Wednesday, September 19, 2018
The Pot Addresses the Kettle
— Preamble to Charter of the United NationsTo reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person. . . .
The good news is that, as of this writing, there is no talk of the Chinese imposing reciprocal sanctions on the United States.
According to a report in the New York Times, Donald is considering imposing sanctions on China because of the deplorable treatment by Chinese authorities of the ethnic Uighurs and other minority Muslims in internment camps in Xinjiang in northwestern China. A description by Human Rights Watch of a 117 page report dealing with “China’s Campaign of Repression Against Xinjiang’s Muslims” says the report “presents new evidence of the Chinese government’s mass arbitrary detention, torture, and mistreatment, and the increasingly pervasive controls on daily life. Throughout the region, the Turkic Muslim population of 13 million is subjected to forced political indoctrination, collective punishment, restrictions on movement and communications, heightened religious restrictions, and mass surveillance in violation of international human rights law. The detainees in political education camps are held without any due process rights-neither charged nor put on trial-and have no access to lawyers and family. . . . “
Testifying at a congressional hearing that took place in July, Gulchehra Hoja, a Uighur-American journalist, said that two dozen of her family members were missing. She said: “I hope and pray for my family to be let go and released. But I know even if that happens, they will still live under constant threat.”
The descriptions by both the New York Times and Human Rights Watch, of how the Uighurs are being treated by the Chinese government make a compelling case for Donald to consider imposing sanctions. If he were to do that, it would be the first time that Donald would have taken any notice of human rights violations by China. And, of course, his reluctance may have had something to do with his fear that what’s good for the goose, is good for the gander and Donald is nothing, if not the gander.
Just days before the report by Human Watch was released, the gander and his administration announced new plans for dealing with immigrant families in the United States. In doing so, it is proposing to significantly alter the terms of the Flores settlement, an agreement that has been in place since 1997. The Flores settlement controls what happens to children who arrive in the United States without their parents. Among other things, it provides that they cannot be held in custody for more than 20 days. In 2015, the judge who monitors the government’s adherence to the terms of the settlement, ruled that it not only applied to children who arrived without their parents, but also applied to children who arrived with their parents. The judge said that the government had to release families with children within 20 days following their detention. In response to that order, the Trump administration began separating children from parents so that the parents could be held in detention indefinitely and the children held separately.
Under the new Trump proposal, children and parents alike can be kept in detention as long as Donald or his agents think necessary, and families and children could be kept in detention for many months and, in some cases, years.
Under the terms of the Flores settlement, children and families had to be housed in state or local government licensed facilities. Under the Trump proposal, there will not be a sufficient number of licensed facilities to accommodate the number of families Trump wants to detain. It is estimated that Immigration and Customs Enforcement-run family detention centers would increase in size from 3,000 beds to 12,000 beds. Instead of state or local government licensing being required for such facilities, all that is needed for one of the new facilities to be licensed is that there be an audit by an unspecified third party.
Under the Flores settlement, either unaccompanied children or children with families were required to be sent to a Health and Human Services Facility for unaccompanied children or a Department for Homeland Security facility for families, within 72 hours. A broad loophole in the proposed regulations eliminates that protection.
The proposed changes are too numerous to describe in a short space. Their effect is best described in a piece by Maria Benevento writing for the National Catholic Reporter. In her report she quotes Camilo Perez-Bustillo, Director of Advocacy, Leadership Development and Research for the Hope Border Institute. Commenting on the proposed Trump rule, Mr. Perez-Bustillo said: “What we’re talking about is an architecture of cruelty reflected in national policy, which I think can only be understood in terms of structural sin.” The new rule, he said, creates a “system deliberately set up to make the defense of people’s rights and the recognition of their humanity and dignity as difficult as possible.” He is not writing about the treatment of Uighurs by China; he is writing about Donald Trump’s proposed treatment of immigrants in the United States.
China has not yet suggested the imposition of sanctions on the United States as punishment for its treatment of immigrants. It may be waiting to see if the proposed changes to the Flores Settlement are implemented after the 60-day comment period. Or it may be waiting to see if Trump imposes sanctions on it for its treatment of the Uighurs. Time will tell. Meanwhile, Uighurs in China and illegal immigrants in the United States will remain subject to inhumane treatment by their respective governments.
Thursday, September 13, 2018
Stormy's Secrets
If the law supposes that, the law is a ass-a
Idiot.
— Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist
The law can be confusing, and I am happy to offer an explanation of one legal concept that has confused many readers untutored in its ways. The concept for which I hope to provide clarity is known as “non-disclosure.”
Agreements dealing with non-disclosure known as “non-disclosure agreements” may be created when two people have been involved in an event that one of the participants doesn’t want anyone else to know about. In that case the person seeking confidentiality may pay the other person a sum of money, in exchange for which that person agrees not to disclose anything about the event.
Current events offer a perfect example of how a well arranged non-disclosure agreement works. For purposes of this example, I will use two fictional people, one of whom will be referred to as Donald and the other as Stormy.
In the example I have chosen, Stormy signed a non-disclosure agreement, and although Donald did not sign it, initials were placed on the agreement that, as I will explain later, were intended to bind Donald. What the non-disclosure agreement hoped to keep from public view, was a meeting that took place at a celebrity golf tournament on the shore of Lake Tahoe in 2005. At that event, Stormy met Donald. What we know, and what the non-disclosure agreement is intended to keep private, is that as a result of that meeting Stormy had a sexual encounter with Donald that she described as uninspired (my words-not hers.) We also know it was never repeated, notwithstanding requests for a repeat performance by Donald.
What we also know, and what my readers would have learned without the benefit of this column, thanks to a story in the Wall Street Journal on January 12, 2018, is that someone named Michael Cohen, who we know was Donald’s personal attorney, since his identity was not concealed, negotiated a non-disclosure agreement with Stormy’s lawyer prior to the 2016 presidential election. Its purpose was to withhold from the public what this column describes.
Pursuant to the terms of the non-disclosure agreement, Stormy agreed to accept $130,000 for not disclosing that she had had the sexual encounter with Donald in 2006 about which, as of this writing, everyone knows. In response to the January WSJ story, Mr. Cohen said both Donald and Stormy denied that a sexual encounter occurred even though anyone who had been paying attention knew that it had occurred by the time Mr. Cohen spoke .
We also know that to effect the payment to Stormy, Mr. Cohen created a company, Essential Consultants (EC). The sole purpose of EC was to receive $130,000 from Mr. Cohen that EC turned around and paid to Stormy to persuade her to sign the non-disclosure agreement so we would not learn of the events described above. The agreement was not signed by Donald, but wherever there was a space for him to initial the agreement, the initials EC (Essential Consultants) appeared.
One of the provisions in the agreement said that for every breach of the agreement by Stormy, she would owe Donald $1 million. A breach would occur if Stormy described the events that Stormy and Donald agreed not to disclose and that I have just described for you. (I am not subject to the terms of the non-disclosure agreement which is why I can describe it for you.) The non-disclosure agreement also provided that any dispute between Donald and Stormy had to be resolved through “binding confidential Arbitration to the greatest extent permitted by law.” That was placed in the agreement so that the events I have just described would remain confidential even if they became subject to arbitration.
After the agreement was signed, Stormy went on a number of television programs and described the events in a manner that left some people with the feeling that the events she was talking about had in fact occurred, but she coyly refused to admit them because she wanted to be faithful to the terms of the agreement. She wanted to be faithful to the agreement, even though everyone in the country knew that the events described therein had occurred, and even though both Donald and Stormy said they had not.
In March 2018, Stormy filed a lawsuit against Donald, seeking to be relieved of the restraints imposed on her by the agreement, so that she could tell everyone what this column has told you. She could, of course, probably fill in a few details that I inadvertently, or perhaps out of ignorance, omitted, although it is hard to imagine that I have left out anything of importance pertaining to the affair unless, it is the color and type of underwear worn by the participants during the encounter.
The next event took place on September 9, 2018, when Donald’s legal team announced that they agreed with Stormy that the non-disclosure agreement was invalid since it was never signed or, alternatively, agreed with her that if it was valid, it should be rescinded. We know about it because unlike most of the other events described herein, that announcement was not subject to the non-disclosure agreement.
Now that readers have a clear understanding of non-disclosure agreements, herewith two postscripts:
(a)Stormy’s new book, “Full Disclosure” will be released October 2, 2018. In it she says she’ll share details of the night she spent with Donald.
(b)Michael Cohen’s lawyer has said that Michael wants his $130,000 back.
Stay tuned.
Wednesday, September 5, 2018
Trumping Passports
All persons born or naturalized in the United States. . . are citizens of the United States. . . .
— Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
There are, of course, various ways of doing it. Hitler had one, Bahrain has another, and Trump yet another. Readers can decide for themselves which is preferable. First things first.
Hitler set a date certain. That date was October 5, 1938. That was the date that the Reich Ministry of the Interior invalidated all passports held by German Jews All the German Jew had to do to get a new passport following that decree, was to get a new passport with the name “Israel” (if a man) or “Sara” (if a woman) included in the applicant’s name, and have the new passport stamped with a large red letter “J.” That was only of temporary benefit, however. On November 25, 1941, the Eleventh Decree to the Law on the Citizenship of the Reich was passed. That law stripped both Jews with German citizenship living within Germany, and those living outside Germany, of their citizenship.
On July 27, 2018, a report from Human Rights Watch disclosed that the Bahraini authorities have been taking citizenship away from Bahraini citizens based on executive orders or court decisions. According to the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD), thus far in 2018, the Bahranian authorities have stripped 232 Bahranians of their citizenship. Since 2012, an additional 500 have seen their citizenship revoked. According to Eric Goldstein, the deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch: “While authorities claim that these acts are linked to national security, they are in fact punishing many people for peacefully voicing dissent.”
If Bahranian citizenship is revoked by a criminal court decision, the revocation is subject to appeal. If it is revoked through a royal decree or Interior Ministry Order, two levels of court appeals are available. Reportedly, citizenship revocations have rarely been reversed. An amendment to the Citizenship Law of 1963, passed in 2014, says the Interior Ministry can take away a person’s right of citizenship (subject to cabinet approval) of anyone who “aids or is involved in the service of a hostile state” or who “causes harm to the interests of the Kingdom or acts in a way that contravenes his duty of loyalty to it.” Those who have fallen victim to the Bahranian attacks on citizenship include prominent human rights advocates, clerics, and defendants in mass trials, all of whom were deprived of the right to mount meaningful defenses.
Donald Trump is nothing (and he is nothing) if not ingenious. He does not need to follow in Hitler’s footsteps when it comes to taking away passports and citizenship, nor does he need Bahrain as an example. He has his own ways. They are no less effective, however.
A report in the Washington Post on August 29, 2018, discloses that passport renewals are being denied based on the government’s belief that the applicants for passports, or those seeking renewal, were using fraudulent birth certificates in order to prove their citizenship. The issue exists, he believes, because along the U.S.-Mexico border, babies have for many years been delivered by mid-wives. There is some evidence that a few mid-wives who delivered babies years ago on the Mexican side of the border, stated in the birth certificate that the baby was born in the United States. That made the baby a U.S. citizen.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly used a murder committed by an illegal immigrant as evidence that all illegal immigrants are murderers. He has now taken the same approach to birth certificates. Since a few mid-wives lied on birth certificates, all birth certificates issued by mid-wives are presumptively fraudulent.
According to the Washington Post, hundreds of people living along the U.S.-Mexico border are now being denied passports, or renewal of existing passports. Some people who have been travelling outside the United States and are trying to re-enter using valid passports are denied entry and, in some cases, taken into custody and brought before immigration authorities in order to face deportation proceedings. Applicants for passports who provide U.S. birth certificates may learn that not only will they not receive passports but will, instead, be jailed in immigration centers and enrolled, as it were, in deportation proceedings.
In the case of someone identified by the Post as Juan, a 40-year old adult who had served two years in the U.S. army, been a cadet in the border patrol, and is now serving as a prison guard, his passport application was denied. He was told by the State Department that he should provide evidence of his mother’s prenatal care that took place more than 40 years ago, his baptismal certificate, and rental agreements from the time when he was a baby.
In some cases, described by an attorney quoted in the Post story, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have gone to his clients’ homes uninvited and taken away their passports.
Under the 1941 German edict, there was no right of appeal. In Bahrain, there is. In the United States, following denial or revocation of passports, some of the affected citizens have sued the government. According to a lawyer who has represented a number of people suing the government over their passport denials or revocations, one of the questions government attorneys frequently asked applicants in those proceedings was: “Do you remember when you were born?” It’s the perfect question to ask in a proceeding sponsored by Mr. Trump.