Daily Archives: January 15, 2020

2020-01-15: News Headlines

sputniknews (2020-01-15). Anti-Citizenship Protests Have No Bearing on India as Investment Destination, Top Industrialist Says. sputniknews.com New Delhi (Sputnik): India witnessed protests after the government enacted a law to grant citizenship to illegal immigrants from several religious minorities, who faced persecution in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, excluding Muslim.

WSWS (2020-01-15). New Zealand's Daily Blog demands anti-immigrant measures against "Australians fleeing climate change" wsws.org The trade union-funded blog, which supports the Labour-led government, calls for a major increase in military spending to turn New Zealand into a "fortress" against immigrants.

WSWS (2020-01-15). Kremlin maintains muted response to Suleimani assassination, insists on Iran nuclear deal. wsws.org An open war against Iran is likely to spread directly to the border of Russia, enflaming not only the entire Middle East but also the South Caucasus.

Peoples Dispatch (2020-01-15). 23 die as two migrant boats capsize in Mediterranean region. peoplesdispatch.org One of the boats capsized in the Ionian Sea near Paxi, Greece while the other accident took place in the Aegean Sea near Cesme in Turkey. 29 people were rescued…

sputniknews (2020-01-15). Ankara Summons Egypt's Charge d'Affaires Over Raid on Anadolu News Agency in Cairo – Reports. sputniknews.com Earlier in the day, Turkish state Anadolu news agency reported that Egyptian police raided its office in Cairo on Tuesday evening and arrested four of its employees.

yenisafak (2020-01-15). Pentagon chief says ready to fund southern border wall. yenisafak.com The Pentagon is prepared to provide additional financial support for the Trump administration's controversial southern border wall, according to the U.S. defense secretary."The first priority of the DOD [Department of Defense] is the protection of the homeland. So the southwest border is a security issue," said Mark Esper, when asked by reporters if the Trump administration will transfer part of its 2020 defense budget for building the wall on the Mexican border."And so we'll see how things play out, but we remain committed to supporting the Department of Homeland Security and its mission," he told a press confer…

Staff (2020-01-14). "Floaters": Martín Espada Pays Tribute to Salvadoran Father & Daughter Who Drowned at U.S. Border. democracynow.org Acclaimed poet Martín Espada pays tribute to àìscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his 23-month old daughter Angie Valeria, who drowned in the Rio Grande river in June 2019 trying to cross into the United States. A photo of the drowned Salvadoran father and daughter caused widespread outrage at the humanitarian crisis at the U.S. southern border and also raised questions about the ethics of exploiting such images in the press. Espada's poem "Floaters" meditates on their passing and its aftermath.

W. T. Whitney Jr. (2020-01-14). Mexico takes action on coup in Bolivia and bolsters CELAC. peoplesworld.org Mexico's government intervened recently in two difficult situations beyond its borders. One is turmoil in Bolivia following a U.S.-assisted coup. The other concerns renewing the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). At issue there is regional integration and independence. Bolivian President Evo Morales was forced out of office on Nov. 10. Two days …

Staff (2020-01-14). The US Is Waging a Stealth War at the Mexico Border. truthout.org In recent decades, U.S. immigration policies have aggressively targeted families fleeing violence and poverty in Mexico and Central and South America, spawning a network of detention centers that now exist indefinitely along our southern border. The U.S.'s approach to tackling undocumented immigration has come under fire for its use of brutal tactics such as deliberately separating families, placing them in confinement under harsh conditions, and denying them adequate medical and legal counsel. | On today's program, Joh…

teleSUR (2020-01-14). Almost 1,000 Migrants Returned to Libya This Year Already: IOM. telesurenglish.net More than 950 refugees and migrants, among them 136 women and 85 children were intercepted in the Mediterranean in the first two weeks of 2020 and returned to inhumane detention centers in war-ravaged Lybia, one of the least safe countries for them, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). | RELATED: | African Migrants in Egypt Face Increasingly Violent Racism | "

Eunice Cho (2020-01-14). The Trump Administration Weakens Standards for ICE Detention Facilities. aclu.org Last month, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officially released a new version of its National Detention Standards (NDS), which govern the treatment of immigrant detainees held in almost 140 facilities in 44 states. These facilities include local and state jails and prisons — some operated by private prison companies — under contract with ICE. Despite being considered "civil detention," almost 20 percent of ICE detainees are held in these jails and prisons, many of which are located in remote, rural locations. | ICE describes its…

teleSUR (2020-01-14). Guatemala: Giammattei Takes Office in a Poor, Insecure Country. telesurenglish.net Guatemala's new president Alejandro Giammattei Tuesday takes office under pressure from the United States President Donald Trump on immigration and security issues. | RELATED: | US Plans to Send Mexican Asylum Seekers to Guatemala | This former director of the Penitentiary System, who will rule Guatemala from 2020 to 2024, must decide his stance quickly on the Asylum Cooperation Agreement (ACA)‚Äã‚Äã‚Äã‚Äã‚&Aum…

Staff (2020-01-14). Headlines for January 14, 2020. democracynow.org "It Doesn't Really Matter": Trump Changes Story on Soleimani Killing, Six Democratic Candidates Will Take Stage for Debate in Iowa Tonight, Warren: Sanders Said Woman Couldn't Win in 2020, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Launching New PAC to Support Progressive Democrats, Trump Plans to Divert Additional $7.2 Billion from Military Budget to Border Wall, Turkey and Russia Broker Ceasefire for Idlib, Syria, France to Send More Troops to West Africa Amid Rising Violence in Sahel, 55 Die in Avalanches in Pakistan, Study: 2019 Was Hottest Year for World's Oceans on Record, AG Barr and Apple Face Off over Phone of Alleged Pen…

splcenter (2020-01-13). Miller Dismisses DACA in Emails, Mirroring Anti-Immigrant Extremists' Views. splcenter.org White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller went against many Republicans when siding with white nationalists and other extremists on the issue of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, more commonly known as DACA, emails show.

news.un (2020-01-11). FROM THE FIELD: West Africa's wishful gold prospectors. news.un.org The mining of gold in unregulated and often hand-dug pits in West Africa, can be a deadly occupation, but one which many impoverished people in the region are pushed into by necessity, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

news.un (2020-01-10). Security Council beats midnight deadline, renews Syria cross-border aid in contentious vote. news.un.org The Security Council on Friday evening renewed a UN operation delivering humanitarian aid across the Syrian border to millions of civilians, but some of the body's members expressed disappointment that the "watered down" measure cut in half the number of crossing points and duration of the authorization.

splcenter (2020-01-10). Weekend Read: SPLC sues Trump administration over family separation policy. splcenter.org The SPLC and its allies have filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration policy that has separated and traumatized thousands of migrant families.

Staff (2020-01-08). Iranian-American Lawmaker Warns of Rising Xenophobia as U.S.-Iran Tension Escalates. democracynow.org In the midst of escalating U.S.-Iran tensions, Border Patrol has been detaining Iranian Americans at the U.S.-Canada border. At least 100 people were delayed at ports of entry along the border over the weekend, following the U.S. assassination of Qassem Soleimani on January 3. For response, we speak with Anna Eskamani, Florida Democratic state representative of Orlando. She is the first Iranian American to be elected to any public office in Florida. "The reality is that when we see the potential war rise in countries like Iran … we'll see xenophobia rise right here locally" in the U.S., Eskamani says.

Abdi Soltani (2020-01-08). Iranian Americans Have Rights, Too — No Matter What's Happening Abroad. aclu.org Like most Iranian Americans, my family immigrated to the United States in the aftermath of the 1979 revolution in Iran, hoping to find safety and acceptance in a country that prides itself on diversity and freedom of expression. We learned and embraced the principles of the Constitution, including freedom of speech and religion, due process, and equal protection — protections that apply to every person, citizen and non-citizen alike. But what happened at the U.S. border this past weekend was a painful reminder that sometimes, we are still considered outsiders. | In the state of Washington this weekend,…

Staff (2020-01-07). Iranian Americans Harassed and Detained at US Border. therealnews.com Dozens of people, including American citizens, faced hours of questioning at the Washington entry point. Jamal Abdi of the National Iranian American Council says the reports could indicate a directive for heightened screening of people born in Iran.

Madhuri Grewal (2020-01-07). It Is Time for a New Way Forward. aclu.org In 1996, at the height of the "tough on crime" era, President Bill Clinton signed two laws that dramatically changed the criminal legal system and radically altered the U.S. immigration system. Just as the 1994 crime bill instituted unjust mandatory minimum sentences and ballooned the prison population, the immigration bills of that same era led to similarly disastrous consequences for immigrants — an explosion in the growth of detention and unfairly harsh punishments for immigrants, including mandatory deportations for minor…

Frank Black (2020-01-07). Greasing the Gears of the Armageddon Engine – Reporting on 'Wexit' shows how not to cover extremist movements. fair.org by Frank Black | Remember how most reporters covered that Canadian Islamic separatist movement? | You know the one: It wanted to seize control of the entire provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, along with their oil fields, and create a republic with its own national borders, constitution, laws, and military. Its two main leaders accused Justin Trudeau's Liberal government of promoting pedophilia and trying to eliminate the Muslim population of Canada; one was a "journalist" with few if any searchable publications, and the other was a former RCMP officer convicted of threatening his wife, and who ran a lobby gro…

Chris Garaffa (2020-01-05). Students learn in the streets: struggle wins release of Connecticut teen from ICE custody. liberationnews.org The struggle for Mario's freedom is not over, and neither is the fight for immigrant rights overall.

Jeff Abbott (2019-12-23). The Other Americans: Asylum Seekers Routed to Guatemala. progressive.org A proposed amendment to immigration policy endangers asylum seekers, advocates warn.