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LOLOL And who is the most honest one of the pair. Or at least the most honest when it comes to the flying of flags.
100%!!! That's the best. Thanks for the reminder, and a more recent
mention of the intelligence of that one, and of it's fellow wrasse
Underwater and underrated: the truth behind fish intelligence
[...] A cleaner wrasse can remember and recognise more than 100 individual clients and prioritise them according to residential status, dealing with outsiders first because it knows that locals will stick around but outsiders may seek another station if service isn’t fast enough.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174503754
I have the evidence presented in the case. 99% of all your posts are simply rhetoric, so there you go again - projection.
B402, To every impartial observer in the world Trump is guilty as charged. You have nothing but partisan and super jaundiced blah blah.
Are you really still claiming Alito and Thomas are not bent?
Alito says the Supreme Court’s fake ethics code allows him to be unethical
"The Impartial Jurist - Tom Tomorrow"
The Supreme Court's new ethics code is worse than nothing — Alito just proved it.
by Ian Millhiser
May 30, 2024, 6:00 AM GMT+10
Justice Samuel Alito Alex Wong/Getty Images
Ian Millhiser is a senior correspondent at Vox, where he focuses on the Supreme Court, the Constitution,
and the decline of liberal democracy in the United States. He received a JD from Duke
University and is the author of two books on the Supreme Court.
In a development that should surprise absolutely no one, Justice Samuel Alito announced in a brief letter on Wednesday that he will not recuse .. https://fixthecourt.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Alito-letter-to-House-5.29.24.pdf .. himself from two cases involving the January 6 insurrection and former President Donald Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 election.
Alito faced widespread calls for his recusal, including from many Democratic members of Congress, after the New York Times reported that flags associated with the movement to overturn President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory .. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/28/us/justice-alito-neighbors-stop-steal-flag.html .. flew outside his Virginia home and his New Jersey vacation home. His letter announcing that he will not recuse is addressed to many members of the US House who called for him to withdraw from the two cases.
Alito is the Court’s most reliable Republican partisan .. https://www.vox.com/scotus/350339/samuel-alito-republican-party-scotus , and he routinely makes statements from the bench and in his published opinions that are far less ambiguously partisan than, say, the upside-down American flag that flew outside his house in Virginia.
Two things are still notable about the letter, however. One is that Alito blames both flags on his wife, Martha-Ann, (“My wife is fond of flying flags. I am not,” he wrote) and claims that he asked his wife to take down the upside-down flag, “but for several days, she refused .. https://fixthecourt.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Alito-letter-to-House-5.29.24.pdf .”
The second is that Alito rests his legal argument on an almost entirely unenforceable code of ethics that the Supreme Court released in 2023 .. https://www.vox.com/scotus/2023/11/14/23960027/supreme-court-new-ethics-code-clarence-thomas-unenforceable . The recusal rules in that effectively nonbinding ethics code are far less stringent than a federal law governing judicial recusals, which applies to the Supreme Court .. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/455 .
Last November, when the Court released this ethics code, I described it as “worse than nothing .. https://www.vox.com/scotus/2023/11/14/23960027/supreme-court-new-ethics-code-clarence-thomas-unenforceable .” The code is almost entirely unenforceable, and it codifies weak restrictions on justices accepting gifts.
Yet it turns out that I was not cynical enough. I did not anticipate that a justice would cite unenforceable provisions of the Court’s internal ethics code to effectively nullify the justices’ obligations under a more stringent federal law. But that’s exactly what Alito did.
How the Court’s fake ethics code differs from the federal recusal law
The federal statute governing judicial recusals begins with a fairly straightforward declarative sentence: “Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned .. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/455 .” Notably, this statute applies not just to lower court judges — who actually are bound by a separate ethics code .. https://www.vox.com/scotus/2023/11/14/23960027/supreme-court-new-ethics-code-clarence-thomas-unenforceable — but also to “any justice.” Justice Alito is a justice.
In his letter refusing to recuse, however, Alito does not even mention this federal statute. Instead, he spends nearly the entire letter explaining why he is not required to recuse himself under the much weaker standard announced in the Court’s own unenforceable ethics code.
That standard begins with a presumption against recusal: “A justice is presumed impartial and has an obligation to sit unless disqualified .. https://fixthecourt.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Alito-letter-to-House-5.29.24.pdf .” It uses weaker language to describe when justices should recuse themselves — stating that a justice “should” recuse when their impartiality reasonably can be questioned, not that a justice “shall” recuse. And it qualifies the obligation to recuse by stating that the duty to recuse is only triggered when a “reasonable person who is aware of all relevant circumstances would doubt that the Justice could fairly discharge his or her duties.”
So, while the federal statute begins with a declarative statement that justices are sometimes required to remove themselves from certain cases, the Court’s own code begins with a statement that justices typically have an “obligation” not to recuse themselves. And the Court’s unenforceable code also states that a justice can be relieved of his duty to recuse if there are “relevant circumstances” that the public may not be aware of.
And so Alito spends much of his letter laying out what he claims these relevant circumstances are. Among other things, he points to the fact that he and his wife “own our Virginia home jointly,” giving her a “legal right to use the property as she sees fit.” He also mentions that Martha-Ann purchased the New Jersey home “with money she inherited from her parents” and that the house is “titled in her name.”
Regardless of whether anyone is likely to find this explanation persuasive, Alito mentions these facts solely to argue that he is not bound to recuse under the Court’s weak internal ethics code. Because the federal statute is also binding on “any justice,” he also had an obligation to, at the very least, explain why he was not bound to recuse himself under this more stringent law.
Alito’s letter also exposes another weakness in the Court’s internal code. Suppose that a news outlet had discovered that a lower court judge flew an inappropriately political flag outside of their home, and the judge tried to dodge a request for recusal by pointing out that the flag was flown by their spouse. A federal trial judge’s decision not to recuse could be appealed .. https://www.vox.com/scotus/2023/11/14/23960027/supreme-court-new-ethics-code-clarence-thomas-unenforceable .. to a federal circuit court, and a circuit judge’s decision not to recuse could be appealed to the Supreme Court.
Thus, the rules governing federal judges who do not serve on the Supreme Court ensure that a judge asked to recuse from a matter will not have the final decision-making authority in their own case.
An official commentary attached to the Court’s internal code, by contrast, states that “individual Justices, rather than the Court, decide recusal issues .. https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/Code-of-Conduct-for-Justices_November_13_2023.pdf .” So Alito has the final word on whether Alito has behaved ethically, and on whether he is relieved of his obligation to recuse because his wife bought their vacation home with her inheritance.
It was clear the day that the Court released its internal code that it wouldn’t have much impact on the justices’ behavior, in large part because most of the provisions of this code have no enforcement mechanism. But Alito’s letter reveals something much more worrisome about the code: It apparently will be used by the justices to justify ignoring their obligations under federal law.
https://www.vox.com/scotus/352380/supreme-court-alito-ethics-recusal-insurrection-flags
B402, Still supporting the lawbreaker and bent judges. Seems you are incapable of change.
And gangsterish .. lol this is good .. SHARK TALE Clips - "Gangster Shark" (2004)
Ponyo
Their lives could be more interesting to them than we think. It would be even more
interesting to learn whether or not, in any way, they understand their sex change.
"Good to know that some fish have sex changes to keep their lives interesting..."
Underwater and underrated: the truth behind fish intelligence
Scientists are finding plenty of clues that fish are more intelligent than anyone imagined.
By Peter Meredith • 8 January 2020
[...]
Fish diversity is mind-boggling. There are thought to be at least 65,000 vertebrate species alive today and of these more than half – 33,000 – are fish. They inhabit every conceivable aquatic niche, with total numbers of individuals in the trillions.
But despite their pedigree and evolutionary success, fish have an image problem. Humans tend to equate ancient with primitive, clinging to an obsolete view of evolution as a steady progression from inferior to advanced, with highly intelligent humans at the pinnacle. But that’s turning out to be a highly simplistic reading of the facts.
The similarities between fish and humans
[...]
“The hormones are the same; the neurons are the same; brain structure is very similar. People tend to focus on how different we are, but the scientific reality is that we’re actually very, very similar. The idea of higher and lower, primitive and advanced, doesn’t exist in evolutionary terms – we’re just another animal among the diversity. I fundamentally disagree with the idea that humans are the best and that you can only be intelligent if you’re similar to a human.”
Fish may seem dumb to us because their expressionless faces make them look dumb and uncommunicative. But that’s partly because we don’t understand the signals they give out. It takes much watching to become familiar with those signals, as scuba divers and owners of pet fish can testify.
We also seem to be unduly influenced by a perception that small brains must be primitive. On a scientific level, it’s a misconception that because the fish brain lacks a cortex – which in humans is responsible for perceiving, producing and understanding language – it must necessarily be incapable of performing many of the tasks of a human cortex. But Culum argues that the human cortex has taken on a huge number of roles that were once the domain of other brain regions. After all, a small brain and lack of a cortex hasn’t prevented many birds from becoming super-smart. Why should fish be any different?
Then there’s brain lateralisation,...
[...]
An aspect of intelligence that has long interested Culum has been the way fish learn and remember. One experiment he did on rainbowfish, a popular aquarium species endemic to Australia and Papua New Guinea, involved a net that moved from one end of a fish tank to the other. The net had a single hole in it; to avoid getting trapped, the fish needed to find the hole quickly.
It took them only five goes to master the test. Furthermore, larger groups did better than smaller ones, suggesting they learn from each other via a process known as social learning. And, even though rainbowfish live for only two years, the test fish still remembered the skill 11 months later.
Social learning and memory are essential for any creature living in a large, complex-social group. Fish can spend most of their lives in shoals or schools. They must learn and memorise their shoal’s structure, remember their status within it and be able to recognise kin and familiars.
Having social learning allows the potential for transferring information between individuals and also between generations, leading to the development of ‘cultural traits’ or ‘traditions’ that can persist over time, Culum says. Regular migration routes are examples. Northern Hemisphere cod have been moving to new spawning grounds in recent years, perhaps because commercial fishing has removed older individuals that remember traditional routes, depleting the species’ cultural knowledge.
Most fish activity involves moving through the environment. Long return journeys demand finely tuned spatial learning and memory that can generate mental maps featuring recognisable features in the environment. Without them fish wouldn’t be able to find their way around.
Fish also display some of the most remarkable examples of cooperation between species in the animal kingdom. One of the best examples involves cleaner wrasse. These fish, typically less than 20cm long, make a meal of parasites and bits of dead skin on the bodies of larger, often predatory, ‘client’ fishes. Cleaners operate at fixed ‘cleaning stations’ on coral outcrops. Clients that gather there are of varying species. A cleaner wrasse can remember and recognise more than 100 individual clients and prioritise them according to residential status, dealing with outsiders first because it knows that locals will stick around but outsiders may seek another station if service isn’t fast enough.
Occasionally a cleaner is tempted to ignore the usual menu items and instead bites off a mouthful of tasty and nutritional mucus from a client. The client may flinch at this and swim off ‘in a huff’ while the cleaner, anxious not to lose a customer, swims after it and placates it with a soothing back rub delivered with its pelvic and pectoral fins, in what Culum describes as a striking example of social intelligence.
Another example of cooperation between species involves groupers and giant moray eels, which team up for hunting expeditions. A grouper seeking a hunting partner will entice a moray out of its cavity with specific ‘come hunt with me’ signals. Then the pair sets off, the eel flushing prey from crevices, while the grouper uses its speed to snap up the meals that they share.
A moray and a grouper prepare to hunt together. A grouper can invite a moray to hunt by using either a distinctive ‘hunt with me’ body shimmy or a headstand signal that points towards hidden prey. . Image: Reinhard Dirscherl/Getty
All this involves cognitive complexity on several levels: the deliberate communication between the two to set up the hunt; the different roles they play; and the subsequent sharing of food.
With many scientific studies now pointing to fish being highly intelligent, we face awkward ethical and moral questions about our treatment of them. Remember, they are our among our most numerous food sources and commonly used as pets and laboratory test subjects. Do they suffer and feel pain in these interactions with us? If so, shouldn’t we try to minimise their suffering by granting them the same animal welfare rights we grant other creatures such as livestock, dogs and cats?
In a 2015 paper in the journal Animal Cognition, Culum argued that there is no doubt fish have the ability to perceive pain.
“It would be impossible for fish to survive as cognitively and behaviourally complex animals without a capacity to feel pain,” he wrote. “Feeling pain and responding appropriately…are clearly critical to survival.”
The incredible collective behaviour of fish
[...]
“The collective behaviour of fish is mathematically very similar to the collective behaviour of certainly birds, certainly krill, certainly sheep, and perhaps humans too,” he says.
Collective decision-making within a group – for instance, about the direction a shoal should turn – is something else Ashley has studied. He’s found that the bigger the group, the faster and better its decision-making.
There’s safety in numbers for this shoal of bigeye trevally. Scientists have found that the bigger a shoal,
the more it confuses predators and therefore the safer it is for individual fish. As well, collective
decision-making is faster. Image: Reinhard Dirscherl / Alamy Stock Photo
“I’ve attended endless tedious academic meetings, and inevitably the larger the meeting, the longer it takes to get resolution. If group-living animals were paralysed by increasing group size, group-living simply wouldn’t work,” he says.
Ashley has found the same phenomenon across a range of fish. Collecting, integrating and acting on information doesn’t require each individual to have its own say or to object. The process is achieved in a smooth, non-vocal way and the result is dramatic to watch.
“Where that talks to fish intelligence is in the ability of each individual in the group to act as a part of the whole, to integrate into the group, perform a function and rely on others to perform other functions, but still do it effectively,” Ashley explains.
He has no doubt fish are intelligent and capable of highly sophisticated behaviour, but he keeps an open mind on whether they feel pain or suffer in the sense we understand. Even so, he’s in favour of an animal welfare approach, especially with commercial fishing, laboratory animals and pets. He adds that there can be few things worse for a shoaling fish than being alone in a small, featureless container: “If you put a single herring in a tub, it dies of loneliness, of the sheer stress of the situation.”
Do fish feel pain?
https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2020/01/underwater-and-underrated-the-truth-behind-fish-intelligence/
Why Don't Unauthorized Migrants Come Here Legally?
"Who Seeks Asylum in the United States and Why? Some Preliminary Answers from a Boston-Based Study
"ALDRADJKD123, Trump’s Border Policies Let More Immigrants Sneak In"
United States Conference of Catholic BishopsMigration and Refugee Services Migration Policy and Public Affairs
Issue Briefing Series, Issue #1
Why Don't They Come Here Legally?
In the fractious debate surrounding both legal and illegal immigration to the United States, politicians, the public, and pundits alike eventually cycle back to one fundamental question – why don't they come here legally? Why don't the estimated 11.1 million unauthorized immigrants presently in the United States stand in line with the rest of the immigrants seeking to enter lawfully? If our ancestors did it, why can't they?
In the United States today, there are an estimated 11.1 million unauthorized immigrants.(i) Sixty percent of these immigrants are from Mexico.(ii) Another 20 percent are from other Latin American countries.(iii) Eleven percent comes from South and East Asia.(iv) Combined, unauthorized workers comprise more than five percent of the U.S. workforce.(v)
Many understandably ask why these millions of unauthorized immigrants did not seek to come to the United States lawfully. Some argue that if their ancestors could do it, so should the unauthorized immigrants in our country today.
Many of our ancestors didn't actually come here through federal "legal" channels – there weren't restrictive federal immigration laws in place at the time
Yet, until the 1870's, the federal government did virtually nothing to restrict immigration to the United States. In most cases, immigrants who arrived to the United States in search of work or a new life simply settled in the country and became citizens after a period of time.vi In 1875, Congress passed the Page Law, restricting immigration of women engaged in polygamy and prostitution, with enforcement provisions particularly focused on Chinese women.(vii) Seven years later, in 1882, Congress promulgated the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, restricting immigration of Chinese laborers.(viii) Congress eventually expanded these restrictions on Chinese immigration to exclude Asian immigrants generally.(ix) However, immigration by those arriving from non-Asian countries was not significantly restricted until the 1920's, by which time many of our immigrant ancestors had already arrived. Indeed, during that period immigration from various parts of the world to the United States was widespread; by 1870, forty percent of the residents of New York, Chicago, and other major metropolitan areas, were foreign-born.(x)
In 1921, beginning with the Emergency Quota Act, the United States began to restrict immigration through the use of national origins quotas.(xi) The quota system was restructured multiple times in subsequent years, leaving some regions of the world at a disadvantage at certain points.(xii) In 1965, amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 abolished the quota system, prioritizing instead family-based immigration.xiii Subsequent immigration laws have been increasingly restrictive. For instance, in 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) was passed to control and deter unlawful immigration to the United States, making it unlawful to knowingly hire unauthorized immigrants and increasing border enforcement.(xiv) Ten years later, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA) created penalties for those who had been "unlawfully present" in the country, establishing three and ten year bars to lawful reentry.(xv)
Today's unauthorized immigrants would prefer to live and work lawfully in the United States if they could.
Moreover, according to two well-regarded opinion surveys of unauthorized immigrants in the United States, the large majority of those unauthorized in the country today would have preferred to enter lawfully if they could have. In fact, some 98 percent of those surveyed indicated that they would prefer to live and work lawfully, rather than in unauthorized status.(xvi)
Under current laws, no "line" for lawful immigration to the United States actually exists for the majority of our immigrants.
So, why didn't they just "stand in line" to do so? For the large majority of unauthorized immigrants, no such "line" exists. Under the current immigration legal framework, lawful immigration to the United States is restricted to only a few narrow categories of persons.xvii Most current unauthorized immigrants residing in the United States are ineligible to enter legally with a "green card" as a lawful permanent resident for the purpose of living and working in the country. This is because most do not have the family relationships required to apply for lawful entry; they do not qualify as asylees because of economic hardship as such status is available only to those who are fleeing persecution; and the majority of the unauthorized do not hold advanced degrees and work in the high-skilled professions that would qualify them for work-sponsored lawful permanent residency.
U.S. immigration laws provide three core means by which an immigrant may obtain lawful permanent residency.(xviii) First, a qualified family member in the United States may petition to bring a foreign-born family member to the country lawfully. U.S. Citizens may petition for lawful permanent residency for their spouses, parents, children or siblings. Lawful Permanent Residents in the country may petition for their foreign-born spouses and unmarried children. To do so, sponsors must demonstrate an income level above poverty line and must commit to financially support the sponsored, foreign-born family member so that they do not become a public charge. The foreign-born immigrant, in turn, must meet all other eligibility requirements.(xix) However, there are numeric limitations on most of these family-based categories, resulting in backlogs for entry that often range anywhere from five years to nearly 20 years.
Second, immigrants fleeing political persecution or a well-founded fear of future persecution on account of their race, religion, membership in a particular social group, political opinion or national origin may seek political asylum in the United States or qualify for refugee status. To do so, they must meet a high evidentiary burden. Even if they do qualify for refugee status, there is an annual cap on the number of refugee admissions to the United States, which is set annually and is typically between 70,000 and 80,000.(xx) Most of today's unauthorized immigrants are fleeing poverty in their home countries, not political persecution. As a result, they do not qualify for asylum.
Third, and significantly, there are various immigration categories for workers to be sponsored by a U.S.-based employer to come to the United States to work and live lawfully. However, these categories are limited to multinational executives and professors; those with advance degrees, the exceptional in the arts, sciences or business; and narrowly-defined, specialized workers.xxi Today's unauthorized immigrants are largely low-skilled workers who come to the United States for work to support their families. They work in the agricultural, meatpacking, landscaping, services, and construction industries in the United States. They fill the ranks of U.S. businesses, large and small throughout the country. Over the past several decades, the demand by U.S. businesses for low-skilled workers has grown exponentially, while the supply of available workers for low-skilled jobs in the United States has diminished.(xxii) Yet, there are only 5,000 green cards available annually for low-skilled workers to enter the United States lawfully.(xxiii) This number stands in stark contrast to the estimated 300,000 immigrants who enter the United States unlawfully each year, most of whom are looking for work.(xxiv) The only alternative to this is to secure a temporary work visa through the H-2A (seasonal agricultural) or H2B (seasonal non-agricultural) visa programs which provide temporary status to low-skilled workers seeking to enter the country lawfully. While H-2A visas are not numerically capped, the requirements are onerous. H-2B visas are capped at 66,000 annually. Both only provide temporary status to work for a U.S. employer for one year.(xxv) At their current numbers, these are woefully insufficient to provide legal means for the foreign-born to enter the United States to live and work, and thereby meet our demand for foreign-born labor.
The Catholic Church believes that current immigration laws must be reformed to meet our country's need for low-skilled labor and facilitate the reunification of families.
The Catholic Church believes that immigrants should come to the United States lawfully, but it also understands that the current immigration legal framework does not adequately reunify families and is non-responsive to our country's need for labor. Our country must pass immigration reform laws to ensure the rule of law in the United States, while simultaneously ensuring that the laws that rule are responsive to our economy's demand for labor, rooted in the reunification of family, and respectful of the humanity of the immigrants in our midst. The Church supports immigration reform that would increase the number of visas available for low-skilled workers and facilitate family reunification.
Footnotes
https://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/immigration/whydonttheycomeherelegally
Who Seeks Asylum in the United States and Why? Some Preliminary Answers from a Boston-Based Study
"ALDRADJKD123, Trump’s Border Policies Let More Immigrants Sneak In"
Nina Sreshta, Nikhil “Sunny” A. Patel, Robert P. Marlin, and J. Wesley Boyd
April 1, 2021 Social Justice
Introduction
The world is in the midst of a crisis of displacement; last year 44,000 people worldwide were forcibly displaced from their homes on a daily basis and, by the end of 2017, the total number of displaced individuals was almost 68.5 million. [1]
[insert: The 2024 budget of $10.622 billion is designed to enable UNHCR and its partners to provide life-saving protection, assistance and solutions in new and existing displacement situations to a projected planning figure of 130.8 million forcibly displaced and stateless people.
https://reporting.unhcr.org/global-appeal-2024
So that's roughly double the number of 7 years ago. And it's clear that anyone not expecting more at all borders of 'most attractive countries' is living in la la land. Clearly Boebert, MTG, and others of similar silly 'open border' comment (yeah like conix and our other trolls) , are already there.]/i]
Refugees are defined as persons who are “unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion.” [2] Refugees receive this status prior to entering the US and, by contrast, asylum seekers apply for this designation after arrival in the US, no matter the means by which they entered the country. Seeking asylum is both completely legal in the US and also accepted internationally as one of the fundamental rights owed to all human beings irrespective of religion, country of origin, race, gender, or any other quality. [3]
With these realities as a backdrop, the current presidential administration has been engaged in a war against immigrants and asylum seekers. Trump has famously and repeatedly promised to build a wall on the southern border of the US and has vowed to sharply reduce legal immigration. He has sought to prevent immigrants from requesting asylum and to prevent the children of immigrants who are born in the US from becoming citizens. Many children have been separated from their families at the border, and in some instances future reunification of families might be impossible. [4]
[Australia has it's "stolen Generation" See [Tearex, RON WITTON. Zionism and Terra Nullius: a haunting parallel between Israel and Australia
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=148791991]
Also inserted in this of 2018 and worth reading again
In China’s Crackdown on Muslims, Children Have Not Been Spared
"‘Absolutely No Mercy’: Leaked Files Expose How China Organized Mass Detentions of Muslims
"China’s Retort Over Its Mass Detentions: Praise From Russia and Saudi Arabia
"Searching for truth in China's Uighur 're-education' camps"""
December 2019 - https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=153023018]
America too, i guess, Indian children in days gone. And it appears you could have a few more from the Trump program"
Some of these children who are separated from their families have been forcibly medicated with powerful psychiatric drugs. [5] Additionally, against decades of legal precedent, last year then Attorney General Jeff Sessions ruled that fleeing domestic or gang violence would no longer constitute reasons to qualify someone to receive asylum here. [6]
In defending these and similar actions, Trump has stated that, “American families deserve an immigration system that puts their needs first and that puts America first.” [7] Inherent in this statement is the notion that immigrants pose a threat to the safety and economic security of American citizens. Additionally, there is often an underlying assumption that conditions in their home countries really aren’t so bad and that sending them home is innocuous for these individuals.
But are these feelings and assumptions correct? In what follows, we undertake to answer these questions in two ways. First, we will examine the characteristics of individuals seen in one faculty-led asylum clinic within a community-based, academic psychiatry department in the greater Boston area who are seeking legal status here in the US. That analysis will provide some preliminary data about a subset of asylum seekers. We will then also examine what is known broadly about asylum seekers and then argue that for humanitarian reasons as well as utilitarian ones, the US has an obligation to ensure asylum seekers are treated fairly and legally.
Methods and Results:
Data were extracted from the written reports of evaluations written by one of the authors (JWB) from asylum seekers who had a psychiatric evaluation through the authors’ hospital’s asylum clinic between 2009 and 2017. A variety of demographic were abstracted from evaluation review, including comprehensive data regarding individuals’ motivations for fleeing their country of origin and fears for persecution and/or death if individuals were forced to return. These data were tabulated and analyzed using Microsoft Excel ® software. Data were presented as mean ± standard deviation and as percentages. The study was approved by the Cambridge Health Alliance Institutional Review Board.
The number of male and female asylum seekers was approximately equal. (See Table 1.) The ages of asylum seekers ranged from the youngest, who was 8 years of age, to the oldest, who was 54 years of age, and the average of the entire cohort was 30 ± 10 years of age. The median amount of time that individuals had been in the US prior to their evaluations was 3 years. Nine individuals had resided in the US for a decade or longer before they received their evaluations, including one extreme outlier who had lived in the US for 30 years prior to his evaluation. The majority of the individuals who were evaluated had limited formal education, with an average of 9 ± 4 years. Most individuals hailed from Latin America, including 13 (22 percent) from El Salvador, 9 (14 percent) from Guatemala, and 5 (8 percent) from Haiti. Seventeen percent were from Sub-Saharan African Countries, 4 percent were from the Middle East-North Africa region and 6 percent from Asia.
Two-thirds of individuals had family who remained behind in their home country. These individuals described many reasons for seeking asylum here in the US, including escaping persecution for political activities, sexual orientation, religious belief, or because they feared intrafamily or gang violence. All told, 34 percent of those evaluated reported being victims of intrafamily violence, including intimate partner violence.
Most of the individuals fleeing gang violence were from Central America, with El Salvador and Guatemala being the countries most frequently fled. Many of these individuals had family members who were killed by gangs and were repeatedly threatened with death themselves. Twenty-five percent of individuals (many who hailed from sub-Saharan African countries) were fleeing violence because of their political activism. Thirteen percent were fleeing their countries because of religious persecution.
Seven individuals (11 percent) had committed crimes while here in the US. None of these individuals were recent emigres and most of them had lived in the US from early in their lives and had been arrested for drug related charges. Only one was arrested for a violent crime, and that occurred when the individual was in the middle of a psychotic episode and assaulted a hospital worker. No individual had plotted, attempted, or committed murder.
All individuals were deemed to be credible and none of them were thought to be malingering. (See Table 2.) Eighty-eight percent of individuals met diagnostic criteria for PTSD, while 34 percent met criteria for major depressive disorder. Approximately half of the clients in this cohort reported previously receiving some form of psychiatric care, although many of these individuals reported only receiving emergency department care and were not meaningfully engaged in the mental health system.
Ninety percent of participants believed they might, or would be, killed if they were forced to return to their countries of origin, and 95 percent of participants believed that they would face violence if they were forced to return. One-hundred percent stated they believed their symptoms of mental distress would increase if they had to return to their country of origin.
Discussion:
Asylum seekers in our sample had significant rates of both major depression and PTSD. These data are in line with national estimates of these disorders among asylum seekers. [8], [9], [10] Additionally, every individual’s story was deemed credible; almost every one would experience a worsening of their symptoms or would be killed if they were returned to their countries of origin.
Some of the individuals in our study had committed crimes, but given that approximately 1 in 3 Americans will have been arrested by age 23, [11] our cohort had far lower rates of arrests than that of Americans generally. Our data are in line with national data that show immigrants are much less likely than native born Americans to commit crimes or be incarcerated. [12]
Given that data show asylum seekers have significant psychological trauma, and also don’t pose risks to the US, the US ought to ease the path to asylum for both utilitarian and deontological reasons. Some would argue otherwise, claiming that asylum seekers are really coming to the US for economic and lifestyle reasons and, as a result, there is no compelling moral argument to promote immigration. They might also argue that the US first and foremost ought to concern itself with the well-being of its own citizens and not residents of other countries. In this same vein, they might further argue that foreigners utilize resources here in the US that should be reserved for US citizens and legal residents.
Even though these sentiments are widely expressed across the US, these arguments are wrong. Overwhelmingly, asylum seekers face death if they go back to their countries of origin. We have seen many individuals who fled when family members were killed after refusing gang demands, lesbian women who fled after being repeatedly raped because of their sexual orientation, and members of opposition political parties who fled after being threatened with death themselves and watching their compatriots be murdered. In each of these instances, the government was either indifferent to their fate or else actively encouraged the behaviors. We strongly argue that these individuals are not fleeing for economic or “lifestyle” reasons.
Deporting individuals back to their countries of origin under these circumstances seems cruel, to put it mildly. The 8th Amendment of the US Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment and the United Nations Convention against Torture forbids countries from transporting individuals to any country where there is reason to believe they will be tortured. The individuals we have seen would experience a worsening of their psychiatric symptoms and face either harm or death upon arrival in their home countries. Deporting these individuals would appear to be not only unethical, but illegal as well.
Some might argue that immigrants in general, and asylum seekers in particular, take away jobs from Americans or sap resources here in the US. In fact, immigrants do not cause wages to be lower in the US, or employment rates to decrease. [13] The reality is that immigrants—including undocumented ones—are vital for a number of US industries, including the farming industry, the construction industry, the restaurant industry, cleaning services as well as many others. [14]
[ALDRADJKD123, Net Positive: New Government Study Finds Refugees and Asylees Contributed $123.8 Billion to the US Economy From 2005-2019
[...]1. Government spending on refugees and asylees totaled around $457.2 billion, while refugees and asylees contributed approximately $581 billion in revenue. This shows the initial cost of resettling refugees and processing asylees is offset the longer this population stays longer in the US.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174502542]
With respect to crime and safety, immigrants are also far less likely than native born Americans to commit crimes—including murder—or be incarcerated. [15] When it comes to health care, expenditures for immigrants are far lower than for U.S. born individuals. Health care expenditures for undocumented immigrants are lower still. Immigrants actually subsidize the American private insurance market, being generally younger and healthier than native born Americans. [16] Immigrants also subsidize Medicare in that they contribute far more into Medicare than they ever receive in terms of services. [17]
Given these realities, there are multiple utilitarian arguments that can be made to support assisting asylum seekers’ efforts to gain legal status in the US. In addition to appeals to morality and conscience given the horrors many asylum seekers are fleeing, the strong utilitarian argument demonstrates that immigrants make a net positive contribution to the US. Indeed, a report by the Department of Health and Human Services that was suppressed by the Trump administration found that “refugees brought in $63 billion more in government revenues over the past decade than they cost.” [18] For all of these reasons, we believe that health care professionals everywhere ought to call for humane approaches to those seeking asylum.
While many on the right have demonized asylum seekers and perpetrated lies about them, those who care about health and about truth, including health care workers, ethicists and others, have a responsibility to promote beneficence and minimize harm whenever possible. Supporting the rights of asylum seekers is an obvious way to promote these ideals. In this current political climate, we believe that taking a lead in advocating for the rights of asylum seekers and teaching others about the pain and suffering of asylum seekers across the country is more important than ever.
Table 1: Demographics of Asylum Seekers (n =64)
Male 33 (52 percent)
Female 31 (48 percent)
Age at evaluation (n= 60) 30 ± 10 years
Detention at time of evaluation 6 (9 percent)
Years of Formal Education (n=52) 9 ± 4 years
Median years in the United States (25th-75th percentile) 3 (2–10) years
Family remaining in home country 41 (64 percent)
Engaged in Political activities 13 (25 percent)
Experienced ethnic violence 3 (5 percent)
Persecuted for religious belief 8 (13 percent)
Persecuted for identifying as LGBT 6 (10 percent)
Victim of FGM 3 (5 percent)
Committed Crimes 7 (11 percent)
Victim of gang violence/ political unrest 15 (23 percent)
Victim of intrafamily violence 22 (34 percent)
Table 2: Asylum Evaluation Outcomes
Interpreter used 40 (63 percent)
Appeared credible 64 (100 percent)
Deemed to be Malingering 0 (0 percent)
Previously received psychiatric care 36 (56 percent)
Diagnosed with Post-traumatic stress disorder 56 (88 percent)
Diagnosed with Major depressive disorder 22 (34 percent)
Fears death if forced to return home 58 (90 percent)
Fears violence if forced to return home 61 (95 percent)
Increase in symptoms if returned to country of origin 64 (100 percent)
Granted asylum 12 (19 percent)
Not Granted Asylum 2 (3 percent)
Unknown/not yet adjudicated 50 (78 percent)
Trainee present at time of evaluation 54 (84 percent)
Compliance with Ethical Standards/Ethical Considerations: The research
in this paper was approved by the Cambridge Health Alliance IRB
Corresponding Author:
J. Wesley Boyd, MD, PhD
1493 Cambridge Street
Cambridge, MA 02139
jwboyd@cha.harvard.edu
Conflict of interest: None of the authors has any financial conflicts or disclosures related to this paper.
References:
[1] UNHCR. Global Trends Forced Displacement in 2017. Geneva, Switzerland: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2017. http://www.unhcr.org/globaltrends2017/
[2] United Nations. "Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees." United Nations, Treaty Series, vol 189 in accordance with article 43 (Geneva, Switzerland: United Nations, 1951). https://treaties.un.org/pages/ViewDetailsII.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=V-2&chapter=5&Temp=mtdsg2&clang=_en
[3] Draft Committee. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Paris, France: United Nations, 1948. http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/.
[4] Sieff, Kevin. "The chaotic effort to reunite immigrant parents with their separated kids." The Washington Post (Washington, D.C.) June 21, 2018.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/the-chaotic-effort-to-reunite-immigrant-parents-with-their-separated-kids/2018/06/21/325cceb2-7563-11e8-bda1-18e53a448a14_story.html?utm_term=.79d2a054b9fc.
[5] Reuters Staff. "U.S. centers force migrant children to take drugs: lawsuit." Reuters (London, U.K.) June 20, 2018. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-medication/u-s-centers-force-migrant-children-to-take-drugs-lawsuit-idUSKBN1JH076.
[6] Benner, Katie and Caitlin Dickerson. "Sessions Says Domestic and Gang Violence Are Not Grounds for Asylum." New York Times (New York, NY) June 11, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/11/us/politics/sessions-domestic-violence-asylum.html.
[7] Simendinger, Alexis and James Arkin. "Trump, Senators Push Plan to Cut Legal Immigration." RealClearPolitics (Washington, D.C.) August 2, 2017. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2017/08/02/trump_backs_senators_bill_to_curb_legal_immigration_134655.html.
[8] Richter, Kneginja., Lukas Peter, Hartmut Lehfeld, Harald Zäske, Salina Brar-Reissinger, and Günter Niklewski. "Prevalence of psychiatric diagnoses in asylum seekers with follow-up." BMC psychiatry 18, no. 1 (2018): 206. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-018-1783-y.
[9] Hameed, Sameena, Asad Sadiq, and Amad U. Din. "The increased vulnerability of refugee population to mental health disorders." Kansas Journal of Medicine 11, no. 1 (2018): 20. https://doi.org/10.17161/kjm.v11i1.8680.
[10] American Psychiatric Association. Mental Health Facts on Refugees, Asylum-seekers, & Survivors of Forced Displacement. Virginia: American Psychiatric Association. file:///Users/wesboyd/Downloads/Mental-Health-Facts-for-Refugees.pdf.
[11] Friedman, Matthew. "Just Facts: As Many Americans Have Criminal Records As College Diplomas." Brennan Center for Justice (New York, NY) November 17, 2015. https://www.brennancenter.org/blog/just-facts-many-americans-have-criminal-records-college-diplomas.
[12] Riley, Jason L. "The Mythical Connection Between Immigrants and Crime." The Wall Street Journal (New York, NY) July 14, 2015. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-mythical-connection-between-immigrants-and-crime-1436916798.
[13] Preston, Julia. "Immigrants Aren’t Taking Americans’ Jobs, New Study Finds" The New York Times (New York, NY) September 21, 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/22/us/immigrants-arent-taking-americans-jobs-new-study-finds.html.
[14] Dudley, Mary Jo. "These US Industries can’t work without illegal immigrants." CBS News (New York, NY) January 10, 2019. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/illegal-immigrants-us-jobs-economy-farm-workers-taxes/.
[15] Riley, Jason L. "The Mythical Connection Between Immigrants and Crime." The Wall Street Journal (New York, NY) July 14, 2015. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-mythical-connection-between-immigrants-and-crime-1436916798.
[16] Rodriguez, Carmen Heredia. "Immigrants pay more into the healthcare system than they get out of it, study shows." Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles, California) October 2, 2018. https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-immigrant-healthcare-20181002-story.html.
[17] Zallman, Leah, Steffie Woolhandler, David Himmelstein, David Bor, and Danny McCormick. "Immigrants contributed an estimated $115.2 billion more to the Medicare Trust Fund than they took out in 2002–09." Health Affairs 32, no. 6 (2013): 1153-1160. https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2012.1223.
[18] Davis, Julia Hirschfeld and Somini Sengupta. "Trump Administration Rejects Study Showing Positive Impact of Refugees." The New York Times (New York, NY) September 18, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/us/politics/refugees-revenue-cost-report-trump.html.
https://bioethics.hms.harvard.edu/journal/displacement-crisis
Yours ran into -- Classical Morning With Frederic Chopin | Classical Music Playlist For Relaxation | Calm Music
Timeless Classical Music
ALDRADJKD123, Seriously, your, "Lame but then again people expect that from Democrats and Liberals." is among the lamest of any. Read it again. And look around. Would you really expect less from every Democrat than you would from every Republican. That of yours really is a dumb comment, eh.
In reading your posts for the first time today to date it looks you have very little if anything to contribute to any discussion about anything. I'm happy to change that opinion if i see anything of worth from you in the future.
Ya got me again. I meant generally, still should have said most all of us.... Yet again we see that some of us were
luckier than most all of us in their educational experiences. Even if that education was gained by heh, listening in.
"There've always been hermaphrodites. Most people just weren't told about them. And if one was born in the family, it was "fixed", at least in this country.
That's just one possibility. I'm sure not all trans people are hermaphrodites. Complex subject."
Complex indeed.
This to your hermaphrodite mention: Magaverse: Male. Female. That's it. It's like the good old days of black and white. The world changes. Science changes. We don't. Our certainty is our strength. Black, white, brown, brindle. Too much complication. Male female. Black white. We aren't fish:
Abstract
Sexual fate is no longer seen as an irreversible deterministic switch set during early embryonic development but as an ongoing battle for primacy between male and female developmental trajectories. That sexual fate is not final and must be actively maintained via continuous suppression of the opposing sexual network creates the potential for flexibility into adulthood. In many fishes, sexuality is not only extremely plastic, but sex change is a usual and adaptive part of the life cycle. Sequential hermaphrodites begin life as one sex, changing sometime later to the other, and include species capable of protandrous (male-to-female), protogynous (female-to-male), or serial (bidirectional) sex change. Natural sex change involves coordinated transformations across multiple biological systems, including behavioural, anatomical, neuroendocrine, and molecular axes. We here review the biological processes underlying this amazing transformation, focussing particularly on its molecular basis, which remains poorly understood, but where new genomic technologies are significantly advancing our understanding of how sex change is initiated and progressed at the molecular level. Knowledge of how a usually committed developmental process remains plastic in sequentially hermaphroditic fishes is relevant to understanding the evolution and functioning of sexual developmental systems in vertebrates generally, as well as pathologies of sexual development in humans.
https://karger.com/sxd/article/10/5-6/223/296444/Bending-Genders-The-Biology-of-Natural-Sex-Change
Imagine an artist painting with only primary colors.
Medicine’s Fixation on the Sex Binary Harms Intersex People | A Question of Sex, Episode 2
Yup.
ALDRADJKD123, Trump’s Border Policies Let More Immigrants Sneak In
March 10, 2021 3:35PM
By David J. Bier
President Trump’s top policy priority was supposedly “border security.” But government data show that he failed to improve it. Border Patrol recorded 41 percent more successful illegal entries in fiscal year 2019 than in 2016 and was on pace for 47 percent more through four months of 2020. As he left office in January, reports indicate .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/border-surge-biden-crisis/2021/03/05/d0933282-7db8-11eb-b0fc-83144c02d676_story.html .. that the numbers have reached even greater heights.
Government officials and the media typically measure border security by the number of people “apprehended” (or arrested) by Border Patrol. But the main security concern for the agency are those it cannot interdict—who it calls “got-?aways”. Border Patrol released a horrifying video .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/the-border-patrol-made-this-dramatized-video-showing-migrant-murdering-innocent-victim-in-a-dark-alley/2020/09/04/11ad3620-ee9c-11ea-a21a-0fbbe90cfd8c_story.html .. last year that fantasized about a “got-?away” evading capture and murdering someone in a dark alley.
Yet despite this supposed focus, the government records show that Border Patrol was observing more immigrants sneaking into the country than when President Trump took office. In fiscal year 2016, Border Patrol agents witnessed about 100,000 successful entries. By 2018, the number had risen to nearly 128,000. In 2019, it hit 150,000. Through four months of 2020, it was on pace to hit almost 156,000.
[Image inside]
It appears to have worsened since then. In early 2020, officials told .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/border-surge-biden-crisis/2021/03/05/d0933282-7db8-11eb-b0fc-83144c02d676_story.html .. the Washington Post that got-?aways had “soared,” reaching over 1,000 on one day. Nor can the Trump team claim that the increased crossings were only the result of more people crossing overall. In January 2020, 29 percent of 41,000 detected crossers evaded capture. In December 2016, 17 percent of 52,400 made it in.
When Border Patrol first created the “got-?away” measure in 2005, it had no uniform standards for reporting them, surveillance along the border was poor, and agents made largely arbitrary assessments of when to count them. But during the Obama years, surveillance improved .. https://revealnews.org/article/new-drone-radar-reveals-border-patrol-gotaways-in-high-numbers/ .. greatly allowing them to have greater confidence in the records, and in 2014, the Obama administration standardized .. https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-19-305.pdf .. record keeping and reporting for all Border Patrol areas.
Today, the government now uses more sophisticated independent analysis .. https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/ndaa_border_metrics_report_fy_2018_0_0.pdf .. on unlawful entries to check how reliable the surveillance data are. From data collected in other countries, the agency has a decent idea how likely someone is to recross after being deported. If fewer recrossers are arrested than the data predict, it’s likely they succeeded at making in. As surveillance and reporting improved, the observed gotaways and the predicted successful illegal entries began .. https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/ndaa_border_metrics_report_fy_2018_0_0.pdf .. to closely align (though gotaways are still below predicted entries).
The Trump border policy had a single-minded focus: keep out asylum seekers. Yet the ability to apply for asylum meant that fewer people tried to sneak in. One border crosser in 2018 told .. https://www.wsj.com/articles/this-is-your-daughter-when-was-she-born-u-s-border-agents-test-migrants-claims-of-family-ties-1519986600 .. the Wall Street Journal that he had turned himself into the first Border Patrol agent he saw and was seeking “the immigration office.” Rather than direct these crossers to legal crossing points, the Trump administration blocked .. https://www.cato.org/blog/congress-uncapped-asylum-agencies-covertly-re-capped-it .. applicants from applying at ports of entry.
After first separating families and then attempting ban asylum, Trump started returning asylum seekers to Mexico to await hearings in homeless camps on the other side of the border line. This led to a wave of crimes .. https://www.humanrightsfirst.org/campaign/remain-mexico .. against immigrants. Some were kidnapped, other raped, and some murdered. When the pandemic hit, the government suspended all hearings for those already returned to Mexico and began expelling all others with no hearing all.
It was inevitable that as the opportunity to obtain asylum disappeared or the costs to do so increased (such as through family separation). A greater percentage of people would attempt to sneak around ports of entry.
Unfortunately, President Biden has maintained nearly all of Trump’s border policies. While admitting a slow trickle of asylum seekers Trump returned to Mexico, and not expelling unaccompanied children back to Mexico (which a court order had already forced the Trump administration to do), he has continued .. https://www.cato.org/blog/bidens-wait-mexico-worse-trumps-remain-mexico .. to expel or deport asylum seekers back into Mexico or other countries without any process whatsoever. It’s still impossible to apply for asylum at legal crossing points.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has told .. https://www.cato.org/blog/bidens-wait-mexico-worse-trumps-remain-mexico .. crossers to “wait in Mexico” or get expelled back to Mexico. But this strategy has failed. DHS statistics .. https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/cbp-announces-january-2021-operational-update .. show that in January, 38 percent of those apprehended had already been caught once that month, up from 7 percent .. https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/cbp-enforcement-statistics .. in 2019, indicating that after people get expelled, they don’t wait. They just keep trying to get in.
If Trump’s policies aren’t improving security—in the only sense that matters—there’s really no reason for Biden to maintain them. He should stop expulsions and restore order to the border.
https://www.cato.org/blog/trumps-border-policies-let-more-immigrants-sneak
ALDRADJKD123, Your positions on Trump and immigration are in conflict with each other.
Let's see how you handle facts.
COVID. B402, Trump’s Misleading Chart on Illegal Immigration
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174317040
U.S. House votes down border bill favored by conservatives
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174317237
One fact for you from the first link above:
As we have written, apprehensions at the southwest border .. https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-encounters , were 14.7% higher in Trump’s final year in office compared with the last full year before he was sworn in.
[Insert: Actually that is the only stat anyone need remember in
answer to Trump and his supporters' sw border misinformation.]
ALDRADJKD123, Net Positive: New Government Study Finds Refugees and Asylees Contributed $123.8 Billion to the US Economy From 2005-2019
February 26, 2024
Refugee and Forced Displacement Initiative
Image Credit inside
Statement from the Wilson Center’s Refugees and Forced Displacement Initiative
As the American immigration discourse revolves around questions at the Southern border and fears about the numbers of asylum seekers entering the country, a new groundbreaking study by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has found an overwhelming positive fiscal impact stemming from the presence of refugees and asylees in the US. The report, The Fiscal Impact of Refugees and Asylees at the Federal, State, and Local Levels From 2005-2019 .. https://aspe.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/28fe4e756499bdab08b4e6cb3b952e22/aspe-report-refugee-fiscal-impact.pdf , shows that refugees and asylees have generated $123.8 billion in net fiscal benefit to the US economy and government budgets, and have contributed more tax revenue than they cost the government over this 15-year period.
Key takeaways from this study include:
1. Government spending on refugees and asylees totaled around $457.2 billion, while refugees and asylees contributed approximately $581 billion in revenue. This shows the initial cost of resettling refugees and processing asylees is offset the longer this population stays longer in the US.
2. On a per capita basis, the report finds that refugees and asylees had a comparable positive fiscal impact as the total US population. This indicates refugees and asylees successfully integrate into the US economy when given the opportunity.
3. The findings of this government report reaffirm what other studies have found: the socioeconomic impact of resettling refugees in the US is positive.
The report solely focuses on the populations served by the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement, and specifically those who were granted asylum or received refugee status in the US after 1980. This includes Special Immigrant Visa holders from Iraq and Afghanistan as well as those from Haiti and Cuba. Despite these limitations, the report “compellingly demonstrates the positive fiscal and cultural impact of the US humanitarian program for refugees.”
In addition to estimating the overall net fiscal impact of refugees and asylees, this federal study provides evidence to inform government decision-making about resettlement programs, including refugee integration and self-sufficiency. The findings should also inform broader policy and research on the net financial benefit of humanitarian programs, and be used by the US government, policymakers, and practitioners to inform response to forced displacement trends and reassert US leadership in global refugee policy.
The Refugee and Forced Displacement Initiative (RAFDI) welcomes these report findings, which show that sustainable solutions to forced displacement challenges must involve the active participation of refugees as contributors. RAFDI is committed to expanding the space for new perspectives, constructive dialogue, and sustainable solutions to meet the challenges of global forced displacement.
Related Program
Refugee and Forced Displacement Initiative
The Refugee and Forced Displacement Initiative (RAFDI) provides evidence-based analyses that translate research findings into practice and policy impact. Established in 2022 as a response to an ever-increasing number of people forcibly displaced from their homes by protracted conflicts and persecution, RAFDI aims to expand the space for new perspectives, constructive dialogue and sustainable solutions to inform policies that will improve the future for the displaced people. Read more .. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/program/refugee-and-forced-displacement-initiative
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/net-positive-new-government-study-finds-refugees-and-asylees-contributed-1238-billion-us
ALDRADJKD123, Thank goodness intelligent Americans like Robert De Niro exist.
ALDRADJKD123, How many other lazy, totally untrue generalizations have you got.
"You sound like the typical Democrat, never wants to accept responsibility…"
If you think at all about it that really is a stupid comment by you. Sadly you
sound like the typical troll that contributes very little if anything of worth here.
LOL Read yesterday Bhatia had won the last two. 'course he MC for me in the Charlie Schwabedit. Hope it was the last of his for me so there is no choice there for me in the RBC. GL.
LOLs Totally satisfied with the Turtle identification, it was just that i felt an elephant look
and no matter what (in this case) am sticking with that one. hehahehaw says
this, if i were there would be a donkey for sure, natural guy. NOW
have gone shopping .. and to get pissed as just got a federal home equity
application approved and the first installment is in my account.
Is about time i stopped scrimping as much as i have for 30 years, and started spending some, not much,
while still leaving more than enough from an ordinary guy like me for worthwhile causes ..
LOLs .. enjoy all!
PS: F6 would really appreciate all the good people looking after the place. DD and i and others certainly do.
You as not always but still often enough, as the rest of us normal people, to get along are absolutely right. LOL
Very nice. Always welcome. And this of yours,
Hadn't seen yours and had just come here to give this to newmedman ..
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174491154 ..
who i know too has experienced some of both issues. Me too.
It's real my friend and it hits home for more people than you could imagine. My journey was not as tough but I was headed down that path.
[...]
I’m still here in SPITE of the stigma. All the people who say “suck it up, buttercup!” “Be a man!” “Get over it!!”
Ironically now that I’ve been to counseling and can more acutely notice the signs, those very same people are the ones who could benefit from therapy the most. That’s not a dig. I hurt for them. Matter of fact a big part of my “journey” (I hate when people use that but look at me go lol) has been trying my best to forgive people who lash out at me. Because more often than not, it’s not me they hate… it’s themselves.
How would I know that? Well… I used to be that guy
RIP Grayson Murray
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174494501
Very excellent too. It takes guts to be real.
Good on you, champ. Sunny here. Shopping soon.
Trump has evolved from virus to a cancer in the social and political scenes. He was diagnosed by experts to have malignant narcissism, long ago:
hap0206, You really do have stars in for eyes for the guy who so many experts in their fields
have seen for years is a rather forlorn, sick and decaying, sorry excuse for an American.
[...]
Going on seven years ago
Johns Hopkins’ Top Psychologist Releases Terrifying Diagnosis of President Trump
Zach Cartwright | January 28, 2017
One of the nation’s top psychologists just broke one of his profession’s ethics rules to give President Donald Trump a professional diagnosis.
John D. Gartner, a psychotherapist who teaches at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, told US News that he believes Trump has “malignant narcissism,” which is incurable, and different from narcissistic personality disorder. Gartner violated the “Goldwater Rule” of the psychology profession, in which a diagnosis of a public figure without personally examining them, and without their consent, is considered unethical.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=128231379
*
'The Most Dangerous Man in the World’: Trump Is Violent, Immature and Insecure, Psych Experts Say
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174216155
No doubt he is psychopathic. I join you, partner, in being proud to be a member of Trump's "political scum" club.
Resentment, yep. Sure seems like that is at least one of his problems.
LOL One plus for that party.
Top reply. hap is ill. Kelly knows. To link - WHY does Trump disparage military? - Trump Has Mocked the U.S. Military His Whole Life
"Trump, THE COWARD, under fire for alleged comments about veterans, has a long history of disparaging military service"
Egged on by his father, the U.S. president began expressing contempt for Americans who fight in wars as far back as high school, his classmates say.
By Michael Hirsh, a columnist for Foreign Policy.
[...]
Perhaps no one was less surprised last week when it was reported that U.S. President Donald Trump had called American war dead “losers” and “suckers” .. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/09/trump-americans-who-died-at-war-are-losers-and-suckers/615997/ .. than his former high school classmate George M. White.
The 74-year-old retired Army veteran was Trump’s superior—the first captain, or highest-ranking cadet—in Trump’s 1964 graduating class at the New York Military Academy. White said he witnessed up close Trump’s contempt for military service, discipline, and tradition, as well his ungoverned sense of entitlement, all helped along by his father Fred Trump’s generous donations to the school.
“No, those remarks absolutely didn’t surprise me. In my dealings with him he was a heartless, obnoxious son of a bitch,” White told me in an interview over the weekend.
[...]
Trump’s comments appeared to be in line with the attitude he reportedly evinced on Memorial Day 2017, when he visited the grave of 1st Lt. Robert Kelly, the son of his then-homeland security secretary and later chief of staff John Kelly. Standing at the grave of the younger Kelly, who died in Afghanistan in 2010, Trump reportedly turned to the secretary and said: “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?”
Trump and the White House have denied reports about his disdain for the sacrifices of the U.S. military. “If people really exist that would have said that, they’re lowlifes and they’re liars,” Trump told .. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-air-force-one-arrival-joint-base-andrews-md-september-3-2020/ reporters on Sept. 3. “And I would be willing to swear on anything that I never said that about our fallen heroes. There is nobody that respects them more.”
In the aftermath of the controversy over his demeaning of U.S. service members, Trump has sought to portray himself as an anti-war candidate who has faced down trigger-happy military service chiefs and will pull out of “endless wars” to keep soldiers safe.
[...]
Trump’s efforts at heroic self-branding also began at the academy, said White and Sandy McIntosh, another former cadet who knew Trump and his family well. Trump began wearing decorations and medals he didn’t earn, especially for academic or military achievement, and got himself placed at the head of the Columbus Day military parade in New York City as a cadet, White and McIntosh recall. “I did very well under the military system,” Trump told the Washington Post in January 2016. “I became one of the top guys at the whole school.”
[Malignant narcissism at it's worst]
[...]
For classmates like White, Trump’s reported remarks are simply an echo of that long family tradition.
“It’s real simple. His grandfather dodged the draft in Germany and his father never went in. And when I came back from Korea, in 1972, I ran into him in New York City and told him where I’d been, he didn’t give a flying ripshit that I’d been to Korea. He made barfing noises,” White said. “I said, ‘Holy shit, you are a piece of work.’”
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174243039
B402, Science now suggests, no doesn't suggest, science says the terms male and female do not fairly cover the gender identity of millions of human brains.
"When did I deny science. And its just my opinion mind but I don't think I'm the one being immature.......
And people that don't agree with you aren't transphobic, people could care less if some men want to pretend they are a woman or not, but there is a time and place for everything.....And that's when the pearls start getting clutched......And the name calling like immature begins.....
So, what is your definition of a woman?
Dems have just gotten silly... "
IF YOU really care, while others here say no chance, i have felt sometimes you could change. Maybe there could be something, way down deep. Then shortly later you always smash that feeling. It wouldn't be the first time i've been badly wrong.
IF YOU do really care about the issues you profess to, like equity which is not only of material things, only then could YOU could have a chance of developing more empathy with people who do not have similar chemical/physiological/electrical makeups as most of us do.
With all of us it as a matter of conditioning. Some of us have a greater ability, or a greater desire to change - likely it's some combination of both. To get past our conditioning.
All of us were conditioned on the male-female thing. That was it science said. Male or female. Nothing in between.
Collectively we saw people with penises whose brain was not comfortable with the male label given at birth - hey, look he has a dick so he is a male and he has to act like a male acts. - as figures of ridicule and abuse. Same with those of us born with vaginas. Those humans are labelled at birth as females.
i feel now you could be thinking - how stupid i am in saying the labels male and female should not exist any more - but no, i am not saying that at all. Some feel a very small group known as researchers should ease away from the labels when doing their research work. That is another thing, not at all what this is about.
How about considering this: Rather than the labels female-male it could have been vagina-penis. Born a penis. Born a vagina. Weird, eh. Course if you were born a vagina you would need another word for that exit-entry point. And instead of penis that organ could have been labelled say ... a dangler.
LOL You see what i mean about conditioning. You are even conditioned to hearing male-female rather than female-male. One feels more comfortable, doesn't it. Male first. Males created that situation. Adam came first. Eve just from Adam's rib. Silly? Sure is.
That's conditioning.
You, B402, say 'if men want to dress and women and vice versa then who cares.' Let them.
That isn't what this is about either. You say
"When did I deny science. And its just my opinion mind but I don't think I'm the one being immature....... "
We have changed much, though still there are ignorant gay-bashers around.
i say IF you cannot feel true empathy for the millions of us whose brain is not exactly wired to
the gender label they were given at birth then you are denying science and acting immaturely.
Now spend some time on this post:
conix, The number of gender dysphoria seminars you have been to means nothing. Since clinical depression is classed as a psychiatric disorder and since most all people struggling with gender dysphoria would most likely suffer at times from serious depression it sounds perfectly normal for the common thread you claim exists to exist. Of course most all you would like to be adversely affected by that obvious meant-to-be dark and telling talking point of your crowd would not be any more impressed by it than i am.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174143064
And still IF you really would like to care more start here again
B402 Re: fuagf post# 438367
Monday, March 06, 2023 9:57:11 PM
Post# of 476198
Those people need to get out more...
There have been calls for the words 'female' and 'male' to be phased out.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=171376084
and read around and down. Spend a couple of days, then perhaps reply.
B402, There you go again.
"Sotomayor and Kagan aren't liberal Judges? I liked Garland, alas, not on the SC
Of course they are. You are the one one who made the totally self-serving post:
To comment on the SC, two parties do their best to get the the most extreme person of their ideology on the
bench they can squeak by instead of centrist judges and wonder why we get split decisions down party lines.......
When one gets the advantage it time to bitch.....You all bring it on your self...
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174494161
A post which not only only served your agenda. A post which ignores the reality of which we have recently seen. Of course i was thinking of Garland, who was no way the way you described him above. You make stuff up which is not true. And your last sentence there. Rubbish. How the fuck did Obama bring it on himself that McConnell would break all tradition in doing what he did. You blurt nonsense because it has you feeling good. Your crowd. Not Dems. Here is the reality you deny every day in your robotic 'it's all on the Dems.' The fact. It's red.
[...]Trump/McConnell/Republicans have done a Putin-like job on your SCOTUS. Their lifetime terms makes it difficult
to undo. Not much you can do about it except get enough control of Congress to reform the f*ed-up situation.
[...]
The Court’s Republican majority isn’t simply handing down bold conservative policy decrees, it is undermining democracy itself.
Indeed, the GOP owes its control of the Court to an anti-democratic system that effectively gives extra votes to Republicans. Only three justices in American history were appointed by a president who lost the popular vote, and confirmed by a block of senators who represent less than half of the country. All three were appointed by Donald Trump, and all three sit on the Court right now.
Neither Congress nor President Joe Biden, however, are powerless against an anti-democratic Supreme Court. The elected branches have broad powers to rein in a rogue judiciary, or to limit the scope of at least some of the Court’s decisions. The greatest of these powers is court-packing .. court-court-expansion-packing-judiciary-act-13-seats-jones-nadler-markey-johnson" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer ugc" target="_blank">https://www.vox.com/22384461/supreme-court-court-expansion-packing-judiciary-act-13-seats-jones-nadler-markey-johnson — adding additional seats to the Supreme Court to dilute the votes of Trump justices who lack democratic legitimacy.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174493886
That fact should be snuck into more than one election ad.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174494126
Those of us who ended with only three are the bums. There were plenty of players to pick. Homa? Never again.
Now he'll win in the next month. Why would anyone have Eckroat instead of Straka or Scott or Bradley. Bum.
B402, You denial of science is as poor as your immature approach to the issue. See:
livefree_ordie, Your lack of empathy for all of those who have felt some discomfort with the gender assigned to them at birth is not surprising. You do come across as a rather unenlightened conservative. Why no understanding and acceptance even for for those who just enjoy dressing as one of the opposite sex to the one given them because of their exterior. Because of their physical appearance. You really do come across as one who dwells in the gutters of the past> And in the mire your personal conditioning.
"I hear it’s being replaced by “Tranny CSI” so you can keep watching."
What is the difference between transsexual and transgender?
[...]
Lime Time, You thunk like a lemon. Scholars once thought earth was the center of the universe, some non-scholars even now see it as flat. Sex orientation has moved us past you bipolar vision. Science is a wondrous study. Read. Consider Learn.
P - B402, Fuck off with your conservative bleat. It's a big deal because of your conservative culture war creation. The sexual continuum is a biological fact and your conservative camp's inability to cope with it is at the basis of the unhealthy extremist controversy your far-right has created. Your side's lack of realistic policy has resulted in your manufactured culture war.What else to do your Rufo .. https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=171727736 .. said. Administrators and athletes were handling it with little relative fuss until your rabid anti-trans zealots stirred the pot.
Attacks on Ohio transgender community a calculated political ploy to scapegoat the vulnerable
[...]
To India
No more usage of ‘houswife’, ‘hooker’ 'transexual'! SC launches handbook on combating gender stereotypes
16 Aug 2023, 02:48 PM IST
The Supreme Court of India releases handbook to avoid gender stereotypical terms used in the judiciary system.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174317473
Gratuitous. Not true.
No i just decided to do what i said i would if you continued flouting our rules.
Of course arguments about immigration for and against are going to be all over the net.
Your reasoning sucks as much as it always has.
Get used to it, as am guessing you won't change.
Make a positive comment and post a link in support of AOC's support of the 'they shouldn't
trade' issue. Just one. Or am i right that you don't have even an ounce of integrity.
It would be easy for you, IF you had. It would come natural to any honest poster.
LOL He does look like a turtle no doubt, and appreciate the Tippy story as didn't know that one.
It must be that look, why else would i think that friggin' elephant looked like him.
B402 is a cold duplicitous prick. Easily one of our worst.
B402, More bs without evidence from you. Obama nominated a guy even Republicans saw as a moderate. Deny that. You really are a dick.
Fuck you, B402, you need a link to support what you said here about me
"Like the immigration argument at a time of inequity and decades of wage stagnation....and you answer is you're a racist......"
Putting aside it's a blatant lie, it is another wild assertion without prove...
And your saying we have said dems are not corrupted by corporate money .. another lie .. no, enough.. screw you
No. You shouldn't, but since rolling your eyes when hit by an argument you have
no answer for is your style it's expected you would just do it again. As you just did.