President Trump reversed seven decades of American foreign policy last week when he formally declared Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and announced that the US Embassy will move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. In making the announcement, President Trump said: “Today we finally acknowledge the obvious: that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. This is nothing more or less than a recognition of reality. It is also the right thing to do. It’s something that has to be done.” Despite this announcement, Trump signed another six-month waiver to delay the Embassy’s move as part of the Jerusalem Embassy Act, a law put in place in 1995 that initiated the process of moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem but allows presidents to sign a waiver. Trump administration officials explained that the waiver was signed in order to plan for the move. To that end, President Trump directed the State Department to begin preparing for the move by hiring architects, engineers, and planners so that the new embassy in Jerusalem can be a “magnificent tribute to peace” once completed.
Read moreNew York Times: “US Limits Devices for Passengers on Foreign Airlines From Eight Countries”
The US government has barred passengers on foreign airlines headed to the United States from ten airports in eight majority-Muslim countries from carrying “personal electronic devices (PEDs) larger than a cell phone or smart phone” under a new flight restriction enacted by the Trump administration. Claiming that “intelligence indicates that terrorist groups continue to target commercial aviation, to include smuggling explosive devices in various consumer items,” the new policy states that items including laptop computers, tablets, cameras, travel printers, and games bigger than a phone must be placed in checked baggage and are not permitted in the cabin. As to the definition of “larger than a cell phone,” DHS explains: “The size and shape of smart phones varies by brand. Smartphones are commonly available around the world and their size is well understood by most passengers who fly internationally. Please check with your airline if you are not sure whether your smartphone is impacted.”
Read moreThe Guardian: “Registry used to track Arabs and Muslims dismantled by Obama administration”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced last week that it is dismantling the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS), the outdated and discriminatory registration program that required certain immigrants from twenty-five Muslim-majority, Arab, and South Asian countries to register their presence in the US. The final publication of this DHS rule to fully terminate the NSEERS program is the latest move from the Obama administration to place roadblocks in the way of President-Elect Trump, who has threatened to prevent non-citizen Muslims from entering the US and keep them under surveillance inside the US.
As the Guardian explains, the NSEERS program was “one of the most contentious—and widely hated—elements of the Bush administration’s anti-terror policies in the wake of 9/11. More than 80,000 people from 25 listed countries, 24 of which had majority Muslim or Arab populations, were forced onto the scheme in which they were required to provide fingerprints and a photograph and periodically present themselves for in-person interviews with DHS officers.”
Although about 14,000 of those registered individuals were placed into removal deportation proceedings, none were prosecuted for any terrorist activities. Mohammad Jafar Alam, a member of the South Asian social justice group Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM) which actively campaigned to dismantle NSEEERS, says he knows from personal experience how it affected individuals and families. “The extreme mental, emotional distress, the financial problems, the pressures on a family and the isolation that happens is a punishment not just for one person, but everyone involved,” he tells the Guardian.
Joanne Lin, legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which also strongly opposed NSEERS, says it was a “completely failed counterterrorism program. Out of 80,000 men who registered for it, there was not a single terrorism prosecution, yet it alienated Muslim and South Asian communities across the country.”
After DHS and FBI officials concluded it was discriminatory and ineffective, NSEERS was discontinued in 2011. But since the framework for the registry remained in place, the incoming Trump administration could have easily re-instated the program by putting majority-Muslim countries back onto the list. President-Elect Trump has called for a ban on all non-citizen Muslims entering the US, and he has also said he would enact “extreme vetting” for migrants and immigrants from countries deemed to be a terrorism threat. Kris Kobach, the secretary of state for Kansas and one of the original architects of NSEERS, who has been advising the Trump transition team on immigration and anti-terrorism issues, proposed last month that his priority for the DHS would be to “update and reimplement” the NSEERS program. By fully terminating the NSEERS program, the Obama administration is attempting to force Trump to undergo the formal notice-and-comment rulemaking process to implement a similar program; however, “there are certainly ways the Trump administration could impose this rule or a similar one without going through notice and comment,” American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) President William Stock tells Bloomberg BNA. “I think there will be parts of the Republican Party who will want to overcome this action by the administration,” he says.
In a statement, AILA says the NSEERS program “led to notorious ethnic profiling and civil rights violations.” Additionally, AILA’s members represented thousands of individuals required to register and witnessed how unjust the program was and how it brought shame to law-abiding individuals. Clients who tried to comply and voluntarily appeared for registration were treated like criminals and subjected to aggressive practices, including being handcuffed, denied access to attorneys, and put in detention. AILA Executive Director Benjamin Johnson says:
It is hard to quantify the immense negative impact NSEERS had on the fabric of our nation. It upended the lives of tens of thousands of business owners, scientists, and family members who were lawfully present in the United States, and all the while it failed miserably as a counterterrorism tool…Rescinding the regulation is a recognition that a dark chapter in our country's history can and should be closed, once and for all.
Royce Murray, Policy Director at the American Immigration Council agrees: “While we can all agree that national security must be a priority, the NSEERS registration program was widely regarded as an ineffective and obsolete counterterrorism tool. The next administration should not repeat the mistakes of the past and institute any discriminatory registry.”
Professor Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, director of the Center for Immigrants’ Rights clinic at Pennsylvania State University, believes that rescinding the NSEERS structure will make Trump’s plans more difficult. “At the very least it is going to take time,” she tells the Guardian. “At most it will take a whole lot of time, as it will force the Trump administration to introduce a rule change that could be open to public comment and legal challenge.” Wadhia adds: “This is the best Christmas present I could have asked for."
Humans of New York: Migrant Crisis
As the U.N. General Assembly opens with a strong focus on Syria and the refugee crisis, and Europe and the United States continue to address the ever-growing number of refugees, it’s important to remember the human side of the story behind all the politics. And there are few better photographers for presenting the human side of any story than Humans of New York's Brandon Stanton.
Humans of New York (HONY) was started by the Georgia native when after being fired from his job as a bond trader, he "thought it would be really cool to create an exhaustive catalogue of New York City’s inhabitants, so [he]…set out to photograph 10,000 New Yorkers and plot their photos on a map" but then his project "began to take on a much different character." Stanton started collecting quotes and short stories when he was taking the photographs, and after a lot of hard work and time spent on NYC city streets (he says that he'll "pass 1,000 people before I take a photograph"), his blog took off.
Millions of Different Hardships
With over fifteen million likes on Facebook and a New York Times bestselling book, HONY is one of the most popular street photography sites today. And now Stanton is bringing his unique focus to the refugee crisis gripping the Middle East, North Arica, and Europe. Noting that these migrants “are part of one of the largest population movements in modern history,” Stanton will be documenting their stories and the “millions of different hardships that refugees face as they search for a new home.”
The first story he shares is of Muhammad, who he first met last year in Iraqi Kurdistan. At the time, Muhammad had just fled the war in Syria and was working as a clerk in a hotel when he agreed to work as Stanton’s interpreter. Afterwards Muhammad had planned to travel to the United Kingdom with fake papers, but his plans did not work out. After one family tragedy after another, he makes a harrowing journey and finally ends up in Austria.
Muhammad says:
The first day I was there, I walked into a bakery and met a man named Fritz Hummel. He told me that forty years ago he had visited Syria and he’d been treated well. So he gave me clothes, food, everything. He became like a father to me. He took me to the Rotary Club and introduced me to the entire group. He told them my story and asked: ‘How can we help him?’ I found a church, and they gave me a place to live. Right away I committed myself to learning the language. I practiced German for 17 hours a day. I read children’s stories all day long. I watched television. I tried to meet as many Austrians as possible. After seven months, it was time to meet with a judge to determine my status. I could speak so well at this point, that I asked the judge if we could conduct the interview in German. He couldn’t believe it. He was so impressed that I’d already learned German, that he interviewed me for only ten minutes. Then he pointed at my Syrian ID card and said: ‘Muhammad, you will never need this again. You are now an Austrian!’
New stories are being added every day.
Where the Children Sleep
Along with HONY, Swedish photographer Magnus Wennman is also currently documenting the refugee crisis with a strong focus on the individual stories of the people involved. In “Where the Children Sleep,” Wennman focuses on the migrant children sleeping on streets and in forests. He notes that “two million children are fleeing the war, within and outside of the country borders. They have left their friends, their homes, and their beds behind. A few of these children offered to show where they sleep now, when everything that once was no longer exists.”