#Federation for American Immigration Reform

[minnesotafollower]

Biden Administration’s New Restrictions on U.S. Asylum Law Being Challenged in Federal Courts 

This year has seen many developments regarding the Biden Administration’s attempts to cope with the large numbers of migrants illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. Here is a review of some of those developments. Biden’s New Asylum Regulation[1] On February 21, the Biden Administration announced a proposed rule that would  require rapid deportation of an immigrant at the U.S. border who had…

[tanadrin]

Imagine that a century or two from now, the eastern half of the United States is conquered by the Canadian Empire, its intelligentsia deported, its land colonized by Canadian immigrants, and its remaining people mostly gradually absorbed into a Neo-Canadian identity. The West reorganizes, developing a new political and cultural center, and comes to regard itself as the "true" United States, with the remnant culture of the East (by now much changed by Canadian rule) as representing an unchanged tradition stretching back to the time of George Washington. The holdout western half is subsequently conquered by the Reformed Mexican Empire, and while most of the population remains in situ, its elite is taken to Mexico City. There, for three or four generations, they do their best to maintain their distinct American identity, focusing on the American "civil religion," the distinctive political ideals and cultural features that mark them out as Americans, and come up with a new way of interpreting their history that allows America to be a perennial idea, something not directly physically tied to the territory of the United States, which no longer exists. They compose a body of historical works based on Washington Irving's rather fabulistic approach to early American history, the half-remembered popular versions of the stories of Columbus and the Pilgrims, the First Thanksgiving, even the Revolutionary War. They don't have access to the original texts anymore--let's say this is all taking place in a post-Collapse North America where long-range travel and communication is difficult and a lot of history has been lost--but they do their best. They append to these books, or include in their text, of history a copy of the Constitution, big chunks of the United States Code, and Robert's Rules of Order.

Subsequently, the Empire of Gran Columbia invades, conquers southern and central Mexico, and its Emperor lets the captive Americans go home. They return north, mostly to California, find that the version of American history and civics that is remembered there isn't the same as the version they have (not that the Californian one is correct--the Mexican Empire has suppressed English-language education and high culture in its Aztlani provinces), and set about reforming and reorganizing the Western States (as they're now called) to be more in line with the forms they brought back from the exile. In the meantime, other bits of important literature start being kept in libraries next to copies of the received histories: some bits of early American literature, like Hawthorne, the Song of Hiawatha, some highly abridged Herman Melville, Thomas Paine--heck, even some John Locke, and quotes or fragments from Shakespeare. Some traditionalists now argue the capital of the United States has always been located in San Francisco, and that Washington, D.C. only because the capital later, under the influence of Eastern heretics.

In the following centuries, the Western States retain their independence for a time, but eventually become a secondary battleground for a lot of other empires--the Mexicans, the Canadians, the Pan-Pacific Federation, and so forth. American culture remains distinctive, insulted in part by its unique traditions, though now everybody speaks Future Spanish, and only learns English to read the old texts. In this period additional material, including later compositions, continues to accrete, forming a distinct body of sacred American scripture, although it does not exist in a single canonical form. Attempts to reconcile distinct sources, like more literal and historically-grounded accounts versus the simplified narratives of figures like Irving, produce hybrid texts that sometimes are full of internal conflicts.

Oh, and through all this, some institutions of American government like the Supreme Court still function, although their rulings only apply to Americans, and there isn't much in the way of a federal bureaucracy.

Finally the Great and Sublime Brazilian Potentate conquers most of the Americas, sets up an American client state that roughly coincides with the heartland of the old Western States (California, Oregon, most of Washington and Nevada), and allows the Americans to elect their own President (subject, of course, to Brazilian approval). During this period, an apocalyptic street preacher from Los Angeles claims to have inherited the authority and power of George Washington, and is executed by the Brazilians; his later followers point to the prophecies of Emperor Norton, and out-of-context bits of a Quebecois translation of Moby-Dick and some Mark Twain stories to say no, really, he was George Washington. Inexplicably, a version of this religion becomes the dominant faith of the Brazilian Empire before it collapses. But long before then the American state in California fails, crushed when it tries to revolt against Brazilian rule; the remnant Easterners likewise dwindle down to only a few hundred souls living in a village in Alexandria, Virginia. Centuries from now, as the descendants of the descendants of the Brazilians colonize Mars, they will point to the sacred Americanist scriptures, the Neo-Americanist narratives of their prophet's life, and the letters written by the early leaders of Neo-Americanism, and say, "all of this was written by the spirit of George Washington, and is free from contradictions." Meanwhile the remnant Americanists, who have been writing about Americanism and how it applies to their everyday lives in the centuries since, and whose commentary has formed around the copies of the last editions of the U.S. Supreme Court Reporter (SCOTUS managed to outlast the final American state by a hundred years or so) plus the thoughts of the remaining Americanist community in Mexico, continue to regard their traditions as the unbroken and unaltered practice of American culture, politics, and ideals as they existed since the Revolutionary War.

This is, as far as I can tell, approximately how the Bible was composed.

[antidrumpfs]

In an op-ed published by the Arizona Republic on Monday, Giles made the case for Harris as president over his own party’s nominee, former President Donald Trump.

The Grand Canyon State is ground zero in the fight against repeated false claims to disrupt our electoral process — from fake presidential electors attempting to undermine Arizona’s election, to a sham “audit” by Arizona Senate Republicans that was spurred by conspiracy theories.

Significant reforms to immigration and border policies that would have addressed the crisis at our southern border were blocked by Trump because he didn’t want the problem solved. He wanted to exploit it for personal political gain.

Since 2014, I have had the honor of being mayor of Mesa, the nation’s 36th-largest city and one of the most conservative. Under Trump, American cities didn’t get the support they deserved. Infrastructure week was made into a joke.

But under the Biden-Harris administration, Mesa has seen historic federal funding for the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, along with investments to make sure our streets and public transit systems benefit from modern technology.

With the CHIPS Act, Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden are delivering thousands of new jobs to Arizonans and helping us grow critical industries.

Vice President Harris is fighting to make sure Americans can get ahead and be safe from gun violence and to restore and protect the rights of women. Donald Trump, on the other hand, could enact the extreme and dangerous Project 2025 agenda if elected, which would roll back our rights and freedoms.

We can choose a future for our children and grandchildren based on decency, respect and morality — or succumb to the crudeness and vulgarity of Trump and JD Vance and the far-right agenda they would champion.

Arizona leaders like McCain and Sen. Mark Kelly have embodied the commitment to country over party. And it’s that same high caliber of character and leadership I see in Vice President Harris.

*********************************************************************

Giles is not the only border state politician endorsing Harris. Her campaign told the Associated Press that a slew of mayors from Arizona border cities — “Bisbee, Nogales, Somerton, and San Luis, as well as by Yuma County Supervisors Martin Porchas and Tony Reyes” — “backed” Harris for president. Somerton Mayor Gerardo Anaya said of Harris in a statement: “I trust her to meet the needs of border cities and towns without taking advantage of us for her own political gain, like her opponent.”

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Donald Trump has lately made clear he wants little to do with Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for the next Republican president that has attracted considerable blowback in his race for the White House.

“I have no idea who is behind it,” the former president recently claimed on social media.

Many people Trump knows quite well are behind it.

Six of his former Cabinet secretaries helped write or collaborated on the 900-page playbook for a second Trump term published by the Heritage Foundation. Four individuals Trump nominated as ambassadors were also involved, along with several enforcers of his controversial immigration crackdown. And about 20 pages are credited to his first deputy chief of staff.

In fact, at least 140 people who worked in the Trump administration had a hand in Project 2025, a CNN review found, including more than half of the people listed as authors, editors and contributors to “Mandate for Leadership,” the Project’s extensive manifesto for overhauling the executive branch.

Dozens more who staffed Trump’s government hold positions with conservative groups advising Project 2025, including his former chief of staff Mark Meadows and longtime adviser Stephen Miller. These groups also include several lawyers deeply involved in Trump’s attempts to remain in power, such as his impeachment attorney Jay Sekulow and two of the legal architects of his failed bid to overturn the 2020 presidential election, Cleta Mitchell and John Eastman.

To quantify the scope of the involvement from Trump’s orbit, CNN reviewed online biographies, LinkedIn profiles and news clippings for more than 1,000 people listed on published directories for the 110 organizations on Project 2025’s advisory board, as well as the 200-plus names credited with working on “Mandate for Leadership.”

Overall, CNN found nearly 240 people with ties to both Project 2025 and to Trump, covering nearly every aspect of his time in politics and the White House – from day-to-day foot soldiers in Washington to the highest levels of his government. The number is likely higher because many individuals’ online résumés were not available.

In addition to people who worked directly for Trump, others who participated in Project 2025 were appointed by the former president to independent positions. For instance, Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr authored an entire chapter of proposed changes to his agency, and Lisa Correnti, an anti-abortion advocate Trump appointed as a delegate to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, is among the contributors.

Several people involved in Project 2025 didn’t serve in the Trump administration but were influential in shaping his first term. One example is former US Attorney Brett Tolman, a leading force behind the former president’s criminal justice reform law who later helped arrange a pardon for Charles Kushner, the father of Trump’s son-in-law. Tolman is listed as a contributor to “Mandate for Leadership.”

The extensive overlap between Project 2025 and Trump’s universe of allies, advisers and former staff complicates his efforts to distance himself from the work. Trump’s campaign has sought for months to make clear that Project 2025 doesn’t speak for them amid an intensifying push by President Joe Biden and Democrats to tie the Republican standard bearer to the playbook’s more controversial policies.

In a statement to CNN, campaign spokeswoman Danielle Alvarez said Trump only endorses the Republican Party platform and the agenda posted on the former president’s website.

“Team Biden and the (Democratic National Committee) are lying and fear-mongering because they have nothing else to offer the American people,” Alvarez said.

HERITAGE PLAN BECOMES A POLITICAL HEADACHE

Behind Project 2025 is the Heritage Foundation, a 51-year-old conservative organization that aligned itself with Trump not long after his 2016 victory. Heritage is led by Kevin Roberts, a Trump ally whom the former president praised as “doing an unbelievable job” on a February night when they shared the same stage.

Heritage conceived Project 2025 to begin planning so a Republican president could hit the ground running after the election. One of its priorities is creating a roadmap for the first 180 days of the new administration to quickly reorient every federal agency around its conservative vision. Described on its website as “a movement-wide effort guided by the conservative cause to address and reform the failings of big government and an undemocratic administrative state,” Project 2025 also aims to recruit and train thousands of people loyal to the conservative movement to fill federal government positions.

One organization advising Project 2025, American Accountability Foundation, is also putting together a roster of current federal workers it suspects could impede Trump’s plans for a second term. Heritage is paying the group $100,000 for its work.

Many of Project 2025’s priorities are aligned with the former president, especially on immigration and purging the federal bureaucracies. Both Trump and Project 2025 have called for eliminating the Department of Education.

But Project 2025 has lately become a lightning rod for other ideas Trump hasn’t explicitly backed. Within “Mandate for Leadership” are plans to ban pornography, reverse federal approval of the abortion pill mifepristone, exclude the morning-after pill and men’s contraceptives from coverage mandated under the Affordable Care Act, make it harder for transgender adults to transition, and eliminate the federal agency that oversees the National Weather Service.

Its voluminous and detailed plans also run counter to Trump’s desire for a streamlined GOP platform absent any language that Democrats could wield against Republicans this cycle.

Roberts recently faced backlash as well for saying in an interview that the country was “in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

Three days later, Trump posted to Truth Social: “I know nothing about Project 2025.”

“I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal,” he wrote.

In response to Trump’s social media post, a Project 2025 spokesperson told CNN in a statement it “does not speak for any candidate or campaign.”

“It is ultimately up to that president, who we believe will be President Trump, to decide which recommendations to use,” the spokesperson said.

Trump’s campaign has repeatedly said in recent months that “reports about personnel and policies that are specific to a second Trump Administration are purely speculative and theoretical” and don’t represent the former president’s plans. Project 2025 and similar policy proposals coming from outside Trump’s campaign are “merely suggestions,” campaign managers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita wrote in a statement.

VAST NETWORK OF TRUMP ALLIES

However, Trump’s attempts to distance himself from Project 2025 have already encountered credibility challenges. The person overseeing Project 2025, Paul Dans, was a top official in Trump’s White House who has previously said he hopes to work for his former boss again. Shortly after Trump’s Truth Social post last week, Democrats noted a recruitment video for Project 2025 features a Trump campaign spokeswoman. On Tuesday, the Biden campaign posted dozens of examples of connections between Trump and Project 2025.

CNN’s review of Project 2025’s contributors also demonstrated the breadth of Trump’s reach through the upper ranks of the vast network of organizations working to move the country in a conservative direction – from women’s groups and Christian colleges to conservative think tanks in Texas, Alabama and Mississippi.

New organizations centered around Trump’s political movement, his conspiracy theories around his electoral defeats and his first-term policies are deeply involved in Project 2025 as well. One of the advisory groups, America First Legal, was started by Miller, a key player in forming Trump’s immigration agenda. Another is the Center for Renewing America, founded by Russ Vought, former acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, who wrote for Project 2025 a detailed blueprint for consolidating executive power.

Vought recently oversaw the Republican Party committee that drafted the new platform heavily influenced by Trump.

In addition to Vought, two other former Trump Cabinet secretaries wrote chapters for “Mandate for Leadership”: Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller. Three more former department heads – National Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe, acting Transportation Secretary Steven Bradbury and acting Labor Secretary Patrick Pizzella – are listed as contributors.

Project 2025’s proposals for reforming the country’s immigration laws appear heavily influenced by those who helped execute Trump’s early enforcement measures. Former acting US Customs and Border Protection chief Mark Morgan and former Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief Tom Homan – the faces of Trump’s polarizing policies – contributed to the project, as did Kathy Nuebel Kovarik, one of the policy advisers pushing to end certain immigrant protections behind the scenes. The Project 2025 chapter on overhauling the Department of Homeland Security was written by Ken Cuccinelli, a top official at the department under Trump.

Some of Trump’s most contentious and high-profile hires are credited with working on “Mandate for Leadership,” including some whose tenures ended under a cloud of controversy.

Before Trump adviser Peter Navarro went to prison for refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena as part of the House investigation into the January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack, he wrote a section defending the former president’s trade policies and advocating for punitive tariffs.

Other contributors include: Michael Pack, a conservative filmmaker who orchestrated a mass firing at the US Agency for Global Media after he was installed by Trump; Frank Wuco, a senior White House adviser who once promoted far-right conspiracies on his talk radio show, including lies about President Barack Obama’s citizenship; former NOAA official David Legates, a notable climate change skeptic investigated for posting dubious research with the White House imprint; and Mari Stull, a wine blogger-turned-lobbyist who left the Trump administration amid accusations she was hunting for disloyal State Department employees.

The culmination of their work, spread across 900 pages, touches every corner of the executive branch and would drastically change the federal government as well as everyday life for many Americans. In summarizing the undertaking, Roberts wrote in “Mandate for Leadership” that Project 2025 represented “the next conservative President’s last opportunity to save our republic.”

“Conservatives have just two years and one shot to get this right,” Roberts said. “With enemies at home and abroad, there is no margin for error. Time is running short. If we fail, the fight for the very idea of America may be lost.”

[odinsblog]

It was something that really began to happen when the United States decided that it would interlock the immigration system with the criminal legal system. So some people call it the criminal immigration system, which is not a term that I coined. It's something that immigration law experts coined.

But when Congress passed a certain series of laws in the 1980s and 90s, what they wanted to do was create a system in which people who were accused of crimes, particularly at the time, drug crimes, would be able to be immediately deported in a way that was basically faster. So they didn't have to be convicted. So normally, if you're accused of a crime, you have a right to a trial, then you might be convicted or acquitted, or you might plea out.

But if you are determined to be undocumented, you can actually be put into deportation proceedings before anyone brings you to trial. So you just are arrested and charged, and you can go immediately into deportation proceedings. And it turned out that this was a pretty effective way for police to interact with the immigration system.

And sheriffs became a lynch point originally because they run county jails.

So county jails are kind of the first stop if you're arrested. If you are unfortunate enough to be arrested, you will go through the county jail, at which point they take your ID, your fingerprints, right?

They take a variety of information. And sheriffs kind of became really useful because they were in the jail already, so they could interview people, ask them where they were from, ask them if they had proof of citizenship, and then help ICE put them into deportation proceedings. And alongside that, sheriffs were also able to make some money by housing people awaiting deportation in their jails.

That's also the benefit for them. The federal government houses about 25% of immigrants in detention in county jails right now. And they pay these sheriffs a per diem.

So they get paid sort of per day to keep people in their jails. And it's one of the ways that sheriffs are able to use that jail kind of as a political tool, right, to make money for their county.

So under Trump, two things happened. One was that anti-immigration groups, so I mentioned the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR. That was a group that was already in existence.

They are an anti-immigrant group. And they began to email sheriffs, especially sheriffs that they knew were kind of constitutional sheriffs or in the far right sheriff atmosphere and say, hey, would you like to help the Trump administration deport more people? And many of them said, sure.

And so using this anti-immigrant group, the Trump administration recruited more sheriffs to join a program called 287G. And 287G is a federal program that essentially deputizes sheriffs and their deputies to act as immigration agents. So under Trump, many, many more sheriffs joined this 287G program.

Now, the 287G program is a bit interesting because it doesn't include any funding for the sheriffs, but it is something that sheriffs used to say that they were tough on immigration.

-Jessica Pishko, The Unchecked Power Of Sheriffs

[mariacallous]

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Building Back Together Communications Director Blake Goodman released the following statement on the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA):

“Today, we celebrate three decades of the Violence Against Women Act, a transformative piece of legislation that has saved countless women’s lives from dangerous, potentially deadly situations. “President Biden’s laser-focus commitment to ending domestic and intimate partner violence is nothing new. Thirty years ago, then-Senator Biden authored the original bill that would become the VAWA — pushing our nation’s representatives to recognize and finally deal with the scourge that is domestic and intimate partner violence. Now, he and Vice President Harris continue to lead the most pro-survivor administration in our nation’s history. Their unwavering dedication to strengthening and expanding the VAWA has resulted in groundbreaking protections for underserved communities, increased funding for life-saving services and a renewed national focus on preventing violence before it occurs. “From President Biden’s authorship of the original bill as a Senator to Vice President Harris’s tireless advocacy for women and survivors throughout her career, this administration’s commitment to ending gender-based violence is not just good policy — it’s personal. At Building Back Together, we stand proudly with President Biden, Vice President Harris and survivors across the nation in celebrating this anniversary. We recognize that while we’ve made tremendous strides, we remain committed to supporting the Biden-Harris Administration’s bold vision for a future free from gender-based violence — a future where every individual can live, work and thrive without fear.”

Thirty years on, VAWA has seen many significant successes in the fight against domestic and intimate partner violence:

VAWA has helped reduce intimate partner violence by 64% between 1993 and 2010.

Over $9 billion in federal grants have been awarded to support community-based organizations working to end violence against women.

The National Domestic Violence Hotline, established under VAWA, has answered over 7 million calls, texts, and chats since its inception.

The 2022 reauthorization expanded protections for BIPOC women, LGBTQ+ individuals and immigrant survivors.

The Biden-Harris Administration continues to build on VAWA’s legacy by:

Ending forced arbitration for sexual assault and harassment through the signing of the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021.

Signing the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which narrows the “boyfriend loophole” by helping to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers by prohibiting people convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence crimes from possessing guns for 5 years.

Reforming the military justice system to address sexual assault, harrassment, and related crimes through the National Defense Authorization Act.

Strengthening regional leadership to prioritize the crisis of Missing or Murdered Indigenous people, including gender-based violence.

Supporting multinational efforts to address online harassment and abuse through the Global Partnership for Action on Gender-Based Online Harassment and Abuse.

Expanding national programs to combat human trafficking through the Department of Health and Human Services Innovation Challenge to Prevent Human Trafficking and the new National Human Trafficking Prevention Framework.

For more information on steps the Biden-Harris Administration has taken to prevent and respond to gender-based violence at home and abroad, see the White House’s Fact Sheet here.

[humanrightsupdates]

US: Drug-Linked Deportations Soar Despite State Reforms

(Washington, DC, July 15, 2024) – Thousands of people in the United States are being deported every year for drug offenses that in many cases no longer exist under state laws, harming and separating immigrant families, Human Rights Watch and the Drug Policy Alliance said today.

The 91-page report, “Disrupt and Vilify,” shows that the failure to reform disproportionately harsh federal immigration law has resulted in enormous numbers of deportations, splitting families apart, disrupting communities, and destabilizing people well-established in the US. For example, federal immigration law that treats some types of marijuana use as a deportable offense is at odds with many states’ recreational marijuana laws, penalizing immigrants and non-citizens for activities that are legal for citizens at the state level. The groups found that 500,000 people whose most serious offense was for drugs were deported between 2002 and 2020.

“The uniquely American combination of the drug war and deportation machine work hand in hand to target, exclude, and punish noncitizens for minor offenses—or in some states legal activity—such as marijuana possession,” said Maritza Perez Medina, director of federal affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA). “This report underscores that punitive federal drug laws separate families, destabilize communities, and terrorize non-citizens, all while overdose deaths have risen and drugs have become more potent and available. It’s imperative that the US government revises federal law to match current state-based drug policy reforms to end and prevent the immense human suffering being inflicted in the name of the drug war.”

Human Rights Watch and the Drug Policy Alliance interviewed 42 people affected by the deportations, including immigrants, families, and attorneys. The groups also analyzed new federal government data from 2002 to 2020 and found that 500,000 people have been deported whose most serious offense was drug-related. A previous Human Rights Watch report showed that from 2002 to 2012, 260,000 people were deported for drug-related offenses. This report updates that figure with an additional 240,000 people deported between 2013 and 2020, amounting to about one of every five deportations of immigrants with a criminal conviction during this period.

Overdose numbers have drastically increased, even as the US has engaged in massive numbers of deportations over this period, underscoring the ineffectiveness of such policies and of approaches that vilify immigrants in connection with drugs.

[darkmaga-retard]

A recent study suggests that up to 2.7 million non-citizens could vote illegally in the 2024 election, raising alarms about the integrity of the democratic process. The report from Just Facts, a nonprofit research institute, estimates that between 10% to 27% of adult non-citizens in the U.S. are illegally registered to vote. With millions of potential illegal votes, critics fear the results of key elections may not reflect the true will of American citizens. The findings have ignited debate about election security, illegal immigration, and the challenges of ensuring only citizens vote in federal elections.

Key Facts:

– The Just Facts study estimates that between 10% to 27% of non-citizen adults are illegally registered to vote in the U.S. – The U.S. Census counted over 19 million non-citizen adults in 2022, meaning between two and five million could be illegally registered voters. – In 2008, a study showed that 81% of non-citizen votes went to Democrats. – Former President Trump has promised to address illegal immigration and voter fraud by strengthening border security and deporting non-citizens. – Critics, including think tanks like the Cato Institute, have questioned the accuracy of the study’s estimates.

The Rest of The Story:

The report by Just Facts has sparked significant concern about illegal voter registration ahead of the 2024 election. According to the study, anywhere from two to five million non-citizens are currently registered to vote, which could influence the outcomes of major races, including the presidency. These estimates are derived from U.S. Census data showing that 19 million non-citizen adults live in the country.

James Agresti, the author of the study, explained that non-citizens can easily register to vote because states don’t require proof of citizenship. “In no state in the nation are they required to provide proof of U.S. citizenship in order to register to vote,” Agresti noted, highlighting the loopholes in voter registration processes.

The report has drawn attention to how these illegal votes could skew results, as seen in past elections. In 2008, for example, 81% of non-citizens who voted reportedly favored Democratic candidates. Concerns about election integrity have grown since the 2020 election when a vast number of votes were cast by mail or early, which some critics believe made it harder to detect potential fraud.

While supporters of voter registration reforms are pushing for stronger verification processes, critics have downplayed the study’s findings. The Cato Institute, for instance, claims that the number of non-citizens voting could be closer to zero, casting doubt on the validity of the study’s estimates.

Commentary:

The prospect of non-citizens voting in federal elections should alarm every American who values democracy. If even a fraction of these estimated illegal votes come to fruition, it could shift the balance of power in major elections.

[saddiedotdk]

Kamala Harris accomplishments as VP:

Cast tie-breaking vote for the American Rescue Plan of 2021.

Passed the American Rescue Plan, resulting in $1.9 trillion in economic stimulus.

Extended the Child Tax Credit through the American Rescue Plan.

Extended unemployment benefits through the American Rescue Plan.

Passed the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill.

Secured funding for electric school buses in the infrastructure bill.

Secured funding to combat wildfires and droughts in the infrastructure bill.

Secured funding for replacing lead water service lines.

Engaged with lawmakers at least 150 times for infrastructure investment.

Led diplomatic mission to Guatemala and Mexico to address migration issues.

Launched the "Central America Forward" initiative.

Secured $4.2 billion in private sector commitments for Central America.

Visited Paris to strengthen US-France relations.

Visited Singapore and Vietnam to bolster economic and strategic ties.

Visited Poland to support NATO allies during the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Visited Romania to support NATO allies during the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Launched the "Fight for Reproductive Freedoms" tour.

Visited a Planned Parenthood clinic in Minnesota.

Passed the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act.

Promoted racial equity in pandemic response through specific initiatives.

Chaired the National Space Council.

Visited NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center to promote space policies.

Passed the Freedom to Vote Act in the House.

Passed the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act in the House.

Built coalitions for voting rights protections.

Supported the Affordable Care Act through specific policy measures.

Expanded healthcare coverage through policy initiatives.

Passed initiatives for debt-free college education.

Hosted a STEM event for women and girls at the White House.

Championed criminal justice reform through specific legislation.

Secured passage of the bipartisan assault weapons ban.

Expanded background checks for gun purchases through legislation.

Increased the minimum wage through specific policy actions.

Implemented economic justice policies.

Expanded healthcare coverage through policy initiatives.

Secured funding for affordable housing.

Secured funding for affordable education initiatives.

Launched the "Justice is Coming Home" campaign for veterans' mental health.

Proposed legislation for easier legal actions against financial institutions.

Strengthened the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Secured investment in early childhood education.

Launched maternal health initiatives.

Launched the "Call to Action to Reduce Maternal Mortality and Morbidity".

Made Black maternal health a national priority through policy actions.

Increased diversity in government appointments.

Passed legislation for renewable energy production.

Secured funding for combating climate change.

Passed infrastructure development initiatives.

Secured transportation funding through the infrastructure bill.

Developed a plan to combat climate change.

Reduced illegal immigration through policy actions.

Equitable vaccine distribution through specific policy measures.

Supported small businesses through pandemic recovery funds.

Secured educational resources during the pandemic.

Promoted international cooperation on climate initiatives.

Secured international agreements on climate change.

Passed economic policies benefiting the middle class.

Criticized policies benefiting the wealthy at the expense of the working class.

Promoted racial equity in healthcare through specific actions.

Promoted racial equity in economic policies.

Reduced racial disparities in education through specific initiatives.

Increased mental health resources for underserved communities.

Secured funding for affordable childcare.

Secured federal funding for community colleges.

Increased funding for HBCUs.

Increased vaccinations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Secured policies for pandemic preparedness.

Ensured equitable vaccine distribution through policy actions.

Secured international cooperation for COVID-19 responses.

Reduced economic disparities exacerbated by the pandemic.

Passed digital equity initiatives for broadband access.

Expanded rural broadband through specific policies.

Secured cybersecurity policies through legislation.

Protected election integrity through specific actions.

Secured fair and secure elections through policy measures.

Strengthened international alliances through diplomacy.

Supported the Paris Climate Agreement through policy actions.

Led U.S. climate negotiations through international initiatives.

Passed initiatives for clean energy jobs.

Secured policies for energy efficiency.

Reduced carbon emissions through specific legislation.

Secured international climate finance.

Promoted public health policies through specific initiatives.

Passed reproductive health services policies.

Supported LGBTQ+ rights through specific actions.

Secured initiatives to reduce homelessness.

Increased veterans' benefits through legislation.

Secured affordable healthcare for veterans.

Passed policies to support military families.

Secured initiatives for veteran employment.

Increased mental health resources for veterans.

Passed disability rights legislation.

Secured policies for accessible infrastructure.

Increased funding for workforce development.

Implemented economic mobility policies.

Secured consumer protection policies through legislation.

Engaged in community outreach through public events.

Organized public engagement efforts.

Participated in over 720 official events, averaging three per day since taking office.

Supported efforts to modernize public health data systems.

[minnesotafollower]

Biden Administration Announces Proposed Restrictions on Asylum Applications

On February 21, the Biden Administration announced a proposed rule that would  require rapid deportation of an immigrant at the U.S. border who had failed to request protection from another country while en route to the U.S. or who had not previously notified the U.S. via a mobile app of their plan to seek asylum in the U.S. or who had applied for the new U.S. humanitarian parole programs for…

[plethoraworldatlas]

The ACLU on Tuesday vowed to launch a legal challenge to U.S. President Joe Biden's executive order barring migrants who cross the southern border without authorization from receiving asylum.

Biden's executive action invokes Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act—previously used by the administration of former Republican President Donald Trump to deny migrants asylum—"when the southern border is overwhelmed."

Under the policy, asylum requests will be shut down when the average number of daily migrant encounters between ports of entry hits 2,500. Border entry points would reopen to asylum-seekers when that number dips below 1,500.

The president said he was acting, in part, because "Republicans in Congress chose to put partisan politics ahead of our national security, twice voting against the toughest and fairest set of reforms in decades."

On Tuesday, the ACLU said Biden's policy will "rush vulnerable people through already fast-tracked deportation proceedings, sending people in need of protection to their deaths."

"We intend to challenge this order in court," Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project, said in a statement. "It was illegal when Trump did it, and it is no less illegal now."

In July 2020 a federal judge in Washington, D.C. struck down the Trump administration's ban on most Central Americans and migrants from other countries.

ACLU chief political and advocacy officer Deirdre Schifeling said that "we need solutions to address the challenges at the border, but the administration's planned executive actions will put thousands of lives at risk."

"They will not meet the needs at the border, nor will they fix our broken immigration system," Schifeling added. "We urge the administration to uphold its campaign promise to restore asylum and mobilize the necessary resources to address the challenges at the border. It's not just the morally sound thing to do—it's good politics."

The ACLU pointed to polling showing that "voters nationwide and in battleground states largely reject enforcement-only policies that put vulnerable people in danger."

The group is advocating "balanced and humane solutions" including "improving processing at ports of entry and addressing the immigration case backlog by investing in immigration court judges and legal representation."

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Daniel Marans at HuffPost:

LANGHORNE, Pa. — In a hotel conference room a little over 20 miles northeast of the Philadelphia venue where the two major parties’ presidential nominees were set to debate hours later, a conservative group was preparing to rally its supporters Tuesday morning behind a Republican candidate locked in a tight battle for Pennsylvania votes. No, the candidate w,as not former President Donald Trump. Americans for Prosperity Action, or AFP Action — a libertarian-leaning conservative group funded by the Koch network of conservative donors — and its Latino outreach arm, Libre Action, were instead holding a canvass kickoff event for Dave McCormick, a former hedge fund manager and Gulf War veteran engaged an uphill battle to unseat U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.). “We’re fighting for our American dream — the American dream that is slipping away from us,” Jennie Dallas, the Harrisburg-based strategic director of the affiliated Libre Initiative, told the multiracial crowd of staff members and paid canvassers clad in light blue organizers T-shirts. “And we know that David McCormick knows that.”

AFP Action’s Tuesday event in the heart of suburban Bucks County — one of the most contested counties in a critical swing state — offers a window into what a non-Trump-aligned right looks like in 2024. It means waging campaigns more focused on tax cuts and deregulation than on mass deportation or populism, and focusing on Senate and House races with more conventionally conservative candidates. A win for McCormick, who is considered far more of an underdog than GOP Senate challengers in Montana and Ohio, would virtually ensure Republican control of the Senate come November. While Democrats have a 51-49 edge in the chamber now, they are certain to lose West Virginia and their best pickup opportunities are long shots. GOP control of the Senate could prove especially critical for conservatives if Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris defeats Trump in the White House contest, according to Emily Greene, a senior adviser to Americans for Prosperity Action who runs the group’s Pennsylvania operations.

[...] Shaping — and, more recently, surviving — changes in the Republican governing coalition and policy agenda are nothing new for Americans for Prosperity and its political spending arm, AFP Action. But the Koch network — as AFP/AFP Action, The Libre Initiative/Libre Action, and their affiliate partners are often known — now finds itself in an extended period of ideological exile from the highest levels of Republican power. AFP opposes Trump’s trade tariffs, has a much more moderate approach to immigration policy than Trump and, unlike Trump himself, continues to defend the bipartisan sentencing reform bill he signed in 2018. Americans for Prosperity’s surviving founder, the oil and manufacturing billionaire Charles Koch — who co-created the group with his late brother, David Koch — has made his aversion to Trump abundantly clear. AFP Action decided not to endorse a candidate in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, dedicating its federal resources to electing Republicans to Congress. And in June 2023, the Kock network announced that it had raised $70 million to help the Republican Party move away from Trump. When Trump eventually emerged as the Republican presidential nominee this year, despite AFP Action’s $31 million super PAC spending on primary opponent Nikki Haley’s behalf, the group once again pivoted to Congress.

[...] To American progressives, Charles and David Koch were once the country’s chief ideological villains. They bankrolled the tea party movement, which gave birth to a hard-line faction of congressional Republicans committed to obstructing then-President Barack Obama’s policy agenda. But while many rank-and-file tea party activists were actually more concerned about immigration than their budget rhetoric would suggest, and welcomed Trump’s nativist program with open arms, the Kochs — and the cadre of right-wing libertarian activists and intellectuals they cultivated — were not ready to make the jump.

With programs like The Libre Initiative and Libre Action, the Koch network is also betting that appeals to Latino voters’ pocketbooks and interest in upward mobility would be more effective than Trump’s personality-centered populism — regardless of what polling suggests about his inroads with Latino voters. The Libre Initiative has, for example, argued that the Biden administration’s attempts to make it harder to classify workers as independent contractors would “hurt Latino workers,” since half of Latino workers fall under this category. “They’re opening up, and they’re seeing what’s most important to us now is our prosperity,” said Dallas, the strategic director. “It’s about being able to prosper in America.” At the same time, Libre’s moderate rhetoric on immigration, which combines calls for strict border enforcement with support for legalizing Dreamers and other bipartisan reforms, also hearkens back to the time period after Republicans’ loss in the 2012 presidential election, when the GOP began looking at softening its stance on immigration to appeal to more Latino voters.

The Koch Brothers, determined to stay in the GOP apparatus of influence, are focused on the #PASen race in a quest to flip control of the Senate.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Reagan’s Republican Party of 1981 was very different from Herbert Hoover’s of 1933: it had become the refuge of millions of formerly Democratic white conservative voters in the Solid South who resisted the civil rights reforms of the 1960s. Accordingly, behind his cheerful veneer Reagan made sure that he tapped into the fierce resentments of federal authority, dating back to the Civil War and Reconstruction, that fueled that resistance. Before they were done, the Reagan Republicans had absorbed into their coalition an array of aggrieved Americans, including quasi-theocratic white Christian nationalists, the gun-manufacturing lobby, antiabortion militants, and antigay crusaders. The antigovernment fervor that grips the nation today is the long-term product of the right wing that Reagan called to arms (literally, in the case of the National Rifle Association) forty-odd years ago. It was his attorney general Edwin Meese, in tandem with the newly formed Federalist Society, who started packing the federal judiciary with the conservative judges who have gutted federal protections for voting rights, abortion rights, and more, while inventing, with fake history presented as “originalism,” an individual’s Second Amendment right to own and carry military-grade armaments. It was the Reagan administration that eliminated the FCC’s fairness doctrine, which mandated that broadcasters provide balanced coverage of controversial public issues, paving the way for right-wing talk radio inciters like Rush Limbaugh and G. Gordon Liddy and, on cable TV, Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News to amplify antigovernment paranoia. The Reagan White House also harbored the former Nixon aide Pat Buchanan as its communications director. Buchanan’s politics were rooted in the 1930s America First isolationism of Charles A. Lindbergh and the diatribes of the right-wing “radio priest” Father Charles Coughlin, with their eccentric fixations on imaginary Jewish internationalist cabals. In the waning days of Reagan’s presidency, Buchanan remarked that “the greatest vacuum in American politics is to the right of Ronald Reagan.” He tried to fill that vacuum himself, nearly defeating President George H.W. Bush in the 1992 New Hampshire primary with his “pitchfork brigades.” His convention speech later that year laid out the culture wars to come. Then he followed up with another bid for the Republican nomination in 1996 and an independent campaign in 2000. All those efforts failed, but their stark themes of isolationism, lost national greatness, immigrant invasion, and racial fear provided a template for Donald Trump’s MAGA campaign a quarter-century later. “American carnage” was the favored far-right image at least two decades before Trump.

[bighermie]

The Total Number of Illegal Aliens Who Entered US Under Joe Biden Is More than the Population of 35 States | The Gateway Pundit | by Jim Hoft

[lilithism1848]

Atrocities US committed against PRISONERS

The US currently operates a system of slave labor camps, including at least 54 prison farms involved in agricultural slave labor. Outside of agricultural slavery, Federal Prison Industries operates a multi-billion dollar industry with ~ 52 prison factories , where prisoners produce furniture, clothing, circuit boards, products for the military, computer aided design services, call center support for private companies.

Ramping up since the 1980s, the term prison–industrial complex is used to attribute the rapid expansion of the US inmate population to the political influence of private prison companies and businesses that supply goods and services to government prison agencies. Such groups include corporations that contract prison labor, construction companies, surveillance technology vendors, companies that operate prison food services and medical facilities, private probation companies, lawyers, and lobby groups that represent them. Activist groups such as the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) have argued that the prison-industrial complex is perpetuating a flawed belief that imprisonment is an effective solution to social problems such as homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness, and illiteracy. 

The War On Drugs, a policy of arrest and imprisonment targeting minorities, first initiated by Nixon, has over the years created a monstrous system of mass incarceration, resulting in the imprisonment of 1.5 million people each year, with the US having the most prisoners per capita of any nation. One in five black Americans will spend time behind bars due to drug laws. The war has created a permanent underclass of impoverished people who have few educational or job opportunities as a result of being punished for drug offenses, in a vicious cycle of oppression. 

In the present day, ICE (U.S._Immigration_and_Customs_Enforcement), the police tasked with immigration enforcement, operates over 200 prison camps, housing over 31,000 undocumented people deemed “aliens”, 20,000 of which have no criminal convictions, in the US system of immigration detention. The camps include forced labor (often with contracts from private companies), poor conditions, lack of rights (since the undocumented aren’t considered citizens), and forced deportations, often splitting up families. Detainees are often held for a year without trial, with antiquated court procedures pushing back court dates for months, encouraging many to accept immediate deportation in the hopes of being able to return faster than the court can reach a decision, but forfeiting legal status, in a cruel system of coercion.

Over 90% of criminal trials in the US are settled not by a judge or jury, but with plea bargaining, a system where the defendant agrees to plead guilty in return for a concession from the prosecutor. It has been statistically shown to benefit prosecutors, who “throw the book” at defendants by presenting a slew of charges, manipulating their fear, who in turn accept a lesser charge, regardless of their innocence, in order to avoid a worst outcome. The number of potentially innocent prisoners coerced into accepting a guilty plea is impossible to calculate. Plea bargaining can present a dilemma to defense attorneys, in that they must choose between vigorously seeking a good deal for their present client, or maintaining a good relationship with the prosecutor for the sake of helping future clients.

European countries. John Langbein has equated plea bargaining to medieval torture: “There is, of course, a difference between having your limbs crushed if you refuse to confess, or suffering some extra years of imprisonment if you refuse to confess, but the difference is of degree, not kind. Plea bargaining, like torture, is coercive. Like the medieval Europeans, the Americans are now operating a procedural system that engages in condemnation without adjudication.”

A grand jury is a special legal proceeding in which a prosecutor may hold a trial before the real one, where ~20 jurors listen to evidence and decide whether criminal charges should be brought. Grand juries are rarely made up of a jury of the defendant’s peers, and defendants do not have the right to an attorney, making them essentially show-trials for the prosecution, who often find ways of using grand jury testimony to intimidate the accused, such as leaking stories about grand jury testimony to the media to defame the accused. In the murders of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Tamir Rice, all of whom were unarmed and killed by police in 2014, grand juries decided in all 3 cases not to pursue criminal trials against the officers. The US and Liberia are the only countries where grand juries are still legal.

The US system of bail (the practice of releasing suspects before their hearing for money paid to the court) has been criticized as monetizing justice, favoring rich, white collar suspects, over poorer people unable to pay for their release. 

On Jan 26th, In Mississippi state penitentiary, an inmate was found hanging in his cell, in a string of deaths in the prison. This is the 12th death within a single month. 

A photo surfaced of a November 2019 training class for prison guards in west virginia, showing 34 trainees doing a nazi salute. Only 3 people have been fired. A large number of prison workers, and populations in prison towns, are white supremacists. 

A black-site interrogation warehouse in Chicago called Homan Square is notorious for the sexual abuse, torture, and disappearances of its prisoners. The main interrogator, Richard Zuley, applied torture techniques he learned at Guantanamo Bay at Homan Square. 

On Oct 25, 2014, a mentally ill inmate, Michael Anthony Kerr, at the Alexander Correctional Institution in Taylorsville, NC, died of thirst after being denied water during a 35-day solitary confinement. Prison officials have said since Kerr’s death six months ago that they would investigate the events that led to his death, but no report has been issued and officials have not said when one would be. 

On May 23rd, 2014, a mentally ill inmate at a Dade County correctional facility near Miami FL was tortured to death by prison guards. Darren Rainey was serving a two-year sentence for cocaine possession when he was forced into a locked shower by prison guards as punishment for defecating in his cell, says one inmate. Once Rainey was inside the shower, guards blasted him with scalding hot water as he begged for his life. Investigators determined that there was not enough evidence to charge the guards. 

The Crime Bill of 1994, signed into law by Bill Clinton, increased the size of the US prison industry and dealt with the problem of crime by emphasizing punishment, not prevention. It extended the death penalty to a whole range of criminal offenses, and provided $30 billion for the building of new prisons, to crack down on “super predators”, a term used by Hillary Clinton to refer to remorseless juvenile criminals. 

In the 1978 case, Houchins v. KQED, Inc. the Supreme Court ruled that the news media do not have guaranteed rights of access to jails and prisons. It ruled also that prison authorities could forbid inmates to speak to one another, assemble, or spread literature about the formation of a prisoners’ union. 

In September 1971, prison guards killed George Jackson, a black Marxist and member of the Black Panthers in San Quentin prison (who had served 10 years of an indeterminate prison sentence for a $70 robbery), after he attempted to free himself and other inmates. Outrage over this, terrible prison conditions, and mistreatment by white prison guards, caused the Attica Prison Riot, in which 33 inmates and 10 prison guards were killed, and sparked dozens of prison riots across the country. In Attica, 100 percent of the guards were white, prisoners spent fourteen to sixteen hours a day in their cells, their mail was read, their reading material restricted, their visits from families were conducted through a mesh screen, their medical care disgraceful, 75% were there as a result of plea bargaining, and their parole system inequitable. 

Many companies in the 1800s were guilty of using prison laborers, such as the Tennesee Coal Iron and Railroad Company. In 1891, the prison workers struck and overpowered the guards, and other neighboring unions came to their aid.

[apollos-olives]

I don’t think people understand that Biden and trump are literally the same person, one just has better PR and is quieter. There is no “lesser evil” with them. It doesn’t MATTER if the blue or red win, because they are both shitty. Even when we remove Palestine out of the equation, y’all actually believe Biden and his shitty promises?

Isn’t this the same man who did all this?

• While President Biden promised not to raise taxes on Americans making less than $400,000 a year, Democrats in Congress are currently working to advance legislation that reflects his proposed $3.5 trillion wish list of socialist-style policies. However, the only way this budget will come even close to being paid for is by raising the taxes on 90 percent of Americans. Indeed, this inflation bomb will continue to raise prices for Americans, another form of taxation.

• promised to reform our country's immigration system and make the situation at the southern border "better, not worse." The truth is that he has not delivered. In fact, due in part to his open border policies, we have the biggest national security, public health and humanitarian crisis at our southern border that we have ever seen. In August alone, there were 103,123 single adult apprehensions. This staggering number accounts for nearly half of all 208,887 border encounters for the entire month.

• Biden promised ‘no more drilling on federal lands, period.’ He broke that pledge to approve a massive oil project in Alaska.

This is the man that y’all choose to defend???? Y’all are choosing to defend Biden-Harris????

i need old peepaw joe to kill himself immediately