In a sketchy scheme, six non-governmental organizations have been assigned the task of sorting through the tens of thousands of asylum seekers that President Trump successfully kept in Mexico (so they wouldn’t bring the Chinese Virus into the US as they waited for their asylum claims to be processed) to determine which ones get to enter the US now.
But, critics, like a top ACLU attorney says:
“The government cannot farm out the asylum system.”
Biden administration taps humanitarian groups to pick asylum-seekers to allow into country
SAN DIEGO — The Biden administration has quietly tasked six humanitarian groups with recommending which migrants should be allowed to stay in the U.S. instead of being rapidly expelled from the country under federal pandemic-related powers that block people from seeking asylum.
The groups will determine who is most vulnerable in Mexico, and their criteria has not been made public. It comes as large numbers of people are crossing the southern border and as the government faces intensifying pressure to lift the public health powers instituted by former President Donald Trump and kept in place by President Joe Biden during the coronavirus pandemic.
Several members of the consortium spoke to The Associated Press about the criteria and provided details of the system that have not been previously reported. The government is aiming to admit to the country up to 250 asylum-seekers a day who are referred by the groups and is agreeing to that system only until July 31. By then, the consortium hopes the Biden administration will have lifted the public health rules, though the government has not committed to that.
So far, a total of nearly 800 asylum-seekers have been let in since May 3, and members of the consortium say there is already more demand than they can meet.
Think about this, three of the organizations are not even US-based organizations!
So we have foreign non-profit groups deciding who can enter the US?
The groups have not been publicly identified except for the International Rescue Committee, a global relief organization. The others are London-based Save the Children; two U.S.-based organizations, HIAS and Kids in Need of Defense; and two Mexico-based organizations, Asylum Access and the Institute for Women in Migration, according to two people with direct knowledge who spoke on condition of anonymity because the information was not intended for public release.
How did the Harris/Biden gang decide who would play God? It is a secret!
Critics of the new selection processes say too much power is vested in a small number of organizations and that the effort is shrouded in secrecy without a clear explanation of how the groups were chosen. Critics also say there are no assurances that the most vulnerable or deserving migrants will be chosen to seek asylum.
Some consortium members are concerned that going public may cause their offices in Mexico to be mobbed by asylum-seekers, overwhelming their tiny staffs and exposing them to potential threats and physical attacks from extortionists and other criminals.
[….]
Lee Gelernt
ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said advocacy groups are in “a very difficult position because they need to essentially rank the desperation” of people, but he insisted it was temporary. The government, he said, “cannot farm out the asylum system.”
Migration experts not involved in the process have questioned how the groups determine who is eligible.
“It has been murky,” said Jessica Bolter, an analyst at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute who believes the administration is trying to quietly be humane without encouraging more people to come, a balancing act she doubts will succeed.
The Trump Administration will defend the so-called “travel ban” in the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals today in Richmond, Virginia. Next week, the 9th Circuit will hear the case that includes the “travel ban” and the refugee moratorium. Omar Jadwat (ACLU attorney) will argue the case against Trump in Richmond today where the entire 4th Circuit Court of Appeals will be present (in order to put on a good media show?). Photo: https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/his-name-omar-jadwat-and-hes-aclu-lawyer-arguing-against-muslim-ban-heres-what-he USA Today cites the extraordinary efforts the 4th Circuit will make as the entire court will hear it:
….Both courts are among the most liberal in the country.
The Richmond hearing will be held in front of the entire 15-member U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, which is extremely unusual. Appeals court cases usually go before three-judge panels; the full court only rarely agrees to hear cases even after a panel rules.
“It’s been more than half a century since the court has done it,” Tumlin [Karen Tumlin, NILC’s legal director] says. “It’s a bit of a legal unicorn. You don’t get this very often.”
Here is what Reuters is saying about the cases which most assume will end up in the Supreme Court, but not until the fall. By the way, one of the main issues the opponents of Trump are hanging their legal hats on is what Trump said while campaigning. I’m not a lawyer but I can’t see that as anything the Supreme Court would want to turn into a precedent.
Imagine the legal fun later if candidates’ campaign words were used in legal cases against them when they attempted to legislate after they were elected (by the voters!). It would truly mean that courts are ruling America and not elected representatives of the people. Reuters on Friday:
Legal challenges to President Donald Trump’s temporary travel ban on people from some Muslim-majority countries heat up again next week when two U.S. appeals courts consider whether it is constitutional.
[….]
Omar Jadwat, an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, who will be arguing the case at the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia on Monday, said the fact that so much time has passed since the ban was issued is proof that there was no pressing national security need for it in the first place. [Ha! Not much of a legal argument! We can’t possibly know that yet! Someone admitted in the last few weeks could be an Islamic terrorist who doesn’t act for years!—ed]
[….]
The Department of Homeland Security “is, and will be, continuously examining ways to enhance the screening and vetting process to shut down terrorist and criminal pathways into the United States,” agency spokesman David Lapan said. “Some improvements will be classified, others will be public, but the Department has only just begun ways to enhance the security of our immigration system,” he said in an email.
Opponents – including states and civil rights groups – say that both the first ban and the revised ban, which also put a halt to all refugee admissions to the country for four months, discriminates against Muslims.
[….]
The 4th Circuit will decide the fate of a ruling from a Maryland district judge that struck down a section of the revised executive order barring visitors from Syria, Iran, Libya, Sudan, Yemen and Somalia.
The hearing will take place before 14 full-time judges of the appellate court. Ten of them were appointed by Democrats, and four by Republicans.
Then, on March 15 [Must be May 15, thanks to a reader for catching this!—ed], a three-judge panel at the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will review a decision from a Hawaii judge that halted not just the travel portion of the ban but also the section that barred refugees. The judges – who will sit on a panel in Seattle – have been assigned but their identities have not been made public.
More from Reuters here.
Please see that the refugee portion of the EO is not being considered today in Richmond. Only the Hawaii judge was aggressive enough to include the refugee moratorium and reduced ceiling in his decision. The Maryland judge clearly must have recognized that refugee admissions across the board are within the power of the President to regulate according to the Refugee Act of 1980. Trump should have ignored the rogue Hawaiian judge on refugee admissions, but alas, he didn’t!
See RRW’s right hand side bar where I track numbers admitted in FY2017 every few days. This is from last Friday:
May 5, 2017: 43,241 admitted (this is 5,135 refugees since the supposed moratorium began and 13,119 since Trump was inaugurated).
Watch the 4th Circuit/ACLU show live today (2:30 Eastern) by going here: https://www.c-span.org/video/?427706-1/fourth-circuit-hears-oral-argument-travel-ban
….if members of Congress do not grow spines and begin to revamp/rewrite the Refugee Act of 1980, anything President Trump does now will be lost in 4 or 8 years.
And, whether Trump’s EO does even half of what it promises will depend on who becomes the Asst. Sec. of State for Population, Refugees and Migration, and who becomes the Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (HHS).
Donald Trump can’t do it alone. Tell your members of Congress and US Senators that it is time to reform US Refugee Admissions Program.
Here is Betsy McCaughey writing at the New York Post about beleaguered school districts coping with large numbers (and costs) of refugee children the school system wasn’t expecting (due to the secrecy surrounding their placement).
I don’t have time to link all of the places we have identified in the past having such problems, but search RRW for Lancaster, PA, Amarillo, TX, Manchester, NH and Utica, NY. New York Post (hat tip: Judy and others):
Public schools beleaguered by waves of refugees will get a breather thanks to President Trump’s executive order suspending refugee entry for 120 days. And under Trump’s new policy, when the US reopens its doors to refugees, local communities will be consulted. That beats the Obama administration’s dictatorial approach, which has overwhelmed many school districts. [Bush and all the Presidents before him did nothing to allow communities any say either—-ed]
Until now, refugee children have been placed in districts with little or no advance notice. Arriving from countries like Congo, Burma, Somalia and Syria, they speak no English and bear the signs of trauma from their ordeals. They need interpreters, counselors and attention. But often they’re placed in the poorest school districts — which can least afford them.
Refugee students with their stable of ACLU lawyers sue ‘welcoming’ Lancaster, PA for not giving refugee students a better education. http://www.phillyvoice.com/refugees-suing-pennsylvania-school-district/
School authorities try to be welcoming, but no good deed goes unpunished. The American Civil Liberties Union is targeting these communities, claiming they’re not doing enough for refugees. On top of the costs of educating the refugees, towns are getting slapped with lawsuits and legal fees.
The State Department decides where refugees are settled.The feds pay nonprofits such as Catholic Charities to rent and furnish apartments for refugees, enroll them in English class and put their children in public school.
In New York, upstate cities like Buffalo, Syracuse and Utica are magnets for resettlement because the $900-a-month housing stipend goes a lot farther than in New York City or on Long Island.
Buffalo has absorbed 10,000 refugees in the last decade. At Lafayette High School there, 45 languages are spoken, 70 percent of students are just learning English and nearly 40 percent missed years of schooling before arriving.
More here.
BTW, George Soros is one of the ACLU’s biggest sugar-daddies!
See tag ‘Where is Congress’on this and other refugee-related issues (hint: most are hiding!).
It is all over the news this morning (especially, of course, on CNN). Those arriving refugees being held in airports have been released into American communities. CNN says there were 109 throughout the country with another 173 attempting to board planes abroad. ACLU lawyer and ACLU’s executive director talk about their victory outside NY court. Photo and story here: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/federal-judge-grants-emergency-stay-thwart-trump-refugee-ban-article-1.2958483
I really can’t tell you how far this will go. We will just have to wait for a bunch of talking head lawyers to dissect it for us. And, I have so much else to get to including the dreadful news that, again according to CNN, Trump agreed to admit those 1000-2000 reject asylum seekers Australia was holding in detention—a huge disappointment! Here is ABC on the ACLU’s victory:
A federal court in Brooklyn tonight granted an emergency stay on President Trump’s executive order that bans immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries for two Iraqi men who had valid visas to enter the United States but were detained today when they arrived in New York.
Trump’s order calls for an immediate suspension of immigration from countries with ties to terror, including Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, Iran and Libya, for a time period of 90 days. It also calls for the complete suspension of Syrian refugees for an indefinite period.
The ACLU, which had filed the challenge on behalf of the two men, contended that the stay applied nationally to all cases, but that was not clear from the ruling. ABC News was attempting to clarify whether that was the case.
The ruling does not appear to overturn administration policy, but does appear to apply to all of those people currently detained at airports across the country who were facing imminent deportation. The judge asked repeated questions of the federal prosecutors charged with defending the executive order, but they were unable to provide numbers of people who were facing the prospect of returning to a country where there lives would be in danger. [All they had to do was call up Barbara Day and/or Laurence Bartlett at the DOS Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration and they could get numbers of those arriving.—ed]
Continue reading here.
And, if you would like to dig deeper, one of our readers ‘Theodore’ commented at this post and has sent links with the wording of the ‘stay’ and some analysis.
See also: George Soros gives ACLU $50 million (largest gift ever), here. Can we call this the Soros vs. Trump battle for the soul of America?
This post is archived in our Trump Watch! category, here.
https://www.aclupa.org/
In myprevious post I noted that the media (the New York Times) is working overtime to sell the public on the notion that everything is just peachy in Lancaster with the decades-old refugee program there. Then we see stories like this one that indicate at least some segments of the community are not thrilled at all—namely the school system.
BTW, see my Ten Things your town needs to know when ‘welcoming’ refugees and see that the first great impact on your community will most likely be in the school system.
Look how much this lawsuit filed by the ACLU is costing Lancaster taxpayers! If your town becomes a new ‘welcoming’ site, be prepared for unanticipated costs like these!
From Keystone Crossroads (hat tip: Joanne):
About 17,000 of the refugees arriving each year in the U.S. are children, yet their education — in particular, how public schools might accommodate them — plays a surprisingly minor role in placing families.
Federal law says public schools have to adjust to meet any number of students’ varying needs, including overcoming language barriers.
But that doesn’t always happen.
A few lawsuits have been filed in recent years on behalf of student refugees suffering the consequences of systematic shortcomings.
Schools have settled out of court in most cases.
Not Lancaster.
[….]
Lawyers for the Pennsylvania ACLU and Philadelphia-based Education Law Center sued the School District of Lancaster last summer.
The lawsuit claims that, despite the city’s robust tradition of resettlement, several teenage refugees waited months to enroll in public school. Ultimately, they were denied outright or diverted to magnet school Phoenix Academy, which has less support for nonnative English speakers than mainstream McCaskey High School.
[….]
In the meantime, a judicial panel in Philadelphia is considering Lancaster’s appeal. (See that story here)
[….]
Whether the district’s on the hook for any expenses depends on how the case turns out.
Defense attorneys’ bills are at about $150,000 so far, according to the district’s business administrator Matthew Przywara. The ACLU’s costs are approaching $2 million.
But Lancaster’s insurer has indicated it won’t pay out more than $100,000 for this lawsuit, district officials say.
There is more, continue reading here.
If the ACLU prevails be forewarned for refugee resettlement to your town to become even more expensive! Click here for more on Lancaster, PA. Someone should do a study of the negative impact on this longtime resettlement site.
In a sketchy scheme, six non-governmental organizations have been assigned the task of sorting through the tens of thousands of asylum seekers that President Trump successfully kept in Mexico (so they wouldn’t bring the Chinese Virus into the US as they waited for their asylum claims to be processed) to determine which ones get to enter the US now.
