Yesterday, 146 US House Democrats—141 representatives and 5 non-voting delegates—called on President Obama to suspend Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) home raids targeting Central American families and children. In the letter, they assert the need for a comprehensive refugee approach that “ensure[s] that Central American refugees, particularly mothers and children, are able to live free from an endless cycle of violence and persecution.”
Zoe Lofgren (CA-19), Lucille Royball-Allard (CA-40), and Luis Gutierrez (IL-04) led their colleagues in the letter.
A majority of the MA House delegation signed the letter: Jim McGovern (MA-02), Niki Tsongas (MA-03), Joe Kennedy (MA-04), Katherine Clark (MA-05), and Mike Capuano (MA-07).
The other 4, however, did not sign: Richard Neal (MA-01), Seth Moulton (MA-06), Stephen Lynch (MA-08), and Bill Keating (MA-09). If you live in their district, you should ask them why and encourage them to join their colleagues.
Here is the text of the letter:
January 12, 2016
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20502
Dear Mr. President:
We strongly condemn the Department of Homeland Security’s recent enforcement operation targeting refugee mothers and children from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. The DHS operation has generated widespread fear and panic in immigrant communities and has far-reaching impacts beyond the alleged targets for removal. The operation raises numerous due process concerns including meaningful access to legal counsel for mothers and children after apprehension and DHS officers reportedly using deceptive tactics to gain entrance into private residences. For these reasons and others, we believe that this operation should be immediately suspended until we can ensure no mother or child will be sent back to a country where they would face persecution, torture or death.Globally, there are currently more refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced persons – an estimated 60 million – than at any time since World War II. You and your Administration have upheld time-honored American values by offering refuge to those fleeing violence and disorder in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. We commend you for that.
However, these same fundamental American values have not been applied in your Administration’s policies towards Central American refugee mothers and children. The brutality of violence in Central America is undeniable, and yet this Administration has failed to provide a comprehensive refugee solution for those seeking international refugee protection. According to data shared by DHS, 85% of Central American families in detention have established threshold eligibility for refugee protection. Rather than preserving our commitment to refugee protection, your Administration continues to pursue policies that treat Central American refugees as an immigration enforcement matter.Thus far, your Administration has responded to the Central American refugee crisis with an emphasis on deterrence rather than the need for a regional refugee solution. Your Administration has used family detention, Spanish language communication campaigns in Central America urging people not to come to the United States, and financial assistance to Mexico to deter, arrest, and return those fleeing violence. This strategy has proven to be ineffective, as mothers and children continue to arrive at our Southwest border seeking refugee protection. Desperate Central American mothers and children will continue to flee to the United States and seek protection, regardless of the deterrent actions taken by this Administration.
The recent operation to apprehend and remove families – several of whom reported inadequate legal representation – is the latest failure in this enforcement strategy. The fact that several of these families were subsequently granted emergency stays of removal indicates that the system has failed these refugees, notwithstanding final administrative removal orders. A final administrative removal order does not necessarily mean that these mothers and children do not have legitimate claims for refugee protection. We are gravely concerned that DHS may have already removed mothers and children from the United States and returned them to violent and dangerous situations in their home countries.
The crisis in our hemisphere will only be resolved when the United States engages in a comprehensive, regional solution to this refugee crisis. This solution should include refugee screening and resettlement, the use of safe havens in appropriate third countries, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for those individuals in the United States, the use of priority refugee processing, and other humanitarian remedies. It is critical that this approach include cooperation with other countries in the Western Hemisphere. The violence in the Northern Triangle of Central America and the resulting refugee flow affects our entire region, and the United States’ solution should include a regional refugee resettlement program as well as increased capacity building of asylum systems in neighboring countries.
This comprehensive approach should also include collaboration with non-governmental organizations with expertise in international refugee protection such as the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Organizations such as UNHCR can assist the United States and our regional partners in screening refugees and can provide critical guidance regarding the best practices for refugee care and management.
The goal of this comprehensive refugee approach should be to ensure that Central American refugees, particularly mothers and children, are able to live free from an endless cycle of violence and persecution. It is time to start working towards a solution that provides a practical and humane response to the mothers and children from Central America fleeing for their lives and seeking safety and protection. Failure to provide this comprehensive solution will continue to lead to disorder at our border and will further a sense of unease across the United States.
We urge you to immediately halt the current enforcement actions towards Central American mothers and children and take steps to engage in a comprehensive effort with our hemispheric partners to address this regional refugee crisis in an appropriate humanitarian manner.
Adapted from a post on the Daily Kos
With Loretta Lynch being in Boston today.
call your Congressman’s district office to demand an end to deporting desperate refugee families seeking our protection by signing the letter to President Obama:
Congressman Richard Neal (MA-01) 413-785-0325
Congressman Seth Moulton (MA-06) 978-531-1669
Congressman Stephen Lynch (MA-08) 617-428-2000
Congressman William Keating (MA-09) 508-999-6462
Fred Rich LaRiccia
I also emailed Seth and Katherine a link to this story, which dovetails with the OP. We are deporting veterans who served their adopted country with distinction at alarmingly high rates. Apparently, it used to be that completing BT got you naturalized but they changed the law. It’s definitely time to change it back.
at an open Town Meeting in Saugus and he assured me that he is looking into the issue of deportation raids against Central American families and his decision will be forthcoming.
He took questions for more that an hour from his constituents and I was so proud of him for the respect he showed to each individual and his thoughtful understanding of the issues.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
Does he think this will give him leverage on something like DREAMers? If so he apparently has STILL not learned that the opposition won’t give him credit for anything. It also goes against every other indication of his values. In other words, I can hardly see him personally cheering on such actions a la Trump.
A friend made a similar post when I put the NPR story on my facebook. It just doesn’t make sense. Kind of like his insane devotion to deficit reduction at a time when we needed more federal investment, it’s a bad policy and it’s a bad policy that doesn’t even give him any points from Republicans or the media for being a moderate. He took a political risk and flak for backing Syrian refugees, it would be nice if he could also help the women and children fleeing drugs and crime in Mexico rather than deporting them.
We don’t know his values deep inside. We only know his actions. Many people like to attribute values to Obama that his actions have often belied. When it comes to his past actions on this issue, the raids are very much in line with them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=677elaGIsKU
As Bruce Bartlett, Reagan’s economic advisor, pointed out in 2011:
Obama is governing precisely as he promised to govern.
…but I still think he is a social liberal who regards all of his fellow man with a certain degree of dignity, especially given support for things like the DREAM Act.
… and saw this piece by one of the aforementioned outspoken liberals.
This is a great piece.
Here’s my summary: “Barack Obama managed to, by the end of his presidency, stop the batshit crazy GOP from doing more damage than they otherwise might have done”.
I agree. I am very disappointed by the difference between President-elect Barack Obama in, say, December of 2007 and President Obama in January of 2016. Mr. Krugman’s excellent piece points out that had Mr. McCain or Mr. Romney been elected in 2008 or 2012, things would have been MUCH MUCH worse.
I suppose that’s some consolation. I will tell you, however, that my opinion of Barack Obama in January of 2016 is not nearly as high as my opinion of Bill Clinton was in January of 2000. Even if Mr. Obama was able to run for a third term, I would still choose pretty much any of the three current Democratic candidates over him. In stark contrast, I wrote in Mr. Clinton’s name on my November 2000 ballot, as my private expression of frustration of the stupidity of the 22nd amendment.
Barack Obama is a much better president than Mr. McCain or Mr. Romney would have been. He does not, in my opinion, belong on the same playing field as Bill Clinton.
I might be wrong, but I think you will feel better about Barack Obama in January 2032 than you do about Bill Clinton now.
You set a very high bar — still, all things are possible.
I liked Bill Clinton while he was in office. I liked him when he left office. I think Bill Clinton would have been a better president than any of his successors, and I think much of the horror-show of 21st century America (and the world) would have been different had he been allowed to serve as long as the public was willing re-elect him. I liked him much more when he left office than when he took office.
I simply cannot say anything remotely similar about Mr. Obama. Perhaps, though, things will change. Perhaps sixteen years and four terms will bring me to a different understanding about him.
Bill Clinton did a very good job of running the country. I thought the Republicans did the country a disservice by distracting him with all the impeachment BS.
What is a non-voting delegate in the House?
The most well-known one is Eleanor Holmes Norton, the delegate from DC. There are also delegates from Puerto Rico, Guam, the US Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands. Those are all US territories but do not have statehood. They thus get delegates who can sit on committees and participate in debates but cannot cast formal votes.
Washington DC, as originally envisioned, would have only temporary residents. It was carved out of Virginia and Maryland because of the various issues associated with having the original capital, Philadelphia, part of a full-fledged state.
Washington DC is the only entity that:
– Is geographically located squarely IN the continental US
– Is constitutionally prohibited from running its own affairs — specifically including setting its own local tax rate
– Hosts the very same body that it is prohibited from voting in
– Bears ALL the expenses of hosting the government, yet is excluded from the process of either influencing those expenses or determining how they shall be paid.
Given the role that “taxation without representation” has played in our history, this is an intolerable situation.
we could make more of the residents temporary.
If it had been up to me, the only people to “reside” within the federal district would be those with reason to have permanent voting addresses elsewhere.
All jesting aside, people tend to forget just how hostile the geography of Washington DC was in the late 18th century. Much of it was swampland, frequently flooded, swarming with mosquitoes and malaria, and generally viewed as uninhabitable.
It was because of this that MD and VA were willing to cede this unwanted territory, and the original premise that the only people living in DC would be government staff and very small community of trades people who would cater to them.
As grandiose, elegant, and beautiful as L’Enfant’s plan was (it is an early “designed” community), that plan did not envision the booming metropolis that Washington DC became, especially in the twentieth century.
The government and staffers of the the government are a much smaller piece of the DC population than the founders intended. Simultaneously, the explosion in the sheer size of the government — especially in the non-political agencies of government — was unexpected.
All jesting aside, this is a serious issue for those who live there.
cannot vote. Eleanor Holmes Norton is their Representative.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
…and the Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico, all of whom tend to be Democrats and whose voting rights are subject to the whim of House rules. When Dems are in the majority they have been allowed to vote, but when the GOP is in the majority not so much.
The US Constitution grants Congress exclusive jurisdiction over the District of Columbia, yet residents of the District of Columbia do not have representation in Congress (or the Senate).
This has been enormously contentious, and rightly so, for a very long time.
And apparently one of the key reasons Jesse Jackson endorsed Clinton was because he thought the Democratic majority with the White House would finally get DC statehood through and he’d be able to become a Senator. Funny how nothing has changed on that front in nearly 30 years. A majority white city would never have had to endure such mistreatment from Congress.
Congress is still overwhelmingly white. The District has been overwhelmingly black since the 1950s. It has been called “The Plantation” by folks on all sides of the issue, and rightly so.
Frankly, it exemplifies the racism that still permeates our allegedly race-neutral society.
Like I said to jconway, I doubt you can show that the racial makeup of the District plays a role.
Here are about five pieces proving it:
1
2
3
4
That source has this historic gem:
Continuing today as radical Republicans violate their stated commitment to local government and state’s rights by using the District as a petri dish for bad ideas from school choice, abortion restrictions, and repeals of locally enacted gun control and drug reform:
You think if DC looked like Alexandria, VA we would be letting them get away with that?
5
And admonition that the key reason for blocking DC statehood was to prevent the black majority city from electing 2 Democratic senators. That’s from 1989. The fact that the two Senators and representative would likely be black probably plays a factor as well. If the Wyoming rule were in effect, DC would have representation in both houses of Congress. Let the capital district be the new DC and either give the city back to MD and VA or be a new state. Eleanor Holmes Norton has fought for this issue for decades and will likely die before she sees it fixed. It’s really a shame.
Now I suspect its more political leanings, but it’s hard to say for sure without a control example for the experiment. As I said below I don’t favor statehood despite the fact that election of Dems is virtually guaranteed and I couldn’t care less what the racial makeup is.
Why don’t you favor statehood? They have more people than Wyoming which has a rep and two senators. And race plays a huge factor in how voting happens in this country. Who gets to vote, who loses the right to vote, and why some areas are represented more than others. You sound awfully like John Roberts on these questions.
I think the Framers knew what they were doing when they provided that territory under direct federal supervision be set aside for a “district constituting the seat of government”. This isn’t about population whether numbers or race for me. As an American I want a say through my representatives in the affairs of my capital. I do think they should have a city government that relates to the federal government just as most cities relate to their states and a voting representative. I would prefer retrocession as a way of paring back the number of people affected. It is our capital so yes, a different set of rules SHOULD apply IMO.
“I’ve already made up my mind, so don’t confuse me with the facts”?
The VA portion of DC has already been “retroceded” back to VA. The state of MD absolutely does not want it. It’s been talked about for decades, and it isn’t going to happen.
It’s easy for you to say things like ” This isn’t about population whether numbers or race for me” and “as an American …” because you so easily impose your own biases and prejudices from affair. You treat literally treat DC as a colony or possession, and you casually ignore the reality of what that means to half-million full-fledged natural-born American citizens for whom Washington DC is home.
…I’m open to just about anything that will make this situation as equitable as possible, but I DO think the federal capital should be treated as belonging to all of us, not just the inhabitants thereof. One other thing I would consider is a much lower federal tax rate for DC residents to compensate for the fact that federal personnel and property benefit from municipal services. I do feel strongly and I respect that you disagree, but your attitude has started to deteriorate (and FWIW I do now acknowledge the racial element that has historically informed some views on this, but certainly you know by now how little patience I have for your calling racism at the drop of a hat).
I am out of patience at your assertions we live in a color blind society despite a massive preponderence of the evidence to the contrary. You deny racism at the drop of a hat. I can’t think of an issue where you actually conceded it played a role, but you are always quick to say we are playing the race card even if we provide links to evidence you never bother to engage with.
I am not accusing you of racism or arguing your beliefs are not sincerely held. I honestly wish we did live in the country you think we live in, we would all be better off. But recognizing we currently don’t is the first step to ensuring we will in the future. And I fear it’s a step you are unwilling to take no matter what evidence is dropped in front of you. Like John Roberts, you believe we already live in a color blind society which blinds you to the real injustices that continue to persist.
…the historical case for race playing a role in DC’s situation. It’s clearly there, but I do cop to wanting to find other reasons first if at all possible. This comes not from my thinking we are already colorblind as the high burden I place on any accusation of a negative attitude such as racism. In other words, if you call someone or a system racist, prove it. I acknowledge that HAS happened here more than in some exchanges.
But I would also argue there is a burden to disprove a system of racism, that your default is that a system is not racist and the burden of proof falls on those accusing it of injustice to make the case. It flows both ways, and I can’t think of a situation where you have ever presented evidence to exonerate a system under question here.
That isn’t to jump to extremes either way, to say you think every system isn’t racist or I think every system is, but rather to point out that on several occasions I have offered evidence of a system’s racism and you have not refuted it with evidence that exonerates it. It’s insufficient to poke holes in my evidence and examples, you have to provide counter examples and counter evidence as well. That’s part of why this is frustrating, and it’s similar to how petr handled the Olympics debate.
I actually had lost track of how we got here, I guess it was PPs fault for asking a pertinent point of info about non-voting delegates. We sure do like to argue and belabor the point around here 😉
…or I suppose nostra culpa?:)
There is a greater likelihood that you, personally, will will every single powerball drawing for the rest of your life than DC becoming a state at this point– and that is assuming that you don’t ever even buy a ticket.
And that’s saying something
…but I do disagree on equal burden. The thing is, racist is just about the worst character flaw one can have and for me innocent until proven guilty is an ethical doctrine on how we treat each other and not reserved for criminal law. If I were to call you a racist, in my view I would have just hurled the worst possible insult and affront to your honor, one that in some times and places might have justified you challenging me to a duel (leaving aside the irony that when dueling was acceptable so was racism). It is a vile thing to be racist, and therefore also vile to be unjustly accused of being such. If racism and non-racism were morally neutral qualities then I might agree to a closer balance of burden.
Especially since racist systems have historically been the default and existing systems are still wrestling and grappling with their toxic legacy. I mean, it was the official policy of the federal government to endorse redlining until 1970 when it came to issuing government backed mortgages to homeowners. Talk about preference the aspirations of one race over another. Those are the policies and systems that Ta Nehisi Coates, Michelle Alexander and others are talking about when it comes to white privilge or white supremacy.
The language sounds hard on the ears, it’s still automatic for me to associate white supremacy with a cross burning rather than a mid century policy meeting. Like the mind where Daley I, urban planners and highway engineers rerouted the Dan Ryan expressway to be a physical seperating barrier between white and black neighborhoods, or when they were choosing high rises over mixed use communities to house the urban poor. Or when Congress made crack sentences harsher than cocaine, or when the Social Security was written to exclude black domestic workers or when Levittowns were built with exclusive covenants to get bank financing.
It’s those systematic choices that contribute to the banality of evil that is white supremacy, arguably effective more people than Wallace standing in the school house door. And it’s hard to reconcile my beloved era of love of mid century liberal policymaking with the shortcomings of their policies and the consequences they produced. Even today I know Emmanuel doesn’t have a racist bone in his body, but he has contributed to maintaining a racist system of policing due to political inertia and cowardice. It’s harder to change systems than it is to change people, and harder still to recognize when systems themselves are problematic by design.
I’m sorry, Christopher, but I’ve had enough of your denial about this particular issue.
You know absolutely nothing about what you’re flaming about, and attempting to respond or rebut is a total waste of time because you steadfastly refuse to consider any of it.
America in general and Washington DC in particular has a large number of white males who feel as you do. The attitude you articulate is an enormous part of the on-going problem.
I for one believe it IS appropriate for the federal capital to be under the direct jurisdiction of the federal government. If it were up to me the parts that were once designated Washington County rather than Washington City (roughly west of Rock Creek, east of the Anacostia, and north of Florida Avenue) would be retroceded to MD. Washington City would have a home-rule relationship to the federal government much as our cities have to the state government and get one US Rep whose full voting rights are unquestioned.
…admitting DC as a state would require a constitutional amendment, but not the other territories.
Then just out the mall, Capital district and WH and cabinet buildings under that district and let Congress admit the rest of the district as a state using the regular process. This has been attempted repeatedly, and the only people opposing it are conservative Republicans worried about the District electing two Senators and 1-2 House members, that they would lose their far right petri dish, and people that are willfully blind to race or fetishize originalist interpretations of the Constitution.
Retrogression has the same effect by the way, the district would shrink to the territory I described it has and MD and VA would each gain a house district. Eleanor Holmes Norton endorsed it, as did one prominent Republican, and it still died. They really don’t want these nearly seven hundred thousand people having a say in their government, and yet that is not controversial for a small all white state like Wyoming to have a similar composition of Congressional representation. The framers certainly didn’t envision that state entering the Union either.
…but I’m not sure I like the city-state idea, plus I’ve heard MD might have a legal case against the government for turning its cession into another state rather than using it to host the seat of government.
I think the founders wanted a small area where delegates would meet on neutral territory. They didn’t want anyone (the party in power and their allies) to feel a home-court advantage. Kind of like Bike Week in Daytona.
Because States Rights were so important I don’t think they ever envisioned the growth of the imperial power Washington has become.