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newsfundastuff · 5 years

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There were bugs, and the showers were cold. Air conditioning was not available, but the heat was turned on inexplicably.If you didn’t have family in the United States to send money for food, you would go hungry.Those are just some of the conditions Manuel Duran described after he was released from a US immigration detention centre.As a journalist in Memphis, Tennessee, Mr Duran had been reporting on immigration enforcement officials and sordid conditions for more than a decade by the time they took him into custody last year.Now, he says he’s experienced the neglect himself.“I’ve seen the cruelty of the mass detention of immigrants firsthand,” Mr Duran told reporters in Spanish on Wednesday, “and it is unnecessary and inhumane.”Mr Duran, a native of El Salvador, had been working for the Spanish-language news outlet Memphis Noticias.After being released last week from 15 months in detention, Mr Duran, 43, decried what he called the brutal treatment of immigrants by Donald Trump’s administration.Detention centres have faced severe overcrowding in the past several months, prompting outrage and calls for change.Unlike many reporters who focus on immigration, Mr Duran has lived through the detention conditions he covers.Migrants did not get enough food at any of the four facilities where Mr Duran was held, he said at the news conference on Wednesday.They had to buy rations with money sent by their families, and if they didn’t have relatives in the United States, the migrants would go hungry.The holding facilities were infested with cockroaches and spiders, Mr Duran said. At Etowah County Detention Centre in Alabama, he said he had to bathe with cold water from hoses for two months.The air conditioner was being repaired for most of the spring, Mr Duran said, and the heat was turned on at one point, making it difficult to sleep.“I’ve seen the disastrous effect of Trump’s anti-immigrant policy,” Mr Duran said. “I’ve seen working men, businessmen, who have lived their whole lives in this country and who haven’t committed crimes crying and longing to reunite with their families.”Mr Duran alleged that ICE had singled him out for detention because he was a journalist from El Salvador.His attorneys at the Southern Poverty Law Centre also argued in a court document that law enforcement had arrested and detained Mr Duran in an attempt to suppress his reporting critical of immigration enforcement.“In the US, we are made to believe that freedom of the press is valued, but I can tell you all that under the Trump administration, this isn’t true,” Mr Duran said.He was released from detention on bond on 11 July while the Board of Immigration Appeals considers whether to grant him asylum because journalists face dangerous conditions in El Salvador, his attorneys said.Gracie Willis, a staff attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Centre, said Mr Duran decided to speak to reporters about his experience in detention because he considers journalism a form of advocacy.“I think for him, it was important for him to speak to the press, who are his brothers and sisters in his vocation – to inform them about the things that he saw,” Ms Willis said.On 3 April 2018, Mr Duran was reporting on a protest of local police helping Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when Memphis police arrested him while they were trying to clear people from the street, according to Mr Duran’s attorneys.Mr Duran was charged with disorderly conduct and obstruction of a highway, the lawyers wrote in the court document, but the charges were dropped two days later.Instead of releasing Mr Duran from jail, his attorneys said he was turned over to ICE and brought on an eight-hour bus ride to the LaSalle detention centre in Jena, Louisiana – without access to a bathroom and with his wrists, ankles and waist in shackles.Mr Duran migrated to the United States in 2006, when his television reporting in El Salvador subjected him to death threats, his attorneys wrote.He missed an immigration court hearing the next year because he was not told about it, according to his lawyers, causing a judge to issue a removal order for him.ICE on Thursday did not respond to a request for information about his case and for a response to his criticisms of the detention centres.Mauricio Calvo, the executive director of advocacy group Latino Memphis, said many other immigrants face the same conditions that Mr Duran described.Attorneys from Latino Memphis, an organisation that provides services and advocates for policies that benefit Latinos, were part of Mr Duran’s legal team.“This guy had a lot of support because he’s a journalist and all these different things,” Mr Calvo said, “but we have 500 cases at Latino Memphis, and most people cannot get the attention that Manuel did.”Mr Duran is not the first foreign-born journalist to be detained by ICE.Emilio Gutiérrez Soto, a Mexican reporter, migrated to the United States in 2008 after he says soldiers broke into his home and took his identity documents.He and his son Oscar were denied asylum in 2017 and temporarily detained. Their immigration cases are ongoing.Washington Post

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thewebofslime · 6 years

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Languishing evidence in over 100,000 sexual assault cases around the country has been sent for DNA testing with money from a New York prosecutor and federal authorities, spurring over 1,000 arrests and hundreds of convictions in three years, officials said Tuesday. It's estimated that another 155,000 or more sex assault evidence kits still await testing, and thousands of results have yet to be linked to suspects. Many who have been identified can't be prosecuted because of legal time limits and other factors. Still, "we have begun to rectify what has been a tragic failure of government and law enforcement at all levels — a decades-long, systematic denial of equal rights for women in the justice system," Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. said in a statement while releasing results of his $38 million investment in testing outside his own turf. Law enforcement and lawmakers have faced growing calls in recent years to eliminate what's known as the rape kit backlog — swabs and samples collected in sex assault cases but never tested for DNA. Victims' advocates see the untested kits as signs that sexual assaults weren't taken seriously enough. Vance, who took office after New York City cleared its own testing backlog, and the Department of Justice have worked in tandem since 2015 to help other places tackle theirs. A sexual assault evidence collection kit.Ann Hermes / Christian Science Monitor via Getty Images The two agencies have paid to send years-old kits to labs from dozens of states and communities, ranging from Flint, Michigan, to Mobile, Alabama, to Las Vegas. Some cities also have mobilized on their own. But the big grants from Manhattan and Washington "infused this movement with resources," says Ilse Knecht of the Joyful Heart Foundation, a sexual assault victims' advocacy group that has spotlighted the backlog. "There's a lot more to do," she said, but "this was the right thing to do." The backlog built up over decades, partly due to the cost of tests that can run $1,000 or more. But victims' advocates also say many sex assault cases simply got sidelined over the years by police and prosecutors who unduly disbelieved or downplayed victims' allegations. New York City worked through a 17,000-case backlog between 2000 and 2003, an effort that yielded more than 200 prosecutions. Vance, a Democrat elected in 2009, offered other places money to attack their own backlogs and negotiated discount rates with labs. His program — financed with $38 million from settlements in banking-related cases — dispatched more than 55,000 rape kits to testing labs. The results have yielded 186 arrests and 64 convictions to date, with more investigations and prosecutions still underway, according to a report released Tuesday. In Riverside, California, arrests included a suspect in the rape of a teenage girl asleep on her couch in 1996, the report said. The Tempe Police Department in Arizona assigned two cold-case investigators to work full-time on rape kit cases there. North Dakota cleared its entire backlog of 210 kits. Meanwhile, another nearly 45,000 rape kits have been sent to labs through the Justice Department program — and it's produced nearly 899 prosecutions and 498 convictions and plea bargains, according to data the agency provided Monday to The Associated Press. The Justice Department has put $154 million over three years into its sexual assault kit initiative, which includes other things besides testing. DNA testing is far from a surefire way to close cases. Only some rape kits have sufficient DNA to generate a profile of a potential suspect. Just some of those match any profile in the FBI databank — and sometimes it's just a match to DNA that turned up at another crime scene, with no name attached unless the person gets arrested in the future. Even when DNA matches a known offender, prosecution is sometimes impossible because the legal time clock has run out, the suspect has died, the victim is unavailable to testify or other reasons. But authorities and victims' advocates say arrests aren't the only measure of the impact of getting the tests done. "It means that the criminal justice system cares what happened to you," Knecht said.

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mikemortgage · 6 years

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Cash from NY, feds tests 100K rape kits, leads to 1K arrests

NEW YORK — Languishing evidence in over 100,000 sexual assault cases around the country has been sent for DNA testing with money from a New York prosecutor and federal authorities, spurring over 1,000 arrests and hundreds of convictions in three years, officials say.

It’s estimated that another 155,000 or more sex assault evidence kits still await testing, and thousands of results have yet to be linked to suspects. Many who have been identified can’t be prosecuted because of legal time limits and other factors.

Still, “we have begun to rectify what has been a tragic failure of government and law enforcement at all levels — a decades-long, systematic denial of equal rights for women in the justice system,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. said in a statement Tuesday while releasing results of his $38 million investment in testing outside his own turf.

Law enforcement and lawmakers have faced growing calls in recent years to eliminate what’s known as the rape kit backlog — swabs and samples collected in sex assault cases but never tested for DNA. Victims’ advocates see the untested kits as signs that sexual assaults weren’t taken seriously enough.

Vance, who took office after New York City cleared its own testing backlog, and the Department of Justice have worked in tandem since 2015 to help other places tackle theirs.

The two agencies have paid to send years-old kits to labs from dozens of states and communities, ranging from Flint, Michigan, to Mobile, Alabama, to Las Vegas.

Some cities also have mobilized on their own. But the big grants from Manhattan and Washington “infused this movement with resources,” says Ilse Knecht of the Joyful Heart Foundation, a sexual assault victims’ advocacy group that has spotlighted the backlog.

“There’s a lot more to do,” she said, but “this was the right thing to do.”

The backlog built up over decades, partly due to the cost of tests that can run $1,000 or more.

But victims’ advocates also say many sex assault cases simply got sidelined over the years by police and prosecutors who unduly disbelieved or downplayed victims’ allegations.

New York City worked through a 17,000-case backlog between 2000 and 2003, an effort that yielded more than 200 prosecutions. Vance, a Democrat elected in 2009, offered other places money to attack their own backlogs and negotiated discount rates with labs.

His program — financed with $38 million from settlements in banking-related cases — dispatched more than 55,000 rape kits to testing labs. The results have yielded 186 arrests and 64 convictions to date, with more investigations and prosecutions still underway, according to a report released Tuesday.

In Riverside, California, arrests included a suspect in the rape of a teenage girl asleep on her couch in 1996, the report said. The Tempe Police Department in Arizona assigned two cold-case investigators to work full-time on rape kit cases there. North Dakota cleared its entire backlog of 210 kits.

Meanwhile, another nearly 45,000 rape kits have been sent to labs through the Justice Department program — and it’s produced nearly 899 prosecutions and 498 convictions and plea bargains, according to data the agency provided Monday to The Associated Press.

The Justice Department has put $154 million over three years into its sexual assault kit initiative, which includes other things besides testing.

DNA testing is far from a surefire way to close cases. Only some rape kits have sufficient DNA to generate a profile of a potential suspect. Just some of those match any profile in the FBI databank — and sometimes it’s just a match to DNA that turned up at another crime scene, with no name attached unless the person gets arrested in the future.

Even when DNA matches a known offender, prosecution is sometimes impossible because the legal time clock has run out, the suspect has died, the victim is unavailable to testify or other reasons.

But authorities and victims’ advocates say arrests aren’t the only measure of the impact of getting the tests done.

“It means that the criminal justice system cares what happened to you,” Knecht said.

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shg11 · 7 years

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The president ripped into NFL players who have kneeled for the national anthem during a speech in Alabama on Friday night

Donald Trump launched a sensational attack on NFL players who have kneeled in protest of the national anthem during a speech in Alabama on Friday night, challenging the leagues owners to release anyone who engages in the movement started last year by former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

Wouldnt you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! Hes fired. Hes fired! the president said at a rally for Republican senator Luther Strange, who is running in a special election next week to remain in the seat vacated by attorney general Jeff Sessions.

You know, some owner is going to do that. Hes going to say, That guy that disrespects our flag, hes fired. And that owner, they dont know it [but] theyll be the most popular person in this country.

Trump went on to attribute the NFLs dip in TV ratings to rule changes implemented over the last few years to make the game less violent and limit head injuries.

The issue was thrust back into the spotlight on Thursday with the revelation that Aaron Hernandez, the former New England Patriots star who killed himself in April while serving a life sentence for murder, suffered a severe case of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), the progressive degenerative brain disease that has been linked to repeated blows to the head.

The NFL ratings are down massively, Trump said. Now the No1 reason happens to be they like watching whats happening with yours truly. They like whats happening. Because you know today if you hit too hard: 15 yards! Throw him out of the game!

He added: Theyre ruining the game! Thats what they want to do. They want to hit. They want to hit! It is hurting the game.

The president then encouraged people attending NFL games to leave the stadium in counter-protest if they see a player kneeling during the anthem, which is traditionally performed before kickoff.

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The president launched a broadside against the NFLs national anthem protesters on Friday.

But do you know whats hurting the game more than that? he said. When people like yourselves turn on television and you see those people taking the knee when theyre playing our great national anthem. The only thing you could do better is if you see it, even if its one player, leave the stadium.

I guarantee things will stop. Things will stop. Just pick up and leave. Pick up and leave. Not the same game anymore, anyway.

In a statement issued to the Guardian early Saturday morning, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell criticized Trumps divisive comments.

The NFL and our players are at our best when we help create a sense of unity in our country and our culture, Goodell said. Divisive comments like these demonstrate an unfortunate lack of respect for the NFL, our great game and all of our players, and a failure to understand the overwhelming force for good our clubs and players represent in our communities.

DeMaurice Smith, executive director of the NFL Players Association, said the union will never back down when it comes to protecting the constitutional rights of our players as citizens as well as their safety as men who compete in a game that exposes them to great risks.

Current and former players decried the presidents remarks. Minnesota Vikings running back Bishop Sankey tweeted: Its a shame and disgrace when you have the president of the US calling citizens of the country sons of a bitches.

When will people learn that fear wont make someone sit down, wrote Chris Conley, a wide receiver with the Kansas City Chiefs. It quite possibly will make more stand up for what they believe in.

Two-time All-Pro running back LeSean McCoy said: Its really sad man ... our president is a asshole. Husain Abdullah, who played seven seasons with the Vikings and Chiefs, added: Now we know why [Kaepernick] aint playin.

Undaunted, Trump wrote on Twitter: If a player wants the privilege of making millions of dollars in the NFL or other leagues, he or she should not be allowed to disrespect our Great American Flag (or Country) and should stand for the National Anthem. If not, YOURE FIRED. Find something else to do!

Goodell, he wrote, was trying to justify the total disrespect certain players show to our country. Tell them to stand!

Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett sat in protest during the national anthem before Sundays game with the 49ers. Photograph: Joe Nicholson/USA Today Sports

While Kaepernick has remained unsigned since opting out of his contract with the 49ers in March, players declining to stand for the anthem this season have included Marshawn Lynch, Marcus Peters and Michael Bennett.

More than a dozen Cleveland Browns staged the largest national anthem protest yet, and were joined by white players for what was believed to be the first time, before a preseason game against the New York Giants. The demonstration prompted a boycott of the teams pre-game flag ceremony by members of unions representing Cleveland police officers and paramedics.

Kaepernick, whose protest became the NFLs biggest storyline of last year, said in March he would not carry his protest into this season, in part because he believes his objective to initiate nationwide debate on police brutality and racial injustice has largely been accomplished.

Supporters allege Kaepernick, who four years ago took the 49ers to within seven yards of winning Super Bowl XLVI, is being blackballed for his advocacy. Critics say his lack of a job is more about his on-field ability.

Trumps has made light of player safety rules before. At an October campaign stop in Florida, he praised a supporter who had fainted but returned after treatment.

That woman was out cold, and now shes coming back, Trump said. See, we dont go by these new, and very much softer, NFL rules. Concussion Uh oh, got a little ding on the head? No, no, you cant play for the rest of the season. Our people are tough.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/sep/22/donald-trump-nfl-national-anthem-protests

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deniscollins · 7 years

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Shaming Children So Parents Will Pay the School Lunch Bill

In 2016, the School Nutrition Association published a review of almost 1,000 school lunch programs, finding that nearly 75 percent of districts had unpaid meal debt. If you were a public school administrator, how would you direct cafeteria cashiers to deal with a student who has an unpaid school lunch bill: (1) meet with student, (2) meet with student’s parent, (3) dump the child’s food in the garbage to publicly shame the student and parent, (4) something else? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

On the first day of seventh grade last fall, Caitlin Dolan lined up for lunch at her school in Canonsburg, Pa. But when the cashier discovered she had an unpaid food bill from last year, the tray of pizza, cucumber slices, an apple and chocolate milk was thrown in the trash.

“I was so embarrassed,” said Caitlin, who said other students had stared. “It’s really weird being denied food in front of everyone. They all talk about you.”

Caitlin’s mother, Merinda Durila, said that her daughter qualified for free lunch, but that a paperwork mix-up had created an outstanding balance. Ms. Durila said her child had come home in tears after being humiliated in front of her friends.

Holding children publicly accountable for unpaid school lunch bills — by throwing away their food, providing a less desirable alternative lunch or branding them with markers — is often referred to as “lunch shaming.”

The practice is widespread — a 2014 report from the Department of Agriculture found that nearly half of all districts used some form of shaming to compel parents to pay bills. (About 45 percent withheld the hot meal and gave a cold sandwich, while 3 percent denied food entirely.)

A Pennsylvania cafeteria worker posted on Facebook that she had quit after being forced to take lunch from a child with an unpaid bill. In Alabama, a child was stamped on the arm with “I Need Lunch Money.” On one day, a Utah elementary school threw away the lunches of about 40 students with unpaid food bills.

Hazel Compton, 12, remembers being given a sandwich of white bread with a slice of cheese instead of the hot lunch served to other children at her Albuquerque elementary school. (A school district spokeswoman said the sandwich met federal requirements.)

“They would use the sandwich like a threat,” Hazel recalled. “Like, ‘If you don’t want it, your parents have to pay.’”

Oliver Jane, 15, said that when she had meal debt at Shawnee Heights High School in Tecumseh, Kan., she was told to return her tray of hot food and was given a cold sandwich instead.

“If you didn’t eat the lunch, they were just going to throw it away,” she said. “It seems unfair to me to expect a bunch of kids to be responsible for putting money in their lunch accounts when they don’t even handle their own funds.”

Marty Stessman, superintendent of the Shawnee Heights Unified School District, said that younger children were allowed to take a limited number of meals despite debt, but that high school students were not.

“Notices are sent home automatically when they go below $5, so it shouldn’t be a surprise,” Dr. Stessman said. “They should know before they get to the cashier.”

The problem of meal debt is not new, but the issue has received more attention recently because the Department of Agriculture, which oversees school lunch programs, imposed a July 1 deadline for states to establish policies on how to treat children who cannot pay for food.

“It has been a longstanding issue in schools, one that’s gone on for decades,” said Kevin W. Concannon, who was the department’s under secretary for food, nutrition and consumer services in the Obama administration.

After a 2010 overhaul of school nutrition standards, the department heard from schools and advocacy groups about the burden of lunch debt and the shaming practices that often result. Last summer, the Agriculture Department concluded that meal debt should be managed locally, but required states to formalize their debt policies.

“We’re not telling schools what to put in their policy, but we do want them to think about the issue,” said Tina Namian, who oversees the school meals policy branch.

The department does not prohibit practices that stigmatize children with meal debt, but offers a list of “preferred alternatives,” such as working out payment plans and allowing children with unpaid balances to eat the regular hot meal.

In March, New Mexico passed a law that directs schools to work with parents to pay debts and ends practices like cold sandwich substitutes that may embarrass children.

“Our biggest hope for this bill is that no student will have to contemplate what meal they are going to get,” said Monica Armenta, a spokeswoman for Albuquerque Public Schools, where Hazel Compton was given a cheese sandwich.

Minnesota and the San Francisco Unified School District, among others, also have adopted anti-shaming policies. Recently, the Houston Independent School District notified its food service department that children with debt should be served the regular hot meal.

“This is fundamentally a right-versus-wrong decision,” said Brian Busby, the chief operating officer for Houston schools. “If a kid needs a meal, he’s going to eat.”

But feeding hungry children whose families have meal debt does not solve the problem for schools, which still must grapple with paying the bill. In 2016, the School Nutrition Association published a review of almost 1,000 school lunch programs, finding that nearly 75 percent of districts had unpaid meal debt.

One solution is the federal free meal program. But not every struggling family meets the income requirements, and those that do may have language barriers or fears over immigration status, or fail to file the paperwork.

An Agriculture Department guidance document suggests that districts reach out to the community for help, for example through “random acts of kindness” funding and school fund-raisers. Such efforts around the country have begun to help some districts solve the problem.

In 2014, when a theater technician, Kenny Thompson, was mentoring fourth graders in the Houston-area district of Spring Branch, he saw a cafeteria worker refuse to serve a child the hot meal of chicken, potatoes, fruit and milk.

“The lunch lady says: ‘I’m sorry, I told you yesterday you couldn’t have this today. You need to tell your parents to pay their bill.’ And then she turns around and gives him two slices of bread with cold cheese,” Mr. Thompson said.

He knew the child’s mother was in the hospital, and he stepped in to pay the bill.

Later, Mr. Thompson started Feed the Future Forward, which has hosted crawfish boils and charity golf tournaments to raise money for lunch debt. It has wiped out more than $30,000 in food bills and is planning an additional $23,000 in donations. The giving comes with a catch: Schools must promise they will not give alternative meals to children with unpaid bills. Spring Branch, where Mr. Thompson first witnessed the practice, has taken the pledge.

Rob Solomon, chief executive of GoFundMe, said it had about 30 active campaigns to raise money for meal debt. Camille Billing, a teacher in Hamilton, N.J., recently started a GoFundMe page. In Galveston, Tex., a retired teacher, Donna Woods-Stellman, paid off the city’s meal debt after raising $1,000.

A YouCaring page has raised more than $6,000 for students at impoverished high schools in Virginia. In West Palm Beach, Fla., two high school juniors started School Lunch Fairy to help erase lunch debts.

While the efforts are laudable, “they should be a last resort,” said Abby J. Leibman, president and chief executive of Mazon, a Jewish anti-hunger organization.

Others argue that school meals should be offered free to all children, regardless of income, as is the case in Sweden and Brazil.

“We need to provide school meals on the same basis on which we provide school transportation and textbooks,” said Janet Poppendieck, a senior fellow at the CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute and author of “Free for All: Fixing School Food in America.”

Some cities, including Boston, Chicago and Detroit, offer free meals to all students under the Community Eligibility Provision, a federal regulation that allows schools and districts in high-poverty areas to do so regardless of individual need. In New York City, a pilot free lunch program is under review. Most schools in the United States, however, do not qualify for the provision, and only about half of those that do take advantage of it.

As a result, districts struggling with unpaid lunch bills, which can run into the millions in large urban areas, often resort to shaming tactics to push parents to pay.

Crystal Jarek, a retired teacher in Lee County, Fla., said she remembered the staff taking debt notices to class. “The cafeteria staff would come in at noon, wearing their hairnets, and hand out letters,” she said. “All the kids would turn around to see who was getting one.”

During the 2015-16 school year, Lee County began offering free meals for all students at 76 of its schools, including the one where Ms. Jarek taught.

Kerry Krepps, a retiree in Kansas City, Mo., has seen the lasting effects of lunch shaming. Her adult son refuses to eat peanut butter because it reminds him of middle school in western Minneapolis, when students with debt were sent to a table to make peanut butter sandwiches.

“The humiliation has persisted for 20 years,” she said. “It shows how lasting these experiences can be.”

#Shaming #Schools

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