Not nasty enough..

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On June 13, 2018, Honduran asylum-seeker Anita and her five-year-old son, Jenri, were forcibly separated at the U.S.-Mexico border. Thanks to a pro bono lawyer, Jodi Goodwin, who aggressively advocates for their release from their respective ICE detention centers, Anita and Jenri are reunited after a month apart. But the damage has been done. The Separated, a new documentary from The Atlantic, is an intimate window into the chaos and trauma caused by the separation. "You don't love me anymore,” Jenri says to Anita after they arrive at a temporary shelter. “You're not my mom anymore."

Traumatized Children Separated from Families at U.S.-Mexico Border - The Atlantic

Arguments before the United States Court of Appeals are usually dry, esoteric, and nerdy. What would it take to make one go viral? This week, in a clip that launched a million angry Facebook posts, we found out. It took a lawyer for the United States telling a panel of incredulous Ninth Circuit judges that it is “safe and sanitary” to confine immigrant children in facilities without soap or toothbrushes and to make them sleep on concrete floors under bright lights. This assertion generated widespread outrage. Sarah Fabian, the senior attorney in the Department of Justice’s Office of Immigration Litigation who uttered it, was instantly excoriated online. As fate would have it, the clip of her argument went viral at the same time as a new wave of reports of brutal and inhumane conditions at immigrant confinement centers. 

Why Sarah Fabian Argued Against Giving Kids Toothbrushes - The Atlantic

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The PA General Assistance Program, which the house voted to end last week, provided roughly $200 a month to about 11,095 of the state’s poorest residents, including many who don’t qualify for other assistance programs or are waiting for approval, Penn Live reported. The most explosive moment of the debate came when Republicans called for a vote, but Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman instead allowed another Democrat – Katie Muth – to stand and read a letter from a beneficiary of the program. As Muth tried to read, Republicans – including Republican Majority Leader Jake Corman – began to scream over her….   Despite the ruckus, the senate ultimately managed to bring the bill to a vote, deciding 26-24 to pass the bill to end the program. Two senate Republicans voted with Democrats to oppose the bill.

PA state senator screams over Democrat as she reads plea of man whose life depends on aid Republicans voted to end – Alternet.org

And if that's not enough:

As the crisis on the nation’s southwest border deepens, the Trump administration is sending letters ordering some undocumented immigrants living in the United States — including several seeking sanctuary in places of worship — to pay fines of hundreds of thousands of dollars for not self-deporting after being ordered to do so. “[I]t is the intention of ICE to order you to pay a fine in the amount of $497,777,” said one such letter from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which was obtained by NPR.

As border crisis deepens, Trump administration targets undocumented immigrants living in churches – ThinkProgress

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In 30-some years as an immigration lawyer, I have not seen a more compelling justification for a private bill than the way the administration has treated Maria "Isabel" Bueso. When Isabel was 7 years old, she came to the United States from Guatemala at the invitation of American doctors who needed her for clinical trials of a new treatment for a rare genetic disease, Mucopolysaccharidosis VI, which occurs in only one out of 1,505,160 births. It causes dwarfism, clouded vision and spinal cord compression, among other abnormalities. It also shortens a person's life span. Without treatment, people who are as severely affected as Isabel usually survive until only late childhood or adolescence. 

Isabel was admitted to the United States on the basis of a deferred action program for aliens who need medical treatment in the United States. The trial did not produce a cure, but it led to the development of a medication that can increase survival by more than a decade. Isabel and her family remained in the United States to continue the treatment, which her parents paid for with private medical insurance. The treatment is not available in Guatemala. Isabel and her family have lived here legally for 16 years. Isabel is smart, lively, lovely and full of plans. She has graduated from college with honors and is an active member of her community. Her parents own a home, pay taxes and are active in their community.

Last month, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) announced that it had changed its policies and would no longer accept deferred action requests for the medical treatment program, except those made by certain military members and their families. On Aug. 13, USCIS denied a request Isabel had made to extend her deferred action status and informed her that if she and her family did not leave the United States within 33 days, deportation proceedings would be initiated. This was described by her doctor, her lawyer and her mother as tantamount to a “death sentence.” The treatment she receives — and her participation helped to develop — is not available in Guatemala.

Trump's 'death sentence' for immigrant who followed the law merits private bill | TheHill

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The Washington Post reported this week that President Donald Trump’s proposal to strip food stamps from three million Americans could cause a half-million children to lose free school meals “since food stamp eligibility is one way students can qualify for the lunches.” “Trump is depriving 500,000 kids of their school lunches for no damn reason—even after 139 members of Congress warned him not to,” Sanders tweeted, referring to a letter he sent along with House and Senate lawmakers last month condemning the food stamps rule as “unconscionable.”

‘Casual cruelty that motivates Trump and his billionaire friends’: White House moves to strip free school lunches from 500,000 kids – Alternet.org

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West Virginia Republican Party Chairwoman Melody Potter on Sunday praised an op-ed by a GOP state senator that condemned the LGBTQ movement, saying that the lawmaker showed "boldness" for taking a stand.  "This op ed written by Senator Mike Michael Azinger is right on and is biblically based," Potter says in a Facebook post that links to the Republican state lawmaker's essay. "The comments at the end of the article from some readers are the typical about 'not judging' and 'hate,' the usual rhetoric. Thank you Senator for having the boldness to stand for what is right. More people should do the same. Thank you!" The West Virginia GOP did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill. The Parkersburg News and Sentinel on Sunday published an op-ed from Azinger entitled “The Shame of LGBTQ Pride." In it, the legislator cites the local newspaper covering an LGBTQ event at the Parkersburg City Park as an example of sexual deviancy "going mainstream." He also argues that "tolerance, in the face of the violation of the commandments of God, is no virtue at all." "The left would have us believe we are 'born that way;' that sexuality is immutable," Azinger writes. "This simply isn’t the case. The LGBQT movement is not about happiness and tolerance, but about indoctrination and a forced acceptance of a perverted and non-biblical view of sexuality. "The solution to the madness of the LGBQT movement is not political correctness and tolerance; the answer is the Cross of Jesus Christ where we all can find forgiveness and salvation."

West Virginia GOP chair praises state lawmaker's op-ed on 'shame of LGBTQ Pride' | TheHill

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Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump’s nativist advisor, tried to devise a plan that would keep undocumented immigrant children from attending public schools, Bloomberg reported. He eventually gave up after being told it would violate a 1982 Supreme Court ruling.

The Trump administration spent months trying to make sure undocumented immigrants can't go to school

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For more than nine months, María, 23, has been waiting in an immigration detention center in Arizona hoping to reunite with the six-year-old niece she raised as a daughter. When the two asked for asylum at the border last March because they feared for their lives in Guatemala, border officials detained María in the Eloy detention center and sent the girl to foster care in New York, 400 miles away. The Guardian first reported on the ongoing separation of this family in October.

As the story spread, lawmakers and more than 200 clergy asked US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) to grant María parole so she can leave detention and reunite with the girl. A woman in New York volunteered to house them both while María awaits a decision on her appeal for asylum. But despite that public support, Ice denied María’s application for parole in mid-December. Parole was once the norm for arriving asylum seekers, but in recent years approvals have become increasingly rare. On a standardized form, Ice officers indicated María failed to prove she was “not a flight risk” or that her “continued detention was not in the public interest”.

Six years ago, a gang in rural Guatemala murdered María’s last living relatives except her niece, who was a baby. María raised the child and is the only mother the girl has known. They fled toward the United States last Christmas after the gang murdered María’s partner and tried to shoot her. María’s case stands out because of the dozens of people who have tried to help.

‘It is beyond cruel’: Ice refuses to reunite girl with the only family she has left | US news | The Guardian

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Burge’s analysis, published Thursday, finds that on issues ranging from border security to immigration detention, white evangelicals — a group that includes dozens of individual denominations, from the Southern Baptist Convention to the Pentecostal movement — are substantially more conservative than the average American and even the next most conservative religious group...

Burge’s findings are in line with prior polling on evangelicals’ positions on immigration issues. An October PRRI survey of more than 2,000 voters found that Republican white evangelical Protestants were 75 percent more likely than all Republicans to assert that “immigrants are invading American society.”

Evangelicals’ attitudes toward immigrants don’t seem to have much basis in religious scripture, as Tara Isabella Burton wrote for Vox:

The Bible contains numerous passages that seem to straightforwardly exhort care for the poor, immigrants, and refugees. Isaiah 10, for example, sees God excoriating those who “turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right.” In Matthew 25 (which a Methodist pastor quoted to Jeff Sessions Monday while protesting his speech), Jesus warns his followers that those who withhold care from the poor or the refugee — “the least of these” — are seen as having done it to Jesus himself. Plenty of other verses — Leviticus 19:33–34, Jeremiah 7:5–7, Ezekiel 47:22, Zechariah 7:9–10 — express similar sentiments.

But since at least the 1970s, American evangelicals have generally been reluctant to count immigrants among those the Bible calls on them to aid. Trump has further fueled that reluctance, Burton adds:

[T]he age of Trump — and the Christian nationalism he has frequently evoked as a rhetorical campaign strategy — has seen white evangelical nativist rhetoric take on a more politicized role. As Messiah College professor and historian John Fea told Vox, white evangelical pastors — and thus their parishioners — are increasingly willing to take their sermon talking points and “marching orders” from an administration buoyed, in part, by its embrace of nativism.

Evangelicals love Trump’s immigration policies - Vox

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Unfortunately for Jett, she drew a panel of judges dominated by two unusually conservative Republicans. The author of the Court’s opinion in Varner, Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, spent part of his career as general counsel to a leading Christian right law firm and litigated multiple cases seeking to restrict LGBTQ rights.

Among several other cases, Duncan defended the state of Alabama’s failed attempt to strip a lesbian mother of parental rights over her adopted child. He filed a brief arguing against marriage equality in the Supreme Court’s landmark Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) case. And he represented a school district seeking to bar a trans student from using the bathroom that aligns with his gender identity.

Duncan’s nomination to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit was widely opposed by civil rights groups, who noted that anti-LGBTQ litigation made up a significant amount of Duncan’s law practice. Judge Duncan’s opinion in Varner confirms these groups’ fears. The thrust of Duncan’s opinion is that even though he could use female pronouns and refer to Jett as a woman as a matter of courtesy, no one can make him. So he won’t.

Trump judge lashes out at an LGBTQ woman in a cruel opinion - Vox

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Glen Heck spent 28 years sweating in a Campti, Louisiana, paper mill that he likes to say was “hotter than nine kinds of hell.” But now, Heck’s sacrifice may have been for nothing because his multiemployer pension plan is one of about 150 nationwide set to go broke. If that happens, the 78-year-old Heck will have to find a cheaper, lower-quality health plan and keep the beef herd he’s itching to sell. The Democratic-controlled House passed—with bipartisan support—a commonsense plan to save Heck’s pension and those of another 1.3 million workers, retirees, and widows. 

But Republican leaders in the Senate refuse to consider it. In the meantime, the futures of workers and retirees like Heck hang in the balance. Many face retirement with fear instead of anticipation. Multiemployer pension plans like Heck’s include workers from two or more companies in industries such as transportation, entertainment, construction and paper. Employers make contributions for workers as part of their compensation. Heck and others often give up wage increases or other benefits to fund those plans. Many of the 1,400 plans nationwide are still healthy. But through no fault of workers or retirees, about 150 are struggling.

How the GOP-controlled Senate is putting the pensions of 1.3 million Americans at risk – Alternet.org