Category Archives: Whistleblower

A Hotel in Texas for Immigrants?

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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

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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’

 

Regulations Cost $108 Billion Each Year

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Hey, Obama was are the cost benefits and where is this a part of law? Further, who is watching this and who is challenging the postings? Are they really legal in the first place?

 

Revealed: President Obama’s 229 Major Regulations Cost $108 Billion Each Year

NationalInterest: The Obama administration is responsible for thousands of new regulations—including a historic number of major regulations. As the costs of these regulations add up, they place more of a burden on economic freedom in America.

In 2015, 43 new major regulations went into effect, increasing regulatory costs by more than $22 billion, according to the latest “Red Tape Rising” study from The Heritage Foundation.

Since President Barack Obama took office in 2009, 229 new major regulations have increased regulatory burdens by $108 billion annually. But it doesn’t stop there. As the administration tries to push its agenda before the end of Obama’s term, 144 more major regulations are already in the works.

Among the biggest culprits are the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Energy. Although Congress funds these bureaucratic agencies, the rules they impose do not typically need congressional approval. Some independent agencies, like the Federal Communication Commission, are not even required to perform analyses to determine if their regulations will be cost-effective.

Not only do regulations cost American families and businesses more money, they have a damaging effect on economic freedom.

The Index of Economic Freedom, published annually by The Heritage Foundation, shows a decrease in economic freedom in the United States for eight of the last nine years. To make matters worse, since 2010, the U.S. has been stuck in the “mostly free” category, due in large part to falling scores related to business and labor regulation. In just one year, U.S. scores for business freedom and labor freedom have dropped by 4.1 points and 7.1 points, respectively.

Heritage Foundation researchers James Gattuso and Diane Katz have argued that “the unparalleled increase in regulatory burden spells a decline in economic freedom and individual liberty.”

All that red tape is piling up and Congress needs to take immediate action to prevent further growth in the regulatory burden and to restore economic freedom in the U.S.

**** Additional information for context:

Regulatory Federal Agencies
Agencies, like the FDA, EPA, OSHA and at least 50 others, are called “regulatory” agencies, because they are empowered to create and enforce rules – regulations – that carry the full force of a law. Individuals, businesses, and private and public organizations can be fined, sanctioned, forced to close, and even jailed for violating federal regulations.

The oldest Federal regulatory agency still in existence is the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, established in 1863 to charter and regulate national banks.

The Federal Rulemaking Process
The process of creating and enacting federal regulations is generally referred to as the “rulemaking” process.

First, Congress passes a law designed to address a social or economic need or problem. The appropriate regulatory agency then creates regulations necessary to implement the law. For example, the Food and Drug Administration creates its regulations under the authority of the Food Drug and Cosmetics Act, the Controlled Substances Act and several other acts created by Congress over the years. Acts such as these are known as “enabling legislation,” because the literally enable the regulatory agencies to create the regulations required to administer enforce them.

 

The “Rules” of Rulemaking
Regulatory agencies create regulations according to rules and processes defined by another law known as the Administration Procedure Act (APA).

The APA defines a “rule” or “regulation” as…

“[T]he whole or a part of an agency statement of general or particular applicability and future effect designed to implement, interpret, or prescribe law or policy or describing the organization, procedure, or practice requirements of an agency.

The APA defines “rulemaking” as…

“[A]gency action which regulates the future conduct of either groups of persons or a single person; it is essentially legislative in nature, not only because it operates in the future but because it is primarily concerned with policy considerations.”

Under the APA, the agencies must publish all proposed new regulations in the Federal Register at least 30 days before they take effect, and they must provide a way for interested parties to comment, offer amendments, or to object to the regulation.

Some regulations require only publication and an opportunity for comments to become effective. Others require publication and one or more formal public hearings. The enabling legislations states which process is to be used in creating the regulations. Regulations requiring hearings can take several months to become final.

New regulations or amendments to existing regulations are known as “proposed rules.” Notices of public hearings or requests for comments on proposed rules are published in the Federal Register, on the Web sites of the regulatory agencies and in many newspapers and other publications. The notices will include information on how to submit comments, or participate in public hearings on the proposed rule.

Once a regulation takes effect, it becomes a “final rule” and is printed in the Federal Register, the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) and usually posted on the Web site of the regulatory agency. Keep reading here.

 

Missing Hillary Communications Surfacing

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Investigators are performing remarkable but tedious work to uncover papertrails and to located items that are missing. Facts, details, dates, times and names are pesky things, while the process is slow, a question remains, how much is actually complete such that details are leaking out?

 

Clinton’s State Dept. calendar missing scores of entries

CLINTON CALENDAR

WASHINGTON (AP)— An Associated Press review of the official calendar Hillary Clinton kept as secretary of state identified at least 75 meetings with longtime political donors, Clinton Foundation contributors and corporate and other outside interests that were not recorded or omitted the names of those she met. The fuller details of those meetings were included in files the State Department turned over to AP after it sued the government in federal court.

The missing entries raise new questions about how Clinton and her inner circle handled government records documenting her State Department tenure — in this case, why the official chronology of her four-year term does not closely mirror the other, more detailed records of her daily meetings.

At a time when Clinton’s private email system is under scrutiny by an FBI criminal investigation, the calendar omissions reinforce concerns that she sought to eliminate the “risk of the personal being accessible” — as she wrote in an email exchange that she failed to turn over to the government but was subsequently uncovered in a top aide’s inbox.

The AP found the omissions by comparing the 1,500-page calendar with separate planning schedules supplied to Clinton by aides in advance of each day’s events. The names of at least 114 outsiders who met with Clinton were missing from her calendar, the records show.

*****

Clinton failed to hand over key email to State Department

FNC: WASHINGTON –  Former Secretary Hillary Clinton failed to turn over a copy of a key message involving problems caused by her use of a private homebrew email server, the State Department confirmed Thursday. The disclosure makes it unclear what other work-related emails may have been deleted by the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

The email was included within messages exchanged Nov. 13, 2010, between Clinton and one of her closest aides, Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin. At the time, emails sent from Clinton’s BlackBerry device and routed through her private clintonemail.com server in the basement of her New York home were being blocked by the State Department’s spam filter. A suggested remedy was for Clinton to obtain a state.gov email account.

“Let’s get separate address or device but I don’t want any risk of the personal being accessible,” Clinton responded to Abedin.

Clinton never used a government account that was set up for her, instead continuing to rely on her private server until leaving office.

The email was not among the tens of thousands of emails Clinton turned over to the agency in response to public records lawsuits seeking copies of her official correspondence. Abedin, who also used a private account on Clinton’s server, provided a copy from her own inbox after the State Department asked her to return any work-related emails. That copy of the email was publicly cited last month in a blistering audit by the State Department’s inspector general that concluded Clinton and her team ignored clear internal guidance that her email setup violated federal standards and could have left sensitive material vulnerable to hackers.

“While this exchange was not part of the approximately 55,000 pages provided to the State Department by former Secretary Clinton, the exchange was included within the set of documents Ms. Abedin provided the department in response to our March 2015 request,” State Department spokesman John Kirby told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said she provided “all potentially work-related emails” that were still in her possession when she received the 2014 request from the State Department.

“Secretary Clinton had some emails with Huma that Huma did not have, and Huma had some emails with Secretary Clinton that Secretary Clinton did not have,” Fallon said.

Fallon declined to say whether Clinton deleted any work-related emails before they were reviewed by her legal team. Clinton’s lead lawyer, David Kendall, did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

The November 2010 email was among documents released under court order Wednesday to the conservative legal advocacy group Judicial Watch, which has sued the State Department over access to public records related to the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee’s service as the nation’s top diplomat between 2009 and 2013. The case is one of about three dozen lawsuits over access to records related to Clinton, including one filed by the AP.

Before turning over her emails to the department for review and potential public release, Clinton and her lawyers withheld thousands of additional emails she said were clearly personal, such as those involving what she described as “planning Chelsea’s wedding or my mother’s funeral arrangements, condolence notes to friends as well as yoga routines, family vacations.”

Clinton has never outlined in detail what criteria she and her lawyers used to determine which emails to release and which to delete, but her 2010 email with Abedin appears clearly work-related under the State Department’s own criteria for agency records under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.

Dozens of the emails sent or received by Clinton through her private server were later determined to contain classified material. The FBI has been investigating for months whether Clinton’s use of the private email server imperiled government secrets. Agents recently interviewed several of Clinton’s top aides, including Abedin.

As part of the probe, Clinton turned over the hard drive from her email server to the FBI. It had been wiped clean, and Clinton has said she did not keep copies of the emails she choose to withhold.

On Wednesday, lawyers from Judicial Watch, a conservative legal organization, questioned under oath Bryan Pagliano, the computer technician who set up Clinton’s private server. A transcript released Thursday shows Pagliano repeatedly responded to detailed questions by invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, as he did last year before a congressional committee.

Dozens of questions Pagiliano declined to answer included who paid for the system, whether there was technical help to support its users and who else at the State Department used email accounts on it. Pagliano also would not answer whether he discussed setting up a home server with Clinton prior to her tenure as secretary of state, according to the transcript.

Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton said the November 2010 email cited in the inspector general audit was one of more than a dozen work-related emails that his group identified that Clinton sent or received but later failed to turn over the State Department.

“Contrary to her statement under oath suggesting otherwise, Mrs. Clinton did not return all her government emails to the State Department,” Fitton said. “Our goal is to find out what other emails Mrs. Clinton and the State Department are hiding.”

What the Heck Ft. Bliss??

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U.S. soldiers arrested for allegedly smuggling illegal immigrants across Texas border

By Sharyl Attkisson, Sinclair Broadcast Group

KFOX14: U.S. authorities are investigating an illegal immigrant smuggling operation allegedly run by active duty military soldiers out of the Ft. Bliss U.S. Army post in El Paso, Texas. Ft. Bliss is headquarters for El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC), a federal tactical operational intelligence center.

According to sources and documents, two U.S. soldiers, Marco Antonio Nava, Jr. and Joseph Cleveland, were arrested last Saturday by border patrol officers at Falfurias, Texas Border Patrol Station Checkpoint attempting to smuggle two Mexican citizens into the U.S. The Mexicans were riding in the back seat of the car. Upon their arrest, the soldiers, who were not in uniform at the time, informed Border Patrol agents they are part of the 377 TC Company at Ft. Bliss.

Nava told investigators it was the second time that he and Cleveland had smuggled in illegal immigrants for pay and, during a debriefing, described a smuggling ring allegedly involving other Ft. Bliss soldiers. Nava identified a leader of the group as a Private First Class, as well as other participants. He said he wasn’t sure how long the ring had been operating. Attempts to seek comment and information from Ft. Bliss were not successful.

Nava stated that one week before his arrest, the group of Ft. Bliss soldiers successfully smuggled six illegal immigrants through the Falfurrias Checkpoint. When questioned how they did it, “Nava stated that all of the aliens were simply sitting inside the vehicles with them.” The illegal immigrants had been picked up at a trailer, then dropped off at a house 30 minutes north of Houston, Texas. According to Nava, each of the soldiers involved was paid $1,000 cash for that successful smuggling trip. They were to be paid $1,500 for the June 18 run a week later that Border Patrol agents intercepted. Border agents were able to review text messages exchanged between six soldier smugglers.

This isn’t the first time military troops have been linked to human trafficking across the Mexican border, according to internal documents. One government official stated, “I know we had previously received reports that military personnel were involved in smuggling”

According to internal government documents, the border has been something of a revolving door for the two Mexican citizens arrested in the June 19 attempt. Jose Rebollar-Osorio had three prior removals from the U.S. on record. Marcelino Oliveros-Padilla also had three prior removals as well as an immigration-related conviction.

Requests for comment were referred to Homeland Security Investigations, which is said to be handling the probe. A spokesman did not immediately provide additional information.

Related reading: EPIC Intelligence Topics at DEA: El Paso Intelligence Center | National Drug Pointer Index

Related reading: EPIC offers tactical, operational and strategic intelligence support to federal, state, local, tribal, and international law enforcement organizations.

The Army’s Ft. Bliss El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC) was involved in Fast and Furious-related cases in which the Justice Department secretly allowed thousands of weapons to be trafficked to Mexican drug cartels.