Rules Are Made to Be Broken: How the Process of Expedited Removal Fails Asylum Seekers

Immigration inspectors are authorized to deport persons who arrive at U.S. ports without valid travel documents. This process, which usually occurs within 48 hours and does not allow for judicial review, is called expedited removal. This article begins by summarizing the findings of the few studies allowed access to the process. The authors extrapolate from the studies to demonstrate that thousands of genuine asylum seekers have erroneously been deported via expedited removal. The greatest cause of erroneous deportation is a failure by the agency responsible for the process, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), to follow its own rules. The heart of the article is a simple inquiry: given the stakes involved, why doesn’t CBP follow its own rules? One report found CBP’s failure “simply inexplicable.” Drawing on the work of Jerry Mashaw, among others, the article attempts to “explain the inexplicable.” It demonstrates that a mix of bureaucratic and personal realities, including CBP’s dominant enforcement culture, combine to promote noncompliance with many of the rules intended to protect asylees. This showing has important implications for those who would repair the system. CBP’s enforcement culture is likely to defeat any attempt to ensure compliance with the rules simply by reiterating them. A method is needed for moderating the culture, so that deporting the wrong person becomes as unacceptable in the future as admitting the wrong person is right now. The article closes with numerous suggestions to help achieve the required change, as well as a few recommendations for specific rule changes

Characterization, renovation, and utilization of water from slurry transport systems

The transportation of a number of commodities as water slurries in pipelines offers a number of advantages which will make this method of transport more popular in coming years. Among the formeost of these advantages are high reliability, low operating costs, minimum environmental disruption, and ability to operate with nonpetroleum energy resources. Although coal is the most frequently mentioned material that is a candidate for slurry transport, other commodities including minerals, wood chips, and even solid refuse may be moved in this manner. Water used as a slurry transport medium must be properly characterized, renovated, and used in order to make slurry transport environmentally and economically acceptable.Project # B-145-MO Agreement # 14-34-0001-121

EVALUATION OF REMEDIATION TECHNOLOGIES FOR PLUTONIUM CONTAMINATED SOIL

Soils contaminated with radionuclides are an environmental concern at most Department of Energy (DOE) sites. Clean up efforts at many of these sites are ongoing using conventional remediation techniques. These remediation techniques are often expensive and may not achieve desired soil volume reduction. Several studies using alternative remediation techniques have been performed on plutonium-contaminated soils from the Nevada Test Site. Results to date exhibit less than encouraging results, but these processes were often not fully optimized, and other approaches are possible. Clemson University and teaming partner Waste Policy Institute, through a cooperative agreement with the National Environmental Technologies Laboratory, are assisting the Nevada Test Site (NTS) in re-evaluating technologies that have the potential of reducing the volume of plutonium contaminated soil. This efforts includes (1) a through literature review and summary of (a) NTS soil characterization and (b) volume reduction treatment technologies applied to plutonium-contaminated NTS soils, (2) an interactive workshop for vendors, representatives from DOE sites and end-users, and (3) bench scale demonstration of applicable vendor technologies at the Clemson Environmental Technologies Laboratory

Messungen von Eisendichten in der polaren Hochatmosphaere

Available from TIB Hannover: RN 4852(90-53) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEDEGerman

Response of earthworm communities to soil engineering and soil isolation in urban landscapes

International audienceEngineered soils provide numerous ecosystem services in urban landscapes, such as water regulation and plant growth. They are constructed to optimize soil physicochemical properties but their biological properties are given little consideration. In particular, earthworm communities may be highly impacted by soil engineering processes and soil isolation caused by asphalted surfaces separating soils, and in particular roadside soils, from pseudo-natural soils. In this context, this study aimed to evaluate (i) the effects of soil engineering processes applied to construct roadside soils, and (ii) the effects of soil isolation from pseudo-natural soils by asphalted surfaces on earthworm communities. The study was conducted in an urban landscape in the suburbs of Paris, France. We sampled earthworms in roadside soils from two distinct soil engineering processes: basic engineering (BER) associated with shallow stripping depth and advanced engineering (AER) associated with deep stripping depth and organic amendment. Within each soil engineering process, two levels of soil isolation were defined depending on the asphalted surface separating roadside soils from pseudo-natural soils: light isolation (LI) in case of a narrow cycle path, and high isolation (HI) in case of a wide road. Soil engineering did not affect the total earthworm abundance whereas the total species richness was negatively impacted in comparison to nearby pseudo-natural soils. High soil isolation differently impacted earthworm communities depending on the engineering process. Regarding AER, earthworm abundance and species richness were significantly lower in HI than in LI while no differences were observed between BER-LI and BER-HI. Overall, engineering processes define the soil's ability to host earthworms, and soil isolation defines soil ability to be colonized from nearby environments. Considering the contribution of earthworms to the provision of ecosystem services, both soil engineering and soil isolation should be taken into account in urban projects to optimize their development in urban landscapes. © 2021 Elsevier B.V

Experimental evidence of a stratospheric circulation influence on mesospheric temperatures and ice-particles during the 2010-2011 austral summer at 69degreesS

Abstract not availableRay J. Morris, Josef Höffner, Franz-Josef Lübken, Timo P. Viehl, Bernd Kaifler, Andrew R. Klekociu