Jeff Sessions demanding information on the administration’s enforcement efforts, including the number of children who have been separated from their parents and whether there are formal procedures to reunite them.

Border arrests typically rise during spring months, when seasonal labor demands increase. Farms across the Midwest are becoming desperate for workers, with the U.S. unemployment rate at the lowest level since 2000. Lawmakers from both parties have told Nielsen that worker shortages are squeezing an array of industries in their states, and the DHS said last week that it will issue 15,000 seasonal guest-worker visas.

But border agents said much of the increase this spring seems to be driven by the same groups — families and teenagers traveling alone — who have been straining Homeland Security capacity since the 2014 crisis that left Border Patrol stations overflowing.

Photos of recent mass arrests provided by one agent show migrants of all ages walking through willow groves along the Rio Grande or lined up in federal custody along the river levees, waiting to board government buses.

Josh Dawsey contributed to this report.

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

No surprises here. “Toldja so” back when Trump unwisely declared “Victory at Sea” after a few months of reduced border apprehensions. Since Trump is proudly ignorant of history, he apparently didn’t study what happened to Bushie II after he declared “Victory in Iraq” or his “Heck of Job, Brownie” moment. Nor does he have any idea of the actual dynamics driving human migration. That’s the problem with policies driven by racism, bias, xenophobia, and White Nationalism.

Also, trying to rewrite the Constitution and international protection law, as Trump, Sessions, Miller, Cotton, and the rest of the White Nationalist Gang would dearly like to do, to deny established legal rights won’t work either. In fact, it would make things 10X worse.

The laws aren’t the problem! The problem is the people charged with implementing them.

We can diminish ourselves as a nation, (and in fact, we are diminishing under Trump) but it won’t stop human migration!

PWS

06-02-18

AS SESSIONS DISEMBOWELS DUE PROCESS, THE REAL LEGAL PROBLEMS LEADING TO UNFAIR HEARINGS FOR ASYLUM SEEKERS AND OTHERS CONTINUE UNABATED & UNADDRESSED IN U.S. IMMIGRATION COURT – 2d Cir. Delivers A “Double Shot” Rebuke To Misapplication Of Credibility Rules By Immigration Judges & BIA Judges Who Should Know Better — HONG FEI GAO V. SESSIONS

GAO-2D CIR 16-2262_16-2493_opn

Hong Fei Gao v. Sessions, 2d Cir., May 25, 2018, published

PANEL: WINTER and CHIN, Circuit Judges, and KORMAN, Judge.*

Edward R. Korman, of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, sitting by designation.

OPINION BY: JUDGE CHIN

SUMMARY OF HOLDING (From Decision):

These petitions for review heard in tandem challenge two decisions of the Board of Immigration Appeals (the ʺBIAʺ), affirming decisions by two Immigration Judges (ʺIJsʺ), denying asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (ʺCATʺ) to two petitioners seeking relief from religious persecution in China on adverse credibility grounds. During removal proceedings, petitioners testified regarding the medical attention they received for injuries they sustained from police beatings. The IJs and the BIA relied substantially on the omission of that information from petitionersʹ initial applications and supporting documents to determine that petitioners lacked credibility.

On appeal, petitioners principally challenge the agencyʹs adverse credibility determinations. In light of the totality of the circumstances and in the context of the record as a whole, in each case we conclude that the IJ and BIA erred in substantially relying on certain omissions in the record. Accordingly, we grant the petitions, vacate the decisions of the BIA, and remand the cases to the BIA for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

KEY QUOTE:

For cases filed after May 11, 2005, the effective date of the REAL ID Act, Pub L. No. 109‐13, 119 Stat. 231 (2005), ʺan IJ may rely on any inconsistency or omission in making an adverse credibility determination as long as theʹtotality of the circumstancesʹ establishes that an asylum applicant is not credible,ʺ Xiu Xia Lin, 534 F.3d at 167 (quoting 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(iii)). The agency may base a credibility finding on an asylum applicantʹs ʺdemeanor, candor, or responsivenessʺ; the ʺinherent plausibilityʺ of his account; the consistency among his written statements, oral statements, and other record evidence; and ʺany inaccuracies or falsehoods in such statements, without regard to whether an inconsistency, inaccuracy, or falsehood goes to the heart of the applicantʹs claim, or any other relevant factor.ʺ 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(iii). Even where the agency ʺrelies on discrepancies or lacunae that, if taken separately, concern matters collateral or ancillary to the claim, the cumulative effect may nevertheless be deemed consequential.ʺ Xiu Xia Lin, 534 F.3d at 167 (quoting Tu Lin v. Gonzales, 446 F.3d 395, 402 (2d Cir. 2006)). To resolve the instant appeals, we first clarify the following principles that govern credibility determinations based on omissions following the REAL ID Act.

First, although the REAL ID Act authorizes an IJ to rely on ʺanyinconsistency or omission in making an adverse credibility determination,ʺ even one ʺcollateral or ancillaryʺ to an applicantʹs claims, id. at 167, the Act does not give an IJ free rein. The REAL ID Act does not erase our obligation to assess whether the agency has provided ʺspecific, cogent reasons for the adverse credibility finding and whether those reasons bear a legitimate nexus to the finding.ʺ Id. at 166 (quoting Zhou Yun Zhang, 386 F.3d at 74); accord Shrestha v. Holder, 590 F.3d 1034, 1042 (9th Cir. 2010) (ʺThe REAL ID Act did not strip us of our ability to rely on the institutional tools that we have developed, such as the requirement that an agency provide specific and cogent reasons supporting an adverse credibility determination, to aid our review.ʺ). Thus, although IJs may rely on non‐material omissions and inconsistencies, not all omissions and inconsistencies will deserve the same weight. A trivial inconsistency or omission that has no tendency to suggest a petitioner fabricated his or her claim will not support an adverse credibility determination. See Latifi v. Gonzales, 430 F.3d 103, 105 (2d Cir. 2005) (per curiam) (remanding where we found ʺany potential discrepancies that might exist to be far from ʹsignificant and numerous,ʹ but rather insignificant and trivialʺ); accord Shrestha, 590 F.3d at 1044 (noting thatʺtrivial inconsistencies that under the total circumstances have no bearing on a petitionerʹs veracity should not form the basis of an adverse credibility determinationʺ); Kadia v. Gonzales, 501 F.3d 817, 821 (7th Cir. 2007) (faulting IJ forʺfail[ing] to distinguish between material lies, on the one hand, and innocent mistakes, trivial inconsistencies, and harmless exaggerations, on the other handʺ).3

Second, although ʺ[a] lacuna in an applicantʹs testimony or omission in a document submitted to corroborate the applicantʹs testimony . . . can serve as a proper basis for an adverse credibility determination,ʺ Xiu Xia Lin, 534 F.3d at 166 n.3, we also recognize that ʺasylum applicants are not required to list every incident of persecution on their I–589 statement,ʺ Lianping Li v. Lynch, 839 F.3d 144, 150 (2d Cir. 2016) (per curiam) (quoting Pavlova, 441 F.3d at 90); see also Secaida‐Rosales v. INS, 331 F.3d 297, 308 (2d Cir. 2003) (noting that an applicantʹsʺfailure to list in his or her initial application facts that emerge later in testimony will not automatically provide a sufficient basis for an adverse credibility findingʺ), superseded by statute on other grounds as recognized in Xiu Xia Lin, 534 F.3d at 167; accord Pop v. INS, 270 F.3d 527, 531‐32 (7th Cir. 2001) (ʺWe hesitate to find that one seeking asylum must state in his or her application every incident of persecution lest the applicant have his or her credibility questioned if the incident is later elicited in direct testimony.ʺ); Abulashvili v. Attorney Gen. of U.S., 663 F.3d 197, 206 (3d Cir. 2011). Because of this tension, although we have noted in dictum that an inconsistency and an omission are ʺfunctionally equivalentʺ for adverse credibility purposes, Xiu Xia Lin, 534 F.3d at 166 n.3, in generalʺomissions are less probative of credibility than inconsistencies created by direct contradictions in evidence and testimony,ʺ Lai v. Holder, 773 F.3d 966, 971 (9th Cir. 2014). Cf. Lianping Li, 839 F.3d at 150 (upholding adverse credibility determination where petitionerʹs ʺasylum application did not simply omit incidents of persecution. . . . [but rather] described the same incidents of persecution differentlyʺ).

An example of a trivial inconsistency that is entitled to little if any weight is the difference between Gaoʹs hearing testimony that he was interrogated by the police ʺfour timesʺ and his application statement that he was interrogated ʺseveral times.ʺ The BIA correctly held that this ʺdiscrepancyʺ did not support an adverse credibility determination. Likewise, the difference between September 1, 2010 and September 4, 2010 as the date when Shao contacted his cousin is a trivial discrepancy.

Although the federal evidentiary rules do not apply in immigration proceedings, Aslam v. Mukasey, 537 F.3d 110, 114 (2d Cir. 2008) (per curiam), it is nonetheless instructive to analogize the use of omissions in adverse credibility determinations to the use of a witnessʹs prior silence for impeachment. In the latter context, we have indicated that ʺ[w]here the belatedly recollected facts merely augment that which was originally described, the prior silence is often simply too ambiguous to have any probative force, and accordingly is not sufficiently inconsistent to be admitted for purposes of impeachment.ʺ United States v. Leonardi, 623 F.2d 746, 756 (2d Cir. 1980) (citation omitted). In addition, the probative value of a witnessʹs prior silence on particular facts depends on whether those facts are ones the witness would reasonably have been expected to disclose. See Jenkins v. Anderson, 447 U.S. 231, 239 (1980) (ʺCommon law traditionally has allowed witnesses to be impeached by their previous failure to state a fact in circumstances in which that fact naturally would have been asserted.ʺ(emphasis added)). In the immigration context, in assessing the probative value of the omission of certain facts, an IJ should consider whether those facts are ones that a credible petitioner would reasonably have been expected to disclose under the relevant circumstances.

Finally, the REAL ID Act requires IJs to evaluate each inconsistency or omission in light of the ʺtotality of the circumstances, and all relevant factors,ʺ8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(B)(iii). That requirement is consistent with our well‐established rule that review of an agencyʹs adverse credibility determination ʺis conducted on the record as a whole.ʺ Tu Lin, 446 F.3d at 402; see also Xiu Xia Lin, 534 F.3d at 167 (an applicantʹs testimony must be considered ʺin light of . . . the manner in which it hangs together with other evidenceʺ (citation omitted)); accord Shrestha, 590 F.3d at 1040 (ʺ[T]he totality of the circumstances approach also imposes the requirement that an IJ not cherry pick solely facts favoring an adverse credibility determination while ignoring facts that undermine that result.ʺ). Thus, ʺan applicantʹs testimonial discrepancies ‐‐ and, at times, even outright lies ‐‐ must be weighed in light of their significance to the total context of his or her claim of persecution.ʺ Zhong v. U.S. Depʹt of Justice, 480 F.3d 104, 127 (2d Cir. 2007). An IJ must also ʺʹengage or evaluateʹ an asylum applicantʹs explanations for apparent inconsistencies in the record.ʺ Diallo v. Gonzales, 445 F.3d 624, 629 (2d Cir. 2006) (quoting Latifi, 430 F.3d at 105); see also Cao He Lin v. U.S. Depʹt of Justice, 428 F.3d 391, 403 (2d Cir. 2005) (ʺAbsent a reasoned evaluation of [petitionerʹs] explanations, the IJʹs conclusion that his story is implausible was based on flawed reasoning and, therefore, cannot constitute substantial evidence supporting her conclusion.ʺ).

II. Application
In light of the foregoing principles, we conclude that in both cases, the IJs and the BIA erred by substantially relying on certain inconsistencies and omissions that had no tendency to show that petitioners fabricated their claims when considered in light of the totality of the circumstances and in the context of the record as a whole. Because we cannot confidently predict that the IJs would have adhered to their adverse credibility determinations absent these erroneous bases, we remand for further evaluation.

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So, while Jeff Sessions is busy with a “nuclear attack” on asylum law and Constitutional Due Process, some U.S. Immigration Judges and BIA Appellate Immigration Judges are equally busy just mis-applying well-established legal standards to screw asylum seekers.

Rather than looking at the record as a whole, as required by law, and giving asylum seekers the “benefit of the doubt,” too many Immigration Judges and BIA Judges are playing “gotcha” with the law — using minor or irrelevant variances in testimony or minor gaps in proof to justify bogus adverse credibility findings and asylum denials. Obviously, as backlogs stretch out, the problems inherent in “fly-specking” an applicant’s testimony about events many years in the past increases. That’s one of the reasons why Sessions’s insane bid to shove more properly administratively closed removal cases back onto “active dockets,” and to discourage the further removal of “low priority” cases from active dockets, is totally and intentionally destructive to an already failing court system.

The REAL ID ACT was effective in 2005, well over a decade ago. So, its proper application is not “rocket science.” It’s “Immigration Judging 101.”

Yet unfair applications of the law to wrongfully discredit and deny asylum seekers persists in the Immigration Courts and seems to breeze through at least some BIA “Panels” without critical review or analysis. I put “Panels” in quotes because all too often these days the appellate review is conducted by a “Panel of One” judge.

And since the BIA Appellate Immigration Judges now come almost exclusively from Government backgrounds, they are very likely to share some of the same “blind spots” as to the reality of presenting an affirmative asylum application in Immigration Court. If any of them have done it (and most haven’t), it was decades ago when conditions and the law were very different. They all too often draw inferences and reach conclusions that any competent immigration practitioner would know are way out of line with reality.

How are these endemic problems affecting fairness and Constitutional Due Process in the Immigration Courts, and potentially destroying and endangering lives of asylum applicants, solved by cranking up judicial productivity, trying to reverse long-standing precedents that aid asylum seekers pursuing legal protections, and making biased public anti-asylum statements? How is justice and Due Process served by gratuitously attacking immigration lawyers and disingenuously seeking to eliminate laws that provide the already meager and inadequate protections that asylum seekers now have? Yet this is precisely what Sessions’s program is!

The Immigration Court system needs reform to guarantee unbiased, high quality, fair treatment of asylum seekers and other individuals fighting for their very lives. Jeff Sessions is dedicated to the eradication of Due Process and turning the Immigration Courts into a “Death Railroad” for asylum seekers and other migrants. He must be stopped before he destroys our entire U.S. justice system — apparently his ultimate aim.

Join the New Due Process Army and stand up to Jeff Sessions and the other bullying, scofflaw, White Nationalists in the Trump Regime.

PWS

06-01-18

A DESPERATE CRY FOR HELP FROM DEEP WITHIN OUR BROKEN U.S. IMMIGRATION COURT SYSTEM: “Yesterday as I left court after an individual hearing for a 237(a)(1)(H) waiver, my client told me she felt like she was not a human being because of the way she was treated during the trial.” – JOIN THE “NEW DUE PROCESS ARMY” & STOP THE DEHUMANIZATION OF INDIVIDUALS SEEKING DUE PROCESS!

Here’s what a practicing immigration attorney has to say about what’s really happening in our broken U.S. Immigration Court system:

I was at the FBA conference in Denver and your keynote speech made me feel like someone actually understands the tragedies that are unfolding in our immigration court system, and is trying to do something about it. Each time I go into court I try to look at the system with new eyes and refreshed hope that today’s trial will be different. Each time I leave court I am reminded of how blatantly biased the judges can be, how the government attorneys are given special treatment, how our clients are badgered and treated inhumanely, and how the “dirty immigration lawyers” such as myself are treated with disdain. I know that I will be ok, but worry to the point of losing sleep over how my clients are treated. Yesterday as I left court after an individual hearing for a 237(a)(1)(H) waiver, my client told me she felt like she was not a human being because of the way she was treated during the trial. I consider myself a part of the due process army and want to know what else I can do to advocate for serious changes, including a complete overhaul, of the EOIR system. I thank you for your time and look forward to hearing from you.

Here’s my response:

You can:
1) Take cases to the Article III Courts. They still have no idea of how Due Process is being mocked every day in the Immigration Courts. They need to be forced to accept responsibility for this travesty which they have the power to end.
2) Make a record of how the IJs are ignoring facts of record and applicable law because they have prejudged cases.
3) Get out the vote for candidates who put Dreamer relief, an independent Immigration Court, and an end to unnecessary and expensive immigration detention at the top of their legislative “to do” list. (Something that the Dems conspicuously failed to do when Obama was elected in 2008).
4) Actively support candidates for state and local office who are pledged to resist the divisive and racially motivated immigration policies of this Administration to the extent possible under the law.
5) Support efforts for universal representation.

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It’s both telling and disturbing that most of us who understand the system’s failings and are committed to fixing them are now outside the system — where our voices actually can be heard, our views are taken seriously, and the truth about the national disgrace taking place in our U.S. Immigration Courts under Trump & Sessions can be spoken.

Yes, there are many conscientious, courageous, and hard-working Immigration Judges still in the system. But, they have been “muzzled, degraded, and disrespected.” Instead, those Immigration Judges who are biased against respondents, particularly asylum seekers, willing to cut corners, and oblivious to what Constitutional Due Process actually means for individuals are being empowered and encouraged by Sessions.

How is it fair or reasonable to have a so-called “court system” where conscientious attorneys like this are “losing sleep” over the unfair, degrading, and dehumanizing treatment that they are receiving at the hands of supposed Federal Judges in what purports to be a Federal Court system? Totally outrageous!

Attorneys — particularly those appearing pro bono and “low bono” — are the undisputed heroes of this system, the only ones standing between the Immigration Courts and unimaginable chaos and injustice at the hands of Jeff Sessions. Indeed, notwithstanding this reprehensible mistreatment, private attorneys are leading the battle for true judicial independence in the Immigration Courts over the objections of the DOJ and EOIR. What does that tell you about this system?

A “real” Attorney General, who took his oath of office seriously, would slow down this entire farce and direct retraining of every judge in the system in what “guaranteeing fairness and Due Process for all,” carrying out the generous standards for asylum seekers set forth by the Supreme Court in Cardoza-Fonseca, the BIA in Mogharrabi, and actually reflected in the current regulations really mean in practice!

If Due Process, asylum law, withholding law, and the CAT were properly and fairly applied, the vast majority of applicants and recent arrivals could be competently represented and granted some type of protection either by the DHS or in “short block” Immigration Court hearings. That would both fulfill the law and help reduce the backlog pressure on Immigration Courts, as well as reducing the number of needless petitions for review being filed in the Courts of Appeals to correct basic errors committed by the BIA and the Immigration Courts!

Instead, we are stuck with a “scofflaw” Attorney General who intends to establish and reinforce “worst practices.” It will take a concerted effort on the part of the New Due Process Army to halt the Trump Administration’s attack on human decency and our constitutional rights in the Immigration Court system!

Harm to the most vulnerable among us is harm to all!

PWS

05-31-18

CATHERINE RAMPELL @ WASHPOST: “Cruelty and unconstitutionality: the platform of today’s Republican Party.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/republicans-inhumanity-at-the-border-reveals-their-grand-scam/2018/05/28/b3b18d9c-62b0-11e8-a768-ed043e33f1dc_story.html?utm_term=.38485dbb9b85

Republicans’ inhumanity at the border reveals their grand scam

By Catherine Rampell

Since October, more than 700 minor children have been separated from their parents at the border. More than 100 have been under 4 years old.

Some, like an 18-month-old Honduran boy torn from his mother in February, are just toddlers.

“The immigration officers made me walk out with my son to a government vehicle and place my son in a car seat in the vehicle. My son was crying as I put him in the seat,” the boy’s mother said in a sworn statement. “I did not even have a chance to try to comfort my son, because the officers slammed the door shut as soon as he was in his seat. I was crying, too. I cry even now when I think about that moment when the border officers took my son away.”

This mom was not trying to “sneak across” the border, by the way. She had crossed an international bridge into Brownsville, Tex., and presented herself to immigration authorities to request asylum from political violence.

Instead of receiving refuge, she lost her child. It was months before they were reunited.

Such stories are enraging and shameful. They also put the lie to sacred principles that Republican politicians have long claimed to stand for, chiefly: family values and rule of law.

For decades, Republicans have championed traditional family values and having parents, rather than the state, take responsibility for their children.

This Republican administration’s inhumane treatment of helpless children — who are ripped from their mothers’ arms, detained in human warehouses and drop-kicked into “foster care or whatever” — reveals such rhetoric to have been a scam.

The Trump administration’s goal is to inflict pain upon these families. Cruelty is not an unfortunate, unintended consequence of White House immigration policy; it is the objective.

After all, if forced separations are sufficiently agonizing, fewer families will try to come here, no matter how dangerous their home countries are. Administration members have argued as much.

Last year, then-Homeland Security secretary John F. Kelly acknowledged he was considering separating children from their parents at the border “to deter” potential border-crossers. Again this month, he said “a big name of the game is deterrence.”

This vile and unpopular policy has been roundly condemned, including by prominent conservatives. So President Trump did what he always does when facing backlash for using children (remember the “dreamers” and children’s health insurance?) as a bargaining chip: Blame the Dems.

“Put pressure on the Democrats to end the horrible law that separates children from there [sic] parents once they cross the Border into the U.S.,” Trump tweeted Saturday.

Got that? Our law-and-order-obsessed president is merely enforcing an evil Democratic law!

There is, however, no statute — supported by Democrats or otherwise — that requires immigrant families to be torn apart.

The most cogent possible point Trump could have been making is one that other Republicans have made: that crossing the border unlawfully is a crime. If you prosecute every border crossing criminally — as Trump’s administration says it now does, even for asylum seekers — that means parents will go to jail.

And as Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen put it, when parents go to jail, whether for unlawful entry or another crime, that requires separating them from their children.

Which is true, to a point; prisons generally can’t house children.

But here’s the part Trump apologists neglect to mention: The government is keeping immigrant families forcibly separated even after criminal proceedings are over and the parents get released from jail.

Take the case of a Brazilian family that also crossed the border to seek asylum.

The mother, named in court documents as “Ms. C.,” was prosecuted for entering the country illegally in August 2017, a misdemeanor for which she spent 25 days in jail. Her 14-year-old son was sent to a facility in Chicago.

After she was released, she passed a “credible fear interview” and began the process of applying for asylum. She was sent first to an immigration detention center, then released to a nonprofit shelter in El Paso. This shelter is willing to take in her son.

But the government still refuses to release him. She has been out of detention for five weeks and still hasn’t been allowed to see her boy.

“What they’re really basically saying is that these people don’t have a due-process right to remain with their child,” says American Civil Liberties Union Immigrants’ Rights Project Deputy Director Lee Gelernt, who is representing Ms. C. and other asylum-seeking immigrants challenging Trump’s family separation policy. The Constitution, of course, guarantees due process for all, regardless of immigration status.

Cruelty and unconstitutionality: the platform of today’s Republican Party.

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Yup.

PWS

05-30-18

GONZO’S WORLD: Ann Telnaes: Where Cruelty, Immorality, & Intellectual Dishonesty Rule!

Opinions

The evil of separating children from their parents

By Ann Telnaes May 29 at 6:13 PMEmail the author

Just because Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that every illegal immigrant crossing the border would be prosecuted (resulting in parents being separated from their children), that doesn’t mean it’s morally defensible.

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Yup! Captures the essence of the man.

PWS

05-30-18

MASHA GESSEN IN THE NEW YORKER: THE GREAT MORAL DILEMMA OF THE TRUMP ERA: Total Resistance Or “Damage Control?” — “In our case, stepping outside the lie means refusing—stubbornly, consistently, incrementally—to lend credence to the opposite of politics, the opposite of diplomacy, and the opposite of sanity. That would require thinking, reading, and speaking critically: not treating an outburst as though it were politics, a tantrum as though it were diplomacy, and a delusion as though it were aspiration.”

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/in-the-trump-era-we-are-losing-the-ability-to-distinguish-reality-from-vacuum

Gessen writes:

The Trump Presidency is an age of unanswerable questions and lose-lose propositions. How is one to maintain sanity, decency, and a measure of moral courage? In a pair of thoughtful essays in Slate, Dahlia Lithwick tackles the problems of dealing with the everyday nature of our current political disaster and of deciding on the best way to try to save the country from Donald Trump: by staying close to him, or by walking away. The latter is a question for members of the Administration and for congressional Republicans. “This is the time,” Lithwick writes, to “think about what combination of exit and voice can make a meaningful difference if a real crisis were to happen. Or rather, when the real crisis happens—if we are not there already.”

This is not a new question. Many people will continue posing it to themselves and others with ever more frustrating results, because it cannot be answered. Is the possibility of moderating the damage done by this Administration worth sacrificing one’s moral principles? Should one protect one’s individual integrity by sacrificing the chance to moderate damage done by this Administration? We can’t possibly know. We don’t have the information necessary to evaluate these options in the short term. Did H. R. McMaster, during his tenure as Trump’s national-security adviser, prevent an unknown number of disasters? If he did, was it worth whatever psychic and intellectual price he paid? It’s likely that he himself doesn’t know. For those who have so far decided to stay, whether in the Administration or in the Republican Party, small daily sacrifices of personal integrity become part of their sunk cost in the project of staying in; these people inevitably grow more committed and less critical. The landscape keeps shifting, the stakes keep changing, and the crises keep mounting.

The overstimulation of the age of Trump, meanwhile, makes us lose track of time and whatever small sense humans normally have of themselves in history. We forget what happened a month ago. If we look away for a day, we miss news that seems momentous to others—only to be forgotten, too, in a week. Living in a shared reality with our fellow-citizens is an endless triathlon of reading, talking, and panicking. It creates the worst possible frame of mind for answering vexing moral questions, especially ones that require a choice between two desperately unsatisfying options.

Thinking morally about the Trump era requires a different temporal frame. It requires a look at the present through the prism of the future. There will come a time after Trump, and we need to consider how we will enter it. What are we going to take with us into that time—what kind of politics, language, and culture? How will we recover from years of policy (if you can call it that) being made by tweet? How will we reclaim simple and essential words? Most important, how will we restart a political conversation? Political discourse was in crisis before Trump—no wonder Americans of all stripes have become accustomed to using the words “politics” and “political” to denote substance-free transactions in the electoral arena. But, under Trump, it is nearing complete destruction.

Consider the last month’s worth of conversation about Trump and North Korea. Forgetting the President’s “little rocket man” remarks and building on months of denial that Trump had brought the world as close to the brink of nuclear annihilation as it has ever been, politicians, bureaucrats, policy wonks, and journalists have been speaking as though Trump were engaged in actual negotiations with Kim Jong Un. Some deliriously joined him in contemplating the prospect of a Nobel Peace Prize. The voices of a few experts who dared say that nothing had been accomplished yet and expressed doubt that the summit would actually occur were quickly drowned out. The ritual of analysis and anticipation that normally accrues to diplomacy was accruing instead to Trump’s flailing gestures, in the same way that the normal rituals of punditry have accrued to Trump’s tweets, harangues, and inconsistencies, all of which are the opposite of politics. On Friday, the Times’ morning podcast, “The Daily,” offered up a thoughtful analysis of Trump’s summit-cancelling missive, which was written in the language of a sulking, lovelorn seventh grader. But no sooner was the podcast posted than Trump told the media that he might hold the summit after all.

We are losing the habit, and perhaps the capability, of distinguishing reality from vacuum. This is disorienting in the present and disastrous for the future—it is the one factor that will make post-Trumpian recovery, when it comes, so difficult. We must pose a bigger question than whether Administration members or congressional Republicans should stay or go, for it’s not only Trump’s appointees or fellow party members who are implicated in the daily insults and damage to our perceptions. We should be asking what each one of us can do to assert a fact-based reality at any given time. The great French thinker and activist Simone Weil had a prescription that she wrote down in her journal in 1933: “Never react to an evil in such a way as to augment it.” A few days later, she added, “Refuse to be an accomplice. Don’t lie—don’t keep your eyes shut.”

Throughout the twentieth century, writers and thinkers who faced reality-destroying regimes kept producing similar recipes. “Live not by lies,” the Russian dissident novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote. The Czech dissident playwright and future President Václav Havel pondered the predicament of living, unquestioningly, “inside the lie”—and the uncanny power of stepping outside of it. In our case, stepping outside the lie means refusing—stubbornly, consistently, incrementally—to lend credence to the opposite of politics, the opposite of diplomacy, and the opposite of sanity. That would require thinking, reading, and speaking critically: not treating an outburst as though it were politics, a tantrum as though it were diplomacy, and a delusion as though it were aspiration. The good news is that this is not an entirely impossible task.

LA TIMES: JUDICIAL BURNOUT: Unjust Failed Laws That Congress Ignores; Morally Corrosive Policies Of The Obama & Trump Administrations; & An Overwhelming Workload Combine to Demoralize Even Article III Judges! — “I have presided over a process that destroys families!”

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=9f85955b-8f63-4c72-a322-e89f2d83b70b

Lauren Villagran reports for the

‘I have presided over a process that destroys families’

Judge can’t reconcile values and the law

Crackdown on illegal immigration takes its toll on a federal judge with an unparalleled sentencing record.

By Lauren Villagran

LAS CRUCES, N.M. — Day in, day out, immigrants shuffle into Judge Robert Brack’s courtroom, shackled at the wrist and ankle, to be sentenced for the crime of crossing the border.

The judge hands down sentences with a heavy heart. Since he joined the federal bench in 2003, Brack has sentenced some 15,000 defendants, the vast majority of them immigrants with little or no criminal record.

“See, I have presided over a process that destroys families for a long time, and I am weary of it,” said Brack one day in his chambers in Las Cruces. “And I think we as a country are better than this.”

Brack’s court in rural southern New Mexico is swollen with immigration cases, the migrants brought to his courtroom by the dozen. They exchange guilty pleas for “time served” sentences, usually not more than two months on the first or second offense. They leave his court as felons.

For years, federal authorities in this area along the New Mexico border have taken a distinctively hard-line approach to enforcing immigration law, pursuing criminal charges rather than handling cases administratively.

Essentially, authorities here have already been carrying out the “zero tolerance” policy Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions unveiled in April, when he announced that all immigrants who cross the border will be charged with a crime.

Together, the Border Patrol and U.S. attorney’s office in New Mexico bring charges against nearly every eligible adult migrant apprehended at the state’s border, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. That amounted to 4,190 prosecutions last fiscal year.

Vigorous enforcement in New Mexico is a result of ample bed space in the state’s border county jails and a fast-track system that prosecutes nonviolent migrants quickly. The state also doesn’t face the volume of illegal crossings that south Texas does, for example.

“It is an efficient process,” says U.S. Atty. John Anderson of the District of New Mexico. “That is one of the key features that allows us to implement 100% prosecutions.”

For Judge Brack, it’s a punishing routine. And it has been building for a long time. Back in 2010, the judge had been on the federal bench for seven years, his docket overloaded with immigration cases, when “at some point I just snapped,” he said.

He sat down to compose a letter to President Obama to call for a more compassionate approach to immigration, one that would keep families together and acknowledge that the demands of the labor market drive immigration:

I write today because my experience of the immigration issue, in some 8,500 cases, is consistently at odds with what the media reports and, therefore, what many believe.

I have learned why people come, how and when they come, and what their expectations are. The people that I see are, for the most part, hardworking, gentle, uneducated and completely lacking in criminal history. Just simple people looking for work.

He didn’t get a reply.

No other federal criminal court judge comes near Brack’s sentencing record.

In the five years through 2017, Brack ranked first among 680 judges nationwide for his caseload, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which tracks court data. He sentenced 6,858 offenders — 5,823 of them for felony immigration violations.

It’s a dubious honor for a man who is a devout Catholic and makes plain his moral dilemma in public hearings. He takes seriously his oath to uphold the laws of the United States. But he is a cog in a system he believes is unjust.

Johana Bencomo, director of organizing with the Las Cruces immigrant advocacy group Comunidades en Acción y Fe — Communities in Action and Faith — calls criminal prosecution of migrants “dehumanizing.”

“We’re just this rural community with some of the highest prosecution rates,” she said. “That is Brack’s legacy, no matter how you spin it.”

Advocates of stronger immigration enforcement counter that prosecutions are a crucial element of border security and have contributed to today’s historically low rates of illegal immigration.

“Criminal charges turn out to be one of the most effective tools for dissuading people from trying [to cross] again,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for tougher border enforcement.

The effects of this enforcement play out at the five-story, copper-colored federal building in Las Cruces, about 47 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. Brack’s chambers are on the top floor.

In windowless cellblocks on the bottom floor, migrants from Mexico, Central America and Brazil wait to make their initial appearance in a federal magistrate courtroom.

The same scene repeats again and again: The immigrants crowd five broad benches, the juror’s box and the swivel chairs meant for attorneys. They wear the jumpsuits of the four county jails where they are being held: a sea of orange, navy, dark green, fluorescent yellow.

They hear their rights and the charges against them. They eventually plead guilty, to benefit from New Mexico’s fast-track process. Within a month or so, they will find themselves in Brack’s court for sentencing and within days they’ll be deported.

The border used to be wide open, but now it is closed, Brack tells each migrant at sentencing. There are more Border Patrol agents than you can count. Immigration used to be handled as a civil offense, but now it is criminal: a misdemeanor on the first attempt, a felony on the second.

“Everyone gets caught and what’s worse, everyone goes to jail,” he told one migrant, a Mexican woman named Elizabeth Jimenez Rios. “That is not how it has always been, but that is how it is now.”

Their fate is sealed, but Brack still asks the public defenders to tell each migrant’s story.

Elías Beltran, an oil field worker from Mexico, with no criminal history, tried to return to his wife and two kids, U.S. citizens in eastern New Mexico. He lived there for 15 years before he was deported.

Andres Badolla Juarez, a farmworker from Mexico, wanted to pick strawberries in California to support his wife, toddler and new baby — all U.S. citizens — in Arizona. He lived in the U.S. for 16 years and got deported after an aggravated DUI. It was his fourth failed attempt to cross the border.

Rosario Bencomo Marquez, a 52-year-old maid from Mexico, with no criminal history, hoped to return to her daughter and grandchildren in Santa Fe. She lived in the U.S. for 19 years before she was deported.

Brack also sees migrants charged with drug offenses or long criminal records and is unsparing in their punishment. But they are a minority, he said.

“I get asked the question, ‘How do you continue to do this all day every day?’ I recognize the possibility that you could get hard-edged, you could get calloused, doing what I do,” he said. “I don’t. Every day it’s fresh. I can’t look a father and a husband in the eye and not feel empathy.”

Brack, 65, is the son of a railroad-worker father and homemaker mother and earned a law degree at the University of New Mexico. He served as a state judge before being named to the federal bench by President George W. Bush.

In his chambers, above a shelf stacked with books on jurisprudence, Bible study and basketball, hang framed pictures of his forefathers: men who immigrated to the U.S. from England and Prussia. Brack grew up in rural New Mexico, where immigrants — whatever their status — were viewed as “valuable co-workers,” not a threat, he said.

After that first letter to Obama in 2010, he wrote another. And another. As the nation periodically heaved toward the possibility of immigration reform, only to leave the issues — and lives of millions — unresolved, Brack continued to write letters to the White House.

He told more heart-wrenching stories about families divided. He kept it up for four years. He pleaded for a civil debate: “See what I see, hear what I hear. Be wary of the loudest, angriest voices.”

He signed each letter with prayer: “May God continue to bless all those who serve our great nation.”

He never got a response. He stopped writing.

And now, after so many grueling years and thousands more immigration cases, Brack has decided enough is enough. He takes “senior status” in July, effectively stepping aside to serve part time. President Trump will name his replacement.

Villagran writes for Searchlight New Mexico.

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Imagine what the stress levels are like for U.S. Immigration Judges! They often have pending dockets in excess of 2500 cases; are expected to “grind out” so-called “oral decisions” in “life or death” cases without time to reflect or the assistance of judicial law clerks; lack the job tenure, independence, and status of an Article III judge; operate in an out of control court system largely without rules; have been stripped of effective control of their dockets; and are constantly subjected to disingenuous attacks, “production quotas” and a “bogus blame game” by their so-called “boss” Attorney General Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions — who has a well-earned reputation for lacking any moral sensitivity or responsibility for his statements and actions, having a biased and one-sided view of the law, and being totally unqualified and incompetent to administer a major court system that is supposed to be providing Due Process for migrants.

PWS

05-27-18

THE SUPREME UGLINESS OF AMERICAN SPORTS: RACISM, TRUMPISM, EXPLOITATION, & THE NFL – Do The Players Have The Guts & Self-Confidence To Pull Together & Shut Down The Corrupt NFL Forever, If Necessary?

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/05/nfl-anthem-policy-league-sides-with-donald-trumps-campaign-against-black-political-power.html

Jamelle Bouie reports for :

It was the silence and simplicity of Colin Kaepernick’s protest against police brutality that make the response now so striking. Kaepernick’s decision to quietly take a knee during the anthem, to recognize those who still struggle for equality before the law, has caused him to be all but blacklisted from the NFL, blasted by right-wing commentators for perceived disrespect, and condemned by Republican politicians, including the president of the United States.

For Donald Trump, who ran on a platform of stoking white racial resentment, the attacks were predictable. What’s more striking is that the NFL has decided to oblige. On Wednesday, team owners voted to fine teams whose players do not stand for the anthem. Those who want to kneel can stay in the locker room during pregame ceremonies. If the league can’t persuade Kaepernick and others like him to give up their protests, then it will try to compel them into standing, or at least, hide them away from view and relieve the pressure placed by the president.

This entire spectacle—of a white, racially demagogic president demanding punishment of protesting black players—is part of a history of rebuke and outrage against black athletes who challenged American racism, like Muhammad Ali, John Carlos, and Tommie Smith. It also echoes an even older dynamic in American life: the country’s fraught relationship to black political activity. From his attacks on Barack Obama to his broadsides against Kaepernick, Donald Trump has always been on the side of those who see a threat in black advocacy and power.

Trump built his whole political brand on attacking prominent black Americans as illegitimate holders of status and influence, so Kaepernick was a natural target. To attack him—and other kneeling players—was to play the old hits, priming and harnessing the anger of those who view these vocal blacks as ungrateful and presumptuous—in other words, uppity. “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he’s fired,’ ” Trump told a sea of white supporters at a campaign-style rally in Alabama last September.

After the NFL announced its new rule, Trump voiced his support and even floated exile for players who don’t conform. “You have to stand proudly for the national anthem or you shouldn’t be playing,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News’s Brian Kilmeade. “You shouldn’t be there. Maybe you shouldn’t be in the country.”

Trump might speak the language of patriotism and respect, but what he wants is obedience. If players won’t bend their knees to his will—if they act as free citizens and not supplicants—then, by his lights, they forfeit their place in this country. The NFL has indulged the attitudes of an authoritarian, leaning further into the jingoism and militarism that it has cultivated for decades.

The president’s attacks are part of an old strategy against advocates of black equality. Explaining the backlash against black political activity in the years after Reconstruction, W.E.B Du Bois described the limits placed on blacks who wanted to survive, much less thrive: “Negroes who wanted work must not dabble in politics. Negroes who wanted to increase their income must not agitate the Negro problem. Positions of influence were only open to those Negroes who were certified as being ‘safe and sane,’ and their careers were closely scrutinized and passed upon.” When a conservative commentator like Laura Ingraham tells NBA player LeBron James to “shut up and dribble” after he criticized the president, she is reaching back to something quite old in the nation’s history.

Perhaps due to the demographics of its fan base—which skews both younger and less white than the NFL’s—the NBA has taken a different approach to both police violence and political expression. In January, Milwaukee Bucks player Sterling Brown was arrested after he was questioned for a potential parking violation. Police quickly dropped charges, and on Wednesday, the Milwaukee Police Department released body camera footage of the arrest, which shows multiple officers wrestling Brown to the ground and using a stun gun on him. Not only has Brown been outspoken about the incident, but the Bucks also released a statement in support of their colleague: “The abuse and intimidation that Sterling experienced at the hands of Milwaukee Police was shameful and inexcusable. Sterling has our full support as he shares his story and takes action to provide accountability.”

In fairness, it was just last year that the NFL had a similar response to an incident involving one of its own players. In September, after Michael Bennett was allegedly profiled and harassed by police in Las Vegas, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said Bennett, who often sat during the anthem last season, “represents the best of the NFL” and “that the issues Michael has been raising deserve serious attention from all of our leaders in every community.” Goodell went on to say the league would “support Michael and all NFL players in promoting mutual respect between law enforcement and the communities they loyally serve and fair and equal treatment under the law.” But with the president ratcheting up the pressure throughout the fall, and NFL viewership reportedly on the decline, the league appears to have changed its tune.

There is already backlash to the NFL’s new rule. New York Jets chairman Christopher Johnson told reporters that he would not discipline a player who protests and would pay the league’s fine. The NFL Players Association announced it would challenge any aspect of the policy that it found to be in violation of its collective bargaining agreement. “The vote by NFL club CEOs today contradicts the statements made to our player leadership by Commissioner Roger Goodell and the Chairman of the NFL’s Management Council John Mara about the principles, values and patriotism of our League,” it said in a statement.

This space—what players can and cannot do on the field—is still contested and the resolution is far from clear. What can be said, however, is that the NFL’s move—an attempt to satisfy the president’s demands for conformity—is a dangerous attack on political expression, even if it’s ultimately fair play in the eyes of the law.

There are real threats to free speech in this country. But the culprits aren’t college students or overzealous young activists, they are those who use wealth and power—or control of the state itself—to punish political dissenters and advocates for justice. While this abuse may begin by targeting the most unpopular groups and individuals, it’s rare in history that it stops there.

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Probably not!

But, it would be a chance for athletes to stand up for our Constitution and social justice — to do something that will fundamentally change American society as well as standing up against the Trump/GOP racist, anti-union, anti-American agenda.

Do athletes really have the ability to make a living doing something other than getting their brains disabled for the entertainment of a predominantly White “fake patriot” audience who has no respect for their rights or status as human beings and which falsely equates brainless rituals for meaningful commitment to a Constitutional society? Do “owners” who can’t play the game themselves really have the right to tell “their” players whether they can assert their First Amendment rights to political expression? Does a President who routinely violates Constitutional rights and societal norms have the right to tell private citizens how they must think and express themselves to conform to his perverted political agenda?

What about it AR? Is there life beyond the gridiron (and Danica)?

PWS

05-27-18

SPLC ON THE POLITICS OF HATE & BIGOTRY: 1) SESSIONS DISSES DUE PROCESS BY TRASHING ADMINISTRATIVE CLOSING; 2) TRUMP’S NATIVIST RHETORIC “OVERLAPS” HATE CRIMES AGAINST MINORITIES!

SPLC STATEMENT ON SESSIONS’ DECISION TO CURTAIL ‘ADMINISTRATIVE CLOSINGS’ OF IMMIGRATION COURT CASES

By Dan Werner, Senior Supervising Attorney

Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ ideologically driven decision today to bypass the immigration courts and decide himself to remove another avenue of relief for immigrants undermines due process and the rule of law.

It will add thousands more cases back into the huge backlog of the immigration courts, and will result in the imprisonment and deportation of immigrants who now have a clear path toward legal immigration status.

This decision is just further evidence of Sessions’ anti-immigrant agenda, which separates families, creates fear in communities, and punishes vulnerable people who may be fleeing violence and persecution in their home countries. Though President Trump may call them “animals” to justify his administration’s inhumane policies, these immigrants are friends, neighbors, and members of our families and communities.

With every new hate-driven policy emerging from this administration, we must rededicate ourselves to speaking out and taking action to preserve our nation’s fundamental values.

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How Trump’s nativist tweets overlap with anti-Muslim and anti-Latino hate crimes

Words matter. Heated political rhetoric, especially derogatory language toward groups of people, can create all kinds of unintended consequences, including sometimes physical violence.

When individuals of influence, including political candidates and heads of state use such words, the consequence can be especially pronounced.

In the run-up to, and since his election as President of the United States, Donald Trump’s words have attracted a lot of attention. Many commentators and activists have charged that Trump’s rhetoric has fueled hate crimes in the United States against minorities. Until recently, many individuals voicing such concerns pointed to high-profile individual cases, rather than systematic data. Now that’s changing as new research is emerging.

Hatewatch spoke with Karsten Muller and Carlo Schwarz, two researchers at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom who have been studying the impact of hate speech on social media and how that translates to hate crimes in the real world. Muller and Schwarz discuss their latest study, “Making America Hate Again? Twitter and Hate Crime Under Trump”

Their study used Twitter and FBI hate crimes data to come to a stark conclusion: hate crimes against Muslims and Latinos occurred shortly after Trump made disparaging tweets about Muslims and Latinos. Moreover these anti-Muslim and anti-Latino hate crimes were physically concentrated in parts of the country where there is high Twitter usage.

Karsten and Carlo, can you give us an overview of your research interests and your recent study on President Trump’s tweets and Muslim hate crimes?

Carlo: We are economists working in slightly different areas, but we both have an interest in what people usually call political economy. What we try to do is to apply modern quantitative methods to study political outcomes and the role of social media. In our most recent study, we find that the number of anti-Muslim hate crimes in the U.S. has increased quite markedly under Trump. We show that this increase started with the beginning of Trump’s presidential campaign and is predominately driven by U.S. counties where a large fraction of the population uses Twitter. The data also show that this increase cannot be easily explained by differences in demographics, votes for Republicans, crime rates, media consumption or other factors.

Karsten: The second thing we do in the paper is to look at the correlation between Trump’s tweets about Islam-related topics and hate crimes that target Muslims. And what we find is that this correlation is very strong after Trump had started his campaign, but basically zero before. We also find that when Trump tweets about Muslims, hate crimes increases disproportionately in those areas where many people use Twitter. It is also important to note that hate crimes against Muslims were not systematically higher in those areas during previous presidencies, so it seems unlikely we are simply capturing the fact that people in some areas dislike Muslims more than in others.

Are you claiming Trump’s tweets have caused hate crimes?

Karsten: We are very careful not to make that claim in the paper because I think it is extremely hard to tell based on our data. After all, we are not looking at a controlled laboratory experiment so there is always room for other drivers. But if you look at the results, some point in that direction, for example that Trump’s tweets are particularly correlated with future hate crimes in counties where many people use Twitter.

Carlo: A simple thing to do here is to think about what alternative stories could explain our findings. For example, one could imagine that people who Trump himself follows (such as Fox & Friends or Alex Jones) are the real driving factor. Or that people have recently become more radicalized in rural areas, or where the majority votes Republican. But a careful look at the data reveals that Twitter usage is in fact lower in counties where people tend to vote Republican and in rural areas, and we use some survey data to show that Twitter users generally prefer CNN or MSNBC over Fox News. These factors also cannot easily explain why the increase in anti-Muslim hate crimes should occur precisely with Trump’s campaign start and not before or after.

Karsten: So overall, we take our findings as suggestive of a potential connection between social media and hate crimes. But at the end of the day, readers have to make up their own minds.

What were some of the other key findings that stood out with regard to Muslims?

Karsten: What really stands out to me is just how strong the correlation of Trump’s tweets is with future anti-Muslim hate crimes. So, for example, one might be worried that Trump simply tweets about Muslims when people are generally very interested in everything related to Islam. But what we find is that Trump’s tweets are correlated with hate crimes even if we first even if we control for the effect of general attention to Islam-related topics (as measured by Google Searches). Although there are other explanations, I also found it striking that you see a spike in hate crimes against Muslims in the week of the Presidential election, but only in areas where many people use Twitter.

Carlo: Another thing I found quite interesting is that Trump’s tweets about Muslims are not correlated with other types of hate crimes. The reason this is important is because one could easily imagine that people just happen to be particularly angry at minorities in some weeks compared to others, and that Trump is just part of that. But if this was true, we would also expect there to be more hate crimes against Latinos, or LGBTQ people or African Americans, which does not seem to be the case at all. We also do not find any evidence that other types of hate crimes increased in areas with many Twitter users around Trump’s campaign start — except a small shift for anti-Latino crimes.

Your study also noticed a statistically significant association between anti-Latino tweets and hate crimes. Why do you think there has been a similar, but less robust set of results?

Karsten: When we started our study, we only had data on hate crimes until the end of 2015 — after Trump’s campaign started in June 2015, but before his election. And what you see in the data is a very strong correlation between Trump’s tweets about Latinos and subsequent anti-ethnic hate crimes starting with the beginning of his campaign until December 2015, while there is virtually no correlation before. After the 2016 data were released, we found that the effect becomes substantially weaker from around mid-2016 onwards.

Carlo: When we looked at that more closely — and we think that is consistent with the media coverage during that time as well — Trump toned down his anti-Latino rhetoric quite a lot in the run-up to the campaign. There was, for example, his tweet with a taco bowl on Cinco de Mayo 2016. If you go through Trump’s Twitter feed in the pre-election period, you will see only a handful tweets about Latinos at all during that time. And while hate crimes against Latinos remained slightly elevated in areas with many Twitter users during that time, that means the correlation with the timing of Trump’s tweets became weaker. A potential interpretation is that it is not that the results are so much weaker than those for anti-Muslim hate crime, it’s just that Trump essentially stopped tweeting negative things about Latinos.

How does this study compare and contrast with your earlier investigationinto the online activities of the far-right and nativist political party Alternative for Germany (AfD)?

Carlo: In our study on Germany, we found a very similar correlation between posts about refugees on the AfD’s Facebook page and crimes targeting refugees. We look at these two studies as complementary, even though they use somewhat different methodologies. In the German setting, we have very granular data on internet and Facebook outages that we can use as “quasi-experiments” to get at the causal effect of social media. And what we found there is that, even if you compare neighboring cities, refugees are more likely to be victims of violent attacks where many people use social media, particularly when tensions are high. Importantly, these are relative effects.

What is different for the U.S. is that we find this link between Trump’s campaign start and the increase in the absolute number of hate crimes against precisely those minorities in his verbal crosshairs (e.g. Muslims and Latinos), making the link by using Trump’s tweets. and FBI hate crimes dataset. By using the FBI hate crimes statistics, it also allow us to compare the recent change in hate crimes to those under presidents since 1990s.

For civically conscious users of the internet, what are the most important takeaways and implications from your research?

Carlo: On one hand, our goal is to suggest that politicians should not ignore social media, because the correlation with real-life hate crimes seems to be pretty strong. We think that this discussion should be taken seriously. On the other hand, we want to caution against any attempts at censorship. Some countries have an outright ban on certain social media platforms, and these states are usually not known for their open political discourse and freedom of speech. The challenge is to come up with solutions that can help protect citizens from violent extremists without imposing drastic limits on freedom of expression. In the end, the people who actually commit hate crimes are the ones we have to hold accountable.

Karsten: I want to give a somewhat different perspective here. Many people talk about a potential “dark side” of social media, but the number of studies that have actually looked at this issue with data is surprisingly small. One of the most important takeaways for me is that as a society we should be spending more time and resources to support researchers working on this area. It is clearly something that many people care about, and it matters tremendously for policymakers as well.

What do you plan to do next in your research?

Karsten: We think a big open question is to come up with more concrete ways of measuring whether “echo chambers” on social media really exist, and how they differ from echo chambers in other domains. If social media is indeed different, the question is what can be done to get people to consider information from outside of their bubble. Our data for Germany in particular will hopefully also allow us to show how exactly online hate on Facebook is transmitted in practice.

Illustration credit: zixia/Alamy Photo

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Trump is certainly the wrong man for the job at this point in our history.

PWS

05-26-18

Country	2016 Report	2017 Report	% Reduction
El Salvador	1364	423	69%
Guatemala	1212	283	77%
Honduras	1235	365	70%

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