The Horrifying, Racist, Greed-Corrupted Profiteers

Now THIS is what I’ve been looking for.

Yahoo News just released a story detailing some of the companies who are actually profiting off Trump’s zero-tolerance policy. Without alleging that individuals at these corporations feel subjective malice towards others based on race, we can unequivocally say that they are participating in a harmful, horrifying, racist policy. The fact that they’re doing it for the money instead of true belief in Racial Holy War will be their defense. Let it also be the sum total of their sources of comfort.

Comprehensive Health Services Inc. (CHSI), a Florida-based company that touts its experience with “immigrant shelter services” received the bulk of the contracts.

Dynamic Service Solutions, a Maryland firm, was awarded a contract worth up to $8.7 million from HHS through the “shelter care for unaccompanied children” vehicle in September 2017.

Southwest Key Programs was awarded two contracts through the vehicle in September 2017 worth up to $1.8 million each for “emergency shelter operations.”

Dynamic Educational Systems, a subsidiary of the Arizona firm Exodyne, was awarded a pair of HHS contracts worth up to approximately $5.6 million for “emergency shelter operations.”

The fifth business with contracts through the HHS vehicle for “shelter care for unaccompanied children” is Virginia-based MVM. According to GovTribe, the company was awarded two contracts worth up to $9.5 million in September 2017 for “shelter operations” and for unspecified “emergency and other relief services.”

The Southwest Key link goes to a temporary page – the increase in traffic after they were identified as profiting from the ICEolation policy apparently broke their old server. Otherwise, all links go directly to corporate contact/comment pages.

Please do your part and respectfully (though firmly, if you wish) let these companies know that their participation in this ongoing violation of international and domestic law has been noticed and will affect their respective corporate images. It appears that most, if not all, of these get most, if not all, of their money from direct or indirect government contracts. We can’t threaten to stop buying their widgets, but we can let them know that their bad behavior has been immortalized and will follow them.

 

 

 

Just Listen To Wonkette, Will You: “Fuck his fucking executive order”

I (and probably will) write up an analysis of the Flores v Reno consent decree and how Trump has been using it to justify child ICE-olation and how the current executive order conflicts with the requirements of that settlement, but I don’t have the time to do the job I want to do this afternoon. So for now just listen to Wonkette:

So basically, the Trump administration wants to thumb its nose at Flores and indefinitely detain mommies and daddies seeking asylum and babies over a FUCKING MISDEMEANOR. Indeed the order literally instructs the attorney general to beg the courts to say violating Flores is OK and babies can stay in jail with mommy and daddy for A LOT LONGER, because that’s what the Trump administration is stomping its feet and clapping its hands for. Hey, maybe they can live in concentration camps, like one big happy family, at least until Trump can figure out a way to Finally Solve the whole problem!

Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo and Wonkette agree that litigation is inevitable, and Trump is going to lose at trial on a bunch of key issues. Probably on appeal, too. But for Trump, that’s a feature. His executive order puts the lie to the idea that child ICEolation was mandated by laws passed by Democrats, but if he can lose quickly enough in court, he’ll be able to rapidly pivot to blaming unaccountable, unelected judges.

Nothing says, “I love America” like hating on the US Constitution’s Article I, Article III, Article VI clause 2, and Eighth Amendment.

 

A Minor Major Victory: Trump Steps Back From Child Isolation Policy

Trump is now planning to end child isolation by permitting children to stay in the same prison as their accompanying parent. This is a huge victory for the children affected while still being entirely inadequate.

Now is not the time to back down. Now is the time to press both the administration and congress. Trump should still be impeached, in my view, for various important reasons from his refusal to safeguard US elections to his blatant violations of two vitally important treaties (one on torture, the other on refugees) to his deeply corrupt campaign. He probably won’t be impeached until Mueller releases more info because impeachment is a political exercise and no matter how definitive is the evidence that congress can see, if they can’t yet show it to the public I doubt it will count as “admissible evidence” (metaphorically, if you understand my meaning here) for congress’ impeachment efforts.

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Hold My Beer: Irony Is Frozen Inside ICE

A spontaneous protest at a Portland, Oregon ICE facility has become an encampment over the last 24 hours. Although nothing stops ICE employees from coming or going, the protest does now stop cars from entering or leaving, which is causing some employees who don’t wish to take public transit to remain inside.

Arun Gupta (@arunindy) tweets out the tragic and hilarious response:

About 75 people blockading ICE prison in Portland, OR. DHS keep coming out to ask protesters to let 9 ICE employees to leave.

“So they can get home to their families.”

If only someone had some compassion.

Enforcement of Church Law: A Good Thing For Once?

Fuck the witch hunts, and the inquisition, and the condemnation of scientific heresies, and the support for inherited, monarchic rule, and, well, just about everything. But maybe, just maybe there’s something good that might come out of Christian church law after 1700 years?

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a fellow United Methodist, [faces charges under Methodist church law] over a zero tolerance U.S. immigration policy …

Specifically, the group accuses him of child abuse in reference to separating young children from their parents and holding them in mass incarceration facilities; immorality; racial discrimination and “dissemination of doctrines contrary to the established standards of doctrines” of The United Methodist Church.

All are categories listed in 2702.3 as chargeable offenses for a professing member of a local church.

Interesting. I wonder how this might affect the national conversation, given that so many US citizens are Christian.

 

 

 

These Are The Children: A Child Raped By Law Enforcement

This is intended to be a a first look at how undocumented immigrants with children come to the attention of ICE. This new series is not limited to documenting only children and parents who are separated from each other, and cannot guarantee that separation occurred for all the families mentioned. Instead, this series seeks only to illustrate how many families come to the attention of ICE and what a child-isolation policy might mean in those contexts.

I was struck by a particularly horrifying story today. It’s not unique. They’re never unique. But it’s one human example of how a woman and her child came to the attention of ICE.

A 47-year-old deputy with the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office was arrested Sunday on allegations he repeatedly raped the 4-year-old daughter of an undocumented immigrant, threatening to deport her if she dared report him to the authorities.

It is not clear how long the mother was aware of the rapes, ….

Investigators say the deputy may have been raping the girl for months, if not years.

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US Actions In Light Of The Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees: This Doesn’t Look Good

I wrote yesterday about US violations of the Convention Against Torture, but of course US lawlessness and evil doesn’t end there.

Let’s read about the United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. Don’t be confused by the fact that the UNCSR is limited to regulating the treatment of European refugees who migrated before 1952. In 1967 the UN passed an amendment that simply stated that the convention protects all refugees in any time and any place – removing those restrictions but keeping the nature of the treaty’s requirements the same. There have been additional measures put in place by the UN to add additional protections in certain geographic regions for certain times, but when those special agreements are not in place, the fundamental protections of the 1951 treaty still require a minimum standard of just treatment to be followed by any and every nation which is a signatory.

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Happy Juneteenth

Portland has an awkward history of Pride overlapping with Juneteenth, and this year it happened again. If you had a choice of going to a Pride celebration or a Juneteenth celebration but couldn’t be a part of both, which would you attend? Why?

For me it’s a bit academic, living in Canada where Juneteenth isn’t celebrated (for obvious reasons) and Pride is on a different weekend anyway. But it’s still a chance to look at important issues of how we prioritize our lives and the causes that we value. I think right now I’d prioritize Juneteenth if for no other reason than the Canadian kids have been to lots of Prides and zero Juneteenths, but it would get harder to answer if we’d been to both the same number of times.