Presumptuous Politics : Aug 20, 2016

Saturday, August 20, 2016

Illegal Immigration Cartoons

Judges nixed DHS bids to deport illegal immigrants 100,000 times: report

Immigration judges around the country are denying the Department of Homeland Security’s attempts to deport illegal immigrants in record numbers, according to a new report.
Over the last 10 months, immigration judges opted against the department’s efforts to remove some 96,223 illegal immigrants, including criminals, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a Syracuse University-based nonprofit.
At this rate, TRAC estimates the number of illegal immigrants allowed to remain in the U.S. despite DHS attempts to remove them will surpass last year’s breaking number of 106,676. With the court’s protection, subjects can often remain indefinitely.
“It’s concerning to me that the immigration courts are becoming such a frequently used back-door route to green cards,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of Policy Studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, DC-based research institute, noting these cases will be nearly 10 percent of the green cards approved in 2016.
“Many of them arrived illegally, and are being awarded legal status simply because they managed to stay a long time and have acquired family members here.”
One in four of the illegal immigrants allowed to stay in the country despite DHS efforts to remove them this year is from Mexico, TRAC reported.
Another 44 percent were from the three Central American countries — El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras — where vast numbers of unaccompanied minors and women with children have crossed the border to seek asylum.
There are a number of reasons why an individual may be allowed to remain in the country, according to TRAC.
“… the judge can find that the government did not meet its burden to show the individual was deportable,” the report stated. “Or, the judge may have found that the individual was entitled to asylum in this country, or may grant relief from removal under other provisions of the law.
“A person also may be allowed to remain because the government requests that the case be administratively closed through the exercise of ICE's prosecutorial discretion, or for some other reason,” the report also stated.
The Phoenix federal Immigration Court had the highest percentage of non-citizens allowed to stay in the country over the objections of DHS officials.
“In more than four out of every five, or 82.2 percent of its 3,554 cases closed so far in 2016, the individuals were successful in their quest to remain in the U.S,” TRAC reported.
The New York Immigration Court was not far behind at 81.5 percent of the 16,152 non-citizen cases closed to date, followed by the Denver Immigration Court at 78.0 percent of its 831 cases.
Nationwide, there is a backlog of around 500,000 cases pending in the immigration courts, and as it grows, judges become more lenient, said Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).
“This is by design,” Mehlman said. “The longer the attorneys draw out the cases, the better it is for their clients because the likelihood that they will get to stay in the country increases. It is also better for the immigration attorneys because they can charge more fees.
“From the judge’s perspective, because the courts are so backlogged, it is easier to let people stay in the country than actually try to remove them,” he said. “There are endless layers of appeal and no finality in it.”
On the opposite end of the scale, Oakdale, La., Lumpkin, Ga. and Napanoch, N.Y., Immigration Courts only allowed between 11.3 percent and 17.5 percent of the non-citizens slated for removal to remain in the U.S., TRAC reported.
There is a great deal of money spent, and government resources dedicated, to prosecute a removal case for detention, to monitor those who are released, for attorneys to prosecute removal cases and for the court personnel to conduct hearings, said Claude Arnold, a retired U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations.
Arnold believes the Obama administration has sent the message to immigration judges to push back when DHS attempts to enforce its rules regarding illegal immigrants. By law, they are subject to deportation when local, state or federal authorities cross paths with them, but several local governments refuse to cooperate in the removal process.
The administration of the immigration courts does not comment on third-party analysis of data, said Kathryn Mattingly, spokesperson for the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review. However, she said the year prior to the TRAC report, in Fiscal Year (FY) 2015, immigration judges granted 48 percent of asylum applications, marking the third year in a row that percentage has decreased, falling from 56 percent in 2012.

Michael C. McGoings
Chief Immigration Judge (Acting) U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch appointed the new judge.

Michael C. McGoings was appointed acting chief immigration Judge in March 2016. He was appointed principal deputy chief immigration judge in March 2013. He was appointed deputy chief immigration judge in October 2009. Judge McGoings received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1965 from Morgan State University, a Master of Science degree in 1967 from the University of Illinois, and a Juris Doctor in 1973 from the Catholic University of America. From March 1995 to October 2009, Judge McGoings served as an assistant chief immigration judge. During this time, from February to July 2009, he served as chief immigration judge (acting). From 1994 to 1995, Judge McGoings was an associate general counsel serving as chief of the Enforcement Legal Program, and from 1991 to 1994, he was an associate general counsel for the Employer Sanctions and Civil Document Fraud Legal Program, both at the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). From 1987 to 1990, he served as an assistant general counsel for the former INS. Judge McGoings is a member of the District of Columbia and Pennsylvania Bars.

Jewelry designers are branded 'trashy' over note that they sent to Ivanka Trump in which they snidely boast about donating proceeds from her purchase to Hillary Clinton

IDIOTS Jill Martinelli and Sabine Le Guyader

Ivanka Trump has been fervently campaigning for her father Donald, but the savvy businesswoman inadvertently donated money to his opponent Hillary Clinton when she purchased an ear cuff from an indie jewelry brand worn by Beyoncé, Rihanna, and Selena Gomez.

After the 34-year-old ordered an $84 gold Helix Ear Cuff from their website, the brand's co-founders and designers, Jill Martinelli and Sabine Le Guyader, took to the company's Instagram page on Tuesday to share a photo of the handwritten note they had sent to Ivanka.

The publicly shared message revealed that the jewelry designers donated the proceeds of the sale to various organizations, including the Hillary Clinton campaign, and while some fans admired their moxie, others accused them of being 'unprofessional' and 'tactless'.

'Dear Ivanka, Thank you so much for your web order!' reads Jill and Sabine's message. 'We’re happy to let you know that the proceeds of your sale have been generously donated to the American Immigration Council, the Everytown for Gun Safety organization, and the Hillary Clinton campaign.

'We hope you enjoy your new Lady Grey #helixearcuff. Best, Jill + Sabine.'

When captioning the photo of their handwritten note, they added: 'Dear @ivankatrump, #thanksbutnothanks #payitFORWARD.'

Jill and Sabine told New York magazine in an email that the note was included in her package, which shipped last week directly from their studio in Brooklyn.

Clinton reportedly told FBI Colin Powell pushed private email; Powell denies

Hillary Clinton reportedly told federal authorities during her questioning over her email practices that former Secretary of State Colin Powell encouraged her to use a private email account, but that was news to Powell.
The New York Times reported Wednesday that Clinton’s revelation is part of the FBI’s notes that were given to Congress on Tuesday about the agency’s questioning in July that led Director James Comey not to pursue criminal charges against her over her use of private emails.
An email exchange emerged from 2009 between Clinton and Powell during the questioning that revealed that she had asked the former secretary of state about his email practices under George W. Bush, a source told The Times. Clinton had already set up her private email server during that time.
The Times reported that the conversations between Clinton and Powell are revealed in an upcoming book detailing Bill Clinton’s political life after his presidency, titled “Man of the World: The Further Endeavors of Bill Clinton,” by Joe Conason.
The book details a conversation between Clinton and Powell at a party hosted by Madeleine Albright in Washington.
“Toward the end of the evening, over dessert, Albright asked all of the former secretaries to offer one salient bit of counsel to the nation’s next top diplomat,” a passage details. “Powell told her to use her own email, as he had done, except for classified communications, which he had sent and received via a State Department computer.”
A spokesperson for Powell issued a statement saying
"General Powell has no recollection of the dinner conversation," the statement read. "He did write former Secretary Clinton an email memo describing his use of his personal AOL email account for unclassified messages and how it vastly improved communications within the State Department. At the time there was no equivalent system within the Department.
"He used a secure State computer on his desk to manage classified information," the statement added.
Howard Krongard, a former watchdog for the State Department, told Fox News in May that he would have immediately opened an investigation if he caught wind of a secretary of state used a private account.
Krongard shot down the notion that she was in line with her predecessors’ in using a private email account for State Department business. He pointed to a May 25 inspectors general report that stated Condoleezza Rice did not use personal email for government business. It said Powell used personal email on a limited basis to connect with people outside the department, and he worked with the State Department to secure the system. The report found Clinton did neither.
The report concluded Clinton’s use of a private server and account was not approved, and broke agency rules. The report said by the time she became secretary, the rules had repeatedly been updated, and were “considerably more detailed and more sophisticated.”
The Times reported that the State Department has asked to review the FBI’s notes from Clinton’s questioning before they are officially released.
Clinton campaign officials fear that materials could be leaked in order to hurt her campaign.

Clinton's health continues to spur controversy and conspiracy

The real Hillary Clinton.

A two-page letter from Hillary Clinton's doctor a year ago, declaring the former first lady, senator and secretary of state "fit to serve" as president has done little to quell doubts about her health amid a gruelling campaign.

Photos of the Democratic presidential nominee being helped up stairs, frequent coughing bouts on the campaign trail and rumors that a 2012 concussion was worse than revealed have made the 68-year old's fitness a campaign issue.
“Hillary Clinton lacks the judgement, the temperament and the moral character to lead this nation," Donald Trump said in a recent foreign policy speech. "Importantly, she also lacks the mental and physical stamina to take on ISIS, and all the many adversaries we face – not only in terrorism, but in trade and every other challenge we must confront to turn this country around.”
Clinton’s health has been a matter of scrutiny since the concussion she suffered while serving as secretary of state. While being evaluated at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, doctors discovered a blood clot inside a vein in her head and prescribed blood thinners, she told ABC News’ Diane Sawyer in 2014.
In part to quash speculation about Clinton’s health, the campaign released a summary of her medical records last summer.
In the July 28, 2015 letter, Dr. Lisa Bardack, an internist in Mount Kisco, N.Y., described Clinton “as a healthy 67-year-old female whose current medical conditions include hypothyroidism and seasonal pollen allergies.”
Unlike 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain who invited reporters to review the full 1,173 pages of his medical records, Clinton released only a summary of her past issues, including an elbow fracture in 2009 and several episodes of deep vein thrombosis.
Clinton’s chief strategist Joel Benenson said the campaign has no plans to release more detailed records, but his position is at odds with many Americans.
A new Rasmussen Reports survey found that 59 percent of voters believe all major presidential candidates should release at least their most recent medical records to the public. That figure is up from 38 percent of Americans in May 2014, when questions about Clinton's health were first being raised.
Thirty percent don’t think candidates should have to release their recent medical records and 11 percent were undecided.
The people may want to see more medical records, but the Clinton campaign just sees right-wing conspiracy. A campaign spokeswoman blamed the health controversy on Roger Stone, a longtime conservative policeal operative who had a formal role as a Trump adviser until he was fired a year ago. Still an unabashed supporter of Trump, Stone is still working to get him elected, say critics.
“Donald Trump is simply parroting lies based on fabricated documents promoted by Roger Stone and his right-wing allies," said campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri. "Hillary Clinton has released a detailed medical record showing her to be in excellent health plus her personal tax returns since 1977, while Trump has failed to provide the public with the most basic financial information disclosed by every major candidate in the last 40 years.”
Requests for comment from the Clinton and Trump campaigns were not answered. Bardack’s office declined to comment.
“I think the questions being raised are legitimate given that it impacts who leads our nation," said Dr. Jan Orient, executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. "As a physician, you cannot help but to ask questions. But given that our information is limited, it would be wrong for any physician to diagnose someone without seeing them themselves.”
Orient said she has received both positive and negative responses to her recent column on the Association’s blog which asked whether Clinton is “medically unfit” to serve as president.
Television personality Dr. Drew Pinsky told KABC radio this week that he was concerned about the “1950s level of care” that Clinton was receiving and not as much about her actual health.
“It just seems like she’s getting care from somebody that she met in Arkansas when she was a kid,” he added.
While agreeing that a candidate’s health is a serious issue for voters to consider, one Trump advisor warned against either side diagnosing the physical or mental health of the candidates.
“I would be very cautious and would recommend the doctors for professional reasons to be very cautious when deciding you are going to analyze people,” said former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich on Fox & Friends.