Move to Widen Indefinite Detention of Migrants Defies American and Christian Values

SOURCE Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service

 - Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) condemns attempts to amend the Senate immigration reform bill, S.744, to expand indefinite detention of migrants, limit the use of alternatives to detention, and make it harder for migrants to obtain access to legal counsel.

"Families and children would be among the first to suffer if the Senate Judiciary Committee votes this week to amend S.744, the immigration reform bill, to reflect values that are neither American nor Christian," said LIRS President and CEO Linda Hartke . "Amendment 53 would limit the use of alternatives to detention and bond and enable indefinite detention of some migrants, which would tear more families apart and defy both the American belief in due process and our scriptural responsibility to welcome—not imprison—the stranger among us." 

"Amendments along the lines of Senator Grassley's would cripple S.744's ability to deliver what the majority of Americans are calling for: immigration reform that keeps families together, because family unity is vital to our congregations and communities," Hartke said.

S.744 (The Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act) would improve migrants' access to justice, due process, and freedom of movement. On May 9, the Senate Judiciary Committee began considering amendments and will continue this "mark-up" process through May 24. More details about the detention and due process amendments listed below are available through LIR's in-depth analysis. Additional information about the ongoing legislative battle is available through the weekly LIRS blog series "Immigration Reform 2013: The Update."

 

"LIRS seeks to ensure that our nation's immigration laws are humanely and justly enforced," said Megan Bremer , who directs LIRS's Access to Justice unit. "It's critical that no amendments hinder S.744's capacity to expand alternatives to immigrant detention, protect programs that keep detained people informed of their rights, increase their access to legal counsel, and limit the use of solitary confinement."

LIRS applauds the following positive amendments to S.744 regarding detention and due process:

• Coons 6: Improves accountability and transparency among federal agencies responsible for immigration enforcement by requiring interoperable databases among them. Requires detailed reporting by these agencies to Congress on detainees and removal proceedings.
• Blumenthal 2: Defines and limits the use of "solitary confinement" for immigrant detainees, prohibiting its use for children and individuals with serious mental illness.
• Franken 7: Protects children affected by immigration enforcement, and detainees' parental rights.

LIRS calls on the Senate committee to vote down the following amendments, in addition to Grassley 53:

• Grassley 40: Weakens S. 744's provision of government-funded and -appointed counsel for unaccompanied children and individuals with serious mental disabilities.
• Grassley 41: Strikes programs in S. 744 that inform detained migrants of their legal rights and screen for vulnerable individuals who need counsel appointed on their behalf.
• Grassley 47: Undoes provisions in S.744 that enhance access to due process. Eliminates bond hearings required for all detained migrants as well as a requirement that immigration judges oversee a person's consent to be deported from the United States.
• Grassley 51: Eliminates expanded use of alternatives to detention required by S. 744.
• Sessions 12: Raises bond minimum to $5,000 for migrants from nations other than Mexico/Canada.

LIRSis nationally recognized for advocating on behalf of refugees, asylum seekers, unaccompanied children, immigrants in detention, families fractured by migration and other vulnerable populations, and for serving migrants through 60 grassroots legal and social service partners across the United States.

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Investigate the Investigators of Bucks County Sheriff's Dept ?

Sheriff Candidate Tom Lingenfelter

Tom Lingenfelter, former Top Secret Special Agent for Counter-intelligence and the only GOP Primary Election opponent of the Bucks County Sheriff, Edward "Duke" Donnelly believes it is time for an investigation of the investigators.

The on-going investigation of the Sheriffs office follows the conviction of several long-time Bucks County office holders. The investigation of the Sheriff's Dept. was transferred by the Bucks County District Attorney David Heckler to the State Attorney General. Heckler stated that he withdrew himself because he had campaigned with Sheriff Donnelly in the past. This despite the fact he prosecuted the convicted long-term office holders with whom he shared the party ticket several times in the past 30 years.

Reported: Courier Times May 22, 2011: "The State Attorney General's Office will handle the investigation into alleged misconduct in the Bucks County Sheriff's Department, District Attorney Dave Heckler confirmed Friday.

Heckler declined to discuss details of the allegations, but said he asked the AG to step-in to avoid a possible conflict of interest. The hand-off comes after a county grand jury was convened to begin the probe....

Heckler has been called to investigate other county officials in recent months and has not stepped aside...."

Posted PhillyBurbs.com January 23, 2013: Dismissed sheriff deputies allege corruption in federal suit.

"Two former Bucks County sheriff deputies who lost their jobs after the arrest of a department sergeant, filed suit in federal court alleging corruption and seeking whistleblower status.....also alleging that deputies were required to assist in Bucks County Sheriff Edward "Duke" Donnelley's re-election campaign, place political signs throughout the county, attend parades and hand-out campaign materials...."

Lingenfelter said "I believe two years for an investigation is long enough and the voters have a right to know the who, what, where, why, and when before the election, not afterward, if ever! Where there is this much smoke there must be fire."

See also: U.S. Sheriffs' 'duke it out'

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Flight Attendants Protest At Charlotte Airport Against Knives In The Passenger Cabin

Association of Flight Attendants

Flight Attendants will hold a press conference Thursday, May 16 at Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) to continue to engage the traveling public in efforts to keep the aircraft cabin free of knives that have been used as weapons. According to a recent Washington Post article "now the chatter is that the TSA may decide to put the new rules into effect over the Memorial Day weekend." TSA officers have expressed concern not only with the dangers of allowing knives in the security checkpoints and beyond, but also noted that these new procedures would slow security lines.

The TSA's delayed policy to allow knives into the aircraft cabin has been opposed by Flight Attendants, gate agents, TSA officers, air marshals, law enforcement officers, FBI agents, pilots, passengers, 9/11 families and airlines. Last week nine organizations representing 400,000 members of these groups filed a legal petition with the TSA in opposition to permitting knives in the cabin, reserving their right to take legal action against implementation. Flight Attendants, including the 60,000 represented by the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA), have opposed the ill-advised plan from the start and remain resolute: No Knives on Planes Ever Again. www.NoKnivesOnPlanes.com

Flight Attendants have also been pushing for passage of The No Knives Act of 2013 to legislate a permanent ban on knives in the passenger cabin. Flight Attendants are issuing a public plea to Congress, including North Carolina's Congressman Richard Hudson , to support the legislation and keep the traveling public safe. Congressman Hudson's support would be key to passage in the House since he serves as chairperson of the Transportation Security Subcommittee on the Homeland Security Committee.

Flight Attendant leaders from US Airways will speak at the event and will be joined by representatives of other key aviation stakeholders:

Press Conference "No Knives, Ever Again"
Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT)
Baggage Claim, Zone E
Across from International Arrivals
May 16, 2013, 12:00 pm Eastern Time

The Association of Flight Attendants is the world's largest Flight Attendant union. Focused 100 percent on Flight Attendant issues, AFA has been the leader in advancing the Flight Attendant profession for 67 years. Serving as the voice for Flight Attendants in the workplace, in the aviation industry, in the media and on Capitol Hill, AFA has transformed the Flight Attendant profession by raising wages, benefits and working conditions. Nearly 60,000 Flight Attendants come together to form AFA, part of the 700,000-member strong Communications Workers of America (CWA), AFL-CIO. Visit us at www.afacwa.org.

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Associated Press Should Remove 'Illegal Wiretap' from Stylebook

SOURCE Americans for Legal Immigration PAC

Americans for Legal Immigration PAC is encouraging the Associated Press to simply remove the term "illegal wiretap" from their stylebook to remedy their difficulties with Department of Justice phone surveillance of their employees.

The Associated Press was recently ridiculed nationally for ruling that the term "illegal immigrant" would be removed from their stylebook and likely disallowed in articles their wire service would carry just days before legislation granting Amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants was filed in the U.S. Senate.

"The Associated Press is eager to embrace totalitarianism, protect and defend the Obama regime at any expense of the truth, engage in mass censorship and bias, and yet cry foul when the Obama administration power abuses affect them directly," said William Gheen, Spokesman of ALIPAC. "Perhaps the AP should simply remove the term 'illegal wiretap' to further accommodate the Obama administration in the same way they sought to wipe away public concerns about illegal immigration and Obama's breaches of the U.S. Constitution regarding our immigration laws."

In response to the banning of the term "illegal immigrant," the national press reported ALIPAC's accusation that the Associated Press is engaging in a form of totalitarianism similar to what George Orwell described in his criticism of communism in the book 1984. In the book 1984, all citizens are subjected to a mass media supported dictator named "Big Brother" who serves as the figurehead of a one party centralized system kept in power through extreme surveillance of every citizen. Newspeak, the fictional language the citizens of 1984 are forced to use, is a reduction language where any terms deemed to be not politically correct have been removed from the latest version of the Newspeak book.

ALIPAC has criticized the Associated Press before for systematically failing to report on or acknowledge most of the death and destruction caused by illegal immigrants in America.

"The Associated Press engages in censorship and heavy bias to conceal the problems caused by the Political Correctness totalitarianism rampant in America today, including the deaths of thousands of Americans each year at the hands of illegal immigrants," said William Gheen. "Perhaps their 'magic eraser' can help them thwart the Obama administration monster they have helped create and sustain!"

For more information about illegal immigration, illegal immigrants, Obama and Illegal Immigration, and Problems with illegal immigration, or to schedule interviews, please visit www.alipac.us.


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Vermont Becomes First Legislature to Approve Death-with-Dignity Legislation

SOURCE Compassion & Choices



The nation's leading end-of-life choice advocacy group, Compassion & Choices, praised the Vermont legislature for becoming the first legislative body in the nation to approve death-with-dignity legislation. Gov. Peter Shumlin has vowed to sign the bill into law.

"This historic legislative victory proves that the aid-in-dying issue is no longer the third rail of politics. In fact, it's a winning issue on which Gov. Shumlin campaigned," said Compassion & Choices President Barbara Coombs Lee, an ER and ICU nurse and physician assistant who co-authored the nation's first Death-with-Dignity law in Oregon and was a senior advisor for the nation's second Death-with-Dignity law in Washington state, both approved by ballot initiatives. "We congratulate Patient Choices Vermont for its leadership of this multi-year campaign. Their success shows aid in dying has become a legislative winner."

"Legislators now are embracing the high margin of public support for end-of-life choices nationwide," added Coombs Lee. "This bill's passage should enable legislatures in Massachusetts, New Jersey and other states that are considering aid-in-dying bills to approve them."

The Vermont bill provides criminal, civil and professional protections for physicians who prescribe medication to mentally competent, terminally ill patients that they can ingest to achieve a peaceful death. It has requirements similar to the Oregon and Washington laws, but the Vermont requirements would expire after a 3-year period and then professional practice standards would govern the practice of aid in dying.

"Professional practice standards have successfully governed aid in dying in Montana for three years, and for the past two years in Hawaii," said Compassion & Choices Legal Affairs Director Kathryn Tucker, who testified before both the Vermont House and Senate in favor of the bill and was co-counsel in a landmark case, Baxter v. Montana, in which the Montana Supreme Court ruled in 2009 that the public policy of the state supports mentally competent, terminally ill patients being able to choose aid in dying. "Professional practice standards guide all of medicine and it is appropriate for aid in dying to be governed in this manner."

With over 30 local groups and 40,000 members and supporters throughout the United States, Compassion & Choices leads the movement for end-of-life choice. We support, educate and advocate. Learn more at www.compassionandchoices.org.


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