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A federal judge just declared DACA unlawful. Here’s what that means.

On Friday, a federal judge in Texas <a href="https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21010983/7-16-21-texas-v-us-opinion.pdf">blocked</a> an Obama-era program protecting undocumented immigrants who arrived in the US as children from deportation, halting the program’s ability to accept new applicants and once again throwing the lives of more than 600,000 people into tumult.
In his 77-page <a href="https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21010983/7-16-21-texas-v-us-opinion.pdf">opinion</a>, district court Judge Andrew Hanen concluded that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, is unlawful because it violates the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs federal rulemaking, by evading the normal “notice and comment” process in adopting new rules.
Hanen’s decision doesn’t immediately affect the <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/reports/Active%20DACA%20Recipients%20%E2%80%93March%2031,%202021.pdf">616,030 people</a>, often known as DREAMers, who are currently protected under DACA — but it does mean that the Department of Homeland Security can no longer approve new DACA applications or grant applicants the protections DACA provides.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Just in: A federal judge in Texas has blocked the DACA program going forward — it won't affect current recipients for now (judge is putting that issue on hold, pending expected appeals), but it blocks DHS from approving new applications <a href="https://t.co/urJh8jnJDd">https://t.co/urJh8jnJDd</a> <a href="https://t.co/LqvSDWx2ao">pic.twitter.com/LqvSDWx2ao</a>
— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) <a href="https://twitter.com/ZoeTillman/status/1416135205925146624?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 16, 2021</a></blockquote>
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Hanen also emphasized Friday that “neither this order nor the accompanying injunction requires DHS or the Department of Justice to take any immigration, deportation, or criminal action against any DACA recipient, applicant, or any other individual that it would not otherwise take.”
DACA not only protects undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children from deportation, but allows them to work in the US. DACA protections are renewable and valid for two years at a time.
A coalition of nine states, led by Texas, filed the lawsuit challenging DACA’s legality in 2018, <a href="https://www.maldef.org/2021/03/texas-v-united-states/">according to the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund</a>, or MALDEF.
Currently, some 81,000 first-time DACA applications are pending with US Citizenship and Immigration Services as of the end of June, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/immigration-daca-applications-biden-administration-more-staff/">according to CBS News</a>. All of those applicants, however, are now in limbo following Hanen’s decision and pending appeals.
As Vox’s Ian Millhiser <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/12/5/22155815/daca-court-nicholas-garaufis-batalla-vidal-chad-wolf-homeland-security-joe-biden-trump">explained</a> in December, the Trump administration previously curtailed DACA in an earlier, failed attempt to end it outright, and new applications <a href="https://www.rollcall.com/2021/06/30/low-daca-approval-numbers-prompt-concern-from-lawmakers-advocates/">surged</a> after it was fully reinstated in December — though USCIS has been slow to process the new influx of applicants, resulting in the current backlog.
The Texas ruling has already been met with condemnations from the White House, immigrants’ rights groups, and Democrats in Congress.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Terrible decision on DACA by a federal judge in Texas.
The dreams of hundreds of thousands of young people who are contributing to the American economy will be put on hold for no good reason.
Congress must pass a pathway to citizenship this year. We can’t wait.
— Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) <a href="https://twitter.com/JoaquinCastrotx/status/1416148265544949761?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 16, 2021</a></blockquote>
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In a <a href="https://unitedwedream.org/2021/07/home-is-here-coalition-federal-judge-sides-with-republicans-rules-to-partially-end-daca/">statement</a> Friday, the Home Is Here Coalition, which includes immigrant advocacy groups like United We Dream, described Hanen’s decision as “cruel and malicious.”
“This decision is a reminder that DACA has never been enough to protect immigrant communities who continue to be at risk of deportation,” the group said.
The Biden administration has already promised to <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/07/17/statement-by-president-joe-biden-on-daca-and-legislation-for-dreamers/">appeal</a> Friday’s decision and reiterated that DHS “plans to issue a proposed rule concerning DACA in the near future.”
President Joe Biden also called for a “permanent solution” for DREAMers in a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/07/17/statement-by-president-joe-biden-on-daca-and-legislation-for-dreamers/">statement</a> released by the White House on Saturday.
“I have repeatedly called on Congress to pass the American Dream and Promise Act, and I now renew that call with the greatest urgency,” Biden said. “It is my fervent hope that through reconciliation or other means, Congress will finally provide security to all Dreamers, who have lived too long in fear.”
If signed into law, the <a href="https://www.hrc.org/resources/american-dream-and-promise-act">American Dream and Promise Act</a>, which <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/6">passed</a> the House earlier this year, would provide “conditional permanent resident status” for several categories of immigrants, including DREAMers and Temporary Protected Status beneficiaries, putting them on the path to citizenship.
For many, Friday’s DACA ruling doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Hanen, a George W. Bush appointee who has been <a href="https://archive.thinkprogress.org/trump-administration-wants-andrew-hanen-to-chill-out-7b60deb582cf/">described</a> as possibly “the most anti-immigrant judge in the United States,” has made his feelings on DACA clear well before Friday’s ruling. In 2018, he <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/08/31/643814735/texas-judge-says-daca-is-probably-illegal-but-leaves-it-in-place">opined</a> that, “if the nation truly wants a DACA program, it is up to Congress to say so” — and even aside from Hanen’s particular feelings, DACA has been under attack virtually since its inception in 2012.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
IMMIGRATION FRIDAY BAD NEWS ALERT
Judge Hanen has issued his long-expected decision striking down DACA, ordering the Biden administration to stop approving any new applications. This is the terrible outcome that we unfortunately expected for months. <a href="https://t.co/WTMYZsM0WC">https://t.co/WTMYZsM0WC</a>
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@ReichlinMelnick) <a href="https://twitter.com/ReichlinMelnick/status/1416138697192452102?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 16, 2021</a></blockquote>
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As former Vox senior correspondent Dara Lind has <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/31/16226934/daca-trump-dreamers-immigration">explained</a>, DACA has its origins during Congress’ failure in 2010 to pass the DREAM Act, which would have created a pathway to citizenship for immigrants who entered the US illegally as children.
Despite failing in the Senate, the DREAM Act gave a name to those immigrants — DREAMers — and after its 2010 defeat, President Barack Obama attempted to address their plight via executive authority.
<a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/31/16226934/daca-trump-dreamers-immigration">According to Lind</a>,
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Obama claimed that the immigrants who would be eligible for legalization under it weren’t being deported anyway, since his administration was targeting “high-priority” immigrants (like those with criminal records) rather than “low-priority” immigrants who’d lived quietly in the US for years. But federal immigration agents were still deporting “low-priority” immigrants, including DREAMers.
So in summer 2012, rather than relying on Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to protect immigrants by declining to deport them, the administration decided to allow DREAMers to apply for protection from deportation themselves.
In June 2012, President Obama announced the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. It allowed young unauthorized immigrants who meet certain criteria to apply for a commitment from the federal government for “deferred action” — that is, a commitment not to initiate deportation proceedings — for two years. Successful applicants also received a work permit.
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Subsequent attempts to expand the program during the Obama administration were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/24/us/supreme-court-immigration-obama-dapa.html">blocked</a>, however, and President Donald Trump launched a renewed assault on DACA upon taking office.
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<div class="caption">Video by Dara Lind, Liz Scheltens, and Silvia Philbrick</div>
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The Trump administration moved to <a href="https://www.vox.com/2017/9/5/16252648/trump-daca-end-deadline">end DACA outright</a> in September 2017, but ran afoul of the Administrative Procedure Act — the same statute Hanen ruled DACA itself to be in violation of on Friday.
In a June 2020 decision, <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-587_5ifl.pdf">Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California</a>, the Supreme Court <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/6/18/21295518/supreme-court-daca-trump-roberts-regents-university-california-homeland-security">concluded</a> that the Trump administration’s decision to end DACA failed to consider the interests of the more than 600,000 people affected by the change and thus was “arbitrary and capricious” and a violation of the APA. Still, the Court left the door open for subsequent attempts to end the program.
Following that decision, the Trump administration also <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2020/07/28/daca-trump-texas/">moved</a> to stop accepting new DACA applicants and to impose other limits on the program, though those measures were <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/12/5/22155815/daca-court-nicholas-garaufis-batalla-vidal-chad-wolf-homeland-security-joe-biden-trump">reversed</a> by a federal judge in New York last year.
As a result of the back-and-forth between the courts and the Trump administration, DACA recipients, who have lived their entire adult lives in the US, have long been stuck in an uncertain position — something which <a href="https://twitter.com/SenatorMenendez/status/1416160608349827074?s=20">many</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/RepChuyGarcia/status/1416159803534155776?s=20">lawmakers</a> were quick to point out after Friday’s decision.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Not a surprise, just a painful reminder that we need to stop relying on temporary immigration fixes.
Congress must seize the moment and any and all opportunities to finally provide a pathway to legalization for millions of undocumented immigrants.<a href="https://t.co/iDewNu4wWx">https://t.co/iDewNu4wWx</a>
— Senator Bob Menendez (@SenatorMenendez) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenatorMenendez/status/1416160608349827074?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 16, 2021</a></blockquote>
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“Not a surprise, just a painful reminder that we need to stop relying on temporary immigration fixes,” Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) said in a tweet Friday. “Congress must seize the moment and any and all opportunities to finally provide a pathway to legalization for millions of undocumented immigrants.”
Menendez is right: Though DACA itself has been subject to years of controversy as a matter of executive authority, it would be relatively straightforward for Congress to provide a permanent legislative fix for the more than 600,000 Dreamers who are currently part of the DACA program (<a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/deferred-action-childhood-arrivals-daca-profiles">according to the Migration Policy Institute</a>, there are more than 1.3 million people in the US who are potentially eligible for DACA, as of 2020).
However, previous bills to do so have failed to clear the Senate, despite the <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2021/2/4/22264074/poll-undocumented-immigrants-citizenship-stimulus-biden">overwhelming popularity</a> of providing a pathway to citizenship for DREAMers.
<a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/17/americans-broadly-support-legal-status-for-immigrants-brought-to-the-u-s-illegally-as-children/">According to Pew Research Center polling</a> from June 2020, 74 percent of US adults — including a majority of Republicans and those who lean Republican — support “granting permanent legal status to immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally when they were children.”
Still, the DREAM Act <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2010/12/dream-act-dies-in-senate-046573">failed</a> in 2010 thanks to the filibuster, despite passing the House and winning majority support in the Senate. And in 2018, four possible DACA fixes all <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/15/17017682/senate-immigration-daca-bill-vote-failed">died in the Senate</a>, though three of the four also won at least 50 votes.
Most recently, the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/6/text">American Dream and Promise Act</a> has now <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/03/18/977887411/house-passes-2-bills-aimed-at-overhauling-the-immigration-system">passed in the House</a> in two different sessions — first in 2019 and more recently in March this year — but has yet to come to a vote in the Senate, and all but certainly would not survive the filibuster as a standalone bill.
For now, an appeal of Hanen’s Friday decision looks to be the next front in the struggle over DACA. The Biden administration has already pledged to do so, which means the case will likely end up before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Groups involved in the case, including the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, have expressed optimism about future appeals.
“The decision was plainly determined by the judge’s views of many years ago,” MALDEF president and general counsel Thomas A. Saenz said in a <a href="https://www.maldef.org/2021/07/maldef-statement-on-texas-federal-court-daca-ruling/">statement</a> Friday, “and the decision fails to reconcile important recent developments in the law of standing and of presidential authority; it therefore presents numerous grounds for potentially successful appeal.”
However, it’s by no means a sure thing that DACA will fare any better on appeal. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/16/politics/what-to-know-daca-ruling-illegal/index.html">As CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez and Tierney Sneed point out</a>, the 5th Circuit is famously “an extremely conservative appeals court,” while the current US Supreme Court features a 6-3 conservative majority, including “three justices who called the program unlawful in a dissent in a previous case.”
Still, there are other possibilities: In response to a day-one Biden <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/preserving-and-fortifying-deferred-action-for-childhood-arrivals-daca/">memo</a>, Biden’s DHS has said for months that it is working to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-daca/u-s-will-issue-proposal-to-preserve-program-for-dreamer-immigrants-dhs-idUSKBN2BJ00K">shore up DACA</a> with a new rule to “preserve and fortify” the program, which could put it on more solid legal footing going forward.
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<figcaption>People hold signs and a woman raises her fist during a rally in support of the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, in San Diego, California, on June 18, 2020.</figcaption>
<cite>SANDY HUFFAKER/AFP via Getty Images</cite></figure>
DHS reiterated that commitment on Friday in a <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2021/07/17/statement-secretary-mayorkas-daca-ruling">statement</a> on the Hanen decision: “DHS remains focused on safeguarding DACA, and we will engage the public in a rulemaking process to preserve and fortify DACA,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said.
The most promising avenue for DACA advocates, though, could prove to be Congress, despite the continued existence of filibuster. With the Senate gearing up to push for a sprawling second reconciliation package, many Democrats have <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/13/democrats-go-big-bill-499425">suggested</a> that immigration reform — including a path to citizenship for DREAMers, among other potential provisions — could make the cut.
In his <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/07/17/statement-by-president-joe-biden-on-daca-and-legislation-for-dreamers/">statement</a> Saturday, Biden gave the idea a nod, noting that “it is my fervent hope that through reconciliation or other means, Congress will finally provide security to all DREAMers, who have lived too long in fear.”
Under reconciliation, legislation in the form of a budget reconciliation bill can pass the Senate with just 50 votes and no fear of the filibuster — but there are restrictions. As Vox’s Dylan Scott <a href="https://www.vox.com/22242476/senate-filibuster-budget-reconciliation-process">explained</a> in January, “a lot of things” are could potentially be included, but they all must affect federal spending and revenue in some (occasionally tenuous) capacity.
Senate Democrats — whose 50-seat majority, with Vice President Kamala Harris as the tie-breaking vote, gives them exactly enough votes to pass a reconciliation bill along party lines — have already used the reconciliation process once this year, to pass the $1.9 trillion <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2021/3/10/22320350/biden-sign-stimulus-bill-covid-19">American Rescue Plan</a>. Another, even larger package — focused on a laundry list of priorities dropped from the still-in-the-works <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/07/15/senate-infrastructure-budget/">bipartisan infrastructure bill</a> — looks to be <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/07/14/democrats-budget-plan/">on the way</a>.
Significantly, the inclusion of a path to citizenship seems to have the <a href="https://thehill.com/latino/563047-manchin-signals-support-for-immigration-in-budget-deal">support</a> of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), a frequent holdout in the Senate Democratic caucus. However, a permanent fix for DREAMers still needs to survive the Senate parliamentarian to make it into any upcoming reconciliation package, and that appears to be an <a href="https://www.kqed.org/news/11881322/can-democrats-immigration-reform-plan-succeed-through-budget-reconciliation">open question</a>.
The parliamentarian’s role in the reconciliation process, <a href="https://www.vox.com/22242476/senate-filibuster-budget-reconciliation-process">according to Scott</a>, is to determine whether or not the budgetary impact of reconciliation measures, such as a potential path to citizenship, are “incidental” or not — and current rules require that incidental provisions be dropped from the bill.
Despite that fact, some senators — such as California Democrat Alex Padilla — are <a href="https://www.rollcall.com/2021/07/13/padilla-says-citizenship-path-in-reconciliation-is-realistic/">optimistic</a>, and at least one member of the House, Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García (D-IL), has said that immigration provisions are a must-pass in the next reconciliation package.
“A robust and equitable budget reconciliation deal must include a pathway to citizenship for immigrants,” García said in a <a href="https://chuygarcia.house.gov/media/press-releases/congressman-garc-s-statement-regarding-budget-reconciliation-negotiations">statement</a> this month. “We must seize this historic opportunity to bring compassion and dignity to our immigration system and provide the certainty that comes with having the legal status that millions of immigrants and their families deserve.”
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/7/17/22581276/federal-judge-andrew-hanen-daca-ruling">https://www.vox.com/2021/7/17/22581276/federal-judge-andrew-hanen-daca-ruling</a>

vox A federal judge just declared DACA unlawful. Here’s what that means.

On Friday, a federal judge in Texas blocked an Obama-era program protecting undocumented immigrants who arrived in the US as children from ...

The next voting rights battleground is Michigan

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Michigan Republicans want to pass a blitz of legislation that restricts the right to vote in the key battleground state — and they have an audacious plan to get their ideas enacted, even though they have to contend with a Democratic governor who could ordinarily veto their bills.
State lawmakers proposed <a href="https://www.michigan.gov/documents/sos/Summary_of_Bills_to_Restrict_Voting_Rights_722845_7.pdf">39 different bills targeting elections</a>, including ones that restrict absentee voting, a bill that could prevent the state from certifying elections, and a pair of bills that would give ordinary poll workers a simply extraordinary amount of power to restrict voting.
Until recently, Michigan seemed safe from the kind of anti-voting legislation that has proliferated in GOP-controlled states like <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22368044/georgia-sb202-voter-suppression-democracy-big-lie">Georgia</a> and <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/7/13/22573680/democrats-texas-flee-greg-abbott-voting-election-special-session-quorum">Texas</a>. The state has a Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, who could veto bills that seek to skew future elections toward the Republican Party, and the GOP’s majorities in the state legislature are too small to override a veto.
But, early this month, the state’s Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R) announced that Republicans plan to invoke a process that could <a href="https://jtv.tv/senator-shirkey-on-budget-voter-id-mental-health-legislation/">allow them to bypass the governor’s veto</a> and pass a package of “half a dozen” election-related bills. Under the <a href="http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(ll4kibq31pbov3blurjt5oai))/printDocument.aspx?objName=mcl-article-ii-9&version=txt">state constitution</a>, a relatively small group of voters can propose legislation through a petition and then this legislation can be enacted by the state legislature. Using this process, the GOP-controlled legislature could enact this package by a simple majority vote in both houses, and <a href="http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(ll4kibq31pbov3blurjt5oai))/printDocument.aspx?objName=mcl-article-ii-9&version=txt">Whitmer would be powerless to veto it</a> — although Democrats could potentially force a voter referendum on the GOP package.
Moreover, while it is not yet clear which proposals will be included in Shirkey’s half-dozen bills, some of the dozens of proposals from GOP lawmakers appear to serve no purpose other than to make voting onerous enough that it disenfranchises voters. A <a href="http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2021-2022/billengrossed/Senate/pdf/2021-SEBH-0303.pdf">pair of</a> <a href="http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2021-2022/billengrossed/Senate/pdf/2021-SEBH-0304.pdf">bills</a> that passed the state House, for example, could force at least some voters to show ID twice on two separate occasions — once at their polling place and again to a county clerk located at a central government office — or else their ballot will be tossed out.
The stakes in this fight are quite high, not just for Michiganders and their state politics but for national politics as well. Michigan had <a href="https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/michigan/senate/">one of the closest US Senate races in the country</a> in 2020 — a race that would have thrown control of the Senate to the GOP if Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) had performed slightly worse. It’s also a key battleground state that former President Donald Trump won in 2016, and President Joe Biden won in 2020. If Biden does not win Michigan in 2024, his path to reelection looks grim.
While ballots were still being counted in the 2020 election, hundreds of Trump supporters — <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2020/11/06/protesters-rally-tcf-center-detroit-biden-ballots/6186881002/">some of them carrying firearms</a> — protested the count in the Democratic stronghold of Detroit. Republican officials in Wayne County, which includes Detroit, briefly tried to <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/11/18/21572409/michigan-wayne-county-trump-certification-balance">block certification of the vote tallies in that county</a>, although they eventually backed down. After Aaron Van Langevelde, a state-level official on Michigan’s Board of State Canvassers, voted to <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/11/23/21591273/trump-certification-michigan-pennsylvania-sidney-powell">certify Biden’s victory in the state as a whole</a>, Republicans <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2021/01/18/gop-does-not-reappoint-vanlangevelde-board-canvassers/4207223001/">removed him from the board</a>.
According to the Associated Press, Trump <a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-allies-try-overturn-biden-victory-29da6aac9cc41e47f3095855e7af7031">personally lobbied Republican officials</a> in Michigan in an attempt to block Biden’s victory, even summoning members of the state legislature to the White House.
The new round of election legislation, in other words, might only disenfranchise small numbers of people, depending on which bills make it into law and how they’re applied. But they appear to be part of a broader effort to discredit elections won by Democrats, to place a thumb on the electoral scales in favor of Republicans, and to vindicate Trump’s lie that he, not Biden, won the 2020 election. And, in this closely divided state, even a small number of disenfranchised voters could swing an election.
It’s not yet clear which of the 39 bills proposed by state lawmakers Republicans plan to push. These bills include a <a href="https://www.michigan.gov/documents/sos/Summary_of_Bills_to_Restrict_Voting_Rights_722845_7.pdf">wide range of proposals</a> to make it harder to vote, including limiting the use of drop boxes to collect absentee ballots, imposing stricter ID requirements on voters, empowering partisan election observers, and requiring a supermajority on county election boards to agree to certify election results.
In a <a href="https://jtv.tv/senator-shirkey-on-budget-voter-id-mental-health-legislation/">July 1 interview</a>, however, Shirkey signaled that a voter ID requirement is likely to be part of the package, describing an ID requirement as “rock solid.” Voter ID laws require voters to show identification in order to vote. Republicans often defend these laws as necessary to prevent voter impersonation at the polls, but numerous studies and investigations show that <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/4/15/21222084/kentucky-voter-id-coronavirus-pandemic">such fraud is virtually nonexistent</a>.
Still, generally they’re popular proposals, across the political spectrum — one recent poll shows <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2021/06/23/michigan-house-republicans-pass-bills-enact-strict-voter-id-laws/5328162001/">80 percent</a> of American registered voters support voter ID.
The Michigan GOP’s leading voter ID proposal, however, goes far beyond simply requiring voters to show ID at the polls. Two bills, labeled <a href="http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2021-2022/billengrossed/Senate/pdf/2021-SEBH-0303.pdf">SB 303</a> and <a href="http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2021-2022/billengrossed/Senate/pdf/2021-SEBH-0304.pdf">SB 304</a>, have already passed the state House, and they would effectively require an unknown number of voters to show ID twice, at two separate locations, in order to vote.
Under current law, Michigan voters who do not have identification may still vote if they sign an affidavit testifying that they lack such ID. SB 303 eliminates voters’ ability to sign such an affidavit, effectively requiring all voters to show ID. That’s fairly in line with other voter ID laws already adopted or under consideration in other states.
But SB 303 also requires every voter to sign a form before they can vote. The signature on this form must be examined by a poll worker and compared to “the elector’s digitized signature contained in the electronic poll book.” If, in the poll worker’s subjective determination, the signatures do not match, then the voter will be given a provisional ballot.
SB 304, meanwhile, lays out what happens to these provisional ballots. Essentially, a voter given such a ballot has six days to prove their identity and residency to the county or township clerk — something that they can do by showing many of the same forms of ID that they are already required to show at the polls.
Read together, the two bills create an absurd situation where some voters could be disenfranchised unless they make a special trip to the clerk’s office to show the same ID card that they already provided to the poll worker. Imagine, for example, that a voter shows their valid driver’s license at the polls, but a poll worker, for whatever reason, declares that the voter’s signature does not match. The voter then has less than a week to make a special trip to the clerk’s office to show the clerk the exact same driver’s license.
It’s not hard to see how such a system could be abused. A Republican poll worker might randomly force voters in a Democratic-leaning area to make the special trip to the clerk’s office. Or this poll worker might use race as a proxy to identify voters who are likely to be Democrats — perhaps only giving provisional ballots to Black voters.
Meanwhile, a third bill (this third bill has <a href="http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(pqbg2xq3r30jmws4huujwzly))/mileg.aspx?page=GetObject&objectname=2021-SB-0294">not passed either house</a>), requires local election officials to <a href="http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2021-2022/billintroduced/Senate/pdf/2021-SIB-0294.pdf">appoint one Republican poll worker</a> for every two Democrats in these roles. That could mean that, in a Democratic stronghold like Detroit, up to one-third of all voters could be subjected to an arbitrary signature-matching test administered by a GOP partisan.
Most of the voting restrictions circulating in the state legislature are more modest than SB 303 and 304. Many of them make relatively marginal incursions on voting, such as <a href="http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2021-2022/billintroduced/Senate/pdf/2021-SIB-0273.pdf">requiring ballot drop boxes to have video surveillance</a> or prohibiting the secretary of state from <a href="http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2021-2022/billintroduced/Senate/pdf/2021-SIB-0310.pdf">sending unsolicited absentee ballot applications to voters</a>. Other proposals are potentially more troubling, such as a bill that would give partisan poll watchers <a href="http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2021-2022/billintroduced/Senate/pdf/2021-SIB-0309.pdf">greater authority to challenge</a> whether an individual voter is allowed to cast a ballot.
And it’s worth repeating that two bills that would give extraordinarily open-ended authority to poll workers acting in bad faith have already passed one house of the Michigan legislature. Should SB 303 and 304 become law in their current forms, they would immediately rank among the most troubling election laws in the country — potentially rivaled only by a Georgia law that allows the state GOP to effectively takeover local election boards that have the power to <a href="https://www.vox.com/22463490/voting-rights-democracy-texas-georgia-suppression-jim-crow-supreme-court-sb7">shut down polling places and disqualify voters</a>.
Again, it’s still unclear what, exactly, will be in the GOP’s final package of changes to the state’s election law. In his July 1 interview, Shirkey said that “we could have used a few handwriting experts in this last election” to screen voters and that he does not oppose the House’s proposal “in principle.” But he also said that he is “not sure” if the signature requirement will be included in the GOP’s final package, and Republicans will have to “do what is possible.”
At the very least, however, much of the Michigan GOP appears to be setting its sights high as they pull this package together.
The most significant announcement Shirkey made in his interview early this month was that voters should “keep their eyes and ears open for the potential for a citizen initiative” that will be “driven by” the state Republican Party. That opens the door to a Rube Goldberg-like process that Republicans may use to bypass Gov. Whitmer’s veto.
It works like this: Under Michigan’s constitution, a small minority of the electorate may propose laws, and these proposals will ordinarily be placed before voters as a ballot initiative. Other states, like California, also allow ballot initiatives. In Michigan, however, the state legislature may intervene midway through the process to turn a proposed ballot initiative into law. A small percentage of voters can propose something, and just over half of the statehouse can make it law. Moreover, the state constitution also provides that “<a href="http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(ll4kibq31pbov3blurjt5oai))/printDocument.aspx?objName=mcl-article-ii-9&version=txt">no law initiated or adopted by the people shall be subject to the veto power of the governor</a>.”
To begin this process, Republicans have to collect a number of signatures from Michigan voters totaling “not less than eight percent . . . of the total vote cast for all candidates for governor at the last preceding general election at which a governor was elected.” That works out to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/election/2018/results/michigan/governor">about 333,000 signatures</a> in 2021. Once the petition process is complete, the state legislature has 40 session days to approve the law proposed by a petition drive, and the governor cannot veto.
Democrats can deploy a countermeasure against this maneuver. The state constitution also allows voters to implement a “referendum” against most laws passed by the legislature, including one that was originally proposed through the initiative process. To trigger a referendum, Democrats would have to collect signatures totaling 5 percent of the total votes cast in the last governor’s race — or a little more than 200,000 signatures.
Significantly, if Democrats trigger a referendum, the law is suspended until the entire electorate has an opportunity to weigh in on it during an election, and if a majority of the electorate rejects the law, it will never take effect.
Republicans, in other words, won’t be able to do whatever they want. But Democrats also cannot rest assured that Whitmer’s veto will prevent anti-democratic bills from becoming law. At the very least, it seems likely that fate of future elections in a crucial battleground state will rest on the outcome of a referendum.
And the outcome of that referendum could hinge on whether voters understand what exactly is in the GOP’s package of new election laws. If Michigan voters think this fight is primarily a referendum on voter ID, Republicans have a good chance of prevailing — a recent Monmouth University poll found that <a href="https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_us_062121/">80 percent of registered voters</a> in the United States support requiring photo identification to vote.
If, on the other hand, voters believe that they are voting on a highly partisan set of proposals that could allow random poll workers to disenfranchise voters, then Republicans are probably less likely to succeed.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/7/17/22580037/michigan-republican-party-voting-rights-mike-shirkey-big-lie">https://www.vox.com/2021/7/17/22580037/michigan-republican-party-voting-rights-mike-shirkey-big-lie</a>

vox The next voting rights battleground is Michigan

Michigan Republicans want to pass a blitz of legislation that restricts the right to vote in the key battleground state — and they have an ...

Facebook Says It Should Not Be Blamed For US Failing To Meet Vaccine Goals

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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="Facebook Says It Should Not Be Blamed For US Failing To Meet Vaccine Goals" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2020-08/0psfrbvg_facebook-generic-reuters_625x300_21_August_20.jpg" title="Facebook Says It Should Not Be Blamed For US Failing To Meet Vaccine Goals" /></div>
COVID-19 misinformation has spread during the pandemic on social media sites, including Facebook.
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Washington:
Facebook on Saturday defended itself against <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/social-media-misinformation-on-covid-killing-people-joe-biden-2488477" target="_self">US President Joe Biden's</a> assertion that the social media platform is "killing people" by allowing misinformation about coronavirus vaccines to proliferate, saying the facts tell a different story.
"The data shows that 85% of Facebook users in the US have been or want to be vaccinated against COVID-19," Facebook said in a corporate blog post by Guy Rosen, a company vice president. "President Biden's goal was for 70% of Americans to be vaccinated by July 4. Facebook is not the reason this goal was missed."
COVID-19 misinformation has spread during the pandemic on social media sites including Facebook, Twitter and Alphabet Inc-owned YouTube. Researchers and lawmakers have long accused Facebook of failing to police harmful content on its platforms.
"They're killing people. ... Look, the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated. And they're killing people," Biden told reporters at the White House on Friday when asked about misinformation and what his message was to social media platforms such as Facebook.
The company has introduced rules against making specific false claims about COVID-19 and vaccines for it, and says it provides people with reliable information on these topics.
The Delta variant of the coronavirus is now the dominant strain worldwide, accompanied by a surge of deaths around the United States almost entirely among unvaccinated people, U.S. officials said on Friday.
American cases of COVID-19 are up 70% over the previous week and deaths are up 26%, with outbreaks occurring in parts of the country with low vaccination rates.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/facebook-says-it-should-not-be-blamed-for-us-failing-to-meet-vaccine-goals-2489031">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/facebook-says-it-should-not-be-blamed-for-us-failing-to-meet-vaccine-goals-2489031</a>

news world Facebook Says It Should Not Be Blamed For US Failing To Meet Vaccine Goals

COVID-19 misinformation has spread during the pandemic on social media sites, including Facebook. Washington: Facebook on Saturday defe...

US Might "Still Have Polio" If Media Had Opposed Vaccine: Top Scientist

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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="US Might 'Still Have Polio' If Media Had Opposed Vaccine: Top Scientist" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2021-02/jc4dno8g_anthony-fauci_625x300_21_February_21.jpg" title="US Might 'Still Have Polio' If Media Had Opposed Vaccine: Top Scientist" /></div>
Top US scientist Anthony Fauci said false information is being spread against Covid vaccines. (File)
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Washington:
Top US scientist Anthony Fauci on Saturday blasted commentators who sound an anti-vaccination theme, saying America might still be battling smallpox and polio if today's kind of misinformation existed back then.
The comments from the country's leading infectious disease expert reflected mounting frustration over the sharp slowdown in the Covid-19 vaccination rate in the United States, even as the disease has been surging in states with low rates.
It also came days after President Joe Biden expressed his own visible frustration, saying social media that carry widely heard misinformation about vaccines are "killing people."
Fauci was responding to a CNN interviewer who asked if he thought "we could have defeated the measles or eradicated polio if you had Fox News, night after night, warning people about these vaccine issues that are just bunk."
Fauci said: "We probably would still have smallpox and we probably would still have polio ... if we had the kind of false information that's being spread."
Initial vaccine skepticism in many areas has increasingly evolved into outright hostility, a message magnified by baseless conspiracy theories regularly aired on Fox and other conservative networks.
"Maybe it doesn't work and they're simply not telling you that," Tucker Carlson, one of Fox's most popular commentators, said recently.
The vaccines have instead proved extraordinarily effective. Officials in Maryland, for example, said that not one of the people who died of the disease last month in the state had been vaccinated.
To suggestions of sending vaccine educators door-to-door to encourage people to get the jab, Fox commentator Charlie Hurt said, "They've become like the Taliban."
Conservative politicians have increasingly echoed former president Donald Trump's mockery of Covid precautions.
Door-to-door educators, suggested Representative Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, might instead come and take people's guns -- or their Bibles.
After an initial burst of vaccinations around the country, the pace has slowed sharply.
Biden's announced goal of having 70 percent of adults vaccinated by July 4 fell short by about three points, and the vaccination rate has slowed further since then, even as the disease's Delta variant has spread rapidly.
A few Republicans have sought to place blame for the disease's ravages and economic dislocations on the widely respected Fauci himself.
Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has introduced the so-called Fire Fauci Act, calling for his salary to be reduced to zero and requiring the Senate to confirm a replacement. The bill is not expected to go anywhere.
Fauci was asked on CNN about T-shirts being sold by a political action group linked to Florida governor Ron DeSantis that say "Don't Fauci My Florida."
He appeared genuinely perplexed.
"Taking an individual who stands for public health, for truth... and to use my name in a derogatory way to prevent people from doing things that's for the benefit of their own health, go figure that one out.
"That doesn't make any sense at all," he said, shaking his head.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/us-might-still-have-polio-if-media-had-opposed-vaccine-top-scientist-anthony-fauci-2489005">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/us-might-still-have-polio-if-media-had-opposed-vaccine-top-scientist-anthony-fauci-2489005</a>

news world US Might "Still Have Polio" If Media Had Opposed Vaccine: Top Scientist

Top US scientist Anthony Fauci said false information is being spread against Covid vaccines. (File) Washington: Top US scientist Antho...

France Recognises Covishield For Vaccine Pass, Tightens Travel Rules

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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="France Recognises Covishield For Vaccine Pass, Tightens Travel Rules" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2021-06/rbs2kjd_covishield-vaccine-india-generic-afp_625x300_21_June_21.jpg" title="France Recognises Covishield For Vaccine Pass, Tightens Travel Rules" /></div>
France also announced new rules for entering the country amid a rise in Covid cases.
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Paris:
France will consider people fully vaccinated one week after they received their second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca shots, instead of 14 days previously, and 28 days after their Johnson & Johnson jab. The country will also accept vaccination by Covishield, a copy of the AstraZeneca vaccine made by the Serum Institute of India, for its health pass, Prime Minister Jean Castex said in a statement on Saturday.
France is the 14th European Union member to recognise the Covishield vaccine for allowing entry to travellers amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Belgium, Austria, Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden already have already cleared the vaccine.
The country would require people not fully vaccinated and arriving from some European countries to show a negative Covid test taken within the previous 24 hours. Arrivals from the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Cyprus, Greece and the Netherlands will be subject to the new rule, which comes into effect at midnight Saturday into Sunday, Castex.
To date, people arriving from the United Kingdom are required to show a negative test taken within the past 48 hours.
Arrivals from Spain, Portugal, Cyprus, the Netherlands and Greece have had to show tests taken within 72 hours.
But Castex said that people who are fully vaccinated with a jab recognised by the European Medicines Agency -- Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson -- will not be required to show a test.
The statement said the exemption was in place because "vaccines are effective against the virus, and in particular its variant Delta".
The government also said that Tunisia, Mozambique, Cuba and Indonesia will be added to France's so-called red list.
Travel from red-list countries is only allowed on pressing grounds and even then vaccinated travellers must self-isolate for seven days.
The new measures come as several European nations battle rising caseloads, blamed in part on the highly-transmissible Delta variant which has taken hold on the continent.
New infections have ticked up in France in recent weeks, hitting nearly 11,000 on Friday, even as the government races to vaccinate the population.
President Emmanuel Macron said this week that vaccine health passes would be required for entry to most public places and that all healthcare workers must be fully inoculated, sparking a rush to book appointments for the jab.
Around 35.5 million people -- just over half of France's population -- have received at least one vaccine dose so far.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said this week it expects a sharp increase in coronavirus cases on the continent, with nearly five times as many new infections by August 1.
In an effort to control the rising numbers, France's region of Pyrenees-Orientales will require bars, restaurants, beach venues and food shops to close at 11:00 pm from Saturday until August 2, the prefecture announced on Saturday.
The move came after cases in the region shot up within a single week from 41.5 per 100,000 people to 258.8 per 100,000 people.
"This exponential progression is starting to translate into an equally rising number of hospitalisations," the prefecture warned in its statement announcing the measures.
The region had on Friday made masks mandatory in all public spaces except for beaches and large nature spaces and prohibited consumption of alcohol in public spaces outside of bars and restaurants.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/france-recognises-covishield-for-vaccine-pass-tightens-travel-rules-2488943">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/france-recognises-covishield-for-vaccine-pass-tightens-travel-rules-2488943</a>

news world France Recognises Covishield For Vaccine Pass, Tightens Travel Rules

France also announced new rules for entering the country amid a rise in Covid cases. Paris: France will consider people fully vaccinate...

Death Count Rises To 168, Hundreds Missing In Germany, Belgium Floods

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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="Death Count Rises To 168, Hundreds Missing In Germany, Belgium Floods" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2021-07/kptrcauo_germany-belgium-floods650_625x300_17_July_21.jpg" title="Death Count Rises To 168, Hundreds Missing In Germany, Belgium Floods" /></div>
Residents and business owners struggled to pick up the pieces in battered towns.
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Erftstadt, Germany/ Wassenberg, Germany:
The death count in devastating flooding in western Germany and Belgium rose to at least 168 on Saturday after burst rivers and flash floods this week collapsed houses and ripped up roads and power lines.
Some 141 people died in the flooding in Germany's worst natural disaster in more than half a century. That included about 98 in the Ahrweiler district south of Cologne, according to police.
Hundreds of people were still missing or unreachable as several areas were inaccessible due to high water levels while communication in some places was still down.
Residents and business owners struggled to pick up the pieces in battered towns.
"Everything is completely destroyed. You don't recognise the scenery," said Michael Lang, owner of a wine shop in the town of Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler in Ahrweiler, fighting back tears.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited Erftstadt in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, where the disaster killed at least 43 people.
"We mourn with those that have lost friends, acquaintances, family members," he said. "Their fate is ripping our hearts apart."
Around 700 residents were evacuated late on Friday after a dam broke in the town of Wassenberg near Cologne, authorities said.
But Wassenberg mayor Marcel Maurer said water levels had been stabilising since the night. "It's too early to give the all-clear but we are cautiously optimistic," he said.
The Steinbachtal dam in western Germany, however, remained at risk of breaching, authorities said after some 4,500 people were evacuated from homes downstream.
Steinmeier said it would take weeks before the full damage, expected to require several billions of euros in reconstruction funds, could be assessed.
Armin Laschet, state premier of North Rhine-Westphalia and the ruling CDU party's candidate in September's general election, said he would speak to Finance Minister Olaf Scholz in the coming days about financial support.
Chancellor Angela Merkel was expected to travel on Sunday to Rhineland Palatinate, the state that is home to the devastated village of Schuld.
In Belgium, the death count rose to 27, according to the national crisis centre, which is coordinating the relief operation there.
It added that 103 people were "missing or unreachable". Some were likely unreachable because they could not recharge mobile phones or were in hospital without identity papers, the centre said.
COMMUNITIES CUT OFF
Over the past several days the floods, which have mostly hit the German states of Rhineland Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia and eastern Belgium, have cut off entire communities from power and communications.
RWE, Germany's largest power producer, said on Saturday its opencast mine in Inden and the Weisweiler coal-fired power plant were massively affected, adding that the plant was running at lower capacity after the situation stabilised.
The utility expects damages to be in the mid double-digit million euro range.
In the southern Belgian provinces of Luxembourg and Namur, authorities rushed to supply drinking water to households without a clean supply.
Water levels slowly fell in the worst hit parts of Belgium, allowing residents to sort through damaged possessions. Prime Minister Alexander De Croo and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen visited some areas on Saturday afternoon.
Belgian rail network operator Infrabel published plans of repairs to lines, some of which would be back in service only at the very end of August.
HIGH ALERT IN THE NETHERLANDS
Emergency services in the Netherlands also remained on high alert as overflowing rivers threatened towns and villages throughout the southern province of Limburg.
Tens of thousands of residents in the region have been evacuated in the past two days, while soldiers, fire brigades and volunteers worked frantically throughout Friday night to enforce dykes and prevent flooding.
The Dutch have so far escaped disaster on the scale of its neighbours, and as of Saturday morning no casualties had been reported.
Scientists have long said that climate change will lead to heavier downpours. But determining its role in these relentless rainfalls will take at least several weeks to research, scientists said on Friday.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/death-count-rises-to-168-hundreds-missing-in-germany-belgium-floods-2488941">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/death-count-rises-to-168-hundreds-missing-in-germany-belgium-floods-2488941</a>

news world Death Count Rises To 168, Hundreds Missing In Germany, Belgium Floods

Residents and business owners struggled to pick up the pieces in battered towns. Erftstadt, Germany/ Wassenberg, Germany: The death cou...