Tag: Trump racism

White House declines to back Christchurch call to stamp out online extremism amid free speech concerns

The United States broke with 18 governments and five top American tech firms Wednesday by declining to endorse a New Zealand-led effort to curb extremism online, a response to the live-streamed shootings at two Christchurch mosques that killed 51.

White House officials said free-speech concerns prevented them from formally signing onto the largest campaign to date targeting extremism online. But it was another example of the United States standing at odds to some its closest allies.

Leaders from around the globe, including British Prime Minister Theresa May, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Jordan’s King Abdullah II, signed the “Christchurch Call,” which was unveiled at a gathering in Paris that had been organized by French President Emmanuel Macron and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter also signed on to the document, pledging to work more closely with one another and governments to make certain their sites do not become conduits for terrorism. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was among the attendees at the conference.

View the complete May 15 article by Tony Romm and Drew Harwell on The Washington Post website here.

Before Trump’s purge at DHS, top officials challenged plan for mass family arrests

In the weeks before they were ousted last month, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and top immigration enforcement official Ronald Vitiello challenged a secret White House plan to arrest thousands of parents and children in a blitz operation against migrants in 10 major U.S. cities.

According to seven current and former Department of Homeland Security officials, the administration wanted to target the crush of families that had crossed the U.S.-Mexico border after the president’s failed “zero tolerance” prosecution push in early 2018. The ultimate purpose, the officials said, was a show of force to send the message that the United States was going to get tough by swiftly moving to detain and deport recent immigrants — including families with children.

The sprawling operation included an effort to fast-track immigration court cases, allowing the government to obtain deportation orders against those who did not show for their hearings — officials said 90 percent of those targeted were found deportable in their absence. The subsequent arrests would have required coordinated raids against parents with children in their homes and neighborhoods.

View the complete May 13 article by Nick Miroff and Josh Dawsey on The Washington Post website here.

A new study just debunked Trump’s favorite talking point about undocumented immigrants

The report knocks down one of Trump’s most popular xenophobic talking points.

A growth in the undocumented immigrant population is not associated with an increase in local crime, according to a new study from The Marshall Project. The findings directly contradict one of the president’s favorite talking points about immigrants and crime.

This study, which focuses squarely on undocumented immigrants, uses local crime rates published by the FBI and concluded that between 2007 and 2016, almost every type of crime had a flat line trend, suggesting that any increase in undocumented immigrants has had no effect on crime. Areas with higher rates of illegal immigration actually appeared to have a slight drop in the crime rate.

Studies on undocumented immigrants are relatively rare, in part because it’s hard to collect data on them. While it is difficult to estimate the exact number of undocumented immigrants in the United States, the most recent available data from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is from 2016 and puts the population roughly at 10.7 million, down a million and a half from 2007.

View the complete May 13 article by Rebekah Entralgo on the ThinkProgress website here.

New HUD Directive Will Leave 55,000 Migrant Children Homeless

One of the Trump administration’s retaliatory policies against undocumented immigrants would have a horrible unintended consequence.

Trump’s Department of Housing and Urban development plans to evict undocumented immigrants from public housing. And according to HUD’s own analysis, that plan would also toss those immigrants’ children out into the streets — 55,000 of whom are either legal permanent residents or American citizens, according to a report from the Washington Post.

Under current rules, those children are legally entitled to federal housing subsidies, according to the Post.

View the complete May 11 article by Emily Singer on the National Memo website here.

In Minnesota counties losing population, immigrants slow the decline

New arrivals are helping slow, halt or even reverse falling census counts in 15 Minnesota counties.

MORRIS, MINNESOTA – Juan Cid opened his downtown restaurant, Mi Mexico, five years ago after noticing that many residents of this western Minnesota city were willing to drive 25 miles to eat at another Mexican restaurant he owned.

He imported brightly colored tables and chairs from Guadalajara and took over the ethnic grocery store downstairs, stocking it with piñatas, Mexican breads and sweets, and a medley of beans, chiles and spices. Cid advertised long-distance mailing and packing services for customers who hail from Mexico and Central America. Now he’s looking at expanding his business further.

“I saw the Hispanic community was going to be growing,” said Cid, who came to the U.S. from Mexico in 2002.

View the complete May 12 article by Maya Rao on The Star Tribune website here.

Trump’s $4.5 billion border demand slows disaster aid talks

McConnell said Republicans are ready to compromise on Puerto Rico aid, but border funding adds new wrinkle

Prospects for a bipartisan disaster aid package appeared dimmer Tuesday after the Senate’s top GOP appropriator said the Trump administration and congressional Democrats are voicing fresh objections.

“I don’t know of a disaster aid bill in recent years that has been this protracted,” Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard C. Shelby told reporters.

“We keep working on it and working on it and working on it,” Shelby said. “It’s got some obstacles — some of them coming from the White House, some of them coming from the Democrats.”

View the complete May 7 article by Jennifer Shutt on The Roll Call website here.

U.S. asylum screeners to take more confrontational approach as Trump aims to turn more migrants away at the border

The Trump administration has sent new guidelines to asylum officers, directing them to take a more skeptical and confrontational approach during interviews with migrants seeking refuge in the United States. It is the latest measure aimed at tightening the nation’s legal “loopholes” that Homeland Security officials blame for a spike in border crossings.

According to internal documents and staff emails obtained Tuesday by The Washington Post, the asylum officers will more aggressively challenge applicants whose claims of persecution contain discrepancies, and they will need to provide detailed justifications before concluding that an applicant has a well-founded fear of harm if deported to their home country.

The changes require officers to zero in on any gaps between what migrants say to U.S. border agents after they are taken into custody and testimony they provide during the interview process with a trained asylum officer.

View the complete May 7 article by Nick Miroff on The Washington Post website here.

Senators Hit Administration Scheme To ‘Downplay’ White Supremacist Terror

A group of seven Democratic senators are protesting changes made by the Trump administration that downplay the serious and growing threat posed by white supremacist terrorists — which also makes it harder to stop that threat.

In a Thursday letter addressed to Attorney General William Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray, the senators, all members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, expressed their alarm at a major new change to the way the FBI and DOJ keep track of domestic terrorism.

“We are deeply concerned that the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are not taking adequate measures to combat white supremacist violence,” reads the letter, signed by Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), Cory Booker (D-NY), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Chris Coons (D-CT), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Kamala Harris (D-CA).

View the complete May 4 article by Oliver Willis on the National Memo website here.

White House asks Congress for $4.5 billion in emergency spending at border

The White House sent Congress a $4.5 billion emergency spending request on Wednesday, citing an unfolding “humanitarian and security crisis” at the U.S.-Mexico border as record numbers of Central American families and children seek entrance to the United States.

The request includes $3.3 billion for humanitarian assistance and $1.1 billion for border operations, and it represents a dramatic escalation of the administration’s efforts to address the situation at the border.

The money would be in addition to the more than $8 billion that President Trump asked for in his 2020 budget request to build border barriers, as well as some $6 billion in funding he sought as he declared a national emergency at the border earlier this year.

View the complete May 1 article by Erica Werner, Maria Sacchetti and Nick Miroff on The Washington Post website here.

At Trump golf course, undocumented employees said they were sometimes told to work extra hours without pay

HILLSDALE, NEW YORK — His bosses at the Trump country club called it “side work.”

On some nights, after the club’s Grille Room closed, head waiter Jose Gabriel Juarez — an undocumented immigrant from Mexico — was told to clock out. He pressed his index finger onto a scanner and typed his personal code, 436.

But he didn’t go home.

Instead — on orders from his bosses, Juarez said — he would stay on, sometimes past midnight. He vacuumed carpets, polished silverware and helped get the restaurant at Trump National Golf Club Westchester in Briar­cliff Manor, N.Y., ready for breakfast the next day.

View the complete April 30 article by Joshua Partlow and David A. Fahrenthold on The Washington Post website here.