Taxpayer $’s Paid for the Clinton Server(s) and Bed Bug Problems

Posted on September 1, 2016September 1, 2016 by Denise Simon

This is going to be a long item but stick with it and you will learn some disgusting facts.

Primer:

The Former Presidents Act (FPA; 3 U.S.C. §102 note) was enacted to “maintain the dignity” of the Office of the President. The act provides the former President—and his or her spouse—certain benefits to help him respond to post-presidency mail and speaking requests, among other informal public duties often required of a former President. Prior to enactment of the FPA in 1958, former Presidents leaving office received no pension or other federal assistance. The FPA charges the General Services Administration (GSA) with providing former U.S. Presidents a pension, support staff, office support, travel funds, and mailing privileges.

Pursuant to statute, former Presidents currently receive a pension that is equal to pay for Cabinet Secretaries (Executive Level I), which for calendar year 2015 was $203,700. Executive Level I pay was increased to $205,700 for calendar year 2016. In addition to benefits provided pursuant to the FPA, former Presidents are also provided Secret Service protection and financial “transition” benefits to assist their transition to post-presidential life. Pursuant to the FPA, former Presidents are eligible for benefits unless they hold “an appointive or elective office or position in or under the Federal Government or the government of the District of Columbia to which is attached a rate of pay other than a nominal rate.”

The President’s FY2017 budget request seeks $3,865,000 in appropriations for expenditures for former Presidents, an increase of $588,000 (17.9%) from the FY2016 appropriation level. The increase in requested appropriations for FY2017 anticipates President Barack Obama’s transition from incumbent to former President. For FY2016, President Obama requested and received appropriations of $3,277,000 for expenditures for former Presidents—an increase of $25,000 from FY2015 appropriated levels.

By the way, former Vice Presidents have the same privilege.

***** Now for the real disgusting Clinton thing….

Getty

Great investigative reporting by Politico: Bill Clinton used a decades-old federal government program, originally created to keep former presidents out of the poorhouse, to subsidize his family’s foundation and an associated business, and to support his wife’s private email server, a POLITICO investigation has found.

Taxpayer cash was used to buy IT equipment — including servers — housed at the Clinton Foundation, and also to supplement the pay and benefits of several aides now at the center of the email and cash-for-access scandals dogging Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

This investigation, which is based on records obtained from the General Services Administration through the Freedom of Information Act, does not reveal anything illegal. But it does offer fresh evidence of how the Clintons blurred the line between their non-profit foundation, Hillary Clinton’s State Department and the business dealings of Bill Clinton and the couple’s aides.

The thousands of pages of newly uncovered records reveal sometimes granular detail about how Bill Clinton’s representatives directed the spending of taxpayer cash allocated by the GSA under the Former President’s Act.

The Act authorizes the GSA to fund the pensions, correspondence, support staff and travel of ex-presidents. It was passed in 1958 to “maintain the dignity” of the presidency by helping former commanders in chief avoid hard times like those that befell Harry S. Truman. He complained that, without help from Uncle Sam, he would be forced to “go ahead with some contracts to keep ahead of the hounds.”

The Clintons did not have this problem.

After leaving the White House “dead broke”, in the words of Hillary Clinton, they quicklyraked in tens of millions of dollars from book deals, speaking fees and consulting gigs. At the same time, Bill Clinton was relying on his connections to some of the world’s deepest-pocketed donors, corporations and governments to seed a global philanthropy operation that overlapped with his consulting work and speaking fees and his wife’s work as Secretary of State — and served as a jumping off point for her presidential campaign.

But even as the Clintons got rich and grew their foundation into a $2 billion organization credited with major victories in the fights against childhood obesity and AIDS — while paying six figure salaries to top aides — Bill Clinton continued drawing more cash from the Former President’s Act than any other ex-president, according to a POLITICO analysis. The analysis also found that Clintons’ representatives, between 2001, when the Clintons left the White House, and the end of this year, had requested allocations under the Act totaling $16 million. That’s more than any of the other living former presidents — Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush — requested during that span.

The program supplemented the income of Clinton’s staff, while providing them with coveted federal government benefits, alleviating the need for the Clinton Foundation or other Clinton-linked entities to foot the bill for such benefits. Similarly, Clinton aides got the GSA to pay for computer technology used partly by the foundation.

An analysis of the records provided by GSA, combined with Clinton Foundation tax returns, found that at least 13 of the 22 staffers who have been paid by GSA to work for Clinton’s personal office also worked for the Clinton Foundation.

A Clinton aide said his boss’s use of the GSA program is entirely consistent with the Former Presidents Act.

Generally, the aide explained that Clinton “wears several hats — among them being former President of the United States and the founder of the Clinton Foundation. His staffing reflects those roles.”

The aide added “there is no legal prohibition that would preclude the former president’s staff from receiving compensation from other sources or doing personal work for the former presidents. We are unaware of any legal prohibition that would preclude these activities.”

The aide wouldn’t discuss specific employees, or their sources of income, explaining “the Office of Former President Bill Clinton does not discuss personnel matters.”

But using the GSA records, POLITICO pieced together a list of Clinton loyalists who at various times have had their earnings supplemented by federal payments of about $10,000-a-year using funds from the Former Presidents Act.

The list reads like a field guide to Clinton World.

It includes longtime Bill Clinton aide Justin Cooper, who despite not having a security clearance, any apparent training in cyber-security or a job at the State Department, in early 2009 helped set up the private email account that Hillary Clinton would use to send and receive classified information as Secretary of State. Her use of that system was dubbed “extremely careless” by the FBI director. Cooper continued working to maintain Clinton’s private email system — including advising her top aides Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills on attempted hacks — through at least 2012, according to emails released by the State Department.

During some of that period, Cooper was on the GSA payroll, drawing a federal government stipend from February 2011 through 2013, according to the records obtained by POLITICO.

At the same time, though, Cooper was working with Doug Band, a trusted Bill Clinton lieutenant, and Declan Kelly, a top Hillary Clinton fundraiser-turned-State Department official, to launch a global consulting firm called Teneo. It did lucrative work for foundation donors and entities with business before Clinton’s State Department. And it signed a contract reportedly worth $3.5 million with Bill Clinton to serve as a “honorary chairman” (though the former president ultimately kept only $100,000 of that, according to his tax returns and a source familiar with the arrangement). Teneo also paid Abedin as a “senior advisor.”

All the while, Band and Abedin were working together to broker meetings between Secretary of State Clinton and donors to the foundation, where Band served as an official until 2012, drawing a salary that in some years exceeded $111,000-a-year.

Yet, despite the profitable consulting business and his foundation compensation, Band continued drawing a taxpayer-funded stipend from the GSA until 2013.

Also receiving a salary from both the GSA and the Clinton Foundation was Laura Graham, who remained in extremely close contact with Clinton’s top aide at the State Department, swapping emails about sensitive foreign policy issues. During most of her time on the GSA payroll, Graham was earning a six-figure salary from the Clinton Foundation, which topped out at $190,000 per year in 2014.

Cooper, Band and Graham are no longer on the GSA payroll, nor are they working for the foundation. They all either declined to comment or did not respond to questions about the overlap between their taxpayer-funded work, the foundation and the State Department.

According to several people familiar with the former president’s operation, the rationale behind the interwoven payrolls is that they allow for a small team to assist Clinton in a variety of settings without having to do logistically complicated hockey-like line changes. In a given day, Clinton might deliver a paid private speech (during which time his employees’ salaries could be paid by the executive services corporation) and a public speech in his capacity as a former president (during which his staff could be paid by the GSA funds). And he could attend events for the foundation (where staff time would be paid by the foundation) as well as his wife’s presidential campaign (staff time would be paid by the campaign).

The records provided by GSA show that for each pay period, Clinton’s office submitted a list of personnel to GSA who were eligible to receive pay or reimbursement for travel done on behalf of the former president, along with the number of hours worked by each Clinton aide.

For many years, that list included two influential Clinton confidants who were listed as having worked zero hours each pay period — John Podesta, the former Clinton White House chief of staff who served as the foundation’s temporary CEO in 2011, and Bruce Lindsey, the Clintons’ Arkansas confidant who served as the foundation’s CEO from 2004 through mid-2013.

A spokesman for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign said Podesta, who is the campaign’s chairman, was on the list because, in 2001, he was paid less than $500 for helping “transition President Clinton from the White House to a DC-based personal office to the Harlem office. Beyond that, he received no compensation for his work.”

It’s unclear if Lindsey ever received GSA payments for work or travel on behalf of the former president. Neither he nor Podesta responded to requests for comment.

A GSA spokesperson declined to comment on specific employees, but said ex-presidents have broad discretion over how they choose to divvy up the $96,600 they are provided each year for staffing. They can give the entire sum to a single employee or divide it among multiple employees.

George H. W. Bush has four people on his taxpayer-funded staff, while Bill Clinton has 10, which has been roughly his staffing level for most of his post-presidency, according to the GSA documents. That means that each earned about $9,600 a year — far from a living wage in Manhattan, where both the Clinton Foundation and Clinton’s personal office are located.

But most Clinton aides on the GSA payroll also earned far more from other groups in the Clinton orbit — from the foundation to Teneo to an entity funded by the Clintons’ personal funds called the Clinton Executive Services Corporation or CESC.

The aide to Bill Clinton said that the former president “personally pays the costs over and above what is provided for by GSA,” adding that Clinton’s contribution “far exceeds the $96,000 provided by GSA.”

The key reason for adding staffers to the GSA payroll, according to two people familiar with the Clintons’ staffing arrangements, was that each employee became eligible for full federal employee benefits, including health and life insurance and pensions. The two people familiar with Bill Clinton’s staffing said the employees on his GSA payroll almost never received benefits from either the Clinton Foundation or the CESC.

Neither the CESC nor the Clinton Foundation are obligated to release their full payrolls, and GSA wouldn’t release the names of the staff being paid through the Former President’s Act.

So POLITICO in March 2015 filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act for GSA records detailing payments made through the Act to the offices of all former presidents between 1999 and the present. Nearly 18 months later, the agency partially fulfilled the request, this week delivering thousands of pages of emails, invoices and payroll documents covering 2009 through this year.

Correspondence related to Clinton’s payroll and requested purchases of computer equipment and other office gear through GSA under the Act comprise the overwhelming majority of the records provided in response to POLITICO’s FOIA request.

That could be a quirk of the FOIA search process.

But Clinton’s reimbursement requests also seem to generate far more back-and-forth with GSA about the justification for the spending (for instance, a GSA official asked in response to a request for a bed bug removal service, “is there currently a bed bug issue … or is the request for some type of on-going maintenance services.” The answer is not included in the documents). And Clinton’s requested purchases also prompted more debate about what’s allowable under the Act.

Part of that likely stems from Clinton’s approach to his ex-presidency, which is far more active and public than that of his former commander-in-chief peers — and that’s even before factoring in his wife’s history-making political career. But the GSA records also reveal just how tricky it can be to separate the various entities, players and controversies that have circulated for decades around Bill and Hillary Clinton.

In several cases, GSA officials raised questions about whether requested furniture and IT equipment including servers were intended for the Clinton Foundation, rather than Clinton’s personal office. In at least one instance, GSA paid to purchase and maintain a specialty Lockheed Martin database system called Intranet Quorom, the supporting systems for which were housed at one time at the Clinton Foundation’s offices, and used by both foundation staff and Bill Clinton’s personal office staff to store and process his correspondence.

The Clinton aide said servers supporting the Intranet Quorom system — which is used for data storage, not email — were the only pieces of equipment purchased by GSA that were housed at the Clinton Foundation at one point, but he said it was justified by the specific circumstances around it.

“As staff needs to have the full picture of all correspondence sent by President Clinton, both staff from the Office of the Former President and the Foundation have access to, and can input into, the Intranet Quorum database,” the aide said.

The Clinton Foundation’s website suggests that there’s a strict wall between the foundation and the ex-president’s personal office. “All Foundation employees are paid for work through the Foundation payroll,” the website says. “No Foundation staff are paid for Foundation work with taxpayer dollars.”

But the aide acknowledged “staff at the Foundation and staff at the Office of the Former President may have similar tasks, and need to coordinate this work — specifically staff that handles President Clinton’s correspondence.”

That shared work is facilitated by the Lockheed Martin IQ database system, the aide said.

But the system’s dual purpose raised questions among GSA officials, who pressed Clinton’s representatives when they submitted an invoice in September 2011 to the GSA to purchase a $7,700 Dell server and other IT equipment to support the Lockheed Martin IQ database.

Clinton Foundation officials explained to the GSA that they wanted the Dell server housed at foundation headquarters rather than at Clinton’s personal office. They explained in an email that the foundation office had better air conditioning, allowing it to support “about 10-15 more servers,” and also it was where IT staff were based, so “trouble shooting with the servers can be done ASAP.”

The GSA staff asked Graham, then serving as the foundation’s COO, to demonstrate that “safeguards are in place to ensure that the servers are solely for use by” Clinton’s personal office. A note affixed to the bottom of an email produced pursuant to POLITICO’s FOIA indicates that the GSA ultimately decided not to purchase the Dell server.

Asked about the reasoning this week, a GSA spokesman suggested that Clinton’s representatives failed to provide sufficient evidence that the Dell server was not for use by the foundation.

“Consistent with the support we provide to every former President, GSA does not approve purchases for entities other than the offices of former Presidents,” the spokesman said. “In this case, GSA staff sought clarification about the intended use of proposed purchases. Ultimately, the referenced server was not purchased.”

But, perhaps highlighting the confusion caused by the overlapping spheres in the Clinton’s universe, the Clinton aide offered a different recollection. “We believe that the information GSA provided you with is incomplete. Our files show that GSA purchased the Dell server that operates the IQ database in 2010.”

Rachael Bade, Cory Bennett and Eric Geller contributed to this report.

Sen. Chuck Schumer August Porker of the Month

Posted on August 31, 2016August 31, 2016 by Denise Simon

Today, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) named Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) its August Porker of the Month for his leading role in the effort to create supposedly “debt free” college for all students, which would exacerbate rather than resolve the student loan crisis.

As coeds across the nation return to school, the debate over their increasing loan debt has intensified. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, student loan debt hit an all-time high of $1.26 trillion in Q2 2016, which is a $69 billion increase from the previous year. Upon graduating with a bachelor’s degree, the average student owes more than $37,000, more than double the amount they owed in the early 1990s. More than 43 million Americans are liable for these loans.

The cause of this dramatic increase in student loan debt is simple: Increased federal government subsidies. Over the past decade, there has been a 69 percent increase in students borrowing from federal loan programs. The federal government now provides about 71 percent of all student aid. The consequential increase in student access to credit enables colleges and universities to continue to hike prices, which necessitates more loan borrowing. Tuition costs have increased 153 percent over the last three decades for private colleges and 231 percent for public universities, faster than prices for both food and healthcare.

Senator Schumer completely fails to comprehend the root cause of the student loan bubble. He proposed S. 2677, the In the Red Act, earlier this year that would ensure “debt free college for every student in the country.” Putting aside the steep price tag on his supposedly “free” plan, Senator Schumer offered a puzzling assessment of the student loan bubble on February 12, 2016: “A Ford and a college education used to be the same price, but these days an education at NYU costs $60,000 a year, compared to $20,000 for a Ford today.”

Senator Schumer’s silly comparison between the open and highly competitive auto market and the closed and heavily subsidized higher education sector lays bare his flawed knowledge of how government intervention hurts students. His plan would continue the vicious cycle of increased subsidies and higher loans that have already saddled America’s next generation with mountainous debt.

For his utter lack of understanding of the student loan bubble and his efforts to inflate it, CAGW names Sen. Chuck Schumer its August Porker of the Month.

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.

Meanwhile, how about that debt?

CBO Increases Projected Deficit Estimate

On August 5, 2016, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its “Monthly Budget Review for July 2016.” The CBO increased its projection of fiscal year 2016 deficit by 10 percent, from $534 billion to $590 billion, in its review. The non-partisan agency attributes the deficit increase to lower-than-expected revenues. In addition to lower revenues, costs have also risen.

In the review, CBO found that spending rose for Social Security benefits, net interest on the public debt, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Department of Veterans Affairs. The CBO found that spending on Social Security benefits rose by $24 billion (three percent), but pointed out that this reflects “typical growth in the number of beneficiaries and in the average payment.” Net interest on the public debt increased by $23 billion (11 percent) due to inflation differences. Medicare and Medicaid spending both climbed four percent ($18 billion and $11 billion, respectively) due to changes to prescription drug plans in Medicare and new enrollees in Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act. Similar to Medicaid, spending increased to the Department of Veterans Affairs due to the increase of veterans receiving disability payments. Spending by the Department of Veterans Affairs increased by five percent, or $7 billion.

The CBO asserts that the deficit increase is due to lower than expected revenues, i.e., taxes. Rather than finding more revenues, Congress should reduce spending, considering that any additional revenues come out of the pockets of the hard-working taxpayers that actually fund the federal government.

Hat tip to: Citizens Against Government Waste. Tired of the Government wasting your Tax Dollars? Take Action Here! (800) BE-ANGRY

The Criminal Russia Party Report

Posted on August 31, 2016August 31, 2016 by Denise Simon

The ‘Criminal Russia’ Party Meduza summarizes Ilya Yashin’s new report on corruption in Russia’s ruling political party

Meduza: Ilya Yashin, a prominent member of the anti-Kremlin opposition, has released a new report, titled “The ‘Criminal Russia’ Party,” examining corruption in Russia’s leading political party, United Russia. Yashin focuses on party members who have already been prosecuted for various crimes and members he suspects are involved in illegal activities. Meduza summarizes his findings.

The 60-page report covers four general categories of officials: governors, federal ministers, members of the State Duma, and mayors. Yashin’s report relies on open sources, without any new investigative work.

Governors

The report begins with the story of Vyacheslav Gayzer, the governor of the Republic of Komi, who successfully led the region starting in 2010, until five years later when it suddenly turned out that he was the head of an organized crime group. In autumn 2015, nearly two dozen people were arrested along with Gayzer, including several senior officials.

Next comes Alexander Khoroshavin, who presided over the region of Sakhalin for eight years until spring 2015, when he was arrested for bribery.

In autumn 2015, Nikolai Denin, who had served as the governor of Bryansk for nearly ten years, was sentenced to four years in prison.

All of these governors were members of United Russia.

The report also mentions the head of the Pskov region, Andrey Turchak, and his alleged involvement in the attack on journalist Oleg Kashin in 2010. After an argument online, Kashin was severely beaten by the guards of a factory supervised by the Turchak family. There are, however, no formal charges against Governor Turchak.

Citing media reports, Yashkin accused former Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov of giving lucrative contracts to the company of his wife, Yelena Baturina. (Law enforcement agencies have not filed complaints against the couple.)

Ministers

The report mentions two ministers: former Minister of Agriculture Elena Skrynnik and former Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov.

Yashin accuses Skrynnik of signing fraudulent leasing agreements in which she earned $35,000, which she allegedly spent on a purse. He also claims she spent another 50,000 euros on a wristwatch. Today, Skrynnik lives abroad, though she did travel to Russia for questioning on charges of embezzlement at the Ministry of Agriculture.

Yashin says Serdyukov was involved in a corruption scandal at the Ministry of Defense. In 2012, it became clear that the agency sold property at reduced prices, and Serdyukov was dismissed and prosecuted only for negligence, and later pardoned. The main defendant in the criminal case was the head of the Department of Property Relations of Russia’s Defense Ministry, Evgenia Vasilyeva, with whom Serdyukov had a close relationship.

State Duma members

Yashin suspects Duma member Vladislav Reznik of being involved in money laundering operations with the Russian mafia in Spain. Spanish police also believe that Reznik lobbied the interests of Gennady Petrov, who is part of a criminal organization founded by former wrestler Aleksandr Malyshevsky.

Duma member Adam Delimkhanov is a close associate of Chechen ruler Ramzan Kadyrov. The report says Delimkhanov is believed to be the “executioner” behind the killings of Boris Nemtsov, Movladi Baisarov, and the Yamadayev brothers.

Russian authorities have made no official accusations against either Reznik or Delimkhanov, both of whom are members of United Russia.

Local officials

The report argues that Sergei Tsapok—the leader of Kuban-based Kushchevsky criminal organization—was also a member of United Russia and even attended the presidential inauguration of Dmitry Medvedev in 2008. United Russia, however, refutes these claims. Tsapok died in prison several months after starting a life sentence.

Makhachkala Mayor Said Amirov was undisputedly a member of United Russia. He ruled the city starting in 1998 and was arrested in 2013 for—among other things—preparing a terrorist attack and ordering the murder of an investigator. Amirov is now serving a life sentence.

Yashin also mentions Yuri Lastochkin from Rybinsk, who is rumored to have become the focus of a criminal investigation after a dispute with Vladimir Putin, and the mayor of Vladivostok Igor Pushkarev, who was arrested June 1, 2016, on charges of abusing his authority and accepting bribes. Lastochkin and Pushkarev were also members of United Russia.

***

“The ‘Criminal Russia’ Party” is not Yashin’s first such report. He issued a similar paper about Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadyrov, and helped finished a report started by slain opposition leader Boris Nemtsov titled “Putin: War” about Russian combatants fighting in eastern Ukraine.

The Crisis of Cuba and Venezuela, Immigration Chaos

Posted on August 30, 2016August 30, 2016 by Denise Simon

9 Latin nations band together to plead with U.S. over Cuba

Cuban migrants were photographed in November outside the border control building in Penas Blancas, Costa Rica, after Nicaragua closed its borders to Cuban migrants. Nine Latin American governments on Monday charged that U.S. policy toward Cuban migrants has created a humanitarian crisis for the region. Esteban Felix AP

McClatchy/WASHINGTON:Eight Latin American governments on Monday joined Costa Rica in calling on the United States to end its special treatment for Cuban migrants.

The Ecuadorean foreign minister delivered a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry signed by the foreign ministers of the eight countries and Costa Rica in expressing their “deep concern” that U.S. policy toward Cuban migrants is creating a humanitarian crisis and encouraging “a disorderly, irregular and unsafe flow of Cubans.”

“Cuban citizens risk their lives, on a daily basis, seeking to reach the United States,” the letter says, according to excerpts forwarded by Ecuador’s embassy in the United States. “These people, often facing situations of extreme vulnerability, fall victim to mafias dedicated to people trafficking, sexual exploitation and collective assaults. This situation has generated a migratory crisis that is affecting our countries.”

The letter was signed by the foreign ministers of Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama and Peru.

State Department officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This situation has generated a migratory crisis that is affecting our countries. Nine Latin American governments

The countries have been caught up in the drama of record-breaking Cuban migration. More than 46,500 Cubans were admitted to the United States without visas during the first 10 months of the 2016 fiscal year, according to the Pew Research Center. That figure compares with more than 43,000 in 2015 and just over 24,000 in 2014.

Several of the countries found themselves caring for thousands of stranded Cubans who were stuck at their borders or in the interior after running out of money to continue the journey.

Costa Rican Foreign Minister Manuel González told McClatchy in an interview last week that the issue has cost his country millions of dollars it doesn’t have and has raised complaints from Costa Ricans about spending resources on stranded foreigners when they were needed by the nation’s own citizens.

“The difficulties between the U.S. and Cuba has a direct consequence on other countries in our region that serve as transit,” González said. “And we are, in a way, paying the consequences of that bilateral relationship.”

The difficulties between the U.S. and Cuba has a direct consequence on other countries in our region that serve as transit.

The nine signatories say the “main cause of the current situation” is the Cuban Adjustment Act, which allows Cubans who reach American soil to remain in the United States, even if they arrived without legal documentation. The signatories say revising the act would be the first step toward addressing the worsening crisis.

They have called for Kerry to attend a “high-level meeting” to review the issue.

“It is time for the United States to change its outdated policy for Cuban migrants, which is undermining regular and safe migration in our continent,” said Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Guillaume Long.

John Kirby, the State Department spokesman, confirmed Tuesday that Kerry had received the letter and said the U.S. was continuing talks with the nine governments. He called on the countries to respect the human rights of migrants and asylum-seekers.

“Irregular migration often involves dangerous journeys that illustrate the inherent risks and uncertainties of involvement with organized crime, including human smugglers and traffickers, in attempts to reach the United States,” Kirby said.

The Obama administration has also been encouraging the countries to enforce their own immigration requirements and send undocumented Cubans back to Cuba. But Cuban activists worry that that policy will only encourage Cubans to instead flee the island on dangerous ocean voyages to reach Florida.

The number of Cubans making the sea trip has nearly doubled in the past two years, Coast Guard statistics show.

Related reading: Creating the exile pool

Normalization has so far not included an end to the Cuban Adjustment Act, which encourages Cubans to become undocumented aliens. Mexicans are told to stay home or “get in line” for a green card, but Cubans who reach US shores can be fast-tracked to citizenship. More here.

Meanwhile, there is Venezuela.

WashingtonPost: VENEZUELA’S MAN-MADE humanitarian crisis is deepening. The Associated Press reports that the typical resident of Caracas, the capital, spends 35 hours a month waiting in line to buy food, and 9 in 10 say they can’t find enough . After the government of Nicolás Maduro opened six border crossings to neighboring Colombia on Aug. 13, about 380,000 Venezuelans poured across in the first eight days, desperately seeking supplies. Sackings of food warehouses by hungry mobs have been reported; 50 animals in the Caracas zoo are said to have starved to death. Meanwhile, Mr. Maduro refuses to allow aid shipments into the country, contending they are unneeded.

The United States and most of Venezuela’s neighbors have responded to this collapse of a once-prosperous oil-producing country by doing their best to ignore it. They issue feckless statements calling for “dialogue,” overlooking the by-now obvious reality that the regime has no intention of seriously negotiating with the opposition. This week, it will become harder for the United States and others to remain apathetic. Opposition parties are seeking to organize a mass demonstration in Caracas on Thursday; last Saturday, the regime responded by transferring a top leader from house arrest to prison. The government appears intent on crushing the protest movement, rather than responding to its legitimate demands.

First among these demands is the staging of a referendum by the end of this year to recall Mr. Maduro from office. Venezuela’s constitution provides for such a process, and though its requirements are onerous, the opposition has shown it can meet them. Early this month, the government-controlled electoral authority acknowledged that the recall campaign had met an initial requirement for gathering petition signatures across the country. But it then released a timetable indicating that a referendum would not be held by the end of this year, the effective deadline for a meaningful vote. If Mr. Maduro were recalled after Jan. 10, he would be replaced by his vice president, rather than an opposition nominee.

Mr. Maduro, who polls show would win as little as 15 percent of the vote in a recall ballot, has been gloating over this obstructionism. He ordered the firing of hundreds of government employees who signed recall petitions. When a U.S. federal indictment was unsealed against a general for drug trafficking, Mr. Maduro appointed him interior minister, in charge of domestic security forces.

Prodded by the secretary general of the Organization of American States, the Obama administration and 14 other governments issued a statement on Aug. 11 calling for the referendum to be held “without delays.” On Sunday, the State Department toughened its rhetoric, condemning the imprisonment of opposition leader Daniel Ceballos as “an effort to intimidate and impede the Venezuelan people’s right to peacefully express their opinion September 1.” The administration should be prepared to act if the regime responds violently to the protest. It should quickly punish officials involved in repression and press the OAS to move against Venezuela under its democracy charter.

At the same time, the United States should begin coordinating with Colombia, Brazil and other nations about ways to respond to the humanitarian crisis. As Mr. Maduro cracks down, Venezuelans are likely to get hungrier.

DoJ: Enforcing the Law is Discrimination

Posted on August 29, 2016August 29, 2016 by Denise Simon

Justice Dept.: Firing migrant workers with expired papers is discrimination

WashingtonExaminer: The Justice Department released a video this week encouraging companies not to terminate immigrants after their employment authorization expires, and indicated that doing so is a form of discrimination.

The video is shot in a dimly lit office, where two actors discuss whether their fictional company should let go of some Salvadoran employees who have failed to provide updated paperwork on their immigration status.

After a discussion about whether retaining the workers would violate the law, a woman says, “I think this is an exception to that rule,” and recommends that they contact the the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration Related Unfair Employment Practices before making any decisions.

“We want to follow the rules but we don’t want to lose these workers or discriminate against them,” she concludes. “They are too valuable.”

The video then tells viewers that the federal government has extended employment authorization by six months for people from El Salvador with Temporary Protected Status, a benefit designed to help foreign nationals who are considered unable to safely return to their home.

The Justice Department claims requesting additional work-authorization documents from these workers may violate a provision in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) designed to protect individuals from excessive employer demands based on their nationality.

“The Justice Department is firmly committed to protecting the rights of all work-authorized immigrants and ensuring that employers do not engage in unlawful discrimination,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in a statement upon the video’s release on Thursday.

Related reading: Read the report on Obama Executive Action Removals Executive Action-Removals-SCOMM

MigrationPolicy: While much of the attention to the Obama administration’s announcement of executive actions on immigration in November 2014 has focused on key deferred action programs, two changes that have not faced legal challenge are in the process of being implemented and may substantially affect the U.S. immigration enforcement system. These changes include the adoption by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of new policy guidance on which categories of unauthorized immigrants and other potentially removable noncitizens are priorities for enforcement, and the replacement of the controversial Secure Communities information-sharing program with a new, more tailored Priority Enforcement Program (PEP).

The new policy guidance, which builds on previous memoranda published by the Obama administration in 2010 and 2011, further targets enforcement to noncitizens who have been convicted of serious crimes, are threats to public safety, are recent illegal entrants, or have violated recent deportation orders. MPI estimates that about 13 percent of unauthorized immigrants in the United States would be considered enforcement priorities under these policies, compared to 27 percent under the 2010-11 enforcement guidelines. The net effect of this new guidance will likely be a reduction in deportations from within the interior of the United States as DHS detention and deportation resources are increasingly allocated to more explicitly defined priorities.

By comparing the new enforcement priorities to earlier DHS removal data, this report estimates that the 2014 policy guidance, if strictly adhered to, is likely to reduce deportations from within the United States by about 25,000 cases annually—bringing interior removals below the 100,000 mark. Removals at the U.S.-Mexico border remain a top priority under the 2014 guidelines, so falling interior removals may be offset to some extent by increases at the border.

Taking the enforcement focus off settled unauthorized immigrants who do not meet the November 2014 enforcement priorities would effectively offer a degree of protection to the vast majority—87 percent—of unauthorized immigrants now residing in the United States, thus affecting a substantially larger share of this population than the announced deferred action programs (9.6 million compared to as many as 5.2 million unauthorized immigrants).

This report analyzes how many unauthorized immigrants fall within each of the new priority categories and how implementation of these priorities could affect the number of deportations from the United States, as well as what the termination of Secure Communities and launch of PEP could mean for federal cooperation with state and local authorities on immigration.