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On the morning of 14 August 1945 towards the end of the second world war, 16-year-old Arek Hersh and 300 other Jewish children boarded a squadron of 10 converted Stirling bombers and took off from Prague. They were organised in groups of 30 to each aeroplane, with 15 sitting on each side on the floor. Hersh remembers it vividly: They cut us some bread, he says. We thought it was cake. They gave us each a piece and it was great. About eight hours later, they landed at RAF Crosby-on-Eden, near Carlisle.

The children were the first intake of a pioneering rehabilitation scheme, in which boys and girls from labour and concentration camps in eastern Europe were transported to the Lake District to find new families and start afresh. Their journey has been dramatised by the screenwriter Simon Block and the result is a timely and moving BBC film The Windermere Children, starring Thomas Kretschmann and Romola Garai, to be shown this month, 75 years after the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

At 91, Hersh is spry with a mischievous sense of humour. For almost half a century, he spoke to no one about his Holocaust experience. Not to his three daughters, who are old enough now not only to have kids of their own but also grandchildren. Nor to Jean, his second wife, whom he married in the early 1970s. Eventually, around 1995, Hersh decided to write it all down. The words came excruciatingly slowly. Two lines a day, he recalls, when we meet at his comfortable home just north of Leeds. But I wrote it, and then after that I could speak, I could talk about it.

Before the war, Hersh Herszlikowicz back then lived with his parents, brother and three sisters in Sieradz, a garrison town in west Poland. His father was a bootmaker, much in demand for making officers footwear. When the Nazis invaded, they came first for Hershs father, but he escaped; they came back for his brother, but he also slipped away. That left 11-year-old Arek, who was packed off to a labour camp near Poznan to lay lines and sleepers for the Poznan-Warsaw railway, which would speed up the German attack on the Soviet Union. One of his responsibilities was to clean the room of the camp commandant, who every day would leave Hersh a hunk of bread on his desk. It wasnt much, but Hersh believes it saved his life. We started with 2,500 men, he says. Within 18 months, there were only 11 of us left alive. And I was one of them. Very, very lucky.

Luck is a word that comes up again and again in Hershs account. When he was sent to Auschwitz in 1944, he told the SS officer that he was 17 and a locksmith. He wasnt either of those things; he just wanted to suggest that he might be useful to the Nazis. So thats what I said, and they told me to go to the right side, says Hersh. And 180 children all went to the wrong side. And they were murdered.

The most gruelling experience for Hersh personally, however, came in the early months of 1945, when he was evacuated first on foot, in the bitter cold, to the Buchenwald camp in Germany and finally to the concentration camp at Theresienstadt in Czechoslovakia on what he calls the train of damnation. A whole month on open wagons without food, says Hersh, shaking his head. We ate grass. I ate the leather on my left shoe to keep going. I didnt swallow but I chewed it.

Your first instinct is to try to think your way into their heads. But you realise thats impossible

Hersh was in Theresienstadt, expecting any moment to be killed, when the camp was liberated by the Russian army on 8 May, 1945. He was moved on to Prague and it was here he was selected for the Committee for the Care of Children from Concentration Camps, which was set up by the British philanthropist Leonard Montefiore, a leading figure in the Anglo-Jewish Association. Montefiore persuaded the British government to accept 1,000 displaced children aged eight to 16; the Home Office agreed on condition that the funds were found by the Jewish community. In the end 650 boys and 80 girls came over.

What kind of physical and mental shape must these children have been in? How do you begin to repair the damage done to individuals, who in many cases were the only surviving members of large families? How do you try to imagine what they might be thinking? These were the questions that faced the therapists and educators at Windermere who were to help them in August 1945. It was also a quandary for the team behind the new drama.

Your first instinct is to try to think your way into their heads, says Simon Block. But you realise thats impossible. I cant imagine what Arek, who was in four different concentration and labour camps including Auschwitz, went through. And not just for a day, but for years. You cant recreate that trauma; all you can do is reflect how their behaviour may have manifested some of that while they were at Windermere.

Hersh turns up the electric fire a notch and Jean walks in with a tray of tea, biscuits and cake, and instructs me with brisk hospitality to tuck in, because her husband will probably forget. On the walls are photographs of Hersh with the Queen, Prince Charles and Liza Minnelli. Oh yes, she dedicated a song to me one time, he says.

After landing at Crosby-on-Eden, Hersh and the other children were driven to the Calgarth estate in the village of Troutbeck Bridge. A mile from Windermere, it was a wartime housing scheme that had been used for workers from the Short Sunderland aeroplane factory, which had relocated there to evade the bombing. Dormitory accommodation was provided as well as single rooms for older boys, like Hersh. Each one had a bed, a chest of drawers, he says. There was everything you needed.

The Windermere programme is not as well known as the Kindertransport initiative, which moved nearly 10,000 mostly Jewish children from Nazi-occupied territories to Britain between 1938 and 1939. At that time, some British politicians, including former prime minister Lord Baldwin, argued that it was a humanitarian duty. I have to ask you to come to the aid of the victims, not of any catastrophe in the natural world, not of an earthquake, he said, but of an explosion of mans inhumanity to man.

Block sees clear parallels with todays migrant crisis. Windermere is a story of refugees and child refugees, he says, and I thought it was very pertinent considering what was going on at the time [in Calais] when we started working on it.

In 1945, the immediate priorities for the children were to get clothing and find out about their families. The Red Cross supplied clothes, but they were odd shapes and sizes, so many children walked around in their underwear for a few days until donations of garments from local families started arriving.

We started to live as normally as we could, remembers Hersh. Some kids brought us bicycles and they said, Go on, have a ride! We didnt understand what they were saying, but they gave us a bicycle. So we went on the main road, and we were cycling on the right-hand side, so they tooted the horn like mad, shouting from the cars. We didnt know what they were shouting at us. We couldnt speak one word of English! But we caught on quite quickly, and we went to the cinemas, sixpence per seat, and it was very nice and we made our own life and things were OK.

News of their families took time to trickle through. For some there was hope, even something close to a miracle. There is a powerful moment in The Windermere Children when one of the children is reunited with a long-lost brother, who he has been told has probably died. That really happened. Oh, it would be incredibly manipulative to have made that up, says Block. No, if you have that, you wouldnt need to make anything up.

For most though, including Hersh, there was only despair. He found out his mother had been gassed and thrown into a mass grave at the Chelmno extermination camp. Of his immediate family, only his older sister Mania had survived, having escaped to the Soviet Union. There is a scene in the drama where Hersh all the children, are played by Polish actors hears about the fate of his family and soon after breaks up with his girlfriend. I still had so much grief, he recalls. I had lost my whole family and I felt I couldnt worry about my girlfriend as well.

At the Calgarth estate, the children received no counselling. Instead, they were encouraged to swim in the lake, play football, and given basic English lessons. The thing about therapy obviously is that its only any use if somebody wants to engage with it, says Block. Almost the main point was to bring them together in one place where they could be with other people whod been through what theyd been through, talk about it among themselves if they wanted to.

That was certainly Hershs experience. There were three or four boys I had been with in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, he says. We were always together. So I could talk to them, because they had a similar story to mine, but not to anybody else.

We just had to suffer, he goes on. Terrible. I had about 30 years of nightmares. Middle of the night, I used to get a nightmare and so on. It was only after he had completed his book, A Detail of History, in 1998, he says, that he finally began to heal. Its left me now. After I wrote the book actually, it left me then.

The Calgarth estate programme was designed to be a temporary scheme, running for four months, after which, the younger children would be placed in the care of foster families, and the older ones would live in hostels and prepare for work. Hersh moved first to Liverpool with his friends and then Manchester. He trained as an electrician, but eventually, living in Leeds after marrying Jean, he bought and let property, mainly to students. Somewhere along the line, in the 1950s, he shortened his name from Herszlikowicz, because he was fed up with having to spell it out.

Block, who also wrote the 2015 BBC drama The Eichmann Show about the trial of Adolf Eichmann, interviewed a dozen Windermere survivors and found that most of them were very eager to get on with life. He continues, They couldnt bury what happened to them completely because it would come back in their sleep, in their subconscious, but they wanted families and all the rest of that. It was when they retired and they had more time to reflect that it all came barrelling back to them.

Hersh is now involved in education, at schools and universities, and with the charity March of the Living, which each year organises a walk between the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps. In 2009, he was awarded an MBE. When I first went back to Auschwitz, it was awful for me, he says. I couldnt get through the gate. But after three attempts I got through and since then Ive been going there with children and young people to show them the place.

These visits are clearly still not easy why does he put himself through it? Because I dont want people to think that it just happened many moons ago, and people forgot about it, he says. I talk to everybody, so young people know that what actually happened to me can happen to anybody. Thats the main reason I do it.

Block found that this idea of giving something back is a recurring theme. The Windermere children are the most patriotic people Ive ever come across, he says. Theyre so grateful for the chance they got to start their lives again in the UK, and they want to express that in many ways, by being successful here and paying taxes and raising their families here.

Hopefully viewers will think, Well, its not impossible to bring people here and help them rather than be scared of those who might be fleeing from terrible experiences. We can bring them in, help them and then thats repaid many times over.

The Windermere Children will be broadcast on BBC Two later this month.

On 27 January, Holocaust Memorial Day 2020 will mark 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Information on different ways to get involved in this landmark anniversary can be found here

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From Nazi camps to the Lake District: the story of the Windermere children - The Guardian

The battle for control of Libya is about to enter a new and potentially disastrous phase if Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish President, is given the go-ahead to proceed with his plan to deploy forces to Tripoli.

The long-running Libyan civil war, which has been raging since the overthrow of its dictator Col Muammar Qaddafi in 2011, is approaching a decisive phase, with forces led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar closing in on the capital.

Widely regarded as the leader who has the ability to restore order to this war-ravaged country, Field Marshal Haftar, who enjoys the backing of countries including Egypt and Russia, recently announced that his forces had launched their final battle for control of Tripoli.

The aim of the 76-year-old rebel commander is to remove the Government of National Accord, led by prime minister Fayez Al Sarraj and backed by the UN, and bring to an end its chaotic attempts to restore order to the country.

But the prospects of the long-running Libyan conflict being resolved any time in the near future could be seriously compromised if, as now seems likely, Mr Erdogan presses ahead with his proposal to send Turkish forces to Tripoli in support of the GNA. A bill has now been sent to the Turkish Parliament seeking approval for the deployment which, if granted, could see forces from the country arriving in Tripoli within the next few days.

Such a development would undoubtedly complicate efforts to resolve the dispute and might even result in an escalation of hostilities as Mr Erdogan, who increasingly sees himself as a major powerbroker in the Mediterranean, seeks to consolidate his influence over a key North African state.

Although the GNA is officially acting under the auspices of the UN, its abject failure to bring any sense of stability and security to the country has meant that it has very few international backers.

One of the main reasons the GNA has failed so miserably to assert its authority is because of the malign influence of groups, many of which have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Those with influence include Abdelhakim Belhaj, leader of the conservative Al Watan Party and former head of Tripoli Military Council. He was head of the defunct Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a group that previously campaigned for Qaddafi's overthrow and has been linked to the Manchester Arena terrorist attack in May 2017 that killed 23 people during a concert given by the American singer Ariana Grande.

Belhaj was named on the list of terrorists drawn up by Saudi Arabia at the start of the diplomatic dispute with Qatar in 2017.

Its association with known militants is one of the main factors for the GNA's failure to win international backing. To date the only countries actively supporting the GNA are Qatar, Turkey and Italy which, alone among the European nations, believes the body is the best means of protecting its extensive oil and gas interests in the North African state.

Mr Erdogans proposal to send troops in support of the GNA will, therefore, be seen as a desperate throw of the dice designed to save the Tripoli-based organisation from suffering certain defeat at the hands of Field Marshal Haftar.

Mr Erdogans move also needs to be seen in the context of Ankaras wider policy of seeking to expand its influence in the eastern Mediterranean and North Africa after the recent discovery of large undersea gasfields.

Turkey is concerned that it might end up being isolated if the four main beneficiaries of the gas discovery Egypt, Israel, Cyprus and Greece are able to establish a co-operation mechanism to protect their energy assets in the region.

To this end, Ankara struck a deal with the GNA in November to create a strategic corridor that runs from Dalaman on Turkeys south-west coast and Derna on Libyas north-east coast.

The fact that the GNA does not even control the stretch of coast referred to in the deal, and that Field Marshal Haftar has refused to acknowledge the agreement, has not stopped Mr Erdogan from hailing the deal as a significant achievement in Ankaras attempts to protect its interests in the Mediterranean.

The deal has already provoked strong protests from Greece and Cyprus, which have a long history of territorial disputes with Turkey and claim the accord is void and violates the international law of the sea, while Egypt has called it illegal and not binding". During a December 12 summit, leaders of the EU issued a statement unequivocally siding with member states Greece and Cyprus.

Hence, Mr Erdogans plans to increase Ankaras ties with the GNA by sending forces to defend its interests not only risk causing a major escalation in the Libyan conflict, but could exacerbate tensions between Turkey and a range of other countries with competing interests in the region.

Turkeys deepening involvement in Libyas civil war could also have profound implications for the future stability of North Africa, as well as Europe. For a start, if Ankara succeeds in its aim to save the GNA and its associates, the most likely outcome for Libya will be the partition of the country between the area controlled by Field Marshal Haftar to the east and the remainder controlled by Tripoli to the west.

Such an outcome, though, would only further exacerbate tribal tensions in the region, potentially leading to a dramatic surge in the number of migrants seeking to make their way to Europe, thereby creating a migrant crisis not seen since the height of the Syrian crisis in the previous decade.

Con Coughlin is the Telegraphs defence and foreign affairs editor

Updated: January 5, 2020 11:30 AM

Excerpt from:
Turkey's gambit in Libya could tear the country apart - The National

Fresh out of the academy yet still very much an agent-in-training, Chancy Arnold was finally being given a little range.

He and his partner were told to drive on the border road east, familiarize themselves with the rolling hills and unmarked trails that would become their new office.

As they approached the base of Otay Mountain in San Diego County, they came upon a man lying face down in the dirt. About 50 yards to the south, a flimsy barbed wire fence denoted the U.S.-Mexico border.

Strange, Arnold thought, does he really think hes hiding from us?

The agents yelled at the man: Get up, we can see you!

He remained still.

Closer inspection revealed the grisly truth: Someone had driven the migrant through the border, ordered him to the ground and put a bullet in the back of his head.

Even as a rookie, Arnold thought he had a pretty good idea of what it would be like to be a Border Patrol agent. His father had worn the same olive green uniform for as long as he could remember. But the discovery that day was a shock and a glimpse of the ruthless landscape he was now part of.

That was 1985, and Arnold is now nearing 35 years with the agency, making him the longest-serving Border Patrol agent in the nation.

The border has changed considerably in that time.

Arnold has watched the terrain transform into one of fences and roads, surveillance cameras and sensors. Hes seen migration patterns turn from single Mexican men to unaccompanied children and asylum-seeking families.

Hes had to acknowledge the humanity and desperation of the people he encounters while enforcing the laws and policies hes sworn to uphold.

Most agents retire after 20 to 25 years. But Arnold always planned to work until the Border Patrol made him leave. That will be in July, when he turns 57.

Since Day 1, Arnold said, I was going to work until the end.

Arnold was just shy of 3 years old when his father left his job as a roughneck on a Montana oil rig and joined the Border Patrol in 1965. The Arnolds left the northern plains for the dusty borderlands of El Centro.

The year his father joined was a turning point on the southwestern border. The U.S. bracero program, which had sanctioned agricultural labor by Mexican migrants, had just been shut down. And the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 for the first time restricted legal immigration from the Western Hemisphere, including Mexico, while opening it up to Asia and Africa. Preference was given to those with U.S. citizen family members or desirable skills and professions.

But demand for Mexican labor didnt end, and soon migration that once might have been legal was now illegal, creating a large new population of unauthorized immigrants.

The El Centro sector apprehended some 5,300 migrants in 1965, a figure that more than doubled over the next five years. In neighboring San Diego, apprehensions rose to 50,600 over the same period.

It wasnt until Arnold was around 21 that he could imagine carving his own path as an agent.

What the Border Patrol represented securing our borders, securing our nation appealed to me at the time, he recalled. It also provided for a long-term career, no college degree needed, and the chance to work outdoors.

Quite honestly, he said, it was what I knew.

On a recent Friday, Arnold made the familiar trek to Arnies Point, a vista overlooking what used to be one of the most heavily trafficked illegal border crossings.

It looks nothing like it did when he was a mop-top rookie.

But gazing down, Arnold with a military-style crew cut now turned silver was looking decades into the past.

He could see thousands of migrants gathering in a soccer field that has since been filled in by dirt. He could see the vendors in the festival-like atmosphere selling last-minute provisions before the nightly surge north. And he could see agents running through the scrub brush in pursuit.

Catch who you can, process them at the station, come back for more. Repeat. That was the pace back in those days.

In 1985, San Diego accounted for more than 427,000 of the southwest borders 1.2 million apprehensions, the most of any sector.

Just like when his father joined the agency, the southwestern border was at another turning point. In 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act sought to stem the rising illegal flow by authorizing a 50% increase in Border Patrol staffing and toughening criminal laws against employers. At the same time, it provided a pathway for amnesty for some longtime migrant residents, giving them a chance at legal status.

But illegal immigration continued to grow.

And the increased manpower was slow to materialize. It wasnt until 1994 that the roughly 3,000 agents nationwide in the mid-1980s grew to 4,200, according to Syracuse Universitys Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which gathers federal data.

About 140 of those agents were assigned to Brown Field station when Arnold began. Their coverage area stretched from just east of the San Ysidro Port of Entry to Otay Mountain.

It was from here that Arnold departed each evening, armed with a six-shooter revolver, six to 12 spare bullets, handcuffs and a radio. Agents patrolled in American-made SUVs.

The border fence then was nothing more than barbed wire or cable strung between poles. It didnt stop foot traffic from coming north. Rather, it was meant to stop vehicle loads of drugs or people. It worked sometimes.

Working the swing shift, thered be eight or nine vehicle chases going on at the same time, Arnold recalled. Itd be like a dog fight, trying to figure out whos got this chase and whats going on with that one.

Just north of Arnies Point, finger canyons disappear around the bend. Thats where, in the dense brush, Arnold once hunted for bandits who were hunting for migrants.

The canyons were notoriously violent, a place where robbers could easily hide and prey on those who crossed north. Rapes, assaults and murder were common.

Arnold was just three years out of the academy when he was picked for the elite bandit detail. The stakes were higher on this assignment, and gunfights were practically inevitable.

In fact, Arnies Point was named for one. Its where Agent Arnie Forsyth was once hit in the buttocks during a shoot-out with bandits.

Arnold got into his first and only gunfight in a canyon farther west.

The detail had intelligence of a two-man ambush operation, where one bandit would hide behind a stand of trees at a T-intersection of two trails while the other would distract passing migrants.

Sure enough, Arnolds group approached and took down the distractor. Then the bandits partner came around from behind with a loaded .45-caliber pistol. The agents fired. The bandit was hit; he survived.

Arnolds rotation on the bandit detail was the second to last before the unit was disbanded. But he credits the experience for making him a better cop.

I think it helped me grow up.

More substantial fencing starting going up around 1990 to stem the increasing flow of migrants. But the corrugated landing-mat material, installed on its side, acted more like a ladder than a fence.

It was also easily breached with tools.

At the same time, a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment was sweeping the state. Then-Gov. Pete Wilson helped push through Proposition 187, a voter-approved initiative that slashed state services such as healthcare and public education to unauthorized immigrants. The law was later overturned by a federal judge.

A new strategy was launched in 1994 called Operation Gatekeeper that flooded the San Diego border with agents in three tiers a highly visible show of force that would dissuade migrants from crossing in the first place and catch those who did farther inland.

Apprehensions soared in the first year to more than half A million, then they began to drop off sharply. From fiscal 1995 to 2005, overall apprehensions in the sector declined by 76%.

While some may have been disinclined to make the journey north, however, most just shifted routes east to the less fortified deserts, into the territory Arnolds father had once patrolled.

In the five years after Gatekeeper was launched, apprehensions in El Centros sector rose from 37,317 to 238,126.

The shift didnt come as a surprise but was rather a tactical decision by leaders: Push illegal crossings away from large cities and into wilderness areas for easier apprehensions. But the human cost was high, as the harsher environment claimed thousands of lives over the years.

Following in his fathers footsteps, Arnold eventually transitioned into management.

Hes covered just about every job in the San Diego sector: supervisor, training officer, watch commander. He spent 13 years in the prosecutions unit, readying cases for criminal and administrative court. By then, he had gone back to school, earning a criminal justice degree.

Arnold went to Washington in 2009 for nine months to coordinate care for unaccompanied minors, who in the years preceding had been fleeing to the United States in record numbers. The waves had sent authorities scrambling to find a way to place the children, mostly teens, in appropriate housing long term while caring for their short-term needs at Border Patrol stations.

The experience would help prepare him for his current role.

As assistant chief over prosecutions, asset forfeiture and detentions in the San Diego sector, Arnold has most recently been in charge of mitigating what he calls a humanitarian crisis that started about a year ago with the surge of Central American caravans arriving at the border to seek asylum. Most of them are families.

Although some of the migrants follow protocol and present themselves at ports of entry, many see the long wait of metered lines and cross illegally. Then they sit and wait to be arrested, so they can claim asylum.

Many families ended up staying several days at Border Patrol stations, long past the 72-hour limit, as Immigration and Customs Enforcement reluctant to release them into the community determined where to house them next in accordance with a court agreement that set out the terms of detention for children.

All our Border Patrol stations are set up, built and designed not for families, not for children, but for single adult males, Arnold said. We were holding people in custody longer than we ever intended to hold people in. People in custody longer require more resources.

The change in population shifted agents away from patrolling the line and into caretaker roles.

The latest scrutiny comes as a group of doctors urges Customs and Border Protection, the umbrella agency of the Border Patrol, to hold free flu shot clinics in detention centers for migrant children. Three children have died in detention from the flu in the past year, none in San Diego.

A few weeks ago, doctors demonstrated outside the Border Patrols sector headquarters in Chula Vista, where Arnold is based; the day ended with six protesters arrested.

CBP officials have called vaccine programs in short-term detention not feasible.

The current spotlight on the border is perhaps the most intense its ever been and has created political and philosophical rifts across the country. In many ways, it illustrates the deeper divisions facing the nation.

Arnold tries not to let the discord get to him.

I know theres always throughout history going to be those individuals who dont agree with who we are or what we do, he said. One thing Ive tried to make sure were focused on is that we conduct ourselves with integrity and as professionals.

The vast majority of agents are at the mercy of laws, policies and a vast bureaucracy operating high above them.

We dont get the luxury to say no to laws weve been asked to enforce, he said. Were going to enforce those laws.

But not at the expense of losing their humanity.

I think were portrayed as not caring about people, Arnold said. We do. Your heart goes out to these people. We are humans, we do care about the individuals we encounter.

The Border Patrol is being handed over to a new generation, as agents who came on board during the hiring frenzy of Operation Gatekeeper begin to consider retirement.

But Arnold wont be leaving without first getting a seventh star on the sleeve of his uniform. He gets one for every five years of service.

Ive never met someone with seven stars in my career, he said.

Not even his dad, who retired with four.

Davis writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune

Read the original:
In a lifetime on the border, Agent Chancy Arnold has seen it transform - Los Angeles Times

Published: 1/5/2020 3:00:39 PM

Modified: 1/5/2020 3:00:11 PM

Throughout 2019, the journalists working the immigration beat have struggled to keep up with the near-daily indignities that the Trump administration has visited on the migrants seeking admission into the U.S. One byproduct of that is that many worthy stories about people fighting back against those indignities have been under-covered. Here are two such stories.

In the summer of 2014, as the so-called surge of families and unaccompanied minors overwhelmed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Obama administration decided to detain hundreds of families instead of releasing them conditionally until their cases could be heard in immigration court.

Megan Kludt, now a partner with the Northampton-based immigration law firm of Curran, Berger & Kludt, volunteered at the border helping people imprisoned in a makeshift holding facility in Artesia, New Mexico. The detention of children was unprecedented, and at the time, felt like an absolutely off-the-charts violation of human rights, Kludt says.

Upon returning to the Pioneer Valley, she joined forces with the ACLU of Massachusetts Immigrant Protection Project connecting local immigrants with attorneys. In 2018, the fresh hell unleashed by the Trump administrations family separation policy brought Kludts focus back to the southern border. She now works with the El Paso Immigration Collaborative (EPIC), an alliance of several non-governmental organizations and law firms around the country, on the biggest challenge currently facing immigration advocates: helping detained migrants make a case in front of an immigration judge or an ICE officer that they are not a danger to the community or a flight risk, and can therefore be released until their case is decided. (Disclosure: Kludt occasionally guest-speaks to my UMass classes for a nominal fee.)

Local organizations do the best they can, Kludt says, but they have a hard time reaching everyone who needs help. Using a specially designed case management system and a production line approach to its work, EPIC is able to help thousands of people document their ties to the U.S. by contacting their family members or friends who have agreed to sponsor them, posting bond, and preparing parole requests. They also collect data about ICE practices that can then be used in lawsuits. More than 1,000 attorneys and volunteers, many of them fluent in Spanish, French or Portuguese, contribute to this massive effort remotely.

Our goal is to provide service and to try to release as many people as possible, but if were not actually changing the system, were not really succeeding. So we also need to be constantly checking in about advocacy. What we want to see is policy changes, Kludt says. Its really a human rights crisis. Theres a lot of things that are going on under this administration that are really heartbreaking, but everyone has their place and what they can do. In my case, Im an immigration attorney, so this is my place, this is my stand at this time.

While collaboratives like EPIC have managed in recent years to deliver at least some assistance to many of the refugees detained in facilities across the United States, tens of thousands of individuals and families remain largely out of reach in improvised shelters to the south of the border because of the governments new Remain in Mexico policy. In the sad hierarchy of wretchedness, these people probably rate as the most vulnerable group of refugees, as they have to contend not only with miserable living conditions, but also with extortion, assault and even kidnapping.

Border Angels is one of the few U.S.-based outfits that have been able to consistently assist this category of people. For decades, the organization was best known for leaving water jugs in the desert areas of the border for migrants to find. They now also directly support 16 migrant shelters in Tijuana with donations collected from Americans, electricity and water bills, food, legal representation and bond.

That work is personal for Dulce Garcia, a Border Angels board member and a DACA recipient. Im still undocumented, even though I came here in 1987 when I was about 4 years old. Fast-forward to today: Im a property owner, a business owner, I have my own law practice, and Im also the executive director for this nonprofit. But no matter how much I pay in taxes, no matter how much I feel like Ive earned my keep, I still will never be a U.S. citizen the way the laws are today, Garcia says.

Her uncle died trying to cross the desert into the U.S. When she was in high school, her brother was detained by ICE, and now lives with a deportation order that will be enforceable as soon as DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, is ended. In September of 2017, Garcia successfully sued the Trump administration in a bid to retain DACA protections. When the Supreme Court began hearing oral arguments on the legality of DACA in November 2019, Garcia was in attendance. But until the court, Congress and the American voter finally make their decisions, Garcia and the hundreds of volunteers she coordinates continue to fight back against inhumanity.

Interviewing migrants. Posting bond. Contacting family members. Drafting parole requests. Suing the government. Bringing toys and clothes to children stuck in migrant shelters. Leaving lifesaving water jugs in the desert. Paying electricity and water bills. They all chip away at the misery thousands of families are experiencing this winter.

Read the original here:
Columnist Razvan Sibii: The resistance, as organized by immigration lawyers - GazetteNET

Turkish President Recep TayyipErdoansaid Sunday that violence in Syrias Idlib region threatens to cause another Syrian refugee crisis akin to the one that began in 2015, according to Reuters.

Speaking in Istanbul Sunday, Erdoan said Russian and Syrian offensives in the region had driven more than 80,000 people toward Turkey. He added that Ankara was trying to the best of its possible to bring an end to the bombings, saying a Turkish delegation would travel to Moscow to discuss the issue Monday.

Unless Europe takes steps to stop the violence in the region, Erdoan added, the continent was likely to see an influx of refugees fleeing the war zone similar to 2015s, according to the news service.

Turkey invaded northeastern Syria following the U.S. departure from the region in October, with Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir PutinVladimir Vladimirovich PutinFormer pro golfer advanced business interests of indicted Giuliani associates: report Trump faces pivotal year with Russia on arms control Repeat of 2015 migrant crisis inevitable without action: Turkish president MORE reaching a new arrangement to demilitarize northern Syria by the end of the month.

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Repeat of 2015 migrant crisis inevitable without action: Turkish president | TheHill - The Hill