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Trump Intends Ending Diversity Immigration Program |
| By
Stephen Lendman |
| In response to Tuesday’s violent Manhattan incident, Trump tweeted: “The
United States will be immediately implementing much tougher Extreme Vetting
Procedures. The safety of our citizens comes first!” Separately, he said “(w)e want to get rid of chain migration, and we’ve wanted to do that for a long time and I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time and we’ll be asking Congress to start working on it immediately. We need to get rid of this lottery program as soon as possible.” He claimed Manhattan incident suspect Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov immigrated through the diversity lottery program - wanting illegal collective punishment imposed on all other aspirants, using what happened near the site of the Twin Towers as a phony pretext. Calling Saipov an “animal, he’ll consider sending him to Guantanamo, he added. Saipov is Uzbek, the official language, Russian also spoken. Yet the note allegedly found in his truck expressing sympathy with ISIS was written in Arabic, an obvious red flag. The Diversity Immigrant Visa program, aka the green card lottery, was congressionally authorized by the 1990 Immigration Act, run by the State Department. Under the program, 50,000 permanent resident visas are made available to aspiring immigrants - selected from countries with low immigration rates over the past five years. To qualify, aspirants must have completed at least two years of high school and have two years or more of work experience in an occupation requiring at least two more years of training or experience. They must also be in good health, have no criminal background, and satisfy other immigration requirements. Visas are distributed among six regions: Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America (including Central America and Mexico), North America and Oceania. No single country may receive more than 7% of visas distributed. Trump wants the program ended, perhaps coming with Republicans controlling Congress. He considers Saipov an enemy combatant, according to White House press secretary Sarah Sanders. In court papers filed, he was charged with terrorism, violence, and destruction of a motor vehicle. Federal authorities claimed he planned the attack a year ago, based on what evidence, if any, isn’t clear. Individuals earlier designated “unlawful enemy combatants” are now called “unprivileged enemy belligerents,” applying to anyone engaging in hostilities against America or allies, supports hostilities, or was part of a designated terrorist organization when captured. Targeted individuals are in legal limbo, considered guilty by accusation. They can be placed in military custody, denied Miranda rights and legal counsel - their constitutional and international law rights ignored. Designating anyone an unlawful enemy combatant or unprivileged enemy belligerent constitutes a fundamental miscarriage of justice. Legitimacy and justification take a back seat to whatever US officials wish to do. All too often, innocent victims are unjustly called terrorists, brutally treated, indefinitely detained, denied due process and judicial fairness. The Fifth Amendment states: “No person shall…be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” The 14th Amendment reads: No “State (may) deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” A climate of fear and intimidation persists in America, a bipartisan conspiracy against peace, equity and justice. Discarding legal principles reflects the worst elements of police state rule. Francis Boyle earlier explained that the unlawful enemy combatant designation was “resurrected (from) a long-defunct World War II era legal category, superseded by the four Geneva Conventions. He described GW Bush’s actions as “creat(ing) an anti-matter of legal nihilism where human beings (including US citizens) can be disappeared, detained incommunicado, denied access to attorneys and regular courts, tried in kangaroo courts, executed, tortured, assassinated and subjected to numerous other manifestations of State Terrorism.” That’s the black hole where Saipov now exists. He’ll likely never get a chance to publicly explain his side of the Tuesday Manhattan incident. Numerous other convenient patsies were falsely blamed for crimes they didn’t commit. Is Saipov the latest high-profile Muslim victim of US injustice? VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III." http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html |