America’s immigration agency removes “nation of immigrants” from its mission statement

US Citizenship and Immigration Services isn’t for immigrants anymore.

That’s not an exaggeration. USCIS, the federal agency responsible for issuing visas and green cards and for naturalizing immigrants as US citizens, has unveiled a new mission statement that strips out all references to immigrants themselves — including taking out a line that called the US a “nation of immigrants.” And in an email to agency staff Thursday, as first reported by the Intercept’s Ryan Devereaux, director L. Francis Cissna bragged about the change — saying that USCIS wasn’t supposed to help immigrants and the US citizens seeking to sponsor them, but rather “the American people.”

The new mission statement, and Cissna’s justification, downplays the agency’s commitment to helping immigrants become American citizens and plays up the idea that US citizens attempting to bring their family members to the US don’t count as real Americans whose interests deserve to be protected.

USCIS’s new mission statement doesn’t just reflect the Trump administration’s hawkishness toward legal as well as unauthorized immigration. It encourages the notion that Americanness is a matter of blood and soil, of birth and descent, rather than an idea that anyone can be proud of regardless of where they were born.

Taking “citizenship” out of the mission of Citizenship and Immigration Services

The changes to the USCIS mission statement don’t change the work the agency actually does. But they make a symbolic statement that the Trump administration sees that work differently not just from how the Obama administration did, but from our traditional understanding of what Americanness means.

It’s not just the removal of the “nation of immigrants” line. The new mission statement removes all references to citizenship — instead of “immigration and citizenship benefits,” USCIS now just provides “immigration benefits,” and “promoting an awareness and understanding of citizenship” is kicked out of the mission entirely.

At the same time as the agency is deemphasizing the part of its job that involves turning immigrants into citizens, its new mission implies that the two groups — immigrants and Americans — are naturally in conflict:

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services administers the nation’s lawful immigration system, safeguarding its integrity and promise by efficiently and fairly adjudicating requests for immigration benefits while protecting Americans, securing the homeland, and honoring our values.

Cissna’s email also told USCIS staff that they’re not supposed to call applicants “customers” anymore because their real customers aren’t immigrants — they’re the American people:

Referring to applicants and petitioners for immigration benefits, and the beneficiaries of such applications and petitions, as ‘customers’ promotes an institutional culture that emphasizes the ultimate satisfaction of applicants and petitioners, rather than the correct adjudication of such applications and petitions according to the law. [...] Use of the term leads to the erroneous belief that applicants and petitioners, rather than the American people, are whom we ultimately serve.” [emphasis added]

It’s an odd statement to make. For one thing, USCIS is the rare federal agency that isn’t primarily funded through taxes — most of the money to run the agency comes from application fees. Immigrants applying for visas, green cards, and citizenship — and the US citizens and companies that have to sponsor some of those applications — are paying USCIS for the services they provide. By a commonsense definition, that’s what a customer is.

But what’s even more jarring than the redefinition of “customer” is the definition of “American.” Cissna’s statement strongly implies that “applicants and petitioners” don’t count as part of the “American people.” That might make sense if he were talking just about people newly coming to the US, or even if he were distinguishing “Americans” from noncitizens. But he’s not.

The “applicants” Cissna refers to include immigrants who are applying for US citizenship — the part of USCIS’s function that got stripped out of the mission statement. Not only does the new mission statement suggest that helping immigrants become Americans is no longer part of USCIS’ job, but by distinguishing “applicants” from “the American people,” it suggests that they can’t.

Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of petitioners for immigrants are US citizens petitioning for family members (or American businesses petitioning for employees). Those citizens may have been born abroad, but they’ve naturalized. They are as American as anyone else.

Does the Trump administration believe immigrants can integrate?

USCIS tends to be the most obscure of the Department of Homeland Security’s three immigration agencies, precisely because it’s the one that doesn’t deal with immigration enforcement (Customs and Border Protection addresses border enforcement; Immigration and Customs Enforcement takes care of interior enforcement). But immigrant rights advocates have been worried about the agency.

Cissna worked for Senate Judiciary Committee Chair (and immigration hawk) Chuck Grassley (R-IA) before being appointed to USCIS. The agency’s ombudsman office, which is supposed to provide transparency to the people who used to be called “customers,” is headed by Julie Kirchner, the former executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform — a group whose mission includes reducing legal immigration to the US.

There are already indications that the new leadership is encouraging applications to be processed more slowly and with more scrutiny. In winding down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, they were more aggressive than Trump’s statements implied. At the same time, there’s been an apparent slowdown in the processing of naturalization applications and of work permits for some categories of immigrants.

After deadly Parkland shooting, deputies will now carry AR-15 rifles on school grounds, sheriff says

Broward County sheriff's deputies will now carry AR-15 rifles while on school campuses following the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, last week, Sheriff Scott Israel announced today.

The new policy was implemented Wednesday morning. In lieu of gun lockers, the only time deputies will not be "slinging a rifle" is when the firearm is locked in police vehicles, Israel said.

The rifles will not be fully automatic and will only be handled by deputies who are "trained and qualified" to operate them, Israel said.

The suspect in the shooting, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, allegedly used a variant of the AR-15 to carry out the deadly attack, which killed 17 people, authorities said.

When asked by a reporter what the motive in the shooting was, Israel responded, "Pure evil." 

Israel suggested a "three-pronged approach" to better secure schools, which includes fortifying the buildings, evaluating how many school resource deputies are needed at each school and sensible gun control.

"There are some people in this country that shouldn't be allowed to have a gun," Israel said.  

At least one armed school resource deputy was on campus at the time of the shooting, and his response and actions will be "looked at and scrutinized," Israel said.

"You're darn right he was prepared to do something about it," Israel said of the school resource deputy.

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump held a listening session with students and parents affected by school shootings. In addition, lawmakers in Florida are facing political pressure following the Parkland shooting. 

Israel thanked the numerous law enforcement agencies that assisted in the shooting response and commended the students who traveled to Tallahassee and Washington, D.C., to speak out about gun control.

The sheriff vowed to remain transparent throughout the investigation and keep the public informed as important information comes to light.

Cruz was arrested in a residential neighborhood near his former high school more than an hour after the shooting began. He was charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder and is being held in a Broward County jail.

Here's why a mailman refused to deliver to San Francisco family

Almost all of us have had some problems with postal services -- mail gets lost, stolen, delivered to the wrong address. But a San Francisco family stopped getting any mail at all and was stunned to find out why.

"It was a week before Christmas and my mail just stopped,'' Marsha Kelly said. "Nothing arrived. Nothing."

She went to the local post office to find out why.

"They wouldn't talk to me. They just said you have to talk to our supervisor,'' Kelly said. "They gave me two phone numbers, but every time I called, the phone would just ring and ring and no one answered, no ability to leave a message." 

Finally she spotted their mail carrier outside, delivering mail to everyone else in the neighborhood. But not her.

"I managed to run across the street and he kept moving,'' Kelly recalls. "I called after him and when I finally caught up with him, he said well, you'll have to call our supervisor."

She pressed for an explanation.

"I asked him why we weren't getting our mail and he said I'm not delivering to your house. So I said, 'why?' He said, 'it's because of your son,'" Kelly explained.

It turns out that the son had a run-in with the mail carrier -- more than once. It's all because the mailman was ringing the doorbell or knocking on the window when he was delivering a package or a letter requiring a signature. 

It was out of courtesy and to prevent package theft. However, ringing the bell set off their small dog, who would begin barking furiously. That, in turn, greatly disturbed Kelly's severely disabled husband.

"I kept asking (the mail carrier) nicely not to ring the doorbell,'' Kelly's son, Stan, said.

"He still kept ringing the bell. Or he'd tap on the window," he said.

Stan admits he lost his temper with the mail carrier one day. "I didn't say very nice things," he said.

After that, the mail stopped coming.

Marsha Kelly kept trying to find out what was happening to her mail. The post office still wouldn't talk to her; the supervisors still didn't answer their phones. Christmas cards and packages were somewhere in limbo. 

"Well I was totally helpless. I mean, there was nothing I could do and you're talking about a gargantuan entity which is the post office,'' she said. "I don't understand how they have the authority to just keep your mail and not tell you where it is," Marsha Kelly said.

She contacted 7 On Your Side. We contacted the U.S. Postal Service. Spokesperson Augustine Ruiz told us the mail carrier reported to a supervisor that he "felt unsafe" delivering to their home. Ruiz said "On more than one occasion, an adult male would come out and yell at the carrier and make derogatory remarks based on the carrier's ethnicity. There was nothing the carrier did to warrant such a verbal attack."

But can a carrier just decide to withhold your mail?

Ruiz said carriers may refuse to deliver mail to places they feel are unsafe or threatening, such as a home with a dangerous dog.

However, the Postal Service is supposed to leave a written notice to residents if they stop deliveries, telling them where to pick up their mail. That was not done in this case. 

After 7 On Your Side's inquiries, however, the post office resumed deliveries to the Kelly home, and brought all of their collected mail.

And yes, the same carrier is delivering to their home. He rarely rings the bell.

"7 on Your Side, it's fantastic,'' Marsha Kelly said. "Because I had no other recourse."

Florida man yells 'murderers!' as he's put to death

As the execution drugs were being administered, inmate Eric Scott Branch let out a blood-curdling scream. Then he yelled "murderers! murderers! murderers!" as he thrashed on a gurney as he was being put to death for the 1993 rape and slaying of a college student.

The drugs included a powerful sedative Thursday evening and the 47-year-old inmate, following the outburst, gave a last guttural groan and turned silent. Minutes earlier, he had just been addressing corrections officers, saying it should fall to Florida Gov. Rick Scott and his attorney general to carry out the death sentence — not to those workers present.

"Let them come down here and do it," Branch said. "I've learned that you're good people and this is not what you should be doing."

Branch was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m. Thursday after receiving the injection at Florida State Prison in Starke. The governor's office made the announcement.

Asked later whether Branch's scream could have been caused by the execution drugs, Department of Corrections spokeswoman Michelle Glady said "there was no indication" that the inmate's last actions were a result of the injection procedure. She said that conclusion had been confirmed by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Branch was convicted of raping and fatally beating University of West Florida student Susan Morris, 21. Her naked body was found buried in a shallow grave — a crime whose brutality was noted by the Florida Supreme Court in denying one of Branch's appeals.

"She had been beaten, stomped, sexually assaulted and strangled. She bore numerous bruises and lacerations, both eyes were swollen shut," the justices wrote.

Evidence in the case shows Branch approached Morris after she left a night class on Jan. 11, 1993, so he could steal her red Toyota and return to his home state of Indiana. He was arrested while traveling there.

Branch also was convicted of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in Indiana and of another sexual assault in the Florida Panhandle that took place just 10 days before Morris was killed, court records show.

The jury in his murder case recommended the death penalty by a 10-2 vote under Florida's old capital punishment system, which was ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2016. The high court said juries must reach a unanimous recommendation for death and judges cannot overrule that. Florida legislators subsequently changed the system to comply.

One of Branch's final and unsuccessful appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court involved whether he deserved a new sentencing hearing because of that jury's 10-2 vote in his 1994 trial. The Florida Supreme Court has ruled that the new system of sentencing did not apply to inmates sentenced to death before 2002.

Elsewhere, Texas' governor spared a convicted killer's life shortly before the inmate was to have been executed Thursday for masterminding the fatal shootings of his mother and brother. Gov. Greg Abbott accepted the state parole board's rare clemency recommendation and commuted the sentence of Thomas "Bart" Whitaker to life without parole. Whitaker's father also was shot in the 2003 plot at the family's suburban Houston home but survived. He led an effort to save his son from execution.

And in Alabama, officials postponed the execution of Doyle Lee Hamm, who was scheduled to die Thursday evening for the 1987 death of a motel clerk during a robbery. Hamm fought his death sentence, arguing there was a risk of a botched execution because of damage to his veins from lymphoma and other illnesses. The U.S. Supreme Court delayed the execution Thursday evening to consider Hamm's request to block it, but then gave the go-ahead about 9 p.m. Corrections spokesman Bob Horton said there was not enough time to prepare Hamm before the death warrant expired at midnight.

In Florida, relatives of victim Susan Morris said they remain profoundly grieved by her violent death. Though Morris was 21 when she was killed, more time has passed than the number of years she lived, the family statement said. Still, the pain remains.

"Twenty-five years ago, Susan's life was suddenly and brutally extinguished. We have grieved for her longer that she was with us. Yet because of who she was ... she will never be forgotten by those who love her," said the statement, read out by her sister Wendy Morris Hill shortly after Branch was put to death.

Man who killed police officer was ordered by courts to give up guns three times

Court records say the man who fatally shot a Maryland police officer earlier this week had been court-ordered to surrender his guns at least three times in the last five years.

The Washington Post reports three different judges ordered Glenn Tyndell to "immediately surrender all firearms" after they found his wife, ex-wife and child needed protection. Prince George's County Sheriff's Col. Darrin C. Palmer says Tyndell had told deputies he'd turn himself in Tuesday. He didn't show.

Prince George's County police say 37-year-old Tyndell shot Cpl. Mujahid Ramzziddin five times with a shotgun Wednesday when the off-duty officer attempted to intervene in a dispute between Tyndell and his wife. Tyndell then fled before being fatally shot by officers Luke Allen and Channing Reed, who have been place on paid leave.  

Cpl. Ramzziddin will be laid to rest on Friday, according to the Prince George’s County Police Department.

“Mujahid stood his ground to defend the life of the individual who had come to him for help,” Chief Henry Stawinski said. “He saved her life by giving his own. I’m extraordinarily proud of him.”

The WWII Spruce Goose – Largest Flying Boat Ever Built (17 Pics)

The Hughes H-4 Hercules (also known as the “Spruce Goose“; registration NX37602) is a prototype heavy strategic airlift military transport aircraft designed and built by the Hughes Aircraft Company. Intended as a transatlantic flight transport for use during World War II, it was not completed in time to be used in the war. The aircraft made only one brief flight on November 2, 1947, and the project never advanced beyond the single example produced. Built from wood because of wartime restrictions on the use of aluminium and concerns about weight, it was nicknamed by critics the “Spruce Goose”, although it was made almost entirely of birch. The Hercules is the largest flying boat ever built and has the largest wingspan of any aircraft in history. It is on display, and remains in good condition at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon, United States.

Culver City, California: c. 1946 The 220 foot long hull of Howard Hughes’ flying boat under construction in its hangar. It is near completion with its final coat of aluminum lacquer. The cut away section is where the wings will fit together.

The Spruce Goose, Howard Hughes’ experimental wooden airplane, floats in Long Beach Harbor, Nov. 2, 1947.

Bride Decides To Be Her Own Wedding Photographer And The Result Is Better Than Most Wedding Photos (30 Pics)

Tallinn-based photographer Liisa Luts and her husband decided to do something unusual for their wedding on August 28th. The couple, who run a small photography and videography company, agreed that Liisa would take their wedding photos, using a mirror when necessary. Everyone was surprised by the result. “I just felt that I want something different, not those posed beauty shots and not that post-processed glamorous photo gallery,” Luts told PetaPixel. “With all respect to the wedding photographers, I just wanted something more ‘us’…And what could be more real than me taking the photos myself…?”