Tag: Trump administration racism

State Dept. watchdog report downplays allegations of racist and sexist comments by Woody Johnson but calls for further review

Washington (CNN)A State Department watchdog report on the American Embassy in London and the wider US diplomatic mission to the United Kingdom downplayed allegations that Ambassador Robert “Woody” Johnson made racist and sexist comments to staff, but states his management style had a “negative effect” on the morale of some staff and notes that “a more thorough review by the Department is warranted.”

The State Department disagreed with the call for an additional review of his “compliance with Department Equal Employment Opportunity or leadership policies” and proposed broader training for staff — an alternate proposal that was rejected by the watchdog.

“The recommendation can be closed when (the Office of Inspector General) receives and accepts documentation that the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs has met its obligations under (the department’s discriminatory harassment policy),” the report states. Continue reading.

New HHS spokesman Michael Caputo deleted racist tweets related to the coronavirus

WASHINGTON – Michael Caputo, the new Department of Health and Human Services spokesman, allegedly deleted xenophobic tweets before starting his new role last week.

Caputo, a Republican political operative who worked on President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, deleted nearly his entire Twitter feed before April 12, according to a report by CNN. He started his new position as assistant secretary for public affairs at HHS on April 15.

Many of the now-deleted tweets reviewed by CNN included xenophobic comments and were about coronavirus.  Continue reading.

‘Unqualified Trump loyalist’: Experts slam appointment of Stephen Miller ally to be top lawyer at DHS

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump has installed Chad Mizelle, an attorney tied to top White House advisor Stephen Miller, to run the Dept. of Homeland Security’s Office of the General Counsel. Miller is largely seen as an anti-immigrant extremist and white nationalist. Mizelle has been an attorney for under 10 years, and will now be in charge of 2500 other attorneys, as CNN reports.

An unverified Twitter account under the name of Chad Mizelle, which includes tweets about Cornell University, his alma mater, shows a Chad Mizelle retweeted a Federalist Society tweet quoting attorney Charles Cooper that says: “Requiring complete diversity may well be unconstitutional.” Cooper has represented Jeff Sessions, John Bolton, and John Ashcroft

Continue reading.

Despite Warnings, Trump Moves to Expand Migrant Family Detention

New York Times logoTiny prison uniforms were replaced with T-shirts. Health care and schooling improved. Experts say there is still no safe way to incarcerate families

DILLEY, TEXAS — On a burning hot day last summer at the South Texas Family Residential Center, a federal detention facility for immigrant families, Kenia and her son, Michael, 11, were hunched over a foosball table in an air-conditioned recreation room when Michael dropped to the floor and started sobbing. He curled his body into a ball and writhed as if he were in pain.

The other parents and children in the room looked up from their jump ropes and boomboxes as Kenia knelt down and pleaded into Michael’s ear: Would he please go back to their room before the guards noticed him?

“I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to be here,” Michael shouted, his eyes clenched.

Continue reading

Federal judges received a link to an anti-Semitic blog post. It came from the Justice Department.

Washington Post logoThe morning briefings come nearly every workday, seemingly chock-full of all the news fit to be seen by employees at the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, which handles the country’s immigration cases. Regularly topping two dozen pages, the memos include summaries of articles from outlets national and local, covering topics like “Legal News,” “Enforcement News” and “Police and Legislative News.”

But on Monday, tucked between stories from The Washington Post and a public radio station, the briefing included a summary of and a link to a blog post from what the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated a “Hate Group”: Vdare.com, a frequent platform for white nationalists espousing anti-Semitic and anti-immigration rhetoric.

The Vdare post singles out immigration judges by name, uses their photos and refers to them with an anti-Semitic slur. The Justice Department sends the briefings to all EOIR employees, including its 400-some immigration judges, which means the judges named and pictured in the derogatory post also received the link to it this week — from their employer.

View the complete August 23 article by Reis Thebault on The Washington Post website here.

Historian explains why Jeff Sessions ‘was arguably the most abusive and disgraceful attorney general in history’

AlterNet logoDonald Trump’s former Attorney General Jeff Sessions may have gained some sympathy from the constant attacks he suffered from the president after he recused himself from Robert Mueller’s special investigation. But that should not excuse Sessions from the judgment of historians as they evaluate his leadership of the Justice Department from January 2017 to November 2018. Sessions was  arguably the most abusive and disgraceful Attorney General in history.

Sessions previously served as an Alabama Republican Senator since 1997 and he had an extremely conservative voting record. Even before he was a senator, a Republican-controlled Senate refused to appoint Sessions to a  Federal District Court judgeship in 1986.  This was only the second time in a half century that a federal appointee to the federal judiciary had been rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee for elevation to the federal bench.

He was accused at that time of racially insensitive behavior toward people of color.  He limited voting rights, prosecuted people of color for petty and insignificant reasons, and used inappropriate language against African Americans.  As a result, Sessions was opposed by his own state’s Democratic Senator, Howell Heflin, whom he succeeded in the Senate, and two Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, and Charles Mathias of Maryland, insured that his nomination would not be approved.

View the complete August 21 article by Ronald L. Feinman from the History News Network on the AlterNet website here.

Cropping out ‘Immigrants Welcome,’ Ken Cuccinelli takes selfie with replica Statue of Liberty before removing it from DHS headquarters

AlterNet logoThe removal of the statue—and the top official snapped with it just before—are “a direct representation of the Trump administration’s policy towards immigrants and American values,” said critics.

Despite widespread outcry after saying the U.S. should only welcome immigrants who “can stand on their own two feet” and that Statue of Liberty was only meant to welcome Europeans to U.S. shores, President Donald Trump’s top immigration official Ken Cuccinelli had a replica of the famous monument removed from the Department of Homeland Security’s grounds on Thursday—but not before snapping a quick selfie.

The statue, made by artist Cesar Maxit, had been placed in front of DHS headquarters by the social justice groups United We Dream and MoveOn on Wednesday.

View the complete August 16 article by Julia Conley from Common Dreams on the AlterNet website here.

Emails show Stephen Miller pressed hard to limit green cards

One former Trump official said White House senior adviser Stephen Miller has maintained a “singular obsession” with the public charge rule.

White House senior adviser Stephen Miller wasn’t getting an immigration regulation he wanted. So he sent a series of scorching emails to top immigration officials, calling the department an “embarrassment” for not acting faster.

The regulation in question would allow the Department of Homeland Security to bar legal immigrants from obtaining green cards if they receive certain government benefits. The rule will likely be released in the coming days, according to a pair of current and former Trump officials briefed on the timeline.

View the complete August 2 article by Ted Hesson on the Politico website here.

Kris Kobach releases racist video to disprove racism allegations

The Republican Kansas senate hopeful was flagged

Kansan Kris Kobach, the Republican former secretary of state who lost the 2018 gubernatorial election by five points to Democratic nominee Laura Kelly in a state that President Donald Trump carried by more than 20 points two years earlier, is back and running for U.S. Senate. In a new kickoff video, he suggests that if Kansas Republicans give him another chance, he will be better prepared for the “propaganda” attacks on him for his racist and white supremacist views.

In the same video, he demonstrates exactly why even Trump’s presidential transition vetting team flagged him for “white supremacy” concerns.

While waving a coffee mug around in front of a black screen, Kobach began his ad quoting the late climate-science denier Michael Crichton about the threat of fantasy propaganda winning out over truth.

View the complete July 31k article by Josh Israel on the ThinkProgress website here.

Pence’s deputy press secretary makes mind-boggling argument that Elaine Chao is a better immigrant than Ilhan Omar

AlterNet logoDuring a “Make America Great Again” rally in North Carolina on Wednesday night, President Donald Trump doubled down on his racist assertion that four congresswomen of color should leave the United States and reiterated his disdain for Somali-born Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota while the crowd chanted, “Send her back, send her back.” Trump’s critics have been pointing out that prominent Republicans such as First Lady Melania Trump and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao are immigrants — and Vice President Mike Pence’s deputy press secretary, Darin Miller, is responding with a mind-boggling claim that Chao is a good immigrant while Omar is not.

Mother Jones’ Matt Cohen is reporting that he received an e-mail from Miller stating that while Chao (who is originally from Mainland China and is married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell) “worked hard and assimilated” after coming to the United States, Omar “seems content to criticize America at every turn.”

Miller, according to Cohen, wrote to the Mother Jones reporter to explain that he believed he misconstrued comments that Marc Short, Pence’s chief of staff, made during a Fox News appearance on Monday. Short, defending Trump, insisted that the president can’t have “racist motives” because he appointed a Chinese immigrant to an important position in his administration.

View the complete July 18 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.