June 28, 2018 – Bridge Agents

Reports Detail UK Tolerance for Post-9/11 Torture

June 28, 2018 Bridge Agents

(Sputnik) – The cross-party Intelligence and Security Committee of the British House of Commons has issued two reports conceding that the country’s intelligence agencies were complicit in the abduction, detention and torture of terrorism suspects to far greater degree than has previously been known. The reports dealt with the decade following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States. Panel members led by former Conservative attorney general Dominic Grieve pored over more than 40,000 declassified documents and received the testimony of both former detainees and employees of MI5 in the course of its investigation. In a press release accompanying the reports’ publication, the committee members claimed…

`We Are Only Following the Law’ Doesn’t Explain Immigration Policy During Nazi Era or Now

June 28, 2018 Bridge Agents

United States (Conversation) – Holocaust historians’ first impulse is to reject comparisons between those dark decades and our present. We don’t want to be perceived as abusing history for political purposes, or engaging in overly emotional analyses. But then comes a moment when it’s not possible to avoid parallels. For me, that moment came two weeks ago. I study the American response to the Holocaust. I was preparing to deliver a conference paper on U.S. officials’ false claim that the nation’s inflexible immigration laws gave them no choice but to…

A Proposal: Cut the Court

June 28, 2018 Bridge Agents

(Garrison) – Well, here we go again. On June 27, US Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement, effective July 31. Cue crisis, as defined by President John F. Kennedy’s inaccurate characterization of the Chinese analog: “Two characters, one representing danger and the other, opportunity.” Democrats and Republicans have, for 30 years, alternated between anticipation and fear, depending on which party was in position to choose Kennedy’s successor. As a “swing vote” — reliably tied to neither party’s policy agenda — since the day he donned the robe in…

Immigrant Children Shelter Mapping Project – Is There a Shelter Near You?

June 28, 2018 Bridge Agents

United States (ProPublica) – ProPublica found and mapped 97 facilities holding immigrant children, including shelters and foster care centers. As of June 26, 2,047 children remain separated from the parents who crossed the border with them. In addition to these children, these shelters were already home to an additional 8,886 children who crossed the border unaccompanied by older relatives before the “zero tolerance” policy was announced. The facilities include Casa Padre, a shelter based in a large former Walmart building in Brownsville, Texas, that is housing 1,450 children; a newly constructed tent city near the…