#I would qualify for legal citizenship is he had done what he had to do

[wolfsnake]

Feeling homesick for a country Ive never been too

[backalley-requests]

The Proposal | Chapter Seven

The Proposal Masterlist

Summary: Proposal au, where Ivar gets swept away in a lie about a fake engagement to stay in the country and needs to convince everyone (including his family) that he’s genuinely engaged to a woman he works with

Warnings: mild swearing (I think)

Word Count: 3,022

“I was thinking,” Aslaug began. Most of the family was seated at a large table, breakfast on display and on their plates. “Me and Ragnar have talked it over, and we agree it’s in everyone’s best interest to have the wedding here,” she grinned.

The bacon in your hand never reached your open mouth as your eyebrows raised in confusion. Now? It felt entirely too soon, you looked at Ivar. He was seated next to you and appeared uneasy.

“Just think about it. Ivar, this is the first time you’ve come home in seven years. Who knows when’s the next time we’ll have an opportunity like this? And most of our family is here for your father’s birthday. He said he was more than on board with the idea.” Aslaug seemed so excited.

It wasn’t that you didn’t want to have a wedding. You already knew you would, but having it so soon made the whole thing more real. It used to be an abstract concept and now was a lot more.... here. “I think we’d have to talk about it,” Ivar replied cautiously.

Up until now it was mostly just playing pretend. You knew what you signed up for but this hit different. “But maybe?” You offered to soften the blow. Your leg bounced nervously under the table, and you found that your appetite was gone.

“I’ll let you two talk it over,” Aslaug decided with a nod of her head. “But it just makes sense. And it’d be a pity if I couldn’t be there for it.”

—

“We have to do it at some point, right?” You brought up when you entered the room again. You two were doing this. A lot was on the line. “Your family would hate if they weren’t there,” you bit your lower lip.

“Did you want to do it here then?”

Doing it here would make it feel more real. “I expected to get court papers and go back to my apartment and not notice a difference.” A wedding was something much more official.

Ivar nodded his head. “I’m okay with doing it now. The work will be done for us, mor has been dying to set up a wedding for a while.”

Were you okay with it? “Sure,” you nodded your head. “Maybe it’s better to just rip the bandaid off.” You shook your hands and limbs to get the nervous feeling out of you. Your stomach was twisted in all sorts of knots. Why was it so nerve wrecking now?

“You don’t have to describe our wedding as painful,” Ivar rolled his eyes.

“I’m just nervous!” You shot back quickly. Maybe part of it was that you still had the interviewer left, you forgot about him most of the time. Or maybe it was that you weren’t sure you had done enough yet.

“It’ll be a few hours of your life and we can just go back to our respective lives. Go back to normal.”

That was it. You didn’t like the idea of that. Before you came here it was easy to get the papers and pretend it didn’t happen. “You’re right, back to normal.” He would just be your boss you were legally married to. Tentative friendship aside, you couldn’t imagine going out for coffee with him. Once you two didn’t have to pretend anymore you just… wouldn’t.

“So then let’s just say yes?”

You nodded your head. “It’ll be kinda fun to dress up,” you laughed.

—

One agreement after another, neither you were sure you were entirely comfortable with. Why didn’t you say no earlier? That it was happening too fast, or that you didn’t love lying to his family.

There wasn’t a high stakes excuse, he just seemed like he wanted it and for whatever reason you agreed. But the sooner you ran through the wedding the sooner it would be over.

“Are you alright, dear,” Aslaug asked you in town. She had taken you there along with a woman named Torvi. She was married to Ubbe, as far as you could recall.

“I’m good! Just nervous,” you replied with an awkward laugh. A woman was gathering your measurements, an act that already lent itself to making one feel self conscious. You also didn’t really know anyone you were with.

Ivar wasn’t allowed inside, maybe that was for the best. Aslaug said something about it being bad luck and you didn’t bother fighting it. “Don’t be. It gets easier with each wedding, but everyone's a little nervous,” Torvi tried to calm you down. “People won’t gossip for years about if you tripped over your dress, or if your makeup was off, or if the dress didn’t match your—“ her listing things off that you never considered only increased your fears and Aslaug noticed.

“Torvi, dear, I think you’re making things worse.”

“I’m fine,” you insisted.

“All that really matters is what Ivar thinks of you. You don’t really know anyone else there, and therefore their opinions of you don’t matter,” Aslaug countered.

Torvi nodded her head. “And if he wants to marry you then you must be special. Especially after what happened with—“ Once again, Aslaug made the girl stop talking with a quick wack to her arm. “I’m just saying he’s clearly head over heels. He won’t sweat the small details.”

“What happened with who?” Curiosity was piqued. Ivar didn’t delve into personal details. It made sense, you two were hardly friends at best, but that didn’t make you any less curious. “Sorry— he just doesn’t talk about Denmark often.”

Aslaug and Torvi looked between each other for a moment until Aslaug sighed and threw her hands in the air. “Fine. But I don’t want to be here for it. It just makes me angry.” She walked out of the room and left you standing with Torvi.

“Ivar was in one other serious relationship I can recall. Sure, I think he had some affairs with a few girls but nothing real until Freydis. Nothing after her either, until you,” Torvi nodded her head.

You were changing in between suggested dresses, attempting new styles at an incredibly slow pace. Torch helped carry the weight of some dresses and zipped up the back every time. “What happened to her then?”

“Well she was beautiful and kind. He was madly in love. I’ve never seen him so love sick.”

There was no comfort that he had looked at you like that— not that you should’ve expected that. You shook her head back to reality as fast as you could. Of course Ivar looked at someone he actually loved differently than someone who just worked for him.

“Anyways, he had a whole proposal planned out. She turned him down and didn’t give a real reason why. We didn’t find out for a while,” Torvi admitted. “I think it was because she didn’t qualify for a US visa. Ivar was willing to drop his dreams of New York for her and she didn’t seem okay with that, something about not wanting him to change his entire life for her.”

You were silent the whole time. You never saw Ivar date people. You’d have known if he had in the last three years. It made sense why any short term flings didn’t last.

Torvi laced together a dress. “I wasn’t sure he’d recover— until you. So all’s well that ends well, right?” She leaned over your shoulder and grinned at you. “I wouldn’t worry too much about her. Aslaug just resents Freydis for breaking his heart. But I haven’t even seen her around here in years. She’s hardly a boogeyman.”

Why did that bother you so much? If Ivar was secretly in love with some other woman the entire time it shouldn’t matter. She turned him down anyways. But it did bother you. Ivar didn’t mention his past and you had to wonder if Freydis was why.

“I think this dress looks lovely by the way,” Torvi complimented.

—

The day just seemed so fast. Nothing was seemingly capable of slowing down information as it was thrown at you. It didn’t seem to get any better when you finally left the store, a dress sent in for alterations, to find Ivar at the nearby cafe you left him at talking to someone you haven't seen before.

“Ivar!” You smiled. Aslaug and Torvi had shooed you away while they worked on ‘something’. You heard through their whispers it had to do with a bachelorette party. The idea wasn’t exactly fun but they were too nice to turn town, so you already knew you’d agree with whatever they had to say.

You glanced over at the woman, she was beautiful and maybe that was why you felt the strong urge to sit incredibly close to Ivar. “Y/N, this is an old friend of mine, Freydis.” That made things instantly worse. The warm smile on your face turned cold.

“Hi, I’m Y/N,” you extended your hand to shake hers. Even her hand was soft and warm. You turned your head to face Ivar, seeing an urge to do something.

What if Ivar realized he didn’t need to return to the US if Freydis was here. You could go to prison, or lose your job at best. The man needed his priorities straight. Oh— who were you kidding! Freydis hadn’t even done anything other than show up today and now.

They spoke in Danish, only occasionally letting you into the conversation. You understood fragments of it. They were talking about their time at university, growing up together, when they dated. You were ignored and isolated from their chats and it bothered you.

Maybe you wouldn’t have cared at all if Torvi didn’t ignite a fear that Ivar was still in love with her. But he was already so much more animated and kind to her than he usually was with you.

“We’re being a bit rude to your girlfriend, aren’t we?” Freydis brought it up at some point, speaking in English for your sake.

“It’s fine,” you smiled awkwardly, waving it off.

“She’s not really my girlfriend,” Ivar admitted. “It’s complicated. She’s just a good friend. She’s helping me stay in America and get my citizenship official.”

You froze, every muscle in your body tensing up at once. Freydis laughed at the absurdity of it. “Then you must be incredibly kind as you are beautiful to deal with him. Ivar certainly has a knack for the dramatics, doesn’t he,” she smiled at you.

You took a deep breath and smiled back. “He also seems to have a habit of bad judgement calls. Ivar— I don’t care if she knows but the point of a secret is not sharing it where anyone can hear. Your mom and Torvi are in the same district right now. What if they were behind us?” You snapped.

Ivar frowned his eyebrows at you, “It’s not a big deal. Freydis wouldn’t share it and they aren’t here. Do you honestly think I’d be that reckless?”

“If I can’t share it with anyone how come you get to without discussing it,” you demanded. It bothered you. A lot. “We’re supposed to be a team.”

Freydis shifted uncomfortably, “I think this is my cue to go. Obviously things are a little tense. Look, I promise you two that I won’t go around sharing this.” She stood up and collected her things.

“I think that’s a good idea. You’re fine, Freydis. My issue is with my not-boyfriend,” you admitted, anger evident in your tone.

“Good luck with the wedding,” Freydis waved before leaving. Her walk was a little faster than a normal one.

“What the hell was that,” Ivar demanded the moment Freydis was out of ear shot. He turned to face you and it was the first time he looked at you since you showed up. His eyes were intense and narrowed in anger.

Your jaw tightened, “I should be asking you the same question. Why were you even talking to her? Let alone telling her our entire plan. You realize that I go to prison if it gets out, right? You can stay here and live out your perfect fantasy but I rot in a cell!” You stood up and wanted to leave.

“I’m not going to blow anything up! Freydis won’t tell. We’ll get married as we planned, divorced in three years. No one gets hurt.”

But you already were. And you couldn’t identify why.

“Oh and who’s gonna believe that we’re a real couple getting married if they just see something like that! You ignored me the entire time just to stare at her perfectly symmetrical face!”

Ivar’s face went from anger to confusion for a moment. “No one saw it. I’m not bringing her to my home or reintroducing her. It was one interaction. What’s wrong with me wanting to see an old friend.”

“But she’s not just your friend, right,” you reminded him.

Ivar froze and hesitated to respond for a moment. “How do you know that?”

You tried to calm down but you could feel yourself spiraling. “Torvi told me about her at the dress fitting. Everything she knew.” You bit your bottom lip, Ivar remained silent. “I’m your fiancée! Okay? So just— just stop looking at her!” You didn’t understand why it bothered you so much. You hoped it was just for appearances. “I just need this to go well. We’re supposed to be working together. That wasn’t together.���

“What happened to wanting to not argue,” Ivar challenged. “And over her? I haven’t seen Freydis in a long time. It’s not like I’m proposing to her.” Tears threatened to leave your eyes and Ivar’s face fell. “Whoa— hey, Y/N. It’s okay. I didn’t do anything. I don’t love her, I was just catching up. I didn’t think it would matter so much.”

You didn’t either. “Maybe.” You didn’t really have a right to care beyond him telling Freydis who you actually were. And if you were being honest that isn’t what you really minded. “I don’t know why it does. Things are just happening fast. I keep losing control over my life right now.”

Ivar wasn’t good at trying to comfort people, he awkwardly placed a hand on your shoulder and patted it. “You should’ve said something. I would’ve tried to help.”

You laughed softly and shook your head. “Yesterday you told me that you would've helped me if I asked for it.”

Ivar rolled his eyes, “well I lied. You should be used to that by now.”

“I don’t like her,” you admitted, “she’s way too nice.” There was nothing genuine to hate her for. She didn’t step on your toes or was rude. “I can’t even imagine you dating her. She doesn’t look like she could bite back.”

Ivar found it a little amusing. “I didn’t usually bite at her to begin with. Not that you’d know. Torvi shouldn’t have said anything. It wasn’t her place— and nor was it mine to tell Freydis the truth.”

“At least you admit it.” So what gripe could you have left?

“Were you jealous,” Ivar asked suddenly.

“No!” Your face got red at the idea. “Of course not. How could I be jealous of that?” Were you jealous?

“Okay,” he nodded his head. “Then I’ll just put this out there. As friends. I’m choosing to marry you. Not her, you. If I wanted to have married Freydis I would’ve.”

For some reason the words calmed you down a bit more. “Not that you could’ve, she's way too beautiful for you.” You found yourself easily relaxing into petty insults.

“You’re just jealous she’s better looking than you.” He knew a new way to get under your skin and didn’t hesitate to take a shot at you.

Your face fell.

“Just because I made a poor choice in who I choose to marry doesn’t it isn’t true. It’s my legs that are broken, not my eyes.”

“You are so mean!” Your voice filled with a bit of dramatic hurt.

“You insulted me first. And if I’m being honest, I’ve been incredibly patient with you today. So I deserved to say it. You went off on me for no reason. If you were anyone else I would’ve said something to actually hurt you,” Ivar replied. “Like how you have no family. Or you’re only so jealous because no one’s ever truly loved you the way you believe I love her— something to that effect.”

That’s when it occurred to you that Ivar didn’t respond like he normally would. Like he used to. He tolerated your display of anger and worked with you rather than get defensive and attack in any meaningful way.

“This is the part where you apologize,” Ivar nodded to you. “Or at least thank me.”

You didn’t want to. “You’re right,” you sighed. “Thanks.”

Ivar shrugged, “you’ve tolerated me when I’ve gotten angry over nothing. I figured I’d return the favor.” He took a moment before deciding to share more. “I broke up with her, by the way. Before I left. I decided that being here and knowing her was all I knew. I haven’t loved her for a long time. I certainly wouldn’t lose my job over her.”

Your eyes locked with his. “Torvi made it sound like—“

“None of them know. That’s why you don’t rely on rumors, Y/N. You could’ve just asked.” He didn’t seem to mind it. “You went off the rails today,” Ivar sipped his coffee and he eyed you. He was calm about it too. As if he didn’t mind this simple truth.

“I’m sorry.” It all seemed really dumb right now. “You’re right. It’s just all been… a lot. Things are moving fast. I thought you were just another thing running ahead of me.”

“You’re supposed to be the one keeping me in check,” Ivar teased. “It’s strange being the sane one for once.”

You rolled your eyes, “I slipped up once. Don't expect it to happen again.”

But that didn't solve the nagging in the back of your mind. Why was that the final straw?

—

taglist** @youbloodymadgenius @heavenly1927 @momowhoo

[ectonurites]

Is Cassandra a US citizen?

OKAY SO. this is a fascinating question. 

As far as I’m aware within the comics it is not specifically established (interestingly enough on her DC wiki pages, her previous continuity profile just has nothing stated for citizenship like the category is completely left out, while her current continuity one does say American but is unsourced)

Which means to take a stab at answering this it involves trying to apply real world laws and logic to a comic situation that is kinda out there (a child raised entirely isolated from society and language who is then able to integrate back into society, who was also ya know trained as an assassin. The few documented cases of ‘feral children’ in real life have very little in common with Cass’ situation because... comic books)

I am in absolutely no way a legal expert, I am straight up just googling shit and trying to make sense of it, so like, take all of this with a grain of salt. 

But basically, as long as I’m reading stuff right, as long as Lady Shiva, who did canonically grow up in Detroit, Michigan before becoming Lady Shiva, had US Citizenship when she had Cass, then Cass may be eligible for it just by birth. There’s some hoops she’d probably have to have gone through though to become so officially, so I think it’s kinda unlikely in canon she has actually done so, but it wouldn’t be impossible (and would be something Barbara or Bruce could likely help with/do for her)

Explanation where I look at some of the specific law stuff under the cut!

So, considering Lady Shiva/Sandra Wu-San, Cass’ birth mother, grew up in Detroit, Michigan, it’s not crazy to assume she has US Citizenship. David Cain, Cass’ father, I’d also assume has it, but his history (preboot) as far as I’m aware doesn’t really cover his early life so it’s hard to tell. In New 52 land, we have not received new backstory for Shiva that I’m aware of so I guess we just assume it’s the same as before, and David it gets a little more complicated with the whole Mother situation, so idk exactly how I’d place him there either.

I also believe that it’s not shown exactly where in the world Cass was born, so we’re gonna treat this as a ‘Child Born Abroad to Out-of-Wedlock Parents” situation, of which there are several variations dependent upon the Citizenship status of the parents. 

Looking at this page on citizenship by birth we see this for the situations:

So in this scenario, both Shiva and David are US Citizens. However, the specific conditions that would need to be met for this are actually detailed in the other situations. Essentially, if the father conditions I’m about to show are met (and the thing about one parent residing in the US is already met by Shiva having grown up in the US) then it’s all set and she qualifies, but even if they aren’t if the mother conditions I’ll be showing after are instead met, then it’d also be fine. 

This is the situation where David is a US Citizen, but Shiva is not. She’d be mostly eligible for this, but not exactly. First of all, she’d need to be under 18 for parts of this meaning she would need to start the process in the period between No Man’s Land and like, Batgirl #39 (where she is mentioned to be 18 by Babs). Another thing that might be a problem is the written agreement about money thing, since if I’m remembering correctly David was in jail for a lot of that time? But some form of arrangement could have been set up. The other tricky thing here is about his physical presence in the United States, considering there’s not that much known about his early life, it’s hard to determine. 

So like, I’d say this isn’t the most viable option. But! As long as this specific situation isn’t the case (Aka as long as Shiva has US Citizenship either instead of David having it or in addition to him having it) then we do not give up hope. Moving on:

As long as Shiva was a US Citizen still at the time she gave birth to Cass, then like, Cass is totally eligible. (Because, again, Shiva had lived in Detroit until David Cain found her and killed her sister. So like, that is absolutely over a year)

However, I do believe Cass (or someone like Babs who’d help her out) would need to like, file paperwork on this to make it official. But she’d be eligible! The other nice thing here is this doesn’t seem to put an age limit on when you have to make claim about it, so that also works in Cass’ favor. 

Again, there’s not really anything in canon to support she’s followed through on this, but as long as this situation is correct then she’s eligible and could become a US Citizen when she wants to.

I have no clue what her birth certificate situation might be though, so proving Shiva’s her mom might be a pretty big roadblock, but I don’t even know how I’d approach factoring that in. Again, this is a... very unrealistic situation. So trying to apply real things to it when I am not an expert in this? Lots of guessing and shrugging.

I do also wanna bring up though because it had been my first thought, back before the New 52 when Cass was adopted she was already 18 (or older). Meaning that it was an adult adoption which has no special like, help for someone gaining US citizenship (as opposed to adoption of a minor who is foreign-born, where the process for citizenship is different because of certain policy in place), so her being adopted by Bruce isn’t a sure-fire way to assume she did get citzenship. However, if her getting citizenship was just a matter of filing paperwork, then it’s not wild to assume Bruce took care of it while he was already doing the adoption proceedings. 

But yeah! So a solid ‘probably not but she could be with some paperwork’ is my final answer.

If I just have missed her somewhere confirming that she does in fact have citizenship (or that she specifically doesn’t) then PLEASE lemme know.

[usieldaca]

DACA: Here To Stay?

It was a warm and cloudy morning on September 5, 2017. As I woke up, all the news outlets were flooded with breaking news. DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals was rescinded by President Donald Trump. Hundreds of thousands of DACA Recipients also known as “Dreamers,” were left with confusion, uncertainty and their legal status left in limbo. As a DACA recipient myself, little did I know that this decision would be met with pushback and legal challenges would proceed. A roller coaster of emotions were set in motion for dreamers. 

DACA is a program that protects undocumented youth from deportation. This program was created by an executive order mandated by President Barack Obama on June 15, 2012. DACA recipients were brought to America at a young age and this country is the only place they know as their home. DACA enables immigrant youth to come out of the shadows, go to college and work legally. Recipients undergo background checks and other procedures by the USCIS to ensure eligibility. In order to maintain DACA status renewals are required every two years.

In January 2018 an order by U.S. District Judge William Alsup gave hope to DACA recipients as he ordered for DACA renewals to be put back in place. Nearly 690,000 dreamers, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, were safeguarded from deportation. However, The Trump Administration didn’t concede defeat. The battle to terminate DACA ensued. 

On June 18, The Supreme Court ruled to reinstate DACA as it was a violation of law to end it. According to an article titled “News Tip: Scotus’ DACA Decision Major Win For Young Immigrants, Experts Say” in the Duke Today, “efforts to end it had been arbitrary and capricious. The Trump administration’s error, the court ruled, was procedurally unsound, a kind of power grab that violated institutional norms and administrative culture by not addressing the policy consequences of changing DACA.” It was a huge victory for DACA recipients, immigrant families and everyone that supports the program. 

According to an article titled “Are DACA Students Still Safe to Stay?” dated April 25, 2017 in the New England Journal of Higher Education, from 2012 to 2016 the DACA program received approximately a million initial applications nationwide. Only 752,154 were successfully approved. 

In Nevada, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, there are 12,100 recipients as of March 31, 2020. Of those, there are 9,700 in the Las Vegas Valley. 

Some of those recipients go to school at University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

UNLV Student Juan Pablo Plascencia,  recalled that day, “Well when President Trump rescinded DACA, I didn’t get scared because I knew there was a long, legal battle going on. There are amazing people in our community who fight for us specifically Senator Dick Durbin who I think is a great man. There are a lot of amazing lawyers that see us for who we are. We’re human beings and not just a pawn to be played with when politics come around.” 

Plascencia doesn’t shy away from reality, “My mentality is pretty simple on this. I know my parents broke the law to bring me here. I was a child when I was brought here. I have no idea what happened. One day I was in Mexico. The next day I’m here in Las Vegas. It’s like time travel. That’s the way I explain it to people when they ask me but the thing is that my parents had to do something that even though it wasn’t legal, morally it makes sense.” 

Many DACA recipients grew up unaware that they were undocumented. The harsh reality of who they are came at a young age. Many wanted to start employment or travel outside of the country. 

Leslie Vazquez, University of Washington Tacoma student with DACA status recalled, “I first realized I was undocumented when I was in middle school. I actually wanted to travel to Mexico and my mom had to have a conversation with me about me not being able to leave the country.” 

Growing up unsure of what the future has in store is terrifying. President Trump’s antics fueled fear and unpredictability. 

“I felt like I couldn’t breathe and enjoy living in America. I could empathize with jewish people. I understood how they felt, be extra careful. Don’t say anything, don’t post anything. That might be used against you.” Plascencia said. “It was hard. As a history teacher, one of the things I always tell my students is to love your country. Love your country enough for when you see an issue, you want to go and fix it. I think President Trump is a hypocrite. He tells us that he’s going to treat DACA with kindness and a lot of heart. It’s a good thing for the DACA kids. He then puts his foot in our butt and files to remove DACA. Loses the court case and then he states he will file the proper paperwork to get this over. I’m sorry sir, am I just a pawn to you? Is my humanity not real? Are my efforts not good enough for you?”

Joe Biden became the U.S. President-elect earlier in November. Biden has been vocal about his support on DACA. On November 2, 2020, Biden tweeted, “Dreamers are Americans -- And it’s time we make it official.” 

Vazquez said, “I am excited to know that Biden has won the presidency and I remain hopeful that he will be able to help us ‘Dreamers.’ It's easier to believe Biden when he says he will help us gain citizenship because we’ve had four years of someone who has consistently put us down. However, I am not going to get my hopes up until action is done.”  

Although hope is not lost, it has dissipated for many DACA recipients.

“I saw who he appointed for his cabinet. He appointed the same woman that approved for family separation at the border under the Obama Administration. I just hope it’s not the same thing. Which it’s looking like it might be.” Plascencia said. “Personally, I have hope but at the same time I’m not holding my breath anymore. I’m not going to wait to live my life. I’ll do the best that I can under the system that I’m in. At the end of the day, I’m not going to beg for scraps. I’m a productive member of this society. I don’t see immigration being on top of Biden’s list. Right now we are in a pandemic and after the pandemic it’ll be the economy and after the economy we have another two year election.” 

Furthermore, Plascencia explains his thoughts on DACA, “I did what I was asked to do, I signed up for DACA. I have done everything right, I’ve never broken the law but what I want is for politicians to make this right. We passed the test. DACA is a smashing success. There are 95 percent of us that are excelling in the program. Five percent have been sent back. That’s good, this is an audition. We have to prove to the American people but at the same time I’m not begging for scraps. I don’t beg for scraps but at the same time it has to be done in a way that makes sense. DACA to me makes perfect sense. You put us young people to audition. What was the audition? Exactly what it says on the applications. I think instead of democrats and republicans promising the world to us, I’d rather see some action. I need to see some movement.”  

However, those that oppose the DACA program state that illegal immigration is being encouraged through its’ policies. According to an article titled, “Are DACA and The Dream Act Good For America?” in the Britannica ProCon, Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) said that DACA “encouraged more illegal immigration and contributed to the surge of unaccompanied minors and families seeking to enter the U.S. illegally.” In the same article, according to Karl Eschbach, PhD, “DACA will increase the undocumented population because those who don’t qualify for DACA will stay in the hopes of qualifying eventually, and more people will immigrate assuming coverage by DACA or a similar program.”

In addition, according to an article titled, “It’s Time to End DACA -- It’s Unconstitutional Unless Approved by Congress” in the Heritage, “Providing amnesty and potential citizenship to DACA recipients and other illegal immigrants before we have a secure border will only encourage even more illegal immigration, just as the 1986 amnesty in the Immigration Reform and Control Act did. That law provided citizenship to almost 3 million illegal immigrants and was supposed to solve the problem of illegal immigration. Yet within 10 years, there were another almost 6 million illegal immigrants in the U.S.

The federal government should be concentrating on enhancing immigration enforcement and border security to stem the flow of illegal immigrants into the country and reduce the number of them already in the interior of the U.S.”

As DACA continues to hang in the balance politically, recipients continue setting goals for their futures optimistically. 

“I would love to graduate with a PHd in Neurological Psychology,” Plascencia said. “I would love to go to Medical School to practice Psychology. That’s something I believe I would be really good at. Again I’m not hoping for it, I’m just waiting to make my moves. When my parents came to America they had ten dollars in their pockets. Now, I’m about to purchase my own house, I have my own car.”

Additionally Plascencia added that he is working on his third degree at UNLV. He will be graduating with his Masters in Curriculum/Instruction in Secondary Social Studies. He is a social studies and history teacher at the Las Vegas Academy Performing Arts. 

Plascencia reflects, “Education is the most powerful and important thing. I think that as a person I want to be more educated. I would love to become a citizen because I do want to vote. As a teacher it’s ironic I can’t vote but I teach my students how to.”

Vazquez is currently in the last quarter of obtaining her Bachelor’s degree in accounting at the Milgard School of Business. Vazquez and her parents own their own Mexican restaurant which has been open to the public for three years. “I hope that I will remain in the country for years to come. My ultimate dream is to get my CPA degree to help our community.”

As the uncertainty is still not over, recipients contemplate their decisions with valor. 

“As a person who has DACA, I’m pretty much at the end of my road. I could go teach at the University in Canada, I could teach in a University in England, I could go live in Spain, Germany. But instead I’m choosing to stay because this is the only country that I know about,” Plascencia said. 

[dipulb3]

Selma marcher sees history repeat with new challenges to voting

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/selma-marcher-sees-history-repeat-with-new-challenges-to-voting/

Selma marcher sees history repeat with new challenges to voting

“It was horrible,” Bland recalls now. “There was this one lady, I don’t know if the horse ran over her or if she fell, but all these years later, I can still hear the sound of her head hitting that pavement.”

The march — known as Bloody Sunday — so shocked the nation that it helped mobilize Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act. That landmark legislation finally dismantled the Jim Crow-era laws that relied on obscure civics tests, discriminatory poll taxes and violence to deny full citizenship to all Americans.

But today, 55 years later, Bland feels as though she’s re-living parts of the past as she surveys a country riven by racial tension, where Black men and women die too often at the hands of police, and in which states press ahead with purging voters from their rolls and enforcing strict voter identification laws — even as a once-in-a-century pandemic stalks their citizens.

“Sometimes I wake up and I think we are paralleling the 60s all over again,” Bland said in an interview from her home in Selma, where she leads tours of the city’s civil rights landmarks. “The laws that they passed to prevent African Americans from voting were insurmountable, and states could make up their own rules. That’s pretty much where this is going now.”

History repeated

Once again, Alabama is among the states at the forefront of the battles over voting.

A cluster of voting-rights groups has sued the Secretary of State John Merrill and other election officials over requirements that voters casting ballots by mail must make a copy of their photo identification and sign their ballots in front of two witnesses or a notary public. The groups also want the state to allow curbside voting.

Forcing voters to meet those requirements and have contact with other people in the middle of a pandemic, puts Alabamians who potentially face serious health consequences from the coronavirus at greater risk, said Caren Short, a senior staff attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the groups suing over the restrictions.

Although African Americans make up only about 27% of Alabama’s population, they have accounted for nearly 40% of confirmed Covid-19 deaths in the state, according to the state’s Department of Public Health.

Short credits Alabama officials with moving to expand voting by mail because of the pandemic, but she said that’s not good enough.

“Alabama is the birthplace of the civil rights movement, and it’s the birthplace of the voting rights movement,” she said. “It really should be the state where officials are making it as simple and as easy a process as possible for citizens to vote.”

Merrill told Appradab the voter ID and witness requirements are enshrined in state law and can’t be suspended. “We don’t have the ability to set aside state law because we’re not interested in it or because we don’t think it’s appropriate at this time,” he said.

He said his overarching goal as secretary of state is to “make it easy to vote and hard to cheat.”

A supreme fight

The skirmish is just the latest legal battle in Alabama over voting rules.

The most consequential for the state and the nation came in 2013 when the Supreme Court sided with Shelby County, Alabama, in a challenge to federal oversight in places with a history of discrimination.

The Shelby ruling defanged the Voting Rights Act by tossing out the portion of the law that determined which states needed approval from the US Department of Justice or a federal court before they could make changes to their voting procedures and laws.

Before the ruling, those blanket rules meant states needed prior permission to make changes, big and small, to their voting practices — ranging from moving a polling place to redrawing electoral districts or changing the date of an election.

The case centered on a local redistricting plan from Shelby County, but the 5-4 decision reverberated across the nation, especially in the nine states and parts of six others that required so-called pre-clearance of voting changes.

Within hours of the high court’s decision, Texas — one of the states subject to pre-clearance — announced voter identification rules would take effect in the state. Alabama and other states, including Mississippi, began to enforce strict voter ID laws. Other states have enacted new restrictions, such as signature match laws that require a voter’s signature on an absentee ballot to match their signature on voting rolls.

Post-Shelby, it’s now up to the Justice Department, individuals and groups to pursue court challenges of voting laws they view as discriminatory. Rick Hasen, an expert on election law at the University of California, Irvine, and a Appradab contributor, said the Obama administration filed “litigation where they could.”

But the Trump administration’s record protecting voting rights has been “abysmal,” he said. “I can’t think of a single thing that the Trump administration has done, coming out of the Justice Department, to help minority voters.”

In Alabama, Merrill, who helped write his state’s voter ID law while serving in the state legislature, disputes that Alabama laws have made it harder for any Black voters to cast their ballots in the state.

Voter registration has soared during his tenure, he said, with 96% of eligible African American residents registered to vote, compared to 91% of White Alabamians. He said the state works to make sure every qualified voter has photo identification.

In Georgia, a potential presidential battleground state this year, battles have raged over the state’s aggressive removal of voters from registration rolls. Voting rights groups have accused the state of improperly purging legitimate voters; state officials say they are engaged in routine list maintenance.

Bland, now 67, has followed the raft of new laws from Selma — a city she returned to in 1989 after stints in the US Army and time living in Florida and New York.

“Purging the rolls, closing down polls in rural communities, requiring an exact signature,” she said ticking off the changes she’s seen across the country. “But we’re not going to let them discourage us. We’ll follow their rules until we can change them.”

Young freedom fighter

Bland was exposed to voting rights fights at a young age.

Her mother died in childbirth when Bland was just three, and her grandmother, Sylvia Johnson, moved back to her native Alabama from Detroit to help care for the family, Bland said.

Bland said her grandmother was shocked by how little had changed. Barriers to voting still included poll taxes and literacy tests, that among other things, required would-be voters to read aloud parts of the Alabama state Constitution, know the exact size of Washington, DC, as spelled out in the US Constitution (10 square miles) and which of the original 13 states had the largest representation in the first Congress (Virginia).

The answers were “impossible to know unless you were a civics genius,” changed frequently and varied by county — all in “in a concerted effort to make it as difficult as possible for individuals to pass,” said John Giggie, who directs of the Frances J. Summersell Center for the Study of the South at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.

Local officials had discretion over who got the hardest questions and what it took to pass the tests.

In 1965, before the passage of the Voting Rights Act, only about 2.1% of voting-age Black residents of Dallas County, where Selma is located, were registered.

Johnson, with all four of her grandchildren in tow, began to attend mass meetings of the Dallas County Voters League, led by Amelia Boynton, one of Selma’s civil-rights pioneers. While the adults talked strategy, Bland said she was focused on more prosaic issues: chiefly, how to gain access to the lunch counter at Carter’s Drug Store in downtown Selma.

“I wanted to sit there like those white kids and spin around on those stools and eat ice cream,” she recalled. “Grandmother said, ‘Colored children can’t sit at the counter, but when we get our freedom, you can do that.’ “

“I became a freedom fighter the day she told me that,” she said, attending her first meeting of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) at age 8.

As a child, she thought the marches themselves were fun. “The spirit of the movement is what we liked the most,” Bland said.

She said she and her friends thought little of joining the throng headed to the bridge on that Sunday in March for what supposed to be the first leg of a 54-mile trek to the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery to demand voting rights.

“I didn’t know there was the possibility of any violence,” she said. “Then, I crested the bridge and saw the police across all four lanes.”

Pandemonium ensued as the troopers pushed into the crowd. Images from that day show one swinging his baton at Lewis, as the then-25-year-old SNCC chairman raises his right hand, trying to shield his head from the blows. Boynton was beaten unconscious.

“They were running the horses into the crowd,” Bland recalled. “People were being trampled.”

Choking on tear gas, the young Bland fainted in terror. Someone picked her up and took her safety. She awoke in a car, her head in her sister’s lap.

But two days later, she and her sisters were on the bridge again, now joined by 2,000 others and led by The Rev. Martin Luther Jr., for what became known as “Turnaround Tuesday.” She still was scared and wanted to turn back, Bland said, but her sisters grasped her hands tightly to keep her in place, telling her: ” ‘They won’t beat Dr. King.’ “

King and march leaders, obeying a federal court injunction, prayed and sang when they encountered the police blockade that day and turned the protesters around. The march to Montgomery would proceed later that month with Alabama National Guard troops, now under federal command, protecting the protesters.

A lifetime’s work

For Bland, what followed was a life dedicated to social justice that included helping to found a museum of voting rights in Selma to help residents tell their own stories of the struggle.

And she sees parallels between her past and the protesters today who have taken to the streets to demand change, following the deaths of George Floyd and others at the hands of police. Police brutality “hasn’t stopped one day since I’ve been on this Earth,” she said. “But now you can see it in real time.”

In the run-up to November’s election, she’s spending her days pushing everyone she sees to register, get their absentee ballots and use them. On Election Day, she’ll be where she usually is: At the polls. For some 30 years, she worked there in some capacity — early on as a Democratic poll watcher, this year as an official poll inspector.

Lewis’ death in July at 80 has renewed calls by some national activists to rename the bridge in his honor. Pettus, its namesake, was a Confederate general, US Senator and Ku Klux Klan leader in Alabama.

But Bland would rather see it left as it was the day she crossed it as a young girl.

“What happened on that bridge in ’65 gave that bridge a new meaning,” she argued. “It’s now synonymous with freedom all over the world.”

The best way to honor, Lewis, she said: “Get out and vote.”

[alistairlane]

On Civil War

          Throughout all of history, people have been made subject to ruling orders by that they have deployed what, in martial terms, is called the “divide and conquer” strategy.  The tactic seeks to create internal schisms within a community in order to atomize its members. Once people have become isolated from each other, they can be integrated into a political body that has rendered their natural antagonism inoperative and can actually enforce the very repression that the ruling order that they necessarily did not want to become subject to sought to carry out.  That sovereignty had been constituted by a process that induced social disintegration had resulted in the absurdity of that the potential crisis of civil war had more or less become a normalized state of affairs within most nation-states. Contrary to popular belief, civil war has not been regarded as a crisis that poses an existential threat to whatever powers there are that may be; it has, rather, provided the various regimes who have sought to deploy the divide and conquer strategy in the formal constitution of a state with the semblance of legitimacy in that their rule of law has appeared to have been justified by that they have actually needed to respond to the very crisis that their attempts to secure power by such measures has inevitably created.  The threat of civil war provides a nation-state with the justification for the suspension of the rule of law and the deployment of the extra-juridical forms of repression that have come to be called “emergency powers”.  Because no person can agree to become subject to a state that seeks to divide and conquer its populace, and, because most nation-states have historically deployed such strategies in their establishment, what we have come to understand as the “rule of law” has not generally been legitimated by the faith that a populace has in a state’s constitution as according to what Jean Jacques Rousseau theorized as the “Social Contract”; it has, rather, been established by what nation-states have enacted during states of emergency. The exception to the rule of law has become the law itself.  In order to prevent the more nefarious parties engaged in the already dubious battle for global dominance from securing power in the absolute, we need to actively disengage from all that is unduly divisive within our respective communities, refuse to be integrated within any social order that seeks to subjugate its prospective constituents by exploiting social disintegration, and present a legal challenge to the dictates that have been enacted by suspending the rule of law during states of emergency.

               All of this is, of course, easier said than done. When a nation-state is no longer capable of maintaining the semblance of legitimacy, which, in most cases, is to say, that when its ruling order is no longer capable of deceiving its populace, those who seek to restore decorum will, in desperation, resort to overtly violent tactics, such as the carrying out of political assassinations or the deployment of the military, or attempt to introduce the threat of violence within communities that they believe have lost their faith in their authority.  As people are naturally inclined to create and participate in communities that are freely associated, the threat of violence undermines their original basis.  Free association is defined by Google Dictionary as “the forming of a group, political alliance, or other organization without any constraint or external restriction”.  As a theoretical concept, it has been explored by both Marxists and Anarchists.  I interpret “free association” as signifying the ideal circumstances of any given social relationship wherein all parties are free from coercion.  I see it as not only being the precept upon which human relations are naturally established and the common inspiration for the participation in what we have come to call “politics”, but, also, the revelatory principle that can make civilization consummate.  To substantiate free association is to take part in a political project that furthers the total liberation of all of humanity.  Because I hold these truths to be self-evident, I have been called an “idealist”.  To this, I respond with that there is no reason to situate social relationships upon anything but ideal grounds.  As no person can agree to become subjugated through coercion, that they are free from it is always necessarily demanded in any given situation.  The freedom from coercion is a natural right that determines the conditions of the democratic project as a whole.  That people should be freely associated is not a mere utopian reverie; it is the requisite condition for democracy to occur.

               As the principle which I have invoked is just simply cogent, it ought to be easy to affirm.  Because most ruling orders have had years to experiment with just how to enact the variegated set of procedures that effectuate subjugation, however, to refuse to participate within a society that renders solidarity inoperative now means to forgo one’s right to exist.  Life must be qualified by its civic merits in order for most ruling orders in most nation-states to consider for it to be of value.  To refuse to become subject to the unsanctioned dominion of the nation-state has become a peril wherein a living person’s status as such is let to be called into question.  To relinquish one’s status as a person who is regarded as a “citizen” now means to let oneself be considered as an “enemy combatant”.  While most nation-states do not have the legal jurisdiction to either deprive political radicals of their citizenship or to banish them from the political sphere, their isolation is still culturally enforced.  Those who are aware of our political situation and willing to change it have become outcasts.  As much as I suspect for moralizing to risk engendering a cult of martyrdom, I must, here, insist that we are compelled to refuse to engage in or sanction either the violence or dissension imposed by most nation-states by both that our freedom is defined by the status of the natural rights of others and that we ought to attempt to create the best of all possible worlds while we are here on Earth.  To express solidarity means to be willing to be regarded as an outcast and to defend the unjustly marginalized.  It is only through its ecstatic disclosure that we will see a world that could, at all, be considered to be utopian.

          In spite of that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on the 10th of December in 1948, the attempts to effectively utilize human rights legislation, international law, or to repeal the wanton abuses of jurisprudence that comprise the extra-juridical protocols which apparently legitimate the excessive use of force by most nation-states have done little to either significantly invoke human rights or restrain most nation states from actualizing what are often violent campaigns more or less without the consent of their respective populaces.  The legal theory behind what, in The State of Exception, Italian philosopher, Giorgio Agamben, called the “state of exception” is also fairly obscure. Political theologist and “crown jurist of the Third Reich”, Carl Schmitt, delineated his defense of sovereignty in his seminal thesis on dictatorship, Dictatorship.  While his theory may be difficult to understand because he was a jurist who specialized in legal theory, I would allege that, because almost no person would be likely to agree with him, his work has been intentionally obfuscated. In spite of that I do think that the political works of Giorgio Agamben are a proper antithesis to what Carl Schmitt has postulated, his political philosophy is unfortunately no less arcane. We are in dire need of a practical theory of Law that can substantially situate its constituents within a paradigm that posits both natural and human rights conclusively.  By this, I do not merely mean to suggest that either natural or human rights ought to exist; I am stating that they do in order to make it emphatically evident that they necessarily demarcate just what laws are passed and how.  Human rights transcend the nation-state just as any good ideas ought to transcend any form of botched compliance.  Natural rights exist by that they are always necessarily demanded in every given situation. Liberation is inexpropriable. That we should seek to interpret the Law in our favor is not just radical zeal; it is an honest assessment of our current political situation.

          So, what, then, remains to be said for “civil war”?  While it is clearly the case that attempts at subjugation will necessitate some form of revolt, I do not think that we should agree to their terms. Because, in most nation-states, we have the legal precedents to lay claim to either free association or the freedom from coercion, the attempt to reduce the status of political dissidents to one where their right to life can be called into question, or, to include them in the civic sphere by their very exclusion as what has come to be called “bare life”, can be effectively countered by an appeal to all that is veritable of the democratic project as a whole.  While such a strategy may occasionally have to rely upon the invocation of the rights of citizens, I think that human rights legislation ought to transcend the confines of the nation-state.  While, in order to put such a plan of action into operation, we may have to rely upon the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, I do not think that international law should ideally be conceptualized as it has been enacted by the United Nations.  To state my position as an Anarcho-Pacifist in favor of nonviolent revolution does indicate that I am willing to engage in civil war. It does not, however, as per the terms which have been offered, mean that I am willing forfeit my “unalienable” natural rights.  As the threat of civil war serves as the pretext for martial law, the hysteria which it inspires needs to be allayed.  Because most ruling orders have secured power through their response to the very crises that their projected reign has necessarily incited, almost all of the radical transformation of the nation-state from a sovereignty to a democratic entity has been inspired by some form of civil disobedience or another. Nearly all of the lofty ideals of the Liberal democratic project have been antithetical to the structure of the nation-states in which they were born.  The demand for free association does not produce a political crisis in that it presents the nation-state with a social configuration that can rival that of the established ruling order; it, rather, resolves the political crisis that has been imposed upon the populace by that, in most cases, the ruling order has been established through subjugation.  The substantiation of the freedom from coercion, free association, solidarity, and nonviolent revolution does not imperil negating the democratic process; it can, rather, bring it to its apotheosis.  I do not seek to destroy civilization by participating in a vaguely eschatological project that foretells a common war of all against all; I merely intend to reify what has become sanctimonious of it.  Liberation, the realization of egalitarianism, and world peace are not just possible; they are the only ends that any person who is sincerely engaged in politics should seek to actualize.                      

[bountyofbeads]

https://www.propublica.org/article/emails-show-the-va-took-no-action-to-spare-veterans-from-a-harsh-trump-immigration-policy/amp?__twitter_impression=true

Interesting how Trumpian nationalism doesn’t apply to immigrants who served the US in uniform. I wonder why that could be.

ALSO FOR U.S. VETERANS: The White House established a phone line for veterans for issues,complaints, immediate assistance needs, including suicidal thoughts; it does work, do take action, have veterans who understand what only veterans can for claims.1-855-948-2311

“No Comment”: Emails Show the VA Took No Action to Spare Veterans From a Harsh Trump Immigration Policy

The VA’s approach differs sharply from the Pentagon’s, which won an exemption for active-duty members of the military.

by Yeganeh Torbati, Isaac Arnsdorf andDara Lind | Published Aug. 19, 1:29 p.m. EDT | ProPublica | Posted August 20, 2019 9:38 AM ET|

Top officials of the Department of Veterans Affairs declined to step in to try to exempt veterans and their families from a new immigration rule that would make it far easier to deny green cards to low-income immigrants, according to documents obtained by ProPublica under a Freedom of Information Act request.

The Department of Defense, on the other hand, worked throughout 2018 to minimize the new policy’s impact on military families.

As a result, the regulation, which goes into effect in October, applies just as strictly to veterans and their families as it does to the broader public, while active-duty members of the military and reserve forces face a relaxed version of the rule.

Under the so-called public charge regulation, which became final last week, immigrants seeking permanent legal status in the U.S. will be subject to a complex new test to determine if they will rely on public benefits. Among the factors that immigration officers will consider are whether the applicant has frequently used public benefits in the past, their household income, education level and credit scores.

Active-duty military members can accept public benefits without jeopardizing their future immigration status; veterans and their families, however, cannot.

The rule, which could reshape the face of legal immigration to the U.S., is one of the highest-profile changes to the immigration system undertaken by the administration of President Donald Trump. An initial proposed version of the rule received over 266,000 public comments, the vast majority in opposition. Three lawsuits challenging the policy were quickly filed: one by a coalition of 13 states and filed in Washington state, one by San Francisco and Santa Clara County in California, and one by a coalition of nonprofit groups in California.

Because the new rule creates a complex and subjective test, it’s impossible to predict precisely how many veterans and their families who otherwise qualify for green cards will now be rejected. (The Department of Homeland Security told reporters last Monday that it hasn’t analyzed how many people would most likely be denied green cards under the new rule.)

However, documents tracking the regulation’s development show that the DOD was concerned enough that the rule would harm military families that it worked with DHS to limit the regulation, ultimately securing the benefits exemption for active-duty military members.

The reasons for the VA’s inaction are unclear. The agency referred all questions to the White House, which did not respond to a request for comment. During the six months officials had to weigh in on the new regulation, the VA lacked permanent leaders in several top positions while juggling several major initiatives, which fell behind scheduleor failed.

“They should be the foremost government agency that’s fighting for protections for veterans,” said Jeremy Butler, chief executive officer of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “If they have a ‘No Comment,’ that says to me that it wasn’t given the time and attention and research necessary to understand how it would affect the veteran community.”

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who sits on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said in a statement to ProPublica, “It’s despicable that the Trump Administration is punishing veterans who sacrificed for our country simply for using the support services they’ve earned.”

He added, “Instead of tearing down military families, the President should be working to support those who’ve done so much for our country.”

In practice, the exemption the DOD won for active-duty military members is a narrow one. While the frequent use of public benefits is a “heavily weighted negative factor” in determining whether to block an immigrant under the new rule, members of the military and their families are still subject to the other factors weighed by immigration officers when applying for green cards.

But narrow as it is, no such exemption exists for veterans and their families, so using public benefits — as well as other factors like having meager savings — will count against them if they or their families apply for green cards.

“If they care about the active-duty people, I don’t know why they don’t care about military veterans who aren’t doing very well,” said Margaret Stock, an immigration attorney with many military clients. Stock helped create a special program called Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest, or MAVNI, which created a pathway for military enlistment for refugees, undocumented young people, foreign students and others who lack green cards.

A spokeswoman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the DHS agency that is implementing the rule, declined to comment, citing pending litigation.

The new policy is a signature effort of the Trump administration and builds on a long-standing law that bars immigration by people deemed to be “public charges.” But the law does not define the term. In 1999, the Clinton administration narrowly defined it to mean someone who “primarily” depends on the government for subsistence, either through cash welfare or long-term care funded by the government.

The new regulation lowers the bar to be considered a “public charge” by redefining it as an immigrant who receives certain types of public benefits for more than 12 months in a three-year period. If an immigrant receives two benefits in a single month, that would count as two months.

The public charge test applies to people entering the country or those trying to become lawful permanent residents, commonly known as green card holders. It does not apply to those who already have green cards and are seeking citizenship.

Noncitizens have long served in the U.S. military, often contributing specific needed skills such as sought-after foreign language fluency. Census data shows that about 100,000 noncitizen veterans live in the U.S., according to a ProPublica analysis of data provided by the University of Minnesota’s IPUMS, which collects and distributes census data. Most of them already have permanent status, Stock said.

It’s not clear exactly how many veterans do not have green cards or have spouses who don’t. Since 2008, about 10,000 people have joined the military through the MAVNI program, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan immigration research group. But the program is currently not accepting applications.

In practice, the public charge rule is more likely to affect veterans’ families — such as spouses who are undocumented or on temporary visas — rather than veterans themselves. Under federal law, undocumented immigrants and temporary visa holders are generally not eligible for public benefits.

“A lot of veterans end up marrying women or men that don’t have green cards; that happens very often,” said Hector Barajas, who leads an advocacy group called Deported Veterans Support House. “There is a population of people that will be affected.”

The White House began seeking agency comments on March 29, 2018. An official at the Office of Management and Budget emailed officials from 19 agencies, including the VA, attaching a draft of the regulation and asking for comments. The email was sent one day after the VA secretary at the time, David Shulkin, was fired by Trump in a tweet. One week after the White House’s email, a VA official in the secretary’s office responded: “VA submits a ‘No Comment’ response.”

The White House again asked for agencies’ comment in July and September 2018, and each time, a VA official sent the same response.

The White House’s Sept. 4, 2018, email stated that the newest draft included “exemptions for service-members.” In an initial proposed version of the regulation released to the public later that month, DHS made clear that it decided on the exemption “following consultation with DOD.”

The emails obtained by ProPublica do not include military officials’ communications with the White House or DHS. A Pentagon spokeswoman, Jessica Maxwell, said, “DOD was consulted in these conversations,” but she declined to provide further details.

But because the VA declined to provide such “consultation,” an exception for veterans wasn’t considered in the initial proposed regulation in 2018.

Only after members of the public raised the issue during the regulation’s comment period did DHS consider, and ultimately refuse, a veterans’ exemption in the final regulation, which was released last week.

In its justification for the new policy, DHS said veterans aren’t afforded the same exemption as active-duty service members because they have access to special VA benefits, which the new policy doesn’t count against them. Furthermore, the department said, while active-duty service members often need to use benefits to supplement low military salaries, veterans are free to take higher-paying jobs.

But not every veteran receives veterans’ benefits, and the benefits — which include health care for conditions related to military service, education stipends and home-buying assistance — are not a substitute for benefits that make up the broader social safety net like food stamps, Medicaid and housing vouchers. Critics of DHS’ decision say many veteran families occasionally need to use public benefits or fall into poverty.

A VA spokesman declined to say if the agency has any concerns about the new policy’s impact on veterans.

The emails obtained by ProPublica also show that as the White House scrambled to finish the regulation and release it to the public last year, it discouraged federal agencies from arguing against the major thrust of the policy.

“Please do not worry about non-substantive line edits,” a White House official, whose name is redacted, wrote in bolded type. “Please recognize, also, that the decision of whether to propose expanding the definition of public charge, broadly, has been made at a very high level and will not be changing.”

Hannah Fresques contributed to this report.

[gueststeachingmaterials]

American Immigration System

Government, Current Events

Source

I'm an immigration lawyer. I know that many of my Facebook friends, who are good and intelligent people, honestly have questions like the following: Why don't all these immigrants just become legal, and do they get all kinds of public benefits?

I hope you'll read what I wrote here in the spirit in which it was intended, which is to cut through the BS (from poorly-informed but loud voices on both the left and right) and simply provide correct information so that people can decide for themselves what is right and best.

I recently wrote the comment below to a Facebook story from a local news channel, about a teacher here in Colorado Springs who has DACA.

******************************************************** To several of the commenters on this thread – first, I want to acknowledge that asking why people don’t just become citizens, or whether people without legal status can get public benefits that U.S citizens cannot, are legitimate questions. If they are asked in good faith, no one should mind you asking them.

Therefore, let me answer your questions. Please know that I am well-informed on these topics, as an immigration lawyer for the past 8 years, the past six of those in Colorado, and currently the Director of Family Immigration Services at Catholic Charities of Central Colorado (most of you know us best as the organization that runs the Marian House soup kitchen). You may verify those statements by entering my bar number (44591) on the Supreme Court of Colorado website (http://www.coloradosupremecourt.com/Search/AttSearch.asp) or viewing our Catholic Charities website (https://www.ccharitiescc.org/).

First, as to why young people who have DACA haven’t just become citizens:

To become a U.S. citizen (other than by birth), one must first become a Lawful Permanent Resident (“green card” holder). Only after five years as a Permanent Resident can you apply to become a citizen. Thus, the obvious next question: how does a person become a Permanent Resident? There are three primary options to do so:

1) Family-based petitions. This means that a U.S. citizen or Permanent Resident parent, spouse, adult child, or sibling files a “petition” for you. Depending on the category that you fall into, the wait will be anywhere from 1 – 22 years (yep) before you can use that petition to take the next step – applying to become a Permanent Resident (background checks, medical exam, more fees, etc.). That works for people living outside the U.S., but for those who have been here, it may not be possible if they entered the U.S. illegally, even if they were minor children when they did so.

2) Employment-based petitions. A U.S. employer can similarly sponsor you, but generally only if you are in a profession requiring an advanced degree or unique skills (doctors, software engineers, world-class athletes to coach professional sports teams, etc.). Even then, the potential employer must generally also prove that they made good-faith efforts to hire a U.S. citizen for the position, but no qualified applicants applied.

3) Diversity visa lottery. Every year, the U.S. government selects 50,000 people worldwide who enter a lottery and pass background checks to come to the U.S. as Permanent Residents. This lottery, however, is only available to people from countries that traditionally send few people to the US – so, for example, people from countries such as Mexico, the Philippines, China, Guatemala, India, El Salvador, and other countries that send larger numbers of immigrants to the U.S. do not have this option.

Extra note: The current Administration has actively sought to eliminate or dramatically limit Options #1 and #3. The new term being used in the attempted re-branding of Option #1, family-based immigration, which has been the basic principle of U.S. immigration law for over a century, is “chain migration”. If those two options are in fact eliminated or curtailed, legal immigration to the U.S. will be significantly reduced.

The KEY POINT to all of the above: If you do not qualify for one of these 3 options, then there is no “line” to get into to legally become a Permanent Resident and eventually a U.S. citizen. So, if you are not fortunate enough to have, say, a U.S. citizen spouse or a graduate degree in computer science, you very likely can never become a citizen of the United States.

Second, one commenter above asked why President Obama, when he established DACA in 2012, did not just create a path to citizenship for these young people at that time. The answer: earlier that year, Congress had for the 11th year in a row failed to pass the Dream Act, which would have done exactly that. The President acting through his authority as head of the Executive Branch cannot create a path to Lawful Permanent Residency (and eventual US citizenship). Only a law, passed by Congress and then signed by the President, can accomplish that. So President Obama on June 15, 2012 created the more limited DACA program through Executive Action – which is why President Trump, as the new President, was able to end the program, also without an act of Congress, last fall.

Finally, as to the question of immigrants receiving public benefits, only a U.S. citizen or a Lawful Permanent Resident (green card holder) can receive almost all types of public benefit – including Medicaid, Medicare, SSI disability, Social Security payments for seniors, TANF, and food stamps. The irony: most undocumented immigrants work under made-up Social Security numbers and so receive a paycheck from which Social Security, federal income taxes, and state income taxes are withheld, and of course they pay the same local sales and property taxes as anyone else through retail purchases, pass-through costs of apartment leases, etc. Same of course goes for the 800,000 current DACA recipients, who are authorized to legally work in the U.S. But none of those employees, despite paying IN to the system, will ever receive those public benefits listed above, that are paid for by the money withheld from their paychecks. So they are propping up our federal and state government entitlement programs because they pay in but won’t ever take out.

The following are the public benefits that undocumented immigrants can receive in United States:

1) Public education for children in grades K-12. This was definitively established by a 1982 Supreme Court case, Plyler v. Doe. The Supreme Court in its reasoning explicitly stated that it would not serve the overall public good of the U.S. to leave many thousands of children uneducated.

2) Emergency room services, but only to the point where the patient is considered “medically stable”, at which point he/she is released. These services are not free, however, as in my job I meet hundreds of immigrant families who sacrifice over years to slowly pay off high emergency room medical bills.

3) WIC assistance. This is for milk, food, etc, and available only to pregnant mothers. The rationale is that the children in the womb will be U.S. citizens when born, and therefore it is in the long-term economic best interests of the nation to ensure that they receive adequate prenatal nutrition to improve their chances of being productive citizens in the decades to come.

4) Assistance from police if they are the victim of a crime and call for help. To their credit, the vast majority of our Colorado Springs law enforcement officers take their duty to protect all people seriously. Chief Carey of the CSPD and Sheriff Elder of the EPCSO have made clear that their officers can’t do their most important job – keeping us safe by getting dangerous criminals off our streets – if a whole class of people (undocumented immigrants) is afraid to call 911 to report crimes that they witness or are victim to.

5) Assistance from a fire department. Rationale, besides the obvious moral one: If your house was next to that of an undocumented immigrant family, would you want the firefighters to let that house continue to burn, putting yours at risk of catching on fire too?

And that’s it. Those, to the best of my knowledge, are the only public benefits that an undocumented immigrant can receive in just about any part of the United States. As someone who directs a small office that works with hundreds of low-income immigrant families per year, know that when I see the precarious economic situation of many of these families, I'd help them access other benefits if they could. But they simply can't. Now, children of undocumented parents, born in the U.S., are U.S. citizens under the 14th Amendment (the one that declares that all human beings born on U.S. soil are citizens – this was passed immediately after the Civil War to forever end the legal argument that African Americans were not U.S. citizens). As such, those children can qualify for the same public benefits as any other U.S. citizen, if they qualify through economic need or disability. But their parents or undocumented siblings cannot.

I hope that this information has been useful to those willing to read through this long (for Facebook anyway) explanation. Please know that even this long summary leaves out a ton of detail -- there are tens of thousands of pages of statutes, regulations, internal federal agency procedures, and court decisions guiding how all of this is interpreted and implemented. But please take my word that I honestly believe that no detail I omitted for conciseness changes the basic points above. And I'd be happy to answer questions if you have them. Like I said, I don’t mind honest questions, and I believe that legitimate questions asked in good faith deserve well-informed, accurate answers. If all of us in the U.S. would be willing to actually listen to each others’ sincere concerns and do our best to answer each others’ questions, instead of just yelling at each other or retreating to our corners of the internet (left OR right) where everyone already agrees with us – well, I think we’d move our nation forward a lot more effectively.

[socialjusticeartshare]

Congress could help this young mom and other families trapped in an immigration Catch-22

Cruelly separating families for such long periods of time serves no one. It has also turned out to be an incentive for people to remain here illegally.

Silvia Avelar Flores is a soft-spoken, devoted mother of three young children. She came to the United States from Mexico with her family when she was just 7 years old, and has lived here ever since. She graduated from school here, married, had children, works, pays taxes, has no criminal record of any kind, and is a highly respected member of her community. Her husband Carlos, a long-time legal resident, recently became a U.S. citizen. As soon as he could, he filed an I-130 immigrant petition form for Silvia — the important first step in obtaining a green card allowing her to live and work in America. Happily, the I-130 was approved. 

There is now a pathway to citizenship for Silvia, but she is unable to move forward. Why? Because of a counterproductive provision that was put in place in 1996 by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. This provision established the so-called “bars to reentry” for immigrants who leave the country for any reason after having lived here unlawfully. If such an immigrant has been in the United States for more than 180 days but less than a year, they are barred from reentering the country for three years. If for more than a year, they are barred from reentry for 10 years. 

A simple fix for a big problem

These bars create a nightmarish catch-22 for people like Silvia because current law requires that they must return to their country of origin to apply for a green card, but as soon as they leave, they are immediately barred from returning.  

In Silvia’s case, because her husband is a citizen, she qualifies for a waiver which would allow her to return sooner, but she would still be separated from her family (her husband and her three U.S. citizen children, ages 6, 12 and 14) for a minimum of two to three years. Without the waiver, it would be a full 10 years.

Many of the issues around immigration are complex and messy. There are no easy answers to the knotty questions surrounding border security, enforcement, immigration court backlogs, guest worker programs, trafficking, and so on. By all accounts, our immigration system is broken and needs a complete overhaul. Comprehensive immigration reform — so necessary, but so difficult to achieve — will take time, effort and compromise.  But eliminating these inhumane bars to reentry is a simple fix that Congress could tackle right now. And it’s a move that already has bipartisan support. Former Republican Rep. Raul Labrador of Idaho, who worked for 15 years as an immigration attorney, said of the bars: “If we get rid of what we call ‘the bars’ . . . we could fix the problem for about 25 percent of the people that are here illegally. And we would do it through the proper legal system.”

Business leaders:Give immigrant 'Dreamers' the legal status and certainty they deserve

This one simple fix would have an enormous positive impact on millions of American families. The Migration Policy Institute estimates that more than 1.2 million spouses of U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents are blocked from becoming legal residents themselves because of these bars. Eliminating them would not create any new pathways to citizenship. It would merely eliminate the barriers to pathways that already exist. And it would allow those who already qualify for green cards to move forward without having to make the excruciating decision to be separated from their families for many years — a decision that can have terribly damaging repercussions on children, spouses and other family members.

Cruelly separating families for such long periods of time serves no one. There are no benefits, only costs — including to society. In many cases, families that have been stable and self-sufficient suddenly find themselves dependent on government assistance for childcare, health care, and other basic necessities when a parent is barred from reentry.    

Trying to 'get legal' amid uncertainty

Not only are these bars inhumane, they are also ineffective and even counterproductive. The bars were intended to be a deterrent, but in fact have turned out to be an incentive for people to remain in the country illegally so that they are not barred from being with their families. “Far from curtailing illegal immigration and deterring people from overstaying their visas as intended," Paul Virtue, former general counsel of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, has told Congress, the legal bars to admissibility "are actually contributing to the unprecedented rise in the number of undocumented immigrants.”

Silvia and her family have lived in a state of uncertainty and fear for many years now as they’ve done everything they possibly can to “get legal.” Until she has a green card, her situation is precarious and she could be deported at any time. The toll on Silvia and her family, financially (due to the never-ending legal fees), mentally, and especially emotionally, has been immense. Her young children have spent their entire lives fearful that their beloved mother might be snatched away from them at any time.  

Colombian President Duque:'We're not a rich nation, but we tried to do something humanitarian' for migrants

These inhumane 3- and 10-year bars to reentry create insurmountable obstacles for people who, like Silvia, are trying as hard as they can to “get in line” (as they are so often told to do) so that they can follow the outlined procedure to become legal residents.

Immigration reform is inherently nuanced and complicated, and policymakers must often weigh many different competing factors. But in the case of these bars, it’s a no brainer. They are both cruel and ineffective. They harm American families and have actually led to an increase in the number of undocumented immigrants in the United States.

Article Source

[vowel-in-thug]

loudlytransparenttrash replied to your post “This DACA decision makes me sick to my stomach. I was undocumented for...”

They aren't kids, the medium age is 25 and it goes up to 35 year olds lmao most aren't fully educated and oh yeah, they're here ILLEGALLY. You cannot break into another country and claim you're legal, wtf

nortromthesilencer

replied to your post

“This DACA decision makes me sick to my stomach. I was undocumented for...”

DACA was a bad move. If a child and father break into Disneyland, do you blame Disneyland for kicking them out? Do you let the child stay? No: the entered illegally where others received legal citizenship. The need to go, no matter the race. Blame the parents for breaking the law in the first place!

heyyyyyy how about you two fuck off my post with your racist shit?

they aren’t kids NOW, fuckwit, but you do realize DACA stands for Deferred Action for CHILDHOOD ARRIVALS. that means in order to qualify, they had to have arrived in the US before the age of 16. many families arrive with young children, hoping to provide a new life for them. many arrived here before they even had spatial awareness for their birth country, they’re now 25, 30 years old, having lived their whole life in America, having only known themselves to be Americans. they went to American schools, they shop at American schools, they have American jobs. they are Americans. 

“most of them aren’t fully educated” where the hell is your data for that? 91% of DACA recipients are employed. in order to be FUCKING ELIGIBLE, you have to have graduated school or still be enrolled, have received a GED, or been honorably discharged or a member of the Armed Forces.  Check that link too, to see that 100% of DACA recipients have no criminal record either. There would be a $460 billion loss over 10 years without these 800,000 young people. But yeah “most of them aren’t fully educated”, it’s always nice to see people needing to prove their economic worth to some asshole on tumblr in order to justify their fucking existence.

so, so, so many people have this great misunderstanding of how fucking DIFFICULT it is to come here legally. The necessary qualifications that have to be met don’t apply for many people who are trying to come here. The large number of people makes the chances of winning a lottery exceptionally difficult. And the path to citizenship, once they’re already here, is made even more difficult by the fact that they can’t find work in order to pay the insane fees necessary to even file for status. and newsflash, if your ancestors came over here generations ago, they likely did it at a time when there were barely any policies in place to make immigrating illegal. by today’s standards, your great-grandpappy would have been denied citizenship too!

your Disneyland metaphor is a fucking joke because one: America is not a private corporation. two, it would actually be more akin to a family sneaking in to escape poverty/natural disaster/armed forces, living in Disneyland for over 20 years, going to school at Disneyland, working for Disneyland, boosting Disneyland’s economy, being decent, upstanding, hardworking Disneyland citizens who in no right deserve to be shunted back to a country they’ve never known. yeah, perhaps some of the parents could have done it legally but chose not to. Why? who the fuck knows. that makes absolutely no fucking sense whatsoever, but sure, I guess I can’t say for certain that any of the parents of 800,000 young people didn’t make that decision. but let’s blame the kids for that, too. three: we’re not talking about one family. we’re talking about splitting up the families of 800,000 people, some of whom now have children of their own, legal U.S. citizens, whose whole lives can be torn apart for no reason.

except, here’s a reason! RACISM. that’s it! don’t give me any of that mickey mouse bullshit about it being THE LAW. first of all, i don’t believe donald or the whole fucking administration gives a good fucking damn about the constitution. if they did, they’ve only fucking read it for the first time yesterday. you can’t cry “this is unconstitutional!” a week after pardoning sheriff joe “racist shitstick” arpaio, who broke so many civil rights laws i bet david fuckin duke gave him a slowclap when he heard about them all. “it’s unconstitutional” is just a talking point to hang your hat on, because truly the only reason anyone supports  the deportation of 800,000 Americans in everything except documentation -- is racism. 

DACA wasn’t perfect. yes, we need a more permanent path to citizenship, that’s accessible for all. don’t fucking come at me yelling “ILLEGAL” in all caps like you’re making some goddamn point. 

laws are unjust. laws are racist. you can look at slavery, the chinese exclusion act, the johnson-reed act, the jim crow laws, the antiterrorism and effective death penalty act and the illegal immigration reform and immigrant responsibility act of 1996 -- RACIST. FUCKING LAWS. passed by racist fucking men, supported by the few racist fucking people like you two. 

eventually the administrations will change and correct their wrongs, because that’s what they always do. we remember that we are a nation of immigrants, and to try and pretend like we’re anything else would i think require the help of your disney fairy godmother. bibbidy-bobbidy-boo, bitch

[backalley-requests]

The Proposal | Chapter One

The Proposal Masterlist

Summary: The Proposal™ au, where Ivar gets swept away in a lie about a fake engagement to stay in the country and needs to convince everyone (including his family) that he’s genuinely engaged to a woman he works with

Warnings: use of the word cripple, mild swearing

Word Count: 1,967

With two cups of coffee in hand and a binder under your left arm, you exited the elevator. It was a delicate balancing act and you already managed to drop the binder once... five blocks from here. Admittedly, the coffees were far more important than that.

“Good morning, Y/N!”

Your head spun around to greet your coworker, a grin on your face. “Well good morning, Paola.” Work was always more pleasant before the boss came in. You walked over and sat upon her desk, enjoying the few minutes of chatter everybody engaged in. It wouldn’t last much longer.

“Did you enjoy your date this weekend,” Paola asked as she looked up on you.

You gave an over dramatic groan and rolled your eyes. “I’d rather not be reminded of it. All he did was talk about his exes. Look, here’s some solid advice, Polly. When a guy says all his exes are crazy he’s probably the problem.”

Granted, you still went out with him to begin with. It was a testament to your own bad taste. “What a shame,” Paola huffed as she leaned back in her seat. “I made a bet earlier with Kara that you’d really hit it off with him.”

“I’ll consider that your karma for making bets about my love life then,” you teased.

The building settled into small talk. You talked more about past relationships and Paola encouraged you to find someone. She was currently engaged, and you figured she wanted someone to relate to her.

“The Tyrant has entered the building!”

A quick warning call from the cubical closest to the elevator. All chatter immediately stopped and people rushed to their desks and pretended to be busy on sight. You hoped off of your friend’s desk and picked your stuff up again. “I’ll talk to you later,” you winked at her.

Right on cue the sound of heavy steps and a cane came from the elevator and out stepped your boss. Ivar Lothbrok. He wore a permanent scowl on his face as he walked by, straight to his office.

When you first got transferred to the department you had been excited to finally get to work with him. The man was handsome as hell. Dark hair, piercing blue eyes, tall. He looked like a dream. His accent didn’t help either. Your dreams had prepared you for some steamy forbidden love office romance, and instead you woke up to the realization that the man was the closest thing to a psychopath you ever met.

As Ivar headed to his office you immediately followed. You knocked twice on the door and entered as usual. “Good morning, Mr. Lothbrok,” you grinned. He didn’t glance up from his desk, his eyes buried in paperwork.

“Set it down on the desk.”

You placed the coffee on his desk and left. There was a routine to things. He stopped being as angry with you even if he was never friendly. You were probably the only person in the office who didn’t get yelled at anymore. Any anger on your end was hidden behind locked lips.

On your way out the door you bumped into Trevor Taylor, the man not bothering to mind his steps as he stormed into the office. You didn’t bother looking back and whistled. It was difficult to hide your amusement. Every so often people came in, screamed obscenities, and got dragged away by security.

—

“You’re firing me!” The voice boomed through the office and every worker immediately stopped. “You can’t fire me, you need me!”

Ivar didn’t glance up, ignoring the postering.

“And you can’t even look at me,” Trevor shook his head. “What are you? Deaf now too? Answer me!” His hands slammed down on the desk.

“Don’t you think an outburst like this is exactly why you’re getting fired?” Ivar’s blue eyed remained frozen. Normally he wouldn’t hesitate to get into a shouting match, say something to make the man cry and watch him leave. The difference today was that Trevor Taylor desired attention so badly that to deny him was more satisfying. Trevor worked himself up to a breaking point. “You should pack your things before we throw them out, Trevor.”

“I’m invaluable to this company. You know that. You’re bluffing.”

“You’re a bad worker. You turn things in late and underperform in everything you do.” The words easily slipped out as Ivar flipped through a file.

“I’m not getting fired from a guy who can’t even chase me down a flight of stairs.”

Those words got to Ivar. The man had had it coming for a while now. “The only reason you lasted this long is that everyone pitied you after your wife slept with your brother. But I didn’t. And I still don’t.” He closed the file and stared up at Trevor.

“You crippled fuck!” Trevor grabbed the coffee and squeezed until it burst open across Ivar’s face and down his suit.

“Get the fuck out of here!” Ivar stood up, grabbing his cane as tightly as he could; thankful the coffee didn’t drip down to his braces. It took everything to avoid throwing something at the man, but he couldn’t deal with another lawsuit like that. “Security,” he called out.

__

Two men came in and Trevor was dragged out kicking and screaming. Everyone in the office watched with great intent. Ivar came out of his office next, drenched in coffee and thankful he preferred cold drinks.

You eyed him and hesitated for a moment before you decided he might need help, even if he didn’t want it. You got up and followed behind him, grabbing the spare coffee.

You found him just inside a private bathroom. The door wasn’t locked and you entered as if you weren’t straight up entering a bathroom.

“I take it that was another successful firing,” you teased to lighten up the mood. He glanced back, his stare shot daggers into your soul. “He had it coming. I don’t think anyone’s taking his side.” You had heard the words being shouted. It hadn’t taken long for Trevor to bring up the man’s legs a few extra times before security arrived times. He had done it in private many times before.

Ivar took off his suit jacket and began unbuttoning his shirt. Your eyes couldn’t stop themselves as they stared down his chest. You bit your bottom lip and pried your eyes away. “I don’t care what they think.”

You knew he did. It was your job to know everything about him. You hated him half the time but there was no way Ivar was as evil as he portrayed. “You can have my coffee,” you placed it on the sink counter next to him.

He grabbed it and took a sip. A moment later he eyed you with amusement. “And I’m assuming it’s not a coincidence we have the same taste in coffee.”

“I’m clumsy. Plus, I had a feeling Trevor wasn't about to respond well to being fired,” you admitted sheepishly.

“I should have you fired for ass kissing.”

“What—“, you blinked in surprise.

“Grab my spare from the office.” He didn’t elaborate and sent you on an errand. “And then take these to the cleaners.” He handed you the stained close.

You nodded your head and left.

—

“What do you mean my visa is revoked?” Ivar demanded as he sat before his superiors in his office. “I’m supposed to get my citizenship by Friday?”

“You violated the terms of agreement. You left the country.”

“I went to Quebec! It’s hardly outside the US! And mind you, it was for this company.” Ivar was angry now, this whole thing was ridiculous. “Look— I’ll just reapply again and figure it out all. In the meantime I can relocate back to Europe for a little while.”

“We can’t have you employed here if you aren’t a citizen or have a visa.” The man before Ivar admitted, “and the process is going to take over a year.”

“So what are you saying?”

Ivar already knew the answer, but he needed to hear them say it.

“Unless you can find a way to legally stay here you can’t work for the company.”

Ivar laughed, “you don’t have anyone else even half as qualified as me.”

“Trevor Taylor.”

“I just fired the guy, he doesn’t even work here,” Ivar scoffed. His hands crossed over his chest as he leaned back in the chair. This whole ordeal was ridiculous. Why was he even putting up with this?

“Well I’m sure he’s looking for a new job then.”

Ivar remained silent for a moment, his brain worked fast to find some sort of loophole. He couldn’t just go back home unemployed to his family.

The sound of the office door opening pulled him from his thoughts. He turned his head and saw you there, anger swelling up inside him. You had came to bring back his dry cleaning. Ivar was on edge and anything would set him over expect—

“Actually this won’t be a problem at all,” Ivar stood up and he walked over to you and placed his free arm over your shoulders, confusion clear on your face. “Because we’re getting married.”

“You are?”

You were frozen, unsure of what you walked in on.

“Exactly. We didn’t want to spoil the whole thing, office etiquette and stuff. But it’s true, we’re madly in love. And since we’re getting married I’ll be staying in the US just fine,” Ivar said.

“I get it, we’ve all had an office romance or two. So long as you get it approved I don’t see a problem with it.” The man said. It was clear he was also looking for any plausible excuse to keep Ivar around. Despite the fearsome reputation, Ivar was great for the company.

The two men exchanged goodbyes while you remained dazed, but rather than question things while Ivar’s boss was in the room you waited until the man left.

“I’m not marrying you.”

“Yes, you are.”

“What just happened?”

“That trip to Quebec cost me my visa. If I don’t have one I can’t stay.” Ivar said so simply, moving back behind his desk.

“I’m forgetting the part where this is my problem?” Considering the fact that Ivar was suddenly pairing you off as engaged you figured you deserved to sit in the chair as you argued with him.

Ivar paused for a moment, the gears turning in his head. “Trevor will replace me if I go. He hates you as much as me right now, so unless you don’t want to be out of a job I suggest you agree. It’s only three years. We don’t even have to live together.”

The whole idea sounded ridiculous but in some aspects he was right. You’d lose your job. You spent far too many souless years working here and the idea of starting over was terrifying. “Well— what if I actually wanted to get married?”

“It’ll take a lot longer than three years for you to convince anyone to marry you,” Ivar said simply as he went back to his work. The deal was sealed in his mind.

You struggled to formulate a response. “Fine. But I get a promotion.”

His blue eyes found yours. “And why would I do that, Y/N?”

You blinked in response. It should’ve been obvious why. “I— well I’m the reason you’re keeping your job. You owe me too. That’s three years of my life for your benefit.”

The offer was made and he was forced to think. “Fine.” His hands were tied and he hated it. “Do you want anything else”, annoyance was evident in his tone.

“A proposal.”

“What?”

“A proper one.”

Ivar’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t care for the idea and admittedly a part of him wasn’t sure he could. He couldn’t get down on one knee. “I’m not doing that.”

A moment of silence passed before you gave up. “Fine. But at least say it. Like you mean it.” You were being petty but it was the least this guy could do.

He took a deep breath and stared at you with intent. “Y/N—“ Ivar stopped himself and paused.

“Do you not know my last name?”

There was more silence as you both eyed each other.

“Will you just marry me.” Ivar concealed any embarrassment he felt over the situation. He appeared tense and a little angry. This was a better proposal than you expected from him, all things considered.

“Yes.”

[stretchjournalemerson]

Um, Actually: Mansplaining in Academia

By Catherine Zenkevich 

“He scoffed and told me how wrong I was. But I knew I wasn’t.”

All throughout my freshman year of high school, my mom encouraged me to pursue other extracurriculars outside of my sports team. Whether it would round out my college applications or just to make me a more experienced and cultured young woman, she pushed hard for me to join another club or organization. I finally decided on Model United Nations, as most of my friends did it, and I was also interested in pursuing an international relations degree at this time. I immersed myself into the research for each country we represented, learning every facet of foreign policy and cultural opinions that applied to the topic at hand. I could not have been more excited to go to our first conference, show off all the work I had done, and work with my peers to craft meaningful, albeit fictitious, legislation. I settled down at my place at the faux United Nations table, nervously straightening out my flag and nameplate to pass the time before the committee began. Soon, we were vigorously debating the merits of immigration reform, and as I was representing Hungary, who had recently erected a border fence to keep migrants out, I was staunchly anti and made my opinion known, just like my teacher had encouraged me to. Then came the time to create and sign resolution papers proposing our reform ideas. A young man around my age and wearing one too many skinny scarves approached me and asked me what country I was. I told him Hungary, and he immediately launched into a spiel about how Hungary would totally support his pro-migrant proposition, barely letting me get a word in edgewise. I let him speak his piece and then politely informed him that, actually, Hungary would not support this proposition, as they were currently promoting an anti-immigrant platform. He scoffed and told me how wrong I was. But I knew I wasn’t. I had done weeks of research surrounding the topic and knew my country’s policies inside and out. How could he so confidently doubt that I knew what I was talking about?

   The kind of gender bias I experienced in high school is not new or even limited to that specific sphere I experienced it in. This kind of steamrolling women’s ideas, theories, and opinions has been prevalent in almost all of modern society, even predating the fight for women’s voting rights. In his 1989 journal article “‘One United People’: Second Class Female Citizenship and the American Quest for Community,” Rogers M. Smith discusses women’s political status as citizens in colonial America, stating, “Married women were thus subjects not only of the crown but of their spouses, leaving them without any meaningful civic rights of their own,” (241). Due to an English law that was deemed necessary by colonists in the 1700s, women were not seen as their own singular legal being. They did not have the same rights as other citizens; they could not vote, buy property, or make other important decisions independently of their husbands. This law, while legally obsolete now, still holds some cultural significance. Even into the late twentieth century, well past the historic time when women were given the right to vote, women were still seen as the second class citizens they were in the 1700s. Into the 1960s, a hallmark for women’s rights and the beginning of second-wave feminism, banks could still refuse single women’s credit card applications and many required the woman’s husband to co-sign the application. In colonial America, women “possessed in the law’s eyes no meaningfully independent citizenship,” (Smith 249), and that sentiment continued far into the modern age, much further than many people would assume. America’s history of legally and economically disenfranchising women and socially classifying them as second class citizens continues to this day, albeit in vastly different capacities.

   The portrayal of women in mass media has caused a kind of fractured internal worth that can lead women to value their own thoughts and opinions less. In her book Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female With the Mass Media, author Susan Jeanne Douglas states that mass media has created a form of “cultural identity crisis” (8) in women. Media portrays feminism both as something to be proud of and to emphasize but also something shameful that should not be publicly endorsed. Women are “pulled in opposite directions— told we were equal, yet told we were subordinate; told we could change history, yet told we were trapped by history— we got the bends at an early age, and we’ve never gotten rid of them” (Douglas 8-9). Women are forced to choose a side when neither is beneficial, and both could potentially be harmful. Media has created a catch-22 that forces women to make a decision that in no way benefits them, and, through mass media consumption, this form of struggle is internalized by young girls and women to a harmful degree. The kind of media that is promoted enforces two kinds of stereotypes: the bitchy feminazi who steamrolls any man who interferes with her plans and the subordinate mother/wife figure who always bows to her husband’s whims and is thus useful in this patriarchal society. Neither of these stereotypes is particularly kind to women, nor are they accurate to how women actually are in real life; these kinds of stereotypes harm women both for choosing to voice their own opinions and for choosing not to. Because these stereotypes are so prevalent in society, men and other people in power tend to believe them, and these beliefs have permeated the workplace, the school, and society as a whole.

   In all spheres of life, women’s opinions and thoughts are consistently discounted. Whether it be in the classroom, in the boardroom, or even on the message boards, when women take a hard stance or stand by an opinion, they are not taken seriously. Back in the time when women were given worth based on their marital status, any time a woman exhibited anything “that men found mysterious or unmanageable,” (McVean), it was medically diagnosed as hysteria, and that was that. Most of the time, women who expressed dissenting or independent opinions were simply labeled as hysterical, and thus men were allowed to simply write off whatever point they were trying to get across. This sentiment is still prevalent in today’s society. However, women are now not medically diagnosed as hysterical; they are simply called hysterical or it is implied or explicitly stated that they do not know what they are talking about. Whenever women went against the grain of society, it was okay for men to simply call them crazy and move on with their lives, but the damage that these sentiments carry still last to this day. Women’s opinions are constantly being disregarded or not involved in the conversation at all, and this disappointing phenomenon has been given a new name.

Author Rebecca Solnit coined the term “mansplaining” in 2008 in her essay, “Men Explain Things to Me.” According to Solnit, “mansplaining” is “when a man talks condescendingly to someone (especially a woman) about something he has incomplete knowledge of, with the mistaken assumption that he knows more about it than the person he’s talking to does.” Men are constantly, and possibly subconsciously, looking for ways to undermine women’s role in society, and mansplaining is simply another form of that phenomenon. Mansplaining is a way for men to assert their dominance, even in areas where they have no expertise, subsequently drowning out the voices of other, more qualified women in that same area. Solnit states that mansplaining “crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world.” Men explaining things to women in this braggadocious manner exerts their misplaced confidence over a woman’s expertise in her field. Solnit compares it to street harassment and catcalling because, in the same manner, men assert their masculinity to make themselves feel more in control at the expense of the woman’s confidence and well-being. Mansplaining also “trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men’s unsupported overconfidence,” (Solnit). Not only is mansplaining usually factually incorrect, it demoralizes women and trains them to think that their experiences and expertise hold less weight than their male counterparts simply because of their gender. This continued act of talking over women subjugates them into silence, even if they are outstanding in their field. Mansplaining and the constant negating of women’s credibility forces women to “fight wars on two fronts, one for whatever the putative topic is and one simply for the right to speak, to have ideas, to be acknowledged to be in possession of facts and truths, to have value, to be a human being,” (Solnit). Mansplaining takes full advantage of the “cultural identity crisis” (Douglas 8) that has been created in women. Because society has constantly been telling women conflicting sentiments for decades, they now have to not only fight to be heard and recognized. They also have to fight to be seen as in individual and independent entity. This kind of undermining practice is prevalent in every sphere of work, and academia is no exception.

The university structure is incredibly sexist with “more than 60% of academics are men, and about 80% of professors,” (Todd). With a structure created and dominated by men, it can seem impossible for women to move up the ladder and progress their careers. And it’s not for lack of trying; women in these fields are “exploited and marginalized by ‘macho practices and cultures’” (Todd). Even in top universities and research fields, women are constantly being pushed to the sidelines and disregarded, even when they are contributing quality work to the academic discussion. The culture surrounding this supposed meritocracy very clearly enforced the idea that “what is assertive in a man is arrogant in a woman” (Todd). Women are punished for not being more like their male counterparts, and when they change their behavior to fit the pre-established norms, they are punished because the qualities that are praised in men are criticized in women. This is not only limited to universities; it expands into all areas of academia. At a conference for the American Economics Association, journalist Heather Long noticed the very same phenomenon occurring both among the panels and in the general discussion at the event. When asking an economist for a copy of his paper, “he told me to go to his website and look for the ‘less mathy’ version,” (Long). Whereas when a male journalist asked the same professor the same question, “the male economist told the male journalist that he could read the original research paper and a ‘version for a more general audience’ on his website,” (Long). Even a well-versed journalist in her field was deemed too dumb to read an economics paper, which, as Heather Long is an economics correspondent for the Washington Post, is essentially her job. The man assumed that because she was a woman, she would not be able to or would not care to comprehend the vast complexities of this economics paper. Even in research, men amplify their own voices more than they amplify those of their female colleagues. In research papers, “men self-cite 70% more than women” (Lasher). Men would rather promote their own work than discuss the equal quality work of a female peer. This is another case of male arrogance permeating academia and doing a disservice to their female peers. The more citations a piece of research has, the more likely it is to be promoted in other, more important journals. So men promoting their own work means that it is possibly more likely to be published than their female counterparts’ work. Comparatively, “women are also more than ten percentage points more likely than men to not cite their own previous works at all” (Lasher). Women do not have the same overconfidence men tend to have, so when it comes to citations in research, they are less likely to promote their own work, unlike their male peers. Men are promoting their own work more, which in turn overshadows women’s work, which is already being underrepresented. The cycle of under-confidence and overconfidence is a harmful one that prevents women’s voices from being heard in the academic sphere and is encouraged and promoted in the academic space.

I never corrected the boy at Model UN. I simply told him I was not interested and left him to prey on other unsuspecting delegates. I joked about how weird the interaction was with my friends after it occurred, but it never once crossed my mind that this was something I could have corrected. I never thought about sharing my knowledge on the subject with this guy; I just let him believe he was right and continue on with his intimidation of other nations. To this day, I regret not having spoken up about my position. I had been taught to always speak my mind and to confidently share my opinions and knowledge with others. In class, I was always incredibly vocal during debates and discussions, probably to a fault. At my all-girls high school, we were always taught to stand up for what we believe in and that you can say anything as long as you say it with confidence. But when confronted by an alpha male who was so sure he was correct, I felt intimidated into submission. I let him talk, even though I knew what he was saying was wrong, and once he was done, I did not correct him. That kind of fear permeates every social and academic conversation, and it can intimidate women into silence. When women are too scared or intimidated to share their ideas, the whole conversation suffers the lack of a unique and valid perspective. Mansplaining can be seen as a joke online or an abstract concept never to be confronted in real life, but that greatly harms the conversation we as a society participate in. Eliminating mansplaining from academia means creating a space where all views and takes are valid and are given equal consideration. Allowing one voice to dominate and silence does not make a conversation; it makes a space where a whole host of people and their experiences are discounted. We as a society must learn to not be threatened by women’s experiences, intelligence, and confidence, but to embrace them, because that is the only way to have the full conversation.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my parents for always encouraging and supporting me and for sending me to a high school that encouraged me to be a confident young woman, Professor Kovaleski-Byrnes for helping me guide this essay through its various stages, and that kid with the skinny scarf from Model UN for helping me realize just how important women’s voices are in an academic space.

Works Cited

Academic Men Explain Things To Me. Oct. 2013. 04 Apr. 2019 Web log post. <http:// mansplained.tumblr.com/>.

Douglas, Susan J. Where the Girls Are: Growing up Female with the Mass Media,

“Introduction.” Three Rivers Press, 1995, pp. 3–15.

Kidd, Anna-Grace. Mansplaining: The Systematic Sociocultural Silencer. University of North Georgia. 05 Apr. 2019 <https://digitalcommons.northgeorgia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi? referer=https://scholar.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1681&context=ngresearch

conf>

Lasher, Megan. "Men Like to Mansplain Themselves, Study Finds." Time. 01 Aug. 2016. Time. 04 Apr. 2019 <http://time.com/4433108/men-mansplain-citation-study/>.

Long, Heather. “'Please, Listen to Us': What It's like Being Female at America's Biggest

Economic Conference.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 18 Jan. 2019, www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/please-listen-to-us-what-its-like-being-female-at-americas-biggest-economic-conference/2019/01/18/4809c294-1b47-11e9-88fe-f9f77a3bcb6c_story.htmlutm_term=.a093099f70ab.

McVean, Ada. “The History of Hysteria.” Office for Science and Society, 31 July 2017, www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/history-quackery/history-hysteria.

Ricard, Alicen. "How Mansplaining Harms Women in STEM." Westcoast Women in Engineering, Science and Technology. 31 Aug. 2018. 04 Apr. 2019 <https://www.sfu.ca/ wwest/WWEST_blog/how-mansplaining-harms-women-in-stem.html>.

Smith, Rogers M. (1989) ""One United People": Second-Class Female Citizenship and the American Quest for Community," Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities: Vol. 1 : Iss. 2 , Article 2.  Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/yjlh/vol1/iss2/2

Solnit, Rebecca. Men Explain Things to Me: And Other Essays. London: Granta, 2014.

Todd, Selina. "The academics tackling everyday sexism in university life." The Guardian. 24 Feb. 2015. Guardian News and Media. 04 Apr. 2019 <https://www.theguardian.com/ education/2015/feb/24/sexism-women-in-university-academics-feminism>.

[djseaward]

we are permanent residents.

the reason we decided to apply for permanent residence is, simply, that it's a longer visa. we have been on the two year freelance visa for ages and as many of you know, our last go-around was rough. it kicked our asses. after five years of residence in the czech republic and passing a basic language exam though, you may qualify for permanent residence. well, this was our first chance to apply (now having lived here for over six years) and the language test wasn't so difficult, seeing as we have lived here long enough to soak up loads of language and had three full years of czech lessons by that point.

there were a few funny things since i got that phone call from immigration in january that were a bit surprising. the first was that at our biometrics appointment there last month, we were asked if we wanted to speak english or czech.

WHAT?

i have heard from friends that the immigration ladies may be holding out on us, but now i feel like i know they have been! for those that don't know, it is a well-established fact that all business at immigration must be conducted in czech language. apparently, our czech was just passable enough to apply for permanent residence this past winter (by ourselves! no translators!) but now that we are permanent residents... we suddenly get a choice? shouldn't that sort of be the other way around? goodness! but i can't complain...

the second shock was learning that our residence permits are valid for the next TEN YEARS. (!!!!!) we had thought "five years" this whole time, which is still so much better than two years that it's worth applying, but ten years?! we were walking on cloud nine the entire rest of the month.

so, now what?

some people have been confused how to take the fact that we have permanent residence in the czech republic. i guess, it is one step down from having citizenship, and seems pretty serious. it doesn't change anything about how we feel about living here, however. we are happy living here for now, and plan to stay until we feel like it's time to go. so that's still the same deal.

speaking of going, no longer is this something i want to address. it is every expat's least favorite question: "how long are you staying?" a question we have been asked countless times, of course, but less lately. all's i know that we are happy here and are building a life here right now. as much as i love my hometown, i have always wanted something more.... international, cultural. even living in this smaller-sized city, i realized that it has all of that in spades. sure, sometimes the cinema doesn't play any dang english movies the entire winter (and i still never saw the new mary poppins) but regarding understanding, it’s getting better. i haven't been happier in ages. no anxiety, no panic attacks, no existential funks. that is far more than i can say for most other periods of my life.

the longer we stay, i realize, the harder it would be to extricate ourselves. almost certainly and rather dauntingly, the harder it would be to rebuild our lives in the united states again. but, you know what? we've done what i sort of feel is the near impossible. we came on a schengen visa, not even knowing how legally it would be possible to live in europe. we had many close calls, were really broke at several different points, thought we might get deported (okay, or at least not re-approved). we made it against all odds. i think we can take the chance to stay here a bit longer. besides, after you've successfully navigated your legal residence in a country where you barely speak the langue, i think we can do anything. life is too short to stay in one place too long. for me, right now, it is.

(below, our gangsta-ass mugs in march 2013, having just received our first visas)

just for fun, let's look back on some high and low points in our journey of legally living in europe...

summer 2011 - cynthia and alex decide they will move to europe in a year's time. the how is not important. the saving money is.

may 2012 - bought our plane tickets. one way. lots of people warning us and asking "how are you even going to stay there?" we don't even know ourselves, but trust that we'll figure it out. clicking that "complete order" button was one of the scariest and craziest things i can remember ever doing.

october 2012 - a couple weeks into our journey during our vagabonding around the UK phase, alex informs cynthia he has, like, no more money, dude. we enroll in a TEFL course in prague as to start thinking about a sustainable way to stay in europe as just work-staying around isn't going to last us too much longer, especially with the two of us depleting funds meant for one person.

mid-november 2012 - after one month in the schengen zone (france & germany), we arrive in prague and have one month down, two months ticking away on the clock. the feeling is palpable.

end of november, 2012 - we hire a visa specialist to help us "sort our f--king lives out". it works.

january 2013 - we officially submit our application for a freelance work visa at the czech embassy in bratislava. about a month and a half later, we go back to pick it up. we feel pretty cool and fancy because we get to stay in europe.

september 2015 - our first reapplication process goes okay, despite having to go to an apology session with the immigration office, telling them how sorry we are that our application was submitted late. (this was due to a variety of factors) after some time, we are re-approved.

september 2017 - it's time to reapply for our two year visas. we submit our reapplication.

march 2018 - "so, have you heard anything about our application?" "no ... have you?"

may 2018 - in true immigration form, a long long long long period goes by and then the first problem surfaces - we have the wrong insurance. cry a bit, spend loads of money, incur debt, but meet their requirements. resubmit. looking back, i am thanking my lucky stars this all happened in the spring and summer. if it were in the autumn, we’d have been ruined.

june 2018 - mere hours before we are to fly out on a vacation, receive a long, scary letter informing us we have days left (essentially) unless we can fix our taxes, which were done improperly this past spring.

july 2018 - month of stress and believing we are going to probably be deported. by some miracle, are granted ability to refile our taxes, one of the best hopes for being accepted.

early august 2018 - waiting, hoping, praying in berlin for a month, hoping the actual stress rash i got last month goes away soon because that thing is itchy. i scratch my legs and arms a lot. alex tells me to stop. scratchscratchscratch.

mid-august 2018: ACCEPTED! we found out while out to ice cream with natalye and family in berlin. we eat our ice cream even harder and with more vigor.

september 2018: during a trip to immigration, our friend and translator suggests that perhaps we should apply for permanent residence as "you guys should be eligible for that by now"! it's true, we had been eligible since about january of that year. find out we need to pass a czech exam, schedule it for the end of november. (good thing we had 3 straight years of lessons under our belt - definitely came in handy for situations like this one!)

december 2018 - after having passed the A1 czech language exam, we apply for permanent residence... ON OUR OWN... WITHOUT OUR TRANSLATOR... days before christmas. spend the last working days before christmas at social security and the financial office requesting various necessary forms. could be wrong, but i like to think that wishing our dear officers "veselé vánoce" may have endeared us a bit.

early january 2018, literally ten days after our application: ACCEPTED! danced around the room. the rest is history.

i'll leave you with a quote from cheryl strayed i often think about.... it’s a beautiful way of looking at those big life choices.

“I’ll never know and neither will you of the life you don’t choose. We’ll only know that whatever that sister life was, it was important and beautiful and not ours. It was the ghost ship that didn’t carry us. There’s nothing to do but salute it from the shore.”

thanks for your nice words on social media, friends. here’s to never talking about immigration again!

[lzlbitts]

OBAMA’S ELECTION, THE REPUBLICAN FACTOR, AND A PROPOSAL FOR CHINA 

Liu Xiaobo, like many Chinese, was impressed when American voters chose an African American to be president of the United States. In the following piece, written the day after the election of Barack Obama, he gives his view of the genesis and significance of the event, then follows with a startling suggestion of how a fundamental principle that he sees in the Obama victory might be applied to China.--Ed.

THE SIGHT OF THE OBAMA FAMILY waving to the people in their new role as the next occupants of the White House sparked long dormant political enthusiasm in America and around the world. 

     The eyes of the entire world were on this election because the status of the United States as a superpower and as the leading nation in the free world makes its president the most powerful man on earth. People even jokingly refer to him as “the President of the World.”

     People were watching this election with some problems in mind as well. The financial crisis and the quagmire in Iraq had drastically eroded support for the Bush administration both at home and abroad. The Wall Street crisis had had worldwide repercussions, and the Iraq war seemed to be undermining the international counterterrorist effort. Mainstream opinion in many places was looking forward to “change” in the U.S.

     Barack Obama, an African American who sprang from the grassroots, had no weighty political pedigree, not much of a political track record, and not even much administrative experience. His credentials as a state senator and a U.S. senator seemed meager compared to those of other candidates. People were surprised when such as dark-horse candidate defeated Hilary Clinton, a white democrat from the establishment, in the primary elections. As the election day face-off between him and John McCain approached, there was concern that racist backlash might block an Obama victory, but, just as in the primaries, he defeated his highly qualified opponent by a wider margin than had been seen in years. 

     My view as a Chinese is that Obama’s elevation to the position of 44th president of the United States underscores the greatness of the American system. What interests me most is not whether Obama will be able to handle the crises he faces, but the obvious evidence of how the American democratic system can correct itself. Every four years, the United States can, if it wants, turn itself around by means of a general election that is open to all. It sometimes does this, especially at moments of great crisis. Despite its democratic traditions, America is a predominantly white nation with a problem of racism that pervades its 200-year history. The election of Obama, a man of Kenyan descent, is a remarkable sign of a more tolerant America in the twenty-first century.

     Obama was born in 1961, in an era still marked by racial segregation in the U.S. In 1964 the burgeoning civil rights movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. achieved some landmark victories: Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, outlawing racial discrimination and segregation and guaranteeing blacks equal rights under the law; and Dr. King won the Nobel Peace Prize, one of the most prestigious honors in the world. But bigotry remained rampant, as evidenced most dramatically when a racist assassinated Dr. King on April 4, 1968, and then again when riots occurred in Los Angeles in 1992.

     Obama’s election as the first black president is the culmination of a 200-year-long story. His victory grows out of the fertile soil of democracy, the spontaneous struggle of his black brethren, the support of upstanding whites, and the concerted efforts of the Republican and Democratic parties. Obama of course should appreciate what the Democrats have done. But perhaps he should thank his opponents, the Republicans, even more. I say this not only because the Democratic victory was the result of Republican administrative failures. In a much broader sense, the systemic changes that Republicans instituted at earlier points in history did much to lay the groundwork for Obama’s election. 

     The Democrats, and others who oppose racial discrimination, have made historic contributions to the long struggle for racial equality in America. John Brown’s nineteenth-century insurrection set the stage for the abolition of slavery. President Lyndon Johnson, who signed the Civil Rights Bill in 1964, was a Democrat. The Democrats’ strong opposition to racial discrimination is evident, for example, in the left-leaning culture of American academe, where racial equality has become “politically correct” to the point where it has led even to charges of “reverse discrimination.”

     But Republicans have also made enormous contributions to the cause of racial equality. Abraham Lincoln, a colossus in American history, was a Republican. It was he who issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, legally abolishing slavery, and this paves the way for the ratification in 1868 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which granted citizenship rights to African Americans. These measures, which were the first steps in African American liberation; became the legal foundations for the twentieth-century civil rights movement. Without the Emancipation Proclamation in the nineteenth century, there would have been no Civil Rights Act in the twentieth.

    Moreover it was Ronald Reagan, the preeminent American president of the late Cold War era, who designated the third Monday in January of each year as Martin Luther King Day, a national holiday. Only three people have received this rare honor in the U.S.: Columbus, who is recognized on the second Monday in October for his discovery of America; George Washington, the first American president, who is honored on President’s Day, the third Monday in February; and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., martyr to the cause of civil rights.

     The Republican administration of George W. Bush, despite the predicaments it put the country in at home and abroad, made significant contributions to the advancement of African Americans in the highest echelons of power. In his eight years in office, Bush achieved some “firsts” in this respect: he appointed the first black secretary of state in American history, Colin Powell, and later replaced him with Condoleezza Rice, the first black woman ever to hold this position. The appointments did a great deal to raise the status of African Americans and energized American minorities politically. The media buzz over whether either Rice or Powell might run for president as a Republican did much to prepare the American public for the emergence of an African American presidential candidate. 

     Regardless of how well Obama does in handling America’s problems, America definitely now has a new image in the world. America’s new first family is black--and that fact has more symbolic power than any campaign promises. On the television news, I watched how the whole world--including Obama’s ancestral land of Kenya--hailed his election. 

     In its historical context, Obama’s victory should be called an “American miracle” rather than “Obama’s miracle.” It reminds the world of the greatness of the American melting pot, and inspires us again to look beyond the material aspects of the American dream: its pinnacle is in the White House, not on Wall Street. From now on, the ranks of high-achieving African Americans can include not only Michael Jordans, but Barack Obamas as well. 

     Obama expressed this idea in his victory speech: “If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.”

     These reflections make me think of proposals for solving China’s ethnic conflicts that have come from my friend Wang Lixiong. Wang argues that, as soon as possible, substantive high-level negotiations should take place between the Chinese Communist Party and the Dalai Lama. Such talks could be advantageous to both sides if they happen while the moderate, nonviolent Dalai Lama is still in good health, and while China is still able to maintain peace in Tibet. 

     In fact, the Chinese Communist regime could resolve the entire issue with one bold display of political savvy: it could invite the Dalai Lama back to China to serve as our nation’s president, our Barack Obama. Such a move would make best use of the Dalai Lama’s stature in Tibet and around the world; it could also bring into play a spirit of tolerance among Han Chinese, who have recently been converting to Buddhism in increasing numbers.

     Symbolism aside, a great deal of concrete good could result from such as move, In Tibet, the Dalai Lama is a god and his word is law. If he came back to China, he could marginalize radical Tibetan separatist groups by convincing Tibetans to allow Tibet to remain part of China as an autonomous region. With his worldwide prestige, he could also do a huge amount to improve China’s international image. In addition to all of that, a peaceful resolution of the Tibet question could be a model for solving the Taiwan problem as well as problems with other Chinese minority groups, thereby averting the very real danger that ethnic strife might escalate into large-scale separatist movements. 

     The Dalai Lama, a sagacious man, has a vision for an autonomous, democratic Tibet in which church and state are separate. The vision is grounded in a system that has worked well for many years in the Tibetan government in exile in Dharamsala, India. He has an excellent track record for implementing experiments in democracy similar to those os Chiang Ching-kuo in Taiwan in the 1980s. Such experiments could serve as models for the political transformation of China as a whole. The dawn of true political reform in China can arrive as soon as Chinese authorities sit down at the negotiating table with the Dalai Lama. 

At home in Beijing, November 5, 2008

[thisdaynews]

House Dem impeachment support gains new momentum

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/house-dem-impeachment-support-gains-new-momentum/

House Dem impeachment support gains new momentum

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has tried to hold back efforts to impeach President Donald Trump, but his recent actions could make the task more difficult. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo

congress

The spike in public backing for impeaching Trump could cause headaches for Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Public support among House Democrats for impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump is growing despite Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s attempts to halt the effort.

More than two dozen Democrats who hadn’t previously taken a position voted Wednesday to advance a measure to impeach the president over his racist attack on their colleagues. Before Wednesday, about 85 Democrats had publicly called for an impeachment inquiry — over one third of the 235-member House Democratic caucus.

Story Continued Below

The new outpouring comes before next week’s Capitol Hill testimony by former special counsel Robert Mueller, which is expected to inspire many more lawmakers to join them. Pelosi’s resistance to impeachment, while firm, could be undercut if enough Democrats sign on publicly to remove the president.

If all 27 of the Democratic lawmakers who for the first time sided with Green were to publicly seek an impeachment inquiry, it would put nearly half of House Democrats in that camp.

One of them, Rep. Donald Payne Jr. of New Jersey, said he supports an impeachment inquiry but hadn’t confirmed it publicly until now because he hadn’t been asked. Another, Rep. Karen Bass of California, chair of the influential Congressional Black Caucus, would support opening an impeachment inquiry against Trump if it comes up for a vote in the House Judiciary Committee, an aide said.

And Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard’s office confirmed that the California Democrat supports an “impeachment inquiry to determine whether or not there are legal grounds for impeachment.”

But the situation is complex. POLITICO reached out to all 27 lawmakers who voted Wednesday to advance Al Green’s narrowly tailored articles of impeachment. In interviews or statements from their offices, several revealed they were ready to publicly call for Trump’s ouster or for impeachment proceedings to begin. But others said they joined Green only for technical legislative reasons that had little to do with seeking Trump’s immediate impeachment.

The camp of outright impeachment supporters now includes Reps. Peter Welch of Vermont and Rick Larsen of Washington. Larsen, said he became motivated to support impeachment after Trump’s comments urging four minority congresswomen to “go back” to their home countries — including three who were born in the United States

“I do not come to this decision lightly,” Larsen said in a statement. “His comments do not protect the concept of U.S. citizenship. They undermine it. He should not be the President of the United States.”

Others took a more nuanced view. Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, chairman of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, said he voted with Green because he personally believes Trump has committed offenses worthy of impeachment — but added he’s hesitant to formally seek an inquiry that would be doomed in the Senate.

“Personally, I think he has obstructed justice and has done all these things that would qualify for impeachment. That’s why I vote the way I did,” Pallone said. “Because the Senate will never take up an impeachment, it’s not something I think we should spend our time on.”

Similarly, House Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel of New York said he voted with Green simply to keep open the option of impeachment, even though he’s not ready to embrace an impeachment inquiry.

Despite the new groundswell of support, a slew of others who sided with Green said they did so over a procedural technicality: that the measure should have been referred to the Judiciary Committee instead of summarily blocked.

House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler of New York cited this procedural dispute as the reason he sided with Green, as did the No. 2 Democrat on his committee, Zoe Lofgren of California and a freshman member of the panel, Sylvia Garcia of Texas. Reps. Mike Thompson of California, Dina Titus of Nevada, Anthony Brown of Maryland and Grace Meng of New York, who aren’t members of the committee, also said they voted with Green because they backed Nadler’s position.

“I will support an impeachment inquiry when it becomes necessary in order to get the truth for my constituents,” Meng said in a statement.

Meng noted, though, that she’ll carefully eye Mueller’s testimony next week as she weighs her decision. So did Lori Trahan of Massachusetts.

“Her vote makes clear that Congress stands ready to hold the president accountable and will not hesitate to assert its authority. She looks forward to special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony next week,” a Trahan spokesman said.

One notable vote with Green was Rep. Mike Levin, a freshman California Democrat from a swing district who hadn’t taken a definitive stand on whether to support an impeachment inquiry. In a statement, Levin said he joined Green for the same technical reason as Nadler but noted he’s looking ahead to Mueller’s testimony next week.

“I will support an impeachment inquiry when it becomes necessary in order to get the truth for my constituents,” Levin said.

Other Democrats who voted with Green cited philosophical reasons — but not the desire necessarily to pursue Trump’s impeachment.

“What is this country coming to?” said Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.). “I’m not ready for impeachment, but I’m just disgusted by the rhetoric in this country.”

Rep. Frederica Wilson of Florida said she’s “torn” about what to do but has worried that a failed attempt at impeaching Trump could play into his hands.

California lawmakers Jimmy Gomez and Jerry McNerney said they’d support an impeachment debate on the House floor.

At least eight members of the Congressional Black Caucus who hadn’t previously sought Trump’s impeachment voted to advance Green’s articles of impeachment. But several of them told POLITICO they were making a broader statement about Trump’s racist comments rather than aligning with the impeachment effort.

“I think it represents a larger more important conversation that we need to have about … what we’re willing to tolerate as a citizenry from our commander in chief,” said Andre Carson (D-Ind.). “What responsibility the commander in chief has to the electorate in terms of not fanning the flames of Islamophobia, xenophobia and outright hatred.”

Five of the 27 Democrats who voted with Green — Reps. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, Nita Lowey of New York, Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, Doris Matsui of California and David Scott of Georgia — did not respond to requests for comment. A sixth, Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas, declined to comment.

Notably, more than a dozen lawmakers who already favor an impeachment inquiry voted to sideline Green’s articles of impeachment. Several argued that Green’s focus on Trump’s racism excluded other evidence of potentially impeachable offenses like obstruction of justice.

“We’re not going to take someone and say, ‘Well let’s charge him with manslaughter when he committed mass murder,’’” said Rep. Val Demings of Florida.

Andrew Desiderio contributed to this report.

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Under Trump, Iraqis Who Helped U.S. in War Are Stalled in Refugee System https://nyti.ms/2PFV2tU

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Under Trump, Iraqis Who Helped U.S. in War Are Stalled in Refugee System

Just 4,000 have been deemed eligible to enter the United States over the next year, and a slowdown in the screening process means far fewer are likely to come.

By Lara Jakes | Published Nov. 2, 2019 | New York Times | Posted November 3, 2019 |

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is refusing to take in thousands of Iraqis who risked their lives helping American forces during the Iraq war, cutting the number of high-priority refugees allowed into the United States this year and drastically slowing background checks they must undergo.

Only 153 Iraqi refugees whose applications were given high priority were admitted in the fiscal year that ended in September — down from a high of 9,829 in the 2014 fiscal year, according to government data obtained by The New York Times.

An estimated 110,000 Iraqis are waiting to be approved as refugees based on their wartime assistance. But on Friday, the Trump administration capped the number eligible this year at 4,000.

After the United States-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 that forced Saddam Hussein from power, thousands of Iraqis worked with American troops, diplomats and contractors, serving as translators and cultural advisers. Those Iraqis and their families were threatened, and in many cases attacked, by Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias who accused them of siding with Americans during the eight-year war.

Suhad Munshid left Iraq and resettled in Missoula, Mont., in April — nearly seven years after she applied for a priority refugee visa. The “semi-impossible” application process will probably keep her sister in Iraq from receiving priority status, she said in an interview on Friday.

“I have my only sister living in Baghdad,” she said. “It’s really concerning with what is going on, and I have to call her every day to make sure she is O.K.”

Ms. Munshid’s brother-in-law worked as a cook for American troops in Iraq in 2006, and her family’s home was used as a safe house for soldiers who needed to rest during patrols in Sadr City, a poor neighborhood in Baghdad. But only after the United States declared in 2011 that the war was over and withdrew most of its troops did Ms. Munshid come to believe that she and her family needed to move to America, to escape rampant bombings and increasing instability.

“Every time that I went out, I was not certain that I would make it back home,” said Ms. Munshid, 36, speaking through an interpreter. She now works at a T.J. Maxx in Missoula, stocking shelves; her husband is a chef at a local Indian restaurant.

In an official notice issued late Friday, President Trump capped the number of worldwide refugees the United States will admit in the 2020 fiscal year at 18,000, a record low. The move, which had been expected for weeks, was meant to protect what Mr. Trump described as refugees of “special humanitarian concern.”

Last year, 30,000 refugees were allowed into the United States. During President Barack Obama’s last year in office, 110,000 were admitted.

Over all, about 300,000 people worldwide are actively seeking refugee status to enter the United States. The new cap means that 6 percent of them have a chance of being admitted over the next year, amid what the United Nations has declared a worldwide crisis involving nearly 26 million refugees, half of whom are children.

It is also the first year that the United States has set limits for groups of refugees based on the threats they face at home, as opposed to what part of the world they are from.

Of the 18,000 refugees who will be admitted this year, 5,000 slots are reserved for people persecuted for their religion, 4,000 for high-priority Iraqis and 1,500 for Central Americans. The remaining 7,500 slots will be open to those applying from elsewhere in the world.

But two government officials said that far fewer high-priority Iraqi refugees were expected to be admitted in 2020.

Interviews for applicants — a necessary step in the refugee process — have been slowed and significantly limited since the American Embassy in Baghdad and Consulate in Erbil ordered all nonessential employees out of Iraq for security reasons in May, the officials said.

As a result, very few of the estimated 110,000 Iraqis who appear to be eligible for the refugee program have been interviewed by immigration officers or undergone other screening processes necessary before they can move to the United States, the officials said. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity to more frankly discuss an internal and politically delicate issue.

A spokesman for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, which conducts the interviews, said teams of refugee officers continue to travel to the Middle East, including to Iraq, to interview applicants on what are known as “circuit rides.” The spokesman would not say when the last circuit ride in Iraq had been conducted, citing security concerns.

A State Department spokeswoman said fewer high-priority Iraqi refugees had been admitted to the United States in part because of tougher background checks ordered by Mr. Trump last year. “The security checks take time, but they are critical,” she said.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Saturday that American support for refugees went beyond the immigration system, and pointed to a border crisis that warranted certain limits.

“Prioritizing the cases of those already in our country is simply a matter of common sense,” he said in a statement.

Since the 2008 fiscal year, the United States has accepted 47,331 Iraqi refugees under the Direct Access Program, giving priority in the resettlement process to those who were affiliated with the American government during the Iraq war. Of those, 3,249 were accepted during the first three years of the Trump administration, the government data show.

Initially, the Pentagon had requested that 6,000 slots be given to the high-priority Iraqi refugees for the 2020 fiscal year. But others in the Trump administration, wary of a continued threat from the Islamic State, fought to lower the number of Iraqis, viewing them as a security risk.

Over the summer, the Department of Homeland Security deported Jimmy Aldaoud, who was born in Greece to Iraqi parents and had lived in the United States since he was an infant. He had accumulated at least 20 criminal convictions over 20 years and was sent to Iraq, where he had never lived and did not speak the language.

His death in Baghdad — alone, sick and begging to return to his family in Detroit — outraged lawmakers and human rights activists.

A new spate of unrest across Iraq — weeks of violent demonstrations by protesters who demand public services and are challenging government corruption — has made refugee applicants all the more anxious.

Ms. Munshid, who was resettled by the International Rescue Committee in Missoula, said she never considered leaving Iraq during the war. It was only after the American military withdrew, and the tenuous security began to unravel, that she listened to the urgings of her brother-in-law, who moved to Seattle in 2010.

“He started telling us how safe it is here in America and how people could live prosperous lives,” she said in Arabic.

Then, for the only time in a 23-minute interview, she switched to halting English.

“I like America,” she said.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs contributed reporting.

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Judge temporarily blocks Trump order requiring would-be immigrants to prove they have health insurance

By Yasmeen Abutaleb, Jeff Stein and Kayla Epstein | Published November 03 at 4:32 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted November 3, 2019

Immigration attorneys and health officials still feared a Trump order placing health insurance requirements on would-be immigrants would stymie family-based immigration and sow rampant confusion and fear among immigrant communities, despite a federal judge placing a temporary block on the rule.

A federal judge on Saturday blocked a Trump administration rule requiring immigrants to prove they had insurance or could pay for medical care before they can obtain visas, but immigration attorneys and health officials said the block still does not alleviate confusion and uncertainty among existing and would-be immigrants.

U.S. District Court Judge Michael Simon in Portland, Ore., issued a temporary restraining order on Saturday, the day before the policy was set to go into effect.

Trump’s October proclamation required that prospective immigrants demonstrate they could obtain health insurance within 30 days of arriving in the United States — a demand that immigration and health experts said would be particularly onerous for low-income immigrants who may not already have lined up jobs with health insurance or who may be unable to pay for “reasonably foreseeable medical costs,” according to the proclamation. Experts warned that the policy would favor wealthy would-be immigrants and prevent many U.S. citizens from bringing over family members.

The proclamation also required that even those who qualified for a federal tax subsidy to help buy health insurance on the Obamacare individual market would have to reject that subsidy, although there is not a mechanism on the federal health exchange website, healthcare.gov, to do that.

The proclamation came shortly after a wave of legal challenges sought to block Trump’s “public charge” rule, which would have made it more difficult for immigrants to get green cards if they needed federal assistance, such as food stamps or Medicaid. That rule was put on hold last month before it could go into effect.

Yet the temporary blocks on both policies — both of which appeared designed, experts said, to heavily favor wealthy immigrants and prevent many low-income immigrants from coming to the United States — has done little to assuage fear among immigrants already living here. Some immigrants have sought to disenroll themselves from federal health insurance to which they are legally entitled, including Medicaid, health officials said, while others fear they will not be able to bring family members over.

The proclamation sparked particular fear and confusion among some American citizens who planned to apply for visas for their parents and other relatives, said Jesse Bless, director of litigation at the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Other immigrants expressed concerns that if they leave the country to apply for their visas from consulates in their home countries, they would be denied reentry because of the proclamation and separated indefinitely from their family members in the U.S., according to Bless.

“People are confused and terrified they will lose the ability to the live in the U.S. with their loved ones,” Bless said.

The Migration Policy Institute estimated that the presidential proclamation could prohibit the entry of about 375,000 immigrants annually, mainly those coming into the country on a family immigration program, who make up the majority of green-card holders. About one in four legal immigrants lack health insurance, compared to about one in 10 citizens, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Seven U.S. citizens and the nonprofit Latino Network brought the lawsuit against the administration’s new policy. In his restraining order, Simon wrote that they demonstrated that “they are likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of temporary relief, that the balance of hardship tips sharply toward Plaintiffs, and temporary relief is in the public interest.”

The proclamation had also sparked concern among federal officials tasked with implementing it. On an October conference call, officials in the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight raised practical and legal questions about implementing the proclamation, according to two government officials on the call granted anonymity to share details of a private conversation.

Among the concerns raised on the call were whether carrying out and enforcing the proclamation was legal, these two people said. At least one official raised concerns about how the new order would affect immigrants currently on the health care exchanges set up by the Affordable Care Act.

One attorney on the call said that, “I’m really thinking that in many ways, sticking to the letter of the proclamation will cause us to run afoul of current laws on the book,” the two government officials said.

Politico also reported that Centers for Medicare and Medicaid officials had legal concerns about implementing the order, but details from the internal call have not been previously reported.

A spokesman for CMS denied that the agency had legal concerns about the president’s proclamation. “The Department has no concerns with implementing the President’s proclamation. Any alleged comments to the contrary are inaccurate,” spokesman Johnathan Monroe said in a statement.

State officials were also left in the lurch, uncertain how or if the new rules would state-run health care programs open to immigrants because they had not yet received federal guidance. More than a dozen members of state health exchanges held a call on Friday to try to resolve confusion over how to comply, according to an official on the call who was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about it. Several state health officials submitted comments warning of dire consequences for immigrants if the proclamation went into effect.

The block will remain in place for 28 days, during which both the plaintiffs and the government will have time to gather and present evidence to the court.

The White House criticized the restraining order on Sunday afternoon and asserted the president’s right to make such changes to immigration policy.

“It is wrong and unfair for a single district court judge to thwart the policies that the president determined would best protect the United States healthcare system,” press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement. She added: “The Administration looks forward to the opportunity to make its defense in court.”

The organizations involved in the case — the Justice Action Center, the American Immigration Lawyers Association and the Innovation Law Lab, with pro bono assistance from the law firm, Sidley Austin — celebrated the decision on Saturday but noted that their case was far from concluded.

“Today’s decision highlights the urgency of blocking this health care ban before it causes irreparable damage to our community and those we serve,” Carmen Rubio, executive director of Latino Network, said in a statement.

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