Our newsletter is coming a little later than normal this month because of the long weekend. I hope you were able to pause and celebrate Labor Day with your family or friends.
Here’s the news:
Take Action
In each newsletter, OneAmerica will be sending ways that you can take action to protect immigrant communities and join the fight to build a thriving home for everyone, no matter where they were born or what language they speak at home.
Sign up for our community canvasses. We’re going door to door this year, talking to our neighbors about the issues that matter to them. Join us for one of our monthly canvasses in Clark, Yakima, or King Counties. Sign up today.
Are you new to canvassing? Join us for a virtual canvass training beforehand. You’ll get a chance to ask questions and practice conversations ahead of time.
Take action to protect Head Start. The Trump administration is trying to deregulate Head Start, damaging this vital early childhood education program. There is still time to comment on this proposal and share why restricting deregulating and defunding Head Start is a bad idea. Comments are due by October 2nd.
Voting Rights
We’ve got less than two months until the midterm elections, and the Trump administration is trying to insert as much chaos as they can into the voting process.
Homeland Security Investigations announced they would be launching a “coordinated criminal voter fraud surge” in nine states across the country, including Washington. They’re fishing for examples of improper voting – especially by people who are naturalized US citizens.
The problem is that the cases which Homeland Security is looking for don’t exist. Prosecutions of noncitizens voting or even being unlawfully registered to vote are exceedingly rare. As the Brennan Center noted, Americans are more likely to be struck by lightning than to commit voter fraud.
The goal of these investigation isn’t really to find voter fraud; it’s to create distrust in our democracy. And then to use that distrust to take away our rights.
It’s also not just the DHS which Trump is using to attack our elections. Back in March, the president issued an executive order which would require the US postal service to determine who could vote by mail. The subsequent rule change requires states to send USPS a list of all register voters in their state who request mail-in and absentee ballots. If the post office determines that any voter on the list isn’t eligible, USPS would be able to refuse to accept and deliver the ballot. Additionally, if any state doesn’t send in its voting list, the post office could refuse to send its ballots.
Right now, this executive order and the rule change is tied up in the courts.
On August 24th, the Supreme Court paused a lower court’s ruling against the president’s executive order. However, the court didn’t actually weigh in on whether the order to restrict voting by mail was legal. Two days later, Washington and 24 other states sued the federal government again to overturn these restrictions. Just last Friday, a federal judge in Boston blocked the executive order again.
The legal dynamics are changing daily, but the Postal Service is continuing to build a system to compile voter data and screen ballot eligibility. A whistle-blower recently filed a report to Congress saying the process has been “secretive, rushed” and could lead to tens of thousands of ballots being rejected if “even one bar code on one single ballot” failed to scan properly.
Even while the fate of Trump’s executive order remains unclear, the leadership of the postal service has already hurt our ability to vote by mail.
Last year, the post office announced that it cannot guarantee mail will be postmarked the same day it is picked up. Earlier this summer, a record number of mail-in ballots were rejected in Washington’s primary election because of this change in policy. Ballots rejected because of late postmarks increased by 32% this year, with rural counties particularly impacted.
This chaos is intentional. The Trump administration is trying to cheat by disenfranchising voters who would hold him accountable. But we won’t let him.
Our vote is the way our communities exercise our power collectively, so make sure yours counts.
If you’re going to mail your ballot back this year, send it back early – ideally within a days of receiving it. Better yet, use a drop box.
Attacks on Head Start
In August, the Trump administration announced that it wanted to overhaul Head Start, the sixty-year-old program that provides high-quality early childhood education across the country.
Head Start is unique because it is first and foremost an antipoverty program. It has high standards and robust requirements designed to serve families and children who live below the poverty line. Right now, Head Start’s regulations guarantee low staff-to-student rations, mandate research-backed curriculum, and provide wraparound services for children in poverty, including medical and dental screenings.
The Trump administration is trying to do away with many of those requirements. This rule change would get rid of required meetings with families, deadlines for health and development screenings, and a mandate that kids brush their teeth in school. It also requires all instruction be delivered in English, cutting dual language programs that help kids connect with their parents and parents become more deeply involved in their kids’ education.
Around 700,000 children around the country, including many who are homeless, in foster care, or disabled, currently are enrolled in the program. But it’s not just the students who benefit from Head Start; their families to too.
As Lori Pittman, a Head Start parent from Washington said, “I was given the opportunity, while my child was in Head Start, to learn about leadership, to go back to school… I know Head Start works.”
These changes threaten the foundation of Head Start. If this rule takes effect, requirements for Head Start will vary from state to state. Many programs would also have to cut staff, increasing class sizes, because of new restrictions on their grant funding. And many of the families who most need this program will be unable to access it.
However, this fee increase is not finalized yet. When a new rule is proposed by a federal agency, the public has a right to comment on it.
Comments are public record. Even if an agency ignores the comments and enacts a rule anyways, future lawsuits can use comments as proof that an agency did not take public will into account.
Anyone can submit a public comment. You just need an email address. We have a tool on our website to help you draft your own, but make sure to personalize it. The most effective comments share your story and your concerns.
Comments are due on October 2nd. Take five minutes and submit one today.
Dream & Promise Act
Across the country, DACA recipients are losing the ability to work and provide for their families in the country where they’ve lived since childhood because of delays in their status renewals. TPS recipients, who fled wars, unrest, and natural disasters are facing deportation back to the countries they left, even after having made their lives here.
There is actually a legislative solution for both of these groups in Congress right now: the Dream and Promise Act.
This bill would provide pathways to citizenship for DACA recipients and TPS holders, giving them stability and certainty.
The Dream and Promise Act hasn’t been put up for a vote yet because of Republican leadership in the House of Representatives. However, members of Congress have a way around their leadership. They can sign a discharge petition. If 218 members – half of the House – sign on, they can force a vote.
At the end of August, nearly all Democrats had signed the discharge petition, but there were a few holdouts, including Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez from Southwest Washington.
OneAmerica and our partners sprung into action. We organized our people to contact her office, sending dozens of messages asking her to sign on – and she did! As of last Friday, every single Democrat in the House plus three Republicans had signed on to the petition. It is one signature shy from coming up for a vote.
We’re grateful that Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez listened to her constituents. And we know this is just the start. After a vote in the House, the bill would have to go to the Senate and then to the President’s desk for a signature. A pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients, TPS holders, and so many others caught up in America’s tangled immigration system feels far away. But once again, it is out there, on the horizon.
And we know organizing works. Together, we can build the power we need to make that horizon a reality.
Additional News
The news moves fast, and we can’t cover everything in an email. Below are some other important stories from the last month.
Content note: the first entry in this section contains a story about self-harm.
TPS for Haiti
“Yet now I’m walking through the streets of the United States with a GPS monitor on my leg, carrying a feeling of shame and humiliation that I never imagined I would experience.” (NBC News)
Pierre Damas Bel died by suicide earlier this week. He was a 20-year-old college soccer player who lived in Ohio. After the Trump administration ended TPS for Haitians, he was fitted with an ankle monitor to track his movements.
Our thoughts are with his family and with the Haitian community in Springfield and across the US. Justice for Pierre.
ICE Arrests Part 1
“It felt like we were chasing ghosts.” (KUOW)
We haven’t had a day without an arrest by ICE in Washington since March. There have been 522 immigration arrests in Yakima between January and July. Unlike very visible ICE operations in other parts of the country, most of these arrests are happening quietly, early in the morning or at night.
ICE Arrests Part 2
“Just heard agents outside, forcefully shaking our tents. They were saying, ‘Come out, we’re police.'” (KING 5)
Five men were arrested by ICE agents while on a family camping trip in Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest over Labor Day weekend. According to reporting, Forest Service Rangers may have been working with ICE agents. Their family members are now left to figure out how to make ends meet while navigating the immigration system.
Lewelyn Dixon
“This is my loud, rowdy family. My support. My forever.” (Seattle Times)
Early in the Trump administration, Lewelyn Dixon was arrested by immigration agents at the airport after returning from the Philippines. Dixon, a green card holder and UW lab technician, had lived in the US for over fifty years ago when she was arrested. Her family, her union (SEIU 925), and Filippino community groups rallied for her release.
Now, a year and a half later, she’s become a citizen with plans to retire and to travel.
Refugee Admissions
“The number of refugees admitted to the United States during the first 10 months of the fiscal year is on pace to hit its lowest level on record, according to a new analysis.” (Washington State Standard)
This year, the US has only admitted 10,258 refugees so far this year. Nearly all of the refugees who have been admitted this year are white South Africans.
Dolly Parton
“Honoring the undocumented and decrying their persecutors at the height of her career, against political headwinds and with nothing to gain and everything to lose, was par for her life, and a challenge for all of us to do the same.” (Los Angeles Times)
In 1980, after the release of “9 to 5,” Dolly Parton covered a song originally recorded by Woody Guthrie: “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos).”
The song is about a plane crash, which killed all 32 people on board. When the news covered the crash, they named all four white victims, but they didn’t name the 28 Mexican nationals who were on board. The song corrects the historical record, restoring their names and their memories.
At a time when history feels like its repeating itself and the Trump administration is trying to erase immigrants from our communities, this song feels relevant. And Dolly’s life should serve as a call to action for us all.