400 ISIS Fighters Roaming the Streets of Britain

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Almost 400 ISIS jihadis trained in Iraq and Syria are now at large on Britain’s streets… as it’s revealed just 14 fighters who have returned to the UK have been jailed

Just 14 battle-hardened ISIS fighters who returned to Britain after waging war in Syria have been jailed, the Government has admitted.

Imran Khawaja was jailed for 12 years after he was caught trying to sneak back into Britain
Imran Khawaja was jailed for 12 years after he was caught trying to sneak back into Britain

DailyMail: The shock figure is far lower than Ministers previously claimed and means almost 400 jihadis trained in Syria and Iraq are at large on Britain’s streets.

Experts told The Mail on Sunday they could use the deadly skills with automatic weapons and bombs that they honed on the battlefield to plot atrocities such as the Paris and Brussels attacks in the UK, massacring hundreds.

Figures slipped out in Parliament reveal that the Home Office believes 850 Britons have travelled to fight for the Islamic State terror group and although many have been killed by drone strikes and in battle, about 400 have sneaked back into the UK.

Any of them could be prosecuted as it is a crime to attend terrorist training camps and also to be a member of a banned group such as ISIS.

But Ministers admit that only 14 people who have fought for Islamic State have been convicted, despite mistakenly claiming the number was 54 earlier this year.

Last night, critics urged Home Secretary Amber Rudd to give more money to the Border Force so it can catch terrorists as they sneak back into the country, as well as ensuring that police and MI5 have enough officers to track down those already here.

Labour MP Khalid Mahmood, who believes thousands of Britons have travelled to Syria and Iraq, said: ‘It is a tiny number who have been prosecuted and it’s absurd to say this is any form of success.

‘If they know who they are, they should be prosecuted but the police and security services don’t have the resources to do that.

Professor Anthony Glees, Director of the Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies at the University of Buckingham, told The Mail on Sunday that the ‘minuscule’ number of prosecutions was ‘very disturbing’.

‘These people have been trained to be killers and people will think it beggars belief [that they haven’t been prosecuted]. What message are we sending out to the world?

‘If you go out to join a regime like so-called Islamic State, you forfeit your right to come back.’

Former Security Minister Lord West of Spithead said: ‘We know that people who have been abroad and radicalised are extremely dangerous.

HATE CLERIC CONVERT IS ‘KILLED FIGHTING FOR ISLAMIC STATE’

Terence Le Page, 30, died in Syria in June

Terence Le Page, 30, died in Syria in June

A white convert to Islam who became a disciple of jailed hate cleric Anjem Choudary is believed to have been killed in Syria fighting for Islamic State.

Terence Le Page, 30, died in Syria in June, according to jihadists on social media. Le Page, from Lewisham, South-East London, converted to Islam around five years ago, shortly after his older brother, Dean, 31, also became a Muslim.

Both brothers then became members of Choudary’s banned group Al-Muhajiroun.

Terence took the Muslim name Abu Khalid and is believed to have gone to Syria in the middle of last year with his wife and two children.

Last night, his mother Donna Le Page, 50, of South-East London, confirmed she had received news of his death.

‘Clearly we need to be able to keep a handle on that and make sure they are properly monitored. If we’re not doing that, we are letting the public down.’

Among the hundreds of ISIS veterans at large in the UK is Maarg Kahsay, a student who fled to Syria while awaiting trial for rape.

He spent up to two months in IS territory as a fighter in 2014 but then returned home and, as this newspaper revealed in the summer, is free to roam the streets of London and live in a council flat.

Another jihadi, Gianluca Tomaselli, is working as a parking attendant at an NHS hospital in London after spending up to a year fighting in Syria.

The revelation that only 14 returnees have been convicted was quietly made in a written answer given to the House of Lords.

Ministers had claimed in May that 54 jihadis had been successfully prosecuted – but last month admitted this larger figure wrongly included dozens who had been fundraising for terrorism or attempting to reach the war zone.

In the new statement, Home Office Minister Baroness Williams of Trafford said: ‘Data from the Crown Prosecution Service shows that they have successfully prosecuted ten cases involving 14 defendants who have returned to the UK and are suspected of having fought in Syria and/or Iraq.’

She added: ‘All those who return from engaging in the conflict in Syria and Iraq can expect to be subject to investigation to determine if they have committed criminal offences abroad or represent a threat to our national security.’

Police and MI5 attempt to contact all those who return from the war zone to work out how dangerous they are.

Some will be left alone if they only went to experience life in the so-called Islamic State or to deliver humanitarian aid, but others will be put under surveillance to see if they form terror cells or start to plan attacks.

Other returnees will be referred to NHS mental health services or the Channel deradicalisation programme if it is felt they can be turned away from extremism.

Among the dangerous returnees who have been locked up is Imran Khawaja, who tried to sneak back into Britain

undetected by faking his own death. 

The West Londoner was caught at Dover and jailed for 12 years in February last year.

Labour’s former policing spokesman Jack Dromey MP said: ‘Britain faces the most serious terrorist threat for a generation. We need to stop jihadis going to the Middle East and we need to be confident that when people return they are under proper surveillance.’

 

 

SCOTUS to Decide to Hear Case on Post 9/11 Case on FBI

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Justices Will Hear Post-Sept. 11 Claims Against Ashcroft, Mueller

 Photo, BBC

NationalLawJournal: The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to decide whether a 14-year-old suit should go forward against former George W. Bush attorney general John Ashcroft and former FBI director Robert Mueller III based on their roles in the post-Sept. 11 roundup and detention of Muslim, Arab and South Asian men.

In Ashcroft v. Turkmen, the Obama administration had asked the high court to review a June 2015 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that reinstated claims by eight men and a potential class of 80. The plaintiffs alleged the former Bush officials purposely and unconstitutionally directed their detentions in harsh and abusive conditions due to their race, religion or national origin.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, a former Second Circuit judge, and Elena Kagan, a former U.S. solicitor general, did not participate in the high court’s decision to review the case. Their potential recusals from the case could set the stage for a six-justice court to decide the outcome if the vacancy caused by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia remains unfilled through early next year.

The justices on Tuesday also added another potentially high profile case: Hernandez v. Mesa, a challenge stemming from a U.S. Border Patrol agent’s shooting of a 15-year-old Mexican boy on Mexican soil.

In the Ashcroft petition, the Obama administration argued that the Second Circuit was wrong—in the context of the Sept. 11 investigations—to allow Ashcroft, Mueller and other Justice department officials to be sued in their individual capacities for violations of constitutional rights under the 1971 high court decision Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents.

The Second Circuit is “the first circuit to permit such a damages remedy to be pursued ‘against executive branch officials for national security actions taken after the 9/11 attacks,’” then-Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. wrote in the petition.

The Obama administration also challenges the appellate court’s ruling that Ashcroft and Mueller, now a partner at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, were not entitled to qualified immunity for their alleged role in the treatment of those detained. The government also contends the allegations that the former officials personally condoned the detentions because of “invidious animus” against Arabs and Muslims are not “plausible.”

The justices set the plausibility standard in a similar case, Ashcroft v. Iqbal, in 2009. The court ruled 5-4 then that Javaid Iqbal, a Pakistani Muslim and post Sept. 11-detainee, failed to plead sufficient facts to support his claim of intentional, unlawful discrimination.

From Verrilli’s petition:

Based on conclusory allegations and after-the-fact inferences drawn in the chambers of appellate judges, the court of appeals concluded that the nation’s highest-ranking law-enforcement officers—a former Attorney General of the United States and former Director of the FBI—may be subjected to the demands of litigation and potential liability for compensatory and even punitive damages in their individual capacities because they could conceivably have learned about and condoned the allegedly improper ways in which their undisputedly constitutional policies were being implemented by lower-level officials during an unprecedented national-security crisis.

Representing the Turkmen plaintiffs, Rachel Meeropol of the Center for Constitutional Rights, had urged the justices to deny review.

“The petitions instead boil down to a request for a new and remarkable form of immunity, one in which the clearly unconstitutional actions of federal officials are untouchable so long as they occur in temporal proximity to a national tragedy,” Meeropol wrote.

The justices also granted review in two related petitions raising similar issues. Ballard Spahr’s William McDaniel Jr. filed a petition on behalf of former Immigration and Naturalization Service commissioner James Ziglar, and  MoloLamken’s Jeffrey Lamken filed on behalf of former wardens of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

The Second Circuit decision stemmed from a lawsuit filed in 2002 by the Center for Constitutional Rights. The center charged that the plaintiffs and other detainees were placed in solitary confinement, some for up to eight months, even though they were only charged with civil immigration violations like overstaying a visa or working without authorization.

The lawsuit has yet to go to trial.

Fourth Amendment at the border

In Hernandez, the border shooting case, the parents of Sergio Hernandez, represented by Deepak Gupta of Washington’s Gupta Wessler, are asking the high court to overturn a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

The appeals court said the Fourth Amendment’s protection against excessive deadly force did not apply because their son was a Mexican citizen with no significant voluntary connection to the United States and he was killed on Mexican territory.

The justices have directed the parties also to brief whether Hernandez’s claim against border patrol agent Jesus Mesa could be brought under their 1971 decision in Bivens.

The Obama administration had urged the justices to deny review.

Related Articles:

What is the Reason for this Global Demand by Putin?

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Russia recently held defense drills for 40 million citizens in apparent preparation for an all-out nuclear war.

“And earlier this month, Putin’s ministers announced they had built bunkers capable of housing Moscow’s 14 million people.

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The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation has stated that it is considering the return of Russian military bases to Cuba and Vietnam. Judging by everything, this information slipped through the cracks into the public space by accident, as most officials now prefer to either remain silent or answer evasively in the face of reporters’ questions. For a list of targeted Russian bases globally, click here.

Related reading: Breaking Sanctions with Cuba?

Related reading: The U.S. has had a Russian Problem of Espionage for Decades

Related reading: Rubio was Right, the Russian Memo, Just the Facts

Russia orders all officials to fly home any relatives living abroad, as tensions mount over the prospect of a global war

DailyMail: Russia is ordering all of its officials to fly home any relatives living abroad amid heightened tensions over the prospect of global war, it has been claimed.

Politicians and high-ranking figures are said to have received a warning from president Vladimir Putin to bring their loved-ones home to the ‘Motherland’, according to local media.

It comes after Putin cancelled a planned visit to France amid a furious row over Moscow’s role in the Syrian conflict and just days after it emerged the Kremlin had moved nuclear-capable missiles near to the Polish border.

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has also warned that the world is at a ‘dangerous point’ due to rising tensions between Russia and the US.

According to the Russian site Znak.com, administration staff, regional administrators, lawmakers of all levels and employees of public corporations have been ordered to take their children out of foreign schools immediately.

Failure to act will see officials jeopardising their chances of promotion, local media has reported.

The exact reason for the order is not yet clear.

But Russian political analyst Stanislav Belkovsky is quoted by the Daily Star as saying: ‘This is all part of the package of measures to prepare elites to some ‘big war’.’

Relations between Russia and the US are at their lowest since the Cold War and have soured in recent days after Washington pulled the plug on Syria talks and accused Russia of hacking attacks

The Kremlin has also suspended a series of nuclear pacts, including a symbolic cooperation deal to cut stocks of weapons-grade plutonium.

Just days ago, it was reported that Russia had moved nuclear-capable missiles near to the Polish border as tensions escalated between the world’s largest nation and the West.

The Iskander missiles sent to Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave on the Baltic Sea between Nato members Poland and Lithuania, are now within range of major Western cities including Berlin.

Polish officials – whose capital Warsaw is potentially threatened – have described the move as of the ‘highest concern’.

RUSSIA TESTS BALLISTIC MISSILES AS TENSIONS BUILD

Russia’s military conducted a series of intercontinental ballistic missile tests on Wednesday, the latest flexing of its muscles as tensions with the US spike over Syria.

Russian forces fired a nuclear-capable rocket from a Pacific Fleet submarine in the Sea of Okhotsk north of Japan, state-run RIA Novosti reported.

A Topol missile was shot off from a submarine in the Barents Sea, and a third was launched from an inland site in the north-west of the vast country, Russian agencies reported.

The latest display of might by Moscow – which has been conducting regular military drills since ties with the West slumped in 2014 over Ukraine – comes as tensions have shot up in recent days.

Russia has pulled the plug on a series of deals with the US – including a symbolic disarmament pact between the two nuclear powers to dispose of weapons-grade plutonium – as Washington has halted talks on Syria.

The Kremlin has also moved an air defence missile system and missile cruisers to the war-ravaged country to bolster its forces there.

That comes as the West has accused Moscow of committing potential war crimes in its bombing of rebel-held part of the city of Aleppo in support of an assault by regime forces.

Washington has previously lashed out at Moscow for resorting to alleged “nuclear sabre-rattling” as East-West relations fell to the worst level since the Cold War following Russia’s seizure of Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014.

Putin’s decision to cancel his Paris visit came a day after French President Francois Hollande said Syrian forces had committed a ‘war crime’ in the battered city of Aleppo with the support of Russian air strikes.

Putin had been due in Paris on October 19 to inaugurate a spiritual centre at a new Russian Orthodox church near the Eiffel Tower, but Hollande had insisted his Russian counterpart also took part in talks with him about Syria.

The unprecedented cancellation of a visit so close to being finalised is a ‘serious step… reminiscent of the Cold War’, said Russian foreign policy analyst Fyodor Lukyanov.

‘This is part of the broader escalation in the tensions between Russia and the West, and Russia and NATO,’ he told AFP.

The Kremlin has also been angered over the banning of the Russian Paralympic team from the Rio Olympics amid claims of state-sponsored doping of its athletes.

Meanwhile, the top advisor to US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has said the FBI is investigating Russia’s possible role in hacking thousands of his personal emails.

But Russian officials have vigorously rejected accusations of meddling in the US presidential elections and dismissed allegations that Moscow was behind a series of recent hacks on US institutions.

Retired Russian Lt. Gen. Evgeny Buzhinsky told the BBC: ‘Of course there is a reaction. As far as Russia sees it, as Putin sees it, it is full-scale confrontation on all fronts. If you want a confrontation, you’ll get one.

‘But it won’t be a confrontation that doesn’t harm the interests of the United States. You want a confrontation, you’ll get one everywhere.’

Earlier this week British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson waded into the row, calling for anti-war campaigners to protest outside the Russian embassy in London.

Johnson said the ‘wells of outrage are growing exhausted’ and anti-war groups were not expressing sufficient outrage at the conflict in Aleppo.

‘Where is the Stop the War Coalition at the moment? Where are they?’ he said during a parliamentary debate.

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Hillary Revealed Through Hacked Podesta Emails

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Nah….she isn’t all that is she? uh huh…..and she for sure has a system to keep her own fingerprints off the trail while her custom designed human firewall does all the work.

  CNN

Seems the Hillary campaign instigated by Brian Fallon was working to get Trey Gowdy’s emails on the matter of the Benghazi investigation and approached the vice chair of the committee Elijah Cummings.

7 biggest revelations from WikiLeaks release of Podesta emails

FNC: Here are seven of the biggest revelations so far:

‘SPOILED BRAT’

Top Bill Clinton lieutenant Doug Band, in an alleged 2011 exchange with Podesta, tore into Chelsea Clinton, who had apparently been raising questions about the company Band co-founded, Teneo.

“I don’t deserve this from her and deserve a tad more respect or at least a direct dialogue for me to explain these things,” Band wrote in November. “She is acting like a spoiled brat kid who had nothing else to do but create issues to justify what she’s doing because she, as she has said, hasn’t found her way and has a lack of focus in her life.”

BILL CLINTON ‘LOSING IT’

Bill Clinton has long had a soft spot for New Hampshire, the state that made him the “Comeback Kid” and helped propel him to the Democratic nomination in 1992. So when it seemed on Feb. 7 that Hillary Clinton was set to lose the state’s primary by a large margin, Bill did not take the news well.

“He’s losing it bad today,” Bill Clinton chief of staff Tina Flournoy wrote. “I’m not with him. If you’re in NH please see if you can talk to him.”

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders went on to beat Clinton in the Granite State 60-to-38 percent on Feb. 9.

Bill Clinton wasn’t alone in his despondency.

Neera Tanden, an activist and past adviser to Hillary Clinton, wrote to Podesta on Feb. 4: “What is wrong w the people of Nh?”

COZY WITH THE PRESS

The alleged Podesta emails show a particular level of comfort with certain members of the news media.

CNBC correspondent John Harwood emailed Podesta numerous times, on some occasions to request an interview and other times to offer advice. On May 8, 2015, Harwood wrote an email with the subject line “Watch out.”

“Ben Carson could give you real trouble in a general [election],” Harwood wrote before linking to video clips of an interview Harwood did with the former pediatric neurosurgeon.

In a July 2015 email, New York Times reporter Mark Leibovich emailed communications director Jennifer Palmieri several chunks of an interview he did with Hillary Clinton, and seemingly asked permission for the “option to use the following” portions. Palmieri suggested he cut a reference Clinton made to Sarah Palin and remove Clinton’s quote, “And gay rights has moved much faster than women’s rights or civil rights, which is an interesting phenomenon.”

Palmieri ended one email: “Pleasure doing business!”

In a January 2015 memo, former Politico reporter Maggie Haberman, who now works for The New York Times, was described as having “a very good relationship” with the campaign.

“We have had her tee up stories for us before and have never been disappointed,” the memo said.

HOPING FOR TRUMP

Hillary Clinton allies were apparently hoping the Republican primary electorate would nominate Donald Trump as the GOP candidate for president.

Media commentator Brent Budowsky wrote to Podesta on March 13 that “Right now I am petrified that Hillary is almost totally dependent on Republicans nominating Trump.”

“…..even a clown like Ted Cruz would be an even money bet to beat and this scares the hell of out me…..” Budowsky wrote.

A Democrat National Committee strategy document from April 7, 2015 also wrote about “elevating the Pied Piper candidates,” identified as Trump, Cruz and Carson.

WALL STREET SPEECHES

Campaign research director Tony Carrk emailed top Clinton advisers on Jan. 25 with some “flags from HRC’s paid speeches” that were given during the time between her tenure as secretary of state and when she announced her presidential candidacy. Clinton has not released transcripts of those speeches despite numerous calls from her primary and general election opponents.

Among the red flags is Clinton admitting she’s “Kind Of Far Removed” from middle-class struggles due to “The Economic, You Know, Fortunes That My Husband And I Now Enjoy.” That speech was delivered to employees at Goldman-Black Rock on Feb. 4, 2014.

In a line that came back to bite her in Sunday night’s presidential debate, Clinton discussed needing “Both A Public And A Private Position” during a speech for National Multi-Housing Council in April 2013.

In other speeches, Clinton boasts of her ties to Wall Street, admits she needs Wall Street funding and says insiders are needed to fix problems on Wall Street. Sanders was a particular critic of Wall Street and so-called “economic inequality” during his protracted primary campaign against Clinton.

In another speech, Clinton said her “dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders.”

SANDERS STRATEGY

Throughout the alleged Podesta emails, aides debate tactics against Clinton’s main 2016 primary rival, Sanders. Carrk forwarded a 71-page, nearly 50,000-word opposition research file on Oct. 28, 2015, picking apart nearly every policy and position of Sanders. “Attached are some hits that could either be written or deployed during the next debate on Sanders,” Carrk wrote.

On Jan.6, campaign adviser Mandy Grunwald and Palmieri debated how to respond to Sanders’ attacks on Clinton’s ties to Wall Street.

“I liked messing with Bernie on wall street at a staff level for the purposes of muddying the waters and throwing them off their game a bit,” Palmieri wrote. “But don’t know that it is most effective contrast for her. Seems like we are picking the fight he wants to have.”

Grunwald replied: “Bernie wants a fight on a Wall Street. We should not give him one.”

ALLIES’ SUPPORT FOR ISIS?

An alleged email sent from Hillary Clinton’s account to Podesta on Aug. 17, 2014, noted that ISIS was receiving financial and logistical support from Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

“While this military/para-military operation is moving forward, we need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to [ISIS] and other radical Sunni groups in the region,” the email said.

It’s unclear whether the email was actually authored by Clinton.

The Clinton campaign, meanwhile, has blasted WikiLeaks over the release, while ramping up its accusations that the group is working with the Russian government.

“It is absolutely disgraceful that the Trump campaign is cheering on a release today engineered by Vladimir Putin to interfere in this election, and this comes after Donald Trump encouraged more espionage over the summer and continued to deny the hack even happened at Sunday’s debate,” spokesman Glen Caplin said in a statement. “The timing shows you that even Putin knows Trump had a bad weekend and a bad debate. The only remaining question is why Donald Trump continues to make apologies for the Russians.”

****

The uranium deal, which involved 25 percent of Russia’s deposits, was discussed in an email conversation between Clinton Foundation communications head, Maura Pally, and Clinton campaign chief, John Podesta, Breitbart reports.

“Putting on all of your radars that Grassley sent a letter to AG Lynch (dated June 30th though we just saw it) asking questions about contributions to the Clinton Foundation and the Uranium One deal. Letter is attached. Craig is connecting with comms team to be sure they are aware as well,” the email said.

“Clinton Foundation’s ties to a number of investors involved in a business transaction that resulted in the acquisition of Uranium One, owner of U.S. based uranium assets, by Atomredmetzoloto (ARMZ), a subsidiary of Rosatom, a Russian government owned company. The transaction raised a number of national security concerns because it effectively ceded 20% of U.S. uranium production capacity to the Russian government,” said an excerpt from Grassley’s letter.

The original message was also sent to Hillary’s former shadow, Huma Adedin. She has not been spotted on the campaign trail since her husband’s latest sexting scandal, which included him making lewd comments and sending photos of himself in his underwear that also showed their toddler son laying next to him.

Minutes after receiving the email, John Podesta forwarded it to [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]. The deep connection between the State Department and the Clinton Foundation has never been clearer – or more terrifying.

The Hill: An official within Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Rodham’s campaign appeared to have discussions with sources inside the Department of Justice (DOJ) about ongoing open records lawsuits regarding the former secretary of State’s emails, according to an email released on Tuesday.

In an email from May 2015, Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said that “DOJ folks” had “inform[ed]” him about an upcoming status conference in one of the lawsuits regarding Clinton’s private email setup.

The information about an upcoming court event would have been public knowledge and open for all to attend. And it’s unclear whether the people Fallon spoke to at the Justice Department were officials who regularly communicate with the public.

However, the fact Fallon – a former spokesman with the Justice Department — remained in contact with anyone from the department is likely to renew allegations that the Obama administration maintained an especially cozy relationship with Clinton’s presidential campaign.

****

Politico:

Clinton ‘not in the same place’ as her aides on email scandal

As the furor over Hillary Clinton’s emails built in the summer of 2015, the Democratic candidate appears to have resisted at least some of her team’s advice about how to get ahead of the story. In an email to other aides, Clinton campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri said she viewed the decision to turn over thumb drives and a computer server to the Justice Department as a chance for Clinton to try to move past the controversy, but Clinton apparently had a different view.

“As you all know, I had hoped that we could use the ‘server moment’ as an opportunity for her to be viewed as having take [sic] a big step to deal with the email problem that would best position us for what is ahead. It is clear that she is not in same place (unless John has a convo with her and gets her in a different place),” Palmieri wrote in the August 8 email.

Palmieri proposed that the campaign put out word after the Sunday talk shows the following day that Clinton had surrendered the thumb drives and server to the Justice Department then do an interview with Univision where she would talk about the decision during a broader discussion about college costs. However, the timing ultimately slipped a bit, with the campaign announcing the move late on Tuesday, after she’d already taped the Univision interview earlier that day. Read the rolling blog from Politico here and the revealing references to the emails.

 

 

Mexican Officials are Smuggling Haitians into the U.S.

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Immigration Official Warns 40,000 Haitians On Their Way To U.S. Via California’s Mexico Border

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A top U.S. immigration official says 40,000 Haitians may be on their way to the United States amid what she calls an “emergency situation” on California’s border with Mexico.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Sarah Saldana said Thursday in Washington that the estimate came from other governments during a recent trip she made to Central America.

Saldana told the House Judiciary Committee that word of the new arrivals contributed to the Homeland Security Department’s announcement on Thursday that it was lifting special protections shielding Haitians from deportation that were put in place after their country’s 2010 earthquake. She says changing conditions in Haiti also played a part.

***  

Mexican officials quietly helping thousands of Haitian illegal immigrants reach U.S.

WashingtonTimes: Mexican officials are quietly helping thousands of illegal immigrant Haitians make their way to the United States, according to an internal Homeland Security document that details the route taken by the migrants, the thousands of dollars paid to human smugglers along the way and the sometimes complicit role of the governments of America’s neighbors.

More than 6,000 Haitians arrived at the border in San Diego over the last year — a staggering 18-fold increase over fiscal year 2015. Some 2,600 more were waiting in northern Mexico as of last week, and 3,500 others were not far behind, waiting in Panama to make the trip north, according to the documents, obtained by Rep. Duncan Hunter, California Republican.

The migrants are paying at least $2,350 to be smuggled from South America to the doorstep of the U.S., where many present themselves at the border and many demand asylum, hoping to gain a foothold here.

Boat maker Audit Volmar walks inside the shell of a sail boat he's building on the beach of Leogane, Haiti. The 30-foot-long boats are purchased by smugglers for around $12,000 and then taken to northern Haiti to find passengers. (Associated Press)
Photo by: Dieu Nalio Chery
Boat maker Audit Volmar walks inside the shell of a sail boat he’s building on the beach of Leogane, Haiti. The 30-foot-long boats are purchased by smugglers for around $12,000 and then taken to northern Haiti to find passengers. (Associated Press)

“Haitians have forged a dangerous and clandestine new path to get to the United States,” says the document, which lays out in detail the route and the prices paid along the way for smugglers, bus tickets and, where they can be obtained legally, transit documents.

Their trek begins in Brazil and traces a 7,100-mile route up the west coast of South American and Central America, crossing 11 countries and taking as long as four months.

Some countries are more welcoming than others, according to the document, which was reviewed by The Washington Times. Nicaragua is listed as being particularly vigilant about deporting the Haitian migrants if they are caught — so smugglers charge $1,000 to get through that country.

When traveling through Central American countries the Haitians will claim instead to be from Congo, believing that authorities in Central America aren’t likely to go through the hassle of deporting them to West Africa if they are caught, Homeland Security said.

Being smuggled through Ecuador costs $200, while Guatemala and Colombia cost $300 apiece, the document says.

Mexico, though, is more accommodating to the migrants. It stops them at its southern border in Tapachula, processes them and — though they don’t have legal entry papers — “they receive a 20-day transit document” giving them enough time to get a bus across Mexico, arriving eventually in Tijuana, just south of San Diego.

Once in the United States, many of the Haitians claim asylum and fight deportation in cases that can drag on for years, guaranteeing the migrants a foothold in the country in the meantime. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said it received referrals to conduct credible fear screenings, which is the first part of an affirmative asylum claim, for 523 Haitians over the last year.

Other Haitians who are apprehended are put on a slow deportation track, giving them a chance to blend into the shadows along with other illegal immigrants. Southern Florida is a particularly attractive destination for the Haitians once they are released into the U.S., the document said.

Haitians are the latest nationality to surge into the United States, along with Central Americans enticed by the belief that lax enforcement policies under President Obama will enable them to stay, even if it means living in the shadows.

“The exponential increase in Haitian migrants showing up at the southern border is truly astonishing, and it shows one of the many consequences of President Obama’s immigration policy, which invites illegal entry and exploitation of the system,” said Joe Kasper, chief of staff for Mr. Hunter.

He said he was struck by “Mexico’s complicity” in helping the Haitians by granting them legal passage just to reach the United States.

“Mexico doesn’t want them, but it’s entirely content with putting migrants — in this case Haitians — right on America’s doorstep,” he said.

The Mexican Embassy in Washington has not responded to repeated inquiries from The Times, dating back to last month, on its role in the Haitian surge.

As many as 75,000 Haitians fled to Brazil after the 2010 earthquake. Some 50,000 still remain, but the rest have left — including a steady stream over the last year headed for the United States.

Haiti’s embassy in Washington promised to make someone available to discuss the situation, but didn’t follow through.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the agency that guards the borders and ports of entry, acknowledged “an uptick” in Haitians arriving without permission. In fact, the numbers leapt from 339 in fiscal year 2015 to 6,121 in 2016 — an increase of more than 1,800 percent.

“While CBP officials have made adjustments to port operations to accommodate this uptick in arriving individuals, CBP officials are used to dynamic changes at our local border crossings, including San Ysidro, the nation’s busiest border crossing, and are able to flex resources to accommodate those changes,” the agency said in a statement.

CBP says it processed the Haitians “on a case by case basis” and those that don’t have permission to be in the U.S. are sent to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the deportation agency.

As of Sept. 24, ICE had 619 Haitians in detention.

ICE had been moving slowly on deportations of Haitians under a humanitarian policy in place since the 2010 earthquake. But on Sept. 21, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson announced a change, saying agents would again begin rapid deportations of Haitians caught at the border.

Jessica Vaughan, policy studies director at the Center for Immigration Studies, said the data shows just how much the smuggling operations control illegal immigration. She said there are faster routes through Mexico and into the United States, but the fact that 90 percent of them are coming to San Diego is evidence they have an arrangement, likely with the Sinaloa cartel.

She also that by issuing transit permits, Mexico was assisting not only the Haitians’ illegal migration, but also providing a financial boost to the very criminal cartels that Mexican officials say are a threat to their society.

“I understand how this collusion or ambivalence to a criminal phenomenon works in Mexico, but I don’t understand why the Obama administration is letting it happen,” she said. “We could shut this down in a hurry simply by telling asylum seekers that they need to apply in one of the eight or nine safe countries that they passed through on the way. Otherwise we are just asking to see another 160,000 or more applicants next year.”