Author: NYMHM team

NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL NEWS

1. Truth and Reconciliation September 30

Gabby Petito, who disappeared while traveling in a van with her boyfriend and who later was found murdered in Wyoming, captured the heart of the Internet. But the intense interest in her story rings hollow to First Nations people, who point out that over the last 10 years, “710 Indigenous people were reported missing across Wyoming,” according to the Guardian. Indigenous people make up only three percent of Wyoming’s population, but over the last 20 years, 21% of all the people killed in Wyoming were Indigenous. A report from the University of Wyoming points out that “Only 30% of Indigenous homicide victims had newspaper media coverage, as compared to 51% of White homicide victims. Indigenous female homicide victims had the least amount of newspaper media coverage (18%).”

The issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG) is not particularly a rural problem. The Urban Indian Health Institute found that in 2016, there were 5,712 instances of missing Indigenous women and girls across the US. The cities with the highest number of MMIWG are Seattle, Albuquerque, Anchorage, Tucson, Billings, Gallup, Tacoma, Omaha, Salt Lake City and San Francisco. However, the Department of Justice missing persons department only had recorded 116 of those missing; the lack of data, as well as the lack of coverage, makes it difficult to address the issue. 

As we noted in May, Canada has also been grappling with the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. Statistics Canada found that between 2000 and 2015, 25% of all homicide victims were Indigenous women and girls. The final report of an inquiry begun in 2016, “Reclaiming Power and Place,” found that “persistent and deliberate human and Indigenous rights violations and abuses are the root cause behind Canada’s staggering rates of violence against Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA people.” It includes 231 individual Calls for Justice, summarized here by the CBC.

September 30 is “Orange Shirt Day” in Canada–it is the first official Day of Truth and Reconciliation, commemorating all the Indigenous children who were taken away from their parents and forced to attend residential schools–places where they were stripped of their culture and sometimes their lives: thousands of children did not return home. The orange shirt refers to a story told by a residential school survivor, Phyllis Webstad, who at age 6 was given an orange shirt by her grandmother when she was sent away to school. When she got there, all her clothes were taken and she never saw the shirt again. The CBC tells Webstad’s story; if you search “Orange Shirt Day” and your area, you will find links to fundraisers for residential school survivors and ways to learn about and support them. RLS

2. Four land and environment defenders murdered every week worldwide

Every year since 2009, Global Witness has published a list of murdered land and environmental defenders. This year’s list is the longest ever, documenting 227 lethal attacks on environmental defenders—an average of more than four killings a week. Global Witness explains that “these lethal attacks are taking place in the context of a wider range of threats against defenders including intimidation, surveillance, sexual violence, and criminalisation. Our figures are almost certainly an underestimate, with many attacks against defenders going unreported.” Global Witness advocates for United Nations (UN) action: official UN recognition of the human right to a safe, healthy, and sustainable environment; the addition of human rights provisions to the Paris Agreement, the globe’s largest and best known multinational effort to slow climate change; and implementation of recommendations by the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights.

 In an editorial in The Guardian, Bill McKibben emphasizes that the local activists being murdered are on the front lines of our struggle against catastrophic climate change. McKibben calls out corporations as a powerful, if insufficiently recognized, force behind these murders: “The demand for the highest possible profit, the quickest possible timeline, the cheapest possible operation, seems to translate eventually into the understanding, somewhere, that the troublemaker must go. The blame rarely if ever makes its way back up to a corporation’s HQ. But it should.” He argues that one of the key measures of global success in fighting global climate change should be a decrease in such killings.

 One piece of pending U.S. legislation that acknowledges the killing of climate activists is the Berta Cáceres Human Rights in Honduras Act, H.R.1574. H.R.1574 would prohibit U.S. military and police aid to Honduras until specific steps are taken to address the killing of climate activists, including:

◉The Honduran government has pursued all legal avenues to reach verdicts in the killings of Berta Cáceres and 100 small-farmer activists;

◉The Honduran government has investigated and prosecuted members of the military and police who have violated human rights;

◉The Honduran government has taken effective steps to ensure the rule of law.

This legislation is currently with the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Financial Services Committee. S-HP

If you want to take action on this issue, call on President Biden and UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield to promote Global Witness’s recommendations for connecting the intersection of the climate crisis and global human rights via the United Nations. Ask your Congressmembers what they are doing to investigate and respond to the intersection of the climate crisis and global human rights, and urge swift, positive action on H.R.1574 by the appropriate House Committees. All addresses are here.

3. California families, others, still trapped in Afghanistan

As the news cycle marches implacably on, those still stuck in Afghanistan after the precipitous US withdrawal are in danger of being forgotten. Among those are 41 Sacramento-area students, who had gone to visit family members before the Taliban takeover or who were with their families there. Some were scheduled to take flights out but were caught in the chaos after the bombing of the airport in Kabul, according to the Sacramento Bee. Sacramento is home to a large number of people from Afghanistan–almost ten thousand. 

Some San Diego families had also been stuck in Afghanistan, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune; as of early September, all but one family had escaped in what the Union-Tribune described as a harrowing process.

Others, too, are stranded in Afghanistan. Some Afghans who worked for the US and who were on lists to be brought to the US have still not been gotten out, according to CNN, particularly those who had to leave the airport when it was bombed. About 200 Ukrainians have been unable to leave; they are out of money and some need medical care, but no provision for their departure seems to have been made by Ukraine, according to Al Jazeera. An evacuation flight was permitted to leave September 19 with nationals from various countries, according to ABC News, but the coverage of both American and Canadian Afghan allies and citizens of countries elsewhere who need to leave Afghanistan and cannot is spotty. One source says that family members of Canadians are being told that no more evacuation flights are planned.

Meanwhile, nearly ten thousand Afghan refugees are in camps in Germany, waiting to be flown to their final destinations in Canada and elsewhere, CTV reports. RLS

If you are concerned about Sacramento area families who are stuck in Afghanistan, you can call the local offices of Rep. Ami Bera, D-Elk Grove and Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento, the Bee suggests.Congressman Darrell Issa (R-California) worked to get San Diego families and others out; the form on his website is very informative.

4. Discrimination against Haitians seeking asylum

People around the world have been appalled by images of U.S. Border Patrol horseback units rounding up Haitian refugees in one South Texas encampment. In response, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas has suspended all use of Border Patrol horse patrols (which is not necessarily an entirely good thing, given that horse patrols—when not brutalizing asylum seekers—can perform certain kinds of rescues that are impossible on foot or by vehicle).

However, the history of relations between Haiti and the US has been problematic for centuries. In providing an outline of that history, the Associated Press points out the almost sixty-year struggle to get the US to recognize Haiti after its liberation, largely because of fears that the example of Haitian slaves rising up to fight for their freedom might inspire slaves within the U.S. After the assassination of the Haitian president in 1915, the US occupied Haiti and continued to control the country for nineteen years. Some 30,000 Haitian died during the brutal regime of Francois Duvalier, who was backed by the US. The country suffered a major earthquake in 2010 and another this year, destroying what infrastructure the country had.

  As The Guardian explains, many Haitians left to live in other countries following the 2010 earthquake, particularly in Chile and Brazil, and among those now struggling to enter the US are many who have not lived in Haiti in years and whose children born abroad don’t have Haitian citizenship. Some of these families are among the almost 2,000 people who were deported to Port-au-Prince last week. UNICEF has been tracking those deportations and estimates that 2/3 of deportees are women and children, and 40% of those deported are part of family units, reports the New York Times. The Hill reports that thousands of Haitians are being expelled from the US under Title 42, the controversial rule used extensively by the Trump administration, that grants sweeping powers to refuse entry to asylum seekers during a pandemic.

 Associated Press reporting also documents the higher rates of deportation of Haitian asylum seekers in comparison with other groups from Central America and the Caribbean. Only 4.62% percent of Haitian asylum seekers gain admittance to the US. For asylum seekers from El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, and Honduras, admittance rates range from 6.1% to 14.12%.

 An August piece from Reuters examines an increasing acknowledgement that many US immigration policies originate in racial bias and determination to keep the US “white.” In a ground-breaking ruling, a federal judge has determined that a policy categorizing initial undocumented entry into the US a misdemeanor, while reentry is categorized as a felony that can be punished by up to 20 years in prison was “enacted with a discriminatory purpose and… has a disparate impact on Latinx persons.” In fact, from 2008 to 2019, illegal entry and reentry have been the most prosecuted crimes in federal courts according to data from the Administrative Office of US Courts.

Reuters deems the August ruling as “a rare admission by the courts that the foundational elements of federal immigration machinery—enforcement policies we now take for granted—actually clash with Constitutional equal protection guarantees, and perpetuate a stigmatizing disparate impact on Latinos and Hispanic people.” The ruling is “a recognition that courts can and should strike down laws motivated by bias.”  In other legal news, Haitian Bridge Alliance, The UndocuBlack Network, Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) and African Communities Together on Friday sent a letter of complaint to the Department of Homeland Security’s head of Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, according to The Grio, demanding that those who have been victimized and those who witnessed the abuse at the border be protected from deportation.

If you are interested in donating to support earthquake relief efforts, New York Magazine’s the Strategist reminds us that reporting from NPR and ProPublica found that the Red Cross—for many people a “go-to” relief organization—mismanaged aid donated after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. They urge donating to organizations already on the ground in Haiti, who have strong relationships with local communities and offer a list of suggested organizations to donate to. Charity Navigator gives the organization Hope for Haiti a four-star evaluation. S-HP

Other actions you can take include these (relevant addresses are here):

◉ Urging Vice President Kamala Harris, who has been charged with addressing US immigration policy, to speak out on the treatment of Haitian asylum seekers and calling for actions that can make a real difference in the treatment of those from the Caribbean and Central America.

◉Thanking Secretary Mayorkas for speaking out after the violence by Border Control horse patrols, but pointing that cancelling such patrols will not have the impact that investigating those responsible for them would have and urging him to take a more comprehensive approach to addressing abuse of asylum-seekers and migrants, particularly for those from regions or communities that have been subject to unfair bias in the past.

◉ Asking your Congressmembers what they are doing to address both the current treatment of Haitians seeking asylum and the racist underpinnings of present-day immigration law.

5. Benefits for those caught in “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

On September 20, the 10^th anniversary of the repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA) announced a policy providing benefits to those who had been discharged under DADT and under previous, even more restrictive rules. In a piece for the VA blog, Kayla Williams, VA Assistant Secretary for Public and Intergovernmental Affairs, writes “Today, we are… taking steps to clarify VA policy for Veterans who were given other than honorable discharges based on homosexual conduct, gender identity or HIV status. Under this newly-issued guidance, VA adjudicators shall find that all discharged service members whose separation was due to sexual orientation, gender identity or HIV status are considered ‘Veterans’ who may be eligible for VA benefits, like VR&E (Veteran Readiness and Employment), home loan guaranty, compensation and pension, health care, homeless program and/or burial benefits, so long as the record does not implicate a statutory or regulatory bar to benefits.” Williams acknowledges being bisexual and having presented as straight during the battle to repeal DADT and acknowledged that “It took many years for me to shed the toxic legacy of having served under DADT.” Williams’ blog contribution ends with a call for veterans dishonorably discharged under DADT or other homophobic rules to apply for a discharge upgrade. S-HP

You can thank President Biden and the Veterans’ Affairs Secretary for these changes in policy, President Joe Biden, the White House, 1600 Pennsylvania NW, Washington DC 20500, (202) 456-1111. @POTUS. Denis McDonough, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, 1722 I Street NW, Washington DC20006, (800) 827-1000. And thank Kayla Williams for her articulate presentation of these policy changes and her personal testimony. Kayla Williams, Assistant Secretary, Veterans’ Administration Office for Public and Intergovernmental Affairs, 810 Vermont Ave. NW, Washington DC 20420

SCIENCE, HEALTH, TECHNOLOGY & THE ENVIRONMENT

6. Protecting Women’s Health

On September 24, the House passed H.R.3755, the Women’s Health Protection Act, which confirms that “Abortion services are essential to health care and access to these services is central to people’s ability to participate equally in the economic and social life of the United States.” H.R.3755 affirms that heath care providers have a right to provide abortion services. It also prohibits many limitations on the provision of abortion services, including requirements for specific tests or procedures that are not required for medically comparable procedures, requirements for medically unnecessary in-person visits to an abortion provider or to any entity that does not provide abortion services, and prohibitions on abortions after fetal viability if the health care provider determines that delaying the procedure poses a risk to the patient’s health. H.R.3755 empowers the Attorney General to commence civil action against any state or government official that violates the provisions of the law,  The vote on the Women’s Health Protection Act was 218-211. All 218 aye votes were cast by Democrats. 210 of the 211 nay votes were cast by Republicans, with the additional nay vote being cast by Democratic Representative Henry Cuellar of Texas. This legislation was introduced by Representative Judy Chu of California. Identical legislation, S.1975, is currently with the Senate Judiciary Committee.

If this issue is important to you, you can check how your Representative voted on H.R.3755 and thank or excoriate as appropriate. Find your Representative here. You could also tell your Senator that you are heartened by the passage of H.R.3755 and urge their support of S.1975. Call for swift, positive action on S.1975 by the Senate Judiciary Committee: Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chair, Senate Judiciary Committee, 224cDirksen Senate Office Building, Washington DC 20510, (202) 224-7703. @SenatorDurbin.

RESOURCES

Are you trying to decide whether to go to an in-person event? The Canadian Institute on Ageing offers a detailed, well-grounded risk assessment tool.

Moms Rising always has clear, focused actions you can take to make change. Note in particular their suggestion to tell your Governor to stop playing politics with kids’ health. Apropos of which, note the CDC report from May that describes how masks and vaccines reduce transmission in schools.

The Americans of Conscience checklist has relaunched! They offer new actions every other week that will enable you to make your voice heard quickly and clearly. In addition, they have a good news section that will help you keep going.

The American Medical Association (AMA) has a useful FAQ about COVID-19 and the vaccines.

The World Food Programme estimates that 12.4 Syrians are food-insecure, an increase of 4.5 million over the last year. They are receiving donations for their work providing food for the most vulnerable families. The UNHCR is also requesting donations for displaced families in Syria and surrounding countries, particularly Lebanon and Turkey.

The UN Refugee Agency is requesting donations for humanitarian aid in Afghanistan, especially for the hundreds of thousands of displaced people.  Not only because Afghan assets have been frozen, but because of massive inflation and the lack of funds to pay the salaries of public employees, the country is at risk of “a total breakdown of the economy and social order,” according to the UN Special Envoy on Afghanistan.

Among the organizations that supports kids and their families at the border is RAICES, which provides legal support. The need for their services has never been greater. You can support them here.

Al Otro Lado provides legal and humanitarian services to people in both the US and Tijuana. You can find out more about their work here.

The Minority Humanitarian Foundation supports asylum-seekers who have been released by ICE with no means of transportation or ways to contact sponsors. You can donate frequent-flyer miles to make their efforts possible.

The group Angry Tias and Abuelas provides legal advice and services to asylum-seekers at the border. You can follow their work on Facebook and see the list of volunteer opportunities they have posted.

Last week we described the other civil rights issues involved in the Texas abortion law allowed to stand by the Supreme Court–the ways it is set up to be enforced by vigilante actions; public officials are not allowed to enforce it. Vox explains why the bill was constructed the way it was: The law allows private citizens rather than officials to essentially prosecute women suspected of getting abortions after six weeks, as well as those who provide them, and anyone who assists a woman or a provider. Thus, officials cannot be sued for enforcing it. Among the dangers, Vox points out, is that if it is allowed to stand, any law could be constructed this way, putting it beyond challenge.

A striking array of corporations funded SB8, directly or indirectly. Here you’ll find mailing addresses for companies outside of Texas that have made substantial donations to the Texas legislators who sponsored SB8. And here you’ll see mailing addresses for Texas-based companies, so you can ask what they’re doing to respond to SB8. Finally, here are addresses for companies that are taking action in resistance to SB8.

DOMESTIC NEWS

1. Biden continues to deport families to Mexico

In response to a lawsuit from the ACLU, District Court judge in Washington D.C. has enjoined the Biden administration from continuing to deport families seeking asylum at the border, the Daily Mail reported on September 16. Biden has been using Title 42, the CDC policy developed under the Trump administration, to justify sending families to Mexico. Mexico, however, has become increasingly reluctant to take young children, especially those who are not Mexican, according to the Daily Mail. And the judge found in his ruling that “migrant families subjected to the policy are deprived of statutory rights to seek protection in the U.S. and ‘face real threats of violence and persecution.'”

The Biden administration almost immediately appealed the ruling, the LA Times reported. Under the ruling, the administration could still deport single adults but not families with children; at an earlier stage in the case, Biden agreed not to deport unaccompanied children.

In response to claims that unvaccinated asylum-seekers are leading to a surge in COVID-19 cases, the AP explained that in fact, unvaccinated Americans are responsible for it. Asylum applicants are tested and sent to hotels to quarantine, either through non-profit organizations or local governments. And in any case, the number of migrants with COVID is too small to be responsible for the surge in COVID cases, said the AP. As the local health officer in Hidalgo County, Texas, put it, “Is it a pandemic of the migrants? No, it is a pandemic of the unvaccinated.” RLS

2. Haitians to be deported are threatened with whips–14,000 to be expelled in the next three weeks

The Biden administration has begun deporting Haitians seeking humanitarian assistance back to Haiti, despite that country’s objections. Haitian officials, according to the New York Times, say that because the already-impoverished country is coping with the assassination of its president in July and an earthquake in August, it cannot cope with those returning. 650,000 people–including 260,000 children–still need emergency assistance, the United Nations stated. Among those being deported are those whose homes were destroyed in the earthquake. The Times quoted the minister in charge of migration, Jean Negot Bonheur Delva, as saying that “’ongoing security issues’ made the prospect of resettling thousands of new arrivals hard to imagine. Haiti cannot provide adequate security or food for the returnees.” He asked the U.S. for a humanitarian moratorium. Instead, border agents on horseback charged those appealing for asylum with whips, according to the El Paso Times, and the U.S. is deporting them, many in shackles. RLS

If you would like to see the U.S. offer a humanitarian moratorium on the deportation of Haitians, let your Representative and your Senators know.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

3. US admits it targeted the wrong man–offers no compensation

The drone strike that killed seven children, as we noted last week, had targeted the wrong person, according to a New York Times investigation. Now military officials have acknowledged that the strike targeted the wrong white Toyota Corolla, calling it a “tragic mistake,” according to the LA TImes. Zemari Ahmadi, who had for 16 years worked for a charity based in California that provides aid to farmers in Afghanistan, was killed in the attack, along with three of his children, one of his brothers, and his brother’s children. The death of Ahmadi and his family illustrate one of the problems with using drones; they tend to kill civilians, as foreign policy writer Conn Hallinan points out. 250 children were killed by drones in just the first year of the Trump administration. Heather Cox Richardson’s column for September 19 sketches the recent history of drone use and identifies the high human cost.

Left without its only breadwinner, the Ahmadi family is asking to be relocated to the US or another safe country, since they are now visible as having been connected to a US organization, according to the Washington Post. They also want those who surely could have seen that there were children in the household held accountable. They would also like headstones for the dead, which they cannot afford. A family spokesperson said that no one from the US military has contacted them. RLS

You might want to write Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., head of U.S. Central Command, which oversees the Afghanistan operation, about relocating Ahmadi’s extended family quickly. You may want to point out that drones more often kill civilians than soldiers and terrorize local populations. @CENTCOM.

SCIENCE, HEALTH, TECHNOLOGY & THE ENVIRONMENT

4. Anti-vaxxers happy to use expensive monoclonal antibodies

Last week we noted that monoclonal antibodies were an underused but effective treatment for mild-moderate coronavirus. We spoke too soon: the use of monoclonal antibodies has spiked. It turns out that people opposed to vaccines will take monoclonal antibodies when they get COVID, creating shortages. That is, they will accept a $2100 option after having declined the cheap, easily available vaccine, the New York Times points out. Surely non-scientists can’t know any more about what is in monoclonal antibodies than what is in the vaccine. Perhaps it is the FOG factor–the Fear of God factor–when people discover the disease is real? 

70 percent of the doses thus far have gone to patients in seven southern states, Alabama, Florida, Texas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia and Louisiana, according to the Washington Post. Except for Florida, these are all states where the vaccination rates are lower than average. Monoclonal antibodies are targeted to people with significant COVID symptoms who are not yet hospitalized; they are given in an infusion which takes an hour and half of staff time. To make sure that the treatment continues to be available, the federal government just announced that it will take control of distribution, alarming some Southern governors.  RLS

5. Hospitals rationing care due to COVID explosion

Meanwhile, COVID cases in under-vaccinated states are through the roof, jamming emergency rooms and clogging ICUs, such that people with other urgent illnesses can’t be seen. An obituary for an Alabama man who had a heart attack noted that emergency staff contacted 43 emergency rooms before finding one that would take him. In Coeur d’Alene,  Idaho, where only 45% of the population has had even one shot, hospitals are running out of oxygen, and medical officers are talking about “death panels” that decide who can get treatment–real death panels, not those hallucinated by Sarah Palin to whip up opposition to the Affordable Care Act, according to the Seattle Times. In Canada, Alberta Premier Jason Kenny says the province could be out of ICU beds by September 27, according to the CBC, and will have to ration care. Kenny issued a tepid apology for ignoring the advice of public health officials, who had urged that the province not reopen early in the summer, CTV reported on Sunday. RLS

6. Profit or the Planet?

Warnings about the pace and trajectory of global climate change are growing more urgent. One of the latest comes from the U.N., which notes that while we need to cut emissions by 45% no later than 2030, actual emissions are projected to increase by 16% over that time period. Bottom line: “we” are making an irreversible decision to prioritize profit over planet. And, a corollary to that point is that profit will have to become less lucrative or much more difficult to obtain if we want to build momentum to change the fate of our planet. That means not just looking at new, cleaner sources of energy, but also making dirty energy more costly and difficult to produce—and making sure that all possible actors are taking on that challenge.

Case in point: the U.S. Treasury. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is currently reviewing ways federal banking regulators could protect our financial system from climate-related risks, the Washington Post notes. Yellin’s current approach is cautious—focusing on making corporations acknowledge the greenhouse gas emissions for which they are responsible and the risks these pose for investors. However, acknowledgement alone doesn’t guarantee any change in emissions output. For this reason, environmental advocates are urging Yellen to go further and use federal regulatory powers to mitigate climate change by, for example, making it more difficult for Wall Street banks to make loans to corporations that are major emitters of greenhouse gases. As Alexis Goldstein, an Open Markets financial expert, explained to the BBC, “Climate risk impacts all the firms that the financial regulators supervise. As a convener of regulators, Treasury needs to do more than acknowledge it—it should urge each financial regulator to use every tool at its disposal to tackle climate risks.” S-HP

You can add your voice to this conversation and urge Secretary Yellen to use the full range of her powers to slow global climate change; explain that fewer profits for some are needed now, if we’re to have a livable planet in the future. Janet Yellin, Secretary of the Treasury, Department of Treasury, 1500 Pennsylvania NW 20220, (202) 622-2000. @SecYellen

7. Communities with more white people receive more money to improve water quality

An analysis released last month by the Environmental Policy Innovation Center (EPIC) has determined that over the past decade, very little money from the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Drinking Water State Revolving Fund program has gone to smaller, more diverse communities. Plus, state release of these funds tends to favor loans over grants. While states can use up to 35% of funds from the program for grants and other cost reducing or eliminating strategies, nationally only 26% of funds are being spent that way, which reduces impoverished communities’ opportunities to improve drinking water infrastructure.

E&E reporting on the study cites a statement by Katy Hansen, senior water adviser at EPIC and a co-author of the study, who says that “[the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund is] a $45 billion program that’s been going for over 20 years, and there hasn’t yet been a wide-scale analysis that we’re aware of, of how the money is spent.” While poorer communities are receiving funds, funding among poorer communities shows significant racial disparities. Statistically speaking, the greater the proportion of Whites within a particular impoverished community, the more likely that community is to receive funding. S-HP

If you want to address this issue, you can ask the EPA what steps they are taking to address the biases found in EPIC’s study. Michael S. Regan, Director, Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania NW. 20460, (202) 564-4700. @EPAMichaelRegan

You can also alert your Congressmembers to the EPIC study’s findings, provide the internet site at which it can be viewed, and ask what actions they can take to support more equitable distribution of drinking water funds. Find your Senators here and your Representative here.

RESOURCES

Moms Rising always has clear, focused actions you can take to make change. Note in particular their suggestion to tell your Governor to stop playing politics with kids’ health. Apropos of which, note the CDC report from May that describes how masks and vaccines reduce transmission in schools.

The Americans of Conscience checklist has relaunched! They offer new actions every other week that will enable you to make your voice heard quickly and clearly. In addition, they have a good news section that will help you keep going.

The American Medical Association (AMA) has a useful FAQ about COVID-19 and the vaccines.

The World Food Programme estimates that 12.4 Syrians are food-insecure, an increase of 4.5 million over the last year. They are receiving donations for their work providing food for the most vulnerable families. The UNHCR is also requesting donations for displaced families in Syria and surrounding countries, particularly Lebanon and Turkey.

The UN Refugee Agency is requesting donations for humanitarian aid in Afghanistan, especially for the hundreds of thousands of displaced people.  Not only because Afghan assets have been frozen, but because of massive inflation and the lack of funds to pay the salaries of public employees, the country is at risk of “a total breakdown of the economy and social order,” according to the UN Special Envoy on Afghanistan.

Among the organizations that supports kids and their families at the border is RAICES, which provides legal support. The need for their services has never been greater. You can support them here.

Al Otro Lado provides legal and humanitarian services to people in both the US and Tijuana. You can find out more about their work here.

The Minority Humanitarian Foundation supports asylum-seekers who have been released by ICE with no means of transportation or ways to contact sponsors. You can donate frequent-flyer miles to make their efforts possible.

The group Angry Tias and Abuelas provides legal advice and services to asylum-seekers at the border. You can follow their work on Facebook and see the list of volunteer opportunities they have posted.

DOMESTIC NEWS

1. New Texas law targets more than reproductive rights

Texas’s SB8, a sweeping anti-abortion bill, has generated a great deal of anger and despair, but figuring out how to take action isn’t necessarily easy. SB8 allows private individuals to sue anyone who may have aided in some way to a post-six-week abortion. The law deliberately attempts to avoid constitutional equal protection guarantees by making the plaintiffs in such suits individuals, rather than law makers or law enforcement. Anyone who successfully sues an “abortion assistant” (a car driver, someone who spoke on an information phone line, someone who helped a friend or relative pay for the procedure, etc.) is guaranteed that all court costs will be borne by the individual sued. In addition, in successful suits, the plaintiff may receive up to $10,000 in punitive damages from the individual sued. There are no provisions to cover court costs for those who are forced to defend themselves because of such suits—even if those suits prove to be groundless, even vindictive.

Among the shocking news about SB8 is how many corporations donated to those who sponsored it. AT&T has donated $301,000 to the bill’s sponsors over the last several years. CVS Health, which tweeted “At #CVSHealth, we’re working together to support the unique health needs of women at every age,” donated $72,500, Anthem, which recently tweeted about the importance of gender equity, donated $87,250. As Newsweek points out, many of these are companies who in other venues express their commitment to women’s rights and women’s health. The largest contributor was a group of wealthy Texans, “Texans for Lawsuit Reform (TLR),” which donated $2.3 million, according to Popular Information.

As our readers may well have concerns over SB8, we have developed a comprehensive list of companies who were implicated in its passage. The information is divided into three sections. The first section offers mailing addresses for Texas-based companies, so you can ask what they’re doing to respond to SB8 and tell them how you’re feeling about their products at this moment. The second section offers mailing addresses for companies outside of Texas that have made substantial donations to the Texas legislators who sponsored SB8. The final section offers mailing addresses for companies that are taking action in resistance to SB8 and who deserve thanks. Choose the companies you’re most familiar with (or most pissed at) and help demonstrate that depriving individuals basic rights is no way to build brand loyalty. S-HP

We can write the Department of Justice to thank them for filing suit to block SB8, arguing that it violates the “equal protection under law” provision of the 14^th Amendment: Merrick Garland, Attorney General, U.S.Department of Justice, 950 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington DC 20530-0001, (202) 514-2000. @TheJusticeDept.

2. Confirmed: Black Lives Matter protesters were targeted

Black Lives Matter protesters were systematically targeted by police and federal prosecutors during the Trump era, according to a new report jointly produced by The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL),  a coalition of more than 50 activism and advocacy civil rights groups, and the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) clinic at City University of New York School of Law. The report points out that former President Trump and former Attorney General Barr consistently pressed for federal charges to be laid, charges which carry stiffer penalties than state charges. It compares the disparate police responses to Black Lives Matter protests and anti-mask/anti-vax protests, and explains that policing and prosecutions of BLM protesters drew heavily on Joint Terrorism Task Forces and counter-intelligence operations, NPR notes.

Both M4BL and CLEAR are calling for amnesty for protesters as well as reparations, and for the introduction of the BREATHE Act, according to NPR, which would remove funds from traditional policing and incarceration, Vox notes, and would instead fund new approaches to community safety. The BREATHE Act is supported by progressive Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). Thus far, elements of the BREATHE Act have been incorporated into HR 7120, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, according to Insider.com; the House Judiciary Committee has produced a fact sheet on what the bill would do. The Act was passed by the House but is stalled in the Senate, according to NPR. RLS

If you want to support the principles underlying Black Lives Matter, tell your Representative that you want to see the four elements that would be in the Breathe Act introduced as comprehensive legislation: • divesting from incarceration and police, • community safety funding initiatives to try new approaches, • money to build “Healthy, Sustainable & Equitable communities,” • accountability of officials and enhancing self-determination of Black communities. In addition, you could call on your Senators to move the Justice in Policing Act forward.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

3. Drone strike that killed seven children in Afghanistan targeted the wrong man

The US drone strike that killed seven children in Afghanistan may very well have targeted the wrong person, according to the New York Times. An investigation of the security footage reveals that Zemari Ahmadi was most likely not a terrorist planning to bomb the airport but an aid worker returning home. The many errands that US intelligence found suspicious were stops he made in the course of his job and the packages he brought into his house were water bottles, not ammunition.

A YouTube video posted by the Times clearly shows Ahmadi’s activities and his household. Ahmadi worked for Nutrition and Education International, an aid group based in California that taught 125,000 farmers in Afghanistan to grow soybeans, delivered millions of meals to malnourished children there and mentored women farmers to support their independence.  Ahmadi and his cousin Nasar, who was also killed along with his children, had both applied for refugee resettlement in the U.S. Interviews with colleagues and friends indicated that Ahmadi had no links whatsoever to terrorist activities. The Times quoted his brother as saying, “All of them were innocent. You say he was ISIS, but he worked for the Americans.” RLS

The UN Refugee Agency is requesting donations for humanitarian aid in Afghanistan, especially for the hundreds of thousands of displaced people.  Not only because Afghan assets have been frozen, but because of massive inflation and the lack of funds to pay the salaries of public employees, the country is at risk of “a total breakdown of the economy and social order,” according to the UN Special Envoy on Afghanistan.

4. Humanitarian crisis in Syria intensifies

After 11 years of civil war, the humanitarian crisis in Syria is deepening, according to the UN High Commissioner on Refugees  (UNHCR); the many factors–political violence, displacement, loss of infrastructure, destructive weather–behind the crisis are described here. “Political violence” is an understatement: “The Syrian government has tortured 14,000 Syrians to death, and 130,000 Syrians are missing or remain ‘arbitrarily detained,’  the New York Times reported in July, in the course of explaining why the Biden administration has imposed sanctions on Syrian prisons and prison officials. 

The UNHCR explains that in 2011, the violent government repression of protests in support of teenagers arrested for anti-government graffiti sparked a civil war. Millions of people were displaced from their homes but remain inside Syria, while millions of others fled to nearby countries. The population is traumatized by violence and impoverished by lack of work; many Syrian children have been unable to obtain an education for 10 years. In Northwest Syria, political violence has been especially acute, forcing many to leave their homes in 2019-2020. Devastating weather in Idlib destroyed some 25,000 tents and food supplies and left tens of thousands of families homeless.

 The coordinator of emergency relief for the UN, Martin Griffiths, recently visited Syria and the surrounding countries hosting approximately 5.6 million Syrian refugees; he maps his concerns in this report. Currently the UN and other aid agencies can only meet 27% of the need. Griffiths said that people in the province of Aleppo asked for the restoration of basic services and the ability to meet basic needs: “Health care, water, electricity and fuel to keep warm in winter. Children want to learn, and young adults want to work. They want support to forge their own dignified path to a better future.” RLS

The World Food Programme estimates that 12.4 Syrians are food-insecure, an increase of 4.5 million over the last year. They are receiving donations for their work providing food for the most vulnerable families. The UNHCR is also requesting donations for displaced families in Syria and surrounding countries, particularly Lebanon and Turkey.

In addition, you could contact Congress and call for aid to Syria through humanitarian NGOs that serve people and that aren’t representatives of any of the specific forces involved in the Civil War. Find your Senators here. Find your Representative here.

SCIENCE, HEALTH, TECHNOLOGY & THE ENVIRONMENT

5. Treatments and “treatments” for COVID

It would be hilarious if it weren’t tragic. People with COVID have flocked to Ivermectin, which has never been shown to be a viable treatment, while declining to take the vaccines which have been proven effective or to request monoclonal antibody treatment, which has been approved by the FDA. Prescriptions for Ivermectin–which is used for human parasites and skin diseases such as rosacea–have risen to 88,000 per week, according to the New York Times, while some people who cannot get prescriptions have used veterinary formulations, leading to a five-fold rise in calls to poison control centers. 

How did Ivermectin come to be thought of as a COVID treatment? Slate explains that a group called America’s Frontline Doctors is partially responsible. They are actual doctors but they are not actually on the front lines; that is, they are not in hospitals treating COVID patients. They promote unproven cures as a way of promoting their practices, according to Slate, and they may get a cut from speakwithanmd.com, a telemedicine website that provides prescriptions for Ivermectin. As Slate puts it, “Health misinformation is a super profitable business.”

Safer–and way more effective–is treatment with monoclonal antibodies. Monoclonal antibodies work by mimicking the action of the immune system. Although the FDA has pulled its approval for the first two in use (bamlanivimab and etesevimab), as they are significantly less effective against the variants of COVID, still others are notably viable,    Daily Kos points out. The FDA just approved an emergency use authorization (EUA) for another monoclonal antibody, sotrovimab, authorizing its use among patients with mild-moderate COVID symptoms who are at high risk for severe COVID. In a randomized controlled trial of 583 patients, the FDA reported, among those who were given sotrovimab, there was an 85% reduction in the number of patients whose COVID progressed to hospitalization or death compared to those given a placebo. 

Health Canada has also approved sotrovimab, along with casirivimab and imdevimab, two earlier monoclonal antibody treatments also approved by the FDA. In the U.S., the National Institute of Health (NIH) recommends that where there are logistical challenges to administering monoclonal antibodies, unvaccinated patients should be prioritized, as well as vaccinated patients who may not be able to launch an immune response. The NIH also provides guidelines and a rationale for administering them. Given their effectiveness, why are monoclonal antibodies not more widely used? It may be because they are only effective in the 10 days following the emergence of symptoms, explains Scientific American, and patients may wait too long to seek treatment. Because they are administered through an injection or an infusion, hospitals may be too overwhelmed with even sicker COVID patients to see them. RLS

RESOURCES

The 20th anniversary of 9/11 brought out a number of important analyses and painful memoirs. Heather Cox Richardson’s 9/11 column is notably good in the way that it reviews the ideology that emerged immediately after the attacks and connects that ideology to the current movements to suppress the vote.

Moms Rising always has clear, focused actions you can take to make change. Note in particular their suggestion to tell your Governor to stop playing politics with kids’ health. Apropos of which, note the CDC report from May that describes how masks and vaccines reduce transmission in schools.

The Americans of Conscience checklist is preparing to relaunch–but they would first like to know what is on your mind. You can take their survey here.

The American Medical Association (AMA) has a useful FAQ about COVID-19 and the vaccines.

News You May Have Missed is on hiatus this weekend in honor of Labor Day (and class prep). See you next weekend!

However, you might want to look at last week’s issue for round-up of some of the news that affects children–and to find our database of the significant voting legislation that is pending.

Any issue comes into focus when you ask what it will mean for children. Food insecurity, pesticide exposure, evictions, biases around gender identity, illnesses, racial inequity–all have particular impact on children, who have the fewest resources to cope. Even voting rights, which can only be exercised by those over 18, affect children, as those parents who brought their children to Saturday’s March on DC clearly knew. Those of you in California who must vote soon on the recall of Governor Newsom might want to read the New York Times voter guide through the lens of the consequences for children to see what the implications of replacing the governor could be. And remember our database of the many pieces of voting rights legislation that are going to become extremely important if the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which the House passed last week, stalls in the Senate.

DOMESTIC NEWS

1. 1 in 7 children—10.7 million—go hungry. New funding may help.

Children in American have become more food-insecure since the pandemic. With schools closed, poor children did not get the breakfasts and lunches that they depended on, and food banks reported distributing 43 per cent more food, according to the AP. The Children’s Defense Fund reported in May that one of seven children lives in a food-insecure household, meaning that members of the household do not get enough to eat. The rate is double that for Black and Latino children. (See the chart on food insecurity state by state from FeedingAmerica.org, a network of food banks.)

Beginning in October, recipients of the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP, colloquially known as “food stamps”) will be receiving increased benefits based on a new assessment of basic nutritional needs and their costs. For example, previous food cost estimates for the program assumed recipients would be using cheaper dried beans, rather than canned, when in reality most families receiving food stamps don’t have the time to prepare dried beans. The new estimates assume the cost of beans to be the cost of canned beans. While all recipients will see some increase in benefits, these will vary by state. The New York Times reported that the average benefit of $121 a month will increase to $157—just shy of a 30% increase. The Times also includes United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) statistics that show most families have used up all food stamps by midway through the month—and 43% of food stamp benefits cover children, who are unlikely to be able to add to the family income. S-HP/RLS

Thank the USDA for this increase that more accurately acknowledges the needs of American families: Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture, Department of Agriculture, 1400 Independence SW, Washington DC 20250, (202) 720-2791. And donate to your local food bank.

2. The Supreme Court allows massive evictions. Children’s health will suffer.

Hundreds of thousands of people could be evicted–in a pandemic–as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the Biden administration’s ban on evictions, the New York Times reports. While funds have been earmarked to keep people in their homes, only 11% have reached renters, due to various bureaucratic snafus, NPR reports. As Child Trends, a research institute on children’s issues points out, unstable housing is detrimental to children’s well-being. Housing Matters, a branch of the Urban Institute, points out that when families are late on rent, endure multiple moves, or become homeless, the health of children suffers. Their data precede the pandemic, so the consequences of families doubling up with other family members or living in shelters for the spread of COVID have not been calculated. The Court believes that Congress needs to pass an eviction moratorium for it to be legitimate. RLS

You can urge your members of Congress to address the issues of evictions immediately. Find your representative here and your senators here.

3. Pressley bill would put mental health staff, not police in schools

Having police in public schools does not make children safer, research shows. Instead, it tends to criminalize children of color and traumatize children who have already had negative contact with police, according to the Healthy Schools Campaign.

Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) has introduced the Counselling Not Criminalization in Schools Act (H.R.4011), which would prohibit the use of federal funds to pay for law enforcement officers in public schools. Instead, schools would have access to a grant program to help replace law enforcement with personnel and services that are trauma-informed and designed to support mental health. When we talk about defunding police (this writer’s language, not the language of the legislation), we are talking about programs like these that reduce the burden on law enforcement and that put in place professionals in services like mental health. This legislation is currently with two House committees: Education and Labor and Judiciary. S-HP

If you want to get involved in this issue, you can thank Representative Pressley for introducing this legislation, urge swift, positive action by the committees currently considering it, check whether your Representative is a cosponsor and thank/nudge as appropriate [note: Representative Panetta is not a cosponsor]: Addresses are here.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

4. Drone strike kills children

Seven children were among the civilians killed by a U.S. drone strike against an Islamic State car bomb; along with their family, they were getting out of a nearby car, the New York Times reported. At least 90 civilians–along with 13 U.S. military personnel–were killed by the Islamic State attack on the Kabul airport. Meanwhile, the Afghan health care system is at risk, as the closure of banks means that hospitals cannot pay workers or buy supplies, as woman health workers stay home, and as foreign donors (including the World Bank and European Union) stop providing funds in the wake of the Taliban takeover, Al Jazeera reports. The WHO and Doctors Without Borders have had difficulty flying medical supplies into the region. RLS

5. US arms sales to Saudi Arabia harm children, could be blocked

Between 2015 and 2020, the U.S. sold $10.7 billion in arms to Saudi Arabia, most of which it used in the catastrophic war again Yemen. As a consequence of that war, half of the children under 5 in Yemen are malnourished, and 400,000 could die if they do not receive immediate treatment, according to Forbes.

In April, the House passed the Protection of Saudi Dissidents Act (H.R.1392), which blocks arms sales to Saudi Arabia and requires actions in response to the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was a Saudi journalist and official U.S. resident. Since leaving the house, this legislation has been with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which has not yet acted upon it. S-HP

If you think there should be action on this issue, remind the Senate Foreign Relations Committee of the importance of protecting journalistic freedom globally, urge swift, positive action on H.R.1392 by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and tell your Senator you want to see their support for H.R.1392 when the legislation reaches the Senate Floor. Addresses are here.

SCIENCE, HEALTH, TECHNOLOGY & THE ENVIRONMENT

6. Most important back-to-school supplies: Masks

As kids too young to be vaccinated head back to in-person school, the possibility that COVID will spreading among them is of grave concern. As the Toronto Star points out, whether kids are likely to transmit COVID depends in part on the vaccination rates in the community around them. (The Star offers a school-by-school analysis of vaccination rates in each Toronto community, while the Local offers a list of high-risk schools.)

In the US, ten states require masks in schools while eight–Arizona, Arkansas, Iowa, Oklahoma, Florida, South Carolina, Texas and Utah–forbid districts from requiring them, according to the Pew Trusts. In July, the CDC recommended that in view of the Delta variant and the increased numbers of COVID cases that are filling up hospitals, masks should be required in schools.

With 32 states leaving decisions about requiring masks up to individual districts, Mom’s Rising recommends that parents write their superintendents and their school boards, download a vaccine fact sheet to share with other parents, and urge that children old enough be vaccinated.

You can find the petition, sample letter and other recommendations for action at the Mom’s Rising website.

7. Children of color more likely to die from flu

Children of color are more likely to hospitalized and are three to four times more likely to die from the flu, according to Consumer Reports, citing a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The youngest children are the most vulnerable. The researchers, who were affiliated with the CDC and 18 other academic institutions and health departments, looked at 113,352 flu hospitalizations; they note that the most important strategies to prevent flu deaths in children are immunizations and anti-viral treatment. The flu kills 12, 000 to 61 ,000 people (both children and adults) each year. RLS

8. Use of pesticide that damages children’s brains now must be drastically reduced

Beginning in February, agricultural use of chlorpyrifos in the U.S. will be cut by over 90%. Chlorpyrifos, a pesticide, is known to cause neurological damage in children and is correlated with low birth weight, lowered IQs, and developmental problems in children, according to the New York Times. During Trump’s administration, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chose not to ban chlorpyrifos, despite overwhelming evidence of the dangers it presented. In response, a suit was filed challenging that decision. The 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals has now ruled that evidence of chlorpyrifos’ dangers is so overwhelming that unless the administration can demonstrate new, convincing evidence of its harmlessness, most agricultural uses of the chemical must be ended. The Biden EPA chose not to challenge this decision. Because the change is the result of a court ruling, there will be no mandatory public comment period, which could have allowed continued use of chlorpyrifos while a proposed ban worked its way through the federal rule-making process. S-HP

It is worth thanking the current EPA for refusing to support the Trump EPA’s misleading claims about chlorpyrifos and for agreeing to ban most uses of the chemical: Michael S. Regan, Director, Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania NW, 20460, (202) 564-4700.

RESOURCES

Heather Cox Richardson has some excellent reflections on the March on Washington and voting rights.

The International Rescue Committee is working to assist refugees caught in the violence in Afghanistan.

The American Medical Association (AMA) has a useful FAQ about COVID-19 and the vaccines.

Mom’s Rising  has a summer postcarding campaign that may interest you, along with a five simple, clear actions you can take each week.

Data on refugees in the US: Pew Research Center. Refugee statistics worldwide: UNHCR.

No More Deaths/No Más Muertes‘ three-part report, Left to Die, details how asylum-seekers in the desert are abandoned by the Border Patrol. Though 911 calls are routed to them, they did not respond in 63% of cases. Lee Sandusky’s piece of literary journalism, “Scenes from an Emergency Clinic in the Sonoran Desert,” eloquently describes the work No More Deaths/No Más Muertes does.

The National Lawyers Guild has a series of webinars on issues from the global repression of voting, the local suppression of voting and the detention of immigrants.

A trans hotline with both Canadian and US numbers–and with operators who speak Spanish–provides services by and for trans people. You don’t need to be in crisis to call, and if you are a friend or a family member of a trans person, you can also call to find out how to support them. If you would like to know more about the organization, see their staff bios here.

The Americans of Conscience checklist has new actions every other week that will enable you to make your voice heard quickly and clearly. In addition, they have a good news section that will help you keep going.

Among the organizations that supports kids and their families at the border is RAICES, which provides legal support. The need for their services has never been greater. You can support them here.

Al Otro Lado provides legal and humanitarian services to people in both the US and Tijuana. You can find out more about their work here.

The Minority Humanitarian Foundation supports asylum-seekers who have been released by ICE with no means of transportation or ways to contact sponsors. You can donate frequent-flyer miles to make their efforts possible.

The group Angry Tias and Abuelas provides legal advice and services to asylum-seekers at the border. You can follow their work on Facebook and see the list of volunteer opportunities they have posted.

Our main project this week is a database of 90 pieces of federal legislation that would affirm voting rights and protect the integrity of elections. We would prefer to see comprehensive pieces of legislation, notably the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, go through, but by time Congress amends those pieces of legislation enough to pass them (and who knows if that’s possible?), they’re probably going to be significantly less comprehensive than there were at the onset. A glance at this document will show how many separate pieces of legislation it would take to have the same effect as the For the People Act or the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.

There may, however, be some sense in going for things piecemeal. Breaking voting rights up into many smaller issues should mean we can get some things accomplished—and we definitely need to accomplish some things by 2022. And bringing up legislation one piece at a time will force those opposed to go on the record again and again and again as refusing to protect the vote.

If we take a piecemeal approach, we can also focus our efforts on one or more specific committees. If we want increased voter registration opportunities, we can look at the database and see that we need to be putting pressure on the House Administration Committee (with other committees added for specific pieces of legislation). If we’re concerned about the number and accessibility of polling places, we can look at the database and see that we need to be putting pressure on the House Administration and Judiciary Committees and the Senate Rules and Administration Committee. And we can offer members of those committees lists of specific pieces of legislation they could choose among.

Here is a list of the relevant committees, their contact information and their chairs to make your job a little easier. Note that you may have to expand some of the columns to see all the committees involved with a particular piece of legislation. S-HP

DOMESTIC NEWS

1. Gunshot detection algorithms result in false arrests

Data from the gunshot detection firm ShotSpotter has been used in 200 court cases nationwide, according to a comprehensive investigation by the AP. However, its algorithms, which it keeps as a proprietary secret, are significantly inaccurate, as the AP was able to demonstrate, miscounting the number of gunshots or mistaking fireworks or cars backfiring for gunshots. Even more alarming, employees changed the data ShotSpotter produced at the request of police. 

These flaws are not abstractions. The AP recounts the heartbreaking story of Michael Williams, an innocent black man accused of killing someone who had asked him for a ride. He was arrested not based on witness identification or any information other than the data from ShotSpotter, and spent a year in jail, during which he had COVID twice, episodes which left him with a tremor that prevents him from feeding himself. SpotShotter data in fact do not work in cars, but still Williams was imprisoned; later information emerged that ShotSpotter analysts do not receive any formal training and that ShotSpotter employees had changed the report on the sound from a firecracker to a gunshot at the request of police, and altered the location from where it had actually been detected to Williams’ street.

On top of its inaccuracies and vulnerability to manipulation, ShotSpotter does not reduce gun violence or gun homicides, according to a study cited by the AP from the Journal of Urban Health; in contrast, the study authors wrote, “Counties in states with permit-to-purchase firearm laws saw a 15% reduction in firearm homicide incidence rates; counties in states with right-to-carry laws saw a 21% increase in firearm homicide incidence rates.” RLS

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

2. What they knew, when they knew it and what they would (not) admit to knowing in Afghanistan

In a report this week, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction mapped the failures of American efforts in Afghanistan, according to an investigation by ProPublica, which wrote, “The U.S. effort was clumsy and ignorant, the report says, calling out the hubris of a superpower thinking it could reshape a country it didn’t understand by tossing gobs of money around.” Noting that the war cost the lives of 2,443 U.S. servicemembers and more than 114,000 Afghans, ProPublica also notes that the Inspector General has been pointing out the flaws in America’s Afghan strategy for 13 years. In 2019, the Washington Post drew on confidential documents that demonstrated that “senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.” See reporter Sarah Chayes’ quite remarkable analysis and history of the region. “The Ideas of August.” RLS

3. Evacuations from Afghanistan

Heather Cox Richardson has a quiet summary of where things stand vis a vis the evacuation of Americans and their allies from Afghanistan. She points out: “Yet, on CNN this morning, Matthew Dowd, who was the chief strategist for the Bush-Cheney ticket in 2004, noted that more than 20,000 people have been evacuated from Afghanistan without a single loss of an American life, while in the same period of time, 5000 Americans have died from Covid-19 and 500 have died from gunshots.” Twelve Afghan civilians died as people rushed the airport.

Still, American veterans are getting frantic messages from the Afghan interpreters who worked with them, imploring the veterans to help them get out of the country with their families, Business Insider reports. The State Department says it had a backlog of 17,000 visas from the Trump administration, though it only issued 134 between January and March of 2021. The US says it is committed to evacuated 50,000 – 60,000 Afghans. 

Canadian interpreters and others who worked for Canadian forces are equally frantic, as the Toronto Star points out, describing the case of a man and his family who have appropriate documents but who are not being permitted to board an aircraft, as flights out had been delayed for a week. Outside the airport, it is cold at night; food and water are scarce. Still, Canada has authorized its special forces to go outside the borders of the airport to bring in Canadian citizens and some 6,000 Afghan nationals and their families who assisted Canadian forces, which Britain and the US has not, according to the Globe and Mail. In addition, Canada has authorized 15,000 Afghans who are in refugee camps outside the country to resettle in Canada. RLS

SCIENCE, HEALTH, TECHNOLOGY & THE ENVIRONMENT

4. Treatment for prevention and treatment of COVID vastly underused.

COVID deaths occurred much earlier than was generally thought–in January 2020–and in disparate locations, at least in California, Georgia, Alabama and Oklahoma, according to an article in the Mercury News. The Mercury suggests that COVID cases probably first appeared in November and December, though researchers have not been able to confirm this possibility. The newspaper provides a table of deaths from pneumonia, flu and COVID

If you think we’re out of these woods, read ProPublica’s remarkable story about the exhaustion and frustration of the EMTs transporting COVID-19 patients to overcrowded hospitals. The reporter, Ava Kofman, spent three weeks riding with EMTs, documenting how long their patients had to wait in the halls and how depleted basic supplies were, from masks to oxygen. This piece was produced in April, when we thought we were emerging from the pandemic and well before the Delta variant took hold. 

As we noted previously, monoclonal antibodies are a proven treatment for COVID; they have also just been shown to be effective among high-risk people who have been exposed to COVID, according to the Washington Post. They are free and available as an infusion in most hospitals, but they have been very much underused. The treatment needs to be given within 10 days after symptoms begin. RLS

RESOURCES

The International Rescue Committee is working to assist refugees caught in the violence in Afghanistan.

The American Medical Association (AMA) has a useful FAQ about COVID-19 and the vaccines.

Mom’s Rising  has a summer postcarding campaign that may interest you, along with a five simple, clear actions you can take each week.

Data on refugees in the US: Pew Research Center. Refugee statistics worldwide: UNHCR.

No More Deaths/No Más Muertes‘ three-part report, Left to Die, details how asylum-seekers in the desert are abandoned by the Border Patrol. Though 911 calls are routed to them, they did not respond in 63% of cases. Lee Sandusky’s piece of literary journalism, “Scenes from an Emergency Clinic in the Sonoran Desert,” eloquently describes the work No More Deaths/No Más Muertes does.

The National Lawyers Guild has a series of webinars on issues from the global repression of voting, the local suppression of voting and the detention of immigrants.

A trans hotline with both Canadian and US numbers–and with operators who speak Spanish–provides services by and for trans people. You don’t need to be in crisis to call, and if you are a friend or a family member of a trans person, you can also call to find out how to support them. If you would like to know more about the organization, see their staff bios here.

The Americans of Conscience checklist has new actions every other week that will enable you to make your voice heard quickly and clearly. In addition, they have a good news section that will help you keep going.

Among the organizations that supports kids and their families at the border is RAICES, which provides legal support. The need for their services has never been greater. You can support them here.

Al Otro Lado provides legal and humanitarian services to people in both the US and Tijuana. You can find out more about their work here.

The Minority Humanitarian Foundation supports asylum-seekers who have been released by ICE with no means of transportation or ways to contact sponsors. You can donate frequent-flyer miles to make their efforts possible.

The group Angry Tias and Abuelas provides legal advice and services to asylum-seekers at the border. You can follow their work on Facebook and see the list of volunteer opportunities they have posted.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

1. After 20 years and 47,245 civilian deaths, the US leaves Afghanistan; the Taliban had secretly negotiated with cities to surrender.

 In a simultaneously precipitous and long-overdue move, President Biden affirmed former President Trump’s agreement to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan, but now has had to deploy thousands more to deal with the chaos that has resulted, the BBC reports. The mainstream media has mostly forgotten that the original agreement was Trump’s, so Biden is being widely blamed for the inevitable consequences of withdrawal, with Republicans literally removing sections of the Republican National Committee website that touted Trump’s plans to withdraw, as Heather Cox Richardson points out. Indeed, his administration seems not to have anticipated the swift advance of the Taliban nor to have adequately planned for the protection of civilians who assisted US troops. ​Some failure of intelligence meant that the US apparently did not know that direct negotiations with the Taliban were taking place on the local level over the last year and a half, according to the Washington Post, with small municipalities and provincial capitals having made agreements with the Taliban to surrender. ​

Like the last 20 years, the first six months of 2021 have been deadly for civilians in Afghanistan. The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission says that civilian casualties have increased by 80 per cent over the first six months of 2020, with 1677 civilians killed and 3,644 injured. The Commission says that of the total casualties, “the Taliban is responsible for 56 percent, pro-government forces are responsible for 15 percent, Daesh is responsible for seven percent, and unknown perpetrators are responsible for 22 percent.”

The AP offers a calculation of the costs to the US of a war never declared by Congress. The US poured in as much as 2 trillion dollars, all funded by debt–and lost 2,488 American armed forces personnel, 3.846 contractors; countless veterans also cope with physical and mental injuries. Canada deployed 40,000 troops over 13 years in Afghanistan, where 150 Canadians died.

The Post analyzes some of the foreign policy errors that led to this moment, while Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, speaking to Democracy Now,  puts it more starkly: “There was not at that time [when the US attacked Afghanistan]—there is now not—a military solution to terrorism,” she said, “which was ostensibly the reason for the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.”​ The failures are decades long; in 2008, Conn Hallinan wrote in Common Dreams  that “By any measure, a military “victory” in Afghanistan is simply not possible. The only viable alternative is to begin direct negotiations with the Taliban, and to draw in regional powers with a stake in the outcome: Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, China, and India.​”​ ​​

Speaking to Democracy Now, ​Bennis goes on to point out that the enormous investment of money and troops in Afghanistan did not produce an army and a government capable of or inclined to resist the Taliban​; Mike Jason, a former US Army colonel writing in the Atlantic, analyzes the errors the US military made in its training missions there​. More ominously, Bennis cites​ evidence from Human Rights Watch and elsewhere is that CIA-trained death squads in Af​ghanistan will continue to kill civilians.

The speed of the Taliban’s advance is clearly catastrophic for certain groups of civilians. Aid groups have been desperately trying to get visas for their allies for a month, the Washington Post reported. The Intercept vividly describes the circumstances of people trying to leave. According to US News and World Report, sixty nations have called on Afghanistan to permit foreign nationals and Afghanistanis who wish to leave to do so.

Canada also did not arrange for those who had supported its mission there to be evacuated in time, and family members in Canada are frantic. Ottawa has closed its embassy and thousands of Afghanistanis are crowded in and around the airport in Kabul, hoping for flights out, according to the Toronto Star; the AP reports that Canada is sending troops in to evacuate embassy staff. Veterans and other volunteers have been trying for weeks to get interpreters and other diplomatic staff out, lodging them temporarily in safe houses, according to the Globe and Mail. “1,200 of those they were trying to evacuate are now stuck in Kandahar,​” the Globe and Mail writes, “​​and an additional 800 to 900​ are waiting in safe houses in Kabul for evacuation by the Canadian government.​” ​Canadian forces left Afghanistan in 2014. 

Particularly at risk are women and girls in Afghanistan, whose futures may now be truncated, as Nicolas Kristof, who covered Afghanistan for the New York Times, wrote on Facebook. ​He is particularly concerned about female educators, and suggests that the US should “fly in military planes, grant at-risk Afghans instant visas on the tarmac (even if they don’t have passports), get them out and sort it all out later. It’s not optimal, but it will save lives. And it would be the right thing to do.​”​ Women’s rights activists recognized by North America also told the Post that they are endangered; ““We were the ones who raised our voices for years,” one woman said of her fellow female activists. “Afghanistan is on fire. No one has a visa. No one has anything. Honestly, I am lost.” RLS

DOMESTIC NEWS

2. Staff in detention centers told to downplay COVID, per whistleblowers

According to two whistleblowers, Health and Human Services staff at the centers where asylum-seekers are imprisoned are mistreating children (see story below) and exposing those detained to COVID. NBC News quoted them as saying, “Covid was widespread among children and eventually spread to many employees. Hundreds of children contracted COVID in the overcrowded conditions. Adequate masks were not consistently provided to children, nor was their use consistently enforced.” They allege they were required to downplay the effects of COVID by the HHS public affairs office, according to NBC.

According to the AP, 19,000 children unaccompanied by family were stopped at the border in July. Children coming to the border by themselves are exempt from Title 42, the CDC regulation that requires almost everyone else–including families with children–to be immediately deported on the grounds that they could bring COVID in. However, those who make it in–only children and particularly vulnerable adults–are more likely to acquire COVID when they get here rather than to bring it in, according to the AP. The percentage of detained people with COVID has gone up from 2% to 6%, according to NPR; detention centers do not observe distancing protocols and mix infected and uninfected people together. The Brennan Center has a detailed time-line and history of COVID infections and challenges to conditions in detention centers; the Center points out that at one facility–the Farmville ICE Detention Center in Virginia–almost 75% of those held there have tested positive for COVID. 

The program which allows vulnerable adults and families to enter–ordinarily those urgently in need of medical treatment–is likely to end next week, as the ACLU has decided to stop negotiating with the Biden administration over Title 42 and resume litigation. The AP quoted Neela Chakravartula, managing attorney for the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, as saying: “We are deeply disappointed that the Biden administration has abandoned its promise of fair and humane treatment for families seeking safety, leaving us no choice but to resume litigation.” RLS

3. Abysmal conditions for children in detention–still

The New York Times has been reporting on problematic conditions at the Pecos and Ft. Bliss Emergency Intake Centers (EICs) that house unaccompanied minors entering the U.S. This spring the government established a dozen EICs, almost all run by outside contractors, to house the increasing number of unaccompanied children. At this point, only four of those EICs remain in operation, including Pecos and Ft. Bliss. These emergency shelters, which house approximately 30% of the unaccompanied minors in U.S. custody, have lower standards than licensed shelters, and the contactors running EICs have limited experience running facilities for children making issues like mental health, bullying, and assault particularly problematic. Neither facility was designed to house minors. Pecos is a former oil industry labor camp; Ft. Bliss is a military site, reportedly with significant toxic pollution.

The New York Times points out both that the Pecos contract has been extended through November and may be expanded to include “tender age” children, those between six and twelve years old and that the Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General has opened an investigation into conditions at Ft. Bliss. In June, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which runs the EICs, acknowledged to a judge that it lacked enough case managers to ensure that all children being held were released before the maximum legal stay of 20 days. In fact, the average stay at the moment is more than a month. RAICES, a nonprofit supporting refugee and immigrant children, is calling on Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra to shut down Pecos. One of the organization’s lawyers, Jonathan Ryan, was quoted by the New York Times as observing that conditions at Pecos “are ‘among the harshest and most restrictive of any’ shelter he has visited.” S-HP

If you want these conditions to change, urge President Biden and HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra to take increased, immediate action to improve conditions at Pecos and Ft. Bliss with a goal of ultimately ending the use of EICs. You can also ask your Congressmembers what they’re doing to monitor conditions at Pecos and Ft. Bliss. Contact information is here. You can also sign the RAICES petition calling for the closure of the Pecos EIC.

4. Unethical fundraising

One scam tactic that was used in political fundraising leading up to and following the 2020 election—though it’s not exclusive to this event—is the use of pre-checked boxes in emails. A solicitation email asks for a contribution; further down in the email and less visible is a pre-checked box saying the donation should be monthly or weekly, rather than-one time, or committing the contributor to an additional, larger contribution. Trump used this technique in raising funds for last year’s presidential election, which as the New York Times reports has resulted in $12.8 million in refunds during the first half of 2021 to contributors who unwillingly became monthly or weekly donors through the use of pre-checked boxes. A number of those contributors suddenly found their bank accounts emptied over a period of weeks. In fact, in 2020, U.S. courts upheld the legality of the use of such pre-checked boxes.

 This spring the Federal Election Commission (FEC) unanimously recommended that Congress prohibit campaigns from prechecking boxes for recurring donations, and legislation to do so has been introduced in both the House and Senate. In the Senate that legislations is S.1786, “Rescuing Every Contributor from Unwanted Recurrences (RECUR) Act,” and it is with the Senate Rules and Administration Committee. In the House that legislation, H.R.3832, goes by the less succinct title of “To amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to prohibit the solicitation and acceptance of a recurring contribution or donation in a campaign for election for Federal office by any means that does not require the contributor or donor to give affirmative consent to making the contribution or donation on a recurring basis, and for other purposes,” and it is with the House Rules and Administration Committee. S-HP

If you’d like to put a stop to this tactic, urge the Federal Election Commission to continue looking for ways to end to the use of pre-checked boxes in political fundraising; in addition, you can encourage the Senate Rules and Administration Committee to take swift, positive action on S.1786 and the House Rules and Administration Committee on HB 3832. Contact information is here.

5. Tracking Congress

If you’re the kind of citizen who tries to track Congressional actions, including reports, you know how difficult it can be to locate a specific document, depending on the agency that created it and that agency’s methods of allowing public access. (And if you’re not that kind of citizen, maybe you should consider becoming one, at least on a set of topics that are of particular importance to you.)

H.R.2485, the Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act, has the potential to make your work a bit easier. As the official summary of H.R.2485 explains, “This bill requires the Government Publishing Office (GPO) to establish and maintain a publicly available online portal containing copies of all congressionally mandated reports. A federal agency must submit a congressionally mandated report and specified information about the report to the GPO between 30 and 45 days after submission of the report to either chamber or to any congressional committee or subcommittee.” Under limited and very specific circumstances a report can be withheld from the online portal, but overall H.R.2485 will make it much easier to see the kind of information Congress is requiring and/or generating. H.R.2485 is currently with the House Homeland Security Committee. S-HP

If you want to get your hands on these reports, urge swift positive action on H.R.2485 by the House Homeland Security Committee: Representative Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), Chair, House Homeland Security Committee, H2-176 Ford House Office Building, Washington DC 20515, (202) 226-2616. @BennieGThompson.

SCIENCE, HEALTH, TECHNOLOGY & THE ENVIRONMENT

6. Stopping the drug monopolies

Let’s take a moment to consider the use of “sham citizen petitions” and “product hopping” in enabling drug manufacturers to maintain monopolies on drugs and keep their prices high.

  Citizen petitions can be filed by anyone when the Food and Drug Administration is considering approving a generic or biosimilar version of an existing drug. The point of such petitions was to allow patients to advocate for themselves regarding drug approval, and the FDA is obligated to consider and respond to every citizen position regarding a generic or biosilmilar before that drug can be approved. The “sham” comes in when drug manufacturers who hold a monopoly on a specific medication file citizen petitions with the FDA with the purpose of slowing down approval of generics and biosimilars. Anyone can file such a petition, and each petition moves back the generic’s/biosimilar’s possible approval date.

  Many drug manufacturers whose monopoly rights on a drug are about to expire develop new formulations of that drug that have little or no therapeutic difference. The new formula can be patented, restarting the “monopoly clock” and preventing approval of generics or biosimilars.  The Senate now has the opportunity to vote on legislation that would significantly limit sham citizen petitions and product hopping. S.1425, the Stop STALLING Act, establishes rules to prevent the filing of sham citizen petitions. S.1435, the Affordable Prescriptions for Patients Act, targets the use of minor formulation changes to avoid approvals for generics/biosimilars. Both pieces of legislation have made it through the Senate Judiciary Committee, meaning that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer can bring them to the floor of the Senate. S-HP

If you want to see this legislation go forward, urge the Senate Majority Leader to place S.1425 and S.1435 on the Senate calendar: Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), Senate Majority Leader, 322 Hart Senate Office Building, Washington DC 20510, (202) 224-6542. @SenSchumer. You can also check to see if your Senator is a cosponsor of S.1425 and a cosponsor of S.1435, thank or nudge them as appropriate and insist that they support these pieces of legislation that would limit cynical moves preventing approval of generics/biosimilars by pharmaceutical companies. Find your Senators here.

RESOURCES

The International Rescue Committee is working to assist refugees caught in the violence in Afghanistan.

The American Medical Association (AMA) has a useful FAQ about COVID-19 and the vaccines.

Mom’s Rising  has a summer postcarding campaign that may interest you, along with a five simple, clear actions you can take each week.

Data on refugees in the US: Pew Research Center. Refugee statistics worldwide: UNHCR.

No More Deaths/No Más Muertes‘ three-part report, Left to Die, details how asylum-seekers in the desert are abandoned by the Border Patrol. Though 911 calls are routed to them, they did not respond in 63% of cases. Lee Sandusky’s piece of literary journalism, “Scenes from an Emergency Clinic in the Sonoran Desert,” eloquently describes the work No More Deaths/No Más Muertes does.

The National Lawyers Guild has a series of webinars on issues from the global repression of voting, the local suppression of voting and the detention of immigrants.

A trans hotline with both Canadian and US numbers–and with operators who speak Spanish–provides services by and for trans people. You don’t need to be in crisis to call, and if you are a friend or a family member of a trans person, you can also call to find out how to support them. If you would like to know more about the organization, see their staff bios here.

The Americans of Conscience checklist has new actions every other week that will enable you to make your voice heard quickly and clearly. In addition, they have a good news section that will help you keep going.

Among the organizations that supports kids and their families at the border is RAICES, which provides legal support. The need for their services has never been greater. You can support them here.

Al Otro Lado provides legal and humanitarian services to people in both the US and Tijuana. You can find out more about their work here.

The Minority Humanitarian Foundation supports asylum-seekers who have been released by ICE with no means of transportation or ways to contact sponsors. You can donate frequent-flyer miles to make their efforts possible.

The group Angry Tias and Abuelas provides legal advice and services to asylum-seekers at the border. You can follow their work on Facebook and see the list of volunteer opportunities they have posted.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has brought us news we should already know: The climate crisis is not in some future but is already here. The earth is set to arrive at or exceed the critical 1.5 C. increase over the next two decades; we are already at 1.1 degrees C. As the writers put it in the press release, “For every 1.5°C of global warming, there will be increasing heat waves, longer warm seasons and shorter cold seasons. At 2°C of global warming, heat extremes would more often reach critical tolerance thresholds for agriculture and health.” To even hold the increase at 2 degrees C will be impossible “unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.” Regional information can be found on their interactive atlas.

SCIENCE, HEALTH, TECHNOLOGY & THE ENVIRONMENT

1. Legislation to address wildfire smoke

Another of the health threats from the climate crisis is the smoke that accompanies wildfires. Smoke from the immense Dixie fire in California has reached Tennessee, and the fires in British Columbia have made the skies in Ontario hazy. Even those living far from the actual fire location can be breathing air with dangerously high particulate matter. An article in the journal Nature points out that 7.4 million children are affected by wildfire smoke annually; the smoke tends not to be caught in their noses and goes straight to their lungs, which are still developing and therefore are especially susceptible to long-term effects. Adults are also vulnerable to wildfire smoke, which has been shown to raise the death rate even in otherwise healthy adults, causing about 339,000 deaths per year worldwide, according to a 2012 study cited by WebMD–numbers for the more recent period are not available. And if a person already has respiratory issues, the threat from fine particulate matter–especially if toxic fuels are burning–is even greater. (The CDC suggests measures people can take to mitigate the threat to some degree.)

As a result of these hazards, Congress is beginning to consider legislation that would address the threat posed by smoke as well as by fire:

◉S.2423, the Wildfire Smoke Relief Act, would provide necessary medical equipment to those at risk from wildfire smoke or, if that is not available, temporary housing in an area not significantly affected by wildfire smoke. S.2423 was introduced by Oregon’s Senator Ron Wyden. Currently its only cosponsor is Oregon’s other Senator Jeff Merkley. The Wildfire Smoke Relief Act is with the Senate’s Homeland Security Committee.

◉S.2421, the Smoke Research and Planning Act, requires EPA research on wildfire smoke and its mitigation. It would establish four Centers of Excellence for Wildfire Smoke at higher education institutions and would create a community grant program to support wildfire smoke mitigation projects. S.2421 was introduced by Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley, and its only cosponsors at the moment are Oregon’s Senator Ron Wyden and California’s Senators Dianne Feinstein and Alex Padilla. The Smoke Research and Planning Act is currentlywith the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee.

◉S.2419, the Smoke Emergency Declaration Act, would allow the President to declare a smoke emergency, including doing so in anticipation of such an event. Governors would also have the right to petition the President to declare a smoke emergency. It would allow the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to provide assistance to those affected by a smoke emergency. S.2419 also creates Small Business Administration (SBA) grants for businesses impacted by a smoke emergency. The Smoke Emergency Declaration Act was introduced by Oregon’s Jeff Merkley and is cosponsored by Oregon’s Senator Ron Wyden and California’s Senators Dianne Feinstein and Alex Padilla. This legislation is with the Senate’s Homeland Security Committee. S-HP/RLS

You can do something to save your own lungs here–as well as those of others. You can urge the Senate Homeland Security Committee to take swift, positive action on S.2423 and S.2419. You can also tell the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee to act quickly on S.2421. You also might suggest that your Senators (if you’re not from California or Oregon) become cosponsors of S.2423, S.2421 and S.2419 and thank Senators Feinstein and Padilla for cosponsoringS.2421 and S.2419; also ask that they also support S.2423 (if you are in California). Addresses are here.

DOMESTIC NEWS

2. Representatives Bush, Pressley, and Omar get some eviction protection restored

Eviction at any time is a catastrophe. Eviction during a pandemic compounds the danger, NPR points out, as evicted residents may stay with family members and friends, increasing exposure. The Eviction Lab, which points out that landlords attempt 3.7 million evictions annually, keeps a database on evictions. Small landlords, too, are at risk of defaulting on their mortgages, according to the Wall Street Journal, and in California, a number of them are suing the state to rescind the ban on evictions, even though landlords can be reimbursed for unpaid rent through a federal fund, the Mercury News points out. Homelessness in California, which has half of all unhoused people, rose by 6.8% between 2019 and 2020, and by 16.2% between 2007 and 2020, according to a HUD study quoted in State of Reform, a health policy thinktank. 

The House left for its summer recess without taking action to extend the eviction moratorium put in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that was set to expire on July 31, despite the fact that distribution of these funds has been delayed repeatedly. To protest the House’s failure to act, Representatives Cori Bush (D-MO), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), and Ilhan Omar (D-MN), chose to sleep outside the capitol to draw attention to the eviction moratorium’s expiration. Shortly after that, in order to ensure that all COVID-19 funds marked for rental assistance were distributed before the moratorium ended, the CDC extended the moratorium through October 3. 

Whether this move will benefit renters—or which renters it will benefit—is an open question. The Supreme Court (SCOTUS) issued a ruling in June allowing the eviction moratorium to remain, but that ruling assumed that the eviction moratorium would expire on July 31. Shortly before the moratorium’s expiration, the 6^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the CDC has acted beyond its powers in declaring the moratorium. As a result, the states of Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and Michigan have no obligation to continue the moratorium. If you are facing eviction, CNBC has a list of steps you can take. S-HP/RLS

You can thank Representatives Bush, Pressley, and Omar for their protest, which shone a light on the crisis U.S. renters are facing. You might also express your disappointment at the House’s failure to extend the eviction moratorium. Addresses are here. In addition, Moms Rising has important information on the effect of eviction on families and a way to engage.

3. Funds for child care and early learning proposed

If we were to draw up a list of basic services that are assumed to be “rights” in other industrialized nations, childcare and early education would appear near the top of the list. Childcare costs more than the actual income of many working-class Americans. Some states offer universal preschool, but many don’t, and that presents another cost working-class parents can’t afford. The Universal Child Care and Early Learning Act (S.1398 in the Senate; H.R.2886 in the House) could change all that. This legislation would provide the Department of Health and Human Services with funds for child care and early learning programs for children ages 6 weeks through school age that would be open to all regardless of family income, disability status, citizenship status, or employment of a family member. Most families would have to pay a subsidized fee for these services, but they would be waived for children from families with incomes below 200% of the poverty line, and would be capped at a maximum of 7% of family income regardless of income level. Our pessimistic selves may see the success of this legislation as a pipe dream, but to be ultimately successful we need to be making noise now, even if change will come slowly. S.1398 is with the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. H.R.2886 is with the House Education and Labor Committee. S-HP

If you want to send a message that early childhood education and childcare are priorities, you could urge swift, positive action on the Universal Child Care and Early Learning Act by the appropriate committees. You could also see whether your Senators are co-sponsors of S.1398 and THANK/NUDGE as appropriate. You can also see whether your Representative is a co-sponsor of H.R.2886 and also thank/nudge as appropriate. Addresses are here.

4. New legislation would prohibit religion from being used to ban travel

Former President Trump’s ban on travel to the US by anyone from a group of Muslim-majority countries not only intensified Islamophobia in the US but derailed the lives of millions of people–include those who had already been approved to visit or immigrate. As the American Friends Service Committee explains, some of these were refugees, fleeing violence and/or living in refugee camps. Adding injury to injury, people from Somalia, Syria, Sudan, and Yemen already in the US also had their Temporary Protection Status revoked, leaving them stranded.

Others were trying to rejoin family members, go to universities, or obtain medical treatment unavailable elsewhere. Not only did those unable to travel suffer, but family members already in the US had to deal with a family divided. Muslims from Iran were especially impacted, as the sanctions against Iran cut off many options for them at home.

The NO BAN Act, H.R.1333, was written in response to the Trump administration’s sweeping ban on travel to the U.S. This legislation prohibits discrimination on the basis of religion in immigration-related decisions. It also requires that any travel bans be narrowly defined; that Congress be consulted before such bans are issued; and that Congress must be notified within 48 hours of the administration issuing a travel ban or the ban becomes invalid. The NO BAN Act also allows those in the U.S. and harmed by such a restriction to sue in federal court. H.R.1333 was passed by the House on April 21 and has been with the Senate Judiciary Committee since May 27. S-HP/RLS

If you want to act on this, you can urge swift, positive action on H.R.1333 by the Senate Judiciary Committee to prevent the kinds of travel abuses put in place by the Trump administration from being used again. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chair, Senate Judiciary Committee, 224 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington DC 20510, (202) 224-7703. You can also tell your Senators you want them to advocate for H.R.1333 when it reaches the Senate floor.

5. California legislature acts on gun violence

Homicides in California increased by 31% last year, according to the AP; a third of the victims were Black.  The increase does not appear to be a function of the pandemic, the AP noted, but it pointed out that a third of these deaths were caused by a gun, and quoted Attorney General Rob Bonta as noting a “connection to a 65.5% increase in sales of handguns and 45.9% increase in long-gun sales last year. The 686,435 handguns sold was a record, while the 480,401 rifles and shotguns was second only to 2016.”

The California Legislature is currently on break and will be reconvening on August 16, and a number of gun safety and police accountability efforts should be coming up then. A quick run-down:

◉AB-1223 would tax the sale of firearms and ammunition in order to fund gun violence intervention and prevention programs.

◉AB-1057 would assure that police have the right to seize ghost guns from individuals who are a danger to themselves or others.

◉AB-988 would fund a crisis hotline that would dispatch mental health professionals, not police, with the intention of preventing suicides, including “suicide by cops.”

◉AB-490 would expand the ban on choke holds and use of positions likely to cause asphyxia.

◉SB-2 would end qualified immunity for police.

◉SB-715 would tighten gun regulations and would also allow the State Attorney Generalto investigate police violence resulting in death of an unarmed civilian, including cases where there is a dispute regarding whether that civilian was armed.

Both Senate bills have made it through the Senate, and these, along with AB-1223, are currently with the State Assembly. AB-490, AB-988, and AB-1057 have made it through the Assembly and are with the state Senate.

For information about federal gun legislation, see the bills in our database that originated in the House and that for the most part are still stalled there. 

If you want to see action on gun violence and police accountability, urge your Assemblymember to support SB-715, SB-2, and AB-1223 and your California Senator to support AB-490, AB-988, and AB-1057.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

6. Mexico sues US gun manufacturers

In case we need more evidence that gun proliferation in the U.S. is out of control, note that 25 million guns crossed the border into Mexico last year, according to a Washington Post study last fall. American guns are being used to kill police officers in Mexico, and the number of homicides involving guns has risen precipitously, from fewer than 20% in 1997 to 69% in 2018, As a result,  Mexico is suing a group of U.S. gun manufacturers—including Smith & Wesson, Barrett Firearms, Beretta USA, Glock, and Colt—and asking for damages of $10 billion, tighter controls on U.S. gun sales, and better security features on weapons.

 Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard is quoted in the Washington Post explaining, “If we don’t file a suit like this and win it, [manufacturers] are never going to understand, they’re going to continue doing the same thing andwe will continue having deaths every day in our country.” The suit alleges that U.S. arms manufacturers are deliberately designing guns that will appeal to crime groups, citing the example of a Colt .38 engraved with the face of Mexico’s revolutionary hero Emiliano Zapata. The chances for this suit’s success are limited. In 2005 Congress passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, whichprotects firearms manufacturers from civil liability. S-HP/RLS

If you want to address this issue, you might direct the President, the cabinet, and Congress’ attention to this lawsuit and emphasize that our failure to reasonably regulate weapons is not just killing Americans—it’s killing people outside of this country and generating international animus. Addresses are here.

RESOURCES

The American Medical Association (AMA) has a useful FAQ about COVID-19 and the vaccines.

Mom’s Rising  has a summer postcarding campaign that may interest you, along with a five simple, clear actions you can take each week.

Data on refugees in the US: Pew Research Center. Refugee statistics worldwide: UNHCR.

No More Deaths/No Más Muertes‘ three-part report, Left to Die, details how asylum-seekers in the desert are abandoned by the Border Patrol. Though 911 calls are routed to them, they did not respond in 63% of cases. Lee Sandusky’s piece of literary journalism, “Scenes from an Emergency Clinic in the Sonoran Desert,” eloquently describes the work No More Deaths/No Más Muertes does.

The National Lawyers Guild has a series of webinars on issues from the global repression of voting, the local suppression of voting and the detention of immigrants.

A trans hotline with both Canadian and US numbers–and with operators who speak Spanish–provides services by and for trans people. You don’t need to be in crisis to call, and if you are a friend or a family member of a trans person, you can also call to find out how to support them. If you would like to know more about the organization, see their staff bios here.

The Americans of Conscience checklist has new actions every other week that will enable you to make your voice heard quickly and clearly. In addition, they have a good news section that will help you keep going.

Among the organizations that supports kids and their families at the border is RAICES, which provides legal support. The need for their services has never been greater. You can support them here.

Al Otro Lado provides legal and humanitarian services to people in both the US and Tijuana. You can find out more about their work here.

The Minority Humanitarian Foundation supports asylum-seekers who have been released by ICE with no means of transportation or ways to contact sponsors. You can donate frequent-flyer miles to make their efforts possible.

The group Angry Tias and Abuelas provides legal advice and services to asylum-seekers at the border. You can follow their work on Facebook and see the list of volunteer opportunities they have posted.

Black American women die in childbirth at three times the rate of White women; for every death, there are 70 “near misses,” which can have long-term effects on women’s health, according to the American Journal of Managed Care. Canada does not keep race-based data on maternal mortality, but Black women in Canada have almost double the rate of pre-term births compared to White women, though pre-term births were a third lower in Canada than in the US (likely due to universal government-funded health care). Women and infants of all races were more likely to die in rural areas, and rates are significantly increasing, likely due to closures of obstetric facilities, according to a study available on Pub Med. Legislation to address these and other disparities is pending; the week following the very first Emancipation Day (in Canada) would be a good time to nag those who represent you.

DOMESTIC NEWS

1. Legislation to address the needs of vulnerable mothers–Black, veteran, incarcerated

 In March, the number of Black women looking to give birth outside of a hospital setting rose, the New York Times reported. Why? The Times offers two primary reasons: racial inequities in health care and COVID-19—also related to racial inequities in health care. The U.S. has the worst rate of maternal mortality among industrialized nations, largely as a result of racial inequities that permeate our medical system. Black women are four times more likely to die giving birth than white women. In New Jersey, Black women giving birth face a risk of mortality seven times greater than that faced by white women.     

The Black Maternal Momnibus Act (H.R.959 in the House; S.346 in the Senate) addresses discrepancies in healthcare for Black mothers. Among the provisions of the House version this ambitious piece of legislation are a housing for moms grant program; investments in community-based organizations addressing Black maternal outcomes and mental health; prenatal and postpartum childcare; support for veterans giving birth; grants to grow and diversify the perinatal workforce; protections for incarcerated moms; funding for data collection and analysis and studies to determine causes and solutions to the race-based differences in maternal outcomes. In the House, this legislation is with a number of committees and subcommittees: Energy and Commerce (and its Subcommittee on Health); Financial Services; Transportation and Infrastructure (and its subcommittees on Water Resources and Environment, Highways and Transit, and Coast Guard and Marine Transportation); Education and Labor; Judiciary (and its Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security); Natural Resources (and its Subcommittee for Indigenous Peoples); Agriculture (and its subcommittee on Nutrition, Oversight, and Departmental Regulations); and Veterans’ Affairs (and its subcommittee on Health). The provisions of the Senate legislation are essentially similar, though differently organized in places. The Senate version is with the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee. S.346 is with the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. RLS/S-HP

To nudge this legislation forward, see the contact information here.

2. Legislation would support rural moms

Last November 19, to mark National Rural Health Day, the American Hospital Association (AHA) presented information on the lack of prenatal, obstetric, and postpartum care for rural mothers and on some programs being developed in response. In fact, half of all U.S. rural counties do not offer obstetric services and difficulty in recruiting and retaining healthcare workers of all types has left many current rural healthcare providers short staffed. The Rural MOMS Act (H.R.769 in the House; S.1491 in the Senate) would establish rural obstetric networks, provide demonstration grants for healthcare training on maternal health in rural areas, and incorporate maternal health into some existing telehealth networks. It would also require the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to report on maternal health topics, including health inequities. H.R.769 is with the House Energy and Commerce Committee, where it has been assigned to the Subcommittee on Health. S.1491 has made it through the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and can now be brought before the full Senate. S-HP

If you want rural moms to have this support, help push it through the Senate.

3. Legislation to protect nursing moms

Finally, working mothers could receive support through the PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act (H.R.3110 in the House; S.1658 in the Senate), which would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to provide workplace breastfeeding accommodations. This legislation has made it through committee in both houses of Congress and can now move on to full votes by the House and Senate. S-HP

You can encourage your senators and representative to move this legislation forward–see how.

4. New legislation would protect documented immigrants’ access to health care

You may remember how the Trump administration tried to keep people who applied for any kind of public benefits from applying for permanent residency status, even though they were otherwise eligible. Called the “Public Charge Rule,” it was removed after much legal wrangling, but immigrant families endured much hardship in the process, including children who were US citizens but whose families were afraid to take them to the doctor for fear of losing the right to apply for permanent residency. The HEAL for Immigrant Families Act (H.R.3149 in the House; S.1660 in the Senate) would ensure that documented immigrant families and families in the U.S. under Temporary Protected Status (TPS) because of conflict or disaster in their country of origin have access to Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and the various U.S. insurance “marketplaces.” Once enacted by Congress, such healthcare assistance would be more difficult to penalize or revoke. H.R.3149 is with two House committees: Energy and Commerce; and Ways and Means. S.1660 is with the Senate Finance Committee. S-HP

You can help ensure that documented immigrant families have access to health care. Information on contacting appropriate decision-makers is here.

5. Bill to pay farmworkers overtime is stalled

The National Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 instituted overtime pay for U.S. workers. However, this act was written to specifically exclude farm workers from overtime protections. Currently, no state provides overtime protections that acknowledge a 40 hour workweek for farmworkers, though California and Washington will begin doing so in 2022; even then, farmworkers will still lack protection against overtime beyond 40 hours a week in 48 states. The few states that do provide overtime protection assume a sixty-hour workweek, the Pew Trusts report. Working sixty hours a week and more impacts not only farm workers but their children, who are either home alone or are cared for by older children. The Pew Trusts note that growers say that paying overtime will bankrupt them; Maine state Rep. Thom Harnett described the situation this way, according to Pew: “There’s a great deal of empathy for that industry, and I share that,” he said. “I just don’t share putting it on the backs of the workers to be the ones who suffer the most. Because of these exceptions, we have farmworkers who have been stuck in poverty for generation after generation.”

The Fairness for Farmworkers Act, H.R.3194, would provide farm workers with overtime protections nationally, except for those on H-2A visas. Representative Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) introduced this legislation on May 13, and it has been assigned to the House Education and Labor Committee. Unfortunately, that committee has not yet taken any action on H.R.3194. RLS/S-HP

If you think that the people who provide your food should receive overtime, you can urge swift, positive action on H.R.3194 by the House Education and Labor Committee and ask your Representative to support the Fairness for Farmworkers Act. Representative Bobby Scott (D-VA), Chair, House Education and Labor Committee, 2176 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington DC 20515, (202) 225-3725. @BobbyScott. Find your Representative here.

6. US is about to lose the opportunity to offer 100,000 green cards to legal residents

Green cards allow individuals to live and work in the U.S., but the requirements for getting them are stringent. The Citizenship and Immigration Services site which lists eligibility categories is instructive: it includes immediate family members of citizens, but also Afghan translators, people who have been trafficked, immigrant children who have been abused by their parents, diplomats who can’t go home–and others. 

The U.S. can issue 140,000 green cards each year, but in 2020 the Trump administration only issued 20,000 cards. The 120,000 unused green cards can be carried over and added to the next year’s maximum, but at the end of the extra year they are cancelled if they remain unused. As a result, this year the Biden administration had an opportunity to issue up to 260,000 green cards. However, as Cato Institue researcher David J. Bier pointed out in a Washington Post opinion piece, the administration has said it will fall short of that maximum. Because of slow processing, the U.S. will issue 100,000 fewer green cards than this year’s limit and carry-over would allow. On October 1, the carry-over will expire and those green cards will disappear.

The carry-over resulted from Trump administration policies, which barred most immigrants sponsored by family members from entering the U.S. and delayed the opening of the green card application period by six months, moving it back to October 2020 and creating a bottleneck that it left for the Biden administration to deal with. The U.S. does not have an online immigration application system, which means applications must be sent by U.S. mail, opened individually, and then have applicant data entered by hand into the system. After that part of the process is completed, the next step is fingerprinting. As Bier explains, for most individuals this fingerprinting is redundant because “nearly all employment-based applicants have lived and worked legally in the United States, many for a decade or more, with temporary residency status. This status they maintained by—you guessed it—repeatedly being fingerprinted and passing background checks.” This past year, the usual slowdown caused by the fingerprint requirement was exacerbated because Trump closed all government fingerprinting sites for months during the pandemic. S-HP

If you have looked at the eligibility requirements and think that the U.S. should not allow 100,000 green cards to expire, you can urge the President and the Secretary of Homeland Security to modify green card application processes, perhaps through en masse granting of green cards before investigations are completed, with the proviso that once investigations are completed green cards could be revoked in individual cases when appropriate: President Joe Biden, the White House, 1600 Pennsylvania NW,Washington DC 20500, (202) 456-1111. @POTUS. Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security, 3801 Nebraska Ave. NW, Washington DC 20016, (202) 282-8000. @SecMayorkas.

7. School lunches and food insecurity

As part of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. instituted a universal free school meal program, which the Biden administration extended through June 2022. Congress now has the opportunity to make this program permanent through the Universal School Meals Program Act (H.R.3155 in the House; S.1530 in the Senate). H.R.3155 is currently with three House Committees: Education and Labor; Science, Space, and Technology; and Agriculture; as well as the Agriculture Committee’s subcommittee on Nutrition, Oversight, and Department Operations. S.1530 is with the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee. S-HP

If you think this program should be made permanent, urge these committees to act swiftly on this legislation, particularly in light of conditions for children living in the 13.9% of U.S. families that are food insecure.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

8. Canada makes Emancipation Day official

The recognition of August 1 as Emancipation Day in Canada came just this year after years of activism. Slavery was banned in all former British colonies on August 1, 1834, though enslaved people acquired their freedom only gradually, according to the Government of Canada site. Though many parts of Canada have celebrated Emancipation Day for years, only in March of 2021 did Parliament make it official, according to the CBC. Pointing out that marking a day was only a beginning Al Jazeera quoted the Canadian Commission for UNESCO’s blog post this week: “For real progress to continue, we need more than just a tacit acknowledgement from Canadians and our government. Observing a shameful historical moment in our history is one thing. Doing something proactive to address its legacy is another.”

While US history focuses on the 30,000 enslaved people who fled the US to find freedom in Canada, simultaneously some 3,000 people from Africa were enslaved in Canada, along with 50,000 Indigenous people captured from the United States in the 1600s, according to the Canadian Encyclopedia; their average age was 14, 57% of them women and girls. RLS

SCIENCE, HEALTH, TECHNOLOGY & THE ENVIRONMENT

9. Plan on a booster–now

Laurie Garrett, the science writer who won a Pulitzer for chronicling the Ebola virus, says that we should all be getting a booster shot of the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as it is possible. As she puts it in an article for Foreign Policy, “Sure enough, the United States is again awash in virus, with the incidence of new COVID-19 cases having soared 131 percent in the third week of July.” The big danger, she says, is that unvaccinated people–a fifth of the American population–will contribute to ever-more-dangerous mutations of the virus. A few areas in Alberta, Canada, have low vaccination rates–under 40 per cent–as well, according to the CBC. Garrett acknowledges the inequity of people in privileged countries receiving a third dose when those elsewhere have not yet been able to get even one, but she says that the accelerating risks of variants mean that “in the absence of fully effective vaccination of better than 75 percent of adults, a society may act as a herd of walking petri dishes, cultivating immune-escape mutant forms of SARS-CoV-2—that is, mutants that evade existing vaccine.”

An internal CDC document obtained by the Washington Post supports Garrett’s alarm, describing “a variant so contagious that it acts almost like a different novel virus, leaping from target to target more swiftly than Ebola or the common cold.” The CDC is also unsettled by the as-yet-unpublished data which suggest that “vaccinated individuals infected with delta may be able to transmit the virus as easily as those who are unvaccinated.” We should be back in masks, the CDC says–if we ever took them off.

Meanwhile, medical workers–already worn down from working at the precipice of danger and exhaustion for a year and a half–are exasperated and furious. The AP reports on conditions in Missouri, for example, where less than half the population is vaccinated and ICUs are flooded by unvaccinated people. Many doctors and nurses are appalled at some of their own colleagues, whose refusal to get the vaccine has led to the death of patients, according to the New York Times. In Ontario, Canada, health care workers who assist severely disabled patients are not yet required to be vaccinated, although measures to require the vaccine are being considered, according to the Toronto Star. Seven health care organizations released a consensus statement that health care workers must be vaccinated, according to Ars Technica, which quotes a number of medical experts as saying that vaccination for those in the medical field is an ethical issue, given the vulnerability of children and immunocompromised patients.

Lissa Rankin, a doctor and a blogger, expresses her outrage that people who are able to get the vaccine and refuse it based on misinformation are contributing to the continuing distortion of our world, in which children will again have to stay home from school, borders may close, and the collective events we have all missed become unviable again.  “I’ve about had it with my fellow country mates,” she writes, “who refuse to cooperate with solving problems that require global cooperation- not just Covid, but climate crisis, overconsumption and out of control capitalism, world hunger and lack of access to clean water, poverty, environmental issues, and equal rights for people of all races, genders, sexual orientation, disabilities, and any other way in which people get marginalized and oppressed, among other things.” RLS

RESOURCES

The American Medical Association (AMA) has a useful FAQ about COVID-19 and the vaccines.

Mom’s Rising  has a summer postcarding campaign that may interest you, along with a five simple, clear actions you can take each week.

Data on refugees in the US: Pew Research Center. Refugee statistics worldwide: UNHCR.

No More Deaths/No Más Muertes‘ three-part report, Left to Die, details how asylum-seekers in the desert are abandoned by the Border Patrol. Though 911 calls are routed to them, they did not respond in 63% of cases. Lee Sandusky’s piece of literary journalism, “Scenes from an Emergency Clinic in the Sonoran Desert,” eloquently describes the work No More Deaths/No Más Muertes does.

The National Lawyers Guild has a series of webinars on issues from the global repression of voting, the local suppression of voting and the detention of immigrants.

A trans hotline with both Canadian and US numbers–and with operators who speak Spanish–provides services by and for trans people. You don’t need to be in crisis to call, and if you are a friend or a family member of a trans person, you can also call to find out how to support them. If you would like to know more about the organization, see their staff bios here.

The Americans of Conscience checklist has new actions every other week that will enable you to make your voice heard quickly and clearly. In addition, they have a good news section that will help you keep going.

Among the organizations that supports kids and their families at the border is RAICES, which provides legal support. The need for their services has never been greater. You can support them here.

Al Otro Lado provides legal and humanitarian services to people in both the US and Tijuana. You can find out more about their work here.

The Minority Humanitarian Foundation supports asylum-seekers who have been released by ICE with no means of transportation or ways to contact sponsors. You can donate frequent-flyer miles to make their efforts possible.

The group Angry Tias and Abuelas provides legal advice and services to asylum-seekers at the border. You can follow their work on Facebook and see the list of volunteer opportunities they have posted.

DOMESTIC NEWS

1. Incarcerated people sent home during the pandemic required to go back to prison

At the height of the pandemic, thousands of non-violent incarcerated people were released to home confinement in order to reduce the spread of COVID-19. As the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) points out, the rate of COVID-29 among incarcerated people was 5.5 times higher than in the general American population. Now, Biden’s legal team has apparently advised him that they will have to return to prison a month after the state of emergency is over, according to the New York Times. Their return to prison can only be stopped if Biden can be persuaded to offer clemency to those in home confinement–as he is being urged to do by a wide range of groups, from the American Civil Liberties Union to the Faith and Freedom Coalition, or if Congress acts to empower the Justice Department to keep them home. All of the people affected were judged to be low-risk; many of them are older. RLS

FAMM (Families Against Mandatory Minimums) is urging people to sign the petition to ask President Biden to grant clemency to those released.

2. Program to help formerly incarcerated people reintegrate

Formerly incarcerated people face multiple barriers to social reentry, including challenges regarding housing, employment, transportation, and healthcare. The bipartisan One Stop Shop Community Reentry Program Act, H.R.3372, introduced by Representative Karen Bass (D-CA), would establish a community grant program for the creation of “one-stop” reentry centers, where individuals would have access to multiple services. The grant program’s goals would be increasing access to and use of reentry services; reducing recidivism; increasing enrollment in educational programs ranging from GED certificates to university-level study; increasing the number of individuals obtaining and maintaining housing; increasing self-reported success in community living; and identifying state, local, and private funds available to further the work of one-stop reentry center grantees. This legislation is currently with the House Judiciary Committee and has 14 cosponsors, nine Democrats and four Republicans. S-HP

If you want to engage with this issue, urge swift, positive action on this legislation by the House Judiciary Committee and ask your representative to support this bipartisan effort. Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Chair, House Judiciary Committee, 2141 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington DC 20515, (202) 225-3951. Find your Representative here.

3. Powder vs. Crack cocaine: Disparate sentences

Part of the fallout from the war on drugs is the disparate sentencing between those convicted of the use of powder cocaine versus those convicted of the use of crack cocaine. The nonpartisan site Govtrack points out that under the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act, the sentences for crack cocaine were 100 times higher than those for individuals with similar convictions for powder cocaine use, as a 2006 ACLU report explains. Under the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, that ratio for crack v. powder convictions had been reduced from 100:1 to the still-substantial figure of 18:1. Given the demographics of the U.S. and the different profiles of communities with access to crack vs. powder cocaine, this sentencing disparity has contributed to the overrepresentation of people of color in the prison system.

The EQUAL Act (S.79 in the Senate; H.R.1693 in the House) would end those sentencing disparities. The EQUAL Act has bipartisan support. In the Senate, its five cosponsors include two Democrats and three Republicans; in the House, its 40 cosponsors are equally divided between Democrat and Republican. S.79 is with the Senate Judiciary Committee. H.R.1693 is with both the House Judiciary Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee. S-HP

If you want to address unfair sentencing for people of color, you can urge quick, positive committee responses to the bipartisan EQUAL Act and emphasize the impact this change could have. Addresses are here.

4. Proposed new gun regulations

In a way, guns are like viruses. One reason viruses are so hard to stop once they get going is that their rate of mutation means the target for vaccines and treatment isn’t stable, so what may stop a virus at one point may be useless against it after a few mutations. Think about concerns over the effectiveness of existing COVID-19 vaccines in relation to the new delta variant. One reason firearms are difficult to regulate is that new ways of modifying or making them are always being developed and the specificity of firearms laws means that modifications with similar results may or may not be subject to regulation depending upon the ways different types of firearms are defined under law.

Right now, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) is proposing changes to definitions of terms like “firearm,” “rifle,” and “short-barreled” rifles to ensure that they include weapons with modifications that were designed with the intent of excluding them from some definitions.  For example, a ghost gun—a gun produced on a 3-D printer that has no serial number—functions as a gun, but does not necessarily fall under all firearm regulations because the legal definitions of terms were created before ghost guns had been developed. On regulations.gov, the explanations of these changes in definition are, quite frankly, arcane, but the point is that the ATF is rewriting regulations with the intention of making sure they include new types of guns or guns produced with new methods.

 One proposal, “Definition of Frame or Receiver and Identification of Firearms” has the intent of defining ghost guns or gun kits that can be assembled after purchase as firearms, so that they are subject to rules regarding background checks and identifying serial numbers. If you want to support this rule change, but have difficulty wording your support, you can look at several scripts suggested by “Brady,” the gun control advocacy group named in honor of James Brady, who was badly injured during an attempt to assassinate Ronald Regan.

 A second proposed rule change addresses “Factoring Criteria for Firearms with Attached ‘Stabilizing Braces.” Braces and/or stocks can be added to guns for a number of reasons. Braces are sometimes added to guns to make their use easier for people with disabilities. But braces can also be added to increase the power and accuracy of small guns, making them function similarly to more powerful rifles, but adding that functionality in a way that means rules governing rifles do not apply to these modified handguns. The second set of redefinitions is intended to continue to allow the use of braces genuinely designed for those with disabilities without changing the classification of a gun and without subjecting it to additional regulation, but to make it clear that small guns with other types of add-ons or modifications are subject to regulations governing rifles. S-HP

You can comment on the need to make sure that ghost guns are regulated by going to https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/ATF-2021-0001-0001. You can comment on the need to ensure guns that are modified to function as rifles are treated as rifles by going to https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/ATF-2021-0002-0001. If you prefer to write a letter, addresses are here.

You can also tell your Congressmembers that you’re sick of “thoughts and prayers” that don’t result in life-saving changes to gun regulations and insist that gun regulation should be part of their agenda.  Find your senators here and your representative here.

5. Still no gun legislation…

Two weeks ago, we produced a database of the 38 pieces of gun legislation that have been sitting in committee since they were introduced. Thus far in the 117^th Congress, no gun legislation has made it through both houses of Congress. One piece of legislation, H.R.8, the Bipartisan Background Checks Act, has made it through the House. In the two weeks since we reported on this legislation, none of it has budged. For a full discussion, see our July 11, 2021 issue. S-HP/RLS

For your voice to be heard, urge committees with gun legislation to take action on this legislation and insist that your Congressmembers call for gun legislation to be moved beyond committee and that they support this legislation when it comes to a full vote of the House or Senate. Addresses are here.

Moms Demand Action recommends a variety of actions you can take against gun violence. Moms Rising also has a gun safety campaign, focusing on confirming David Chipman as the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, establishing universal background checks, banning military-type assault records, and various other points.

6. Racism in Facial Recognition

The unreliability of facial recognition software, particularly in the identification of non-white faces has been well documented. In a 2018 ACLU test of Amazon’s Rekognition, the program incorrectly identified members of Congress, most of them people of color, as people who had been arrested for a crime. 2019 reporting by the New York Times highlighted a study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which found that Asian-American and Black faces were misidentified by facial recognition programs at a rate 10 to 100 times higher than the misidentification rate for whites. These kinds of misidentifications have real world consequences, ranging from missed airline flights to false arrest to deportation.  Congress now has an opportunity to prevent abuses of biometric surveillance via H.R.9307, the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology, which would require statutory authorization for any federal use of biometric surveillance and would withhold some kinds of federal grants from States and local governments using biometric surveillance. This legislation is currently with two House Committees: Judiciary and Oversight and Reform. S-HP

If you want to have an influence on this issue, ask Congress to act swiftly on this legislation to protect individuals from the dangers of false identification and abusive surveillance. Call, write or tweet: Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Chair, House Judiciary Committee, 2141 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington DC 20515, (202) 225-3951, Representative Ro Khanna (D-NY), Chair, House Oversight and Reform Committee, 2308 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington DC 20510, (202) 225-7944.

7. New Protections for LGBTQI+ people proposed

The House of Representatives has the opportunity to act on several pieces of legislation that would protect the rights of LGBTQI+ people.

◉During the previous session of Congress, Representative Sean Patrick Maloney introduced the LGBTQ Essential Data Act (H.R.3280, 116^th Congress) which would have required the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to improve its data collection regarding the sexual orientation and gender identity of deceased individuals via the National Violent Death Reporting System—data that’s essential to understand the scope of deadly attacks on LGBTQ individuals in the U.S. This legislation never moved beyond the House Energy and Commerce Committee, to which it was assigned in June 2019. Representative Maloney reintroduced this legislation in late June.

◉The John Lewis Every Child Deserves a Family Act, H.R.3488 (which also goes by a much longer descriptive title) would prohibit discrimination on the basis of religion, sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity), and marital status in the provision of child welfare services, with the goal of improving safety, well-being, and permanency for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning foster youth. This legislation has been assigned to the House Ways and Means and the House Energy and Commerce Committees.

◉As he explained when introducing the legislation, Representative Jimmy Panetta’s (D-CA) Armed Forces Transgender Dependent Protection Act, H.R.3672, would “ensure that transgender dependents of active duty service members are able to receive the health care they need and deserve without discrimination. The bill would prevent service members being stationed in states or countries that deny their transgender dependents gender affirming healthcare and treatment.” H.R.3672 is with the House Armed Services Committee.

◉The Global Respect Act, H.R.3845, would make it possible to impose sanctions on foreign persons who are responsible for LGBTQI+ individuals being denied internationally recognized human rights. H.R.3485 is currently with the House Foreign Affairs and Judiciary Committees.

You can engage with these issues by asking the House Energy and Commerce Committee to ask swiftly on H.R.3280 and H.R.3488 to assure better documentation of anti-LGBTQ violence and to assure that all kinds of families can provide homes for all kinds of kids currently in the foster care system. You can also urge the chair of the House Armed Services Committee to act quickly on H.R.3672 to protect the safety of LGBTQI+ members of military families; in addition you could ask the House Judiciary Committee to quickly address H.R.3845 to protect the rights of LGBTQI individuals around the world. Addresses are here.

SCIENCE, HEALTH, TECHNOLOGY & THE ENVIRONMENT

8. Sue–or file a complaint against Fox News for faux news

How many people have refused to get vaccinated–and become ill, even died–because of the false statements they heard on Fox News? Slate suggests that such people–or their heirs–could sue Fox on the grounds that “harm caused by deliberate misrepresentations is fraud.” Slate’s article traces the legal argument that would make a suit plausible. Another route was suggested by MSNBC columnist Dean Obeidallah, who writes that he is filing a complaint with “the Federal Trade Commission against Fox News for possible violations of the Covid-19 Consumer Protection Act. That law, enacted in December 2020, makes it ‘unlawful’ for a corporation or individual ‘to engage in a deceptive act or practice in or affecting commerce associated with the treatment, cure, prevention, mitigation, or diagnosis of COVID–19.’” RLS/S-HP

Tired of Fox News’ lies about the COVID-19 vaccine? You don’t have to launch a lawsuit, but you–yes you–can file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission—and it takes just minutes. Express your concern at www.reportfraud.ftc.gov

9. Subsidizing fossil fuels costs taxpayers $16 billion

In 2019, a report from the Environmental and Energy Study Institute estimated that the U.S. government’s subsidizing of fossil fuel cost taxpayers $16 billion annually. Representative Katie Porter’s (D-CA) H.R.1517, Ending Taxpayer Welfare for Oil and Gas Companies would significantly increase the minimum per acre bid for companies hoping to lease U.S. lands for fossil fuel extraction and calls for that minimum to be adjusted for inflation every four years based on changes to the Consumer Price Index. It would also increase the royalties fossil fuels pay on any oil or gas they extract from government lands. These royalties would be reconsidered every three years through processes that specifically call for public comments and hearings. H.R.1517 has been “ordered reported” by the House Natural Resources, meaning it can now be brought to a vote of the full House. S-HP

If you support this legislation, tell the Speaker of the House that you want to see action on it. You also can ask your Representative to support it and to become a cosponsor if they haven’t done so yet [you can check the list of cosponsors here]. Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Speaker of the House, 1236 Longworth House Office Building, Washington DC 20515, (202) 225-4965. @SpeakerPelosi. Find your Representative here.

RESOURCES

Mom’s Rising  has a summer postcarding campaign that may interest you, along with a five simple, clear actions you can take each week.

Data on refugees in the US: Pew Research Center. Refugee statistics worldwide: UNHCR.

No More Deaths/No Más Muertes‘ three-part report, Left to Die, details how asylum-seekers in the desert are abandoned by the Border Patrol. Though 911 calls are routed to them, they did not respond in 63% of cases. Lee Sandusky’s piece of literary journalism, “Scenes from an Emergency Clinic in the Sonoran Desert,” eloquently describes the work No More Deaths/No Más Muertes does.

The National Lawyers Guild has a series of webinars on issues from the global repression of voting, the local suppression of voting and the detention of immigrants.

A trans hotline with both Canadian and US numbers–and with operators who speak Spanish–provides services by and for trans people. You don’t need to be in crisis to call, and if you are a friend or a family member of a trans person, you can also call to find out how to support them. If you would like to know more about the organization, see their staff bios here.

The Americans of Conscience checklist has new actions every other week that will enable you to make your voice heard quickly and clearly. In addition, they have a good news section that will help you keep going.

Among the organizations that supports kids and their families at the border is RAICES, which provides legal support. The need for their services has never been greater. You can support them here.

Al Otro Lado provides legal and humanitarian services to people in both the US and Tijuana. You can find out more about their work here.

The Minority Humanitarian Foundation supports asylum-seekers who have been released by ICE with no means of transportation or ways to contact sponsors. You can donate frequent-flyer miles to make their efforts possible.

The group Angry Tias and Abuelas provides legal advice and services to asylum-seekers at the border. You can follow their work on Facebook and see the list of volunteer opportunities they have posted.