February, 10 2021, 11:00pm EDT
WASHINGTON
A coalition of nineteen human rights and immigrants' rights organizations filed suit against the Department of Homeland Security and its Immigration and Customs Enforcement, requesting a federal court in Los Angeles to order the administration to release records dealing with the government's reasons for not releasing detained immigrant families together.
On August 4, 2020, the coalition submitted a FOIA request to the Trump Administration seeking access to records regarding family detentions and the Trump administration's failure to release children, but no records were released. The requesting organizations are opposed to the lengthy detention of migrant family units who are neither a flight risk nor danger. The Trump administration opposed and sought to terminate a 1997 settlement reached in a still pending federal court case in Los Angeles named Flores v. Acting Attorney General Monty Wilkinson. The 1997 settlement was reached with the Los Angeles-based non-profit Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law (CHRCL). For over twenty years the Flores settlement has set the national standards for the detention and prompt release of detained minors who are not flight risks or a danger. Over a hundred thousand detained children have been released under the settlement.
The requesting organizations believe that families can be safely released saving DHS hundreds of millions of dollars, and allowing migrants to reunite with their families, secure legal counsel, and properly prepare their cases for presentation to the immigration courts.
Denise Bell, Researcher on Refugee & Migrant Rights at Amnesty International USA, one of the requesting parties, issued the following statement: "Children should be able to grow up with their families, friends and communities - not be detained based solely on their immigration status. Nothing is stopping ICE from freeing families together, but it has chosen again and again to make it as difficult as possible to release children with their parents so they can be together and safe. This lawsuit builds pressure on ICE to answer with transparency and accountability for these policies so that the United States can finally do what it best for these children - to be give back their freedom and return them to communities in the United States ready to welcome them home."
Peter Schey, counsel for the coalition suing for records and one of the class counsel for all detained minors in the Flores case, issued the following statement: "By disclosing all instructions and directives now being relied upon to detain children and families, all interested parties, including child welfare experts, doctors, therapists, and lawyers assisting detained children, will be far better informed regarding how and why detention decisions are being made at a national level. With this information, children's advocates will engage in meaningful discussions with the Biden administration to wind down President Trump's senseless, harmful, and costly policy of massive indiscriminate family detention. The bottom line is that children and families who are not a flight risk or a danger should be released together."
Monica Eav Glicken, Directing Attorney, on behalf of requesting party Immigration Unit, Public Law Center, issued this statement: "The Public Law Center is extremely concerned about DHS's lack of transparency about its detention of children and their parents who arrive at our borders seeking protection under our asylum laws. Unfortunately, this complaint is necessary in order to hold DHS accountable for its unlawful, traumatizing and inhumane practices."
Bridget Cambria, Esq., Executive Director of requesting party ALDEA - The People's Justice Center, issued this statement: "On behalf of the families who have survived detention and the families who today suffer in detention it is time to understand the government's justification for unnecessarily detaining children and their parents for months or years at a time and it is beyond time to understand why the government chose to subject parents and children to family separation as an unconscionable alternative. This request for information is vital to document the government's failure to free the families and to abandon the unnecessary detention of accompanied children and families."
Plaintiff Parties are organizations from throughout the country concerned with and working to end the unnecessary and harmful detention of children and families.
Clergy And Laity United For Economic Justice (Los Angeles, CA);
El Rescate (Los Angeles, CA);
Amnesty International USA (national)
Human Rights Watch( national);
Aldea - The People's Justice Center (Reading, Pa);
California League Of United Latin American Citizens (California);
Public Law Center (Santa Ana, Ca);
Alianza Americas (Chicago, Il);
Immigrants' Rights Clinic At Columbia Law School (New York, NY);
Geographies Of Displacement University Of Texas At Austin And El Colegio De Sonora (Austin, Tx);
Immigrant Justice Task Force (Chicago, Il);
Interfaith Community For Detained Immigrants (Chicago, Il);
Legal Services For Prisoners With Children (Oakland Ca);
No More Deaths (Tucson, Az);
Proyecto Dilley (Dilley Tx);
Refugee and Immigrant Center For Education and Legal Services (San Antonio, Tx);
Project Lifeline (Tiburon, Ca);
Uncage & Reunite Families Coalition (Ca and Tx);
Witness At The Border (Menlo Park, Ca).
Amnesty International is a global movement of millions of people demanding human rights for all people - no matter who they are or where they are. We are the world's largest grassroots human rights organization.
(212) 807-8400LATEST NEWS
In Wake of Killing, UnitedHealth CEO Admits 'No One Would Design a System Like the One We Have'
One critic said UnitedHealth Group chief executive Andrew Witty should "resign and then dedicate every dollar he has to dismantling the current system brick by brick and building one based on public health in its stead."
Dec 13, 2024
UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty wrote in a New York Times op-ed Friday that the for-profit U.S. healthcare system "does not work as well as it should" and that "no one would design a system like the one we have," admissions that came as his industry faced a torrent of public anger following the murder of UnitedHealthcare's chief executive.
Witty declared that his firm, the parent company of UnitedHealthcare and the nation's largest private insurer, is "willing to partner with anyone, as we always have—healthcare providers, employers, patients, pharmaceutical companies, governments, and others—to find ways to deliver high-quality care and lower costs."
But critics didn't buy Witty's expressed commitment to reforming an industry that his company has helped shape and profited from massively. Witty was the highest-paid healthcare executive in the U.S. last year, and 40% of the private insurance industry's total profit since the passage of the Affordable Care Act has flowed to UnitedHealth Group.
"It is (barely) true that UnitedHealth didn't design the U.S. system of corporate insurance, which kills tens of thousands of people a year through denial of care," Alex Lawson, executive director of the progressive advocacy group Social Security Works, told Common Dreams. "But they certainly have perfected it and turned it into a medical murder apparatus at industrial scale. They not only block all attempts to change the system in the direction of public health, they bribe and bully with their billions in blood money to make it even crueler."
"Andrew Witty is the high priest of the temple to Moloch and Mammon, murder and money," Lawson added. "And there is no way for him to wash his hands of it, except perhaps to resign and then dedicate every dollar he has to dismantling the current system brick by brick and building one based on public health in its stead."
"Medicare for All is the only proposal on the table capable of delivering universal, continuous coverage for everyone, while also securing the efficiency and savings only possible through the elimination of private insurance."
While publicly pledging to cooperate with reform efforts, Witty has defended his company's care denials in private and urged his employees not to engage with media outlets in the aftermath of Thompson's murder.
Contrary to Witty's depiction of his company in his Times op-ed, UnitedHealth has historically been an aggressive opponent of reform efforts aimed at mitigating the harms of for-profit insurance and building public alternatives. The Leverreported in 2021 that UnitedHealth Group "held a webinar to pressure its rank-and-file employees to mobilize against efforts in Connecticut to create a state-level public health insurance option."
At the national level, UnitedHealth has spent over $5.8 million this year lobbying the federal government, according to OpenSecrets.
Witty, who was born in a country with a public healthcare system, did not detail the kinds of reforms he would support in his op-ed Friday, but it's clear he would oppose a transition to a single-payer system such as Medicare for All, which would effectively abolish private health insurance and provide coverage to all Americans for free at the point of service—and at a lower total cost than the status quo.
In a column for The Nation on Friday, writer Natalie Shure argued that "the appalling amount of resources and energy we put into maintaining the existence of health insurance is wasted on an industry with no social value whatsoever."
"You could eliminate every one of these corporations tomorrow and build a system without them that works better, for less money, and with less hassle," Shure wrote. "Other countries already have systems like this. Medicare for All is the only proposal on the table capable of delivering universal, continuous coverage for everyone, while also securing the efficiency and savings only possible through the elimination of private insurance."
"None of that means that murder is justified or useful," Shure added. "But anger can be. Some politicians, from Bernie Sanders, to Elizabeth Warren, to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have begun to make public statements ascribing the reaction to Brian Thompson's murder to widespread fury over the health insurance industry. The next step is to harness it, and to build something new."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Why Can't We Fund Universal Public Goods? Blame the Tax-Dodging Billionaire Nepo Babies
"In 2024, these billionaire families used their enormous wealth to make record-breaking political contributions to secure a GOP trifecta," reads a new report.
Dec 13, 2024
The children of the richest families in the U.S. are well-known for spending their vast wealth on frivolous luxuries—constructing a replica of a medieval church on their acres of property, in the case of banking heir Timothy Mellon, or starting a brand of T-shirts described by one critic as "terrible beyond your wildest imagination," as Wyatt Koch, nephew of Republican megadonors Charles and David, did.
But a report released by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) on Thursday shows how "billionaire nepo babies" don't just waste their families' fortunes. They also benefit from "a rigged system" that allows them to "pass that wealth down over generations without being properly taxed–often without being taxed at all."
In addition, the heirs of the country's biggest fortunes spend vast sums "to elect politicians who protect their unearned wealth and manipulate the country's economy in their favor," said ATF.
Along with Mellon and Koch, the report profiles Samuel Logan of the Scripps media dynasty; Nicola Peltz-Beckham, daughter of billionaire investor Nelson Peltz; Gabrielle Rubenstein, whose family has made its fortune in private equity; and President-elect Donald Trump's son, Eric Trump.
The nepo babies are part of a small group of billionaire families in the U.S. who benefit from tax loopholes that ensure little of their immense wealth ever goes to benefit the public good.
At least 90 billionaires have passed away over the last decade, leaving their beneficiaries $455 billion in collective wealth.
But according to ATF, "$255 billion (56%) of that amount was likely entirely exempt from the capital gains tax because of a special break called 'stepped up basis.'"
"Trump and his allies in Congress are doing their donors' bidding by rigging the system in their favor and pushing a $4 trillion giveaway to wealthy elites and giant corporations."
Without loopholes included the stepped up basis tax cut, the current estate tax on billionaires and centimillionaires would yield enough revenue to fund universal childcare, preschool, and paid family leave for U.S. workers, with hundreds of billions of dollars left over, according to ATF's report.
The wealthy heirs profiled in the report and their families are some of the Republican Party's top donors—contributing hundreds of millions of dollars to candidates including Trump in the hopes of securing even more tax cuts.
Mellon, for example, is Trump's "biggest supporter, giving $140 million to a pro-Trump PAC in 2024 alone," reads the report.
A previous analysis by ATF found that as of late October, just 150 billionaire families had spent $1.9 billion on the 2024 elections.
As the Center for American Progress found earlier this year, Trump's plan to extend the tax cuts that he pushed through in 2017 would cost $4 trillion over the next decade.
"The vast wealth inherited by centuries-old billionaire families is staggering. While these heirs and their billions go undertaxed, enormous sums are squandered on lavish mansions, private jets, and vanity projects instead of funding crucial public investments," said ATF executive director David Kass. "In 2024, these billionaire families used their enormous wealth to make record-breaking political contributions to secure a GOP trifecta. Now, Trump and his allies in Congress are doing their donors' bidding by rigging the system in their favor and pushing a $4 trillion giveaway to wealthy elites and giant corporations—all while advocating for cuts to vital programs that working and middle-class Americans depend on."
The report calls for Congress to pass "proven, pragmatic proposals to unrig the tax system that enjoy high levels of popular support," such as the Ultra Millionaire Tax Act that was proposed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) this year. The bill would tax fortunes between $50 million and $1 billion at 2% and wealth above $1 billion at $1 billion.
The small tax on enormous wealth would generate "a whopping $3 trillion over 10 years," said ATF.
The estate tax could also be "restored so that it can play a meaningful role in promoting fairness and equal opportunities" through the passage of the For the 99.5% Act, which was introduced in 2023 by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.).
Under the bill, the estate tax exemption would be lowered to $7 million per couple and the current 40% flat rate would be replaced with a sliding scale that would charge higher rates as a family's wealth grows.
"None of these tax reforms would impoverish the ultra wealthy, nor even inconvenience them in any meaningful way–but they would reduce the concentration of wealth that is so corrosive to society," reads the report. "At the same time, they would raise trillions of dollars that could be used to reduce inequality and improve the lives of families that can only dream of the kind of security and opportunity enjoyed by the nation’s richest clans."
"And if rich families ever did need to tighten their belts a bit to pay their taxes," the report continues, "the economizing might begin by reducing the flow of money funding the extravagant lifestyles of America's Billionaire Nepo Babies."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'The Next Recession Starts Here': Trump Team Weighs Abolishing Bank Regulators
The president-elect's advisers are reportedly discussing plans to shrink or eliminate key bank watchdogs, including the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
Dec 13, 2024
President-elect Donald Trump and his advisers are reportedly considering plans to weaken—or abolish altogether—top bank regulators, including the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
The Wall Street Journalreported Thursday that members of Trump's transition team and the new Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency have asked nominees under consideration to head the FDIC and OCC if the bank watchdogs could be eliminated and have their functions absorbed by the Treasury Department, which is set to be run by a billionaire hedge fund manager and crypto enthusiast.
"Bank executives are optimistic President-elect Donald Trump will ease a host of regulations on capital cushions and consumer protections, as well as scrutiny of consolidation in the industry," the Journal reported. "But FDIC deposit insurance is considered near sacred. Any move that threatened to undermine even the perception of deposit insurance could quickly ripple through banks and in a crisis might compound customer fears."
The Trump team's internal and fluid discussions about the fate of the key bank regulators broadly aligns with Project 2025's proposal to "merge the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Credit Union Administration, and the Federal Reserve's non-monetary supervisory and regulatory functions."
The FDIC, which is primarily funded by bank insurance premiums, was established during the Great Depression to restore public trust in the nation's banking system, and the agency played a central role in navigating the 2023 bank failures that threatened a systemic crisis.
Observers warned that gutting the FDIC and OCC could catalyze another economic meltdown.
"The next recession starts here," tech journalist Jacob Silverman warned in response to the Journal's reporting.
Eric Rauchway, a historian of the New Deal, wrote that "even Milton Friedman appreciated the FDIC," underscoring the extreme nature of the incoming Trump administration's deregulatory ambitions.
Musk, the world's wealthiest man, is also pushing for the elimination of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency established in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
The Journal noted Thursday that "Rep. Andy Barr, a Republican from Kentucky and Trump ally on the House Financial Services Committee, has backed the plan to eliminate or drastically alter the CFPB and said he wants to get rid of what he calls 'one-size-fits-all' regulation for banks."
Barr has received millions of dollars in campaign donations from the financial sector and "introduced many pieces of pro-industry legislation, including significant rollbacks of protections stemming from the 2008 financial crisis," according to the watchdog group Accountable.US.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular