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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31065 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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His application for political asylum was also denied despite the fact spent time in jail for what would be protected speech in the United States

Your implication that he was treated unfairly appears to be based on an incorrect premise. As Justice Alito said when he was on the Third Circuit "the concept of persecution does not encompass all treatment that our society regards as unfair, unjust, or even unlawful or unconstitutional. If persecution were defined that expansively, a significant percentage of the world's population would qualify for asylum in this country — and it seems most unlikely that Congress intended such a result." Fatin v. INS, 12 F.3d 1233, 1240 (3d Cir.1993). And see Foroglou v. INS, 170 F.3d 68, 72 (1st Cir.1999) ("The asylum statute does not inflict on foreign governments the obligation to construct their own draft laws to conform to this nation's own highly complex equal protection jurisprudence.").

The former head of CODOH (Germar Rudolf) has had his Green Card renewal denied by the United States, despite the fact he has an American wife and American children . . . so he is in hiding to avoid being deported to Germany.

Permanent residence status does not expire. Once a person becomes a permanent resident, he remains a permanent resident unless it is revoked or abandoned. The most common reason for the latter is being outside the US for more than 6 months in any calendar year. The card itself expires, but that is a different thing.

Having an American wife and children does not entitle someone to retain his status as a permanent resident if he is otherwise subject to revocation or abandonment.

Your implication that he was treated unfairly appears to be based on an incorrect premise.

Of course he is being treated unfairly. Your implication is that he is not being treated unfairly because his treatment is within the boundaries of the law, which relies on an incorrect premise that fairness and lawfulness are always aligned. This is from the CODOH update last month:

December 15, 2022

We had to deal with three major obstacles this past year: Ingram Content Group canceling our printing, distribution and order-fulfillment contract; Barclays Bank in the UK closing our British account and thus our last banking stronghold in Europe; and our CEO Germar Rudolf resigning from his leadership positions at CODOH and Castle Hill, and taking an extended leave of absence. Let me address them in sequence.

As we reported earlier this year in a blog post, the General Assembly of the United Nations ratified a resolution introduced by Germany and Israel on January 20, 2022, which calls for all governments in the world to do everything possible to combat and suppress Holocaust revisionism. Since both CODOH and Castle Hill have been singled out for decades by governmental and NGO watchdog organizations in the US, the UK, Germany and Israel, among other countries, for being the only entities left that produce new and relevant revisionist material, you didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out what was coming…

After eight years of flawless cooperation, Castle Hill’s partner for multi-national book printing, distribution and order fulfillment, the almighty Ingram Content Group, canceled the contract just four days after the above-mentioned UN resolution had passed, claiming that retailers had been complaining about Castle Hill’s type of books. Ingram has a monopoly in book distribution in the U.S., and Amazon controls some 70% of all new books sales here, hence also of Ingram’s turnover. Each time we published a new book, Ingram’s live data feed into Amazon’s websites had it show up there. Amazon got harassed by the usual enemies of free speech for again offering one of our books. They had to manually delete it, but the game would start all over once we issued a new edition (which we do with regularity). Finally sick of this futile whack-the-mole game, Amazon, no doubt with the UN resolution in hand, went to Ingram telling them to stop the charade at the source by kicking us out for good – which they promptly did. Since Ingram’s database also feeds into all kinds of databases abroad, all our books suddenly disappeared from the national and international book markets. We lost some 50% of our turnover in the U.S., and our entire turnover from overseas, as we don’t have any printing, warehousing and order-fulfillment outlets in the UK or Australia (but Ingram does).

As a consequence, we had to completely reorganize the way we operate. We had to find a new printing partner in the U.S., reformat all cover artwork to fit their specs, invest into a complete reprint of everything, get ourselves a small warehouse locally, equip it with shelving, basic equipment and shipping supplies so we can do order fulfillment ourselves, and then repeat the procedure also in Europe and/or the UK somehow to recover that market as well.

Just a week after the UN resolution, Barclays Bank in the UK, with whom we had our business banking since 2007 and never had any problems, opened some investigation by requesting more details about what our business was all about. Then three weeks later, they told us unceremoniously that they will close our accounts, citing a passage in the agreement that simply allows them to close whatever account they want whenever they please. Period.

Since business had become pretty much impossible for Caste Hill in the UK, with Brexit making exports to EU countries borderline impossible and banking being canceled, we decided it is time to pack up and leave. Castle Hill was officially sold by its UK owner (identity undisclosed) to CODOH on April 8, 2022, and CODOH reorganized it as a single-member, non-neglected limited liability company as “Castlehill Publishing LLC.”

Our attempts at establishing a printing, warehousing and order-fulfillment solution in the UK/Europe for our English-language material hit unexpected resistance when we realized that many British printers are now mortally afraid to get involved in the production of printed matters that could violate Britain’s 2017 anti-revisionist law. Although that law requires that “Holocaust denial” happens concurrently and in conjunction with disparaging the victims, which is something Caste Hill does not do, any printer accepting our printing jobs would be legally required to thoroughly read and correctly assess all our material before printing it to make sure it does not contain anything legally hazardous. No printer will invest that amount of time and effort. They simply turn down the job, and that’s the end of that…

When the first consequence of the UN resolution hit Castle Hill in early 2022, our then-CEO Germar Rudolf predicted that he expects “them” to go after him personally next. And that is what happened this past summer. This is not the place to divulge what exactly has been happening. Suffice it to say that Rudolf dropped all responsibilities at CODOH and Caste Hill this past summer, and disappeared from the face of the earth in early fall. His whereabouts are currently unknown.

Rudolf’s main vulnerabilities are that his application to become a U.S. citizen was terminally rejected in 2020, and that the German authorities have issued numerous arrest warrants against him for reasons that are yet unknown. However, with some 80 new revisionist books or new editions of older books in the German-language published over the past ten years with Rudolf as the production manager, it’s easy to understand why they want him locked away. Although those German arrest warrants cannot be enforced in the U.S. due to the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Rudolf’s German passport expired in 2019, and Germany refuses to issue him a new one. His “Green Card” here in the U.S. expired in 2021, and the U.S. authorities followed Germany’s lead by also refusing to issue him a new one. You get the picture. They are trying to entrap him, then play the same dirty trick on him and his family as they did back in 2005: arrest, deport, put into a German dungeon, and throw away the keys.

In the meanwhile, Castle Hill is getting reorganized once more, so it can survive in this increasingly hostile environment even without Germar Rudolf’s involvement. We appreciate your patience and support for this drawn-out, difficult process.

This content is not if one can just say it out loud, how cool and secret can it really be? It's dangerous to talk about, and those involved continue despite the risk of persecution because they think it's true and important.

What does any of that have to do with his asylum application?? You said, "His application for political asylum was also denied despite the fact spent time in jail for what would be protected speech in the United States," implying that normally, being threatened with imprisonment for engaging in speech which would be protected were it engaged in in the US establishes an asylum claim. I pointed out that that does not seem to be the case, and nothing in that long quote is even relevant to that issue.

His “Green Card” here in the U.S. expired in 2021, and the U.S. authorities followed Germany’s lead by also refusing to issue him a new one. You get the picture. They are trying to entrap him, then play the same dirty trick on him and his family as they did back in 2005: arrest, deport, put into a German dungeon, and throw away the keys.

Again, a green card is just a piece of paper. It is an important piece of paper -- without a current green card, a permanent resident cannot travel abroad and then be admitted on his return, nor can a permanent resident legally work without a green card -- but lacking a green card does not expose a permanent resident to deportation; as discussed in the link I provided, the status of permanent residence does not expire.

his application to become a U.S. citizen was terminally rejected in 2020

Might that have something to do with his 2020 convictions for indecent exposure and open lewdness? "Certain crimes are defined by US immigration law as “crimes involving moral turpitude.” Conviction of one of these crimes will typically bar you from receiving citizenship for five years after your conviction date (only three years if your permanent residence is based on marriage to a US citizen). If you are convicted of one of these crimes, you will have to wait for the five-year (or three-year) anniversary of the conviction date to file your citizenship application.".

The implication is that he is being treated unfairly and he has no recourse. I didn't claim any lawbreaking. It is highly unusual

Might that have something to do with his 2020 convictions

Probation would be enough cause to deport someone with an American wife and American children? You clearly do not like his politics, so you are supportive of these decisions. But establishing that they are legal does not establish that they are fair. He is clearly being targeted for political reasons, and you wouldn't support the similar treatment of other people - denial of permanent residence where your wife is and children were born - based on such nonsense.

Probation would be enough cause to deport someone with an American wife and American children?

  1. You apparently do not understand your own argument. All you said was that his citizenship application was denied, not that he is being deported. 2. The relevant statute refers to conviction of a crime of moral turpitude. Not to serving a jail sentence.

You clearly do not like his politics, so you are supportive of these decisions

Please show me where I said I supported those decisions. As it happens, I support the right of Holocaust deniers or even outright Nazis to speak, and I believe that the US should grant asylum to anyone facing imprisonment for speech which is legal in the US. Unfortunately, the courts apparently disagree with me, and hence the claim that his asylum denial on those grounds is evidence that he has been discriminated against because of his views is simply wrong.

denial of permanent residence

As I have twice pointed out, he has not been denied permanent residence. You are tilting at windmills.

Rudolf’s main vulnerabilities are that his application to become a U.S. citizen was terminally rejected in 2020, and that the German authorities have issued numerous arrest warrants against him for reasons that are yet unknown. However, with some 80 new revisionist books or new editions of older books in the German-language published over the past ten years with Rudolf as the production manager, it’s easy to understand why they want him locked away. Although those German arrest warrants cannot be enforced in the U.S. due to the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Rudolf’s German passport expired in 2019, and Germany refuses to issue him a new one. His “Green Card” here in the U.S. expired in 2021, and the U.S. authorities followed Germany’s lead by also refusing to issue him a new one. You get the picture. They are trying to entrap him, then play the same dirty trick on him and his family as they did back in 2005: arrest, deport, put into a German dungeon, and throw away the keys.

He is clearly being targeted for his views on Holocaust denial, I don't know why you feel so compelled to deny that fact. "The courts disagree with me" is not a justification for the decision or make it fair.

He’s disagreeing with the arrest/deport bit. An expired green card isn’t getting deported.

I think a non-revisionist with an indecent-exposure conviction would also not be issued citizenship. And the cited case makes it clear that speech laws don’t necessarily count for asylum. Whether or not these situations are morally correct, if they would be applied equally, they are not be unfair.

He’s disagreeing with the arrest/deport bit. An expired green card isn’t getting deported.

This is exactly what has already happened to him.

Rudolf fled from Germany to the United States in 1995 after a court handed him a suspended sentence of 14 months for whipping up anti-Semitic sentiment.

He applied for political asylum in the US in 2000, but was rejected. He was deported in 2005 to serve the 1995 sentence. Rudolf was arrested when he appeared at an immigration office in Chicago to apply for a green card based on his marriage to a US citizen.

He was charged again in April 2006 with "systematically" denying or playing down the Nazi genocide of Europe's Jews in documents and on the Internet and of stirring anti-Semitic hatred.

It's unbelievable how much incredulity there is that you all want to insist that this is normal procedure for someone with an American wife and American children. I can't believe you actually think that someone with wife and children in America would face deportation with ANY PROBABILITY under these same circumstances.

I’ll be damned. I really didn’t believe he faced deportation.

We should not have deportation treaties for crimes we don’t recognize.

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