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Can Republicans Be Trusted to Investigate Trump’s Russia Scandal?

by DellaKaminski Posted on February 27, 2017

Mother Jones

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Last week, news broke that the Senate intelligence committee—as part of its recently launched investigation of both the Russian hacking of the 2016 campaign and contacts between Donald Trump associates and Russia—had sent letters to at least a dozen agencies, individuals, and organizations instructing them to preserve records and information related to the probe. This was one of the first public signs that the Senate committee or the House intelligence committee, which has initiated its own inquiry, had begun any real digging.

But both investigations are proceeding behind a thick veil of secrecy, and there is no way to tell if the Republicans leading these efforts are mounting serious endeavors committed to unearthing facts that might be inconvenient, embarrassing, delegitimizing, or worse for Trump and his White House. So the question remains: Can these committees be trusted to get the job done?

Congressional investigations are not easy tasks. Committees usually are burdened with a wide variety of responsibilities. In the case of the intelligence committees, they are already responsible for monitoring the full intelligence community, which includes 17 different agencies. Veteran members and staffers from these committees routinely say that it’s tough for them to manage the normal oversight. (Watching over just the gigantic National Security Agency could keep a committee busy around the clock.)

Now, these committees have to maintain their current overwhelming duties and also conduct a highly sensitive inquiry. One congressional source says that the House intelligence committee has slightly expanded its staff for the hacking/Trump-Russia investigation. But Jack Langer, the spokesman for Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the chairman of the committee, won’t confirm that. And spokespeople for Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, did not even respond to a request for comment on the staffing issue.

Langer and the Burr spokespeople also wouldn’t say if the House and Senate intelligence committees are coordinating their efforts. Or if either committee has yet issued any subpoenas. Or if the committees will release public updates on the progress of each investigation. This is a red flag. Questions such as these do not involve classified or secret information. The committees could demonstrate their commitment to full accountability by informing the public about these organizational issues. The desire to shield such details does not bode well.

Jeremy Bash, who was chief counsel for the House intelligence committee in 2007 and 2008 (when Democrats controlled Congress), notes that there are three key elements necessary to ensure the intelligence committees conduct an effective investigation: full-time staff with legal or investigative training devoted to the inquiry; access for members and staff to all relevant documents held by government agencies; and a vigorous effort to conduct a broad range of witness interviews. He points out that past intelligence committee investigations have been hindered when intelligence agencies have not allowed staffers easy access to materials. Indeed, the intelligence committees often get into tussles with the spy services they oversee. Three years ago, the Senate intelligence committee had an explosive fight with the CIA over documents when it was examining the agency’s use of torture. This bitter clash threatened to blow up into a full-scale constitutional crisis.

News reports about the Trump-Russia scandal indicate that US intelligence agencies have material—perhaps surveillance intercepts or reports from human assets—relating to contacts between Trump associates and Russians. The FBI reportedly has been investigating these contacts and presumably has collected information relevant to the committees’ inquiries. Yet often intelligence agencies, looking to protect sources and methods or an ongoing investigation, are reluctant to share such information—even with the committees. (Democratic senators and representatives have repeatedly called on the FBI to release to the public information it has on Trump-Russia interactions.)

Much depends on the chairmen of the two committees. How hard will they push if they encounter a roadblock at the FBI or elsewhere? And how far will they go? Will they devote sufficient resources? Will they issue subpoenas for witnesses not eager to accept a committee invitation? A chairman has much discretion in determining the course of an investigation. Imagine that a staffer has located a witness who might possess significant information but that this witness is now living in South Korea. Will the chairman send staff there to locate the witness and obtain a statement? Or might he say, We have to let this one go?

The most crucial element is how committed the chairman is to uncovering the truth. “The real enemy to an investigation is the time that goes by,” says Bash, who helped oversee an investigation of the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping during his time with the house committee. “People lose interest. Other events intervene. The key thing is to get going fast. There are a hundred ways to slow down an investigation by people or agencies who don’t want it.”

Neither Burr nor Nunes has demonstrated much public enthusiasm for investigating the Trump-Russia scandal. At first, Burr wanted his committee to focus solely on the Russia hacking, not ties between Trump associates and Russia. This was no surprise. Most congressional Republicans have either shied away from or downplayed this subject. And Burr did serve on the Trump campaign’s national security advisory council. But after Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) pushed for a select committee investigation—which would be a more independent inquiry involving a greater number of senators—Burr agreed to widen the intelligence committee probe to cover the Trump-Russia angle. It was obvious that he did so in order not to lose control of the investigation.

Nunes, who was an adviser to Trump’s transition team, initially showed little eagerness for this assignment, as well His announcement in late January that he would proceed with the investigation came only after Burr’s change of heart—and followed weeks of public pressure from Rep. Adam Schiff, (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee. Skepticism regarding the willingness of Burr or Nunes to lead robust, wherever-it-goes investigations is hardly unfounded.

On Friday, the Washington Post reported—and the White House confirmed—that Burr and Nunes had been enlisted by the Trump administration to be part of its effort to counter news stories about Trump associates’ ties to Russia. Their participation in this spin campaign has undermined their claims of independence. And on Saturday—in response to Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-Calif.) surprising call for a special prosecutor to investigate the Trump-Russia connections—Nunes dismissed Issa’s demand, saying, “This is almost like McCarthyism revisited. W’’re going to go on a witch hunt against, against innocent Americans?” He added, “At this point, there’s nothing there.” That’s not the manner in which the head of an independent investigation should be talking about the inquiry. How does Nunes know who’s innocent or not—or whether there’s nothing there—at this point?

In recent weeks, Democratic members of both committees told me that, at least for the time being, they were hoping for the best and taking Burr and Nunes at their word when they claim they are committed to conducting thorough investigations, holding public hearings, and releasing public findings. These recent actions of Burr and Nunes may change that perspective. Schiff has said he will release public updates on the progress of the House committee’s inquiry, though he has not issued one yet.

On the Senate side, Democrats say that the effectiveness of the investigation may depend on McCain. He is not a full member of the Senate intelligence committee, but as chair of the Senate armed services committee, he is an ex officio member of the intelligence committee. In that regard, he has the same access as a full member to the investigation’s materials, and he can monitor the inquiry. Should he conclude the investigation is not proceeding vigorously, he will be in a position to publicly shame Burr and revive his demand for a select committee probe. Of course, Democrats on the Senate and House intelligence committees could do the same, but they won’t have the same political standing to pull that sort of move.

For weeks, Democrats on both sides of Capitol Hill have called for an independent bipartisan commission—similar to the well-regarded 9/11 commission—to investigate this affair. This inquiry would operate outside of the congressional committee system—meaning outside of GOP control. Naturally, the Republican congressional leadership has opposed the move and has declared that it’s just fine to let the intelligence committees do their work. And McCain and Graham have yet to endorse the Democrats’ proposal. But that is a card McCain could play if the Senate investigation does not meet his standards. Still, every time there is a development in the Trump-Russia story—such as last week when it was reported that the Trump White House asked the FBI to knock down the news stories saying that Trump associates had interacted with Russian intelligence—Democrats renew their call for an independent commission that would be distant from congressional politics.

Even with the FBI investigating, the congressional investigations are crucial. The FBI inquiry is either a counterintelligence probe or a criminal investigation (or maybe both). Neither of those are designed or intended to provide a full accounting to the public. An FBI criminal inquiry (usually) only yields public information if someone ends up being charged with a crime and the case goes to trial. And in such instances, the only information that emerges is material necessary for the prosecution of the case. That could be a small slice of whatever the bureau obtained.

A counterintelligence investigation aims to discover and possibly counter a foreign actor’s effort to target the United States with espionage, covert action, or terrorism. These sort of probes tend to stay secret unless they result in a criminal case. (Perhaps a spy is discovered and arrested, or a would-be terrorist indicted.) In an unusual move, the intelligence community, at President Barack Obama’s direction, did release some of its assessments regarding the Russia hacking. But whatever the FBI and other intelligence agencies may be investigating, their efforts are not likely to produces a comprehensive public accounting of this double scandal: Vladimir Putin’s attack on the US election and the interactions between the president’s crew and the foreign power that waged this political warfare.

As of now, that’s the job of the two congressional intelligence committees. Both are under the direction of Republicans who have supported Trump and participated in White House spin efforts. Both are moving forward cloaked by their customary secrecy. And both have yielded no indications yet that they will produce the investigations and public findings necessary to resolve these grave matters.

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Can Republicans Be Trusted to Investigate Trump’s Russia Scandal?

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Can We Believe Anything That Comes Out of the White House Press Office?

by XiomaraElisha Posted on February 21, 2017

Mother Jones

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Behold our White House press office at work:

Sunday: White House spokesman Sarah Huckabee Sanders tells reporters that President Trump “played a couple of holes” today.

Monday: Pro golfer Rory McIlroy says he played 18 holes with Trump. “He probably shot around 80. He’s a decent player for a guy in his 70’s!”

Monday evening: The White House releases a new statement: “He intended to play a few holes and decided to play longer.”

Obviously this doesn’t matter in any cosmic sense. Who cares how much golf Trump plays? But it’s yet another indication that the White House press operation will blithely lie about anything. Is there really any point to having a press office these days?

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Can We Believe Anything That Comes Out of the White House Press Office?

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Trump’s New Labor Nominee Oversaw Politicized Hiring at Justice Department

by LienGalarza Posted on February 16, 2017

Mother Jones

At a press conference Thursday afternoon, President Donald Trump announced Florida International University College of Law Dean R. Alexander Acosta as his next nominee to oversee the US Department of Labor. The decision comes after a slew of scandals and mounting pressure from Republicans derailed Trump’s previous pick, fast-food executive Andrew Puzder, who withdrew his name from contention on Wednesday, a day before his confirmation hearing was scheduled.

Trump lauded Acosta’s credentials as a Harvard Law School graduate, a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, and a member of the National Labor Relations Board, emphasizing that Acosta had previously been confirmed by the Senate three times. “I’ve wished him the best,” Trump told reporters. “I think he’ll be a tremendous secretary of labor.” If confirmed, Acosta would be the only Latino in Trump’s Cabinet.

But Trump didn’t mention one of Acosta’s less admirable roles. Acosta served as assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division from 2003 to 2005 under President George W. Bush—the first Latino in that role—and was at the center of a scandal over hiring practices. During Acosta’s tenure, Brad Schlozman, a deputy assistant attorney general, “improperly considered political and ideological affiliations” when he hired attorneys to work at the Civil Rights Division, according to a Justice Department inspector general report written in 2008. “Attorneys hired by Schlozman were more than twice as likely to be Republican or conservative than those attorneys Scholzman was not involved in hiring,” the report found. That consideration, the report concluded, violated the Civil Service Reform Act and department policy that bars discrimination in hiring based on political and ideological affiliations.

The agency concluded that Acosta and other Civil Rights Division managers failed to “exercise sufficient oversight to ensure that Schlozman did not engage in inappropriate hiring and personnel practices.” Specifically, Acosta and Deputy Attorney General Wan Kim “failed to ensure that Schlozman’s hiring and personnel decisions were based on proper considerations,” the report noted.

When Acosta first took over as law school dean in 2009, H. T. Smith, director of FIU’s trial advocacy program, told the Miami New Times that Acosta’s stint at the Civil Rights Division “caused a rift with the black community,” adding that the former Miami prosecutor needed to meet with faculty members to heal that divide. The NAACP’s Miami-Dade branch expressed concern, telling the Miami Herald at the time of Acosta’s hire that his “lack of diversity in hiring and promotion while serving as U.S. attorney gives cause for concern for his consideration as dean of FIU’s College of Law.”

Kristen Clarke, executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, condemned the “egregious conduct” that played out during Acosta’s time at the Justice Department. “It is hard to believe that Mr. Acosta would now be nominated to lead a federal agency tasked with promoting lawful hiring practices and safe workplaces,” Clarke said in a statement released after Trump’s announcement.

Read the full 2008 inspector general report:

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Justice Department Inspector General Report Acosta Hiring Practices (PDF)

Justice Department Inspector General Report Acosta Hiring Practices (Text)

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Trump’s New Labor Nominee Oversaw Politicized Hiring at Justice Department

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This Is What It’s Like on the Front Lines of Trump’s Travel Ban

by JaydenOconner Posted on February 13, 2017

Mother Jones

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On a gloomy afternoon at San Francisco International Airport, a dozen or so men and women assembled by the terminal’s Starbucks, waiting for their assignments. Behind them, two people huddled over laptops, flanked by a printer, a whiteboard, and stacks of paperwork. A small cardboard sign, cut from a FedEx box, said “Lawyer” in English, Arabic, and Farsi. For weeks, this desk was the headquarters for a temporary legal office that helped travelers affected by President Donald Trump’s sweeping executive orders on immigration.

Legal clinics like the one at SFO sprang up in major airports across the country, including in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York. Staffed entirely by volunteers, they were an early sign of the rapid grassroots organizing taking place among lawyers, civil rights activists, and everyday people in response to the executive orders.

Federal courts have suspended the orders, which banned immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries as well as all refugees from entering the United States. Volunteer lawyers are no longer physically stationed at airports—they are on call to assist passengers who need help. But as the Trump administration continues to expand the scope of immigration enforcement, the clinics offer an intriguing snapshot of what future rapid-response aid may look like as groups move quickly to help people who may be affected.

Boots on the ground

The airport legal clinics formed hours after Trump signed his January 27 executive order. The order’s hasty implementation led to chaos, as Customs and Border Protection officers began detaining travelers who came from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen the first weekend the immigration ban was enforced. It drew harsh criticism from civil rights groups, and thousands of protesters clogged airports.

While state attorneys general and national groups such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the American Civil Liberties Union mounted legal challenges against Trump’s executive order in federal courts, the volunteer attorneys in airports focused on providing support to individual travelers. During the first days of the travel ban, large organizations such as the International Refugee Assistance Project and the ACLU organized attorneys at airports. Later, this shifted to local groups.

“They’re the command centers, while we’re the boots on the ground,” said Julia Wilson, the chief executive officer of OneJustice, one of several nonprofits that coordinated volunteers for the clinics in the Bay Area.

In Los Angeles, clinic volunteers have assisted more than 300 passengers, while volunteers at SFO have conducted nearly 100 intake interviews since the executive order was signed, said Wilson. The San Francisco airport numbers are an undercount, she said, since the airport was flooded with protesters during the first days the immigration ban was in place, and volunteers could not track exact numbers.

Two volunteers monitoring flights at SFO Kanyakrit Vongkiatkajorn

At SFO’s international terminal, Renée Schomp, a petite woman with wavy brown hair, stepped forward and began handing out assignments. Arabic and Farsi speakers would serve as interpreters, standing near the arrival gates with signs offering free legal advice. Two volunteers would track important flights. Attorneys would handle intake forms.

It was 4 p.m. and only a handful of people were in the terminal. Schomp pointed to the gate at her left.

“It might seem like you’re wasting your time, or you might wonder why you decided to come here,” Schomp said. But as soon as flights landed, passengers would soon be streaming out the gates—and the volunteers must be ready.

Think of yourselves as firefighters, she said. “Firefighters aren’t fighting fires all the time. Sometimes they’re just sitting around playing cards,” she said. “But they’re ready to jump up and take action when the fire actually comes.”

The volunteers’ main goal was to gather and disseminate information, especially about how Customs and Border Protection officers were complying with court orders.

“We would ask folks, ‘Were you asked any religious questions? Were you asked about any political practices’?” says Junaid Sulahry, one of the volunteer lawyers. “We were trying to gain a sense of whether people were being pulled into secondary screening based off how they look, or if CBP officers were engaging in inappropriate questioning.”

Sulahry says he spoke to one Iranian national who had been placed in secondary screening for four hours. “We hesitated to approach her because she was in tears,” he says.

Attorneys aimed to monitor CBP officers’ actions and document anything unusual that happened to passengers. They interviewed passengers who wanted to share their own experience going through customs, as well as passengers who may have witnessed something and wanted to report it. Depending on the case, they provided legal advice or made referrals to civil rights organizations or congressional officials if an incident was particularly severe.

In the first few days of the ban, civil rights groups struggled to get information from CBP officers about who may or may not have been detained or deported.

“We had no access to our clients,” says Nicholas Espíritu, a staff attorney with the National Immigration Law Center. “It was like a black box.”

The Department of Homeland Security and the White House have been criticized for the chaotic rollout of the executive order, as well as a lack of transparency surrounding the number of people affected. (White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, as well as Trump, initially said only 109 people were affected by the ban. CBP now says on its website that more than 1,000 people were recommended denial of boarding.)

On February 1, the DHS inspector general announced it would conduct a review of the department’s implementation of the executive order “in response to congressional request and whistleblower and hotline complaints.” The watchdog office would also review whether DHS officials complied with court orders and allegations of misconduct.

“I was so angry”

Local community groups such as the Asian Law Caucus say monitoring also helps provide resources for family members who may be targeted by the ban.

“There’s a lot of confusion, anxiety, and fear about what is happening and what will happen to family members abroad,” says Elica Vafaie, a staff attorney with the Asian Law Caucus. Without lawyers or other volunteers present, families would have little access to information or resources in case something does happen.

Schomp leading an orientation for new volunteers Kanyakrit Vongkiatkajorn

Many of the volunteers I met at the clinic had attended protests of the executive order at the airport or had heard of the clinic online and signed up. Negeen Etemad who is from San Diego and was volunteering as a Farsi interpreter, found out about the clinic through Facebook. For her, the work felt personal: Her uncle, a green card holder from Iran, had been detained for 13 hours after the executive order took effect.

“My family was frantic,” says Etemad, 26. “I was physically sick because I was so angry.”

Cori Van Allen, an accountant based in the Bay Area, told me she heard of the clinic through work and wanted to help in any way she could. “I’m concerned over how this ban was rolled out—it feels unconstitutional, like we’re singling out people in a way that just feeds into ISIS propaganda,” said Van Allen, 47. “I don’t feel like it makes me any safer.”

As I watched the volunteers work, I could see how organized the clinic was. Volunteers worked in four-hour shifts, staffing the airport from 8 a.m. until 11 p.m. At least one attorney would remain on call overnight. Name tags were color-coded—orange meant you were an immigration attorney; green was for coordinators. A stack of clear plastic boxes tucked underneath the chairs were crammed with supplies: Post-it notes, Sharpies, Kashi bars, and intake forms. Pizza arrived around mid-afternoon, carried in by a volunteer with a white name tag.

The airport followed a rhythm: quiet at one moment, then bustling with people the next. Toward evening, a woman and her daughter came by to ask for advice. The woman’s mother was an Iranian green card holder, and though the White House eventually said it would allow green card holders to enter the country, she wanted to talk to the lawyers just in case.

Another man sitting near the clinic leaned over and told the lawyers he was grateful for their work. He said he was expecting a relative to arrive and it had been an hour since the flight landed at 4:30 p.m. Should he be worried?

After 15 minutes, the Iranian woman happily returned with her mother and filled out a quick intake form. The man’s relative also emerged from the gate. They loaded up a luggage cart, waving as they passed by. The evening volunteers’ shifts had begun. One man knelt on the ground to draw a larger “lawyer” sign on a white poster, slowly tracing the letters in black ink.

For organizers and civil rights groups, the airport legal clinics have helped lay the groundwork for future rapid-response legal efforts, showing how quickly volunteers can show up and the willingness among groups to share information and resources. Now organizers are likely to shift toward helping undocumented immigrants by providing free legal services and setting up know-your-rights trainings that can be deployed quickly.

“The legal profession as a whole is standing up,” said Wilson.

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This Is What It’s Like on the Front Lines of Trump’s Travel Ban

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Of Course Trump’s Health Secretary Is a Friend of Big Tobacco

by HarriettL00 Posted on February 10, 2017

Mother Jones

The man Donald Trump has chosen to direct health policy for the federal government has close ties to the tobacco industry he will soon be charged with regulating. Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), who will likely be confirmed as health and human services secretary by the end of the week, has repeatedly voted against bills that could harm big tobacco. At the same time, he’s received thousands of dollars in political contributions from the industry and held investments in tobacco companies—investments he says he didn’t know about.

Early in Barack Obama’s presidency, Congress renewed the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. In order to pay for the program, lawmakers raised cigarette taxes by 62 cents per pack and cigar taxes by 40 cents per cigar. Price blasted the new fees. “Today’s tax hike serves as a useful reminder that the president is comfortable raising taxes on hard-working Americans to feed his reckless agenda,” Price said in an April 2009 statement. “President Obama has done nothing to demonstrate that he is a responsible steward of taxpayer money. Yet, he is forcing the American people to burn through even more of their income in the name of more government.”

A few months later, Congress passed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which empowered the Food and Drug Administration regulate tobacco products. (The Supreme Court had ruled in 2000 that the FDA did not have that authority under existing law.) The legislation has enabled the agency to ban certain flavored cigarettes that might entice young people to begin smoking. It also allows the FDA to require additional warnings on packages.

Price joined most Republicans in voting against the FDA legislation. But thanks to that bill, as health secretary, he will now have immense influence over how the tobacco industry operates. (The FDA is part of the Department of Health and Human Services.) In 2011, the Obama administration proposed adding graphic warning labels—including images of diseased mouths and lungs—to the top half of cigarette packs. That regulation was tied up in legal challenges but was ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court in 2013. After several years of inaction by the administration, a collection of medical and public health groups, including the American Cancer Society, sued the government last fall in an attempt to force it to finalize the new label requirements. Once he’s in place at HHS, Price can ask the FDA to move forward with the new rules, weaken them, or abandon them altogether.

The conservative website Hot Air celebrated the latter possibility when Price’s nomination was announced in November. “Fortunately for all of us, most of the sore spots on the HHS and FDA regulatory front don’t require cooperation from Congress or the courts,” the site said, pointing to regulations on cigars and electronic cigarettes. “These are things which can essentially be tidied up with a stroke of the pen once Trump and Price are in office.”

Price has benefited from numerous tobacco industry donations during his political career. Back when he was a state legislator in Georgia in 1998, Philip Morris gave Price’s campaign $300. More recently, the PAC for Altria Group, parent company to Philip Morris, donated $18,000 to Price’s congressional campaigns. From 2008 to 2012, Price also received $19,000 from the PAC of RJ Reynolds, the company behind Camel and other cigarette brands.

Price’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn) raised concerns about Price’s personal investments in tobacco companies during his confirmation hearing last month. According to Price’s financial disclosure forms, he sold off 768 shares in Altria and Philip Morris International for $37,000 in 2012. (Altria owns the American Phillip Morris brand. Phillip Morris International has been a separate company since 2008.) Franken started by asking Price to identify the “leading cause of preventable death” and then informed him that it was smoking.

“That hits home,” Price replied. “I lost my dad, who was a Lucky Strike smoker from World War II, to emphysema. He prided himself on the fact that he never smoked a cigarette with a filter for years and years.”

Franken expressed surprise that Price, a physician, would invest in products that lead to the deaths of about 480,000 people in the country each year. “Congressman Price, you’re a physician, which means you took the Hippocratic oath, a pledge to do no harm,” Franken said. “How do you square reaping personal financial gain from the sales of an addictive product that kills millions of Americans every decade with also voting against measures to reduce the death toll inflicted by tobacco?”

“It’s a curious observation,” Price responded, claiming that he had “no idea” about the stocks he owned; he suggested that they were purchased by a mutual fund or pension plan he had invested in. The tobacco investments were publicly disclosed in his financial report, and at other points in his hearing he acknowledged that he had the ability to direct his stock broker on other investments he held.

“I find it very hard to believe that you did not know that you had tobacco stocks,” Franken responded.

Watch the full exchange above.

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Of Course Trump’s Health Secretary Is a Friend of Big Tobacco

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Here’s the Hell Trump’s Order Created for Refugees Overseas

by GarnetI19its Posted on February 2, 2017

Mother Jones

For thousands of US-bound refugees worldwide, President Donald Trump’s so-called “Muslim ban” has thrown their future into question. Now that refugees are not allowed to come to the United States for 120 days—and Syrian refugees are barred indefinitely—resettlement workers are scrambling to figure out what will happen to these people fleeing war, persecution, and disaster in their home countries.

Trump’s executive order affects both refugees in the middle of the screening process and those already approved for resettlement in the United States, according to Sarah Krause, senior director of immigration and refugee programs for Church World Service, which operates one of the nine global resettlement support centers for US-bound refugees. “For someone to get referral to the US refugee admissions program is a feat,” says Krause, whose organization helped with the resettlement of more than 14,000 people from sub-Saharan Africa to the United States last year. “For them to have made it through the process and been approved is even more incredible. That they have gone through all of that and we are now shutting the door on them is unconscionable.”

In addition to its temporary freeze on resettlement, the order caps total incoming refugees for the 2017 fiscal year at 50,000 people—less than half of what the Obama administration had planned. Nearly 26,000 have already been resettled. For the 872 refugees already set to travel to the United States this week—not including those from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, or Yemen—the government has granted a temporary grace period. Those refugees will be allowed to enter the country until Friday. For those scheduled to enter the United States after Friday, their flights have been canceled.

Here’s what Krause sees as the most pressing issues facing the refugees left behind by Trump’s order:

People have been left without housing or their possessions. “These are individuals who, in many cases, have already sold their belongings in order to have some money upon entering to the United States,” Krause says. “Many of them knew their final destination—the cities to which they would be resettled. In Kenya, refugees coming from the Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps are brought into Nairobi prior to their departure for the United States. There they stay at the International Organization for Migration transfer center, where they receive predeparture medical screenings as well as cultural orientation, where they learn about life in the United States. Currently, there are over 120 refugees in the IOM transfer center who were expecting to board flights this week and who are now being told they will be sent back to the camp. For those refugees, they have already given up their shelters to new refugee arrivals, and sold their belongings. Their future is very uncertain.”

Refugees already approved for US entry may need to restart parts of the resettlement process—a delay of months or years. “Their cases remain in processing,” she says. “Some of their clearances will expire during this 120-day period and will need to be re-requested. There are checks that are requested by the resettlement support centers: security opinions, interagency checks, as well as fingerprints. It is a challenge to line all those clearances up, which means the window for departure is very small. Once that window closes, it’s difficult to open again.”

Refugees from the seven banned countries were left stranded. “For those that had already been booked for travel, their flights have been canceled,” Krause says. “Processing has essentially halted. They are not in their home country, they’re in countries of asylum, and the conditions in those countries are often very difficult. Some refugees make it to urban centers but live on very little and are not permitted by the countries in which they’re residing to work. Others are living in camps with hundreds of thousands of other people. Our Somali refugees—most of them have been in exile since 1990. You have generations of Somalis that have never been to Somalia.”

Officials are trying to prioritize refugees in particularly dangerous circumstances. The executive order allows for some refugees to be admitted on a case-by-case basis, Krause says. “We’re working with the Department of State to compile a list of the most vulnerable cases, although at this point the process for seeking exemptions is not yet clear. This is a life-saving program, and a delay of even a day for some cases could mean death in a case of extreme medical need or protection issues. There are some who are being moved from safe house to safe house by UNHCR because they are being hunted by their persecutors. I know of a gay Somali man who is currently in a safe house and who has been attacked. He is one of those cases in our pipeline.”

But for others, there’s little hope of finding another home now that the United States has shut its doors. “For those for whom we don’t believe exemptions can be sought, or it may take too long, we will look at pulling those cases out and giving them back to UNHCR for referral to another resettlement country. While the US accepts less than 1 percent of the world’s refugee population, we take more than any other. So it is unlikely that any other countries will have the capacity to take those that we cannot. And other countries have their own processes. That will take time.”

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Here’s the Hell Trump’s Order Created for Refugees Overseas

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Students With Valid Visas Are Trapped in Limbo Abroad

by TommieGrout Posted on January 30, 2017

Mother Jones

On Saturday morning, Niki Mossafer Rahmati got off her flight from Tehran in Doha, Qatar to board a connecting flight to Boston, when she got caught up in the chaos set off by President Trump’s immigration order.

Rahmati, an MIT junior studying mechanical engineering, had been home with her family for winter break when she received word Wednesday morning of the pending executive order. She changed her flight to return to Boston right away, only to find that order had gone into effect in the middle of her connecting flight to Doha. She and some 30 other Iranians with legal visas were blocked from boarding the plane and sent back to Tehran. Among them, Rahmati says, were two women traveling to their pregnant daughters to help them through their last trimester.

“Do any of the people sound like illegal immigrants?” Rahmati asked in a public Facebook post after arriving back home in Tehran. “This will not secure the borders from terrorism and illegal immigrants. It will only increase racism in the American society. The president is trying to make Islamophobia a norm and policy by which he wants to lead the country.”

“My inbox is flooded with messages and emails of love and support,” she also wrote. “But I cannot believe all this love is coming from the same country that banned me from entering its borders just a couple of hours ago.”

Rahmati is just one among many students from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen who have been barred from returning to school. MIT alone has 38 students from Iran, 1 from Iraq, 5 from Syria, 2 from Sudan, and 1 from Somalia; two, including Rahmati, were reportedly unable to board flights back to Boston. According to the New York Times, students from Stanford, Harvard, and Yale, among other universities, have also been affected.

Yesterday, after thousands of protesters stormed US airports to fight for the release of people detained upon arrival, a federal judge in Brooklyn blocked part of President Trump’s order by temporarily allowing valid visa holders who had landed in the US to stay. Federal judges in Massachusetts, Virginia, and Washington quickly followed suit, with the Massachusetts order additionally restraining enforcement of the order for visa holders traveling back to the US in the next seven days.

In response, MIT issued an statement urging students and staff to “fly back to Boston—directly to Logan Airport—as soon as possible, and before February 4.” Whether or not the court order will be respected by Custom and Border Protection officials abroad is unknown.

Rahmati is a member of the sorority Sigma Kappa and counselor for the MIT chapter of Camp Kesem, a national nonprofit that operates free summer camps for children whose parents have had cancer. For weeks before heading home for break, Rahmati had been fundraising for this summer’s camp. After the election, Rahmati encouraged her friends to keep an open mind to Trump supporters, according to her roommate.

As news of her situation has spread, the MIT community sprang into action, calling elected officials and circulating a White House petition. At this writing, her ability to return to MIT to finish her undergraduate remains uncertain.

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Students With Valid Visas Are Trapped in Limbo Abroad

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I’m an Iranian Woman Whose Dream Is to Study in America. Here’s My Message for Trump.

by MarcelBaehr Posted on January 29, 2017

Mother Jones

With a stroke of a pen, President Donald Trump threw Shadi Heidarifar’s world into a tailspin. The 23-year-old philosophy student lives in Tehran, Iran, and has spent years trying to get into a university in the United States. She was recently admitted to NYU, her top choice, and was preparing to apply for a student visa. (Each year, some 4,000 Iranians receive visas to study at American universities.) But with Trump’s executive order on Friday, the United States has put a temporary block on immigration from Iran and six other predominantly Muslim countries, which means Heidarifar may not make it to class this fall. I reached out to hear her story—told in her own words below.

My name is Shadi Heidarifar—in Persian, Shadi means “happiness.” I’m 23 years old, and I’ve lived my whole life in Tehran, the capital of Iran. My father recently retired from his job as a manager at a gas station, my mother is a housewife, and I have a younger brother in high school.

I was the first in my family to go to university—I finished my bachelor’s in philosophy at the University of Tehran—and I recently got admitted to NYU’s philosophy department, where I planned to get a master’s degree. It was very difficult to come up with the money for the application. Most American universities have an application fee of around $70 to $100, which is enough for a month of living expenses in most cities of Iran. Money can be tight sometimes, so I worked part time at a bookstore near my university for more than a year to pay the application fees.

I’m interested in studying ethics and political philosophy—questions like what should our values be in a modern society, how can we act morally, and what it’s like to have a democracy. I hope I can teach in these areas. I want to help this country and other countries come together and have good relations, by thinking about the choices we should make in social and political relations.

When I was accepted at NYU, I was over the moon. It’s the first-ranked university in my major, so every philosophy student dreams about NYU. I spent three years trying to get admitted, to improve my English, to keep in contact with the faculty there.

I’ve never been to the United States before because it’s too hard to get a tourist visa for Iranians, but since I was in high school, I’ve liked the idea of living in NYC. I think US culture is popular among most young people around the world—most people know Hollywood and watch lots of movies. I myself am interested in jazz music, like Sinatra and Armstrong. Of American food, pizza is most famous in Iran, and most fast food from the USA is popular. For me, NYC is among the greatest cities in the world—it is a big, crowded, modern city like Tehran, and its diversity is unbelievable.

And education is important in my family. “It will help you live a much better life than your parents lived,” my father says to me all the time. It may sound a little strange because people in most Western countries think differently about our life in the Middle East, but my father is my greatest supporter—he wants me to never give up. Still, while there have been many improvements, it’s hard for women to continue their studies here. In almost every major, it’s a priority for universities to choose men instead of women students. This situation gets worse at the graduate degree level, and this is one reason why I want to study abroad. Also, it is hard for women here to find work and get paid equally after they graduate.

At the end of August I’m supposed to start classes, but getting a student visa is so hard for us, so if we want to reserve an appointment with the US Embassy, we should do this now. Now I can’t, and I’m afraid I will miss the fall semester. In fact, I’m really worried I might not be able to go at all. If I cannot get a visa in time, I will enroll in another university—I’ve been admitted to schools in Canada, the UK, Germany, and Austria. But I believe NYU is a better place for me. I wanted to work there with the greatest philosophers in my major—David Chalmers, Ned Block, Paul Boghossian.

It’s not just me. A lot of Iranian students spend so much energy and time, studying hard to get admission to American universities. Some have gotten a visa but now cannot catch a flight, and some caught their flight but cannot enter the United States. Some Iranian men and women are in the USA and their spouse is in Iran; they cannot see each other. All of us are really hopeless. But here is one point that we strongly believe, even without visiting the USA: We Iranian students strongly believe that diversity in ethnicity, race, religion, and color is one of the greatest strengths of the United States. And Trump’s Muslim ban will destroy this.

I did not expect him to win the election. I thought Hillary Clinton would win. Anyway, I think he loves the USA, but his way of protecting the country is different. Building a wall, separating families from each other, and banning visas to people in Muslim countries just makes our world too scary. If he wants to make America great again—and I think it is already great now—maybe he should only sign orders that affect diversity in a democratic way that everybody feels is respectful. Remember that America is not a country just for Americans; there are lots of Iranians, Mexicans, Chinese. There are too many American families that have a foreign member, and his decision will tear so many families apart.

I don’t know how he could sign an order that doesn’t make sense. It is ridiculous to call a person a terrorist or a supporter of ISIS just because of her religion or nationality. Iranian students think the most prosperous universities around the world are in the United States. We don’t support ISIS or anything like that—we hate them. We also have so many different religions in Iran. Also, most of the Iranian students in the USA are really successful and help American society to become better in different ways, such as working in great companies, becoming businessmen, professors, etc. This will make us lose everything we built over the years to get admission to US universities.

I study philosophy because I think it can help us to know how to keep ourselves, how to keep our commitments to democracy, how to help make the world great. I think it’s unfair for Iranian students to lose our dreams, our hope, and our admissions just because we are Iranian and Muslim.

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I’m an Iranian Woman Whose Dream Is to Study in America. Here’s My Message for Trump.

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Trump’s CIA Pick Doesn’t Seem to Understand the President-Elect’s View on Torture

by DemiOfiubpwt Posted on January 12, 2017

Mother Jones

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The man picked by Donald Trump to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency apparently is in the dark on an important intelligence matter: Trump’s view on torture.

Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) has been tapped by Trump to lead the spy service, and on Thursday morning he came before the Senate Intelligence Committee for his confirmation hearing. He addressed the matters in the headlines. He said he accepted the intelligence community’s assessment that Russian intelligence hacked Democratic targets during the 2016 campaign and then leaked material to benefit Trump. “It is pretty clear,” Pompeo said, noting the Russian motive was “to have an impact on American democracy.” Unlike Trump, Pompeo was fully embracing the intelligence community’s findings.

But Pompeo was also caught in a hack-related contradiction. Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), a member of the committee, pointed to a tweet Pompeo sent out in July declaring, “Need further proof that the fix was in from Pres. Obama on down? BUSTED: 19,252 Emails from DNC Leaked by Wikileaks.” King didn’t say this, but his point was obvious: With this tweet, the incoming CIA chief had helped a secret Russian intelligence operation to change the outcome of the presidential election. King did ask Pompeo, “Do you think WikiLeaks is a reliable source of information?” Pompeo replied, “I do not.” So, King inquired, why did he post this tweet and cite WikiLeaks as “proof”? Pompeo was busted. Pompeo repeated that he had never considered WikiLeaks a “credible source.” King pushed on and asked Pompeo how he could explain his tweet. Pompeo stammered and remarked, “I’d have to go back and take a look at that.” Uh, right.

Another awkward moment came when Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) questioned Pompeo about the use of torture. “If you were ordered by the president,” she asked, “to restart the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques that fall outside the Army field manual”—meaning waterboarding and other methods now banned by law—”would you comply?”

“Absolutely not,” Pompeo said. He pointed out that he had voted for the law that banned waterboarding and other acts of torture that the CIA had used during the Bush-Cheney years. “I will always comply with the law,” Pompeo declared. (In 2014, however, he claimed that the interrogation techniques in use during the Bush administration were not torture.)

But Pompeo also said this: “I can’t imagine I would be asked by the president-elect or then president” to have the CIA engage in torture.

His imagination, then, is rather limited. During the presidential contest, Trump made headlines with his promise to revive waterboarding and to use other means of torture. During one of the Republican primary debates, Trump was quite firm on this point. He was asked about former CIA Director Michael Hayden’s remark that the military could defy orders from the president to torture or kill civilians, and Trump went on a roll:

They won’t refuse. They’re not going to refuse, believe me. You look at the Middle East, they’re chopping off heads, they’re chopping off the heads of Christians and anybody else that happens to be in the way, they’re drowning people in steel cages, and now we’re talking about waterboarding…It’s fine, and if we want to go stronger, I’d go stronger too. Because frankly, that’s the way I feel. Can you imagine these people, these animals, over in the Middle East that chop off heads, sitting around talking and seeing that we’re having a hard problem with waterboarding? We should go for waterboarding and we should go tougher than waterboarding.

Trump was indicating that he didn’t give a damn about laws restricting the use of torture and that he would expect officials to follow any presidential orders to engage in such conduct. So how hard is it to envision that Trump, once in office, might order intelligence services and the military to use waterboarding and acts of torture that are “tougher than waterboarding”?

Pompeo was clear that his view on the use of torture is not in sync with Trump’s. He was clear that he would not follow an order to employ such methods. But he indicated that he didn’t understand his soon-to-be boss’ attitude toward torture. After all, it doesn’t take that much creativity to imagine Trump trying to follow through on his vow to bring back waterboading and much worse.

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Trump’s CIA Pick Doesn’t Seem to Understand the President-Elect’s View on Torture

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Can Californians blame climate change for their latest weather woes?

by KraigDbozfoaye Posted on January 9, 2017

In the piece, which appeared in Science on Monday, the president outlines four reasons that “the trend toward clean energy is irreversible”:

1. Economic growth and cutting carbon emissions go hand in hand. Any economic strategy that doesn’t take climate change into account will result in fewer jobs and less economic growth in the long term.

2. Businesses know that reducing emissions can boost bottom lines and make shareholders happy. And efficiency boosts employment too: About 2.2 million Americans now have jobs related to energy efficiency, compared to about 1.1 million with fossil fuel jobs.

3. The market is already moving toward cleaner electricity. Natural gas is replacing coal, and renewable energy costs are falling dramatically — trends that will continue (even with a coal-loving president).

4. There’s global momentum for climate action. In 2015 in Paris, nearly 200 nations agreed to bring down carbon emissions.

“Despite the policy uncertainty that we face, I remain convinced that no country is better suited to confront the climate challenge and reap the economic benefits of a low-carbon future than the United States and that continued participation in the Paris process will yield great benefit for the American people, as well as the international community,” Obama concludes — optimistically.

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Can Californians blame climate change for their latest weather woes?

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