Trump To Annouce Tougher Caps, Vetting Rules For Refugees

Now that the Trump administration’s temporary ban on accepting new refugees – first implemented in June after the Supreme Court ruled that a narrower version of Trump’s second travel ban would be allowed to take effect – has expired, the administration has said it will begin accepting refugees from all countries, but with new rules meant to better vet applicants, and with a tighter cap on the number of refugees that was previously unveiled last month, both the WSJ and Fox reported, citing sources close to the administration.

President Trump is expected to announce a tighter cap on the number of refugees admitted to the US and call for tougher vetting rules during a speech on Tuesday – the day the 120-day refugee ban expires. Coinciding with the deadline, Trump is expected to sign a document starting the process of allowing refugees back into the US under new guidelines.

Under the rules, the administration would cap refugee admissions at 45,000. That’s down from 110,000 under the last year of the Obama administration.

After Trump signs the order, the administration will begin collecting more biographical data, such as names of family members and places of employment, officials said. The administration will also do more to mine social media posts to see, for instance, if refugees’ public pronouncements are consistent with the stories they offer in their applications, the officials said.

Meanwhile, the officials responsible for the screening at the US Citizenship and Immigration Services agency, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, will be given new guidance and better training to help detect fraud in refugees’ applications.

Under the new order being issued, refugee admissions will resume for all countries. However, one person familiar with the planning said that people from 11 targeted countries will be subject to additional vetting that will slow down the process for them.

As WSJ points out, the vetting process can be particularly challenging because applicants have been forced to flee their home countries and often don’t have documents to confirm their identities and personal details.

The Obama administration also sought to increase vetting of social media posts, but officials involved say their efforts were limited in part because the process is labor intensive.

Of course, Trump’s immigration policies have been repeatedly challenged by federal judges. But while the courts have delivered a series of setbacks to the administration’s efforts to block travelers from certain – most of them Muslim-majority – countries. But the Supreme Court gave the administration a temporary victory on the refugee policy last month, allowing the ban to stay in place until the October expiration. 

Trump Wall – How Exactly?

By Chris at www.CapitalistExploits.at

Market dislocations occur when financial markets, operating under stressful conditions, experience large widespread asset mispricing.

Welcome to this week’s edition of “World Out Of Whack” where every Wednesday we take time out of our day to laugh, poke fun at and present to you absurdity in global financial markets in all its glorious insanity.

While we enjoy a good laugh, the truth is that the first step to protecting ourselves from losses is to protect ourselves from ignorance. Think of the “World Out Of Whack” as your double thick armour plated side impact protection system in a financial world littered with drunk drivers.

Selfishly we also know that the biggest (and often the fastest) returns come from asymmetric market moves. But, in order to identify these moves we must first identify where they live.

Occasionally we find opportunities where we can buy (or sell) assets for mere cents on the dollar – because, after all, we are capitalists.

Join the INSIDER membership and find out what we"re doing with our own money... targeting asymmetric investment opportunities

In this week"s edition of the WOW: Trump Wall - How Exactly?

How many people voted for "Herr Von Trump" because he promised to build a "great and beautiful wall"?

Likely the same folks that fervently believe stable jobs at shuttered coal mines and steel factories are actually coming back (they"re not).

He made it a pillar of his campaign - the beautiful wall, that is. Which makes me wonder about his use of speech. I mean, I know I"m going to be accused of nitpicking but I"ve seen a lot of walls, none I"d describe as beautiful. Charlize Theron is beautiful. Walls are not.

Understandably the folks south of the border got testy. Surprisingly, they don"t appreciate being called rapists and drug pushers:

Even the former Mexican Grand Mufti honcho got stuck in.

And Nieto"s turn:

“Mexico will not pay for that wall, we will pay for ladders though,” Nieto said. “Trump can do whatever he wants, he can spend as much money as he wants, but the fact is, so many of our people have friends and family in the United States. And unfortunately for these people they cannot afford a visa or citizenship or cannot wait the long delays in getting one, so ladders are the answer.”

Trump wasn"t backing down.

Football hooligans couldn"t do it better. This is the best these countries have to offer, folks. God help us all!

It"s enough to drive a man to drink. I"m sorely tempted to pop down to the local liquor store for a litre of Kalashnikov Vodka - guaranteed to blow my head clean off.

Still , I"ve become accustomed to dealing with the fact the world is littered with the dullest and most useless people steering the ships. But what"s more concerning is why nobody has asked the obvious questions.

Meatheads never ask the obvious questions. Mental arithmetic requiring independent thought being something strongly discouraged.

What sort of wall? Concrete? Wire fencing? If so, how much?

How will the materials get there? Take a look, there are no roads in much of the territory.

Who builds it? Mexicans?

What about housing for what will have to be a sizeable workforce? What about water, food, medical supplies?

How high? Not high enough and a USD10 ladder trumps (pun intended) a multi billion dollar wall.

What about tunnels under it? Smugglers, after all, have been tunneling for years where the wall already exists. Reminds me of Einstein"s definition of insanity. Why would they stop what already works?

Then there"s the little issue of this being 2,000km of wall. That"s an awful lot of wall. Wall that has to go through private land which begs the question. What about imminent domain?

What about the environment protection agency and the mating habits of the endangered red-eared slider?

Has any of this been thought about? Did voters, in their desperate desire to rid themselves of the sclerotic, nepotistic, basilisk and the establishment she represents, bother to ask themselves these questions?

The US Department of Homeland Theatre Security estimate the wall will cost USD21.6 billion and take more than 3.5 years to build. Trump doesn"t think so.

"It"ll get done so quickly your head will spin."

Guess we"ll see. Anyway, considering government estimates I think it"s safe to double both of these figures - USD44 Billion and 7 years sounds about right then. That"s bigger than the GDP of Slovenia, it"s twice that of Iceland, and 3 times that of Jamaica. Personally, I"d rather just buy Jamaica, lie in the sun and collect all the rum revenues while stashing a little in the cellar, of course. But then, I"m not running the mess show.

I wonder: Did Trump think through the fact that the US has a pact with Mexico on shared water rights? Did he know one existed before making this part of his campaign? Annoyingly, he"s failed to brief me but I have my suspicions he didn"t.

The same report estimates that this agreement alone could bring the cost from USD11 million per mile to USD15 million per mile in one area.

This is the Rio Grande. Perhaps many Americans haven"t been down here or thought about this much. You gonna build a wall here?

This doozy sits in the report, too:

"It also does not account for major physical barriers, like mountains, in areas where it would not be feasible to build."

Take another look at the Rio Grande. This, folks, isn"t merely a 2x on opex estimation. Just sayin"...

So what"s up with Trump? Can he not do arithmetic? Does he simply speak like most politicians (lie)? Or does he simply shoot from the lip.

Has he looked at the fact that more Mexicans are leaving than entering the United States?

That a Mexican border wall is impractical, impossible, ludicrously expensive, and will create (rather than solve) the problems it"s purported to solve but that won"t stop Washington from doing what Washington does: stupid things.

The Question is...

Cast your vote here and also see what others think

- Chris

"Walls in people"s heads are sometimes more durable than walls made of concrete blocks." ? Willy Brandt, Erinnerungen

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"Fearful, Panicked" Illegal Immigrants Flood Mexican Consulates Across The U.S.

After a wave of raids last weekend by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials landed over 600 people, in cities across the country, in federal detention centers, illegal immigrants around the nation are suddenly growing far more concerned about what the Trump administration might mean for their future residency plans.  Add to that this morning"s latest leaks/rumors, courtesy of the Associated Press, that Trump is making plans to call up 100,000 National Guard troops to "round up" illegal immigrants and you have a recipe for nationwide panic among those who have intentionally violated U.S. immigration laws. 

As the New York Times points out, this uncertainty over Trump"s approach to deportations has Mexican nationals flooding consulates all over the country for legal advice on how to fight deportation.

Perhaps nobody is as busy as Carlos García de Alba, the consul general in Los Angeles, one of the largest offices in the country. He has begun to train nearly every employee in basic legal services and expects to bring in many more immigration lawyers. Still, in recent months, Mr. García has felt torn between his efforts to increase services to worried constituents and trying to calm their nerves.

 

“We don’t want to provoke and feed a kind of paranoia among our nationals here,” Mr. García said in an interview. “There is a kind of psychosis, people are really scared. Up to now we haven’t seen anything that is really different than the last several years, but the environment is making people panic and they are completely fearful. They want to know what is going to happen and how to protect themselves.”

 

Of course this all comes after Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto announced that he would spend $50 million to pay for lawyers at every Mexican consulate in the U.S. to help Mexican Nationals fight deportation proceedings.

In the last week, the Mexican government has created a 24-hour hotline to help answer any questions for Mexicans in the United States. Last month, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto announced that he would spend $50 million to pay for lawyers at every consulate to help people facing deportations. And consulates have been distributing fliers detailing what to do if someone is approached by deportation agents — advising them not to open their doors without proof of a warrant or speak to officers without a lawyer.

 

Foreign service officers who have spent decades in the United States said in interviews that they had all encountered increased anxiety among undocumented immigrants, as several states have passed their own laws to deal with illegal immigration. But they said this was the most hostile national atmosphere for Mexicans in recent memory, making their jobs both more difficult and more urgent.

Mexican consulates are even distributing this handy flyer to advise their citizens "How to Act In Case Of A Migrant Detention."

 

Scared by rumors and rhetoric, some consulates have reported of immigrants taking drastic steps to avoid authorities, like keeping their children home from school, quitting their jobs or selling their homes for cash. “There is an inherent feeling of vulnerability that comes with being undocumented in this country, and that vulnerability moves you to get away of anything that is official government,” said Carlos González Gutiérrez, the consul general in Austin, Tex., who estimates that about half of the 200,000 Mexicans living in the region are undocumented. “The first challenge for us is to make sure that immigrants understand that the consulate is a safe place where they can get accurate information.”

Many of the consulates’ most pressing concerns now are defensive. In several cases last week, immigration agents were “unwilling to provide our nationals with the option to talk with our consulate and the obligation to notify us,” said one Mexican official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the issue was still under investigation. Under the Vienna Convention, a 1963 international treaty, any citizen of another country should be offered a chance to speak with their consulate.

 

Felipe Carrera oversees the department of protection in the Los Angeles consulate, where dozens of lawyers assist with immigration cases. For years, the office has sent a lawyer to the federal immigration center daily, monitoring who is taken in and talking to as many as 15 people a day. Minutes after he heard reports of dozens of arrests last week, several lawyers went there to talk with as many Mexicans as they could.

 

“Our main purpose is to find out if there have been violations of due process,” Mr. Carrera said. “People need to know they have constitutional rights. We want them to know about the Fifth Amendment and make sure they are properly advised about what happens if they plead guilty.”

Might we suggest that the most effective way to combat deportation might be to immigrate to the United States legally...just a suggestion, of course, but it just might be crazy enough to keep the ICE officials away...

Trump Will Not Appeal Travel Ban Ruling To Supreme Court, Priebus Denies

Update:

In the latest moment of confusion for the new administration, chief of staff Reince Priebus said the administration was still considering an appeal to the Supreme Court after a lower court soundly rejected its request to reinstate the order. Priebus"s statement came one hour after a White House official said it was not planning to challenge the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling upholding a temporary restraining order (TRO) blocking the ban, while Trump himself has said a new order on security could come next week.

Priebus told The Washington Post that "every single court option is on the table, including an appeal of the Ninth Circuit decision on the TRO to the Supreme Court.

In short, the situation remains fluid.

* * *

What a difference a day makes.

Less than 24 hours after an angry Trump tweeted "SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!" in the aftermath of yesterday"s adverse Appeals Court ruling...

SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2017

... the President has changed his mind and has decided not to see anyone in court - if only for the time being - because according to Reuters, his administration is not currently planning to appeal the temporary hold on his travel ban to the Supreme Court, a White House official said Friday according to multiple media sources.

The official noted, however, that the White House said it will forge ahead on the broader battle against a lawsuit challenging the executive order, if out of court.

Which means, that as per the steps we laid out last night, the administration will now prepare a brand new immigration order. Trump hinted as much earlier in the day when during his press conference with Abe, he said  "We’ll be doing something very rapidly having to do with additional security for our country; you’ll be seeing that sometime next week," Trump said with Abe by his side. He offered no specifics.

He then added "we are going to keep our country safe," he said on Friday. "We are going to do whatever’s necessary to keep our country safe." He added he would continue to fight for the travel ban in courts, and that "ultimately, I have no doubt we will win that particular case."

Trump later told reporters aboard Air Force One that he would likely wait until next week to respond with legal action. “Perhaps Monday or Tuesday," he said.  Trump earlier Friday hinted a new order could be in the works, but he declined to detail what it would look like.

And so, while his travel ban is held up in court, Trump said he is considering ordering his staff to draft a new executive order that will have an easier time clearing legal hurdles.

“We also have a lot of other options, including just filing a brand new order,” he told reporters on the presidential aircraft.

Trump indicated that no final decision has been made to write a new order or make tweaks to the existing one.  “It very well could be,” when asked if he will issue a new order. “We need speed for reasons of security, so it very well could be." The president said a possible new action would stick by his core principle that refugees and travelers from countries should be subject to “extreme vetting.”

"New security measures,” he said when asked about potential revisions. “We have very, very strong vetting. I call it extreme vetting and we"re going very strong on security.  We are going to have people coming to our country that want to be here for good reason."

As a result, the most likely next step: Trump will issue a new executive order that explicitly omits green-card holders from the travel ban in an effort to head off legal challenges.