Sessions Blocks Domestic, Gang Violence Survivors From Asylum
Sessions moves to block victims of gang violence and domestic abuse from claiming asylum. LA Times: "Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions has ordered immigration judges to stop granting asylum to most victims of domestic abuse and gang violence, a move that could block tens of thousands of people, especially women, from seeking refuge in America. The decision, which immigration advocates are sure to aggressively fight, comes as Sessions seeks to use the authority of his office to sharply change U.S. immigration law to make it less friendly to asylum seekers. The attorney general has the power to issue decisions that serve as binding precedents for immigration judges. In this instance, he used a case involving a victim of domestic violence from El Salvador to rule that survivors of such “private” crimes are not eligible for asylum under U.S. law. The woman, referred to in immigration court as A.B., for her initials, said she was fleeing years of physical and emotional abuse by an ex-husband who had raped her. An immigration judge had denied her asylum claim, but the Board of Immigration Appeals ruled in her favor in 2016, saying the Salvadoran government had shown it was incapable of protecting her, even after she moved to another part of the country."
SCOTUS Allows OH Voter Roll Purges
SCOTUS is helping Republicans kill a key voting rights law. Mother Jones: "Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that the state of Ohio could remove infrequent voters from the rolls, severely weakening the power of the NVRA and opening the door to wider voter purging. Ohio purged more than 2 million registered voters between 2011 and 2016, more than any other state. Black voters in the state’s largest counties were twice as likely as white voters to be removed from the rolls. In a dissent to Monday’s ruling, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the court’s opinion 'entirely ignores the history of voter suppression against which the NVRA was enacted and upholds a program that appears to further the very disenfranchisement of minority and low-income voters that Congress set out to eradicate.'"
Net Neutrality Repealed By FCC
Net neutrality is officially repealed. Here’s what happens next. Vox: "You might think that individual states could have the right to legislate their own net neutrality protections, but you’d be wrong. The FCC repeal included language that explicitly excluded individual states from enacting consumer protection laws because it’s easier on ISPs not to have to deal with different regulations from state to state. That means that as of today, the rights of states to govern themselves won’t apply to protecting net neutrality. That said, both Washington and Oregon have already passed legislation in defiance of the FCC order, with California not far behind. So this issue, too, will likely be headed to the courts. In essence, with all the legal complications at play, we just don’t have any way of knowing what the final court decision could be. What the final version of a net neutrality repeal might look like, and when it might take effect, are both unknown at this point. Which leaves with the immediate reality that net neutrality is now officially over."
More from OurFuture.org:
The Fight for Real Solutions In San Francisco. Emily Lee: "To outsiders, San Francisco may look like a glittering city on a hill: an ethnically diverse metropolis, where tech dollars fuel a vibrant cultural scene and support progressive policies the rest of the nation can only dream about. Yet we who live here know our city’s progressive glitter is not gold. That's why the San Francisco Rising Action Fund joined an unprecedented coalition of progressive labor, community, tenant, and democratic clubs to pull off what may be the most hotly contested race for Mayor San Francisco has ever seen."
Is the State Takeover of Jackson Schools a Step Forward or Back? Jeff Bryant: "America’s ongoing saga to 'reform' public schools is filled with stories of state officials taking over “underperforming” school districts. In nearly every instance — New Orleans, Detroit, Newark — takeovers are carried out by white state officials accusing black and brown communities of being unable to care for their children. In its takeover of Jackson's schools, is Mississippi plowing new ground for genuine partnerships between white political rule and black communities in the Deep South, or is the state merely continuing centuries-old oppression of black governance under a different guise?"