Hello Dante? What Level Is This?

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Re: Hello Dante? What Level Is This?

#361

Post by skatingfan »

Haitian trip to Texas border often starts in South America
By JULIE WATSON, JUAN A. LOZANO and ELLIOT SPAGAT
September 21, 2021

TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) — Robins Exile downed a traditional meal of plantains and chicken at a restaurant run by Haitian immigrants, just a short walk from the walled border with the United States. He arrived the night before and went there seeking advice: Should he try to get to the U.S., or was it better to settle in Mexico?

Messages on WhatsApp and Facebook and YouTube videos from Haitian migrants warned him to avoid crossing in Del Rio, Texas, where thousands of Haitians have converged recently. It was no longer the easy place to cross that it was just a few weeks ago.

Discussion Monday at the Tijuana restaurant offered a snapshot of Haitians’ diaspora in the Western Hemisphere, which picked up steam in 2016 and has shown little sign of easing, demonstrated most recently by the more than 14,000 mostly Haitian migrants assembled around a Del Rio bridge. The town has only about 35,000 people.

Of the roughly 1.8 million Haitians living outside their homeland, the United States is home to the most, about 705,000. Significant numbers of people from the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country also have settled in Latin American countries like Chile, where an estimated 69,000 Haitian immigrants reside, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

Nearly all Haitians reach the U.S. on a well-worn route: Fly to Brazil, Chile or elsewhere in South America. If jobs dry up, slowly move through Central America and Mexico by bus and on foot to wait — perhaps years — in northern border cities like Tijuana for the right time to enter the United States and claim asylum.

It is a population that relies little on smugglers and instead moves based on shared experience and information exchanged between the tight-knit community, often via WhatsApp or Facebook, about where it is safest, where jobs are most plentiful and where it is easiest to enter a country. Earlier this year, large numbers showed up in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, to cross into El Paso, Texas.

Haitians shifted over the summer to Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, across from Del Rio. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Monday that it was unusually sudden.

Many Haitians began attempting to enter the U.S. in the 1980s by sea. Most of them were cut off by the Coast Guard and perhaps given a cursory screening for asylum eligibility, said David FitzGerald, a sociology professor at the University of California, San Diego and an asylum expert. In 1994, U.S. authorities reached an agreement with Jamaica to anchor ships off its coast to hold shipboard hearings for Haitians intercepted on boats. Attempts by sea waned after a Supreme Court decision allowing forced repatriations without refugee protections.

Tens of thousands of Haitians fled after a devastating earthquake in 2010 to settle in South America. After jobs dried up from the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, many came to Tijuana. President Barack Obama initially allowed them in the U.S. on humanitarian grounds but abruptly began flying them back to Haiti, leaving many stranded on the Mexican border.

Since then, Haitian restaurants and other businesses have sprouted in Tijuana. Haitians have found work at border factories built for U.S. exports and at car washes. One hardscrabble neighborhood is known as “Little Haiti” because so many settled there.

Many Haitians have established at least temporary legal status in Mexico, Brazil and elsewhere. Some have spouses or children from their adopted countries.

Exile, who joked that he seemed born to be a refugee given his name, said he was interested in getting documents to be able to work in Mexico if his plan to reach the United States fails. He and his pregnant wife had been on the road for 2 1/2 months after he lost his job in Brazil. They had flown there from Haiti a year and half ago amid spiraling crime.

They stayed along Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala for three weeks, and had planned to go to the Texas border. But by the time his family sent money, he heard Tijuana was the safer option with its well-established Haitian community.

“It’s getting complicated, so that’s why I came here where I can hopefully find work and live peacefully, taking care of my family,” Exile said in the restaurant, painted in the colors of the Haitian flag.

He understands the U.S. crackdown in Del Rio, where the Biden administration on Sunday launched an expulsion campaign to Haiti.

“I think people should wait and work in Mexico,” he said. “There are opportunities here, just not as many as in the U.S.”

Pierre Wilthene and his wife agree. They operate the restaurant “Chris Kapab,” or “God Willing” in Creole. They arrived in Tijuana five years ago. The two went to Brazil when the economy was booming ahead of the 2014 World Cup.

“Things are good here,” said Wilthene, who also is vice president of the Association of the Defense of Haitian Immigrants in Tijuana, which helps arrivals find housing, passes along donated furniture, clothing and toys and guides Haitians through Mexico’s health care and public school systems.

Yuliy Ramírez came to Tijuana five years after losing her job in Brazil, where she arrived in 2012. She enrolled in a Tijuana university for a nursing degree.

“Mexico was a good option for me, but I won’t deny that for many they could have a much better life in the U.S.,” Ramirez said.

Many have already lived outside their country for years. About 150,000 Haitians went to Chile from 2014 to 2018, many on charter flights to qualify for a visa, and found work as street vendors, janitors and construction workers. They lived largely in marginalized neighborhoods of the capital and suffered discrimination.

In April, a stricter immigration law took effect, and the Chilean government started massive aerial deportations.

Since then more Haitians have been moving through the Colombian town of Necocli, where migrants catch boat rides to the Panama border to begin the perilous trek through the jungle of the Darien Gap. In July, the town hosted more than 10,000 migrants, nearly all Haitian.

Migrants waiting there stay in hotels or locals’ homes, where they rent rooms for $6 to $10 a night. Large groups sleep under tarps on the beach.

Panama’s Security Minister Juan Pino said Monday that his country was receiving 2,500 to 3,000 migrants daily — mostly Haitians.

From Panama, the migrants usually make their way through Central America aboard a series of buses, offloading to cross Nicaragua stealthily because it does not allow their transit before they reach Guatemala’s border with Mexico, where some apply for asylum in the Mexican city of Tapachula and live in encampments.

Unlike Central Americans, Haitians have generally not been deported from Mexico. So far this year, 19,000 have requested asylum in Mexico, a figure second only to Hondurans. In the previous two years, only about 6,000 Haitians had applied each year.

But most in the past have decided to push on to the United States. Now some are weighing the risks.

The Biden administration plans to ramp up this week to seven flights a day in what may be the swiftest, large-scale American efforts to remove migrants or refugees in decades.

Junior Jean lived in Chile for four years before coming through Mexico to the makeshift camp under the Del Rio bridge.

“Chile was bad for me,” said Jean, 32. “I was sleeping on the street, eating from the trash. That is what we were doing. There is nothing.”

https://apnews.com/article/technology-m ... d2d800f3ce
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Re: Hello Dante? What Level Is This?

#362

Post by ti-amie »



Full retweeted thread.

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Re: Hello Dante? What Level Is This?

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Speaker Pelosi has one of the best political minds ever.

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Re: Hello Dante? What Level Is This?

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“Do not grow old, no matter how long you live. Never cease to stand like curious children before the Great Mystery into which we were born.” Albert Einstein
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Re: Hello Dante? What Level Is This?

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Post by ti-amie »

Far-Right Boogaloo Admits Posing as BLM Supporter While Shooting Up Minneapolis Cop Station

Rachel Olding
Breaking News Editor
Published Oct. 01, 2021 12:21PM ET

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Sherburne County Jail

A member of the far-right Boogaloo Boys had admitted he traveled from Texas to Minneapolis in the wake of George Floyd’s death and posed as a Black Lives Matter supporter while wreaking havoc on the city. Ivan Harrison Hunter, 24, pleaded guilty Thursday to a single count of rioting. He admitted to firing 13 rounds from an AK-47-style rifle into the 3rd Precinct police station as rioters set the building alight in May 2020. He was then filmed yelling “Justice for Floyd!” Hunter wore a distinctive skull mask during the riot that investigators later matched to a video on his Facebook page.

The Boogaloo movement is an extremist, anti-government, often racist movement that aims to start a second American civil war. Court filings allege Hunter came to Minneapolis with two other Boogaloos and also communicated with Steven Carrillo, a Boogaloo accused of fatally ambushing deputies in California.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/far-right ... ia=desktop
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Re: Hello Dante? What Level Is This?

#366

Post by ti-amie »

PANDORA PAPERS | A GLOBAL INVESTIGATION
BILLIONS HIDDEN BEYOND REACH


By Greg Miller, Debbie Cenziper and Peter Whoriskey
Oct. 3, 2021

A massive trove of private financial records shared with The Washington Post exposes vast reaches of the secretive offshore system used to hide billions of dollars from tax authorities, creditors, criminal investigators and — in 14 cases involving current country leaders — citizens around the world.

The revelations include more than $100 million spent by King Abdullah II of Jordan on luxury homes in Malibu, Calif., and other locations; millions of dollars in property and cash secretly owned by the leaders of the Czech Republic, Kenya, Ecuador and other countries; and a waterfront home in Monaco acquired by a Russian woman who gained considerable wealth after she reportedly had a child with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Other disclosures hit closer to home for U.S. officials and other Western leaders who frequently condemn smaller countries whose permissive banking systems have been exploited for decades by looters of assets and launderers of dirty money.

The files provide substantial new evidence, for example, that South Dakota now rivals notoriously opaque jurisdictions in Europe and the Caribbean in financial secrecy. Tens of millions of dollars from outside the United States are now sheltered by trust companies in Sioux Falls, some of it tied to people and companies accused of human rights abuses and other wrongdoing.

The details are contained in more than 11.9 million financial records that were obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and examined by The Post and other partner news organizations. The files include private emails, secret spreadsheets, clandestine contracts and other records that unlock otherwise impenetrable financial schemes and identify the individuals behind them.

The trove, dubbed the Pandora Papers, exceeds the dimensions of the leak that was at the center of the Panama Papers investigation five years ago. That data was drawn from a single law firm, but the new material encompasses records from 14 separate financial-services entities operating in countries and territories including Switzerland, Singapore, Cyprus, Belize and the British Virgin Islands.

The files detail more than 29,000 offshore accounts, more than double the number identified in the Panama Papers. Among the account owners are more than 130 people listed as billionaires by Forbes magazine and more than 330 public officials in more than 90 countries and territories, twice the number found in the Panama documents.

As a result, the Pandora Papers allow for the most comprehensive accounting to date of a parallel financial universe whose corrosive effects can span generations — draining significant sums from government treasuries, worsening wealth disparities, and shielding the riches of those who cheat and steal while impeding authorities and victims in their efforts to find or recover hidden assets.

“The offshore financial system is a problem that should concern every law-abiding person around the world,” said Sherine Ebadi, a former FBI officer who served as lead agent on dozens of financial-crimes cases.

Ebadi pointed to the role that offshore accounts and asset-shielding trusts play in drug trafficking, ransomware attacks, arms trading and other crimes. "These systems don't just allow tax cheats to avoid paying their fair share. They undermine the fabric of a good society,” said Ebadi, now an associate managing director at Kroll, a corporate investigations and consulting firm.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... e-finance/

More details at the above link.
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Re: Hello Dante? What Level Is This?

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Post by ti-amie »



“Do not grow old, no matter how long you live. Never cease to stand like curious children before the Great Mystery into which we were born.” Albert Einstein
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Re: Hello Dante? What Level Is This?

#368

Post by dmforever »

Speaking for a good friend who does both interpretation and translation, can I just say that she's actually talking about an interpreter. Interpreters interpret spoken language. Translators translate written language. I know that in general use they are used interchangeably, but it's just one of my pet peeves.

Also, this is almost funny. It took so very very little to distract Trump. What level indeed.

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Re: Hello Dante? What Level Is This?

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Post by ti-amie »

dmforever wrote: Mon Oct 04, 2021 7:31 pm Speaking for a good friend who does both interpretation and translation, can I just say that she's actually talking about an interpreter. Interpreters interpret spoken language. Translators translate written language. I know that in general use they are used interchangeably, but it's just one of my pet peeves.

Also, this is almost funny. It took so very very little to distract Trump. What level indeed.

Kevin
Thank you for clarifying the difference.
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Re: Hello Dante? What Level Is This?

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Post by dmforever »

ti-amie wrote: Mon Oct 04, 2021 9:47 pm
dmforever wrote: Mon Oct 04, 2021 7:31 pm Speaking for a good friend who does both interpretation and translation, can I just say that she's actually talking about an interpreter. Interpreters interpret spoken language. Translators translate written language. I know that in general use they are used interchangeably, but it's just one of my pet peeves.

Also, this is almost funny. It took so very very little to distract Trump. What level indeed.

Kevin
Thank you for clarifying the difference.
I know that it's very picky, but it drives my friend crazy, so I posted in his honor. :) Thanks for not thinking I'm being too nitpicky, or at least not saying it. :)

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Re: Hello Dante? What Level Is This?

#371

Post by ponchi101 »

If we were to think you are a nitpicker simply for one post, that would make us nitpickers too.
Wouldn't it? ;)
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Re: Hello Dante? What Level Is This?

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Post by dmforever »

ponchi101 wrote: Tue Oct 05, 2021 2:34 pm If we were to think you are a nitpicker simply for one post, that would make us nitpickers too.
Wouldn't it? ;)
I haven't seen a lot of posts that correct the usage of language so I wasn't sure how it would come across, especially since it wasn't tennis related. :)

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Re: Hello Dante? What Level Is This?

#373

Post by ti-amie »

FBI raids Sergeants Benevolent Association headquarters, union chief Ed Mullins' home

NEW YORK CITY (WABC) -- FBI agents raided the Manhattan headquarters of the NYPD's Sergeants Benevolent Association and the Long Island home of union chief Ed Mullins Tuesday.

No arrests were immediately made, a law enforcement official told ABC News,

"We are at the SBA office conducting activity connected to a law enforcement investigation," an FBI spokesman said.

The spokesman declined to detail the investigation, and a spokesman for the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment.

Mullins, who lives in Port Washington, (Long Island) has been a vociferous critic of Mayor Bill de Blasio and once used an expletive to describe the city's former health commissioner after she clashed with police over the distribution of masks.

"It's much to soon to give you a meaningful comment," de Blasio said. "I literally got handed a note in the last 10 minutes or so. All I've been told is, 'The FBI has raided the SBA headquarters and it's in connection with an ongoing investigation,' but we don't have any further detail in that at this moment."

https://abc7ny.com/nypd-sergeants-benev ... /11084388/
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Re: Hello Dante? What Level Is This?

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Post by ti-amie »

This is a statement made by a former Secretary of State for the United States of America.



Meanwhile I wonder what schools his children attended?

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Re: Hello Dante? What Level Is This?

#375

Post by JazzNU »

I don't even think he believes it. I'm sure West Point was just dying for his input on their instruction. Just trying to get his name out there more as his hopes for a Presidential bid fade from miniscule to non-existent.


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