Lawyers seek ‘Apprentice’ tapes in Donald Trump immigration suit
Lawyers suing President Donald Trump over his decision to end special protections shielding certain immigrants from deportation are seeking unaired footage from his reality TV show “The Apprentice” to try to bolster their case alleging the move was racially motivated, the attorneys said Wednesday. Lawyers for Civil Rights, which sued Trump in February, has issued subpoenas to MGM Holdings Inc. and Trump Productions LLC demanding any footage shot during the production of the show in which Trump “uses racial and/or ethnic slurs” or “makes remarks concerning race, nationality and/or ethnic background.” Former White House staffer and fellow reality-TV star Omarosa Manigault Newman claimed without evidence in a book released in August, “Unhinged,” that a tape exists of the president using the N-word on the reality show’s set. Trump has denied the existence of such tapes, tweeting that the show’s producer told him “there are NO TAPES of the Apprentice where I used such a terrible and disgusting word as attributed by Wacky and Deranged Omarosa.” “I don’t have that word in my vocabulary, and never have,” Trump said. The case filed in Boston’s federal court centers on the Trump administration’s decision to end temporary protected status for thousands of immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and Honduras. Temporary protected status provides safe havens for people from countries experiencing armed conflicts, natural disasters and other challenges. Lawyers for Civil Rights says in the lawsuit that Trump’s move to rescind the program was rooted in animus against immigrants of color, citing comments he made on the campaign trial and in office. “Access to these videotapes will help further demonstrate that Defendant Trump holds racially biased views that impact his policy and decision making,” attorney Oren Nimni said in a written statement. The subpoenas also seek any relevant outtakes, audio clips and transcripts made during production of the show. Emails seeking comment were sent to an MGM lawyer, a Trump Production official and White House officials. A federal judge in July denied Trump’s request to throw out the lawsuit and rejected the administration’s bid to remove Trump as a defendant in the case. In a different case in California, another federal judge last month issued a temporary injunction that bars the Trump administration from ending the protections, saying there is evidence that president “harbors an animus against non-white, non-European aliens which influenced his … decision to end the TPS designation.” The Trump administration is appealing that ruling. Pressure on producers of the “The Apprentice” to release unaired footage of the show intensified during the 2016 presidential campaign after The Washington Post published a 2005 “Access Hollywood” recording of Trump boasting about aggressively groping women. MGM, which owns “The Apprentice,” said at the time that it couldn’t unilaterally release any unaired, archived material because of contractual obligations. The show’s producer, Mark Burnett, also said he didn’t have the ability or right to release footage. A former contestant on “The Apprentice” who has accused Trump of unwanted groping and kissing has also sought footage through a lawsuit against the president, but it’s unclear whether she has received any. The subpoena issued by Summer Zervos‘ attorney in May sought any “Apprentice” material that features Zervos, or Trump talking about her or discussing other female contestants in a sexual or inappropriate way. Republished with permission from the Associated Press.
Donald Trump signs order denying asylum to illegal border crossers
President Donald Trump issued an order Friday to deny asylum to migrants who enter the country illegally, tightening the border as caravans of Central Americans slowly approach the United States. The plan was immediately challenged in court. Trump invoked the same powers he used last year to impose a travel ban that was upheld by the Supreme Court. The new regulations are intended to circumvent laws stating that anyone is eligible for asylum no matter how he or she enters the country. About 70,000 people per year who enter the country illegally claim asylum, officials said. “We need people in our country but they have to come in legally,” Trump said Friday as he departed for Paris. The American Civil Liberties Union and other legal groups swiftly sued in federal court in Northern California to block the regulations, arguing the measures were clearly illegal. “The president is simply trying to run roughshod over Congress’s decision to provide asylum to those in danger regardless of the manner of one’s entry,” said ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt. The litigation also seeks to put the rules on hold while the litigation progresses. It wasn’t clear whether the case would go before a judge before the rules go into effect Saturday. They would be in place for at least three months but could be extended, and don’t affect people already in the country. Trump’s announcement was the latest push to enforce a hard-line stance on immigration through regulatory changes and presidential orders, bypassing Congress, which has not passed any immigration law reform. But those efforts have been largely thwarted by legal challenges and, in the case of family separations this year, stymied by a global outcry that prompted Trump to retreat. Officials said the asylum law changes are meant to funnel migrants through official border crossings for speedy rulings instead of having them try to circumvent such crossings on the nearly 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) border. Border Patrol agents in Yuma said they arrested nearly 450 migrants in Western Arizona this week. But the busy ports of entry already have long lines and waits, forcing immigration officials to tell some migrants to turn around and come back to make their claims. Even despite that, illegal crossings are historically low. Backlogs have become especially bad in recent months at crossings in California, Arizona and Texas, with some people waiting five weeks to try to claim asylum at San Diego’s main crossing. “The arrival of large numbers … will contribute to the overloading of our immigration and asylum system and to the release of thousands … into the interior of the United States,” Trump said in the proclamation, calling it a crisis. Administration officials said those denied asylum under the proclamation may be eligible for similar forms of protection if they fear returning to their countries, though they would be subject to a tougher threshold. Those forms of protection include “withholding of removal” — which is similar to asylum, but doesn’t allow for green cards or bringing families — or protection under the United Nations Convention Against Torture. Homeland Security officials said they were adding staffing at the border crossings to manage the expected crush, but it’s not clear how migrants, specifically families, would be held as their cases are adjudicated. Family detention centers are largely at capacity. Trump has said he wanted to erect “tent cities,” but nothing has been funded or decided. The U.S. is also working with Mexico in an effort to send some migrants back across the border. Right now, laws allow only Mexican nationals to be swiftly returned and increasingly those claiming asylum are from Central America, not Mexico. Trump pushed immigration issues hard in the days leading up to Tuesday’s midterm elections, railing against the caravans that are still hundreds of miles from the border. He has made little mention of the issue since the election, but has sent troops to the border in response. As of Thursday, there were more than 5,600 U.S. troops deployed to the border mission, with about 550 actually working on the border in Texas. Trump also suggested he’d revoke the right to citizenship for babies born to non-U.S. citizens on American soil and erect massive “tent cities” to detain migrants. Those issues were not addressed by the regulations. But Trump insisted the citizenship issue would be pushed through. “We’re signing it. We’re doing it,” he said. The administration has long said immigration officials are drowning in asylum cases partly because people falsely claim asylum and then live in the U.S. with work permits. In 2017, the U.S. fielded more than 330,000 asylum claims, nearly double the number two years earlier and surpassing Germany as highest in the world. Migrants who cross illegally are generally arrested and often seek asylum or some other form of protection. Claims have spiked in recent years and the immigration court backlog has more than doubled to 1.1 million cases in about two years, Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse reported this week. Generally, only about 20 percent of applicants are approved. It’s unclear how many people en route to the U.S. will even make it to the border. Roughly 5,000 migrants — more than 1,700 under the age of 18 — sheltered in a Mexico City sports complex decided to depart Friday for the northern city of Tijuana, opting for the longer but likely safer route to the U.S. border. Similar caravans have gathered regularly over the years and have generally dwindled by the time they reach the southern border, particularly to Tijuana. Most have passed largely unnoticed. Republished with permission from the Associated Press.
Donald Trump stokes pre-election fear of immigrants to drive voters
Thousands of U.S. troops to stop an “invasion” of migrants. Tent cities for asylum seekers. An end to the Constitution’s guarantee of birthright citizenship. With his eyes squarely on next Tuesday’s elections, President Donald Trump is rushing out hardline immigration declarations, promises and actions as he tries to mobilize supporters to retain Republican control of Congress. His own campaign in 2016 concentrated on border fears, and that’s his final-week focus in the midterm fight. “This has nothing to do with elections,” the president insists. But his timing is striking. Trump says he will send more than 5,000 military troops to the Mexican border to help defend against caravans of Central American migrants who are on foot and still hundreds of miles away. Tent cities would not resolve the massive U.S. backlog of asylum seekers. And most legal scholars say it would take a new constitutional amendment to alter the current one granting citizenship to anyone born in America. Still, Trump plunges ahead with daily alarms and proclamations about immigration in tweets, interviews and policy announcements in the days leading up to elections that Democrats hope will give them at least partial control of Congress. Trump and many top aides have long seen the immigration issue as the most effective rallying cry for his base of supporters. The president had been expected to make an announcement about new actions at the border on Tuesday, but that was scrapped so he could travel instead to Pittsburgh, where 11 people were massacred in a synagogue during Sabbath services. Between the shootings, the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history, and the mail bomb scare targeting Democrats and a media organization, the caravan of migrants slowly trudging north had faded from front pages and cable TV. But with well-timed interviews on Fox and “Axios on HBO,” Trump revived some of his hardest-line immigration ideas: An executive order to revoke the right to citizenship for babies born to non-U.S. citizens on American soil. And the prolonged detention of anyone coming across the U.S.-Mexico border, including those seeking asylum, in “tent cities” erected “all over the place.” The administration on Monday also announced plans to deploy 5,200 active duty troops — more than double the 2,000 who are in Syria fighting the Islamic State group — to the border to help stave off the caravans. The main caravan, still in southern Mexico, was continuing to melt away — from the original 7,000 to about 4,000 — as a smaller group apparently hoped to join it. Trump insists his immigration moves have nothing to do with politics, even as he rails against the caravans at campaign rallies. “I’ve been saying this long before the election. I’ve been saying this before I ever thought of running for office. We have to have strong borders,” Trump told Fox News host Laura Ingraham in an interview Monday. Critics weren’t buying it. “They’re playing all of us,” said David W. Leopold, an immigration attorney and counsel to the immigration advocacy group America’s Voice. “This is not about locking people up. This is not about birthright citizenship. This is about winning an election next week.” Trump’s citizenship proposal would inevitably spark a long-shot legal battle over whether the president can alter the long-accepted understanding that the 14th Amendment grants citizenship to any child born on U.S. soil, regardless of his parents’ immigration status. Omar Jadwat, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union in New York, said the Constitution is very clear. “If you are born in the United States, you’re a citizen,” he said. He called it “outrageous that the president can think he can override constitutional guarantees by issuing an executive order. James Ho, a conservative Trump-appointed federal appeals court judge, wrote in 2006, before his appointment, that birthright citizenship “is protected no less for children of undocumented persons than for descendants of Mayflower passengers.” Even House Speaker Paul Ryan, typically a supporter of Trump proposals, said on WVLK radio in Kentucky: “Well you obviously cannot do that. You cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order.” But Trump says his lawyers have assured him that the change could be made with “just with an executive order” — an argument he has been making since his early days as a candidate, when he dubbed birthright citizenship a “magnet for illegal immigration” and pledged to end it. “We’re the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States,” he said in an Axios interview excerpt released Tuesday. Not so, according to a 2010 study from the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that supports immigration restrictions, which said at least 30 countries offer birthright citizenship. Vice President Mike Pence said the administration was “looking at action that would reconsider birthright citizenship.” “We all know what the 14th Amendment says. We all cherish the language of the 14th Amendment. But the Supreme Court of the United States has never ruled on whether or not — whether the language of the 14th Amendment, ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’ applies specifically to the people who are in the country illegally,” he said at a Politico event. The nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute estimates that more than 4 million U.S.-born children under the age of 18 have an unauthorized immigrant parent. A person familiar with the internal White House debate said the topic of birthright citizenship has come up inside the West Wing at various times — and not without some detractors. However, White House lawyers expect to work with the Justice Department to develop a legal justification for the action. The person was not authorized to discuss the policy debate so spoke on condition of anonymity. In Trump’s Monday interview with Fox, he said the U.S. also plans to build tent cities to house migrants seeking asylum, who would be detained until their cases were completed. Right now, some asylum seekers, particularly families, are
NumbersUSA releases Immigration-Reduction Report Cards for Alabama
NumbersUSA — the nation’s largest grassroots immigration-reduction organization — on Tuesday released their Immigration-Reduction Report Cards to their more than 8 million activists around the United States ahead of the midterm elections on Nov. 6. The Grade Cards evaluate each Member on Congress based on all committee and floor votes and co-sponsorships since 1990 that are on their record and that have or would have affected the numerical level of legal and illegal immigration. Alabama scores: Among the members of the Alabama delegation, only two were granted the “True Reformer” label by NumbersUSA — 5th District U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks and 6th District U.S. Rep. Gary Palmer — as they have “committed themselves to all of the immigration issues listed on our Grade Cards.” “I salute these representatives for their leadership in trying to ensure that we have wise and careful immigration policies that do not impede those goals of economic fairness, conservation, and a high quality of life for individuals and communities,” said NumbersUSA President Roy Beck. All “A-rated” members actions in Congress supported immigration policies that protect American worker and local communities. According to NumbersUSA, they: Supported true immigration reform in the national interest that protects the economic security, physical security and quality of life of American citizens and legal immigrants already here. Supported less annual legal and illegal immigration Supported fewer foreign workers to compete for jobs and wages with American workers (particularly the most vulnerable and those outside the labor force) Supported less immigration-forced population growth and the pressure it places on local infrastructure, congestion, taxes and the destruction of surrounding farmland and natural habitat.
Pentagon sending 5,200 troops to Southwest border week before midterms
The Pentagon said Monday it is sending 5,200 troops to the Southwest border in an extraordinary military operation ordered up just a week before midterm elections in which President Donald Trump has put a sharp focus on Central American migrants moving north in slow-moving caravans that are still hundreds of miles from the U.S. The number of troops being deployed is more than double the 2,000 who are in Syria fighting the Islamic State group. Trump, eager to keep voters focused on illegal immigration in the lead-up to the elections, stepped up his dire warnings about the caravans, tweeting, “This is an invasion of our Country and our Military is waiting for you!” But any migrants who complete the long trek to the southern U.S. border already face major hurdles — both physical and bureaucratic — to being allowed into the United States. In an interview Monday, Trump said the U.S. would build “tent cities” for asylum seekers. “We’re going to put tents up all over the place,” told Fox News Channel’s Laura Ingraham. “They’re going to be very nice and they’re going to wait and if they don’t get asylum, they get out.” Under current protocol, migrants who clear an initial screening are often released until their cases are decided in immigration court, which can take several years. Trump denied his focus on the caravan is intended to help Republicans in next week’s midterms, saying, “This has nothing to do with elections.” The Pentagon’s “Operation Faithful Patriot” was described by the commander of U.S. Northern Command as an effort to help Customs and Border Protection “harden the southern border” by stiffening defenses at and near legal entry points. Advanced helicopters will allow border protection agents to swoop down on migrants trying to cross illegally, said Air Force Gen. Terrence O’Shaughnessy. Troops planned to bring heavy concertina wiring to unspool across open spaces between ports. “We will not allow a large group to enter the U.S. in an unlawful and unsafe manner,” said Kevin McAleenan, commissioner of Customs and Border Protection. Eight hundred troops already are on their way to southern Texas, O’Shaughnessy said, and their numbers will top 5,200 by week’s end. Some of the troops will be armed. He said troops would focus first on Texas, followed by Arizona and then California. The troops will join the more than 2,000 National Guardsmen that Trump has already deployed to the border. It remained unclear Monday why the administration was choosing to send active-duty troops given that they will be limited to performing the same support functions the Guard already is doing. The number of people in the first migrant caravan headed toward the U.S. has dwindled to about 4,000 from about 7,000 last week, though a second one was gaining steam and marked by violence. About 600 migrants in the second group tried to cross a bridge from Guatemala to Mexico en masse Monday. The riverbank standoff with Mexico police followed a more violent confrontation Sunday when the migrants used sticks and rocks against officers. One migrant was killed Sunday night by a head wound, but the cause was unclear. The first group passed through the spot via the river — wading or on rafts — and was advancing through southern Mexico. That group appeared to begin as a collection of about 160 who decided to band together in Honduras for protection against the gangs who prey on migrants traveling alone and snowballed as the group moved north. They are mostly from Honduras, where it started, as well as El Salvador and Guatemala. Another, smaller caravan earlier this year dwindled greatly as it passed through Mexico, with only about 200 making it to the California border. Migrants are entitled under both U.S. and international law to apply for asylum. But there already is a bottleneck of would-be asylum seekers waiting at some U.S. border crossings to make their claims, some waiting as long as five weeks. McAleenan said the aim of the operation was to deter migrants from crossing illegally, but he conceded his officers were overwhelmed by a surge of asylum seekers at border crossings. He also said Mexico was prepared to offer asylum to members of the caravan. “If you’re already seeking asylum, you’ve been given a generous offer,” he said of Mexico. “We want to work with Mexico to manage that flow.” The White House is also weighing additional border security measures, including blocking those traveling in the caravan from seeking legal asylum and preventing them from entering the U.S. The military operation drew quick criticism. “Sending active military forces to our southern border is not only a huge waste of taxpayer money, but an unnecessary course of action that will further terrorize and militarize our border communities,” said Shaw Drake of the American Civil Liberties Union’s border rights center at El Paso, Texas. Military personnel are legally prohibited from engaging in immigration enforcement. The troops will include military police, combat engineers and others helping on the border. The escalating rhetoric over the migrants and expected deployments come as the president has been trying to turn the caravans into a key election issue just days before elections that will determine whether Republicans maintain control of Congress. “This will be the election of the caravans, the Kavanaughs, law and order, tax cuts, and you know what else? It’s going to be the election of common sense,” Trump said at a rally in Illinois on Saturday night. On Monday, he tweeted without providing evidence, “Many Gang Members and some very bad people are mixed into the Caravan heading to our Southern Border.” “Please go back,” he urged them, “you will not be admitted into the United States unless you go through the legal process. This is an invasion of our Country and our Military is waiting for you!” It’s possible there are criminals mixed in, but Trump has not substantiated his claim that members of the MS-13 gang, in particular, are among them. The troops are expected
Donald Trump vilifies illegal immigrant caravan, says he’ll cut Central American aid
President Donald Trump says the U.S. will begin cutting aid to three Central American countries he accused of failing to stop thousands of migrants heading for the U.S. border. But across his administration there was no indication of any action in response to what he tweeted was a “National Emergy.” For hours on Monday, White House officials were unable to provide an explanation for the president’s threats, which reflected both his apparent frustration with the migrant caravan and his determination to transform it into Republican election gains. Federal agencies said they’d received no guidance on the president’s declaration, issued as he attempts to make illegal immigration a focus of next month’s midterm elections. If Trump should follow through with his threat to end or greatly reduce U.S. aid, that could worsen the poverty and violence that are a root cause of the migration he has been railing against, critics said. Trump tweeted, “Sadly, it looks like Mexico’s Police and Military are unable to stop the Caravan heading to the Southern Border of the United States.” He added without evidence that “criminals and unknown Middle Easterners are mixed in.” “I have alerted Border Patrol and Military that this is a National Emergy,” he wrote. “Must change laws!” Associated Press journalists traveling with the caravan for more than a week have spoken with Hondurans, Guatemalans and Salvadorans but have not met any of the “Middle Easterners” that Trump claimed had “mixed in” with the Central American migrants. It was clear, though, that more migrants were continuing to join the caravan. Trump’s tweets marked the latest escalation of his efforts to thrust immigration politics into the national conversation in the closing weeks of the congressional elections. He and his senior aides have long believed the issue — which was a centerpiece of his winning presidential campaign — is key to revving up his base and motivating GOP voters to turn out in November. “Blame the Democrats,” he wrote. “Remember the midterms.” At a campaign rally in Houston on Monday night, he falsely accused Democrats of “encouraging millions of illegal aliens to break our laws, violate our borders and overwhelm our nation.” Trump for months has sought to use foreign aid as a cudgel more broadly, threatening to withhold humanitarian and other aid from “enemies of America” and using it to pressure foreign governments to bend to his will. On Monday, he said he would be making good on his threat. “Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador were not able to do the job of stopping people from leaving their country and coming illegally to the U.S. We will now begin cutting off, or substantially reducing, the massive foreign aid routinely given to them,” he wrote. He added later at the White House: “We have been giving so much money to so many different countries for so long that it’s not fair and it’s not good. And then when we ask them to keep their people in their country, they’re unable to do it.” However, it was unclear whether the president’s tweets had any policy implications. A Pentagon spokesman, Army Lt. Col. Jamie Davis, said the Pentagon had received no new orders to provide troops for border security. And a State Department official said the agency had not been given any instructions on eliminating or reducing aid to Central American countries. Last April, Defense Secretary James Mattis authorized up to 4,000 members of the National Guard to help the Department of Homeland Security with southern border security, and approximately 2,100 were sent under the control of border state governors. That number, Davis said, has not changed. The Pentagon also said it was going ahead with plans to include Honduras among the South American nations that will be visited this fall by the USNS Comfort, a hospital ship that Mattis has dispatched to help relieve stress on medical care systems as a result of refugees from Venezuela. The Comfort began treating patients in Ecuador on Monday and is scheduled to make stops in Peru, Colombia and Honduras, according to Pentagon spokesman Col. Rob Manning. “The deployment reflects the United States’ enduring promise of friendship, partnership and solidarity with the Americas,” Manning said. Asked what the administration was doing to operationalize the president’s tweet, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters Monday evening that “we’re continuing to look at all options on the table.” “The president wants to make sure we’re doing everything we can to secure and protect our borders and that’s exactly what he’s been talking about,” she said. It is Congress, not the president, that appropriates aid money. The White House would have to notify Congress if it wanted to cut or reallocate aid, which could delay or complicate the process. Rep. Eliot Engel, the top-ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Monday that “my colleagues and I will not stand idly by as this administration ignores congressional intent.” The three countries received about $500 million from the U.S. in fiscal year 2017. That money funds programs that promote economic development and education, as well as supporting democracy and human rights, among other issues. It was not immediately clear how much money Trump now hopes to cut, though the administration already had been pushing to reduce the government’s global aid and foreign operations budget by about 30 percent for fiscal 2019 that began Oct 1. Paul O’Brien, the vice president for policy and advocacy at Oxfam America, said that any attempts to decrease aid to the Central American countries would be “devastating” since the U.S. is a key investor in the region, funding programs on issues ranging from workforce development to reducing violence and improving human rights. In addition, other investors look to the U.S. as a guide. “If you take that money away or you make it unpredictable, you’re actually going to foster the very conditions that are driving people toward migration,” said O’Brien, who accused Trump of “essentially seeking to use migrants as a political chip.” Republished with
Donald Trump revives fiery immigration talk for ‘caravan’ election
Donald Trump fueled his 2016 campaign with fiery immigration rhetoric, visions of hordes flowing across the border to assault Americans and steal their jobs. Now, in the final weeks before midterm elections, he’s back at it as he looks to stave off Democratic gains in Congress. It’s an approach that offers both risks and rewards. He could energize Democratic foes as well as the Republicans he wants to rouse to the polls. But for the president, the potential gains clearly win out. In campaign stops and on Twitter in recent days, he has seized on a huge caravan of Central American migrants trying to reach the United States through Mexico as fresh evidence that his tough immigration prescriptions are needed. He tweeted that the caravan was an “assault on our country at our Southern Border.” Then, Thursday night in Montana, he told cheering supporters, “This will be an election of Kavanaugh, the caravan, law and order and common sense. … Remember it’s gonna be an election of the caravan.” His assertions got a visual boost Friday when some members of the caravan broke through a Guatemalan border barrier with Mexico. A few then got through to Mexican territory, but most were repelled by police with riot shields and pepper spray. On an aggressive campaign blitz, Trump has sought to cast the midterms as a referendum on his presidency, believing that he must insert himself into the national conversation in order to bring Republicans out to vote. Perhaps no issue was more identified with his last campaign than immigration, particularly his much-vaunted — and still-unfulfilled — promise to quickly build a U.S.-Mexico border wall. To Trump, his pledges are still rallying cries. “I think it’s a big contrast point. All the Democrats are refusing to build the wall. It’s a good contrast,” said former Trump campaign aide Barry Bennett, who said the caravan was “perfectly timed” for Trump’s midterm pitch. But some warn that as Trump seeks to pump up his base, he could energize opposition. Matt Barreto, co-founder of the research firm Latino Decision, said an elevated immigration message could hurt Trump, too. “I think you run the risk of angering minority voters across the board, Latino, black and Asian-Americans and also alienating and distancing from whites, including conservatives and moderates, now that they see what’s happening with the family separations,” said Barreto, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. Thursday night, the migrant caravan of at least 3,000, many waving Honduran flags and chanting slogans, arrived at the Guatemalan border with Mexico. On Friday, they broke down Guatemalan gates and streamed toward a bridge to Mexico. Most were repelled by Mexican police, but about 50 got through. Mexico’s dispatching of additional police to its southern border seemed to please Trump. On Thursday night, he retweeted a BuzzFeed journalist’s tweet of a video clip showing the police deployment, adding his own comment: “Thank you Mexico, we look forward to working with you!” Earlier in the day, Trump railed against the caravan on Twitter and declared it was “Democrats fault for weak laws!” He also threatened to deploy the military to the border if Mexico did not stop the migrants and appeared to threaten a revamped trade deal with Canada and Mexico. Until days ago, immigration appeared to be unlikely to repeat its central role of 2016, as Trump heeded congressional Republican requests to avoid a government shutdown over funding for the border wall ahead of the midterms. And an internal GOP poll presented to the White House last month found that other issues — particularly opposing the “Medicare for All” policy of some Democrats — would better resonate with voters. While Trump did focus for a time on some Democrats calling for the abolition of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, he largely discussed it as a warning against Democratic control of Washington. But the renewed embrace of the polarizing issue reflects a consensus view in both parties that control of Congress will be determined more by turning-out party loyalists than winning over centrist voters. A vigorous immigration push will likely be well-received in many of the deep-red areas where Trump is campaigning, like his stop in Montana Thursday night. Republicans acknowledge it could play differently in other parts of the country — and might even harm GOP candidates in some selected districts — but they are wagering that as in 2016 it is still a net-win issue for the president’s party. Trump campaigns Friday night in Arizona, an increasingly competitive state where the message could have a mixed result. He won Arizona by 3.5 percentage points two years ago, compared with Republican Mitt Romney’s 9-point margin in 2012. Ahead of the midterms, polls continue to show that voters consider immigration among the most important issues, though generally falling behind the economy and health care. However, Republican and Democratic voters have distinctly different views of immigration as a problem facing the country. A recent Pew Research Center survey found a majority of Democratic voters — 57 percent — think the treatment of immigrants in the country illegally is a very big problem in the U.S., compared with just 15 percent of Republican voters who say the same. By contrast, three-quarters of Republican voters call illegal immigration a very big problem, ranking the highest for Republicans among the long list on Pew’s survey, while just 19 percent of Democratic voters say the same. Recently, surveys from CNN and The Washington Post/ABC News found voters were slightly more likely to think the Democratic Party would do a better job handling immigration than the Republican Party. Republished with permission from the Associated Press.
As immigrants flow across US border, American guns go south
Among the thousands of immigrants who have been coming across the U.S.-Mexico border in recent months, many are seeking to escape gang and drug violence raging in their homelands. The weapon of choice used to intimidate them? Often an American-made gun. While the flow of drugs and immigrants into the U.S. has been well-documented for decades and become a regular part of the political debate, what is often overlooked is how gangs and drug cartels exploit weaknesses at the border to smuggle guns from the U.S. into Latin America. A 2013 report by the University of San Diego says the number of firearms smuggled from the United States was so significant that nearly half of American gun dealers rely on that business to stay afloat. On average, an estimated 253,000 firearms each year are purchased in the United States expressly to be sent to Mexico, the report said, the vast majority of the sales originating in the border states of California, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Once in Mexico, the weapons end up in the hands of drug cartels or get shipped to gangs in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador — countries that are dealing with an epidemic of gun violence. Armed holdups on public transportation are a regular occurrence in Honduras, where nearly half of the unregistered weapons originated in the U.S., the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives reported in recent years. Gun violence in El Salvador is so rampant that the country has been averaging more than one shootout a day between police and gangs this year, said Ricardo Sosa, a criminologist specializing in gangs and security in El Salvador. “In every one of these operations, police are able to seize between two and six firearms at the scene,” he said. “That is one of the indicators that the gangs are armed on many occasions with long guns and short guns for each one of their members.” Mexico last year recorded its highest number of murders in nearly two decades, with more than 31,000 people killed, higher than even during the country’s drug war in 2011. It continues unabated with an average of 88 people killed each day in the first five months of this year. The bloodshed in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador has been a big driver of immigration into the U.S., with the government saying nearly 16,000 families came across the border in August alone — many of them from those three countries. Gun-control groups contend that the U.S. government is essentially exporting gang violence to Latin America with permissive gun laws — which in turn creates an immigration crisis along the border. “If the Trump administration were serious about wanting to stop refugees from fleeing violence in Latin America and Mexico to come north, they would be doing something about the southward gun trafficking that is fueling a lot of that migration,” said Adam Skaggs, chief counsel with the Giffords Law Center. Gun-rights activists say the issue is overblown and mischaracterized. The National Rifle Association and other gun-rights groups contend the most effective way to combat the problem is not with stricter gun laws but by eradicating drug cartels and other criminal enterprises. They say the numbers are inflated and that the industry has proactively sought to educate licensed gun dealers on how to detect “straw purchases,” in which a firearm is bought expressly to give it to someone who otherwise would not be able to legally own a gun. “Obviously, Mexico has a huge problem with rampant corruption that clearly cannot be blamed on the U.S.,” the NRA said in a position paper on the issue in 2009. “At the same time, Mexico has extremely prohibitive gun laws, yet has far worse crime than the U.S.” Under the Obama administration, federal authorities launched an operation dubbed Fast and Furious that allowed criminals to buy firearms with the intention of tracking them to criminal organizations. But the ATF lost most of the guns, including two that were found at the scene of a slaying of a U.S. Border Patrol agent. In 2011, gun dealers along the border states were required to report to the ATF anytime someone purchased two or more semiautomatic long guns in a five-day period. President Donald Trump issued an executive order in 2017 as his response to gun trafficking, directing federal agencies to ramp up prosecution aimed at going after foreign criminals and to improve coordination among federal agencies along the border. Nabbing the guns at the border is a challenge on several levels. They aren’t as detectable as drug shipments, and they can be disassembled and loaded with legal goods making their way from the U.S. “The effectiveness of this kind of gun smuggling still remains very high. It doesn’t take a whole lot,” said David Shirk, one of the University of San Diego report’s authors. Experts say a big reason gun trafficking remains one of the hot commodities flowing from the United States into Latin America is profit. Retired ATF agent Bernard Zapor noted that an AR-platform firearm that sells retail in the U.S. for $1,000 can fetch more than $4,000 in Mexico. A box of ammo that might go for just under $200 could command $3,000. “They’re not buying grandpa’s old shotgun that’s been lying around and found in a shed,” Zapor said. “They’re buying brand new Colt AR-15s.” Republished with permission from the Associated Press.
ICE arrest of approximately 30 illegal immigrants in N. Alabama sparks conversation
Agents from the U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) arrested “approximately 30 persons” in North Alabama the last week of August, an ICE spokesperson has confirmed to Alabama Today. “ICE makes targeted arrests on a daily basis in accordance with its ongoing enforcement activity,” explained Bryan Cox, the Southern Region Communications Director for ICE. “The general premise I’ve seen from some in the area that ICE’s presence in North Alabama is a new development is not accurate. These arrests were made by Alabama-based officers regularly assigned to the area who conduct targeted enforcement actions as part of their everyday duties.” According to the ICE spokesman, the local field office, which is based in Louisiana and covers a territory spanning Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee, is averaging, thus far this year, approximately 200 arrests in any given week. A local immigrants rights group is calling the arrests held a press conference in Huntsville, Ala. on Thursday titled “Stop Tearing Families Apart,” where they voiced their concerns over the recent arrests. The Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice (ACIJ) claims many of the people arrested did not have criminal records. They said they’ve collected information that ICE arrested people from Huntsville, Decatur, Athens, Hartselle, many whom of were simply getting ready for work or pumping gas. “We are for sure clear this is a racial profiling issue,” said ACIJ Executive Director Sarai Portillo. But ICE says that’s not the case. “ICE continues to focus its limited resources first and foremost on those who pose the greatest threat to public safety and any suggestions as to ICE engaging in random or indiscriminate enforcement are categorically false,” explained Cox. “ICE does not conduct any type of indiscriminate raids or sweeps that target aliens indiscriminately. The agency’s arrest stats clearly reflect this reality.” Nationally, 90 percent of all foreign nationals arrested by ICE to date in FY18 either had a criminal conviction, faced a criminal charge, or were already subject to a final order of removal. In explaining the reasons in which someone facing deportation may not have a criminal conviction or a pending criminal charge though they have been arrested for or suspected of criminal activity ICE noted that decisions of criminal prosecution is up to local prosecutors who when faced with a criminal facing imminent deportation may drop charges in order to allow ICE to expedite the deportation process thus saving the costs associated with incarceration and of trial. This decision to drop charges by the prosecutor, in which ICE has no say, allows for what some have called the manipulative ability of lawyers and family members of those being deported to claim that their family member has no record and thus pose no threat. The term “criminal alien” below signifies that an alien has been convicted of a an additional crime in the U.S. beyond their violation of federal immigration law. Sixty-one percent of the non-criminal aliens ICE has arrested in FY18 thus far nevertheless came to ICE’s attention due to criminal charges. New Orleans (of which Alabama is a part) field office ICE administrative arrest stats: FY18 (Q1-Q3): 7,584 arrests, 4,478 convicted criminal (59 percent) FY17: 7,968 arrests, 5,059 convicted criminal (64 percent) FY16: 5,174 arrests, 4,347 criminal (84 percent) FY15: 5,244 arrests, 4,385 criminal (84 percent) FY14: 7,429 arrests, 5,504 criminal (74 percent) FY13: 9,115 arrests, 6,370 criminal (70 percent) ICE national administrative arrest stats: FY18 (Q1-Q3): 119,884 arrests, 79,644 convicted criminal (66 percent) FY17: 143,470 arrests, 105,736 convicted criminal (74 percent) FY16: 110,104 arrests, 94,751 criminal (86 percent) FY15: 119,772 arrests, 101,880 criminal (85 percent) FY14: 183,703 arrests, 134,734 criminal (73 percent) FY13: 232,287 arrests, 168,444 criminal (73 percent) Watch the ACIJ press conference below:
Poll: Few Democrats favor liberal cry to abolish ICE
The rallying cry from some liberals to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement isn’t a likely winner this election year, as a new poll finds only a quarter of Democrats support eliminating the agency that carried out the Trump administration’s policy of separating immigrant children from their parents. But even as they don’t want to fully dismantle ICE, 57 percent of Democrats view the agency negatively, including nearly three-fourths of those who describe themselves as liberal, according to a poll released Monday by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The findings demonstrate tension among Democrats about how to address the crisis at the border that intensified in June when the Trump administration instituted a family separation policy to deter illegal immigration. Some potential Democratic presidential contenders, such as Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, backed getting rid of ICE in response to the separations. Others, including Sen. Kamala Harris of California, urged a rethinking of the agency, but stopped short of calling for its abolition. President Donald Trump has seized on the Democratic criticism of ICE to paint the party as weak on immigration and national security. The administration reversed its separation policy amid an international outcry, but hundreds of children remain separated from their families. Overall, opinions about ICE are divided along partisan lines. While a majority of Democrats view the agency negatively, Republicans largely have favorable views of ICE. A sizable chunk — a full one-third of Americans — are too unfamiliar with the agency to form an opinion. Dianne Stone, a 68-year-old retired bus driver from Charlotte, North Carolina, said ICE should be modified but not scrapped. After spending decades living in Southern California, she said ICE ought to be less of a law enforcement agency and more dedicated to helping immigrants negotiate the border. “Yes, there are more drugs and crime coming across the border than years ago. But you can’t keep kids in cages,” Stone said. “ICE can be part of a more sophisticated vetting process where you’re keeping criminals out.” The public is largely critical of the administration’s progress in reuniting families. Nearly 6 in 10 think the Trump administration is doing too little, though 8 percent say it’s doing too much, and a third think it is doing enough. Anna Lee Lish was appalled by the scenes of children separated from their parents at the border in June, but does not blame ICE for the problem. “I thought it was horrific,” said the 60-year-old social worker from Pocatello, Idaho. “ICE was just doing its job, following orders. But it’s the policy of separating families that needs to change, not abandon ICE.” The partisan divide is dramatic: 85 percent of Democrats say the administration is doing too little to reunite children with their families, compared to 22 percent of Republicans. Still, that means nearly a quarter of Republicans feel the administration should be doing more. Reviews of Trump’s overall handling of immigration are also divided. More than three-quarters of Republicans have largely favorable views of the president’s immigration performance while more than 90 percent of Democrats disapprove. Nearly two-thirds of independent voters said they don’t approve of Trump’s handling of the issue. And while the Trump administration seeks to curb legal immigration, Americans are more likely to say they want to keep it at existing levels (42 percent) than to want the number of immigrants let in to be increased (29 percent) or decreased (28 percent). The push to abolish ICE became something of a litmus test among liberal Democrats this summer after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez unseated a 10-term party leader for a New York congressional seat in part by campaigning on the issue. But it hasn’t proved a political winner in other races. Democrat Brent Welder, endorsed by Ocasio-Cortez in July, backed ending ICE but was narrowly beaten in an August primary in suburban Kansas. And no Democrats running in competitive Senate races in November have advocated abolishing ICE. More common among prominent Democrats is the suggestion the agency be reformed. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat running for Senate in Republican-heavy Arizona with its 378-mile (608-kilometer) border with Mexico, said last month that “ICE does provide some important functions,” though she has recommended changes to the agency. ___ The AP-NORC poll of 1,055 adults was conducted Aug. 16-20 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.2 percentage points. Republished with permission from the Associated Press.
A rose by any other name: Randall Woodfin rejects “sanctuary city” label for “welcoming city” instead
Advocates for sanctuary cities have been trying for several years to get Birmingham officials to officially designate the city as such. Last year, Birmingham City Councilman Jonathan Austin led the city council in passing a resolution declaring the city a sanctuary city and then there was a tweet from the city that received a lot of attention but formally it’s never been on the list of cities kept by immigration groups. At the end of July, Alabama Today reported, that “the Alabama chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Alabama), the state’s largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization, and Adelante Alabama Workers Center, which unites day laborers, domestic workers, and other low-wage and immigrant workers and their families in the Birmingham area, along with other coalition partners, faith and civic leaders, met outside of the Birmingham City Hall where they called on Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin to honor his commitment to be on the front lines of resistance to President Donald Trump‘s polices. There they endeavored to hold the Mayor to the progressive mandate he was elected on by calling him to take action on the proposed “Trust and Public Safety” order.” This was not the first time Woodfin has been asked to commit to giving Birmingham the sanctuary city title, even as a candidate he was asked to commit to making Birmingham one. At a filming of NPR’s “Code Switch” it seems he has finally publicly closed the door on that according to transcripts saying, “I think sanctuary city is narrowly tailored and isolated towards don’t have your police enforce certain things of rounding up and hurting people, which I agree with. We’re not going to do that. But welcoming cities is more broad about, how do we help our immigrant community? And as I go to Birmingham city schools, I can tell you our immigrant community continues to grow. So it’s – for me it has a broader positive impact, whereas sanctuary is don’t do this. Welcoming is, this is what we’re going to do.” What exactly is a “Welcoming City?” Well according to their website, “Welcoming Cities are guided by the principles of inclusion and creating communities that prosper because everyone feels welcome, including immigrants and refugees.” According to the group promoting welcoming cities pledge some cities choose to be both sanctuary-cities and welcoming but not all. There you have it. He’s not going to make Birmingham a “sanctuary city.” Does that mean that residents can rest easy knowing that the police will be making sure that illegal immigrants who may be committing additional crimes besides just residing in our nation illegally are properly checked out? No. Woodfin was clear that police would not be checking the status of immigrants with ICE or reporting immigrant arrest or crimes to them. After all, that wouldn’t be very welcoming would it? So what happens when a member of a foreign gang here illegally is arrested or pulled over in Birmingham? Well they can get bailed out and disappear into the night because heaven knows we that’s the kind thing to do. What happens when the immigrant who has overstayed their work or school visa and is stopped and police recognize that they’re not here legally? Nothing more than would happen to someone here legally. Pesky law makers and federal law enforcement can’t expect the Birmingham Police to be bothered helping them catch human traffickers, identity thieves or drug smugglers that would just be downright inhospitable. Woodfin and illegal immigration proponents would say that’s kind and compassionate but how is that kind to those waiting to get into the country legally? How is it compassionate towards those who have lost their lives or their identities to illegal immigrants? It’s out of fairness for the doctor at UAB from out of the country or engineer at one of the new high-tech companies who went through the legal avenues for citizenship that the illegal folks get to stay too. Just this week in Jasper an illegal immigrant attempted to abduct a woman. If that happened here in Birmingham then Mayor Woodfin says his police department wouldn’t alert ICE to the immigrants arrest and location. How’s that for ridding our city of crime or making it more enticing to businesses? It’s a logical cop-out to accuse those who are opposed to illegal immigration of being against immigrants. Leave it to those who support open borders and blanket mass amnesty to say that those who did things the right way should be lumped in with those who are breaking the law. Many who are here and working are using fake or stole identities. Don’t believe this is an issue for cities all over the nation, just read some of the latest cases brought by ICE. So Woodfin would have you believe all immigrants deserve the same level of respect and protections regardless of legal status at least he’s stopped hedging his bets. He may get to say he’s not for sanctuary cities but so long as he has his police department turn a blind eye towards illegal immigrants and their presence here he might as well be. Full immigration section of NPR transcript below: MERAJI: President Trump has a zero-tolerance policy on illegal immigration. We know this. And we also know that here in Birmingham, you’ve gotten a little bit of criticism from the immigrants’ rights community… WOODFIN: I have. MERAJI: …Because they really want you to sign an executive order to basically put in writing that you won’t use your city’s resources for immigration enforcement, that you won’t use your city’s resources to surveil Muslim residents. Can you respond to that criticism? WOODFIN: First thing is this – is that I’m not. Like, we’re not going to use our police to do anything around what I call rounding up people. We just don’t believe in that. I don’t believe in that as mayor. I’ve had a clear, direct conversation with my police chief. I’ve had a clear and direct conversation with my chief of our city jail. We’re not in that business.
Steve Marshall talks illegal immigration, drug trafficking at White House event
Concerned with border security and the crime associated with cross-border drug trafficking and illegal immigration, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall accepted an invitation to the White House to participate in a panel discussion on Monday about cooperation between federal, state, and local government in protecting national borders. Chaired by Mercy Schlapp, Assistant to the President and Senior Advisor for Strategic Communications, the panel consisted of Marshall, along with CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan, ICE Deputy Director Ron Vitiello, U.S. Senator David Perdue (R-GA), Governor Doug Ducey (R-AZ), and Cochise County, Arizona, Sheriff Mark J. Dannels in a discussion in the East Room of the White House. “Due to our state’s proximity to Atlanta, a major distribution point for drugs, and to Texas, a border state, Alabama has become a prime transit point for drug trafficking,” said Marshall. “We see marijuana, cocaine, meth, and now illicit fentanyl coming into our state as a result. The drug trade brings dangerous and violent illegal aliens into Alabama. Just this summer, our state was rocked by the brutal murder of a special needs 13-year-old girl—killed by affiliates of the Mexican drug cartel. I am grateful to the President and the White House for allowing me to share the observations of Alabama law enforcement and our citizens.” The day also featured an immigration a ceremony with President Donald Trump‘s that honored the men and women of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). There, agents, ho have been caught in the crosshairs of the immigration policy debate as they uphold their sworn duty to enforce the law, were brought to the podium to note their achievements in addressing unlawful border crossings and stemming the flow of illicit drugs. “As the chief law enforcement officer of the State of Alabama, I want to thank each member of ICE and CBP for your courage and your loyalty to enforcing the laws of this country in the face of irresponsible rhetoric and meritless attacks,” added Marshall. “The people of Alabama thank you, too. The work of ICE and CBP has a direct connection to the safety of the citizenry that extends far beyond those states that are on the border.” Marshall continued, “A shared mission and strong partnership between state and local law enforcement and the brave agents of ICE and CBP are in the best interest of public safety and I am pleased with the coordination that I see in Alabama. But in the immigration debate, public safety is not the only threat we must contend with. The rule of law—America’s bedrock principle—is under attack as well.” Marshall singled out Trump and former Alabama U.S. Senator, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions for their strong support of border security. “Under the previous administration, amnesty programs were unconstitutionally initiated by executive fiat and without any action from Congress. The former United States Attorney General turned a blind eye to sanctuary cities that brazenly refused to work with ICE and CBP,” said Marshall. “The Justice Department also failed to cooperate with Congress when Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in relation to a botched gunwalking operation. Thanks to the leadership of President Trump, Attorney General Sessions, and Secretary [Kristjen] Nielsen, we have finally begun to see the pendulum swing in the other direction. But the work is far from over. We must secure our borders and we must restore respect for the rule of law throughout this country. The men and women of ICE and CBP are critical to securing our borders, and Attorneys General—I believe—must play a major role in restoring the rule of law.” Watch the White House panel discussion below:
