Category: Public Charge

THE LATEST FROM HON. JEFFREY S. CHASE:  Rethinking Chevron In The Era Of Weaponized Immigration Courts Acting As Adjuncts Of DHS Enforcement, & Further Adventures Of The Round Table!

Jeffrey S. Chase
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog
jeffreyschase.com
In the present climate, immigration lawyers must continue to present judges with creative, intelligent arguments; to present the public with proof of what is wrong with the current system; and to present those in power to change what is wrong with solutions.

I’ve added posts that address each these points. First, I discuss some recent articles in which scholars raise creative legal arguments as to the limits of Chevron deference in appeals to the federal courts. I have also posted a statement of our Round Table of Former Immigration Judges to the House Judiciary Committee, Immigration and Citizenship subcommittee that was made part of the record of its hearing last Wednesday on solutions to the present crisis in the immigration courts.

I have also posted the group statement of our Round Table on the one-year anniversary of the MPP, or “Remain in Mexico” policy that was drafted by former Immigration Judge Ilyce Shugall, who has volunteered her time to travel to Texas to observe MPP hearings that is meant to raise awareness of the need to end this awful program.
SUN, FEB 02

Rethinking Chevron?

The powers of the Attorney General and the Board of Immigration Appeals to influence law by issuing binding precedent decisions is greatly enhanced by what is known as Chevron deference.  The principl
Read More
TUE, JAN 28

Statement to the House Judiciary Committee on Immigration Court Reform

On Wednesday, January 29 at 9:30 am, the House Judiciary Committee, Immigration and Citizenship Subcommittee is holding a hearing entitled “Courts in Crisis:  The State of Judicial Independence and
Read More
TUE, JAN 28

Statement on the One Year Anniversary of the MPP Program

January 28, 2020

The Round Table of Former Immigration Judges is comprised of former immigration judges who are dedicated to due process in the immigration system.  As former immigration judges, we
Read More
jeffreyschase.com, 500 4th Ave., Brooklyn, NY, USA

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Another article that ties in well with a critical re-examination of Chevron in immigration cases is Tess Hellgren’s recent wonderful short article: “Faced with the Trump Administration’s weaponization of the immigration courts against asylum-seeking individuals, the role of the federal courts is more important than ever.” I recently republished it here: https://immigrationcourtside.com/2020/02/01/tess-hellgren-innovation-law-lab-when-it-comes-to-the-captive-bia-weaponized-immigration-courts-the-article-iiis-need-to-put-away-the-rubber-stamp-restore-integrity-to-the-law-fac/

As we see the results of the regime’s Article III-enabled and encouraged nativist, racist policies like an expanded “Travel Ban” that now includes a large portion of Africa, new non-legislative restrictions on legal immigration, unmitigated expansion of the deadly “New American Gulag,” intentional mistreatment of children, and the continuing abrogation of both Due Process and our binding obligations to protect refugees at our Southern Border and elsewhere, Tess’s last sentence is particularly prophetic:

As the Attorney General and other executive officials attempt to expand their authority to define the terms of immigration adjudication, federal courts should heed the Seventh Circuit’s decision – and remember the foundational legal principle that “[i]t is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.”

So far, the Supremes and the Circuits have largely “vacated the province and shirked their duties” to the nation and our laws by shrinking and cowering in the face of the regime’s continuing lawlessness, bullying, bias, and tyranny. Indeed, the Supremes have shown a disturbing favoritism to unjustified requests by Trump’s Solicitor General to short-circuit the litigation system and the rules that bind all others. 

Not since the Eisenhower Administration’s “Operation Wetback” (obviously one of the regime’s “models” of lawless disregard for human and legal rights, not to mention basic morality) has our national Government shown such overt racism and contempt for migrants of color. Yet, rather than standing tall and delivering a united, powerful, intellectually courageous defense of our Constitution, the “GOP Gang of Five Supremes” backed the dehumanization and demonization of migrants on racial and religious grounds for transparent and invidious political reasons in the “Travel Ban case.” They basically invited and then approved a demonstrably false and “bad faith” national defense “pretext” which the Administration has “jumped on” to justify other attacks on the rule of law.  

Now the “ban” has remarkably, but predictably, been extended to a large part of Africa, including its largest economy, Nigeria. Hardly a whimper as Trump disembowels both Constitutional norms and human decency. What’s next on the agenda, Supremes, a bogus Executive ban on all non-White, non-Christian immigration? Who’d be surprised at this point?

Of course, with “constitutional de-personification” well under way with Article III approval, the next targets will be US citizens of color and others who “dare to differ” like the LGBTQ community, women, political opponents, journalists, lawyers, and, finally, judges themselves once their usefulness to Trump and his authoritarian regime is exhausted. The all-powerful, unrestrained, “unitary Executive” has no need of legislature, judiciary, or the people except to “ratify” their authoritarian abuses.

The failure to defend and reinforce the courageous legal community challenging the regime’s authoritarian overreach and the pathetically weak defense of the integrity of judicial colleagues who have tried to hold the regime accountable by Roberts has done nothing  but confirm and reinforce Trump’s pre-existing  belief that courts are “his” tools and judges “his toadies.”

America deserves better from its life-tenured judiciary! What’s the purpose of a supposedly independent life-tenured judiciary that sides with powerful, dishonest, lawless, bullies over the rights of individuals and is unwilling to stand up for the rights and human dignity of the most vulnerable among us?

PWS

02-04-20

Related posts:

  1. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  2. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 
  3. COURTSIDE HAS BEEN AT THE FOREFRONT OF EXPOSING THE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” COMMITTED BY THE REGIME AND THE MORAL CULPABILITY OF THOSE WHO WILLFULLY CARRY OUT & ENABLE THESE ATROCITIES — The “Mainstream Media” Is Now Channeling Courtside! — “In the meantime, no government has the right to treat people with such abject inhumanity. History will remember Trump for this, but it will also remember the people who enable such atrocious acts.”
  4. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”

SUPREMES TANK AGAIN  —  “J.R. Five” Disses Rule Of Law & Lower Courts By “Greenlighting” Regime’s Attack On Legal Immigrants & Their Families, As Four Justices Dissent!

Robert Barnes
Robert Barnes
Supreme Court Reporter
Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-allows-trump-administration-to-proceed-with-immigration-rules/2020/01/27/6adb9688-412c-11ea-aa6a-083d01b3ed18_story.html

 By

Robert Barnes

Jan. 27, 2020 at 1:27 p.m. EST

The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to begin implementing new rules making it easier to deny immigrants residency or admission to the country because they have or might use public-assistance programs.

The court lifted a nationwide injunction imposed by a district judge in New York. That means the administration can begin applying the new standards, which challengers say would place a burden on poor immigrants, while legal challenges continue.

All four of the court’s liberal justices disagreed with the action.

The rules establish new criteria for who can be considered to be dependent on the U.S. government for benefits — “public charges,” in the words of the law — and thus ineligible for green cards and a path to U.S. citizenship. They were proposed in October but have never been implemented.

According to the new policy, immigrants who are in the United States legally and use public benefits — such as Medicaid, food stamps or housing assistance — or have at one time used public benefits, or are deemed likely to someday rely on public benefits would be suspect. The new criteria provide “positive” and “negative” factors for immigration officials to weigh as they decide on green-card applications. Negative factors include whether a person is unemployed, dropped out of high school or is not fluent in English.

Opponents of the rule argue that punishing legal immigrants who need financial help endangers the health and safety of immigrant families — including U.S. citizen children — and will foist potentially millions of dollars in emergency health care and other costs onto local and state governments, businesses, hospitals and food banks.

Federal officials say the rule ensures that immigrants can cover their own expenses in the United States without burdening taxpayers for food, housing and other costs. U.S. officials note that the change is not retroactive and exempts refugees and asylees who fled persecution for safety in the United States.

The only thing standing in the way of implementing the new regulations was the nationwide injunction imposed by U.S. District Judge George B. Daniels.

Daniels sided with challengers who said the changes upend 130 years of how the “public charge” definition has been interpreted. Generally, it was used to cover an individual “ who is or is likely to become primarily and permanently dependent on the government for subsistence.”

Daniels declared the proposed change would be “repugnant to the American Dream of the opportunity for prosperity and success through hard work and upward mobility.”

Several judges imposed injunctions such as Daniels’s, but two courts of appeals — the 9th and the 4th — overturned them. Solicitor General Noel Francisco noted in his brief to the Supreme Court that the 9th circuit “held that the rule ‘easily’ qualified as a permissible interpretation of the Immigration and Nationality Act.”

The administration said the ruling by Daniels, and a decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit not to stay it, means that “decisions by multiple courts of appeals have been rendered effectively meaningless within their own territorial jurisdictions because of a single district court’s nationwide injunctions, starkly illustrate the problems that such injunctions pose.”

Challengers, led by the state of New York in this case, said the new rule “is a stark departure from a more-than-century-long consensus,” and the status quo should remain until the legal challenges are decided.

Allowing the new rules, New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a brief to the court, would inject “confusion and uncertainty into immigration … and deter potentially millions of noncitizens residing in plaintiffs’ jurisdictions from accessing public benefits that they are legally entitled to obtain.”

Abigail Hauslohner and Maria Sachetti contributed.

 

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Probably not too surprising to anyone who has studied this gang’s lack of understanding of our immigration system and lack of sympathy for human rights. Interestingly, Justices Gorsuch and Thomas used this a forum to further dump on the rights of immigrants by launching a right-wing attack on the use of nationwide injunctions, one of the few effective tools that immigrants have to defend their legal rights. They would, apparently, require immigrants and their often pro bono attorneys to litigate and win their cases in every jurisdiction in the federal system to get effective relief from the regime’s scofflaw actions.

Encouraged by the complicit Supremes, we’ll undoubtedly see new extremes of contempt for the rule of law and human lives by the regime. No amount of legal gobbledygook will disguise the truth of what’s going on here.

 

PWS

 

01-27-20

 

Related posts:

  1. WHEN ARTICLE III COURTS FAIL: U.S. “Orbits” Refugee Families To Dangerous Chaos In Guatemala Under Clearly Fraudulent “Safe Third Country” Arrangements As Feckless U.S. Courts Fail To Enforce Constitutional Due Process & U.S. Asylum Laws In Face Of Trump Regime’s Contemptuous Scofflaw Conduct!
  2. 🤡CLOWN CAPITOL:  J.R. PRESIDES OVER GOP CLOWN SHOW HE HELPED CREATE — Empowering The Koch Bros, Suppressing Minority Votes, Enabling GOP Gerrymandering, Ignoring Invidious Racial & Religious Motives, Turning A Blind Eye To Lies & Pretexts, It All Contributed To The Arrogant Display Of GOP Dishonesty & Impunity Now On Public Display In The Senate! — Plus Bonus Friday Mini-Essay: “Profiles in Fecklessness”
  3. EUGENE ROBINSON @ WASHPOST: KID KILLERS ON THE LOOSE: “Sixteen-year-old Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez died horribly and needlessly. The Trump administration’s policy of deliberate, punishing cruelty toward Latin American migrants killed him.”
  4. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 

FINALLY, AN APPEALS COURT WITH SOME GUTS: 2D CIRCUIT STANDS UP TO REGIME ON “PUBLIC CHARGE” INJUNCTION!

 

https://apple.news/AxXENbYxMRByBiI8k3J3MQQ

DEEPTI HAJELA
Deepti Hajela
Reporter
Associated Press, NY

DEEPTI HAJELA, reports for AP:

 

Appeals court keeps block of Trump immigration rule in place

A federal appeals court in New York on Wednesday rejected a motion from the Trump administration that would have allowed it to implement a policy connecting the use of public benefits with whether immigrants could become permanent residents.

The ruling from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the administration’s motion to lift a temporary national injunction that had been issued by a New York district court in October after lawsuits had been filed against the new policy.

The new rule would potentially deny green cards to immigrants over their use of public benefits including Medicaid, food stamps and housing vouchers, as well as other factors.

The New York injunction was one of several that were issued around the time the rule had been scheduled to go into effect in October.

But a regional injunction issued in California and another national injunction issued in Washington have already been lifted by other federal appeals courts. That left New York’s as the only nationwide bar to the Trump administration putting the new rule into practice. An injunction in Illinois also is in effect, but applies only to that state.

The three-judge panel of the 2nd Circuit had heard arguments over the motion to lift the injunction on Tuesday.

Judges questioned the government’s attorney on the timing — why the injunction needed to be lifted at this point when the lawsuit itself would be heard by a judge in coming months.

Immigrants applying for permanent residency must show they wouldn’t be public charges, or burdens to the country.

The new policy significantly expands what factors would be considered to make that determination, and if it is decided that immigrants could potentially become public charges at any point in the future, that legal residency could be denied.

Roughly 544,000 people apply for green cards annually. According to the government, 382,000 are in categories that would make them subject to the new review.

Immigrants make up a small portion of those getting public benefits, since many are ineligible to get them because of their immigration status.

 

 

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Compare this with recent decisions by the 9th and 4th circuits that “rolled over and caved” to the regime’s disingenuous arguments that there was a pressing public interest in lifting the injunction. https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/12/10/complicit-court-update-4th-circuit-joins-9th-in-tanking-for-trump-on-public-charge-rule-judges-harvie-wilkinson-paul-niemeyer-go-belly-up-for-trump-while-judge-pame/;https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/12/06/complicit-9th-circuit-judges-continue-to-coddle-trump-this-time-legal-immigrants-are-the-victims-of-trumps-judicially-enabled-white-nationalist-agenda-judges-jay-bybee-sandra-i/.

The individual impact of these new policies could potentially be devastating to immigrants and their families: however, the overall public financial impact of throwing up new bars to permanent immigration would be minuscule, as pointed out in this article. The lack of any real emergency reason for exempting the Government from going through the full litigation process at the District Court level (where preliminary injunctions had been issued), as others must, was noted by dissenting judges in both circuits that “rolled” for Trump.

 

PWS

01-08-20

Related posts:

  1. EUGENE ROBINSON @ WASHPOST: KID KILLERS ON THE LOOSE: “Sixteen-year-old Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez died horribly and needlessly. The Trump administration’s policy of deliberate, punishing cruelty toward Latin American migrants killed him.”
  2. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 
  3. REGIME’S NEWEST SCHEME TO SCREW ASYLUM SEEKERS: BOGUS REGS THAT WOULD ILLEGALLY & UNNECESSARILY EXTEND THE GROUNDS OF “MANDATORY DENIAL,” DECREASE ADJUDICATOR DISCRETION, & SHAFT REFUGEE FAMILIES — Regime’s Outlandish “Efficiency Rationale” Fails to Mask Their Cruelty, Racism, Fraud, Waste, & Abuse – Julia Edwards Ainsley (NBC News) & Dean Kevin R. Johnson (ImmigrationProf Blog) Report
  4. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 

COMPLICIT COURT UPDATE: 4th CIRCUIT JOINS 9th IN “TANKING FOR TRUMP” ON PUBLIC CHARGE RULE – Judges Harvie Wilkinson & Paul Niemeyer Go “Belly Up” For Trump, While Judge Pamela Harris Stands Up For The Rule Of Law –- Complicit Federal Judges continue to advance & enable Trump’s White Nationalist agenda by “working against our collective national interest.”

Scott Martelle
Scott Martelle
Opinion Writer
LA Times

 

https://apple.news/AEvdsXcjDQJ6o7WK_NGgpYg

 

Scott Martelle writes in the LA Times:

 

Opinion: Court decisions are falling Trump’s way on a bad immigration policy

Just because two of three pending appeals have gone Trump’s way, that doesn’t mean his ‘public charge’ rule for immigrants is good policy.

Two down, one to go.

Federal judges in three separate circuits issued injunctions — two nationwide, one limited to the 9th Circuit — against President Trump’s pending “public charge” rule, which would make immigrants ineligible for green cards if they sign up for certain public benefits.

On Monday, the 4 Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., joined fellow jurists in the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in lifting injunctions after the federal government persuaded them that it likely had the legal authority to adopt the new restrictions.

That leaves the 2 Circuit Court of Appeals, which is mulling an appeal of a nationwide injunction issued in October by a district court in New York City, as the last barrier.

The lower court decisions hinged on complaints by immigrant advocates and several state attorneys general (including California) that the government violated the federal Administrative Procedure Act by adopting an “arbitrary and capricious” policy that exceeded its authority under immigration law. But two appellate courts now say the government likely had the authority to do what it did.

Even if that is true, that doesn’t make the new rule good policy. Much like the government’s effort to require potential immigrants to prove they could cover anticipated healthcare costs (that also has been held up in the courts), the public charge rule is clearly aimed at reducing the number of poor people admitted to the country and increasing the ranks of the wealthy.

You know, fewer people from those infamous “shithole countries” in Africa, South American and the Caribbean, and more from wealthier nations in Europe, such as Trump expressed favorite, Norway (good luck with that, as my colleague Paul Thornton once pointed out).

In typical fashion, the White House used the Monday decision as a point of attack.

“The 4th Circuit’s lifting of the lawless nationwide injunction imposed against the administration’s public charge immigration regulation is a major step forward for the rule of law,” the White House said. “It is our hope that the 2nd Circuit will, like the 9th and 4th Circuits have already done, lift the meritless nationwide injunction a New York district court has imposed against the rule so that it can be enforced, consistent with the plain letter of the law, for the benefit of all citizens and lawful residents of this country.”

But the “public charge” rule is not a benefit to all. It makes life tougher for people who have already immigrated and who are hoping to be joined by their families — allowed under decades of U.S. policy — and it counters our national economic interest.

As The Times editorial board wrote in September when the proposed rule surfaced:

“The government estimates that the new regulations would negatively affect 382,000 people, but advocates say that is likely an undercount. And the rules would keep people from coming to the country who economists say are vital for the nation’s future economic growth. President Trump’s xenophobic view of the world stands in sharp contradiction not only to American values, but to the nation’s history. We are a country of immigrants or descendants of immigrants, and as a maturing society we will rely more and more on immigration for economic growth. Research shows that even those who start out in low-wage jobs, and thus are likely to get some financial help from the government, often, over time, learn or improve skills that move them into higher income brackets and help the overall economy.”

So in the administration’s efforts to reduce immigration of all stripes, it continues to push policies that appease Trump’s narrowing base while working against our collective national interest.

 

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Wonder who’s going to stand up for the legal rights of anti-democracy judges like Wilkinson and Niemeyer once Trump and his White Nationalists no longer need the courts? Would their immigrant ancestors have passed Trump’s nativist tests?

 

My full commentary on the similarly complicit ruling of the Ninth Circuit is here:http://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/12/06/complicit-9th-circuit-judges-continue-to-coddle-trump-this-time-legal-immigrants-are-the-victims-of-trumps-judicially-enabled-white-nationalist-agenda-judges-jay-bybee-sandra-i/

 

 

Constantly Confront Complicit Courts 4 Change!

Due Process Forever! Complicit Judges Never!

 

PWS

 

12-10-19

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Related posts:

  1. EUGENE ROBINSON @ WASHPOST: KID KILLERS ON THE LOOSE: “Sixteen-year-old Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez died horribly and needlessly. The Trump administration’s policy of deliberate, punishing cruelty toward Latin American migrants killed him.”
  2. WHEN ARTICLE III COURTS FAIL: U.S. “Orbits” Refugee Families To Dangerous Chaos In Guatemala Under Clearly Fraudulent “Safe Third Country” Arrangements As Feckless U.S. Courts Fail To Enforce Constitutional Due Process & U.S. Asylum Laws In Face Of Trump Regime’s Contemptuous Scofflaw Conduct!
  3. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  4. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”

COMPLICIT 9TH CIRCUIT JUDGES CONTINUE TO CODDLE TRUMP — This Time Legal Immigrants Are The Victims Of Trump’s Judicially-Enabled White Nationalist Agenda — Judges Jay Bybee & Sandra Ikuta Tank, While Judge John Owens Files a Feeble Dissent!

https://apple.news/AJHrFUWorRIyFv_yLCkI5Aw

Priscilla Alvarez
CNN Digital Expansion 2019, Priscilla Alvarez
Politics Reporter, CNN

Priscilla Alvarez reports for CNN:

Trump nabs win on rule that could reshape legal immigration, but hold remains in place

Updated 12:17 PM EST December 6, 2019
Washington

A federal appeals court ruled in favor of the Trump administration on a rule that makes it more difficult for immigrants who rely on government assistance to obtain legal status to take effect.

But the decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals doesn’t have an immediate practical effect because the policy is still on hold due to nationwide rulings in two separate federal courts.

In August, the administration unveiled its regulation broadening the definition of “public charge,” a provision that dates back at least to the Immigration Act of 1882. The rule introduced by the Trump administration affects people who receive most forms of Medicaid, food stamps and housing vouchers. It was immediately met with pushback from advocates and several states who argued that the changes would penalize immigrants who rely on temporary assistance from the government and impose costs on the states.

While the majority of the three-judge panel recognized many of these arguments, they also found that the administration would likely succeed in its argument that it has the legal authority to define what makes someone a public charge. 

In a 2-1 decision, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay on rulings that have blocked the so-called “public charge” rule from taking effect. The panel has jurisdiction over nine western states. Legal challenges in other parts of the country continue to halt the rule from being implemented.

The ruling was a rare victory for the President, who has repeatedly railed against the Ninth Circuit.

“We find that the history of the use of ‘public charge’ in federal immigration law demonstrates that ‘public charge’ does not have a fixed, unambiguous meaning,” wrote Judge Jay Bybee. “Rather, the phrase is subject to multiple interpretations, it in fact has been interpreted differently, and the Executive Branch has been afforded the discretion to interpret it.”

Judge John Owens dissented in part because of the “lack of irreparable harm to the government at this early stage.”

The White House lauded the Ninth Circuit’s ruling in a statement Friday, but noted the obstacles the rule still faces before it can be implemented.

“Unfortunately, as a practical matter, the ruling has accomplished nothing to vindicate the rule of law due to the destructive practice of individual district judges taking over national policy issues by issuing nationwide injunctions,” White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement. “Such subversions of the rule of law must come to an end.”

The 73-page majority ruling recounted the history of the rule and noted that Congress didn’t define the regulation, thereby leaving it “subject to multiple interpretations.”

Bybee, however, also recognized the difficulty of the issues at hand, writing separately that “we as a nation are engaged in titanic struggles over the future of immigration in the United States.” He also appeared to take aim at administration officials, including the President, who have accused courts of making decisions based on policy preferences, as well as Congress for lack of legislative action.

“My first point is that even as we are embroiled in these controversies, no one should mistake our judgments for our policy preferences” he wrote, adding: “In the immigration context, whatever dialogue we have been having with the administration over its policies, we are a poor conversant.”

Judges Bybee and Sandra Ikuta were appointed by George W. Bush while Owens was appointed by Barack Obama.

© 2019 Cable News Network, Inc. A WarnerMedia Company. All Rights Reserved.

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

Judge Jay Bybee’s majority opinion reads like something written by White Nationalist Stephen Miller: Judges should never, ever, think of the clear and logical consequences of their actions, nor should they worry themselves about an Administration with a clearly invidious racially motivated agenda of dismembering the Constitution.

And, gosh, the world might come to an end if the Executive were actually forced to act in a reasonable manner, consistent with the facts: This regulation would do far more harm than good and has, even without implementation, already been responsible for the spread of disease and immigrants not getting available health services, sometimes for U.S. citizen family members, because of the fear and confusion that Trump has intentionally sown in ethnic communities. Just because we make the services legally available, doesn’t mean we will allow you to use them if you are an immigrant. This is the kind of nonsense that Bybee promotes in his decision.

Bybee also seems totally indifferent to the simple fact that every time Article III Judges “tank” on their legal and Constitutional responsibilities, actual innocent human beings suffer, and even die, at the hands of Trump, Miller, and the rest of their bullying and cowardly White Nationalist “wrecking crew.” Inaction, particularly in the face of tyranny, can have just as grave consequences as action.

Bybee’s brain-dead colleague Judge Sandra Ikuta joined his blathering subservience to Trump’s White Nationalist mission.

Bybee even wrote separately to absolve himself of any moral responsibility for his complicity and to finger the “real culprit” here, a feckless Congress. The latter point is correct. But, according to Bybee, in the face of a Congress that has abdicated its Constitutional responsibilities, life-tenured Article III Judges also get to ignore theirs. The last thing that should be expected of the life-tenured is any “heaving lifting” or courage in the face of tyranny! Nope, they are there to “go along to get along.”

After all, while most of us have no difficulty recognizing the undisguised ethnic and racial basis for the Trump regime’s anti-immigrant agenda, and while many U.S. District Judges, and even some Immigration Judges and Asylum Officers, are able to figure it out, such level of awareness is completely beyond Court of Appeals Judges. Nor, can they be expected to discern that a regulatory proposal adopted over the objections of most of the 266,077 commenters is likely to be based on something other than reasonable, responsible, fact-based policy making: Like, perhaps racial and ethnic biases or arbitrariness that violate our Constitution. Not to mention that the policy also makes little sense from a socio-economic standpoint.

This is an Administration whose proclivity to present “pretextual reasons” to cover their tracks for improper and illegal motives has been recognized all the way up to the Supreme Court in the “Census Case.” And, while ideally policy-making should be informed by “Executive Expertise,” that clearly isn’t the case with immigration under the Trump Regime. Trump’s utter disdain, disrespect, and disregard for Executive Branch civil servants with expertise and a fact-based approach to policy making is well-established.

But, of course, all of this is too deep for Article III Judges like Bybee and Ituka to be expected to grasp. Better to just turn the other way, put on blinders, ignore the Constitution and the rule of law, and let the abuse of immigrants continue unabated. Leave the “tough stuff” to others. 

But, just whom might those “others” be who will eventually put an end to this anti-Constitutional, and ultimately anti-American, rampage of Executive overreach? An interesting question when you consider that those courageous lawyers and U.S. District Judges trying to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law in the face of Trump’s onslaught have too often been “dissed,” ignored, and undercut by Bybee and his complicit colleagues.

Did our “Founding Fathers” really intend to empower a despotic Executive to act freely against individuals without without any realistic restraints? If the Trump Administration is what they aspired to, then why didn’t just stick with good old K. George III? If, on the other hand, the Trump Administration is, in fact, “Our Founders’ Worst Nightmare,” as most informed (e.g., other than GOP toadies, Fox News, and other extremest media) observers have concluded, why are the Article III Appellate Courts too gutless to say so and stand up for our  rights?

Got to wonder who is going to stand up for the rights of Judges like Bybee and Ituka, and even Owens, when Trump, Miller, and the rest of the regime come for them?

The case is City and County of San Francisco v. USCIS, and you can read it at the link in Priscilla’s article.

Sadly, Due Process and Fundamental Fairness don’t seem to have any “friends in high places” these days. Ultimately, that’s going to be a problem for our nation even if the Bybees and Itukas of the world are too blind and self-interested in preserving their ivory tower sinecures to recognize it and act accordingly!

Due Process Forever! Complicit Courts Never!

PWS

12-06-19

Related posts:

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  2. EUGENE ROBINSON @ WASHPOST: KID KILLERS ON THE LOOSE: “Sixteen-year-old Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez died horribly and needlessly. The Trump administration’s policy of deliberate, punishing cruelty toward Latin American migrants killed him.”
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CATHERINE RAMPELL @ WASHPOST: “Twofer” — Trump Combines Assault On Healthcare With Attack On Legal Immigrants!

Catherine Rampell
Catherine Rampell
Opinion Columnist
Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-found-a-way-to-simultaneously-sabotage-our-health-care-and-immigration-systems/2019/10/07/6fb734dc-e943-11e9-9306-47cb0324fd44_story.html

President Trump sabotaged the health-care system. Separately, he’s sabotaged the immigration system.

And now, in a presidential twofer, on Friday night the administration found a way to sabotage both simultaneously.

Unable to repeal Obamacare, the Trump administration has worked to make it less functional and more expensive. It has done this by zeroing out the individual mandate, expanding the availability of cheap but worthless junk insurance and curtailing the annual open-enrollment period, among other actions.

The cumulative effect of these policies has been to reduce the share of people who have (real, non-junk) insurance; those still motivated to seek comprehensive insurance tend to be sicker and more expensive to cover. The predictable result? Premiums hundreds of dollars higher than they would otherwise be, according to estimates from health-care analyst Charles Gaba.

 

And, unsurprisingly, those who don’t qualify for the subsidies that shield enrollees from these price hikes are dropping out of the individual market altogether because they can’t afford the insurance.

But no worries. For years, administration officials and fellow Republican lawmakers have argued this is merely an expansion of a fundamental American freedom — the freedom to go uninsured.

Simultaneously, of course, the administration has also been undermining our legal immigration system. Emphasis on “legal” here: For all of Trump’s vitriol for undocumented immigrants, he’s also been targeting people who are trying to come to this country lawfully.

Among the creative, non-legislative ways the administration has sabotaged the legal immigration system: huge and arbitrary delays in visa and citizenship application processing; cruel and inhumane treatment of families seeking asylum; reductions in the refugee admissions cap to its lowest level on record; and, of course, the travel ban placed on several majority-Muslim countries.

And then there are all of the policies intended to penalize legal immigrants whom the Trump administration claims are a financial burden.

To be clear: Immigrants are in fact a net fiscal boon to the United States, according to a  report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, and their children are “among the strongest economic and fiscal contributors in the U.S. population.” But Trump and his aides are convinced that immigrants are, and will forever be, a drain on society.

Or, as Trump’s acting U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services director Ken Cuccinelli  put it: “Give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet.”

Cuccinelli was talking about a new administration rule — currently being challenged in eight lawsuits — that makes it harder for immigrants to receive green cards if they have ever used or might someday need safety-net benefits such as food stamps or Medicaid. But it’s actually one of several policies the administration has devised to drive down immigration numbers under the guise of fiscal prudence.

The latest such development was rolled out Friday night. This new policy, issued via presidential proclamation, bars issuance of visas to immigrants unless they can prove they will obtain health insurance within 30 days of their arrival in the United States, or otherwise demonstrate that they can pay medical expenses out of pocket.

That’s right, the Trump administration has brought back the individual mandate, but for immigrants only — the GOP’s supposed commitment to “freedom” notwithstanding. The Migration Policy Institute estimates the change could end up excluding about two-thirds of future immigrants.

The new policy is vague about how would-be immigrants would even be able to prove they meet the new requirement. Maybe they’d need to somehow buy insurance before they leave their home countries, while still waiting in that interminable visa queue; maybe not.

What’s more, if they get subsidized insurance through the individual exchanges, Trump’s proclamation says it won’t count. This is yet another way the administration is sabotaging Obamacare, which explicitly allows immigrants to purchase subsidized exchange insurance. It also places low- and moderate-income immigrants in an impossible position, since they’re now stuck buying insurance at the sticker prices that the Trump administration has helped jack up through its earlier rounds of Obamacare sabotage.

Under the proclamation, immigrants could instead buy junk insurance. But, as the administration also surely knows, these Trumpcare plans cover almost nothing. So forcing immigrants to buy such policies seems unlikely to shield taxpayers (or hospitals) from immigrants’ emergency medical costs — which is allegedly the goal here.

Of course there is also a fundamental tension between arguing that uninsured immigrants impose huge costs on the country but uninsured native-born Americans don’t cost anyone anything. But no one said consistency was this administration’s strong suit — aside from its consistent desire to find new ways to destroy as many institutions as possible.

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

Yup! Catherine nails the GOP’s disingenuous approach to almost everything. But, perhaps there are unifying principles of the GOP: hate, dehumanization, cruelty, selfishness, intolerance, intellectual dishonesty, and short-sightedness.

Of course the requirements of the new “policy” are “vague.” That’s because the intent is not to have immigrants get insurance coverage before they come. The real intent is to keep them from coming at all even though they meet all of the legal requirements. It’s just another aspect of the Trump GOP’s racist, extralegal assault on all migrants, legal and undocumented. The next time you hear one of his GOP or bureaucratic sycophants disingenuously claim that they are “in favor of legal immigration, just not unlawful migration” call out “BS” at the top of your voice!

Catherine’s column “connecting the dots” supports my own observation that the Trump GOP’s attack on migrants is just a “placeholder” for attacks on the majority of Americans who don’t fit the GOP’s toxic White Nationalist agenda.

PWS

10-09-19

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  4. 😰👹👺🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️🤮“DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN” — Nicole Narea @ Vox With A Glimpse Of Trump’s Second Term: American Apocalypse — Dark, Ugly, Hateful, Violent, Dishonest, Exclusionary, Stupid, Racist, Diminished, Yet Very White & Privileged — Are People Of Color & Their Allies Really Going To Stand By & Watch While Their Past & Our Future As A Strong, Creative, Tolerant, Diverse, Humane Nation Is Written Out Of History By A Racist GOP & Its Totally Wacko Yet Dangerously Evil Cult Leader?

NICOLE NAREA @ VOX NEWS: Trump Brings Ignominious End To Six Decades Of U.S. Global Leadership On Refugees – Functionally Ends One Of America’s Most Successful, Beneficial, & Enriching Programs!

Nicole Narea
Nicole Narea
Immigration Reporter
Vox.com

https://apple.news/AIdY3RXXGRp2vAq_TNEIM1w

 

Trump’s cuts to the refugee program signal the end of an era.

By Nicole Narea | October 1, 2019 7:30 am

 

The United States’ refugee program once served as a global model of how a powerful country should support the world’s most vulnerable people. But under President Donald Trump, America is now accepting fewer refugees than ever, signaling that not even they are immune to the president’s restrictionist immigration policies.

On Thursday, the administration announced that the US will accept 18,000 refugees at most over the next year, the fewest in history and down from a cap of 110,000 just two years ago. A new executive order from Trump will allow state and local authorities to block refugees from settling in their areas.

The Trump administration claims that lowering refugee admissions would allow the US to take in more asylum seekers: people fleeing violence and persecution who apply for protection when they are already in the US, unlike refugees, who are processed by international organizations.

But the administration is also doing everything it can to keep asylum seekers out of the US. Migrants can be returned to Mexico to await decisions on their asylum applications, barred from obtaining asylum if they passed through another country before arriving in the US, or sent back to the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras to seek protections there.

During his campaign, Trump painted refugees fleeing the Syrian civil war as national security threats. In office, his administration hasn’t distinguished among asylum-seekers, refugees, and other migrants. It’s painted them all as a threat to or drain on American society and has crafted policies that try to keep as many people out of the US as possible.

The Trump administration is setting up the admission of refugees and asylum seekers as a “zero-sum game.” But in reality, it’s just trying to block immigration across the board, said Elizabeth Foydel, deputy police director at the International Refugee Assistance Project.

The US has the capacity to take in both more refugees and more asylum seekers. But the Trump administration is sending a message: The US is no longer the same safe haven it once was. The policies are in line with acting US Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Ken Cuccinelli’s amendment to Emma Lazarus’s famous poem on the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet.”

During the campaign, Trump helped stoke anti-refugee sentiment

The refugee program has historically flourished under Republican presidents. Even in previous Republican administrations seeking to curtail immigration, no one has ever set the cap on refugee admissions as low as Trump has. Former President George W. Bush briefly cut the number of refugees admitted after the 9/11 attacks, but even then the limit was set at 70,000.

But the bipartisan consensus on maintaining a robust refugee resettlement program began to unravel after the Paris terror attacks in late 2015, said Yael Schacher, senior US advocate for Refugees International, when suicide bombers — reportedly sanctioned by the Islamic State — killed 130 civilians in explosions and mass shootings throughout the city.

There was speculation that one of the attackers was a refugee, one of 5.6 million Syrians who have been displaced since 2011 by the still-ongoing civil war. It was later confirmed that all of the perpetrators were citizens of the European Union. But the rumors were enough to spark a panic about Syrian refugees and start a movement among governors, mostly Republicans, to cut back US admissions of Syrian refugees and resettlement efforts more broadly.

Governors from 31 states, all Republican but for New Hampshire’s Maggie Hassan, said they no longer wanted their state to take in Syrian refugees. In 2016, Mike Pence, then governor of Indiana, also tried to prevent refugee resettlement agencies in his state from getting reimbursed for the cost of providing social services to Syrian refugees.

But states didn’t have the legal authority to simply refuse refugees; that’s the prerogative of the federal government. Pence ultimately had to back down after a federal court ruled against his decision to withhold the reimbursements.

Trump, then campaigning for president, stirred up more fear, suggesting that Syrian refugees were raising an army to launch an attack on the US and promising that all of them would be “going back” if he won the election. He said that he would tell Syrian children to their faces that they could not come to the US, speculating that they could be a “Trojan horse.”

“Military tactics are very interesting,” Trump said. “This could be one of the great tactical ploys of all time. A 200,000-man army, maybe. Or if they sent 50,000 or 80,000 or 100,000 … That could be possible. I don’t know that it is, but it could be possible.”

When Trump eventually took office, he delivered on his promise to slash refugee admissions from Syria, suspending refugee admissions altogether from January to October 2017. From October 2017 to October 2018, the US admitted only 62.

State leaders lined up behind him: The Tennessee legislature, for instance, filed a lawsuit in March 2017 claiming that the federal government was infringing on states’ rights by forcing them to take in refugees (a court challenge that also failed).

Trump’s executive order Thursday may vindicate the states that wanted to turn refugees away. (The International Refugee Assistance Project said it is contemplating challenging the order in court.) Under the executive order, local governments that do not have the resources to support refugees in becoming “self-sufficient and free from long-term dependence on public assistance” will be able to turn them away.

It’s not clear how it will play out in practice. States won’t just be able to refuse refugees from certain nations, such as Syria, Stephen Yale-Loehr, a professor at Cornell Law, said. Immigration law provides that state and local governments must provide aid “without regard to race, religion, nationality, sex or political opinion.”

But it could prove complicated when states and municipalities disagree over whether to accept refugees. It’s possible that states will be able to override local governments. Take, for example, cities like Dallas, which has historically taken in many refugees but is located in Texas, which has previously sought to prohibit them.

The executive order would also create inconsistent refugee policies across the country, making it next to impossible for the federal government to properly plan for refugee settlement, Schacher said.

“We are one nation,” she said. “The idea that governors can direct where refugees can first resettle not only undermines federalism but divides us on a policy which is fundamentally a national one.”

Trump’s refugee policy reflects his broader attitude toward immigrants

The Center of Immigration Studies (CIS), which advocates for lowering immigration levels overall, has influenced many of the Trump administration’s restrictive immigration policies. The refugee cap is no exception.

The organization has gained influence in the Trump era, with some of its former researchers assuming senior positions in the administration. CIS threw support behind the movement to block Syrian refugees in 2016, casting doubt on whether the United Nations’ refugee office could actually vet them for security threats before they arrive in the US.

The organization has also claimed that the current system allows the federal government to impose too much financial burden on states to carry out refugee resettlement. And it has called into question why the US should dedicate resources to resettling refugees rather than focusing on the southern border.

Trump’s most recent refugee policy moves are “long overdue,” in particular his executive order allowing states the opportunity to refuse refugees, CIS senior researcher Nayla Rush writes.

“Refugees are not just parachuted into a void,” she said. “Positive reception and orientation are, therefore, necessary for a successful integration.”

It all fits in with one of the broader ideas guiding Trump’s immigration policy: that immigrants “exploit public assistance” without offering the US anything in return, Foydel said.

In the same vein, the Trump administration has published a rule, set to go into effect October 15, that would allow the Department of Homeland Security to weigh certain immigrants’ use of Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Section 8 housing assistance, and federally subsidized housing against them in their applications for green cards or visas. The rule will primarily affect a small proportion of family-based green card applicants, but immigrants are already disenrolling from public benefits out of fear that they will be penalized.

Trump has justified it as a means of ensuring that immigrants are “financially self-sufficient” and to “protect benefits for American citizens.”

“I am tired of seeing our taxpayer paying for people to come into the country and immediately go onto welfare and various other things,” Trump said when announcing the rule. “So I think we’re doing it right.”

Foydel said that Trump is trying to abdicate federal responsibility for the most vulnerable immigrants, forcing states that already serve as immigrant “sanctuaries” to step up. He threatened to release detained immigrants into sanctuary cities in April, and Thursday’s executive order also requires states that agree to receive refugees to publish their “consent letters” publicly, which some have questioned as a means of politically targeting immigrant-friendly areas.

“The positions of different states might be politicized and used to foment anti-refugee sentiment,” Schacher said.

It’s a mischaracterization to say that immigrants take advantage of welfare programs, Foydel said.

In her experience, refugees have no desire to be on public assistance for any longer than necessary and start working as soon as they can. She also pointed to research that refugees end up contributing more in taxes than what it costs to resettle them: on average, $21,000 among refugees who entered the US as adults between 2010 and 2014, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.

“I think that there are a number of policies we’ve seen that have this language of economic self-sufficiency,” Foydel said. “It’s part of a false narrative about refugees and also immigrants more broadly exploiting public assistance when the data says it’s not true.”

 

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

Trump‘s cowardly attacks upon the world’s most vulnerable, aided and abetted by morally corrupt GOP policitos, and “masterminded” by neo-Nazi advisor Stephen Miller (taxpayers are actually supporting this evil clown — talk about abuse of public assistance!), ends what had been one of our most important and long-lasting bipartisan policy successes.

 

And, since much of the expertise and hard work that made the program so successful were contributed by NGOs and (real, not Trumpian) religious organizations, those programs are now being dismantled and the expertise and resources directed elsewhere. Literally decades of irreplaceable knowledge, expertise, and organizational talent has been lost almost overnight.

 

Even when a wiser, more humane, decent Administration finally wants to “restart” these critically important programs, it will be no easy task. It basically took nearly half a century to build up the current expertise. Once dissipated, it won’t be easily re-created – certainly not overnight. Obviously, there are serious, long-term consequences to allowing a kakistocracy to take over the government of our nation.

 

PWS

 

10-08-19

 

 

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TRUMP, MILLER, & “COOCH COOCH” ARE AS INTELLECTUALLY DULL AS THEY ARE RACIST — “USEFUL IDIOTS” PROVE NO MATCH FOR SMART WOMEN: CNN’S ERIN BURNETT, HUFFPOST’S SARAH RUIZ-GROSSMAN, HISTORIAN ANNIE POLLAND, & VANITY FAIR’S BESS LEVIN — No Wonder The Administration’s  Malicious Incompetents Surround Themselves With (Mostly Old White Male) Folks Who Might Be Even Dumber (But Not More Vile) Than They Are!

Erin Burnett
Erin Burnett
CNN Anchor
Erin Burnett OutFront 

Watch Erin eviscerate “Coach Cooch” — talk about debunking many of Trump’s flse narritives and blatant racist lies in one short piece:

https://apple.news/AzfXx6N_GTA-c-0HtLeBxmQ

 

Sarah Ruiz-Grossman
Sarah Ruiz- Grossman
News & Politics Reporter
Huffington Post
Annie Polland
Annie Polland
Historian & Executive Director
American Jewish Historical Society, NY

Read Sarah’s report of the mismatch, featuring American Jewish Historical Society’s Historian Annie Polland:

 

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ken-cuccinelli-statue-liberty-poem-about-europe_n_5d535ed3e4b05fa9df0671ee

 

POLITICS 

  7 hours ago

Ken Cuccinelli: Statue Of Liberty Poem About ‘People Coming From Europe’

Trump’s citizenship and immigration chief followed up his earlier comments about the famous Emma Lazarus poem with a racist clarification.

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Ken Cuccinelli, the Trump administration’s acting head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, reinforced his controversial interpretation of the inscription on the Statue of Liberty ― this time giving it a racist twist.

CNN journalist Erin Burnett was asking Cuccinelli about his earlier interview with NPR, in which he reworded the Emma Lazarus poem “The New Colossus,” saying: “Give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet, and who will not become a public charge.”

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“‘Wretched,’ ‘poor,’ refuse’ – right? That’s what the poem says America is supposed to stand for. So what do you think America stands for?” Burnett asked Cuccinelli.

“Well, of course, that poem was referring back to people coming from Europe,” Cuccinelli answered, “where they had class-based societies, where people were considered wretched if they weren’t in the right class … And it was written one year after the first federal public charge rule was written.”

It is unclear why Cuccinelli felt the need to specify the group of immigrants Lazarus was referring to. The poem itself describes the Statue of Liberty by saying, “From her beacon-hand/ Glows world-wide welcome.” USCIS did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.

Cuccinelli was on NPR defending the Trump administration’s controversial new rule effectively barring legal immigrants who are on government benefits, like food stamps and Medicaid, from becoming permanent residents.

Josh Marshall

✔@joshtpm

 

 

Lotsa folks asking for longer version of this cuccinelli clip. Here it is.

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After his remarks on NPR, HuffPost spoke to Annie Polland, a historian and director of the organization that has the original manuscript of Lazarus’ poem.

“To see how something so expressive of the country’s greatest ideals, to see how it could be so contorted or distorted, is really, I think, dismay is the only word,” said Polland, the executive director of the American Jewish Historical Society in New York, adding that she was “not surprised because we’ve been hearing these sentiments more than we have in the past.”

Lazarus originally wrote the poem in 1883 and it was added to the statue in 1903. Since then, the poem has become a symbol of the United States’ history of immigration.

Polland argued that the poem “is as much about who America or what America should be, as it is about immigrants,” adding that “in many ways, America defines itself by how it’s welcoming immigrants.”

 

Bess Levin
Bess Levin
Politics & Finance Writer
Vanity Fair

And, speaking of “evisceration,” perhaps no pundit in American does it better than Vanity Fair’s Bess Levin, who as had “Don the Cons’s “number “dialed up” from the get-go:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/08/ken-cuccinelli-statue-of-liberty

Lady Liberty

TRUMP OFFICIAL REWRITES STATUE OF LIBERTY POEM TO REFLECT TRUMP’S “NO POORS” POLICY

Ken Cuccinelli doesn’t think the whole “give me your tired, your poor” business applies anymore.

BY

BESS LEVIN

AUGUST 13, 2019

BY WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES.The base of the Statue of Liberty famously displays the words of Emma Lazarus, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” But, if Donald Trump’s top immigration official had it his way, the poem would be revised to reflect the president’s “rich immigrants only” policy.

Speaking to NPR on Tuesday, the day after the administration unveiled a new rule that will penalize green card applicants for “financial liabilities” like having a low credit score or using Medicaid, Ken Cuccinelli, acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, was asked if Lazarus’s poem, “The New Colossus,” remains “part of the American ethos.” To which Cuccinelli offered some suggested edits inspired by the executive branch’s take on who should or shouldn’t be allowed to live in the United States. “They certainly are,” Cuccinelli said. “Give me your tired and your poor—who can stand on their own two feet and who will not become a public charge.”

Aaron Rupar

✔@atrupar

 

 

Here’s acting USCIS director Ken Cuccinelli saying on NPR this morning that the Statue of Liberty plaque should be changed to read, “give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet, and who will not become a public charge.”

8,535

8:31 AM – Aug 13, 2019

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One day prior, Cuccinelli had told reporters at the White House that he was “certainly not prepared to take anything down off the Statue of Liberty,” though apparently, having slept on it, he’s now up for some kind of appendage. During his interview with NPR, Cuccinelli noted that the plaque bearing Lazarus’s words “was put on the Statue of Liberty at almost the same time as the first public charge was passed—very interesting timing.” It’s not at all clear what point he thought he was making.

WATCH NOW: 

Jon Favreau Breaks Down The Lion King’s Opening Scene

 

Despite having zero actual experience in immigration policy, Cuccinelli was hired in May thanks to previous work sponsoring bills that tried to repeal birthright citizenship and would force employees to speak English in the workplace. (Had the latter passed, we assume Cuccinelli would have proposed revising the Statue of Liberty’s poem to read, “Speak English, bitch.”) In 2013, his mother told the Washington Post that as Christians, the Cuccinellis raised their children to “care [for] the poor” and that “if someone is starving, you want to bring him a meal, not a book on how to cook,” lessons her son apparently forgot. (Speaking of his Christian values, Cuccinelli has said that homosexuality “brings nothing but self-destruction, not only physically but of their soul.”)

This isn’t the first time a member of the Trump administration has cast aspersions on the whole “give me your tired, your poor,” business. Back in 2017, Stephen Miller, the president’s chief white rage officer, told Jim Acosta that he didn’t give a shit about the poem because it “was added later and is not part of the original Statue of Liberty.”

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We are “governed” by evil racist fools. It’s up to the “The Due Process Army” and others to defend America and American ideals from these ignorant, yet existentially dangerous, White Nationalist racists!

 

PWS

08-14-19

 

 

 

 

 

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  1. 👹🎃HALLOWEEN HORROR 🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️👎🏻REICHSREPORT: GRUPPENFUHRER MILLER REVEALS “REICHSPLAN” FOR EXTERMINATION OF IMMIGRATION, ASYLUM, REFUGE BY EXECUTIVE DECREE!  — “The Final Solution??”  — Parents, Protect Your Kids, Families, & Your Country From This Grotesque Un-American Monster!
  2. HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: CLYDE W. FORD @ LA TIMES: “Opinion: The immigration crisis and the racism driving it have roots in Hitler’s ‘bible’”
  3. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  4. 😰👹👺🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️🤮“DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN” — Nicole Narea @ Vox With A Glimpse Of Trump’s Second Term: American Apocalypse — Dark, Ugly, Hateful, Violent, Dishonest, Exclusionary, Stupid, Racist, Diminished, Yet Very White & Privileged — Are People Of Color & Their Allies Really Going To Stand By & Watch While Their Past & Our Future As A Strong, Creative, Tolerant, Diverse, Humane Nation Is Written Out Of History By A Racist GOP & Its Totally Wacko Yet Dangerously Evil Cult Leader?

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM COURTSIDE! — I Take A Look Forward @ 2019’s Big Immigration Stories

2019 Immigration Stories

  • Dreamer Litigation
  • Asylum Procedures Litigation
  • Continuing Collapse of Immigration Courts
        • More bogus, anti-immigrant, anti-Due Process certification decisions from AG
        • Pereira mess in scheduling
        • Cancellation mess; hundreds of thousands eligible for relief; no plans for adjudication
        • Dockets will continue to be screwed up by failure of responsible enforcement policies by DHS, failure of prosecutorial discretion exercised by virtually all other law enforcement authorities, and mindless, inappropriate “re-docketing” of previously Administratively Closed cases for no particular reason except White Nationalist inspired meanness
        • Massive returns of asylum and other improperly decided cases to Immigration Courts by Article IIIs
    • More deaths, illness, abuses resulting from Trump’s cruel, ill-conceived detention and border policies
    • Mexico and Article IIIs will,”push back” against Administration’s ill-conceived plans to “dump” legitimate asylum seekers over Mexican border
    • Public Charge Controversy
    • TPS Termination & Litigation
      • One of Trump’s dumbest, most unnecessary, & disruptive moves will wreak havoc on the economy and the legal system
    • Lots of fraud, waste, and abuse at DOJ and DHS will be exposed by House Committees
    • Will new AG prove to be “Button Down Version of Jeff Sessions?”

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HAPPY NEW YEAR

 😎👍🏼🍻🍾🏈❄️☃️🥳

PWS

01-01-19

Related posts:

  1. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  2. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”
  3. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 
  4. MARK JOSEPH STERN @ SLATE: GONZO’S GONE! — Bigoted, Xenophobic AG Leaves Behind Disgraceful Record Of Intentional Cruelty, Vengeance, Hate, Lawlessness, & Incompetence That Will Haunt America For Many Years!

NPR: “THIS AMERICAN LIFE” – HEAR ABOUT HOW THE WHITE NATIONALIST RESTRICTIONISTS IN THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ARE GOING ABOUT SYSTEMATICALLY AND DISINGENUOUSLY PERVERTING US IMMIGRATION LAWS – Useless, Counterproductive, & Expensive Prosecutions Of Asylum Seekers – When The Facts Don’t Support Your Decisions, Just Delete Or Misrepresent Them!

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/656/let-me-count-the-ways

 

Yes, youʼve heard about the family separations. Youʼve heard about the travel ban. But there are dozens of ways the Trump administration is cracking down on immigration across many agencies, sometimes in ways so small and technical it doesnʼt make headlines. This week, the quiet bureaucratic war that’s even targeting legal immigrants.

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Long, but highly documented, compelling, and well worth the listen if you really want to know about the ugly, depraved policies of Trump, Sessions, Miller, Nielsen, Cissna, Gene Hamilton, and the rest of the White Nationalist Racist Brigade.

Regime Change, Regime Change, Regime Change; Vote, Vote, Vote!

PWS

09-29-18

 

Related posts:

  1. MARK JOSEPH STERN @ SLATE: GONZO’S GONE! — Bigoted, Xenophobic AG Leaves Behind Disgraceful Record Of Intentional Cruelty, Vengeance, Hate, Lawlessness, & Incompetence That Will Haunt America For Many Years!
  2. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  3. GONZO’S WORLD: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A DIVERSE “NATION OF IMMIGRANTS” ANOINTS A COMMITTED XENOPHOBE AS ITS CHIEF LAW OFFICER? – Gonzo Is Deconstructing Our System Of Justice, One Day At A Time!
  4. GROSS NATIONAL DISGRACE: “A Fucking Disaster That Is Designed to Fail”: How Trump Wrecked America’s Immigration Courts — Fernanda Echavarri Reports For Mother Jones On How Our Failed Justice System Daily Abuses The Most Vulnerable While Feckless Legislators &   Smugly Complicit Article III Judges Look On & Ignore The Human Carnage They Are Enabling — “ Two days after US immigration officials sent her to Tijuana, she was raped.”

HERE’S WHAT A RACIST, WHITE NATIONALIST IMMIGRATION POLICY LOOKS LIKE, AS TRUMP ATTACKS LEGAL IMMIGRATION! — “[C]ultivating xenophobia, as President Trump has done from the beginning of his campaign, and then trading on that fear to drum up votes, does not create much of a foundation for rational dialogue.”

As usual, CNN’s Tal Kopan and her colleague Tami Luhby give us one of the best summaries of what’s happening:

\

How Trump’s new definition of ‘public charge’ will affect immigrants

By Tami Luhby and Tal Kopan, CNN

The Trump administration is seeking to give itself broad latitude to reject immigrants from the US if they have too little income and education, which could effectively impose a merit-based immigration system without an act of Congress.

The change is put forth in a proposed regulation, which would dramatically reshape how the government defines an immigrant likely to be dependent on the government.

President Donald Trump has long touted what he calls a merit-based system of immigration, backing a legislative proposal that would have heavily favored English-speaking, highly educated and high-earning immigrants over lower-skilled and lower-income applicants.

Quietly announced Saturday night, the proposed regulation could give the administration the authority to reshape the population of US immigrants in that direction without legislation.

The rule would mean many green card and visa applicants could be turned down if they have low incomes or little education because they’d be deemed more likely to need government assistance — such as Medicaid or food stamps — in the future.

The proposal applies to those looking to come to the US and those already here looking to extend their stay. And even if immigrants decide not to use public benefits they may be eligible for, the government could, under the proposed rule, still decide they are likely to do so “at any time in the future” and thus reject them from the US.

The administration says the proposed revamp of the so-called public charge rule is designed to ensure immigrants can support themselves financially.

“This proposed rule will implement a law passed by Congress intended to promote immigrant self-sufficiency and protect finite resources by ensuring that they are not likely to become burdens on American taxpayers,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said Saturday.

But immigration advocates say it goes far beyond what Congress intended and will discriminate against those from poorer countries, keep families apart and prompt legal residents to forgo needed public aid, which could also impact their US citizen children.

They also say it will penalize even hard-working immigrants who only need a small bit of temporary assistance from the government.

“(The proposed rule) would radically reshape our legal immigration system, putting the wealthy at the front of the line, ahead of hardworking families who have waited years to reunite,” a coalition of more than 1,100 community advocacy groups wrote in a statement this week. “No longer would the US be a beacon for the world’s dreamers and strivers. Instead, America’s doors would be open only to the highest bidder.”

More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/09/25/politics/immigration-public-benefits/index.html

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Meanwhile, editorials in the NY Times and the LA Times blasted the Administration’s latest anti-immigrant actions:

The NY Times says:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/24/opinion/editorials/immigrants-welfare-benefits-trump-administration.html?em_pos=small&emc=edit_ty_20180925&nl=opinion-today&nl_art=2&nlid=79213886emc%3Dedit_ty_20180925&ref=headline&te=1

An Unhealthy Plan to Drive Out Immigrants

Denying green cards or visas to those on Medicaid or food stamps will only cost the United States more later.

By The Editorial Board

The editorial board represents the opinions of the board, its editor and the publisher. It is separate from the newsroom and the Op-Ed section.

The Department of Homeland Security, headed by Kirstjen Nielsen, has proposed a new rule that would deny green cards or visas to immigrants here legally who have used public assistance.Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

The Trump administration has taken another step in its program to use fear and cruelty to drive out legal, as well as illegal, immigrants.

On Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security proposed a rule that would enable it to deny green cards and visas to immigrants here legally who have used public health and nutrition assistance, including Medicaid and food stamps.

The United States already denies green cards and visas to applicants likely to become “public charges.” But that designation has generally referred only to a narrow set of people who need cash assistance or long-term institutionalization.

The new rules would also offer some exemptions — participation in the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program and the Children’s Health Insurance Program would be excluded, for example, as would refugees and asylum seekers and minors with Special Immigrant Juvenile status, meaning they had been abused or neglected.

But it’s not clear that those exemptions would provide sufficient protection. The Kaiser Family Foundation has indicated that fear of being denied residency would most likely cause immigrants to withdraw from both the targeted and the exempted programs. As Politico has reported, even when the current proposal was just a rumor, immigrants began withdrawing from these programs in droves. What’s more, not everyone who should be able to seek asylum or obtain special juvenile status is able to do so.

The Department of Human Services estimates that as many as 382,000 people would be affected by the new rule each year. There is no estimate yet on how many of them would be deemed to be public charges, but that number is likely to be far higher than under the current rules.

Which, of course, is the point. In an announcement on Saturday, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said that she expected the rule to “promote immigrant self-sufficiency and protect finite resources by ensuring that they are not likely to become burdens on American taxpayers.”

That rationale is both callous and foolish: Scaring vulnerable populations off public assistance is likely to cost much more in the long run, in part because neglecting preventive health care and basic medical problems makes patients only more expensive to treat down the road. What’s more, Kaiser estimates that more than eight million children who are citizens but have at least one noncitizen parent will be caught in the cross hairs.

The Trump administration, however, is betting that a very public effort to crack down on immigrants, whether they’re here legally or not, will motivate its political base in time for the midterm elections. It’s just one more part of a package that has so far included an effort to detain indefinitely minors who have crossed the border and another to cap the number of refugees at its lowest level ever. It’s the border wall, without the wall.

There’s a real debate to be had over the criteria to decide who can stay in this country and who must go. What is the right way to manage family migration? Or evaluate asylum claims? Or weigh American labor needs against the skills of prospective visa holders? But cultivating xenophobia, as President Trump has done from the beginning of his campaign, and then trading on that fear to drum up votes, does not create much of a foundation for rational dialogue.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTOpinion).

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Here’s what the LA Times had to say:

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=b270b5ea-1b78-4f77-86a2-3aa238bcde0b

The ‘public charge’ pretext
In an effort to make it more difficult for legal immigrants to live and work in the United States, the Trump administration proposed new rules over the weekend giving officials the right to withhold green cards from applicants who take advantage of a wide range of government programs to which they are legally entitled, including food and housing aid.
And for prospective immigrants who apply for visas from overseas, government officials would have broad power to reject people whom they believe might someday in the future tap government programs for financial support. That change, experts say, will reduce the overall flow of immigration and skew it toward people seeking to emigrate from more advanced countries.
These are unnecessarily strict and hard-hearted rules aimed at solving a problem that social scientists say doesn’t exist.
The government has for decades rejected visa requests and green card applications from people who are likely to become “public charges,” defined since 1999 as “ primarily dependent on the government for subsistence.” That has usually been interpreted, reasonably, to mean people who rely on cash support or people who would require institutional care. Furthermore, the Clinton-era welfare reforms already put major aid programs out of reach for most legal immigrants until they’ve been here for five years; undocumented immigrants are barred from nearly all public support.
Now, however, the administration wants to consider a legal immigrant a “public charge” if he or she receives government benefits exceeding $1,821 (15% of the federal poverty guidelines) over 12 months. The net effect, advocates for immigrants argue, will be a self-purging of people living and working here legally from the rolls of Medicaid, food subsidies and housing support, among other programs.
The government estimates that the new regulations would negatively affect 382,000 people, but advocates say that is likely an undercount. And the rules would keep people from coming to the country who economists say are vital for the nation’s economic growth . President Trump’s xenophobic view of the world stands in sharp contradiction not only to American values, but to its history. We are a country of immigrants or their descendants, and as a maturing society we will rely more and more on immigration for growth. Research shows that even those who start out in low-wage jobs, and thus are likely to get some financial help from the government, often learn skills that move them into higher income brackets and help the overall economy .
These proposed regulations would force immigrants in low-paying jobs to reject help to which they are legally entitled — and which could speed them along the path to financial security — or to jeopardize their ability to remain here. That’s a cruel Solomon’s choice.

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The “Trump GOP” has clearly abandoned the pretense that they are only against illegal immigration. By attacking refugees and other legal immigrants they are making it clear that immigrants no longer are welcome in our “Nation of Immigrants.” Sounds pretty stupid, not to mention unrealistic. But, that’s the essence of “Trumpism.”

PWS

09-25-18

Related posts:

  1. MLK DAY 2018 — DR. KING’S DREAM OF AN AMERICA CELEBRATING EQUALITY & RACIAL HARMONY IS UNDER VICIOUS ATTACK BY TRUMP, PENCE, SESSIONS, AND A HOST OF OTHERS IN TODAY’S WHITE NATIONALIST ENABLING GOP — Who Is Going To Fight To Reclaim The Dream, & Who Is Going To “Go Along To Get Along” With The 21st Century Version Of Jim Crow?
  2. TRUMP, MILLER, & “COOCH COOCH” ARE AS INTELLECTUALLY DULL AS THEY ARE RACIST — “USEFUL IDIOTS” PROVE NO MATCH FOR SMART WOMEN: CNN’S ERIN BURNETT, HUFFPOST’S SARAH RUIZ-GROSSMAN, HISTORIAN ANNIE POLLAND, & VANITY FAIR’S BESS LEVIN — No Wonder The Administration’s  Malicious Incompetents Surround Themselves With (Mostly Old White Male) Folks Who Might Be Even Dumber (But Not More Vile) Than They Are!
  3. HOW “AMERICA’S KILLER COURTS” PROMOTE “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” — HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: TRUMP & HIS WHITE NATIONALIST SYCOPHANTS & TOADIES TOUT LAWLESS POLICIES THAT VIOLATE LEGAL OBLIGATIONS & HELP KILL, RAPE, TORTURE THOSE RETURNED TO EL SALVADOR — Supremes & Article III Judiciary Complicit In Gross Human Rights Violations! 
  4. INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HALEY SWEETLAND EDWARDS @ TIME TELLS WHAT TRUMP, MILLER, COTTON, SESSIONS, & THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST GANG DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW: Human Migration Is A Powerful Force As Old As Human History; It’s A Plus For Receiving Nations; It Won’t Be Stopped By Walls, Jails, Racist Laws, Or Any Other Restrictionist Nonsense; But, It Can Be Intelligently Controlled, Channeled, Harnessed, & Used For The Benefit Of The U.S. & The Good Of The Migrants! — “But to maximize that future good, governments must act rationally to establish humane policies and adequately fund an immigration system equipped to handle an influx of newcomers.”

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S UNWARRANTED ATTACK ON OUR CHILDREN IS AN ATTACK ON AMERICAN VALUES!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/do-we-really-want-16-million-children-without-parents/2018/03/29/46d78b6a-335b-11e8-94fa-32d48460b955_story.html?utm_term=.5602ef577586

Former Delaware Governor Jack Markell in the Washington Post:

Jack Markell, a trustee of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, was governor of Delaware from 2009 to 2017.

Reading recent stories about U.S. citizens being forcibly separated from their undocumented parents reminds me of a visit I made to South Africa in 1985.

During that trip, I spent several days with the Black Sash in Johannesburg and Cape Town. This group of white women had formed 30 years earlier to protest legislation designed to remove voting rights of “coloured” South Africans. Over time, the Black Sash evolved from protest to advocacy, and by the time of my visit, it had grown to thousands of women who volunteered their time to help black and mixed-race South Africans deal with the horrendous laws and regulations of apartheid.

Among the most painful of the system’s effects was the destruction of families. Meeting with the Black Sash volunteers, I saw teenagers who had been removed from their families and black families forced to move from Johannesburg to a far-off rural “homeland” where they had no relatives.

Now, in our own country, the Trump administration is preparing to threaten the well-being of 16 million U.S. citizens who live with their immigrant parents.

That’s right. Sixteen million U.S.-born children under 18 would be on the receiving end of a series of new proposals from President Trump’s team that could make it more difficult for parents to stay in the United States legally — and, even if they remained here, would reduce the likelihood that those parents would avail themselves of the services designed to keep their children healthy.

The proposals are embodied in changes to the “public charge” regulations, which limit the cost to the government of caring for immigrants. This concept has been in the law for decades. The difference with these proposals is that they would allow officials to include nutrition, health and other programs among the benefits that can be used to define an immigrant as being too dependent on public aid. That means immigrants availing themselves of those benefits — even for their children who are U.S. citizens — could be barred from obtaining a new visa or becoming a lawful permanent resident.

So, not surprisingly, an increasing number of immigrants are no longer enrolling their citizen children in government-sponsored health-care programs or feeding them with groceries purchased with food stamps. (Almost half of all immigrant-headed households with children buy food with the assistance of the government.)

Our country has historically made sure that a safety net will prevent our most vulnerable children from going hungry or without health care. These proposed changes reflect a betrayal of our core values.

Administration officials claim that they are proposing these changes in order to protect taxpayers. This argument is — at best — penny-wise and pound-foolish. Hungry and unhealthy children are more likely to be chronically dependent on government services and less likely to find good jobs and pay taxes.

Even without the rules being put into effect, we’re seeing massive negative consequences for many of these children. The advocacy group CLASP recently released research that reveals how the combination of fear caused by possible separation from parents and increased economic uncertainty has increased toxic stress among children from families who have members with different immigration statuses.

While these rules have not yet taken effect, once they are introduced, they could become the law of the land within a few months. In the meantime, once the regulations are posted for public comment, it’s critical for those who care about fiscal prudence as well as those who believe that it’s important to help keep our citizen children with their families to act. They must protest on behalf of these vulnerable children and on behalf of our core American values.

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Yup, an Administration of liars and child abusers is about as low as it can go. But, that’s what we have until 2020 and perhaps longer if decent Americans don’t wake up,.get motivated, and vote Trump and his corrupt GOP enablers and fellow travelers out of office!

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

PWS

04-02-18

Related posts:

  1. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  2. PROFESSOR FITZ BRUNDAGE @ WASHPOST: Can We Regain Our Humanitarian Values In The Age Of Trump? — “We must shine a spotlight on cruel and illegal policies that undermine our national ideals and find the wisdom and the courage to do better.”
  3. SPRINT TO THE BOTTOM: Trump Administration Trashes Refugees & Human Rights In A Despicable Return To “1939-Style Fascism Lite!” — America’s Rancid Conduct & Negative Leadership Presages Another Worldwide Refugee Tragedy — This Time The Blood Will Be Directly On Our Hands!
  4. COMPLICITY HAS COSTS:  Article III Judges’ Association Apparently Worries That Trump, Barr, GOP Toadies Starting To “Treat Them Like Immigration Judges” — Do They Fear Descent To Status Of Mere Refugees, Immigrants, “Dreamers,” Unaccompanied Children, Or Others Treated As “Less Than Persons” By Trump, 5th Cir., 11th Cir., 9th Cir., & The Supremes’ “J.R. Five?” 

BESS LEVIN @ VANITY FAIR – TRUMP FINDS A NEW WAY TO BE “A JERK” – PLANNING ANOTHER BOGUS ATTACK ON LEGAL IMMIGRANTS BY EXPANDING CONCEPT OF “PUBLIC CHARGE”

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/02/trumps-spending-spree-global-sell-off-hellacious

Bess actually used a more “colorful descriptor” for Trump. But, since this is a “Family Based Blog” I toned it down a bit. You can go on over to the “Levin Report” at Vanity Fair at the above link for the “tell it like it is” version.

Donald Trump finds a new and unique way to be [ a jerk]

They said it couldn’t be done. They said it wasn’t possible. They said how could he, when he’s seemingly exhausted all possible avenues for an achievement like this? They underestimated him, yet again:

The Trump administration is considering making it harder for foreigners living in the United States to get permanent residency if they have received certain public benefits such as food assistance, in a move that could sharply restrict legal immigration. The Department of Homeland Security has drafted proposed new rules seen by Reuters that would allow immigration officers to scrutinize a potential immigrant’s use of certain taxpayer-funded public benefits to determine if they could become a public burden.

For example, U.S. officials could look at whether the applicant has enrolled a child in government pre-school programs or received subsidies for utility bills or health insurance premiums.

The draft, which reads a lot like it was written by senior adviser Stephen “white American males should be a protected class” Miller, states: “Non-citizens who receive public benefits are not self-sufficient and are relying on the U.S. government and state and local entities for resources instead of their families, sponsors or private organizations. An alien’s receipt of public benefits comes at taxpayer expense and availability of public benefits may provide an incentive for aliens to immigrate to the United States.” As a reminder, when the administration was trying to make the case that the U.S. should restrict the number of refugees it allows into the country to the lowest levels since 1980, it conveniently left out data that showed refugees generate $63 billion more in government revenues than they cost over the last decade. So take the latest immigrants are a drain on the economy and preventing us from Making America Great Again screed with a grain of salt.

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Yeah, whatever term you use, Trump and his White Nationalist xenophobic, racist cabal are at it again. Masses of folks coming to the US to get “welfare” is another “restrictionist myth” used to distort the immigration debate, and whip up anti-immigrant sentiment.

PWS

02-09-18

 

Related posts:

  1. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  2. MLK DAY 2018 — DR. KING’S DREAM OF AN AMERICA CELEBRATING EQUALITY & RACIAL HARMONY IS UNDER VICIOUS ATTACK BY TRUMP, PENCE, SESSIONS, AND A HOST OF OTHERS IN TODAY’S WHITE NATIONALIST ENABLING GOP — Who Is Going To Fight To Reclaim The Dream, & Who Is Going To “Go Along To Get Along” With The 21st Century Version Of Jim Crow?
  3. “Warren Buffett on Immigration Reform: Buffett feels that immigrants (including undocumented ones) have been and continue to be a key part of our prosperity — not a part of the problem.“
  4. INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HALEY SWEETLAND EDWARDS @ TIME TELLS WHAT TRUMP, MILLER, COTTON, SESSIONS, & THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST GANG DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW: Human Migration Is A Powerful Force As Old As Human History; It’s A Plus For Receiving Nations; It Won’t Be Stopped By Walls, Jails, Racist Laws, Or Any Other Restrictionist Nonsense; But, It Can Be Intelligently Controlled, Channeled, Harnessed, & Used For The Benefit Of The U.S. & The Good Of The Migrants! — “But to maximize that future good, governments must act rationally to establish humane policies and adequately fund an immigration system equipped to handle an influx of newcomers.”

Washington Post: Next Trump Targets: Public Charges, Birth Tourists, Foreign Workers!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-administration-circulates-more-draft-immigration-restrictions-focusing-on-protecting-us-jobs/2017/01/31/38529236-e741-11e6-80c2-30e57e57e05d_story.html

The Washington Post reports:

“The Trump administration is considering a plan to weed out would-be immigrants who are likely to require public assistance, as well as to deport — when possible — immigrants already living in the United States who depend on taxpayer help, according to a draft executive order obtained by The Washington Post.

A second draft order under consideration calls for a substantial shake-up in the system through which the United States administers immigrant and nonimmigrant visas, with the aim of tightly controlling who enters the country and who can enter the workforce, and reducing the social services burden on U.S. taxpayers.
The drafts are circulating among administration officials, and it is unclear whether President Trump has decided to move forward with them or when he might sign them if he does decide to put them in place. The White House would not confirm or deny the authenticity of the orders, and White House officials did not respond to requests for comment about the drafts Monday and Tuesday.
If enacted, the executive orders would appear to significantly restrict all types of immigration and foreign travel to the United States, expanding bars on entry to the country that Trump ordered last week with his temporary ban on refugees and people from seven Muslim-majority countries.”

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For copies of the draft Executive Orders and the full story, go over to the Washington Post at the above link.

PWS

01/31/17

 

Related posts:

  1. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  2. TIS INDEED THE “SEASON OF MIRACLES” — I WOKE UP THIS MORNING AND FOUND MYSELF IN COMPLETE AGREEMENT WITH CHARLES KOCH!
  3. BESS LEVIN @ VANITY FAIR: “TRUMP’S ENTIRE NATIVIST AGENDA IS BASED ON A LIE” — OF COURSE WE NEED MORE LEGAL FOREIGN WORKERS – AND NOT JUST “ROCKET SCIENTISTS” – EVEN TRUMP’S BUSINESSES CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT ‘EM!
  4. CATHERINE RAMPELL @ WASHPOST: “Twofer” — Trump Combines Assault On Healthcare With Attack On Legal Immigrants!