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The last time a Democrat lived in the White House, I was nearly detained outside of its gates. It should have been obvious to me, an undocumented immigrant, that giving my blank passport to a Secret Service agent could get me in trouble.

But I, along with a classmate, had been asked to be there for a meeting about college access hosted by first lady Michelle Obamas higher-education initiative, and my security form had cleared the night before. And this was America, where immigrants supposedly could do such things as become senators and secretaries of state, and get invited to meetings at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, within the White House complex.

Predictably, the Secret Service agent told me that I was not on the list and that I should reach out to my point of contact inside. Ill catch up with you, I told my friend, knowing that I wouldnt. After about an hour of waiting, one of the hosts appeared, and told me that he was so sorry and that he would call me later. You didnt tell me you were undocumented! he said, stunned, over the phone.

I took my burgundy Venezuelan passport and walked away, breathing in the peculiar blend of hope for Hillary Clinton and trepidation about Donald Trump that already filled the D.C. air in March 2016. The Secret Service that protected the man who lived in the White Housewho often used his ancestors immigrant stories to wax poetic about this countrycould have just as easily sent me to detention that day.

The current White House occupant also claims to be on immigrants side, decrying in his inaugural address the racism, nativism, fear, and demonization that have long torn us apart. The presidency of Joe Biden has brought, as promised, a clean break from some of Trumps pernicious policies, such as the travel ban and the assault on the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. On his first day in office, Biden sent an immigration bill to Congress that expanded temporary status protections and provided a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants. The House of Representatives subsequently passed a pair of narrower bills that would protect about 2.5 million Dreamers, as well as farmworkers.

The real bargaining over our lives, in the Senate, is yet to come. As groundbreaking as Bidens sweeping immigration-reform proposal looks, I have seen bills like it get killed in the Senate, revived as amendments to some military-spending bill, then killed again, more times than I can count. Even if immigration relief efforts are broken up piece by piece, which some have suggested Biden is open to doing, each morsel that does get through Congress will likely come with the bitter pill of increased deportations or border militarization. And, in the meantime, the Biden administration continues housing unaccompanied migrant children in border facilities and deporting individuals under Title 42, a public-health law.

Adam Serwer: The sinister logic of Trumps immigration freeze

The end of the Trump presidency may create the impression that Americas immigration cruelty is a thing of the past. In truth, those of us who were undocumented before Trump know the inhumanity of that precarious normalcy.

To immigrants, papers are everything. They can also mean nothing.

For how often my community gets called undocumented, perhaps no one in this country possesses more documents, or clings to them more fiercely to prove their existence, than we do. Practically every immigrant family in this country has a thick folder padded with their most valued documentssome put them in a safe box; others make virtual copies that they upload to encrypted cloud servers. Even vaccination charts or a spelling-bee certificate can prove something. I keep my papers in a yellow manila envelope.

For most of the pandemic, the folded-up piece of paper that allows me to board a plane and travel domestically resided in the inside pocket of a green coat I bought in college. That paper is a press release from the State Department, on which I conveniently highlighted the sentence that keeps an immigration agent at an airport from whisking me away: Venezuelan passport holders who have been issued a passport extension will have the validity period extended by five years from the expiration date.

Most Venezuelans who live in the United States have not been able to get a new passport since the Maduro regime stopped issuing them to those living abroad in 2017 (though extensions were possible), and this press release was, until recently, the only thing that kept undocumented Venezuelans from being rendered functional exiles without a country.

When I fly to see family, I tuck this press release, along with my boarding pass, into my passport, as if to say, I know its expired. Its all I have. I hand this apology to the TSA agent, who decides whether to ask about my immigration status, or, as usually happens, wave me through.

Recently, I arrived at Reagan National Airport for my first flight since the pandemic began. I began to worry as soon as I turned a corner and saw that the TSA line was empty; behind plexiglass was a woman who had the power to decide whether I would get to see my family. Noticing that my passport had expired, she asked whether I had an extension. I awkwardly unfolded the press release, my voice shaking as I tried to explain State Department policy over her evident frustration. She seemed to study every comma. Finally she said, Let me see your face. My two masks chafed my ears as I pulled them down. She slid the paper and the passport back to me in silence, and I somehow got out a relieved Have a good one, before rushing to the conveyor belts.

Most of my other papersbank statements, school transcripts, a copy of my birth certificateare in the manila envelope. Even papers with no legal value at all are beloved, such as the birthday card I got from a scholarship foundation years ago, or the expired Capitol Hill press pass from my days as a news intern.

But for all the papers I could produce to show my contributions, none of them could secure a stable life. As anyone who has tried to come to the United States knows, its immigration system is arbitrary and often contradictory; being legal or documented depends not on the number of papers you possess, but on which ones you have. The Obama administration, when creating DACA, required applicants to have lived in the United States since June 15, 2007, to qualify; I arrived from Venezuela in 2011, so DACA did nothing for me. I could not be employed; could not legally drive in Florida, where I lived; and could not apply for federal or state financial aid to attend college. Theres no apparent justification for this date. I remember watching President Barack Obama announce on television in November 2014, around the time that I was applying to college, that he would expand DACAand that immigrants could apply if they had lived here since January 1, 2010. I had missed that cutoff, again, by a little over a year. I cried.

From the April 2019 issue: If liberals wont enforce borders, fascists will

With DACA out of reach, I believed that I had three options to obtain legal status, none of them viable. If I were to be the victim of certain crimes, such as sexual assault or human trafficking, I could opt for a U visa. (Quite obviously, I did not want to be the victim of such a crime, nor was it up to me anyway.) Alternatively, if the U.S. government deemed the crisis in Venezuela bad enough, I could qualify for temporary forms of relief such as Temporary Protected Status or Deferred Enforced Departure. Or there was always the possibility of marrying a U.S. citizen. This is doubtless the most pragmatic approach, and one that many immigrants successfully take. As the child of separated parents, though, I was waryterrified, honestlyof hinging my future on the unpredictable whims of a partner. (The naturalization process dictates that a couple be married for at least three years before the immigrant spouse can receive permanent residence.)

I suppose that waiting for a government response that may never come is choosing a more perverse kind of ghosting. Every visa program forces immigrants to fit into arbitrary but neatly delineated categories. Years of bipartisan collaboration have spawned a byzantine system that assigns such great weight to something so weightless as paper, betraying any understanding of the reasons people migrate or become undocumented. Inaction had already begotten this structure before Trump came to power.

I landed in Miami on July 3, 2011, when I was 14 years old, without knowing that I would stay. That was the summer when Mitt Romney launched his presidential run, Casey Anthony was acquitted of murder, and Janet Napolitano, then Obamas secretary of homeland security, announced that the administration would shift its deportation priorities to target criminals and people who otherwise posed a threat to national security or public safety. The journalist Jose Antonio Vargas had just come out as undocumented in a New York Times Magazine feature two Wednesdays before I arrived.

My father had moved to Orlando, Florida, with his wife and their two children two years earlier, fleeing death threats and crime in Venezuela. He had been able to secure legal status through a business visa. I saw no future for myself in Venezuela, where Id been living with my mother, so, during my visit, I told my father that I wanted to go to college in the United States. He took me to meet a family friend whose son was a student at Florida State University at the time, and I remember his exact advice: Now would be the best time to stay. I was about to start my freshman year of high school. I asked my father to call my motherI didnt have the heart to tell her that her son was not coming back home. Because of a 1982 Supreme Court decision that guarantees access to public education to all children, regardless of immigrant status, I started high school in Florida that August, gaining legal status under my fathers visa as a family member.

Otherwise, this countrys laws soon dashed our hopes. When my father tried to apply for green cards, the Department of Homeland Security determined that his role as the owner of his cellphone business was too operational and not sufficiently managerial. The application was denied. He grew desperate to deliver on a promise he had made to himself when he left Venezuela: that he would make sure we had a future.

Caitlin Dickerson: Americas immigration amnesia

Later that year, my father met a DHS agent. She spoke Spanish, worked for our gated communitys property-management company, and had attended Mass at the same Orlando church we went to. She said she could help us appeal our denied green cards. The lawyer had made some obvious mistakes, and with just a few tweaks, our immigration case would be open and shut.

Because we had had the privilege of immigrating legally, in the eyes of the law we were good immigrants. That year, the government reached a record number of deportations, having removed almost 400,000 people who presumably werent.

I still remember the muggy summer night in 2012 when, as a high-school sophomore, I held a letter with the official DHS seal saying that our appeal had been approved and our green cards would arrive within 45 to 120 days. The evidence submitted with your Application on December 29, 2011 is been audited to establish your eligibility for the benefits sought, it read, awkwardly. I did not yet know enough English to recognize that the sentences grammar was wrong.

The summer days went by, and the agent stopped returning our calls. The last we heard from her, in 2013, she was going on an emergency trip to New York to take care of her sick daughter. It became obvious that the letter I translated in my parents minivan that night was fake, and that the person who gave it to us was not an immigration agent. Our visas had already expired. We were left undocumented.

We later learned that this person had stolen tens of thousands of dollars from at least 10 different families in the Orlando area. We met some of them and, one day, my father said we had to go to the Orange County Sheriffs Office to file a report. Because we had lost approximately $6,000 in this scheme, and the agent had often asked us to pay up or wed be deported, we argued that our case qualified as extortion, one of the crimes covered under the U-visa category.

I wrote pages and pages of a witness statement at the police station, until we needed scrap paper and my wrist was sore. It was my first argument for freedom.

To be able to submit our application for approval, we needed a law-enforcement official to sign a form attesting that we had been helpful in the investigation of the case. At the station, my father feared that our information would be used to deport, not help, us. We came to the wolfs mouth, I recall him saying. In a letter from May 2014, the sheriffs office wrote that although we had cooperated with the investigation, the crime committed is not a qualifying offense. No police officer ended up signing the application.

A signaturea mere scribbleis what has kept us from our peace. We had no other redress.

By the end of the Obama administrationthe old normalthe 44th president had deported more than 3 million immigrants. Holding facilities for unaccompanied children dotted the border. Blimps and drones patrolled the skies in search of crossers.

Then Trump came, exposing our immigration systems capacity for evil when used with intention. The prohibition of travel from Muslim-majority countries; the raids at workplaces such as 7-Elevens and poultry-processing plants; the wanton separation of families; the termination of Temporary Protected Status for countries mired in humanitarian crises; the delegitimization of birthright citizenship; the extreme reduction of refugee intake numbers; the since-defeated rule that an immigrant could be denied a visa based on the likelihood that they would become a public charge to the government; the attempted rescission of DACA; and the alleged coercion of detained women into receiving hysterectomies all forced activists, scholars, and even elected officials to confront the possibility that Immigration and Customs Enforcement may need to be outright abolished. Then-Senator Kamala Harris cautiously urged her colleagues to think about starting from scratch on immigration enforcement the summer before entering the Democratic presidential primary.

The bedlam of 2016 led me to become a journalist. The act of writing required no papers. If the odds that I would obtain status had become even slimmer, my bylines at least could prove that I was here. I worked internship after unpaid internship, applying to as many scholarships as I could so that I could afford to get by. I opted out of tours of the White House press room, recalling that March morning.

Like many other journalists of color, I have straddled the line of wanting to give better representation to my community but being deemed too close to the facts to be unbiased. One newsroom explicitly told me that allowing me to intern with them would pose the threat of compromising us legally and journalistically. Papers are somehow also a talisman of neutrality.

One notable advance in immigrant rights during the Trump years was the passage of state laws and local policies allowing some undocumented immigrants to acquire drivers licenses, shielding them from traffic violations that sent many to ICE detention. In 2018, fearing I might not be able to replace my passport as Venezuela slipped further into mayhem, I tried to get a D.C. ID card. In doing so, I nearly lost everything.

I have a habit of losing things: an umbrella in an Uber, my cellphone on a ride at Universal Studios, my computer and camera at a Miami mall (almost). Ive always comforted myself with the convenient truth that material possessions are, at the end of the day, always replaceable. But not all papers are.

After my third failed attempt (the D.C. DMV kept insisting that my time living on campus could not fulfill the six-month residency requirement), I went into a Peets Coffee to call the universitys undocumented-student-services director, whod been helping me with the process. Two days later, after likely hundreds of customers had passed through the shop, I jolted awake, realizing that I hadnt brought my envelope back to my dorm with me. Gone with it would be dozens of pages of documents, the only government documents I had to show that I was here, in this country, at this moment. We tend to forget that even our birth has to be certified, and I was facing the possibility that I might never be able to see that piece of paper again.

I ran back. By some miracle, somebody had returned the lost papers to the cashier, who had put them in the coffee shops basement for safekeeping. Handing the folder back to me, the manager said, You should be careful with those. I felt, for the first time, the terror of a reality that had haunted me for yearsthat one small misstep could thrust my life into chaos.

Over the following months, I resolved to study law because the law had failed me. Without a work authorization, I could not be hired full-time anywhere, and law school gave me a much-needed safety net while also allowing me to confront the ancient doctrines that deemed me alien.

I came across the case of Fong Yue Ting, a Chinese immigrant who was arrested and deported because he did not have a certificate of residence, as the Geary Act (an extension of the Chinese Exclusion Act) required. With its decision in this case, the Supreme Court in 1893 cemented the governments plenary power to expel immigrants. Deportation, the Court said, was not a punishment for crime, but merely a way of enforcing the power of Congress and the president to place conditions on immigrants continued residence here. He has not, therefore, been deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, Justice Horace Gray wrote. Equal rights, the law says, do not belong equally to us. And yet here I was, proof of the laws obsolescence.

From the May 2021 issue: America never wanted the tired, poor, huddled masses

Unbeknownst to me, a momentary reprieve was coming.

On the last full day of Trumps presidency, with less than 24 hours of his term left, Trump decided to grant Venezuelans work permits and protection from deportation through Deferred Enforced Departure, citing the deteriorative condition of Venezuela caused by the autocratic government of Nicolas Maduro. That the most virulently anti-immigrant administration in recent memory would be the one to release me from the constant anxiety of being alien in the eyes of the law tasted of a bittersweet irony immigrants know well, in our worlds of contradiction.

I knew that reality would change little. For days before the memorandum came out, my corner of D.C. had been overrun by armored vehicles, soldiers, local cops, and even Border Patrol agents, following the insurrection at the Capitol. Crossing the street meant having to decide whether acknowledging or ignoring the officers would raise fewer questions. I stopped walking the dog alone.

Id learned to temper any high hopes I had for the government. Despite whatever mercy Trump may have thought he was showing at the eleventh hour, my rights were still subject to the whims of any federal agent until I had the proper papers in my hand. Trumps DHS never published any guidance on how to apply for this temporary status, so it helped nobody.

But on March 8, Biden actually delivered a long-awaited reprieve to undocumented Venezuelans. Fresh off the Senates approval of the stimulus bill, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced that he would be extending Temporary Protected Status to Venezuelans who already lived here while their home country seeks to right itself out of the current crises. The formal guidance came out the next day. For Haitians, who have also been battling a humanitarian crisis and this administrations own deportations, TPS relief did not come until May 22, after months of advocacy.

That Monday, the happy result of Washingtons political game was another press release that granted me rights slightly more permanently, until September 2022 for now.

In a few months, Ill have status. But who wont? And why me?

See original here:
The Irony of Being Undocumented - The Atlantic

A day in the life of a volunteer at a collective that is providing relief and advocating for systemic change for migrant workers.

My name is Gayatri Sahgal and I am a PhD student at Wolfson College, University of Oxford. Last year, when the first few lockdowns were imposed globally to contain the spread of Covid-19, I was unable to travel back to the United Kingdom and had to stay back in India. While looking for ways to help the situation here, a close friend of mineAnindita Adhikarisuggested I join theStranded Workers Action Network(SWAN).

SWAN was set up in March 2020, when Anindita, Seema Mundoli, Rajendran Narayan, and many others came together to form a collective of volunteers to organise relief for workers stranded in cities due to the national lockdown.

At SWAN, I manage the needs assessment team with another colleague. This team works across four zonesnorth, south, east, and westand comprises volunteers and zonal coordinators. The volunteers are responsible for managing calls, while the coordinators oversee operations and day-to-day collation of incoming data.

Related article: Envisioning equitable access to justice for migrant workers in India

8:00 AM:Since Ive started working with SWAN, I always wake up to a steady stream of messages being exchanged between team members.Over the past few weeks, weve worked on decentralising the process of managing calls that we receive from workers. Initially, we were directly getting calls on our numbers, which were being circulated. Now, weve set up helpline numbers that are manned by volunteers. When somebody calls the helpline, they are directed to a volunteer who takes note of their requirements and assessestheir needs by asking them certain questions using a standardised needs assessment form.

While I usually dont take calls directly anymore, today I woke up to a call from a worker who Id spoken to in April. I had helped him secure rations by connecting him to a nonprofit that was distributing rations in his area, in Jharkhand. This morning, however, he called to ask if SWAN can arrange some money for his family of four. Upon checking our records, I realise that we have already made three micro-transfers to him, which is where we tend to cap it. But as he seems to be in need of some immediate funds, I decide to forward his call to the money transfer team to do the needful.

9:00 AM:After a quick breakfast, I spend a few hours on my PhD work. My research focuses on the political economy of fragile contexts, specifically in the Horn of Africa region. It takes me a while to completely switch off and concentrate on my researchthe devastating situation at hand is always playing at the back of my mind.

Once I wrap up my research work, I get ready for a day of meetings and calls.

11:30 AM:I log on for a meeting with SWANs content team that is working on messaging around vaccine hesitancy and precautions for COVID-19. Compared to last year, in 2021 we have also been focussing on collecting data and gathering feedback from workers on the actual situation on the ground. This helps the team plan campaigns better. Simultaneously, the content team also works with a network of nonprofits that are developing vaccine awareness campaigns.

During the meeting, the needs assessment team shares the feedback they have received from the workers. Drawing on this information, we discuss the messaging that needs to be crafted to be shared with our database of workers.

Related article: The issue is exploitation, not migration

1:00 PM:I sit down to finish drafting a section of a report that captures the impact of the second wave on workers.

Since the first lockdown was imposed, we have gathered a lot of data through the calls we have received. However, with this report, our objective is to go beyond the numbers and the data collected. We want to present the lived experiences of workers who, in less than a year, have had to face two successive crises of livelihoods that have dented their savings and income.

We have also observed certain patterns across the calls weve been receiving and realised that the nature of calls has evolved over the course of the year. These days the workers are very disheartened, even more so than last year. Nobody really cares about us. They dont really take us into consideration when they make policies, is a common refrain across calls. Which is why, in the report, we have decided that we want to capture their messages, the pictures they send in, and other material that can be used to effectively communicate the larger story of the crisis.

Covid-19 has revealed a massive systematic problem. Through this report, SWAN is also trying to make this appeal that more needs to be done, because what has been done until now has just been completely insufficient.

4:00 PM:I join the weekly core group meeting. These meetings have become even more important as the situation is evolving daily. SWANs core group comprises members who oversee the daily operations of different teams. These meetings are usually more strategic, with the agenda laid out in advance. Some action points for today include discussing the status of the report, the feedback shared by our volunteers at our last all-volunteer meet, and how we can engage better with the government machinery to advocate for change on the ground.

We start by going over the report in detaildiscussing which parts to keep, and which can be left out to be used as stand-alone pieces, so on and so forth.

While providing immediate relief to workers is central to what we do at SWAN, this year we have gone a step further and worked on advocacy. The report is one part of our advocacy agenda. Another aspect of it is holding governments accountable for the relief measures that they have announced. For example, in April 2021, when the second wave had hit its peak in New Delhi, we started receiving a barrage of calls from the capital. Upon investigating further, we came to know that the Delhi government had announced some steps to manage the situation on ground, such as a labour helpline and an information desk. Upon calling the labour helpline, we found that it was meant for employers and not for workers. The other helpline that was supposed to be for ration distribution was only coordinating the distribution of cooked food, and even the operators themselves seemed to be uninformed. Based on our findings, we drafted a letter to the Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister. We followed this up with a Twitter campaign asking them for a status on all the points raised in the letter. Eventually, the Delhi government announced that they were arranging for ration to be distributed.

To pick out any such similar patterns in the calls we have been receiving, we go over the feedback we have collected from various teams during our meeting.We discuss the need to engage with the official machinery further and steps we can take to raise our concerns, while proactively working with them on solutions.

Another important aspect we discuss is the SWAN fellowship programme, which allows SWANs work to continue beyond its current structure. As a part of the fellowship, six migrant workers, who have been selected as SWAN fellows, get a platform to record and document their experiences and help other migrant workers get access to government schemes. These fellows can then further mobilise other networks of migrant workers, and collect data from them in order to amplify their collective appeals to the government.

When SWAN was set up, the intention was to fill gaps in the system and not do the work that the governments were supposed to or what the nonprofits were already doing. As we discuss the decreasing volume of calls and wrapping up operations for SWAN during the meeting, we also talk about ways in which we can strengthen the SWAN fellowship programme to enable our fellows to keep the momentum going.The meeting goes on for three hours.

8:00 PM:After a quick dinner, I go over all the action points for work tomorrow. Before calling it a night, I check in with all the zonal managers to see if they had any issues during their workday or came across any case that needs urgent attention.

As told to IDR.

This article was originally published on India Development Review.

Views expressed above are the author's own.

END OF ARTICLE

Go here to see the original:
Who is looking out for migrant workers during the Covid-19 crisis? - The Times of India Blog

Ohio will send National Guard members to the U.S.-Mexico border to help federal and local law enforcement respond to sustained high levels of illegal immigration.

The announcement over the weekend from Republican Gov. Mike DeWine makes it the sixth state that has volunteered its police officers or National Guard following a request from Republican Govs. Greg Abbott of Texas and Doug Ducey of Arizona in June. All six volunteering states have Republican governors.

Ohio will send 185 members of its Army National Guard to the southern border, joining the ranks of Arkansas and South Dakota, which each opted to send Guard members instead of law enforcement.

Florida was the first state to send its police officers from a dozen departments statewide to help their counterparts in border states. Gov. Ron DeSantis said the prevalence of fentanyl in the northern part of the state had risen since January as the result of more coming into the United State from Mexico.

"You have a governor who is saying we'll step up to protect Floridians. This is what real leadership looks like. Leadership is not sending someone down there to beg people not to come," Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody said at the press conference, referring to Vice President Kamala Harris's previous statements telling migrants not to travel to the border. "When you have chaos versus order, crime versus safety, you develop strategic enforcement actions, and you bring peace and protection to your people. That's what a leader does.

BIDEN PROTOCOLS PUT MIGRANT CHILDREN AT RISK OF TRAFFICKERS, TOP REPUBLICAN WARNS

Nebraska is sending two dozen state troopers to Texas in what Gov. Pete Ricketts said was a response to the disastrous policies of the Biden administration.

While the federal government has fallen short in its response, Nebraska is happy to step up to provide assistance to Texas as they work to protect their communities and keep people safe, Ricketts said in a statement.

Story continues

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said in June that up to 30 state troopers will go down to the border for an indefinite duration. Iowa Department of Public Safetys Sarah Jennings told the Daily Iowan that sending law enforcement out of state would not compromise public safety, but governors in other states are concerned that could be the case and chose instead to send military troops.

Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota pledged up to 50 state National Guard troops from a duration of 30 to 60 days. The South Dakota deployment is being funded by a private donation. Republican megadonors Willis and Reba Johnson made an unspecified gift to the state through their foundation. Willis Johnson made his billions of dollars through Copart, an automotive salvage and auction company.

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson will send 40 National Guard troops to the border for 90 days, stating, Border states have requested help, and we are answering the call.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

State National Guard forces had been left out of Abbott's and Ducey's request, as they want to give active law enforcement officers broader policing authorities. Military on the border cannot make arrests and typically serve in passive roles, such as monitoring cameras and manning unfinished portions of the border wall. However, out-of-state police will have broader policing authorities and will be able to arrest noncitizens who come across the border on trespassing charges and human smuggling charges. Normally, only federal authorities such as the Border Patrol can arrest people for immigration offenses, but the two governors expanded arrest authorities by declaring a disaster and emergency.

Washington Examiner Videos

Tags: News, Iowa, Ohio, Nebraska, Florida, South Dakota, Arkansas, Texas, Border Crisis, National Guard, Military, Police, Law Enforcement, Border, Immigration

Original Author: Anna Giaritelli

Original Location: Ohio makes it six states sending military and police to respond to Biden border crisis

Read the original here:
Ohio makes it six states sending military and police to respond to Biden border crisis - Yahoo News

CW: References to violence and sexual assault.

Syria is a country filled with history. Its a middle-eastern land with rich cultural diversity, from the ruins of Palmyra to the network of towns, fortresses and panoply of lost cities that pepper the ubiquitous sun-kissed dunes. Multitudinous peoples have formed part of the rich tapestry of historical Syria. However, behind this topographical mirage of magnificence lurks a state devestated by a decade-long civil war, and bled by a malign regime headed by a dictator, Bashar al- Assad, obstinate in his desire to retain power at any expense. The expense has been grave, and, as always, has been paid by the people.

Assads iron fist and cruel totalitarianism, facilitated by the insouciant Russian states pillaring of his power, symbolise an unholy alliance that is a fundamental threat to the core values of freedom, moral decency, and the international rules-based order. This article seeks to deconstruct the evil barbarism that plagues Syria, as well as the inadequate current global approach to Syria, whilst outlining the need for a concerted international effort to liberate the Syrian people from Assads blood-soaked tyranny.

The heart-wrenching plight of Syrians at Assads hands is emblematic of the acute threat that he poses to the basic values of freedom. Just last month, the international chemical weapons watchdog (the investigative arm of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) provided a heart-rending insight into how the state machinery systematically represses the vulnerable. It said that it has reasonable grounds to believe that the elite Syria Tiger Forces Corp of the Syrian Air Force was responsible for a chlorine bomb that was dropped on a town in the rebel-controlled Idlib region in 2018, which killed 12 people. A United Nations report indicated that the Assad regime was also responsible for a bomb that was discharged on the Iqra School in the Aleppo Countryside in 2013 (one of a litany of schools bombed by Assad), killing 11 civilians, most of whom were children. Such rapid aerial assaults by the army on its own people are now lamentably common in Syria, and have been since the start of the civil war.

This is the reality on the ground in Syria despite the use of these types of weapons (chemical and incendiary) on civilian populations being illegal under humanitarian international law. But should we really be surprised? Such human rights abuses and flagrant international rule-breaking is Assads and his allies modus operandi.

Millions of refugees are afraid to return to Syria because of the Mukhabarat, or secret police, which systematically torture, rape, kidnap, and kill innocent civilians for simply voicing an opinion that may be construed as dissent, or for even for merely be suspected of harbouring anti-Assad sentiment.

The impact of one mans rapaciousness on Syria itself makes for a sobering read. As a result of Russian and Syrian air strikes and incessant artillery bombardment of cities (such as Aleppo and Homs), homes, infrastructure, and over 800 medical facilities have been reduced to rubble. Most of the more than half a million people killed have been civilians, murdered by barrel bombs and ballistic missiles, famine, sieges, and nerve gas. Not to mention the fact that the UN estimates that more than 6 million people have become refugees outside of the countrys border and another 6.7 million people internally displaced. Syrian economic output has fallen at least two-thirds since the war began which has created an impoverishment crisis. Its currency has lost 80% of its value and the UN estimates that more than 80% of the population has fallen below the poverty line with around 12.4 million Syrians food insecure, which is an increase of 4.5 million people in the last year alone and the highest number ever recorded.

The global response has been tepid at best. It is true that the US has consistently taken decisive action. For example, the Obama administration backed the Syrian rebels by attacking the Islamic State. The Trump administration launched a missile attack against Assad in 2017 in retaliation for yet another regime chemical attack. And just a month into office, the Biden administration launched a rocket attack against facilities in eastern Syria that the Pentagon said are used by Iranian-backed militia.

Moreover, a new round of US sanctions against Assads regime, and those who aid it, came into force just last year. The Caesar Act 2020 punishes all those who in any way aid the Assads, their government, army and institutions, their support networks and allies, or their business interests. The Acts main external targets are Russia and Iran, the Assad regimes external patrons, and the Iran-backed paramilitaries that spearhead its strike forces: Lebanons Hizbollah and Iraqi Shia militia. The overarching rationale for such targeting these groups has been to isolate Assad from vital strategic and military partners in order to ameliorate the impact of his armed forces domestically.

Similarly, the UK imposed its first sanctions against Syria since leaving the EU through its new Global Human Rights Sanction Regime; these so-called Magnitsky-style sanctions (in homage to the late Russian whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky) seek to target global individuals and organisations abusing human rights. In relation to Syria, UK asset freezes and travel bans to the UK were instituted for six Syrians, including the foreign minister Faisal Miqdad, Assad media adviser Luna al-Shibl, and financier to Assad, Yasser Ibrahim. Coupled with that, the UK have adopted a justly polemical rhetoric on the international stage with the UK Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, sniping that the Assad regime has subjected the Syrian people to a decade of brutality for the temerity of demanding peaceful reform.

However, the Magnitsky-style sanctions, as valuable and coercive as they are, seem unlikely to protect civilians on the ground who are enveloped by privation, suffering, and abuse; and the upper-echelons targeted were already under some form of restrictive international sanction. It also seems to have achieved very little in deterring Assad, and arguably, the stringency of the Caesar Act actuated the demise of the Syrian currency and therefore exacerbated the impoverishment crisis on the ground as Syrian simply can no longer afford basic foodstuffs like bread. Notwithstanding that, the repeated US military interventions from the sky seem to be distant and lacking in substantive success, whilst costing innocent lives in the process and leaving many Syrians too frightened to roam the streets. For me, there appears to be no real concerted strategy or game-plan from the West, vis--vis Syria, when there ought to be, given how acute the crisis has now become after 10 years.

The main focus of the West in relation to Syria appears to be on the management of the refugee crisis stemming from there as opposed to tackling the causes of the refugee crisis, which is tantamount to treating the symptoms, not the cause. For example, some EU countries have recently, and arbitrarily, tightened their criteria for asylum, resulting in more asylum seekers being granted subsidiary protection instead of refugee protection. Indeed this is not isolated but indicative of an alarming trend across EU countries that are implementing policies designed to discourage and deter people from seeking asylum in their countries by stripping away the benefits. However, alas, such policies are fatally flawed by myopia; it is axiomatic that this will not address the underlying cause of why people are coming, nor does it resemble a long-term solution to the refugee crisis despite a resolution being in the international interest.

As an international community, we must recognise that the reason that millions of Syrians are escaping their countries to come to the West is because they have no choice but to leave. We must imagine a world where we feel too frightened to wake up in the morning; insecure going to work or school; and denumbed with angst in our everyday environments because of the reality that we may be killed for wanting basic freedoms. Syria and Russia together have committed the cardinal sin of stripping Syrians of the ability to live. These citizens are haunted by the omnipresent realities of life in Syria: of dead friends and relatives, blood, and war. In Syria, people exist, but they do not live. It is because of that harrowing fact that they leave.

The UN as a tool of change is looking increasingly vacuous in relation to Syria. As Russia is a permanent member of the UN Security Council, it has exercised its veto repeatedly (14 times since the beginning of the war in Syria, as of March 2020) to block diplomatic efforts of accountability. That includes vetoing, alongside China, a resolution supported by 65 countries and the rest of the security council that would have referred war crimes committed in Syria to the International Criminal Court.

The only solution to assuage the refugee crisis and bestow hope and justice to Syrians is a long-term political peace settlement in Syria, where people are once more able to regain the ability to live. Working concertedly and formulating a long- term plan with broad bipartisan commitment, as an international community, to end the conflict and help rebuild Syria with united endeavour, resources, time, and treasure; it is the morally noble thing to do. It would alleviate the Syrian people of their suffering, allow Syrians to build futures for themselves at home in lieu of making the perilous journeys across migrant routes or being exploited by people smugglers, and allow Syria to be a bastion of hope and freedom in the Middle East. But it would also be beneficial for the world as it would mitigate the influx of migrants at borders (often a politically vexed issue in the West), deliver a more stable and peaceful Middle East thus reducing the risks of vacuums of power being filled by terrorists preying on the vulnerable, which more often than not culminates in a latticework of terror groups forming, and fomenting attacks globally.What is clear is that the current approach is not working, and we have a moral obligation to ramp up our efforts. The practical form of a long- term plan is complex and multi- faceted. What it cannot include is simply more sanctions, or greater humanitarian aid alone (although these do play their part). We, as an international community, must champion the values that we believe in, freedom and justice, and never in good conscience passively allow nations of people to capitulate to tyranny. In the words oft-attributed to the late great parliamentarian, Sir Edmund Burke, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. We must do much more than nothing.

Image Credit: Chaoyue Pan / CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0

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Syria: What is the international community's long term plan? - Cherwell Online

When you first step into the prime ministers office at the Maximos Mansion in Athens, it feels oddly familiar. The reason is that youve seen it time and again in his televised public addresses over the course of the pandemic. In the two years since being elected, Kyriakos Mitsotakis has had to face one major crisis after another, and it is these Turkey and the pandemic that we discuss with him in an assessment of the governments tenure so far and a projection of what lies in the next two years to come.

I would like to take you back to June 8, 2019, the day when you first entered this office. What is your recollection of that day? What was your understanding of the job at the time and how has that perception changed over the past couple of years?

I have to say that this two-year period has been so dense that I too am surprised at how quickly the time passed since the July 7 elections. The joy over winning an election is very short-lived. Immediately after the announcement of the election results, you begin to realize the weight of the responsibility that Greek voters have placed on your shoulders. My first priority on entering the Maximos Mansion was to make sure that we could swiftly organize the structures of the central executive power so as to be able to implement our policy program. I believe that many things over that period went according to plan.

If I asked you to identify one mistake that you could erase from the past, what would that be?

I would go back to the way that we dealt with the second wave of the pandemic originally. We should have imposed restrictions in northern Greece sooner.

Why did that not happen?

It did not happen because no one can be absolutely certain about the data. One must also examine the trends. We were then looking at the beginning of the trend. We said we would wait a bit longer to see if this trend would become more permanent. In hindsight, we should have acted sooner. Its something I have also said in Parliament. On the other hand, I believe that we learn from our mistakes. That is why we were very prompt in acting ahead of the third wave. If you wait for all the data, then you will be late in making a decision. The problem will overcome you.

We now have a key fact which says that vaccinations can provide a way out of the crisis. And, as far I can see, this is where we are stuck. The inoculation program has hit a wall of hesitancy. If my interpretation of the governments moves is correct, you are trying to get this moving, to motivate more citizens into getting the shot.

First of all, what you are describing is a global phenomenon. It is not some Greek particularity. I would say that in terms of vaccination willingness, Greece is about average. Now we need to address those who appear to be more distrustful, more skeptical of the need to get vaccinated. And these people do not make up a homogenous group. There are people who reject vaccination on a philosophical basis. It is practically very difficult to convince them about the need to get vaccinated. There is however a large group of people who may be still skeptical; or even some people whose behavior is, in my opinion, extremely reprehensible. Its the people who say, Well, I know it works; let other people have it so that the pandemic will be overcome without me having to get the shot. These people, who are known in English as free riders, expect others to do their job for them.

The freeloaders?

Yes, the freeloaders. But freeloading is no more.

The question is, how can you motivate them?

In two ways, I believe. First, we must insist, particularly in respect with older age groups, on hard scientific facts and statistical evidence, which we now have at our disposal regarding the effectiveness of the vaccines. I looked at evidence on the 60 to 80 age group over April, May and June. And it is indeed striking. A total of 2,245 citizens in that age group died over these three months. Only 22 of them were vaccinated. The other 2,223 were unvaccinated. In other words, they were citizens who could have been vaccinated or were able to do so and didnt. However, let me add this: I cannot force anyone. I cannot make vaccination mandatory. The country will not enter yet another lockdown to protect the small number of unvaccinated and have the large majority of the Greek population, who are vaccinated, pay the price. I believe that vaccinated individuals enjoy rights that are conferred on them [due to their inoculation].

Lets say that they are no longer deprived of the freedoms that were taken away for public health reasons.

This may be the most appropriate description. This is why we dubbed it Operation Freedom. Also, on the issue of the Freedom Pass that we granted to young people, I do not understand those who accuse us of trying to bribe the youth. What would be the benefit of that? Does anyone really think that when elections are held in two years that young voters will still remember that we handed out 150 euros?

The Freedom Pass was one of the things you did. The other is the system whereby businesses in the leisure sector choose whether to cater only to vaccinated customers or a mix of both. Critics have questioned how these measures will be implemented. Do you really believe that the vaccination certificates of people going to a club late at night will be scrutinized?

This all reminds me of something. It reminds me of things we heard with the smoking ban. It happened. I want to remind people of that, because weve forgotten. Banning smoking in indoor public spaces was one of my first decisions [as prime minister]. We heard the same thing: Theres no way its going to be enforced. It was. And this is very easily enforced technologically.

But why the mixed system? Why not a simpler solution, like people who are not immunized are not allowed in indoor leisure venues?

Because no country has done anything like that yet. Because we believe it would be stretching the limits of constitutionality. And because we believe that this is the middle road we have to take right now. People who are not vaccinated must also have the right to entertainment.

Isnt there a question of fairness, though? Meaning that those who have the option of being vaccinated ignore the risk to society in order to enjoy themselves?

We chose this path, at this point, of the market adapting to this reality. Yes, more freedoms for the vaccinated, but the unvaccinated will also have options, if businesses so desire, to cater to them with stricter occupancy restrictions. If the markets response is for all businesses to be for the vaccinated, you will achieve the same result but in a way that, in our opinion, is more on more solid constitutional ground.

If I understand what you said earlier correctly, you are ruling out new horizontal measures but not the possibility of a stricter framework, a clearer policy. Is that correct?

Lets wait and see. I want to stress that this is just one aspect. The other is persuasion. Ive heard criticism that, apparently, we havent carried out a persuasion campaign. Are they serious? Its all weve been talking about for the past 16 months. We have explained how imperative vaccination is, in every possible way, scientific and lay. We have given citizens access to all the public data surrounding what were doing. And still people accuse us that were not trying to convince citizens? I really wonder sometimes at the quality of public discourse.

Theres only one small party in Parliament that is skeptical.

I can accept an anti-vaxxer, someone who is philosophically opposed to the idea of vaccination, calling the public to protest. What I cannot accept is someone who believes in vaccinations and argues that we must be vaccinated saying that they will take on the risk while also protesting. I find it inconceivable. And this is what happened to the country; it must be said. It was sabotage, sabotage of public health with the sole purpose of political gain which was not ultimately achieved by the parties of the opposition, foremost among which was the main opposition. And that is unforgivable in my book. Unforgivable.

Greek-Turkish relations

Lets talk about the other big crisis of your tenure so far: Greek-Turkish relations. You met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently. With what degree of certainty would you say that the period of increased tension is over?

I am quite confident that the summer of 2021 will be quieter than the summer of 2020. If youre asking me whether we have dealt with the structural causes of this tension, then, no, we have not solved our differences with Turkey all of a sudden. What we have done, though, is clearly laid out our positions. We have explained to Turkey that we want a good relationship and that this would be in the interest of both countries and both peoples. If, however, Turkey chooses the path of escalated tension, there will be consequences. We have demonstrated in the field that certain practices are not acceptable. Greece will never allow the weaponization of the refugee crisis and a repeat of the events of last March [2020]. We proved this in the field. We prove it in the field every single day. We built the fence at Evros. We have increased patrols in the Aegean, with absolute respect for human rights. Let me also be clear, though, that the Hellenic Coast Guard is not a refugee and migrant reception service. It is there to guard our borders. And in the event of danger, that anyone is endangered at sea, that person will be rescued, just as weve saved thousands of lives at sea.

We have heard accusations and not just from the opposition here that the 2020 Evros crisis served as an alibi for a more stringent approach, for pushbacks.

I reject the concept of pushbacks, as a term. I reject it. It is word that does not exist in my vocabulary. But when theres a boat coming, and we see it coming, and weve seen where its coming from, we have an obligation to alert the Turkish Coast Guard and do what we can so that the boat goes back where it started. This is what we do, and we always do it with the utmost respect for human life.

I have heard you say on numerous occasions that the lines of communication between Athens and Ankara must always be kept open. Do you feel that this is something that has been accomplished on a personal level with President Erdogan?

I believe that I wont have any difficulty picking up the phone and talking to him.

He has said some very insulting things about you, personally, in public.

OK. Im overlooking that. The climate [of our meeting] was good.

So there is regular communication?

Of course theres communication. We talk to everyone. Why would Turkey be the exception? Of course we talk. And if theres a particular reason, of course I would pick up the phone to talk to Erdogan and I think he would do the same. Just as there are channels of communication at every level, from the exploratory contacts and the confidence building measures, to the relationship of the two [foreign] ministers, Mr [Nikos] Dendias and Mr [Mevlut] Cavusoglu.

Keeping a finger on the pulse

You had said that you would be out and about, getting out of the office, and I cannot recall another prime minister being so present for every initiative and on so many tours.

Its not just about public relations. I find tours to be the best stimulation, because I hear so much and take in so much. I am also constantly pleasantly surprised. There is clearly a Greece out there that is very creative. It is doing things under the radar. The other day, for example, I was at a school in a small village, in Nikiforo in Drama [northern Greece]. I met a physics teacher there who has created a small observatory and an amazing outdoor exhibition of physical instruments to teach the children experientially. No one told him to do it. He did it in his spare time. And I thought: These are the two worlds. The civil servant who goes above and beyond for his children and the other world which is the unionists who keep reproducing the same stereotypes and do not want evaluations. Let me perfectly clear which side Im on. Im with the teacher who is creative.

I imagine youre referring to the OLME teachers union. Its president, though, is a member of your party.

I would like to remind you that there were times, even before I became the head of New Democracy, when I did not get along with certain and I stress certain unionists. But unionism is also something that needs to be modernized. It just must. Otherwise, it will deteriorate. Unionists are already discredited and I wonder how they dont see it.

How do you explain the fact that people from your own party, party officials in fact, are opposing government reforms?

What this proves, after all, is how outdated some of the party stereotypes are, like Left-Right. When a radical leftist party has been able to govern in harmonious cooperation with the populist right, this means that the dividing lines are not so partisan after all, but exist in an entirely different framework. Also, New Democracy of 2021 is not the same as ND of 2016. I have, I believe, made a mark. I have changed the party, as I had vowed to, in terms of people and ideas, so we can embrace the big political and ideological challenges that lie ahead, always with respect for our history.

In the last parliamentary debate, both you and the leader of the main opposition praised US President Joe Bidens policy line. The leftists also appear to see it as a vindication of their own beliefs. I wonder, do you feel like the pandemic has turned you into a center-leftist?

I am not center-left. I was, I am and I believe I will always be a progressive, liberal, center-right politician.

In terms of the economy, however, you appear to be revising the neoliberal model that has prevailed since the 1980s.

I have never been a neoliberal and my greatest concern right now is that growth, which will come, does not further expand but shrinks the existing disparities. This is my concern. The growth that will come in the years ahead and I believe it will be strong cannot be the same as the growth pre-crisis. Firstly, because pre-crisis growth was distorted. It was basically growth with borrowed money. Secondly, because the pandemic, but also climate change, have made the protection and opportunities of our weakest fellow citizens our top political priority. That is what our policies are aimed at.

I will go back to the issue of changes at public schools. Education is and will continue to be, in my opinion, the big conveyor belt of social mobility. Free public education is what will allow a child born into a poor family to eventually lead a better life than his or her parents did. My ideological identity, therefore, is very, very clear. The pandemic certainly made me put much greater weight on certain issues, such as a modern national health system, for example.

That said, nothing has really changed, structurally, in that respect. You have bolstered it materially and with staff, to an extent.

And? Is that negligible?

What Im asking is whether you have plans for a complete structural overhaul?

Of course, and this is a major opportunity that I will not allow to go to waste. Health is not just about hospitals. It starts with prevention. I repeat. Our non-smoking policy will bring results five or 10 years down the line. We cannot allow Greece to be at the forefront of childhood obesity. Our health policy cannot only be about hiring more people at hospitals. How outmoded is that? There will, of course, be more hirings at hospitals. And weve already done that. But that cannot be it. We need to sever the Gordian knot of primary healthcare so that people dont use hospitals as much. And, yes, the pandemic has shown us that our hospital system is often working at two different speeds. There are cases where we have many more regional hospitals than necessary. We cant have three hospitals in a radius of 20-30 kilometers because everyone wanted a hospital in their town and expect to have three good hospitals. Its just not possible. This doesnt mean closing them down, but they can, for example, be transformed into chronic care facilities. But, yes, we will be redrawing the healthcare map.

If I understand correctly, it will basically entail mergers.

The healthcare map will be redrawn. As soon as the pandemic is over, I will be asking an independent committee of experts to give us a comprehensive and honest assessment of what went well and what did not.

In the public eye

You have already said that you see no reason to call early elections, so I wont ask you again. Do you wonder, though, whether the governments good performance in public opinion polls may be a trap? That it may cultivate a sense of complacency, or even arrogance?

That is a very good question. I would like to maintain the sense of urgency dictated by the pandemic over the next two years as well. The challenges [that lie ahead], in a sense, are more interesting. We have a recovery fund to manage. We have an economy that is obviously rebounding. We have creative policies, which we can implement to the benefit of the citizens. No, I cannot allow myself any sense of complacency. Sometimes, you need to take a deep breath, take a step away from a good opinion poll and tell yourself that the next one could be much worse. And you need to prepare for that eventuality.

On a different note, your family your wife and children are in the media and social media quite a lot. Your sons personal life recently became a major topic of public conversation. Does that bother you? Is it, as some of your rivals say, a very American style of political marketing?

As far as my wife is concerned, it was others that put her in the crosshairs of political rivalries. She was vulgarly targeted. And I think that we know exactly what happened by now, so those who are being critical should examine their own behavior first. My wife is dynamic. She stopped work because she thought there may be a conflict of interest with her role as the prime ministers wife. She helps discreetly in a lot of things, which I believe help the countrys image. She is a dynamic woman with a public presence and I wouldnt have it any other way.

All three of my children are now adults, and they have chosen to have a social media presence. Its perfectly understandable that this should cause some interest. But they are incredibly careful and they are not publicity seekers at all. So, what more do you want me to say? Since you ask, I may as well say that certain mechanisms are obviously at work, taking aim even at my sons private relationship.

A podcast of the full interview, in Greek, is available online at http://www.kathimerini.gr.

See original here:
Almost halfway into his term, PM looks back and ahead - Kathimerini English Edition