Trump voters get screwed: Migrant labor edition

I like to think I’m an empathetic person, but there are some individuals I just can’t feel sorry for. And these people are first amongst them:

Small business owners who supported Donald Trump are complaining about troubles hiring foreign seasonal labor the Lexington Herald-Leader reports.

The newspaper interviewed multiple landscaping business owners who claim they are unable to hire Americans for the same wages.

Eddie Devine voted for Trump, but worries he may go out of business if he is unable to continue hiring 20 foreign workers a season though the H-2B visa program.

“I feel like I’ve been tricked by the devil,” Devine admitted. “I feel so stupid.”

They voted for a candidate who loudly made closing the borders his top priority, and now they’re shocked to find seasonal workers have a hard time getting into the country. And they own businesses that depend on seasonal workers.

“Stupid” may be a soft term.

Incidentally, file this away into that ever-growing archive for the next time you hear someone talk about foreigners “taking our jobs”:

“We live and die by these visas,” said Ken Monin, owner of Monin Construction. “Last year we about went bankrupt. The workers we were supposed to get in March didn’t show up until August because they couldn’t get visas.”

“Americans don’t want most of these jobs,” Monin claimed.

This is reminiscent of what happened in Georgia in 2012, when a harsh new anti-immigration law that kept undocumented migrants out resulted in $140 million in crops rotting in the fields because – and this will shock some people – Americans don’t want the sort of miserable, low-paying jobs that attracts seasonal workers. That’s atop all the other data that shows that immigrant workers, including undocumented ones, do not “steal” jobs. But no anti-immigration crusader would dare let facts get in the way of their xenophobic narrative.

(via @fark)

Daily Links #121: Trump’s trans military ban blocked yet again

Will you look at that: 500 posts. Do I win something?

• Trump’s trans military ban just keeps getting, er, banned by federal courts.
  (via @fark)

• The Supreme Court just made it a little harder for the Trump administration to deport immigrants.
  (via @Popehat)

• What white people can learn from the Starbucks arrests; or, the importance of recognizing, and fighting against, implicit bias.

• You’d think a professional defender of the Catholic Church’s handling of child-diddling priests would know better than to weigh in on the David Silverman affair. (Yes, of course it’s Bill Donohue.)

• Finally, Ed Brayton presents: Eight Rules for Understanding Our Teenage President.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

US Army veteran with PTSD deported over drug conviction

Miguel Perez

A man immigrates to the US as a child, founds a family, and later enlists in the Army and serves two tours in Afghanistan. His experiences there land him with PTSD, which he copes with through alcohol and drugs. The latter nets him a criminal conviction, and now he’s been kicked out of the country.

The deportation follows an earlier decision by US authorities to deny Miguel Perez's citizenship application because of a felony drug conviction, despite his service and the PTSD he says it caused.

Perez, 39, was escorted across the US-Mexico border from Texas and handed over to Mexican authorities Friday, ICE said in a statement.

Perez, his family and supporters, who include Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, had argued that his wartime service to the country had earned him the right to stay in the US and to receive mental health treatment for the PTSD and substance abuse.

He chose to fight for a country he wasn’t even a citizen of and came out of it traumatized enough he turned to drugs to cope with it. What he needs and deserves is medical care. What he’s getting is thrown out the door, into a country he hasn’t visited since childhood and where his life may be in danger.

America sure loves supporting its troops – so long as that doesn’t require anything more than waving flags and having grade-schoolers send letters.

Daily Links #118: US bishops praise LGBTQ discrimination bill

• US Conference of Catholic Bishops praises a Senate bill that would legalize anti-LGBTQ discrimination nationwide, because of course they do.
  (via Joe.My.God.)

• A Buffalo, NY bishop names 42 priests accused of child sexual abuse, many of whom were previously unidentified, because … wait, that’s actually surprising.
  (via Joe.My.God.)

• Meanwhile, Michigan police raided the Saginaw Catholic Diocese and a bishop’s home, citing their lack of cooperation in a sexual abuse investigation.
  (via Joe.My.God.)

• ICE contractor says it doesn’t use solitary confinement, and also, please ignore the testimony and photos of its isolation cells that prove they use solitary confinement.

• The sun continues to set on the northern white rhinoceros as Sudan, the species’ last living male, dies. Two females survive, which conservationists hope to impregnate using IVF.

• Security theater: The Parkland, Florida high school where the February shooting occurred now requires that students wear clear backpacks, which I’m sure will make it impossible to bring guns into schools and would totally have prevented those shootings carried out with rifles that don’t fit in backpacks anyway.
  (via @adamconover)

• Finally, Tennessee’s Republican-controlled legislature passes a bill, sure to be signed by Gov. Bill Haslam (R), requiring public schools to display “In God We Trust” in a “prominent location”, which is guaranteed to fix every problem forever.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Daily Links #115: Homeland Security separates refugee families

Whoops – I’m so out of it today I almost forgot to give y’all your links.

• Last year, Homeland Security threatened to punish families that cross the border illegally by separating them. They’re now doing just that to refugees fleeing violence – only now they deny it’s meant as punishment. Because there must be a perfectly reasonable basis for wrenching a crying child out of their parents’ arms and detaining them in different states.
  (via @hiattf; retweet by @radleybalko)

• Baton Rouge, Louisiana officer goes 94 MPH on a 50 MPH road and plows into a woman’s car, killing her 1-year-old infant. So naturally, police arrest the mother and charge her with “negligent homicide”.

• Death meets Stephen Hawking at the edge of the Dark Desert over half a century later than expected.

• My guess is Trump heard about the sci-fi trope of space marines and decided, “I want that.” Includes a name only Trump (or a child) could come up with.
  (via Joe.My.God.)

• Finally: Jesus jailed for saying he’d bomb the gays. (I’m so sorry.)
  (via Joe.My.God.)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Daily Links #110: Seriously, please sign that petition to prevent censorship of Canada’s Internet

Oy, Canadians! Have you signed that petition to save our Internet from censorship yet? The deadline is tonight.

Once you’ve done that, here’s your news dump.

• US Supreme Court refuses to review a lower court ruling blocking Trump’s attempt to end DACA.

• More good judicial news: A federal court rules that the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits anti-LGBTQ workplace discrimination, rebuking the Trump admin. which argued the contrary.
  (via Joe.My.God.)

• In reaction to the Larry Nassar sex abuse scandal, Michigan lawmakers want to greatly extend the statute of limitations for sex crime victims. For some reason, the Catholic Church isn’t happy with this.

• Florida Republicans advance two bills to put more guns in classrooms, because when you reject all sensible solutions, cartoonish ones are all that’s left.
  (via Joe.My.God.)

• Finally, Ed Brayton at Dispatches From the Culture Wars addresses the terrible, tribalistic defenses of Lawrence Krauss against his sexual harassment allegations. You know it’s bad when the pro-Krauss arguments are the same used by Roy Moore’s supporters.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

US Supreme Court okays indefinite detention for immigrants

Some bad immigration rights news today, courtesy of a godawful Supreme Court ruling that essentially allows the government to keep immigrants, including legal residents, in indefinite detention:

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that immigrants, even those with permanent legal status and asylum seekers, do not have the right to periodic bond hearings.

It's a profound loss for those immigrants appealing what are sometimes indefinite detentions by the government. Many are held for long periods of time — on average, 13 months — after being picked up for things as minor as joyriding. Some are held even longer.

The case, Jennings v. Rodriguez, has implications for legal permanent residents whom the government wants to deport because they committed crimes and asylum seekers who are awaiting a court date after turning themselves in at the border.

This case is a travesty. The lead plaintiff, Alejandro Rodriguez, is a legal permanent resident who was convicted of joyriding as a teen and then of “misdemeanor possession of a controlled substance” – presumably, he was found with a bit of pot – as an adult. There are native-born delinquents who get off with a stern warning for worse (presuming they’re White, of course), whereas Rodriguez was held in a detention camp for three years. It’s bad enough that fellow Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer dubbed the ruling “legal fiction” in his dissenting opinion.

There is some slight hope; the Supreme Court has kicked the case back to the lower Ninth Circuit court for reconsideration, which means this could still reach a different conclusion further down the line. But immigration lawyers aren’t holding their breaths. The immigration branch of the US legal system has always been a hot mess, and it’s only worsened under the Trump administration, which has given ICE and Border Patrol all the leeway they want to persecute and dehumanize the desperate people who cross the border hoping to find a better life. This ruling just reaffirms immigration advocates’ fears: The US government can do whatever it wants to migrants, up to and including dropping them in a prison camp and leaving them to rot, and there’s little anyone can do about it.

(via retweet by @pzmyers)

Daily Links #105: Pennsylvania governor rejects Republicans’ gerrymandered new district map

Gov. Tom Wolf (D-PA)

Sadness is when the Netflix show you’re binging ends on a bad note. Joy is when you learn there’s a whole new season out that isn’t on Netflix yet. #BrooklynNineNine

• As expected, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) ^[pictured] has rejected state Republicans’ gerrymandered new district map that was meant to replace their old gerrymandered district map. The State Supreme Court will now bring in an independent expert to draw a non-partisan map, which Republicans will likely challenge.
  (via Dispatches From the Culture Wars)

• Undocumented immigrant living in the US for 14 years calls 911 to report a possible crime, gets arrested and taken to ICE for deportation.
  (via retweet by @radleybalko)

• Two Wyoming Republicans present a (doomed) bill that would ban all non-heterosexual “parody marriages” that don’t “check out with the human design”.

• It’s (US) Presidents Day! Celebrate by reading about just how rat-fucking crazy the bunch of them were.

• And finally, LeBron James has much smarter things to say than that angry Fox News lady who thinks athletes like him should “shut up and dribble”:
  (via retweet by @KFILE)

'The best thing she did was help me create more awareness' — LeBron on Fox News' Laura Ingraham's comments https://t.co/hp5ATRyXUH pic.twitter.com/DrRUxu38Is

— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) February 17, 2018

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Daily Links #104: Education Dept. to ignore trans student bathroom complaints

Education Sec. Betsy DeVos

• The Department of Education ^{[secretary pictured]} will no longer investigate civil rights complaints from trans students blocked from using their rightful bathrooms.

• In better news, a second federal judge has blocked Trump from ending DACA.

• Vermont state police demonstrate cops’ knack for turning would-be suicide victims into murder victims.
  (via @fark)

• Alabama prosecutor and sheriff declare that reforming civil asset forfeiture will force police to arrest more people to keep the money flowing, except when they’ll have to arrest fewer people because busts won’t be profitable anymore. How refreshing of them to admit they’re in it for the money.
  (via @RickHorowitz; retweet @Popehat)

• Parents of the year here sue their transgender son to bar him from undergoing hormone therapy because it would violate their religious beliefs, also tell him to kill himself because he’s “going to hell anyway”.

• As a chaser, here’s a funny (to me) piece about Creationists Intelligent Design advocates getting angry at Wikipedia for “censoring” ID – by calling it a “religious argument” and “pseudoscience”.

• Evidence is mounting that the dinosaur-killing asteroid may have been helped by massive volcanic activity in India.

• I was going to write up a post about this inane Tucker Carlson diatribe before I realized I’m not nearly that bored and masochistic.

• Finally, good kitties:
  (via Joe.My.God.)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Daily Links #97: Humanitarians charged over leaving water for migrants

I got tired of the old “Daily Links: <MM/DD/YY>” headline format, so I’m tweaking it. Better?

Also, 97 links posts, dang.

• Last week, reports surfaced that US border patrol ^[pictured] agents routinely sabotaged water and other provisions left for Mexican migrants. Now nine humanitarian activists face federal charges for trying to ensure those migrants don’t die in the desert.

• An Arizona couple have been seeking justice for 10 years after innocent bath-time photos launched a child porn investigation against them. Now a court rules the CPS investigators who took their kids away don’t have qualified immunity and can be sued.
  (via @radleybalko)

• Italian government criminalizes “fake news” and sets up a hotline for anyone to report “fake” material to the authorities. There’s just absolutely no way this could be abused.

• Republican Senate candidate for Missouri Courtland Sykes really, really wants women to stay at home and make him a sandwich. Sometimes you don’t even need to know who the opponent is to vote for them, you know?
  (via Joe.My.God.)

• Finally, Tony Perkins claims evangelicals, who supported Trump despite his serial adultery, would totally abandon Trump if he started adultering as president. Just as they’d drop a Senate candidate who was credibly accused of child molestation, I’m sure.
  (via Joe.My.God.)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

US Border Patrol routinely sabotages provisions left for migrants

A report by humanitarian groups claims US border patrol has an interesting method for discouraging Mexican border-crossers: Sabotaging provisions left for them so that they die in the desert.

United States border patrol agents routinely vandalise containers of water and other supplies left in the Arizona desert for migrants, condemning people to die of thirst in baking temperatures, according to two humanitarian groups.

In a report published on Wednesday, the Tucson-based groups said the agents committed the alleged sabotage with impunity in an attempt to deter and punish people who illegally cross from Mexico.

Volunteers found water gallons vandalised 415 times, on average twice a week, in an 800 sq mile patch of Sonoran desert south-west of Tucson, from March 2012 to December 2015, the report said. The damage affected 3,586 gallons.

The report also accused border patrol agents of vandalising food and blankets and harassing volunteers in the field.

[…]

The report, published by No More Deaths and La Coalición de Derechos Humanos, said wildlife – as well as hunters, hikers and border militia members – also damaged aid drops. But it said the main culprits were agents from border patrol, a branch of Customs and Border Protection, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security.

“The practice of destruction of and interference with aid is not the deviant behavior of a few rogue border patrol agents, it is a systemic feature of enforcement practices in the borderlands.”

It’s amazing how cruelly the government will treat people whom it clearly doesn’t view as full-fledged human beings. Meanwhile, before you start screaming Trump’s name, the bulk of the report’s finding were observed during President Obama’s tenure. And even with Trump’s openly xenophobic rhetoric, his deportation numbers still come in second to his predecessor’s, who retains his title of Deporter-in-Chief.

(via @radleybalko)

Daily Links: 01/11/18 – House Democrats help Republicans give Trump mass surveillance powers

• Key House Democrats join hands with Republicans to give Trump & co. the right to spy on basically everyone, pending a likely passage in the Senate.

• In better news, a federal judge put a temporary block on the Trump administration’s plan to end DACA.

• Examining the far-too-many US prosecutors who not only hinder justice, but actively work against it to keep proven innocents in prison.
  (via @radleybalko)

• Now Brazil wants to censor the Internet and “punish” speech it doesn’t like in the name of stopping “fake news”.

• Trump is yapping again about loosening the US’s libel laws to make it easier to sue people who say things he doesn’t like. First Amendment attorney Ken “Popehat” White already explained why, as worrying as this attitude is from the sitting President, it’s not likely to lead to any policy changes.

• Finally, professional Catholic Church apologist Bill Donohue is still saying that no institution in the world deals with sexual abuse better than the global religious syndicate that multiple investigations have found still covers up child molestation cases to this day.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.