Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 101

Who polices the immigration police?

Charles Reed/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement via AP

This story was co-published with the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Early one winter morning last year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were scouting the last-known address of a fugitive they had labeled Target #147 when they happened upon Isabel Karina Ruiz-Roque.

A turkey farmworker for over a decade, Ruiz-Roque had kept her head down and her record clean, never once encountering los ICEs, as she called them. Then two federal agents rapped on her car window and flashed a photo of the immigration fugitive they believed to be her York County neighbor. Ruiz-Roque, 34, said she did not know the woman, and they told her not to worry, that she was not their target.

Two weeks later, during an enforcement operation that prized big arrest numbers, the agents returned and demanded she let them into her Hanover apartment house to search for #147. When she refused, they arrested her instead, and drove her, handcuffed, to a Rite Aid parking lot to scan her fingerprints, she said.

There, after finding the record of an old apprehension at the border, they made a stunning proposition, according to a sworn statement she filed in immigration court: They would ignore their discovery and let her go if she paid them off.

They suggested $2,000 to $3,000, according to her statement. She told them she did not have that kind of money. And so they transported her to the York County Prison, the primary detention center for immigrants in Pennsylvania, to face deportation.

Unlike most immigration detainees, Ruiz-Roque was able, through her sister, to secure a lawyer to fight her removal. He would try to air her bribery allegation in court. But the secretive immigration justice system is not set up for public accountability.

An investigation by ProPublica and the Philadelphia Inquirer found numerous cases in which ICE agents and police officers allegedly engaged in racial profiling, conducted warrantless searches, detained people without probable cause, fabricated evidence, and, in this one extreme instance, solicited a bribe.

But in none of these cases have agents or officers been put on the stand to respond to the allegations.

The conduct of arresting officers is rarely scrutinized in the overwhelmed immigration courts, which focus squarely on whether arrested individuals should be removed from the United States. While deportation proceedings are civil, they afford immigrants fewer rights than criminal defendants to challenge their apprehensions.

Noncitizens have a considerable range of protections under the Constitution; if arrested for a crime like robbery or assault, they, like citizens, are protected against unlawful searches and seizures, and against self-incrimination.

Yet immigrants facing removal, unlike criminal suspects, do not have the right to a government-provided lawyer. And without a lawyer — two-thirds of immigration detainees didn’t have one last year — they are highly unlikely to contest the validity of their arrests. They are also 10 times less likely to win their cases. And if they get deported, any allegations of law enforcement abuses disappear along with them.

In a statement, ICE officials said their enforcement activities are conducted “with integrity and professionalism” and “in compliance with federal law and agency policy.”

“ICE holds all of its personnel to the highest standards of professional and ethical conduct,” the officials said.

Over the last year, the aggressive immigration crackdown in Pennsylvania has heartened those who see undocumented immigrants as lawbreakers even if they have no criminal records. But advocates for immigrants say that many of the arrests themselves have been unlawful and would not hold up in a regular court of law.

“ICE has run amok,” said Craig Shagin, a Harrisburg lawyer. “And nobody is reining them in.”

At a time when every undocumented immigrant is a potential target and few are awarded lenience, the inequities in the immigration justice system are exacerbated.

Even if undocumented immigrants have lawyers, they face challenges unique to the immigration courts, where the backlog reached an all-time high of 684,583 cases by March 1. The courts operate with what their own spokeswoman calls “an outdated paper filing system,” and provide no public access to charging documents, evidence, or routine judicial decisions. Most hearings are open, but some immigration courts, like the one in York, sit inside prisons or detention centers, with courtrooms behind two layers of locked and guarded doors.

Unlike police officers in criminal court, ICE officers rarely appear in immigration court to explain or defend an arrest. Their first names are often omitted from ICE’s equivalent of an arrest form, and sometimes, lawyers say, their full names are blacked out. Occasionally, ICE arrest forms, which are supposed to provide the government’s evidence of “alienage,” are never produced at all.

Immigrants detained at York who want to fight their arrests on constitutional grounds face considerable disincentives. Immigration judges there generally will not consider bond requests until such challenges are decided, according to former Judge Walter A. Durling, who retired in December. In other words, if they want to assert that their rights were violated, they must do so from behind bars, which can take many months.

As Arrests Soar, Caseloads Swell

With few exceptions, the number of backlogged cases in immigration courts in Pennsylvania has increased steadily year after year. And since 2016, it has climbed sharply.

Percentages show increase from previous year. (Jared Whalen//Philadelphia Inquirer; Data Source: Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse)



Most Pending Cases From Mexico and Central America

The vast majority of the pending cases are for immigrants from Mexico and Central America, with the most coming from Guatemala.

Jared Whalen//Philadelphia Inquirer; Data Source: Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse

Arrests can be challenged, but the standard is much higher than in criminal court. Immigrants must demonstrate not only that ICE officers acted unconstitutionally but that their violations were egregious or represented a widespread pattern. When it comes to alleged misconduct in immigration cases initiated by police officers, the legal bar is even higher.

As immigration arrests escalated last year, the American Immigration Council reissued a “practice advisory” that encouraged immigration lawyers to make greater use of motions to suppress evidence obtained illegally. Federal immigration agents do not have “carte blanche” in making arrests, the pro-immigrant group said: “They must heed limits on their authority imposed by the Constitution, statutes and regulations.”

At the same time, Thomas Griffin, a Philadelphia lawyer who represented Ruiz-Roque, created a local network dubbed “The Suppressors” to encourage his fellow immigration attorneys to see themselves less as independent advocates and more as a collective force taking on the “detention/deportation machine.”

Durling, the former judge, does not share The Suppressors’ concerns about misconduct by federal agents in Pennsylvania. He said he handled about a dozen cases last year in which lawyers filed suppression motions.

“Not one case did I find to be constitutionally problematic,” he said.

After President Trump was elected, but before he took office, a 60-year-old Guatemalan dishwasher got a taste of what was in store for undocumented immigrants in Pennsylvania.

In late November 2016, while riding his rusty bicycle to his job in Doylestown, the man found himself surrounded by six ICE officers, as his lawyer, Brennan Gian-Grasso, described it. They showed him a photograph, saying they were searching for the fugitive pictured, who they believed had lived in his apartment unit. He did not know the man, he told them.

The federal agents put his bike in their car, drove him home, and took his keys from his backpack. When they could not locate their target, they arrested the dishwasher instead: a man with no criminal record who, his boss said, is so devoted to his job at a bakery that the first thing he did when released was to call in tears, to apologize for missing work for the first time in nine years.

The dishwasher was an early “collateral,” in ICE’s terms — picked up by immigration officers who, photo in hand, were looking for somebody else. His arrest, however, occurred under President Barack Obama, when immigration officials were still being encouraged to ignore people like him, to show leniency as a way to focus resources on those who threatened public safety and national security.

“Prosecutorial discretion,” as it was called, also served as a measure of accountability, to discourage and weed out improper arrests.

Catherine Schack, an ICE trial lawyer in Philadelphia, caught the dishwasher’s case. Alerted to potential improprieties in the arrest by Gian-Grasso, she ordered the immigration file of the original target. He turned out to be a 40-year-old Honduran, she said. So, as far as Schack was concerned, and the judge concurred: case closed.

After Trump took office, however, prosecutorial discretion was sharply reduced by a mandate to enforce the law against all “classes or categories of removal aliens” and make “extremely limited exceptions.”

Partly in reaction to having lost discretion, Schack retired.

In 2017, immigration arrests in Pennsylvania soared, pumping into the system immigrants without criminal records and so-called collaterals arrested while agents looked for other targets.

Without much prosecutorial discretion, the decision-making burden shifted to immigration judges, whose caseloads swelled, with 11,643 pending cases in Pennsylvania at the end of February. That represented a 62-percent increase since fiscal 2016, with only one new judge added to the bench.

“In the criminal system, the court would put the kibosh on some of these bad arrests right away,” Shagin, the Harrisburg lawyer, said. “But immigration judges, at least in this area, don’t want to get into the validity of these issues.”

Reporters discovered a few questionable Pennsylvania cases that were quietly closed only after they were transferred out of state. Such turnabouts are not tracked, so it is impossible to know how often they occur or whether a Pennsylvania judge would have ultimately closed them, too.

Last May, a Mexican-American family returning to Indiana from a master’s degree graduation ceremony in Vermont had their celebration cut short by a Pennsylvania trooper who pulled over their van near Erie. No citation was issued, but the trooper demanded identification from everybody — all citizens except for one passenger, who was on a path to legalization through his marriage to the graduate.

The man, a small-business owner and scout leader in Indianapolis, was turned over to ICE agents, imprisoned in York, and placed in deportation proceedings. Government lawyers refused to drop the removal case despite the man’s pending legalization. But after the man was released from detention and his case was transferred to Chicago, Immigration Judge Virginia Perez-Guzman quietly closed it herself without even a hearing on the matter.

Something similar happened in the case of two Hispanic immigrants who work for a New Jersey farm, which dispatched them to South Carolina to work on a ranch project last summer. On I-81 near Shippensburg, a coiled irrigation hose bounced off their truck’s trailer. The driver, an American citizen, stopped and the workers scrambled to collect the coil.

Just at that moment, a state trooper drove by.

“He saw these two Hispanics running down the highway, and I guess he took note,” said one of the men, Raúl, whose lawyer asked that his last name be withheld out of fear of retaliation by ICE.

Shortly thereafter, Trooper Luke C. Macke pulled over the truck, raised concerns about the trailer’s farm license plate, and, after concluding his traffic investigation and returning the driver’s documents, turned his attention to the passengers. The trooper grilled them about their immigration status, called ICE, and detained the men for 90 minutes until deportation officers arrived.

None of this ever appeared in an official account because no official account ever materialized. Even though Raúl’s lawyer, Ricky Palladino, said he was going to challenge the arrest in a motion to suppress, Raúl got lucky and had a visiting judge preside by video over his preliminary hearing in York. He got released on bond, and his case was transferred to Newark, where Immigration Judge David Cheng dismissed it, saying ICE had failed over four months to present any evidence at all.

Palladino was pleased for Raúl. But he said he wished he had had a chance to take the case to a higher court and expose “the glaring Fourth Amendment violations.”

“This kind of behavior just keeps getting swept under the rug,” Palladino said.

The case of 10 Alcoholics Anonymous members apprehended in Pennsylvania last year illustrates the difficulties of challenging an immigration arrest on constitutional grounds.

As reported by ProPublica and the Inquirer, the men were traveling to New York from an AA gathering in Georgia last April when Macke, the state trooper, pulled over their van for speeding, grilled the driver and passengers about their immigration status, and detained them for over an hour until ICE arrived. The speeding driver, a legal immigrant, was ticketed and released. Everybody else was undocumented, and ended up imprisoned in York, facing deportation.

Rosina Stambaugh, a lawyer who represented six of the men, decided to challenge the arrests as unconstitutional. She argued that the trooper had no legal authority to enforce immigration law, improperly prolonged a traffic stop, and detained the men without warrants.

But while she prepared her motion to suppress and the government prepared its response, the men would have to stay locked up, decided Durling, the immigration judge.

That was his standard approach because it sped up the disposition of cases, he said, in written responses to reporters’ questions. Indeed, once released into “non-detained” immigration court, cases can slow to a crawl. Those on the York prison immigration docket have been pending, on average, 49 days, compared with 509 days in Philadelphia immigration court.

Yet legal experts say judges cannot restrict access to bond for detainees who want to contest their arrests; that would violate the “unconstitutional conditions” doctrine, which says that the government cannot condition the exercise of one right (in this case, applying for bond) on the forfeiture of another (objecting to the admission of illegally obtained evidence), according to Michael Wishnie, a Yale Law School professor.

In July, after the AA members had been imprisoned for three months, Durling rejected their motion to suppress evidence. He found no improprieties. But even if he had determined that the state trooper committed serious constitutional violations, it would not have mattered, he wrote.

“This court has no authority to conduct an inquiry into the State Trooper’s actions,” he ruled, citing precedents.

The AA members appealed the ruling to the Board of Immigration Appeals, having secured the high-powered help of pro-bono lawyers from two corporate firms. Attorneys from Pepper Hamilton argued that Durling should have held an evidentiary hearing, requiring the trooper and the ICE agents to testify. A discovery process, they said, would have allowed them to “present potential evidence of widespread violations by state troopers and perhaps local law enforcement.”

But in late February, the immigration appeals board ruled against the two men that the Pepper Hamilton lawyers represented. In early March, the lawyers took the matter to a higher court, and asked the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to stay the men’s removal until the case was decided.

In the short time between the immigration appeals decision and the federal court filing, one of the men, Erick Yok-Us, was deported.

The other, a 28-year-old named Luis, is clinging to his fight to remain in America. A baker who had lived in New York City since he was a teenager, he said that he came close to giving up during his incarceration: “There was a moment when I despaired so much, when the despair really gripped me,” said Luis, whose last name is being withheld out of his lawyer’s concern that ICE might some day re-arrest him.

During his six months in immigration detention, he lost his job, his apartment, and all his possessions. Now, he is living in Reading with the man who bailed him out — a virtual stranger, the relative of an immigrant he met inside York — and doing little but awaiting his fate.

It is the rare immigration arrest that gets any public notice, and when this happens, officials sometimes struggle to provide consistent explanations.

Such was the case when Pennsylvania Trooper Lisa Riccardo stopped a 1999 Chevy pickup carrying four Hispanic men for an expired tag in December. When the driver did not have a valid license, she demanded identification from him and his passengers, discovered the men were undocumented, called ICE, and detained them roadside until federal agents arrived, he later recounted. Soon, all were in jail, facing deportation.

As it turned out, however, the driver, Osman Aroche-Enriquez, a 27-year-old stonemason, was one of the “Dreamers” whose parents brought him to the United States illegally as a child. For five years, he had been protected from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. At the time of the traffic stop, however, because of a government mix-up involving the U.S. Postal Service, his status was temporarily invalid.

With national attention focused on DACA and the Trump administration’s plan to terminate it, immigrant advocates rallied around the jailed young man, who has a fiancée (a legal immigrant) and an infant son.

Church World Services in Lancaster found a top immigration lawyer to represent him for free; the offices of both Pennsylvania senators called ICE on his behalf; Vox published his story, and it spread on social media.

Within 24 hours, ICE released Aroche-Enriquez and then closed his deportation case in what officials called “an exercise of discretion.” All but overlooked in the excitement, however, were the three passengers in the truck, who remained imprisoned and facing removal. One was Jonatan Aroche-Enriquez, Osman’s older brother, who was a year too old to qualify for DACA.

Meanwhile, the state police and ICE provided conflicting accounts of how a traffic stop for an expired license plate landed four people in immigration detention.

ICE said immigration officers responded to the scene because the trooper had arrested the men on “local charges,” making them criminal suspects and thus targets under the new immigration rules. The state police, however, said there were no local charges.

The state police, on the other hand, said the trooper detained the men after finding “extradition detainers” — equivalent to arrest warrants — for all four of them in a law enforcement database. But ICE said neither of the Aroche-Enriquez brothers had a criminal record or was wanted for a crime, meaning no such detainers existed for them.

An attorney for Jonatan Aroche-Enriquez said he will raise these contradictions in his constitutional challenge to the arrest, though the immigration justice system is unlikely to hold anyone accountable for them.

Isabel Karina Ruiz-Roque spent 63 days behind bars. ICE had refused her bond, but an immigration judge later granted it.

When she was released from York, she returned to the turkey farm where she had worked for a decade, only to discover it would not take her back. For the next nine months, she helped take care of her nieces and nephews and prayed for a positive resolution to her case.

Griffin, her lawyer, filed a motion to suppress evidence and terminate proceedings. Even without the bribery allegations, he felt she had a strong case. He argued that ICE officers initially approached her “without probable cause or articulable suspicion regarding her immigration status” and coerced her to offer damning information about herself and to submit to fingerprinting.

ICE did not respond to Griffin’s motion or in any way address the allegations of unconstitutional and criminal behavior on the part of its agents. Exasperated, he went to court in the late fall and pleaded with an immigration judge in Philadelphia to terminate the case rather than grant the government more time.

The judge, Rosalind Malloy, expressed her own frustration, sweeping her hand over the “stacks of cases waiting for decisions.”

“Your Honor, I understand the government is full of cases,” Griffin said, “but I don’t think our clients should suffer because the government is behind. These are under-resourced people who don’t speak English . . .”

The judge interjected: “And the courts are under-resourced!”

Griffin continued: “Your Honor, it’s ICE that is creating the problem by arresting people in ways they’re not supposed to, so they’re backing up the court.”

Malloy declined to terminate the case and gave the government another couple of months. In January, a week before ICE’s response was due, however, the government folded. It filed a motion to dismiss the removal case against Ruiz-Roque, and the judge granted the dismissal. As a result, while this was a victory of sorts for Ruiz-Roque, the ICE officers never had to answer to her charges in court.

But last week, ICE officials told ProPublica and the Inquirer that they could not comment on Ruiz-Roque’s bribery allegations “due to an ongoing Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) investigation.”

“The agency takes all allegations of misconduct very seriously and will respond appropriately based on any investigative findings,” the officials said in a statement.

The investigation was news to Ruiz-Roque and her lawyer. Did it mean that there might in fact be consequences for the agents who, according to the allegations, crossed a very serious line? For Griffin, it was hard to be hopeful. And for Ruiz-Roque, who is still unemployed and terrified she will be picked up again, the whole situation is baffling.

As of now, 14 months after her arrest and three months since her case was closed, she has yet to be contacted by any investigators.

Puerto Rico hit again: Island suffers massive power outage

Getty Images

Nearly seven months after Hurricane Maria left many areas of Puerto Rico devastated the island is still feeling its effects, suffering yet another massive blackout on Wednesday.

According to CNN, an excavator is to blame for the island-wide power outage. Authorities told CNN power would be restored within 24 to 36 hours. At least seven municipalities and five hospitals had their power restored by 3:30 pm on Wednesday. The ongoing process to restore power following last year's devastating hurricane has prioritized critical locations like hospitals and airports.

This is the second major power outage in Puerto Rico in the last week, highlighting the fragility of Puerto Rico’s electrical grid. Many policymakers have taken to Twitter to express their frustrations regarding the situation, and criticize policymakers—and President Donald Trump— for not giving Puerto Rico the necessary resources to recover from the crisis months later.

San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz tweeted on Wednesday: “The entire electrical system in Puerto Rico collapses AGAIN! Back to September 20th."

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-NY, called on Congress to take action on Twitter, noting how Congress “hasn’t done nearly enough to help them [Puerto Rico] recover and rebuild after Hurricane Maria.”

The second largest blackout in world history, on U.S. soil. Our fellow Americans in Puerto Rico are facing a crisis, and Congress hasn’t done nearly enough to help them recover and rebuild after Hurricane Maria. We must act now. https://t.co/LxEIkOee1Y

— Kirsten Gillibrand (@SenGillibrand) April 18, 2018

Rep. Anthony G. Brown, D-MD, tweeted: “We can't be focused on a non-existent crisis on our border when Americans are suffering from a real crisis in Puerto Rico.”

#PuertoRico hasn't recovered after #HurricaneMaria. Thousands still without power, scores of schools & businesses shuttered & now an island-wide blackout.

We can't be focused on a non-existent crisis on our border when Americans are suffering from a real crisis in Puerto Rico. https://t.co/FRNtEcn598

— Anthony G. Brown (@RepAnthonyBrown) April 18, 2018

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, implied on Twitter that the island-wide blackout is a result of the Trump administration ignoring Puerto Rico.

For months, @realDonaldTrump and his administration ignored Puerto Rico. Today, there's an island-wide blackout.

Our fellow Americans need their federal government to step up now.

— Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) April 18, 2018

To that point, Trump has failed to mention the beleaguered territory in any of his recent Twitter tirades.

It’s been a long and tough road to recovery for Puerto Rico, much in part to the Trump administration’s lacking response to the natural disaster. Last week, Politico published a review of public documents showing that Trump had moved more quickly to respond to the Hurricane Harvey in Texas than to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. The report explained:

"Within six days of Hurricane Harvey, U.S. Northern Command had deployed 73 helicopters over Houston, which are critical for saving victims and delivering emergency supplies. It took at least three weeks after Maria before it had more than 70 helicopters flying above Puerto Rico.

Nine days after the respective hurricanes, FEMA had approved $141.8 million in individual assistance to Harvey victims, versus just $6.2 million for Maria victims.

During the first nine days after Harvey, FEMA provided 5.1 million meals, 4.5 million liters of water and over 20,000 tarps to Houston; but in the same period, it delivered just 1.6 million meals, 2.8 million liters of water and roughly 5,000 tarps to Puerto Rico.

Nine days after Harvey, the federal government had 30,000 personnel in the Houston region, compared with 10,000 at the same point after Maria.

It took just 10 days for FEMA to approve permanent disaster work for Texas, compared with 43 days for Puerto Rico.

Seventy-eight days after each hurricane, FEMA had approved 39 percent of federal applications for relief from victims of Harvey, versus 28 percent for Maria."

According to the New York Times, nearly 1.5 Puerto Ricans have been affected by this latest blackout.

Is this the endgame stage for Trump, or just a trainwreck?

Getty/Salon

The next time you walk out to your car, or head down the street to the subway, or cross the parking lot on your way to the grocery store, look up and squint your eyes, and you’ll be able to see the end of the Trump presidency. It’s still a moving target, kept out of reach and out of focus by Trump’s chaotic daily delivery of distractions and dissembling, but it’s out there, and at this point it’s coming toward us, rather than headed in the other direction.

The impending doom is all Trump’s fault, of course. The first mistake he made was running for the office. The second was winning. The third was thinking that being president would be just like running his business in New York. (“I could run my business perfectly and then run the country perfectly. There's never been a case like this,” Trump told The New York Times soon after he won the election.) The fourth was believing he could protect himself from the law because he thought as president, he would control the FBI and the Department of Justice.

If Trump had not ridden that escalator down to the lobby of Trump Tower and announced that he would seek the highest office in the land, if he had stayed up there on the 26th floor and continued to run the Trump Organization, none of this would be happening.

Trump himself would not be under criminal investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller for obstruction of justice and conspiracy to steal the election of 2016.

His campaign would not be under a counterintelligence investigation by the FBI for conspiring with elements of Russian intelligence to subvert and violate the laws of the United States.

His former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, would not be under indictment for money laundering, bank fraud, and other crimes and be facing a sentence that would send him to federal prison for the rest of his life.

His former deputy campaign chairman, Rick Gates, would not have pleaded guilty to perjury and conspiracy to defraud the United States and be looking at jail time.

His former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, would not have pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with Sergey Kislyak, Russia's then-ambassador to the United States.

His former campaign aide, George Papadopoulos, would not have pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russians in London and be facing jail time. Alex van der Zwann, a London-based lawyer for the Skadden, Arps, Meagher and Flom law firm,  would not have pleaded guilty to lying about his meetings with Rick Gates and an email exchange with a Russian national by the name of Konstantin Kilimnik.

A citizen of California named Richard Pinedo would not have pleaded guilty to identity theft in a scheme to aid the Russians under indictment for engaging in a campaign of propaganda designed to interfere with and influence the 2016 election for president.

Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, would not be under a months-long investigation by the the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and his office and hotel room would not have been broken into  and all of the papers and electronic records of Cohen’s representation of Donald Trump would not have been seized by the FBI and the U.S. Attorney.

None of the people who have worked for Donald Trump on his campaign or in the White House, from Jared Kushner, to Donald Trump Jr., to Sean Spicer, to Reince Priebus, to Rob Porter, to Steve Bannon, to Hope Hicks, would have had to lawyer-up and be interrogated by the House and Senate Intelligence Committees and by agents for Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

None of that would have happened had not Donald J. Trump descended the escalator and ran for president and won.  Now his White House is surrounded by criminal and counter-intelligence investigations and prosecutions, and increasingly, those investigations have focused on Trump himself.

Last week, McClatchy reported that Mueller investigators have evidence that Michael Cohen traveled to Prague in 2016 in the late stages of the campaign, confirming one of the most explosive parts of the so-called Steele dossier, something that Cohen has repeatedly denied for months. () Mueller’s team is looking into reports that Cohen met with Konstantin Kosachev, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, in the Czech capital. The Steele dossier alleged that Cohen and the Russians and others discussed “how deniable cash payments were to be made to hackers in Europe who had worked under Kremlin direction against the Clinton campaign.”

It has been reported that Mueller’s prosecutors are working on indictments of the Russian intelligence agents who hacked into the emails of the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chair Leon Podesta. At the time he allegedly traveled to Prague, Cohen had only one client: Donald Trump. So Mueller is investigating a direct connection during the campaign between Trump, through his lawyer, with Russians close to Putin. The evidence he is gathering is evidence of collusion, and the evidence leads straight to Trump.

So how might the end game play itself out? There are at least four possible scenarios.

The first scenario is that Mueller will come up with enough evidence that Trump has committed crimes, whether obstruction of justice or conspiracy with the Russians to steal the election, and will indict the president in office. This would lead to a constitutional showdown at the Supreme Court between Mueller and Trump. While a previous Supreme Court decision, Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681 (1997)  found unanimously that a president does not have immunity from a civil lawsuit, the court has not faced a decision as to whether a sitting president can be criminally indicted.

If the court took up the case, and found against Trump, Mueller’s charges against him would be in force, and Trump would face arrest and prosecution. It’s possible that the court could find that Trump can be indicted but not face trial until after he leaves office. In that case, Trump would be facing charges that could put him in prison sometime after he left office. The only way he could leave office and not face such criminal charges would be if he resigned and made a deal with the man who succeeds him for a pardon, similar to the way that Nixon resigned in 1974 and was pardoned by Gerald Ford for any and all crimes he committed against the United States while president.

The second scenario is that Mueller could issue a finding that Trump had committed crimes while in office without indicting him. In this case, Mueller’s report would be forwarded to the United States Congress and the House of Representatives would be faced with the decision whether or not to impeach him. In this scenario, much would depend on the 2018 elections. Democrats may retake the House, and many are predicting they will. In that case, a vote to impeach Trump would seem assured, although conviction in the Senate would be less than a sure thing. Trump could tough it out and win his trial in the Senate, like Clinton did in 1998 and 1999. He would then be able to run for re-election in 2020. A win by Trump would seem to be improbable, but then, strange things have happened before.

The third scenario is that Mueller’s investigation would lead to indictments of people close to Trump, such as Michael Cohen, or even Jared Kushner and/or Donald Trump Jr. Trump could preemptively pardon these individuals (or anyone else charged, for that matter) similar to the way President George H.W. Bush pardoned is former Secretary of Defense, Caspar Weinberger, days before he was to stand trial for charges brought against him by an independent prosecutor, Lawrence E. Walsh, in connection with the Iran-Contra scandal. The president’s pardon power is broad. The Constitution grants to the president, in Article II, Section 2, "Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.”

A pardon of a man like Michael Cohen might save Trump from the possibility that Cohen would flip and testify against him rather than face trial. But an argument could be made that having been granted a pardon would relieve Cohen of his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination, and he could still be compelled to testify against Trump. So Trump may not be able to pardon his way out of trouble in a showdown with Mueller after all.

The president’s pardon power is for “Offences against the United States,” which is to say in the cases of federal crimes. If charges were brought by the State of New York against Trump’s lawyer, or his son, or son-in-law, for example, Trump would not have the power to grant them pardons. The only way he could possibly save them would be to make a deal with the State of New York, which is unlikely, especially if he had already pardoned them on federal charges.

Which brings us to scenario number four. This one is based on the belief among many long-time Trump watchers that the only thing that really matters to Trump is his personal fortune. In this scenario, Trump will do anything to protect his business and his lifestyle once he leaves office. He may yet face charges that would follow him after he leaves the presidency. Federal and state charges could threaten not only to send him to prison, but lay siege to his empire.

His son and close associates may face state charges he can’t protect them from. If this were to come to pass, the only way out for Trump would be the Nixon way: make a deal to resign and be pardoned on the federal charges, and have the deal be contingent on the state charges being dropped against himself or those close to him as well. Nixon resigned from office with his fortune intact, including his homes in Key Biscayne and San Clemente. Trump may have to do the same if he wants to keep living at Trump Tower and visiting Mar-a-Lago.

This is what Trump faces every single day he remains in office. The Mueller investigation isn’t going away. Even if he fires Mueller, the convictions and indictments handed down already will stand, and Trump will be unable to end FBI investigations and pending prosecutions by U.S. Attorneys by executive fiat. The control over the FBI and the Justice Department he lusts for just isn’t there. Nor does he have control over courts and judges for whom he has often expressed contempt.

History books have always talked about men being “elevated” to the presidency, but when descended that escalator in Trump Tower in 2015, he dragged us into his pit of scandal, disgrace and criminality when he assumed office. But the end game is coming. Squint your eyes and tell me if you don’t see an escalator out there ahead of us. It’s going up.

 

“Home + Away” is the story of an El Paso high school just 300 feet from the Mexican border

Tribeca Digital Studios

“Home + Away,” a fantastic new documentary receiving its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival this year, follows three Mexican-American student athletes at Bowie High School in El Paso, TX. Their lives are defined by the border. Erik, a senior and soccer player, lives in Juarez, and crosses the border every day to go to school. Francisco, who is a junior and plays baseball, travels back and forth each week; his mother lives in Texas, while his father —who is unable to come into the States — lives in Mexico. The third subject, Shyanne, is a senior and on the wrestling team. She lives in El Paso with her mother, an ex-con who receives disability (Her father is Mexican but not a part of her life).

Director Matthew Ogens artfully presents the lives of these teenagers who strive to provide a better life for their parents than their parents were able to give them. They are seen in class, on the athletic field, but also at home. All three students excel at sports, and the games shown in the film, which range from seasonal matches to Division Championships are tense and exciting (and even heartbreaking).

But “Home + Away” defines its subjects by more than just the actions on the field. The subjects are all bound by poverty and the hope that an American education will enable them to get a leg up, go to college, and earn enough money to support their parents so their families do not have to worry or live hand to mouth.

Ogens’ treats the border as a character and his subjects (and their families) with tremendous respect. He observes them at their best and sometimes at their worst, but he never milks their vulnerability for pity. This is not poverty porn, but an examination how difficult these kids lives are  and how they handle so much at such a young age, and why it is so important for them to succeed and achieve.

The filmmaker spoke with Salon about making “Home + Away.”

How did you find the three subjects you did? What were the criteria that made them the most interesting?

It started sort of outside looking in because of what was going on in the country, what High School was closest to the border. First, I found the school. That is 50 yards to the border, and then I reached out to the school and the principal and I found out one quarter — roughly 300 students — cross the border every day.

I went for a week to get the lay of the land and meet the kids. I met with kid after kid after kid and had a conversation with them and see who resonated — who had a mix of an interesting story, a life on the border, had conflicts they were dealing with and were open to sharing themselves. Shyanne and Erik are seniors, and there’s more pressure on them. Francisco was a junior, and he had more naïvete. He wasn’t as cynical about life.

The border-crossing theme is very interesting. I like that you spend the time showing the teens walking to convey the idea of living with one foot in the old/home land, and one foot in the new/promised land. Can you talk about the importance of the border and why attending Bowie is so important to these kids?

They are American citizens because their mothers were living in Mexico but crossing the border to work in the U.S. They gave birth in a U.S. hospital, so even though the parent may not be citizen, the kids are. Erik has a U.S. passport even though his parents don’t have visas and can’t come over. He is an American citizen, which enables him to get a U.S. education.

An education in El Paso is better than one in Juarez, and these kids and their parents want opportunities in life — whether they decided to remain in Mexico or the U.S. The need to learn English and help their families out. There are more opportunities for a future in El Paso than in Juarez. There are exceptions, but statistically they have a better shot.

You illuminate how Shyanne and Francisco each straddle difficult relationships with their families and face tremendous pressures at a young age as a result of parental sins. Can you discuss why these kids are desperate to give their parents a better life than they have?

These kids grow up fast. I don’t think they realize it, because it’s so normal to them. They start working when they are young. If you live in Juarez you know someone — a family member, or a neighbor — who has been killed. While we were filming, a woman was shot and killed two blocks from us.

We see the news especially over the last year with Trump, and we hear about Mexicans and the wall, no matter what side of the wall we are on, we hear about topics in the news, not the people affected by it. We talk and debate and march, but we rarely check in to see what the people on the border think and what their lives are like. The wall/border is a character in their lives, as is going back-and-forth between sister cities that rely on each other socially and economically. These people have family on the other side, and they rely on each other. Closing that down is not that simple.

The three teens all see sports and/or the Army as a way out of poverty. How realistic are they, and how can they achieve their goals and make good life decisions?

If you go to Bowie, that’s a step up from going to school in Juarez, but Bowie is the bottom of the barrel in El Paso. The kids and the school are stereotyped as they are the closest to the border.

Sports is a way for these kids to prove themselves: we are as good as you. Sports is a great equalizer, and if they are passionate, they can earn respect from the other teams. When you have kids from broken homes, Shyanne didn’t have a father, and her mom was in prison, so the coach becomes a father figure and provides life lessons. They all have a strong work ethic and they are encouraged. This is why there’s tremendous pride in Bowie, from the parents and teachers, but also the coaches — many of whom went there as students themselves.

There is a very telling scene when the students are watching Trump’s inauguration and reacting to it with expressions of despair and fear at having the life they made in the U.S. taken away. Can you explain why you included this political moment in your personal film?

That was our first shoot day, the first shot, and the first scene we filmed. It’s an interesting moment. I didn’t get political. I just filmed what was there. Shyanne spoke up in situ, unprompted by me. If I sat and asked, “What do you think of Trump?” then I think it gets biased. In that scene, nothing was set up.

“Home + Away” includes some exciting games played both during the season and division championships. How did you get so lucky as to be able to film these intense matches?

I’ve never had more open arms and access on any project than this. I never heard the word “No.” The school gave us a production office. I spent 5 months there and moved there. We had complete access. We filmed five characters and 5 sports because you don’t know what’s going to pan out. You couldn’t know what team(s) would go to the Division Championships.

As a director, you have nothing to do with the outcome. I am asking questions and putting the characters in situations where something might happen. What happens physically, is just luck.

I like that each student has a secret life; in addition to their classwork, and their sports team, they have something that the further defines them. Can you talk about uncovering that less visible aspect of their lives?

I want to make people three dimensional, and not show just one side of them. I want to go home with the characters. I’m curious about them and what they do at home. The entry point is school and sports, but I want to explore all aspects of the teenage life. It’s “American High” except that it’s complicated by the border.

The film depicts poverty without sentiment, giving a real sense of how these teens live hand to mouth at a young age, and try to work within the system to improve their lives. How do you think your film will create awareness that might educate or improve things for other teens like them in the future?

Part of my point is that these people are human too. I didn’t want to milk it. Shyanne is the adult in her family. I didn’t want them to be stereotypes, but to paint a full portrait of life on the border without being biased or heavy-handed. It’s a coming of age doc.

One of the subtexts of the film is that some of the students at Bowie could be Dreamers. Can you talk about this issue which relates to your film?

If any of them are Dreamers, I don’t know. That topic was coming up after Trump took office and wasn’t part of this film. It’s not something I pursued. I never heard the word or used it. But you would think about it seeing the film. I wanted you to get to know these kids as kids.  

I think Erik has the most poignant comment in the film when he says, “Life is not a game,” and that we need to pay attention to what is happening around us. What are your thoughts on this observation? I think it is the crux of the film and resonates the most.

I haven’t thought about that. I think that’s a really good point. It’s a good logline. We are all teens once and we let things slide. We don’t think about big picture, or next year. It’s all instant gratification — do I want to study or go out with friends? Do I want to play sports or study? It’s compounded if you live in Juarez or have no money. Erik could end up selling fruit on the side of the road like his father. He realized this when he was looking to graduate. He had to pass this and realized that this isn’t a game, and he has to think about next year. As a poor kid from Juarez, you have to think about that. He could be the first to graduate High School and go to college. He has a shot. One false move — it’s such a precious line.

Tammie Jo Shults: Meet the pilot with “nerves of steel” who guided the Southwest plane to safety

NTSB via AP

Southwest Flight 1380 left New York for Dallas Tuesday, and 20 minutes later, passengers said they heard what sounded like explosions. At 32,000 feet, an engine failure explosion sprayed shrapnel inside the plane and smashed a window midair. A female passenger was being sucked out of the cabin. Oxygen masks dropped, and panic crept throughout the air craft. But pilot Tammie Jo Shults remained calm and professional while guiding the plane of more than 140 passengers to an emergency landing in Philadelphia.

Authorities said the female passenger died at a Philadelphia hospital, while seven other passengers suffered minor injuries. But many on the plane acknowledged the work and composure of Shults in preventing what could have been further catastrophe.

Shults is one of the Navy's first female fighter pilots and among the first women to fly the combat jet, F/A-18. Audio from her communications with air control shows an unwavering voice in the face of grave danger.

"We have a part of the aircraft missing," Shults said and requested that medics meet the plane on the runway to attend to injured passengers.

"Injured passengers, OK," Air traffic control responded. "And is your airplane physically on fire?"



"No, it's not on fire," Schults replied. "But part of it is missing. They said there's a hole, and that someone went out."

"She has nerves of steel," passenger Alfred Tumlinson told the Associated Press. "That lady, I applaud her. I’m going to send her a Christmas card — I’m going to tell you that — with a gift certificate for getting me on the ground. She was awesome."

Passenger Diana McBride Self said Shults "came back to speak to each of us personally" after the successful landing and McBride thanked her for her "guidance and bravery in a traumatic situation," on Facebook. "This is a true American Hero," she wrote.

"We were very lucky to have such a skilled pilot and crew to see us through it," passenger Eric Zilbert told the Kansas City Star. "The plane was steady as a rock after it happened. I didn't have any fearing that it was out of control."



Shults' interest in aviation began early, according to the book "Military Fly Moms" by Linda Maloney, the Washington Post reports. She grew up on a New Mexico ranch, close to Holloman Air Force Base. Shults said she knew she "just had to fly." But the industry was not receptive to female pilots, and she was often told there were "no professional women pilots."



The Air Force "wasn't interested" in her, Shults said. But she "set to work trying to break into the club," and the Navy let her apply. She served in the Navy for a decade, breaking barriers and rising to the rank of lieutenant commander. Cindy Foster, one of Shults' friends from college, told the Kansas City Star that Shults "had to work harder than everyone else. She did it for herself and all women fighting for a chance."



On Twitter, Americans are now hailing Shults as a national hero. The National Transportation Safety Board said there hadn't been a passenger fatality in a U.S. airline accident since 2009. The passenger who died was identified as Jennifer Riordan by her employer Wells Fargo in Albuquerque.

So we have a new Sully: Tammie Jo Shults

— Edmund DeMarche (@EDeMarche) April 18, 2018

"Everyone clapped and praised the pilot after he set the aircraft down." The pilot is Tammie Jo Shults, one of the Navy's first female fighter pilots and the first woman to fly the F/A-18. Come on.https://t.co/GFiQ5pKvrV

— Juliette Kayyem (@juliettekayyem) April 18, 2018

One of the passengers described the landing as smooth. Amazing. https://t.co/y98V8rl9LH

— Glenn Fleishman (@GlennF) April 18, 2018

Mind blowing. What a level-headed and we’ll-trained pilot. Good job on her!

— Ilhan Cagri (@icagri) April 17, 2018

Brilliant! And she’s super cool and calm on the com with air traffic. https://t.co/u6rVNluCBd

— Ali Nadir (@AliNadir_) April 18, 2018

Hero is the word to describe the pilot https://t.co/o9G6WvQRVq

— John B Creel JR (@wb3gxwham) April 18, 2018

Thank you pilot Tammie Shults for handling and safely landing the @SouthwestAir plane today. My nephew was on that flight and he is safe because of the skills of you and crew. https://t.co/j5Oh22vYh1

— Terry Moore (@TerryMooreArt) April 17, 2018

It was not all that long ago when most people thought women could not do this. Many believed women could not handle the pressure. Those people were wrong and this woman is a hero. https://t.co/dPj5tdu1SP

— Bullets Fan Pablo G (@SkinsFanPG) April 18, 2018

The problem with Facebook’s new “privacy experiences”

Shutterstock

Facebook announced on Tuesday that it is launching new “privacy experiences,” in their words, as part of compliance with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). While Facebook is only required to implement the GDPR-compliant privacy controls to Europeans, the social network said it will expand the new controls to users around the world, too. But many people who have been demanding answers on data and privacy from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently remain unimpressed.

Companies, under the GDPR-compliant controls, will be penalized—as much as 4 percent of their annual revenue—if they collect or use personal information without a user’s consent. Facebook, in its announcement, said that the new privacy controls will not only comply with the law but will also “go beyond our obligations to build new and improved privacy experiences for everyone on Facebook.” The new rule goes into effect on May 25, 2018.

Specifically, it will ask users to review how Facebook uses data from partners and regarding how the information in their profiles are used. Users will be able to choose whether or not Facebook can use data from advertising partners to show users ads, and they will also be able to choose if they want information—like religious views, political views and relationship status— in their profiles to be shared with Facebook. In addition to these privacy controls, users will be asked to agree to the updated terms of service and data policy. Facebook has also updated its “activity log” on mobile to make it easier for users to view the information they’ve shared with Facebook. The announcement also mentioned updates to the face recognition technology.

But not all who have been demanding answers on data and privacy from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg are gleaming in light of this announcement.

U.S. Representative Bobby L. Rush, D-Ill., told Salon via a statement that he’s “pleased” to see this latest initiative, but said there are still important questions that remain unanswered. “Specifically, their announcement noticeably has no information on when these protections will go online for users in the United States. Also, their announcement has no information on how users can ensure that Facebook is deleting whatever information it holds on them (as provided for in the GDPR’s Right to be Forgotten),” he told Salon in a statement. “It should be noted that in the recent Energy & Commerce hearing, Mr. Zuckerberg commented on Facebook’s collection of data for non-users for ‘security purposes.’ This announcement has no information on how these individuals, who do not have a Facebook account, can ensure their information is deleted and how they can opt out of Facebook’s data collection.”

As Rep. Rush explained, Facebook doesn’t expand in its announcement that it will “include more detail in response to questions about how our services work.

“Most importantly, Facebook continues to frustrate many by putting the onus on its users to opt-in to privacy controls instead of enabling them by default,” Rush said. “If that continues to be their operating standard, Mr. Zuckerberg’s statement that he’s ‘committed to getting it right’ is nothing more than lip service.”

Another significant question raised is how will these consent forms will be presented to users. In the Facebook announcement, the details around n the controls’ presentation remained ambiguous, with the exception of a screenshot.  Ben Kochman, Senior Reporter, Cybersecurity & Privacy at Law360 explained to Salon that in the GDPR requires consent to be presented to users using clear language, but another problem is that users still may not read the text.

"The European law is really about Europeans having a right to privacy, and a right to know what information a company is collecting on them and way to opt out of that and to know about that collection before it's collected," Ben Kochman,  Senior Reporter, Cybersecurity & Privacy at Law360 explained to Salon. "But there is still this larger issue that the GDPR notices have to be in clear language and can't be at the bottom of a big chunk of text, but it still remains to be seen if people will read that."

Joel Wallenstrom, CEO of Wickr agreed that the announcement is a step in the right direction, but said there is growing need for an alternative technology to build more private spaces on the internet.

“This is definitely a critical first step taken by Facebook to restore its standing with users both in the US and Europe,” Wallenstrom told Salon. “As is the case with any contract, it is necessary to re-negotiate terms when it fails to serve customer interests or is out of date. However, we need to see innovation among technology teams and a move to build “private by design” spaces, offering an alternative to tech that’s engineered to collect and monetize user data and attention.”

While the announcement is positioned as a result of the GDPR law, Facebook indeed has ulterior motives to roll out new privacy control settings—such as gaining back the public’s trust since the Cambridge Analytica scandal. When asked if this is merely public relations protocol, branding expert Ian Wishingrad told Salon that it’s not just PR, but it’s not the best solution either.

“It’s a step in the right direction," he said. "Anything they do to exhume the legalese from the dark bowels of their basement into the cold light of day helps. It’s not just PR, but it’s not hitting CTRL+Z either."

Running on the Confederate legacy: Alabama’s GOP governor releases campaign ad in defense of statues

AP/Brynn Anderson

Some of the former Confederacy states are not the least bit interested in getting rid of their beloved Confederate monuments, and, as a new campaign ad from Alabama's Republican governor shows, it appears that outside opinions aren't welcome either.

"We can't and shouldn't even try to change or erase or tear down our history," Gov. Kay Ivey said at a rally for her re-elect campaign on Tuesday, according to AL.com. She went on to blast "folks in Washington" and "out-of-state liberals" who attempt to get rid of Confederate monuments.

In a campaign advertisement released on Tuesday, Ivey boasted about a piece of legislation she signed last year, which was called the "Alabama Memorial Preservation Act of 2017" and prevented local governments from taking down public monuments that have been up for 40 years or more, AL.com reported.

"Up in Washington, they always know better," Ivey said in the newly released ad. "Politically correct nonsense, I say."

She closed, "We can’t change or erase our history, but here in Alabama, we know something Washington doesn’t — to get where we’re going means understanding where we’ve been."

Ivey's campaign in support of Confederate monuments comes as conservative lawmakers in Tennessee have made efforts to punish the city of Memphis after it removed the statues of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest and Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

On Tuesday the Tennessee House of Representatives successfully voted on an amendment to the state's budget that strips Memphis of $250,000 it was due to receive "for the sole purpose of costs associated with municipal bicentennial celebrations."

Last year, the city of Memphis found a loophole in state laws that protected the monuments and sold city parks to a nonprofit organization. The nonprofit, Memphis Greenspace, proceeded to quickly remove the two statues, angering Republican legislators.

But Democratic lawmakers in Memphis say the amendment is "hateful," according to Nashville Public Radio. "This amendment and the explanation, it is hateful, it is unkind, it is unchristian-like and it is unfair, OK?" Democrat Raumesh Akbari said.

She added, "Memphis is a city in this state, and I am sick of people in this house acting like it is not."

One Republican stood by his decision and said the bicentennial funds should be withheld because the law was circumvented.

"I think the city of Memphis, like any other city in the nation, needs to if not obey the law, at least obey the spirit of the law," Rep. Gerald McCormick of Chattanooga said, according to Nashville Public Radio. "The law was very clear, and they got smart lawyers to figure out how to wiggle around the law."

It appears as if Republicans could be making a push to turn Confederate monuments into a contentious issue for the 2018 midterms. Numbers have been on their side, as a poll from last August indicated that 54 percent of Americans believed should remain in public spaces, while only 27 percent said they should be removed and 19 percent weren't sure.

Texas showdown: Ted Cruz is now running neck-and-neck with his Democratic rival

Reuters/Jonathan Ernst

A new poll has even more bad news for Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, as he seeks re-election in 2018.

Cruz is only ahead of the Democratic candidate, Rep. Beto O'Rourke, by 3 percentage points, which falls within the poll's 3.6 percentage point margin of error, according to Quinnipiac University Poll. Cruz currently has the support of 47 percent of the Texas voters polled, while O'Rourke has the support of 44 percent of the Texas voters polled.

Perhaps the most troubling statistic for Cruz is his fading support among independent voters.

Although both candidates are predictably popular among their bases — Cruz has the support of 88 percent of Republicans, O'Rourke of 87 percent of Democrats — independents prefer O'Rourke over Cruz by a margin of 51 to 37 percent. Even in a heavily red state like Texas, such lopsided support for O'Rourke is enough to put a damper on Cruz's reelection prospects.

Other figures are similarly ominous for Cruz.

Women slightly prefer O'Rourke by a margin of 47 percent to 43 percent, while O'Rourke has crushing advantages over Cruz among Hispanic voters (51 percent to 33 percent) and African American voters (78 percent to 18 percent). Cruz, on the other hand, has a significant advantage over O'Rourke among male voters (51 percent to 40 percent) and white voters (59 percent to 34 percent).

Cruz also suffers from a low approval rating of 47 percent and a low favorability rating of 46 percent. While O'Rourke only has a 30 percent approval rating, this can be attributed to the fact that 53 percent of Texas voters said they don't know enough about him to form an opinion.

Perhaps Cruz's best hope is the fact that the poll identified a number of issues where Texas voters believed he would do a better job than O'Rourke, including the economy (51 percent to 35 percent), taxes (49 percent to 36 percent), immigration (46 percent to 38 percent) and gun control (50 percent to 37 percent). On the issue that was tied with immigration as being most important for Texas voters, health care, Cruz and O'Rourke were basically tied, with 43 percent saying Cruz would do a better job and 42 percent saying O'Rourke would do a better job.

While 25 percent of voters said immigration or health care were the most important issues for them, the economy came a close second with 22 percent, followed by firearm policy with 16 percent.

The tight re-election race in which Cruz now finds himself is a considerable fall from where the United States senator from Texas stood less than two years ago, when he placed second to Donald Trump in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries after winning 11 states and more than 7.8 million votes. Since that time, Cruz's increasing political vulnerability has made his seat a prime target for Democrats who are anxious to have a win in a state which — despite its electoral appeal as the second most populous in the United States — has seemed to be in the solid grip of the Republican Party.

This isn't the first sign that Cruz may be in trouble. Earlier this month, it was revealed that O'Rourke had raised more than $6.7 million during the first fiscal quarter of 2018. Not only did this surpass the money raised by any other Democratic candidate during that same period, but it was also more than twice as much as O'Rourke's previous hauls, which had amounted to $1.7 million and $2.4 million.

By contrast, Cruz had only raised $803,000 during the first 45 days of the year and $3.2 million overall during the first fiscal quarter of 2018, according to The Texas Tribune.

O'Rourke celebrated his impressive haul by announcing in a statement, "Campaigning in a grassroots fashion while raising more than $6.7 million from 141,000 contributions, we are the story of a campaign powered by people who are standing up to special interests, proving that we are more than a match and making it clear that Texans are willing to do exactly what our state and country need of us at this critical time."

By contrast, Cruz has emphasized red meat attacks against O'Rourke that depict him as the type of liberal which the Republican's far-right supporters have grown accustomed to despise.

"This election presents a contrast, between Democrats promising higher taxes, more regulation, more Obamacare, more government, more debt, fewer freedoms and less rights, versus standing for Texas values of lower taxes, less regulation, less government, less Obamacare, repealing Obamacare, abolishing the IRS, and protecting our fundamental rights as Americans," Cruz told an audience in the Texas city of Beaumont earlier this month.

So far, fewer Texans seem to buying what Cruz is selling this time around.

This entertainment library is larger than Netflix and Hulu

The best thing about using a streaming service like Netflix or Hulu is not having to deal with an annoying cable company and the high costs associated with a more traditional subscription. But sometimes your usual streaming service doesn't have the shows you like, or you miss out on your favorite local news — with SelectTV by FreeCast, you can happily have both.

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The best part is you can still get that traditional cable TV feel (when you want it), watching 100+ live local channels in HD with a free HD Antenna. Once you've picked over all your favorites, you can simplify your view and unify your entertainment by combing all of your subscriptions into a straightforward guide.

You won't feel like you're missing out on anything with this subscription: usually, a one-year subscription to SelectTV is $29.99, but you can get it now for $19.

Former first lady Barbara Bush dead at 92

AP

Barbara Bush died on Tuesday, April 17, at the age of 92. She was the First Lady to the 41st president, George H. W. Bush, and mother of the 43rd president, George W. Bush.

A family spokesman announced the news of her death on Twitter. The official statement read:

“A former First Lady of the United States of America and relentless proponent of family literacy, Barbara Pierce Bush passed away  Tuesday, April 17, 2018 at the age of 92. She is survived by her husband of 73 years, President George H. W. Bush; five children and their spouses; 17 grandchildren; seven great grandchildren; and her brother, Scott Pierce. She was preceded in death by her second child, Pauline Robinson “Robin” Bush, and her siblings Rafferty and James R. Pierce.”

The funeral schedule will be announced “as soon as is practical,” according to the family.

News of Bush's passing came after it was reported that she had opted for “comfort care” on Sunday.

“It will not surprise those who know her that Barbara Bush has been a rock in the face of her failing health, worrying not for herself — thanks to her abiding faith — but for others,” the statement read. “She is surrounded by a family she adores and appreciates the many kind messages and especially the prayers she is receiving."

The elder Bushes celebrated their 73rd wedding anniversary in January. Their marriage has lasted longer than any other U.S. presidential marriage.

he will be remembered for her strength, loyalty, lifelong dedication to charitable causes and outspokenness. In recent years she even spoke out against incumbent President Donald Trump. Her son, Jeb Bush, dropped out of the 2016 presidential race.

“He’s said terrible things about women, terrible things about the military,” she told CNN. “I don’t understand why people are for him.”

Born in New York City, Bush has also long been an advocate for civil rights and literacy. In her memoir, “Barbara Bush: A Memoir,” she revealed that she had struggled with depression. She later said the experience was "one of the best things that ever happened” to her.

Her love story with George H. W. Bush is one to admire. The two met at a Christmas party when she was 17 and he was 18.

In her 1994 memoir, she said they were, "the two luckiest people in the world, and when all the dust is settled and all the crowds are gone, the things that matter are faith, family and friends. We have been inordinately blessed, and we know that."

Indeed, Barbara likely passed peacefully and without fear. In 2013, she said she had no fear of death.

“Which is a huge comfort because we’re getting darn close,” she said. “And I don’t have a fear of death for my precious George or for myself because I know there is a great god.”