Ariana Figueroa

Federal appeals court weighs fate of DACA program

Ariana Figueroa — Thu, 10 Oct 2024 21:09:16 +0000

Protesters in front of the Senate side of the U.S. Capitol urged Congress to pass the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, in December 2017 in Washington, D.C. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — After concluding oral arguments Thursday, a panel of federal judges will determine the fate of a program that has shielded from deportation more than half a million immigrants lacking permanent legal status who came into the United States as children.

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, a 12-year program that was meant to be temporary during the Obama administration while Congress passed a pathway to citizenship, has been caught in a years-long battle after the Trump administration moved to end the program.

Greisa Martinez Rosas, the executive director for the youth immigration organization United We Dream, said in a statement that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit should reject the “baseless lawsuit” brought by Texas and other states.

“DACA recipients have withstood over a decade of attacks by violent, anti-immigrant officials and have kept DACA alive through their courage and resilience,” Rosas said. “I urge President (Joe) Biden and every elected official to treat this moment with the urgency it requires and to take bold and swift action to protect all immigrants once and for all. ”

A panel of three judges on the appeals court heard oral arguments on behalf of the program from the Justice Department, the state of New Jersey and an immigration rights group, all advocating the legality of the Biden administration’s 2021 final rule to codify the program.

Last year the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas declared it unlawful and allowed current DACA recipients to continue renewing their status, but barred new applicants.

The Justice Department and the others asked the appeals court judges to consider three things. They are challenging whether the state of Texas has standing to show it was harmed by DACA; whether the regulation is lawful within presidential authority; and whether the trial court had the authority to place a nationwide injunction on the program.

The judges are Jerry Edwin Smith, appointed by former President Ronald Reagan; Edith Brown Clement, appointed by former President George W. Bush; and Stephen A. Higginson, appointed by former President Barack Obama.

The 5th Circuit in New Orleans covers Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi, and typically delivers conservative rulings.

Joseph N. Mazzara, arguing on behalf of the state of Texas, said that DACA harmed the state because there is a “pocketbook cost to Texas with regard to education and medical care.”

He said that the end of DACA would likely lead recipients to self-deport and “return to their country of origin,” which he argued would alleviate Texas’ financial costs.

It could take weeks or months for a ruling, which is likely to head to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the fate of DACA may be left to the incoming administration.

The Supreme Court in 2020 overturned the Trump administration’s decision to end the program, but on the grounds that the White House didn’t follow the proper procedure. The high court did not make a decision whether the program itself was unlawful or not.

States’ standing

Brian Boynton argued on behalf of the Biden administration.

He argued that the eight states that sued the Biden administration along with Texas have no standing because they did not demonstrate any harm caused by DACA.

Those other states challenging DACA include Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina, West Virginia, Kansas and Mississippi.

“Any person in the state of Texas, citizen or noncitizen, is entitled to precisely the same types of services, emergency health care services and public K through 12 education,” he said. “It’s not a situation where only someone with DACA is entitled to the services.”

Boynton asked the panel to uphold U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen’s policy of keeping DACA in place for current recipients – about 535,000 people – if the court decides to strike the program down while DACA continues to undergo the appeals process.

Hanen ruled in 2021 that DACA was unlawful, determining that the Obama administration exceeded its presidential authority in creating the program. He allowed current DACA recipients to remain in the program, but barred the federal government from accepting new applicants.

It’s estimated that there are 95,000 applicants that are blocked due to that order, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data.

The Biden administration then went through the formal rulemaking, which Hanen reviewed and again deemed unlawful, prompting the appeal before the three judges.

Boynton argued against a nationwide injunction on DACA recipients being able to apply for the program.

“With respect to the propriety of nationwide injunctions, it’s very clear that an injunction should be narrowly crafted to provide a remedy only to the party that is injured, and here that would be Texas,” he said.

Nina Perales, of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, argued that Texas in its legal arguments is including spending costs for students in K-12 schools who cannot be DACA recipients because those recipients are over 18 and have aged out of the program.

Perales addressed the health care argument from Texas and said Texas did not show the incurred health costs of just DACA recipients.

“Texas points to health care spending on the entire undocumented immigrant population, as Texas estimates it,” she said. “Not DACA recipients.”

“It’s been widely understood that DACA recipients overall provide a net benefit to their state,” she added.

U.S. Supreme Court considers Biden administration regulation of ‘ghost guns’

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 19:55:15 +0000

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday considered a federal firearm regulation aimed at reining in ghost guns, untraceable, unregulated weapons made from kits. In this photo, a ghost gun is displayed before the start of an event about gun violence in the Rose Garden of the White House April 11, 2022 in Washington, D.C. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — U.S. Supreme Court justices Tuesday grappled with whether the Biden administration exceeded its authority when it set regulations for kits that can be assembled into untraceable firearms, and a majority of justices seemed somewhat skeptical the rule was an overreach.

In Garland v. VanDerStok, the nine justices are tasked with determining whether a rule issued by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives in 2022 overstepped in expanding the definition of “firearms” to include “ghost guns” under a federal firearms law.

Ghost guns are firearms without serial numbers and can be easily bought online and quickly assembled in parts, usually through a kit. Law enforcement officials use serial numbers to track guns that are used in crimes.

Arguing on behalf of the Biden administration, U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar told the justices that there has been an “explosion in crimes” with untraceable guns across the U.S.

She added that the federal government has for years required gun manufacturers and sellers to mark firearms with a serial number.

“The industry has followed those conditions without difficulty for more than half a century, and those basic requirements are crucial to solving gun crimes and keeping guns out of the hands of minors, felons and domestic abusers,” Prelogar said.

She said with the kits to make untraceable homemade guns in as little as 15 minutes, those manufacturers “have tried to circumvent those requirements.”

Prelogar said untraceable guns “are attractive to people who can’t lawfully purchase them or who plan to use them in crime.”

Because the ATF saw a spike in crimes committed with those firearms, Prelogar said it promulgated the 2022 rule. The Biden administration said since 2016, it’s seen a tenfold increase in ghost guns.

What the rule does

The regulation does not ban ghost guns, but requires manufacturers of those firearm kits or parts to add a serial number to the products, as well as conduct background checks on potential buyers. The regulation also clarified those kits are considered covered by the 1968 Gun Control Act under the definition of a “firearm.”

The Biden administration is advocating for the Supreme Court to reverse a lower court’s decision that favored gun rights groups and owners that argued the agency exceeded its authority.

Pete Patterson on Tuesday represented those gun rights groups, such as the Firearms Policy Coalition and clients, and argued the ATF expanded the definition of a firearm to “include items that may readily be converted to a frame or receiver.”

A frame or receiver is the primary structure of a firearm that holds the other components that cause the gun to fire.

“Congress decided to regulate only a single part of a firearm, the frame or receiver, and Congress did not alter the common understanding of a frame or receiver,” he said. “ATF has now exceeded its authority by operating outside of the bounds set by Congress.”

The case has already been before the high court on an emergency basis in 2023. The three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, and two conservative justices, Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Amy Coney Barrett, allowed the regulation to remain in place while going through legal challenges.

The case is similar to the Supreme Court decision that struck down a Trump-era ban on bump stocks from the ATF, but that was on the grounds of a Second Amendment argument.

Omelets and turkey chili kits

Justice Samuel Alito questioned Prelogar whether the kits were defined as weapons.

“Here’s a blank pad and here’s a pen,” he said. “Is this a grocery list?”

She said it wasn’t because “there are a lot of things you could use those products for to create something other than a grocery list.”

Alito asked her if he had eggs, chopped up ham, peppers and onions, “is that a Western omelet?”

“No, because, again, those items have well known other uses to become something other than an omelet,” Prelogar said. “The key difference here is that these weapon parts kits are designed and intended to be used as instruments of combat, and they have no other conceivable use.”

Barrett asked if her answer would change if “you ordered it from HelloFresh and you got a kit and it was like turkey chili, but all of the ingredients are in the kit?”

Prelogar said it would.

“We are not suggesting that scattered components that might have some entirely separate and distinct function could be aggregated and called a weapon, in the absence of this kind of evidence that that is their intended purpose and function,” she said.

“But if you bought, you know, from Trader Joe’s, some omelet-making kit that had all of the ingredients to make the omelet, and maybe included whatever you would need to start the fire in order to cook the omelet, and had all of that objective indication that that’s what’s being marketed and sold, we would recognize that for what it is,” Prelogar continued.

Roberts asked Patterson what the purpose would be of selling a receiver without a hole in it, meaning the gun is not complete.

Patterson argued that the kits are mainly for gun hobbyists, who would have to drill their own holes to put the product together.

“Some individuals enjoy, like working on their car every weekend, some individuals want to construct their own firearms,” Patterson said.

Roberts seemed skeptical.

“I mean drilling a hole or two, I would think doesn’t give the same sort of reward that you get from working on your car on the weekends,” Roberts said.

Patterson argued that putting together a homemade gun was somewhat difficult, especially if an individual had no experience.

“Even once you have a complete frame, it’s not a trivial matter to put that together,” he said. “There are small parts that have to be put in precise locations.”

No hobbyists

In her rebuttal, Prelogar pushed back on the notion that hobbyists were using those kits, arguing that “if there is a market for these kits, for hobbyists, they can be sold to hobbyists, you just have to comply with the requirements of the Gun Control Act.”

“What the evidence shows is that these guns were being purchased and used in crime. There was a 1,000% increase between 2017 and 2021 in the number of these guns that were recovered as part of criminal investigations,” she said. “The reason why you want a ghost gun is specifically because it’s unserialized and can’t be traced.”

Housing: Where do Trump and Harris stand?

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 10:50:39 +0000

Both presidential candidates have said they have general plans to tackle the housing crisis (Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — As the cost and supply of housing remain top issues for voters, both presidential candidates have put forth plans to tackle the crisis, in hopes of courting voters ahead of the Nov. 5 election.

The coronavirus pandemic that began in 2020 exacerbated problems in the housing market, with supply chain disruptions, record-low interest rates and increased demand contributing to a rise in housing prices, according to a study by the Journal of Housing Economics.

While housing is typically handled on the local level, the housing supply is tight and rents continue to skyrocket, putting increased pressure on the federal government to help. Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump agree that it’s an issue that needs to be solved, but their solutions diverge.

The Harris and Trump campaigns did not respond to States Newsroom’s requests for details on the general housing proposals the nominees have discussed.

Promise: millions of new homes

Harris’ plan calls for the construction of 3 million homes in four years.

The United States has a shortage of about 3.8 million homes for sale and rent, according to 2021 estimates from Freddie Mac that are still relied upon.

Additionally, homelessness has hit a record-high of 653,100 people since January of last year, and a “record-high 22.4 million renter households spent more than 30 percent of their income on rent and utilities,” up from 2 million households since 2019, according to a study by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.

“This is obviously a multi-prong approach, because the factors contributing to high rents and housing affordability are many, and my plan is to attempt to address many of them at once, so we can actually have the net effect of bringing down the cost and making homeownership, renting more affordable,” Harris said during a September interview with Wisconsin Public Radio.

Promise: single-family zoning

Trump has long opposed building multi-family housing and has instead thrown his support behind single-family zoning, which would exclude other types of housing. Such land-use regulation is conducted by local government bodies, not the federal government, though the federal government could influence it.

“There will be no low-income housing developments built in areas that are right next to your house,” Trump said during an August rally in Montana. “I’m gonna keep criminals out of your neighborhood.”

Promise: getting Congress to agree

Election forecasters have predicted that Democrats will regain control of the U.S. House, but Republicans are poised to win the Senate, meaning any housing proposals will have to be overwhelmingly bipartisan.

“How much money is going to really be available without substantial increases in revenue to be able to do all these things that both Trump and Harris are proposing?” Ted Tozer, a non-resident fellow at the Urban Institute’s Housing Finance Policy Center, said in an interview with States Newsroom. “All the money comes from Congress.”

Many of Harris’ policies rely on cooperation from Congress, as historically the federal government has limited tools to address housing shortages.

“On the Democratic side, there’s a hunger for more action, for more direct government intervention in the housing market than we’ve seen in a long time,” said Francis Torres, the associate director of housing and infrastructure at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Nearly all proposals that Harris has put forth would require Congress to pass legislation and appropriate funds. The first is S.2224, introduced by Sen. Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, which would amend U.S. tax code to bar private equity firms from buying homes in bulk by denying “interest and depreciation deductions for taxpayers owning 50 or more single family properties,” according to the bill.

The second bill, S. 3692, introduced by Sen. Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and chair of the Senate Finance Committee, would bar using algorithms to artificially inflate the cost of rents.

Both bills would need to reach the 60-vote threshold in order to advance in the Senate, whichever party is in control.

Promise: $25,000 down payment assistance

Harris has pledged to support first-time homebuyers, but Congress would need to appropriate funds for the $25,000 down payment assistance program she has proposed that would benefit an estimated 4 million first-time homebuyers over four years.

It’s a proposal that’s been met with skepticism.

“I’m really concerned that down payment assistance will actually put more pressure on home prices, because basically, you’re giving people additional cash to pay more for the house that they’re going to bid on,” Tozer said. “So by definition, they get in a bidding war, they’re going to spend more.”

Harris has also proposed a $40 billion innovation fund for local governments to build and create solutions for housing, which would also need congressional approval.

Promise: opening up federal lands

Both candidates support opening some federal lands for housing, which would mean selling the land for construction purposes with the commitment for a certain percentage of the units to be kept for affordable housing.

The federal government owns about 650 million acres of land, or roughly 30% of all land.

Neither candidate has gone into detail on this proposal.

“I think it’s a sign that at least the Harris campaign and the people in her orbit are thinking about addressing this housing affordability problem really through stronger government action than has happened in several decades,” Torres said.

Promise: expand tax credits

The biggest tool the federal government has used to address housing is through the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, known as LIHTC. Harris has promised to expand this tax credit, but has not gone into detail about how much she wants it expanded.

This program awards tax credits to offset construction costs in exchange for a certain number of rent-restricted units for low-income households. But the restriction is temporary, lasting about 30 years.

There is no similar program for housing meant to be owned.

“It’s an interesting moment, because then on the other side, on the Trump side, even though they diagnosed a lot of the similar problems, there’s not as much of a desire to leverage the strength of the federal government to ensure affordability,” Torres said.

Trump’s record on housing

The Trump campaign does not have a housing proposal, but various interviews, rallies and a review of Trump’s first four years in office provide a roadmap.

During Trump’s first administration, many of his HUD budget proposals were not approved by Congress.

In all four of his presidential budget requests, he laid out proposals that would increase rent by 40% for about 4 million low-income households using rental vouchers or for those who lived in public housing, according to an analysis by the left-leaning think tank the Brookings Institution.

All four of Trump’s budgets also called for the elimination of housing programs such as the Community Development Block Grant, which directs funding to local and state governments to rehabilitate and build affordable housing. Trump’s budgets also would have slashed the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, known as LIHEAP, which is a home energy assistance program for low-income families.

Additionally, Trump’s Opportunity Zones authorized through the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which are tax incentives to businesses and real estate to invest in low-income communities, have had mixed results.

Promise: cut regulations and add tariffs

In an interview with Bloomberg, Trump said he wanted to focus on reducing regulations in the permitting process.

“Your permits, your permitting process. Your zoning, if — and I went through years of zoning. Zoning is like… it’s a killer,” he said. “But we’ll be doing that, and we’ll be bringing the price of housing down.”

During campaign rallies, Trump has often said he would impose a 10% tariff across the board on all goods entering the U.S. He’s also proposed 60% tariffs on China.

Trump said at a rally in Georgia that tariff is “one of the most beautiful words I’ve ever heard.”

Tozer said adding trade policies, such as tariffs on construction materials like lumber, would drive up the cost of homes.

Promise: deport immigrants

Trump has argued that his plan for mass deportations will help free up the supply of housing. Karoline Leavitt, the Trump national press secretary, told the New York Times that deporting immigrants would lower the cost of housing because migration “is driving up housing costs.”

The former president has made a core campaign promise to deport millions of immigrants.

Tozer said housing and immigration are tied, because the ability to build houses comes down to workers, and roughly 30% of construction workers are immigrants.

“By shutting down the border, you’re possibly shutting down your capacity to build these houses,” he said, adding that all those policies are intertwined.

Harris and Trump turn to podcasts, radio and TV as campaign hurtles into final month

Ariana Figueroa — Mon, 07 Oct 2024 21:05:51 +0000

Vice President Kamala Harris took part in an interview with the “Call Her Daddy” podcast that was released Sunday. In this photo, the “Call Her Daddy” host, creator and executive producer, Alex Cooper, participates in The Art of The Interview session at Spotify Beach on June 20, 2023 in Cannes, France (Photo by Antony Jones/Getty Images for Spotify).

WASHINGTON — In an interview released Sunday on a widely heard podcast geared toward young women, Vice President Kamala Harris stressed the importance of reproductive rights, a central topic in her bid for the White House.

The “Call Her Daddy” host, Alex Cooper, specifically centered the 40-minute interview around issues affecting women such as domestic violence and access to abortion.

Meanwhile, the GOP nominee, former President Donald Trump, joined the Hugh Hewitt radio show Monday, a conservative talk show that has about 7.5 million weekly listeners.

The interview with Trump was mostly about the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas. In the attack, 1,200 people — including 46 U.S. citizens — were killed in Israel and hundreds were taken hostage.

On “Call Her Daddy,” Cooper noted before the interview that she does not have politicians on her show because it is not focused on politics, but “at the end of the day, I couldn’t see a world in which one of the main conversations in this election is women, and I’m not a part of it.”

“The conversation I know I am qualified to have is the one surrounding women’s bodies and how we are treated and valued in this country,” Cooper said.

She added that her team reached out to Trump and invited him on the show. “If he also wants to have a meaningful, in-depth conversation about women’s rights in this country, then he is welcome on ‘Call Her Daddy’ any time,” she said.

The podcast is the second-most listened-to on Spotify, with an average of 5 million weekly listeners. The demographics are about 90% women, with a large chunk of them Gen Z and Millennials — an important voting bloc for Harris to reach with less than a month until the election concludes Nov. 5.

The podcast is part of Harris’ media marathon this week. Late Monday, she will appear on “60 Minutes” for an interview. On Tuesday she is scheduled to be in New York to appear on the daytime show “The View,” “The Howard Stern Show” and “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

Victims of sexual assault

Harris on the podcast touched on several stories she tells on the campaign trail, such as how a high school friend ended up staying with her and her family because the friend was being sexually assaulted at home.

“I decided at a young age I wanted to do the work of protecting vulnerable people,” Harris said.

She added that it’s important to destigmatize survivors of sexual assault.

“The more that we let anything exist in the shadows, the more likely it is that people are suffering and suffering silently,” Harris said. “The more we talk about it, the more we will address it and deal with it, the more we will be equipped to deal with it, be it in terms of schools, in terms of the society at large, right, and to not stigmatize it.”

Cooper asked Harris how the U.S. can be safer for women.

Harris talked about domestic violence and the bind that women can be in if they have children and are financially reliant on an abuser.

“Most women will endure whatever personal, physical pain they must in order to make sure their kids have a roof over their head or food,” she said. “One of the ways that we know we can uplift the ability of women to have choices is uplift the ability of women to have economic health and well-being.”

Cooper asked Harris about the aftermath of Roe v. Wade being overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court two years ago and the recent story of Amber Thurman, a Georgia woman who died after not being able to receive an abortion following complications from taking an abortion pill.

Harris said states that pass abortion bans will argue there are exceptions “if the life of the mother is at risk,” but that it’s not a realistic policy in practice.

“You know what that means in practical terms, she’s almost dead before you decide to give her care. So we’re going to have public health policy that says a doctor, a medical professional, waits until you’re at death’s door before they give you care,” Harris said. “Where is the humanity?”

Trump criticizes protesters

Besides the appearance with Hugh Hewitt, Trump is also scheduled late Monday to speak with Jewish leaders in Miami.

During the interview with Hewitt, Trump slammed the pro-Palestinian protests across college campuses and argued that those institutions should do more to quell the student protests.

“You have other Jewish students that are afraid,” Trump said. “Yeah, that’s true, and they should be afraid. I never thought I would see this in my life with the campus riots and what they’re saying and what they’re doing. And they have to put them down quickly.”

Hewitt asked Trump, because of his background as a real estate developer, if he could turn Gaza, which has been devastated by the war, into something like Monaco. The Principality of Monaco is an independent, affluent microstate along the coast of France that attracts wealthy tourists.

“It could be better than Monaco. It has the best location in the Middle East, the best water, the best everything,” Trump said, noting the Mediterranean Sea bordering the Gaza Strip. “You know, as a developer, it could be the most beautiful place — the weather, the water, the whole thing, the climate.”

The war has drawn massive protests in the United States, and more than 40,000 people in Gaza have been killed, but researchers estimate the death toll is as high as 186,000.

Hewitt asked Trump about Harris’ housing policy that, if approved by Congress, would give first-time homebuyers up to $25,000 for a down payment. Both candidates have made housing a top issue.

Trump said he opposed the plan and instead advocated for the private sector to handle housing. He then veered off topic into immigration and without evidence accused migrants at the southern border of being murderers.

“Many of them murdered far more than one person, and they’re now happily living in the United States,” he said. “You know, now a murderer, I believe this, it’s in their genes. And we’ve got a lot of bad genes in our country right now.”

Trump has often invoked white supremacist language when talking about immigrants, accusing them of “poisoning the blood” of the U.S. He’s also made a core campaign promise of enacting mass deportations of millions of immigrants in the country who are in the country without authorization.

Hurricane interrupts campaign

Some campaign events have been postponed due to Hurricane Milton, a Category 5 storm barreling toward Florida. It comes after the devastating Hurricane Helene that caused severe damage in western North Carolina and other states in the Southeast.

A Tuesday roundtable with Trump and Latino leaders was postponed, as well as a town hall in Miami, Florida with Univison for undecided Hispanic voters. The Univision town hall with Harris is scheduled for Thursday in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, on Tuesday is scheduled to give remarks in Detroit, Michigan.

Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, is heading to Reno, Nevada, Tuesday for a campaign reception.

The next big dilemma for the U.S. Senate GOP: Who should lead them in 2025 and beyond?

Ariana Figueroa — Mon, 07 Oct 2024 20:00:36 +0000

Sen. John Thune, R-South Dakota, joined by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, speaks at the Capitol on Sept. 29, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans shortly after Election Day will face a major decision for their chamber as well as the national party when they pick a new leader.

Once the dust from the election clears and the balance of power in the Senate is decided, senators will gather behind closed doors to choose who will lead their conference. Come January, that person will step into one of the more important and influential roles in the U.S. government, as well as becoming a prominent figure for messaging and fundraising for the GOP.

Texas Sen. John Cornyn, Florida Sen. Rick Scott and South Dakota Sen. John Thune have all publicly announced they’re seeking the post. Thune is currently the minority whip, the No. 2 leader in the Senate GOP, and Cornyn held the whip job before him.

The lawmaker who secures the support of his colleagues will replace Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who since 2007 has led his party through three presidencies, numerous votes on natural disaster aid packages, the COVID-19 pandemic, two impeachments and the Jan. 6 insurrection.

McConnell, who served as majority leader when Republicans controlled the Senate, has been at the center of dozens of pivotal negotiations and ensured his position was a boon for his home state of Kentucky.

The Republican who takes his place will have to navigate choppy political seas in the years ahead as the GOP continues to hold onto the Reagan-era policies many still value, while adjusting to the brand of conservatism that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump champions.

States Newsroom interviewed Republican senators to find out what characteristics they believe the next GOP leader needs to have to earn their vote, and about the challenges that person will face in the years ahead.

While only one senator would volunteer an opinion on a favorite candidate, many said they are interested in a leader who will emphasize moving legislation through the chamber, listen closely to members and forge strong ties with what they hope is a Trump administration.

The candidates, the ballot measures, and the tools you need to cast your vote.

In search of a workhorse

Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley said he’s looking for a “competent” Republican leader who will listen to members and work behind the scenes.

“I don’t want to see leaders on television commercials, I don’t want to see them featured in Senate races, I don’t want them as the deciding factor days before an election,” Hawley said. “I want somebody who is going to be a workhorse and who’s going to work with members to achieve our priorities and then get stuff accomplished.”

West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said the next GOP leader should hold the line on conservative priorities while also being able to negotiate bipartisan deals during what is expected to be a divided government. Democrats narrowly control the Senate, but Republicans are projected to possibly take the majority in the election.

“I would like somebody who can be strong in the face of opposition, present a strong argument, not afraid to take it to the other side when needed, but then also somebody that could get in the room and negotiate right when it gets tough,” she said.

Capito acknowledged the outcome of the presidential election could have an impact on who becomes the next Republican leader.

“(It) just depends on who wins,” she said.

Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall said his choice will “be the most important vote that I take.”

“You vote for the president, that’s important, but mine is one vote out of 150 million votes, or whatever it is. But this vote will be one out of, hopefully 53, so I think it has a lot of weight,” Marshall said. “And I think it’s really important that we elect a majority leader that shares the same priorities as, hopefully, President Trump.”

Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty said the overarching criteria for the next GOP leader is their “ability to get along well with President Trump and the incoming administration.”

“The first 100 days are going to count, and we need to have very close alignment to make certain we’re successful,” Hagerty said.

There is no guarantee that voters will elect Trump as the next president during this year’s presidential election. The next Senate GOP leader could end up working with an administration led by the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris.

That would require whomever Republican senators elect to walk a tightrope on Cabinet secretary confirmation votes, judicial nominees, must-pass legislation and potentially a Supreme Court nominee.

Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy said he’s vetting the candidates based on which one would be the most savvy, strategic, patient and inclusive.

That person, Kennedy said, must also be “willing to test his assumptions against the arguments of his critics and willing to ask God for money if necessary.” McConnell has been known as a prodigious fundraiser for Republicans.

Chairmanship clout

Maine Sen. Susan Collins, ranking member on the Appropriations Committee, said she’ll vote for the candidate willing to devote significantly more floor time to debating and voting on bipartisan legislation.

“I think that’s a real problem,” Collins said. “I’d like us to go back to the days where power was vested in the committee chairs. And if they and their ranking members are able to produce a bill, that it gets scheduled for floor consideration.”

Collins, a moderate in a Senate conference packed with more conservative members, said she wants the next Senate Republican leader to recognize “that we’re a big tent party and that we need to be inclusive in our approach.”

North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven, the top Republican on the Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, said he wants a GOP leader to follow “regular order on appropriations.”

“We get them through committee with bipartisan votes, but they’re not getting to the floor,” Hoeven said of the dozen annual government funding bills. “We need to get them to the floor, there needs to be an amendment process, and we need to act on the bills and get back to voting on bills and that’s called regular order. And I think that’s the biggest key for our next leader is to be able to do that.”

Alabama Sen. Katie Britt has begun talking with the candidates and is evaluating their plans for the Senate floor schedule, especially for bringing the annual government funding bills up for debate and amendment.

“I want to know how we’re going to get the appropriations process back working; like, how we’re actually going to move the ball down the field on that,” Britt said. “I want to know how we’re going to actually embolden the committees and the committee process.”

Britt, ranking member on the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, expressed frustration with how much floor time goes toward confirming judicial nominees, something that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, and McConnell have both championed.

Senate floor procedures are much more time-consuming than the rules that govern debate in the House. Legislation can take weeks to move through the filibuster process, which requires 60 votes for bills to advance, and for leaders to negotiate which amendments will receive floor votes.

The Senate, unlike the House, is also responsible for vetting and confirming executive branch nominees, like Cabinet secretaries, as well as judicial nominees. With a new president in place, 2025 will mean many confirmation votes.

“When we have a leader that really knows how to lead, they’ll put appropriations bills on the floor, they’ll figure out how to embolden members,” Britt said, adding that “a weak leader consolidates all the power, and that’s, unfortunately, what I think we have right now when it comes to Chuck Schumer.”

‘Getting stuff done’

Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford said whomever he votes for needs to “be successful at getting stuff done, finished, completed.”

“We have to be able to get our committees working and get legislation up, negotiated and moved,” Lankford said.

Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst said whoever takes over as the next GOP leader must be able to communicate well with senators.

That person “needs to be someone that has strategy, and knows how to work the floor, certainly. And then, also fundraising is a portion of that, too.”

Arkansas Sen. John Boozman said his vote will go to the person he believes can best build consensus and listen to members, though he hasn’t yet decided which of the three contenders he’ll support.

“I’m a true undecided,” Boozman said. “I think the reality is most members just want to get the election over. They don’t want to deal with this until then.”

Boozman said the results of the battle for control of the Senate in the November elections could influence which candidate he and his colleagues pick to lead them during the next Congress.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said that the next GOP leader should be in tune with Republican voters and the issues important to them.

“It’s someone who I think has an affinity and is in touch with where our voters are,” Rubio said.

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley declined to list off any characteristics he believes the next leader needs, saying he doesn’t want any of the three to figure out his choice.

“I wouldn’t want to tell you that, because this is what I told all three people that came to my office — I said, ‘I’m not going to tell either one of you. You’re all friends of mine. You ain’t going to know who I vote for,’” Grassley said. “And if I answered your question, they’re going to start figuring out who I’m going to vote for.”

Grassley said the next leader’s first major challenge will be negotiating a tax bill during 2025 that addresses expiring elements from the 2017 Republican tax law.

Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran said character matters in determining who he’ll vote for, but said he hadn’t created a score sheet just yet.

“I’ll have an idea of who I’m voting for before the November election,” Moran said. “Those characteristics that I think are important would be important regardless of what the makeup of the House, Senate and the White House is.”

Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson threw his support behind Scott for GOP leader, saying he prefers someone who previously served as a governor and worked in the private sector. He was the only senator interviewed by States Newsroom to reveal his vote, which will be conducted via secret ballot.

He said that Scott “is willing to tackle tough issues.”

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said that Republicans have “a lot of good choices” among the three men and that he wants someone who can carry the GOP message.

U.S. House ethics panel releases more details about allegations against Florida lawmaker

Ariana Figueroa — Thu, 26 Sep 2024 21:06:35 +0000

U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (Credit: U.S. House)

WASHINGTON — The House Ethics Committee Wednesday said it will continue reviewing allegations that Florida Democratic Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick violated campaign finance laws, and the panel released more details about the inquiry.

The original recommendation for committee review came from the board of the Office of Congressional Ethics, which is an independent entity that reviews allegations of potential violations against members of the House and makes referrals to the House Ethics Committee.

The Ethics Committee said in a press release about the matter that “the mere fact of a continued investigation into these allegations does not itself indicate that any violation has occurred.”

A Sept. 25, 2023, report by the board released Wednesday by the committee said “there is substantial reason to believe that Rep. Cherfilus-McCormick made payments to a state political action committee which may have been in connection with her campaign for federal office and did not report these payments as contributions to her campaign.”

In a statement to States Newsroom, her office said the report is a standard procedure.

“As we’ve said before, the fact that the Committee is reviewing these allegations does not indicate there has been any finding that a violation has occurred,” her office said in the statement. “Congresswoman Cherfilus-McCormick continues to take this matter very seriously and intends to continue to cooperate with the House Ethics Committee and its investigative subcommittee to address the allegations that have been raised.”

The Ethics Committee in December said in a statement that it would open an investigation into allegations that she “may have violated campaign finance laws and regulations in connection with her 2022 special election and/or 2022 reelection campaigns; failed to properly disclose required information on statements required to be filed with the House; and/or accepted voluntary services for official work from an individual not employed in her congressional office.”

The Sun Sentinel in 2022 reported that Cherfilus-McCormick began self-funding her congressional campaign at the same time the health care company where she was CEO received an $8 million contract in order to distribute coronavirus vaccines to vulnerable communities.

The Ethics Committee in June announced it had expanded its investigation into whether Cherfilus-McCormick violated campaign finance laws.

There are several allegations against Cherfilus-McCormick contained in the referral by the Board of the Office of Congressional Ethics, which was required to be released no later than one year after it was sent to the committee.

It’s alleged that Cherfilus-McCormick made payments to a state political action committee that may have been in connection with her campaign for federal office, which “may have violated House Rules, standards of conduct, and federal law,” according to the report.

Not reporting those payments as contributions to her campaign “may further violate House Rules, standards of conduct, and federal law,” according to the report.

It’s alleged that her congressional office could have received services related to franked communications and other congressional work from an individual who was not paid through official funds.

Franked communications allow members of Congress to send out mail without paying for postage because it’s an official communication with a member of Congress and their constituents.

“If Rep. Cherfilus-McCormick compensated this individual with private funds or did not compensate him for his services, she may have violated House Rules, standards of conduct, and federal law,” according to the report.

It’s alleged that the Cherfilus-McCormick campaign committee may have accepted and failed to report contributions exceeding contribution limits by the Federal Election Commission, which could violate House rules and federal law.

“Rep. Cherfilus-McCormick’s campaign committee may have failed to report transactions between the campaign committee’s bank account and Rep. Cherfilus-McCormick’s businesses’ bank accounts,” according to the report.

If her campaign committee didn’t report those transactions in FEC filings, she “may have violated House rules, standards of conduct, and federal law,” according to the report.

Cherfilus-McCormick ran and won in a special general election in 2022 after former Rep. Alcee Hastings died. She is seeking reelection.

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U.S. Senate panel probes federal government’s role in affordable housing crisis

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 25 Sep 2024 21:17:40 +0000

Rhode Island House of Representatives Speaker Joseph Shekarchi testifies Wednesday before the U.S. Senate Budget Committee. (Screenshot from committee webcast)

WASHINGTON — The speaker of the Rhode Island House described how his state has tackled affordable housing and how it could be a model for local and state governments across the country in a Wednesday hearing before members of the U.S. Senate Budget Committee.

“My mantra has been: production, production and more production,” Rhode Island House of Representatives Speaker Joseph Shekarchi said.

Shekarchi and housing experts urged the senators to take a multipronged government approach to tackling the lack of affordable housing, such as reforming zoning, expanding land for building and streamlining permits.

“I really believe this is an all-hands-on-deck crisis,” Sen. Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, said.

Murray said that in her state, there is a shortage of 172,000 homes. She asked one of the witnesses, Paul Williams, the executive director at the Center for Public Enterprise, how the federal government could help state and local governments tackle the issue. The Center for Public Enterprise is a think tank that aids public agencies in implementing programs in the energy and housing sector.

Williams said the federal government should encourage municipalities to look at local permitting and zoning processes to see if those delay new apartment construction projects or prevent them from happening.

He added that financing can also remain a challenge.

Tax credits

Another witness, Greta Harris, the president and CEO of the Better Housing Coalition, an organization based in Virginia that aims to produce affordable housing, said the federal government should consider expanding the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Low-Income Housing Tax Credit. That program provides local groups with a tax incentive to construct or rehabilitate low-income housing.

“The low-income housing tax credit program has been extremely effective in allowing us to produce more housing units and also preserve existing affordable housing units,” Harris said.

She added Congress should consider expanding federal housing vouchers, and that closing and down payment assistance in home purchases is crucial. Federal housing vouchers help provide housing for low-income families, those who are elderly, people with disabilities and veterans.

Most wealth building is through owning a home and acquiring equity in that home, she said.

“People can use that equity for retirement, to help their kids go to college, to start a business, and to be able to breathe a little bit,” Harris said.

How a state can be successful

Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, the chairman of the committee, asked Shekarchi to describe some successful impacts of the state’s approach to housing.

Shekarchi said that “we haven’t substituted state control for local control,” and have instead made the process to get building permits and address land disputes easier. He added that Rhode Island also created a role for a housing secretary, to address the issue.

“Overall, you’re seeing an increase in building permits,” he said.

Indiana GOP Sen. Mike Braun asked Harris if housing should be left to local government and private entrepreneurs, rather than Congress.

“Left to its own devices, the market is not equitable and it serves certain portions of our society and not all,” she said.

She said the government at all levels — local, state and federal — should participate in addressing the housing crisis.

GOP bashes Harris plans

The top Republican on the committee, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, blamed the Biden administration for the cost of housing

He also criticized a housing plan released by Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, that would provide $25,000 in down payment assistance to first-time home buyers — a proposal that hinges on congressional approval.

“Economists from across the political spectrum have noted how such policies would backfire by pushing up housing prices even further,” Grassley said of Harris’ policy.

Ed Pinto, a senior fellow and co-director of the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute Housing Center, said that there is a shortage of about 3.8 million homes. He argued that Harris’ plan to give down payment assistance “is almost certain to lead to higher home prices.”

“The millions of program recipients would become price setters for all buyers in the neighborhoods where the recipients buy,” Pinto said.

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Ryan Routh charged with attempted assassination in Trump golf course case

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 25 Sep 2024 14:17:40 +0000

Law enforcement personnel continue to investigate the area around Trump International Golf Club after an apparent assassination attempt Sept. 16 on former President Donald Trump in West Palm Beach, Florida. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors said Tuesday that the man who allegedly stalked former President Donald Trump for a month before aiming his rifle through a fence at Trump’s private golf course on Sept. 15 was indicted on the charge of an attempted assassination of a political candidate.

The Justice Department said a federal grand jury in Miami late Tuesday returned an indictment charging Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, of attempting to kill the GOP presidential nominee while at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida.

“Violence targeting public officials endangers everything our country stands for, and the Department of Justice will use every available tool to hold Ryan Routh accountable for the attempted assassination of former President Trump charged in the indictment,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.

“The Justice Department will not tolerate violence that strikes at the heart of our democracy, and we will find and hold accountable those who perpetrate it. This must stop,” Garland said.

The maximum sentence for the attempted assassination charge is a life sentence. Routh remains in pretrial detention.

The case is being handled by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who previously dismissed criminal charges against Trump related to illegally allegedly keeping classified documents after he left the presidency. Cannon was appointed by Trump to the federal bench.

Prosecutors on Monday detailed that Routh stalked Trump for a month, noting events Trump would be at, and wrote a note where he offered $150,000 to anyone who could “finish the job,” according to court filings.

This is now officially the second assassination attempt against Trump, after the first one in Butler, Pennsylvania, where Trump sustained an injury to his ear. He was not injured at his Florida golf club.

Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe confirmed that Routh did not fire his weapon and that the gunshots heard were from a Secret Service agent who saw part of Routh’s gun poking out from the chain link fence and immediately fired.

Routh has already been charged with possession of a firearm as a convicted felon and with obliterating the serial number on a firearm, according to court records. With those charges, he faces up to 20 years in prison.

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Harris says she’d back an elimination of the filibuster to restore abortion rights

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 24 Sep 2024 22:04:14 +0000

Vice President Kamala Harris departs Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport aboard Air Force 2, after speaking July 23 at a campaign rally inside West Allis Central High School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Jim Vondruska/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said Tuesday during a radio interview that she supports changing a Senate procedure in order to codify the right to an abortion.

Vice President Harris said she is in favor of ending the 60-vote threshold in the Senate, known as the filibuster, to advance abortion rights legislation. But that task would hinge on Democrats agreeing to do so and holding on to majority control in the Senate, a difficult feat this November as Republicans appear potentially poised to take back the upper chamber.

“I think we should eliminate the filibuster for Roe, and get us to the point where 51 votes would be what we need to actually put back in law the protections for reproductive freedom and for the ability of every person and every woman to make decisions about their own body and not have their government tell them what to do,” she said during an interview with Wisconsin Public Radio.

Harris in 2022 said she would cast a tie-breaking vote in favor of abortion rights in her role as vice president. She has often pledged to sign into law a codification of Roe v. Wade, the constitutional right to an abortion struck down by the conservative U.S. Supreme Court in 2022.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said in August that Democrats would talk about rules changes to codify abortion rights, NBC reported.

Trump in Pennsylvania

At a Monday rally in Pennsylvania, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump referred to himself as a “protector” of women. Trump said women no longer needed to think about abortion and it is “now where it always had to be, with the states.”

“All they want to do is talk about abortion,” the former president said at the rally, referring to Democrats. “It really no longer pertains because we’ve done something on abortion that no one thought was possible.”

Trump has called for Senate Republicans to dismantle the filibuster, but GOP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and other Republican leaders like No. 2 Sen. John Thune of South Dakota have vowed to keep the procedure in place.

Current Senate projections indicate Republicans are likely to gain control of the Senate. Republicans are also expected to pick up a seat in West Virginia, and only need to hold on to seats in Florida, Texas and Nebraska.

Democrats will need to secure wins in Arizona, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Additionally, Senate Democrats would need to break a possible 50-50 tie through a Democratic presidency — if they want to remain the majority party and change the filibuster.

If Harris wins, and Democrats hold 50 seats in the Senate, then Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, the vice presidential nominee, would be the tie-breaking vote.

During a Tuesday Senate press conference on abortion, Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington said she was supportive of Harris’ stance and that it would be a carve-out of the filibuster, rather than an elimination of it.

“What we are talking about is a simple procedure to allow, whenever rights are taken away from someone, that the U.S. Senate can, without being blocked by a filibuster, be able to restore those rights,” she said.

Harris, Trump and the economy

The Harris campaign hosted a Tuesday press call with business owner and “Shark Tank” investor Mark Cuban, to advocate for Harris’ economic policies.

Polls have found that voters view Trump as better for the economy. Pew Research found that Trump’s key advantage is the economy, with 55% of voters viewing the former president as making good economic decisions, and 45% of voters viewing Harris as making good decisions about the economy.

“In a nutshell, the vice president and her team thinks through her policies,” Cuban said. “She doesn’t just off the top of her head say what she thinks the crowd wants to hear, like the Republican nominee.”

Battleground states still the favorite spot

The candidates will continue to campaign and travel, especially around battleground states this week.

Trump is scheduled Tuesday to visit Savannah, Georgia, where he will give an afternoon campaign speech about lowering taxes for business owners.

Walz is scheduled to head back to his home state of Minnesota Tuesday for a campaign reception there.

Harris is heading to Pennsylvania Wednesday for a campaign rally and then she’ll travel to Arizona on Friday and Nevada on Sunday.

Trump is stopping in Mint Hill, North Carolina, on Wednesday to give remarks about the importance of making goods in the U.S. His running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, will travel to Traverse City, Michigan, on Wednesday to rally supporters.

Vance on Thursday will give a campaign speech on the economy in Macon, Georgia, and then host a voter mobilization drive in Flowery Branch, Georgia.

On Friday, Trump is scheduled to rally supporters in Walker, Michigan and in the evening hold a town hall in Warren, Michigan.

Jennifer Shutt contributed to this report.

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School shooting damage lasts for years, survivors tell panel of U.S. House Democrats

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 24 Sep 2024 18:35:58 +0000

Flowers, plush toys and wooden crosses are placed at a memorial dedicated to the victims of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on June 3, 2022. Nineteen students and two teachers were killed on May 24, 2022, after an 18-year-old gunman opened fire inside the school. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The devastating effects of school shootings continue well after shootings occur, according to survivors, experts and educators who spoke at a roundtable U.S. House Oversight and Reform Committee Democrats held Monday.

Democrats scheduled the discussion after the recent school shooting in Georgia, where two students and two teachers were killed. Witnesses told the panel the psychological trauma of a school shooting lingers long beyond the events themselves.

“In the months and years after a mass shooting, young people injured or wounded in the attack experience continuing fear, pain, trauma and disorientation, and struggle to hang on to what is left of their lives,” the top Democrat on the committee, Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, said.

The roundtable came just after the one-year anniversary of the White House establishing its Office of Gun Violence Prevention. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are scheduled to speak about gun violence at the White House Thursday.

There have been 404 mass shootings this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a group that studies gun violence in the U.S.

Several educators at the roundtable advocated for Congress to provide more funding for schools to address the long-lasting effects of a school shooting.

“There’s not a time period when the trauma is going to disappear,” Frank DeAngelis, who was the principal of Columbine High School during the 1999 mass shooting in Colorado, said.

DeAngelis is also a founding member of the National Association of Secondary School Principals Principal Recovery Network, which is a network to help educators in the aftermath of a school shooting.

Greg Johnson, a principal at West Liberty-Salem High School in West Liberty, Ohio, said that even though no student died at his school’s shooting in 2017, students and faculty had lasting trauma.

“Hundreds of students heard the piercing shotgun blasts, and those same hundreds barricaded the doors of their classrooms before they evacuated and in random ditches and across fields in search of safety,” he said. “Many were traumatized, though almost all tried their very best to hide it by putting on a mask of strength and normalcy. Our students suffered in silence.”

Sarah Burd-Sharps, the senior director of research at Everytown for Gun Safety, added that the economic cost of gun violence is estimated at more than $550 billion a year.

Mental health funding

Patricia Greer, principal at Marshall County High School in Benton, Kentucky, said that while the bipartisan gun safety bill that Congress passed in 2022 provided substantial funding for mental health, Congress should consider increasing such funding to help students and staff recover from trauma.

“Schools are uniquely positioned to provide mental health support, but they need our help to meet the growing demand,” Greer said.

She pushed for Congress to consider increasing funding for Title II and Title IV to support professional development for educators and expand school-based mental health services. Those titles refer to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which provides federal grants to schools.

“Recovery requires sustained support and resources,” she said. “By increasing funding for … Title II to $2.4 billion, and Title IV to $1.48 billion, we can provide schools with the resources they need to prevent tragedies and support students through trauma.”

Melissa Alexander, whose son survived the Covenant School shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, said “a mass shooting is not something you get over.”

She said her then 9-year-old son called her during the shooting, begging for her to save him.

“He prepared to die,” she said.

Alexander, who is now a firearm safety advocate, said that even though she is in a deep-red state, nearly 75% of residents support some type of red flag laws. Such laws allow courts to order the temporary removal of a firearm from people at risk of harming themselves or others.

Despite the widespread support, state lawmakers have not taken action, she said.

“It’s not translating up to the (state) Legislature,” she said.

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Gunman who allegedly targeted Trump offered $150K to anyone who could ‘finish the job’

Ariana Figueroa — Mon, 23 Sep 2024 17:08:58 +0000

ormer President Donald Trump walks to speak to the media after being found guilty following his hush money trial at Manhattan Criminal Court on May 30, 2024 in New York City. (Seth Wenig-Pool/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors Monday said the man accused of trying to assassinate former President Donald Trump at his private golf club in Florida stalked the GOP presidential nominee for a month and in a note offered $150,000 to anyone who could “finish the job,” according to a new court filing.

Federal prosecutors detailed how Ryan Routh left a handwritten note that criticized Trump’s policy in the Middle East, specifically ending U.S. involvement in the Iran nuclear deal.

“This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you,” read the note, according to the court filing. “I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster. It is up to you now to finish the job; and I will offer $150,000 to whomever can complete the job.”

Prosecutors said cell phone records showed Routh was located near “Trump International and the former President’s residence at Mar-a-Lago” from Aug. 18 until Sept. 15 — the day of the attempted assassination.

Law enforcement officers also found in their search of Routh’s car, after he was detained, a “handwritten list of dates in August, September, and October 2024 and venues where the former President had appeared or was expected to be present,” according to the court filing.

The FBI is investigating the incident as an apparent assassination attempt, following the first assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, where Trump sustained an injury to his ear. Trump was not injured at his Florida golf club and the U.S. Secret Service confirmed that Routh did not fire his weapon.

However, Florida’s Republican state Attorney General Ashley Moody is challenging the FBI’s jurisdiction as lead agency in the investigation.

In a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, she argues that because Trump is a Florida resident, the Sunshine State “understandably desires to investigate violations of its own laws, including attempted murder.”

Moody also urged Wray that the FBI and Department of Justice not invoke U.S. code that would suspend state and local jurisdiction in a federal investigation, and instead allow Florida authorities to have access to evidence of the shooting.

“To be clear, I believe it would be a grave mistake for the federal government to invoke this provision, and I urge you to cooperate with the State’s investigation rather than seek to frustrate it,” she wrote.

Moody asked Wray to clarify by Friday if the federal government is invoking that provision, United States Code Section 351 of Title 18, (f).

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has also argued that Florida should conduct its own investigation. He signed an executive order last week to assign the incident to the Office of Statewide Prosecutor, which Moody will supervise.

Trump issued a lengthy statement late Monday that criticized the Department of Justice and FBI and accused the agencies of “mishandling and downplaying the second assassination attempt on my life since July.”

“If the DOJ and FBI cannot do their job honestly and without bias, and hold the aspiring assassin responsible to the full extent of the Law, Governor Ron DeSantis and the State of Florida have already agreed to take the lead on the investigation and prosecution,” Trump said in a statement. “Florida charges would be much more serious than the ones the FBI has announced.”

The new court filing came in advance of Routh’s Monday court appearance in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Last week, Routh was charged with possession of a firearm as a convicted felon and with obliterating the serial number on a firearm, according to court records. He faces up to 20 years in prison.

This article has been updated with new information.

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Health and farmworker advocates urge ban of herbicide linked to Parkinson’s

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 18 Sep 2024 11:30:53 +0000

Scott Faber of the Environmental Working Group speaks Tuesday, Sept. 17, at a Capitol Hill briefing urging the EPA to ban the use of the herbicide paraquat dichloride to protect farmworkers (Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom).

WASHINGTON — Public health advocates and farmworkers called for a federal ban on a toxic herbicide they say led to their Parkinson’s disease during a Tuesday briefing for congressional staffers.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will determine next year if the herbicide, paraquat dichloride, should have its license renewed for another 15 years. The herbicide is used for controlling weeds in agriculture settings. It’s currently banned in more than 70 countries and has several serious health conditions it’s linked to, such as cancer and increases the likelihood of developing Parkinson’s disease.

Nora Jackson, a former farmworker of Indiana, said that her cousin, whose job it was to spray paraquat on farms, developed Parkinson’s at 55 years old. Signs of Parkinson’s usually appear around 60 years old.

“Farmworkers often have to do extremely risky jobs … but it doesn’t have to be that way,” Jackson said. “It is possible to have an agriculture system that does not depend so heavily on paraquat and it does not have to be a pesticide that puts so many people’s lives at risk.”

The disease has drastically affected his life, Jackson added.

“He now relies heavily on medication and uses a walking stick to be able to walk every day,” she said.

The briefing on the health risks of paraquat was hosted by the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, which is an alliance for farmworker women, and the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit that produces research and advocates for public health.

The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research was established by the actor who starred in blockbusters Back to the Future, Doc Hollywood and Teen Wolf. Fox was diagnosed with early onset Parkinson’s at the age of 29.

Ban necessary

The EPA has until Jan. 17 to make a decision on paraquat’s future availability.

Advocates at Tuesday’s event called for the agency to deny paraquat’s license renewal, saying other regulations to reduce exposure to the herbicide have come up short.

“Keep in mind that people have been using this chemical as directed, and are still developing Parkinson’s disease,” Scott Faber, Environmental Working Group’s senior vice president of government affairs, said. “So putting more restrictions on how it’s used, when it’s used, what equipment you use, and so on, is not the answer.”

Parkinson’s disease affects the nervous system and causes unintended shakiness, trouble with balance and stiffness. There is no cure.

The California Legislature is moving to ban the herbicide.

David Jilbert, of Valley City, Ohio, a former farmworker with a background in engineering, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2021.

“As a longtime environmental engineer, I understood the importance of personal protection equipment, and I particularly followed all safety protocols,” he said.

He sold his vineyard in 2019 because he wasn’t feeling well and his hands were beginning to move slowly.

“My diagnosis changed everything, affecting every aspect of my life, from physical capabilities to emotional wellbeing, financial stability,” he said. “There is no cure for Parkinson’s. It is degenerative and it will only get worse, not better.”

Charlene Tenbrink of Winters, California, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2020. She worked on her family farm from 1993 to 2000 where she would mix, load and spray paraquat.

Tenbrink said she felt let down by the federal government because she was unaware of the health risks that paraquat could pose.

“We’ve been trying to change this,” she said, “for a long time.”

U.S. House GOP sets up fight over noncitizen voting in bill averting government shutdown

Ariana Figueroa — Mon, 09 Sep 2024 19:53:28 +0000

The U.S. House as it returns from a five-week recess is preparing to vote on a stopgap spending bill that also includes a provision to bar noncitizens from voting in federal elections (Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom).

WASHINGTON — As Congress returns from a five-week recess Monday, House Republicans have attached a provision to bar noncitizens from voting in federal elections — which is already unlawful — to a stopgap funding bill that is already teeing up a battle with the Senate and White House.

The GOP drive in Congress echoes state lawmakers’ push for ballot measures this November that would bar noncitizens from voting in Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Wisconsin.

It also comes in the heat of the presidential campaign, as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump repeatedly calls for mass deportations of undocumented immigrants and faces the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, in a crucial Tuesday night debate.

Current federal government spending will expire Oct. 1, so Congress must pass a continuing resolution, or CR, to approve temporary spending beyond that date or risk a shutdown.

The measure that requires proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections, which U.S. House Republicans and some vulnerable Democrats passed in July, has been added by the House GOP to a CR that would extend spending until March 28. A vote by the House is expected this week.

The White House on Monday vowed President Joe Biden would issue a veto if Congress passed the measure in that form.

“Instead of meeting the security and disaster needs of the Nation, this bill includes unrelated cynical legislation that would do nothing to safeguard our elections, but would make it much harder for all eligible Americans to register to vote and increase the risk that eligible voters are purged from voter rolls,” the White House said in a statement Monday. “It is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in Federal elections—it is a Federal crime punishable by prison and fines.”

Senate opposition

The voting language is a nonstarter among Senate Democrats, who hold a slim majority in the chamber.

“As we have said repeatedly, avoiding a government shutdown requires bipartisanship, not a bill drawn up by one party,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray of Washington said in a joint statement Friday.

“If Speaker Johnson drives House Republicans down this highly partisan path, the odds of a shutdown go way up, and Americans will know that the responsibility of a shutdown will be on the House Republicans’ hands,” they continued.

Democrats have argued that the bill is an attempt to sow distrust in U.S. elections ahead of November elections.

House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana has stressed that noncitizen voting in federal elections is an issue, although research has found it rarely happens.

“As the 2024 election nears, it is imperative that Congress does everything within our power to protect the integrity of our nation’s election system,” he said in a statement.

The bill is also supported by Trump.

In April, Johnson while at Trump’s residence in Palm Beach, Florida, announced the House would pass a bill relating to noncitizen voting. The former president has often falsely blamed voting by large numbers of undocumented people for his 2016 opponent Hillary Clinton as the reason he lost the popular vote.

Other Democrats objected to passing a CR that would last until next year.

The top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, criticized the six-month measure because it is “shortchanging veterans and jeopardizing their care by kicking the can down the road until March.”

“A continuing resolution to the end of March provides Republicans with more leverage to attempt to force their unpopular cuts to services that American families depend on to make ends meet,” she said in a statement.

Texas congressman spearheads bill

The original noncitizen voting bill, H.R.8281, was first introduced by Texas GOP Rep. Chip Roy, a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus. It passed 221-198, with five Democrats voting with Republicans, but stalled in the Senate.

Those five Democrats who voted in support of the measure are: Reps. Jared Golden of Maine, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Donald Davis of North Carolina, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington.

Under current U.S. law, only citizens can vote in federal elections, but the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 prohibits states from confirming citizenship status.

Along with the ballot measures, hundreds of Republican state legislators have also signed on to a letter by the Only Citizens Vote Coalition urging Congress to pass a bill to bar noncitizens from voting in federal elections.

The Only Citizens Vote Coalition includes election denier activists, organizations headed by former Trump aides and anti-immigrant groups. It was founded by Cleta Mitchell, a key figure who tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election and is now running a grassroots organization to aggressively monitor elections in November.

Five of the eight states — Idaho, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Wisconsin — with votes set on ballot measures have state legislators who sponsored bills to put the question on the ballot and are signed on to the letter by Only Citizens Vote.

Pocketbook issues rank high for Latino voters in 2024 election, survey finds

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 04 Sep 2024 19:31:03 +0000

(George Frey/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — Latino voters are concerned with the high cost of living, the minimum wage and rising housing costs heading into the November elections, according to a comprehensive survey released Wednesday by UnidosUS, the largest Hispanic civil rights and advocacy center in the nation.

“Laying out a coherent economic policy agenda that will resonate with Latinos … would go a long way, I think, for our community,” Janet Murguía, the president and CEO of UnidosUS, said on a call with reporters detailing the results of the survey.

The survey included 3,000 eligible Hispanic voters who were interviewed in either English or Spanish, from Aug. 5-23, with oversampling of residents of Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Florida, Texas and California. The poll, conducted by BSP Research, had a margin of error of plus or minus 1.8 percentage points.

Murguía said Latinos are the second-largest voting-age population and 1 in 5 of them will be casting ballots for the first time in a presidential election this November.

“Top of mind are pocketbook issues,” she said. “Hispanic voters are most deeply concerned, like many of their fellow Americans, about the rising cost of living.”

Another issue that Latinos strongly supported is access to abortion. By a 71% to 21% margin, Latinos oppose abortion bans, according to the survey.

“They do not support making it illegal,” Murguía said.

Minimum-wage workers

Wages and jobs that provide economic security are a top priority for Latino voters, Gary Segura, who conducted the research poll for UnidosUS, said.

Latino workers are disproportionately workers who earn the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, which has not increased since 2009. If the federal minimum wage had kept pace with inflation, it would be around $24 an hour, according to the AFL-CIO.

“The lived economy for Latinos is different than the lived economy for the nation as a whole,” Segura said.

Segura said during the poll, interviewers followed up with respondents on their concerns about jobs and wages and found that being able to afford necessities like food and housing were top issues.

“People are struggling to make ends meet,” he said.

The number one response was that “jobs don’t pay enough, or I have to take a second job to make ends meet,” Segura said. “We talk a lot about the low levels of unemployment in this society now, which is certainly good news, but the issue is that many of those jobs do not pay enough for the holder of that job to essentially pay their basic living expenses.”

Opinions on immigration

Murguía noted that immigration, which the Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump, has made a core campaign issue, ranks fifth in priorities among Latino voters, tied with concern about gun violence and too-easy access to assault weapons.

“We want to be crystal clear that Latino voters overall are not buying into campaign tactics that demonize immigrants,” Murguía said. “They know the difference between those who mean us harm and those who are contributing to the fabric of our nation.”

Latino voters strongly support a legal pathway to citizenship for those in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, referred to as Dreamers, and for long-term undocumented immigrants, the survey found.

Trump has promised mass deportations should he win a second term, a policy issue that has “virtually no support” by Latino voters sampled in the survey, Segura said.

Segura added that while Trump has campaigned on the issue, his promise to launch mass deportations is not particularly well known in Latino communities.

“Many of the people we speak to believe that (Trump) will do it if he can, but they just don’t actually believe that he can pull that off,” Segura said. “So there’s both a lack of awareness of these really draconian measures or proposals and then a lack of belief that they would actually come to pass.”

He added that he thinks it’s an opportunity for Democrats to campaign on the issue, but Vice President Kamala Harris has mainly criticized Trump for tanking a bipartisan border security deal.

“Our own results suggest that the primary border concern comes from voters who lean in the GOP direction in the first place, and so I don’t see a lot of movement there or a lot of risk for (Democrats), particularly in targeted advertisements and Hispanic voters,” Segura said.

‘Dismissive and diminishing language’

The poll found that 55% of those Latinos had not been contacted by either political party this year.

“We often hear a really dismissive and diminishing language about Latino participation in elections,” Segura said. “‘Latinos don’t vote as often as they should. Latinos will let you down’ and so forth, and no one ever wants to address the elephant in the room, which is that no one is asking Latinos to vote.”

The Harris campaign last month launched a bilingual WhatsApp campaign to target Latino voters. Michelle Villegas, the national Latino engagement director for the Harris campaign, said during a Hispanic Caucus meeting at the Democratic National Convention that the Latino vote is key to victory in three battleground states — Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania.

The survey also found that running mates had an impact on Latino voters. Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, gave her a 3-point boost, Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, made his rating drop by 3 points.

“Vance has (a) negative impact on the Republican ticket, which is consistent with his low favorability among Latino voters,” according to the survey.

While Democrats have an advantage with Latino voters, and Harris has seen a boost in support compared to when President Joe Biden was in the race, she is still not reaching the levels of Latino support seen in previous elections, Clarissa Martinez De Castro, the vice president of the Latino Vote Initiative at UnidosUS, said.

“There is work to be done to reach the levels of support Democrats need and had achieved in previous elections, and more intense communication with these voters is needed, particularly on economic issues and immigration,” Martinez De Castro said.

Equis Research, which conducts research and polling specifically about Latino voters, found in a recent poll that Harris has gained significant support from Latinos but that Harris “remains a few points shy of what Biden received in 2020” across battleground states.

Federal judge pauses program that grants protections for undocumented spouses

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 15:28:35 +0000

A federal judge has temporarily blocked a Biden administration plan to give deportation protection to undocumented people married to U.S. citizens for at least 10 years (David McNew/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — A Texas federal judge late Monday sided with 16-Republican led states to temporarily block a Biden administration program that grants deportation protections for undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens and a potential pathway to citizenship.

The ruling by Judge J. Campbell Barker of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, is an administrative stay, meaning no applications can be processed while the case is ongoing. The Department of Homeland Security began accepting applications last week.

“The claims are substantial and warrant closer consideration than the court has been able to afford to date,” Barker, who former president Donald Trump appointed, wrote in his order.

A DHS spokesperson said the agency will defend the program, known as Keeping Families Together, in court.

“Keeping Families Together enables U.S. citizens and their family members to live without fear of separation, consistent with fundamental American values,” a DHS spokesperson said. “The Department of Homeland Security will comply with the court’s decision, including continuing to accept applications, while we defend Keeping Families Together in court.”

DHS is still allowed to collect applications for the program, but not allowed to approve them, according to the order from Barker. Applications that have already been processed and a parole in place granted, are not impacted by the current stay.

The states, which filed the suit last week, are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming.

They are being represented by American First Legal, an organization established by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller — the architect of Trump’s hard-line immigration policies.

Those states argue that the Biden administration overreached its authority in creating the program and they argue the program would financially harm them if that group of undocumented people — roughly 500,000 — are allowed to remain in the country.

In his order, Barker set a court timeline that could deliver a decision by mid-October, right before the presidential election. Both sides have until Oct. 10 to submit their briefs.

“The court does not, however, express any ultimate conclusions about the success or likely success of those claims,” Barker wrote. “As with most administrative stays, the court has simply undertaken a screening, ‘first-blush’ review of the claims and what is at stake in the dispute.”

President Joe Biden in June unveiled the program, which is a one-time action that applies to long-term undocumented people married to U.S. citizens for 10 years as of June 17 this year. It also applies to their children. It’s expected to roughly include 50,000 children who are undocumented but have an immigrant parent married to a U.S. citizen.

The program allows for those undocumented spouses and their children to apply for a green card under certain requirements, which DHS will review on a case-by-case basis.

Under current U.S. immigration law, if a noncitizen enters the country without authorization, they are ineligible for permanent legal status and would need to leave the U.S. and then reenter through a green card application by their U.S. spouse. It’s a lengthy process that can take years.

GOP states aim to halt Biden program protecting some noncitizen spouses from deportation

Ariana Figueroa — Mon, 26 Aug 2024 20:18:45 +0000

Immigrants line up at a remote U.S. Border Patrol processing center after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border on Dec. 7, 2023, in Lukeville, Ariz. (John Moore/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — Texas and 15 states Friday filed a suit in federal court to block the Biden administration’s program that protects some people in the country without authorization who are married to U.S. citizens from deportation and grants them a pathway to citizenship.

States in the suit, which was filed in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, argue that the Department of Homeland Security unlawfully created the program and that those 16 states will be financially harmed by its implementation.

“Longstanding federal law prohibits aliens who entered the United States unlawfully from obtaining most immigration benefits,” the suit reads. “This includes obtaining lawful permanent resident status — without first leaving the United States and waiting outside the United States for the requisite time — based on an approved family-based or employment-based visa petition.”

The other states in the suit are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Wyoming.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.

Applications for the program, known as a parole in place, opened last week.

The Biden administration created the program because under current U.S. immigration law, if a noncitizen enters the country without authorization, they are ineligible for permanent legal status and would need to leave the U.S. and then reenter through a green card application by their U.S. spouse, which is a lengthy process that can take years.

America First Legal is representing the states. The organization was established by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller, the architect of the former president’s hard-line immigration policies.

The program is a one-time action and it applies to people who have been in the U.S. long term without legal authorization and who are married to a U.S. citizens.

It’s estimated that roughly 500,000 noncitizen spouses and their children will be eligible to apply for lawful permanent residence — a green card — under certain requirements. It’s expected to roughly include 50,000 children who are noncitizens and have an immigrant parent married to a U.S. citizen.

Those qualifications include that a noncitizen must have resided in the U.S. for 10 years as of Monday, June 17, 2024, and be married to a U.S. citizen since that date as well. That spouse who is a noncitizen also cannot be deemed a security threat.

Trump promises mass deportations of undocumented people. How would that work?

Ariana Figueroa — Fri, 23 Aug 2024 19:17:40 +0000

A person holds a sign that reads “Mass Deportation Now” on the third day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 17, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Leon Neal/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — “Mass deportation now!” is a catchphrase for the Trump presidential campaign, as the Republican nominee proposes a crackdown on immigration that would oust thousands of undocumented people.

Often citing a deportation operation enacted by former President Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s, former President Donald Trump has repeatedly vowed in campaign rallies that he plans to not only go back to the tough immigration policies of his first term in office, but expand them greatly.

“We’re going to have the largest deportation,” Trump said at a June campaign rally in Racine, Wisconsin. “We have no choice.”

The crowd responded with a chant: “Send them back. Send them back. Send them back.”

Mass deportation would be a broad, multipronged effort under Trump’s vision. The plan includes invoking an 18th-century law; reshuffling law enforcement at federal agencies; transferring funds within programs in the Department of Homeland Security; and forcing greater enforcement of immigration laws.

But whether a Trump administration could accomplish a mass deportation is doubtful. Historians, lawyers and immigration and economic experts interviewed by States Newsroom said removal of the more than 11 million undocumented people in the country would require enormous amounts of resources and overcoming legal hurdles. The effects on the U.S. economic and social fabric would be profound, they said.

“I don’t think it will happen,” Donald Kerwin, a senior researcher on migration at the University of Notre Dame, said of mass deportations. “But what it can do is it can make the lives of the undocumented and their families miserable.”

GOP support

Trump repeatedly has pledged mass deportation.

At the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July, delegates waved “Mass Deportation Now” signs as Trump said “to keep our families safe, the Republican platform promises to launch the largest deportation operation in the history of our country.”

In a March rally in Dayton, Ohio, Trump said some undocumented immigrants were not “people.”

“I don’t know if you call them people,” Trump said. “In some cases they’re not people, in my opinion, but I’m not allowed to say that because the radical left says that’s a terrible thing to say.”

Trump’s campaign message comes as the Biden administration has dealt with the largest number of migrant encounters at the southern border in 20 years and immigration remains a top issue for voters.

However, since President Joe Biden signed a recent executive order, border crossings have fallen to their lowest level since he took office.

The GOP and Trump have now set their sights on the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris.

House Republicans already led a resolution disapproving of Harris’ handling of the southern border and labeling her the “Border Czar,” a title she was given by the media. Her campaign has argued she never had such an official title and her involvement with immigration has been focused on root causes of migration in Central and South America, rather than domestic immigration.

Even though Biden is no longer in the race, and has undertaken his own crackdown on immigration, he warned in mid-June, during an announcement of protections offered for the spouses of long-term undocumented people, that Trump would undertake mass deportations.

“Now he’s proposing to rip spouses and children from their families and homes and communities and place them in detention camps,” Biden said of Trump. “He’s actually saying these things out loud, and it’s outrageous.”

How does the public feel?

Polls have found Americans are split on the idea of mass deportations but Republicans are more supportive.

A recent CBS News poll that found nearly 6 in 10 voters favor a new government agency that would deport all undocumented immigrants. Of those voters, one-third were Democrats and 9 in 10 were Republicans.

The Trump campaign did not respond to multiple requests from States Newsroom for comment on the specifics of how a second Trump administration would plan to carry out mass deportations.

The massive deportation campaign that Trump often cites in his campaign rallies was conducted under the Eisenhower administration in the summer of 1954, with a pejorative, racist name attached to it.

“Following the Eisenhower model, we will carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” Trump said at a September rally last year in Ankeny, Iowa.

But what the Trump campaign is proposing is not an Eisenhower-style crackdown, said Michael Clemens, a professor in the Department of Economics at George Mason University.

“That policy was instituted hand-in-hand with a crucial other arm of the policy,” he said — which was that lawful work pathways for Mexicans to the U.S. were nearly tripled at the same time as the mass deportations.

“We’ve heard zero about substantial increases in lawful migration pathways from the people who are now talking about an Eisenhower-style crackdown,” Clemens said. “What they’re proposing is not an Eisenhower-style crackdown — it is something that the Eisenhower administration understood would not work and therefore it did not do.”

Additionally, the Eisenhower program was not as successful as thought.

The Einshower administration claimed that it deported 1 million people back to Mexico, but the real number is a couple hundred thousand, said Eladio Bobadilla, an assistant history professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

“It wasn’t really about getting rid of immigrants in any real sense,” he said. “It was a way to sell to the American public that the problem had been solved.”

While one agency of the Eisenhower administration was deporting Mexicans — and often U.S. citizens of Mexican descent — another agency was sometimes bringing those same workers back in through the so-called Bracero program, which was created through an executive order by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1942.

States and local governments also worked in tandem with the 1950s deportation operation, something unlikely to happen under a second Trump administration, said David Bier, the director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

“You also had the cooperation of the employers in those areas, because the Eisenhower administration was totally explicit that all the people that we’re deporting, you’re gonna get workers back legally through the Bracero guest worker program,” said Bier.

Obama deportation

The most recent mass deportation campaign came during the Obama administration, said Clemens, who studies the economic effects of migration.

That was the Secure Communities program, which was a set of agreements between local law enforcement and federal level immigration enforcement officials such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. Localities shared information about noncitizens who were encountered by local law enforcement, such as at traffic stops.

“Our most recent experience with mass deportation at the federal level, mostly under the Obama administration, directly harmed U.S. workers,” Clemens said.

The program was slowly rolled out, from 2008 to 2014, but over those six years nearly half a million workers were deported.

For every 10 workers who were deported, one U.S. job was eliminated, Clemens said.

“The net effect is that Secure Communities cost jobs for Americans across the country,” he said.

In a recent paper for the Center for Migration Studies of New York, Kerwin and Robert Warren found that mass deportations would financially harm U.S. families, especially the more than 3 million mixed-status families.

“The household income in those households plunges, and drops all of these families, or a high percentage of them, into poverty,” Kerwin said.

Of those mixed-status families, meaning some family members have different citizenship or immigration status, about 6.6 million members are U.S. citizens, said Warren, a senior visiting fellow at the center, a think tank that studies domestic and international migration patterns.

“So you say, ‘We took out one undocumented immigrant,’ but you damaged a family of U.S. citizens,” Warren said.

Expanded executive authority

The early architects of the Trump administration’s immigration policies such as Steven Miller and Ken Cuccinelli have laid out a second term that would expand the use of executive authority to carry out mass deportations and curtail legal immigration.

Such policies include limiting humanitarian visas and parole and moving to end Temporary Protected Status, known as TPS, said ManoLasya Perepa, policy and practice counsel with the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Like the first Trump administration, Perepa anticipates that there will be a slew of lawsuits to file injunctions, such as preventing the ending of TPS.

The Trump administration dealt with a flurry of lawsuits over an order to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects a little over half a million undocumented people brought into the United States as children without authorization.

The Supreme Court eventually blocked it and kept the program, but DACA is still at risk of being deemed unlawful in a separate suit that is likely to head again to the high court.

“I think anybody with a status that keeps getting renewed is really, really at risk,” she said. “All you’re doing is driving people into the shadows.”

With the courts likely to get involved, Trump has said he wants to go back to his policy that expanded expedited removals, which means if an undocumented person is in the country for two years without a court hearing or any type of authorization, they can be deported without a hearing before a judge.

That type of removal is limited to 100 miles from a border zone, but the Trump administration expanded that to the rest of the country.

“The reality is, if the (Trump) administration increases interior enforcement, technically, all of these people could be detained,” Perepa said.

The Migration Policy Institute, a think tank that researches migration, has estimated that “the expansion of expedited removal to the U.S. interior could apply to as many as 288,000 people.”

Miller, a senior White House adviser during the Trump administration, said on the right-wing podcast “The Charlie Kirk Show” in November 2023 that the U.S. military would need to be involved for those mass deportations to Mexico, which is “why Trump has talked about invoking the Alien Enemies Act.”

“Because of the logistical challenges involved in removing…you would need to build an extremely large holding area for illegal immigrants that at any given points in time, you know, could hold upwards of 50, 60, 70,000 illegal aliens while you are waiting to send them someplace, somewhere that would be willing to accept them,” Miller said.

The Alien and Sedition Act, an 18th-century wartime law, allows the executive branch to deport any noncitizen from a country that the U.S. is at war with and deport any noncitizen deemed dangerous.

The law can also be used for extraordinary measures that are not deportation, including the last time it was invoked after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. It led to the internment camps of more than 120,000 people of Japanese descent, more than half of whom were U.S. citizens, as well as German and Italian nationals, during World War II.

Trump has vowed to use a title within the Alien and Sedition Acts to target drug dealers, gang members and cartel members.

“I will invoke the Alien Enemy Act, to remove all known or suspected gang members from the United States ending the scourge of illegal alien gang violence once and for all,” Trump said at a campaign stop in Reno, Nevada.

Cuccinelli, a former attorney general of Virginia and acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services during the Trump administration, wrote the policy section for the Department of Homeland Security for the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 – a conservative “battle plan” for the next Republican president.

In that section, he laid out recommendations for an incoming Republican administration to curtail the use of temporary work visas for workers in agriculture, construction and hospitality; prevent U.S. citizens from qualifying for federal housing subsidies if they live with someone who is a noncitizen; and require driver’s license information to be shared with federal authorities; among other policies.

The Heritage Foundation did not respond to a request for comment.

Punishing states

In a lengthy interview Trump conducted with Time magazine, he said he would withhold federal funding from states and local governments that don’t cooperate in deportation proceedings.

That could violate the 10th Amendment in the Constitution, said Mae Ngai, a historian and Asian American studies professor at Columbia University.

“States and municipalities cannot be coerced to enforcing federal laws,” she said, adding that immigration law is a federal matter. “You cannot force the police department or sheriffs … to pick up immigrants.”

State and local cooperation in detaining immigrants could be a challenge, said Julia Gelatt, associate director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute.

Legal challenges make it costly for local law enforcement to detain people solely to wait for immigration proceedings, and many local governments have decided not to hold people beyond their criminal detentions.

Funding issues

Deploying the military for immigration enforcement and constructing detention camps would also come with a large price tag.

Those large expenses would have to be approved by Congress, which may not be a willing partner.

There are ways to get around the legislative branch, such as reshuffling money within the Department of Homeland Security, but they come with downsides, Bier of the Cato Institute said.

“That’s politically risky because if there’s any kind of natural disaster, and you’re using money to deport people that can have some big blowbacks in the affected areas,” he said.

The Trump administration did this in 2019, when it transferred $271 million from the Federal Emergency Management Association to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It also transferred $23.8 million from the Transportation Security Administration to ICE.

Trump could also reassign law enforcement agencies to tackle immigration enforcement, Bier said, but he would face pushback from affected agencies that have their own priorities.

“They’re not going to want to cooperate with just giving up on everything they’re trying to do,” Bier said.

Democratic women governors showcased at DNC event with ‘Veep’ star Julia Louis-Dreyfus

Ariana Figueroa — Thu, 22 Aug 2024 11:54:00 +0000

Kansas Gov. and DGA chairwoman Laura Kelly during a Democratic Women Governors panel with Julia Louis-Dreyfus on Aug. 21, 2024, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago (Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom).

CHICAGO — Actress and climate activist Julia Louis-Dreyfus asked eight Democratic women governors Wednesday if she would be ready for public office after playing a vice president and president on the hit cable TV show “Veep.”

“You’re more qualified than Donald Trump, don’t worry about it,” New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul quickly replied, to laughter in the packed room.

Louis-Dreyfus moderated a panel made up of the Democratic women governors at the Democratic National Convention. The political leaders in their roughly hour-long discussion touched on the unique benefits of being a woman in politics, and talked about how they are planning for potential interference and problems in the upcoming presidential elections.

Fake electors

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs said she’s working closely with the secretary of state and attorney general to ensure that Arizona’s electoral votes are cast and to prepare for “every single scenario that comes our way.”

“I think the challenges that we saw in 2020 are going to look like kindergarten compared to what we see now,” she said. “But we are ready.”

A grand jury indicted 18 people in a fake elector scheme that aimed to install Donald Trump as president after he lost the state of Arizona in the 2020 election.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer faced a similar scenario, in which six individuals now face felony charges for submitting false electoral votes for Trump in 2020.

Whitmer said her state legislature has worked to pass legislation to protect election workers and make it easier for people to partake in early voting.

“We know that there are going to be all sorts of efforts” to influence the results, she said.

Louis-Dreyfus noted during Whitmer’s term she’s had to grapple with the coronavirus pandemic, natural disasters and an attempted kidnapping and assassination plot.

“How do you stay afloat … under those circumstances?” she asked.

Whitmer said she keeps a gratitude journal and every day writes down three things that give her joy. She said sometimes the list stretches to 10 items, but other days it is not so long.

“Some days it is just my dog and my bed and tequila,” she said.

Women in state and local politics

Louis-Dreyfus asked why it was important to support women down the ballot, and not just on the national level.

Hobbs said early support is important, and noted that’s how Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, got her start as a San Francisco district attorney in 2003.

“Down ballot races are critical,” Hobbs said.

Several of the governors agreed, noting that’s how they were able to enter politics, through their local elections.

Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek said she got her start in the state legislature. Kotek was the longest-serving speaker in the Oregon House of Representatives and the first openly lesbian speaker, elected in 2013.

“When I became speaker, all the other leadership at the time was male, and you notice when you’re the only one in the room,” she said.

It’s an occurrence that Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey knows, noting last year she became the first woman and open member of the LGBTQ community elected governor in her state.

Whitmer said as a woman in politics, she was often underestimated, which she said she sees as a strength, rather than a limitation.

“There are a lot of different ways that we are treated as compared to male candidates, but I would also say that it is a huge advantage to be underestimated,” she said.

Kansas Gov. and Democratic Governors Association Chair Laura Kelly said she thinks the underestimation that women face in politics “will fade away over time.”

Whitmer nodded: “With President Harris, it will.”

Louis-Dreyfus, who is also a comedian and starred in “Seinfeld,” asked how humor can find a place in politics.

“I think humor is an effective tool when things are hot and tense,” New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said.

Louis-Dreyfus asked the governors why are Republicans “so f****** weird?”

Maine Governor Janet Mills laughed and said she knows Republicans in her state who are planning to vote for Harris because “they don’t have a place to go.”

“They’re not all weird,” she said. “They know the traditional (Republican) party is not about Trump.”

Reproductive rights

Louis-Dreyfus asked how the overturning of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision has affected abortion access in the governors’ states.

Since the conservative Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to an abortion two years ago, Democrats have campaigned on it at the state and federal level. Reproductive right advocates have also led grassroots campaigns to put measures on state ballots to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.

In four states — California, Michigan, Ohio and Vermont — measures to amend the state constitutions to enshrine abortion protections passed, according to health policy organization KFF’s abortion ballot tracker. There are currently seven states with citizen-initiated measures on the ballot in November that will protect abortion access, in Arizona, Nevada, Montana, South Dakota, Colorado, Missouri and Florida.

Hochul said that after the Supreme Court’s ruling, the first thing she did was go to a vigil.

“It broke my heart,” she said.

Hochul said she called the state legislature back for an emergency session to pass legislation to protect medical professionals and patients who travel to New York to access abortion care.

“We let women from other states know this is a safe harbor for you to come here,” she said. “I’m going to fight like hell to get back (abortion rights) for my granddaughter.”

UAW’s Shawn Fain predicts working-class support for Harris-Walz ticket

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 21 Aug 2024 11:00:00 +0000

UAW president Shawn Fain speaks to reporters during a roundtable discussion during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago (Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom).

CHICAGO — United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain told reporters Tuesday that working-class people can see themselves in the new Democratic presidential ticket.

“There’s a very distinct difference in these two people and where they stand with working-class people,” Fain said of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

Fain, who spoke to the Democratic National Convention on its first night on Monday and is often critical of former President Donald Trump, called him a “con artist.”

“He didn’t do a damn thing for autoworkers when he was president,” Fain said, noting that Trump appointed Peter Robb as general counsel to the National Labor Relations Board, who Fain called a “union buster.”

The meeting with the press followed Fain’s remarks on the first night of the convention. The labor leader wore a jacket that he dramatically discarded to reveal a red shirt that read “Trump is a scab,” a term that refers to people who cross the picket lines and don’t support striking workers.

Fain told the crowd at the United Center that Harris would support unions and working-class people.

Unions, a traditionally strong Democratic constituency, have a major presence at the convention.

“Kamala Harris stands shoulder to shoulder with workers when they’re on strike,” he said Monday.

Polling among members

There are more than 400,000 active UAW members, and more than 600 local unions, according to the organization. The union also has nearly 600,000 retired members.

The UAW has already endorsed Harris, as has another major union, the American Federation of Teachers, which represents about 1.8 million members.

Fain said that UAW member polling has been relatively consistent at 56% support for Democrats and about 32% for Republicans, but he thinks there will be bigger support for the Harris-Walz ticket come November.

“I believe our members will be overwhelming behind Kamala Harris, because she brings a new energy to this,” he said.

Fain added that Walz also has strong labor ties.

“Adding Tim Walz as her running mate was a home run,” he said. “He’s a teacher. He’s one of us.”

In Walz’s first solo campaign rally in Michigan, he told a union-heavy crowd that he would prioritize worker-friendly policies. He was a union member as a public school teacher in southern Minnesota before he won a U.S. House seat in 2006.

Fain said if Harris and Walz win the White House, and Democrats take control of both chambers in Congress, he hopes they would attempt passage of worker-friendly policies such as H.R. 20, known as the PRO Act.

However, Fain noted that even if there is a possibility of Democrats controlling both the White House and Congress, there would need to be 60 votes in the Senate to pass the PRO Act, which supports workers’ rights to unionize.

“As far as the filibuster goes, I don’t know where that goes right now,” Fain said of passage of the PRO Act. “I would say we hope so.”

Having the support of unions will help aid Harris in battleground states that boast high union membership such as Pennsylvania and Nevada.

A new Emerson College Polling/RealClearPennsylvania poll found Trump with 49% support in Pennsylvania and Harris down by 1 percentage point.

“Pennsylvania likely voters in unions break for Harris by 15 points, 57% to 42%, while those not in a union and without union members in the household break for Trump, 50% to 48%,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said in a statement. “Those with union members in the household break from Trump, 50% to 42%.”

Before President Joe Biden suspended his reelection bid, he often touted himself as the “most pro-union president.” Biden is also the first president to have walked a picket line with members, when he did so last year.

Fain said that Harris also has strong union ties, noting that she walked the picket line with UAW in 2019.

“I mean, it wasn’t a publicity stunt, wasn’t for the hell of it,” he said. “It’s because that’s who she is.”

Red-state Democratic legislators praise Harris-Walz ticket for invigorating voters

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 00:04:43 +0000

The United Center in Chicago, where the Democratic National Convention is being held. (Jacob Fischler/States Newsroom).

CHICAGO — State legislators from across the country mingled Monday during a Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee meeting at the Democratic National Convention, where they overwhelmingly agreed that the new Harris-Walz presidential ticket has reenergized the party base.

“I think that there is a collective opportunity to bring a whole new set of Democrats, and voters in general, into understanding how really important their statehouses are, and building that for a future where voters better understand why their representation in their statehouses matters so much,” Heather Williams, the president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, said in an interview with States Newsroom.

Democratic state lawmakers from states that typically lean Republican, like Iowa, Tennessee and Oklahoma, said they too have seen an increase in volunteers since Vice President Kamala Harris entered the race as the new Democratic presidential nominee. President Joe Biden stepped down from his reelection bid following a disastrous debate performance and pressure from top Democrats.

Tennessee state Rep. John Ray Clemmons, the House Democratic Caucus chair, said that he’s seeing volunteers not only on the national level, but for Tennessee state House races.

“With this new energy, comes new excitement, and people feel like there’s this new sense of hope and purpose,” he said.

He said the presidential race feels similar to former President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign.

Iowa state Senate Democratic Leader Pam Jochum said that she’s seen an uptick in people wanting to volunteer.

“Iowans are very excited,” she said. “It has spurred on additional fundraising, and we do have people who are … calling us and saying, ‘What can we do to help?’”

State lawmakers added that they’ve seen an even bigger boost in enthusiasm with Harris tapping Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate.

“We haven’t really felt that kind of hope and energy for a while,” Jochum said, adding that Walz “brings common sense and a real passion for our democracy and freedom, and compliments Kamala (Harris) really, really well.”

Oklahoma State Sen. Carri Hicks said that it’s been refreshing to see Walz on the ticket, “who is giving a different face of masculinity, embracing, supporting women … what I consider just true kindness and compassion, in his leadership style.”

Hicks said that Harris’ work on reproductive rights since Roe v. Wade was overturned, and Walz’s frequent mentions of his daughter Hope, who was born with the help of in vitro fertilization, have resonated with voters in her state.

“In my state Senate district, health care is the number one economic engine for the district that I represent,” she said. “So when you’re thinking about access to reproductive care, being able to build a family, I think that it humanizes that story that so many of my constituents have gone through, that so many Americans have gone through.”

In swing states, the reaction was much the same.

North Carolina state House Democratic leader Robert Reives said that reproductive right issues such as abortion, IVF and contraception have played a big part in voter turnout.

“What you definitely see, especially in urban areas, is a recognition by women of all ages that there is a war on women,” he said. “All these rights and opportunities that women should have are suddenly gone.”

Michigan House Speaker Joe Tate said that the energy around the Harris and Walz campaign has been a “shot in the arm.”

“I think we’re going to continue to see that trend just increase with Democrats from the top of the ticket all the way down,” Tate said, adding that he’s hoping to expand Democratic control in the statehouse, as well as have Michigan go blue for Harris.

Since Harris entered the race, The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter moved several battleground states — Arizona, Georgia and Nevada — from “lean Republican” to a “toss-up. “

Harris and Walz have aggressively hit the battleground states already, with less than three months until November. During a Monday breakfast with Wisconsin delegates, another battleground state, Walz encouraged those delegates to keep campaigning until Election Day.

“We’ve got 78 days of hard work,” Walz said. “We can sleep when we’re dead.”

The big moment arrives for Harris: Democratic convention kicks off Monday in Chicago

Ariana Figueroa — Fri, 16 Aug 2024 18:25:55 +0000

Signs marking states’ seating sections are installed and adjusted ahead of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center on Aug. 15, 2024 in Chicago. The convention will be held Aug. 19-22 (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — Just a little over a month after she became a candidate for president in the biggest shakeup in generations of presidential politics, Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday will deliver a widely anticipated speech accepting the Democratic nomination at the party’s convention in Chicago.

Harris’ ascent to the top of the ticket after President Joe Biden changed course and said he would not seek reelection has breathed new life into the Democratic bid, with polls showing Harris — who is already the party’s official nominee after a virtual roll call earlier this month — faring much better than Biden was against Republican rival Donald Trump.

Over the course of four days, Democrats will look to capitalize on their base’s newfound enthusiasm for the campaign, with leading speakers aiming to rally the faithful around the party’s positions on reproductive rights, gun safety and voting rights, while making a strong pitch to young voters. Harris will also be expected to further lay out her policy positions.

Harris’ nomination is historic. The daughter of immigrants, Harris is the first Black and South Asian woman selected to lead a major party ticket. She would be the first woman of any race to guide the nation as chief executive.

The party has not released an official detailed schedule of speakers, but a convention official confirmed that “current and past presidents are expected to participate in convention programming.” Biden and two former presidents, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, as well as former nominee Hillary Clinton, will all speak, according to the New York Times.

Vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is expected to address the convention Wednesday evening, with Harris’ acceptance speech closing out the convention Thursday, the convention official said.

The evening programming block will run from 6:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. Eastern Time on Monday and 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. the rest of the week.

In addition to the usual television broadcasts, the convention will livestream on several social media platforms, including YouTube, X, Instagram and TikTok. The official live stream will be available on DemConvention.com.

Scores of Democratic caucus and council meetings, as well as state delegation breakfasts and gatherings, are also scheduled throughout the week’s daytime hours. Media organizations and outside groups are also holding daytime events that will feature Democratic officeholders and candidates.

Protests are also expected over the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, with the backdrop of a delegation of uncommitted voters who oppose the war.

As many as 25,000 protestors are expected over the course of the convention, according to DemList, a newsletter for Democratic officials and allies.

A contest transformed

Harris’ entry into the race, nearly immediately after Biden announced on July 21 he would no longer seek reelection, energized Democrats distressed over Biden’s poor showings in polls against Trump, whose reelection bid Biden turned back in 2020.

A Monmouth University poll published Aug. 14 showed a huge jump in enthusiasm for Democrats. The survey found 85% of Democratic respondents were excited about the Harris-Trump race. By comparison, only 46% of Democratic respondents said in June they were excited about a Biden-Trump race.

Harris is also seeing better polling numbers in matchups against Trump, with battleground-state and national surveys consistently shifting toward the Democratic ticket since Biden left the race.

Polls of seven battleground states published by The Cook Political Report With Amy Walter on Aug. 14 showed Harris narrowly leading in five states — Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — and tied in Georgia and trailing in Nevada. All were improvements from Biden’s standing in the same poll in May.

An Aug. 14 survey from Quinnipiac University showed Harris with a 48%-45% edge in Pennsylvania. The 3-point advantage for Harris was within the poll’s margin of error.

Democrats hope to carry the momentum through the convention. Polls typically favor a party during and immediately after its national party gathering.

Despite the recent polling, Harris and Walz continue to describe themselves as underdogs in the race.

Campaign themes

In her short time on the campaign trail, Harris has emphasized a few core messages.

She’s made reproductive rights a central focus, including the slogan “We are not going back” in her stump speech after describing Republicans’ position on abortion. Additionally, a Texas woman who had to leave the state for an emergency abortion will speak at the DNC, according to Reuters.

Harris has also played up her background as a prosecutor, drawing a contrast with Trump’s legal troubles.

Walz has highlighted his working-class background and military service, while attacking Republican positions to restrict reproductive rights and ban certain books in schools.

Walz’s first solo campaign stop since Harris selected him as her running mate was at a union convention, where he emphasized his union background as a high school teacher.

Walz was not initially considered the favorite to be Harris’ running mate, but his appeal as a Midwesterner with a record of winning tough elections and enacting progressive policies led to his selection Aug. 6.

Harris has faced criticism for not sitting down for a formal media interview or holding a press conference since she became a candidate.

Platform in flux

Democrats have not finalized their platform for 2024. Adopting a party platform is generally among the official items at a convention.

The party set a draft platform in July just eight days before Biden dropped his reelection bid. The document centered on the theme of “finishing the job” and mentioned Biden, then the presumptive nominee, 50 times and Harris 12.

Party spokespeople did not respond to an inquiry this week about plans for an update to the platform.

Reproductive rights will likely be a focus point of any policy wishlist.

Harris, during her time as vice president, has led the administration’s messaging on reproductive rights after the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion in the summer of 2022.

In her campaign speeches, she has often stressed the need to “trust women” and that the government should not be deciding reproductive health.

Harris has often promised that if she is elected, she will restore those reproductive rights, but unless Democrats control a majority in the U.S. House and 60 Senate votes, it’s unlikely she would be able to achieve that promise.

Since Roe v. Wade was overturned in that Supreme Court decision, Democrats have campaigned on reproductive rights that expand beyond abortion and include protections for in vitro fertilization.

The 2020 party platform focused on recovering from the coronavirus pandemic, the economy, quality health care, investing in education, protecting democracy and combating climate change.

Democrats are likely to continue to criticize the Project 2025 playbook — a blueprint by the Heritage Foundation, a think tank, to implement conservative policies across the federal government should Trump win in November.

Trump has disavowed the document, but has not detailed his own policy plans.

Chicago conventions

The Democratic National Convention will take place in Chicago, a city with a long history of hosting the event. Democrats have held their convention in Chicago 11 times, first in 1864 and most recently in 1996.

This year’s will be the first in-person Democratic National Convention since 2016. It was upended due to the coronavirus pandemic and held virtually in 2020.

Throughout the four-day convention, there will be speeches and side events hosted by state Democratic party leaders.

The ceremonial roll call vote with delegates on the convention floor will take place Tuesday. The vice presidential nomination speech by Walz will be Wednesday night and on Thursday night, Harris will give her nomination acceptance speech.

The city is also preparing for massive protests from several groups on reproductive rights, LGBTQ protections, housing and an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, according to WBEZ News.

The City Council of Chicago in January approved a ceasefire resolution, with Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson the tiebreaker, making it the largest city to call for an end to the Israel-Hamas war, in which more than 40,000 Palestinians have died.

The war followed an Oct. 7 attack from Hamas, in which nearly 1,200 people were killed in Israel and hundreds taken hostage.

Road to nomination

Harris’ acceptance speech will cap a five-year journey to her party’s nomination.

In 2019, the California senator announced a bid for president in the next year’s election, but dropped out before the first primary or caucus votes were cast after she failed to catch on with Democratic voters.

Biden later picked her as a running mate, and the two defeated Trump and then-Vice President Mike Pence in the 2020 election.

Biden launched a reelection campaign for 2024, but stepped aside after a disastrous debate performance in June spurred questions about his ability to campaign and serve for another four-year term.

After Biden bowed out, Harris quickly secured 99% of delegates to become the party’s likely nominee. The virtual five-day vote secured her official nomination.

With less than three months until Election Day, Harris and Walz already have sprinted through battleground states including Arizona, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.

Their campaign has also pulled in more than $300 million, according to the campaign. Official Federal Election Commission records will be released in mid-October.

Harris and Trump have agreed to a Sept. 10 debate hosted by ABC News in Philadelphia. Trump proposed two more debates, and Harris has said she would be open to another one between the first debate and Election Day.

Walz and Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio have agreed to an Oct. 1 debate on CBS News, in New York City.

Walz agrees to Oct. 1 vice presidential debate on CBS

Ariana Figueroa — Thu, 15 Aug 2024 12:08:50 +0000

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks at a Biden-Harris campaign and DNC press conference on July 17 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The press conference was held to address Project 2025 and Republican policies on abortion (Jim Vondruska/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has agreed to a vice presidential debate on Oct. 1 hosted by CBS News.

In a statement, CBS News said it reached out to both presidential campaigns, but it’s unclear if the Republican vice presidential candidate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, will participate in the debate in New York City.

During a late Wednesday interview with Fox News, Vance didn’t confirm if he would partake in the debate, and instead noted he would have to agree to certain conditions.

“I strongly suspect we’re gonna be there on Oct. 1,” he said. “We’re not gonna walk into a fake news media garbage debate. We’re gonna do a real debate, and if CBS agrees to it, then certainly we’ll do it.”

The Donald Trump campaign did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.

“See you on October 1, JD.,” Walz wrote on X, responding to CBS.

CBS News gave both campaigns four dates to choose among for a vice presidential debate — Sept. 17, Sept. 24, Oct. 1 and Oct. 8.

Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris are scheduled for a presidential debate Sept. 10, hosted by ABC News.

The first presidential debate, hosted by CNN on June 27, led to President Joe Biden suspending his campaign after a disastrous performance that rattled his party’s confidence that the president could beat Trump in November.

Trump agrees to Sept. 10 debate with Harris, claims two more upcoming

Ariana Figueroa — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 21:33:42 +0000

Former President Donald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Feb. 24, 2024 in National Harbor, Maryland. Trump said Thursday he would debate Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris on Sept. 10 (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said Thursday he has agreed to debate Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris on Sept. 10, a reversal from his position last week that he would not participate in the ABC News event.

During a press conference at Trump’s Mar-A-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, the former president said he had also agreed to debates on Sept. 4 and Sept. 25.

The first debate would be hosted by Fox News, he said.

He initially misspoke and said the Sept. 10 debate would be on NBC, with ABC hosting the debate on Sept. 25. His campaign later clarified the ABC News debate would be Sept. 10, the date Trump and President Joe Biden agreed to with ABC before Biden dropped out of the race, with NBC hosting the final debate.

ABC News confirmed that Trump and the Harris campaign have agreed to the network’s debate.

“I think it’s very important to have debates,” Trump said.

He then quickly moved on to disparaging Harris.

The Harris campaign, Fox News and NBC did not respond to States Newsroom’s requests for comment.

In a press release, the Harris campaign called Trump’s press conference a “public meltdown,” but did not mention if Harris would participate in the Fox News or NBC debate.

Biden was the presumptive Democratic nominee but dropped out of the race following a disastrous performance at the first 2024 general election debate on June 27.

Following Biden’s withdrawal, Harris quickly clinched the nomination and kicked off a campaign tour with her newly tapped running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

Peaceful transfer of power

During Thursday’s press conference, a reporter asked if there would be a peaceful transfer of power if Trump lost the election.

“Of course, there’ll be a peaceful transfer and there was last time and there’ll be a peaceful transfer,” Trump said. “I just hope we’re going to have honest elections.”

The 2021 transfer from the Trump to Biden presidencies was among the most chaotic and violent in the country’s history.

On Jan. 6, 2021, a group of pro-Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an effort to stop Congress from certifying the 2020 presidential election results. Congress impeached Trump for a second time due to his role in inciting the insurrection.

In September of 2020, Trump didn’t commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he lost that election.

Trump said that the hundreds of people the U.S. Justice Department has charged and convicted in their role in the Jan. 6 attack, were not being treated fairly.

“Nobody was killed on January 6,” Trump said, which is not true. “I think that the people of January 6 were treated very unfairly.”

Two police officers, Jeffrey Smith and Howard Liebengood, died by suicide after Jan. 6 that were ruled a line of duty death. A woman, Ashli Babbitt, was shot and killed by a Capitol police officer as she tried to breach the Speaker’s Lobby adjacent to the U.S. House floor.

Citizens United, GOP state parties file FEC complaint over Biden-Harris campaign funds

Ariana Figueroa — Fri, 26 Jul 2024 00:04:30 +0000

Success in the 11th, 15th and 17th would give the Democrats 12 seats in the Senate, denying the GOP a supermajority for the first time since 2008 (Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — A conservative group and a group of Republican state parties Thursday filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing Vice President Kamala Harris of improperly assuming control of Biden campaign funds after he withdrew from the race.

The complaint is asking the FEC’s six-person commission — split evenly between Democrats and Republicans — to “immediately initiate enforcement proceedings to prevent Harris from using her ill-gotten gains for her campaign in the little time remaining between now and the November general election.”

After President Joe Biden suspended his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris to take his place as the likely Democratic nominee, the Biden campaign officially changed its name to the Harris campaign, giving the vice president access to about $96 million of campaign funds as of June 30.

Harris campaign spokesperson Charles Kretchmer Lutvak said in a statement to States Newsroom that the complaint had no merit.

“Republicans may be jealous that Democrats are energized to defeat Donald Trump and his MAGA allies, but baseless legal claims – like the ones they’ve made for years to try to suppress votes and steal elections – will only distract them while we sign up volunteers, talk to voters, and win this election,” he said.

The FEC declined to comment.

Citizens United, a group that led the reversal of campaign finance restrictions in a 2010 Supreme Court case, was joined by one U.S. territory, the Virgin Islands, and 16 state GOP parties.

Those state GOP parties are Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming.

The Harris campaign stated it raised $100 million from Sunday, when Biden announced he would bow out of the race, to Monday evening. Those campaign records won’t be publicly available until mid-October, when quarterly reports are due to the FEC.

The Trump campaign also filed a similar complaint to the FEC on Tuesday, according to CNN.

The chair of the FEC, a Republican appointed in 2020 by Donald Trump, Sean Cooksey, indicated in a social media post that Harris might not have access to the funds, pointing to a regulation.

“If the candidate is not a candidate in the general election, all contributions made for the general election shall be either returned or refunded to the contributors or redesignated …, or reattributed …, as appropriate,” he wrote.

Because Harris is the vice president, her name was on Biden’s presidential campaign committee. However, any complaint is likely not going to be resolved before the November elections, as the FEC is still reviewing cases from the 2016 election.

Trump says he’s willing to debate Harris more than once

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 21:18:38 +0000

Republican presidential candidate former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event on January 06, 2024 in Newton, Iowa (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a Tuesday call with reporters committed to a debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic presidential candidate.

“I would be willing to do more than one debate,” Trump said.

Harris, who says she is the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, won pledges from enough Democratic delegates by late Monday night to gain the nomination. President Joe Biden on Sunday dropped his reelection bid and endorsed Harris.

During the call, Trump also said that he’s not worried about campaigning against Harris because “she’s the same as Biden” in her policies.

Trump later in the call criticized Harris for the Biden administration’s immigration approach, a topic that he has made a core part of his platform in his third run for the White House.

The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment on Trump’s remarks about debating.

Trump also said he is not sure he wants to take part in a debate hosted by ABC News that was scheduled for Sept. 10 with then-presumptive Democratic nominee Biden.

Biden’s shaky performance in a June 27 debate with Trump led to weeks of growing Democratic unease with his campaign, and members of both the U.S. House and Senate called for the president to drop his reelection bid.

Trump also noted that he hasn’t agreed to the ABC debate because he “agreed to a debate with Joe Biden,” and not Harris.

Harris held her first campaign rally Tuesday in Milwaukee, where she leaned into her prior work as a prosecutor and the attorney general for the state of California.

U.S. Secret Service director resigns amid fury over agency failures in protecting Trump

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 18:30:42 +0000

United States Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned on Tuesday, July 23, 2024. The day before, Cheatle testified before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee on the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned Tuesday, following widespread outrage that her agency failed to prevent the assassination attempt on former President Donald J. Trump during a July 13 campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Cheatle’s resignation follows an intense congressional hearing where Democrats and Republicans demanded she step down after they grew dissatisfied with her answers about how a gunman was able to get within shooting range of the former president. In the hearing, Cheatle noted that the Secret Service was told about a suspicious person two to five times before the shooting.

According to an email obtained by The Associated Press, Cheatle said to her staff that she took “full responsibility for the security lapse.”

Ronald L. Rowe, the U.S. Secret Service Deputy Director will serve as acting Director of the Secret Service, Department of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.

“I appreciate his willingness to lead the Secret Service at this incredibly challenging moment, as the agency works to get to the bottom of exactly what happened on July 13 and cooperate with ongoing investigations and Congressional oversight,” Mayorkas said. “At the same time, the Secret Service must effectively carry on its expansive mission that includes providing 24/7 protection for national leaders and visiting dignitaries and securing events of national significance in this dynamic and heightened threat environment.”

The Secret Service declined to comment and deferred to DHS.

“I am responsible for leading the agency, and I am responsible for finding the answers to how this event occurred and making sure that it doesn’t happen again,” Cheatle said during Monday’s House Committee on Oversight and Accountability hearing.

Task force will still investigate

House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, said even though Cheatle has stepped down, he still plans to continue with plans to form a bipartisan task force to investigate the security failures that led to the attempted assassination, in which Trump was shot and his right ear injured.

“Her resignation is overdue,” Johnson told reporters. “It certainly was the director, but there may be others in the line of authority who are also culpable in what happened in the errors and mistakes there.”

Johnson said the task force will continue “to ensure that those mistakes do not happen again.”

On Trump’s social media site, Truth Social, the former president wrote that the Biden administration “did not properly protect me, and I was forced to take a bullet for Democracy. IT WAS MY GREAT HONOR TO DO SO!”

In a statement, President Joe Biden thanked Cheatle for her service and said he plans to appoint a new director soon.

“As a leader, it takes honor, courage, and incredible integrity to take full responsibility for an organization tasked with one of the most challenging jobs in public service,” Biden said.

He added that an independent review, which he directed the Department of Homeland Security to undertake shortly after the shooting, will “get to the bottom of what happened on July 13.”

“We all know what happened that day can never happen again,” Biden said.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, Democrat of Nevada, issued a joint statement in which they said they have introduced bipartisan legislation that would require all future directors of the Secret Service be subject to confirmation by the Senate and serve a single 10-year term.

“Our bill is a crucial step toward providing the transparency and accountability that Congress and the American people deserve from the Secret Service,” Grassley said. “In light of former Director Cheatle’s resignation, Congress must now move quickly to pass our legislation and put a qualified individual at the agency’s helm.”

Cortez Masto said that by requiring the director of the Secret Service to be confirmed by the Senate, this will “ensure the same level of oversight as other federal law enforcement agencies and support our hardworking agents in doing the best job they can.”

Mayorkas also praised Cheatle for her work, noting her 29 years of service.

“Over the past two years, she has led the Secret Service with skill, honor, integrity, and tireless dedication,” Mayorkas said in a statement. “She is deeply respected by the men and women of the agency and by her fellow leaders in the Department of Homeland Security.”

VP Harris cites Biden’s ‘legacy of accomplishment’ as endorsements pile up for her bid

Ariana Figueroa — Mon, 22 Jul 2024 19:54:07 +0000

A supporter holds a sign as members of the San Francisco Democratic Party rally in support of Kamala Harris, following the announcement by President Joe Biden that he is dropping out of the 2024 presidential race, on July 22, 2024 at City Hall in San Francisco, California. Biden has endorsed Harris, the former San Francisco district attorney, to be the Democratic nominee (Loren Elliott/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris’ path to the Democratic nomination cleared Monday as she secured endorsements from potential rivals and other high-profile party members the day after President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid.

A swarm of Democratic legislative leaders, governors — including some thought to harbor presidential ambitions of their own — and influential unions as well as key outside groups endorsed her within 24 hours of Biden’s unscheduled Sunday afternoon announcement, while no serious challenger emerged.

In Harris’ first public appearance since Biden’s announcement and endorsement of her, the vice president met with college sports champions at the White House. She opened her brief remarks with a tribute to Biden, who, while recovering from COVID-19, was “feeling much better” Monday, she said.

“Joe Biden’s legacy of accomplishment over the past three years is unmatched in modern history,” she said. “In one term, he has already surpassed the legacy of most presidents who have served two terms in office.”

Harris was also scheduled to travel to the campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, late Monday to meet with campaign staff, according to the White House.

Several key Democrats had not publicly backed her by Monday afternoon. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York and former President Barack Obama had not offered endorsements.

Jeffries told reporters that he and Schumer were planning to meet with Harris “shortly.” While Jeffries did not endorse Harris, he said she has “excited the House Democratic Caucus and she’s exciting the country.”

Congressional Dems line up behind Harris

But endorsements rolled in from Capitol Hill.

Top congressional Democrats like the No. 2 Senate Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois, and the No. 2 House Democrat, Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, also early Monday gave Harris their support.

And former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said in a statement that she supported Harris and noted her work advocating for reproductive rights — a topic that Democrats have centered various campaigns on following the end of Roe v. Wade.

“Politically, make no mistake,” Pelosi said. “Kamala Harris as a woman in politics is brilliantly astute — and I have full confidence that she will lead us to victory in November.”

The chair of the campaign arm for House Democrats, Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington, also gave her support to Harris.

Harris has also earned the backing of all the House Democratic leaders of influential congressional caucuses.

That includes Reps. Steven Horsford of Nevada of the Congressional Black Caucus, Nanette Barragán of California of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Pramila Jayapal of Washington of the Progressive Caucus and Judy Chu of California of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.

Obama holds off

Obama did not yet endorse Harris but in a lengthy statement Sunday said he has “extraordinary confidence that the leaders of our party will be able to create a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges.”

Similarly, in 2020 the former two-term president waited until Biden was formally nominated by the Democratic National Committee before he gave an endorsement.

The DNC will move forward with the process to formally nominate a presidential candidate Wednesday when its Rules Committee meets in a public virtual session amid ongoing efforts to set up a virtual roll call vote ahead of the convention next month in Chicago.

No serious challenger to Harris’ nomination had emerged by Monday afternoon, as independent Sen. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia said in a morning MSNBC interview he would not seek the Democratic nomination.

Governors endorse Harris

Following Biden’s endorsement of Harris, several Democratic governors have also offered their support for the vice president, including the governors speculated to be among Harris’ choices for a running mate and would-be rivals for the nomination.

Govs. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Roy Cooper of North Carolina, Wes Moore of Maryland and J.B. Pritzker of Illinois all offered their endorsements in the day since Biden withdrew from the race.

Beshear announced his support for Harris in a television interview Monday morning. He wouldn’t say if he’d like to join Harris’ ticket, but said in a statement on X that the vice president will “bring our country together and move us past the anger politics we’ve seen in recent years.”

Other governors around the country also offered their support, including Jared Polis of Colorado, Tony Evers of Wisconsin, Phil Murphy of New Jersey, Laura Kelly of Kansas, Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, Tim Walz of Minnesota, Katie Hobbs of Arizona, Janet Mills of Maine, Jay Inslee of Washington state, and Maura Healey of Massachusetts.

Governors from Oregon and Rhode Island, both Democrats, have yet to voice their support for Harris. Both thanked Biden for his service as president on X.

State parties planning next moves

Several state parties endorsed Harris or indicated they would support her.

North Carolina Democrats voted to endorse a ticket of Harris and Cooper, their term-limited governor, NC Newsline reported.

At Beshear’s request, Kentucky Democrats voted “overwhelmingly” to back Harris, the Kentucky Lantern reported.

New Hampshire’s state party coalesced behind Harris at a Sunday evening meeting, according to the New Hampshire Bulletin.

Maine Democrats were scheduled to meet Monday night and are likely to consider a proposal to switch the party’s support from Biden to Harris, the Maine Morning Star said.

Advocacy groups

Several influential Democrat-aligned organizations announced their support for Harris.

Emily’s List, which works to elect Democratic women who favor abortion rights, tweeted its endorsement Sunday.

LGBTQ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign also backed Harris, noting her early support for marriage equality and other work on LGBTQ issues.

UnidosUS, a Latino civil rights group, also endorsed Harris.

Gen-Z for Change, formerly called TikTok for Biden, had withheld an endorsement of the president over his handling of the Israel-Hamas war in which more than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed. But quickly following the announcement from Biden to step out of the race, the organization gave an endorsement to Harris.

The political action committees of the Congressional Black Caucus, Congressional Hispanic Caucus and Congressional Progressive Caucus also backed Harris.

Several unions jump in

Harris has also garnered the backing of several labor unions in the day since announcing her bid for office. The Service Employees International Union, which represents 2 million service workers including health care and property and public services, announced its endorsement for Harris Sunday.

In a written statement, SEIU President April Verrett said “SEIU is ALL IN” for Harris and that the vice president “has made sure to use every lever of government to do everything possible to make things better for working people.”

The American Federation of Teachers unanimously endorsed Harris Sunday. AFT represents 1.7 million education professionals across the country, ranging from teachers and paraprofessionals to school health care workers and higher education faculty.

The United Farm Workers also quickly switched its support from Biden to Harris on Sunday afternoon. The union said it “could not be prouder to endorse her for President of the United States,” in a written statement, citing her support of farm workers during her time as an attorney general and senator in California.

SEIU, AFT and UFW all endorsed Biden for president in 2020 and this year prior to his withdrawal from the race.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters has not endorsed in the presidential race, but invited Harris to a roundtable with rank-and-file members. Teamsters President Sean O’Brien addressed the Republican National Convention last week. The union endorsed Biden in 2020 but had not voiced its support for his reelection this year.

Notably, the UAW has not announced an endorsement for Harris. Biden walked the picket line in Michigan during the historic autoworker protests last September. The UAW thanked Biden for his service in a statement Sunday.

Democratic calls for a new nominee ramp up as Biden camp pledges to stay the course

Ariana Figueroa — Fri, 19 Jul 2024 21:23:15 +0000

President Joe Biden speaks at the 115th NAACP National Convention at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center on July 16, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was Biden’s last event before he left the campaign trail due to testing positive for COVID-19 (Mario Tama/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — Ten more congressional Democrats called on President Joe Biden to drop his reelection bid Friday, the most in a single day since a poor debate performance shook confidence among his fellow Democrats in his ability to win November’s election.

The 10 Democrats on Friday, the day after former President Donald Trump officially accepted his party’s nomination at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, brought the total to 31, increasing the pressure on Biden to withdraw from the race.

While no member of congressional Democratic leadership has publicly called for Biden to step down, several top Democrats who were either involved with handling Trump’s impeachment trials or with investigations into the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol have raised their concerns, citing the former president’s threat to democracy.

California Rep. Adam Schiff, who was the lead impeachment manager in Trump’s first impeachment trial, called on Biden to drop out, saying in a statement that he had “serious concerns” about the president’s ability to win a second term.

And Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, who was a member of the House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol, stopped short of explicitly calling on Biden to step down, but urged the president to reconsider whether he should remain in the presidential race.

Biden remained at home in Delaware with no public events scheduled after testing positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday evening.

In an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” early Friday, Biden campaign co-chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said the president remained “absolutely” in the race, even as a growing number of Democrats voiced unease about his ability to defeat Trump.

“Absolutely the president is in this race, you’ve heard him say that time and time again,” she said. “He is the best person to take on Donald Trump.”

But reports also surfaced Friday that Vice President Kamala Harris, a potential replacement for Biden if he takes the unprecedented step of withdrawing from a race less than four months from Election Day, was scheduled to speak by phone with top Democratic donors in the afternoon.

Harris did not respond to reporters’ questions at an appearance at a Washington ice cream shop Friday, according to a pool report.

And 10 more congressional Democrats, including more senior members than had previously broken ranks with the president, said Friday that Biden should step aside.

U.S. Rep. Sean Casten of Illinois wrote an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune.

Reps. Jared Huffman of California, Marc Veasey of Texas, Jesús “Chuy” Garcia of Illinois and Mark Pocan of Wisconsin wrote a joint open letter to Biden that they posted on social media.

The quartet represents important constituencies in the House Democratic Caucus.

Veasey is the first member of the influential Congressional Black Caucus, which has been among Biden’s staunchest Democratic backers, to join the call for him to step down. He is also a member of the moderate New Democrat Coalition.

Pocan is the co-chair of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus and a former chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Garcia is a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Reps. Greg Landsman of Ohio, Zoe Lofgren of California also released their own statements. Betty McCollum of Minnesota told the Star Tribune newspaper she wanted Biden step aside and allow Harris to lead the ticket with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate.

Rep. Morgan McGarvey, of Kentucky, posted a statement on X.

The calls came a day after Sen. Jon Tester, in a difficult reelection race in Montana, said in a statement to the Daily Montanan that Biden should withdraw.

Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, who was one of few Democrats who called on Biden to step down two weeks ago, expanded on his view in an op-ed Friday.

Moulton wrote in the Boston Globe that when he went on a June trip to Normandy to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the president didn’t recognize him, despite their decade-long relationship.

“Of course, that can happen as anyone ages, but as I watched the disastrous debate a few weeks ago, I have to admit that what I saw in Normandy was part of a deeper problem,” Moulton wrote. “It was a crushing realization, and not because a person I care about had a rough night but because everything is riding on Biden’s ability to beat Donald Trump in November.”

Trump picks Ohio U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate

Ariana Figueroa — Mon, 15 Jul 2024 20:34:49 +0000

U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, speaks to reporters June 27 in the spin room following the CNN Presidential Debate between U.S. President Joe Biden and Republican presidential candidate, former U.S. President Donald Trump, at the McCamish Pavilion on the Georgia Institute of Technology campus in Atlanta. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

MILWAUKEE, Wis. — Donald Trump announced Ohio U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate Monday during the first day of the Republican National Convention, capping off months of speculation about who would get the nod as his vice presidential pick.

Vance has not been a member of Congress long, having less than two years experience as a senator and having voted against major bipartisan bills throughout his tenure in the upper chamber.

Before becoming a U.S. lawmaker, Vance served in the Marine Corps during the Iraq war, worked as a venture capitalist and wrote a book about growing up in Appalachia. He holds a law degree from Yale.

“After lengthy deliberation and thought, and considering the tremendous talents of many others, I have decided that the person best suited to assume the position of Vice President of the United States is Senator J.D. Vance of the Great State of Ohio,” Trump, who will be nominated as the 2024 Republican presidential candidate on Thursday night, posted on social media.

“J.D. has had a very successful business career in Technology and Finance, and now, during the Campaign, will be strongly focused on the people he fought so brilliantly for, the American Workers and Farmers in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota, and far beyond….,” Trump added.

Kevin Roberts, president of the conservative Heritage Foundation, received the news while he was speaking to reporters at the foundation’s all-day policy fest in downtown Milwaukee.

“You will see a broad smile on my face,” Roberts said, adding that he and Vance are “good friends” and that he “personifies” Heritage’s values.

“He listens. He’s thoughtful. He’s funny. He and I had a similar upbringing, challenging childhood, so we hit it off like that when we met. He’s obviously going to be his own man. He’s got to work with our conservative standard bearer,” Roberts said. “The second thing is in terms of policy, he understands the moment we’re in in this country, which is that we have a limited amount of time to implement great policy on behalf of forgotten Americans.”

Trump’s former Vice President Mike Pence has distanced himself from Trump since the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol building — requiring Trump to find a different person to join him on the ticket this year.

Pence was in the Capitol that day, when a pro-Trump mob attacked police officers, broke into building and disrupted Congress’ certification of the electoral college votes for President Joe Biden.

Pence has been critical of how the Republican Party has changed under Trump’s leadership, including rejecting how the platform evolved on abortion this year.

The Biden-Harris campaign immediately slammed the selection of Vance.

“Donald Trump picked J.D. Vance as his running mate because Vance will do what Mike Pence wouldn’t on January 6: bend over backwards to enable Trump and his extreme MAGA agenda, even if it means breaking the law and no matter the harm to the American people,” said Biden-Harris 2024 Chair Jen O’Malley Dillon.

“Over the next three and a half months, we will spend every single day making the case between the two starkly contrasting visions Americans will choose between at the ballot box this November: the Biden-Harris ticket who’s focused on uniting the country, creating opportunity for everyone, and lowering costs; or Trump-Vance – whose harmful agenda will take away Americans’ rights, hurt the middle class, and make life more expensive – all while benefiting the ultra-rich and greedy corporations.”

Vance background

Vance was born in Middletown, Ohio in August 1984. After graduating from high school in 2003 he enlisted in the Marine Corps, later deploying to the Iraq War.

He attended Ohio State University, where he received a bachelor’s degree in political science and philosophy in 2009. Vance went on to attend Yale Law School, graduating in 2013 before working for the law firm Sidley Austin LLP.

Vance gained national attention with his 2016 memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis,” which tells the story of him growing up in poverty in the Rust Belt. However, the book faced backlash from many historians and journalists over his depictions of Appalachia and the people who live there.

The 39-year-old worked in San Francisco in the tech industry as a venture capitalist. He served as a principal at one of the firms of Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal.

Vance later moved back to Ohio and raised more than $90 million to co-found a venture capital firm in Cincinnati, Narya Capital, which received financial backing from Thiel.

Vance ran his first campaign for U.S. Senate in 2022, defeating Democratic candidate and former U.S. House Rep. Tim Ryan with 53% of the vote.

Since being sworn into office in January 2023, Vance has voted against several big-ticket legislative items, including the law that raised the debt limit, the national defense policy bill and two must-pass government funding packages.

Aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan

Vance also voted against legislation that held $95 billion in military and humanitarian assistance for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan as well as a ban on TikTok within the United States unless the social media app’s Chinese parent company sold it.

Vance was among the 18 senators who voted against that emergency spending bill heading to President Joe Biden’s desk. Another 79 senators voted to approve the legislation.

During floor debate on the supplemental spending package, Vance spoke out against sending more aid and arms to Ukraine, arguing that there were parallels between its fight to eject Russia from its borders and the U.S. war in Iraq.

“And the same exact arguments are being applied today, that you are a fan of Vladimir Putin if you don’t like our Ukraine policy, or you are a fan of some terrible tyrannical idea because you think maybe America should be more focused on the border of its own country than on someone else’s,” Vance said.

“This war fever, this inability for us to actually process what is going on in our world to make rational decisions is the scariest part of this entire debate,” he added.

Bipartisan efforts

Vance has also worked across the aisle on bipartisan legislation during his somewhat brief tenure in the U.S. Senate.

He sponsored a bill alongside Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, Pennsylvania Sens. Bob Casey and John Fetterman, all three of whom are Democrats, to address rail safety in the aftermath of the Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine.

Vance wrote in a statement released when the bill was unveiled in March 2023 that with the legislation “Congress has a real opportunity to ensure that what happened in East Palestine will never happen again.”

“We owe every American the peace of mind that their community is protected from a catastrophe of this kind,” Vance wrote. “Action to prevent future disasters is critical, but we must never lose sight of the needs of the Ohioans living in East Palestine and surrounding communities.”

The bipartisan legislation has yet to advance in the Senate to either a committee markup or a floor vote.

Ashley Murray contributed to this report.

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Biden asks the nation for unity, promises security review after Trump shooting

Ariana Figueroa — Sun, 14 Jul 2024 19:41:23 +0000

.President Joe Biden delivers remarks at the White House on Sunday, July 14, 2024 on the assassination attempt on Republican presidential candidate, former President Donald Trump. A shooter opened fire injuring Trump, killing one audience member, and injuring two others during a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13. Biden was joined by Vice President Kamala Harris and Attorney General Merrick Garland (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden Sunday called for unity and pledged an independent review following the campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday where former President Donald J. Trump was shot and injured.

“An assassination attempt is contrary to everything we stand for as a nation,” Biden said in remarks from the White House, adding that “there is no place in America for this kind of violence or any violence for that matter.”

Biden said the independent review will “assess exactly what happened and we’ll share the results of that independent review with the American people as well.”

Biden also will address the nation from the Oval office Sunday night at 8 p.m. Eastern time about the assassination attempt on Trump.

“Unity is the most elusive goal of all, but nothing is (more) important than that right now,” Biden said. “We’ll debate and we’ll disagree, that’s not going to change. But we’re not gonna lose sight of the fact (of) who we are as Americans.”

Biden added that he is directing the U.S. Secret Service to assess the security measures for the Republican National Convention beginning Monday in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where the GOP will formally nominate Trump for president.

Trump wrote on Truth Social that he was initially planning to delay his trip to the RNC by two days, but said he could not “allow a ‘shooter,’ or potential assassin, to force change to scheduling, or anything else” and so would arrive later Sunday.

Outraged congressional Republicans on Sunday demanded answers from the Secret Service as to how the shooter was able to access a rooftop within range of the former president, and committee leaders from both parties began planning hearings and probes. The FBI is investigating the shooting as an attempted assassination.

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” he was grateful the former president “survived an assassination attempt,” and noted how dangerous the situation was.

“How could this happen?” Graham asked. “How could somebody get within 130 yards of the president with a rifle?”

Pennsylvanian killed

Several loud pops rang out as Trump was beginning a campaign event Saturday that quickly ended with him cupping blood on the side of his face and defiantly pumping his fist at the crowd and shouting “Fight, fight, fight,” before he was whisked off-stage by Secret Service agents.

Trump was injured but pronounced safe by the Secret Service and he later wrote on his social media site Truth Social that he was shot “with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear.”

An attendee at the rally was killed, and two others were injured in the shooting.

Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro on Sunday identified the person killed as Corey Comperatore. Local news reports said he was a former fire chief.

“Corey died a hero,” Shapiro said during a news conference. “Corey dove on his family to protect them last night.”

Shortly after the shooting, Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement the shooter “fired multiple shots toward the stage from an elevated position outside of the rally venue,” and Secret Service personnel shot and killed the individual.

The FBI identified the shooter as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania.

Congressional Republicans said they want answers from the Secret Service about how the event unfolded and if there were any security shortcomings.

The Secret Service is responsible for the safety of current and former presidents, and certain government officials.

Guglielmi on Sunday morning on X addressed “an untrue assertion that a member of the former President’s team requested additional security resources & that those were rebuffed.”

He said that was “absolutely false.”

“In fact, we added protective resources & technology & capabilities as part of the increased campaign travel tempo,” he said.

The agency falls under the Department of Homeland Security, and congressional Republicans have clashed with DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, to the point of impeachment. The Senate, controlled by Democrats, dismissed the two articles of impeachment.

House GOP inquiry

Hours after the Saturday night shooting, House Speaker Mike Johnson wrote on X that the House will conduct an investigation of the incident.

On the “Today” show Sunday, Johnson said that the House’s probe will “determine where there were lapses in security and anything else that the American people need to know and deserve to know.”

Republican Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee, who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, wrote a letter to Mayorkas saying he was concerned how the shooter was able to “access a rooftop within range and direct line of sight of where President Trump was speaking.”

“The seriousness of this security failure and chilling moment in our nation’s history cannot be understated,” Green wrote in the letter. “Had the bullet’s trajectory been slightly different, the assassination attempt on President Trump might have succeeded.”

Green asked Mayorkas to provide the committee with several documents by July 22, such as the security plan for the rally, Secret Service protocol for assassination attempts and copies of briefing materials given to Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris about the incident.

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri sent a letter to Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chair Gary Peters of Michigan to push for an investigation into the shooting.

Hawley, who sits on the committee, said the investigation “must include public testimony, hearings, and robust oversight over the relevant federal departments as they respond to this assassination attempt.”

Montana Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, who also sits on the committee, made the same request, and argued the need for an investigation because “individuals and groups will use yesterday’s tragedy to sow division in our country,” and that the committee “can help push back on those efforts by investigating and publicizing the facts surrounding yesterday.”

An aide to Peters, speaking on background, said the “committee will be conducting an investigation,” and that the committee has requested a briefing for members as soon as possible.

Peters, a Democrat, is “speaking with Secretary Mayorkas today, and committee staff are receiving a briefing from the department this afternoon,” the aide said.

“As we learn more about what happened, the investigation will likely include additional steps including hearings,” the aide said.

Comer wants Secret Service director to testify

Chair of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee GOP Rep. James Comer of Kentucky said in a statement that he will send a formal invitation for Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to appear for a hearing.

“There are many questions and Americans demand answers,” Comer said.

Biden, who spoke Sunday night briefly after the shooting, denounced political violence and declined to say if the incident was an assassination attempt.

“I have an opinion, but I don’t have any facts,” Biden said, speaking from the Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, police department, near his vacation home. “So I want to make sure we have all the facts before I make some comment.”

‘Cool things down’

Lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle immediately condemned the political violence.

On Sunday, they took to various talk shows and urged for a cooling down of political rhetoric. “We’ve got to turn the temperature down in this country,” Johnson said.

Rep. Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania, who was at the rally Saturday, made similar remarks on “Meet the Press,” where he said “we all need to take responsibility and cool things down.”

Melania Trump, the president’s wife, on Sunday called for Americans to “reunite.”

“Dawn is here again,” she said in a statement. “This morning, ascend above the hate, the vitriol, and the simple-minded ideas that ignite violence. We all want a world where respect is paramount, family is first, and love transcends.”

Shootings, threats, attacks

Threats against lawmakers and political violence have increased over the years.

Then-Rep. Gabby Giffords of Arizona, a Democrat, was shot at a constituent event in 2011. Her husband, Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, on X condemned the violence: “No one should ever have to experience political violence — we know that firsthand.”

And House Republican Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana was shot and injured in 2017 during a congressional baseball practice.

Of the 7,501 threats made to members of Congress during 2022, only 22 led to prosecution, the U.S. Capitol Police confirmed to States Newsroom.

Two years ago, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, was attacked and injured in their home in California and a kidnapping and assassination attempt was thwarted in 2020 against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

And in the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol, a mob of pro-Trump supporters breached the building in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying the electoral results.

No motive cited yet

The motivation behind the attack is still under investigation. According to The Associated Press, there were bomb-making materials found in Crooks’ home.

Crooks is a registered Republican, according to Pennsylvania voting records, and he made a $15 donation to Progressive Turnout Project PAC in 2021, according to Federal Election Commission records.

The shooting came two days before thousands of Republicans gather for the Republican National Convention, where they will formally nominate Trump on Thursday. Trump also will announce his running mate at some point.

Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican convention host committee in Milwaukee, said on ABC News that he spoke with Trump after the shooting and that the former president wants the convention to move forward.

“It’s not going to be scaled back,” Priebus said. “In fact, if you had to ask me, I would say this convention is going to be epic.”

Senior advisers to the Trump campaign, Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, said in a joint statement after the shooting that Trump wasn’t changing his plans for the RNC.

“President Trump looks forward to joining you all in Milwaukee as we proceed with our convention to nominate him to serve as the 47th President of the United States,” they said. “As our party’s nominee, President Trump will continue to share his vision to Make America Great Again.”

Democrats reel from ‘terrible’ Biden debate performance as he defends candidacy

Ariana Figueroa — Fri, 28 Jun 2024 20:02:14 +0000

President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden dropped by a Waffle House in Atlanta to pick up food shortly after midnight following his debate with Donald Trump on Thursday, June 27, 2024. He told reporters “I think we did well” when asked about his debate performance (Jill Nolin/Georgia Recorder).

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden touched on a flood of criticism of his debate performance during a rally on Friday, while Democrats interviewed on Capitol Hill said the party must figure out a way to reassure voters after what they described as a “terrible” showing and a “bad night.”

Biden, speaking from Raleigh, North Carolina, acknowledged some of the blunders that plagued him during the Thursday night debate on CNN, which included a raspy, low voice and answers that often began one way before veering into a completely separate topic.

“I know I’m not a young man, let’s state the obvious,” Biden said. “I don’t walk as easy as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to, but … I know how to tell the truth.”

Biden, 81, told the crowd that despite the mishaps, he’s still up for four more years on the job and said that his rival, the 78-year-old presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump, is a “genuine threat to this nation.”

“When you get knocked down, you get back up,” Biden said. “I would not be running again if I didn’t believe with all my heart and soul I can do this job because, quite frankly, the stakes are too high.”

Outside the Beltway, Democrats continued to try to absorb what they saw on Thursday night. In Colorado, Democratic Gov. Jared Polis would not answer directly when asked about calls from some Democrats for Biden to step aside. In the swing state of Pennsylvania, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro as well as other Democrats came to Biden’s defense on social media and on the airwaves.

Hoyer rejects idea of Biden quitting

Back in Washington, D.C., lawmakers had mixed reviews for how Biden performed during the debate, with some saying one bad night shouldn’t lead the party to change its nominee in the weeks ahead, while others said Biden should reassess his decision to run for reelection.

Maryland Democratic Rep. Steny Hoyer said Biden “had a bad night,” but said the president still showed respect for “people, the truth and the Constitution.”

“The other candidate, who respects none of those, showed that last night,” he said of Trump.

Hoyer rejected a question about whether Democrats need a new presidential candidate, saying they already had one and it “is Joe Biden.”

“He’s got an extraordinary record of accomplishments,” Hoyer said.

Minnesota Democratic Rep. Angie Craig said it was a “terrible debate.”

“We all have to acknowledge that and Donald Trump lied every time he opened his mouth,” Craig said, adding that she wasn’t worried about November, but focused on flooding in her home state.

Mood on House floor

New York Democratic Rep. Gregory Meeks said he didn’t expect that all of a sudden members of the party would “jump ship” from the Biden-Harris ticket, but said Biden has a lot of work to do before Election Day.

“I know Joe Biden. I’ve sat across the room from Joe Biden in some very important meetings,” Meeks said. “And I know that he’s all there and he has the ability to do that. He did not do that last night. But I do know that he has that ability.”

The mood on the House floor Friday morning, however, was less than ideal, he said.

“You can’t hide that, people are not pleased. Nobody’s in there jumping for joy, saying that, you know, ‘That was a great night last night,’” Meeks said. “Is there concern? Yeah, because we know how important it is to make sure that we win this election.”

Meeks declined to speculate about whether Biden will back out of the second debate in September, but said “it might be difficult, maybe, to get out of it.”

Biden, he said, needs to get in front of voters much more before the election through town halls and interviews to provide reassurance.

Meeks also sought to draw a difference between Biden and Trump, saying that the lies Trump told during the debate signal he hasn’t evolved.

“Nothing has changed with reference to Trump. He is still that pathological liar that Lindsey Graham called him. He’s still the con man that Marco Rubio called him,” Meeks said, referring to Republican senators from South Carolina and Florida. “And I definitely don’t want a pathological liar and a con man to be President of the United States of America. It would be bad for us and will be bad for our allies.”

House speaker sees ‘serious problem’

House Speaker Mike Johnson said that Cabinet members should “search their hearts” on what represented the best path forward for the country, about “this alarming situation.”

“I think they know they have a serious problem — but it’s not just political, it’s not just the Democratic Party, it’s the entire country,” Johnson said. “We have a serious problem here because we have a president, who, by all appearances, is not up to the task.”

“This is a very serious moment in American history and it needs to be regarded and handled as such,” Johnson added.

The Louisiana Republican didn’t rule out that the 25th Amendment, which deals with presidential disability and succession, might be appropriate. But he noted that’s up to the Cabinet, not the House.

Trump, during the debate, “showed the temperament, the stamina and the mental acuity that is necessary to do this really important job at this really important time,” Johnson said.

Biden, on the other hand, “showed last night that he was weak, sadly, that he is feeble,” Johnson added.

Democrats are moving forward with plans to nominate Biden as their official presidential candidate before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in late August.

The all-virtual roll call vote is supposed to take place before Aug. 7, the final date for candidates to get on Ohio’s ballot. The state requires candidates to be officially nominated at least 90 days before the November election.

That means any final decisions about Biden’s candidacy likely need to take place during the month of July.

No need to replace Biden

Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Richard Neal said he was taking the “long view” of the campaign and didn’t believe Democrats needed to replace Biden at the top of the ticket.

“I think that we are kind of caught up in a moment where personalities are a big deal in politics,” Neal said. “At the same time, I think that Joe Biden’s got a really good track record to run on … And I think we want to make sure that people see it in the fullness of his presidency.”

Neal said that Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee for president in 2016, won her first debate against Trump, even though Trump went on to win the election.

He also noted that Walter Mondale, the Democratic presidential nominee in 1984, was widely considered to have won his first debate against Republican Ronald Reagan, though Reagan went on to sweep him during the election.

Florida Democratic Rep. Lois Frankel said that “there was only one decent, honest man who reflected my values, and that was Joe Biden.”

Frankel said she wasn’t too concerned about calls for Biden to step down from the top of the ticket, though she said she hasn’t been involved in those talks.

Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Matt Cartwright said Biden’s performance reminded him of a 2022 debate he had where his own performance was “lousy,”

“He had a tough night,” Cartwright said, adding that he believes Democrats shouldn’t “overreact.”

Cartwright said he didn’t believe Biden’s debate performance would affect how voters in his district, which covers sections of northeastern Pennsylvania, including Scranton, will vote for down-ballot races later this year.

“People split their tickets where I live,” Cartwright said. “They know who I am and they know I’m not the same guy as whoever’s in the White House.”

Republicans react

Arkansas Republican Rep. Steve Womack said Biden’s performance “validated” a lot of the concerns that lawmakers and others had about his “cognitive abilities” heading into the debate.

“But at the end of the day, you have to assume that they’re both still going to be head-to-head in November,” Womack said.

Republicans, he said, need to move “full steam ahead” to hold the House, flip the Senate and win back the White House in November, but that’s only the beginning of the hard work.

“If that happens, we’ve got a couple of years and we need to be able to demonstrate that we’re serious about leading America,” Womack said.

Iowa Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks said it’s up to “Democrats to determine whether or not they feel that their candidate is up to the task of running the country for the next four years.”

“From my perspective, what I saw last night emphasizes to me that he’s not and that I will be voting for President Trump,” Miller-Meeks said. “I thought President Trump’s answers and policies were well reasoned, show that he was very sharp, very in tune and very well-informed.”

Miller-Meeks said it will be challenging for the Biden campaign and Democrats to brush aside concerns about Biden’s mental functioning following the debate.

“I think what has been appearing to a lot of people is now very apparent and difficult to hide, given the performance that everyone saw last night,” Miller-Meeks said.

Florida Republican Rep. Byron Donalds, one of the lawmakers on Trump’s short list for vice president, said that Trump “did what he was supposed to do — demonstrated leadership, demonstrated command talking about the issues that are plaguing this country.”

“As far as I’m concerned, whether it’s Joe Biden, Kamala Harris or anybody else, the Democrat agenda has been a failure. Period.”

U.S. Supreme Court sides with Oregon city, allows ban on homeless people sleeping outdoors

Ariana Figueroa — Fri, 28 Jun 2024 14:30:19 +0000

The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. (Laura Olson/States Newsroom).

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court Friday sided with a local ordinance in Oregon that effectively bans homeless people from sleeping outdoors, and local governments will be allowed to enforce those laws.

In a 6-3 decision, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the opinion that the enforcement of those local laws that regulate camping on public property does not constitute the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

“Homelessness is complex. Its causes are many. So may be the public policy responses required to address it,” he wrote. “The Constitution’s Eighth Amendment serves many important functions, but it does not authorize federal judges to wrest those rights and responsibilities from the American people and in their place dictate this Nation’s homelessness policy.”

The case originated in Grants Pass, a city in Oregon that argues its ordinance is a solution to the city’s homelessness crisis, which includes fines and potential jail time for repeat offenders who camp or sleep outdoors.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissent arguing that the ordinance targets the status of being homeless and is therefore a violation of the Eighth Amendment.

“Grants Pass’s Ordinances criminalize being homeless,” she wrote. “The Ordinances’ purpose, text, and enforcement confirm that they target status, not conduct. For someone with no available shelter, the only way to comply with the Ordinances is to leave Grants Pass altogether.”

During oral arguments, the justices seemed split over ideological lines, with the conservative justices siding with the town in Oregon, arguing that policies and ordinances around homelessness are complex, and should be left up to local elected representatives rather than the courts.

The liberal justices criticized the city’s argument that homelessness is not a status protected under the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. The liberal justices argued the Grants Pass ordinance criminalized the status of being homeless.

The Biden administration took the middle ground in the case, and U.S. Deputy Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler offered partial support.

“It’s the municipality’s determination, certainly in the first instance with a great deal of flexibility, how to address the question of homelessness,” he said during oral arguments in late April.

A similar ban in Missouri was struck down last year by the state Supreme Court for violating a section of the state Constitution that prohibits legislation from containing multiple unrelated subjects.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.

U.S. Supreme Court upholds law that prevents domestic abusers from owning guns

Ariana Figueroa — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 14:58:16 +0000

More than two dozen states have laws that prevent someone subject to an order in a domestic violence case from buying or possessing a gun and ammunition (Ethan Miller/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court Friday upheld a federal law that bars people subject to domestic violence restraining orders from owning a firearm.

In an 8-1 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the opinion that “our Nation’s firearm laws have included provisions preventing individuals who threaten physical harm to others from misusing firearms.”

“When an individual has been found by a court to pose a credible

threat to the physical safety of another, that individual may be temporarily disarmed consistent with the Second Amendment,” Roberts wrote.

Justice Clarence Thomas, a staunch advocate of the Second Amendment, was the lone dissent.

Thomas argued that the question before the court was not if someone can have their firearms taken away under the Second Amendment, but instead whether the “Government can strip the Second Amendment right of anyone subject to a protective order — even if he has never been accused or convicted of a crime. It cannot.”

This was the first major test of the 2022 Supreme Court decision – New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen – that struck down a New York law limiting carrying firearms in the open in a decision from the high court that greatly expanded gun rights. Thomas wrote that decision.

Because of the Bruen decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit vacated Zackey Rahimi’s conviction on the grounds that the federal law violated his Second Amendment rights.

In 2019, Rahimi assaulted his girlfriend in Arlington, Texas, and threatened to shoot her if she told anyone, according to the Department of Justice. That led to a restraining order that suspended his handgun license and prohibited him from possessing firearms.

But Rahimi did not adhere to that order and then threatened another woman with a gun, and two months later opened fire in public five times.

During oral arguments in November before the court, U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, representing the Biden administration, argued that the 5th Circuit misinterpreted the Bruen decision.

She said there is historical precedent in the ability of Congress to “disarm those who are not law-abiding, responsible citizens.”

Under a 1994 federal law, anyone who has been convicted in any court of a “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence,” and, or, is subject to domestic violence protective orders, is prohibited from purchasing and having possession of firearms and ammunition.

During those oral arguments, the justices – both liberal and conservative – seemed to side with Prelogar’s argument that the federal law is in line with the longstanding practice of disarming dangerous people and does not violate an individual’s Second Amendment rights.

More than half of female homicide victims are killed by current or former male intimate partners. Firearms are used in more than 50% of those homicides.

More than two dozen states have laws that prevent someone subject to an order in a domestic violence case from buying or possessing a gun and ammunition.

Missouri is not one of them. Some of the states with a prohibition in law include Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

This is a developing story that will be updated.

U.S. House ethics panel adds allegations to Matt Gaetz investigation

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 19:58:08 +0000

Rep. Matt Gaetz, who filed the motion to vacate against House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, leaves a House Republican Conference meeting at the U.S. Capitol on Oct. 3, 2023 in Washington, D.C. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House Ethics Committee released a statement Tuesday saying it has “identified additional allegations that merit review” based on its investigation of prior allegations that Florida Republican U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz had inappropriate sexual relationships and violated rules by accepting gifts.

The committee is investigating allegations that Gaetz may have “engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, dispensed special privileges and favors to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship, and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct.”

Gaetz’s office referred to a post on X, formerly Twitter, in response to States Newsroom’s request for comment.

Gaetz called the additional allegations the committee is reviewing “new frivolous investigations,” but did not elaborate what those new investigations were.

“Representative Gaetz has categorically denied all of the allegations before the Committee,” the committee statement said.

“Notwithstanding the difficulty in obtaining relevant information from Representative Gaetz and others, the Committee has spoken with more than a dozen witnesses, issued 25 subpoenas, and reviewed thousands of pages of documents in this matter,” the statement added.

The House Ethics Committee did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment about the new investigations.

The committee began its investigation in Gaetz in 2021 after multiple reports from the Daily Beast alleged the Florida Republican engaged in sex trafficking and illicit drug use. CNN also reported Gaetz showed naked photos of women he claimed to have slept with to other lawmakers while on the House floor.

The committee referred the case to the Department of Justice, which the agency requested as it looked into whether Gaetz had an inappropriate relationship with a 17-year-old girl and if his involvement with other women violated prostitution and federal sex trafficking laws.

The Justice Department later declined to move forward with charges and after that announcement, the House committee took up the investigation again last year.

Some allegations the committee is not taking any further action on include “allegations that he may have shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, and/or accepted a bribe or improper gratuity.”

“The Committee notes that the mere fact of an investigation into these allegations does not itself indicate that any violation has occurred,” the committee said.

Biden to unveil protections for some undocumented spouses, easier DACA work visas

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 10:50:06 +0000

President Joe Biden will formally make an announcement about protections for undocumented spouses and speedier work visas for DACA recipients during an afternoon White House event to celebrate the 12th anniversary of the DACA program (Drew Angerer/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration Tuesday will announce deportation protections for long-term undocumented immigrants married to U.S. citizens, along with quicker approval of work permits for those in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

President Joe Biden will formally make the announcement during an afternoon White House event to celebrate the 12th anniversary of the DACA program. The initiative was launched during the Obama administration and was meant to temporarily protect undocumented children brought into the United States without authorization.

The new policies were previewed by senior administration officials to reporters late Monday.

The new DACA policy will allow those recipients who have graduated from an accredited university and have an offer by a U.S. employer for a highly skilled job to quickly qualify for one of the existing temporary work visas, such as an H-1B visa.

The new policies came two weeks after Biden enacted his harshest crackdown on immigration with a partial ban on asylum proceedings at the southern border. Immigration remains a top issue for voters and for Biden’s GOP rival, former President Donald Trump.

Democrats and immigration advocates have long pressed the Biden administration to instill permanent protections for the nearly 579,000 DACA recipients as they await a decision from the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that could deem the program unlawful. The legal dispute is likely to head to the Supreme Court.

Many immigration policy experts have called DACA outdated, because there are now thousands of undocumented people who are not eligible for the program because they were not even born yet. To qualify, an undocumented person needs to have continuously resided in the U.S. since 2007.

Biden pushed to take action

Americans with undocumented spouses have expressed their frustration and pushed for the Biden administration to use executive action to grant relief for the more than 1.1 million Americans who fear their undocumented spouses could face deportation.

The deportation protections to those married to a U.S. citizens are a one-time action expected to allow roughly 500,000 noncitizen spouses and their children to apply for a lawful permanent residence — a green card — under certain requirements.

To qualify, a noncitizen must have resided in the U.S. for 10 years as of Monday, June 17, 2024, and be married to a U.S. citizen since that date as well. That spouse who is a noncitizen also cannot be deemed a security threat.

The Department of Homeland Security will consider those applications, which are expected to be open by the end of summer, on a case-by-case basis, a senior administration official said.

This move is also expected to affect roughly 50,000 children who are noncitizens and have an immigrant parent married to a U.S. citizen.

For those children to qualify, they have to be 21 or younger, unmarried “and the marriage between the parents has to have taken place before the child turned 18,” a senior administration official said.

Under current U.S. immigration law, if a noncitizen enters the country without authorization, they are ineligible for permanent legal status and would be required to leave the U.S. and reenter legally through a green card application by their U.S. spouse, which is a lengthy process that can take years.

“The challenges and uncertainty of this process result in many eligible spouses not applying for permanent residence,” a senior administration official said.

Application info coming

More information on the application and eligibility process will be published in the Federal Register in the coming weeks, a senior administration official said.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which oversees the legal immigration system, has a similar program that allows noncitizens who are immediate family members of U.S. military service members to obtain green cards without leaving the country.

“This announcement utilizes existing authorities to keep families together,” a senior administration official said. “But… only Congress can fix our broken immigration system.”

Any immigration reform from Congress is unlikely, with Republicans in control of the House and Democrats controlling the Senate. A bipartisan border security deal fell apart earlier this year. There was no pathway to citizenship in that deal for DACA recipients or longtime immigrants.

The closest Congress came to bipartisan immigration reform was in 2013, when the “Gang of Eight,” made up of four Republican and four Democratic senators, crafted a bill that would create a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented people.

It passed the Senate, but Republican House Speaker John Boehner never brought the bill to the floor for a vote.

U.S. Supreme Court overturns ban on bump stocks used in Las Vegas mass shooting

Ariana Figueroa — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 20:35:45 +0000

A 7.62X39mm round sits next a a 30-round magazine and an AK-47 with a bump stock installed at Good Guys Gun and Range in Orem, Utah, on Feb. 21, 2018. The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday struck down a 2018 rule to ban bump stocks, which allow semiautomatic rifles to fire at a rapid rate similar to fully automatic guns. (George Frey/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday struck down a rule enacted following a 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas that defined a semiautomatic rifle equipped with a bump stock attachment as a machine gun, which is generally prohibited under federal law.

The opinion, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, reduces the executive branch’s already-limited ability to address gun violence. Thomas, a strong defender of Second Amendment gun rights, wrote that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives exceeded its statutory authority in prohibiting the sale and possession of bump stocks, which he said differed importantly from machine guns.

“Nothing changes when a semiautomatic rifle is equipped with a bump stock,” Thomas wrote. “Between every shot, the shooter must release pressure from the trigger and allow it to reset before reengaging the trigger for another shot.”

The case, Garland v. Cargill, was a 6-3 decision that broke along the court’s established ideological lines.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the senior member of the court’s liberal wing, wrote the dissent, and argued that the decision puts “bump stocks back in civilian hands.”

“When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck,” she wrote. “A bump-stock-equipped semiautomatic rifle fires ‘automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.’ Because I, like Congress, call that a machine gun, I respectfully dissent.”

Gun safety setback

The White House slammed the decision.

“Today’s decision strikes down an important gun safety regulation,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. “Americans should not have to live in fear of this mass devastation.”

Biden called on Congress to ban bump stocks and assault weapons, but any gun-related legislation is likely to be stalled with Republicans controlling the House and Democrats holding only a slim majority in the Senate.

“Bump stocks have played a devastating role in many of the horrific mass shootings in our country, but sadly it’s no surprise to see the Supreme Court roll back this necessary public safety rule as they push their out of touch extreme agenda,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.

Trump-era rule

This case stems from a regulation set during the Trump administration, following the mass shooting in Las Vegas. A gunman used rifles outfitted with bump stocks to fire into a crowd at a music festival, killing 58 people and injuring more than 500.

The next year, the ATF issued the rule that concluded bump stocks are illegal machine guns. Anyone who owned or possessed a bump stock was required to either destroy the material or turn it in to the agency to avoid criminal penalties.

Michael Cargill, a gun shop owner in Austin, Texas, surrendered two bump stocks to ATF and then challenged the rule in federal court.

A U.S. district court dismissed his case, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit agreed with Cargill that a 1986 law’s definition of a machine gun does not apply to bump stocks because the rifles equipped with the attachments don’t shoot multiple bullets “automatically,” or “by a single function of the trigger.”

That law defined a machine gun as “any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.”

The Biden administration appealed the 5th Circuit’s decision to the Supreme Court.

High court arguments

In oral arguments, the Biden administration defended the Trump-era rule and said that bump stocks allow semiautomatic rifles to fire automatically with a single pull of the trigger.

Attorneys for Cargill argued that bump stocks are used by repeatedly pulling the trigger, rather than firing automatically with a single pull.

In her dissent, Sotomayor said the decision will limit the federal government’s “efforts to keep machine guns from gunmen like the Las Vegas shooter.”

Thomas also wrote a major gun decision in 2022 that invalidated a New York law against carrying a firearm in public without showing a special need for protection. The court decided the case on 14th Amendment grounds, but it also expanded Second Amendment rights.

Because of that 2022 decision, another gun related case is before the court this session that tests a federal law that prevents the possession of firearms by a person who is subject to a domestic violence protective order. A decision is expected this month.

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

Trump claims ‘great unity’ after talks with congressional GOP

Ariana Figueroa — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 13:10:13 +0000

Former President Donald Trump is applauded by U.S. Senate Republicans before giving remarks Thursday to the press at the National Republican Senatorial Committee headquarters. Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, visited Capitol Hill to meet with House and Senate Republicans. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — In his first visit to Capitol Hill since leaving office in January 2021, former President Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, mapped campaign strategy with GOP lawmakers and projected party unity ahead of the November elections.

Trump said the meetings brought “great unity.”

Surrounded by Republican senators who were smiling and applauding him after a meeting at the National Republican Senatorial Committee headquarters near the Capitol, Trump said “we have one thing in mind and that’s making our country great.”

The positive reception from GOP leaders showed Trump’s standing in the party improved since the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection that saw a mob of Trump supporters attack the U.S. Capitol in an effort to block Congress from certifying the electoral votes from the 2020 presidential election.

The U.S. House impeached Trump – for the second time – for his role in the attack, though the Senate vote fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict him.

Trump’s visit Thursday came two weeks after he was convicted on 34 felony counts in New York for falsifying business records to cover up a hush-money payment to a porn star before the 2016 election. Republicans have denounced the verdict as a weaponization of the justice system.

Trump met with House and Senate Republicans separately. Lawmakers exiting their respective meetings said they were unified behind the former president and they discussed a legislative strategy for a potential second term, such as reinstating Trump-era immigration policies.

“He understands he needs a majority in both bodies to have a successful presidency and he is determined to do that,” Rep. Frank Lucas of Oklahoma said.

Trump has made immigration a core campaign issue – as he did in 2016 – and has promised to not only reinstate his policies at the southern border, but to carry out mass deportations.

Democrats have remained on the offense on immigration policy, with the White House enacting an executive order that limits asylum claims at the southern border and the Senate failing on a second attempt to pass a border security bill. Vulnerable U.S. Senate Democrats in Montana, Ohio and Pennsylvania are aiming for reelection.

Trump urges ‘careful’ abortion talk

The meetings occurred on the day the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on another hot-button issue for the GOP. In a much-anticipated decision, the court unanimously upheld access to mifepristone, one of two pharmaceuticals used in medication abortion, under current prescribing guidelines.

House GOP lawmakers leaving the early meeting said that Trump did not comment on the court’s ruling.

But New York Rep. Marc Molinaro said that the former president advised Republicans that they “have to be very careful about” how they talk about abortion and that “is to show respect for women and the choices that they have to make.”

Just days ago, Trump promised to work “side by side” with a religious organization that wants abortion “eradicated.” Trump has yet to release his policy stances on contraception and access to medication abortion, a two-drug regimen approved for up to 10 weeks gestation.

Access to reproductive health care, including contraception and IVF, has become a central campaign theme for Democrats.

The Senate tried to pass legislation last week that would have provided protections for access to contraception, but most Republicans voted against it. The Senate also took a procedural vote Thursday on legislation from Democrats that would bolster protections for IVF, but it failed in the face of Republican opposition.

Birthday, baseball and an ‘aggressive agenda’

GOP House members leaving their meeting reported singing “Happy Birthday” to Trump, whose 78th birthday is Friday.

Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee said the conference presented Trump with a baseball and bat from the previous night’s Congressional Baseball Game, a charity event which Republicans won 31-11.

Burchett said they wanted to give him the memorabilia because “he’s the leader of our party, and the Republicans destroyed the Democrats, as we should do on Election Day.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana told reporters after the meeting that Trump “brought an extraordinary amount of energy and excitement and enthusiasm this morning.”

House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, of New York, said Trump was “warmly welcomed” and that GOP lawmakers had a “very successful” meeting with him.

“We are 100% unified behind his candidacy,” said Stefanik, a contender on Trump’s short list for vice presidential picks.

Johnson told reporters that Republicans have “an extraordinary stable of candidates” and that the party is “headed for a great November.”

Rep. Kat Cammack of Florida made similar remarks, and said that she believes “momentum is on our side.”

“We’re very, very motivated, our base is motivated and everyday Americans are motivated,” Cammack said.

She added that the former president is working to grow the Republican Party.

“It’s pretty clear that November for us is gonna be incredible,” she said.

Stakes in November

Johnson said that he’s confident Trump will win the White House and that Republicans will flip the Senate and grow their majority in the House.

Control of each chamber of Congress is expected to be closely fought in the November elections, and it’s possible that the House and Senate will continue to be split between the parties, but political observers see the prospect of a big switch.

If current trends continue through the year, it’s possible that the Senate could swing from Democratic to Republican control, and the House could flip from the GOP to Democrats.

House Democrats only need a gain of five seats to regain power and Senate Republicans only need two, or one if Trump wins the presidential race. Republicans have an easy opportunity to pick up a Senate seat in West Virginia after Joe Manchin III, a centrist Democrat, decided not seek reelection.

“We will be working on a very aggressive agenda to fix all the great problems facing this country right now,” Johnson said.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said that Trump is focused on increasing the GOP majority in the House. Because of the razor-thin majority that Republicans hold in the chamber, Johnson has often had to rely on Democrats to pass government funding bills along with foreign aid to Ukraine and Israel.

Insult to convention city

Republicans are gearing up for the party’s national convention in Milwaukee in mid-July, where they will officially nominate Trump as their 2024 presidential nominee and a yet-to-be-named vice presidential pick as well.

Trump is scheduled to be sentenced in New York four days before the convention begins.

The former president did not mention a running mate during his meeting with GOP senators, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said.

Trump told lawmakers Thursday that Milwaukee is a “horrible” city, according to Punchbowl News.

Wisconsin Republicans had varying interpretations of the remark, with Rep. Derrick Van Orden saying Trump was talking about crime in the city and Rep. Bryan Steil denying that Trump even made the comment.

Trump is scheduled to visit southeastern Wisconsin next week, for a campaign rally in Racine on Tuesday.

Key to Senate majority

Following the meeting Trump had with senators, Alabama’s Tommy Tuberville offered a handful of words to characterize the meeting: “Unification. Leadership.”

But not all Senate Republicans were in attendance. Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski and Maine’s Susan Collins did not attend due to scheduling conflicts, according to the Washington Examiner.

Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said that despite those absences, Republicans are still unified in their support of Trump.

Even those senators who have been at odds with the former president, such as Utah’s Mitt Romney and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, attended, which South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham felt was beneficial.

“We realize that his success is our success,” Graham said of Trump. “The road to the Senate majority is also the road to the White House.”

Dismissing guilty verdict

Johnson of Louisiana said Trump’s guilty verdict in New York has “backfired fantastically,” as the party boasted of a fundraising bump after “the terrible, bogus trial in Manhattan.”

Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall made a similar argument that the verdict benefited Trump.

“It’s helping him,” he said, noting that after the May 30 verdict, the Trump campaign raised $141 million in May.

Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming said “there was an absolute meeting of minds” that the verdict was a “sham.”

“We are so sorry that he has to endure that,” Lummis told States Newsroom on her walk from the meeting back to the Capitol.

Trump is also charged in three other criminal cases, including federal charges that allege he knowingly spread false information after the 2020 presidential election, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to join the scheme to overturn the results and whipping his base into a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The Supreme Court is set to decide in the coming weeks whether Trump enjoys presidential immunity, as he claims, from those charges.

Former Rep. Liz Cheney, who was the ranking member of the House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, criticized Republican lawmakers for meeting with Trump.

She reposted a New York Times photograph of McConnell shaking Trump’s hand Thursday on X and wrote “Mitch McConnell knows Trump provoked the violent attack on our Capitol and then ‘watched television happily’ as his mob brutally beat police officers and hunted the Vice President.”

“Trump and his collaborators will be defeated, and history will remember the shame of people like @LeaderMcConnell who enabled them,” Cheney, a Wyoming Republican who lost her reelection bid in a 2022 Republican primary, wrote.

Dems blast return

The Biden campaign has also latched onto Trump’s return to Capitol Hill, releasing statements from various Democrats who led investigations into the insurrection and criticized the former president’s return.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement on behalf of the Biden campaign that “the instigator of an insurrection is returning to the scene of the crime.”

“With his pledges to be a dictator on day one and seek revenge against his political opponents, Donald Trump comes to Capitol Hill today with the same mission of dismantling our democracy,” she said.

Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, former chair of the House Jan. 6 committee, criticized Republicans for allowing Trump “to waltz in here when it’s known he has no regard for democracy.”

“He still presents the same dire threat to our democracy that he did three years ago — and he’d be wise to head back to Mar-a-Lago and await his sentencing,” Thompson, of Mississippi, said in a statement on behalf of the Biden campaign.

Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who served as an impeachment manager for Trump’s role in the insurrection, said in a statement on behalf of the Biden campaign that “Donald Trump is a one-man crime wave and a clear and present danger to the U.S. Constitution and the American people.”

Lia Chien contributed to this report.

YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.

Immigrant advocates, congressional Dems press Biden for permanent protections

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 20:12:45 +0000

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, Democrat of Michigan, speaks Wednesday at an event outside the U.S. Capitol, calling on the Biden administration to use its executive authority to protect people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration program. (Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Ashly Trejo Mejia is eager to attend medical school, but she’s not sure she can pursue that dream because of an upcoming court decision that could end the Obama-era program meant to temporarily protect immigrants like her who were brought into the country illegally as children.

“You’re frozen in time,” she said.

The 23-year-old from Hyattsville, Maryland, was one of dozens of organizers and a handful of lawmakers outside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, urging the administration to instill permanent protections for the nearly 579,000 recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program before a 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals decision that could deem the program unlawful.

It’s a case that is likely to head to the Supreme Court.

Democratic lawmakers Sen. Alex Padilla of California, Reps. Sylvia Garcia of Texas, Delia Ramirez of Illinois and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan called on President Joe Biden to use his executive authority to enact protections for beneficiaries for the deferred action program, which then-President Barack Obama created 12 years ago this week.

The lawmakers suggested the president could grant parole or Deferred Enforced Departure status, which allows those covered to be exempt from deportation for a certain period of time.

“This was a promise made by the Biden administration, that they would address this issue and we gotta keep them on this promise,” Tlaib said.

Padilla acknowledged that because of the makeup of Congress, where Republicans control the House and Democrats hold a slim majority in the Senate, any action on the program, often called DACA, must come from the White House.

“He has an executive authority to provide relief for caregivers, for Dreamers, for DACA recipients and the undocumented spouses of United States citizens,” Padilla.

DACA recipients are often called “Dreamers,” based on never-passed legislation called the Dream Act.

The White House did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment on any executive action related to DACA.

Court challenge

A case brought by seven states threatens the program.

In the lawsuit, which Texas led along with Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina and West Virginia, the states argue that DACA places an undue burden on the states and that the Obama administration didn’t follow proper procedures when implementing the program in 2012.

The Biden administration implemented its own final rule on DACA, but a federal judge deemed it unlawful in a September 2023 decision. The Biden administration has appealed to the 5th Circuit and is awaiting its decision.

Under the federal court order, the program remains in place for people who are already covered, but an injunction was placed to bar any future applicants, like Reyna Valdivias Solorio, from being able to apply.

Valdivias Solorio came to the U.S. when she was a year old and recently graduated from Nevada State University.

“I’ve been undocumented my whole life,” she said. “The hardest part is the emotional stress that comes from living in fear that one day, my older siblings, my parents and I could be deported and be separated from my younger siblings in this country we call home.”

There are about 94,500 pending applications for the DACA program, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data.

Additionally, the immigration advocacy and research organization FWD.us estimates there are 400,000 eligible undocumented youth who are unable to meet DACA eligibility requirements because they came to the U.S. too recently.

The program has seen legal challenges before, including a move by President Donald Trump’s administration in 2017 to rescind the program.

The move was ultimately blocked by the Supreme Court in a June 2020 decision. The high court ordered the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to accept first-time DACA applications, but the Trump administration didn’t until December 2020.

Spouses

Americans with undocumented spouses have expressed their frustration with the White House.

Speakers at Wednesday’s event pushed for executive action to grant relief for the more than 1.1 million Americans who fear their spouses could face deportation.

Ramirez said her husband, who is a DACA recipient, first entered the program when he was 14, and that many in the program are adults still waiting for a pathway to citizenship.

“I get to call him my husband,” she said. “Unfortunately, this country calls him undocumented.”

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Biden touts gun safety record to advocates, as son found guilty on felony charges

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 21:41:56 +0000

President Joe Biden speaks Tuesday to a conference hosted by Everytown for Gun Safety in Washington hours after his son Hunter Biden was convicted of three gun-related felonies. (Screenshot from CSPAN livestream.)

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Tuesday touted his administration’s efforts to reduce gun violence as the second anniversary of bipartisan gun safety legislation he signed into law approaches.

“Never give up on hope,” Biden said during an annual conference hosted by the advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety.

The speech came hours after the president’s son Hunter Biden was found guilty in a federal court in Delaware of lying on paperwork related to purchasing a gun and unlawfully possessing that gun, according to media reports.

The federal jury found Hunter Biden, who has struggled with drug addiction, guilty on three related felony charges: lying to a licensed gun dealer, falsely stating on an application for a gun that he was not using drugs and for unlawfully having the gun for 11 days.

He could face up to 25 years in prison, though as a first-time offender his sentence is expected to be much less severe.

The president has avoided publicly commenting on his son’s case and he did not mention the verdict in his speech.

Gaza protest

Shortly after Biden began his speech, he was interrupted by a protester who accused the president of being “complicit” in the high death toll of the Israel-Hamas war that has killed 35,000 Palestinians since Oct. 7, according to the Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip run by the Hamas-controlled government. An agreement over a U.S. backed cease-fire deal remains elusive.

The crowd immediately drowned out the protester. A group of protesters was removed, according to a White House pool report.

Biden tried to calm the crowd.

“That’s alright,” he said. “Folks, it’s ok, look they care, innocent children have been lost, they make a point.”

Law nears second anniversary

Biden went back to his speech, and thanked the gun safety advocates and survivors “who have turned their pain” into advocacy.

“You’ve helped power a movement,” Biden said.

The gun safety law Biden signed in 2022 was the most comprehensive federal gun safety legislation in nearly 30 years. It stemmed from two deadly mass shootings less than two weeks apart in 2022.

One was at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two teachers were murdered, making it the second-deadliest mass shooting since the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in 2012.

The other was in Buffalo, New York, where a white supremacist targeted a Black neighborhood and killed 10 Black people in a grocery store.

The 2022 law provided $750 million for states to enact “red flag laws,” which allow the courts to temporarily remove a firearm from an individual who is a threat to themselves or others as well as $11 billion in mental health services for schools and families. The law cracked down on straw purchases, illegal transactions in which a buyer acquires a gun for someone else.

The bill also requires those who are under 21 and want to purchase a firearm to undergo a background check that takes into account a review of juvenile and mental health records. It also led to the creation of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.

The Justice Department also announced Tuesday it has charged more than 500 people under provisions of the gun safety law to “target the unlawful trafficking and straw-purchasing of firearms.”

The statutes “directly prohibit straw purchasing and firearms trafficking and significantly enhance the penalties for those crimes, providing for up to 15 years in prison,” according to the Justice Department.

“Criminals rely on illegal gun traffickers and straw purchasers to obtain the weapons they use to harm our communities,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.

More work to do

Biden acknowledged that more needs to be done on gun safety legislation and he called on Congress to ban assault weapons and require universal background checks and safe storage of firearms. In a divided Congress, any gun-related legislation is unlikely to pass.

The last time Congress passed major gun legislation was 1994, when then-President Bill Clinton signed a ban on assault weapons that spanned 10 years. When it expired, Congress did not renew the ban.

Biden also took a jab at his rival, former President Donald J. Trump, and said that he won’t tell people to “get over” a mass shooting.

After a school shooting in Perry, Iowa, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee said during a campaign speech in Sioux City, Iowa, that while the school shooting that left two dead – an 11-year-old student and the principal – was a “terrible thing that happened,” his advice was to “get over it. We have to move forward.”

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U.S. Senate Republicans outline their farm bill framework

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 21:10:14 +0000

Republican U.S. Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas on met with reporters Tuesday to discuss the GOP farm bill. (John Sykes/Arkansas Advocate)

WASHINGTON — Republicans on the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry on Tuesday released their framework for a new five-year farm bill that will set the policy and funding levels for key food, agriculture and conservation programs.

The top Republican on the committee, Arkansas Sen. John Boozman, laid out GOP priorities with reporters during a Tuesday morning briefing prior to publication of the framework.

Those priorities include an increase in reference prices for all covered commodities; increased spending for conservation programs by pulling funds from climate legislation passed in 2022; “cost-neutral” updates to the formula that calculates benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP; increased crop insurance levels; and reporting requirements for foreign purchase and ownership of farmland.

“Hopefully, we can take all of these together and build on that so we can actually get a farm bill passed,” Boozman said.

The GOP measure also doubles funding for land grant universities for research on topics such as fertilizer application, pesticides and labor, Boozman said.

Boozman said the investment in research will help with “getting agriculture into this century.”

Boozman said the framework will also boost crop insurance by increasing support for the Supplemental Coverage Option to 80% and the coverage level to 90% for more than 55 specialty and row crops.

He added that the Senate’s framework is similar to the one House Republicans put forth.

“Following on the House Committee on Agriculture’s bipartisan passage of (a) farmer-focused farm bill, we are putting forth a framework that exhibits a shared common ground with our Democrat counterparts on several key priorities and offers a path forward in the places where we differ,” Boozman said.

House action

The House Committee on Agriculture passed its version of the farm bill out of committee in late May, and while four Democrats joined Republicans in approving the bill, nearly two dozen Democrats were against it.

The House version of the farm bill is expected to cost $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years, but there is currently no cost estimate for the Senate GOP version. There is also no bill text for the Senate version.

The current farm bill expires on Sept. 30, and if Congress doesn’t pass a new one, an extension would be needed of policies enacted under the 2018 farm bill.

Boozman said he hopes Congress doesn’t have to pass an extension, but if so, he expects to get the farm bill done during the lame-duck session after the November elections.

Like the House GOP version, the Senate legislation would divert funds from climate-related legislation passed in 2022 for conservation projects that would remove some climate-smart guardrails, which has drawn objections from Democrats.

Boozman said taking off the guardrails would “make it more useful.”

Nutrition programs

The Senate Republican farm bill framework would not make any changes to benefits and eligibility for SNAP, but it curtails an update tool used by the Thrifty Food Plan.

“The Republican framework restores Congress’ constitutional spending authority by returning to a cost-neutral and transparent process for future five-year reevaluations of the (Thrifty Food Plan) based on the most up-to-date consumption data and dietary guidance, all while ensuring an annual inflationary adjustment,” according to the framework.

In 2018, the farm bill allowed the U.S. Department of Agriculture to reevaluate the Thrifty Food plan and in 2021 the agency updated it to reflect the cost of living, which led to a 21% increase in SNAP benefits. About 12.8% of U.S. households were food-insecure in 2022, according to USDA. More than 41 million people use SNAP benefits.

The Senate’s version reverts to a “cost-neutral” model, Boozman said, which is similar to the House Republican version. Democrats have already opposed those changes.

The Democratic chair of the Senate committee, Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, released a section-by-section version of the Democrats’ farm bill in early May. That version would boost eligibility for SNAP benefits, but there is no legislative text for that bill either.

In a statement, Stabenow said the framework “follows the same flawed approach” as the House version from Republicans.

“It makes significant cuts to the family safety net that millions of Americans rely on and walks away from the progress we have made to address the climate crisis,” she said.

Foreign ownership of farmland

Limiting foreign ownership of U.S. farmland has garnered bipartisan support in Congress, as states have passed their own laws on the issue.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has said the biggest foreign land ownership comes from Canada, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, but there is concern in Congress about ownership by Russia, China, Iran and North Korea — which own less than 400,000 acres of land.

Lawmakers are pushing for federal reporting requirements in the Senate GOP farm bill under Title XII, the miscellaneous section.

“This modernization will help ensure compliance with reporting requirements and provides a clearer picture of the scope and scale of the issues foreign ownership of U.S. farmland poses to our country,” according to the framework.

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On the U.S.-Mexico border, hopes and fears after Biden’s order limiting asylum

Ariana Figueroa — Mon, 10 Jun 2024 21:25:11 +0000

Razor wire along the Rio Grande on the Texas side of the U.S.-Mexico border (Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom).

EL PASO, Texas — Seventeen-year-old Karina Parababire gently rocked her three-month-old daughter as they waited in a migrant shelter before a Friday night bus ride to Chicago.

“I want my daughter to have everything that I didn’t have,” Parababire, who traveled up the extremely dangerous route of the Darien Gap while pregnant, said in Spanish.

The Venezuelan, who is traveling with her family, had to stop in Honduras to give birth to her daughter, Avis, before continuing to the United States. Once in Mexico, she and her family were granted an appointment through the CBP One app — a tool the Biden administration uses to grant migrants a meeting with an asylum officer.

She had been at the Sacred Heart Church shelter with her family for four days. They planned to continue on to Chicago, where they’ll be met by her cousin. Parababire hopes that after she gets to the Windy City, she can go back to high school and possibly enter college.

Parababire and her relatives arrived in the U.S. just before President Joe Biden issued an executive order that partly bans asylum claims when unauthorized crossings exceed a daily threshold. Because the family was admitted using the CBP One app, they were allowed to continue their journey.

As for other migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, local leaders said this week they are anticipating the effects of the order to be somewhat beneficial in limiting unauthorized crossings, though there was also plenty of skepticism.

Immigration advocates expressed deep concern the order — issued after Congress failed to take action on sweeping immigration legislation — would lead to more harm to already vulnerable people.

“I’ve come here today to do what Republicans in Congress refuse to do, take the necessary steps to secure our border,” Biden said in announcing the order, referring to a bipartisan border security deal Republicans walked away from earlier this year. “This action will help us gain control of our border.”

Uncertainty about a new policy

The shelter at Sacred Heart Church that housed Parababire currently has a relatively low number of migrants — about 70 compared to a capacity of 120.

The director, Michael DeBruhl, said it’s unclear how the order will affect the number of migrants who arrive not only at the shelter, but at the many ports of entry along the southern border.

“The thing is that the Border Patrol is going to take the brunt of this executive order and that they will have to process everybody,” he said. “The difference is going to be that there are nuances regarding how everything can apply to asylum, so they’re going to make it more difficult for you to apply to asylum.”

The big question, DeBruhl said, “is how exactly they are doing that.”

“You’re gonna have all these Border Patrol agents making these decisions, all these nuances, of a policy that’s just been implemented,” he said.

A Customs and Border Protection official declined to comment on the effects of the new executive order, but noted it would change the processing of noncitizens at the southern border.

Local officials saw some positives. “This is a start, but it’s just the beginning,” the mayor of El Paso, Oscar Leeser, said during a Wednesday presentation to journalists with local border officials.

Leeser was one of the several Texas mayors who attended the White House’s announcement of this week’s executive order.

Leeser said he believes the order will stop unauthorized border crossings because “the consequences are greater now and that’s the difference.”

Presidential campaign

The order, which is Biden’s most drastic crackdown on immigration during his administration, comes five months before a presidential election in which it’s a top issue for voters and for his GOP rival, former President Donald Trump.

The order is currently in effect because daily unauthorized crossings have reached a threshold of more than 2,500 encounters with migrants each day for a week at the southern border.

“Simply put, the Departments do not have adequate resources and tools to deliver timely decisions and consequences to individuals who cross unlawfully and cannot establish a legal basis to remain in the United States, or to provide timely protection to those ultimately found eligible for protection when individuals are arriving at such elevated, historic volumes,” according to the text of the interim final rule from the executive order.

The order goes away once government officials determine that fewer than 1,500 people a day have crossed the border in a week’s time span. Unaccompanied children are exempt, along with victims of human trafficking, people with visas, people with medical emergencies or those who report serious threats to their lives.

Those migrants who arrive at ports of entry to claim asylum once the cap is reached and do not establish a “reasonable probability of persecution or torture in the country of removal,” will be removed and subjected to a five-year ban from applying for asylum in the U.S., according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Returning to Mexico or home countries

Leeser said the order will help manage high numbers of arrivals of migrants at ports of entry because it will allow the Biden administration to return those migrants either to their home countries or elsewhere in Mexico if their home country is deemed too dangerous.

Leeser said because of this, he expects migrants to use more legal pathways, such as the CBP One app, through which appointments can be made with an immigration official to claim asylum.

Through the CPB One app, more than 1,400 migrants are processed for appointments each day with an immigration official. The wait time for an appointment can take about five to eight months, according to a May report by the Robert Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas at Austin, which documents asylum claims at ports of entry.

But Juan Acereto Cervera, the adviser to the mayor of Juárez, Mexico, which borders El Paso, expressed skepticism that the new White House policy will stop people from trying to cross the border to claim asylum.

“Nothing’s going to stop this migration,” he said. “It’s because something is happening in their other countries that make these people to try to find the best country in the world, that is the United States. That’s the truth.”

Jorge Rodriguez, the coordinator for the El Paso City & County Office of Emergency Management, said that it’s common for the number of migrants that arrive in El Paso to fluctuate, based on immigration policy changes from the White House.

“With time … what we’ll see is how this one will ultimately play out,” he said.

Legal action looms

Under U.S. immigration law, for a noncitizen to claim asylum, they have to reach U.S. soil and then make that claim. They can stay in the U.S. and receive due process if they have a fear of persecution based on their “race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.”

The American Civil Liberties Union, which was at the forefront of many legal cases against the Trump administration’s immigration policies — including ones that restricted asylum — has already stated it plans to sue the Biden administration over its executive order.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, whose district includes El Paso, said in a statement that she was disappointed that the Biden administration focused its executive order only on enforcement.

“It is my sincere hope that administrative actions on immigration relief, like parole in place for the spouses of US citizens and designations of Temporary Protected Status for vulnerable populations, will also happen,” she said.

‘A very dangerous place’

Immigration advocates and attorneys in El Paso said during a separate Wednesday panel with journalists they fear for the impact the executive order could have on migrants.

“I think we do kind of know what’s going to happen — it creates a backlog,” said Imelda Maynard, an attorney at Estrella Del Paso Legal Aid.

Maynard said she can easily see how the executive order will be misinterpreted by migrants who will think the 2,500 threshold is a quota to allow people into the U.S.

“What the government is trying to do, right, lessen the amount of irregular entries, I think that’s going to increase,” she said.

Father Rafael Garcia, a priest who serves Sacred Heart Church, said he expects the executive order will cause more migrants to wait in Mexico, which could burden Mexico and leave those migrants in dangerous situations.

“It’s hard to know how this is gonna play out, but it doesn’t look too good,” Garcia said.

The director of Sacred Heart Church, DeBruhl, said that he thinks it will take a few weeks to see the full impact of the executive order.

“The conservatives are saying that it’s not going to make any difference… the (Biden) administration is saying this is going to have a specific (effect), and be quite impactful,” he said. “I don’t think anybody really knows how this is going to play out.”

Aimée Santillán, a policy analyst at the Hope Border Institute, which advocates for solidarity and justice across the borderlands, said that the order will require many migrants to wait in Mexico, and “right now, Mexico is a very dangerous place for migrants to be in.”

“We think that this might exacerbate the situation, or push people to … find other routes of entering the country that are less controlled, have less services, have less people receiving them and giving them assistance,” she said.

This story was reported through an El Paso-based fellowship on U.S. immigration policy organized by Poynter, an institute for the professional development of journalists, with funding from the Catena Foundation.

Executive order limiting asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border to be signed by Biden

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 04 Jun 2024 16:09:05 +0000

In an aerial view, a Texas National Guard soldier walks past a barrier of shipping containers and razor wire at the U.S.-Mexico border on March 17, 2024 in Eagle Pass, Texas (John Moore/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will sign an executive order on Tuesday that will allow him to partly suspend asylum requests at the U.S.-Mexico border when daily unauthorized crossings reach a threshold of 2,500 migrants.

“We do expect the authority would be in effect immediately,” a senior administration official said on a Tuesday call with reporters previewing the executive order. It would not be permanent and only applies to the southern border, including the southwest land border and southern coastal borders.

The White House has been dealing with the largest number of migrant encounters at the southern border in 20 years. In addition, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has made it a top issue for voters. Biden’s move marks his most drastic crackdown on immigration during his administration.

The order makes three changes to asylum law under Title 8 of the Immigration and Nationality Act when that threshold of 2,500 migrants is reached, a senior administration official said. The first is that a noncitizen who crosses the border without authorization will be ineligible for asylum.

The second is any noncitizen who crosses the border while the order is in effect and is processed for removal will only be referred to a credible fear interview with an asylum officer “if they manifest or express a fear of return to their country or country of removal, a fear of persecution or torture, or an intention to apply for asylum,” a senior administration official said.

And the third is raising the standard for credible fear interviews to a “reasonable probability of persecution or torture standard,” which is “a new, substantially higher standard than is currently being applied at the border,” a senior administration official said.

“Taken together, these measures will significantly increase the speed and the scope of consequences for those who cross unlawfully or without authorization and allow the departments to more quickly remove individuals who do not establish a legal basis to remain in the United States,” a senior administration official said.

The order, versions of which were reported ahead of the White House announcement, drew criticism from both parties.

Republicans like U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana called it a “weak executive order,” while progressive Democrats slammed it as a partial ban on asylum.

A senior administration official argued that the executive order is different from the Trump administration’s immigration policies because the order will “only apply during times of high encounters.”

Biden, who campaigned in 2020 on protecting asylum law, is relying on the same presidential authority — Section 212(f) of the Immigration Nationality Act — that the Trump administration used to justify several immigration-related restrictions, such as the travel ban from predominantly Muslim countries.

The Biden order would also allow border officials to return certain individuals who cross the border without authorization back to Mexico – nationals from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela.

There will be exemptions for lawful permanent residents, unaccompanied minors, people with an “acute medical emergency” or an extreme threat to life or safety, and for victims of human trafficking, a senior administration official said.

A senior administration official said this temporary order would go away when there are seven consecutive days when daily encounters are less than 1,500 migrants between ports of entry. Once that is established, the order expires in 14 calendar days.

The Biden administration has considered moving forward with the executive order after an immigration deal the White House and Senate brokered earlier this year fell apart after Trump came out against it. Republicans quickly fell in line. Among other things, that deal would have given Biden the authority to shut down any asylum requests once encounters reached 5,000 people in a week or 8,500 in a day.

A senior administration official said the 2,500 threshold was chosen to be similar to the deal stuck in the Senate.

“To Joe Biden, the safety of American families should always come first,” senior deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said in a memo.

“That’s why today, the President is announcing new historic executive actions to bar migrants who cross our Southern border unlawfully from receiving asylum. Because of President Biden’s leadership, law enforcement will gain new capabilities that congressional Republicans cannot block.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

An angry Trump pledges to appeal ‘this scam’ conviction as Republicans vow resistance

Ariana Figueroa — Fri, 31 May 2024 22:25:42 +0000

Former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, speaks Friday during a press conference at Trump Tower in New York City. Trump was found guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first of his criminal cases to go to trial. (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump, now a convicted felon, vowed to launch an appeal based “on many things” he considered unfair during his New York trial, he said Friday in the lobby of Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan.

Meanwhile Friday, legal and political analysts predicted he will spend little if any time in jail depending on the outcome of that appeal, fundraising among supportive Republicans appeared to surge and eight GOP members of the U.S. Senate pledged they will not support any Democratic priorities or nominations.

The reactions came as Americans continued to digest the news that on Thursday, a jury in Lower Manhattan found the Republican Party’s presumed 2024 presidential nominee guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, a felony in New York.

The roughly seven-week proceeding marked the first-ever criminal trial of a former U.S. president.

“We’re going to be appealing this scam,” Trump said at his late-morning press conference, referring to New York Justice Juan Merchan as a “tyrant.”

Over about 30 minutes of often misleading or false comments delivered in his familiar stream-of-consciousness style that jumped from topic to topic, Trump complained about aspects of the trial, said the case shouldn’t have been prosecuted at all and made campaign-style appeals on immigration and crime.

Trump has centered his public relations defense on the idea that the prosecution was politically motivated, often blaming the Biden administration, and he repeated the theme throughout his Friday remarks.

“If they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone,” he said.

President Joe Biden said Friday that Trump “was given every opportunity to defend himself.”

“It was a state case, not a federal case. It was heard by a jury of 12 citizens, 12 Americans, 12 people like you, like millions of Americans who’ve served on juries. This jury was chosen the same way every jury in America is chosen. It was a process that Donald Trump’s attorney was part of,” Biden said from the White House before delivering remarks on the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Biden said Trump now has the opportunity “as he should” to appeal, just like anyone else who is tried in the U.S.

“That’s how the American system of justice works,” Biden said. “It’s reckless, it’s dangerous, it’s irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don’t like the verdict.”

Jail time?

Trump told the crowd Friday morning he could spend “187 years” in jail for being found guilty of falsifying business records. It was not clear how he arrived at that number.

Most observers of his trial and the New York justice system disagree with that estimate.

Merchan set Trump’s sentencing for July 11 at 10 a.m. Eastern, just four days before the Republican National Convention kicks off in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where the GOP will officially nominate Trump for president in November’s election.

Trump is convicted of class E felonies, the lowest level felony in New York state, and each carries the possibility of probation to up to four years in prison.

Any incarceration sentence up to a year would be served in the city’s Rikers Island jail or another local facility. Incarceration beyond that time frame would be served at a state facility.

“If that jail sentence happens, it probably will be less than a year,” said Norm Eisen, former White House special counsel in the Obama administration, who has been commenting on the indictment and trial for months.

Eisen spoke during a virtual press conference hosted by the Defend Democracy Project.

New York state law experts say Merchan may not be inclined to imprison a former, and possibly future, U.S. president. And, if he sentences Trump to any length of incarceration, it will likely be stayed — a temporary stop to the action —pending appeal.

Trump could remain free on bail conditions set by the court, or no bail conditions, subject to a decision by the appeals court and potentially any other review if an appeals judge sends the case to the state’s highest court.

“When there is a stay pending appeal, generally, the process is expedited more quickly than it would be if the defendant was at liberty and there was no stay. But even so, this is going to go beyond the election,” said retired New York Supreme Court Judge Michael Obus at the press conference with Eisen.

Appeal strategy?

While Trump said Friday morning he plans to appeal the verdict based on “many things,” legal observers speculate his team’s approach may come down to a few options.

In New York, falsifying a business record is illegal in the first degree when the “intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.”

While the jurors had to unanimously agree on an intent to commit another crime, they did not have to agree unanimously on what that underlying crime was, according to Merchan’s instructions to the jury prior to deliberations.

Merchan said jurors could consider three options for the other crime: violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act; falsification of other business records; or, violation of tax laws.

Obus said a “non-frivolous argument” that Trump’s team might use is that one of those underlying crimes was a federal, not a state crime.

“That’s the kind of argument that we might see on appeal — the argument being that New York courts don’t have the authority to prosecute the case with that being the object crime because it’s a federal crime,” Obus said. “I don’t think that’ll be successful.”

In addition to the challenge regarding federal election law, Shane T. Stansbury of Duke Law told States Newsroom in an interview Friday that he expects to see Trump’s legal team challenge evidentiary issues.

“For example, I would expect that the defense would make a claim that the salacious testimony by Stormy Daniels about the details of her sexual encounter with Donald Trump was unfairly prejudicial,” Stansbury said.

Also, Trump’s lawyers might challenge the judge’s decision to strike from defense attorney Todd Blanche’s closing statement a plea he made to the jury, asking them to not send Trump “to prison.”

The charge against Trump could, or could not, result in prison time.

“You can imagine the defense saying that that correction may have prejudiced the jury. Now, I should say that those kinds of evidentiary issues are a much steeper climb for the defense,” Stansbury said.

‘A legal expense’

Trump remains under a gag order imposed by Merchan in March to keep the former president from further attacking court staff and potential witnesses online.

Trump violated the order 10 times, leading Merchan to fine him $9,000 on April 30, and again $1,000 on May 6.

During his comments Friday morning, Trump complained of having to pay “thousands of dollars” because of his “nasty gag order.”

Still, Trump spent several minutes during his remarks talking about one of the prosecution’s star witnesses, his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen.

According to testimony and document evidence presented during trial, Cohen wired $130,000 of his own money to porn star Stormy Daniels days before the 2016 presidential election to silence her about an alleged affair with Trump. Trump then reimbursed Cohen the following year under the guise of “legal expenses.”

Prosecutors never should have brought the case accusing him of falsifying business records, Trump said.

The payments to Cohen were for Cohen to create a nondisclosure agreement with Daniels and secure her signature, which is legal, Trump said Friday. That was a legal service, and the payments were properly recorded that way, he said.

“I paid a lawyer a legal expense,” he said.

“The whole thing is legal expense was marked down as legal expense,” he said. “Think of it: This is the crime that I committed that I’m supposed to go to jail for 187 years for.”

Trump, who wouldn’t say Cohen’s name Friday because of the gag order, said Cohen was not a “fixer” as he is often described, but a lawyer in good standing.

“By the way, this was a highly qualified lawyer,” Trump said. “Now I’m not allowed to use his name because of the gag order. But, you know, he’s a sleazebag. Everybody knows that. Took me a while to find out. But he was effective. He did work. But he wasn’t a fixer. He was a lawyer.”

Trump said he wanted to testify at his trial, but was advised not to by his lawyers.

Attacks on Biden

Trump pivoted nearly immediately after his remarks began to campaign-style attacks on Biden’s administration and the anti-immigration positions that comprise Trump’s most consistent policy message since his political career began in 2015.

He focused on immigrants from predominantly non-white countries and made false claims that many had been institutionalized in prison and mental hospitals.

“Millions and millions of people are flowing in from all parts of the world, not just South America, from Africa, from Asia and from the Middle East, and they’re coming in from jails and prisons, and they’re coming in from mental institutions and insane asylums,” he said. “And we have a president and a group of fascists that don’t want to do anything about it.”

He also called crime “rampant in New York.” He added that Biden wanted to quadruple taxes and “make it impossible for you to get a car,” neither of which are based on Biden’s actual policy positions.

In a statement, Biden campaign spokesperson Michael Tyler called Trump’s remarks “unhinged.”

“America just witnessed a confused, desperate, and defeated Donald Trump ramble about his own personal grievances and lie about the American justice system, leaving anyone watching with one obvious conclusion: This man cannot be president of the United States,” Tyler wrote. “Unhinged by his 2020 election loss and spiraling from his criminal convictions, Trump is consumed by his own thirst for revenge and retribution.”

GOP convention in less than two months

The Republican National Convention begins July 15. The Republican National Committee, which called Thursday’s verdict “rigged,” did not immediately respond to questions Friday about whether it will adjust plans in the event Trump is placed under any restrictions during his July 11 sentencing.

Trump encouraged supporters to continue backing his campaign as a response to the verdict, calling Nov. 5 – Election Day – “the most important day in the history of our country.”

Throughout his remarks Friday, he touted an online poll conducted by J.L. Partners and published in the conservative British tabloid The Daily Mail on Friday that showed Trump’s approval rating gained points after the verdict.

There were signs that showed Republican support, at least, consolidated even more behind Trump following the verdict.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee, the campaign organization for U.S. Senate Republicans, said it had its highest fundraising day of the cycle Thursday, bringing in $360,000 in donations that the group directly attributed to the verdict in Manhattan.

Other official GOP channels, including the Republican National Committee social media accounts, echoed Trump’s message that the former president was the victim of a political prosecution and predicted the conviction would push voters toward Trump.

Elected Republicans throughout the country continued Friday to almost universally reject the verdict and defend Trump.

A group of eight U.S. Senate Republicans – Mike Lee of Utah, J.D. Vance of Ohio, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Eric Schmitt of Missouri, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Rick Scott and Marco Rubio of Florida and Roger Marshall of Kansas – signed a letter Friday pledging to increase their resistance to administration priorities in response to the verdict.

“Those who turned our judicial system into a political cudgel must be held accountable,” Lee said in a post to X. “We are no longer cooperating with any Democrat legislative priorities or nominations, and we invite all concerned Senators to join our stand.”

The Biden administration and congressional Democrats played no role in the trial, which was in New York state court.

‘No one is above the law’

The top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, said that Thursday’s verdict shows that “no one is above the law.”

Nadler was joined by Eisen, along with accountability advocates and historians, on a Friday webinar for the press hosted by watchdog group Public Citizen. Eisen participated in multiple press appearances Friday.

Nadler said that Republicans are attempting to sow distrust in the verdict, as the chair of the Judiciary Committee, Jim Jordan of Ohio, has already sent a letter to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg requesting that he testify in a hearing before the panel’s Weaponization of the Federal Government Subcommittee on June 13.

Nadler said he disagreed with Jordan’s decision to request testimony from the DA who prosecuted Trump.

“It’s a continuing attempt to bully the prosecutors into abandoning prosecutions and to tell the country the false story of persecution of the president (Trump) and to help undermine confidence in the criminal justice system,” Nadler said.

Nadler said the New York trial was important because it’s likely going to be the only trial that finishes before the November elections. Trump faces two federal criminal cases, and another criminal case in Georgia.

“It is very important for the American people to know, before an election, that they’re dealing with a convicted felon,” Nadler said.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at New York University who specializes in authoritarianism, propaganda and democracy protection, said during the virtual press conference that the trial was a demonstration of American democracy being upheld.

“The fact this trial took place at all and was able to unfold in the professional way it did is a testament to the worth and functioning of our democracy,” she said.

Bipartisan border bill loses support, fails procedural vote in U.S. Senate

Ariana Figueroa — Fri, 24 May 2024 12:15:31 +0000

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, flanked by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, left, and Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat, speaks during a news conference to support a border security bill on Wednesday, May 22, 2024. The bill failed on a procedural vote Thursday (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate failed Thursday to advance a border security bill as both parties seek to hone their messages on immigration policy in the runup to November’s elections.

The Senate bill failed to advance on a 43-50 procedural vote. The chamber already rejected the measure as part of a broader foreign aid package earlier this year. The bill, negotiated with the White House and a bipartisan trio of senators in the hopes of winning broad appeal, would have overhauled immigration law for the first time in more than 30 years.

Two of the border deal’s chief Senate negotiators, Oklahoma Republican James Lankford and Arizona independent Kyrsten Sinema, voted against advancing the measure Thursday, protesting what they said was an unserious process focused on political optics. The bill’s third major sponsor, Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy, voted in favor.

The procedural vote to advance to debate on the bill came as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer aimed to contrast Democrats’ approach to immigration policy with Republicans’ ahead of the November elections. The issue continues to rise as a top concern for voters and remains a core campaign theme for the GOP and its presumptive presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump.

Both chambers are readying other votes seemingly aimed at highlighting election themes.

The Democratic-led Senate is teeing up votes as early as next month on access to contraceptives, and protections for in vitro fertilization, or IVF, as Democrats have continued to campaign on the issue of reproductive rights.

The Republican-controlled House is moving forward with immigration related legislation, such as barring noncitizens from voting in federal elections, something that is rare and already illegal, as the GOP continues to highlight its disagreements with the White House over immigration policy.

Shortly after the Senate vote, President Joe Biden in a statement said Senate Republicans “put partisan politics ahead of our country’s national security.”

“Congressional Republicans do not care about securing the border or fixing America’s broken immigration system,” he said. “If they did, they would have voted for the toughest border enforcement in history.”

Losing support

The border security bill, S.4361, received fewer votes Thursday as a standalone bill than it had as part of the larger foreign aid package in February, when it failed on a 49-50 procedural vote. Sixty votes are needed to advance bills in the Senate.

The bill did not get all Democrats on board, which Schumer acknowledged earlier this week was a possibility.

“We do not expect every Democrat or every Republican to come out in favor of this bill,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Tuesday. “The only way to pass this bill – or any border bill – is with broad bipartisan support.”

But the bill failed to attract that broad support, losing backing even from Democrats who’d voted for the foreign aid package.

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker said in a Wednesday statement that while he voted for the larger package in early February – mostly because it included critical aid to Ukraine – he would not do so this time around because the bill was too restrictive.

“I will not vote for the bill coming to the Senate floor this week because it includes several provisions that will violate Americans’ shared values,” Booker said. “The proposed bill would exclude people fleeing violence and persecution from seeking asylum and instead doubles down on failed anti-immigrant policies that encourage irregular immigration.”

‘Another cynical, political game’

Democratic senators who voted against moving the bill forward included Alex Padilla and Laphonza Butler of California, Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Booker. Independents Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Sinema also voted against.

Sinema said she voted against advancing her own bill because she felt Democrats were using her bill to “point the finger back at the other party.”

“Yet another cynical, political game,” she said.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska was the only Republican to vote to advance the bill after Lankford voted against the bill he helped write.

Lankford said Thursday’s vote was “a prop.”

“Everyone sees this for what it is,” he said. “It is not an actual effort to make law, it is an effort to do political messaging.”

Padilla, who voted against the larger package, said on the Senate floor Thursday that he was disappointed Democrats were voting on the bill again because it did not address the root causes of migration or create lawful pathways to citizenship for children brought into the U.S. without authorization known as Dreamers, farmworkers, and noncitizens who have been in the country for decades.

He urged other Democrats to vote no.

“The proposal before us was initially supposed to be a concession, a ransom to be paid to Republicans to pass urgent and critical aid to Ukraine,” Padilla said. “What’s this concession for now? It’s hard to swallow.”

Senate Republicans accused Democrats of bringing the bill as a political stunt.

“One thing the American people don’t have to wonder about is why Washington Democrats are suddenly champing at the bit to convince their constituents that they care about border security,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said on the Senate floor Thursday. “(Americans) know the solution is not cynical Senate theater.”

Biden called McConnell and House Speaker Mike Johnson on Monday night to ask them to vote for the bill, but both Republican leaders rejected that appeal.

First vote

Lankford, Sinema and Murphy introduced the bill earlier this year, optimistic that months of bipartisan negotiations could lead to the first immigration policy overhaul in decades.

But Trump opposed the measure, and after those senators released the legislative text, House Republicans said they would fall in line with the former president. Senate Republicans then walked away from the deal they had said would be needed in order for passage of a supplemental foreign aid package to Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific region.

The sweeping border security bill would have raised the bar for migrants claiming asylum, clarified the White House’s parole authority, ended the practice of allowing migrants to live in U.S. communities as they await their asylum hearings, and given Biden the executive authority to close the southern border when asylum claims reached high levels, among other things.

Dueling messages

The day leading up to Thursday’s vote, Senate Democrats and Republicans held dueling press conferences on the bill.

Democrats, including Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, argued that the bill negotiated earlier in the year would address the fentanyl crisis by providing new scanning technology at ports of entry and increasing staffing for custom agents.

Stabenow said she’s tired of Senate Republicans saying that “‘somebody should do something about the border,’” and that Thursday’s vote would give them an opportunity to address the southern border.

She was joined by Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, who talked about how many people in their states had died from fentanyl overdoses.

Republicans in their press conference argued that Democrats were holding a second vote to protect vulnerable incumbents in competitive races in Montana, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

“It is an election-year political stunt designed to give our Democratic colleagues the appearance of doing something about this problem without doing anything,” Tennessee GOP Sen. Marsha Blackburn said Wednesday.

She was joined by Republican Sens. Roger Marshall of Kansas, Rick Scott of Florida, Eric Schmitt of Missouri, John Coryn of Texas, J.D. Vance of Ohio and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.

House opposition

Even if the border security bill passed the Senate, it would have no chance in the House, where Johnson has vowed it will be dead on arrival.

The Louisiana Republican in a Wednesday press conference called the measure a messaging bill and said Schumer was “trying to give his vulnerable members cover.”

And not all House Democrats were on board with the bill negotiated out of the Senate.

The chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington state and the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Nanette Barragán of California, slammed Senate Democrats for putting forth the legislation and urged them to abandon the effort.

“We are disappointed that the Senate will once again vote on an already-failed border bill in a move that only splits the Democratic Caucus over extreme and unworkable enforcement-only policies,” they wrote in a statement.

“This framework, which was constructed under Republican hostage-taking, does nothing to address the longstanding updates needed to modernize our outdated immigration system, create more legal pathways, and recognize the enormous contributions of immigrants to communities and our economy.”

Latino Democrats also voiced opposition to the bill when it was first released because it contained many hard-line policies that were reminiscent of the Trump administration.

U.S. Department of Agriculture to fund $300 million in grants to boost exports

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 21 May 2024 12:27:22 +0000

Soybeans being loaded from a grain bin onto a truck on June 13, 2018 in Dwight, Illinois. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is funding $300 million in grants to expand overseas U.S. agriculture (Scott Olson/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Tuesday $300 million in funding for more than 60 groups seeking to diversify American agricultural exports.

“USDA is pleased to be able to provide the startup capital to tap into these opportunities,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said on a call with reporters Monday night previewing the announcement.

In total, 66 organizations will be funded under the new Regional Agricultural Promotion Program, or RAPP. The USDA launched the $1.4 billion program in October in order to develop new export markets for U.S. food and agricultural products beyond the traditional partnerships with Canada, Mexico, the European Union and China.

“What this program really provides is an opportunity for us not only to expand geographically the opportunities for trade, but also the products that can be made available,” Vilsack said. “It’s a tremendous opportunity for us to diversify in a variety of different ways to grow market opportunity.”

The program focuses on tapping U.S. exports into new markets in regions such as South and Southeast Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa.

“When you have the major markets, as we’ve had, where 60 to 65% of what we export goes into four or five markets, that can create a sense of complacency,” Vilsack said.

‘The riskiest business in the world’

Vilsack said the funding would be an important step in building wealth in rural areas of the United States.

“We want to make sure our foreign-market development programs and agricultural trade in general work for the full spectrum of American agricultural producers, regardless of their size, their location, their product or target market,” he said. “By investing in exports, we’re investing in the future of American agriculture and rural communities.”

Michigan Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow, who leads the Senate Committee on Agriculture, joined the call with reporters. She said that USDA investing in exports is crucial to growing American agriculture.

“The bottom line is (to) create new revenue for the folks that have the riskiest business in the world,” Stabenow said. “This is a really important way to support them.”

According to a list provided by the USDA, some of the grant recipients include:

The Hazelnut Marketing Board in Oregon and Washington state will receive $455,000 to conduct market research and trade missions in several countries in Africa.

The U.S. Dairy Export Council, based in Virginia, will receive $10 million to expand its presence in Africa by using the funds to study and develop dairy import regulations and regulatory frameworks in those markets.

The U.S. Meat Export Federation based in Colorado will be awarded $21 million to expand its export efforts to new markets throughout Africa. It will also expand its investment in the convenience-store industry in South Korea, Central America and Colombia.

The Brewers Association in Colorado will be awarded $2 million to partake in the craft beer scene in Southeast Asia, by participating in the region’s premier brewing trade show and festival and bring buyers from that region to top trade shows in the US.

The Cranberry Institute in Massachusetts will receive $1 million to conduct trade education seminars and other events to identify opportunities in India, Brazil, Colombia and Southeast Asia.

Farm bill text released in U.S. House, setting up fight with Senate

Ariana Figueroa — Mon, 20 May 2024 16:03:27 +0000

(Scott Olson/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House Agriculture Committee Friday released the draft bill text of the long-awaited $1.5 trillion farm bill, which is likely to face opposition in the Senate from Democrats because of disagreements over federal anti-hunger programs and climate change requirements.

The chair of the committee, GOP Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson of Pennsylvania, said in a statement that the bill, which will set farm, nutrition, commodity and conservation policy for the next five years, is a “product of extensive feedback from stakeholders and all Members of the House, and is responsive to the needs of farm country through the incorporation of hundreds of bipartisan policies.”

The legislation funds programs across 12 titles for five years.

It would boost rural farming, promote a new global market for farmers to sell their products abroad, require new reporting requirements for the foreign purchase of farmland, increase funding for specialty crops and expand eligibility for disaster assistance, among other initiatives.

“The markup is one step in a greater House process, that should not be compromised by misleading arguments, false narratives, or edicts from the Senate,” Thompson said.

The House Agriculture Committee plans to mark up the 942-page bill on Thursday. It is expected to cost $1.5 trillion over 10 years. A title-by-title summary can be found here.

In a statement, the top Democrat on the committee, Rep. David Scott of Georgia, slammed the draft bill for “taking food out of the mouths of America’s hungry children, restricting farmers from receiving the climate-smart conservation funding they so desperately need, and barring the USDA from providing financial assistance to farmers in times of crisis.”

Scott warned that the current draft bill is unlikely to pass the House. Although Republicans have a slim majority, any piece of legislation will have to be bipartisan in order to make it through the Senate, which Democrats control.

The current farm bill extension expires Sept. 30.

On the Senate side, Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat who leads the Committee on Agriculture, released Democrats’ own proposal in early May. Among other things, it would boost eligibility for nutrition programs for low-income people like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. Stabenow made public a summary of the bill, but not legislative text.

Scott and Stabenow released a joint statement Tuesday following a meeting with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Democrats on the House Agriculture committee. They advocated for Republicans to craft a bipartisan farm bill.

“House Republicans are undermining this goal by proposing policies that split the broad, bipartisan coalition that has always been the foundation of a successful farm bill,” they wrote.

“We need a farm bill that holds the coalition together and upholds the historic tradition of providing food assistance to our most vulnerable Americans while keeping our commitment to our farmers battling the effects of the climate crisis every day,” they continued.

The House bill has a few provisions that Democrats oppose.

One would remove climate-smart policy requirements for about $13 billion in conservation projects funded by the Inflation Reduction Act. Another would limit future updates to the Thrifty Food Plan, the formula that calculates benefits for SNAP. “The economic impact of the SNAP cuts alone would be staggering,” Scott said.

A freeze in the Thrifty Food Plan would result in a roughly $30 billion SNAP cut over the next decade, according to the liberal-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. There are more than 41 million people who use SNAP benefits, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

However, the House farm bill would remove the ban on low-income Americans who have a drug conviction felony from obtaining SNAP benefits.

Environmental groups are also opposing the draft of the farm bill, raising concerns about reallocating IRA money and including a bill relating to how states regulate animal practices.

A watchdog group that focuses on government and corporate accountability in water, food and corporate overreach, Food & Water Watch Managing Director of Policy and Litigation Mitch Jones said in a statement that the draft bill would gut important climate-smart provisions.

“Some of leadership’s more dangerous proposals would take us backwards on animal welfare, and climate-smart agriculture,” Jones said. “It’s time Congress put the culture wars aside and got back to work on a Farm Bill that puts consumers, farmers, and the environment above politicking and Big Ag handouts.”

Biden administration seeks to speed some asylum cases with new immigration docket

Ariana Figueroa — Fri, 17 May 2024 11:30:31 +0000

Asylum seekers board a bus en route to a shelter in New York City on May 18, 2023. The Biden administration announced changes Thursday, May 16, 2024, meant to speed processing of asylum claims (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration will start a new system Friday to hasten asylum claims for single adults, administration officials said Thursday.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Department of Justice will launch a new expedited docket for migrants who arrive alone at ports of entry and turn themselves in to border authorities, senior administration officials said on a call with reporters previewing the changes.

Those single adult migrants will have their asylum cases processed first, rather than have their case go to the back of the line, which can take years.

The new recent arrivals docket will “more swiftly impose consequences, including removal, on those without a legal basis to remain in the United States,” a senior administration official said. Administration officials briefed reporters on the changes on the condition they not be named.

“Today, we are instituting with the Department of Justice a process to accelerate asylum proceedings so that individuals who do not qualify for relief can be removed more quickly and those who do qualify can achieve protection sooner,” Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.

The recent arrivals docket will allow asylum cases to be decided in 180 days, or six months, rather than years, a senior administration official said.

As of April, there is about a 3.6 million-case backlog in U.S. immigration court that will take years to process, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, which is a research center at Syracuse University that collects data on immigration. There are roughly 600 immigration judges in the country.

Average asylum processing time nearly 3 years

Currently, when a migrant arrives to claim asylum, they are processed and, if they are not detained, they are allowed to live in the country while they await their court date. The average processing time for asylum cases for fiscal year 2023, was 1,016 days or about 2.8 years, according to TRAC.

“The recent arrivals docket is designed to decrease the amount of time it takes for certain noncitizen single adults to have their cases efficiently adjudicated by (the Executive Office for Immigration Review),” a senior administration official said.

A senior administration official said single adult migrants placed in the recent arrivals docket will have their cases processed before immigration judges in five cities: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York.

There will be 10 immigration judges dedicated to the docket, a senior administration official said.

The new arrivals docket will go into effect Friday, a senior administration official said.

The DOJ and DHS announced a similar process in 2021 where a dedicated docket applied to migrant families that arrived between ports of entry at the Southwest border.

The changes build upon the Biden administration’s announcement last week of a proposed rule that would allow immigration officials to reject asylum seekers who have a criminal record that poses a threat to national security or public safety and quickly remove them.

As the White House deals with the largest number of migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border in 20 years, the Biden administration has faced continued intense criticism about its immigration policies from GOP lawmakers and the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump.

CNN sets first Biden-Trump presidential debate for June 27 in Atlanta

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 15 May 2024 16:24:47 +0000

CAPTION: Donald Trump, then president, answers a question as Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, listens during the second and final presidential debate at Belmont University on Oct. 22, 2020 in Nashville, Tennessee (Morry Gash-Pool/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — CNN announced on Wednesday morning that it will host a debate between President Joe Biden and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump at the network’s Atlanta studios on June 27.

CNN said there would be no audience present for the debate and moderators will be announced later.

A second debate will be hosted by ABC News on Sept. 10 in which both candidates have agreed to partake, according to ABC News.

Biden earlier Wednesday had called for two debates to be held before early voting for the November election begins — and Trump responded that he would do it.

On X, formerly Twitter, Biden wrote that he had accepted an invitation from CNN for a debate on June 27.

“Over to you, Donald,” Biden wrote. “As you said: anywhere, any time, any place.”

Trump has also accepted to participate in the June debate, according to CNN.

Biden started Wednesday’s exchanges over debates when he wrote to the Commission on Presidential Debates saying he would not agree to a three-debate schedule laid out earlier by the nonpartisan organization, which has been organizing presidential debates since the 1980s. The first would have been Sept. 16.

“President Joe Biden believes the interests of the American people are best served by presidential debates that offer timely and relevant information to help inform voters before they make their choices — and that allow a head-to-head comparison of the two candidates with a chance of winning the election,” Jen O’Malley Dillon, the chair for the Biden campaign, wrote in a letter to the commission.

Trump then accepted Biden’s proposed debates, one in June and another in September, on his social media site, Truth Social. “I am Ready and Willing to Debate Crooked Joe at the two proposed times in June and September,” Trump wrote.

“Crooked Joe Biden is the WORST debater I have ever faced – He can’t put two sentences together!,” he also wrote.

Trump added that he wants to debate with Biden on immigration policy, electric vehicles, inflation, taxes and foreign policy. He also called for more than two debates.

In a response to the Biden campaign, the Trump campaign is also proposing additional debates in June, July, August and September.

“Additional dates will allow voters to have maximum exposure to the records and future visions of each candidate,” the Trump campaign wrote.

Breaking with precedent

By notifying the Commission on Presidential Debates that the president would not partake in its debates, the Biden campaign broke precedent and instead said that news organizations should host the debates.

The Biden campaign proposed that the hosting broadcast news organizations be any that held a Republican primary debate in 2016 that Trump participated in and any news organization that hosted a Democratic primary debate in which Biden participated in 2020.

That is so that “neither campaign can assert that the sponsoring organization is obviously unacceptable,” according to the letter.

The campaign proposed that the first debate be held in late June, “after Donald Trump’s New York criminal trial is likely to be over and after President Biden returns from meeting with world leaders at the G7 Summit.”

The second debate should be at the start of early September, the campaign argued, so that it is “early enough to influence early voting, but not so late as to require the candidates to leave the campaign trail in the critical late September and October period.”

The Biden campaign is also proposing that a vice presidential debate be held in late July, after the GOP nominee and running mate are selected at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

One unknown is whether an independent candidate such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. might also qualify for debates.

CNN said in a press release that to qualify for participation in its debate, ”a candidate’s name must appear on a sufficient number of state ballots to reach the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidency prior to the eligibility deadline; agree to accept the rules and format of the debate; and receive at least 15% in four separate national polls of registered or likely voters that meet CNN’s standards for reporting.”

The statement added that acceptable polls will include those sponsored by: CNN, ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, Marquette University Law School, Monmouth University, NBC News, the New York Times/Siena College, NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist College, Quinnipiac University, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post.

“The polling window to determine eligibility for the debate opened March 13, 2024, and closes seven days before the date of the debate,” the statement said.

Asylum seekers with criminal records would be more quickly removed under Biden proposal

Ariana Figueroa — Thu, 09 May 2024 21:21:32 +0000

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas participates in a fireside chat with Mike L. Sena during the National Fusion Center Association 11th Annual Training Event on March 28, 2024, at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C. (DHS photo by Tia Dufour).

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration announced Thursday it’s proposing changes to the asylum system that would allow immigration officials to reject asylum seekers who have a criminal record that poses a threat to national security or public safety and quickly remove them.

Those changes will occur during the initial screening stages, a senior U.S. Department of Homeland Security official said on background during a call with reporters.

The proposed rule would allow asylum officers to issue a denial within days if there is evidence that a migrant is ineligible to claim asylum due to ties to terrorism, a threat to national security or a criminal background.

“This really only applies to individuals who have a serious criminal history or who are linked to terrorist activity and that is inherently a small fraction of the individuals that we encounter or interview on a given day,” the senior DHS official said. “We don’t think that the rule will apply to large numbers of people but it will apply to the people that we are most concerned about.”

Currently, when a migrant claims asylum, they undergo a “credible fear” screening even if they have criminal charges levied against them, and depending on the severity of the charges, they can continue to seek asylum or be disqualified.

“The proposed rule we have published today is yet another step in our ongoing efforts to ensure the safety of the American public by more quickly identifying and removing those individuals who present a security risk and have no legal basis to remain here,” DHS Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.

DHS is also issuing revised guidance to asylum officers to consider whether an asylum seeker can relocate to another part of their country where they fear persecution, known as internal relocation. This was implemented under the Trump administration by Ken Cuccinelli and the Biden administration rolled that policy back.

The new guidance “will ensure early identification and removal of individuals who would ultimately be found ineligible for protection because of their ability to remain safe by relocating elsewhere in the country from which they fled,” according to a DHS press release.

The Biden administration is dealing with the largest number of migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border in 20 years, and has faced continued intense criticism about its immigration policies from Republicans and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Congressional Republicans have passed legislation to reinstate hard-line Trump-era immigration policies, walked back a bipartisan border security deal and recently impeached Mayorkas.

The public comment period on the notice for the proposed rule will be from May 13 to June 12. The senior DHS official said the agency anticipates the proposed rule to be finalized this year and quickly implemented.

U.S. House Republicans pass bill to stop census from counting noncitizens

Ariana Figueroa — Thu, 09 May 2024 12:12:51 +0000

A bill passed in the U.S. House Wednesday would add a citizenship question to the census and end the practice of including noncitizens in the official population count (Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republicans passed a bill Wednesday to add a citizenship question to the census and exclude noncitizens from the official headcount when determining population for representation in Congress and electoral votes.

The legislation, which passed on a 206-202 party-line vote, is part of a trend of House GOP bills relating to immigration as the November elections approach. Republicans and their presumptive presidential candidate, Donald J. Trump, have centered their campaigns on immigration.

The Trump administration tried to add a citizenship question in the 2020 census but the Supreme Court blocked it.

“We should not reward states and cities that violate federal immigration laws and maintain sanctuary policies with increased Congressional representation,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said in a statement after the bill passed. “Common sense dictates that only American citizens should be counted for electoral apportionment.”

The bill, H.R. 7109, sponsored by North Carolina GOP Rep. Chuck Edwards would impact the 2030 census and onward if signed into law.

The census, which occurs every 10 years, helps determine congressional seats in the House and can determine political power.

Since the first census in 1790, citizens and noncitizens have been included in the official population count of the U.S. due to the 14th Amendment’s requirement to include “whole numbers of persons in each State.”

Edwards argued during debate of the bill that the Constitution did not specify that noncitizens should be counted in the census.

He argued that the word “persons,” in the 14th amendment, “carries no definition.”

It’s unlikely to pass the Senate, which Democrats control by a slim margin, and the White House already put out a statement opposing the bill.

The White House said the bill “would preclude the Department of Commerce’s Census Bureau from performing its constitutionally mandated responsibility to count the number of persons in the United States in the decennial census,” and would “make it more difficult to obtain accurate data.”

“The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to ensuring that the census remains as accurate as possible and free from political interference, and to upholding the longstanding principle of equal representation enshrined in our Constitution, census statutes, and historical tradition,” the White House said.

Numbers padded in Dem areas, GOP claims

During debate on the House floor, Republicans argued that areas that have high immigrant populations take away congressional representation from U.S. citizens and benefit states led by Democrats.

“This is absolutely outrageous,” Republican Rep. Garret Graves of Louisiana said. “This is 100% about stacking the vote.”

Tennessee Republican Rep. Tim Burchett said states with more noncitizens “will get more congressional districts and more electoral votes.” He said those votes would also benefit Democrats and “skew things in their favor.”

Dems warn of Hispanic undercount

Democrats argued that the bill would not only violate the Constitution but also harm immigrant communities by undercounting, and could threaten the accuracy of the census.

“The census is essential to democracy,” Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin said. “This bill would destroy the accuracy of the census, which may have something to do with its actual motivations.”

Raskin added that the bill would not only carve out all noncitizens, including permanent residents with green cards “who are on the pathway to citizenship.”

Raskin said the GOP’s move to add a citizenship question for the 2020 census led to a chilling effect and undercount of communities of color, especially Hispanics.

There were six states – Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas – that counted fewer people in the 2020 census than were estimated to live there.

Nationally, there was a record undercount of Hispanics in the 2020 census of about 3 million, according to the Pew Research Center.

Eight states – Delaware, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island and Utah – had overcounts, according to Pew.

The chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragán of California said the bill would have a chilling effect on accuracy of the census and would harm immigrant communities.

“It’s a bill that threatens fair and equal representation of immigrant communities,” she said.

U.S. House GOP targets noncitizen voting, even though it’s rare

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 08 May 2024 19:33:25 +0000

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana and other Republicans at a press conference introducing legislation on noncitizen voting at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday (Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson Wednesday unveiled a bill that would require states to verify proof of citizenship to prevent noncitizens from voting in federal elections, something already barred under the law.

Johnson, a Louisiana Republican who played a key role through legal challenges in defending the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, said at a press conference that voting by noncitizens is “a clear and present danger to the integrity of our election system.”

Outside the U.S. Capitol, Johnson was joined by former Trump aides Stephen Miller and Ken Cuccinelli, Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin and Cleta Mitchell, a key figure who tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election and is now running a grassroots organization to aggressively monitor elections in November.

The bill would amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections, according to bill text provided by the office of the sponsor, Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas.

“Under any method of voter registration in a State, the State shall not accept and process an application to register to vote in an election for Federal office unless the applicant presents documentary proof of United States citizenship with the application,” according to the bill text.

It would also allow states to check citizenship through federal databases with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration. The bill bars DHS from charging a fee to the state for complying with a request to verify citizenship.

Proof of citizenship would also be required for mail-in voting and registration agencies would also have to verify proof of citizenship while registering someone to vote.

The bill would also allow states to remove noncitizen voters from voter rolls.

Johnson meeting with Trump

The press conference came after Johnson met with former president Donald J. Trump last month, and Johnson announced plans to take up legislation related to noncitizens voting in federal elections.

The April event doubled as support from the former president, as Johnson was facing increasing pressure from hard-right members threatening to oust him from his role.

The threat to oust Johnson as speaker is ongoing from Georgia’s Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Johnson on Wednesday did not give details on when he would schedule the bill for a vote on the House floor.

Utah’s GOP Sen. Mike Lee will introduce the companion bill in the Senate.

“When federal law has been interpreted as precluding, in many ways, the voter registration officials in the various states from even inquiring into someone’s citizenship when addressing voter roll issues, we have a problem,” Lee said.

With Democrats controlling a slim majority in the Senate, the measure is unlikely to be brought up for a floor vote.

Researchers and studies have disproved that noncitizens vote in federal elections. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, conducted an analysis of election conduct from 2003 to 2023 and found 29 instances of noncitizens voting.

A few cities and towns allow noncitizens to vote in local elections, a move that has spurred a GOP backlash and sparked a conservative national rallying cry about noncitizens voting.

Since 2020, five states — Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Ohio, and Louisiana — have amended their constitutions to make it clear that only citizens can vote in elections at any level.

Trump has made his reelection campaign center on immigration, and the former president and Republicans are pushing the false narrative of noncitizens often voting in federal elections.

The executive director of a policy think tank, Sam Oliker-Friedland of the Institute for Responsive Government Action, said in a statement that the bill does not improve election security.

“It’s nothing more than a messaging bill designed to stoke fear and undermine confidence in our democracy,” Oliker-Friedland said. “There is no evidence to support the claim that there are waves of non-citizens voting.”

The top Democrat on the Committee on House Administration, Joseph Morelle of New York, slammed the bill for trying to solve a “non-existent problem.”

“Non-citizen voting in federal elections is already a federal crime,” Morelle said in a statement. “States already have several systems in place to deter non-citizen voting and people who violate the law face prison time and deportation.”

Biden decries campus antisemitism in Holocaust remembrance speech

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 07 May 2024 19:32:17 +0000

President Joe Biden seen speaking from the White House on Feb. 8, 2024. Biden warned in a Holocaust remembrance speech Tuesday of rising antisemitism (Nathan Howard/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden warned Tuesday of rising antisemitism in the U.S. and said too many are forgetting the attack on Israel in October.

During a Holocaust memorial speech at the U.S. Capitol, Biden stressed the importance of honoring the 6 million Jews who were killed in the Holocaust, and the victims of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in Israel that sparked the Israel-Hamas war.

“Now here we are, not 75 years later but just seven… months later and people are already forgetting, they’re already forgetting that Hamas unleashed this terror,” he told attendees at the Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Annual Day of Remembrance Celebration.

“I have not forgotten, nor have you, and we will not forget,” he continued.

Biden criticized student protests at college campuses across the country over Israel’s war effort. Protestors have called for their institutions to divest from businesses that are tied to Israel and have called for a ceasefire.

“We’ve seen a ferocious surge of antisemitism in America and around the world,” Biden said. “There is no place on any campus in America, any place in America for antisemitism or hate speech or threats of violence of any kind.”

Biden last week commended students’ peaceful protests, while criticizing those that turned violent.

As the war reaches its seven-month mark, more than 34,000 Palestinians – 13,000 of them children – have been killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The war began after Hamas militants killed about 1,200 Israelis and foreigners and took 199 people hostage on Oct. 7.

Combating antisemitism

Biden announced several new administration initiatives to combat antisemitism Tuesday.

The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights will issue new guidance to all school districts and colleges to provide examples of antisemitic discrimination and how those instances can violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The agency said it has opened more than 100 investigations in the past “seven months into complaints alleging discrimination based on shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics, including Antisemitism.”

The Department of Homeland Security will also build an online campus safety resource guide and develop best practices for “community-based targeted violence and terrorism prevention to reduce these assaults and attacks,” according to a fact sheet provided by the White House.

The Department of State also has an agency, the Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, which will convene technology firms to identify best practices for addressing antisemitism content online.

U.S. House action

Biden was joined Tuesday by GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana and Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York.

The House last week passed legislation to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism for the Department of Education’s enforcement of the Civil Rights Act. All schools that receive federal funding are required to comply with that law.

Some Democrats have raised concerns that the language is too broad and could lead to restrictions on freedom of speech.

The lead drafter of the definition, Kenneth Stern, then an antisemitism expert with the American Jewish Committee, has repeatedly opposed the definition, raising concerns when the Trump administration tried to issue an executive order similar to the recent House bill.

“It was never intended to be a campus hate speech code, but that’s what Donald Trump’s executive order accomplished this week,” Stern wrote in 2019. “This order is an attack on academic freedom and free speech, and will harm not only pro-Palestinian advocates, but also Jewish students and faculty, and the academy itself.”

Johnson is also leading a House-wide effort to address the college campus protests, such as grilling university presidents and threatening to pull federal funding from those institutions.

Members of the House Education and Workforce Committee grilled Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona on Tuesday about antisemitism on college campuses. Several similar hearings are scheduled in the coming weeks.

“We are witnessing American universities quickly becoming hostile places for Jewish students and faculty,” Johnson said.

Johnson said there has been a rise in antisemitism since Oct. 7, which was the most deadly attack on Jews since the Holocaust.

“The threat of repeating the past is so great,” Johnson said. “There are some who would prefer to criticize Israel and lecture them on their military tactics…than punish the terrorists who perpetrated these horrific crimes.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene huddles with U.S. House speaker she’s trying to oust

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 07 May 2024 11:00:28 +0000

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., speak to reporters in Statuary Hall after meeting with U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., in the U.S. Capitol Building on May 06, 2024, in Washington, D.C. Last week, Greene threatened to move forward with a ‘motion to vacate’ over her dissatisfaction with the Speaker’s handling of the government funding legislation (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson and Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene plan to meet privately Tuesday amid her calls for him to resign or face a floor vote that could, but likely won’t, remove the Louisiana Republican from leadership.

Greene announced the meeting Monday evening after she and Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie met privately with Johnson for two hours over disagreements about how he’s been running the House with a narrow GOP majority.

Greene, speaking briefly to reporters outside the speaker’s office after the meeting wrapped up, didn’t divulge details of what she, Massie and Johnson discussed.

“Let me tell you, I have been patient. I have been diligent. I have been steady. And I’ve been focused on the facts,” Greene said. “And none of that has changed. So I just had a long discussion with the speaker in his office about ways to move forward for a Republican-controlled House of Representatives.”

Greene, standing next to Massie, then said they would be meeting again on Tuesday.

Greene repeatedly has expressed her anger that Johnson has brought successful pieces of legislation to the House floor with bipartisan backing. Some of those recent bipartisan measures include government funding packages in March and military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan in April.

Johnson last week issued a statement that Greene’s motion to vacate was wrong.

“This motion is wrong for the Republican Conference, wrong for the institution, and wrong for the country,” he wrote.

House Democratic leaders last week issued a statement vowing to back Johnson if far-right Republicans try to remove him as speaker, which makes it unlikely the motion to vacate will succeed.

In late March, Greene filed a resolution to remove Johnson, following a bipartisan vote to approve the last remaining appropriations bill of fiscal year 2024. Since then, she has gained support from Massie and Arizona’s Paul Gosar.

Johnson was unanimously elected to the post about seven months ago following three weeks of chaos in October, in which Republicans were unable to agree on a lawmaker to take the speaker’s gavel after a small group of GOP lawmakers ousted former Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California.

Biden administration to issue rule expanding DACA health care access

Ariana Figueroa — Fri, 03 May 2024 12:15:08 +0000

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra testifies at his 2021 confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee. HHS published a final rule Friday to expand health care access to DACA recipients (Michael Reynolds-Pool/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration will publish a final rule Friday that will allow about 100,000 uninsured people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program to enroll in state-run or private health insurance plans provided under the Affordable Care Act, administration officials said.

The new rule from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services could provide an opportunity for those uninsured DACA recipients to enroll in health coverage through a Health Insurance Marketplace plan or a state-run Basic Health Program, also called BHP, in the few states where those plans are available.

“By providing new opportunities for quality, affordable … health care, this rule will give DACA recipients the peace of mind and opportunity that every American deserves,” White House Domestic Policy Advisor Neera Tanden said on a Thursday call with reporters previewing the final rule.

Only two states, Minnesota and New York, operate Basic Health Programs. Oregon is set to become the third this year. The program, created in the Affordable Care Act, allows states to provide affordable health care coverage to low-income people who make too much to qualify for Medicaid. The programs are almost entirely federally funded.

In a statement, President Joe Biden said DACA recipients, often called Dreamers, deserve access to health coverage.

“Dreamers are our loved ones, our nurses, teachers, and small business owners,” Biden said. “And they deserve the promise of health care just like all of us.”

There are about 600,000 DACA recipients who were brought into the country without authorization when they were children. The Obama-era program protects them from removal.

HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said about one-third of DACA recipients are uninsured.

“DACA recipients are currently three times more likely to be uninsured than the general U.S. population and individuals without health insurance … are less likely to receive preventative or routine health screenings,” Becerra said on the Thursday call.

November start date

The rule will go into effect Nov. 1, “in order to align with the individual market Open Enrollment Period in most states and allow time for required operational updates,” according to a fact sheet provided by the White House. The move could affect as many as 100,000 DACA recipients, the White House said.

“DACA recipients are no longer excluded from receiving coverage from a quality health plan,” Becerra said.

DACA recipients who qualify to enroll in a Marketplace plan could also qualify for “advance payments of the premium tax credit (APTC) and cost-sharing reductions (CSRs) to reduce the cost of their Marketplace coverage, depending on their income,” according to the fact sheet.

The rule will update the definition of “qualified noncitizen” to receive Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program benefits to clarify the categories of noncitizens who qualify for coverage. The rule will not otherwise change eligibility for those programs for noncitizens.

A senior administration official also noted that most DACA recipients have health care coverage through their employment, but that this rule will catch any recipients who are uninsured. The administration official spoke to reporters on the condition they not be named.

DACA recipients are currently awaiting a court case that is likely to head to the Supreme Court to determine the legality of the program after the Trump administration tried to end it. If the Supreme Court deems the program unlawful, it’s unclear what happens to those in the program.

Trump says he’d use police, National Guard and possibly the military to expel immigrants

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 20:21:02 +0000

Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump at Coastal Carolina University on Feb. 10, 2024 in Conway, South Carolina (Win McNamee/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump in his second term would carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants by utilizing local law enforcement, the National Guard and potentially the U.S. military, according to a lengthy interview he conducted with Time magazine.

“When we talk military, generally speaking, I talk National Guard,” the presumptive 2024 GOP nominee for president said in an interview that published Tuesday.

Trump has vowed that on his first day in office, he plans to roll out a massive deportation effort reminiscent of an immigration crackdown that took place in the 1950s.

“I would have no problem using the military, per se,” he said. “We have to have law and order in our country. And whichever gets us there, but I think the National Guard will do the job.”

The interviewer, Time magazine national politics reporter Eric Cortellessa, asked how Trump could justify using the military, given the Posse Comitatus Act, an 1878 law that removed the military from civil law enforcement. “Well, these aren’t civilians,” Trump responded. “These are people that aren’t legally in our country.”

The Biden campaign put out a statement following the interview that slammed Trump’s comments, arguing his responses would reflect an authoritarian second term, and calling him a “dictator.”

“In his own words, he is promising to rule as a dictator on ‘day one,’ use the military against the American people, punish those who stand against him, condone violence done on his behalf, and put his own revenge and retribution ahead of what is best for America,” James Singer, a spokesperson for the Biden campaign said in a statement. “Trump is a danger to the Constitution and a threat to our democracy.”

The campaign made no rebuttal in that statement of Trump’s remarks about deportation.

Trump cited using the National Guard in Minneapolis in 2020. However, it was not Trump but Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz who activated the National Guard in response to massive protests after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd.

Floyd, a Black man, died when Chauvin held his knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes. Chauvin was convicted of murder in 2022.

“We will be using local law enforcement,” Trump said, adding that he wants special immunity for police from prosecution.

“And we have to give the police back the power and respect that they deserve,” he said. “Now, there will be some mistakes, and there are certain bad people and that’s a terrible thing. And you know, police are being prosecuted all the time. And we want to give them immunity from prosecution if they’re doing their job.”

Trump said he would create funding incentives for local and state police departments to take part in deportations.

“Well, there’s a possibility that some won’t want to participate, and they won’t partake in the riches, you know,” Trump said.

He’s likely to face pushback from Democratic-led states and municipalities, as well as legal challenges.

Trump did not go into detail about how much money he would request from Congress for his deportation plans. The control of Congress, now split between Republicans in the House and Democrats in the Senate, also could shift after this fall’s elections.

Trump added that he would not rule out building mass detention centers to carry out mass deportations.

“It’s possible that we’ll do it to an extent, but we shouldn’t have to do very much of it, because we’re going to be moving them out as soon as we get to it,” Trump said.

Those policies are likely to face legal challenges, and Trump said he would follow any ruling from the Supreme Court, where he picked three of the nine justices, solidifying a conservative court for decades.

“I have great respect for the Supreme Court,” he said.

Even though Trump also promised mass deportations in his first term, those first four years had fewer deportations than the first term of the Obama administration.

In the first four years of the Obama administration, there were more than 1.5 million non-citizens deported and the first Trump administration deported more than 1.2 million non-citizens, according to data from the Department of Homeland Security.

However, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Trump administration authorized the public health tool Title 42 and expelled more than 2 million migrants from claiming asylum.

Biden administration to roll back the Betsy DeVos Title IX rules

Ariana Figueroa — Fri, 19 Apr 2024 12:07:27 +0000

President Joe Biden in the White House Rose Garden on Oct. 11, 2023 (Official White House photo by Oliver Contreras).

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Education on Friday announced a final rule that will update Title IX regulations governing how schools respond to sexual misconduct, undoing changes made under the Trump administration and former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

“For more than 50 years, Title IX has promised an equal opportunity to learn and thrive in our nation’s schools free from sex discrimination,” Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said on a call with reporters on Thursday night. “These final regulations build on the legacy of Title IX by clarifying that all our nation’s students can access schools that are safe, welcoming, and respect their rights.”

This new rule will roll back Title IX changes overseen by DeVos. Those regulations narrowly defined sexual harassment, and directed schools to conduct live hearings to allow those who were accused of sexual harassment or assault to cross-examine their accusers.

Many advocates argued that practice would discourage victims of sexual misconduct from coming forward. President Joe Biden during his campaign in 2020 promised to nix the Trump administration’s Title IX regulations.

The final rule will protect students and employees from sex-based discrimination, such as sexual violence and other forms of sex-based harassment. It would also require schools to have in place measures to offer support to those who make complaints.

The rule also sets guidelines for schools, such as treating all forms of sexual discrimination complaints equitably and promptly.

The new rule codifies protections for transgender students from sex discrimination. It prohibits discrimination against LGBTQ students and employees based on their sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics.

“The final regulations clarify that a school must not separate or treat people differently based on sex in a manner that subjects them to more than de minimis harm, except in limited circumstances permitted by Title IX,” according to a fact sheet.

“The final regulations further recognize that preventing someone from participating in school (including in sex-separate activities) consistent with their gender identity causes that person more than de minimis harm.”

The rule does not establish new criteria for transgender athletes, which is a separate rule the Department of Education is still finalizing, a senior administration official said. That rule would prevent blanket bans on transgender athletes competing in sports that align with their gender identity. So far, 24 states have passed laws that ban transgender athletes from competing in sports that align with their gender identity.

The new rule also protects students, employees and applicants from discrimination based on pregnancy, childbirth, recovery from pregnancy and other reproductive care.

It requires schools to “provide reasonable modifications for students based on pregnancy or related conditions, allow for reasonable break time for lactation for employees, and access to a clean, private lactation space for students and employees,” according to a fact sheet.

Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the Department of Education Catherine Lhamon said on a call with reporters that the final regulations clarify the requirements that schools should follow to address all forms of sex discrimination.

“We look forward to working with schools, students, and families to prevent and eliminate sex discrimination,” Lhamon said.

Cardona said that the new rule will go into effect Aug. 1.

Senate rejects two impeachment articles against DHS Secretary Mayorkas

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 17 Apr 2024 21:54:46 +0000

U.S. senators being sworn in for the impeachment trial of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on April 17, 2024 (Official U.S. Senate photo by Daniel Rios).

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate on Wednesday dismissed two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

The Democrat-controlled chamber voted, 51-49 along party lines, to adjourn the impeachment trial after finding that the impeachment articles accusing Mayorkas of not complying with federal immigration law and breaching the public trust did not rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors and were therefore unconstitutional.

“The charges brought against Secretary Mayorkas fail to meet the high standard of high crimes and misdemeanors,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor before a series of votes. “To validate this gross abuse by the House would be a grave mistake and could set a dangerous precedent for the future.”

The adjournment vote followed successful votes to drop the two House-passed articles of impeachment against Mayorkas, as well as a series of Republican motions to adjourn the court of impeachment or enter closed session, which all failed.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska was the only senator to break party ranks during an afternoon vote series. She voted “present” on a motion to drop the first article of impeachment.

Senators were sworn in Wednesday as jurors after House Republican impeachment managers delivered the two articles of impeachment the day before, starting the proceedings. House Republicans voted to impeach Mayorkas, on their second try, in February.

Republicans have demanded a trial, while Senate Democrats indicated they planned to either dismiss the articles or table the trial because they argued the charges against Mayorkas did not reach the constitutional threshold required of impeachment, which is “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

“To validate this gross abuse by the House would be a grave mistake and could set a dangerous precedent for the future,” Schumer, a New York Democrat, said.

Republicans blast process

Following the vote, Republicans slammed Democrats, arguing the move to avoid a trial set a precedent.

“They created a new precedent saying you don’t even have to vote on the articles (of impeachment),” Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri told reporters off the Senate floor.

Missouri Republican Eric Schmitt warned that voters would remember the Senate’s decision in the November elections.

“They see what a disaster the border’s been,” he said to reporters.

Congressional Democrats and the White House have criticized Republicans’ efforts to impeach Mayorkas as political and campaign fodder for the November elections. Congressional Republicans and the Biden administration have clashed over immigration policy for years.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell argued Wednesday it was senators’ constitutional duty to hold a trial.

“It is the job of this body to consider the articles of impeachment brought before us and to render judgment,” the Kentucky Republican said on the Senate floor.

Even if a trial had been held, it’s unlikely that the two-thirds majority in the Senate required to remove Mayorkas could have been reached.

In an email, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said House Republicans have not provided the necessary evidence to warrant an impeachment effort.

“Secretary Mayorkas spent months helping a bipartisan group of Senators craft a tough but fair bill that would give DHS the tools necessary to meet today’s border security challenges, but the same House Republicans playing political games with this impeachment chose to block that bipartisan compromise,” the spokesperson said.

“Congressional Republicans should stop wasting time with unfounded attacks, and instead do their job by passing bipartisan legislation to properly fund the Department’s vital national security missions and finally fix our broken immigration system.”

Amid the impeachment proceedings in the Senate, Mayorkas has been making his rounds on Capitol Hill to defend the president’s fiscal year 2025 budget for the Department of Homeland Security.

White House Spokesperson for Oversight and Investigations Ian Sams praised the Senate’s decision in a statement.

“Once and for all, the Senate has rightly voted down this baseless impeachment that even conservative legal scholars said was unconstitutional,” he said.

Several votes

Washington state Democrat Sen. Patty Murray presided over the impeachment proceedings, which included several votes Wednesday afternoon.

Schumer tried to approve by unanimous consent a structure for the trial, including debate time and the number of points of order senators could make, but Schmitt objected.

“I will not assist Sen. Schumer in setting our Constitution ablaze,” he said.

Schumer then raised a point of order declaring that the first article of impeachment did not rise to high crimes under the constitution, leading to a series of Republican senators demanding votes on proposals to delay a vote on Schumer’s motion

Sen. Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, moved to go to closed session and debate the articles of impeachment but Schumer objected. GOP Sen. Mike Lee of Utah made the same motion. Senators voted on both motions and rejected them 49-51.

Sen. John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, made a motion to adjourn the court of impeachment and begin impeachment proceedings on April 30 at noon.

Kennedy’s motion failed 49-51.

GOP Sen. Rick Scott of Florida made the same motion to adjourn, which also failed 49-51.

They went back to the point of order Schumer made that declared the first article of impeachment was unconstitutional. The Senate voted, 51-48, to reject the first article of impeachment on the grounds that it did not rise to the constitutional standard for impeachment, with Murkowski voting present.

Schumer made an identical point of order on the second article of impeachment.

Kennedy again filed a motion to adjourn to May 1, 2004 for impeachment proceedings. He corrected his request to 2024. It again failed 49-51.

GOP Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas then made a motion to adjourn until Nov. 6 until after the election and “before this body disrespects the Constitution.” It failed 49-51.

Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican, moved to table Schumer’s second point of order that the second article of impeachment is unconstitutional. It failed 49-51.

Senators then approved Schumer’s second motion, 51-49.

House action

Georgia’s Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has been at the forefront of impeachment efforts against Mayorkas, first introducing the measure in September.

Greene is also a House impeachment manager, along with GOP Reps. Mark Green of Tennessee, Michael McCaul of Texas, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Ben Cline of Virginia, Andrew Garbarino of New York, Michael Guest of Mississippi, Harriet Hageman of Wyoming, Clay Higgins of Louisiana, Laurel Lee of Florida and August Pfluger of Texas.

Two of the impeachment managers, Biggs and Higgins, came to the Senate Wednesday to watch that chamber’s proceedings.

The two articles of impeachment charged Mayorkas with not complying with federal immigration law and breaching the public trust.

The first article of impeachment accused Mayorkas of contributing to myriad problems, including rising profits for smuggling operations, a high backlog of asylum cases in immigration courts, fentanyl-related deaths and migrant children found working in dangerous jobs. Republican state legislatures have moved to roll back child labor laws in industries from the food industry to roofing.

Republicans argued that the first article of impeachment would hold Mayorkas accountable for the large number of migrants that have traveled to the southern border to claim asylum. The Biden administration is dealing with the largest number of migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border in 20 years.

The second article of impeachment charged Mayorkas with breaching public trust by making several statements in congressional testimony that Republicans argue are false, such as Mayorkas telling lawmakers that the southern border is “secure.”

The second article also charged Mayorkas with not fulfilling his statutory duty by rolling back Trump-era policies such as terminating contracts that would have continued construction of the border wall and ending the Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy that was ended after it went up to the Supreme Court.

New rule to close ‘gun show loophole’ finalized by Biden administration

Ariana Figueroa — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 10:55:55 +0000

Potential buyers try out guns which are displayed on an exhibitor’s table during the Nation’s Gun Show on Nov. 18, 2016 at Dulles Expo Center in Chantilly, Virginia (Alex Wong/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Thursday finalized a new rule that would require anyone selling a gun to obtain a federal license and conduct background checks.

The rule aims to close what’s known as the “gun show loophole.” Gun merchants who sell online, by mail or at flea markets and gun shows until now have not been subject to the same federal regulations as those who own and operate gun stores as their main source of income.

“This single gap in our federal background check system has caused unimaginable pain and suffering,” Vice President Kamala Harris, who oversees the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, said on a call with reporters Wednesday previewing the regulation.

The new rule by the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, stems from requirements of the bipartisan gun safety legislation package Congress passed in 2022.

It’s likely to face legal challenges, but a senior White House official told reporters on the call that the Biden administration is confident the rule will survive any legal disputes.

“Strong regulations like this one are not in conflict with the Second Amendment,” the senior White House official said.

The 2022 law would require those gun sellers to obtain a Federal Firearm License, record gun purchases and conduct background checks, which are the same requirements as brick-and-mortar gun shops.

Prior to the rule, if someone claimed that selling guns was not a main source of income, they were not required to obtain a license or perform a background check.

There are 80,000 individuals who have a Federal Firearm License, a senior Department of Justice official on the call said. Under the new rule, there would be about 20,000 additional individuals who would be required to obtain a license and “that has the potential to impact tens and tens of thousands of gun sales,” the official said.

“This is part of a broader administration effort, where the president has focused our attention, resources and strategy at the source of illegal guns,” the senior Department of Justice official said. “All of this is intended to get beyond the individual who has committed a crime and look to the source of those illegal guns.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland said on the call that the new rule is one of the “most significant gun regulations in decades.”

“Under this regulation, it will not matter if guns are sold on the internet, at a gun show, or in a brick and mortar store,” Garland said. “If you sell guns predominantly to earn a profit, you must be licensed and you must conduct background checks.”

ATF Director Steven Dettelbach said that “repeatedly selling guns for profit without running a criminal background check is not safe for innocent, abiding Americans, in fact, it’s doggone dangerous.”

Dettelbach added that there are some exemptions to the rule for hobbyists, antique gun collectors and occasional family transfers.

“(The rule) provides … clarity to make sure that true hobbyists and true collectors can enhance or liquidate their professional and personal collection without fear of violating the law,” Dettelbach said.

The new rule will go into effect 30 days after being published in the Federal Register.

Republicans in Congress delay Mayorkas impeachment proceedings

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 10 Apr 2024 14:26:20 +0000

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas holds a press conference at a U.S. Border Patrol station on Jan. 8, 2024 in Eagle Pass, Texas (John Moore/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republicans will delay until next week their delivery to the Senate of the two articles of impeachment against Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, a spokesperson for House Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday.

“To ensure the Senate has adequate time to perform its constitutional duty, the House will transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate next week,” the spokesperson wrote in a late afternoon statement. “There is no reason whatsoever for the Senate to abdicate its responsibility to hold an impeachment trial.”

Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, and 11 impeachment managers had informed Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer that they planned to walk over the two articles of impeachment to the Senate Wednesday, but postponed after a request from Senate Republicans.

The articles accuse Mayorkas of a “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law,” and of a breach of public trust.

Once the articles are delivered in the Senate, the process for an impeachment trial immediately starts. Senate Republicans sought to avoid a timeline that had them conducting the early stages of an impeachment trial instead of flying home on Thursday as they typically do.

During a press conference Tuesday afternoon, Senate Republicans said they didn’t expect an impeachment trial to last a week, but didn’t want a trial to start so close to a fly-out date.

“If we don’t start it until the end of the week, that leaves us no adequate opportunity to debate it and you don’t want members trying to get out of town so quickly that they are influenced by the jet fumes,” Utah’s Mike Lee said.

Schumer, a New York Democrat, said during a Tuesday press conference that he plans to move through the process quickly, which has angered Senate Republicans who are pushing for a trial.

Schumer said the articles of impeachment are “absurd and there are no charges in the House complaint that rise to the level of impeachment.”

“Impeachment should never be used to settle policy disagreements,” he said.

Schumer can make a motion to dismiss or table the articles with a simple majority, where Democrats hold a slim 51 seats.

Schumer said in a statement that the Senate is prepared to move forward.

“We’re ready to go whenever they are,” Schumer said. “We are sticking with our plan. We’re going to move this as expeditiously as possible.”

If the articles are delivered to the Senate next week, the trial would begin within days of another Mayorkas appearance on Capitol Hill.

The House Homeland Security Committee, which held two impeachment proceedings and moved forward with articles of impeachment, will have Mayorkas testify on April 16 about the DHS budget for fiscal year 2025.

The chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee, is also one of the 11 impeachment managers.

The rest of the Republican impeachment managers are Reps. Michael McCaul of Texas, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Ben Cline of Virginia, Andrew Garbarino of New York, Michael Guest of Mississippi, Harriet Hageman of Wyoming, Clay Higgins of Louisiana, Laurel Lee of Florida, August Pfluger of Texas and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.

In Wisconsin, Biden underlines plans to help college students with ‘unsustainable debts’

Ariana Figueroa — Mon, 08 Apr 2024 21:39:30 +0000

President Joe Biden delivered remarks Monday in Madison, Wisconsin, on his plans for student debt forgiveness. (C-SPAN screenshot)

WASHINGTON — During a speech in Madison, Wisconsin on Monday, President Joe Biden touted his administration’s efforts to provide student debt relief through several new proposals, such as canceling accrued interest.

“While (a) college degree still is a ticket to the middle class, that ticket is becoming much too expensive,” Biden said. “Things are a lot different from when college tuition was more affordable and borrowing for colleges, repaying those loans was reasonable.”

The new proposals announced earlier Monday, if finalized, would include a one-time cancellation of all accrued interest for 23 million borrowers; cancellation of the full amount of student loan debt for 4 million borrowers; and providing more than 10 million borrowers with at least $5,000 in student debt relief, among other initiatives.

As Biden makes his bid for another term, his stance on providing debt relief for student loan borrowers has evolved since he won the 2020 presidential election.

In 2021, during a town hall, a voter from Racine, Wisconsin asked Biden if he would support student loan debt cancellation and he bluntly replied that he would not, and instead said he would support congressional action on the issue.

The White House believes the new proposals are narrowly targeted enough that they will survive any anticipated legal challenges in order to avoid an outcome similar to last summer, when the Supreme Court struck down the Biden administration’s earlier version of student debt cancellation.

“Today, too many Americans, especially young people, are saddled with unsustainable debts in exchange for a college degree,” Biden said in Madison.

Student debt forgiveness remains a key issue for voters, especially young ones. The administration has begun to lose support from some young voters who back a ceasefire in Gaza and are frustrated with the administration’s support of Israel in its war against Hamas that has led to the death of more than 30,000 Palestinians, according to the health ministry in Gaza.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a center-leaning think tank, has not estimated the cost of the new proposal, but in a statement Monday argued against any debt cancellation.

“This new plan will cost tens of billions of dollars at a time when we should be working to reduce the debt, and by worsening inflationary pressures it’s likely to lead the Fed to keep interest rates higher for longer,” Maya MacGuineas, the president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said in a statement.

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Biden proposes new student debt relief plan for millions of borrowers

Ariana Figueroa — Mon, 08 Apr 2024 12:29:15 +0000

President Joe Biden is expected to deliver remarks in Madison, Wisconsin on Monday about the administration’s new plan for student debt relief. (Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Monday will announce the rollout of a student debt forgiveness proposal that the White House believes is narrowly targeted enough to survive legal challenges.

The plan, if finalized, would include a one-time cancellation of all accrued interest for 23 million borrowers. It would also cancel the full amount of student loan debt for 4 million borrowers and provide more than 10 million borrowers with at least $5,000 in student debt relief.

The president will unveil the Department of Education proposed regulations during a speech in Madison, Wisconsin, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on a call Sunday.

The announcement comes seven months ahead of the November elections, in which student debt forgiveness remains a key issue for voters, especially younger ones. Some of those younger voters who back a ceasefire have been turned off by the administration’s support of Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza.

The proposed rule will be released in the coming months, and the Biden administration expects some provisions, such as the interest cancellation, could be implemented as early as this fall, Jean-Pierre said.

“President Biden will use every tool available to cancel student loan debt for as many borrowers as possible, no matter how many times Republican elected officials try to stand in his way,” she said.

A fresh legal fight likely

The proposal is likely to face legal challenges, similar to the battle that engulfed Biden’s original student debt forgiveness plan. The Supreme Court struck it down last year when it was challenged in lawsuits backed by six Republican-led states — Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas and South Carolina.

Senior administration officials told reporters that the Biden administration carefully studied the Supreme Court’s opinion last year, which turned aside the administration’s argument that Education Secretary Miguel Cardona had the legal authority under the HEROES Act to enact a one-time student debt relief plan of up to $20,000 for some borrowers.

A senior administration official said the new proposals “address specific situations and specific populations in ways that we feel very confident are covered by what the secretary’s long-standing authority under (the Higher Education Act) allows him to do, and we’re confident that we’re acting within the scope of the law, as set forth by the Supreme Court.”

After the Supreme Court ruling, Biden directed the Department of Education to take a more targeted route to provide student debt relief through the Higher Education Act in anticipation of legal challenges.

“The negotiated rulemaking process is how we change and improve our higher education policies,” Cardona said to reporters Sunday, adding that the Department of Education is moving to quickly finalize the proposals.

While the rulemaking process can take months or years, Cardona has the ability to designate provisions for early implementation, a senior administration official said.

About 43.5 million people have student loan debt, totaling $1.73 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve.

Building on previous student debt relief plans

The new plan builds on several student debt relief programs the Biden administration already has rolled out, such as the Saving on a Valuable Education Plan, known as the SAVE plan, or any other income-driven repayment plans. For the SAVE plan, borrowers who make monthly payments are not charged accrued interest; payments are based on a borrower’s income and family size; and the plan forgives balances after a set number of years.

Under the proposed regulations, there would be a one-time cancellation of up to $20,000 of unpaid interest regardless of a borrower’s income level. Low-and-middle-income borrowers enrolled in any Department of Education income-driven repayment plan would be eligible to have the entire amount of their interest accrued balance canceled. Eligibility would apply to single borrowers who earn $120,000 or less and married borrowers who earn $240,000 or less.

The Biden administration estimates that 25 million borrowers would benefit from some type of interest cancellation.

“The interest forgiveness is currently crafted as a one-time benefit for example, but going forward, borrowers will benefit from substantially more favorable treatment through the SAVE program,” a senior administration official said.

The plan would also automatically cancel debt for borrowers eligible for that forgiveness under the SAVE, Public Service Loan Forgiveness or other programs like the closed school loan discharge who have not yet applied for those programs.

The Department of Education would also be able to use its own data to identify those borrowers who would be eligible for student loan debt forgiveness, but have yet to apply. The Biden administration estimates that this would cancel debt for about 2 million borrowers.

20 years of loan repayments

Under the proposed plan, borrowers who began repayment of their undergraduate student loans 20 years ago, and borrowers who began repayment of their graduate loans 25 years ago, would have their student loan debt canceled. Those borrowers would need to be on an income-driven repayment plan in order to qualify for that relief.

The plan also aims to cancel debt for borrowers who enrolled in low-financial-value-programs, which means the total cost of attending exceeded the financial benefits.

Borrowers who attended institutions or programs that lost eligibility to participate in the federal student aid program or were denied recertification would be eligible to have their student loans canceled. And borrowers who attended those intuitions that either closed or failed to provide “sufficient value” would be eligible for relief.

Cardona added that this could include some career training programs that have “taken advantage” of borrowers, or institutions that have an unusually high student loan debt default rate.

The plan would also provide relief for borrowers who are experiencing some sort of hardship in their daily lives that creates a barrier to paying back loans. Some of those financial hardships would include medical debt or child care.

While the administration is aiming for this debt relief to be immediate, a senior administration official said that some additional information would be required for the borrowers who qualify under the hardship relief.

“Our goal is for the overwhelming majority of things like interest, loans that are older, borrowers (who) attended programs that didn’t deliver financial value, to do that all automatically,” the senior administration official said.

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U.S. House Speaker Johnson sets date to deliver Mayorkas impeachment articles to Senate

Ariana Figueroa — Thu, 28 Mar 2024 20:15:43 +0000

Articles of impeachment against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas will be delivered to the U.S. Senate on April 10, the speaker of the House said Thursday. In this photo, Mayorkas speaks about public safety plans for Super Bowl week at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center on Feb. 07, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada ( Candice Ward/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson announced Thursday that two articles of impeachment against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas will be sent to the U.S. Senate in early April when senators return from recess.

“We call upon you to fulfill your constitutional obligation to hold this trial,” Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, wrote in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat.

“The American people demand a secure border, an end to this crisis, and accountability for those responsible,” said Johnson. “To table articles of impeachment without ever hearing a single argument or reviewing a piece of evidence would be a violation of our constitutional order and an affront to the American people whom we all serve.”

With Democrats holding a slim majority in the Senate, it’s unlikely Mayorkas will be removed from office. But the push for a trial is a mark of House Republicans’ escalation of their opposition to the White House’s immigration policy. The topic has also taken center stage in the 2024 presidential campaigns.

The process for a trial in the Senate will kick-start when the House impeachment managers walk over the two articles of impeachment to the upper chamber on April 10.

“As we have said previously, after the House impeachment managers present the articles of impeachment to the Senate, Senators will be sworn in as jurors in the trial the next day,” Schumer’s office said in a statement.

Senate President Pro Tempore Sen. Patty Murray, a Washington state Democrat, will preside, Schumer’s office said.

According to the rules currently on the books, the Senate must act in some way when the articles of impeachment are presented.

For example, senators can follow the already established rules, vote to make new rules or even take a procedural step to dispose of the impeachment resolution.

The House impeachment managers are Republican Reps. Mark Green of Tennessee, Michael McCaul of Texas, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Ben Cline of Virginia, Andrew Garbarino of New York, Michael Guest of Mississippi, Harriet Hageman of Wyoming, Clay Higgins of Louisiana, Laurel Lee of Florida, August Pfluger of Texas and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.

The White House has in the past condemned House Republicans’ efforts to impeach Mayorkas, calling it “shameless,” and an “unconstitutional stunt.”

“This political and unconstitutional exercise is also drawing broad condemnation by conservatives in the U.S. Senate, where the impeachment will now be sent and where Republican senators have sharply dismissed it as baseless and a waste of time,” the White House said in mid-February.

House Republicans, who hold a slim majority, impeached Mayorkas on their second try, on the grounds that Mayorkas willfully ignored immigration law and lied to Congress about the status of border security.

Following Mayorkas’ impeachment on Feb. 13, Schumer called the efforts a “sham.”

“House Republicans failed to present any evidence of anything resembling an impeachable offense,” Schumer said on the Senate floor on Feb. 13.

U.S. House panel debates boost for WIC in agriculture funding bill

Ariana Figueroa — Fri, 22 Mar 2024 12:15:58 +0000

The U.S. House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee held a hearing Thursday to review the administration’s request to boost Department of Agriculture funding (Joe Raedle/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — A U.S. House appropriations panel reviewed the Biden administration’s request to increase the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s budget for fiscal 2025 Thursday, with Republicans asking pointed questions about a proposal to boost a popular low-income nutrition program.

The hearing came less than two weeks after Congress passed a months-delayed appropriations bill for the USDA for the current fiscal year. Lawmakers have yet to finish a multi-year farm bill that is also delayed.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack advocated for Congress to pass the farm bill – legislation to authorize federal farm and nutrition programs – this year, and highlighted the ways the department is working to prevent funding shortfalls for critical programs for low-income families.

“We create a meaningful economic opportunity in rural America by improving critical infrastructure, supporting a clean energy economy and investing in a higher quality of life for those who live, work, play and raise their families in rural America,” Vilsack said in his opening statement.

Republicans on the panel took issue with the $25.1 billion budget request, an increase of $2.2 billion from the recently enacted fiscal 2024 law.

Backfilling WIC

The budget requests a total of $7.73 billion for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, or WIC. That number is $700 million above the recently enacted fiscal 2024 levels.

Subcommittee Chair Andy Harris of Maryland grilled Vilsack on the reason for the larger request for fiscal 2025.

Vilsack said the increase is needed because Congress took so long to pass fiscal 2024 funding, and only provided USDA with flat funding levels in short-term continuing resolutions, the agency had to transfer resources from other nutrition programs to avoid a $1 billion shortfall for WIC.

“Part of the reason why we have the request that we have is to refill those transfers,” Vilsack said.

WIC provides nutrition assistance to about 6.7 million infants, young children and pregnant and postpartum patients per month.

“There is a limited amount of resources for all of the programs funded by this bill,” Harris said. “I think it is reasonable, and quite frankly it is our job as appropriators, to ask questions about the estimates for all of the programs, including WIC.”

Democrats on the panel defended the increase to WIC, and advocated for protections to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which is authorized by the farm bill.

The top Democrat on the panel, Rep. Sanford Bishop of Georgia, said that the budget reflects a “growing demand for WIC funding as participation continues to rise.”

“We must rise to meet this critical funding need,” Bishop said of the WIC program.

The top Democrat on the full House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, said she was intrigued by USDA’s proposal to backstop WIC funding, “so we do not face (a) nutrition assistance cliffhanger like we just went through.”

Crawfish, oranges and shrimp

Some lawmakers did not question Vilsack about USDA’s budget request, but instead asked him specific questions about agriculture-related crises in their districts and whether the department could help them.

Louisiana GOP Rep. Julia Letlow said a major drought has put the “crawfish industry on life support.” She said the crawfish are a more-than-$300 million commodity in her state, and she asked Vilsack if USDA could provide economic assistance to affected producers.

Vilsack said that he was happy to work with her and would have to check that the department has that discretion.

Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida asked Vilsack about an update on the USDA’s research on citrus greening, which is one of the most severe citrus diseases. She said Florida citrus growers have been struggling with the crop loss due to the disease.

“The problem is the cost of it is fairly significant,” Vilsack said. “I think that’s the next hurdle, is how do we get the cost down so that it’s available to producers.”

Alabama GOP Rep. Jerry Carl asked Vislack about adding domestic shrimp to a USDA list of foods to be used in school lunches in order to create “a sustainable path forward” for the industry.

USDA allows schools to use USDA Foods entitlement dollars to buy domestically grown food through an approved list.

Vilsack said that USDA would have to first see if there is a demand and availability for domestic shrimp and if it’s “something that school districts can afford.”

Iowa GOP Rep. Ashley Hinson said she was concerned with foreign entities – mainly China – buying U.S. farmland and the reliance on foreign entities for supplies relating to agriculture.

Congressional support for limiting foreign entities’ and individuals’ access to U.S. agricultural land has grown in recent years, with a focus on China. USDA records have shown that China owns fewer than 1% of U.S. farmland.

Vilsack said that USDA is updating its handbooks and process for how it collects data on land purchases and loans “to make sure we are doing the best job we can of identifying circumstances where land transactions occur.”

He added that there will always be challenges to that tracking system because there are more than 3,000 county offices across the country and tracking those purchases would require USDA to have a centralized database.

Vilsack also said that USDA is investing in fertilizer, because the U.S. was “over-reliant on Russia, Belarus, so we have to look at ways where we can be more self-reliant.”

He also noted that in Iowa, where Vilsack was governor from 1999 to 2007, China is the top purchaser of soybeans.

“So it’s a delicate conversation that we have with our No. 1 customer, at the same time, somebody who we’re deeply concerned about,” Vilsack said.

Massive $1.2 trillion spending package that would avert a shutdown released by Congress

Ariana Figueroa — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 13:03:34 +0000

A bipartisan agreement on government spending for the remainder of fiscal 2024 emerged just before 3 a.m. on March 21, 2024 (Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom).

WASHINGTON — Congress released the final six government funding bills early Thursday, starting off a sprint toward the Friday midnight deadline to wrap up work that was supposed to be finished nearly six months ago.

The bipartisan agreement on the $1.2 trillion spending package, which emerged just before 3 a.m., came less than two weeks after the U.S. House and Senate approved the other six annual appropriations bills.

This package includes the spending measures for some of the most crucial functions of the federal government — the departments of Defense, Education, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Labor, State and Treasury.

The bill would also fund Congress, the Executive Office of the President, the judiciary and the Social Security Administration.

The 1,012-page spending package provides money for hundreds of programs, including many that lawmakers will tout on the campaign trail heading toward the November elections. Included:

U.S. troops and civilian Defense Department employees will receive a 5.2% pay raise retroactive to Jan. 1, 2024.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s new headquarters project — which has not only divided Democrats and Republicans, but the congressional delegations from Virginia and Maryland — will receive $200 million for construction on the Greenbelt, Maryland, site via the General Services Administration.
States will get $55 million in new Election Security Grant funding.
Customs and Border Protection as well as Immigrations and Customs Enforcement will get more than $4 billion in funding increases.
Child care and early learning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services will receive a $1 billion increase in funding. The boost will go toward the Child Care and Development Block Grant, which provides grants to state, territorial and tribal agencies, and Head Start, which provides funding to local grantees.
The U.S. Capitol Police will receive a 7.8% funding increase.
Afghans who assisted the United States during the war would be eligible for an additional 12,000 Special Immigrant Visas.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, the primary aid organization in Gaza, would be stripped of U.S. funding after Israel accused agency employees of taking part in Oct. 7 attacks.

Weekend work possible

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Thursday morning the package clears “another hurdle towards our ultimate goal of funding the federal government.”

“This funding agreement between the White House and Congressional leaders is good news that comes in the nick of time: When passed it will extinguish any more shutdown threats for the rest of the fiscal year, it will avoid the scythe of budget sequestration and it will keep the government open without cuts or poison pill riders,” he said. “It’s now the job of the House Republican leadership to move this package ASAP.”

After the House votes to approve the package, likely Friday, Schumer said, “the Senate will need bipartisan cooperation to pass it before Friday’s deadline and avoid a shutdown.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said Wednesday during a press conference he expected senators would be in session this weekend to take final votes on the package.

“My assumptions and what I’ve told our members is we’re likely to be here this weekend. That will be determined, however, by how long it stays in the House,” McConnell said.

“And when it’s over here, what we have recently done — and I think hopefully will work again — is that in return for a certain number of amendments, we can finish it quicker, hopefully, than putting us in the position of shutting down the government,” McConnell added.

Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, said in a written statement the package would claw back $20.2 billion from the Internal Revenue Service funding that Democrats included in their signature climate change and tax package and $6 billion in unused COVID-19 funds.

On immigration, the funding package “cuts funding to NGOs that incentivize illegal immigration and increases detention capacity and the number of Border Patrol Agents to match levels in the House-passed appropriations bill and the Secure the Border Act (H.R. 2),” he said, referring to non-governmental organizations.

The package also includes funding for the nation’s defense. “This FY24 appropriations legislation is a serious commitment to strengthening our national defense by moving the Pentagon toward a focus on its core mission while expanding support for our brave men and women who serve in uniform,” Johnson said. “Importantly, it halts funding for the United Nations agency which employed terrorists who participated in the October 7 attacks against Israel.”

More than $1B to reduce child care costs

Senate Appropriations Chair Patty Murray, a Washington state Democrat, said in a written statement that she was “proud to have secured $1 billion more to lower families’ child care costs and help them find pre-K — a critical investment to help tackle the child care crisis that is holding families and our economy back.”

“From day one of this process, I said there would be no extreme, far-right riders to restrict women’s reproductive freedoms — and there aren’t,” Murray said. “Democrats stood firm to protect a woman’s right to choose in these negotiations and focused on delivering investments that matter to working people.”

Democratic lawmakers, Murray said, “defeated outlandish cuts that would have been a gut punch for American families and our economy — and we fought off scores of extreme policies that would have restricted Americans’ fundamental freedoms, hurt consumers while giving giant corporations an unfair advantage, and turned back the clock on historic climate action.”

The House and Senate must debate and approve the measure in less than two days under the stopgap funding agreement, otherwise a weekend funding lapse would begin. If it went on beyond the brief period of the weekend, a partial government shutdown would begin.

The House can easily hold a vote within that timeline, but the Senate will need to reach agreement among all 100 of its members in order to avoid casting votes past that benchmark.

Here’s a look at where Congress increased funding and where it cut spending on these six government funding bills for fiscal year 2024, which began back on Oct. 1.

Defense

Congress plans to spend $824.5 billion on the Defense spending bill, which predominantly funds the Pentagon, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

That bill includes funding for a 5.2% pay raise for military and civilian defense employees that will be retroactive to Jan. 1, 2024. The basic allowance for housing will increase by 5.4% and the basic allowance for sustenance will increase by 1.7%.

That total spending level would be divvied up among several core programs, including $176.2 billion for military personnel, an increase of $3.5 billion; $287.2 billion for operations and maintenance, $9.1 billion above current levels; $172 billion for procurement of military equipment, $9.8 billion more than the enacted level; and $148.3 billion for research and development, an $8.6 billion increase, according to a House GOP summary and a summary from House Democrats.

The Israeli Cooperative Missile Defense Programs would get $300 million for research and testing as well as $200 million for procurement, including for the Iron Dome and David’s Sling. An additional $300 million would go toward the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative.

Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chair Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat, said in a statement the bill “will invest in our ability to stay ahead of the threat of China, defend our country from foreign adversaries while standing firm with America’s allies, and take care of our servicemembers and their families.”

The joint explanatory statement that accompanies the bill calls on the Department of Defense to look into why the military is having difficulty recruiting.

“The Military Services are in the midst of one of the greatest recruiting crises since the creation of the all-volunteer force,” it says. “Since retention of enlisted servicemembers remains strong, those who continue to serve will promote to more senior grades, leaving a distressing shortfall in junior enlisted servicemembers, who account for 40 percent of the total active U.S. military force. The Nation needs America’s youth to strongly consider uniformed service.”

The package calls on the Defense Department to “conduct an independent survey to better understand the failure of recruitment efforts by the services,” according to House Republicans’ summary of the bill.

The secretary of Defense must also brief the Defense Appropriations subcommittees on a proposal to increase the pay for junior enlisted troops.

Financial Services and General Government

The Financial Services and General Government bill — which funds the U.S. Treasury Department, Executive Office of the President, judiciary and more than two dozen smaller programs — would receive $26.1 billion in funding. That’s about $1.1 billion below the current funding levels for those programs.

Senate FSGG Appropriations Subcommittee Chair Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, said in a written statement the “bipartisan legislation invests in these critical priorities for our nation and more — including providing key resources to tackle the opioid epidemic and the necessary funding to build the new FBI headquarters in Greenbelt, Maryland.”

“Building an economy that works for everyday Americans requires supporting our small businesses and community-based lenders, protecting consumers, building out our broadband infrastructure, and ensuring the security of our financial system,” Van Hollen said.

The Department of Treasury would receive $14.2 billion, a $22.9 million reduction to its current funding levels. Of that total funding level, $12.3 billion would go to the Internal Revenue Service, equal to its current funding, and $158 million would go toward the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, according to a bill summary from House Democrats.

The Judiciary would get more than $8.6 billion to operate the U.S. courts, including the District Courts, Courts of Appeals and other judicial services. That funding level is an increase of nearly $170 million.

It provides $129 million for salaries and expenses of the U.S. Supreme Court and $20 million to care for the building and its grounds, according to the joint explanatory statement.

The bill includes $791 million in funding for the District of Columbia, a decrease of $1 million. That includes $40 million in residential tuition support, $30 million in emergency and security costs, $8 million in upgrades to sewer and water treatment and $4 million in HIV/AIDS testing and treatment, according to a bill summary from House Democrats.

The Executive Office of the President would receive about $872.5 million — a $6 million decrease from the 2023 fiscal level, according to a bill summary from Democrats.

That includes $114 million for the Office of Administration, $19 million for the National Security Council, $22 million for the Office of National Cyber Director and $457 million for the National Drug Control Policy.

The bill would provide the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission with about $151 million in funding, a decrease of $1.5 million. The bill bars CPSC from issuing a ban on gas stoves, “which would reduce consumer choice,” according to a House GOP bill summary.

That policy provision would prohibit CPSC from “promulgating, implementing, administering, or enforcing any regulation to ban gas stoves as a class of products,” according to the explanatory statement.

CPSC has not made any regulatory action to ban gas stoves. Agency officials have expressed concern about indoor air quality of gas stoves and the agency is researching the impacts on human health of those indoor gas emissions.

The Election Assistance Commission would receive a cut of $280,000 in funding for a total level of $27.7 million.

A total of $55 million from that allocation would go toward Election Security Grants “to make payments to states for activities to improve the administration of elections for Federal office, including to enhance election technology and make election security improvements,” according to the explanatory statement.

Homeland Security

Congress plans to spend $62 billion on the Department of Homeland Security, including upgrading technology to screen for narcotics like fentanyl at U.S. ports of entry and an additional $495 million in funding to hire 22,000 border patrol agents.

The bill provides U.S. Customs and Border Protection with $19 billion, a $3 billion increase above current levels, and more than $9.6 billion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, an increase of $1.1 billion.

It puts in place policy requirements for detention centers, such as barring contracts with private companies that do not meet inspection standards, and providing an additional $3 million to expand the use of ICE body cameras, according to the explanatory statement.

The legislation would require the Department of Homeland Security to publish data on the 15th of every month on the total detention capacity and the number of “got aways” and people “turned back” at the southern border, according to the joint explanatory statement.

DHS refers to people as “got aways” when an individual is observed making an unauthorized entry into the U.S. and is not turned away, or apprehended. That data is not publicly available.

The Office of the Secretary and Executive Management would get $404 million, an increase of about $20 million. About $30 million of that funding would go “to support the safe reunification of families who were unjustly separated at the U.S.-Mexico border by the Trump Administration,” according to House Democrats’ summary of the bill.

The bill provides $5.1 billion for Enforcement and Removal Operations, an increase of $900 million above current funding. Of that, $355 million would go toward 41,500 detention beds.

The bill would appropriate $11.8 billion for the U.S. Coast Guard, a $122.7 million boost; $10.6 billion for the Transportation Security Administration, an increase of $1.2 billion; and $25.3 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, a funding cut of $72.9 million.

The FEMA funding would go toward several projects, with $20 billion of those funds for disaster relief.

Labor-HHS-Education

The bill would appropriate $13.7 billion for the Labor Department, $145 million less than current funding levels and $79 billion for the Education Department, a cut of $500 million, according to the House GOP summary.

The Health and Human Services Department would get $116.8 billion, or about $3.9 billion less than the $120.7 billion provided during the last fiscal year. The House Democrats’ summary of the bill, however, says that when earmarks are factored into the total spending level, HHS would get a $955 million increase.

Senate Labor-HHS-Education Subcommittee Chair Tammy Baldwin, a Wisconsin Democrat, said in a written statement the bill “helps take on the fentanyl and opioid crisis, expand access to affordable child care, invest in critical mental health and affordable health care programs, and connect Americans with the education and workforce training they need to land good-paying jobs.”

Funding for HHS would go to numerous health programs, including a $300 million increase to the National Institutes of Health for a total spending level of $48.6 billion.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would get $9.2 billion, more than $4.5 million above its current funding level.

Title X family planning grants would get $286 million in funding, the same amount they currently receive, despite House Republicans proposing to completely eliminate the program.

The Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, a central component of the nation’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the mpox outbreak, would get $3.6 billion, a $5 million increase.

Of that total spending level, $1 billion would go toward the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority and $980 million would go to the Strategic National Stockpile. That represents an increase of $65 million and $15 million, respectively.

The bill includes a $1 billion increase in funding for child care and early learning programs within HHS, according to Senate Democrats’ summary of the legislation.

The Child Care and Development Block Grant would see a $725 million, 9%, increase in funding compared to current levels, for a total appropriation of $8.8 billion. Another $12.27 billion would go toward Head Start programs, a boost of $275 million over the current level.

“Sustained annual increases to our federal investments in child care and Head Start are critical in tackling the child care crisis and helping to ensure more families can find and afford the quality, affordable child care and early childhood education options they need,” Senate Democrats’ summary says. “With the new investments provided in this bill, annual discretionary funding for CCDBG and Head Start over the last three fiscal years has increased by $4.4 billion.”

The Education Department’s spending would go to numerous initiatives, including $24.6 billion for student financial aid programs.

Pell Grants, which go to about 7 million lower-income college students, would continue to have a maximum award of $7,395 during the 2024-2025 academic year. The Federal Work Study program for college students would also get equal funding at $1.2 billion.

The Labor-HHS-Education bill continues to include the so-called Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding from being used for abortions with exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the pregnant person.

The decades-old provision, first added in the 1970s in a slightly different form, affects patients in federal health care programs like Medicaid and Medicare.

Similar provisions on abortion access exist throughout many of the other government funding bills.

Legislative Branch

The Legislative Branch Appropriations bill includes $6.75 billion for operations in the Capitol, including funding related to the summer’s party conventions and the presidential inauguration in January 2025.

The bill would boost funding for the U.S. Capitol Police to $792 million, a 7.8% increase from fiscal 2023.

The measure includes funding for retention and recruitment programs of Capitol Police officers, including student loan payments and tuition reimbursements. Capitol Police officers, the force responsible for security at the Capitol complex, reported lower morale in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“This is an essential investment in democracy and oversight that bolsters the legislative branch’s capacity to better serve the public,” said Sen. Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat who chairs the Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee. “This bill delivers the funding and infrastructure required for the U.S. Capitol Police to safeguard the Capitol complex and keep it accessible to the public.”

A joint explanatory statement accompanying the bill says the measure would allow $2 million for Capitol Police to protect members of Congress outside the Capitol complex but within the Washington, D.C., region. Members have experienced increased threats in recent years.

The measure also includes funding for quadrennial events related to the presidential election.

Capitol Police would receive $3.2 million for overtime to support the national political conventions — Republicans’ in Milwaukee and Democrats’ in Chicago — over the summer and to prepare for the inauguration in January.

Inauguration Day is in the next fiscal year, which begins in October, but expenses associated with preparing for it could be incurred this year. The bill would allocate nearly $3.7 million for salaries and expenses associated with the inauguration.

The bill would provide $16.6 million for Capitol grounds, House and Senate offices and the Capitol Power Plant.

The measure includes a provision that would claw back unspent funds from members’ Representational Allowances, the accounts that reimburse senators and representatives for official expenses. Unspent funds from those accounts would be used to pay down the national debt.

The measure includes a longstanding policy freezing members’ pay.

State-Foreign Operations

Congress plans to allocate just over $58.3 billion for the Department of State, U.S. Agency for International Development and other related programs, including refugee emergency assistance and diplomatic activities.

Republican lawmakers are touting an overall cut to the bill — down from last year’s $59.7 billion total.

The bill includes $11.8 billion for the U.S. State Department and USAID and $10.3 billion for international development, including a loan to the International Monetary Fund to provide economic relief for some of the world’s poorest nations.

The bill allocates $10 billion for global health initiatives that focus on combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, as well as providing vaccination programs for children.

Of that health funding, Democrats cheered that the bill “protects longstanding funding,” as highlighted by Murray’s office, for family planning and reproductive health services in poor nations around the globe, for which nearly $524 million is allocated, remaining at the same level as the current spending level.

Funding appropriated to the president for multilateral assistance to international organizations and programs — ranging from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to programs for victims of torture — is set to drop to $436.9 million from last year’s funding level of $508.6 million.

That reduction, in part, reflects current political tension over the Israel-Hamas war.

Absent from the bill are funds to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, a primary humanitarian organization in the Palestinian Gaza Strip and West bank territories. Many Western nations cut UNRWA funding after Israel accused 13 of its employees of taking part in the Oct. 7 attacks and many more of sympathizing with Hamas and other militant groups. The agency received $75 million from the U.S. in fiscal year 2023.

Another notable absence from the bill is funding for the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, which received $17.5 million from the U.S. in last year’s funding bill.

Republicans celebrated the elimination of funding for the agency’s inquiry into human rights abuses in Palestinian territories, which the UN Human Rights Council opened after a flare up of violence in May 2021. The inquiry began to collect evidence of war crimes “committed by all sides” shortly after Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 and taking roughly 240 hostages.

The bill will meet the annual U.S. $3.3 billion commitment to Israel this year among the $8.9 billion in security assistance to foreign governments.

The funding roadmap for U.S. international activities extends several programs, notably authorizing an additional 12,000 Special Immigrant Visas for Afghans who assisted the U.S. during its war in Afghanistan.

AI disinformation, threats to poll workers top U.S. Senate panel list of election worries

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 13 Mar 2024 12:00:24 +0000

Poll workers check in a voter at a polling station at David R. Cawley Middle School on February 11, 2020, in Hookset, New Hampshire (Drew Angerer/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — Senators on the U.S. Senate Rules Committee expressed concerns Tuesday that poll workers may need protection and that artificial intelligence could interfere in the fall elections.

Leading members of the committee said AI has already been used to promote disinformation that has interfered with elections, while elections workers have for years experienced intimidation. Both issues seriously threaten election integrity, the senators said.

“We are very concerned about what we have seen in just snippets of ads and videos that have gone out that attack candidates on both sides of the aisle, but they are complete deep fakes and not the actual candidate and you can’t even tell it’s not the candidate,” Rules Committee Chair Amy Klobuchar said.

Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, said AI is already being used to interfere with elections, noting voters in New Hampshire received a robocall in the voice of President Joe Biden telling them not to vote in the state’s presidential primary.

Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat who also chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he is concerned that intelligence agencies have indicated that “we are potentially less protected as we go into 2024 in terms of the security of our elections than we were during 2020.”

“That’s a pretty stunning fact,” Warner said.

Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet expressed similar concerns and said he’s not surprised by the threat to democracy that AI can pose, especially on social media platforms.

“Every single one of these platforms, I think, virtually, has been used to spread … disinformation,” he said.

Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s secretary of state, said Michigan is focused on two things for the upcoming election: “fighting deception and misinformation about our elections and protecting the people who protect democracy.”

Benson expressed concern about how AI could be used to spread disinformation.

“I am also worried AI will make it easier to create and distribute hyperlocal disinformation that misleads voters about the voting process or conditions at their specific polling site,” she said.

The top Republican on the committee, Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska, asked Brian Kruse, the election commissioner of Douglas County, Nebraska, what unique challenges he faces in preparing for elections.

Kruse echoed concerns about disinformation, saying AI could be used to impersonate him or generate an incorrect polling location.

He said having trust in the community and with voters is important so that “when issues do occur, you can contact them and get the correct information out.”

Worker safety

State and local elections officials also told the committee they struggled with threats to election workers.

Benson advocated for Congress to make it a federal crime to harm an election worker. She argued that many jurisdictions can’t afford private security to protect election workers who are threatened.

“They are regular people, our neighbors and community members, civil servants who drive themselves to town hall meetings, who go back and forth to their offices and homes, often dropping off or picking up children and groceries along the way,” she said.

Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia asked Benson how threats to election workers impact their work.

“Not only does it cause us to fear going to work… it takes us away from the actual work of administering elections every time we need to issue protections or think about our own safety,” Benson said.

Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon said he’s been hearing from officials in his state about the difficulty to recruit election officials. He asked Benson if she was seeing that in Michigan.

“Yes, and it has (been difficult) since the 2020 election cycle,” Benson said.

Isaac Cramer, the executive director of the Charleston County Board Of Voter Registration and Elections in South Carolina, said that more than 70% of the state’s election directors have left their posts since 2020.

Cramer said that as Charleston County prepares for the 2024 election, his office’s main concerns are protecting election workers, the security of polling places and the assurance of reliable federal funding.

He said that during the June 2022 primaries, “our polling places became battlegrounds for disruptive elements seeking to undermine the electoral process.”

He said one local group traveled to the various polling locations on Election Day and harassed pool managers and “called law enforcement to come to polling places and demanded they arrest our poll managers.”

Paper ballots

Several witnesses from GOP-led states touted their states’ use of paper ballots and voter identification laws.

Wes Allen, Alabama’s secretary of state, advocated for senators to change federal law to require voter ID. He also approvingly noted Alabama passed a law to use paper ballots and ban voting machines that connect to the internet.

Kruse also said Nebraska uses paper ballots so voting machines are not connected to the internet.

“There is a paper trail,” he said.

Kruse, of Nebraska, added that his state has increased the number of poll workers by creating a system to draft workers from a pool in a process similar to jury duty.

“Some advantages to drafting poll workers are increased community awareness of the election process, less difficulty in securing election workers, and a younger workforce with an average age in the mid-50s while the majority of poll workers nationwide are over 60,” he said.

Voting rights debate

Earlier Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a separate hearing about protecting voting rights in the U.S. The first panel of witnesses included GOP Rep. Wesley Hunt of Texas and Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia.

The chair of the committee, Sen. Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, said the hearing needed to be held because of the “ongoing assault of voting rights,” and he advocated for the passage of a bill named for late U.S. Rep. John R. Lewis, which would establish a new formula to require all states to get permission from the Department of Justice before making changes to voting laws or putting in place new voting requirements.

Lewis, who died in 2020, was a champion of voting rights and known for his advocacy during the civil rights era. He nearly died on “Bloody Sunday,” marching with other advocates from Selma, Alabama, to the state capitol in Montgomery in 1965.

With Republicans in control of the House, the bill is unlikely to receive a vote in that chamber, even if the Senate manages to garner the 60 votes needed.

The bill, which would restore a requirement of the Voting Rights Act that certain states receive preclearance from the federal government before changing voting laws, has failed to pass several times.

The Supreme Court stripped the preclearance requirement in a 2013 decision.

Republicans, then-Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin III blocked an attempt in 2022 to change Senate rules to allow the bill to pass with a simple majority vote.

There are currently no Senate Republican co-sponsors of the bill.

“Across the country the right to vote is under assault,” Warnock said.

He pointed to his own state of Georgia, which overhauled its voting laws after the 2020 election that sent two Democratic senators – Warnock, the state’s first Black senator, and Ossoff, its first Jewish senator – to Congress and the state’s electoral votes for President Joe Biden.

The top Republican on the committee, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, pushed back, arguing that states should be allowed to pass their own voting laws.

He added that while Republicans “admire the name John Lewis and his heroic efforts during the 60s,” GOP lawmakers view that bill as an attempt to rewrite the Supreme Court decision in 2013 – a ruling that gutted Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

“You won’t find much support on this side of the aisle,” Graham said of the John Lewis bill.

The Brennan Center for Justice, a left-leaning think tank, published a report in 2022 on how strict voter ID laws disproportionately impact voters of color.

Hunt, who is also Black, disagreed with Democrats and argued that voter identification laws don’t disenfranchise Black voters. He pointed out that he has several forms of government IDs.

“We don’t need a new solution to a problem that doesn’t exist,” Hunt said.

HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge to resign at the end of March

Ariana Figueroa — Mon, 11 Mar 2024 20:08:15 +0000

Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge is retiring after nearly 50 years of public service. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge announced Monday she is stepping down from the agency.

In an exclusive interview with USA Today, Fudge said she would leave March 22 to retire after nearly 50 years of public service.

Fudge, 71, was the second Black woman to run the agency. She came in during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and amid a housing crisis.

“I do believe strongly that I have done just about everything I could do at HUD for this administration as we go into this crazy, silly season of an election,” she told USA Today.

Before Fudge took over HUD, she was a member of Congress representing Ohio’s 11th Congressional District that includes Cleveland and Akron. She also served as chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.

“It has always been my belief that government can and should work for the people,” Fudge said in a statement. “The people HUD serves are those who are often left out and left behind. These are my people. They serve as my motivation for everything we have been able to accomplish.”

She is one of the few members of Biden’s Cabinet to resign. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh stepped down last year for a top job in the players union of the National Hockey League.

Biden to push for return of expanded child tax credit in State of the Union speech

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 23:12:18 +0000

President Joe Biden is expected in his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Thursday, March 7, 2024, to discuss taxes, housing and so-called junk fees. In this photo, Biden delivers his State of the Union address at the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 7, 2023, as Vice President Kamala Harris and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy., R-Calif., listen (Jacquelyn Martin-Pool/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — Top White House economic officials said Tuesday that President Joe Biden will announce how his administration is tackling economic issues — from the housing crisis to restoring the expansion of the child tax credit — during this week’s State of the Union address to Congress and the nation.

“Providing more breathing room to American families is really something that remains a top priority for the president,” said Jon Donenberg, a deputy director of the National Economic Council, in a briefing at the White House with reporters from regional publications.

The speech is expected to be of great significance for Biden as he seeks reelection in November against the likely Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump.

Some policies Biden will address in his remarks Thursday night include his administration’s efforts to crack down on “junk fees,” help first-time homebuyers and protect renters from rent hikes, as well as pushing for several changes to the U.S. tax code.

Daniel Hornung, a deputy director of the National Economic Council, said that Biden will make the case to Republicans to bring back the expanded child tax credit.

“The president will push to restore that tax break to make sure that families across the country, families with children, have the breathing room they need,” Hornung said.

Biden will use the State of the Union to push tax policies that promote “interests of working people and not billionaires or megacorporations,” Hornung said.

The president will propose a multi-pronged plan that would include raising the corporate tax rate to 28%, a priority Biden discussed in last year’s budget proposal.

Hornung said the president wants to reverse the “tax windfall” that corporations enjoyed following the Trump administration’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that set the corporate rate at 21%.

Biden will again pitch a minimum tax on the richest 0.01% of Americans and call on Congress to ensure tax cuts for lower- and middle-income Americans by restoring all or part of the pandemic-era expansion of the child tax credit and premium tax credits for Affordable Care Act plans.

Push in Congress on taxes

Biden’s renewed urgency over the tax code comes as Trump’s 2017 tax policies are winding down and must either be renewed or changed by the end of 2025. Biden is expected, in his speech, to criticize Republican proposals to extend some Trump-era tax breaks.

Congress has taken rare bipartisan, bicameral action this year to head off the looming tax code tempest.

A proposal to temporarily expand the child tax credit and restore a handful of expired or expiring corporate tax incentives received sweeping support in the U.S. House in late January. The bill, which the White House has endorsed, is stalled in the U.S. Senate.

The 2021 expansion of the child tax credit lifted nearly 3 million children out of poverty, according to the U.S. Census.

That temporary pandemic-era expansion under the American Rescue Plan, now expired, increased benefits from up to $2,000 to $3,600 for qualifying children under age 6, and $3,000 for other qualifying children under age 18.

Housing crunch

Several economic advisers noted that rental rates have continued to rise and that there is a “housing gap in this country,” Domestic Policy Advisor Neera Tanden said.

“He has specific proposals that he’ll speak to in terms of housing affordability and ensuring that we are addressing rent,” Tanden said of the president’s speech Thursday.

Rohit Chopra, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said that the administration is also looking at ways to lower closing costs on buying a home because the White House’s analysis has found that expense “drains people’s down payment and pushes up their monthly mortgage payment.”

He added that the White House is also looking for ways to make it easier for homeowners to refinance “now that (interest) rates have started to come down.”

Hornung said that the White House is also exploring ways to “boost the supply of housing throughout the country,” and find steps that the federal government can take to “help state (and) local governments reduce barriers” when it comes to expanding housing.

He said that in addition to getting more housing supply online, Biden will lay out how the administration is looking “to invest in the supply of affordable housing,” and to block “practices that are driving up rents that are not just about supply and demand.”

Biden to point to actions on junk fees

Chopra said that Biden will stress how his administration has gone after “junk fees,” and will continue to do so, pointing to a finalized rule Tuesday that will cap most credit card fees to $8.

“I think the impact is gonna be most felt by those who really are living paycheck to paycheck, those who are trying to pay off their debt,” he said.

Chopra said that the administration launched an industry-wide study and found junk fees in hotels, ticket sales, airlines and the banking industry. He said it’s a tactic that companies use to push up purchase prices to “charge for fake or worthless services.”

“I think we’ve all been seeing these creep across the economy in our lives almost everywhere we go,” he said.

Chopra said the White House found that one bank was charging customers a fake junk fee for a printed bank statement “that was neither printed nor mailed.”

“We have already ordered them and others to refund the money,” he said. “I think what we’re seeing is people, perhaps those who have the least amount of time to bicker with customer service agents. They’re no longer spending that time. They’re actually seeing that money being kept for themselves.”

Five months late, Congress is poised to pass a huge chunk of federal spending

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 11:55:24 +0000

he U.S. House and Senate are expected to take broadly bipartisan votes to send a massive spending package known as a “minibus” to President Joe Biden ahead of a Friday midnight deadline (Getty Images Plus).

WASHINGTON — Congress is on track to approve a staggering $468 billion in government spending this week, finishing part of the work it was supposed to complete by Oct. 1 — including a big boost intended to shore up the federal WIC nutrition program for women, infants and children.

Other agencies will see cuts, including the FBI and the National Park Service, as Democrats and Republicans haggled over winners and losers in the annual spending process. There are spending increases for items such as wildland fire management, first-time-ever federal oversight of cosmetics and emergency rental assistance for low-income families.

Surviving: Plenty of earmarks for lawmakers’ local projects, also referred to as congressionally directed spending or community project funding, which received $12.655 billion in spending for the 6,630 projects within the six spending bills combined into one package, according to two people familiar with the total.

For example, in the bill that provides funds for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration, that includes everything from $3 million for the Integrative Precision Agriculture Laboratory at the University of Georgia Research Foundation, Inc. to $800,000 for Livingston Parish Courthouse Renovations in Louisiana to $3.3 million for the Pinetop Wildland Fire Response Station in Arizona.

The U.S. House and Senate are expected to take broadly bipartisan votes to send the package known as a “minibus” to President Joe Biden ahead of a Friday midnight deadline.

However, agreement on six other consequential appropriations bills, which are due by March 22 and include health, defense and homeland security programs, remains elusive.

Dems tout WIC funding

The first batch of government funding bills brokered by the divided Congress includes the Agriculture-FDA, Commerce-Justice-Science, Energy-Water, Interior-Environment, Military Construction-VA and Transportation-HUD measures.

Senate Appropriations Chair Patty Murray, a Washington state Democrat, said in a statement released Sunday that she and other Democratic lawmakers “fought hard to protect investments that matter to working people everywhere and help keep our economy strong—rejecting devastating cuts to housing, nutrition assistance, and more.”

“Forcing states to pick and choose which moms and kids will be able to access essential WIC benefits was never an acceptable outcome to Democrats, and this bill ensures that won’t happen by fully funding WIC for millions of families nationwide,” Murray said, referring to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, known as WIC, which provides grants to states and had faced a shortfall.

Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, ranking member on the panel, said in a written statement the “bills will make a real difference in communities throughout the United States.”

“Members of the Appropriations Committee in both chambers have worked very hard to reach agreements on the bill text unveiled today,” Collins said. “I look forward to working with Chair Murray and our colleagues to bring this legislation to the Senate floor for a vote without any further delay.”

House Appropriations Committee Chair Kay Granger, a Texas Republican, said the bills “achieve what we set out to do: strategically increase defense spending and make targeted cuts to wasteful non-defense programs.”

Connecticut Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro, ranking member on the House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement the bipartisan bills “help keep communities safe and healthy.”

“I am grateful that each of these bills rejects many of the extreme cuts and policies proposed by House Republicans and protects the great strides we made over the last two years to reverse the underinvestment in domestic programs that Americans depend on,” DeLauro said. “I urge swift passage of this package and look forward to releasing the remaining 2024 funding bills.”

Agency cuts

The bills would cut funding from several federal agencies, including a $977 million reduction to the Environmental Protection Agency; a $654 million cut for the Federal Bureau of Investigation; a $150 million reduction to the National Park Service; and a $122 million cut to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

The Army Corps of Engineers, Department of Veterans Affairs and military construction projects are among the programs that would see an increase in their funding.

Congress, after approving these six bills this week, must finalize bipartisan agreement on the remaining six.

Those bills include Defense, Financial Services and General Government, Homeland Security, Labor-HHS-Education, Legislative Branch and State-Foreign Operations. They are typically harder to negotiate than the bills in this week’s minibus.

Congress would likely start on the fiscal 2025 process shortly after approving all dozen annual appropriations bills, given that Biden is expected to send lawmakers his next request, for fiscal 2025, on March 11.

Here’s a breakdown of what’s funded in each of the bills that Congress will vote on this week.

Agriculture-FDA

The Agriculture-FDA funding bill would provide $26.2 billion in discretionary spending for the agencies and programs within the legislation, including conservation and rural development. That represents a $383 million increase above current funding levels.

The USDA would receive $22.3 billion, which would be about $383 million more than current law. That discretionary funding would go toward several programs, including the Agricultural Research Service, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and the Foreign Agricultural Service.

The FDA would receive $3.5 billion in discretionary funding, including “$7 million to conduct oversight of cosmetics for the first time ever and $1.5 million to reduce animal testing through alternative methods,” according to a summary of the bill released by Senate Democrats.

The Agriculture-FDA measure includes significant mandatory spending as well, which is counted outside the discretionary spending caps the Biden administration and House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, agreed to in January.

Mandatory spending is required by laws that Congress has already approved. It makes up the largest component of federal expenditures and is often spent outside of the annual appropriations process, though some mandatory spending accounts are reported in the bills.

Discretionary accounts make up about one-third of federal spending and are what’s subject to the spending caps on the dozen annual appropriations bills.

The Agriculture-FDA bill would approve $7 billion for the Women, Infants and Children program, an increase of more than $1 billion compared to its current funding level.

The increase would “fully fund” the WIC program, which includes more than 7 million people, according to subcommittee Chairman Martin Heinrich, a New Mexico Democrat, who said in a statement he was “focused on delivering for American families, farmers and producers, and rural communities.”

“This bill gets that done, even while we had to make some tough decisions to get there,” Heinrich said. “I am especially proud that we stood firm to fully fund WIC and the other programs that will help put food on the table for America’s kids.”

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which provides grocery benefits to low-income families, would get $122.4 billion, a $32 billion decrease in mandatory spending that’s “due to the end of pandemic-era benefits and decreases in participation rates,” according to a summary of the bill from Senate Republicans.

Child nutrition programs — like the national school lunch program, school breakfast program and summer food programs — would get $33.3 billion, an increase of $4.7 billion over what the federal government currently spends.

The legislation doesn’t include many of the conservative policy riders House Republicans added in their original bill, such as a proposal to ban the abortion medication mifepristone from being sent to patients through the mail.

The bill has 72-pages of community projects, formerly known as earmarks, that will go to nearly every state in the country.

Commerce-Justice-Science

The Commerce-Justice-Science spending bill provides approximately $67 billion in discretionary funding plus $2 billion in emergency funding “to address violent crime, counter the fentanyl crisis, and maintain U.S. scientific, technological, and economic superiority over China,” according to Senate Republicans’ summary of the bill.

That funding level would be divvied up with about $37.5 billion for the Department of Justice, $10.8 billion for the Department of Commerce, $9.1 billion for the National Science Foundation and nearly $24.9 billion for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA.

The bill would approve $844 million for the Executive Office for Immigration Review, or EOIR, that will go toward legal services for underrepresented communities and modifications to courtrooms. That is about $16 million less than current law.

The bill would address the more than 2.5 million case backlog in immigration courts by hiring new immigration judges and providing training.

The bill would require EOIR to implement a performance appraisal based on recommendations from the Government Accountability Office for immigration judges and the agency has to submit a report to Congress on the results of the appraisal process.

The legislation provides an increase of $13 million for the Violence Against Women Act, bringing the funding level to $713 million toward those programs. That funding will go toward assistance with transitional housing, domestic violence reduction, sexual assault services, research on violence against Indigenous women and legal assistance, among other initiatives.

The bill provides about $10.6 billion for the FBI, a decrease from fiscal 2023. That funding will go toward targeting fentanyl and opioid trafficking, child exploitation, trafficking and bioforensic analysis, among other initiatives.

The bill includes a 95% cut in funding for FBI construction, from $629.1 million to $30 million. The bill would require the FBI to conduct a study on the “feasibility of expanding the FBI operations in regional offices around the country,” according to the explanatory statement.

The bill includes a provision that none of the funds can be used to “target or investigate parents who peacefully protest at school board meetings and are not suspected of engaging in unlawful activity.”

House Republicans have scrutinized the Justice Department after the agency directed the FBI to investigate threats of violence made to school board officials and teachers after a conservative backlash to discussions about race in public schools.

The bill would provide the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives with $1.6 billion, a decrease of $112 million below fiscal year 2023 levels in order to reverse “anti-Second Amendment overreach,” according to a summary of the bill by House Republicans.

Members of Congress obtained 86 pages of earmarks in the Commerce-Justice-Science bill.

Energy-Water

The Energy-Water appropriations measure would moderately boost spending on defense — primarily the Energy Department’s nuclear programs — while cutting slightly from the bill’s domestic water infrastructure accounts.

The defense discretionary total in that bill, which is apart from overall Pentagon spending, would be $33.3 billion, a 6% increase from fiscal 2023, and discretionary domestic spending on the bill’s programs would be $24.9 billion, a 2% decrease.

The bill includes more than $50 billion for the Department of Energy, $8.7 billion for the Army Corp of Engineers, which oversees most federal water project construction, and $1.9 billion for the Interior Department’s Bureau of Reclamation.

The National Nuclear Security Administration would see a nearly $2 billion funding increase from fiscal 2023, almost all of which is for the agency’s weapons activities.

The Bureau of Reclamation, the Interior Department agency that deals with water and hydroelectric power, would see a $31 million decrease to $1.9 billion.

The bill included 30 pages of earmarks.

Interior-Environment

The Interior-Environment funding bill, which covers the Interior Department, EPA and related agencies, totals $41.2 billion, which would be a decrease of more than $11 billion, more than 21%, from fiscal 2023.

The bill would cut nearly $1 billion of the EPA’s budget, a 9.6% decrease from fiscal 2023.

Most of that cut, $745 million, is from the agency’s Hazardous Substance Superfund. That account, which funds cleanup of massive environmental hazardous waste sites, would receive $537.7 million, down from $1.3 billion in fiscal 2023.

Two other long-term spending laws, the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law and Democrats’ 2022 energy, taxes and domestic policy law, provide additional funding for Superfund cleanup. Total federal spending would be more than $3 billion in fiscal 2024, even with the proposed cut.

Addressing wildfires was a priority in the bill, according to summaries from both Senate Democrats and House Republicans.

The bill includes $6 billion for the U.S. Forest Service, including $2.3 billion for the agency’s Wildland Fire Management program. That represents an increase of $1.37 billion for wildland fire management.

The bill would also maintain full funding for wildland firefighter pay, which was increased in the 2021 infrastructure law.

The bill maintains $900 million in mandatory federal spending for the Land and Water Conservation Fund that allocates money for federal land acquisition, state grants for outdoor recreation and related efforts.

And it would direct $1.9 billion in mandatory spending for the National Parks and Public Land Legacy Restoration Fund that addresses roads and buildings across five Interior Department agencies, with the bulk of the funding going to the National Park Service.

The funding levels in both the Land and Water Conservation Fund and public lands fund meet caps established in the 2020 Great American Outdoors Act and do not count against the discretionary funding limit.

The bill includes 100 pages of earmarks.

Military Construction-Veterans Affairs

Lawmakers are touting the Military Construction and VA bill’s $326.4 billion total as “fully funding” veterans’ benefits and health care, bolstering national security in the Indo-Pacific region, and upgrading housing for service members and their families, among other priorities, according to a statement Sunday from Murray’s office.

The bill contains $175.2 billion in mandatory spending on veterans’ benefits that encompass disability compensation, education and employment training.

On the discretionary side, $153.92 billion would be allocated to the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs as well as four related agencies, including Arlington National Cemetery, American Battle Monuments Commission, Armed Forces Retirement Home, and the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.

If cleared by Congress, the lion’s share of the bill’s funds, at $134.8 billion, would go to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Of that total, roughly $121 billion would be allocated for veterans medical care, including $16.2 billion for mental health, $5.2 billion for telehealth services, $3.1 billion for homelessness programs, $231 million for substance abuse and opioid misuse prevention, and $108 million for overall well-being programs, or “Whole Health Initiatives.”

The remaining $18.675 billion in discretionary funds would head to the Department of Defense for the planning and construction of several military projects, including $2.4 billion for shipyard infrastructure, $2 billion for military family housing, and $1.5 billion for construction or upgrades to military Reserve and Guard facilities.

Specific domestic projects and their locations can be found in the 11 pages of lawmaker earmarks for community funding. They include a range of infrastructure upgrades, numerous child development centers and several barracks upgrades at military sites across the U.S.

Other allocations in the military construction spending total include $634 million for energy projects, $293 million to the NATO Security Investment Program, and $489 million for base realignment and closures, $50 million of which will be dedicated to the cleanup of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, otherwise known as PFAS chemicals.

About $131 million would be allocated for planning, design and minor construction for the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, which operates in a strategically important region for the U.S. military.

The Military Construction and VA spending bill also sets some funding levels for the following fiscal year. The bill allocates $195.8 billion for veterans’ benefits and $112.6 billion in discretionary programs in 2025.

Transportation-HUD

The Transportation-HUD appropriations measure would appropriate about $89.5 billion in discretionary funding for the dozens of programs throughout the bill.

Another $8 billion in emergency funding was added to the legislation “to maintain current rental assistance for low income Americans amid a collapse in housing receipts that are used to help offset the cost of such assistance,” according to a summary of the bill from Senate Republicans.

The Department of Transportation would receive $27 billion in discretionary funding while another $79 billion would come from obligation limitations, according to Senate Democrats’ summary of the bill.

The Federal Aviation Administration would receive $20.1 billion, about $1 billion more than its current funding level. The money would allow the FAA to hire “1,800 new controllers, improving training facilities at the air traffic controller academy, and addressing the reliability of critical IT and telecommunications legacy systems,” according to Senate Democrats’ summary.

The Federal Highway Administration would receive $63 billion, the Federal Railroad Administration would get $2.9 billion and the Federal Transit Administration would receive $16 billion.

“To address the rail safety deficiencies identified in the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment, the bill provides a $27.3 million increase for FRA’s safety and operations budget—meeting the President’s budget request for rail safety inspectors,” according to Senate Democrats’ summary.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development would receive $70.1 billion that would go toward “rental assistance and self-sufficiency support for low-income working families, seniors, veterans, and persons with disabilities; housing and services to homeless individuals; and support for economic and community development,” according to the Senate Republican summary.

Homeless Assistance Grants would increase in funding by $418 million to $4.05 billion. Community Development Block Grants would receive $3.3 billion in funding.

The Native American Housing Block Grant program would receive $1.3 billion, a “historic level of funding” that would “make significant progress in addressing the dire housing needs of Indian Country, where residents are nearly twice as likely to live in poverty and nearly three times more likely to live in overcrowded conditions compared to other U.S. households,” according to Senate Democrats’ summary.

The Transportation-HUD bill includes 306 pages of community projects, or earmarks, making it one of the more significant bills for lawmakers to receive funding for priority initiatives.

Those include $1 million for the William Way LGBT Community Center in Philadelphia, one of three projects that House Republicans stripped out of their original bill in July after initially approving them.

The bill didn’t include funding for the LGBT Center of Greater Reading in Pennsylvania, which was originally selected for $970,000 in funding, or for affordable senior housing at LGBTQ Senior Housing, Inc. in Massachusetts, which was on track for $850,000 in funding.

Presidential campaign moves to the border, as Biden urges Trump to back immigration deal

Ariana Figueroa — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 14:50:56 +0000

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers await the arrival of President Joe Biden to deliver remarks about immigration and border security at the Brownsville Station on February 29, 2024 in Olmito, Texas. The president visited the border near Brownsville on the same day as a dueling trip made by former President Donald Trump to neighboring Eagle Pass, Texas (Cheney Orr/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump on Thursday afternoon paid competing visits to the nation’s southern border, where Biden called on Congress to reconsider a bipartisan border security deal that Republicans tanked at Trump’s direction.

Biden traveled to Brownsville, Texas, while Trump journeyed to Eagle Pass, highlighting how immigration policy has risen in importance as the 2024 presidential race takes shape. Biden is seeking reelection and Trump is the GOP primary front-runner.

“Here’s what I would say to Mr. Trump,” Biden said. “Instead of telling members of Congress to block this legislation, join me, or I’ll join you in telling the Congress to pass this bipartisan border security bill. We can do it together.”

Senate Republicans earlier this month walked away from that deal they brokered with the White House, following Trump’s objection to the plan that would drastically overhaul U.S. immigration law and bolster funding.

Biden said the Senate needs to reconsider the bipartisan border security bill and Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson should bring the measure to the floor for a vote.

Johnson has refused, arguing that the House already passed its own measure in H.R. 2, and that Biden has the executive authority to take action to address high levels of immigration. Democrats object to many of the policies in that bill.

Accompanying the president was U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who was impeached by House Republicans over policy disputes in early February, and Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, whose district includes Brownsville.

During his visit, Biden met with U.S. Border Patrol agents, law enforcement, frontline personnel and local leaders, the White House said.

“I just received a briefing from the Border Patrol at the border as well as immigration enforcement asylum officers and they’re all doing incredible work under really tough conditions,” Biden said. “They desperately need more resources.”

Mayorkas said only Congress can help DHS fund more Border Patrol agents, immigration enforcement agents, asylum officers, immigration judges and support personnel, facilities and technology.

“You can see the impact these resources will have on our ability to strengthen our security, advance our mission to protect the homeland and enforce our nation’s laws quickly and effectively,” he said. “Though Congress has not yet provided the resources we need, DHS will continue to enforce the law and work to secure our border.”

Migrant encounters

As the Biden administration deals with the largest number of migrant encounters at the southern border in more than 20 years, Trump’s reelection campaign has centered on stoking fears surrounding immigration — as he previously did in his 2016 presidential campaign.

More than 300 miles away from Biden in Eagle Pass on Thursday, Trump criticized the Biden administration and touted how he managed the border during his first presidency.

He highlighted his “Remain in Mexico” program that required asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while waiting for their asylum cases to he heard — a move that many advocates documented resulted in harm, separation and deaths to those migrants who had to comply.

“The best was ‘Remain in Mexico,’” Trump said. “You stay in Mexico.”

Trump implemented the program in 2019 and the Biden administration sought to terminate it in June 2021.

But the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas determined in Texas v. Biden that the termination memo from the Biden administration was not issued in compliance with the Administrative Procedure Act, so the court ordered the Department of Homeland Security to keep the program in place.

It took a Supreme Court ruling for the Biden administration to finally be allowed to end the program.

Trump also praised Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott, who is at odds with the Biden administration over who wields authority over the border, most recently when Abbott defied U.S. Supreme Court orders to remove razor wire along the border.

Abbott has also sent migrants on buses and planes to Democratic-led cities without warning local officials, putting strains on those cities.

“He’s in some sanitized location,” Abbott said of Biden’s visit to Brownsville. “It just goes to show that Biden does not care about either Texas or the border and what’s going on.”

GOP on the attack in D.C.

U.S. House Republicans at the Capitol also criticized Biden’s visit to the border, calling it a “photo op,” and arguing that Brownsville is not a busy area that encounters many migrants.

“The border is the issue for every American no matter where they live, no matter where their state is, because every state is a border state,” Johnson said during a Thursday press conference.

Johnson also pressed for Biden to take executive action on immigration, something Biden has argued he cannot do without congressional authority.

Utah’s Blake Moore, the vice chair of the House Republican Conference, argued that El Paso, Texas, and Tucson, Arizona, are busier than Brownsville in terms of immigration.

“Brownsville can hardly be considered one of the most challenging immigration areas,” Moore said.

Moore said that this should not be just the second time in Biden’s presidency he has visited the border, and that Trump’s visit on the same day made it seem like Biden was trying to compete with Trump. Biden’s first visit to the border was in January 2023.

“That is what the American people will take from this, and it’s disheartening to know that that is the case,” Moore said.

NBC has reported the White House says Trump’s visit had nothing to do with Biden’s trip to Texas.

A day ahead of shutdown, Congress works on advancing stopgap spending bills

Ariana Figueroa — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 20:54:01 +0000

(Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom).

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House on a bipartisan vote passed a short-term funding extension Thursday intended to give lawmakers a bit more time to wrap up work on the annual spending bills — trying to dodge a shutdown despite election year politics and narrow margins.

The stopgap spending bill, sometimes called a continuing resolution, or CR, would keep funding mostly flat for programs funded in six of the full-year bills through March 8 and for programs in the other six bills through March 22. That means Congress will face another deadline just next week for action.

The House voted 320-99 to approve the stopgap bill, which now goes to the Senate, where any one lawmaker can slow down the approval process, pushing it past the Friday midnight deadline.

A Senate failure to send the bill to President Joe Biden before then would result in a partial government shutdown for the departments of Agriculture, Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation and Veterans Affairs.

Other agencies, like the Food and Drug Administration and military construction projects, would also be closed except for essential staff until a stopgap bill is enacted.

“While at the time of passing our last continuing resolution I had hoped we would not need this measure, we owe it to the American people to do our due diligence in reaching the end of this process,” the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, said on the House floor. “I appreciate the respectful bipartisan cooperation that took place to put forward this continuing resolution and move us closer to the finish line.”

GOP Rep. Chuck Fleischmann of Tennessee, an appropriator, acknowledged that many of his Republican colleagues would be upset with another CR, but he noted the slim majority in the GOP and that the bill gives Congress more time to pass the remaining appropriations bills.

“We are where we are,” he said. “This negotiation has been difficult, but to close the government down at a time like this would hurt people who should not be hurt.”

Border security

Republicans like Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona and Bob Good of Virginia expressed their frustration about border security, and said House Republicans have not leveraged the threat of shutting down the federal government to push for changes in immigration policy.

“We just keep spending money and we keep the policies that are in place,” Biggs said.

House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana said during a Thursday press conference that the bill texts for the first package of six spending bills will be released this weekend and members will be given at least 72 hours to read the bills before voting.

“This is a bipartisan agreement in the end, but it sticks to the numbers, the agreement on spending, it does not go above that,” Johnson said. “It will increase a bit, defense spending, but there will be real cuts to non-defense discretionary spending.”

Johnson added that after the remaining appropriations bills are done by the March 22 deadline, he wants to quickly move on to fiscal year 2025, as well as other issues, such as immigration.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said Thursday morning the only way for Congress to accomplish anything during divided government is through bipartisanship.

“This agreement is proof that when the four leaders work together, when bipartisanship is prioritized, when getting things done for the American people takes a high priority, good things can happen, even in divided government,” Schumer said. “And I hope this sets the stage for Congress to finish the appropriations process in a bipartisan way very soon.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said he appreciated the “commitment to see this process through and make good on this essential governing responsibility.”

“As I said earlier this week, government shutdowns never produce positive outcomes. That’s why Congress is going to avoid one this week,” McConnell said. “Leaders in both parties and both houses have agreed to a plan that would keep the lights on while appropriators complete their work and put annual appropriations bills on a glide path to becoming law.”

Congress has used a series of these stopgap funding measures to extend its deadlines for passing the dozen annual appropriations bills after failing to meet an Oct. 1 deadline.

Deep disagreements

House Republicans and Senate Democrats have had fundamental disagreements about spending levels and the policy that goes into the bills for months.

Those differences began after Biden submitted his budget request for fiscal year 2024 in March 2023, starting off the annual process.

The disputes appeared to abate a bit after Biden and then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy reached agreement on total spending levels in May 2023 at the same time they brokered a bipartisan agreement to address the nation’s debt limit.

House GOP appropriators moved away from that agreement after McCarthy experienced pressure from especially conservative members to significantly cut spending on domestic programs below the agreement.

The original batch of House spending bills also included dozens of very conservative GOP policy initiatives, drawing rebukes from Democrats and impeding the path toward a final bipartisan agreement.

A faction of far-right House Republicans ousting McCarthy of California in early October and then spending weeks disagreeing about who should lead them also delayed the process.

Johnson, after becoming speaker, renegotiated the spending levels for defense and domestic discretionary programs with Biden in January, starting off the process of merging the GOP bills from the House with the broadly bipartisan bills approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The spending deal sets spending on defense programs at $886.3 billion and provides $772.7 billion for non-defense discretionary spending.

Congressional leaders and the four lawmakers that lead the Appropriations committees in both chambers announced Wednesday they’d reached final agreement on six bills and had an agreement for another stopgap spending bill to bridge the gap.

Those bills, which will make up the first so-called “minibus,” include Agriculture-FDA, Commerce-Justice-Science, Energy-Water, Interior-Environment, Military Construction-VA and Transportation-HUD.

March 22 deadline

The remaining six bills, the toughest to negotiate, haven’t yet garnered bipartisan, bicameral agreement, but the statement said they “will be finalized, voted on, and enacted prior to March 22.”

That spending package is supposed to include the Defense, Financial Services and General Government, Homeland Security, Labor-HHS-Education, Legislative Branch and State-Foreign Operations government funding bills.

Should Congress approve all dozen of the bills before the March 22 final deadline, and Biden signs them, that would place lawmakers 174 days behind their deadline.

That would be the latest members have completed work on all the bills since fiscal 2017, when they wrapped up work 216 days into the fiscal year, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

Congress wrapped up work on all the bills during fiscal 2018 by March 23, but that was 173 days behind their deadline. The difference between this fiscal year and then is due to leap day.

The process of funding the government is expected to start anew on March 11 when Biden submits his budget request for fiscal 2025.

U.S. Senate Republican blocks legislation protecting in vitro fertilization

Ariana Figueroa — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 13:00:46 +0000

In vitro fertilization patient Julie Cohen holds up a photo of her children at a roundtable discussion with patients and health professionals on Feb. 27, 2024 in Birmingham, Alabama (Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — U.S. Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi blocked a bill from passing Wednesday that would have preserved access to in vitro fertilization nationwide, stalling a push by Democrats following a landmark Alabama state Supreme Court decision.

The court ruled earlier this month that frozen embryos counted as children under state law and parents could collect damages for their destruction, putting IVF programs in the state on hold.

Illinois Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth asked for unanimous consent to pass the IVF bill, a process that allows any one senator to prevent it from moving to the House.

Duckworth has said she’ll press for a roll call vote on the bill at a later point to put every senator on record.

“My girls are my everything,” Duckworth said, referring to her two daughters. “They likely would have never been born if I had not had access to the basic reproductive rights that Americans, up until recently, had been depending on for nearly a half century.”

Duckworth said that after her service in Iraq, she struggled with infertility.

Hyde-Smith argued that the bill was “overreaching,” and contained provisions with which she disagreed.

“I support the ability for mothers and fathers to have total access to IVF and bring new life into the world, and I also believe that human life should be protected,” Hyde-Smith said.

She also argued that the Alabama case did not ban IVF. However, clinics in the state have paused treatments following the ruling.

Duckworth defended her bill, saying that it protects individuals who are seeking IVF technology without fear of being prosecuted, protects the rights of physicians to provide that treatment and allows insurance companies to cover reproductive technology.

“It simply says you have a statutory right, should you choose to pursue assisted reproductive technology, that you would be able to do so,” Duckworth said.

‘These women have had their dreams shattered’

Washington state Democratic Sen. Patty Murray slammed Republicans for blocking the unanimous consent request to pass the bill.

“These women have had their dreams shattered because Republicans believe a frozen embryo kept in storage at an IVF clinic is the same and should have the exact same rights as a living, breathing human person,” Murray said.

Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, said that the first child born through IVF in the United States was in 1981, in Norfolk, Virginia. He added that it’s estimated that 12 million people were born through IVF.

“She’s raising her own family today,” Kaine said. “What could be more pro-life than in vitro fertilization?”

Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden said that the repeal of Roe v. Wade has led to an “onslaught of court rulings just like this one in Alabama.”

Nevada Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto said that when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, “we could see from a mile away that IVF was in danger.”

“It will not stop with Alabama,” Cortez Masto said. “Attacking IVF was yet another chance for anti-choice Republicans to erode women’s rights in this country.”

Britt: Alabama taking action

Alabama Republican Sen. Katie Britt said in a brief interview with States Newsroom on Wednesday afternoon that her home state should be left to address the issue.

“So Alabama is, right now as we speak, working to protect IVF,” she said.

Alabama state lawmakers advanced three bills out of committee on Wednesday that would protect access to IVF in that state.

The U.S. Senate’s debate over access to IVF came just hours after the Senate Budget Committee held a hearing on “the economic harms of restricting reproductive freedom,” which included testimony on access to the procedure.

Caitlin Myers, John G. McCullough professor of economics at Middlebury College in Vermont, told the committee that access to “reproductive autonomy isn’t just about young people avoiding parenthood until they’re ready, it’s about all people being able to become parents when they want to.”

“The economic evidence suggests that it allows women to spend more time seeking the right partner, investing in education and investing in their careers,” she said. “And in a country and moment when we’re increasingly seeing people delay parenthood, a lack of access to IVF is very concerning from an economic perspective.”

44 co-sponsors with Duckworth

The Duckworth bill, dubbed the Access to Family Building Act, is nine pages long and aims to provide protections for patients and health care providers.

Duckworth introduced the bill in mid-January with Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin, Washington state’s Murray and New York Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand as original co-sponsors.

Support for the legislation began increasing this week, with the number of co-sponsors rising to 44 as of Wednesday.

The bill says that it would bar limitations on “assisted reproductive technology services” that are “more burdensome than limitations or requirements imposed on medically comparable procedures, do not significantly advance reproductive health or the safety of such services and unduly restrict access to such services.”

Assisted reproductive technology is defined in the legislation as what’s included in Section 8 of the Fertility Clinic Success Rate and Certification Act of 1992.

That law’s definition says it encompasses “all treatments or procedures which include the handling of human oocytes or embryos, including in vitro fertilization, gamete intrafallopian transfer, zygote intrafallopian transfer, and such other specific technologies as the Secretary may include in this definition, after making public any proposed definition in such manner as to facilitate comment from any person (including any Federal or other public agency).”

GOP senators reject congressional action

Republican senators, speaking briefly with States Newsroom on Tuesday, all rejected the idea of Congress stepping in now to set a nationwide policy on access to IVF. And some expressed concerns with how the bill was written.

Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney said he would need to look over Duckworth’s bill in detail, but said his “understanding is it’s just substantially broader than dealing with IVF.”

On IVF access generally, Romney said, he didn’t believe that federal lawmakers had “enough of a window on that at this stage in that it’s not been an issue for any state other than Alabama.”

“And the Alabama Legislature, as I understand it, is attempting to deal with this legislatively, so I don’t think it’s an issue elsewhere,” Romney said.

West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said that while she supports everyone having access to IVF, she’s not sure Congress should approve legislation.

“I think we need to preserve access to IVF for families and folks suffering from infertility,” she said. “But I think this is, right now, a state issue in Alabama. And I think they ought to fix it there first.”

Indiana Republican Sen. Todd Young said access to IVF “has to be protected” and that he would look into supporting legislation to do just that, though he said he hadn’t yet read Duckworth’s bill.

“I would consider any proposals that are put forward here,” Young said. “I have not read through the particulars on that. Some have characterized it as overbroad.”

“But I would entertain legislation to preserve that important prerogative for women and families,” Young said.

GOP senators say it is a state issue

Kansas Republican Sen. Roger Marshall said he believes the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned the constitutional right to an abortion, sent issues like IVF to state lawmakers.

“I think that the Dobbs decision clearly states that this should be a decision made at the state level,” Marshall said. “I encourage the state legislators to support IVF. It’s a beautiful thing, hundreds of babies are delivered every day across the country because of IVF.”

The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs said the “Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.” That includes Congress.

Marshall said that Republicans throughout the country should “all lean into it that we are the pro-family party, and we should celebrate IVF.”

“It’s an incredible technique, something that I’ve participated in… close to 100 or more cycles and just lots of beautiful children I know from IVF,” Marshall said.

Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst said that it’s “not yet” time for Congress to step in with nationwide legislation on IVF, though she said it’s important that Americans have access to the process.

“I think the message that we have is that families should have access to IVF. That’s extremely important,” Ernst said. “I have a friend who has twin daughters because of IVF. So I hope we can work through this.”

Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville said the issue should be left to state lawmakers.

“Let them do it, just like they’re doing abortion. Let everybody get a chance to vote on it,” Tuberville said. “I think it will work a lot better than people complaining up here. We need to get our act together and worry about all the things that we can control.”

McConnell to step down as U.S. Senate GOP leader

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 19:19:59 +0000

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) talks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol on Dec. 14, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky will step down as the Senate Republican leader in November, he said on the Senate floor Wednesday, announcing the end of a run as party leader that broke records for its length and shaped American politics over nearly two decades.

“One of life’s most underappreciated talents is to know when it’s time to move on to life’s next chapter,” McConnell said. “It’s time for the next generation of leadership.”

McConnell, who turned 82 last week, cited the death of his wife’s sister several weeks ago, as an event that prompted him to think about his future.

“When you lose a loved one, particularly at a young age, there’s a certain introspection that accompanies the grieving process,” he said.

McConnell has faced increasing pressure to endorse the GOP presidential front-runner, Donald Trump. The two have a tense relationship that reached a breaking point following the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol after then-President Trump encouraged supporters to disrupt the certification of electoral votes in the 2020 election.

Senate Republicans will select a new leader in November. Possible McConnell successors include Minority Whip John Thune of South Dakota, Republican Conference Chairman John Barrasso of Wyoming and former Republican Whip John Cornyn of Texas.

Thune recently endorsed Trump, following earlier endorsements by Barrasso and Cornyn.

McConnell, who first arrived in the Senate in 1984 and became Republican leader in 2007, said he is “not going anywhere” until a new Republican leader is tapped. His Senate term is set to end January 2027.

“I love the Senate,” McConnell said. “It’s been my life.”

Kentucky’s longest-serving senator has shaped the federal judiciary system, including by leading Senate confirmation of 234 lifetime appointments to the federal bench. He played an important role in establishing a conservative U.S. Supreme Court by blocking Democratic then-President Barack Obama from appointing a justice before the 2016 presidential election.

This is a developing story that will be updated.

A partial government shutdown is days away. There’s no agreement on federal funding yet

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 21:26:12 +0000

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, speaks with reporters inside the U.S. Capitol after returning from a meeting at the White House on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024 (Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom).

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden huddled with top congressional leaders at the White House on Tuesday amid a crunch over government funding as well as a familiar stalemate over assistance to two major allies — and no solution immediately in sight.

Lawmakers leaving the meeting, which lasted about an hour, said it was worthwhile, even though it didn’t lead to any agreements that would avoid a partial government shutdown from beginning this weekend, or clear a Senate-passed package of aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

“It was a productive meeting on the government shutdown, we are making good progress … (and) the speaker said unequivocally he wants to avoid a government shutdown,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said following the meeting, referring to House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican.

Johnson faces tensions and demands in the House. Congressional leaders and the Biden administration have agreed to total spending levels for each of the dozen annual appropriations bills, but far-right conservative lawmakers are pressuring Johnson to include policy riders that Democrats have said are unacceptable.

Schumer said it’s likely Congress will need to approve another continuing resolution, or CR, to avoid a partial government shutdown.

Those stopgap spending bills continue the prior fiscal year’s funding levels and policy until Congress reaches agreement on full-year spending bills.

Johnson, who has remained noncommittal on putting assistance to Ukraine on the House floor for a vote, said House Republicans are still “pursuing and investigating all the various options on that.”

“We will address that in a timely manner,” Johnson said at the White House of the global supplemental package.

“The first priority of the country is our border and making sure it’s secure,” Johnson said, adding that he’s “optimistic” the House can prevent a partial shutdown.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said after returning to the Capitol that the meeting went well.

“Well, mainly we talked about keeping the government open, which I think we all agree on,” McConnell said. “And I think we’re making some real headway on the appropriations process.”

Time is short and the House does not return from recess until Wednesday night.

Congress has until Friday at midnight to either pass the Agriculture-FDA, Energy-Water, Military Construction-VA and Transportation-HUD spending bills, or to pass a stopgap spending bill for the federal agencies funded within those four bills.

Congress has until March 8 to pass the other eight remaining appropriations bills for the fiscal year that began back on Oct. 1, otherwise those departments and agencies would begin a shutdown.

‘Hope springs eternal’

McConnell said during a press conference Tuesday afternoon he believes Congress could pass the four bills due Friday without using a stopgap spending bill to extend that deadline.

“I think we’re getting close on the first four bills, hopefully that won’t require another short-term CR,” McConnell said. “And hope springs eternal.”

Schumer, speaking at a separate press conference inside the Capitol on Tuesday afternoon, said negotiators on the full-year government spending bills are “greatly narrowing the ground of where the disputes are.”

“A key here is making sure that the government doesn’t shut down, which means extending government funding after the deadlines if we can’t reach agreement,” Schumer said.

A White House statement on the meeting said Biden “emphasized that the only path forward is through bipartisan funding bills that deliver for the American people and are free of any extreme policies.”

“The President also emphasized the urgent need for Congress to continue standing with Ukraine as it defends itself every day against Russia’s brutal invasion,” the White House statement said. “He discussed how Ukraine has lost ground on the battlefield in recent weeks and is being forced to ration ammunition and supplies due to Congressional inaction.”

Global aid stalled

The Senate voted 70-29 in mid-February to approve a $95 billion emergency spending bill that would provide military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

The vote came after months on hold as Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford, Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy and Arizona independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema negotiated a bipartisan bill to address border security and immigration policy at the insistence of GOP leaders.

Republican senators ultimately blocked that compromise agreement from moving forward, saying it didn’t go far enough. Johnson’s opposition to the agreement was one of the factors that toppled the bipartisan compromise.

Johnson has been skeptical about passing the Senate-approved assistance package ever since, saying it should include measures to address border security and U.S. immigration.

Johnson said Tuesday following the White House meeting that he met one-on-one with the president and pushed for the southern border to be addressed.

“They understand the catastrophe at the border is affecting everyone and it is top of mind for all the American people,” he said.

Schumer said the discussion about assistance to Ukraine was “the most intense I’ve ever encountered in my many meetings in the Oval Office,” because of the “urgency of supporting Ukraine and the consequences to the people of America, to America’s strength if we don’t do anything.”

Schumer said that while Johnson said he wants policy changes at the southern border, “we made it clear to him, we can’t tarry for the war could be lost” in Ukraine.

McConnell said during the afternoon press conference that he hopes the House will take up the Senate-approved Ukraine bill and pass it without making change, since if they were to amend the legislation, it would have to go back to the Senate, slowing down the process.

“Not only do we not want to shut the government down, we don’t want the Russians to win in Ukraine,” McConnell said. “And so we have a time problem here. And the best way to move quickly and get the bill to the president would be for the House to take up the Senate bill and pass it.”

Biden and Trump both heading to the southern border on Thursday

Ariana Figueroa — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 17:06:14 +0000

President Joe Biden is expected to visit Brownsville, Texas, on the U.S.-Mexico border on Thursday. In this photo, migrants cross the Matamoros-Brownsville International Bridge into the United States after obtaining an appointment to legally enter the country on May 12, 2023 (Joe Raedle/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will visit the southern border in Texas on Thursday, according to a White House official, the same day as the GOP presidential front-runner, Donald Trump.

Their visits are a sign of the importance the immigration issue has assumed in what’s expected to be a 2024 rematch in November between Biden and Trump.

During the trip to Brownsville, Texas, Biden will meet with U.S. Border Patrol agents, law enforcement and local leaders to “discuss the urgent need to pass the Senate bipartisan border security agreement, the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border in decades,” according to a White House official speaking on background.

“He will reiterate his calls for Congressional Republicans to stop playing politics and to provide the funding needed for additional U.S. Border Patrol agents, more asylum officers, fentanyl detection technology and more,” the White House official said in a statement.

Senate Republicans earlier this month walked away from the bipartisan border deal they brokered with the White House, following Trump’s objection to the plan that would drastically overhaul U.S. immigration law. House Republicans also insisted they would not take up the Senate package.

As the Biden administration deals with the largest number of migrant encounters at the southern border in more than 20 years, Trump’s campaign platform aims to stoke fears surrounding immigration — as he previously did for his 2016 presidential campaign.

The visit follows House Republicans’ impeachment, on a second try, of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, over the GOP’s opposition to Biden administration immigration policies.

More than 300 miles away from Biden, Trump will visit Eagle Pass, Texas, which CNN first reported, on Thursday, following his GOP primary win in South Carolina last weekend.

He is also expected to win Michigan’s presidential primary on Tuesday.

Biden is also planning to meet with congressional leaders Tuesday about passing the global securities supplemental package to unlock aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan and avoid a partial government shutdown Friday, according to the White House.

Those leaders he’ll meet with at the White House include Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York and House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana.

This will be Biden’s second trip to the southern border. His first visit to the border was in January 2023.

U.S. House Republicans impeach Homeland Security chief Mayorkas on second try

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 14 Feb 2024 12:00:02 +0000

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas holds a press conference at a U.S. Border Patrol station on Jan. 8, 2024 in Eagle Pass, Texas (John Moore/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — In their second attempt in as many weeks, U.S. House Republicans impeached Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday, marking an inflection point in the growing rift between the GOP and the White House over immigration policy decisions at the southern border.

In a 214-213 vote, the House approved two articles of impeachment that charged Mayorkas with willfully ignoring immigration law and lying to Congress about the status of border security. It is only the second time in history that a Cabinet member has been impeached; William Belknap, the secretary of war and a former Iowa state legislator, was impeached in 1876.

A vote on the same resolution failed spectacularly last week, 214-216, while House GOP Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana was absent due to ongoing cancer treatments. Republican Blake Moore of Utah switched his vote from “yes” to “no” as a procedural move to allow the resolution to be reconsidered.

“House Republicans are far from done,” House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green of Tennessee wrote on X before the Tuesday vote. “Secretary Mayorkas has sparked the worst border crisis in American history, and it’s long past time for him to be impeached.”

Green held several hearings on impeachment proceedings against Mayorkas.

All House Democrats present and three Republicans voted against the two articles of impeachment. Critics of the process have said a Cabinet official should not be impeached over what they say are policy disputes.

The Republicans who voted against impeachment were Reps. Ken Buck of Colorado, Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin and Tom McClintock of California.

President Joe Biden slammed House Republicans, calling the impeachment vote “petty political games.”

“Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas, a Cuban immigrant who came to the United States with his family as political refugees, has spent more than two decades serving America with integrity in a decorated career in law enforcement and public service,” Biden said. “Instead of staging political stunts like this, Republicans with genuine concerns about the border should want Congress to deliver more border resources and stronger border security.”

Following the vote, Mia Ehrenberg, a spokesperson for DHS, said in a statement that “House Republicans will be remembered by history for trampling on the Constitution for political gain rather than working to solve the serious challenges at our border.”

The Senate will be required under the Constitution to hold an impeachment trial. Conviction would require a vote by two-thirds of that chamber.

Immigration clash

The impeachment effort, initiated by Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, is perhaps the most high-profile example of the growing clash between Democrats and Republicans on how to handle an unprecedented number of migrants at the southern border.

Tensions have only increased after Senate Republicans tanked a bipartisan border security deal last week. The agreement would have significantly overhauled U.S. immigration law by creating a temporary procedure to shut down the border during active times and raising the bar for asylum claims.

The border security deal, which was tied to a $95 billion security package, died in the Senate after Republicans fell in line with GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump, who has centered his campaign on stoking fears about immigration at the southern border.

The global security package passed early Tuesday without the immigration deal.

House Democrats have decried the efforts to impeach Mayorkas as political, while Republicans have argued that Mayorkas should be held accountable for what they have deemed a “crisis” at the southern border.

The first article of impeachment accuses Mayorkas of a “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law,” and the second accuses him of a breach of public trust by making false statements during congressional testimony, particularly citing statements by Mayorkas telling lawmakers the border is “secure.”

Two impeachment votes

Due to House Republicans’ razor-thin majority and absences last week, House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana could only afford to lose two votes during the first impeachment vote, on Feb. 6. Scalise was back in Washington on Tuesday, giving Republicans the margin they needed to overcome three members voting with Democrats.

The same GOP lawmakers who voted against the second impeachment also voted against the first — Buck, McClintock and Gallagher.

Gallagher, who was a key holdout in the effort to impeach Mayorkas, announced shortly after that he would not seek reelection.

In an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, Gallagher explained his vote against impeachment, expressing concern about the precedent it would set.

“Creating a new, lower standard for impeachment, one without any clear limiting principle, wouldn’t secure the border or hold President Biden accountable,” he wrote. “It would only further pry open the Pandora’s box of perpetual impeachment.”

The White House said in a statement last week that impeaching Mayorkas “would be an unprecedented and unconstitutional act of political retribution that would do nothing to solve the challenges our Nation faces in securing the border.”

Intense opposition to U.S. Senate immigration deal quickly emerges

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 06 Feb 2024 00:40:05 +0000

U.S. Capitol. (Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The proposed global security funding legislation that includes major bipartisan updates to immigration policy encountered opposition from members of both parties Monday, especially Republicans upset by the Biden administration’s handling of border security, charting a tumultuous path for passage in the Senate this week.

The deal on immigration policy, negotiated for months by a bipartisan trio of senators, aims to stem migration at the Southern border. It spurred bipartisan ire in both chambers after its introduction Sunday night as some Republicans said it would not force the Biden administration to take more action and some Democrats argued it would undermine the asylum system.

U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the campaign arm for Senate Republicans, blamed the Biden administration for rolling back Trump-era immigration policies.

“President Biden could have secured the border on Day One of his presidency and chose not to and the disastrous results speak for themselves,” the Montana Republican said in a statement.

President Joe Biden told reporters Monday that the bill would give him tools he needed to control the border.

His critics call the border “out of control,” he said.

“Well guess what? Everything in that bipartisan bill gives me control, gives us control,” he said during a campaign stop in Las Vegas.

The bill “still meets the needs” of people seeking to immigrate legally, he added.

The bill’s supporters, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, urged critics to accept the deal.

“This bipartisan agreement is not perfect, but given all the dangers facing America, it is the comprehensive package our country needs right now,” Schumer, a Democrat of New York, said on the Senate floor Monday.

A procedural vote is set for Wednesday, which Schumer called “the most important (vote) that the Senate has taken in a very long time.”

Even though Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, support the immigration deal and the $118.28 billion supplemental package to aid Ukraine, Israel, Indo-Pacific region and U.S. border security, many senators are expressing their displeasure after the nearly 400-page bill was released late Sunday.

The immigration deal was negotiated by the White House and Sens. James Lankford, a Republican from Oklahoma, Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, and Kyrsten Sinema, an independent from Arizona.

Changes would include raising the bar for migrants to claim asylum, creating a temporary procedure to shut down the border at particularly active times and an end to the practice of allowing migrants to live in the United States while they wait for their cases to be heard by an immigration judge, among other policies.

“Our immigration laws have been weak for years,” Lankford said in a statement Sunday. “This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to close our open border and give future administrations the effective tools they need to stop the border chaos and protect our nation.”

The Senate will consider the immigration overhaul and global aid package as a single bill after Senate Republicans insisted on tying the supplemental aid package for policy changes at the Southern border.

Many Senate Republicans reject deal

Several Republican senators came out against the package, less than 24 hours after it was introduced.

On X, formerly known as Twitter, Republican Sens. Mike Braun of Indiana, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Ted Budd of North Carolina, Mike Lee of Utah, Marco Rubio and Rick Scott of Florida, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Roger Marshall of Kansas and J.D. Vance of Ohio already said they will not vote for the package.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee called to instead pass a hard-right immigration bill the House passed last year known as H.R. 2. That bill would resume the construction of a barrier along the Southern border and reestablish Trump-era immigration policies.

Republican Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska said in a statement that she would not support the bill because it “falls short” of securing the border.

In a Fox News appearance Monday, GOP Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin expressed displeasure at the immigration bill, which he said “appears even worse than we feared.”

Alabama’s GOP Sen. Katie Britt said in a statement that she is not supportive of the bill because of the president’s current immigration policies at the Southern border.

“At every step along the way, President Biden has made it clear that he doesn’t want to end the border crisis – he wants to enable it,” she said. “Ultimately, this bill would not effectively block President Biden from executing that very agenda, and I won’t support it.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, is pushing for a process to add amendments “to try to improve the bill,” he said in a statement. He added that if amendments are not allowed, then “the bill will die because of process.”

“Like many others, I am open-minded on steps we can take to make the bill stronger,” Graham said. “That can only come through the amendment process.”

Even Maine’s Sen. Susan Collins, a moderate in the Senate Republican Caucus, did not indicate whether she would support the package.

In a statement, Collins, the top Republican on the Senate Committee on Appropriations, said she was pleased that her provisions to speed up work permits for migrants were included in the immigration section of the supplemental package.

The union that represents about 18,000 U.S. Border Patrol agents has endorsed the bill.

Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, said the bill’s enforcement provisions “will give U.S. Border Patrol agents authorities codified, in law, that we have not had in the past.”

“While not perfect, the Border Act of 2024 is a step in the right direction and is far better than the current status quo,” Judd said.

Latino Democrats also object

Adding to the bill’s detractors, two Latino Democratic senators voiced opposition to the bill Monday. They argued it contains many hard-right policies reminiscent of the Trump administration and does not include a pathway to citizenship for undocumented people brought into the country as children, often referred to as Dreamers.

“Major chunks of this legislation read like an enforcement wish list from the Trump administration, and directly clash with the most basic tenets of our asylum system,” New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez said in a statement.

California’s Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla said he strongly supported the bill’s foreign military and humanitarian aid funding, “but not at the expense of dismantling our asylum system while ultimately failing to alleviate the challenges at our border.”

The global security supplemental includes $60 billion to support Ukraine in its war against Russia; $14.1 billion in assistance for Israel; and $10 billion in humanitarian assistance “to provide food, water, shelter, medical care, and other essential services to civilians in Gaza and the West Bank, Ukraine, and other populations caught in conflict zones across the globe,” according to a summary.

Outlook worse in House

House Republicans, who hold a slim majority in that chamber, have already thrown cold water on the package.

Hours after the bill was released, House Speaker Mike Johnson wrote on X that the Senate bill is “dead on arrival” in the House.

“I’ve seen enough,” the Louisiana Republican said. “This bill is even worse than we expected, and won’t come close to ending the border catastrophe the President has created.”

Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee, chair of the House Homeland Security Committee who moved articles of impeachment for Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, said in a statement that he will “vehemently oppose any agreement that legitimizes or normalizes any level of illegal immigration.”

A vote on the House floor for the impeachment of Mayorkas, which is driven by House Republicans’ disagreement over policies at the Southern border, could come as early as Wednesday.

U.S. House committee advances impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas to floor

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 12:25:28 +0000

The U.S. House could vote as soon as next week on the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas after a panel voted early Wednesday to approve two articles of impeachment (Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom).

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security early Wednesday voted 18-15 along party lines to send articles of impeachment against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the House floor. Republicans argue the charges are legitimate.

Members of the full House could vote as soon as next week to impeach Mayorkas, who is engaged with members of the Senate and the White House in finalizing a deal to overhaul immigration laws. Republicans, including the GOP front-runner in the race for the presidency, Donald Trump, have made clear immigration will be a central issue in the 2024 elections.

If the articles of impeachment are brought to the House floor for a vote and passed, it will be the first time in U.S. history that a Cabinet official is impeached due to what Democrats said are policy differences rather than alleged misconduct.

Even if the Republican House, with its slim majority, manages to impeach Mayorkas, the Democrat-controlled Senate will likely acquit him. This means, in the end, Mayorkas probably will not be removed from office.

“This is not about policy differences at all,” House Homeland Security Chair Mark Green, a Tennessee Republican, said in his opening statement at the committee markup. “This goes far deeper. Secretary Mayorkas has put his political preferences above following the law.”

Mayorkas sent a letter to Green Tuesday before the markup, defending his record, and pushed back on House Republicans’ claims that he has not enforced immigration law.

“We have provided Congress and your committee with hours of testimony, thousands of documents, hundreds of briefings, and much more information that demonstrates quite clearly how we are enforcing the law,” Mayorkas wrote.

After a more than 15-hour meeting that initially started Tuesday morning, the committee passed two articles of impeachment, accusing Mayorkas of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” It will be up to House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana to call for a House vote.

Democrats submitted nine amendments, and none were adopted.

Two articles of impeachment

The first article of impeachment against Mayorkas is for a “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law” by not following court orders or laws passed by Congress, with the result an unprecedented number of migrants at the southern border.

The second article of impeachment cites Mayorkas for a breach of public trust by making false statements and obstructing oversight efforts at DHS by the Office of Inspector General, the agency’s internal watchdog.

The top Democrat on the committee, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said that those two articles of impeachment do not reach the standards of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

“In a process akin to throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks, Republicans have cooked up vague, unprecedented grounds to impeach Secretary Mayorkas,” Thompson said in his opening statement.

Articles of impeachment have also historically gone through the House Judiciary Committee, Thompson added.

Green held two hearings this month on impeachment proceedings without Mayorkas as a witness. In the most recent hearing, Mayorkas was invited but could not attend due to a scheduling conflict, as he was meeting with officials from Mexico about migration issues.

Officials at DHS have called the markup “political games,” and noted that Mayorkas has testified 27 times before Congress, “more than any other Cabinet member.”

Democrats lambasted the markup as a “sham” and argued that Republicans were moving forward with impeachment as a way to campaign on immigration.

Thompson said that Republicans should instead agree to pass the bipartisan deal that the Senate is working on. No bill text has been released of that deal, and Johnson has not publicly supported it, or indicated that he will bring it for a vote in the House.

Press conferences

Leading up to the markup, Republicans and Democrats held dueling press conferences Monday.

Democrats, including Thompson and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, called the move to impeach Mayorkas “illegitimate,” and said that a Cabinet official cannot be impeached over policy differences.

Republicans, made up of mostly the Texas delegation, threw their support behind Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott, who is defying orders from the U.S. Supreme Court and the White House to remove razor wire fencing along the Texas-Mexico border.

Those Republicans repeatedly told Biden to leave the Lone Star State alone, and that they would move forward with impeaching Mayorkas.

“I think the voters are going to continue into November by calling this what it is. It is an invasion. It is the most egregious breach of our national security in the history of this country,” Texas GOP Rep. August Pfluger, who also sits on the House Homeland Security Committee, said.

GOP cites Supreme Court decision

Republicans focused on a recent Supreme Court decision, United States vs. Texas, to justify the move to impeach Mayorkas. In that case, Texas and Louisiana challenged new DHS immigration enforcement guidelines that prioritized the arrest and removal of certain noncitizens.

The conservative court voted 8-1 and found that the two states lacked standing. Republicans cite the lone dissent of that case from Justice Samuel Alito as part of their arguments for congressional authority to remove Mayorkas.

Alito said that “even though the federal courts lack Article III jurisdiction over this suit, other forums remain open for examining the Executive Branch’s enforcement policies. For example, Congress possesses an array of tools to analyze and influence those policies [and] those are political checks for the political process.”

Georgia’s Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, along with other Republicans, argued that one of those tools is the ability to impeach and said that the Supreme Court decision “left the House of Representatives with little choice.”

“The only one (tool) that makes sense in the current political environment is impeachment,” Greene said.

Maryland’s Democratic Rep. Glenn Ivey said that tools that Congress possesses for policy are “oversight, appropriations, the legislative process and Senate confirmations and through elections,” not impeachment.

Rep. Josh Brecheen, an Oklahoma Republican, said he felt it was dangerous for the executive branch to pick and choose which policies to follow.

“To allow the executive (branch) on how to enforce it or what to enforce, you’ve granted them the ability to become a king,” Brecheen said.

Ivey agreed there is no monarchy in the United States.

“We don’t have kings, we have elections and we have three branches of government,” he said.

‘Thin on constitutional grounds’

Democrats defended Mayorkas and argued that the articles of impeachment did not rise to the high bar needed.

Rhode Island Democratic Rep. Seth Magaziner said that the grounds for impeachment are treason, bribery or high crimes and misdemeanors, and he argued that Republicans have not made that case for Mayorkas.

“The case here is so thin on constitutional grounds that it’s laughable,” he said.

The first article of impeachment that cites laws Mayorkas did not follow includes detention and removal requirements under the Immigration and Nationality Act, such as the requirement for expedited removals.

Exceptions to expedited removal include credible fears on the part of migrants and claims of asylum. In 2021, Biden directed DHS to review those noncitizens who were subject to expedited removal and a year later the agency rescinded the expansion of expedited removal under the Trump administration, citing limited resources.

The first article of impeachment also cites Mayorkas’ use of parole authority, which allows migrants temporary protections without a visa. The executive branch has had this authority since the 1950s, but federal courts are currently reviewing the range of that parole authority.

The Biden administration has created temporary protections for certain nationals who qualify to allow them to temporarily work and reside in the country. Some migrants who are eligible for parole are from Afghanistan, Ukraine, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, among others.

The first article of impeachment argues that because of those policies, Mayorkas is responsible for the unprecedented number of migrants. For the 2024 fiscal year, which started Oct. 1, there have been more than 785,000 migrant encounters at the border, according to recent DHS data.

The articles also accuse Mayorkas of being responsible for the strain on cities that are struggling to care for migrants such as New York City. Abbott has placed migrants on buses and planes and sent them to mainly Democratic-run cities without alerting local officials.

The first article of impeachment also blamed Mayorkas for profits made by smuggling operations, backlogs of asylum cases in immigration courts, fentanyl-related deaths and migrant children found working in dangerous jobs. Republican state legislatures have moved to roll back child labor laws in industries from the food industry to roofing.

Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee introduced an amendment to eliminate the first article of impeachment.

It failed on a 15-18 party-line vote.

Another amendment by Democratic Rep. Lou Correa of California eliminated the second article of impeachment.

It also failed on a 15-18 party-line vote.

The second article of impeachment argues Mayorkas has breached public trust by making several statements in congressional testimony that Republicans argue are false.

“Mr. Mayorkas lied to Congress,” Green said.

They cited statements by Mayorkas telling lawmakers the border is “secure,” and saying that the Afghans placed into the humanitarian parole program were properly vetted following the Taliban takeover of the country after the U.S. evacuated.

The second article of impeachment said that another false statement Mayorkas made was about a 2021 image of U.S. Border Patrol agents on horseback with whips as Haitian migrants were running away.

Mayorkas said he was “horrified” by the image and would immediately investigate.

An internal report found that the agents did not whip the migrants but used excessive force.

The second article of impeachment also charges Mayorkas with not fulfilling his statutory duty by rolling back Trump-era policies such as terminating contracts that would have continued construction of the border wall and ending the Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy.

“If he is changing the policies of the Trump administration, that means it’s a policy decision, not a violation of the law,” Democrat of New York Dan Goldman said.

Goldman was the lead counsel for the first impeachment inquiry of Trump when he was president.

Remain in Mexico policy

Florida GOP Rep. Laurel Lee said that Mayorkas was ordered to reinstate the remain in Mexico policy and failed to do so. Mayorkas was not ordered to reinstate the 2019 Trump-era policy.

In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court upheld in 2022 that the Biden administration had the authority to end the remain in Mexico policy.

The remain in Mexico policy required asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases were heard in immigration court. Many immigration advocates argued this left migrants in dangerous situations.

“He’s come to this Congress and he’s given testimony before that was demonstrably false, stating that our border was secure, stating that he had operational control of the border when in fact, every person in this room, and I dare say the vast majority of America, knows that is not the truth,” Lee said.

Democrats accused Republicans of wanting to campaign on immigration rather than fixing the problem.

“The real reason we are here, as we all know, is because Donald Trump wants to run on immigration for his number one issue in the November 2024 election,” Goldman said.

Democratic Rep. Troy Carter of Louisiana said impeaching Mayorkas would set a dangerous precedent.

“So the slippery slope of ‘just because we can’ is a dangerous one,” he said. “You have no evidence to support why a person is impeached.”

Republican Carlos Gimenez of Florida said impeaching Mayorkas was not about politics and that the Biden administration is “using policy to mask unlawful behavior.”

Democratic Rep. Dina Titus of Nevada said the markup was a “political stunt.”

“Another saying that appropriately describes what’s going on here,” she said, “and that’s just shoveling the same old sh-t and calling it sugar.”

U.S. House Republicans set to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas

Ariana Figueroa — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 22:02:08 +0000

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas holds a press conference at a U.S. Border Patrol station on Jan. 8, 2024 in Eagle Pass, Texas (John Moore/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House Homeland Security Committee is gearing up for only the second impeachment in U.S. history of a Cabinet member.

The Republican-led committee on Tuesday will mark up articles of impeachment against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, for what Democrats say is no more than a difference in immigration policy between the two parties.

House Republicans Sunday released the text of two articles of impeachment for “high crimes and misdemeanors” allegedly committed by Mayorkas, which they will mark up and vote on as a substitute amendment to H. Res. 863, first introduced by Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene last year.

The first article accuses Mayorkas of a “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law” in terms of “immigration and border security.”

The second article cites a “breach of public trust.” It says that Mayorkas has stated in his testimony to Congress that the U.S. Southern border is “secure.” Republicans disagree, and they argue that other statements made by Mayorkas are false.

Only one Cabinet member in U.S. history has been impeached, William W. Belknap, in 1876 for corruption. The former Iowa state legislator was charged with five articles of impeachment for “criminally disregarding his duty as Secretary of War and basely prostituting his high office to his lust for private gain.” Although the House voted articles of impeachment against him, he was tried and acquitted by the Senate.

The move to impeach Mayorkas comes as immigration remains a major focus for Congress, with the Senate finalizing the details of a bipartisan immigration deal to manage the U.S.-Mexico border. However, House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana has not indicated that he would bring that piece of legislation to the floor if the Senate passes it.

The current GOP front-runner, Donald Trump, has also lobbied congressional Republicans to reject the bipartisan deal, though negotiators so far have resisted that demand.

Text on the bipartisan agreement in the Senate is expected this week, according to lead negotiators.

‘Illegitimate exercise’

The White House and congressional Democrats have slammed House Republicans for moving forward with impeachment, calling the move “political games.”

“Beyond being an illegitimate exercise unworthy of the job Members of Congress were actually sent to Washington to do, the (Committee on Homeland Security) Republicans’ impeachment effort is baseless,” a DHS spokesperson said.

The White House has also argued that President Joe Biden is ready to make concessions on U.S. border policy. Hard-line immigration policies being finalized as part of the bipartisan Senate deal would make changes to asylum law and curb his administration’s use of parole authority used to grant temporary protections to migrants.

“What’s been negotiated would – if passed into law – be the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border we’ve ever had in our country,” Biden said in a statement Friday. “It would give me, as President, a new emergency authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed. And if given that authority, I would use it the day I sign the bill into law.”

House Republicans also accuse Mayorkas in their articles of impeachment of abusing his parole authority by granting it to migrants at the U.S. border as well as creating parole for certain nationals such as Afghans, Ukrainians, Cubans, Haitians and Venezuelans, among others.

Parole authority has existed since the 1950s.

Homeland Security Chair Mark Green of Tennessee held several hearings about impeachment proceeding for Mayorkas. In one hearing, Green had state attorneys general from Montana, Oklahoma and Missouri appear as witnesses. They argued that Mayorkas failed to fulfill his oath of office, often citing the high number of migrants claiming asylum at the Southern border, and therefore should be impeached.

The top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said in a statement that the articles of impeachment were a “sham.”

“What is glaringly missing from these articles is any real charge or even a shred of evidence of high crimes or misdemeanors — the Constitutional standard for impeachment,” he said. “They are abusing Congress’ impeachment power to appease their MAGA members, score political points, and deflect Americans’ attention from their do-nothing Congress.”

Green held another hearing in which the witnesses included two mothers who said the Biden administration’s immigration policies played a role in their daughters’ deaths.

The push to oust Mayorkas has been spearheaded by Georgia Rep. Greene. Since Greene came to Congress in 2021, she’s introduced articles of impeachment for Biden, Mayorkas, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General for the District of Columbia Matthew M. Graves.

The Constitution gives Congress the authority to remove the president, vice president and federal civil officers “for treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

U.S. Senate Republicans insist they won’t bow to Trump demands to quit immigration talks

Ariana Figueroa — Fri, 26 Jan 2024 12:00:55 +0000

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, listens as U.S. Senate Minority Whip Sen. John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, speaks to reporters following a weekly Republican policy luncheon at the U.S. Capitol on Oct. 19, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — Top U.S. Senate negotiators said Thursday that final details on an immigration policy deal remain under debate in the U.S. Senate, despite outside pressure from GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump to sink any agreement as he makes immigration his central campaign message.

The No. 2 Senate Republican and GOP whip, Sen. John Thune, said that negotiations on an immigration deal tied to the passage of a multi-billion-dollar global securities supplemental package are at “a critical moment, and we’ve got to drive hard to get this done.”

“If we can’t get there, then we’ll go to Plan B,” the South Dakota Republican said.

He did not go into details on what a “Plan B” would look like or if a deal on immigration would be removed from the supplemental, which would provide critical aid to Ukraine that some Republican and Democratic senators are advocating as the country runs low on ammunition in its war with Russia.

Like in his first presidential campaign, Trump has made immigration a main theme, often referring to migrants claiming asylum at the Southern border as an “invasion.” On his social media site, Truth Social, he has urged congressional Republicans to not accept a deal.

During a closed-door meeting on Wednesday night, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky acknowledged the difficulty of passing an immigration bill and the potential it would undermine Trump, the top Republican negotiator of the deal, Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford, told reporters at the Capitol.

But Lankford disputed that McConnell’s comments, which were first reported by Punchbowl News, meant a deal on immigration would be killed so that Trump can attack President Joe Biden on the issue.

“McConnell was laying out the political realities of where things are, and it was the elephant-in-the-room conversation,” Lankford said. “We’re in a political election season.”

But Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, a longtime Trump critic, told CNN that “the fact that (Trump) would communicate to Republican senators and Congress people that he doesn’t want us to solve the border problem, but basically wants to blame Biden for it — this is really appalling.”

Lankford said that he has not talked to Trump in months and that he, along with the bipartisan group of senators working on the border deal — Sens. Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, and Kyrsten Sinema, independent of Arizona — are still moving forward.

“It’s now the end of January, in the middle of the presidential primary season, so I think that’s the shift that has occurred that he’s just acknowledging,” Lankford said of McConnell. Trump on Tuesday sailed to victory in the New Hampshire presidential primary, following his victory in the Jan. 15 Iowa caucuses, with former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley his sole major remaining opponent.

It’s also unclear whether any eventual Senate deal will survive in the House, as GOP Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana is demanding hard-line House immigration legislation be adopted and is moving forward with impeachment proceedings for U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his immigration policies.

Johnson has also thrown his support behind Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who is defying U.S. Supreme Court orders and the White House in keeping and installing razor wire along the Texas-Mexico border.

Parole targeted

While no framework or bill text of a Senate deal has been released, some of the proposals put forth would curb the Biden administration’s use of parole authority, which the administration has heavily relied on to grant temporary protections to migrants by allowing them to live and work in the United States without visas.

The Biden administration has invoked its parole authority more often than previous administrations to manage the large number of migrants at the Southern border, according to data compiled by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, which compiles immigration data.

The deal is also likely to make changes to asylum law that would raise the bar for migrants claiming asylum.

For four months, Lankford, Sinema, and Murphy have worked to strike a deal with the White House to free up more than $100 billion in supplemental global security aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and for U.S. border security.

Senate Republicans have hinged their support for the global supplemental package on immigration policy changes.

If passed, it would be the most substantial change to immigration law in 30 years.

Whether a deal passes is up to Republicans, Murphy said.

“We have negotiated a border policy package, we did what Republicans asked us to do, and now they seem to be having a hard time actually closing the deal,” he said.

Murphy said that the negotiators have an outline that appropriators are considering. He added that he’s not sure if aid to Ukraine would be unlinked to changes in immigration policy.

“I think what is very scary to some Republicans is that the deal we have reached will actually fix a big part of the problem, and I know for Donald Trump and some Republicans, it’s not in their best interest for there to be policy changes that actually fix the broken asylum system, or give the president new tools to better manage the border,” Murphy said.

Sen. Steve Daines, the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the GOP campaign arm, said that he has not spoken to Trump about the immigration deal.

“It seems to me quite ironic that folks are blaming Trump for the border deal when this is Biden who created the problem and can solve the problem unilaterally through executive action,” the Montana Republican said.

South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, a staunch Trump supporter, said that he’s talked to the former president and has “told him what we’re trying to accomplish,” but declined to answer questions if the deal could be passed without Trump’s approval.

Some Republicans reluctant to wait

Despite the push from Trump to quash the talks, some Senate Republicans said that they have an obligation to address the Southern border.

GOP Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who endorsed Trump earlier this week, said that “Texas can’t afford to wait 11 months,” referring to a potential second Trump presidency in 2025.

“Some people have said, well, the (immigration) issue is going to go away, and so that’ll be denying President Trump the issue. I think that’s a fantasy,” Cornyn said. “You’re not going to turn off what’s happening at the border like a water faucet, so this is going to continue to be a problem and it’s obviously a very, potent, political issue.”

He said that while Trump is “an important voice,” the Senate “has a job to do, and we intend to do it.”

Lankford echoed the same sentiments, and expressed doubt that Republicans would be able to get substantial immigration policy done under a second term with Trump because “we tried to do some immigration work while President Trump was president (and) Democrats would not join us in that conversation, and I’m not sure that they would in the next administration in that time period as well.”

Lankford noted that the deal they are working on now, if passed, will set immigration policy for decades.

“It’s really setting what’s going to be the policy direction for a long time,” he said. “So I encourage people to have a longer look on this, to say, ‘What can we do to be able to make sure that we have a consistent policy that works better than what we have now?’”

On to November: Trump win in New Hampshire sets up 2024 rematch with Biden

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 24 Jan 2024 22:22:52 +0000

(Morry Gash-Pool/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — Leading Republicans — and the Biden presidential campaign — on Wednesday rushed to identify former President Donald Trump as the presumptive GOP nominee after he won decisively in New Hampshire’s Republican presidential primary.

Trump bested Nikki Haley, his former United Nations ambassador, by more than 10 percentage points in a moderate state with an open primary that would have been expected to play to her strengths. His Tuesday victory came days after he won the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses on Jan. 15.

Rather than thrust Haley, the former South Carolina governor, into a two-person race for the GOP nomination as she’d hoped, the New Hampshire results showed Trump is virtually unbeatable in the many GOP primaries yet to come through the next months. Republican senators like John Cornyn of Texas and Deb Fischer of Nebraska issued their endorsements as Trump’s win became apparent.

“Barring some unforeseen event, Donald Trump’s going to be the Republican nominee,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist and partner at Firehouse Strategies. “It’s just who Republican voters want. In Iowa, New Hampshire, but also every national poll and every state primary poll, Trump’s leading by a lot. So at the end of the day, elections have consequences and Republicans like Donald Trump.”

The former president’s victory set up a general election rematch with President Joe Biden, who nearly tripled his closest Democratic rival’s vote total in New Hampshire despite not even being on the ballot.

Haley is skipping the next nominating contest, the Feb. 8 Nevada caucus, to focus on her home state’s Feb. 24 primary where she also faces a significant polling gap. She has little realistic chance of winning the nomination and may officially drop her bid in the coming days, said Todd Belt, a George Washington University professor and director of the school’s political management program.

“She’s going to have to wage a really tremendous ground game and air game to be anywhere competitive, to avoid, frankly, getting embarrassed,” he said. “I give it 50-50 odds that (she drops out) in the next day or two.”

The Biden campaign told reporters the general election campaign has arrived.

“I want to kick things off by stating the obvious: The results out of New Hampshire confirm that Donald Trump has all but locked up the GOP nomination,” Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Biden’s campaign manager, began her remarks on a Wednesday morning call with reporters.

Trump’s presumptive nomination provides a stark choice for voters, Chavez Rodriguez and other campaign officials said. In previews of likely themes throughout the next nine months of a general election campaign, they noted Biden’s support for abortion rights and Trump’s attacks on the democratic system.

Trump attacks Haley: ‘She lost’

Trump won both of the first two nominating contests, the New Hampshire primary and the Iowa caucuses, which no non-incumbent GOP candidate had ever done. The double-digit margins in both states left little doubt about the shape of the race moving forward.

In a celebratory speech after capturing nearly 55% of the vote Tuesday, Trump also claimed victory in Nevada and predicted “easily” winning South Carolina.

He took several shots at Biden and Haley, whose upbeat tone in a speech earlier in the evening seemed to irk the front-runner.

“She’s doing a speech like she won,” he said. “She didn’t win. She lost.”

With the support of New Hampshire’s centrist GOP Gov. Chris Sununu, Haley needed a victory in the Granite State to have any chance at the nomination, Trump said.

“She did very poorly, actually,” he added. “She had to win. The governor said, ‘She’s gonna win, she’s gonna win, she’s gonna win.’ Then she failed badly.”

Trump also repeated the lie that his 2020 loss to Biden was the result of fraud.

Haley says she’s ready for long race

Haley pledged to continue running at least through South Carolina, saying she was “in it for the long haul.” She has reserved $1.8 million of television ad time in South Carolina, according to the advertising tracking firm AdImpact, and debuted a 30-second commercial Wednesday that called a Biden-Trump race “a rematch no one wants.”

But the odds are against her.

Trump won majorities in the first two nominating contests, even as he faces four criminal trials.

The prosecutions have not hurt Trump among Republican voters, who largely view them as illegitimate political exercises. Exit polling in Iowa and New Hampshire showed most GOP voters would still support Trump if he was convicted.

But even a conviction is unlikely to shake up the Republican race because of the timing. None of the criminal cases are likely to go to trial before March 5, the date known as Super Tuesday because nearly half of delegates will be up for grabs in 15 nominating contests.

Haley could technically stay in the race as long as she wants, but funding a competitive campaign will become less possible as Trump continues to rack up victories, Belt said.

Donors won’t continue contributing to a campaign that has shown no sign of winning, he said.

“They don’t want to throw bad money after bad,” he said.

Congressional Republicans see race narrowing

Key Republican senators appeared nearly ready Tuesday and Wednesday to call Trump their party’s standard bearer for 2024.

Former Senate GOP Whip Cornyn endorsed Trump Tuesday evening, saying it was “clear that President Trump is Republican voters’ choice,” and calling for his GOP colleagues to rally around the former president.

“I have seen enough,” he wrote in a Tuesday night social media post. “To beat Biden, Republicans need to unite around a single candidate.”

Fischer, of Nebraska, also offered her endorsement on social media as the New Hampshire results came in.

“It’s time for Republicans to unite around President Donald Trump and make Joe Biden a one-term president,” she wrote.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, congratulated Trump on winning the New Hampshire primary in a post on social media.

“Our House Republican leaders and a majority of Republican Senators support his reelection, and Republican voters in Iowa and New Hampshire have strongly backed him at the polls,” Johnson said. “It’s now past time for the Republican Party to unite around President Trump so we can focus on ending the disastrous Biden presidency and growing our majority in Congress.”

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said Wednesday on Capitol Hill that he was skeptical Haley could continue to stay in the race following the results of the New Hampshire primary.

“I think the path for her is very narrow, and after South Carolina (primary) gets even more narrow,” he said.

The handful of endorsements showed Trump’s strength in the party that has transformed in the past eight years into a group of Trump loyalists, Belt said.

“They came very quickly,” he said of the endorsements. “They know better than to antagonize Trump’s voters, because they’re active, they vote and they are organized.”

Not ready yet

Some Republican senators, though, were not yet ready to endorse the front-runner in interviews Wednesday at the U.S. Capitol.

Iowa GOP Sen. Joni Ernst said she “likely” wouldn’t endorse a candidate, though she didn’t entirely rule it out.

“I just think it’s good that all of these constituencies have the opportunity to select the person they feel is best qualified,” Ernst said.

But she also praised Haley when asked if Haley could have a path to winning the Republican nomination for president.

“I think she is a fabulous candidate and a great leader, but I don’t know what the polls will look like moving forward,” Ernst said.

West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said she might endorse a candidate, though she didn’t give any indication whether that would be Trump or Haley.

“I haven’t endorsed in the past in the presidential but … I’m considering it. Yes. I’ll just put it that way,” Capito said.

In a later interview, Capito said the New Hampshire win was a “good victory” for Trump and noted that Haley recognized that in her speech.

Arkansas Republican Sen. John Boozman said he hadn’t decided if he would endorse in the presidential primary. But he noted polling indicates Trump will likely become the nominee.

Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley pledged his support for the eventual nominee, without mentioning Trump.

“Just be assured of this — I’m going to support the Republican nominee because we can’t spend four more years on inflation and an insecure border and the national security problems that are connected with criminals coming to this country.”

Utah’s Mitt Romney, a persistent Republican critic of Trump, said that even though the party’s nominating contest has “pretty much concluded,” he wouldn’t be supporting Trump for president.

Funding seen as a last hurdle to final U.S. Senate immigration deal

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 22:57:51 +0000

U.S. Capitol. (Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom).

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan agreement that would make the most substantial changes to immigration policy in 30 years hinges on funding disputes, key senators said Tuesday.

While senators have not finalized the text of the agreement, they are discussing changes to the White House’s use of parole authority to grant temporary protections to migrants by allowing them to live and work in the United States without visas. Senators also want to raise the bar for migrants to claim asylum.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said during a Tuesday press conference that senators will get a chance to review the bill text, but did not indicate when he would bring the deal to the floor for a vote. Senate Democrats and Republicans have pushed for a quick deal on immigration policy to free up aid to Ukraine.

There were few specifics on the holdups to an agreement, but funding appeared to be one. “One of the things we have to discuss is the appropriations process because there will be a need for new money, and you know, we’re all discussing how much is there,” Schumer said. “There’s some disagreements. We’re trying to come to an agreement.”

Senate appropriators are working out “technical details,” said Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, the lead Republican negotiator working with Arizona independent Kyrsten Sinema and Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy.

“We’re still cranking through everything,” Lankford said.

The top Republican on the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, said that appropriators are reviewing the immigration policies in the negotiated deal.

Collins added that there are some details that have not yet been finalized.

“There still is a lot of text that is bracketed on some major issues and where negotiations are still continuing,” she said. “This is a real challenge for us to get accurate cost estimates from (the U.S. Department of Homeland Security) and (the Congressional Budget Office) if we don’t have the final text.”

Collins said she hopes the Senate will vote on the deal this week, “but obviously members are going to want to look at the actual text.”

Even if the Senate passes an agreement as part of a global security supplemental package to provide aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, it’s unclear if House Speaker Mike Johnson will bring the legislation for a vote.

Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, has advocated for the inclusion of H.R. 2 – a bill that would codify some hard-line Trump-era immigration policies – the House passed with only Republican votes last year.

Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have rejected the inclusion of the House bill, arguing that any agreement on immigration needs to be bipartisan.

Aid critical for Ukraine, senators say

During a Tuesday press conference, McConnell stressed the importance of Congress passing the supplemental global security package.

“The rest of the world is basically at war,” the Kentucky Republican said.

He added that it’s an “ideal time,” to address immigration policy at the Southern border.

“If this were not divided government, we wouldn’t have an opportunity to do anything about the border,” he said. “In fact, I don’t think we’d get 60 votes for any border plan if we had a fully Republican government. This is a unique opportunity where divided government has given us an opportunity to give us an outcome.”

For months, Lankford, Sinema and Murphy have worked to strike a deal with the White House to free up more than $100 billion in supplemental global security aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and for U.S. border security.

Senate Republicans have hinged their support for the foreign assistance on immigration policy changes at the Southern border.

Murphy said a deal needed to be reached quickly because of the war in Ukraine.

“Ukraine is at a breaking point,” Murphy said. “We’re not engaged in a theoretical conversation about Ukraine possibly losing the war, they will lose the war very soon if we don’t get them aid.”

The White House said that it sent its last round of aid to Ukraine, and there are concerns that Ukraine is running out of ammunition as it nears the third year of war with Russia.

“We want to get this done as soon as possible,” Schumer said.

Biden backs immigration changes

President Joe Biden last week made one of his strongest public statements to date when he said that he backed “significant policy changes” to asylum law. It was a stark reversal from his campaign promise to protect asylum law and move away from the harsh immigration policies of former President Donald Trump’s administration.

As the 2024 presidential election campaign gets underway, immigration has become a central way for Republicans to criticize Biden and Democrats, as well as a central issue for Trump, the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination.

As an unprecedented number of migrants head to the Southern border to claim asylum, Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has added to the strain in major Democratic-run cities by placing migrants on buses and planes to such cities, often without warning local officials.

Nine Democratic governors on Monday sent a letter to Biden and congressional leaders requesting federal aid and urging changes to immigration law as their states take in an overwhelming number of asylum seekers.

The two major policy issues senators are negotiating are raising the bar for migrants to claim asylum and curbing the administration’s use of parole authority, which grants temporary protections to migrants.

The executive branch has used parole since the 1950s, but the Biden administration has invoked that authority more often to manage the large number of migrants at the Southern border, according to data compiled by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, which compiles immigration data.

For example, in fiscal year 2021, about 30,000 migrants were paroled, and in fiscal year 2022, more than 130,000 migrants were paroled, according to TRAC. That number increased in fiscal 2023, when in the first 10 months, more than 301,000 migrants were paroled, according to TRAC.

Recently, Biden has used that authority to grant temporary protections for migrants at the border, as well as more than 140,000 Ukrainians; more than 76,000 Afghans; and 168,000 Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan nationals.

Senate Republicans have made clear that limiting the White House’s use of parole is a “red line” issue and without it, no deal will be made.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has also been part of talks in the Senate as House Republicans are moving forward with a markup of articles of impeachment for Mayorkas next week over immigration policies at the Southern border.

Ashley Murray contributed to this report.

Democratic governors ask Congress for immigration aid to reverse years of ‘inaction’

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 15:07:33 +0000

Hundreds of recently arrived migrants to New York City wait outside of the Roosevelt Hotel, which has been made into a reception center, as they try to secure temporary housing on July 31, 2023 in New York City (Spencer Platt/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — Nine Democratic governors sent a letter to President Joe Biden and congressional leaders Monday, requesting federal aid and urging changes to immigration law as their states take in an overwhelming number of asylum seekers.

“The sustained arrival of individuals seeking asylum and requiring shelter and assistance, due to lack of Congressional action on infrastructure and policies, can only be addressed with federal organizational support and funding to meet the public safety and humanitarian needs of our local communities,” the letter led by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul read.

The letter was also signed by Govs. Katie Hobbs of Arizona, Gavin Newsom of California, Jared Polis of Colorado, J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, Wes Moore of Maryland, Maura Healey of Massachusetts, Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico and Phil Murphy of New Jersey.

New York City has taken in 168,000 migrants in the past 18 months, according to Mayor Eric Adams. Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has added to the strain in major Democratic-run cities by placing migrants on buses and planes to such cities, often without warning local officials.

“While the Biden Administration has made important progress in managing immigration at the Southwest border, the number of migrants arriving in states and cities seeking emergency shelter continues to increase at record pace,” according to the letter. “States and cities have spent billions to address inaction by Congress and match these challenges with solutions for our state and local economies.”

A bipartisan trio of Senate negotiators — Sens. James Lankford, Republican of Oklahoma, Kyrsten Sinema, independent of Arizona, and Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut — are hammering out the final details of changes to immigration policy as part of negotiations for a global security aid package of more than $100 billion. Some Republican senators had demanded immigration policy changes to be applied to the Southern border as a condition of considering Biden’s request for overseas aid.

The governors asked that Congress grant Biden’s request to include in a supplemental funding bill $4.4 billion for a federal migration strategy and $1.4 billion in aid to states and local governments dealing with an influx of migrants.

The governors are requesting Congress and the White House include “federal coordination and decompression at the southern and northern borders; federal funding for both border and interior states and cities receiving new arrivals; and a serious commitment to modernizing our immigration system in the United States.”

Of the $100 billion in supplemental funding, about $14 billion would go toward U.S. border security, and the rest would be for aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. Senators have not released bill text on the immigration policy, but the proposals they are considering would mark the most significant change to immigration law in the last 30 years.

Proposals being floated include making changes to asylum law that would set a higher bar for migrants to claim asylum and curbing the White House’s use of its parole authority that it has used to grant temporary protections to migrants from certain countries and others at the U.S. southern border.

“With ongoing conflicts around the world, global migration is at a historic high,” according to the letter. “States and cities cannot indefinitely respond to the subsequent strain on state and local resources without Congressional action.”

The letter comes after Biden said in a speech to more than 300 bipartisan mayors at a conference in Washington, D.C., that he is supportive of “significant policy changes” to asylum law – a stark reversal from his administration’s earlier position to protect asylum law.

U.S. House Republicans move ahead with drive to impeach Mayorkas over immigration policy

Ariana Figueroa — Thu, 18 Jan 2024 21:53:43 +0000

CAPTION: U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas holds a press conference at a U.S. Border Patrol station on Jan. 8, 2024 in Eagle Pass, Texas (John Moore/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republicans Thursday held a second hearing on the impeachment of Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, even as Mayorkas works to reach a deal on changes in immigration law with a group of senators.

Republicans on the Homeland Security Committee argued that Mayorkas has not upheld his oath of office because he enforces Biden administration border policies, and that alone should be an impeachable offense.

Two of the Republican witnesses who testified, both mothers, said that administration immigration policies played a role in their daughters’ deaths.

“These crimes were wholly preventable, yet Secretary Mayorkas’ policies enable these criminals to enter our country and destroy these family’s lives. It’s despicable,” GOP Chair Mark Green of Tennessee said. Green did not indicate how many more hearings would be held before Republicans move on an impeachment resolution.

One mother who testified, Tammy Nobles, from Maryland, lost her daughter in 2022. A minor, who was a noncitizen, was charged with the sexual assault and murder of Kayla Hamilton.

Another witness, Josephine Dunn, of Arizona, lost her daughter, Ashley Dunn, in 2021 from a fentanyl overdose.

The top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, argued that the hearing was not a real impeachment inquiry. “It’s a predetermined, pre-planned partisan political stunt,” Thompson said.

Ian Sams, special assistant to the president and White House oversight spokesperson, said in a statement that Republicans were moving forward with impeachment to appease the far right.

“Beyond the shameless partisanship of attempting to scapegoat a Cabinet secretary who is actively working to find solutions to a problem Congressional Republicans have spent years refusing to actually solve, this stunt by House Republicans is just the latest example of their blatant disregard for the Constitution and our democratic system of government,” Sams said.

Mayorkas negotiating immigration deal

The hearing came as a group of bipartisan senators and Mayorkas is working to strike a deal on immigration policy in order to pass a multibillion global security package to aid Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and U.S. border security.

At issue in those talks is the Biden administration’s use of parole authority to grant temporary protections to certain nationals and some migrants at the Southern border.

While the House impeachment proceedings were ongoing Thursday, the Congressional Hispanic and Progressive caucuses held a press conference disapproving of changes to asylum law and limits on parole authority.

At the beginning of the hearing, Democrats argued that Republicans were not following proper procedures.

Thompson and Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman of New York said that if the committee was moving forward with an impeachment inquiry, then under those rules, Democrats are supposed to have a separate hearing where they can bring their own witnesses, rather than only having one witness.

The witness Democrats tapped was a constitutional law scholar, Deborah Pearlstein, the director of the Princeton Program in Law and Public Policy and Charles and Marie Robertson visiting professor of law and public affairs.

Green disagreed.

“There’s an interpretation disagreement on this,” he said. “Our parliamentarian says that you’re entitled to witnesses and not a specific hearing.”

Mayorkas not present

Republicans argued that Mayorkas violated his oath of office given the increase in migrants claiming asylum.

Since fiscal year 2024 began on Oct. 1, there have been more than 483,000 encounters with noncitizens at the Southwest land border, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.

GOP lawmakers also criticized Mayorkas for being absent from the hearing. Mayorkas has agreed to appear before Congress and was not at Thursday’s hearing because he was meeting with officials from Mexico’s government to discuss border enforcement, according to DHS.

Texas Republican Rep. Michael McCaul, who also chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, asked the GOP witnesses, Nobles and Dunn, if they believed Mayorkas had violated his oath.

Both agreed and said they personally held Mayorkas responsible for the deaths of their daughters.

Rep. Clay Higgins promised that Mayorkas would be impeached.

“As God is my witness, we will impeach that man in this committee,” the Louisiana Republican said.

Florida GOP Rep. Carlos Gimenez questioned Pearlstein about whether Mayorkas could be impeached under “dereliction of duty.”

Pearlstein said in her testimony that there have only been two occasions in U.S. history where officials were charged with “dereliction of duty,” in 1804 and 1873.

“In both of those cases, the charges alleged that the officials were either chronically inebriated or mentally incapacitated, or both,” she said. “In short, neither involved a case in which Congress was simply dissatisfied with the official’s performance in office; both involved officials who were at base physically or mentally unable to carry out their duties.”

Pearlstein said that there is “no remotely comparable evidence of Secretary Mayorkas’ incapacity (that) has been presented here.”

Gimenez asked if it would be an impeachable offense if someone “fails to uphold their oath to protect the homeland and does it in a way that it’s a dereliction (of) duty.”

Pearlstein said in general it could be conceivable, but “I don’t know if there is evidence here of dereliction,” in terms of Mayorkas.

She added that “dereliction of duty,” is also different from “failure to comply with the oath.”

“Impeachment is only about a certain category of offenses,” she said. “It only addresses a certain category of offenses — it has to be an offense similar to treason or bribery, that is, an offense against the system of government, not any ordinary criminal offense, something that disrupts the structure of the Constitution or system of government.”

Democrats see a lack of evidence

Maryland’s Democratic Rep. Glenn Ivey said the hearing was a distraction from actually working on border policy.

“If there is no evidence that the Republicans have presented about actual impeachment, the standard and the Constitution being violated, we should not be moving forward with this,” he said.

Rhode Island’s Democratic Rep. Seth Magaziner made similar comments, and argued that Republicans have the opportunity to address border security in the supplemental talks.

“Where have House Republicans been in those talks?” he said.

Those negotiations are only between the Senate and the White House, and Speaker Mike Johnson met with President Joe Biden and those negotiators Wednesday. Following that meeting, Johnson said that border security needs to be included in any supplemental package.

Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who first introduced the resolution to impeach Mayorkas for “high crimes and misdemeanors,” argued that House Republicans have put forth policy changes, with the passage of H.R. 2 back in May of last year.

That bill is dead on arrival in the Senate and includes the reimplementation of several harsh Trump-era immigration policies.

“They want more money to help more migrants come into the country,” Greene said of Democrats’ border security funding request. “It’s unfortunate that it’s about migrants, it should be about Americans.”

She added that if Mayorkas is following Biden’s policies, then “maybe we should be holding articles of impeachment on the president.”

Greene has already introduced articles of impeachment against Biden. She asked Pearlstein if Mayorkas or Biden should be impeached.

Pearlstein said that the Constitution is not for impeaching officials over policy differences.

“We’re not talking about the Constitution,” Greene said.

Nevada’s Democratic Rep. Dina Titus said she found it interesting that Greene “actually had the gall to say, ‘We’re not talking about the Constitution.’”

“She’s the one who entered the resolution that we are considering, so if we’re not talking about the Constitution, what are we talking about?” she said. “We’re wasting our breath … It’s a political stunt.”

Mothers testify

Florida’s Laurel Lee asked both mothers what Congress could do to prevent the tragedies they experienced.

Nobles said that she wants migrants to be vetted and go through a background check. An Office of Inspector Generals report found that while U.S. Border Patrol within U.S. Customs and Border Protection followed protocol in “screening procedures to prevent migrants with serious criminal backgrounds” from entering the country, agents could strengthen the process in maintaining a noncitizen’s file.

The noncitizen minor who was charged with her daughter’s murder had a prior criminal record in El Salvador, Nobles said.

“They failed Kayla by not checking her murderer’s background,” she said. “I know Americans commit crimes on other Americans, but why do we have to take other countries’ trash? Why do we need them?”

Dunn said that she wants military personnel at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“We need our military at the border stopping the drugs, stopping people from coming in,” Dunn said.

Oklahoma’s GOP Rep. Josh Brecheen asked Nobles if DHS notified her that the minor charged with her daughter’s murder had ties with MS-13, a gang.

“It took the local detectives to find out he was MS-13,” she said, and explained that came after DNA testing.

With GOP pushing hard on immigration, parole emerges as a make-or-break issue in Congress

Ariana Figueroa — Thu, 18 Jan 2024 13:21:39 +0000

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., speak during a news conference on border security on Jan. 17, 2024 in Washington, D.C. Graham highlighted what he calls the Biden Administration’s “abuse of the immigration parole system" (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — Passage of a multi-billion-dollar supplemental package hinges on curbing an executive authority used to grant immigration protection, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said during a Wednesday press conference.

“If we don’t fix parole, there will be no deal,” Graham said alongside Senate Republican Whip John Thune of South Dakota.

Graham said parole is a “red line” for Senate Republicans, and his comments came as President Joe Biden met with congressional leaders to advocate for more than $100 billion in aid for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and U.S. border security. Republicans have tied changes in immigration policy to their support for the supplemental, which the White House has said is essential to aid countries the U.S. supports.

“As these negotiations, we hope, conclude soon, there have been some significant gains made in terms of policies that are real,” Thune said, adding that some of those policies include “dealing with asylum, dealing with border security measures, whether that be a physical wall or technical barriers.”

The strong focus in Congress on immigration policy follows the Iowa caucuses, where former president Donald Trump easily won and vowed in his victory speech to push for harsher immigration policies. Those policies, which call for mass deportations and the continuation of building a barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border, are the center of his presidential reelection campaign.

“We’re going to seal up the border,” Trump, the GOP front-runner, said to a cheering crowd after his Monday win, adding that there is an “invasion” from the people claiming asylum at the Southern border.

U.S. House Republicans on Wednesday conducted two separate hearings and a vote slamming the Biden administration’s immigration policy, amid the continuation of impeachment proceedings of U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

The House also voted on a resolution, H.Res. 957, put forth by GOP Rep. Nathaniel Moran of Texas, that condemns the Biden administration’s immigration policy at the border. It passed 225-187, with 14 Democrats joining Republicans.

Those Democrats include Reps. Mary Peltola of Alaska; Yadira Caraveo of Colorado; Jared Moskowitz of Florida; Eric Sorensen of Illinois; Jared Golden of Maine; Angie Craig of Minnesota; Susie Lee of Nevada; Wiley Nickel and Don Davis of North Carolina; Greg Landsman of Ohio; Henry Cuellar, Colin Allred, and Vicente Gonzalez Jr. of Texas; and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington.

“The president has failed to maintain operation control of this nation’s borders,” Minnesota GOP Rep. Michelle Fischbach said on the House floor during debate of the resolution.

Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon said on the House floor during debate that the resolution is a GOP campaign tool.

“It’s an effort to keep campaigning on the fear of immigrants rather than any serious attempt to address the complex issues created by global migration forces and decades of congressional inaction,” she said.

What is parole?

To handle the increase of people at the Southern border, the Biden administration has used its executive authority to grant parole — something that presidents have employed since the 1950s — to allow non-citizens to temporarily reside and work in the United States.

Graham said that Republicans’ top negotiator on border policy, Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, has negotiated “meaningful reforms” in immigration policy through expedited removal procedures and changes to asylum law. But Graham argued that “none of those reforms will work until you deal with parole.”

The Biden administration has used parole authority in two ways. The first is a limit for certain nationals such as Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans to temporarily work and live in the U.S. The White House also used parole authority for more than 140,000 Ukrainians and more than 76,000 Afghans.

So far, there have been 168,000 benefactors from the Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan Parole Program, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank that tracks migration.

The administration has also used parole authority on a case-by-case basis for migrants at the border. For fiscal year 2022, more than 370,000 people were granted parole at the border and in fiscal year 2023, more than 304,000 people were granted parole at the border, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

While there is no bill text or framework for an immigration deal, Republicans have floated the idea of raising the bar for migrants to claim asylum, and curbing the White House’s use of parole authority.

Graham warned Republicans to take the deal the Senate and White House make, because if Trump is in the White House in 2025, “Democrats will be expecting a pathway to citizenship for that (deal) in my view.”

“So to my Republican friends, to get this kind of border security without granting a pathway to citizenship is really unheard of,” Graham said.

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, whom Democrats tapped for negotiations on immigration policy, said that the Senate is close to a deal.

“Our goal is to give the executive branch new tools to better manage the border while living up to our values as a nation of immigrants,” he said during a Wednesday press conference.

House priorities

Additionally, House Speaker Mike Johnson has continued to push for the hard-line immigration policies of H.R. 2 while a bipartisan trio in the Senate that also includes independent Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona along with Lankford and Murphy works to strike a deal on immigration policy.

Johnson said that when he attends a meeting at the White House scheduled for Wednesday about funding for Ukraine, he will push for policies at the Southern border.

“We have to take care of our own house,” Johnson said during a press conference earlier Wednesday. “We have to secure our own border before we talk about anything else.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has called H.R. 2 a nonstarter in the Senate.

“The hard right — typical of them — in the House have insisted on passing a highly partisan bill, H.R. 2, word-for-word,” the New York Democrat said on the Senate floor.

“That is not bipartisanship. Any agreement on an issue as complex and contentious as the border is going to have to have enough support from both sides.”

The House Oversight & Accountability Committee held a hearing Wednesday that focused on how the Biden administration rolled back numerous hard-right immigration policies of the Trump administration that many courts struck down. Those included the “Remain in Mexico” policy that required migrants to wait in Mexico while their asylum cases were processed and the so-called “Muslim ban” that barred entry from countries with a predominately Muslim population.

During the committee hearing, GOP Chair James Comer of Kentucky argued that no amount of funding will help the Southern border, “because what we are seeing isn’t a money problem, it’s a policy problem.

“It’s a problem of not enforcing U.S. immigration law,” he said.

The top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, said the hearing was an opportunity for Republicans to show how they will run on immigration policy in the upcoming 2024 election.

“It has become obvious that Trump’s party doesn’t want immigration solutions at the border, they want immigration problems to run against,” Raskin said.

Ohio Democratic Rep. Shontel Brown said that the immigration system that Biden inherited “has been broken for a very long time.” She argued that the supplemental package the Senate and White House are negotiating will help officials as they handle the increase in migrants claiming asylum at the border.

“Extreme Republicans have a choice — they can keep using immigration to try to score political points, or they can help solve the problem,” Brown said.

An oversight panel of the House Energy and Commerce Committee also held a late-afternoon hearing on how the Biden administration’s policies at the Southern border have impacted the heath, safety and economics of U.S. communities.

And on Thursday, the House Homeland Security committee will hold its second hearing into the impeachment proceedings for Mayorkas.

Mayorkas has agreed to testify before Congress, but the committee has not announced if he will be a witness.

Biden announces plan to cancel some student loan balances under $12,000

Ariana Figueroa — Fri, 12 Jan 2024 12:15:05 +0000

(Getty Images).

ASHINGTON — President Joe Biden announced Friday that some federal student loan borrowers will have their loans cancelled under the Department of Education’s new repayment plan.

Starting next month, people who took out under $12,000 in federal student loans and have been repaying those loans for 10 years will get their remaining student loan balance cancelled once they enroll in the Saving on a Valuable Education Plan, known as SAVE.

“This action will particularly help community college borrowers, low-income borrowers, and those struggling to repay their loans,” Biden said in a statement.

“And, it’s part of our ongoing efforts to act as quickly as possible to give more borrowers breathing room so they can get out from under the burden of student loan debt, move on with their lives and pursue their dreams.”

This initiative builds on the Biden administration’s effort to cancel federal student loan debt following last year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down the White House’s plan for a one-time cancellation of up to $10,000 for federal borrowers. Student loan borrowers who had received Pell Grants — federal aid to help low-income students pay for higher education — could have qualified for an additional $10,000 in forgiveness.

Hours after the Supreme Court struck down the plan, the White House announced its SAVE plan, along with a one-year off-ramp program that would not report borrowers to creditors if they failed to make loan payments once repayment started back up in October.

“And, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision on our student debt relief plan, we are continuing to pursue an alternative path to deliver student debt relief to as many borrowers as possible as quickly as possible,” Biden said. “I won’t back down from using every tool at our disposal to get student loan borrowers the relief they need to reach their dreams.”

So far, 6.9 million borrowers have enrolled in SAVE, and of those borrowers, 3.9 million have a $0 monthly payment.

Under the new plan, SAVE calculates payments based on a borrower’s income and family size and forgives balances after a set number of years. The Department of Education has estimated that most borrowers will save about $1,000 per year under the new plan.

Borrowers who are in the former payment plan — known as the Revised Pay as You Earn plan — will automatically be enrolled in the SAVE program.

The states with the highest number of borrowers enrolled in the program include Texas, with 591,700, California with 597,300, Florida with 475,800, New York with 374,300 and Pennsylvania with 289,800.

U.S. House impeachment proceedings against Mayorkas over immigration feature state AGs

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 10 Jan 2024 21:40:04 +0000

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey at Wednesday's U.S. House Homeland Security committee hearing testifies that he believes Congress should move forward with impeaching U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas (screenshot).

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republicans began their impeachment proceedings against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas with a Wednesday hearing, a move Democrats called politically motivated.

The House Committee on Homeland Security hearing aimed to set the stage for Mayorkas’ impeachment, with Republicans arguing that the Biden administration appointee has failed to fulfill his oath in office and therefore should be impeached.

“Our evidence makes it clear, Secretary Mayorkas is the architect of the devastation that we have witnessed for nearly three years,” said Rep. Mark Green, the Tennessee Republican who leads the committee.

Green referenced as evidence a December report from committee Republicans that found Mayorkas failed to “enforce laws passed by Congress.” Green said he plans to hold additional hearings on impeachment proceedings.

Democrats on the committee called the five-hour hearing a “sham,” and argued that disagreements over policy are not an impeachable offense.

“You cannot impeach a Cabinet secretary because you don’t like the president’s policies,” the top Democrat on the committee, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said. “This impeachment is a sham.”

Congress has only impeached one Cabinet member in U.S. history, Secretary of War William W. Belknap in 1867. He was unanimously impeached in the Senate for “criminally disregarding his duty as Secretary of War and basely prostituting his high office to his lust for private gain.”

No formal charges have been brought against Mayorkas, and Mayorkas did not appear at the hearing, nor did any DHS officials. The witnesses included GOP attorneys general from Montana, Missouri and Oklahoma.

“Oklahoma, like every other state, bears a significant financial burden related to the routine services that must be provided to those who are here illegally,” Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said in his opening statement.

The hearing comes as Mayorkas, the White House and a group of bipartisan senators are working to strike a deal on immigration policy tied to a global security supplemental package that includes billions in aid for U.S. border security.

In the House, Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana had a Wednesday phone call with President Joe Biden in which Johnson advocated for the White House to accept the GOP-passed bill H.R. 2, Raj Shah, deputy chief of staff for communications for Johnson, said in a statement.

“The Speaker strongly encouraged the President to use his executive authority to secure the southern border and reiterated the contents of his letter to the President dated December 21, 2023,” Shah said.

H.R. 2 is dead on arrival in the Senate.

Impeachable offenses?

The witness tapped by Democrats, Frank O. Bowman, a professor emeritus of law at the University of Missouri School of Law, said that policy disagreements should not be the grounds for impeaching an official.

“I’ve seen nothing that rises to the level of an impeachable offense,” he said.

Louisiana Republican Rep. Clay Higgins said that Mayorkas is “going to be impeached,” because “he is the executive in charge of the border policy for President (Joe) Biden.”

“That executive has a responsibility to advise the president that his policies are not only not working to secure the border, they’re bringing an injury to the country,” Higgins said.

Florida GOP Rep. Carlos Giménez said that he believes Mayorkas should be impeached because he is not following the laws passed by Congress.

The last time Congress passed comprehensive immigration policy was in 1986.

“We have this issue of policy versus law, “Giménez said. “The law clearly states that people coming into the United States or people seeking asylum in the United States, two things happen to them, they are either detained here or they are detained in another country waiting the outcome of their asylum hearing.”

He criticized the Biden administration for overusing its parole authority to allow migrants to work and temporarily stay in the country.

The president has parole authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey said the Biden administration was violating the law by using parole. Texas, and a dozen attorneys general — including Bailey — filed a suit to block the Biden administration’s use of its parole authority.

Bailey, who is running for a full term later this year, said that decision from the Biden administration to use parole authority forced “a lawsuit from several like-minded state attorneys general because of the drastic, terrible harm that’s occurring on the streets in our communities.”

Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who filed a resolution impeaching Mayorkas, said that the two impeachments of former President Donald Trump were “quite a political, sham impeachment.”

Trump was first impeached in 2019 on two charges of obstructing Congress and abusing his power. The second impeachment was for inciting a pro-Trump mob to attack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Bowman repeated multiple times that differences in policies do not reach the bar of “high crimes and misdemeanors” to impeach a government official.

“Congress and the executive are (supposed) to work together to solve the country’s problems. They’re often going to disagree about how to do that,” he said. “In our system, the solution is the hard work of legislation, of negotiation, of compromise, of coalition building. Impeachment is not and never has been the answer.”

He said the framers of the Constitution made it clear that impeachment is “for the most extraordinary of circumstances, and simply to resolve a partisan, political debate or to change policy is not it.”

Fentanyl crisis cited

Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen said he has seen an increase in fentanyl opioid deaths in his state and blamed Mayorkas.

“At the direction of Secretary Mayorkas, the Department of Homeland Security has wreaked havoc at our southern border, exacerbated the fentanyl epidemic, and emboldened the drug cartels,” Knudsen said in his opening statement.

According to the most recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, in the United States there were 106,699 drug overdose deaths in 2021 — a 16% increase from 2020.

In Montana, there were 199 overdose deaths in 2021, or 19.5 per 100,000 people. It’s also the top safety threat in the state.

“Fentanyl is our biggest issue,” Knudsen said.

Democratic Rep. Donald Payne of New Jersey said that Congress needs to address the fentanyl crisis and discern “why is fentanyl killing so many of our folks,” and to understand “the demand for it as well.”

Immigration negotiations in Congress center on parole, asylum policy

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 10 Jan 2024 11:50:20 +0000

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says he believes talks on immigration have made progress and “we’re going to be persistent” (Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom).

WASHINGTON — A deal on changes to immigration policy remained elusive on Tuesday for top U.S. Senate negotiators.

Those leading the talks — Sens. James Lankford, Republican of Oklahoma, Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut and Kyrsten Sinema, independent of Arizona — have worked for weeks to strike a deal between the White House and Senate Republicans on immigration policy changes at the U.S. Southern border.

Congress was on a break for the holidays but returned this week.

“Everybody’s still at the table talking, so that’s a good thing,” Lankford said, adding that he’s hoping there can be bill text later this week.

Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said that negotiations on an immigration deal have made progress.

“We’re going to be persistent,” Schumer said. “We’re closer today to an agreement than we have ever been.”

For the past month, the Biden administration has been negotiating with that group of bipartisan senators to strike a deal that would tighten immigration restrictions in exchange for passage of a more than $100 billion in emergency supplemental aid for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and U.S. border security.

“There needs to be a strong border provision (as) part of (the supplemental),” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said during a Tuesday press conference.

A major demand by Republicans is to make changes to asylum law to set a higher bar for migrants to claim asylum and to curb the Biden administration’s use of its parole authority.

Republican Whip Sen. John Thune of South Dakota said that the White House and Democrats “are now finally starting to address (parole), and if they can get that addressed, we’ll see how it goes this week.”

Thune added that it’s unlikely that there will be an agreement on immigration and the supplemental before Congress’ first funding deadline on Jan. 19. If it is not met, there could be a partial government shutdown.

Mayorkas impeachment

The talks in the Senate come as House Republicans are moving forward with a Wednesday hearing beginning impeachment proceedings against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over the Biden administration’s immigration policy at the Southern border.

Mayorkas, who visited the Southern border on Monday, defended his agency’s policies and called on Congress to pass immigration reform.

“Some have accused DHS of not enforcing our nation’s laws,” Mayorkas said during his trip to the border. “This could not be further from the truth.”

Mayorkas said that Border Patrol agents and officers dealt with a high number of migrants at the Southern border in December.

Since fiscal year 2024 began on Oct. 1, there have been more than 483,000 encounters with noncitizens at the Southwest land border, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.

House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana also led a delegation of House Republicans to the Southern border recently, criticizing the White House’s immigration policy, and advocating for Trump-era immigration policies.

Debate over parole

Democrats and immigration advocates have pushed back against changes to asylum and parole authority.

Nicole Melaku, executive director of the National Partnership for New Americans, a coalition of more than 60 immigrant and refugee rights organizations, said proposals to change asylum and parole will “only worsen existing challenges at the border.

“We urge you to hold the line and bring forward solutions that improve our immigration system, fully resource welcoming infrastructure, and honor our nation’s long-standing responsibility to offer refuge to those in need of safety,” Melaku said.

There are two ways the Biden administration has used parole authority. The first is for certain nationals such as Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans to temporarily work and live in the U.S.

The administration has also used parole authority on a case-by-case basis for migrants.

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, the U.S secretary of Homeland Security has the authority to “parole into the United States temporarily under such conditions as he may prescribe only on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit any [noncitizen] applying for admission to the United States.”

Lankford has stated multiple times that he wants to curb the Biden administration’s broad use of parole authority for migrant releases at the border.

Murphy said he thinks it’s important to preserve the presidential authority to use parole, but did not specify the potential changes to the White House’s use of parole authority under discussion.

“The president uses parole to help better manage the border and to make sure that people are vetted before they arrive,” Murphy said. “My worry is that many Republicans who are asking for parole reforms are actually trying to increase, not decrease, the chaos at the border.”

White House unveils $1 billion for electric and low-emission school buses

Ariana Figueroa — Mon, 08 Jan 2024 21:54:13 +0000

The Biden administration on Monday announced funding for more than 2,700 electric and low-emission school buses. Shown are parked school buses in a lot during the COVID-19 pandemic on April 21, 2020 in Charlotte, North Carolina (Streeter Lecka/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration announced Monday $1 billion in funding for more than 2,700 electric and low-emission school buses across 37 states.

This is a second part of funding of a $5 billion, five-year initiative from the bipartisan infrastructure law. In total, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean School Bus Program has awarded nearly $2 billion and funded approximately 5,000 electric and low-emission school buses nationwide.

On a call with reporters, EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan said that many school buses “rely on internal combustion engines that emit toxic pollution in to the air.”

“Not only are these pollutants harmful to the environment, but they can also be harmful to the health and well-being of every student, every bus driver and every resident in surrounding communities,” he continued.

Out of the 2,737 school buses, 95% will be electric, the White House said. There are roughly half a million school buses across the U.S. used by public schools. A recent Office of Inspector General’s report found that EPA’s Clean Bus Program could be delayed by local utility companies trying to meet demand for electric school buses.

The report found that because “EPA’s 2022 rebate application did not require applicants to coordinate with their utility companies before applying for rebates … the Agency may be unable to effectively manage and achieve the program mission unless utility companies can meet increasing power supply demands for electric school buses.”

In response to that report, Regan said that he is in contact with electric utilities across the country and “they’re excited about (electric vehicles) period, whether it be school buses, whether it be transit or whether it be cars and trucks.”

“I have no doubt that our electricity system can handle this transition,” he said.

Regan said that low-income public school districts and tribal communities make up about 86% of the projects selected to receive funding. Some of those funding mechanisms include grants, rebates and contracts.

States that were given multiple awards for clean energy school buses include Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon and Washington state, among others.

Fight for congressional majorities launches against backdrop of presidential campaigns

Ariana Figueroa — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 19:24:44 +0000

The U.S. Capitol dome rises near the U..S. Supreme Court building (Jim Small/Arizona Mirror).

WASHINGTON — The 2024 battle for control of Congress is underway in the states, accompanying the accelerating race for the presidency.

Republicans are preparing to funnel money and staff into a select few Senate races in an effort to flip that chamber back to their control, while Democrats are looking toward the districts President Joe Biden won as their pathway back to the majority in the House.

The campaigns are expected to be especially close, with the state and national parties spending millions of dollars, all against the backdrop of the presidential campaigns.

It’s possible that the House and Senate will continue to be split between the parties, but political observers see the prospect of a big switch. If current trends continue through the year, the Senate could well swing from Democratic to Republican control, and the House could flip from the GOP to Democrats.

The margins are tight. House Democrats only need a gain of five seats to regain power and Senate Republicans only need two, come November.

The 2024 Senate map is favorable for Republicans, who are defending 11 seats compared to 23 for Democrats. The GOP has a decent chance of picking up its two needed seats in states that have voted more conservatively in recent years, such as Ohio and Montana. The two Democratic incumbents there — Sherrod Brown and Jon Tester — will also be campaigning in states that former President Donald Trump easily won in 2016 and 2020.

In the House, GOP leaders have launched an impeachment inquiry into Biden that could risk reelection chances for the 18 Republicans who represent swing districts carried by Biden.

Republicans are also going up against new redistricting maps in the South. Democrats are favored to pick up three seats there — Alabama, Florida and Louisiana — and potentially gain anywhere from two to six GOP-held seats in New York.

House Republicans have struggled all year to govern with their slim majority, and to unify behind a Republican speaker of the House. It took Kevin McCarthy 15 rounds of votes to win the gavel last January. Then, 10 months later, eight Republicans and Democrats voted to remove him from the position.

That move was not only followed by three weeks of infighting, but any legislative work — including advancing government funding by a quickly approaching deadline — was halted. House Republicans finally tapped Rep. Mike Johnson from Louisiana as their speaker.

House GOP fate seen tied to presidential race

Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales notes in his latest ratings that “Republicans still have a narrow advantage to maintain their majority, but the presidential race hovers over the entire fight for the House.”

“If the race for the White House is competitive, then the fight for the House should be a close, district-by-district battle,” Gonzales said. “But if the presidential race turns into a lopsided affair, then the presidential winner will likely bring the House majority with them.”

With a recent expulsion of GOP freshman George Santos, who was plagued by scandal, and McCarthy’s early retirement, the balance of power for House Republicans is now 220-213. That means Johnson can only afford to lose three GOP members on party-line votes.

The first year of the 118th Congress also didn’t involve much governing to tout on the campaign trail.

So far, only 34 bills and resolutions have become law out of 724 votes this year. In 2022, for comparison, 549 votes were held and 248 bills and resolutions became law, according to the Clerk of the House.

The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter rates 25 House races as “toss ups,” with 15 of those seats held by Republicans and 10 by Democrats.

Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the UVA Center for Politics projected in late December that in the House, “court rulings in key redistricting cases, coupled with the political fallout from the Republicans’ internal chaos, gives Democrats a fighting chance to recapture the lower chamber.”

The report, from Thomas F. Schaller, noted that “one has to go back to the late 1800s to find an instance of divided government taking the form of a Republican Senate and a Democratic president and House.”

“Since 1968, all five of the other six possible permutations of divided government have occurred except Republicans controlling just the Senate,” he wrote.

Another challenge for House Republicans is that Johnson for the first time is tasked with raising millions of dollars for the party. Last year, McCarthy raised about $24 million for the GOP’s political action committee, according to Open Secrets.

Redrawn districts

The majority could be made with a handful of races. Several federal court orders require the redrawing of congressional districts that will boost Democrats’ chances of flipping seats.

However, that’s not the case for North Carolina. The delegation is split between seven Republicans and seven Democrats, but the GOP-controlled state legislature adopted a map that greatly favors Republicans.

Under the new North Carolina map, it’s expected that Republicans are favored for 10 seats and Democrats three. One seat held by a Democrat is rated as a “toss up,” according to The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter.

Several Democrats — Reps. Jeff Jackson, Wiley Nickel and Kathy Manning — have announced they would not seek reelection, arguing that they were gerrymandered out of their seats.

However, a coalition of voting rights groups and several Black voters filed a lawsuit against that new map. The suit, following another earlier, argues that the new map violates federal law under the Voting Rights Act by racially gerrymandering seats in the state legislature and congressional districts.

But the new map that favors Republicans in North Carolina could be offset by the New York map.

A recent ruling from New York’s highest court has Democrats eyeing two to six current GOP swing districts that Biden won, making the state a battleground for the 2024 elections. The current New York delegation is made up of 15 Democrats and 11 Republicans.

A new congressional seat in Alabama is rated as “likely Democrat,” according to The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter.

Additionally, Louisiana was ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court to draw a second majority-Black district before the 2024 elections that will likely favor Democrats. Republicans currently hold five of the six congressional seats in Louisiana.

Will it be a GOP Senate?

Republicans are on track to regain control of the Senate, though Democrats in red states hope to hold them off against the odds.

The West Virginia Senate seat currently held by Joe Manchin III is highly expected to shift to GOP control after the centrist Democrat retires.

Republican Gov. Jim Justice and Rep. Alex Mooney are among the leading candidates in the Republican primary, scheduled for May 14.

In Montana, the Republican primary on June 4 will determine who faces Tester in the general election. And Ohio voters will choose on March 19 which GOP Senate candidate moves onto the November ballot.

Arizona is another pickup opportunity for Republicans.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema narrowly won as a Democrat six years ago, but she’s since switched her affiliation to independent. And she hasn’t yet said if she’ll run for reelection, leaving Democrats unclear about whether she could pull votes away from their official nominee. The primary is set for Aug. 6.

The Arizona, Montana and Ohio Senate races are all rated as “toss ups” by The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter.

Another four races for seats currently held by Democrats are rated as “lean Democrat,” meaning those campaigns are considered “competitive,” though “one party has an advantage.”

The 11 Senate seats that Republicans will defend in November are rated as either likely or solid Republican, meaning they aren’t considered “competitive.”

Democrats currently hold 48 seats in the Senate, though two other independents, Maine’s Angus King and Vermont’s Bernie Sanders, are reliable blue votes, as is Sinema. That effectively gives Democrats a 51-seat majority.

Republicans hold the other 49 seats, meaning they’ll need at least two pickups to regain control of the floor and committees.

While Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, would very much like to become majority leader once again, there’s always the possibility of another 50-50 split.

That would leave Senate control up to the presidential election, since Democrats held the majority during the first two years of the Biden administration thanks to the power given to Vice President Kamala Harris under the Constitution to break tie votes.

Money, money, money

As is the case with nearly all modern elections, results will come down to turnout and fundraising.

Following the money has become somewhat complicated, given all candidates have their personal campaign accounts, many have political action committees, or PACs, and the political parties have their own central fundraising committees.

That alphabet soup includes the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and National Republican Senatorial Committee in the Senate. In the House, it’s the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and National Republican Congressional Committee.

Open Secrets, the nonpartisan nonprofit organization that closely tracks campaign spending, reports the amount of money spent to win election to the House and the Senate has risen considerably.

Candidates winning a seat in the House spent on average about $840,000 in 2000, but that price tag has steadily increased ever since, reaching $1.4 million in 2010 and $2.8 million in 2022.

Politicians hoping to become a U.S. senator have experienced a similar trend, though the cost of winning is significantly higher for the upper chamber.

Senators spent about $7.3 million on average to win election in 2000, before that figure rose to $9.8 million in 2010 and $26.5 million during the 2022 elections.

Campaign spending can go much higher than that average, especially when Republicans and Democrats hone in on a few races in attempts to flip a chamber to their party’s control.

Senate candidates in Georgia spent $255 million during the 2022 cycle. In Pennsylvania, another competitive race, candidates spent $167 million. And in Florida, they spent $130 million, according to Open Secrets.

The most expensive House election during 2022 was in California’s 47th District, where candidates spent nearly $32 million. Democrat Katie Porter, who is now running for Senate in the primary, won that race.

The 14th Congressional District in Georgia came in second, with candidates spending nearly $30 million. Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene ultimately won that seat.

The third-and-fourth-most expensive House races were in the California districts held by former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, and McCarthy.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican, had the fifth-most-expensive House race in the state’s 1st Congressional District. Candidates there spent more than $20 million.

With control of the House, Senate and White House all in front of voters this November, it’s likely that campaign spending records will be set once again.

U.S. House speaker leads GOP lawmakers to the border to slam Biden on immigration

Ariana Figueroa — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 11:55:21 +0000

CAPTION: U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks at a press conference at the U.S.-Mexico border on Jan. 3, 2024 (Screenshot from live feed supplied by Johnson’s office).

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson led a delegation of House Republicans on a Wednesday trip to the U.S.-Mexico border to demand hard-line immigration proposals in exchange for passage of President Joe Biden’s emergency global security supplemental request.

“If President Biden wants a supplemental spending bill focused on national security, it better begin by defending America’s national security,” Johnson, of Louisiana, said. “It begins right here on our Southern border.”

The press conference in Eagle Pass, Texas, came as the Senate is trying to strike a bipartisan deal on immigration policy that has been tied to passage of the supplemental package. The White House in 2023 sent Congress an emergency supplemental request of roughly $106 billion for global security for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and U.S. border security.

Separately, quickly approaching funding deadlines of Jan 19 and Feb. 2 could throw Congress into a partial government shutdown, in two stages.

Johnson said that negotiations for government funding are ongoing and that two top priorities for House Republicans are border security and to “reduce nondefense discretionary spending.”

There is still no agreement on a total spending level for the current fiscal year, known as the topline.

Increase in migrants

The number of migrants coming to the U.S. border to claim asylum has continued to rise, with the most recent data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection recording more than 483,000 encounters in total for fiscal year 2024 that began on Oct. 1.

White House spokesperson Andrew Bates criticized Johnson and the Republicans for visiting the border, instead of passing the Biden administration’s emergency supplemental request that included about $14 billion for U.S. border security, before leaving for a three-week recess in December.

“Speaker Johnson is continuing to block President Biden’s proposed funding to hire thousands of new Border Patrol agents, hire more asylum officers and immigration judges, provide local communities hosting migrants additional grant funding, and invest in cutting edge technology that is critical to stopping deadly fentanyl from entering our country,” Bates said.

In the House, Republicans are insisting on immigration policies from legislation passed in that chamber, H.R. 2. Biden has promised to veto it.

It’s also unclear if Johnson would accept a bipartisan agreement from the Senate. He argued that the House “has done its job” in passing H.R. 2.

“H.R. 2 is the necessary ingredient,” Johnson said.

However, Senate Democrats have already stated that H.R. 2 is a non-starter.

GOP immigration policies

That legislation the House passed in May mirrors Trump-era immigration policies, such as resuming hundreds of miles of construction of a border wall, stripping funding from nonprofits that aid migrants, beefing up staffing of Border Patrol agents and restricting the use of parole programs.

Republicans are seeking to curb the Biden administration’s use of parole to allow nationals from Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela to work temporarily in the U.S.

The delegation on Wednesday was also led by Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas, whose congressional district is on the border. His office, and Johnson’s office, did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for a list of all the GOP lawmakers in attendance. Johnson said there were 64 members on the trip.

Johnson said that Republicans met with local residents and sheriffs and toured a CBP processing facility.

He criticized the Biden administration for rolling back immigration policies from the Trump administration, such as stopping the construction of the border wall and ending the “remain in Mexico” policy.

The protocols require migrants from Mexico who are seeking asylum to remain in Mexico while their paperwork is processed, but many advocates have documented harm, separation and deaths to those who must comply with the program.

In October, the Biden administration decided to allow for the construction of additional border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, angering Democrats and immigration advocates.

Mayorkas impeachment to be launched

The House Homeland Security Committee on Jan. 10 will also hold a hearing to begin an impeachment case against U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his handling of immigration at the border.

Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee, who chairs the committee, said at the border press conference that his committee has finished its investigations into Mayorkas and that “you’re going to see a lot more coming here very soon.”

“The greatest domestic threat to the national security and the safety of the American people is Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas,” Green said. “He, through his policies, has defied and subverted the laws passed by the United States Congress.”

In a statement to States Newsroom, DHS spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg said that House Republicans were “wasting valuable time and taxpayer dollars pursuing a baseless political exercise that has been rejected by members of both parties and already failed on a bipartisan vote.

“There is no valid basis to impeach Secretary Mayorkas, as senior members of the House majority have attested, and this extreme impeachment push is a harmful distraction from our critical national security priorities,” Ehrenberg said. “Secretary Mayorkas and the Department of Homeland Security will continue working every day to keep Americans safe.”

Biden: Trump ‘certainly supported an insurrection’ on Jan. 6

Ariana Figueroa — Thu, 21 Dec 2023 14:00:45 +0000

President Joe Biden departs the White House Dec. 20, 2023 in Washington, D.C. Biden was traveling to Milwaukee to deliver remarks at the Wisconsin Black Chamber of Commerce (Drew Angerer/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden Wednesday said that there was “no question” former president Donald Trump was responsible for supporting an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol more than two years ago.

Biden’s comments followed Tuesday’s ruling by Colorado’s Supreme Court that ordered Trump barred from appearing on the state’s 2024 presidential ballot, on the grounds of a Civil War-era insurrection clause — the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.

“It’s self-evident. You saw it all,” Biden said shortly after landing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, according to White House pool reports, when asked about the court case and at first saying he would not comment. “Now, whether the 14th Amendment applies, I’ll let the court make that decision.”

The U.S. Supreme Court would handle the appeal of the Colorado decision expected from Trump.

“But he certainly supported an insurrection,” Biden continued. “No question about it. None. Zero. And he seems to be doubling down on about everything.”

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment prohibits a person who “engaged in insurrection” after taking an oath to support the Constitution from holding office again.

Six Republican and unaffiliated Colorado voters filed a lawsuit in September, charging that the former president’s actions in relation to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol should disqualify him from public office under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.

The House impeached Trump for a second time following the attack on the Capitol, but the Senate — controlled by Republicans at the time — declined to convict Trump for his role in the insurrection, which would have barred the former president from any future runs for public office.

The ruling in Colorado includes a stay of the court’s order that will last until Jan. 4, or until the outcome of an appeal to the Supreme Court is decided.

Hopes dim even more for immigration agreement in US Senate before holidays

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 19 Dec 2023 14:56:55 +0000

The U.S. Capitol (Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom).

WASHINGTON — U.S. senators late Monday said they are closer to an agreement on changes to immigration policy in order to clear a multi-billion-dollar global security package, but any timing on a deal or details of that framework remained elusive.

“While the job is not finished, I’m confident that we’re headed in the right direction,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said.

Schumer, a New York Democrat, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky acknowledged that progress was made on immigration negotiations over the weekend, but said that more time was needed for an agreement and to produce legislative text.

“Senate Republicans will not make up for others showing up late to the table by waiving our responsibility to carefully negotiate and review any agreement before voting on it,” McConnell said.

The Biden administration is negotiating with a group of bipartisan senators to strike a deal that would tighten immigration restrictions and thus ease passage of more than $100 billion in emergency supplemental aid for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and U.S. border security.

If the package is punted to the New Year, it adds to Congress’ growing list of difficult items, including two funding deadlines that could lead to a potential partial government shutdown if not met, and the White House has warned Ukraine has about a month of funding left unless Congress approves aid.

The talks on Capitol Hill follow recent comments from the Republican front-runner, former president Donald Trump, who has continued to use dehumanizing language toward immigrants — most recently at a campaign stop in New Hampshire over the weekend. The anti-immigrant remarks echoed language in Adolf Hitler’s memoir “Mein Kampf.”

Just 61 senators vote

Schumer kept the Senate in session to continue negotiations after the House left last week, and he did not indicate Monday if a vote on the supplemental would be held this week. Only 61 senators were in attendance for a vote Monday night to confirm former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley as commissioner for the Social Security Administration.

Schumer said that there needs to be a “middle ground” and that both sides will have to make concessions.

The lead Senate negotiators are Sens. Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, Kyrsten Sinema, independent of Arizona and James Lankford, Republican of Oklahoma.

Lankford said there is currently no bill text and does not expect a vote to be held this week, but said that decision is ultimately up to Schumer. He also noted that there are currently only a handful of Senate Republicans in attendance.

Murphy said that the Senate and the White House continue to “make good progress,” and that the group is working to get bill “text as quickly as we can.”

“I want to get this done as quickly as possible,” he said. “This set of law is so important and so complicated that you gotta get it right, not get it fast.”

Murphy declined to comment on specific proposals being discussed in negotiations, but potential changes to asylum law have drawn criticism from progressive and Latino Democrats who argue those proposals would raise the bar for migrants to claim asylum by making changes to the “credible fear” standard.

Latino Democrats and immigration advocates have expressed their frustration with being shut out of negotiations and have warned the Biden administration that these negotiations could risk alienating young and Latino voters in next year’s presidential election.

Those lawmakers warned against a potential immigration deal that would resurrect a pandemic-era tool used by the Trump administration to expel millions of migrants, known as Title 42.

Graham says senators ‘not anywhere close to a deal’

South Carolina’s GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday that he did not think any deal on immigration policy would be made until the New Year.

“The bottom line here is we feel like we’re being jammed, we’re not anywhere close to a deal,” Graham said.

Graham noted that progress has been made, especially on changes to asylum, but for Republicans, “there’s a ways to go” on the humanitarian parole authority that the Biden administration uses to grant temporary protections to people from certain countries. Republicans have wanted to curb the Biden administration’s use of its humanitarian authority.

The Biden administration has used humanitarian parole to allow nationals from Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Ukraine and Venezuela to work temporarily in the U.S.

Graham said that he believes the House will agree to Senate negotiations if there are changes to asylum and “stop blanket (humanitarian) parole.”

Sen. John Kennedy also expressed doubts that an agreement on immigration policy would be reached by the end of the week.

“It doesn’t appear that we’re gonna be able to land this plane before Christmas, but stranger things have happened,” the Louisiana Republican said. “So we’ll see.”

South Dakota GOP Sen. Mike Rounds said he didn’t think it was a good idea to negotiate a framework with the House out of session, pointing out that even if an agreement is reached, nothing can happen until the House comes back from its three-week recess.

“All it does is allow everybody to take potshots at whatever the deal is,” Rounds said. “We’re trying to find common ground, but the bottom line is, this administration has known now for well over a month that the conditions require the Southern border to be dealt with.”

US Senate postpones winter break as lawmakers try to craft an immigration deal

Ariana Figueroa — Fri, 15 Dec 2023 13:17:00 +0000

Senate negotiators and the White House have tried for weeks to reach agreement on changes in immigration law that GOP leaders insist are necessary to approve more than $100 billion in emergency aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan (Bill Dickinson/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — Members of the U.S. House headed home Thursday for a three-week winter break without completing work on several must-pass bills, but senators are now scheduled to return to Capitol Hill on Monday as leaders in the upper chamber and the White House look for an agreement on immigration policy.

The last-minute scheduling change for the Senate came Thursday afternoon, when Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced he was adding a week to the calendar to try to unlock funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, potentially combined with new limits on acceptance of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“That will give negotiators from the White House, Senate Democrats, Senate Republicans a time to work through the weekend in an effort to reach a framework agreement,” Schumer said. “It’s not easy to reach an agreement on something this complicated. This might be one of the most difficult things we have ever had to work through.”

Schumer said Democrats “hope to come to an agreement, but no matter what, members should be aware that we will vote on a supplemental proposal next week.”

Senate Minority Whip John Thune said Thursday afternoon “signs are encouraging,” but said lawmakers were still a long way from reaching a bipartisan agreement on border security that can pass the Senate.

The South Dakota Republican said even if a bipartisan deal is struck in the days ahead, GOP senators are likely to slow down final approval of the bill.

“Even if we had text by early next week, I still don’t see any way it gets done because we’ve got members who are going to object for various reasons and use all the procedural tools at their disposal,” Thune said, referring to specific language in legislation.

It also remains an “open question” whether House GOP leaders would bring that chamber back before the scheduled end of their recess on Jan. 9 to clear any bipartisan deal for the president’s desk, Thune said. The Senate had been expected to return on Jan. 8.

Progressive, Latino lawmakers raise concerns

Progressive and Latino Democratic lawmakers have become increasingly concerned and frustrated about the direction talks are moving and have urged the Senate and President Joe Biden to reject major changes in immigration policy that mirror far-right goals.

Some of those proposals being floated include the resurrection of a pandemic- era immigration tool used to expel migrants and bar them from claiming asylum known as Title 42, and raising the bar for migrants to claim asylum by making changes to the “credible fear” standard.

Senate Democrats’ supplemental spending package includes $1.42 billion for staff hires for immigration judges, such as clerks, attorneys and interpreters and $5.31 billion for U.S. Customs and Border Protection to expand border security, such as fentanyl detection, among other provisions.

But Republicans say that increase in funding isn’t enough, calling for a reduction in the number of undocumented immigrants entering the United States from Mexico.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday morning the emergency spending bill for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and the U.S. border security needs to have “substantive policy changes at the border instead of just throwing money at the problem.”

“The Senate cannot claim to address major national security challenges without a solution to the one we are facing on the Southern border,” McConnell said.

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, the lead negotiator for Democrats on immigration and border policy, said that after the White House became involved, there has been some progress.

“We don’t have a deal, but we’ve gotten closer to it,” he said.

Murphy added that he’s not sure if the House will pick up the supplemental if the Senate strikes a deal.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday during the daily press briefing the president believes negotiations are “heading in the right direction.”

“We understand we have to find a bipartisan compromise,” she said, adding that the White House wants a deal by the end of the year.

Jean-Pierre also addressed concerns from Latino and progressive Democrats about agreeing to immigration proposals that are reminiscent of the Trump era.

“(The president) believes we need to fix what’s happening with the broken immigration system,” she said. “He’s willing to find a bipartisan compromise to get that done.”

Immigration talks in Congress lag as Latino lawmakers urge rejection of GOP proposals

Ariana Figueroa — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 12:10:19 +0000

U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., speaks during a press conference held by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Dec. 13, 2023. Behind Melendez, left to right, are Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal of Washington and House members Gabe Vasquez of New Mexico, Jesus “Chuy” Garcia of Illinois, Robert Garcia of California, Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Nanette Diaz Barragán of California, Greg Casar of Texas, Rob Menendez of New Jersey and Veronica Escobar of Texas (Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom).

WASHINGTON — Negotiations over immigration policy made small progress Wednesday, but not enough to strike a deal and ease the passage of billions in global security aid before Congress leaves for a three-week recess.

Meanwhile, members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus said they are frustrated that some proposals under discussion would make major changes in immigration policy for the first time in years, yet no Latino senators are part of Senate talks.

A disagreement over border security policy has been the linchpin that has snagged a $110.5 billion emergency supplemental spending package to bolster aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and U.S. border security.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said that Democrats are still trying to reach an agreement in negotiations over policy at the U.S.-Mexico border, and that “real progress was made.”

He implored Republicans to stay in Congress through the holidays, but many GOP senators acknowledged that there is simply not enough time for an agreement, especially as both chambers are scheduled to leave this week. Work on the supplemental would be punted to next year absent a deal.

“The stakes are high,” Schumer, a New York Democrat, said. “Time is of the essence.”

Republican Whip Sen. John Thune of South Dakota said that negotiations about immigration are not far along and that “these are all concepts right now.”

“I think these things that the discussions that are happening with the White House right now are largely … in the concept phase,” he said.

Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance and Indiana Sen. Todd Young, both Republicans, said that Democrats have moved in the direction of the GOP somewhat in immigration policy negotiations, but not enough.

“I think now the White House’s got involved there’s at least some logjam that’s broken, but my sense is there’s still a lot of uncertainty,” Vance said.

Young said that the lead Republican on negotiations, Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, indicated that “there’s still some work to do before he can bring a proposal back” to Republicans.

“It sounds like, you know, there’s finally been some forward movement, so most of us are encouraged by that,” Young said.

Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn suggested that it wouldn’t be a good idea for the Senate to pass the emergency supplemental and then have the House pick up the package in the new year.

“It’ll be a piñata out there,” he said. “People will take potshots for the next couple of weeks.”

Latino lawmakers speak out

In addition to a tight schedule, a coalition of Democratic Latino lawmakers expressed their frustration over some of the negotiations that they say would drastically change asylum law and mirror hard-line Trump immigration policies.

“We’re here to call on President Biden and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to reject the immigration and border proposals at the hands of Republicans in the ongoing negotiations around the supplemental aid package,” Congressional Hispanic Caucus Nanette Barragán of California said at a press conference outside the Capitol.

She added that the caucus has tried to have a meeting with the White House, and she expressed frustration that Senate “negotiations (are) taking place without a single Latino senator at the table.”

Democratic Sens. Bob Menendez of New Jersey and Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, both Latinos, said right-wing immigration approaches are being floated.

They include the resurrection of a pandemic-era tool used to expel migrants and bar them from claiming asylum known as Title 42, expedited removal proceedings and raising the bar for migrants to claim asylum by making changes to the “credible fear” standard.

“These would be the most far-sweeping, anti-immigrant and permanent changes to our law in a generation,” Menendez said.

Menendez stepped down as chair of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee in September amid federal indictment charges of conspiracy to commit bribery.

Luján added that the caucus has asked for a meeting with the White House’s chief of staff.

“Let’s sit down and talk and let’s find real solutions that are going to be meaningful for all of the challenges that are before us in the United States of America, while living up to our national security responsibilities,” he said.

The chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Pramila Jayapal of Washington, said that the Senate and White House “must not agree to these extreme demands.”

She said the proposals being discussed would only create more chaos at the Southern border. Jayapal said the changes to the credible fear standard would “completely shut down the asylum system for people who are facing danger in their home countries.”

“These are hallmarks of Donald Trump and extreme MAGA Republicans,” she said. “They cannot tend not to become the hallmarks of the Biden administration and Democrats.”

Time running short

Several Senate Republicans acknowledged that even if there was an agreement, there is not enough time to pass the emergency supplemental request in the House, despite the push from Democrats to approve critical aid to Ukraine.

The White House warned Wednesday that funding could run out within a month if Ukraine does not get aid.

The slow negotiations follow Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to Capitol Hill Tuesday in an attempt to convince members of Congress, particularly Republicans, to approve about $50 billion in additional aid to his country amid a nearly two-year war with Russia.

But Republicans said national security demands major shifts in immigration policy at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Wyoming’s Sen. John Barrasso, the No. 3 Republican, said that Senate Republicans are “going to stand firm unless serious changes are made” on immigration policies at the Southern border.

The Biden administration in October asked Congress to approve more than $105 billion in emergency aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and U.S. border security.

Senate Democrats released a $110.5 billion spending package last week that would have provided funding for all four of those areas. But Republicans blocked the bill from moving forward, insisting the legislation include changes to immigration policy.

In the emergency supplemental, Senate Democrats included $1.42 billion for staff hires for immigration judges, such as clerks, attorneys and interpreters; $5.31 billion for U.S. Customs and Border Protection to expand border security, such as fentanyl detection; and $2.35 billion for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for operational costs, fentanyl detection and enforcement.

“I’m doing my job,” President Joe Biden wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Republicans on the Hill should do theirs.”

Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma said the Senate has to be “realistic” on whether a deal can be made, and he criticized the White House for not getting involved with negotiations sooner.

GOP Sen. Steve Daines of Montana said that it was “way too late” for the president to take part in talks.

“He’s just very, very late to the party,” Daines said of Biden.

The Biden administration became involved in negotiations over the weekend, and U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas met Tuesday with a group of bipartisan senators tasked with striking a deal — Sens. Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, Lankford and Kyrsten Sinema, independent of Arizona.

White House to meet with dozens of Democratic state legislators on gun violence prevention

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 13 Dec 2023 14:40:54 +0000

(Aristide Economopoulos for New Jersey Monitor).

WASHINGTON — The White House announced its Office of Gun Violence Prevention will meet Wednesday with nearly 100 Democratic state legislators in an effort to reduce gun violence and offer federal support.

As part of the meeting, known as the Safer States Initiative, the Biden administration will aim to provide states with more tools and federal support to protect their communities, such as investing in evidence-informed solutions to prevent and respond to gun violence and strengthening gun background checks.

Stefanie Feldman, who leads the Office of Gun Violence Prevention, said on a call with reporters Tuesday that the initiative will strengthen federal and state partnerships to combat gun violence.

“One thing we hear all the time is they want to do more to reduce gun violence,” Feldman said of state lawmakers.

The initiatives come as the United States continues to suffer from an epidemic of mass shootings. Firearm-related injuries are now the leading cause of death for children and adolescents in the United States, according to the New England Journal of Medicine.

There have been several high-profile mass shootings this year, including a school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee where three children and three teachers were killed and another in Lewiston, Maine where 18 people were killed and another 13 were injured.

This year, nearly 41,000 people have died due to gun violence and there have been 636 mass shootings, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive. Last year, there were 647 mass shootings and in 2021 there were 690 mass shootings.

State legislators from Maine will also attend the meeting, Feldman said.

Only Democratic state legislators were invited, a White House spokesperson said.

Additionally, the Department of Justice is releasing two pieces of model gun safety legislation — storing firearms safely and reporting stolen or lost firearms. A senior Justice Department official said the legislation on reporting missing or stolen firearms is modeled on state laws in Hawaii, Virginia and Maryland.

Office created in gun safety law

The Office of Gun Violence Prevention was established in September as part of the gun safety bipartisan legislation Congress passed last year.

Feldman said Wednesday’s announcement outlines actions that states could take, such as establishing a state Office of Gun Violence Prevention, investing in evidence-based solutions to prevent gun violence, such as community violence interventions, and strengthening support for victims and survivors of gun violence.

The other actions include promoting responsible firearm ownership, such as the safe storage of firearms and reporting of lost and stolen firearms.

“We know that safe storage saves lives,” Feldman said. “The majority of K-12 shooters are obtaining firearms from the home or the home of a friend.”

Other actions that states could take, Feldman said, included strengthening background checks, as well as holding the gun industry accountable by banning assault weapons and high capacity magazines.

Feldman said the White House will not only address mass shootings but “daily acts of gun violence,” such as domestic violence and suicide by gun violence.

According to the White House, legislators invited come from states including: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

Zelenskyy pitches Congress on Ukraine military aid, but it’s tied to stalled border talks

Ariana Figueroa — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 19:29:50 +0000

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, center, walks with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, left, and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer as he arrives at the U.S. Capitol to meet with congressional leadership on Dec. 12, 2023 in Washington, D.C. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy struggled Tuesday to convince members of Congress to approve billions in additional aid to his country at a crucial moment in the nearly two-year war with Russia.

But the outlook was grim as lawmakers remained deadlocked on another piece of a supplemental spending bill under debate in the Senate that would send funds to Ukraine — major changes in immigration policy at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Zelenskyy huddled behind closed doors in the morning with senators before meeting with House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican. He was scheduled to travel to the White House in the afternoon, where he will meet privately with President Joe Biden before the two hold a joint press conference.

Zelenskyy urged lawmakers to approve additional funding for the U.S. Defense and State departments to send military assistance to his country, which in turn will allow Ukrainian fighters to keep Russian President Vladimir Putin from moving closer to NATO countries allied in Europe and North America.

But Zelenskyy cannot broker a bipartisan agreement on U.S. border policy, the issue that is really holding up aid to Ukraine as well as Israel and Taiwan. Those talks continued Tuesday, though there isn’t enough time to approve any agreement that might be reached before Congress leaves Thursday for a three-week winter break.

Senate leaders speak out

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said after the meeting that he planned to work as long as it takes to get an agreement on U.S. border policy to advance funding for Ukraine.

“Our Ukrainian friends’ cause is just, and if the West continues to stand with them, they can win,” McConnell said.

Referring to Zelenskyy as “inspirational and determined,” McConnell said Ukraine’s military has “defied the world’s expectations” by holding off Russia’s military as well as Putin’s “aggressive, imperialist aspirations.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said following the meeting that he would like Congress to stay in town past Thursday.

“Last night, I got on the phone with Speaker Johnson and urged him to keep the House in session, to give a supplemental a chance to come together,” Schumer said.

“If Republicans are serious about getting something done on the border then why are so many of them in such a hurry to leave for the winter break?” Schumer added. “Has the border simply been an excuse to kill funding for Ukraine?”

Without additional military and humanitarian aid, Schumer said, Russia’s chances of defeating the Ukrainian military would increase, a scenario that would represent “a historic and colossal tragedy.”

“If Russia is victorious, future generations will remember this as a moment of shame for the West, for the United States and for those in the Senate who sought to block it,” Schumer said. “This is a moment when a friend in need called on our help. We must rise to the occasion.”

Johnson said in a statement after his meeting with Zelenskyy that he is supportive of Ukraine’s fight against Russia, but that “our first condition on any national security supplemental spending package is about our own national security first.”

“(W)e needed a transformative change at the border,” Johnson said. “(T)hese are our conditions because these are the conditions of the American people, and we are resolute on that.”

White House request

The Biden administration in October asked Congress to approve more than $105 billion in emergency aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and the U.S. border.

Those talks have been stuck for weeks as a bipartisan group of senators attempted to broker an agreement.

The group — headed by Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy and Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford — have so far been unable to settle on a deal that appeals to both conservatives and progressives.

Murphy said Tuesday that negotiations on border security “continue to make progress.”

“We’ve made some proposals that, you know, put us outside of our Democratic comfort zone,” Murphy said. “We need Republicans to stretch, and if they do, we can get there.”

He added that the White House got involved in negotiations over the weekend.

“As we get closer to an agreement, they have to be at the table,” Murphy said of the Biden administration.

Graham calls Murphy ‘very unhelpful’

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said he felt Zelenskyy was being used by Democrats in negotiations about border security and that he disagrees that “Ukraine’s losing the war.”

“Senator Murphy has been very unhelpful,” Graham said, referring to earlier comments in which Murphy and Democrats accused Republicans of holding aid to Ukraine hostage if there are no policy changes to the Southern border. “His attitude about what’s going on is off base — we’re not holding the border hostage.”

Graham added he’s not confident that an agreement on border security can be reached by Murphy.

“I have no confidence he’s ever going to get a deal we can live with because he’s worried about selling it to the left,” Graham said.

A major sticking point for Democrats is the push from Republicans to make changes to the asylum system that Democrats argue would set a higher bar for asylum seekers for initial “credible fear of persecution” screenings.

Graham said he is willing to work with Johnson on getting any deal through the GOP-led House.

“(Johnson) will stand up to the anti-Ukraine votes if you give him something to work with,” Graham said. “I will help him do that.”

Graham said he told Zelenskyy that Ukraine funding is in peril because of the Biden administration’s border policies. He added that Zelenskyy has “done everything anybody could ask of you,” and that the snag in border security negotiations is not

Ukraine’s problem.

“You didn’t make this problem,” Graham said of Zelenskyy. “It will affect you, in fact, the whole world. But (the Biden administration’s) policy choices matter.”

Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the No. 3 Republican, said that any aid to Ukraine is “not going to happen” unless the Southern border is addressed in the supplemental.

“There will be no national security bill … it has to be addressed,” Barrasso said of the border security policies.

Biden meets with leaders of tribal nations, signs order easing access to federal funds

Ariana Figueroa — Thu, 07 Dec 2023 12:00:14 +0000

President Joe Biden signs an executive order at the 2023 White House Tribal Nations Summit at the U.S. Department of Interior on Dec. 6, 2023 in Washington, D.C. President (Drew Angerer/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden signed an executive order Wednesday that would make it easier for tribal nations to access and invest federal funding on their own terms.

“It’s hard work to heal the wrongs of the past and change the course and move forward,” Biden said. “But the actions we are taking today are key steps into that new era of tribal sovereignty and self-determination.”

Leaders from tribal nations gathered at the Interior Department for the 2023 White House Tribal Summit, where the Biden administration unveiled dozens of new actions from the federal government affecting Native Americans.

They included land stewardship partnerships, cleanup of historical sites and finalization of regulations for the return of human remains and sacred items taken without consent and kept in museums and across federal agencies.

Biden said that “new era” will be “grounded in dignity and respect that recognizes your fundamental rights to govern and grow on your own terms.”

Pipeline for federal funds

The executive order also creates a “one-stop-shop” for federal funding to be available to tribes and Native American businesses through a database called the Tribal Access to Capital Clearinghouse, which was launched at the Tribal Summit, the White House said.

The order also directs the federal government to address any shortfalls of existing federal funding for tribes.

“As a result of this executive order, Tribes will spend less of their resources cutting through bureaucratic red-tape to apply or comply with federal administrative requirements and use federal dollars more effectively,” the White House said in a fact sheet about the executive order.

“No longer will Tribes be faced with seemingly unnecessary and arbitrary limitations when they are accessing critical funding for public safety, infrastructure, education, energy, and much more.”

Biden also said he is backing an effort by the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, which is made up of six Nations — the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas, and Tuscarora Nation — to compete under its own flag in the 2028 Olympics in lacrosse.

The Haudenosaunee Confederacy invented the sport more than 2,000 years ago.

“Their ancestors invented the game,” Biden said. “Their circumstances are unique, and they should be granted an exception to field their own team at the Olympics.”

The White House also announced more than 190 new co-stewardships with tribal nations to manage federal lands, waters and resources important to those tribes.

There is a co-stewardship agreement with the Department of Commerce, more than 70 co-stewardship agreements with Interior and more than 120 co-stewardship agreements with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The Biden administration announced early steps into a co-stewardship cleanup of a sacred site from nuclear waste. The tribal partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy will manage cleanup at Rattlesnake Mountain, or “Laliik,” in Washington state.

Meat processing grants

The summit also released a progress report that details various actions the Biden administration has taken to strengthen relationships with tribes and the federal government.

At the summit, USDA also announced a partnership to help restore and expand tribal bison. The agency is also announcing its first Indigenous Animals Meat Processing Grant for processing animals such as bison.

The White House also announced a final rule for the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which will begin the process of returning Indigenous human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony to tribal nations and Native Hawaiian Organizations.

“The regulatory changes streamline the requirements for museums and federal agencies to inventory and identify human remains and cultural items in their collections,” the White House said in a fact sheet.

U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American Cabinet secretary, a former member of Congress from New Mexico and a member of the Pueblo of Laguna, said in a statement that the final rule is important in giving Indigenous communities authority in the repatriation process.

“The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act is an essential tool for the safe return of sacred objects to the communities from which they were stolen,” she said. “Finalizing these changes is an important part of laying the groundwork for the healing of our people.”

Senate hearing on fentanyl crisis

Additionally, the U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee held a Wednesday hearing about the fentanyl opioid crisis in Indigenous communities, where federal officials detailed how they were working with tribes to address the crisis.

“Native people have the highest overdose death rates from synthetic opioids when you compare them to other racial and ethic groups in Alaska alone,” the top Republican on the committee, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, said.

In early November, tribal leaders from the Lummi Nation in Washington state and the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Reservation in Montana detailed to senators on the same committee about how the fentanyl crisis was impacting Indigenous communities.

Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma said he has seen the fentanyl crisis play out in Indian Country, where he and his family live. Mullin is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation.

“It’s very personal to me,” he said.

Mullin, along with Montana Republican Sen. Steve Daines, also criticized the Biden administration for its policies at the Southern border, arguing that fentanyl is coming into the U.S. from Mexico.

Daines asked one of the witnesses, Adam Cohen, the deputy director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, if the Biden administration was doing enough at the Southern border.

“The fact that overdose rates are as high as they are in Indigenous communities is difficult,” Cohen said. “We are seizing record amounts of narcotics as it is coming across the border.”

Daines pressed him and asked if Border Patrol agents having to process claims of asylum took away from seizing illegal drugs at the border.

“I’m hesitant to conflate border security, immigration policy and narcotics trafficking,” Cohen said. “The fact that we are seizing as much as we are seizing is saving American lives, and that’s the metric.”

Daines said he thinks that is the “wrong metric to look at,” because of the high number of encounters with unauthorized people at the border.

Cohen said it was important for the Senate to pass the supplemental funding request to help tribal communities address the impacts of overdoses and the opioid epidemic. In that request, $250 million would go toward the Indian Health Service for prevention, treatment and recovery for addiction to opioids, Cohen said.

The $111 billion supplemental legislation, which is mainly global security for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, is currently at an impasse due to immigration changes that Republicans want.

Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada said that of the 28 tribal communities in her state, not all have law enforcement.

“There’s not enough of them,” she said of law enforcement on tribal lands.

One of the witnesses, Glen Melville, the deputy director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, said that the agency has had difficulty with recruiting.

Border talks stuck as Senate nears vote on package for Israel, Ukraine aid

Ariana Figueroa — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 15:23:26 +0000

U.S. Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., speaks to members of the press at the U.S. Capitol on Dec. 4, 2023 in Washington, D.C. Lankford is the lead Republican negotiator in border talks (Alex Wong/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — The success of the U.S. Senate in passing a $106 billion global security supplemental aid package hinges on a bipartisan agreement about U.S. border security, but any deal was at an impasse Tuesday.

“There will not be a national security bill unless and until there is serious and significant changes in security at our Southern border,” said the No. 3 Republican, Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming.

To address mounting global crises, the White House requested an emergency supplemental package that includes $61.4 billion to Ukraine, $14.3 billion to Israel — including $9.15 billion in humanitarian aid to those areas — and $7 billion for Taiwan and another $13.6 billion for border security.

A procedural vote on that package, which lacks any bipartisan deal on border security, is expected Wednesday, and 60 senators would be needed for the legislation to advance.

“The bill already has very strong provisions on dealing with some of the problems that the border (has), particularly, really augmenting what we do at ports of entry to prevent the flow of fentanyl from Mexico into the United States,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said of the border security provisions in the supplemental legislation.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray of Washington released the border security bill text late Tuesday. It mirrors the White House’s request for funding.

That includes:

$1.42 billion for staff hires for immigration judges, such as clerks, attorneys and interpreters.
$5.31 billion for U.S. Customs and Border Protection to expand border security, such as fentanyl detection.
$755 million for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to address asylum claim backlogs and work authorizations.

“We face a host of pressing national security challenges that demand continued American leadership—and immediate action from Congress,” Murray said in a statement. “It’s past time for Senators to stop tying partisan and extreme immigration proposals to a broadly bipartisan supplemental.”

Republicans tout their approach

Not only are negotiations fraught in the Senate, but there’s a snag in the House, where Republicans have signaled they won’t budge on border security polices.

In a Tuesday letter to the White House, Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana said that he would not support aid to Ukraine unless the Biden administration agrees to tighten border security in line with legislation already passed in the House without any Democratic support.

“[S]upplemental Ukraine funding is dependent upon enactment of transformative change to our nation’s border security laws,” he said. “We stand ready and willing to work with the Administration on a robust border security package that protects the interests of the American people. It is well past time for the Administration to meaningfully engage with us.”

Johnson did not detail which policies he wanted, but referred to a piece of legislation that House Republicans passed in May, H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act, that mirrors hard-right immigration policies of the Trump administration.

Senator Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, said Democrats in the Senate won’t support H.R. 2.

“I’ve seen some radical ideas coming out of H.R. 2,” Durbin said. “I certainly think they go too far.”

Schumer, a New York Democrat, has also called H.R. 2 a “nonstarter” in the Senate.

Seeking agreement

A bipartisan group of six senators is trying to work out an agreement on border security proposals. Those six senators include Democrats Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Michael Bennet of Colorado, independent Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Republicans Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and James Lankford of Oklahoma.

Murphy, a key negotiator for a deal on border security, said that “the things that Republicans are putting on the table, don’t have any Democratic votes.”

“I still don’t sense any seriousness from Republicans to cut a deal,” Murphy said.

Murphy also questioned whether some Republicans were pushing for those border change policies as a way to sabotage the chances of passing aid to Ukraine.

“A cynic would say the goal here is to take down Ukraine funding,” he said. “Every single day that goes by without any reasonable offer from Republicans is a day that Vladimir Putin gets closer to marching through Ukraine into Europe.”

Lankford, the lead GOP negotiator on border security talks, said that senators have focused on the increase of migrants at the border who are claiming asylum.

“We’re working through the details as we get through a section that we can find agreement on,” he said, adding that he’s still optimistic that a deal can be reached by the end of the year.

White House warning on Ukraine

On border security talks in the Senate, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Monday said the Biden administration would “let them have those conversations,” and would stand by as negotiations play out.

The White House on Monday also sent out a letter warning Congress that without more funding for Ukraine, the United States will no longer be able to provide that country with military assistance, weakening Ukraine’s ability to fight off Russia.

On the Senate floor, Schumer accused Republicans of holding funding for Ukraine “hostage.” He blamed Republicans of putting forth “radical immigration polices that come from Donald Trump.”

“If Republicans are unable to produce a broadly bipartisan immigration proposal, they should not block aid to Ukraine in response,” he said. “They should not be resorting to hostage taking.”

On the Senate floor, McConnell said that the supplemental needs to address U.S. border security. He pushed back against accusations that Republicans weren’t serious about border negotiations.

“Anyone who suggests that Senate Republicans are injecting the issue of border security into this discussion at the last minute,” McConnell said, “either isn’t serious or hasn’t been paying attention.”

Congress is haggling over border security: Where does it stand?

Ariana Figueroa — Mon, 04 Dec 2023 15:00:02 +0000

A Texas National Guardsman observes as Border Patrol agents pat down migrants who have surrendered themselves for processing at Gate 42, some after waiting near the border wall for days, May 10, 2023. Congress is currently debating a new border security package (Corrie Boudreaux for Source NM).

WASHINGTON — As Congress negotiates the White House’s $106 billion supplemental aid request for Israel, Ukraine and U.S. border security, fights over immigration policy have tied up the request.

The White House sent its proposal that includes nearly $14 billion in supplemental border security funding to Congress in late October, but it will likely look different after going through the House and Senate.

Congress only has a couple of weeks until recess to pass the supplemental measure. A small bipartisan group of six senators in the Senate is trying to put together a border security package.

Those six senators include Democrats Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Michael Bennet of Colorado, independent Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Republicans Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and James Lankford of Oklahoma.

However, Democrats object to some of those Republicans’ attempts to change asylum requirements and place more limits on humanitarian parole, as well as include a hard-line immigration bill passed in the House and advocated by Republicans.

Here’s a look at what’s in the White House request and where negotiations stand:

What’s in the White House’s proposal?

On Oct. 20, President Joe Biden released a request for added funding to focus on border enforcement, deterrence and diplomacy.

The plan would beef up hiring. It includes 1,000 additional U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers and resources for U.S. Homeland Security investigations; an additional 1,300 Border Patrol agents; 300 Border Patrol processing coordinators; an additional 1,600 asylum officers and support staff; 30 new U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officers to process work authorization documents; and 1,470 additional attorneys and support staff to match the 375 new immigration judge teams to help reduce the more than 2.5- million-case backlog in immigration courts.

The request also asks for additional funding for removal flights, additional beds at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, and $1.4 billion in Shelter and Services Program grants to local governments and non-profits for temporary food, shelter, and other services for recently arrived migrants.

This would aid border towns, as well as several cities that have taken in a majority of migrants, such as Chicago, New York City and Washington, D.C., among others.

It would also give Southwest Border ports of entry the technology to enhance inspection capabilities, such as fentanyl detection.

Is a pathway for Dreamers part of this request?

No. A pathway to citizenship for the 800,000 people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, who were brought into the country without authorization when they were children, is not part of these border security talks.

What’s the House position?

House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana wants to include provisions of H.R. 2 in the supplemental aid package, an immigration bill that House Republicans passed in May.

H.R. 2 is a symbolic border security package that mirrors Trump-era immigration policies. It would resume the hundreds of miles of construction of a border wall, strip funding from nonprofits that aid migrants, beef up staffing of Border Patrol agents and restrict the use of humanitarian parole programs that the Biden administration has used to allow nationals from Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Ukraine and Venezuela to work temporarily in the U.S.

It’s a nonstarter for Democrats in the Senate.

What are the disagreements in the Senate?

Senate Democrats don’t agree with including H.R. 2 in the supplemental package, and Senate Democrats also oppose changes that Republicans want to make to the asylum and humanitarian parole system. The Biden administration has relied heavily on the parole system.

The Biden administration already earlier this year placed new restrictions on asylum that resulted in criticism from Democrats and lawsuits from immigration advocacy groups.

Nearly a dozen Senate Democrats have already said they are concerned about the permanent changes that Senate Republicans now want to the asylum and parole system.

Similarly, a group of nearly 200 immigration rights organizations sent a letter to Congress, urging lawmakers to not make changes to asylum requirements or humanitarian parole and instead use funds “to improve asylum processing; reduce backlogs and work permit waiting times; resource states, localities and community shelter and support services; and fund legal counsel.”

What are changes to the parole system that Senate Republicans want?

Republicans want a limit on Biden’s authority to create humanitarian programs by prohibiting the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from using broad criteria to grant humanitarian parole, according to a one-page summary by GOP Sens. Lankford, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Graham.

The GOP proposal would narrow the scope of the parole statue so that parole is only used in rare circumstances. It would also limit the time parole is granted to one year instead of two years.

What are the changes to asylum that Senate Republicans want?

Senate Republicans want to raise the bar for initial credible fear of persecution screenings that migrants present to asylum officers who decide whether a person can reside in the U.S. while their case is being presented before an immigration judge.

Now, to claim asylum under the fear of persecution, migrants must show there is a “significant possibility” they will face persecution. Republicans want to change that language and require asylum seekers to demonstrate that “more likely than not” they would face persecution if they remain in their home country.

Republicans have argued this would “weed out” meritless claims for asylum, but Democrats have contended it would deny lifesaving protection for vulnerable people.

Where are talks now?

There is no agreement in the Senate or House and negotiations continue.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York has made it clear to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Johnson that any border security agreement has to be bipartisan. Schumer has raised concerns about Johnson wanting to include H.R. 2 provisions in the Senate’s supplemental border security package.

“Democrats are willing to work with Republicans on commonsense, realistic border security, but we can’t have the hard right essentially say it’s H.R. 2 or nothing,” Schumer said in a floor speech. “If Speaker Johnson, or for that matter the negotiators, feel they have to listen to what Speaker Johnson can pass just amongst his caucus, we’ll never get anything done.”

Schumer said he plans to hold a vote on the supplemental package as soon as the week of Dec. 4.

U.S. House votes to bar use of public lands for housing migrants

Ariana Figueroa — Fri, 01 Dec 2023 13:39:28 +0000

The U.S. Capitol Building on June 01, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House Thursday passed a bill to bar the use of public lands for temporary housing for migrants applying for asylum.

The bill, H.R. 5283, passed with a majority of Republicans in support, 224-203.

Six Democrats voted with Republicans: Reps. Henry Cuellar of Texas, Don Davis of North Carolina, Jared Golden of Maine, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, Mary Peltola of Alaska and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington.

It’s dead on arrival in the U.S. Senate, where Democrats hold a slim majority, and many Democrats criticized the bill as a messaging tactic for the 2024 elections, where hard-line immigration policies are the cornerstone of the GOP platform.

The Senate is currently negotiating a $14 billion request from the White House for U.S. border security.

“The mission of the National Park Service is to conserve the natural and cultural resources for the enjoyment of future generations, not bail out the failed border policies of the Biden administration,” the chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources, Bruce Westerman of Arkansas, said during debate Wednesday.

The push for the bill comes after the Biden administration granted New York City officials’ request to build temporary housing and facilities for migrant families at Floyd Bennett Field in Southeastern Brooklyn.

The bill prohibits this type of action from land under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, or the Forest Service.

It also revokes a 2023 lease between the National Park Service and New York City to use portions of the Gateway National Recreation Area to provide housing for migrants.

The bill’s sponsor, Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York, said that New York City’s decision to house migrant families on public land is “encouraging people to take that treacherous journey instead of applying (for asylum) from the next safe country.”

Migrants in NYC

This is not the first time House Republicans have passed legislation in response to New York City’s handling of migrants in its city.

In July, House Republicans passed a bill to bar the use of public K-12 school facilities to provide shelter for migrants seeking asylum. That bill, which will also go nowhere in the Senate, was in response to a May decision by New York City officials to convert several current and former school gyms to temporarily house about 300 migrants.

The top Democrat on the House Committee on Natural Resources, Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, said the bill voted on Thursday to bar the use of public lands to temporarily house migrants was a “political stunt that will invite even more hateful anti-immigration rhetoric from the extreme MAGA wing of the Republican Party.”

During the House Rules Committee meeting on the public lands bill Tuesday, Republicans argued that the area used to house migrants at Floyd Bennett Field posed a danger to Americans who live nearby because there are single adult men in the temporary structures. However, a majority of migrants staying at Floyd Bennett Field are families.

About 500 people are currently living at Floyd Bennett Field for up to 60 days, but it can house up to 2,000 people, according to the lease agreement. As temperatures drop in New York City, there’s concern that the plastic tents will not be warm enough for those families, THE CITY reported.

Minnesota Republican Rep. Pete Stauber said the bill is needed because “Republicans are taking action to address our Southern border crisis, because the Biden administration has failed to do so.”

Democratic Rep. Chellie Pingree of Maine, said the bill does not help cities dealing with newly arrived migrants. She said a big issue is that because of the current asylum law, migrants have to wait six months before they are authorized to work.

Pingree advocated for her legislation, which would cut that waiting period to 30 days so that migrants aren’t spending six months relying “on social safety nets to survive.”

The Biden administration recently redesignated the Temporary Protected Status for nearly half a million Venezuelan nationals, which allows them to work in the U.S. The September decision came after multiple requests from cities that have struggled to house asylum seekers and calls from Democratic lawmakers to redesignate TPS for those Venezuelan nationals.

New Jersey Democratic Rep. Bob Menendez said that Republicans were vilifying families seeking refuge.

“This bill has no purpose other than to score cheap political points for House Republicans,” he said.

Republican Rep. Juan Ciscomani of Arizona, who came to the U.S. as an immigrant when he was a child and later became a naturalized citizen, argued that New York City’s decision would encourage migrants to make the long and dangerous journey to the U.S.

“This is no way to treat immigrants seeking asylum,” Ciscomani said.

National parks and citizens

House Republicans argued that national parks should be solely for the use of American citizens.

“Americans shouldn’t be denied access to national parks and lands paid for by their tax dollars because of this administration’s destructive immigration policies,” Rep. Jen Kiggans, Republican of Virginia, said.

However, national parks are not limited to use for only American citizens, as there is no citizenship requirement to enter a park and millions of international visitors attend national parks each year.

Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin said that he was concerned about the damage that can be done to a national park by using it to temporarily house people.

He said he wants the bill passed to ensure that “the public lands we all cherish are not transformed into squatting grounds.”

Amendments considered

Lawmakers voted on two amendments to the bill, one from Tennessee Republican Rep. Andy Ogles and another from New York Democratic Rep. Nydia Velázquez.

The amendment from Ogles would require the U.S. Department of Interior and U.S. Department of Agriculture to submit a report to Congress on the number of immigrants who were housed on federal lands.

“This amendment requires accountability,” Ogles said.

Grijalva said the amendment was unnecessary because the bill, if passed into law, would ban migrants from being temporarily housed on federal lands.

“It’s a permanent requirement for reporting on nothing, paid for by the taxpayer,” he said.

The amendment passed by a voice vote.

The other amendment, by Velázquez, would allow the U.S. Secretary of the Interior to provide housing for migrants under certain criteria.

They would include when the original state those migrants came to has transferred them to another state; the original state has funded that transportation; the original state has not given 48 hours of notice to the governor of the destination state; and if the original state failed to give those migrants accurate information on the conditions of the state they are being transferred to.

That amendment is in response to Republican governors, especially Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who have sent buses of migrants to cities such as New York, often without warning local officials.

Abbott has also sent buses to Washington, D.C., dropping off migrants, in the cold and without proper clothing, outside the residence of Vice President Kamala Harris, who has been tasked by Biden to address the root causes of migration along the Southern border.

The Velázquez amendment failed, 206 to 223.