STRIPPING LEGAL STATUS TO MAKE AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE DEPORTABLE
Last weekend, the Trump administration announced it will terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Venezuelans, a devastating move that reverses the U.S. government’s recent earlier decision to extend this relief and pulls the rug out from hundreds of thousand individuals who are already living here, working legally and contributing. It represents a dangerous escalation of the Trump push to make as many individuals as possible deportable, including by stripping legal status from a population here lawfully, reacted America’s Voice Executive Director Vanessa Cárdenas. “Trump’s announcement to revoke TPS from hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans signals a new and troubling front in the Trump administration’s effort to make as many individuals as possible deportable: it’s the first, and we fear not the last, example of the Trump administration officially stripping status and protections from those here with lawful legal status. The Trump administration is criminalizing law-abiding people in order to seek to deport them.” Read more here.
GUANTANAMO FLIGHTS ARE A ‘DANGEROUS ESCALATION’ OF TRUMP’S ENFORCEMENT MACHINE
CBS News reported this week that the Trump administration has quickly moved to “turn facilities at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base into a large-scale immigration detention center,” including transporting the first group of migrants to the site on Tuesday. The administration reportedly plans to detain as many as 30,000 individuals at the controversial base, which has been denounced for civil and human rights violations for years. The move is another dangerous escalation of Trump’s costly, chaotic, and cruel attacks on immigrants, said Cárdenas. “While the Trump team again rhetorically is emphasizing the supposed hardened criminals they claim will be housed at the expanded center, we suspect those actually to be detained and housed there will include immigrants who pose no threat to public safety but are instead caught up in the sweeping and indiscriminate nature of the Trump enforcement machine. Once again, it’s a policy not designed to advance public safety or good policy, but a plank in an extreme and unpopular agenda meant to avoid as much scrutiny as possible.” Read more here.
RESISTANCE TO TRUMP MORE URGENT NOW THAN EVER
In her weekly column, America’s Voice consultant Maribel Hastings writes that despite the Trump administration’s intentional strategy to overwhelm us by flooding the zone with executive orders, pockets of resistance are showing through. “Over the weekend and this Monday, there were demonstrations and even a ‘day without immigrants’ to condemn the Trump administration’s raids and deportations and reiterate the important role that those immigrants play in the economy of the country and its communities. Many will wonder what difference these types of events will make, and the answer is sowing the seeds of action and of hope, rather than turning our backs on the avalanche of horrible actions from the Trump administration,” she writes. Anely, a “day without immigrants” participant and undocumented mom in Los Angeles, said she was participating because she wants to set an example for her kids. “That’s a lesson for the Democrats: to shake off the electoral defeat and begin to take actions possible from the minority and do more than merely denounce Trump,” Hastings concludes. Her column was also published in several outlets, including La Opinión, El Tiempo Latino, and La Tribuna Hispana. Read her column in English here and Spanish here.
‘BLATANTLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL’: COURTS BLOCK TRUMP’S ATTACK ON BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP
In wins for the Constitution and rule of law, two courts have now issued rulings blocking Trump’s attack on the 14th Amendment and birthright citizenship. In his Jan. 23 ruling, U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, a GOP appointee, was unequivocal about the scope of Trump’s lawlessness in seeking to deny the citizenship of certain infants born here. “I’ve been on the bench for over four decades,” he said. “I can’t remember another case where the question presented is as clear as this one is.” This week, U.S. District Judge Deborah L. Boardman issued a ruling indefinitely blocking Trump nationwide while litigation continues. “No court in the country has ever endorsed the president’s interpretation,” she wrote. “This court will not be the first.” Then, the next day, Judge Coughenour blocked Trump again, excoriating him for attempting to gut the Constitution via Sharpie. “It has become ever more apparent that, to our president, the rule of law is but an impediment to his policy goals, the rule of law is, according to him, something to navigate around or simply ignore, whether that be for political or personal gain,” he wrote. “In this courtroom and under my watch, the rule of law is a bright beacon which I intend to follow.” Read more here.
IN TRUMP’S AMERICA
A brand new video from AV highlights the heartbreaking early examples of Trump’s indiscriminate immigration raids. Despite talk about going after the “worst of the worst,” his administration’s immigration enforcement efforts are – just as we suspected – ensnaring long-settled immigrant contributors and even U.S. citizens, including a U.S. military veteran. Click here to watch and share “In Trump’s America” and help shine an important light on who is actually getting harmed under this mass deportation agenda.
YOU DON’T WANT TO MISS THIS
Earlier this week, businesses, workers, and community members nationwide participated in a “day without immigrants” in solidarity with immigrant communities threatened by mass deportations. In San Jose, entrepreneur Susana Torres said that while she lost out on business by shutting down for the day, it was the right thing to do. “But Torres said the decision to close was to honor her parents, immigrants who paved the way for her to become a business owner,” ABC7 News reported. San Jose was ultimately one of 120 cities across 40 states to participate in “day without immigrants,” labor news outlet Payday said. This followed several days of organic rallies and protests in many cities throughout the country. From Houston, Los Angeles, San Diego, to Seattle, thousands showed up in support of immigrants and against the Trump administration’s cruel agenda. “As Trump’s cruelty manifests itself in communities nationwide, Americans of all backgrounds are standing up to show solidarity with their immigrant neighbors and friends,” Vanessa Cárdenas reacted. “Over the past few days, we have seen spontaneous and community-led efforts rejecting the ugliness and divisiveness Trump is unleashing. Just like in the first Trump Administration, we expect to see more Americans reject his cruel, costly, and chaotic policies.” Read more here.
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