The Boston Globe - 13.08.2019

A2 The Boston Globe TUESDAY, AUGUST 13, 2019

The Nation

A longtime friend of the

Dayton, Ohio, gunman bought

the body armor, a 100-round

magazine, and a gun accessory

used in the mass shooting, but

there’s no indication that the

man knew that his friend was

planning a massacre, federal

agents said Monday.

Ethan Kollie first spoke

with investigators just hours

after the shooting and later

said he bought the equipment

and kept it at his apartment,

so Connor Betts’s parents

would not find it, according to

a court document.

Kollie also said that about

10 weeks ago he helped Betts

assemble the AR-15-style gun

used in the shooting, the court

filing said.

Federal investigators em-

phasized that there was no evi-

dence that Kollie knew how

Betts would use the equipment

or that Kollie intentionally

took part in the planning.

The accusations came as

prosecutors unsealed charges

against Kollie that they said

were unrelated to the Aug. 4

shooting in Dayton.

Early that day, Betts opened

fire in a popular entertain-

ment district, killing his sister

and eight others. Officers

killed Betts within 30 seconds.

Kollie ‘‘was as shocked and

surprised as everyone else that

Mr. Betts committed the mas-

sacre,’’ said his attorney, Nick

Gounaris.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Gunman’sfriendboughtequipment

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — A

Maryland commission that

will research at least 40 lynch-

ings committed in the state be-

tween 1854 and 1933 and

make recommendations about

reconciliation held its first

meeting Monday.

The Maryland Lynching

Truth and Reconciliation Com-

mission meeting was largely

organizational.

‘‘We have never really

looked at it, looked at the

facts,’’ said Joseline Pena-Mel-

nyk, a Democrat who spon-

sored legislation this year to

create the panel. ‘‘This com-

mission is going to hold hear-

ings and regional hearings

throughout the state of Mary-

land where these lynchings

took place.’’

The measure was approved

unanimously by the Maryland

General Assembly this year.

“We need to have a frank

discussion about racism and

about different cultures and

respect them,” she said.

More than a third of the

lynchings in the state hap-

pened within a 45-minute

drive of Baltimore, The Balti-

more Sun reported last year,

and lynchings were recorded

in 18 of the state’s 24 counties.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

PanelonMd.lynchingsstartswork

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. —

Asian carp are likely to find

enough food to spread farther

if they establish breeding pop-

ulations in Lake Michigan, re-

inforcing the

importance of

preventing

the invasive

fish from

gaining a foot-

hold, scien-

tists said

Monday.

A study led

by University

of Michigan

researchers found that despite

a drop-off in plankton, the lake

has enough dietary options to

sustain individual fish that

venture away from nutrient-

rich shoreline areas.

That improves the carp’s

prospects for colonizing large

sections of

Lake Michigan

and eventually

spreading to

the other

Great Lakes.

Asian carp

were imported

to gobble up

algae in Deep

South sewage

lagoons and

fish farms. They escaped into

the Mississippi River.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

SpreadofAsiancarpinlakesfeared

ERIE, Pa. — Three of five

children killed in a fire at a

home child-care center in

Pennsylvania were the chil-

dren of a volunteer firefighter

who was responding to anoth-

er call, an official said Monday.

Luther Jones’s two daugh-

ters and a son were trapped in

a blaze in the lakeside city of

Erie while he was responding

to a call for what turned out to

be a malfunctioning alarm,

said Lawrence Park Township

Volunteer Fire Chief Joe Crot-

ty.

The Erie Fire Department

said the dead range in age

from 8 months to 7 years. The

owner was hospitalized after

the fire Sunday. Erie fire offi-

cials said the children were

staying overnight at a house

that had been turned into a

day-care center.

The mother of Jones’s three

children, Shevona Overton,

who said she is also the moth-

er of another child killed, told

WICU that she had ‘‘lost a

piece of me that can never be

replaced.’’

‘‘I’m just so hurt my babies

are gone,’’ she said. ‘‘I love

them dearly. I just hurt inside

knowing that my kids were

fighting and hurting in that

fire.”

The blaze, reported at

about 1:15 a.m. Sunday, was

funneling out of every first-

floor window when firefight-

ers arrived, Erie Chief Fire In-

spector John Widomski told

the Erie Times-News.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Firefighter’schildrenkilledinblaze

Daily Briefing

By Michael D. Shear
and Eileen Sullivan
NEW YORK TIMES
The Trump administration
will make it harder for legal im-
migrants who rely on govern-
ment benefit programs, such as
food stamps and subsidized
housing, to obtain permanent
legal status as part of a far-
reaching new policy aimed at
altering the flow of legal immi-
gration and reducing the num-
ber of poor immigrants.
The move will have the
greatest effect on immigrants
who are living in the country le-
gally and are likely to receive
government benefits, making it
much harder for people who
are struggling financially to win
legal permanent status — com-
monly known as a green card —

so they can remain in the Unit-

ed States.

Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, di-

rector of US Citizenship and

Immigration Services, an-

nounced the new regulation at

the White House on Monday,

declaring it would allow the

government to insist that immi-

grants who come to the country

were self-sufficient and would

not be a drain on society.

“The benefit to taxpayers is a

long-term benefit of seeking to

ensure that our immigration

system is bringing people to

join us as American citizens, as

legal permanent residents first,

who can stand on their own two

feet, who will not be reliant on

the welfare system, especially

in the age of the modern wel-

fare state which is so expansive

and expensive,” Cuccinelli said.

Under the new rule, the fi-

nancial well-being of immi-

grants who are in the United

States legally on temporary vi-

sas will be more heavily scruti-

nized when they seek a green

card. Immigration officials will

consider an immigrant’s age,

health, family status, assets, re-

sources, financial status, and

education. But the officials will

be given broad leeway to deter-

mine whether an immigrant is

likely to be a user of public ben-

efits, to deny them a green card,

and to order them deported out

of the country.

Officials said the program

would not apply to people who

already have green cards, to ref-

ugees and asylum-seekers, or to

pregnant women and children.

But immigration advocates

warned that vast numbers of

immigrants, including those

not actually subject to the regu-

lation, may drop out of needed

benefits programs because they

fear retribution by immigration

authorities.

“This news is a cruel new

step toward weaponizing pro-

grams that are intended to help

people by making them, in-

stead, a means of separating

families and sending immi-

grants and communities of col-

or one message: You are not

welcome here,” said Marielena

Hincapié, director of the Na-

tional Immigration Law Center.

Monday’s announcement is

part of President Trump’s con-

certed assault on the nation’s

system of immigration laws and

regulations. For much of the

past three years, the president

has railed against what he calls

the dangers of illegal immigra-

tion. But administration offi-

cials have also sought to impose

new limits on legal immigra-

tion into the United States.

The rule has been the top

priority of Stephen Miller, the

architect of Trump’s immigra-

tion agenda, who views it as the

most significant change to reg-

ulations that had encouraged

migrants to come to the United

States. Miller has repeatedly

pushed administration officials

to finish the regulation, known

as the public charge rule, at one

point tellingcolleagues thathe

wanted them to work on noth-

ing else until it was completed.

L. Francis Cissna, the former

director of Citizenship and Im-

migration Services, had resist-

ed the rush to finish the rule,

drafts of which were several

hundred pages long and very

complicated. But Cissna was

forced out of his position earlier

this year and replaced by Cuc-

cinelli, a former attorney gener-

al in Virginia and an immigra-

tion hard-liner who shares Mill-

er’s view that immigrants

should not rely on financial

support from the government.

The complex regulation,

which is scheduled to go into ef-

fect in 60 days, would give the

Trump administration a power-

ful new tool to narrow the de-

mographic of people who come

to live and work in the country.

According to the new rule, the

United States wants immi-

grants who can support them-

selves, not those who “depend

on public resources to meet

their needs.”

The ability of immigrants to

support themselves has long

been a consideration in wheth-

er they were granted the right

to live and work in the United

States permanently. But the

Trump administration’s new

move has made predicting the

economic well-being of immi-

grants a more central part of

that decision-making process.

An applicant who speaks

English, shows formal letters of

support, and has private health

insurance would be more likely

to be approved than someone

whose economic situation sug-

gests they would probably need

housing vouchers or enroll in

Medicaid in the future if they

were given a green card.

Over time, administration

officials hope the tough policy

will shift the composition of the

US immigration system by fa-

voring wealthier immigrants.

New Trump policy favors wealthier immigrants

Makesitharder

foraidrecipients

togetgreencard

By Ali Watkins
and Katie Benner
NEW YORK TIMES
NEW YORK — One of the
two people guarding Jeffrey
Epstein when he apparently
hanged himself in a federal jail
cell was not a full-fledged cor-
rectional officer, and neither
guard had checked on Epstein
for several hours before he was
discovered, prison and law-en-
forcement officials said.
Those details emerged on
Monday as Attorney General
William Barr sharply criticized
the management of the federal
jail in Manhattan where Ep-
stein, who was accused of sex-
ually abusing dozens of teen-
age girls, was found dead Sat-
urday morning.
“We are now learning of se-
rious irregularities at this facil-
ity that are deeply concerning
and demand a thorough inves-
tigation,” said Barr, who, as the
country’s top law enforcement
official, is responsible for fed-
eral prisons.
“We will get to the bottom
of what happened,” he added.
“There will be accountability.”
Barr did not offer addition-
al information about the prob-
lems at the jail, but questions
have been raised about why
Epstein had been taken off sui-
cide watch just days after ap-
parently trying to kill himself
and then was left alone in a
cell without close supervision.
Barr also said Epstein’s sui-
cide would not halt the investi-
gation into other people who
might have helped him traffic
teenage girls for sex.
On Monday, FBI agents and
New York detectives raided
Epstein’s private, 70-acre is-
land in the US Virgin Islands,
looking for documents, photo-
graphs, videos, computers,
and other materials, people
briefed on the matter said.
“Any coconspirators should
not rest easy,” Barr said. “The
victims deserve justice, and
they will get it.”
No correctional officer had
checked on Epstein for several
hours before he was found,
even though guards were sup-
posed to look in on prisoners
in the protective unit where he
was housed every half-hour,
two law-enforcement officials
with knowledge of the deten-
tion said, speaking on the con-
dition of anonymity.
In addition, only one of the
two people guarding the Spe-
cial Housing Unit — known as
9 South — normally worked as
a correctional officer, accord-
ing to three prison officials
with knowledge of the case.
The officials did not say

what sort of job the other em-

ployee usually worked.

A New York Times investi-

gation published last year de-

tailed this practice, under

which federal prisons are so

strapped for correctional offi-

cers that they regularly compel

teachers, nurses, secretaries,

and other support staff mem-

bers to step in.

The practice has grown at

some prisons as the Trump ad-

ministration has curtailed the

hiring of correctional officers.

Many of these staff mem-

bers receive only a few weeks’

training in correctional work,

and, while required by con-

tract to serve as substitutes,

are often uncomfortable in the

roles.

Even workers who previ-

ously held correctional posi-

tions have said the practice

was unsettling because fewer

colleagues were on hand to

provide backup if things

turned ugly.

Epstein’s death came just

two weeks after he had been

taken off suicide watch at the

Metropolitan Correctional

Center in Lower Manhattan,

where he apparently had tried

to kill himself on July 23, offi-

cials said.

He was being held at the

detention center awaiting trial

on federal sex-trafficking

charges.

He had been accused of lur-

ing dozens of girls into giving

him erotic massages and en-

gaging in other sexual acts at

his mansions in New York City

and Palm Beach, Fla.

“I was appalled, and indeed

the whole department was,

and frankly angry, to learn of

the MCC’s failure to adequate-

ly secure this prisoner,” Barr

said at a conference in New

Orleans for the Grand Lodge

Fraternal Order of Police.

The Bureau of Prisons,

which operates the Manhattan

jail, declined to comment.

Union officials said that for

more than a year officials in

Washington had been made

aware of a severe staffing

shortage at the facility in the

wake of a federal hiring freeze.

One of the guards on the

unit where Epstein died had

been working overtime for five

straight days, while the other

had been forced to work over-

time that day, a union official

said.

Officials:Epstein

leftaloneforhours,

guardasubstitute

Barrvowsto

accountforjail’s

‘serious’failure

‘Wewillgettothe

bottomofwhat

happened....

Therewillbe

accountability.’

AG WILLIAM BARR

CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES

WOOL RIDING —A young girl slid off a galloping ewe Monday during the Iowa State Fair’s Mutton Bustin’

competition, where children ages 3-6 vie to last the longest on the back of a sheep and advance to the finals.

JOHN FLESHER/AP/FILE

Asian carp jumped after

being jolted by researchers.