FEATURING STEVEN ROSENFELD – President Donald Trump has said he is considering using an executive order to include a question about citizenship on the 2020 US Census, past the deadline for printing, and even after a Supreme Court ruling denying him the right. Claiming that Chief Justice John Roberts offered a legal opening for the government to re-open the case, Trump’s Justice Department is also readying a new legal fight and abruptly replaced its lawyers working on the case. 

The government’s pretext for the citizenship question has changed several times. Officials claimed it was about proper enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, then said it was about re-districting, and also about dealing with the “burden” of undocumented immigrants. 

It seems that the battle over the Census is turning out not only to be a test of how far the Republican Party will go to maintain its power, but also how far the President can push the limits of executive power.  

To read more about the Census visit www.Ind.Media.

Steven Rosenfeld, Editor, Chief Correspondent & Senior Writing Fellow for Voting Booth a project of the Independent Media Institute.

FEATURING DAVID DAYEN – California Senator Kamala Harris has been making waves on the national scene, especially since her breakout performance at the first Democratic Presidential candidate debates. Harris took on frontrunner Joe Biden with a fierce confidence that cleaved away many percentage points in his lead. 

Now that she has snagged the number 3 spot in the race, Harris’ brief record as Senator, and more importantly, her tenure as California’s Attorney General is under greater scrutiny. The adept politician has claimed in particular that she took on the nation’s biggest banks during the foreclosure crisis and “passed the strongest anti-foreclosure law” in the US.

But journalist David Dayen, writing in The Intercept says in truth what Harris won was quite different from what she says.

Read David Dayen’s article on The Intercept about Kamala Harris HERE.

David Dayen is Executive Editor of The American Prospect. His first book, “Chain of Title,” about three ordinary Americans who uncover Wall Street’s foreclosure fraud, was released in May 2016.

The Department of Justice late Sunday replaced its lawyers working on the legal fight to place a question about citizenship on the 2020 US Census. The decision comes days after President Donald Trump surprised his own Administration saying he would pursue the citizenship issue despite passing the deadline to begin printing Census forms and a Supreme Court ruling against him. Legal experts speculated that the move to change lawyers indicates an internal fight. One law professor, Rick Hasen of UC Irvine tweeted, “This development is ominous. It almost certainly means the career attorneys working for the Department of Justice refused to go along with what Trump wants to do now with the citizenship question on the census.” On Sunday Trump answered reporters’ questions saying he may issue an executive order to get his way and claiming that Justice John Roberts’ ruling encouraged the government to continue its efforts.

Meanwhile newly released documents about the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency show that officials have requested access to drivers license photos from at least 3 states that issue licenses to undocumented immigrants. ICE is apparently using facial recognition technology to scour through the photos of millions of licenses without permission from drivers in the states of Utah and Vermont. The Washington Post, which broke the story on Sunday said that the documents it obtained, “reveal that federal investigators have turned state departments of motor vehicles databases into the bedrock of an unprecedented surveillance infrastructure.” Access to the data has not been authorized by either federal or state legislative bodies. Facial recognition technology has been found to be prone to errors. 

Four migrants were found dead from heat exhaustion on the US-Mexico border in the latest grim death toll of migration. Three of the four were children. The sole adult that perished was mother to at least one of the children. Two other mothers survived. All had traveled from their native Guatemala. According to the Los Angeles Times, which reported the story, “Authorities suspect that the mothers got lost in the unforgiving terrain while looking to turn themselves in to the Border Patrol and that…[the victims] succumbed to dehydration and exposure in the searing South Texas heat. “

Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, a friend of President Trump and former President Clinton, was arrested on Sunday on charges of trafficking underage girls in the states of Florida and New York. CNN explained that, “According to the indictment, between 2002 and 2005, Epstein ran a trafficking enterprise in which he paid hundreds of dollars in cash to girls as young as 14 to have sex with him at his Upper East Side home and his estate in Palm Beach, worked with employees and associates to lure the girls to his residences and paid some of his victims to recruit other girls for him to abuse.” US Attorney Geoffrey Berman remarked on the charges against Epstein on Monday morning. Many have called for Labor Secretary

FEATURING JOHNSON CHING-YIN YEUNG – The Chinese government has denounced protesters in Hong Kong who broke into their legislative building, calling them “extreme radicals,” who committed an act, “that tramples on the rule of law and jeopardizes social order.” Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam, has come under fire for her handling of a bill that would allow extradition to China. 

On July 1st, months of mass protests culminated in hundreds of thousands of protesters marching in Hong Kong calling on her to resign when a breakaway group attacked a government building and began spray painting the insides. 

For more information visit www.freedomhk.net and Johnson’s twitter @hkjohnsonyeung.

Johnson Ching-Yin Yeung, Hong Kong-based human rights advocate and activist, who works on freedom of assembly & expression, He is the chair of the board of the Hong Kong Civil Hub, and Freedom Fellows of the Human Rights Foundation. He was one of the organizers of the 2014 Occupy Central with Love and Peace Movement.

FEATURING JEREMY SLACK – Much has been made of the immigration crisis in the US and how detention centers have morphed into concentration camps as record numbers of people migrate northward and as Donald Trump’s administration insists on locking up the fleeing refugees. 

But less attention is paid to why people are risking the dangerous journey and the ordeal that awaits them in the US. Even less attention is paid to those who are deported back across the border into Mexico. Now a new book examines that under-examined aspect of the immigration crisis. 

Jeremy Slack, Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Texas in El Paso and editor of The Shadow of the Wall: Violence and Migration on the US-Mexico Border. His new book is called Deported to Death: How Drug Violence is Changing Migration on the US-Mexico Border.

The Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General on Tuesday released a report on the squalid and disturbing conditions inside migrant detention centers, confirming what members of Congress, lawyers, and journalists have said in recent days. The report, titled, “DHS Needs to Address Dangerous Overcrowding and Prolonged Detention of Children and Adults in the Rio Grande Valley,” includes numerous photos of the insides of detention centers holding men, women, and children packed inside small cells barely big enough to hold them all.  

The report stated, “Senior managers at several facilities raised security concerns for their agents and the detainees. For example, one called the situation ‘a ticking time bomb.’ Moreover, we ended our site visit at one Border Patrol facility early because our presence was agitating an already difficult situation. Specifically, when detainees observed us, they banged on the cell windows, shouted, pressed notes to the window with their time in custody, and gestured to evidence of their time in custody.”

 A federal judge has blocked an order by Attorney General William Barr to keep asylum seekers detained indefinitely until their asylum cases are processed, in a blow to President Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda. Judge Marsha J. Pechman said that those applying for a bond hearing must have their request met within 7 days or released from custody. Barr’s order has exacerbated the overcrowding situation in detention facilities. The White House predictably blasted the ruling with Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham saying, “No single district judge has legitimate authority to impose his or her open borders views on the country.”

Reports emerged on Tuesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has begun sending out notices for extremely hefty fines of hundreds of thousands of dollars to those people who received deportation orders but did not abide by them. One undocumented woman who has sought sanctuary in a church in North Carolina has received a notice for a $300,000 fine. According to the Washington Post, “ICE’s headquarters issued the notices days after President Trump postponed immigration raids that would have targeted parents and children with outstanding deportation orders.”

Meanwhile the House Oversight and Reform Committee has scheduled a hearing next week into the recent ProPublica report of a secret FaceBook group of current and former Customs and Border Patrol agents who shared extremist, racist, anti-immigrant, and misogynist content. And on Tuesday the Trump administration finally backed off on imposing a question about citizenship on the 2020 Census questionnaire. 

President Trump’s ambitious demand for a militarized celebration of Independence Day has irked some generals.

FEATURING ROSA CLEMENTE – Members of Congress visited a detention center in El Paso County, Texas, on Monday amid on-going attention to the deplorable conditions facing refugees and migrants in federal detention. Congress members Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Joaquin Castro, Rashida Tlaib and others toured the inside, met with detainees, and later addressed reporters and others. Ocasio-Cortez said that women being held at the facility were told to drink toilet water, and Mr. Castro shared a video of the inside where women shared stories of their treatment with lawmakers. 

On the same day as the tour ProPublica published a damning story of a secret Facebook group of current and former Customs and Border Patrol agents that shared vile, racist, and misogynist content. CBP says it is now investigating the story. 

Activist groups have organized multiple actions this week. On Monday a Jewish group called Never Again launched an action in New Jersey. On Tuesday, Moveon.org organized mass actions and this Friday, the group One Billion Rising has convened an “Artistic Uprising” at the border. 

For more information visit onebillionrising.org/artisticuprising and https://vday.org.

Rosa Clemente is a news correspondent for Rising Up With Sonali. She’s a community organizer, 2008 Green Party Vice Presidential candidate, and a doctoral candidate in the W.E.B. DuBois Department of AfroAmerican Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

The Trump Administration has missed it own July 1st deadline to print the 2020 Census forms, in an apparent attempt to delay the Census. President Donald Trump has pushed hard to include a question on the census that would request citizenship information from respondents as part of his broader anti-immigrant agenda. The US Supreme Court last week voted narrowly to disallow the question but left the door open for the Commerce Department – which oversees the Census – to make a better case. Trump appears to be buying time to include the question. When asked on Monday why it was so important to him the President answered, “I think it’s very important to find out if somebody is a citizen as opposed to an illegal.” The US Census is constitutionally required and has never in its history been delayed.

Meanwhile Monday’s exposé in ProPublica of a secret Facebook group of current and former Border Patrol agents has provoked ire nationwide. Members of the Congress, who had been scheduled to visit detention facilities in El Paso, Texas, addressed the story. Congressman Joaquin Castro, chair of the Hispanic Congressional Caucus, called for a Congressional investigation speaking on Monday about the ProPublica article about racist and misogynist exchanges between current and former Border Patrol agents. Castro also shared videos on his Twitter feed from inside the detention center he toured with other lawmakers. 

Castro was joined by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – who was directly targeted in the Border Patrol Facebook group. Ocasio-Cortez addressed reporters after touring a facility in Clint, Texas. Later she shared more details with Reuters as she was leaving the area reflecting on the horrifying conditions facing detained migrants and refugees near the border. 

Alongside Ocasio-Cortez was Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, who personally faced racist heckling from right-wing pro-Trump crowds gathered. These were the sounds of chants that drowned her out as she spoke. When asked to respond this is what she said.

In other news, House Democrats have filed a lawsuit over the Trump administration’s consistent blocking of the President’s tax returns. After months of wrangling with the federal Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service House Ways and Means committee chairman Richard Neal is suing. Defendants include Treasure Secretary Steven Mnuchin and IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig. The lawsuit states, “Defendants have mounted an extraordinary attack on the authority of Congress to obtain information needed to conduct oversight of Treasury, the IRS, and the tax laws on behalf of the American people who participate in the Nation’s voluntary tax system.

FEATURING HYUN LEE – President Donald Trump made history on Sunday when he became the first sitting US president to step into North Korea, accepting an invitation by leader Kim Jong Un. Meeting Mr. Kim in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), he stayed on North Korean territory for only about a minute before returning to the South Korean side. 

After what had appeared last year to be major progress in US-North Korean relations, ties between the two nations soured. But Trump and Kim, who claim to have a personal affinity for one another, seem ready to revive a detente. 

It is not yet clear what the terms of the detente will be. Some are speculating that rather than requiring North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons technology, the Trump administration may only require a nuclear freeze.

Hyun Lee is the U.S. National Organizer of the group Women Cross DMZ.

FEATURING ARUN GUPTA – Now that the dust has settled from the first Democratic Party’s presidential candidate debate for the 2020 election, it appears that the field of frontrunners has reorganized itself. Media pundits have labeled California Senator Kamala Harris as the clear winner over both days, while Senator Elizabeth Warren held firm to her policy wonk status. Former Vice President Joe Biden appears to have faced the greatest damage to his candidacy. 

South Bend Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg managed to hold his own and has proven his fundraising chops in the aftermath. Former San Antonio, Texas major Julián Castro surprised many with his progressive positions and former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke and Senator Cory Booker embarrassed themselves by breaking into Spanish. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who has been credited with moving the party leftward came under criticism for repeating himself.

For more information visit www.NoConcentrationCamps.com.

Arun Gupta is a regular news correspondent for Rising Up With Sonali. He’s an investigative journalist who has written for dozens of publications including the The Nation, Salon, Raw Story and The Intercept. He is also author of the forthcoming book, “Bacon as a Weapon of Mass Destruction.”