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NATIONAL + WORLD + LOCAL Obama Assails President Trump’s Reversal of DACA
Opposition supporters praise court's ruling.
In Historic Ruling, Kenyan Court Voids President’s Re-Election: Orders New Vote NAIROBI, Kenya — In a historic ruling and a first in Africa, Kenya’s Supreme Court nullified on Friday the re-election of a sitting president, ordering a new vote to be held within 60 days after finding that the outcome last month had been tainted by irregularities. A new election was ordered to be held October 17. It was a stunning moment for Kenya, one of Africa’s most populous nations, and for democracy in general. Kenya’s disputed presidential election in 2007 set off bloodshed that left at least 1,300 people dead and 600,000 displaced around the country. But this time, figures across the Kenyan political landscape, including the president whose victory was wiped away, appeared to accept the decision and called on supporters to do the same. Both the opposition leader Raila Odinga and President Uhuru Kenyatta called for calm. The ruling also offered a potent display of judicial independence on a continent where courts often come under intense pressure from political leaders, analysts said. “It’s a historic moment showing the fortitude and courage of the Kenyan judiciary,” said Dickson Omondi, a country director for the National Democratic Institute, a nonpartisan organization that supports democratic institutions and practices worldwide. He said it was the first example in Africa in which a court nullified the re-election of an incumbent. The election on Aug. 8 was conducted peacefully and was largely praised by international observers. But David Maraga, the court’s chief justice, declared the result “invalid, null and void” after siding with the opposition, which had argued that the vote had been electronically manipulated to assure a victory for President Uhuru Kenyatta. Mr. Kenyatta, 55, had been re-elected with 54 percent of the vote, easily surpassing the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff. His main challenger, Raila Odinga, 72, who petitioned the Supreme Court to nullify the election, had received about 44 percent, a difference of about 1.4 million votes. A parallel tally by domestic observers endorsed the official result. The Supreme Court decision came as a surprise, even to Mr. Odinga and his supporters, who had complained about election irregularities. A top election official in charge of voting technology was killed about a week before the election, and although the casting of ballots went smoothly, the electronic transmission of vote tallies was flawed. -.NYT
For the first time since leaving the White House in January, former President Barack Obama has issued a full statement in response to an action by President Trump. On Tuesday, Sept. 5, in response to Trump’s reversal of the “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” (DACA), Obama issued a lengthy Facebook message. Obama expressed deep disappointment in the overturn of his June 15, 2012 executive order, which was intended to protect young adults brought illegally to the U. S. as children. Trump, calling the executive order illegal, reversed it and asked Congress to act on it with legislation, throwing the lives of more than 800,000 people into limbo. Trump claims to have “great love” for the youth who have become known as “dreamers”. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, making the announcement, said, “We are a people of compassion and we are a people of law. But there is nothing compassionate about the failure to enforce immigration laws.” Obama called it a “cruel” action. He posted the following response in part: Immigration can be a controversial topic. We all want safe, secure borders and a dynamic economy, and people of goodwill can have legitimate disagreements about how to fix our immigration system so that everybody plays by the rules. But that’s not what the action that the White House took ... is about. This is about young people who grew up in America — kids who study in our schools, young adults who are starting careers, patriots who pledge allegiance to our flag. These Dreamers are Americans in their hearts, in their minds, in every single way but one: on paper. They were brought to this country by their parents, sometimes even as infants. They may not know a country besides ours. They may not even know a language besides English. They often have no idea they’re undocumented until they apply for a job, or college, or a driver’s license. Over the years, politicians of both parties have worked together to write legislation that would have told these young people – our young people – that if your parents brought you here as a child, if you’ve been here a certain number of years, and if you’re willing to go to college or serve in our Continued Page 11
Challenger Community News • t hec hallengernews.com •September 13, 2017
Iraqi-American Family Racially Profilled; Detained by Police for Police for No Reason
The Root -- An Iraqi-American family is outraged after three members were detained by police, all because they were attempting to deposit a large check that was acquired through the sale of their home. Something that should have been simple as A, B, C turned into two adults and a teenage girl being held at a police station for three hours. And because of that, Sattar Ali is wondering if he made the right decision to move his family back to Wichita, Kan., claiming that the experience was a result of racial profiling. Sattar Ali family. According to KAKE, the Ali family had recently sold their home in Dearborn, Mich., so that they could move back to Wichita, where Ali has plans to finish out his doctoral degree in mechanical engineering at Wichita State. “I went to the bank to deposit the check and I took all of the documents with me to verify,” Ali explained to the news station. The check totaled just over $151,000, and literally all Ali wanted to do was put it in Emprise Bank for safekeeping until he found a house for his family But even despite his affable approach to the situation, Ali soon found himself in handcuffs. “I was talking to them for less than five minutes and I found the police behind me, handcuffed me, confiscated everything and took me outside,” he explained. Ali said more than 15 police cars showed up for his arrest. To make matters worse, two other members of Ali’s family—his wife, Hadil, and their 15-yearold daughter Hawra, who were not even in the bank at the time of the incident, but waiting in the car outside—were also taken into custody for reasons beyond comprehension. The police even took it upon themselves to call the private school that Ali’s 11-year-old son attends and tell the school to hold the child because the family was in police custody. When all was said and done, the family was in custody for almost three hours, bewildered as to what was going on.“They didn’t read me rights or anything.,” he said. Ali now believes that he was racially profiled and called out Wichita for the actions taken against him and his family.“They jumped to conclusions,” Ali told the Sunflower, because the check was “presented by someone named Sattar Ali, not James or Robert.” The outraged father said he plans to take legal action in response to the arrests.