Día: 17 febrero, 2017

Robert Harward Turns Down Offer to Become President Trump’s National Security Adviser

Deje un comentario

Retired Navy Vice Adm. Robert Harward has turned down an offer to become President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, a White House official said on Thursday.

Image: Vice Adm. Robert Harward in 2011. Sgt. Shawn Coolman / U.S. Marine Corps/AP

“It’s purely a personal issue,” Harward told The Associated Press on Thursday evening. “I’m in a unique position finally after being in the military for 40 years to enjoy some personal time.”

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said, “He is a great man who has served his country with distinction. Any discussion was subject to him overcoming family and financial concerns [which] he could not do.”

Trump is searching for a replacement for retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who resigned on Monday over phone calls with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, communications that reportedly involved discussions of sanctions leveled against the country during the Obama administration.

Harward, a former Navy SEAL, spent almost 40 years in the Navy and was on President George W. Bush’s National Security Council, with experience in several Middle Eastern countries, as well as Somalia and Bosnia.

Retired Navy Vice Adm. Robert Harward has turned down an offer to become President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, a White House official said on Thursday.

“It’s purely a personal issue,” Harward told The Associated Press on Thursday evening. “I’m in a unique position finally after being in the military for 40 years to enjoy some personal time.”

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said, “He is a great man who has served his country with distinction. Any discussion was subject to him overcoming family and financial concerns [which] he could not do.”

Trump is searching for a replacement for retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who resigned on Monday over phone calls with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, communications that reportedly involved discussions of sanctions leveled against the country during the Obama administration.

Harward, a former Navy SEAL, spent almost 40 years in the Navy and was on President George W. Bush’s National Security Council, with experience in several Middle Eastern countries, as well as Somalia and Bosnia.

Harward left a military career for a job as chief executive for defense giant Lockheed Martin in the United Arab Emirates, where he is responsible for strategy, operations and growth, according to the company.

Harward had been considered a front-runner for the job. Trump has appointed retired Army Gen. Keith Kellogg as acting adviser.

Related: Who Are the Possible Replacements for Flynn?

In announcing his resignation Monday, Flynn said he “inadvertently briefed the Vice President Elect and others with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the Russian ambassador.”

Trump said Thursday that he didn’t believe Flynn did anything wrong, but he said he did not direct Flynn to call the ambassador and discuss sanctions.

“I fired him because of what he said to Mike Pence, very simple,” Trump said.

“Mike was doing his job. He was calling countries and his counterparts, so it certainly would have been OK with me if he did it,” Trump said. “I would have directed him to do it if I thought he wasn’t doing it. I didn’t direct him, but I would have directed him, because that’s his job.”

In: nbc

Orden ejecutiva castigaría a inmigrantes legales por uso de beneficios

Deje un comentario

Analistas señalan que si se promulga la orden que está en borrador, podría afectar a millones de residentes legales que hayan recibido cualquier beneficio federal, limitar el acceso al créditos impositivos como EITC e impedir la inmigración de familiares.

Image: http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/55fa091a9dd7cc11008baf0d-2000/trump.jpg

Si el Presidente Donald Trump firma una orden ejecutiva cuyo borrador ha circulado durante las últimas tres semanas, millones de inmigrantes legales e incontables solicitantes de visas estadounidenses podrían perder beneficios e incluso ser castigados por haber recibido o poder llegar a recibir algún tipo de beneficio público federal.

Se trataría de una aplicación mucho más amplia de la que se lleva a cabo ahora y que está en los reglamentos desde 1999, en base a una ley que se aprobó a mediados de los años 90, y que prohíbe a un residente legal volverse una “carga pública”.

Pero expertos legales señalan que no está muy claro que el gobierno federal pueda aplicar el castigo máximo de deportación a personas que sean residentes legales y declarados “carga pública” a menos que sea casos muy extremos.

Es posible que si el gobierno de Donald Trump intenta hacerlo, diversos grupos consideren demandas legales al respecto, dijo Jenny Rejeske, que se encarga de temas sanitarios para el National Immigration Law Center. “El estatuto limita mucho ese castigo”, dijo la abogada.

Desde que esa ley se aprobó en los años 90, los reglamentos y tribunales han interpretado “carga pública” a aquellos inmigrantes que dependan casi totalmente de beneficios públicos durante los primeros cinco años de su residencia, o si la causa de la dependencia existía desde antes de recibir la visa.

Esa ha sido la aplicación de la ley hasta ahora, explicó Samuel Hammond, del Niskanen Center, el think tank libertario. La orden que emitiría Trump “ordenaría al DHS a rescindir los reglamentos actuales y escribir unos nuevos que aparentemente resultarían en más restricciones y la expansión del concepto de quien es una “carga pública”.

“Por ejemplo, si ellos decidieran que cualquier acceso a Medicaid te convierte en “carga pública”, lo que no es el caso hoy en día, hasta 1.4 millones de residentes permanentes serían vulnerables. Si se trata del programa SNAP (cupones de alimentos), estaríamos hablando de 890,000 residentes”, dijo Niskanen. “Nos preocupa mucho el efecto de esto”.

Pero la orden ejecutiva que circula indica que el uso de “cualquier programa federal”, incluso más allá de los cinco principales que son Medicaid, TANF, SNAP, SSI y CHIP, y muchos otros como por ejemplo Pell Grants, podrían ser utilizados contra residentes legales si accedieron a estos en los primeros cinco años de tener su green card.

“De hacerse oficial esta orden, sería un ataque más contra los inmigrantes, esta vez contra inmigrantes y residentes legales o familias que buscan reunirse”dijo Melissa Boteach, de CAP. “Creemos que estoy no solo sería una afrenta a los valores estadounidenses sino una amenaza para la salud pública y la movilidad social de vastos segmentos de nuestro país”.

A pesar de que los estudios siguen dando evidencias de que las familias inmigrantes reciben menos beneficios públicos por razones de bajos ingresos (mean tested) que las familias de ciudadanos, la orden supuestamente está destinada a combatir el “abuso” de estos beneficios por parte de inmigrantes.

Expertos que analizaron la orden indicaron que podría resultar en “cambios radicales respecto a los reglamentos actuales, ampliando la posibilidad de castigar con deportación a personas que han tenido acceso a cualquier beneficio federal y de impedir la entrada al país o la emisión de visa a personas que “podrían” convertirse en carga pública.

No obstante, las razones legales para deportar a un residente legal son “muy limitadas” en la ley original y “habría que ver cómo intentan implementarlo”, dijo Jenny Rejeske, que se encarga de temas sanitarios para el National Immigration Law Center.

Otro beneficio que podría verse afectado por la orden ejecutiva, que aún no ha sido emitida, es el llamado “Earned Income Child Credit”, un crédito impositivo para trabajadores de medianos a bajos recursos.

“El borrador explica que si una persona pide el crédito para un hijo ciudadano, el adulto debe demostrar que tiene seguro social válido”, explicó Tom Jawetz, del Centro para el Progreso Americano. “Esto será devastador y llevará a que muchos niños ciudadanos no puedan acceder a este beneficio, que ha ayudado a tantas familias a salir de la pobreza”.

En el análisis del impacto de esta posible orden colaboraron CAP, que es un grupo liberal (progresista) y el Niskanen Center, que es un grupo usualmente conservador y de ideología libertaria. Ambos coincidieron en conclusiones similares: esta orden tendría un efecto devastador en la comunidad de inmigrantes LEGALES.

Este es, por el momento, “solo un borrador” , pero los activistas afirman que han escuchado que podría salir “en los próximos días”. No fue posible corroborar esto con fuentes de la Casa Blanca.

En: laopinion.com

A leaked Trump order suggests he’s planning to deport more legal immigrants for using social services

Deje un comentario

Build a wall around public benefits, and make immigrants’ relatives pay for it.

Updated by Dara Linddara@vox.com Jan 31, 2017, 3:40pm EST

Imagen: http://i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170111180313-trump-presser-exlarge-169.jpg

President Donald Trump upended American immigration policy with three executive orders in his first week as president. He may not be done yet.

The Washington Post obtained two draft executive orders the Trump administration is reportedly considering, both of which (in title and content) resemble documents Vox wrote about and published last week.

One order deals with work visas; the other addresses social services for legal immigrants who are already in the United States. It’s an indication that the many immigration restrictions Trump has signed are not the full scope of what key advisers have discussed. The draft dealing with legal immigrants’ use of social services could have further-reaching implications for legal immigrants currently in the US than anything the president has already signed.

Legal immigrants currently get access to some public benefits in some circumstances. But the federal government — already, under existing law — can bar someone from coming to the US, or from becoming a permanent resident, if there’s any evidence he or she will become a “public charge.”

Currently, the federal government looks at use of cash benefits (like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) when it’s making “public charge” decisions, but not in-kind benefits like Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

This executive action, though — according to the draft obtained by Vox, which seems consistent with the Post’s reporting — would ask the Department of Homeland Security to issue a rule saying that an immigrant can’t be admitted to the US if he’s likely to get any benefit “determined in any way on the basis of income, resources, or financial need.”

People who use any of those benefits and are in the US on visas would be subject to deportation. And the order would even require the person who sponsored an immigrant into the US to reimburse the federal government for any benefits the immigrant used (something that the government can theoretically ask for in individual cases now, but rarely does).

This is draconian. It seeks to punish not only legal immigrants in the US and their families, but also their US-citizen relatives. It’s a reflection of a worldview in which any benefit an immigrant gets from the government is, in some way, a theft of American tax money — and punishes immigrants as thieves accordingly.

The draft order (or at least the draft obtained by Vox last week) would also seek to show this to the public, by using government reports to make the case against immigrants’ use of public services.

It would direct the government to publish regular reports on the benefits used by immigrants in the US — and how that money could be “reinvested” in the inner cities, something Trump proposed as a candidate.

One of the reports requested in the order would be a report on the cost of the entire Refugee Assistance Program — the program by which the US helps refugees get settled, obtain jobs, and learn English. Refugees are responsible for much of immigrant welfare use in the US because they’re not selected for their high earning potential — they’re selected because of their humanitarian need. But consistent with the forthcoming order restricting refugee admissions entirely, this memo sees refugees as a drain on the public coffers.

Unauthorized immigrants aren’t spared by the order: It would prevent families from getting the child tax credit if the parents are unauthorized (even if the children are US citizens), and it would prevent an unauthorized immigrant from being eligible for Social Security during the time he was unauthorized (even if he was paying into the system, as many do, using a fake Social Security number). But for the most part, this order doesn’t crack down on unauthorized immigrants to protect legal immigrants; it cracks down on immigrants, and their US citizen children, for the sake of native-born citizens.

Trump’s immigration brain trust, including Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, and attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions, have long been animated by the belief that immigrants are a drain on America — and their use of social services is one way to demonstrate that. Whether or not this particular executive order is signed, “walling off the welfare state” from immigrants in the US may well remain in the White House’s sights.

In: vox

Aldo read: governing