Report reveals 92 percent of foreign nationals in federal prisons are illegal immigrants
A new report published Thursday by the Trump administration shows that 92 percent of foreign nationals in federal prisons are in the U.S. illegally — a revelation that Attorney General Jeff Sessions said proves why the U.S. needs to follow through on President Trump’s proposed immigration reform.
The 2017 report, from the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, found that more than one in five individuals imprisoned were not born in the United States. In addition, 94 percent of foreign nationals in the custody of either the Federal Bureau of Prisons or the U.S. Marshals Service entered the U.S. illegally.
Sessions said in a statement that Americans “are being victimized by illegal aliens who commit crimes. … The simple fact is that any offense committed by a criminal alien is ultimately preventable. One victim is too many.”
The attorney general also noted that, based on sentencing data, “non-citizens commit a substantially disproportionate number of drug-related offenses, which contributes to our national drug abuse crisis.”
By the end of the 2017 fiscal year, 58,766 known or suspect foreign nationals were imprisoned in the United States.
Newly-confirmed Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen added that the report highlights “that more must be done,” and added the department “will continue to pursue President Trump’s immigration priorities.”
The report did not include information on incarcerations in state prisons or local jails. “State and local facilities do not routinely provide DHS or DOJ with comprehensive information about their inmates and detainees—which account for approximately 90 percent of the total U.S. incarcerated population,” the report said.
This past October, the Trump administration announced it was seeking several major changes to the country’s immigration system, as the president pushes forward with his plans for a wall along the Mexico border. The requests included additional crackdowns on “sanctuary cities” that protect illegal immigrants; reducing the number of incoming refugees; 10,000 more Customs and Border Patrol agents; and new initiatives curbing the number of unaccompanied immigrants who come to the U.S. illegally as children. Democrats already have said many of the White House’s terms are off the table.
It remains unclear when the wall might actually go up. Trump campaigned on building it and set an ambitious timetable for construction. But aside from potential funding and political complications, there have been court challenges from geologists.
Critics also have said the barrier would be ineffective and costly. On the campaign trail, Trump said Mexico would pay for the bill, which Mexico has flatly denied. The actual cost of the wall has not been clear.
Cardinal Bernard Law, symbol of church sex abuse scandal, dead at 86
Cardinal Bernard Law, the former Boston archbishop who resigned in disgrace during the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal, has died, the Vatican confirmed. He was 86.
Law died in Rome, where he had served as archpriest of the Papal Liberian Basilica of St. Mary Major after he was forced to resign in 2002 as archbishop of Boston.
Law’s name became emblematic of the scandal that continues to trouble the church and its followers around the globe after it was revealed the he and other bishops before him had covered for pedophile priests in the Boston Archdiocese.
Law at the time apologized during a news conference to victims of abuse by a priest, John Geoghan, who had been moved from parish to parish, despite Law’s knowledge of his abuse of young boys. Law insisted Geoghan’s abuse was in the past.
Cardinal Bernard Francis Law looks on as Pope Francis celebrates Mass in 2016 in Vatican City.
Geoghan was eventually convicted of indecent assault and battery on a 10-year-old boy.
Law never faced criminal sanctions for his role in allowing abusive priests to remain in church parishes. The scandal reverberated through the church, exposing similar allegations worldwide that compromised its moral authority and led to years of multimillion-dollar settlements.
The Vatican early Wednesday issued a one-line news release, reading, “Cardinal Bernard Law died early this morning after a long illness.”
Survivors recount betrayal
To his detractors, Law’s second career at the Vatican was a slap in the face to victims of church sex abuse, one that further undermined the church’s legitimacy.
“Survivors of child sexual assault in Boston, who were first betrayed by Law’s cover-up of sex crimes and then doubly betrayed by his subsequent promotion to Rome, were those most hurt,” according to a statement after his death from Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “No words can convey the pain these survivors and their loved ones suffered.”
The group advised the Vatican to keep the abuse survivors in mind when planning Law’s funeral. It asked: “Every single Catholic should ask Pope Francis and the Vatican why. Why Law’s life was so celebrated when Boston’s clergy sex abuse survivors suffered so greatly? Why was Law promoted when Boston’s Catholic children were sexually abused, ignored, and pushed aside time and time again?”
Law’s successor as Boston’s archbishop, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, said Wednesday that Law “served at a time when the church failed seriously in its responsibilities to provide pastoral care for her people, and with tragic outcomes failed to care for the children of our parish communities.”
“I recognize that Cardinal Law’s passing brings forth a wide range of emotions on the part of many people. I am particularly cognizant of all who experienced the trauma of sexual abuse by clergy, whose lives were so seriously impacted by those crimes, and their families and loved ones,” O’Malley said.
“To those men and women,” O’Malley added, “I offer my sincere apologies for the harm they suffered, my continued prayers and my promise that the archdiocese will support them in their effort to achieve healing.”
Widespread child abuse by the Catholic clergy in the Boston Archdiocese was uncovered by The Boston Globe’s Spotlight investigative reporting team, which won a Pulitzer Prize for its efforts. A big-screen dramatization of the team’s investigation in the 2015 movie, “Spotlight,” won the 2016 Best Picture Academy Award, bringing the story to a much wider audience.
Rise of Boston’s spiritual leader
Law was born in Torreon, Mexico, on November 4, 1931, to Helen and Bernard Law, an Air Force colonel. He completed his postgraduate studies at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Louisiana and at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio. He was ordained as a priest on May 21, 1961, in the diocese of Natchez-Jackson, Mississippi, and became vicar general of that diocese in 1971.
In 1973, he was appointed bishop of the Springfield-Cape Girardeau diocese in southern Missouri. He served as chair of the Bishops’ Committee on Ecumenical and Interracial Affairs, and in 1976, he was named to the Vatican Commission on Religious Relations with Jews.
The posts were stepping stones to his becoming the spiritual leader of Boston’s large and influential Catholic community. In 1984, Pope John Paul II appointed Law to be the archbishop of the Boston Archdiocese, with its 362 parishes serving 2.1 million members. That same year, Law received a letter from a bishop expressing concerns about then-Rev. Geoghan. Law assigned Geoghan to another parish despite the allegations.
In 1985, Pope John Paul II elevated Law to cardinal, one of just 13 Americans holding that office at the time.
Calls for resignation
Law attempted to resign as Archbishop of Boston in April 2002, but Pope John Paul II rejected his request. In 2002, a judge presiding over the child rape case of Rev. Paul Shanley ordered Cardinal Law to be deposed by lawyers of one of Shanley’s victims.
Law testified about his supervision of Geoghan in 2002, saying he relied on his assistants to investigate charges of abuse. In May 2002, he apologized for his role in the clergy abuse scandal in a letter distributed throughout the archdiocese. But he denied knowledge of sexual abuse allegations against Shanley until 1993.
In August 2002, Law appeared in court to testify about a settlement reached between the archdiocese of Boston and victims of clergy abuse. The archdiocese rescinded the monetary offer shortly afterward.
That December, as calls grew for him to resign, Law was subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury investigating “possible criminal violations by church officials who supervised priests accused of sexually abusing children.” Days later, he resigned as chairman of the board of trustees of the Catholic University of America, followed by his resignation as archbishop of Boston.
Catholic Church abuses under scrutiny
The breakdown of trust in the Catholic Church continues to reverberate around the world.
This month, the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse delivered, after five years of work, 189 recommendations to address what it described as a “serious failure” by Australia’s institutions to protect its most vulnerable citizens.
The country’s senior Catholic leaders, however, rejected recommendations by the wide-reaching investigation, declining to end mandatory celibacy for priests and break the secrecy of confession.
Of survivors who reported abuse in a religious institution, more than 60% said it occurred in a Catholic organization, the report found.
They Kill Criminals In Chine But America Builds Sanctuary Cites For Them.
Thousands watched at a packed stadium in southern China this past weekend as 10 people were publicly sentenced to death and then promptly taken away to be executed.
The 10 Chinese convicts were found guilty of mostly drug-related crimes by China’s criminal justice system, which has a 99.9 percent conviction rate. At a sports stadium in Lufeng, Guangdong Province, they were condemned to death before thousands of onlookers, including young school children, The Paper reported.
Lufeng has been the focus of a major State Anti-Drug Committee war on drugs, according to the South China Morning Post. Thousands of Chinese law enforcement officials raided a local village three years ago, seizing 3 metric tons of crystal meth and arresting around 200 people.
At a similar conviction conference this past summer, 18 people were convicted of drug-related crimes. Thirteen convicts were sentenced to death, and eight were executed immediately afterwards.
Five drug criminals were sentenced to death and executed after another meeting in Lufeng in 2015.
China does not publicly release information on the number of people executed each year, but China is believed to execute more people each year than the rest of the world combined, Amnesty International revealed in a report released earlier this year. The human rights organization asserted that while 1,032 people were executed in 23 countries (excluding China) last year, China sentenced thousands to death and executed them.
Southwest passenger threatens to ‘kill everybody’ on plane after being caught smoking
A Southwest Airlines pilot was forced to declare an emergency on Saturday after a passenger repeatedly told a flight attendant she would “kill everybody” on the plane.
The trouble started after the female passenger disabled a smoke detector aboard Southwest Flight 2943 from Portland, Ore., to Sacramento, and proceeded to smoke onboard, Southwest confirmed to Fox News. After she was caught, the woman created a “disturbance” which was captured on video by a fellow passenger.
“I have a destination for this, I have a destination for myself, and I need to go there,” the woman can be heard saying in footage provided to KOIN 6.
“I swear, if you … land, I will kill everybody on this [expletive deleted] plane,” she shouted. “I will kill everybody on this [expletive deleted] plane!”
A man can then be seen stepping into the frame to confront the irate passenger.
The woman, who was later identified as 24-year-old Valerie Curbelo of Sandy, Ore., was physically restrained for the remainder of the flight, according to KOVR, although Southwest has not confirmed those details.
“Our Crew in command of Flight 2943 traveling from Portland on Saturday afternoon safely landed on-time in Sacramento following an inflight disturbance,” said Southwest in a statement. “Our reports from Flight Attendants indicate a customer violated federal laws by both smoking onboard an aircraft and by tampering with a smoke detector in an aircraft restroom. Our Crew enforced the regulation and that was followed by the passenger outburst.”
“The safety of our Crew and Passengers is our top priority and we take all threats seriously. The pilots declared an emergency to receive priority handling from air traffic controllers, and our crew handled the situation onboard until the plane landed and local authorities stepped in.”
urbelo is currently booked in the Sacramento county jail for making criminal threats, KOVR adds. She cited “anxiety” as the reason she lit up a cigarette aboard the flight.
Judge Releases 19-Year-Old Charged in Facebook Video Torture of Disabled Chicago Teen
The first of four Chicago suspects accused of beating and torturing a disabled teenager and broadcasting the attack on Facebook has pleaded guilty, but a judge let her off without prison time, a report says.
Brittany Covington, 19, pleaded guilty to a hate crime in court on Friday, according to the Chicago Tribune.
The suspect also “pleaded guilty to aggravated battery and intimidation charges. As part of a plea deal, prosecutors dropped additional charges, including kidnapping,” the Tribunesaid.
Despite the guilty plea, Cook County Circuit Judge William Hooks released Covington without jail time. Telling Covington, “Do not mess this up,” Judge Hooks imposed 200 hours of community service and banned Covington from using social media and having contact with her co-defendants for four years.
The judge did not assign jail time because, he said, “I’m not sure if I did that you’d be coming out any better.”Hooks insisted that his sentence would give Covington the chance to put her life on a productive path.
Covington is the first of the four defendants who were arrested early this year for the attack posted to Facebook.
In January, four Chicago teens were arrested after police were alerted to a Facebook live video showing the assailants beating and at one point slashing a victim tied up in a Chicago apartment. During the video of the attack, the suspects are heard saying, “F*** white people,” and “f*** Trump.”
The victim turned out to be a disabled white teen from nearby Rockford, Illinois. A GoFundMe campaign was set up for his benefit days after the reports broke.
Four black residents of Chicago – Jordan Hill, Tesfaye Cooper, and Brittany Covington, all 18 years old; and 24-year-old Tanishia Covington – were charged with battery, kidnapping, and hate crimes in connection with the attack.
Chicago police called the incident “sickening.”
“It’s sickening. It makes you wonder what would make individuals treat somebody like that. I’ve been a cop for 28 years, and I’ve seen things you shouldn’t see in a lifetime,” police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said. “It still amazes me how you still see things you just shouldn’t. So I’m not going to say it shocked me, but it was sickening.”
#Baconphobia landed this man 15 years in the clink
Vandal who left bacon inside mosque gets 15 years in prison
A man who vandalized a Central Florida mosque by smashing windows and lights with a machete and leaving bacon at the scene pleaded guilty to criminal mischief to a place of worship.
The state attorney’s office serving Brevard and Seminole counties said Michael Wolfe was sentenced to 15 years in prison followed by 15 years of probation after he pleaded guilty Tuesday. The sentence had a hate crime enhancement.
The 37-year-old was sentenced as a habitual offender. Titusville police arrested Wolfe in January 2016 after the New Year’s Day vandalism. A surveillance video showed him smashing lights, cameras and windows with a machete.
Bacon was left by the front door. Consumption of pork and pork products made from pork is forbidden in Islam.
