SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
For Immediate Release
October, 11 2018, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
212-627-2227
DOJ Reveals Bannon Behind Census Citizenship Question
Department of Justice admits conversations between Secretary of Commerce Ross and Steve Bannon in Census lawsuit discovery
New York, NY
This afternoon, the Department of Justice (DOJ) admitted that Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross spoke with Steve Bannon, former White House Chief Strategist, about the decision to include a citizenship question on the 2020 Census. In a new DOJ court filing in the lawsuit State of New York et al. v Department of Commerce, Secretary Ross suddenly "recalls" the conversation, after previously claiming he was "not aware" of any contact with the White House. Two days ago the Supreme Court issued a temporary injunction, blocking the lower court-ordered depositions of Secretary Ross and DOJ official John Gore.
"Trump wants to distract us with Kanye West in the White House, while news leaks that his Commerce Secretary conspired with a white supremacist to rig the Census," said Steven Choi, Executive Director of the New York Immigration Coalition. "It's obvious that the administration hates immigrants and wants to deny big, blue states federal resources and political power by undercounting them in the Census. This is a perversion of the Constitution for partisan gain and a direct attack on anyone who doesn't meet Steve Bannon's warped approval."
Steve Bannon, also the former Executive Chairman of right-wing publication Breitbart News and the executive producer of the film Border War: The Battle Over Illegal Immigration, is widely known as a white supremacist and an anti-semite.
The New York Immigration Coalition filed a federal lawsuit in the Southern District of New York in conjunction with the ACLU and four other immigrant rights groups against the administration's attempt to target immigrant communities, challenging the addition of the citizenship question by adding an intentional discrimination claim. The lawsuit argues that adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census violates the Constitution and reverses seven decades of precedent without a factual basis.
Background
On April 3rd, the New York Attorney General's office filed a lawsuit- New York v. Dept of Commerce- in the Southern District of New York to stop the Commerce Department from demanding citizenship information on the 2020 Census. The lawsuit argues that adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census violates the law and reverses seven decades of precedent without a factual basis.
Currently 19 States plus D.C., a number of cities and counties, and the bipartisan U.S. Conference of Mayors have joined the New York Attorney General's lawsuit. On May 25, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Judge Furman on July 3rd stated it was "unlikely he would dismiss the case in its entirety" and granted the AG's office request for additional discovery, resulting in the federal government recently releasing new documents.
On June 6th, the New York Immigration Coalition filed a related federal lawsuit in the Southern District of New York in conjunction with the ACLU and four other immigrant rights groups. The suit challenges the Trump administration's plan to include a citizenship question on the 2020 census, by adding an intentional discrimination claim.
On July 26th, Judge Furman ruled against the Trump administration's request to dismiss New York v. Department of Commerce, and will allow the lawsuit to move forward.
The New York Immigration Coalition, together with over eighty partners, has formed New York Counts 2020, a coalition to maximize participation in the census and therefore counter the expected impact of the citizenship question if added to the 2020 census. If included, a citizenship question will stoke unnecessary fear in immigrant communities and could result in a significant undercount, particularly already under-counted racial and ethnic minority groups. With immigrants constituting nearly 1 out of 4 New Yorkers, an undercount in the 2020 Census will have catastrophic consequences - costing all New Yorkers political power and billions of dollars in federal funding for key services.
The New York Counts 2020 coalition includes:
Academy of Medical and Public Health Services
ACCESS WNY
ADL and 67th Precinct Clergy Council
African Communities Together
African Services Committee
American Immigration Lawyers Association - New York Chapter
Arab American Association of New York
Asian American Federation
Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF)
Association for Better New York
Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development (ANHD)
Bangladeshi American Community Development and Youth Services (BACDYS)
Bronx Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc
Brooklyn Public Library
Catholic Charities, Archdiocese of New York
Catholic Migration Services
Center for Law and Social Justice, Medgar Evers College
Charles B. Wang Community Health Center
CHHAYA CDC
Chinese-American Planning Council
Chinese Progressive Association
Christopher Rose Community Empowerment Campaign
Cidadao Global
Citizens' Committee for Children of New York
Citizens Union Foundation
Common Cause NY
Community Legal Advocates of NY
Community Voices Heard
Cooper Square Committee N-NORC
Church Women United in New York State
Desis Rising Up and Moving
Digital Equity Laboratory, The New School
EducatedVoter.net
Emerald Island Immigration Center
Engage New York
Fiscal Policy Institute
Forestdale
FPWA
Garifuna Coalition USA, Inc.
Goddard Riverside Community Center
Health and Welfare Council of Long Island
Human Services Council
Indivisible Nation BK
Indo-Caribbean Alliance, Inc.
Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness and Housing
Japanese American Social Services, Inc.
Jewish Community Relations Council
Korean Community Services of Metropolitan New York
LatinoJustice PRLDEF
Literacy Assistance Center
LiUNA Local 78
LSA Family Health Service
Masa
MinKwon Center for Community Action
Mixteca Organization, Inc.
Movement for Justice in El Barrio
NAACP-New York Branch
NALEO Educational Fund
New America
New York Alumnae Chapter, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.
New York City Employment and Training Coalition
New York Housing Conference
New York Immigration Coalition
New York Legal Assistance Group
New York State Council on Children and Families
New York Portuguese American Leadership Conference
NMIC
Nobody Leaves Mid-Hudson
OCA-NY
Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow
Planned Parenthood Empire State Acts
Planned Parenthood of New York City
Pratt Center for Community Development
Russian Speaking Community Council of Manhattan and the Bronx, Inc.
SEIU32BJ
Sisters of St. Joseph of Rochester
Sunnyside Community Services
SUNY Rockefeller Institute of Government
The Door - A Center for Alternatives
Tiny Panther Consulting
Treatment Action Group
Queens College, CUNY/Social Explorer
Queens Library
UJA-Federation of New York
United Neighborhood Houses
Vision Urbana, Inc.
Volunteer Lawyers Project of Onondaga County
Wayne Action for Racial Justice
Worker's Center of Central New York
YMCA of Greater New York
Young Invincibles
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
'Stinks of Rotting Meat': Critics Warn Trump DOJ Settlement Would Legalize Price-Fixing
"Get ready for even higher prices for chicken, turkey, and pork," said one antitrust attorney.
May 08, 2026
US President Donald Trump's Justice Department moved Thursday to settle a Biden-era antitrust lawsuit against the analytics firm Agri Stats, proposing an agreement that critics say would effectively give the stamp of federal approval to meat industry price-fixing schemes.
The Justice Department—now headed by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, formerly Trump's personal lawyer—hailed the proposed settlement as a "historic" win over a company whose "business model directly raised the price of chicken, turkey, and pork in local grocery stores across our nation." But critics said the agreement, which must undergo review by a federal judge, would do nothing substantial to rein in price-fixing in the meat industry.
Lee Hepner, senior legal counsel for the American Economic Liberties Project, said the deal "stinks of rotting meat," noting that the settlement was proposed just days before the case was set to go to trial.
"No way does it address the harms," Hepner said of the 79-page settlement. "Agri Stats spent decades hiking prices on over 90% of processed meat in the country. Now they're being told to exercise some discretion going forward."
"It's a gut punch to those who worked on this case for four years thinking it might actually deter these price fixing services from cropping up in every other industry," Hepner added.
The Biden administration brought the antitrust lawsuit against Agri Stats in September 2023, accusing the company and its subsidiary EMI of "collecting, integrating, and distributing competitively sensitive information related to price, cost, and output among competing meat processors."
"While distributing troves of competitively sensitive information among participating processors, Agri Stats withholds its reports from meat purchasers, workers and American consumers, resulting in an information asymmetry that further exacerbates the competitive harm of Agri Stats’ information exchanges," the Biden DOJ said.
"This settlement legalizes meat price-fixing—it just says you have to bring the giant retailers and distributors in on the game."
The Trump Justice Department's settlement would require Agri Stats to "make the vast majority of information" it distributes "available to all interested domestic purchasers on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms," along with several other conditions.
But the settlement states that EMI is not otherwise "prohibited... from continuing to provide EMI Price Reports in substantially the same manner as it did as of April 24, 2026."
Agri Stats noted in a statement Thursday that it "denied all allegations" of illegal conduct and "has admitted no wrongdoing" as part of the settlement. Agri Stats' lead counsel in the case called the deal "a win" for both the company and consumers—a claim that antitrust advocates rejected, calling the agreement blatantly one-sided in the corporation's favor.
"This settlement legalizes meat price-fixing—it just says you have to bring the giant retailers and distributors in on the game," wrote Basel Musharbash, managing attorney at Antimonopoly Counsel. "Get ready for even higher prices for chicken, turkey, and pork."
The proposed Agri Stats settlement is the latest favorable deal that Trump's Justice Department—which is in the grip of lobbyists with ties to the president—has cut with a major corporation accused of illegal price-fixing.
Last November, as Common Dreams reported, the Justice Department agreed to settle a Biden-era lawsuit filed against the real estate software company RealPage, which was accused of an "unlawful scheme to decrease competition among landlords in apartment pricing and to monopolize the market for commercial revenue management software."
RealPage welcomed the settlement, noting that the agreement included "no financial penalties, damages, or findings or admissions of wrongdoing."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump Tariffs Ruled Illegal—Again—as Data Shows Promised Manufacturing Boom Is Nonexistent
"The average household has already had nearly $2,000 stolen from them by this administration, and they should not have to pay a penny more," said one House Democrat.
May 08, 2026
A panel of federal judges ruled Thursday that US President Donald Trump's sweeping 10% tariffs on most imports are unlawful, another major legal blow to the centerpiece of the Republican president's economic agenda—which has failed to produce the manufacturing boom he repeatedly promised on the campaign trail.
The Court of International Trade (CIT) found in a 2-to-1 ruling that Trump violated the law when he unilaterally enacted the 10% import taxes following a February decision by the US Supreme Court, which struck down tariffs the president imposed using emergency powers. But the CIT's ruling, which the Trump administration is expected to appeal, only barred collection of the tariffs from some of the plaintiffs in the case—including a pair of businesses and Washington state—limiting the ruling's immediate impact.
Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), a member of the House Trade Subcommittee, applauded the new ruling in a statement, saying that "Trump must comply with the law by ending his illegal tax on the American people and getting families and small businesses the refunds they are owed."
"The Supreme Court already rebuked the president's costly tariffs, but Donald Trump sees our Constitution as a mere suggestion to follow, and not the law of the land,” said Larson. “As families are squeezed by sky-high grocery bills and gas prices, his latest round of tariffs is only pouring salt in the wound. The average household has already had nearly $2,000 stolen from them by this administration, and they should not have to pay a penny more."
The decision came as a new analysis of trade and manufacturing data from the first quarter of 2026 found that the president's "actions on trade have not delivered on his promises to quickly balance trade and revitalize US manufacturing." Since Trump's return to the White House last year, US manufacturing employment has declined by 82,000 jobs, according to the Rethink Trade program at the American Economic Liberties Project.
Additionally, the nation's trade deficit was higher during the first three months of this year compared to the same period in 2024, Rethink Trade found.
“The first-quarter 2026 data show President Trump’s promises to prioritize speedily cutting the trade deficit and create more American manufacturing jobs are getting undermined by his chaotic and often mistargeted use of tariffs and squandering of leverage to demand other countries gut their Big Tech anti-monopoly and other policies instead of mercantilist abuses fueling the trade deficit,” said Lori Wallach, Rethink Trade's director.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Leaked CIA Analysis Shows Trump and Hegseth 'Lied Through Their Teeth' About Iran War, Says Murphy
White House officials "just straight up fabricated shit," said the Democratic senator from Connecticut.
May 07, 2026
Just hours before the Trump administration conducted what it claimed were "self-defense strikes" against "Iranian military facilities," The Washington Post reported Thursday that the Central Intelligence Agency concluded that "Iran can survive the US naval blockade for at least three to four months before facing more severe economic hardship."
Citing four unnamed officials familiar with the analysis, the newspaper highlighted that "the CIA analysis might even be underestimating Iran's economic resilience if Tehran is able to smuggle oil via overland routes."
Militarily, "Iran retains about 75% of its prewar inventories of mobile launchers and about 70% of its prewar stockpiles of missiles," the Post added. "There is evidence that the regime has been able to recover and reopen almost all of its underground storage facilities, repair some damaged missiles, and even assemble some new missiles that were nearly complete when the war began."
Drop Site News' Murtaza Hussain responded that if this assessment along with a previous one from the Center for Strategic and International Studies about "remaining US munitions and interceptor capacity are even approximately correct, it goes a long way to explaining why Trump seems so eager to end the war whereas the Iranians have either dug in or escalated their negotiating positions. The missile math of continuing the conflict would be much more favorable to the Iranians, especially if the war continued for a significant time."
"Prior to the war, interceptor capacity compared to the size of the Iranian missile stockpile seemed like the most rationally incontrovertible reason to avoid fighting such a conflict, even for people who found it politically desirable," he added. "This also might explain why the US and Israel pivoted towards the end to threatening countervalue strikes against civilian targets if attempts to destroy the underground missile cities by air were ineffective."
The Post's reporting came one month into a fragile ceasefire and starkly contrasts the recent framing of conditions in Iran from President Donald Trump and others in his administration, including Defense Secretary Pete Hesgeth.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) responded to the Post's reporting by quoting Hegseth, who said in March that "never before has a modern, capable military, which Iran used to have, been so quickly destroyed and made combat ineffective."
Murphy declared: "They lied through their teeth. Just straight up fabricated shit."
Still, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly stuck to the administration's framing in a Thursday statement to the Post.
"During Operation Epic Fury, Iran was crushed militarily," Kelly said. "Now, they are being strangled economically by Operation Economic Fury and losing $500 million per day thanks to the United States military's successful blockade of Iranian ports. The Iranian regime knows full well their current reality is not sustainable, and President Trump holds all the cards as negotiators work to make a deal."
Meanwhile, some experts were unsurprised that the CIA privately delivered a "sober" assessment contradicting the administration's public commentary on the conflict—which it now claims is no longer an active "war," seemingly to dodge a key congressional deadline.
"Nice to know that a confidential CIA analysis is confirming what close observers of the Iranian economy have been saying publicly for weeks! Intelligent policymakers rely on intelligence. But Trump jeopardized diplomacy by instigating a blockade that was never going to work," said Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in Europe and founder of the think tank Bourse & Bazaar Foundation.
Sharing the reporting on social media, Jennifer Kavanagh, a senior fellow and director of military analysis at the think tank Defense Priorities, wrote: "As I argued a week into the U.S. blockade, Iran can hold out for months without economic collapse. The costs for the US and the world are increasingly unsustainable, however."
Earlier this week, Stephen Semler, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, estimated that the US government spent $71.8 billion on the Iran War during its first 60 days, an average of $1.2 billion daily. The International Monetary Fund warned last month that the conflict could cause a global recession.
Last Friday, Trump responded to the War Powers Act's 60-day deadline by claiming to Congress that his war—which already violated US and international law—had been "terminated." The White House said at the time that no fire had been exchanged since April 7, when a ceasefire deal was reached just hours after the president issued a genocidal threat against the Iranian people.
However, on Thursday evening, United States Central Command announced that Iran "launched multiple missiles, drones, and small boats" at American warships. CENTCOM added that it "eliminated inbound threats and targeted Iranian military facilities responsible for attacking US forces, including missile and drone launch sites; command and control locations; and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance nodes."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular