OMNI
LOW
INTENSITY WARFARE and US/TRUMP’S BORDER WAR AGAINST LATINOS
Compiled
by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace
November
6, 2018
http://omnicenter.org/donate/
Contents:
Low Intensity Warfare
I. Low Intensity Warfare Around the World
Dowty, Book Closed
Borders Around the World
Lyons, Homeland
Security from Global Insurgencies to Border Control
II. US Militarization
and Low Intensity Warfare on the US/Mexican Border
Dunn, Book The
Militarization of US/Mexican Border 1978-1992, rev by Palafox
Miller and Schivone, Israeli Arms to US/Mexican Border
III. Causes of Latin American Refugees
Chomsky, Central American Refugees Fleeing Violence
Kazdin, Central American Violence from US
Faux, Crisis from US
IV. TRUMP’S ESCALATION
3 Reports from NADG
Staff, 1 from AP (good analysis), 1 from CNN
V. RESISTANCE
Judges v. New Quotas
Washington
Post
v. Troops: Send Judges (in NADG)
Veterans for Peace, No Troops!
Selsky, Help for Refugees in Oregon
Seattle
Times v. Trump’s Drastic Cap
Grisham, Don’t Fear Refugees
Susie Hoeller, Book Impasse:
Border Walls or Welcome the Stranger.
TEXTS:
LOW INTENSITY WARFARE
Low-intensity Warfare, Google Search 4-4-18
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_intensity_conflict
Jump to Guerrilla
warfare: the main challenge to low-intensity warfare - A low-intensity conflict
(LIC) is a military conflict, usually localised, between two or more state or
non-state groups which is below the intensity of
conventional war. It involves the state's use of military
forces applied selectively and with restraint to enforce compliance with its
policies or objectives.
I. US Low
Intensity Warfare around the World Past to Present
CLOSED BORDERS: THE CONTEMPORARY ASSAULT ON FREEDOM
OF MOVEMENT by AlAN DOWTY Yale UP, 1987.
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/alan-dowty/closed-borders-the-contemporary-assault-on-free/
A thoroughgoing documentation of worldwide governmental policies
and practices that restrict a once widely accepted right to leave home and
hearth for other lands. This is set within the historical context of how states
have in the past variously dealt with those who wanted to leave and those whom
some governments wanted to get rid of for religious, racial or other reasons.
Dowty (political science/Notre Dame) compendiously demonstrates his contention
that ""never before have states so effectively controlled the right
of their citizens to leave or to stay."" citing the policies of
nations as diverse as Syria, Nicaragua, Mozambique and numerous Soviet bloc members.
In all. 26 governments admitted to actively discouraging emigration in a recent
United Nations survey. Dowty calculates
that 36 other countries restrict international travel either
""occasionally, or ""partially"" in recent years.
Vietnam also has forced out an uncalculated number of overseas Chinese, while
numerous refugees have had to flee Haiti, Ethiopia and Afghanistan because of
war and/or an intolerable political/ economic situation. Iran strenuously
persecutes members of the Baha'i religion while also denying them the right to
emigrate. Many of Dowty's observations are illuminating. Cuba allowed virtually its entire middle class
to leave, while Yugoslavia and (to some extent) Hungary are fairly liberal on
emigration. He suggests that bans on emigration by the Soviet Union and allied
states are rooted more in tsarist absolutism than in communist doctrine. He
supplies evidence which places blame for the ""brain
drain"" from the Third World on a lack of local opportunities for
professionals. He reveals that the US has accepted twice as many legal
immigrants and refugees in recent years as the rest of the world combined
(illegal immigrants may total 4 to 6 million). There is evidence that new
immigrants ultimately pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits, while a
significant number set up new businesses that provide jobs for native-born
Americans. Illegal immigrants, however, tend to squeeze many urban inner-city
youths out of the labor force. In sum: a valuable research tool for professionals
and scholars in the field of transnational movements of people. A plus: this
study is so lucidly written and well organized that it should appeal to
everyone interested in learning more about the history and current situation of
mass population movements and how governments have variously caused or thwarted
them.
HOMELAND SECURITY: LOW-INTENSITY CONFLICT TARGETS NON-CITIZENS By Matthew N.
Lyons, on April 1, 2003.
https://www.politicalresearch.org/2003/04/01/homeland-security-low-intensity-conflict-targets-non-citizens/
WHAT IS LOW-INTENSITY CONFLICT? (LIC) [fROM THE aLIEN AND
sEDITION aCTS, TO gLOBAL iNSURGENCIES, TO BORDER CONTROL]
“U.S. military planners apparently coined the term “low-intensity
conflict” in the early 1980s, although its roots are much older. LIC has
encompassed many different types of operations, including counterinsurgency
(such as El Salvador in the 1980s), anticommunist insurgencies (the Nicaraguan
Contras in the same period), punitive strikes (the 1986 bombing of Libya), and
so-called peacekeeping operations (Somalia in 1992-1993 or Bosnia since 1995).3
Low-intensity conflict seeks to minimize U.S. troop deployment and
military casualties and focuses on controlling targeted civilian populations
rather than territory. It generally involves the coordination or integration of
police, military, and paramilitary forces, as police become militarized and the
military takes on law-enforcement and other unconventional roles. In addition,
LIC often combines open force with propaganda campaigns and seemingly benign
projects such as community development and civic reform efforts, as a way to
win civilian support. In this sense of a multipronged military, political,
economic, and psychological offensive, one military officer described
low-intensity conflict as “total war at the grass-roots level.”4
Iraq has been a constant, major target of U.S. low-intensity
warfare since 1991. Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Republican and Democratic
administrations alike used a combination of economic sanctions and periodic air
strikes to “contain” the Iraqi government—at the cost of hundreds of thousands
of Iraqi lives.5 In
this and almost all other cases, the United States’ LIC operations have overwhelmingly
targeted people of color.
MILITARIZING BORDER ENFORCEMENT
Ever since the 1798 Alien
and Sedition Acts, the U.S. government has persecuted immigrants and
foreigners repeatedly. For the past quarter century, undocumented immigrants
(and those suspected of being undocumented immigrants) have faced an
increasingly powerful repressive federal apparatus, especially in the
U.S.-Mexico border region. Growing anti-immigrant racism, an aggressive foreign
policy focus on Central America, the War on Drugs, and the end of the Cold War
all helped define border enforcement as a national security issue. By 1998, the
INS had more armed agents than any other federal law enforcement agency. Since
1994, largely as a result of harsh border control policies, 2,000 migrants have
died trying to enter the United States from Mexico.6
As sociologist Timothy J. Dunn argues, U.S. border enforcement
policy since 1978 represents an application of low-intensity conflict doctrine
within the United States.7 Dunn
examines a number of developments in border control policy since 1978 that, in
combination, embody LIC principles:
INS funding
grew steadily, with a disproportionate share of increases awarded to the
Enforcement Division (which includes the Border Patrol) at the expense of
services.
The Border
Patrol more than tripled in size and became increasingly militarized in its
weaponry and equipment and in its creation of elite “special forces” units. The
Border Patrol’s power to conduct searches and make arrests expanded dramatically.
The INS became increasingly geared toward long-term, punitive detention of
suspects.
The INS
engaged in a variety of efforts to coordinate and integrate forces with other
federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. The INS placed intelligence
operatives in Mexico and Guatemala and shared intelligence with the CIA, the
State Department, and the Pentagon.
The
military became increasingly involved in domestic police work. Although barred
from making arrests, searches, and seizures, the military increasingly provided
civilian agencies with equipment, training, and intelligence, and took on a
leading role monitoring the inflow of illegal drugs into the United States.
The INS
planned and carried out large-scale roundups of civilians, such as the 1989-1990
arrest and deportation of thousands of Central American refugees in the Lower
Rio Grande Valley. In 1992, the INS rounded up and deported at least 700
undocumented immigrants during the Los Angeles upheaval that followed the
acquittal of Rodney King’s police attackers.
To some
extent, these changes have been fueled by right-wing hate campaigns against
“illegal aliens.” But both liberals and conservatives, Democrats and
Republicans, have supported the militarization of border enforcement…. Continued: https://www.politicalresearch.org/2003/04/01/homeland-security-low-intensity-conflict-targets-non-citizens/
II. US
Low Intensity Warfare on the US/Mexican Border
“Timothy Dunn, The
Militarization of the U.S.-Mexico Border, 1978/1992: Low-Intensity Conflict
Doctrine Comes Home.
Jose Palafox. “Opening Up Borderland Studies: A Review of U.S.-Mexico Border
Militarization Discourse.” https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/palafox.html
“Timothy
Dunn, author of The Militarization of the U.S.-Mexico Border, 19781992:
Low-Intensity Conflict Doctrine Comes Home, is the premiere theorist of
border militarization. As the subtitle explains, Dunn views the border buildup
as an example of the repatriation of low-intensity conflict theory and practice
to the U.S. Originally developed as a response to guerrilla insurgency in the
Third World by the Kennedy administration, low-intensity conflict (LIC) reached
its full form during the Reagan administration as a counterinsurgency doctrine
in Central America in the early 1980s. Dunn outlines LIC by citing a 1986 U.S.
Army Training Report:
Low-intensity conflict is a limited
political-military struggle to achieve political, social, economic, or
psychological objectives. It is often protracted and ranges from diplomatic,
economic, and psycho-social pressures through terrorism and insurgency.
Low-intensity conflict is generally confined to a geographic area and is often
characterized by constraints on the weaponry, tactics, and level of violence
(Dunn, 1996: 20).
Dunn
reminds us that although LIC doctrine has been primarily engineered for
"third-world settings, it is not devoid of domestic implications for the
United States." He argues that many key aspects of LIC have coincided with
numerous facets of the militarization on the U.S.-Mexico border (Ibid.: 31). In
fact, a report prepared for the Border Patrol's border enforcement efforts was
drafted by "planning experts from the Department of Defense Center for Low
Intensity Conflict (CLIC) and chief patrol agents from all regions and selected
Headquarters staff" (U.S. Border Patrol, 1994: 1, fn. 1).
Given
that government officials have portrayed unauthorized migration and illegal
drug trafficking from Mexico to the U.S. as a "national security"
issue, Dunn argues:
LIC doctrine is the most applicable framework
in this regard, given its call for a sophisticated combination of police and
military activities to effect social control over targeted civilian
populations.... [T]he prospect of some degree of LIC-style militarization in
the U.S.-Mexico border region is also worthy of consideration due to its
ominous implications for the status of human rights in the borderlands (Dunn,
1996:31).
Although
the U.S.-Mexico border region has had a long history of militarism and
violence, 2 only
in the last few decades has increasing integration of U.S. military armed
personnel with civilian law enforcement been documented (see Palafox, 1996:
14-19).
Gaza in
Arizona
How Israeli High-Tech Firms Will Up-Armor the U.S.-Mexican Border By Todd Miller and Gabriel M. Schivone.
How Israeli High-Tech Firms Will Up-Armor the U.S.-Mexican Border By Todd Miller and Gabriel M. Schivone.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175947/
It was October 2012. Roei Elkabetz, a brigadier general for the
Israel Defense Forces (IDF), was explaining his country’s border policing
strategies. In his PowerPoint presentation, a photo of the enclosure wall that
isolates the Gaza Strip from Israel clicked onscreen. “We have learned lots
from Gaza,” he told the audience. “It’s a great laboratory.”
Elkabetz was speaking at a border technology conference and fair
surrounded by a dazzling display of technology -- the components of his
boundary-building lab. There were surveillance balloons with high-powered
cameras floating over a desert-camouflaged armored vehicle made by Lockheed Martin.
There were seismic sensor systems used to detect the movement of people and
other wonders of the modern border-policing world. Around Elkabetz, you could
see vivid examples of where the future of such policing was heading, as
imagined not by a dystopian science fiction writer but by some of the top
corporate techno-innovators on the planet.
Swimming in a sea of
border security, the brigadier general was, however, not surrounded by the
Mediterranean but by a parched West Texas landscape. He was in El Paso, a
10-minute walk from the wall that separates the United States from Mexico.
Just a few more minutes on foot and Elkabetz could have watched
green-striped U.S. Border Patrol vehicles inching along the trickling Rio
Grande in front of Ciudad Juarez, one of Mexico’s largest cities filled with
U.S. factories and the dead of that country’s drug wars. The Border Patrol
agents whom the general might have spotted were then being up-armored with a
lethal combination of surveillance technologies, military hardware, assault
rifles, helicopters, and drones. This once-peaceful place was being transformed
into what Timothy Dunn, in his book The Militarization of the U.S. Mexico
Border, terms a state of
“low-intensity warfare.”
The Border Surge
On November 20, 2014, President Obama announced a series of executive actions on immigration
reform. Addressing the American people, he referred to bipartisan immigration
legislation passed by the
Senate in June 2013 that would, among other things, further up-armor the same
landscape in what’s been termed -- in language adopted from recent U.S. war
zones -- a “border surge.” The president bemoaned the fact that the bill had
been stalled in the House of Representatives, hailing it as a “compromise” that
“reflected common sense.” It would, he pointed out, “have doubled the number of
Border Patrol agents, while giving undocumented immigrants a pathway to
citizenship.”
In the wake of his announcement, including executive actions
that would protect five to six million of those immigrants from future
deportation, the national debate was quickly framed as a conflict between
Republicans and Democrats. Missed in this partisan war of words was one thing:
the initial executive action that Obama announced involved a further
militarization of the border supported by both parties.
“First,” the president said, “we’ll build on our progress at the
border with additional resources for our law enforcement personnel so that they
can stem the flow of illegal crossings and speed the return of those who do
cross over.” Without further elaboration, he then moved on to other matters.
If, however, the United States follows the “common sense” of the
border-surge bill, the result could add more than $40 billion dollars worth of agents, advanced technologies, walls, and other
barriers to an already unparalleled border enforcement apparatus. And a crucial
signal would be sent to the private sector that, as the trade magazine Homeland Security Today puts
it, another “treasure trove” of profit is on the way for a border control market
already, according to the latest forecasts, in an “unprecedented boom period.”
Like the Gaza Strip for the Israelis, the U.S. borderlands,
dubbed a “constitution-free zone” by the ACLU, are becoming a vast open-air laboratory
for tech companies. There, almost any form of surveillance and “security” can
be developed, tested, and showcased, as if in a militarized shopping mall, for
other nations across the planet to consider. In this fashion, border security
is becoming a global industry and few corporate complexes can be more pleased
by this than the one that has developed in Elkabetz’s Israel…
Continued: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175947/
III. Causes
of Latin American Refugees
Noam Chomsky: Members of Migrant Caravan
Are Fleeing from Misery & Horrors Created by the U.S. NOVEMBER 02, 2018
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/11/2/noam_chomsky_members_of_migrant_caravan
Noam Chomsky: “The most extreme source of
migrants right now is Honduras. Why Honduras? Well, it was always bitterly
oppressed. But in 2009, Honduras had a mildly reformist president, Mel Zelaya.
The Honduran powerful, rich elite couldn’t tolerate that. A military coup took
place, expelled him from the country. It was harshly condemned all through the
hemisphere, with one notable exception: the United States. The Obama administration
refused to call it a military coup, because if they had, they would have been
compelled by law to withdraw military funding from the military regime, which
was imposing a regime of brutal terror. Honduras became the murder capital of
the world. A fraudulent election took place under the military junta—again,
harshly condemned all over the hemisphere, most of the world, but not by the
United States. The Obama administration praised Honduras for carrying out an
election, moving towards democracy and so on. Now people are fleeing from the
misery and horrors for which we are responsible.
And you have this incredible charade
taking place, which the world is looking at with utter astonishment: Poor, miserable people, families, mothers,
children, fleeing from terror and repression, for which we are responsible, and
in reaction, they’re sending thousands of troops to the border. The troops
being sent to the border outnumber the children who are fleeing. And with a
remarkable PR campaign, they’re frightening much of the country into believing
that we’re just on the verge of an invasion by, you know, Middle Eastern
terrorists funded by George Soros, so on and so forth…. Continued: https://www.democracynow.org/2018/11/2/noam_chomsky_members_of_migrant_caravan
The Violence Central American Migrants Are
Fleeing Was Stoked by the US By Cole Kazdin. VICE, Jun
27 2018.
We're still dealing with the aftermath of atrocities committed by
US allies in Central America during the Cold War. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qvnyzq/central-america-atrocities-caused-immigration-crisis As courts, law enforcement, and the Trump administration continue to sort out what to do with the steady stream of migrants either crossing the southern border illegally or seeking
asylum, the roots of the current misery are often forgotten. The desperate
border-crossers often come from Central America’s “Northern
Triangle”—El Salvador, Guatemala, and
Honduras—and are fleeing high homicide rates and violence
in those countries. But this
instability did not arise in a vacuum. Many historians and policy experts are
quick to point out that much of the troubles in Central America were created or
at least helped by the US’s interference in those countries going back decades.
In other words, the foreign policy of the past has profoundly shaped the present
immigration crisis.
“Hundreds of
thousands of people were displaced in the 1980s,” said Elizabeth Oglesby, an
associate professor of Latin American studies at the University of Arizona.
“People were fleeing violence and massacres and political persecution that the
United States was either funding directly or at the very minimum, covering up
and excusing.” Violence today in those countries, she said, is a directly
legacy of US involvement.
Oglesby spoke to
me from Guatemala, which even today is still feeling the cumulative effects of
US actions from over 50 years ago. In the 1950s, Guatemala attempted to end
exploitative labor practices and give land to Mayan Indians in the highlands.
The move, according to now-unclassified CIA documents, threatened US interests like the United Fruit Company,
which controlled a good portion of land in Guatemala. But instead of citing
economic factors, many in the US cried “communism,” saying the labor reforms
were a threat to democracy. Wisconsin Senator Alexander Wiley, chair of the
Foreign Relations Committee at the time, said he believed that a
"Communist octopus" had used its tentacles to control events in
Guatemala. In 1954, the CIA helped organize a military coup to overthrow
Guatemala’s democratically elected government, and continued to train the
Guatemalan military well into the 70s.
“The war in
Guatemala was really a genocide,” Oglesby said, adding that an estimated
200,000 were killed in the subsequent 36-year-long civil war, which stretched
from 1960 to 1996. “The history is important because it went so far beyond
anti-communism—the purpose was to destroy people’s vision of the future. It had
a terrible impact on the country, hundreds of thousands of people were
displaced.”
In Nicaragua, El
Salvador, and Honduras, there are similar stories. When, in the late 70s, the
Nicaraguan resistance group called the Sandinistas overthrew the country’s
dictatorship that had been in power for over 40 years, the US opposed the
revolution, backed the dictatorship, and later supported the rebel group known
as the Contras. In El Salvador, the US gave billions to the government to fight
the socialist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), and used
Honduras as a base to hold military exercises.
“Under the
umbrella of the Cold War, the US amplified its presence in the region,
especially El Salvador, in order to defeat the guerrillas of the FMLN,” said
Xochitl Sanchez of the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN) in Los
Angeles. “The United States is complicit in creating the rampant and bloody
gang violence, dire poverty, displacement and migration from El Salvador.”
CARECEN was founded in 1983, as Central Americans were fleeing en masse to the
US. “The need was astonishing,” said Sanchez.
Adding to the
instability from the various civil wars the US was involved in throughout the
region, Richard Nixon’s so-called “war on drugs,” Continued:
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qvnyzq/central-america-atrocities-caused-immigration-crisis
And see Peter Tinti. “Inside the Corruption and Repression Forcing
Hondurans to Flee to the US.” Migrants are leaving not only because they
fear gang violence, but because they are terrified of the brutal government. VICE, Oct 25 2018
Jeff Faux. How US
Foreign Policy Helped Create the Immigration Crisis. The Nation. OCTOBER 18, 2017 Neoliberal strictures, support for oligarchs,
and the War on Drugs have impoverished millions and destabilized Latin America.
As his price for not deporting roughly
800,000 “Dreamers” who came to this country as children, Donald Trump demands
an escalated war against immigrants, topped by his nightmarish 2,000-mile wall
along the Mexican border. Democrats have said no. Whether or not some sort of
deal is eventually struck, the country will remain deeply divided over
undocumented immigrants from the south.
Unfortunately, though, that debate is entirely
focused on domestic
policy—how to treat
the undocumented after they have arrived. Democrats, thinking Latinos will vote
for them, want the newcomers to stay. Republicans, fearing Democrats are right,
want them sent back. Employers want their cheap labor. Workers fear their wage
competition. The clash of these agendas further inflames simmering social
tensions over racism, police tactics, and cultural identity, which in turn feed
Trump’s reactionary base.
Lost in these US-centric arguments is
the role of our foreign policy in creating the conditions
that push people in Central America and Mexico to make the long, arduous, and
frequently fatal trek north.
In the 1980s,
Washington and its neoliberal collaborators began imposing policies that
favored multinational corporations and hurt the working poor.
For
at least 150 years, the United States has intervened with arms, political
pressure, and foreign aid in order to protect the business and military elites
of these countries who have prospered by impoverishing their people.
Still,
illegal immigration from the region remained modest until the 1980s, when the
US government and its neoliberal collaborators at the IMF and World Bank began
imposing policies on the region that favored large multinational corporations,
undercutting the small farms and businesses that had supported the working
poor.
Meanwhile,
many of the oligarchs became partners in the growing narco-trafficking
business. Protected by government officials, criminal gangs have spread
throughout the region, adding threats of kidnapping, extortion, rape, and
murder to the daily life of people struggling to make a living. A young
Guatemalan recently told me: “Unless you are connected to one of the families
that run this country, there is no future here. Either you work for the narcos
or go north.”
The War on Drugs has
given weapons and political protection to oligarchs.
The
US response has been a War on Drugs that provides these same oligarchs with
political protection and more weapons. In 2009, for example, the Obama
administration ensured the success of a coup by the Honduran military against
an elected president whose modest social programs of food and education for the
poor had enraged the ruling class.
Since
then, US aid to the Honduran oligarchs has more than doubled. Yet two-thirds of
Hondurans live in poverty. Large numbers inhabit shacks without toilets, and
can’t afford to buy shoes for their children. And the murder rate among Latin
American countries is second only to that of El Salvador, which has received
even more US aid. Five years after the Honduran coup, the number of children
illegally crossing into the United States increased by 1,272 percent.
The
ruling class in Mexico, despite that country’s greater size and nationalist
culture, has a similar relationship with us—to similar effect. The 1994 North
American Free Trade Agreement, sold to Congress as a way to keep Mexicans home,
threw millions of peasants and small businesses out of work. Illegal
immigration from Mexico doubled. Continued:
https://www.thenation.com/article/how-us-foreign-policy-helped-create-the-immigration-crisis/
IV.
TRUMP’S MILITARY ESCALATION,
NADG Staff. “Arrests of Migrant Families Surge.” NADG (Oct.
18, 2018). Arrests
of family members from Central America in September were 16,658, “the highest
one-month total on record and an 80 percent increase from July.” The parents and children sought asylum,
“citing a fear of return.”
Astrid Galvan.
(AP). “Role of Troops at Border
to Mirror National Guard.” NADG (Nov. 1, 2018).
Trump is sending over 5000 active-duty troops to reinforce
some 2000 National Guards deployed over past 6 months. More are to follow. The reporter reminded
readers of the restrictions on combat troops regarding domestic law
enforcement. A former Border Protection
commissioner, R. Gil Kerlikowske, said the troops could not stop asylum seekers
at border crossings. That was the job of
Border Patrol agents. “I see it as a
political stunt and waste of military resources and waste of tax dollars.” A 19th century law, the Posse
Comitatus Act, prohibits military troops from civilian law enforcement. The reporter asked AF Gen. O-Shaughnessy,
head of U.S. Northern command, about armed troops given the law. He replied that the troops have been given
“guidance on the use of force” and there will be further “unit and individual
training.” The troops will be there to
support the Guards, but “are authorized to use force in self-defense.” [A lot of work went into this short but
critical, questioning report.]
D-G Staff. “Trump
Plans Migrants Order. President: U.S. Will Stop Influx at Border.” NADG
(Nov. 2, 2018) 1A.
Trump preparing for “large-scale detention of
migrants.” [His administration
systematically misuses the word migrant
when the correct label for most of these desperate, fleeing people is refugee.
“Trump said military should shoot
rock-throwing migrants. Officials disagree.”
Bob Ortega
Updated 8:28 PM ET, Fri November 2, 2018
(CNN)Rock-throwing by migrants
has not been fatal to border agents, and it is against Border Patrol and
military policy to shoot rock throwers in most circumstances, officials said
Friday, in response to a suggestion by President Donald Trump to treat them as
if they carried firearms.
Trump said
Thursday that US troops -- being
deployed along the Mexican border in advance of midterm elections next week --
should treat rocks thrown by migrants as firearms attacks.
"Consider
it a rifle," he said. "When they throw rocks like they did at the
Mexico military police, consider it a rifle."
Friday,
Trump tried to walk back those comments, telling reporters that if agents or
soldiers "are going to be hit in the face with rocks, we're going to
arrest those people. That doesn't mean shoot them."…Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/02/us/officials-dismiss-shooting-rock-throwing-migrants-trump-invs/index.html
“Fencing in the Border.”
NADG (Nov. 3, 2018). 1A. Photo with caption describing US soldier
placing razor wire at a Texas bridge.
“…former military leaders are questioning the decision to militarize the
border ahead of the arrival of migrant caravans.” Article follows photo inside.
V.
RESISTANCE
Immigration Judges Say New Quotas Undermine
Independence.
September 21, 2018. Associated Press (Also
ADG 9-22-18)
https://www.voanews.com/a/immigration-judges-say-new-quotas-undermine-independence/4582640.html.
The
nation's immigration court judges are anxious and stressed by a quota system
implemented by Attorney General Jeff Sessions that pushes them to close 700
cases per year as a way to get rid of an immense backlog, the head of the
judges' union said Friday.
It
means judges would have an average of about 2½ hours to complete cases — an
impossible ask for complicated asylum matters that can include hundreds of
pages of documents and hours of testimony, Judge Ashley Tabaddor said.
"This
is an unprecedented act, which compromises the integrity of the court and
undermines the decisional independence of immigration judges,'' she said in a
speech at the National Press Club, in her capacity as head of the union.
Tabaddor said the backlog of 750,000 cases was created in part by government
bureaucracy and a neglected immigration court system.
"Now,
the same backlog is being used as a political tool to advance the current law
enforcement policies,'' she said…
Continued: https://www.voanews.com/a/immigration-judges-say-new-quotas-undermine-independence/4582640.html
“Don’t send troops to the border. Send judges.” By Editorial Board, Washington Post,
PRESIDENT TRUMP has
based his midterm election campaign on the specter of an “invasion” by immigrants
marching from Central America to the southern border. His demagoguery is
disgusting and irresponsible. But there is a real problem of migrants — one
that his administration is failing to address.
Many people are
crossing the border with their children and applying for asylum, overwhelming
existing mechanisms for dealing with asylum seekers. They are feeding what the
president calls a “catch-and-release” revolving door for
migrants freed as they await hearings to adjudicate their cases, and
contributing to a backlog of some
750,000 cases in
immigration courts.
A rational response
would be to add substantially to the approximately
350 immigration
judges, who cannot handle the tens of thousands of asylum claims flooding the
immigration courts annually. The administration this year hired a few
dozen new
judges, a fraction of what is required. As the caseload has more than
quadrupled since 2006, the number of judges has not even doubled, according
to congressional
testimony in April by Judge A. Ashley Tabaddor, president of the National
Association of Immigration Judges.
Despite that, Mr. Trump
has sneered at the idea of hiring more, even after aides pressed him to do so.
“Who are these people?” he raged, before suggesting
darkly that adding many new judges would somehow corrupt the system. “Now can
you imagine the graft that must take place?” he said.
Granted,
the hiring could be challenging, in vetting and cost. But any major challenge
involves scaling up resources and personnel, and it’s hard to see why that’s
beyond the government’s capabilities.
On the other hand,
maybe Mr. Trump prefers having an issue to a solution. He has made it clear he
believes the immigration question propelled him into the White House. Now, by
ramping up his inflammatory rhetoric, and by advancing over-the-top measures
such as sendingthousands
of troops to the border to fulfill a mission for which they are not trained —
Congress has barred troops from law
enforcement duties — it seems apparent Mr. Trump has opted for crisis
instead of constructive improvements to what he rightly calls a broken system.
Instead of deploying thousands of troops, why not hire hundreds of judges?
VETERANS FOR PEACE,
E-NEWS, Friday, November 1st,
2018.
“Veterans For Peace: No Troops to the Border!”
Veterans For Peace strongly condemns the recent announcement that up to 15,000 active duty military personnel may be sent to the U.S. southern border. These troops will join the additional National Guard units that were sent last year, increasing the militarization of our borders at an alarming rate. Our immigration laws and enforcement tactics have long been at a crisis point and we are now witnessing an even more draconian surge in the use of force to prop up failed policies.
“Veterans For Peace: No Troops to the Border!”
Veterans For Peace strongly condemns the recent announcement that up to 15,000 active duty military personnel may be sent to the U.S. southern border. These troops will join the additional National Guard units that were sent last year, increasing the militarization of our borders at an alarming rate. Our immigration laws and enforcement tactics have long been at a crisis point and we are now witnessing an even more draconian surge in the use of force to prop up failed policies.
Veterans For Peace
calls on all our members and all veterans who see the inhumanity and injustice
of the current policies to call their Congressional Representative and Senators
to demand the military be pulled back from the border and that the members of
the approaching caravan be treated with dignity and processed according to
international humanitarian standards as refugees. We call on all service
members participating in the border deployment to follow the long American
tradition of listening to their conscience and remember that they have no
obligation to follow illegal orders. (For questions on military rights, contact
the GI Rights Hotline or Courage to Resist)
The U.S. government,
instead of welcoming the approaching refugees, the majority of whom will seek
asylum under completely legal processes, is treating individuals and families
fleeing to the U.S. as if they are "terrorists" (even when
"counterterrorism" officials within the administration are stating
that no such people exist within the caravan). The majority of these refugees
are fleeing from violence in Honduras and a political situation United States'
actions have made worse.
It is more important
than ever that veterans stand up, speak out and organize to disrupt the
dangerous escalation of racist and unjust policies, both at home and abroad.
We, as veterans, know that peace is possible, but only if resources are
directed towards caring for one another, not perpetuating militarization across
the globe.
“In a prison
and a temple, Oregonians help detained migrants” bOct 22, 2018. (Also ADG 10-23-18). http://www.phillytrib.com/in-a-prison-and-a-temple-oregonians-help-detained-migrants/article_10b74c11-3e5c-5821-8b7e-f555e8dff4e2.html
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — With the sun bearing down, Norm and Kathy
Daviess stood in the shade of a prison wall topped with coiled razor wire,
waiting for three immigrants to come out.
It's become an oddly familiar routine for the Air Force veteran
and his wife, part of an ad hoc group of volunteers that formed in recent
months after the Trump administration transferred 124 immigrants to the federal
prison in rural Oregon, a first for the facility.
The detainees were among approximately 1,600 immigrants
apprehended along the U.S.-Mexico border and then transferred to federal
prisons in five states after President Donald Trump's "zero
tolerance" policy left the usual facilities short of space.
Almost half of those sent to the prison outside Sheridan, an
economically struggling town 50 miles (80 kilometers) southwest of Portland, on
May 31 are from India, many of them Sikhs — part of an influx of Indian
nationals entering the U.S. in recent years. They also came from Nepal,
Guatemala, Mexico and a dozen other countries.
"Zero tolerance" made Sheridan an unusual way station
for migrants from around the world. Now, those who pass an initial screening
and post bond are being released. And Norm and Kathy Daviess, along with more
than 100 other volunteers — retirees, recent college graduates, lawyers, clergy
— have lined up to help.
“Lift Trump administration’s cruel,
un-American refugee cap.”
Among the
tragic decisions made by President Donald Trump, slashing the number of
refugees allowed into the country may be the most cruel, un-American and
harmful to the nation’s security and economic strength.
Congress must
push back on Trump’s odious plan to admit only a maximum of 30,000 refugees in
fiscal 2019 amid a global surge in displacement. The cap was 110,000 when Trump
took office, and he slashed it to 45,000 last year.
Nothing
to fear
“Immigrants are no threat to a
hopeful America” by Lowell Grisham. NADG (August
7, 2018 at 1 a.m.).
·
We may be going through one of those moments
that will cause us lasting shame. Years from now we will look back and wonder,
"What were they thinking?"
Separating children from their families.
Locking up people who are neither threatening nor dangerous. Imprisoning people
who are fleeing life-threatening violence, looking for a safe place to work and
raise their families.
I visited one of these immigration prisons in
Texas. It is a massive, concrete fortress with sparse, narrow slats for
"windows." Several hundred women are being held there as they await
hearings on their immigration petitions. Many are fleeing unspeakable violence.
Some are mothers whose children have been taken from them by our government.
The facility is run by a private firm and has been the subject of sexual abuse
lawsuits. Some women call it "la perrera," the dog pound. "They whereabouts of her two children for 21 days..
IMPASSE: Border Walls or "Welcome the
Stranger" by Susie L. Hoeller . 2008.
https://www.amazon.com/IMPASSE-Border-Walls-Welcome-Stranger/dp/1601455445
IMPASSE
is a must read for policymakers and citizens who wish to repair our immigration
system. The author proposes innovative solutions to break through the policy
impasse in Congress.
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