Tougher US asylum policy follows in Europe’s footsteps

TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) — Nkeze wasn’t home when Cameroonian militants came knocking, probably to deliver their signature ultimatum to join their separatist movement or have his writing arm cut off.

The 24-year-old economics student escaped to Douala, the country’s largest city, only to learn that the government wanted to arrest him for participating in a university protest. He then flew to Ecuador and traveled through eight countries to the U.S. border with Mexico, including a trek through Panamanian jungle where he saw corpses and refugees crying for shelter, food and water.

In his quest to settle with relatives in Houston, Nkeze now faces a potentially insurmountable obstacle: a new American ban forbids anyone from applying for asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border if they traveled through another country to get there.

“When you find yourself on U.S. soil, you are well-protected,” Nkeze said, sounding upbeat as he waited in Tijuana for a chance to make his case. “You are protected by human rights.” He spoke to The Associated Press on the condition that he be identified only by his last name due to safety concerns.

The U.S. is increasingly aligning itself with wealthy countries in Europe and elsewhere to make asylum a more distant prospect.

On Thursday, American authorities sent a Honduran man from El Paso, Texas, to Guatemala. It marked the first time the U.S. government directed an asylum-seeker back to that country under the new policy, which gave him an option to file a claim there. He decided against filing a claim and returned to Honduras, according to Guatemala’s foreign ministry.

Asylum was once almost an afterthought, until an unprecedented surge of migrants made the United States the world’s top destination in 2017, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency. The U.S. held its leading position last year, followed by Peru, Germany, France and Turkey.

Nearly half of the roughly 1 million cases in backlogged U.S. immigration courts are asylum claims, with most from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.

Trump has called asylum “a scam” and declared that the country is “full.” In nine months, the administration returned more than 55,000 asylum-seekers to Mexico to wait for their cases to wind through U.S. courts. Another asylum ban on anyone who crosses the border illegally from Mexico is temporarily blocked in court.

It’s unclear how the ban will be rolled out.

The U.S. Homeland Security Department did not comment on Thursday’s initial flight, which got a bare-bones announcement from Guatemala’s foreign ministry. The U.S. has struck agreements with Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras that aim to send back asylum-seekers who pass through their countries, but the Central American nations are woefully unprepared to accept large numbers.

The U.N. Refugee Agency said Tuesday that the ban is at odds with international law and “could result in the transfer of highly vulnerable individuals to countries where they may face life-threatening dangers.”

Asylum is designed for people fleeing persecution based on their race, religion, nationality, political beliefs or membership in a social group. It isn’t intended for people who migrate for economic reasons, but many consider it their best hope of escaping poverty and violence.

The U.S. isn’t alone in asking other countries to block migrants. After about 1 million refugees traveled through Turkey and Greece to seek safety in Europe, the European Union agreed in 2016 to pay Turkey billions of euros to keep them in refugee camps.

The EU has also funded the Libyan Coast Guard to stop Africans from crossing the Mediterranean, where thousands have drowned. Libyan forces have kept refugees in squalid conditions and inflicted torture.

Since 2001, Australia has intermittently blocked boats from Asia and detained asylum-seekers on Christmas Island, a tiny Australian territory, or sent them to Papua New Guinea and Nauru, an island nation of 10,000 people. Australia pays detention costs.

The U.S. long resettled more refugees than any other country, raising its ceiling to 110,000 during President Barack Obama’s last year in office. That practice has been sharply curtailed since Trump took office, with the country planning to resettle no more than 18,000 refugees in 2020.

“There’s this race to the bottom around the world, and governments are looking to each other and trying to figure out what’s the harshest policy they can get away with,” said David FitzGerald, a sociology professor at University of California at San Diego and author of “Refuge Beyond Reach: How Rich Democracies Repel Asylum-seekers.”

Cameroonians hoping to follow Nkeze’s path face mounting obstacles. Ecuador, the main gateway from Europe, began requiring visas for Cameroonians and 10 other nationalities in August, including six in Africa. Under heavy pressure from Trump, Mexico is bottling up Cameroonians and other U.S.-bound asylum-seekers near its southern border with Guatemala.

Nkeze walked through Panama’s remote, mostly roadless Darien Gap in less than four days on his way to the U.S. After giving his tent and raincoat to a woman who was clinging to life, he slept on a stone and prayed for clear skies and morning light. Only about a dozen in his group of 40 men could keep up in a race to a refugee camp on the other side of the jungle.

When his 20-day transit permit in Mexico expired, Nkeze helped a friend at a Tijuana juice factory for a cut of his earnings and lived at a no-frills hotel in the city’s red-light district.

Even before the ban, asylum was difficult to get in the U.S. Judges granted only 21% of cases, or 13,248 out of 62,382, in the 2018 fiscal year. Nkeze can also ask for two variations of asylum, but they are even harder to obtain, with 3% succeeding under “withholding of removal” law and only 2% under the U.N. Convention Against Torture.

“They essentially want you to bring a note from your torturer before they are willing to let you stay in the U.S,” said Stephen Yale-Loehr, professor of immigration law practice at Cornell University.

Nkeze may have caught a break when a federal judge in San Diego ruled Tuesday that anyone who appeared at a U.S. border crossing before the ban was announced July 16 and waited for their names to be called should be exempt.

He waited for five months in Tijuana for his turn on a list of nearly 9,000 people seeking asylum at a San Diego border crossing.

When his name was finally called Nov. 12, he wore a Mexican flag pin on the chest of his jacket as Mexican authorities escorted him to U.S. border inspectors. He said it was a show of appreciation.

He was immediately taken into immigration custody and is being held in an Arizona detention center.

___

Associated Press writer Sonia Perez D. in Guatemala City contributed to this report.

Top lawmakers reach agreement on spending as deadline nears

FILE - In this Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2019, file photo, the U.S. Capitol is seen as the sun sets in Washington. Negotiations on a package of spending bills to fund the federal government have produced a key breakthrough, though considerably more work is needed to wrap up the long-delayed measures. Top lawmakers of the House and Senate Appropriations committees on Saturday, Nov. 23, confirmed agreement on allocations for each of the 12 spending bills. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Negotiations on a package of spending bills to fund the federal government have produced a key breakthrough, though considerably more work is needed to wrap up the long-delayed measures.

Top lawmakers of the House and Senate Appropriations committees on Saturday confirmed agreement on allocations for each of the 12 spending bills, a step that allows negotiations on the $1.4 trillion budget bundle to begin in earnest to try to pass the measures by a Dec. 20 deadline.

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., announced the agreement on Saturday through aides.

The measures would fill in the details on this summer’s hard-won budget and debt deal. The pact is sought by a broad spectrum of GOP defense hawks, Democrats pressing to maintain recent gains in domestic programs, and a dwindling cadre of Washington pragmatists eager to demonstrate that they can make divided government work in an increasingly toxic atmosphere.

The talks come as the Democratic-controlled House is driving toward impeaching President Donald Trump, whose demands for billions of dollars more for additional wall construction along the U.S.-Mexico border have slowed the process.

Trump has little interest in the often-arcane appropriations process, other than to obtain wall funding and to boast about record Pentagon funding. The annual spending bills are, however, a top priority for top lawmakers like Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who have wrestled over appropriations for decades.

Trump has been limited in success in winning wall funding from Congress, where there is relatively little enthusiasm for the project among his GOP allies and strong opposition from most Democrats. Congress provided just $1.4 billion in wall funding last year.

But Trump has won considerably more money through transfers from Pentagon accounts by exploiting budget rules. He is seeking $8.6 billion, including $5 billion for the Department of Homeland Security, but would win far less under the tentative accord.

Lawmakers passed a stopgap measure this week to fund the government through Dec. 20. Saturday’s pact opens the door to a final agreement by that date, though the spending bundling is probably more likely to spill over into next year.

California Dreaming Cartoons

California AG's anti-Trump lawsuits are political, have cost taxpayers $21M

More than 60 lawsuits filed by California against the Trump administration in less than three years have cost the state's taxpayers $21 million, according to reports.
Since Trump took office in 2017, California’s Attorney General Xavier Becerra has sued the administration over issues including Trump's travel ban, protecting DACA and sanctuary cities, fighting family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border and plans to construct the border wall, according to FOX 40 of Sacramento.
Earlier this year, California challenged Trump’s declaration of an emergency at the southern border and most recently, Becerra sued the administration over the rollback of the Endangered Species Act.
Republican strategist Tim Rosales says Becerra’s lawsuits are more about politics than policy, FOX 40 reported.
“This is politics,” he told the station. “It’s politics by Becerra. He wants to make a national name for himself. He wants to get himself on the evening news and this is how you do it if you're the attorney general of California.”

"It’s politics by Becerra. He wants to make a national name for himself. He wants to get himself on the evening news and this is how you do it if you're the attorney general of California.”
— Tim Rosales, GOP strategist

He added that the Trump campaign is fundraising off California’s lawsuits in every other state.
“He’s gaining support in dozens of other states that look at California and they say, ‘Hey, look what California is doing,’” Rosales said. “And California is kind of leading the way in terms of the progressive left and the far left, and that’s where we’re at right now.”
Becerra’s office claims the state's lawsuits have never added up to more than 1 percent of the state Department of Justice’s budget.
"He’s protecting our values,” Democratic political consultant Ed Emerson told FOX 40. “Separating children from their families, detaining them for unlimited amounts of time and keeping them in cages. This is not who we are and California has to step in.”
He said that while the Trump campaign may be fundraising off California’s lawsuits, “so are we.”
In a statement to FOX 40, Becerra said, “The fact is, I don’t wake up in the morning planning to pick a fight with the administration. We file lawsuits to stop the Trump administration from breaking the law and taking actions which would hurt Californians.”
As of last May, California has gotten favorable rulings in at least 25 of the cases, The Mercury News of San Jose reported.
California's lawsuits against the Trump administration surpass the 48 lawsuits that Texas filed against the Obama administration, according to FOX 40.

New York Democrat sought $100G in state funding for nonexistent ‘think tank’

The New York state lawmaker elected to replace a politician busted for stealing Superstorm Sandy money has herself raised ethics questions — after trying to score $100,000 for a group that doesn’t exist, The Post has learned.
Assemblywoman Mathylde Frontus (D-Brooklyn) tried to land the cash for the Southern Brooklyn Community Think Tank, which she promised to set up days after her November 2018 election to “change the face of politics” in the area.
Frontus said she couldn’t understand all the fuss over her failed political-pork request. “It’s not an entity, it’s just a name,” said Frontus, who previously founded two Coney Island-based social services nonprofits. “It’s not something real.”
Assembly spokesman Mike Whyland insisted Frontus didn’t break any laws because the think tank is merely an “idea.”
But she never filed paperwork with state or federal authorities to establish the group — despite asking Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie for the funding, which he refused.
“How do you ask for $100,000 in funding for a group that doesn’t exist and think it’s OK?” said one Brooklyn legislator. “This request reeks of corruption and raises many legal and ethical questions.”

“How do you ask for $100,000 in funding for a group that doesn’t exist and think it’s OK? This request reeks of corruption and raises many legal and ethical questions.”
— Brooklyn legislator

Frontus vowed to create the think tank days after winning the election to replace disgraced ex-Assemblywoman Pam Harris, who was convicted of misusing Superstorm Sandy repair funds.Government watchdogs slammed Frontus’ request, saying just asking for the money raises red flags.
“Elected officials should not [try to] direct public money to groups they are affiliated with because it creates an appearance of favoritism,” said Alex Camarda, senior policy advisor for the good government group Reinvent Albany.
Heastie, he believes, “rightly turned down” Frontus’ request. State law says lawmakers cannot “participate in any state contracting decision” that results in payment to themselves, family or an entity in which they have more than a $1,000 stake. Violators face fines of up to $40,000.
Frontus wrote in her application to Heastie that the think tank would “promote civic engagement in southern Brooklyn” and operate under the auspices of the Jewish Community Council of Greater Coney Island, according to the funding request obtained by The Post.
She said the group would hold regular “meetings to retrieve community input regarding key social problems.” The $100,000, she wrote, would pay for a full-time coordinator, equipment and supplies.
However, Frontus admitted to The Post she never filed any paperwork to establish the think tank. Nor, did she bother to set up social-media accounts for it.
The only online postings reporters could find for the nonprofit were made by the assemblywoman’s work Facebook page.
Albany legislators have a long history of skirting the law at the expense of nonprofits they founded.
Disgraced ex-state Sen. Pedro Espada Jr. was found guilty in 2012 of looting more than $500,000. Former state Sen. Shirley Huntley was convicted stealing from a charity to go on shopping sprees.
The JCC did not return messages.

In Trump impeachment trial, Senate Republicans could turn tables on Dems

House Democrats are entering what may be the final phase of their impeachment inquiry, after wrapping up a spree of hearings where witnesses tied top officials -- including President Trump -- to efforts to pressure Ukraine on political investigations while military aid was being withheld.
But the tables could turn, should the House approve impeachment articles and trigger a trial in the Republican-controlled Senate. There, Trump’s allies are already indicating they will look more closely at allegations involving Democrats.
"Frankly, I want a trial," Trump declared Friday on “Fox & Friends.”
There’s a reason for that.
Democrats have controlled everything during marathon proceedings in the House, frustrating GOP attempts to call witnesses pertaining to the matters Trump wanted Ukraine to investigate -- specifically, the Bidens’ business dealings in that country and Kiev’s alleged interference in the 2016 election.
But that changes on the Senate side, where Republicans have the majority and Trump allies chair key committees. Already, they’ve signaled their interest in exploring issues that House Democrats glossed over during their hearings.
On Thursday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., penned a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo requesting the release of any documents related to contacts between former Vice President Joe Biden and former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, and to a meeting between son Hunter Biden’s business partner and former Secretary of State John Kerry.
This pertains to questions surrounding the elder Biden’s role in pressing for the ouster of a Ukrainian prosecutor who had been investigating the natural gas firm Burisma, where Hunter Biden served on the board. Biden denies any wrongdoing, but Republicans have pressed for details throughout the impeachment process, in a bid to show that even though Trump’s pressure campaign on Kiev triggered the impeachment inquiry, his concern was legitimate.
On the House side, Republicans likewise encountered challenges digging into allegations of Ukraine interference in the 2016 election. While Trump has sought to press an unsupported theory that Ukraine was tied to Democratic National Committee hacking, GOP lawmakers have sought details on other issues that are more grounded in published reports -- like whether former DNC consultant Alexandra Chalupa was improperly digging up dirt on Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and others with Ukraine’s help at the time.
Democrats did not grant GOP requests to call Biden's son Hunter, Chalupa and others on the House side.
But while it’s unclear if Senate Republicans will at least attempt to call these and other witnesses, high-ranking members are showing their early interest in exploring the issues.
Aside from the Graham letter, Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., and Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, have penned a letter to the head of the National Archives and Records Administration to request records of multiple White House meetings that took place in 2016 involving Obama administration officials, Ukrainian government representatives and Democratic National Committee officials.
Johnson and Grassley wrote that during a meeting in 2016, officials “brought up investigations relating to Burisma Holdings.” The senators added that a Ukrainian political officer working in the Ukraine Embassy in Washington said U.S. officials in that meeting asked that "Kiev drop the Burisma probe and allow the FBI to take it over.”
They added that White House records revealed that Chalupa had attended “numerous meetings at the White House, including one event with President Obama.”
The new requests from Senate Republicans come as the House ended its series of scheduled hearings on Thursday. The Intelligence Committee could announce additional hearings and depositions, but at this time, nothing has been scheduled.
The committee may now write and transmit its report to the House Judiciary Committee, which could begin writing articles of impeachment ahead of a floor vote.
“What the House ends up passing will drive a lot of what we end up doing over here,” a senior Republican aide familiar with the ongoing discussions told Fox News Friday.
The aide told Fox News that the White House made a “positive” and “significant” development this week, as officials indicated “what they want” for the trial.
In the Senate trial, three separate parties have input to how it will play out: Senate Republicans, Senate Democrats and the White House.
“It is impossible for us to come up with contours for impeachment without input from the White House,” the aide said. “Their input is a very positive step so we can try to control this as much as possible.”
The White House, on Thursday, signaled that they would like a Senate trial to last no longer than two weeks. The impeachment of former President Bill Clinton lasted for six weeks.
“We all want speedy,” the aide said. “This is the first indication the White House has given and that’s a positive — before it was radio silence from them, and now they’re starting to indicate what they want this thing to look like.”
The aide explained that the Senate, once they receive articles of impeachment, will begin working on two resolutions — one that governs the timeline of the trial, and the other that sets up witnesses for closed-door depositions, as well as which witness will be required to testify on the stand.
The aide explained that the resolutions are “significant,” noting that they will “be the main avenue that evidence is admitted.”
The aide suggested that Republican senators like Graham, Grassley and Johnson could be attempting to help “shape” the witness list and the trial.
A senior administration official, though, claimed Friday there’s “ample reasons” for the Senate to simply dismiss the case – though GOP senators have indicated that’s unlikely to happen.
Yet the official still maintained it’s “100 percent to our advantage to have [a] full trial” in the Senate.
Meanwhile, Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, said sending articles of impeachment to the Senate was "good news."
“Everyone knows what they’re going to do next. They’re going to impeach the president and send it onto the Senate, but that is the good news. That’s good news,” Stewart said. “In the U.S. Senate, there won’t be any secret testimony or dishonest leadership … or to deny a defense.”
He added: “So we’ll finally be able to get to the truth.”
Stewart went on to list several witnesses he hoped the Senate would call to testify, including the whistleblower, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, Hunter Biden, Burisma board member Devon Archer, Chalupa, and Fusion GPS researcher Nellie Ohr.
And the president, himself, seems to be welcoming the trial as well.
“There’s nothing there,” Trump said Friday during an interview with “Fox & Friends,” saying “there should never be an impeachment,” and echoing GOP requests for the whistleblower, Schiff and Hunter Biden to appear as witnesses.
At the center of the impeachment inquiry, which began in September, is Trump’s July 25 phone call with Kiev. That call prompted the whistleblower complaint to the intelligence community inspector general, and in turn, the impeachment inquiry in the House. Trump challenged the accuracy of the complaint, though the transcript released by the White House did support the core allegations that he pressed for politically related investigations.
The president’s request came after millions in U.S. military aid to Ukraine had been frozen, which Democrats and witnesses have claimed shows a "quid pro quo" arrangement. Trump denies any wrongdoing.

President Trump hosts heated vaping meeting, discusses dangers of outright flavor ban

President Donald Trump, center, flanked by Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, left, and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, right, speaks during a meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, Friday, Nov. 22, 2019, on youth vaping and the electronic cigarette epidemic. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

As the number of vaping-related deaths continues to climb, the White House is seeking to curb the emerging health crisis. President Trump held a meeting with stakeholders and industry experts on Friday to discuss potential solutions to the growing health risks of vaping and its influence on youth.
“66 percent of the kids addicted to these products are saying they didn’t even know it had nicotine in it, they thought it was just a candy type product,” stated Sen. Mitt Romney. “It’s the flavor that gets the kids in it, it’s a health emergency.”
Things got heated between vaping lobbyists and anti-tobacco activists.
Industry experts have claimed a widespread flavor ban would shutter thousands of businesses and make it harder for former smokers to stay off cigarettes. At the same time, activists remain steadfast in their calls for the government to enact stricter curbs on e-cigarette flavors.

Chart shows the trend in teen vaping and smoking since 2011;

“The flavors have fueled youth use of these products,” said ‘Tobacco Free Kids’ President Matthew Myers. “It led to a level of addiction that we have never seen, even with cigarettes, because these products deliver more nicotine more powerfully.”
President Trump has emphasized the importance of finding common ground on this legislation. His administration hopes to find a solution that will simultaneously limit youth vaping, support vaping industry jobs and preserve adult access to these products.
“There is a serious problem among our youth and their growing addiction to e-cigarettes,” stated Deputy Press Secretary Judd Deere. “This meeting will allow the President and other administration officials an opportunity to hear from a large group, representing all sides, as we continue to develop responsible guidelines that protect the public health and the American people.”

The president has also expressed concern for an outright ban on flavored products, suggesting it could encourage the use of black market products.
“If you don’t give it to them, it’s going to come here illegally,” said President Trump. “Legitimate companies making something that’s safe, they’re going to be selling stuff on a street corner that could be horrible.”
By the end of the meeting, all collectively agreed on imposing a new age limit on vaping products, raising the minimum age to 21-years-old. The president stated his administration would work towards getting that enacted soon.
The meeting came after the CDC released its latest numbers for vaping-related deaths and injuries. On Thursday, they confirmed 47 deaths and 2,290 vaping-related illnesses from 25 different states. The CDC has cautioned the public against using e-cigarette products that contain THC or Vitamin E Acetate, which are both currently suspected to cause illness.

FILE – In this Friday, Oct. 4, 2019 file photo, a woman using an electronic cigarette exhales a puff of smoke in Mayfield Heights, Ohio. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

Rachel Maddow Impeachment Cartoons