Impeachment

by Mark Spivak

  “President Atalas is getting ready to go on his annual summer vacation. Very soon he will be on Martha’s Vineyard, playing golf and snacking on ice cream. In the meantime, tens of thousands of brown people are rotting in concentration camps near the border.

  “Some time ago, the President promised that the detainees would receive due process. He assured us that they would receive deportation hearings to determine whether or not their individual situations qualified them for asylum in the United States. We now have over 60,000 prisoners, and we have had exactly 469 hearings.

  “I call upon the President to be as good as his word.”

  The White House could not be reached for comment on Mendoza’s statements.

  Chapter 31

  The documentary ran on PBS the weekend before Labor Day. It drew one of the largest audiences ever garnered by them nationwide, particularly considering the time of year. It also attracted so much attention in the press that it was aired again the following week. Media critics across the country called it “explosive,” “painfully revealing,” “gut-wrenching” and “searing.”

  Without question, it helped to solidify outrage against the administration’s handling of the immigration problem on the border. Leading conservatives, who had been railing against public broadcasting for decades as a tool of the liberal conspiracy, were astonished at how far PBS went to discredit the way the President had dealt with the situation.

  The title was Faces of Despair: The Refugee Crisis in America.

  “I wanted to come to America,” said the off-camera voice of a young man at the opening, as the camera panned across a desolate village in the Mexican interior. “I wanted to make some money and help my family. But I also thought that if I worked hard and stayed long enough, I could become somebody.

  “I grew up in a small village outside Matamoros. I had three sisters and four brothers, and all eight of us slept on the floor of our house, next to the stove.” Pictures of a disheveled shack filled with filthy children flashed across the screen. White House spokesmen later charged that the hovel being shown was located in El Salvador and not Mexico, but it hardly mattered. People in the audience were probably already crying.

  “My father worked as a migrant, and sometimes there was not enough food. We always thought that if we made it to America that our worries would be over.

  “I left school after the sixth grade and worked twelve hours a day, saving money to come to America. When I had saved a thousand dollars, we found a coyote, a smuggler, who was willing to transport me for that price. I was loaded into the trunk of a car and driven across the border.” The screen featured generic footage of cars driving across Texas sagebrush in the middle of the night. “A few miles north of the border, we were stopped by some men wearing uniforms. They opened the trunk and found the three of us. They told us to wait there until the Border Patrol arrived. We thought they were police, so we did as we were told.

  “The three of us were taken to a jail near Brownsville and put in a cell. There were three other men in the cell, all older. They smoked cigarettes and had tattoos.” As he spoke, there was a succession of pictures of the overcrowded cells in the county jails: PBS obviously had access to the archives of The Washington Post photographers. “The men told us what to do from the beginning. They took our food and beat us up when we disobeyed them. All three of us got very sick.

  “After almost a month, we were herded onto trucks and taken to the camp north of Brownsville. Conditions there were better at first, but quickly got worse. There were few guards to control the gangs, people kept getting sick, and we were not allowed to bathe.”

  The documentary went on like this for a solid hour, portraying the camps as just a notch better than Auschwitz. It would be aired twice more between Labor Day and the end of the year. In the aftermath of the first showing, representatives from Amnesty International, the American Red Cross and the UN Commission on Refugees came to southern Texas. Clips from the film were shown on TV as parts of ads from humanitarian groups. It was, in the words of Joel Gottbaum, “a shitstorm tsunami.”

  President Cuts Vacation Short, Returns to Washington

  Vows to Contain Refugee Crisis on Mexican Border

  By Peter Schoenfeld

  August 28: Special to The Washington Post

  President Khaleem Atalas abruptly suspended his summer vacation yesterday, leaving Martha’s Vineyard and returning to the Capitol to focus on the nation’s refugee crisis.

  “We need a swift and meaningful resolution to this situation,” said the President, who was originally scheduled to remain at his rented vacation home until the Labor Day weekend.

  “By returning to Washington, I will be able to confer with my Cabinet and top security agencies to work out a plan to ease tensions along the Mexican border. The immigrants living in the detention camps in Texas and California are enduring harsh conditions and dangerous circumstances. This situation has continued long enough, and it is unacceptable in the United States of America. We live in a complicated world, and we have many problems to deal with. We need to eliminate the distraction of the refugee problem so we can focus on some of the other pressing issues facing our country, and it’s my intention to do this as quickly as possible.”

  As he left Martha’s Vineyard, the President offered no specifics on how he planned to deal with the crisis, but top aides indicated that a plan would be announced within a few days.

  Problems along the U.S.-Mexico border have worsened in the past week. Public awareness of the situation was heightened by a recent documentary that aired several times on PBS stations around the country. Titled Faces of Despair: The Refugee Crisis in America, the film was narrated through the eyes of immigrants themselves, and it focused on conditions in the three temporary detention camps.

  Several days ago, a second riot broke out at the Brownsville camp, pitting inmates against agents of the Department of Homeland Security. DHS agents were assigned to maintain order in the camps when the immigrants were first transferred there, and officials have consistently complained that the number of personnel was too small to police the population effectively. A contingent of Texas Rangers and State Police has been assisting DHS for the past week.

  According to confidential sources, the second riot was initiated by members of an inmate group called La Lucha, or “The Struggle.” It began in the camp’s exercise yard and quickly spun out of control, with as many as 100 inmates battling a combination of security forces. State Police used tear gas and water cannons to control the melee, and two detainees were ultimately shot in the fracas.

  “We are not animals,” said Enrigue Gonzalez through an interpreter. Gonzalez is the leader of La Lucha, and he claims more than 1,200 of his fellow inmates have thus far joined the struggle.

  “We are human beings, and we demand to be treated that way. We will not stop until the U.S. government grants us the rights that we are entitled to as children of God.”

  In the aftermath of the PBS documentary, conditions in the camps have been condemned by Amnesty International, The American Red Cross and the UN Commission on Refugees, as well as Criollos Unidos, the nation’s largest organization devoted to lobbying for the rights of Hispanics. According to most estimates, the number of detainees in the three camps now totals slightly more than 70,000.

  Several days after returning to Washington from Martha’s Vineyard, President Atalas held his first press conference in nearly three months.

  The encounter with the media was carefully managed. The White House press corps received no advance notice of the event, which was announced only fifteen minutes before it started. Atalas also took a page from the playbook of another embattled President, Richard Nixon, and scheduled the press conference for 8:00 a.m., an hour when the most antagonistic reporters would either be still asleep or hung over from the night before.

  The President walked into the briefing room a few minutes
past eight, wearing a dark blue suit and a solemn expression. The room was empty save for a handful of wire service correspondents.

  “Good morning and thank you for coming on short notice. I have a statement to read, after which I’ll take just a few quick questions.

  “I returned to Washington two days ago to take personal charge of the problems occurring on the U.S.-Mexico border. Since then, my time has been spent in consultations with the Cabinet, with the FBI and CIA, and also with those officials entrusted with the day-to-day supervision of our national security. I have also been in contact with a range of attorneys and humanitarian groups.

  “As a result, I would like to announce the following five-point course of action:

  “Effective immediately, I am declaring a state of emergency in both California and Texas. This declaration will allow me to use the full power of the federal government to help diffuse the tensions that have increased recently in the border camps. I want to make it clear to the governors of both states that they have a direct phone line to me, and that I won’t refuse any reasonable request for assistance.

  “Secondly, I am instructing both state governments to immediately activate their National Guard units and deploy them to the three detention camps. In conversations with both governors, I’ve indicated that a force of three to four thousand troops will be necessary to maintain order in each camp. Those troops should be arriving on site within a few days.

  “I have also directed my administration to work closely with the humanitarian groups that have investigated conditions within the camps. We welcome their input, and we pledge our complete cooperation in working with them to assure more humane living conditions for the detained immigrants.

  “Fourth, I am taking intensified steps to speed up the deportation hearings for detainees. I have previously stated that I believe each and every one of them is entitled to due process, and I’m still firm in that conviction. However, I also recognize that the pace of scheduling those hearings has been unacceptably slow. Consequently, I have ordered the Joint Chiefs of Staff to immediately submit to me a list of officers in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps of each service who could be detached and ready to preside over deportation hearings. While it’s true that there are differences between military and civilian law, it’s also true that many of these judges have extensive experience in the civilian sector. I expect to have the list by the end of the week, and I will make sure the accelerated schedule of hearings begins as soon as possible.

  “Lastly, I have asked the Army Corps of Engineers to conduct an investigation of each camp, and report back to me within the week with an estimate for expanding the living quarters, as well as improving the ones that already exist. The Engineers are the finest group of contractors on earth, and they are eminently capable of building the required structures in a very short period of time. These improvements will go a long way toward making life much more bearable for the detainees awaiting hearings.

  “I’ll take a few quick questions.”

  “Mr. President, do we know how many detainees are currently in the camps?”

  “As of this morning, the best estimate we have is close to 80,000.”

  “Sir, do you have any plans to begin deportations in the near future?”

  “As I stated, I believe the immigrants are entitled to due process. The Constitution guarantees that right to American citizens, and we have traditionally extended it to those people in the country on a temporary basis. I’ve also said that we don’t know how many of the immigrants are entitled to asylum. Before we start deporting these folks, we need to make sure that none of their lives will be in jeopardy if they are returned to Mexico.”

  “Sir, you’ve come under fire recently from a wide range of citizens and groups over the slow reaction of your administration to this crisis. I think many people would like to know what has taken so long to form a plan of action to deal with this?”

  “Well, I’ve been in office for four and a half years now, so I’ve gotten used to being criticized—it comes with the job, and it’s a rare day when someone isn’t attacking me for something. In this case, we have a situation that came out of nowhere. No one was expecting it, and it took a while for people to understand the scope of the problem. Our initial efforts were focused on determining whether the actions of the Angels of Democracy were even legal, and I think most observers would admit that events moved very quickly in this case. But as I’ve stated before and just repeated, these conditions are not acceptable in the United States of America, and we will do something about it.”

  “Sir, when you left Martha’s Vineyard a few days ago to return to Washington, you said the refugee crisis had become a distraction that was preventing you from focusing on other issues. Do you think that description might be found offensive by many people in the Hispanic community?”

  “Let me be clear on this: we live in a very dangerous and complicated world. There is widespread starvation throughout South America, an AIDS epidemic in Africa, unrest throughout the Middle East, and Persepostan is trying to develop nuclear weapons. We need to be able to concentrate on those issues, and deal with them effectively in a way that insures the future of the planet. And, of course, we have problems in this country as well, and those problems will be addressed. But when I referred to the refugee situation as a distraction, I was trying to place it in a much larger global context.”

  “Mr. President, some of your critics are charging that your reluctance to deport the detainees is politically motivated. Since you’re on record advocating a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, some people have suggested that you have a vested interest in keeping them in the country. Bob O’Neill at Fox News even stated that your goal was to have the immigrants naturalized on the assumption that they would vote Democratic. What’s your reaction to that, sir?”

  Atalas forced a smile. “Gentlemen, have yourselves a nice day.” He turned and walked out of the briefing room, ignoring the shouted questions that followed him.

  Chapter 32

  “This is CNN Breaking News with more information on the developing story we first covered about twenty minutes ago. Curtis Bassen, Jr., the oldest son of the Vice President, has been the victim of an unsuccessful assassination attempt. As we originally reported, the attack took place outside the Federal Courthouse in Dayton, Ohio, where Bassen works as a prosecutor. In just a moment we’ll be going live to Samantha Olsen, our correspondent on the scene, who has been gathering information on this bizarre and shocking event.

  “As far as we know, Bassen was shot in the attack but not seriously injured. He was taken to a nearby hospital, and we’re awaiting word on his condition. The initial eyewitness accounts indicated that it was a lone gunman who approached Bassen as he was leaving work and suddenly drew his weapon. There are reports that Bassen’s bodyguard shot the assailant as well.

  “We have Samantha Olsen now, live at the courthouse in Dayton. Samantha, can you hear us?”

  “Loud and clear, John. I’m standing here in front of the Federal Courthouse for the Southern District of Ohio, where Curtis Bassen, Jr. is employed as a prosecutor. About forty-five minutes ago, he was the subject of an attack by a lone gunman as he emerged from the building.”

  “Samantha, can you tell us what happened?”

  “From what we’ve been able to piece together, John, Bassen was leaving work around five this afternoon, accompanied by his bodyguard. As they descended the steps of the courthouse they were approached by the gunman, who drew his pistol when he was approximately five feet away. According to bystanders who witnessed the event, the bodyguard reacted very quickly, but the gunman was able to get off one shot, and we believe that shot hit Bassen in the leg. The bodyguard then returned fire, shooting the assailant in the chest.”

  “What do we know at this point about the condition of the Vice President’s oldest son?”

  “He was taken to nearby
Grandview Hospital and is currently being treated, but our understanding is that his condition is stable, and his injuries are not life-threatening. We believe that the bodyguard was uninjured.”

  “And what about the gunman, Samantha? What’s his condition at this time?”

  “EMTs were called, but he was pronounced dead at the scene.”

  “Do we know who he was at this point?”

  “What we’re hearing, John, is that the man carried no identification with him. This means that determining his identity will take a while, if that identity can be confirmed. Authorities will take fingerprints and run them through the national databases, but something will only turn up if he had a previous felony conviction, was in the military, or ever applied for a job that required him to be fingerprinted.”

  “Well it sounds miraculous that Bassen wasn’t injured more seriously, given how close the gunman was when he opened fire. I’m sure that we can all be grateful for that.”

  “Everyone is certainly relieved, John. But as we assemble more information on what happened, the situation is starting to appear more and more suspicious. As I mentioned, the gunman was five feet away when he opened fire, but only succeeded in shooting Bassen in the leg. Either he was a poor shot, or his intention was only to inflict minor injury. According to some eyewitnesses, he seemed to actually aim for Bassen’s leg. So more and more, it seems that perhaps this wasn’t really an assassination attempt at all.”

  “That does sound very strange indeed.”

  “And, of course, we’ll probably never know for sure at this point, since the gunman is dead.”

  “I presume the Vice President has been notified, Samantha? What are you hearing about that?”

  “Vice President Bassen was in a meeting at the time of the incident, John, and we believe he was notified at once. We have reports that he is already en route to Andrews Air Force Base to fly to Dayton and be at his son’s side.”