Benghazi: GOP Report 100+ Witnesses, No Video to Blame

The full 800 page report is here.

During the first attack, the only focus the White House and the State Department was to concoct a blame, no one cared at the terrifying moments about a response or rescue while Panetta delivered the orders for a military response. Exactly how many lives were at risk at the time is still somewhat unknown, but rather estimated…simply put all their lives were in peril.

It shows that the State Department assessment of the situation in Benghazi in 2011 and 2012 noted rising crime levels, rampant firearm ownership, and a high risk of militia violence in the security vacuum left by the toppling of Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi. The precarious security situation, according to the report, was exacerbated by inadequate security at the Benghazi outpost, which was plagued by equipment failures, a lack of manpower and relied on an often-disorganized local militia for protection. Read more here from CNN and their summary.

*****

The claim that the fatal 2012 Benghazi terrorist attacks were sparked by an anti-Muslim video was crafted in Washington by Obama administration appointees and reflected neither eyewitness nor real-time reports from the Americans under siege, according to the final report of the GOP-led Benghazi Select Committee.

The GOP report, released Tuesday, followed by less than a day a report by the Democrats on the panel saying that security at the Benghazi, Libya facility was “woefully inadequate” but former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton never personally denied any requests from diplomats for additional protection. More from FNC.

House Republicans’ Report Sheds New Light on Benghazi Attack

NBC: After a more than two-year investigation into the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, House Republicans are set to release a lengthy report Tuesday recounting the events that led to the deaths of four American diplomats.

It sheds new light on the breakdown in the U.S. military’s response to the attack and offers new details about why U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens was at the compound in the Libyan city with only two State Department bodyguards, months after the British and others had evacuated the area.

NBC News obtained the first 175-page section of the full 800-page House Select Committee on Benghazi report that will be released later Tuesday. The Democratic minority released its own report Monday.

One section of the report seems to allege that U.S. officials fundamentally misunderstood who their allies were at the time. The Republican majority’s report found that 35 Americans were saved not by a “quasi-governmental militia” as previous reports concluded, or even a group the U.S. saw as allies. Instead, the report determines that the Americans were saved by the “Libyan Military Intelligence,” a group composed of military officers under the Moammar Khaddafy regime, the Libyan dictator who the U.S. helped topple just one year earlier.

The February 17 Martyr Brigade, “recommended by the Libyan Government and contractually obligated to provide security to the Mission Compound,” had fled, the report found. “In other words, some of the very individuals the United States helped remove from power during the Libyan revolution were the only Libyans that came to the assistance of the United States on the night of the Benghazi attacks,” the report states.

Last fall, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified before the Benghazi committee that Stevens had originally chosen to serve in Benghazi because “he understood America had to be represented there at that pivotal time.”

In previously unreported details, the Republican majority of the committee found that Stevens traveled to the U.S. mission that week to both fill a temporary staffing gap and to spearhead an effort to make Benghazi a permanent diplomatic post.

Witnesses told the committee Stevens was laying the groundwork for a visit by Secretary Clinton just one month later and “the hope was to establish a permanent consulate in Benghazi for the Secretary to present to the Libyan government during her trip.”

Discussions were already underway in Washington for how to fund the upgrades, and one month before the end of the fiscal year there was pressure to assemble a package before available funds were lost.

The report highlights the military’s failure to carry out Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s order to deploy forces to Benghazi and the lengthy delay that prevented the military assets from arriving at the embassy in Tripoli until 2 p.m. the day after the Benghazi attack.

“What was disturbing from the evidence the Committee found was that at the time of the final lethal attack at the Annex, no asset ordered deployed by the Secretary had even left the ground,” the report states.

Previous accounts blamed the “tyranny of time and distance” plus the failure to have airplanes ready for the significant delay in moving military assets. But the report states conflicting orders from State Department and Pentagon officials over whether Marines should wear military uniforms or civilian attire also played a role.

In a newly revealed two-hour secure video conference on the night of the attacks led by White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and attended by Clinton and others, State Department officials raised concerns about the diplomatic sensitivities of the attire to be worn by assets launched.

In an interview with the Committee, Patrick Kennedy, the under secretary or Management at State, described the department’s sensitivity as wanting to “make sure that the steps we were taking would enhance the security of our personnel, not potentially diminish the security of our personnel.”

According to one commander, the report states, as forces prepared to deploy, “during the course of three hours, he and his Marines changed in and out of their uniforms four times.”

Further, several witnesses told the committee that despite Panetta’s orders, the operating plan was not to insert any asset into Benghazi. “Their understanding was that the assets needed to be sent to Tripoli to augment security at the Embassy, and that the State Department was working to move the State Department personnel from Benghazi to Tripoli.”

Republicans on the committee were critical of high-level officials in Washington for mistakenly thinking that the attacks were over and the crisis had passed by the time the emergency video conference convened, which the report alleges contributed to the confusion.

The report also finds that then-Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral James Winnefeld, did not participate in the secure call because “he had left to return to his residence to host a dinner party for foreign dignitaries.” He received one update during the dinner on the attacks.

The section of the report devoted to the Benghazi assault concludes “the response to the attacks suffered from confusion and miscommunication circulating between agencies.”

A total of 107 witnesses were interviewed for the report, including 81 never before questioned by Congress and 9 eyewitnesses to the attacks, Republicans on the committee told NBC News. The committee also received and reviewed more than 75,000 new pages of documents.

Democrats on the House Select Committee on Benghazi had a sharply different view even before seeing the Republicans’ report. The minority version released Monday concludes that “the U.S. military could not have done anything differently on the night of the attacks that would have saved the lives of the four brave Americans killed in Benghazi.”

Ranking Member Elijah Cummings early Tuesday called the Republican report “partisan” but could offer no additional comment because “we haven’t read it because Republicans didn’t want us to check it against the evidence we obtained.”‎

Democrats also attacked Republicans over the committee’s process, including what they describe as “grave abuses,” such as excluding Democrats from interviews, concealing exculpatory evidence, withholding interview transcripts, leaking inaccurate information, issuing unilateral subpoenas, sending armed Marshals to the home of a cooperative witness, and even conducting political fundraising “by exploiting the deaths of four Americans.”

The Democrats chastised committee chairman Trey Gowdy who they said “personally and publicly accused Secretary Clinton of compromising a highly classified intelligence source.”

Democrats did acknowledge, as had been previously determined, that “security measures in Benghazi were woefully inadequate as a result of decisions made by officials in the Bureau of Diplomatic Security.” But their report concluded, “Secretary Clinton never personally denied any requests for additional security in Benghazi.”

Reacting to the GOP report early Tuesday, State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner said: “We have made great progress towards making our posts safer since 2012. We have been working to respond to the extensive findings and recommendations of the independent Accountability Review Board, closing out 26 out of its 29 recommendations.”

A Select Committee spokesman dismissed the Democrats’ report as “rehashed, partisan talking points” aimed at defending Hillary Clinton.

NBC News was awaiting comment from the White House on the report released by the Republican majority on the committee.

 

Clinton, for her part, has repeatedly denounced the committee’s purpose. “There have been seven investigations led mostly by Republicans in the Congress and they were non-partisan and they reached conclusions that, first of all, I and nobody did anything wrong but there were changes we could make,” Clinton said during a TODAY town hall on Oct. 5, 2015. “This committee was set up, as they have admitted, for the purpose of making a partisan political issue out of the deaths of four Americans. I would have never done that.”

Democrats Release Benghazi Report With a Big Ooops

In an effort to get out ahead of the Republicans Benghazi report, the Democrats cleared Hillary and the White House of responsibility. But, the ooops in this case is some parts of testimony from Sidney Blumenthal.

Report, related reading: Dems: Clinton never personally denied Benghazi security 

 

The Washington DC relationships go far and wide and have some real history, missions and lots of money.

Related reading: Clinton’s State Dept. calendar missing scores of entries 

House Democrats mistakenly release transcript confirming big payout to Clinton friend Sidney Blumenthal

LATimes: The Democrats on the House Benghazi committee released their final conclusions from the inquiry into attacks on Americans in that Libyan city in 2012, and in the report they say, once again, that the investigation is a politically motivated sham aimed at damaging the reputation of Hillary Clinton.

But the report, which the Democrats published as a preemptive strike before the Republican majority releases findings likely to charge ineptitude and deception by the former secretary of State, also revealed, apparently unintentionally, details about the eye-popping amount of money a close Clinton friend and advisor made in a contract with a pro-Clinton nonprofit.

Democrats released but redacted a transcript of Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal answering the committee’s questions to make the point that Republicans do not want the public to know what went on during the his interrogation, during which GOP members arguably used their subpoena power to conduct political opposition research unrelated to Benghazi.

But the redaction marks are easily erased by anyone able to use a computer’s cut-and-paste function. Once the marks are lifted, the transcript portion reveals some unflattering things for any partisans on the committee, Republican or Democrat. It shows that Republicans did, indeed, leverage their subpoena of Blumenthal for political gain, digging into his financial contracts with David Brock and forcing him to reveal the details of a lucrative financial arrangement that congressional sources would ultimately leak to Fox News.

And for Democrats, the exchange exposes once again the absurd amounts of money people in the orbit of the Clintons sometimes seem to rake in just for, well, being in the orbit of the Clintons. “I’d say it’s about $200,000 a year,” Blumenthal said when asked by a committee member how much the part-time work offering up advice and ideas was worth.

“Redacted due to Chairman Gowdy’s refusal to allow release of transcript,” says a footnote to the pages of thick black redaction marks. “If released, the transcript would show that Republicans asked Mr. Blumenthal questions about his relationship with Media Matters, David Brock and Correct the Record.” Brock is a longtime Clinton loyalist, and Correct the Record and Media Matters are among the nonprofits he uses to attack Clinton opponents.

 

And how did Blumenthal get such a contract? “I have had a very long friendship with the chairman of Media Matters, whose name is David Brock, from before he founded this organization, and I have sustained that friendship. And he asked me to help provide ideas and advice to him and his organizations,” Blumenthal said.

Actually, the two got to know each other during the impeachment of Bill Clinton, during Brock’s former incarnation as a right-wing “hit man” journalist. He was starting to undergo his political conversion and in the process was feeding then-White House aide Blumenthal intelligence about what the right was plotting against Bill Clinton. Both men wrote about it in their books.

Below is the full transcript excerpt that Democrats intended not to publish. It is unclear who the questioner is in the first section.

Q: Did you ever receive any payment from an organization called Media Matters?

A: Oh, yes. I did — I did receive payment in that period from Media Matters.

Q: Okay. And what was your relationship with Media Matters at that time period?

A: I was a consultant to Media Matters. I’m sorry I—

Q: That’s okay.

A: I overlooked that.

Q: When did you become a consultant for Media Matters?

A: I would say the very end of 2012.

Q: Okay. And how did that come about, that you became a consultant for Media Matters?

A: I have had a very long friendship with the chairman of Media Matters, whose name is David Brock, from before he founded this organization, and I have sustained that friendship. And he asked me to help provide ideas and advice to him and his organizations.

Q: So you began your relationship, your paid relationship, with Media Matters at the end of 2012.

A: Right.

Q: Does that continue to this day?

A: It does.

Q: Okay. And what is your salary or your contract with Media Matters?  How much money are you earning from them?

A: I’d say it’s about $200,000 a year.

Q: And has that been roughly consistent from when you began receiving payment from Media Matters?

*[redacted due to Chairman Gowdy’s refusal to allow release of transcript].

A: I would say it’s — I’d have to check. I think it’s increased a little bit. It’s increased some.

Q: Okay. Are you familiar with the organization American Bridge?

A: Yes.

Q: Have you received any compensation from American Bridge over the last five years?

A: Yes.

Q: Okay. And how much compensation have you received from American Bridge?

A: Well, when I talk about that amount of money, I mean all of those organizations.

Q: So all of David Brock’s entities —

A: Right.

Q: — combined are 200,000?

A: About.

Q: Okay.

A: Something like that.

Q: Okay. So there’s American Bridge.

A: Yes.

Q: There’s Media Matters. 

A: Right.

Q: Are there any other organizations on which you have done work for Mr. Brock?

A: Correct the Record

Q: Okay.

A: — is another organization.

Q: Okay. 

A: And then there’s the American Independent Institute, which is a journalistic foundation.

Q: So, when you receive your paycheck, who signs the paycheck? Where does that come from?

A: It’s deposited directly. I imagine it comes from David Brock.

Q: Okay. Not David Brock personally but one of his —

A: Whoever — whoever is responsible for that payment.

Blumenthal and Republican Select Committee Member Mike Pompeo had the following exchange about Correct the Record:

Q: Fair enough. I’m going to jump around a little bit. You said I think earlier this morning that you still are working for Correct the Record?

A: I am.

Q: And tell me what the mission of Correct the Record is.  

A: Correct the Record is pretty much what it says, to correct — it’s a nonprofit organization to correct the record about public misstatements about prominent Democrats.

Q: Including this committee. If this committee said something, Correct the Record might comment on things that it said incorrectly and indeed it has?

A: That may well be so.

Q: Have you written any of that?

A: No.

Q: Yeah. So you haven’t made any comments as part of your role in Correct the Record related to this committee’s work?  You haven’t written any —

A: I have not written those.

Oh, So Now the Justice Dept. is Mandating PC Training

Any bets that the FBI does in fact make a criminal referral on Hillary and the Justice Department will not advance the case for prosecution? Anyone? Maybe they will use the ‘implicit bias’ against women as a reason….. Sheesh, read on, ensure your seat belt is securely buckled.

 

Exclusive: Justice Department mandates ‘implicit bias’ training for agents, lawyers

Reuters: The U.S. Justice Department will announce on Monday that more than 33,000 federal agents and prosecutors will receive training aimed at preventing unconscious bias from influencing their law enforcement decisions, department officials told Reuters.

The training will bring Justice Department employees in line with many local police departments across the country that have implemented bias prevention plans following a spate of shootings of unarmed black men by white police officers.

Nationwide protests following those shootings blamed police bias for unnecessary use of force against minorities.

The department had been criticized for not developing its own policies to combat bias after recommending local police do so at the direction of a task force created by President Barack Obama after riots in 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri.

In a memo to Justice Department employees obtained by Reuters, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates said the program targets “implicit biases” – subtle, unconscious stereotypes or characterizations nearly everyone makes about certain groups of people.

“But implicit bias also presents unique challenges to effective law enforcement, because it can alter where investigators and prosecutors look for evidence and how they analyze it without their awareness or ability to compensate,” Yates said in the memo.

The training will be mandatory for all Justice Department agents and prosecutors and will be rolled out over the next year, Yates said.

Arrest data compiled by some police departments have shown that black and Hispanic men are more likely to be stopped by police than others, suggesting officers may be exerting implicit bias in deciding whom to question or apprehend.

The Justice Department will use a model developed by the Police Executive Research Forum, a nonprofit organization that provides expertise on policing issues, designed to make people aware of attitudes they may hold about certain races, genders, nationalities and other characteristics.

The Justice Department employs more than 5,800 attorneys and 28,000 law enforcement agents across four agencies: The Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and the U.S. Marshals Service.

Police departments such as those in Baltimore, New York City, Seattle, New Orleans and Los Angeles have training programs in place that help officers recognize biases they may carry but not be aware of following a national outcry against police bias in minority communities.

Asked why the Justice Department only now has begun such training for its employees, Yates said success in local jurisdictions caused the federal government to consider it as well.

“This program has been so well-received by our state and local counterparts, we thought it was something we should be offering to our federal agents, frankly, to get our own house in order,” Yates said in an interview with Reuters.

Yates and the heads of other Justice Department components will begin their own implicit bias training course on Tuesday. Attorney General Loretta Lynch will announce the initiative in Phoenix on Tuesday when she travels there as part of her community policing tour, said a Justice Department official.

Department of Homeland Security employees, which include 60,000 border patrol officers and agents, will not be subject to the training.

Yates said the Justice Department hopes to serve as a model for other federal agencies that have not yet addressed implicit bias.

**** We already have a bias at Justice, and training for more to the left?

As a former lawyer at the Justice Department noted about Loretta Lynch in her confirmation hearing some factual details about the departments at Main Justice:

Bias in Hiring:
A devastating report by the Department of Justice inspector general in 2013 found deep polarization, mismanagement, and harassment of conservative employees as well as a litmus test imposed in hiring attorneys in the Civil Rights Division — namely, experience with liberal civil-rights organizations, which translates to experience working for the institutional Left. In short, only ideological allies need apply. As a result, the inspector general’s report found that the Civil Rights Division “passed over candidates who had stellar academic credentials and litigation experience with some of the best law firms in the country” and recommended that this litmus test be abolished. Former assistant attorney general Tom Perez specifically rejected reforms to end the biases in Civil Rights Division hiring. Will Lynch commit to implementing the recommendations made by the DOJ inspector general for more equitable and non-partisan attorney hiring? What will she do to stop the harassment of career employees not considered “liberal enough” that is outlined in the IG report? Free Speech Over the last six years, the Justice Department has brought a series of flimsy civil cases against peaceful abortion-clinic protesters under the Federal Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE). Case after case has been thrown out by federal courts, often after a scolding by the judge that the case lacked merit. These cases squelched the First Amendment rights of anti-abortion protesters, who may have been the victims of political targeting. In one case, the court assessed sanctions that the DOJ didn’t even appeal. What will Lynch do to fix this problem? Will she commit to requiring higher evidentiary findings in any recommendation for new prosecutions against religiously motivated abortion protesters?
Department Misconduct:
Two individuals remain employed in important positions at the Justice Department despite findings that they engaged in gross prosecutorial misconduct or outright perjury. One is Karla Dobinski. Dobinski is a lawyer who was involved in a prosecution against New Orleans police officers for civil-rights violations in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Dobinski was tasked with serving as head of the “taint team” to protect the defendant police officers’ constitutional rights. A scathing opinion by federal judge Kurt Engelhardt points out that a number of DOJ lawyers, including Dobinski, engaged in a secret blogging campaign during the course of the trial to leak evidence about the case, as well as to bolster or weaken the credibility of trial witnesses. Yet Dobinski still is employed by DOJ. She even works in the component currently investigating other police departments. Will Lynch agree to review the matter for possible disciplinary action against Dobinski? Another Justice Department employee, Stephanie Celandine Gyamfi, was found to have engaged in perjury during the course of the DOJ inspector general’s 2013 investigation. This wasn’t any ordinary perjury, since it involved the integrity of American elections. According to the IG report, Gyamfi, who works in the Voting Section, was asked about confidential internal legal memoranda leaked to the Washington Post. She denied any knowledge of the leaks until she was confronted with documents showing her participation. The IG report says she told IG investigators that she “did not regret posting comments online, except to the extent that it resulted in questioning from the OIG.” Yet she still works in the very same Voting Section and has been neither disciplined nor terminated. Will Lynch agree to review the matter for possible disciplinary action against Gyamfi? When judges accuse DOJ lawyers of prosecutorial abuse or other such misbehavior, as has happened in numerous cases over the past six years, what actions will Lynch take to discipline or terminate those employees?
Funding Democratic Political Databases:
The Justice Department has been moving tax money toward a voter database used by Democratic candidates. Catalist is a massive database containing voter files used by left-wing organizations that is so inaccurate that an organization using its database was the subject of numerous complaints in Virginia in 2012 for sending voter-registration applications to “dead relatives, children, family members in other states, non–U.S. citizens . . . and residents’ cats and dogs.” The Justice Department has been funding experts and political-science professors in its litigation who used Catalist in various ways. Will Lynch agree to stop using Catalist data? Racialist Assaults on Voter-ID Laws The Justice Department has hired expert witnesses to attack election-integrity laws who have testified that blacks are “less sophisticated” than whites and therefore less able to “figure out” how to register, comply with voter-ID requirements, or get to the polls to vote. The DOJ has paid these professors hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide this offensive testimony. Does Lynch agree with this testimony, or will she terminate the contracts of experts who have such a patronizing view of black voters? Does she believe, as Eric Holder does, that voter-ID laws are racist, and does she disagree with the Supreme Court’s decision upholding such laws in 2008 in Crawford v. Marion County? Most important, the 2013 IG report makes it clear that Eric Holder and others in the leadership of the Civil Rights Division demoted the head of the Voting Section, Christopher Coates, because Holder did not want Coates to pursue cases where whites were being discriminated against and because Coates was asking attorney applicants whether “they would be capable of enforcing the Voting Rights Act in a race-neutral manner.” In other words, it seems that Holder did not believe in the race-neutral enforcement of federal anti-discrimination laws such as the Voting Rights Act. Lynch should be asked if she shares this view that the Voting Rights Act protects only blacks and other minority groups from discrimination. Such a view should disqualify anyone from being attorney general.
The Death Penalty and Racial Bias in the Justice System:
Lynch said in 2002 that the application of the death penalty against blacks and Hispanics evidenced a systematic disregard for minority citizens. Lynch would not apply the death penalty even if it could be applied perfectly, according to a 2002 Vera Institute of Justice report, simply because of its supposed disparate impact on minorities. “You can be as fair as possible in a particular case, but the reality is that the federal death penalty is going to hit harder on certain groups,” she said. Although the death penalty is less common in federal prosecutions, if Lynch is confirmed, she will likely face death-penalty decisions, particularly in terrorism prosecutions. Given her race-based opposition, Lynch should be asked whether she will refuse to authorize her prosecutors to seek the death penalty because of the race of the accused or whether she will recuse herself from such decisions.
In April 2014, Lynch participated in a conference in New York City organized by the Justice Department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. The DOJ report on the conference had a list of “action items” that included the statement that “racial bias is pervasive” in our society, a claim that most Americans would disagree with and for which the evidence is, at best, equivocal. It is critical for members of the Senate to determine whether Lynch shares the view that racial bias is pervasive and, if so, how that will affect her decision-making as attorney general. Immigration Enforcement and Prosecutorial DiscretionEric Holder and President Obama have stretched the concept of prosecutorial discretion beyond recognition in order to avoid enforcing federal statutes they disagree with on policy grounds. Lynch must be asked whether she believes that the president’s immigration policy is constitutional and whether she believes that, as attorney general, she can refuse to enforce a federal statute against whole categories of offenders. This includes refusing to enforce federal drug laws in states that have decriminalized or legalized marijuana. This last question is particularly important, because it is also related to other issues, such as the refusal of DOJ to present the contempt citations of Eric Holder and Lois Lerner to a federal grand jury. Federal law (2 U.S.C. §194) requires the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, currently Ronald Machen, to bring such a contempt citation before a federal grand jury for action.
Machen has refused to do so. Does Lynch believe it is appropriate for the U.S. Attorney not to comply with this federal statute? Under Eric Holder’s leadership, the department where we formerly worked has been politicized to an unprecedented extent. These confirmation hearings are vital to finding out whether Loretta Lynch will continue policies that have damaged the administration of justice and the reputation of the Justice Department, or whether she will put the department back on the path toward being a highly professional, objective law-enforcement agency dedicated to the rule of law. Read the full article here from National Review. 

A Hotel in Texas for Immigrants?

Immigration officials consider bid for new ‘hotel-like’ detention center

Stratton Oilfield Systems seeks to turn former Texas work camp into 500-bed facility with improved living conditions, which activists say would still be ‘prison’

 

Guardian: Federal immigration officials are moving forward with plans for a new 500-bed family detention center to house migrant women and children, even as many advocates and politicians have called for the closure of such facilities altogether.

Officials in Dimmit County, 45 miles from the Texas border with Mexico, say they’ll consider a bid on Monday from a firm who says their facility in a 27-acre former work camp for oil workers would provide dramatically better conditions than two other family detention centers in the state.

Those facilities have faced complaints of poor food, inadequate medical care and allegations of sexual abuse from detainees, activists and the US Civil Rights Commission.

“Our facility offers a community-based alternative that will allow children to live in a home setting, attend school, and access critical legal and social services,” Stratton Oilfield Systems said in a pitch to potential partners.

“They want to have it with no fence,” said Mike Uriegas, a commissioner in Dimmit County, who says he first met with Stratton Oilfield Systems two weeks ago. “They don’t want to appear like a prison or detention center.”

But Cristina Parker, Immigration Programs Director for Grassroots Leadership, said she and other advocates object inherently to the concept of a detention center for families fleeing violence, regardless of the purported conditions.

“If you are not free to leave, then it doesn’t matter how nice it is,” Parker said. “It’s a prison.”

The Obama administration’s use of family detention centers that hold children and mothers has become one of the most contested elements of America’s border protection program.

Advocates have called on the Obama administration to pursue alternatives for families who are waiting for courts to hear pending asylum and immigration claims.

“Our families have witnessed their loved ones killed before their eyes, they have been the victim of rapes and robberies simply because of who they are,” said Jonathan Ryan, executive director of the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services. “Our refugee families need protection, not jail.”

Related reading: SERCO, Global Corruption

Related reading: Orlando Terrorist, Omar/G4S and SERCO

Earlier this month, a nearby Texas county had considered a bid with British firm Serco, which has a history of immigration detention center scandals in the UK and Australia. Jim Wells County voted not to bid on the contract, after some officials voiced concern over past abuse allegations against the firm.

Uriegas said he and other officials are undecided on the Stratton bid and will learn more at a meeting on Monday, which immigration advocates also plan to attend. One group had already heard of the company.

Last July, Stratton’s vice-president, Shannon A Stratton, tried to pitch the same idea for the closed worker housing in a letter to Grassroots Leadership, an Austin-based organization that opposes the prison industry.

A glossy proposal accompanying Stratton’s letter showed hotel-like two-bedroom studios with a living room, kitchenette and full bathroom. Stratton noted a federal judge has said women and children should be released from other detention centers where they are being held in “deplorable” conditions.

“The Studios in Carrizo Springs offers an excellent solution and is distinctly different from the facilities that are so highly criticized in the media and by human rights groups,” Stratton wrote. “Families could be free to come and go while they await immigration hearings, receive education about their rights and responsibilities, and pursue permanent relocation and employment.”

“It shows they don’t quite know what is going on,” said Cristina Parker, immigration programs director for Grassroots Leadership. “They’re confused about other things too, because it is blanketly untrue that the families will be free to come and go.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s other two family residential centers in Texas are surrounded by razor wire and high fences.

The proposal emerges just days after the US supreme court blocked Obama’s plan to spare millions of immigrants from deportation. He vowed afterward: “What was unaffected by today’s ruling, or lack of a ruling, is the enforcement priorities that we’ve put in place.”

 

Uni. N. Carolina is a Broken Institution

UNC claims Christmas vacations, golf outings are microaggressions

  

CampusReform: To help staff members avoid microaggressions, the University of North Carolina advises gender-neutral dress codes and avoiding phrases like “husband/boyfriend.”

The guidelines, which were posted to UNC’s Employee Forum website Thursday, also warn against such potentially offensive behaviors as complimenting a woman’s shoes, asking people to “stand and be recognized,” and even scheduling vacations around religious observances.

“I don’t know any LGBTQ people.”

The school categorized microaggressions based on “social identity group,” with separate sections for race, gender, gender identity, religion, sexual orientation, ability, national origin, and class.

The document asserts, for instance, that “referring to ‘husband/boyfriend’ of women, ‘wife/girlfriend’ of men who are coworkers instead of partner/spouse … sets the expectation that people do not identify as LGBTQ until they say otherwise or disclose their sexual orientation.”

Similarly, saying “I don’t know any LGBTQ people” implies that “you have to openly declare your gender identity and sexual orientation for me to care about LGBTQ issues.”

Moreover, the guide adds that “addressing trans people with incorrect gender pronouns, calling them by former names, inquiring about their ‘real’ identity, asking them to explain their gender identity, and denying or failing to acknowledge their pronouns, name, or identity” suggests to the recipient that “as a trans person, you are inferior to and less authentic than cisgender (non-trans) people.”

Even a simple compliment like “I love your shoes,” at least when addressed to a woman in leadership during a Q&A after a speech, really means “I notice how you look and dress more than I value your intellectual contributions. How you look is really important.”

The post also addresses microaggressions against individuals with physical and mental disabilities, warning against phrases that trivialize such conditions.

“Please stand and be recognized,” the school explains, “assumes that everyone is able in this way and ignores the diversity of ability in the space,” while using expressions such as “I’m totally OCD about my files” and “I get ADHD sometimes” “minimizes the experiences of people who live with mental health issues.”

According to UNC, “having an office dress code that applies to men and women differently assumes that your staff fits into one of two gender categories; can also be a violation of anti-discrimination policies.”

For the same reason, the guide adds, “only having ‘man’/’woman’ or ‘male’/‘female’ as options for gender on forms” constitutes a microaggression because it means that one “must fit in the gender binary and select among these predefined categories.”

Suggesting that the staff play golf at a retreat is also a microaggression, UNC contends, since it “assumes employees have the financial resources/exposure to a fairly (expensive and inaccessible) [sic] sport.”

Race and national origin are apparently fraught topics, as well, leading UNC to recommend that individuals neither ask too many questions about those topics nor remain ignorant about them.

“When I look at you, I don’t see color” is a microaggression, for instance, because it constitutes “minimizing/denying a person of color’s racial/ethnic experiences,” as is asking to touch a black person’s hair, because it implies that they are foreign and exotic.

“How did you get here?” constitutes a national origin microaggression because it acknowledges that some “immigrants get to this country illegally,” while asking “Where are you from?” implies that “you are not American and do not belong to this community.”

Meanwhile, telling a foreign-born person that “you speak English really well!” suggests that “if you are born anywhere ‘foreign,’ you cannot speak English well,” and thus is also a microaggression.

Regarding religion, the guide avers that telling someone that “you don’t look Jewish/Native/Muslim” implies that “there is an expected look/attire and you must fit into that norm.”

UNC also states that academic calendars planned around significant religious holidays “further centers the Christian faith and minimizes non-Christian spiritual rituals and observances.”

In a section suggesting strategies for self-correction, the guide encourages staff members who “tend to say ‘you guys’ in mixed company” to “become more inclusive with your language and social media posts,” as well as to “reflect on ways you can increase your cultural intelligence on issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion.”

The list was made by Sharbari Dey, assistant director for education and special initiatives at UNC’s Diversity and Multicultural Affairs, and Kristia Prince, coordinator for leadership development in the school’s Housing and Residential Education department.

For further reading, the post recommends reading 35 Dumb Things Well-Intended People Say by Dr. Maura Cullen to learn more about microaggressions.

***** More from Daily Caller, Related reading:

Several public colleges and universities have published similar guides to microagressions in recent years. (RELATED: Public University’s Bias-Free Language Guide Calls The Word ‘American’ ‘PROBLEMATIC’)

UNC Chapel Hill is home to a “cultural competency workshop” which instructs that white people are privileged because they can buy Band-Aids “in ‘flesh’ color and have them more or less match” their vaguely beige-hued skin. At least some students have apparently been required to participate in the workshop. (RELATED: University Of North Carolina Diversity Workshop Brands Beige Band-Aids As ‘White Privilege’