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      Some immigrants celebrate Biden’s extension of legal status while others left out

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      Hundreds of thousands of immigrants had reason to rejoice when Joe Biden unveiled a highly expansive plan to extend legal status to spouses of US citizens but, inevitably, some were left out.Claudia Zúniga, 35, was married in 2017, 10 years after her husband came to the United States. He moved to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, after they wed, knowing that, by law, he had to live outside the US for years to gain legal status. “Our lives took a 180-degree turn,” she said.Biden announced on Tuesday that his administration will, in the coming months, allow US citizens’ spouses without legal status to apply for permanent residency and eventually citizenship without having to first depart the country for up to 10 years. About 500,000 immigrants may benefit, according to senior administration officials.To qualify, an immigrant must have lived in the United States for 10 years and be married to a US citizen, both as of Monday. Zúniga’s husband is ineligible because he wasn’t in the United States.“Imagine, it would be a dream come true,” said Zúniga, who works part time at her father’s transportation business in Houston. “My husband could be with us. We could focus on the wellbeing of our children.”Every immigration benefit – even those as sweeping as Biden’s election-year offer – has a cutoff dates and other eligibility requirements. In September, the Democratic president expanded temporary status for nearly 500,000 Venezuelans who were living in the United States on 31 July 2023. Those who had arrived a day later were out of luck.View image in fullscreenThe Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has shielded hundreds of thousands of people from deportation who came to the United States as young children and is popularly known as Daca, required applicants to be in the United States on 15 June 2012 and to have been in the country continuously for the previous five years.About 1.1 million people in the US illegally are married to US citizens, according to advocacy group FWD.us, but hundreds of thousands won’t qualify because they were in the US for fewer than 10 years.Immigration advocates were generally thrilled with the scope of Tuesday’s announcement, just as Biden’s critics called it a horribly misguided giveaway.Angelica Martinez, 36, wiped away tears as she sat next to her children, ages 14 and six, and watched Biden’s announcement at the Houston office of Fiel, an immigrant advocacy group. A US citizen since 2013, she described a flood of emotions, including regret for when her husband couldn’t travel to Mexico for his mother’s death five years ago.“Sadness, joy all at the same time,” said Martinez, whose husband came to Houston 18 years ago.Brenda Valle of Los Angeles, whose husband has been a US citizen since 2001 and, like her, was born in Mexico, has renewed her Daca permit every two years. “We can start planning more long-term, for the future, instead of what we can do for the next two years,” she said.Magdalena Gutiérrez of Chicago, who has been married 22 years to a US citizen and has three daughters who are US citizens, said she had “a little more hope” after Biden’s announcement. Gutiérrez, 43, is eager to travel more across the United States without fearing an encounter with law enforcement that could lead to her being deported.Allyson Batista, a retired Philadelphia teacher and US citizen who married her Brazilian husband 20 years ago, recalled being told by a lawyer that he could leave the country for 10 years or “remain in the shadows and wait for a change in the law”.“Initially, when we got married, I was naive and thought, ‘OK, but I’m American. This isn’t going to be a problem. We’re going to fix this,’” Batista said. “I learned very early on that we were facing a pretty dire circumstance and that there would be no way for us to move forward in an immigration process successfully.”The couple raised three children who are now pursuing higher education. Batista is waiting for the details of how her husband can apply for a green card.“I’m hopeful,” Batista said. “The next 60 days will really tell. But obviously more than thrilled because every step forward is a step towards a final resolution for all kinds of immigrant families.”About 50,000 noncitizen children with parents who are married to US citizens could also potentially qualify, according to senior administration officials who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity. Biden also announced new regulations that will allow some Daca beneficiaries and other young immigrants to more easily qualify for work visas. More

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      Videos of Biden looking lost are a viral political tactic: ‘low-level manipulation’

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      Joe Biden wandered off.Standing among the west’s major leaders in Italy last week, the US president turned away, seemingly in confusion, and had to be alerted back to the group to take a photo – at least, that’s what rightwing media showed.“WHAT IS BIDEN DOING?” the Republican National Committee’s research Twitter account wrote.In actuality, it was nothing strange at all. Biden had turned toward skydivers and given them a thumbs up, a broader view of the video showed.It happened again at a fundraiser with former president Barack Obama. Biden “appears to freeze up” on stage, the New York Post wrote, saying Obama had to lead Biden off the stage in the latest example of the president being “dazed or confused”.A zoomed-out video of the incident showed Biden waving and taking in the applause from the crowd after a lengthy discussion moderated by late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.For viewers of rightwing media or social media feeds tailored toward conservatives, these videos of Biden surface near-daily in an attempt to underscore one of the president’s key liabilities, his age.They’re often selectively edited to make Biden look, well, old. They kick off a series of headlines about how his age or senility is showing, then another series of headlines about how the videos are created to mislead.The videos, and the subsequent hand-wringing over them, show how bifurcated today’s political and social media ecosystems are. Few watch a full speech or a full newscast, instead getting a quick example of what they missed from an account they align with. Your view of a given event – of a speech by a president, or a campaign rally – is colored first, and often predominantly, by the way it’s presented by the people you follow.An NBC News editor referred to these video news cycles as a reflection of the online media ecosystem this election, calling them “a bizarre Rorschach test in which some people see one thing and most everyone else sees something else”.They also show that the looming threat of deepfakes – AI-generated content that makes people say or do things they haven’t actually done – doesn’t hold a candle to the much more common, and easier to create, cheap fakes – videos edited specifically to mislead.“This old-fashioned, sort of low-level kind of manipulation has been perfectly capable of misleading and manipulating people for quite a long time,” said Bret Schafer, a senior fellow for media and digital disinformation for the Alliance for Securing Democracy.While deepfakes or other AI-generated content would likely be flagged and potentially removed from social media channels for going against their policies, these selectively edited videos typically don’t break rules because, to some degree, all content is edited in some way, Schafer said.The Biden administration derided the videos as cheap fakes made in bad faith and defended the president’s mental fitness, though at one point Karine Jean-Pierre, White House press secretary, called the videos “deepfakes”, which they are not. That kicked off another round of criticism on the right, with people claiming Jean-Pierre was spreading misinformation herself.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe left isn’t immune from posting misleading images about Trump, either. One photo showing Trump holding his son’s hand claims the former president needed help walking off a stage, while a video showed he was actually shaking his son’s hand.There are often similar videos of Trump posted either separately or in response to a Biden video news cycle – of the former president waxing on about sharks and electricity, or wandering away, or holding someone’s hand while walking. He notably got the name of his own doctor wrong in a speech over the weekend while challenging Biden to take a cognitive test.In reality, both presidential candidates are old, a fact that doesn’t change. Trump is 78; Biden is 81. Whether you view them as prone to senior moments, incoherent and rambling, or slow on their feet relates mostly to your views on who they are – and the content you’re seeing about it.The two candidates’ ages may create more of these gaffes, and the coverage of these gaffes gets extended because voters are concerned about the age of the next president. There seems to be a “little bit of a ping pong game of who has the senior moment du jour”, Schafer said. Endless repetition of age-related criticisms can influence voters and reinforce concerns they have over fitness for office, which is why these news cycles, and promotion by both campaigns, continue.These separate media ecosystems aren’t new this election cycle, though they create alternate realities for their viewers. It’s not just how something is covered, but whether it’s covered at all, Schafer noted. A viewer of some rightwing media could be served coverage of a story incessantly while it doesn’t make headlines in the broader press.“It is highly problematic when we talk about having a shared sense of reality because that’s what the real function of democracy should be,” he said. “We have an agreed-upon set of facts, and then there’s a lot of interpretation of those facts.” More

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      The Guardian view on the US and vaccine disinformation: a stupid, shocking and deadly game | Editorial

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      In July 2021, Joe Biden rightly inveighed against social media companies failing to tackle vaccine disinformation: “They’re killing people,” the US president said. Despite their pledges to take action, lies and sensationalised accounts were still spreading on platforms. Most of those dying in the US were unvaccinated. An additional source of frustration for the US was the fact that Russia and China were encouraging mistrust of western vaccines, questioning their efficacy, exaggerating side-effects and sensationalising the deaths of people who had been inoculated.How, then, would the US describe the effects of its own disinformation at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic? A shocking new report has revealed that its military ran a secret campaign to discredit China’s Sinovac vaccine with Filipinos – when nothing else was available to the Philippines. The Reuters investigation found that this spread to audiences in central Asia and the Middle East, with fake social media accounts not only questioning Sinovac’s efficacy and safety but also claiming it used pork gelatine, to discourage Muslims from receiving it. In the case of the Philippines, the poor take-up of vaccines contributed to one of the highest death rates in the region. Undermining confidence in a specific vaccine can also contribute to broader vaccine hesitancy.The campaign, conducted via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (now X) and other platforms, was launched under the Trump administration despite the objections of multiple state department officials. The Biden administration ended it after the national security council was alerted to the issue in spring 2021. The drive seems to have been retaliation for Chinese claims – without any evidence – that Covid had been brought to Wuhan by a US soldier. It was also driven by military concerns that the Philippines was growing closer to Beijing.It is all the more disturbing because the US has seen what happens when it plays strategic games with vaccination. In 2011, in preparation for the assassination of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, the CIA tried to confirm that it had located him by gathering the DNA of relatives through a staged hepatitis B vaccination campaign. The backlash was entirely predictable, especially in an area that had already seen claims that the west was using polio vaccines to sterilise Pakistani Muslim girls. NGOs were vilified and polio vaccinators were murdered. Polio resurged in Pakistan; Islamist militants in Nigeria killed vaccinators subsequently.The report said that the Pentagon has now rescinded parts of the 2019 order that allowed the military to sidestep the state department when running psychological operations. But while the prospect of a second Trump administration resuming such tactics is alarming, the attitude that bred them goes deeper. Reuters pointed to a strategy document from last year in which generals noted that the US could weaponise information, adding: “Disinformation spread across social media, false narratives disguised as news, and similar subversive activities weaken societal trust by undermining the foundations of government.”The US is right to challenge the Kremlin’s troll farms, Beijing’s propaganda and the irresponsibility of social media companies. But it’s hard to take the moral high ground when you’ve been pumping out lies. The repercussions in this case were particularly predictable, clear and horrifying. It was indefensible to pursue a project with such obvious potential to cause unnecessary deaths. It must not be repeated. More

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      Biden surges in the 2024 race … for celebrity support

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      Hello!We’re sending the newsletter out slightly early this week, as Wednesday is Juneteenth. The holiday commemorates the day in 1865 when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned they were free – more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. Juneteenth has been celebrated by Black Americans since the late 1800s and was made a federal holiday in 2021.While the day will be marked by parades and events across the US, the Biden and Trump campaigns are continuing their sprint to November.In the past week Joe Biden raised more than $30m at a star-studded fundraising event in Los Angeles. Jack Black, George Clooney, Julia Roberts and Barbra Streisand were among the big name acts, and Biden is certainly leading the race for celebrity endorsements: Donald Trump can only offer the musician Kid Rock, the British actor turned strange man Laurence Fox, and the guy who played Superman on TV in the 1990s.But does it matter? Should we care whether or not Taylor Swift endorses Biden? (His campaign has been courting her for months.) We’ll take a look after the headlines.Here’s what you need to know1. A silent debate?The debate between Biden and Trump later this month will feature muted microphones, CNN announced on Sunday: meaning neither man will be able to talk over the other during the 90-minute event. The first Biden-Trump debate in 2020 was one of the great farces of our time, with Trump continually interrupting and heckling Biden, before telling a white supremacist group to “stand by”.2. Trump can’t remember his doctor’s nameTrump was in Michigan on Saturday, bragging about his mental acuity and demanding Biden take a cognitive test. Trump said he had “aced” a cognitive test administered by his presidential doctor, whom he identified as “Ronny Johnson”. “[Ronny Johnson] was the White House doctor, and he said I was the healthiest president, he feels, in history. So I liked him very much,” Trump said. The only problem was that Trump was thinking of Ronny Jackson. The Biden campaign was quick to point out the error.3. Biden acts on immigrationBiden is set to announce a new executive action that will allow some undocumented immigrants who are spouses and children of US citizens to become American citizens themselves. The action will help about 500,000 American families, according to the Department of Homeland Security, and 50,000 children. Politically it could help insulate Biden somewhat from accusations from the left that he has given in to hard-right Republican demands on border immigration, while potentially shoring up his support with minority communities, which has slipped slightly since the last election.George Clooney and Julia Roberts v Phil Robertson and Randy QuaidView image in fullscreenIn the celebrity endorsement race – if such a race exists – Biden is defeating Trump comfortably.Saturday night was the perfect illustration. Biden flew west, to Los Angeles, for a campaign fundraiser with a who’s who of Hollywood names, including Clooney, Roberts, Black, Streisand, Jason Bateman, the late-night host Jimmy Kimmel – who compered proceedings – and Barack Obama, appearing alongside his former vice-president. The celebs coughed up $30m, a significant boost to the Biden campaign coffers.In May, Robert De Niro popped up to criticize Trump outside court in Manhattan, while Queen Latifah and Lizzo were featured at a fundraiser in New York in March. Michael Douglas hosted Biden for a campaign event at his home earlier this year.Trump, the former TV host and celebrity builder who has a long-running obsession with the rich and famous (he sent invitations for his third wedding to various stars including Billy Joel, who attended but later said he wasn’t sure why he was invited), has a less deep bench.Dean Cain, a former actor who played Superman in the 1990s TV series Lois and Clark, backed Trump in April – “I’m endorsing President Trump 100%. No question about it,” Cain told Fox News – but hardly anyone noticed because, well, very few people know who Dean Cain is.Kid Rock, the country singer and cowboy-hat wearer, has been a long-term Trump backer (“Many close to him wonder what the hell happened,” Rolling Stone reported last month.) There’s also Randy Quaid, best known for playing a booze-addled, alien-obsessed, ex-pilot in Independence Day, and Dennis Quaid, Randy’s brother. There’s the actor Jon Voight, who these days is perhaps most known for being Angelina Jolie’s dad. Phil Robertson, who invented a sort of pipe thing that replicates the quack of a duck and was a reality TV star before voicing his homophobia, is also keen.But that’s about it. If this was a celebrity-gathering competition, Biden would definitely win.But it isn’t. It’s an election. So does it matter?Kind of. Sometimes. Although not always.Hillary Clinton had the backing of all the hip-ish A-listers in 2016 – I remember listening to Demi Lovato belting out her hits at a Clinton event in Iowa one evening – and still lost. But studies have found that Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement of Barack Obama in 2008 did make an impact: it boosted Obama’s vote and increased contributions.There is a difference between then and now, however. In May 2007 the future president was a relative unknown: Winfrey was introducing him to some people for the first time. Few Americans alive haven’t heard of Biden and Trump, so the effect of an endorsement from, say, a duck-noise inventor is debatable.What some politicos believe really could make a difference is the backing of Taylor Swift. In 2023, one fairly innocuous Instagram post from Swift – “I’ve heard you raise your voices, and I know how powerful they are. Make sure you’re ready to use them in our elections this year!” – inspired tens of thousands of people to register to vote.It’s safe to assume plenty of those new voters were young people – exactly the kind of voter Biden needs in November. No wonder that the Biden campaign is eagerly pursuing Swift, who backed Biden in 2020: the New York Times reports that Swift is “the biggest and most influential endorsement target” for the president.Swift is clearly on Trump’s mind, too. He brought her up at a meeting with Republican lawmakers in DC last week, spoke about Swift at length – “She probably doesn’t like Trump” – in an interview for a new book.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOf course, Swift hasn’t actually endorsed anyone yet. In 2020 she announced her support for Biden just one month before the election, so we could be waiting a while yet.Out and about: DetroitView image in fullscreenIf Trump had been hoping that the 80-minute headline speech at the Turning Point USA convention would improve his standing with Black voters, he would have been disappointed. The crowd before him on Saturday night in Detroit – which is 77% African American, and overwhelmingly Democratic – was almost exclusively white.The former president has been attempting in recent campaign appearances to present himself as popular with Black and Latino voters, as polls show his support among these demographic groups edging upwards. Michigan is also one of a handful of critical battleground states that are likely to determine the outcome of this year’s presidential race.Earlier on Saturday Trump visited a Black church in Detroit for an event billed as a “community roundtable” – but there was little audience crossover into the Turning Point event. Those attending were able to hear speeches from a range of Trump luminaries, including his former chief White House strategist Steve Bannon. Supporters could also pose for selfies in front of a gold-plated Mercedes bearing Trump’s image on the hood.– Ed Pilkington, chief US reporter, Detroit, MichiganBiggest lie: the vice-presidential hopefulsView image in fullscreenTim Scott, the South Carolina senator, and Byron Donalds, a Florida congressman, who are both auditioning to be Trump’s vice-president, each made similar claims during TV appearances this weekend – namely, that Biden is responsible for rampant violent crime.Scott said communities have been “ravaged by a wave of violent crime that we haven’t seen in five decades”, while Donalds claimed that while the murder rate might be down, it doesn’t mean violent crime overall is.Both are actually down. Recently released data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation showed big declines in violent crimes, including murder, and in property crimes in 2024 compared to 2023. Nor is it just a one-year drop. Violent crime is now at a nearly 50-year record low, Biden has said – and FBI crime data backs this up: it peaked in 1991, then has largely fallen, with occasional upward ticks such as 2020, which is often attributed to pandemic stresses.Unfortunately, while crime may be down, the public’s perception of crime is different. A Gallup poll in October found that 77% of Americans believe there is more crime in the US than a year ago, and Republicans seem to be happy to stoke those fears.– Rachel Leingang, misinformation reporterWho had the worst week: Republicans who like to smoke cigarsView image in fullscreenPity Tom Cole, the Republican congressman from Oklahoma, and his cigar-smoking pals, who have been left without a place to suck on their stogies after Cole left his position as chairman of the House rules committee.Cole spent 15 months as the Rules head honcho, and he allowed colleagues to puff on cigars in the rules office in the Capitol building. But it seems the new chair clamped down.“We desperately need a place to smoke cigars,” Cole told Business Insider this week.Smoking is banned in many public places in the US – including in Washington DC – but members of Congress can smoke all they like in their offices … which does little to counter the notion that politics is an elite little club, with its own little rules. More

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      Trump to stage Wisconsin rally days after calling Milwaukee a ‘horrible city’

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      Donald Trump is set to pitch for support in the key battleground state of Wisconsin on Tuesday, just days after calling its biggest population centre, Milwaukee, “a horrible city”.In what will also be his first visit to the midwestern state since last month’s felony conviction related to hush-money payments, Trump will stage a ticket-only rally in Racine, a city of about 76,000 on the shores of Lake Michigan, about 30 miles from Milwaukee.The former president will deliver remarks “on Joe Biden’s failed presidency”, according to his campaign.His message will compete with an advertising billboard placed nearby by the Democratic National Committee aimed at reminding locals of his Milwaukee comments, reportedly made last week to House Republicans during Trump’s first visit to Capitol Hill since the January 6 attack by a mob trying to overturn his presidential election loss to Joe Biden.“Want to know what’s really ‘horrible?’ Donald Trump for Wisconsin’s economy,” the ad will say.Republicans have scrambled to downplay or otherwise explain the unflattering reference to Milwaukee – all the more embarrassing because the city will host the party’s national convention, which starts 15 July and at which Trump’s nomination as its presidential candidate will become official.Trump himself, in characteristic fashion, has denied even uttering the remark, which was first reported by the Punchbowl website.“The Democrats are making up stories that I said Milwaukee is a ‘horrible city’. This is false, a complete lie, just like the Laptop from Hell was a lie, Russia … was a lie, and so much more,” he posted on his Truth Social site.“It’s called disinformation, and that’s all they know how to do. I picked Milwaukee, I know it well. It should therefore lead to my winning Wisconsin. But the Dems come out with this fake story, just like all of the others. It never ends. Don’t be duped. Who would say such a thing with that important state in the balance?”He conveyed a different message in an interview with Fox 6 News, in which he implicitly admitted the comment by attempting a clarification.“I think it was very clear what I meant. We’re very concerned with crime. I love Milwaukee,” he said. “But as you know the crime numbers are terrible, and we have to be very careful. But, I was referring to, also, the election,” when he unsuccessfully challenged vote tallies by falsely alleging fraud.Whatever the explanation, Democrats have announced plans to cash in by placing 10 billboards throughout Milwaukee blaring out Trump’s negative description in the run-up to the convention.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe ads coincide with a $50m advertising offensive in battleground states, the focal point of which is a Biden campaign video zeroing in on Trump’s convicted felon status following the conviction in a Manhattan court of falsifying documents to hide hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels, an adult film actor.The intense messaging reflects Wisconsin’s status as a potentially crucial swing state, with Racine county being one of its most competitive bellwether districts. Trump won the county by 50% and 51% in 2016 and 2020 respectively. Former presidents Barack Obama and George W Bush won it by comparable margins in their two election victories.Biden, who won Wisconsin by 21,000 votes in 2020, visited Racine last month, when he highlighted a $3.3bn investment planned in the area by Microsoft as evidence of the benefits of his economic policies.A RealClearPolitics survey this week showed Biden recording a 39.3% approval rating in Wisconsin, with 55.7% disapproving.Trump and Biden are running neck-and-neck in most national polls, with the former president showing leads in several battleground states. More

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      Biden is lurching right on immigration. Democrats must be the party of Dreamers | Chris Newman

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      Joe Biden is making a huge mistake by lurching to the right on immigration, away from his base and toward Donald Trump and the Republicans. In trying to be seen as tough at the border, ending asylum and curtailing immigrants’ rights, he is forgetting what happened the last time a Democratic president did right by immigrants in a big way.It happened 12 years ago this week, in the summer of an election year. Barack Obama took bold executive action to expand rights for an entire generation of undocumented immigrants. It was the right thing to do – and it helped him immensely at the polls.The move was Daca – Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. The policy offered hundreds of thousands of young immigrants brought here as children, known as Dreamers, renewable protection from deportation and permission to work legally. It was the most important advance for undocumented immigrants in more than two decades.Ever since Congress first comprehensively regulated immigration with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, every generation since has seen immigrants fighting for legalization (or political equality) the way that previous generations moved from illegal to legal status. Germans, Jews, Irish, Italians, newcomers from across Asia – they were all Dreamers once. They all benefited from presidential leadership.During the Covid lockdown, I taught a course at the University of California, Los Angeles, on the history and legacy of Daca. My students – some of them Dreamers themselves – learned what a landmark achievement it was in the evolution of US immigration policy, while placing it within the long continuum of immigrants’ progress from “illegal” to “legal”. White nationalism and xenophobia are forever flaring up in our history, and immigrants are always the scapegoat. But until recently, US presidents have doused the flames of nativism while expanding the country’s capacity for inclusion and shared prosperity.On 15 June 2012, against the advice of his advisers, Obama stepped out into the Rose Garden to announce the new policy: if young people came forward and registered with the Department of Homeland Security, he would give them what some would call amnesty. Rather than being electrocuted on the so-called “third rail” of US politics for advancing immigrants’ rights, Obama won re-election with an overwhelming share of the Latino vote. His Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, looked cruel and even foolish by comparison. The incipient Tea Party movement was rattled.By November, after Obama secured a come-from-behind victory, Beltway pundits acknowledged that it had been a good idea to advance equal rights for undocumented immigrants. Even Sean Hannity of Fox News changed his tune and declared that he had “evolved” to support a “path to citizenship” for the longterm undocumented.This may seem like a forgotten memory from before the twin plagues of Trumpism and the pandemic threw politics as we knew it into a black hole. But Dreamers, their families, and their employers remember what Obama did. Daca gave about 600,000 young people the chance to plant roots and contribute to the national well-being. A small fraction of the country’s estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants finally caught a break and our economy and society didn’t collapse. Things actually got better.The biggest Daca myth is that it was a gift that a benevolent Obama bestowed on a needy and timid cohort of immigrants. On the contrary. Obama had stubbornly resisted using his deferred action authority, saying the constitution didn’t allow it. The Dreamers knew better; they found their own lawyers (I was one of them) to make their case, and they pushed the idea that the executive branch had every right to exercise discretion and its limited resources, particularly to recognize the inexorable fact that all immigrants’ status inevitably change over time.The reasons people come to America are very often different from the reasons they stay. Quite literally since the Declaration of Independence in 1776, constitutional values of inclusion have always powered through political forces of exclusion to expand the definition of who deserves equal rights.Emulating the gift that 1960’s civil-rights leaders bestowed on the country, Dreamers marched, fasted, protested and prayed. They had sit-ins and teach-ins. Significantly, they committed acts of nonviolent civil disobedience. They got themselves arrested and thrown into deportations. All to prove that Obama could and should use his presidential authority to expand protections for undocumented immigrants. They played political hardball too, vowing to take their support to whoever would listen to them – perhaps evenMarco Rubio, a senator from Florida, back when he was seen as a Republican who could be reasoned with.Unlike Biden, Obama began his presidency tacking hard to the right on deportations. He used his discretion to conscript police and sheriff’s departments across America into civil immigration enforcement. Imagine if all cops were compelled to check someone’s tax status with the IRS upon arrest – that is what Obama did with immigration. It is a decision he came to regret.While Obama carried out record deportations (significantly more than Trump), he resisted the Dreamers as long as he could. He spent his first term convincing the immigrant rights lobby to suspend their criticism of his deportations with the promise that he was pursuing a long shot “comprehensive” immigration deal with Republicans that would trade a harshly militarized border, workplace crackdowns and interior removals in return for a so-called path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented residents.Obama kept his end of the enforcement bargain by setting a record on expulsions that led immigrant-rights advocates and even The New York Times editorial page to label him “the Deporter-in-Chief”. While some in the administration winced at the moniker, Obama’s political advisors like David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel likely rejoiced: by moving to the right on immigration, Democrats ostensibly took an issue away from Republicans, while making caricatures of Republicans as anti-Latino racists.But the Republicans kept demanding more – and getting it. And then they got Trump. Not long ago the Republican immigration agenda was more border personnel, workplace verification and scattered job-site raids. Now they’ve moved on to second world war-style detention camps, with the US military used to effectuate the mass expulsion of millions.What did Obama and the Democrats achieve by trying to out-tough xenophobic Republicans on immigration? Little to nothing. They’re still labeled the party of amnesty by the Maga media machine. And to their own fractured coalition, their position on immigration became incomprehensibly illegible.Most insidiously, their weakness coupled with their own record of deportations gave Trump and his party tacit permission to be even worse. Every capitulation by the Democrats on punishing immigrants is seized on by Republicans as ratification of their big lie – that the country is being invaded and that the only way to save America is to shut the border and drive the dangerous aliens out.What is the alternative? Remember Daca. Remember how it was achieved. By fighting back. Honor and learn from the courageous young immigrant civil rights leaders who – putting their lives and livelihoods at risk – pushed Obama into the one immigration action he can be proud of. At this dire moment for the country’s future, we need more courage, not less. From everyone, but especially from Biden.If he values his legacy, Obama should step up alongside those immigrant kids (now adults) who convinced him to do the right thing. He should urge his friend and successor, Biden to do the same: respect and protect immigrants’ rights, draw from their courage as the nation trembles with fear of the prospect of Trump seizing power again.It is not hyperbole to fear, as the current president is fond of saying, that US democracy itself is on the ballot in this election. If it is to prevail this November, Biden must learn the lesson from Daca and use his singular authority to expand the definition of who “we” are as Americans. If he does so, he and the country will be rewarded.
      Chris Newman is legal director of the National Day Laborers Organizing Network, which advocates for immigrants and low-wage workers’ rights More

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      Iowa presidential poll may contain warning for Biden’s re-election – but it’s still early – as it happened

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      Donald Trump has a big lead over Joe Biden in Iowa, according to a survey of the state conducted by authoritative pollster Ann Selzer for The Des Moines Register and Mediacom.Fifty percent of Iowa voters who responded to the survey say they will vote for Trump, against 32% who say they’ll support Biden, the poll finds, which is not much of a surprise, since Iowa has become increasingly Republican in recent cycles.The former president’s big lead could nonetheless be a bad sign for Biden’s support in other midwestern states he must win in order to secure a second term. While Iowa is not considered a swing state, there has in the past been some correlation between Trump’s lead there, and his support in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan – all states that Biden is targeting to win.Trump’s 18-point lead in Iowa could signal a significant loss in support for Biden elsewhere in the midwest, but there is a big caveat: we are still a ways away from the November election, and though Selzer is considered the best pollster in the Hawkeye state, there’s plenty of time for voters’ sentiments to change.Are the voters who could matter most in determining the November election souring on Donald Trump over his felony convictions? A newly released poll showed a drop off in support for the former president among independents, who may prove crucial in tipping a race that other polls indicate is currently too close to call. However, the same survey shows a sizable segment of voters wondering whether Trump’s conviction was politically motivated, while a poll of red state Iowa indicates Trump has an 18-point lead, potentially a sign of low support for Biden elsewhere in the midwest. The big caveat with all these polls is that it’s still early, and a lot could change between now and the 5 November vote.Here’s what else happened today:
      Senate Democrats will on Tuesday attempt to pass a bill banning “bump stocks”, which allow semiautomatic weapons to fire rapidly. Majority leader Chuck Schumer pleaded with Republicans not to block the legislation.
      The Biden campaign is spending big to remind voters of Trump’s felony conviction ahead of next week’s presidential debate.
      Tim Scott, the Republican senator and potential vice-presidential pick for Trump, said he stood behind his decision to certify Biden’s 2020 election win.
      The Mountain Valley Pipeline is in operation, after overcoming years of protests and lawsuits by activists concerned about the natural gas conduit’s effect on the climate and environment.
      Joe Biden may on Tuesday announce a new program to shield from deportation undocumented spouses of US citizens.
      Immigration advocates are cautiously optimistic Joe Biden will unveil a new program on Tuesday that would shield from deportation the undocumented spouses of US citizens in what some say will be the largest relief program since Daca.Biden is expected to make the announcement on Tuesday during an event marking the 12th anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program, which shields from deportation nearly 530,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children.On a call with reporters, advocates said they were still waiting for the formal announcement, but felt confident Biden would deliver the relief many have sought for so many years.Among those who will be listening closely on Tuesday is Ashley de Azevedo, the president of American Families United. She met her husband, Sergio, an immigrant from Brazil, on a train to New York City. When they married in 2012, she assumed he would be eligible for a green card. But under US law, he would have to return to Brazil for 10 years before he could apply for permanent residency because he had entered the US illegally.“The system doesn’t work like it does in the movies,” Azevedo told reporters. “You don’t marry an American and automatically get a green card. There are laws in place that make it impossible for so many.”The expected announcement will come after Biden moved forward with an aggressive asylum crackdown that infuriated immigration advocacy groups and some Latino leaders, who compared the action to Trump-era border policies.“A positive, effective announcement like the one we expect tomorrow can be a game changer for many of the voters in our communities who need to see the bright line, clear contract between the parties on immigration,” said Vanessa Cardenas, the executive director of the pro-immigration group, America’s Voice.It could also help Biden win back support among Hispanic voters, as polling shows Trump making significant inroads with this key constituency.“We anticipate that immigrants and Latino voters will express their gratitude at the ballot box in November, rewarding the president,” said Gustavo Torres, president of CASA in Action.Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats would attempt to pass legislation to ban “bump stocks”, the device that allows semiautomatic weapons to fire rapidly which the supreme court last week allowed to remain available to the public.Schumer said Martin Heinrich, the Democratic senator of New Mexico, will propose the ban, and urged Republicans not to block it.“This week, the Senate will step in to try and fix the chaos the Maga court just unleashed,” Schumer said. “As soon as tomorrow, Democrats will seek passage of a federal ban on bump stocks, and I urge my Republican colleagues not to block Senator Heinrich when he comes to the floor.”Schumer continued:
      Passing a bill banning bump stocks should be the work of five minutes. Most Americans support this step. Poll after poll show that a majority of people, including independents, support restrictions on AR-15 style rifles, which is what ‘bump stocks’ are designed to emulate.
      I understand that the issue of gun safety provokes intense disagreement in Congress, but shouldn’t we all agree that preventing another tragedy like Las Vegas is just plain common sense and a good thing. Banning bump stocks will go a long way to making it harder for murderers to carry out large shootings. So I hope our Republican colleagues join us.
      At her briefing to reporters today, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the Biden administration disagreed with the supreme court’s ruling last week allowing “bump stocks” to remain available, and urged Congress to ban the modifications, as well as assault weapons.The devices allow semiautomatic weapons to fire rapidly, and one was used in the 2017 shooting in Las Vegas that killed 60 people.“Weapons of war have no place in our streets,” Jean-Pierre said. “Unfortunately, the court’s ruling strikes down an important, common-sense regulation on devices that convert semiautomatic rifles into weapons that can fire hundreds of bullets per minute, also known as bump stocks.”She reiterated that Joe Biden would sign legislation banning bump stocks and assault weapons if Congress passes it. Left unsaid was the fact that Republicans mostly oppose such efforts.“We want to see that happen. And so, this is a legislative priority for this president,” Jean-Pierre said.Here’s more from last week, on the ruling by the supreme court’s conservative supermajority:Donald Trump and Joe Biden are right now scheduled to debate twice before the November election, with their first encounter scheduled for 27 June. Over the weekend, CNN, the host of the first debate, made public their rules for the parlay, the Guardian’s Edward Helmore reports:The first US presidential debate between incumbent Joe Biden and Republican rival Donald Trump on 27 June will include two commercial breaks, no props and muted microphones except when recognized to speak, CNN said on Saturday.The rules, agreed outside the Commission on Presidential Debates, are designed to reduce fractious interruptions and cross-talk that have often marred TV encounters in recent presidential election cycles.CNN, a division of Warner Bros Discovery, said debate moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash “will use all tools at their disposal to enforce timing and ensure a civilized discussion” during the 90-minute broadcast from Atlanta.Another Biden-Trump face-off will be hosted by ABC anchors David Muir and Linsey Davis in September. The traditional October debate will not take place as part of the agreement between the two campaigns and television networks that cut out the commission following years of complaints and perceived slights.A big change is coming to the way Oklahoma courts handle the sentencing for domestic violence survivors found guilty of crimes, the Guardian’s Olivia Empson reports:Oklahoma’s governor, Kevin Stitt, signed Senate Bill 1835 at the end of last month – marking a radical change for incarcerated domestic violence survivors in the state.Also known as Oklahoma’s Survivors Act, the law will be signed into effect on 1 September and will grant hundreds of people who experienced abuse the opportunity to be resentenced with more leniency in what is one of the most extensive reforms to the state’s justice system following years of advocacy.Incarcerated people in Oklahoma, like Shari McDonald and April Wilkens, whose crimes were motivated by domestic violence, can file for resentencing when the law is signed. Going forward, courts can impose lesser sentences under certain circumstances if abuse is substantiated, and survivors can be considered for a lesser prison range than they were initially eligible for.Crucially, the legislation will also ensure that future survivors are not judged so harshly by the justice system for acting in self-defense.Wilkins was 25 years old when she killed her fiance. She alleged he raped, threatened and abused her for years, and that behavior had been happening on the night of the murder. She claims that pulling the trigger had been an act of retaliatory self-defense and never imagined it would be repudiated by the police who arrested her. Over the years, Wilkens had three past protective orders against her fiance and had filed 14 police reports.“What use is a piece of paper, though,” she said, “if you’re dead.”Norcross attended the press conference announcing his own indictment, according to several outlets.Norcross sat front row as the New Jersey attorney general gave additional insight into the corruption charges Norcross and five other defendants face.A powerful Democratic broker from New Jersey has been charged with racketeering, the New Jersey attorney general announced on Monday.George E Norcross III, a former member of the Democratic National Committee, along with five defendants face several corruption charges, according to a 13-count indictment that was unsealed on Monday.Norcross and others allegedly obtained properties throughout the city of Camden, unlawfully collecting millions in tax credits and influencing New Jersey politicians to continue their scheme, NJ.com reported.New Jersey attorney general Matthew J Platkin alleged that Norcross and others had been “running [the] criminal enterprise in this state for at least the last 12 years,” the New York Times reported.“On full display in this indictment is how a group of unelected, private businessmen used their power and influence to get government to aid their criminal enterprise and further its interests,” Platkin added.Read the full NJ.com article here.Read the full Times article here (paywall).Maryland governor Wes Moore signed an executive order Monday morning that pardons more than 175,000 people with marijuana-related convictions.The pardon by Moore is the largest state pardon to date. Moore told the Washington Post that he signed the pardon to coincide with the Juneteenth holiday, which commemorates the emancipation of enslaved African Americans.Historically, Black people are more than three times more likely than white people to be arrested on marijuana-related charges despite similar rates of drug use.“I’m ecstatic that we have a real opportunity with what I’m signing to right a lot of historical wrongs,” Moore said to the Post. “If you want to be able to create inclusive economic growth, it means you have to start removing these barriers that continue to disproportionately sit on communities of colour.”The pardon will not release anyone from prison, the Post reported, but will forgive low-level marijuana possession charges for some 100,000 people.Are the voters who could matter most in determining the November election souring on Donald Trump over his felony convictions? A newly released poll showed a drop off in support for Trump among independents, who may prove crucial in tipping a race that other polls indicate is currently too close to call. However, the same survey shows a sizable segment of voters wondering whether Trump’s conviction was politically motivated, while a poll of Iowa indicates the former president has an 18-point lead in the red state, which could be a sign of low support for Biden elsewhere in the midwest. The big caveat with all these polls is that it’s still early, and lots could change between now and the 5 November election.Here’s what else has happened so far today:
      The Biden campaign is spending big to remind voters of Trump’s felony conviction ahead of next week’s presidential debate.
      Tim Scott, the Republican senator and potential vice-presidential pick for Trump, said he stood behind his decision to certify Biden’s 2020 election win.
      The Mountain Valley Pipeline is in operation, after overcoming years of protests and lawsuits by activists concerned about the natural gas conduit’s effect on the climate and environment.
      Reuters reports that lawyers for the president’s son, Hunter Biden, withdrew a motion requesting a new trial after he was convicted on federal gun charges last week.Biden is considering whether to appeal his conviction, and is also scheduled to face trial in September on federal tax charges.Here’s more from last week, when a jury in Delaware returned guilty verdicts on the gun charges:Donald Trump has a big lead over Joe Biden in Iowa, according to a survey of the state conducted by authoritative pollster Ann Selzer for The Des Moines Register and Mediacom.Fifty percent of Iowa voters who responded to the survey say they will vote for Trump, against 32% who say they’ll support Biden, the poll finds, which is not much of a surprise, since Iowa has become increasingly Republican in recent cycles.The former president’s big lead could nonetheless be a bad sign for Biden’s support in other midwestern states he must win in order to secure a second term. While Iowa is not considered a swing state, there has in the past been some correlation between Trump’s lead there, and his support in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan – all states that Biden is targeting to win.Trump’s 18-point lead in Iowa could signal a significant loss in support for Biden elsewhere in the midwest, but there is a big caveat: we are still a ways away from the November election, and though Selzer is considered the best pollster in the Hawkeye state, there’s plenty of time for voters’ sentiments to change. More

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      Biden ad blitz targets Trump’s criminal conviction in pitch to swing voters

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      Joe Biden is seeking to exploit Donald Trump’s recent felony conviction in a television advertising blitz, amid polling evidence that the presumptive Republican nominee’s criminal status is hurting him with independent voters.A new 30-second advert released on Monday homes in on Trump’s 31 May conviction in a Manhattan court on 34 counts of falsifying documents to conceal the payment of hush money to Stormy Daniels, an adult actor, who testified that the pair had sex.The ad – featuring black-and-white courtroom images of Trump – also highlights his losses in two civil court cases, one from the writer E Jean Carroll, who said the former president raped and defamed her, and a $355m fraud ruling against his businesses.“We see Donald Trump for who he is,” the ad’s narrator says. “He’s been convicted of 34 felonies, found liable for sexual assault and he committed financial fraud.“Meanwhile, Joe Biden’s been working,” the narrative continues in a calculated comparison between Trump and his successor in the Oval Office. “This election is between a convicted criminal who is only out for himself and a president who is fighting for you and your family.”The ad will run in key battleground states and is the Biden campaign’s most aggressive commentary yet on Trump’s criminal status after a muted initial response.It is part of a $50m advertising onslaught as the Biden election machine seeks to make Trump’s character a central issue in the run-up to the first scheduled televised debate between the pair on CNN on 27 June.In the immediate aftermath of the verdict – which Trump has appealed – the president appeared to play it down, saying: “There’s only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: At the ballot box.”The apparent change of course follows polling indicators that the conviction may sway potential swing voters, widely deemed crucial in a close race. A fresh poll for Politico shows 21% of independent voters saying it makes them less likely to vote for him in November – a potentially decisive factor in a contest in which opinion surveys have shown the two candidates running neck-and-neck, with Trump leading narrowly in many instances.The poll also recorded 43% of voters as believing that the verdict was intended to help Biden.One of Trump’s leading surrogates, the Florida congressman Byron Donalds, who has been tipped as a potential vice-presidential contender, called on the US supreme court – which has a six-to-three conservative majority, largely because of Trump’s nomination of conservative justices while he was president – to reverse the conviction, despite it having no jurisdiction over state cases.“In New York, the only ability for this to be overturned … is going to be happening two or three years from now,” he told NBC’s Meet The Press.“That’s why what happened in lower Manhattan was to interfere with an election, which is why Speaker [Mike] Johnson, myself included, and many Americans believe the supreme court should step in to this matter.”At a fundraising event in Los Angeles, attended by former president Barack Obama, and actors George Clooney and Julia Roberts, Biden told the comedian Jimmy Kimmel that a Trump victory would result in at least two more conservative justices being appointed to the supreme court, which he said would be “very negative in terms of the rights of individuals”. More