The post Salt Lake police suspend K9 program after video shows dog biting Black man with his hands up appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>The Salt Lake City Police Department suspended its K9 program on Wednesday, one day after the release of an officer’s body-camera footage that showed his dog appearing to repeatedly bite a Black man kneeling on the ground with his hands up.
In a statement, the department said it was enlisting outside experts to conduct a thorough review of the program’s policies and procedures while various investigations examine the April 24 incident that left Jeffrey Ryans, 36, with severe injuries that his lawyers said may require amputation.
The K9 officer involved in the encounter, Nickolas Pearce, was placed on administrative leave while the city’s civilian review board and internal affairs investigators investigate, the department said.
“I am disturbed by what I saw in that video, frustrated by how the situation was handled, and am committed to working to ensure neither happen again,” Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall tweeted Wednesday.
Lawyers for Ryans, a train engineer, said in an interview Wednesday that he was getting ready to go to work early that morning when officers arrived at his wife’s home, where he was staying.
In disturbing body-camera footage first published by the Salt Lake City Tribune and obtained by NBC News, the officers can be seen talking with Ryans, who’s standing in the home’s backyard. “I’m just going to work,” he says. One officer asks how they can get to the yard; another appears to say Ryans is going jump the fence.
Pearce then appears to walk to the other side of the house, where he approaches Ryans and says, “Get on the ground or you’re going to get bit.”
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As Ryans kneels with his hands up, Pearce appears to say “hit” and “good boy” while his dog bites Ryans, who repeatedly shouts in pain and asks why the dog is biting him.
The Salt Lake Police Department declined a request for an interview with Pearce, and the Salt Lake Police Association did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday night.
In a notice of claim dated June 29 that was filed with the Salt Lake City Recorder’s Office — the first step in filing a lawsuit — lawyers for Ryans said Pearce’s dog, Tuco, bit him several times for roughly one minute.
On each side of his leg, Ryans suffered two-inch gashes, one of his lawyers, Gabriel White said.
“We’ve seen lots of dog bites, but this one looks like something else,” he said. “I would’ve assumed he had an accident with a chainsaw.”
Salt Lake City police spokesman Detective Greg Wilking said that authorities had been called to the home because of a report of domestic violence. Citing the pending lawsuit, Wilking declined to discuss details of the incident, but in the body-camera footage, officers can be heard telling Ryans after he was bitten that he violated a protective order and wasn’t allowed to be there.
In an interview Wednesday, Gabriel White and another lawyer, Daniel Garner, said Ryans’ wife had secured the order last year amid “disagreements.” The arguments weren’t violent, they said, though she told Ryans to move out in December. They later reconciled, and he moved back in when the coronavirus outbreak began, when she asked for help with their three children, they said.
After speaking with someone in the local district attorney’s office, she believed the protective order had been lifted, they said.
“Unbeknownst to her, a judge has to lift it,” Garner said.
A request for comment left with the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office was not returned Wednesday. Garner and White declined to make Ryans or his wife available for an interview.
The lawyers said they weren’t sure who reported the alleged domestic violence on April 24, but they said there are no allegations that anything violent occurred. “It was just a marital disagreement,” White said. “Then she went to bed.”
Wilking said that Ryans was arrested on suspicion of violating a protective order, charges that are pending.
Garner and White said that Ryans was laid off after he was injured. Multiple surgeries have left him tens of thousands of dollars in debt, they said.
They said the officials named in notice of claim have 60 days to respond. “If they take responsibility, there won’t be a lawsuit,” Garner said.
“My client’s main goal is to see the reforms that the nation has been having a conversation about,” Garner said. “And he’s got a mountain of medical bills he has to deal with now.”
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]]>The post Trump to suspend H-1B work visas and others through end of year appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump will suspend the entry of certain foreign workers, a senior administration official said on Monday, a move the official said would help the economy, but which business groups strongly oppose.
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during his first re-election campaign rally in several months in the midst of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, at the BOK Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S., June 20, 2020. REUTERS/Leah Millis
Trump will block the entry of foreign workers on H-1B visas for skilled workers and L-1 visas for workers being transferred within a company through the end of the year, the official said. Trump will also block seasonal workers on H-2B visas, with an exception for workers in the food service industry.
(Graphic: here)
Businesses including major tech companies and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have said the visa suspension would stifle the economic recovery after the damage done by the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Critics of the measure say Trump is using the pandemic to enact his longstanding goal to limit immigration into the United States. Trump owned- or Trump branded businesses have used the H-2B program to hire seasonal guest workers.
The immediate effects of the proclamation will likely be limited, as U.S. consulates around the world remain closed for most routine visa processing. A senior Department of Homeland Security official said the proclamation will not affect valid visa holders already in the United States.
Republican Trump is running for re-election on Nov. 3 and has made his tough immigration stance a central pitch to voters, although the coronavirus, faltering economy and nationwide protests over police brutality have overshadowed that issue.
The visa suspension announced on Monday will open up 525,000 jobs for U.S. workers, the senior official said on a call with reporters, saying it was geared at “getting Americans back to work as quickly as possible.” The official did not explain how the administration arrived at that figure.
The temporary visa suspension will include work-authorized J visas, which are available for cultural exchange opportunities in the United States, and visas for the spouses of H-1B workers.
BSA, The Software Alliance, whose members include Microsoft and Slack, strongly urged the administration to “refrain from restricting employment of highly-skilled foreign professionals”, adding that “these restrictions will negatively impact the US economy” and decrease job opportunities for Americans.
Doug Rand, co-founder of Boundless, a pro-migrant group that helps families navigate the U.S. immigration system, said the fact that H2-A visas used to bring in foreign farmworkers were exempt signals that “big agriculture interests are the only stakeholder with any sway over immigration policy in this administration.”
Many other business groups were lobbying against a temporary visa ban before it was announced.
“The immigration restrictionists would like us all to believe that every single company bringing over foreign-born workers is nefarious and just wants to bring in people who are underpaid,” said Rand. “That is a false premise.”
Trump also will renew an April proclamation that temporarily blocks some foreigners from permanent residence in the United States, the senior administration official said on Monday. The official said that proclamation freed up roughly 50,000 jobs for Americans, but did not provide details.
An exemption for medical workers in Trump’s April ban on permanent residence will be narrowed to people working on coronavirus research and care, the official said.
In addition to the new visa suspension, the Trump administration will take several other moves to tighten rules around temporary work visas.
The administration plans to rework the H-1B visa program so that the 85,000 visas available in the program each year go to the highest-paid applicants, instead of the current lottery system.
In addition, the administration plans to issue rules that make it harder for companies to use the H-1B visa program to train foreign workers to perform the same job in another country, the official said.
Both moves would likely require regulatory changes.
Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia will use the department’s statutory authority to investigate abuse of the H-1B visa program, the senior official said.
The Trump administration also finalized a regulation on Monday that will lift a requirement to process work permits for asylum seekers within 30 days, a move that will likely result in longer waits for work authorization.
Trump rolled out new health-focused rules in March that allow for the rapid deportation of immigrants caught at the border and virtually cut off access to the U.S. asylum system.
At the same time, he announced the land borders with Canada and Mexico would be closed to non-essential crossings, a measure that has been extended several times.
Reporting by Ted Hesson and Steve Holland in Washington; Additional reporting by Raphael Satter in Washington and Mica Rosenberg in New York Editing by Sandra Maler and Grant McCool
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President Donald Trump said he plans to issue a 60-day pause on immigration to protect American workers, but the suspension will not apply to temporary workers. (April 21)
AP Domestic
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s intention to suspend parts of the U.S. immigration system could have wide-ranging implications for industries that rely on foreign workers, experts say.
Trump has made immigration restrictions a hallmark of his administration, and his response to coronavirus has included a number of ways to curtail entry into the country. He has halted nonessential travel along the northern and southern borders, suspended flights from China and Europe and suspended regular visa services at U.S. embassies and consulates.
But if immigration was suspended broadly, it could discourage a wide variety of employment and may have a major effect on industries where millions of immigrants work, like health care, manufacturing, agriculture and academics.
Trump announced his intention in a tweet Monday to protect the jobs of American citizens during the pandemic by “signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!”
About 22 million people have filed for unemployment claims since Trump declared a national emergency a month ago. Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, quoted Trump in blaming lower wages and higher unemployment on decades of record immigration.
“President Trump is committed to protecting the health and economic well-being of American citizens as we face unprecedented times,” she said in a statement. “At a time when Americans are looking to get back to work, action is necessary.”
Trump indicated Tuesday that his executive order would halt new green card awards for at least 60 days and would be reevaluated after that period. The president stressed that his move would not affect temporary workers, such as seasonal workers arriving from other countries through several visa programs.
“It would be wrong and unjust for Americans laid off by the virus to be replaced with new immigrant labor flown in from abroad,” the president told reporters. “We must first take care of the American worker.”
Trump said his executive order, which the White House had not yet provided, would “only apply to individuals seeking a permanent residency, in other words, those receiving green cards.” Trump said he would most likely sign the executive order Wednesday.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., retweeted Trump and said it’s important to get people who were laid off back to work “before we import more foreigners to compete for their jobs.”
Roy Beck, president of NumbersUSA, a group that advocates for lower levels of legal and illegal immigration, said skyrocketing unemployment in the country right now is all the reason necessary to close the nation’s borders.
“The president’s comments reflect a sensitivity to a primary purpose of all immigration laws of every country, and that is to protect a nation’s vulnerable workers,” Beck said. “With tens of millions of Americans who want to work full time not able to, most immigration makes no sense today, and to allow it to continue at its current level at this time would show a callous disregard for those enduring deep economic suffering.”
But critics argued that Trump’s proposal was entirely political and could cause devastating harm to the economy if implemented. Ben Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, suggested Trump is trying to score political points with his base.
“He’s doing this at a time when there is nobody traveling,” Johnson told USA TODAY. “Everybody needs to understand that this is a political strategy and if it ever turns into a policy strategy, it’s going to make things much worse, not better.”
Before details of Trump’s proposal were provided, the vow raised alarms across a variety of industries.
“We urge President Trump not to endanger the country’s economic recovery by closing its economy to the rest of the world,” Jason Oxman, CEO of the of the Information Technology Industry Council, a trade group for companies such as Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft, told USA TODAY.
Oxman said some of the most recognizable and dynamic American companies were started by immigrants. He said the country won’t benefit from shutting down legal immigration while tech workers play an essential role in the response to COVID-19.
“They will be vital to the U.S. economic recovery and must remain part of the workforce,” Oxman said.
Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, tweeted Tuesday that immigrants are helping respond to the virus through health care, research, infrastructure and the food supply.
“Immigrants are vital to our company & the nation’s economy,” Smith said. “As we focus on recovery for all Americans, we must not lose sight of the critical importance of immigrants.”
Six million U.S. health care workers are foreign born, including about 29% of all doctors, 38% of home health aides and 23% of retail-store pharmacists, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
“Trump’s ill-defined, insidious and irrational tweet insults the thousands of immigrants who are risking their lives in the fight against COVID-19 as health care, pharmacy, manufacturing, transportation, and grocery workers, among other critical roles,” said Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “Banning these and other immigrants from our nation amid the COVID-19 pandemic not only undermines our values but would result in fewer essential workers and makes us less safe.”
Greg Siskind, an immigration lawyer in Tennessee, questioned the message Trump’s proposal sends to foreign executives at U.S. manufacturing plants in his state such as Nissan and Volkswagen.
“Telling those companies that their Japanese executives and German executives are not welcome in the United States to oversee their plants is going to be an interesting conversation for those governors and senators,” Siskind told USA TODAY. “There are hundreds of thousands of workers in our region that are employed by those companies. I am sure that that is going to be a difficult message.”
More than 1 million international students attend colleges nationwide and contribute more than $39 billion to the economy, according to the American Council on Education. Siskind said foreign students subsidize domestic classmates because they pay full tuition that schools rely upon.
“All these colleges are no doubt getting inundated today with messages from students who have been accepted, trying to make final decisions on where they’re going,” Siskind said. “There are a lot of departments at universities around the country that cannot stay open without international students, especially in the sciences. It has huge implications for research and academia in the United States if this stands.”
Contributing: Alan Gomez
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]]>The post Trump Says He’ll ‘Suspend Immigration,’ Offers No Details appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said that he will sign an executive order “to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States” because of the coronavirus.
“In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!” Trump tweeted.
In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 21, 2020
He offered no details as to what immigration programs might be affected by the order. The White House did not immediately elaborate on Trump’s tweeted announcement.
Trump has taken credit for his restrictions on travel to the U.S. from China and hard-hit European countries, arguing it contributed to slowing the spread of the virus in the U.S. But he has yet to extend those restrictions to other nations now experiencing virus outbreaks.
Due to the pandemic, almost all visa processing by the State Department, including immigrant visas, has been suspended for weeks.
More than 750,000 Americans have come down with COVID-19 and more than 42,000 have died.
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]]>The post Trump States He Will Suspend Migration to U.S. Over Virus Issues appeared first on Virus Reports.
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Released on Apr 20, 2020
Apr.21– U.S. President Donald Trump states he’ll sign an executive order temporarily suspending immigration into the United States as the country attempts to consist of the spread of the coronavirus. Bloomberg’s Jodi Schneider reports on “Bloomberg Daybreak: Middle East.”
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President Trump announced late Monday he will soon sign an executive order “to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States,” in what appeared to be a drastic escalation of his efforts to fight the coronavirus pandemic and boost the economy.
The declaration came hours after U.S. equity markets plunged, with oil prices turning negative for the first time in history. Also on Monday, three states — Georgia, Tennessee, and South Carolina — revealed plans to begin reopening some businesses.
“In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!” the president tweeted.
The precise contours of the president’s planned executive order were not immediately clear. The White House did not immediately elaborate on Trump’s tweeted announcement.
Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Arizona, applauded the policy, and suggested it should continue indefinitely. “Thank you, @realDonaldTrump!” he wrote. “All immigration to the United States should halt until every American who wants a job has one!”
Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., meanwhile, said Trump was looking for “someone to blame for his own failure.”
CORONAVIRUS TIMELINE SHOWS MULTIPLE FLIP-FLOPS BY JOURNOS, DEMS, GOP
“Immigration has nearly stopped and the US has far more cases than any other country,” Beyer wrote, without adjusting his statistic to consider the larger population in the United States. “This is just xenophobic scapegoating.”
Added Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif.: “Trump failed to take this crisis seriously from day 1. His abandonment of his role as president has cost lives. And now, he’s shamelessly politicizing this pandemic to double down on his anti-immigrant agenda. Enough, Mr. President. The American people are fed up.”
Due to the pandemic, almost all visa processing by the State Department, including immigrant visas, has been suspended for weeks.
The U.S. recently agreed with both Canada and Mexico to extend border restrictions on nonessential travel for another 30 days, through May 16 and May 19, respectively. And, the president already has blocked most travel from other hotspots, including most of Europe, Iran, South Korea, and China.
AOC CELEBRATES OIL CRASH IN NOW-DELETED TWEET
However, people with temporary work visas, students and business travelers were exempted, along with emergency personnel.
More than 750,000 Americans have come down with COVID-19 and more than 42,000 have died. On Monday, the U.S. government said it will continue to quickly expel migrants it encounters along the border with Mexico for at least another month in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Jeanette Vizguerra wears a face mask during a car protest calling for the release of detainees at the GEO Immigration Detention Center because of the dangers posed by the new coronavirus Friday, April 17, 2020, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
Under the U.S. policy change spurred by the virus, the U.S. government has sent some 10,000 Mexicans and Central Americans back to Mexico, according to data from the U.S.Border Patrol.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) says that more than 100 migrants at 25 detention centers have tested positive for COVID-19. Guatemala claims that 44 migrants deported from the U.S. tested positive.
Monday’s immigration suspension was likely to draw legal challenges, and reignite an already heated debate over travel restrictions. On Jan. 31, Trump issued the “Proclamation on Suspension of Entry as Immigrants and Nonimmigrants of Persons who Pose a Risk of Transmitting 2019 Novel Coronavirus,” blocking most travel from China — and at the time, Democrats harshly criticized the move.
Within hours, Joe Biden campaigned in Iowa and told the crowd that Americans “need to have a president who they can trust what he says about it, that he is going to act rationally about it. … This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria and xenophobia – hysterical xenophobia – and fearmongering to lead the way instead of science.”
Months later, Biden said he supported the China travel ban.
This is a developing story. Check back soon for updates. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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