On a tip from Ed Kilbane
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Saturday, June 30, 2018
The manufacturing of sympathy
Percent poll of how US citizens feel about illegals entering the United States.
(Think I read some polls no way Trump was going to win the election)
Is it any wonder?
And here we have the reason. Choreographed news.
"Immigrants are living in harsh conditions!"
"Abolish ICE they're the Gestapo!"
"Trump destroys immigrant families."
Illegals are good for America ... Trump is bad.
They ate it up with a spoon.
Thursday, June 28, 2018
As U.S. hardens its borders, Canada debates whether to do the same or stand up to Trump
This article from the LA Times so what did you expect? "Stand up to Trump" is an interesting choice of words. Appears the LA Times is challenging Trudeau (not too fond of Trump to begin with) or perhaps demanding he not act like the racist child separating Trump. I'm sure liberal loving Trudeau will swing at the pitch. I say have at it. We'll bus them in from our detention centers and drop them at Canada's doorstep and let them deal with it.
A Haitian boy holds onto his father as they approach an illegal crossing point near Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle in Quebec, in August 2017. (Charles Krupa / Associated Press)
Gbolahan Banjo says his bisexuality led to ostracism and beatings in his native Nigeria, where same-sex relationships are forbidden. So in early June, he made his way to a deserted road in upstate New York and walked across the border and into Canada.
“I was tired of running for my life,” the 48-year-old said 11 days later as he waited to speak to an immigration lawyer in Montreal about his request for asylum protection.
After arriving in the U.S. on a tourist visa in December and recovering in Newark, N.J., from the beatings he’d endured, Banjo traveled a well-worn route for asylum seekers, many of whom arrive in the U.S. but see no hope of refuge since President Trump began hardening the country’s borders.
Now those get-tough policies are affecting Canada’s long-standing and smooth-functioning immigration system, which has taken on thousands of new asylum requests.
The policies also have ignited a heated debate between those seeking tighter border controls and others who want the Canadian government to stand up to Trump’s immigration moves.
Gbolahan Banjo, 48, of Nigeria, waits to speak to an immigration lawyer in Montreal to discuss his claim for asylum on grounds he faces persecution in his native country because of his bisexuality. (Vera Haller / For The Times)
Andrew Scheer, leader of the opposition Conservative Party, sent a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau this month demanding that the government stop the “queue jumping” by asylum seekers such as Banjo, who enter Canada at unofficial crossings.
Jean-Francois Lisee, leader of the separatist Parti Quebecois, in April floated the idea that Canada erect a fence on the its side of Roxham Road in upstate New York where Banjo and thousands of other asylum seekers have entered Canada. Lisee later backpedaled a bit, saying he envisioned more of a plant hedge than the massive wall Trump wants to build along the Mexican border.
But pressure also has mounted on the government to rethink, and possibly abandon, a bilateral agreement that for 14 years has enshrined the principle that the U.S. and Canada share similar standards when deciding asylum requests. The Safe Third Country Agreement requires that people seek asylum in the first country they enter — either the U.S. or Canada — under the premise they’ll be treated the same at either border.
But Trump’s “zero tolerance” approach at the border has changed that.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has spoken out against President Trump's immigration policies. (Hector Retamal / AFP/Getty Images)
“Trump policies that separated children from their families at the Mexican border has added to a real sense of unease and opposition to the agreement we have with the U.S.,” said Lloyd Axworthy, chair of the World Refugee Council at Canada’s Center for International Governance Innovation and a former foreign minister.
Axworthy has joined a growing chorus demanding that the government suspend the agreement. They argue that U.S. policies, including no longer providing asylum in cases of domestic and gang violence, are out of sync with Canadian policies in practical, and even ethical, terms.
The agreement states that asylum seekers who first land in one country can be turned back at an official border crossing of the other. A loophole allows immigrants such as Banjo to enter Canada at unofficial crossings and then claim refugee status.
Two days before Trump signed an executive order stopping future family separations, Jenny Kwan of the New Democratic Party made an emotional plea in Parliament for the suspension of the Safe Third Country Agreement because of the shifts in U.S. immigration policy.
“These practices are blatant violations of international law,” Kwan said. “If Canada doesn’t step up, then we are complicit.”
Trudeau called the Trump family separations “wrong” while his immigration minister, Ahmed Hussen, said the government was monitoring the situation in the U.S., adding, “We will continue to be a country that is open to refugees and protected persons.”
The immigration debate comes at a time of worsening U.S.-Canada relations and the relationship between the two leaders has been tense since a summit of Group of 7 leaders in Quebec in early June when Trump called Trudeau weak and refused to sign a joint agreement on economic and foreign policy goals.
“Canceling or reopening the Safe Third Country Agreement would become another irritant in already tense negotiations,” said Mireille Paquet, a professor of political science at Concordia University in Montreal, who studies the politics of immigration.
Paquet and other political observers believe the Trudeau government will not make any moves soon regarding the agreement, especially while facing difficult negotiations with the U.S. on the North American Free Trade Agreement and tariffs.
Conservative members of Parliament, meanwhile, have stepped up demands for tighter border controls.
They would like the government to close the loophole in the Safe Third Country Agreement by declaring the entire length of the border an official entry point, allowing authorities to turn back asylum seekers who simply walk into Canada. Critics, though, say it would be impossible to police the entire length of the border and could encourage human trafficking.
According to official immigration targets set by the government, Canada will approve 310,000 new permanent residents in 2018, with 177,500 chosen through a point system for job skills and education levels and the rest divided between family reunifications and refugees.
Throwing a wrench into the system are the unexpected arrivals, such as Banjo.
From January through May of this year, Royal Canadian Mounted Police intercepted 9,481 people entering the country at unofficial crossings along the U.S. border. Last year, more than 20,000 asylum seekers came into Canada outside the official system, government statistics showed.
At CACI, a nonprofit organization in Montreal that helps immigrants, volunteers unload supplies for a food bank that serves recent asylum seekers. (Vera Haller / For The Times)
Although some of the pressure on services has eased since the first wave of asylum seekers last summer forced the government to provide temporary housing in Montreal’s Olympic Stadium, agencies working with immigrants here continue to juggle increased demands.
CACI, a nonprofit center for immigrants in Montreal, offers French classes and job search support to immigrants granted permanent residence through the official system but has seen demand for its services to asylum seekers increase dramatically in the last year, according to its executive director, Anait Aleksanian.
As many as 20 newly arrived asylum seekers show up at its offices each day, she said. Employees help them with applications for work permits and enrolling children in school. Some receive rations from the center’s food bank.
Banjo, the Nigerian asylum seeker, is living in a YMCA shelter in Montreal. His asylum request won’t be heard until March. So he waits.
How do they know Banjo is who he says he is? He's claiming asylum and they know nothing about him. Does he have a criminal record of any sort in Nigeria?
Considering what he said about his lifestyle does he have an STD? His court date is 9 months away. A lot can happen in 9 months and he is just one of thousands. So are the Candian taxpayers willing to house, cloth, and feed him during the 9 month wait?
The reason I bring this up? We had a couple of asylum seekers ourselves.
They were called the Tsarnaev brothers.
North Korea upgrades nuclear facility despite Trump-Kim summit, satellite images show
Trump may have jumped the gun boasting about his denuclearization agreement with North Korea. Although I was optimistic and Trump tried his best I'm not surprised regarding this latest development and said so in this April post.
North Korea just like China has a long track record... a trail of deceit, broken promises, and out-and-out lies.
-------------------
President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un just signed an agreement calling for denuclearization on the Korean peninsula. Buzz60
North Korea continues to upgrade a major nuclear research facility despite President Donald Trump's claim that leader Kim Jong Un has vowed to disarm, according to new satellite images and a research paper published by a North Korea monitoring group.
Experts at 38 North, a Baltimore-based website devoted to analysis of North Korea, concluded the images show that "improvements to the infrastructure at North Korea's Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center are continuing at a rapid pace." The satellite images are from June 21.
That's less than two weeks after Trump boasted of a diplomatic breakthrough with Pyongyang over its nuclear weapons program after decades of hostility.
Trump and Kim signed a joint declaration at a summit in Singapore on June 12 and pledged to work toward peace and to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. "We’re ready to write a new chapter between our nations," Trump said at a news conference following the summit. He called his meeting with Kim "honest, direct and productive."
The improvements to the Yongbyon facility include modifications to
a plutonium production reactor’s cooling system and various support facilities. Uranium enrichment, a key component for civil nuclear power generation and military nuclear weapons, is still taking place, according to 38 North's interpretation of the images.
There was no immediate reaction from the White House to 38 North's analysis.
The Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center is located about 60 miles north of the country's capital Pyongyang and is a core part of its nuclear weapons program.
Still, the monitoring group conceded in its research paper that the ongoing improvements to the Yongbyon facility should not necessarily be seen as having any direct relationship to North Korea’s recent pledge to denuclearize.
"The North’s nuclear cadre can be expected to proceed with business as usual until specific orders are issued from Pyongyang," the authors of the report said.
In an apparent sign of goodwill before the Trump-Kim summit, North Korea in May claimed it demolished a separate nuclear test site at Punggye-ri, which sits in a sparsely populated mountainous region in the country's northeast.
But the Singapore summit has been criticized for being light on details of any policy changes and producing only an intention to denuclearize.
It did not produce anything on how to get it done. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said the U.S. will regularly assesses Pyongyang's seriousness toward abandoning its nuclear weapons program but has not committed to a timeline or roadmap.
"North Korea is not obligated to any specific actions as of yet, but (these images) certainly underscore the importance of continuing negotiations, and getting a detailed agreement in place to freeze North Korea’s nuclear program," said Jenny Town, managing editor at 38 North, in emailed comments. "This is the true test of the Trump administration, to now see if they have the will and ability to do the hard work needed to move past lofty goals to practical and sustainable solutions."
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