
Climate campaigners gathered outside the global headquarters of Lloyd's of London on September 1, 2020. (Photo: Insure Our Future Global/Twitter)
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Climate campaigners gathered outside the global headquarters of Lloyd's of London on September 1, 2020. (Photo: Insure Our Future Global/Twitter)
Caving to pressure from climate action campaigners, Lloyd's of London, the world's largest insurance market, announced Wednesday that it will no longer cover coal-fired power plants and mines, tar sands, or Arctic energy exploration activities from January 2022 onward, with plans to fully phase out such businesses by 2030.
"Lloyd's needs to prohibits all members of its market from renewing insurance for the Adani Carmichael coal mine, the Trans Mountain tar sand pipeline extension, and other such climate-wrecking projects when they come up for renewal in 2021, not in 2030."
--Flora Rebello Arduini, SumOfUs
Framing the move as "a reversal of its traditional hands-off approach to climate change strategy," Reuters explained that "Lloyd's acts as regulator for around 100 syndicate members, and leaves decisions on underwriting and investment strategy to them."
While welcoming the announcement--along with Llyod's Environmental, Social, and Governance Report 2020--campaigners urged the market to ditch the fossil fuel industry on a more accelerated timeline, given warnings from scientists and world leaders about the necessity of an ambitious and urgent transition to a sustainable economy.
"We welcome Lloyd's new policy of no longer providing new insurance cover for coal-fired power plants, thermal coal mines, oil sands, and new Arctic energy exploration as a step in the right direction," said Lindsay Keenan, European coordinator for Insure Our Future, in a statement. "However, the policy should take effect now, not 2022."
"Additionally, the target date for Lloyd's to phase out existing policies should be January 2021 for companies still developing new coal and tar sand projects," she said. "Lloyd's 2030 deadline is not justified by climate science and the urgent need for action. We will continue to hold Lloyd's accountable until it has met these recommendations."
The new policies came after the Insure Our Future campaign released its fourth annual scorecard on the insurance industry, dirty energy, and the climate emergency--which called out Lloyd's for underwriting and investing in fossil fuels, particularly coal.
\u201c\ud83d\udc4d Happy that @LloydsofLondon is finally joining rest of European insurers in ruling out coal insurance. Now, 56% of the reinsurance market have coal restrictions!\n\n\ud83d\udc4e Disappointed that the policy doesn't require existing insurance policies of coal to be dropped until 2030.\u201d— Camilla Schramek (@Camilla Schramek) 1608151931
Lloyd's chairman Bruce Carnegie-Brown told The Guardian that "we want to align ourselves with the U.N. sustainability development goals and the principles in the Paris [climate] agreement," but also defending the 2030 choice.
"We want to try to support our customers in the transition and we don't want to create cliff edges for them," he said. "Oil is too fundamental an energy supply source for the world today and it would be impossible to get out of that without creating real dislocation to our customers. It's an issue of calibration over time."
Flora Rebello Arduini, senior campaigner consultant for SumOfUs, disagreed.
"Lloyd's needs to prohibits all members of its market from renewing insurance for the Adani Carmichael coal mine, the Trans Mountain tar sand pipeline extension, and other such climate-wrecking projects when they come up for renewal in 2021, not in 2030," she said in a statement.
"The time to act is now," she added. "Lloyd's must set binding market-wide policies that make clear to all stakeholders what can and cannot be done under Lloyd's brand name and credit rating."
\u201c"Lloyd\u2019s has bowed to pressure from environmental campaigners & set a market-wide policy to stop new insurance for coal, oil sands & Arctic energy projects by January 2022, & to pull out by 2030."\n\n@LloydsofLondon is now the 25th insurers to end/limit cover for coal projects \ud83d\udc47\u201d— Insure Our Future Global (@Insure Our Future Global) 1608197836
\u201cWe just shifted the biggest player in global coal insurance! \ud83d\udcaa\ud83c\udffd\ud83d\ude4c\ud83c\udfff\u270a\ud83c\udffb\ud83d\udc4a\ud83c\udffe Now, to keep pushing until @LloydsofLondon and all their insurers rule out Adani and all fossil fuels ASAP! We're looking at you @britinsurance & @HiscoxUK #StopAdani #InsureOurFuture\n\nhttps://t.co/xQRpgKpNyT\u201d— Stop Adani (@Stop Adani) 1608181372
Adam McGibbon, U.K. campaigner for Market Forces, said that Lloyd's new report "sends a message to its syndicates that taking on new thermal coal risks, such as the Adani Carmichael coal project, is not supported," while U.S.-based campaigners suggested the policies boost pressure on companies across the Atlantic.
As Elana Sulakshana, energy finance campaigner at Rainforest Action Network, put it: "Lloyd's is sending a message to the U.S. insurance industry that it cannot continue its unchecked support for climate-wrecking projects under the Lloyd's name."
"Building on today's momentum, we will continue pressuring the U.S. insurance industry to match and exceed Lloyd's policies across their entire fossil fuel underwriting and investment portfolios," Sulakshana vowed.
AIG, Liberty Mutual, and other U.S. insurers that operate Lloyd's syndicates will be forced to abide by the new rules for their underwriting.
"The writing is on the wall--coal is becoming increasingly uninsurable," said David Arkush, climate program director at Public Citizen. "Lloyd's announcement makes AIG's and Travelers' refusal to even consider dumping coal even more inexcusable. These companies can talk all they want about sustainability, but until they change their underwriting policies, that talk is meaningless."
\u201cWhile the world's biggest insurance market signals an exit from coal, tar sands & arctic oil big US insurers like @AIGinsurance @Travelers @LibertyMutual @ChubbNA seem content to burn the planet down. \n\nCome 2021 there will be nowhere to hide. \n\nTime to #stopthemoneypipeline\u201d— Ross Hammond (@Ross Hammond) 1608171269
As the outgoing Trump administration works to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to fossil fuel extraction, the Gwich'in Steering Committee is urging Lloyd's and insurers to join with dozens of financial institutions, including major U.S. and Canadian banks, in restricting support for Arctic drilling projects.
Lloyd's announcement is "a step in the right direction" but "not enough," said Bernadette Demientieff, executive director of the Gwich'in Steering Committee. " As Indigenous Peoples, we are living in ground zero of climate change while fighting to protect our sacred lands and our ways of life. People need to understand that the land, the water, and the animals are what makes us who we are."
"Our human rights have been violated not just by our government but by corporations and people that are not educated on Indigenous issues," she added. "We urge Lloyd's to join AXA and Swiss Re to exclude themselves from any Arctic Refuge energy development or exploration immediately and show the world that they respect the rights of Indigenous peoples whose lives will forever change if drilling is to occur."
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Caving to pressure from climate action campaigners, Lloyd's of London, the world's largest insurance market, announced Wednesday that it will no longer cover coal-fired power plants and mines, tar sands, or Arctic energy exploration activities from January 2022 onward, with plans to fully phase out such businesses by 2030.
"Lloyd's needs to prohibits all members of its market from renewing insurance for the Adani Carmichael coal mine, the Trans Mountain tar sand pipeline extension, and other such climate-wrecking projects when they come up for renewal in 2021, not in 2030."
--Flora Rebello Arduini, SumOfUs
Framing the move as "a reversal of its traditional hands-off approach to climate change strategy," Reuters explained that "Lloyd's acts as regulator for around 100 syndicate members, and leaves decisions on underwriting and investment strategy to them."
While welcoming the announcement--along with Llyod's Environmental, Social, and Governance Report 2020--campaigners urged the market to ditch the fossil fuel industry on a more accelerated timeline, given warnings from scientists and world leaders about the necessity of an ambitious and urgent transition to a sustainable economy.
"We welcome Lloyd's new policy of no longer providing new insurance cover for coal-fired power plants, thermal coal mines, oil sands, and new Arctic energy exploration as a step in the right direction," said Lindsay Keenan, European coordinator for Insure Our Future, in a statement. "However, the policy should take effect now, not 2022."
"Additionally, the target date for Lloyd's to phase out existing policies should be January 2021 for companies still developing new coal and tar sand projects," she said. "Lloyd's 2030 deadline is not justified by climate science and the urgent need for action. We will continue to hold Lloyd's accountable until it has met these recommendations."
The new policies came after the Insure Our Future campaign released its fourth annual scorecard on the insurance industry, dirty energy, and the climate emergency--which called out Lloyd's for underwriting and investing in fossil fuels, particularly coal.
\u201c\ud83d\udc4d Happy that @LloydsofLondon is finally joining rest of European insurers in ruling out coal insurance. Now, 56% of the reinsurance market have coal restrictions!\n\n\ud83d\udc4e Disappointed that the policy doesn't require existing insurance policies of coal to be dropped until 2030.\u201d— Camilla Schramek (@Camilla Schramek) 1608151931
Lloyd's chairman Bruce Carnegie-Brown told The Guardian that "we want to align ourselves with the U.N. sustainability development goals and the principles in the Paris [climate] agreement," but also defending the 2030 choice.
"We want to try to support our customers in the transition and we don't want to create cliff edges for them," he said. "Oil is too fundamental an energy supply source for the world today and it would be impossible to get out of that without creating real dislocation to our customers. It's an issue of calibration over time."
Flora Rebello Arduini, senior campaigner consultant for SumOfUs, disagreed.
"Lloyd's needs to prohibits all members of its market from renewing insurance for the Adani Carmichael coal mine, the Trans Mountain tar sand pipeline extension, and other such climate-wrecking projects when they come up for renewal in 2021, not in 2030," she said in a statement.
"The time to act is now," she added. "Lloyd's must set binding market-wide policies that make clear to all stakeholders what can and cannot be done under Lloyd's brand name and credit rating."
\u201c"Lloyd\u2019s has bowed to pressure from environmental campaigners & set a market-wide policy to stop new insurance for coal, oil sands & Arctic energy projects by January 2022, & to pull out by 2030."\n\n@LloydsofLondon is now the 25th insurers to end/limit cover for coal projects \ud83d\udc47\u201d— Insure Our Future Global (@Insure Our Future Global) 1608197836
\u201cWe just shifted the biggest player in global coal insurance! \ud83d\udcaa\ud83c\udffd\ud83d\ude4c\ud83c\udfff\u270a\ud83c\udffb\ud83d\udc4a\ud83c\udffe Now, to keep pushing until @LloydsofLondon and all their insurers rule out Adani and all fossil fuels ASAP! We're looking at you @britinsurance & @HiscoxUK #StopAdani #InsureOurFuture\n\nhttps://t.co/xQRpgKpNyT\u201d— Stop Adani (@Stop Adani) 1608181372
Adam McGibbon, U.K. campaigner for Market Forces, said that Lloyd's new report "sends a message to its syndicates that taking on new thermal coal risks, such as the Adani Carmichael coal project, is not supported," while U.S.-based campaigners suggested the policies boost pressure on companies across the Atlantic.
As Elana Sulakshana, energy finance campaigner at Rainforest Action Network, put it: "Lloyd's is sending a message to the U.S. insurance industry that it cannot continue its unchecked support for climate-wrecking projects under the Lloyd's name."
"Building on today's momentum, we will continue pressuring the U.S. insurance industry to match and exceed Lloyd's policies across their entire fossil fuel underwriting and investment portfolios," Sulakshana vowed.
AIG, Liberty Mutual, and other U.S. insurers that operate Lloyd's syndicates will be forced to abide by the new rules for their underwriting.
"The writing is on the wall--coal is becoming increasingly uninsurable," said David Arkush, climate program director at Public Citizen. "Lloyd's announcement makes AIG's and Travelers' refusal to even consider dumping coal even more inexcusable. These companies can talk all they want about sustainability, but until they change their underwriting policies, that talk is meaningless."
\u201cWhile the world's biggest insurance market signals an exit from coal, tar sands & arctic oil big US insurers like @AIGinsurance @Travelers @LibertyMutual @ChubbNA seem content to burn the planet down. \n\nCome 2021 there will be nowhere to hide. \n\nTime to #stopthemoneypipeline\u201d— Ross Hammond (@Ross Hammond) 1608171269
As the outgoing Trump administration works to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to fossil fuel extraction, the Gwich'in Steering Committee is urging Lloyd's and insurers to join with dozens of financial institutions, including major U.S. and Canadian banks, in restricting support for Arctic drilling projects.
Lloyd's announcement is "a step in the right direction" but "not enough," said Bernadette Demientieff, executive director of the Gwich'in Steering Committee. " As Indigenous Peoples, we are living in ground zero of climate change while fighting to protect our sacred lands and our ways of life. People need to understand that the land, the water, and the animals are what makes us who we are."
"Our human rights have been violated not just by our government but by corporations and people that are not educated on Indigenous issues," she added. "We urge Lloyd's to join AXA and Swiss Re to exclude themselves from any Arctic Refuge energy development or exploration immediately and show the world that they respect the rights of Indigenous peoples whose lives will forever change if drilling is to occur."
Caving to pressure from climate action campaigners, Lloyd's of London, the world's largest insurance market, announced Wednesday that it will no longer cover coal-fired power plants and mines, tar sands, or Arctic energy exploration activities from January 2022 onward, with plans to fully phase out such businesses by 2030.
"Lloyd's needs to prohibits all members of its market from renewing insurance for the Adani Carmichael coal mine, the Trans Mountain tar sand pipeline extension, and other such climate-wrecking projects when they come up for renewal in 2021, not in 2030."
--Flora Rebello Arduini, SumOfUs
Framing the move as "a reversal of its traditional hands-off approach to climate change strategy," Reuters explained that "Lloyd's acts as regulator for around 100 syndicate members, and leaves decisions on underwriting and investment strategy to them."
While welcoming the announcement--along with Llyod's Environmental, Social, and Governance Report 2020--campaigners urged the market to ditch the fossil fuel industry on a more accelerated timeline, given warnings from scientists and world leaders about the necessity of an ambitious and urgent transition to a sustainable economy.
"We welcome Lloyd's new policy of no longer providing new insurance cover for coal-fired power plants, thermal coal mines, oil sands, and new Arctic energy exploration as a step in the right direction," said Lindsay Keenan, European coordinator for Insure Our Future, in a statement. "However, the policy should take effect now, not 2022."
"Additionally, the target date for Lloyd's to phase out existing policies should be January 2021 for companies still developing new coal and tar sand projects," she said. "Lloyd's 2030 deadline is not justified by climate science and the urgent need for action. We will continue to hold Lloyd's accountable until it has met these recommendations."
The new policies came after the Insure Our Future campaign released its fourth annual scorecard on the insurance industry, dirty energy, and the climate emergency--which called out Lloyd's for underwriting and investing in fossil fuels, particularly coal.
\u201c\ud83d\udc4d Happy that @LloydsofLondon is finally joining rest of European insurers in ruling out coal insurance. Now, 56% of the reinsurance market have coal restrictions!\n\n\ud83d\udc4e Disappointed that the policy doesn't require existing insurance policies of coal to be dropped until 2030.\u201d— Camilla Schramek (@Camilla Schramek) 1608151931
Lloyd's chairman Bruce Carnegie-Brown told The Guardian that "we want to align ourselves with the U.N. sustainability development goals and the principles in the Paris [climate] agreement," but also defending the 2030 choice.
"We want to try to support our customers in the transition and we don't want to create cliff edges for them," he said. "Oil is too fundamental an energy supply source for the world today and it would be impossible to get out of that without creating real dislocation to our customers. It's an issue of calibration over time."
Flora Rebello Arduini, senior campaigner consultant for SumOfUs, disagreed.
"Lloyd's needs to prohibits all members of its market from renewing insurance for the Adani Carmichael coal mine, the Trans Mountain tar sand pipeline extension, and other such climate-wrecking projects when they come up for renewal in 2021, not in 2030," she said in a statement.
"The time to act is now," she added. "Lloyd's must set binding market-wide policies that make clear to all stakeholders what can and cannot be done under Lloyd's brand name and credit rating."
\u201c"Lloyd\u2019s has bowed to pressure from environmental campaigners & set a market-wide policy to stop new insurance for coal, oil sands & Arctic energy projects by January 2022, & to pull out by 2030."\n\n@LloydsofLondon is now the 25th insurers to end/limit cover for coal projects \ud83d\udc47\u201d— Insure Our Future Global (@Insure Our Future Global) 1608197836
\u201cWe just shifted the biggest player in global coal insurance! \ud83d\udcaa\ud83c\udffd\ud83d\ude4c\ud83c\udfff\u270a\ud83c\udffb\ud83d\udc4a\ud83c\udffe Now, to keep pushing until @LloydsofLondon and all their insurers rule out Adani and all fossil fuels ASAP! We're looking at you @britinsurance & @HiscoxUK #StopAdani #InsureOurFuture\n\nhttps://t.co/xQRpgKpNyT\u201d— Stop Adani (@Stop Adani) 1608181372
Adam McGibbon, U.K. campaigner for Market Forces, said that Lloyd's new report "sends a message to its syndicates that taking on new thermal coal risks, such as the Adani Carmichael coal project, is not supported," while U.S.-based campaigners suggested the policies boost pressure on companies across the Atlantic.
As Elana Sulakshana, energy finance campaigner at Rainforest Action Network, put it: "Lloyd's is sending a message to the U.S. insurance industry that it cannot continue its unchecked support for climate-wrecking projects under the Lloyd's name."
"Building on today's momentum, we will continue pressuring the U.S. insurance industry to match and exceed Lloyd's policies across their entire fossil fuel underwriting and investment portfolios," Sulakshana vowed.
AIG, Liberty Mutual, and other U.S. insurers that operate Lloyd's syndicates will be forced to abide by the new rules for their underwriting.
"The writing is on the wall--coal is becoming increasingly uninsurable," said David Arkush, climate program director at Public Citizen. "Lloyd's announcement makes AIG's and Travelers' refusal to even consider dumping coal even more inexcusable. These companies can talk all they want about sustainability, but until they change their underwriting policies, that talk is meaningless."
\u201cWhile the world's biggest insurance market signals an exit from coal, tar sands & arctic oil big US insurers like @AIGinsurance @Travelers @LibertyMutual @ChubbNA seem content to burn the planet down. \n\nCome 2021 there will be nowhere to hide. \n\nTime to #stopthemoneypipeline\u201d— Ross Hammond (@Ross Hammond) 1608171269
As the outgoing Trump administration works to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to fossil fuel extraction, the Gwich'in Steering Committee is urging Lloyd's and insurers to join with dozens of financial institutions, including major U.S. and Canadian banks, in restricting support for Arctic drilling projects.
Lloyd's announcement is "a step in the right direction" but "not enough," said Bernadette Demientieff, executive director of the Gwich'in Steering Committee. " As Indigenous Peoples, we are living in ground zero of climate change while fighting to protect our sacred lands and our ways of life. People need to understand that the land, the water, and the animals are what makes us who we are."
"Our human rights have been violated not just by our government but by corporations and people that are not educated on Indigenous issues," she added. "We urge Lloyd's to join AXA and Swiss Re to exclude themselves from any Arctic Refuge energy development or exploration immediately and show the world that they respect the rights of Indigenous peoples whose lives will forever change if drilling is to occur."
While acknowledging that "hunger is a real issue in Gaza," the US ambassador to the UN repeated a debunked claim that the world's leading authority on starvation lowered its standards to declare a famine.
Every member nation of the United Nations Security Council except the United States on Wednesday affirmed that Israel's engineered famine in Gaza is "man-made" as 10 more Palestinians died of starvation amid what UN experts warned is a worsening crisis.
Fourteen of the 15 Security Council members issued a joint statement calling for an immediate Gaza ceasefire, release of all remaining hostages held by Hamas, and lifting of all Israeli restrictions on aid delivery into the embattled strip, where hundreds of Palestinians have died from starvation and hundreds of thousands more are starving.
"Famine in Gaza must be stopped immediately," they said. "Time is of the essence. The humanitarian emergency must be addressed without delay and Israel must reverse course."
"We express our profound alarm and distress at the IPC data on Gaza, published last Friday. It clearly and unequivocally confirms famine," the statement said, referring to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification's declaration of Phase 5, or a famine "catastrophe," in the strip.
"We trust the IPC's work and methodology," the 14 countries declared. "This is the first time famine has been officially confirmed in the Middle East region. Every day, more persons are dying as a result of malnutrition, many of them children."
"This is a man-made crisis," the statement stresses. "The use of starvation as a weapon of war is clearly prohibited under international humanitarian law."
Israel, which is facing a genocide case at the UN's International Court of Justice, denies the existence of famine in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted by the International Court of Justice for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder and forced starvation.
The 14 countries issuing the joint statement are: Algeria, China, Denmark, France, Greece, Guyana, Pakistan, Panama, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, Somalia, and the United Kingdom.
While acknowledging that "hunger is a real issue in Gaza and that there are significant humanitarian needs which must be met," US Ambassador to the UN Dorothy Shea rejected the resolution and the IPC's findings.
"We can only solve problems with credibility and integrity," Shea told the Security Council. "Unfortunately, the recent report from the IPC doesn't pass the test on either."
Shea also repeated the debunked claim that the IPC's "normal standards were changed for [the IPC famine] declaration."
The Security Council's affirmation that the Gaza famine is man-made mirrors the findings of food experts who have accused Israel of orchestrating a carefully planned campaign of mass starvation in the strip.
The UN Palestinian Rights Bureau and UN humanitarian officials also warned Wednesday that the famine in Gaza is "only getting worse."
"Over half a million people currently face starvation, destitution, and death," the humanitarian experts said. "By the end of September, that number could exceed 640,000."
"Failure to act now will have irreversible consequences," they added.
Wednesday's UN actions came as Israel intensified Operation Gideon's Chariots 2, the campaign to conquer, occupy, and ethnically cleanse around 1 million Palestinians from Gaza, possibly into a reportedly proposed concentration camp that would be built over the ruins of the southern city of Rafah.
The Gaza Health Ministry (GHM) on Wednesday reported 10 more Palestinian deaths "due to famine and malnutrition" over the past 24 hours, including two children, bringing the number of famine victims to at least 313, 119 of them children.
All told, Israel's 691-day assault and siege on Gaza has left at least 230,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, according to the GHM.
"What would the reaction would be if an Arab state wrote this about synagogues and Jews?" asked one critic.
Israel faced backlash this week after its Arabic-language account on the social media site X published a message warning Europeans to take action against the proliferation of mosques and "remove" Muslims from their countries.
"In the year 1980, there were only fewer than a hundred mosques in Europe. As for today, there are more than 20,000 mosques. This is the true face of colonization," posted Israel, a settler-colonial state whose nearly 2 million Muslim citizens face widespread discrimination, and where Palestinians in the illegally occupied territories live under an apartheid regime.
"This is what is happening while Europe is oblivious and does not care about the danger," the post continues. "And the danger does not lie in the existence of mosques in and of themselves, for freedom of worship is one of the basic human rights, and every person has the right to believe and worship his Lord."
"The problem lies in the contents that are taught in some of these mosques, and they are not limited to piety and good deeds, but rather focus on encouraging escalating violence in the streets of Europe, and spreading hatred for the other and even for those who host them in their countries, and inciting against them instead of teaching love, harmony, and peace," Israel added. "Europe must wake up and remove this fifth column."
Referring to the far-right Alternative for Germany party, Berlin-based journalist James Jackson replied on X that "even the AfD don't tweet, 'Europe must wake up and remove this fifth column' over a map of mosques."
Other social media users called Israel's post "racist" and "Islamophobic," while some highlighted the stark contrast between the way Palestinians and Israelis treat Christian people and institutions.
Others noted that some of the map's fearmongering figures misleadingly showing a large number of mosques indicate countries whose populations are predominantly or significantly Muslim.
"Russia has 8,000 mosques? Who would've known a country with millions of Muslim Central Asians and Caucasians would need so many!" said one X user.
Israel's post came amid growing international outrage over its 691-day assault and siege on Gaza, which has left more than 230,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and hundreds of thousands more starving and facing ethnic cleansing as Operation Gideon's Chariots 2—a campaign to conquer, occupy, and "cleanse" the strip—ramps up amid a growing engineered famine that has already killed hundreds of people.
Israel is facing an ongoing genocide case at the International Court of Justice, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, are fugitives form the International Criminal Court, where they are wanted for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity including murder and forced starvation.
European nations including Belgium, Ireland, and Spain are supporting the South Africa-led ICJ genocide case against Israel. Since October 2023, European countries including Belgium, France, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Norway, and Spain have either formally recognized Palestinian statehood or announced their intention to do so.
"This is unfathomable discrimination against immigrants that will cost our country lives," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal.
The Trump administration is reportedly putting new restrictions on nonprofit organizations that would bar them from helping undocumented immigrants affected by natural disasters.
The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is "now barring states and volunteer groups that receive government funds from helping undocumented immigrants" while also requiring these groups "to cooperate with immigration officials and enforcement operations."
Documents obtained by the paper reveal that all volunteer groups that receive government money to help in the wake of disasters must not "operate any program that benefits illegal immigrants or incentivizes illegal immigration." What's more, the groups are prohibited from "harboring, concealing, or shielding from detection illegal aliens" and must "provide access to detainees, such as when an immigration officer seeks to interview a person who might be a removable alien."
The order pertains to faith-based aid groups such as the Salvation Army and Red Cross that are normally on the front lines building shelters and providing assistance during disasters.
Scott Robinson, an emergency management expert who teaches at Arizona State University, told The Washington Post that there is no historical precedent for requiring disaster victims to prove proof of their legal status before receiving assistance.
"The notion that the federal government would use these operations for surveillance is entirely new territory," he said.
Many critics were quick to attack the administration for threatening to punish nonprofit groups that help undocumented immigrants during natural disasters.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) lashed out at the decision to bar certain people from receiving assistance during humanitarian emergencies.
"When disaster hits, we cannot only help those with certain legal status," she wrote in a social media post. "We have an obligation to help every single person in need. This is unfathomable discrimination against immigrants that will cost our country lives."
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said that restrictions on faith-based groups such as the Salvation Army amounted to a violation of their First Amendment rights.
"Arguably the most anti-religious administration in history," he wrote. "Just nakedly hostile to those who wish to practice their faith."
Bloomberg columnist Erika Smith labeled the new DHS policy "truly cruel and crazy—even for this administration."
Author Charles Fishman also labeled the new policy "crazy" and said it looks like the Trump administration is "trying to crush even charity."
Catherine Rampell, a former columnist at The Washington Post, simply described the new DHS policy as "evil."