The Foreign Service Journal, June 2019

12 JUNE 2019 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL diplomats and their family members, and it creates a permanent exhibit on the Lavender Scare at the U.S. Diplo- macy Center. Liz Lee, the president of GLIFAA (LGBT+ pride in foreign affairs agencies), told the Journal that the organization deeply appreciates and supports the LOVE Act. “Over decades, thousands of LGBT+ patriots were purged from the State Department and other federal agen- cies on account of who they loved, or were suspected to love,” Lee said. “While many of those targeted by discrimination are no longer with us today, we should ensure that their stories are still heard and their official records corrected.” A Charge to Keep Out M ost consular officers have probably had occasion to invoke Section 212 (a)(4) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, known as the public charge exclusion, in refusing an application for a nonim- migrant visa. That provision reads, in part: “Any alien who, in the opinion of the consular officer at the time of application for a visa, or in the opinion of the attorney general at the time of application for admission or adjustment of status, is likely at any time to become a public charge is inadmissible.” Until the Trump administration took office, that provision had rarely been invoked in processing immigrant visa (IV) applications. In Fiscal Year 2015, fewer than 900 IV applications were refused on that ground. But, as Reuters reported on April 15, since the State Department revised the Foreign Affairs Manual in January 2018 to make it easier to apply that exclusion, the number of IV refusals shot up to nearly 13,500 by the end of the 2018 fiscal year— quadruple the number in the previous fiscal year and the highest total since 2004. Specifically, the FAMnow empow- ers consular officers to take into account evidence that visa applicants—or their family members, including those who are U.S. citizens—have ever received non- cash benefits such as housing vouchers, subsidized school lunches, public health vaccinations and enrollment in Head Start. Critics concede that the changes to the FAM are not the only reason for the increase in refusals. But applicants are being denied on public-charge grounds, lawyers say, even when they can docu- ment their financial independence. On Nov. 28, 2018, the city of Baltimore filed a federal lawsuit, Baltimore v. Trump , seeking to overturn the more stringent public-charge criteria. On March 22, 2019, a coalition of 19 states, 16 cities and coun- ties, 10 civil rights organizations and five Maryland immigrant advocates joined Baltimore in describing the many differ- ent harms caused by what they call an “unlawful and discriminatory change” to the definition of a public charge. State has declined to comment, citing the litigation, which is ongoing. But the Federation for American Immigration Reform defends the tightening of the public-charge policy as “common sense.” Bowing to Pressure, Foreign and Domestic U .S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, a highly respected career Foreign Service officer, is being recalled ahead of her scheduled depar- ture following public political attacks by conservative media outlets and Donald Trump Jr. An informal internal State Depart- ment management notice, according to columnist Josh Rogin’s May 7 Washington Post column, noted that Ambassador Yova - novitch will leave her post permanently on May 20, with no replacement in place and no nominations to fill the position. Foreign Policy notes that Amb. Yovano- vitch, who has been outspoken about the need to crack down on Ukrainian corrup- tion throughout her nearly three years in Kyiv, was thrust into the spotlight inMarch when Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko claimed, without evidence, that the ambassador had outlined a list of people he should not prosecute. News- week reports that Lutsenko is a contact o f President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Guliani. The U.S. State Department called the claimby Lutsenko an “outright fabrica- tion.” In April, Lutsenko walked back the statement in a separate interview, but the unfounded charge has continued to circulate. Yovanovitch then faced a slew of criti- cism from right-wing media figures. The president’s son Donald Trump Jr. tweeted about unsubstantiated claims circulating on Fox News in late March. “We need more @RichardGrenells NDU On May 9 Ambassador Marie L. Yovanovitch was inducted into the National Defense University National Hall of Fame at a cere- mony on the Fort McNair campus inWash- ington, D.C. From left, FSI Director Amb- assador Dan Smith, Amb. Yovanovitch and NDU President Vice Admiral Fritz Roegge.