President Joe Biden on Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024, commuted the sentences of roughly 1,500 people and granted pardons for 39 individuals with convictions for nonviolent crimes. (Photo by Caspar Benson/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden Thursday commuted the sentences of roughly 1,500 people who were placed in home confinement during the coronavirus pandemic, and granted pardons for 39 individuals with convictions for nonviolent crimes.

“America was built on the promise of possibility and second chances,” Biden said in a statement. He noted many of the 1,500 were serving long sentences that would be shorter under current laws, policies and practices.

As the Biden administration winds down, it’s the largest single-day grant of clemency in modern day history.

The president added that his administration will continue to review clemency petitions before his term ends on Jan. 20. There are more than 9,400 petitions for clemency that were submitted to the White House, according to recent Department of Justice clemency statistics. 

“As President, I have the great privilege of extending mercy to people who have demonstrated remorse and rehabilitation, restoring opportunity for Americans to participate in daily life and contribute to their communities, and taking steps to remove sentencing disparities for non-violent offenders, especially those convicted of drug offenses,” Biden said.

Those 39 people who received pardons included 67-year-old Michael Gary Pelletier of Augusta, Maine, who pleaded guilty to a nonviolent offense, according to the White House, which provided brief biographies of the pardoned individuals.

After his conviction, Pelletier worked for 20 years at a water treatment facility and volunteered for the HAZMAT team, assisting in hazardous spills and natural disasters. He now grows vegetables for a local soup kitchen and volunteers to support wounded veterans.

Another pardon was granted to Nina Simona Allen of Harvest, Alabama.

Allen, 49, was convicted of a nonviolent offense in her 20s, the White House said. After her conviction, she earned a post-baccalaureate degree and two master’s degrees and now works in the field of education. Additionally, she volunteers at a local soup kitchen and nursing home.

Hunter Biden pardon

The clemency action came after the president gave a full pardon for his son, Hunter Biden, on gun and tax charges and any other offenses, from 2014 until December. The president previously stated he would not pardon his son, but changed his mind because he said his son was constantly targeted by Republicans.

Other clemency actions Biden has taken include commuting sentences of those serving sentences for simple possession and use of marijuana under federal and District of Columbia law and a pardon of former U.S. service members who were convicted under military law of having consensual sex with same-sex partners — a law that is now repealed.  

Additionally, advocates and Democrats have pressed Biden to exert his clemency powers on behalf of the 40 men on federal death row before President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House. Democrats have pushed for this because Trump expedited 13 executions of people on federal death row in the last six months of his first term.

The co-executive directors of Popular Democracy in Action, a progressive advocacy group, Analilia Mejia and DaMareo Cooper, said in a joint statement that Biden should “not stop now.” 

“Thousands more of our people who have been wronged by an unjust system are still waiting for freedom and compassion,” they said.

Those with nonviolent offenses who were pardoned by the president, according to the White House:

Alabama

Nina Simona Allen

California

Gregory S. Ekman

Colorado

Johnnie Earl Williams

Connecticut

Sherranda Janell Harris

Delaware

Patrice Chante Sellers 

District of Columbia

Norman O’Neal Brown

Florida

Jose Antonio Rodriguez

Illinois

Diana Bazan Villanueva 

Indiana

Emily Good Nelson

Kentucky

Edwin Allen Jones

Louisiana

Trynitha Fulton

Maine

Michael Gary Pelletier

Maryland

Arthur Lawrence Byrd

Minnesota

Kelsie Lynn Becklin

Sarah Jean Carlson

Lashawn Marrvinia Walker 

Nevada

Lora Nicole Wood 

New Mexico

Paul John Garcia

New York

Kimberly Jo Warner 

Ohio

Duran Arthur Brown

Kim Douglas Haman

Jamal Lee King

James Russell Stidd

Oklahoma

Shannan Rae Faulkner

Oregon

Gary Michael Robinson

South Carolina

Denita Nicole Parker

Shawnte Dorothea Williams

Tennessee

James Edgar Yarbrough

Texas

Nathaniel David Reed III 

Mireya Aimee Walmsley

Lashundra Tenneal Wilson

Utah

Stevoni Wells Doyle

Virginia

Brandon Sergio Castroflay

Washington

Rosetta Jean Davis

Terence Anthony Jackson

Russell Thomas Portner

Wisconsin

Jerry Donald Manning

Audrey Diane Simone

Wyoming

Honi Lori Moore

Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto urges the Biden administration to extend protections for Dreamers and immigrants with Temporary Protected Status during a Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024, press conference. From left to right are Andrea Flores of the immigration advocacy group FWD.us and Sens. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico and Alex Padilla of California. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Jose Cabrera took off work from his landscaping job to join three Latino Democratic senators for a Wednesday press conference urging the Biden administration to renew protected statuses, like his, before the return of President-elect Donald Trump to the White House.

Cabrera, of Montgomery County, Maryland, has lived in the U.S. for more than 30 years, and is protected from deportation and allowed work permits. His home country of El Salvador is deemed too dangerous to return, giving him a designation of Temporary Protected Status, or TPS. 

He and other immigrants living legally in the United States fear if they lose their protected status, they will be swept up as Trump implements his campaign promise of mass deportations.

Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Alex Padilla of California and Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico are pressing the Biden administration to redesignate TPS for nationals from Nicaragua and El Salvador and to also designate TPS for people from Ecuador.

TPS for El Salvador ends in March and TPS for Nicaragua ends in July, after Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

“We know the incoming administration is going to try to implement chaotic immigration policies that tear our families apart,” Cortez Masto said.

The members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus also stressed that the White House should direct the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s immigration agency to speed up renewal applications for those in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program.

“It’s time for this administration to ensure that we can renew their DACA status now, before they come under threat from the Trump administration,” Cortez Masto said.

The White House could not be immediately reached for comment.

Mass deportations threat

The senators stressed that the Biden administration should take action, given Trump’s vow to enact mass deportations, targeting the millions of immigrants without legal status. Deportations could easily include those with TPS if their status is not renewed.

TPS designations can last six, 12 or 18 months before they are renewed and cover more than 1 million immigrants. The status does not offer a pathway to citizenship.

So far, 17 countries have TPS designation and it’s been used in instances like Ukrainians fleeing from Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Andrea Flores, the vice president on immigration policy and campaigns at the immigration advocacy group FWD.us, said that Biden should use TPS to protect those holding the status from the incoming Trump administration.

During the first Trump administration, the former president tried to end TPS for Haiti, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Sudan, but the courts blocked those attempts in 2018.

“Those people will now lose legal status in the next administration. Those people will be subject to mass deportations, and they’ll be returned to a country where they will be guaranteed to be persecuted,” Flores said.

Padilla and Luján stressed that mass deportations would not only harm communities but the U.S. economy. The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing Tuesday on the ramifications of mass deportations at which Republicans indicated they will be moving ahead quickly once Trump takes office.

“Mass deportations will jeopardize the safety and security of millions of mixed-status families, sowing deep (mis)trust and fear in the communities we represent, and without a doubt, destabilize the United States economy,” Luján said.

There are roughly 4 million mixed-status families, meaning family members with different immigration statuses.

Padilla said that those who have TPS and DACA all work in crucial U.S. industries.  

“By taking work authorization for hundreds of thousands of workers away, we’re gutting our own workforce,” he said.

DACA fate

Trump, who tried to end DACA during his first administration, said during a sit-down interview with NBC on Sunday that he would “work with the Democrats on a plan” to keep those recipients in the U.S., but he did not elaborate on any details.

The program is currently waiting for a federal court to decide its legal fate.

Thomas A. Saenz, the president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which along with the state of New Jersey is defending DACA in the courts, said Dreamers should still continue to apply for renewals “and not fear renewing.”

“They should continue to seek renewal even perhaps earlier than they otherwise might to try to extend the period under which they are protected,” he said in an interview with States Newsroom.

Cortez Masto said she is always willing to work to protect Dreamers, but is skeptical about Trump’s comments.

“The last time he said that, and we brought him a bipartisan bill to do something to protect our Dreamers, he killed it,” she said.

Cortez Masto was referring to a 2018 bipartisan deal that Sens. Mike Rounds, Republican of South Dakota, and Angus King, independent of Maine, struck that would have granted DACA recipients a pathway to citizenship, along with funding for a border wall.

‘The government has all of our information’

Juliana Macedo do Nascimento, deputy director of federal advocacy at the immigrant advocacy group United We Dream, said in an interview with States Newsroom that she’s concerned about Immigration and Customs Enforcement having access to information on DACA applicants through U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that processes legal immigration paperwork.

“We’re really worried that will just give ICE a list of people that they can go then (and) knock on their doors,” she said. 

Macedo do Nascimento, who is a DACA recipient herself, said her organization is asking the Biden administration to create a firewall between USCIS databases and DHS agencies like ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

“The government has all of our information,” she said. “They could potentially come get us at any point. That’s the worst case scenario.” 

Immigrant farm workers harvest broccoli on March 16, 2006, near the border town of San Luis, south of Yuma, Arizona. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON —  A top Republican on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee said Tuesday that when President-elect Donald Trump takes office and the GOP takes control of the Senate, lawmakers’ first priority will be to pass a border security package through a complex process known as budget reconciliation.

Trump has promised his base his administration will enact mass deportations of people living in the country illegally. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said at a Judiciary hearing that Senate Republicans will focus on increasing beds at detention centers, hiring Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and purchasing technology for enforcement at the southern border.

“It is our belief that the only way you’ll get control of the border is for deportations to start early,” he said. “If we do not have outflow, the inflow will continue.”

However, a senior fellow at the pro-immigration think tank the American Immigration Council, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, told the panel the endeavor will be expensive.

Carrying out mass deportations of 1 million people would cost about $88 billion a year for arrests, detainment and removal, he said. About 13 million people are living in the United States illegally.

Fixing a broken system

The committee hearing, led by Democrats who control the Senate now but will be in the minority next year, explored the ramifications of the Trump campaign promise of mass deportations.

“Instead of mass deportations, mass accountability,” said the chair of the committee, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois. “Let’s fix our broken immigration system in a way that protects our country and honors our heritage as a nation of immigrants.”

The budget reconciliation process cited by Graham that would be used to pass border security legislation, if successful, would allow Republicans to get around the 60-vote filibuster in the Senate.

Reconciliation is generally used when one party controls the House, Senate and the White House, because it only requires a majority vote in each chamber.

Graham added that Republicans will also prevent those people who were paroled into the country through executive authority from employing another avenue for legal immigration status. The GOP has been critical of programs that allow certain nationals from Haiti, Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela to temporarily work and live in the United States.

“So if you’re here illegally, get ready to leave,” Graham said.

DACA program

One of the hearing witnesses, Foday Turay, is in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, which is awaiting a federal court ruling on its legality after the Trump administration tried to end it.

Separately, on Monday, a federal court blocked the implementation of a final rule from the Biden administration to allow DACA recipients to have health care access under the Affordable Care Act. 

About 500,000 people are in the program, which is aimed at protecting children brought into the country without authorization from deportation. It also allows them to obtain work permits.

Turay is an assistant district attorney in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, and said if he were deported it would devastate his family, as he is the primary income earner in his household.

He said his wife, a U.S. citizen, is the primary caretaker of her mother, a person with disabilities who is undergoing cancer treatments. Additionally, Turay said he would have to leave his son behind if he is deported.

Another witness, Patty Morin of Aberdeen, Maryland, told how her daughter, Rachel, was killed. The suspect, who was charged with first-degree murder and sexual assault, was in the country illegally and had a prior criminal record.

Durbin said Democrats are not opposed to ICE carrying out its duties to deport those with criminal records and stressed that Trump’s plans for mass deportations extend beyond that group and would include people like Turay.

“This man for a living is prosecuting criminals,” Durbin said of Turay. “This other individual is a clear criminal with a record. When we say ‘mass deportation,’ should we consider them the same because they’re both undocumented?”

Graham said when it comes to DACA, “hopefully we can find a solution to that problem.”

Over the weekend, Trump expressed his support for coming to an agreement with Democrats to allow DACA recipients to remain in the country, despite trying to end the program during his first term.

Use of National Guard

Durbin said he is concerned about Trump’s comments about using the National Guard to carry out mass deportations.

One of the witnesses, Randy Manner, a retired major general in the U.S. Army, said he sees problems with using the military for mass deportations.

It could affect military readiness, he said, and the military is not trained in that capacity.

“Immigration enforcement is the responsibility of federal law enforcement agencies,” Manner said.

He added that having soldiers carry out that directive would have a negative impact on morale and recruiting. Manner also said having the U.S. military involved in that kind of political messaging would erode public trust.

Cost of mass deportations

Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar said not only would mass deportations be harmful to communities, but a financial strain as well.

Reichlin-Melnick said industries that would be hit particularly hard by losing employees would include construction, agriculture and hospitality.

Reichlin-Melnick also argued that ICE already focuses on arresting and conducting deportation proceedings for noncitizens with criminal records.

“The overwhelming majority of people who would be the target of a mass deportation campaign do not have criminal records,” he said. “They are people who have been living otherwise law-abiding lives in this country, living, working and, in many cases, paying taxes.”

Tennessee Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn suggested that local law enforcement should be empowered to carry out deportations, even though immigration enforcement is a federal issue.

Art Arthur, a resident fellow in law and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that advocates for sharply limiting immigration, supported that idea.

“They’re going to be the people who are best able to pull those individuals out of the community,” Arthur said of local law enforcement.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, speaks with reporters inside the U.S. Capitol after returning from a meeting at the White House on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024.  (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday tripped and fell after a GOP lunch, sprained his wrist and sustained a small cut on his face, his office said in a statement.

The Kentucky Republican is doing fine, and after receiving medical attention, “has been cleared to resume his schedule,” his office said in the three-sentence statement read to reporters.

McConnell, 82, is a polio survivor, and has tripped in the past.

The incoming Senate GOP leader, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, said that McConnell was “fine” and deferred all other questions to McConnell’s office. 

President-elect Donald Trump was interviewed for the edition of NBC News’ “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker” that aired on Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024. (Photo courtesy of NBC News)

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump vowed to sign an executive order on his first day in office to end the constitutional right to U.S. citizenship for anyone born in the country, during an extensive Sunday interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker.”

But Trump also admitted there would be legal hurdles to carrying out his policy goal of amending the 14th Amendment. Many constitutional legal scholars have argued that Trump could not halt what is known as birthright citizenship through an executive order.

“We have to end it,” Trump told Welker. “We’re going to end that because it’s ridiculous.”

On other immigration topics, he said he is willing to make a deal with Democrats on keeping so-called Dreamers in the U.S., and he supports deporting entire families in his mass deportation plans, even if the children themselves are U.S. citizens.

But some of his most extensive comments were on birthright citizenship. “We’re gonna have to get it changed,” Trump said of the 14th Amendment.

Ratified in 1868

The U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868 and guarantees U.S. citizenship to anyone born in the country.

“All persons born or naturalised in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside,” according to the 14th Amendment.

Trump said that he will try to end birthright citizenship through an executive order, “if we can.”

Experts take issue. “There is today no serious scholarly debate about whether a president can, through executive action, contradict the Supreme Court’s long-standing and consistent interpretation of the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment,” Gerald Neuman, director of the human rights program at Harvard Law School, said in a statement in 2018 along with a group of constitutional law scholars.

Two-thirds of both the U.S. House and Senate would be required to vote to approve an amendment changing the Constitution, and three-fourths of state legislatures would have to ratify such an amendment for it to take effect. A convention could also be called by two-thirds of state legislatures.

While Republicans are set to control both chambers by January, it’s not by a margin of two-thirds.

During the interview, Trump also inaccurately claimed that the United States is the only country in the world that has birthright citizenship. More than a dozen countries bestow birthright citizenship, from Canada to Brazil.

Some countries have birthright citizenship, but with restrictions, such as France, which requires at least one parent be a citizen in order for the child to obtain citizenship.

A branch extended to Dreamers

Welker asked Trump what his plans are for the Dreamers, the more than 500,000 people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that he tried to end during his first administration. The DACA program is currently waiting for a federal court to decide its legal fate.

“These are people that have been brought here at a very young age and many of these are middle-aged people now, they don’t even speak the language of their country,” he said.

Trump said that he would “work with the Democrats on a plan,” but did not elaborate on any details.

Welker asked Trump about his mass deportation plans, a campaign pledge to deport millions of undocumented people, and how that would affect the more than 4 million mixed-status families, meaning families with different immigration statuses.

“I don’t want to be breaking up families,” Trump said. “So the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back.”

Welker asked if that included, “even kids who are here legally?”

“Whatcha gonna do if they want to stay with the father?” Trump said. “We have to have rules and regulations.”

Trump did not answer repeated questions as to whether he would bring back one of his harshest immigration policies, known as family separation, that separated parents from their children at the border. While most have been reunited, there are still about a quarter of children who are not with their parents.

“We don’t have to separate families,” Trump said. “We’ll send the whole family very humanely, back to the country where they came.”

 

 

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Ur M. Jaddou speaks at a U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on Dec. 4, 2024. Republican members of the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement sharply questioned Jaddou on her agency's handling of immigration benefits, applications and petitions. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Republican members of a U.S. House Judiciary Committee panel scrutinized the head of the Department of Homeland Security agency tasked with processing legal pathways to immigration during a contentious hearing Wednesday about the Biden administration’s parole program that grants temporary protections for nationals from some countries.

That program temporarily grants work permits and allows nationals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to remain in the country if they are sponsored by someone in the United States.

Rep. Tom McClintock of California, the chair of the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement, accused U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services of creating “unlawful” pathways to legal immigration through humanitarian parole programs – an authority presidents have used since the 1950s.

The chair of the full Judiciary Committee, Jim Jordan of Ohio, also grilled USCIS Director Ur Jaddou about if parole programs “of this magnitude” had been used before.

Since President Joe Biden launched the program in 2022, more than 500,000 people have been paroled through that authority.

Jaddou said that historically, presidents have used some kind of parole authority.

The top Democrat on the panel, Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, criticized Republicans for wanting to curtail legal pathways to immigration and argued that the U.S. workforce is reliant on immigrants.

“The truth is that we benefit from the contributions of immigrants and their families in every single field of work,” she said.

Funding structure blamed

USCIS is a roughly $5 billion agency that is primarily funded by filing fees from immigrants – about 96% – not through congressional appropriations, which make up the remaining 4% of its budget.

Jayapal defended the agency, arguing that Jaddou had to rebuild USCIS after the first Trump administration and a budget deficit from the COVID-19 pandemic that closed offices and led to fees plummeting.

The agency handles applications for naturalization, green card applications, family visas, some work visas, humanitarian programs and adoptions of children from non-U.S. countries, among other things.

Jaddou said one of the biggest challenges is that because USCIS operates on fees, if there is a funding crisis it can cause funding to freeze and puts limitations on hiring and overall efficiency.  

“We do not have effective legal immigration systems to meet the needs of the nation,” she said.

Jaddou said, for example, funding constraints limit the number of asylum officers hired.

“It limits us in our humanitarian work,” she said.

Questions about fraud

Arizona Republican Rep. Andy Biggs questioned Jaddou about fraud in the parole program, which caused a temporary pause in applications over the summer to investigate some of the U.S-based sponsors.

“The program was paused for five weeks because of fraud,” Biggs said.

McClintock asked Jaddou if she knew how many parolees had changed in their immigration status and how many paroles have been renewed since the program began in 2022.

Jaddou said she didn’t have those numbers, which frustrated McClintock.

“This is outrageous.” he said. “You were asked these questions in September, you were told in advance of this hearing that they would be asked again, and you were advised to have answers for us. These are basic questions of data.”

California Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren asked what improvements USCIS has made in light of the investigations into U.S.-based sponsors.

Jaddou answered that the agency added biometric requirements such as fingerprints and photos and allowed for automated systems to cross-check Social Security numbers. She said that employees were also re-trained and given guidance to monitor for potential fraud.

“We saw some issues, we took action,” Jaddou said.

New Jersey Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew said he was frustrated with the agency’s backlogs and that it takes years to process green cards.

“I think you’re doing a bad job,” he said to Jaddou. “You’ve hurt legal Americans and legal immigrants and helped some folks who shouldn’t be in this country.”

Van Drew asked if USCIS has diverted its resources from processing other legal pathway applications by focusing on parole applicants.  

Jaddou said the agency hasn’t.

“Well I disagree with you,” he said. 

 

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., talks to reporters on Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024, after she was elected as chair of Senate Democrats' Steering and Policy Committee, the No. 3 leadership post. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Democrats in closed-door elections Tuesday selected leaders for their caucus, and elevated Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar to the No. 3 spot and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker to No. 4.

Klobuchar will replace retiring Michigan Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow as the chair of the influential Steering and Policy Committee.

“I am someone that believes you need to stand your ground, but also find common ground and look for solutions,” Klobuchar said during a Tuesday press conference. 

Booker joined the leadership ranks in a newly created position as the chair of the Strategic Communications Committee.

“I look forward to serving not just this caucus, but really the larger mission of advancing our country and advancing an agenda that really is focused on Americans,” Booker said.

Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin was elected again to serve as the party’s whip, the No. 2 Democrat.

Chuck Schumer of New York was unanimously elected as Democrats’ leader, according to a Senate Democratic leadership aide. Schumer has been the Democratic leader since 2017, after the late Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada retired.

“Our caucus has led the way in passing historic legislation that has improved the lives of millions of Americans and we remain laser focused on addressing the most pressing challenges facing our country,” Schumer said in a statement after the elections. 

“We have a lot of work ahead — in the Senate and as a country — and in this upcoming Congress, our caucus will continue to fight for what’s best for America’s working class. Senate Democrats are ready to get to work for you, the American people,” he continued.

Shift in control

The party leadership elections came as Democrats lost their slim majority in the Senate, and Republicans picked up four seats in Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia last month. Republicans will be in the majority, 53-47.

Despite losing control of the upper chamber when the new Congress convenes in January, Schumer said Democrats will aim to work in a bipartisan manner.

“As I have long said, our preference is to secure bipartisan solutions wherever possible and look for ways to collaborate with our Republican colleagues to help working families,” Schumer said. “However, our Republican colleagues should make no mistake about it, we will always stand up for our values.”

‘We defied gravity’

Klobuchar said she will miss her Senate colleagues like Ohio’s Sherrod Brown and Montana’s Jon Tester, both defeated in their reelection bids.

But she said Democrats still won tough races in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin, which she credited to Schumer’s efforts.

“And in many ways when you look at this election,” Klobuchar said, drawing out a purposeful pause before she continued, “we defied gravity.”

She then looked around the room and asked reporters what she was referencing, until one grumbled: “Wicked.”

“That’s right, we defied gravity,” Klobuchar said, proud of her pop culture reference to a song in the newly released movie “Wicked.”

“And that is what we will continue to do in terms of reaching out to these people in our country, to the voters who maybe didn’t hear us as well as they should have, and so that’s one of the reasons I’m so excited to be working with Cory (Booker) on this,” Klobuchar said.

Among other leadership positions, Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Mark Warner of Virginia were elected as co-vice chairs of the conference.

Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin was elected as the Senate Democratic Conference secretary and Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto as the vice chair of Outreach. The chair of Outreach is Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. 

 

President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the results of the 2024 election in the Rose Garden at the White House on Nov. 7, 2024 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son from federal gun and tax crimes —and any other offenses over a nearly 11-year period — has drawn outrage from Republicans, while only a few Democrats have criticized the outgoing president for establishing a potential precedent for the incoming GOP administration.

In a lengthy Sunday night statement, Biden laid out his reasoning for reversing his long-stated position that he would not give his son a pardon. He argued that Hunter Biden was unfairly targeted by Republicans and noted that investigations began in December 2020, shortly after Biden won the presidential election.

The pardon would cover offenses which Hunter Biden “has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024,” the executive grant of clemency signed by Biden said.

“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong,” Biden said.

Trump and Jan. 6

President-elect Donald Trump took to his social media site, TruthSocial, where he called the move  “an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!”

Trump questioned whether Biden’s pardon would include the 29 inmates held in the District of Columbia jail for offenses related to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Of those, 27 are charged with assaulting law enforcement after Trump riled up his supporters to overturn the presidential election he lost.

“Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years?” Trump wrote.

With the move, Biden joined Trump and former President Bill Clinton in pardoning family members.

Biden has one of the lowest clemency rates compared to prior presidents. There are currently more than 10,500 petitions for clemency that were submitted to the White House, according to recent Department of Justice clemency statistics.  

Trump granted 143 pardons during his first term and so far Biden has granted 26 pardons, including his son’s. Former President Barack Obama granted 212 pardons.

Advocates and Democrats have pressed Biden to exert his clemency powers on behalf of the 40 men on federal death row before his term expires in January. The push comes as Trump is set to return to the White House. The former president expedited 13 executions of people on federal death row in the last six months of his first term.  

The co-executive directors of Popular Democracy in Action, a progressive advocacy group, Analilia Mejia and DaMareo Cooper, said in a joint statement that Biden should “provide the same compassion he gave his son and pardon the 10,000 clemency petitions on his desk.”

“The President has the power to provide clemency to thousands of people who have been wronged by the laws governing the judicial system and the political considerations that engendered them,” they said.

Hunter Biden’s federal charges stem from a 2018 gun purchase. He lied on a form by checking a box that affirmed he was not using illegal drugs, but he did then use drugs while owning the firearm.

A federal jury convicted him in June and the gun charges carried a possible prison sentence.

Hunter Biden also pleaded guilty to separate federal tax charges in California.

Target for Republicans

Over the course of Biden’s presidency, House Republicans have held hearings and inquiries into the finances of the Biden family, focusing on Hunter Biden in an attempt to broadly stick corruption charges to the president. No evidence has shown any wrongdoing by the president.

But the pardon gave fresh ammunition to Biden critics, who noted it contradicted what the president had long promised.

House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chair James Comer, Republican of Kentucky, in a statement said Sunday that Biden “has lied from start to finish about his family’s corrupt influence peddling activities.”

“The charges Hunter faced were just the tip of the iceberg in the blatant corruption that President Biden and the Biden Crime Family have lied about to the American people,” Comer said. “It’s unfortunate that, rather than come clean about their decades of wrongdoing, President Biden and his family continue to do everything they can to avoid accountability.”

Many Republicans criticized Biden for reversing his long-standing stance that he would not pardon his son.

“President Biden insisted many times he would never pardon his own son for his serious crimes,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, said on social media. “But last night he suddenly granted a ‘Full and Unconditional Pardon’ for any and all offenses that Hunter committed for more than a decade! Trust in our justice system has been almost irreparably damaged by the Bidens and their use and abuse of it.”

Selective Democrats object

Democrats in Congress have largely remained silent about the pardon, but some, including Ohio’s Greg Landsman and Arizona’s Greg Stanton, criticized the move.

“As a father, I get it,” Landsman wrote on social media. “But as someone who wants people to believe in public service again, it’s a setback.”

Stanton in a social media post wrote that while he respected Biden, “I think he got this one wrong.”

“This wasn’t a politically-motivated prosecution,” he said. “Hunter committed felonies, and was convicted by a jury of his peers.”

Colorado U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet wrote on social media that “President Biden’s decision put personal interest ahead of duty and further erodes Americans’ faith that the justice system is fair and equal for all.”

Michigan U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, chair of the Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee, wrote on social media that the president’s decision to pardon his son was wrong. 

“A president’s family and allies shouldn’t get special treatment,” Peters said. “This was an improper use of power, it erodes trust in our government, and it emboldens others to bend justice to suit their interests.”

On CNN, Maryland U.S. Rep. Glenn Ivey said that he had “mixed views” about the pardoning.

“I know that there was a real strong sentiment in, you know, wanting to protect Hunter Biden from unfair prosecution,” he said. “But this is going to be used against us when we’re fighting the misuses that are coming from the Trump administration.”

Trump pardons

Trump himself granted controversial pardons, including of Paul Manafort, a former campaign official who was convicted of tax and bank fraud amid alleged interference by Russia in the 2016 presidential election.

He also pardoned Roger Stone, who was convicted on charges of lying to Congress about his knowledge of Russian efforts to discredit former first lady and 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential race.

Trump also pardoned his son-in-law’s father, Charles Kushner, who was charged with tax evasion and retaliating against a federal witness, who was the elder Kushner’s brother-in-law. Trump on Saturday announced his intent to appoint Kushner as the next U.S. ambassador to France. 

 

President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden talks to reporters outside the U.S. Capitol on Dec. 13, 2023. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden Sunday night announced he has pardoned his son Hunter, a reversal in his long-standing pledge that he would not exert his executive authority to clear his son of gun-related charges and tax crimes.

“I believe in the justice system,” Biden said in a statement. “But as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice — and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further. I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.”

Hunter, who is Biden’s only living son, was a frequent target of Republicans, who, through various investigations, sought to link broad corruption charges to the president and his son. No evidence has shown any wrongdoing by the president.

“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong,” Biden said. “There has been an effort to break Hunter — who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution.”

Hunter Biden’s gun conviction before a federal jury in June stemmed from lying on a gun purchase in 2018. He checked a box that affirmed he was not using illegal drugs, but he did then use drugs while owning the firearm. The gun charges carried a possible prison sentence.

Separately, Hunter Biden also pleaded guilty to federal tax charges in California.

The decision came at the end of a holiday weekend and as Biden is winding down his presidency and President-elect Donald Trump is set to take office in January.

U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, blasted the move by the president, saying he has “lied from start to finish about his family’s corrupt influence peddling activities.”

A worker saws wood at Canal Crossing, a new luxury apartment community consisting of 393 rental units near the university city of New Haven on Aug. 2, 2017 in Hamden, Connecticut. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump late Friday announced his intent to nominate former NFL player and Texas state lawmaker Scott Turner to lead the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“Scott will work alongside me to Make America Great Again for EVERY American,” Trump said in a statement.

Turner, if confirmed by the Senate, will administer a roughly $68 billion agency that provides rental assistance, builds and preserves affordable housing, addresses homelessness and enforces the Fair Housing Act that prohibits discrimination in housing.

Turner has some experience with housing. During the first Trump administration, he worked with then-HUD Secretary Ben Carson on Opportunity Zones, which were part of the 2017 law that provided tax breaks for investors who put money into designated low-income areas.

“Those efforts, working together with former HUD Secretary, Ben Carson, were maximized by Scott’s guidance in overseeing 16 Federal Agencies which implemented more than 200 policy actions furthering Economic Development,” Trump said. “Under Scott’s leadership, Opportunity Zones received over $50 Billion Dollars in Private Investment!”

Turner will be tasked with addressing the housing shortage of about 3.8 million homes for sale and rent, according to 2021 estimates from Freddie Mac that are still relied upon. Homelessness has also hit a record high of 653,100 people since January of last year, according to a study by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.

While on the campaign trail, Trump proposed opening up federal lands for housing, which would mean selling the land for construction purposes with the commitment for a certain percentage of the units to be kept for affordable housing. The federal government owns about 650 million acres of land, or roughly 30% of all land.

Trump has also opposed building multi-family housing, and has instead favored single-family zoning and while such land-use regulation is controlled on the local level, the federal government could influence it.

During Trump’s first term, he proposed slashing many of HUD’s programs, although those requests were not granted by Congress. However, for his second term he’ll have control of both chambers.

In all of Trump’s budget requests, he laid out proposals that would increase rent by 40% for about 4 million low-income households using rental vouchers or for those who lived in public housing, according to an analysis by the left-leaning think tank the Brookings Institution.

Trump also called for cutting housing programs such as the Community Development Block Grant, which directs funding to local and state governments to rehabilitate and build affordable housing.

The former president’s budget requests also would have slashed the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, known as LIHEAP, which assists low-income families.

President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday said he intends to tap Brooke Rollins, the president and CEO of the America First Policy Institute, as USDA secretary. In this photo, Rollins speaks during an event on education at the institute on Jan. 28, 2022 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump Saturday announced his intent to name Brooke Rollins of Texas, the president and CEO of the pro-Trump America First Policy Institute, to lead the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“As our next Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke will spearhead the effort to protect American Farmers, who are truly the backbone of our Country,” Trump said in a statement.

Trump’s statement said Rollins is a graduate of Texas A&M University, with an undergraduate degree in agriculture development.

“From her upbringing in the small and Agriculture-centered town of Glen Rose, Texas, to her years of leadership involvement with Future Farmers of America and 4H, to her generational Family Farming background, to guiding her four kids in their show cattle careers, Brooke has a practitioner’s experience, along with deep Policy credentials in both Nonprofit and Government leadership at the State and National levels,” the statement said.

Multiple news reports Friday had quoted sources close to Trump saying he would name former U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, a Georgia Republican, as secretary of agriculture.

Billions in spending

Rollins, if confirmed by the Senate, would run a crucial agency that administers roughly $213 billion in mandatory and discretionary funding. The current secretary is Tom Vilsack, a former governor of Iowa.

USDA manages food safety practices, conducts agriculture and conservation research, handles farm management and administers the government’s largest food benefits program for low-income families, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

The agency also provides federal grants for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC.

During the first Trump administration, Rollins served in several roles, including with the Domestic Policy Council. She was also director of the Office of American Innovation, and assistant to the president for strategic initiatives, the statement said.

“In these roles, she developed and managed the transformational domestic policy agenda of the Trump Administration, leading to historic achievements for the American people,” according to her biography.

A conservative lawyer, Rollins earned her law degree at the University of Texas. Rollins later served as the policy director for former Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who was the secretary of Energy in the first Trump administration.

Rollins also ran the Texas Public Policy Foundation — a conservative think tank — for 15 years.

Farm bill at a standstill

One big effort for the next secretary is to work with Congress to finalize the delayed farm bill that sets agriculture and conservation policy for the next five years. A big portion of the farm bill consists of the nutrition program, or SNAP.

USDA is also implementing portions of the Biden administration’s climate and clean energy program, known as the Inflation Reduction Act. Over the next five years, the IRA will provide USDA with about $20 billion for conservation programs that mitigate climate change.

Republicans have been critical of the climate law, and have vowed to claw back some of the funds.

Rollins is likely to work closely with former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom Trump says he will nominate to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy, if confirmed by the Senate, has publicly voiced his plans to influence the agriculture industry. 

South Carolina Democratic Rep. James Clyburn urges President Joe Biden to recommit sentences of federal death row inmates during a Wednesday press conference outside the U.S. Capitol. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — House Democrats and anti-death penalty advocates pressed Wednesday for President Joe Biden to save the lives of federal death row inmates before his term expires in January.

The push comes as President-elect Donald Trump is set to return to the White House. The former president expedited 13 executions of people on federal death row in the last six months of his first term, which advocates said increased the urgency for Biden to spare prisoners now facing death sentences.

“I joined the abolition movement during the federal killing spree under the first Trump administration,” said Brandi Slaughter, a board member of the death penalty abolition group, Death Penalty Action. “We know what the next president plans to do if any prisoners are left under a sentence of death at the end of the Biden administration. We’ve been there.”

There are currently 40 people on federal death row, all men. There have been no federal executions under the Biden administration. 

On the campaign trail, Trump often called for the death penalty, including for migrants who kill U.S. citizens and human traffickers.

Outside the U.S. Capitol Wednesday, Democratic Reps. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, James Clyburn of South Carolina, Mary Scanlon of Pennsylvania and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota pressed for Biden to exercise his clemency authority before Trump comes into office on Jan. 20 next year.

“The mass incarceration crisis is one of our country’s greatest failures,” Pressley said. “It is a policy failure, and it is a moral failure. The shameful crisis that has ravaged our communities, destabilized our families and inflicted generational struggle for far too long.”

Pressley’s father was incarcerated during her early life.

“The system only offered him criminalization and incarceration for his substance use disorder, and as a child, I was forced to also carry that burden, that stigma, that shame,” she said.

Calls for clemency

Pressley said Democrats sent Biden a letter asking him to use his clemency, and proposed types of convicts who should be prioritized. The letter was signed by 64 House Democrats.

Pressley said examples of those deserving leniency included prisoners who are elderly, chronically ill, subjected to sentencing disparities between crack and powder cocaine and women who were “punished for defending themselves against their abusers or were coerced into criminal activity as part of an abusive relationship.” 

“Those on death row who are at risk of barbaric and inhumane murder at the hands of the Trump administration can have their death sentence commuted and be resentenced to a prison term,” she said.

“We’re here today to ask him to take another step in that direction and to demonstrate, once again, a very positive consequence of his having been elected our 46th president, and to carry out his clemency powers in a very positive way,” Clyburn said.

Omar said that “clemency represents a critical opportunity to correct long-standing injustices, recognize human potential for redemption and acknowledge that our legal system has often been more punitive than restorative.”

In addition to advocating for death-row clemency, Scanlon said that Biden should consider pardoning people for simple marijuana possession and former LGBTQ service members who were convicted under military law because of their sexual orientation.

The Biden administration earlier this year did move to pardon military vets who were charged under military law for same-sex relationships.

Last year, Biden granted clemency to nearly a dozen people for nonviolent drug offenses. In 2022, he granted clemency to nearly 80 people charged with nonviolent crimes.  

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem speaks at the Calvin Coolidge Foundation conference at the Library of Congress on Feb. 17, 2023 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday night he will nominate South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem to lead the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which will carry out Trump’s plan to conduct mass deportations of millions of people in the country without proper legal status.

“Kristi has been very strong on Border Security,” Trump said in a statement.  “She will work closely with “Border Czar” Tom Homan to secure the Border, and will guarantee that our American Homeland is secure from our adversaries. I have known Kristi for years, and have worked with her on a wide variety of projects – She will be a great part of our mission to Make America Safe Again.”

DHS is the agency primarily responsible for immigration enforcement and border security and handles temporary protections to allow immigrants to live and work in the United States. As Trump rolls out his nominees, Noem would be the first governor to get the nod for the Cabinet.

DHS has about 260,000 federal employees and a nearly $62 billion discretionary budget authority.

The news had already caused a backlash among Democrats even before Trump’s announcement, as media reports said Noem would be selected.

“With a long history of championing Trump’s draconian immigration policies, Governor Kristi Noem will carry out his cruel plans without a second thought,” Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in a statement.

Noem said in a statement she is “honored and humbled” to be selected.

“I look forward to working with Border Czar Tom Homan to make America SAFE again,” said Noem. “With Donald Trump, we will secure the Border, and restore safety to American communities so that families will again have the opportunity to pursue The American Dream.”

Noem, a staunch Trump ally, was one of several Republican governors who sent U.S. National Guard troops to the southern border in Texas, in a rebuke to the Biden administration and its immigration policies. She’s also visited the southern border several times.

Noem served in Congress from 2011 until 2019, when she left after winning her 2018 run for governor. She’s in her second term that is set to expire in 2026.

While in Congress, she served on the U.S. House Armed Services, Ways and Means and Agriculture committees.

Noem did not sit on the committee that provides oversight for DHS, the Homeland Security Committee.

Noem joins border czar

In Trump’s second administration, Noem would join several former Trump officials who were the architects and biggest defenders of his hard-line immigration policies. The three are among Trump’s first staffing announcements.

On Monday, Trump dubbed the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the previous Trump administration, Homan, as his “border czar.” Homan backed the controversial “zero tolerance” policy that separated nearly 5,000 migrant families at the southern border.

Stephen Miller, who steered many of Trump’s first-term immigration policies, is set to join the White House as a deputy chief of staff for policy.

Vanessa Cárdenas, the executive director of the immigration advocacy group America’s Voice, said in a statement that the appointment of Miller and Homan signals that “mass deportations will be indiscriminate and unsparing.”

“The Stephen Miller and Tom Homan appointments are disturbing, if unsurprising, signals that we should take Donald Trump seriously and literally about his proposed largest deportation operation in American history and the unsparing, indiscriminate, and costly nature of what’s to come,” Cárdenas said.

Noem’s nomination to Trump’s Cabinet would have to go through Senate confirmation, where she could face questions about an anecdote in her memoir. She retracted a story about meeting North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un after reporters questioned whether the meeting actually happened.

Additionally, in the same memoir, she disclosed that she shot her 14-month-old puppy, named Cricket, because of behavioral issues. The revelation drew intense criticism from both sides of the political aisle.

Vast responsibilities

DHS is a sprawling agency consisting of  U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Transportation Security Administration, U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Coast Guard, among other national security agencies.

The Secret Service is under intense scrutiny after major shortfalls in its prevention of the first assassination attempt against Trump last summer, where he sustained an injury to his ear. That first assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, led to the director, Kimberly Cheatle, resigning.

Ronald L. Rowe, the U.S. Secret Service deputy director, is currently serving as the acting director, and was praised for the agency’s swift action in the second assassination attempt against Trump at his private golf course in Florida. 

President-elect Donald Trump said Monday he would nominate former U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin, a New York Republican, as EPA administrator. In this photo, Zeldin speaks during his election night party on June 28, 2022 in Baldwin, New York, after winning the GOP primary for New York governor. He lost in the general election. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump Monday said he will nominate former U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York to serve as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Zeldin, also a former GOP candidate for New York governor, said on social media that it would be an honor to be appointed to Trump’s Cabinet. The Senate, which Republicans will control next year, will have to confirm Zeldin’s nomination.

Zeldin does not necessarily come from an environmental background. He’s an attorney and currently serves as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve. While in Congress from 2015 to 2023, he served on the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee and on the House Financial Services Committee.

“We will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI,” Zeldin wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water.”

In a statement, Trump said that Zeldin comes from a “strong legal background,” and “has been a true fighter for America First policies.”

Zeldin serves as a chair of America First Policy Institute, a right-wing think tank that is packed with former Trump officials.

“He will ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses, while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water on the planet,” Trump said. “He will set new standards on environmental review and maintenance, that will allow the United States to grow in a healthy and well-structured way.”

During Zeldin’s run for New York governor in 2022, a man attacked him on stage, but was quickly apprehended and Zeldin was uninjured.  New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul won the race.

Former Acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Thomas Homan speaks on stage on the third day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 17, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump late Sunday announced he will appoint Tom Homan as “border czar” in his administration as Trump seeks to carry out his campaign commitment of mass deportations of immigrants who lack permanent legal status.

Homan is the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the previous Trump administration who backed the controversial “zero tolerance” policy that separated families at the southern border.

Homan will have authority over the southern border, northern border, the maritime border and aviation security, according to a post from Trump’s social media site, Truth Social. Trump did not in the social media post specify what exact government post Homan would occupy.

“I’ve known Tom for a long time, and there is nobody better at policing and controlling our Borders,” Trump said. “I have no doubt he will do a fantastic, and long awaited for, job.”

Another former Trump official who played a heavy role in immigration policy, Stephen Miller, will be appointed as White House deputy chief of staff for policy, according to CNN. Vice president-elect J.D. Vance congratulated Miller on X, formerly known as Twitter. 

As the incoming Trump administration plans to carry out mass deportations of people without proper legal status, Trump said Homan will be in charge of sending deported people back to their countries of origin. In order for that to happen, the country of origin must agree to accept those people the United States wants to deport.

Homan served as acting director of ICE from 2017 to 2018. In a recent interview with CBS News, he said that deportations would be targeted.

“It’s going to be a well-targeted, planned operation conducted by the men of ICE. The men and women of ICE do this daily. They’re good at it,” Homan said. “When we go out there, we’re going to know who we’re looking for. We most likely know where they’re going to be, and it’s going to be done in a humane manner.”

There are more than 14.4 million individuals who live in mixed status families, meaning that at least one member has a different legal status. During the interview, Homan was asked if mass deportations could happen without separating families.

“Of course there is,” he said. “Families can be deported together.”

Under the 2018 “zero tolerance” policy, at least 5,000 migrant families were separated. The Department of Homeland Security has reunited about 74% of those families, but there are still 998 children who have not been reunited.

Trump has previously declined to say whether he would resume family separations in a second term.

“Well, when you have that policy, people don’t come. If a family hears that they’re going to be separated, they love their family. They don’t come. So I know it sounds harsh,” Trump said during a CNN town hall in May 2023. 

People demonstrate and call out words of encouragement to detainees held inside the Metropolitan Detention Center after marching to decry Trump administration immigration and refugee policies on June 30, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A federal judge late Thursday struck down a White House policy that created a pathway to citizenship for people in the country lacking permanent status who were married to a U.S. citizen.

Eastern District of Texas Judge J. Campbell Barker ruled that the Biden administration overstepped its authority and the program “stretches legal interpretation past its breaking point” of U.S. immigration law. The suit was brought by Texas and other Republican-led states.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s program, called “Keeping Families Together,” would have shielded at least 550,000 immigrant spouses and their children from deportation.

With less than three months before President-elect Donald Trump is sworn into office, it’s unlikely the incoming administration will defend the program, and Trump has vowed to carry out mass deportations.

In a Thursday interview with NBC News, Trump said “there is no price tag” when it comes to mass deportations and that his administration will have “no choice” but to carry them out.

“We obviously have to make the border strong and powerful and, and we have to — at the same time, we want people to come into our country,” he said to NBC. “And you know, I’m not somebody that says, ‘No, you can’t come in.’ We want people to come in.”

Enacting mass deportations would be a costly undertaking that would require congressional approval, which could be easier if Trump is granted GOP control of Congress. Republicans are inching towards control of both chambers.  

As the former president is set to enter a second term in January, he has vowed to immediately begin carrying out mass deportations and ending programs that have granted temporary protections for immigrants such as humanitarian parole.

Trump has criticized the Biden policy that was struck down Thursday as a “mass amnesty” program.

“Mass amnesty” is a legal term that is considered an official pardon, but the program had certain requirements. The individuals considered for citizenship had to have been married to a U.S. citizen for at least a decade and undergo an extreme vetting procedure by DHS.

“This is unsustainable and can’t be allowed to continue!” Trump wrote of the program when it was announced in June. “On day one, we will SHUT DOWN THE BORDER and start deporting millions of Biden’s Illegal Criminals.”

The Texas judge, Barker, was appointed during Trump’s first term. The program was already put on hold in August when Texas GOP Attorney General Ken Paxton led a suit against it.

The states that joined the suit are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Wyoming.

Those states argued that the Biden administration overreached its authority in creating the program and that it would financially harm states if the people qualifying for citizenship were allowed to remain in the country.

The states were represented by America First Legal, an organization established by Trump adviser Stephen Miller — the architect of Trump’s hard-line immigration policies during his first term.

Ashley DeAzevedo, the President of American Families United, which represents U.S. citizens married to people without permanent status, in a statement urged the Biden administration to appeal the case.  

“District Court Judge J. Campbell Barker did not just dismantle the Keeping Families Together program, he shattered the hopes of hundreds of thousands of American families,” she said. “Families like ours deserve better than this blatant attempt to stop a legal program, and we will not stop until the courts rectify this injustice.”

It’s estimated that roughly 500,000 spouses without legal status and their children would have been eligible to apply for a lawful permanent residence — a green card — under certain requirements. About 50,000 children who do not have legal status and have an immigrant parent married to a U.S. citizen would have also been included in that benefit.

The Department of Justice did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment. 

A woman holds a sign calling for “Mass deportation now!” at the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to conduct mass deportations of millions of immigrants in the country without authorization. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom.)

WASHINGTON — Immigration advocates and civil rights groups are preparing to take on President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign promises to  crack down on immigration, from reviving controversial policies of his first term to enacting mass deportations.  

Trump has pledged to end, immediately after retaking office, parole programs that have allowed immigrants to work and live in the country legally. In those humanitarian parole programs, as of 2021, there were more than 1 million immigrants with temporary protections.

What is likely to immediately follow is the re-implementation of his previous immigration policies, such as bans on allowing people from predominantly Muslim countries into the United States and reinstating the “Remain in Mexico” policy that requires asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while they await their cases.

Immigration groups are preparing for those policies and the ones to follow ahead of Inauguration Day.

Sirine Shebaya, executive director of the National Immigration Project, laid out a sobering reality.  

“We recognize that many are feeling terrified about what the next four years will bring,” she said in a statement. “While we cannot stop all the harms from coming to pass, we say to everyone facing harm: we are here to do everything in our power to support and protect each other.”

The American Civil Liberties Union, which was at the forefront of challenging some of Trump’s harshest immigration policies during his first term, said on social media it is prepared for legal challenges beginning on Trump’s first day in office. 

Greisa Martínez Rosas, executive director of the largest immigrant youth organization, United We Dream, said in a statement that with Trump promising to plan mass deportations, they are “clear eyed about the fight ahead.”

“We will use and grow our power to new heights, building the largest pro-immigrant movement this country has ever seen, to fight back against white nationalism, and to enact a vision for the future that honors our values of a pluralistic democracy where everyone can live and thrive without fear,” Martínez Rosas said.

Deportations

Some immediate deportations could include those already in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, which was 37,395 as of September.

It could also include expanding expedited removals, which means if a person lacking permanent legal status is in the country for two years without a court hearing or any type of authorization, they can be deported without a hearing before a judge.

That type of removal is limited to 100 miles from a border. However, during the first Trump administration, that zone was expanded to the rest of the country. A second Trump administration could do that again.

The Migration Policy Institute, an immigration think tank, has estimated that “the expansion of expedited removal to the U.S. interior could apply to as many as 288,000 people.”

Tom Homan, who served as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement from 2017 to 2018, told CBS News recently that mass deportation would be targeted.

“It’s not gonna be a mass sweep of neighborhoods,” he said. “They’ll be targeted arrests. We’ll know who we’re going to arrest, where we’re most likely to find ‘em based on numerous, you know, investigative processes.”

Funding

At issue would also be the cost of mass deportations.

Trump’s core campaign promise to enact mass deportations would be a costly undertaking that needs congressional approval — something that might be easier if the incoming president is granted control of both chambers.

The American Immigration Council, in a conservative estimate, found that it would cost $968 billion to remove the roughly 13 million immigrants in the country without authorization over the next ten years.

It would cost the government $89.3 billion in arrests, $167.8 billion to detain massive amounts of people, $34 billion on legal processing and $24 billion on removals, according to the analysis.

That funding would need to be appropriated through Congress.

As of Thursday morning, it was unclear if Trump would deal with a divided Congress or united GOP control. Republicans have flipped the Senate, and though there are still too many House races left to project control of the chamber, the GOP was inching toward a thin majority.

Economic impact

Economic experts have warned of the consequences of removing millions of workers.

Jeremy Robbins, the executive director of the American Immigration Council, tried to break down the economic effects of mass deportations.

“Should any president choose to pursue mass deportation, it would come at an extraordinary cost to the government while also devastating the economy,” Robbins said in a Wednesday statement.

“It’s critical that policymakers and the American public understand what this would involve: tens of billions of tax-payer dollars, already-strained industries devastated, millions of people locked up in detention, and thousands of families torn apart causing widespread terror and chaos in communities across the country.”

In 2022, households led by undocumented immigrants paid $75.6 billion in total taxes, according to the American Immigration Council. It’s estimated that about 4.8% of the U.S. workforce consists of unauthorized immigrants, according to the Pew Research Center. 

Maya Rudolph and Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris appear on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” on Nov. 2, 2024 in New York City. With only days to go until Election Day, Vice President Kamala Harris is campaigning in battleground states along with making the appearance on SNL. (Photo by Jeenah Moon/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — On the final frantic Sunday of the presidential race, while Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at a Black church service in Michigan, former President Donald Trump told supporters at a Pennsylvania rally that he “shouldn’t have left” the White House after he lost the 2020 presidential election.

At a campaign rally at an airplane tarmac in Lititz, Pennsylvania, Trump again perpetuated the falsehood that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him and claimed that this year’s election would also be stolen because election results could take a while to be counted.

“These elections have to be decided by 9 o’clock, 10 o’clock, 11 o’clock on Tuesday night,” he said. “Bunch of crooked people.”

Election officials have warned that results could take days to finalize.

The comments came as new polls showed good news for Harris. A highly regarded pollster in Iowa showed a shocking lead for Harris there and New York Times-Siena College polls of the seven major battleground states showed slight leads for Harris in some Sun Belt swing states, while Trump made gains in the Rust Belt.

As the campaign dwindles to its final hours, here are seven key developments from this weekend:

Trump says he ‘shouldn’t have left’ White House

Trump spent much of his Lititz rally complaining about the election process and media coverage, seeming to repeat his false claim that he was the rightful winner of the 2020 election.

“I shouldn’t have left, I mean, honestly,” Trump said. “We did so well, we had such a great — so now, every polling booth has hundreds of lawyers standing there.”

He also joked about shooters targeting reporters covering his event, the Pennsylvania Capital-Star reported.

He pointed to protective glass covering him on two sides and noted a press section was on another side of him.

“To get me, someone would have to shoot through the fake news,” Trump said. “And I don’t mind that so much.”

In a statement that seemed to contradict the plain meaning of Trump’s remark, campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung denied Trump was encouraging violence against reporters.

“The President’s statement about protective glass placement has nothing to do with the Media being harmed, or anything else,” Cheung wrote. “It was about threats against him that were spurred on by dangerous rhetoric from Democrats. In fact, President Trump was stating that the Media was in danger, in that they were protecting him and, therefore, were in great danger themselves, and should have had a glass protective shield, also. There can be no other interpretation of what was said. He was actually looking out for their welfare, far more than his own!”

Harris heads to the Big Apple

Harris made an unscheduled trip to New York City Saturday, where she made a surprise appearance during the cold open of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” alongside actress Maya Rudolph, who portrays the veep in the live sketch comedy show.

In the three-minute opener, Rudolph approaches a vanity dresser and wishes she could talk to “someone who was in my shoes” as a “Black, South Asian woman running for president, preferably from the Bay Area.”

Rudolph turns toward the faux mirror, and Harris, on the other side, responds, “You and me both, sister.”

They wore identical suits and Harris turned to Rudolph and said that she is “here to remind you, you got this.”

“Because you can do something your opponent cannot do. You can open doors,” Harris said, joking about a recent campaign event where Trump tried to open the door to a garbage truck.

Rudolph cackled, doing an impersonation of Harris’ laugh, before the two women began a pep talk with puns of Harris’ first name.

“Now, Kamala, take my palmala,” Rudolph said. “The American people want to stop the chaos.”

“And end the dramala,” Harris said.

Harris and Rudolph then stood side-by-side and said they were going to vote for “us.”

Harris joked and asked Rudolph if she was registered to vote in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.

Harris headed from New York to Michigan, where she spoke Sunday at the historically Black Greater Emmanuel Institutional Church of God in Christ in Detroit.

Polling bombshell in a non-swing state

Polling in the latest Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll, reported a shocking lead for Harris in a state that Trump easily won in 2016 and 2020, with women and independent voters breaking for the Democratic presidential nominee.

The poll shows Harris leading with 47% of likely voters compared to 44% with Trump, according to the Register.

The Trump campaign quickly called the Iowa poll “a clear outlier,” and instead cited a poll by Emerson College as accurate, which showed the former president having 53% support compared to 43% for Harris.

Trump also took his grievances to his social media site, Truth Social.

“All polls, except for one heavily skewed toward the Democrats by a Trump hater who called it totally wrong the last time, have me up, BY A LOT,” he wrote. “I LOVE THE FARMERS, AND THEY LOVE ME.”

The New York Times/Siena College Sunday polls found that Harris is improving in North Carolina and Georgia while Trump has gained in Pennsylvania and maintains a strong advantage in Arizona. Harris is still ahead in Nevada and Wisconsin, according to the poll, but Michigan and Pennsylvania remain tied. The poll of Georgia showed Harris with a 1-point edge.

Both candidates were within the polls’ margins of error, meaning that the seven swing states could tip to either candidate.

While both Democratic and Republican politicians have expressed confidence in winning the election, polling experts said during a panel hosted by the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute in late October there’s no way to know for sure who will control the White House until all the votes are counted.

Kristen Soltis Anderson, founding partner at Echelon Insights, said there’s about a 60% chance that this year’s nationwide polling has been mostly correct, though she emphasized that the people who focus their careers on political polling are dedicated to providing a realistic understanding of where campaigns are headed.

“We are trying our very hardest to get it right,” Anderson said. “Even if you don’t believe in our altruism or even if you don’t believe in our academic and intellectual integrity, believe in nothing else than our financial incentives. You want to be the pollster who was right. It is very good business to be the pollster who is right.”

Jeff Horwitt, partner at Hart Research, said during the panel his firm has wrapped up its polling for this election year and expressed skepticism about the polls that emerge close to Election Day.

“Because our job, for our political clients, is to tell them the contours of the election,” Horwitt said. “How do we convince voters to vote for our candidate? What are the most effective messages? What do we have to think about? So the public polls are seeing now, they’re super interesting, and they’re important, but they’re not actionable.”

Trump welcomes sexist insult

As Trump spent his weekend in a campaign blitz across North Carolina, he welcomed a sexist remark from a rallygoer in Greensboro who suggested that Harris worked as a prostitute.

During the Saturday night rally, Trump questioned whether Harris’ previously worked at a McDonald’s. Her campaign has stated that she worked the summer job in 1983. In a campaign photo opportunity, Trump visited a closed McDonald’s in Pennsylvania where he handed fries to pre-screened people at the drive through.

“It’s so simple,” Trump said. “She’s a significant liar, and when you lie about something so simple, so she never worked there –”

“She worked on a corner,” a man from the crowd shouted.

Trump laughed at the crude comment.

“This place is amazing,” Trump said. “Just remember, it’s other people saying it, it’s not me.”

Harris has significantly gained support with women, according to the Pew Research Center. Trump has often dismissed criticism that he has lagged among women.

During a rally last week in Wisconsin, and in an attempt to win over women voters, Trump said that he would protect women and “I’m going to do it whether the women like it or not.”

Trump repeats ‘father of fertilization’ claim

At a Greensboro, North Carolina, rally Saturday, Trump again called himself “the father of fertilization,” a title he first gave himself during a Fox News town hall with women voters last month.

“I consider myself to be the father of fertilization,” he said Saturday.

The Iowa poll — and other late surveys — showed a stark gender gap, with women voters increasingly preferring Harris.

Nearly twice as many Iowa independent women voters, 57% to 29%, favored Harris. That represents a major gain for Harris since a September survey by the same pollster showed the vice president’s edge with independent women was only 5 percentage points.

Democrats have sought to exploit their advantage with women voters by emphasizing Trump’s record on abortion access. The former president appointed three of the U.S. Supreme Court justices who voted in 2022 to overturn the federal right to an abortion.

A flurry of state-level policymaking on reproductive rights has followed, including restrictions on in vitro fertilization, a common fertility treatment.

Trump has said he opposed an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that outlawed the treatment in the state, but had not previously taken a position on the issue.

Early voters up to 76 million

More than 76 million voters had already cast ballots through early and mail voting by midday Sunday, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab.

Roughly half of those have come in states that track voters’ partisanship. About 700,000 — roughly 2% of the total — more Democrats have voted in those states than Republicans, but the numbers include California, where Democrat Joe Biden won more than 5 million more votes than Trump in the 2020 election.

Among the six states — Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Colorado, Idaho and Virginia — that track voters’ gender, women accounted for 54% of the vote, compared to 43.6% for men.

‘Election eve’ blitz

The candidates for president and vice president plan to sprint across the key swing states in the campaign’s final days, with particular focus on Pennsylvania, the largest of the contested states where polling has shown a deadlocked race.

The Harris campaign announced Sunday the vice president would be in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia on Monday, the night before Election Day, for rallies and musical performances. Scheduled entertainers and speakers included Oprah Winfrey, The Roots, Lady Gaga and Katy Perry.

Harris is also set to hold an event in Allentown, Pennsylvania, a majority-Latino city, on Monday. Part of Harris’ closing message has highlighted racist comments Trump and his supporters have made about Latinos.

After spending much of the weekend in North Carolina, Trump will also hold a rally in Pittsburgh on Monday evening.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate, will be in Milwaukee on Monday.

Trump running mate Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance will hold events in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania on Monday.

Harris will hold an election night watch party at her alma mater, Howard University, in Washington, D.C.

Trump’s watch party will be at his Mar-a-Lago club in West Palm Beach, Florida.

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Voters make selections at their voting booths inside an early voting site on Oct. 17, 2024 in Hendersonville, North Carolina. (Photo by Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — As an exceedingly bitter, tight and dark campaign for the presidency moves into its last moments, apprehensive election officials and experts warn Election Day is only the first step.

The closing of the polls and end of mail-in voting kick off a nearly three-month process before the next president of the United States is sworn in on Inauguration Day in January. New guardrails were enacted by Congress in 2022 to more fully protect the presidential transition, following the Jan. 6, 2021 mob attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters and a failed scheme to install fake electors.

But even before that shift to a new chief executive begins, a presidential victor is unlikely to be announced election night or even the following day.

It’s a result that will possibly take days to determine, given tight margins expected in seven swing states. Officials needed four days to count all the votes to determine President Joe Biden the victor of the 2020 presidential election.

In states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the law does not allow that process to begin for millions of mail-in ballots until Election Day. Other states allow pre-processing of ballots.

Trey Grayson, Kentucky’s former Republican secretary of state, said ballot authentication could be on different timelines across the country after voting ends on Election Day.

“We have 50 states, plus D.C., that pretty much all do it differently,” Grayson, who served as president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, told reporters Friday on a call of bipartisan former state election officials who are working to explain the process to the public.

It could mean “in a very close election that we don’t know on election night who the president is or who controls the House or the Senate, but we should feel confident over the next couple of days, as we work through that, that we’re going to get there,” he said.

Lawsuits and potential recounts 

Those delays, which former President Donald Trump seized on to spread the baseless lie that the election was stolen from him, are expected again in November, especially as all eyes will be on the battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Additionally, there already are hundreds of pre-election lawsuits, mainly filed by Republicans, ranging from election integrity challenges to accusations of noncitizens allowed to vote in federal elections — something that rarely happens and is already illegal. The legal challenges could further spark delays.

“We will not have a winner on election night most likely and so we need to be able to prepare the public for this,” said Virginia Kase Solomón, the president and CEO of the democracy watchdog group Common Cause, during a Tuesday briefing.

She added that her organization will focus on combating misinformation and disinformation on election night and beyond.

“There is the potential that somebody could claim the win before … all of the votes have been counted,” she said.

In the early morning hours after Election Day in 2020, before results from key states were determined, Trump falsely claimed he won in an address at the White House.  

On top of that, experts say this year could see election denial erupting in countless courtrooms and meeting rooms in localities and the states, as well as across social media, if doubts are sown about the results.

Recounts could also delay an official election result, and the laws vary from state to state.

For example, in Pennsylvania, if a candidate demands a recount, three voters from each of the over 9,000 precincts have to petition for a recount.

“We’ve never seen that happen actually in Pennsylvania,” Kathy Boockvar, the commonwealth’s former Democratic secretary of state, said on Friday’s call with reporters.

An automatic statewide recount is triggered in Pennsylvania if there’s a difference of a half percent of all votes cast for the winner and loser. The final recount results, by law, are due to the secretary of state by Nov. 26, and results would be announced on Nov. 27, Boockvar said.

The margin in Pennsylvania’s 2020 results for the presidential election was between 1.1% and 1.2%, not enough to trigger the automatic recount, Boockvar said.

Taking out the shrubs

State election officials have been preparing for the past year to train poll workers to not only run the voting booths but for possible violence — a precaution put in place after the 2020 election — and have beefed up security around polling locations.

On Friday, Trump posted on X that the election “will be under the closest professional scrutiny and, WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again.”

A reporter asked Grayson about the possibility of aggression from poll watchers. The Republican National Committee announced in April a “historic move to safeguard the integrity of the electoral process,” establishing party-led trainings for poll watchers.

Poll watchers are not a new concept, and Grayson said clear “safeguards” are in place.

“If you’re intimidating, you’re gone. There’s clear laws in every state on that,” he said.

Celestine Jeffreys, the city clerk in Green Bay, Wisconsin, said during a Wednesday roundtable with election workers that the city has an Election Day protocol in place that includes everything from blocking off streets to City Hall to getting rid of shrubbery.

“We have actually removed bushes in front of City Hall” to ensure no one can be concealed behind them, she said. In the second assassination attempt on Trump earlier this year, a gunman hid in bushes outside Trump’s private golf course.

New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver said during a Tuesday briefing she is focused on the physical safety of election officials.

During the event with the National Association of Secretaries of State, she said such safety is not only a priority during voting but when officials move to certify the state’s election results in December.

“We have all been spending a lot more time on physical security and making sure that our election officials at all levels are more physically secure this year,” Toulouse Oliver said. “And of course, you know when our electors meet in our states, you know, ensuring for the physical security of that process and those individuals as well.”

On Dec. 17, each state’s electors will meet to vote for the president and vice president. Congress will vote to certify the results on Jan. 6.

“We are thinking a lot more about this in 2024 than we did in 2020, but I think that each one of us… have a playbook in mind for how to handle any unanticipated eventualities in the certification process,” she said.

It’s a security precaution that the U.S. Secret Service is also taking.

For the first time, Congress’ certification of the Electoral College on Jan. 6 has been designated a National Special Security Event, something that is usually reserved for Inauguration Day on Jan. 20.

The 2020 experience

In 2020, The Associated Press did not call the presidential election for Biden until 11:26 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 7 — roughly three-and-a-half days after polls closed. The AP, as well as other media organizations, project election winners after local officials make initial tabulations public.

Those tallies are then canvassed, audited and certified, according to each state’s legal timeline. Recounts may also extend the timeline before final certification.

The vote totals reported in Pennsylvania — a state that carried 20 Electoral College votes in 2020 — put Biden over the top for the 270 needed to win the presidency.

Trump refused to concede the race, and instead promised to take his fight to court.

For the next two months, Trump and his surrogates filed just over 60 lawsuits challenging the results in numerous states. Ultimately none of the judges found evidence of widespread voter fraud.

The next step was for Congress to count each state’s certified slate of electors, which by law, it must do on the Jan. 6 following a presidential election.

However, in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6, Trump and his private lawyers worked to replace legitimate slates of electors with fake ones, according to hundreds of pages of records compiled by a special congressional investigation, and by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Trump pressured then-Vice President Mike Pence to block ratification of the Electoral College’s vote at the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress, because the vice president’s role in the certification of electoral votes was not exactly clear in the Electoral Count Act of 1887.

Pence ultimately refused.

Thousands of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 following a “Stop the Steal” rally at The Ellipse park, south of the White House, where Trump told the crowd “We will never concede.”

The mob assaulted police officers, broke windows to climb inside and hurled violent threats aimed at elected officials, including the desire to “hang” Pence. More than 1,500 defendants have been charged by the Department of Justice.

Congress stopped its process of reviewing the state electors in the 2 p.m. Eastern hour as police ushered the lawmakers to safety. The joint session resumed at roughly 11:30 p.m., and Pence called the majority of electoral votes for Biden at nearly 4 a.m. on Jan. 7.

New law on presidential transition

To deter another Jan. 6 insurrection, Congress passed the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transitional Improvement Act of 2022 as part of a massive appropriations bill.

The Electoral Count Reform Act codifies into law that the vice president, who also serves as the president of the U.S. Senate, only ceremoniously reads aloud a roll call of the votes.

Most notably, the provision raises the threshold for lawmakers to make an objection to electors. Previously, only one U.S. House representative and one U.S. senator would need to make an objection to an elector or slate of electors.

But under the new law, it would take one-fifth of members to lodge an objection and under very specific standards — 87 House members and 20 senators.

The Electoral Count Reform Act also identifies that each state’s governor is the official responsible for submitting the state’s official document that identifies the state’s appointed electors, and says that Congress cannot accept that document from any official besides the governor, unless otherwise specified by the state’s law.

Trump and his allies tried to replace legitimate slates of electors in several states with fake electors who would cast ballots for Trump.

The Presidential Transitional Improvement Act provides candidates with funding and resources for transitional planning, even if a candidate has not conceded after the election.

There are already issues with the transition of power. The top Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, sent a Wednesday letter to Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, urging them to sign documents to ensure a peaceful transition of power.

“With fewer than three weeks left until an election in which the American people will select a new President of the United States, I urge you to put the public’s interest in maintaining a properly functioning government above any personal financial or political interests you may perceive in boycotting the official transition law and process,” Raskin wrote.

Denial expected at all levels of government

Experts warn the effort to delay certification of the vote is largely being fought at the local and state levels, and that several groups are gearing up to sow doubt in the election outcome.

Devin Burghart, president of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, said on a press call Wednesday that since 2020, “election denial has shifted away from the capital to county election commission meetings, courtrooms, cyber symposiums and countless conspiracies in preparation for a repeat this November.”

“This time, the baseless claim that undocumented immigrants are somehow swamping the polls has fueled the ‘big lie’ machine,” Burghart said.

Kim Wyman, the former Washington state secretary of state, said the noncitizen topic is not new.

In two high-profile cases, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Republican-led efforts in Alabama and Virginia to purge voter rolls after alleging thousands of noncitizens were registered to vote. Both states were ordered to stop the programs and reinstate voters – though Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin promised Friday to appeal and even escalate to the Supreme Court.

In Georgia, the state’s Supreme Court delayed new rules until after this election that would have required three poll workers at every precinct to count ballots by hand once the polls closed — essentially delaying unofficial election results.

More than 165 electoral process lawsuits across 37 states have been filed by both parties since 2023 leading up to the 2024 presidential election, according to a survey by Bloomberg of pre-election cases. The journalists found that more than half the cases have been filed in swing states, and challenge almost every facet of the voting process, from absentee voting, to voter roll management, voter eligibility and vote certification.

Republican and conservative groups have filed roughly 55% of the lawsuits, mostly aimed at narrowing who can vote, and overall most of the cases were filed in August and September, according to the analysis.

Courts threw out dozens of lawsuits claiming voter fraud in 2020.

Mai Ratakonda, senior counsel at States United Democracy Center, said anti-democracy groups have used litigation “to legitimize their efforts to sow doubt in our election system.”

“We’ve unfortunately continued to see this trend of filing lawsuits to bolster and legitimize narratives that our elections are insecure and laying the groundwork to contest results later,” Ratakonda told reporters on a press call Wednesday hosted by the organization, whose stated mission is to protect nonpartisan election administration.

Timeline of key presidential election dates

• Nov. 5, 2024—Election Day
  The voters in each state choose electors to serve in the Electoral College.
• By Dec. 11, 2024—Electors appointed
  The executive of each state signs the Certificate of Ascertainment to appoint the electors chosen in the general election.
• Dec. 17, 2024—Electors vote
  The electors in each state meet to select the president and vice president of the United States.
• Jan. 6, 2025—Congress counts the vote
  Congress meets in joint session to count the electoral votes.
• Jan. 20, 2025—Inauguration Day
  The president-elect is sworn in as president of the United States.

Source: The National Archives and Records Administration

Correction: This report has been updated to reflect that former Washington state Secretary of State Kim Wyman made the comment that noncitizen voting has been illegal at the federal level since 1996.

Annar Parikh, a field manager with the civic engagement group North Carolina Asian Americans Together, knocks on a door of a residence in Wake County, North Carolina, on Sept. 28, 2024. No one answers, so she leaves voting information by the door. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)

DURHAM, N.C. — As a weekend morning in late September dips into the afternoon, Annar Parikh finally gets an eligible voter to answer the door.

After Parikh gives a rundown of some of the local candidates in North Carolina’s election, she asks the woman if she plans to vote in the presidential election.

“It’s personal,” the woman says before closing the door.

The 26-year-old marks the house in a voter database for North Carolina Asian Americans Together, a nonpartisan organization that focuses on voter registration in the Asian American community.

“This is typical for our community,” Parikh, a field manager for NCAAT, says while peeling a clementine, recounting how difficult it can be sometimes to reach voters in the swing state.

There are more than 360,000 Asian Americans in North Carolina. Indian Americans are the fastest growing ethnic group in the state, with a population of nearly 110,000.

The voters Parikh is trying to reach are prized by the presidential campaigns. In an election that is virtually a dead heat, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris is working to tap into the two of the fastest-growing voting blocs in the United States — Asian Americans and Latinos, especially in the seven swing states.

Asian Americans have gotten relatively little attention in the presidential campaign and Harris herself has not greatly emphasized her South Asian background — her mother was an Indian immigrant and Harris if elected would be the first president of South Asian descent.

“My challenge is the challenge of making sure I can talk with and listen to as many voters as possible and earn their vote, and I will never assume that anyone in our country should elect a leader based on their gender or their race,” Harris said in a Monday night interview with NBC News, when asked if sexism is a factor in the race.

While Republican nominee Donald Trump has held events with Latino voters, one of his first big appeals to Asian American voters will be Thursday in a Turning Point PAC event with former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii in Nevada.

Targeting communities

Also Thursday, the Democratic National Committee launched a voting media campaign across the country to engage with Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities. The campaign will provide information about polling locations and multilingual advertisements in Florida, Texas and New York.

About 15 million Asian Americans are eligible to vote in this presidential election, a 15% increase in eligible voters from 2020, according to the Pew Research Center. 

An estimated 36.2 million Latinos are eligible to vote this year, a 12% increase in eligible voters from 2020, according to the Pew Research Center. 

The Harris campaign has launched targeted ads for Asian American voters in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin that focus on her economic proposals.

The campaign also released an ad specific to the battleground state of Nevada featuring Asian American small business owners. Nevada is a swing state with one of the largest shares of the Asian American population in the country, at 11%. President Joe Biden won the state in 2020 with a little over 33,000 votes.

The Harris campaign has also launched a WhatsApp outreach effort in the Latino community and on Tuesday unveiled an “opportunity agenda for Latino men.”

Grassroot campaigns reflecting Asian American voting blocs have also emerged on behalf of Harris, such as South Asians for Harris, Chinese Americans for Harris, Korean Americans for Harris, Latinas for Harris and Latino Men for Harris.

Getting voters to the polls

On-the-ground efforts like voter registration and voter mobilization can be a huge effort in a tight presidential race.

“The cause of the low rate of voter registration is the same cause of the low level of information around voting, so we want to make sure we’re not just registering people, we’re also talking to them about how the process of voting works, where they can vote, how they can vote early,” said Jack Golub, the North Carolina community engagement program manager for the Hispanic Federation, a group that does civic engagement in the Latino community.

Nationally, the voting registration gap for Latinos — the difference between those eligible to vote who have registered and those who have not registered — is about 13.2 million, which is based on the most recent data from 2022 from UNIDOS, a Latino advocacy organization. 

The Trump campaign has largely focused on trying to make inroads with Latino voters through roundtable discussions with leaders as well as a town hall hosted by Univision for undecided Latino voters. Separately, Harris also took part in a Univision town hall with undecided Latino voters.

A Monday poll showed that Harris continues to outperform Trump among Latino voters in the battlegrounds of Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

When it comes to Asian American voters and Trump, his rhetoric during his first term around the coronavirus and linking it to China could have fueled anti-Asian sentiment among Trump voters, a study shows. 

But Steven Cheung, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said in a statement to States Newsroom that the former president is an advocate for the Asian American and Pacific Islander community and has “created an environment where diversity, equal opportunity, and prosperity were afforded to everybody.”

“Anyone who says otherwise is disgustingly using the AAPI community to play political games for their own benefit,” Cheung said. “The 2024 campaign is poised to build upon the strength and successes of Asian Americans during President Trump’s first term to propel him to a … second term victory.”

It comes down to policy

With Harris at the top of the Democratic presidential ticket after Biden’s withdrawal last summer, more Asian American voters are planning to support her compared to when Biden was in the race, according to a comprehensive survey by AAPIVote and AAPI Data. 

The late September survey also said 66% of Asian American voters said they plan on voting for Harris, compared to 28% of Asian American voters who said they would vote for Trump. About 6% were undecided.

Chintan Patel, the executive director of Indian American Impact, said that while he has noticed an enthusiasm for Harris leading the presidential ticket, it still comes down to policy, specifically the economy, for the South Asian community.

“Yes, the community is excited about the opportunity to elect a South Asian president, there’s no question, but we’re also looking for, what are her plans?” he said.

His organization focuses on electing Indian Americans and has backed Harris.

“One of the things that I think is really resonating with the community is her plans around the economy, creating an opportunity economy, particularly helping small businesses,” Patel said. “Small businesses have been such a vital, important part of mobility for South Asian Americans, particularly the immigrant story, the first generation story, that is how we have seen mobility.”

Harris often talks of her late mother’s roots. But that seems to have little sway in some parts of North Carolina’s South Asian community — a surprise to Eva Eapen, an 18-year-old canvasser for NCAAT.

Eapen, a sophomore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said she expected to see more excitement in the South Asian community when Harris picked up the torch for Democrats as the presidential nominee.

“I don’t know if it’s lack of engagement. I don’t know if it’s lack of information. I don’t know if it’s lack of mobilization, but they don’t really care,” she said. “Maybe it’s more policy over nationality as Hindi?”

Several South Asian voters who States Newsroom spoke with in North Carolina made similar remarks. The fact that the Democratic presidential nominee was South Asian didn’t guarantee their vote and they instead expressed concern over the cost of living and the economy.

Ikamjit Gill, 28, said the biggest issues getting him to the polls are inflation and the economy.

“It’s not a big thing for me,” Gill said of Harris’ background.

Gill said he’s a registered Democrat and voted for Biden in 2020, but this year he’s considering voting for Trump. He said he was laid off from his tech job under the Biden administration and got his first job under the Trump administration.

“I’ve been out of a job for a while,” he said. “I just want some change.”

Vishal Ohir, 47, of Wake County, North Carolina, said he was initially leaning toward voting for Trump, but was impressed by Harris during the presidential debate in September. He liked her detailed plans around housing and the economy.

Ohir said he’s still undecided but in the end, he wants a presidential candidate who can tackle the cost of living because “everything has gone up.”

Arvind Balaraman, 53, of Wake County, North Carolina, said he’s frustrated that wages have not kept up with the cost of living. He said he’s not particularly excited there’s a South Asian candidate running for president. He just wants his grocery bill lowered.

“Everything has doubled, tripled,” he said of prices. “You had two different parties in the last two terms and the prices are still going up.”

Balaraman said he’s undecided, but still plans to vote in the presidential election.

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