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President Trumps temporary ban on refugees could create a new wave of illegal border crossings, experts warn.

The latest iteration of Trumps travel ban includes a provision that halts entry of all refugees into the United States for 120 days.

The Central American Minors program was created last year to reduce the number of unaccompanied minors and family units fleeing through Mexico and illegally trying to cross the southern border into the U.S.

Although the program remains in place, Trumps latest executive order sets out new rules for the number of refugees the United States will accept.

The problem is that we are maxed out, because, remember, [Trump] decreased the number of refugees that are allowed into the U.S., said Rep. Norma Torres (D-Calif.).

We could already be maxed out at 100 percent in 90 days. That means no one else could come in, she said.

With that avenue of escape closed, many may choose to make the dangerous crossing through Mexico instead.

Central American children and family units have become the main drivers of illegal immigration, as resettlement from Mexico has leveled off since 2009. Since 2014, Mexicans have accounted for less than half of all illegal border crossings.

Maureen Meyer, a migrant rights specialist at the Washington Office for Latin America, said the Trump administrations dissuasive efforts could change the plans of Central Americans seeking a better economic situation in the United States but are unlikely to deter those fleeing violence.

I would suspect that certain families will decide that the risk is so dangerous that theyll send their children [to the United States] either way, Meyer said.

Experts agree that its difficult to measure how many Central Americans migrate to the United States for economic reasons and how many do so because of a credible fear. But various studies point to violence as a major and growing concern for Central American migrants, particularly those from the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

Since 2008, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported a nearly fivefold increase in Northern Triangle asylum-seekers coming to the U.S., which its report calls a staggering indicator of the surging violence shaking the region.

That report found that homicide rates in those countries dwarf the global average of 6.2 homicides per 100,000 people.

In 2013, Honduras had a homicide rate of 90.4 per 100,000 people; El Salvadors rate was 82.2 per 100,000 people; and Guatemalas was 39.9 per 100,000 people. The UNHCR further found that 82 percent of women from those countries who claimed asylum in the United States in 2015 were found by American authorities to have a credible case.

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly has proposed action designed to deter Central Americans from migrating to the United States via smuggling routes.

I would do almost anything to deter the people from Central America from getting on this very, very dangerous network that brings people through Mexico to the United States, Kelly told CNN this week.

One proposal Kelly put forth was to detain any adults illegally entering the country with children and putting those children in the care of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Democrats have panned that idea.

Its a terror tactic; its sheer terror, said Rep. Lou Correa (D-Calif.), who questioned Kelly last month at a House Homeland Security Committee meeting. During that hearing, the Homeland Security head said he would enforce existing law as long as it was on the books but admitted there was space for reform.

I beg you to change flawed immigration laws, Kelly told Correa at the time.

When he told me that, you know, please help him change the law, I think he was being sincere. I think hes following orders from the top down, Correa told The Hill.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.

Deterrence actions have had mixed results in the past.

The U.S. government for years has had many PR programs trying to tell people of the risks of the journey or that there has been no change in U.S. policy, Meyer said.

While more Central Americans are choosing to stay in Mexico than ever before, many are attracted to the United States because they have family members who are already in the country.

While Mexico, Costa Rica and other countries in the region have agreed to take in more refugees from the Northern Triangle, their programs are even more limited than that of the United States.

Costa Rica, for example, agreed to take 250 refugees a year.

Torres, who was born in Guatemala and sent by her parents to live with family in the United States at age 5, said the Trump administration should focus on programs already in place to improve conditions in the Northern Triangle, rather than implementing actions that could tear families apart.

The California lawmaker pointed out that Kelly, a former leader of U.S. Southern Command, knows the region well.

We already have a process to address the root causes of migration in the Northern Triangle, and he better than anyone else knows exactly what were doing in the Northern Triangle, she said.

Read the rest here:
Refugee ban could result in increased illegal immigration - The Hill

SANCTUARY COMMUNITY: Illegal aliens are welcome and, for the most part, safe from deportation in the rural community of Plainfield.

PLAINFIELD, Vt. The rural community of Plainfield on Tuesdayjoined an increasing number of Vermont jurisdictionsconsidered to be sanctuary communities for illegal aliens.

The change was adopted in a non-binding resolution put before voters on Town Meeting Day. The resolution passed by a 67-13 vote.

Andy Robinson, a local immigrant rightsactivist, led the effort by helping gather about70 signatures to get the issue on the ballot.

The goal here is to make sure Plainfield is perceived as a town that is considered welcoming and that immigrants here can feel safe, Robinsontold Watchdog.

Themeasure was taken up after careful consideration from legal experts from the Vermont League of Cities and Towns and theattorney generals office, Robinson said. He added that the main advice he received is thatlocal authorities are not required to enforce federal immigration law.The measure essentially reiterates that Plainfield authorities are not required to do so.

James Simpson, a former analyst for the White House Office of Management and Budget who now focuses on immigration, the Plainfield resolution is little more than words on paper, but nonetheless sends a message.

It doesnt matter if its just a meaningless resolution or something that becomes an ordinance, he said. It all sends the same message, and that is that the official position on illegal aliens is that they are welcome here.

Simpson sayswhile most illegal immigrants are seeking a better life, thepopulation as a whole is disproportionately more likely to be involved in crimes. As reported by Breitbart,U.S. Sentencing Commission data for fiscal year 2014shows thatwhile illegal aliens accounted for 3.5 percent of the U.S. population, they accounted for 36.7 percent of federal sentencesfollowing criminal convictions.

Robinson said he understands Vermonterssecurity concerns but thinks the vast majority of those coming in are law abiding. He added that Vermont needs to embrace new young workers and entrepreneursto counterbalance the states aging population.

A concern for Plainfield and similar towns is whether the federal government will withhold discretionary grants fromjurisdictions that refuse to help feds enforce U.S. immigration laws.

While total federal funding to sanctuary cities nationwide may be as high as $27 billion, the left-wing Center for American Progressandthe American Immigration Lawyers Association released a report that states the portion of federal dollars that could be denied tosanctuary jurisdictions is$870,068,698.

Robinson said while he isnt worried about the potentialloss of federal funds, it doesnt mean it wont happen.

James Lyall, executive director of the Vermont American Civil Liberties Union, says Plainfields resolution is similar to those in other towns.

I dont know what the specific language of Plainfields resolution was, [but]its likely consistent with the other moves to affirm that those places and their public officials will respect the civil rights of immigrants, he said.

While state and local authorities have for decades voluntarily helped feds identify illegal immigrants, Lyall claimed it is not legally aresponsibility of local law enforcement to concern themselves with federal immigration enforcement.

Based on that distinction between what is legally required versus what is voluntary, about 600 cities and counties nationwide have adopted policies that mandatenoncooperation from local police, investigators and other officials. Suchnoncooperation limits the ability offederal immigration authorities to identify and deport illegal immigrants.

Lyall said in some cases local police lackauthority to pursue immigration enforcement, such as in asking for immigration status without appropriate probable cause. Hesaid that Vermont police must adhere to Fair and Impartial Policing, a policy that prohibits police from gathering immigration status from suspects.

Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told Watchdog in a recent interview that refusing to givefederal authorities information aboutimmigration statusis illegal.If [the state] passes an ordinance saying police may not notify the federal government of immigration status, that is in clear violation of [federal law], he said.

Robinson said he pushed the initiative in Plainfield as a response to thetough immigration rhetoric and policies out of the Trump administration. Lyall said it would be better if state legislators wouldpass laws so that smaller communities would not have tocome up with their own resolutions.

Simpson said giving any immigrant a free passisdisrespectful to all the immigrants who come to the United States legally.

Its really an outrage, he said. All their effort, and this is really just making a fool of them.

We go through all that stuff and then illegal aliens can just breeze on in and not merely have the door open but have their hand held and they are protected. Its simply incredible.

Robinson said while he sympathizes with the frustrations of those who go through the often-tedious legal immigration process, he said he also knowsundocumentedimmigrants who have been waiting as long as five years, going through multiple background checks, and are still waiting.

I think what we need is a more streamlined way, he said.

Michael Bielawski is a freelance reporter for Vermont Watchdog. Contact [emailprotected]

Original post:
Small town of Plainfield adopts sanctuary status for illegal aliens ... - Watchdog.org

Homeland Security could begin separating illegal immigrant mothers and children caught sneaking across the border, Secretary John F. Kelly said Monday, floating another get-tough proposal designed to make families from Central America think twice before making the treacherous journey north.

Stemming the surge of migrants is among President Trumps top immigration goals, and his administration is searching for any answers to a problem that bedeviled President Obama. But this latest proposal enraged immigrant rights advocates, who say the children and families should be treated as refugees deserving compassion, not as illegal immigrants seeking to thwart American laws.

Mr. Kelly, speaking on CNN, said his goal is to try to keep people from making the trip at all.

I would do almost anything to deter the people from Central America to getting on this very, very dangerous network that brings them up through Mexico into the United States, he said.

Those who have made the journey report being beaten, robbed and raped. Some women who make the journey begin to take birth control ahead of time specifically to prevent pregnancy from rapes they expect along the way.

If Mr. Kelly pulls the trigger on the change, it would mark a major reversal in U.S. policy.

The Obama administration worked to keep families together, opening new detention facilities in order to be able to keep mothers and their children in the same place. But after federal courts fretted over the conditions in which children were kept, the Obama administration began to quickly process and release families, with the often vain hope that they would return for their deportation hearings.

Border Patrol officials have said that those lax policies served as enticements for the wave of illegal immigrant children and families streaming out of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.

Over the past five years, since Mr. Obama announced his 2012 deportation amnesty for young adult illegal immigrants known as Dreamers, some 227,000 unaccompanied children and 245,000 people traveling as families have been caught at the border.

The latest numbers suggest this year is shaping up to set a record.

The children, in particular, put burdens on agents, who have been relegated to what their chief called professional child care duties rather than patrolling the border. The federal government has paid millions of dollars to shuttle immigrant children inside the U.S., and the Health and Human Services Department has struggled to find sponsors to take in the children.

Those sponsors are often illegal immigrant parents already in the U.S. awaiting the arrival of their children.

If the administration follows through on Mr. Kellys proposal, its not clear who would take in the children if they arrive with a parent who gets detained. Children who dont find sponsors to take them in the U.S. end up in dormitory-type detention homes.

The children could apply for protection in the U.S. even as their parents face deportation, immigrant rights advocates said.

Democrats said the proposed policy change stems from xenophobia and racism.

Breaking apart families flies in the face of the family values Republicans have campaigned on for decades, said Rep. Bennie G. Thompson of Mississippi, the ranking Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee. This is just the latest terrible proposal from this disastrous administration, and any humane and decent person should reject it outright.

The Womens Refugee Commission said it already had seen some mothers separated from their children at the border and called it a horrific trauma.

For some mothers, going back to what they are fleeing is not an option, said Michelle Brane, director of the migrant rights program at the commission. They feel they have no choice but to hope that by staying in detention, and letting their child be taken, that they might eventually be safe. The daily torture of sitting in detention, and not knowing what has become of their child is unimaginable.

Mr. Kelly, though, said the answer is for families to not begin a journey that could end with the separation of children and parents.

Im considering it in order to deter more movement along this terribly dangerous network, he said. I am considering exactly that. They will be well cared for as we deal with their parents.

More here:
DHS proposes separating illegal immigrant mothers, children caught sneaking across border - Washington Times

Speaking in front of Washington's top political journalists a few days ago, Vice President Pence said he is and has always been an advocate of a free and independent press.

He talked about his time as a radio commentator in the 1990s a Rush Limbaugh on decaf, as he had been described. He also brought up his sponsorship of a federal shield law that would have protected reporters from having to testify or reveal their confidential sources.

Pence sponsored versions of the legislationa few times when he was in Congress. Althoughthe Free Flow of Information Actnever became law, Pence's advocacy for the news media earned him praise from journalists, includingan award from a newspaper association.

But while Pence does have a track record of supporting a free press and the First Amendment, that record istainted and his stance on the public's right to know has become muddled, critics say.

During his time as Indiana governor, for instance, Pence found himself rebuked by free speech and open-government advocates once because of awidely criticized plan to createa taxpayer-funded news service, and again when his staff deleted Facebook comments that disagreed with his stance on same-sex marriage.

To this day, a Facebook page called Pencershipexists.

The headline of an editorial by the South Bend Tribune in northern Indiana reads: On issues of transparency, Pence isn't clear.

Vice President Mike Pence said he and President Trump "support a free and independent press," but will continue to voice disagreement about certain stories, on Feb. 20 at NATO headquarters in Brussels. (Reuters)

But one can argue that Pence is remarkably different from his boss when it comes to treatment of the press, said Anthony Fargo, a media law professor at Indiana University.

I don't believe that he shares President Trump's view that the media are the enemies of the people, Fargo said. I don't think he's ever been someone who'd view or think or believe that.

But, he added, there have been troubling issues.

[Hackers accessed a private email account Pence used for official business as Indiana governor]

The most recent: news of Pence's use of his personal email account while conducting state business as governor. The Indianapolis Star first reported it last week, following a months-long effort to access emails from Pence's AOL account.

Marc Lotter, Pence's spokesman, rejected comparisons with Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server when she was secretary of state, saying that Pence did not communicate classified information and that his actions were consistent with Indiana law. The state's public access counselor, who provides advice concerning public records laws, has reached the same conclusion.

But theuse of a personal email account, while not illegal, is hardly anencouraging sign of a transparent administration, said Fargo, the media law professor.

It also raised concerns about whether the public has access to all of Pence's state-related emails. More broadly, it shines alight on Indiana's murky rules for government officials' use of private emails, said Steve Key, executive director and general counsel for the Hoosier State Press Association.

Following the Star's story, Pence's attorneys delivered 13 boxes of state-related emails to the Indiana State House, the paper reported.

That's not meaningful disclosure. It's after-the-fact disclosure in a form that's virtually impossible to search in a meaningful way,said Gerry Lanosga, a journalism professor at Indiana University.

Pence's attorneys also have been embroiled in anearly two-year-long legal battle to withhold a documentthat some say should be considered public record. Criticsof the former governor said he's setting a dangerous precedent that would give the executive branch the power to decide what's public and what's not without much accountability.

The legal dispute is over an email attachment that Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's chief of staff sent in 2014 to several officials in other states, urging them to join a federal lawsuit challenging President Barack Obama's executive order on immigration.Among the recipients was Pence's then-chief of staff, James Atterholt.

[The dramatic difference between Mike Pence and Donald Trump when it comes to the press]

Pence's attorneysargued that a judicial review of hisdecision not to disclose constitute[s] intermeddling with the internal functions of the executive branch, court records say. The Indiana Court of Appeals disagreed, saying in an opinion issued in January that the state's public records law does not provide for any such absolute privilege.

The appeals court, nevertheless, ruled in favor of Pence and decided the email attachment, which outlined legal theories supporting the lawsuit against Obama, is considered privileged attorney-client communication.

William Groth, a Democratic lawyer who requested emails concerningIndiana's decision to join the federal lawsuit against Obamaand who later sued Pence,has asked the Indiana Supreme Court to review the case.

Lotter said the litigation over the attachment shouldn't be characterized as an email controversy.

It's not a lawsuit about emails, he said, adding that the emails Groth requested were released. It was a lawsuit centering on the attachment.

Key, of the Hoosier State Press Association, said that thecontroversies including the firestorm over an ill-fated state-run news agency, JustIN, dubbed Pravda on the Plains by the Atlantic shouldn't overshadow the steps Pence had taken in the name transparency.

He brought up a few examples, saying he thinks Pence was and remains an advocate of the free press.

In 2015, Pence vetoed a bill that would have allowed government agencies to charge a fee up to $20 an hour when employees have to spend more than two hours searching for records requested by reporters or members of the public.

The cost of public records should never be a barrier to the public's right to know, Pence said in a statement.

Last year, the governor vetoed a bill that would have limited public access to records of private university police departments that operate like their public counterparts. He called it a disservice to the public and an unnecessary barrier to transparency.

[Why Mike Pences private email account is way different from Hillary Clintons]

Going back a few more years, Pence in 2011 defended journalists' role as a watchdog for government officials. At that time, he was a congressmanco-sponsoring the Free Flow of Information Act for the fourth time.

Compelling reporters to testify, and in particular, compelling them to reveal the identity of their confidential sources, is a detriment to the public interest, Pence said in a statement. Without the free flow of information from sources to reporters, the public is ill-equipped to make informed decisions.

He further said:As a conservative who believes in limited government, I know the only check on government power in real time is a free and independent press. The Free Flow of Information Act is not about protecting reporters; it is about protecting the public's right to know.

Although Pence has had run-ins with advocates of a free press and open government, his actions have always been favorable, Key said.

What is now unclearfor public access supporters is whether Pence will remain a free press advocate while working for a president who has repeatedly assailed the media and denounced negative stories about his administration as FAKE NEWS.

He's in a situation now where he's not the guy in charge, said Fargo, the media professor. What would be fascinating is how much discussion he and the president had had behind the scenes about issues of transparency and the value of the free press.

READ MORE:

Mike Pence has his own email controversy in Indiana

Why Donald Trump is incapable of accepting praise for Mike Pence

Mike Pences ridiculously repetitive TV interviews

Read this article:
Mike Pence says he advocates for a free press. Here's his shaky history with transparency. - Washington Post

Trump alleged on Saturday without evidence that former President Barack Obama wiretapped his phones at Trump Tower ahead of the 2016 election. On Wednesday, CNN affiliate WEWS' reporter John Kosich asked the vice president a yes or no question: Did he believe Trump's allegation? Pence skirted the question and tried to steer the discussion to health care, as the Trump administration has been pushing to replace Obamacare.

John Kosich, WEWS: The President has alleged that the former President committed a felony in wiretapping Trump Tower. Yes or no do you believe that President Obama did that?

Mike Pence: Well, what I can say is that the President and our administration are very confident that the congressional committees in the House and Senate that are examining issues surrounding the last election, the run-up to the last election, will do that in a thorough and equitable way.

They'll look at those issues, they'll look at other issues that have been raised. But rest assured, our focus is right where the American people are focused, and that's on bringing more jobs here to Ohio, creating a better healthcare system built on consumer choice.

CNN's Steve Brusk contributed to this report.

See the original post:
Pence dodges question on Trump's wiretapping claims - CNN