Gaston spent years as a human rights lawyer in Venezuela defending the political opponents of Nicholas Maduro’s regime — mostly students jailed for speaking out against the government plagued by corruption.
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Gaston, whose full name is being withheld over fears for his safety, planned to surrender to border officials and seek asylum in the United States. Instead, he was arrested by troopers with the Texas Department of Public Safety upon his arrival and sent to an immigration detention center.
— Human rights attorney’s worst fears realized in Operation Lone Star arrest
A Venezuela citizen decided to escape his third world shit hole. He had been doing real good work in Venezuela. Because of this he was fearful for his safety. He feared he would be arrested and disappeared, or worse.
So he headed north to the land of milk and honey.
He traveled from Venezuela to Columbia but that wasn’t good enough so he continued to Panama where he didn’t stop. Further north to Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador or Honduras, to Guatemala and into Mexico. At no time did he stop his travels, even though he was no longer in fear of being arrested and put in prison by the goons of Maduro.
He then crossed the border into Texas and was stopped by members of Texas’ Department of Public Safety.
Gaston is very very upset about this. He was arrested when he crossed into the United States Illegally. He was only arrested because he happened to cross at a point where land on the US side of the river was private property.
On private property the Texas DPS can make arrests. On public property only the federal law enforcement can make arrests. If he had been arrested by federal law enforcement he could then claim he was seeking asylum.
ABC news wants you to know that he is very upset.
“There wasn’t any there. No notice that said that was private property, or what,” Gaston said. “Neither that I have knocked down a wall nor that I have even penetrated a fence.”
There was a great big river that he had to swim across. Gaston knew darn well that he was crossing illegally. And he is very upset that nobody warned him that he happened to be crossing on to US private property.
The short of it is that Gaston is an illegal alien that was caught crossing into these United States illegally. He spent five weeks in detention before being released in the US where he is now seeking asylum.
I leave you with Mr. Gaston’s own words in regards to being detained for 5 weeks:
“I can tell you that this is the most terrible discrimination that a human being deprived of his liberty can suffer,” he added.
And there, at the end, he loses all credibility and goodwill – with me at least.
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A lawyer who has no respect – even in spirit, let alone in practice – the laws of the country he hopes to reside in. Wonderful.
I’ll give him a little benefit of the doubt in that the message from the media and China Joe is that all are welcome with open arms. That said, being detained for 5 weeks and then being released is a damn sight better than what would happen to him in his native Venezuela, where he would most likely be beaten severely and repeatedly then eventually end up in an unmarked grave.
He requested Asylum. Serious Question:
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Could he not go to the US Embassy in Colombia and request political asylum?
By law he can’t request asylum in the US. He traveled through to many other countries before he go here.
Let’s say that there is a hurricane coming and the government says everybody has to evacuate and gives everybody a voucher for 4 free nights at a hotel or motel. Bill the Greedy, his wife and three kids jump in the Escalade and head north.
They get out of the danger zone and start looking for a place to stay. They drive right on past the Holiday Inn and Motel 6 until they get to the Hilton where they check in for 4 wonderful nights on the government dime.
Gaston did that. He skipped all the low class countries until he got to the five star and then demanded those free nights.
The proper method is to either go to the US Embassy in Venezuela and request asylum and go through the paper work, which might take a while. He might be in danger at that point so it is an issue. The other is to request asylum in Colombia at the border or at the Colombian Embassy.
He could request to immigrate to these United States by filing the proper paperwork at the US Embassy in Colombia. That may or may not be “asylum” but it is the right way to do it.
I know that the “first country doctrine” is permitted practice under the international rules of asylum, but I’m not sure that it is required, nor that it’s part of US law.
Trump specifically negotiated an agreement with selected Central American countries to apply the first country rule in those countries; the implication was that, absent such a specific agreement, it doesn’t apply in the USA. Or perhaps there is some notion that the first country in question has to be “safe” and that this is something agreed to by the participating countries rather than simply unilaterally asserted by the USA.
I don’t remember if Brandon abolished these agreements; given what else he did to wreck the country, probably yes.
Interesting. For all the supposed “human rights abuses” the U.S. commits on immigrants and refugees, so many — including human rights lawyers, apparently — are still so eager to get here.
Also: On private property the Texas DPS can make arrests. On public property only the federal law enforcement can make arrests. If he had been arrested by federal law enforcement he could then claim he was seeking asylum.
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IANAL, but it seems to me, he could still claim asylum, and it would be up to Texas DPS whether or not to transfer him to federal authorities. However, with the current administration’s views on open-border-immigration, Texas DPS is probably not inclined to turn him over, given that the feds would likely just hand him an Obamaphone and an EBT card and let him go with a mild suggestion he show up for a hearing scheduled sometime in the next decade.