(2019-07-03). Everyone counts: Trump's census "citizenship question" is dead. peoplesworld.org 
WASHINGTON—Lawmakers and state officials representing Hispanic-named citizens hailed the Trump Commerce Department's July 2 decision to throw in the towel and not add a "citizenship" question, one they deemed racist, to next year's census. So did the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which helped assemble the successful lawsuit against the query. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, …
(2019-07-03). Thousands of Voices Are Telling the Supreme Court: Don't Roll Back LGBTQ Rights. aclu.org Businesses, women CEOs, civil rights organizations, Republicans tell the Supreme Court to protect LGBTQ employees like Aimee Stephens and Don Zarda. | President Trump has told the Supreme Court it should be legal to fire someone just because they're LGBTQ. The President may be a bully, but he's just one voice. Today, more than 2,000 voices from across the country joined together to tell the Supreme Court: Don't roll back our rights. | The message came in the form of friend-of-the-court briefs—nearly 50 in all—filed in a…
(2019-07-03). Reporting a Rape in Immigration Jail: One Asylum Seeker's Fight for Justice. truthout.org Content note: This article contains detailed descriptions of sexual assault.In a shaky, melancholy voice over a staticky phone line from the Yuba County Jail in northern California, Rene Lopez told Rewire.News she is depressed, scared, and alone. | The gender-nonconforming 24-year-old, who identifies as a gay boy and uses she/her pronouns, said she was raped by another detainee this past spring. | Lopez and her attorney have sought justice without success. They have struggled to access basic information from officials at the jail and within U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) who are investigating t…
(2019-07-03). Headlines for July 3, 2019. democracynow.org DHS Watchdog: "Dangerous Overcrowding" and Dire Conditions at Texas Migrant Jails, 30-Year-Old Honduran Migrant Dies in U.S. Custody, Federal Judge Blocks Trump Plan to Deny Bail to Asylum Seekers, DHS Fining Immigrants Up to $500,000 for Not Leaving the U.S., Nationwide Protests Demand Lawmakers #CloseTheCamps, Cory Booker Vows to End Immigrant Detention in 2020 Proposal, In Defeat for Trump Admin, 2020 Census Will Not Include Citizenship Question, House Dems Sue Treasury and IRS over Trump's Tax Returns, Airstrike Hits Migrant Detention Center in Libya, Killing At Least 40, Ethiopian-Israeli Community Protests…
(2019-07-03). SF PRIDE 2019 "One Job Is Enough!" Unite Here Local 2 & Free Chelsea & Assange. indybay.org At San Francisco PRIDE march and rally on June 30, 2019, Unite Here Local 2 workers and leaders talked about why they support PRIDE and also supporters of Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange marched and talked about the jailin of Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange.
(2019-07-03). Florida makes the restoration of voting rights contingent on criminal debt payments. nationofchange.org Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed a measure approved by state lawmakers that makes the restoration of voting rights for people convicted of felonies contingent on having paid off all criminal debt associated with their conviction. A coalition of civil rights groups immediately filed a lawsuit in federal court to block the new law by having it declared unconstitutional. I'm …
(2019-07-03). "We won't stop fighting": Groups file new lawsuit to fight Keystone XL. nationofchange.org "The Trump administration has proven to be just as reckless with our Constitutional separation of powers as this dangerous Keystone XL pipeline is to the safety of our water and climate."
(2019-07-03). Border Patrol Is Using "Virtual Wall" Technology Israel Uses in Palestine. truthout.org Off a shrubby desert rural roadway about 10 miles north of Nogales, Arizona, a surveillance tower's metallic glare beamed in the sun, sticking out like a cellular antenna from a distant bluff about a mile away. "There it is up ahead," I pointed, leaning forward from the back seat of the car. | In the driver's seat and passenger side sat two visitors on a national speaking tour for the Addameer prisoner support group based in Ramallah, Palestine. One of them, Lana Ramadan, had expressed astonishment when I'd met her the night before about what she had learned during her visit to Southern Arizona, where she'd me…
(2019-07-03). Chicago: Book signing for Frank Chapman's autobiography. fightbacknews.org Chicago, IL – Frank Chapman's new book, The Damned Don't Cry: Pages from the Life of a Black Prisoner and Organizer, is getting a great reception. About 30 people attended a book signing at the office of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, July 2. Chapman's autobiography is available here.
(2019-07-03). How the Third Temple Movement in Israel Rebranded Theocracy as "Civil Rights" mintpressnews.com 
The Temple Activist movement is now more mainstream than ever before and its effort to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, the third holiest site in Islam, has advanced with great rapidity since the year began and has picked up precipitously in recent weeks.
(2019-07-03). NAACP Responds to Trump Administration's Decision to Abandon Attempt to Add Citizenship Question to 2020 Census. naacp.org The following statement is from Derrick Johnson, President and CEO of NAACP on the Trump Administration's decision not to include the controversial citizenship question to the 2020 Census: "The Trump administration's decision today to abandon its attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census is a victory for democracy. It is the outcome …
(2019-07-03). Abhorrent Attack on Migrant Detention Center in Libya Must Be Investigated as a War Crime. commondreams.org ______________________________…
(2019-07-03). Tucson protest tells Trump: No raids! No deportations! No family separations! fightbacknews.org Tucson, AZ – Over 100 people braved the intense desert sun Tuesday morning, July 2, to demonstrate their anger at Trump's threat for ICE raids aimed at thousands of undocumented families. Many demonstrators also expressed their demand to reunite families and to close the concentration camps operating as detention centers. | Outside the federal building protesters held signs reading "Close the camps!" and "Dismantle ICE!" The group then marched to the Pima County Office to demand an end to the Sheriff's collaboration with ICE and Border Patrol. Organizer from Coalición de Derechos Humanos, Isabel Garcia, said "The…
(2019-07-03). As Trump Announces Mass Immigration Raid, Documents Show How ICE Uses Arrest Quotas. theintercept.com As U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, at the behest of President Donald Trump, plans mass raids following the July Fourth holiday, newly released documents shed light on the tactics the agency employs during such operations. | The documents, released Wednesday by the immigrant rights groups Mijente, Just Futures Law, and Detention Watch Network, show that ICE officials are building arrest target lists for mass raids to meet specific numbers, even as the agency continues to internally and publicly stress a "public safety" rationale for immigration arrests. | Most…
(2019-07-03). Air Strike on Libya's Migrant Center Is a 'War Crime': UN. telesurenglish.net United Nations Libya envoy Ghassan Salame condemned Tuesday an attack on a migrant center which killed 44, saying it "clearly amounts to the level of a war crime." | RELATED: | Libya: UN-Backed Gov't Retakes Key City South of Tripoli | An air strike hit a detention center for mainly African migrants in a suburb of the Libyan capital Tripoli late Tuesday, killing at lea…
(2019-07-03). Airstrike on a Detention Centre in Tripoli Leave More Than Forty Migrants Dead Hundreds Injured. commondreams.org ______________________________…
(2019-07-03). Tucson protest tells Trump: No raids! No deportations! No family separations! fightbacknews.org Tucson, AZ – Over 100 people braved the intense desert sun Tuesday morning, July 2, to demonstrate their anger at Trump's threat for ICE raids aimed at thousands of undocumented families. Many demonstrators also expressed their demand to reunite families and to close the concentration camps operating as detention centers. | Outside the federal building protesters held signs reading "Close the camps!" and "Dismantle ICE!" The group then marched to the Pima County Office to demand an end to the Sheriff's collaboration with ICE and Border Patrol. Organizer from Coalición de Derechos Humanos, Isabel Garcia, said "The…
(2019-07-03). 'This Attack Clearly Could Constitute a War Crime,' Says UN Envoy After at Least 44 Killed in Bombing of Libyan Migrant Detention Center. commondreams.org The overnight bombing of a migrant detention center in Tajoura, Libya that killed at least 44 people and severely injured 130 more elicited sharp criticism from United Nations officials and drew global attention to the war-torn North African nation's role in the global refugee crisis. | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/libya_1.jpg…
(2019-07-03). American Concentration Camps, Then and Now. counterpunch.org 
In our history textbooks, "Japanese internment," as it's carelessly called, features as a mistake, blunder, or brief departure from constitutional piety following the trauma of Pearl Harbor. The summary detention of 120,000 people of Japanese descent — around 80,000 of whom were American citizens — can be more accurately described as one of the worst More
(2019-07-03). Libya detention centre attack could amount to a war crime says UN, as Guterres calls for independent investigation. un.org A missile attack on a detention centre in Tripoli that killed scores of migrants and refugees "deserves more than condemnation", UN agencies said on Wednesday, as both the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the head of the UN mission in Libya (UNSMIL), insisted that it may amount to a war crime.
(2019-07-03). In photos: As fury grows, tens of thousands rally across us demanding immediate action to #ClosetheCamps. nationofchange.org 
Tens of thousands of Americans showed up at rallies across the country on Tuesday to demand the Trump administration close the detention centers and prison camps where migrants are being held. The "Close the Camps" rallies were organized by MoveOn and other progressive organizations in response to growing public outrage over the Trump administration's treatment of asylum …
(2019-07-02). New Legal Challenges Launched to Keystone XL Pipeline Approval. globalresearch.ca Conservation groups filed a federal lawsuit today challenging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' illegal approval of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline to be constructed through hundreds of rivers, streams and wetlands without evaluating the project's impacts as required …
(2019-07-02). UN Investigator Reports Possible New War Crimes in Myanmar. telesurenglish.net Myanmar security forces and insurgents are committing human rights violations against civilians in restive western states that may amount to fresh war crimes, a United Nations investigator said on Tuesday. | RELATED: | Reuters Journalists Jailed for Reporting on Rohingyas, Freed | Yanghee Lee, the U.N. independent expert on human rights in Myanmar, said last week the army may be committing gross human rights violations under cover of a mobile phone blackout in Rakhine and Chan, bu…
(2019-07-02). Headlines for July 2, 2019. democracynow.org Lawmakers Decry Dire Conditions and Lack of Accountability During Visit to Texas Migrant Jails, Migrant Child Freed from Clint Border Patrol Jail: "They Treated Us Badly", ProPublica: Secret Border Patrol Facebook Group Rife with Racist, Sexist and Anti-Immigrant Posts, Migrant Father and Daughter Who Drowned in Rio Grande Buried in El Salvador, #CloseTheCamps Protests Planned Across the U.S., Mexico Deploys National Guard, Ramps Up Crackdown on Immigrants, Hong Kong Protests Continue as Activists Renew Demands to Withdraw Extradition Bill, Iran Surpasses Enriched Uranium Stockpile Allowed Under Nuclear Deal, Jap…
(2019-07-02). ATF Statement On Lawsuit For Trump's Tax Returns. commondreams.org ______________________________…
(2019-07-02). Census Will Be Printed Without Citizenship Question. truthdig.com WASHINGTON — Days after the U.S. Supreme Court halted the addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, the U.S. Census Bureau on Tuesday started the process of printing the questionnaire without the controversial query. | Trump administration attorneys notified parties in lawsuits challenging the question that the printing of the hundreds of millions of documents for the 2020 counts would be starting, said Kristen Clarke, executive director of the National Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. | Justice Department spokeswoman Kelly Laco confirmed there would be "no citizenship question on…
(2019-07-02). 2020 Census Form Will Not Include Citizenship Question, Trump Administration Says. theintercept.com The Trump administration admitted defeat on Tuesday, confirming that forms for the 2020 U.S. census will not include a question asking residents who respond to the survey if they are U.S. citizens. The change of plans follows last week's Supreme Court decision that the Commerce Department had failed to provide a valid reason for adding the question. | The news was conveyed in an email from the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division to lawyers who had contested the effort in lawsuits, and confirmed to The Intercept by…
(2019-07-02). 2020 Census Form Will Not Include Citizenship Question, Trump Administration Says. theintercept.com The Trump administration admitted defeat on Tuesday, confirming that forms for the 2020 United States census will not include a question asking residents who respond to the survey if they are U.S. citizens. The change of plans follows last week's Supreme Court decision that the Commerce Department had failed to provide a valid reason for adding the question. | The news was conveyed in an email from the Justice Department's Civil Rights division to lawyers who had contested the effort in lawsuits, and confirmed to The Inte…
(2019-07-02). Florida Makes Voting Restoration Contingent on Criminal Debt Payment. truthout.org Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed a measure approved by state lawmakers that makes the restoration of voting rights for people convicted of felonies contingent on having paid off all criminal debt associated with their conviction. | A coalition of civil rights groups immediately filed a lawsuit in federal court t…
(2019-07-02). Democratic Governor Considering Signing Major GOP Voter Suppression Legislation in Pennsylvania. theintercept.com Gov. Tom Wolf is weighing whether to sign SB 48, a GOP bill that would ban straight-ticket voting and give Donald Trump an edge in 2020.
(2019-07-02). Former Equifax executive sentenced to prison for insider trading. nationofchange.org The former Chief Information Officer of Equifax U.S. Information Solutions was recently sentenced to four months in federal prison for insider trading prior to Equifax announcing a massive data breach. Former senior executive Jun Ying exercised all his vested Equifax stock options and then sold the shares, netting proceeds of nearly $1 million before public disclosure of the data breach. | In 2017, Equifax announced that a massive breach allowed hackers to illegally access the personal information of more than 140 million Americans, including Social Security numbers, birth dates, credit card numbers, and drive…
(2019-07-02). Venezuela: 'Shocked' by alleged torture, death of navy captain, UN human rights chief urges 'in-depth' investigation. un.org The UN human rights chief has expressed her deep concern over the alleged torture and subsequent death of a retired navy captain who had been imprisoned in Venezuela, urging authorities to conduct a prompt, thorough, independent, and transparent investigation into his death.
(2019-07-02). In Photos: As Fury Grows, Tens of Thousands Rally Across US Demanding Immediate Action to #CloseTheCamps. commondreams.org Tens of thousands of Americans showed up at rallies across the country on Tuesday to demand the Trump administration close the detention centers and prison camps where migrants are being held. | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/gettyimages-115965133311.jpg…
(2019-07-02). Announcing Retrial, Federal Prosecutors to Continue 'Unconscionable Prosecution' of Humanitarian Scott Warren for Helping Migrants. commondreams.org Federal prosecutors in Arizona announced Tuesday that they will seek a retrial in the case of humanitarian aid volunteer Scott Warren, who could face several years in prison for providing food, water, clean clothes, and beds to migrants in the desert. | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/scott_warren.jpg…
(2019-07-02). US Activist Scott Warren To Be Retried in Helping Migrants Case. telesurenglish.net United States (U.S.) activist and member of the humanitarian group "No More Deaths", Scott Warren will be retried after a jury was unable to agree on a verdict for charges for helping migrants at the border with Mexico, U.S. prosecutors said Tuesday. | RELATED: | Italy Judge Orders Release of Sea-Watch Captain Carola Rackete | The initial felony charges inc…
(2019-07-02). SPLC sues Florida officials to keep citizens from losing right to vote again. splcenter.org After completing her prison sentence and probation time, Rosemary McCoy had her voting rights restored and cast a ballot in the Jacksonville, Florida, runoff city council election earlier this year.
(2019-07-02). "It's Time to Fight Back": Hundreds of #CloseTheCamps Rallies Planned Across the Country Amid Reports of Abuse in Detention Centers. commondreams.org Amid reports of severe abuse and neglect in the immigrant detention centers the Trump administration is running, human rights campaigners are planning hundreds of demonstrations on Tuesday to demand the closing of the prisons and the reunification of all families who have been separated by the government. | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/screen_shot_2019-07-02_at_11.47.12_am.jpg…
(2019-07-02). There Can Be No Queer Liberation Without Trans Liberation. thenation.com There Can Be No Queer Liberation Without Trans Liberation…
(2019-07-02). Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Speak During NAACP's 110th National Convention. naacp.org 
Speaker of the House of Representatives to deliver remarks at 110th NAACP National Convention BALTIMORE (July 2, 2019) — The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the nation's foremost civil rights organization, has announced that Speaker Nancy Pelosi will give remarks at the 110th National Convention in Detroit on July 22, 2019. …
(2019-07-02). UK: GCHQ/MI5 admit illegally spying on millions. wsws.org Their admissions were the result of a court case brought by the civil rights group Liberty.
(2019-07-02). "THE FISH ROTS FROM THE HEAD DOWN:" TRUMP'S IMMIGRATION XENOPHOBIA IS BEING IMPLEMENTED BY ROTTENLY RACIST BORDER GUARDS. blackstarnews.com 
Trump's racist immigration detention and child separation policy is causing death and misery… | Washington, DC — The following is a statement from Pili Tobar, Deputy Director of America's Voice: "We are witnessing a human rights crisis in real time, the magnitude of which should shake us to our core. | As the saying goes, the fish rots from the head down. And Donald Trump has failed and corrupted the system from top to bottom, emboldening an already out of control agency, and advancing policies and actions that are resulting in a callous disregard for basic humanity and exacting a terrible toll that…
(2019-07-02). Amnesty International Condemns U.S. Attacks on Border Journalists and Human Rights Defenders. theintercept.com The shape of the Trump administration's approach to policing immigration is at this point familiar. Since January 2017, federal agents and officers have been under orders to enforce a harsh interpretation of immigration laws without restraint. The result has most infamously manifested in the forced separation of immigrant parents from their children and, more recently, a series of horrific reports detailing conditions in border-area detention centers. | Though undocumented people have always been the core target of this campaign, the blast radius of the government's hyper-politicized crackdown has steadily expand…
(2019-07-02). Girl recalls abuse in Texas border station. peoplesworld.org 
For almost two weeks, a 12-year-old migrant girl said she and her 6-year-old sister were held inside a Border Patrol station in Texas where they slept on the floor and some children were locked away when they cried for their parents. She was one of hundreds of migrant children who have been held this year …
(2019-07-02). Libya: 40 Dead and 80 Wounded in Airstrike on Migrant Center. telesurenglish.net At least 40 people have been killed and 80 injured on Tuesday due to an airstrike on a migrant detention center situated in the suburb ofTajoura, in the east of Tripoli, where several military camps of forces allied to Libya's United-Nations (U.N.)-backed government are located, according to Malek Mersek, a spokesman for state emergency medical services. | RELATED: | Libya's UN-Backed Gov't Says US Missiles Found at LNA Base | The Tripoli-based government National Accord (GNA) blamed the eastern forces…
(2019-07-02). Inside the Border Patrol Facebook Group Where Agents Joke About Migrant Deaths. truthout.org Members of a secret Facebook group for current and former Border Patrol agents joked about the deaths of migrants, discussed throwing burritos at Latino members of Congress visiting a detention facility in Texas on Monday and posted a vulgar illustration depicting Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez engaged in oral sex with a detained migrant, according to screenshots of their postings. | In one exchange, group members responded with indifference and wisecracks to…
(2019-07-01). Urban League President Morial: "We Must Not Let Our Guard Down" Because Supreme Court Temporarily Blocked Trump's Bigoted Census Citizenship Question. blackstarnews.com 
National Urban League President Marc Morial: "We must not let our guard down" because Supreme Court temporarily blocked Census citizenship question… | Civil rights groups and advocates for a fair census breathed a sigh of relief this week when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration's "contrived" justification for adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census. | However, the court did not categorically rule out the addition of a question, should the administration eventually provide sufficient justification. | We must not let down our guard. | We have known from the beginning that the additi…
(2019-07-01). What's Trending: Black News Weekly. naacp.org 
NPR: How Texas Prevented Black Women From Voting Decades After The 19th Amendment In 1918, when she was 25 years old, Christia Adair went door-to-door organizing for women's right to vote in Texas. "This effort was to pass a bill where women would be able to vote like men," Adair remembered later in a 1977 oral …
(2019-07-01). The 'greatest country in the world' can't afford soap for kids — and it's not Sarah Fabian's fault. rt.com 
A single DOJ lawyer has become a lightning rod for anger over conditions for kids in US border detention facilities — but let's not gloss over the utter absurdity of having debates over soap and toothpaste in 21st century America.
(2019-07-01). Trump Is Dumping Asylum Seekers on American Streets—but Solidarity Activists Are Fighting Back. thenation.com Trump Is Dumping Asylum Seekers on American Streets—but Solidarity Activists Are Fighting Back…
(2019-07-01). Jewish activists say 'never again is now' as they shut down US 'concentration camp'. thecanary.co 
On 30 June, US police arrested over 30 Jewish activists protesting an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centre in New Jersey. The activists, citing the Holocaust, said " never again