Controversial Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke faces protests Monday

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(CNN)Thousands are expected to take to the streets of Wisconsin on Monday to demand that the governor remove controversial Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, a tough-talking firebrand who wants to use his deputies and correction officers to enforce federal immigration laws.

Among other concerns, organizers of the march in Milwaukee are critical of Clarke's desire to join the Department of Homeland Security's 287(g) program, which essentially deputizes local law enforcement agencies to operate as federal immigration agents.

The Department of Homeland Security wants to expand the government's ability to empower state and local law enforcement to perform the functions of immigration officers.

"Sheriff Clarke, right off the bat, really waved the flag to say we're going to bring it to Milwaukee County," Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera, the immigrant rights group organizing the statewide march, said Sunday of the 287(g) program.

"It basically legalizes racial profiling because you can be stopped and questioned and put in detention based on how you look," she said.

Neumann-Ortiz called Milwaukee the "national epicenter" of the fight against 287(g) because of the level of resistance to Clarke's plan to bring the program to the community, and because of his notoriety nationwide. A February march in opposition to Clarke's push to join the federal program drew thousands.

Clarke, a surrogate for President Donald Trump during the presidential campaign, is being considered for the position of assistant secretary of the DHS' Office of Partnership and Engagement, Politico reported.

Organizers of the Wisconsin "Day without Latinxs, Immigrants and Refugees" are also critical of Clarke's management of the Milwaukee County Jail, where local prosecutors say inmate Terrill Thomas, 38, didn't have access to water for a week and died of dehydration in his cell in April 2016. Three other people, including a newborn baby, have died in the Milwaukee County Jail since last April. The deaths are under investigation.

"Part of what we believe needs to be exposed his disgusting record of human rights abuses," Neumann-Ortiz said.

Clarke's spokesman could not be reached on Sunday nor could a spokesperson for Gov. Scott Walker.

The Wisconsin march coincides with a nationwide Day without Immigrants that falls on May Day, which recognizes the contributions of workers. Activistsare demanding economic and racial justice and rights for workers and immigrants. Marches are planned in other cities.

In Wisconsin, more than 140 mostly Latino-owned business are expected to close, including about 100 in Milwaukee alone, organizers said.

Jorge Huerta, 36, a Mexican-American owns Solos Automotive, one of the Milwaukee businesses that plans to close. He said he wants to support the Hispanic community, and he hopes to be an example to other immigrants.

"I was illegal when I came here. I'm a business owner," said Huerta, who became a citizen through marriage in 2001. "America is just a great country ....There is nothing that can hold us back as long as we do the right thing and speak the language and educate yourself."

Buses are scheduled to leave from 12 cities throughout the state and converge on Milwaukee. The march will end at the Milwaukee County Courthouse.

Organizers say "tens of thousands" are expected to strike and withdraw their children from schools.

Neumann-Ortiz said the organizers are also advocating for restoring driver's license to undocumented immigrants who don't have social security cards. Currently, the federal REAL ID Act forces states and territories to demand more proof and identity before issuing state IDs, including driver's licenses.

Who is Sheriff David Clarke?

Clarke, who is African-American, is known for his unapologetic, blunt commentary, particularly on the subject of crime. He made news during the presidential campaign for his opposition to Black Lives Matter activists, whom he said would join forces with ISIS.

In a heated interview last summer with CNN's Don Lemon, Clarke said he had predicted the police shooting in Baton Rouge, Louisiana that killed three law enforcement officers and wounded three others.

"I've been watching this for two years. I've predicted this," Clarke said. "This anti-police rhetoric sweeping the country has turned out some hateful things inside of people that are now playing themselves out on the American police officer."

He called the Black Lives Matter Movement "purveyors of hate," and blamed it for inspiring violent crimes against law enforcement.

When pressed, the sheriff didn't offer any specifics to support his claims.

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A nation of immigrants enters dark chapter

Clarke was elected in November 2002 to his first four-year term and is currently serving his fourth term, according the Milwaukee Sheriff's Office.

He is up for re-election in 2018.

In a letter to Thomas D. Homan, acting director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Clarke expressed his desire to be part of the 287(g) program.

According to a recent DHS memo, eight new additions to the 287(g) program were approved to move forward last month, and up to 68 more agencies may follow based on interest.

The 287(g) program has seen its share of controversy.

In 2007, the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona filed a class action lawsuit against then-Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio over the immigration raids his department conducted under the 287(g) agreement. The suit alleged that Arpaio abused his power.

The Justice Department later found that Arpaio's deputies has "engaged in a widespread pattern or practice of law enforcement and jail activities that discriminated against Latinos," according to a December 2011 letter of finding by the department.

Arpaio was later found to be in criminal contempt after he and three members of his office continued to detain people they believed to be in thecountry illegally after a federal judge ordered them to stop.

Arpaio, who founded Tent City, the infamous outdoor jail in Arizona where inmates wore pink underwear and shuffled around in chain gangs, was voted out of office in 2016. Last month, officials said the jail would close.

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Sources: Sebastian Gorka to leave White House

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(CNN)Sebastian Gorka, a controversial national security aide in the White House, is expected to leave his job, several administration officials confirm to CNN.

One senior administration official said Gorka is expected to find an opportunity outside the White House soon. Another said it's possible he would take another job in the administration, but added it's more likely he will leave altogether. That official said Gorka was simply generating too much controversy for the White House.

Gorka is a deputy assistant to President Donald Trump and has been working on the National Security Council and on the Strategic Initiatives Group, which Gorka has described as a focal point for task forces collaborating with people outside government.

Gorka is a former Breitbart national security editor who has been outspoken on the need to confront Islamic terrorism. In his role in the White House, he has become one of Trump's most prominent public cheerleaders, frequently hitting the radio airwaves to defend the President's counterterrorism policies and public statements.

Gorka has previously vigorously defended the administration's travel ban and the President's continued use of the phrase "radical Islamic terrorism."

Gorka is the latest shake-up for the Trump White House's National Security Council following the firing of the first national security adviser Michael Flynn, the removal of Steve Bannon from the NSC's Principals Committee and the expected departure of deputy national security adviser K.T. McFarland.

Gorka's work for Trump goes back as far as 2015, as Federal Election Commission filings showed Gorka was paid $8,000 that October to be a policy consultant for the Trump campaign.

But a CNN KFile review of Gorka's public comments throughout the presidential campaign shows that even after his work for Trump, the former Breitbart editor offered stinging critiques of his future boss's rhetoric on key foreign policy issues from terrorism to Russia and China.

Gorka, a US citizen who was born in Britain and has Hungarian parents, was known for his dire warnings about Islamic terrorism while at Breitbart.

Though his role at the White House was always nebulous, he emerged as a top spokesman for the Trump administration, frequently appearing on CNN and other networks.

The Washington Examiner first reported Gorka's expected departure.

Gorka could not be reached for comment.

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South Korea’s military ‘sodomy law’ should go

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(CNN)An alleged crackdown by the South Korean army on gay male service members, which came to light in April, is striking fear into gay soldiers and potential conscripts.

The Military Human Rights Center for Korea, an advocacy group that has been documenting the sweep, published screen shots of dating app conversations that the group says resulted from military pressure on targeted men to have such discussions to identify other supposedly gay men. The human rights group and other South Korean advocacy groups that have been working on the case say that military investigators have confiscated mobile phones belonging to up to 50 soldiers suspected of being gay and insisted that they identify other gay men on their contact lists and gay dating apps.

Army officials say they are conducting a perfectly legal criminal investigation into soldiers accused of filming and uploading the video, invoking a discriminatory military code that prohibits consensual same-sex acts. One of the men targeted by the sweep remains in detentionunder arrest on allegations of having consensual sex with another man.

South Korea's government has consistently voted to support measures at the United Nations that call for an end to discrimination against LGBT people, but it has failed to uphold those principles at home. In 2014, Seoul's mayor canceled the enactment of a city human rights charter after religious groups opposed the inclusion of sexual orientation in a non-discrimination clause. In recent years, activists have had to fight bureaucratic battles to hold an annual pride gathering. And the government has rolled out a new sex education curriculum with no mention of homosexuality because, education officials said, it needed to maintain "value neutrality regarding society, culture and religion."

South Korea does not criminalize consensual same-sex behavior among civilians, and the army prohibits anti-gay discrimination and "outing" of gay soldiers. However, the 1962 Military Criminal Act's Article 92-6 has been used to punish sexual acts between servicemen with up to two years in prison under a "disgraceful conduct" clauseregardless of consent and whether they have sex in or outside of military facilities.

Domestic and international human rights groups have challenged the discriminatory law. But as recently as 2016, South Korea's Constitutional Court upheld the provision in a 5-4 ruling. And the government has repeatedly defended the sodomy clauseincluding at the United Nationscontending that banning "indecent conduct" is necessary for maintaining discipline in the predominantly-male military.

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Proponents of the lawin the past and during the current uproarhave said it is necessary to leave the sodomy provision in place to protect against sexual violence, but the Military Criminal Act already contains separate prohibitions on rape and sexual molestation.

The current crackdown demonstrates how Article 92-6 can lead to abusive, discriminatory targeting of soldiers. The government should order an investigation into allegations of abuses that have stemmed from the anti-gay sweep in the military, and begin the process of repealing the Military Criminal Act's Article 92-6.

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Saving China’s abandoned Tulou homes

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(CNN)Looking like a design amalgamation of a Roman coliseum and a doughnut, tulou buildings, found in China's southwest Fujian province, are some of the most stunning historic structures in the country.

But many of these residential buildings, which feature a courtyard surrounded by a perimeter of homes that rise several stories high, are under threat.

Although 46 of the largest and most important tulou have been listed by UNESCO as World Heritage sites, an estimated 3,000 remain in the province with no such status.

Read: Future Chinese skylines could look more uniform

Many of these tulou are nearly empty and are falling into disrepair, with homes abandoned as residents leave for economic opportunity in the cities.

UNESCO describes the tulou it protects as "exceptional examples of a building tradition and function exemplifying a particular type of communal living."

UNESCO points out that tulou design was ideal for defense purposes as well as encouraging communal lifestyles. The organization says that, "Housing a whole clan, the houses functioned as village units and were known as 'a little kingdom for the family' or 'bustling small city'."

Lin Lusheng, who grew up in a tulou named Taoshu Building in Fujian's Neilong village, agrees with this sentiment. He has been on a mission to shine new light on the intriguing design of these often neglected buildings.

The 34-year-old started the "Hao Cuobian" project -- the phrase means "good neighbor" in a dialect spoken by his Hokkien ancestors -- and since 2015he has spent money he raised through the project on renovating Taoshu Building, and educate its remaining residents about their heritage.

Read: Turning to tradition: Why China's super wealthy don't want western-looking homes anymore

"Tulou make me aware of this sense of community," he says. "When I was small, kids would eat at a neighbor's house if their parents had to work on the farm. It was common to see kids knocking at each other's doors to ask friends to eat and play," he recalls, of the tulou's design and its ability to foster social interaction.

"This is something missing in modern society."

Good neighbors

The first tulou, which are unique to southeast China's Fujian province, were built toward the end of China's Song Dynasty (960AD - 1279AD) by people from the Chinese Hakka ethnic group who fled from the north of the country via various migrations due to social unrest or to avoid war-torn northern areas.

Read: Nanjing Sifang Art Park: An architectural wonderland hidden in a Chinese forest

"They settled in rural areas because they were often poor and had nothing to do with authorities," Lin says. "They had to build their own clan houses at their own cost."

The residences, which could hold up to 800 people at a time, were constructed using a mixture of clays, which were sometimes fortified with wood, and hardened into sections by large bamboo molds.

Often three or four stories high, the housing usually had only one gated entrance that led into the main courtyard.

"The walls were extremely thick, and there would be water tanks above the gate because in ancient times invaders or burglars would set fire to the gate," explains Lin Weicheng, an architecture student at Xiamen University who worked with Lin Lusheng on the Taoshu Building renovation.

"It's also said that there were underground tunnels to escape through," Lin Weicheng adds. "They had water wells, and bigger tulou would have little farm areas with vegetables and livestock.

"In some big tulou the reserves could last for two or three months."

The shape of the tulou encouraged tight-knit communities and although families had individual housing sections, residents would convene in the courtyard for ceremonies such as ancestor worship and weddings, as well as the normal interactions of daily life.

Although their facilities seem basic by modern standards, living in a tulou was an indicator of success among the Hakka people who built them, with only those able to help pay for them to be built living in them.

Read: Do these village homes have the best view in China?

People of the Hokkien ethnic group also built tulou, but while Hakka structures feature long corridors that run through every floor of the buildings, the Hokkien-built residences do not.

Although both styles feature open public spaces in the middle, the shared corridors in the Hakka style make the structures even more communal.

"This is due to culture," says Lin Weicheng. "Hakka people were migrants or refugees from the north and did not feel safe settling in another region, so having that public space made it easier for them to stay together in emergencies."

Fading memories

Tourism rather than farming now supports many of those who live in the historical structures, and there is an increasing trend for young rural people in China to move from their hometowns to cities.

Lin Lusheng has fond memories of growing up in a tulou, and hopes his ongoing work will ensure his heritage does not die out with this generation. Many people started moving out of Taoshu Building in the 1990s and now only about 30 people from 14 families live there.

Read: China's 'loneliest generation' finds solace in art

"Young people don't live in tulou anymore -- people are leaving their country houses empty," he says. "It's not just the tulou -- even newly built houses are becoming empty as people go to cities to work.

So far he's raised close to 120,000 yuan ($17,400) through donations and grants to support his efforts, and while he completed the renovation of Taoshu Building in June 2016, the work continues.

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In addition to working on new renovation projects, Lin Lusheng runs extra-curricular courses in the Taoshu Building he grew up in, teaching around 60 schoolchildren about tulou architecture and culture in the region.

Read: Photographer captures the beauty of Europe's abandoned buildings

He also hopes to establish a program that would allow families who moved from their tulou homes to cities to send their children back to live in them during school holidays.

"With our education courses, we hope that local people will have a better understanding of the tulou and their local environment," he adds.

"Understanding and self-identity is crucial for anyone's feelings towards their habitat."

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