Erosion of Immigrant Protections Began With Trump Inauguration

The Trump administration’s move to separate immigrant parents from their children on the U.S.-Mexico border has grabbed attention around the world, drawn scorn from human-rights organizations and overtaken the immigration debate in Congress.

It’s also a situation that has been brewing since the week President Donald Trump took office, when he issued his first order signaling a tougher approach to asylum-seekers. Since then, the administration has been steadily eroding protections for immigrant children and families.

“They’re willing to risk harm to a child being traumatized, separated from a parent and sitting in federal detention by themselves, in order to reach a larger policy goal of deterrence,” said Jennifer Podkul, director of policy at Kids in Need of Defense, which represents children in immigration court.

To those who work with immigrants, the parents’ plight was heralded by a series of measures making it harder for kids arriving on the border to get released from government custody and to seek legal status here.

Backlash

The administration says the changes are necessary to deter immigrants from coming here illegally. But a backlash is mounting, fueled by reports of children being taken from mothers and distraught toddlers and elementary school age children asking, through tears, when they can see their parents.

About 2,000 children had been separated from their families over a six-week period ending in May, administration officials said Friday.

Among the parents caught up in the new rules is 29-year-old Vilma Aracely Lopez Juc de Coc, who fled her home in a remote Guatemalan village after her husband was beaten to death in February, according to advocates. When she reached the Texas border with her 11-year-old son in May, he was taken from her by border agents, she said.

Her eyes swollen, she cried when she asked a paralegal what she most wanted to know: When could she see her son again?

“She did not know what was going on,” said paralegal Georgina Guzman, recalling their conversation at a federal courthouse in McAllen, Texas.

Similar scenarios play out on a daily basis in federal courtrooms in Texas and Arizona, where dozens of immigrant parents appear on charges of entering the country illegally after traveling up from Central America. More than the legal outcome of their cases, their advocates say, they’re worried about their children.

Since Trump’s inauguration, the administration has issued at least half a dozen orders and changes affecting immigrant children, many of them obscure revisions. The cumulative effect is a dramatic alteration of immigration policy and practice.

The measures require a senior government official to sign off on the release of children from secure shelters and allow immigration enforcement agents access to information about sponsors who sign up to take the children out of government custody and care for them.

The crackdown expanded in April, when the administration announced a “zero tolerance” policy on the border to prosecute immigrants for entering the country illegally in the hopes they could be quickly deported and that the swift deportations would prevent more people from coming.

Parents are now being arrested and placed in quick federal court proceedings near the border. Since children cannot be jailed in federal prisons, they’re placed in shelters that have long existed for unaccompanied immigrant children arriving on the border alone.

The administration insists the new rules are necessary to send a message to immigrants.

“Look, I hope that we don’t have to separate any more children from any more adults,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said last week. “But there’s only one way to ensure that is the case: It’s for people to stop smuggling children illegally. Stop crossing the border illegally with your children. Apply to enter lawfully. Wait your turn.”

Immigration on the southwest border has remained high since the zero-tolerance policies took effect. Border agents made more than 50,000 arrests in May, up slightly from a month earlier and more than twice the number in May 2017. About a quarter of arrests were families traveling with children.

Asylum seekers

In addition to those trying to cross on their own, large crowds of immigrants are gathered at border crossings each day to seek asylum. Some wait days or weeks for a chance to speak with U.S. authorities. On a Texas border bridge, parents and children have been sleeping in sweltering heat for several days awaiting their turn.

Under U.S. law, most Mexican children are sent back across the border. Central American and other minors are taken into government custody before they are mostly released to sponsors in the United States.

The arrival of children fleeing violence in Central America is not new. President Barack Obama faced an even larger surge in border crossings that overflowed shelters and prompted the authorities to release many families. Nearly 60,000 children were placed in government-contracted shelters in the 2014 fiscal year.

Obama administration lawyers argued in federal court in Los Angeles against the separation of parents and children and in favor of keeping in family detention facilities those deemed ineligible for release.

Immigrant and children’s advocates said the new measures are not only cruel but costly. They argued that children fleeing violence and persecution in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras will continue to come to the United States and remain in government custody longer, costing taxpayers more money.

The government pays more than $1 billion a year to care for unaccompanied immigrant children, Sessions has said.

In May 2014, the average length of stay for children in custody was 35 days. So far this fiscal year, it’s taking 56 days for children to be released to sponsors — in most cases, their own relatives.

Many children were released to sponsors who did not have legal immigration status. That’s yet another concern child advocates now have since the Trump administration is requiring fingerprints of sponsors and their household members and will turn that data over to the immigration agency in charge of deportations.

Advocates say the new information sharing might lead some parents to shy away from sponsoring their own children and ask others to do so, a situation that can lead to cases of trafficking or neglect.

Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, legal director of the immigrant advocacy program at the Legal Aid Justice Center in Virginia, said he’s never worked with immigrants who said U.S. policies influenced their decision to move. They are fleeing violence and persecution, and he doesn’t see that changing even if the government deports parents.

“Look six months out from now,” he said. “Are these moms going to stay in Guatemala? Hell no, they’re going to come back looking for their kids.” 

Amid Family Separation Furor, US House Plans Immigration Votes

As the House of Representatives prepares for expected votes on major reforms to U.S. immigration law this week, the Trump administration defends the separation of some undocumented immigrant children from their parents,

Once a rare practice, federal agents now routinely separate families seeking asylum or attempting to enter the United States illegally. Roughly 2,000 minors had been separated from their families over a six-week period ending in May, administration officials said last week.  

Video released by the U.S. government shows what appears to be humane conditions at a shelter site for children. But furor over the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy for unauthorized border arrivals is growing.

Over the weekend, several protests were held across the country as lawmakers, religious leaders and American citizens decried the family separation policy.

Texas protest

Democratic Texas state Congressman Beto O’Rourke led hundreds of people on a march Sunday in Tornillo, Texas, where the government is holding some of the children. The purpose of the march, he said, was to “help this country to make the right decision, and part of that is knowing what’s going on in the first place.”

Watch related video by VOA’s Michael Bowman:

O’Rourke, who is seeking to unseat Republican U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, was joined by U.S. Congressman Joe Kennedy of Massachusetts, also a Democrat.

Evangelical leader Franklin Graham, a prominent supporter of President Donald Trump, also spoke out against the policy.

“It’s disgraceful, and it’s terrible to see families ripped apart and I don’t support that one bit,” he said on the Christian Broadcasting Network.

Miami (Florida) Archbishop Thomas Wenski said, “The policy is designed to frighten the parents by taking away their kids, traumatizing the kids. And they [federal agents] think that will serve as a deterrent for people exercising a basic human right, which is to ask for asylum.”

Even first lady Melania Trump released a statement that appeared to oppose her husband’s policy.

“Mrs. Trump hates to see children separated from their families and hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve successful immigration reform,” her office Sunday said. “She believes we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with heart.”

But Trump continues to view America’s immigration debate through the lens of public safety, often pointing to foreign-born members of a vicious Central American gang.

Defend policy

And his advisers, both past and present, continue to defend the policy.

“Nobody likes” breaking up families and “seeing babies ripped from their mothers’ arms,” said Kellyanne Conway, a counselor to the president. But she placed the blame on the Democrats.

Trump’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, also defended the policy saying, “We ran on a policy, very simply, stop mass illegal immigration and limit legal immigration, get our sovereignty back, and to help our workers, OK? And so he went to a zero-tolerance policy.”  

Immigration experts and many legal scholars, however, said the administration is interpreting U.S. immigration law as no other administration has. Democrats have condemned both the policy and Trump’s rationale for pursuing it.

“In the world, there is a recognition that people can seek asylum, except, apparently not in the United States,” House minority leader Nancy Pelosi said.

Emotions are also being stoked as the House of Representatives prepares to vote this week on two competing Republican immigration reform bills.

“We said from the beginning we want the House to debate immigration reform in a serious, meaningful way. And it looks like that is happening for the first time in nearly a decade,” Republican Congressman Carlos Curbelo said.

Both bills would provide legal status to hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants brought to America as children, make sweeping changes to legal immigration, and boost U.S. border security. It is unclear if either will attract enough votes to pass.

Trump is to meet with House Republicans on Tuesday to discuss the proposed legislation.

Also Sunday, officials say at least five people died after an SUV fleeing Border Patrol agents crashed in southern Texas.

Texas public safety officials said many people in the vehicle might have been living in the U.S. without legal permission. The driver and at least one other person, believed to be U.S. citizens, are in custody, the state officials said.

VOA’s Michael Bowman contributed to this report.

Trump Lawyer’s Advice to President: Don’t Pardon Russia Probe Figures

One of U.S. President Donald Trump’s lawyers said Sunday he is advising him to not pardon anyone linked to the year-long investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election because it would “just cloud” the perception that there was wrong-doing.  

Rudy Giuliani, a former New York mayor and part of Trump’s legal team, told CNN, “You’re not going to get a pardon because you’re involved” in the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller. But he said that in the months to come pardons were “certainly not excluded” if Trump concluded “you’ve been treated unfairly.”

“The president has issued no pardons in this investigation,” Giuliani said. “The president is not going to issue pardons in this investigation.”

“And my advice to him, as long as I’m his lawyer, is not to do it,” he said. “Because you just cloud what is becoming now a very clear picture of an extremely unfair investigation with no criminality involved of any kind. I want that to come out loud and clear and not get clouded by anybody being fired or anybody being pardoned.”

Trump has pardoned several conservative icons in recent weeks, but Giuliani said no one being investigated by Mueller “should rely on it.”

Even so, he said, “When it’s over, hey, he’s the president of the United States. He retains his pardon power. Nobody’s taking that away from him. He can pardon in his judgment based on the Justice Department, counsel’s office, not me. I’m out of it. And I shouldn’t be involved in that process because I’m probably too rooted in his defense, but I couldn’t and I don’t want to take prerogatives away from him.“

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was jailed last week, prompting new questions whether Trump might pardon him. Manafort is accused of witness tampering in a criminal case that stems from his lobbying efforts for Ukraine years before he was a top Trump aide for nearly five months during the 2016 campaign.

Trump attacked Manafort’s jailing, saying on Twitter, “Wow, what a tough sentence for Paul Manafort …. Didn’t know Manafort was the head of the Mob…. Very unfair!”

There is no indication when Mueller’s investigation might end. He is probing whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russian interests to help him win and whether Trump obstructed justice by firing former Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey when he was leading the agency’s Russia investigation before Mueller, over Trump’s objections, was appointed to take over the probe.

In a new broadside against the investigation, Trump tweeted, “WITCH HUNT! There was no Russian Collusion. Oh, I see, there was no Russian Collusion, so now they look for obstruction on the no Russian Collusion. The phony Russian Collusion was a made up Hoax. Too bad they didn’t look at Crooked Hillary like this. Double Standard!” His reference to “Crooked Hillary” is his oft-repeated pejorative for his 2016 challenger, Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Giuliani called for investigation of the origins of the Mueller investigation, contending it was “premised on Comey’s illegally leaked memo” about the FBI’s director’s private conversations with Trump.

“There’s a lot of unfairness out there, but we don’t know the scope of it,” Giuliani said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trump Taps Kraninger for Consumer Protection Post

U.S. President Donald Trump plans to nominate Kathy Kraninger, associate director of the Office of Management and Budget, to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which seeks to prevent financial abuses to consumers.

In a statement Saturday, the White House said Kraninger would continue the efforts of the current CFPB chief, Mick Mulvaney, to scale back the agency’s regulatory ambitions while continuing efforts to keep financial fraud in check.

Mulvaney, who is the president’s budget director, had filled the role in an acting capacity, replacing Richard Cordray, an appointee of former President Barack Obama who had led the agency from 2012 until his retirement last year.

The CFPB was formed in the wake of the U.S. financial crisis of 2007-08, authorized by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Its duties are to protect consumers from fraud by banks, credit unions, securities firms, payday lenders, foreclosure relief services and other financial companies. 

Kraninger is currently associate director for general government programs with the Office of Management and Budget, which oversees government spending.

Congressman: Youth Shelter Reflects Flawed US Immigration Plan

A Republican congressman from Texas who toured a tent-like shelter for hundreds of minors who had entered the country illegally said Saturday that the facility was a byproduct of a flawed immigration strategy.

U.S. Representative Will Hurd said the shelter near the Tornillo port of entry in far West Texas would house about 360 boys who are 16 and 17.

The teens began arriving Friday, the same day Hurd toured the shelter, he said, noting that they were being moved from other shelters to make way for younger immigrant children taken into custody at the border.

Federal authorities are separating children from their parents as families arrive at the border.

Hurd, however, said the treatment of minors shouldn’t be used as a threatening means to prevent others from entering the U.S.

“This is a symptom of a flawed strategy, and in the land of the free and home of the brave we shouldn’t use kids as deterrence,” said Hurd, who represents a vast border district that includes the port of entry.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced earlier in the week that it intended to open the shelter.

The port is located about 40 miles (64 kilometers) southeast of El Paso, in an area that’s mostly desert and where temperatures routinely approach 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius). The tent-like structures that comprise the shelter have air conditioning.

Federal figures show nearly 2,000 children were separated from adults from April 19 to May 31 as part of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

The administration’s decision to separate children, combined with the flow of unaccompanied minors attempting to cross the border illegally, has prompted a surge in the number of children in U.S. shelters.

“How do these kids know where their parents are going, and how do the parents know where their children went?” Hurd asked.

A smarter immigration strategy would address root problems such as economic instability and a breakdown in the rule of law in Central America, he said, while noting the need to use advanced technology and manpower to guard the border.

“Building a 30-foot-high wall is a fourth-century solution to a 21st-century problem,” he said, referring to Trump’s call to build a wall along every mile of the border with Mexico.

Trump Mounts Fresh Attack on Mueller Probe

President Donald Trump mounted a fresh attack Friday on the Russia probe led by special counsel Robert Mueller. Trump took the unusual step of taking several questions from reporters outside the White House, and defended his actions on North Korea and immigration. VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has more from Washington.

Judge: Ousted Arizona Lawmaker Can Run for State Senate

A judge said Friday the first state lawmaker in the U.S. to be ousted over sexual misconduct allegations after the rise of the (hash)MeToo movement can run for the Arizona Senate because he is still a resident of the district he wants to represent. 

The judge ruled in a legal challenge filed by a candidate in the Aug. 28 primary claiming ex-Rep. Don Shooter does not live in the district.

Shooter previously served in the Arizona House and represented a district that includes parts of Yuma and Phoenix.

The state House voted 56-3 to expel Shooter in February after investigators concluded he sexually harassed at least seven women, including fellow lawmakers

Shooter has apologized for what he called insensitive comments involving women but said he never sought to touch anyone or have a sexual relationship.

Shooter has filed more than 800 voter signatures to qualify for the primary election ballot in the southwestern Arizona district.

In her ruling, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Rosa Mroz found that Shooter has treated his Yuma apartment as his primary residence in the five years that he’s lived there. Mroz noted that he lists the home on his driver’s license and tax returns. She said he also receives mail and visitors at the residence.

Shooter testified Thursday that he still lives in the condo in Yuma and his wife lives at a house in Phoenix, where he would stay during legislative sessions and now for meetings with his attorneys.

Republican candidate Brent Backus filed the lawsuit saying Shooter couldn’t run for the seat because he doesn’t live in the district.

Backus’ attorney Tim La Sota introduced evidence showing Shooter’s voter registration had been switched to the Phoenix address for two weeks, but Shooter denied making the change.

La Sota also said the power had been shut off in Shooter’s Yuma condo, and he has spent most of his time in Phoenix since the expulsion by the House. 

Shooter said his wife had the electricity turned off to save money — a decision he was unaware of. 

Shooter’s attorney Tim Nelson said in an email that he and his client were “pleased with the ruling and believe Judge Mroz was right on the law and in her finding that Mr. Shooter is a Yuma resident.” 

Backus said he would respect the decision by the judge and let voters decide about Shooter.

“I feel 100 percent confident the voters will reject him,” Backus said. “He has a right to run and I look forward to meeting him on the trail.”

Other candidates seeking the district’s Senate seat are Republican incumbent Sen. Sine Kerr, a dairy farmer who was appointed to fill the seat, Republican Royce Jenkins, and Democrat Michelle Harris.

Top US Ethics Official Seeks Expanded Probe of EPA’s Pruitt

The top federal ethics officer asked Friday that an internal investigation of Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt be resolved quickly so he can determine whether “formal corrective action” is needed and make recommendations to President Donald Trump.

David Apol, acting director of the Office of Government Ethics, also asked the EPA inspector general to expand its probe of whether Pruitt is violating federal ethics rules to include allegations he used staffers to do personal chores during work hours and seek business deals for his wife.

His letter to EPA Inspector General Arthur Elkins Jr. was released hours after Trump gave conditional support to the embattled agency administrator, saying his unhappiness with Pruitt was overridden by the “fantastic job” he was doing at EPA.

In his letter, Apol said the American public needs to have confidence that allegations of ethical misconduct are investigated.

“We ask you to complete your report as soon as possible so that we can decide whether to begin a formal corrective action proceeding in order to make a formal recommendation to the president,” he wrote.

Pruitt is the subject of several investigations over his use of first-class travel, round-the-clock security and spending.

Recently released emails show Pruitt had aides reach out to Chick-fil-A about a “business opportunity” for his wife, inquire about getting a used mattress for him from the Trump International Hotel and arrange for him to attend batting practice at a Washington Nationals baseball game, among other favors. It also has been disclosed that he got a sweetheart deal renting a Washington condo co-owned by the wife of a lobbyist who had business with the agency.

Federal ethics codes prohibit having staffers conduct personal errands and bar officials from using their position for private gain.

“I’m looking at Scott,” Trump told reporters in a question-and-answer session on the White House driveway. “I’m not happy about certain things,” he said, repeating the same phrase three times in all.

But at the same time, Trump praised Pruitt’s performance at the EPA, where the administrator has initiated numerous overhauls of Obama-era regulations.

Asked if he thought Pruitt was using his position for private gain, Trump said, “I hope not.”

Trump did not refer to the scandals specifically.

Growing numbers of Republican lawmakers have joined Democrats in withering condemnations of Pruitt’s ethics troubles.

As the allegations swirl around him, Pruitt has continued his work targeting regulations put in place by the Obama administration, pursuing a pro-business mission for which he is careful to credit Trump.

On Friday, the EPA announced it had wrapped up a proposal expected to narrow the scope of an Obama-era rule on what kind of waterways fall under the protections of the federal Clean Water Act. Pruitt’s official Twitter account signaled the news Thursday night, showing a 2017 photo of a beaming Trump watching Pruitt sign a document starting the process of changing the rule.

The move accomplished a promise that Trump had made, Pruitt’s tweet said. He concluded by saying, “Happy Birthday, Mr. President!” Thursday was Trump’s 72nd birthday.

Justice Department Initiative Aims to Protect Houses of Worship

The U.S. Justice Department will intensify its efforts to bring up lawsuits against municipalities that discriminate against religious establishments, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Wednesday.

The initiative, called the “Place to Worship Initiative,” is centered on bringing cases against towns and cities that use zoning laws to prevent houses of worship — churches and mosques, for example — from building.

“In recent years, the cultural climate has become less hospitable to people of faith and to religious belief,” Sessions said. “Many Americans have felt that their freedom to practice their faith has been under attack.”

The announcement came during an event for the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center — an Orthodox Jewish advocacy group — in Washington, D.C. Sessions also announced the Justice Department would be filing a lawsuit against a New Jersey town for denying the building of an Orthodox Jewish synagogue.

“Religious Americans have heard themselves called deplorables,” Sessions said. “They’ve heard themselves called bitter clingers.”

Sessions referred to comments made by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama during their presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2008, respectively. Clinton made no reference to religion in her 2016 speech.

Heather Weaver, a senior staff attorney for the ACLU, told VOA the initiative was a welcome step from the Justice Department, provided that they enforce it equally based on all faiths.

“Based on past actions and policy, there are concerns that this administration will enforce that law equally among states,” Weaver told VOA, referring to the Trump White House’s signing of several executive orders restricting immigration from a group of Muslim-majority countries.

Sessions also commended the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling in the Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission case, in which the court ruled 7-2 that a Colorado baker could refuse to bake a cake for a gay couple, based on religious freedom.

“There is no need for the power of the government to be arrayed against an individual who is honestly attempting to live out — to freely exercise—his sincere religious beliefs,” Sessions said. “There are plenty of other people to bake that cake.”

Trump Mounts Fresh Attack on Mueller Probe

Outside the White House Friday, a media frenzy.

And at the center of it all, President Donald Trump.

“Can we do one question at a time? Wait! One question at a time,” the president scolded reporters.

Trump launched a new attack on the Russia probe in the wake of a critical report on the Hillary Clinton email investigation by the inspector general of the Department of Justice.

“I did nothing wrong. There was no collusion. There was no obstruction,” he said. “The IG (inspector general) report yesterday went a long way to show that, and I think that the Mueller investigation has been totally discredited.”

But the report in question only dealt with how the FBI handled the Clinton email controversy.

It was critical of the man Trump fired as FBI director, James Comey, but rejected the notion of a politically-directed effort aimed at Trump.

“This report did not find any evidence of political bias or improper considerations actually impacting the investigation under review,” announced current FBI Director Christopher Wray.

Democrats also took note of the report.

“Anyone who is hoping to use this report to undermine the Mueller probe or prove the existence of a ‘deep state’ conspiracy against President Trump will be sorely disappointed,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said.

During his lengthy encounter with reporters Friday, Trump also defended his recent summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

“They are doing so much for us, and now we are well on our way to get denuclearization,” he said. “And the agreement says there will be total denuclearization. Nobody wants to report that. I got along with him great. We have a great chemistry together. That is a good thing, not a bad thing.”

Trump also lashed out at opposition Democrats and tried to blame them for recent administration actions to separate family members caught trying to come across the U.S. border.

“The Democrats forced that law upon our nation. I hate it. I hate to see separation of parents and children,” Trump said.

A host of Democrats on Capitol Hill blasted the president’s comments, including Congresswoman Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico.

“There are no substantive defenses, no policy defenses, to their current actions separating families and taking children away from their mothers and fathers at the border. It just is another indication that they cannot govern,” she said.

Trump’s relatively lengthy encounter with the media Friday was unusual for a president who tends to favor appearances on Fox News Channel and who generally takes only a few questions at news conferences.

 

Judge Jails Ex-Trump Campaign Chair Manafort

A federal judge on Friday sent President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort to prison for tampering with witnesses while out on bail.

Manafort was free on $10 million unsecured bail since he was first indicted last October by the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and alleged collusion with the Trump campaign.

He is one of 20 people charged by special counsel Robert Mueller and the first former Trump associate to go to prison in connection with the investigation.

In a tweet Friday afternoon, President Trump said: “Wow, what a tough sentence for Paul Manafort, who has represented Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole and many other top political people and campaigns. Didn’t know Manafort was the head of the Mob. What about Comey and Crooked Hillary and all of the others? Very unfair!”

Manafort appeared in court to plead not guilty to new charges of obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice in connection with his efforts to influence the testimony of two potential witnesses in his case.

Federal district judge Amy Berman Jackson, citing the new charges, granted a motion filed last week by Mueller, to revoke his bail and send him to prison while he awaits trial in September.

Manafort was escorted out of the court room by deputies as he waved to his wife.

The latest indictment against him, issued by a grand jury last week, accused Manafort, 69, and a business associate, Konstantin Kilimnik, 48, of “repeatedly” contacting two unidentified people in an effort to sway their testimony.   The contacts took place between February and April of this year.

WATCH: Trump on Manafort’s legal woes

According to prosecutors, the two potential witnesses worked with Manafort in enlisting a group of former European officials to lobby both European officials and members of Congress on Ukraine’s behalf.

Defense lawyers, saying Manafort was unaware  the two people were cooperating with the special counsel, painted the contacts as innocuous.  They asked that prosecutors provide a list of people Manafort should not be contacting while on bail.

“A clear no-contact role will solve the problem,” one of Manafort’s lawyers said.  “He can be put in a position where conditions can be met.”

But prosecutors argued that given Manafort’s track record of flouting his bail conditions, no new terms would ensure compliance.

“We’re in a very different situation,” said Andrew Weissmann, one of Mueller’s prosecutors.  “Today, we’re talking about obstruction while on bail.  Mr. Manafort has absolutely violated the terms of his release by committing a crime while on bail.”

Judge Jackson said she had to “wrestle” with whether to revoke Manafort’s bail, but in the end she said she could not keep him free.

 “You have abused the trust placed in you six months ago,” she said.

 

IG Faults Comey’s Judgment, But Sees No Bias

The U.S. Justice Department’s watchdog on Thursday criticized former FBI Director James Comey for his handling of the Hillary Clinton email probe during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, but said it found no evidence that Comey had been motivated by “political bias.”

In a long-awaited review of the investigation, the department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, did not question Comey’s decision to close the investigation without bringing charges against Clinton, but said the former FBI director made a “serious error of judgment” when he went public with the bureau’s findings in the run-up to the vote. 

“While we did not find that these decisions were the result of political bias on Comey’s part, we nevertheless concluded that by departing so clearly and dramatically from FBI and department norms, the decisions negatively impacted the perception of the FBI and the department as fair administrators of justice,” the report said. 

“Although we acknowledge that Comey faced a difficult situation with unattractive choices, in proceeding as he did, we concluded that Comey made a serious error of judgment,” the report said.​

​Focused on decisions

The inspector general’s probe focused on decisions made by Comey, at key moments during the campaign, to publicly disclose the FBI’s findings in the Clinton email probe, without coordinating with then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

On July 5, 2016, Comey publicly announced that he was not bringing criminal charges against Clinton for her handling of classified information in her emails. 

Then, on Oct. 28, less than two weeks before the election, Comey informed members of Congress that he was reopening the investigation after discovering a new cache of emails, before closing it a second time just two days before the election. 

The inspector general said those announcements deviated from long-standing Justice Department protocols that require the FBI director to coordinate statements with the attorney general and let Justice Department officials report on major investigations.

Later Thursday, FBI Director Christopher Wray said the bureau accepted the findings in the report but noted that it in no way “impugns the integrity” of the agency. 

“As I said earlier, fair and independent scrutiny is welcome and appropriate accountability is crucial. We’re going to learn from this report, and we’re going to be better and stronger as a result,” Wray said.

Speaking hours after the release of the report, he said the most important point he took away from it was that it found no evidence of political bias or improper consideration “actually impacting the investigations under review.” He said the FBI would continue to drill “home the importance of objectivity — and of avoiding even the appearance of personal conflicts or political bias in our work.”

Wray said the bureau had taken some steps, such as reassigning people and referring some cases to be reviewed by the FBI’s internal personnel department, although he would not comment on who might have been referred.

“We’ve already referred conduct highlighted in the IG report to OPR, the FBI’s independent Office of Professional Responsibility. We need to hold ourselves accountable for the work we do and the choices we make,” Wray said. “And we’re doing that, fairly but without delay.”

He also said there was a new policy regarding contacts with reporters and news leaks. He said bureau staff would receive “intensive training” and it would be made “painfully” clear what the department’s new rules were.

Comey came under harsh criticism for his actions during the election. 

While Republicans blasted his initial decision to publicly exonerate Clinton, Democrats blamed him for costing them the election by reopening the investigation so close to the vote. 

Trump, who had praised the relaunch of the probe on the eve of the election, last year cited Comey’s handling of the Clinton email investigation when he abruptly fired him as FBI director. The president later said that he had the “Russia thing” in mind when he fired Comey. 

​Comey responds

Comey has long defended his actions during the election, writing in a recently released book that he did “something I could never imagine” in order to protect the bureau’s independence after concluding that Lynch “appeared politically compromised.”

In a tweet after the report’s release, Comey wrote that the “conclusions are reasonable, even though I disagree with some.”

“People of good faith can see an unprecedented situation,” he wrote.

The inspector general expanded his investigation last year after discovering a series of anti-Trump and pro-Clinton text messages exchanged during the campaign by two senior FBI officials on the investigative team. The report said investigators for the inspector general found text and instant messages exchanged by five FBI employees assigned to the Clinton email investigation team. 

The report said that while the messages “cast a cloud” over the FBI’s handling of “the investigation and the investigation’s credibility,” investigators found no evidence that their political bias “directly affected” the email probe. 

The report singled out two FBI officials — Peter Strzok, a senior counterintelligence agent, and Lisa Page, a lawyer — for exchanging text messages that “potentially indicated or created the appearance that investigative decisions were impacted by bias or improper considerations.”

Strzok and Page were romantically involved at the time. In one exchange uncovered during the investigation, Strzok wrote to Page, “No. No, he won’t. We’ll stop it,” in response to Page’s question “[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!”

The inspector general wrote that Strzok’s response “is not only indicative of a biased state of mind but, even more seriously, implies a willingness to take official action to impact the presidential candidate’s electoral prospects.”

Both Strzok and Page briefly worked for special counsel Robert Mueller, investigating Russian interference in the election. Mueller removed Strzok from his team after the disclosure of his text messages. Page later left the special counsel’s office. 

Trump and his Republican allies have seized on the text exchanges to allege that the FBI was systematically biased against the president.

Other reactions

The report elicited mixed reactions.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the report reaffirmed Trump’s “suspicions about Director Comey,” adding that the text messages exchanged between Strzok and Page showed “the political bias the president has been talking about.” 

Trey Gowdy, the Republican chairman of the House oversight and government reform committee, said he was “alarmed, angered and deeply disappointed” by the findings.

The report confirms that the FBI decisions during the election “deviated from traditional investigative procedures in favor of a much more permissive and voluntary approach,” Gowdy said in a statement. 

But Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said the inspector general “found no evidence” that Comey and other FBI and Justice Department officials “acted on the basis of political bias or other improper considerations. Instead, their decisions were made on the basis of the facts and the law.”

Moreover, Schiff said in a statement, “Nothing in the IG’s report calls into question the legitimacy or conduct of the Special Counsel’s Russia investigation, or the importance of allowing the Special Counsel to complete his work without political interference.”

Nick Schwellenbach, director of investigations at the Project on Government Oversight, a government watchdog, said the FBI’s actions during the investigation “damaged the credibility of the Justice Department and the FBI in an investigation that desperately needed to be beyond reproach.”

“Justice Department and FBI leadership need to take a deep look inward and sort out how they should collaborate in high-profile, politically sensitive investigations,” he said. 

US Supreme Court Eases Rules for Voter Attire

The U.S. Supreme Court eased the rules Thursday for what Americans can wear when they go to vote, striking down restrictions in one state that banned voters from wearing clothes with the name of a candidate or political party when they enter the polling place.

In a victory for free speech, the high court in a 7-2 ruling overturned a law in the Midwestern state of Minnesota that barred clothing representing recognizable political views. The state had said the law was aimed at keeping order at polling places and preventing voter intimidation among partisans.

In his majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts said that while the state’s intentions were “generally worthy of our respect, Minnesota has not supported its good intentions with a law capable of reasoned application.”

Nine other states have laws similar to Minnesota’s. The Supreme Court returned the case to a lower court for consideration of what restrictions might be reasonable.

The Minnesota case stemmed from a 2010 incident in which a voter showed up at a polling place wearing a T-shirt supporting the conservative Tea Party movement with the words “Don’t Tread on Me,” as well as a button stating, “Please I.D. Me.”

The man was allowed to vote, but sued to overturn the law.

Immigrant Candidates ‘Running Everywhere’ in Upcoming US Elections

When Colombia-born Catalina Cruz stepped toward the podium in Jackson Heights, Queens, officially launching her campaign for New York State Legislature, a few dozen supporters stood nearby with fluorescent blue, green and red signs — #VoteCatalina, #ElectADreamer.

Like other first-generation American candidates for local, state and nationwide office, Cruz had overcome a series of obstacles to get to that morning in June. Many can relate in her diverse community — including her opponent, a daughter of Dominican immigrants.

“We have many people who understand the struggle of the immigrant, who understand that we do not come here to steal opportunities or take advantage of the system, but to work, to fight,” Cruz told VOA.

“My mom had to take any job — handing out leaflets, making empanadas (meat pies), selling food, babysitting,” she said of her childhood era, a near 13-year-span during which she and her family lived under the radar, undocumented.

WATCH THE VIDEO:

Years later, after Cruz completed college, married her high school beau (a U.S. citizen), gained citizenship, and attended law school, she set out to defy the odds again by entering American politics — an arena that has never reflected the diversity of the general population, particularly outside progressive urban centers.

But 2018 may be a tipping point; immigrants are running “everywhere,” says Sayu Bhojwani, founder and president of New American Leaders (NAL), a national non-partisan organization which prepares first and second-generation Americans for political office.

“You’re seeing people run [for office] wherever they are, without the burden of, ‘Oh, well, I’m not in a district that necessarily quote-unquote looks like me,’” Bhojwani said in an interview with VOA.

Barriers

On the one hand, Bhojwani predicts immigrant candidates will face “subtle and not-so-subtle references to (their) backgrounds and affiliations,” like Abdul El-Sayed, who is hoping to become the country’s first Muslim governor in Michigan, and has faced the kind of anti-immigrant rhetoric that is pervasive nationwide.

Yet, despite increasing partisan polarization, Bhojwani says immigrant candidates are beginning to “claim their space” across a range of offices and not just in progressive bubbles like Queens.

Ahead of the 2018 elections in November, NAL has tracked at least 100 foreign-born candidates running for U.S. Congress, where a smaller share of immigrants currently holds seats than during either of the country’s 19th and early 20th century waves of European immigration.

And immigrant candidates have been quietly making headway in both local and state elections, where fewer than two percent of 500,000 seats were held in 2015 by either Asian-Americans or Latinos — the two most populous groups of first and second-generation Americans — according to a report by NAL.

Positions like school board and local city council member “are often stepping stones” to higher office for women, candidates of color and immigrant candidates, says Paru Shah, professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, whose research examines the characteristics of first and second-generation Americans running for political office.

Would-be candidates all face the difficulties of financing a campaign and finding the time to run. But additionally, immigrant candidates often have their own psychological barriers, according to Shaw.

“Historically it’s a little bit of a chicken and egg situation, where people don’t see themselves in those positions,” Shah told VOA by phone, a situation of “that’s not for me.”

Changing the equation

According to a report by Shah and UCLA PhD candidate Tyler Reny, published in Social Science Quarterly (SSQ), race or foreignness was the most frequently cited barrier among immigrant leader respondents.

“I will have to overcome those who challenge how American I am because I was not born here,” read one recorded statement from the SSQ report.

“I imagine that my ability to lead and my loyalty to the nation would be questioned by the electorate,” read another.

According to Pew Research Center, the share of Asian-American and Hispanic Americans who think of themselves as “typical Americans” approximately doubles from the first-generation (Americans born outside the U.S. or U.S. territories) to 61 percent among the second (US-born with at least one immigrant parent).

For support, Asian-American and Latino candidates for state legislature often rely more heavily on labor unions and community-based groups than their white counterparts, according to NAL data. In return, the groups benefit from better representation.

“There is a lot that you can do to create an environment that is supportive and welcoming,” Bhojwani said. “People are stepping up and saying, ‘Look, I can represent my community and ensure that our schools feel safe and that our cities are welcoming.”

“We are not going to forget how we have lived up this point,” said candidate Catalina Cruz. “Many people might think, ‘Oh, she managed to get her papers and forgot.’ No, this is something you carry with you in your heart and in your blood.”

Laura Sepúlveda, of VOA’s Spanish Service, contributed to this report.

DACA May Finally Get a Vote in the House

Leaders of the Republican-led House of Representatives are promising to hold votes on two immigration measures next week, putting the heated issue back on center stage during a tough election year. The move ends a plan by moderate Republicans to force a vote, with the fate of thousands of young undocumented immigrants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, at stake. VOA’s Congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more.

Republicans Look to Trump to Help Pass Immigration Bill

House Republicans are looking to President Donald Trump to help them pass an immigration bill that does not have the support of right-wing lawmakers. 

A day after Speaker Paul Ryan announced that the House would vote next week on two competing immigration measures, the details are still being worked out on a Republican-approved bill that would grant young undocumented immigrants a way to citizenship.

WATCH: DACA May Finally Get a Vote in the House

The bill would grant “Dreamers,” people who were illegally brought to the U.S. as children, a respite from the threat of deportation and a chance to gain U.S. citizenship. As a compromise to conservatives, the bill would also finance Trump’s proposed border wall with Mexico, curb family migration and end the visa lottery program.

“We’ve been working hand in glove with the administration on this to make sure that we’re bringing a bill that represents the president’s ‘four pillars’ so that we can come together,” Ryan told reporters Wednesday. “It’s a product of good compromise.”

At a closed-door meeting with House Republicans, Ryan said Trump “seemed very supportive” of the compromise,” lawmakers told reporters. 

But despite Ryan’s assurance of the president’s support, some conservatives might be looking for a more vocal endorsement from Trump. 

Moderate Republicans and Democrats had threatened use a discharge petition to force a vote on four immigration bills. 

A discharge petition is a procedural move that forces a bill out of committee and to the House floor for a vote. In order to succeed, it needs 218 signatures. But the coalition fell short by two Republican signatures. 

The Republican leadership had feared that a discharge petition could have led to a coalition of Democrats and a few Republicans passing bills helping Dreamers without strong enough enforcement provisions. 

House Republicans have been struggling over immigration legislation since Trump last year ended the Obama administration-era program that protected the Dreamers.

Lawyers to Challenge Sessions’ Ruling In Asylum Case

Lawyers for a Salvadoran woman at the center of a controversial ruling on asylum by Attorney General Jeff Sessions say they are looking to challenge the decision that could prevent tens of thousands of immigrants from being granted asylum.

In a sweeping opinion that has touched off an outcry among immigration rights advocates, Sessions on Monday reversed a 2016 grant of asylum to the woman who had been abused by her husband, ruling that victims of domestic violence are not generally eligible for asylum under U.S. immigration law.

While the decision applies to all seeking asylum on grounds of domestic and gang violence, applicants from Mexico and the Central American nations of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, could be hit especially hard, advocates say. The four countries accounted for 35 percent of asylum claims filed with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in March. 

Though Sessions directed his ruling at immigration judges, its effect could be felt beyond the court system, said Blaine Bookey, a co-legal director at the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies at the University of California Hastings College of the Law, which is representing the Salvadoran woman. 

“The attorney general’s decision applies to all adjudicators, including the appellate body, the immigration courts, as well as the Asylum Office, even down to the border officers who are doing the initial threshold screenings of individuals,” Bookey said. 

A recent uptick in the rejection rate of asylum cases could accelerate, she said. “This decision only provides further support to officers who would not want to recognize certain claims.”

But she said the attorney general’s decision in the case is not necessarily the final word. 

Appeal for A.B.

The Salvadoran woman, known by her initials A.B., can still pursue one of three forms of fear-based relief in the U.S., including asylum, withholding from deportation and seeking protection under the Convention Against Torture, she said. 

The center is also examining other options to challenge Sessions’ ruling, including through the litigation of other individual asylum claims that may be negatively impacted by the decision, Bookey said.

“It is possible Ms. A.B.’s case cannot be directly appealed to (the Court of Appeals for) the Fourth Circuit now and could be challenged through other cases impacted by the (Attorney General’s) decision,” she said.

Omar Jadwat, director of the immigration rights project at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the ACLU “stands ready” to support Bookey’s group and others taking issue with the attorney general’s decision.

Jadwat said the organizations are considering “various routes” to a legal challenge.

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.

Key issue

The Salvadoran woman first applied for asylum in 2014, claiming that she had been beaten and raped by her husband for nearly 15 years.

An immigration judge rejected her claim, prompting her lawyers to take it to the Board of Immigration Appeals. 

The board ruled in her favor in 2016, citing a precedent set in an earlier case recognizing domestic violence as a basis for asylum. 

In his decision, Sessions said the immigration board had been wrong to recognize victims of domestic violence as members of a “particular social group,” a requirement for asylum. 

“The mere fact that a country may have problems effectively policing certain crimes — such as domestic violence or gang violence — or that certain populations are more likely to be victims of crime, cannot itself establish an asylum claim,” Sessions wrote. 

“When, as here, the alleged persecutor is someone unaffiliated with the government, the applicant must show that flight from her country is necessary because her home government is unwilling or unable to protect her,” Sessions wrote.

In reversing the A.B. decision, the attorney general said that he was restoring “sound principles of asylum and long-standing principles of immigration law.” 

No national fix

The case back was sent back to the same North Carolina immigration judge who had originally rejected A.B.’s initial asylum claim.

The judge, V. Stuart Couch, is widely expected to dismiss her case again, which could lead her lawyers to appeal to the immigration board and possibly to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Va.

Lindsay Harris, a law professor at the University of the District of Columbia and vice chair of the American Immigration Lawyers’ Association’s National Asylum and Refugee Liaison Committee, said she expects the appeals court to reverse the decision, given its “friendly” attitude toward similar cases. 

However, a favorable ruling by the court would apply only in its jurisdiction and leave the precedent set by Sessions in force in other parts of the country, she said. 

“We’ll need to overturn it one by one throughout the country in other jurisdictions,” Harris said.

US High Court Voter Roll Decision May Have Limited Impact

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling has cleared the way for states to take a tougher approach to maintaining their voter rolls, but will they?

Ohio plans to resume its process for removing inactive voters after it was affirmed in Monday’s 5-4 ruling. It takes a particularly aggressive approach that appears to be an outlier among states.

Few appear eager to follow.

“Our law has been on the books. It hasn’t changed, and it isn’t changing,” said Oklahoma Election Board spokesman Bryan Dean.

At issue is when a state begins the process to notify and ultimately remove people from the rolls after a period of non-voting. In most states with similar laws, like Oklahoma, that process begins after voters miss two or more federal elections.

In Ohio, it starts if voters sit out a two-year period that includes just one federal election. They are removed from the rolls if they fail to vote over the following four years or do not return an address-confirmation card.

Opponents of the laws say their intent is to purge people from the rolls, particularly minorities and the poor who tend to vote Democratic. Supporters say voters are given plenty of chances to keep their active status and that the rules adhere to federal law requiring states to maintain accurate voter rolls.

Democrats and voting rights groups have expressed concern that other states will be emboldened by the ruling and adopt more aggressive tactics to kick voters off the rolls. In addition to Oklahoma, Georgia, Montana, Oregon, Pennsylvania and West Virginia have laws similar to Ohio’s.

But even Republican-led states where officials are concerned about voter fraud may be wary when it comes to following the Ohio model.

One hurdle is likely to come from local governments, where election administrators would have to deal with disgruntled voters and manage an increase in the number of people placed on inactive voter lists, said Myrna Perez, who has studied voter list practices in her role as deputy director of the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program.

“Using one election as an indicator is going to lead to a whole lot of false positives,” she said. “There are plenty of states that clean their voter rolls successfully without being as aggressive as Ohio.”

West Virginia is more lenient in targeting inactive voters than Ohio. Among other things, it requires counties in the year following a presidential election to mail an address confirmation to people who have not voted in any election during the previous four years.

Julie Archer of the watchdog West Virginia Citizen Action Group said the process appears to be working as it should.

“There is not a need to do something more aggressive,” she said.

‘Massive statewide purge’

The controversy over Ohio’s approach arose from apparently conflicting mandates in the National Voter Registration Act, which became law in 1993. It requires states to maintain accurate voter registration lists but also says they should protect against inadvertently removing properly registered voters.

Since 1994, Ohio has used voters’ inactivity after two years — encompassing one federal election cycle — to trigger a process that could lead to removal from the voter rolls. That process has been used under both Democratic and Republican secretaries of state, but groups representing voters did not sue until 2016, under current Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted.

The legal action followed what the lawsuit called “a massive statewide purge” of voters in the summer of 2015.

In Pennsylvania, the process isn’t triggered unless people have failed to vote for five years, or two general election cycles. The state has no plans to change that, Department of State spokeswoman Wanda Murren said.

The existing system hasn’t been drawing complaints, said Ray Murphy, a spokesman for Keystone Votes, a liberal coalition that advocates for changes to Pennsylvania election law. But he said the group will watch the Legislature closely for any signs that lawmakers will want to follow Ohio’s more stringent method.

Ballot access is a frequent battleground for Democrats and Republicans, but it’s not always a neatly partisan issue.

In Oregon, for example, Republican Secretary of State Dennis Richardson last year expanded the period for removing people from the rolls from five years of non-voting to 10 years.

“A registered voter should not lose their voting rights solely because they haven’t participated recently,” he said in a written statement following Monday’s Supreme Court ruling.

GOP Seeks Immigration Accord Under Pressure from Moderates

House Republicans labored to strike an immigration accord Tuesday, the day restive moderates have said they’d move to force future votes on the divisive issue if no compromise is reached. Aides said any deal would likely include provisions changing how immigrant children are separated from their families at the border.

Speaker Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, planned to meet with centrist and conservative GOP leaders in hopes of defusing an election-year civil war that leaders worry will alienate right-leaning voters. For weeks, the two factions have hunted ways to provide a route to citizenship for immigrants brought illegally as children to the U.S. and bolster border security, but have failed to find middle ground.

Moderates led by Representatives Carlos Curbelo of Florida and California’s Jeff Denham have said that without an agreement, they would on Tuesday get the 218 signatures — a House majority — needed on a petition that would trigger votes later this month on four immigration bills. They are three names short, but have said they have enough supporters to succeed.

House GOP leaders have tried to derail that rarely used process, asserting those votes would probably produce a liberal-leaning bill backed by Democrats and just a smattering of Republicans. They’ve been trying to craft a right-leaning measure, but the party has long failed to find compromise between centrists with Hispanic and moderate-minded constituents and conservatives whose voters back President Donald Trump’s hardline views.

Any deal is likely to include much if not all of the $25 billion Trump wants to build his proposed wall with Mexico and other security steps. But there have been disagreements over details, such as conservative plans to make it easier to deport some immigrants here legally.

Trump’s recent clampdown on people entering the U.S. illegally has resulted in hundreds of children being separated from their families and a public relations black eye for the administration.

No law requires those children to be taken from their parents. A two-decade-old court settlement requires those who are separated to be released quickly to relatives or qualified programs. Republicans are seeking language to make it easier to keep the families together longer, said several Republicans.

Besides trying to cut a deal on a bill, Ryan and other GOP leaders have been trying to persuade moderate Republicans to not sign the petition. Two Republican aides said that as part of that, party leaders have promised votes later this year on a bill dealing with migrant agriculture workers and requirements that employers use a government online system to verify workers’ citizenship.

The Republicans spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private talks.

Under House procedures, if the moderates’ petition reaches 218 signatures on Tuesday, the immigration votes could occur as soon as June 25. Otherwise, the votes would have to wait until July.

Trump last year terminated the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, though federal court orders have kept the program functioning for now. Hundreds of thousands of young immigrants have benefited from DACA or could qualify for it, and moderates want legislation that would give these so-called Dreamers a way to become legal residents and ultimately citizenship.

Conservatives have derided that step as amnesty for lawbreakers and have resisted providing a special pathway to protect them.

In recent days, talks have focused on proposals that give the Dreamers a way to gain legal status, perhaps making them eligible for visas now distributed under existing programs. Trump has proposed limiting the relatives that immigrants can bring to the U.S. and ending a lottery that provides visas to people from countries with low immigration rates, which could free up some visas.

US Vows to Find, Punish Citizenship Cheaters

The U.S. government agency that oversees immigration applications is launching an office that will focus on identifying Americans who are suspected of cheating to get their citizenship and seek to strip them of it.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director L. Francis Cissna told The Associated Press in an interview that his agency is hiring several dozen lawyers and immigration officers to review cases of immigrants who were ordered deported and are suspected of using fake identities to later get green cards and citizenship through naturalization.

Cissna said the cases would be referred to the Department of Justice, whose attorneys could then seek to remove the immigrants’ citizenship in civil court proceedings. In some cases, government attorneys could bring criminal charges related to fraud.

Coordinated effort

Until now, the agency has pursued cases as they arose but not through a coordinated effort, Cissna said. He said he hopes the agency’s new office in Los Angeles will be running by next year but added that investigating and referring cases for prosecution will likely take longer.

“We finally have a process in place to get to the bottom of all these bad cases and start denaturalizing people who should not have been naturalized in the first place,” Cissna said. “What we’re looking at, when you boil it all down, is potentially a few thousand cases.”

He declined to say how much the effort would cost but said it would be covered by the agency’s existing budget, which is funded by immigration application fees.

The push comes as the Trump administration has been cracking down on illegal immigration and taking steps to reduce legal immigration to the U.S.

Immigrants who become U.S. citizens can vote, serve on juries and obtain security clearance. Denaturalization, the process of removing that citizenship, is very rare.

Citizenship revoked

The U.S. government began looking at potentially fraudulent naturalization cases a decade ago when a border officer detected about 200 people had used different identities to get green cards and citizenship after they were previously issued deportation orders.

In September 2016, an internal watchdog reported that 315,000 old fingerprint records for immigrants who had been deported or had criminal convictions had not been uploaded to a Department of Homeland Security database that is used to check immigrants’ identities. The same report found more than 800 immigrants had been ordered deported under one identity but became U.S. citizens under another.

Since then, the government has been uploading these older fingerprint records dating back to the 1990s and investigators have been evaluating cases for denaturalization.

Earlier this year, a judge revoked the citizenship of an Indian-born New Jersey man named Baljinder Singh after federal authorities accused him of using an alias to avoid deportation.

Authorities said Singh used a different name when he arrived in the United States in 1991. He was ordered deported the next year and a month later applied for asylum using the name Baljinder Singh before marrying an American, getting a green card and naturalizing.

Authorities said Singh did not mention his earlier deportation order when he applied for citizenship.

Entered a new chapter

For many years, most U.S. efforts to strip immigrants of their citizenship focused largely on suspected war criminals who lied on their immigration paperwork, most notably former Nazis.

Toward the end of the Obama administration, officials began reviewing cases stemming from the fingerprints probe but prioritized those of naturalized citizens who had obtained security clearances, for example, to work at the Transportation Security Administration, said Muzaffar Chishti, director of the Migration Policy Institute’s office at New York University law school.

The Trump administration has made these investigations a bigger priority, he said. He said he expects cases will focus on deliberate fraud but some naturalized Americans may feel uneasy with the change.

“It is clearly true that we have entered a new chapter when a much larger number of people could feel vulnerable that their naturalization could be reopened,” Chishti said.

Since 1990, the Department of Justice has filed 305 civil denaturalization cases, according to statistics obtained by an immigration attorney in Kansas who has defended immigrants in these cases.

The attorney, Matthew Hoppock, agrees that deportees who lied to get citizenship should face consequences but worries other immigrants who might have made mistakes on their paperwork could be targeted and might not have the money to fight back in court.

Cissna said there are valid reasons why immigrants might be listed under multiple names, noting many Latin American immigrants have more than one surname. He said the U.S. government is not interested in that kind of minor discrepancy but wants to target people who deliberately changed their identities to dupe officials into granting immigration benefits.

“The people who are going to be targeted by this, they know full well who they are because they were ordered removed under a different identity and they intentionally lied about it when they applied for citizenship later on,” Cissna said. “It may be some time before we get to their case, but we’ll get to them.”

New Disclosure Shows Growing Kushner Wealth, Debt

Financial disclosure forms released late Monday show that White House special adviser — and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law — Jared Kushner’s wealth and debt both appear to have risen over the year, an indication of the complex state of his finances and the potential conflicts that confront some of his investments.

 

Disclosures issued by the White House for Kushner and his wife, Trump’s daughter Ivanka, showed that Kushner held assets totaling at least $181 million. His previous 2017 disclosure had showed assets in at least the $140 million range. Kushner and Ivanka Trump, jointly held at least $240 million in assets last year.

 

The financial disclosures released by the White House and filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics routinely show both assets and debts compiled in broad ranges between low and high estimates, making it difficult to precisely chart the rise and fall of the financial portfolios of federal government officials.

 

The White House released the disclosures for Kushner and Ivanka Trump on a heavy news day, while the world’s media lavished attention on President Trump’s preparations to meet with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un for talks over nuclear weapons. The White House had released the president’s own financial report last month.

 

A spokesman for the couple said Monday that the couple’s disclosure portrayed both assets and debts that have not changed much over the past year — and stressed that Kushner and Ivanka Trump have both complied with all federal ethics rules.

 

“Since joining the administration, Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump have complied with the rules and restrictions as set out by the Office of Government Ethics,” said Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for the couple’s ethics lawyer, Abbe Lowell. “As to the current filing which OGE also reviews, their net worth remains largely the same, with changes reflecting more the way the form requires disclosure than any substantial difference in assets or liabilities.”

 

One of Kushner’s biggest holdings, a real estate tech startup called Cadre that he co-founded with his brother, Joshua, rose sharply in value. The latest disclosure shows it was worth at least $25 million at the end of last year, up from a minimum value of $5 million in his previous disclosure.

 

The bulk of Ivanka Trump’s assets — more than $50 million worth — was contained in a trust that holds her business and corporations. That trust generated over $5 million in revenue last year.

 

She reported a stake in the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., worth between $5 million and $25 million. The hotel has been a focus of lawsuits against the president and ethics watchdogs who say Trump is violating the Constitution by profiting from his office as diplomats spend big money there.

 

The disclosure also showed that Kushner has assumed growing debt over the past year, both expanding his use of revolving lines of credit and taking on additional debt of between $5 million and $25 million as part of his family company’s purchase last year of a New Jersey apartment complex.

 

A series of interim financial reports last year showed that Kushner had increased lines of credit with Bank of America, New York Community Bank and Signature Bank, each from at least $1 million to $5 million. Such moves do not mean that Kushner has yet accumulated that debt, but has the ability to do so.

 

The new disclosure shows that Kushner did take on a new debt last year with Bank of America worth between $5 million and $25 million — but jointly with other investors in Quail Ridge LLC, a company used for his family firm’s purchase of Quail Ridge, a 1,032-unit apartment community in Plainsboro, N.J., near Princeton. The disclosures also showed that Ivanka Trump owns an interest in that purchase through a family trust.

 

The disclosure showed that Kushner reported making at least $5 million in income from the development since Kushner Companies bought the complex in September. The family business has made a splash with high-profile deals for buildings in New York City in the past decade, but lately has been returning to its roots by buying garden apartments in the suburbs.

 

Under an ethics agreement he signed when he joined the administration in early 2017, Kushner withdrew from his position as CEO of Kushner Companies. But even as a passive investor, he retains many lucrative investments — which ethics critics have warned could raise conflicts of interest.

US’s Rosenstein Calls for Global Collaboration on Crime Amid Trade Tension

United States Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on Monday called for global governments to “work together” on law enforcement, at a time when an escalating trade rift is pitting the United States against Canada and a number of Washington’s other close trade partners.

Rosenstein said during a speech in Montreal the United States is “enhancing its commitment to international law enforcement coordination,” through personal relationships, policy changes and additional resources, citing examples of recent collaboration between Canadian and U.S. law enforcement. 

“Working together is not always easy. There may be legal and practical barriers to cooperation,” he said during the International Economic Forum of the Americas, Conference of Montreal. “But strong leadership is not about avoiding problems. It is about embracing challenges and overcoming obstacles.”

Rosenstein’s speech comes after U.S. President Donald Trump fired off a volley of tweets venting anger on NATO allies, the European Union and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the wake of a divisive G-7 meeting over the weekend.