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Friday, October 09, 2020

Africa's quiet cryptocurrency revolution

Cryptocurrency transactions in Africa are growing rapidly. On a continent that already embraces mobile money, virtual currency offers advantages for a young, tech-savvy population.

Africa is undergoing an economic revolution that has nothing to do with banks and despite little sign of outdated economic policies being overhauled.

Monthly cryptocurrency transfers to and from Africa under $10,000 (€8,500) shot up by 55% over the past year, reaching a peak of $316 million in June.

These numbers, which are based on data from US Blockchain research firm Chainalysis, are likely to keep rising. And while cryptocurrency is more commonly used by financial traders in other parts of the world, Africa is bucking this trend and mainly using it for commerce.

Individuals and small businesses in Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya account for most of this activity.

What is a cryptocurrency?

Simply put, a cryptocurrency is virtual money that people can use just like real money to buy things or send to other people. The 'crypto' in crytocurrency comes from the complicated cryptography (encrypted codes) used to create it and record transactions.

Crytocurrencies aim to cut out the middlemen, such as credit card companies or banks, making it cheaper to transfer money from one virtual wallet to another. Cryptocurrencies also aren't controlled by any central authority, which theoretically protects them from any interference by governments.

Read more: A new legitimate era for Bitcoin

"For most people, when they hear cryptocurrency, they think it's just money on the internet," Elisha Owusu Akyaw, a Ghanaian-based cryptocurrency marketer and founder of BlockNewsAfrica, told DW.

Alongside Bitcoin, Ethereum is another crypocurrency platform growing in popularity in Africa

"Cryptocurrency basically takes what money is to many people and uses technology to make it more transparent and less centralized, so that everybody has a seat at the table when it comes to the future of finance," he said on the phone from the Ghanaian capital, Accra.

Read more: Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies — how do they work?

Bitcoin — the original and by far the most popular form of cryptocurrency — was created in 2008 by an unknown person or group of people under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. Since then, more than 6,000 other types of cryptocurrency have been created, including popular options like Ethereum and Litecoin.

Ghanaian technology entrepreneur and blockchain digital marketer Emmanuel Tokunbo Darko told DW that Africa was the"next frontier of development and global economic growth."

With an increasing number of Africans already embracing mobile money services such as M-Pesa, those in the industry say it's no surprise cryptocurrency is quickly gaining traction on the continent.

Fertile ground for virtual money

Cryptocurrency basically works like mobile money, technology entrepreneur Darko said. "So it's easier for Africans to understand as opposed to people in the West who already had more financial inclusion and easy access to banking systems."

Many Africans are already familiar with mobile money transfer companies like M-Pesa

Africa is well positioned to take advantage of the cryptocurrency boom. It has a growing generation of adaptable young professionals and would-be entrepreneurs. Plus, high unemployment in many African countries means young people are skirting traditional sectors and exploring new ways to make money.

Ghanaian cryptocurrency marketer Elisha Owusu Akyaw explained that young people were interested in the virtual money because of the lack of jobs for school and university leavers.

"With the cryptocurrency system, people are able to start their own business, people are able to work for big brands outside their own country through cryptocurrency and make a living for themselves," he said.

Read more: Digitalization in Africa: 'We aren't thinking any more in the conventional way'

Avoiding currency instability

Unreliable local currencies and hyperinflation have also played a part in the cryptocurrency boom. When the Zimbabwean dollar skyrocketed in 2015, some people turned to trading in Bitcoin instead.

More people in Zimbabwe began investing in cryptocurrency to avoid the pitfalls of hyperinflation

"Now you have this alternative to traditional government-managed currencies where there's historically been so many errors and negative side-effects," Chris Becker, the blockchain technologies lead at the South African-based international banking group Investec, told DW.

Read more: Why Bitcoin is valued in Zimbabwe

In the best case scenario, Becker predicts the emergence of cryptocurrencies may actually help some African economies in the long run.

"These competing currencies are operating alongside the domestic currencies, which I think will give these economies an increased level of resilience," he said on the phone from Johannesburg.

Cryptocurrency can be win for remittances

Africa's growing diaspora has also jumped on the cryptocurrency bandwagon to send remittances across borders more cheaply.

That's a logcal move, tech entrepreneur Emmanuel Darko says.

"For Africans in the diaspora sending money back home, the cost of bank transfers is astronomical," said Darko. "It's sometimes as high as 20%. ... But there are some cryptocurrencies that allow [people to] practically send money back to Africa for free."

One popular service is the remittance company BitPesa, based in Kenya's capital Nairobi. BitPesa uses Bitcoin as a medium for international money transfers. This avoids bank fees and also skips the cost of converting money into different currencies.

Many mobile money servies in Africa still have a human touch

A risky venture?

Africa's foray into cryptocurrency doesn't come without risks.

The very nature of cryptocurrency means prices are volatile to begin with. Virtual currencies remain unregulated in most African countries and their legal status is often unclear, meaning there is no safety net to compensate for loss of funds. Short term investors are more likely to get hit hard by sudden slumps.

Darko warns that anyone looking to trade in cryptocurrency should tread carefully and educate themselves before starting.

"Because of a lack of education, people are misled into some schemes that are not crypto," he explains. "So it's advisable to get educated. Crypto appears a bit complex for a lot of people, while in truth crypto is actually very simple if you take your time to understand it."

Cryptocurrency marketers like Akyaw warns that people with little experience in new technologies are most at risk of falling victim to an increasing number of crypto-scams, or investing in the wrong markets.

"Cryptocurrency and blockchain is easier to understand by people who are already educated and who are already exposed to technology," he said. "It's a little difficult to get older people to understand and get past the learning curve that comes with technology."

Young Africans are often tech-savvy and looking to make money, making them more likely to venture into the world of cryptocurrency

What does the future hold?

Some African countries are scrambling to create new laws to prepare for a possible future where cryptocurrency is the norm.

Africa's biggest economy Nigeria is leading the way, having recently made cryptocurrency legal and issuing regulatory guidelines for digital currencies and crypto-based companies or start-ups.

Read more: Afrofuturism: Between science fiction and reality in Africa

Other cryptocurrency hotspots like South Africa and Kenya aren't far behind. South Africa's top financial regulators, including the South African Reserve Bank, released a policy paper in April with recommendations for the regulation of cryptocurrency. Meanwhile, Kenya is set to experiment with a digital tax from January 2021, possibly opening the door to more crypto regulation.

While it's still too early to say how widely adopted cryptocurrency will become in Africa, cryptocurrency marketer Akyaw believes it's something young Africans should consider looking into.

"It's a no brainer in the sense that that's where finance is going," he said. "A lot of big brands initially dismissed the potential of cryptocurrency, saying it was just going to vanish. It's been over ten years and cryptocurrency is still growing, it's still getting stronger."

VIDEO https://www.dw.com/en/africas-quiet-cryptocurrency-revolution/a-55199637

Indonesia's first transgender public official breaks conservative mold

As a trans woman, Hendrika Kelan overcame social barriers in conservative Indonesia to win the support of her community. Active in the Catholic Church, Kelan says she has always tried to serve others.

As the head of the consultative body of a small village in Indonesia, Hendrika Mayora Kelan celebrated her 34th birthday last week by giving out vegetables to her community.

Kelan is the first openly trans woman to become a public official in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority country.

"I am grateful for the support of the people to me as a trans woman. They entrusted the leadership of the village council to me," Kelan told DW.

She said at times during the election, she felt inferior because of her sexual orientation. But it seems her reputation as a hard worker mattered more to the village.

Read more: Indonesian society splinters under conservative draft laws

"As soon as I was elected, I was immediately confronted with the hardships brought on by the pandemic. So, I immediately created a food security program, planted crops and distributed them to the community," said Kelan.

The Habi Village Consultative Body has important functions, including drawing up village regulations, overseeing the use of village funds and monitoring the performance of village officials.

With the authority she has for the next six years, Kelan will also try to enact inclusive policies, including empowering marginalized groups such as transgender people.

Habi village in Sikka district is part of a Catholic-majority region in Indonesia's southernmost province, East Nusa Tenggara. There are around 320,000 people in Sikka, of which Muslims make up 9%.

Before transitioning to a woman, Kelan had been a religious brother in the Catholic Church. As a devout Catholic, she has contended with a struggle between her sexual identity and her faith.

Kelan says she wants to be an example that trans women in Indonesia can be part of government without stigmas and stereotypes attached

A long transition

Born in August 1986, she was given the male name Henderikus. She said she had felt like a girl since elementary school; wearing make-up and playing with girl's toys.

"I already felt different from boys. But due to family pressure, I continued to survive as a boy."

When she was a child, her family moved to the larger island of Papua and in high school, Kelan entered a Catholic seminary school and became a religious brother.

"I had the spirit to serve others," she said.

Read more: Indonesia's Aceh enlists an all-female flogging squad to enforce Shariah law

But during that time, she also struggled with accepting her identity and reconciling her faith with the feeling that being transgender was a sin prohibited by her religion.

Meanwhile, the feeling that she was a woman trapped in a male body grew stronger, and she began battling depression.

"I did not tell my bosses about my self-identity, but I think all people could see my femininity," she said.

After two years, she decided to leave the service of the church. Slowly she started coming out as transgender and began wearing women's clothes.

She moved to the city of Yogyakarta on Java. She volunteered to help victims of HIV-AIDS, but she soon ran out of money. She worked as a street performer and a sex worker, facing beatings and harassment from officials.

In 2018, following the death of her cousin, Kelan decided to leave the city and return to the village in Sikka where she was born.

Indonesia: Thousands protest against labor reforms

Protesters and striking workers have entered the third day of clashes with police against a new reform which they say undermines workers' rights. Thousands have taken to the streets and hundreds have been arrested.

VIDEO https://p.dw.com/p/3jbpt

Thousands of people took part in protests and strikes across Indonesia for a third straight day on Thursday in a call for the government to repeal its controversial "Omnibus" reform, which was enacted on Monday.

At least 600 people have been arrested in clashes with the police. Protesters said the new law undermines job security as well as environmental regulations. The government considers it a necessary step to encourage investment in the faltering economy.

Protesters, many of them students, gathered in major cities across the country on Thursday morning. Police responded to the street demonstrations with tear gas and water cannons. Two students were seriously injured in the confrontations.

Hundreds of protesters push against a wall of police

Police in the capital, Jakarta, prevented protesters from holding mass rallies in front of the parliament building by blocking the city's streets.
Workers and students united against the government

A video shared on Twitter showed protesters in the city of Semarang, on the island of Java, knocking down a gate while facing off against the police.

Workers also went out on strike against the new legislation. Said Iqbal, president of the Confederation of Indonesian Workers' Union (KSPI), which, along with 32 other trade unions, had called for the strike, said Thursday would be the third and final day of strikes.

The "Omnibus" reform made changes to 79 other laws in order to improve bureaucratic efficiency, but protesters claimed that the legislation hurts workers by changing how the labor system regulates severance pay, outsourcing and dealing with wages.

Maulana Syarif, a 45-year-old vehicle production worker, told Reuters news agency he had joined the protest for the sake of future generations. "We ask that the law be repealed immediately," he said.

"This is our struggle for our children and grandchildren and our future generations...If it's like this (with the new law) our well-being will decrease, and we will lack certainty in jobs," he added.

An economy in need of a cure

Indonesia's government under President Joko Widodo introduced the bill in order to increase foreign direct investment in the country as a means of boosting Southeast Asia's largest, but ailing, economy.

The legislation cuts back on red tape and erodes labor and environmental protections in an attempt to appeal to businesses and investors. The reforms have been cautiously welcomed by some financial analysts, but other groups criticized the lack of consultation and expedited passing of the law.

ab/sms (Reuters, AP)

What Indonesia's labor reforms mean for workers' rights, the environment

A controversial measure aimed at cutting red tape by amending dozens of laws covering taxation, labor and environment regulations has workers, trade unions and environmental activists form an unlikely alliance.

A molotov cocktail explodes against police shields

Thousands of Indonesians have taken to the streets this week to protest President Joko Widodo's so-called Omnibus Bill on Job Creation — a new piece of legislation that slashes regulations contained in more than 70 separate existing laws to open up the country to more foreign investment.

With seven of the nine political parties represented in parliament in favor of the 905-page stimulus measure, lawmakers smoothly passed the bill on Monday.

The legislature had initially planned to consider the bill at the end of the week but calls from some 32 labor unions for a three-day national strike starting Tuesday to oppose it prompted the government to speed up the vote.

Labor activists and environmentalists have come together in an unlikely alliance to protest the cut in regulations on businesses which they say would come at a high cost to workers and the environment.

"We are very disappointed and devastated with the House of Representatives and the government for openly displaying a lack of empathy and no ethical sense in the legislative process," Riden Hatam Aziz, secretary general of the Confederation of Indonesian Workers Union, told DW.

"Needless to say this is tremendously embarrassing in a country that is reputedly a democracy," said Aziz.

Human rights group Amnesty International called the legislation "catastrophic" for workers, saying it would damage job security and livelihoods.

Economic despair amid pandemic

The Indonesian government hopes the measure will accelerate reform in the country's economy, make it more business friendly and stimulate investment and job creation.

Indonesia, Southeast Asia's largest economy, has been among the nations hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic and is facing recession.

With the economy expected to contract this year for the first time since the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, Widodo is set on pushing ahead with measures to ensure the country's economic recovery, despite rising COVID-19 infections.

Indonesia has registered at least 307,000 coronavirus cases with more than 11,000 related deaths. Health experts, however, warn many more cases and deaths have gone unreported.

Republican Senator Blurts Out That He Hates Democracy

We’re not a democracy.— Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) October 8, 2020

By Jonathan Chait

Photo: Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images/Shutterstock

Last night, livetweeting his thoughts on the 2020 vice-presidential debate, Republican senator Mike Lee decided it was an opportune moment to share one of his edgier political beliefs: Democracy is bad

We’re not a democracy.— Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) October 8, 2020

Lee is articulating a view that has long been in vogue on the American right but which Republican politicians were generally hesitant to express openly. The premise is that liberty is a higher value than democracy, and they define liberty to mean a right to property that precludes redistribution. That is to say, the far right does not merely view progressive taxation, regulation and the welfare state as impediments to growth, but as fundamentally oppressive. A political system that truly secured freedom would not allow the majority to gang up on the minority and redistribute their income for themselves.

Lee, indeed, unpacked his views in a follow-up:

Democracy isn’t the objective; liberty, peace, and prospefity are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that.— Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) October 8, 2020

Four years ago, I wrote a long essay describing this view and its ascent within the Republican party over decades. Its thesis, that the GOP is slowly evolving into an authoritarian party, has been amply borne out by the Trump era.

From the perspective of the right, Trump’s assault on democracy has advanced the cause of freedom and liberty, on net. His regressive tax cuts and deregulation have returned property to their rightful owners. Republicans believe that the political system must retain, and ideally expand, its counter-majoritarian features: restrictive ballot-access rules that restrict the franchise to the most “worthy” citizens, gerrymandered maps that allow the white rural minority to exercise control, a Senate that disproportionately represents white and Republican voters, and a Supreme Court that believes the Republican economic program is written into the Constitution.

Lee drew some attention by attacking Trump in 2016 and urging him to quit the race after the Access Hollywood tape emerged. But Lee, like most conservatives, has grown to appreciate the values he and Trump share. The most important of these shared values is Trump’s hatred for democracy. And this is why the struggle for American democracy will continue after Trump is gone.

USA CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY

Jeff Sessions Reportedly Told U.S. Attorneys ‘We Need to Take Away Children’

By Matt Stieb
FAMILY SEPARATION OCT. 7, 2020

Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Photo: Getty Images

Last year, the American Civil Liberties Union provided a better understanding of the scale of the abhorrent Trump administration policy of family separation at the border, when an ACLU lawsuit revealed that at least 4,300 undocumented children were separated by the Department of Homeland Security before the “zero-tolerance” order was rescinded in June 2018. The cruelty of the policy, however, is still coming to light.

On Tuesday, the New York Times published details from a draft of a Department of Justice inspector general report into the administration’s family separation policy. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t seem the minds behind a plan to cleave children from their parents were concerned with the humanity of their idea. In a May 2018 meeting with five U.S. attorneys along the border, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions said, “We need to take away children,” according to the notes of those in the room. In shorthand, one participant captured the deterrence policy quite succinctly: “If care about kids, don’t bring them in. Won’t give amnesty to people with kids.”

Sessions isn’t the only DOJ official whose callousness is put on full display in the inspector general’s draft. A week or so after the meeting in which Sessions gave his direction to turn the detention of children into a political tool, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein got back on the phone with the same group of U.S. attorneys:

Rod J. Rosenstein, then the deputy attorney general, went even further in a second call about a week later, telling the five prosecutors that it did not matter how young the children were. He said that government lawyers should not have refused to prosecute two cases simply because the children were barely more than infants.

“The department’s single-minded focus on increasing prosecutions came at the expense of careful and effective implementation of the policy, especially with regard to prosecution of family-unit adults and the resulting child separations,” the draft report states, while detailing for the first time several new offenses. In their zeal to pursue family separation cases, one Texas prosecutor informed their boss that “sex offenders were released” as a result. Another government prosecutor wrote that officials took “breastfeeding defendant moms away from their infants.”

While condemnation for the policy has largely been channeled toward former Department of Homeland Security head Kirstjen Nielsen, the inspector general’s report reveals that the driving inspiration for the vile policy came from the Department of Justice:

For two years, Ms. Nielsen has taken the brunt of the public criticism for separating migrant families because of her decision to refer adults crossing the border illegally with children for prosecution. A day after the president’s retreat, Mr. Sessions distanced his department from the decision, telling CBN News that “we never really intended” to separate children.

That was false, according to the draft report. It made clear that from the policy’s earliest days in a five-month test along the border in Texas, Justice Department officials understood — and encouraged — the separation of children as an expected part of the desire to prosecute all undocumented border crossers.

And while Sessions’s opinion on migrants — as well as that of his former aide, Stephen Miller — has been public for some time now, the draft also displays the indifference of Rod Rosenstein, who said of the welfare of children taken from their parents: “I just don’t see that as a D.O.J. equity.”

USA CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY

ICE Arrested More Than 100 Immigrants In California Weeks Before The Presidential Election

The arrests were the latest effort by ICE to target the state and its policies that reduce the cooperation between local police and federal agents when it comes to immigration enforcement.

Posted on October 6, 2020

Mark Avery / Associated Press
ICE officers arrest a suspect during a predawn raid in California in 2007.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials arrested more than 100 immigrants across California in an operation last week, the latest effort by the agency to target the state and its policies that reduce the cooperation between local police and federal agents when it comes to immigration enforcement.

The details of the operation, which occurred last week in Northern and Southern California and were described to BuzzFeed News by a source with knowledge of it, are expected to be released in a news conference on Wednesday in Washington, DC.

ICE’s acting leader, Tony Pham, and Chad Wolf, the acting Department of Homeland Security secretary, plan to slam local officials for so-called sanctuary policies, in which local officials refuse to hold immigrants in their custody who are wanted by ICE for longer than required by local laws or to inform ICE of when the immigrants will be released from custody.

While ICE operations on the street tend to command attention, the agency prefers to focus deportation efforts on local jails, where officers can pick up inmates without being forced to use more resources to make arrests in the field.

In an advisory released to the media on Tuesday evening, DHS officials said the press conference would “announce the results of recent California-based enforcement actions led by ICE to target at-large aliens subject to removal who were arrested or convicted for crimes, but were released by state or local law enforcement agencies, despite having active immigration detainers in place.”

The Washington Post previously reported that the agency had plans to target so-called sanctuary cities.

The press conference will come just days after ICE installed bold black-and-red billboards along highways across the key swing state of Pennsylvania, depicting the faces of, as ICE put it, “at-large immigration violators who may pose a public safety threat.” Current and former ICE officials, along with legal experts, labeled the move as politically motivated, a naked attempt to use the wedge issue of immigration to help President Donald Trump in his reelection bid.

Since the beginning of the Trump administration, Homeland Security officials have attacked local governments that do not cooperate with immigration enforcement, especially jails that refuse to hold immigrants and hand them over to ICE. Many local governments have declined to collaborate with ICE, with some officials saying it will deter law-abiding immigrants from helping law enforcement solve crimes, thus putting public safety at risk.

The administration has released “reports” on counties with sanctuary policies and has tried, often unsuccessfully, to sue them and strip them of federal funds. The policies enacted by sanctuary cities and counties do not prevent ICE from picking up immigrants once they are released from criminal custody.

In California, county jails are allowed to respond to an ICE request for notification of an inmate’s release date only if the person has been convicted of a serious crime or is headed to trial on such a charge. Many counties, including in the Bay Area, have set up complicated flowcharts describing when deputies can respond.

Advocates and city officials in many places in the US believe that local jurisdictions are well served by sanctuary laws, allowing all people — regardless of status — to fully engage with public services, including police, schools, and healthcare, rather than live in the shadows.

Federal officials, however, argue the opposite. They believe that so-called sanctuary laws threaten lives, especially laws that lead local jails to release many undocumented people rather than turning them over to federal agents.

The billboards and the operation come at a volatile period for the Department of Homeland Security, which has been slammed for its politicization during an election year. Critics point to DHS officers being deployed to Portland, Oregon, where tear gas was used against protesters outside a federal courthouse. DHS leaders said the effort was necessary to protect federal property.

The agency had limited at-large operations during the coronavirus pandemic, but in late September it changed language on its website to indicate that enforcement would begin again as normal.

A Judge Ordered Him Released From Prison Due To COVID-19 Concerns. He Died Of The Disease Two Months Later In ICE Custody.

Hamed Aleaziz · Sept. 23, 2020

A Congressional Oversight Committee Found That ICE Detainees Died After Receiving Poor Medical Care

Hamed Aleaziz · Sept. 24, 2020

Hamed Aleaziz is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in San Francisco.

USA CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY

Federal Officials Now Say That Transferring Detainees Between Jails Holding Immigrants Contributed To Coronavirus Outbreaks

The draft report also acknowledges that the inability for adequate social distancing within ICE detention centers contributed to the spread of the virus.

Posted on October 6, 2020

Stephan Savoia / AP
An immigrant returns to his cell in Boston.

Department of Homeland Security officials have acknowledged that transfers of detainees between facilities holding immigrants for ICE had “contributed to outbreaks” of COVID-19 and that poor information sharing made tracking and preventing the spread of the virus more difficult, according to a draft report obtained by BuzzFeed News.

The document also acknowledges that the inability for adequate social distancing within the ICE detention centers had contributed to the spread of the disease.

The internal recognition of the risks posed by transfers of detainees between facilities — a regular occurrence before and during the pandemic — comes after months of warnings from medical experts, advocates, and politicians over the consequences of shuttling people across the country. The report also indicates that ICE’s inability to track health records in certain facilities led to difficulties in monitoring the spread of the disease in jails.

ICE officials have long moved immigrants between facilities for various reasons, including proximity to immigration court hearings.

The draft report, titled “DHS COVID-19 After Action Report,” details the agency’s response to the pandemic and areas for improvement. In a section focused on “non-dedicated” facilities, which also hold non-immigrant detainees, the report documents how there were “gaps in information” due to different medical record systems and that officials “frequently transferred detainees between facilities, which contributed to outbreaks and made tracking and preventing the spread of COVID-19 difficult.”

The report offers “opportunities,” an apparent reference to areas for potential improvement: “Non-dedicated facilities’ frequent detainee transfers and stove-piped disease surveillance systems have made it difficult to prevent and track outbreaks.”

A DHS spokesperson said the agency does not comment on "alleged leaked documents."

Ted S. Warren / AP
ICE detainees walk toward a fenced recreation area on Sept. 10, 2019, in Tacoma, Washington.

Decisions to move detainees between facilities are made by ICE officials, not the facilities themselves, according to one former agency official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The report’s description of “detainees” could refer to non-immigrants held by the facilities, like those held on criminal charges, but it’s unlikely, the former official noted. The report references “detainees” in other areas to describe immigrants held by ICE.

“This report is incredibly consistent in reflecting long-standing issues of ICE detainee management and medical care that have only been exacerbated by a pandemic,” the former official said.

In federal court declarations, government officials have said transfers of immigrants are carried out in an organized fashion that have not resulted in an increase of cases at detention facilities they were sent to.

ICE officials have also maintained on different occasions to reporters and in federal court that transfers are done to “decongest” facilities — moving people less crowded jails — and that detainees are adequately screened before being moved. In a July court filing, officials also said agency guidance only permitted transfers for medical reasons, extenuating security concerns, or to prevent overcrowding.

But many news outlets, including BuzzFeed News, have documented how the COVID-19 has spread after transfers between facilities. In April, BuzzFeed News reported that after a transfer of more than 70 detainees from multiple facilities in the northeast to a private detention center in Texas, nearly two dozen immigrants that were moved tested positive for COVID-19. Similarly, after a transfer of 74 detainees from Arizona and Florida to a facility in Virginia in early July, 51 of the detainees tested positive for COVID-19, and cases within the facility skyrocketed.

Lynne Sladky / AP

Medical professionals and others protest conditions ICE detainees face at the Broward Transitional Center during the coronavirus pandemic on May 1, 2020.

The draft DHS report notes that ICE addressed many of the issues highlighted through updated guidance in late July.

ICE has come under fire in recent years for issues related to medical care provided within its detention centers. In some facilities, ICE provides medical care directly; in others, the agency has a few employees assist private or public contractors; and in many, it oversees care provided by a contractor.

ICE officials have long said that they are dedicated to providing timely and comprehensive medical care to detainees, noting that they have access to a daily sick call and 24-hour emergency care.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, detainees and immigrant advocates have highlighted the health threats posed by the highly contagious disease for those in ICE custody. The agency has attempted to assure congressional officials and the public that it has carefully examined the issue and has even released certain “vulnerable" detainees as a precaution.

But a report issued by the House Committee on Homeland Security found that ICE detainees are often given deficient medical care and that detention centers use segregation as a threat against immigrants.

MORE ON IMMIGRATION
A Judge Ordered Him Released From Prison Due To COVID-19 Concerns. He Died Of The Disease Two Months Later In ICE Custody.Hamed Aleaziz · Sept. 23, 2020

A Congressional Oversight Committee Found That ICE Detainees Died After Receiving Poor Medical CareHamed Aleaziz · Sept. 24, 2020

ICE Often Gives Detained Immigrants Poor Medical Care And Uses Segregation As Punishment, A New Report Says

USA CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY

ICE Is Planning To Fast-Track Deportations Across The Country

The new policy will give agents the ability to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants without a hearing in front of a judge.

Posted on October 7, 2020

Gregory Bull / AP
ICE officers detain a man in Escondido, California, in 2018.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have started to implement a policy that allows officers to arrest and rapidly deport undocumented immigrants who have been in the US for less than two years, according to internal emails and documents obtained by BuzzFeed News.

The Trump administration’s effort — to expand quick deportations to undocumented immigrants across the US who cannot prove they have been in the country continuously for two years before they are picked up — was blocked by a federal court judge soon after the policy was first announced in 2019. But in June, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit lifted the preliminary injunction, opening the door for ICE officers to use expedited removal across the country, a policy that will allow the agency to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants without a hearing in front of an immigration judge.

The previous policy only allowed officials to use expedited removal within 100 miles of the border and for those who have been in the country for up to two weeks.

Currently, officers typically arrest immigrants and place them into deportation proceedings. These include a hearing before an immigration judge — a process that can take years. In practical terms, the expanded policy gives ICE officers more power to determine who can be quickly deported, although it’s unclear exactly how fast the process will be.

The shift could allow the Trump administration to increase deportations while circumventing a court system that is severely backed up and short on resources, but advocates for immigrants have said it would destroy their due process rights.

Moises Castillo / AP
Guatemalans who were deported from the US arrive at La Aurora International Airport in Guatemala City, Aug. 20, 2019.

The latest push to implement the quick deportations comes after years of President Donald Trump’s efforts to restrict immigration to the US and expand enforcement. It also comes during the tail end of a divisive presidential election season.

In an email to ICE employees on Friday, Tony Pham, the acting head of the agency, said that officers and agents need to finish a training course on the policy by Oct. 16, after which they can begin using the new powers to quickly deport immigrants. The email was first reported by Bloomberg Government.

A separate email obtained by BuzzFeed News indicates that ICE attorneys will initially review all cases in which deportation officers aim to use the new policy before immigrants are quickly removed from the country. An internal email sent on behalf of head ICE attorney Michael Davis said that his staff must confirm that the undocumented immigrant was eligible for the policy and that the implementation guidance was followed.

The ICE guidance on the new policy, according to the email, allows for some areas of discretion for officers. Those include: ICE officers being told that they should not revisit cases of immigrants who are already in deportation proceedings, and officers must not apply the quick deportations to people who can prove they were in the US before the policy was first issued last July.

Officers can decide not to use expedited removal in cases in which an immigrant has “mental competency” issues, is the sole caregiver of a US citizen or lawful permanent child, has some chance at obtaining legal status through deportation proceedings, or if they are a crime victim or witness to a crime, among other exceptions.

“In conducting their review of these cases, OPLA attorneys should be mindful of how a court would view the available evidence of physical presence in the United States," the email to ICE attorneys states.

Gregory Bull / AP
An ICE officer looks on during an operation in Escondido, California, on July 8, 2019.

In a separate memo also obtained by BuzzFeed News, Pham laid out the realities of how the policy will be used.

“As a practical matter, I anticipate that the July 23, 2019 designation will be primarily used by ICE in the Criminal Alien Program and Work Enforcement contexts, when Deportation Officers encounter aliens who have been arrested by another law enforcement agency for criminal activity or when Special Agents encounter unlawful workers at worksites targeted for enforcement action based on investigative leads,” he wrote.

Undocumented immigrants who claim to be fearful of persecution in their home country will be referred to an asylum officer for an initial interview, the guidance states. Undocumented immigrants can use bankbooks, leases, school records, employment records, or other materials to prove their presence in the country, according to the memo. If they don’t have the documents immediately, they will be given a “brief but reasonable opportunity” to get them.

The presidential election in November will decide whether the policy will continue to be implemented. It’s unlikely that former vice president Joe Biden would allow ICE officers to continue enforcing the expanded use of expedited removal.

Experts, such as Sarah Pierce, an analyst at Migration Policy Institute, have noted that the expedited removal proposal would likely do more to instill fear in the immigrant community than profoundly alter the deportation process within the US.

“The vast majority of unauthorized immigrants have lived in the United States for more than two years — over 60% have lived here for 10 years or more — making them ineligible for expedited removal,” she said when the policy was first issued. “But no doubt, removal without due process is a terrifying prospect.”

Immigrants, however, could find it difficult to prove that they have been in the country for at least two years while they are in detention.

In the last week, ICE officials have revealed billboards of immigrants released from local custody in Pennsylvania, an attempt to strike back at cities with so-called sanctuary policies. Some within the agency, however, see the billboards as an attempt to help Trump’s reelection efforts. Agency officials also held a press conference to highlight an operation targeting areas of California with similar policies.