By Steve Rhodes
“As the White House’s policy to separate immigrant parents from their children at the border continues to fan the flames of the national immigration debate, attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union said Wednesday that the case of a woman detained in El Paso could be the catalyst for change,” the Texas Tribune reports.
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced last month his office was imposing a “zero tolerance” policy on people who enter the country illegally. The policy means that parents caught with their children will go to a detention facility while their children are placed elsewhere. He doubled-down on that pledge this month in separate speeches.
“If you’re smuggling a child, then we’re going to prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you, probably, as required by law,” he said. “If you don’t want your child separated, then don’t bring them across the border illegally. It’s not our fault that somebody does that.”
Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said it’s not clear how many families have been affected since the policy was announced because “only the government” knows. But he said his case against the federal government would reverse that policy if a federal district judge in California grants a preliminary injunction against the practice.
The Texas case involves a Brazilian referred to only as “Ms. C” in court documents. She arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border last summer and was approached by a federal border agent within seconds, court documents state. She explained she was applying for asylum, passed a credible fear interview, but was subsequently placed in custody after being prosecuted for illegal entry. Her minor son was sent to a facility for unaccompanied children in Chicago. She completed her 25-day criminal misdemeanor sentence in September and was sent to an immigration detention facility in El Paso, the filing states.”
Boldface mine. Assignment Desk, activate!
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This February article from the Los Angeles Times (which appears to have run on the Tribune’s website, though I can only find it in Spanish, therefore the translated version) appears to be about the same case:
“[T]he case of a Brazilian woman and her child illustrates what immigrant advocates call a harsher approach to immigration enforcement, which aims to separate parents and children.
“Currently, the woman is detained in Texas, while the child was taken to a shelter in Illinois. The unspoken goal, advocates claim, is to discourage parents from crossing without permission or attempting to seek asylum.
“The Brazilian mother – who asked to be identified only as Jocelyn, because she fled domestic violence – entered the United States. last August with his [sic] 14-year-old son, who, he [sic] claimed, was being threatened by gangs. Both expected to apply for asylum . . .
“Jocelyn was charged with a misdemeanor, and her son was transferred to a shelter in Chicago.”
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Also from the Texas Tribune earlier this month: Report: After Donald Trump Took office, ICE Transfers Jumped 60 Percent In Most Populous Texas County.
While “sanctuary” policies on immigration enforcement in California and Illinois are getting in the way of the Trump administration’s goal of a nationwide crackdown, federal immigration authorities are finding plenty of help in Texas counties, a new report shows.
From January to May of 2017, while the Texas Legislature was debating Senate Bill 4, its own immigration enforcement bill, Texas counties were some of the most compliant when it came to working with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to an analysis released Tuesday by the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington-based immigration think tank . . .
The report states that between Jan. 20 and May 4, 2017 – three days before SB 4 was signed into law – the number of people transferred into ICE custody from county jails was 60 percent higher in Harris County than during the same period in 2016, and there was no record of local officials there declining detainer requests during that time frame.
Though its main focus was on Harris County, the report includes statistics from the 25 U.S. counties with the most ICE detainer requests. In Texas, that includes Hidalgo, Bexar, Dallas, Webb and Travis counties. The report shows that Bexar and Webb counties complied with every detainer request they received, while Hidalgo declined only one. Dallas County officials declined 17 detainers, and Travis County officials declined 130. That’s compared to 267 declined detainers in New York City, 161 in Los Angeles County and 80 in Illinois’ Cook County, which contains much of Chicago.
Boldface mine, and not just because Cook County contains all of Chicago.
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Also, about a separate case, from earlier this month, this time from the (Chicago) Tribune:
The nightmare began four years ago for Ana and her family, when the brutal MS-13 gang killed her husband in their native El Salvador. The family had been the target of shakedowns and assault by the gang, and the tormenting only continued after the murder.
She and her family left everything behind and fled to the United States in 2015 to escape from the violence, Ana said. They made it only so far.
Immigration authorities detained the family at the U.S.-Mexico border, and Ana’s daughter, Yesica, was deported. Ana and her two sons were allowed to stay and apply for asylum. Back in El Salvador, the violence continued for Yesica – she testified that she was sexually assaulted and decided to make another try at entering the United States. But again, she was caught and is being held at a detention center in Texas.
Today, the family members remain separated. Ana, 42, and her sons are in Evanston, living in a church as they wait on their application for asylum to be heard in a Chicago immigration court. Yesica’s deportation is imminent, but she is waiting for the Supreme Court to consider a request for a stay that was filed on Friday. The Tribune is not using the family’s last name for safety reasons.
Their case has drawn increasing support from advocates and Chicago-area lawmakers, including U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who has reached out to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials on the family’s behalf.
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And how ’bout this one:
In the two decades since Ricardo Rodriguez was convicted of murder, he has maintained his innocence.
This week, the Cook County state’s attorney agreed to drop the case against him amid allegations that a discredited police detective manipulated witnesses.
But instead of walking out of prison a free man Wednesday, Rodriguez was taken into custody by federal immigration authorities, adding a new and tragic twist to his story.
Before he was sent to prison for a 1995 murder, Rodriguez was a lawful permanent resident. His status was revoked when he was convicted, his attorneys said.
Now he faces the possibility of being deported despite being freed.
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Another:
Ending a 16-month quest to stay in a country where he was raised and that he fought to defend, Miguel Perez Jr., a veteran with a green card and a felony drug conviction, has been deported to Mexico, where he has not lived since childhood.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed Sunday that Perez boarded an ICE Air Operations flight at Gary International Airport and was flown to Brownsville, Texas. There, ICE officers escorted Perez across the U.S.-Mexico border and turned him over to Mexican authorities.
Perez was deported without the customary warning and opportunity to say goodbye to his family. He had no money or clothes, except for a few items from the detention center, and was left in Matamoros, a border town in the state of Tamaulipas, where the U.S. State Department has warned Americans not to travel because of high crime . . .
On Monday, his mother, his minister and another advocate flew to Tijuana, where Perez is now in hiding, to deliver a suitcase of clothes, shoes, a Cubs baseball cap and prescriptions.
“This is an intolerable way to treat a man who fought bravely for this nation,” said Emma Lozano, a minister at Lincoln United Methodist Church who has been fighting Perez’s case. “They have left him homeless and penniless in a dangerous place, without food or money or clothes or needed medications.”
His mother, Esperanza Montes Perez, said this outcome is no more painful than the past 16 months, which have kept her in constant agony.
“Who will be responsible if my son loses his life over there?” she said tearfully.
Raised in Chicago since age 8, Perez enlisted before 9/11 and served until 2004. He was deployed to Afghanistan and served with the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group.
After his military service, Perez sought treatment at the Veterans Affairs hospital near Maywood, where doctors diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder.
He was supposed to return for more tests to determine whether he also had a traumatic brain injury.
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Previously (including under Obama):
* Immigration Raids Send Chill Through Little Village.
* This Is What A Deportation Raid Is Like.
* Illinois Immigrant, Labor, Legal Leaders Condemn ICE Raids.
* Chicago Activists Tell Undocumented Immigrants Not To Open Their Doors.
* A Shameful Round-Up Of Refugees.
* U.S. Government Deporting Central American Migrants To Their Deaths.
* Tell President Obama To Stop Deporting Refugees.
* Immigrants Arrested In U.S. Raids Say They Were Misled On Right To Counsel.
* Obama Planning Huge Deportation Sweep Of Immigrant Families.
* Immigrants Deported Under Obama Share Stories Of Terror And Rights Violations.
* Chicago Family Sues ICE & City Over Raid, Gang Database.
* Immigrants In Detention Centers Are Often Hundreds Of Miles From Legal Help.
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More Blago Media Malfeasance
“President Donald Trump indicated Thursday he is strongly considering commuting the remaining sentence for disgraced former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich,” Politico reports.
“Eighteen years in jail for being stupid and saying things that every other politician, you know that many other politicians say,” Trump said, according to a pool report from Air Force One.
“Blagojevich served as governor of Illinois from 2003 until 2009, when he was impeached and removed from office on corruption charges over allegations he solicited bribes for political appointments, including the seat vacated by former president and Illinois senator Barack Obama after he was elected in 2008.
“He was convicted and sentenced to 14 years in federal prison; Trump misstated the length of the sentence in his comments to reporters.”
Politico – like many other outlets, I’m sure – did readers a disservice by correcting the length of Blago’s sentence but not the factually incorrect assertion that Blago was in prison because of “being stupid and saying things that every other politician, you know that many other politicians say.”
Unfortunately, in America we still can’t put politicians in jail for being stupid. If we could, Donald Trump would be serving multiple life sentences.
(And by the way, talk alone can be a crime – threats, for example.)
Blago did more than talk – he took action. Repeatedly. In a pattern clearly designed to trade state action for campaign contributions. That’s a fact, no matter what his apologists – many in the media – keep telling you.
And when Politico says, as most media reports do, that “he was impeached and removed from office on corruption charges over allegations he solicited bribes for political appointments, including the seat vacated by former president and Illinois senator Barack Obama after he was elected in 2008,” they aren’t really getting to the heart of the matter either.
Blagojevich was convicted on evidence including his own voice captured on wiretaps for, among other things, shaking down a children’s hospital. Why not include that in your summaries? I doubt much of the public even knows that.
And maybe include that the conviction was upheld at every level by federal courts that essentially laughed at his appeals and noted that he got a huge break on his sentence considering the nature of his crimes.
And finally that the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his case altogether.
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The courts don’t always get it right – even up to the Supreme Court – we all know that. And yes, overzealous prosecutors are an issue in our criminal justice system. But the evidence against Blagojevich is so voluminous that there’s no honest way to argue that he merely did what every other pol did. That’s not to say he didn’t do what many other pols do, but they haven’t been caught. Either way, Blago’s actions remain simply indefensible.
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Finally: Is the strategy of Rod and Patti to directly appeal to Trump smart?
That’s the word a lot of pundits are using, but I’d use some different words, such as shameful or deceitful. Or even a phrase such as “lying to the end.”
There is absolutely no remorse from those two. In return, they deserve absolutely no sympathy from us.
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Springfieldhouse Rock: She’s Just A Bill
Sitting there on Cullerton’s hill.
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ChicagoGram
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ChicagoTube
1960s Blue Angels Airshow In Chicago.
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BeachBook
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TweetWood
A sampling.
This is just such a bizarre – but typical – thing for Baquet to say. Maybe the story is that Trump lies 25 times a day. Maybe that’s the biggest story every day. We have a president who is a pathological liar. The impact is vast.
“Once you use it once, you can’t use it twenty-five times a day,” Dean Baquet says of the word ‘lie’ in Showtime’s NYT documentary. “It loses its power. It loses its authority.”
The WH deploys lies with such frequency because they perceive repetition gives any claim credibility.
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) May 31, 2018
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Bernie: African-Americans lost half their wealth because of Wall Street collapse. TRUE
https://t.co/KsoVGzpTDP via @PolitiFact— D. (@AdiosDNC) May 29, 2016
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this chart of the distribution of income growth during economic expansions, by Bard economist Pavlina Tcherneva. via @ddayen‘s story: https://t.co/1zyGrwlsjO pic.twitter.com/qhOotoqMdD
— Taniel (@Taniel) May 31, 2018
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Condo deconversions are all the rage in Chicago’s hot rental market – here’s why https://t.co/x8vFpxnQ3k
— Beachwood Reporter (@BeachwoodReport) May 30, 2018
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“The underlying premise of this paper is that repetition of a narrow narrative that focuses exclusively on the impacts of climate change leaves the public with an overall sense of powerlessness.” https://t.co/6S8apirZ5j
— Beachwood Reporter (@BeachwoodReport) May 30, 2018
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Trexit.
News flash: A source at Tronc says not only have most of the chain’s papers blocked EU visitors because of GDPR, but Tronc “currently has no plans to support the EU” because doing so is seen as not economically viable
— Mathew Ingram (@mathewi) May 29, 2018
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This is about right. 🙄
Rather than taking a wait and see approach, I want to be proactive and make regulations for the next form of conveyance. Having common-sense regulations will improve safety and limit the disruptions motorized scooters may cause. https://t.co/OogX93uz6k
— Alderman Joe Moreno (@Alderman_Moreno) May 30, 2018
Hmm, homelessness and housing are so boring, what can I do that’s . . . hip? I know, scooters!
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Of all the things to get ahead of in a city where more and more people will soon have to live on a scooter because rents are skyrocketing.
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Tiny Scooter Life! Sponsored by Amazon and Malort!
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Even scooters will gentrify, folks. And Joe Moreno is on it!
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The Beachwood Tronc Line: Flash point break.
Posted on May 31, 2018