Tuesday, March 11, 2025
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A View From the Ground
News and information about politics, government, civic participation and engagement from URL Media's network of Black and Brown publishers.
Good evening. Today we’re looking into the chaos caused by the Trump administration’s disregard for free speech and targeting of Columbia University, particularly a single student protester who is slated for deportation over pro-Palestine protests.
Also, Trump’s executive orders are coming much too fast – and maybe that’s the point – but the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation is helping with a new tool that allows users to read them in one place.With killing birthright citizenship being part of the White House agenda, the Trump administration hopes the Supreme Court will help it find a way around two injunctions that prevent that from happening, at least for now. There’s also some important historical reasons why the concept exists.Finally, a true champion for Native American rights and sacred land has passed away, but he is remembered as a hero who truly cared about his constituents and their welfare, and stood up for them when the time came.Plus, we’re bringing you the latest updates at url-media.com as events unfold. Have a question? Write to us at [email protected].
Credit: SWinxy (Creative Commons)It would be hard to imagine a more blatant example of ignoring America’s long-cherished respect for free speech, even in the face of disagreement, than the ordeal that befell Mahmood Khalil last week.Khalil, 30, a Columbia University graduate who has been a vocal protester at the school’s ongoing demonstrations against Israeli military action in Palestine, was arrested March 9 and taken from the New York City apartment he shares with his pregnant wife. He has not been charged with any crime and is being detained in Louisiana as he awaits possible deportation back to his native Algeria, Documented reports.That Khalil holds a green card and is thus in the United States legally doesn’t seem to matter to Trump, who called him a “Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student” and apparently wants to make an example of him, vowing there is more disregard of the rule of law to come.ICE declared Khalil’s green card revoked, but a federal judge blocked Trump from throwing him out of the country pending what comes next in a habeas petition, which challenges the detention, filed by his attorney. The chaos angered so many that a group of Jewish protesters took over the lobby of Trump Tower on Thursday, demanding his release.Also: See URL Media video about this case.
Everybody admits the Trump executive orders have been coming at a breakneck pace since he took office in January. But that’s the point. They are coming so fast, people can’t keep up with them and thus it’s hard to know the degree of damage the White House is doing until it’s too late.But there are tools out there to help you decipher the chaos. One of them, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Executive Order Tracker allows users to see each executive order signed by Donald Trump, categorizes them according to economic opportunity, education, criminal justice, health equity, and civil rights protections, and indicates their impact on the Black community, with additional analysis from CBC members. It also tells which EOs are not in effect because of legal challenges.It’s a fine tool for keeping up with the tumult being rushed through by the Oval Office and gives users information to act on as it affects their lives.
That knowledge is important because Trump has gotten religious in his disdain for immigrants. He is hanging on an attempt to undo to birthright citizenship, which is etched firmly into the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
But AsAm News, citing The Washington Post, says Trump is hoping the Supreme Court will allow him to impose the ban, arguing that lower courts went too far in blocking his EO with their injunctions. In January, a federal judge said the birthright citizenship reversal was “blatantly unconstitutional” and signed a temporary restraining order. Just days later, another federal judge said it “runs counter to our nation’s 250-year history of citizenship by birth.”
Right now, the injunctions prevent Trump’s EO from being implemented, but the Justice Department insists it’s not about the constitutionality, but power to enforce immigration law on undocumented immigrants. They say the courts have now hindered Trump’s power to go after the undocumented. The administration believes the Birthright Citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment was never meant to cover “even children of illegal aliens or temporarily present aliens,” their lawyers appealed. “That policy of near-universal birthright citizenship has created strong incentives for illegal immigration.”Truth is, the origins of Birthright Citizenship has its origins in the Dred Scott case of 1857 in which the Supreme Court ruled that the enslaved were not U.S. Citizens and thus could not enjoy constitutional protections. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 tried to establish that people born in the U.S. were citizens (notably excluding Native Americans), but the racist politics of the time resulted in weak enforcement. So the nation ratified that into a new Constitutional amendment, the 14th, that declared anyone born on American soil had citizenship.
AsAm News points out that the 14th Amendment, contrary to Trump’s argument, establishes that the children of people from other countries born in the U.S. are citizens based on the 1898 Wong Kim Ark Supreme Court decision, which insisted that a teenager born to Chinese parents in San Francisco falls under the Amendment’s jurisdiction, establishing the jus soli (right of soil) principle. Since that time, generations of people born in the U.S. to immigrant parents have assumed U.S. citizenship and identified as Americans.Read more at AsAm News.→
Indigenous people are mourning the loss of a champion with the death of Arizona Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva on March 13 from complications after receiving cancer treatments. He was 77.
Grijalva, a Democrat who represented Arizona’s 7th Congressional District, encompassing the area south of Phoenix and stretching from Yuma to Tucson, including the Tohono O'dham Nation Reservation, was known as a fervent advocate of Native American rights.
Native News Online reports he introduced the Repealing Existing Substandard Provisions Encouraging Conciliation with Tribes (RESPECT) Act, which required that federal officials consult with tribal governments on issues dealing with their communities. He also fought against land exchanges that put sacred sites in jeopardy, including the Resolution Copper Mine at Oak Flat in the Tonto National Forest.
“The destruction this mine would cause far outweighs its benefits,” Grijalva, who served as ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, wrote in a letter to then-U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. “Resolution Copper would significantly deplete already scarce water supplies, put wildlife at risk, devastate the Tonto National Forest, and destroy sacred Indigenous sites—all while there is no guarantee the copper produced at this mine would benefit the American people.”
In a text to Native News Online, Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren honored Grijalva as someone who was “always standing up for tribal sovereignty, economic development, and the rights of Indigenous people. He was a true ally and advocate, always welcoming, always willing to listen, and always ready to take action on issues that mattered to our communities.”
Are Universities Safe for Undocumented Students? - La Noticia
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