Federal Updates
Administration Updates
Alex Acosta resigns as Secretary of Labor
Alex Acosta stepped down from the Department of Labor in the wake of public outcry over his controversial 2008 plea deal with Jeffery Epstein, a well-known financier accused of sexually assaulting underage girls. Acosta pursued the Trump Administration’s deregulation and anti-worker agenda by rolling back workplace environment safety regulations and proposing rules to weaken overtime pay protections for white-collar workers and limiting companies’ liability for unfair labor practices. He did, however, pursue these policies at a slow pace.
Patrick Pizzella, who replaced Acosta as acting Labor Secretary, is a conservative hardliner and free-market evangelist. He is expected to be significantly more aggressive in undermining workplace protections and pursuing anti-union policies.
Immigrant Justice
New U.S.-Mexico Border Bill signed into law
The U.S. House of Representatives approved, and Trump signed into law, the Senate’s $4.6 billion emergency spending bill for funding at the U.S.-Mexico Border. The bill provides additional funding for the Department of Health and Human Services, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the Defense Department. It was seen as wildly insufficient by progressive House representatives, like New York Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, Minnesota Rep. Omar, Michigan Rep. Tlaib, and Massachusetts Rep. Pressley. The four representatives opposed the spending bill because it did not contain additional protections for the health and safety of children and adults in immigration detention or important accountability measures to ensure the fund are not used to support more immigrant detention and deportation.
ICE begins using new immigration jails, flouting congressional limits on jailing migrants
One of the key Congressional directives from the deal to end the government shutdown in February was that ICE reduce the number of immigrants in detention to the level authorized by Congress last year – 40,520 – by September 30, 2019. Instead, the detainee population is at an all-time high of 54,000 people and ICE has begun detaining migrants at three new for-profit detention facilities in the U.S. South. Together, the detention centers can hold 4,000 people. One of the facilities – Adams County Correctional Center, a Mississippi prison operated by CoreCivic, a for-profit prison corporation – is particularly notorious. People detained there have complained of inadequate medical care, staff mistreatment, and rotten food.
The ICE expansion in the South occurs amid widespread concerns over conditions in immigrant detention facilities. There have been reports that the facilities are overcrowded, unsanitary, and lack access to basic personal care products and health care. Only 21 of the 230 ICE detention services offer any kind of in-person mental health services, and the lack of resources has helped to spur a growing “migrant mental health crisis” in detention centers. It is unclear how ICE is paying for the new immigrant detention facilities, which is precisely the accountability concern raised by progressive House Democrats during the passage of the emergency border spending bill this month.
Federal court blocked rule that would effectively end asylum protections for Central Americans
A federal court halted the Trump Administration’s plan to fast-track a regulation to make it impossible for Central American migrants to seek asylum in the U.S. The rule would require any migrant traveling through another country: 1) apply for and 2) be denied asylum protections in a transit country. If neither of these steps happen, the U.S. would deny their asylum claim with some limited exceptions. It was published as an interim final rule, meaning that – had the court not stopped the rule – it would have gone into effect immediately rather than having the normal waiting period during public comment.
The rule is a barely-veiled attempt to deny migrants coming to the U.S. southern border their right to seek asylum. Practically, it means that migrants from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador – most of whom are fleeing persecution and poverty – would be barred asylum protections in the U.S. unless they were first denied asylum in another country, like Mexico. That is a shocking departure from current U.S. asylum policy and could force asylum seekers to languish in transit countries without any guarantee of a fair hearing.
Activists mobilize, helping to thwart ICE amid threats of increased immigration raids
People rallied around the nation in support of immigrant communities after Trump threatened widespread raids by ICE starting July 17. The immigration raids did not occur at the scale expected. There were scattered ICE raids primarily targeting Central American families but few resulted in arrests. Some attempted raids were successfully foiled by networks of neighbors and advocates who issued warnings when ICE agents were spotted in neighborhoods and by residents who turned ICE agents away because the agents did not have warrants.
You can learn more about your rights during immigration raids here and what to do if ICE comes to your workplace here.
No citizenship question on the 2020 census, but Trump plans to collect information elsewhere
In late June, the U.S. Supreme Court held that, although it is legally permissible to add a question about citizenship status to the U.S. census, the reason the Trump Administration gave for requiring a citizenship question on the census was not good enough. The U.S. Supreme Court said that the Trump Administration’s reason “appears to have been contrived” – in other words, it was a lie to justify adding the question to the 2020 census. If the Department of Commerce wanted to add the question, they would need to give a more convincing reason for why.
Initially Trump vowed to continue pursuing the question, and in response multiple courts issued orders blocking his Administration from doing so. He has since backed down. Instead, on July 11, Trump ordered multiple federal agencies to collect citizenship data from public records and turn it over to the Department of Commerce. Advocates are concerned that states will use the information to redraw district lines to advantage Republican candidates – otherwise known as gerrymandering.
The main question is: Who counts for the purposes of political representation? All people or eligible voters only? The U.S. Supreme Court has said that congressional seats must be apportioned according to total population. All people count. It is not clear, however, whether redrawing state electoral maps using to citizen population (rather than total) is constitutional.
Bill to prohibit use of citizenship data for congressional redistricting introduced in Senate
Senator Cory Booker introduced legislation that would bar the U.S. Census Bureau from including any citizenship data in the information it provides to states for the purposes of redistricting. If passed, the bill would make it impossible for the Trump Administration to use citizenship data to support state-level gerrymandering and partisan interference.
More banks to end relationship with migrant jails
Reports of poor treatment and inhumane conditions at detention centers have led immense public pressure to “close the camps” and end immigrant detention. Banks appear to be listening. Bank of America and SunTrust have recently announced that they would no longer associate with companies involved in jailing migrants. JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo announced they would divest from private prisons and immigration detention centers earlier this year and stocks for the two biggest for-profit prison companies, Geo Group Inc. and CoreCivic Inc. have plummeted.
Federal Law Enforcement uses invasive technologies to track and surveil
ICE and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents used facial recognition technology to mine state Department of Motor Vehicles’ (DMV) records and scan millions of faces without congressional approval or state residents’ consent. The use of facial recognition technology – which is known to be unreliable and biased — has turned DMV records into a routine and pervasive surveillance tool.
Even states that allow undocumented residents to obtain driver licenses, like Vermont, Utah, and Washington, provided the FBI and ICE access to their records. The request often required nothing more than an e-mail from a federal agent to the local DMV office. No judicial approval or waiver from the driver license holders is required.
In addition, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been using DNA tests on asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border to justify separating more children from their adult companions. The tests are supposed to be voluntary, but families that do not want to be tested are reportedly more likely to be temporarily separated.
Federal court says that Trump Administrations cannot indefinitely detain asylum seekers
A federal court blocked the Trump Administration from denying asylum seekers bond hearings and indefinitely detaining them until their cases are complete. In April, Attorney General William Barr ordered immigration judges to stop releasing asylum-seekers on bail after their case is approved for expeditated removal proceedings – a status granted to asylum seekers once they establish “a credible fear of persecution or torture” in their home country. The court held the indefinite detention of migrants who came to the U.S. seeking asylum violates the constitutionally-protected right to due process. According to the order from the court, the government is required to hold a bond hearing within seven days of a request by an eligible asylum-seeker. If not, the asylum-seeker must be released.
Trump Administration fines immigrants up to $500,000 for remaining in the U.S.
DHS has sent fine notices to some immigrants who are undocumented, threatening hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for “failing to depart the U.S. as previously agreed.” The letters were timed to coincide with Trump’s threats of increased immigration raids after the July 4 weekend and are another cruel tactic in this administration’s efforts to instill fear and confusion in immigrant communities. Experts have expressed concern that the fines will be used to establish criminal penalties and increase pressure on immigrants to leave the U.S.
Trump Administration drastically expands “expediated removal” to deport more people without due process
DHS announced that it would drastically expand a fast-tracking deportation process, known as expedited removal. The expedited removal process allows immigration officers – even low-level officers – to summarily deport certain undocumented immigrants without normal due process rights, like the right to an attorney, be to heard before a judge, or to appeal.
Currently, the expedited removal process applies to immigrants without legal documentation who have been in the U.S. less than two weeks and are within 100 miles of the border with Mexico or Canada. The new rule effectively has no geographic limitations and could apply to any undocumented immigrant who cannot prove that they have been in the U.S. continuously for two years.
The change in regulations encourage state-sanctioned racial profiling and harassment, especially in immigrant communities. Expedited removal allows the immigration official to act as judge, jury, and executioner with little or no court involvement. It also reverses the normal burden of proof: the person must prove to the immigration officer that they have been physically present in the U.S. the requisite period of time. By law, immigration official may not be use expedited removal against certain people: U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, refugees, asylees, or asylum seekers. However, there are serious concerns that people with the legal right to remain in the U.S. – like those with asylum claims or citizens, legal permanent residents, and asylees who are unable to prove their immigration status on demand – could be swept up in the expediated removal process. The ACLU has already announced plans to sue over the new regulations.
The Supreme Court okays construction on Trump’s wall at the U.S.-Mexico Border
The Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration can move ahead with plans to use $2.5 billion in Department of Defense funding to build a wall at the U.S.-Mexico Border. In February 2019, Trump declared a national emergency to access billions of dollars that Congress refused to give him to build the wall. On July 3, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower federal court ruling from June, blocking the Administration from transferring military funds while the case went through the courts. This Supreme Court decision means that the administration can begin construction.
U.S. Supreme Court will review termination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program
The U.S. Supreme Court will review the Trump Administration’s decision to end DACA, an Obama-era program that gave young people who came to the U.S. as children without legal papers protection against deportation. The Trump Administration argued that the program was illegal from its inception and tried to end it in September 2017. Multiple Courts of Appeals said no: The Administration’s rationale for revoking DACA was insufficient, and, therefore, they would have to maintain DACA protections. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments next term and will likely issue a decision in spring 2020. Without DACA, nearly 800,000 young people would lose legal status and be at risk of deportation.
House passes National Defense Authorization Act with some wins and some misses
The House of Representatives passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2020, H.R. 2500. This bill approves $733 billion in funding and contains some progressive provisions. For example, it would end the ban on transgender military service, ban Defense Department facilities from housing any foreign national detained by ICE, and codify the military’s existing equal opportunity policies to include non-discrimination protections on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation. However, there were also missed opportunities. The House refused to add amendments to ban the military from housing migrant children, ban the president from deploying troops to the border to enforce immigration laws, and ban Pentagon funds from being used to detain immigrants who are undocumented. The Senate’s NDAA passed last month. The two versions will now have to be reconciled in conference before becoming law.
Bill introduced to remove derogatory terms for immigrant from government texts
Representative Joaquin Castro introduced the Correcting Alienating Names in Government Act, or CHANGE Act, in the House. The bill could remove the terms “alien” and “illegal alien” from the Immigration and Nationality Act and other government texts and replace them with “foreign national” and “undocumented foreign national” respectively. Using the words “alien” or “illegal” to describe a person in the immigrant context is dehumanizing and misleading. They imply that people who cross the U.S. border without documentation have no rights and help to justify dangerous antiimmigration policies.
Voting Rights
The U.S. Supreme Court greenlights partisan gerrymandering
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that federal courts cannot intervene in matters of partisan gerrymandering (when lawmakers draw legislative districts to advantage or disadvantage a particular political party). This is a significant blow to voting rights, empowering politicians to manipulate electoral maps to help themselves or their party stay in power. Courts can, however, still strike down maps drawn to disadvantage minority groups – known as racial gerrymandering – or that violate the constitutional rule of “one person, one vote.”
Sexual and Reproductive Health, Rights and Justice
Title X Domestic Gag Rule goes into effect
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said that the Trump Administration’s domestic gag rule – an administrative rule that would ban federal family planning dollars from going to healthcare providers who perform or refer patients for abortion services — can take effect everywhere but the state of Maryland. This decision was devastating for reproductive rights advocates and will force comprehensive reproductive health centers, like Planned Parenthood – which serves almost half of the patients who access care through the program – off of the program, jeopardizing health care access for millions of people around the nation.
Laws to restrict access to abortion go into effect
Over the past couple of months, PWN has been tracing an onslaught of abortion restrictions in state legislatures around the nation. (See more here.) Since January 2019, nearly 400 anti-abortion measures have been introduced, including total abortion bans in 13 states and near-total abortion bans, which prohibit the procedure before most people know they are pregnant, in 16.
Starting in July, some of the restriction signed into law were slated to take effect. Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Ohio, South Dakota, and Tennessee all had some sort of an abortion restriction go into effect. For example, in Indiana, two abortion restrictions had July 1 effective dates: a refusal rule that expands the type health care providers who can refuse to participate in abortion or dispense medication abortion; and a prohibition on the most common method of second-trimester abortion – dilation and evacuation, or D&E. Similar D&E bans have been blocked in eight states. Indiana’s law is being challenged by the ACLU and a federal judge blocked it from going into effect. You can read more about the restrictions in each state here.
Shocking decision in Oklahoma abortion ban case
A federal court in Oklahoma became the first in the country to say that a ban on the most common form of second-trimester abortion – a D&E ban – is constitutional. This ban threatens the health and safety of Oklahomans seeking abortion after 14 weeks and could be used to punish doctors for using their best medical judgement. State efforts to ban the procedure have failed in the past. Alabama’s D&E ban, for example, was signed into law and subsequently blocked by the courts in 2016. In late June 2019, the Supreme Court decided not to intervene in the case, meaning that the Alabama law will not go into effect. Eleven states have similar laws on the books, but every single court that has reviewed a D&E ban has stopped it from going into effect — until now.
Health Care Access
Court upholds order to block Trump Administration’s Religious and Moral Exemption Rules
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld an order, issued by a lower federal court, to stop the Trump Administration from implementing two rules that would allow virtually any employer or university to refuse to cover birth control.
Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), health plans are required to cover birth control without out-of-pocket costs to consumers, otherwise known as the contraceptive mandate. The rules would drastically expand religious and moral exemptions from the contraceptive mandate, allowing employers and universities to discriminate against people who need birth control. In December, a federal court blocked the rules from going into effect nationwide while they are being challenged in court; that ruling was affirmed this month by the appeals court.
Economic Justice
Proposed Rules would cut nutrition assistance for about 3 million people
The Trump Administration issued a proposed rule that would end Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for about 3 million people. This is one part of the Trump administration’s larger campaign to cut government-sponsored anti-poverty programs, like housing, food, and medical assistance programs that help poor and low-income families.
SNAP helps families with low incomes afford food; it also funds free or reduced cost lunch for millions of schoolchildren. Currently, families with incomes 130% of the federal poverty line – or about $33,000 for a family of four – are eligible for SNAP. States can, and about 40 do, make families getting other benefits eligible for SNAP by raising or eliminating some income and asset limits. This is known as “broad-based categorical eligibility.” It gives states the flexibility to provide families who are close to the cut-off, have fluctuating incomes, or have high childcare and housing costs the food assistance they need. The proposed rule would eliminate broad-based categorical eligibility. It would also force some 265,000 schoolchildren who automatically qualify for free school lunches to apply in order to continue getting their meals.
House votes to raise the federal minimum wage to $15
The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Raise the Wage Act, H.R.582. This important and long-overdue bill would double the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2024, helping to lift an estimated 1.3 million households out of poverty. The federal minimum has not increased in more than a decade. The fight for $15 now heads to the Republican-controlled Senate, where it will face stiff resistance.
House and Senate introduces bill to give housekeepers overtime pay and meal breaks
Senator Kamala Harris and Representative Pramila Jayapal announced companion bills that would give domestic workers basic labor rights. Domestic workers and farmworkers were excluded from the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938. This was an intentional way to preserve white supremacy. Domestic workers and farmworkers were primarily Black and Latinx people, and Southern lawmakers did not want to have to pay their personal servants a minimum wage. Later FSLA amendments included some domestic and farm workers, however other regulations – like 1) the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, which protects the right to unionize and organize, 2) the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which protects against sexual harassment and discrimination, and 3) the Occupational Health and Safety Act, which protects the right to a safe and healthy work environment – also left out domestic and farm workers.
The Domestic Workers Bill of Rights Act would help to address the lack of protections for domestic workers, guaranteeing them a minimum wage, overtime pay, the right to unionize, and basic protections against racial and gender discrimination. Another bill, the Fairness for Farm Workers Act, H.R. 1080, would similarly include farmworkers in federal labor laws.
Ending Criminalization
Trump Administration decides to bring back the federal death penalty
Attorney General William Barr ordered the Department of Justice to reinstate the federal death penalty this month. It has been 16 years since the last federal execution. The way the death penalty is administered in the U.S. is overtly racist, disproportionately being used against Black defendants. The death penalty is also not effective at deterring crime and is subject to an unusually high error rate. Research estimates that at least 4% of people who are sentenced to death are innocent.
State Updates
Alabama
Marshae Jones, a Black woman who was five months pregnant, was charged with manslaughter after she was shot in the stomach by a third party and lost her pregnancy. Jones was indicted by a grand jury; the woman who fired the gun was not. Following immense public pressure, prosecutors dropped the manslaughter charge against her.
In May, Alabama signed the nation’s most restrictive abortion ban into law, effectively banning the procedure except in cases where a pregnant person’s life is at serious risk. Criminalizing people for negative pregnancy outcomes is the natural consequence of anti-abortion politics and reflects an approach to reproductive rights that prioritizes a clump of cells over the bodily autonomy and dignity of pregnant people.
California
California is the first state in the U.S. to ban discrimination based on natural hairstyles. The Creating a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural Hair Act, or CROWN Act, updates California’s anti-discrimination law to define “race” to include “traits historically associated with race, including, but not limited to hair texture and protective hairstyles.” The law would prohibit employers and public schools from creating grooming policies that disproportionately target people of color.
Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 233 into law this month. The new law will protect sex workers from arrest when reporting a violent crime and would prevent condoms from being used as evidence to arrest or prosecute for “prostitution.”
Connecticut
Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont signed a bill into law allowing minors to access pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) without parental consent. The bill, HB 6540, will make it easier for people under 18 who are at risk of HIV exposure to control their own sexual and reproductive futures by removing the barrier of parental consent for PrEP access. The state also took two more positive steps to support the LGBTQ community this month. First, the legislature banned the “gay panic” defense, which uses a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity to justify a defendant’s use of violent force against them. Second, the state created an LGBTQ Health and Human Services Network to meet the needs to LGBTQ residents throughout the state.
Florida
After Florida’s historical and wildly popular ballot initiative restoring voting rights to people who have “completed all terms of their sentence, including parole or probation,” for most felony offenses (otherwise known as Amendment 4), Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law that effectively gutted the impact of the Amendment.
The new law requires people who were formerly incarcerated to repay all court fines and fees or have them excused by a judge before their voting rights would be restored. Florida is known for charging exorbitant court fees (often tens of thousands of dollars); this requirement could block almost 40% of the 1.4 million overwise-eligible Floridians from having their voting rights restored. Multiple voting rights groups have filed suit, claiming that the financial payment requirement is a modern day “poll tax” – an illegal practice from the Jim Crow era that used voting fees to restrict African Americans’ voting rights.
Georgia
In Atlanta, the Housing Opportunities for People with AIDS (HOPWA) program has some $40.1 million dollars waiting to be spent, while over 70 people in HOPWA-funded housing are facing eviction. The HOPWA program is the only federal program designed to maintain housing stability, avoid homelessness, and improve access to supportive services and care for people and families living with HIV. According to activists and researchers, the accumulation of delayed and undistributed funds is the result of chronic mismanagement and inconsistent monitoring/oversight of HOPWA recipients.
The dispute centers around the Living Room, a non-profit organization that receives HOPWA funds to ensure housing for people living with HIV. The city of Atlanta has been repeatedly late on payments to the Living Room, and most recently refused to reimburse them about $500,000. The city claims the Living Room failed to meeting habitability standards and confidentiality requirements. The Living Room claims that the city is retaliating against them because of spurned sexual advances and their recommendation that the city outsource some HOPWA functions. A lawsuit has been filed.
New Jersey
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy has signed a bill limiting the use of solitary confinement in the state’s prisons. The new law prohibits the use of solitary except when there is “reasonable cause to believe that the inmate or others would be at substantial risk of serious harm as evidenced by recent threats or conduct.” The New Jersey law also carves out special protections for LGBTQ, disabled, elderly, young or disabled prisoners.
New York
Melinda Katz was declared victor in a hotly contested district attorney Democratic primary race in Queens. Progressive candidate, Tiffany Cabán, ran against Katz on a platform of ending mass incarceration, decriminalizing poverty, recreational drug use and the sex trade, ending racist law enforcement, and tackling corporate crimes. Cabán appeared to have won the race on election night. However, a manual recount led to a 60-vote lead for Katz. Cabán will challenge the results, arguing that at least 100 affidavit ballots were improperly excluded.
In other news, the New York City council voted to declare a “climate emergency.” This puts NYC in league with 650 municipalities in 15 countries who have made similar declarations. The declaration comes as New York State attempts to grapple with the climate crisis, passing the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, S.6588, an ambitious bill that aims to transition New York state’s economy off of fossil fuel and onto renewable energy by 2050.