Tag Archives: Immigration

6/19 News Roundup – Bernie Sanders rallies w/ Ben Jealous; New Video Captures ‘Horrifying’ Reality of Children Taken From Parents & More

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Bernie Sanders joins candidate Ben Jealous to help fire up Maryland voters

Sen. Bernie Sanders may not be endorsing his own son’s congressional bid, but he rallied on a hot Monday night in Maryland to fire up voters for Ben Jealous’ campaign for governor.

The senator, known for his reluctance to endorse politicians, joined the former NAACP president outside an early voting center in Silver Spring, Maryland.

“I am proud to be here because Ben is one of those leaders who is not going to be nibbling around the edges, but understands we have got to transform the economic and political life of this country,” Sanders said in a plaza outside the voting center as a crowd of supporters cheered. Jealous stood by his side.

Jealous has been tied in recent polls with Prince George’s County Executive Rushern Baker in Maryland’s Democratic primary to challenge popular Republican Gov. Larry Hogan in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-1.

Jealous and Sanders share support for tuition-free college and expanding Medicare to all. Sanders also praised Jealous for supporting a $15 minimum wage and equal pay for equal work.

Sanders also said he wanted to see Jealous become governor to be a loud voice against President Donald Trump in nearby Washington, D.C.

“And when the president of the United States continues to do outrageous things, like separating children from their parents, I want Mr. Trump to hear Ben Jealous’ loud voice,” Sanders said as supporters, many of them young adults, cheered.

2/15 News Roundup – Warren To Highlight Stories & Struggles Of Native Americans, Sanders Demands DACA Action + More

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Taking on Trump’s Racist ‘Pocahontas’ Slur, Warren Vows to ‘Lift Up’ Stories, Struggles of Native Americans

With a speech delivered at the National Congress of American Indians on Wednesday morning, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told the gathering of Native Americans that she will not allow President Donald Trump’s racist attack on her heritage to be a smear against her, but will instead do her best to use such attacks to uplift the proud traditions—as well as the historic struggles—of North America’s indigenous tribes and communities.

Addressing directly how the president referred to her as ‘Pocahontas’ during a White House ceremony last year, Warren said that she is proud of her Native American roots.

“I’ve noticed that every time my name comes up, President Trump likes to talk about Pocahontas,” she said. “So I figured, let’s talk about Pocahontas. Not Pocahontas, the fictional character most Americans know from the movies, but Pocahontas, the Native woman who really lived, and whose real story has been passed down to so many of you through the generations.”

The mythology around Pocahontas, said Warren, is one that “has been taken away by powerful people who twisted it to serve their own purposes. The fable is used to bleach away the stain of genocide. As you know, Pocahontas’s real journey was far more remarkable — and far darker — than the myth admits.”

Why denouncing the president’s clear intent to use the name as a racist slur and a smear against her and Native Americans more broadly—with many in the right-wing media echo chamber happy to play along—Warren said she does not intend to submit to those designs.

“I’m here today to make a promise,” Warren told the audience, according to a transcript first published in the Boston Globe on Wednesday. “Every time someone brings up my family’s story, I’m going to use it to lift up the story of your families and your communities.”

Yes. Let’s Talk About Pocahontas. – The following are the prepared remarks of Sen. Elizabeth Warren

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2/9 News Roundup – Sanders Votes No On Budget ‘Deal’, Despair Driving US Life Expectancy Down & More

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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement Thursday on the budget agreement:

“As the ranking member of the Budget Committee, I am proud of the initiatives that I fought for in this agreement that increase funding for child care, the Social Security Administration, Veterans Administration, community health centers, student debt relief, our crumbling infrastructure, the opioid epidemic and disaster recovery efforts.

“Unfortunately, there are two fundamental failings in this deal that will prevent me from voting for it. First, this bill does not address the great moral issue of our time – the fact that in three weeks 800,000 young Dreamers will lose their legal status and be subject to deportation. Second, the $165 billion increase in defense spending is much too large. I believe in a strong military, but at a time when the U.S. spends more on defense than the next 12 countries combined, the last thing we should do is massively increase the Pentagon’s budget.”

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2/8 News Roundup – Pelosi’s 8 Hour ‘Magic Minute’ DACA Speech, Sanders Weighs In On Senate Budget Deal & More

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Nancy Pelosi’s filibuster-style speech tops eight hours in bid to force immigration votes

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi commandeered the House floor Wednesday for a day-into-night marathon plea to Republicans for action on immigration, casting the fate of young undocumented immigrants in moral terms.

The 77-year-old Pelosi stood for more than eight hours, reading multiple personal stories from “dreamers” and citing Bible passages. Her speech ranked as the longest given by a member of the House of Representatives in at least a century, possibly ever, focusing on an issue that has vexed Democrats for months.

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Taking advantage of a rule that allows only top party leaders the special right to speak as long as they want, Pelosi had called aides at 7:45 a.m. on her drive to work Wednesday and instructed them to send out an all-member request for stories from dreamers and select Bible verses. By the afternoon, Democrats had submitted hundreds of stories that staffers printed out and rushed to the floor.

Pelosi stood from the podium in four-inch heels and spoke and spoke and spoke.

Pelosi used the speech to say she would lead opposition to a broad two-year budget agreement, negotiated with Republicans by her and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), that includes several Democratic priorities but does not address the legal status of people protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which is set to expire next month. The fate of people protected by the program has prolonged the spending debate for several months.

Shortly after 6 p.m., Pelosi finished her remarks that had been delivered entirely standing, as she was forbidden from sitting down or taking a restroom break. Her Democratic colleagues applauded.

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1/29 News Roundup – Sanders On The White House Immigration Proposal, 11 Dems Join Effort To Dismantle Wall Street Regulations & More

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Sanders says shutdown was morally “the right thing to do” for Dreamers

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, says the 3-day-long government shutdown that briefly brought Washington grinding to a halt was “the right thing to do” in order to stand up for “Dreamers.”

“I think from a moral perspective it was the right thing to do. And that is to say to these 800,000 young people, we are not going to allow them to be subjected to deportation,” Sanders told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday.

Sanders said short-term continuing resolutions like the one that ended the shutdown by funding the government at current levels through Feb. 8 are “very detrimental to the military and to many other agencies of government.”

“We are a $4 trillion government. There are areas where we should be spending more money, areas where we should be spending less money. But you cannot simply spend in every division of the government the same amount as you spent last year,” he said. “It’s a terrible, terrible and inefficient way to run a government.”

While both Republicans and Democrats have called for DACA legislation to protect Dreamers, Sanders said he still has concerns about the Trump administration’s other priorities in any immigration bill, such as cuts to legal immigration programs.

“We cannot let [Dreamers] be put in a position where they’re subjected to deportation,” he said. “So the main focus to my mind has got to be to make sure that Dreamers have legal status and a path toward citizenship.”

Full Transcript Here

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1/25 News Roundup – Sanders On Trump Floating Citizenship For Dreamers, Cuomo Signs Order to Protect Net Neutrality In New York & More

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1/23 News Roundup – Compromise Or Cave In? Democrats’ Deal To End Shutdown Sows Division, Sanders Explains His Vote & More

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Sanders Votes No on Three-Week Spending Bill

“The reason I voted against today’s continuing resolution is simple: tens of millions of lives are at stake. We must act NOW, not kick the can down the road.

“We’re talking about the fate of 800,000 Dreamers who have lived here almost all of their lives, but could soon be faced with deportation if we don’t act now. We’re talking about 27 million Americans who will find it harder and harder to get their health care through community health centers because that program has not yet been reauthorized. We ‘re talking about many thousands of people with disabilities who will die because they couldn’t get their claims processed in a timely manner by an underfunded and understaffed Social Security Administration, and veterans who will not get the care they need at the VA because that agency now has 30,000 vacancies. We’re talking about the need to provide adequate disaster relief for the people of Texas, Florida, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico – an island where hundreds of thousands are still without electricity.

“Enough is enough. We cannot continue to run a $4 trillion government on a month to month basis. We need an annual budget. The Republican Party controls the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate and the White House. They are the governing party. They have got to govern, not ignore the major crises facing this country.”

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1/22 News Roundup – Sanders “US Would Never Recover From Deporting Dreamers”, 1% Took 82% Of All New Wealth in 2017 & More

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Bernie Sanders: US would never recover from ‘stain’ of deporting ‘Dreamers’

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Sunday that the United States would never recover from the “stain” of deporting young immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children, who are often called “Dreamers.”

During a Sunday show interview, Sanders said their deportations would be “one of the ugliest stains” in American history.

“If we allow Trump to get away with what he did, and that is repeal the executive order on DACA, and if these 800,000 people, young people, are subjected to deportation, this will be one of the ugliest stains in the history of the United States,” Sanders told CNN’s “State of the Union.”

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Should the U.S. deport the immigrants, Sanders said the country will “never recover.”

“Young people who know no other country than this country, who came here at 2 or 3 years of age, to now be subjected to deportation would be a stain that this country would never recover from,” Sanders said.

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1/17 News Roundup – Progressives Push Divided Dems On DREAM Act, Edward Snowden talks to Daniel Ellsberg & More

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Democrats Divided Over Forcing a DACA-Shutdown Even After Trump’s ‘Sh*thole’ Saga

With just three days left before the federal government runs out of money, congressional Democrats are divided over whether to risk a shutdown in order to force Republicans to sign on to a bipartisan immigration deal this week.

It’s the same quandary the party faced last month and twice before that. Only now, the stakes are higher and Republicans appear to be handing them some leverage.

At issue is whether to support a measure to keep the government running absent a deal to grant legal protections for the undocumented immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children. Last month, Democrats punted on the matter. And with a March deadline looming for the formal end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program—which protected an estimated 800,000 DREAMers from deportation—they are now facing impassioned demands from their base to take advantage of one of their few remaining pressure points.

“[President Donald Trump] said to the Republican Congress, fix it. Remember that? That’s what he said. Fix it. And it is their job to fix it. So, no, I will not be voting for any [short-term extension] that does not provide legal status to the DREAMers and a path toward citizenship,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) told reporters at the Capitol.

But that sentiment is not shared universally across the party, with some lawmakers wary that Democrats would both cede the moral high ground and invite the blame.

“Historically, it’s Republicans that shut the government down and Democrats don’t want to play that,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), a progressive Democrat who is up for re-election in a state Trump won in 2016. “Every time the government shuts down or always shuts down, it’s the Tea-Party talking points and it’s threatening to shut the government down, it’s threatening to not pay our bills, threatening default—it’s what they do. Democrats absolutely don’t want to shut the government down.”

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The party’s slate of aspiring 2020 presidential candidates—notably Sens. Kamala Harris (D-CA), Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)—has encouraged their colleagues to adopt a more united front. And they’ve been joined by more progressive members of the party.

“There’s no reason we can’t get this done. There is one compromise that can get the votes, and it’s just up to [Republican leaders] whether they want to schedule it or not,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) said, referring to the bipartisan compromise brokered last week. “And the reason they don’t want to schedule it is not because it can’t get the votes, but because it can. And they would have to do a bipartisan deal, which they are still allergic to.”

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1/12 News Roundup – Sanders: “Trump’s ‘Shithole’ Comment Appalling”, Bernie To Host Medicare-For-All Town Hall & More

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Trump’s ‘shithole’ comment is his new rock bottom

On Thursday, in a meeting with a senators and House members on immigration, the President of the United States, asked this: “Why do we want all these people from ‘shithole countries’ coming here?”

Yes, he said “shithole countries” — apparently in reference to the fact that immigrants from places like El Salvador, Haiti and Africa were being protected in a potential bipartisan deal to preserve the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and secure funding for border security.

What’s even more appalling is that the White House didn’t even try to deny that Trump used that slur, which was first reported in The Washington Post. In fact, in a lengthy statement from White House spokesman Raj Shah, the administration seemed to even defend the sentiment. “Certain Washington politicians choose to fight for foreign countries, but President Trump will always fight for the American people,” said Shah.

But it gets even worse. Asked about the “shithole” comments, a White House official told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins this:

“The President’s ‘shithole’ remark is being received much differently inside of the White House than it is outside of it. Though this might enrage Washington, staffers predict the comment will resonate with his base, much like his attacks on NFL players who kneel during the National Anthem did not alienate it.”

Stop. Read that again. Here’s what it means: The President’s voicing of a racist remark about the sorts of people whom we are letting into the country is actually a good thing because people who like Trump will agree with him.

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1/10 News Roundup – Judge Blocks Trump Move To End Daca Program, Sanders To Join Rev. Barber For Conversation On Race & More

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Judge blocks Trump move to end Daca program for immigrants

A judge has blocked Donald Trump from ending an Obama-era program that shielded from deportation children brought to the United States illegally by their parents.

US district judge William Alsup ruled in San Francisco on Tuesday that the program must “maintain the Daca program on a nationwide basis” while litigation over Trump’s decision unfolds.

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program has allowed nearly 800,000 immigrants to work and go to school in the US without fear of deportation since it was authorised by former president Barack Obama in 2012.

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In his ruling, Alsup wrote that previous recipients of Daca protections who failed to register by the deadline must be allowed to renew their status in the program. However, he said the federal government did not have to process new applications from people who had never before received protection under the program.

Nearly 22,000 Daca recipients did not successfully apply to renew their eligibility, according to a study by the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning thinktank in Washington. The researchers estimate that on average 122 Daca recipients per day will lose their legal protections in the 181 days between 5 September 2017 and 5 March.

“In terminating Daca, the administrative record failed to address the 689,800 young people who had come to rely on Daca to live and to work in this country,” Alsup wrote.

“These individuals had submitted substantial personal identifying information to the government, paid hefty fees and planned their lives according to the dictates of Daca. The administrative record includes no consideration to the disruption a rescission would have on the lives of Daca recipients, let alone their families, employers and employees, schools and communities.”

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1/9 News Roundup – Sanders Discusses A Potential Government Shutdown, 2017 Was Costliest Year Ever In U.S. For Weather Disasters & More

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It’s on Republicans to stop a shutdown by Bernie Sanders

I do not know why President Trump and the Republican Party — which controls the White House, the Senate and the House — are so willing to shut down the government. Maybe they think it will be good for them politically. Maybe they believe the chaos created by a government shutdown would be a welcome distraction from the ongoing Russia investigation being conducted by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. Whatever the motives of the Republican leadership, one thing is clear: A government shutdown would be disastrous for the American people.

A shutdown would harm tens of millions of working-class families who would be unable to access vital services. It would disrupt the lives of hundreds of thousands of federal employees who would not receive the paychecks they expected. It would endanger members of the U.S. military who are putting their lives on the line defending our nation.

As the middle class continues to shrink, cuts to non-defense spending would cause even worse economic pain to working families, the elderly, children, the sick and the most vulnerable. Meanwhile, as Trump and the Republicans demand an unbelievable $100 billion increase in military spending over the next two years, the Defense Department has been inoculated from budget cuts over the past several years because of the Overseas Contingency Operations loophole — a special account not subject to spending caps established by Congress in 2011.

Providing parity in these budget negotiations means, among other things, fully funding — without offsets — the Children’s Health Insurance Program for 9 million kids and community health centers for 27 million Americans. It means increased funding for the Social Security Administration and the Veterans Administration so they can provide guaranteed benefits to seniors and veterans who have earned them. It means keeping our obligations to more than 1.5 million workers and retirees who are about to lose a large part of the pensions they were promised. It means addressing the crisis of student debt, expanding child care, improving our crumbling infrastructure in rural America and protecting our national parks. It means providing help in the national struggle against opioid and heroin addiction.

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The American people are increasingly disgusted with a government that protects the interests of the wealthy and the powerful, while ignoring the needs of the vulnerable. The U.S. government must do more than provide huge tax breaks to billionaires, callously deport young people, greatly expand military spending, end net neutrality, deny the reality of climate change and threaten to cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education and nutrition programs. We must pass a budget agreement that addresses the needs of Americans and not just billionaire campaign contributors.

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1/8 News Roundup – Sanders Talks Issues/Trump On ‘This Week’, Media Fails to Connect Extreme Weather to Climate Crisis & More

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Bernie Sanders: Americans ‘do not want to spend billions of dollars on a wall’

Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders took aim at President Donald Trump’s proposal to spend $18 billion over the next decade to extend a border wall with Mexico.

“The American people, in fact, do not want to spend billions of dollars on a wall which Trump told us would be paid for by the Mexican government, which, of course, is not going to be paid for by” Mexico, Sanders told ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos on This Week Sunday.

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Stephanopoulos also asked Sanders about his views of Trump’s fitness for office in light of allegations in an explosive new book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.

The senator, who ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 2016, said what bothers him most about Trump is that he promised during the campaign to fight for working people, but “he governs now as a representative of the billionaire class.”

“Tax breaks for the wealthy, cutting people off of health insurance, ignoring the needs of children, not dealing with the prescription drug crisis in the country that he said he would deal with,” Sanders said. “I worry about him being a pathological liar. Those are some of the concerns I have.”

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11/30 News Roundup – The Undocumented Story of Gisele Barreto Fetterman, Bernie’s Digital Media Roundtable & More

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The Undocumented Story of Gisele Barreto Fetterman

It’s prominent today in the national political spectrum: right-wing ideologues increasingly portray American immigrants, especially those who are undocumented, as the people responsible for U.S. society’s problems. From violence to narcotics to unemployment, immigrant communities should be held accountable for all of these things, according to contemporary conservative rhetoric.

Less often does American media spotlight the contributions of immigrants like Gisele Barreto Fetterman, who grew up in the U.S. undocumented after fleeing Brazil with her family as a child. Her life’s work, which is based on kindness and giving, stands as a challenge to the vile stereotypes spewed by right-wing commentators.

Now, there is a chance she will be able to further this challenge as the next second lady of Pennsylvania.

Gisele’s husband, John Fetterman, with whom she has three young children, announced earlier this month that he is running to become lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania in 2018. As the mayor of Braddock, an economically depleted community just east of Pittsburgh, John’s efforts to revitalize the once-thriving steel town over the past 12 years have garnered national attention.

While her husband has worked to make Braddock a safer, more prosperous place to live, Gisele has established herself as a strong community leader and respected activist in Western Pennsylvania. In 2012, she founded the Free Store, an entirely volunteer-driven organization that receives surplus and donated goods then redistributes them at no cost to neighbors in need. Since opening the first Free Store in Braddock, the concept has expanded to nine other locations in Pennsylvania.

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Like her husband, she is hoping to use her potential role as second lady to broaden her own platform, expanding the philanthropic initiatives that she has spearheaded. For Gisele, being a formerly undocumented immigrant in such a public position would also be accompanied with a certain meaning.

“It’s sending a message to every immigrant in this country that we belong here too and we’re a part of this, and we love our country just as much as anyone else does,” Gisele said during an interview with AL DÍA. “It would be amazing to be able to represent that.”

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