SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.
WASHINGTON - Today, The Leadership Conference Education Fund and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law announced the launch of Communities Against Hate, an initiative of 11 prominent national organizations working together to address the disturbing spike in hate incidents across the United States. As part of this initiative, the organizations are launching a database to bring visibility to hate incidents and helping victims and organizations obtain access to legal resources and social services through a resource hotline: 1-844-9-NO-HATE or 1-844-966-4283.
For the first time to aggregate data on hate incidents, organizations representing a diverse set of impacted communities--including the Black, Latinx, LGBTQ, Muslim, Arab communities, as well as women--have come together as Communities Against Hate. Thisinitiative will pull together traditionally disparate reporting of hate incidents and provide support for victims and communities. The pairing of services and documentation is unprecedented and especially critical in the current social climate.
“Acts of hate not only devastate individuals, but also target entire communities, threatening to undermine the most basic tenets of our democracy. Now is the time for communities to come together to prevent these incidents from happening in the first place,” said Wade Henderson, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference Education Fund.
The hotline will serve as a resource for organizations and individuals working to combat hate in their communities. Through the hotline, trained staff and volunteers will provide access to legal resources, including pro bono attorneys when appropriate, and connections to mental health services or other community organizations and resources.
“Our nation stands at a crossroads. Together, we are working with community leaders, local organizations, philanthropy and law enforcement agencies to combat the scourge of hate and hate-inspired incidents now gripping the nation. We will work with partners across the country to prevent and improve the response to hate incidents,” said Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
Additionally, as part of this initiative, the Open Society Foundations to date has made grants to 48 local organizations with innovative ideas for addressing hate incidents in their neighborhoods. These grants, covering 23 states and Puerto Rico, support a wide range of affected communities and diverse approaches to countering hate and helping its victims. Among them:
Learn more by visiting www.CommunitiesAgainstHate.org. Follow and participate in the initiative on social media using the official hashtag, #CommunitiesAgainstHate.
The strategic advisor and partner organizations issued the following about Communities Against Hate:
Southern Poverty Law Center: “It’s critical that communities everywhere come together to respond to the increase in bigotry we’re seeing as those with hate in their hearts now seem to feel that they have a license to act on their worst instincts,” said Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a strategic advisor to the initiative. “The launch of Communities Against Hate is an important step in that direction.”
Center for Community Change: “It’s a shame that today, decades after many Americans fought for equal rights for women, African Americans and the LGBTQ communities, these segments of society remain under siege through hateful and violent actions. The Center for Community Change is proud to be part of the Communities Against Hate initiative to end these cycles of violence and bigotry. CCC vows to stand up for all communities, including immigrant families, who are targets of xenophobic actions,” said Kica Matos, director of Immigrant Rights and Racial Justice, Center for Community Change.
Color of Change: “Anti-Black hate incidents and crimes continue to play a daily role in the lives of Black people in ways that threaten our safety and security. These hate incidents, often unreported or ignored by law enforcement agencies and major media--and now normalized by Trump’s administration--can surface in many forms: a racial slur spray painted on a community center wall; persistent, unchecked online harassment from an anonymous white nationalist troll; or during a violent, xenophobic encounter on a subway. Color of Change is proud to be a member of the Communities Against Hate initiative’s timely effort to push back against the normalization of this kind of deep-seeded bigotry,” said Arisha Michelle Hatch, managing director at Color of Change.
Genders & Sexualities Alliance Network (GSA Network): “Trans and queer youth have reported escalating hateful rhetoric, discrimination and violence from peers and administrators in schools. Yet, youth are showing their resilience and belief in a just and tolerant society by reporting these incidents and creating positive school climates,” said Geoffrey Winder, co-executive director of Genders & Sexualities Alliance Network. “We are proud to work with organizations across the country and leverage our collective power to shift the public narrative about the future young people want.”
Hollaback!: “Since the election, our site has seen twice as many reports of harassment as we usually do this time of year. Hollaback! has collected over 10,000 stories of harassment over the past seven years-- and through the Communities Against Hate initiative, we’re excited to take this work to the next level by collaborating alongside other incredible nonprofits to shine a light on harassment in this country, remind victims that they aren’t alone, and remind everyone that they have a role to play in ending harassment,” said Emily May, co-founder and executive director of Hollaback!
Muslim Advocates: “As violence against a number of communities has swept the nation, we are proud to join our allies and partners in this project because we recognize that an attack on one is an attack on us all,” said Madihha Ahussain, staff attorney and lead for the program to Counter Anti-Muslim Hate at Muslim Advocates. “Together, by collecting critical data and sharing resources with impacted communities, we are striving for a future where Americans of all faiths, races, genders and sexual orientations can live without fear.”
National Council of La Raza: “We cannot allow hateful rhetoric and acts of violence to become normalized in our society. This is not what our America is about and we stand firmly with our partner groups and all Americans who believe in fairness, justice and equal treatment of all. We will continue to shine a light on these incidents and work with our community to stamp out hatred and intolerance,” said Janet Murguia, president and CEO of the National Council of La Raza.
National Network for Arab American Communities (NNAAC): “Storytelling is essential to organizing, shifting culture and extremely empowering for the individual. Humanity is best served when we are able to connect on a deeper level. The National Network for Arab American Communities is excited to be able to support this story collecting initiative in an effort to uplift the real stories of our community members as we move forward toward justice,” said Ahmad Abuznaid, director of the National Network for Arab American Communities (NNAAC).
New York City Anti-Violence Project: “The New York City Anti-Violence Project is honored to partner with organizations across the country working to end hate violence at this crucial time in our nation’s history. After over 30 years of tracking violence in the LGBTQ community, we are thrilled that Communities Against Hate is bringing us together to amplify the voices of all survivors of violence and connect them to resources. We believe this data will help inform and empower all of us to stand up against hate-based violence and the racism, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia and other forms of bias and oppression in which this violence is rooted. We must be united and we must never normalize hate,” said Beverly Tillery, executive director of the New York City Anti-Violence Project
Transgender Law Center: “Seven transgender women of color have been murdered in the U.S. this year that we know of--and it is only March. There is a crisis of violence against transgender people, fueled by a climate of hateful rhetoric and policy, that has for too long gone unseen and unacknowledged. Ignoring the violence faced by transgender people, particularly Black transgender women--or reporting that violence in a way that misgenders those attacked--contributes to a society that fails to treat us as fully human,” said Kris Hayashi, executive director of the Transgender Law Center.
About Communities Against Hate:
Communities Against Hate is a national initiative to collect data and respond to incidents of violence, threats, and property damage motivated by hate across the United States. The initiative leverages a reporting database (www.CommunitiesAgainstHate.org) that aggregates reports from both victims, witnesses and news accounts of hate incidents, as well as offers legal resources and social services to support people in need. Communities Against Hate aims to aggregate data on hate incidents, providing legal and social support, raising awareness, and educating the public on the prevalence of hate.
The initiative is led by The Leadership Conference Education Fund, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and partner organizations representing diverse communities that reflect the fabric of America, including: Center for Community Change; Color of Change; Genders & Sexualities Alliance Network (GSA Network); Hollaback!; Muslim Advocates; National Council of La Raza; National Network for Arab American Communities (NNAAC); New York City Anti-Violence Project; and the Transgender Law Center. The Southern Poverty Law Center is serving as a strategic advisor to the initiative.
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 200 national organizations to promote and protect the civil and human rights of all persons in the United States. Through advocacy and outreach to targeted constituencies, The Leadership Conference works toward the goal of a more open and just society - an America as good as its ideals.
(202) 466-3311Mahmoud Khalil and his lawyers on Wednesday affirmed their plan to fight an immigration court ruling that paves the way for his deportation, months after plainclothes agents accosted the lawful permanent resident and his US citizen wife outside their home in New York City.
“It is no surprise that the Trump administration continues to retaliate against me for my exercise of free speech. Their latest attempt, through a kangaroo immigration court, exposes their true colors once again,” Khalil said in a statement.
"When their first effort to deport me was set to fail, they resorted to fabricating baseless and ridiculous allegations in a bid to silence me for speaking out and standing firmly with Palestine, demanding an end to the ongoing genocide," he continued. "Such fascist tactics will never deter me from continuing to advocate for my people's liberation."
While President Donald Trump has a broad goal of mass deportations, his administration has targeted Khalil, a former Columbia University graduate student with a valid green card, and other foreign scholars in the United States for criticizing Israel's US-backed genocide in the Gaza Strip.
"We have witnessed a constant lack of humanity and allegiance to the law throughout proceedings in this farcical Louisiana immigration court."
Federal agents arrested Khalil, an Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent, in March. He wasn't released from a federal immigration facility until June. During his 104-day detention, his wife, Noor Abdalla, gave birth to their son. Over the past six months, he has been a part of multiple legal battles: his challenge to being deported in a Louisiana immigration court; a civil rights case before US District Judge Michael Farbiarz in New Jersey; and a fight for $20 million in damages.
In a Wednesday letter to Farbiarz—an appointee of former President Joe Biden who has already blocked his deportation while the civil rights case proceeds—Khalil's legal team explained that on September 12, Jamee Comans, an immigration judge (IJ), "issued three separate orders denying petitioner's (1) motion for an extension of time, (2) motion to change venue, and (3) application for a waiver, without conducting an evidentiary hearing."
"In denying petitioner's request for a waiver absent a hearing, as well as his motions for extension of time and for change of venue, the IJ ordered petitioner removed to Algeria or Syria... while reaffirming her decisions denying petitioner any form of relief from removal," the letter says. Khalil now has 30 days from September 12 to start an appeal with the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA).
Noting "statements targeting petitioner by name for retaliation and deportation made by the president and several senior US government officials," Khalil's lawyers "have ample reason to expect that the BIA process—and an affirmance of the IJ's determination—will be swift," the letter continued. "Upon affirmance by the BIA, petitioner will lose his lawful permanent resident status, including his right to reside and work in the United States, and have a final order of removal against him."
"Compared to other courts of appeals, including those in the 3rd and 2nd Circuits, the 5th Circuit almost never grants stays of removal to noncitizens pursuing petitions for review of BIA decisions. As a result, the only meaningful impediment to petitioner's physical removal from the United States would be this court's important order prohibiting removal during the pendency of his federal habeas case," the letter points out, referring to Farbiarz's previous intervention.
Khalil is represented by Dratel & Lewis, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR), Van Der Hout LLP, Washington Square Legal Services, and the national, New Jersey, New York, and Louisiana arms of the ACLU.
"When the immigration prosecutor, judge, and jailer all answer to Donald Trump, and that one man is eager to weaponize the system in a desperate bid to silence Mahmoud Khalil, a US permanent resident whose only supposed sin is that he stands against an ongoing genocide in Palestine, this is the result," CLEAR co-director Ramzi Kassem said Wednesday. "A plain-as-day First Amendment violation that also puts on sharp display the rapidly free-falling credibility of the entire US immigration system."
In addition to calling out the Trump administration for its unconstitutional conduct, Khalil's lawyers expressed some optimism.
"We have witnessed a constant lack of humanity and allegiance to the law throughout proceedings in this farcical Louisiana immigration court, and the immigration judge's September 12 decision is just the most recent example of what occurs when the system requires an arbiter that is anything but neutral to do the administration's bidding," said Johnny Sinodis, a partner at Van Der Hout LLP. "As with other illegal efforts by the government, this too will be challenged and overcome."
Congressional Democrats and victim advocates took aim Tuesday at President Donald Trump’s gutting of federal programs combatcing human trafficking, belying campaign promises to aggressively target perpetrators of such crimes.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, on Tuesday released an 18-page memo “detailing how the Trump administration has repeatedly sided with sex offenders and human traffickers over their victims—often rewarding sexual predators and elevating them to positions of power within the US government while crippling key offices, programs, and grants that combat sex crimes and support survivors.”
This seemingly flies in the face of Trump's "Agenda 47" campaign platform, which vowed to aggressively crack down on human traffickers, and the groundswell of Trump supporters' unheeded calls for action and accountability in the Jeffrey Epstein case. Fighting child sex trafficking—both real and imagined—has long been an issue of passionate importance for the MAGA movement.
"Trump began his second term promising to 'make America safe again.' But safe for whom? Law-abiding citizens or dangerous criminals?"
Noting that "Trump and his supporters have gone from demanding the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files to doing everything in their power to prevent their release, openly tampering with potential witness Ghislaine Maxwell and calling the matter a 'Democrat hoax,'" the memo—titled Epstein Is the Tip of the Iceberg—begins by asking: "Trump began his second term promising to 'make America safe again.' But safe for whom? Law-abiding citizens or dangerous criminals?"
The memo notes that in the past seven months, Trump has:
Trump has also been found civilly liable for sexual abuse and has been accused of rape, sexual assault, or harassment by more than two dozen women.
Following whistleblower claims "that the Trump administration concealed information about the safety of unaccompanied Guatemalan children they tried to deport in the dead of night," Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Tuesday called for an oversight hearing to examine the US Office of Refugee Resettlement's "mass child deportation efforts and apparent lies under oath."
"The urgent call for a hearing comes after the disclosure alleged that at least 30 of 327 unaccompanied Guatemalan children the administration attempted to deport without due process 'have indicators of being a victim of child abuse, including death threats, gang violence, human trafficking, and/or have expressed fear of return to Guatemala,'" Padilla's office said in a statement Wednesday.
An investigation published Wednesday by The Guardian also detailed how the Trump administration "has aggressively rolled back efforts across the federal government to combat human trafficking."
Jean Bruggeman, executive director of the advocacy group Freedom Network USA, told The Guardian that “it’s been a widespread and multipronged attack on survivors that leaves all of us less safe and leaves survivors with few options."
Numerous critics have warned of the dangers of Trump's diversion of federal resources and personnel dedicated to combating human trafficking to enforcing mass deportations.
As Raskin told Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel during a charged Wednesday hearing, "When Trump decided that rounding up immigrants with no criminal records was more important that preventing crimes like human trafficking of women and girls, drug dealing, terrorism, and fraud, you ordered FBI’s 25 largest field offices to divert thousands of agents away from chasing down violent criminals, sex traffickers, fraudsters, and scammers to help carry out Trump’s extreme immigration crackdown."
"You ordered hundreds of FBI agents to pore over all the Epstein files," Raskin said, "but not to look for more clues about the money network or the network of human traffickers, pulled these agents from their regular counterterrorism, counterintelligence, or anti-drug trafficking duties to work around the clock, some of them sleeping on their office desks, to conduct a frantic search to make sure Donald Trump’s name and image were flagged and redacted wherever they appeared."
"Put on your big boy pants and let us know who the pedophiles are," Raskin added.
As working-class Americans contend with a stalled labor market and rising prices under US President Donald Trump, economist Alex Jacquez warned Wednesday that the Federal Reserve’s “small rate cut will do little to address Trump’s economic turmoil.”
“Driven by a stagnant job market, the Fed’s move offers no real relief to American households, consumers, or workers—all of whom are paying the price for Trump’s economic mismanagement,” said Jacquez, who previously served as a special assistant to former President Barack Obama and is now chief of policy and advocacy at the think tank Groundwork Collaborative. “No interest rate tweak can undo that damage.”
Jacquez's colleague Liz Pancotti, managing director of policy and advocacy at Groundwork, similarly said Wednesday that "President Trump promised to lower prices on day one and be 'the champion of the American worker,' yet his economic agenda has delivered higher prices, a stalled job market, and sluggish growth. He's leaving families and workers high and dry—and no move by the Fed will save them."
The president has been pressuring the US central bank to slash its benchmark interest rate, taking aim at Fed Chair Jerome Powell, whom Trump appointed during his first term. Powell remained in the post under former Democratic President Joe Biden.
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) voted to lower the federal funds rate by 0.25 percentage points, from 4.25-4.5% to 4-4.25%. It is the first cut since December 2024, and Powell said the decision reflects a "shift in the balance of risks" to the Fed's dual mandate of price stability and maximum employment.
Daniel Hornung, who held economic policy roles during the Obama and Biden administrations and is now a policy fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, said in a statement that "beyond the Fed's September cut, the main story from the Fed's projections is a cloudy outlook for the economy and monetary policy over the rest of the year."
The cut came after Trump ally Stephen Miran was sworn in to a seat on the Fed's Board of Governors on Tuesday—which made this FOMC gathering "the most politically charged meeting in recent memory," as Politico reported.
The new appointee "was the only Fed official to dissent from the decision," the outlet noted. "Miran called for twice as large a cut in borrowing costs, and the Fed's economic projections suggest that one official—likely Miran—would support jumbo-sized rate cuts at the next two meetings as well—an estimate that is conspicuously lower than the other 18 estimates."
Hornung highlighted that "an equal number of members favor hiking, no further cuts, or one cut to the number of members who favor two more cuts, and one outlier member—presumably, President Trump's current Council of Economic Advisers chair—favors the equivalent of five cuts."
"Besides Miran’s outlier status, which sends concerning signals about continued Fed independence," he added, "the wide range of views on the committee is a reaction to the real risks that tariff and immigration policy pose to both sides of the Fed's mandate."
Federal immigration agents across the United States are working to deliver on Trump's promised mass deportations, despite warnings of the human and economic impacts of rounding up immigrants living and working in the country. The president is also engaged in a global trade war, imposing tariffs that have driven up prices for a range of goods.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced last week that overall inflation rose by 2.9% year-over-year in August and core inflation rose by 3.1%. Jacquez said at the time: "Make no mistake, inflation is accelerating and American families continue to feel price pressures across the board from children's clothing, to groceries, to autos. Rate cuts will not ease the inescapable financial pain that the Trump economy is inflicting on households across the nation."
That came less than a week after BLS revealed in its first jobs report since Trump fired the agency's commissioner that the US economy added only 22,000 jobs in August, and the number of jobs created in July and June were once again revised downward.
Jacquez had called that report "more evidence that Trump’s promises to working families have fallen flat."
Recent polling has also exposed how working people are suffering under Trump's second administration. One survey—conducted by Data for Progress for Groundwork and Protect Borrowers—shows that "American families are trapped in a cycle of debt," with 55% of likely voters reporting at least some credit card debt, and another 18% saying they “had this type of debt in the past, but not anymore.”
The poll, released last week, also found that over half have or previously had car loan or medical debt, more than 40% have or had student debt, and over 35% are or used to be behind on utility payments. Additionally, nearly 30% have or had “buy now, pay later” debt through options such as Afterpay or Klarna.