Obama Grants Temporary Protected Status to Haitians

Obama was more active in his first year than any other president in my memory. As such, I'm not surprised that President Obama took immediate action to extend temporary protected status (TPS) to Haitians living in the U.S. This designation allows relatives living here to financially contribute to their loved ones back in Haiti.

Secretary of State Clinton and Secretary of Homeland Security Napolitano and a number of Members of Congress urgently requested temporary protected status (TPS) for Haitian immigrants and an end to discriminatory maritime interdictions. The Obama administration responded by granting temporary protected status (TPS) to Haitians in the U.S.

Take a moment to thank President Obama for making this change that could positively impact as many as 100,000 Haitians!

And use this opportunity to urge him to rescind the interdiction-at-sea policy that could return fleeing Haitians to potentially dangerous conditions, in flagrant violation of international law.

Do You Think That Erroll Southers is 'Dead Man Walking' in Washington DC?

Seven Senate Republicans sent a letter to the White House yesterday, saying that they had "serious reservations" about the nomination of Erroll Southers to lead the Transportation Security Administration. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) also "placed a hold on the nomination, pending the White House response to the senators' questions." Southers' nomination had previously been held up by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC).

Southers is under fire for making two mistakes. First, he abused his powers to spy on an ex-boyfriend of his wife:

Southers first described the episode in his October affidavit, telling the Senate panel that two decades ago he asked a San Diego Police Department employee to access confidential criminal records about the boyfriend. Southers said he had been censured by superiors at the FBI. He described the incident as isolated and expressed regrets about it.

Second, he lied about it:

The committee approved his nomination Nov. 19. One day later, Southers wrote to Lieberman and Collins saying his first account was incorrect. After reviewing documents, he wrote, he recalled that he had twice conducted the database searches himself, downloaded confidential law enforcement records about his wife's boyfriend and passed information on to the police department employee, the letter said.

Ain't it always the case that the cover-up is worse than the underlying crime? Anyhow, what do you think about Erroll Southers ... will he become head of TSA? Or will he become a casualty of the political warfare in Washington DC?

Immigration Detention: 'Jailed Without Justice'

I encourage villagers to join with Amnesty International to call on the Department of Homeland Security to make U.S. immigration detention standards enforceable, and to use alternatives to detention in a meaningful way.

Over 30,000 immigrants are detained EVERY DAY. This is triple the number detained just ten years ago. Immigrants can be detained for months or years without any meaningful judicial review - this despite international human rights standards requiring judicial review.

Amnesty International has a 56-page report, entitled Jailed Without Justice that shares horrific stories of detention abuse and mismanagement here in the United States. For example, Mr. N, a Buddhist monk, fled to the U.S. after he was tortured in Tibet for his religious beliefs. When he arrived in New York, he was immediately detained and never had a chance to argue for his case before a judge. After 10 months in detention, he was finally granted asylum.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) could issue new regulations that would quickly solve many of these problems. But instead, just three weeks ago, the office in charge of these policies testified before Congress that it plans to detain almost a hundred thousand more immigrants this year than last.

Villagers, please tell Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano that this is wrong and that she should take steps to fix this flawed system.

What say u?