The
U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday, in a lawsuit brought by former
Fox News host and interim U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, has asked a
federal judge to find that three Corporation for Public Broadcasting
(CPB) board members fired by President Donald Trump via email months ago
have nonetheless continued working and "usurped their former offices"
without lawful authority.
Known as a
quo warranto action — a legal maneuver aimed at challenging a person's
right to hold a public or corporate office — the DOJ's suit aims to have
the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia declare that Diane
Kaplan, Laura G. Ross and Thomas E. Rothman should be ousted from their
Board of Directors offices at CPB, a private nonprofit corporation
created by Congress in 1967 to promote the "growth and development" of
public broadcasting across the country.
The
Senate is deliberating over whether to rescind $1.1 billion allocated
to the CPB for the next two fiscal years. The House already passed the
rescissions bill, which also includes cuts to foreign aid, but the
legislative branch now has until Friday to get the package to the
president’s desk.
In a Truth Social post last
week, Trump threatened to campaign against any Republican who opposed
him on the public media clawbacks. “It is very important that all
Republicans adhere to my Recissions Bill and, in particular, DEFUND THE
CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING (PBS and NPR), which is worse than
CNN & MSDNC put together,” he wrote. “Any Republican that votes to
allow this monstrosity to continue broadcasting will not have my support
or Endorsement. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
As bad as the attack on PBS and NPR is, it goes beyond that. Margery A. Beck (AP) reports, "Dozens
of Native American radio stations across the country vital to tribal
communities will be at risk of going off the air if Congress cuts more
than $1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, according
to industry leaders." There are 59 tribal stations in the US. Native Public Media notes, "Native
stations play a vitally important role in the communities they serve.
Native stations serve as an essential source of news, deliver critically
important health information, provide a forum for discussion and debate
around the issues that affect their communities, broadcast life-saving
information in times of emergencies, air extensive cultural content,
promote language preservation, and provide jobs as part of the local
economy." NPM president Loris Taylor writes:
Tribal
radio stations operate on tight budgets. Most cannot apply for
competitive federal energy grants while also maintaining daily broadcast
services. Asking them to pivot to climate funding, without a clear and
dedicated pathway, sets them up to fail.
We
call on Congress to reject any measure that would eliminate or reduce
CPB funding for Tribal media. Instead, we urge lawmakers to follow
Senator Rounds’ lead in recognizing the importance of Tribal stations
and take it further. Rather than replace CPB, strengthen it. Protect
this cornerstone of Tribal sovereignty, cultural preservation, civic
engagement, and emergency response.
The future of Tribal media and the communities it serves depends on it.
Francene
Blythe-Lewis, Eastern Band of Cherokee, Navajo and Sisseton Wahpeton
Oyate, is the president and chief executive officer of Vision Maker
Media. Her father, Frank Blythe, founded the nonprofit organization in
1976 with seed money from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and
wanted to bring contemporary Native storytelling to public television.
“At
the time, public leaders and programmers and station managers, they
were all wanting the iconic Indian history, Indian Wars, Indian chief
stories and biographies,” she said. “And so he really fought hard to set
a precedent of bringing the lives and experience of Native Americans in
the times that we are in to public television.”
The
impending proposal to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
would “almost virtually eliminate” Vision Maker Media and be “extremely
tragic.”
Without organizations like Vision
Maker Media, Blythe-Lewis said new generations would lose awareness of
Native people, cultures and communities.
“That
is the tragic part, because we’re very much a part of civil society.
We’re very much part of political influence. We’re very much a part of,
you know, this whole fabric of American culture and so too, because
we’re the original peoples to the land, our history is critical to
remain sort of the foundation of finding and founding of America.”
This
is very serious. But Republicans in the Senate honestly do not care.
They do n ot care about anything other than bowing and scraping before
Mr. Chump. Voters need to remember this and they need to vote out these
officials who refuse to represent them and their needs.
If the Senate stabs us in the back? Brian Stelter (CNN) paints a very ugly picture of what happens next:
Won’t the affected stations just raise more money from listeners?
Yes
and no. Bigger stations in metro areas will have an easier time making
up the deficits than smaller stations. If the Senate adopts the
rescission, some big-city public media outlets will launch fundraising
campaigns immediately.
But
smaller stations, particularly those in hard-to-reach areas, tend to be
more reliant on federal funding. In some cases, the taxpayer dollars are
directly keeping the lights on and the broadcast antennas functioning.
Without that federal support, some broadcasters in rural areas will go
dark, according to officials who spoke with CNN.
Will popular shows like “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood” disappear?
No,
but stations will generally have less money to spend on programming,
which will hurt the marketplace of noncommercial TV and radio.
“Daniel
Tiger’s Neighborhood” is one of a half dozen children‘s shows produced
by Fred Rogers Productions, the nonprofit behind “Mister Rogers’
Neighborhood.”
Fred Rogers Productions receives
millions of dollars per year in grants, including those from CPB, as
well as licensing revenue from local PBS stations that carry its
programs. If the stations have fewer dollars to spend, then producers
will eventually feel the pinch.
Acclaimed
documentary filmmaker Ken Burns recently told CBS that “I couldn’t do
any of the films I’ve done without them being on PBS.“
What about the national NPR and PBS networks?
In
the public media system, money flows out from CPB to localities, then
returns to the national entities through dues and fees from member
stations. That is how NPR funds “Morning Edition” and “All Things
Considered,” for example.
“While federal
funding makes up only 1% of NPR’s revenue, member station fees make up a
30% share,” the organization recently explained to listeners.
So the national operations are bracing for the domino effect that would ensue if funding dries up in the fall.
NPR
has made the case to listeners that “elimination of federal funding
would ultimately result in fewer programs, less journalism — especially
local journalism — and eventually the loss of public radio stations,
particularly in rural and economically distressed communities.”
So
I would contact senators if I were you -- my senators are Richard
Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, neither of whom would vote to kill public
media. And if they blow you off? It gives you all the more reason to
vote them out of office.
Wednesday, July 16, 2025. Inflation increases under Chump, the
effects of the tariffs begin to be felt, ICE agents need to hide behind
masks while ICE attorneys hide their names from the courthouse records,
Mark Cuban wants Democrats to co-sign on Chump's gestapo immigration
war, and much more.
Jeff Cox (CNBC) reports,
"Consumer prices rose in June as President Donald Trump’s tariffs began
to slowly work their way through the U.S. economy. The consumer price
index, a broad-based measure of goods and services costs, increased 0.3%
on the month, putting the 12-month inflation rate at 2.7%, the Bureau
of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday. The numbers were right in line
with the Dow Jones consensus." Shane Croucher (NEWSWEEK) adds:
But there are signs that prices are due to rise further in the coming months.
Some
companies have said they have or plan to raise prices as a result of
the tariffs, including Walmart, the world's largest retailer.
Automaker
Mitsubishi announced in June that it would be increasing prices by an
average of 2.1 percent in response to the duties, and Nike stated that
it would implement "surgical" price hikes to offset tariff costs.
But
many companies have been able to postpone or avoid price increases,
after building up their stockpiles of goods this spring to get ahead of
the duties.
Other companies may have refrained
from lifting prices while they wait to see whether the U.S. is able to
reach trade deals with other countries that lower the duties.
Inflation was addressed at the top of THE 11TH HOUR WITH STEPHANIE RUHLE last night on MSNBC.
Chump
campaigned on ending inflation on day one. As Stephanie noted, Tuesday
was day 177 of the Chump administration. No, that's not day one.
Inflation continues to increase.
Question:
Do you think he might have done a better job if he and his
administration had focused on the economy instead of trying to micro
manage college universities -- not really a presidential duty -- or a
hundred and one of his other pet causes?
If he'd
focused on the actual job, would the economy be as bad as it is?
Because it is bad and its going to get worse. Each month it already
has. Walmart, for example? Keesha e-mailed to note that the plain
label canned chick noodle soup? Great Value is the brand. It's not at
70 cents a can and, under Joe, it was 50 cents a can. Last month,
Keesha notes, she paid 70 cents an avocado and this week the price
jumped to 90 cents.
And as if inflation isn't bad
enough for the average American, Chump's 'big' 'beatiful' bill is about
to really steal from the middle class, the working class and the poor to
give huge tax breaks to te extremely wealthy.
Stephanie noted and quoted the banking institution's reaction to the inflation increase:
Bank of America: Today's report provides ample evidence that tariffs are being passed onto consumers.
Wells
Fargo: One of the top questions we get these days involves when will we
see the impact of tariffs on consumer spending and in the retail
sector. The time is now.
Ben covers the economy this morning on MEIDASTOUCH NEWS.
Ben
notes, "But the only prices that are going down? Airfare, hotel and
motel prices. These are recession indicators, folks."
Over the last month, Jorge, an Inglewood resident and a cook at a
restaurant, has scanned social media each morning to check for ICE
activity near his home or along the route to work. If federal
immigration agents are around, he stays inside, which he said means
risking the loss of a job that sustains his family of four.
“I leave home not knowing whether [ICE agents] will arrest me or not,” said Jorge, whose last name LA Public Press has
agreed to withhold to protect his identity as an undocumented person.
“I don’t go to work when I hear that [ICE is] near my home.”
Jorge,
who said he’s lived in the United States for 24 years and is married to
a U.S. citizen, said he’s missed at least eight days of work in recent
weeks due to the fear of arrest by ICE.
“I can’t miss many more days of work,” Jorge said. “Money isn’t going as far as it once did.”
Jorge’s
story reflects a broader crisis across Los Angeles County’s restaurant
industry, where some establishments have seen revenue drop by as much as
25% since immigration raids began in June, according to industry leaders, forcing owners to cut staff and reduce hours.
Since
June 6, undocumented restaurant workers like Jorge have been targeted
for arrest by federal immigration agents across Los Angeles County,
where one in three residents
is an immigrant. About 1.8 million California residents work in
restaurants and food service, making it the largest private employer in
the state, according to the National Restaurant Association. Nationwide in 2025, at least 20% of restaurant workers are immigrants.
An
ICE spokesperson didn’t respond by time of publication to a request for
comment on the impact that federal immigration operations are having on
restaurants.
Tricia La Belle, president of the Greater LA Hospitality Association and a restaurant owner for more than 30 years, told the LA Public Press that her five establishments have seen a 25% drop in revenue since ICE launched raids in June.
The loss of business has forced her to cut staff, she said.
“We’ve
cut down to the bare bones,” La Belle said about her establishments,
which include Boardner’s nightclub in Hollywood and the Bon Vivant
restaurant in Atwater Village. “You can’t provide the same quality of
service when you don’t have a bus boy, barbacks and floor maintenance
crews. You just don’t have those bells and whistles anymore.”
You wouldn’t know it from what FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, is about to do, but it has a human rights policy.
“Guided
by its human rights approach, FIFA embeds its commitment throughout the
organisation and engages in an ongoing due diligence process to
identify, address, evaluate and communicate the risks of involvement
with adverse human rights impacts. … FIFA will constructively engage
with relevant authorities and other stakeholders and make every effort
to uphold its international human rights responsibilities.”
But
here was Sunday’s final of the Club World Cup — a sort-of dry run over
the past four weeks for its 2026 World Cup in North America scheduled to
be anchored in the United States — with FIFA boss Gianni Infantino and
champion Chelsea in celebratory embrace with President Donald Trump, who
is defining his second term in the White House not by protecting human
rights but by trampling them.
Indeed, a day
before the final at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, several lawmakers
toured a hastily built detention center in the Florida Everglades for
undocumented migrants and described it in inhumane terms. Trump
officials and supporters jovially named the encampment “Alligator
Alcatraz” after the vicious reptiles that live in the surrounding swamp
and the notorious prison of last resort in the San Francisco Bay that
was shuttered because the government deemed it too expensive to keep
humane.
On Friday, a
federal judge in California ordered a stop to Trump administration raids
of everything from farms to public parks to car washes looking for
undocumented laborers. The actions erupted into violent confrontations
between National Guard troops in riot armor and protesters trying to
protect the immigrants being hunted.
Anecdotal
narratives illustrate the enforcement of Trump’s immigration policies as
xenophobic at best. People such as Kilmar Abrego García, the Salvadoran
man living in Maryland on protected status whom the Trump
administration admitted it mistakenly deported in a raft of detainees to
a dissolute El Salvador prison. He’s still in custody. People such as
University of Florida student Felipe Zapata Velásquez, a Colombian whom
Gainesville police arrested on traffic offenses and then turned over to
Trump immigration officers. He agreed to be deported rather than face
detention.
Then there are those such as Rümeysa
Öztürk, a Tufts University PhD student on a student visa from Turkey,
and Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown academic, whom Trump’s masked squads
snatched off streets into unmarked vehicles and whisked away to
who-knew-where because they were said to have voiced opposition to
Israel’s war in Gaza. Both eventually were released but not necessarily
freed.
And there is an expanding list of
countries from which Trump would like to ban citizens’ entry to the
United States. They include mostly sub-Saharan African nations to go
along with countries in Latin America, Central Asia and the Middle East.
They include countries that certainly will qualify for the World Cup.
Iran already has.
All of this is an affront to what FIFA claims it stands for. Human Rights Watch reminded FIFA of as much last month.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will now be the biggest
federal law enforcement agency, by far. Its budget will exceed that of
the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, and U.S. Marshals Service
combined. (It even has a bigger budget than the militaries of Brazil, Italy, and Israel.)
It
will require a crash hiring spree for new ICE agents, with little
training and oversight. Federal and local law enforcement officials will
be pulled off their core duties
in massive numbers to play the unfamiliar role of immigration enforcer.
All this for an agency whose agents wear masks to avoid identification
while grabbing people off the street, arresting political leaders, and
choosing to sow terror.
And for all the claims that only the “worst of the worst” will be targeted, enforcement seems increasingly to be focused more on construction workers and landscapers with no criminal history than on drug traffickers or sex offenders.
Then
there is the troublesome role for private prisons. Many of the new
facilities will be built and run by private firms. Eisen is the author
of the definitive book,Inside Private Prisons. She
reports, “In May, the CEO of private prison company
CoreCivic told investors, ‘Never in our 42-year company history have we
had so much activity and demand for our services as we are seeing right
now.’ This budget bill will solidify that vision for CoreCivic, GEO
Group, and other firms that manage and own immigrant detention centers
and transportation subsidiaries.”
The administration has rebuffed oversight by Congress. Federal law says
that members of Congress and their staffs must be permitted to
“enter[], for the purpose of conducting oversight, any facility operated
by or for the Department of Homeland Security used to detain or
otherwise house aliens.” ICE is throwing up barriers and in some cases
denying access outright.
And of course, the Brennan Center has
documented the ways this current crackdown is being pursued in violation
of the law. The misuse of the Alien Enemies Act, a discredited wartime statute the administration has used to deport migrants, is a vivid example.
Let's
stay with legal issues for a moment. ICE agents? As weve noted, if
they don't quit their jobs their future is one of two paths: Suicide or
drug addiction to self-medicate. You can't do what they're doing and
not tear apart your soul. The same is true of the the attorneys working
for ICE.
Inside a federal immigration
courtroom in New York City last month, a judge took an exceedingly
unusual step: declining to state the name of the Immigration and Customs
Enforcement attorney pressing to deport asylum seekers.
“We’re not really doing names publicly,” said Judge ShaSha Xu — after
stating her own name and those of the immigrants and their lawyers. It
was the first of two separate instances The Intercept identified in
which judges chose to withhold the identities of the attorneys
representing the Trump administration’s deportation regime.
As ICE agents across the country wear masks to raid workplaces and
detain immigrants, government attorneys need not cover their faces to
shield their identities. Legal experts who spoke to The Intercept agreed
the practice of concealing the lawyers’ identities was both novel and
concerning.
“I’ve never heard of someone in open court not being identified,”
said Elissa Steglich, a law professor and co-director of the Immigration
Clinic at the University of Texas at Austin. “Part of the court’s
ethical obligation is transparency, including clear identification of
the parties. Not identifying an attorney for the government means if
there are unethical or professional concerns regarding [the Department
of Homeland Security], the individual cannot be held accountable. And it
makes the judge appear partial to the government.”
Why
not identify themselves? Because they're rightly ashamed of
themselves. And they can hide all they want from the public -- or try
to -- but they can't escape the voice inside them that knows what
they're doing is wrong, the voice that will nag them until the day that
they die. Too late, they'll grasp that there's not enough money in the
world to justify selling your soul.
Some people really aren't qualified for politics.
Politics chases money, yes, but your ability to amass money does not
mean you grasp politics. More than anything, common sense is required
for politics and our best politicians possess common sense. Selling out
is not common sense.
I'm
not a Mark Cuban fan. That's been obvious for years. Mark always has
an idea. "Idea" may be giving him too much credit. He always has a
"notion." But his notions are not based on common sense. His notions
are based on what the other side is saying.
We'll
circle back around. Let's move over to Paul Krugman who has common
sense and a brain and uses both. From his most recent SUBSTACK:
And as G. Elliott Morris points out,
the detailed polling suggests overwhelming disapproval of Trump’s
immigration policies. Notably, voters are twice as likely to support
giving illegal immigrants a path to citizenship than they are to support
deporting them. By the way, in 2023 Congress seemed likely to enact bipartisan legislation that would have opened such a path. But Trump killed it.
What’s going on? Why were cynical, seemingly savvy takes on the politics of immigration so wrong?
Part of the answer is that there is almost always a “thermostatic backlash”
against the policies pursued by a party that has recently gained power.
Pundits who imagined that Trump’s war on immigrants would become more,
not less popular once it began were assuming that he could defy all
historical precedent.
But, like Morris, I think there’s more going on here than just the thermostat.
First,
it’s important to understand that the call for mass deportations and/or
imprisonment was based on a lie — the claim that America is facing a
huge immigrant crime wave. “They’re not a city of immigrants, they’re a
city of criminals,” declared Kristi Noem about Los Angeles last month. Last week city officials reported that LA is on track to have the fewest homicides in 60 years.
It's
true that many Americans have remained willing to believe that big
cities like LA and NYC are scary urban hellscapes, even though they’re
quite safe these days.
An aside: There was a period in the 1970s
and 1980s when New York, in particular, actually was the kind of scary
place people like Trump and Noem claim it still is. As it happens, that
sort-of hellscape period coincided with an era when New York had fewer
immigrants than at any time before or since:
In any case, however, it seems to me that the lie is beginning to
unravel as it becomes clear that ICE is having a really hard time
finding violent immigrants to arrest.
According to the Miami Herald,
only around a third of the people being held in “Alligator Alcatraz” — a
cute name, but it’s a concentration camp, pure and simple — have any
kind of criminal conviction.
Why aren’t they rounding
up more undocumented criminals? Because that would be hard work, and
anyway there aren’t that many of them. Morris
did a back-of-the-envelope calculation suggesting that there may in
total be only around 78,000 undocumented immigrants with criminal
records, and 14,000 convicted of violent crimes. Meanwhile, Stephen
Miller is demanding that ICE arrest 3,000 people a day. Do the math, and
you see why they’re grabbing farm workers and chasing day laborers in
Home Depot parking lots.
So Americans may be turning on Trump’s immigration policies in part
because they’re starting to realize that they’ve been lied to. But an
even more important factor may be that more native-born Americans are
beginning to see what our immigrants are really like, rather than
thinking of them as scary figures lurking in the shadows.
It’s a
familiar point that views of immigration tend to be most negative in
places with very few immigrants and most positive in places where there
are already many foreign-born residents. You can get fancy about why
that’s true, but I would simply say that if you live in a place like New
York, where you’re constantly interacting with immigrants, they start
to seem like … people.
And the Trumpies — for whom, as Adam Serwer
famously observed, the cruelty is the point — are inadvertently
humanizing immigrants for Americans who don’t have that kind of daily
experience. The nightmarish ordeal of Kilmar Abrego Garcia has probably
done more to highlight the humanity of immigrants, documented or not,
than any number of charts and tables. And while some Americans are
instinctively cruel, most are, I believe, instinctively decent.
Get it? The crime wave myth needs to be
called out. Common sense and a brain puts Paul miles ahead of Mark
Cuban. Mark's gotten Eric Swalwell on his side. With what? Mark's
notion. The way to take on Chump is to accept his premise (cave) and
start making lists of violent criminals and we'll all round them up
together.
What are we, Lindsey Buckingham?
If we go, go insane
We can all go together
In this wild, wanton world
We can all break down forever
Mark Cuban throws in the towel. He calls that politics.
If we've learned anything in these most recent days of The Epstein Files, it's that MAGA lies. And then lies again.
What
kind of an idiot -- Mark Cuban, for one -- buys the lie and makes plans
to meet in 'the middle.' It's not the middle. The lie has pulled the
country over to the right and Mark Cuban is going to push us further
over.
I'm getting really
tired of the Mark Cuban fan boys. If you're not paying attention, he's
also pimping Alien Musk's notion of a new political party.
I don't see why elected Democrats feel they owe Mark Cuban anything.
Take what's being called the biggest sweep or raid, the one targeting the cannabis farm in California. Julie Watson, Amy Taxin and Olga R. Rodriguez (AP) note,
"The government said four of the 361 arrested had prior criminal
records, including convictions for rape and kidnapping." The government
says they nabbed 361 people. And the government says four "had prior
criminal records." The government said. Even their own figures don't
back up a crime wave. That's 1.1080% of the number taken in.
And
I look at the concentration camp in Florida -- call it whatever you
want -- and I'm thinking, "If this were the McCarthy era would Mark
Cuban be coming forward to say: Hey, let's meet them half way. Some of
these artists are Communists so let's make a list and . . ." At what
point do we take a stand for what we believe in and say, "No, we're not
going to make this easy for you." Because what Mark Cuban's proposing
and what Eric has signed off on is making it easier and is getting in
bed with the devil. That's because every generation has a Mark Cuban or
two who doesn't have a spine and is more inclined to go along to get
along.
As
a pastor, I consider the church not just a place of worship, but a
sacred home − somewhere families gather to find comfort, courage and
communion. For generations, our pews have held the laughter of children,
the tears of grief and joy, and the prayers of the faithful.
Last month, the sanctity of our space was shattered.
Immigration
and Customs Enforcement agents entered the parking lot of Downey
Memorial Christian Church to take a man who was walking through our
property. The agents were armed, masked and aggressive.
They
tried to intimidate clergy and staff − people whose only armor is their
faith and moral convictions. In that moment, our sacred space became a
site of state-sanctioned fear and violence.
This is not isolated. It is part of a widening campaign.
Archbishop
Alberto Rojas of San Bernardino, the spiritual shepherd of more than a
million Catholics, recently excused parishioners from their obligation
to attend Mass.
Why? Because fear of ICE raids has become so pervasive that even worship cannot feel safe.
Standing
in front of the Detroit headquarters of U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) on a sunny Monday morning, the Rev. David Buersmeyer
asked a security officer if he could accept a letter from Catholics
asking ICE Detroit to better treat immigrants.
Judith
Brooks, a fellow Catholic who advocates for immigrants, stood by the
Detroit priest's side with a sealed envelope, leaning forward to hand
the letter to him. But the officer didn't respond, slammed the glass
door shut with a loud thud and then pushed on it to make sure it was
secure.
"Shame!" a protester shouted out. A
crowd of hundreds who stood outside the building on Michigan Avenue then
started to sing a song by Batya Levine, a Jewish musician: "In hope, in
prayer, we find ourselves here, in hope, in prayer, we're right here."
The
scene on July 14th outside the Detroit ICE building illustrated the
growing frustration Catholic leaders and others have expressed with
immigration enforcement under President Donald Trump, which they allege
has unfairly targeted communities with overzealous actions.
[. . .]
"We
are here today to ask that our nation and its leaders" listen to the
plight of immigrants, Sister Rebecca Vonderhaar of Immaculate Heart of
Mary told the large crowd at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church before
the march.
"Many of our brothers and sisters
and their families have proven their innate goodness," Vonderhaar said.
"They have been so unjustly treated by raids and mass deportations. Let
us know that apathy is never an option, but trust with faith, goodwill
and a bit of advocacy will bear fruit. And trusting in your goodness oh,
God, we move on."
Federal
immigration raids sweeping Los Angeles have created such widespread
fear that even naturalized citizens are afraid to leave their homes,
prompting mental health providers to form informal support networks for
traumatized immigrant communities.
Immigrant
neighborhoods that were once bustling have become noticeably quieter,
with fewer people on the streets and some businesses seeing reduced foot
traffic.
Therapists working in these communities say clients are canceling appointments and expressing new fears about seeking help.
Sandra
Espinoza is a second-generation, bilingual Mexican-American licensed
Marriage and Family Therapist and associate professor at Alliant
International University’s Los Angeles campus. She has been paying
attention to what has been happening locally and said she felt called to
action.
“Once I heard about the ICE
raids happening, I was very upset, and [I wanted] to find a way to kind
of channel my anxiety and anger. I remembered that during the wildfires,
another therapist had organized a list of over 800 therapists who were
willing to provide pro bono services,” Espinoza said. “[I thought] how
cool would it be if we could do this for the undocumented community at
this time?”
While Espinoza’s network is smaller
than the 1,000-provider wildfire list, she is far from alone in her
desire to help migrants across the county. Some care providers are
offering support publicly, while others, fearful due to their own or
their clients’ immigration connections, are choosing to offer it
privately through whisper networks and word-of-mouth referrals.
Therapists
have voiced concerns about making these lists publicly accessible for
confidentiality and safety reasons, so accessibility is limited and
relies primarily on referrals and vetting processes.
For
Espinoza’s network, both therapists and clients complete Google forms
for vetting. The list is password-protected with only three people
having access. Most connections are made personally by Espinoza, with
95% of clients choosing telehealth sessions.
Immigration
enforcement agents do not legally need a judicial warrant, issued by a
court, to make an arrest in a public space. If they have reason to
believe someone is in the country unlawfully, they can detain the person
on the street. However, entering private areas like offices, kitchens
or the grounds of a mosque or church requires a signed judicial warrant.
Still, immigration advocates warn that many agents present
administrative warrants from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security
instead, which do not authorize entry.
That
distinction has shaped recent training sessions at the Holy Apostles
Soup Kitchen in Manhattan, the largest soup kitchen currently operating
from the grounds of an Episcopal church in the city.
"We
certainly have done some internal preparations just so that our staff
knows what to do in the event that [immigration agents] show up," said
Elizabeth Starling, Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen director of development.
"We went through a training about the need for them to have a specific
judicial warrant because, well, you're not coming on our property for a
fishing mission — that's not going to happen."
Marcelo
Gomes da Silva is still trying to get back to his old life. The
18-year-old, who was born in Brazil, wants to enjoy the summer before
his senior year at Milford High School in Massachusetts—go to pool
parties, hang out with friends. Since his arrest by US Immigration and
Customs Enforcement, he has been praised for his strength. “But that’s
not really what I want,” he told Mother Jones on a video call. “I want
everyone to think of me as Marcelo Gomes da Silva, just as I was
before.”
On a Saturday morning in late May, ICE
arrested Gomes da Silva on his way to volleyball practice. At first,
when he noticed a white Ford Explorer trailing his car, he thought
little of it. But when Gomes da Silva pulled into a friend’s driveway,
an ICE agent walked up, knocked on the window, asked for his documents,
and eventually handcuffed him. The officer asked Gomes da Silva if he
knew the reason for his arrest. He said he did not. “Because you’re
illegal,” the agent told him, “you’re an immigrant.”
Gomes
da Silva had never thought of himself as undocumented. He came to the
United States at age 7 as a visitor and later obtained a now-lapsed
student visa. “I was just in shock,” he said. “I didn’t know what was
going on and I was kind of questioning God…Why is this happening to me?
Did I do something? I never really understood why I was there.”
The
Department of Homeland Security said ICE officers “never intended to
apprehend” Gomes da Silva but were instead looking for his father, the
owner of the car, whom they accused of having a “habit of reckless
driving.” To the US government, Gomes da Silva was an accidental target
in the wrong place at the wrong time. These so-called “collateral
arrests”—often warrantless apprehensions of immigrants without a
criminal history—have become more commonplace as the Trump
administration pushes the legal limits of its deportation dragnet.
“I
didn’t say he was dangerous,” acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said of
Gomes da Silva at a press conference days after his detention. “I said
he’s in the country illegally and we’re not going to walk away from
anybody.” Gomes da Silva was taken to ICE’s Boston field office in
Burlington, where he was detained for six days until a judge released
him on bond in early June.
Fortunately, the young man's community said "Hell no" and got to work:
After
practice, school administrators gathered everyone in the locker room
and shared the news. There was a deep silence. Some players cried. One
of them threw up. “I knew it was happening in Milford, but I didn’t
really know anybody who was detained,” said Greco’s son Colin. “That’s
when emotion just hit everybody and we were like, ‘This is real.’”
The Archbishop of Miami, Father Thomas Wenski, issued a lengthy statement which included:
It
is alarming to see enforcement tactics that treat all irregular
immigrants as dangerous criminals. Masked, heavily armed agents who do
not identify themselves during enforcement activities are surprising -
so is the apparent lack of due process in deportation proceedings in
recent months.
Along these lines, much of the
current rhetoric is obviously intentionally provocative. It is
unbecoming of public officials and corrosive of the common good to speak
of the deterrence value of “alligators and pythons” at the Collier-Dade
facility. Common decency requires that we remember the individuals
being detained are fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters of
distressed relatives. We wish to ensure that chaplains and pastoral
ministers can serve those in custody, to their benefit and that of the
staff. We also raise concerns about the isolation of the detention
facility, which is far from medical care centers, and the precariousness
of the temporary “tent” structures in the Florida heat and summer
thunderstorms, not to mention the challenge of safely protecting
detainees in the event of a hurricane.
We call
on all people of goodwill to pray for our government officials, for
those in immigration custody and their families, for those who work in
enforcement, and for justice for all in this nation, whose prosperity
immigrants have always contributed to.
Mark
Cuban wants us to 'meet in the middle' on this hideous program. He
wants Democrats to co-sign off on it, thereby giving Republicans cover
and the ability to claim both parties supported this evil plan. No.
This needs to be fought and people across America grasp and see what
Mark Cuban can't or won't.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:
ICYMI from June: Senator Murray Statement on Protests in Response to Immigration Arrests in Spokane
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray
(D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, released the
following statement on the news, reported by
the Spokesman-Review, that federal agents arrested and searched the
homes of Spokane residents who took part in a protests in Spokane on
June 11th. The protests in June were sparked by the sudden detention of two asylum-seekers whose work visas were abruptly revoked days before.
“The Trump administration is abusing the force of the law to
intimidate Americans exercising their First Amendment rights—whether you
are a Democrat or Republican, this is wrong and we all need to speak
out against this disturbing perversion of justice.
“If you are as angry as I am about Trump’s unconstitutional
and cruel assault on immigrants, we need to speak out peacefully against
inhumane policies. We lose our democracy when our voices fall silent.
“Let’s be perfectly clear about Trump’s unconstitutional
immigration crackdown: he is diverting limited federal resources away
from pursuing violent criminals to instead round up individuals with no
criminal record—and now, apparently, he’s going after peaceful
protestors as well. We cannot be silent and I will be contacting DOJ
directly regarding this gross abuse of federal resources.”
