Meanwhile in Portland

 

Cleaning up Trump's mess

The Biden administration is directing its immigration enforcement agencies to largely steer clear of courthouses, part of an effort to combat a “chilling effect” that left migrants avoiding the legal system for fear of being deported.

A memo from Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas directs both Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials to avoid making arrests near courthouses, with a few exceptions.

[...]

“Ensuring that individuals have access to the courts advances the fair administration of justice, promotes safety for crime victims, and helps to guarantee equal protection under the law,” Mayorkas said in a release.

“The expansion of civil immigration arrests at courthouses during the prior administration had a chilling effect on individuals’ willingness to come to court or work cooperatively with law enforcement."

[...]

The Biden administration policy does allow ICE and CBP officers to pursue courthouse arrests if they involve a national security matter, there is an imminent risk of death or violence, the person poses a threat to public safety or if there is an imminent risk evidence needed for a criminal case may be destroyed.

  The Hill

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Journalists allowed into detention facilities

With thousands of children and families arriving at the US-Mexico border in recent weeks and packing facilities, President Joe Biden has been under pressure to bring more transparency to the process. US Customs and Border Protection allowed two journalists from The Associated Press news agency and a crew from CBS to tour the facility in Donna, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley on Tuesday.

[...]

The Biden administration has for the first time allowed journalists inside its main border detention facility for migrant children, revealing a severely overcrowded tent structure where more than 4,000 migrants, including children and families, were crammed into pods and the youngest kept in a large playpen with mats on the floor for sleeping.

  alJazeera

So, no change then. Except now the wire cages have been traded for a kiddie jail.

The facility has a capacity of 250 but more than 4,100 people were being housed on the property on Tuesday. Most were unaccompanied children processed in tents before being taken to shelters run by the Department of Health and Human Services and then placed with a family member, relative or sponsor.

[...]

On Tuesday, journalists watched children being processed. They went into a small room for lice inspection and a health check. Their hair was hosed down and towels were tossed in a black bin marked “Lice”. The minors — many of whom have made long journeys to get to the border, including stretches on foot — were also checked for scabies, fever and other ailments. No COVID-19 test was administered unless a child showed symptoms.

Nurse practitioners also gave psychological tests, asking children if they had suicidal thoughts. All shoelaces were removed to avoid harm to anyone.

The children were then led down a green turf hall to a large intake room. Those 14 and older are fingerprinted and have their photos taken; younger children did not.

Prison processing.

Then they were taken to a second intake room where they got notices to appear for immigration court. Border Patrol agents asked them if they had a contact in the US and allowed the child to speak with them by phone.

Children were given bracelets with a barcode that shows the history of when they showered and medical conditions

Expanding and consolidating the police state

On Friday, the Trump administration quietly designated the entire Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency, which polices US borders, as a “Security Agency,” according to an internal memo obtained by The Nation. This follows repeated attempts by federal immigration authorities to dramatically expand their reach in recent years.

The memo, which was signed by CBP’s Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan and dated January 31, places CBP under the same designation as highly secretive intelligence and law enforcement agencies like the FBI and Secret Service. This grants CBP greater secrecy by exempting certain records from disclosure to the public.

[...]

"This policy change now protects all CBP employee names from subsequent responses to Freedom of Information Act requests or other public disclosures for CGP employee data.”

  the Nation

Whistleblowers, however, don't get that courtesy.

The memo was provided to The Nation by a CBP contractor who requested anonymity to avoid professional reprisal. The contractor was critical of CBP’s new classification, saying, “Designating all of CBP a Security Agency exempt from OPM’s disclosure policy is simply absurd. There’s no need for the average CBP employee to have their name and position redacted from FOIA requests. This is another example of the current administration making it even more difficult to obtain pertinent information via official channels and claiming it’s related to security in some way.”

Careful, you might be outed yourself.

Under President Trump, immigration agencies have pushed for expanded powers and secrecy. For example, in February, The Daily Beast’s Betsy Swan reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sought to join the US Intelligence Community, which would grant them extraordinary new privileges like spying powers and secrecy measures. While the effort was ultimately rebuffed, as Swan reported in a subsequent article, ICE was granted enhanced intelligence capabilities.

And that was just the first stab at it.

Democracy may have had its run. Unless voters take away the GOP's power in November, fascism is here - perhaps to stay.

Fourteen Characteristics of Fascism

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
4. Supremacy of the Military
5. Rampant Sexism
6. Controlled Mass Media
7. Obsession with National Security
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined
9. Corporate Power is Protected
10. Labor Power is Suppressed
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
14. Fraudulent Elections

From The Anatomy of Fascism by Robert Paxton (via Vox):

Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion. (p. 218)

Impeach Judge Richard Stearns

The worst thing that happened this week happened in Boston, as the Boston Globe reported.

Mohammad Shahab Dehghani Hossein Abadi, a 24-year-old undergraduate student, had been detained by Customs and Border Protection at Logan after arriving Sunday. Dehghani Hossein Abadi’s lawyers filed an emergency petition to block his removal Monday night, and Judge Allison D. Burroughs ordered a 48-hour stay. But before a hearing took place, Dehghani Hossein Abadi was flown to France — in defiance of the judge’s order.

I mean, what the unshirted hell is going on here? CBP can just ignore court orders whenever it pleases? What does CBP think it is, the president*?

At the scheduled hearing Tuesday morning, Judge Richard Stearns said the case was now moot, since the student was already out of the country. “There seems to be some history of CBP ignoring district court orders, which should concern the court,” Doyle said during the hearing. She asked that Dehghani Hossein Abadi be returned to the United States, but the judge said there was little he could do to compel immigration officials now that the student was gone. “I don’t think they’re going to listen to me,” Stearns said.

That’s a federal judge there, throwing up his hands in the face of a lawless federal agency. This would not be a good thing even if the chief executive were not a renegade maniac. The Executive Branch of the government is going to have to be sand-blasted to clean it up when and if these people finally leave.

  Charles P Pierce

This is completely unacceptable. Pack the courts, and if there's still one out there that doesn't do your bidding, ignore him.

Do people not realize that we're losing the little bit of democracy and rule of law that we have left?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

White House directive to CBP: gaslight

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Gearing up for internment camps again?

Activists and the Washington chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-WA) said immigration authorities detained and questioned at least 60 Iranians and Iranian-Americans over the weekend at the Peace Arch Border Crossing in Blaine, Washington. The watchdog group said some were held and questioned for at least 11 hours.

A US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) spokesperson dismissed as "false" social media posts purporting that Iranian Americans were detained and refused entry because of their ethnic origins.


The spokesperson added that "reports that DHS/CBP has issued a related directive are also false". The spokesperson was referring to allegations made by CAIR, who cited an unnamed source at CBP, that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a national order for CBP to report and detain individuals of Iranian origin entering the country who are deemed "adversarial". CAIR said one woman, identified as a 24-year-old American medical student named Crystal, was detained for 10 hours with her family before being released.

[...]

According to CBP, wait times at the Blaine facility were on average two hours on Saturday evening, but some travellers had to wait up to four hours due to an increased number of people trying to go through the port of entry and reduced staffing during the holiday season.
  alJazeera

Don't let us inconvenience your vacation.

Citing individuals she spoke with and assisted, Katebi said the questions asked of those of Iranian origin had nothing to do with immigration.

"They were asked [about] specific organisations, and political factions in Iran and their affiliations with them or their views on them or groups that they never even heard of," Katebi said the individuals she assisted said. She also said they were asked about their college majors.

[...]

CBP said: "Based on the current threat environment, CBP is operating with an enhanced posture at its ports of entry to safeguard our national security and protect the America people while simultaneously protecting the civil rights and liberties of everyone."

Sounds like "civil rights and liberties" might mean something different to the thought police, I mean CBP. 

Washington Governor Jay Inslee said on Twitter that his office is "closely tracking reports that Iranian Americans, including US citizens and lawful permanent residents, have been detained.'' He urged anyone affected to contact his office.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

You can say Merry Christmas now...

...but Santa is a damn foreigner.

Thank god he's white.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Gee, it'd be a shame if all these people got exposed to the flu

“In general, due to the short term nature of CBP holding and the complexities of operating vaccination programs, neither CBP nor its medical contractors administer vaccinations to those in our custody,” an agency spokeswoman told The Hill in an emailed statement.

Earlier this month, two top House Democrats wrote to CBP as well as to the Department of Health and Human Services, raising concerns over the spread of influenza in detention centers after at least three children died in U.S. custody, in part, as a result of the flu.

Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.) sent the agencies a letter from several Harvard and Johns Hopkins doctors, who asked for a congressional investigation into health conditions at border patrol facilities.

“These tragic deaths appear to represent more than half of child deaths in the last year in these immigration facilities and to reflect a rate of influenza death substantially higher than that in the general population,” the doctors wrote. “Another influenza season is around the corner. … Timely action is critical.”

[...]

Once children leave CBP detention centers and are transferred to HHS, they are given full medical screenings upon arrival, as well as any needed vaccinations, including the seasonal flu vaccine, an agency spokesperson said.

  The Hill

Too bad it took so long to get your kid transferred. Que sera.

What's Chuck mad about?

When I saw Chuck's comment and the picture of barbed wire and robocops at the border, I was ready to agree with him.  But then I read the synopsis under the picture, and if he thinks Border Patrol leadership should be censoring private Facebook posts, no matter how abhorent they are, I take exception.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection was aware of the inflammatory Facebook page where alleged Border Patrol agents posted racist, sexist and violent images — and the agency has investigated posts from the group on at least one occasion, an official said.

  WaPo

And I wouldn't be surprised if some of the top leadership has participated in that group.

The office carried out an inquiry and took disciplinary action, but the official did not say how many employees were involved or what sort of discipline was dispensed.

Now, if the disciplinary action wasn't firing, then I'll agree with Chuck.

Even though some in the agency have known about the Facebook group for as many as three years, CBP officials do not conduct regular monitoring of private pages, the official said, adding that it would potentially interfere with members’ First Amendment and privacy rights. Instead, CBP responds when it’s presented with reports of wrongdoing.

Which seems appropriate to me.

Officials have said they weren’t aware of the recent posts to “I’m 10-15” — which has reportedly been renamed America First — and Kevin McAleenan, acting secretary of Homeland Security, pledged “an immediate investigation” after the website ProPublica published an investigation revealing a bevy of offensive posts on the page.

[...]

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who was the target of sexually violent posts on the Facebook page, said on Thursday that CBP officials told members of Congress the agency didn’t know about the group.

“Looks like CBP lied,” she said in a tweet.

On Friday, another Facebook group of apparent CBP personnel surfaced, revealing even more posts containing insensitive, derogatory and lewd content. The page, called “the Real CBP Nation,” was first reported by CNN and has about 1,000 members.

A Facebook spokesperson told The Washington Post that the company had removed several posts to that group because they violated policies on bullying and harassment, cruel and insensitive content, and sexual exploitation of adults. Facebook did not ban the group.

In a Tuesday letter to Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) said the posts to the “I’m 10-15” group also appeared to violate the social network’s “Community Standards.” Cummings requested copies of all the posts and comments made on the group, including deleted content.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

This is what happens when your boss acts impulsively

Tense arguments broke out at the White House over the past two days as top government officials clashed over how to carry out President Trump’s executive order on keeping together immigrant families at the Mexican border, according to four people familiar with the meetings.

The disputes started Thursday night. They continued Friday as Kevin K. McAleenan, the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, returned to the White House to question how his agency was supposed to detain parents and children together when the law requires that children not be held indefinitely in jail.

  NYT

I believe the Republicans are working on that. I'm guessing they think indefinite detention of families is a good alternative to separation.

Officials at the southwestern border are struggling to obey Mr. Trump’s demand to prosecute people who illegally enter the United States — ending what the president has reviled as a “catch and release” policy — while also following an executive order he issued Wednesday to keep migrant families together as they are processed in courts.

[...]

The president’s whiplash-inducing order caught several people by surprise. Just a day before Mr. Trump signed it, one person close to the president said that he told advisers that separating families at the border was the best deterrent to illegal immigration and that he said that “my people love it.”

[...]

Customs and Border Protection officials forcefully argued that agents who are apprehending migrant families at the border cannot refer all of the adults for prosecution because the Justice Department and other law enforcement agencies do not have the resources to process each case.

[...]

As a result, the officials from Customs and Border Protection told White House and Justice Department officials that they have had to issue fewer prosecution referrals of adults with children despite the president’s “zero tolerance” policy on illegal immigration.

Justice Department officials shot back, maintaining that the department has made no changes to its hard-line stance on illegal border crossings as it continues to receive referrals for prosecutions from Customs and Border Protection agents.

[...]

Last month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions sent 35 prosecutors to the southwestern border to help handle the surge in cases created by the zero-tolerance policy; the Defense Department deployed an additional 21 lawyers to handle immigration prosecutions.

Federal immigration courts faced a backlog of more than 700,000 cases in May, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, at Syracuse University. In some courts, the average wait for an immigration hearing was over 1,400 days; some hearings are being scheduled beyond 2021 before an available slot on the docket is found.

Lt. Col. Jamie Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said the military is preparing to shelter as many as 20,000 migrant children on four bases: Little Rock Air Force Base in Arkansas; Fort Bliss in El Paso; Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Tex.; and Dyess Air Force Base near Abilene, Tex.

Give the military custody of these people (children). Not Nazi at all.

The 100-mile allowance

Why is it not unconstitutional?

In this 100-mile zone, Border Patrol agents have certain additional authorities. For instance, Border Patrol can operate immigration checkpoints.

  ACLU

Immigration checkpoints allow searches, don't they? I'm guessing a reasonable suspicion that premits the search is the color of a person's skin. Maybe not legally, but in practice?

The regulations establishing the 100-mile border zone were adopted by the U.S. Department of Justice in 1953—without any public comments or debate. At the time, there were fewer than 1,100 Border Patrol agents nationwide; today, there are over 21,000.

The Border Patrol often ignores this regulation and, aside from limiting interior checkpoint locations to within the 100-mile zone, rejects any geographic limitation on agents' authority. At least two federal circuit courts condone Border Patrol operations outside the 100-mile zone, federal regulations and Supreme Court precedent notwithstanding.

Federal border agents are stopping, interrogating, and searching Americans on an everyday basis with absolutely no suspicion of wrongdoing, and often in ways that our Constitution does not permit.

[...]

The ACLU believes that these checkpoints amount to dragnet, suspicionless stops that cannot be reconciled with Fourth Amendment protections.

  ACLU

I believe that also.

The expansion of government power both at and near the border is part of a trend toward expanding police and national security powers without regard to the effect of such expansion on our most fundamental and treasured Constitutional rights. The federal government's dragnet approach to law enforcement and national security is one that is increasingly turning us all into suspects. If Americans do not continue to challenge the expansion of federal power over the individual, we risk forfeiting the fundamental rights and freedoms that we inherited—including the right to simply go about our business free from government interference, harassment and abuse.

Aren't we there already? This might be closing the barn door after the horse has gone.

In Defiance of Court Orders?

During yesterday's Muslim ban crisis, some airport customs and border patrol officials were refusing to release detainees.

It's not clear to me whether they had the legal right to do so in every instance.

The ruling does not necessarily mean the people being held at airports across the US are going to be released, said Zachary Manfredi, from Yale's Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic, who helped draft the emergency stay motion.

"The judge's order is that they (lawful visa/green card holders) not be removed from the US -- it doesn't immediately order that they be released from detention," he told CNN.

"We are hoping that CBP (Customs and Border Patrol), now that they no longer have a reason to detain them, will release them. But it is also possible they could be transferred to (other) detention facilities." "We are getting the order to as many CBP officers as possible right now," he added.

  Fort Wayne Home Page

As many as possible? Are some of the agents incommunicado?

A federal judge in New York temporarily blocked the order Saturday night for citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries who have already arrived in the US and those who are in transit, and who hold valid visas, ruling they cannot be removed from the US.

[...]

Similar legal rulings were made in Virginia and Washington State. In Massachusetts, however, two judges went further, saying the government should notify travelers who would have been affected by the executive order that for the next seven days they are free to travel to Boston.

[...]

Federal judges in Boston have ruled early Sunday that officials may not detain a person on the basis of President Trump's executive order.

[...]

The US Department of Homeland Security said on Sunday it will comply with judicial orders not to deport detained travelers affected by President Donald Trump's seismic move to ban more than 130 million people from entering the United States.

[...]

President Trump said the government was "totally prepared" for the ban. "It's working out very nicely," Trump told reporters Saturday. "You see it at the airports. You see it all over."

  

Fort Wayne Home Page

Alternative facts.

Also:

Protests are scheduled Sunday at least even cities: Orlando, Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Seattle, Washington and Chicago, mostly at airports.

By the way, this is a very thorough and professional article at the Fort Wayne Home Page. Too bad our national news services can't do as good a job as these three reporters: ARIANE DE VOGUE , ELI WATKINS AND ALANNE ORJOUX.