Massive ICE raids in Mississippi
In the wake of back-to-back massacres in Texas and Ohio, the engine of the political system is finally rumbling to life, with demands for some type of legislative action to stem the carnage being too loud to ignore. House Democrats, though, are resisting calls to come back into session and end recess early, arguing that they did their part in February by passing sweeping new background check legislation, and now the responsibility is on Mitch McConnell and Republicans in the Senate.
What they haven’t mentioned is that the bill they passed includes a vicious anti-immigrant amendment, which would link the background check system to ICE’s database, and alert the deportation machine anytime an immigrant whose status wasn’t up to date interacted with a gun seller. In the wake of an anti-immigrant massacre, there’s good reason they haven’t highlighted that section of the law -- but how on earth did it get there in the first place?
If you guessed Josh Gottheimer and the Problem Solvers Caucus, you guessed right. Gottheimer, a Democrat from New Jersey, teamed up with Republicans to attach the amendment to the bill using the so-called “motion to recommit.” The move led to a public fight between Gottheimer and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The MTR is generally a parliamentary formality, and in the eight years Republicans ran the House chamber, not a single one passed. But that’s changed thanks to Gottheimer and his Problem Solvers Caucus, which has regularly sided with Republicans to insert poison pills into Democratic legislation just before it passed. Aida Chavez has the story on this one.
Gottheimer, by the way, has drawn a primary challenge -- from an immigrant, in fact.
ICE, which claims its deplorable conditions at detention centers are the result of overcrowding and underfunding, deployed some 600 agents today to lead raids of five canning and food-processing plants in Mississippi, in order to round up roughly 680 people they suspect are in the country without authorization. The workers had recently won a major sexual-harassment lawsuit, Mike Elk reports. While the government focuses on arresting workers for working, a mushrooming algae bloom in the Mississippi River is creeping into the Gulf of Mexico and shuttering beaches.
Earlier this week I was on Philadelphia NPR’s Radio Times program for an hour-long conversation about my book. If you need something for your commute, here you go.
Speaking of which, buy the book!
If you’re reading this in the morning, I have a story up at The Intercept about a stunning legislative win by the Denver city council’s only democratic socialist, less than a month after she was sworn in. If you’re reading this email at night, you’ll just have to wait, I guess. (Why are you still awake? Go to sleep.)
Night!