Immigration Enforcement Under Trump Has Grown Disturbingly Authoritarian

By Scott Martelle, Los Angeles Times

28 October 17

mmigration agents last week entered a house in Oregon that was undergoing renovation and arrested one of the workers inside, taking him away in handcuffs because they thought he was in the country illegally. The man was later released, but his immigration status is the least interesting aspect of the story. Federal agents, without either an arrest or search warrant, entered a private home and hauled off someone in handcuffs.

That followed by a couple of weeks another Oregon encounter in which immigration agents approached a U.S. citizen outside of a courthouse and demanded identification papers because they thought he resembled another man – with whom he apparently bore little resemblance beyond skin color – suspected of being in the county illegally.

Oregon’s two senators, Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, were right to demand officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement explain these blatant abuses of power and, in the case of the home invasion, unconstitutional actions. ICE agents sought to explain away the illegal home entry with the laughable excuse that because the owners were living in the basement while workers renovated the main floors, the private home was a place of business, so agents had a right to enter. The federal government now feels it can redefine basic concepts such as what constitutes a home, and decide unilaterally when it needs a warrant.

There have been other highly questionable moves by ICE agents since President Trump took office. Showing up at courthouses in plainclothes and without visible badges to arrest people there for hearings or other court business. Taking a woman awaiting emergency brain surgery from a Texas hospital and into detention. Stopping an ambulance (also in Texas), then following the 10-year-old patient it carried to a hospital and, after she received emergency gall bladder surgery, spiriting her away to a juvenile detention facility.

After California Gov Jerry Brown earlier this month signed into law SB 54, which bars state and local authorities from doing federal immigration enforcement except in specific circumstances (such as involving people with violent criminal histories), ICE’s acting director, Thomas D. Homan, warned that his agents will “have no choice but to conduct at-large arrests in local neighborhoods and at worksites, which will inevitably result in additional collateral arrests, instead of focusing on arrests at jails and prisons where transfers are safer for ICE officers and the community.” And he added, in an even darker threat: “ICE will also likely have to detain individuals arrested in California in detention facilities outside of the state, far from any family they may have in California.”

Such strong-arm tactics weren’t enough, so Homan has also engaged in a disinformation campaign. As the wildfires raged in Northern California this month, Homan teed off on the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department over an old case in which someone living here illegally started a small fire in a park while trying to stay warm. Homan said the sheriff’s department had not honored ICE detainers asking it to hold the man – even though there was no outstanding arrest warrant or other legal authority to do so – and implied that more devastating wildfires could be the result. It was a deplorable politicization of a tragedy, and Homan ought to be ashamed.

But this is where we are with immigration enforcement under Trump — the government acting in a shameless manner. Sick children taken from their parents. Fourth Amendment rights tossed aside. U.S. citizens accosted and asked for their papers. Where’s the conservative backlash over such governmental overreach?

Arrests are up, yet deportations are down, and the immigration enforcement system is even worse off than before Trump took office (the immigration court backlog has increased by more than 116,000 cases over a year ago). Now domestic violence victims are afraid to report the crimes, children – often U.S. citizens – live in fear that their families will be split up, people trying to work with the legal system walk away because showing up at court to pay a traffic fine or testify in a trial could get them deported. Are you tired of winning yet?

Despite all those efforts and their negative consequences, some 11 million people still live in the country without legal permission. Most have lived here for more than a decade, and many now have American children. None of these moves by the administration will address that fundamental issue. The government – especially Congress – needs to move beyond bellicosity and bad policy and turn in earnest to forging a humane and comprehensive reform agenda for the immigration system, including a path to legal status and, where warranted, a path to citizenship for people who have become integral parts of our communities and economy.

Bill O'Reilly Is Just One of the Countless Terrible Men in Media

By Jill Abramson, Guardian UK

27 October 17

Male politicians and news commentators are often quick to declare that these events are watershed moments. But skepticism is wise

here has been much discussion of late about a secret list called Shitty Media Men that has been circulating in private emails and on the internet. But the shittiest men in media have revealed themselves. That list begins with Bill O’Reilly.

Everyone should listen to his outrageous claims of victimhood on the New York Times’ podcast, The Daily. It is truly remarkable and more than galling to hear the self-justifications of a man who, with his ex-employer Fox News, paid out a staggering $45m to settle sexual misconduct cases with co-workers, underlings and others.

There is no hint of remorse in his voice. There is only cold fury at the two intrepid Times reporters who revealed the settlements last spring and again last week and the grotesque details of the sexual harassment complaints against him. The only pity O’Reilly expressed in an on-the-record, taped interview is for the “grave danger” and pain inflicted upon his own children.

After the reporters turned off the microphone they used in the interview, held in a small conference room at the office of O’Reilly’s lawyer, they kept recording on their phones. It was then that O’Reilly really let loose. “This is bullshit. It’s on you. It’s all crap,” he thunders at Michael Schmidt and Emily Steele. “This is horrible what I went through. This is crap and you know it. It’s politically and financially motivated.”

How could the Times possibly be accused of having political motivations when the paper had just brought down ultra-liberal, Democratic producer Harvey Weinstein?

O’Reilly was a uniquely powerful figure at Fox, king of the ratings and multimillionaire author (his new book, Killing England, still sits atop the Times’ bestseller list). It shouldn’t be forgotten that sexual harassment is often more about abuse of power than sex.

O’Reilly’s allegations are what’s crap. The biggest financial motivations belonged to him and Fox, which had recently lost another star, Megyn Kelly, to NBC. Kelly revealed on Monday that she was among the women who complained to Fox about Mr O’Reilly. Soon after the $32m settlement and knowing full well about it and the horrendous allegations of over 15 years of misconduct led to it, the Roger Ailes-tainted Fox nonetheless agreed to a new four-year, $100m contract.

The network only fired O’Reilly last April after learning the Feds were investigating the half-dozen sex cases involving him and after their lawyer told the Murdochs that the full scope of the O’Reilly settlements would surely be leaked to the news media. (The Times had already revealed $12m in settlements). Luckily for Fox, O’Reilly’s new contract had an escape clause allowing the network to terminate him for sexual misconduct.

The actions of those who coddled and covered up for the miscreant are almost as nauseating as the underlying conduct. The Murdochs must be held to account. Their bid to gain approval for their $15bn takeover of Sky TV should be rejected. Tom Watson, Labour’s deputy leader and shadow culture minister, blasted them over the weekend for allowing “a culture of bullying” to flourish at their company, showing that they are unfit owners.

The UK culture secretary, Karen Bradley, had already said last month that she intends to order an extensive review of the deal because of concerns over 21st Century Fox’s “genuine commitment to broadcasting standards” and the increased influence it would give the Murdoch family over British media. The authorities have only to listen to O’Reilly’s voice and statements on The Daily to finish the review and reach the obvious conclusion.

But when sexual harassment is the issue at stake, justice does not often prevail. Weinstein got away with allegedly harassing and assaulting women for decades. For now, he’s lost his company and his standing in Hollywood, but the legal action against him that should have been pursued by Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance, involving police tapes of a woman whose breasts the producer had fondled against her will, was dropped.

Supreme court justice Clarence Thomas was confirmed in 1991 despite the corroboration of law professor Anita Hill’s testimony that he had sexually harassed her repeatedly.

Male politicians and news commentators are often quick to declare that these events are watershed moments when the country wakes up to the issue of sexual harassment and vows to change. After Weinstein, we’ve been told Hollywood will no longer tolerate the male entitlement and hegemony in which sexual harassment is endemic.

Skepticism is wise. I’ve spent the past two weeks investigating sexual harassment allegations at another media company. I’ve approached lots of scared young women who tell me about awful experiences but won’t talk on the record because they’ve signed non-disclosure agreements or fear becoming unemployable if they talk.

They will, of course, offer the names of other women who may talk because “everyone knew”. There is still plenty of fear. There are still plenty of shitty men in the media.