February, 14 2019, 11:00pm EDT
The NYIC Denounces Trump's "Fake News" Declaration of National Emergency to Build Border Wall
NEW YORK, NY
This morning, President Trump declared a national state of emergency in order to justify federal funding for a wall along the United States Southern border.
The declaration will allow the President to divert billions of federal dollars to the construction of the border wall.
Steven Choi, Executive Director of the New York Immigration Coalition, issued the following statement:
"President Trump's temper-tantrum over building a wasteful and immoral border wall has risen to new heights - declaring a fake national state of emergency to keep a racist campaign promise. This decision not only jeopardizes the safety of thousands of asylum seekers at the U.S. southern border, but the integrity of our democracy. The strength of our nation is built from the values of providing refuge and opportunity to those who seek it, and the largest threat to that is the President himself."
Background
Yesterday, Congress voted on a budget to keep the government open that includes $1.4 billion for the border - less than the $5.7 billion Trump demanded for his border wall.
On January 25th, President Trump signed an agreement to reopen the government for three weeks as budget negotiations continue, after forcing a 35-day shutdown over Congress' refusal to include funding for a border wall the the budget. Close to 800,000 federal employees were either furloughed or forced to work without pay during the shutdown.
The President threatened that if Congress did not agree to fund a border wall by February 15th, 2019, he would declare a national state of emergency in order to secure the funding himself.
The New York Immigration Coalition aims to achieve a fairer and more just society that values the contributions of immigrants and extends opportunity to all. The NYIC promotes immigrants' full civic participation, fosters their leadership, and provides a unified voice and a vehicle for collective action for New York's diverse immigrant communities.
LATEST NEWS
Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Case That Could Bless Trump's Bid to End Birthright Citizenship
"That the Supreme Court is actually entertaining Trump’s unconstitutional attack on birthright citizenship is the clearest example yet that the Roberts Court is broken beyond repair," said one critic.
Dec 05, 2025
The United States Supreme Court on Friday agreed to decide whether US President Donald Trump's executive order ending birthright citizenship—as guaranteed under the 14th Amendment for more than 150 years—is constitutional.
Next spring, the justices will hear oral arguments in Trump's appeal of a lower court ruling that struck down parts of an executive order—titled Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship—signed on the first day of the president's second term. Under the directive, which has not taken effect due to legal challenges, people born in the United States would not be automatically entitled to US citizenship if their parents are in the country temporarily or without legal authorization.
Enacted in 1868, the 14th Amendment affirms that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside."
While the Trump administration argues that the 14th Amendment was adopted to grant US citizenship to freed slaves, not travelers or undocumented immigrants, two key Supreme Court cases have affirmed birthright citizenship under the Constitution—United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) and Afroyim v. Rusk (1967).
Here is the question presented. It's a relatively clean vehicle for the Supreme Court to finally decide whether it is lawful for the president to deny birthright citizenship to the children of immigrants. www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25...
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— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjsdc.bsky.social) December 5, 2025 at 10:55 AM
Several district court judges have issued universal preliminary injunctions to block Trump's order. However, the Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority found in June that “universal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts."
In July, a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit unanimously ruled that executive order is an unconstitutional violation of the plain language of the 14th Amendment. In total, four federal courts and two appellate courts have blocked Trump's order.
“No president can change the 14th Amendment’s fundamental promise of citizenship,” Cecillia Wang, national legal director at the ACLU—which is leading the nationwide class action challenge to Trump's order—said in a statement Friday. “We look forward to putting this issue to rest once and for all in the Supreme Court this term.”
Brett Edkins, managing director of policy and political affairs at the advocacy group Stand Up America, was among those who suggested that the high court justices should have refused to hear the case given the long-settled precedent regarding the 14th Amendment.
“This case is a right-wing fantasy, full stop. That the Supreme Court is actually entertaining Trump’s unconstitutional attack on birthright citizenship is the clearest example yet that the Roberts Court is broken beyond repair," Edkins continued, referring to Chief Justice John Roberts.
"Even if the court ultimately rules against Trump, in a laughable display of its supposed independence, the fact that fringe attacks on our most basic rights as citizens are being seriously considered is outrageous and alarming," he added.
Aarti Kohli, executive director of the Asian Law Caucus, said that “it’s deeply troubling that we must waste precious judicial resources relitigating what has been settled constitutional law for over a century," adding that "every federal judge who has considered this executive order has found it unconstitutional."
Tianna Mays, legal director for Democracy Defenders Fund, asserted, “The attack on the fundamental right of birthright citizenship is an attack on the 14th Amendment and our Constitution."
"We are confident the court will affirm this basic right, which has stood for over a century," Mays added. "Millions of families across the country deserve and require that clarity and stability.”
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62,000 African Penguins Starving to Death Highlights Humanity-Driven Extinction Crisis
"If a species as iconic as the African penguin is struggling to survive," said one researcher, "it raises the question of how many other species are disappearing without us even noticing."
Dec 05, 2025
A study published this week about tens of thousands of starving African penguins is highlighting what scientists warn is the planet's sixth mass extinction event, driven by human activity, and efforts to save as many species as possible.
Researchers from the South African Department of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment (DFFE), the United Kingdom's University of Exeter, and other institutions examined a pair of breeding colonies north of Cape Town, South Africa, and published their findings Thursday in Ostrich: Journal of African Ornithology.
"These two sites are two of the most important breeding colonies historically—holding around 25,000 (Dassen) and around 9,000 (Robben) breeding pairs in the early 2000s. As such, they are also the locations of long-term monitoring programs," said study co-author Azwianewi Makhado from the DFFE in a statement.
As the study explains: "African Penguins moult annually, coming ashore and fasting for 21 days, when they shed and replace all their feathers. Failure to fatten sufficiently to moult, or to regain condition afterwards, results in death."
The team found that "between 2004 and 2011, the sardine stock off west South Africa was consistently below 25% of its peak abundance, and this appears to have caused severe food shortage for African penguins, leading to an estimated loss of about 62,000 breeding individuals," said co-author and Exeter associate professor Richard Sherley.
The paper notes that "although some adults moulted at a colony to the southeast, where food may have been more plentiful, much of the mortality likely resulted from failure of birds to fatten sufficiently to moult. The fishery exploitation rate of sardines west of Cape Agulhas was consistently above 20% between 2005 and 2010."
Sherley said that "high sardine exploitation rates—that briefly reached 80% in 2006—in a period when sardine was declining because of environmental changes likely worsened penguin mortality."
Humanity's reliance on fossil fuels is warming ocean water and impacting how salty it is. For the penguins' prey, said Sherley, "changes in the temperature and salinity of the spawning areas off the west and south coasts of South Africa made spawning in the historically important west coast spawning areas less successful, and spawning off the south coast more successful."
The researcher also stressed that "these declines are mirrored elsewhere," pointing out that the species' global population has dropped nearly 80% in the last three decades. With fewer than 10,000 breeding pairs left, the African penguin was uplisted to "critically endangered" on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species last year.
Sherley told Mongabay at the time that the IUCN update "highlights a much bigger problem with the health of our environment."
"Despite being well-known and studied, these penguins are still facing extinction, showing just how severe the damage to our ecosystems has become," he said. "If a species as iconic as the African penguin is struggling to survive, it raises the question of how many other species are disappearing without us even noticing. We need to act now—not just for penguins, but to protect the broader biodiversity that is crucial for the planet's future."
Looks like the combined effects of climate change and over fishing are key factors in decimating the populations of these penguins.www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...
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— Margot Hodson (@margothodson.bsky.social) December 5, 2025 at 4:46 AM
Fearful that the iconic penguin species could be extinct within a decade, the conservation organizations BirdLife South Africa and the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB) last year pursued a first-of-its-kind legal battle in the country, resulting in a settlement with the commercial fishing sector and DFFE.
The settlement, reached just days before a planned court hearing this past March, led to no-go zones for the commercial anchovy and sardine fishing vessels around six penguin breeding colonies: Stony Point, as well as Bird, Dassen, Dyer, Robben, and St. Croix islands.
"The threats facing the African penguin are complex and ongoing—and the order itself requires monitoring, enforcement, and continued cooperation from industry and the government processes which monitor and allocate sardine and anchovy populations for commercial purposes," Nicky Stander, head of conservation at SANCCOB, said in March.
The study also acknowledges hopes that "the revised closures—which will operate year-round until at least 2033—will decrease mortality of African penguins and improve their breeding success at the six colonies around which they have been implemented."
"However," it adds, "in the face of the ongoing impact of climate change on the abundance and distribution of their key prey, other interventions are likely to be needed."
Lorien Pichegru, a marine biology professor at South Africa's Nelson Mandela University who was not involved in the study, called the findings "extremely concerning" and warned the Guardian that the low fish numbers require urgent action "not only for African penguins but also for other endemic species depending on these stocks."
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'One of the Worst Awards Someone Could Possibly Get': FIFA Blasted for Giving Trump Made-Up 'Peace Prize'
"Winning the FIFA Peace Prize is like winning the Dahmer Culinary Award," said one critic.
Dec 05, 2025
President Donald Trump, whose administration is engaged in a boat-bombing campaign in the Caribbean that human rights organizations and legal experts consider a murder spree, has finally been given a peace prize.
Although Trump tried unsuccessfully this year to get the Norwegian Nobel Committee to award him its prestigious Nobel Peace Prize, he was given something of a consolation gift on Friday when FIFA, the official governing body behind the World Cup, gave him its first-ever FIFA Peace Prize.
After being given the award, Trump called it "truly one of the great honors of my life," and suggested he deserved it for supposedly "saving millions and millions of lives."
A Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health study released last month estimated that Trump's decision to shutter the US Agency for International Development (USAID) earlier this year has already caused hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths, and a study published this summer by medical journal The Lancet projected that the end of USAID will lead to up to 14 million preventable deaths over the next five years.
According to the New York Times, the announcement awarding Trump the prize was "so hastily arranged that it surprised several of the body’s most senior officials, including board members and vice presidents."
The paper also noted that the prize was just the latest effort by FIFA president Gianni Infantino to shower Trump with flattery whenever possible.
"Mr. Infantino has lauded Mr. Trump at almost every opportunity, attending events that have little to do with soccer, handing over major FIFA trophies to Mr. Trump, and presiding over FIFA’s rental of office space in Trump Tower in New York two years after the organization opened a gleaming North American hub in Miami," the Times reported.
Human Rights Watch was quick to blast FIFA for giving Trump any sort of peace prize given what it described as the administration's "appalling" human rights record.
Jamil Dakwar, human rights director at the ACLU, also said that Trump was undeserving of the award, and he noted the administration "has aggressively pursued a systematic anti-human rights campaign to target, detain, and disappear immigrants in communities across the US—including the deployment of the National Guard in cities where the World Cup will take place."
Dakwar also called on FIFA "to honor its human rights commitments, not capitulate to Trump’s authoritarianism."
Daniel Noroña, Americas advocacy director for Amnesty International USA, also warned FIFA that many soccer fans could end up being targeted by federal immigration officials for trying to attend World Cup games in US cities next year.
"The threat of excessive policing, including immigration enforcement, at World Cup venues is deeply troubling, and FIFA cannot be silent," he said. "FIFA must obtain binding guarantees from US authorities that the tournament will be a safe space for all, regardless of political stance, opinion, or immigration status."
Anti-war group CodePink protested against Trump's award of the FIFA prize in Washington, DC, and argued that the president is "escalating war on Venezuela, protecting Israel’s continued attacks on Palestine, and terrorizing our communities with [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and the National Guard," and thus should not receive any honors for his supposed peacemaking efforts.
Other critics, however, argued that FIFA was the perfect organization to give the president a made-up peace prize given its long history of corruption and bribery scandals.
@EiFSoccer, an account on X primarily dedicated to soccer news, said that "the FIFA Peace Prize is unironically one of the worst awards someone could possibly get," given that it was being handed out by "one of the most corrupt sporting institutions of all time."
"Winning the FIFA Peace Prize is like winning the Dahmer Culinary Award," joked journalist Mark Jacob on Bluesky.
Fashion commentator Derek Guy, meanwhile, wondered "WTF is a FIFA Peace Prize" and then equated it to "being an NFL laureate in physics."
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