1/ Trump admin is actively working to sentence ~200K innocent Salvadorans now legally in US to death. Let's talk about everything wrong with this rank @ICEgov propaganda from @CBSThisMorning & the complicity of these "journalists" in that plan. #SaveTPS
2/ Let's start with that headline. Why would a crackdown on gangs be "controversial"? Gangs are bad, and few worse than MS-13. But @CBSThisMorning doesn't address it in the story at all, leaving reasonable people to assume that there is no rational counterpoint. But there is.
3/ If you watch story closely, there are threads that an actual journalist would have not only tugged, but yanked free until something snapped. But as the anchor notes at the end, @margbrennan had "amazing access" to @ICEgov operation. Clearly that access came at a steep price.
4/ @ICEgov "knows" that the 20-year-old Salvadoran target is a gang member because they have a "photo of him actually flashing gang signs." I have seen this play out in immigration court so many times. I live in a Salvadoran community. And let me tell you:
5/ The "human intelligence" @ICEgov and local cops do on this is basically just trolling FB. Is one of your 3K friends a gang member? Have you posted a gang-related meme or music video? Congratulations, you're now a sworn member of MS-13. I call it "the humint centipede."
6/ I could do a few more pages on the idiocy of the "gang analysis" I've seen from @ICEgov. This kid is probably a "gang member" like @margbrennan is a "journalist." But let's move on to the rotten heart of this @ICEgov snow job.
7/ @margbrennan watches 12 armed @ICEgov agents kick down this unarmed 20-year-old's door and pull him out without a warrant. She notes in passing that they don't have a warrant. But doesn't, y'know, ASK about that. Cool, cool.
8/ They get their guy, along with another kid who happens to be on site. Is he a gang member? No. He's a "gang associate." What does that mean?
9/ The officer then explains to @margbrennan, a person who purports to be a journalist, that "gang associate" is a thing that @ICEgov says in their reports so that immigration judges will hold teenagers without bond. Cool. Very cool. Totally normal law enforcement. Carry on!
10/ "So his known crime is entering the country illegally?"
"Correct."
"But that's... all you definitely know?"
"That's correct. The purpose of classifying him as... a gang associate is because once he goes in front of an immigration judge, we don't want him to get bail..."
11/ This is the @ICEgov equivalent of video of a local cop planting drugs on a suspect. A huge gotcha. But reported here with no context. No interview, let alone a quote, from an immigrant-led rights org. It's #ICE TV.
12/ In apparent exchange for this tepid ridealong, @ICEgov director Thomas Homan than gives @margbrennan an interview. It's not really worth mentioning other than he repeats a few things nearly verbatim from a recent appearance at the Heritage Foundation.
13/ No tough questions. No mention of simple fact that vast majority of @ICEgov detainees since Trump have had nothing more than unlicensed operation on their records, and no gang ties. @margbrennan just lets him talk. But here's why all of this matters:
15/ Nearly 200K Salvadorans now in the US have #TPS. It's one of the few ways that anyone from #ElSalvador can gain any legal immigration status at all. Set to expire in March, and an announcement on it could come any day. Like #DACA, it requires a clean record & no gang ties.
16/ Jeff Sessions asked that local cops send in criminal recs for Haitians in their communities. This overtly racist request used to justify sunset for #TPS#Haiti only 7 yrs after quake. Nowhere do #BlackLivesMatter less than in immigration enforcement.
17/ Just as Trump admin actively worked to associate Haitians with criminality, it is now conducting a PR campaign to make "Salvadoran" equivalent to "MS-13." And @CBSThisMorning proved itself more than willing to help this racist crusade.
18/ To be clear: MS-13 are terrorists. They are the reason many Salvadorans are in the US at all, and why nearly all of them are in mortal fear of return. They rape/murder/extort at will, and spread their awful virus by recruiting their child soldiers as young as 7 or 8.
19/ And it's personal for me: we have had real problems with MS-13 in my neighborhood, and many of my clients & their kids have been threatened/harmed. (FYI @sdooling & @phillipWGBH have both done actual journalism on this recently if @margbrennan is looking for inspiration.)
20/ So I'm not trying to "protect" gang members here, #tcot pals. I'm standing up for the more than 1 million Salvadorans in the US who aren't gang members, and the 200K innocent folks who anxiously awaiting a decision on their future in this country within the next few weeks.
21/ @CBSThisMorning and @margbrennan are actively playing into Trump admin's propaganda campaign against decent, hardworking families who have already endured so much. You now have a moral obligation to balance this garbage piece by telling stories of average #TPS recipients.
22/ Oh, and BTW: #ElSalvador is what *we* made it. 150+ yrs of US military, economic, & political intervention hollowed the country out and left it ripe for MS-13 to rule. Terminating #TPS would be a death sentence for thousands, and an abdication of our moral responsibilities.
23/ For more on the astonishing abuses of due process and common decency perpetrated by @ICEgov against Salvadoran kids in the name of "gang ties," here's my piece in @thebafflermag earlier this year
24/ I know it's hard to keep track of Trump's openly-racist campaigns, but this one is about to put 200K people into imminent danger. *Please* check in to be sure that your federal reps are willing to do what it takes to #SaveTPS. (And don't watch @CBSThisMorning.) Thanks!
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1/ One of the worst parts of the proposed new DHS "public charge" rule would resurrect a 400-yr-old idea, punish lower-income immigrants, AND deliver a massive new giveaway to Wall Street.
Not seeing much out there on this piece right now, so here's what you need to know:
2/ The idea of a "public charge bond" goes back to the earliest colonial days. If someone coming over from Europe didn't seem like they would be able to support themselves, the ship's captain would have to put up a given amount of money to keep them off the dole or take them back
3/ As part of the "Passenger Cases," SCOTUS struck down the city of Boston's attempt to collect public charge bonds from ship captains as unconstitutional in 1849, finding that only the federal government had this kind of power. But it didn't actually exercise it until 1882.
Not, like, step-by-step but generally what are the paths available under current law. If the answer is any variation on "get in line like everybody else," an automatic 6-month bar on any immigration rhetoric/legislation until finishing a mandatory US Immigration 101 course.
If you or your staff are not willing to take the time to understand the system we have, there is no place at the table for you in working toward a new one. None.
1/ Ten years ago this June a recent immigrant was sentenced to life for the vicious, violent, cold-blooded murder of his wife and infant daughter before trying to flee to his home country.
--@bostonherald didn't run an angry editorial blaming our imm. vetting processes
--No one used this tragedy to call for an end to all British immigration
--The media never used a booking photo; always images like this one to remind us of his wealth & whiteness
3/ Neil Entwistle shot his wife in the head, and then his infant daughter in the stomach as she lay sleeping in her mother's arms. He then withdrew every dollar they had and fled to London. Mass state troopers grabbed him on a tube platform.
If you're ever up for listening in on what your local Deep State is up to, may I recommend one of my favorite eateries in #Boston: the cafe in the JFK fed. building. Decent, reasonably-priced food with a nice view and plenty of space to relax while waiting for #immigrationcourt
1/ Two VA managers are having a lunch meeting nearby, talking through how to deliver faster/better services to a 94-year-old veteran & review implementation of a new process.
A USCIS officer is having a quick salad before another round of immigration interviews. In + out in 10
2/ Friends, this is your actual "Deep State."
Career public servants who take pride in keeping their agencies on mission and making the best use of tax dollars doing it, no matter the President or policies. Dedication, commitment, and institutional knowledge. We can't lose them.
Maybe *not* have a rogue, unaccountable, armed secret police force & threat of indefinite detention in a disgusting American gulag archipelago terrorizing immigrant communities in the name of enforcing civil immigration orders
BUT WE HAVE TO HAVE IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT
Coordinated internal immigration enforcement is a very new idea in US history. But apart from that: we've only been doing it this way for 15 years. If you are doing anything to make this model inevitable, you're on the wrong side
1/ Live-tweeting from the Boston immigration court's detained docket:
Detainee is on video. I can't see his face but he has a heavy Massachusetts accent--you'd never know he wasn't born here. He is seeking bond.
2/ He has a series of drug-related convictions together with a record consistent with an addiction. Judge leaves his bond at "no bond" without hearing from him.
3/ Like most people on the detained docket, he doesn't have and can't afford a lawyer. (No appointed counsel here.) He is now speaking for himself.