Tag Archives: Trump administration

Was Trump Right on the China Trade War and the Subsequent Deal? No!

Was Trump Right on the China Trade War and the Subsequent Deal? No!

By Mani Subramani

The trade deal with China is definitely a step in the right direction for the Trump administration.  But only after taking several steps backwards! Like a broken clock Donald Trump has been complaining about trade imbalances since the 1980s, first with Japan and now with China.  Global trade with China has been growing steadily. In a recent study, The Economic Policy Institute reported little over a 4 fold increase in imports from China (120B-540B) and a greater than a 6 fold increase in exports to China (19B-120B).  

The Trump administration needs to ask itself if it’s willing to give up 120B in exports to Make America Great Again? Like the U.S. did in 2001?  The answer is clearly NO.  

The Phase-1 Trade Deal will have the Chinese buy more soy and hogs from U.S. farmers but the agreement keeps the level of export the same as before. Due to the African flu and the following hog shortage in China, there was a pre-existing demand for hogs without the Trade Deal.  

Now President Trump claims that tariffs are great for the treasury and makes false claims that it is paid for by the Chinese entirely.  Wrong on both counts. Despite the tariffs and expanding U.S. economy, the deficit for 2020 is on track to hit a trillion again. A recent Business week study finds that of 25% tariffs on $250B about $3B/month is paid by consumers and another $1.4B/month in costs related to lost efficiency.  In other words, a vast majority of the tariffs are borne by consumers and importers. 

Tariffs are a blunt un-directed weapon which when used are full of unintended consequences.  As pointed out in a study by the Tax Foundation, more workers in other industries dependent on steel lost their jobs due to the 2002 Bush Steel tariffs; few were protected. Trump repeated this mistake making the false claim of saving jobs once again and implemented his Steel and Aluminum Tariffs in 2018.  The result was a temporary improvement in steel prices followed by a deep slump in prices due to over capacity and severe cutbacks in steel jobs. 

In addition to these unintended consequences, the trade deal represents a loss of focus and forgets to address three key areas: Chinese government subsidies create unequal advantages for development and pricing that kill off global competition; intellectual property protection in China is exploitative and should be changed for it to be a mutually beneficial relationship; the trade deal does not specifically prohibit the use of technological advances for military warfare. 

U.S. interests would have been better served by steering clear of a trade war and instead focusing the dialogue in China on the three key issues aforementioned. Maybe that is why past presidents weren’t “tariff men”.  Guess it’s a lot easier to win elections by blaming trade for lost jobs!

Mani Subramani is a veteran of the semiconductor equipment industry.  He enjoys following politics and economics.

This article is part of the monthly Forum Series, where you get eyes on both sides of a hot button issue.

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Was Trump Right on the China Trade War and the Subsequent Deal?  Yes!

By Rameysh Ramdas

For decades, China has pursued discriminatory, fraudulent and predatory industrial policies with the U.S. and unfair trade practices—including dumping, discriminatory barriers, steep tariffs, forced technology transfer, over capacity, and intellectual property theft. 

U.S. Presidents, both Democratic and Republican, in the past, have only paid lip service to China. It wasn’t until President Trump, who has the spine to confront China, that the U.S. was able to extract concessions and sign the Phase 1 Trade Deal. While the deal may not be perfect or complete, it is a welcome and necessary first step. 

China has imposed tariffs three times more than the United States. The U.S. imposes a 2.5% tariff on Chinese cars while China has a 25% tariff. Chin’s “Made in China 2025” plan adversely impacts U.S. manufactures. The cost of China’s blatant intellectual property theft costs United States’ innovators billions of dollars a year and results in job losses.

Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer showered rare praise on the President for standing up to China and imposing tough tariffs and sanctions. Further Senator Schumer said – “Not only do they steal our intellectual property, they keep our good companies out, and say the only way you’re going to be able to sell your American products in China … is if you come to China, make them there, and give us the techniques and intellectual property.”

According to CNN Business, “Chinese theft of American IP currently costs between $225 billion and $600 billion annually to the U.S.” According to a CNBC SFO survey, 1 in 5 U.S. companies said that China stole their intellectual property within the past year. In 2003, China played another dirty trick by using currency manipulation, allowing its currency to artificially fall. Since 2018, China has had a positive trade imbalance of $379 billion with the U.S. 

While it may not be fashionable to commend President Trump in California, any right thinking citizen ought to support Trump’s “America First” policies; the policies focus on eliminating laws and regulations that kill jobs and stifle innovation. With the Trade Deal, China agreed to purchase, over the course of the next two years, $200 billion more goods and services from the United States than it purchased in 2017. As Hillary Clinton rightly said, China has “gamed the system for too long” and now Trump deserves credit for taking the first steps with the Trade Deal to level the playing field and ensure that trade is both free and fair.

Rameysh Ramdas, a resident of the SF Bay Area, has a keen interest in Politics and Current Events. 

This article is part of the monthly Forum Series, where you get eyes on both sides of a hot button issue.

License for the image used can be found here.

Edited by Assistant Editor, Srishti Prabha.

Was Trump Right on the China Trade War and the Subsequent Deal? Yes!

Was Trump Right on the China Trade War and the Subsequent Deal?  Yes!

By Rameysh Ramdas

For decades, China has pursued discriminatory, fraudulent and predatory industrial policies with the U.S. and unfair trade practices—including dumping, discriminatory barriers, steep tariffs, forced technology transfer, over capacity, and intellectual property theft. 

U.S. Presidents, both Democratic and Republican, in the past, have only paid lip service to China. It wasn’t until President Trump, who has the spine to confront China, that the U.S. was able to extract concessions and sign the Phase 1 Trade Deal. While the deal may not be perfect or complete, it is a welcome and necessary first step. 

China has imposed tariffs three times more than the United States. The U.S. imposes a 2.5% tariff on Chinese cars while China has a 25% tariff. Chin’s “Made in China 2025” plan adversely impacts U.S. manufactures. The cost of China’s blatant intellectual property theft costs United States’ innovators billions of dollars a year and results in job losses.

Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer showered rare praise on the President for standing up to China and imposing tough tariffs and sanctions. Further Senator Schumer said – “Not only do they steal our intellectual property, they keep our good companies out, and say the only way you’re going to be able to sell your American products in China … is if you come to China, make them there, and give us the techniques and intellectual property.”

According to CNN Business, “Chinese theft of American IP currently costs between $225 billion and $600 billion annually to the U.S.” According to a CNBC SFO survey, 1 in 5 U.S. companies said that China stole their intellectual property within the past year. In 2003, China played another dirty trick by using currency manipulation, allowing its currency to artificially fall. Since 2018, China has had a positive trade imbalance of $379 billion with the U.S. 

While it may not be fashionable to commend President Trump in California, any right thinking citizen ought to support Trump’s “America First” policies; the policies focus on eliminating laws and regulations that kill jobs and stifle innovation. With the Trade Deal, China agreed to purchase, over the course of the next two years, $200 billion more goods and services from the United States than it purchased in 2017. As Hillary Clinton rightly said, China has “gamed the system for too long” and now Trump deserves credit for taking the first steps with the Trade Deal to level the playing field and ensure that trade is both free and fair.

Rameysh Ramdas, a resident of the SF Bay Area, has a keen interest in Politics and Current Events. 

This article is part of the monthly Forum Series, where you get eyes on both sides of a hot button issue.

**************************

Was Trump Right on the China Trade War and the Subsequent Deal? No!

By Mani Subramani

The trade deal with China is definitely a step in the right direction for the Trump administration.  But only after taking several steps backwards! Like a broken clock Donald Trump has been complaining about trade imbalances since the 1980s, first with Japan and now with China.  Global trade with China has been growing steadily. In a recent study, The Economic Policy Institute reported little over a 4 fold increase in imports from China (120B-540B) and a greater than a 6 fold increase in exports to China (19B-120B).  

The Trump administration needs to ask itself if it’s willing to give up 120B in exports to Make America Great Again? Like the U.S. did in 2001?  The answer is clearly NO.  

The Phase-1 Trade Deal will have the Chinese buy more soy and hogs from U.S. farmers but the agreement keeps the level of export the same as before. Due to the African flu and the following hog shortage in China, there was a pre-existing demand for hogs without the Trade Deal.  

Now President Trump claims that tariffs are great for the treasury and makes false claims that it is paid for by the Chinese entirely.  Wrong on both counts. Despite the tariffs and expanding U.S. economy, the deficit for 2020 is on track to hit a trillion again. A recent Business week study finds that of 25% tariffs on $250B about $3B/month is paid by consumers and another $1.4B/month in costs related to lost efficiency.  In other words, a vast majority of the tariffs are borne by consumers and importers. 

Tariffs are a blunt un-directed weapon which when used are full of unintended consequences.  As pointed out in a study by the Tax Foundation, more workers in other industries dependent on steel lost their jobs due to the 2002 Bush Steel tariffs; few were protected. Trump repeated this mistake making the false claim of saving jobs once again and implemented his Steel and Aluminum Tariffs in 2018.  The result was a temporary improvement in steel prices followed by a deep slump in prices due to over capacity and severe cutbacks in steel jobs. 

In addition to these unintended consequences, the trade deal represents a loss of focus and forgets to address three key areas: Chinese government subsidies create unequal advantages for development and pricing that kill off global competition; intellectual property protection in China is exploitative and should be changed for it to be a mutually beneficial relationship; the trade deal does not specifically prohibit the use of technological advances for military warfare. 

U.S. interests would have been better served by steering clear of a trade war and instead focusing the dialogue in China on the three key issues aforementioned. Maybe that is why past presidents weren’t “tariff men”.  Guess it’s a lot easier to win elections by blaming trade for lost jobs!

Mani Subramani is a veteran of the semiconductor equipment industry.  He enjoys following politics and economics.

This article is part of the monthly Forum Series, where you get eyes on both sides of a hot button issue.

Edited by Contributing Editor Srishti Prabha.

Behind The Troubling Rise Of Uninsured American Kids

More than a million fewer children receive public health insurance now than in December 2017. In some cases, their parents acquired coverage at work. But researchers also see a troubling rise in uninsured children — and say the Trump administration’s policies are partially to blame.

Kaiser Health News senior correspondent Sarah Varney and PBS NewsHour producer Jason Kane report from Tennessee, where the rate of uninsured kids has soared. This story aired on PBS NewsHour on Dec. 2

This article was originally posted by Kaiser Health News.

Verma Attacks Critics Of Medicaid Work Requirement, Pushes For Tighter Eligibility

Seema Verma, the Trump administration’s top Medicaid official, Tuesday sharply attacked critics of her plan to force some Medicaid enrollees to work, a policy that led to thousands of people losing coverage in Arkansas.

“We cannot allow those who prefer the status quo to weaponize the legal system against state innovation,” the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said in a fiery speech to the nation’s 56 state and territorial Medicaid directors in Washington, D.C.

A federal judge shut down the short-lived work requirement initiative in Arkansas and stopped it from launching in Kentucky last spring. Several states including Indiana, Arizona and New Hampshire that had won federal approval have put their implementation plans on hold pending an appellate court ruling.

Advocates for the poor argue work requirement policies are illegal and unfairly add hurdles to people who qualify for coverage in the federal-state health program.

But those opponents are seeking “to manipulate Medicaid into the prototype of a single-minded, single-payer nirvana – a utopia of open-ended government run health care,” Verma said. “Part of my mission is to fight such under-handed tactics and preserve the right of states to shape your programs in ways that are consistent with the needs of your residents, your cultures and your values. Anything less stifles innovation.”

That would be “a disservice to the millions of people on Medicaid today and those who will need it in the years and decades to come,” she added.

The federal government has approved work requirement plans in 10 states and requests are pending from 10 others. Most of those initiatives are directed at the low-income adults who gained coverage through the Medicaid expansion initiated by the Affordable Care Act.

Verma first announced plans to open the door to work requirements in a speech to Medicaid directors in 2017.

Medicaid – like Medicare – is an open-ended entitlement program, which means federal funding increases as costs and enrollment rise.

In addition to doubling down on the controversial work requirements, Verma renewed her interest in letting states get Medicaid funding through a block grant system. Block grants would give states more flexibility to limit enrollment and enforce eligibility rules, she added.

Critics have said such a change would cut Medicaid funding, limit coverage, hurt beneficiaries and lead to lawsuits.

But Verma said CMS would soon publish guidance to states to allow them to get block grant funding for “certain optional adult populations.”

“Many states have expressed a willingness to be held accountable for improving outcomes in exchange for greater flexibility and budget certainty,” Verma said. “Block grants and per capita cap proposals are two such alternative financing approaches.”

Also Tuesday, CMS issued a proposed rule that would overhaul so-called supplemental payments that many states receive to help their hospitals, nursing homes and doctors get extra funding beyond those received when caring for Medicaid enrollees.

The federal government spent about $48.5 billion on such supplemental payments in 2016 for states.

The payments – as a share of total Medicaid fee-for-service expenditures for health providers – ranged from 1% in North Dakota to 65% in Tennessee, according to a Congressional Research Service report.

CMS and congressional investigators have said the payments allow states to game the system to help bring in additional revenue for these providers without showing how they spend the money.

“I recognize that these schemes often have their roots in self-interested providers, egged on by opportunistic consultants seeking to leverage regulatory loopholes or hide behind a lack of transparency,” Verma said. “I know that most state leaders want to make sure every dollar is supporting value and improving care for Medicaid beneficiaries, and those of you that are doing the right thing have nothing to worry about. We have your back.”

The supplemental Medicaid payment system has come under criticism for many years because of the lack of transparency at the state level. However, efforts to curtail the spending has faced pushback from both states and providers fearful of losing dollars.

Matt Salo, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors, said state officials are open to efforts to bring more transparency but they will be cautious about anything that severely reduces their funding.

“The challenge is how do you do this in a thoughtful, real world way?” Salo said. “We have to do it in a way that is achievable, but that does not jeopardize patient care in the process.”

Verma acknowledged that the uninsured rate among children has grown in the past two years despite the strong economy. She said the solution is to lower health costs to make it easier for their parents to afford private coverage.

Patient advocates have blamed states’ efforts to tighten Medicaid eligibility as a leading factor in the drop in coverage.

Nonetheless, Verma said she would push states to further limit eligibility to make sure only those eligible are getting benefits.

“Lax eligibility practices jeopardize the sustainability of the program,” she said.

CMS will “ensure that states conduct timely redeterminations and make use of appropriate data sources to verify ongoing income eligibility.”

Salo said state Medicaid directors agree with the need for appropriate safeguards to make sure people are not getting assistance who are not eligible. But, he added, forcing enrollees to go through more steps to get and retain coverage will come at a cost of losing people who truly deserve to get help.

“You want government to work for people and want to create a system that if you are eligible it should be easy to get on,” he said. “And if you set barriers and hurdles you will lose a lot of people who are eligible but could not deal with the paperwork.”

This story was produced by Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Separating Children From Parents at Border is Unconscionable

Washington, DC (June 19, 2018) — The recent actions by the Trump Administration separating children from parents at the border, placing them in detention facilities, often strikingly inadequately prepared for their needs, are unconscionable.

As immigrants or children of immigrants, as parents, as Hindus, we can find no legal, moral, or ethical justification for such actions.

HAF Executive Director Suhag Shukla, Esq. offered the following insight:

“Hindus place great importance on the family. Whether attempting to enter the United States to seek asylum, fleeing violence in their home country, or seeking better economic opportunities, separating children from their parents is abhorrent. Treating young, vulnerable children in such a degraded way is beyond not only Hindu values, but American values.”

“When the family is ruined, the timeless laws of family duty perish; and when duty is lost, chaos ensues.” — Bhagavad Gita

The Hindu American Foundation unequivocally calls for the immediate end of the practice of separating children from their parents at the border and the treating of asylum seekers as criminals. It further urges that diligent efforts be undertaken to reunite all families affected by these cruel and inhumane policies.

 

 

Save 2020 Census

By Mark Hedin, Ethnic Media Services. 

The best response to White House efforts to disenfranchise ethnic communities is for them to stand up and be counted in the upcoming 2020 census, a wide spectrum of experts and civil rights advocates agrees.

It’s a simple strategy to counteract myriad steps the Trump administration has taken to subvert an accurate count of everybody in the country – a count mandated by the constitution every 10 years through the decennial census.

“This is one of the most significant civil rights issues facing us today,” said Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights in a media telebriefing on April 5 hosted by major civil rights groups.

Data from the decennial count determine everything from how many congressional representatives a state gets to how much money the government allocates for schools, hospitals and transportation needs – and much more.

“Communities of color are at risk of being undercounted and left behind,” Gupta said. “The stakes are too high to remain on the sidelines.”

Cuts in funding have already disrupted efforts to improve the accuracy of the data collection.  As things stand now, Gupta said, the agency will face a shortfall of $933.5 million from what it needs to keep 2020 preparations on track.

Amplifying concerns, on March 26  Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross announced the addition of a new question about respondent’s citizenship status, despite opposition from six former Census Bureau officials, two former Commerce Secretaries and experts in the field.

The timing of Ross’ proposed question is unprecedented. It comes too late to allow the Census Bureau to conduct the careful testing it typically performs prior to making such significant changes.

“We know that adding this question on citizenship status will cause participation in the census to plummet,” Gupta said.  She called the decision “deeply flawed…a failure of leadership and a capitulation to President Trump’s nativist agenda.”

“This is a tactic to scare people away from participation in the census,” said Arturo Vargas, executive director of NALEO, the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Education Fund.  “The purpose is very clear: the administration does not want Latinos to be counted.”

Vargas noted that Latinos, at almost 58 million, are the nation’s second largest population group – almost 18 percent of the total population.

“Already we had expressed our concerns about what an online census would mean to the ability of all people to be counted,” he said, referring to the 2020 census’ reliance on digital participation.  Most at risk for an undercount are very young children. In 2010, an estimated 1 million very young children went uncounted, of whom 400,000 were Latino.

Marc Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League, called the changes “a thinly veiled, back-door effort to suppress” the representation of non-white Americans in official consideration.  “The prospect of an epic undercount of African Americans and all people of color in the 2020 Census is becoming more of a reality each day.”

The African American community has always been undercounted, Morial noted, starting with the 1790 Census when slaves were considered three-fifths of a person.  In 2010, African Americans were undercounted by more than 2 percent, and African American children by 6.5 percent. By contrast, whites were overcounted – by 1 percent in 2000 and again by 1 percent in 2010.

Morial also noted that last month’s decision to continue what he called a “prison based gerrymandering” policy – counting prisoners where they are incarcerated rather than where they come from – will further ensure a geographic miscount.

“I have no doubt that had it been left to Census Bureau professionals, that decision would have been reversed. But when the administration came in, politics prevailed.”

John Yang, president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice, pointed out that decisions to cut the number of census workers and offices by 50 percent will undermine outreach to the very communities the census has struggled to reach in the past, and trim the followup efforts to reach those who don’t respond to the initial survey.

Asian Americans were identified by the 2010 census as the fastest growing ethnic group in the nation, increasing by 46 percent since 2000, Yang said.  Some 80 percent of Asian Americans either immigrants or children of immigrants, putting them at high risk for an undercount.

Pointing to widespread fears among immigrant communities of exposing vulnerable family information, Yang emphasized that the Census bureau has the most stringent confidentiality rules of any government agency.  Even that, he warned, may not be enough to ensure participation in today’s charged political climate. Responding to a reporter’s question, he agreed that the confidentiality protocols were adopted following revelations that the census during World War II helped identify Japanese Americans for internment.

“How do we explain that the best way to fight back, the best way to have a voice in policy discourse, is to be counted,” NALEO’s Vargas challenged.  Noting that “there is a great amount of fear in Latino communities and in immigrant communities across the country,” Vargas said the advocates’ task now is to turn that fear into empowerment.   “We will not cower in fear and not be counted…we will be the ones to defend American democracy.”

“The fight to save the census is not over, by any stretch,” Gupta said. She cited lawsuits already filed by the state of California against Ross’ proposed citizenship question, another by a group of states led by New York, and efforts by the Conference of for oversight hearings followed by legislation in Congress.

“Together we can make sure the Census is fully funded and the decision to add the question on citizenship is overturned,” she said.

 Mark Hedin is a reporter with the San Francisco Study Center

 

Sizing Up Immigrant Rights—Best Hope In Ballot Box

Less than two weeks after the Trump administration’s arbitrary deadline for Congress to take action on DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) came and went with no solution, four veterans of the immigrant rights movement agreed that the outlook is bleak and the challenges are significant. The greatest hope lies in the voting booth –a shift of power out of Republican hands after the November elections – and the fact that those most impacted are taking action to protect themselves and inform others in their communities.

“It’s highly unlikely that Congress is going to pass any relief to benefit young people who make a huge contribution to the country they call home,” said Frank Sharry, Director of America’s Voice in Washington DC.   “Congress and the White House are no friends.”

Sharry was joined by attorney Joshua Rosenthal of the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC) deputy director Sally Kinoshita, and California Labor Federation field coordinator for southern California Hector Saldivar. The four spoke on a national telebriefing for ethnic media on March 13, hosted by ILRC’s Ready California.

Calling it a “war on immigrants,” Sharry said the  administration aims to “slash immigration by 50%, turbocharge deportations and construct a border wall as wasteful as it is insulting,” He counted five failed bipartisan efforts to provide the “bill of love” the president claimed to want while decreeing the end of DACA.

Democratic leadership, for its part, “despite a lot of effort, a lot of back and forth,” simply “couldn’t cut a deal with a leadership that doesn’t want to make a deal.”

“It’s a cynical, cruel strategy that the White House has pursued,” Sharry said. “Our best hope is that litigation will allow Dreamers to keep their status until hopefully we get a new Congress (in November’s elections).”  If power shifts out of Republican hands, there will be “a much better chance – although not a slam dunk – that legislation will be able to move forward.”

In the meantime, people are forced into “a horrible decision, to stay without papers or leave. We’re hoping to protect as many people as possible, buy them as much time as possible.”

NILC lawyer Rosenthal was also cautious in his assessment of efforts to challenge the Trump campaign through the courts.   “Courts are only able to go so far. They’re not going to be the final answer. We can’t ignore the role of Congress and the states in providing protection for immigrants.”

He cited as good news rulings in California and New York this year that found the Trump administration’s Sept. 5 announcement it would cut off DACA applications a month later to be “arbitrary and capricious.”   When the government tried to fast-track an appeal of those rulings to the Supreme Court, the justices refused to consider taking the case until they had gone through the remaining lower-level appeals courts, meaning that those eligible to renew their DACA status can continue to do so. If they do eventually review the case, their decision wouldn’t arrive until the spring of 2019.

Even then, he added, the injunction “is a limited, temporary form of relief.” It leaves out an important set of people, those unable to receive DACA status prior to the Trump administration’s decision to end the program.

Rosenthal recommended visiting informedimmigrant.com and its Spanish version, immigranteinformado.com, for lists of trustworthy service providers sorted by location for help in applying for DACA, and other information.

With almost a third of  the country’s undocumented immigrants, California has mounted the most comprehensive effort to resist the Trump administration’s “war on immigrants,” declaring itself a sanctuary state.

Sally Kinoshita of ILRC noted that there is no legal definition of the term “sanctuary.” But she cited several state measures that provide some resistance to federal efforts against immigrant communities.   These include SB 54, AB103 and AB540 which respectively restrict the ability of local law enforcement to cooperate with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement); require the state attorney general to inspect detention facilities operated under contract with the federal government; and require judicial warrants in advance of detentions.

“These laws help to make clear that California is much safer for immigrants,” Kinoshita said.  Despite that, ICE recently launched a four-day campaign in Northern California in which 40% of the more than 200 arrested had no criminal records.  The raids aim to stoke public fear by portraying immigrants as a threat.

Kinoshita noted that the state has budgeted $45 million for immigration education, outreach and legal services.

The state’s Department of Social Services’ website lists 100 nonprofits that receive state funding and have either free or low cost services.  She recommended those in California refer to ready-california.org, with its lists of trusted service providers, trainings and events.

For those all-important screenings, Kinoshita recommended the website immi.org, which enables people to do them anonymously and online.

Hector Saldivar, who coordinates field activities for the California Labor Federation, spoke of increased fear and anxiety throughout immigrant communities. Himself a DACA recipient, he described his own family’s agonizing situation when his mother was recently denied re-entry into the country.

Like Kinoshita, Saldivar praised AB540 for its role in curtailing ICE’s ability to enter work places at will without a judicial warrant. On the ground, he said, forming a network of rapid response units has “provided solidarity and support” for workers facing ICE raids and “silent raids” – audits of a workplace’s I-9 forms that verify workers’ identity and employment authorization.

“This is the most crucial time to go out and show our support,” he said, “particularly for those whose status is secure.  We’re not going to allow them to be picked up or detained and then forgotten.”

Kinoshita agreed. “We can no longer ask those who are most vulnerable to take the most risk.  People who are eligible to naturalize need to do it now,” she said, even if only to vote.

Voting, she said, falls “on the less risky side” of actions people can take and “is so critical.”  “We need Congress to step up. We’re relying heavily on the judiciary and can’t take it for granted.”

Calling the current political climate “one of the darkest chapters in American history,” Frank Sharry said his biggest worry going forward is that “Republicans will maintain control of Congress.”

He’s hopeful, though, that immigration activists are going to prevail, not only in the courts and on the streets, but at the ballot box.

“We’re on the right side of history.”