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katherineharron

Biden carries Arizona, flipping a longtime Republican stronghold - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

election

shared by katherineharron on 13 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • For just the second time in more than seven decades, a Democrat will carry Arizona in a presidential election, a monumental shift for a state that was once a Republican stronghold.
  • CNN projected on Thursday that President-elect Joe Biden will carry Arizona,
  • Biden's win in the state that propelled Republican leaders like Barry Goldwater and John McCain to national prominence could foretell problems for the party going forward.
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  • "It has been a decade-plus of building and the sustained work of organizing between electoral cycles have been critical."
  • Arizona, by going blue, is moving closer to its neighbor to the northwest -- Nevada, where Democrats have taken control of almost all aspects of government
  • Maricopa is the fastest-growing county in the country, transforming over the last two decades into a sprawling mass of metropolitan hubs, sun-scorched planned communities and bustling strip malls.
  • "Maricopa County won the state of Arizona for Mark Kelly and Joe Biden," said Steven Slugocki, chair of Maricopa County's Democrats. "Here in Maricopa, we committed our resources to contact voters of color, women and traditionally underrepresented groups throughout the state. Our strategy proved to be effective."
  • Biden is just the second Democrat to win Arizona since 1948, when Harry Truman won. Bill Clinton narrowly won the state in 1996, but Arizona moved further right in the next two decades, electing hard-line immigration proponents like Gov. Jan Brewer and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and passing laws like SB 1070, a controversial state law that required officers to make immigration checks while enforcing other laws if "reasonable suspicion" of illegal immigration exists.
  • The Democratic victory builds on the work by grassroots organizations on the ground in Arizona, many of which focused on the state's growing Latino population by uniting around the opposition to Arpaio and the immigration crackdown
  • "This year was a victory for the decade-plus of work in this state," said Laura Dent, the executive director of Chispa Arizona
  • Three key shifts in the state helped Democrats this year: a growing Latino population that leans Democratic, a surge in voters moving to Arizona from more liberal states like California and Illinois, and the way suburban voters have starkly broken with a Republican Party led by someone like Trump.
  • Dent said the organizing around SB 1070 was a "catalyst" for these groups to unify around something and "build that collective power" on display this year
  • "I thought by 2024, Arizona would be for real a swing state," said Yasser Sanchez, an immigration lawyer who volunteered for Republican Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign and worked for McCain's 2016 reelection to the Senate before rejecting a Trump-led Republican Party and helping organize Latino voters for Biden. "Every time I heard it would be before, I thought that was wishful thinking."
  • Looming over Biden's victory is the legacy of McCain, an Arizona stalwart whose "maverick" conservatism carried a coalition of Democrats, independents and Republicans for years in the state.
  • Trump to double down on his mocking attacks of the Republican senator, even after he died in 2018. This, along with comments Trump reportedly made about military members and veterans, spurred McCain's widow, Cindy McCain, to back Biden, an endorsement that was front page news in the state.
  • But Arizona was considered so reliably red in 2014 that a study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California-Los Angeles dubbed Mesa -- a sprawling suburb east of Phoenix -- the "most conservative American city."
  • "Ten years ago, if you wanted to be politically relevant and if you wanted your vote to have an impact, you were foolish to be registered as a Democrat because they failed to field a candidate for some offices," said Mesa Mayor John Giles, a registered Republican in a nonpartisan job. "And even then, it was just volunteering to get killed in the general by the Republican."
  • "I am hoping to change the state blue," Schaefer said after casting her ballot. "Believe me, I have tried to turn everybody that I can possibly turn."
  • "Trump is dangerous for the country," Hudock said after voting days before the election. "In the last four years, Republicans have shown their true colors. ... I just wish there was a centrist party.
  • That quickly changed as the virus spread throughout the state, with more than 160,000 cases and 3,600 people dying in Maricopa County alone.
  • Biden's win in Arizona was not for a lack of trying on Trump's part. The President held seven events in the state in 2020. Biden held one event after the Democratic National Convention over the summer, a bus tour around Maricopa in October.
hannahcarter11

COVID news: Arizona, South Dakota no masks; Denver schools go virtual - 0 views

www.usatoday.com/...3771651001

arizona masks schools covid

shared by hannahcarter11 on 19 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • The U.S. death toll from coronavirus has surpassed 250,000, including 1,700 reported Wednesday alone. Hospitalizations across the nation have exploded, with almost 80,000 Americans now receiving inpatient treatment.
  • Still, some governors remain unconvinced that mandatory facial coverings are a necessary tool in curbing the pandemic. 
  • Thirty-six states have some type of statewide mask requirement
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  • But he suggested that a statewide mask mandate would not help halt the surge, adding that it is nearly impossible to participate in the Arizona economy without wearing a mask due to various local restrictions.
  • She said cases were increasing in many states with mandates, adding that communities were free to establish local regulations. 
  • The U.S. has reported more than 11.5 million cases and more than 250,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The global totals: 56.4 million cases and 1.35 million deaths.
  • As state officials and lawmakers urged the shutdown of a Tyson Foods pork processing plant in Iowa, managers at the plant reportedly placed bets on how many would end up getting sick.
  • As COVID-19 cases pile up at a staggering rate, Republicans and Democrats remain in stark disagreement over the threat of the virus and the steps necessary to mitigate its spread.
  • That has surprised political scientists and public health experts who thought that, if the pandemic worsened, the partisan gap would begin to close
  • European officials announced a modest gain in the continent's battle against the virus.
  • Still, an average of 4500 lives are lost to COVID-19 in Europe every day, Kluge said.
  • He described further lockdowns as a last resort and said that if mask use reached 95%, lockdowns would not be needed.
  • Almost 100,000 long-term care U.S. residents have died in the coronavirus pandemic, and advocates for the elderly say tens of thousands more are succumbing to neglect by overwhelmed staffs and slow declines from isolation imposed as protection from COVID.
  • Although the COVID-19 outbreak is looking worse than ever, news from vaccine makers is fueling optimism
  • That means we can begin inoculating health care and other essential workers even before we’re done with the Thanksgiving leftovers,
  • The vaccine being developed Oxford researchers and U.K.-based AstraZeneca appears to trigger a "robust immune response" in healthy adults, including those aged 56 and older, the university said in a release.
  • The U.S. has become the first country to have 250,000 people die from COVID-19, nearly 19% of the global total of 1.35 million fatalities.
  • The death toll the virus has inflicted among Americans is more than twice as large as the number of U.S. service members who died in World War I.
  • Colleges are scrambling to prevent a massive spread, with some urging or requiring students to quarantine or receive a negative coronavirus test before traveling home. Without those precautions, college leaders say, students should consider abstaining from their holiday plans and instead opt for a celebration closer to campus.
  • Boston University's recommendation is that students either stay in Boston for the holiday or go home and not come back. Kenneth Elmore, dean of students, says the school is urging students to think of the greater good. 
  • As Arizona's COVID-19 trends spike, the state is giving hospitals $25 million to bolster staffing, but Gov. Doug Ducey said Wednesday that he won't impose a statewide mask mandate.
  • Ducey suggested that a statewide mask mandate would not effectively curb the spread of the virus, and emphasized that about 90% of the state is under a local mask mandate. He also said it is nearly impossible to participate in the Arizona economy without wearing a mask.
  • More than 90,000 students in the state's largest school district will return to virtual learning starting Nov. 30 through the end of the semester.
  • The district reported about 13 cases per week when it first opened early childhood education centers. Cases have now surpassed 300 per week.
  • There are some reasons for this. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, acknowledging the nation's pandemic-related rodent problem, points out restaurants have reduced service, which means fewer food scraps are ending up in the dumpsters on which rats and mice often feed.
  • Dr. Anthony Fauci is urging Americans to "think twice" about traveling and having indoor gatherings for the holidays.
  • "As we get into the colder weather, we should really think twice about these kind of dinner parties where you're not sure of whether the people that are in your bubble (are safe)," he said. "Then you're going to start seeing these unanticipated infections related to innocent home gatherings, particularly as we head into the holiday season."
Javier E

Arizona Republicans move to ban social justice courses and events at schools | US news ... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...ocial-justice-courses-ban-bill

social justice university academic legal freedom

shared by Javier E on 14 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • Republican lawmakers in Arizona are pushing to prohibit school courses and events that promote ethnic studies and social justice, with legislation that critics say broadly targets academic freedom and students of color.
  • The newly introduced bill – which seeks to build on an existing GOP-backed law that banned a Mexican American studies class – marks the latest attack in academia on activism and research centered on marginalized groups. Some opponents said the proposal is part of a national trend, tied to the election of Donald Trump, of lawmakers working to suppress progressive organizations and protests.
  • The bill, from state representative Bob Thorpe, would prohibit “courses, classes, events and activities” in public schools that promote “social justice toward a race, gender, religion, political affiliation, social class or other class of people”. Courses and events that are “designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group” or advocate “solidarity” based on ethnicity, race, religion or gender would also be banned.
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  • The proposal comes at a time in which the polarizing presidential election has fueled intense debates surrounding first amendment rights and academic freedom in American universities. In recent months, conservative groups on campuses across the US have launched coordinated attacks against professors and courses that promote liberal ideologies or challenge traditional views on race and gender.
  • Thorpe’s bill is particularly far-reaching in its targeting of social justice organizing and ethnic studies, said Martín Quezada, a Democratic state senator, and has prompted an outcry on Arizona campuses. “Our students are terrified that their freedom of speech, their freedom of thought and their ability to learn about issues and think at a higher level is in jeopardy now,” he said. “The scariest part of this bill is that the impacts are so broad.”
  • “By attempting to legislate against certain types of activities that focus on people of color, women or social justice issues,” he added, “it really undermines the ability of the university to function as a space of intellectual engagement and debate.”
anonymous

Georgia's election law: How the Supreme Court laid the path - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by anonymous on 27 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Georgia's voter restrictions were dashed into law Thursday by Republicans shaken over recent election losses and lies about fraud from former President Donald Trump, yet the measures also developed against a backdrop of US Supreme Court decisions hollowing out federal voting rights protection.
  • In another world, before the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts, Georgia would have had to obtain federal approval for new election practices to ensure they did not harm Blacks and other minority voters.
  • And at another time, before the Roberts Court enhanced state latitude in a series of rulings, legislators might have hedged before enacting policies from new voter identification requirements, to a prohibition on third-party collection of ballots to a rule against non-poll workers providing food or water to voters waiting in lines. But the conservative court has increasingly granted states leeway over how they run elections.
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  • As the justices have turned away challenges to state policies, they have expressed sympathy for local officials who face potentially intrusive federal regulation and protracted litigation. Led by Roberts, the court has also dismissed concerns about the consequences for minority voters as it has curtailed the reach of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
  • That case from Shelby County, Alabama, centered on a provision of the 1965 act that required states with a history of discrimination to seek approval from the Department of Justice or a federal court before changing electoral policy. By a 5-4 vote, the court invalidated the provision that still covered nine states, including Georgia.
  • The justices are now considering, in a recently argued Arizona case, the strength of a separate Voting Rights Act provision that prohibits any measure that denies someone the right to vote because of race. Unlike the "pre-clearance" provision previously in dispute, this section of the law comes into play after legislation has taken effect and puts the burden on those protesting the law to initiate a lawsuit.
  • Resolution of that Arizona case, known as Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, will have repercussions for controversy over laws like Georgia's, which were immediately challenged Thursday night by advocates who say they will disproportionately hurt Blacks.
  • Across the country, Republican legislators have proposed voting changes that would reverse the pandemic-era steps that made it easier for people to vote last November, especially by mail, and led to record numbers of votes cast.
  • Congress passed the 1965 Voting Rights Act soon after the Bloody Sunday march in Selma, Alabama. The law reflected the reality of the time that although the Fifteenth Amendment barred racial bias in voting, Blacks were still deterred from casting ballots through poll taxes, literacy tests and other rules.
  • Roberts has also made clear that he abhors remedies tied to race, saying in a 2006 voting-rights case: "It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race." Yet in the aftermath of the polarizing 2020 election, the country and the high court may be headed for a new chapter of voting-rights cases of a deeper partisan character, intensifying concerns about the future of the Voting Rights Act, as well as First Amendment guarantees of free speech and association.
  • Georgia's law, signed by Gov. Brian Kemp on Thursday, emerges from Republican efforts nationwide, particularly in battleground states that experienced record turnout and Democratic victories last November. Among its myriad provisions, the Georgia law imposes new voter identification requirements for absentee ballots and empowers state officials to take over local election boards.
  • The three voting rights groups that sued - the New Georgia Project, the Black Voters Matter Fund and Rise Inc. -- grounded their complaint in the Voting Rights Act and in the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
  • The challengers emphasized Georgia's history of racial discrimination. "(V)oting in Georgia is highly polarized, and the shameful legacy of racial discrimination is visible today in Georgia's housing, economic, and health disparities," they wrote, adding that the new law "interacts with these vestiges of discrimination" to deny equal opportunity in the political process. Lower federal court judges have struggled over the standard for assessing the denial of voting rights, and that dilemma is at the heart of the Supreme Court's new Arizona controversy.
  • In dispute are laws require ballots cast by people at the wrong precinct to be discarded and bar most third parties -- beyond a relative or mail carrier -- from collecting absentee ballots, for example, at a nursing home.
  • During oral arguments, Roberts and fellow conservatives focused on potential voter fraud and highlighted state authority for overseeing elections. Arizona officials argued that the measures would help prevent voter coercion and other irregularities, as the challengers contended that the new requirements would especially disenfranchise Native Americans and other minorities.
  • The high court's resolution of the Arizona controversy could have a dramatic impact on the raft of new legislation and ultimately how easy it is for minorities to register and vote. Resolution is expected by the end of June.
saberal

The Democrat standing in the way of his party's efforts to protect voting rights | US v... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...rats-voting-rights-joe-manchin

US politics

shared by saberal on 02 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • For months, Democrats in Congress have remained united behind passing the For the People Act, legislation that would amount to the most sweeping protections for voting rights in a generation.
  • My colleague Daniel Strauss and I wrote about this quagmire for Democrats this week. We asked senators and voting rights groups how exactly they might win over Manchin and how they plan to move forward. They told us they were still optimistic about the bill’s prospects and they thought Manchin would ultimately come around as public pressure grew.
  • The Republican effort to review 2.1m ballots cast in Arizona’s largest county is getting even stranger. One of the subcontractors that was involved in running the audit is no longer participating, the Arizona Republic reported on Tuesday. The same firm had previously been hired by the non-profit of Sidney Powell, a Trump ally who promulgated lies about the 2020 election, to do an audit in Pennsylvania.
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  • There is growing concern that conservative activists are seeking to emulate the Arizona review elsewhere, including in California, Michigan and New Hampshire. Experts say the efforts in Arizona are so shoddy as to be illegitimate, and are simply an effort to sow more uncertainty about the 2020 election results.
yehbru

2020 election polls: Why this race likely comes down to Arizona and Pennsylvania - CNNP... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

politics US election biden trump

shared by yehbru on 01 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • Trump's best path to stop Biden is for there to be a larger than average polling error in Arizona and especially Pennsylvania.
  • The electoral math is pretty simple. Biden needs to find 38 electoral votes on top of the 232 in the contests that Hillary Clinton won in 2016. He's likely to win the one from Nebraska's 2nd Congressional Distric
  • A CNN/SSRS poll on Saturday put Biden up 12 points in Michigan among likely voters, while Biden led in Wisconsin by 8 points in a CNN/SSRS poll and 11 points in a New York Times/Siena College poll released Sunday.
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  • Florida and its 29 electoral votes are too close to call with perhaps a slight edge to Biden.
  • A CNN/SSRS poll had Biden up by 6 points there yesterday, while the polling average puts the race closer to a 3 point edge. This is a race that Biden is favored to win, though one where an average sized polling error (about 3 points in competitive presidential races dating back to 1972) would be enough for Trump to emerge victorious.
  • So Trump needs a larger than average polling error in a state where there hasn't been a tradition of polling errors favoring Republicans.
  • As I've noted before, this isn't 2016. Trump needs something to have a bigger polling miss. See it's not only the state polls that need to be off by a considerable margin. Trump has to hope the national polls are off by plenty, too.
  • He's down about 9 points nationally
  • That means that whatever polling error hits the swing states needs to happen in the national polling as well, unlike in 2016.
xaviermcelderry

Biden Leads Trump in Four Key States, Poll Shows - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...da-pennsylvania-wisconsin.html

polls election Biden Trump

shared by xaviermcelderry on 01 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • “doesn’t lie to you. If he says he’s going to do something, he goes and he does it.”
    • yehbru
      yehbru on 01 Nov 20
       
      wow...
  • In Arizona, for example, the president had an eight-point advantage with men but Mr. Biden was the overwhelming favorite of women, winning 56 percent of them compared with Mr. Trump’s 38 percent.
  • The former vice president is leading by double digits among white voters with college degrees in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Arizona and beating him, 48 percent to 45 percent, with that constituency in Florida.
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  • Mr. Biden is also poised to become the first Democrat in 20 years to carry older adults, the voters who are most at risk with the coronavirus.
  • But the president is facing an even larger gender gap in the Hispanic community than he is over all: Latinas favor Mr. Biden by 39 points.
  • Joseph R. Biden Jr. holds a clear advantage over President Trump across four of the most important presidential swing states, a new poll shows, bolstered by the support of voters who did not participate in the 2016 election and who now appear to be turning out in large numbers to cast their ballots, mainly for the Democrat.
  • His strength is most pronounced in Wisconsin, where he has an outright majority of the vote and leads Mr. Trump by 11 points, 52 percent to 41 percent.
  • Mr. Biden’s performance across the electoral map appears to put him in a stronger position heading into Election Day than any presidential candidate since at least 2008
  • Should Mr. Biden’s lead hold in three of the four states tested in the survey, it would almost certainly be enough to win, and if he were to carry Florida, he would most likely need to flip just one more large state that Mr. Trump won in 2016 to clinch the presidency.
  • In the closing days of the campaign, Mr. Biden has a modest advantage in Florida, where he is ahead of Mr. Trump by three points, 47 percent to 44 percent, a lead that is within the margin of error.
  • While that advantage has varied over time, and has differed from state to state, he has at no point slipped behind Mr. Trump in any of the swing states that are likeliest to decide the election.
  • Mr. Trump has continued to hold onto most of the coalition that elected him in the first place, made up chiefly of rural conservatives and white voters who did not attend college.
  • More broadly, Mr. Trump is facing an avalanche of opposition nationally from women, people of color, voters in the cities and the suburbs, young people, seniors and, notably, new voters. In all four states, voters who did not participate in 2016, but who have already voted this time or plan to do so, said they support Mr. Biden by wide margins.
  • In Wisconsin, voters who did not cast a ballot in 2016 favor Mr. Biden by 19 points. They have a similarly lopsided preference in Florida, where Mr. Biden leads by 17 points. His advantage with people who did not vote in 2016 is 12 points in Pennsylvania and 7 points in Arizona.
  • The numbers on new voters represent a setback for the president, whose advisers have long contended he would outperform his polling numbers because of the support he would receive from infrequent or inconsistent voters
  • Mr. Trump’s apparent weakness in many of the country’s largest electoral prizes leaves him with a narrow path to the 270 Electoral College votes required to claim victory, short of a major upset or a systemic error in opinion polling surpassing even the missteps preceding the 2016 election.
  • The margin of error is 3.2 percentage points in Wisconsin and Florida; 3 points in Arizona and 2.4 points in Pennsylvania.Mr. Biden has consistently held the upper hand over Mr. Trump across the electoral map in polling conducted by The Times since late last spring.
  • Amid that bleak outlook, the president has continued to baselessly cast doubt on the integrity of the election. On Saturday in Pennsylvania, he told supporters that the nation could be waiting for weeks to learn of a winner and that “very bad things” could happen as ballots are counted in the days after the election.
  • Many of the those who said they did not vote in 2016 said they had already voted this year. In Florida and Arizona, more than two thirds of nonvoters in 2016 who were identified as likely voters this year said that they had already cast a ballot. That figure was 56 percent in Wisconsin and 36 percent in Pennsylvania.
  • Based on the poll, however, it seems that Mr. Biden rather than Mr. Trump could be the beneficiary of record-busting turnout.
  • If the president is defeated, the most obvious explanation may be his weakness with women. Mr. Biden led Mr. Trump by double digits among female voters in each of the four states, and in some states the advantage was so significant that it offset Mr. Trump’s strength among men.
katherineharron

President Donald Trump's GOP wall is cracking as he fights election result - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

trump

shared by katherineharron on 13 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • As President Donald Trump's lawyers cling to their far-fetched schemes to overturn the presidential election, it was increasingly clear Thursday that cracks are forming in Trump's Republican wall of support, as more GOP members stepped forward to say that President-elect Joe Biden should receive national intelligence briefings
  • There is still no sign that Trump and leading Republicans plan to actively congratulate Biden.
  • Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford told a local radio station Wednesday that the President-elect should begin receiving presidential intelligence briefings by the end of the week, a number of senior GOP senators spoke up Thursday to say they shared that thinking,
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  • Lankford noted that after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the bipartisan committee that investigated them found that the compressed time frame for the transition after the contested 2000 election may have contributed to the lack of preparedness for the attack.
  • In their report after the attacks, the commission said that the dispute over the election and the "36-day legal fight" following "cut in half the normal transition period." The loss of time, the commission said, "hampered the new administration in identifying, recruiting, clearing, and obtaining Senate confirmation of key appointees,"
  • The intermediary step by Republicans in the President's orbit illuminated the widening divide between the practical reality that Biden must be equipped with key national security knowledge to begin running the country in January and the political fiction being perpetrated by the President and his supporters.
  • Ohio's Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, who heads a state the President won last week, said on CNN's "New Day" that "we need to consider the former vice president as the President-elect."
  • Trump has showed little interest in addressing the most important issue facing the country: the record-breaking climb in US coronavirus cases.
  • The illusory quality of Trump's election fraud claims was once again underscored by a set of election integrity checks that are being conducted in Arizona, which CNN called for Biden late Thursday night.
  • post-election audits filed with the Arizona Secretary of State's office from more than half of Arizona's counties showed that there is no evidence of systematic voter fraud or major discrepancies that would affect the outcome of the race.
  • A group of national, state and private election officials said in a joint statement Thursday that there is no evidence that "any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised."
  • "The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. Right now, across the country, election officials are reviewing and double checking the entire election process prior to finalizing the result," the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council and the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Executive Committees said.
  • The most surreal feature of the suspended reality at the White House is still the behavior of the President himself. A leader who jealously dominated television coverage on the campaign trail and in office has not made public remarks for an entire week
  • "I'm worried about this virus, I'm not looking at what the merits of the case are. It would appear that Joe Biden is going to be the next president of the United States," DeWine said, adding that America needs to "come together as a country."
  • But the President's Twitter feed Thursday indicated that he was much more fixated on what he views as his mistreatment by Fox News, his once favored network, which he believes should be defending him more vociferously in the midst of the twilight zone that he has created by refusing to acknowledge Biden's victory.
  • The President, whom CNN quoted sources as describing as increasingly "dejected" on Thursday, continues to tweet falsehoods about election fraud.
  • there are few signs that his campaign has convinced any court to take his complaints seriously. In this odd limbo between defiance and admitting defeat, the President is wavering between fighting on and a recognition that his hold on power is coming to an end,
  • While his adult sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, have urged their father to continue challenging the election results, his daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner have taken a more measured approach, CNN reported Thursday, encouraging the President to think about potential damage to his legacy as they weigh their own post-White House ambitions.
  • In addition to Biden's win in Arizona, the President trails in Georgia, where a hand recount is beginning, by 14,000 votes -- a cushion for Biden unlikely to be overturned.
  • Meanwhile, Biden's political choreography -- which late Wednesday included the naming of Ron Klain as his White House chief of staff -- and his departure to his family beach house to decompress after the election is meant to signal that his ascent to power is assured.
  • In what may have been a signal to establishment Republicans -- in a venue that the President himself might take account of -- former George W. Bush strategist Karl Rove wrote in a Wall Street journal op-ed that the election will not be overturned whatever the result of Trump's legal gambits.
  • Lankford, who referred to Biden as President-elect at his church last week, has said he will intervene if the victorious Democrat remains unable to access intelligence briefings.
  • "I've been a little concerned about it," Senate Armed Services Chairman Jim Inhofe said of the Pentagon firings, adding he'd been told "now it's come to an end."
  • As Republican lawmakers stake out safe ground -- trying to appear that they are still supporting the President's legal pursuits while also signaling that the transition should begin -- some Democrats have been hammering their GOP colleagues for indulging the President's election fantasies.
  • "These Republicans are all auditioning for profiles in cowardice," Schumer said.
  • On Thursday, the US broke the record for Covid-19 hospitalizations for the third consecutive day, surpassing 67,000 hospitalizations.
  • The glimmer of hope on the horizon continued to be Pfizer's promising announcement earlier this week that their vaccine trial is more than 90% effective with officials widely expecting that the company will apply for emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration before the end of this month.
  • "By the end of March to early April, we think across all of the vaccines that we have invested in, we have enough for all Americans who wish to get vaccinated," Azar said.
  • "If you think of it metaphorically, you know, the cavalry is coming here," Fauci said, touting the major positive impact that the vaccines will have."If we could just hang in there, do the public health measures that we're talking about," Fauci said. "We're going to get this under control, I promise you."
Javier E

An Arizona lawmaker called immigration an 'existential threat' to the U.S. State GOP le... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...p-leaders-want-his-resignation

immigration GOP racism

shared by Javier E on 15 Jun 18 - No Cached
  • “Before I conclude, I want to touch on what I consider my top priority … my top political priority, my top issue,” Stringer said at around the video’s 15-minute mark.
  • He warned that because of the volume of immigration into the U.S. over the last several decades, states including Texas, Florida and Arizona have “flipped” or “are imminently going to flip to become minority majority states.” Stringer then called attention to the proportion of minority children attending Arizona’s public schools
  • “Sixty percent of public school children in the state of Arizona today are minorities,” he said. “That complicates racial integration because there aren’t enough white kids to go around.”
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  • In 10 or 15 years, Stringer claimed, the staggering number of minority students would lead to a change in the demographics of the state’s voting base. “That’s what’s going on around the country,” he said. “Immigration is politically destabilizing. President Trump has talked about it. I’m very concerned about this. Immigration today represents an existential threat to the United States.”
  • “If we don’t do something about immigration very, very soon, the demographics of our country will be irrevocably changed and it will be a very different country and it will not be the country you were born into,” he said.
  • While he apologized for offending anyone, he said drawing attention to the racial breakdown of students in Arizona’s public schools is “not a racist comment, it’s a statement of fact.”
  • “I maybe touched a third rail of politics but what I said is accurate,” Stringer said. “Anybody that talks about this in this way is shut down and called a racist. I’m speaking the truth. Diversity may be a great thing, there might be a lot of advantages, I’m not arguing against diversity at all, but no country can be demographically transformed without any political or social consequences.”
clairemann

Arizona Sen. Sinema targeted by conservatives in effort to stall contentious Dem-backed... - 0 views

www.foxnews.com/...arizona-senator-sinema-s1-bill

policy Politics gop

shared by clairemann on 25 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • A conservative group is running a campaign in Arizona aimed at pressuring moderate Democrat Sen. Kyrsten Sinema into voting against the massive Democrat-backed voting bill called S.1 that's before the Senate. 
  • "Remember when every TV ad was from a politician? Now Democrats want taxpayer-funded political ads," says The Heritage Action ad, which will hit the airwaves Thursday and was first obtained by Fox News. "Democrats also want to register illegal aliens and let people vote without an ID. That means fraud. It's a partisan power grab, and it's wrong." 
  • "[W]e may hear about taxpayer funding of campaigns – despite the fact that this bill includes a provision stating explicitly that no taxpayer money should be used to fund campaigns," Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said. 
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  • "They are using the justification of the 2020 experience -- pandemic and challenges that some states had -- as an excuse to push through on a completely party-line vote, a list of agenda items that they've wanted to do for a long time," LaRose said. He added that as Americans learn more about the bill in the hearing Wednesday they will "start to realize that it is a left-wing activist dream list." 
  • But Democrats say S.1 is a critical civil rights bill needed to protect Americans' right to vote in the face of GOP-controlled state legislatures that have introduced bills to tighten voting restrictions. 
Javier E

'Nothing Less Than a Civil War': These White Voters on the Far Right See Doom Without T... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...trump-2020-trumpstock.html

trump civil war white alt-right extremism

shared by Javier E on 29 Dec 19 - No Cached
  • if any group remains singularly loyal to Mr. Trump, it is the small but impassioned number of white voters on the far right, often in rural communities like Golden Valley, who extol him as a cultural champion reclaiming the country from undeserving outsiders.
  • These voters don’t passively tolerate Mr. Trump’s “build a wall” message or his ban on travel from predominantly Muslim countries — they’re what motivates them. They see themselves in his fear-based identity politics, bolstered by conspiratorial rhetoric about caravans of immigrants and Democratic “coups.”
  • The festival itself was relatively small, drawing about 100 people, though significant enough to attract the likes of Mr. Gosar.
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  • Trump outperformed Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee, in rural parts of Arizona like Mohave County, where Golden Valley is located. Mr. Trump won 58,282 votes in the county, compared to 47,901 for Mr. Romney, though Mr. Romney carried the state by a much bigger vote margin.
  • Arizona will be a key battleground state in 2020: Democrats already flipped a Senate seat and a Tucson-based congressional district from red to blue in 2018. For Mr. Trump, big turnout from white voters in areas like Mohave County — and in rural parts of other battlegrounds like Florida, Michigan, Minnesota and Georgia — could be a lifeline in a tight election.
  • Grass-roots gatherings play a critical role in the modern culture of political organizing, firing up ardent supporters and cementing new ones. Small circles of Trump-supporting conservatives, often organized online and outside the traditional Republican Party apparatus, engage in more decentralized — and explicit — versions of the chest-beating that happens at Mr. Trump’s closely watched political rallies.
  • They described Mr. Trump as an inspirational figure who is undoing Mr. Obama’s legacy and beating back the perceived threat of Muslim and Latino immigrants, whom they denounced in prejudiced terms.
  • “There is no difference between the democratic socialists and the National Socialists,” said Evan Sayet, a conservative writer who spoke at the event, referencing Nazi Germany. Democrats, he said, “are the heirs to Adolf Hitler.”
  • The Trumpstock speakers pushed even further, tying Mr. Obama’s middle name to a false belief that he is a foreign-born Muslim
  • This blend of insider and outsider, of mainstream and conspiracy, is a feature of how Mr. Trump has reshaped the Republican Party in his image, and the core of his presidential origin story. Before Mr. Trump announced any firm plans to seek office, he was the national face of the “birther” conspiracy, which thrived in the Tea Party movement and had a significant amount of support from the Republican base, polls showed.
  • On Mr. Trump’s Twitter account, likely the most watched in the world, he has promoted white nationalists, anti-Muslim bigots, and believers in the QAnon conspiracy theory, which claims that top Democrats are worshiping the Devil and engaging in child sex trafficking.
  • Even mainstream conservative media figures have embraced QAnon as a way to dismiss Mr. Trump’s political enemies. The Fox News host Jesse Watters, during a recent segment dedicated to the conspiracy, linked it to Mr. Trump’s Washington enemies. “Isn’t it also about the Trump fight with the deep state in terms of the illegal surveillance of the campaign, the inside hit jobs that he’s sustained?” he asked.
  • Leaders of fledgling political groups with names like JEXIT: Jews Exit The Democratic Party, Latinos for Trump and Deplorable Pride, a right-wing L.G.B.T. organization, told the overwhelmingly white audience they were not anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, homophobic or racist. In fact, the speakers insisted, people who used those terms were more guilty of bigotry than the people they accused.
  • Trumpstock attendees say they are used to being denounced, another quality they feel they share with the president. It’s part of why they are protective of him, to the point that they refuse to acknowledge the possibility of a Trump loss in 2020.
  • Mark Villalta said he had been stockpiling firearms, in case Mr. Trump’s re-election is not successful. “Nothing less than a civil war would happen,” Mr. Villalta said, his right hand reaching for a holstered handgun. “I don’t believe in violence, but I’ll do what I got to do.”
cartergramiak

Election at Hand, Biden Leads Trump in Four Key States, Poll Shows - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...da-pennsylvania-wisconsin.html

trump election biden democrats gop us

shared by cartergramiak on 01 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • Joseph R. Biden Jr. holds a clear advantage over President Trump across four of the most important presidential swing states, a new poll shows, bolstered by the support of voters who did not participate in the 2016 election and who now appear to be turning out in large numbers to cast their ballots, mainly for the Democrat.
  • His strength is most pronounced in Wisconsin, where he has an outright majority of the vote and leads Mr. Trump by 11 points, 52 percent to 41 percent.
  • Arizona Ariz. (n=1,252) +4 Trump +6 Biden 49-43 Florida Fla. (1,451) +1 Trump +3 Biden 47-44 Pennsylvania Penn. (1,862) <1 Trump +6 Biden 49-43 Wisconsin Wis. (1,253) <1 Trump +11 Biden 52-41
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  • The margin of error is 3.2 percentage points in Wisconsin and Florida; 3 points in Arizona and 2.4 points in Pennsylvania.
  • More broadly, Mr. Trump is facing an avalanche of opposition nationally from women, people of color, voters in the cities and the suburbs, young people, seniors and, notably, new voters. In all four states, voters who did not participate in 2016, but who have already voted this time or plan to do so, said they support Mr. Biden by wide margins. That group includes both infrequent voters and young people who were not yet eligible to vote four years ago.
  • Melissa Dibble, 47, of Boynton Beach, Fla., is one of those newly active voters. A registered independent, Ms. Dibble said she did not vote in 2016 because she did not believe Mrs. Clinton was “the right president for our country” and found Mr. Trump “laughable.” She said on Friday that she planned to vote for Mr. Biden that afternoon.
  • Vince Kowalewski, 73, of Muhlenberg Township, Pa., said he had never voted in his life but was intent on voting against Mr. Trump, whom he called “the worst president we’ve ever had.”“I have to go in there and vote against him,” Mr. Kowalewski said.But Mr. Kowalewski said he also appreciated Mr. Biden’s health care policies, including the Affordable Care Act, which he credited with helping his daughter receive lifesaving cancer treatment.
  • Based on the poll, however, it seems that Mr. Biden rather than Mr. Trump could be the beneficiary of record-busting turnout.
  • In Arizona, for example, the president had an eight-point advantage with men but Mr. Biden was the overwhelming favorite of women, winning 56 percent of them compared with Mr. Trump’s 38 percent.
  • The other group that is propelling Mr. Biden is college-educated white voters, a traditionally Republican bloc that has fled the Trump-era party. The former vice president is leading by double digits among white voters with college degrees in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Arizona and beating him, 48 percent to 45 percent, with that constituency in Florida.
  • But Ms. Robles also said she believed there was a larger issue at stake in the vote.“I don’t want to be dramatic,” she said, “but I’m voting this year because it feels like democracy is at stake.”
dytonka

How Arizona complicates Trump's re-election bid - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by dytonka on 30 Oct 20 - No Cached
  • The emergence of Arizona -- where both Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's running mate Kamala Harris will travel on Wednesday -- as a swing state could throw a major wrench into Trump's electoral hopes and provide a big lifeline to Biden.
  • But under this map, if Trump were to win any of these Great Lake states and hold onto the rest of the states he won in 2016, the fewest number of electoral votes Trump could get would be 270.
  • Part of that underestimation may have to do with the high Hispanic population in the state. Hispanics will likely make up close to 20% of the Arizona electorate in 2020.
malonema1

Jeff Flake, a Fierce Trump Critic, Will Not Seek Re-election for Senate - The New York ... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...jeff-flake-arizona.html

US Trump politics

shared by malonema1 on 25 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • WASHINGTON — Senator Jeff Flake, the Arizona Republican who has tangled with President Trump for months, announced on Tuesday that he would not seek re-election in 2018, declaring on the Senate floor that he “will no longer be complicit or silent” in the face of the president’s “reckless, outrageous and undignified” behavior.Mr. Flake made his announcement in an extraordinary 17-minute speech in which he challenged not only the president but also his party’s leadership. He deplored the “casual undermining of our democratic ideals” and “the personal attacks, the threats against principles, freedoms and institutions, the flagrant disregard for truth and decency” that he said had become prevalent in American politics in the era of Mr. Trump.
  • Mr. Flake’s private polling had steadily become worse this year as he intensified his criticism of Mr. Trump. His firm stand against the president had alienated Republican voters, but his long, conservative track record dissuaded Democratic voters in the state from coming to his side. One poll showed he had just an 18 percent approval rating among Arizona residents, and a survey that the senator conducted last month led some of his own allies to conclude that he could not win a Republican primary, according to multiple officials directly familiar with the situation in the weeks leading up to Tuesday’s speech.
  • “We must stop pretending that the degradation of our politics and the conduct of some in our executive branch are normal,” Mr. Flake said. “They are not normal. Reckless, outrageous and undignified behavior has become excused and countenanced as telling it like it is when it is actually just reckless, outrageous and undignified. And when such behavior emanates from the top of our government, it is something else. It is dangerous to a democracy.”
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  • Without mentioning Mr. Trump by name, Mr. Flake, 54, took direct aim at the president’s policies, notably his isolationist tendencies, but also his behavior and that of his aides. In his time in Washington, Mr. Flake embodied an old-line conservatism. He avidly pitched smaller government, spending cuts and an end to home-district pork-barrel projects, but also supported free trade, engagement with the world and an openness to immigration.
  • To many conservatives who support Mr. Trump, Mr. Flake was an especially desirable target. Few in the Senate had spoken more candidly about their misgivings with Mr. Trump, first as a candidate and then as president. He had particularly elicited conservatives’ ire with his book, in which he equated Republicans’ acceptance of Mr. Trump as their nominee to a Faustian bargain.
  • “We’re not here to simply mark time,” the senator said. “Sustained incumbency is certainly not the point of seeking office, and there are times when we must risk our careers in favor of our principles. Now is such a time.”
jayhandwerk

Jeff Flake, a Fierce Trump Critic, Will Not Seek Re-election for Senate - The New York ... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...jeff-flake-arizona.html

politics US senate

shared by jayhandwerk on 25 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • Senator Jeff Flake, the Arizona Republican who has tangled with President Trump for months, announced on Tuesday that he would not seek re-election in 2018
  • The announcement appeared to signal a moment of decision for the Republican Party. Last week, Senator John McCain, the senior senator from Arizona, spoke in Philadelphia, denouncing the “half-baked, spurious nationalism” that he saw overtaking American politics
  • Those positions stood in marked contrast to Mr. Trump’s inward-looking, anti-immigration nationalism.
millerco

G.O.P. Senator Jeff Flake, a Trump Critic, Won't Run for Re-election - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...jeff-flake-arizona.html

Jeff Flake Trump politics US history

shared by millerco on 24 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • G.O.P. Senator Jeff Flake, a Trump Critic, Won’t Run for Re-election
  • Senator Jeff Flake, the Arizona Republican who has tangled with President Trump for months, announced on Tuesday that he will not seek re-election in 2018, saying he “will no longer be complicit or silent” in the face of the president’s “reckless, outrageous and undignified” behavior.
  • Mr. Flake made his announcement in an extraordinary, 17-minute speech on the Senate floor, in which he challenged not only the president but also his party’s leadership.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • He deplored “the casual undermining of our democratic ideals, the personal attacks, the threats against principles, freedom and institutions, the flagrant disregard for truth and decency” that he said has become so prevalent in American politics.
  • The remarkable moment came just hours after Mr. Trump had renewed his attacks on another critic in the Republican Party, Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, saying he “couldn’t get elected dog catcher in Tennessee.” Mr. Corker, appearing more weary than angry, said the president “is debasing our country.”
  • Mr. Flake’s dramatic decision and the back-and-forth between Mr. Trump and Mr. Corker appeared to mark a moment of decision for the Republican Party. A week ago, Senator John McCain, the senior senator from Arizona, spoke in Philadelphia, decrying the “half-baked, spurious nationalism” that he sees overtaking American politics. Former President George W. Bush, in yet another speech, lamented, “We’ve seen nationalism distorted into nativism.”
  • But Mr. Flake, choosing the Senate floor for his fierce denunciation, appeared to issue a direct challenge to his party.
  • Without mentioning Mr. Trump by name, Mr. Flake, 54, took direct aim at the president’s policies, notably his isolationist tendencies, but also his behavior and that of his aides. He had already touched on these themes in a book he published in August that was highly critical of the president.
  • “We must stop pretending that the conduct of some in our executive branch are normal,” Mr. Flake said. “They are not normal. Reckless, outrageous and undignified behavior has become excused and countenanced as telling it like it is when it is actually just reckless, outrageous and undignified. And when such behavior emanates from the top of our government, it is something else. It is dangerous to a democracy.”
  • “It is often said that children are watching,” he continued. “Well, they are. And what are we going to do about that? When the next generation asks us, why didn’t you do something? Why didn’t you speak up? What are we going to say?”
yehbru

Supreme Court ruling in Arizona case will be another front in the voting rights wars - ... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

US Politics Biden Voting Rights Supreme Court

shared by yehbru on 02 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • Now, within the next few weeks, the Supreme Court will enter the melee and weigh in on the scope of the Voting Rights Act in a way that could bolster efforts by Republicans in states like Georgia and Texas to limit access to the polls.
  • The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals invalidated both provisions, stressing the state's "long history of race-based discrimination against its American Indian, Hispanic, and African American citizens" and highlighting a "pattern of discrimination."
  • Since the decision in Shelby County v. Holder, states have moved forward with new laws, an effort further fueled by former President Donald Trump's unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
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  • "The wave of restrictive laws being introduced and passed in state legislatures across the country highlights once again how important it is to have a strong Voting Rights Act to protect voters."
  • It's the first time the justices have considered the scope of the Voting Rights Act as it applies to the denial of the vote since Chief Justice John Roberts wrote a 5-4 opinion in 2013 effectively invalidating Section 5 of the law
  • Unlike fights against voting restrictions in Georgia and Texas, however, Democrats are divided on whether the two Arizona laws should be allowed to stand. The Democratic National Committee argues the rules should fall, but the Biden administration told the court that the laws passed legal muster.
  • "If the Supreme Court weakens the Voting Rights Act as they are being asked to do, it will make it much harder to stop the kind of legislation we saw Texan lawmakers try to ram through over the weekend," Morales-Doyle said.
  • Ho and others are worried that the court could issue a ruling, for instance, that required evidence that there is a significant racially disparate impact on voter turnout. Such a standard would be hard for challengers to satisfy because it is difficult to always make a direct connection between fluctuations in voter turnout based on a single law.
kaylynfreeman

Katie Hobbs, Arizona Secretary of State, Announces Bid for Governor - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ie-hobbs-arizona-governor.html

US politics

shared by kaylynfreeman on 02 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • Katie Hobbs, the Democratic secretary of state in Arizona, who gained national attention for her stalwart defense of the state’s electoral system in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, announced on Wednesday that she was running for governor, portraying herself as a pragmatic leader who does not back down in the face of criticism and threats.
  • Ms. Hobbs has repeatedly condemned the partisan recount as a dangerous threat to democracy and has assigned observers to track problems with the process.
  • A campaign video announcing her run opens by referring to the attacks and death threats that she has faced in the wake of the election — including armed protesters showing up at her home.
anonymous

U.S. Says Rioters At Capitol Aimed 'To Capture And Assassinate Elected Officials' : Ins... - 0 views

www.npr.org/...-assassinate-elected-officials

shared by anonymous on 15 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • Members of the pro-Trump mob that staged an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol last week intended "to capture and assassinate elected officials,
  • It notes Chansley's status as a "shaman" within QAnon, which the prosecutors variously define as "a dangerous extremist group ... founded on an imaginary conspiracy theory," and a cult that "preaches debunked and fictitious anti-government conspiracy theories that a deep state is out to take down the current administration."
  • The note was left at the spot where, moments earlier, Pence had been poised to preside over a joint session to certify President-elect Joe Biden's victory over President Trump. Chansley told the FBI he believes Pence is a "child-trafficking traitor."
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • The U.S. attorney's office in Arizona filed the memorandum Thursday as part of its argument against releasing Chansley while his case proceeds.
  • Chansley is charged with two felonies: obstructing the conduct of a law enforcement officer and obstructing an official proceeding. Prosecutors say that as he committed those actions, Chansley was also carrying a dangerous weapon – specifically, "a six-foot spear."
  • Prosecutors say Chansley should remain in custody for a variety of reasons, including his part in the riot and his avowed intent to return to Washington to protest Biden's upcoming inauguration.
  • The U.S. attorney's office also says that Chansley would not likely conform to court-imposed conditions on his release, noting that while in custody, he has refused to eat anything other than organic food. Prosecutors also note that Chansley has shown he can travel without being traced. And because he is widely associated with the horns-and-fur costume and face paint he wore at the Capitol, prosecutors say, Chansley "is virtually unidentifiable when not wearing it."
  • The memorandum, like other documents prosecutors have filed in Chansley's case, notes he refers to himself and other rioters as "patriots."
  • Chansley wore horns, face paint and fur as he stood on the Senate dais – where he left a threatening note for Vice President Pence, prosecutors say."It's only a matter of time, justice is coming,"
  • "Strong evidence, including Chansley's own words and actions at the Capitol, supports that the intent of the Capitol rioters was to capture and assassinate elected officials in the United States Government. "
  • Prosecutors also note that Chansley sought to mislead officials about his drug use. While he allegedly claimed to be a weekly user of marijuana, they note, he has described using peyote and mushrooms in his podcast (on which he uses the name "Jake Angeli"),
  • "Chansley has spoken openly about his belief that he is an alien, a higher being, and he is here on Earth to ascend to another reality."
  • Chansley and dozens of others who breached security at the Capitol have been arrested in the past week. In many cases, they have been identified by citizens and authorities from photos and videos taken inside lawmakers' offices and other areas in the congressional complex.
  • The attack on the Capitol has been linked to five deaths, including U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick and a woman whom police shot as she climbed up a barricaded door.
  • "Media and FBI reports have detailed carefully-planned insurrection attempts scheduled throughout the country in the coming weeks at every state capital, including the [Arizona] capitol."
  • Arguing that Chansley poses a flight risk, the court filing says he does not have a stable job that would require him to remain in Arizona.
katherineharron

US border policies block asylum seekers, so aid goes south - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

crisis

shared by katherineharron on 22 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • The International Rescue Committee and local partners opened this welcome center for asylum seekers July 27. When it was planned last winter and spring, ICE was releasing 200 or more asylum seekers a day in Phoenix, often dropping them outside the Greyhound bus station (as a courtesy and at their request, ICE said). The center was designed to offer up to 277 people at a time a safe, welcoming place to stay for a night or two while planning their travel to sponsors across the country.
  • Local churches helping asylum seekers say they, too, are receiving far fewer families. During September, ICE's Phoenix office said it released an average of 32 parents and children a day in Arizona -- down from 208 a day from Dec. 21 through the end of June.
  • Roughly 3,600 asylum seekers, mostly from southern Mexico or Central America, were in Mexicali, in Mexico's Baja California state, as of October 1, waiting for months to apply for asylum or to return to the United States for immigration court hearings, according to Altagracia Tamayo, manager of the Cobina shelter for families and children there. About, 1,500 were waiting in Nogales, in Sonora state, and 1,250 in San Luis Rio Colorado, south of Yuma, Arizona, according to officials managing the wait lists in those cities.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • "If any court suggests 'Remain in Mexico' is illegal on its face, we could go from 12 (asylum seekers) today to 200 tomorrow," said Mary Jo Miller, head of Scottsdale, Arizona-based Refugee Aid, which organizes food, clothing and other donated goods for asylum seekers. "If any of those court cases go against Trump, we could immediately see people coming back to Phoenix. We're afraid we'll lose all these resources, then the substantive cases will be decided, we'll see a flood again, and won't have the capacity to serve them."
  • In recent weeks, several of the grassroots Phoenix groups have crossed the border to bring supplies or aid to asylum seekers and shelters in those cities.
  • Many asylum seekers are desperate for such help, since legal restrictions against seeking employment in the United States make it tough for them to pay attorneys on their own.
  • From December 21, 2018, through the end of September, ICE said its Phoenix office released about 43,100 asylum seekers, nearly 20% of those released from across the southern border states this year.First Church United Church of Christ, which took in 120 people in its first hosting in October, was among those that reached out to the International Rescue Committee for help, said Ellie Hutchison, the church's outreach director
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