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President-elect Donald Trump will return to power next year with a raft of technological tools at his disposal that would help deliver his campaign promise of cracking down on immigration — among them, surveillance and artificial intelligence technology that the Biden administration already uses to help make crucial decisions in tracking, detaining and ultimately deporting immigrants lacking permanent legal status. While immigration officials have used the tech for years, an October letter from the Department of Homeland Security obtained exclusively by The Associated Press details how those tools — some of them powered by AI — help make life-altering decisions for immigrants, including whether they should be detained or surveilled. One algorithm, for example, ranks immigrants with a “Hurricane Score,” ranging from 1-5, to assess whether someone will “abscond” from the agency's supervision. The letter, sent by DHS Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer Eric Hysen to the immigrant rights group Just Futures Law, revealed that the score calculates the potential risk that an immigrant — with a pending case — will fail to check in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. The algorithm relies on several factors, he said, including an immigrant’s number of violations and length of time in the program, and whether the person has a travel document. Hysen wrote that ICE officers consider the score, among other information, when making decisions about an immigrant’s case. “The Hurricane Score does not make decisions on detention, deportation, or surveillance; instead, it is used to inform human decision-making,” Hysen wrote. Also included in the government’s tool kit is a mobile app called SmartLINK that uses facial matching and can track an immigrant’s specific location. Nearly 200,000 people without legal status who are in removal proceedings are enrolled in the Alternatives to Detention program, under which certain immigrants can live in the U.S. while their immigration cases are pending. In exchange, SmartLINK and GPS trackers used by ICE rigorously surveil them and their movements. The phone application draws on facial matching technology and geolocation data, which has been used before to find and arrest those using the app. Just Futures Law wrote to Hysen earlier this year, questioning the fairness of using an algorithm to assess whether someone is a flight risk and raising concerns over how much data SmartLINK collects. Such AI systems, which score or screen people, are used widely but remain largely unregulated even though some have been found to discriminate on race, gender or other protected traits. DHS said in an email that it is committed to ensuring that its use of AI is transparent and safeguards privacy and civil rights while avoiding biases. The agency said it is working to implement the Biden administration’s requirements on using AI , but Hysen said in his letter that security officials may waive those requirements for certain uses. Trump has publicly vowed to repeal Biden's AI policy when he returns to the White House in January. “DHS uses AI to assist our personnel in their work, but DHS does not use the outputs of AI systems as the sole basis for any law enforcement action or denial of benefits,” a spokesperson for DHS told the AP. Trump has not revealed how he plans to carry out his promised deportation of an estimated 11 million people living in the country illegally. Although he has proposed invoking wartime powers, as well as military involvement, the plan would face major logistical challenges — such as where to keep those who have been detained and how to find people spread across the country — that AI-powered surveillance tools could potentially address. Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for Trump, did not answer questions about how they plan to use DHS’ tech, but said in a statement that “President Trump will marshal every federal and state power necessary to institute the largest deportation operation” in American history. Over 100 civil society groups sent a letter on Friday urging the Office of Management and Budget to require DHS to comply with the Biden administration’s guidelines. OMB did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Just Futures Law’s executive director, Paromita Shah, said if immigrants are scored as flight risks, they are more likely to remain in detention, "limiting their ability to prepare a defense in their case in immigration court, which is already difficult enough as it is.” SmartLINK, part of the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program, is run by BI Inc., a subsidiary of the private prison company The GEO Group. The GEO Group also contracts with ICE to run detention centers. ICE is tight-lipped about how it uses SmartLINK’s location feature to find and arrest immigrants. Still, public records show that during Trump’s first term in 2018, Manassas, Virginia-based employees of BI Inc. relayed immigrants’ GPS locations to federal authorities, who then arrested over 40 people. In a report last year to address privacy issues and concerns, DHS said that the mobile app includes security features that “prohibit access to information on the participant’s mobile device, with the exception of location data points when the app is open.” But the report notes that there remains a risk that data collected from people "may be misused for unauthorized persistent monitoring.” Such information could also be stored in other ICE and DHS databases and used for other DHS mission purposes, the report said. On investor calls earlier this month, private prison companies were clear-eyed about the opportunities ahead. The GEO Group’s executive chairman George Christopher Zoley said that he expects the incoming Trump administration to “take a much more aggressive approach regarding border security as well as interior enforcement and to request additional funding from Congress to achieve these goals.” “In GEO’s ISAP program, we can scale up from the present 182,500 participants to several hundreds of thousands, or even millions of participants,” Zoley said. That same day, the head of another private prison company told investors he would be watching closely to see how the new administration may change immigrant monitoring programs. “It’s an opportunity for multiple vendors to engage ICE about the program going forward and think about creative and innovative solutions to not only get better outcomes, but also scale up the program as necessary,” Damon Hininger, CEO of the private prison company CoreCivic Inc. said on an earnings call. GEO did not respond to requests for comment. In a statement, CoreCivic said that it has played “a valued but limited role in America’s immigration system” for both Democrats and Republicans for over 40 years.Brendan Rodgers praises Celtic and Cameron Carter-Vickers’ mentalityBig Ten could place four teams in playoff, thanks to IU's rise

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Opposition Member of Parliament, Ketal Lal wants the Prime Minister, Sitiveni Rabuka to “discipline his Minister Sugar” Charan Jeath Singh. This comes after both exchanges harsh words on social media while attending COP29 meetings in Baku, Azerbaijan. “As an Opposition MP, my role is to hold the government accountable, and I will continue to criticize Minister Charan’s performance professionally and constructively,” said Mr Lal. “I hope he can muster the courage to counter my arguments with professionalism and facts rather than resorting to cheap, personal attacks.” “Until then, I have also messaged Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka to discipline his Minister Sugar.” Mr Lal his here to serve the people and to hold this government accountable with integrity, not to engage in petty personal feuds. “If Minister Charan finds solace in personal attacks, I can only pray for his wisdom and health.”NonePresident-elect Donald Trump will return to power next year with a raft of technological tools at his disposal that would help deliver his campaign promise of cracking down on immigration — among them, surveillance and artificial intelligence technology that the Biden administration already uses to help make crucial decisions in tracking, detaining and ultimately deporting immigrants lacking permanent legal status. While immigration officials have used the tech for years, an October letter from the Department of Homeland Security obtained exclusively by The Associated Press details how those tools — some of them powered by AI — help make life-altering decisions for immigrants, including whether they should be detained or surveilled. One algorithm, for example, ranks immigrants with a “Hurricane Score,” ranging from 1-5, to assess whether someone will “abscond” from the agency's supervision. The letter, sent by DHS Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer Eric Hysen to the immigrant rights group Just Futures Law, revealed that the score calculates the potential risk that an immigrant — with a pending case — will fail to check in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. The algorithm relies on several factors, he said, including an immigrant’s number of violations and length of time in the program, and whether the person has a travel document. Hysen wrote that ICE officers consider the score, among other information, when making decisions about an immigrant’s case. “The Hurricane Score does not make decisions on detention, deportation, or surveillance; instead, it is used to inform human decision-making,” Hysen wrote. Also included in the government’s tool kit is a mobile app called SmartLINK that uses facial matching and can track an immigrant’s specific location. Nearly 200,000 people without legal status who are in removal proceedings are enrolled in the Alternatives to Detention program, under which certain immigrants can live in the U.S. while their immigration cases are pending. In exchange, SmartLINK and GPS trackers used by ICE rigorously surveil them and their movements. The phone application draws on facial matching technology and geolocation data, which has been used before to find and arrest those using the app. Just Futures Law wrote to Hysen earlier this year, questioning the fairness of using an algorithm to assess whether someone is a flight risk and raising concerns over how much data SmartLINK collects. Such AI systems, which score or screen people, are used widely but remain largely unregulated even though some have been found to discriminate on race, gender or other protected traits. DHS said in an email that it is committed to ensuring that its use of AI is transparent and safeguards privacy and civil rights while avoiding biases. The agency said it is working to implement the Biden administration’s requirements on using AI , but Hysen said in his letter that security officials may waive those requirements for certain uses. Trump has publicly vowed to repeal Biden's AI policy when he returns to the White House in January. “DHS uses AI to assist our personnel in their work, but DHS does not use the outputs of AI systems as the sole basis for any law enforcement action or denial of benefits,” a spokesperson for DHS told the AP. Trump has not revealed how he plans to carry out his promised deportation of an estimated 11 million people living in the country illegally. Although he has proposed invoking wartime powers, as well as military involvement, the plan would face major logistical challenges — such as where to keep those who have been detained and how to find people spread across the country — that AI-powered surveillance tools could potentially address. Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for Trump, did not answer questions about how they plan to use DHS’ tech, but said in a statement that “President Trump will marshal every federal and state power necessary to institute the largest deportation operation” in American history. Over 100 civil society groups sent a letter on Friday urging the Office of Management and Budget to require DHS to comply with the Biden administration’s guidelines. OMB did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Just Futures Law’s executive director, Paromita Shah, said if immigrants are scored as flight risks, they are more likely to remain in detention, "limiting their ability to prepare a defense in their case in immigration court, which is already difficult enough as it is.” SmartLINK, part of the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program, is run by BI Inc., a subsidiary of the private prison company The GEO Group. The GEO Group also contracts with ICE to run detention centers. ICE is tight-lipped about how it uses SmartLINK’s location feature to find and arrest immigrants. Still, public records show that during Trump’s first term in 2018, Manassas, Virginia-based employees of BI Inc. relayed immigrants’ GPS locations to federal authorities, who then arrested over 40 people. In a report last year to address privacy issues and concerns, DHS said that the mobile app includes security features that “prohibit access to information on the participant’s mobile device, with the exception of location data points when the app is open.” But the report notes that there remains a risk that data collected from people "may be misused for unauthorized persistent monitoring.” Such information could also be stored in other ICE and DHS databases and used for other DHS mission purposes, the report said. On investor calls earlier this month, private prison companies were clear-eyed about the opportunities ahead. The GEO Group’s executive chairman George Christopher Zoley said that he expects the incoming Trump administration to “take a much more aggressive approach regarding border security as well as interior enforcement and to request additional funding from Congress to achieve these goals.” “In GEO’s ISAP program, we can scale up from the present 182,500 participants to several hundreds of thousands, or even millions of participants,” Zoley said. That same day, the head of another private prison company told investors he would be watching closely to see how the new administration may change immigrant monitoring programs. “It’s an opportunity for multiple vendors to engage ICE about the program going forward and think about creative and innovative solutions to not only get better outcomes, but also scale up the program as necessary,” Damon Hininger, CEO of the private prison company CoreCivic Inc. said on an earnings call. GEO did not respond to requests for comment. In a statement, CoreCivic said that it has played “a valued but limited role in America’s immigration system” for both Democrats and Republicans for over 40 years.

DANIA BEACH, Florida (AP) — Border Patrol agents are tasked with enforcing hotly contested immigration policies as many Americans at both ends of the political spectrum look askance at the border — and the agents. That's taking a mounting toll, so the agency is training more among its ranks to become chaplains and provide spiritual care for their fellow agents on and off the job. “That’s a really hard thing to deal with, as things tend to flip from one side to the other, and we’re still in the crossfire,” said Border Patrol assistant chief and chaplaincy program manager Spencer Hatch. Unlike in the military or law enforcement, Border Patrol chaplains are usually lay agents endorsed by their faith denominations who are trained by the agency to become chaplains through a 2.5-week academy. Their numbers have grown to about 240 from 130 four years ago. Three times a year, an academy is held at a different Border Patrol station. About a dozen Border Patrol personnel, plus a few Fish and Wildlife Service and Bureau of Land Management officers, graduated from the most recent academy, held near Miami earlier this month. The program, and a nonreligious, mental-health focused peer support program, were started by grassroots efforts in the 1990s. Chaplains stay in their regular jobs, but are on call to assist. Border Patrol agents say they're motivated by the desire to protect U.S. borders from security threats, including the powerful cartels that control much of the border dynamics. They also often rescue migrants lost and dying in the harsh deserts that line the southern U.S. border. But many agents feel the American public sees them as obstacles to migrants seeking a better life in the United States. They often tell their children to say their parent does “government work” for fear of reprisals, especially in the border communities where they live. That dissonance between upholding a duty they feel proud of, and getting called “terrible names” for it, adds an emotional toll to the already dangerous, often isolating work the agents do. That's where the chaplains come in — to help their fellow 20,000 agents cope and prevent the trauma from degenerating into family crises, addiction or even suicide. While most chaplains are Christian, with a smattering of Muslim and Jewish agents, they don’t offer faith-specific worship and only bring up religion if the person they’re helping does first. Rather, they are a comforting presence during critical moments like assisting a suicidal colleague, notifying a family their loved one was killed on the job, and counseling those dealing with addiction, survivor guilt and other traumas. Those are the scenarios that chaplains-in-training practice role-playing at the academy. They also learn about communication and family dynamics, because constant redeployments — some up to 9 times over 18 months during the record border crossings early in the Biden administration — affect their families too. Hatch teaches about the need to maintain both the “hypervigilance” of law enforcement and the humanitarian instinct to empathize with fellow agents as well as migrants. Many agents say they are especially affected by the plight of migrant children at the hands of smugglers. “One tries to give them support within the limits of what your work allows. I always have the biggest smile,” said a newly minted chaplain, Yaira Santiago, a former schoolteacher who runs a Border Patrol migrant processing center in Southern California. By relying on their faith, their commitment to help their colleagues, and their training, chaplains can make a difference. "Even in moments of uncertainty, your presence is often enough,” said Matt Kiniery, an agent in El Paso, Texas, for 15 years and a graduate of the latest chaplain academy. Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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Rock Island continued its early season success with an 83-46 victory over the Chicago-based Bowen Boilermakers early Saturday afternoon on Day 2 of the Rock Island Thanksgiving Tournament. The Rocks shot 75 percent from the field in the first half and their defense caused 17 turnovers in a well-rounded performance. “We came out and I felt like we did do what we needed to do,” Rock Island head coach Marc Polite said. “We got off to a slow start, but once we settled down, we were able to get some distance.” Bowen is part of the Chicago Public Blue South Conference and finished last season second in the conference with a 21-11 record. However, the Boilermakers have now started the season 0-3. The Rocks pressured the Boilermakers early and often, forcing Bowen to cough up the ball 14 times in the first half with typical Rock Island fullcourt press. The stifling Rocks’ defense did not allow much breathing room for any Bowen offensive player. The Boilermakers solely relied on senior Rae’Qwon Rogers, who scored 17 of Bowen’s 27 first half points, mostly on one-on-one isolation play. Rogers only had two points after halftime. People are also reading... “Bowen is a tough cover,” Polite said. "Whenever a team like them has five guards that they can put on the floor that can dribble and are aggressive with the ball, it really tests our defensive principles. I thought we made some good adjustments after they got rolling in the first quarter.” Bowen took a narrow two-point lead (11-9) with just over four minutes left. The Rocks then turned up the intensity on the defensive side of the ball, ending the quarter on a 13-5 run. Rock Island also shot the ball at a blistering pace in the first quarter, nailing nine of their first 13 attempts, including three-point plays by juniors Avian Thomas and Lawson Zulu. “I felt like we came out strong,” Thomas said. “It was a little sloppy in the beginning, but we came together as a group and stuck with each other and still believed in each other throughout the game.” Thomas had 15 points, with Zulu leading all Rocks with 17 points. The Rocks continued their offensive dominance in the second quarter, ending the first half by converting their last nine shots. Eight of those were either transition layups on Bowen turnovers, or layups in the half-court offense off beautiful assists. “We finally got into a rhythm,” Polite said. “We are a rhythm-based team, and I thought we strung together some possessions that we were indicative of what we were trying to do on the offensive end. I felt like we had two or three stretches where we had some great offensive rhythm and moved the ball around.” “I feel like our aggressiveness leads to our offense,” Thomas added. "When we are hitting wide open shots, we are a tough team to beat.” The Rocks were comfortably ahead at halftime, leading 49-27, and ended the half on a 19-7 run. “That is a big testament to our offense,” Polite said. "I thought we moved the ball well. We have guys who are ball-tough. With teams like Bowen and Dyatt on Friday, they really get after you, and we have to be tough and strong with the basketball.” Rock Island had an amusing moment halfway through the third quarter. Senior Jae’Vion “Juice” Clark-Pugh split the Boilermaker defenders with a monstrous one-handed dunk. The problem was that the ball popped straight up, and Clark-Pugh used his off-hand to dunk the ball again while still hanging on the rim. “I did not think ‘Juice’ was going to grab the ball and put it back in,” Thomas said. “If he had let go, I think the ball would have gone in. But that made us all laugh, and that is what he brings to the team. He is an energetic, big, fun guy and we love him.” “Juice is an athletic kid,” Polite said of that moment. “I thought he played his best game thus far. He played a really complete game. I thought he finished well and played good defense and rebounded the ball well. For us to be successful this year, we are going to need some games like this from him.” Clark-Pugh had 15 points, with all his baskets coming from around the rim. It was not all good news for the Rocks. In the late stages of the third quarter, Rocks’ glue guy and senior Isaiss Duarte went for a layup, with the Rocks up 68-27. Duarte fell hard on his right wrist and was in obvious pain. He immediately went to the locker room with the Rock Island trainer and did not return. “Duarte has to get an X-ray and figure out what is going on,” Polite said. “I think initially, it maybe felt a little bit worse than what it was, but we are hoping to get positive.” Duarte had seven points before leaving with the injury. “’Zay’ is our energy guy,” Thomas said. “He brings in that defense and tenacity, and we are going to miss him. Hopefully, we can have him back by next week, and I think Deven Marshall is going to come in and fill that role. He has been playing really well in this tournament.” The Rocks closed the tournament with a game against Rockridge (2-1) on Saturday night. Details were not available at press time. A full story will be published on Monday. The Rockets fell in a hard-fought, defensive mid-afternoon game against Dyatt, 54-43 on Saturday. “We are a next-man-up. That has always been our philosophy,” Polite said. “We have other guys whare are going to have to step in to contribute and cover some of his stuff. Duarte does so much for us.” Thomas is greatly anticipating Saturday night’s game. “Rockridge is a tough opponent,” Thomas said. "If we play together as a team and throw the first punch like we have been doing over the past three games, we can get out early and run away with this game.” Get in the game with our Prep Sports Newsletter Sent weekly directly to your inbox! {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.