November, 26 2018, 11:00pm EDT
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US Government Endangers Asylum Seekers with Unlawful Policies
WASHINGTON
Unlawful US border policies are leaving thousands of asylum seekers stranded in Mexico, where they are facing threats of deportation to their countries of origin, where they potentially face serious harm, Amnesty International said Monday following a research mission last week. Conditions could only worsen under a reported deal between both countries that, if agreed, would force asylum-seekers to remain in Mexico while their claims are processed, rather than allow them to enter the United States.
As a result of Amnesty International's research focusing on the treatment of refugees and migrants in the caravans in Guatemala, the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, Mexico City and Tijuana throughout October and November, the organization on Monday issued 26 recommendations to the US and Mexican governments, as well as to the authorities in Central American countries of origin and transit, to ensure human rights protections and humanitarian support for all those seeking asylum and en route, including calling on authorities to respect interntional standards on the use of force.
"Instead of militarizing the border and peddling fear and discrimination, President Trump's administration should show compassion for those forced to flee their homes and must receive their requests for asylum without delay, as required by US and international law," said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International.
"For their part, the governments of Mexico and Central America must take urgent action to guarantee the safety and wellbeing of all these people on the move and ensure they do not suffer further human rights violations. If Mexico agrees to do the US government's dirty work at the expense of the caravan members' dignity and human rights, it is effectively paying for Trump's shameful border wall."
"The danger posed to desperate families patiently waiting their turn for asylum at the border is an emergency of the US government's own making," said Margaret Huang, executive director of Amnesty International USA. "Using teargas in a situation where families, children and their parents were present was not only horrific, it was also a new low for this administration in its contempt for our shared human dignity and human rights."
Unsanitary conditions and unlawful asylum waitlists
On November 18, Amnesty International visited Tijuana's Benito Juarez sports complex, a temporary shelter where the municipal government had accommodated approximately 3,000 migrants and asylum seekers who had arrived in the first of several caravans totaling 8,000 to 10,000 people across Mexico. They joined thousands of other people that US authorities have forced to wait in Tijuana for weeks or months before allowing them to request asylum at the border. On 22 November, US Secretary of State Pompeo declared that the US government plans to unlawfully deny people that right by refusing entry of the caravans into the United States.
Mexican federal, state and municipal officials separately confirmed to Amnesty International that the temporary shelter did not have sufficient food, water and health services, and that respiratory illnesses were spreading among those staying there.
Since at least April 2018, US and Mexican authorities have unlawfully required asylum seekers to put their names on a quasi-official asylum waitlist on the Tijuana side of the San Ysidro Port of Entry, instead of allowing people to request asylum directly at the border. The list is jointly coordinated by the asylum seekers themselves and Mexican authorities, in response to US limits on the number of asylum seekers they will receive each day. People seeking asylum without identity documents are prohibited from joining the list of those waiting to request asylum, and if they miss the day their number is called, they risk losing their places entirely.
By turning away asylum-seekers at ports of entry, US authorities are violating their right to seek asylum from persecution and manufacturing an emergency along the border. This queue along the border exposes people who seek asylum to risks of detention and deportation by Mexican immigration officials, and exploitation by criminal gangs.
On November 21, Amnesty International reviewed the list, which contained the names of around 4,320 people, including about 2,000 caravan members, mostly from Honduras, who had arrived since 15 November. Those already on the list prior to the caravan's arrival had been waiting, on average, about five weeks in Tijuana before US authorities started processing their asylum claims. Officials from Mexico's National Institute of Migration (INM) and a Tijuana municipal official told Amnesty International that Mexican nationals comprised approximately 80 percent of those seeking asylum before the caravan arrived.
Mexican authorities cannot lawfully prevent people from exiting the country and seeking asylum at the US border. Yet Amnesty International confirmed with multiple sources in the Mexican government that Mexican immigration officials routinely take possession of the waitlist each night, and coordinate with US border authorities on how many asylum seekers from the list will be received each day. Amnesty International has received reports from Mexican officials speaking anonymously that raise doubts as to the supposed lack of capacity by US authorities to receive more people and indicate the pressure that the US government exercises on Mexican authorities to restrict entry of asylum seekers.
Mexican officials and asylum seekers at the San Ysidro Port of Entry told Amnesty International that US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials there were recently accepting 30 to 70 asylum applications per day. On November 16, CBP's San Ysidro Port Director told the Washington Post his staff could process 90 to 100 asylum seekers per day, provided that US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) took custody within 72 hours of those asylum seekers whom they processed.
In a meeting with Amnesty International on November 20, ICE officials declined to answer whether they were taking custody of asylum seekers in a timely fashion or faced any capacity constraints due to the recent arrival of the caravans, before abruptly ending the meeting.
Amnesty International calls on the US authorities to immediately respect people's right to claim asylum both at and between official ports of entry. Following the US government's declarations that they plan to unlawfully deny people in the caravans that right, Congress should decline to fund CBP operations absent rigorous congressional oversight of those operations and a written commitment from CBP to halt the illegal pushbacks of asylum-seekers both at and between US ports of entry. Amnesty International documented these pushbacks in a recent report.
People seeking asylum face risk of deportation by Mexican authorities
On November 19, Tijuana's municipal police force announced that it had detained 34 caravan members for "public disorder" (including drinking beer on the street) and transferred them to INM for potential deportation. Amnesty International immediately asked INM to facilitate its access to interview the detainees, after receiving unverified reports that Tijuana's municipal police may have racially profiled, entrapped and/or extorted some of them, and that their detentions may have resulted in their separation from family members staying at the Benito Juarez sports facility. INM did not allow the organization to visit them.
On November 20, a migrant rights expert with Mexico's National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) confirmed to Amnesty International that one or more families had been separated by the detentions, but said CNDH had not yet interviewed any of the detainees to assess the validity of the charges against them. He noted that people who were part of the caravans were at high risk of deportation if detained by municipal police, since most either lack legal status in Mexico or their legal stay is due to expire soon, including those planning to seek asylum at the US border. Under Mexican migration law, municipal police are not allowed to carry out migratory revisions of people's documents - a task reserved for the INM.
Local media in Tijuana reported on November 20 that 40 caravan members had been detained by municipal police and then deported by INM. This detention is part of a wider trend in recent days, with the INM carrying out several mass detentions across Mexico in response to the caravan, including of families and children. In some cases, the number of people detained has reached the hundreds. On November 25, Mexican authorities said that some of those who tried to cross into the United States and were met with teargas would be deported. Deporting people to countries were their lives are at risk, without giving them the chance to seek asylum, would violate Mexican and international law.
"Mexican municipal, state and federal authorities have struggled to accommodate and provide adequate humanitarian assistance for those stuck in Tijuana, and in some cases sought for Mexican immigration officials to deport people who are part of the caravans, potentially contrary to international law," said Erika Guevara-Rosas.
"Mexico's National Migration Institute should urgently clarify whether all of those caravan members detained in recent days have been provided with opportunities to request asylum in Mexico or regularize their status and reunify with their children or other family members."
Amnesty International calls on the Mexican government to ensure and expedite proper screening of migrants and asylum seekers who may qualify for international protection; and provide provisional documentation to those awaiting reception at US ports of entry, to prevent them from being deported to their countries of origin while their cases are processed.
The organization also recommends authorities in countries of origin to address the factors that drive people to leave, while transit and receiving countries must ensure their health and safety, provide them with humanitarian assistance, respect their right to claim asylum, and prevent and investigate any abuses and human rights violations against them.
These recommendations are based on interviews that Amnesty International conducted with approximately 200 people travelling in the caravans - either individually or in groups, including several families, women travelling with children, and members of the LGTBI community - as well as information obtained from governments across the region, international organizations and civil society organizations present in the field.
Amnesty International is a global movement of millions of people demanding human rights for all people - no matter who they are or where they are. We are the world's largest grassroots human rights organization.
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Critics Warn Manchin-Barrasso Permitting Bill 'Is Taken Straight From Project 2025'
"You thought Project 2025 was just a threat after the election? It's actually happening *right now,*" said one climate campaigner.
Jul 26, 2024
Climate and environmental defenders on this week implored U.S. senators to block a permitting reform bill introduced this week by Sens. Joe Manchin and John Barrasso that one campaigner linked to Project 2025, a conservative coalition's agenda for a far-right overhaul of the federal government.
Common Dreamsreported Monday that Manchin (I-W.Va.) and Barrasso (R-Wyo.)—respectively the chair and ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee—introduced the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) noted that although the proposal "includes several positive reforms for the accelerated development of transmission projects," it also advocates "limiting opportunities for communities to challenge projects, loosening oversight for drilling and mining projects, extending drilling permits and fast-tracking [liquified natural gas] permits, and several other provisions friendly to fossil fuel giants."
"This dangerous bill doesn't deserve a floor vote."
These are nearly identical policies to what's proposed in Project 2025's Mandate for Leadership. The plan, which was spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, calls for "unleashing all of America's energy resources," including by ending federal restrictions on fossil fuel drilling on public lands; limiting investments in renewable energy; and rolling back environmental permitting restrictions for new oil, gas, and coal projects, including power plants.
While Manchin has been trying—and failing—to pass fossil fuel-friendly permitting reform legislation for years, Brett Hartl, director of public affairs at the Center for Biological Diversity, said that his "Frankenstein legislation is taken straight from Project 2025, and it's the biggest giveaway in decades to the fossil fuel industry."
Hartl said the bill "deprives communities of the power to defend themselves and gives that power to Big Oil by making it harder for communities to challenge polluting projects in court," and "prioritizes the profits of coal barons over public health."
"And it mandates oil and gas extraction in our oceans," he continued. "The insignificant crumbs thrown at renewable energy do nothing to address the climate emergency."
"Monday was the hottest day in recorded history," Hartl noted. "It's shocking that as the climate emergency continues to break records around us, the Senate continues to fast-track the fossil fuel expansion that is killing us. This dangerous bill doesn't deserve a floor vote."
Hartl added that "to preserve a livable planet," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) "must squash this legislation now."
Manchin—who has said this will be his last term in office—has been a steadfast supporter of the fossil fuel industry, partly because his family owns a coal company. The senator says his permitting reform bill "will advance American energy once again to bring down prices, create domestic jobs, and allow us to continue in our role as a global energy leader."
However, Allie Rosenbluth, Oil Change International's U.S. manager, warned Thursday that "this bill is yet another dangerous attempt by Sen. Manchin to line the pockets of his fossil fuel donors, sacrificing communities and our climate along the way."
"Don't be fooled: The Energy Permitting Reform Act is another dirty deal to fast-track fossil fuels above all else," she continued. "It would unleash more drilling on federal lands and waters, unnecessarily rush the review of proposed oil and gas export projects, and lift the Biden administration's pause on new LNG exports."
"We urge Congress to reject this proposal and commit to action that protects frontline communities from the impacts of fossil fuel development and the climate crisis," Rosenbluth added.
"Don't be fooled: The Energy Permitting Reform Act is another dirty deal to fast-track fossil fuels above all else."
NRDC managing director of government affairs Alexandra Adams said Wednesday that "this bill is a giveaway for the oil and gas industry that will ramp up drilling and environmental destruction at a time when we need to be putting a hard stop to fossil fuels."
"We cannot afford to roll back so many of our bedrock environmental and community legal protections and offer a blank check to the oil and gas industry," she stressed. "We need new solutions for permitting if we are going to meet our clean energy potential and address the climate challenge. But this is not it."
"This bill would altogether be a leap backward on climate, health, and justice if passed into law," Adams added. "The Senate should reject it and look toward alternative solutions already being considered."
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'Nothing To Eat': War-Torn Sudan Faces Mass Famine as Military Delays Aid
Both parties in Sudan's civil war are to blame for a looming mass famine, experts say, and the military's blocking of U.N. aid at a border crossing with Chad exacerbates the problem.
Jul 26, 2024
Sudan's military is blocking United Nations aid trucks from entering at a key border crossing, causing severe disruptions in aid in a country that experts fear may be on the brink of one of the worst famines the world has seen in decades, The New York Timesreported Friday.
The border city of Adré in eastern Chad is the main international crossing into the Darfur region of Sudan, but the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the state's official military, which is engaged in a civil war with a paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has refused to issue permits for U.N. trucks to enter there, as it's an RSF-controlled area.
U.S. and international officials have issued increasingly alarmed calls for steady aid access to help feed the millions of severely malnourished people in Darfur and other areas of Sudan.
Last week, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the United States ambassador to the U.N., said that the SAF's obstruction of the border was "completely unacceptable."
Both warring parties in Sudan continue to perpetrate brazen atrocities, including starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. This piece focuses on the SAF's ongoing obstruction of essential aid. The situation is catastrophic. The policy is criminal. https://t.co/FKhqQh3EI9.
— Tom Dannenbaum (@tomdannenbaum) July 26, 2024
The Sudanese who've made it out of the country and into Adré reported dire and unsafe conditions in their home country.
"We had nothing to eat," Bahja Muhakar, a Sudenese mother of three, told the Times after she crossed into Chad, following a harrowing six-day journey from Al-Fashir, a major city in Darfur. She said the family often had to live off of one shared pancake per day.
Another mother, Dahabaya Ibet, said that her 20-month-old boy had to bear witness to his grandfather being shot and killed in front of his eyes when the family home in Darfur was attacked by gunmen late last year.
Now the mothers and their families are refugees in Adré, where 200,000 Sudanese are living in an overcrowded, under-resourced transit camp.
In addition to those that have made it out of the country, there are 11 million people internally displaced within Sudan, most of whom have become displaced since the civil war began in April 2023.
An unnamed senior American official told the Times that the looming famine in Sudan could be as bad as the 2011 famine in Somalia or even the great Ethiopian famine of the 1980s.
In April, Reutersreported that people in Sudan were eating soil and leaves to survive, and The Washington Postcalled it a nation in "chaos," reporting that World Food Program trucks had been "blocked, hijacked, attacked, looted, and detained."
In late June, a coalition of U.N. agencies, aid groups, and governments warned that 755,000 people in Sudan faced famine in the coming months.
The U.S. last week announced $203 million in additional aid to Sudan—part of a $2.1 billion pledge that world leaders made in April, which some countries have not yet delivered on.
Some officials including Thomas-Greenfield, who has dubbed the situation in Sudan "the worst humanitarian crisis in the world," have called for the U.N. Security Council to allow aid delivery into the country even in the absence of SAF approval; it's believed that Russia would veto such a measure.
Sudan's civil war has seen a great deal of international interference. Amnesty International on Thursday published an investigatory briefing showing that weapons from Russia, China, Serbia, Turkey, Yemen, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had been identified in the country. And The Guardian on Friday reported that the passports of Emirati citizens had been found among wreckage in Sudan, indicating the UAE may have troops or intelligence officers on the ground, though the UAE denied the accusation.
The International Service for Human Rights on Friday warned that both the SAF and RSF were engaged in wrongful killings and arrests, especially targeted at lawyers, doctors, and activists. The group called for an immediate cease-fire.
The SAF and Sudanese government figures have cast doubt on international experts' claims about famine in the country.
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JD Vance Doubles Down on Attack on 'Childless Cat Ladies'
Vance "meant no disrespect to cats, but he did mean to demean women and still holds the view in 2024 that they should be punished for not having children."
Jul 26, 2024
After days of condemnation from critics including actress Jennifer Aniston and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, U.S. Sen. JD Vance was given the opportunity on Thursday to clarify his remarks from 2021 in which he said the Democratic Party was run by "childless cat ladies."
Instead, the Ohio Republican and running mate of former President Donald Trump assured SiriusXM host Megyn Kelly on "The Megyn Kelly Show" that while he has "nothing against cats," he meant what he said in terms of "the substance" of his argument.
Vance made it clear, said Aaron Fritschner, deputy chief of staff for Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), "that he meant no disrespect to cats, but he did mean to demean women and still holds the view in 2024 that they should be punished for not having children."
The comments in question were made by Vance to then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson when Vance was running for the Senate.
Calling out Buttigieg—who, the secretary disclosed this week, was struggling at the time to adopt a child with his husband—and Vice President Kamala Harris, a stepmother of two and the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee, Vance said people without biological children "don't really have a direct stake in" the future of the country and therefore shouldn't hold higher office.
In separate remarks that same year, Vance said parents should "have more power" at the voting booth and that "if you don't have as much of an investment in the future of this country, maybe you shouldn't get nearly the same voice."
He also specifically categorized people who don't have children as "bad" in an interview in 2021, saying the government should "reward the things that we think are good" and "punish the things that we think are bad," with people taxed at a lower rate if they have children.
While a spokesperson for Vance told ABC News that the senator's taxation proposal was "basically no different" than the child tax credit supported by the Democratic Party, Democrats who have pushed for the credit have heralded its proven ability to slash child poverty rates and help families afford groceries, childcare, and other essentials, rather than viewing the tax savings as a way to reward people for procreating.
In his interview with Kelly on Thursday, Vance attempted to pivot away from his own comments, saying his point was to criticize "the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-child" and claiming without evidence that the Harris campaign had "come out against the child tax credit"—a signature policy of the Biden-Harris administration.
"I'm proud to stand for parents and I hope that parents out there recognize that I'm a guy who wants to fight for you," said Vance. "The Democrats, in the past five, 10 years, Megyn, they have become anti-family. It's built into their policy, it's built into the way they talk about parents and children. I don't think we should back down from it, I think we should be honest about the problem."
Vance and Kelly went on to lament the anxiety "hardcore environmentalists" and progressive lawmakers such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have expressed about the damage fossil fuel extraction is doing the planet, accusing them of pushing people to forgo having families—but said nothing about Republican policies that have made child-rearing less accessible.
In recent years, the entire Republican caucus in Congress was joined by conservative then-Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia in blocking the extension of the enhanced child tax credit, which had been credited with cutting the national child poverty rate in half. Republicans also allowed a pandemic-era universal school meal program to expire, while several Democratic-led states have passed state-level programs to ensure all children can have meals at school, regardless of their family's income.
Under Republican abortion bans, numerous stories have cropped up of pregnant people who have been forced to carry pregnancies to term despite finding out that their fetuses had fatal abnormalities and would die soon after birth—as have stories of children who were forced to give birth or had to cross state lines in order to get abortion care.
As with his position that nonparents should be "punished" for not having children, "who else does 'pro-child/family' Vance think should 'face consequences and reality' by way of curtailing choices, rights, and freedoms?" asked writer Alheli Picazo. "Women and girls who become pregnant through rape/incest."
University of North Carolina law professor Carissa Byrne Hessick said that one could test "empirically" Vance's claim that Democratic policies are anti-family.
"But I haven't heard the GOP talk much about things that would help my family and my kids," she said, "like reducing childcare and tuition costs."
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