ITS THE OWNER NOT THE BREED

Dogs Fatally Maul Public Health Worker Investigating Previous Canine Attack


By Suneeta Sunny
05/01/22


KEY POINTS

Jacqueline Summer Beard was attacked by a pack of seven dogs

Officials had to euthanize some of the dogs

Brandy Dowdy, the dogs' owner, was later arrested

A pack of dogs fatally mauled an Alabama health worker who was responding to a report of an earlier attack by the same canines, officials said.

Jacqueline Summer Beard, a long-term employee of the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH), was fatally attacked by a pack of seven dogs Friday while attempting to contact the animals' owner about a separate incident that happened a day prior, Franklin County Sheriff's Office said in a news release posted on Facebook on Saturday.

Beard, who never returned from the investigation at a house in Muscle Shoals, was found dead after someone called about a suspicious vehicle parked in the area.

When deputies arrived at the scene, several dogs started attacking the locals before they found Beard's body in the car. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

"It is believed that Beard was attacked as she was attempting to contact the dog's owner when she was killed by the dogs," the news release noted.

One of the residents received minor injuries in the attack, and the officials had to euthanize some of the canines. However, the exact number of dogs that were put down remains unclear.

The dog owner, identified as 39-year-old Brandy Dowdy, was later arrested on charges of manslaughter and Dangerous Dog Law. She was being held with no bail set at the Franklin County Jail.

Meanwhile, ADPH mourned the death of Beard, who worked as an environmentalist supervisor with the department for nearly 17 years.

"Summer was known to her coworkers as an exceptional person. She was a tremendous team worker and was loved by those who knew her," Ryan Easterling, the director of the ADPH's Health Media and Communications Division, said in a statement, as per AL.com. "The Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH) extends our deepest sympathy to the family, friends, and colleagues of Summer Beard, after her tragic passing."

In the earlier incident involving the same pack of dogs, a woman walking along a highway was attacked and had to be hospitalized with critical injuries. Her condition is "pretty serious" and remains hospitalized in Mississippi, the outlet reported.

Missouri killer whose death sentence was reversed 3 times is days away from execution

HEY, RIGHT TO LIFERS; 

ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY

2022/5/1
© St. Louis Post-Dispatch

US-NEWS-MO-EXECUTION-MCT. -

 Missouri Department of Corrections/Missouri Department of Corrections/TNS

DE SOTO, Mo. — Carman Deck once talked about his victims' kindness.

Before he robbed James and Zelma Long and shot them execution-style, Deck and his sister had knocked on the door to the Longs' home near De Soto pretending to need directions to Laguna Palma reservoir.

Zelma Long invited them inside.

That kindness wasn't lost on Deck, a south St. Louis County resident with a prison record for burglary. He later mentioned to a detective during the interrogation how the Longs welcomed him into their home.

"They're country folks," Deck said. "They always do."

The double murder of the Longs in 1996 in Jefferson County sent Deck to Missouri's death row not once or twice — but three times. Deck has been given the death penalty three times since his original conviction, and each time that sentence was overturned on appeal.

The reasons varied for rejecting the death sentences: The first time, it was missing jury instructions. The second time, he wore shackles visible to the jury. At his third sentencing, "substantial" evidence arguing against the death penalty was unavailable to him.

A three-judge panel reinstated his death sentence in October 2020. Barring any last-minute reprieves, after 25 years of legal wrangling, Deck's case could end this week in the execution chamber at the state prison in Bonne Terre.

Missouri has scheduled his execution, by lethal injection, for 6 p.m. Tuesday.

Five of the Longs' children and at least six grandchildren will meet for lunch Tuesday, then gather at the cemetery in De Soto for a prayer at the Longs' gravesite. They then will head to the prison witness room to watch Deck die.

"I just wanna see him pay for what he did," said the couple's middle child, Angela Rosener, 67, of Potosi. "It's going to be tough, but we want this to be done."

Meanwhile, Deck's lawyers have petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the execution and review his case. They also met with representatives of Gov. Mike Parson last week, said Elizabeth Unger Carlyle, one of Deck's attorneys. They submitted a lengthy application for executive clemency, featuring two photos of Deck side-by-side — one of him smiling broadly in prison, the other a weathered photo of Deck as a little boy, looking sullen.

His lawyers portray a childhood of abuse. The "failure of the Missouri system to protect Mr. Deck as a child is a primary reason his life took the tragic path that it did," Deck's lawyers wrote in the clemency application. They asked the governor for mercy, to commute Deck's sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The governor's communications director, Kelli R. Jones, said Friday that Parson was reviewing the case.
The killer

James and Zelma Long were shot execution-style in their home near De Soto on July 8, 1996, after they were robbed and ordered to lie on their bed. Prosecutors said the couple had begged Deck for mercy. James Long was 69, and Zelma Long was 67.

Deck, now 56, was 30 years old at the time of the killings. He was unemployed and lived in an apartment on Enderbury Drive in South County.

Deck's lawyers, in their plea to Parson, said Deck's troubles were evident from the start, when he was hospitalized as an infant for dehydration because his mother didn't give him formula. By age 18, Deck had lived in 23 different homes, including foster homes, because of abuse and neglect by his biological parents, according to his clemency application.

Among other details Deck's lawyers shared with the governor: Deck was beaten as a child to the point of having welts. He was sexually abused by men his mother brought home. Deck and his three siblings were left alone often without food, and were taught by their mother how to steal, the clemency application said.

Rosener, the middle child of the Longs, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the family is tired of delays. She said she doesn't think the governor should have mercy on Deck because of an abusive childhood.

"There's a lot of kids with a rough childhood and they don't go and kill," she said Saturday. "That was his choice."

In 1985, at the age of 20, Deck was arrested for stealing a riding lawnmower and jailed for a week. Shortly after he got out of jail, he returned to help two men escape. He passed a hacksaw blade through the window. Deck was caught and sent to prison for burglary and aiding an escape. He would later rack up additional convictions for burglary.

After he was released to a halfway house in St. Louis, he got a job as a server at an Italian restaurant but was soon sent back to prison on a parole violation.

His murder trial revealed a connection between Deck and the Longs. When Deck was a teen, he lived with a relative in the De Soto area and knew the Longs briefly. He and one of the couple's grandchildren would sneak into the couple's home and steal money from a safe, where the Longs kept profits from their gas station overnight.
The couple

Zelma Long loved to travel, fish and watch "Wheel of Fortune" on TV. She was a lifelong resident of Jefferson County and prom queen in 1946 at De Soto High School. She retired as an elementary school teacher after 30 years, primarily teaching third grade in Crystal City.

James Long drove a truck route delivering candy, tobacco and other products door-to-door. He later owned a service station, café and liquor store for many years about a mile from his home. As a boy, he learned farming from his grandparents, and every year of his married life maintained a garden. He also was a top bowler in Jefferson County and liked to hunt.

The Longs loved competitive fishing, always trying to catch one more fish, said their daughter-in-law, Karen Long, 67, of Lake Ozark, Missouri. "They were always trying to out-fish each other," she said. "Their go-to fish was crappie, and Zelma always said when the red buds start to bloom it's almost crappie time."

James Long grew up in St. Louis County. After marrying Zelma, he built a two-bedroom home for them on what would become Long Road. He built additions to the home as they raised seven children.

The couple also had 15 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. The month before they died, they celebrated their 49th wedding anniversary. Their children already were planning a big surprise party for their 50th.
The crime

On the night of the murders, Deck and his sister Tonia Cummings, after plotting with another man, went to the Longs' home intending to rob them. They knocked on the door, pretending to need directions. Zelma Long invited them inside and gave directions while her husband wrote them down.

Deck pulled a pistol from his waistband and demanded money. The Longs said they'd give Deck what they had on hand: They handed over jewelry and other items from the safe. Zelma retrieved about $200 from her purse in the kitchen. It was her bingo money. The couple also gave Deck a tin canister containing mainly quarters. James Long even offered to write Deck a check.

"That's just how nice he was," Deck told police, according to a detective's testimony.

Deck ordered the Longs to lie facedown on their bed, and Deck paced for 10 minutes at the foot of the bed debating whether to kill them. "I was nervous. I didn't know what to do," Deck said in a taped confession. "I knew they had already seen me. So I shot them."

Police arrested Deck on a tip, and he confessed. He was convicted in 1998 and sentenced to death. His sister, now 53, is confined at the Chillicothe Correctional Center for her role in the crimes. She is serving a 70-year sentence for second-degree murder.

In 2002, the Missouri Supreme Court upheld Deck's convictions for murder but overturned the death sentences, citing a problem with missing jury instructions. That meant Jefferson County prosecutors retried the penalty phase in the spring of 2003; this second jury also recommended the death penalty.

After he was sentenced a second time, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned that sentence in 2005, citing the prejudice caused by Deck being shackled in front of the sentencing jury. The court said it was unconstitutional to shackle capital murder defendants as juries decide their penalty, unless the state justifies the need.

He was sentenced to death for a third time in 2008.

But in 2017, U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry determined that "substantial" evidence arguing against the death penalty in Deck's first two penalty phases had been unavailable for the third. Witnesses who could have focused on mitigation evidence — to bring compassion or mercy from jurors — had died, couldn't be found or developed "hostile attitudes" and declined to cooperate in the more than 10 years since he was convicted, Perry wrote.

Perry called Deck's third penalty-phase trial "fundamentally unfair from even before it began." Perry ordered that Deck serve life in prison without parole.

In October 2020, a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals restored the death penalty, ruling that Deck should have raised his concern first in state court, not federal court.

If his execution moves forward, Deck would be the fifth person to die by lethal injection in Missouri in nearly 5 1/2 years. The most recent to be executed were Mark Christeson, in January 2017; Russell Bucklew, in October 2019; Walter Barton, in May 2020; and Ernest Johnson, in October 2021.

Johnson killed three convenience store workers in Columbia. Barton stabbed to death a woman who ran a trailer park in Ozark. Bucklew killed his ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend in Cape Girardeau County. Christeson killed a woman and her two children in Maries County.

Carman Deck's case could end this week in the execution chamber at the state prison in Bonne Terre. - Dreamstime/Dreamstime/TNS

Communist Xi explains capital’s benefits as Chinese executives speak up on economic crisis


Business leaders now openly say that Beijing’s zero-Covid policies are slowly destroying the economy. It is becoming difficult for many to justify Xi’s ‘common prosperity’ campaign.

AADIL BRAR
2 May, 2022 


Financial industry executives criticise Beijing’s Covid-19 and economic policies. Chinese social media users react to attacks in Karachi. India seizes the assets of Xiaomi India. Chinascope brings you stories from China – and the world – as they unfolded.

China over the week

President Xi Jinping has said that China should give a ‘full play’ to capital by focusing on its ‘positive role’. Xi was speaking at a meeting of the Politburo on Saturday.

Despite underscoring the importance of capital, Xi did try to warn people about letting private capital flow like ‘water’.

“Capital is like ‘water’. Laissez-faire will lead to disaster; timely and reasonable guidance can benefit one party. Correctly understand and grasp the characteristics and behavioural laws of capital, comprehensively improve the efficiency of capital governance, and educate and guide capital entities to practice the core socialist values,” said Xi during the Politburo meeting.

Xi’s remarks come when China’s economy is in the doldrums as the central government is trying to shore up factory production. But people haven’t forgotten Xi’s common prosperity programme, which was at the front and centre of ensuring equitable growth of the Chinese economy. Though common prosperity has slowly disappeared from press releases and Xi’s statements. Common prosperity wasn’t even mentioned in the Chinese version of the Xinhua story, but it was there in the English language version of Xi’s remarks.

It is becoming difficult to justify the direction of Xi’s ‘common prosperity’ campaign as business leaders have started speaking up about the health of the Chinese economy.

Weijian Shan, founder and chair of one of Asia’s biggest private equity investors, has criticised the Chinese government’s economic policies, resulting in a “deep economic crisis” on the scale of global financial crash.

Weijian isn’t the only business executive who has spoken up. Joerg Wuttke, president of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China, has said that Beijing’s zero-Covid policies are slowly destroying the economy.

“The current lockdown is even more extreme than in early 2020, and the economy is crashing almost as hard. Freight traffic volumes in the Shanghai metropolitan area plunged by 81% year-on-year in the first three weeks of April,” said Wuttke in an interview.

It is still rather rare for business leaders like Weijian and Wuttke to speak in the fashion they have done.

----

The attack on Confucius Institute in Karachi has left the Chinese public looking for answers. Three staff members who died in the attack were Huang Guiping, who once served as deputy dean of the School of Foreign Languages at Sichuan Normal University; Ding Mufang, a teacher; and Chen Sai, a volunteer teacher. Another Chinese national, Wang Yuqing, sustained injuries but survived the attack.

The hashtag “Pakistan Confucius Institute shuttle bus hit by the terrorist attack on campus” was viewed 16.1 million times on Weibo. Pakistan’s president made a special visit to the Chinese embassy in Islamabad to share his condolences. A related hashtag was viewed 24 million times on Weibo.

Chinese state media published an article by Pakistani authors blaming British colonisation as the root cause of the Baloch secessionist movement.

The tensions between the US and China are often articulated in a statement by unnamed official sources, but a stark example was revealed this week.

A viral video showed a PLA fighter bomber pilot named Gao Zensong ready to “pull the trigger” to “expel” a foreign vessel in the South China Sea.

“I am the air force of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. You have entered the control area of the Chinese air force. Please leave immediately. Otherwise, you will be responsible for the consequences,” Gao said in the video broadcast by state-run CCTV. The video was viewed 50 million times on Weibo.

On 27 April, the PLA spokesperson said the Chinese navy had expelled the guided-missile destroyer USS Sampson, which had sailed through the Taiwan Strait a day before.

Chinese internet censors find it particularly difficult to digest criticism from celebrities and influential business leaders.

The social media presence of Wang Sicong, son of Chinese property magnate Wang Jianlin, was scrubbed from the Chinese internet. Wang, who had 40 million followers on Weibo, openly criticised the government’s Covid policies in Shanghai, including the use of China’s state-sanctioned medicine for treating the disease.

The Chinese foreign ministry has announced that it would be willing to allow some Indian students to return.

Also read: Xi Jinping races to secure third term, jails corrupt officials, clamps down on social media

China in world news

The US officials held “top-level talks” with their UK counterparts over reducing the chances of China launching a war against Taiwan, according to the Financial Times.

“One of the people said the Taiwan meeting spanned everything from how the UK could do more diplomatically with Taipei to discussions about boosting deterrence in Asia. It also included talks about what role the UK would play if the US ended up in a war with China over Taiwan,” Financial Times reported citing unnamed sources.

Despite a slight lull in India-China relations, things haven’t yet entirely resolved themselves.

India’s Enforcement Directorate on Saturday announced that they had seized Chinese telecom giant Xiaomi’s assets worth Rs 5,551 crore under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).

The directorate said that Xiaomi was making remittances to three foreign entities, one of which was a Xiaomi entity. The directorate has alleged that Xiaomi hasn’t availed any services from the entities to which the royalty payment was remitted. Xiaomi India has been under the ED’s investigation since February.

“We have studied the order from government authorities carefully. We believe our royalty payments and statements to the bank are all legit and truthful,” Xiaomi India said.

Experts this week

“Western countries such as the US and Europe have a set of rhetoric for China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Wherever the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor passes through, and wherever there is a BRI project, they will hype China for plundering local energy and resources and portray the Chinese people as looters and loan sharks, and the locals as looted victims of so-called “debt traps”. Including the Indian media which also spreads the same propaganda. At present, the publicity statements of the Baluchistan Liberation Army are the same as that of the United States, the West, and India. It is possible that BLA is to please these countries to gain more support,” wrote Liu Zongyi, senior fellow and secretary-general of the South Asia and China Center, Shanghai Institutes for International Studies.

Podworld

India’s neutral position on the war in Ukraine has become a matter of discussion worldwide. India’s position has had an impact on its relations with China.

Sinica Podcast’s Kaiser Kuo spoke to Manjari Chatterjee Miller, Senior Fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Manoj Kewalramani, chairperson of the Indo-Pacific Research Programme and a China studies fellow at the Takshashila Institution, about how the war in Ukraine is shaping India-China relations.

The author is a columnist and a freelance journalist, currently pursuing an MSc in international politics with focus on China from School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. He was previously a China media journalist at the BBC World Service. He tweets @aadilbrar. Views are personal.

This is a weekly round-up that Aadil Brar writes about what’s buzzing in China. This will soon be available as a subscribers’-only product.

 theprint.in

The Machiavellian way: How 'The Prince' can help women at work

  >>  Reuters

Published: 03 May 2022 

• 

  The female gender symbol is seen displayed on the Ernst and Young Building on International Women's Day in Times Square in New York City, New York, US, Mar 8, 2018. Reuters

When it comes to the status of women in the workplace, there are decades of talk and not enough action. The gender pay gap is still enormous, and CEOs are still overwhelmingly male, as are corporate boards.

Stacey Vanek Smith says we should look to an unlikely source to help solve this stubborn problem: Niccolo Machiavelli.

Most people remember the Renaissance-era Italian statesman from his iconic book on high-school reading lists, “The Prince.” But Smith, the NPR host and author of new book “Machiavelli for Women,” says his insights about power and survival can be just as critical for navigating the modern workplace.

“I hated that book back in college, but when I re-read it, it helped me understand why the numbers (of women in leadership positions) have been stuck for so long," says Smith, co-host of NPR’s The Indicator from Planet Money. "It offers real suggestions and effective advice about how to gain power and hold onto it, even though it’s 500 years old.”

To be sure, the connotations of the name Machiavelli are quite negative and brutal. His advice to Florence’s ruler Lorenzo de Medici derived from the historical context of regions constantly warring with each other, where the prospect of being taken over and wiped out by rivals was a very real possibility.

If you can get past the sometimes harrowing nature of his counsel, these clear-eyed strategic principles – about how to evaluate threats, overcome obstacles and survive in positions of leadership – can be helpful tools in your arsenal.

Machiavelli may not have been a military warrior, but as a diplomat he did place a high value on another power source – information. The more you have of it, the more you can use it to advance your career.

“That’s the ultimate advice, especially for women or marginalized workers,” Smith says. “Find out what the typical salary range is for the position, what your colleagues are paid, and how much experience they have. Having those facts in a game changer, because most success in negotiating comes before you even open your mouth.”

ASK FOR MORE

Part of what is holding women back in the workplace is systemic, like discriminatory attitudes. But women also do not advocate for themselves as forcefully as men do. If you’re not even asking for what you want in the first place, then any negotiation is dead on arrival.

“Men ask for raises and promotions at five times the rate that women do,” Smith says. “There is so much stuff that is out of your hands – but this is a significant part of the equation that you do have control over as an individual.”

DEMONSTRATE 'CRAZY CONFIDENCE'

Even more than actual competence, the best predictor of career success is confidence, Smith says. It’s free – but it’s definitely a skill you have to develop, since it may not come naturally.

Try to be a little like James Spader’s Robert California character from the sitcom “The Office,” Smith advises – who despite little relevant experience, applies at Dunder Mifflin and ends up being appointed CEO of the entire company within days, purely thanks to his extreme confidence.

The reason why some women shy away from asking for raises and promotions, Smith says, is that such situations are often perceived as hyper-aggressive, zero-sum games.

Instead, reframe such discussions as a win-win: It is obviously in the company’s interests that you feel valued and produce at your highest level, so work together to figure out how to make that happen.

“This is tricky for women, because there can be a backlash to too much aggression,” says Smith. “So when I started to think about negotiations in a more collaborative way, that was the most useful shift in mindset for me.”

SEIZE THE MOMENT

The pandemic has been horrible so many ways, but it also shifted the power dynamic of the modern workplace: It is now much more acceptable to work remotely and to be dealing with home and family issues at the same time.

Previously, that lack of flexibility kept some women out of leadership positions, so now that work-from-home is the new reality for many, there are new pathways to corporate power, Smith says.

“There is a new openness about how work gets done,” she says. “I’ve never seen a moment where workers have more power than they do right now.”

MY FAVORITE PART OF THE PRINCE IS MACHEVELLI'S WARNING THAT WHEN HE IS OPPOSED BY THE REBEL AND THE MASSES HE CAN ALWAYS BE OVERTHROWN. AND HE CAN NEVER PLAN FOR IT.

Philippine vote: Volunteers back reformer vs. dictator’s son

By JIM GOMEZ

1 of 15

Presidential candidate, current Vice President Leni Robredo greets supporters as a Philippine flag is waved during a campaign rally that coincides with her birthday in Pasay City, Philippines on Sunday, April 24, 2022. Followers from diverse backgrounds, families with their grandparents and children, activists, doctors, Catholic church people, TV and movie stars, farmers, students, have jammed Robredo's fiesta-like campaign rallies in the tens of thousands in recent weeks. She called the emerging movement a "pink revolution" in October because many of her volunteers were clad in that color of advocacy. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)


MANILA, Philippines (AP) — One supporter wrote a stirring campaign song that has been played nearly 4 million times on Spotify. Other volunteers are barnstorming Philippine villages, going door-to-door to endorse Vice President Leni Robredo in next week’s presidential election.

The stakes are high: If Robredo’s opponent, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., clinches the presidency, as surveys suggest, it will mark a stunning about-face for a nation where millions poured out into the streets in 1986 to force out a dictator, Marcos’s father, whose legacy continues to shadow his son.

Followers from diverse backgrounds — families with grandparents and children, doctors, activists, Catholic priests and nuns, TV and movie stars, farmers and students — have joined Robredo’s fiesta-like campaign rallies in the tens of thousands. She called the movement a “pink revolution” after the color worn by her volunteers.

The large crowds, as well as drone shots and videos posted online by followers, evoke memories of the massive but largely peaceful 1986 “People Power” uprising that toppled strongman Ferdinand Marcos in an Asian democratic milestone that awed the world.

While the rallying call then was to bring back democracy after years of a brutal and corrupt dictatorship, the battle cry of Robredo’s supporters is a promise to bring good and corruption-free governance with her as the reformist torchbearer.

“We’ve been wanting good governance, honest, hard-working government officials, who genuinely care for the people, and she’s finally here,” said Nica del Rosario, a 32-year-old musician. “Let’s not waste this chance because somebody like her doesn’t come very often.”

With her colleagues, del Rosario wrote and sang two campaign songs for Robredo, including “Rosas” — Tagalog for roses — a tribute to the opposition leader’s patriotic and humble brand of hands-on politics that has become an emotional anthem to her followers. The song has been streamed more than 3.9 million times on Spotify in just two months, and has been widely shared on Facebook and YouTube and driven supporters to tears at rallies.

But Robredo is fighting an uphill electoral battle against Marcos’s son and namesake, who has topped voter-preference surveys with a seemingly insurmountable lead.

Robredo remains in second place in independent surveys for the 10-way presidential race, far behind Marcos Jr., with just a week before 67 million registered voters pick the next Philippine leader on May 9.

Marcos Jr. topped the latest poll by Pulse Asia released on Monday with 56% support while Robredo received 23%. The other candidates lagged far behind in the April 16-21 survey, which polled 2,400 Filipinos of voting age nationwide with a margin of error of 2 percentage points.

Marcos Jr.’s candidacy has been bolstered by his vice presidential running mate, Sara Duterte, the daughter of outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte, who has remained popular despite his bloody crackdown on illegal drugs and dismal human rights record that has left thousands dead since 2016.

“There is still a possibility that people will change their decision,” Pulse Asia President Ronald Holmes said of voter preferences. It’s also hard to capture the effect of word-of-mouth and house-to-house campaigns, he said.

Activists who helped oust Marcos 36 years ago fear Philippine history will be upended if his son takes over a country long seen as an Asian bulwark of democracy. Marcos Jr., a 64-year-old former senator, has defended his father’s legacy and steadfastly refuses to acknowledge or apologize for the widespread abuses and plunder that scarred the Philippines during his martial law rule. Courts in the U.S. and the Philippines as well as government investigations have offered indisputable evidence of that period.

“My worst fear is the return of the Marcoses … because we will face global condemnation. People will be asking us, ‘Haven’t you learned? You said in ’86 never again and now he’s back. So what are you telling us?’” said Florencio Abad, a political detainee in the 1970s under Marcos who later served in top government posts after the dictator’s downfall and now advises Robredo’s campaign.

Robredo, 57, a former congresswoman and mother of three, is running independently and does not belong to any of the country’s entrenched political dynasties and wealthy land-owning clans.

She has been cited for integrity and simplicity in the poverty- and corruption-plagued Southeast Asian nation, where two presidents had been accused of plunder and overthrown, including the elder Marcos, who died in U.S. exile in 1989. A third was detained for nearly four years on a similar allegation but was eventually cleared.

Like her late husband, a respected politician who died in a plane crash in 2012, Robredo’s appeal lies in shunning the trappings of power. As a congresswoman, she would regularly travel alone by bus from her province to the capital and back, often at night, using the long trip to sleep.

Aside from their electoral rivalry, Robredo and Marcos Jr. are on opposite sides of history.

As a student at the state-run University of the Philippines in the 1980s, Robredo joined anti-Marcos protests that culminated in the 1986 democratic uprising.

In 2016, she narrowly defeated Marcos Jr. in a cliffhanger race for vice president in their first electoral faceoff. He waged a years-long unsuccessful legal battle to invalidate her victory for alleged fraud and still refuses to concede.

Without the enormous logistics required for a presidential campaign, Robredo did not initially plan to seek the top post but changed her mind at the last minute last year after Marcos Jr. announced his candidacy and talks to field a single opposition candidate fell apart. The emergence of campaign volunteers was a lifeline, according to her allies.

“She did not have any machinery and it was really the volunteers who were energizing the entire campaign,” said Georgina Hernandez, who coordinates nationwide volunteer efforts for Robredo.

Robredo’s army of volunteers, which Hernandez says numbers close to 2 million, initially engaged in all sorts of campaigning — from turning roadside walls into pink-colored murals with her portrait and mottos to providing free medical and legal services to running soup kitchens for the poor.

Most, however, turned to house-to-house campaigning and organizing star-studded rallies as the election day draws near, she said.

Mary Joan Buan, a volunteer campaigner who also joined the 1986 revolt, said opposing the rise of another Marcos to the presidency decades after the dictator was ousted has become more complex given a well-funded campaign to refurbish the Marcos family image that began on social media several years ago.

“Many rely on social media now and use platforms like TikTok for information so it’s doubly challenging,” Buan said while going door-to-door for Robredo in a depressed Manila neighborhood. A few residents bluntly told her group they were rooting for BBM, a popularized reference to Marcos Jr. that does not mention his family name.

University of the Philippines sociologist Randy David said the rare and spontaneous volunteer movement that emerged for Robredo is a red flag for potential tyrants.

“Traditional politicians are wary of the unlimited potential of social movements to shape electoral outcomes as well as of their capacity to take new forms and persist beyond elections,” David wrote in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, a leading Manila daily. “But it is autocrats who fear them most — because they almost always carry within them the seeds of regime change.”

___

Associated Press journalists Joeal Calupitan and Aaron Favila contributed to this report.

Ukraine has shown Indian diplomacy is like Indian driving—any lane, any time, US or Russia


Academics have warned that India, by following its position, risks China doing invasions along the lines of Ukraine. So, India must outline the ‘red lines’.

TARA KARTHA
2 May, 2022 09:26 am IST

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar addressing the

 Raisina Dialogue 2022 in New Delhi | Credit: ANI Photo

As they say, it’s all over bar the shouting. Not that the shouting is over, not by a long chalk. That continues as US Senators recently even called for sanctions on India over its stance on Russia.

Over the last few months, and particularly last week, Delhi has seen a barrage of veiled threats and entreaties as leaders from all major European countries and the United States descended on India to enlist its support on the Ukraine war. While these have abated somewhat as Delhi stood firm in its public stance, it is a good time to put matters straight over India’s position on Ukraine, not in terms of justification but clarity on just where we stand, and where we are likely to head over the next few months. This also means assessing some of the treasured theories and suppositions rife among ‘experts’, including demands such as Indian mediation, or warnings that India’s ‘weak’ stance would lead to China jumping in.

The inside out of India’s ‘position’

First, India’s position has been far from static. It evolved as the conflict continued, with India’s Permanent Representative continuing to abstain from Resolutions that condemned Russia, but also refusing to support an opportunistic Russian resolution.

In the early part of the conflict, Delhi indisputably needed Russian and Ukrainian assistance to get its 22,000 citizens out, including those from 18 other countries, and so adopted a position that stressed ‘dialogue and diplomacy’ in February, together with the Prime Minister’s talks with both sides. That position continued till mid-March when the last aircraft returned. By 24 March, India abstained on a Resolution by Russia, which ironically called for ‘civilian protection’ in Ukraine, and ‘unhindered access for humanitarian assistance’, which also stressed that the issue should not be ‘politicised’.

On 7 April, India again abstained on a vote to remove Russia from the Human Rights Council, this time, however, choosing to ‘condemn’ the Bucha killings and calling for an independent investigation. India’s vote, therefore, followed an even-handedapproach even as it centralised “respecting sovereignty and territorial integrity of states” and for ‘peaceful resolution of international disputes’. This last has led many to assume that India and China’s position was the same. While Beijing’s explanation of vote did tick both these boxes, the rest of the statement noted the ‘history’ and “abandoning the Cold War mentality, abandoning the logic of ensuring one’s own security at the expense of others’ security, and abandoning the approach of seeking regional security by expanding military blocs’.

In simple words, there is no commonality between the two positions at all. In future, India’s position is unlikely to change in terms of abstention. Few remember that India also abstained on a US-sponsored Resolution 688, which was the prelude to the invasion of Iraq, at a time when India was convinced that Iraq had no ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ at all. Also were similar Resolutions on Bosnia and Libya, both of which also presaged interventions, which led to long drawn out civil warsin those countries.

This mediation thing

Having abstained, there are those who call for mediation by India, apparently due to its close proximity to Russia. There are some basic requirements that have to be met before mediation is even thought of. As a UN Guidance paper notes “Mediation is a process whereby a third party assists two or more parties, with their consent, to prevent, manage or resolve a conflict by helping them to develop mutually acceptable agreements.” In short, consent of all concerned is vital – not just one.

Assuming that Russia is ready for mediation – presumably because its most immediate needs of ‘liberating’ Donbass have been met (which was what its senior military officials hinted at earlier); assuming that Ukraine is also ready to offer ‘neutrality’ with strong guarantees (which means a virtual security umbrella from some NATO countries); both of these offer scope for mediation.

But there is a third party, which includes both Europe and the US. As of now, there is no indication at all that either is ready to encourage such an outcome. Recently, European Union President Von der Leyen stated that sanctions were designed for the long term to use as ‘leverage’ for a lasting peace. Most recently, US President Joe Biden has asked Congress for $33 billion in funds for Ukraine, out of which $20 billion is for weaponry. Such a move doesn’t seem to show any inclination to stop the war. What it does show is that it’s the US defence industry that is reaping the big money. Yes, mediation is urgent, especially to all those like India dealing with the economic shock. But no mediator worth their salt will step in if there is a sense that one side wants to ride Russia into the sunset.

China doing a Ukraine?

And finally, the China question.

Various academics have warned that India, by following its present position, risks China doing a similar invasion along the lines of Ukraine, especially in disputed areas.

First, it must be made clear that any such large-scale invasion on the lines of the Russian ingress would be met by India with not just matching force, but also opens up the threat of use of nuclear weapons. India has a ‘No First Use’ posture, which is not simply declaratory, but flows thereafter into the numbers and types of weapons it chooses to keep in its arsenal. But it can be assumed that any serious threat to its territorial integrity, which is after all the core requirement of national security, would be met with possible nuclear use, if conventional strength fails.

What is admittedly far more dangerous, and more likely, is the steady chipping away of slices of territory which may not be seen as serious enough to warrant the use of nuclear weapons. For that reason, and many others, it might be as well for India to bring out an official and public policy that outlines ‘red lines’, which if crossed, could result in drastic action, nuclear or otherwise. While it is assumed that China would not be so foolish as to risk such escalation, it is as well to ensure that any possible adventurism by even regional commanders is effectively nipped in the bud even before it is thought of.

So, what are the auguries for the future? India is likely to stay its course for all the reasons that have been discussed publicly, including weapons dependency, the need to prop up Moscow as a ‘third pole’ of reasonable strength, and the fact that Russia is involved in our most sensitive areas, including nuclear power. What is not relevant any more is any kind of a historical hangover of Russian friendship. Diplomacy at present needs an agility that cannot rest on past laurels or sentiment. Think of Indian diplomacy as something like Indian driving. Any lane, any time, as long as it gets you there, and fast.

Tara Kartha is a Distinguished Fellow at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, New Delhi. She tweets @kartha_tara. Views are personal.

(Edited by Anurag Chaubey)

A Ukrainian woman was sent to a Louisiana detention center. Then everything changed at the border

2022/5/1 
© The San Diego Union-Tribune

Mark, 7, comforts one of his sisters at Benito Juarez, a sports complex converted into a shelter for Ukrainians, Wednesday, April 13, 2022, in Tijuana, Baja California.

 - Ana Ramirez/The San Diego Union-Tribune/TNS

SAN DIEGO — Kateryna, a 22-year-old Ukrainian woman, experienced firsthand how quickly the U.S. government can change the way it processes people who are fleeing for their lives when there is the political will to do so.

She was in Mexico performing with Nikolas Constantine, her boyfriend and ballroom dance partner, when Russia invaded her country. The couple realized that Kateryna could not return to Ukraine. Constantine is a U.S. citizen, so they decided to head for his home in the Los Angeles area.

But when the pair, along with Constantine's mother, tried to cross north in a car from Tijuana on March 3 at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry to present Kateryna to U.S. officers and request protection for her, Customs and Border Protection took Kateryna into custody and threatened to charge Constantine and his mother with smuggling. Eventually, Kateryna was sent to an immigration detention facility across the country in custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"You don't know what's going to happen next," Kateryna recalled of the experience. "It's just horrible."

She asked not have her full name published because her family is still in Ukraine.

How Kateryna and other Ukrainians who arrived in the first days and weeks of the escalating war were treated stands in stark contrast with how Ukrainians are being received now.

What happened to the earlier arrivals illustrates how the system usually functions if someone is able to reach U.S. soil and request asylum without being expelled. Once federal officials decided to treat Ukrainians differently from other migrants fleeing potentially deadly situations in their home countries, the entry process for them became quick, with no time in custody before being released into the United States to reunite with loved ones here.

Neither CBP nor ICE responded to requests for comment about what happened to Kateryna.

Weeks detained

After she was taken into custody at the border, CBP put Kateryna in a little room at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry and questioned her, she recalled.

Meanwhile, Constantine said, he and his mother were held in what he referred to as a cage for what felt like hours. He isn't sure exactly how much time passed, he said, because their phones were taken from them while CBP searched his mother's car.

"All these women cops were coming up to us and saying we just committed a felony, we're going to prison — 'This is going to be a permanent record. You guys are in so much trouble. We're towing your car away,'" Constantine recalled. "Finally out of nowhere, like three hours later, two cops came over and gave us our passports and said we're free to go."

"It's like they can make their own rules," Constantine added. "When you don't have a phone and aren't able to speak to your lawyer, they have full range of power over you."

CBP placed Kateryna in five-point shackles — connecting her wrists, ankles and waist — and sent her to the San Ysidro Port of Entry, she said. There, CBP kept her in a holding cell in the basement for weeks and only permitted her to call Constantine after more than a week in custody. She said she was never allowed to contact her attorney.

Along with roughly 24 other people — mostly Ukrainian and Russian — she had to sleep on the floor of the cell, Kateryna recalled. She was given a thin, metallic blanket that was not enough to keep her warm in the cell's notoriously cold temperatures. Spanish-speaking asylum-seekers have long called those cells the hielera, or ice box.

"It was so cold there that after the second day, people started getting sick," Kateryna said through a friend, translating from Russian. "Everybody was asking them to at least turn off the air conditioner, and their response was, 'We cannot turn it off because we keep it cold to kill the bacteria in the air.'"

The food portions were small, she said. She recalled one Ukrainian woman in her 60s had a heart condition but wasn't given her medication while in custody.

Constantine and his mother frantically tried to find out where Kateryna was and what would happen to her. His mother reached out to her congresswoman, Julia Brownley, D-Calif., and to the San Diego Union-Tribune. A reporter began sending inquiries to CBP about the case.

"I've never seen him so distraught in his life," said longtime friend Matteo Laudati of Constantine.

After two weeks in the port of entry holding cell, Kateryna was transferred — handcuffed on a several-hour flight — to a long-term detention facility in Louisiana in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. She met dozens of other Ukrainian and Russian women there.

She tried to mentally prepare herself for staying in the facility for months, but once at South Louisiana ICE Processing Center, she was released the next day. Constantine and his mother say it was because of Brownley's efforts that she wasn't held longer.

Brownley's office confirmed that the congresswoman had quickly reached out to the White House about the case.

"As a democracy under siege, Ukraine and the Ukrainian people deserve our utmost support and aid — that includes helping Ukrainians fleeing their war-torn country settle in the United States," Brownley said in a statement.

No officer assigned

Loved ones of other early arrivals described a torturous process while they waited to hear from Ukrainians who had been taken into custody.

Maksym Armash, 22, spent a week waiting to find out what happened to his fiancé when she crossed the border to San Diego.

Armash, who lives in Virginia, is originally from Ukraine but has been a green-card holder for years. He and his fiancé had an appointment scheduled for April with the U.S. embassy in Ukraine to get her a visa to join him in the United States, but that was cancelled after Russia invaded.

As the couple tried to figure out how to keep her safe, she suggested trying to get to Armash and the United States through Mexico and requesting asylum.

On her fourth try, the fiancé and two other Ukrainian asylum-seekers managed to drive in the San Ysidro car lanes onto U.S. soil, where they were taken into CBP custody.

A week later, the fiancé ended up at South Louisiana ICE Processing Center. Armash was still in San Diego, waiting for her to come out the north side of the port of entry.

In the meantime, his sister and her family had come to Tijuana, walked up to U.S. officials and been processed into the United States in an hour, he said.

"I was so confused — like, seriously, what's wrong? What's different with my fiancé?" Armash recalled.

After a public outcry over a Ukrainian family being turned away from the border under Title 42 — a policy enacted during the pandemic that allows officials to keep asylum-seekers and other undocumented migrants off U.S. soil and expel them if they cross anyway without screening them for protection needs — U.S. policy shifted seemingly overnight.

Ukrainians are now fast-tracked through the port of entry, and they are released on the north side of the building through humanitarian parole, which gives them one-year permits to remain in the United States. Those permits are similar to the ones given to Afghan evacuees when the Taliban took over Afghanistan.

With two attorneys helping him, Armash was still unable to get in touch with his fiancé for days. Attorney Kristina Ghazaryan said she called and repeatedly left messages for ICE officials at the detention facility. ICE never called her back, she said.

"I was really unhappy with the situation because for eight days there was no officer assigned," Ghazaryan recalled.

Finally, she reached a supervisor with ICE and was able to get the case moving. Several of the women, including Armash's fiancé, were released days later with humanitarian parole.

Harder to get out

Russians fleeing their country because they disagree with the war and fear the repercussions they face as political dissidents under Putin have had a much more difficult time entering the United States than Ukrainians.

Those who have managed to get onto U.S. soil have faced similar in custody experiences as the Ukrainians who crossed early on in the invasion. But for the Russians, getting out of detention is much more complicated.

They are generally held in ICE custody until they pass screening interviews that are the first step in the asylum process. Then, they get documents telling them to appear in immigration court for further proceedings on their asylum cases. The Ukrainians do not have immigration court cases.

Margaret Cargioli, directing attorney with Immigrant Defenders Law Center, said she'd had several issues trying to reach a Russian husband and wife after they went into the port of entry.

Cargioli declined to explain how the couple managed to get into the port of entry to get processed for asylum. They entered on the same day that a group that had been camped by the pedestrian entrance to San Ysidro Port of Entry was quietly processed by officials.

The attorney called the port of entry to speak with her clients and was told to call back that evening. When she called back, she was able to speak with the wife for a few minutes to go over what to expect and what information she had sent to CBP in an email. In the middle of their conversation, a CBP officer told her that she couldn't discuss her client's upcoming screening interview with the woman and hung up.

Cargioli called back several times with no answer. She finally reached a supervisor who accused her of coaching her client.

"He said, 'You're her attorney in court. If we had everyone here speak to an attorney we'd never get our work done,'" said Cargioli, who took notes on the conversation.

Despite Cargioli's insistence that her client had a right to speak with her, the supervisor told her she would have to wait until the client moved to ICE detention.

The wife was sent to Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego while the husband ended up in a facility in Mississippi. Asylum-seeking adult family members have often ended up separated in different detention centers, which can complicate their asylum cases because they lose the ability to call each other as witnesses.

Even after they were in ICE custody, confusion among staff at the detention center about her client's right to a free legal call delayed Cargioli's ability to communicate with the wife by a day, the lawyer said.

Cargioli said she has experienced these kinds of challenges since she started working with clients at the border a few years ago.

Unclear future

Before the pandemic completely shuttered asylum processing at ports of entry, most asylum-seekers who arrived without children were required to stay in ICE detention facilities for months and often for the duration of their cases.

But for Ukrainians who have come to the U.S.-Mexico border in the past couple of weeks, the experience has changed dramatically.

They do not spend time in custody. Rather, buses drive them from a sports complex owned by the city of Tijuana that has turned into a shelter to a special entrance at the San Ysidro Port of Entry that remains closed to other pedestrians. Within a matter of hours, they walk out the other side to volunteers waiting with hot meals and offers of options for temporary housing and travel to their final destinations around the United States.

According to a volunteer at a booth checking in new arrivals to the sports complex shelter, CBP has been processing between 300 and 600 Ukrainians per day.

Ghazaryan said she is no longer receiving frantic phone calls from people asking for help getting their Ukrainian loved ones out of custody. But Russians who manage to cross the border are still likely to end up in detention, at least temporarily, if they do not have children.

And for nationalities including Mexicans, Guatemalans, Hondurans, Salvadorans and Haitians who have generally not been able to request asylum in years because of Title 42, it is not yet clear which version of asylum processing will receive them once that policy ends on May 23.

For Kateryna and her loved ones, her small taste of the treatment that asylum-seekers have long received at the U.S.-Mexico border was enough to convince them that it was not something that anyone fleeing for their life should have to experience.

"It's almost like an endurance test to see if you're strong enough — it's honestly disgusting," Laudati said in a group call. "(Officials) treat them like they've committed a murder."

"They break you down," Constantine agreed.

"It feels really scary," Kateryna added.

Biden welcomes Ukrainian refugees, neglects Afghans, critics say

Many human rights advocates hail the administration’s response to the exodus triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, while others feel deeply frustrated that those left behind in Afghanistan have not received equal attention

By Abigail Hauslohner

WASHINGTON POST
April 28, 2022

President Biden’s aggressive push to admit up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees has generated resentment among those clamoring for his administration to help extract the tens of thousands of Afghan citizens desperate to escape Taliban rule now eight months after the calamitous end of America’s war there.

The Department of Homeland Security this week unveiled its program to accelerate the admissions process for Ukrainians, allowing U.S.-based family members, organizations and other groups to apply, using a dedicated website, for specific individuals to gain entry into the United States. As of Wednesday night, the agency said it had received 4,000 requests.

The announcement was cheered by human rights advocates who have pressured the president to expand U.S. capacity to bring in refugees fleeing conflict. But critics have questioned why his administration has so far not exhibited such urgency in helping those left behind in Afghanistan — many of whom worked for or alongside the U.S. government throughout the 20-year war.

“The juxtaposition of the administration’s response to Ukraine and their response to Afghanistan is pretty stark,” said Adam Bates, policy counsel at the International Refugee Assistance Project.

Thousands of Afghans were evacuated to the U.S. Will America let them stay?

Biden’s “Uniting for Ukraine” program aims to ease requests for humanitarian parole, a two-year legal status, after which Ukrainians who wish to remain in the United States permanently must apply for asylum or another immigrant status. It carries no fees, entails less-onerous paperwork compared to the government’s traditional parole program, and applicants visiting the website are assured, “We anticipate that the process will be fairly quick.” To be eligible, Ukrainians must have “resided in Ukraine immediately prior to the Russian invasion” in February and suffered displacement as a result.

It’s a lot like the approach many military veterans groups, Afghans and refugee advocates have been “begging” the Biden administration to implement since well before the United States withdrew from Afghanistan in August, Bates said. “On the one hand, this Uniting for Ukraine program shows how quickly and efficiently the U.S. government, and the Biden administration in particular, can protect vulnerable people when they’re committed to doing that,” he added. “It also demonstrates that a lot of the things the administration said to justify not providing protections to Afghans were simply not true.”

The administration says it evacuated more than 76,000 Afghans to the United States last year as U.S. troops and diplomats departed Kabul and in the weeks that immediately followed. About 2,000 additional Afghans have arrived since then, the administration says, though it’s unclear how many people the U.S. government has helped escape after the final military transports left Hamid Karzai International Airport.

Administration officials firmly dispute critics’ assertions that Biden has established different standards for the two groups in need. “The magnitude and speed of the displacement of Ukrainians caused by Russia’s unprovoked war have required a swift, significant, and coordinated international response,” said one individual who, like some others, responded to questions via email and on the condition of anonymity, citing internal rules. “Welcoming Ukrainian refugees will not limit our ability to welcome Afghans and other individuals looking for refuge in this country.”

The numbers tell a more complicated story.

DHS says that since July, a few weeks before the Afghan government’s collapse, it has received 45,000 applications for humanitarian parole from those unable to evacuate on a U.S. military flight. Because there is no dedicated resource like Uniting for Ukraine to facilitate Afghans’ applications, their requests have flooded the government’s general humanitarian parole program. The associated fee is $575 per applicant — or, as critics note, more than what the World Bank estimates an average Afghan earned annually before the U.S. withdrawal.

This process also requires applicants to prove they are under direct threat, advocates say. “You basically have to show that you, as an individual human being, are being targeted somehow by the Taliban. And that’s obviously a very difficult thing to establish — you know, unless the Taliban sends you a letter or something,” Bates said.

Matthew Bourke, a spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Homeland Security division that processes parole applications, said the agency has significantly expanded its processing capacity but that it has reached decisions on only 2,470 Afghan requests so far. Most were denied, he said.

“That’s more than $25 million that the Biden administration took from desperate Afghan refugees … to basically not process their humanitarian parole applications and to reject the overwhelming majority of the ones they do process,” Bates said.

Bourke said the figure was probably less than $25 million because some of the 45,000 parole applications were filed by the U.S. government on behalf of individual Afghans while others who’ve applied were granted fee waivers.

To Ukrainians who sought humanitarian parole before the creation of Uniting for Ukraine and who previously paid the processing fee, “we will refund fees paid in this circumstance,” the administration’s website says.

To Afghans and others, U.S. officials say humanitarian parole was never meant to bypass the traditional refugee program, which is the main pathway available to those seeking protection in the United States. Officials admitted 161 Afghans that way from October through March, according to the latest figures published by the State Department. It admitted 704 Ukrainian refugees during the same period.

“We have taken concrete steps to rebuild and enhance the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program to support increased admissions numbers across refugee populations,” a State Department spokesperson wrote in an email. “The Administration is committed to significantly increasing the number of refugees we resettle from Ukraine and around the world,” the official said.

U.S. to accelerate processing for Afghans evacuated to Qatar, but thousands more remain in limbo

Those with ties to U.S. organizations or individuals might be eligible for a “Priority 2” designation, established by the administration last summer in response to the volume of Afghans in need of refuge, though officials say it could take more than a year for people to be processed this way. Afghans who worked directly for the U.S. government might be eligible for Special Immigrant Visas, but that path to the United States also can take months or years.

Because there is no longer a U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan, none of these applications can be processed while individuals are there, officials said. And while Ukrainians have been largely welcomed into neighboring European countries where they do not need visas, the obstacles to leaving Afghanistan are formidable, advocates say.

“It’s a very difficult process right now,” said Shala Gafary, managing attorney for the Afghan Legal Assistance project at Human Rights First. Getting to neighboring Pakistan requires money and a visa — and making it past the Taliban, who rights groups have accused of targeting people associated with the United States.

“You can imagine a mom with a couple of small kids. How is she supposed to get to Pakistan when the Taliban is not allowing women to travel by themselves without being accompanied by a male guardian?” Gafary said.

Biden administration officials were quick to counter their critics by pointing to the mammoth evacuation effort undertaken as the United States exited Afghanistan. “We are proud to have welcomed more than 78,000 Afghans in the United States since August 2021,” the State Department spokesperson said. “Our commitment to resettling Afghans — particularly those who served on behalf of the U.S. effort in Afghanistan — remains steadfast.”

Advocates contend the administration has an obligation to rescue more, saying the U.S. exit from Afghanistan was so poorly planned and executed that thousands under grave threat from the Taliban couldn’t make it inside Kabul’s airport as the evacuation was underway. Others, including many Afghan military pilots, escaped but now are in the United States without their spouses or children.

Humanitarian parole applications have become the go-to move for those left behind because there weren’t any other viable options, advocates said. That the Biden administration created Uniting for Ukraine “for a population that has, let’s be honest, a lot of options … feels like a slap in the face,” Gafary said.



By Abigail Hauslohner is a national security reporter at The Washington Post. In her decade at the newspaper, she has been a roving national correspondent, writing on topics ranging from immigration to political extremism and the pandemic, and covered the Middle East as the Post's Cairo bureau chief. Twitter