From NPR:

The new order — which is expected to come with broad exceptions — comes as the administration continues to wrestle with high unemployment among American workers because of the coronavirus pandemic and tries to kick-start the economic recovery.

The order would target H-1B visas, which are designed for certain skilled workers such as those employed in the tech industry, as well as L-1 visas, which are meant for executives who work for large corporations.

The executive action is also expected to suspend H-2B visas for seasonal workers such as hotel and construction staff, and J-1 visas, which are meant for research scholars and professors and other cultural and work-exchange programs. Trump could renew the suspensions when they lapse. The order is not expected to immediately affect anyone already in the United States.

Back in April, Trump had already attempted to limit some immigration despite the coronavirus outbreak. That fact that there is an ongoing pandemic — even with some states "opening up" for the time being — the idea of restricting work travel seems like  a moot point. On one hand, it does perhaps sound like a considerate gesture, by prioritizing employment for the record-number of Americans currently out of work. On the other hand, it also feels like an opportunistic attempt to say "Hey look I did the things I promised and I stopped immigration!" without actually stopping anything, because no one's travelling, let alone immigrating in search of work right now.

Trump Expected To Suspend H-1B, Other Visas Until End Of Year [Franco Ordoñez / NPR]

Image: Public Domain via Needpix Read the rest

• POTUS says federal government will resubmit papers on DACA

• 'FOX IS TERRIBLE!'

• He's feeling weak and vulnerable, and he's lashing out against Fox News.

In a series of crazy-ass tweets on Friday morning, impeached and obviously unfit U.S. president Donald J. Trump says he will renew his effort to end legal protections for young immigrants, after the Supreme Court blocked his first try just yesterday in an historic ruling. Read the rest

Immigration and Customs Enforcement to halt most arrests until after coronavirus crisis

'Rule will require immigration officers to collect cheek swabs from what could amount to hundreds of thousands of people a year '

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

“We are desperate — desperate — for more people,” Donald Trump cabinet member Mick Mulvaney said in a recording obtained by The Washington Post. “We are running out of people to fuel the economic growth that we’ve had in our nation over the last four years. We need more immigrants.” Read the rest

A commercial database that maps the movements of millions of cellphones is being used by immigration and border authorities to round up undesirable immigrants for detention and deportation. Read the rest

Shahab Dehghani is an Iranian citizen and college student who has been studying in Boston for the past several years. According to MassLive, he had been in the United States for two years while enrolled at UMass Boston. Dehghani had planned to transfer to Northeastern University, but returned home to Iran in December 2018, and had to wait a year for his F-1 student visa to get re-approved. With all the proper paperwork in place, he returned to Boston to start his first semester at Northeastern.

Upon landing at Logan Airport this past Sunday, he was immediately detained US Customs and Border Protection agents.

The agents wanted to remove him from the country right away. But a federal court upheld an emergency stay from Dehghani's lawyer that would ensure he remained in the country for 48-hours until a proper hearing could be held. According to that same lawyer, CBP deported Dehghani anyway.

It's kind of hard for authoritarian law enforcement to argue that they're upholding "law and order" when they're literally disobeying the law. But somehow that never stops them.

Student Deported From Boston Despite Federal Court Order [Shannon Dooling / WBUR]

Image of Moakley Federal Courthouse in Boston via Wikimedia Commons Read the rest

The Trump administration's brazen propaganda game has always been strong, and always finds impressive new ways to out-horrible itself.

So this is really just the latest example of dehumanizing language presented in an official context.

Of course Border Patrol isn't going to let a random group of radical political activists show up and start injecting people with drugs. https://t.co/k8e9hYSOSy

— DHS Press Secretary (@SpoxDHS) December 10, 2019

The Washington Examiner article linked to in the tweet is hardly objective, but even it still holds back from this kind of labelling.

Left-wing organizations that have called for the closing of immigrant detention facilities said they were turned away from a Border Patrol facility in Southern California after showing up to provide what they said were flu vaccines for detainees.

Members from Doctors for Camp Closures, Families Belong Together, and Never Again Action arrived at the Chula Vista Border Patrol Station in San Ysidro, California, Monday saying they wanted to vaccinate adults and children in temporary custody. The organizations said employees from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, who oversee station operations, turned them away.

Which part of this is "radical," exactly? Is it the belief in vaccines? Treating immigrants like human beings? Trying to prevent disease from spreading? Or handing out free healthcare?

I'm even willing (begrudgingly so) to overlook the CBP policy that allegedly required these Border Patrol agents to turn the doctors away. Maybe there's a reason for that policy that's not inherently xenophobic and authoritarian (maybe); the Examiner article does note that, "Detainees at Border Patrol facilities are not supposed to be kept for more than 72 hours, and people can get flu vaccines after they are transferred out of CBP custody to other agencies." Read the rest

Two of documentary film groups are suing the administration of President Donald Trump for requiring foreigners to hand over their social media account IDs, even pseudonymous ones, to U.S. officials when applying for a visa. Read the rest

In 2003, artist Tom Kiefer took a part-time job as a janitor at a Border Patrol facility in Ajo, Arizona. It was just something to subsidize his creative work. But he watched first-hand as things got more crowded, and policies became more cruel. He saw canned food taken away from migrants and donated to a food pantry, then later thrown away entirely, even though it was still good. The same thing happened with water bottles. Then there were the personal possessions deemed "non-essential" — the toothbrushes, rosaries, medication, and toys. Some things — like shoelaces — were thrown away as potential weapons.

So Kiefer began to collect these discarded items and photograph them. He gathered more than 100,000 items over the course of a decade or so, and saved them in his studio to photograph.

He's barely made it through the pile. But now the photographs are on display at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, providing a compassionate insight into migrant lives, and how the things that we discard might matter to some people.

You can learn more in the video, or check out the gallery website below.

 

El Sueño Americano | The American Dream: Photographs by Tom Kiefer at the Skirball Cultural Center Read the rest

We're number one. In the racist, eugenicist, genocidal theft of infants, toddlers, and tender-age children from undocumented and mostly indigenous migrants who are fleeing violence in Guatemala and other Central American failed states. Read the rest

Positive stories about Latin American immigrants and the United States are difficult to come by right now. But at least Pedro X. Molina and his family have found a happy ending.

Molina is an award-winning political cartoonist, whose scathing satire has been syndicated all across the world. Originally from Nicaragua, Molina was on staff at the Confidencial when their offices were raided and ransacked by police in December 2018. Like most dictatorial leaders, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega was none-too-pleased with the Confidencial for doing such terrible things as, well, reporting the truth about his brutal and inhumane actions—you know, like ordering a violent police raid on journalists who dared to criticize him. 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

Asian Boss went to the streets of Tokyo to interview people from Nepal, the Philippines, Indonesia, Australia, who moved to Japan to become convenience store staffers, fast food employees, farm workers, translators, and blue collar workers. Read the rest

The administration of Donald Trump is pulling $270 million from the Department of Homeland Security, including $155 million of FEMA disaster relief funding, to pay for all migrant concentration camps, according to DHS and a leading congressional Democrat.

Money will also reportedly be taken away from the budget for planned upgrades to the National Cybersecurity Protection System, and new equipment for the U.S. Coast Guard.

Everything is awful, and getting worse.

From Reuters:

The money, which was also set aside for the U.S. Coast Guard, will be used to pay for detention facilities and courts for migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border. DHS officials say they have been overwhelmed by a surge of asylum-seeking migrants who are fleeing violence and poverty in Central America.

The Trump administration is seeking to circumvent Congress and move money originally designated for other programs. This will allow the administration to continue to house immigrants arriving at the border, part of President Donald Trump’s promise not to “catch and release” migrants and allow them to await hearings outside of custody.

The administration plans to take $115 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster-relief fund just as hurricane season is heating up in the Atlantic Ocean, according to a letter from U.S. Representative Lucille Roybal-Allard, who chairs the congressional panel that oversees Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spending.

The letter also details that money will be taken for planned upgrades to the National Cybersecurity Protection System and new equipment for the U.S. Coast Guard, Roybal-Allard said.

Read the rest