Mordiceius posted:

This is the future Berners want.

quote:

The Supreme Court said Tuesday that the parents of a Mexican youth who was shot to death in Mexico by a US Border Patrol agent standing on American soil cannot try to sue the agent in US courts for damages.
...
In 2010, Sergio Hernandez, a 15-year-old Mexican citizen, was with friends on a cement culvert that separates El Paso, Texas, from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. The international border runs down the middle of the culvert.

Hernandez's parents say their son and the others were playing a game: crossing the border, touching a fence and then running back to Mexican soil. They accused Jesus Mesa Jr., the Border Patrol agent, of arriving on the scene and fatally shooting their son while Mesa was standing on US soil.

They wanted to sue Mesa for violating the Fourth and Fifth Amendment.

According to the government, Mesa resorted to force only after Hernandez refused to follow commands to stop throwing rocks.
...
The Justice Department declined to bring a criminal charge against Mesa in 2012 and it supported the agent in court, arguing that the family cannot come to the US courts and sue for damages.

got any sevens posted:

mexico should declare war

got any sevens posted:

mexico should declare war

comedyblissoption posted:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/25/politics/supreme-court-cross-border-shooting-case/index.html

thanks obama

ikanreed posted:

Complete list of nations that don't have legit cassus belli against the us:

Peanut President posted:

the uk

quote:

Several years into his tenure with CBP, Rodriguez was buying cigarettes at a gas station near the bridge when a woman approached to ask if he would help her smuggle a child through his inspection lane. She wrote her phone number on a scrap of paper and pressed it into his hand. The proposition was brazen, but not uncommon—corruption was rampant within CBP.

Rodriguez called the woman’s phone number and set up a meeting. He agreed to accept a bribe of $300. The woman and child entered the United States through his inspection lane and were arrested immediately—Rodriguez had worn a wire and taped the encounter.

For his role in the operation, CBP flew Rodriguez to Washington in 2007 to accept the agency’s national award for integrity. “Nothing is more critical to CBP’s mission,” then-Commissioner W. Ralph Basham said at the ceremony. In a flat-brimmed hat and white gloves, Rodriguez walked across the stage to shake Basham’s hand.

exmarx posted:

exmarx posted:

comedyblissoption posted:

someone make a papers please game but for CBP

NightGyr posted:

Border agent finds out he's actually an undocumented immigrant and gets fired.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/02/a-former-border-agent-at-risk-of-deportation/606418/

PostNouveau posted:

- He's gonna get deported and be an enormous target for the cartels in Mexico because they see him as a CBP officer.

PostNouveau posted:

Highlights:
- He and his wife reached out to Trump when they found out he was actually undocumented because they were Trump voters so they thought he'd help.

- In denying his application for a green card, the government notes that he committed voter fraud by voting for Trump as an undocumented immigrant.

PostNouveau posted:

I just really really want to know how the gently caress this guy wound up as a CBP officer after a lifetime of getting harassed while crossing the border to see his family.

PostNouveau posted:

I just really really want to know how the gently caress this guy wound up as a CBP officer after a lifetime of getting harassed while crossing the border to see his family.

quote:

ON SUNDAY NIGHT, the Department of Justice Executive Office for Immigration Review announced on Twitter that certain preliminary hearings in immigration court — hearings for people who aren’t detained — would be canceled until April 10. But the new policy didn’t cancel hearings for people in a special type of detention: the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as MPP or Remain in Mexico. As a result, at an EOIR facility in El Paso on Monday morning, immigrants in MPP were crowded into court, along with court employees, and the crowding put everyone at risk for contracting and spreading the coronavirus. El Paso over the past four days has recorded its first two known cases.

The legal proceedings that have been canceled nationwide for people not in Immigration and Customs Enforcement prisons are called “master calendar hearings.” At master calendars, each immigrant is briefly read their rights and given a continuance or a date for a final hearing. Typically, master calendars are done en masse. That means dozens of immigrants sit for hours together in cramped EOIR courtrooms about the size of a large living room.

The crowding can be dramatic and is often worse for immigrants in MPP. They live in Mexico, in precarious and often unsanitary conditions, and are periodically shuttled into the U.S. for their hearings. Typically, dozens are packed into EOIR courtrooms. They crunch together, knee to knee, on benches. Children squirm in parents’ laps or crawl on the floor. Coughing, sneezing, and mucus are constant.

On Monday morning in El Paso, about 30 people in MPP were led into a federal building that houses EOIR court. All the immigrants, including babies, were wearing protective masks.

Reporters and community observers signed up to witness the hearing but were told the courtroom probably would not accommodate them. “It’s too crowded,” said a guard named Childers. “There are adults! Babies! I’m 64 years old.” He had on gloves but no mask.

The reporters and community observers sat together, awaiting a final decision on whether we could attend. An hour later, immigration attorney Imelda Maynard, who works for Catholic Charities of Southern New Mexico, joined us. She said she’d just been in the court to represent a client.

Maynard said that no one was wearing a mask. “Not the adults, not the children. No one.” She said the immigrants had no gloves either, though the guards did.

I went back to the anteroom by the court and spotted guards herding several immigrants to a bathroom break. No one wore masks or gloves.

Only the judge, Christopher Thielemann, was protected. He was presiding over the hearing by video from 600 miles away, in Fort Worth.

The American Federation of Government Employees Local 511, representing ICE prosecutors, joined the National Association of Immigration Judges and the American Immigration Lawyers Association on Sunday in calling for the immediate shutdown of all 68 immigration courts across the country, for two to four weeks. The Justice Department so far “is failing to meet its obligations to ensure a safe and healthy environment within our Immigration Courts,” the groups said.

Two EOIR staffers eventually approached the reporters and community observer. “We were sent to tell you that you unfortunately won’t be able to attend court,” they said. “It’s too crowded.” They stood the requisite 6 feet away. In the background, a well-dressed El Paso lawyer coughed.

SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:

It's okay literally every person in any jail or camp will be gettijg it anyways

Algund Eenboom posted:

https://mobile.twitter.com/mattdpearce/status/1240107298799808513 Amerika committing suicide to maintain white supremacism

quote:

Inside Palmer Luckey’s Bid to Build a Border Wall: How the Oculus founder, along with ex-Palantir executives, plans to reinvent national security, starting with Trump's agenda.

WE’RE STANDING ON the edge of a cliff on a remote Texas ranch, a long patch of rocky desert stretching out below to the verdant banks of the Rio Grande, a silver ribbon 2 miles distant. On the horizon, a light haze shrouds the mountains of northern Mexico. The whistle of a stiff and constant wind cuts through a silence that gives no hint of the hostilities, both physical and political, that animate these borderlands.

Palmer Luckey—yes, that Palmer Luckey, the 25-year-old entrepreneur who founded the virtual reality company Oculus, sold it to Facebook, and then left Facebook in a haze of political controversy—hands me a Samsung Gear VR headset. Slipping it over my eyes, I am instantly immersed in a digital world that simulates the exact view I had just been enjoying in real life. In the virtual valley below is a glowing green square with text that reads PERSON 98%. Luckey directs me to tilt my head downward, toward the box, and suddenly an image pops up over the VR rendering. A human is making his way through the rugged sagebrush, a scene captured by cameras on a tower behind me. To his right I see another green box, this one labeled ANIMAL 86%. Zooming in on it brings up a photo of a calf, grazing a bit outside its usual range.

The system I’m trying out is Luckey’s solution to how the US should detect unauthorized border crossings. It merges VR with surveillance tools to create a digital wall that is not a barrier so much as a web of all-seeing eyes, with intelligence to know what it sees. Luckey’s company, Anduril Industries, is pitching its technology to the Department of Homeland Security as a complement to—or substitute for—much of President Trump’s promised physical wall along the border with Mexico.

...

Luckey secured warehouse space in an industrial area of Orange County. When the team approached Founders Fund, Brian Singerman, a partner who was also the first Oculus investor, agreed to lead the fund’s $17.5 million seed round. “Palmer is an insanely brilliant technologist,” he says. “A little bit … out there. But most brilliant people are.” (This May, Founders Fund led a $41 million Series A round.)

Luckey, Stephens, and Grimm also made their pitch to Palantir’s directors. In attendance was Brian Schimpf, Palantir’s head of engineering. After the session, Schimpf told them he wanted in. He became the fifth cofounder and CEO, with Grimm as COO and Luckey as CTO. Stephens chairs the board (he never left Founders Fund).

The company’s name also has a Palantir connection. Middle-earth buffs will recognize Anduril as the enchanted blade that was Aragorn’s go-to lethal weapon; a palantir is a magical crystal ball from the same Tolkien universe. “All of us are Lord of the Rings fans, so it was a pretty fun name,” Luckey says. “Also, I have Anduril the sword hanging on my wall.” (Luckey procured a collector’s version, not the original movie prop).

A collector's version of Anduril, the enchanted blade from Lord of the Rings, hangs on Luckey's wall. BENJAMIN RASMUSSEN

IN A STEAMPUNKISH workshop in an industrial area of Oakland, California, Anduril houses a project called Sentry that brings this parallel to life. Sentry is a fleet of autonomous firefighting machines meant to battle blazes on California’s hills, among other applications. The idea is to hollow out armored troop carriers to hold more than a thousand gallons of water. With crinkled aluminum skin, a Sentry vehicle looks something like a battlebot tank. That’s no coincidence—Anduril’s subcontractor for the project is Jamie Hyneman, the special effects expert and former cohost of MythBusters who built one of the fiercest battle­bots in Robot Wars history.

Luckey passes me an Oculus Rift headset and a handheld controller to try driving a simulation of a Sentry vehicle. On my headset I see a stand of burning trees. I set the tank on autonomous mode and use the index-finger trigger, familiar to anyone who has used an Xbox, to shoot its water cannons at the blazes. It is exactly like playing a video­game. As the flames spread, I concentrate hard to rule over the conflagration, wanting to put in a strong performance for the Anduril team.

MythBusters cohost Jamie Hyneman is building an autonomous firefighting tank for Anduril. BENJAMIN RASMUSSEN

Algund Eenboom posted:

I was looking up what the mythbusters guys were up to nowadays, and uh

https://www.wired.com/story/palmer-luckey-anduril-border-wall/

quote:

In late March, an employee at the Houston Contract Detention Facility became the first detention center staff case reported by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Texas. However, ICE officials confirmed to the Observer they are not reporting cases of contractors who work in Texas immigration facilities who have tested positive for COVID-19 because they are employed by a third party. This means the list of infected employees who are potentially interacting with detained persons and facility staff is incomplete.

Ryan Gustin, manager of public affairs for CoreCivic, the prison company contracted to run five detention centers in Laredo, Houston, South Texas, and Williamson County, said it has “three confirmed cases of COVID-19 among our CoreCivic employees that work at the Houston Processing Center. They are recovering at home and are in regular communication with their health care providers,” Gustin told the Observer.

A spokesperson for GEO Group, a prison company that runs detention centers in Conroe and Pearsall, confirmed it has three employees at the Montgomery Processing Center in Conroe who have tested positive for COVID-19. “One of the employees who tested positive is currently on self-quarantine at home,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “The second employee has fully recovered and returned to work after meeting return-to-work guidelines for essential workers issued by the CDC. The third employee who tested positive has completed a 14-day quarantine and is expected to return to work, in accordance with the CDC’s return-to-work guidelines for essential workers.”

Meanwhile, Carley Lawrence, vice president of corporate communication for Chenega Corporation, which has employees at the Port Isabel Service Processing Center, confirmed that on March 30 the company became aware of an employee who works at the detention center who tested positive for coronavirus.

An official from Management and Training Corporation, a prison company that is contracted by ICE to run three detention centers, in Houston, Raymondville, and Anson, confirmed it is not aware of any of its employees at Texas detention centers testing positive.

None of these cases have been reported by ICE on its official list of COVID-19 positive detainees and employees, which lists only 25 infected detention center employees nationally. Instead, the agency says that information about infections of contractors must come from the contracting company. “The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Coronavirus website maintains information on individuals in our detention centers and ICE employees that have tested positive for COVID-19,” ICE said in a statement. “Contractor information is maintained with each contract organization.”

ICE would not provide a list of the organizations with which it contracts in Texas.

quote:

Several hundred immigrants have been released from U.S. detention centers amid concerns that the coronavirus is spreading rapidly through some facilities.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement says it has released nearly 700 detainees after evaluating their "immigration history, criminal record, potential threat to public safety, flight risk, and national security concerns."

In New Jersey, where there have been significant outbreaks among detainees and staffers, local officials and immigrant advocates say at least 245 detainees have been released from three county jails where ICE detainees are held.

Most detainees were released by ICE, often with electronic ankle monitors to make sure they show up to later court dates. Some were ordered released by federal courts after immigration attorneys filed a flurry of habeas corpus lawsuits. The suits allege it was unconstitutional to detain immigrants on civil violations during a pandemic.

"I was happy as hell when they came and called me — I couldn't believe it," said Julio Colcas, 55, a Peruvian immigrant with mental and physical ailments. He had spent nearly two years in ICE detention at the Essex County Correctional Facility until he was released by ICE earlier this month with an ankle bracelet.

"When I left everyone was clapping — 'Yay!' " he said. "By me leaving, it gives them hope it could happen to them, too."

Nationally, there are about 90 confirmed cases of COVID-19 among ICE detainees and more than 20 cases among detention center employees, according to the agency.

Some facilities have been hit harder than others. The Hudson County Correctional Facility in New Jersey, for instance, has had a rash of coronavirus cases. At least three workers at the facility have died from the virus, and 10 ICE detainees have tested positive, according to county officials. More than one-third of immigrant detainees there have been released, according to local officials and advocates.

ICE says it is taking safety precautions. To increase social distancing, detainees are locked in their cells for as long as 23 hours a day to reduce the amount of time they spend in communal areas. Those who are sick or who have been exposed to the virus are quarantined in separate units.

quote:

Hospitalized and on a ventilator for a little over a week, a detainee from Otay Mesa Detention Center on Wednesday became the first in immigration custody nationwide to die from COVID-19.

Carlos Ernesto Escobar Mejia died around 2:15 a.m., according to his sister, Maribel Escobar. Her brother, known to her by the nickname “Netio,” would have turned 58 later this month, Escobar said.

She remembered her brother as very kind, someone who helped people, in particular doing everything he could to support their sister Rosa, with whom he lived in the Los Angeles area.

“My brother was a one-of-a-kind person,” Maribel Escobar said.

He was a good person and a good brother, Rosa Escobar said. She says she felt like a second mother to him, especially after their mother died a few years ago.

“Why is there so much injustice in this world?” Rosa said in Spanish, crying in an interview in the days before her brother’s death.

Rosa and her brother, the youngest of five siblings, came from El Salvador with their mother in 1980 during the country’s civil war to join Maribel, who was already in the United States. Rosa said she had lived with her brother ever since.

Her brother was the only one in the family who hadn’t been able to get a green card. Both sisters are now U.S. citizens.

Escobar Mejia had been at Otay Mesa Detention Center since January. That facility has become the biggest hot spot for the coronavirus among immigration detention centers nationwide.

As of Tuesday afternoon, 202 people in custody there had tested positive — 136 Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees and 66 U.S. Marshals Service inmates — according to facility records obtained by The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Detainees have complained that the facility was not adequately protecting them from the novel coronavirus. Erik Mercado said he met Escobar Mejia in segregated housing — also known as solitary confinement — when Escobar Mejia was brought in for participating in a hunger strike over the facility’s conditions.

“It was all about his sister,” Mercado said in an interview. “He wanted to get home and help her out.”

ICE released a statement confirming Escobar Mejia’s death on Thursday morning. The agency said that the preliminary cause of death was “undetermined.”

“Consistent with the agency’s protocols, the appropriate agencies have been notified about the death, including the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, and the ICE Office of Professional Responsibility. Additionally, ICE has notified the Salvadoran consulate and Escobar Mejia’s next of kin,” the agency said.

“ICE is firmly committed to the health and welfare of all those in its custody and is undertaking a comprehensive agency-wide review of this incident, as it does in all such cases,” the agency added.

Amanda Gilchrist, spokeswoman for CoreCivic, the private company responsible for the facility, said on Thursday that CoreCivic had been in close contact with ICE about Escobar Mejia’s condition and immediately notified the agency when he died.

“We extend our heartfelt sympathy to this individual’s loved ones,” Gilchrist said.

In a lawsuit recently filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, a federal judge ordered ICE to review cases of detainees who are medically vulnerable to the coronavirus and to release as many as possible. Escobar Mejia was on ICE’s list, but he was already in the hospital.

An attorney representing ICE told the judge on Monday that Escobar Mejia was in serious condition and suggested praying for him.

Before being detained, Escobar Mejia, who had diabetes, had undergone several operations that left him without his right foot because of complications with that condition.

When he died, he had been at the Paradise Valley Hospital in National City since April 24, according to ICE, and had been on a ventilator. He received a blood transfusion on Tuesday, his sisters said, but his body had already been too weakened by the virus.

A little over a week before, on April 15, he had a bond hearing in front of Judge Lee O’Connor, Rosa said, but O’Connor didn’t let him out.

ICE said the judge denied bond because he decided that Escobar Mejia was a “flight risk.”

Rosa said it was because the judge was waiting for more information about a domestic violence charge that showed up in his record that had been a case of mistaken identity. In that criminal case from the early 1990s, the judge dismissed the charge when he realized that police had arrested the wrong person, Rosa said. Escobar’s former attorney, Joan Del Valle, confirmed from her records that he had been acquitted.

“All of this anguish because of the judge,” Rosa said, “because on April 15, my brother was still well.”

Maribel tried to mail a letter to O’Connor last week to express her frustration at his decision.

“I want you to know that it was on your hands to save his life,” Maribel wrote.

The letter, which had been addressed to the detention center, came back to her on Wednesday. She says she’s going to try sending it again.

A spokeswoman for the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which employs immigration judges, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Rosa is also frustrated with the attorney she hired to help her brother once he was at Otay Mesa.

Del Valle is based in Los Angeles. She had represented Escobar Mejia since 2012 but couldn’t commute to south San Diego to keep helping him with his case for free, Del Valle said, so she advised Rosa to find someone local for the case.

That attorney wouldn’t take her calls, Rosa said, when she was trying to help her brother get out of the facility as his sponsor.

When she found out her brother was hospitalized, it was through Del Valle, whom ICE called when its officer couldn’t get in touch with the new attorney.

The San Diego attorney did not respond to attempts by the Union-Tribune to contact him.

Her brother wasn’t perfect, Maribel said. When he was younger, he got in trouble from drinking, she said. Because of that, he hadn’t been able to get his green card.

Del Valle confirmed that Escobar Mejia had a couple of convictions that were about three decades old, including a DUI. He had an arrest for possession of a controlled substance in 2012, which was later expunged, she said.

The attorney said that when she took his case, she made him promise her to stay out of trouble, and he did.

He realized that he had been hanging out with the “wrong crowd,” Del Valle said. She thinks his family motivated him to live a positive life.

“He adored his mom when she was alive and his sister. He lived for them,” Del Valle said. “That was the center of his life.”

Del Valle got him released from an immigration detention facility near Los Angeles when she took his case in 2012. Because of a judge retiring and other administrative lags, his trial was supposed to take place in October 2020, she said.

Then, in January, Escobar Mejia was arrested by Border Patrol agents near Campo, according to ICE, while he was in a car with a friend. Because of his foot operation, he couldn’t drive, so the friend was driving his car.

Both ended up at Otay Mesa, but the driver was later released on bond, the sisters said. Their brother was not.

“If that hadn’t happened, my brother would be here with me,” Rosa said, her voice full of grief.

She doesn’t want any other family to have to go through what her family is feeling now.

On Wednesday evening she received a call to make arrangements for his body. She was told she has no option but to arrange for a direct cremation because of the virus. She said she was told she would have to pay $1,700 for the cremation.

quote:

Hospitalized and on a ventilator for a little over a week, a detainee from Otay Mesa Detention Center on Wednesday became the first in immigration custody nationwide to die from COVID-19.

Algund Eenboom posted:

Good Sphere posted:

If you are an international student enrolled in a US college that has no on-campus classes this fall semester due to covid-19, then you are expected to leave the country, even if you are doing online courses.

https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/sevp-modifies-temporary-exemptions-nonimmigrant-students-taking-online-courses-during

That's right, the assholes over at ICE are at it again, following Trumps xenophobic agenda white-ify America, and erase all sights of immigrants being a thing in this country to cash in on votes, because Trump's America hates immigrants, pays no mind to people of color, and apologizes for nothing. (Yes, that is why.)

Meanwhile, ICE fails miserably at trying to come up with a good excuse, but it will no surprise it will be convincing to the less fortunate imbeciles living in this country:

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/adolfoflores/foreign-students-online-schools-college-ice-deport

Which makes no sense. They are using covid to deport students. If schools allow it, they can risk getting infection at on-campus classes, or they will have to leave the country. Many colleges rely on international students, so I know they'll try to come up with a solution, but it will probably involve being on campus. So all other students will be entitled staying in and safe taking online courses, but for some reason international students need to risk their health.

For those that think it's an easy feat to leave the country and go to another school, consider the following:
-For those enrolled, classes they are registered for are starting in September.
-EU borders are closed.
-Who would admit them in the middle of a pandemic?
-Submitting applications takes money.
-They would need to travel on an airplane. Who wants to do that right now?
-Visa processing (most embassies are closed during the pandemic).
-It takes time to research universities, mail transcripts, contact faculties, etc.
-For those that need to leave, they likely won't be accepted anywhere by next semester.

What you can do:

Please contact your federal representatives. CALLING HAS THE MOST DIRECT IMPACT. IT WILL TAKE 5-10 MINUTES OF YOUR WHOLE DAY. PLEASE DO THIS.

You can find your House Representative by entering your zip code here: https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative
You can find your Senate representative in the link here: https://www.senate.gov/senators/index.htm There are two Senators to a state. Call/email BOTH of them.
When you are on the phone or emailing them them, you can use the following script:


Petition: PLEASE SIGN THIS

This policy is ridiculous and there's no justifiable reason that it should exist. There's over a million international college students in the US. Imagine how many lives will be ruined. It doesn't have to happen if people make a big enough stink about it. Quick action, in numbers may be enough to overturn this cruel and thoughtless decision.