Kamala, Nancy, Chuck Hiding Behind the Flores Dissent Decree?

(CNSNews.com) – Happy to have found an issue that may hurt President Donald Trump politically, Democrats insist there is no need for legislation to fix the badly broken immigration system that allows tens of thousands of people, adults and children alike, to pour into this country illegally, without vetting.

“There’s no need for legislation, there’s no need for anything else,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told a news conference on Tuesday. “You can do it, Mr. President. You started it, you can stop it, plain and simple. So, again, if the president’s ashamed at what’s happening at the border, he can change it.”

Schumer said Trump can “undo this shameful policy immediately…with a flick of the pen.”

“Mr. President, I’ll lend you my pen, any pen,” Schumer said. “You can fix it yourself, so we’re here today to say, Mr. President, you should and you must fix this problem. But if you don’t want to change this cruel policy, at least admit it is your decision.”

A reporter asked Schumer, “Why not just enact a law that stops them from ever from doing this again?”

“Well there are so many obstacles to legislation, and when the president can do it with his own pen, it makes no sense,” Schumer said. “(House Speaker Paul) Ryan, the president signing it, attaching it to things that are unacceptable. Legislation is not the way to go here when it’s so easy for the president to sign it. It’s an excuse.”

Another reporter asked Schumer if the time might come when “Democrats would be willing to work with the Republicans” on a “narrow” immigration bill:

“Let’s hope we never get to that,” Schumer responded. “Let’s hope the president does the right thing and solves the problem, which he can do. That’s the simple, easiest and most likely way this will happen. How many times has immigration legislation passed in this Congress? How many times? Zero. More here.

Trump Could Simply Ignore Court’s Order Halting Travel Ban ...

*** Now for the Flores Dissent Decree and that pesky 9th Circuit Court.

TWS: During an interview on Friday, Trump stated that a law passed by Democrats was the reason illegal immigrants were being separated from the children they brought across the border.

“The Democrats forced that law upon our nation. I hate it. I hate to see separation of parents and children,” the president told reporters.

This came after Trump told Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in May, “I know what you’re going through right now with families is very tough, but those are the bad laws that the Democrats gave us. We have to break up families.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley also weighed in on the predicament, citing a need to repeal “the Flores 1997 court decision” in order to stop the separation of families at the border.

What’s the truth?

In April, the Trump administration issued a “zero tolerance” policy at the border, a policy responsible for separating some 2,000 children from the adults they crossed over with. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in May that “if you are smuggling a child then we will prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you as required by law.”

But current law does not mandate family separation at the border — there is simply no federal statute that requires such activity, which is made obvious by the lack of enforcement of this policy prior to April. The Trump administration’s policy was not dictated to it by Congress, past or present, by Republicans or by Democrats. However, current law does not prevent these adults from being separated from the children they brought, either.

Much of the argument comes down to the 1997 Flores settlement to a class-action lawsuit from the 1980s surrounding the “detention and release” of minors taken into custody by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). The settlement demands the release of children to their parents, relatives, etc. without unnecessary delay. If this placement is unavailable — e.g., if the child’s parent is a threat to them or is placed in criminal proceedings, or the supposed parent is only posing as one — the government must put the child in the “least restrictive” accommodations that are appropriate for their needs.

Before the “zero tolerance” policy, illegal immigrants who had crossed the border with children were not often prosecuted but placed in family detention centers (or released) with the order to attend a future court date or await deportation. Now that the adults are being prosecuted and held for their criminal proceedings, the children are subsequently separated and detained in appropriate accommodations outlined by the Flores settlement.

As noted by a fact-check from the New York Times, the Obama administration, during a sharp increase in family migration from South America, utilized family detention centers, which attracted lawsuits claiming “that doing so had breached the Flores settlement by not releasing children swiftly.”

Rich Lowry argues in National Review that if the Flores settlement were reversed there would be no direct need to separate families. “Congress can change the rules so the Flores consent decree will no longer apply,” he notes, “and it can appropriate more money for family shelters at the border.” Current law does not demand that parents be separated from their children but makes prosecuting these adults nigh impossible without separation.

As long as the “zero tolerance” policy set forth from the Trump administration is in operation under current law, adults will be separated from the children they bring while crossing the border, either illegally or to seek asylum. It is incorrect to place the blame on a law passed by Democrats, as it is the “zero tolerance” policy from the current administration that began, through prosecution, separating children and adults who illegally crossed the border together.

U.S. to Withdraw from UN Human Rights Council

  • Haley has said panel wages ‘pathological’ anti-Israel campaign
  • U.K.’s Johnson has said council is flawed but has value

The Trump administration plans to announce its withdrawal from the United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday, making good on a pledge to leave a body it has long accused of hypocrisy and criticized as biased against Israel, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley plan to announce the withdrawal at the State Department in Washington at 5 p.m., the people said. They asked not to be identified discussing a decision that hadn’t yet been made public.

The 47-member council, based in Geneva and created in 2006, began its latest session on Monday with a broadside against President Donald Trump’s immigration policy by the UN’s high commissioner for human rights. He called the policy of separating children from parents crossing the southern border illegally “unconscionable.”

The U.S. withdrawal had been expected. National Security Adviser John Bolton opposed the body’s creation when he was U.S. ambassador to the UN in 2006. In a speech to the council last year, Haley called out the body for what she said was its “relentless, pathological campaign” against Israel. She has also called for ways to expel members of the council that have poor human rights records themselves.

Won’t ‘Sit Quietly’

“For our part, the United States will not sit quietly while this body, supposedly dedicated to human rights, continues to damage the cause of human rights,” Haley said at the time. “In the end, no speech and no structural reforms will save the members of the Human Rights Council from themselves.”

A State Department spokeswoman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, while the UN said it hadn’t received a notification that the U.S. was withdrawing.

The move comes as the Trump administration is under intense criticism from business groups, human rights organizations and lawmakers from both parties over its recently imposed decision to separate children from parents who enter the U.S. illegally.

Even some critics of the human rights council have called for continuing to push for a revamping of the body rather than quitting it.

On the opening day of the council’s current session, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson criticized the body’s perennial agenda item dedicated to Israel and the Palestinian territories, calling it “damaging to the cause of peace.” Nonetheless, he said the U.K. wasn’t “blind to the value of this council.”

The council is scheduled to discuss Israel and the Palestinian territories on July 2, according to its agenda.

*** Sheesh, judged by the company you keep eh? As a reminder, GW Bush removed the United States and Barack Obama reversed that.

Israel and Stuff » UN Human Rights Council ignores ISIS ... photo

COUNTRY TERM EXPIRES IN
Afghanistan 2020
Angola 2020
Australia 2020
Belgium 2018
Brazil 2019
Burundi 2018
Chile 2020
China 2019
Côte d’Ivoire 2018
Croatia 2019
Cuba 2019
Democratic Republic of the Congo 2020
Ecuador 2018
Egypt 2019
Ethiopia 2018
Georgia 2018
Germany 2018
Hungary 2019
Iraq 2019
Japan 2019
Kenya 2018
Kyrgyzstan 2018
Mexico 2020
Mongolia 2018
Nepal 2020
Nigeria 2020
Pakistan 2020
Panama 2018
Peru 2020
Philippines 2018
Qatar 2020
Republic of Korea 2018
Rwanda 2019
Saudi Arabia 2019
Senegal 2020
Slovakia 2020
Slovenia 2018
South Africa 2019
Spain 2020
Switzerland 2018
Togo 2018
Tunisia 2019
Ukraine 2020
United Arab Emirates 2018
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland 2019
United States of America 2019
Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of) 2018

China is Detaining Many Americans, Release?

One has to wonder why Obama, Hillary or John Kerry did not work for their release.

In 2015, the Obama administration issued a warning to China to call off security agents working in the United States as part of Operation Fox Hunt. The agents were pressuring expatriate Chinese, including some wanted on corruption charges.

According to the state-run Xinhua news agency, Operation Fox Hunt has nabbed 2,566 fugitives who fled overseas in 90 countries to avoid Chinese authorities.

A total of 1,283 were convinced to return or turned themselves in, including 410 Communist Party members or official staff.

A hunt for China’s 100 most-wanted fugitives has resulted in the return of 39 people under a program called Sky Net.

China asked Obama more than once to return key Chinese located in the United States to China. In most cases, Obama said no. Meanwhile, China is holding Americans and it seems their release continues to be the subject of discussions.

Related reading: Operation Fox Hunt: China Arrests 288 Financial Fugitives Abroad As Part Of Anti-Corruption Campaign

China's Top Financial Fugitives Flee Abroad: New Report ... photo

The Daily Beast reports:

In its ongoing campaign to extend its reach beyond its borders, the Chinese government has found a new form of leverage: American citizens in China.

Last year, Beijing prevented several U.S. citizens from leaving China, including a pregnant woman, according to email correspondence obtained by The Daily Beast. The total number of so-called exit bans placed on U.S. citizens in China is unknown, but at least two dozen cases have occurred within the past two years, according to one analyst’s estimate.

Chinese authorities typically target U.S. citizens of Chinese heritage for exit bans, usually in connection with an investigation. Sometimes, Beijing uses American citizens to try to coerce family members residing in the United States to return to China or to cooperate with Chinese authorities in investigations.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has championed a sweeping anti-corruption campaign with an international element, known as “Operation Fox Hunt,” aimed at pursuing Chinese citizens who have fled abroad after allegedly committing economic crimes. The United States does not have an extradition treaty with China and in the past has rarely cooperated with Chinese demands to repatriate Chinese citizens whom Beijing considers to be fugitives. Beijing has previously deployed undercover agents to the United States to coerce targets into returning to China, violating U.S. visa laws and prompting U.S. government indignation.

Now the People’s Republic seems to have found another lever of pressure. If one of Beijing’s targets living in the United States has relatives in China, Chinese authorities aren’t shy about applying pressure to those relatives, even if they are U.S. citizens. Exit bans are a “pretty new tool in the Chinese toolbox” for exerting such pressure, said John Kamm, founder of the U.S. nonprofit Dui Hua Foundation, which works on sensitive human rights cases in China.

“That individual might be treated as a material witness,” said Kamm. “Or that individual might be in effect being held as a hostage in an effort to get the people back.”

The Trump administration has pushed back quietly but firmly against exit bans. For example, in the lead-up to the first U.S.-China Law Enforcement and Cybersecurity Dialogue, held in Washington, D.C., in October 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions pushed for China to allow the free travel of three U.S. citizens who had been prevented from leaving China, including a pregnant woman, according to emails reviewed by The Daily Beast.

“Both sides will continue to cooperate to prevent each country from becoming a safe haven for fugitives and will identify viable fugitive cases for cooperation,” reads the U.S.-China joint statement released on Oct. 6, after the dialogue concluded. “Both sides commit to take actions involving fugitives only on the basis of respect for each other’s sovereignty and laws.”

It’s a delicate balancing act for an administration that also wishes to deport Chinese citizens who are in the United States illegally. In the past, China has often refused to accept deportations, leaving the United States with a large number of Chinese asylum seekers with final deportation orders. In 2015, Beijing’s refusal to accept deportees began to coincide with its push to repatriate fugitives it claimed were guilty of corruption. The Obama administration signed a memorandum of understanding with China to help expedite the deportation process, but remained reluctant to agree to Chinese demands to extradite fugitives.

Human rights groups have warned that fugitives may face torture or death back in China, also expressing concerns that Beijing might use trumped-up corruption charges to get their hands on troublesome political dissidents abroad.

The Department of Justice did not respond to emailed questions. The National Security Council did not respond to a request for comment.

The State Department declined to comment regarding the fate of those three U.S. citizens, citing privacy concerns, but a State Department spokesperson said that the U.S. government had not agreed to repatriate any Chinese citizen due to pressure from exit bans. More here.

bin Qumu of Benghazi Attack Captured in Libya

Libyan army arrests former bin Laden driver Abu Sufian bin ...

photo

bin Qumu was in Afghanistan in the 80’s, then Sudan in the 90’s and back to Libya and Afghanistan and back to Libya. In 2011, he was working to overthrow Qaddafi, which is precisely what Hillary was trying to do. Heck, the Hillary operation hired bin Qumu. For interesting read, click here to read his GITMO file. That pesky left wing radical law group, The Center for Constitutional Rights that represented several GITMO detainees, published a statement in 2011 that bin Qumu was a harmless man.

Fox News’ Benghazi Special & the Continuing Cover-up ...

Osama Bin Laden’s driver who was linked to 2012 Benghazi attack that killed a US diplomat ‘is captured in Libya’, 11 years after he was released from Guantanamo

  • Reports: Libya National Army have captured a ‘high-ranking al-Qaeda’ operative
  • Suspect found in Derna is named as Ansar al-Sharia leader Abu Sufian Bin Qumu
  • Bin Qumu was once personal driver to al-Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden
  • He has links to the diplomatic compound attack by gunmen that killed US envoy Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi in 2012

Reports have emerged that the Libyan army has arrested Abu Sufian Bin Qumu, a leader of an Islamist militia group and former driver of Osama Bin Laden.

He was reportedly captured in raids in ‘one of the last strongholds’ of extremist groups in Derna.

Bin Qumu had purported links to attacks in Benghazi that killed US diplomat Chris Stevens in 2012.

It is believed Bin Qumu was arrested after his group ran out of ammunition at a hideout in Derna, according to Al Arabiya.

The 59-year-old is considered a high-ranking operative of al-Qaeda based on his associations with the terrorist group around the time it was founded.

He was said to be the personal driver to Osama Bin Laden in Sudan where the al-Qaeda leader lived for three years during the 1990s. But Bin Qumu denies this.

Washington Post reported he fought alongside the Taliban against US forces in Afghanistan before he was detained at Guantanamo Bay after being captured in Pakistan.

The US military characterised him as a ‘medium to high’ risk to national security while he was in US custody and he refused to cooperate with authorities and explain his past associations with Islamic extremists.

He was extradited to Libya in 2007 where he served jail time before being released by Muammar Gaddafi.

Bin Qama returned to Derna to establish the Ansar al-Sharia extremist group, who advocate the implementation of Sharia law across Syria.

It was also suggested by Washington Post that the Islamic faction’s militiamen were present during the Benghazi attacks in 2012.

Last year, Ahmed Abu Khattala was on trial in the US capital as the suspected mastermind of the attacks on a diplomatic compound in the Libyan city that killed four Americans.

It resulted in the death of Chris Stevens — the first US Ambassador killed by violence overseas since 1979.

Al Arabiya said Bin Qama, despite being a leader of Ansar al-Sharia, no longer played a prominent role in the group.

He is set to be questioned by the Libyan National Army according to reports.

 

Former CIA Engineer Charged with Giving Hacking Tools to WikiLeaks

Ex-CIA engineer charged with massive leak to WikiLeaks

A former CIA computer engineer has been indicted on charges he masterminded what appears to be the largest leak of classified information in the spy agency’s history.

Joshua Schulte, 29, was charged in a new grand jury indictment with providing WikiLeaks with a massive trove of U.S. government hacking tools that the online publisher posted in March 2017, the Justice Department announced on Monday.

Schulte was previously facing child pornography charges in federal court in New York, but the indictment broadens the case to accuse him of illegally gathering classified information, damaging CIA computers, lying to investigators and numerous other offenses.

In January, attorneys involved in the child porn case revealed in court that Schulte was the target of a major investigation into WikiLeaks’ release of a CIA collection known as “Vault 7.”

The Justice Department’snews release announcing Schulte’s indictment does not mention WikiLeaks by name, signaling that it has not been charged in the case. There was no mention of any other individuals being charged.

Attorneys for Schulte did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The new charges make Schulte the fourth individual to face charges related to classified leaks since President Donald Trump took office and vowed a crackdown on leaks.

Last June, a National Security Agency contractor, Reality Winner, was arrested on charges of leaking to the online publication The Intercept a top secret report on the techniques that Russian government agents allegedly used to target computers of state election officials. She has pleaded not guilty and has been held without bail. Her trial is set for October.

In March, an FBI agent based in Minneapolis, Terry Albury, was charged with a leak to The Intercept of the FBI’s procedures for handling informants. He was also accused of retaining classified information at his home. He pleaded guilty to both charges and is free awaiting sentencing.

Earlier this month, the longtime head of security for the Senate Intelligence Committee, James Wolfe, was indicted on three felony counts of lying during the course of an FBI investigation into unauthorized disclosures of classified information. He was not charged with any leaks, but the indictment contends that he provided confidential committee information to at least one reporter. Wolfe pleaded not guilty to the charges last week. No trial date has been set.

Joshua Schulte named as suspect in 'Vault 7' leak of CIA ... photo

Criminal complaint found here.

*** More background detail:

Joshua Adam Schulte, the former CIA worker suspected of passing the agency’s hacking secrets to WikiLeaks, previously posted the source code for an internal CIA tool to his account on the public code-sharing site GitHub, The Daily Beast has learned.

That potential red flag was apparently missed by the spy agency just months after Edward Snowden walked out of the National Security Agency with a thumb drive of secrets in 2013. A spokesman for the CIA declined to comment.

Schulte, 29, worked at the CIA from 2010 to 2016. He was raided by the FBI on March 23, 2017, roughly two weeks after Julian Assange began releasing 8,000 CIA files under the rubric “Vault 7.” The files had been copied from an internal agency wiki sometime in 2016, and contained documentation and some source code for the hacking tools used by the CIA’s intrusion teams when conducting foreign surveillance.

When FBI agents examined Schulte’s hard drive, they found only a single classified document, but allegedly turned up 10,000 images of child pornography. Today Schulte is being held in a federal holding facility in Manhattan on one count each of possessing, receiving, and transporting child porn. He has not been charged with the Vault 7 leak, but, in January the FBI was still investigating him as the suspect.

Until now it’s been unclear how the FBI became suspicious of Schulte in the first place. In a statement to The Washington Post, which broke the story of the arrest, Schulte said the bureau went after him because he’d reported managerial incompetence to the CIA’s inspector general and then left the agency in 2016. “Due to these unfortunate coincidences, the FBI ultimately made the snap judgment that I was guilty of the leaks and targeted me.”

Prosecutor Matthew Larouch said at a January court appearance that “the government immediately had enough evidence to establish that [Schulte] was a target of that investigation,” but didn’t elaborate on the evidence.

Schulte has hosted 11 of his own coding projects on GitHub over the years. In the fall of 2013, he uploaded a robust software development tool he’d developed called OSB Project Wizard, described this way: “Create all types of projects following OSB build guidelines.” The OSB abbreviation went unexplained.