Vetting – Page 73 – immigrationcourtside.com

MEXICO A “SAFE THIRD COUNTRY?” — No Way! — “‘It’s a Crisis of Civilization in Mexico.’ 250,000 Dead. 37,400 Missing.“

https://www.wsj.com/articles/its-a-crisis-of-civilization-in-mexico-250-000-dead-37-400-missing-1542213374?emailToken=b782c4822fa5027d9168b45cd695195eFqzrxRlC5OCkGVY8Z0EA4pb8VXl6RHkHREQ1AmaH8yMyeAlVb6MpXqPHHsAocieCxuQWuPDERMwhcxLvXsFRFQsRI5WkHZo3DKDR+cMb5uAd8bNn8ryiZ5q4Nt0344LX&reflink=article_email_share

José de Córdoba and Juan Montes report for the WSJ:

That day, the mothers scoured the site outside El Fuerte, a town in Sinaloa state, on Mexico’s northern Pacific Coast, looking for one of two men presumably kidnapped by cartel gunmen in recent weeks. One body had already been found in a field. The women believed the other may be nearby. In the end, they came up empty.

“This is my life,” said Mirna Medina, a forceful woman who holds the group together. “Digging up holes.”

Her son, who sold CDs by a gas station, was kidnapped in 2014. Three years later to the day, she and the other mothers of the search group dug up his remains. “I felt his presence,” she said, remembering the day and breaking out in tears. “I wanted to find him alive, but at least I found him.”

Some 37,000 people in Mexico are categorized as “missing” by the government. The vast majority are believed to be dead, victims of the country’s spiraling violence that has claimed more than 250,000 lives since 2006. The country’s murder rate has more than doubled to 26 per 100,000 residents, five times the U.S. figure.

Because the missing aren’t counted as part of the country’s official murder tally, it is likely Mexico’s rate itself is higher.

The killing and the number of missing grow each year. Last year, 5,500 people disappeared, up from 3,400 in 2015. Mexico’s murders are up another 18% through September this year.

Victims’ families, mostly mothers, organize search parties, climbing down ravines or scouring trash dumps. Their technique is crude. Sometimes they hire laborers to hammer steel rods into the soil and haul them up to see if they smell like decomposition. Other times, they simply look for an exposed body part or shallow grave.

The sheer numbers of the disappeared now rival more famous cases of missing people in Latin American history.

The Disappeared, or Desaparecidos, became a chilling part of Latin America’s vocabulary during the Cold War, when security forces kidnapped, killed and disposed of the bodies of tens of thousands of leftist guerrillas as well as civilian sympathizers. The most infamous case is Argentina’s “Dirty War,” where at least 10,000 people vanished from 1976 to 1983. In Buenos Aires, mothers of the missing organized weekly vigils in front of Argentina’s presidential palace, gaining world-wide prominence.

Mexico fought its own far-smaller war against Marxist guerrillas during the 1970s. According to the government human-rights commission, 532 people went missing, and at least 275 people were summarily executed by security forces.

This time around, the horror in Mexico is bigger and its causes more complex. Many of the disappeared in recent years are believed to be the victims of violence unleashed by criminal gangs fighting to control drug routes and other lucrative businesses such as extortion, kidnapping and the theft of gasoline from pipelines, often with the complicity of police forces, government officials say.

“It’s a crisis of civilization in Mexico,” said Javier Sicilia, a poet and victims’ advocate whose son was murdered in 2011. “It’s diabolical—an unprecedented perversity to disappear human beings and erase any trace of them from the world.”

The trauma of Mexico’s missing is an open wound in the nation’s psyche. Families who can’t grieve for their loved ones spend the day alternating between doubt and despair, praying for, and dreading, the blessing of certainty.

“We don’t sleep nights, we have nightmares wondering what happened, where can he be,” said Maria Lugo, 62, whose son disappeared in 2015.

. . . .

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Those with WSJ access can get the rest of the gruesome story at the link, along with pictures and graphs illustrating the extent of the problem.

Obviously, by no stretch of the imagination is Mexico a “Safe Third Country” for purposes of U.S. asylum law. The brazen attempt by the Trump Administration and GOP Senators led by Chuck Grassley and Mike Lee to force such an agreement down the throat of Mexico is as disingenuous as it is immoral.

It also is appalling the number of Trump Administration senior immigration officials who parrot the bogus claim that “refugees from Central America are required to apply for asylum in Mexico.” Neither international law nor U.S. law imposes such a requirement, for good reasons. Actually, the single “Safe Third Country Agreement” that we have negotiated with Canada in compliance with our immigration laws is quite circumscribed and very limited in scope. And, there are ongoing efforts in Canada to force Canada to withdraw from this agreement because of the Trump Administration’s mistreatment of asylum applicants.

Nevertheless, as I have previously pointed out, given conditions in the Northern Triangle, while Mexico isn’t a “Safe Third Country” for purposes of our law, it might well be a “safer third country,” in practical terms, for many Central American refugees and their families. It’s bigger than the Northern Triangle countries, somewhat better governed than the “failed states” of the Northern Triangle, easier and less dangerous to reach, has more economic opportunities and resettlement options, and is generally (although, sadly, not always) not as overtly hostile to refugees as is the U.S. under Trump.

To encourage (rather than attempt to force) more individuals to apply for asylum in Mexico, our Government should:

Publicly acknowledge and treat the migration from Central America as a “humanitarian situation,” rather than a law enforcement issue;
Work with the UNHCR and Mexican authorities to improve asylum processing, adjudication, and resettlement in Mexico;
Provide financial aid and incentives for Mexico to improve its asylum system (rather than law enforcement money or threats to cut off funding);
Emphasize to Central American refugees the possible benefits of applying for asylum in Mexico (or elsewhere), rather than threatening them and trying to intimidate them from coming to the U.S.
Finally, and most important, the U.S. should be taking a leadership role with the UNHCR and other countries in our hemisphere to address the endemic problems in the Northern Triangle that are creating these refugee flows.

Refugee situations are complex, on a number of levels. They won’t be solved by the simplistic approaches (a/k/a political stunts) currently being taken by the Trump Administration, including the ridiculous “Wall.” Indeed, they can’t be solved by any single country. It takes the countries of the world working together to resolve them. That’s exactly what the mechanisms set up under the U.N. Convention on Refugees were intended to do. It’s beyond foolish for our Government to ignore them.

PWS

11-16-18

DC SUPERLAWYERS LINDSAY M. HARRIS AND DREE K. COLLOPY COMPLETELY DEBUNK TRUMP’S BOGUS CLAIMS ABOUT ASYLUM SEEKERS IN WASHPOST OP-ED! Immigration lawyers like us know the truth about the people whom Trump calls an “invasion.” These asylum-seeking families, most fleeing horrific violence in Central America, where their own governments cannot protect them, are doing what is most human — trying to survive and protect their children.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/11/13/trumps-attack-asylum-is-based-entirely-false-claims/

President Trump’s recent action to limit asylum claims at the U.S.-Mexico border is just his latest attempt to scare Americans about asylum seekers, undercutting long-standing principles of decency and humanity.

And like most of what Trump says about immigrants, the rationale the administration is using to keep out asylum seekers is based on myths and deliberate obfuscations.

Trump may not like it, but seeking asylum from persecution is a core human right. This right was recognized by the world and enshrined in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It has also been recognized by the United States and enshrined in our own domestic laws. Specifically, anyone “who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival . . .), irrespective of [their] status, may apply for asylum.” The Trump administration’s order will curtail this fundamental right and inevitably prompt strong legal challenges and protracted, resource-intensive litigation in our courts.

[Trump administration tightens immigration asylum rules as caravans continue to push for U.S. border]

Immigration lawyers like us know the truth about the people whom Trump calls an “invasion.” These asylum-seeking families, most fleeing horrific violence in Central America, where their own governments cannot protect them, are doing what is most human — trying to survive and protect their children.

We are asylum attorneys, but like many of our asylum-seeking clients, we are also mothers — of children ages 1 and 4, and one of us is nine months pregnant. Like most parents, we would do anything to keep our children safe. This is, indeed, the primary reason mothers decide to flee, sometimes pregnant, sometimes with small children, and take what they know and understand is the dangerous journey north — because they determine that is their best option for safety. This very human act of seeking protection for one’s children should be met with humanity, not hate-driven policies.

And the idea of an invasion isn’t the only false claim the administration is making to justify its new policy.

[Trump isn’t trying to solve border problems. He’s trying to make them look worse.]

The administration alleges that most individuals who file asylum claims don’t return to court to adjudicate them. In his Nov. 1 speech, Trump himself claimed that only 3 percent of asylum seekers show up in court. In reality, the Justice Department’s own statistics recognize that 60 percent to 75 percent of non-detained individuals show up to court, while a recent study showed that 96 percent of families with legal representation seeking asylum showed up to court.

The administration seems to assume that those seeking asylum between ports of entry are less worthy, genuine or credible than those who seek entry at the border. In reality, there are totally valid reasons people enter between ports of entry — first and foremost, the U.S. government has a track record of unlawfully turning away asylum seekers from ports of entry.

The administration assumes that asylum seekers from Central America will be safe in Mexico. Trump said in his speech earlier this month that Mexico had offered asylum to members of a large refugee caravan traveling from Central America, and that if they did not accept it, they must not be genuine asylum seekers.

[How to organize a 5,000-person migrant caravan]

Trump gets two facts wrong here. First, the United States does not have a “safe third country agreement” with Mexico (as we do have in place with Canada), which would make it a requirement for any asylum seeker who set foot on Mexican soil to seek asylum in Mexico first or be barred from pursuing asylum in the United States.

And second, the reason we don’t have such an agreement with Mexico is because Mexico is not capable of providing adequate protection for many migrants. For example, last year, the University of the District of Columbia law school’s immigration clinic handled the case of a Honduran woman who fled severe harm and targeting by a powerful transnational gang and was then attacked by Los Zetas in Mexico as she traveled with her two young children to the United States. She dutifully sought asylum in Mexico, only to be told by Mexican officials that they could not protect her from the Zetas or the gang who had targeted her in Honduras. They advised her to continue to the United States to seek meaningful protection. She was granted asylum.

[Border arrests surged to highest levels of Trump presidency in October]

The Trump administration’s rule and proclamation are grounded in rhetoric about the need to cut down on government resources devoted to asylum seekers at the southern border. However, the changes are unlikely to save government resources; while they will bar individuals who enter between ports of entry from gaining asylum, making them eligible only for withholding of removal or relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT), withholding and CAT still require a court hearing, which will continue to be delayed given the backlog of now more than 1 million cases in our immigration courts.

Moreover, granting withholding or CAT relief, as opposed to asylum, will add to the creation of a permanent underclass of refugees. These refugees will be barred from a path to permanent residence, family reunification and full inclusion as members of our society. Instead, they will live in limbo.

For example, take one of the UDC law school clinic’s clients from last year. Her persecutor kidnapped her at age 17 and then kept her in a hut for six months, raping her repeatedly. After six months, he said she was his wife and warned that if she left him, he would kill her younger siblings. For the next 20 years, she endured horrific abuse at his hands, eventually escaping and making it to the United States on her third attempt. She was barred from asylum because of her unsuccessful prior attempts to enter but eventually granted withholding of removal. While she works hard legally as a nanny in the D.C. metro area, she has no right to ever sponsor her children for immigration; nor can she leave the United States without losing her status. She will live in permanent limbo and never see her children again. This rule will create the same situation for many more people like her.

This move is just the latest in a string of efforts by the Trump administration to dehumanize asylum seekers, to create an “us vs. them” mentality. The fearmongering has already contributed to the massacre of 11 Jewish Americans at a synagogue in Pittsburgh because the suspect allegedly believed the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and all Jews were assisting the “invasion” of America.

But it is not “us vs. them.” We are all human. We all breathe the same air. We all want to be free. And above all else, we want our children to be safe. We implore the Trump administration and our fellow Americans to recognize our common humanity and start treating asylum seekers like fellow human beings, rather than demons to blame, criminals to punish and monsters to detain and fear. It is our common humanity that should guide our policy. Only then can the United States begin to return to its position of moral leadership.

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The problem is that the Trump Administration doesn’t recognize a “common humanity.” Only its own, self-interested, White Nationalist, exclusive agenda. So, there’s no “core of decency” to which one might appeal.

What if we had a different “leader?” One who paid attention to facts, respected experts, sought different views, possessed values and human compassion, and, most of all, sought to solve problems rather than using lies, slander, and slurs to dehumanize individuals and promote an essentially racist agenda!

PWS

12-15-18

TRUMPED: Nielsen Is A Sycophant Who Lied To Cover Her Boss’s Stupid, Cruel, & Often Illegal Antics On Immigration – Reportedly, She’s About To Learn That There’s No “Graceful Exit” From The Kakistocracy – “Trump puts people like Nielsen in the position of accounting for his whims and his counterfactual claims. His expectations for how much someone like Nielsen could accomplish when it comes to securing the border were almost definitely unreasonable. She tried to compensate for those shortcomings by saying things she couldn’t possibly have believed to boost Trump.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/11/13/kirstjen-nielsen-repeatedly-did-trumps-bidding-her-reward-an-unceremonious-impending-exit/?utm_term=.2e8283f31a2a

Aaron Blake reports for WashPost:

We may not be there yet, but there may come a point at which it’s very difficult to find well-qualified people willing to serve in President Trump’s Cabinet. And if we do, we’ll look back on Kirstjen Nielsen’s tenure as an early indicator.

The homeland security secretary appears set for an unceremonious exit less than one year after taking over the nation’s third-largest agency, report The Post’s Nick Miroff, Josh Dawsey and Philip Rucker. The writing has been on the wall for months — and her departure could ostensibly be delayed further — but Trump’s long-standing frustration with Nielsen and the freedom he now has with the 2018 elections behind him seem to be bringing this situation to a head. Trump has previewed a potential shake-up in recent weeks, and Nielsen was always among the most endangered top officials.

The looming decision is about Nielsen’s failure to meet Trump’s expectations when it comes to curtailing illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border. An uptick in border apprehensions in recent months and the caravan of migrants coming up from Honduras have probably sealed Nielsen’s fate.

But she seems to be a victim of irrational expectations more than anything. And she has spent much of her tenure tolerating Trump’s whims and even putting her reputation on the line in the name to keeping her job. No amount of public fealty, it seems, has been enough.

Nielsen has repeatedly fed Trump’s narrative about the Russia investigation with misleading or incorrect comments. Like Trump, she declined to directly blame Vladimir Putin for Russia’s 2016 election interference, even though the U.S. intelligence community does. Months earlier, she was asked about that same conclusion and said: “I do not believe that I’ve seen that conclusion. . . . That the specific intent was to help President Trump win? I’m not aware of that.”

She also suggested that Russia’s attacks an American election infrastructure weren’t necessarily aimed at helping Trump, even though the intel community says the broader effort was — a bizarre delineation clearly aimed at appeasing the boss, who has asserted that Russia actually favored Hillary Clinton.

During testimony in January, Nielsen declined to confirm Trump’s closed-door remarks describing African nations, Haiti and El Salvador as “shithole countries” — even though she was present. Then, in an exchange that followed, she was asked to account for Trump saying the United States needed more immigrants from Norway, an overwhelmingly white country. She even tried to pretend that she wasn’t sure Norway was an overwhelmingly white country and that Trump was referring to work ethic:

LEAHY: What does he mean when he says he wants more immigrants from Norway?

NIELSEN: I don’t believe he said that specifically. . . . What he was specifically referring to is, the prime minister telling him that the people of Norway work very hard. And so, what he was referencing is, from a merit-based perspective, we’d like to have those with skills who can assimilate and contribute to the United States, moving away from country quotas and to an individual merit-based system.

LEAHY: Norway is a predominantly white country, isn’t it?

NIELSEN: I actually do not know that, sir, but I imagine that is the case.

By far the most controversial chapter of Nielsen’s tenure, though, has been the separation of migrant families at the border — a policy that led to the detention of children in large cages and the government’s failure to promptly reunite them with their families. Nielsen reportedly resisted the policy behind the scenes. But publicly, she boosted it and even made implausible arguments in favor of it. She even went so far as to argue that it wasn’t an actual policy.

“We do not have a policy of separating families at the border, period,” she said, laughably. A DHS inspector general’s report last month contradicted this and other claims Nielsen made about the policy’s implementation.

And that’s the thread that runs through all of this. Trump puts people like Nielsen in the position of accounting for his whims and his counterfactual claims. His expectations for how much someone like Nielsen could accomplish when it comes to securing the border were almost definitely unreasonable. She tried to compensate for those shortcomings by saying things she couldn’t possibly have believed to boost Trump.

If and when she is finally ousted, it should serve as notice to anybody who would succeed her, or anyone else in the administration, that fealty is a necessary but not sufficient part of the job. And there’s no guarantee that sacrificing your own reputation for Trump will be rewarded.

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As I said in connection with the recent Sessions firing, nobody should be surprised by these totally irrational moves against his own loyal toadies. Trump and his policies are failures; so, he obviously needs someone else to blame because he isn’t man enough to take accountability for his own mistakes. It might be hard to find such complete lackeys for these key jobs, but maybe not in today’s GOP.

(I note that Sessions only recused himself from the Russia probe because failure to do so could have been a clear ethical breach that could well have cost him his law license. While Sessions is definitely a sleazy character, for the top law enforcement official in the country to willingly ignore advice of his own ethics officials would take sleaze to an even higher and much more publicly obvious level.)

As I have said before, while public humiliation of loyal toadies is never a pretty sight, nobody should shed tears for either Sessions or Nielsen. They weren’t required to take these jobs and Trump’s lack of character and willingness to bully and publicly humiliate those who had loyally worked for him were well-known long before he became President. He might value sycophantic loyalty (see Mike Pence), but he has none to give. It’s the victims for whom we should feel sorry — families, immigrants, communities, and others who have been hurt by Nielsen’s willingness to ignore the law, human decency, and rational policies in a vain effort to hold onto her job.

PWS

11-13-18

THE HILL: NOLAN SAYS TRUMP’S BORDER ORDER IS NQRFPT!

“NQRFPT” = “Not Quite Ready for Prime Time” (as some might remember from my days on the bench)

https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/416195-trump-should-withdraw-his-asylum-proclamation

Nolan writes:

. . . .

Detention will continue to be a major problem, regardless.

Under the proclamation, DHS would not have to screen aliens to determine whether they have a credible fear of persecution for asylum purposes, but it would have to screen them to determine if they have a reasonable fear of persecution.

The United States is a signatory to the Refugee Convention, which prohibits expelling a refugee to a country where it is likely that he will be persecuted. Asylum just requires a well-founded fear of persecution.

This condition is met with the withholding of deportation provision in the INA for aliens who establish that it is more likely than not that they will be persecuted.

America also is a signatory to the Convention Against Torture (CAT), which provides that, “No State Party shall expel … a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.”

Relief under these provisions is limited to sending the alien to a country where he would not be persecuted or tortured.

The proclamation should be withdrawn until these problems can be resolved.

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Go on over to The Hill at the link to read Nolan’s complete article (I have just reprinted the concluding section above). It also was a “headliner” at ImmigrationProf Blog: https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2018/11/president-trump-should-withdraw-his-asylum-proclamation.html

Nolan’s conclusion ties in nicely to my preceding posts that confirm, as Nolan points out, that CBP, the Asylum Office, the Immigration Courts, and probably the Federal Courts are woefully unprepared for the additional chaos and workload that is likely to be created by Trump’s shortsighted actions. Like most of what Trump does in the immigration areas it demonstrates a chronic misunderstanding of the laws, how the system operates, the reality of what happens at the border, and ignores the views of career civil servants and experts in the area. In other words, a totally unprofessional performance. But, that’s what “kakistocracy” is all about.

We’ll see what happens next. I expect a U.S. District court ruling on the ACLU’s suit to stop implementation of the Executive Order and the “Interim Regs” to be issued in the near future.

PWS

11-13-18

JULIA PRESTON @ THE MARSHALL PROJECT: Unfinished Business – Sessions Leaves Behind An Unprecedented Man-Made Human Rights Disaster & A Demoralized, Rapidly Failing U.S. Immigration Court — “I’ve never seen an attorney general who was so active in the immigration sphere and in a negative direction,” said Daniel Kowalski!”

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2018/11/07/the-immigration-crisis-jeff-sessions-leaves-behind

Julia writes:

ANALYSIS

The Immigration Crisis Jeff Sessions Leaves Behind

Assessing the ousted attorney general’s legacy on President Trump’s favorite issue.

By JULIA PRESTON

Graphic by YOLANDA MARTINEZ

“I don’t have an attorney general,” President Donald Trump said in an interview recently, venting his frustration with Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from overseeing the investigation by the special counsel, Robert Mueller.

But anyone who was following Sessions’ actions on immigration had no doubt that he was working hard. Before he was forced to resign on Wednesday, Sessions was exceptionally aggressive as attorney general, using his authority to steer the immigration courts, restrict access for migrants to the asylum system and deploy the federal courts for immigration enforcement purposes.

Under American law, the attorney general has broad powers over the immigration courts, which reside in the Justice Department not in the independent federal judiciary. Sessions, who made immigration a signature issue during his two decades as a Republican senator from Alabama, exercised those powers to rule from on high over the immigration system.

While Trump complained about Sessions, on immigration he was an unerringly loyal soldier, vigorously executing the president’s restrictionist policies.

Sessions made it his mission to reverse what he regarded as a failure to enforce order in the system by President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress, despite plunging numbers of illegal border crossings and record deportations under the previous administration.

“No great and prosperous nation can have both a generous welfare system and open borders,” Sessions told a gathering of newly-appointed immigration judges in September. “Such a policy is both radical and dangerous. It must be rejected out of hand.”

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A primary goal he declared was to speed the work of the immigration courts in order to reduce huge case backlogs. But according to a report this week by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, the backlogs increased during his tenure by 49 percent, reaching an all-time record of more than 768,000 cases. That tally doesn’t include more than 330,000 suspended cases, which justice officials restored to the active caseload.

“I’ve never seen an attorney general who was so active in the immigration sphere and in a negative direction,” said Daniel Kowalski, the editor of Bender’s Immigration Bulletin, a widely-used reference for lawyers. Kowalski said he’s been practicing immigration law for 33 years.

Here are some of Sessions’ measures that shaped the crisis the next attorney general will inherit:

He imposed case quotas on immigration judges, which went into effect Oct. 1, demanding they complete at least 700 cases a year. With compliance becoming part of a judge’s performance evaluation, the immigration judges’ association has said the quotas impinge on due process.

He made frequent use of the attorney general’s authority to decide cases if he doesn’t like opinions coming from the immigration courts. Sessions used that authority to constrain judges’ decision-making. He made it more difficult for them to grant continuances to give lawyers time to prepare, and he limited judges’ options to close cases where they concluded deportation was not warranted, as a way to lighten overloaded court dockets.

Sessions discouraged immigration judges from allowing prosecutors to exercise their discretion to set aside deportations for immigrants with families or other positive reasons to remain in the United States.

He issued decisions that made it far more difficult for migrants, like those coming in recent years from Central America, to win asylum cases based on fears of criminal gang violence, sexual abuse or other persecution by “private actors,” rather than governments.

In a policy known as zero tolerance, in April Sessions ordered federal prosecutors along the southwest border to bring charges in federal court against migrants caught crossing the border, for the crime of illegal entry. The policy resulted in parents being separated from their children, in episodes last summer that drew outrage until Trump ordered the separations to stop. But the prosecutions continue for illegal crossers who aren’t parents with children, swelling federal dockets and making it harder for prosecutors to pursue other border crimes, like narcotics and human trafficking, weapons offenses and money-laundering. In September, according to TRAC, 88 percent of the prosecutions in the Southern District of Texas were for an illegal entry misdemeanor; 65 percent of the cases in the Southern District of California were for the same minor crime.

Zero tolerance at the border

Under former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, federal prosecutors in five border districts significantly ramped up the number of misdemeanor cases they filed against migrants crossing illegally this year, particularly in south Texas.

Sessions took the position that a program initiated by Obama, which gave protection from deportation to undocumented immigrants who came here as children, was an overreach of executive authority. He declined to defend the program, called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, and praised Trump’s decision last year to cancel it. After federal courts allowed the program to continue, the Justice Department fought to bypass the appeals courts and get a hearing before the Supreme Court for its efforts to terminate the program.

Even though his relations with Trump soured early in his tenure, Sessions maintained a line of communication to the White House through Stephen Miller, a senior adviser. Miller was a senior staff member for Sessions in the Senate, and the two share similar views and goals for clamping down on immigration.

Lawyers and advocates say Sessions’ actions have politicized immigration court proceedings. “He stripped the judges of the authority to ensure due process and demonstrated how susceptible the courts are to the whim of politics,” said Mary Meg McCarthy, executive director of the National Immigrant Justice Center, based in Chicago.

Advocates for immigration reform said a new attorney general should restore the flexibility of immigration judges to manage their own dockets to find efficient ways to reduce their caseloads. But they said Sessions’ tenure provided new arguments for Congress to move the immigration courts out of the Justice Department to the federal judiciary.

Gregory Chen, director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said, “The aggressive nature of his actions infringing on the independence of the courts has made the need for a new court system even more urgent.”

ORIGINALLY FILED Wednesday, November 7, 2018 at 9:35 p.m. ET

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Go to Julia’s article at the above link to get the accompanying graphics and pictures.

The Immigration Court backlog reported by TRAC now is over 1.1 MILLION cases, with no end in sight. More disturbingly, there is no coherent plan for addressing these cases in anything approaching a rational manner, nor is there a plan for restoring some semblance of due process and functionality to the Immigration Courts. Like most Trump/Sessions initiatives, it’s “we’ll create the problem, make it much worse, then hinder the efforts of others to fix it.”

Three “no-brainers ” that Sessions wouldn’t do:

Working with the private bar, NGOs, states, and localities to make legal representation available to everyone in Immigration Court who wants it;
Letting U.S. Immigration Judges control their own dockets and make independent decisions, free from political interference; and
Removing hundreds of thousands of older cases of individuals eligible to apply for “Cancellation of Removal For Non-Lawful Permanent Residents” from the Immigration Courts’ active dockets and having them adjudicated by USCIS in the first instance.

Of course an independent Article I Immigration Court is an absolute necessity. But, that will take legislation. In the meantime, the foregoing three administrative steps would pave the way for an orderly transition to Article I status while promoting Due Process, fairness, and efficiency in the system.

But, I wouldn’t count on anyone in the “Current Kakistocracy” doing the right thing or actually implementing “good government.” If the Article IIIs don’t put an end to this travesty, it will continue to get worse and pull them down into the muck until we get “regime change.”

Ironically, Trump isn’t the only one who “hasn’t had an Attorney General over the past two years.” The majority of Americans haven’t had one either; while he might be on the verge of getting “his” Attorney General, the rest of us can only look forward to more pain and misery!

PWS

11-12-18

GONZO’S WORLD: SNL BIDS ADIEU TO “EVIL ELF!” – See It Here!

https://slate.com/culture/2018/11/jeff-sessions-robert-mueller-robert-de-niro-kate-mckinnon-saturday-night-live.html

BROW BEAT

Jeff Sessions and Robert Mueller Say Their Goodbyes on Saturday Night Live, With a Little Help From Kate McKinnon and Robert De Niro

By MATTHEW DESSEM

NOV 11, 20184:47 AM

Friends to the end.

NBC

It’s been an emotional week for people who love Jeff Sessions, assuming such people exist. On the one hand, Donald Trump fired Sessions the day after the election in favor of an unqualified loyalist who used to sit on the board of a hilariously fraudulent patent marketing company. On the other hand, once Sessions skulks back to Alabama, Kate McKinnon will have no further reason to play him on Saturday Night Live, which will probably be good for his reputation. But there was no way SNL would let a walking caricature like Sessions leave the national stage without a kick in the ass on his way to the wings, so McKinnon glued on her Jeff Sessions ears this week for what might be the very last time:

Sketches like this one, in which one celebrity caricature after another marches in, does his or her thing, then leaves, almost always suffer from a lack of momentum. The payoff here, the surprise appearance of Robert De Niro as Robert Mueller, is no substitute for rising action, not least because De Niro’s performance isn’t exactly worthy of Taxi Driver. Some of the individual jokes are hilarious—see, e.g., Sessions’ mug-within-a-mug—but as a whole, the sketch feels like one damn thing after another, for much, much too long. In that sense, it brilliantly captures the essence of the Trump administration, with or without Jefferson Beauregard Sessions. Best of luck to the cast member who has to squeeze into a bald cap to play Matthew Whitaker next week.

https://youtu.be/EGy-xpK-1mw

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Kids in cages, weeping parents, families separated, refugees turned away, African-Americans brutalized by the police, domestic violence victims sent back to torture by their abusers, minority voters suppressed, prisons overflowing with minor offenders, American youth denied opportunities and threatened with removal, scientific evidence ignored, intentionally clogged courts, open season on the LGBTQ community, vigorous defense of hate speech (but not the right to protest), glorification of bias masquerading as “religion,” judges turned into border agents in robes, judges and lawyers publicly dissed, un-prosecuted corruption in government, rampant gun violence mostly generated by disgruntled White guys, journalists attacked, bogus efforts to keep migrants from knowing their rights, lies to Congress — Man-o-Man, this Dude was just a barrel of laughs and good times! Unless, of course, you were one of the millions of men, women, and children in America who was permanently damaged or traumatized by his racist scofflaw approach to “justice” and his failure to enforce the Constitutional rights due to everyone in America. Not exactly “Janet Reno’s Dance Party!”

PWS

11-12-18

SESSIONS IS OUT @ DOJ – But, His Ugly Jim Crow Racist Legacy & Disingenuous Perversions Of The “Rule Of Law” Continue To Hang Like A Dark Cloud Over Our Nation & Our Moral Values!

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hamedaleaziz/jeff-sessions-impact-immigration-trump

Hamed Aleaziz reports for BuzzFeed News:

From the moment Donald Trump introduced Jeff Sessions as the first member of the US Senate to endorse his candidacy for president, the two men have been bound by one topic: immigration.

“When I talk about immigration, and when I talk about illegal immigration and all the problems with crimes and everything else, I think about a great man,” Trump told a rally in Madison, Wisconsin, moments before he brought out Sessions.

Sessions made it clear that in Trump he, too, saw a kindred spirit. Politicians had long promised to do something about immigration, he said. “Have they done it? No, but Donald Trump will do it.”

Nearly three years after that February 2016 rally, Trump and Sessions on Wednesday parted ways, with Sessions turning in his resignation after a tumultuous term as Trump’s attorney general. While much of the commentary about Sessions’ departure turned on what will happen next to the special counsel’s Trump–Russia probe, it’s clear now that Sessions’ biggest impact during the Trump administration will be on immigration policy.

Though he lasted less than two years, Sessions made use of his limited time: He sued sanctuary cities and states. He recommended that the president rescind a popular program that protected immigrants from deportation (DACA) and later announced its end. He implemented a “zero tolerance” policy at the border that resulted in parents being separated from their children.

And, perhaps most consequentially, in his role overseeing the immigration courts, made monumental changes to the way judges could oversee their cases and rule on asylum claims.

“Sessions was a key driver and defender of the Trump administration’s … coordinated attack on unauthorized immigrants, asylum-seekers, and legal immigration,” said Sarah Pierce, an analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. “It seems likely that in his absence the administration’s enthusiastic drive for immigration reforms will be tempered.”

Though many of his efforts failed once they reached the federal courts — his Department of Justice suffered key losses on DACA and cutting off funding to sanctuary cities — Sessions was able to make changes without impediments over one key facet of the immigration system: the courts.

In his position as the boss of the country’s immigration judges, Sessions was able to refer cases to himself and then make legal precedent with his decisions. He did that eight times, restricting the instances in which individuals could be granted asylum and stopping judges from being able to indefinitely suspend cases and allow immigrants to remain in the country without a decision.

“Here is one group of judges who happen to be under his control. He could basically say ‘jump’ and they’d say ‘how high?’ He had total control. It was like a perfect storm of all these things coming together,” said Jeffrey Chase, a former immigration judge.

After he restricted the ability of judges to set aside deportation cases, Department of Homeland Security attorneys were told to restart previously delayed cases, and thousands of cases poured back into the immigration courts.

And to push judges, Sessions instituted a quota on the number of cases they should consider every year and even told them in a speech to deliver a “secure” border and a “lawful system” that “actually works.” He cautioned them against allowing sympathy for the people appearing before them to color the orders they made.

Naturally, Sessions and the union for the immigration judges clashed over the moves, which included removing one judge from a high-profile case.

“We hope that the next attorney general will be more responsive to the issues and the challenges facing the immigration court, immigration judges, and the parties that come before the court,” said Ashley Tabaddor, an immigration judge who heads the union, the National Association of Immigration Judges, which represents around 350 judges.

For immigrant advocates, Sessions’ departure was welcomed. The ACLU called him the worst attorney general of modern history. The National Immigration Law Center tweeted that Sessions would be remembered for his “disregard of the Constitution” and “well-being of our communities.” The group Freedom for Immigrants said Sessions “never cared about justice. He only cared about making immigrants’ lives miserable.”

Supporters of a more restrictive immigration policy, however, lamented Sessions’ resignation. “Sessions’ resignation is undoubtedly a blow to the patriotic immigration reform community,” said Jeremy Carl, a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.

“He has long been one of the strongest and most knowledgeable champions of our cause.”

Still, for many advocates, the fear was that Sessions’ impact on the system would be long lasting — regardless of who comes next.

“This attorney general has had a devastating impact on the immigration court system’s ability to provide fair decisions in the cases of individuals that come before them,” said Greg Chen, director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “Under his tenure, there have been dramatic changes in policy that have undermined the integrity of the immigration court system and the independence of judges.”

Sessions’ legacy on immigration will go beyond the changes he’s made in the courts — his former Senate aide, Stephen Miller, is a key adviser to the president and will continue to take a key role in drafting and leading changes to the immigration system. But he won’t be able to replace Sessions, said the Migration Policy Institute’s Pierce.

“As Jeff Sessions showed us, the attorney general is in a unique position to enact wide-reaching changes on the immigration system,” she said. “Unless another like-minded individual is appointed to that office, the administration’s immigration reform efforts have lost a key tool.”

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I’d sure like to believe that there won’t be another Sessions at the DOJ. But, while Trump obviously views the primary role of the AG as protecting him, his family, and some of his cronies from the law, I can’t see him nominating anyone who doesn’t share his racist White Nationalist restrictionist views on immigration and civil rights. And, the GOP-controlled Senate is made up of spineless toadies who have happily confirmed a steady stream of unqualified and corrupt Trump appointees, including Sessions. I suppose the best we can hope for is that the next AG will have her or his hands full with the Russia investigation and other Constitutional showdowns Trump is likely to provoke, and therefore might put further destroying the U.S. immigration system on the back burner for a while. But, I wouldn’t count on it.

PWS

11-11-18

HOW MANY RIDICULOUS “TRUMP TROOPS” & ARMED BORDER PATROL OFFICERS IS IT GOING TO TAKE TO STOP THESE TWO FOOTSORE LITTLE GIRLS AND THEIR EXHAUSTED MOTHER? — What Kind Of A Nation Rolls Out A Bogus Military Display & Announces Plans To Trash Its Own Laws & International Norms In Response To A Non-Threatening Humanitarian Situation That It Helped Cause & Aggravate?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/11/07/story-behind-photo-little-girl-crying-migrant-caravan/?utm_term=.518223da78ac

Michael E. Miller reports for WashPost:

SAN PEDRO TAPANATEPEC, Mexico — The migrant caravan came alive one morning last week with a rustle of plastic tarps being taken down and packed. A crowd gathered well before dawn.

Near the back of that crowd stood Keila Savioll Mejia. Two weeks earlier, the shy 21-year-old had left home in Honduras to join the caravan with her 2-year-old and 4-year-old daughters. She listened as organizers announced that two trucks were available to take women and children from Tapanatepec to the next stop, 33 miles away.

Mejia thought about rushing forward to claim the last spot. Both of her daughters were sick and Camila, the oldest, was tired of walking. But she said she worried they would be crushed or suffocated in the throng. So she let others climb into the back of the truck, which soon overflowed with about three dozen people.

“There are no more trucks,” an organizer said over a loudspeaker. “Let’s go.”

And with that, Mejia and her daughters set off on foot.

President Trump has portrayed the migrant caravan as a monolithic threat, a mass of “terrorists” intent on “invading” the United States. In reality, the caravan is a collection of individuals and families, each with their own story. And few were worse off than Mejia.

As she carried 2-year-old Samantha through the streets of Tapanatepec, she saw several families with sturdy strollers they had bought for 900 pesos — around $45 — at the Mexico-Guatemala border. Others were flimsy, held together with tape or twine. One father pushed his 5-year-old son in a donated wheelchair.

Mejia had nothing, not even a baby carrier.

Keila Savioll Mejia, 21, holds her daughter Samantha, 2, left, as Johana Hernandez, 16, center, watches 4-year-old Camila. (Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post)

By the time the caravan reached the edge of town, Mejia’s thin arms already ached from carrying her toddler. So mother and daughters rested under a tree.

Mejia wore pink plastic slippers so thin they were like walking in bare feet. The girls wore sandals that were hardly any better. Besides a few donated diapers friends carried for them, all their belongings fit into a tiny “Mafalda” bag on Mejia’s back.

Soon, they were back on their feet, Samantha on Mejia’s shoulders and Camila holding hands with Bessi Zelaya, a friend from Peña Blanca.

As they walked through the pre-dawn darkness, the silence was broken every few minutes by the buzz of approaching motorcycle taxis. The tiny three-wheel vehicles would pull up, and half a dozen migrants would pile in, paying a few Mexican pesos to get a little closer to the next stop.

But Mejia didn’t have a few pesos.

In Peña Blanca she had made 100 lempiras — about $4 — a day selling tortillas. The girls’ father had left them long ago, so they lived with Mejia’s mother and siblings in a small cinder block house.

When she heard of the caravan forming in San Pedro Sula just 50 miles away, Mejia borrowed 500 lempiras from a friend, packed her daughter’s backpack and boarded a bus to the capital. By the time they caught up to the caravan a few days later, Mejia had spent half her money on bus fare. She quickly used the rest to buy food for the girls.

“We’ve had to walk ever since,” she said.

As young men strode past and another overloaded mototaxi sped away, an organizer in a yellow traffic vest issued a warning to those falling behind.

“Hurry up,” he said, “or immigration will grab you.”

The fear was real. The sheer size of the caravan made it difficult for Mexican authorities to stop. But small groups that had split off had reportedly been detained and deported. The same could happen to stragglers.

Camila, her tiny legs already exhausted, collapsed to the ground. The girl closed her eyes.

An exhausted Camila collapses to the ground. (Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post)

“Camila!” Mejia said sharply.

“Arriba,” said Zelaya, lifting her onto the shoulders of Fernando Reyes Enamorado, a neighbor from Peña Blanca. Camila drooped over the 19-year-old’s head.

They continued walking, but when they stopped at a house where the owners had brought out a jug of water for the migrants, Camila refused to get up. Mejia splashed the girl in the face with water, but she just sat on the ground, kicking off her sandals and beginning to cry.

“Levántate,” Mejia told her. “Get up.”

A family with a stroller went past. Then another, and another. Flashing lights in the distance behind them were a reminder that if they fell far enough behind, their journey could be over in an instant.

Strangers stopped to offer to carry Camila, but the girl refused to let anyone touch her.

Keila Savioll Mejia carries her two daughters during the caravan. If they fell too far behind, they risked being detained and deported. (Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post)

Minutes passed as Samantha cried and Camila screamed and the caravan kept going without them. Friends disappeared into the distance. Dawn began to break. Soon the sun would rise, and the temperature would climb to nearly 100 degrees.

So Mejia did the only thing she could: She lifted both girls — one over each shoulder — and started walking.

Within a few minutes, she had caught up with the others where the road met a highway. Migrants slept in the ditch as they waited for trucks on which to catch a ride.

Mejia set the girls down and handed them candy to keep them awake.

But as vehicles approached, it was the young men who always reacted first. They climbed atop oil tankers and leaped aboard moving container trucks.

So Mejia started walking again, Samantha in her arms and Camila flailing unhappily at her side.

But then their luck suddenly changed. As she passed a red car belonging to a Televisa news crew, the cameraman recognized her.

Paco Santana, a TV anchorman, had interviewed Mejia a few days earlier and had given her a lift. Now he offered to do so again.

Keila Savioll Mejia and her daughters receive a much needed lift when a local television reporter offers them a ride. (Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post)

“I wish I could take you all like last time, but I have a woman who is very pregnant,” he told Zelaya and Mejia’s other friends.

“No, no, no,” said Ana Velazquez, 36, who was traveling with her 16-year-old daughter. “What we want is for her to get a ride because the little girl doesn’t like to walk.”

“Well,” Santana said, turning to Mejia. “What do you think?”

She looked at her friends. Then she looked at her daughters.

“Do you want to go in the car, like the other day?” Santana asked Camila and Samantha.

With shouts of excitement, her daughters made the decision for her.

“I don’t have cookies this time,” Santana said, opening the door of his car, where the pregnant woman and her partner were already waiting for a ride. “Should we go get some?”

And then it was on to the next town, the single mother’s odyssey over — at least for another day.

Samantha Savioll Mejia, 2, peaks out the window of a car belonging to the Televisa news crew while sitting on her mother’s lap. (Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post)

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

At some point, there will be an accounting for Trump’s cowardly actions and his misuse of our military in this wasteful and immoral political stunt.

PWS

11-11-18

EXPOSING THE REAL ASYLUM FRAUD: The Administration’s Knowingly False Narratives About Central American Asylum Seekers & The Way DOJ & EOIR Have Intentionally Distorted The Law & The Process To Deny Asylum To Real Refugees! — “The truth about these migrants comes down to the most basic of human needs: survival. Those who have joined the caravan have done so because their reality is simple. In the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, where violence is endemic and justice is illusory, it’s a question of life or death.”

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-migrant-caravan-trump-central-america-trauma_us_5be31bc6e4b0769d24c8353d

Stephanie Carnes writes in HuffPost:

UPDATE: On Friday, President Trump signed a presidential proclamation denying asylum for immigrants who request it after crossing the border illegally rather than at a port of entry.

In a pre-midterms television ad deemed too racist for CNN, NBC and even Fox News, the White House described members of the large group of Central American migrants making their way through Mexico as “dangerous illegal criminals.” Ominous music played in the background of the ad as images of a convicted Mexican criminal were spliced with footage of the caravan.

This description was inaccurate, not to mention illogical ― aren’t hardened criminals and narco-traffickers wily enough to avoid such an arduous and physically taxing journey, and one that has captured such public attention and scrutiny?

The truth about these migrants comes down to the most basic of human needs: survival. Those who have joined the caravan have done so because their reality is simple. In the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, where violence is endemic and justice is illusory, it’s a question of life or death.

The truth about these migrants comes down to the most basic of human needs: survival. Those who have joined the caravan have done so because their reality is simple. In the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, where violence is endemic and justice is illusory, it’s a question of life or death.

Trump, in his roiling pre-midterm elections hate-speech tour, painted the caravan as an “invasion,” even though it’s a common occurrence that hasn’t disrupted the peace before. Traveling in a large group is far safer than traveling alone, with a human smuggler or in a small group, and migrant advocacy groups have organized large caravans for at least a decade. But beyond the president and his party’s racist rhetoric, there’s a broad assumption that such an influx of immigrants will both threaten American values and weigh heavily on the American taxpayer.

Like previous waves of immigrants, this group of new arrivals may need help to acclimate to this complex country of ours. Some will need medical care, thanks to years of living in countries with limited medical infrastructure. Others will need counseling to heal from layers of traumatic experiences against the backdrop of horrible violence ― which, lest we forget, the United States played a significant role in creating.

But they won’t need much. If I’ve learned one thing during my tenure as a trauma-focused clinician, it is this: Central American immigrants are resilient. They are driven and strong. They persevere. Despite the staggering hardships and suffering they have endured, they are defined by their ability to “seguir adelante” ― to move forward.

It’s a phrase that I’ve heard hundreds of times ― perhaps thousands ― in my therapy office. Nearly all my young clients have voiced their desire to “seguir adelante.” The 17-year-old boy who witnessed his father’s murder, finding himself alone and in grave danger; the 15-year-old girl who was kidnapped by the Zetas cartel in Mexico and held for ransom for weeks; the 18-year-old boy who served as a lookout for the MS-13 gang in exchange for his sister’s life before fleeing his country.

“Tengo que seguir adelante,” they tell me. I must continue moving forward.

The 13-year-old indigenous child who recounted months of eating “grass soup” when tortillas became too expensive. The 16-year-old who mourns the loss of her brothers ― all three of them, murdered while crossing gang-controlled territory. The 20-year-old working through the night at a bakery, then coming to school filled with energy and endless questions about the workings of American bicameral government.

Tengo que seguir adelante.

While their experiences are varied and diverse, my clients have two things in common. They have been exposed to multiple horrifying traumatic events, and they have an indefatigable desire to heal, grow stronger and move forward.

Trauma is never a desirable experience, or a deserved one. Many Central Americans have seen, experienced and survived more suffering and loss than any human should be asked to bear. But part of the “seguir adelante” mentality is the idea of being a metaphorical phoenix. Instead of allowing repeated traumatic events to crush them, many of the Central American clients with whom I work rise again as stronger, more resilient versions of themselves. While they may suffer from trauma-related symptoms like flashbacks, many are simultaneously able to devote their energy to finding a new sense of purpose in ways that I have not observed as universally in my work with American-born clients.

This phenomenon is illustrative of the positive psychology concept of post-traumatic growth, which posits that those who are exposed to trauma discover or develop new capabilities: closer social and familial bonds, increased resilience, stronger motivation and deepened spirituality.

So if the resilience of the “adelante” mentality drives these immigrants forward in spirit, what compels them to move forward physically? Perhaps they were unable to pay last month’s “impuestos de guerra,” or war taxes, to the local gang as rent for their space in the market. Maybe they refused to join the controlling gang in their neighborhood, despite the near-certainty of death if they stayed. Instead of remaining in Guatemala City, or Santa Tecla, or Tegucigalpa, they wagered it all, picked up and left.

They leave behind their families, their friends, their rich cultures, their language, their homeland. They understand the risks of the journey. They have heard the horror stories of kidnapping, rape, extortion and abandonment in the desert. Despite all this, they have decided to “seguir adelante,” fueled by hope for a brighter, safer future, to be achieved through hard work, determination and unwavering courage. Don’t those values sound reminiscent of those upon which our patchwork nation was founded?

In the end, all the migrant caravan really wants is to move forward. And as a democratic country founded on ideals of egalitarianism, isn’t it time for us to move forward, too?

Stephanie L. Carnes is a bilingual licensed clinical social worker at a large public high school in New York’s Hudson Valley. She was previously a clinician in a federally funded shelter program. She specializes in trauma treatment with Central American immigrant students and culturally competent mental health care.

The real scandal here is that although the vast majority of arrivals pass “credible fear” screening, so few them ever receive asylum. That strongly suggests that there are real problems in the “intentionally overly restrictive unduly legalistic” approach and the often dishonest ways that “in absentia orders” are used at EOIR. A better approach would probably be to allow those who have already been determined by the Asylum Office to have a “credible fear” present their initial asylum applications to those offices, rather than being forced immediately into the Immigration Courts, particularly given the current court backlogs.

The system has become far too restrictive and legalistic. Nobody has any realistic chance of winning a case without a lawyer. But, under Trump and Sessions, EOIR has abandoned efforts to insure that individuals are given reasonable access to pro bono lawyers before their cases are heard on the merits. Indeed, Sessions conducted a remarkably unethical, inappropriate, false, and vicious campaign against lawyers — right now about the only folks actually trying to make the system work and insure that our Constitution is complied with.

Of course, not every migrant from the Northern Triangle is a refugee as our law defines that term. But, we should recognize that almost all of them are decent people with good reasons for coming, even when those reasons don’t fit within our legal system. Even when they are not entitled to protection or to remain here, they deserve to be treated humanely, fairly, respectfully, and impartially, and have a full opportunity to present their claims.

The intentional demonization and dehumanization of asylum applicants, advanced by immoral and unethical folks like Trump, Sessions, Miller, and Nielsen, has now been picked up by lower level bureaucrats, who are spreading lies, promoting knowingly false narratives, and generally “taking a dive” to preserve their jobs (or, in a few cases, to gratify their own biases which match those of the Trump Administration.)

If we don’t figure out a way to stop their assault on humanity and human decency, eventually all of us will be splattered with the slime that is the Trump Administration’s approach to immigration! History will not judge us kindly for our subservience to evil.

PWS

11-10-18

GROUPS SUE TO BLOCK TRUMP’S ATTACK ON ASYLUM LAWS — Administration Outraged At Prospect Of Being Held Accountable For Violating Laws!

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/09/trump-asylum-seekers-mexico-border-ban-lawsuit-aclu-splc?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Amanda Holpuch in New York

Published: 17:44 EST Friday, 09 November 2018

Following Amanda Holpuch

Leading civil rights groups have filed a lawsuit asking a federal court to end Donald Trump’s ban on people seeking asylum at the US border with Mexico because it violates US law.

Migrant caravan families face illness, exhaustion and danger

Starting on Saturday, people fleeing persecution can be barred from the asylum process if they do not approach the border at designated border checkpoints.

The order will remain in effect for at least three months, unless a judge rules in favor of the lawsuit filed in federal court by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and Center for Constitutional Rights.

Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said Trump and his administration were trying to override US law by instituting the ban. “This action undermines the rule of law and is a great moral failure because it tries to take away protections from individuals facing persecution – it’s the opposite of what America should stand for,” Jadwat said.

The government considers the bar an emergency measure to respond to people fleeing violence in the Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, but it comes after Trump repeatedly described desperate Central Americans as “an invasion”.

The 18-page lawsuit challenges Trump administration claims that the border is in “crisis” and instead describes how illegal border crossings have declined significantly from record highs in the early 2000s – 1.25 million fewer people were processed at the southern border in fiscal year 2018 than the in fiscal year 2000.

While Trump administration officials have for years accused many asylum seekers of manipulating the system, the lawsuit said many people seeking refuge are not well informed about the process or know that they should approach a designated port of entry to request asylum.

“Even those refugees who know that designated ports of arrival exist often have no idea where they are or how to find them,” the suit said.

The suit also claims asylum processing has slowed in recent months in ways that can be “life-threatening” for people seeking refuge.

“The region of Mexico near the border with the United States is a particularly violent area with limited law enforcement capacity,” the suit said. “Asylum seekers turned back from a port of entry have been raped, beaten and kidnapped and held for ransom by cartel members waiting outside.”

In a joint statement, the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice said the president’s order was lawful. “We should not have to go to court to defend the president’s clear legal authority or our rights as a sovereign nation, but we will not hesitate to do so,” the statement said. “We are confident that the rule of law will prevail.

“The fact that the ACLU and its partners would go to court to specifically sue for the right for aliens to enter the country illegally is demonstrative of the open border community’s disdain for our nation’s laws that almost all rational Americans find appalling.”

The suit was brought on behalf of the immigrant advocacy groups East Bay Sanctuary Covenant and Al Otro Lado, as well as the Innovation Law Lab and Central American Resource Center in Los Angeles. The suit says the new ban forces these aid groups to divert their resources from providing assistance and support to individuals fleeing persecution and violence.

Judge orders Trump administration to continue ‘Dreamers’ program

The bar follows two years of efforts by the Trump administration to restrict legal and illegal immigration to the US, including by targeting the asylum and refugee process.

In June, former attorney general Jeff Sessions ordered US immigration courts to stop granting asylum to victims of domestic abuse and gang violence.

In August 2017, the Trump administration announced it shut down the Central American Minors (Cam) program, which allowed people lawfully in the US to apply for refugee resettlement or temporary immigration status for their children or other eligible family members.

It has also shrunk refugee admissions to a record low – making it more difficult for people to apply for refuge from their home country instead of pursuing a case at the border.

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

Trump’s attempt to rewrite asylum law is a total sham. We’ll see how the Federal Court reacts.

Also interesting that there is no evidence that the Administration is sending additional Asylum Officers to ports of entry. Another indication that this is a sham meant to punish, discourage, and deter asylum seekers — not just to encourage them to go to ports of entry which many do already.

PWS

11-10-18

TRUMP’S BOGUS BORDER CRACKDOWN & ATTACK ON ASYLUM EXPLAINED: Professor Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia & The Penn State Law Center For Immigrants Rights Clinic Provide “Fact Sheet”

Blocking those Seeking Entry PolicyFinal

Joint Rule and Presidential Proclamation On Entry and Asylum: What You Need To Know

Updated November 9, 2018

What are these new policies?

On November 9, 2018, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Justice (DOJ) issued an interim final rule and a presidential proclamation affecting individuals seeking entry at the southern border of the United States. These executive actions place restrictions on asylum for certain noncitizens arriving in the United States.

What are these policies intended to do?

The interim final rule governs eligibility for asylum and screening procedures for those subject to a new presidential proclamation. Together, these executive actions suspend entry for noncitizens crossing the southern border and bar such noncitizens from asylum.

What is the scope of the joint interim rule and presidential proclamation?

The rule applies prospectively, so individuals who arrived in the United States before the effective date of November 9, 2018 are not covered. The rule also does not impact two related forms of relief known as withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against Torture. These forms of relief are narrower and without the same benefits of asylum protection. No later than 90 days from the date of the presidential proclamation, November 9, 2018, the Secretary of State, Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security should submit to the President a

recommendation on whether the suspension should be extended or renewed.

What legal authority is the administration relying upon to issue the interim final and

presidential proclamation?

The joint interim rule points to several sections in the immigration statute known as the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Some of these sections are summarized below.

● INA § 212(f) states: “Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of anyclass of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”

The goal of this document is to provide general information and is not meant to act as a substitute to legal advice from an attorney.
1

● INA § 208(d)(5)(B)● INA §
●

Has the administration used INA § 212(f) before?

Yes. Most recently, INA § 212(f) was used as a basis for three travel bans issued by the President, each of which prohibits the entry of nationals from certain countries. On June 26, 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States issued an opinion in the case of Hawaii v. Trump (Travel Ban 3.0). Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Roberts held that the travel ban does not violate the INA and described INA § 212(f) as a “comprehensive delegation” which “exudes deference to the President in every clause.”

Is the President’s use of INA § 212(f) in the Travel Ban distinguishable?

Yes. In Hawaii v. Trump, the courts did not analyze the suspension clause at INA § 212(f) against the asylum provision at INA § 208(a).

What are the legal concerns with these executive actions?

There is a concern that the executive actions violate the immigration statute and other laws. While the interim final rule and presidential proclamation identify some sections of the immigration statute, these sections cannot be read in isolation to the statute as a whole, nor can it conflict with the U.S. Constitution, statutes and other laws. One concern is that these actions violate the statutory provision that governs asylum law and other laws. INA § 208 states that any person physically present in the United States, regardless of how or where he or she entered is eligible to apply for asylum. The section states in part, “

ated port of arrival.

The goal of this document is to provide general information and is not meant to act as a substitute to legal advice from an attorney.

states that “[t]he Attorney General may provide by regulation for any

other conditions or limitations on the consideration of an application for asylum not

inconsistent with this Act.”

215(a) states that it is “unlawful . . . for any alien to depart from or enter or attempt

to depart from or enter the United States except under such reasonable rules, regulations,and orders, and subject to such limitations and exceptions as the President may prescribe.”

INA

§

208(b)(2)(C) states that the “Attorney General may by regulation establish

additional limitations and conditions, consistent with this section, under which an alien

shall be ineligible for asylum under paragraph (1).”

Any alien . . . who arrives in the United States (whether or not

at a designated port of arrival and including an alien who is brought to the United States after having been interdicted in international or United States waters) irrespective of such alien’s status,

may apply for asylum . . .” (emphasis added).

Because

the plain language of the INA is clear that

any noncitizen is eligible for asylum regardless of her manner of entry, there is a concern that these policies violate the statute by restricting the availability of asylum seekers only to those who

present at a design

2

Why is the administration issuing these policies?

It is the administration’s position that the United States has seen an increase in the number of noncitizens arriving at the United States between ports of entry along the southern border and that

many of the asylum claims brought forth by this population are without merit.

What are some of the countervailing views to the administration’s position taken by some

refugee advocates and scholars?

Many asylum seekers arriving at the southern border are from the Northern Triangle which is comprised of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. The violence and danger in these countries is well documented. Individuals who have suffered or will suffer individual harm for a specific

reason are eligible to apply for asylum under the immigration statute and other laws. Many of the

asylum claims by individuals from the Northern Triangle are with merit.

What is an “Interim Final Rule”?

An Interim Final Rule becomes effective immediately upon publication and is an exception to the general rule that public notice and comment must take place before the effective date of a regulation. DOJ and DHS have concluded that a “good cause” exception exists to publish this asylum regulation as an interim final rule. Written comments can be submitted by the public for a period of sixty days from the date of publication.

What is a presidential proclamation?

A presidential proclamation is one form of presidential power and similar to an executive order. It is an order issued by the President of the United States and may possess the authority of law. See e.g., Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952).

What comes next?

Given the legal concerns of restricting asylum, litigation is expected. Further, under section 4 of the presidential proclamation, if any section of the proclamation is found to be invalid, the remainder of the proclamation shall remain effective.

Where can I find more resources?

See the Penn State Law Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic website for updates on this and other immigration policies. Also visit:

● Department of Homeland Security

● American Immigration Lawyers Association

● American Immigration Council

● Human Rights FirstThe goal of this document is to provide general information and is not meant to act as a substitute to legal advice from an attorney.
3

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It’s critically important to the future of our nation and the world that the actions of Trump and his White Nationalist scofflaws be resisted in the courts and in our political system.

In the meantime, since virtually everything the Administration says on this topic is a false narrative or obfuscation of their real racist agenda, an honest expert analysis like this is a “gold mine.”

We can (and are) diminishing ourselves as a nation, but it won’t stop human migration!

PWS

11-09-18

ELISE FOLEY @ HUFFPOST – Finally, There Will Be Some Meaningful Oversight Of Trump’s Racist, Xenophobic Immigration Policies! – It Won’t Stop, But Could Slow, The “Race To The Bottom!”

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/democrats-house-immigration_us_5be2ec2fe4b0e84388924c3d

Elise writes:

The new Democratic majority in the House of Representatives can’t force President Donald Trump to abandon his efforts to crack down on asylum-seekers, migrant families and immigrants already living in the U.S. But it can make it harder for him to enact his agenda.

Whether through oversight, withholding funds or passing pro-immigrant bills and daring the Republican-controlled Senate and the president to shoot them down, Democrats now have leverage on immigration.

Republicans, of course, will still control the Senate after Tuesday’s midterms, and Trump will still be in the White House, where he has already cracked down on undocumented immigrants without congressional help.

Still, there were glimmers of hope around the country. Oregon voters rejected a ballot measure that would have ended the state’s “sanctuary” policies. Kansas gubernatorial candidate Kris Kobach, a Republican who has spent years pushing hard-line immigration policies around the country, lost. So did Pennsylvania U.S. Senate candidate Lou Barletta, who enacted an anti-immigrant policy years before as a mayor and recently defended separating families at the border. Several other Republicans who campaigned on immigration crackdowns lost too, which immigrant rights advocates held up as proof that Trump’s fear-based campaigning wasn’t the guaranteed winner he seemed to think it was.

And now that Democrats have taken control of the House, they can serve as a check on Trump’s immigration efforts.

Democrats are expected to launch investigations and conduct oversight on a number of Trump actions and policies ― something Republicans have so far declined to do. And immigrant rights groups will be pressing them to do so.

Tyler Moran, managing director of progressive group The Immigration Hub and a former Senate and White House staffer, pointed out several areas ripe for oversight. Those include the Trump administration’s family separations at the border, its deportation tactics, and its decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program for young undocumented immigrants and temporary protected status for certain nationalities of immigrants whose home countries suffered natural disasters or violence.

Many of Trump’s immigration policies also require significant funding increases ― something a Democratic House is likely to fight. The Democrats have already vowed not to fund Trump’s wall along the southern border. Trump is expected to push for wall funding during the lame duck session while Republicans maintain control of both chambers, and has suggested a government shutdown in December if he doesn’t get what he wants.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told The Wall Street Journal ahead of the election that if Democrats should win a majority on Tuesday, they’d have more leverage to block wall spending even before they officially take over.

“Why would we compromise on the wall now?” she said.

BLOOMBERG

Current House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has pushed for more protections for undocumented immigrants.

Mass detention of families and asylum-seekers, which Trump is pushing for through a proposed rule change and a potential executive order, would also have a hefty price tag. Most Democrats oppose such policies.

Democrats are also likely to push legislation that protects undocumented immigrants, particularly young immigrants, which could increase public pressure for Senate Republicans and Trump to back it.

Trump ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, last year, but so far has been forced to keep it running by court orders that he is continuing to fight. Although Republicans opposed DACA, some have voiced support for some type of legislative measure that would keep its recipients ― so-called Dreamers who have lived in the U.S. since childhood ― from being deported.

But so far, Republicans haven’t actually supported measures that would do so, at least without simultaneously aiming to restrict legal immigration and ramp up deportation efforts.

Immigrant rights groups want a “clean” bill for Dreamers, called the Dream Act, that doesn’t include other measures. Democrats are expected to push for it, but past stalemates are likely to continue. More likely, Democrats could make a deal to protect Dreamers while also giving Trump something he wants, but not the whole spate of anti-immigrant measures Republicans tried, and failed, to pass earlier this year.

While Democrats gaining the majority was a good thing for supporters of immigrant rights, it required knocking out some moderate Republicans who could previously be claimed as allies on bipartisan legislation. Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.), who unsuccessfully pushed for protections for undocumented young people, lost to a Democrat. So did Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.), another Republican who called for legal status for Dreamers, although he spoke in more hawkish terms at an August fundraiser.

The defeat of bipartisan backers may be more of a symbolic loss than a substantive one. The Democrats who will take their place are likely to be even more reliable supporters of immigration reform.

Leading immigrant rights advocates, including Frank Sharry of America’s Voice, cheered Coffman’s defeat.

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

Even with the departure of the truly terrible Jeff Sessions, the situation is likely to remain grim. Trump’s dreams of legislation slashing legal immigration and eliminating the right to apply for asylum are DOA. Also, he’s not likely to get funding for expanding the New American Gulag, “the wall,” harassing Dreamers, or expanding already bloated, ineffective, and inhumane ICE civil enforcement. Oversight might even result in some accountability for human rights abusers like Nielsen.

But, as he has already shown, there is plenty of damage that Trump can do to the Constitution, human rights, the legal system, and our national values in the area of immigration “administratively.” It’s likely that he’ll look for a total sycophant in the Mike Pence mold for Attorney General. With the Senate firmly in GOP hands, there will be nobody to stop even more unqualified appointments. However, House oversight and budget control might be able to slow the pace of the abuses or at least make a public record for history and future action.

PWS

11-06-18

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!

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/11/jeff-sessions-donald-trump-resign-disgrace.html

Stern writes:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions resigned on Wednesday at the request of Donald Trump. He served a little less than two years as the head of the Department of Justice. During that time, Sessions used his immense power to make America a crueler, more brutal place. He was one of the most sadistic and unscrupulous attorneys general in American history.

At the Department of Justice, Sessions enforced the law in a manner that harmed racial minorities, immigrants, and LGBTQ people. He rolled backObama-era drug sentencing reforms in an effort to keep nonviolent offenders locked away for longer. He reversed a policy that limited the DOJ’s use of private prisons. He undermined consent decrees with law enforcement agencies that had a history of misconduct and killed a program that helped local agencies bring their policing in line with constitutional requirements. And he lobbied against bipartisan sentencing reform, falsely claiming that such legislation would benefit “a highly dangerous cohort of criminals.”

Sessions’ attack on immigrants was equally ruthless. He compelled immigration judges to order the deportation of more unauthorized immigrants and punished them when they did not. He barred most victims of domestic violence from seeking asylum in the United States, deporting survivors back to their persecutors. He attempted to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, subjecting hundreds of thousands of young immigrants to deportation but was too inept to do so lawfully. He tried to prevent states and cities from protecting immigrants within their borders. And he implemented the “zero tolerance” family separation policy, imprisoning thousands of individuals at the border for the misdemeanor of unlawful entry, then seizing their children and locking them in cages. (Hundreds of these kids are still separatedfrom their parents.)

Meanwhile, Sessions mobilized the DOJ’s attorneys to torture immigrant minors in other ways. He fought in court to keep undocumented teenagers pregnant against their will, defending the Trump administration’s decision to block their access to abortion. His Justice Department made the astonishing claim that the federal government could decide that forced birth was in the “best interest” of children. It also revealed these minors’ pregnancies to family members who threatened to abuse them. And when the American Civil Liberties Union defeated this position in court, his DOJ launched a failed legal assault on individual ACLU lawyers for daring to defend their clients.

As he oversaw family separation, forced birth, and mass incarceration, Sessions found time to degrade LGBTQ Americans and their families. He issued a memo alleging that federal civil rights laws do not protect transgender employees, a position the Justice Department recently reiterated to the Supreme Court. He also argued that these civil rights laws do not protect gay people. His DOJ defended Trump’s ban on open transgender military service by claiming that trans people are disordered deviants. Under his leadership, the DOJ also asked the Supreme Court to rule that many businesses have a First Amendment right to turn away same-sex couples. (Sessions gave a speech to the anti-LGBTQ group that brought that case to SCOTUS, thanking them for their “important work” on behalf of religious liberty.)

The guiding principle of Sessions’ career is animus toward people who are unlike him. While serving in the Senate, he voted against the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act because it expressly protected LGBTQ women. He opposed immigration reform, including relief for young people brought to America by their parents as children. He voted against the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. He voted against a federal hate crime bill protecting gay people. Before that, as Alabama attorney general, he tried to prevent LGBTQ students from meeting at a public university. But as U.S. attorney general, he positioned himself as an impassioned defender of campus free speech.

While Sessions doesn’t identify as a white nationalist, his agenda as attorney general abetted the cause of white nationalism. His policies were designed to make the country more white by keeping out Hispanics and locking up blacks. His tenure will remain a permanent stain on the Department of Justice. Thousands of people were brutalized by his bigotry, and our country will not soon recover from the malice he unleashed.

His successor could be even worse.

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

Can’t overstate the intentional damage that this immoral, intellectually dishonest, and bigoted man has done to millions of human lives and the moral and legal fabric of our country. “The Father of the New American Gulag,” America’s most notorious unpunished child abuser, and the destroyer of Due Process in our U.S. Immigration Courts are among a few of his many unsavory legacies!

The scary thing: Stern is right — “His successor could be even worse.” If so, the survival of our Constitution and our nation will be at risk!

PWS

11-06-18

ROQUE PLANAS @ HUFFPOST: TRUMP’S BOGUS CARAVAN THREAT MIGHT BE HIS MOST OUTRAGEOUS SCAM YET! — GOP’S Racist Commercial So Vile That Even Fox Pulls It!

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-fabricating-border-crisis-before-election_us_5be0a522e4b09d43e321d731

Roque Planas writes in HuffPost:

Almost every day last week, the White House thrust immigration to the center of national politics. The Pentagon announced plans to dispatch some 5,200 troops to the border with Mexico. Trump said he planned to eliminate the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship by executive fiat. He announced a coming plan to bar migrants who cross illegally from claiming asylum and to detain them indefinitely in tent cities. To hear him speak at a press conference on Thursday, it would appear the United States faces an onslaught of illegal immigration.

None of this reflects reality. For the last eight years, arrests for illegal border crossing have been at their lowest levels since the 1970s.

But it does jibe with the strategy of a president who propelled himself to the White House by making specious immigration claims. Facing an election cycle that imperils the Republican majority in the House of Representatives, the president’s message is clear: Voters should blame Democrats for a nonexistent catastrophe at the border.

The ad — which NBC abandoned, along with Fox and Facebook, after a major backlash — is part of Trump’s strategy to drum up fears of the caravan among his base. CNN declined to air it, calling it “racist.”

It’s also flatly false.

Luis Bracamontes, the unauthorized immigrant in Trump’s ad, was convicted in 2014 for killing two Sacramento police officers and has nothing to do with the caravan.

The original version of the ad that Trump posted to Twitter was even more blatantly dishonest. After showing clips of a deranged Bracamontes ranting in court about how he would escape and kill others, it claimed that Democrats let him into the country and that they let him stay. It then it cuts to video of the caravan, giving the impression that it’s composed of similar fiends.

In fact, no one let Bracamontes in. He was deported twice, once in 1997 and again in 2001.

Some critics of the ad have noted that the last time he entered the country illegally appears to have been during the presidency of George W. Bush. He didn’t let Bracamontes in either, though. The fact is that Bracamontes evaded law enforcement, which is not in itself noteworthy. The rate of success for people who attempt to enter the country illegally multiple times never dipped below 96 percent until 2008, according to the Mexico Migration Project, the most comprehensive sociological database to track migration across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Implying that the migrant caravan is consists of dangerous criminals like Bracamontes is just as untenable as the claim that Democrats let him in. Among the several thousand people traveling through Mexico in the main caravan are 2,300 kids, according to UNICEF USA. The migrants are banding together in caravans not as some kind of invading force but as a way to seek protection in numbers from human traffickers.

The major challenge that the U.S. faces at the border is how to process efficiently an uptick in the number of Central American families and children who make asylum claims or ask for other forms of humanitarian relief from deportation. But that trend dates from 2014, so it’s hardly new.

It won’t be clear until after the midterm elections whether Trump will follow through on his barrage of immigration promises. But with less than 24 hours to Election Day, the more immediate question is how voters will react to his statements.

Mass migration from Mexico had petered out seven years before Trump launched his campaign for the presidency by vilifying Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists and blaming “open border” Democrats for an immigration crisis that didn’t exist. The strategy helped get him elected in 2016. On Tuesday, we’ll see if it works for him again.

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

Lies, knowingly false narratives, corruption, scams on the American people, racism, intolerance, disrespect for millions of Americans and our Constitution — that’s just business as usual for the Trump Administration.

Truth is, the “Caravans” are doing favors for the US Government in a number of ways:

Easy to track;
Plenty of advance notice;
Reduces danger and deaths along the way;
Takes business away from professional smugglers;
Almost all “Caravan” members who actually reach the border (only a fraction of those who begin the thousand mile plus journey) are processed in an orderly fashion, either waiting patiently at ports of entry or turning themselves in to the Border Patrol immediately upon entry;
There is no evidence of significant numbers of “Caravan” members disappearing into the interior of the US without some type of inspection and screening — almost all those who are not summarily returned have gone through credible fear screenings and are either detained or released on bond after the Government confirms their identity and reasons for coming, and determines that they have credible cases for protection under our laws;
There is no record that I’m aware of that any “Caravan” has attempted to “storm the border” or violently attacked US border authorities en masse — why would they, since their only chance for survival is to hope and pray that the US authorities will actually live up to our legal responsibilities and give them a chance to seek legal protection under our laws?

However, if the Trump Administration continues to ignore our laws and to mount bogus attacks on fleeing refugees, they probably will be able to convince many of those folks that our legal system is a fraud and they had best employ the services of a professional smuggler to get them into the interior of the US where they can lose themselves in the crowd and probably save their lives — a sort of “do it yourself asylum.” And, while wasting taxpayer money on the “border hoax,” this Administration is failing to fund and intentionally ignoring international efforts to address the dangerous and chaotic conditions in the Northern Triangle that causes these refugee flows in the first place — and will continue to cause them until we put wiser and more honest policies into effect.

The real threat to our country’s security and future is Trump and his willfully blind or in some cases outright White Nationalist, racist, or purposefully racially tone-deaf supporters and enablers.

If that’s not the America you want and want for future generations, get out the vote to start regaining control of our country from a misguided yet loud and active minority trying to shove their lack of values down the rest of our throats! America is for all Americans, not just the “Trump Base” and their fellow travelers!

PWS

11-06-18

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S CRUEL ANTI-REFUGEE POLICIES CREATE HEARTACHE FOR APPLETON MAN SEPARATED FROM FAMILY!

https://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/story/news/2018/11/05/appleton-refugee-struggles-reunite-family-amid-trump-policies/1811031002/

Chris Mueller reports for the Appleton Post Crescent:

As Trump administration slashes refugee limits, Appleton refugee tries to reunite family

Chris Mueller, Appleton Post-CrescentPublished 8:46 a.m. CT Nov. 5, 2018 | Updated 12:49 p.m. CT Nov. 5, 2018

(Photo: Wm. Glasheen/USA TODAY NETWORK-W)

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APPLETON – Heritier Muhorana talks to his wife and daughter every day.

He can hear their voices on the phone. He can look at their faces on a screen. But for more than three years, he hasn’t seen them in person.

In 2000, Muhorana fled horrific violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo for the relative safety of crowded refugee camps in Burundi, a neighboring country in central Africa.

Muhorana met his wife, Chantal, in one of those refugee camps. That’s where they got married. But in late 2014, Muhorana was approved for resettlement in the U.S. — a process that took nearly two years and began before he was married.

He came alone to the U.S. in 2015, expecting his wife would be able to join him soon after. That didn’t happen. His daughter, Deborah, will be 3 years old in December. He has never met her in person.

His wife and daughter left the refugee camps and now live in Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi. They’re working with World Relief Fox Valley in an effort to get to the U.S., but so far haven’t been successful.

DONATE: Help Stock the Shelves fight hunger in your community

Muhorana tries to stay positive, but it’s difficult not to be frustrated. He doesn’t know when his family will be back together.

“This experience will never happen to me again,” he said. “It’s a very bad experience, not to be with your family.”

RELATED: ‘A biblical issue’: World Relief official offers different perspective on immigration

RELATED:Refugees find ‘place to call home’ in Appleton

The situation isn’t likely to improve anytime soon. The number of refugees being allowed to settle in the U.S. has sharply fallen in the last two years.

In September, the Trump administration announced a plan to limit the number of refugees allowed to resettle in the U.S. this fiscal year to 30,000, down from a limit of 45,000 set last fiscal year — already the lowest since Congress passed the Refugee Act in 1980. The limit during the final year of the Obama administration was 110,000.

Despite the limit of 45,000 last fiscal year, the U.S. only admitted 22,491 refugees, which is the lowest number in decades, according to State Department records.

About 25.4 million refugees exist worldwide, according the U.N. refugee agency.

The number of refugees arriving in northeast Wisconsin has also significantly declined in the last two years. World Relief Fox Valley, which has offices in Appleton and Oshkosh, had 209 arrivals in fiscal year 2016. That fell to 70 in fiscal year 2017 and 57 in fiscal year 2018, which ended Sept. 30.

World Relief Fox Valley immigration specialist Ashley Hill and immigration manager Phil Stoffel work in their office in Appleton. (Photo: Wm. Glasheen/USA TODAY NETWORK-W)

Phil Stoffel, immigration manager for World Relief Fox Valley, said the situation for refugees trying to bring close relatives to the U.S. has gotten more difficult recently.

“People all across the nation in networks and affiliates that we work with are telling me they’re not getting any answers for any of these cases right now,” he said.

Many refugees have started to lose trust in the system they’re relying on to help them, Stoffel said. World Relief Fox Valley has at least 50 cases of refugees trying to bring close relatives to the U.S., but it doesn’t appear anything is going to change in the near future, he said.

“There’s no other way to explain what’s going on,” he said. “The politics in this are really bad right now.”

Stoffel has one piece of advice to anyone unsure whether the U.S. should welcome refugees at all: meet one.

“Once you meet one, it changes,” he said.

‘A very tough moment’

In 1998, Muhorana fled with his family from their village in Katanga, a former province in the southern part of Congo. The country was descending into war. He was just 12 years old.

He still remembers the night they left. It was about 6 p.m. That’s when they started walking. They didn’t stop until about 2 p.m. the next day. And his family wasn’t alone.

“Thousands of people moving at one time, just walking,” he said. “It was very painful.”

Muhorana didn’t bring much with him, other than what he could carry. He remembers a cousin asking him to hold a bottle for her baby, to help her as they were walking.

They walked for weeks without enough food to eat and in constant danger of being caught up in the violence unfolding around them.

“At that time, what mattered was just to save our lives,” he said.

But they couldn’t always avoid the fighting. The exposure to violence left many people traumatized — or worse, Muhorana said.

“I saw some people who were hurt or shot, some other people were killed on the way,” he said. “It was a very tough moment.”

Muhorana, though, safely found his way to Kalemie, a town on the western shore of Lake Tanganyika, where a relief organization provided food to the crowd of refugees. He stayed there for more than a month, but safety was still a concern.

““At that time, what mattered was just to save our lives.””

Heritier Muhorana

He eventually continued north to South Kivu, a province near the border with Burundi, and stayed there for almost two years, despite treacherous living conditions. He stayed in churches or schools, often in close quarters with thousands of other people.

“We didn’t have enough food to eat. We didn’t have medical assistance,” he said. “So, everything was just a little bit. It wasn’t enough.”

Disease was a problem, too. Many people got sick. Some died. But safety from the violence remained the primary concern, Muhorana said.

“People were still being killed there,” he said.

He couldn’t think about his plans for the future. The situation didn’t allow it. So, in an effort to find peace and a place he could think about his goals in life, he and his family decided to flee for Burundi.

‘We were limited’

Muhorana was a teenager by the time his family crossed the border into Burundi and arrived at their first refugee camp. They stayed for more than a year, then were forced to move to another camp in the northeast part of country.

The violence unfolding in Congo was behind them. But in the camps, his family encountered other problems. Sickness, mostly.

“I would see people dying every month, every year,” Muhorana said. “You bury a lot of people.”

Their camp was packed with about 10,000 people, he said. And it wasn’t the only camp around. Burundi had multiple refugee camps set up for those fleeing across the border.

The camp was not a good place to live, Muhorana said. He felt trapped, unable to go anywhere without asking permission first.

“When you are young, you have dreams. You have goals. You have ambition. You have something in your heart you desire to achieve,” he said. “In the camp, we were limited.”

Still, despite the limitations, Muhorana found a way to work toward a better life. He left the camp after a few years and made his way to Rwanda, a country to the north of Burundi. There, he was able to finish high school and get a college scholarship, which he used to earn a bachelor’s degree in business.

Then, in 2013, Muhorana returned to the camp, where his family still lived. That’s when he met the woman who later became his wife. She had fled a similar situation in Congo and was already living in the camp when he returned.

““I would see people dying every month, every year. You bury a lot of people.””

Heritier Muhorana

He found a lot to like about her, Muhorana said, but her generosity stood out to him. The prospect of getting married in the camp wasn’t ideal, he said. But, in 2015, without other options, that’s exactly what he did.

He hadn’t specifically planned on coming to the U.S. — he simply wanted to find a country where he could live a normal life. But when he was approved for resettlement in the U.S., the prospect excited him.

“We were thinking that maybe life was going to be different than what we have here,” he said.

The process of getting approved for resettlement took nearly two years. And when it was over, Muhorana didn’t get to choose where he was sent. His wife, who hadn’t yet been approved, wouldn’t be able to join him.

“We couldn’t travel together because I was already at the final step,” he said. “I was already ready to come.”

So, with no other choice, he left on his own.

‘Change will come’

Muhorana didn’t speak English — not much, at least — when he arrived in the U.S. in 2015. And that was far from the only challenge he faced.

He was thrilled to arrive, but those first few years weren’t easy at all, he said. The culture was entirely new to him and it took time to adjust.

“I couldn’t imagine that I would have friends and I would get familiar with people here,” he said.

World Relief Fox Valley has services meant to help refugees acclimate to life in the U.S., said Tami McLaughlin, the organization’s executive director.

The organization recruits volunteers who spend time with refugees and serve as companions and valuable sources of information, McLaughlin said.

“Those friendships make the difference in how well somebody transitions into a completely new culture and community,” she said.

To do basic things, such as apply for a job, enroll a child in school, or get health care, can be overwhelming at first for refugees who are often simply relieved to be safe, McLaughlin said.

“You celebrate the little wins and take the little steps,” she said.

RELATED: They help refugees find Wisconsin homes despite political battles

RELATED:Refugee family marks 5 years in Oshkosh

As much as Muhorana tries to remain optimistic about his future, it’s difficult not to be upset with his wife and daughter living thousands of miles away, he said.

The conversations he has with them tend to focus, almost inevitably, on when they might see each other again.They’re still working hard to have a life together, despite the distance between them.

“I try to share my life, my experience here, so I can tell them the difference,” he said.

Muhorana has been working with Stoffel, the immigration manager, for about two years to get his wife and daughter to the U.S., but it’s unclear how much progress they’ve made.

“I can’t begin to tell you how much paperwork we’ve had to file and go through,” Stoffel said. “It’s just a constant back-and-forth with no clear answers from the government.”

Any refugee trying to enter the U.S. has to go through exhaustive background checks, according to U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services. Muhorana’s wife and daughter both have passed those checks, but attempts to get updates on the status of their case have gone unanswered, Stoffel said.

But despite the frustration and the length of time the couple has spent apart, his wife is still excited by the idea of coming to the U.S., Muhorana said.

“She can dream of a bright future too,” he said.

For now, Muhorana will wait. It’s all he can do.

“In life, nothing is permanent,” he said. “Everything is subject to change. So, change will come.”

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FROM THE USA TODAY NETWORK

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Category: Vetting

MEXICO A “SAFE THIRD COUNTRY?” — No Way! — “‘It’s a Crisis of Civilization in Mexico.’ 250,000 Dead. 37,400 Missing.“

THE HILL: NOLAN SAYS TRUMP’S BORDER ORDER IS NQRFPT!

“NQRFPT” = “Not Quite Ready for Prime Time” (as some might remember from my days on the bench)

The Immigration Crisis Jeff Sessions Leaves Behind

Assessing the ousted attorney general’s legacy on President Trump’s favorite issue.

GONZO’S WORLD: SNL BIDS ADIEU TO “EVIL ELF!” – See It Here!

Jeff Sessions and Robert Mueller Say Their Goodbyes on Saturday Night Live, With a Little Help From Kate McKinnon and Robert De Niro

SESSIONS IS OUT @ DOJ – But, His Ugly Jim Crow Racist Legacy & Disingenuous Perversions Of The “Rule Of Law” Continue To Hang Like A Dark Cloud Over Our Nation & Our Moral Values!

GROUPS SUE TO BLOCK TRUMP’S ATTACK ON ASYLUM LAWS — Administration Outraged At Prospect Of Being Held Accountable For Violating Laws!

TRUMP’S BOGUS BORDER CRACKDOWN & ATTACK ON ASYLUM EXPLAINED: Professor Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia & The Penn State Law Center For Immigrants Rights Clinic Provide “Fact Sheet”

ELISE FOLEY @ HUFFPOST – Finally, There Will Be Some Meaningful Oversight Of Trump’s Racist, Xenophobic Immigration Policies! – It Won’t Stop, But Could Slow, The “Race To The Bottom!”

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!

ROQUE PLANAS @ HUFFPOST: TRUMP’S BOGUS CARAVAN THREAT MIGHT BE HIS MOST OUTRAGEOUS SCAM YET! — GOP’S Racist Commercial So Vile That Even Fox Pulls It!

PWS

11-06-18

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S CRUEL ANTI-REFUGEE POLICIES CREATE HEARTACHE FOR APPLETON MAN SEPARATED FROM FAMILY!

‘A very tough moment’

‘We were limited’

‘Change will come’

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“NQRFPT” = “Not Quite Ready for Prime Time” (as some might remember from my days on the bench)

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The Immigration Crisis Jeff Sessions Leaves Behind

Assessing the ousted attorney general’s legacy on President Trump’s favorite issue.

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PWS

11-06-18

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‘A very tough moment’

‘We were limited’

‘Change will come’

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