06/30/18

Republicans: Now is not the time to get complacent

By: Elad Hakim | American Thinker

Things have been going well for Republicans and President Trump. The Supreme Court has issued several favorable rulings, the Mueller investigation continues to go nowhere, and a Supreme Court justice announced his plans to retire, thereby opening the door for another judicial nomination.  While the stars appear to be aligning for the GOP, Republicans must stay focused, attentive, and hungry as the midterms approach. If Republicans become complacent, they will open a door that is hastily closing on the Democrats.

Complacency is dangerous and can lead to stagnation. Republicans need to press forward, to keep their eyes on the prize, and to focus on the things that matter most to Americans. Specifically, they should remind Americans of the country’s strong economy, the low unemployment rate (below 4% for first the time since 2000), better foreign relations and policy, a safer nation, solid judicial appointments, and the country’s re-emergence as a superpower around the world.

What Republicans should not do is engage in banter with the likes of Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, and Maxine Waters. They should not participate in staged protests to score political points, encourage their followers to harass those who disagree with them, support an endless and expensive investigation that has failed to produce any evidence of wrongdoing by the president, threaten to impeach the president without proof of an impeachable offense, or threaten to block President Trump’s upcoming Supreme Court nomination before he is even named.

Recently, Chuck Schumer made his position clear regarding the upcoming Supreme Court vacancy.

Our Republican colleagues in the Senate should follow the rule they set in 2016: Not to consider a Supreme Court justice in an election year. … Millions of people are just months away from determining senators who should vote to confirm or reject the President’s nominee. And their voices deserve to be heard.

Mr. Schumer’s comparison appears to be misplaced. In 2016, Republicans decided not to consider a potential Supreme Court nominee because of the upcoming presidential election, not the midterm elections. This distinction is significant. Also, Mr. Schumer’s explicit bias against a potential conservative justice is nothing new. Specifically, in 2007, Schumer delivered a speech to the American Constitution Society, “a left-wing legal organization.”

On July 27, 2007, Schumer told his ACS audience:

How do we apply the lessons we learned from Roberts and Alito to be the next nominee, especially if – God forbid – there is another vacancy under this president? … [F]or the rest of this president’s term and if there is another Republican elected with the same selection criteria let me say this: We should reverse the presumption of confirmation. The Supreme Court is dangerously out of balance. We cannot afford to see Justice Stevens replaced by another Roberts, or Justice Ginsburg by another Alito.  Given the track record of this president and the experience of obfuscation at the hearings – with respect to the Supreme Court, at least – I will recommend to my colleagues that we should not confirm a Supreme Court nominee except in extraordinary circumstances.

This is not the only time that Mr. Schumer and Democrats have threatened to block Republican judicial nominees.  In 2006, Democrats tried to stop Justice Alito from making it to the Supreme Court by way of a Democratic-led filibuster. There are many other examples.

Considering their repeated efforts to block conservative judicial nominees, calls for Republicans to wait until after the midterms to appoint a new justice are nothing more than a delay tactic. It doesn’t really matter when this appointment takes place, because Mr. Schumer and many Democrats will likely object to any potential nominee – not because he is not qualified, but because he will likely be conservative (i.e., a strict constructionist of the Constitution).

The stars are aligning for Republicans. They must push forward and remind the American public of the successes obtained by President Trump and the Republican-led Congress to date. They should not get bogged down in smokescreens and façades, which are clear signs of desperation.

The American voters are tired of the lies. They want transparency, more money in their pockets, a strong economy, available jobs, strong leadership, and safety at home. Republicans, under President Trump, have delivered these things. This is the message they should hammer home as the midterms approach.

Mr. Hakim is a writer and a practicing attorney. His articles have been published in World Net Daily, American Thinker, the Sun-Sentinel, and other online publications.

https://thoughtfullyconservative.wordpress.com

https://www.facebook.com/thoughtfullyconservative/

Twitter: @Elad3599

06/30/18

Designated For Destruction

By: Tabitha Korol | Conservative News and Views

Several recent studies have revealed the increased number of public school and college students who are experiencing various forms of mental illness, such as depression, anxiety, attention deficit disorder, and others. A Wall Street Journal report claims as many as 25 percent in elite colleges are thus classified, and require accommodations for exam taking, seating preference, quiet private rooms, and comfort animals.

Steve Schlozman and Eliza Abdu-Glass, authors of The College Mental Health Crisis: Focus on Suicide, disclosed the thousands of suicides on college campuses each year, about two to three every day. Their emphasis is on students’ inadequate counseling, but we should ask why this generation, specifically, is so unstable and why the obvious signs have been ignored.

Is it possible to identify what could be so threatening?

Our educational system was restructured according to a radical, global, political ideology (Agenda 21) promoted by President Obama’s White House, Bill and Melinda Gates, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, the Governors Association, and other supporters of a federal takeover of education for a Global Economy. Called the Common Core Standards, it was implemented by 46 states and D.C.

While we were deluged with Hillary Clinton’s oft-uttered phrase, “no child left behind,” David Coleman, the architect of the controversial, experimental (experimenting on our children!) curriculum, was executing an equal-outcome system, thereby eliminating the motivation and ambition of equal opportunity for individual excellence and achievement, each to his/her own interests and abilities. And, since all schools – public, private, parochial, home schools – were subject to the same textbooks and tests, and the governors handsomely rewarded, the Standards were assumed almost nationwide.

Result: the students have become guinea pigs to a seemingly untested Standard – with a specific purpose.

Flawed textbooks frustrate students

Seriously flawed mathematics and science standards, put into practice by mathematically- and scientifically-illiterate state boards of education, are frustrating, limiting, and damaging to the children who experience distress despite their efforts. Creative classic literature has been replaced by depressing, sexualized dystopian novels that oppress the spirit and exceed the children’s maturity level. Maria Calamia, licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapist, reported 200 to 300 percent more children experiencing serious stress and trauma due to the new curricula, citing numerous incidents of the better students’ crying, bedwetting, self-mutilating, and experiencing nightmares at their new mediocrity.

Non-fiction, informational texts and historical documents of a leftist agenda were also introduced, guaranteed to not only indoctrinate, but also to increase boredom and lessen interest and reading ability, with one report showing that 700,000 graduates per year cannot read their own diplomas. In 2016, more than 40 percent of four-year-college students (two million) did not earn their degree and dropped out; and only 26 percent of two-year students will earn their degree.

Result: frustrations, inabilities, inadequacies, distress, youthful hopes dashed; a generation betrayed, unable to cope and function independently in society.

Isolating students from close friendships

Parents were powerless to defy the system as they saw their children dealing with lessons of sexual deviancy that inspire change to their very natures, secular progressivism and Islamic indoctrination, and diminished coverage of Judeo-Christian values, American and European history. Having already been deprived of best friends, a buddy, a confidant, the troubled students are in the untenable position of being isolated at the same time that they are being molded to conform to a group-think mentality.

Result: psychological disconnectedness and susceptibility to neuroses.

Academia’s adoption of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States provides a leftist focus on the exploitation of the majority by the “elite white population.” White privilege has become the accusation du jour, creating a dangerous intolerance for whites, America’s foundational documents and principles. Several private schools nationwide have begun segregating their white students, encoding them to believe they have unfairly benefited from their whiteness at the expense of other races; students of color are receiving praise and rewards, not for excellence, but for their skin. Harvard is now being sued by Students for Fair Admissions for its nonacceptance of qualified Asians and white males, the same kind of discrimination and stereotyping used to disqualify Jewish applicants in the 1920s and 1930s. Additionally, white teachers are being challenged about their own cultural competence.

Result: divisiveness, a pervading but undefinable burden of guilt leading to the losses of pride, belief system, and self-assurance.

Intersectionality: politics of strife

The comparatively new concept, called “Intersectionality,” has been introduced. A student may claim victimhood, anger, blame, and failure on the basis of skin color, gender, religion, country of origin, heritage, and any combination or number thereof for more status.

Academia and the Left have now bestowed on every race, religion, heritage, and sexual orientation the psychological reasons for injury to their self-esteem, to stir hatred toward others or inwardly toward themselves. Whites have been classified as the enemy to the degree that white students are riddled with guilt and white educators are being singled out as “troublesome” and unqualified to teach students of another color.

Result: inadequacies on several levels, conflict and confusion from the clash between reality and new indoctrination.

If that were not enough, where parents rebelled against the schools, the schools may now institute Jeb Bush’s new kind of depersonalized training, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, that keeps the students at their computers, sans accommodations for higher or lower achievers or interaction with teachers and peers. Conversation, analysis and discussion are deterred, leading to group-think and loss of emotional ties, and the graduates earn watered-down degrees with little labor-market value.

Result: loneliness, joblessness, idleness, depression.

With best friendships discouraged and sexual differences devalued, textbooks teach that promiscuity is acceptable, that biological sex is meaningless and fluid, and that sex change is plausible.

Result: loss of identity from gender destruction.

The proverbial floor is being pulled out from under these children who are experiencing increased seclusion, fears and anxieties, without a friend or parental support system. The young and vulnerable are defenseless against the multi-pronged attacks issued by their teachers and professors. So, can anyone wonder that the suicide rate has increased, doubled for boys and tripled for girls?

Result: escape by self-destruction.

Now ask yourself, “Why?”

06/29/18

Stunningly Moving Music Video Release July 4th

For Immediate Release
Contact Mary Parker: [email protected] / 304-359-5691 /
Robert Kirk: [email protected] / 951-473-7477

Stunningly Moving Music Video Release July 4th

The UK Guardian proclaimed black conservative activist and singer/songwriter Lloyd Marcus to be the most prominent African-American of the Tea Party movement. Marcus has spoken and sang at over 500 Tea Party rallies across America. Marcus is renowned for proclaiming himself, “The Unhyphenated American.”

Hollywood film director Robert Kirk has produced a new stunningly moving music video using Marcus’ original song titled, “We Are Americans.”

The release of Marcus’ new “We Are Americans” music video is July 4th: https://youtu.be/FZ_P6bpMlYI

“My fellow Americans my heart goes out for our country. We have fallen away from biblical principles and values which have made America the shining city on a hill. During your July 4th Independence Day celebration, between eating burgers and hot-dogs, please gather your family to enjoy this new 4-minute music video reminding us of who we are as Americans. Happy Independence Day! Thanks and God Bless.” Lloyd Marcus

To interview Lloyd, please contact Mary Parker: [email protected] / 304-359-5691
Robert Kirk: [email protected] / 951-473-7477
http://www.lloydmarcus.com

06/29/18

Commie Bill de Blasio Joins The Marxist Push To ‘Abolish ICE’

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

The new rallying cry from the left is to abolish ICE. It’s part of a Marxist platform that aims to get rid of ICE, police and prisons. I know you won’t be shocked in the least that comrade New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has jumped on the bandwagon for this. But he’s hardly alone. All of this used to be considered far-left, now it’s mainstream liberalism. It’s sheer communism. The left wants open borders and therefore ICE must go. New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Mayor Bill de Blasio have added their support to the cause in the last 24 hours.

“I believe that [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] has become a deportation force … and that’s why I believe you should get rid of it, start over, reimagine it and build something that actually works,” Gillibrand said in a CNN interview Thursday night. California’s Kamala Harris has called for ICE to be terminated as well. “We should abolish ICE,” de Blasio said Friday morning on WNYC radio. There’s a whole list of Democrats calling for this and one of them has entered a bill to actually do away with ICE. It will never go anywhere, but not for lack of trying from the left.

Gillibrand is the first sitting senator to endorse the ‘abolish ICE’ push. She’s considered a potential 2020 presidential contender. I don’t think this is going to help her presidential aspirations. But she’ll find that out herself. De Blasio and Gillibrand join numerous other Democratic candidates, House members, liberal commentators and writers who have fought back against the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policies by calling to gut ICE, which identifies, arrests and deports illegal immigrants inside the United States. They also stop a lot of crime committed by both illegal aliens and refugees coming into the U.S. But they don’t care about that.

If leftists can get rid of ICE, they are that much closer to throwing the borders wide open and allowing everyone in unfettered. They need these people to pad their voter base and to create a permanent political majority to basically take over the United States. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s shocking win against Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-NY) pushed the move into overdrive. It’s also turned the Democratic Party’s leadership on its head. Crowley was supposed to take over for Pelosi. No longer – Ocasio-Cortez is the fresh, new millennial Marxist face of the Democratic Party. She will usher in a wave of young communists that will once and for all shove the Democrats to the far-left permanently.

Ocasio-Cortez emphasized her support for abolishing ICE during her campaign and even protested outside an ICE center in Texas. She had slick propaganda buttons made up that endorsed abolishing ICE as well. “Its extra-judicial nature is baked into the structure of the agency and that is why they are able to get away with black sites at our border, with the separation of children,” the Democrat said in an interview this week. It doesn’t matter that what she says is a lie… it’s their new cause du jour. Ocasio-Cortez is here to raise more than a little hell… Venezuela style.

“As overseen by the Trump administration, ICE operates with virtually no accountability, ripping apart families and holding our friends and neighbors indefinitely in inhumane detention centers scattered across the United States,” the 28 year-old Democrat said. “[I] believes that if we are to uphold civic justice, we must abolish ICE and see to it that our undocumented neighbors are treated with the dignity and respect owed to all people, regardless of citizenship status.”

More from Fox News — the Dems are really lining up on this one:

The focus on ICE comes in the wake of the controversy over the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy, which called for all illegal border crossers to be prosecuted. This in turn led to the separation of families due to longstanding detention rules, until President Trump signed an executive order last week ordering families be detained together.

With that controversy in the headlines, the abolition of ICE — which has long been the purview of far-left sections of the Democratic Party base advocating for open borders and no deportations — has moved from being a slogan on protest placards to an idea being mulled by rumored 2020 hopefuls.

“Every country needs reasonable law enforcement on their borders. ICE is not reasonable law enforcement. ICE is broken, it’s divisive and it should be abolished,” de Blasio tweeted Friday.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo also has come under heavy pressure from the left to call for the elimination of ICE, particularly amid a far-left challenge from actress and activist Cynthia Nixon — who called it a terrorist organization.

And Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., who has been floated as a 2020 Democratic contender, said that the U.S. should consider “starting from scratch” for ICE — though stopped short of calling to abolish it.

In Oregon, Rep. Earl Blumenauer, who voted against the agency’s creation in 2002, doubled down on his opposition in a recent Medium post in which he called for it to be shut down.

“We should abolish ICE and start over, focusing on our priorities to protect our families and our borders in a humane and thoughtful fashion,” he said.

In January, the idea was endorsed by Brian Fallon, a former top aide to 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, and Eric Holder, President Barack Obama’s attorney general.

“ICE operates as an unaccountable deportation force,” Fallon tweeted. “Dems running in 2020 should campaign on ending the agency in its current form.”

And this isn’t limited to deep-blue states either. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) is the guy I mentioned earlier who introduced the bill to abolish the agency that was set up during President George W. Bush’s administration in the wake of 9/11. “I’m introducing legislation that would abolish ICE and crack down on the agency’s blanket directive to target and round up individuals and families,” Pocan said in a statement. “The heartless actions of this abused agency do not represent the values of our nation and the U.S. must develop a more humane immigration system, one that treats every person with dignity and respect.” Yes, and grants citizenship to everyone who comes here period.

Many Republicans see this extreme shift to the left as a political gift. That it may render Democrats unelectable. But given the win of Ocasio-Cortez and other DSA candidates, I’d be very careful to just assume that. That is the way countries are lost to communism. It’s never possible to become a communist country until it happens. Then it’s too late. If you aren’t vigilant and fight creeping Marxism, one day you wake up and you are surrounded by comrades that can’t figure out what just happened. “Based on the last week, Democrats apparently want to campaign on open borders, mass migration, & abolishing ICE,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said on Twitter. “Give them points for honesty. Let’s vote.”

Comrade de Blasio said, “Every country needs reasonable law enforcement on their borders. ICE is not reasonable law enforcement. ICE is broken, it’s divisive and it should be abolished.” What he really means is there should be NO law enforcement. That’s the ‘reasonable’ part of his flawed argument. He joined more than 20 other mayors in traveling to the southern border last week and was turned away from a migrant detention center in Tornillo, Texas. “This is our federal government denying access, and not allowing information, and it’s not America. It’s crazy,” de Blasio said as he demonstrated outside Tornillo Migrant Children’s Facility.

What’s crazy is that he’s lying. He knows those facilities are clean and safe. The children have soft, warm beds, hot meals, medical treatment and are provided studies. Their clothes are clean and they are being well cared for. Which is more than you can say of the conditions they came here from. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” de Blasio scoffed. “These are public facilities paid for with taxpayer dollars. How on earth are we not allowed to see what’s happening to these children? It’s astounding, and it feels really un-American.” Why in the world would they just let strange politicians in? These children are already emotionally scarred without leftists posing for propagandic selfies with them.

This needs to be stopped. ICE is a badly needed piece of law enforcement on the border and elsewhere. Communists are getting very brazen here in the U.S. and George Soros is behind a lot of this. I think we should abolish them instead.

06/29/18

The Saudis Won’t Prevent The Next Oil Shock

By: Nick Cunningham | Oilprice.com

Saudi Arabia is starting to panic, and is growing concerned that the growing number of supply disruptions around the world could cause oil prices to spike. Saudi Arabia is moving quickly to head off a supply crunch, aiming to dramatically ramp up production to a record high 11 million barrels per day in July, according to Reuters.

The increase, if it can be pulled off, would be an incredibly rapid ramp up in output, up more than 1 million barrels per day (mb/d) from May levels.

How this plan fits into the latest OPEC+ deal remains to be seen. It was only a few days ago that Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners said that they would add 1 mb/d of supply back onto the market, with many of them acknowledging that, in reality, the figures would be closer to 600,000 bpd because of the inability of so many producers to ratchet up output.

As such, the addition of 1 mb/d from Saudi Arabia alone would lead to the OPEC+ group exceeding the production levels they just committed to, after factoring in additions from Russia and other Gulf States.

However, the surge in output does not need to exported, at least not right away. Saudi Arabia could divert extra barrels into storage. Moreover, higher output is needed during summer months anyway because the country burns oil for electricity, which spikes amid hot summer temperatures. So some of the extra production will be consumed domestically.

Still, an industry source told Reuters that the increase in output “will go to the market,” although the details are unclear. Bloomberg reports that shipments from Saudi Arabia to Aramco’s overseas storage facility in Egypt have already been on the rise this month.

“We already mobilized the Aramco machinery, before coming to Vienna,” Saudi oil minister Khalid al-Falih said over the weekend.

The dramatic ramp up in production suggests that Riyadh wants to prevent prices from rising too much. Producing at 11 mb/d will help offset the outages in Libya, Venezuela, Nigeria, Canada and Iran, but it might not be enough. The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday that Washington would take a hardline towards countries importing Iranian oil. The Trump administration expects countries to zero out Iranian oil imports by November 4, and the State Department said it would be unlikely that anyone would be granted a waiver.

That raises the odds of a much more serious outage from Iran than previously expected. Some analysts put the potential outage at 1 mb/d or more. If the U.S. is successful at convincing most countries to stop buying oil from Iran, the outages could rise to as high as 2 mb/d, although that remains speculation.

In another sign of how unpredictable the oil market has become, Kazakhstan lost 240,000 bpd this week, due to an unknown cause.

In this context, Saudi Arabia producing at 11 mb/d is probably needed, and it still might not be enough.

Worse, ramping up to 11 mb/d significantly cuts into available spare capacity. Estimates vary, but Saudi Arabia may have the ability to produce as much as 12.5 mb/d, although perhaps less. That means producing at 11 mb/d leaves only up to 1.5 mb/d of spare capacity. Add in smaller contributions from elsewhere and global spare capacity might only amount to 2 mb/d of supply as of July, or only about 2 percent of total global production. That would be down from about 3.0 to 3.5 mb/d up until recently.

“It basically leaves us with no spare capacity, at a time when Iran isn’t the only issue,” Amrita Sen, chief oil analyst at consultant Energy Aspects Ltd., said in a Bloomberg television interview. “Venezuelan production’s falling, Angola, Libya, Nigeria –there are lots and lots of issues everywhere in the world.”

Unless demand falls back, or some of these outages dissipate, oil prices could be heading much higher.

By Nick Cunningham of Oilprice.com

Link to original article: https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-Saudis-Wont-Prevent-The-Next-Oil-Shock.html

06/29/18

Obama’s Rainbow Conspiracy for a One-Party State

By: Cliff Kincaid | America’s Survival

The unfolding civil war in America is a “Rainbow Conspiracy” of immigrants, Islamists, stoners, and New Agers to overwhelm the conservative coalition, take Congress in 2018, and impeach President Trump. Equally shocking, Colorado’s pro-pot RINO Senator Cory Gardner is refusing to support conservative candidates through the National Republican Senatorial Committee. This is a repeat of the Rainbow Nation South African strategy of forcing whites to flee or die.

06/29/18

Texas State University Anarchist Group – AnMarcos: All Cops Deserve to Die

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

A Texas State University anarchist group named AnMarcos is declaring that all cops “deserve to die.” They also state that “one of the best cures for the crisis at the border, is to remove the border entirely.” One of their Twitter posts flat out says that, “cops drive around LOOKING for trouble.” They are everything you would expect of a leftist, communist group like Antifa and they are not shy in their beliefs. But they are violent and murderous.

According to the Washington Examiner, accompanying the tweet stating that “all cops deserve to die” is a text picture reading, “What I mean when I say ‘all cops are bastards’ is -literally every single cop is complicit and participating in a system designed to uphold the capitalist oligarchy we live under and thus all cops are guilty of that systems sins F**k all cops.” The anarchists call for open borders as well. Sounds like the Democratic playbook these days.

On Facebook, these anarchists are advocating for a “world without capitalists, MLM’s, injustice” and they adhere to “Libertarian Socialist” principles. Let me cut through the bull crap here… they are communists. In February, the group was known as “Athenian Youth” and made a brief appearance on Texas State University’s campus. Texans tend to not tolerate anarchists well. But so far, they are being allowed to do their thing there. Members of the group stood by a small booth bearing both an Antifa flag and the flag of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, a left-wing revolutionary political and militant group, and one figure appeared to be wearing a paramilitary uniform. Freedom fighters my arse.

AnMarcos tweets that all police are “violent thug mercenaries for the ruling capitalist class.” They bluntly said that the police are “our enemy.” Sounds like they are declaring war on the police here. “We of course do not advocate cop killing, as it is true that some of the individuals who are underneath the badge are wonderful people. However, once they put on the badge they become the illegitimate thug for those in power, enacting their laws and whims as they see fit,” a spokesman for AnMarcos stated to Red Alert Politics. They are lying. Other statements they have made not only condone cop killing, they encourage it. What they claim in one instance is different from another.

“It would be more proper to call a police officer a terrorist than many other groups that word is applied to, seeing as they lurk in our communities with the task of instilling fear into the populace and not one iota of ‘serving and protecting’ anyone except the ruling capitalist class,” the spokesman continued. So now all police are terrorists? Sounds like they are justifying going after them doesn’t it? Referring to the police, they said: “They’re our enemy. And yours.”

The anarchists didn’t just save their hatred for police though. They went after all Trump supporters comparing them to Nazis. They even tweeted a pic of a bayonet pointed at a man wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat contrasted with a Nazi, along with the slogan, “We Beat ‘Em Before… We’ll Beat ‘Em Again!” Ah, more communist propaganda. Tis the season. “Yes we do equate the Trump administration and their followers to neo-Nazis, as many of them are explicitly that,” the AnMarcos spokesman told Red Alert Politics, adding, “And some try a step further as calling themselves other things such as ‘conservative, libertarian, ancap, white supremacist, white nationalist, nationalist, American, patriotic.’” This group looks to me to be an offshoot of Antifa. Communists love to form many groups with different names to confuse people, but they are still all communists in the end.

This group is also anti-Israel in the extreme. The group stated “F**K ISRAEL” in another post. AnMarcos is also connected to It’s Going Down. They look to be a growing group and Texas State University would do well to keep an eye on them and eject them from their campus.

06/28/18

For Those That Want To Eliminate ICE, Read This

By: Denise Simon | Founders Code

This operation goes back to at least 2017, where collaboration with several agencies and international programs began to investigate FGM.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) New York Border Enforcement Security Taskforce (BEST), with support from HSI’s Human Rights Violators War Crimes Unit (HRVWCU), has initiated Operation Limelight USA, a pilot program designed to bring awareness to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and deter its practice through training, outreach and enforcement.

This initiative is the U.S.based version of the United Kingdom’s Operation Limelight at Heathrow Airport conducted by the Metropolitan Police Service and Border Force.

The initiative aims to safeguard and prevent young girls from being subjected to FGM by informing passengers traveling to high-prevalence countries about the U.S. laws governing FGM and the potential criminal, immigration, and child protective consequences of transporting a child to another country for the purpose of FGM.

HSI HRVWCU intends to expand Operation Limelight USA to additional airports around the country, focusing on those airports serving the largest FGM- prevalent diaspora communities.

ICE leads effort to prevent female genital mutilation at Newark Airport

NEWARK, NJ – Starting on June 19, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Newark initiated Operation Limelight USA, a program designed to bring awareness to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and prevent young girls from being subjected to FGM by informing passengers traveling to FGM high-prevalence countries about the U.S. laws governing FGM and the potential criminal, immigration, and child protective consequences of transporting a child to another country for the purpose of FGM.

This initiative is the U.S. based version of the United Kingdom’s Operation Limelight at Heathrow Airport conducted by the Metropolitan Police Service and Border Force. The pilot program was initiated at JFK International Airport last year and was incredibly successful. HSI has expanded Operation Limelight USA to additional airports around the country, focusing on those airports serving the largest FGM- prevalent diaspora communities.  The operation at Newark International Airport met with similar success.

“Our aim here is three-fold regarding this brutal practice,” said Brett Dreyer, assistant special in charge, HSI Newark, and who led the efforts for Operation Limelight at JFK Airport last year and at Newark Airport this year. “Enforcement is a key piece here, but so is outreach and prevention. This is why we have partnered with other government agencies, NGOs and, most importantly, survivors and advocates from the community to share knowledge and resources so we may collectively end this practice.”

“U.S. Customs and Border Protection is extremely proud to have assisted in this awareness program,” said Robert E. Perez, director New York Field office.  “It is through collaborative efforts, such as this Female Genital Mutilation Prevention Program, that law enforcement agencies can contribute to the prevention of these serious human rights violations.”

FGM is a serious human rights violation, and a gender-specific form of child abuse. This harmful traditional practice negatively affects millions of women and girls around the world, and is concentrated in thirty-one countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.  FGM provides no health benefits and in fact can cause lifelong consequences including chronic infection, severe complications during childbirth, mental health and even death.

HSI is in a unique position to engage with the traveling public at U.S. borders and ports of entry to focus on the prevention of “vacation cutting”, or sending children out of the United States for the purpose of FGM.  As part of Operation Limelight USA, special agents, who have completed FGM-related training, speak to passengers flying to or from high-risk countries, offering informational brochures and identifying potential victims and violators of FGM. These discussions both educate passengers on the consequences of involvement in FGM and provide passengers with a means by which to refer cases or receive victim assistance.

Additionally, HSI Newark has partnered with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey, NJ state agencies representing children, local health practitioners, community organizations, and survivors in the fight against FGM. These partnerships reflect the necessity for a whole government approach to prevention of FGM.

Federal law, under Title 18 of United States Code (U.S.C.) §116, prohibits individuals from conducting, assisting, attempting or conspiring to conduct FGM in the United States or facilitating the international travel to perform FGM abroad on female children, under age 18.  Additionally, 26 states, including New Jersey, have specifically outlawed FGM, and for the remaining 24 states, FGM would fall under existing child abuse statutes.

In April 2017, an HSI and FBI joint investigation led to the arrest of a Detroit emergency room physician who was charged with performing FGM on girls who were approximately six to eight years of age. This case, which is being prosecuted out of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan, is the first case of an individual facing prosecution in the United States in violation of 18 U.S.C. §116, which criminalizes FGM.

Members of the public who have information about individuals suspected of engaging in human rights abuses, to include FGM, are urged to call the HSI tip line at – 1-866-DHS-2423 (1-866-347-2423). Callers may remain anonymous. To learn more about the assistance available to victims in these cases, the public should contact the confidential victim-witness toll-free number at 1-866-872-4973.  You can learn more about HSI’s mission to enforce federal laws governing border control, customs, trade and immigration to promote homeland security and public safety at www.ICE.gov.