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adriano espaillat
'Completely Un-American': Progressives Slam Trump Plan to End Birthright Citizenship
"Emboldened by a Supreme Court that would use its power to uphold white supremacy rather than the constitution of our nation, Trump is on a mission to weaken the very soul of our nation," said Rep. Delia Ramirez.
Dec 09, 2024
Progressives in Congress and other migrant rights advocates sharply criticized U.S. President-elect Donald Trump for his comments on immigration during a Sunday interview, including on his hopes to end birthright citizenship.
During a 76-minute interview with NBC News' Kristen Welker, Trump said he "absolutely" intends to end birthright citizenship, potentially through executive order, despite the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Among many lies the Republican told, he also falsely claimed that the United States is the only country to offer citizenship by birth; in fact, there are dozens.
In response,
outgoing Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said on social media Monday: "This is completely un-American. The 14th Amendment guarantees birthright citizenship. Trump cannot unilaterally end it, and any attempt to do so would be both unconstitutional and immoral."
Congresswoman Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) similarly stressed that "birthright citizenship is enshrined in the Constitution as a cornerstone of American ideals. It reflects our belief that America is the land of opportunity. Sadly, this is just another in the long line of Trump's assault on the U.S. Constitution."
Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), the daughter of Guatemalan immigrants, said in a statement: "'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.' It is important to remember who we are, where many of us came from, and why many of our families traveled here to be greeted by the Mother of Exiles, the Statue of Liberty."
Ramirez argued that "the story of our nation wouldn't be complete without the sweat, tears, joy, dreams, and hopes of so many children of immigrants who are citizens by birthright and pride themselves on being AMERICANS. It is the story of so many IL-03 communities, strengthened by the immigration of people from Poland, Ukraine, Italy, Mexico, and Guatemala, among others. It is the story of many members of Congress who can point to the citizenship of their forebears and ancestors because of immigration and birthright."
"Let's be clear: Trump is posing the question of who gets to be an American to our nation. And given that today's migrants are from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin and Central America, it is clear he is questioning who are the 'right' people to benefit from birthright citizenship," she continued. "Questioning birthright citizenship is anti-American, and eliminating it through executive action is unconstitutional. Donald Trump knows that."
"But emboldened by a Supreme Court that would use its power to uphold white supremacy rather than the Constitution of our nation, Trump is on a mission to weaken the very soul of our nation," she warned. "I—like many sons and daughters of immigrants and first-generation Americans—believe in and fight for a land of freedom, opportunities, and equality. To live into that promise, we must stand against white nationalism—especially when it is espoused at the highest levels of government."
Although Republicans are set to control both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives next year, amending the Constitution requires support from two-thirds of both chambers of Congress and three-fourths of the state legislatures, meaning that process is unlikely to be attempted for this policy.
Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) highlighted the difficulties of passing constitutional amendments while discussing Trump in a Monday appearance on CNN. The incoming chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus was born in the Dominican Republic and is the first formerly undocumented immigrant elected to Congress.
As Mother Jones reporter Isabela Dias detailed Monday:
Critics of ending birthright citizenship for the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants argue it would not only constitute bad policy, but also a betrayal of American values and, as one scholar put it to me, a "prelude" to mass deportation.
"It's really 100 years of accepted interpretation," Hiroshi Motomura, a scholar of immigration and citizenship at UCLA's law school, told me of birthright citizenship. Ending birthright citizenship would cut at the core of the hard-fought assurance of equal treatment under the law, he said, "basically drawing a line between two kinds of American citizens."
Trump's NBC interview also addressed his long-promised mass deportations. The president-elect—whose first administration was globally condemned for separating migrant families at the southern border and second administration is already filling up with hard-liners—suggested Sunday that he would deport children who are U.S. citizens with undocumented parents.
"I don't want to be breaking up families, so the only way you don't break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back," Trump told Welker.
Responding in a Monday statement, America's Voice executive director Vanessa Cárdenas said, "There's a growing consensus that the Trump mass deportation agenda will hit American consumers and industries hard, but the scope of what Trump and his team are proposing goes well beyond the economic impact."
"Trump and allies are making clear their mass deportation agenda will include deporting U.S. citizens, including children, while aiming to gut a century and a half of legal and moral precedent on birthright citizenship," she added. "In total, their attacks go well beyond the narrow lens of immigration to the fundamental question of who gets to be an American."
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Low-Wage Workers Endorse Slate of Candidates to Win Fairer Economy
One Fair Wage Action is endorsing 25 national and state candidates who are "committed to raising the minimum wage and ending the federal subminimum wage of just $2.13 an hour."
Oct 30, 2024
A U.S. advocacy group fighting for a living wage for its hundreds of thousands of service industry employee members on Wednesday announced its endorsement of a slate of "pro-worker candidates" in next week's elections.
One Fair Wage (OFW) Action—whose members include more than 300,000 U.S. restaurant workers, owners, and other service industry employees—said following its recent endorsement of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris that "these candidates—from Arizona to Michigan to New York—are committed to raising the minimum wage and ending the federal subminimum wage of just $2.13 an hour, a poverty-level wage that leaves tipped and service workers struggling in one of the nation's fastest-growing, yet lowest-paid sectors."
"These candidates understand the need to challenge corporate interests that have long held back meaningful wage reform."
"As families across the nation struggle with rising costs, One Fair Wage Action's coalition of over 300,000 service workers, employers, and allies are mobilizing to amplify the call for living wages," the group continued. "In key battleground states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, the organization will focus on reaching voters who are demanding economic justice and solutions to the cost-of-living crisis."
OFW Action endorsed Democratic candidates including:
- Arizona: Ruben Gallego (U.S. Senate); Junelle Cavero and Oscar De Los Santos (U.S. House); and Mariana Sandoval (state Legislature);
- California: Rose Penelope Yee, Lateefah Simon, Laura Friedman, Rudy Salas, Jimmy Gomez, David Kim, and Stephen Houlahan (U.S. House);
- Illinois: Nikki Budzinski and Lauren Underwood (U.S. House);
- Massachusetts: Leigh Davis and Natalie Higgins (state Legislature);
- Michigan: Elissa Slotkin (U.S. Senate) and Carl Marlinga (U.S. House);
- Nevada: Steven Horsford (U.S. House);
- New York: Adriano Espaillat, John Avlon, Rob Lubin, Grace Meng, Andrea Morse, and John Mannion (U.S. House); and
- Wisconsin: Rebecca Cooke (U.S. House).
"These candidates understand the need to challenge corporate interests that have long held back meaningful wage reform," OFW Action president Saru Jayaraman said Wednesday "For years, powerful lobbying groups have fought to preserve the subminimum wage for tipped workers at just $2.13 an hour, forcing millions of tipped and service workers, who are overwhelmingly women and people of color, to suffer from the highest rates of economic instability and sexual harassment of any industry."
"These candidates are committed to putting a stop to this practice and ensuring that every worker is paid fairly and with dignity," she asserted. "By electing leaders who prioritize fair wages over corporate profits, we can finally create an economy that values the contributions of all workers—not just those at the top."
Last month, OFW applauded Harris for backing an end to the subminimum wage for tipped workers, arguing the policy stands in stark contrast with the platform of former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, whose scheme to end taxes on tipped employees has been panned by experts as potentially harmful to the workers it purports to help.
"For too long, well-funded interests have blocked progress on fair wages," Jayaraman added. "These candidates bring a commitment to meaningful change from within the system. They understand the urgent need to address the imbalance that keeps so many workers struggling to make ends meet. One Fair Wage Action is mobilizing to ensure that these voices are heard, so that workers themselves drive this change at the polls."
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With Support of 70 Climate Groups, Lawmakers Unveil Bill to Ban US Fossil Fuel Exports
The bill, led by Democrats, comes amidst mounting concerns about the increase in liquefied natural gas export infrastructure in both the U.S. and overseas.
May 18, 2023
Sen. Edward J. Markey and Reps. Adriano Espaillat and Yvette Clark reintroduced Thursday the Block All New Fossil Fuel Exports Act to preserve a livable climate and protect frontline communities along the U.S. Gulf Coast.
The bill, which would amend the Energy Policy and Conservation Act to ban the international export of both American crude oil and liquefied methane gas (LNG), is backed by 70 organizations that wrote a letter to Congress endorsing the bill Wednesday.
"The United States is taking aggressive action to tackle the climate crisis and transition to create renewable energy solutions," the letter reads. "But recent approvals for new fossil fuel projects to export fossil fuels are threatening people's health and safety and stand in the way of global efforts to combat the climate crisis. Continued expansion of U.S. export infrastructure limits collective progress toward long-term energy security goals."
"Biden can't keep claiming to care about climate and environmental justice while allowing more of these projects that put our lives at risk."
The bill comes amidst mounting concerns about the increase in LNG export infrastructure in both the U.S. and overseas. A Greenpeace report published last month revealed that new European LNG terminals combined with both existing and proposed U.S. infrastructure would spew out as much climate pollution as adding 604 million new cars to the roads.
While the ostensible push behind this LNG expansion was the need to bolster Europe's energy needs in the aftermath of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, both the Greenpeace report and an earlier investigation from Friends of the Earth, Bailout Watch, and Public Citizen found that the fossil fuel industry was exploiting the situation to lock in LNG infrastructure that wouldn't begin delivering until 2026. More than 75% of the LNG contracts considered by the second report would actually direct shipments to the Asia-Pacific region.
What's more, the build-up of fossil fuel infrastructure connecting the Permian Basin to the Gulf Coast predates the Ukraine war—Congress spurred much of it by lifting a ban on the export of crude oil in 2015, the letter writers said. The new legislation would reinstate this ban and slow the record oil production in the Permian Basin, as well as add a ban on LNG exports.
The International Energy Agency has said that policymakers should not develop any new fossil fuels if they want to limit global warming to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels and stave off ever more extreme climate impacts. The most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change went further, concluding that existing fossil fuel infrastructure would emit enough to push the Earth's average temperature past the 1.5°C goal. Another report commissioned by the International Institute for Sustainable Development from scientists at the University of Manchester's Tyndall Center found that wealthy nations like the U.S. need to end oil and gas production by 2034 to keep the critical goal alive.
Despite the science and his own campaign promises, President Joe Biden has approved more drilling on public lands during his first two years in office than President Donald Trump during the same timeframe. His Federal Energy Regulatory Commission also signed off on two Gulf Coast LNG facilities in April: Texas LNG and Rio Grande LNG, as well as the linked Rio Bravo Pipeline. In 2022, the Biden administration rubber stamped the Sea Port Oil Terminal (SPOT) off the coast of Brazoria County, Texas. All of these approvals overrode the concerns of pollution-burdened Gulf Coast communities.
"We are sick and tired of the hypocrisy from this administration," Gwen Jones, a resident of the displaced East End community in Freeport, said in a statement supporting the new bill. "Biden can't keep claiming to care about climate and environmental justice while allowing more of these projects that put our lives at risk. Prove to us that you will prioritize the health and safety of people and our planet over fossil fuel industry profits."
The bill's supporters argue that Biden could turn off the tap himself by declaring a climate emergency, reinstating the crude oil export ban, and significantly restricting LNG exports under the Natural Gas Act. They also point out that the expansion disproportionately impacts low-income communities of color who neighbor the infrastructure.
"The fossil fuel industry is bombarding my community, and we can't take it anymore. The Biden Administration recently approved the SPOT oil export facility and has allowed Freeport LNG to reopen after their dangerous explosion," Melanie Oldham, founder of Better Brazoria and a Freeport, Texas resident, said in a statement. "The hearings and comment periods for these fossil fuel projects are constant, and it's too much. We can't continue to be sacrificed to build even more reckless projects that will destroy our air quality and the climate."
In addition to limiting local pollution, the new bill would help U.S. consumers as a whole since more oil would be available for domestic use instead of being sent overseas, supporters argued.
"The BAN Fossil Fuel Exports Act is a much-needed step to prioritize American consumers and to reaffirm the U.S.'s commitment to addressing climate change on a global scale," Rep. Espaillat (D-N.Y.) said in a statement. "As our national economy continues its recovery following the Covid-19 pandemic, we must ensure hard-working Americans are not shouldered with the burdens of high energy costs and the real-world effects of global heating. This bill would make real progress towards preserving our planet while supporting American families by bringing down domestic costs."
The bill's re-introduction comes amidst global calls to halt LNG expansion as the leaders of wealthy nations gather for the G7 Summit this weekend. A coalition of groups sent a letter to the Biden administration Tuesday urging it to push back against this expansion at the upcoming meeting in Hiroshima.
"The G7 Climate and Environment Ministerial Communique in April stated that investment in the natural gas sector, including LNG, is only appropriate if 'implemented in a manner consistent with our climate objectives and without creating lock-in effects,'" the groups wrote. "The G7 should clarify at its final meeting that new LNG export and import infrastructure fails this test."
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