July 5, 2018

Do you think Trump will try to overturn the 14th Amendment?

Trump Creates ‘Denaturalization’ Task Force to Pursue Deportation Against Thousands of U.S. Citizens

In June, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services quietly announced a new task force that will investigate “bad” naturalization cases, wherein the agency will hire dozens of lawyers and immigration officers “to find U.S. citizens they say should not have been naturalized, to revoke their citizenship, and then eventually deport them,” according to The Takeaway, from WNYC and Public Radio International.

CNN reports that that the new office in Southern California will review cases and then refer them to the Justice Department, which will then pursue denaturalization proceedings against U.S. citizens accused of fraud.

In an interview with the Associated Press, USCIS Director L. Francis Cissna said the number of cases could reach into the thousands—this in a nation of about 325 million.

“We finally have a process in place to get to the bottom of all these bad cases and start denaturalizing people who should not have been naturalized in the first place,” Cissna said. “What we’re looking at, when you boil it all down, is potentially a few thousand cases.”

https://www.theroot.com/trump-creates-denaturalization-task-force-to-pursue-d-1827372139

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Trump: We'll see if Anchor Babies are Covered By 14th Amendment

GOP Presidential candidate Donald Trump questions whether or not the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution covers immigrants having children in the US, "Anchor Babies."
---Aug.19.2015

https://www.nbcnews.com/video/trump-well-see-if-anchor-babies-are-covered-by-14th-amendment-508954179909

July 5, 2018

Here's to you Scott Pruitt...

July 4, 2018

At 9 He Lost His Mom to Gang Violence. At 12 He Lost His Dad to Trump's Immigration Policies.

A father pleaded for asylum for his 12-year-old son. Instead, the Trump administration deported him and put his son in a shelter. Now the family cannot get the boy out.

By Karla Cornejo Villavicencio/New York Times/July 3, 2018

When Brayan was 9 years old, in 2016, his mother was brutally raped and murdered in Honduras. Her body was found in a septic tank. When Brayan saw her in the coffin, she was so disfigured that he couldn’t recognize her. She had been seven months pregnant. That’s when his nightmares began, his fear of the dark. His mother’s boyfriend had abused her and was arrested in the killing, but he claimed it was a gang killing and was set free. He threatened Brayan and his father, José, so José vowed to bring Brayan to safety in the United States. The opportunity to travel there safely arrived this year.

During Holy Week in late March, Brayan and his father joined a caravan of hundreds of Central American migrants fleeing through Mexico to the United States. When they arrived at the California border in May, Brayan’s father — seeking to follow the letter of the law — heeded the advice of immigration advocates and presented himself and his son for asylum. Border Patrol officers refused to even glance at the notarized letters from lawyers making his case, José said. He was jailed for 20 days, asked to sign papers in English he did not understand and was deported to Honduras. Brayan was flown to a shelter for children in Maryland.

Brayan is now one of the more than 2,000 children — a conservative estimate — who have been separated from their families as part of the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance crackdown on undocumented immigration. On June 26, a federal district judge in San Diego ordered that those families must be reunited within 30 or fewer days — even though a Justice Department lawyer acknowledged there was no formal procedure to reunite families.

Brayan’s story, pieced together from interviews with him, his father and his grandmother — whose last names are being withheld because they are undocumented — shows just how hard the government is making the reunification process, and why every step of the zero-tolerance policy is needlessly traumatizing for thousands of children and their families.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/03/opinion/family-separation-zero-tolerance-asylum

July 4, 2018

Being Poor Can Mean Losing a Driver's License. Not Anymore in Tennessee.

By Richard A. Oppel Jr.
July 4, 2018

Millions of Americans have had their driver’s licenses taken away not because they got drunk and got behind the wheel, or because they caused an accident and hurt someone: They lost their licenses because they were too poor to pay court costs or traffic fines, which can run into hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars.

About 40 states have such laws on the books that suspend or revoke licenses of drivers. But now, a federal district judge has ruled that one of these laws, in Tennessee, violates the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

Experts say it is the first time a federal judge has formally declared any of these state laws unconstitutional. Critics have long argued that the laws make it harder for poor people to pay their debts, because the only way for them to do so — to get in the car and go to work — means breaking the law. And if they do drive, it means even more fees piled on if they get caught.

The ruling does not affect states other than Tennessee. But it still is a major victory for advocates of the poor who have targeted license revocation laws as some of the worst examples of statutes that effectively criminalize poverty, where fees and fines and bail money for even minor infractions can sweep people into a vortex of mounting debts out of which many will never climb.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/04/us/drivers-license-tennessee

July 3, 2018

GOP Jim Jordan accused of turning blind eye to sexual abuse as Ohio State wres. coach

*He said he had no knowledge.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/powerful-gop-rep-jim-jordan-accused-turning-blind-eye-sexual-n888386

July 2, 2018

3 Black U.S. Senators Introduce Bill to Make Lynching a Federal Hate Crime

Senators Cory Booker, Tim Scott and Kamala Harris introduced a bill that would make lynching a federal hate crime. A similar bill has been introduced in the House.




By Sandra E. Garcia
June 29, 2018

The United States Senate’s three black members introduced a bill on Friday that would make lynching a federal hate crime.

The move came more than two weeks after a similar bill was introduced in the House of Representatives. Nearly 200 anti-lynching bills were introduced in Congress from 1882 to 1986. None were approved.

“This sends a very powerful message,” said Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, who introduced the Senate bill along with Kamala Harris, Democrat of California, and Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican. “Literally thousands of African-Americans were being lynched throughout history, and the Senate never stepped up to pass any legislation to stop this heinous, despicable behavior.”


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/29/us/senate-anti-lynching-bill.html?

Mr. Scott, your party will vote against this bill. My question is what will you do?