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Indeed, politics and world events were like quicksand beneath our feet. Abroad, the Syrian civil war raged, Iraq teetered, and the emergence of ISISthe successor to the al-Qaeda affiliate that took root in Iraq after our invasiondrew the United States back into a new counterterrorism campaign. At home, Republicans fixated on a toxic stew of issues with loose, if not specious, national-security connections: an insistence on declaring war against radical Islam, ceaseless investigations into Benghazi that spilled over into investigations of Hillary Clintons email practices, and demagoguing of refugee admissions and illegal immigration into the United States.

Donald Trump drafted on these dark currents as he launched his presidential campaign in 2015, tapping into Americas post-9/11 fears of a faceless other and the frustrations of Americans who had been promised great victories in Iraq and Afghanistan but found only quagmires. Instead of reckoning with the ways that we might have gotten the response to 9/11 wrong, Trump scapegoated enemies within: a black president, brown-skinned immigrants, Muslim refugees. Social media mainlined these fears into tens of millions of American households, and made us an easy mark for a Russian influence campaign.

In retrospect, the clearest harbinger from the Obama years of the future were now living in came in the fall of 2014. At a time when the American people were in a full-blown panic about ISIS, in the aftermath of the tragic beheading of four American hostages, we were confronted with the outbreak of an infectious disease, Ebola, that threatened to kill millions of people. By deploying the U.S. military to West Africa, recruiting dozens of countries to contribute health-care workers and equipment, and integrating Americas public-health and national-security infrastructure under unified direction, Obama was able to lead a coalition that stamped out the Ebola outbreak close to its source. It was a high-water mark of Obamas international leadership.

But the episode haunted Obama. He regularly told foreign visitors that fears of a pandemic kept him awake at night. By the time Obamas presidency ended, he had established a directorate on global-health security at the National Security Council, developed a playbook for a future administration to use to combat pandemics, and used a Cabinet-level homeland-security exercise with incoming Trump officials to put them through the decision-making process of responding to an outbreak. But the president coming into office was intent not on building on Obamas legacy, but on dismantling it.

In 2019, I taught a course at UCLA on presidential rhetoric and American foreign policy. One of the speeches I had my students read was Bushs address to Congress after 9/11, which still stands out as an exceptional piece of speechwriting. Just a couple of years younger than I was when I found those words so stirring, my students read the text as if it came from a different planet. Had the United States really made its entire national purpose a war against a group of terrorists? I asked them to list what they believed were the most pressing issues facing the country. Climate change topped the list. Economic inequality, student debt, structural racism, and a host of other issues filled it out. Not a single student mentioned terrorism. The generational appeal of Bernie Sandersso out of step with the Democratic establishment Id been a part ofwas obvious in that room.

Excerpt from:
The 9/11 Era Is Over - The Atlantic

People thinking this is a good time to try to get into the United States should think again.

The United States currently has the third highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the world. Only China and Italy have more. The United States has more than 55,000 cases, withmore than700 deaths, and it is still in the initial phase of the epidemic.

In addition to the risk of getting sick, the U.S. is taking drastic actions that are particularly hard on foreign visitors and undocumented immigrants.

New authority for the CDC director

The focus on fighting the pandemic includes the border.

The Department of Health and Human Services just published an interim final rule effective immediately that authorizes the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to suspend the entry of aliens from foreign countries and places he designates.

The director can issue such a suspension when he determines that:

(The term place refers to any location specified by the director, including any carrier, and carriermeans a ship, aircraft, train, road vehicle, or other means of transportation.)

The United States has entered into agreements with Canada and Mexico to limit all non-essential travel across shared borders. Non-essential means travel that is considered tourism or is recreational in nature.

CBP will no longer detain illegal immigrants apprehended at the border in its holding facilities. It will return them to the country they entered from Canada or Mexico. If this is not possible, CBP will return them to their country of origin.

According to Mexicos foreign Secretary, Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico has only agreed to do this if the illegal crossers being returned are Mexicans or are from Central America.

CBP will take aliens apprehended after making an illegal entry to the nearest port of entry, fingerprint them, and then run their prints through government computer records. If they are not wanted by the police or a government agency, they will be released on the foreign side of the port of entry.

Of course, they can go to another section of the border after they are released and make another illegal entry, but 8 U.S.C. 1325 makes a second illegal entry a felony. The penalty, if convicted, is a fine and/or jail for up to two years.

Aliens in detention

8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(1)(A)(i) makes aliens who have a communicable disease of public health significance inadmissible. This means that aliens in detention who were apprehended at or near the border would have to be tested to see if they have COVID-19, and the ones who do could not be released unless their inadmissibility is waived under 8 U.S.C. 1182(g).

Exclusion grounds do not apply to aliens who are already in the United States.

The waiver is only available to aliens who have a specified relationship with a United States citizen, an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence, an alien who has been issued an immigrant visa, or they are self-petitioners under the Violence Against Women Act.

Risk of contracting COVID-19 in detention facilities

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and 14 other Democratic representatives sent a letter to Chad Wolf, the acting Secretary of DHS, in which they ask him, among other things, how he plans to prevent COVID-19 outbreaks at immigration detention facilities.

According to Dr. Homer Venters, former chief medical officer of the New York City Jail System, People with risk factors for serious complications and death cannot be protected inside jails, prisons, and immigration detention centers.

If the White House Coronavirus Guidelines for America were to be followed, older detainees would be kept in isolation and the rest would be held in groups of no more than 10 people; but it seems quite unlikely that DHS will follow these guidelines at its immigration detention centers, where space is already at a premium.

Very few aliens will be able to apply for asylum

Asylum is likely to be the only relief available to most undocumented aliens, but the eligibility provision,8 USC 1158(b)(1)(A), states that aliens who establish that they are eligible may be granted asylum. This means it is a matter of discretion, and immigration judges are not likely to grant discretionary relief that would permit aliens who have a deadly, contagious disease to remain in the United States.

In any case, few undocumented aliens will be able to get an asylum hearing.

Although most immigration courts have not been closed yet, they are only hearing detained cases. Hearings scheduled for aliens waiting in Mexico pursuant to theMigrant Protection Protocol have been cancelled.

The National Association of Immigration Judges, the American Federation of Government Employees, and the American Immigration Lawyers Association have asked the Department of Justice to close all of the immigration courts.

USCIS also accepts asylum applications, but USCIS has closed its offices.

Undocumented aliens would be wise to stay out of the United States.

Nolan Rappaportwas detailed to the House Judiciary Committee as an executive branch immigration law expert for three years. He subsequently served as an immigration counsel for the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims for four years. Prior to working on the Judiciary Committee, he wrote decisions for the Board of Immigration Appeals for 20 years. Follow him on Twitter@NolanR1or athttps://nolanrappaport.blogspot.com.

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Undocumented aliens should stay away as COVID-19 rages in the US | TheHill - The Hill

While its all-hands-on-deck fighting the invasion of an alien virus, its an ideal time to fight our continuing invasion of aliens, too.

The Wall Street Journal reports, Hospitals in parts of New York City have become so full of critically ill patients that they have steered ambulances elsewhere. And hospitals in pandemic epicenters have passed a tipping point in the fight against the new coronavirus.

John Milne, with Washingtons Providence St. Joseph Health, agreed. The companys Swedish Issaquah Campus hospital has run out of beds for incoming COVID-19 patients. Were on the threshold of being overwhelmed.

Lewis Kaplan, president of the Society of Critical Care Medicine, told the Washington Post, We are now on crisis footing. What you take as first-come, first-served medicine is not where we are. We are now facing some difficult choices in how we apply medical resources.

If thats not a crisis, what is? Its a perfect occasion to reestablish U.S. sovereignty and the power of immigration law.

President Trump should issue an executive order governing the distribution of China Flu relief that puts U.S. citizens first. States that pledge to limit emergency room slots, ICU beds and ventilators to U.S. citizens will go to the top of the list for aid.

Prioritizing citizens over lawbreakers will be called cruel by moral exhibitionists. The same conspirators supporting illegal alien sanctuaries. That blatant obstruction of justice has allowed illegal aliens to repeatedly kill citizens on the streets. Its time to draw a line before the mere presence of an illegal kills citizens in the ICU.

Betsy McCaughey found, In NYC, 1 out of every 4 people with a confirmed case has been hospitalized and 44 percent of them have needed a ventilator. Back in 2015 New York was 16,000 ventilators short in the event of an epidemic. New York is still thousands short today.

Rationing hospital beds and ventilators is currently a topic of serious discussion. Lugubrious Gov. Andrew Cuomo vented his wrath at the suggestion we exhume the economy and let younger people work, My mother is not expendable. Your mother is not expendable. No one should be talking about social Darwinism for the sake of the stock market.

What I want to see is Sanctuary Cuomo telling his mom ventilator rationing means theres no room in the ICU for her because a younger illegal was deemed more likely to survive the Kung Flu.

In Washington state, age and existing disease will be used to determine who gets a ventilator. Medical organizations paralyzed by political correctness are considering using a random lottery, only this time the Mega Millions prize is four weeks on a ventilator.

Second prize is a pillow and Fentanyl.

The New York Times quotes Christopher McCabe, of the Institute of Health Economics in Canada. Theres no perfect way to choose who gets lifesaving treatment. At times like these, society may be more forgiving of utilitarian decision making.

Putting citizens first is both rational and utilitarian.

Federalism means states will determine rationing criteria. What Trump should demand is the first decision point be geography. If you arent a U.S. citizen or Green Card holder, then its time to head home for healthcare.

Being the ER for Latin America is a luxury we can no longer afford.

This order would put political pressure on sanctuary states to explain to families why Pedro got the ventilator and PawPaw didnt. Sanctuary state residents may have previously downplayed murders by illegals as a byproduct of wrong-place-wrong-time bad luck. Being told your family suffers from wrong-disease-wrong-time by a state functionary should end their passivity for all time.

States compliant with Real ID drivers licenses can use that for verification. States without can use passports, birth certificates or some other method approved by the Trump administration.

Trump could soften the blow by offering to fly the illegals entire family home if they agree to never return. And to prove Im not entirely heartless, the flight doesnt have to be on Spirit Airlines. I hear United currently has plenty of excess capacity.

The point is during this crisis, U.S. citizens who play by the rules should have absolute priority over all the sad stories and claims of abuse by people who broke the law to enter our country. They gambled when they crossed the border and now its time to collect their bets.

Michael Shannon (mandate.mmpr@gmail.com) is a columnist for the Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

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Shannon: Perfect time for Trump to fight the other alien invasion - Daily Commercial

Mozambican authorities in the countrys western province of Tete have buried the bodies of Ethiopian migrants discovered dead in a shipping container of a truck that had just crossed the border from Malawi.

Hermnio Jos Maputo & English Africa Service -Vatican City

In the early hours of Tuesday, this week, a container truck was stopped by Mozambiques immigration authorities in the province of Tete. It carried 78 people, 64 of whom were found lifeless. They had died of asphyxiation, as they were inside a metal shipping container, with no ventilation.

The remains of the 64 illegal immigrants, were buried Wednesday, at a cemetery within the city of Tete, Mozambique. The Ethiopian embassy was said to have been in touch with the Tete provincial migration office.

The 64 Ethiopian victims are believed to have boarded the shipping container in Malawi headed for the Mozambican city of Tete. 14 persons were said to have survived the ordeal. It is not uncommon for illegal Ethiopian migrants to be smuggled to South Africa via Mozambique in such circumstances.

The 14 survivors were also screened for the deadly coronavirus and are now quarantined in the city of Tete.

Speaking to Vatican News Portuguese Africa Service, the Bishop of Tete Diocese, Diamantino Guapo Antunes, I.M.C., described the tragic deaths as senseless and inhumane. He decried the fact that traffickers would transport human beings in such deplorable conditions. The young people who died, said Bishop Antunes, still had much to give to humankind.

In the meantime, the Bishop of Tete has said this diocese is coordinating with the Episcopal Commission for Migrants, Displaced People and Refugees-CEMIRDE, in assisting the 14 survivors.

Two Mozambicans have been arrested in connection with the deaths and human trafficking offences.

Read the original here:
Mozambican Bishop of Tete shocked by the deaths of 64 Ethiopians from asphyxiation - Vatican News

Update, Jan. 9: We have updated these statistics to the most recent numbers available as of Jan. 9, 2019.

With the controversy over family separations, much of the political rhetoric in recent weeks has focused on illegal immigration.We thought it would be helpful to take a step back and look at some measures of illegal immigration in a larger context.

For example, how many immigrants live in the U.S. illegally, and how many are caught each year trying to cross the Southwest border? How many of them are families or unaccompanied children? And how have these statistics changed over time?Lets take a look at the numbers.

How many immigrants are living in the U.S. illegally?There were 12 million immigrants living in the country illegally as of January 2015, according to the most recent estimate from the Department of Homeland Security. The estimates from two independent groups are similar: The Pew Research Center estimates the number at 10.7 million in 2016, and the Center for Migration Studies says there were 10.8 million people in 2016 living in the U.S. illegally.

That would be about 3.3 percent to 3.7 percent of the total U.S. population in 2016 or 2015.

All three groups use Census Bureau data on the foreign-born or noncitizens and adjust to subtract the legal immigrant population.

DHS estimated that the growth of the illegal immigrant population had slowed considerably, saying the population increased by 470,000 per year from 2000 to 2007, but only by 70,000 per year from 2010 to 2015.

CMS found a decline in the undocumented population, and specifically those from Mexico, of about 1 million since 2010. And the Pew Research Center found a peak of 12.2 million in the population in 2007, and a decline since.

All three groups find Mexicans make up the majority of the undocumented population 55 percent in 2015, according to DHS but the number and share of Mexicans among this population has been declining in recent years.

Those living in the country illegally also have increasingly been here for 10 years or more. DHS says nearly 80 percent in 2015 have lived in the U.S. for more than a decade, and only 6 percent came to the country over the previous five years.

Update, June 7, 2019: After this story was originally published in June 2018, a study by researchers at Yale Universityand the Massachusetts Institute of Technologyestimatedthat the illegal immigration population was much higher: an average 22.1 million for 2016. The researchers used a mathematical model with assumptions on immigration inflows and outflows to estimate the growth in the illegal immigration population from 1990 to 2016. Immigration experts, including those with theMigration Policy Institute, theCenter for Migration Studies, theCenter for Immigration Studies(a self-described low-immigration, pro-immigrant group) and the libertarianCato Institute, have criticized the Yale study.

MPI said it wasbased on seriously flawed assumptions, and CIS said, The findings are unsupportable. One of the main criticisms is that the study didnt adequately account for circular migration in the 1990s (people coming and going multiple times) and overestimated the number who remained in the U.S.The Center for Migration StudiesRobert Warren, who was the director of the statistics division of Immigration and Naturalization Services from 1986 to 1995, wrote in his criticism that the apprehension rates the Yale researchers used for the 1990s were purely speculative. The estimates for inflows are far too high and for outflows far too low, he said.The Cato Institutes Alex Nowrasteh said the media and researchers should not support the studys findings based on the quality of the criticisms. When the Department of Homeland Securitypublishedits own most recent estimate on the illegal immigration population in December, it mentioned the Pew Research Center and Center for Migration Studies estimates, but it didnt cite the Yale study.

How many people are crossing the border illegally?Theres no official measure of how many people succeed in illegally crossing the border, but authorities use the number of apprehensions to gauge changes in illegal immigration. Apprehensions on the Southwest border peaked in 2000 at 1.64 million and have generally declined since, totaling 396,579 in 2018.

Those numbers, which come from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, are for fiscal years and date back to 1960.

Thats a 76 percent decline in the number of apprehensions between the peak in 2000 and 2018.

We can also look at how the figures have changed over the past several years.

Under the Obama administration, the yearly apprehensions on the Southwest border declined by 35 percent from calendar year 2008, the year before President Obama took office, through the end of 2016. In President Donald Trumps first full year in office, the apprehensions declined by 43 percent, from calendar year 2016 to 2017.

On a monthly basis, the apprehensions decreased significantly during the first six months of Trumps tenure and then began to rise.The number was actually higher in November (the most recent month for which the U.S. Customs and Border Protection has published figures) than it was when Trump was sworn in.

What about people overstaying their visas?As border apprehensions have declined, estimates show a growing proportion of the undocumented population legally entered the country on visas but overstayed the time limits on those visas. A Center for Migration Studies report estimates that 44 percent of those in living in the U.S. illegally in 2015 were visa overstays. Thats up from an estimated 41 percent in 2008.

The CMS report, written byRobert Warren, a former director of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Services statistics division, says 65 percent of net arrivals those joining the undocumented population from 2008 to 2015 were visa overstays.

There are no solid, long-term estimates of the visa overstay problem. When we wrote about this issue in August 2015, DHS told us it didnt have statistics on visa overstays. But DHS has since issued some estimates. It said that about 629,000 people on visas who were expected to leave in fiscal year 2016 hadnt done so by the end of that fiscal year (thats out of 50.4 million arrivals).

That number, however, had declined to about 545,000 by January 2017, DHS said, noting that it expected the estimate to shift over time as additional information is reported. CMS disputed the DHS estimate, finding that the number was too high.

For fiscal year 2017, DHS estimated in a report released in August that there were 606,926 suspected in-country overstays, a rate of 1.15 percent of expected departures.

What about families trying to cross the border illegally?The number of family units apprehended has increased since fiscal year 2013, the first year for which we have such data. While 3.6 percent of those apprehended in 2013 were in a family unit, the proportion was 27 percent in 2018.

In fiscal year 2013, according to Customs and Border Protection data, there were 14,855 people apprehended on the Southwest border who were part of a family unit those are individuals, including children under 18, parents or legal guardians, apprehended with a family member.

The number increased significantly in fiscal year 2014 to 68,445. Then, it dropped the following year to 39,838, before increasing again in fiscal year 2016 to 77,674. The figure was similar in 2017, and it went up in 2018, to 107,212.

We asked Customs and Border Protection if it could provide family unit figures for years prior to 2013. We have not received a response.

How many unaccompanied children are caught trying to cross the border?Using the same time period that we have for family units, the number of children under age 18 apprehended crossing the border without a parent or legal guardian was about the same in fiscal year 2013 as it was in 2017 around 40,000. But it fluctuated in the years in between.In fiscal 2018, the number was 50,036.

In 2014, the Obama administration dealt with a surge of unaccompanied minors on the Southwest border, largely due to those fleeing violence and poverty in the northern triangle of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador and false rumors about permits being issued, as we explained at the time. The number of apprehended unaccompanied children rose from 38,759 in fiscal year 2013 to 68,541 in fiscal year 2014. It went back down to just under 40,000 the following year.

CBP data for unaccompanied children go back further than the available statistics on family units. In fiscal year 2010, the number of unaccompanied children apprehended was 18,411.

How many unaccompanied children, including children separated from their parents, are being held in shelters in the U.S.?Unaccompanied children are referred to the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement. HHS said during a conference call on June 26 that there were 11,800 children in ORR shelters, with 2,047 of those being children who had been separated from their parents. The rest about 83 percent had crossed the border without a parent or legal guardian.

By early July, HHS Secretary Alex Azar said his agency would reunite nearly 3,000 children who had been separated from their parents.

According toaDec. 12 court filingin a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, there were 131 children still in custody separated from their parents; however, in more than 90 percent of those cases either the parents have indicated they wont reunify with their children or officials have found the parents are unfit.

DHS and HHS have not provided any figures on how many children were separated from their parents in prior years.

The ORR program houses the children inabout100 shelters in 14 states. In May, an HHS official told Congress that children had spent an average of 57 days in such shelters in fiscal 2018 before being placed with a sponsor,who could be a parent, another relative or a non-family member.

About 80 percent or more of the unaccompanied children referred to HHS over the last several years have been age 13 and older, according to HHS statistics, and about 90 percent or more have been from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.

Is there recidivism?Yes. Customs and Border Patrol says 10 percent of those apprehended in fiscal year 2017 were caught more than once that year. In 2016, the figure was 12 percent.

How many border patrol agents are there?In fiscal year 2017, there were 19,437 border patrol agents. The number peaked in fiscal year 2011 at 21,444, so it has declined a bit since then. But the number of agents is still much larger than it was about two decades ago.

The vast majority of agents are assigned to the Southwest border. Back in fiscal year 2000, when apprehensions peaked at1.64 million, there were 8,580 agents assigned to the border with Mexico. In 2017, when apprehensions were 303,916, there were 16,605 Southwest border agents.

How many people are deported each year?The Department of Homeland Security says 340,056 people were removed from the U.S. in fiscal 2016. A removal is the compulsory and confirmed movement of an inadmissible or deportable alien out of the United States based on an order of removal. (See Table 39 of the 2016 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics.)

There are also returns, which are inadmissible or deportable immigrants who leave voluntarily before a formal removal order is issued. Returns totaled 106,167 that year.

The peak for combined removals and returns was 1.86 million in fiscal 2000 the same year that apprehensions on the Southwest border also peaked. In fact, the bar graph of these statistics mirrors the graph on apprehensions (see above) generally, when apprehensions were higher, so, too, were removals and returns.

Since fiscal 2011, removals have been higher each year than returns. Before that, the reverse was true.

Excerpt from:
Illegal Immigration Statistics - FactCheck.org