US - Crimes against immigrants and citizens, perpetrated by ICE and LE, 2018-19

[EuTuCroquet?]

An Alabama sheriff personally kept $1.5 million that was supposed to feed ICE detainees

Sheriff Todd Entrekin of Etowah County, Alabama, lost his re-election bid this year after he was found to have personally pocketed $750,000 allotted for feeding inmates in county lockup and using it to buy himself a beach house. Ethical questions aside, Entrekin's taking was legal under Alabama law — but a further $1.5 million he took home from funds for feeding federal immigration detainees may not be.

The Etowah County Detention Center has a contract with the federal government to house several hundred undocumented immigrants awaiting adjudication. With that contract comes federal funding from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to feed the detainees, money AL.com reportsEntrekin has treated exactly like state and municipal funds: Any surplus is split 50/50 between the county's general fund and the sheriff himself, so a $3 million surplus gave Entrekin a $1.5 million bonus.

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[human]

The immorality that has become acceptable astounds me especially at this holiday ( holyday) time of year.

 

[EuTuCroquet?]

FBI Reportedly Has Fake Green Cards Given to Undocumented Immigrants Working at Trump Golf Course

Supervisors at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, provided fake green cards and Social Security numbers to undocumented employees, according to a report in the Washington Post. Anibal Romero, a lawyer representing five immigrants who were undocumented while working at the Trump property, told the newspaper that he turned the fraudulent documents over to the FBI.​

 

[EuTuCroquet?]

The immorality that has become acceptable astounds me especially at this holiday ( holyday) time of year.

@human, happy new year to you and to us all. Love ya. We shall overcome. We must.

 

[EuTuCroquet?]

The immigrants who have died in US custody in 2018

The two children are not the only immigrants to die in 2018 in custody, either in CBP facilities or at detention centers run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).

In May, a 19-month-old girl, Mariee Juárez, died weeks after being released from a family detention center in Dilley, Texas. Her mother, Yazmin Juárez, who traveled from Guatemala with her daughter, is suing the government, saying poor medical care at the facility led to her daughter’s death.

The baby girl was healthy when she arrived at Dilley but she developed a fever of 104.2F, vomiting and diarrhea while there, according to the complaint. She spent weeks at New Jersey hospitals after the family was released but doctors were unable to save her.

A five-month-old girl from Honduras who traveled with the migrant caravan was hospitalized with pneumonia after spending days in a freezing cell at a border facility, her mother told BuzzFeed. The baby survived.

At least 12 people have died in Ice custody at adult detention centers this year, according to information released by Ice and compiled by the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

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[EuTuCroquet?]

US Court Halts Asylum Ruling Barring Abuse, Gang Victims

A federal court has struck down most of an administration policy that sought to deny asylum to immigrants seeking safety from domestic and gang-related violence in their home countries.

In June, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions personally intervened in the case of a Salvadoran woman known as A-B, denying her asylum as the victim of domestic abuse and releasing expedited removal proceedings that instructed asylum officers to generally deny immigrants the initial credible fear screening if their asylum claims were based on domestic or gang-related violence.

U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan put a permanent injunction on Sessions’ order, saying it violated U.S. immigration law and that there “is no legal basis for an effective categorical ban.”

Under U.S. law, newly arrived immigrants who express fear of returning to their homes must be given a screening interview to determine credible fear. Those who pass the interview are allowed to pursue their asylum claims in immigration court.

“It is the will of Congress — not the whims of the executive — that determines the standard for expedited removal,” Sullivan said in his 107-page ruling.​

 

[EuTuCroquet?]

Sentencing postponed for agent accused of statutory rape

Tuesday’s scheduled sentencing of a 30-year-old Arizona man and suspended Border Patrol agent who recently pleaded no contest to misdemeanor statutory rape was postponed until next month.​

 

[EuTuCroquet?]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...e8-862a-b6a6f3ce8199_story.html?noredirect=on

Twenty-seven hours before she died at an El Paso children’s hospital, 7-year-old Jakelin Caal walked across the U.S. border with her father and 161 other migrants outside Antelope Wells, N.M.​

It was 9:15 p.m. on Dec. 6, and the small, remote U.S. border crossing was closed for the night. There were four Border Patrol agents on duty, and no medical staff.​

The migrants skirted barriers and crossed into the United States. Like most Central American asylum seekers who have been arriving at the border in record numbers, they were not seeking to evade capture but to turn themselves in.​

 

[EuTuCroquet?]

The federal agency policing housing for immigrant kids in Texas says it doesn't have experience investigating sex crimes involving children

The federal agency responsible for primary policing duties at a controversial tent city housing thousands of immigrant children in Tornillo, Texas, doesn't have experience investigating child sex offense cases, despite evidence that such assaults are occurring within the nation's shelter system.

The tent city, built on a patch of federal land near the border in El Paso County, has been a focal point of criticism and controversy as the number of children housed there has ballooned in recent months to about 2,800.

Late last month, as part of a larger investigation into child safety at the shelters, the inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services warned that the administration had waived FBI fingerprint background checks for employees at the emergency tent shelter and had hired "dangerously" few mental health counselors.

To handle any potential crimes at the tent city, the government has assigned the largely obscure Federal Protective Service.

The chief mission of the FPS is to protect federal buildings, such as the Census Bureau and the Social Security Administration, which it mostly does through its force of 13,500 private security guards. The agency also employs 1,000 law enforcement officers, who conduct site assessments, handle bomb threats and investigate any crimes, such as assaults and burglaries, that occur on federal property.

But an FPS spokesman acknowledged Thursday that the agency doesn't have experience investigating the allegations of children who may have been abused or sexually assaulted.

"I don't know of us investigating any cases in recent history," said Robert Sperling, director of communications for FPS. The agency's mission is protecting federal facilities, "there's not often areas or instances where something like that may happen or occur."​

 

[EuTuCroquet?]

What Is Asylum? Who Is Eligible? Why Do Recent Changes Matter?

According to a report from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the U.S. received 262,000 asylum applications in 2016 — double the number in 2014 — with almost half of the applications coming from Central American nationals.
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Asylum is a protection granted to foreign nationals who can prove they have a credible fear of returning to their home country because of very specific reasons that are outlined by U.S. and international law. To qualify for asylum, a person must show they've suffered persecution or have a legitimate fear they will face persecution in the future, based on any of these factors:

• race
• nationality
• religion
• political opinion
• membership in a particular social group

According to U.S. immigration law, a person granted asylum is legally allowed to remain in the U.S. without fear of deportation. An asylee may qualify to work in the U.S., travel abroad and apply for the same asylum status for their spouse or child.

The concept of asylum — of providing a safe haven to people fleeing oppression -- was formally recognized by the international community at the United Nations in 1951.
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The 1967 United Nations Refugee Protocol, to which the United States is a signatory, broadened protections for people seeking asylum. In 1980, Congress incorporated these standards and definitions into U.S. immigration law.

Who Is Eligible And Where Can You Apply?

"Any alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival ...), irrespective of such alien's status, may apply for asylum ..."

That quote is from the Immigration and Nationality Act. It means that the right to at least apply for asylum is enshrined in U.S. law.

And, according to the above provision, that application process can begin at what's known as an "official port of entry" — think airports, official border crossings, or basically anywhere you're interviewed by a U.S. Customs Border Protection officer before being allowed into the U.S. — or, alternatively, at places in between those official entry points.
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(Currently,) officers are preventing people from initiating the asylum application process by stopping would-be asylum-seekers before they reach U.S. soil. Migrants are told that limited resources at the ports of entry mean only a finite number of applications can be processed each day, forcing them to wait in Mexico in the interim.
...

Some legal experts say this proposition is inherently problematic because there is no way for the U.S. to guarantee a migrant's safety while waiting in Mexico — a key provision in the asylum process.
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[human]

Tears. I guess love one another and doing unto others is a centuries old idea that has been discarded.

Happy holidays!

 

[everybodhi]

Christianity ain’t what it used to be.