Hello. If you’re new here to ALBB, we’d like you to know that we cover worldly news in addition to Beacon news. Because the world around us shapes our little world in Beacon. During times when you may be watching only your regular channels of news, ALBB wants to contribute to your news intake with a different perspective or information.

As we are discussing and experiencing the disappearances of green card holders and H1B visa for students in America, for what seems to be any reason, there is the discussion of “criminals” being deported. This statement seems to justify the mass deportation of people here in the United States, while ignoring the due process of the law.

This feels like when the United States was rounding up Arabs and putting them into Guantanamo Bay after 9-11 and torturing them.

Highly important to those people who justify the taking of people and labeling them as “criminals” or “t3rrori5t” is the fact that the United States is paying another entity to jail these people. That is American tax dollars that people say they are trying to save the country from spending, but Secretary of State Marco Rubio made the deal with El Salvador to pay El Salvador to hold these people’s body’s in jail and mistreat, abuse and traumatize them.

From The Guardian:

“El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, said 238 members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and 23 members of the Salvadoran gang MS-13 had arrived and were in custody as part of a deal under which the US will pay the Central American country to hold them in its 40,000-person capacity “t3rrorism confinement centre”.

“The US district judge James Boasberg had attempted to halt the deportations for all individuals deemed eligible for removal under Trump’s proclamation, which was issued on Friday. Boasberg also ordered deportation flights already in the air to return to the US.”

“‘Oopsie … Too late,’” El Salvador’s leader posted online, followed by a laughing emoji.”

“Soon after Bukele’s statement, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, thanked El Salvador’s leader.”Marco Rubio agreed to pay El Salvador’s leader with our money.

American Civil Liberties Union Urges Federal Court Intervention

The Guardian reports that the American Civil Liberties Union is challenging T’s use of the wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act from 1798.

Lee Gelernt, a lawyer with the ACLU, told The Guardian: “I think we are on very dangerous ground here. This is a lawless action this administration has taken. If the administration is allowed to use wartime authorities anytime it wants to remove people, I think we are going to see more and more people being subjected to this type of alien enemies act, and a blurring of wartime authority with domestic authority. I cannot stress how important it is that the federal courts prevent this from happening.”

The United States will begin paying El Salvador for imprisoning people the United States says are “criminals.” Rubio said that paying this money was going to “save our taxpayer dollars,” though it is not clear how.

The Guardian reports: “El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, said 238 members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and 23 members of the Salvadoran gang MS-13 had arrived and were in custody as part of a deal under which the US will pay the Central American country to hold them in its 40,000-person capacity “terrorism confinement centre”.

“The confirmation came hours after a US federal judge expanded his ruling temporarily blocking the Trump administration from invoking the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime authority that allows the president broad leeway on policy and executive action to speed up mass deportations.”

The Guardian pointed out: “The Alien Enemies Act has only ever been used three times before, most recently during the second world war, when it was used to incarcerate Germans and Italians as well as for the mass internment of Japanese-American civilians.”

“It was originally passed by Congress in preparation for what the US believed would be an impending war with France. It was also used during the war of 1812 and during the first world war.“

It is not clear why the law exists at all, except to enforce white supremacy.

highlands current thin blue line resist.png

In an article published at the Highlands Current, a Cold Spring resident spoke out against the decal that was placed on police vehicles last year. The decal (sticker) is a black flag with a thin blue line running through it. The symbol is a display of support for fallen and living police officers, and has been created by the Blue Live Matters movement, which has become known as an anti Black Lives Matter movement. According to the article, the resident is concerned that the symbol has racist overtones.

The article brings up the violent, Unite the Right march in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, where “the flag was raised by white supremacists alongside the Confederate flag.” The Confederate flag has 13 stars for the original colonies. The current United States flag has 13 stripes, and 50 stars for all of the states. One blue line is a stripe in the Blue Lives Matter flag. The Blue Lives Matter sells hoodies and sweatshirts for their movement.

The Highlands Current article pointed out: “Last year, the police department in Germantown, Maryland, removed a donated thin-blue-line flag after a public outcry. In December, flags appeared outside two police stations in New York City, prompting similar protests. And on May 31, in Hamilton County, Ohio, the sheriff’s department flew the flag following days of unrest in Cincinnati, prompting a rebuke from the county commissioner, who said, ‘I know I am not alone in my view that flying the flag was provocative and inappropriate, especially in the context of this weekend’s events.’”

The board members in Cold Spring debated the topic while on a Zoom meeting (which is how most public town meetings are happening now, including Beacon’s), with most of them wanting the decals removed. One board member, Trustee Lynn Miller, pointed out that altering the flag is against flag code. One board member disagreed with removing them, in favor of showing support for police.

Trustee Steve Voloto acknowledged that police departments fly the flag “to show support for the men and women who put their lives on the line every day to protect us. That’s why our guys have them on their cars.” But he also added: “Did they not know the history? Did they have it before and the [white supremacists] used it as their symbol? It doesn’t belong on our cars with what’s going on in the world. If the stupid bumper sticker pisses people off, take it off the cars. Why are we even talking about it? Pick a sticker that has more positive meaning.”

To recall Beacon and Cold Spring’s recent documented run-ins with white supremacy, in October 2018, white supremacist flyers were posted to churches and public poles in Beacon along Main Street. From that article:

“In October 2018, a swastika was sprayed onto the home that is owned by a Jewish man in Nelsonville. So far, three teenagers have been arrested for that crime. One teenager is a male who is 18, and is a graduate of Haldane High School in Cold Spring. He was arrested in February 2019, and just appeared in court last week. The other two were arrested in December 2018, one from Philipstown and the other from an unspecified location. They are 18 and 17 years old.”'

It should be noted: LinkedIn has made the editorial decision to not display the blue line flag on its platform when an article is being shared.

Does Beacon have a position on this? We asked to find out…