#it's practically impossible to be granted asylum

[raelis1]

[monkishes]

Violent Delights | 01

Y/N volunteers in a mental hospital with the intention to help the patients and care for them. Everything seems to be normal, except for seven boys whom she was assigned to. She doesn't understand what mess she has gotten herself into, and when she does, it's too late to get out.

warnings : mental illnesses, mentions of eating disorders, mental asylum, pills/drugs.

word count : 1905

pairing : ot7 x reader

chapter 1 of ? ——— previous -> next

Your ears filled with the cacophony of honking cars mixed with the sounds of people shouting. For the past ten minutes, you had been stuck in traffic, barely moving an inch. It felt as though the never ending flow of cars would never stop. You were practically leaning against the window, tapping your fingers on your thigh as irritation sank into every fibre in your body.

Frustrated, you sat up straight and beeped the horn another few times (even though you knew it wouldn't help.) A thought crossed your mind, and you realised the hospital wasn't too far from where you are right now. You frantically looked around for any available parking spaces, but everything was occupied, and everything that wasn't was practically impossible to get to.

Your hand itched towards your phone, gripping onto it and double tapping to check the time. 12:23PM, it read. Over twenty minutes late. If it continued to look like this, you wouldn't get to the hospital anytime soon.

The only thing left for you to do was to wait and pray that the traffic moved on.

Quickly hurrying out of the car, your shoes clacked against the concrete floors of the car park as you made your way over to the tall building. It loomed over you, seemingly stretching into the sky with no end.

A little further away from the entrance, you watched as another person rushed in through the doors. They seemed to be coming from the same traffic you came from. Unlike them, you didn't immediately run over to the doors, and instead took a minute to look at yourself in a compact mirror, checking if you looked presentable. After patting down a few flyaways, you let out a deep breathe and went back to speed walking towards the entrance.

The automatic glass doors opened as you stood before them, granting you entry and you stepped through them. The noise from the outside world was instantly replaced by the bustling sounds of the busy hospital. It was loud, the sounds of footsteps, inaudible conversations and medical equipment filling the air.

Your eyes darted from place to place before landing on the reception desk and you made your way over. The receptionist was engrossed in her computer, not sparing you a glance as you stood before her.

You hesitated for a moment before clearing your throat, but even that didn't seem to catch her attention, she continued clicking away on her keyboard as if you didn't even exist.

"Excuse me?" you mumbled, somewhat embarrassed as the receptionist glanced up towards you. "I'm here as a volunteer."

The receptionist straightened up, and you noticed the name tag attached to the right side of her uniform, Bora.

She looked at you up and down, her lip quirking up as she met your eyes. "You're over forty minutes late."

"I know, there was a lot of—"

"Traffic? Yes, I know. I also know of other volunteers who took the same route as you but managed to come on time, if not even earlier." Bora pushed herself back on her spinning chair, folding her arms and maintaining eye contact with you. Her intense gaze caused you to look down in shame, you hadn't realised forty minutes had passed.

"I—"

"Listen, I know you're not getting paid for this, but if you're just here to waste our time, the door's right there. The people here need help, we're not here to mess around." she pointed towards where you came from, and you couldn't help but glance for a second towards there. If she interrupted you one more time, maybe you would consider leaving.

"I apologise, I'm here to help. Trust me, Bora, it won't happen again." you finally managed to say without being interrupted.

"It better not. Do you know where you need to go?"

"I was told that someone would brief me here." you explained, noticing the annoyance in her tone.

"Well, since you're late, figure things out yourself. What's your name?"

"Y/N..." you muttered before the began typing away at the computer. When she finally stopped, she spun her chair round to the other side where the printer was sat, and you watched as she impatiently waited for a paper to be released.

She spun back towards you, handing you a sheet of paper with a bunch of writing on it. "You'll have to go to Dr. Hans room to get the stuff you need, it's down that corridor," she said, motioning with her fingers towards a hall, "His name is on his door so you'll know it when you see it."

"I would go over the case files with you, but since you're so late, that'll have to be done on another day." she finished, going back to typing away.

"So... all I do is give them their prescriptions?" you question, holding up the paper and scanning it with your eyes.

Bora grumbled at your question, and now it was clear that she did not like you. For what reason, you had no clue, but could only assume it was because of your tardiness. Still, you had a valid reason, right? She didn't have to give you such attitude.

"You'll give them their prescriptions, clean their rooms and assist them with whatever they need. If it's something medical, you'll have to call a doctor. Got it?"

"Yeah, thanks." you send her a smile that is unreciprocated and only returned with a scowl and a roll of her eyes.

Bora seemed like a friendly person, maybe being late just got you onto her bad side. So much for a good first impression.

As she walked down the endless hallway, her eyes continued to read over the paper that was handed to her which consisted of seven names in bold black writing followed with their illness and what things they need. With furrowed eyebrows, you read over the names of their pills and confusion set into your mind at their foreign names. At least you didn't have to pick those out.

For a second, you had forgotten where you were headed, but soon remembered that Dr. Han's room was somewhere in this corridor and that he was in charge of the pills. Instead of scanning the paper, your eyes scanned the hall, looking for a door with the doctors name.

It didn't take long to find it, and you were standing in front of his door in no time.

You brought up your fist to the door, knocking once, causing a muffled voice to be heard from inside. "Come in," it said, and you could only assume that it was Dr. Han. Still clutching onto the paper with one hand, you used the other to push open the door, revealing a man sat down at a desk. He looked to be only a few years older than you, his dark black hair pushed back with glasses sat atop his head. For a second, you admired his beauty, were all the workers here so good looking?

"May I help you?" he asked, slightly tilting his head to the left.

"Are you Dr. Han?" you spoke, to which the man nodded. You took the chance to walk closer towards him, letting the door shut behind you. "I'm here as a volunteer, Bora sent me here."

He nodded in understanding, the polite smile never leaving his face. Dr Han stood from his position at his desk, gesturing with his finger for you to come closer. "Could you hand me that?" he asked, looking towards the paper in your hand.

You handed it to him, and proceeded to wait there patiently in silence as he made his way around the room, grabbing various pills from shelves and not once making a mistake. It seemed as though he knew the room like the back of his hand.

Since you were now standing right at his desk, you took the chance to let your eyes scan all of its contents. It consisted of a computer with a keyboard, but that's not what caught your attention. You noticed the names of two boys, attached with a picture and a bunch of other writing. Unfortunately, due to your horrible eyesight, you had to squint hard to make out any of the words, Park Jimin and J—

Before you could read out the second name, Dr. Han was already making his way back towards you, this time with a tray in hand. You took a step back, realising that you were making yourself appear as nosy and rude. This was none of your business, anyway.

He returned with the tray and several other items, carefully placing each one onto the gray tray before handing it to you. It was of medium size, able to fit onto one of ur hands if you could balance it properly. You noticed that he had put the sheet of paper that you previously had down onto the tray first, then put everything else on top, allowing you to read off the names and hold all the prescriptions with no problems.

"How comes you're so late?" the doctor questioned, looking at you with a curious gaze.

"Oh, there was a lot of traffic." you replied, smiling sheepishly and expecting to be told off. Instead, Dr. Han chuckled softly at your reaction before taking his seat.

"I assume Bora already scolded you for being late." he said, rolling himself closer to his desk. You nodded, letting your finger roam across the edge of the tray. "I apologise on her behalf, she can be quite a handful."

"It's no problem, I understand where she's coming from anyway."

"Yeah, but she's probably just cranky since you're working with 'her boys.'" he rolled his eyes, and you could sense the dislike he felt towards her.

"What do you mean?" you asked, confused.

"Oh, nothing, never mind. You should probably get going, and come back when you're done."

Although you were confused and wanted him to answer your question, you knew staying would end up wasting more time, and instead decided to take your leave, muttering a quick goodbye with an awkward smile.

Before you left, you watched him go back to writing something down on a sheet of paper, and even more curiosity set down in your body.

[sareisnot]

Lord Gwyn: The Perfect Anticlimax

"Dark Souls is a hard game"

To anyone who's even a little bit familiar with the franchise, this is an obnoxiously obvious statement. The game has held the title of THE "hard game" for so long, that not only has the statement "X is the Dark Souls of Y" become a cliche, but so has every subsequent mocking subversion of that comparison. To even acknowledge its obviousness, as I did, is territory so well-worn, that I'm at risk of falling through, into the hackneyed void. But it's still worth mentioning. It's a well-earned reputation. Not only is Dark Souls, on a purely technical level, difficult to beat, but its entire identity is based around its difficulty, if the name of the "Prepare to Die" edition is any indication. Its world is a punishing one, seeking to beat the player character down at every single opportunity, until they can't stand to move another step forward, lest they get thwacked by a swinging axe, skewered by a demon, swept off a cliff, or obliterated by a dragon with teeth where its torso should be. It's a game that crushes you down, intending to make very clear just how easy your character can die, and, importantly, just how unimportant your death will be. To these bosses, these titans, these near-gods, you are nothing but an annoyance. Many of these fights feel like climactic struggles against an ancient, near-unbeatable foe, who existed long before you were born, and has a pretty solid chance of existing after you've expired. When you enter the arena of Ornstein and Smough, the music swells, and the two knights flex the skills that they're going to use to kill you over and over again. Many of the game's bosses, try to tap into that sense of scale, of importance, of grandiosity, each of their respective battles feeling like they could easily be the final one.

Then, after a long struggle, you make it to the end.

The game's final boss is Gwyn, a towering figure who's been hinted at throughout the game, through dialogue and item descriptions. Even if you didn't pay much attention to the little pieces of lore that the game hands you, you're able to put together that he's a pretty important guy: the mighty Lord of Cinder. The buildup to his fight hints at an even larger presence than the other bosses. You travel beneath Firelink Shrine, your home base for most of the game, where you find a massive expanse of land, cold and dark, a mysterious coliseum-like structure looming in the distance, which is impossibly large, even so far away. As you get closer, ghosts of old knights appear to attack you. They are easily dispatched, but still a shock. The structure towers over you, emphasizing just how much space is needed to house this mythologically strong figure, and the power that he holds. You enter, and find…….a hollowed old man. He's slightly taller than you, dressed in robes, and wielding a flaming greatsword, but he's nowhere near the scale of other bosses. However, he rushes at you all the same. When you begin the duel, it feels different from the others. There is no dramatic, sweeping music. All you get is a somber piano, like something that would play during a funeral, rather than a climactic duel. It feels like Gwyn's theme is actively pitying him. Granted, it's appropriate for the fight. All Gwyn can do is swing is flaming blade, which you can avoid with ease. There's been some easier bosses, but at least they didn't feel like they WANTED to die. Besides, this isn't the fragile Moonlight Butterfly, or the starting Asylum Demon, this is the final boss! He should be challenging you! Putting all the skills you've learned to the test! He's a fucking King! Why isn't he stronger? Fighting Gwyn after you've fought everyone else feels like walking into the home of an old, dilapidated hoarder, and kicking him while he's down. If you've been practicing your parrying, its like doing the same, except with cleats. He just seems………tired. As pathetically destitute as you were at the start. He might as well just keel over when you walk in the door. You beat him, naturally, and then the game just kinda….ends. If you got the ending I did, you just exit the area, look at all the nice snake friends you just made, and then roll credits. For all the work you've put into getting here, and all the struggles you've had to overcome, it feels like a severe anticlimax, like the game is playing a prank on you.

But if you know anything about the setting of Dark Souls, you'd know that there's really no other way this could end.

"The world of Dark Souls is dying"

This is a phrase that, while not as oft repeated as the above, is also pretty common knowledge at this point. Lodran, the game's setting, is a desolate place, long past its glory years. Once a powerful kingdom, teeming with life and magic, it is now in ruin, every citizen either dead, hollowed, or left to survive amongst the numerous deadly creatures that now roam the land. Everyone who's still around at the start of the game is either destined for misery, or already there (Unless you're Andre. He seems to be doing pretty well, all things considered). Somewhere around the time Lordran has reached the end of its life cycle, is when the player character enters the story, albeit with a rather unenviable role. Your job is to essentially be the world's janitor, cleaning out the world's former main characters, most of whom are insane, and all of whom are well past their useful days (or, if you have the DLC, you get to see Artorias right as he passes this point). Unfortunately, most of them would like to keep being alive, so they're going to make that difficult for you, by turning you into red mist until you stop trying to kill them. Even the grandiose presentation some of them have can't entirely hide the fact that this is a rather sad state of affairs for everyone, especially for those who haven't really done anything wrong (I nearly cried at having to kill Sif, and I will never fight Priscilla). Fortunately, some of these bastards contributed to the world's current bleakness, so killing them provides at least a twinge of catharsis, albeit one that will certainly be gone by the time you move onto the next bastard. The goal of this whole clean-up process, is to prepare the world to either continue with the age of fire with you as the catalyst, hopefully without those brutes who were clogging the power vacuums, or plunge the world into a new age of darkness, now that it has been cleansed of its polluting influences.

The only mean to either of these ends, is to kill Gwyn, the Lord of Cinder, former ruler of Lordran, and one of the primary reasons that this world is such a goddamn mess. To sum up his actions without getting too deep into the lore's intricacies; Gwyn knew that his kingdom was destined to fall, due to the world's oncoming transition from the age of fire into the age of shadow. This transition was represented by the dwindling light of the first flame, the lifeblood of the kingdom. After utterly failing to rekindle it, Gwyn entered a final gambit to prolong the life of his empire, linking himself with the first flame, but burning himself, and many of his knights, away in the process. This left him as a hollow, doomed to languish in his kiln, until another unfortunate soul took his place, linking the flame to further prolong the changeover. In doing this, Gwyn went against the natural laws of his world, which didn't react well to having its transitionary cycle interrupted. The world fell into a sharp decline, becoming a desolate, unhappy place, festering with demons and monsters (many of whom were the result of the last time someone tried to rekindle the first flame), making life hell for anyone unlucky enough to still be around afterwards. Gwyn wanted to prolong the inevitable, prevent the death of his kingdom, and continue its prosperity, so he sacrificed everything. His realm has persisted, but in a state of undeath, having stuck around long past its natural expiration date, just like him. Gwyn's story can be properly summarized as what happens when someone is psychotically obsessed with preserving their power, even when that preservation only serves to make the world a substantially worse place. Gwyn, in his hollow state, is a symbol of Lordran's persistent deterioration.

None of this information is directly handed to the player. Some bits are alluded to through snippets of dialogue and item descriptions, and the opening cutscene depicts one of the major inciting events of the narrative, but for the most part, it's a sprawling, multi-phased story, that is dolled out non-linearly, and piecemeal.

Now, with that context, let's cast a new lens on that fight…

After delving underneath Firelink Shrine for the final time, you come upon a desolate landscape, the Kiln of the First Flame looming in the distance. It's clearly well past its glory days, looking decrepit and sad. It is home of the world's lifeblood, but in name only. Now, it holds the last remnant of an age long past. As you approach, the spirits of old knights come to attack you, but they aren't much of a challenge, being just shadows of their former selves. They're victims, really; their loyalty has bound them to a sorry task, but they're in the way, and they weren't really living much of a life anyway. When you get closer to the kiln, it feels impossibly large, but also cold, and surprisingly dark, for something that's supposed to house an eternal flame. When you can see more details, it becomes clear just how long it's been falling into ruin. It feels abandoned, but you know its not. After all, you're here to end the life of its only resident. You enter, and find…. Lord Gwyn, a king who destroyed himself and cast the world into ruin, just to hold on to a formerly prosperous time. Lord Gwyn, whose refusal to let the fire die is the reason why you had to struggle through this entire journey. Lord Gwyn, whose death will mark the end of a era, no matter what you do afterwards. He charges at you, barely even conscious anymore, having been locked in this tomb for unknowable amounts of time. But he can't really fight you, at least not well. His strength isn't nearly what it used to be, now that he's a hollow, tired and worn-down, just like you were at the start. He's a pitiable figure, and the music knows. That sorrowful piano fades in, almost like something that would play at a funeral. But this isn't a funeral. This is a mercy killing. Spiritually, Gwyn died a long time ago. You're just putting his body to rest. When he's finally dispatched, it feels like an anticlimax. But of course it is. Gwyn is the embodiment of the world you've spent so much time exploring. Lordran has been denied a proper climax for so long, because he extended the story long past where it should have ended. He's been waiting to be killed for ages now. It feels only right that Gwyn be an easy, anticlimactic boss, because how could such a destitute figure be anything else?

"Dark Souls is a hard game for a reason"

The above statement is a simplified summation of why Dark Souls is one of my favorite games that I’ve ever played. It's set in a dying, hostile world, that's been brought to ruin by the violation of its natural laws. Thus, the game is insistent on making the player struggle at every turn, to make them feel just as downtrodden as the world they explore. Lord Gwyn is a example of just how thoroughly holding onto power can corrupt someone, leaving them as a husk, the scraps of their former glory existing only the in the memory of the people who are still forced to cope with the consequences of their selfish actions. Thus, his boss fight is an intentionally easy anticlimax, to emphasize just how far he's fallen, to the point that he can't even put up a good point. It's the themes of his character, perfectly melding with the gameplay. It's a perfect encapsulation of the game's best quality, how the experience of playing the game, reflects the themes and tone of its story. The reasons why the fight with Gwyn is the perfect anticlimax, and why Dark Souls is a near-perfect game, are one and the same.

[thisisjamaica]

The acclaimed writer and poet died aged 65. Here, leading contemporaries pay tribute.

Michael Rosen (British author and poet): ‘He nudged people into seeing the world through the eyes of the oppressed.’

Benjamin was a hero to millions of people all over the world. His mix of poetry, novels, wisdom, humour and sheer presence grabbed us and delighted us. I first saw him when he was starting out in the poetry clubs, dancing a poem about his mother, voicing his poetry in a voice I hadn’t heard before: Brummie-Caribbean. It was an honour and treat to work with him many times over the years, on videos, radio programmes, and when he MC’d an award ceremony run by the British Council for the best examples of English teaching. Then and often elsewhere, he loved reflecting on his journey from being a semi-literate teenager, getting into trouble, to someone feted at the highest levels for his literary achievements and force of personality.

His poetry is full of power, humanity and belief. He was a Rastafarian in belief and practice and loved talking about what that meant to him. I hope he won’t mind me saying that his love of all things living reminded me of William Blake. People will remember him, I’m sure, appearing on Question Time gently and wittily batting experienced politicians to one side with his comments. I once asked him how he did it, how did he encapsulate “big” stuff in such pithy, seemingly simple ways. He said that he imagined himself talking with his mother: how would they talk about it, he said?

He wrote novels for teenagers. Refugee Boy – as it sounds – takes the point of view of a refugee and the struggle that people in his area have of winning him asylum. One of the great moments in the book is when the boy reflects on what “problems” the local British boys seem to have compared with the problems he is going through.

That’s what Benjamin did over and over again, nudge people into seeing the world through the eyes of the oppressed.

Some of his wonderful performances are up online. Please look at them as your way of paying tribute to him. My own personal favourite is Rong Radio. I once asked him where he wrote his poems. He said, “I don’t write them. I make them up in my head when I go running.”

I am devastated by this news. I admired, respected and loved Benjamin and I learned so much from him.

Colin Grant (British author and historian): ‘He was the people’s poet.’

It was raining heavily at the Hay festival 20 years ago when I first saw and was mesmerised by Benjamin Zephaniah. The marquee was filled to the rafters with hundreds of people who it seemed were attending not a literary or racial sacrament but a spiritual one. Rain outside; eternal sunshine within.

Benjamin was the trailblazing epitome not of the reductive “ethnic writer” but of the global majority writer who refused to be categorised. In any event, though kind of ordinary, his uniqueness – a karate, yoga and dominoes-loving Rastafarian poet and storyteller – made it impossible to box him in.

For young black writers, he was the answer to literary gatekeepers who claimed there were no commercial prospects for writing that spoke to social deprivation, marginalisation and racism with a plain-speaking honesty and humour.

There was also the realisation that here was a brotherman who’d been a rascal in his youth but had reinvented himself and been saved by literature; that writing could transform the self as well as readers and listeners.

Benjamin was a one-love Rasta, not guided by any kind of separatism. Today, as some default to silos of separation, his porous writing showed how you could speak to an unimagined cohort with poetry and prose. He was, in essence, what Jamaicans call a “simple sense man”; he spoke to youngsters and elders with the same intensity.

The seeming guilelessness of his writing made some wince and claim he was not a real, learned poet. But when you stopped to listen, or clean your glasses, or dry your eyes, you’d find yourself in the presence of a fierce and fearless emotional intelligence. Benjamin’s spoken and written voice was the expression of a writer who was extraordinary in his ordinariness. He was the people’s poet; a groundbreaker who broke bread with everyone.

[bopinion]

2020 / 45

Aperçu of the week:

Hope is the last to die (1. Korinther 5, 19 - 28) ...and I don't want it to die. Do you hear that, America!?!

Bad news of the week:

After the pandemic is before the pandemic. In its current Pandemics Report, the United Nations Biodiversity Council (IBPES) in Bonn, Germany, assumes that humanity will have to prepare for more frequent pandemics in the future. The reason is the current way of life, because "the same human activities that cause climate change and the loss of biodiversity also increase the risk of a pandemic."

In the animal kingdom, there are up to 850,000 viruses that could spread to humans - just like Sars-CoV-2 did. Deforestation, extensive land use, trade with wild animals and their contact with livestock breeding are the primary causes. Already today, five diseases are spreading to mankind every year. Each of them has the potential to cause a pandemic.

Unfortunately, it can be assumed that the global community will concentrate more on strengthening health authorities, international research exchange and vaccination strategies as precautionary measures than on learning something fundamental from the experience with the corona virus. Once again, more attention is being paid to the effects than to the causes. This is not surprising, because just as in the face of climate change and species loss, it is precisely the change in human lifestyle that would be the most effective - but apparently also the most difficult.

P.S.: The great Sean Connery died yesterday. I'm shaken, not stirred.

Good news of the week:

The consequences of the corona pandemic are generally estimated to affect the poorest people most. Not only in a particular society, but worldwide. The infection rates among minorities are by far the highest, children in the third world suffer most from closed educational institutions, hygiene measures are practically impossible to implement in slums, and in poor countries health care is overtaxed from the outset, if it exists at all. And so on.

The international Covax Initiative under the leadership of WHO, Cavi and Cepi wants to counteract this in order not to disadvantage the underprivileged countries, at least in terms of vaccine availability. Practically all countries have already joined the initiative - except the USA under Trump, of course.

Two participants are particularly noteworthy: China and Great Britain. China, often criticized for a lack of transparency and cooperation, officially takes the position that Covid-19 vaccines should be a "global public good". China wants to focus on "ensuring that developing countries have equal access to appropriate, safe and effective vaccines". This can almost be called assuming global responsibility.

And Boris Johnson, who at the same time confirms the prejudice of the "British island mentality" in the context of Brexit, promises 340 million pounds to the Covax budget. This is a remarkable contribution in view of the financial squeeze in which the United Kingdom is increasingly finding itself. This too is an assumption of global responsibility, which is particularly well suited to the once leading colonial power. Joe Biden, take over!

P.S.: Germany granted political asylum to the first activist from Hong Kong. That's a statement!

Sense of achievement of the week:

As a solo freelancer you never really have any vacation from work. Everything that you don't do, stays lying there waiting for you. If you do not work, you do not earn money. And even if you're not officially active, you're always on standby, always available, always restless. After three weeks of hard work and maximum possible foresight, it seems to me that, also thanks to the help of cooperative colleagues, I have now really succeeded in not having to work the coming week - in Bavaria's autumn vacations. At least at my desk, because during these last three weeks everything else has been left behind. But you just can't have it all... ;-)

[radishreader]

A teenage girl carrying her baby arrived at the U.S. border this summer and begged for help. She told federal agents that she feared returning to Guatemala. The man who raped her she said had threatened to make her “disappear.”

Then, advocates say, the child briefly vanished — into the custody of the U.S. government, which held her and her baby for days in a hotel with almost no outside contact before federal officers summarily expelled them from the country.

Similar actions have played out along the border for months under an emergency health order the Trump administration issued in March. Citing the threat of COVID-19, it granted federal agents sweeping powers to almost immediately return anyone at the border, including infants as young as 8 months. Children are typically entitled to special protections under the law, including the right to have their asylum claims adjudicated by a judge.

Under this new policy, the administration is not deporting children — a proceeding based on years of established law that requires a formal hearing in immigration court.

It is instead expelling them — without a judge’s ruling and after only a cursory government screening and no access to social workers or lawyers, sometimes not even their family, while in U.S. custody. The children are not even granted the primary registration number by which the Department of Homeland Security tracks all immigrants in its care, making it “virtually impossible” to find them, Efrén C. Olivares, a lawyer with the Texas Civil Rights Project, wrote in a court declaration arguing that the practice is illegal...

[lichi-chan]

рассказывает историю одного из своих заявителей, гражданина Узбекистана, которому отказали в убежище в России.

💔 «Я не представляю, что мне делать дальше, потому что вернуться на родину я не могу: меня либо посадят в тюрьму, а выйти оттуда живым, если ты гей, почти невозможно, либо меня убьют односельчане».

😔 Миграционная служба признала, что заявитель принадлежит к ЛГБТ-сообществу и что на родине ему грозит уголовное наказание. Но не посчитала это основанием для предоставления ему убежища.

По словам юристов «Гражданского содействия», факт того, что преследование геев в Узбекистане активно развивается, включая и «показательные наказания», которые иногда заканчиваются убийством, дает новое основание запросить временное убежище в России.

Процесс обжалования может длиться несколько лет. Это не дает заявителям официального статуса, ☝тем не менее оберегает их от риска быть выдворенными.

На практике в России еще ни один заявитель из ЛГБТ-сообщества не получил ни статус беженца, ни временное убежище, несмотря на заметно увеличивающееся

tells the story of one of his applicants, a citizen of Uzbekistan, who was denied asylum in Russia.

💔 "I have no idea what to do next, because I can’t return to my homeland: they either put me in jail and get out alive if you are gay, it’s almost impossible, or my villagers will kill me."

😔 The Migration Service admitted that the applicant belongs to the LGBT community and that he faces criminal punishment in his homeland. But she did not consider this a basis for granting him asylum.

According to lawyers from Civic Assistance, the fact that the persecution of gays in Uzbekistan is actively developing, including “indicative punishments,” which sometimes end with murder, provides a new basis for seeking temporary asylum in Russia.

The appeal process can take several years. This does not give the applicants official status, but nevertheless protects them from the risk of being expelled.

In practice, in Russia, not a single applicant from the LGBT community has received either refugee status or temporary asylum, despite a markedly increasing

[socialjusticeartshare]

ICE Expels Migrant Children Without Trial, Making Them ‘Impossible To Find’

A teenage girl carrying her baby arrived at the U.S. border this summer and begged for help. She told federal agents that she feared returning to Guatemala. The man who raped her she said had threatened to make her “disappear.”

Then, advocates say, the child briefly vanished — into the custody of the U.S. government, which held her and her baby for days in a hotel with almost no outside contact before federal officers summarily expelled them from the country.

Similar actions have played out along the border for months under an emergency health order the Trump administration issued in March. Citing the threat of COVID-19, it granted federal agents sweeping powers to almost immediately return anyone at the border, including infants as young as 8 months. Children are typically entitled to special protections under the law, including the right to have their asylum claims adjudicated by a judge.

Under this new policy, the administration is not deporting children — a proceeding based on years of established law that requires a formal hearing in immigration court.

It is instead expelling them — without a judge's ruling and after only a cursory government screening and no access to social workers or lawyers, sometimes not even their family, while in U.S. custody. The children are not even granted the primary registration number by which the Department of Homeland Security tracks all immigrants in its care, making it “virtually impossible" to find them, Efrén C. Olivares, a lawyer with the Texas Civil Rights Project, wrote in a court declaration arguing that the practice is illegal.

Little is known about how the process works, but published government figures suggest almost all children arriving at the border are being rapidly returned.

Between April and June, Customs and Border Protection officials encountered 3,379 unaccompanied minors at or between ports of entry. Of those, just 162 were sent to federal shelters for immigrant children run by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the Health and Human Services agency tasked with their care. CBP would not say whether the remaining minors had been expelled or explain what had happened to them.

The precise number of children who are detained or to what situations they are returned is difficult to ascertain.

“We are only reaching a tiny fraction of these kids," said Lisa Frydman, vice president of international programs at Kids in Need of Defense, an advocacy group for migrant children with partners across Central America. “The rest are just gone."

Lawyers have fielded frantic calls from family members whose children suddenly went missing after crossing the U.S. border. Of the thousands of unaccompanied minors expelled under the health order, advocacy organizations said that they have only found about three dozen after months of searching across the United States, Mexico and Central America.

The Guatemalan teenager is one of them. She told child protection workers in Guatemala that she was sent to an American hotel with her baby for days and allowed only a brief call with her father in the United States. Then she and her infant were flown to Guatemala, where her case so alarmed international refugee groups that they referred her for protection in another country, determining that she was in peril. Advocates would not provide her age or other personal details to protect her.

The Associated Press first reported last month that the administration has detained at least 169 children in three Hampton Inn & Suites hotels in El Paso and McAllen, Texas, as well as Phoenix, before expelling them. New government numbers show that practice grew to more than 240 children over the past three months. Children reported being held for weeks in hotel rooms by an unlicensed government contractor, with little ability to reach anyone outside.

Advocates said the administration's expulsion policy is far more concerning than simply the practice of lengthy hotel detention, which they argue violates a long-standing court settlement protecting migrant children. Most kids who now reach U.S. soil are quickly flown back to their home countries — often to danger, forcing the intervention of international child welfare agencies to protect them from harm. Some children told advocates that they were sent to Mexico, even if they were not from there, in the middle of the night.

The U.S. government has largely declined to comment or release statistics, citing litigation that the American Civil Liberties Union and other advocacy organizations have brought against the expulsion program.

In June, a desperate father in Houston found Linda Corchado, an immigration attorney in El Paso. His 16-year-old son was detained somewhere in an American hotel, although where or by whom he did not know. He said the government was about to fly the boy back to Honduras, where he feared his son might be executed by gang members who threatened him after he saw them kill another man.

Corchado alerted the ACLU, and the boy became the first plaintiff in what lawyers hoped would be a test case as they argued that the government was illegally using an obscure provision of the federal Public Health and Welfare Code, written in 1893, to justify expelling all migrants, even children, at the border.

The boy's case spurred an emergency court hearing in June in Washington, D.C., before U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, who ruled that the ACLU was “likely to succeed" in its arguments that the government did not have the authority to expel the boy under the health declaration, issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Within days, Justice Department attorneys paused the boy's expulsion and agreed to allow him to request asylum through the immigration courts — the legal process usually required for migrant children coming here alone.

Attorneys found more children facing expulsion.

The relative of another 16-year-old Honduran boy told an advocate at the U.S. port of entry in El Paso that the teenager had disappeared in U.S. custody after they crossed the border together. Corchado called CBP and requested the protection screening allowed for the boy under the expulsion process, but federal agents said that they were moving him to a hotel to fly him back.

Once migrants are transferred to a hotel under the care of a government contractor, it is as if they vanish into a “legal abyss" where it is unclear which federal agency retains custody, Corchado said.

“You can't advocate for them," she said.

She said a supervisor with Immigration and Customs Enforcement told her that after migrants are moved there, “it's kind of off our radar."

Under the threat of litigation by the ACLU, the administration agreed to halt the boy's removal and transfer him to a federal shelter while he fought for asylum, his lawyers said.

Coordinating with advocates across the country, ACLU attorneys have located at least 18 children as of late July who were being expelled, court filings show. In each case, the government agreed to halt proceedings against them — a win for the child, but a concession that blocked lawyers from obtaining a judge's ruling on the policy as a whole.

“We assumed the government would want to have a test case in court to decide the lawfulness of this highly controversial and unprecedented practice of using public health laws to effect shadow deportations of children," said Lee Gelernt, an ACLU attorney fighting the program in court. “The government is getting away with a complete end run around all of the protections for children that Congress has painstakingly enacted."

Alexa Vance, a Justice Department spokesperson, declined to comment. So did April Grant, a spokesperson for ICE, citing the pending lawsuits.

Grant also refused to release statistics on children expelled by the agency, including those it detained in hotels, or provide the repatriation agreements that the U.S. holds with at least eight countries — including Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras — that would shed light on how those countries have agreed to accept expelled children and under which circumstances.

Matthew Dyman, a spokesman for CBP, similarly said the ongoing litigation meant he couldn't answer most questions about the policy. Alexei Woltornist, a DHS spokesman, did not respond to emails.

“Nobody Can Find Them"

Advocates said the secrecy reminds them of their search two years ago for thousands of immigrant children whom the Trump administration separatedfrom their parents at the border.

Then, government agents sent children to federal shelters under ORR, often without tracking numbers linking them to their parents in ICE detention centers. It took a federal court order and months of taxpayer-funded efforts before many could be reunited with their parents. A few never were because their parents had been deported and so they were released instead to acquaintances or other relatives in the U.S.

What's different now is that children are not entering the U.S. system for migrant children at all.

“Nobody can find them," said Jennifer Podkul, vice president for policy at KIND, the advocacy group.

The majority are quickly flown back to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, the three main origins of unaccompanied children to the U.S.

Once in Central America, they don't have access to protections offered before the pandemic. Strict lockdowns have made it hard for watchdogs such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to track unaccompanied children after they are sent back to government repatriation centers.

Government representatives in those three Central American nations said that they could not differentiate between children who had been returned under the health order and those who had been deported under usual proceedings. But what they could report alarmed advocates.

Since the start of the pandemic through early July, at least 476 unaccompanied children have been sent back to Honduras, about half flown from the United States and the rest largely returned from Mexico, the Honduran federal agency overseeing children reported.

Guatemala reported about 380 such children returned from the United States in roughly that same period, according to a government spokesperson. El Salvador said more than 70 unaccompanied minors had been returned, and Mexico's government reported some 1,050 of its own children were returned between April and June, the latest data available.

The total for unaccompanied children governments said had been returned to those four countries — about 1,700 — is far less than the last official figure the U.S. government released. In early June, it said it had expelled at least 2,175 “single minors" under the health declaration. Then, citing litigation, the administration stopped providing that data.

“The number of kids who have been received doesn't match up with the number of kids who have been expelled," said Frydman of KIND.

She and other advocates suspect children from other countries are informally expelled to Mexico. Many in the last few months have reported that U.S. authorities returned them there — sometimes alone in the middle of the night and without being processed by Mexican immigration officials.

KIND found at least three unaccompanied minors from Central America in Mexico.

Two were siblings who said they arrived on their own at the port of entry in El Paso. CBP officers told them “the border is closed," the children later told attorneys, who declined to reveal the siblings' ages or other details for their safety.

Federal officials sent the siblings to Ciudad Juarez, where they were homeless until they went to a shelter, which contacted Mexico's child welfare agency.

Dyman, the CBP spokesperson, did not respond to questions about the siblings. But he said non-Mexican children can be expelled there only if they are with adult relatives. They are not supposed to be sent there alone.

“When minors are encountered without adult family members, CBP works closely with their home countries to transfer them to the custody of government officials and reunite them with their families," Dyman wrote in an email.

He said agents may exempt migrants from expulsion under certain circumstances, such as when they cannot be returned to their countries or if officers suspect they were victims of human trafficking. But he declined to elaborate on how CBP officials make those exceptions and conduct screenings, saying that information is “law enforcement sensitive."

Statistics from Mexico's National Migration Institute show that more than 200 children from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras have been expelled to Mexico under the health declaration as of June. That number includes unaccompanied children and those with adults. An official at Mexico's Secretary of Interior wrote that it does not have a formal agreement with the U.S. on how to return unaccompanied children from other countries, so it does not keep cumulative statistics.

“Shadow Operation"

Usually children coming to the U.S. alone from nations other than Mexico must be flown home — an operation delayed by logistics during a global pandemic. By law, they cannot be held for more than 72 hours in temporary CBP processing facilities before they are sent to shelters run by ORR.

That agency is currently detaining about 850 children, although it has 14,000 taxpayer-funded beds available. Before the administration's health order, ORR in late March was holding about 3,600 unaccompanied minors.

Instead of placing children in these federally regulated and state-licensed shelters, where they would have access to counsel and social workers, the U.S. moved hundreds of minors to a clandestine network of hotels — under the custody of a contractor not licensed to care for children.

The administration provided that data to attorneys litigating a court-ordered settlement that sets specific rules on how the government is allowed to hold migrant children. That 1997 consent decree, known as the Flores Settlement, requires migrant children in detention have certain rights, including that they be released quickly and held in licensed child care facilities.

In April, May and June, the government confined at least 240 children awaiting expulsion — including more than a dozen younger than 6 — in hotel rooms, according to legal filings submitted to the court overseeing compliance with the Flores Settlement.

In April, ICE, via its contractor MVM Inc., held at least 29 unaccompanied migrant children for as long as 10 days in the three Hampton Inn & Suites hotels in Texas and Arizona before expelling them.

In May, the contractor detained 80 children for days in those three hotels. In June, 120 were held there before being expelled, according to the government reports.

A 5-year-old was kept in a hotel room for 19 days in June before she was expelled.

An 8-month-old was held in a Hampton Inn for 12 days that month before being turned back with a 9-year-old sibling.

As of June 30, according to the administration's most recent reports submitted under the Flores Settlement, a 2-month-old had been detained in a Hampton hotel for four days while awaiting expulsion along with 19 other children.

Neha Desai, an attorney with the National Center for Youth Law, an organization that litigates to ensure the government abides by that consent decree, called the prolonged detention of migrant children in hotels a “blatant breach" of that settlement.

“This is a shadow operation," she said.

The U.S. has always briefly held a small number of children in hotel rooms after an immigration judge ordered them removed if there was a delay with their deportation flights.

But such widespread detention for up to three weeks involving children whose protection claims have never been adjudicated “flies in the face of the law," said Andrew Lorenzen-Strait, a former senior ICE official who left the agency last year. He said Congress and the courts have repeatedly held that children should not be kept in hotel rooms for more than one night — and even then, only in limited circumstances.

“The government is playing cowboy with regards to children's safety," he said.

Bob Carey, who headed ORR under President Barack Obama, called the practice “horrific … you have vulnerable children in the care of a private contractor with little, if any, transparency or adherence to state law, federal guidelines, legislation and a court settlement."

Not much is known about MVM, the private security contractor from Virginia that detains the children in hotel rooms. A spokesperson wrote in an email that its multimillion-dollar agreement with ICE to transport unaccompanied minors prevents it from disclosing information. It referred questions to ICE, which declined to comment and refused to release the contract.

In 2018, Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting found that MVM had held children for longer than a day in vacant office buildings in Phoenix. An ICE spokesperson said the agency did not permit the company to detain children for more than 24 hours in those offices, which she said were intended as “waiting areas" for same-day transport between CBP and ORR shelters. An MVM spokesperson termed it a “regrettable exception" to the company's policy of finding a hotel when there are delays in transporting children.

Details about the company's current contract came to light in a July court filing from Andrea Sheridan Ordin, a former U.S. attorney appointed to monitor the Flores Settlement in 2018. The federal judge overseeing that consent decree determined that was necessary because the government was not complying with it.

Ordin recommended ICE cease detaining unaccompanied minors in hotels, citing a “lack of formal oversight." She wrote MVM's “transportation specialists" are required to have only an associate's degree or high school diploma and one year of relevant work experience. They separated migrant children in hotel rooms by age and gender and allowed “little to no access to recreation." Children must be “within the line of sight" of contractors at all times.

Ordin said detention for weeks in hotel rooms can have a “harmful" impact on children, adding that MVM did not appear to have consistent requirements “regarding the special needs of young children, including hygiene, nutrition, or emotional well-being."

Ordin wrote that what was initially a “stop-gap measure" for the government to fly back children outside of normal proceedings has transformed under its expulsion policies into an “integral component of the immigration detention system" for children.

The administration argued she had overreached her authority. Children expelled under the health order, it contended, were not subject to protections under the Flores Settlement because they had never formally entered “immigration" custody.

Lawyers representing children under that settlement requested a judge's ruling, writing that the government has a “penchant for unilaterally disregarding" the consent decree.

A Sense of Deja Vu

Thirty-five years ago, a 15-year-old Salvadoran girl fleeing a civil war in her homeland was also imprisoned in an American hotel under the care of unlicensed private security guards. Jenny Flores' case forced the most significant overhaul yet of how U.S. authorities can detain migrant children. In fact, the 1997 federal settlement is named for her.

Carlos Holguín, who began litigating that case in 1985, said there is now a sense of “deja vu … but the degree of lawlessness is even beyond what was going on then."

Since taking office, the Trump administration has tried to end the Flores Settlement, arguing that it and a 2008 trafficking law work as “loopholes" encouraging families to send children here alone. The government has attempted to undo the settlement through regulations and requested Congress curtail the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, which requires certain safeguards for children arriving alone at the border.

So far, both efforts have failed.

The administration tried separating parents and children at the border, but a federal judge largely ruled against the practice in 2018, allowing it only in narrow circumstances such as if the adult poses a danger.

U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee, who is in charge of the Flores Settlement, has determined the administration must quickly release children locked up with their parents in immigrant detention centers, most recently citing the risk of coronavirus spreading.

“The family residential centers are on fire and there is no more time for half measures," she wrote in a June 26 order.

The government is now arguing it can force detained parents to choose between freeing their children or staying indefinitely imprisoned with them.

But none of the administration's attempts to undo either the settlement or the law have been as effective as the expulsion order, which is “eviscerating every single protection mechanism outlined by Congress and the courts with one sweeping gesture," said Podkul of KIND.

Late last month, the ACLU sued to allow its lawyers access to children detained in the McAllen Hampton Inn after a video went viral showing a Texas Civil Rights Project lawyer forcibly pushed away.

“The children are in imminent danger of unlawful removal," the attorneys wrote.

Facing a public relations scandal, Hilton quickly announced that all three hotels had canceled reservations with MVM.

“We expect all Hilton properties to reject business that would use a hotel in this way," a Hilton spokesperson said.

Government attorneys agreed to pause the expulsion of the migrants who they said remained in the McAllen hotel on the date of the lawsuit — once again, ACLU attorneys said, mooting litigation on the broader policy. A separate suit involving a 13-year-old Salvadoran girl who was expelled this summer is still pending in a Washington, D.C., federal court.

By the time the administration stopped the removal of the migrants detained at the Hampton Inn, most who had been held there had already been expelled or transferred elsewhere — some, advocates said, just before the ACLU filed its lawsuit. Only 17 family members, including one unaccompanied child, remained in that hotel.

What happened to the rest? No one would say.

Article Source

[rasoir-national]

Welcome to Immigration law, where words have no meaning : a case study

While working on cases, I stumbled across yet another fun example of the way political pressure has rendered legal principles meaningless in Immigration law, to the point that judges have to go against the very words of the law they’re supposed to be applying.

If you need a refresher of what’s broadly wrong with immigration law in France, presumably because you hate yourself, you can hop over here.

Anyway, let’s talk about Refugee family reunification.

What is Refugee law ? Well, in the 19th Century... just kidding, we’re not doing that here. I mean, we’re absolutely doing that here someday, but not right now. If you’re unclear on what a refugee is, here’s the broad idea : if a person from a certain country finds themself in a situation where their life is in danger in that country, either because the authorities can’t/won’t protect them or because those authorities are the ones threatening them, then they can enter another country and ask for that country’s protection. If they can jump through all the hoops and get their request approved - and all I have to say about this at the moment is that it’s a goddamn miracle every time it happens- then they are recognized as refugees : they will be allowed to stay in that country for a consequential period of time, have civil rights almost similar to a citizen, and generally be taken care of.

Now as I said, when you get recognized as a refugee, it means you’re set to stay in the country that took you in for about 10 years, that can be renewed if the situation didn’t get better in your country of origin. Something would have to go massively wrong for you to lose that status before then. That’s time during which you are legally forbidden to go back to your country of origin, since the very point of getting the status is that it was critically unsafe for you to stay there. 10 years, that’s a good chunk of life. So it stands to reason that you should be able to have your family with you during that time. See, asylum seekers sometimes come as a family, but more often than not, only one person makes the trip and tries to get the status, then puts in a request for the rest of their family : the trip is extremely expensive and dangerous. Still, not only is it coherent to allow the refugee’s family to come as well - if they were in danger, their family most likely was too - it’s a human right : you have the right to have a private life, and therefore to be with your family wherever you are. So there’s a special procedure for refugees to get their family to rejoin them without having to go through a painful and most likely illegal trip : if the request is approved, they will get a visa, and then they can come to France simply by making the trip on commercial lines without being detained at the airport/train station and forbidden to enter the country.

But, of course, it’s not that simple.

One of the main principles of immigration law is, if there’s a risk, any risk at all, that an element of the system might be exploited by a few individuals to cheat its principles, then the entire system must be warped to avoid any possible fraud.

Let’s apply that principle to family reunification. See, one big fear of lawmakers is that people will use that system to create the dreaded “chain migration”, i.e get more people in the country that the system means for them to. What does that mean in practice ? Well, the people allowed to join a refugee are meant to be only the close family : the spouse, the minor children, maybe the parents in some cases. So the fear is that some refugees will present some people as being related to them, or more closely related to them than they are, in order to get them admitted. So we must make sure that the people presented as their spouse, their child, is indeed who they pretend to be.

Now let’s break this down to its core : because some people may undeservedly profit from a legal system - and some people always will, let’s not be afraid to admit that - then every single individual who wishes to benefit from that system must pay the price of that risk. Principles will be inverted. Assumptions will be flipped on their head. And make no mistake : that’s not the fault of the fraudsters. Yes, it’s “wrong” to exploit a system in a way it wasn’t meant to be exploited - that being said, i struggle to see how immigrants trying to get more people they know to safety despite them not being family is a bad thing - but there is NO REASON, NONE AT ALL, that the price for that state of affairs should end up on the asylum seekers and not on the government. If they government is that afraid of the “wrong” people coming in, then it should be on them to prove that there’s fraud in a particular case. It’s just logical.

But of course, that’s not how it works.

How do you prove someone is related to you ? If you live in a “developed” country, it must seem quite easy : you’ve got your marriage certificate, your birth certificate, your official papers... And even if you don’t have them, all you have to do is go to city hall and get new ones.

Now imagine you have all that, but you’re in a country that’s not your own. All those documents are legally worthless : the State has no reason to recognize documents from another country. But of course, it would leave you with literally nothing to prove your identity. So the way it works is while those documents don’t officially have the same value as they do in the country that delivered them, it should still be taken for granted that they are genuine, until there is proof to the contrary.

In France, that notion is enshrined in the civil code in its article 47 :

“ Tout acte de l'état civil des Français et des étrangers fait en pays étranger et rédigé dans les formes usitées dans ce pays fait foi, sauf si d'autres actes ou pièces détenus, des données extérieures ou des éléments tirés de l'acte lui-même établissent, le cas échéant après toutes vérifications utiles, que cet acte est irrégulier, falsifié ou que les faits qui y sont déclarés ne correspondent pas à la réalité.”

What this means in english is that if the document respects the formal presentation of the country that is supposed to have delivered it, and there’s nothing in the other documents or in the document itself that could hint at a forgery, then the document is regarded as authentic.

This principle is logical and straightforward : the civil statute from another country is assumed to be genuine, until there is proof of the contrary. That’s the legal concept of presumption in action right here : let the party whose claim would be the easiest to prove to have to bring that proof rather than the contrary : it’s much easier to prove a document is a fake than to prove it is authentic. An absence of fraud cannot be proven.

But that’s not the kind of eternal logical rule that can stop lawmakers. So let’s talk about the Central African Republic.

A beautiful country - I assume - the Central African Republic has had the misfortune of being in an off-and-on state of civil war since the beginning of the 2000s, with two powerful militias, the Séléka and the anti-Balaka, fighting for power on a background of religious conflict. I am not at all qualified to say more on the subject, but if it interests you - and it should - don’t hesitate to check primary sources. But here’s the part that’s relevant to my point : one of the consequences of this prolonged conflict is the utter disorganization of the administrative system, and particularly the impossibility to access civil registry services. Central African law requires you to register a birth right away in the circonscription in which the child was born - that is of course a problem if you’ve had to move because of the conflict, and that particular zone is inaccessible due to combats. On top of that, the vast majority of civil services are not equipped with computers, meaning many documents have been lost/inaccessible for the last 20 years. The result is that there are many, many children in the Central African Republic who have not been properly registered and therefore have no legal existence and no proof of their lineage.

The CAR government is currently trying to remediate this situation with the help of NGOs. See, if you weren’t registered as a newborn, then there’s need of a judicial decision for you to be registered as a child or a teen. One of the most notable solutions has been to create mobile courts who go from village to village and hold public sessions to get as many people as possible the right decision so they can ask to be registered, but there’s still a long way to go, and the system is far from back to normal functioning.

Now because french is spoken by most of the population of the CAR, and France has historical *coughs*colonial*coughs* ties to the country, many people who have fled the country have seeked asylum in France. And for those who got it, they asked, as was their right, for their family to be able to join them.

Do you see the problem looming on the horizon ? Oh yes, you do.

The children of refugees who remained in CAR were born in the last twenty years, and therefore many of them were not properly registered and have no direct way of proving their relation to the refugee.

But here comes the really perverted part : in order to get the request accepted, the families of refugees in CAR have rushed to register the children so they would have proof to present to the french authorities (in CAR’s case, the French Consulate in Bangui). They travel to their village of birth, they try to get to a mobile court, they put in the legwork.

And what does the consul say when they get those preciously obtained documents ? Well, they say that since it’s so rare for children born in that period to have the proper documents... Then those must be fake. Yeah. Let me remind you, by law, those documents should be presumed to be authentic. But because the context dictates that central african children are more likely not to have documents, those who do become suspect. The administration will cling to the tiniest mistake to claim “evidence of forgery” : technically, if you get the judicial decision allowing the registration, then you have to wait six months for your identity to be added to the family registry. But of course, because of the massive under-registration and the mobile courts system, the administration rather ignores that mandatory delay in order to get people a legal identity as soon as possible. But that’s apparently too outlandish an idea for the french administration to understand. No, everything in CAR must work exactly how the law dictates, except of course for the fact that the country is apparently so fucked up that the simple fact of having the proper papers indicates you’ve broken the law. I know a lot of paradoxes, but this is by far the most vicious I’ve ever met. This is no-win situation. How on earth can you prove documents are genuine when you having those documents is seen as evidence that they are fake ?

And that’s exactly the kind of shit I’ve been talking about. : in immigration law, there’s no reason words shouldn’t mean their opposite if it fits the political agenda. Immigration authorities are only pragmatic when it suits them. As a result, the day-to-day practice of immigration law is getting increasingly disconnected from what that law is supposed to be, until principles don’t exist anymore, and basic legal ideas are completely ignored. There’s always going to be a gap between a law and its application ; but this isn’t about being down to earth, this is ignoring the very principles you should be enforcing.

[mutantsrisingrpg]

Congratulations JENN! You’ve been accepted as HYPERION.

Jenn, I’m so glad that we’re going to have Hyperion on the dash! I really enjoyed your writing style and the depth it brought to him. I was transported to the place where he grew up, and felt taken on such a journey that showed me where he is now. I can’t wait to see where you take him next, and I’m glad we’re all along for the ride!

Welcome to Mutants Rising! Please read the checklist and submit your account within 24 hours.

Out of Character Information:

NAME/ALIAS: Jenn

PRONOUNS: she/her, they/them.

AGE: 27

TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL: CST.  I am available to post on the weekends, and depending on energy levels, week days.

In Character Information:

DESIRED ROLE: Hyperion/Gerrard Bermudez

GENDER/PRONOUNS: he/him

DETAILS & ANALYSIS:

There’s something unrivaled in the brutality of hunger and thirst.  It’s constant, a revolving door that doesn’t know where to find its close.  It’s the original sin and the death sentence, competing for last place. It’s the wet, stone precipice before a bottomless fall and Gerrard walks it with a hand in his pocket and cigarette between his lips, a study on conceding just enough of oneself to hunger, and holding the rest at bay.  

It always waits, preparing a cackle for when he falters.

The mediation isn’t out of any inherent moral uprightness.  His neutrality isn’t peaceful, disengaged, and aloof; no, it’s far more the lack of motion on the chained dog’s leash.  It’s control that exists because it has to, not because it wants to by nature.

Funny, isn’t it, that Hyperion is ‘the watcher above’— a titan who’s battle isn’t spoken of in the Titanomachy;  perhaps it was something small in its scale. Perhaps hunger didn’t win that day, and history was allowed to take its course.  Or perhaps his battle into Tartarus was regarded with a hush after he dared usurpers to hollow his bones and drag the power from his skin.

BIO: Mexico City was color.  Unbridled, unrestricted, his first memories were of blazing colors and skulls that might as well have been neon lights.  Their silence was rattling, eye sockets making dark pits to cute their contrast to the pinks, the oranges, the yellows—- to every tone that crept in to smile in the moonlight as the sun set on the dead’s day.  He could remember marveling, he could remember crowds and makeup and the kind of sensory overload that was thrown into orbit by constantly changing music as he walked, weaving his way through bodies far larger than his.  Something at the back of his find repelled it all, like a wild animal crossing something toxic, sidestepping the skull-in-crossbones the violent colors represented. All the more appropriate for the day. He could remember his sister, taking his hand and pulling him the moment panic started to seep in and scream that he was lost.  Her timing was impeccable. It always was, accompanied by perfect words, the exact necessary moments to diffuse seconds before ignition. She’d pointed to a pair of twins, grinning as they moved in mirror to each other, their skin taking on the colors that dappled butterflies, arms echoing the beat of wings. His eyes grew wide, trying to drink in more than his eyes would allow, begging for comprehension he didn’t have.  Their skin turned like a series of mosaics, one flipping and then the next as the patterns changed. Pesos were thrown around them in appreciation of their act, one that was other worldly and mutant to a boy who didn’t quite understand what that meant yet. He would see the pair the next year.  And the year to follow. They became the main attraction amid the celebration, living works of art that surmounted a crowd.  And then one year he could remember his head hitting the ground as he was pushed. He could remember the panic on his sister’s face as men approached.  He could remember her standing between the cowering pair and the cartoon-like threats his blurry mind stylized. They bared down on the teenage girl, casting what seemed like impossibly long shadows like zebra stripes across her frame.  Her hands were outstretched. He couldn’t make out her words, the ringing in his head too loud and all-encompassing, refusing to grant him moments of clarity among the clouds. He was old enough this time, old enough to see the confusion across their faces as their adrenaline stocked muscles found relaxation.  They were taken by a haze of their own, stepping backwards, coaxed into submission by the way her words had reverberated in their minds, lulling them to stillness. He could remember not screaming her name fast enough when another group of men approached from behind.  Her body hit the ground as fast as a trigger was pulled, and in discord, he was brought to his feet. A shattering, broken scream left him as his mind went blank. A year later he sat in a sanitary room, one that made his skin feel shallow from bleach, constructed of thick stone and rubber.  The haze never seemed to leave, creating the same sort of cartoon, this time a storm cloud that existed between his ears. His eyes lulled shut for a few moments, head hanging forward until the sound of a thick barricade woke his senses from where they’d made their bed. A small, battery powered screen was slid in through slating, rubber casing of the door closing as soon as it was passed through.  Slowly, he moved from his chair, feet giving their place to knees as he found himself crawling towards a playing video that made itself into a tune he knew. It was familiar. He didn’t touch it. He just peered down, watching a playback of those moments. The men. The twins. His sister. He wiped at his eyes as the tears welled. He watched her gentleness, watched the assisted diffusion, the kind that only pleased against violence, the kind that made no attempt to strike. He knew what was next in the sequence, and the gunshot still made him jump and wrenched a sob out of the boys frame, body shaking as the tremors of tears took hold.  His own scream came next, and suddenly, his shaky breath caught; eyes widening as he watched the bolt of lightning contest the natural, arching upward into the sky. It expanded, like a deep breath was taken before it struck back down towards him. It collided with his body and splintered, shooting off in a shockwave that centered on his form. For a split second, he saw the men surrounding his sister drop to the ground. He couldn’t make it out, but the devices in their ears and across their bodies had overloaded, and they died in twitching heaps. Power collapsed as the wave pressed out around him, a stampede of energy that demanded its due.  Darkness fell across the area, only candle flames remaining among the short circuiting flashes of cellphones before the camera recording lost its source like the rest, cutting off and leaving black and white fuzz behind. There was a void in his mind, the moments colored in with the worst crayons in the box, all shades of violent red and dangerous yellows. He curled into himself, letting tears take him, making a companion of the continual sound of that static. He could remember the first mistake they made.  Rubber and stone didn’t conduct. Electricity found on travel through and across them, sent off like the free radicals that tore cells apart when left unattended.  Their own curiosity sent them to the morgue. They like to shove nails under the skin and pry it away to see what was underneath. They found their victory in the crying boy on the stone floor, the one whose body sparked with frustration, draining itself without enough sympathetic energy around him.  They’d come to bring the video again, anxious to watch him fold in on himself, to crumple into nothing. In the moments the rubber was peeled back, a veil was pulled back from his eyes, revealing the webbing that was electricity that ran rampant in the world outside his cube. Among them he found a string that dangled, a thread from the three Fates themselves that was dull and nearly lifeless.  He reached for it and pulled. The pacemaker in the chest of the guard malfunctioned, spitting bursts of energy like an angry cat, sending the man into cardiac arrest. He clutched at his chest, words unfound, radio only silence. Gerrard’s arms passed through the slot they used to pass his food and likewise, their torture. He reached and felt for the crossbar he’d heard come down so many times, a heaving effort pushing it from its place.  He remembered the sound of the door opening, a first in what could have been years. His escape was made in a fugue state, electronic locks overloaded, others like him released to pour from their cages, opportunities taken to strike out against hands that had taken such joy out of wrapping their hands around their throats. He disappeared that night. Chicago was the haven; it was an oasis, the closest thing to asylum for people like him.  He met her when he was eighteen, and she didn’t turn him away. Instead, he’d been welcomed with arms he’d never felt before while she whispered in his ear:  this was his home now.  He could remember the first day in the city, hours upon hours of bus rides managing to bring him to the doorstep.  He found shelter. He found food. He found others like him. Hyperion was born in Chicago; a thief to begin with that caught the eye of new family, one that found power in practice, and reminded him who had cast those long shadows and dropped his sister to the ground without a second thought.  He learned, with those whispers in his ears, where to abandon petty theft for greater work. It spun the thunderstorms back to life in his skull, providing the static shock that started hurricanes and the kind of thinking that required payment for things that had been taken. Static was a constant itch that crawled under his skin, remnant energy from witches burned at the stake.  There was a hefty debt, and Hyperion would, eventually, collect.

EXPANDED CONNECTIONS: TIERNEY SINCLAIR, Thorn: Oh, Tierney.  It’s a murmur, one that sounds coy and teasing in the way it floats and twists through the air, but it’s armed to the teeth, like knives in the dark that are only seen when they swing.  Gerrard sees a mirror. And Gerrard does not like to share. EOIN DOUGHERTY, Customer:  A dollar sign turned interest, one that, if coaxed in the right direction, could prove to be not just an asset but an investment.  Hyperion is the one that watches over, and oh, does he watch this one closely for the opportunity he needs. KIARA MANDAL, Goal:  Kiara is the twinkle at the back of his eye, the one that says that he’s up to nothing good; that he drags trouble with him.  He finds Kiara to be…. Underutilized at best, and given the opportunity, he’d grab her wrist and pull her off the cliff with him to find what her potential really looks like.  

EXTRA: “I’ll be there in a minute.”  The presence behind him didn’t contest; he was left to his quiet, a dark silhouette against a bright interior.  It was clinical, full of right angles and crisp edges even despite what was left upturned and in chaotic asymmetry as the lights above flashed once, then twice.  They were electronic gasps, attempts to continue despite the way the damaged pathways frayed. He took a deep drag on a cigarette, the end taking a sympathetic coal breath along with the lights above, and suddenly they found their equilibrium.  The lights held their connection, letting him look across the occasional smears of blood. Scattered ash. Rubble and the light, gentle dust it carried with it. Outside, there were sirens.  They were like tiny pings to his radar, dots on the network his feeling stretched across, electric impulses firing back and forth among the vein like spindling that was a city like Chicago.  He closed his eyes as he took another deep inhale, smoke filling lungs that screamed for the nicotine to keep the yapping of nerves away from his mind. He stretched out into it, a different plane of existence than most would tread.  It was coursing energy, static made massive, interlinking at every step of a human existence. He followed the pathing, the comfort of surge sounds pulling a smile across his lips as he reached out, his finger wrapping in an electric thread the way someone would with the hair of a lover.  He grasped and he pulled. The hospital dropped from the grid, leaving a hungry man satiated as he started his steps down the stairs; his feet never quite touched the ground, held aloft by the static of the storm surge that rippled across him, a downed powerline that learned to walk. – “Hype!”  No response.  “Hyperion!”  He paused, steps stopping as he shrugged a jacket onto his shoulders.  “Where are you going?” His eyebrows raised, amusement crossing his lips as he tilted his head to the side.  “Incredible how that isn’t your business.”  The response was met with a pout.  “But what about your curfew?  You’re going to get in trouble.”  The side of his mouth twitched up further, pulling into something like a smirk that tried to pass as a smile as he reached out and tapped his questioner’s nose.  “I hope so.”   – Blood landed on the back of his hand, ejected by a cough.  Energy zipped across him, skittering crackles, a lighting storm on the microcosm of his skin. The blood evaporated, hit with what might as well have been a laser, removed from its momentary existence with him.  His knuckles weren’t beaten. No weapon in sight. Just him and his body, looking at the shape hunched against the wall. They weren’t battered. Purpling bruises didn’t cover their body. They sunk to the ground, eyes shut tight as they panted.  A loan drip of blood found its way from the corner of their mouth, joining tracks with what tears had already left behind. “You’ll live.”  His words were soft, almost reassuring in the way they landed.  Perhaps they would have been were it not for the bouts of pain that had wracked them, leaving muscles sore and screaming from the way they’d been overloaded time and time again. They didn’t seem convinced, a shame.  Hyperion crouched, looking at the other with eyes that liked to nit-pick. They clung to details, refusing to scoop in what they saw indiscriminately. He reached out a hand, making them flinch away instinctively. He followed nonetheless, fingers curving along their cheek as his thumb brushed to interrupt the teary path.  “You’ll live.  You will. And I want you to remember this.  Can you do that?” The nod was almost immediate, a slight tremble through their skin.   “If you remember, I don’t have to see you again.”  They shook their head;  no, god, please not again.  His thumb brushed again and he leaned closer, holding their chin to make their eyes lock, no other choice found. His voice dropped low, a whisper with the edge of a growl.  “I want you to remember whose fault this was.  Because it wasn’t yours, and it wasn’t mine.”   — A scream sent a number of pigeons dashing, response enough even if flight wasn’t taken.  There was food to be found on the patio, under the cafe’s umbrella shielded tables, so the birds didn’t dare scatter too far despite the commotion.  A woman clutched to her chest as her companion knelt on the ground beside her, crying out with panic in its purest form. “Help!  She’s having a heart attack!”  Phones were picked up along with audible gasps, 911 dialed as people gathered, useless as they stood and watched the scythe brought low, starting the process of cleaving the soul away. Gerrard turned in his chair, holding a small basket of fries.  He snacked on one, a look of curiosity crossing him as he scanned the woman.  His hand lifted slightly, fingers rubbing together as if disposing of the salt that clung to them.  A slight spark occurred, like a generator spinning to life. Static hung in the air for a moment, and then another, as his eyes fell on the pin at the dying woman’s lapel.  It was acrid in his mind, one that spoke to an agenda, one that saw mutants as beasts to cage. As the silence faded out, he picked up another fry, putting it to his lips, biting, chewing.  All perfectly normal. And he watched the frantic electrical impulses, firing with no sense of syncope, and instead of letting it fade– letting the scythe swing— he rubbed his fingers together again, feeling his own heart skip to make hers struggle longer; just enough correction to let the pain ratchet through her.  He watched, he ate his fries, and eventually he let her die.

[anastpaul]

Saint of the Day – 19 May – St Maria Bernarda Bütler (1848-1924) aged 74 – Religious Sister, Founder, Missionary, Apostle of the Holy Eucharist, of prayer and charity, Marian devotee – born Verena Bütler on 28 May 1848 in Auw, Aargau, Switzerland and died on 19 May 1924 in Cartagena, Bolívar, Colombia of natural causes.   St Maria Bernarda was a Swiss Roman Catholic professed religious and the foundress of the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Mary Help of Sinners and a part of the missions in Ecuador and Colombia.   She worked for the care of the poor in these places until her exile from Ecuador and entrance into Colombia where she worked for the remainder of her life.   Her order moved there with her and continued to expand during her time there until her death.

Maria Bernarda/Verena Bütler was born in Auw, in the Canton of Argovia, in Switzerland, on 28 May 1848 and was baptised on the same day.   She was the fourth child of Henry and Catherine Bütler, modest but exemplary country people, who educated the eight children born of their marriage in the love of God and of neighbour.

Gifted with excellent health, Verena grew up happy, intelligent, generous and a lover of nature.   She began to attend school at seven years of age.   The fervour and commitment with which she made her First Communion, on 16 April 1860, remained constant in her for the rest of her life.

Childhood Home

St Maria Bernarda’s Childhood Bedroom

Devotion to the Eucharist would, in fact, form the foundation of her spirituality.

Having completed her elementary studies at the age of 14, Verena dedicated herself to farm work and experienced affection for a worthy young man with whom she fell in love.   On feeling the call of God, she broke off the engagement in order to turn completely to the Lord.   During this period in her life she was granted the grace of enjoying the presence of God, feeling Him very close.   She herself said: “To explain this state of soul to someone who has never experienced anything similar is extremely difficult, if not impossible”.   And again:   “The Holy Spirit taught me to adore, praise, bless and give thanks to Jesus in the tabernacle at all times, even at work and in real life.

Drawn by the love of God, she entered a convent in her region as a postulant at 18 years of age.   However, becoming aware that it was not the place to which the Lord was calling her, Verena very quickly returned home.

Work, prayer and apostolic activity in the parish kept her desire for the consecrated life alive.   At the suggestion of her Pastor, Verena entered the Franciscan Monastery of Mary Help of Sinners in Altstätten on 12 November 1867.   She took the Franciscan habit on 4 May 1868, taking the name of Sister Maria Bernarda of the Heart of Mary and made her Religious Profession on 4 October 1869 with the firm proposal of serving the Lord until death in the contemplative life.

She was very soon elected Mistress of Novices and Superior of the Community on three occasions, carrying out this fraternal service for nine consecutive years.   Her zeal and love for the Kingdom of God had prepared her to begin a new missionary experience. Having willingly accepted the invitation of Msgr. Peter Schumacher, Bishop of Portoviejo in Ecuador, who, outlining the precarious situation of his people, asked her to come to his Diocese.   Maria Bernarda clearly saw the will of God, who was calling her to be an announcer of the Gospel in that far away country, in this invitation.

Having overcome the initial resistance of the Bishop of St Gall and obtained a regular pontifical indult, Sr Maria Bernarda and six companions left the Monastery in Altstätten and set out for Ecuador on the 19th of June 1888.   Only their light of faith and zeal to announce the Gospel sustained the Blessed and her companions in the difficult separation from their beloved Monastery and Sisters.  In her intentions, Maria Bernarda thought of giving birth to a missionary foundation dependent on the Swiss Monastery.

The Lord, however, made her instead the foundress of a new Religious Congregation, that of the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Mary Help of Sinners.

They were received paternally by the Bishop, who entrusted to Maria Bernarda the community of Chone, which presented a distressing spectacle because of the total lack of priests, scant religious practice and rampant immorality.   Maria Bernarda became “everything to everyone”, placing prayer, poverty, fidelity to the Church and the constant exercise of the works of mercy at the base of her missionary work.   She, together with her daughters, began an intense apostolate among families, deepening their knowledge of the language and of the culture of the people.   The first fruits did not delay in maturing.   The Christian life of the people blossomed again as if by magic.

The new Franciscan Congregation also grew in number and two filial houses were founded in Sant Ana and Canoa.   Very soon after however, the missionary work of Mother Maria Bernarda was marked by the mystery of the Cross.   Many indeed were the sufferings to which she and her daughters were submitted – absolute poverty, torrid heat, uncertainty and difficulties of every kind, risks to their health and security of their lives, misunderstanding on the part of ecclesiastical authorities and, besides, the separation of some Sisters from the community, establishing themselves later as an autonomous congregation (the Franciscans of the Immaculate: Blessed Charity Brader).   Maria Bernarda underwent all this with heroic fortitude and in silence without defending herself or nourishing resentment towards anyone but forgiving them from her heart and praying for those who made her suffer.

As if all these trials were not enough, a violent persecution in 1895, begun by forces hostile to the Church, obliged Sr Maria Bernarda and her Sisters to flee from Ecuador. Without knowing where to go, she went, with 14 Sisters, towards Bahia, from where she continued towards Colombia.

The group was still wandering when it received an invitation from Msgr. Eugene Biffi to work in his Diocese of Cartagena.   So, on 2 August 1895, the feast of the Porziuncola of Assisi, the Foundress and her Sisters, exiled from Ecuador, reached Cartagena and were received paternally by the Bishop  . They found hospitality in a female hospital, commonly called a “Pious Work”.   The Lord had led her by the hand towards that asylum, where Mother Mary Bernard would remain to the end of her life.   After the house in Cartagena, the Foundation was extended not only in Columbia but also in Austria and Brasil.

With a compassionate heart, authentically Franciscan, she engaged above all in relieving the spiritual and material needs of the poor, whom she always considered to be her favourites.   She used to say to the Sisters:  “Open your houses to help the poor and marginalised.   Give preference to the care of the indigent over all other activity”. The Mother guided her Congregation over thirty years.   Even after resigning from the Office of Superior General, she continued to animate her dear Sisters with feelings of true humility, especially through the example of her life and her words and writings.

Struck by piercing hypo-gastric pains, while at the “Pious Work” in Cartagena, an establishment of her Daughters and loved and venerated by all as an authentic saint, Mary Bernard quietly went to sleep in the Lord on 19 May 1924.   She was 74 years of age, 56 in the consecrated life and 38 in missionary life.   News of her death spread quickly. The Pastor of the Cathedral of Cartagena announced her passing away, saying to the faithful:  “A saint has died in this city, this morning – the reverend Mother Bernard!”    Her tomb immediately became a centre of pilgrimage and a place of prayer.

The apostolic zeal and ardour of charity of Mother Mary Bernard are being re-lived today in the Church, particularly through the Congregation founded by her, present at the moment in various countries on three continents.   The Blessed can be pointed out as an authentic model of “inculturation”, the urgency of which the Church has underlined for an efficient announcement of the Gospel (cf. Redemptoris Missio, n. 52).   She incarnated perfectly her orienting motto:  “My guide, my star, is the Gospel”.

St Maria Bernarda’s Bible and Crucifix below

During her life, she found support and comfort in God alone.

From the time she abandoned her homeland, to which she never went back, when she left her dear Monastery in Altstätten and during her untiring apostolic activity, she was always sustained by a solid spirituality of unceasing prayer, heroic charity towards God and her neighbour, by a faith that was solid as rock, by an unlimited trust in the Providence of God, by evangelical strength and humility and by a radical fidelity to the commitments of her consecrated life.   From her contemplation of the mysteries of the Most Holy Trinity, the Eucharist and the Passion of the Lord, she also drew the gift of mercy towards all, which she practised and left, as the particular charism of her Congregation.   Very devoted to the Virgin Mother of the Lord, she wished her Congregation to have Our Lady Help of Sinners as mother, protector and life model in her discipleship of Christ and in her missionary activity.   As a Franciscan, she cultivated the same veneration which St Francis of Assisi nourished for “Holy Mother Church”, Pastors and priests, whom she called “the anointed of the Lord”.

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The Blessed left an admirable example of the biblical woman – strong, prudent, mystical, spiritual teacher and notable missionary.   She left the Church a wonderful testimony of dedication to the cause of the Gospel, teaching all, especially today, that it is possible to unite contemplation and action, life with God and service to humanity, bringing God to men and women, and men and women to God.

The Servant of God St Pope John Paul II conferred the title and honour of Blessed her on  29 October 1995.   The Holy Father, Benedict XVI, inscribed her in the register of Saints on 12 October 2008…Vatican.va

Saint of the Day – 19 May – St Maria Bernarda Bütler (1848-1924) Saint of the Day - 19 May - St Maria Bernarda Bütler (1848-1924) aged 74 - Religious Sister, Founder, Missionary, Apostle of the Holy Eucharist, of prayer and charity, Marian devotee - born…

[rowandriftwood]

The Racist History of U.S. Immigration Policy & Citizenship Rights

This started as a Facebook rant, and then ballooned into a more comprehensive dissertation on the racist history of U.S. immigration policy and citizenship generally (or as comprehensive as a dissertation can be that was written in 6 hours in a sleep-deprived state).

I’m sure I missed some important points. Feel free to reblog with relevant information and corrections. Some of this was new information to me, and I may not have understood it perfectly, or explained it well. Please copy, paste, and share any or all of this information wherever you think it might do some good. Links are provided not only as sources, but also as starting points for additional reading about any of the topics summarized below.

Part I: Immigrants Are Not A Threat

The number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. has been slowly declining since it peaked in 2007. (i.e., there is no current immigration "crisis" in the U.S.)

Between 2009 and 2016, the number of undocumented immigrants from Mexico living in the U.S. declined by around 12.5%. (i.e. unauthorized immigration is not an issue of Mexicans "sneaking" across the U.S.'s southern border.)

The U.S. civilian workforce includes 8 million unauthorized immigrants (~5% of people working or unemployed and looking for work), down slightly from a peak of 8.3 million in 2008, but essentially more or less level since 2007. (i.e., no, undocumented immigrants are not coming here to leech off U.S. government benefits, which would be impossible for them to claim in any case.)

Only 6 U.S. states have seen an increase in the number of undocumented immigrants since 2009. 7 others have showed a decrease, and the rest have showed no change.

Since 2003, there has been a steady decline in the number of undocumented immigrants who have been in the U.S. 5 years or less, and a steady increase in the number who have been here 10 years or more. (i.e., an increasing share of the undocumented population are adults who have been contributing to the U.S. economy for at least a decade, living and working and raising their families here.)

Illegally crossing the border into the U.S. is a misdemeanor for first-time (adult) offenders, on par with such crimes as driving more than 25 mph over the speed limit or shoplifting, and carries a penalty of a fine or up to 6 months of jail time.

In 2014 42% of the undocumented population of the U.S., and 66% of new undocumented arrivals, were visa overstayers. (i.e., they entered the U.S. legally, but overstayed the terms of their visa, and would not have been prevented from entering the U.S. by a border wall.)

A growing number of people who do cross the U.S./Mexico border without a visa are refugees from Central America, fleeing violence, persecution, and poverty. By and large, they do not seek to evade border checkpoints, but openly present themselves and request political asylum. (i.e., they would not have been prevented from entering the U.S. by a border wall.)

The proposed border wall is a ludicrous and unconscionable waste of tax dollars, even if you believe stricter immigration standards are warranted.

Apart from the initial misdemeanor offense of being in the country illegally, undocumented immigrants are less likely (and in many cases, far less likely) than native-born U.S. citizens to engage in criminal activity, especially violent crime. (i.e., trying to blame a general crackdown on illegal immigration on gang violence is disingenuous.) 

[additional source on immigration and crime statistics] 

In summation: There is no immigration crisis in the U.S., and no real reason to be cracking down now, other than to score points with the party base, or as a distraction.

Part II: Legal Immigration Is Not A Reasonable Option For Most People

The process of legal immigration to the U.S. is opaque, complicated, expensive, time-consuming, restrictive. An applicant can do everything "right" and still end up waiting years or decades for a visa. 

Fewer than 1 million immigrants per year are granted permanent residency (green cards), out of 6 million applicants. That number includes asylum seekers. (Permanent residency is not the same thing as citizenship, which can take an additional 5 years.) 

No more than 7% of the green cards issued annually in the U.S. may be granted to citizens of any one country. This seriously limits immigration opportunities for people from more populous countries, such as Mexico, India, and China. 

Around 66% of legal immigrants are admitted to the U.S. on the basis of family ties (limited to children, parents, spouses, and fianc(e)és of citizens or legal permanent residents). Another 13% are granted employment visas. 17% are accepted for humanitarian reasons, such as refugees.

Legal immigration for the child or spouse of a legal permanent resident (green card holder) can take 5-10 years. This is a serious strain and hardship of family relationships.

Unless you are a highly skilled (and highly educated) immigrant in an in-demand field, obtaining an employment visa can take 6 years or longer.

In summation: unless you have money, a lot of free time, an outstanding skill set, a keen ability to cut through red tape and navigate bureaucracy, and/or a strong family support system already established in the U.S., you can forget about immigrating legally.

Part III: The History of Immigration and Citizenship Rights in the U.S. is Racist AF, in Case You Hadn’t Heard

The U.S. has a long history of restricting and withholding citizenship rights from people of "undesirable" ethnicities and nationalities (usually non-white). (i.e., there is no good historical precedent for equating legality with morality.)

The 3/5ths Compromise of 1787, written into Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution, declared each enslaved African person to be counted as 3/5ths of a person, for the purpose of establishing proportional representation in the House of Representatives and the Electoral College. Slaves were not, of course, represented by the new government, and were considered property rather than citizens under the law.

The Naturalization Act of 1790 granted U.S. citizenship to all free white residents "of good moral character" who had lived in America for at least two years, regardless of where they had been born. Subsequent laws passed in 1795 and 1798 increased the term of residency requirement.

The passage of the 14th Amendment in 1868 granted birthright citizenship to anyone born in the U.S., regardless of race or ethnicity (with the exception of Native Americans), cancelling out the 3/5ths Compromise.

In 1870, African immigrants were granted the right to become naturalized citizens. Non-white male citizens were granted voting rights by the 15th Amendment, but were often prevented from exercising them effectively by Jim Crow laws. Asian immigrants were still barred from becoming citizens.

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 banned virtually all immigration from China until its repeal in 1943. It was the first immigration law passed by Congress.

The Dawes Act of 1887 granted citizenship to Native Americans who agreed to disassociate from their tribes. Native men who agreed to this were granted the right to vote. 

Throughout the 19th century, government policies routinely forced Native American tribes off the land they had occupied for centuries, in order to make more room for white European settlers. Today, Reservation lands make up only 2% of U.S. geography. Many Native traditions were outlawed, including traditional religious practices, in an attempt to destroy and erase Native cultures. Children were taken from their families through programs of forced assimilation, and sent to boarding schools, where they were not permitted to speak their own languages or even use their own names. Many children died due to poor conditions and harsh treatment at these school, and many more never saw their families again. It is estimated that the pre-contact population of the territory now occupied by the U.S. was between 4 and 18 million. On the 2010 census, just over 5 million U.S. citizens reported themselves to be Native American, or Native American plus another race.

The California Alien Land Law of 1913 prohibited all non-U.S. citizens from owning land in California. The law was primarily intended to target Japanese immigrants, but also resulted in many other Asian immigrants losing their land, since foreign-born Asians were still not permitted naturalized U.S. citizenship.

The Emergency Quota Act of 1921 set the first numerical limits on immigration. It restricted immigration to no more than 3% of the number of people reporting the same ethnic origin in the 1890 U.S. census, to the great advantage of immigrants from Northern European countries, and disadvantage of all others. 

The United States vs. Bhagat Singh Thind Supreme Court ruling (1923) officially declared South Asian immigrants to be non-white, and retroactively stripped them of their citizenship, by arguing that they had obtained it illegally.

The Immigration Act of 1924 further increased restrictions on immigration from Catholic countries, Eastern Europeans, Arabs, Jews, and many other non-white ethnicities. It virtually banned all Asian immigration, while leaving Northern European immigration virtually unlimited. 

The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 finally granted birthright citizenship, and the right to vote, to all Native Americans.

During the Mexican Repatriation (1929-1936), between 400,000 and 2,000,000 people of Mexican heritage were forcibly deported to Mexico. It is estimated that around 60% of them had birthright U.S. citizenship. The justification used at the time was that the region of the U.S. that they lived in had been ceded to the U.S. by Mexico in 1848. The U.S. wanted the land, but decided that the people living on it were still Mexicans, and should therefore be sent "home". (But actually it was all about stirring up racial resentment and scapegoating Mexicans for the Great Depression.)

The Magnuson Act (aka Chinese Exclusion Repeal Act) of 1943 granted Chinese immigrants citizenship and voting rights.

During WWII, the U.S. turned away thousands of Jewish refugees, many of whom later died in Nazi concentration camps.

Also During WWII, the U.S. stripped Japanese Americans of their citizenship rights and forced them into internment camps.

Operation "Wetb*ck" in 1954 resulted in many more legal U.S. citizens being deported to Mexico, besides resulting in a number of other civil rights violations.  (I know tumblr loves Woody Guthrie, so here’s a song he wrote about this particular policy and the people who lost their lives to it, as performed by Woody’s son Arlo.)

"Equal opportunity" immigration was not implemented until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. Since 1970, there has been a sharp decline in immigration from European countries, giving rise to racist rhetoric concerning white Americans possibly becoming a racial minority at some point in the future, in spite of the fact that nearly 2/3 of the current U.S. population is white. 

In conclusion: America's history on immigration policy and its treatment of those it considers outsiders has always been shady as heck, and pretending otherwise (”HOW is this happening in AMERICA????”) is blatant historical erasure.

I do not bring up any of these things because I hate America, or think that anyone else should, but I think we should be honest about our history, and the suffering that history has caused, and continues to cause. We can learn from the past, and do better going forward, but only if we understand and acknowledge what our history is and how it impacts the present. "Make America Great Again" denies the negative aspects of our past, and is disrespectful and dismissive towards the people who remind us that America has never been "great" for them.

Here endeth the history lesson.

[glenthamert]

A U.S. judge on Monday blocked the Trump administration’s policy of returning asylum seekers to Mexico as they wait for an immigration court to hear their cases but the order won’t immediately go into effect.

Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco granted a request by civil liberties groups to halt the practice while their lawsuit moves forward. He put the decision on hold until Friday to give U.S. officials the chance to appeal.

The launch of the policy in January in San Diego at the nation’s busiest border crossing marked an unprecedented change to the U.S. asylum system, government officials and asylum experts said. Families seeking asylum typically had been released in the U.S. with notices to appear in court.

President Donald Trump’s administration says the policy responds to a crisis at the southern border that has overwhelmed the ability of immigration officials to detain migrants. Growing numbers of families are fleeing poverty and gang violence in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

The lawsuit on behalf of 11 asylum seekers from Central America and legal advocacy groups says the Trump administration is violating U.S. law by failing to adequately evaluate the dangers that migrants face in Mexico.

It also accuses Homeland Security and immigration officials of depriving migrants of their right to apply for asylum by making it difficult or impossible for them to do so.

Under the new policy, asylum seekers are not guaranteed interpreters or lawyers and don’t get to argue to a judge that they face the potential of persecution or torture if they are sent back to Mexico, Judy Rabinovitz, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, said at a March court hearing.

Seeborg appeared skeptical of the lawsuit’s argument that the administration misapplied a U.S. law that allows the return of immigrants to Mexico. The ACLU and other groups that are suing say that law does not apply to asylum seekers who cross the border illegally or arrive at a border crossing without proper documents.

The judge also questioned the Justice Department’s argument that asylum seekers sent back to Mexico are not eligible for certain protections, such as a hearing before an immigration judge.

The administration hopes that making asylum seekers wait in Mexico will discourage weak claims and help reduce an immigration court backlog of more than 800,000 cases.

Justice Department attorney Scott Stewart said there is a process to protect immigrants who could face harm in Mexico. All 11 plaintiffs in the lawsuit are represented by attorneys, and 10 already have appeared for court proceedings, he said.

Border Patrol arrests, the most widely used gauge of illegal crossings, have risen sharply over the last year but are relatively low in historical terms after hitting a 46-year low in 2017.

The launch of the policy followed months of delicate talks between the U.S. and Mexico. Mexicans and children traveling alone are exempt from it.

[stephenmccull]

No Papers, No Care: Disabled Migrants Seek Help Through Lawsuit, Activism

Desperation led José Luis Hernández to ride atop a speeding train through northern Mexico with hopes of reaching the United States 13 years ago. But he didn’t make it. Slipping off a step above a train coupling, he slid under the steel wheels. In the aftermath, he lost his right arm and leg, and all but one finger on his left hand.

He had left his home village in Honduras for the U.S. “to help my family, because there were no jobs, no opportunities,” he said. Instead, he ended up undergoing a series of surgeries in Mexico before heading home “to the same miserable conditions in my country, but worse off.”

It would be years before he finally made it to the United States. Now, as a 35-year-old living in Los Angeles, Hernández has begun organizing fellow disabled immigrants to fight for the right to health care and other services.

No statistics are available on the number of undocumented disabled immigrants in the United States. But whether in detention, working without papers in the U.S. or awaiting asylum hearings on the Mexican side of the border, undocumented immigrants with disabling conditions are “left without any right to services,” said Monica Espinoza, the coordinator of Hernández’s group, Immigrants With Disabilities.

People granted political or other types of asylum can buy private health insurance through the Affordable Care Act or get public assistance if they qualify. In addition, Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program, provides services to people under 26, regardless of immigration status. Those benefits will expand next spring to include income-eligible undocumented people age 50 and up.

“That’s a small victory for us,” said Blanca Angulo, a 60-year-old undocumented immigrant from Mexico now living in Riverside, California. She was a professional dancer and sketch comedian in Mexico City before emigrating to the United States in 1993. At age 46, Angulo was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a rare genetic disorder that gradually left her blind.

“I was depressed for two years after my diagnosis,” she said — nearly sightless and unemployed, without documents, and struggling to pay for medical visits and expensive eye medication.

The situation is particularly grim for undocumented immigrants with disabilities held in detention centers, said Pilar Gonzalez Morales, a lawyer for the Civil Rights Education and Enforcement Center in Los Angeles.

“They always suffer more because of the lack of care and the lack of accommodations,” she said. Furthermore, “covid has made it harder to get the medical attention that they need.”

Gonzalez Morales is one of the attorneys working on a nationwide class action lawsuit filed by people with disabilities who have been held in U.S. immigration detention facilities. The complaint accuses U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security of discriminating against the detainees by failing to provide them with adequate mental and physical health care. The 15 plaintiffs named in the lawsuit, which is set for trial in April, have conditions ranging from bipolar disorder to paralysis, as well as deafness or blindness. They are not seeking monetary damages but demand the U.S. government improve care for those in its custody, such as by providing wheelchairs or American Sign Language interpreters, and refraining from prolonged segregation of people with disabilities.

Most of the plaintiffs have been released or deported. José Baca Hernández, now living in Santa Ana, California, is one of them.

Brought to Orange County as a toddler, Baca has no memory of Cuernavaca, the Mexican city where he was born. But his lack of legal status in the U.S. has overshadowed his efforts to get the care he needs since being blinded by a gunshot six years ago. Baca declined to describe the circumstances of his injury but has filed for a special visa provided to crime victims.

ICE detained Baca shortly after his injury, and he spent five years in detention. An eye doctor saw Baca once during that time, he says; he relied on other detainees to read him information on his medical care and immigration case. Mostly, he was alone in a cell with little to do.

“I had a book on tape,” said Baca. “That was pretty much it.”

According to the lawsuit, treatment and care for disabilities are practically nil in government detention centers, said Rosa Lee Bichell, a fellow with Disability Rights Advocates, one of the groups that filed the case.

Her clients say that “unless you are writhing or fainted on the floor, it’s nearly impossible to get any kind of medical care related to disabilities,” she said.

“There is kind of a void in the immigration advocacy landscape that doesn’t directly focus on addressing the needs of people with disabilities,” said Munmeeth Soni, litigation and advocacy director at the Immigrant Defenders Law Center in Los Angeles. “It’s a population that I think has really gone overlooked.”

ICE and Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit.

Covid-19 poses a particular threat to people with disabilities who are detained by ICE. On Aug. 25, for example, 1,089 of the 25,000-plus people in ICE facilities were under isolation or observation for the virus.

In an interim ruling, the federal judge hearing Baca’s class action lawsuit this summer ordered ICE to offer vaccination to all detained immigrants who have chronic medical conditions or disabilities or are 55 or older. The Biden administration appealed the order on Aug. 23.

Hernández, who lost his limbs in the train accident, was among the hundreds of thousands of Central American immigrants who annually ride north through Mexico atop the trains, known collectively as “La Bestia,” or “the Beast,” according to the Migration Policy Institute. Injuries are common on La Bestia. And more than 500 deaths have been reported in Mexico since 2014 among people seeking to enter the U.S.

Hernández, who finally made it to the U.S. in 2015, was granted humanitarian asylum after spending two months in a detention center in Texas but quickly realized there was little support for people with his disadvantages.

In 2019, with the help of a local church, he formed the Immigrants With Disabilities group, which tries to hold regular gatherings for its 40-plus members, though the pandemic has made meetups difficult. Hernández is the only person in the group with legal papers and health benefits, he said.

Angulo has found solace in connecting with others in the group. “We encourage each other,” she said. “We feel less alone.”

She volunteers as a guide for people recently diagnosed with blindness at the Braille Institute, teaching them how to cook, shower and groom themselves in pursuit of self-sufficiency. Angulo would like to have a job but said she lacks opportunities.

“I want to work. I’m capable,” she said. “But people don’t want to take a chance on me. They see me as a risk.”

She’s also wary of any organization that offers medical or financial assistance to undocumented immigrants. “They ask for all my information and, in the end, they say I don’t qualify,” she said. “Being blind and without papers makes me feel especially vulnerable.”

This story was produced by KHN, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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[a-is-love]

AH

Perhaps this will be just another letter, a dream within a dream, a stream among streams of consciousness that flow through our sacred Mother Earth. On the other hand, sometimes, there are holes in the universe, holes that open up possibilities that at once seem possible and impossible, those one in a million chances… perhaps, once in a lifetime. And they seem to stay open but for a little while awaiting an adventurer, in which case, there is delight. Otherwise, it sews itself up, and a timeline is sealed. 

Interestingly, from inside, there always seems to be a voice that is whispering something ever so softly, that sometimes one wonders whether it is a song from the heart, or if it is the mistaken sound of wishful thinking. Not only that, one knows that although the message might be compassionate, it still is threatening to the current state of affairs. So there is both the incentive to listen and to ignore it at once. Yes, things can become quite uncertain and rather bewildering. 

I haven’t written like this in a little while, but I feel the sirens may have been visiting me a little more as of late. I suppose they have something they want to express.

I think the last time I heard such a voice, I was walking up a mountain at a retreat center. You know what happens at a long retreat, at a certain point you try to convince yourself that you’re at peace and happy, and that things are going to be alright. But deep inside me at the time, a tenderness kept trying to reveal itself… showing some truth about myself that I wasn’t prepared to admit. Nothing was soothing me, and my uneasiness kept gnawing at me. When I listened, the voice asked me to stop… to let go of what I was doing. It said it ever so softly, but quite intently too.

I’m reminded of this scene from a McQueen show titled Voss. He had a tattoo on his right upper arm that read, “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,” which is taken from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. With his sense of humor, he had all the models walking out into an insane asylum, in a room full of mirrors (they couldn’t see out, but the curious audience of course, could watch the horror show). At the end, there was a rectangular box in the middle of the scene that shattered to reveal a naked, overweight woman in a gas mask hooked up to tubes and surrounded by hundreds of moths. That’s when I imagined a few people gasped! I think the message may have something to do with the quote on his arm. In any case, for me, it seemed to point to an ugliness inside that I hadn’t learned to love, that I was still afraid of. It took a while for me to heed the message… 

Finally, a few years passed before I took the leap. I decided to break from life as I had known it, and head into a one year gap sabbatical. In hindsight it wasn’t a big deal, but it definitely felt disconcerting at the time. It turned out to be a strange year. I was trying to put my finger on something… find something, although I didn’t know what. At that point, I had been inside the machine for a little while, enough that I felt its mechanics quite acutely. Unfortunately, we are born into something that may have been corrupted for quite some time now, and it’s not really anyone’s fault. However honorable our intentions, however noble our heart, it always seemed like inevitably, our actions would slowly be warped to continue to construct this greedy and unfeeling world. At least personally, I couldn’t think clearly anymore. 

With that longing, I decided to revisit my past to try and see if it held any clues. When I was younger, I had the privilege of being a violinist in an orchestra, and it was love. One of the highlights was one year at the Conservatoire, we performed Also Sprach Zarathustra, and our concert-mistress just played the solo to perfection. It was so moving. Another time, in a festival of young musicians, we interpreted Ravel’s Bolero to a grand French audience. I still remember the cheers at the end. I think I inherited this classical sensibility from mother. I have fond memories of her accompanying me to most of my lessons. Or when I was young, she was stay-at-home, and we spent a lot of our time doing arts and crafts together.

During that gap year, I tried to rekindle something with my older brother, the one who is both blessed and cursed with a slight case of art-ism (or is it spelled aut-?). He’s the black sheep of the family, the one who guards the house with our black-and-white cat Daria. We used to love to make music together, but by then, his health didn’t permit it anymore. Fortunately, it never diminished his sense of artistic taste, which has always been a cut above everyone. (In his younger days, he may have seen the eyes of Mona Lisa herself in a long trip, and she apparently initiated him into the sublime). On the surface, he seems to be doing nothing most of the time, which perplexes most people I know. From the inside, I am privy to witness a spectacle of endless colors, shapes, and sounds. I think from him, I inherited something of the other-worldly (although sometimes, even I have a hard time connecting to him when he travels too far out into the conspiratorial.)

The other members of the family are more earthy and pragmatic. My father is the engineer who fixes the water heater when it breaks mid-winter, or like clockwork, reminds us to change the air filter when it’s time. He may have been the one to steer me away from art into medicine, much to my chagrin. I harbored anger about it for quite a while. I think during that year, I finally had the chance to hear stories of the harrowing escape from their country from my aunts. Apparently, father shouldered a lot of that responsibility to make sure they arrived here safely. Knowing these stories helped me to understand and forgive him. I think since he feels my brother can't do it, he sees me as the one carrying forth that ancestral responsibility, some sense of honor from a lost country.

My sister is also a more worldly being than I. Being the youngest one, she has had to fight a little bit more than the rest of us for her fair share. But that feistiness proved itself to be useful that year, when she received news that she had ovarian failure. She would never have children of her own. It really broke her heart, and she was trying everything under the sun to change her fate. I didn’t realize its meaning at the time, but in a trip to New Jersey to visit my cousin, there was a scene I’ll always remember. After a slight rain shower had subsided, she and I walked outside to the most remarkable double rainbow, and the whole sky behind was coloured with violets and reds. My cousin had gone through a miscarriage herself, and understood the pain. So last year, she was the one who volunteered her ovums to my sister. And most unexpectedly, my sister received the news of twins on the first IVF try, and she and her husband finally became parents. So, her will forward against all odds was really amazing.

Me … I continued to be lost that year, even while I was back at our Profound Treasury Retreat in the summer. Some of us retreatants spoke about trying to organize a dathün, and I was enthused, because being on sabbatical might give me the only opportunity I would have in a while. But ideas are so fragile, that sometimes if they reach the wrong ears, the flower wilts before it has a chance to bloom. That was the fate of this idea, or so it seemed. The retreat ended... and it was good, but it was time to go home. (Usually I had B to drive home with me, but that year he was undergoing chemotherapy for prostate cancer, so he hadn't come along. I had met him a few years back at a local Buddhist fundraiser, when my eyes first grazed upon his beautiful photograph entitled Flower Moon, since framed in my shrine room. My brother chose one entitled Flower Demon… Geminis of the same coin, I suppose). 

J and his daughter K had forgotten their unfinished laundry at our campsite before they had headed off to a second retreat. Since it was on my way home, I volunteered to deliver the clothes to them. I didn’t think much of it… I would come in and drop it off and be on my way.  Fate would have it that when I began to head back to my car, at the last possible moment, a voice called ‘’Daniel…! Daniel….!’’ J was out smoking again and he had spotted me. Would I stay behind to practice some more? Well… I told him I had the time. I think at that moment, a small hole in the universe opened, and I remembered the words of a Tibetan Buddhist master:

“If you can visualize it, it will be there in the morning.’’ 

Magically, here was the month-long sit that I had hoped for, suddenly materializing. So I fell upon a choiceless choice, and I was granted the permission to stay and join the group.

It was a really wonderful time. At the retreat center a few years back, the voice from these same mountains had requested me to have the courage to take a pause. So here I was, full circle, and it felt like a gift having more precious time to spend practicing. Of course, it wouldn’t be a proper retreat without major controversy, and the “Current Situation” shook what was supposed to be a peaceful space. (It has reverberated ever since, actually). 

But along the way, we had ice cream on the fourth of July for C’s birthday, and walks and wine at night (yes, we cheated). I think that’s where I met “Ah” for the first time. Her name translates to something like serene childlike beauty, or at least, that’s my take on it. There was such sensibility to her manners, maybe something unresolved as well. At the midway point, we had a long free day with mostly just the four of us together (J, K, Ah and I). Nothing happened, and yet it was the sort of series of nothing happening that was just a perfect coda for me. I think maybe the dralas dictated a poem to remember the day:

Dragon Day Bowing out Public vomit recovery Bambi living Je me souviens de rien de rien (one of Tilopa's 6 nails) Soothing headache ibuprofens Mommy navajo siren Only twin child Dulce elderberry spirit Basketball shots Straight talking Translucent Shakespearean theatre Wounded Earth Protector Great eastern sunburn Holocaust cemetery Flower moonshine Holy bread with dab of butter I'm really sorry—nothing happens Talking to Acharya through a window Talking to Acharya with Ka commanding magic The land before time The call of loons Four kayas Fortnights Tears in the fourth moment Sadjoy

I left midway through, although looking back, I do have regrets about it. A month later, while playing tennis, my right Achilles snapped. The moment I fell to the ground, it was like: “Damn, Daniel! Now the universe will have you sitting for two more months!’’ I would have preferred it at the retreat probably. Anyhow, I must have watched three movies a day that September, it was really indulgent, but I couldn’t do much of anything. But I did feel very grateful to all the kind doctors, nurses, friends and family who each had a hand in my recovery. I think somewhere in the healing, I started to realize a most basic thing about my profession that I had forgotten amidst the hustle and bustle of long days, feelings of inadequacy, and the endless accounting and paperwork. Beyond all that, I realized that maybe I could be helpful. “I can help.” It was a simple, almost naive mantra (if not to the point of being a simpleton), but I found it to be true somehow.

It was like I had recovered a compass, to which I could attune myself in times of need. As the sabbatical quickly wound down, my previous life awaited me. Nothing changed when I came back to work, at least not on the surface. But something changed as well… I felt with the mantra, I was perhaps able to slowly effect some change, however small. Ever so slowly, I’ve been feeling the sun in my heart again, and I think it feels genuine. It’s been slow-burning and giving. Last year, when everything stopped and the world turned upside down, I couldn’t help but think back… that somehow, I had stopped at the right moment, and had a small time to look inside. Now, it was my turn to give back to the ailing world. Increasingly, I think we all worry that our world is taking the turn for the worse, and it seems to really need us, more than we might know.  

Sometimes, along the way, we meet people that inspire, that move us, and even in a short time, change us. Late last year, old warrior teachers of mine gathered online to present to us their wisdom on the notion of an enlightened society. It was the surprise of the year that Ah could come, even for just the first half of it. (I suppose there was some poetic karma there, after I had left in the middle of dathün back then.) In those moments together, I felt we could begin to plant the seeds of a just and good world. And in our society, it’s okay if one needs time away in the middle of a forest to heal. It might take moments and moments, and then suddenly, a new possibility dawns—one that has been there all along. Maybe, that’s how we cultivate warriors with soft hearts.

In the middle of that winter, these lines came to me:

                           Meet me in the ninth                         Where the sun reaches its peak                          To swallow flames whole

Maybe it’s for these dark times we live in, that sometimes feel impossible, but we know that the only way is through. On the other hand, perhaps we have simply forgotten, but our birthright is goodness, and it infuses everything that we do already.

So although we live a world apart, it’s still nice to know that magic can happen in July, and that just maybe, we are but a call or message away. And sometimes, there are holes in the universe, holes that open up possibilities that at once seem possible and impossible, to those that are one in a million, perhaps, once in a lifetime… and you know, my heart grows a little fonder. Or, it could be that I’m a bit myopic and that I can’t read the situation from this far a distance. If it’s that, then my humble apologies. 

I’m reminded that I once took a drawing class, and there was a couple serving as models in the middle of the room. The teacher was helping us visualize, asking that our eyes follow the curves of the body to where we couldn’t see them, helping us feel the space from presence to darkness. Then, we were asked to try and glimpse into the soul of the models, how it might reflect in their gaze, or a wrinkle, or in an unkempt strand of hair. I think I’m coming to understand this inner world a little bit more everyday: the mirrors, the moths, and the lady with the mask. And I would say, “I think I like you, and I would love to get to know you more.’’ 

At the very least, I hope it brings a smile.

                                        *              *               *

I feel the sirens might be done their songs for the day.  Thank you for your ears.  They really are most kind.

[freenewstoday]

New Post has been published on https://freenews.today/2021/02/24/refugees-and-undocumented-migrants-must-be-vaccinated-ngos-warn-dw-24-02-2021/

Refugees and undocumented migrants must be vaccinated, NGOs warn | DW | 24.02.2021

The European Commission adopted a recommendation for effective vaccine strategies and deployment back in October 2020. In it, refugees are cited as a priority group. There is no mention of undocumented migrants.

Individual nations, however, are each responsible for developing their own vaccine strategies as well as defining and prioritizing groups for vaccination.

Refugees and migrants a priority 

Refugees and undocumented migrants are some of the most marginalized people in Europe.

They belong to categories defined by legal status. When asylum-seekers are applying for or are granted asylum on the grounds that they are fleeing war or persecution in their home countries, they have temporary residency rights as official refugees.

Undocumented migrants, on the other hand — even those born in Europe who have inherited their status from their parents — are not recognized by the current asylum framework.

One of the main reasons both these groups need to be prioritized in national vaccination strategies is because they tend to live in such perilous conditions. The aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has reported that refugees are three times more likely to be exposed to infection than people living in regular settings.

“Oftentimes, social distancing and quarantine measures are impossible since they usually live in precarious settings, such as overcrowded apartments or informal encampments,” Gianluca Cesaro from the Platform for the International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM) said.

Asylum-seekers often live in overcrowded tents and enclosed camps

Promises in theory, but practical challenges remain

European countries like the UK, the Netherlands, France, Spain and Italy are including undocumented migrants in their vaccination strategies, according to official sources. Belgium’s Ministry of Health said the country would vaccinate undocumented individuals, though it remains unclear whether it will do so as part of an official national strategy.

Germany and Serbia officially reported that refugees and asylum-seekers would be prioritized in their respective vaccine strategies.

The Greek Ministry of Health clearly guaranteed refugees in camps social security numbers so they could access vaccines, but there was no mention of undocumented migrants, according to Villads Zahle from the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE),

Spanish and Bosnian authorities, on the other hand, are working to return many asylum-seekers in their camps to countries of origin. And Poland has explicitly excluded non-resident foreigners from its vaccination program.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said some 28 EU and non-EU countries across Europe will include refugees and asylum-seekers in their national vaccination campaigns, although no official data was provided from the organization to indicate precisely which countries these are.

Despite some European countries having made efforts, however, putting such plans into practice can be difficult.

“It is one thing to include undocumented people in the vaccination strategies on paper. It is another to actually grant them meaningful, practical access to the vaccines. This means governments and authorities need to enact effective outreach strategies to get to these communities,” Cesaro said.

He explained that undocumented migrants need to be able to trust local communities but that discriminatory and criminalizing state policies — as well as the fact that a social security number is often needed for vaccine registration — usually lead such individuals to avoid all contact with authorities. Cesaro added that local grassroots organizations with long histories of working with undocumented communities will have to be enlisted to reach them.

Shabia Mantoo, the UNHCR’s global spokesperson, added that undocumented individuals must be able to understand how to approach health authorities and register for vaccinations, as well as being able to inform themselves about vaccines to reduce hesitancy about getting the shot.

Impact of COVID-19 on migrants unknown

In many European countries, undocumented migrants can receive emergency health services. In others, they are ineligible for free or covered care and are deeply worried that seeking care will result in exposure to deportation, according to a PICUM report.

Fear of deportation, the report added, makes them less likely to visit a doctor or hospital even when sick.

Still, Cesaro said, undocumented people of all ages, including the elderly and other at-risk groups, live in Europe. But comprehensive demographic data on undocumented people in Europe is lacking, so infection and death rates within the group remain unclear.

No major outbreaks have been reported in refugee camps but the pandemic has still had a big impact on people living in them

“Data depends on reporting by national authorities. So we will not always have the full picture, just because there are so many discrepancies when it comes to testing and data segregation and also reporting,” Mantoo said.

Mantoo explained that although there had been coronavirus transmissions in European refugee facilities, no major outbreaks had been reported in any camps. According to PICUM, many European countries chose to release people from camps in an effort to avoid major outbreaks.

A PICUM survey on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the lives of undocumented people, however, found that around 80% of the respondents had experienced the loss of job and income and were not able to access unemployment benefits. Their situation has worsened in almost every way throughout the course of the pandemic, as the British Medical Journal reported in its publication BMJ Global Health.

An asylum-seeker gets his temperature checked in the Kara Tepe camp in Greece

Vaccines won’t solve the problem of accessing health care

Even if the vaccine reaches undocumented individuals, it may not lead to sustained or improved access to basic health care for undocumented people, says Alyna Smith, an advocacy officer from PICUM.

“We believe that undocumented people and generally everyone should be able to have full access to health care based on health needs and not on residence status,” adds PICUM’s Gianluca Cesaro.

Furthermore, warns the UNHCR report, excluding refugees and other displaced people or non-nationals from vaccination plans carries the risk of ongoing transmission in these populations, with spillovers into the national population.

According to the statistics from the European Commission, there are currently around 2.6 million refugees in Europe — mostly settled in Germany, Spain, France, Italy and Greece. A Pew Research Center report estimated that as many as 4.8 million undocumented migrants were living in Europe in 2017 — almost half of them in Germany.

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