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For Immediate Release
March, 14 2025, 03:46pm EDT
Contact:
Marjorie Valbrun,202-463-8602 x305,press@americasvoiceonline.org
'First They Came for the Immigrant': Immigration Crackdown the 'Tip of a Very Dangerous Spear' for Democracy
Vanessa Cárdenas: "The Trump administration’s expanded immigration crackdown is just the tip of a very dangerous spear for American democracy and Americans' rights and liberties."
This week alone, by using new levers of state power and old, inapplicable statutes, the Trump administration has:
- Initiated deportation proceedings against a green card holder for protesting on a college campus – a clear attempt to weaponize immigration law to chill political dissent and free speech across the country.
- Readied the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, infamously used to justify the internment of Japanese, German, and Italians during World War II, to seize sweeping new powers to conduct indiscriminate mass deportations.
- And the sitting Vice President offered a disturbing encapsulation of the right wing project to remake America around MAGA’s preferred image, with J.D. Vance stating on Fox News regarding the Mahmoud Khalil case and implications, “It's about who do we, as an American public, decide gets to join our national community? And if the Secretary of State and President decide a person shouldn't be in America, it's as simple as that.”
The following is a statement from Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice, reacting to the larger implications of this week:
“The Trump administration’s expanded immigration crackdown is just the tip of a very dangerous spear for American democracy and Americans’ rights and liberties.
Ripped from the playbook of authoritarian movements, it’s not hyperbolic to say they are looking to dismantle core principles of our democracy, viewing the executive branch and state power as means to seek political retribution, crack down on free speech and subvert or ignore the rule of law. Taken together, these actions take America back to the darkest chapters of our national and world history. The resulting fear, intimidation and chaos is a deliberate feature of their efforts.
To push back and stand up for a different vision of America, we need to be clear eyed about what we’re seeing and the larger stakes and not pretend it’s business as usual. First, they came for the immigrants.”
America's Voice -- Harnessing the power of American voices and American values to win common sense immigration reform. The mission of America's Voice is to realize the promise of workable and humane comprehensive immigration reform. Our goal is to build the public support and create the political momentum for reforms that will transform a dysfunctional immigration system that does not work into a regulatory system that does.
LATEST NEWS
With US 'Paying the Price for Trump's Mistakes,' He Ends Tariffs for Bananas, Beef, Coffee, and More
The administration is "now acknowledging what economists and business leaders have told us from the beginning: that tariffs are driving up prices," said one journalist.
Nov 14, 2025
Although President Donald Trump didn't actually confess that his global trade war is driving up the cost of groceries for Americans, he did finally drop his dubiously named "reciprocal" tariffs on key imports on Friday.
According to a White House fact sheet, Trump's new executive order ends his tariffs on beef; cocoa and spices; coffee and tea; bananas, oranges, and tomatoes; other tropical fruits and fruit juices; and fertilizers.
The New York Times had reported Thursday that "the Trump administration is preparing broad exemptions to certain tariffs in an effort to ease elevated food prices that have provoked anxiety for American consumers."
The reporting drew critiques of the administration's economic policies, including from members of Congress such as Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who said that "Trump just admitted it: Americans are footing the bill for his disastrous tariffs."
"While this move may alleviate some of the cost increases Trump caused, it will not stop the larger problems of rising inflation, business uncertainty, and economic damage done by Trump's crazy tariff scheme."
Also responding to the Times reporting, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote on social media Friday: "After months of increasing grocery prices, Donald Trump is finally admitting he was wrong. Americans are literally paying the price for Trump's mistakes."
More lawmakers and other critics piled on after Trump issued the order. CNN's Jim Sciutto said: "Trump administration now acknowledging what economists and business leaders have told us from the beginning: that tariffs are driving up prices."
MeidasTouch and its editor in chief, Ron Filipkowski, also called out the president on social media, with the outlet sarcastically noting, "But Trump said his tariffs don't raise prices."
OR, Trump Admits His Tariffs Caused Grocery Prices to Rise.
[image or embed]
— Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) November 14, 2025 at 5:52 PM
Congressman Don Beyer (D-Va), who serves on the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade, said in a Friday statement that "President Trump is finally admitting what we always knew: His tariffs are raising prices for the American people."
"After getting drubbed in recent elections because of voters' fury that Trump has broken his promises to fix inflation, the White House is trying to cast this tariff retreat as a 'pivot to affordability,'" Beyer said, referencing Democrats who won key races last week, from more moderate Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger, the incoming governors of New Jersey and Virginia, to democratic socialist Mayors-elect Zohran Mamdani of New York City and Katie Wilson of Seattle.
In addition to those electoral victories for Democrats, last week featured a debate over Trump's trade war at the US Supreme Court. According to Beyer: "The simple truth is that Republicans want credit for something they think the Supreme Court will force them to do anyway, after oral arguments before the court on Trump's illegal abuses of trade authorities went badly for the administration. Trump is still keeping the vast majority of his tariffs in place, and his administration is also planning new tariffs in anticipation of a Supreme Court loss."
"The same logic—that Trump's tariffs are driving up prices on coffee, fruit, and other comestibles—is equally true for the thousands of other goods on which his tariffs remain," he continued. "While this move may alleviate some of the cost increases Trump caused, it will not stop the larger problems of rising inflation, business uncertainty, and economic damage done by Trump's crazy tariff scheme."
"Only Congress can do that, by reclaiming its legal responsibility under the Constitution to regulate trade, and permanently ending Trump's trade war chaos," he stressed. "All but a handful of Republicans in Congress are still refusing to stand up to Trump, stop his tariffs, and lower costs for the American people, and unless they find a backbone, our economy will continue to suffer."
Huh. Trump dropped the tariffs on coffee, beef, and tropical fruit to LOWER PRICES. I thought other countries paid for those?
— Angry (@angrystaffer.bsky.social) November 14, 2025 at 5:50 PM
As the Associated Press noted Friday, "The president signed the executive order after announcing that the U.S. had reached framework agreements with Ecuador, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Argentina designed to ease import levies on agricultural products produced in those countries."
Trump's order also came just a day after Democrats on the congressional Joint Economic Committee released a report showing that US families are paying roughly $700 more each month for basic items since Trump returned to office in January—with households in some states, such as Alaska and California, facing an average of over $1,000 monthly.
The president has floated sending Americans a $2,000 check, purportedly funded by revenue collected from his tariffs, but as Common Dreams reported Wednesday, economist Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research crunched the numbers and found that the proposed "dividend" doesn't add up.
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As Israel Keeps Killing Palestinians, Tlaib Leads Bill Recognizing War on Gaza as Genocide
"After over two years of slaughter, forced starvation, and mass atrocities in Gaza, the global consensus is clear: The Israeli government has committed genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza."
Nov 14, 2025
Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib and 20 Democratic colleagues on Friday introduced legislation that would officially recognize Israel's 25-month war on Gaza as a genocide, a move that came as Israeli forces continued killing Palestinians in the coastal strip and violating a tenuous ceasefire with Hamas.
Tlaib (D-Mich.)—the only Palestinian American in Congress—introduced H.Res. 876, which, if passed, would "officially recognize that the state of Israel has committed the crime of genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza" and affirm that it is official US policy to "prevent and punish the crime of genocide, wherever it occurs."
“The Israeli government’s genocide in Gaza has not ended, and it will not end until we act," Tlaib said in a statement Friday. "Since the so-called ‘ceasefire’ was announced, Israeli forces haven’t stopped killing Palestinians."
According to Gaza's Government Media Office (GMO), Israel has violated the ceasefire agreement 282 times as of November 10, 2025—exactly one month after the US-brokered truce took effect. Alleged violations include airstrikes resulting in massacres, shootings of civilians, property demolitions, and raids beyond the ceasefire's "yellow line" buffer zones.
GMO says Israeli forces have killed least 242 Palestinians and injured more than 620 others during the truce.
This, in addition to the at least 249,000 Palestinians who have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces since October 2023, including upward of 10,000 people who are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the ruins of Gaza, which could take decades to clear. Around 2 million Palestinians have been starved, sickened, and forcibly displaced. Many others have been arbitrarily imprisoned, tortured, and allegedly subjected to rape and other sexual abuse.
"After over two years of slaughter, forced starvation, and mass atrocities in Gaza, the global consensus is clear: The Israeli government has committed genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza," Tlaib noted.
She continued:
Palestinians in Gaza have attested to this genocide for over two years and it has been concluded by the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, and highly respected international, Palestinian, and Israeli human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Doctors Without Borders, Al-Haq, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, B’Tselem, Physicians for Human Rights Israel, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, Forensic Architecture, and the University Network for Human Rights.
The resolution calls for the United States to "respect its obligations under the Genocide Convention by employing all means reasonably available to it to prevent and punish the crime of genocide."
These include:
- cessation of relevant arms and equipment transfers;
- investigation and prosecution of individuals and corporations in the United States implicated in the crime of genocide;
- compliance with the orders of the International Court of Justice and the investigations of the International Criminal Court (ICC); and
- targeted, lawful sanctions with respect to the state of Israel and individuals or corporations involved in or facilitating the commission of genocide.
“Impunity only enables more atrocity," Tlaib warned. "As our government continues to send a blank check for war crimes and ethnic cleansing, Palestinian children’s smiles are extinguished by bombs and bullets that say made in the USA."
"To end this horror, we must reject genocide denial and follow our binding legal obligations under the Genocide Convention to take immediate action to pursue justice and accountability to prevent and punish the crime of genocide," she added. "We must hold individual perpetrators and complicit corporations to account. We must stop sending weapons to a genocidal military. We must follow international law and use all means available to us, including sanctions, to bring this genocide to an end.”
Despite existing laws prohibiting US assistance to foreign security forces that commit gross human rights violations, the United States—which grew into a world power in part via genocide of Indigenous Americans—has provided arms and diplomatic cover to the perpetrators of genocides in Paraguay, Guatemala, Bangladesh, East Timor, Kurdistan, and Gaza over the past half-century, while turning a blind eye to other genocides.
Under the Biden and Trump administrations, the US has provided Israel with more than $20 billion in armed aid while thwarting efforts to end the genocide by vetoing numerous United Nations Security Council ceasefire resolutions.
The Trump administration has also slapped sanctions on ICC judges after the tribunal issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation.
Trump has also targeted individuals and nations who seek justice for Palestinians, acknowledge the Gaza genocide, or recognize Palestinian statehood.
Tlaib's resolution is co-sponsored by Democratic Reps. Becca Balint (Vt.), André Carson (Ind.), Greg Casar (Texas), Maxine Dexter (Ore.), Maxwell Alejandro Frost (Fla.), Jesús "Chuy" García (Ill.), Al Green (Texas), Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), “Hank” Johnson Jr. (Ga.), Ro Khanna (Calif.), Summer Lee (Pa.), Jim McGovern (Mass.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Mark Pocan (Wis.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Delia Ramirez (Ill.), Lateefah Simon (Calif.), Nydia Velázquez (NY), and Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ).
The resolution—which is unlikely to get through the Republican-controlled Congress—is also endorsed by more than 100 organizations.
“This resolution is an important step towards recognizing Israel’s actions against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip for what they are—genocide," Amnesty International Middle East and North Africa advocacy director Elizabeth Rghebi said in support of the measure.
"The US ratified the Genocide Convention which imposes a duty on states to prevent and punish the crime," Rghebi added. "Amnesty International calls on all members of Congress to urgently support this resolution and ensure the US begins taking the actions necessary to prevent and punish Israel’s genocide in Gaza."
Beth Miller, political director at Jewish Voice for Peace Action, said that “for over two years, the US has been a full partner in the Israeli government’s genocide against Palestinians. Presidents and members of Congress have denied and erased Israel’s ongoing atrocities in Gaza, shielded Israel from accountability in the international arena, and attempted to dehumanize Palestinians."
"Congresswoman Tlaib and the original co-sponsors joining her on this historic resolution are making clear that this complicity must come to an end," Miller added. "These representatives are heeding the call of the overwhelming majority of Americans who want to see an end to his genocide and a halt to US support for war crimes."
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Groups Warn Trump Executive Orders Would Spike Cancers Caused by Exposure to Nuclear Radiation
A letter implored the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to "stand up to the executive order’s marching orders to 'promote' nuclear power."
Nov 14, 2025
A series of nuclear power-related executive orders issued by President Donald Trump seek to legitimize people's "suffering as the price of nuclear expansion," said one expert at Beyond Nuclear on Friday, as the nongovernmental organization spearheaded a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and top Trump administration officials warning of the public health risks of the orders.
More than 40 civil society groups—including Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), Sierra Club, Nuclear Watch South, and the Appalachian Peace Education Center—signed the letter to the commission, calling on officials not to revise the NRC's Standards for Protection Against Radiation, as they were directed to earlier this year by Trump.
"NRC has not made a revision yet, and has been hearing that the Part 20 exposure (external only) should be taken from the existing 100 mr [milliroentgen] a year, per license, to 500 mr a year, and in view of some, even to 10 Rems [Roentgen Equivalent Man], which would be 100 times the current level," reads the letter.
In 2021, noted PSR, the NRC "roundly rejected" a petition "to raise allowable radiation exposures for all Americans, including children and pregnant women, to 10 Rems a year."
The revision to radiation limit standards would result in anywhere from 5-100 times less protection for Americans, said the groups, with 4 out of 5 adult males exposed over a 70-year lifetime developing cancer that they otherwise would not have.
"Radiation is dangerous for everyone,” said Amanda M. Nichols, lead author of the 2024 study Gender and Ionizing Radiation. “[Trump’s] executive order will allow the industry to relax the current standards for radiological protection, which are already far from adequate. This will have detrimental health consequences for humans and for our shared environments and puts us all at higher risk for negative health consequences. ”
The change in standards would be even more consequential for women, including pregnant women, and children—all of whom are disproportionately susceptible to health impacts of ionizing radiation, compared to adult males.
"Radiation causes infertility, loss of pregnancy, birth complications and defects, as well as solid tumor cancer, leukemia, non-cancer outcomes including cardiovascular disease, increased incidence of autoimmune disease, and ongoing new findings.”
In Gender and Ionizing Radiation, Nichols and biologist Mary Olson examined atomic bomb survivor data and found that young girls "face twice the risk as boys of the same age, and have four to five times the risk of developing cancer later in life than a woman exposed in adulthood."
Despite the risks to some of the country's most vulnerable people, Trump has also called for a revision of "the basis of the NRC regulation," reads Friday's letter: the Linear No Threshold (LNT) model, the principle that there is no safe level of radiation and that cancer risk to proportional to dose.
The LNT model is supported by decades of peer-reviewed research, the letter states, but one of Trump's executive orders calls for "an additional weakening of protection by setting a threshold, or level, below which radiation exposure would not 'count' or be considered as to have not occurred."
The Standards for Protection Against Radiation are "based on the well-documented findings that even exposures so small that they cannot be measured may, sometimes, result in fatal cancer," reads the letter. "The only way to reduce risk to zero requires zero radiation exposure."
Trump's orders "would undermine public trust by falsely claiming that the NRC’s radiation risk models lack scientific basis, despite decades of peer-reviewed evidence and international consensus supporting the LNT model," it adds.
The signatories noted that the US government could and should strengthen radiation regulations by ending its reliance on "Reference Man"—a model that the NRC uses to create its risk assessments, which is based on a young adult male and fails to reflect the greater impact on infants, young children, and women.
“Newer research has shown that external radiation harms children more than adults and female bodies more than male bodies," reads the letter. "Existing standards should therefore be strengthened to account for these life-stage and gender disparities… not weakened. Radiation causes infertility, loss of pregnancy, birth complications and defects, as well as solid tumor cancer, leukemia, non-cancer outcomes including cardiovascular disease, increased incidence of autoimmune disease, and ongoing new findings.”
Olson, who is the CEO of the Generational Radiation Impact Project, which also helped organize the letter, warned that "radiation causes cancer in women at twice the rate of adult men, while the same exposure in early childhood, will, across their lifetimes, produce seven times more cancer in young females, and four times more in young males.”
The groups emphasized that "executive orders do not have the power to require federal agencies to take actions that violate their governing statutes, nor to grant them powers and authorities that contradict those governing statutes. The NRC needs to stand up to the executive order’s marching orders to 'promote' nuclear power—a mission outside its legal regulatory mandate under the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 and the concurrent amendments to the Atomic Energy Act."
Federal agencies including the NRC, they added, "should not favor industry propaganda asserting that some radiation is safe over science-based protection of the public. This is a deliberate subversion of science and public health in favor of corporate interests."
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