Tag: Trump racism

Biden’s Task Force Identified More Than 3,900 Immigrant Children Who Were Separated From Their Families Under Trump

“Our efforts to reunify every family continue,” a senior Department of Homeland Security official said.

The Biden administration has identified 3,913 children who were separated from their parents at the southern border as a result of Trump’s zero tolerance policy as efforts to reunite them ramp up.

Officials believe the latest official government tally released on Tuesday accounts for nearly all separation cases, but said there is still a lot of work required to undo the damage to the families.

“Children were unjustly ripped from the arms of their mothers and loved ones and forced to separate. It is no experience any family should have to live through,” a senior Department of Homeland Security official said on a call with reporters. “Our efforts to reunify every family continue.” Continue reading.

Publicly, she organizes MAGA truck caravans in California — but her wedding photo is on a Nazi Telegram channel

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Since June 2020, the Placer County For Trump Facebook group has organized truck caravans to support Donald Trump in the Sierra Nevada foothills northeast of Sacramento, and the demonstrations have continued beyond the failed Jan. 6 insurrection and Jan. 20 inauguration of President Biden.

The truck caravans and other events, including a March 21 “MAGA Wedding,” have provided a welcoming community for Trump loyalists to rub shoulders with Proud Boys — the nationalist street gang whose members face conspiracy charges in the Capitol siege — while also nurturing relationships between the party base and leadership. The private Facebook group for Placer County For Trump has attracted a robust 4,600 members, drawing energy from a steady run of events, most recently a Memorial Weekend parade from Rocklin, in Placer County, to the state capitol.

Chelsea Knight, one of seven admins for the Placer County For Trump Facebook group and one of the group’s most ardent promoters, is also linked to a channel on the social-media platform Telegram that aggressively pushes Nazi propaganda. The “Mr. and Mrs. Knight” channel on Telegram uses a profile photo of Chelsea Knight and her husband, Victor, that is modified so that both have laser eyes while substituting a backdrop with a full moon and barren mountain-scape. The “Info” field for the channel includes the text “14 things and 88 more,” utilizing two numbers that are significant in the Nazi belief system. “14” references the “Fourteen Words,” a distillation of white supremacist ideology that was coined by the late David Lane while he was serving a prison system for his role in the murder of Jewish talk radio host Alan Berg. “88” is a numerical code for “Heil Hitler,” substituting “88” for “HH” as the eighth letter of the alphabet. “Victorious Knight” and “Mrs. Knight” are the admins of the “Mr. and Mrs. Knight” channel. Beyond the similarities between “Victorious” and “Victor,” the username for “Mrs. Knight” is @Chelsea_Jo_Knight, matching the name of the Placer County For Trump organizer. Continue reading.

Biden formally ends Trump-era ‘Remain in Mexico’ immigration program

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The Biden administration on Tuesday formally nixed the “Remain in Mexico” program, the latest in a series of moves to dismantle the Trump administration’s restrictive immigration policies.

The program, known formally as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), was a cornerstone of Trump’s border management policy; it forced potential asylum seekers to stay in Mexico to wait out the result of their case in U.S. immigration court.

In a memo ending the program Tuesday, Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said the MPP did not help with enhancing the border management. Continue reading.

Nevada GOP thrown into turmoil after avowed Proud Boys member said he participated in censure vote of state official

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The leaders of the Nevada Republican Party are facing an internal revolt after an avowed Proud Boys member said he was invited with friends to attend a state party meeting last month and cast the deciding votes in the censure of a state official who concluded that the 2020 election in the state was not tainted by fraud.

In the past week, the Nevada Senate GOP caucus and the chairmen of the two largest Republican county organizations have called for an audit of an April state party vote to uncover who cast ballots as seated party members and proxies for a resolution against Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske (R).

The Republican state chairman, Michael McDonald, a close ally of former president Donald Trump, has so far declined to release those details, other Republican officials said. Continue reading.

Chinese American Group Sues Trump For Slurs It Says Triggered ‘Racial Violence’

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Trump’s “outrageous conduct” resulted in an “unmistakable” trend of attacks on Asian Americans, the suit states.

The Chinese American Civil Rights Coalition has sued former President Donald Trump for his attacks on China and his Asian slurs, accusing him of sparking a spike in violence against Asian Americans.

“Defendant’s extreme and outrageous conduct indeed has caused members of the Plaintiff organization, and to a large extent Asian Americans, emotional distress, and resulted in an unmistakable rising up trend of racial violence against Chinese Americans and Asian Americans from New York to California,” said the federal suit, filed Thursday in the Southern District of New York by the nonprofit civil rights group.

It seeks $1 for each American of Asian or Pacific Island heritage, which would amount to about $22.9 million in damages. Continue reading.

Amazon suspends work on construction site after seventh noose is found

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Local and state police, and the FBI, are treating the incidents in Windsor, Conn., as potential hate crimes.

Amazon has suspended work on a fulfillment center in Windsor, Conn., after numerous nooses were found at the construction site in the past month, company officials and investigators say.

The site will remain closed until security measures have been implemented, Amazon told The Washington Post on Friday. The FBI and Connecticut State Police are helping local police with the investigation into the incidents, which are being treated as potential hate crimes. The e-commerce giant is offering a $100,000 reward for information that helps identify the responsible party.

Windsor police officers had been patrolling the site when the seventh noose was discovered early Wednesday afternoon, the department said in a news release. Employees in the area were interviewed, and the rope collected and taken to the state lab for analysis. The work site has no surveillance cameras, and hundreds of workers for various contractors come and go on-site each day. Continue reading.

Proud Boys member who allegedly shouted about taking the Capitol before breach arrested

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U.S. authorities have arrested three more alleged associates of two right-wing groups in the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol, including one who allegedly shouted, “Let’s take the f—ing Capitol!” an hour before the assault while marching with a large group of Proud Boys around the building.

Charging papers identified Daniel Lyons Scott, 28, of Bradenton, Fla., as the Proud Boys member nicknamed “Milkshake,” who after allegedly yelling about taking the Capitol was admonished, “Let’s not f—ing yell that, okay?” by a Proud Boys leader on a video live-streamed by the group that day. In the same moments, court documents allege, accused leader Ethan Nordean was recorded saying, “It was Milkshake, man, you know . . . idiot!”

Nordean and three other Proud Boys seen near him that day have pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiring to obstruct police and the joint session of Congress to confirm the 2020 election results. Continue reading.

Parents of 54 migrant children found after separation under Trump administration

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The parents of 54 migrant children have been found after being separated at the border under former President Trump’s administration, court records reveal. 

Lawyers from the Department of Justice and the American Civil Liberties Union said in a court filing on Wednesday that it still has to locate the families of 391 children, down from the 445 it previously reported in April.

The parents of 277 of the remaining children are believed to have been removed from the U.S. after they were separated from their children, the lawyers wrote. The parents of another 100 children are believed to be in the U.S. and are being searched for. Continue reading.

Trump officials used secret terrorism unit to question lawyers at the border: documents

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Taylor Levy couldn’t understand why she’d been held for hours by Customs and Border Protection officials when crossing back into El Paso, Texas, after getting dinner with friends in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, in January 2019. And she didn’t know why she was being questioned by an agent who’d introduced himself as a counterterrorism specialist.

Levy was part of the legal team representing the father of a girl who’d died the previous month in the custody of the Border Patrol, which is part of CBP. “There was so much hate for immigration lawyers at that time,” she recalled. “I thought that somebody had put in an anonymous tip that I was a terrorist.”

The truth was more troubling. Newly released records show that Levy was swept up as part of a broader than previously known push by the administration of President Donald Trump to use the federal government’s expansive powers at the border to stop and question journalists, lawyers and activists. Continue reading.

Trump going on tour bringing white nationalist MAGA rallies to a state near you this summer

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The one-term twice-impeached former president, Donald Trump, is going on tour, bringing the nation more white nationalist MAGA rallies just months after his last one resulted in a march on the Capitol in an attempted coup that ended in death and destruction and hundreds of arrests of rioters and insurrectionists.

The Republican Party, Axios reports, has made the decision that Trumpism has won, as it abandons its previous “conservative” identity. And Trumpism includes MAGA rallies.

Even if Trump isn’t currently running for office, he will be endorsing candidates desperate for his help. Trumpism is reportedly even stronger within state and local politics than at the national level. Continue reading.