President Trump has imposed a controversial 90-day ban on travelers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. On January 27th, Trump signed the order banning travel from the seven Muslim-majority countries for 90 days and suspending all refugee admission for 120 days. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) leadership saw the final details shortly before the order was finalized.
The result was widespread confusion across the country on Saturday as airports struggled to adjust to the new directives. Stories of families separated or detained for hours starting circulating news outlets.The policy team at the White House developed the executive order on refugees and visas and avoided the traditional inter-agency process that allowed the Justice Department and homeland security agencies to provide operational guidance.
DHS arrived at the legal interpretation that the executive order restrictions did not apply to people with lawful permanent residence, referred to as green card holders. The White House overruled that guidance overnight and decided that on a case by case basis, DHS could allow green card holders to enter the US. The Department of Homeland Security decided that green card holders would be allowed to board international flights but would be considered on a case-by-case basis after passing a secondary screening.
Acting Attorney General Sally Yates announced the Justice Department would not defend Trump’s executive order temporarily banning all refugees, as well as all citizens, from the seven Muslim-majority nations. Just hours after her announcement, President Trump fired her. Yates had served in the Justice Department for 27 years and Trump had asked her to serve as acting attorney general until the Senate confirmed Sen. Jeff Sessions.
Yates is not the only one to publicly disagree with the executive order. More than 200 State Department officials and diplomats have signed on to drafts of a dissent memo that condemns Trump’s executive order. Executives at a growing number of corporations have spoken out against Trump’s immigration ban, including Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Netflix, Tesla, Airbnb, Ford and Goldman Sachs. World-wide protests has erupted across the globe as well.
Then, Federal Judge James Robart, who presides in Seattle, halted the enforcement of Trump’s order Friday night, effective nationwide. Ruling in a lawsuit brought by the attorneys general of Washington state and Minnesota who sought to stop the order, he said the states “have met their burden of demonstrating that they face immediate and irreparable injury as a result of the signing and implementation of the Executive Order. ” He said the order adversely affects residents in areas of education, employment, education and freedom to travel.
The Department of Homeland Security announced it has suspended all actions to implement the immigration order and will resume standard inspections of travelers as it did prior to the signing of the travel ban. They said the Justice Department — which is expected to file an emergency motion to stop the order — needed to challenge the ruling “at the earliest possible time.”
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New York City taxpayers will pay $75 million to settle a class action lawsuit against the New York Police Department over its issuing of nearly 1 million legally baseless criminal summonses over several years because they were under pressure to meet quotas. The summonses were later dismissed for lack of evidence. The settlement must be approved by U.S. District Judge Robert W. Sweet.
The suit was filed in a federal court in 2010 on behalf of people who were hit with 900,000 court summonses that were later dismissed because of legal deficiencies. The settlement would allow people issued court summonses for offenses such as trespassing, disorderly conduct and urinating in public to receive a maximum of $150 per person per incident for their trouble.
The lawsuit argued police were routinely ordered to issue summonses “regardless of whether any crime or violation” had occurred to meet quotas. It cited claims by two whistleblower officers who said they were forced into quotas by precinct superiors. The quota allegations were denied in the settlement agreement.
Under the agreement, the city said the NYPD must update and expand training and guidance reiterating to officers and their superiors that quotas are not allowed, and officers must not be mandated to make a particular number of summonses, street stops or arrests.
A total of $56.6 million would be set aside, and individual payments could end up lower if more claims are made. Any funds not paid go back to the city, which is also paying $18.5 million in legal fees. Possible class members would be notified through social media and other advertisements.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs called it the largest false-arrest class-action lawsuit in city history. The 2010 lawsuit includes summonses filed from 2007 through at least 2015. About one-quarter of the summonses issued during that time frame were dismissed for legal insufficiency, according to data in the lawsuit. Legal insufficiency is not necessarily a lack of evidence but may be that an officer wasn’t clear enough in explaining why someone was ticketed.
The class action suit came amid a growing outcry over the NYPD’s encounters with minorities. The lead plaintiff in the case, Sharif Stinson, said he was stopped twice outside his aunt’s Bronx building in 2010 when he was 19 and was given disorderly conduct summonses by officers who said he used obscene language. The officers didn’t specify what the language or behavior was, and the tickets were dismissed.
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President Obama has commuted more sentences than any other president in U.S. History. He recently commuted the sentence of some high profile prisoners. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning, Puerto Rican independence activist Oscar López Rivera and retired U.S. Marine Corps General James Cartwright had their sentences commuted as part of more than 200 commutations issued on January 17th.
Chelsea Manning is now set to be freed on May 17, after Obama shortened her sentence from 35 years to seven. Manning is already the longest-held whistleblower in U.S. history. Manning leaked more than 700,000 classified files and videos to WikiLeaks about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and U.S. foreign policy. While serving her sentence she has seen long stretches of solitary confinement and has been denied medical treatment related to her gender identity. She attempted to commit suicide twice last year.
Puerto Rican independence activist Oscar López Rivera has been imprisoned for almost 35 years with a lot of that time served in solitary confinement. In 1981, López Rivera was convicted on federal charges including seditious conspiracy—conspiring to oppose U.S. authority over Puerto Rico by force. In 1999, President Bill Clinton commuted the sentences of 16 members of the FALN, but López Rivera refused to accept the deal because it did not include two fellow activists, who have since been released. Under Obama’s commutation order, López Rivera will be released on May 17th as well.
U.S. Marine Corps General James Cartwright also received a pardon. Last year, Cartwright, a retired U.S. Marine Corps general with 40 years of service behind him, admitted that he lied to the FBI during an investigation into who leaked classified information to a New York Times reporter. The top secret information leaked, was about Stuxnet, a secret U.S. cyberwarfare operation against Iran. He was due to be sentenced this month. Cartwright’s defense team had asked for a year of probation and 600 hours of community service, but prosecutors had asked the judge overseeing his case to send him to prison for two years.
President Obama granted another 330 commutations on the last day of his presidency, January 19th. The majority of the sentences commuted Thursday were for nonviolent drug offenses. Throughout his presidency, Obama has granted 1,715 commutations—more than any other president in U.S. history. Of those, 568 inmates had been sentenced to life in prison.
In Obama’s second-term, he had made great effort to try to remedy the consequences of decades of excessive sentencing requirements that he said had imprisoned thousands of non-violent drug offenders for too long. To be eligible for a commutation under Obama’s initiative, non-violent offenders had to have been well behaved while in prison and already served 10 years, although some exceptions to the 10-year rule were granted.
Obama personally reviewed the case of every inmate who received a commutation. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates said the administration reviewed all applications that came in by an end-of-August deadline which was more than 16,000 in total.
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In an effort to broaden the company’s “social interaction” with our clients and FaceBook fans, Daily Trivia Questions are posted on both of our business pages. Here are the weekly standings for this past week, and the winner of the Sunday night Weekly Drawing for an AmEx gift card!
Congratulations – To this past week’s Trivia Contest Winner!! Our latest contest winner for the weekly FaceBook HealthInsurance4Everyone/Health & Life Solutions, LLC Trivia Contest, drawn randomly by computer late Sunday evening, January 22nd, 2017 was:
KRISTINA ROSSON
Winner Of A $25.00 AmEx Gift Card
Each day, fans of either of our company FaceBook pages (HealthInsurance4Everyone or Health & Life Solutions LLC) are able to test their skills with our Daily TRIVIA QUESTION. The first 20 winners who post the correct answer to the TRIVIA QUESTION, will then get entered into the weekly drawing held late on Sunday evenings for a $25.00 Am Ex Gift. Card
Weekly Gift Card winners will be posted in our blog at this site. Remember to become a FaceBook “fan” on either of our company pages to enter and post your answers.
Here are the daily contestants from last week’s Trivia Contest that were entered into the Sunday drawing:
1/16/17
Lotorya Patrick
Sandy Nevels
Sheila Carvell
Nitasha Shank
Alicia Dansby
Adaria Johnson
Holly Cajigas
Marcy Coull
Brandy Marie Willaims
Christine McKinnon
Brittany Deaver
Jade Good
Dean Bruss
Katrina Worford
Jennifer Sparks
Cheryl Hall
Stacy Draeger-Brogan
Michelle Rayeske-Jeske
Fanny Wat
Paula Rousseau
Kendra George
1/17/17
Jessica Miller
Misty Shallcross
Alicia Dansby
Kimberly Snyder
Lisa Jimenez
Lesa Moats
Lori Capobianco
Megan Akins
Derek Jennings
Mary Ann Cody
Wendi Black
Phyllis Hines
Megan Akins
Amy Marie Wilkinson
Holly Cajigas
Michelle Hughes
Alexandria Tinnon
Sheila Carvell
Jennifer Fremont
Jennifer Ramlet
Andrea Workman
Kathleen Hickman
Anna Nichols
1/18/17
Shelby Howke
Pamela White Brearley
Amy Marie Wilkinson
Dale Fish
Steve Hardy
Cassandra L Penley
Raquel Munoz Navarro
Judy Custer
Lesa Moats
Mya Murphy
Jennifer Downing
Brandi Chaney
Amy Hopper
Mya Murphy
Marie Beauregard
Melissa Ann Stura-Bassett
Chrissy Kim
Jade Good
Kristina Harris
Abby Cox
1/19/17
Christine Acoba
Katrina Worford
Beata Tybor
Brett J. Griffith
Laurie Griffith
AmValerie Kuehn
Crystal Hazelwood
Sheila Carvell
Kimberly Snyder
Brittany Deaver
Susanne Killion
Juanita Williams-Jones
Joanie Waterman
Kizzy Alvarez DeSantis
Heather Jacques
Steve Hardy
Phyllis Hines
Brandi Chaney
Priscilla Shimp
Megan Rhyne
1/20/17
Anna Nichols
Jennifer Alice Duran
Christy Hawkes
Megan Rhyne
Kristin Yergey
Gino Nino
Jade Good
Chaunda Zeller
Amy Chavis
Juanita Williams-Jones
Sarah Bellestri Shih
Kathleen Hickman
Amy Marie Wilkinson
Tessa Davis
Lesa Moats
Jennifer Saavedra
Kayla Clemons
Leigh Nichols
Derek Jennings
Brandy Marie Williams
Kendra George
Amy Hopper
1/21/17
Kizzy Alvarez DeSantis
Kendra George
Ralph Gonzales
Lori Capobianco
Nikki Bankert
Dawn Raasch
Luis Vazquez
Paula Rousseau
Amy Hopper
Nitasha Shank
Brandy Marie Williams
Fanny Wat
Jane Peterson
Emily Rice Bowersock
Wayne Gallas
Samantha Brwn
Derek Jennings
Nai Merri
Mikayla Oakes
Anna Nichols
1/22/17
Andrea Timms
Althea Thomas
Kim Floyd
Kristina Rosson
Nicole Matusevich
Beth Cleveland
Carole Jacobs
Priscilla Shimp
Hollie Jahnke
Kiki Roberson
Cheryl Reagin Burns
Joanie Waterman
Lisa David Carr
Crystal Young
Sarah Bellestri Shih
Kristina Harris
Alexandra Vindiola
Jennifer Downing
Beeg Reeb
Brian K Henson
Be sure to watch both of our FaceBook pages for your chance to win and enter again next week, with questions posted daily on HealthInsurance4Everyone or at Health & Life Solutions, LLC!!
Remember that if you try your hand at answering the Trivia Question several days each week, your odds of winning the Sunday weekly drawing are much better. You may also find that if you “Like” both of the business pages, you will receive faster notifications of the other players as they post their answers to compete with you!
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At Health Insurance 4 Everyone, we not only want to improve our customer service but also interact with our customers on a social media level that wasn’t available before. Interested in connecting with us? Look us up on….
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