Immigration Policy

[Kraken]

Is there evidence that the parliamentarian is partisan? It seems to me that putting immigration reform in a spending bill is a stretch and she made a legitimate call.

She was hired by Reid, so if she IS partisan, she almost certainly leans blue.

I don't think we want to "play McConnell level politics" and co-opt any nonpartisan offices that are still hanging on. If she leans blue, then this ruling only demonstrates that she's trying to play fair.

[Alefroth]

The Senate parliamentarian ruled that immigration reform doesn't belong in the reconciliation bill, so we won't see any reforms anytime soon.

Replacing her is one of the ways they can play McConnell level politics. I don't see any drawback to it at this point.

Is there evidence that the parliamentarian is partisan? It seems to me that putting immigration reform in a spending bill is a stretch and she made a legitimate call.

I don't know if she is partisan or not, but if they want to really maximize the effects of one of their few tools, they could put in someone who would allow nearly anything.

[Alefroth]

Is there evidence that the parliamentarian is partisan? It seems to me that putting immigration reform in a spending bill is a stretch and she made a legitimate call.

She was hired by Reid, so if she IS partisan, she almost certainly leans blue.

I don't think we want to "play McConnell level politics" and co-opt any nonpartisan offices that are still hanging on. If she leans blue, then this ruling only demonstrates that she's trying to play fair.

I didn't say I wanted to, but we may need to. If these were normal times, I'd say she's doing a great job.

[Smoove_B]

Update on how this was handled

they fired... the horses

[dbt1949]

So, are they going to fire the horses used by cops in the in big cities to keep law and order too?

[LawBeefaroni]

Update on how this was handled

they fired... the horses

Jesus, Dems are scared of their own shadow while ignoring the axe murderer standing in the middle of the room.

[Jeff V]

Clearly, someone had to take the blame and it happened to fall on Mr. Ed.

It seems the donkeys have a lack of faith on their agenda. Throughout the course of human history, changing environmental and political conditions have driven the mass migration of peoples. Ostensibly, the donkeys are for addressing these problems at their source, but they're not really doing that and are helpless dealing with the problem at their doorstep.

[Isgrimnur]

Courthouse News Service

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Monday declared the prostrate milkweed an endangered species and mandated new habitat protections for the plant, closing a chapter in a feud between environmentalists and those who advocate for unfettered border wall construction in South Texas.

The rare milkweed, which grows only in the Texas-Mexico borderlands, has for months been at the center of the fight between butterfly lovers and Texas officials. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican who supports new border wall construction, said last year that formally protecting the plant would create an "influx of illegal aliens" and endanger Texans. Environmental groups say the listing will help safeguard the charismatic migratory monarch butterfly, which has a deeply symbiotic relationship with the unassuming weed.

While the prostrate milkweed has a range of around 200 miles, only 24 populations of the species are known to still exist. Those are in Starr and Zapata counties in far South Texas, as well as in neighboring states of Nuevo León and Tamaulipas in northern Mexico.

It's the rarest species of milkweed, and it's a critical habitat for monarch butterflies as they head north from Mexico after the winter

[malchior]

ICE is still chock full of potentially criminal agents abusing our civil rights.

SINCE 2016, HUNDREDS of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees and contractors have faced internal investigations into abuse of confidential law enforcement databases and agency computers. The alleged misconduct includes a swath of unlawful behavior, from stalking and harassment to passing information to criminals.

ICE says these databases are vital tools for enforcing the law. However, agency records of internal misconduct investigations reveal that they can also be used to subvert it. They show for the first time how ICE employees allegedly exploited their access to these databases to unlawfully search or disclose sensitive information, including medical, biometric, and location data. And they detail how access to these databases can be misused to carry out personal schemes and vendettas.

According to an agency disciplinary database that WIRED obtained through a public records request, ICE investigators found that the organization’s agents likely queried sensitive databases on behalf of their friends and neighbors. They have been investigated for looking up information about ex-lovers and coworkers and have shared their login credentials with family members. In some cases, ICE found its agents leveraging confidential information to commit fraud or pass privileged information to criminals for money.

In total, ICE employees or contractors have been investigated for misusing agency data or computers at least 414 times since 2016. In nearly half of those incidents, the misconduct triggered investigations by the Office of Professional Relations (OPR), a division responsible for investigating allegations of serious misconduct, both criminal and noncriminal.

Of these serious misconduct cases, 109 were “substantiated” or “referred to management” after an internal investigation by OPR fact finders. Those include a Vermont-based enforcement and removals officer accused of “online solicitation of an intellectually disabled adult”; a special agent who received gifts from a Colombian drug trafficker in exchange for information; a Virginia deportation officer who altered electronic records to assist a family member; and an ICE attorney who stole immigrants’ identities in an attempt to defraud credit card companies.

ICE categorizes allegations as “substantiated” or “referred to management” if the evidence shows that the alleged misconduct is more likely to have occurred than not—a lower standard of proof than in criminal investigations.

...

An ICE official familiar with the way internal investigations are conducted at the agency reviewed the records WIRED obtained. The official, who asked not to be named because they are not authorized to speak to the media, says that because ICE agents collectively query confidential law enforcement databases “many millions of times a year,” the presence of a few “bad apples” is inevitable and not particularly surprising.

But legal experts and privacy advocates who reviewed the data resoundingly disagree with the ICE official’s characterization of the issue as likely isolated to a handful of problematic officers.

...

ICE is already under increased scrutiny for how agents are misusing the law enforcement tools at their disposal. In February, for example, the DHS inspector general released a report detailing how agents at ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) division conducted illegal surveillance of cell phones using a controversial tool called a cell-site simulator.

Earlier this month, a WIRED investigation revealed how ICE used customs summonses to demand data from elementary schools, news organizations, and abortion clinics in ways that experts say could be illegal. “Calling ICE a rogue agency doesn’t even quite get at how bad the problem is with them,” said Emily Tucker, the executive director at the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law, in response to those findings. “They are always pushing to the limits of what they are allowed to do and fudging around the edges without oversight.”

...

Law enforcement abuse of databases is far from unique to ICE agents. In the past decade, local police around the US have repeatedly abused their access to confidential databases. In 2016, an Associated Press investigation found that police officers across the country misused confidential law enforcement databases to get information on romantic partners, business associates, neighbors, and journalists.

The misconduct records that WIRED obtained detail similar allegations. However, due to ICE’s sprawling access to data sets from federal, state, local, and private entities, experts are particularly concerned about how an agency with a prolific history of misconduct could abuse these tools.

Last May, Tucker and three colleagues coauthored a report called “American Dragnet: Data-Driven Deportation in the 21st Century.” Their report, based on a review of ICE spending transactions, found that the agency has amassed an enormous trove of databases containing billions of data points that enable the agency “to pull detailed dossiers on nearly anyone, seemingly at any time.”

“The databases ICE employees can access contain almost everything you might want to find about someone: who they are, where they live, where they drive, and who their family is,” says Nina Wang, a policy associate at the Center on Privacy & Technology and one of the “American Dragnet” coauthors. “All of that access to bulk data leaves the door wide open for misconduct.”

...

Because ICE did not answer specific questions about how it monitors misconduct, it’s unclear how the agency spots abuse of its databases.

Every expert we spoke to, including the current ICE official, says that because the vast majority of misconduct probably goes undetected, the records the agency released likely only detail a small fraction of the total abuse.

“If you’ve got hundreds of abuses, you have a systemic problem that needs a systemic solution,” says Schwartz. “This is a flood of misconduct,” he adds. “It raises serious questions about whether this is just the tip of the iceberg.”

[malchior]

In other America is shitty news - the NY Times expose on the Biden administration ignoring migrant child labor complaints is horrifying. This country is way off track. I really thought Biden was going to be somewhat better but it's often been a continuation of Trump era abuses. It's hard for me not to wonder at connections between COVID era labor participation issues, economic growth concerns, inflation headlines, and rich people getting what they want -- cheap unregulated labor at any social cost.

In the spring of 2021, Linda Brandmiller was working at an arena in San Antonio that had been converted into an emergency shelter for migrant children. Thousands of boys were sleeping on cots as the Biden administration grappled with a record number of minors crossing into the United States without their parents.

Ms. Brandmiller’s job was to help vet sponsors, and she had been trained to look for possible trafficking. In her first week, two cases jumped out: One man told her he was sponsoring three boys to employ them at his construction company. Another, who lived in Florida, was trying to sponsor two children who would have to work off the cost of bringing them north.

She immediately contacted supervisors working with the Department of Health and Human Services, the federal agency responsible for these children. “This is urgent,” she wrote in an email reviewed by The New York Times.

But within days, she noticed that one of the children was set to be released to the man in Florida. She wrote another email, this time asking for a supervisor’s “immediate attention” and adding that the government had already sent a 14-year-old boy to the same sponsor.

Ms. Brandmiller also emailed the shelter’s manager. A few days later, her building access was revoked during her lunch break. She said she was never told why she had been fired.

Over the past two years, more than 250,000 migrant children have come alone to the United States. Thousands of children have ended up in punishing jobs across the country — working overnight in slaughterhouses, replacing roofs, operating machinery in factories — all in violation of child labor laws, a recent Times investigation showed. After the article’s publication in February, the White House announced policy changes and a crackdown on companies that hire children.

But all along, there were signs of the explosive growth of this labor force and warnings that the Biden administration ignored or missed, The Times has found.

[Isgrimnur]

[Kraken]

We need better robots. The market would deliver them if semi-slave labor weren't cheaper.

[malchior]

The GOP border security/policy bill is so extreme that they can't even pass it with their own majority.

This flurry of stories comes to us after a wild hearing with Mayorkas (who the GOP has vowed to impeach!) where Magic the Gathering accused Rep. Swalwell of sleeping with a Chinese spy. If unaware, this is conspiracy theory that has been bouncing around on the right for a long time related to Swalwell being targeted by a Chinese spy who had engaged in sexual relationships with a few midwestern mayors. The US ultimately expelled that person. There has been no evidence of a personal relationship with Swalwell. Rep. Goldman moved to strike the comments but her fellow GOP members voted to allow the lie to stand.

[Isgrimnur]

Supreme Court allows Biden administration to limit immigration arrests, ruling against states

The court found that Texas and Louisiana, the two states that challenged the administration's guidelines, lacked standing to bring the suit, formally known as United States v. Texas.

The ruling was 8-1, with only Justice Samuel Alito dissenting. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the opinion for the majority, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justices Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett concurred in the judgment, with Gorsuch and Barrett contributing opinions of their own.

The decision in the case marks a major victory for the Biden administration and a vindication of the executive branch's broad powers to dictate — and in this case, narrow — the enforcement of federal immigration laws without interference from lawsuits.

At the center of the dispute is a memo issued in 2021 by the Biden administration that directed ICE agents to prioritize the arrest of immigrants with serious criminal records, national security threats and migrants who recently entered the U.S. illegally. The policy generally shielded unauthorized immigrants who have been living in the U.S. for years from being arrested by ICE if they did not commit serious crimes.
...
In his majority opinion, Kavanaugh called the bid by Texas and Louisiana "an extraordinarily unusual lawsuit."

"They want a federal court to order the Executive Branch to alter its arrest policies so as to make more arrests," Kavanaugh wrote. "Federal courts have traditionally not entertained that kind of lawsuit; indeed, the States cite no precent for a lawsuit like this."

[Smoove_B]

I guess we'll start seeing this in Florida soon? The Rio Grande along the Texas border has razor wire:

Razor wire put up by the state of Texas along the Rio Grande is blocking Border Patrol agents from reaching at-risk migrants — including families with infants and unaccompanied children — and increasing the risk of drownings, according to a Customs and Border Protection document obtained by Hearst Newspapers.

The warning is a new sign of escalating tension between state and federal officials over Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security program, Operation Lone Star, and it comes as the governor is putting a wall of buoys in the river despite concerns from immigration advocates that it will further endanger migrants.

“Currently there is no path forward if DPS continues to deploy the concertina wire,” says the document, which is dated June 26 and appears to be out of the agency’s Eagle Pass Station.

...

The wire is preventing agents from getting to asylum-seekers — some of whom have said they have been stuck in the river for hours and days, exposed to the elements with little to no help from Texas Department of Public Safety officers, according to the document.

Migrants are now traversing the banks of the river along spools of thick, sharp wire, increasing the chance of drownings, the document warns. And with water levels rising and some of the wire placed inside the river and not visible, there is a “high risk” of injury, it says.

The document was dated just days before four migrants, including an infant, drowned in the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass. Officials have not said the wire played a role in the drownings. A Texas DPS spokesman has said the migrants were found floating along the river by state officials July 1.

Even better, earlier in the week Abbot authorized buoys and netting to be deployed:

On Monday, Abbott put a barrier of buoys and netting into the Rio Grande to block migrants from crossing from Mexico into Texas despite legal challenges to the plan.

Experts have also warned that the move may infringe on a 1970s treaty with Mexico that manages river access. The treaty requires any levees or barriers from El Paso to Brownsville to be signed off by both the U.S. and Mexican governments.

Attorneys for an Eagle Pass kayak outfitter, meanwhile, are seeking an emergency meeting with a judge in Travis County to impose an injunction against Abbott to stop deployment of the 1,000-foot barrier that human rights groups said could lead to more drownings. Human rights groups have said the buoys, which have webbing below that also prevents people from swimming under them, will do little to stop people from trying to cross the river and only make the route more dangerous.

It's like he realizes that setting up a series of machine gun nests would look bad (for now) so let's just set up some passive anti-personnel barriers and let whatever will happen, happen.

[Blackhawk]

I guess we'll start seeing this in Florida soon?

I dunno. Do you think it will help keep DeSantis from getting out?

[Smoove_B]

[Unagi]

It’s fun to be flippant about a real problem, but not be taken too seriously.

[Smoove_B]

It's beyond dystopian. As someone living the other side of the country (where it's still not normal to see people openly carrying guns to go shopping), it's like reading news about a different part of the world.

[GreenGoo]

It’s fun to be flippant about a real problem, but not be taken too seriously.

[GreenGoo]

It's like he realizes that setting up a series of machine gun nests would look bad (for now) so let's just set up some passive anti-personnel barriers and let whatever will happen, happen.

Trolley.

[Jaymann]

It's like he realizes that setting up a series of machine gun nests would look bad (for now) so let's just set up some passive anti-personnel barriers and let whatever will happen, happen.

Trolley.

Did someone invoke the trolley problem?

[Pyperkub]

Wrong one!



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[Blackhawk]

Every problem is the trolley problem.

[Isgrimnur]

It’s trolleys all the way down.

[GreenGoo]

Get rid of trolleys! Trolley problem solved!

[Smoove_B]

Now updated with additional horrific information:

Officers working for Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security initiative have been ordered to push small children and nursing babies back into the Rio Grande, and have been told not to give water to asylum seekers even in extreme heat, according to an email from a Department of Public Safety trooper who described the actions as “inhumane.”

According to the email, a pregnant woman having a miscarriage was found late last month caught in the wire, doubled over in pain. A four-year-old girl passed out from heat exhaustion after she tried to go through it and was pushed back by Texas National Guard soldiers. A teenager broke his leg trying to navigate the water around the wire and had to be carried by his father.

The email, which the trooper sent to a superior, suggests that Texas has set “traps” of razor wire-wrapped barrels in parts of the river with high water and low visibility. And it says the wire has increased the risk of drownings by forcing migrants into deeper stretches of the river.

[Blackhawk]

Sweden gets in, we get kicked out for human rights abuses.

[malchior]

Sweden gets in, we get kicked out for human rights abuses.

If that would get you kicked out Hungary and Turkey would be gone already.

[Isgrimnur]

DOJ says it will sue Texas over buoy wall barrier in Rio Grande

The DOJ sent Abbott a letter on Thursday warning that the state’s buoy barrier is unlawful.

“The State of Texas’s actions violate federal law, raise humanitarian concerns, present serious risks to public safety and the environment, and may interfere with the federal government’s ability to carry out its official duties,” the department wrote, according to a copy obtained by Hearst Newspapers.

Assistant Attorney General Todd Kimm and Jaime Esparza, United States Attorney for the Western District of Texas, go on to write that the wall of buoys violates the Rivers and Harbors Act, which prohibits the creation of any obstruction to the navigable capacity of waters of the United States. They further point out that Texas did not seek authorization from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to deploy the barrier, which is required by the law.

[Smoove_B]

And Governor Abbott tells the DOJ, no thanks:

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott will not be ordering floating barriers to be removed from the Rio Grande, in defiance of the US Department of Justice.

“Texas will fully utilize its constitutional authority to deal with the crisis you have caused,” Abbott wrote in a letter to President Joe Biden following last week’s DOJ request to remove the barriers.

He added, “Texas will see you in court, Mr. President.”

EDIT: Forgot the extra "T" for "Truly Terrible"

[Isgrimnur]

Texas Agrees To Humanely Stun Migrants Before Drowning Them

At press time, Texas state troopers had reportedly abandoned the plan after discovering that drowning the migrants was much less fun when they weren’t awake to scream.

[Blackhawk]

World, pointing to Texas: "They with you?"

USA stared awkwardly at the ground, trying not to meet World's eyes.

[Isgrimnur]

Meanwhile, Florida busts in, trying to start a fight.

[Blackhawk]

USA tried to back away, wincing at the wet sound they made as they stepped in Alabama.

[Isgrimnur]

Mississippi shuffles up behind them, picking at its scalp.

[raydude]

And Governor Abbott tells the DOJ, no thanks:

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott will not be ordering floating barriers to be removed from the Rio Grande, in defiance of the US Department of Justice.

“Texas will fully utilize its constitutional authority to deal with the crisis you have caused,” Abbott wrote in a letter to President Joe Biden following last week’s DOJ request to remove the barriers.

He added, “Texas will see you in court, Mr. President.”

EDIT: Forgot the extra "T" for "Truly Terrible"

Abbot: It's your fault, you're making us kill them!

[Isgrimnur]

Judge blocks Biden administration's new rules for asylum-seekers at the border

U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar in Oakland, Calif., found the rules unlawful because they impose conditions on asylum-seekers that Congress did not intend.

Tigar stayed his own ruling for 14 days, giving the Biden administration a chance to appeal before it takes effect.

The asylum rules, which took effect in May, make it harder for migrants to get asylum if they cross the border illegally after passing through Mexico or another country without seeking protection there first.

Tigar wrote that "noncitizens who enter between ports of entry, using a manner of entry that Congress expressly intended should not affect access to asylum."

The judge's decision was not unexpected. At a hearing last week, Tigar joked that he heard somewhere that "2023 was going to be a big year for sequels." Tigar blocked a similar policy during the Trump administration, and immigrant advocates had urged him to do the same in this case.

[waitingtoconnect]

Immigration is a tough one. People are literally risking their lives getting into the UK from France having traversed at least a half dozen western democracies. They are fleeing failed states. Some of which we have bombed into rubble.

In my opinion there are only two real policies. First is the Australian solution and do forced turn backs, third country settlement of refugees (say in Chile), aggressive deportation and detention centres akin to super max prisons to deter migrants. Right now the system is neither here nor there - it’s ridiculous.

The second is to invest heavily in the smaller nations to the south where people are coming from to bring them back from failed state status. Like Australia create a legal visa scheme for foreign workers to work on farms come harvest time if need be.

Finally we need to do something about the drug issue. Illegal drugs have caused these states to fail and it’s the US demand for these drugs that has created this.

[Pyperkub]

Missing one of the key drivers which will contribute to ALL of the above growing - climate refugees, fleeing countries where wars are being fought over resources being dwindled. Water and arable land are the huge ones, but oil will also be a factor as TPTB war over a resource which has generated wealth for decades, and that wealth dwindles.

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