Nation & World Glance
Documents: Plant owners ‘willfully’ used ineligible workers
JACKSON, Miss. — Six of seven Mississippi chicken processing plants raided Wednesday were “willfully and unlawfully” employing people who lacked authorization to work in the United States, including workers wearing electronic monitoring bracelets at work for previous immigration violations, according to unsealed court documents.
Federal investigators behind the biggest immigration raid in a decade relied on confidential informants inside the plants in addition to data from the monitoring bracelets to help make their case, according to the documents.
The sworn statements supported the search warrants that led a judge to authorize Wednesday’s raids, and aren’t official charges, but give the first detailed look at the evidence involved in what Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have described as a yearlong investigation.
Officials arrested 680 people during Wednesday’s operation. Three Democratic congressmen on Friday demanded that the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice produce information. They want to know the cost of the raids, whether employers face criminal charges, whether any U.S. citizens were detained, how many parents were separated from children and whether any still remain separated.
The statements unsealed Thursday allege that managers at two processing plants owned by the same Chinese man actively participated in fraud. They also show that supervisors at other plants at least turned a blind eye to evidence strongly suggesting job applicants were using fraudulent documents and bogus Social Security numbers.
Virginia transgender bathroom case: Judge favors ex-student
NORFOLK, Va. — A federal judge in Virginia ruled Friday that a school board’s transgender bathroom ban discriminated against a former student, Gavin Grimm, the latest in a string of decisions nationwide that favor transgender students who faced similar policies.
The order issued by U.S. District Judge Arenda Wright Allen in Norfolk is a major victory for the American Civil Liberties Union and for Grimm. His fouryear lawsuit was once a federal test case and had come to embody the debate about transgender student rights.
The issue remains far from settled as a patchwork of differing policies governs schools across the nation. More court cases are making their way through the courts.
The Gloucester County School Board’s policy required Grimm, a transgender male, to use girls’ restrooms or private bathrooms. The judge wrote that Grimm’s rights were violated under the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause as well as under Title IX, the federal policy that protects against genderbased discrimination.
“(T)here is no question that the Board’s policy discriminates against transgender students on the basis of their gender noncomformity,” Allen wrote.
China waiting out Hong Kong protests, but backlash may come
BEIJING — China’s central government has dismissed Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters as clowns and criminals while bemoaning growing violence surrounding the monthslong demonstrations.
That’s partly out of concern that protesters’ demands for expanded democracy could inspire likeminded officials and intellectuals on the mainland.
Yet, Beijing shows no signs of preparing for a major crackdown, content instead to ignore the protests in the hopes that frustration will lead to further violence that will eventually turn the territory’s silent majority against the movement, according to experts.
“Hong Kong poses a serious problem for the Chinese government. It can’t allow the protesters to challenge its authority or deface symbols of its authority unpunished but it also does not want to attempt a military crackdown,” said Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. Under those circumstances, Beijing would prefer to “isolate and undermine the protesters so the movement in Hong Kong fizzles out,” Tsang said.
Documents: Epstein ducked sex-abuse questions in deposition
NEW YORK — Confronted with allegations that he orchestrated a sex trafficking ring that delivered girls to him and his high-profile acquaintances, financier Jeffrey Epstein repeatedly refused to answer questions to avoid incriminating himself, according to court records released Friday.
Epstein’s responses emerged in a partial transcript of a September 2016 deposition stemming from a defamation lawsuit. The transcript was included in hundreds of pages of documents placed in a public file by a federal appeals court in New York. The deposition happened almost three years before Epstein’s July 6 arrest on sex trafficking charges in a case that has brought down a Cabinet secretary and launched fresh investigations into how authorities dealt with Epstein over the years. The 66-yearold has pleaded not guilty.
Epstein was asked in the videotaped deposition whether it was standard operating procedure for his former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, to bring underage girls to him to sexually abuse.
Epstein replied “Fifth,” as he did to numerous other questions, citing the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment that protects people against incriminating themselves.
NKorea fires 2 missiles into sea in likely protest of drills
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea on Saturday extended a recent streak of weapons display by firing what appeared to be two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea, according to South Korea’s military.
Its fifth round of launches in less than three weeks was likely another protest at the slow pace of nuclear negotiations with the United States and continuance of U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises the North says are aimed at a northward invasion.
The South’s military alerted reporters to the launches hours after President Donald Trump said he received a “beautiful” three-page letter from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and predicted that they will have more talks to try resolving the nuclear standoff. Trump reiterated that he was not bothered by the flurry of short-range weapons Kim has launched despite the growing threat they pose to U.S. allies in the region, saying Pyongyang has never broken its pledge to pause nuclear tests.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the presumed ballistic missiles were fired from the North’s eastern coast and flew about 248 miles on an apogee of 30 miles, before landing in waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.
Seoul’s presidential Blue House said the tests were likely aimed at verifying the reliability of the North’s newly developed weapons and also demonstrating displeasure over the allied drills.
EPA won’t approve warning labels for Roundup chemical
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Trump administration says it won’t approve warning labels for products that contain glyphosate, a move aimed at California as it fights one of the world’s largest agriculture companies about the potentially cancer-causing chemical.
California requires warning labels on glyphosate products — widely known as the weed killer Roundup — because the International Agency for Research on Cancer has said it is “probably carcinogenic.”
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency disagrees, saying its research shows the chemical poses no risks to public health. California has not enforced the warning label for glyphosate because Monsanto, the company that makes Roundup, sued and a federal judge temporarily blocked the warning labels last year until the lawsuit could be resolved.
“It is irresponsible to require labels on products that are inaccurate when EPA knows the product does not pose a cancer risk,” EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a statement. “We will not allow California’s flawed program to dictate federal policy.”