Dissenter Weekly Update: Whistleblower Concerns Over Trump Gutting Asylum, WikiLeaks Publishes OPCW Whistleblower Email
This week’s “Dissenter Weekly Update” episode features a story involving whistleblowers at immigration agencies, who object to how President Donald Trump is gutting the asylum process available to immigrants.
According to a United States Senate report, “Whistleblowers reported that in nearly all cases where asylum officers found that asylum seekers should be allowed to await their hearing within the U.S. for safety reasons, they were overruled by their superiors, with one whistleblower reporting that it would take ‘Herculean efforts’ to get final approval on any recommendation to allow an asylum seeker to wait in the U.S.”
It brings more needed scrutiny to the Trump administration’s “Remain In Mexico” policy.
The episode also features coverage of an email WikiLeaks published from a member of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), who was part of a fact-finding mission into the alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria, on April 7, 2018.
We launched the show on November 21, and this is our second episode. It is hosted by Kevin Gosztola, managing editor at Shadowproof, and Brian Sonenstein, publishing editor at Shadowproof, joins him this week to help navigate through stories.
Each week we will provide updates on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s case, as well as recent developments involving Chelsea Manning, who is still in jail for refusing to testify before a grand jury empaneled to target WikiLeaks.
Unfortunately, YouTube is going through some major changes in its system. We are gradually learning what we need to do with our low budget to broadcast a weekly show, as this platform phases out the “Hangouts” setup that we believe democratized their service and gave many citizens the ability to easily air their own shows.
The show streams live every Thursday at 4 pm ET. It is around a half-hour. Following each broadcast, we archive the episode and share it widely.
*To support the show, we encourage you to go to shadowproof.com/donate. We also have a Patreon page, and you may sign up here if you want help us fund this new show.