Tag: Trump immigration policy

Trump Paid Less Taxes Than The Undocumented Immigrants He Attacks

Donald Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes the year he was elected president, according to a blockbuster report published by the New York Times on Sunday.

The Times report also found that Trump is millions of dollars in debt, incurred through a series of failed business ventures — a fact that runs counter to Trump’s self-made image as a successful businessman. Trump has also used his financial failings to avoid paying taxes, the report found.

The president has resisted revealing his financial information since the start of his first presidential campaign, despite promising otherwise. “I would certainly show tax returns if it was necessary,” Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt in 2015. Yet for five years, the president has failed to produce the documents.The president paid $750 in federal income taxes in 2016, and paid another $750 in 2017, according to the report. And in 2014, Trump paid zero dollars in taxes. Continue reading.

Judge says 2020 census must continue for another month

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A federal judge has stopped the 2020 census from finishing at month’s end and suspended a year-end deadline for delivering the numbers needed to decide how many seats each state gets in Congress.

The preliminary injunction granted by U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in California late Thursday allows the once-a-decade head count of every U.S. resident to continue through the end of October.

Koh said the shortened schedule ordered by President Donald Trump’s administration likely would produce inaccurate results that would last a decade. Continue reading.

ICE whistleblower: Nurse alleges ‘hysterectomies on immigrant women in US’

Advocacy groups have filed a complaint against a migrant detention centre in the US, alleging medical neglect and a lack of virus safety measures.

The complaint condemns the practices and conditions at the private Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia.

It is based on the allegations of a whistleblower, a nurse identified as Dawn Wooten.

She worked at the centre, which houses immigrants detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

As part of her complaint, filed on Monday, Ms Wooten expressed concerns about the high number of hysterectomies performed on Spanish-speaking women at the centre. Continue reading.

Trump’s war on immigrants is hurting his fight against China

Washington Post logo

They have more people. Until we do, too, it will be hard to contain Beijing.

One of the only Trump-era policy initiatives to secure bipartisan support has been the president’s decision to reverse America’s “engagement” with China and instead try to decouple the world’s two largest economies. Both parties see an emerging strategic competitor as China lifts its gross domestic product and productivity, recruits allies, silences political opponents, and tries to absorb semiautonomous territories like Taiwan and Hong Kong. One of the greatest conundrums in Washington is how U.S. officials can counterbalance Beijing’s rise.

At the same time, President Trump has been pursuing an immigration policy supported by only his own party, seeking to foreclose the flow not just of undocumented migrants but also those who come here legally.

These two policies are at odds with each other. The best way to ensure that the United States maintains the upper hand against China is easy: It can welcome more of the tens of millions around the world who’d like to move to our shores — not as an act of charity but as an exertion of national power. To compete, we need more people. Continue reading.

ICE flew detainees to Virginia so the planes could transport agents to D.C. protests. A huge coronavirus outbreak followed.

Washington Post logo

The Trump administration flew immigrant detainees to Virginia this summer to facilitate the rapid deployment of Homeland Security tactical teams to quell protests in Washington, circumventing restrictions on the use of charter flights for employee travel, according to a current and a former U.S. official.

After the transfer, dozens of the new arrivals tested positive for the novel coronavirus, fueling an outbreak at the Farmville, Va., immigration jail that infected more than 300 inmates, one of whom died.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the agency moved the detainees on “ICE Air” charter flights to avoid overcrowding at detention facilities in Arizona and Florida, a precaution they said was taken because of the pandemic. Continue reading.

Supreme Court declines to halt Trump border wall

The Hill logoThe Supreme Court on Friday declined to block the Trump administration from using $2.5 billion in reallocated Pentagon funds to build a U.S.-Mexico border wall.

In a 5-4 ruling that broke along ideological lines, the court’s conservative majority denied a bid by interest groups to halt construction after a federal appeals court last month said the use of defense funding for the project is illegal. The court’s four more liberal justices dissented from the ruling.

The Sierra Club, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other challengers had asked the justices to lift their order from last July that allowed President Trump to begin spending the funds while legal challenges proceeded through the courts. Continue reading.

Trump to review DACA, allow holders to extend for one year

The Hill logoThe Trump administration is set to announce Tuesday that it will undertake a review of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that will allow Dreamers to renew their protections for a year.

The White House laid out details about the plan during a call with reporters on Tuesday afternoon. A source familiar with the plans said the review is expected to take roughly 100 days.

The presidential election is 98 days away, giving President Trump cover to punt on an issue that can be politically divisive. Continue reading.

ACLU Sues After ICE Contractors Attack Lawyer Seeking To Aid Migrant Kids Locked In Hotel

The Trump administration has been detaining migrant children as young as a year old in hotels, according to the lawsuit.

A disturbing video released by the Texas Civil Rights Project shows an ugly confrontation between private contractors for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and a lawyer trying to help asylum-seeking migrant children locked up in a McAllen, Texas, hotel.

The chilling scene at the Hampton Inn & Suites, which can be seen below, helped trigger a lawsuit late Friday by the Texas group and the American Civil Liberties Union to stop the deportation of the children being detained by the Trump administration in hotels. The suit is also demanding an opportunity for the children to talk to a lawyer.

“The Trump administration is holding children in secret in hotels, refusing to give lawyers access to them so it can expel them back to danger without even a chance for the children to show they warrant asylum,” ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt told CBS News. “Unfortunately, this is just the latest in a series of steps taken by the Trump administration to abuse and terrorize children.” Continue reading.

SPLC Watchdogs Name Stephen Miller To ‘Extremist’ List

Civil rights organization Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has added Trump administration official and noted white supremacist Stephen Miller to its “Extremists Files” for his role in implementing some of the most inhumane and racist immigration policies in modern U.S. history, putting this taxpayer-paid official alongside notorious racists and bigots like former KKK grand wizard David Duke and dead homophobe Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church.

“Stephen Miller is the architect behind some of the most draconian anti-immigrant policies that we’ve seen from the Trump administration,” SPLC senior investigative reporter Michael Edison Hayden said in a statement received by Daily Kos, stating that leaked communications with fellow racists from before he joined the White House “essentially provided a roadmap for the dehumanizing and hateful policies that we’ve seen enacted under this administration.”

“Through the conscious use of fear-mongering and xenophobia, Miller implements policies which demonize immigrants, regardless of their immigration status, in an apparent effort to halt all forms of immigration to the United States,” the SPLC said in its new “Extremists” profile on the notorious racist, who was a Senate aide to Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III before joining the White House to implement his white supremacist vision. Continue reading.

Trump’s Visa Ban Causes Shortage Of Young Doctors

As hospitals across the United States brace for a difficult six months — with the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic still raging and concerns about a second wave in the fall — some are acutely short-staffed because of an ill-timed change to immigration policy and its inconsistent implementation.

A proclamation issued by President Donald Trump on June 22, barring the entry of most immigrants on work visas, came right as hospitals were expecting a new class of medical residents. Hundreds of young doctors were unable to start their residencies on time.

Trump’s order included the H1-B visa for highly skilled workers, which is used by some practicing doctors abroad who get U.S. residency slots. The proclamation stated that doctors “involved with the provision of medical care to individuals who have contracted COVID-19 and are currently hospitalized” should be exempt from the ban, but it delegated the issuing of guidance to the departments of State and Homeland Security. That guidance has been slow and inconsistent. Continue reading.