HOUSE BUDGET TURBOCHARGES MASS DEPORTATION AGENDA WHILE CUTTING VITAL PROGRAMS FOR VULNERABLE AMERICANS
Under cover of darkness, the House passed a massive tax cut bill that will turbocharge family separations and line the pockets of the private prison CEOs, escalate Trump’s efforts to ignore the courts, and slash healthcare and food for vulnerable Americans. “Already, DHS manages the largest immigration detention system in the world,” responded America’s Voice Executive Director Vanessa Cárdenas. “If this budget remains intact and becomes law, the harm and cost that we are already experiencing across our neighborhoods and our economy will be turbocharged to the detriment of all of us. We urge the Senate to reject this bill.” Read more here.
‘RIPPED FROM AUTHORITARIAN PLAYBOOK’
This week, Trump’s Department of Justice announced charges against Rep. LaMonica McIver (NJ-10) after she attempted to fulfill her Congressional responsibilities by conducting legally-mandated oversight at the Delaney Hall ICE detention center in Newark. This news is the latest disturbing incident of how this administration is weaponizing immigration and adds up to a dangerous moment for American democracy and the rights and liberties of every American, Cárdenas responded. “We must be clear eyed about what is at stake. We cannot pretend it’s business as usual.” Read more here.
SUPREME COURT MAKES HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF VETTED IMMIGRANTS DEPORTABLE
On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that the administration has the “go-ahead” to rescind Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelan immigrants, which will cancel legal status and work permits for some 350,000 vetted immigrants. This cruel decision will criminalize these contributors at no fault of their own effectively overnight. “Let’s be clear, their revocation of TPS does nothing to fix our immigration system or make Americans safer,” said Cárdenas. “Instead, it replaces a functional, legal program with more of the chaos and cruelty that Americans are already recoiling from.” Read more here.
FAITH LEADERS AMONG THOSE IN MASS DEPORTATION CROSSHAIRS
Faith leaders are among the long-settled residents being swept up by ICE in recent weeks. In Florida, an immigrant pastor’s detention has a community “reeling,” NPR reports. “He’s an Evangelical Pastor at a local church, he’s lived here for 20 years. He also owns a landscaping business, tending the lawns and yards in the neighboring city of Fort Myers.” Now he’s in detention and uncertain about his future. “Americans are watching this unfold in real time and are recoiling, with many rightly asking: is this who we want to be?” asks Cárdenas. Read more here.
LATINO VOTERS ARE BECOMING REPELLED BY TRUMP’S OVERREACH
Latino voters are among the majority of Americans recoiling from watching the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda in action and instead calling for balanced immigration solutions, new Equis Research and Data for Progress polling shows. It’s part of a consensus of polling showing that when offered the choice, a strong majority of the broader American public prefers a path to legalization over Trump’s enforcement-only and mass deportation approach. “Long-residing immigrants who are working and contributing to America should have a pathway to citizenship instead of being swept up in the mass deportation dragnet,” said Vanessa Cárdenas. Read more here.
TRUMP AND HIS IMMIGRATION BULLDOZER
In her weekly column, America’s Voice consultant Maribel Hastings writes that as Trump seeks to revoke Venezuelan TPS, he also risks losing Latinos who switched to him in 2024 but are now repelled. There’s also a question of whether members of his party will pay a price in states like Florida in 2026. Their silence “has become deafening,” one Florida businessman slammed in an open letter. Only time will tell, Hastings writes. Her column was also published in outlets including La Opinión, El Periódico USA, and La Tribuna Hispana. Read her column in English here and Spanish here.
NOEM AND RUBIO HUMILIATE THEMSELVES IN SERVICE OF TRUMP AND MILLER
This week, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem claimed that habeas corpus, the basic legal principle that allows detained people to challenge their detention by the government, actually gives the president the power to deport people. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio continued to spread disproven claims about Maryland dad Kilmar Abrego García. Rubio, a one-time critic of dictators, also repeated a lie that originated from El Salvador’s regime. Claims from both not only highlighted their incompetence, but also the rank bottom to which administration officials are willing to stoop in service of Trump and Stephen Miller’s anti-immigrant obsession. Read more here.
DUE PROCESS MATTERS
In a late night ruling last week, the Supreme Court said that the Trump administration’s rush to purge Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador “surely does not pass muster” under the Constitution, Slate reported. The administration’s attempt to run roughshod over due process rights is yet another example of why due process is so important. “It’s due process that separated our right and freedoms from arbitrary power by the state,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (MD-08) said during a recent House hearing. Click here to watch and share his remarks.
YOU DON’T WANT TO MISS THIS
In Iowa, community members are celebrating the news that the Dubuque County sheriff’s department has declined to enter into a 287(g) agreement with ICE, The Gazette reports. This deeply flawed policy allowing police to act like mass deportation agents has long raised worries about community safety and racial profiling. That was a major concern from Escucha Mi Voz Iowa, which had filed a complaint over a recent traffic stop involving a group of construction workers. Those workers spoke out powerfully for themselves and their neighbors. “We want to thank the Dubuque County Sheriff for standing up and refusing to join the 287(g) agreement,” one worker said. “That leadership protects all of us—immigrant families, workers, and the whole community.”
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