….Written consent to the U.S. Department of State, in accordance with President Donald Trump’s executive order requiring state and local approval.
Nashua joins Manchester, Concord in accepting refugee resettlement | State | unionleader.com
hmm
Category: The Americas,
A Federal Judge Orders Sweeping Changes To Bond Hearings In Boston Immigration Court
Saris ruled that asking an undocumented immigrant who is eligible for bond to prove why they are neither a flight risk nor a threat to the community violates the individual’s due process.
Moving forward, the burden of proof will be placed instead on federal immigration officials, similar to how bond hearings are decided in criminal court proceedings.
Saris additionally ordered immigration judges to consider alternative conditions to detention, like GPS monitoring and orders of supervision that require regular check-ins with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
A Federal Judge Orders Sweeping Changes To Bond Hearings In Boston Immigration Court | WBUR News
hmmm
A Trump administration strategy led to the child migrant backup crisis at the border
…“This will strain bed capacity,” authorities wrote in a discussion paper in February 2018.
..According to current and former government officials, and emails and memos detailing the Trump administration’s strategy, it is clear they knew that without enough beds in government shelters, children would languish in Border Patrol stations not equipped to care for them.
…[Policies also] made it harder for adult relatives of unaccompanied minors to secure the children’s release from U.S. custody. Enhanced vetting of sponsors — including fingerprints and other paperwork — and the sharing of that information between child welfare and immigration authorities slowed down the release of children and exposed the sponsors to deportation.
…The contractors tasked with carrying out the background checks and fingerprinting were overwhelmed, according to current and former HHS officials.
…The approach caused thousands of unaccompanied minors to be stranded in U.S. custody and exacerbated the appearance of a crisis on the southern border — a major element underlying the administration’s public request for billions of dollars in additional funding from Congress.
…A few months after the policy was implemented, HHS officials determined that it was not improving child safety. They concluded that the added vetting was redundant and needlessly extended the time children remained in custody.
…The administration also developed and rolled out its family separation policy in the spring of 2018, part of its “zero tolerance” approach at the border. The months-long initiative, which separated thousands of children from their parents, compounded the need for shelter space.
mmhmmm
Trump Administration Separates Some Migrant Mothers From Their Newborns Before Returning Them to Detention
Advocates also report that some asylum seekers in the Western District of Texas who have given birth in USMS custody were forced to hand over their newborns to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS). Reuniting with their newborn hinges on their release from federal custody, and whether they can access legal help to navigate the child welfare system.
…Dr. Shelly said she doesn’t know if the U.S. citizen newborns of detained parents are eventually adopted or whether detained patients are deported without regaining custody of their babies. The OB-GYN is also unsure if foster parents have any obligation to remain in communication with parents remanded to USMS custody.
According to USMS, the onus for child care placement is on the detained parent, though it appears as if asylum seekers who give birth in USMS custody don’t have many choices at all.
…U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) could release these women shortly after they are first apprehended, and then refer them to organizations like Annunciation House that can offer support as they pursue asylum and prepare to give birth. But that’s not what happens.
Jeezus….
Aid Worker Scott Warren Has Been Found Not Guilty in Retrial
Aid Worker Scott Warren Has Been Found Not Guilty in Retrial | Time
Border Patrol is out of control.
The College Student Who Decoded the Data Hidden in Inca Knots
The College Student Who Decoded the Data Hidden in Inca Knots
An oldie but a super cool one
Archaeologists Discover Ancient Native American Sites In Path Of Planned Highway
Greubel thinks this particular pit house was probably a center for ceremonies or gatherings for the Ancestral Puebloan people who lived here roughly 1,200 years ago. That was before they are believed to have migrated west to the Mesa Verde area and then south to become the ancestors of the Hopi, Zuni and various Pueblo tribes.
“When we were working down here, you kind of have a sense of peace and you feel like you’re accomplishing something good,” Greubel says. “I know not all people think that way, but we treated the site with respect and a sense of awe.”
…This pit house is about to be filled in and covered up by a highway, as are six other important ancient sites on this mesa.
…The new construction site will cross the outer boundaries of the tribe’s reservation.
But some Southern Ute citizens are still upset that the digs are happening at all, and they don’t feel empowered to stop them.
…”You know, those are my family’s bones in there,” Maez says. “We don’t have a ceremony to dig them up and put them somewhere else.”
He says projects like this have forced tribes to adapt to that process and create new rituals to remove and rebury remains.
…Local tribes didn’t have ultimate veto power to stop this highway project from moving forward.
…”It’s quite interesting to see how we lived, you know, and to compare in how we live today. But on the other hand, it’s very hurtful and sad too.”
Archaeologists Discover Ancient Native American Sites In Path Of Planned Highway : NPR
hmmmm
The Amount of Money Being Made Ripping Migrant Families Apart Is Staggering
Microsoft’s Azure cloud-computing software was “mission critical” for ICE’s operations, as Berkowitz explained to me, and the agency paid Microsoft nearly $20 million for its use.
…Accenture, Boeing, Elbit, G4S, General Dynamics, IBM, L3 Technologies, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Palantir (with software provided by Amazon), Raytheon, and UNISYS are among the hundreds of companies who are facilitating the migrant detention and deportation machine—and have been raking in, from 2006 to 2018, more than a combined $45 billion, dispersed among nearly 100,000 separate contracts with CBP and ICE.
…Immigration enforcement budgets have ballooned from $350 million in 1980, to $1.2 billion in 1990, to $9.1 billion in 2003, to a whopping $23.7 billion in 2018. …Those budgets then annually funnel $2.32 billion back to the private sector through federal immigration, corrections, and detention contracts.
…Since 2006, “177 people have gone through the DHS revolving door and 34 have worked both for the House Homeland Security Committee and for a lobbying firm,” the report notes. Just from 2003 to 2017, four CBP commissioners and three DHS secretaries went on to work in homeland security corporations after leaving government.
…John Kelly …joined the board of directors of Caliburn International. …[During] the period Kelly was in office, from July 2017 to December 2018, …the average length of stay for an unaccompanied child migrant in US custody “skyrocketed.” The company that ran Homestead, a subsidiary of Caliburn, also happened to land a contract, in that same period, for a whopping $222 million.
…The border-security corporate giants, especially Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and Boeing, are the biggest campaign contributors to members of the House Appropriations Committee—the congressional body that regulates expenditures of the federal government. Between 2006 and 2018, these companies contributed a total of $27.6 million just to members of the committee.
Texas Democrat Henry Cuellar, to take just one example, received large campaign contributions from GEO Group and CoreCivic ($55,690), Northrop Grumman ($13,000), Boeing Corporation ($10,000), Caterpillar Inc ($10,000) and Lockheed Martin ($10,000).
The Amount of Money Being Made Ripping Migrant Families Apart Is Staggering | The Nation
hmmm
Slain U.S. citizens were part of Mormon offshoot with sordid history
The group was part of the extended LeBaron family, Mormon fundamentalists who first came to Mexico nearly a century ago — when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City started cracking down on members who were still practicing polygamy.
Over the years, members of the extended LeBaron family have spread throughout northern Mexico as well as into Arizona and Utah.
…The family has had a sordid history, Bowman said. Its founder’s sons fell victim to infighting. One, Ervil LeBaron, formed his own church that took on a cult following, said Anna LeBaron, who was one of Ervil’s 51 children with 13 wives. She was born at the LeBaron colony and escaped her father’s cult when she was 13; she detailed her experience in a 2017 book, “The Polygamist’s Daughter.”
The cult was disbanded in the early 1990s and her father died in prison in 1981 while serving a life sentence for murder.
Slain U.S. citizens were part of Mormon offshoot with sordid history
From every angle this is just a wild story.
Tally of children split at border tops 5,400 in new count
Tally of children split at border tops 5,400 in new count | PBS NewsHour
GRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
He was undocumented. Now he’s exposing detention center abuse
Roughly, 85% reported that immigration detention facilities failed to provide adequate food and water and that they were unable to sleep due to overcrowding, cold temperatures and other conditions. Only 20% reported being able to take care of basic hygiene, such as showering and brushing their teeth.
More than half said they faced verbal abuse inside detention, with some saying they also suffered physical abuse. Roughly 25% also had their property seized when taken into detention, including important documents and cash that was not returned to them, he said.
A majority said they were forced to return to Mexico without any further investigation of the violence they might face there, which Wong said was a direct violation of the policy.
While waiting in Mexico, one out of four said they were threatened with physical violence, and more said they ended up homeless.
…Individuals are getting instructions about critically important steps in languages that they don’t speak: often Central American asylum speakers who speak an indigenous language by default are given instructions in Spanish. In San Diego, there are a lot of different languages – Asian Indians seeking asylum who speak Hindi were given instructions in English or Spanish. I find it hard to believe that we as a country can’t find a Hindi speaker.
He was undocumented. Now he’s exposing detention center abuse | US news | The Guardian
sighh
Tally of children split at border tops 5,400 in new count
Tally of children split at border tops 5,400 in new count | PBS NewsHour
Until this stop every single American resident and citizen is culpable in these kidnappings.
ICE withdraws big fines for immigrants taking sanctuary in churches
“We knew that these exorbitant fines were illegal and were nothing more than a tool to scare our clients and retaliate against them for fighting back and standing up to this administration,” attorney Lizbeth Mateo, who represents a Mexican woman living at an Ohio church.”
…Immigrants who are free on bond but ordered to leave the country are typically given a date to report to immigration authorities for removal. Others are ordered to check in with authorities, which, under former President Barack Obama-era policies, generally didn’t result in deportation unless the person was convicted of a serious crime in the United States.
Trump lifted those restrictions almost immediately, causing people to get deported when they reported to ICE offices as instructed and discouraging others from coming.
ICE withdraws big fines for immigrants taking sanctuary in churches
hmmm
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