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Vegans Begin to Stir the Pot in France

Truthdig is proud to present this article as part of its Global Voices: Truthdig Women Reporting, a series from a network of female correspondents around the world who are dedicated to pursuing truth within their countries and elsewhere.

France has been slow in recognizing the vegan movement, which is not surprising given a renowned culinary tradition notable for fois gras and rich cream sauces. Are we not the country where the gastronomy is classified by UNESCO as a world cultural heritage? Our star chefs are our best ambassadors abroad, our monuments. Who does not know the reputation of Pierre Gagnaire or the late Joël Robuchon?

Until recent years, only a small group of French activists have promoted veganism—a way of life that aims to prohibit killing or abusing animals for use as food, for clothes, in cosmetics testing or for other purposes. Some activists take part in high-profile actions, from attacking butcheries with fake blood to releasing animals from farms and slaughterhouses.

These tactics repel much of French society, but at the same time that society is beginning to embrace the notions of vegan diets and protection of animals. In fact, some of the French media hailed the rise of veganism as the movement of the year 2018—evidence that a campaign pursued most notoriously by militants is well on the way to becoming a social phenomenon.

A Vote for Veganism

The European Parliament election of late May confirmed the rising popularity of the French vegan movement. The Greens (EELV) received nearly 20% of the votes in France, putting the party in a strong third place position. (Among French political forces, the EELV has been a leader in addressing issues such as the treatment of animals.) Even the Animalist Party, which focuses on animal welfare, far exceeded the votes that commentators had predicted for the European Parliament. It obtained more than 2% of the votes in France, outpacing several other small parties.

Previously, the Animalist Party had gotten little attention in the French media, which seemed to consider it marginal and/or dangerous. So the Animalists relied on famous supporters to forward its cause. A few days before the European Parliament vote, dozens of well-known personalities signed a petition calling on voters to protect “the interests of sentient beings.” Signatories included former actress Brigitte Bardot, director/writer , actress and actress/writer .

In addition to the recent vote, veganism is beginning to make headway in many other ways. In Paris, epicenter of the movement, vegetarian and vegan establishments have multiplied and now include gourmet eateries, bakeries and grocery stores. Retail shops offer clothing made without leather, silk and wool, and cosmetics stores sell products that haven’t been tested on animals. Every day, the vegan scene involves more personalities (bloggers, journalists, chefs) and more events such as cooking classes, conferences and film showings.

Festivals promoting veganism and vegetarianism have become major events. VeggieWorld Paris, which takes place twice a year, is a popular consumer fair that features new veggie foods and services. The annual Smmmile Festival combines pop music, vegan cooking classes and other events, and the biannual Paris Vegan Festival puts on conferences, classes and more. A Vegan Christmas Market attracts large crowds with foods such as vegan cheeses and chocolates, as well as cruelty-free cosmetics, vegetarian cookbooks and responsibly made holiday gifts.

The Paris Vegan Guide

The Paris Vegan Guide 2019-2020, which came out in March, contains more than 2,000 vegan restaurants and food purveyors. In the book’s introduction, co-author Pauline Le Gall recalls that 10 years ago being a vegan in Paris was a real challenge. She writes: “Either you had lunch in one of the few vegetarian restaurants concentrated in the 10th district, or you would be satisfied with a plate of fries in a traditional bistro. Most of the time, the servers made you understand … that you were not normal.”

Today, vegetarian and vegan diets have become much more normal. A good example is Le Potager de Charlotte (Charlotte’s Garden), a restaurant in Paris that prides itself on gourmet plant-based cuisine. Two brothers own the restaurant; Adrien Valentin is a naturopath, and David Valentin is a restaurateur. “We really want to break the sad image of veganism,” says David Valentin. You can be epicurean while having convictions. ”

Vegan home cooking has also gotten a boost, in large part from books and social media. Sébastien Kardinal, a renowned blogger, has been very successful with “Ma Petite Boucherie Vegan” (“My Small Vegetable Butcher”), a recipe book that shows how to reproduce the taste and texture of meat using vegan ingredients. Kardinal’s aim is to create a healthier and more ethical way of eating.

Veganism has even started to affect the small circle of Michelin star chefs in France. Alain Passard, chef at the three-star Parisian restaurant Arpège, was the first out of the gate. In 2001, he removed red meat from his menu, and he strongly defends a vegetable-based cuisine. (Arpège now serves some meat, although it is well known for its vegetable dishes. It has maintained its three Michelin stars.)

Passard bought three gardens in France, and he hired 10 gardeners to farm them. Every day a truck delivers fresh vegetables, herbs and seasonal fruits from the gardens. Passard says he marvels at the inspiration Mother Nature gives him and says that “the vegetable is the great kitchen of tomorrow.” Passard’s peers voted him chef of the year in 2017, and food critics praise his vision. The website Terroirs de Chefs calls him “the poet of the garden,” and says: “By venturing before anyone else into a vegetable kitchen, Alain Passard has made a bold choice [in a new direction].”

Big Business Joins In

Major French agri-food companies also are playing an active role in the vegan movement. About 1,000 new vegetable-based products come out every year, with this “green market” generating nearly $430 million annually (in U.S. dollars).

Danone, a multinational food company based in Paris (some of its products are branded “Dannon” in the United States), owns Alpro, the second largest dairy- and plant-based brand in Europe. Alpro plans to triple sales of its plant-based products by 2025.

Healthy eating—an adjunct of veganism—has become the new gold standard for big French retailers. Carrefour, which launched a groundbreaking organic line in 1992, made headlines in 2018 with its Act for Food campaign. The company is committed to taking nine key steps, including improving animal welfare, doubling its number of vegetarian offerings and banning 100 controversial substances from its food products.

A Way of Life

Veganism is much more than a dietary choice, according to Elodie Vieille Blanchard, chair of the Vegetarian Association of France, a group that works

Elodie Vieille Blanchard, chair of the Vegetarian Association of France.

to expand access to vegetarian options “[It] encompasses the whole philosophy of a movement refusing animal exploitation,” Vieille Blanchard says. The Vegetarian Association held a conference in May to correspond with the release of Vieille Blanchard’s book, “Révolution Végane” (“Vegan Revolution”).

According to a February poll, 92% of French people think animal welfare is important, and 86% want to prohibit intensive breeding—a practice in which animals are raised to maximize production, regardless of the harm to the animals’ welfare. The poll was an encouraging sign for French vegans. “We [have felt] for a long time that this is a movement of substance that is constantly increasing,” Vieille Blanchard says.

Many vegan activists draw attention to the movement through educational rather than militant means. For example, in late May, members of Anonymous for the Voiceless (AV) held a large demonstration in Paris to support their cause. On its website, AV describes itself as an “animal rights organization that specializes in educating the public on animal exploitation and fostering highly effective activism communities worldwide.”

Asal Alamdari, co-founder of Anonymous for the Voiceless.

AV organized a Cube of Truth, a peaceful static demonstration akin to an art performance. Masked and dressed in black and playing looping videos of animals being abused, the activists invited passersby to engage in conversation. They asked questions such as “Do you know how animals are treated in slaughterhouses?”

A young woman who prefers to remain anonymous joined the AV demonstrators. She had converted to veganism after watching internet videos of animals being slaughtered, and she compares cruelty to animals to other issues facing society. “Injustice, abuse of animals, is also a sign of the [social] violence we are suffering,” she says. “We do not want to be the turkeys [the fall guys] of a political, economic, social farce.”

AV activists came from all over Europe to join the French demonstration. Asal Alamdari and Paul Bashir, the Australian founders of the international group, visited Paris for the occasion.

These kinds of actions are critical to sensitize the public, according to French vegan activist Vincent Aubry. “The action of associations, the dissemination of slaughterhouse [images] have changed the lives of countless people by persuading them that turning off faucets, cycling everywhere and composting at home are not enough,” Aubry says. “This global conversion to veganism is the only way to save the planet.”

Activists in the Crosshairs

Aubry is also the spokesperson for Boucherie Abolition (Butchery Abolition), a group that takes aggressive action to denounce cruelty to animals. For example, on June 8, the organization released a video showing its members entering a rabbit farm, picking up rabbits and releasing them into nearby fields.

Vegan activist Vincent Aubry.

Last September, Aubry made news when he arrived on the set of a television show with the corpse of a little pig, which he said had been found in the garbage can at a pig farm. “We cannot show [this] casually—it is extremely violent,” said Cyril Hanouna, the show’s host. (The pig’s corpse was pictured, although not close up.) Aubry went on to detail the ill treatment the animal had suffered such as surgical castration and removal of the tail. (Tail docking reduces cannibalism among pigs, and castration eliminates the possibility of boar taint, which reduces the quality of pig meat. Both procedures often are done without anesthesia and so are very painful.)

In the past few years, French vegan activists and “antispeciesists” have organized physical actions against butchers and breeders. (Antispeciesists oppose differentiating among species based on the purpose of a species. For example, they say pigs and pet dogs should receive the same treatment because they experience the same pain when they’re abused.)

Militant activists have targeted butcher shops by splashing them with fake blood—water mixed with red dye. The dye is hard to remove, and municipal cleaning teams have to be called in. Some shops also have been stoned, leading French butchers to ask the government for police protection.

The antispeciesist organization 269 Libération Animale (269 LA) issued this slogan on its website and social media accounts: “Go past one or more butcher shops and pour one to two liters of fake blood on the shop window, take a photo and send it to [us].” Activists answered the call: Since January, at least 17 butcheries and slaughterhouses have been attacked.

In May, the owner of an organic meat shop in the Saint-Quentin market in Paris said activists punched him. Two people were taken into custody but have denied the charge. In April, two antispeciesist activists were sent to prison (one for six months; the other for 10 months) for attacking butcher shops and restaurants in northern France.

Some activists also interfere with hunting. In December 2018, activists entered a forest in northeastern France, playing musical instruments to scare animals away from the scene of a hunt. There was no physical confrontation between militants and hunters, but the police were called in to defuse tensions.

The more radical moves have created intense backlash. At the end of May, Minister of Agriculture Didier Guillaume assured the National Assembly (the lower house of parliament) that severe measures would follow.

It is unacceptable “not to respect the rules, to attack the tools of work. No other profession would support it,” he said. “This is no longer possible, and it is even less possible when these actions are made and endorsed by an elected representative of the Republic.” (Guillaume was referring to Bastien Lachaud, a National Assembly deputy who visited a pig farm at night and denounced breeding conditions. The event was videoed and disseminated by Direct Action Everywhere, an international animal rights group.)

The Macron government has stepped up legislation aimed at vegan activists. For example, in April the Senate (the upper house of Parliament) made it a crime to hinder hunting—a crime that may be punished by up to a year in prison and a fine of $US34,000. At the same time, the government reduced the hunting fee by half from about $US440 to $US220.

In May, a large police operation was launched against vegan and antispeciesist activists. At least a dozen members of Boucherie Abolition including Aubry were arrested and face trial. Aubry is willing to face the consequences of his actions, saying, “We need examples to move society forward.”

Vocal Opposition

Those who oppose veganism in France are as vocal and impassioned as the vegan activists themselves. On the website Current Values, columnist Denis Tillinac says the activists are fundamentalists. “Their violence [is] that of Islamists and radicalized feminists in a challenge to our spiritual foundations,” he writes.

Paul Ariès, a political scientist and food historian, is strongly anti-vegan. He feels vegans have bought into a fantasy created by big business. “Veganism matches the economic strategy of the food processing industry,” he says. “Vegans are the fools who will soon buy the fake meat, fake cheese, fake milk that are just about to arrive on the market. … Everything is ready: the patents, the funds, the acceptability. They are already calculating the return on investment! If the vegan movement didn’t exist, the food processing industry would invent it.”

When it comes to the tactics employed by the more radical element of the vegan movement, even vegan supporters are divided. “Activists and antispeciesists are doing a lot of wrong [to the] vegan movement,” says Vieille Blanchard. “Even with [the Vegetarian Association, the militants] are very aggressive, saying that we are traitors to the cause.”

Getting Political

Some vegan activists are going into politics to expand the platform for their views. Douchka Markovic, an early supporter of the animal welfare movement in France, illustrates this trend.

“In 2011, I was very active in the Vegetarian Association of France. Every weekend, I distributed flyers [and] I talked to people to try to convince them [about the vegan movement],” she says. But in 2011, Markovic decided to enter the political realm. “I understood that to counter the meat lobbies, it would have to go up a notch,” she says.

Douchka Markovic, a Green Party politician active in animal welfare issues.

Markovic is now a Green Party representative on the council of the 18th arrondissement (administrative district) of Paris. She is also assistant to the mayor of the 18th arrondissement, and she oversees issues such as sustainable development, food and the environment.

She helped create a national commission that deals with animal welfare and with interactions between humans and other animals in areas such as farming, entertainment, hunting and animal testing. “We were the first political party to have a relationship with the animal issue, and other parties have followed,” she says.

She also has proposed national initiatives—for example, to ban animal testing from scientific research; to abolish hunting with the use of hounds; and to investigate the practices of the slaughterhouse industry.

On June 8, Markovic attended a demonstration in Paris organized by L214, an organization that works to educate the public about animal welfare. More than 1,000 people joined the event, shouting “Enough bloodshed,” “Justice for animals,” and “Three million deaths a day in slaughterhouses … Stop!”

Vegan supporters predict gains for the movement on the local level as well as the national stage. Yannick Jadot is an environmentalist and Green Party member of the European Parliament. In a June interview with Le Monde, Jadot expressed his optimism: “The time has come for the Greens … to win the town halls of several big cities, such as Paris, Nantes, Rennes or Toulouse, during the municipal elections of 2020.”

In late June, an incident took place that demonstrates the growing impact of the vegan movement. The organization L214 published online images of plastic devices surgically inserted into cows’ stomachs at a research facility. These devices, known as portholes, have been used for many years to study cows’ digestion with the goal of maximizing milk production. However, the images had a shocking effect on the public. The incident made news headlines and became a rallying cry supported by Nagui, a prominent radio and television personality. A petition opposing the practice quickly gathered more than 300,000 signatures, according to L214. This emphatic response makes it is clear that vegans are a rising force in France. Their influence is only beginning.

Report: Conditions at Immigrant Detention Centers Are So Horrific, Agents Predicted Riots

“I’m so hungry that I have woken up in the middle of the night with hunger,” a 12-year-old told attorneys of his experience at an immigration detention center in Texas. A 16-year-old described her sleeping arrangements: “We are in a metal cage with 20 other teenagers with babies and young children. We have one mat we need to share with each other. It is very cold.” Another teenager said there was no soap, toothpaste or toothbrushes. These were just a few of the stories that immigration attorneys collected and BuzzFeed reported on in June.

The lawyers, BuzzFeed reporter Claudia Koerner wrote on June 27, “are asking a judge to immediately require inspections of Border Patrol facilities in El Paso, Texas, and the Rio Grande Valley as part of an effort to improve the conditions that immigrant children face.” According to a new report from NBC News however, both the Department of Homeland Security, the agency that oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Customs and Border Protection, the agency that operates these centers, already knew.

In fact, as NBC News’s Julia Ainsley and Jacob Soboroff report, “conditions at an El Paso, Texas, border station were so bad that border agents were arming themselves against possible riots.”

Those conditions were described in a report from the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security, the department’s internal watchdog. Inspectors toured the facility, the name of which was redacted, on May 7. The report was transmitted to DHS on May 16 and released publicly by NBC News on July 1.

The Trump administration blames the conditions at shelters on facility backlogs resulting from the numbers of migrants coming to America. That will be of little help to many detainees; as NBC reports, “some of the conditions, such as a lack of showers or clean clothes for detainees, are not dependent on more funding for detention space elsewhere.”

According to NBC, “Border agents remained armed in holding areas because they were worried about the potential for unrest,” and “Agents typically put their weapons in a lockbox when they enter holding areas, a DHS official said.” In addition to descriptions of overcrowding and a lack of hygiene and proper medical care, the report includes interviews with Customs and Border Protection agents located at the Paso Del Norte border station in El Paso.

“Morale was in sharp decline,” NBC reports of the agents. They “had concerns that the conditions would lead to riots or hunger strikes by migrants. Some agents were looking to retire early or move to another agency.” The report also states that agents themselves “are seeing more drinking, domestic violence and financial problems.”

The report’s release comes on the heels of vehement denials of migrant abuse from the Trump administration. At a Friday press conference, Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan dismissed several news stories of appalling conditions at multiple facilities, calling them “unsubstantiated.”

On Monday, House members visited a few detention centers in Texas. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., tweeted after the first stop, “I see why CBP officers were being so physically &sexually threatening towards me. Officers were keeping women in cells w/ no water & had told them to drink out of the toilets. This was them on their GOOD behavior in front of members of Congress.”

DHS did not respond to NBC’s requests for comment. Read the full DHS report here.

America Is Sabotaging the New Arab Spring

This piece originally appeared in antiwar.com 

Months back, when protests rocked Algeria and Sudan, toppling two autocratic strongmen, observers almost immediately dubbed it a “New Arab Spring.” This, of course, was a reference to the popular demonstrations that rocked the Arab World in 2011, ranging from Tunisia to Egypt, Libya and Syria, Bahrain to Yemen. The results of Spring 1.0 were ultimately disappointing – Egypt’s elected president was ousted in a military coup, Libya remains in a state of near civil war, Syria’s Assad emerged victorious over the rebels, Yemen is a war-ravaged humanitarian disaster area, and the Saudi Army invaded and quashed unrest in nearby Bahrain. Only in Tunisia was there a semblance of (fragile) success and relatively limited violence.

Perhaps, then, it should come as little surprise that matters are shaking out in a similarly disappointing fashion in Algeria, and, especially, Sudan. Military juntas (they call themselves “transitional” governments) hold power in both states and, in the case of Sudan, soldiers and militiamen have taken to slaughtering their own people. It seems there shall be no Jeffersonian Democracies in North Africa any time soon. Pessimism aside, it’s still a tragic and rather disturbing state of affairs. Nevertheless, I’m no proponent of U.S. intervention – how’d that work out in Syria and Libya? – in these complex affairs in distant lands. Indeed, I’ve previously asserted that Uncle Sam ought to “keep his hands off” the New Arab Spring this time around.

Solutions, such as they are, must be Algerian and Sudanese solutions. Recent regional history firmly demonstrates that foreign meddling tends only to stoke already chaotic fires and make matters far worse. Here’s the problem: the US may not be directly engaged, but, rather than staying out completely, continues to back Arab autocracies – Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the UAE – that are actively destroying any hope for democracy in Sudan. It’s unconscionable. And, coming from a country that’s a self-proclaimed “city on a hill” and “beacon of democracy,” its also embarrassingly hypocritical.

What’s unfolding in Sudan, and America’s tacit role in these events, is far worse than it seems, and nearly ignored in US mainstream media. Want to get actual news on North Africa? Better tune into the BBC or Al Jazeera, because you’ll get minimal coverage and zero context from CNN. Here’s the rub: a mass uprising in April toppled the thirty year incumbent, indicted war criminal President Omar al-Bashir. Not a bad turn of events. Problem is the military – in tenuous alliance with government supported militias – took power and failed to hold democratic elections or transition to civilian rule. When the brave protesters refused to go home, a paramilitary group calling itself the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) began slaughtering peaceful demonstrators, gunning down at least 100 on June 3rd alone.

Since then matters have turned from bad to gruesome. The RSF, which, incidentally, grew out of the infamous Janjaweed militia responsible for the genocide in Darfur a decade ago, has gone on a murderous rampage in the capital, Khartoum. Protesters have been thrown off bridges, shops looted, men and women raped. Just when it seemed matters could hardly get worse, well, that’s when America’s best buddies in the region stepped in. That’s right, our chums the Egyptians, Emiratis, and Saudis – all dictatorships themselves – actively back the Sudanese junta. They’ve offered a combined $3 billion in cash to the military regime. The Saudis go one step further, loading the notorious genocidal militiaman (and #2 leader in the junta) Hamdan Dagalo up with bundles of money and guns with which to slaughter the innocent.

So what, you might ask, does the US, does President Trump, have to say about all this? Crickets, that’s what. Washington has released paltry platitudes at best and done absolutely nothing to restrain – pay attention now – its brutally dictatorial “friends” from empowering a genocidal maniac and military junta whose foot soldiers toss peaceful activists screaming from bridges to their deaths. Trump has nothing but praise for the Egyptians and Saudis. He proudly pronounced that Egypt’s strongman, Abel Fattah al-Sisi is “doing a great job.” His son-in-law, Jared Kushner – nepotism incarnate – carries on a bromance with his literal pen pal, Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin-Salman (MBS). Trump even declared a national emergency so as to defy Congress and push through a hasty $8 billion arms deal to the Saudis. I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that some of those guns and bombs are going to make their way into the clutches of the murderous RSF. That puts Sudanese civilian blood on Americans’ collective hands.

It gets just a bit worse. Why, one might ask, does MBS back the war-criminal-in-chief of Sudan? Well, beyond the crown prince’s general affinity for fellow Arab dictators, he’s especially fond of Dagalo. That’s because Dagalo’s militias reportedly supply thousands of mercenary Sudanese foot soldiers – including child soldiers – as cannon fodder for the Saudi terror campaign in Yemen. It is truly a twisted state of affairs when two states – Yemen and Sudan – that are already the world’s worst humanitarian disaster areas, are manipulated even further by the Saudi theocracy to add to the bloodshed and preclude any hope for democracy. And still we’re told the Saudis are our “friends.”

Let us review, then: the United States unconditionally backs a Saudi absolute monarchy that is terror bombing Yemeni civilians, and then trading guns to a genocidal Sudanese dictator in exchange for child soldiers that add to the fighting in Yemen. As such, any hope for democracy, or even basic human rights, dies in both locales. You can hardly make this up! One last thing, our friends the Saudis, well, they recently had a teenager on death row for a crime – simply protesting the government – that he allegedly committed when just ten years of age. What friends Uncle Sam makes these days; talk about running with a bad crowd.

Not that many Americans notice. Media silence, ample profits for the arms dealer corporations that own many congressmen, and public apathy about foreign affairs, combine to keep the despicable, twisted Saudi-Sudanese nexus off the American grid. Still, what we ignore, the global community – especially in the Mideast region – does not forget. The United States has widely come to be associated with imperialism and militarism. It’s certainly no friend of regional democracy. As such Washington acts as the terrorist recruiting sergeant’s best friend. This country of ours will one day reap the whirlwind for these sins. When it does, our government, and our people, will have no one to blame but themselves.

Danny Sjursen is a retired U.S. Army officer and regular contributor to Antiwar.com. His work has appeared in the LA Times, The Nation, Huff Post, The Hill, Salon, Truthdig, Tom Dispatch, among other publications. He served combat tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point. He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge. Follow him on Twitter at @SkepticalVet.

Copyright 2019 Danny Sjursen

Girl Recalls Abuse in Texas Border Station

For almost two weeks, a 12-year-old migrant girl said she and her 6-year-old sister were held inside a Border Patrol station in Texas where they slept on the floor and some children were locked away when they cried for their parents.

She was one of hundreds of migrant children who have been held this year in holding cells at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection station near El Paso that has come under fire for holding children in squalid and unsanitary conditions.

In a video obtained by The Associated Press, the girl — speaking in Spanish — tells her Minnesota-based attorney Alison Griffith children were “treated badly” and were not allowed to play or bathe. The girl’s face is not visible on the video to protect her privacy and not jeopardize her immigration case.

El Paso, Texas, attorney Taylor Levy, who worked with the girl’s family, said she and her sister were separated from their aunt when they arrived in the U.S. on May 23. The children, from Central America, were put in the Border Patrol station in Clint, Texas, Levy said. Their aunt is still being detained.

Levy said the girls’ mother fled an abusive husband and arrived in the U.S. four years ago. She has applied for asylum. The girls stayed behind with their aunt, but the three headed north in May after the girls’ father threatened them, Levy said.

In the video, the girl says that inside the Clint station, she was given pudding, juice and a burrito she could not eat “because it tasted very bad.”

“There are some children, like the age of my sister, they cried for their mother or their father. They cried for their aunt. They missed them,” she said. “They cried and they were locked up.”

The attorneys discussed the case on the condition that the AP not release the girl’s name or her country of origin out of concern for her family’s safety.

Lawyers who visited the Clint facility last month after the girls had already been released said the conditions were perilous, with more than 250 children trying to take care of each other, passing toddlers between them, with inadequate food, water and sanitation.

Customs and Border Protection officials have repeatedly said the agency is “in a crisis mode” with too many immigrants and not enough resources.

Customs gave journalists a tour of the Clint Border Station on June 26, and a congressional delegation headed there Monday.

In a facility designed to temporarily hold 100 adults, there were 117 children when AP visited, well below the 700 children Border Patrol said were detained there at one point earlier this year.

On Friday, a federal judge ordered that an independent monitor appointed last year move “post haste” to improve conditions at Border Patrol stations, where children are supposed to be held just 72 hours. In the Clint station, some had been held almost a month.

Levy said she helped reunite the 12-year-old girl and her sister with their mother. The mother flew to Texas from Minnesota to pick them up on June 3 after a Border Patrol official told her the girls had been repeatedly hospitalized with the flu.

“It was an incredibly difficult reunification. The kids were just highly, highly traumatized,” Levy said.

Jewish Protest of Detention Center Leads to Mass Arrests

Rejecting the notion that denouncing the Trump administration’s immigrant detention centers as “concentration camps” does harm to the memory of the Holocaust, 200 Jewish people demonstrated at a facility in New Jersey Sunday evening and demanded the release of the thousands of immigrants in U.S. custody.

Grassroots group New Again Action called for all detention centers to be closed and for the U.S. government to protect asylum seekers and undocumented immigrants—instead of sending Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) into communities where the agency has arrested hundreds so far this year in raids.

The group reported that 36 participants were arrested for blocking the road to the Elizabeth Detention Center in Elizabeth, New Jersey.

“I have to do whatever is in my power to disrupt ICE, to close these camps, to provide permanent protection, and to ensure that ‘never again’ means never again,” said Rebecca Oliver, a demonstrator who was arrested.

200 Jews are shutting down an ICE detention center because we when we say never again we

Pete Buttigieg Claims He Raised $24 Million in Second Quarter

WASHINGTON — Democrat Pete Buttigieg said Monday that he took in $24.8 million during the second fundraising quarter, more than triple what the South Bend, Indiana, mayor raised during the first three months of the year for his surprise hit presidential campaign.

Buttigieg was the first White House contender to announce his fundraising numbers for the quarter, which ended at midnight. His haul amounts to a show of force at a critical early juncture in the race where fundraising figures, and the number of people giving to a campaign, aren’t just indicators of viability but criteria for qualifying for the debate stage in September.

“Pete has proved why he is a top-tier candidate for the nomination,” campaign manager Mike Schmuhl wrote in an email to supporters. “From town halls on MSNBC, CNN, and FOX News to last week’s debate, he’s shown the country what I’ve known for a long time: Pete is the best person to bring a new generation of leadership to Washington.”

Buttigieg, 37, surprised many people with a first-quarter haul of roughly $7 million that topped many of his better-known rivals and helped place him in the upper echelon of a crowded 2020 field that has drawn more than 20 contenders. His latest numbers further cement him as a leading candidate and are sure to draw notice from rival campaigns, many of whom have struggled to raise money.

The $24.8 million sum tops the $18 million raised last quarter by Bernie Sanders, who led the Democratic field in fundraising during that period.

More importantly, Buttigieg is doing well enough in public opinion polls and has received contributions from more than 400,000 people, which secured his spot in the September debates.

Democratic National Committee requires participants to hit 2% in multiple polls and 130,000 individual donors. Though many campaigns are worried, DNC Chairman Tom Perez has resisted pressure to relax the requirements.

Currently, the only other locks for the fall debates are former Vice President Joe Biden, Sanders, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and California Sen. Kamala Harris.

Buttigieg’s campaign says he has $22.6 million cash on hand and received money from donors from all 50 states, as well as U.S. territories, with an average contribution of about $47.

But his fundraising figures could come with caveats. For example, Buttigieg may be accepting donations that he could only spend during the general election. That would allow him to inflate his totals by allowing donors to give a $2,800 check for the primary, as well as an additional $2,800 for the general.

Buttigieg’s campaign has not said how much general election money is included in the total, though spokesman Chris Meagher said they do accept those donations when they are given.

So far, none of Buttigieg’s rivals have released their quarterly fundraising figures, which don’t have to be reported to the Federal Election Commission until July 15.

Last month, however, Biden hinted that he had raised a similar amount.

Biden said at a New York fundraiser that his campaign had amassed 360,000 donors, who gave an average of $55 apiece. The math suggests he collected about $19.8 million since entering the race in April, but his campaign declined to confirm the figure at the time.

___

Associated Press writer Sara Burnett contributed from Chicago.

Robert Reich: Democrats’ Cave on the Border Is a Disgrace

While attention has been focused on the Democratic debate – in which most contenders are pushing progressive policies – congressional Democrats have moved in the opposite direction. They caved on an emergency border supplemental appropriation that can now be used by Trump to make the border situation worse, not better.

This is how it happened, folks. The House had been working on a $4.5 billion emergency border supplemental appropriation designed to respond to the inhumane conditions in migrant holding cells. The goal was to use the funds to improve standards for migrants, and include safeguards to prevent Trump from using the money to finance deportation raids or his border wall.

But then Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans, along with a number of Senate Dems, came up with their own $4.6 billion bill containing none of the safeguards to limit the funding to emergency aid – even earmarking some of it to continue Trump’s draconian immigration policies, including funding for ICE and funds that could be used for additional tent camps to warehouse more migrants. Chuck Schumer did nothing to keep the House safeguards in the Senate bill.

Worse yet, when the Senate bill got to the House, Democratic centrists led by Josh Gottheimer organized enough votes to block the House from putting the safeguards back into the bill.

Nancy Pelosi caved – accepting a bill her House majority had no hand in writing – and the House passed the Senate version, with 129 Democrats supporting it.

So a week of disgusting images at the border that repulsed a nation ended with Trump getting more money to carry out the same abuses, without accountability.

Why were Dems in the Senate and Dem centrists in the House so willing to accommodate Trump on an issue that is exploding into public consciousness? As David Doyen of the American Prospect asks, if Democrats don’t have the backs of children sleeping in cages, whose backs will they have?

Border Patrol’s Scandalous Facebook Group Exposed

Members of a secret Facebook group for current and former Border Patrol agents joked about the deaths of migrants, discussed throwing burritos at Latino members of Congress visiting a detention facility in Texas on Monday and posted a vulgar illustration depicting Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez engaged in oral sex with a detained migrant, according to screenshots of their postings.

In one exchange, group members responded with indifference and wisecracks to the post of a news story about a 16-year-old Guatemalan migrant who died in May while in custody at a Border Patrol station in Weslaco, Texas. One member posted a GIF of Elmo with the quote, “Oh well.” Another responded with an image and the words “If he dies, he dies.”

Created in August 2016, the Facebook group is called “I’m 10-15” and boasts roughly 9,500 members from across the country. (10-15 is Border Patrol code for “aliens in custody.”) The group described itself, in an online introduction, as a forum for “funny” and “serious” discussion about work with the patrol. “Remember you are never alone in this family,” the introduction said.

Responsible for policing the nation’s southern and northern boundaries, the Border Patrol has come under intense scrutiny as the Trump administration takes new, more aggressive measures to halt the influx of undocumented migrants across the United States-Mexico border. The patrol’s approximately 20,000 agents serve under the broader U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency, which has been faulted for allegedly mistreating children and adults in its custody. The agency’s leadership has been in turmoil, with its most recent acting chief, John Sanders, resigning last week.

ProPublica received images of several recent discussions in the 10-15 Facebook group and was able to link the participants in those online conversations to apparently legitimate Facebook profiles belonging to Border Patrol agents, including a supervisor based in El Paso, Texas, and an agent in Eagle Pass, Texas. ProPublica has so far been unable to reach the group members who made the postings.

ProPublica contacted three spokespeople for CBP in regard to the Facebook group and provided the names of three agents who appear to have participated in the online chats. CBP hasn’t yet responded.

“These comments and memes are extremely troubling,” said Daniel Martinez, a sociologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson who studies the border. “They’re clearly xenophobic and sexist.”

The postings, in his view, reflect what “seems to be a pervasive culture of cruelty aimed at immigrants within CBP. This isn’t just a few rogue agents or ‘bad apples.’”

The Border Patrol Facebook group is the most recent example of some law enforcement personnel behaving badly in public and private digital spaces. An investigation by Reveal uncovered hundreds of active-duty and retired law enforcement officers who moved in extremist Facebook circles, including white supremacist and anti-government groups. A team of researchers calling themselves the Plain View Project recently released a hefty database of offensive Facebook posts made by current and ex-law enforcement officers.

And in early 2018, federal investigators found a raft of disturbing and racist text messages sent by Border Patrol agents in southern Arizona after searching the phone of Matthew Bowen, an agent charged with running down a Guatemalan migrant with a Ford F-150 pickup truck. The texts, which were revealed in a court filing in federal court in Tucson, described migrants as “guats,” “wild ass shitbags,” “beaners” and “subhuman.” The messages included repeated discussions about burning the migrants up.

Several of the postings reviewed by ProPublica refer to the planned visit by members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, including Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Veronica Escobar, to a troubled Border Patrol facility outside of El Paso. Agents at the compound in Clint, Texas, have been accused of holding children in neglectful, inhumane conditions.

Members of the Border Patrol Facebook group were not enthused about the tour, noting that Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from Queens, had compared Border Patrol facilities to Nazi concentration camps. Escobar is a freshman Democrat representing El Paso.

One member encouraged Border Patrol agents to hurl a “burrito at these bitches.” Another, apparently a patrol supervisor, wrote, “Fuck the hoes.” “There should be no photo ops for these scum buckets,” posted a third member.

Perhaps the most disturbing posts target Ocasio-Cortez. One includes a photo illustration of her engaged in oral sex at an immigrant detention center. Text accompanying the image reads, “Lucky Illegal Immigrant Glory Hole Special Starring AOC.”

Another is a photo illustration of a smiling President Donald Trump forcing Ocasio-Cortez’s head toward his crotch. The agent who posted the image commented: “That’s right bitches. The masses have spoken and today democracy won.”

The posts about Escobar and Ocasio-Cortez are “vile and sexist,” said a staffer for Escobar. “Furthermore, the comments made by Border Patrol agents towards immigrants, especially those that have lost their lives, are disgusting and show a complete disregard for human life and dignity.”

The head of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Joaquin Castro, reviewed the Facebook discussions and was incensed. “It confirms some of the worst criticisms of Customs and Border Protection,” said Castro, a Democrat who represents San Antonio. “These are clearly agents who are desensitized to the point of being dangerous to migrants and their co-workers.” He added that the agents who made the vulgar comments “don’t deserve to wear any uniform representing the United States of America.”

Vicki Gaubeca, director of the Southern Border Communities Coalition, said the postings are more evidence of the sexism and misogyny that has long plagued the Border Patrol. “That’s why they’re the worst at recruiting women,” said Gaubeca, whose group works to reform the agency. “They have the lowest percentage of female agents or officers of any federal law enforcement agency.”

In another thread, a group member posted a photo of father and his 23-month-old daughter lying face down in the Rio Grande. The pair drowned while trying to ford the river and cross into the U.S.; pictures of the two have circulated widely online in recent days, generating an outcry.

The member asked if the photo could have been faked because the bodies were so “clean.” (The picture was taken by an Associated Press photographer, and there is no indication that it was staged or manipulated.) “I HAVE NEVER SEEN FLOATERS LIKE THIS,” the person wrote, adding, “could this be another edited photo. We’ve all seen the dems and liberal parties do some pretty sick things…”

Iran Breaches Uranium Stockpile Limit Set by Nuclear Deal

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran has broken the limit set on its stockpile of low-enriched uranium by its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, international inspectors and Tehran said Monday, marking its first major departure from the unraveling agreement a year after the U.S. unilaterally withdrew from the accord.

The announcement by Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and later confirmation by the U.N. nuclear watchdog puts new pressure on European nations trying to save the deal amid President Donald Trump’s maximalist campaign targeting Tehran. Iran separately threatens to raise its uranium enrichment closer to weapons-grade levels on July 7 if Europe fails to offer it a new deal.

It also further heightens tensions across the wider Middle East in the wake of Iran recently shooting down a U.S. military surveillance drone, mysterious attacks on oil tankers that America and the Israelis blame on Tehran, and bomb-laden drone assaults by Yemen’s Iranian-backed rebels targeting Saudi Arabia.

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Britain urged Iran to reverse course and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the action “a significant step toward making a nuclear weapon.” Iran long has insisted its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, despite Western fears about it.

Though Trump pulled back from airstrikes targeting Iran after the U.S. drone was shot down, Washington has rushed an aircraft carrier strike group, nuclear-capable B-52 bombers and thousands of additional troops to the region. That’s raised fears that a miscalculation or further incidents could push the two sides into an armed conflict, some 40 years after the Islamic Revolution and the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

Speaking to journalists in Tehran, Zarif acknowledged Iran that broken through the limit set by the accord.

“We had previously announced this and we have said it transparently what we are going to do,” Zarif said. “We are going to act according to what we have announced and we consider it our right reserved in the nuclear deal.”

The U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, later said its director general had informed officials that it verified Monday that Iran had broken through the limit.

Under terms of the nuclear deal, Iran agreed to have less than 300 kilograms (661 pounds) of uranium enriched to a maximum of 3.67%. Previously, Iran enriched as high as 20%, which is a short technical step away from reaching weapons-grade levels. It also held up to 10,000 kilograms (22,046 pounds) of the higher-enriched uranium.

Neither Zarif nor the U.N. agency said how much uranium Iran now had on hand. Last week, an Iranian official in Vienna said that Tehran was 2.8 kilograms away from the limit. Iran previously announced it had quadrupled its production of low-enriched uranium, which at under 3.67% is enough to power a nuclear reactor to create electricity, but is far below weapons-grade levels.

However, Iran could have chosen to mix the low-enriched uranium with raw uranium, diluting it and bringing it down under the cap. Pushing past the limit served as a notice to Europe, Zarif said.

The “actions of the Europeans have not been enough so the Islamic Republic will move ahead with its plans as it has previously announced,” Zarif said. “We are in the process of doing our first phase of actions both on increasing our stockpile of enriched uranium as well as our heavy water reserves.”

Breaking the stockpile limit by itself doesn’t radically change the one year that experts say Iran would need to have enough material for an atomic bomb, if it chooses to pursue one.

But by coupling an increasing stockpile with higher enrichment, it begins to close that one-year window and hamper any diplomatic efforts at saving the accord.

At the time of the 2015 deal, which was agreed to by Iran, the United States, China, Russia, Germany, France and Britain, experts believed Iran needed anywhere from several weeks to three months to have enough material for a bomb.

Zarif stressed the country remained on track to raise its enrichment if Europe did not take any additional steps toward saving the accord.

“The next step is about the 3.67% limitation, which we will implement too,” he warned.

There was no immediate reaction from Washington. Trump campaigned on pulling the U.S. from the deal, which saw Iran agree to limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. Since Trump withdrew America from the pact a year ago, the U.S. has re-imposed previous sanctions and added new ones, as well as warning other nations they would be subject to sanctions as well if they import Iranian oil.

British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said he was “deeply worried” by Iran’s announcement that it had surpassed the stockpile limit of low-enriched uranium allowed under the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

In a tweet, he urged Tehran “to avoid any further steps away from JCPoA & come back into compliance.”

As Netanyahu said Iran’s move was a “significant step toward making a nuclear weapon,” he urged European countries to “stand by your commitments” to impose sanctions against Tehran if it violated the agreement.

“The policy changed from ‘wait out Trump’ to ‘hit back at Trump.’ That’s a big deal,” said Cliff Kupchan, a chairman at the Eurasia Group and longtime Iran watcher. “I don’t think either side wants war, but both sides do want leverage. We’re in for a rough ride.”

In Moscow, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov noted that Iran had warned in advance it was going to exceed the limit set by the deal and emphasized that Tehran’s move followed “unthinkable” U.S. pressure.

“It didn’t come as a surprise, Iran long has warned about it,” Ryabkov said.

“Exceeding the 300-kilogram limit causes regret, but shouldn’t be overdramatized. It must be seen as a natural result of the preceding events,” Ryabkov said. “Iran has faced an unprecedented and unthinkable U.S. sanction pressure, effectively meaning a total oil embargo, an attempt to strangle a sovereign state.”

___

Associated Press writers Kiyoko Metzler in Vienna and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed.

New York Pride Parade is One of the Largest in Movement’s History

NEW YORK—Exuberant crowds carrying rainbow colors filled New York City streets Sunday for one of the largest pride parades in the history of the gay-rights movement, a dazzling celebration of the 50th anniversary of the infamous police raid on the Stonewall Inn.

Marchers and onlookers took over much of midtown Manhattan with a procession that lasted hours and paid tribute to the uprising that began at the tavern when patrons resisted officers on June 28, 1969. The parade in New York and others like it across the nation concluded a month of events marking the anniversary.

Eraina Clay, 63, of suburban New Rochelle, came to celebrate a half-century of fighting for equality.

“I think that we should be able to say we’ve been here for so long, and so many people are gay that everybody should be able to have the chance to enjoy their lives and be who they are,” Clay said. “I have a family. I raised kids. I’m just like everybody else.”

Alyssa Christianson, 29, of New York City, was topless, wearing just sparkly pasties and boy shorts underwear. A Pride flag was tied around her neck like a cape.

“I’ve been to the Pride parade before, but this is the first year I kind of wanted to dress up and get into it,” she said.

Christianson said she was concerned that the movement could suffer setbacks during the Trump administration, which has moved to revoke newly won health care protections for transgender people, restrict their presence in the military and withdraw federal guidance that trans students should be able to use bathrooms of their choice.

“I’m definitely a little scared of how things are going, just the anger and violence that comes out of it and just the tone of conversation about it. We’ve come so far, especially in the last few decades, that I don’t want to see that repressed in any way.”

In May, Trump tweeted about Pride Month and praised the “outstanding contributions” of LGBT people. But his administration has also aligned with some religious conservatives in arguing that nondiscrimination protections for those same people can infringe on the religious beliefs of others who oppose same-sex marriage and transgender rights.

Earlier in the day, a crowd of about 2,000 people gathered outside the Stonewall Inn. At the Queer Liberation March near the bar, some participants said the larger Pride parade had become too commercialized and heavily policed.

“What’s important to remember is that this is a protest against the monetization of the Pride parade, against the police brutality of our community, against the poor treatment of sections of our community, of black and brown folk, of immigrants,” said Jake Seller, a 24-year-old Indiana native who now lives in Brooklyn and worked as one of the march’s volunteers.

Protesters carried anti-Trump and queer liberation signs, chanting, “Whose streets? Our streets!”

“We march for the liberation of our community so they can live and celebrate their identity. So they can reclaim it. This will always remain a protest, not an advertisement,” Seller said.

Other attendees focused on the progress that’s been made within the LGBTQ community over the last few decades.

“We’ve come so far in the past 20 years,” said 55-year-old Gary Piper, who came from Kansas to celebrate Pride with his partner. “I remember friends who would be snatched off the streets in Texas for dressing in drag. They’d have to worry about being persecuted for their identity.”

“But now we’re so much more accepted. I’m not saying we don’t have ways to go, but let’s celebrate how far we’ve come,” he said.

The police presence at the march was heavy, with several officers posted at every corner. Metal barricades were erected along the entire parade route.

In Illinois, Gov. J.B. Pritzker chose the parade day to sign an executive order creating a task force to study the rights of transgender students. The task force will look at what schools are doing to promote LGBTQ rights to make sure students have “welcoming” and “inclusive” environments.

In Chicago’s parade, the city’s first openly gay mayor, Lori Lightfoot, was one of seven grand marshals. Lightfoot, who took office in May, walked alongside her wife and wore a “Chicago Proud” T-shirt with rainbow lettering. The couple held hands at times, drawing cheers from onlookers. The procession was cut short as thunderstorms rolled through the area, forcing police to cancel the event about three hours after it began.

The larger New York Pride parade had 677 contingents, including community groups, major corporations and cast members from FX’s “Pose.” Organizers expected at least 150,000 people to march, with hundreds of thousands more lining the streets to watch.

Other Stonewall commemorations in New York included rallies, parties, film showings and a human rights conference. The celebration coincides with WorldPride, an international LGBTQ event that started in Rome in 2000 and was held in New York this past week.

In San Francisco, a contingent of Google employees petitioned the Pride parade’s board of directors to revoke Google’s sponsorship over what they called harassment and hate speech directed at LGBTQ people on YouTube and other Google platforms.

San Francisco Pride declined to revoke the sponsorship or remove the company from the parade, but Pride officials said the Google critics could protest the company’s policies as part of the parade’s “resistance contingent.”

Larraine and Peter Browne, who were visiting from Australia, told the San Francisco Chronicle they had never seen anything like the parade’s rainbow-colored display.

“Look at the costumes!” 80-year-old Peter Browne said.