Tag: Trump racism

Laura Ingraham’s advice for asylum seekers reveals her ignorance of asylum law

“If you want to apply for asylum, that’s fine. But you should do so in the safety of your home country.”

Fox News host Laura Ingraham argued on her show Wednesday night that asylum seekers shouldn’t make the journey north to the U.S.-Mexico border, but should instead simply apply for asylum “in the safety of [their] home country.”

“If you want to apply for asylum, that’s fine,” Ingraham said. “But you should do so in the safety of your home country or, as is beginning to happen now, once you’re in the United States and you declare [asylum], you should be sent to Mexico until your case comes up for hearing. We have a backlog right now of 800,000 immigration cases.”

Ingraham added that a policy of forcing asylees to make their claims in a country other than the U.S. would discourage migrant families and those “posing” as family units from coming here.

 

DHS Secretary: Cages For Migrant Kids Are ‘Larger’ Than Dog Cages

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen’s Wednesday testimony on the Trump administration’s child separation policy was an unmitigated disaster.

Nielsen showed up to the hearing, which was called by Democrats who now hold the House majority, completely unprepared and unable to defend the practice of ripping migrant children from their parents at the border.

In one truly jaw-dropping exchange with Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ), Nielsen tried and failed to explain why the facilities used to house some migrant children were any different from the kinds of cages dogs are kept in.

View the complete March 6 article by Emily Singer on the National Memo website here.

The Homeland Security Chief Says, Without Evidence, Children Are Being Recycled At The Border

“I’ve never seen an actual case of it despite the government bringing it up several times,” a migrant rights advocate said.

The secretary of homeland security told members of Congress on Wednesday that her agency had uncovered “recycling rings” where children were used multiple times to help undocumented immigrants enter the United States by claiming to be part of a family.

“We have even uncovered ‘recycling rings’ where innocent young people are used multiple times to help aliens gain illegal entry,” Kirstjen Nielsen told the House Homeland Security Committee. “As a nation we simply cannot stand for this. We must fix the system.”

Nielsen appeared before the committee to discuss border security, at a time when agents are apprehending a record number of families at the border and the Trump administration is still facing backlash over last summer’s “zero tolerance” policy that resulted in the systemic separation of families at the border.

View the complete March 6 article by Adolfo Flores on the BuzzFeed website here.

The Trump Administration Has Deported 471 Parents Separated From Their Kids At The Border

The American Civil Liberties Union has been leading an effort to contact deported parents to try to reunify them with their children.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration disclosed in a court filing Wednesday that the government deported 471 migrant parents separated from their children at the US–Mexico border without first giving them the option to reunify.

It was the first concrete number from the government about the number of parents deported without their children during the spike in family separations in 2018. In court filings last summer, the Justice Department indicated the number was upward of 400, but the numbers continued to change as new information came in and as reunifications began under a federal court order.

More than eight months after a judge in San Diego ordered the government to reunify separated families, information has continued to trickle in about the scope and aftermath of family separations. More than 2,800 children were separated from a parent crossing the border and placed in US custody, and it was clear early on that hundreds of those kids had a parent who had been deported. In Wednesday’s filing, the government offered an exact number.

View the complete March 6 article by Zoe Tillman on the BuzzFeed website here.

The US Compiled A Secret List Of Journalists, Attorneys, And Activists To Question At The Border

“It starts to smack of dictatorship or the persecution of actors and press during the Red Scare,” a senior ICE official not involved in the matter told BuzzFeed News.

US immigration officials compiled a secret database containing information on dozens of reporters, attorneys, and activists to stop for questioning at the southern border and, in some cases, deny entry to Mexico.

The list, obtained by San Diego’s NBC affiliate, appears to have been made in connection to a caravan of immigrants that traveled from Central America to the US–Mexico border at the end of 2018, drawing reporters from across the US to cover the events and attorneys representing the people in the caravan.

The database, which included 10 journalists, at least one US attorney, and 47 others who were listed as “organizers” or “instigators” contained passport pictures and notes on whether each individual had been arrested or interviewed.

View the complete March 7 article by Salvador Hernandez on the BuzzFeed website here.

Wilbur Ross broke law, violated Constitution in census decision, judge rules

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross acted in “bad faith,” broke several laws and violated the constitutional underpinning of representative democracy when he added a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

In finding a breach of the Constitution’s enumeration clause, which requires a census every 10 years to determine each state’s representation in Congress, the 126-page ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco went further than a similar decision on Jan. 15 by Judge Jesse Furman in New York.

The Supreme Court has already agreed to review Furman’s narrower decision, with arguments set for April 23, but may now need to expand its inquiry to constitutional dimensions.

View the complete March 6 article by Fred Barbash on The Washington Post website here.

Nielsen claims asylum seekers are not being turned away at ports of entry

Homeland Security Secretary Nielsen testifies before the House Homeland Security Committee on border security on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, March 6, 2019. Credit: Jim WATSON, AFP, Getty Images

“Madam Secretary, either you’re lying to this committee or you don’t know what’s happening at the border.”

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen faced brutal questioning about the rights of asylum seekers from Rep. Nanette Barragan (D-CA), during a hearing Wednesday before the House Homeland Security Committee.

Seeking asylum in the United States is not a crime. However, under the Trump administration, asylum seekers from several Central American countries have been turned away at ports of entry. In some cases, they are forced to remain in Mexico while they await their cases in U.S. immigration court.

Barragan challenged Nielsen about that practice, and questioned whether she was even aware of its existence.

View the complete March 6 article by Rebekah Entralgo on the ThinkProgress website here.

GOP bristles over plan to shift military funding to border wall

GOP concerns are bubbling up over the administration’s plans to divert billions in military construction money as part of President Trump‘s national emergency declaration.

As part of an effort to pull together roughly $8 billion for the U.S.-Mexico border wall, the administration will redirect $3.6 billion originally appropriated for military construction projects across the country.

Trump’s decision has sparked bipartisan backlash on Capitol Hill, where Republicans are openly concerned that the president is blurring the separation of powers and attempting to override Congress’s government funding decisions.

View the complete March 1 article by Jordain Carney on The Hill website here.

At Least Nine Infants Are Being Detained By US Immigration Authorities, A Complaint Says

Immigration advocacy groups say they’ve seen more infants in US detention in recent weeks than in the past three years combined.

At least nine infants under the age of 1, and some as young as 6 months, have been detained by US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement at a Texas detention center where they lack adequate medical care, immigrant advocates said in a complaint filed with the federal government on Thursday.

The complaint submitted by the American Immigration Council, American Immigration Lawyers Association, and the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, said there was an “an alarming increase” in infants and their mothers detained at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas.

At least one infant has been detained for more than 20 days, the complaint said, a potential violation of the decades-old Flores settlement that stated children can’t be held in custody for more than 20 days.

View the complete February 28 article (updated March 1) by Adolfo Flores on the BuzzFeed website here.

Pentagon wants Congress to replenish funds Trump taps for border wall

Wasserman Schultz calls plan an end-run around Congress

The Pentagon every year comes to Congress to defend its ever-growing budget, highlighting the decrepit military installations and decades-old equipment that must be refurbished or replaced to defend the nation.

But now, Pentagon officials are telling lawmakers that diverting dollars from defense projects to build President Donald Trump’s desired border wall is justified and won’t weaken the military — so long as Congress replenishes the accounts Trump could tap to build the wall.

“Some current military construction projects may be deferred” if military construction money is used to pay for the wall, Robert H. McMahon, assistant secretary of Defense for sustainment, told the House Military Construction-VA Appropriations Subcommittee on Wednesday. “The fiscal year 2020 president’s budget request will include a request for funds to replenish funding for these projects.”

View the complete February 28 article by Patrick Kelley on The Roll Call website here.