THE VOICE OF REASON: ANGELINA JOLIE @ TIME ON WHY THE U.S. SHOULD NOT BE ABANDONING OUR TRADITIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LEADERSHIP ROLE! — “It is troubling to see our country backing away from these, while expecting other countries, who are hosting millions of refugees and asylum seekers, to adhere to a stricter code. If we go down this path, we risk a race to the bottom and far greater chaos. An international rules-based system brings order. Breaking international standards only encourages more rule-breaking.” — Advocates Independent Article I Immigration Court For Fair & Impartial Adjudication Of Asylum Claims!

https://apple.news/ARnAxuYYATOy78Bq8BYOy7g

Angelina Jolie writes in Time:

Angelina Jolie: The Crisis We Face at the Border Does Not Require Us to Choose Between Security and Humanity

Angelina Jolie

Jolie, a TIME contributing editor, is an Academy Award–winning actor and Special Envoy of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees

We Americans have been confronted by devastating images from our southern border and increasingly polarized views on how to address this untenable situation.

At times I wonder if we are retreating from the ideal of America as a country founded by and for brave, bold, freedom-seeking rebels, and becoming instead inward-looking and fearful.

I suspect many of us will refuse to retreat. We grew up in this beautiful, free country, in all its diversity. We know nothing good ever came of fear, and that our own history — including the shameful mistreatment of Native Americans — should incline us to humility and respect when considering the question of migration.

I’m not a lawyer, an asylum seeker, or one of the people working every day to protect our borders and run our immigration system. But I work with the UN Refugee Agency, which operates in 134 countries to protect and support many of the over 70 million people displaced by conflict and persecution.

We in America are starting to experience on our borders some of the pressures other nations have faced for years: countries like Turkey, Uganda and Sudan, which host 6 million refugees between them. Or Lebanon, where every sixth person is a refugee. Or Colombia, which is hosting over 1 million Venezuelans in a country slightly less than twice the size of Texas. There are lessons — and warnings — we can derive from the global refugee situation.

The first is that this is about more than just one border. Unless we address the factors forcing people to move, from war to economic desperation to climate change, we will face ever-growing human displacement. If you don’t address these problems at their source, you will always have people at your borders. People fleeing out of desperation will brave any obstacle in front of them.

Second, countries producing the migration or refugee flow have the greatest responsibility to take measures to protect their citizens and address the insecurity, corruption and violence causing people to flee. But assisting them with that task is in our interest. Former senior military figures urge the restoration of U.S. aid to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, arguing that helping to build the rule of law, respect for human rights and stability is the only way to create alternatives to migration. The UN Refugee Agency is calling for an urgent summit of governments in the Americas to address the displacement crisis. These seem logical, overdue steps. Our development assistance to other countries is not a bargaining chip, it is an investment in our long-term security. Showing leadership and working with other countries is a measure of strength, not a sign of weakness.

Third, we have a vital interest in upholding international laws and standards on asylum and protection. It is troubling to see our country backing away from these, while expecting other countries, who are hosting millions of refugees and asylum seekers, to adhere to a stricter code. If we go down this path, we risk a race to the bottom and far greater chaos. An international rules-based system brings order. Breaking international standards only encourages more rule-breaking.

Fourth, the legal experts I meet suggest there are ways of making the immigration system function much more effectively, fairly and humanely. For instance, by resourcing the immigration courts to address the enormous backlog of cases built up over years. They argue this would help enable prompt determination of who legally qualifies for protection and who does not, and at the same time disincentivize anyone inclined to misuse the asylum system for economic or other reasons. The American Bar Association and other legal scholars and associations are calling for immigration court to be made independent and free from external influence, so that cases can be fairly, efficiently and impartially decided under the law.

There are also proven models of working with legal firms to provide pro-bono legal assistance to unaccompanied children in the immigration system without increasing the burden on the U.S. taxpayer. Expanding these kinds of initiative would help to ensure that vulnerable children don’t have to represent themselves in court, and improve the effectiveness, fairness and speed of immigration proceedings. Approximately 65% of children in the U.S. immigration system still face court without an attorney.

We all want our borders to be secure and our laws to be upheld, but it is not true that we face a choice between security and our humanity: between sealing our country off and turning our back to the world on the one hand, or having open borders on the other. The best way of protecting our security is by upholding our values and addressing the roots of this crisis. We can be fearless, generous and open-minded in seeking solutions.

TIME Ideas hosts the world’s leading voices, providing commentary on events in news, society, and culture. We welcome outside contributions. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.

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Wow! Great thoughts on how caring people might actually help to constructively address human migration issues rather than cruelly making them worse through “malicious incompetence.”

It’s painfully clear that we have the wrong “celebrity” leading our nation. But, Jolie wasn’t on the ballot (not will she be). Nevertheless, in a saner and more law-abiding Government, there should be a place for ideas and leadership from Jolie and others like her.

HISTORICAL NOTE: If my memory serves me correctly, Angelina Jolie once appeared before my esteemed retired colleague U.S. Immigration Judge M. Christopher Grant, as an expert witness in an asylum case before the Arlington Immigration Court.

PWS

08-02-19

AILA CONDEMNS BARR’S LATEST COWARDLY EXTRALEGAL ATTACK ON VULNERABLE ASYLUM SEEKERS — “Matter of L-E-A- is a poorly-reasoned decision from an Administration that seems intent on ending legal asylum. AG Barr’s decision ignores decades of circuit court case law which has concluded that families are the ‘prototypical’ or ‘quintessential’ particular social group to qualify for asylum.”

Jeremy McKinney, Esquire
Greensboro, NC
AILA 2nd Vice President

AG’s Decision Ignores Precedent and Is the Latest Attempt to Restrict Asylum

AILA: AG’s Decision Ignores Precedent and Is the Latest Attempt to Restrict Asylum

AILA Doc. No. 19072905 | Dated July 29, 2019

CONTACTS:

George Tzamaras
202-507-7649
gtzamaras@aila.org Belle Woods
202-507-7675
bwoods@aila.org

WASHINGTON, DC — On July 29, 2019, Attorney General (AG) William Barr issued a precedent decision in Matter of L-E-A- and announced that in his view, families cannot be considered a particular social group (and thus grounds for asylum) unless they are recognized by society as such.

AILA Second Vice President Jeremy McKinney stated, “Matter of L-E-A- is a poorly-reasoned decision from an Administration that seems intent on ending legal asylum. AG Barr’s decision ignores decades of circuit court case law which has concluded that families are the ‘prototypical’ or ‘quintessential’ particular social group to qualify for asylum. Courts, like the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, have voluminous case law directly contradicting the Attorney General’s decision today.

“The impact of AG Barr’s decision, along with the other decisions issued by his immediate predecessors on asylum and the nation’s immigration courts, cannot be overstated. Last summer, the AG issued Matter of A-B- attempting to end the category of persecution – essentially restricting domestic violence victims and other victims of crimes perpetrated by private, non-government actors from their ability to qualify for asylum. Today, the AG’s office further attempts to restrict asylum by targeting a new category of asylum seekers: families. This will cause irreparable harm. We know that these are some of the most vulnerable of asylum seekers as parents flee with their children in order to protect them from persecution. This decision unnecessarily makes asylum harder. Clearly, our nation needs an independent immigration court system separate from the Department of Justice.”

Cite as AILA Doc. No. 19072905.

Laura A. Lynch, Esq.

Senior Policy Counsel

Direct: 202.507.7627 I Email: llynch@aila.org

American Immigration Lawyers Association

Main: 202.507.7600 I Fax: 202.783.7853 I www.aila.org

1331 G Street NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20005

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

Cowardice is the very definition of when those in power whose job and solemn duty is to protect and vindicate the rights of others, particularly the most vulnerable among us like refugees, instead grossly abuse their power by picking on them, bullying them, and abusing them. Whether or not Barr and the other White Nationalist restrictionists in the Trump Administration are committing actual crimes under U.S. law, they are certainly guilty of “crimes against humanity” in any normal sense of the word.

It is for legal scholars, historians, and moral philosophers to insure that Trump, Pence, Barr, Sessions, “Cooch Cooch,” “Big Mac With Lies,” Miller, Nielsen, Kelly, Homan, Morgan, and others who have enthusiastically supported and enabled this debacle do not escape the negative judgements of history!

PWS

07-30-19

WORDS FROM AMERICA’S KIDDIE GULAGS: As Dishonest Administration Pols Like McAleenan, “Cooch Cooch,” Morgan, Provost, & A Bevy Of Border Patrol Officials Lie To Congress, The Press, & The American People About What Is Happening In DHS Detention, Here’s The Truth About The Human Rights Abuses Being Committed Daily By Our Nation In Our Name, In The Words Of The Abused Kids Themselves, Read By Children In NY — Watch The Video!

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/18/opinion/migrant-children-detention-border.html

New York children read the words of their peers held in U.S. Border Patrol facilities.

The New York Times

By The Editors

Video by Leah Varjacques and Taige Jensen

In the video Op-Ed above, children read testimonies given by young migrants detained in Customs and Border Protection facilities. They reveal harrowing stories of children living in cages, going hungry and tending to infants without their parents.

Border Patrol has been detaining thousands of children, sometimes for weeks, in conditions no child anywhere should suffer. At a June hearing before a federal appeals court, judges were stunned by the administration’s arguments that these children were kept in “safe and sanitary” facilities, as required by the Flores Settlement.

The overcrowding, long stays and inhumane, possibly illegal living conditions are a result of the Trump administration’s cruel immigration policies and mismanagement of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the border agency.

Barring exceptional circumstances, the legal limit for Border Patrol to detain children is 72 hours. The agency is then supposed to transfer children to the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement for a maximum of 20 days. But the resettlement office has been keeping children far longer, creating a backlog across the entire system. As a result, Border Patrol centers have not been quickly processing unaccompanied children and migrant families, who have recently been crossing the border in record-breaking numbers.

Detained children provided the testimonies read in this video last month to lawyers who visited Border Patrol centers as part of an ongoing investigation of detention facilities.

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

Go to the above link for the video showing how we intentionally abuse children who seek our protection. Do we really want to be known and remembered as a “Cowardly Nation of Child Abusers.” That’s what Trump and his “New GOP,” the party of unapologetic White Nationalist racism, is turning us into.

Just yesterday, McAleenan was lying and covering up before Congress, trying to deny the abuses taking place on his watch every day. He also had the gall to blame this entirely avoidable situation on not enough money from Congress, bad laws (which the Administration doesn’t follow anyway), and the very vulnerable individuals seeking legal protection under our laws, many of them kids.

Committee Chair Elijah Cummings (D-MD) finally had enough and rightfully blew up at him. But, that’s not going to stop the daily abuse and the stream of lies, false narratives, and cover-ups being promoted by McAleenan and his cohorts.

How does McAleenan claim that they are doing the best they can when the DHS’s own Inspector General says exactly the opposite? How does he claim that reports have been exaggerated when Inspector General reports confirming the horrible treatment were in his own hands some time ago? How do Republicans in Congress justify the racist-driven human rights abuses that they are promoting?

America’s future depends on “regime change.” The only question is whether it will come soon enough to save our country and our souls. For Trump’s racism and the abuse he, his followers, and his apologists (like the ever toxic and irresponsible Sen. Mitch McConnell and Sen. Lindsey Graham) are heaping on children, asylum seekers, and other migrants truly diminishes the humanity of all of us!

PWS

07-19-19

AMID STENCH OF TRUMP’S GULAG, PENCE DISINGENUOUSLY BLAMES VICTIMS, DEMOCRATS — “When Vice President Pence visited a migrant detention center here Friday, he saw nearly 400 men crammed behind caged fences with not enough room for them all to lie down on the concrete ground. There were no mats or pillows for those who found the space to rest. A stench from body odor hung stale in the air.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pence-tours-detention-facilities-at-the-border-defends-administrations-treatment-of-migrants/2019/07/12/993f54e0-a4bc-11e9-b8c8-75dae2607e60_story.html

Josh Dawsey and Colby Itkowitz report for the Washington Post:

MCALLEN, Tex. — When Vice President Pence visited a migrant detention center here Friday, he saw nearly 400 men crammed behind caged fences with not enough room for them all to lie down on the concrete ground. There were no mats or pillows for those who found the space to rest. A stench from body odor hung stale in the air.

When reporters toured the facility before Pence, the men screamed that they’d been held there 40 days, some longer. They said they were hungry and wanted to brush their teeth. It was sweltering hot, but the only water was outside the fences and they needed to ask permission from the Border Patrol agents to drink.

Pence appeared to scrunch his nose when entering the facility, stayed for a moment and left. A few minutes earlier, from a bird’s eye room called “The Bubble,” he’d seen 382 men packed into cells, peering against the windows to get a view of him. Some appeared shirtless.

The vice president toured two migrant holding facilities Friday with Republican senators in an effort to defend the administration’s handling of the migrant crisis following reports of inhumane conditions at the facilities.

The first center he visited — in Donna, Tex. — while not homey or comfortable, was only two months old, cleaner and allowed Pence to paint a rosier picture of the treatment of migrants held in federal custody. He used the facility to decry Democrats for comparing such areas to “concentration camps.”

At the second facility in McAllen, he instead described the conditions as the result of the migrant border crisis the administration has been warning about for months but demurred twice when asked if he was okay with the facility’s conditions.

“I was not surprised by what I saw,” Pence said later at a news conference. “I knew we’d see a system that was overwhelmed.”He added: “This is tough stuff.”

The vice president’s office said it specifically instructed the Border Patrol agents not to clean up or sanitize the facility beyond what is routine so the American people could see the overcrowding and scarce resources, like lack of beds, and see how serious the crisis is at the border.

“That’s the overcrowding President Trump has been talking about. That’s the overwhelming of the system that some in Congress have said was a manufactured crisis,” Pence said during a news conference after visiting the second facility. “But now I think the American people can see this crisis is real.”

Pence’s comments were at odds with recent statements from Republicans, as well as Trump, who have accused Democrats who have visited similar facilities of exaggerating the poor conditions. Trump earlier Friday called recent media reports and comments from Democrats about poor conditions “phony.”

And earlier this month, the president downplayed concerns about how migrants are being treated at the facilities. “Many of these illegals aliens are living far better now than where they came from, and in far safer conditions,” Trump wrote in a July 3 tweet.

Pence said the rough conditions are why the administration recently requested and Congress approved $4.6 billion in aid for the border, and he accused Democrats of not supporting more funding for additional beds at facilities for migrants.

He also defended the job being done by the employees at the detention centers.

“I was deeply moved to see the care that our Customs and Border Protection personnel are providing,” Pence said. “Coming here, to this station, where single adults are held, I’ve equally been inspired by the efforts of Customs and Protection doing a tough job in a difficult environment.”

Pence’s visit was the latest move by both political parties to use border trips to highlight their case for who is at fault for the border crisis caused by a surge in Central American migrants and what should be done to remedy it.

Republicans have accused Democrats of failing to get on board with legal changes to the asylum system that would make the flow of migrants easier to handle, while Democrats have charged Trump’s policies and rhetoric are callous and making a bad situation worse.

The political fight over the border is likely to only intensify as both parties prepare for the 2020 presidential race, in which immigration will be a top issue.

Border officials sought to counter some of the men’s claims at the second facility Pence visited.

Michael Banks, the patrol agent in charge of the McAllen facility, said the men there are allowed to brush their teeth once a day and are given deodorant after showering. But he conceded that many of the men had not showered for 10 or 20 days because the facility previously didn’t have showers.

There were no cots for them to sleep on because there wasn’t room, Banks said. Instead, they are each given a Mylar blanket. He said they are also given three hot meals a day, along with juice and crackers.

After he toured the first facility, Pence described a much better situation than the one that has been relayed by Democrats and in news reports.

He said Trump wanted him there with media cameras to see for themselves how people were being treated.

“Every family I spoke to said they were being well cared for, and that’s different than some of the harsh rhetoric we hear from Capitol Hill,” Pence said. “Customs and Border Protection is doing its level best to provide compassionate care in a manner the American people would expect.”

Pence first toured the cavernous facility built in May to handle overcrowding, where 800 people are living. Most were lying on kindergarten-style napping mats on the floor, covered with thin, tinfoil blankets. In another room, children, all under 8 years old, were seated in front of a television watching an animated Spanish film.

Pence asked the children if they had food and were being taken care of. They all nodded, and some said “sí.” A few children shook their heads no when asked if they had a place to “get cleaned up.”

As Pence toured the facilities, a House committee was having a contentious, partisan debate back in Washington over how migrants have been treated. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) requested to be sworn in when appearing as a witness before the panel to show she was telling the truth when she retold a story about a migrant woman who said she had to drink water from the toilet because her sink broke.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tex.) accused her of playing to her millions of Twitter followers.

Some Democrats have described the detention centers as “concentration camps” and say the U.S. government is holding children in “cages.” Several children have died after crossing the border and being taken into federal custody.

Pence said it was heartbreaking to hear from children who had walked two or three months to come to America and cross the border illegally, but he ultimately blamed Congress for failing to pass legislation that would deal with the influx of migrants at the southern border.

Itkowitz reported from Washington.

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

Pence was “moved” and “inspired” by the Border Patrol. Agents who, after all, are doing the jobs that they are paid for, no matter how difficult the circumstances. Apparently he felt no such empathy for or inspiration from those brave and determined individuals who risked their lives hoping only to be treated fairly and humanely by the U.S. legal system.

Instead, they have been “shafted and dehumanized upon arrival” by Trump’s policies. And, is jailing families and children who turn themselves in to apply for asylum really more difficult or challenging than tracking down smugglers and criminals, which is what the Border Patrol is actually supposed to be doing when they aren’t occupied with “Trump’s folly.”

These cases could be handled at ports of entry with adjudications personnel working with NGOs with experience in refugee reception and resettlement. Instead, Trump has purposely turned the situation in to a bogus “law enforcement emergency.”

Pence’s claim that this Trump-Pence White Nationalist self-engineered humanitarian situation largely caused by the cowardice, racism, incompetence, and intentional policy failures of those running the richest country on earth can only be solved by heaping more abuse on the victims and blaming Democrats, who are finally “blowing the whistle” on what’s really happening at the U.S. southern Border, is beyond absurd.

And enough with all the bogus racist claims that these are “illegals.” They are actually human beings, individuals fleeing desperate situations in their home countries seeking legal refuge under the U.S. and international laws the only way they can — since this Administration long ago closed down our only refugee program in the Northern Triangle and arrogantly refuses to fulfill our country’s duty under U.S. and international law to promptly and humanely process those who seek asylum or other legal international protection at our border.

A more accurate and human assessment of what is really happening at the border comes from U.N. Human Rights High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet as reported by Vox News:

The UN high commissioner for human rights condemned the US for the poor conditions in migrant detention centers on Monday, saying she was “appalled” and “deeply shocked” by reports from detention facilities.

In a statement released on Monday, Michelle Bachelet said that detention should be the last resort, and should be used for the shortest period of time in conditions that meet international human rights standards, she said.

“In most of these cases, the migrants and refugees have embarked on perilous journeys with their children in search of protection and dignity and away from violence and hunger,” she said. “When they finally believe they have arrived in safety, they may find themselves separated from their loved ones and locked in undignified conditions. This should never happen anywhere.”

Bachelet especially criticized the US for detaining children, which “may constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment that is prohibited by international law.” Detaining children could have serious impacts on their development, which is why it should never be practiced, she said.

“As a pediatrician, but also as a mother and a former head of state, I am deeply shocked that children are forced to sleep on the floor in overcrowded facilities, without access to adequate healthcare or food, and with poor sanitation conditions,” she wrote.

In her statement, Bachelet noted a July report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, which documented the poor conditions of the migrant facilities with pictures.

The New York Times’s Nick Cumming-Bruce pointed out that Bachelet, the former president of Chile, doesn’t have a reputation for being confrontational with governments, but officials said that the inspector general report prompted her to speak out. And this isn’t the first time her office has called out the US for its violation of human rights. Most recently in May, Deputy Human Rights High Commissioner Kate Gilmore criticized the Alabama abortion ban, calling the attack on women’s rights a “crisis.”

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/7/9/20687495/us-migrant-detention-michelle-bachelet-un-high-commissioner-human-rights

PWS

07-14-19

AMERICA’S “MASS ATROCITY” — Professor Kate Cronin-Furman Says Don’t Kid Yourself About What The Trump Administration Is Doing In Your Name & How “Ordinary Civil Servants” Carry Out The Unthinkable & Unacceptable!

Professor Kate Cronin-Furman writes in the NY Times:

The debate over whether “concentration camps” is the right term for migrant detention centers on the southern border has drawn long-overdue attention to the American government’s dehumanizing treatment of defenseless children. A pediatrician who visited in June said the centers could be compared to “torture facilities.” Having studied mass atrocities for over a decade, I agree.

At least seven migrant children have died in United States custody since last year. The details reported by lawyers who visited a Customs and Border Protection facility in Clint, Tex., in June were shocking: children who had not bathed in weeks, toddlers without diapers, sick babies being cared for by other children. As a human rights lawyer and then as a political scientist, I have spoken to the victims of some of the worst things that human beings have ever done to each other, in places ranging from Cambodia to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Sri Lanka. What’s happening at the border doesn’t match the scale of these horrors, but if, as appears to be the case, these harsh conditions have been intentionally inflicted on children as part a broader plan to deter others from migrating, then it meets the definition of a mass atrocity: a deliberate, systematic attack on civilians. And like past atrocities, it is being committed by a complex organizational structure made up of people at all different levels of involvement.

Thinking of what’s happening in this way gives us a repertoire of tools with which to fight the abuses, beyond the usual exhortations to call our representatives and donate to border charities.

Those of us who want to stop what’s happening need to think about all the different individuals playing a role in the systematic mistreatment of migrant children and how we can get them to stop participating. We should focus most on those who have less of a personal commitment to the abusive policies that are being carried out.

Testimony from trials and truth commissions has revealed that many atrocity perpetrators think of what they’re doing as they would think of any other day job. While the leaders who order atrocities may be acting out of strongly held ideological beliefs or political survival concerns, the so-called “foot soldiers” and the middle men and women are often just there for the paycheck.

This lack of personal investment means that these participants in atrocities can be much more susceptible to pressure than national leaders. Specifically, they are sensitive to social pressure, which has been shown to have played a huge role in atrocity commission and desistance in the Holocaust, Rwanda and elsewhere. The campaign to stop the abuses at the border should exploit this sensitivity and put social pressure on those involved in enforcing the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

Here is what that might look like:

The identities of the individual Customs and Border Protection agents who are physically separating children from their families and staffing the detention centers are not undiscoverable. Immigration lawyers have agent names; journalists reporting at the border have names, photos and even videos. These agents’ actions should be publicized, particularly in their home communities.

This is not an argument for doxxing — it’s about exposure of their participation in atrocities to audiences whose opinion they care about. The knowledge, for instance, that when you go to church on Sunday, your entire congregation will have seen you on TV ripping a child out of her father’s arms is a serious social cost to bear. The desire to avoid this kind of social shame may be enough to persuade some agents to quit and may hinder the recruitment of replacements. For those who won’t (or can’t) quit, it may induce them to treat the vulnerable individuals under their control more humanely. In Denmark during World War II, for instance, strong social pressure, including from the churches, contributed to the refusal of the country to comply with Nazi orders to deport its Jewish citizens.

The midlevel functionaries who make the system run are not as visibly involved in the “dirty work,” but there are still clear potential reputational consequences that could change their incentives. The lawyer who stood up in court to try to parse the meaning of “safe and sanitary” conditions — suggesting that this requirement might not include toothbrushes and soap for the children in border patrol custody if they were there for a “shorter term” stay — passed an ethics exam to be admitted to the bar. Similar to the way the American Medical Association has made it clear that its members must not participate in torture, the American Bar Association should signal that anyone who defends the border patrol’s mistreatment of children will not be considered a member in good standing of the legal profession. This will deter the participation of some, if only out of concern over their future career prospects.

The individuals running detention centers are arguably directly responsible for torture, which could trigger a number of consequences at the international level. Activists should partner with human rights organizations to bring these abuses before international bodies like the United Nations Human Rights Council. They should lobby for human rights investigations, for other governments to deny entry visas to those involved in the abuses, or even for the initiation of torture prosecutions in foreign courts. For someone who is “just following orders,” the prospect of being internationally shamed as a rights abuser and being unable to travel freely may be significant enough to persuade them to stop participating.

When those directly involved in atrocities can’t be swayed, their enablers are often more responsive. For-profit companies are supplying food and other material goods to the detention centers. Boycotts against them and their parent entities may persuade them to stop doing so. Employees of these companies can follow the example of Wayfair workers, who organized a walkout on Wednesday in protest of their company’s sale of furniture to the contractor outfitting the detention centers. Finally, anyone can support existing divestment campaigns to pressure financial institutions to end their support of immigration abuses.

Many Americans have been asking each other “But what can we DO?” The answer is that we call these abuses mass atrocities and use the tool kit this label offers us to fight them. So far, mobilization against what’s happening on the border has mostly followed standard political activism scripts: raising public awareness, organizing protests, phoning our congressional representatives. These efforts are critical, but they aren’t enough. Children are suffering and dying. The fastest way to stop it is to make sure everyone who is responsible faces consequences.

Dr. Cronin-Furman is an assistant professor of human rights.

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“The fastest way to stop it is to make sure everyone who is responsible faces consequences.”

That includes attorneys who defend indefensible policies in Federal Court as well as Federal Judges all the way up to the Supremes who fail to stand up for Due Process for individuals, and who insist on treating Trump’s overt attacks on our Constitution, democracy, and human dignity as within the scope of “normal” Executive actions rather than intentional and dishonest abuses requiring censure and strong, courageous, unconditional disapproval.

PWS

06-30-19

PROFILE IN COURAGE: DHS ASYLUM OFFICERS ASK COURT TO HALT TRUMP’S WHITE NATIONALIST, SCOFFLAW, HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES — As Civil Servants Speak Out Against Anti-American Administration, Why Are Some Life Tenured Article III Judges & Immigration Judges Failing In Their Constitutional Duties & As Human Beings?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/u-s-asylum-officers-say-trumps-remain-in-mexico-policy-is-threatening-migrants-lives-ask-federal-court-to-end-it/2019/06/26/863e9e9e-9852-11e9-8d0a-5edd7e2025b1_story.html

Maria Sacchetti reports for WashPost:

U.S. asylum officers slammed President Trump’s policy of forcing migrants to remain in Mexico while they await immigration hearings in the United States, urging a federal appeals court Wednesday to block the administration from continuing the program. The officers, who are directed to implement the policy, said it is threatening migrants’ lives and is “fundamentally contrary to the moral fabric of our Nation.”

The labor union representing asylum officers filed a friend-of-the-court brief that sided with the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups challenging Trump’s Migrant Protection Protocols program, which has sent 12,000 asylum-seeking migrants to Mexico since January. The policy aims to deter migrants from coming to the United States and to keep them out of the country while courts weigh their claims.

[Read the U.S. asylum officers’ federal court filing]

The union argued that the policy goes against the nation’s long-standing view that asylum seekers and refugees should have a way to escape persecution in their homelands, with the United States embracing its status as a safe haven since even before it was founded — with the arrival of the Pilgrims in the 17th century. The union said in court papers that the policy is compelling sworn officers to participate in the “widespread violation” of international and federal law — “something that they did not sign up to do when they decided to become asylum and refugee officers for the United States government.”

“Asylum officers are duty bound to protect vulnerable asylum seekers from persecution,” the American Federation of Government Employees Local 1924, which represents 2,500 federal workers, including asylum officers, said in a 37-page court filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in California. “They should not be forced to honor departmental directives that are fundamentally contrary to the moral fabric of our Nation and our international and domestic legal obligations.”

The legal filing is an unusual public rebuke of a sitting president by his own employees, and it plunges a highly trained officer corps that typically operates under secrecy into a public legal battle over one of Trump’s most prized immigration policies.

Under Trump, the asylum division has become a target of internal ire, often assailed for approving most initial asylum screenings and sending migrants to immigration court for a full hearing. Trump administration officials say most cases are denied. Last week, the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Ken Cuccinelli, outraged some asylum officers by sending the staff an email they thought criticized them for approving so many initial screenings.

Trump placed Cuccinelli, an immigration hard-liner and former Virginia attorney general, in the position ostensibly as part of his move to get tough on immigration policy, and the union’s legal filing appears to be directly at odds with that approach.

The policy has been challenged in federal court, with a lower-court judge temporarily halting MPP in April, saying it probably violates federal law. A three-judge appellate panel allowed the program to resume in May while the court considers the policy.

Justice Department lawyers have said in court filings that migrants are filing thousands of sham claims because they virtually guarantee their release into the United States pending a hearing in the backlogged immigration courts. The U.S. government cannot process the migrants’ cases quickly or detain children for long periods, which means some migrants can stay in the country for months or years while waiting for their cases to play out.

[In test of a deterrent, Juarez scrambles before U.S. dumps thousands of migrants]

Three migrants wait near the border shortly after being returned to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico on June 13. (Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post)

Ending the program, the government lawyers have said, “would impose immediate, substantial harm on the government’s ability to manage the crisis on our southern border.”

The Justice Department declined to comment on the filing Wednesday. The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the program, did not respond to a request for comment.

The influx of Central American migrants at the southern border has overwhelmed the U.S. immigration system. It also has led to a political fight between congressional Democrats and the White House regarding crowded and unsanitary conditions in border holding facilities amid Trump’s push for heightened enforcement. More than 144,000 migrants were taken into custody in May after crossing the southern border, the largest monthly total in more than a decade, and asylum filings have soared.

Trump administration officials this week have been pleading with Congress to approve emergency funding for the humanitarian crisis at the border. The Senate on Wednesday responded, passing a $4.6 billion emergency spending measure amid debates about treatment of migrants and the risks they face as they try to enter the United States, with a graphic photo of a migrant and his young daughter having drowned in the Rio Grande as the backdrop.

In the federal court filing, the asylum officers say they are enforcing the laws as Congress intended, based on approaches and international treaties shaped after World War II and atrocities connected with the Holocaust. Federal laws hinge on the principle of “non-refoulement” — which means people should not be sent back to countries where they could be harmed or killed. To qualify for asylum, migrants must show that they face harm based on their “race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.”

The asylum officers say Mexico is too dangerous for Central American asylum seekers, particularly women, people who are gay, lesbian or transgender, and indigenous minority groups. They cited State Department reports showing that gang violence and activity is widespread and that crimes are rarely solved.

“Mexico is simply not safe for Central American asylum seekers,” the filing said, noting that gangs that terrorized migrants in their home countries might easily follow them into Mexico. “And despite professing a commitment to protecting the rights of people seeking asylum, the Mexican government has proven unable to provide this protection.”

Asylum officers say the U.S. asylum system is “not, as the Administration has claimed, fundamentally broken,” and that they could handle more cases quickly without sending people back to Mexico.

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MPP is “entirely unnecessary, as our immigration system has the foundation and agility necessary to deal with the flow of migrants through our Southern Border,” the officers wrote.

The officers said they fear that MPP is sending asylum seekers back to a country where they are in danger, a violation of federal and international law. The said immigration agents do not ask migrants if they fear persecution or torture in Mexico, and that they only send migrants to asylum officers for screenings if the migrants independently express fear of return.

[Why migrant families are seeking asylum at the border in record numbers]

The latter are granted an initial asylum screening, often by phone or video. But they must prove that they are “more likely than not” going to face persecution in Mexico, a higher bar than in the immigration courts, where migrants are offered safeguards such as access to lawyers, a reading of their rights, and the right to appeal.

“The MPP, however, provides none of these safeguards,” the officers said.

Officials are attempting to extend the program along the nearly 2,000-mile border and are giving Mexico time to expand its shelter capacity, a top official at U.S. Customs and Border Protection has said.

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

So why do Asylum Officers have the courage and integrity to stand up to what is essentially fraud, abuse, and murder of asylum seekers by the Trump Administration when Article III Judges won’t? U.S. Immigration Judges have so spoken out against
Administration abuses through the National Association of Immigration Judges (“NAIJ”), although a minority of Immigration Judges have contributed to the problem by engaging in unlawful and unconstitutional bias against asylum seekers.

Obviously, we have the wrong type of individuals holding judicial positions in the U.S., something that the next competent and honest Administration should consider before appointing more complicit “go alongs to get alongs” to any type of bench.

It started with the Supreme’s atrocious and cowardly cop out on the Travel Ban case and has continued. Courage and the willingness to stand up against Government abuses are the primary qualifications for judges.

Other than some U.S. District Court Judges, too few Article IIIs have measured up to the task, and innocent people are being harmed, abused, and killed by Trump and his enablers as a result. The Courts of Appeals who have ignored the glaring Constitutional defects and clearly substandard justice in the Immigration Court system for more than a decade are particularly complicit in this unfolding disaster.

Moreover, as I have pointed out before, the lack of understanding of asylum law and unwillingness to stand up for the legal rights of asylum seekers among some Immigration Judges and too many Article III Judges is simply appalling!

To date, the performance of the Article III Judges on the 9th Circuit on the “Remain in Mexico”/“Die in Mexico” atrocity has been so disastrously deficient and incompetent as to make the wheels come off of the entire Government. This is a “rebellion” that should never have been necessary had the irresponsible, incoherent, and clueless three-“judge” panel that let “Die in Mexico” proceed done their jobs.

Hurrah for the Asylum Corps! Boo to the cowardly and unqualified judges who continue to enable Trump’s destruction of America and of human rights! And “double boo” to the career lawyers at the DOJ defending the Administration’s dishonest and illegal policies with lies and false narratives! Whatever happened to ethical standards for Federal Employees? Why do they apply to Asylum Officers, but not to DOJ “judges” and attorneys?

PWS

06-27-19

[BUREAU] ‘CRATS CONTINUE TO FLEE SINKING DHS SHIP AS ABUSES, LIES, COVER-UPS MOUNT — John Sanders Latest To Exit — Trump Taps Mark Morgan, Eager Architect Of Administration’s Temporarily Aborted “Community Reign of Terror” (A/K/A/ “Operation Wetback ‘19”) Program As Next Acting CBP Chief — Expect More Mindless Cruelty, Lies, False Narratives, White Nationalist Racism, Violations Of Law & Human Rights!

https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/25/politics/customs-and-border-protection-john-sanders/index.html

Priscilla Alvarez and Geneva Sands report for CNN:

Washington (CNN)Acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner John Sanders is resigning, he said in a message sent to agency employees Tuesday, amid the dramatic increase in the number of undocumented migrants crossing the border, a fight over how to address it and controversy over how children are being treated.

“Although I will leave it to you to determine whether I was successful, I can unequivocally say that helping support the amazing men and women of CBP has been the most fulfilling and satisfying opportunity of my career,” Sanders writes. His resignation is effective July 5.

Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Mark Morgan is expected to take over as Customs and Border Protection in an acting capacity, according to a Department of Homeland Security official. Sanders’s resignation as acting head of CBP comes amid a crush of migrants at the border that has overwhelmed facilities. Earlier Tuesday, CBP held a call with reporters on squalid conditions at a Border Patrol facility in Clint, Texas.

Officials conceded that children should not be held in CBP custody, noting that the agency’s facilities were designed decades ago to largely accommodate single adults for a short period of time.

The Washington Post first reported Morgan’s move.

Over the weekend, President Donald Trump called off planned raids by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, saying deportations would proceed unless Congress finds a solution on the US-Mexico border within two weeks. Before it was postponed, Mark Morgan had publicly confirmed an operation targeting migrant families and others with court-ordered removals was in the works.

Morgan, a vocal proponent of the President’s efforts, was another of Trump’s picks to lead ICE after abruptly pulling the nomination of Ron Vitiello.

Morgan briefly served as Border Patrol chief during the Obama administration before leaving the post in January 2017. He previously spent two decades at the FBI. He is expected to return to Customs and Border Protection, which encompasses Border Patrol.

Sanders assumed the post after Kevin McAleenan, the former commissioner, moved up to fill the role of acting homeland security secretary in the wake of Kirstjen Nielsen’s ouster this spring. In his role, Sanders has overseen the agency responsible for policing the US borders and facilitating legal trade and travel. It is also the frontline agency dealing with the surge of migrants at the southern border.

Robert Perez, the highest-ranking career official, is the current deputy commissioner. It is unclear if he will step into the acting commissioner position.

<img alt=”100 children moved back to controversial Clint, Texas, border facility” class=”media__image” src=”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180706121423-02-immigration-facility-0628-large-169.jpg”>

100 children moved back to controversial Clint, Texas, border facility

Before becoming acting commissioner, Sanders, served as the Chief Operating Officer at CBP, where he worked with McAleenan to address the operational needs of the agency and work on strategic direction.

As of June 1 this fiscal year, Border Patrol has arrested more than 377,000 family units, over 60,000 unaccompanied children, and over 226,000 single adults.

Sanders did not provide a reason for his departure.

Read Sanders’s letter here:

As some of you are aware, yesterday I offered my resignation to Secretary McAleenan, effective Friday, July 5. In that letter, I quoted a wise man who said to me, “each man will judge their success by their own metrics.” Although I will leave it to you to determine whether I was successful, I can unequivocally say that helping support the amazing men and women of CBP has been the most fulfilling and satisfying opportunity of my career.

<img alt=”100 children moved back to controversial Clint, Texas, border facility” class=”media__image” src=”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180706121423-02-immigration-facility-0628-large-169.jpg”>

100 children moved back to controversial Clint, Texas, border facility

I’ve spent a significant amount of time over the last several days reflecting on my time at CBP. When I began this journey, Commissioner McAleenan charged me with aligning the mission support organizations and accelerating his priorities. Easy enough, I thought. What I didn’t appreciate at the time was how the journey would transform me professionally and personally. This transformation was due in large part to the fact that people embraced and welcomed me in a way that was new to me — in a way that was truly special. To this day, I get choked up when speaking about it and I can’t adequately express my thanks. As a result, let me simply say I will never stop defending the people and the mission for which 427 people gave their lives in the line of duty in defending. Hold your heads high with the honor and distinction that you so richly deserve.

Throughout our journey together, your determination and can-do attitude made the real difference. It allowed CBP to accomplish what others thought wasn’t possible…what others weren’t able to do. And even though there is uncertainty during change, there is also opportunity. I therefore encourage everyone to reflect on all that you have accomplished as a team. My hope is you build upon your accomplishments and embrace new opportunities, remain flexible, and continue to make CBP extraordinary. This is your organization…own it! Don’t underestimate the power of momentum as you continue to tackle some of this country’s most difficult challenges.

I will forever be honored to have served beside you. As a citizen of this great country, I thank you for your public service.

Take care of each other,

John

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

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the latest TRAC Report confirms that under Trump, the DHS, particularly ICE, has been ignoring real enforcement priorities to concentrate on often counterproductive, yet cruel, wasteful, and polarizing, improperly politicized enforcement aimed at non-criminals and those contributing to our country. In other words, terrorizing primarily Hispanic communities just because they can. And these racist attacks appeal to Trump’s base. Just part of the “ICE Fraud” that Morgan undoubtedly intends to bring over to CBP. https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/564/.

Not surprisingly, some dedicated and professional ICE Agents are tiring of Trump and his sycophants’ “malicious incompetence” that is demoralizing the agency and (as I had predicted long ago) turning it into probably the most hated, least trusted, least useful, and least effective law enforcement organization in America. Michelle Mark at Business Insider covers the “bad things that happen” when you have a “no values” White Nationalist President and exceptionally poor leaders like Tom Homan and Mark Morgan who lacked both the will and the backbone to stand up to Trump’s White Nationalist nonsense. https://apple.news/AxFctS7mET3qBX419lPootw

It’s an out of control agency badly in need of professional leadership, practical priorities, and some restraint and professional discipline in both rhetoric and actions. In other words, it needs a real law enforcement mission with honest, unbiased, professional leadership. Not going to happen under Trump!

So, the next competent President will have her or his work cut out to reform and reorganize ICE into an agency that serves the national interests of the majority of Americans. Whether that can be done in ICE’s current configuration, given its overtly racist overtones and widespread lack of community trust under Trump, remains to be seen. It could be beyond repair.

PWS

06-26-19

JRUBE: Trump & Pence Constantly Lie About Immigration & Human Rights — Reporters Are Sticking It To Them In Real Time!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/06/24/trumps-lies-need-be-exposed-real-time/

Jennifer Rubin writes in the WashPost:

In an interview on “Meet the Press,” President Trump repeated a whopper of a lie.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:

Separation, President Obama, I took over separation. I’m the one that put it together. What’s happened though are the cartels and all of these bad people, they’re using the kids. They’re, they’re, it’s almost like slavery.

CHUCK TODD:

But let’s not punish the kids more.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:

No this has been happening —

CHUCK TODD:

Aren’t you — the kids are getting punished more.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:

You’re right. And this has been happening long before I got there. What we’ve done is we’ve created, we’ve, we’ve ended separation. You know, under President Obama you had separation. I was the one that ended it. Now I said one thing, when I ended it I said, “Here’s what’s going to happen. More families are going to come up.” And that’s what’s happened. But they’re really coming up for the economics. But once you ended the separation. But I ended separation. I inherited separation from President Obama.

The Post’s fact-checkers back in April explained: “The Obama administration rejected a plan for family separations, according to Cecilia Muñoz, Obama’s top adviser for immigration. The Trump administration operated a pilot program for family separations in the El Paso area beginning in mid-2017.” Trump’s claim that “Obama did it first” is both morally vapid and completely wrong: “The Trump administration implemented this policy by choice, exercising its discretion to prosecute some crimes over others. But no law or court ruling mandates family separations. In fact, during its first 15 months, the Trump administration released nearly 100,000 immigrants who were apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border, a total that includes more than 37,500 unaccompanied minors and more than 61,000 family-unit members.” In short, “The zero-tolerance approach is worlds apart from the Obama- and Bush-era policy of separating children from adults at the border only in limited circumstances, such as when officials suspected human trafficking or another kind of danger to the child or when false claims of parentage were made.”

Jake Tapper at CNN showed the right way to confront administration members on Sunday, when he went right after Vice President Pence’s misrepresentations about the dismal condition of children still held. After playing a clip of administration lawyers arguing in the 9th Circuit that there was no responsibility to provide basic necessities to children such as toothbrushes, Pence tried to claim that he didn’t know what the lawyers were saying. Tapper kept after him:

”But this is going on right now,” Tapper said, adding “This is the wealthiest nation in the world. We have money to give toothpaste and soap and blankets to these kids in this facility in El Paso County. Right now, we do.”

“Well, of course — of course we do,” Pence said.

“So why aren’t we?” Taper asked.

Pence again dodged the question with a snicker, replying “My point is — my point is, it’s all a part of the appropriations process.”

Tapper then had to cut Pence off from the lengthy digression that followed in order to force the question again.

“But I’m talking about the kids — I’m talking about the kids our custody right now,” Taper said. “Just listen to this. This is ‘The New Yorker’ citing a team of lawyers who visited a border facility.”

Pence tried to interrupt him again, but Tapper insisted “I just want to quote this.”

“The conditions the lawyers were found were shocking,” Tapper read. “Flu and lice outbreaks were going untreated. Children were filthy, sleeping on cold floors, taking care of each other because of the lack of attention from guards.”

“I know you. You’re a father. You’re a man of faith. You can’t approve of that,” Tapper said.

“Well, I — I — no — no American — no American should approve of this mass influx of people coming across our border,” Pence stammered. It is overwhelming our system at the southern border.

“But how about how we’re treating these children?” Tapper asked, again, and Pence deflected, again.

“I was at the detention center in Nogales just a few short months ago. It is a heartbreaking scene,” Pence said, but then added These are people who are being exploited by human traffickers, who charge them $5,000 a person to entice them to take their vulnerable children…”

“But now these kids are in our custody,” Tapper said.

Pence continued to blame Democrats in Congress, but Tapper again reiterated “But I would say that I’m talking about the kids on our southern border right now.”

He told Pence “you have the power right now to go back to the White House and say, we need to make sure that these kids — first of all, that there are people taking care of them, so it is not 12-year-olds taking care of 3-year-olds, and, second of all, that they have soap, that they have toothbrushes, that they have combs, that we’re taking care so they don’t all get the flu.”

Pence once again tried to blame Democrats, to which Tapper replied “I think Democrats would argue that they want to do a deal with President Trump, but he hasn’t showed any inclination.”

That’s precisely how reporters need to go after Trump and his morally deficient administration. This is the Trump administration’s policy. This is the Trump administration’s doing. This is the Trump administration’s refusal to address basic humanitarian needs (while raiding the Defense Department to build a useless wall that has nothing to do with asylum seekers presenting themselves at the border).

CONTENT FROM SAFEWAY

2019 is the year of grilling vegetables

Four recipes to try if you if you want to try your hand at barbecued veggies.

Allowing Trump and his ilk to bluster and flat-out lie their way through interviews might be the path of least resistance when trying to cover a lot of ground. However, if Trump and his teammates are not stopped dead in their tracks, the media become a platform for deceiving voters.

Headlines that echo the president — “Trump says Obama did it first” — are equally reprehensible. (It should be “Trump falsely blames Obama for his own policy.”) Trump, Pence and the rest are accustomed to running through their ridiculous talking points (e.g. the United States has the cleanest water and air in the world) without objection on outlets such as Fox. Other media can and must do better. And when the general-election debates roll around, moderators must be willing to correct misstatements of fact. (Or follow up by asking, “But that’s not true, is it Mr. President?”)

We’re at risk of losing not only a shared set of facts but also a uniform belief that there are such things as facts. That’s straight out of the autocratic playbook — one that the media cannot facilitate.

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

Another part of the Trump, Pence, GOP “Big Lie” — that folks are coming “illegally.” Actually, they are coming and turning themselves in to apply for legal status which they are entitled to do under our laws and international treaties. Trump & Pence actually eliminated the only program allowing folks from the Northern Triangle to seek refugee status from outside the U.S.

What is illegal is the Trump Administration’s failure to promptly and fairly process individuals at ports of entry and returning those who have passed the first step of the process, known as “credible fear,” to Mexico where they are in danger, prevented from getting lawyers of their choice as authorized by statute, and inhibited from fairly and completely presenting their asylum cases before U.S. Immigration Judges (who themselves are not independent, fair, and impartial adjudicators since they work for Attorney General, Trump protector, and self-styled enforcement guru Bill Barr).

Oh, and how about a moratorium on Trump’s Golf Trips and Pence’s religious proselytizing trips on the public dime until every kid in Government custody has a bed, blanket, toothbrush, and a bar of soap?

No, it isn’t really about Congressional appropriations (although the GOP in Congress certainly bears a major part of the blame for Trump’s audacious violations of human rights). Congress didn’t waste money that could and should have been spent on the welfare of asylum seekers on less important things like walls, tent cities, detention, and other “built to fail” initiatives that have done little or nothing to advance the fair and effective administration of our asylum laws. Nor did Congress make the decision not to be prepared to process the asylum seekers who have been slowly and methodically heading north since before last Thanksgiving. You wouldn’t need the world’s best intelligence service to figure out the rate of flow and predict how many might need processing.

As those of us who understand immigration know, desperate people are likely to continue to leave the failed states of the Northern Triangle until the international community deals with the causes of the migration.

Everything the U.S. has done under the “maliciously incompetent” Trump Administration, from encouraging environmental degradation, to withdrawing refugee programs and aid programs, to dumb, anti-human rhetoric, to egging Mexico on to a militarized rather than a human rights response, to idiotically trying to ”enforce” our way out of a humanitarian crisis notwithstanding decades of experience and data showing it won’t work, to empowering gangs, smugglers, cartels, and corrupt government officials, to intentionally backlogging Immigration Courts while destroying established legal principles that could have led to “fast track grants” of many deserving domestic violence asylum cases, to tying up the Federal Courts with frivolous litigation, to intentional child abuse, has made the situation immeasurably and unnecessarily worse.

Yes, Trump might be able to get away with killing and abusing hundreds, perhaps thousands, in Mexico. But even this predictable bloodbath, which he hopes to keep out of sight as the U.S. media loses interest, won’t solve the problem in the long run.

Every day Trump remains in office we diminish ourselves as a nation; but, that won’t stop human migration. It will just leave us as diminished, dehumanized, shells of humanity. It’s time to “just say no to Trump and his supporters and enablers” as they seek to destroy America!

PWS

06-25-19

“ABSURD, FARCE” — Chase, Musalo, Other Asylum Experts Lambaste Trump’s Scheme To Designate One Of World’s Most Dangerous Counties, Without A Functioning Asylum System, As “Safe” For Asylum Seekers!

https://www.law360.com/articles/1170313/guatemala-is-not-as-safe-for-asylum-seekers-as-trump-says

Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog

Professor Karen Musalo
Director, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, Hastings Law

Nicole Narea reports for Law360:

. . . .

Trump tweeted Monday night that Guatemala is “getting ready to sign” a socalled safe third country agreement with the U.S., and he lauded Mexico for “using their strong immigration laws” to stop migrants well before they reach the southern U.S. border. Mexico said Friday it would also weigh a safe third country agreement with the U.S. if its efforts to ramp up immigration enforcement as part of a trade deal do not succeed within 45 days.

The announcements came as the Trump administration moved to reduce its obligations to asylum seekers by expanding its “Remain in Mexico” policy, officially known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, by which migrants are sent back to Mexico while they await hearings in U.S. immigration court.

As for Guatemala, experts have protested that Mexico’s southern neighbor cannot offer asylum seekers the kind of security intended by a safe third country agreement.

But the Trump administration is not proposing such an agreement with Guatemala because it believes the country to be safe, said Jeffrey Chase, a former immigration judge and ex senior legal adviser to the Board of Immigration Appeals. Rather, the White House believes the accord will stop asylum seekers from countries farther south from entering the U.S., Chase said.

Migrants from El Salvador and Honduras have to travel through Guatemala en route to the U.S., and if Guatemala were subject to such an agreement, the Trump administration would have an “excuse to turn away those fleeing violence in those countries,” he said.

Karen Musalo, the founding director of the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at University of California, Hastings College of the Law, said that to call Guatemala safe is absurd.

“I don’t think that anyone familiar with the human rights situation in Guatemala — with its extremely high levels of homicides, femicides, gender violence, gang and organized crime violence, corruptions, etc. — could say with a straight face that asylum seekers would be safe there,” she said.

. . . .

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

Those with access to Law360 can read Nicole’s complete article at the above link.

It isn’t just that Trump (supported by some equally dishonest and nasty GOP legislators and flunkies like Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, Ken “Cooch Cooch” Cuccinelli, and Kevin McAleenan) is blatantly lying about asylum seekers and Guatemala being “safe.” What he essentially proposes is the U.S.-sanctioned murder of innocent asylum seekers from the Northern Triangle.

Why is this outrage against the law and humanity “below the radar screen?” Seems like it’s actually the most clear “impeachable offense” that Trump has committed to date. And, it’s right out in plain view for all to see, with irrefutable proof that Guatemala is NOT a safe country for anyone, let alone asylum seekers. That’s exactly why folks are fleeing Guatemala for their lives every day.

PWS

06-21-19

HUMAN RIGHTS FIRST: Trump/Pence Scheme To Declare Guatemala A “Safe Third Country” Is “Ludicrous” – An Affront To Human Rights & Honest Government!

https://reut.rs/2Kk259M

Eleanor Acer
Senior Director for Refugee Protection, Human Rights First

Sophia Menchu reports for Reuters:

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) – A U.S. plan to make asylum seekers from Honduras and El Salvador seek refuge in Guatemala instead of the United States would endanger, not protect, refugees, a prominent rights group said on Friday as U.S. negotiators met Guatemalan officials.

U.S. rights group Human Rights First said it was “simply ludicrous” for the United States to assert that Guatemala was capable of protecting refugees, when its own citizens are fleeing violence.

“The Trump administration is doubling down on its efforts to block, bar and punish refugees for attempting to seek asylum in the United States,” said Eleanor Acer, senior director for refugee protection at Human Rights First.

“These policies put the lives of refugees in great danger.”

Guatemala, like its neighbors Honduras and El Salvador, suffers high levels of violence, driven largely by transnational street gangs including MS-13, which operate across borders in all three countries. Many asylum seekers cite gang threats as the reason they come to the United States for refuge.

Tens of thousands of people have left Guatemala to seek U.S. asylum this year. Nearly 150,000 undocumented Guatemalan families have reached the U.S. border since October, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, many of them citing fear of violence in their home country for seeking asylum.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said this week the two nations had a deal under which Guatemala would take asylum seekers from neighbors. “They ought to be willing to apply for asylum in the first safe country in which they arrive,” he said.

Details of the plan have not been made public, and Guatemala has not publicly confirmed talks that the U.S. State Department said were taking place in Guatemala on Friday.

The talks were about a range of initiatives aimed at reducing illegal immigration, including “improved asylum processing,” a State Department spokeswoman said on Friday in response to a Reuters question about the Guatemala asylum plan.

The emerging plans flow from a U.S.-Mexican deal struck to avert tariffs threatened by U.S. President Donald Trump to push Mexico to do more to stem immigration through its territory.

That deal included sending 6,000 members of Mexico’s National Guard to the border and expanding a separate asylum program under which U.S. asylum seekers are sent back to Mexico to await U.S. court hearings.

If those measures fail, Mexico has agreed to consider becoming a “safe third country” where all asylum seekers passing through the country would have to apply for refuge, instead of the United States

Mexico’s Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said other countries should share the load, including Guatemala.

Guatemala, one of the poorest countries in the Americas, has little experience receiving large numbers of asylum seekers and a large wave of refugees would strain limited resources. Just 262 people applied for refugee status in Guatemala between January and November 2018, according to data from the U.N. rights agency UNHCR.

By comparison, nearly 155,000 families from El Salvador and Honduras have been apprehended at the U.S. border since October, with many of them requesting asylum.

Guatemala holds presidential elections on Sunday, after a campaign that has highlighted the lack of rule of law in the country, including the influence of drug traffickers on politics in the country.

Trade and immigration between Mexico and the United States – tmsnrt.rs/2Khd82D

Editing by Bill Berkrot

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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

As pointed out in the article, Guatemala is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for its own citizens. It doesn’t even have a functioning asylum system. So, how could it provide access to a “full and fair” asylum adjudications to non-citizens as required by our law. The answer is simple – it can’t, by any stretch of the imagination. After all, living long enough to apply, even if there were a functional asylum adjudication system, would be a prerequisite to a legitimate “Safe Third Country” process.

Seems like clear abuses of authority like this by Trump and Pence that should be enough to remove both of them from office forthwith in a functioning democracy. But, that’s not going to happen before 2021, if then.

In the meantime, Dems should make a note that when responsible Government returns at some point in the future, the law should be amended to require at least Senate ratification of any future “Safe Third Country Agreement” to prevent future Executive abuses like this. Indeed, the failure of this Congress to revoke Trump’s authority to enter into these clearly bogus and ill-intended “Safe Third Country” agreements is an indelible stain upon its reputation.

“Safe Third Country” was intended to be about refugee burden sharing among countries with substantially comparable due process systems for adjudicating claims under the Refugee Convention. It was never intended to allow the U.S. to “outsource” asylum adjudication to dangerous, major human rights violators with dysfunctional asylum adjudication systems. What Trump and Pence are proposing is little more than outright murder and human rights abuses inflicted on asylum seekers in violation of both international and U.S. laws.

PWS

06-17-19

CONTINUING JUDICIAL EDUCATION FOR ARTICLE III JUDGES: “Kids In Cages” Ought To Be Displayed Outside Every Federal Courthouse & The Supremes So That “Robed Enablers” Can See The Results Of Their Abdication Of Constitutional Duties!

https://apple.news/Au_bQMKN3QxmsBKokkqyP3w

Sarah Ruiz’s-Grossman reports for HuffPost:

U.S. NEWS

06/12/2019 05:25 PM EDT

Cages With ‘Kids’ Pop Up Around NYC To Protest Immigrant Detention

The art installations were meant to bring awareness to the horrific conditions children and other migrants face at the southern U.S. border.

Some people in New York City were confronted with an alarming image as they walked down the street on Wednesday morning: a chain-link cage on the sidewalk containing a child-size mannequin wrapped in a foil blanket, with audio playing of migrant children crying.

More than 20 cages were placed around Manhattan and Brooklyn ― from Union Square to the Barclays Center sports arena ― as part of a campaign called #NoKidsInCages by immigration nonprofit RAICES and ad agency Badger & Winters.

It was meant to draw Americans’ attention to the children and other migrants being held in alarming conditions at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Speakers in the cages played the viral recording released by ProPublica last summer of kids wailing for their “mamá” and “papá” after having been separated from them at the border as a result of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy.

“We want to bring this back to the consciousness of the American people,” RAICES CEO Jonathan Ryan told HuffPost. “One of the many unfortunate consequences of the repeated traumatic stories coming from the border is that, as horrified and angry as people have been, we also become desensitized. It’s important for people … to be confronted with the reality that this is about children, human beings, whose lives are forever affected.”

“This is being done in our name by people who we elected,” he added. “And if we don’t do something to stop this, this will become who we are.”

About two dozen cages were dropped around the city from about 4 a.m. to 5 a.m., Ryan said. By midafternoon most of them had been taken down by police or city employees, with three remaining around 2 p.m., per Ryan. The New York Police Department confirmed to HuffPost that more than half a dozen cages had been removed around Manhattan, but did not respond to questions as to why.

The online campaign associated with the installations recalls the family separations under President Donald Trump’s hard-line zero-tolerance policy, which led to the separation of thousands of children from their parents last year. The policy sparked protests nationwide and was reversed by executive order in late June. But a January report from the Department of Health and Human Services found the administration may have separated thousands more kids from their families than was previously known, and it did not know how many or whether they were reunited.

RAICES also wants people to become aware of other issues migrants face, Ryan said.

He noted undocumented immigrant families are still separated “routinely” at the border, including when migrant kids are split from other guardians like uncles and aunts or older siblings. Separations occur inside the country too, he said, when a child’s undocumented mom or dad is arrested by immigration agents, for instance in a workplace raid.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection apprehended over 109,000 people at the border in April ― more than double the number of migrants detained during that month last year. A majority of the migrants apprehended were either families traveling together or unaccompanied kids.

A Department of Homeland Security watchdog, reporting on Border Patrol facilities in El Paso, Texas, found last month that detained migrants were kept in dirty and extremely crowded conditions, forcing some people to stand on toilets to get some breathing room.

Last week, Trump said he reached an agreement with Mexico that includes “rapidly” returning to Mexico anyone who crosses the border seeking asylum in the U.S. Advocates are concerned about the dangerous conditions in cities such as Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez, where more migrants will now be forced to wait as their claims are processed.

“When the American people hear stories of this problem being fixed by the ‘remain in Mexico’ policy, it hasn’t been fixed, it’s just further from their view,” Ryan said. “The suffering will only increase.”

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

Ah, life in the ivory tower of the Article III Federal Judiciary, where you seldom are confronted with the human faces or ugly reality of your abuses and failures to protect the human rights of others.

The “Remain in Mexico” Program is an ongoing affront to our Constitution, the rule of law, and simple human decency for which the judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals who are enabling this ongoing humanitarian outrage and giving it “legal cover” should be held fully morally and historically accountable!

PWS

06-13-19

NATIONAL FRAUD: IMMIGRATION COURTS ARE NOT “COURTS” — New Scholarship Shows How Immigration “Courts” Are Actually Hierarchical Bureaucracies Masquerading As Courts, Incorporating The WORST Features Of Both!

Bureaucrats in Robes final

BUREAUCRATS IN ROBES: IMMIGRATION “JUDGES” AND THE TRAPPINGS OF “COURTS”

AMIT JAIN*ABSTRACT

As U.S. immigration policy and its human impact gain popular salience, some have questioned whether immigration courts—often the first-line adjudicators of deportation—are “courts” at all in the American adversarial legal tradition. This Article aims to answer this question through a focus on the role of the immigration judge (IJ). Informed by in-depth interviews with twelve former IJs and three former supervisory officials, I argue that immigration courts present with superficial hallmarks of adversarial courts, but increasingly exhibit core features of a tightly hierarchical bureaucracy. Although not all features of an immigration bureaucracy are inherently unde- sirable, masking a bureaucracy with judicial trappings results in a deceptive facade of process that likely limits scrutiny from federal courts and calms public discontent with harsh immigration laws. In light of this phenomenon, enhancing IJ independence through the creation of an Article I immigration court would solve some problems with immigration adjudication but risk papering over others. Instead, achieving a fair system will require both procedural and substantive reforms.

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

Read Amit’s full article at the above link.

Yes, I recognize that Amit undercuts my arguments for an immediate halt of this system and change to Article I without waiting for other reforms to “humanize” immigration law and put them more in line with the actual national perception of immigrants (which, as Amit points out, is nowhere near as racist and inhuman as Trump’s White Nationalist restrictionist abomination now being peddled by Trump, Pence, many in the GOP, at DHS, and most disturbingly, at DOJ. For example, most Americans would favor taking care of “Dreamers” now, without all the restrictionist “poison pills” attached). I agree that other practical and humanizing reforms are necessary; but without immediate Immigration Court intervention and reform every other immigration reform becomes meaningless and innocent people will continue to die, be tortured, and be abused “on our watch.”

Immigration Court reform can’t wait! Every day, the statute, our Constitution, international treaties, our national values, and human dignity are being mocked and destroyed by what is happening in our Immigraton Courts under the “Minister of Injustice” Bill Barr and his lawless and spineless sycophants in EOIR Management.

It’s past time for the Article III Courts to stop screwing around, do their Constitutional duty, and put a screeching halt to this abomination and blot on our national conscience. Stop these “Fake Courts” in their tracks!

No more “removal orders” until Congress creates an independent Immigration Court system that passes legal and Constitutional muster and complies with our treaty obligations. And, until that happens, the DOJ should be forbidden from any further meddling in the Immigration Courts. If the Immigration Court System is to continue to operate on an interim basis, it should be under an “Order of Supervision” from Article III Circuit Judges just as was done with Constitutionally deficient and defiant school systems in the South following Brown.

Either that or the Article III Courts should appoint an active or retired Article III Judge as a “Special Master” with authority to insure fair, impartial, and legal operation until Congress corrects these flaws.

Allowing human beings to be “degraded and railroaded” back to life threatening situations, often after having been abused, humiliated, threatened and mistreated by so-called “judges” and their White Nationalist overlords is no laughing matter! It’s a national disgrace, the elimination of which should be our highest national priority!

PWS

06-12-19

CENTER FOR PUBLIC INTEGRITY: More Trump White Nationalist Lies Exposed: Facts Show That, Beyond The Compelling Legal & Humanitarian Reasons, Refugees & Asylees Are A HUGE Economic Benefit For The United States!

https://publicintegrity.org/immigration/data-defies-trump-claims-that-refugees-and-asylees-are-a-taxpayer-burden/

Madeline Buiano & Susan Ferriss report for the Center for Public Integrity

DATA DEFIES TRUMP’S CLAIMS THAT REFUGEES AND ASYLEES BURDEN TAXPAYERS

In this May 18, 2018, photo, Majed Abdalraheem, 29, a Syrian refugee and chef with meal delivery service Foodhini, prepares Moussaka, a grilled eggplant dish, at Union Kitchen in Washington. (AP Photo/Noreen Nasir)

Researchers found that between 2005 and 2014, refugees and asylees here from 1980 on contributed $63 billion more to government revenues than they used in public services.

Data defies Trump’s claims that refugees and asylees burden taxpayers

Introduction

How does someone gain refugee or asylee status?

Refugees come with nothing

Madeline Buiano

James R. Soles Fellow

Susan Ferriss

Immigration Project Manager and Senior Reporter

In this post, we’re answering a question we received from Jen: What is the economic impact of refugees in the near and long term (transition time between needing assistance and adding to the economy)?

Since the beginning of his presidency, Donald J. Trump and top advisers have portrayed refugees and asylum seekers as a risky, undesirable demographic.

In 2016, Vice President Mike Pence tried to ban the resettlement of Syrian refugees while he was Indiana’s governor. A federal appeals court blocked the attempt, finding that Pence lacked evidence supporting claims that Syrian refugees were a threat to the people of Indiana. Trump, for his part, issued an order in March 2017 with language suggesting that refugees are a fiscal burden.

The order demanded that U.S. officials produce a report “detailing the estimated long-term costs of the United States Refugee Admissions Program at the Federal, State, and local levels, along with recommendations about how to curtail those costs.”

The draft report didn’t support that assumption of burden, though.

In fact, researchers found that during the 10 years between 2005 and 2014, refugees and asylees here from 1980 on contributed $63 billion more to government revenues than they used in public services. Senior administration officials, possibly including White House aide Stephen Miller, quashed the 55-page draft and submitted a three-page report instead, The New York Timesreported. Soon after, the White House released a fact sheetselectively borrowing from the draft report by noting that the U.S. “spent more than $96 billion on programs supporting or benefitting refugees between 2005 and 2014.”

There were no references to the $63 billion more in taxes that refugees put into public coffers than the value of the services they used.

This pattern of cherry picking one side of the ledger isn’t unusual for those seeking to bolster a political argument. Trump used similar cherry-picked numbers to link immigration, in general, with American wage decline and fiscal strain during his 2016 campaign, as the Center for Public Integrity reported previously.

Before diving deeper into fiscal research on refugees, though — including what the quashed draft report found in detail — it helps to understand how refugees and asylum seekers differ. Some fiscal studies, including the study Trump ordered, scrutinize both groups. It’s also helpful to understand the size of these groups compared to the U.S. population.

HOW DOES SOMEONE GAIN REFUGEE OR ASYLEE STATUS?

Refugees are fleeing persecution or war and are admitted from abroad. To vet them, U.S. officials are dispatched to interview candidates as part of a lengthy screening process. United Nations or U.S. embassy officials refer candidates to the U.S. State Department. Refugees often seek temporary shelter in neighboring countries to escape violence and threats. Many Syrian war refugees, for example, have fled to Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. After intensive screening, approved refugees enter the U.S. with the help of resettlement organizations and must sign promissory notes to repay the U.S. government for travel costs. About 75 percent of loans are repaid within 15 years and 64 percent within five years, according to the U.S. State Department.

Asylum seekers claiming to be fleeing violence or persecution, by contrast, can present themselves at a U.S. port of entry and request to apply for asylum, as outlined in international treaties the U.S. has signed, as well as U.S. law. The law also allows foreigners to apply for asylum after they’re already inside the United States, whether they entered originally on visas or entered illegally, with some restrictions. Immigration judges review cases to determine whether the asylum applicant’s fear meets the criteria for granting refuge. Asylum seekers have a right to retain an attorney at their expense — or seek pro bono help — but they don’t have a right to an appointed attorney in proceedings.

In 2018, even as refugee numbers surged globally, the Trump administration capped refugee admissions at 45,000. Only 22,000 were ultimately admitted, mostly from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burma and Ukraine. Trump used his executive power to cap refugee admissions this year to a new low, for annual caps, of no more than 30,000. In 2016, under President Barack Obama, the U.S. admitted 85,000 refugees.

Trump has also sought to deter mostly Central American migrantswho are arriving often with children at the southern border and asking for asylum.

“The United States will not be a migrant camp and it will not be a refugee holding facility … not on my watch,” Trump said last year. In April of this year, after tweeting that the “country is full,” Trump unveiled an unprecedented proposal to require that asylum seekers pay an application fee. Trump argues that changes to the asylum system are needed because he believes that the vast majority of migrants are faking or exaggerating their fears — despite U.S. State Department recognition that murder rates, gang rapes and extortion are rampant in Central America, especially the main source countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.

Refugees and asylees are a tiny fraction of the U.S. population, so it’s hard to credibly pin major national fiscal impact on either group.

Between 2009 and April 2019, a total of 648,482 refugees were admitted to the U.S., according to U.S. Department of State refugee data. That admissions total is equivalent to about 0.2 percent of the U.S. population of 328 million. Separately, between 2007 and 2017, a total of 263,215 people were granted asylum, according to the 2017 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics. That cumulative number is equivalent to about 0.08 percent of the U.S. population.

But isn’t there a backlog of asylum requests, potentially adding more people?

Yes. As of January 2019, 325,277 asylum request cases were pending. But even if all those cases were approved (they won’t be), that number would be equivalent to 0.1 percent of the U.S. population of 328 million. Further, if you were to multiply all those asylum cases by 10 — to account for an exaggerated number of family members who could benefit — that number would add up to the equivalent of 1 percent of the U.S. population.

But can’t refugees or asylees have a noticeable fiscal impact on communities, especially if the newcomers settle in groups, as immigrants often do? Yes. Let’s see what reputable studies show.

REFUGEES COME WITH NOTHING

Randy Capps is the director of research at the Migration Policy Institute, or MPI, a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington, D.C., that’s studied how refugees with a range of language skills and education integrate over time.

“Refugees come to the U.S. with nothing,” Capps said, but they “start making economic contributions right away and they’re not living off government assistance for very long.”

A 2015 MPI refugee-integration study found that between 2009 and 2011, the proportion of refugee men working was 7 percentage points higher than among their U.S.-born counterparts. Refugee women were as likely to work as U.S.-born women. Refugees’ income increased the longer they were in the country. The median income of refugees in the U.S. for at least 20 years was $31,000 higher than the median income of refugees here for five years or less.

MPI researchers also found that refugees’ use of public benefits decreases substantially over time.

Unlike other immigrants, refugees can access public health insurance and some other forms of aid when they arrive. Between 2009 and 2011, food-stamp assistance was a relatively high 45 percent for refugees for their first five years or less, the MPI study found. But food-stamp assistance fell to 16 percent among refugees here at least 20 years. Cash aid dropped from 7 percent to 2 percent for refugees in these same respective cohorts. And reliance on public health insurance fell from 24 percent to 13 percent.

Capps and his fellow authors suggested that providing English classes and job training for refugees while they’re still in camps undergoing the long vetting process could lead to even better outcomes. Ironically, the report also suggests, refugees’ high rate of employment in the U.S. could make it difficult for many to find the time to pursue more education to upgrade skills and earning potential.

Even so, as the Center reported in 2017, refugees are readily sliding into jobs in areas where labor is in short supply. Refugees from various countries are filling jobs at a Chobani facility in Twin Falls, Idaho, the world’s largest yogurt factory. And newly arrived refugees from rural areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Asia are finding work at dairy farms.

In 2017, a draft of the refugee fiscal report that Trump had ordered was leaked to The New York Times, which posted it. The report was produced by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, whose Office of Refugee Resettlement is involved in refugee arrivals and initial integration. Research looked at both refugees and asylees.

Researchers looked at local, state and federal expenditures on refugees — as well as refugees’ tax contributions to those government coffers over the 10 years between 2005 and 2014.

The study found that 8 percent of refugees received Social Security or Social Security Disability benefits compared to 15 percent of the U.S. population. About 12 percent of refugees relied on Medicare benefits compared to 15 percent of the U.S. population.

On the other hand, 21 percent of refugees used SNAP, or food stamps, compared to 15 percent of the U.S. population. But only about 2.3 percent of refugees received TANF benefits, or cash aid, close to the same percentage as the U.S. population generally.

Overall, during the 10-year period, refugees and their non-refugee family members received $326 billion in government benefits and services, 60 percent from the federal government and 40 percent from state and local government. K-12 education accounted for 11 percent of expenditures on refugees. But that K-12 spending was only 0.4 percent of spending on K-12 nationally.

In the end, because of taxes they paid, refugees and their family members contributed more than $343 billion in revenue to federal, state and local coffers. On balance, refugees contributed $63 billion more than they received in benefits from various programs.

“In general,” researchers wrote, “after 10 years of residence those who entered the U.S. as refugees were similar to the U.S. population in terms of income and employment.”

The HHS draft also referenced research produced in various regions.

A 2012 analysis of the Cleveland, Ohio, area credited refugees with the creation of 650 jobs and $48 million worth of economic impact. A 2015 study of the Columbus, Ohio, area found that about 16,600 refugees supported more than 21,200 jobs and added $1.6 billion to the local economy.

Randy Capps of the Migration Policy Institute cautioned against putting too much faith in fiscal studies that zero in on costs alone. For example, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, a group that advocates slashing legal immigration, published a study in 2018 focusing on the first five years of refugee settlement and arguing that “the American taxpayer is being asked to feed, clothe and shelter” people with “few marketable job skills.”

In 2017, the Center for Public Integrity reported that U.S Department of Homeland Security staff were discussing adding an assessment of a refugee applicant’s “skills” to criteria that’s part of the foundation for the vetting process. The skills idea, confirmed by a Homeland Security spokesperson, upset U.S. refugee officers who screen applicants who’ve fled the trauma of war and persecution. It hasn’t gone anywhere.

“The [current] litmus test is: Does the person have a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political

Adding a skills test would mark a profound change, Knowles said, for U.S. criteria developed in the wake of World War II, a time when the U.S. and other countries turned away some desperate Jewish refugees.

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

A number of things are absolutely clear: 1) refugees and asylees are a huge benefit to the United States from any legitimate perspective; 2) we could easily absorb everyone applying for asylum status right now; 3) there is no “invasion;” 4) the country is not “full;” 5) Trump, Pence, Miller, Cotton, Perdue, and the rest of their “White Nationalist Gang” are liars.

PWS

05-22-19

COLBY KING @ WASHPOST: The “Original Dreamers” Were Disenfranchised African Americans! — “That fight must continue on behalf of today’s dreamers, the disenfranchised, the demeaned and left out, and all freedom-loving people in this nation.“

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-black-men-of-the-civil-war-were-americas-original-dreamers/2019/02/15/8c00088e-30a8-11e9-813a-0ab2f17e305b_story.html

Colby King writes in WashPost:

Today, a wall looms large in my thoughts. It isn’t the structure President Trump has in mind for our southern border. I’m thinking of the Wall of Honor at the African American Civil War Memorial, located at Vermont Avenue and U Street NW.

Listed on the wall are the names of 209,145 U.S. Colored Troops who fought during the Civil War. One of those names is that of Isaiah King, my great-grandfather.

I think of those courageous black men as America’s original “dreamers.”

Today’s dreamers are in their teens and 20s, having arrived in this country as children. King’s generation of dreamers were former slaves or descendants of slaves brought to these shores against their will.

However, the black men who fought in the Civil War had the same status as today’s dreamers: noncitizens without a discernable path to citizenship.

Like dreamers of today, those black soldiers and sailors also had families and attended churches; some were enrolled in schools. They could dream of a future, anchored in the rights and privileges that come with democracy. But they had no legal claim to an existence within America’s borders.

My great-grandfather was born in the slave-holding city of Washington in 1848, but his mother was a freed woman. She moved the family to New Bedford, Mass., when he was 4. Around the time of his 17th birthday, Isaiah King enlistedin the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry (Colored), thinking, “I would have it easier riding than walking,” he told the New Bedford Evening Standard in an interview on the eve of Memorial Day services in 1932.

Black men such as my great-grandfather signed on to fight for a Union in which the right to citizenship was reserved for white people. The Supreme Court ruled in Dred Scott v. Sandford, in 1857, that black people were not citizens of the United States. Putting it bluntly, the high court said black people were “so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”

And even then, they started their service to the United States one step behind.

In his book “The Fifth Massachusetts Colored Cavalry in the Civil War,” Steven M. LaBarre cited the first disparity: It was enshrined in the Second Confiscation and Militia Act of July 17, 1862, which authorized recruitment of black men into the Union army. The law stated that a “person of African descent [of any rank] . . . shall receive ten dollars per month . . . three dollars of which monthly pay may be in clothing.” White privates at the time received $13 per month plus a $3.50 clothing allowance. It wasn’t until July 15, 1864, that Congress granted equal pay to black soldiers.

Yet, serve they did.

As evidence of the regard in which they were held, LaBarre quoted Massachusetts Gov. John Albion Andrew’s commendation of the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry when it was launched: “In this hour of hope for our common country and for themselves; at a time when they hold the destiny of their race in their own grasp; and when its certain emancipation from prejudice, as well as slavery, is in the hands of those now invited to unite in the final blow which will annihilate the rebel power, let no brave and strong man hesitate. One cannot exaggerate the call sounding in the ears of all men, in whose veins flows the blood of Africa, and whose color has been the badge of slavery. It offers the opportunity of years, crowded into an hour.”

Volunteering was a start. They still had something to prove.

According to National Archives, by the end of the Civil War, roughly 179,000 black men were serving as soldiers — 10 percent of the Union army — and 19,000 served in the Union navy. Nearly 40,000 black soldiers died over the course of the war — 30,000 of infection or disease. By war’s end, 16 black soldiers had been awarded the Medal of Honor .

King came back to the capital in May 1864 as a private with the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry to defend the city against attack by Confederate troops. His unit participated in the Siege of Petersburg. They guarded Confederate prisoners at Point Lookout, Md. And his unit was among the first Union regiments to enter Richmond, capital of the dying Confederacy, on April 3, 1865.

The Civil War ended, but not his service. Three months later, the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry was sent to Texas to defend against threats from Mexico. (Sound familiar?) He was mustered out of service on Oct. 31, 1865, at Clarksville, Tex. — still not a citizen of the United States.

It wasn’t until 1868 that the threat of removal from the United States was lifted by the 14th Amendment, which granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in this country, including former slaves.

The men with names on the African American Civil War Memorial’s Wall of Honor fought and died to end two centuries of slavery, without being able to count democracy as their own.

For their descendants, the fight for full rights, for full participation in every part of our democracy, goes on.

That fight must continue on behalf of today’s dreamers, the disenfranchised, the demeaned and left out, and all freedom-loving people in this nation.

Read more from Colbert King’s archive.

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

Thanks, Colby, for putting the current plight of “Dreamers” (and I might add refugees and other migrants who are serving, contributing, and building our society despite their disenfranchisement and the government-sponsored dehumanization being inflicted upon them) in the historical context of the fight for civil rights and human dignity in America.

That’s why the “21st Century Jim Crows” like Trump, Sessions, Stephen Miller, Sen. Tom Cotton, Rep. Steve King, and others (largely associated with the GOP) are so pernicious. Like the “Jim Crows of the past,” these guys use degrading racial stereotypes, intentionally false narratives, and bogus “rule of law” arguments to generate hate and bias, sow division, and use the law to suppress and violate rights rather than advancing them.

While sycophant DHS Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen does not appear to be an “ideological racist,” her mindless and disingenuous parroting of the Trump White Nationalist “party lies” and “enforcement” (read “de-humanization”) agenda certainly makes her a “functional racist.”

It’s quite outrageous and dangerous that individuals with these types of views have been elevated to powerful public offices in the modern era, after the death of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. When will we ever learn, when will we ever learn?

PWS

02-16-19

PAUL WALDMAN @ WASHPOST: Why True Bipartisan Immigration Reform In Our National Interest Will Require “Regime Change:” “[I]t’s highly unlikely that we’ll achieve such reform, even reform most Republicans could live with, without both houses of Congress and the White House in Democratic hands. But that will happen sooner or later. Then we’ll see if we can get closer to a solution that everyone can live with over the long run.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/01/31/never-mind-wall-theres-more-important-question-we-need-answer/

Waldman writes:

As immigration policy hangs over the ongoing conflict over whether the government is going to remain open, there’s something missing from this discussion, something so fundamental that it’s quite remarkable that we all seem to have forgotten to even ask about it. The president is demanding his border wall, Democrats are fighting against him, and occasionally we bring up issues like the fate of the Dreamers and those here under Temporary Protected Status.

But what nobody asks is this: What kind of immigration system do we actually want?

Not what might happen in the next negotiation or what each side would be willing to give up, but what does each side see as the ultimate goal they’re working toward? If they could look forward ten or twenty years and say “This is where we should get to,” what would that look like?

It’s a vital question, because whatever we’re doing at the moment should be guided by our long-term goals. Once we understand what those goals are, we can think more clearly about where we should go after we get this whole shutdown ridiculousness behind us. And we all ought to be able to agree that there is some future we’re trying to arrive at, a point at which we have a system that works to our satisfaction and immigration isn’t something we’re constantly at each other’s throats about.

That may not be possible, but I’ll start with what liberals would like to see. There are certainly disagreements not just on the left generally but among immigration advocates as well, but there is a basic vision one can identify.

The first thing they want, of course, is to take the 11 million or so undocumented immigrants who are in the country now and give them a path to citizenship. That’s something even some Republicans agree with, and if you put requirements like learning English and paying back taxes on it, support becomes nearly universal.

Second, liberals would like to see an expansion of the legal immigration system, which is a consistent source of frustration and a driver of illegal immigration. When it can take decades to get approved to move to the United States, of course many people are going to opt for the illegal route, even if it can be dangerous and uncertain. If the legal immigration works, people will go through it and not around it.

And if you have a well-functioning legal system, you can make illegal immigration less attractive, with things like an E-Verify process that makes it harder to find work if you’re undocumented. There may always be some kind of black market for workers, but if you’re simultaneously offering people a legal path — both toward permanent residency and with temporary work visas for people who are looking only to make some money and then return to their home countries — it will be much smaller problem.

So in the liberal vision, we might end up with about the same number of immigrants coming into the country as we have now, it’s just that the overwhelming majority would be coming legally. We’d have security at the border, but we wouldn’t need ICE breaking down doors and tearing parents from their children’s arms. We’d have a robust system to evaluate asylum claims so we wouldn’t have to be throwing people in cages. We certainly wouldn’t pretend that one day there will be no more demand in the labor market for immigrant workers.

There are many Republicans who could be okay with that future, even if it wasn’t exactly what they wanted. But the conservative vision is complicated. For years, we heard Republican politicians say, “I’m for legal immigration. I’m against illegal immigration.” They may not usually have been advocating significant increases in legal immigration, but it’s important to remember that the current venomous hostility toward immigrants was not always the standard Republican position. Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush were both far friendlier toward immigrants than Donald Trump is.

Conservatives might disagree with this characterization, but as I see it, their ultimate goal is a system in which coming into the country illegally is utterly impossible, but levels of legal immigration don’t change much. In other words, we still have immigration, but the flow slows to a trickle. And the Trump administration is making attempts to drastically reduce legal immigration. With the president’s enthusiastic support, domestic policy adviser Stephen Miller is driving a nationalist agenda that seeks to drastically reduce the inflow of immigrants to the country and even looks for every possible means to deport both legal and undocumented immigrants, even if they’ve been living here for years or decades.

That’s a somewhat extreme position even within the Republican Party, but it does reflect a discomfort with immigration that is common on the right. It’s the cultural problem, the fact that many people just don’t like having contact with people who don’t look like them or don’t speak the same language they do or eat the same foods they do. Trump very skillfully played to that discomfort by essentially telling voters he could wind back the clock to the time when they were young, before all this disconcerting change happened. His targets were the people who say “I don’t recognize my country anymore,” and when he said he would make America great again, “great again” meant “like things were when you were young.”

That’s a demand that can never be satisfied, even if it’s only a portion of the Republican electorate that really dreams of an America where there are almost no new immigrants and most of those who are already here just disappear. Unfortunately, that portion currently not only controls the White House but exercises a veto over any attempt at comprehensive immigration reform, because the rest of the GOP is so terrified of them.

Which is why it’s highly unlikely that we’ll achieve such reform, even reform most Republicans could live with, without both houses of Congress and the White House in Democratic hands. But that will happen sooner or later. Then we’ll see if we can get closer to a solution that everyone can live with over the long run.

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

Right on, Paul! You “nailed” it! Pretty much what I’ve been saying on “Courtside” all along!

However, the unlikelihood of achieving “comprehensive immigration reform” in the “Age of Trump” shouldn’t prevent the parties from working together in a bipartisan manner on “smaller fixes” such as that relating to child marriage suggested by Nolan Rappaport, posted earlier this week. See https://wp.me/p8eeJm-3Hu

Progress is progress, even by “small steps.”

PWS

02-01-19

CONTACTS:
George Tzamaras 202-507-7649 gtzamaras@aila.org	Belle Woods 202-507-7675 bwoods@aila.org

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