ICE has done facial recognition searches on millions of photos Maryland drivers without court approval. They appear to be targeting immigrants who sought driver’s licenses after 2013. Read the rest
Today on "Every Single Expectation of Gradual Fascist Action Under the Trump Administration Has Continued Coming True:"
The Department of Justice today announced the creation of a section dedicated to investigating and litigating revocation of naturalization. The Denaturalization Section will join the existing sections within the Civil Division’s Office of Immigration Litigation—the District Court Section and the Appellate Section. This move underscores the Department’s commitment to bring justice to terrorists, war criminals, sex offenders, and other fraudsters who illegally obtained naturalization.
I generally try to avoid slippery slope arguments as they are a logical fallacy. But this one is particularly concerning. Take it in good faith, and there's still the issue of "de-naturalizing" people from countries like Tibet, or the Kingdom of Fiji, or Czechoslovakia, or the United Arab Republic, or the Catalan Republic — nation-states that technically no longer exist, but from which naturalized US citizens could have possibly emigrated.
And then there are the worst-case scenarios: who could trust that the government would limit these cases to terrorists and sex offenders, and who gets to define what constitutes terrorism or a sex offense?
This is a dangerous nativist agenda no matter what way you slice it,
The Department of Justice Creates Section Dedicated to Denaturalization Cases [US Department of Justice]
Image: U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Tracy L. DeMarco / Public Domain, depicting a military spouse becoming a military spouse receiving her naturalized US citizenship on foreign soil. Read the rest
On Wednesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court declaring opposition to efforts by Donald Trump’s administration to end the federal 'Dreamer' program which protects from deportation hundreds of thousands of immigrants who brought into the country as kids. Read the rest
The apparent leader of a gang of white supremacists who terrorized immigrants along the US-Mexico border, holding hundreds of them at gunpoint, has been attacked in jail and reportedly received non-life-threatening injuries, say authorities. Read the rest
You guys, when the weird gets weird on top of the weirdest weird, you have this kind of story. It's really weird. Read the rest
In their 'No Tech For ICE' report, Mijente details how firms like Amazon, Microsoft, and Palantir plan to profit from the detention and deportations of migrants. Read the rest
An update on the children of migrants who were forcibly separated from their family members by federal agents, at the orders of Donald Trump. Read the rest
The state of California filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its decision to add a question about citizenship status to the 2020 U.S. Census form. Read the rest
The men and women of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) never seem to miss a chance to make themselves look like a shower of bastards. They've gone after a 10-year-old girl as she came out of surgery, separated children from their parents, and have created an environment where calling on the police for help can be a terrifying experience for undocumented immigrants.
One could argue that these things all happen as a result of current American legislation, morality be damned. ICE agents are doing exactly what they were empowered to do. As so much of what ICE does makes many people want to take a bath after reading about it, it's heartening to find that not all of the bullshit ICE employees pull is hunky dory under the rule of law. According to the Washington Post, a lawyer in the employ of ICE has been charged with stealing the identities of seven people under investigation by ICE, using their credentials for financial gain.
Charged with one count of aggravated identity theft and identity fraud, Raphael A. Sanchez, ICE’s chief legal counsel in Seattle, is up Shit Creek with nary a paddle in sight. According to the charging documents filed against Sanchez, the lawyer allegedly attempted to defraud several financial institutions using the identity information of individuals under investigation by ICE between October 2016- October 2017. There's not a lot of information out there on the extent of Sanchez's alleged crimes, yet. But we could learn more about what he was getting up to soon, as a plea hearing for his case is scheduled for later this week. Read the rest
