As Trump expands deportation powers, immigrants prepare
CHICAGO — A sweeping expansion of deportation powers unveiled this week by the Trump administration has sent chills through immigrant communities and prompted some lawyers to advise migrants to gather up as much documentation as possible — pay stubs, apartment leases or even gym key tags — to prove they’ve been in the U.S.
But the uncertainty about how the policy might play out has created confusion and made it harder to give clear guidance to immigrants. Attorneys and immigrant rights groups gave conflicting advice about whether to carry these documents.
The new rules will allow immigration officers nationwide to deport anyone who has been here illegally for less than two years. Currently, authorities can only exercise such powers within 100 miles (161 kilometers) of the border and only target people who have been here less than two weeks.
Critics say the new policy will embolden Immigration Customs and Enforcement officers to indiscriminately round up immigrants, depriving them of a chance to make their cases before a judge or consult with a lawyer. Some have called it a “show me your papers” trope on a national scale, and roughly 300,000 immigrants living in the country illegally could be affected by the expansion, according to one estimate by the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.
Attorneys immediately began advising immigrants to start compiling documents that prove they had been in the country for at least two years — anything showing a consistent presence in the United States. But they don’t have to necessarily carry it with them.
Congressional inaction on vote security puts onus on states
The death of a bill in Congress this week that would have bolstered election security systems puts more pressure on states to prevent cyberattacks from Russia that former special counsel Robert Mueller warned against this week. But many states are paralyzed by their own inaction.
State and local election officials want to replace aging or outdated equipment before the 2020 election, but many have said they lack the money to do so. In some states, recent legislative sessions produced little progress.
The issue took on greater urgency this week in Washington as Mueller bluntly told lawmakers about Russian meddling in American elections: “They’re doing it as we sit here.” Democrats passed a $775 million spending measure to funnel more money to states for election security, but Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell blocked the bill. The Kentucky senator said the federal government is already doing enough to shore up voting systems and there’s no need to spend an additional sum of money that size.
Texas is one state that illustrates the challenges in enacting significant election security.
A Texas bill this year would have required all voting machines to have paper trails by 2024, but those changes were included in a broader Republican package to crack down on ballot-box crime, such as making it a felony to put false information on a voter registration form.
US, Guatemala sign agreement to restrict asylum cases
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration signed an agreement with Guatemala Friday that will restrict asylum applications to the U.S. from Central America.
The so-called “safe third country” agreement would require migrants, including Salvadorans and Hondurans, who cross into Guatemala on their way to the U.S. to apply for protections in Guatemala instead of at the U.S. border. It could potentially ease the crush of migrants overwhelming the U.S. immigration system, although many questions remain about how the agreement will be executed.
President Donald Trump heralded the concession as a win as he struggles to live up to his campaign promises on immigration.
“This is a very big day,” he said. “We have long been working with Guatemala and now we can do it the right way.”
He claimed, “This landmark agreement will put the coyotes and smugglers out of business.”
US presses WTO to stop lenient trade treatment of China
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump pressed the World Trade Organization on Friday to stop letting China and other economies receive lenient treatment under global trade rules by calling themselves “developing” countries.
In a memo, Trump directed U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to “use all available means” to get the WTO to prevent countries from claiming developing country status if their economic strength means they don’t need beneficial treatment.
Developing countries, supposedly not yet competitive with advanced economies such as the U.S., get more time to open their economies, more leeway to subsidize their exports and procedural advantages in WTO disputes. Countries can choose their own status, and other countries can challenge them.
Trump said the designation lets powerhouse China and others take “unfair” advantage of trade rules. If the U.S. decides the WTO has not made “substantial progress’ after 90 days, it will seek unilaterally to stop treating those countries as developing economies.
In a tweet, Trump wrote that the “WTO is BROKEN when the world’s RICHEST countries claim to be developing countries to avoid WTO rules and get special treatment. NO more!!! Today I directed the U.S. Trade Representative to take action so that countries stop CHEATING the system at the expense of the USA!”
Judge weighs whether to force Georgia to use paper ballots
ATLANTA — Georgia allowed its election system to grow “way too old and archaic” and now has a deep hole to dig out of to ensure that the constitutional right to vote is protected, U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg said Friday.
Now Totenberg is in the difficult position of having to decide whether the state, which plans to implement a new voting system statewide next year, must immediately abandon its outdated voting machines in favor of an interim solution for special and municipal elections to be held this fall.
Election integrity advocates and individual voters sued Georgia in 2017 alleging that the touchscreen voting machines the state has used since 2002 are unsecure and vulnerable to hacking. They’ve asked Totenberg to order the state to immediately switch to hand-marked paper ballots.
But lawyers for Fulton County, the state’s most populous county that includes most of Atlanta, and for state election officials argued that the state is in the process of implementing a new system, and it would be too costly, burdensome and chaotic to use an interim system for elections this fall and then switch to the new permanent system next year.
A law passed this year and signed by Gov. Brian Kemp provides specifications for a new system in which voters make their selections on electronic machines that print out a paper record that is read and tallied by scanners. State officials have said it will be in place for the 2020 presidential election.