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Old 10-08-2004, 03:28 PM
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Default Homeland Security - or lack thereof

It's been over three years since the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 (and 11 years since the first Al Qaeda terror attack on US soil in 1993). Shrubya claims he and his administration are doing what it takes to reform the agencies responsible for national, I mean vaterland, I mean homeland security. Has he really? Has anything changed at all?

This week's Minneapolis City Pages (a Village Voice property) ran a group of articles about FBI whistleblowers that reveal how little has changed in the FBI, the main law enforcement agency responsible for investigating terrorist activity on US soil.

Special Agent Jane Turner vs. The FBI

Fred Whitehurst, Whistleblower #1

Senate FBI Watchdog Chuck Grassley on Jane Turner and the Bureau

FBI Whistleblowers: A Short List

More from Sibel Edmonds

And then there's the CIA:
Senior officer says CIA still short-staffed


But we're all safer because Saddam Hussein is no longer in power :rolleye1: .
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Last edited by Godless Dave; 10-08-2004 at 03:44 PM.
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Old 10-11-2004, 04:48 PM
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Default Re: Homeland Security - or lack thereof

I would like to know who in the elected government, if anyone, is aiming to solve these problems. They seem credible and serious.
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Old 04-09-2019, 01:13 AM
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Default Re: Homeland Security - or lack thereof

....5,293 days later....
So Kirstjen Nielsen got fired from running Homeland Security, and she implemented policies under Trump which focused on migrant family separation, and lied about number, conditions, and pretty much everything, and is an awful person.
We'll see if this is accurate, but reporting today suggests Trump has been exerting pressure on Nielsen and others running Homeland Security to restart / continue the migrant family separation policies and to implement actions which are illegal, and which (supposedly) the Homeland Security executive staff have found a bright line at, perhaps somewhere between moral courage and clear criminal liability.
As the reporting unfolds it is suggested that Trump has either empowered Stephen Miller or is following his advice and sweeping the deck of Homeland Security to put in people who are willing to proceed in the face of clear criminal liability, and who have less moral courage than... Kirstjen Nielsen?
More here:
Trump’s flailing shake-up of the Department of Homeland Security, explained

Trump's support of renewed child separation policy led to collision with Nielsen
Quote:
According to two of the sources, Nielsen told Trump that federal court orders prohibited the Department of Homeland Security from reinstating the policy, and that he would be reversing his own executive order from June that ended family separations.
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Old 04-09-2019, 02:02 AM
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Default Re: Homeland Security - or lack thereof

Quote:
Originally Posted by chunksmediocrites View Post
[...]and who have less moral courage than... Kirstjen Nielsen?
Holy shit, the US is doomed.
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Old 04-10-2019, 03:58 PM
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Default Re: Homeland Security - or lack thereof

We were doomed the moment that orange shit stain was elected.
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Old 04-10-2019, 10:11 PM
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Default Re: Homeland Security - or lack thereof

DHS “Purge” Continues with Deputy Sec. Claire Grady

The article itself is extremely succinct: clearing the decks of all the "I won't follow strait-up illegal directions, we don't actually have the capacity to track or effectively reunite the families we already separated, you actually signed an executive order ceasing all family separations, what you're asking us to do is illegal, and I have a sense of self-preservation, and there's a line? "- all THOSE ASSHOLES are now out of the way because Trump and his immigration-focused, white-nationalist signalling adviser Stephen Miller think they've found the perfect replacement for Nielsen in Kevin McAleenan, who is currently head of Customs and Border Protection.

On Customs and Border Protection: Hold CBP Accountable | Stopping U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Abuse
The website above is a joint project between the ACLU, American Immigration Council, and Northwest Immigrants Rights Project.


U.S. Reportedly Compiled Database Of Journalists Working Along Southwest Border
Quote:
Photojournalist Kitra Cahana is also on the list. In an interview with KNSD, she described how officials at airports repeatedly questioned her in January as she attempted to fly from Canada to Mexico, with a connecting flight in Detroit. And once she reached Mexico City, Cahana said, she was again questioned before being denied entry into Mexico. She was forced instead to fly back to Detroit.

The newly leaked documents are being seen as confirmation of a phenomenon the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders highlighted last October, when they warned of a potential chilling effect on efforts to report on border and immigration issues.

Those organizations warned about what it called a chilling prospect, "thanks to the wide powers granted to Customs and Border Protection agents, who can search electronic devices without warrant, and question reporters about past and current work."
Article from 2017 about CBP having power-tripping polygraph proctors, who were rejecting at a rate higher than made sense. I like the part of the story where you find out why they have the policy:
Two out of three Border Patrol job applicants fail polygraph test, making hiring difficult
Quote:
Taking a polygraph test became a hiring requirement at CBP in 2012 after a huge hiring surge was followed by a similar surge in agents getting arrested for misconduct.

James Tomsheck said that when he was CBP's chief of internal affairs from 2006 to 2014, about 30 applicants admitted during the lie detector test that they were sent by drug cartels; one said he had killed his infant son.

One applicant revealed that his brother-in-law wanted him to smuggle cocaine on the job, and another said he used marijuana 9,000 times, including the night before his test, according to the Government Accountability Office.
On Kevin McAleenan:
Quote:
McAleenan was one of the three DHS officials to recommend the cruel and inhumane policy to outgoing Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, writing that the department’s best option to “increase the consequences for dangerous illegal crossings” was to “direct the separation of parents or legal guardians and minors held in immigration detention so that the parent or legal guardian can be prosecuted.”

Despite signing the family separation memo and overseeing the very agency that implemented the policy, McAleenan stated in an interview with the Los Angeles Times that “we do not have a policy of administrative separation.” He later made the absurd claim that family separation was meant to “protect families and children,” even though child welfare experts had warned that “separating children from their mothers or fathers leads to serious, negative consequences to children’s health and development.”
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Old 04-11-2019, 03:51 AM
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Default Re: Homeland Security - or lack thereof

That's alright. I didn't need to sleep tonight anyway.

If I'd noticed this thread had been bumped, I'd have posted my thoughts on KKKirstjen Nielsen's firing here instead. In case anyone didn't read them, they're now linked here for posterity.

I see nothing to indicate that my initial impressions were incorrect. We need to place pressure on these administration* apparatchiks as much as we can without burning ourselves out, and this includes public confrontations of these people. It may not stop the implementation of policies like this, but it may slow it down. And maybe it'll help prove that many of us are not represented in the slightest by El Caudillo de Mar-a-Lago's administration*.
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Old 04-17-2019, 01:33 AM
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Default Re: Homeland Security - or lack thereof

Father and son separated at the border reunite after 326 days

First stop for migrant kids: For-profit detention center
The for-profit detention center that we fund and support has waived the requirements regarding acceptable number of mental health care staff per number of child prisoners, because it is on federal property, and not subject to state laws. The "teachers" teaching the child prisoners need not have a teaching degree. Inspirational pictures of Martin Luther King, Jr. are on the walls. Because he had a dream that someday his visage would adorn a for-profit child prison camp.
Quote:
As of Feb. 13, 11,500 children were in HHS custody, down from a record of nearly 15,000 in mid-December
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Old 04-17-2019, 05:05 PM
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Default Re: Homeland Security - or lack thereof

Saw that first story yesterday. Man that is a tear jerker. To imagine this happening to 15,000 children for no reason at all is rage inducing.
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Old 04-18-2019, 04:00 AM
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Default Re: Homeland Security - or lack thereof

Quote:
Originally Posted by chunksmediocrites View Post
....5,293 days later....
In other news, we may have set an :ff: record for zombie thread resurrections!

So at least there's that.
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  #11  
Old 05-01-2019, 02:30 AM
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Default Re: Homeland Security - or lack thereof

We Got U.S. Border Officials to Testify Under Oath. Here’s What We Found Out.
Quote:
What we learned is alarming, and we’re now back in court with this new evidence asking the judge to skip trial altogether and rule for our clients.

The information we uncovered through our lawsuit shows that CBP and ICE are asserting near-unfettered authority to search and seize travelers’ devices at the border, for purposes far afield from the enforcement of immigration and customs laws. The agencies’ policies allow officers to search devices for general law enforcement purposes, such as investigating and enforcing bankruptcy, environmental, and consumer protection laws. The agencies also say that they can search and seize devices for the purpose of compiling “risk assessments” or to advance pre-existing investigations. The policies even allow officers to consider requests from other government agencies to search specific travelers’ devices.

CBP and ICE also say they can search a traveler’s electronic devices to find information about someone else. That means they can search a U.S. citizen’s devices to probe whether that person’s family or friends may be undocumented; the devices of a journalist or scholar with foreign sources who may be of interest to the U.S. government; or the devices of a traveler who is the business partner or colleague of someone under investigation.

Both agencies allow officers to retain information from travelers’ electronic devices and share it with other government entities, including state, local, and foreign law enforcement agencies.
The ACLU here basically asserts that the 4th amendment protections extend to citizens leaving and reentering the United States.
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  #12  
Old 06-04-2019, 01:47 AM
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Default Re: Homeland Security - or lack thereof

El Salvadoran Transgender Migrant Dies in ICE Custody After Denial of Medical Care
Quote:
Medina had sought medical treatment for over two months for complications related to HIV/AIDS before finally being transferred to an El Paso hospital, but did not survive.
Botched family reunifications left migrant children waiting in vans overnight
Quote:
But when the children, all between 5 and 12 years old, arrived at Immigration and Customs Enforcement's adults-only Port Isabel Detention Center, rather than seeing their parents, they saw a parking lot full of vans just like theirs, with children from other facilities who, just like them, were waiting to be processed and reunified with their parents.

It was 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, July 15, 2018.

Not until 39 hours later — after two nights in a van — did the last child step out of a van to be reunited. Most spent at least 23 hours in the vehicles.
Abolish ICE
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Old 06-08-2019, 10:37 AM
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Default Re: Homeland Security - or lack thereof

tldr version: US government tries to deport prominent Palestinian to Israel illegally. The plane actually lands at Tel Aviv. US 4th Circuit Judge orders the government over the phone not to hand the prisoner to the Israelis. So he's flown back, safe for now.

If you needed an illustration of why ICE needs to be abolished ...

Drama on the tarmac: US judge foils secret deportation to Israel | The Electronic Intifada
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Old 06-09-2019, 07:01 PM
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Default Re: Homeland Security - or lack thereof

24 immigrants have died in ICE custody during the Trump administration
Quote:
Twenty-four immigrants have died in ICE custody during the Trump administration, according to an NBC News analysis of federal data. At least four others, including Medina Leon, died shortly after being released from ICE custody. The number of in-custody deaths remains below the peak of 32 deaths in 2004, the first full calendar year records were kept.

The tally does not include migrants, including five children, who have died in the custody of other federal agencies.

The recent spate of deaths comes as the number of immigrants in federal custody hits a record high. As of early June, ICE was detaining more than 52,500 immigrants a day in a sprawling network of more than 200 detention centers across the country — up from about 34,000 under the Obama administration.
DHS watchdog finds expired food, dilapidated bathrooms amid 'egregious' conditions at ICE facilities in 2018
Quote:
The Department of Homeland Security inspector general found expired food and dilapidated bathrooms during unannounced visits to four immigrant detention facilities in 2018, according to a report released Thursday.

The kitchen at one facility was in such poor shape -- with open packages of raw chicken leaking blood over refrigeration units -- that the kitchen manager was replaced while the IG inspection was ongoing.
Hey imagine if you just didn't have ICE and you simply weren't holding/detaining all these people. What would be the cost to society, exactly? As you read the numbers below from that same DHS report story, consider that there were 10.7 million unauthorized immigrants in the US in 2016.

Quote:
More than 144,000 migrants were encountered or arrested at the US-Mexico border in May, a roughly 32% increase over April and the highest monthly total in 13 years, Customs and Border Protection said Wednesday, including over 11,000 unaccompanied children.
As of Monday, there were around 52,000 single adults in ICE custody -- an all-time high that exceeds funding levels yet again, according to ICE.
A crisis fabricated to cause misery and whip xenophobic white votes.
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Old 06-09-2019, 07:33 PM
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Default Re: Homeland Security - or lack thereof

There are also children being raped, a massive increase in miscarriages among detained women, and goddamned fucking this.

They're torturing and killing people on purpose.

Last edited by lisarea; 06-09-2019 at 07:54 PM.
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Old 06-23-2019, 03:52 PM
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Japanese internment camp survivors protest Ft. Sill migrant detention center
Quote:
With the Trump administration planning to move 1,400 migrant children to this fortified Army post later this summer, a small group of Japanese American World War II internment camp survivors came to the gates Saturday to make their opposition known.

“We are here today to protest the repetition of history,” proclaimed camp survivor Satsuki Ina, 75, of San Francisco, one of about two dozen former internees and their descendants in attendance.

Met by uniformed military police, the protesters, some in their 80s, were told they did not have permission to congregate and might face arrest. “You need to move right now!” one of the officers shouted. “What don’t you understand? It’s English: Get out.”

Ex-Hostage Suggests Trump Treatment of Migrants Worse Than His Captors: 'Somali Pirates gave me toothpaste and soap'
Quote:
Moore, who was held by Somali pirates from January 2012 to September 2014 for a total of 977 days, called out the Trump administration in a Saturday tweet. In his post, the author, who wrote a memoir about his time in captivity entitled The Desert and the Sea, shared a link to a NowThis video of a lawyer for Trump's Justice Department arguing in court that the administration should not be required to provide basic sanitary products, such as a toothbrush and soap, or blankets to detained migrants.
The Department of Justice Attorney's name is Sarah Fabian.

Quote:
Fabian had been in the news before on issues concerning undocumented immigrants ― last year she delayed court proceedings on reuniting some migrant children with their parents because she had to return home to dog sit. She also argued for the Justice Department in 2015 — during the Obama administration — that detention authorities should have the power to put immigrant children in solitary confinement.

Her latest arguments on Tuesday — and the three-judge panel’s stunned responses — shocked many Americans who watched her performance on a video of the proceedings provided by the Ninth Circuit.

Fabian argued that the government could provide “safe and sanitary” conditions for detained children — an agreement reached in a 1997 settlement — without being required to provide soap, toothbrushes or even beds.

Judge A. Wallace Tashima — who spent part of his childhood in a U.S. interment camp for Japanese Americans during World War II — said that “everyone’s common understanding” is that such requirements are necessary for safe and sanitary conditions. “Wouldn’t everyone agree with that?” he asked. “Wouldn’t you agree with that.”

Fabian answered: “Well ... maybe ...”
Anyone arguing that these aren't concentration camps is ignorant or a stooge for fascists.
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Old 06-24-2019, 03:35 AM
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Default Re: Homeland Security - or lack thereof

New Yorker piece behind metered paywall. June 22
Inside a Texas Building Where the Government Is Holding Immigrant Children

Quote:
When we arrived, on Monday, there were approximately three hundred and fifty children there. They were constantly receiving children, and they’re constantly picking up children and transferring them over to an O.R.R. [Office of Refugee Resettlement] site. So the number is fluid. We were so shocked by the number of children who were there, because it’s a facility that only has capacity for a hundred and four. And we were told that they had recently expanded the facility, but they did not give us a tour of it, and we legally don’t have the right to tour the facility.

We drove around afterward, and we discovered that there was a giant warehouse that they had put on the site. And it appears that that one warehouse has allegedly increased their capacity by an additional five hundred kids. When we talked to Border Patrol agents later that week, they confirmed that is the alleged expansion, and when we talked to children, one of the children described as many as three hundred children being in that room, in that warehouse, basically, at one point when he first arrived. There were no windows.

And so what we did then was we looked at the ages of the children, and we were shocked by just how many young children there were. There were over a hundred young children when we first arrived. And there were child-mothers who were also there, and so we started to pull the child-mothers and their babies, we started to make sure their needs were being met. We started to pull the youngest children to see who was taking care of them.

And then we started to pull the children who had been there the longest to find out just how long children are being kept there. Children described to us that they’ve been there for three weeks or longer. And so, immediately from that population that we were trying to triage, they were filthy dirty, there was mucus on their shirts, the shirts were dirty. We saw breast milk on the shirts. There was food on the shirts, and the pants as well. They told us that they were hungry. They told us that some of them had not showered or had not showered until the day or two days before we arrived. Many of them described that they only brushed their teeth once. This facility knew last week that we were coming. The government knew three weeks ago that we were coming.

So, in any event, the children told us that nobody’s taking care of them, so that basically the older children are trying to take care of the younger children. The guards are asking the younger children or the older children, “Who wants to take care of this little boy? Who wants to take of this little girl?” and they’ll bring in a two-year-old, a three-year-old, a four-year-old. And then the littlest kids are expected to be taken care of by the older kids, but then some of the oldest children lose interest in it, and little children get handed off to other children. And sometimes we hear about the littlest children being alone by themselves on the floor.

Many of the children reported sleeping on the concrete floor. They are being given army blankets, those wool-type blankets that are really harsh. Most of the children said they’re being given two blankets, one to put beneath them on the floor. Some of the children are describing just being given one blanket and having to decide whether to put it under them or over them because there is air-conditioning at this facility. And so they’re having to make a choice about, Do I try to protect myself from the cement, or do I try to keep warm?

We weren’t originally planning to be there on Thursday, but one of the reasons why we came back for a fourth day is that some of the children, on Wednesday, told us that there was a lice infestation as well as an influenza outbreak at that facility, and so a number of the children are being taken into isolation rooms, quarantine areas where there’s nobody with them except for other sick children.

There was one child-mother who took her baby in there, because the baby got the flu. And then the mother, because she was in there caring for the child, got the flu as well. And so then she was there for a week, and they took the baby out and gave the baby to an unrelated child to try to take care of the child-mother’s baby. Sorry, I was trying to remember where I was going with that.

It’s fine.

Oh, I know what I wanted to tell you. This is important. So, on Wednesday, we received reports from children of a lice outbreak in one of the cells where there were about twenty-five children, and what they told us is that six of the children were found to have lice. And so they were given a lice shampoo, and the other children were given two combs and told to share those two combs, two lice combs, and brush their hair with the same combs, which is something you never do with a lice outbreak. And then what happened was one of the combs was lost, and Border Patrol agents got so mad that they took away the children’s blankets and mats. They weren’t allowed to sleep on the beds, and they had to sleep on the floor on Wednesday night as punishment for losing the comb. So you had a whole cell full of kids who had beds and mats at one point, not for everybody but for most of them, who were forced to sleep on the cement.


This is a concentration camp for children whose 'crime' was being child refugees. As I mentioned before, 24 people being held by ICE and CBP have died since Trump took office. Internal memos from ICE clearly indicate that many deaths were entirely preventable.
Abolish ICE, close all the camps.
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  #18  
Old 07-27-2019, 05:28 PM
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Default Re: Homeland Security - or lack thereof

U.S. Citizen Wrongfully Deported to Mexico, Settles His Case Against the Federal Government
Quote:
Lyttle, who was born in North Carolina and suffers from bipolar disorder and cognitive disabilities, was inexplicably referred to ICE in 2008 as an undocumented immigrant from Mexico even though he had never been to Mexico, shared no Mexican heritage, and spoke no Spanish. ICE detained him for 51 days, despite substantial evidence that he is a U.S. citizen. Nevertheless, ICE officials coerced Lyttle into signing a statement that he was from Mexico, and then put him in removal proceedings, where he was forced to defend himself without ever having the assistance of a lawyer.

Lyttle was ordered to be removed from the country in December 2008, transported to the Mexican border, and forced to disembark there and travel through Mexico on foot, with only $3 in his pocket. He spent the next 125 days wandering through Mexico, Honduras, and Nicaragua, sleeping in streets and shelters and enduring abuse and imprisonment because he had no identity documents or proof of citizenship.

It was only after Lyttle came across a sympathetic U.S. embassy official in Guatemala that he was able to secure a passport and return to the United States in April 2009. Even then, ICE officials at the Atlanta airport detained him for six days and attempted to remove him again. Only after the assistance of his family and a lawyer was Lyttle released and the case against him terminated.
This is in 2008, five years after the establishment of ICE, at the end of the Bush Administration and the start of the Obama Administration. Settled- i.e. the government has been fighting this case since 2009- this week. 10 years to get a settlement.
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  #19  
Old 08-10-2019, 11:51 AM
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Default Re: Homeland Security - or lack thereof

This could go in several threads.




It's that projection again, isn't it?

We fear gays because we assume they'll treat us like we treat women. Sorry, wrong projection. We fear immigrants because we assume they're colonisers because that's what we'd do.

(Yes, technically the tweet is aimed at white liberals saying present day immigrants are no worse than European "immigrants" in centuries past, and pointing out that immigrants are better.)
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  #20  
Old 10-28-2019, 01:41 AM
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Default Re: Homeland Security - or lack thereof

Tally of children split at border tops 5,400 in new count

Quote:
U.S. immigration authorities separated more than 1,500 children from their parents at the Mexico border early in the Trump administration, the American Civil Liberties Union said Thursday, bringing the total number of children separated since July 2017 to more than 5,400.
Reminder that 24 children have died in ICE custody. Usually preventable deaths due to medical negligence and poor concentration camp conditions.

Separated from parents, some migrant children are adopted by Americans
Quote:
Holes in the US system allows state court judges to grant custody of migrant children to American families, an AP investigation reveals. In one case, it took 15 months for an El Salvadoran mother to get back her 2-year-old daughter from a couple in Michigan.
How is this acceptable?

Kirstjen Nielsen Wants the World to Think She ‘Spoke Truth to Power’
Quote:
On the summit stage with PBS NewsHour national correspondent and interviewer Amna Nawaz, Nielsen attempted to defend her role in the policy for which she’s received the harshest criticism: the forced separation of families at the border. She claimed that she left her position this past April upon realizing that “saying no” to the administration was not enough. (Nielsen was reportedly pushed out by Trump.) In the same breath, she alleged that she “spoke truth to power from the very beginning.” When pressed about signing the infamous memo, Nielsen deflected.

“I don’t regret enforcing the law, because I took an oath to do that,” she said. She claims she simply wanted to “enforce the law, not to separate families.”

But that’s precisely the order that Nielsen green lighted: the April 2018 memo gave DHS the authority to “permissibly direct the separation of parents or legal guardians and minors held in immigration detention so that the parent or legal guardian can be prosecuted.” The effects of the policy are still being felt today. Before a U.S. District judge halted the administration’s zero-tolerance policy in June 2018, approximately 2,700 migrant children were ripped from their parents and thrown into cages, where the traumatized kids were subjected to horrific living conditions and abuse. As of now, it’s unclear exactly how many migrant children have yet to be reunited with their parents or allowed into the U.S., if that’s even a possibility.
Not to make it just about Nielsen, because there are a bunch of other Directors of ICE who also deserve our censure.
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  #21  
Old 11-14-2019, 01:13 AM
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Default Re: Homeland Security - or lack thereof

Causing 'Profound' Trauma, Trump Administration Detained Record-Breaking 70,000 Children in 2019

Because imprisoning, tormenting, abusing, and killing children through neglect in concentration camps is how America do.

In a surprise to no one, one of the biggest advocates of child separation is Stephen Miller:

Stephen Miller’s Affinity for White Nationalism Revealed in Leaked Emails
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In the run-up to the 2016 election, White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller promoted white nationalist literature, pushed racist immigration stories and obsessed over the loss of Confederate symbols after Dylann Roof’s murderous rampage, according to leaked emails reviewed by Hatewatch.

The emails, which Miller sent to the conservative website Breitbart News in 2015 and 2016, showcase the extremist, anti-immigrant ideology that undergirds the policies he has helped create as an architect of Donald Trump’s presidency. These policies include reportedly setting arrest quotas for undocumented immigrants, an executive order effectively banning immigration from five Muslim-majority countries and a policy of family separation at refugee resettlement facilities that the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General said is causing “intense trauma” in children.
Not fucking okay. Stephen Miller should not ever touch anything having to do with power over other people; he is literally a Nazi, standing next to the President who lost the popular vote.
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  #22  
Old 12-30-2019, 09:12 PM
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Default Re: Homeland Security - or lack thereof

The Northwest turns up the heat on ICE, making it harder to arrest and deport immigrants
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Much of the focus on President Trump’s immigration crackdown has been at the U.S.-Mexico border, which has seen a surge of Central American asylum seekers hoping to cross into the United States. But more than 1,000 miles to the north, ICE finds itself bedeviled by activists, attorneys and politicians in the Pacific Northwest who are determined to gum up the machinery of immigration enforcement.

Their efforts have “significantly impacted” the agency’s ability to carry out its mission this year, according to Tanya Roman, ICE spokeswoman for Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Alaska. “State and local efforts thwarting ICE operations serve only to create additional security concerns and add significant delays and costs to U.S. taxpayers,” she said in an emailed statement.
The article gives several concrete example of legal challenges, protests, and refusal of states and state courts to do ICE's work. One of the complaints from ICE in the article was about how they were snatching people at courthouses because local law enforcement wouldn't just hold people indefinitely without charges so ICE could come pick them up at their convenience any more.

Then there's the anti-Maduro, Pro-Guaido and US imperial intervention Venezuelans who fled Venezuela to the United States only to end up in ICE detention centers. That's how much the United States gives a shit about Venezuelan people, even the ones who actually support the US:
Quote:
Venezuelans who crossed the Mexico-U.S. border to apply for U.S. asylum are languishing in detention centers in Louisiana, waiting for replies for six months and more. Desperate, some have asked to be returned to Venezuela or be deported to a third country despite the risks.
But wait, ICE is also involved in higher education!
Understanding The Bizarre ICE Fake University Sting Operation
Quote:
As has been widely reported, U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) set up a fake university to snare foreign students they believed were trying to stay in the country illegally. The fake university, The University of Farmington in Michigan, collected thousands of dollars in tuition from the students but held no actual classes. The students had come into the United States legally under F-1 visas and needed to stay enrolled in school to keep those visas.

ICE recruited hundreds of these students to Farmington and then arrested them for violating the terms of their visas, which mandate that they be enrolled full-time at a federally accredited educational institution while they complete their studies. The tricky part is that it is unclear why the students were enrolling in Farmington instead of a legitimate university.

The federal government says that the sole purpose of the students was to commit immigration fraud. Since the school offered no actual classes, the students must have realized that Farmington was fraudulent. The students say they were entrapped. The university appeared on the Homeland Security website as a legitimate university. And, while Farmington was created under the Obama Administration, the Trump Administration upped the ante by actually paying recruiters to pitch Farmington to students in danger of deportation.
ICE responded to strong criticism of this operation with some videos of students supposedly being informed that the operation was a scam and the students signing on anyway.

Oh yeah and also ICE asking courts to deport DACA recipients
Seems totally fair.

A French citizen died in ICE custody:
Quote:
A 40-year-old French man died in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody at a New Mexico hospital on Sunday — the fourth person to do so since October, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The man had been in ICE custody since Nov. 12.
Quote:
ICE has expanded the number of people it detains to record levels under President Donald Trump. The peak came this summer, when around 55,000 immigrants were in custody in local jails and private prisons across the country. As of mid-December, the agency was detaining nearly 42,000 immigrants in custody.
House panel opens investigation into immigrant detainees' medical care
Quote:
At least seven children have died in detention since 2018, after almost a decade without any such deaths. The subcommittee has also been provided with at least 17 complaints of “inadequate medical treatment,” including providing incorrect medication, witnessing withdrawal symptoms and ICE Health Service Corps’ leaders being “unresponsive or even dishonest when confronted.”
Deaths in custody. Sexual violence. Hunger strikes. What we uncovered inside ICE facilities across the US
Quote:
The investigation revealed more than 400 allegations of sexual assault or abuse, inadequate medical care, regular hunger strikes, frequent use of solitary confinement, more than 800 instances of physical force against detainees, nearly 20,000 grievances filed by detainees and at least 29 fatalities, including seven suicides, since President Donald Trump took office in January 2017 and launched an overhaul of U.S. immigration policies.
USA Today gets into details on conditions in the concentration camps.
Quote:
At least two detention centers passed inspections despite using a chemical restraint – Freeze +P – that is forbidden for use under ICE rules because it contains tear gas that produces “severe pain,” according to its manufacturer. Other centers received passing marks even after inspectors chronicled widespread use of physical force or solitary confinement.
Widespread use of physical force or solitary confinement. You know, what we use on the worst of the worst.
Quote:
It is now a $3 billion network of 221 facilities, the largest of which are operated by private companies under government contract. Combined, those facilities detain more than 50,000 women, men and children who wait months or years for immigration court proceedings.

Two-thirds of detainees have no criminal records, ICE records show. About 26% are detained solely because they are requesting asylum in the U.S.
Sure am glad my government is using torture techniques on asylum seeking men, women, and children, and on people whose only apparent sin is being a refugee.

Oh and hey let's say hello to some of the corporate sponsors:
McKinsey designed ICE's gulags, recommending minimal food, medical care and supervision
Mayor Pete's old employer!
Consulting firm McKinsey's suggestions for ICE were sometimes too harsh even for the agency
Oh McKinsey, you corporate scamp!
'These people are profitable': Under Trump, private prisons are cashing in on ICE detainees
Quote:
Five companies – GEO Group, CoreCivic, LaSalle Corrections, Management & Training Corp. and Immigration Centers of America – own and operate the largest ICE detention centers in the country.

Dozens of other private companies do subcontract work at ICE facilities, running guard services, medical facilities, mental health counseling, food preparation, commissary sales, phone and video communication for detainees and janitorial work.

Private contractors help ICE inspect the private companies that run its detention centers. Another private company helps to conduct death reviews.

The giants in the field – GEO Group and CoreCivic – have operated private prisons for more than 35 years. They manage 41 facilities that hold more than half of all detainees in ICE custody.

The GEO Group has grown from a division of a Florida-based private security firm to an international behemoth, operating facilities in Australia, the United Kingdom, South Africa. The company projects $2.49 billion in revenue in 2019, according to its third-quarter earnings report. George Zoley, the chairman of the board, CEO and founder, earned $6.6 million in total compensation in 2018.
Today I learned GEO Group used to be called Wackenhut Corrections Corporation- that's a name I recognize. Also the reading on GEO Group's lawsuits is fascinating.

Conclusion: Abolish ICE.
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