JUNE 22 THRU 24, 2018


NEWS AND VIEWS


WE SEEM TO HAVE HERE ANOTHER TRUMPIAN LACK OF PLANNING AND FORETHOUGHT. WAS HE TOO BUSY TWEETING? NO, DONNY. YOU CAN’T HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT, TOO.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/06/22/zero-tolerance-immigration-crackdown-diverting-resources-drug-cases/727532002/?csp=chromepush
DOJ: Trump's immigration crackdown 'diverting' resources from drug cases
USA TODAY Published 10:44 p.m. ET June 22, 2018 | Updated 11:34 p.m. ET June 22, 2018

Federal prosecutors warned they were diverting resources from drug-smuggling cases in southern California to handle the flood of immigration charges brought on by the Trump administration’s border crackdown, records obtained by USA TODAY show.

Days after Attorney General Jeff Sessions instructed prosecutors to bring charges against anyone who enters the United States illegally, a Justice Department supervisor in San Diego sent an email to border authorities warning that immigration cases “will occupy substantially more of our resources.” He wrote that the U.S. Attorney’s Office there was “diverting staff, both support and attorneys, accordingly.”

The email, sent by the lawyer who runs the office’s major crimes unit, said prosecutors needed to streamline their work on smuggling cases. He said that would mean tight deadlines – sometimes just a few hours to produce reports and recordings – for those that would land in federal court. Going forward, the lawyer, Fred Sheppard, warned, if agents can’t meet that high bar, “the case will be declined.”

Sessions last month ordered instructed federal prosecutors along the southwest border to bring criminal charges against every adult caught entering the United States illegally, a “zero tolerance” push meant to deter migrants. Those cases typically are seldom more than symbolic — most of the people who are charged are sentenced to no additional jail time and a $10 fee — but they have served as the legal basis for separating thousands of children from their parents at the border.

The border crackdown has produced a high-speed assembly line of minor cases in federal courts from California to Texas, more than doubling the caseloads there. This month alone, USA TODAY identified more than 4,100 migrants who were charged with minor crimes after crossing into the United States from Mexico.

Kelly Thornton, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, said in a statement that the Justice Department “has given our district the necessary resources – including 10 additional prosecutor positions plus at least five Department of Defense attorneys - to prosecute all of these crimes.” She said the number of smuggling cases prosecuted there is on track to go up this year.

Still, there are signs that border authorities are seeking to prosecute drug smugglers in state courts instead, even though the possible sentences typically are harsher in the federal system.

The District Attorney’s office in San Diego said Friday that the number of cases submitted to them by border authorities had more than doubled since the administration started its border crackdown. Spokeswoman Tanya Sierra said Homeland Security agents referred 96 drug cases to the office between May 21 and June 21, compared to 47 over the same period last year.

Most of the cases involved more than a kilogram of drugs, Sierra said.

Meanwhile, the number of people charged in federal court has dropped since the start of the administration’s zero-tolerance push, said Reuben Cahn, the chief federal public defender in San Diego.

USA TODAY Analysis: Trump administration's 'zero tolerance' border prosecutions led to time served, $10 fees

More: Texas border chaos: Courts, families, government collide in zero-tolerance debacle

More: USA TODAY is tracking where separated children are being sent

More: Trump's 'zero tolerance' immigration policy sparks outrage in Central America

Tips: How to securely connect with USA TODAY's investigative reporters

Sheppard’s May 18 email warned Homeland Security officials that prosecutors would have fewer resources to deal with “reactive matters,” a category that includes cases in which the Border Patrol catches someone smuggling drugs into the United States. From then on, he said, the Justice Department would agree to bring those cases to federal court only if agents had them wrapped up by 8:30 the next morning. To do that, he said, agents would need to have “finalized” reports signed by their supervisors, two copies of recordings of interviews with the suspect, two copies of surveillance video and a dump of the suspect’s cellphone.

He wrote that the change was meant to “streamline” smuggling cases so that prosecutors could resolve immigration cases more quickly.

The policy applies only to southern California.

Spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security declined to comment.

The administration’s border crackdown sparked an international backlash because it frequently resulted in parents being separated from their children while they waited to face criminal charges. The government has said that more than 2,300 children were split from their relatives.

USA TODAY examined 2,598 written judgments in border-crossing cases filed in federal courts along the border since mid-May. In nearly 70 percent of those cases, migrants pleaded guilty and immediately received a sentence of time served, meaning they would spend no additional time in jail. Another 13 percent were sentenced to unsupervised probation, including a condition that they not illegally re-enter the United States. In both cases, that meant they would immediately be returned to immigration officials to be processed for deportation, leaving them in essentially the same position as if they had not been prosecuted.

When he announced the crackdown to a gathering of police officials in San Diego last month, Sessions offered this explanation: “We are not going to let this country be overwhelmed. People are not going to caravan or otherwise stampede our border,” he said. “We need legality and integrity in the system.”


ALL THE STORIES RECENTLY ABOUT OUR EMBATTLED SOUTHERN BORDER ARE DISGUSTING, BUT THIS SUBJECT IS, TOO, IN A DIFFERENT WAY. NOTE THE AUTOMATIC SIGNUP OF A VETERAN FOR AN INSURANCE POLICY, OF WHICH HE WAS UNAWARE WHICH IN ITSELF SHOULD BE ILLEGAL. THIS HAPPENED WHILE HE WAS PHYSICALLY INCAPACITATED AND DIDN’T MAIL THE NOTICE TO THE INSURANCE COMPANY THAT HE WAS NOT INTERESTED. HE IS NOW HAVING TO PAY OUT OF HIS POCKET FOR ONE WHICH HE DIDN’T REALLY NEED; AND HE HAS BEEN UNABLE TO GET OUT OF IT BY COMPLAINING. BE SURE TO WATCH THE VIDEO. THE GOOD NEW IS THAT ON THE INTERNET HE HAS FOUND A GROUP OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE HAD THE SAME EXPERIENCE, AND WHO ARE BANDING TOGETHER TO WORK ON A SOLUTION. WHEN YOU ARE ON A PENSION, SOMETHING LIKE THAT CAN DESTROY YOU FINANCIALLY.

IT’S LIKE THE WOMAN WHO WAS “DECLARED DEAD” BY THE IRS (OR SOCIAL SECURITY?) ABOUT 5 YEARS OR SO AGO. THAT WAS ON THE EVENING TV NEWS. IT HAPPENED BECAUSE A PIECE OF MAIL TO HER WHICH EITHER FAILED TO REACH HER, OR SHE FAILED TO REPLY TO IT. AT ANY RATE, IT WAS RETURNED TO THE SENDER. IT IS THEIR “POLICY” TO DROP SUCH PEOPLE FROM THEIR REGISTRY AND, PERHAPS AFTER MORE THAN ONE TRY, DECLARE THEM DEAD. THE PERSON LOST HER SOCIAL SECURITY PENSION AS A RESULT AND HAD BEEN TRYING BY A NUMBER OF MEANS TO GET IT THROUGH THE WORKERS HEADS THERE THAT SHE IS NOT DEAD.

A MISCHIEVOUS OLD BOYFRIEND OF MINE LOST HIS BANK CARD IN THE TELLER MACHINE. HE WENT TO THE BANK THE NEXT DAY, ASKING FOR HIS CARD. HE WAS TOLD, “IT’S OUR POLICY TO DESTROY CARDS THAT ARE LEFT IN THE MACHINES.” HE SAID, “I ALMOST TOLD HER, ‘IT’S MY POLICY TO SEND LETTER BOMBS THROUGH THE MAIL.’” YES. THAT’S A TRUE STORY. I REALLY MISS HIM. HE IS NOW DEAD.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/disabled-veteran-hit-with-12k-bill-for-life-insurance-plan-he-never-signed-up-for/
By DAVID MARTIN CBS NEWS June 22, 2018, 6:44 PM
Disabled veteran hit with $12K bill for life insurance plan he never signed up for

WASHINGTON -- Thousands of America's wounded warriors are being forced to pay for life insurance they don't want -- and can't even use.

In 2007, six weeks after Matt and Tracy Keil were married, he was shot in the neck by a sniper in Iraq.

"I currently have no feeling from the chest down or movement either but I am able to move my left arm," Matt said.

"It changed everything," said Tracy. "It was nothing other than love that was the same."

a26-martin-vet-insurance-transfer-frame-209.jpg
Matt Keil was shot while serving in Iraq. CBS NEWS
They were doing as well as could be expected, raising 7-year-old twins, until last February when they received a letter. It said they owe $12,791.14 in unpaid premiums on a life insurance plan Matt didn't realize the Pentagon had automatically issued to him when he left the army.

That's because Matt is already covered by a free life insurance policy from the Department of Veterans Affairs. Tracy can't collect on both policies, so the one they're being billed for is worthless, and they never wanted it to begin with.

"We were automatically enrolled into the program at the highest level of coverage," Tracy said.

Matt went online to figure out how that happened. He found a form that says "automatically covered at the maximum rate" unless he submitted a form declining the coverage.

a26-martin-vet-insurance-transfer-frame-3167.jpg
Matt and Tracy Keil. CBS NEWS
At the time, Matt says he was on his back "paralyzed from the neck down, hooked up to a ventilator."

Future premiums will be taken out of his disability check.

"I don't understand why I'm being forced to pay into a program that I ultimately can't benefit from or that my wife can't benefit from," Matt said.

He's one of 19,000 disabled veterans who received the letter from the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS), which handles all of the Pentagon's financial transactions.

"We're angry. We are very angry," Tracy said. "But it's not just about us."

On Facebook, 260 veterans have joined a group comparing how much they owe and how much is being taken out of their disability checks.

"We're all trying to figure this out," Tracy said.

The bills for unpaid premiums range from $1,000 up to nearly $29,000, and the monthly deductions start as low as $16 and go up to $389. Matt's disability check is being docked at $137.20.

"My life's hard enough. I had to fight every step of the way for everything I've had. Now I'm fighting for something that I don't want to be part of and never thought I was," Matt said.

It is possible under certain circumstances to drop the life insurance. Some members of the Facebook group have sent in a termination notice, but been told they used the wrong form. Matt and Tracy Keil are still waiting for a response.

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.



ONE TV DOCUMENTARY I WATCHED SOME TEN YEARS AGO ON SERIAL KILLERS FOCUSED ON A PSYCHIATRIST, WHOSE WORK BROUGHT HIM INTO CONTACT WITH KILLERS FREQUENTLY THROUGH THE PRISON SYSTEM. WHEN ASKED WHAT SHOULD BE DONE ABOUT IT, HE SAID, “PARENTS SHOULD STOP TORTURING THEIR CHILDREN.” NOW OF COURSE HE DIDN’T MEAN THAT MOST PARENTS CONSCIOUSLY “TORTURE” THEIR CHILDREN, BUT THAT SOME DO AND GET AWAY WITH IT. OTHERS JUST BROWBEAT THEM OR WITHHOLD WARM LOVE FROM THEM. THOSE THINGS DON’T LEAVE BRUISES, BUT IT DOES NOT FAIL TO DAMAGE THE CHILD DEEPLY, EVEN IF HE OR SHE DOESN’T BECOME A SERIAL KILLER. MAYBE THEY’LL JUST LIVE A LIFE OF MISERY, UNTIL SOMETHING PUTS THEM INTO CONTACT WITH A GOOD PSYCHIATRIC WORKER.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/todd-kohlhepp-case-are-serial-killers-born-or-made/
ARE SERIAL KILLERS BORN OR MADE?
It's an age-old question in psychology and it comes up again every time the public gets a glimpse inside the mind of a serial killer, as they do in "48 Hours: Serial Confessions"
Jun 21, 2018

Paul LaRosa is a "48 Hours" producer. "Serial Confessions" airs Saturday, June 23 at 10/9c on CBS.

Are serial killers like Todd Kohlhepp of South Carolina just born bad or did something happen when they were young?

In this case, Kohlhepp, a formerly successful realtor, has pleaded guilty to killing seven of his fellow citizens. Kohlhepp denies he's a serial killer. In hours of police confessions, he tries to explain that he's basically a good guy who does bad things to people who cross him.

Todd Kohlhepp interrogation

"I've never done anything to anybody who didn't have it coming," confessed killer Todd Kohlhepp tells detectives.

But even he admits that by definition, he fits the bill and, in his case, he has a history of bad behavior dating back to when he was a child.

After reviewing court documents, CBS New consultant Kris Mohandie, a forensic psychologist, says Kohlhepp was troubled from the age of 15 months. According to documents, he was a terror as far back as nursery school. He hit other children and destroyed their projects. He shot a dog with a BB gun and used bleach to kill a goldfish.

"As a young child," Mohandie says, "he was already out of control, already into gratifying his power and dominance needs, already comfortable hurting other people."

Todd's mother, Regina Tague, remembers a smart boy who liked to read the encyclopedia and sit on her lap while she read the funny papers to him. "And he would laugh and he would get tickled. And he learned," she said.

Regina Tague and her son, Todd Kohlhepp
Regina Tague and her son, Todd Kohlhepp REGINA TAGUE

But Regina and Todd's father divorced when Todd, an only child, was 2. She remarried the following year. According to later psychological reports, Todd did not get along with his stepfather and grew increasingly hostile and abusive.

That might have been a turning point for Todd.

In "The Anatomy of Violence," University of Pennsylvania criminologist Adrian Raine finds research to indicate that when children are separated from parents before the age of 3, they are more likely to show signs of a psychopathic personality at the age of 28.

Another college professor, James Fallon, a neuroscientist, says he was shocked when he examined his own brain scan and realized it contained all the markings of a psychopath. In his book, "The Psychopath Inside: A Neuroscientist's Personal Journey into the Dark Side of the Brain," Fallon admits his shock as he then researched his ancestry and discovered seven alleged murderers in his own family tree going back generations. He believes he escaped a similar fate because of his parents' devotion toward him.

Kohlhepp's mother admits the divorce hit young Todd hard. He became increasingly difficult and she tells CBS News correspondent Davidl Begnaud: "If he didn't like something I did, he'd find a way to get back at me. One time I did something and…he stuffed all the bath towels down the commode and stopped it up, and flooded the house.

"I knew something was wrong inside."

She sent him to live with his father in Arizona but it did no good. Kohlhepp became increasingly difficult and more or less tortured other kids. He once locked a boy in a cage and a neighbor described him as "a devil on a chain."

When he was 15, his behavior became criminal. Kohlhepp kidnapped and raped -- at gunpoint -- a 14-year-old girl who was a neighbor. He let her go and he was soon arrested. He was charged as an adult, pleaded guilty to kidnapping in exchange for getting the sexual assault charge dropped. Still, he served 15 years behind bars.

Inside Todd Kohlhepp's storage container used for torture
27 PHOTOS

When Todd Kohlhepp was released, he moved back to South Carolina and, although a registered sex offender, he was allowed [it was legal then] to get a realtor's license. He built up his business, dated, bought an upscale home and even got a pilot's license but his past behavior followed him.

Last year, he confessed to killing four people at a motorcycle shop because he perceived they were treating him rudely. Eventually, he admitted killing seven people total, as well as kidnapping and raping Kala Brown whom he held for two months inside a storage container with a chain around her neck.

Could Kohlhepp have escaped his ultimate fate? Given the research, the answer is maybe. Professor Fallon, by all accounts, has lived a law-abiding life, but had his upbringing been different, he believes he could have followed in the path of his relatives and, as he recounts in his book, he cheats at board games and is not always a nice person.

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Photos

Inside Todd Kohlhepp's storage container used for torture



I’M GLAD TO SEE THAT THE SUPREME COURT IS CHANGING WITH THE TIMES ON THINGS LIKE THIS. THEY TEND TO BE SO CONSERVATIVE AND CAREFUL IN THEIR DECISION-MAKING PROCESS THAT PEOPLE WHO REALLY DO NEED RELIEF DON’T GET IT.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/supreme-court-adopts-rules-cellphone-142557667.html?soc_trk=gcm&soc_src=ceafb8ea-13ba-326e-8577-780d7df5b520&.tsrc=notification-brknews
Justices adopt digital-age privacy rules to track cellphones
Associated Press
MARK SHERMAN
June 22, 2018

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Friday that police generally need a search warrant if they want to track criminal suspects' movements by collecting information about where they've used their cellphones, bolstering privacy interests in the digital age.

The justices' 5-4 decision marks a big change in how police may obtain cellphone tower records, an important tool in criminal investigations.

Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by the court's four liberals, said cellphone location information "is detailed, encyclopedic and effortlessly compiled." Roberts wrote that "an individual maintains a legitimate expectation of privacy in the record of his physical movements" as they are captured by cellphone towers.

Roberts said the court's decision is limited to cellphone tracking information and does not affect other business records, including those held by banks.

He also wrote that police still can respond to an emergency and obtain records without a warrant.

Justices Anthony Kennedy, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch each wrote dissenting opinions. Kennedy wrote that the court's "new and uncharted course will inhibit law enforcement" and "keep defendants and judges guessing for years to come."

Roberts does not often line up with his liberal colleagues against a unified front of conservative justices, but digital-age privacy cases can cross ideological lines, as when the court unanimously said in 2014 that a warrant is needed before police can search the cellphone of someone they've just arrested.

The court ruled Friday in the case of Timothy Carpenter, who was sentenced to 116 years in prison for his role in a string of robberies of Radio Shack and T-Mobile stores in Michigan and Ohio. Cell tower records that investigators got without a warrant bolstered the case against Carpenter.

Investigators obtained the cell tower records with a court order that requires a lower standard than the "probable cause" needed to obtain a warrant. "Probable cause" requires strong evidence that a person has committed a crime.

The judge at Carpenter's trial refused to suppress the records, finding no warrant was needed, and a federal appeals court agreed. The Trump administration said the lower court decisions should be upheld.

The American Civil Liberties Union, representing Carpenter, said a warrant would provide protection against unjustified government snooping.

"This is a groundbreaking victory for Americans' privacy rights in the digital age. The Supreme Court has given privacy law an update that it has badly needed for many years, finally bringing it in line with the realities of modern life," said ACLU attorney Nathan Freed Wessler, who argued the Supreme Court case in November.

The administration relied in part on a 1979 Supreme Court decision that treated phone records differently than the conversation in a phone call, for which a warrant generally is required.

The earlier case involved a single home telephone and the court said then that people had no expectation of privacy in the records of calls made and kept by the phone company.

"The government's position fails to contend with the seismic shifts in digital technology that made possible the tracking of not only Carpenter's location but also everyone else's, not for a short period but for years and years," Roberts wrote.

The court decided the 1979 case before the digital age, and even the law on which prosecutors relied to obtain an order for Carpenter's records dates from 1986, when few people had cellphones.

The Supreme Court in recent years has acknowledged technology's effects on privacy. In 2014, Roberts also wrote the opinion that police must generally get a warrant to search the cellphones of people they arrest. Other items people carry with them may be looked at without a warrant, after an arrest.

Roberts said then that a cellphone is almost "a feature of human anatomy." On Friday, he returned to the metaphor to note that a phone "faithfully follows its owner beyond public thoroughfares and into private residences, doctor's offices, political headquarters, and other potentially revealing locales."

As a result, he said, "when the government tracks the location of a cell phone it achieves near perfect surveillance, as if it had attached an ankle monitor to the phone's user."


SANDERS V HALEY – TWO ARTICLES

https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/2018/06/22/vt-insight-bernie-sanders-nikki-haley-spar-over-u-s-poverty/724780002/
VT Insight: Bernie Sanders, Nikki Haley spar over poverty
Burlington Free Press Published 11:40 a.m. ET June 22, 2018

The Trump administration has announced Tuesday its departure from the United Nations' main human rights body in its latest withdrawal from an international institution. (June 19) AP

VIDEO -- US withdrawing from UN Human Rights Council

Sen. Bernie Sanders stepped into the feud between the Trump administration and the United Nations over a report on U.S. poverty and earned a response from Nikki Haley, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

The Daily Caller characterized the Sanders-Haley exchange as a “heated battle of words.”

Sanders was among a group of lawmakers who pressed the Trump administration for a plan to address poverty following the release of the U.N. report, which, as the Los Angeles Times states, “examines inequality in the United States and condemns President Trump’s administration for pursuing high tax breaks for the rich and removing basic protections for the poor.”

In a June 21 letter to Sanders, Haley called the U.N. report “misleading and politically motivated statements.”

Bernie Sanders: A look at his political career

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks with Sanders at a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing with governors to discuses ways to stabilize health insurance markets on Sept. 7, 2017. Jose Luis Magana, AP

“It is patently ridiculous for the United Nations to examine poverty in America,” adding that the situation is far worse in many other countries,” Haley wrote. “The report categorically misstated the progress the United States has made in addressing poverty and purposely used misleading facts and figures in its biased reporting.”

More: VT Insight: Gov. Scott's vetoes give Democrats campaign fodder
More: Bernie Sanders announces bid for re-election to U.S. Senate

Sanders responded the same day, also in a letter, that “ it is totally appropriate” for the U.N. to “focus on poverty in the United States.”

“... what is important to note about poverty in America is that it takes place in the richest country in the history of the world and at a time when wealth and income inequality is worse than at any time since the 1920s.”

In this Feb. 20, 2018 file photo, Jared Kushner, left, and Jason Greenblatt, right, listen as American Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley speaks during a Security Council meeting on the situation in Palestine at United Nations headquarters. On their current Mideast tour, senior Trump administration officials Kushner and envoy Jason Greenblatt are getting a close-up view of towering obstacles to their yet-to-be-released blueprint for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. (Photo: Mary Altaffer/AP)

The report stated about the United States, “..its immense wealth and expertise stand in shocking contrast with the conditions in which vast numbers of its citizens live. About 40 million live in poverty, 18.5 million in extreme poverty, and 5.3 million live in Third World conditions of absolute poverty.”

“I hope you will agree that in a nation in which the top three people own more wealth than the bottom half, we can and must do much better than that,” Sanders wrote.

The document — formally titled “Report of the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights on his mission to the United States of America,” — was prepared for the U.N. Human Right Council.

The Trump administration on Tuesday withdrew from the Human Rights Council, which Haley called runs “counter to human rights standards” and a “cesspool of political bias.”

Aki Soga is engagement editor for The Burlington Free Press. Email him at asoga@freepressmedia.com or chat with him on Twitter: @asoga



CAMP TRUMP RECOILS IN DISGUST: IT IS “RIDICULOUS TO EVEN EXAMINE US POVERTY.” SHE QUOTES STATISTICS ON THE WEALTH OF THE NATION AND IGNORES POVERTY AMONG THE INDIVIDUALS – ALMOST BANNING IT AS A SUBJECT OF DISCUSSION. THIS IS A CLASSIC REPUBLICAN ARGUMENT. “LET THEM EAT CAKE!” BY THE WAY, WE WERE TOLD IN A HISTORY COURSE AT UNC-CH THAT “CAKE” IS THE POWDERY RESIDUE THAT FORMS ON THE MILL AS THE FLOUR IS BEING GROUND. IT IS DIRTY, SKIMPY IN SUPPLY, AND THE STATEMENT IS PURPOSELY DEMEANING.

THAT ATTITUDE STILL EXISTS AMONG MANY OF THE ELITE TODAY, NOT JUST THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION. HILLARY CLINTON? I HOPE NOT. CLINTON PICKS BLACK PEOPLE TO FOCUS ON, THOUGH, AS DO SO MANY OF US, RATHER THAN FOCUSING ON WHITE POVERTY AS WELL. POOR IS POOR, AND MANY OF THOSE WHO ARE FOLLOWING TRUMP ARE IN THAT GROUP. THEY FEEL LEFT OUT, AND THEY ARE ANGRY, RIPE FOR A HATE MONGER TO COME AND AROUSE THEM INTO THE STATE OF BEING A MOB. RIGHT NOW, THEY HAVE NOBODY TO LYNCH, BUT LATER, WHO KNOWS?

ON THE POOR, HOWEVER, I THINK IT WOULD BE INTERESTING TO FORM AN ANTI-POVERTY TEAM OF PEOPLE WHO ARE INTERESTED IN HELPING INDIVIDUALS AND FAMILIES ONE TO ONE RATHER THAN JUST DEALING WITH FAMILY INCOME AS THE ISSUE. I AM THINKING OF A NEED FOR MORE SCHOOLING, CHILD CARE, TRANSPORTATION, FOOD SOURCES, AND MORE. DO BOTH, OF COURSE, BUT A TEAM TRAINED IN PERSONAL INTERACTION WITH PEOPLE IN THEIR OWN SETTINGS, BY THE USE OF TOWN HALL MEETINGS AND SIMPLY WALKING THROUGH NEIGHBORHOODS AS WE DO IN POLITICAL CANVASSING ACTIVITIES TO ASK HOW THE PEOPLE ARE DOING, SPECIFICALLY WHAT THEIR PROBLEMS ARE, SUGGEST THINGS THAT THEY CAN DO TO IMPROVE THEIR SITUATIONS IF THEY VOICE A NEED, PROVIDE FLYERS WITH CONTACT INFORMATION FOR LOCAL TO FEDERAL OR VOLUNTEER HUMAN AID GROUPS, DISTRIBUTE FORMS FOR THE PEOPLE TO WRITE THEIR OWN SPECIFIC NEEDS DOWN AND COLLECT THE FORMS. IF THEY CAN’T READ OR WRITE, DO IT FOR THEM.

AN NGO, CHURCH OR OTHER BODY WHICH HELPS PEOPLE INDIVIDUALLY MAY BE WILLING TO COLLECT THE FORMS AND RESEARCH A SOLUTION. TWO ORGANIZATIONS WHICH DO THAT KIND OF THING ARE URBAN LEAGUE, HABITAT FOR HUMANITY, AND AMERICORPS. ANOTHER GROUP FROM THE JOHN KENNEDY ADMINISTRATION, CALLED VISTA, HAS SINCE BEEN MERGED INTO AMERICORPS. THE FAIRLY WELL-KNOWN MIRACLE-WORKING ORGANIZATION IS “GOODWILL INDUSTRIES.” THEY PROVIDE A ROOM WITH ONE OR MAYBE TWO ATTENDANTS WHO INTERVIEW ANYONE WHO COMES IN THERE NEEDING AID, DECIDES WHAT THEY CAN DO FOR HIM AND THEN GIVES THEM A COMPUTER FOR FILLING OUT THE JOB APPLICATIONS FROM THE COMPUTER JOB FINDER SITES. THEY WILL EVEN TAKE YOU THROUGH THEIR COLLECTION OF CLEAN USED CLOTHING TO PULL TOGETHER A JOB INTERVIEW OUTFIT. THEY CONTACT HOMELESS SHELTERS, ETC., AS NEEDED. THERE IS ALSO THE SALVATION ARMY. THOSE GROUPS AREN’T ONLY FOR THE HOMELESS, BUT FOR ANYONE WHO NEEDS HELP.

THERE IS A GREAT LACK OF PERSONAL ATTENTION BETWEEN PEOPLE THESE DAYS, AND NOT BEING IGNORED IS WORTH A GREAT DEAL. WHOEVER KEEPS THE POVERTY STATISTICS MIGHT BE A GOOD PLACE TO START, OR PERHAPS THE LOCAL CITY OR COUNTY GROUPS AS WELL. I’M A BELIEVER IN POSITIVE GROUP ACTIVITY, SUCH AS NEIGHBORHOOD IMPROVEMENT COMMITTEES AND ACTION TEAMS. EVEN IF THEY CAN’T HAMMER NAILS, THEY MAY HAVE HELPFUL IDEAS FOR PROJECTS. NEIGHBORHOODS WHO DON’T ACTIVELY CONTACT CITY HALL AND THEIR CITIZENS WILL HAVE WORSE REPRESENTATIVES AND SLOWER ATTENTION TO PROBLEMS. A POTHOLE THAT IN A “NICER” NEIGHBORHOOD WILL TAKE TWO DAYS, IN A POOR OR POORLY REPRESENTED AREA WILL TAKE A MONTH TO FIX, ETC.

WHEN I SEE THINGS LIKE THE SO-CALLED “BROKEN WINDOWS” POLICING TECHNIQUES, WHICH AS MOST OF YOU MAY KNOW IS A EUPHEMISM FOR PUNISHING SMALL ISSUES LIKE THE FAMOUS “BROKEN TAILLIGHT” ARREST TO SHOOTING PEOPLE FOR WALKING IN THE STREET -- I THINK ABOUT THE NEED TO DO THINGS LIKE CLEAN YARDS, COLLECT CONTACT INFORMATION ON THE CITIZENS IF THEY ARE WILLING, ESTABLISH NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH, CREATE REGULAR COMMUNITY MEETING PLACES FOR REGULARLY HELD DISCUSSION GROUPS. A NEIGHBORHOOD CHURCH WILL OFTEN RENT OUT A ROOM AT A SMALL FEE FOR SUCH ACTIVITIES. IF NOTHING ELSE, IT WOULD IMPROVE THE MORALE OF THE CITIZENS THERE, AND BOOST THEM UP SO THEY WILL PITCH IN AND HELP.

VOLUNTEER TEAMS OF THE LOCAL PEOPLE SHOULD PERHAPS DO THAT. ANYTHING THAT UNITES INDIVIDUALS INTO A GROUP WHO KNOW EACH OTHER PERSONALLY AND CREATIVELY WORK TO MAKE IMPROVEMENTS WILL HELP THE NEIGHBORHOOD. WE HAVE A TENDENCY TO WAIT FOR THE CITY TO COME AND MAKE REPAIRS OR CLEAN A WEEDY YARD WHERE THE OWNER IS NO LONGER THERE; OR WHO IS TOO ELDERLY TO DO IT FOR THEMSELVES. HABITAT FOR HUMANITY MAY HELP. A GARBAGE CAN THAT HAS SPILLED OUT INTO THE STREET NEEDS TO BE CLEANED UP IMMEDIATELY RATHER THAN A MONTH LATER. NO GARBAGE, NO RATS AND RABID RACCOONS.

WELL, YOU GET THE IDEA. AS A SOCIETY, WE HAVE GROWN PASSIVE AND DISTANT ONE FROM ANOTHER, SO THAT NOBODY CARES ANYMORE, AND THE NEIGHBORHOOD GOES FURTHER AND FURTHER DOWNHILL. WHO KNOWS, IF THE COMMUNITY UPGRADES, BUSINESSES MAY START TO MOVE IN THERE AND BRING JOBS.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/06/21/wealthiest-and-freest-country-world-nikki-haley-tells-bernie-sanders-its-ridiculous
Published on
Thursday, June 21, 2018
byCommon Dreams

As 'Wealthiest and Freest Country in the World,' Nikki Haley Tells Bernie Sanders It's 'Ridiculous' to Examine US Poverty
"As it happens, I personally believe that it is totally appropriate for the U.N. Special Rapporteur to focus on poverty in the United States," Sanders responded

byJake Johnson, staff writer

PHOTOGRAPH -- U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, attended an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Monday, September 4, to discuss reports on Sunday of North Korea testing a hydrogen bomb. (Photo: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

Responding to Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) call for the Trump administration take immediate action to address extreme poverty in the U.S. after a United Nations report found that tens of millions of Americans are suffering "massive levels of deprivation," U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley declared in a letter to Sanders on Thursday that it is "patently ridiculous" for the U.N. to even examine poverty in America because it is "the wealthiest and freest country in the world."

Sanders was quick to issue a forceful response to Haley on Thursday, arguing that the U.N. should examine widespread poverty in the U.S. precisely because it is the wealthiest nation on the planet.

"You are certainly right in suggesting that poverty in many countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi is far worse than it is in the United States," Sanders wrote in a letter to Haley on Thursday. "But what is important to note about poverty in America is that it takes place in the richest county in the history of the world and at a time when wealth and income inequality is worse than at any time since the 1920s."

The Vermont senator continued:

As I'm sure you know, in America today despite low unemployment, some 40 million people still live in poverty, more than 30 million have no health insurance, over half of older workers have no retirement savings, 140 million Americans are struggling to pay for basic living expenses, 40 percent of Americans cannot afford a $400 emergency and millions of Americans are leaving school deeply in debt. I hope you will agree that in a nation in which the top three people own more wealth than the bottom half, we can and must do much better than that.

The scathing U.N. report that Haley denounced in her letter to Sanders as "misleading and politically motivated" found that more than 18 million Americans are living in "extreme poverty," and that the Trump administration's attacks on the remnants of America's social safety net are going to make this crisis worse.

In his response letter to Haley on Thursday, Sanders concluded: "As it happens, I personally believe that it is totally appropriate for the U.N. Special Rapporteur* to focus on poverty in the United States."

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
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RAPPORTEUR*:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rapporteur

Definition of rapporteur
: a person who gives reports (as at a meeting of a learned society)

Did You Know?
Rapporteur was adopted into English in the early 16th century and is a descendant of the Middle French verb rapporter, meaning "to bring back, report, or refer." Other descendants of "rapporter" in English include "rapportage" (a rare synonym of "reportage," in the sense of "writing intended to give an account of observed or documented events") and "rapport" ("harmonious relationship"). The words "report," "reporter," "reportage," etc., are also distant relatives of "rappouteur"; all can ultimately be traced back to the Latin prefix re-, meaning "back, again, against," and the Latin word portare, meaning "to carry."

Origin and Etymology of rapporteur
Middle French, from rapporter to bring back, report
NEW! Time Traveler
First Known Use: circa 1500 in the meaning defined above



BEST PHOTO ART ON THE REFUGEE CRISIS THAT I'VE SEEN SO FAR: “A photograph of the Honduran toddler sobbing in a pink jacket was snapped at the scene of a border detention. Time magazine has used the image for its latest cover, depicting President Donald Trump looming over the girl with the caption: "Welcome to America".

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/06/22/texas-border-chaos-courts-families-government-collide-zero-tolerance-debacle/727392002/?csp=chromepush
Texas border chaos: Courts, families, government collide in zero-tolerance debacle
Trevor Hughes, USA TODAY Published 7:55 p.m. ET June 22, 2018

McALLEN, Texas — Confusion reigns on the border as immigration officials, prosecutors and Border Patrol agents scramble to fulfill the president’s demand for a zero-tolerance approach to unauthorized migrants while simultaneously keeping families together.

President Donald Trump’s decision Wednesday to order that migrant families be kept together – an abrupt reversal of his earlier stance – sowed more confusion into what was already a complicated system of law enforcement, courts, warehouse-like detention buildings and re-purposed daycare centers.

Advocates are near tears as they struggle to reunite parents with kids who have been whisked away by the byzantine federal bureaucracy that’s placed children in as many as 15 separate states. Meanwhile, the court system maintains its grinding job of processing of dozens of migrants daily, fulfilling the president’s promise to punish anyone caught crossing the border illegally.

USA TODAY has been on hand for an in-depth look at how the problems are unfolding in McAllen, the busiest border point for unauthorized migrant crossings.

Courtrooms packed, solutions scant
Magistrate Judge J. Scott Hacker raps on the courtroom door as he enters and nearly 70 shackled migrants stand without a word. Here in this stifling 8th-floor courtroom in downtown McAllen, these migrants will plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of sneaking across the border, pay a court fee averaging $10 and be released from criminal custody with a sentence of time served.

They aren’t free to go yet, but how they’re treated demonstrates the challenges faced by the government and advocates as they manage the flood of people seeking a better life in the United States.

Trump has insisted that virtually everyone caught crossing the border be criminally charged, and Hacker must ask each detainee whether they understand what’s going on, to confirm their real name, and to plead guilty.

Occasionally adjusting his reading glasses, Hacker runs down the alphabetized list of prisoners who have been seated in alphabetical order, their legs shackled but their right arms free to swear an oath to tell the truth. Before beginning, Hacker warns them that lying in court could bring felony perjury charges and a far harsher punishment than the misdemeanor they’re charged with today. Most of the people at this hearing were detained by Border Patrol agents on Wednesday. None are parents who were traveling with children, and all are adults claiming to be 18 or older.

Thursday is the first day that no parents have been separated from their kids at the border, brought to court and charged. On Wednesday, 17 adults brought to court after being split from their children were hustled back onto a bus and returned to a detention center without being charged. Their fate in the courts remains unclear.

“Si,” says one of Thursday’s detainees in response to a question from Hacker. “Yes,” barks a blue-suited interpreter. “Si,” says the next. “Yes,” barks the interpreter. The hearing goes on like this, Yes after Si, all morning. As required by law, each of the migrants met with a federal public defender before the hearing, and each pleads guilty. The shackles jingle. The guards scowl. Reporters scribble.

'Torture of the Children'
Efren Olivares, an attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project, is torn. On one hand, Thursday is the first day in about a month that not a single parent has been brought to federal court after being split from their children. That’s good, he says. The bad news? The federal government has no concrete plans to reunite families who have been separated, he says, and it’s possible this new policy will be changed at any moment. For weeks, Olivares has been meeting with migrant parents who’ve been separated from their families.

“It is absolutely a form of punishment, and so is prolonged detention,” he tells a gaggle of reporters outside the courthouse. “It’s torture of the children, in my opinion.”

Like other migrant advocates, Olivares has no idea how the federal government plans to reunite families. Adults and kids separated at the U.S.-Mexican border have been spread to facilities in 15 states, advocates say, and federal authorities won’t discuss exactly how they plan to reunite families, especially when the adults are detained in immigration camps not designed to house children. Advocates say it appears some adults have been deported without their kids, and others have been told its their responsibility to pay for their travel to wherever their kids are being held.

Olivares said he’s heard that some border guards have been documenting family groups with photographs, and challenged authorities to explain their plans: “What they have now is a rudimentary system.”

Hunger strike planned
Outside the courthouse, Kerry Kennedy is fighting back tears. She’s just watched those nearly 70 migrants being processed for a misdemeanor crime. This doesn’t look like the country she loves, and it’s certainly not the one her father, Bobby Kennedy, envisioned.

“Nobody deserves to be treated this way,” Kennedy said as the hot Texas sun glared off the pavement. “The first question is why these men and women are in a criminal proceeding in the first place. This will cause trauma for the rest of their lives.”

Kennedy and staff from the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights nonprofit attended court Thursday so they could better understand the process. It horrified her: “That’s not who we are as American people. That’s not the kind of county most Americans want it to be.”

To raise awareness, Kennedy is joining in a hunger strike starting Saturday and planned to last 24 days — one day each for 100 of the estimated 2,400 migrant children forcibly separated from their parents. Strikers will take turns fasting for 24 hours each in a McAllen park near the federal courthouse.

Legal limbo for detainees
A guard walks across the pavement outside the courthouse, dozens of shackles hanging over his shoulder. Inside the black Bentsen Tower, Hacker has finished processing the migrants. Each has been convicted, their guilty plea recorded, their sentence served.

But they aren’t free to go.

Under the Trump Administration’s zero-tolerance policy, these migrants now face a separate immigration process that will likely end in deportation. Guards for the private security contractors shackle the migrants and herd them onto unmarked buses and vans for transport back to the Border Patrol detention center. It’s not yet noon.

They are responsible for getting attorneys if they wish to fight deportation. Many don’t.

Kindness in the blistering heat
The temperature has broken 90 after several days of rain and street flooding around the city. Outside the downtown bus station, a dozen teal-shirted volunteers huddle in the shade waiting for one of those unmarked buses to arrive.

Federal officials as a courtesy have told the Catholic Charities volunteers that a bus with about 100 people on it will arrive at 2 p.m. from the Ursula Detention Center a few miles away. Able to hold up to 1,000 children when it was first created under President Obama, the detention center has become a flashpoint of international outrage.

The clock hits 2:30. 3. 3:30. 4. Still no bus. At 4:20 it finally rolls in and volunteers and journalists swarm around it.

The door opens and a private security guard stands on the pavement as a stream of women and young children step off. The guard helps a few bewildered mothers as they struggle to hold their paperwork and their kids. The volunteers step in, offering reassurance and a place to rest. For four years, Catholic Charities has operated a migrant respite shelter in McAllen, providing hot meals, a change of clothes and showers for people released from federal custody and headed elsewhere in the United States while they wait for an immigration hearing.

It’s not clear, even to the volunteers, what criteria the federal government uses to decide to release, although every adult gets an ankle monitor. On Wednesday, the group was both men and women, along with children. Friday, it was only women with young children.

“When you see the children, see the the mothers,, see their faces, you know in your heart it’s the right thing to do,” said shelter founder Sister Norma Pimentel. “God has wired us to care for one another.”

Friday evening, the group walked in the hot sun the few blocks between the bus station and the shelter. The migrants released from custody aren’t obligated to visit the shelter, but volunteers say it’s become known as a safe haven — exactly as it was designed to be. Most of the people released in this group had been held 3-5 days, generally staying with their kids in the Ursula shelter designed initially to just hold kids.

As the group approached, the shelter’s glass doors swung open and the migrants straggled through, some carrying kids who were too young to walk. Applause broke out from the volunteers as the doors swung shut. Shelter spokeswoman Brenda Riojas said a little kindness goes a long way.

“You have to realize, for a lot of these people, this is the first time anyone’s smiled at them in days,” she said.



https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44578339
Migrant families separation poster girl not taken from mum
JUNE 22, 2018 5 hours ago

PHOTOGRAPH -- The image stoked outrage over the Trump administration's policy

A little girl who became the public face of US migrant family separations was not taken away from her mother at the US border, says her father.

A photograph of the Honduran toddler sobbing in a pink jacket was snapped at the scene of a border detention.

Time magazine has used the image for its latest cover, depicting President Donald Trump looming over the girl with the caption: "Welcome to America".

But thousands of other child migrants have been taken from parents in the US.

The chaotic process of reuniting families
Migrant families separation: The big picture explained
Trump hosts victims of illegal migrants

The image was taken by photographer John Moore for the news agency Getty Images on 12 June at McAllen, Texas.

The Pulitzer prize-winner told the BBC that the mother had been breastfeeding her child after crossing the Rio Grande in a raft in the moments before they were detained.

Image copyrightFACEBOOK
Image caption
Denis Valera (L) said his wife (R) had left him and their three other children in Honduras

Mr Moore said they were taken away together by border patrol.

The photo stoked outrage over the Trump administration's child migrant separations policy, rolled out in April, of removing young undocumented people from their mothers and fathers as they are detained for crossing the US-Mexico border.

The photo helped secure $17m (£13m) in donations from hundreds of thousands of people on a Facebook fundraiser for the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, a Texas-based non-profit organisation.

Media captionA Guatemalan asylum seeker is reunited with her son at a Baltimore airport

"My daughter has become a symbol of the separation of children at the US border," Denis Valera told Reuters news agency.

"She may have even touched President Trump's heart."

"Seeing what was happening to her in that moment breaks anyone's heart," he added.

Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES
Image caption
Sandra Sanchez (L) with her daughter Yanela Denise at the border

Mr Valera said his daughter and her mother, Sandra Sanchez, have been detained together in the border town of McAllen as Ms Sanchez sought asylum.

Honduran Deputy Foreign Minister Nelly Jerez verified Mr Valera's version of events to Reuters.

Carlos Ruiz, the Border Patrol agent who stopped Ms Sanchez and her daughter, said the mother was asked to set the child down so she could be searched.

"The kid immediately started crying as she set her down," said Mr Ruiz. "I personally went up to the mother and asked her, 'Are you doing OK? Is the kid OK?'

"And she said, 'Yes. She's tired and thirsty. It's 11 o'clock at night.'"

The little girl is two-year-old Yanela Denise, according to the Daily Mail newspaper.

Mr Valera said Ms Sanchez and their daughter had left the Honduran city of Puerto Cortes without telling him or the couple's three other children.

Image copyrightTIME
He said he believed she went to the US in search of better economic opportunities.

Mr Valera told Reuters: "If they are deported, that is OK as long as they do not leave the child without her mother. I am waiting to see what happens with them."

He told the Daily Mail he understands Ms Sanchez paid $6,000 to a smuggler to get her across the border.

According to the newspaper, the couple's three other children are aged 14, 11 and six.

Mr Valera said: "The kids see what's happening. They're a little worried but I don't try to bring it up that much. They know their mother and sister are safe now."

Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES
Image caption

California congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard (R) holds a photo of the little girl at an immigration protest on Capitol Hill on Tuesday

Time magazine defended its cover on Friday, saying that the photograph of the girl "became the most visible symbol of the ongoing immigration debate in America for a reason".

"Our cover and our reporting capture the stakes of this moment," wrote the magazine's editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal.

The magazine also corrected its story, which said the girl was "carried away screaming by US Border Patrol agents", to instead say the mother and daughter were "taken away together".

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders on Twitter claimed that Democrats and the media "exploited this photo of a little girl to push their agenda".

"She was not separated from her mom. The separation here is from the facts," she wrote.

On Friday, Mr Trump accused Democrats of playing politics with "phony stories of sadness and grief".

Approximately 2,300 children have been removed from their families since Mr Trump's "zero-tolerance" policy began in May, and housed in detention centres run by the Department of Health and Human Services.

Some shelters, including three in Texas, house so-called "tender age" children, who are under five years old.

About 500 children have been reunited with their families since May, a Homeland Security official said on Thursday.

More on immigration crisis:
Media captionDrone footage shows a "tent city" immigration centre
Media captionMayor on reuniting families: 'It's going to be a Herculean task'
Media captionThe sound of migrant children separated from parents
Related Topics -- UK immigrationImmigrationDonald TrumpUS migrant family separations


https://www.thenation.com/article/like-inside-mcallen-border-patrol-facility/
What It’s Like Inside a Border Patrol Facility Where Families Are Being Separated
The Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy has overwhelmed Ursula, where children sleep in cages, the lights never go off, and detainees are brought in 24 hours a day.
By Zoë CarpenterTwitter JUNE 18, 2018

PHOTOGRAPH -- Inside the McAllen Border Patrol facility where more than 1,000 immigrants are being detained.

McAllen, Texas

The dog kennel: That’s how the Border Patrol processing facility in McAllen is known, because of the chain-link fencing penning more than a thousand migrants inside. The 77,000-square-foot facility—often called “Ursula,” because of the street it’s on—lies just a few miles north of the US-Mexico border in the Rio Grande Valley, the busiest corridor for unauthorized migrants. Ursula is one of the first places immigrants are taken to after being apprehended by Border Patrol—and now, the facility is the epicenter for the family separations that are occurring because of the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy towards border crossers.

A large cage inside held dozens of young boys and teenagers without their families, some of whom looked as young as 5. A few slept on green mats with silver Mylar blankets pulled tightly around them. A few water bottles and bags of chips lay strewn around. Otherwise, the cages were bare, without toys or books. Separate areas held groups of girls; men and women alone; and mothers and fathers with their children. The overhead lights never go off. In one pen, a woman named Valesca sat on the ground, holding her 1-year-old son. She cried as she recounted leaving another child behind in Guatemala. She’d been inside the processing center for four days.

Under normal circumstances, adults confined in the facility are supposed to stay only 12 hours before being sent to court hearings or other detention centers. But across the border region, detention facilities, children’s shelters, and the legal system are overwhelmed. In May, the Trump administration issued a directive to prosecute all unauthorized border crossers in federal court, rather than to process them through immigration courts. The criminal charges mean extra paperwork, and a flood of cases into the legal system. The Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley office is now charging more than a 1,000 adults each week with illegal entry, a misdemeanor.

In one area of the Ursula facility, computers have been set up for “virtual processing,” so that Border Patrol agents in other cities can process the paperwork of detainees being held here. Ursula has only 10 agents permanently stationed there, plus hundreds of temporarily assigned agents, and they can’t handle the volume on their own. Detainees are brought in and out of the facility 24 hours a day. As of noon on Sunday, Ursula held 1,129 people, including 528 families and nearly 200 children who’d crossed the border without their parents. The facility has only four social workers onsite.

ZERO TOLERANCE IMMIGRATION POLICY
WHAT SENATOR JEFF MERKLEY SAW AT AN IMMIGRANT DETENTION CENTER FOR CHILDREN
Joan Walsh

REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL—‘THEY COULD HEAR THEIR CHILDREN SCREAMING FOR THEM IN THE NEXT ROOM’
Joan Walsh

The shift to criminal prosecutions is also causing the systematic separation of parents and children. According to Border Patrol officials who gave reporters a brief tour of the Ursula facility on Sunday, children are automatically taken away from anyone being criminally prosecuted. The Rio Grande Valley sector does not separate parents from children younger than 4—though that policy doesn’t apply to anyone with a prior criminal conviction, including misdemeanor offenses, according to Border Patrol agent Carmen Qualia. More than 1,100 children in the Rio Grande Valley sector alone have been taken from their parents in the last six weeks, according to Border Patrol sector chief Manuel Padilla, and more than 2,000 nationwide since early April—an average of 45 children a day.

Parents and children are then cast into separate channels of the federal bureaucracy. Parents are sent into ICE custody and to federal court, where many are sentenced to “time served,” and put into deportation proceedings. Children go into the custody of the Department of Health and Human Service’s Office of Refugee Resettlement. That transfer is supposed to take place within 72 hours. According to John Lopez, the acting deputy Border Patrol agent at Ursula, it’s possible that a parent could go to court and come back to Ursula the same day, only to find that their child has already been moved to another facility.

It’s not clear what the government’s process is for reunifying these families. Officials at the Ursula processing center showed a handout that they are giving to parents that instructs them to call an ICE or ORR hotline. “We are told inside here, ‘Oh, it’s just a very short period—they go to a judge and then they’re reunified.’ That’s not what we’re hearing,” said Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley, who toured the Ursula facility and others in the Rio Grande Valley region on Sunday with other Democratic members of Congress. Some parents have been deported while their children remain in US custody. “The reality is it’s very hard for the parents to know where there kids are and be able to connect with them,” Merkley said.

For the group of lawmakers, the most distressing visit occurred at the end of day, at the Port Isabel Detention Center, a remote facility surrounded by a swampland near the Gulf of Mexico. There, Merkley and several others met with 10 women, most from Honduras, who’d been separated from their children, one as young as 3. Only some of them know where their children were taken: to shelters elsewhere in Texas, but also as far as Miami and New York. One woman worried about her child’s health, because no one collected information about her child’s medical condition when they were separated. Another had been told that her child would be put up for adoption. “It was the most disturbing thing I heard all day,” said Rhode Island Representative David Cicilline. “They were sobbing, sobbing uncontrollably.” None of the women has been able to talk to a lawyer.

The legislators said they are particularly concerned about the treatment of asylum seekers. One woman at Port Isabel said she’d turned herself in at a legal port of entry, only to be criminally prosecuted for illegal entry. “It’s perfectly legal to, at a checkpoint, ask for asylum,” Merkley said. Earlier in the day, his group visited the border crossing in Hidalgo, where there have been reports of Border Patrol officers turning away people before they can get into the United States to ask for asylum. “What they’re doing is making it very difficult for those seeking asylum to cross at the legal border points,” Merkley said. “It’s part of a coordinated strategy to stop asylum seekers from ever being able to make their case.” Two weeks ago, he said, he saw dozens of families camped out on the bridge, waiting for a chance to ask for asylum.

In Brownsville, the congressional group toured a former Walmart that has been converted into a shelter, called Casa Padre, for teenage boys who crossed the border alone or who have been separated from their parents. Southwest Key, the company that runs Casa Padre and many other shelters for migrant children, has hired more than 800 workers just in the past week in order to keep up with rising numbers of kids being sent to shelters because of the “zero-tolerance” policy. The organization is still trying to hire 90 more mental-health-care providers for Casa Padre alone. The legislators asked for, but were not given, the locations of other Southwest Key shelters where younger children and girls are being held. “They are in some of these facilities, but they won’t tell us where they are,” said Wisconsin Representative Mark Pocan.

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MARY JANE TO THE RESCUE? THERE HAS BEEN 3000 YEARS OF DOCUMENTED MEDICAL USE OF THC (MARIJUANA) ACCORDING TO THIS ARTICLE. WE STILL NEED GOOD LABORATORY TESTING, PEER REVIEW, AND THE REST, HOWEVER. YET, THIS IS EXCITING. IN THIS CASE IT WAS BEING USED FOR SEVERE EPILEPSY, AND OTHER USES ARE NAMED AS WELL. THAT DOESN’T MEAN THAT WE SHOULD GO OUT AND BUY SOME MARIJUANA TO SMOKE. THESE ARE CONTROLLED DOSAGES AND CHEMICAL COMPOSITIONS.

THE ARTICLE HERE SAYS THAT THERE ARE 100 OR SO DIFFERENT RELATED CHEMICALS IN MARIJUANA AND THE STRENGTH VARIES FROM PLANT TO PLANT, WHICH IS WHY I HAVE RARELY BOUGHT ANY OF THOSE OVER THE COUNTER “NATURAL” MEDICINES. NATURAL DOESN’T ALWAYS MEAN GOOD, AND RIGOROUS TESTING IS NOT USUALLY REQUIRED FOR “HERBAL” MEDICINES. THEY’RE EXPENSIVE, INSURANCE WON’T PAY FOR THEM, AND THEY MAY DO NOTHING AT ALL, OR BE TOXIC. ON THE OTHER HAND, OUR WONDER DRUG OF THE MID 1900S, PENICILLIN, COMES FROM A GREEN BREAD MOLD. (DON’T EAT THAT, EITHER.)

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2172415-cannabis-oil-what-is-it-and-does-it-really-work-as-medicine/?cmpid=ILC|NSNS|2018_webpush&utm_medium=ILC&utm_source=NSNS&utm_campaign=webpush-Roost-cannabisoil
22 June 2018
Cannabis oil: what is it and does it really work as medicine?
By Alison George

PHOTOGRAPH -- Cannabis oil has come under scrutiny
RUNGROJ YONGRIT/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

Cannabis is in the headlines for its potential medical benefits after the recent confiscation of cannabis oil medication from the mother of a 12-year-old British boy with severe epilepsy. The furore that ensued is shining a light on campaigns for cannabis oils to be made legal for medical reasons, and the UK government has now announced a review into the use of medicinal cannabis. Here’s what you need to know.

What is cannabis oil?

Cannabis oil is extracted from the cannabis plant Cannabis sativa. The plant’s medicinal properties have been touted for more than 3,000 years. It was described in the ancient Egyptian Ebers papyrus around 1550BC, and it was likely used as a medicine in China before that. Some varieties of the plant contain high levels of the psychoactive substance tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is responsible for the “high” that comes from smoking or eating cannabis leaves or resin. The plant’s other major chemical component is cannabidiol, which has no psychoactive effect. Both act on the body’s natural cannabinoid receptors which are involved in many processes such as memory, pain and appetite. The cannabis plant also contains more than 100 other different cannabinoid compounds at lower concentrations.

So can cannabis oil make you high?

It depends on the THC content. Some types of Cannabis sativa plant, known as hemp, contain very little THC. The extracts from these plants contain mainly cannabidiol, so will not get anyone stoned.

Is it legal?

That’s a complicated question. In the UK cannabidiol is legal. Cannabis plant extracts (known as hemp or CBD oils) are available in high-street stores but the THC content must be below 0.2 per cent. “THC is not psychoactive at this level,” says David Nutt, a neuropsychopharmacologist at Imperial College London. But cannabidiol is illegal in many other countries.

In the USA for example, cannabidiol is classed as a schedule 1 controlled substance, and can only be sold in states where cannabis use is legal.

However, the tide may turn in favour of cannabidiol after a recent World Health Organisation review. This concluded that cannabidiol “exhibits no effects indicative of any abuse or dependence potential” but “has been demonstrated as an effective treatment of epilepsy … and may be a useful treatment for a number of other medical conditions.”

What is the evidence that cannabis oils can help treat epilepsy?

Although there is some scientific evidence that THC has potential to control convulsions, its mind-altering effects mean that much of the focus has turned to cannabidiol – particularly for childhood epilepsies that conventional drugs fail to control.

Two recent high quality randomised and placebo controlled trials showed that cannabidiol is an effective treatment for Lennox-Gastaut syndrome and Dravet syndrome, severe forms of epilepsy. The mechanism of action is unknown, but it may be due to a combination of effects, such as inhibiting the activity of neurons and dampening inflammation in the brain.

The situation is less clear when it comes to the use of commercial cannabis oils to control seizures, where the evidence is mainly anecdotal, and the oils can contain differing concentrations of cannabidiol and THC.

The UK government announced on 19 June that it would review the use of medical cannabis.

Are there any cannabis-based epilepsy drugs on the market?

Not yet. In April the US Food and Drug Administration recommended the approval of a drug called Epidiolex for Lennox-Gastaut syndrome and Dravet syndrome. Its active ingredient is cannabidiol, and final approval is due at the end of this month.

However, it is possible the drug is not as effective as cannabis oil containing THC, says Nutt. For example, the cannabis oil used to treat Billy Caldwell, the boy at the centre of the recent cannabis oil confiscation furore, contained cannabidiol and a low dose of THC, because cannabidiol alone did not stop all his seizures.

This is one of the big unknowns. “It is important to remember that there is currently very little scientific evidence to support cannabis oil containing both THC and cannabidiol as a treatment for epilepsy,” said the charity Epilepsy Action, in a statement issued this month.

Are cannabis-based medications available for other conditions?

Yes. A synthetic version of THC called Nabilone has been used since the 1980s to treat nausea after chemotherapy and to help people put on weight. A drug called Sativex is also approved for the treatment of pain and spasms associated with multiple sclerosis. It contains an equal mix of THC and cannabidiol, but would not be suitable for the treatment of children with epilepsy such as Billy. “If you used that to treat epilepsy, the kids would be stoned off their heads,” says Nutt.


AUNTIE DEBRA GETS AN EARTHLY REWARD

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/auntie-debra-doles-out-a-heaping-helping-of-hospitality-even-after-lunch-hour-ends-hoover-high-school/
By STEVE HARTMAN CBS NEWS June 22, 2018, 6:55 PM
"Auntie Debra" doles out a heaping helping of hospitality even after lunch hour ends

SAN DIEGO -- It doesn't matter what you order from school cafeteria worker Debra Davis. Every meal comes with a sweetie pie.

Auntie Debra, as she's known at Hoover High School, doles out a heaping helping of hospitality every lunch hour. It's just her first course of kindness.

d2-hartman-otr-lunch-lady-0622en-transfer-frame-507.jpg
Debra Davis works at Hoover High School in California. CBS NEWS

After lunch, Debra drives her '76 Chevy Malibu all over San Diego, looking for hungry homeless people. Debra says never met a homeless person who wasn't starving for her home cooking. On one day, she served more than 50 multi-course meals, all at her own expense.

In order to keep up her mission, she's spending money she doesn't have.

"But you don't understand the joy that I get from feeding people," she says.

d2-hartman-otr-lunch-lady-0622en-transfer-frame-1490.jpg
After school, Debra drives around, finding people who need a meal to eat. CBS NEWS

Because Debra is so selfless, recently the school district invited her down to the auto shop to surprise her with friends and family, as well as some better wheels to deliver those meals. A 2014 Mazda 3 was refurbished by the auto body class, but to Debra, it was like mint.

"I'm not used to a new car, y'all," she said.

She was so flabbergasted, she didn't even know where to start.

We asked her what it means -- that the faculty, staff and kids all wanted her to have that gift.

d2-hartman-otr-lunch-lady-0622en-transfer-frame-4113.jpg
Debra Davis with her new car. CBS NEWS

"That I'm making a difference in their lives, you know," she said.

"I was looking for my reward in heaven and y'all gave me a little bit here on Earth," she said.

Heaven on Earth, for a woman with an insatiable need to feed.

To contact On the Road, or to send us a story idea, email us: OnTheRoad@cbsnews.com.

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Steve Hartman
Steve Hartman has been a CBS News correspondent since 1998, having served as a part-time correspondent for the previous two years.


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