"Hey, what's keeping you busy these days?"
“Federal officials at the Mexico border detained a 9-year-old U.S. citizen for 32 hours without her parents in order “to perform due diligence in confirming her identity and citizenship,” according to a statement released Friday by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection…The agency said the 9-year-old had provided "inconsistent information during her inspection." She was taken into custody at 10:15 a.m. Monday and released to her mother on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.”
“Selene Saavedra Roman was nervous about going to work. She’s been a “dreamer” since 2012, when the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program began. Born in Peru, she has lived in the United States for 25 years, since she was 3. But her immigration status has always loomed in the back of her mind.
Which is why, when she got a job as a flight attendant, she decided to work for a regional company, Mesa Airlines, that would not ask her to travel around the world. And it was why she told the company she was a DACA beneficiary and didn’t want to fly internationally.
Yet, in February, Mesa scheduled her to fly to Mexico, Saavedra Roman’s attorney said. And when she told the company of her concerns, she was assured that she would not have trouble reentering the United States. But on Feb. 12, customs officials detained Saavedra Roman shortly after she landed in Houston on her return flight. She would remain in custody for another six weeks. She was released Friday evening, but advocates are pointing to her case as an example of how the Trump administration’s attempts to end DACA — and the tug of war with the courts that followed — have confused program beneficiaries, their families, government agencies and private employers, muddling an already complex web of immigration policies.”
“The alarming case of Mexican journalist Emilio Gutiérrez Soto has reached a critical stage. It’s not an overstatement to say his life could hang in the balance.
Two congressional representatives from Michigan are trying to make sure Gutiérrez, 56, won’t be deported from the United States back to his native Mexico, where many feel he will be harmed or even killed because of his reporting on drug cartels.
It’s difficult to understand why his efforts to gain asylum in the United States have been denied.
“He’s a journalist and the threats against him have been pretty well documented,” Alexandra Ellerbeck, the North American program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, told Poynter. “He has gone through hell with his prolonged detention … and has some real fears about going back to Mexico. The government of Mexico cannot guarantee his safety.”
Last month, an immigration judge in Texas rejected Gutiérrez’s latest application for asylum, saying he failed to show that he would be targeted if he returned to Mexico.”
“David Sirota, who Bernie Sanders announced this week would be joining his campaign as a speechwriter, was hired by the senator for a different job two decades ago — the same year the aide was fired from a mayoral campaign for his role in a racially inflammatory and fraudulent website. In a 1999 mayoral race in Philadelphia, Sirota was tied to a fake website apparently intended to scare off white residents from voting for a black opponent.”
“Stanford University launched a new institute meant to show its commitment to addressing concerns over the industry’s lack of diversity and intersectional thinking. The Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI), which plans to raise $1 billion from donors to fund its initiatives, aims to give voice to professionals from fields ranging from the humanities and the arts to education, business, engineering, and medicine, allowing them to weigh in on the future of AI….
It’s a laudable goal. But in trying to address AI’s blind spots, the institute has been accused of replicating its biases. Of the 121 faculty members initially announced as part of the institute, more than 100 appeared to be white, and a majority were male.”