truthout--2020-08-24--Meet the Activist Who Is Driving the Push to Reclaim Nature for Black People

Nature and wild spaces are appreciated by many , but they can sometimes be rendered inaccessible or dangerous to people of color , as a recent incident in Washington State shows .
But it doesn ’ t have to be that way .
As the founder of the national organization Outdoor Afro , Rue Mapp has devoted her life to encouraging Black Americans to connect more closely with the natural world .
In this interview , Mapp discusses how she approaches this work given a context in which forests are often not seen by Black people in the U.S. as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Jim Crow era .
Meanwhile , she also takes on the importance of balancing accessibility to nature with rent control policies to prevent gentrification of green cities from shutting out people of color .
John de Graaf : Rue , how did you become so connected with the outdoors ?
Rue Mapp : I got it from my parents .
They were African Americans who came to California in the big waves of migration from the Jim Crow South , when people got on trains and kept going until the train didn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up in places like Oakland , California .
What they brought with them was their relationship to nature and the land .
And they had their house in Oakland , but they invested in some property up in Lake County [ about a hundred miles north of Oakland ] .
That place became a ranch where we had cows , we had pigs , we hunted , we fished , we had a bountiful garden .
I loved being able to go there as a child and just observe the changes in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ me a chance to just have this quietness and comfort in relating to nature .
But the thing that was also important in those experiences was connecting to other people .
My parents often hosted family gatherings and celebrations at our “ ranch.
” And my dad had this standing invitation , meaning that if you ’ ve been invited once , you never have to be invited again ; the door is always open… .
So nature and hospitality were really hand-in-hand for me .
Those are the underpinnings of the work @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about how Outdoor Afro got started , what it does , how the idea came to you .
You must have seen that other kids weren ’ t getting the experience that you had .
As I grew older , I started to see that the experience I had was actually pretty unique .
And even though I had this nature-based experience growing up , I still had a lot of exploration that I got to do as a Girl Scout .
I did Outward Bound .
And the more I went out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ saw people who looked like me .
And I knew that people wouldn ’ t get to those wilderness areas if they didn ’ t have the foundation for connecting to nature .
I thought a lot about things that were just peculiar to me and my family upbringing , and not necessarily special or needed to be celebrated or amplified in any way .
But I knew that they had a deep value and a transformational effect in my life .
I was at this crossroads in my life .
I was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about going to grad school .
I had three children who were young .
I was divorced .
And I was wanting to do something different .
I had a mentor and my mentor asked me a question that I think everybody should answer at some point in their lives .
She said , “ If time and money were not an issue , what would you do ?
” And I opened my mouth and my life fell out .
I said I ’ d probably start a website to reconnect African @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wild moment was my revelation .
Outdoor Afro began maybe two weeks after that conversation .
I blogged about the story of my growing up wild , talking about all the important nature milestones that I had in my life .
And what surprised me was that there were people I respect who responded and said , “ I love nature , too .
I have those experiences to share as well.
” And that ’ s when I knew that by using digital technology you could talk to anybody ; that there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unheard and uncelebrated in their connection to nature , just like me .
So Outdoor Afro set about doing something about that .
And we became very much about helping to shift the visual imagination of who gets outside .
Outdoor Afro filled that void .
And since then , we ’ ve continued to grow and we ’ ve continued to evolve to a national not-for-profit organization .
It ’ s now all I do for a living .
And I ’ m proud to say that we have trained people to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we now have a presence in 30 states .
There ’ s 80 men and women who are teaching… .
These are not people who have gone and gotten this formal education in outdoor recreation or anything like that .
It ’ s fantastic .
And do you also see the problem of “ nature-deficit disorder ” in youth the way Richard Louv , author of The Last Child in the Woods , does ?
I love Richard Louv .
I consider him a friend .
And the entire network that he built @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were early supporters of Outdoor Afro .
It ’ s been great to be a part of that network of reimagining what childhood can look like when it has nature in it and how we ’ ve gotten so far away from those connections that we have a childhood that ’ s unrecognizable to someone who ’ s even my age , when we grew up playing and having all this great unstructured time in the outdoors .
But today , we ’ re in a different world .
We do have to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ move in the world is different .
We ’ ve got cameras that surveil us all the time .
We ’ ve got the reality of brutality that happens , that is informed , unfortunately , by race .
When white people see Black children out , it ’ s more likely to arouse suspicion than encouragement .
Outdoor Afro is needed because , unfortunately , we do have a legacy that does not permit all bodies and all people to have that unstructured freedom to be outside and to enjoy the wild @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
There used to be a time when , if a kid was playing baseball outside and broke a window , it was all part of what we expected to happen .
Or if kids climbed a tree and built a structure , they weren ’ t looking at a zoning or code violation for doing so .
The Children and Nature movement has done a great job of noting how we ’ ve criminalized what used to be very routine childhood exploration and behavior .
Look at places where people move because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there are no children outside playing in those communities .
I know that for some Black families , the woods are seen as a scary place .
Does that keep families away ?
Absolutely .
There ’ s another reality that is present for Black people that is also worth mentioning .
And that ’ s the lived experience of lynching and what that terror that took place in the woods meant for people , how it defined people ’ s relationship to nature , how it defined people ’ s relationship to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the plaintive lyrics of Billie Holiday ’ s “ Strange Fruit ” to understand that trees have not always been seen as a place of refuge .
We forget how close that reality was for Black Americans .
And there ’ s still a living generational memory of that terror in the woods where grandparents will ask people like me , “ Are you going out in the woods ?
Are you gon na be OK ?
Who ’ s with you ?
” There ’ s just not this feeling of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wild and stand alone and observe the sweeping vista because of that unfortunate heritage that we still have not acknowledged or atoned for in this country .
And so that ’ s one of the reasons why Outdoor Afro exists .
It ’ s a way of helping us find healing and to find that reconnection .
You just mentioned healing and community .
Can you say just a little bit about what nature does for all of us ?
Yeah , we have seen more and more studies that measure how we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ happier , that we actually need to see green .
There is amazing research coming out of Children ’ s Hospital [ in Oakland ] that is measuring the cortisol levels of people before and after they actually have a nature experience and showing the calming effect of being outdoors and how important that is for children as well as the adults in their lives .
So there ’ s a growing body of research that supports what we already know .
And that is that we feel better when we ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about us when we have the chance to engage with the outdoors .
We in this country have experienced a lot of challenges in very recent years around police-involved violence .
And there are people who have taken to the streets to protest , to express their grief , their anger .
And I asked myself , What is it that Outdoor Afro needs to do in these times ?
Around the time the Ferguson riots were really at their peak … I invited about 35 folks together to go into the Oakland @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and we did some yoga exercises .
We were in a place where there were no police in riot gear .
Not everybody thought the same thing or had the same ideas about the way forward .
But we all needed something different .
And as we wound ourselves down … I could feel the stress just leaving .
I mean , I just felt like those trees had this absorptive quality on us .
And we were walking by the stream , and that ’ s when I had the epiphany that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ always known we could do , and that was to lay down our burdens down by the riverside .
And that was the moment that I understood nature as a healer .
And we need that now more than ever… .
That was the moment that I knew how important this work was that I was doing , that there was a bigger opportunity to find healing in this country that has a lot to heal from , especially around race .
Do people , and especially poor people , ever say to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now , beauty and nature are just sort of a luxury ?
I think people know — we know in our bones that we need nature .
We may not want to do it the way that the next person does it .
For instance , if someone says to me , “ I don ’ t do that nature stuff , ” you know , they ’ re thinking about camping .
They ’ re thinking about roughing it .
They ’ re thinking about hanging off the side of a cliff @ @ @ @ @ @ @ extreme outdoor experience .
Right ?
And I have to wean people out of that .
So I say , “ But you like to barbecue , don ’ t you ?
And they say , “ Yeah , yeah .
I like to go to the park and have a cookout with my family in celebration.
” And I say , “ That counts .
Do you like to walk around on a local trail with your dog or take a lap during your lunch break around the building where you work @ @ @ @ @ @ @ help people see that they already seek out ways to be in nature .
And they ’ re already connecting to nature , and that the outdoors and nature is really everywhere around us .
I can see beauty in falling leaves as well as in pristine places like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge .
It is so much about just taking a moment to slow down and look at what ’ s around you .
Because beauty is not some place over there .
It ’ s right in front of our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , if we ’ re not careful , beauty can drive artists and people of color out of a community through gentrification ?
I think that a lot of where it goes wrong has everything to do with bad policies .
And we do need to be thinking more deeply about green spaces in particular .
We talk a lot about park-poor communities and making sure we ’ re helping make parks and green spaces more accessible .
But at the same time , we ’ re accelerating gentrification because guess what happens @ @ @ @ @ @ @ park next to where people live ?
Their property values increase , the desirability of that area increases , the rent increases .
So we have to be having a more multidisciplinary conversation around housing policy than we are , really looking at the whole community of stakeholders and making sure that when we ’ re talking about accessibility to nature and greening areas , we are also thinking about our rent control policies and how might they protect or reduce access for populations that may have been waiting for a long time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suddenly can ’ t afford them anymore .
And that to me is a real tragedy .
And I ’ ve seen that happen in other cities where it wasn ’ t good for a long time .
And then a lot of those older residents who had been holding on were now being forced out because there ’ s the new co-op down the street and the great park and other people naturally wanting that .
Everybody wants a chance to be able to afford a decent place to live , to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be safe and go to a decent school and have some green nearby .
You know , we all want the same thing .
And I think there is enough .
But I think that our policies have to articulate that better .
This interview has been edited for length .

Rue Mapp, founder of Outdoor Afro, has devoted her life to encouraging Black Americans to connect more closely with the natural world. (Courtesy of Rue Mapp)
Nature and wild spaces are appreciated by many, but they can sometimes be rendered inaccessible or dangerous to people of color, as a recent incident in Washington State shows. But it doesn’t have to be that way. As the founder of the national organization Outdoor Afro, Rue Mapp has devoted her life to encouraging Black Americans to connect more closely with the natural world. In this interview, Mapp discusses how she approaches this work given a context in which forests are often not seen by Black people in the U.S. as healing spaces due to the terrors of the Jim Crow era. Meanwhile, she also takes on the importance of balancing accessibility to nature with rent control policies to prevent gentrification of green cities from shutting out people of color.
John de Graaf: Rue, how did you become so connected with the outdoors?
Rue Mapp: I got it from my parents. They were African Americans who came to California in the big waves of migration from the Jim Crow South, when people got on trains and kept going until the train didn’t go any further and wound up in places like Oakland, California. What they brought with them was their relationship to nature and the land. And they had their house in Oakland, but they invested in some property up in Lake County [about a hundred miles north of Oakland]. That place became a ranch where we had cows, we had pigs, we hunted, we fished, we had a bountiful garden. I loved being able to go there as a child and just observe the changes in the seasons.… It was really magical and gave me a chance to just have this quietness and comfort in relating to nature.
But the thing that was also important in those experiences was connecting to other people. My parents often hosted family gatherings and celebrations at our “ranch.” And my dad had this standing invitation, meaning that if you’ve been invited once, you never have to be invited again; the door is always open…. So nature and hospitality were really hand-in-hand for me. Those are the underpinnings of the work that I do today.
Tell me about how Outdoor Afro got started, what it does, how the idea came to you. You must have seen that other kids weren’t getting the experience that you had.
As I grew older, I started to see that the experience I had was actually pretty unique. And even though I had this nature-based experience growing up, I still had a lot of exploration that I got to do as a Girl Scout. I did Outward Bound. And the more I went out into wilderness areas, the less I saw people who looked like me. And I knew that people wouldn’t get to those wilderness areas if they didn’t have the foundation for connecting to nature. I thought a lot about things that were just peculiar to me and my family upbringing, and not necessarily special or needed to be celebrated or amplified in any way. But I knew that they had a deep value and a transformational effect in my life.
I was at this crossroads in my life. I was in my thirties and I was thinking about going to grad school. I had three children who were young. I was divorced. And I was wanting to do something different. I had a mentor and my mentor asked me a question that I think everybody should answer at some point in their lives. She said, “If time and money were not an issue, what would you do?” And I opened my mouth and my life fell out. I said I’d probably start a website to reconnect African Americans to the outdoors. And that wild moment was my revelation. Outdoor Afro began maybe two weeks after that conversation. I blogged about the story of my growing up wild, talking about all the important nature milestones that I had in my life.
The more I went out into wilderness areas, the less I saw people who looked like me.
And what surprised me was that there were people I respect who responded and said, “I love nature, too. I have those experiences to share as well.” And that’s when I knew that by using digital technology you could talk to anybody; that there was a whole population that had been unheard and uncelebrated in their connection to nature, just like me. So Outdoor Afro set about doing something about that. And we became very much about helping to shift the visual imagination of who gets outside. Outdoor Afro filled that void. And since then, we’ve continued to grow and we’ve continued to evolve to a national not-for-profit organization. It’s now all I do for a living. And I’m proud to say that we have trained people to get youth and their families outside and we now have a presence in 30 states. There’s 80 men and women who are teaching…. These are not people who have gone and gotten this formal education in outdoor recreation or anything like that.
It’s fantastic. And do you also see the problem of “nature-deficit disorder” in youth the way Richard Louv, author of The Last Child in the Woods, does?
I love Richard Louv. I consider him a friend. And the entire network that he built, the Children and Nature Network, were early supporters of Outdoor Afro. It’s been great to be a part of that network of reimagining what childhood can look like when it has nature in it and how we’ve gotten so far away from those connections that we have a childhood that’s unrecognizable to someone who’s even my age, when we grew up playing and having all this great unstructured time in the outdoors. But today, we’re in a different world. We do have to look at the reality that how we move in the world is different. We’ve got cameras that surveil us all the time. We’ve got the reality of brutality that happens, that is informed, unfortunately, by race. When white people see Black children out, it’s more likely to arouse suspicion than encouragement. Outdoor Afro is needed because, unfortunately, we do have a legacy that does not permit all bodies and all people to have that unstructured freedom to be outside and to enjoy the wild.
And our whole culture has changed. There used to be a time when, if a kid was playing baseball outside and broke a window, it was all part of what we expected to happen. Or if kids climbed a tree and built a structure, they weren’t looking at a zoning or code violation for doing so. The Children and Nature movement has done a great job of noting how we’ve criminalized what used to be very routine childhood exploration and behavior. Look at places where people move because they want to be safe. And there are no children outside playing in those communities.
I know that for some Black families, the woods are seen as a scary place. Does that keep families away?
Absolutely. There’s another reality that is present for Black people that is also worth mentioning. And that’s the lived experience of lynching and what that terror that took place in the woods meant for people, how it defined people’s relationship to nature, how it defined people’s relationship to safety among trees. We can turn to the plaintive lyrics of Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” to understand that trees have not always been seen as a place of refuge. We forget how close that reality was for Black Americans. And there’s still a living generational memory of that terror in the woods where grandparents will ask people like me, “Are you going out in the woods? Are you gonna be OK? Who’s with you?”
There’s just not this feeling of freedom to go and be in the wild and stand alone and observe the sweeping vista because of that unfortunate heritage that we still have not acknowledged or atoned for in this country. And so that’s one of the reasons why Outdoor Afro exists. It’s a way of helping us find healing and to find that reconnection.
You just mentioned healing and community. Can you say just a little bit about what nature does for all of us?
Yeah, we have seen more and more studies that measure how we are healthier, how we’re happier, that we actually need to see green. There is amazing research coming out of Children’s Hospital [in Oakland] that is measuring the cortisol levels of people before and after they actually have a nature experience and showing the calming effect of being outdoors and how important that is for children as well as the adults in their lives. So there’s a growing body of research that supports what we already know. And that is that we feel better when we’re outside, that we have a calm about us when we have the chance to engage with the outdoors. We in this country have experienced a lot of challenges in very recent years around police-involved violence. And there are people who have taken to the streets to protest, to express their grief, their anger. And I asked myself, What is it that Outdoor Afro needs to do in these times?
Around the time the Ferguson riots were really at their peak … I invited about 35 folks together to go into the Oakland redwoods and we went into a clearing and we did some yoga exercises. We were in a place where there were no police in riot gear. Not everybody thought the same thing or had the same ideas about the way forward.
We can turn to the plaintive lyrics of Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” to understand that trees have not always been seen as a place of refuge.
But we all needed something different. And as we wound ourselves down … I could feel the stress just leaving. I mean, I just felt like those trees had this absorptive quality on us. And we were walking by the stream, and that’s when I had the epiphany that we were doing what Black people have always known we could do, and that was to lay down our burdens down by the riverside. And that was the moment that I understood nature as a healer. And we need that now more than ever…. That was the moment that I knew how important this work was that I was doing, that there was a bigger opportunity to find healing in this country that has a lot to heal from, especially around race.
Do people, and especially poor people, ever say to you that given how bad things are now, beauty and nature are just sort of a luxury?
I think people know — we know in our bones that we need nature. We may not want to do it the way that the next person does it. For instance, if someone says to me, “I don’t do that nature stuff,” you know, they’re thinking about camping. They’re thinking about roughing it. They’re thinking about hanging off the side of a cliff. They’re thinking about some extreme outdoor experience. Right? And I have to wean people out of that. So I say, “But you like to barbecue, don’t you? And they say, “Yeah, yeah. I like to go to the park and have a cookout with my family in celebration.” And I say, “That counts. Do you like to walk around on a local trail with your dog or take a lap during your lunch break around the building where you work?” So what I do is help people see that they already seek out ways to be in nature. And they’re already connecting to nature, and that the outdoors and nature is really everywhere around us. I can see beauty in falling leaves as well as in pristine places like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It is so much about just taking a moment to slow down and look at what’s around you. Because beauty is not some place over there. It’s right in front of our face.
Do you think that sometimes, if we’re not careful, beauty can drive artists and people of color out of a community through gentrification?
I think that a lot of where it goes wrong has everything to do with bad policies. And we do need to be thinking more deeply about green spaces in particular. We talk a lot about park-poor communities and making sure we’re helping make parks and green spaces more accessible. But at the same time, we’re accelerating gentrification because guess what happens when you’ve got this beautiful park next to where people live? Their property values increase, the desirability of that area increases, the rent increases.
So we have to be having a more multidisciplinary conversation around housing policy than we are, really looking at the whole community of stakeholders and making sure that when we’re talking about accessibility to nature and greening areas, we are also thinking about our rent control policies and how might they protect or reduce access for populations that may have been waiting for a long time for their neighborhoods to come together and suddenly can’t afford them anymore. And that to me is a real tragedy. And I’ve seen that happen in other cities where it wasn’t good for a long time. And then a lot of those older residents who had been holding on were now being forced out because there’s the new co-op down the street and the great park and other people naturally wanting that.
Everybody wants a chance to be able to afford a decent place to live, to have a place where our kids can be safe and go to a decent school and have some green nearby. You know, we all want the same thing. And I think there is enough. But I think that our policies have to articulate that better.
This interview has been edited for length.
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truthout--2020-08-24--Judges Are Buying the GOP’s Lie That Mail-In Voting Causes Fraud

The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee filed lawsuits recently against New Jersey and Nevada to prevent expansive vote-by-mail efforts in those states .
These high-profile lawsuits make the same argument that Republicans have made in many lesser-known lawsuits that were filed around the country during the primary season .
In all of these lawsuits , Republicans argue that voting by mail perpetuates fraud — an argument President Donald Trump makes daily , on various media platforms .
Yet , study after study has shown that there is no basis for these claims .
Indeed , the opposite is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ subject to fraud .
Twitter has even slapped warnings on President Trump ’ s tweets that link vote-by-mail to voter fraud , because they perpetuate false information .
Courts , for the most part , have sided with Republicans , and in some cases even adopted the unsubstantiated fraud assertions .
The effect of these rulings has been that Americans had to vote in person during the global pandemic , risking their lives .
By filing these lawsuits , Republicans are forcing voters to choose between being safe and exercising their fundamental right @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a representative sample of these lawsuits : • In April , when public health officials were not entirely sure how COVID-19 spread , and stay-at-home orders were in place throughout the country , the Republican-led Wisconsin legislature sued to stop Democratic Governor Tony Evers ’ executive order extending voting-by-mail deadlines for the primary election .
Wisconsin ’ s Supreme Court sided with the Republicans .
• That victory was not enough .
In a parallel suit , Wisconsin Republicans secured an opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court , which held that all mail-in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ election day .
Dissenting , Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg stated : “ The Court ’ s order , I fear , will result in massive disenfranchisement.
” • In Texas , Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton argued in multiple lawsuits that voting by mail should be available only to actual COVID-19 victims , and not to voters who feared being infected at polling sites .
After initially losing in court , Paxton publicly threatened , in writing , to arrest and prosecute any election official who distributed information about voting by mail .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ because Paxton ’ s threat conflicted with a state court order that expanded Texas ’ s vote-by-mail measures to all voters .
A federal trial court called Paxton ’ s threats “ voter intimidation.
” Undaunted , Paxton successfully appealed both the federal and state court decisions that ruled against him .
Both the Texas Supreme Court and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Paxton though , and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear appeals of those cases , allowing those judgments to stand .
In ruling for the Republicans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ For the population overall , contracting COVID-19 in general is highly improbable ” and that “ a lack of immunity alone could not be a likely cause of injury to health from voting in person.
” But , by July 9 , primary day , Texas was in the grips of a massive COVID-19 crisis .
For each of the 10 days preceding the primary election , there were record numbers of COVID-19-related hospitalizations in the state .
Houston hospitals were in danger of running out of hospital beds .
Republican Gov @ @ @ @ @ @ @ home unless it was an emergency , and issued executive orders reclosing the state .
While the pandemic raged around them , Texas voters had to vote in person .
• In Missouri , lawsuits by advocacy groups , including the NAACP , sought to expand vote by mail efforts .
A state court sided with Republican officials who vigorously opposed the suit and held that “ fear of illness ” does not qualify as a reason to receive a mail-in ballot .
• In Iowa , after a successful vote-by-mail primary on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to prevent the Iowa Secretary of State from running future elections using mail-in ballots .
This was not a lawsuit , but mirrors many of the legal actions mounted by the GOP across the country .
In response , a bipartisan group of local election officials sent a letter to the legislature , stating : “ The 2020 primary was very successful , based on a variety of metrics largely due to the steps taken by the Secretary .
Counties experienced record or near-record turnout .
Election Day went very smoothly .
Results @ @ @ @ @ @ @ state want to cripple the process that led to such success ?
” Several of the courts discussed above have nonetheless embraced the idea that mail-in voting leads to fraud .
For example , in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals , which sanctioned the Texas Republicans ’ opposition to voting by mail , Judge James C. Ho wrote a gratuitous supplemental concurring opinion , focusing solely on mail-in ballot fraud .
Similarly , the Missouri trial court that refused to expand the pool of voters who could vote by mail discussed voter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ decision .
Without providing any explanation or evidence to the contrary , these decisions essentially erase scientific findings , cementing into law unsubstantiated and discredited claims linking voting by mail to fraud .
This gives these faulty legal decisions tremendous power to impact how Americans vote this November , regardless of the strength of the COVID-19 virus .
Judges who preside over newly filed Republican National Committee and Trump campaign lawsuits will undoubtedly look to those opinions because of the similarity in claims .
While those decisions do not have to be followed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nevada , they still represent a body of law that judges will need to consider .
Even flawed judicial opinions have the power to shape the future .

Republicans are forcing voters to choose between being safe and exercising their fundamental right to vote in November.
The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee filed lawsuits recently against New Jersey and Nevada to prevent expansive vote-by-mail efforts in those states.
These high-profile lawsuits make the same argument that Republicans have made in many lesser-known lawsuits that were filed around the country during the primary season. In all of these lawsuits, Republicans argue that voting by mail perpetuates fraud — an argument President Donald Trump makes daily, on various media platforms.
Yet, study after study has shown that there is no basis for these claims. Indeed, the opposite is true — voting by mail is rarely subject to fraud. Twitter has even slapped warnings on President Trump’s tweets that link vote-by-mail to voter fraud, because they perpetuate false information.
Courts, for the most part, have sided with Republicans, and in some cases even adopted the unsubstantiated fraud assertions. The effect of these rulings has been that Americans had to vote in person during the global pandemic, risking their lives. By filing these lawsuits, Republicans are forcing voters to choose between being safe and exercising their fundamental right to vote in November.
Suits Span the Country
Here is a representative sample of these lawsuits:
In April, when public health officials were not entirely sure how COVID-19 spread, and stay-at-home orders were in place throughout the country, the Republican-led Wisconsin legislature sued to stop Democratic Governor Tony Evers’ executive order extending voting-by-mail deadlines for the primary election. Wisconsin’s Supreme Court sided with the Republicans.
sued to stop Democratic Governor Tony Evers’ executive order extending voting-by-mail deadlines for the primary election. Wisconsin’s Supreme Court sided with the Republicans. That victory was not enough. In a parallel suit, Wisconsin Republicans secured an opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court, which held that all mail-in ballots had to be postmarked by primary election day. Dissenting, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg stated: “The Court’s order, I fear, will result in massive disenfranchisement.”
held that all mail-in ballots had to be postmarked by primary election day. Dissenting, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg stated: “The Court’s order, I fear, will result in massive disenfranchisement.” In Texas, Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton argued in multiple lawsuits that voting by mail should be available only to actual COVID-19 victims, and not to voters who feared being infected at polling sites. After initially losing in court, Paxton publicly threatened, in writing, to arrest and prosecute any election official who distributed information about voting by mail. This left election officials in a quandary because Paxton’s threat conflicted with a state court order that expanded Texas’s vote-by-mail measures to all voters.
A federal trial court called Paxton’s threats “voter intimidation.” Undaunted, Paxton successfully appealed both the federal and state court decisions that ruled against him. Both the Texas Supreme Court and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Paxton though, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear appeals of those cases, allowing those judgments to stand.
In ruling for the Republicans, the Texas Supreme Court stated: “For the population overall, contracting COVID-19 in general is highly improbable” and that “a lack of immunity alone could not be a likely cause of injury to health from voting in person.”
But, by July 9, primary day, Texas was in the grips of a massive COVID-19 crisis. For each of the 10 days preceding the primary election, there were record numbers of COVID-19-related hospitalizations in the state. Houston hospitals were in danger of running out of hospital beds. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott urged everyone to stay home unless it was an emergency, and issued executive orders reclosing the state. While the pandemic raged around them, Texas voters had to vote in person.
In Missouri, lawsuits by advocacy groups, including the NAACP, sought to expand vote by mail efforts. A state court sided with Republican officials who vigorously opposed the suit and held that “fear of illness” does not qualify as a reason to receive a mail-in ballot.
expand vote by mail efforts. A state court sided with Republican officials who vigorously opposed the suit and held that “fear of illness” does not qualify as a reason to receive a mail-in ballot. In Iowa, after a successful vote-by-mail primary on June 2, the Republican legislature tried to prevent the Iowa Secretary of State from running future elections using mail-in ballots. This was not a lawsuit, but mirrors many of the legal actions mounted by the GOP across the country. In response, a bipartisan group of local election officials sent a letter to the legislature, stating: “The 2020 primary was very successful, based on a variety of metrics largely due to the steps taken by the Secretary. Counties experienced record or near-record turnout. Election Day went very smoothly. Results were rapidly available. Why would the state want to cripple the process that led to such success?”
Falsehoods Become Law
Several of the courts discussed above have nonetheless embraced the idea that mail-in voting leads to fraud.
For example, in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which sanctioned the Texas Republicans’ opposition to voting by mail, Judge James C. Ho wrote a gratuitous supplemental concurring opinion, focusing solely on mail-in ballot fraud. Similarly, the Missouri trial court that refused to expand the pool of voters who could vote by mail discussed voter fraud at length, to justify its decision.
Without providing any explanation or evidence to the contrary, these decisions essentially erase scientific findings, cementing into law unsubstantiated and discredited claims linking voting by mail to fraud. This gives these faulty legal decisions tremendous power to impact how Americans vote this November, regardless of the strength of the COVID-19 virus.
Judges who preside over newly filed Republican National Committee and Trump campaign lawsuits will undoubtedly look to those opinions because of the similarity in claims. While those decisions do not have to be followed to the letter in New Jersey and Nevada, they still represent a body of law that judges will need to consider. Even flawed judicial opinions have the power to shape the future.
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
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truthout--2020-08-24--Border Town Links Fight Against Trump’s Wall to the Black Lives Matter Movement

Under a sweltering August sun , just blocks from the U.S.-Mexico border , four local activists busily stage-direct the movements of about 100 residents of Laredo , Texas , who are lined up , fists raised , along the street in front of the city ’ s George P. Kazen federal courthouse .
The four are standing on a 30-foot high scissor lift , making sure the crowd below is placed just perfectly along the giant street mural they have planned for weeks and just finished painting that Sunday morning , August 16 .
“ Don ’ t move , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ drone buzzes above their painstakingly placed message to the White House : “ DEFUND THE WALL .
FUND OUR FUTURE.
” If U.S. Customs and Border Protection ( CBP ) completes construction on the area ’ s two in-process contracts for President Trump ’ s border wall , the steel bollard fence would stand as high as the scissor lift and completely cut the city off from its waterfront along the Rio Grande River .
The latest contract for the area was awarded to Fisher Industries , a company affiliated with the “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whose leaders , including former White House strategist Steve Bannon , were indicted last week on charges of fraud and money laundering .
The wall would not only sever the city from its river ; it would also turn many of its neighborhoods into “ open-air prisons , ” as the activists put it .
Residential homes would abut the wall ’ s accompanying 150-foot enforcement zone , outfitted with surveillance towers , motion sensors and floodlights .
The city ’ s strategy is to tie the project up in court , delaying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the hopes that a potential President Biden will make good on his pledge to stop a wall that is already underway .
Construction on the contracts is set to begin in January 2021 .
Now , the No Border Wall Laredo Coalition hopes to heighten the sense of urgency by linking their demands to the larger movement for Black lives and to defund police , both in court and on the street .
They ’ re demonstrating the connection between the systemic , carceral racism of Trump ’ s “ prison wall ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The Coalition is demanding that the $ 564 million being poured into 31 miles of fencing to stop a manufactured social crisis instead be used to address real crises border residents face : the most dire being the COVID-19 emergency that has taken more than 200 lives in one of the nation ’ s most severe hotspots .
Laredo has become ground zero not only in the fight against the border wall but also the fight against coronavirus .
“ The wall certainly is this really strong symbol of racism that is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shoved down our throats , ” says Tricia Cortez , the executive director of the nonprofit Rio Grande International Study Center , which works to preserve and restore the Rio Grande Basin .
“ No question what it ’ s a symbol of , what it represents , because when you go beyond the ideology of it , the logic of it does not make sense , the cost of it does not make sense.
” Last month , landowners and Coalition members joined with elected officials in neighboring Zapata County to file @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s federal court that also echoes themes from the Black Lives Matter movement .
The suit argues that Trump ’ s border wall is a racially motivated attack on Mexican Americans — a protected class under the U.S. Constitution .
The plaintiffs allege that Trump ’ s racial animus led directly to Department of Homeland Security ( DHS ) policies that deprive Mexican American citizens along the border of their property and cultural heritage in violation of Fifth Amendment due process guarantees .
The suit seeks injunctive relief against federal seizures of private @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seeks to reinstate at least 27 laws waived by Trump officials to expedite wall construction under the 2005 Real ID Act — many of them crucial environmental protections for sensitive ecological areas .
The plaintiffs claim Trump ’ s January 25 , 2017 , executive order to build the wall “ creates a second-class United States citizen at the southern border who can have their land seized wholesale based on racist and white nationalist motives.
” The attorney who filed the complaint , Carlos Evaristo Flores , cautions that the Coalition doesn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the wall with the Black Lives Matter ( BLM ) movement .
“ We don ’ t think that seizing the land is the functional equivalent of [ anti-Black policing ] .
But BLM is instructive to us because while the animus toward us is not in the same character or manner of the Black community , we are very close cousins.
” The complaint is also novel in other ways : It ’ s the only lawsuit in the country challenging the DHS waivers based on the argument that Acting DHS Secretary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ authority to issue them in the first place .
A recent Government Accountability Office report issued August 14 seems to confirm that argument .
The report found that Trump illegally appointed Wolf and Acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli to their positions and thus , found them ineligible to serve .
A separate government watchdog report released last month could likewise bolster the lawsuit ’ s argument .
The DHS Inspector General ’ s Office found that CBP failed to sufficiently justify the need for a border wall .
The report said the agency @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to determine whether the wall was “ the most effective , appropriate , and affordable ” solution to “ obtain operational control of the southern border ” as directed in Trump ’ s executive order .
Instead , the report found that CBP rushed to approve wall construction , relying on “ outdated border solutions to identify material alternatives for meeting its mission requirement.
” The Inspector General ’ s Office also found that “ CBP has not fully demonstrated that it possesses the capability to potentially spend billions of dollars to execute @ @ @ @ @ @ @ border.
” Evaristo Flores says the DHS report is a boon to the case because , under the strict scrutiny standard of constitutional law , the government has to show that it has a “ narrowly tailored ” governmental interest to achieve its purpose and has used the least restrictive means necessary to do so .
The report shows , however , that CBP didn ’ t even study the least-restrictive alternatives to achieve its purpose .
DHS has until September 15 to file a response to the complaint .
Melissa Cigarroa , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Study Center , is one of the Mexican-American plaintiffs whose land is being seized for Trump ’ s racist and white nationalist motives , as her suit argues .
After the Coalition ’ s mural shoot on Sunday , I meet up with her in the afternoon , right as temperatures reach their triple-digit high of 103 .
We climb into her son ’ s Ford pickup and head south into Zapata County , toward her 175-acre ranch along the Rio Grande .
We slowly drive along a loose silt road checkered with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
A feral hog darts across our path .
We stop again briefly for a glimpse of a roadrunner .
Cigarroa pulls over , and we hike up a scenic cliff offering a breathtaking riverside vista of Mexico ’ s rolling hills .
A wake of about 20 vultures circles above the meandering river .
We both assume the animal below must have died of heat exhaustion as the sun beats down on us .
Cigarroa leads me back down toward the riverbank , pointing out fossilized oyster shells along the way .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ she shows me the hundreds-of-years-old mesquite that would be obliterated for Trump ’ s wall .
The silt is much looser here .
She doesn ’ t know how the wall will be able to withstand the constant erosion .
CBP wants access to the entirety of her land for their right of entry .
They want 1,800 linear feet of river frontage along a 250-foot-wide swath for the wall itself .
CBP isn ’ t just planning to build in the flood plain on Cigarroa ’ s land ; the agency ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ flooding all along the city ’ s riverfront .
The government won ’ t be able to build on top of dikes , since the city doesn ’ t have levees .
It must wall off the city right up to the bank , or literally route the wall through neighborhoods .
In Mexico and Arizona , debris has gotten caught behind the six-inch bollards during flash floods , turning the fence into a makeshift dam .
If that happens in Laredo , it could send floodwaters south toward residents of Nuevo Laredo @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , potentially violating international treaty obligations .
To make matters worse , the government is considering building a bulkhead wall for a 1-mile stretch near downtown .
The concrete levee structure could exacerbate the chances of flooding even more .
In February , Cigarroa attended a Zapata County landowners meeting with the Department of Justice ( DOJ ) and the Army Corps of Engineers .
She was deeply offended by what she called DOJ attorney Paxton Warner ’ s blatant dismissal of the cultural heritage and history of those who have owned land @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who oversaw wall construction under the Bush administration , told the landowners during the meeting that , “ There were a lot of unhappy people back in 2008 , 2009 down in the Rio Grande Valley [ when the wall ] came through , ” according to a recording of the meeting first obtained by the Texas Observer .
“ People learn to live with it.
” Cigarroa is not simply going to live with it , though .
“ It ’ s easy to get caught up in the inanity of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out where your rights are because at the outset they tell you , ‘ Well , with eminent domain you really don ’ t have any rights , ’ and that ’ s wrong , ” she says .
“ Those Real ID waivers shouldn ’ t exist .
We do not live in a country that has Constitution-free zones .
Eminent domain requires a public purpose.
” She refused to sign CBP ’ s right-of-entry form after months of negotiations , and CBP has taken her to court in the first round @ @ @ @ @ @ @ awaiting the court ’ s response to the government ’ s offer as her Fifth Amendment case pends .
Like her attorney , Evaristo Flores , Cigarroa underscored that the government ’ s seizure of her land isn ’ t the same as police-perpetrated violence against Black people in the U.S .
Still , she says , “ The animus that emanates from the White House … it is [ toward ] all communities of color .
So when this movement came out to defund the police , specifically to ask society to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this false narrative of living in fear and militarizing our cities even more , that is what our message is too.
” In a city that is 95 percent Latino and nearly 30 percent below the poverty line , the Coalition is demanding resources for education , housing , environmental restoration , economic development and health care as its residents struggle with one of the most severe outbreaks of COVID-19 in the nation .
Laredo is among the five metropolitan areas with the highest rates of new COVID-19 cases relative to their populations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ compiled by The New York Times .
All five areas are in South Texas .
Laredo , a city of 260,000 , broke 10,000 positive cases on Thursday .
The city is also experiencing one of the highest death rates per capita in the country , with 227 pandemic-related deaths as of August 24 .
Laredo ’ s three hospitals have been at or near capacity every day , and its five nursing homes have had 40 virus-related deaths alone .
It was the first city in the nation to pass an ordinance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are uniquely susceptible to the pandemic as centers of transit and commerce , facilitating visitors not just from Mexico but across the U.S. ; Laredo in particular is the top trade hub in the country .
During the onset of the pandemic in March , $ 20 billion worth of goods flowed through its port .
Mercurio Martinez III , a Laredo city council member whose family originally owned Cigarroa ’ s ranch and has owned land along the river for generations , told Truthout the city has received more than $ 1 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Act , which it had to apply for from the state since the city ’ s population is below 500,000 .
In Texas , the governor ’ s office has dispersed the aid money at a lower rate than the federal government , leaving some of the hardest hit border cities holding the bag .
Gov .
Greg Abbott distributed the funds to Laredo “ in a fashion that didn ’ t benefit us , ” Martinez says .
“ We got money and we ’ re grateful for it , but we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of money that we should be getting.
” The state turned a local Red Roof Inn into a 106-bed temporary hospital for COVID-19 patients with mild cases , but Martinez and other local leaders have been urging state officials to allow patients with more serious cases in , to no avail .
The Coalition points out that Webb County , where Laredo is located , has been designated as a Health Professional Shortage Area for primary care physicians since December 2019 , while Laredo lacks a major trauma center .
More than 30 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ likewise lack any kind of health insurance .
Because of this , many wait until their cases become life threatening to visit local emergency rooms , trying to avoid the burden that crushing medical bills will have on their families .
Martinez says the city ’ s hospitals have moved resources around to convert certain floors into temporary intensive care units .
As the city ’ s cases continue to climb , he says council members are eyeing potentially converting Laredo ’ s migrant jail into a temporary medical facility .
While border @ @ @ @ @ @ @ full with spiking cases , the Trump administration is pushing the wall through : The DOJ has ramped up lawsuits against landowners in South Texas , filing 64 eminent domain lawsuits this year in the state ’ s southern district court — 41 since April .
“ The pandemic came in , and everybody ’ s focused changed .
The president ’ s focus didn ’ t change .
He still wanted to go through with [ the wall ] , but instead of ‘ Let ’ s talk about the wall and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cities are trying to battle a disease that we can ’ t see , ” Martinez says .
“ So our focus changed , and the White House ’ s focus just continued.
” Activists say the immense resources being funneled into the wall should be redirected to the city ’ s outbreak .
According to a Truthout analysis , the amount of funding it takes to build about 1.6 miles of wall could provide each of the 10,130 Laredoans who have tested positive for COVID as of August 24 with a five-day @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that has helped many COVID patients recover .
To fulfill his campaign promise , Trump must build 450 miles of border wall by the end of 2020 .
According to CBP , the Trump administration has built at least 275 miles of fencing , nearly 90 percent of which has replaced shorter barriers erected under George W. Bush .
Trump has corralled $ 15 billion in federal funds for his wall , including $ 5 billion provided by Congress .
He has siphoned the rest from Pentagon accounts , including a $ 2.5 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled unlawful in June .
Now , Trump is asking for an additional $ 2 billion in his 2021 proposed budget .
“ November is going to be critical .
It ’ s going to determine what we ’ re going to do and our strategy , ” the International Study Center ’ s Cortez says .
“ Democrats have a reckoning to go through themselves to really understanding the impacts of their votes and how they direct congressional funding.
” Laredo Rep. Henry Cuellar ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been heartening for the Coalition .
Cuellar , who is vice chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security , twice voted to fund Trump ’ s signature project before backing his constituents and voting against funding for the wall last year .
He has added language to multiple fiscal year 2021 congressional appropriations bills passed in the House that would prohibit new federal funding for wall construction ; prevent Trump from tapping into Pentagon accounts for additional funds ; and block construction on historical , cultural and environmentally sensitive sites in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nominee Joe Biden favor a “ smart wall ” instead of a physical barrier along the southern border .
The technological approach would increase the use of surveillance drones , infrared cameras and motion-detecting radar to snatch undocumented immigrants , to the horror of many privacy and civil liberties proponents .
In fact , the House has already approved $ 55 million for new border surveillance technologies , but the Republican-led Senate has yet to vote on any 2021 budget measures .
As a senator , Biden voted for the Secure Fence Act @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than 600 miles of wall along the border .
If he ’ s elected in November and makes good on recent campaign statements , though , his presidency would represent a significant departure from his previous voting record and from that of the Obama administration , which oversaw the completion of President Bush ’ s border wall after taking office in 2009 .
Biden told The Dallas Morning News this month that while he wouldn ’ t dismantle segments of existing fence along the border , he would stop future construction if he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ There will not be another foot of wall construction in my administration.
” He also said he would dismiss pending condemnation cases against landowners , telling reporters , “ End .
Stop .
Done .
Over .
Not going to do it .
Withdraw the lawsuits .
We ’ re out .
We ’ re not going to confiscate the land.
” Biden has also pledged to end Trump ’ s declaration of emergency at the border and end other key Trump initiatives on immigration , including the Remain in Mexico program .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ day they can delay Trump ’ s prison wall in hopes of ultimately stopping the government from pouring billions more into the president ’ s monument to systemic racism , is a victory .
“ We ’ re on the front lines of these really extremist world views , and people in the United States have to know that if we don ’ t stop that , today it ’ s us , but tomorrow it could be you in your part of the country , ” Cortez says .
“ So that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ here .
”

Residents say the half-billion being poured into the wall should instead be used to address real crises on the border.
Part of the Series Despair and Disparity: The Uneven Burdens of COVID-19
Under a sweltering August sun, just blocks from the U.S.-Mexico border, four local activists busily stage-direct the movements of about 100 residents of Laredo, Texas, who are lined up, fists raised, along the street in front of the city’s George P. Kazen federal courthouse.
The four are standing on a 30-foot high scissor lift, making sure the crowd below is placed just perfectly along the giant street mural they have planned for weeks and just finished painting that Sunday morning, August 16. “Don’t move,” they call out as a small drone buzzes above their painstakingly placed message to the White House: “DEFUND THE WALL. FUND OUR FUTURE.”
If U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) completes construction on the area’s two in-process contracts for President Trump’s border wall, the steel bollard fence would stand as high as the scissor lift and completely cut the city off from its waterfront along the Rio Grande River.
The latest contract for the area was awarded to Fisher Industries, a company affiliated with the “We Build the Wall” campaign, whose leaders, including former White House strategist Steve Bannon, were indicted last week on charges of fraud and money laundering.
The wall would not only sever the city from its river; it would also turn many of its neighborhoods into “open-air prisons,” as the activists put it. Residential homes would abut the wall’s accompanying 150-foot enforcement zone, outfitted with surveillance towers, motion sensors and floodlights.
The city’s strategy is to tie the project up in court, delaying land condemnations past the November election in the hopes that a potential President Joe Biden will make good on his pledge to stop a wall that is already underway. Construction on the contracts is set to begin in January 2021.
Now, the No Border Wall Laredo Coalition hopes to heighten the sense of urgency by linking their demands to the larger movement for Black lives and to defund police, both in court and on the street. They’re demonstrating the connection between the systemic, carceral racism of Trump’s “prison wall” and the systemic racism of U.S. policing.
The Coalition is demanding that the $564 million being poured into 31 miles of fencing to stop a manufactured social crisis instead be used to address real crises border residents face: the most dire being the COVID-19 emergency that has taken more than 200 lives in one of the nation’s most severe hotspots. Laredo has become ground zero not only in the fight against the border wall but also the fight against the pandemic.
“The wall certainly is this really strong symbol of racism that is being placed on our necks.”
“The wall certainly is this really strong symbol of racism that is being placed on our necks and being shoved down our throats,” says Tricia Cortez, the executive director of the nonprofit Rio Grande International Study Center, which works to preserve and restore the Rio Grande Basin. “No question what it’s a symbol of, what it represents, because when you go beyond the ideology of it, the logic of it does not make sense, the cost of it does not make sense.”
Activists with the No Border Wall Laredo Coalition pose after painting a street mural in front of the George P. Kazen Federal Building on August 16, 2020. Candice Bernd
Last month, landowners and Coalition members joined with elected officials in neighboring Zapata County to file a novel court challenge in Laredo’s federal court that also echoes themes from the Black Lives Matter movement. The suit argues that Trump’s border wall is a racially motivated attack on Mexican Americans — a protected class under the U.S. Constitution.
“When you go beyond the ideology of it, the logic of it does not make sense, the cost of it does not make sense.”
The plaintiffs allege that Trump’s racial animus led directly to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) policies that deprive Mexican American citizens along the border of their property and cultural heritage in violation of Fifth Amendment due process guarantees. The suit seeks injunctive relief against federal seizures of private borderlands and construction activities. It also seeks to reinstate at least 27 laws waived by Trump officials to expedite wall construction under the 2005 Real ID Act — many of them crucial environmental protections for sensitive ecological areas.
The plaintiffs claim Trump’s January 25, 2017, executive order to build the wall “creates a second-class United States citizen at the southern border who can have their land seized wholesale based on racist and white nationalist motives.”
The attorney who filed the complaint, Carlos Evaristo Flores, cautions that the Coalition doesn’t precisely equate the movement to stop the wall with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. “We don’t think that seizing the land is the functional equivalent of [anti-Black policing]. But BLM is instructive to us because while the animus toward us is not in the same character or manner of the Black community, we are very close cousins.”
Activists with the No Border Wall Laredo Coalition pose after painting a street mural in front of the George P. Kazen Federal Building on August 16, 2020. Candice Bernd
The complaint is also novel in other ways: It’s the only lawsuit in the country challenging the DHS waivers based on the argument that Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf didn’t have the authority to issue them in the first place. A recent Government Accountability Office report issued August 14 seems to confirm that argument. The report found that Trump illegally appointed Wolf and Acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli to their positions and thus, found them ineligible to serve.
A separate government watchdog report released last month could likewise bolster the lawsuit’s argument. The DHS Inspector General’s Office found that CBP failed to sufficiently justify the need for a border wall. The report said the agency failed to conduct an analysis of alternatives to determine whether the wall was “the most effective, appropriate, and affordable” solution to “obtain operational control of the southern border” as directed in Trump’s executive order.
“While the animus toward us is not in the same character or manner of the Black community, we are very close cousins.”
Instead, the report found that CBP rushed to approve wall construction, relying on “outdated border solutions to identify material alternatives for meeting its mission requirement.” The Inspector General’s Office also found that “CBP has not fully demonstrated that it possesses the capability to potentially spend billions of dollars to execute a large-scale acquisition to secure the southern border.”
Evaristo Flores says the DHS report is a boon to the case because, under the strict scrutiny standard of constitutional law, the government has to show that it has a “narrowly tailored” governmental interest to achieve its purpose and has used the least restrictive means necessary to do so. The report shows, however, that CBP didn’t even study the least-restrictive alternatives to achieve its purpose.
DHS has until September 15 to file a response to the complaint.
Land Theft for White Nationalism
Melissa Cigarroa, board president of the Rio Grande International Study Center, is one of the Mexican-American plaintiffs whose land is being seized for Trump’s racist and white nationalist motives, as her suit argues.
After the Coalition’s mural shoot on Sunday, I meet up with her in the afternoon, right as temperatures reach their triple-digit high of 103. We climb into her son’s Ford pickup and head south into Zapata County, toward her 175-acre ranch along the Rio Grande.
We slowly drive along a loose silt road checkered with sinkholes — recent erosion from flash flooding. A feral hog darts across our path. We stop again briefly for a glimpse of a roadrunner. Cigarroa pulls over, and we hike up a scenic cliff offering a breathtaking riverside vista of Mexico’s rolling hills. A wake of vultures circles above the meandering river. We both assume the animal below must have died of heat exhaustion as the sun beats down on us.
Melissa Cigarroa on her ranch in Zapata County, Texas, on August 16, 2020. Candice Bernd
Cigarroa leads me back down toward the riverbank, pointing out fossilized oyster shells along the way. At the river’s edge, she shows me the hundreds-of-years-old mesquite that would be obliterated for Trump’s wall. The silt is much looser here. She doesn’t know how the wall will be able to withstand the constant erosion. CBP wants access to the entirety of her land for their right of entry. They want 1,800 linear feet of river frontage along a 250-foot-wide swath for the wall itself.
CBP isn’t just planning to build in the flood plain on Cigarroa’s land; the agency’s plan would increase the chances of flooding all along the city’s riverfront. The government won’t be able to build on top of dikes, since the city doesn’t have levees. It must wall off the city right up to the bank, or literally route the wall through neighborhoods.
“Those Real ID waivers shouldn’t exist. We do not live in a country that has Constitution-free zones.”
In Mexico and Arizona, debris has gotten caught behind the six-inch bollards during flash floods, turning the fence into a makeshift dam. If that happens in Laredo, it could send floodwaters south toward residents of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, just across the border, potentially violating international treaty obligations. To make matters worse, the government is considering building a bulkhead wall for a one-mile stretch near downtown. The concrete levee structure could exacerbate the chances of flooding even more.
In February, Cigarroa attended a Zapata County landowners meeting with the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Army Corps of Engineers. She was deeply offended by what she called DOJ attorney Paxton Warner’s blatant dismissal of the cultural heritage and history of those who have owned land along the river for generations.
Warner, who oversaw wall construction under the Bush administration, told the landowners during the meeting that, “There were a lot of unhappy people back in 2008, 2009 down in the Rio Grande Valley [when the wall] came through,” according to a recording of the meeting first obtained by the Texas Observer. “People learn to live with it.”
Cigarroa is not simply going to live with it, though. “It’s easy to get caught up in the inanity of it and kind of try to figure out where your rights are because at the outset they tell you, ‘Well, with eminent domain you really don’t have any rights,’ and that’s wrong,” she says. “Those Real ID waivers shouldn’t exist. We do not live in a country that has Constitution-free zones. Eminent domain requires a public purpose.”
Melissa Cigarroa on her ranch in Zapata County, Texas, on August 16, 2020. Candice Bernd
She refused to sign CBP’s right-of-entry form after months of negotiations, and CBP has taken her to court in the first round of condemnation hearings. She is still awaiting the court’s response to the government’s offer as her Fifth Amendment case pends.
“When this movement came out to defund the police, specifically to ask society to stop pouring in so much money for this false narrative of militarizing our cities even more, that is what our message is too.”
Like her attorney, Evaristo Flores, Cigarroa underscored that the government’s seizure of her land isn’t the same as police-perpetrated violence against Black people in the U.S. Still, she says, “The animus that emanates from the White House, … it is [toward] all communities of color. So when this movement came out to defund the police, specifically to ask society to stop pouring in so much money for this false narrative of living in fear and militarizing our cities even more, that is what our message is too.”
In a city that is 95 percent Latinx and nearly 30 percent below the poverty line, the Coalition is demanding resources for education, housing, environmental restoration, economic development and health care as its residents struggle with one of the most severe outbreaks of COVID-19 in the nation.
Wall Accelerates Amid Pandemic
Laredo is among the five metropolitan areas with the highest rates of new COVID-19 cases relative to their populations in the U.S., according to data compiled by The New York Times. All five areas are in South Texas. Laredo, a city of 260,000, broke 10,000 positive cases on Thursday.
The city is also experiencing one of the highest death rates per capita in the country, with 227 pandemic-related deaths as of August 24. Laredo’s three hospitals have been at or near capacity every day, and its five nursing homes have had 40 virus-related deaths alone. It was the first city in the nation to pass an ordinance mandating masks in public.
“We got money and we’re grateful for it, but we didn’t get near the type of money that we should be getting.”
Border cities are uniquely susceptible to the pandemic as centers of transit and commerce, facilitating visitors not just from Mexico but across the U.S.; Laredo in particular is the top trade hub in the country. During the onset of the pandemic in March, $20 billion worth of goods flowed through its port.
Mercurio Martinez III, a Laredo city council member whose family originally owned Cigarroa’s ranch and has owned land along the river for generations, told Truthout the city has received more than $1 million in aid from the federal CARES Act, which it had to apply for from the state since the city’s population is below 500,000.
A CBP agent is posted up in an area behind the Laredo Water Museum on August 16, 2020. Candice Bernd
In Texas, the governor’s office has dispersed the aid money at a lower rate than the federal government, leaving some of the hardest hit border cities holding the bag. Gov. Greg Abbott distributed the funds to Laredo “in a fashion that didn’t benefit us,” Martinez says. “We got money and we’re grateful for it, but we didn’t get near the type of money that we should be getting.”
The state turned a local Red Roof Inn into a 106-bed temporary hospital for COVID-19 patients with mild cases, but Martinez and other local leaders have been urging state officials to allow patients with more serious cases in, to no avail.
“The pandemic came in, and everybody’s focused changed. The president’s focus didn’t change.”
The Coalition points out that Webb County, where Laredo is located, has been designated as a Health Professional Shortage Area for primary care physicians since December 2019, while Laredo lacks a major trauma center. More than 30 percent of the city’s residents likewise lack any kind of health insurance. Because of this, many wait until their cases become life threatening to visit local emergency rooms, trying to avoid the burden that crushing medical bills will have on their families.
Martinez says the city’s hospitals have moved resources around to convert certain floors into temporary intensive care units. As the city’s cases continue to climb, he says council members are eyeing potentially converting Laredo’s migrant jail into a temporary medical facility.
A nurse exits the Laredo Medical Center on August 16, 2020. Candice Bernd
While border cities and their residents have their hands full with spiking cases, the Trump administration is pushing the wall through: The DOJ has ramped up lawsuits against landowners in South Texas, filing 64 eminent domain lawsuits this year in the state’s southern district court — 41 since April.
“Instead of ‘Let’s talk about the wall and the funding of it,’ the cities are trying to battle a disease that we can’t see.”
“The pandemic came in, and everybody’s focused changed. The president’s focus didn’t change. He still wanted to go through with [the wall], but instead of ‘Let’s talk about the wall and the funding of it,’ the cities are trying to battle a disease that we can’t see,” Martinez says. “So our focus changed, and the White House’s focus just continued.”
Activists say the immense resources being funneled into the wall should be redirected to the city’s outbreak. According to a Truthout analysis, the amount of funding it takes to build about 1.6 miles of wall could provide each of the 10,130 Laredoans who have tested positive for COVID as of August 24 with a five-day treatment of Remdesivir, the antiviral drug that has helped many COVID patients recover.
Betting on Biden
To fulfill his campaign promise, Trump must build 450 miles of border wall by the end of 2020. According to CBP, the Trump administration has built at least 275 miles of fencing, nearly 90 percent of which has replaced shorter barriers erected under George W. Bush.
Trump has corralled $15 billion in federal funds for his wall, including $5 billion provided by Congress. He has siphoned the rest from Pentagon accounts, including a $2.5 billion transfer last year that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled unlawful in June. Now, Trump is asking for an additional $2 billion in his 2021 proposed budget.
“November is going to be critical. It’s going to determine what we’re going to do and our strategy,” the International Study Center’s Cortez says. “Democrats have a reckoning to go through themselves to really understanding the impacts of their votes and how they direct congressional funding.”
“Democrats have a reckoning to go through themselves to really understanding the impacts of their votes and how they direct congressional funding.”
Laredo Rep. Henry Cuellar’s political evolution on the wall has been heartening for the Coalition. Cuellar, who is vice chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, twice voted to fund Trump’s signature project before backing his constituents and voting against funding for the wall last year.
He has added language to multiple fiscal year 2021 congressional appropriations bills passed in the House that would prohibit new federal funding for wall construction; prevent Trump from tapping into Pentagon accounts for additional funds; and block construction on historical, cultural and environmentally sensitive sites in South Texas.
Cuellar and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden favor a “smart wall” instead of a physical barrier along the southern border. The technological approach would increase the use of surveillance drones, infrared cameras and motion-detecting radar to snatch undocumented immigrants, to the horror of many privacy and civil liberties proponents. In fact, the House has already approved $55 million for new border surveillance technologies, but the Republican-led Senate has yet to vote on any 2021 budget measures.
“Today it’s us, but tomorrow it could be you in your part of the country.”
As a senator, Biden voted for the Secure Fence Act in 2006, which ultimately built more than 600 miles of wall along the border. If he’s elected in November and makes good on recent campaign statements, though, his presidency would represent a significant departure from his previous voting record and from that of the Obama administration, which oversaw the completion of former President George W. Bush’s border wall after taking office in 2009.
Biden told The Dallas Morning News this month that while he wouldn’t dismantle segments of existing fence along the border, he would stop future construction if he’s elected, saying, “There will not be another foot of wall construction in my administration.” He also said he would dismiss pending condemnation cases against landowners, telling reporters, “End. Stop. Done. Over. Not going to do it. Withdraw the lawsuits. We’re out. We’re not going to confiscate the land.”
Cows drink from the Rio Grande River in Laredo, Texas, on August 16, 2020. The wall threatens to cut off domestic animals and wildlife from their source of drinking water. Candice Bernd
Biden has also pledged to end Trump’s declaration of emergency at the border and end other key Trump initiatives on immigration, including the Remain in Mexico program. For anti-wall activists in Laredo, every day they can delay Trump’s prison wall in hopes of ultimately stopping the government from pouring billions more into the president’s monument to systemic racism, is a victory.
“We’re on the front lines of these really extremist world views, and people in the United States have to know that if we don’t stop that, today it’s us, but tomorrow it could be you in your part of the country,” Cortez says. “So that’s why we take a stand here.”
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
If you like what you’re reading, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment: Invest in a nonprofit news site that’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, not afraid to stand up for what’s right, and not afraid to tell it like it is.
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truthout--2020-08-27--Kenosha Police Chief Blames Murdered Protesters for Their Own Deaths

After two protesters were murdered by 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha , Wisconsin , on Tuesday night , the city ’ s Chief of Police Dan Miskinis appeared to imply in comments to media that it was the murdered protesters themselves who were to blame .
Rittenhouse had traveled from his home in Antioch , Illinois , to Kenosha in order to join other militia members who had gathered there armed with rifles and other weaponry , purportedly to defend businesses and other property in the area against demonstrators who were protesting the police-perpetrated killing of Jacob Blake earlier this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ teenager shot and killed two protesters , injuring a third , but was able to walk by law enforcement even as witnesses alerted the officers to Rittenhouse ’ s actions .
“ He just shot someone , ” an unidentified person on a video featuring Rittenhouse can be heard saying to police .
Rittenhouse was transported back to his home that evening .
The following day , he was charged with first-degree intentional homicide and labeled a “ fugitive from justice ” after leaving Wisconsin “ with the intent to avoid prosecution for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and detained by Antioch police .
Miskinis , in discussing the individuals Rittenhouse killed , seemed to place the responsibility for those deaths on the victims themselves , citing a curfew law that had been in effect when the crime happened .
“ Everybody involved was out after the curfew , ” Miskinis said .
“ I ’ m not going to make a great deal of it , but the point is that the curfew is in place to protect .
Had persons not been out in violation of that , perhaps @ @ @ @ @ @ @ happened.
” Miskinis also appeared to downplay the shootings that Rittenhouse committed , stating that in his view the teen had used his weapon that night “ to resolve whatever conflict was in place ” at the time .
The actions of law enforcement in Kenosha on Tuesday evening have been widely criticized , particularly regarding their interactions with militia members that came to the city , including Rittenhouse .
In video recordings that have been posted to social media , officers are seen interacting with the teenager and other militia members he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bottles and thanking them for their presence that evening .
“ We appreciate you guys , we really do , ” one officer said directly to Rittenhouse just moments before he shot at and killed protesters .
Aside from the murder charges he now faces , Rittenhouse may have also violated a state gun law , a matter that law enforcement on Tuesday evening didn ’ t seem to care much about .
According to Wisconsin statutes , no person under the age of 18 may openly carry a weapon , including rifles @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unless they ’ re doing so for hunting purposes or for self defense .
Miskinis was not the only person in the state making controversial accusations of blame toward other individuals .
Republican lawmakers , too , are trying to imply that the blame for protesters being shot at and killed rests at the feet of Democratic Gov .
Tony Evers .
Speaking on a right-wing radio program on Wednesday , Assembly Speaker Robin Vos faulted Evers for not sending enough state national guard troops to Kenosha and for initially refusing federal troops @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to go to the city .
“ Those people did not have to die and because of Tony Evers ’ s actions , they ’ re dead , ” Vos said .
Evers has reportedly relented and agreed to allow a federal presence to enter the city , according to tweets from Trump .
Federal troop presences in other cities have led to an escalation of violence by police forces .
Oregon Gov .
Kate Brown explained in July how federal troops in Portland earlier this year made matters worse for that city @ @ @ @ @ @ @ beginning to calm down .
Then Trump ’ s troops arrived , ” Brown said in an interview with PBS .
“ And it ’ s simply like pouring gasoline on a fire .
”

After two protesters were murdered by 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Tuesday night, the city’s Chief of Police Dan Miskinis appeared to imply in comments to media that it was the murdered protesters themselves who were to blame.
Rittenhouse had traveled from his home in Antioch, Illinois, to Kenosha in order to join other militia members who had gathered there armed with rifles and other weaponry, purportedly to defend businesses and other property in the area against demonstrators who were protesting the police-perpetrated shooting of Jacob Blake earlier this week. Late Tuesday night, the teenager shot and killed two protesters, injuring a third, but was able to walk by law enforcement even as witnesses alerted the officers to Rittenhouse’s actions.
“He just shot someone,” an unidentified person on a video featuring Rittenhouse can be heard saying to police.
Rittenhouse was transported back to his home that evening. The following day, he was charged with first-degree intentional homicide and labeled a “fugitive from justice” after leaving Wisconsin “with the intent to avoid prosecution for the offense.” He was later arrested and detained by Antioch police.
Miskinis, in discussing the individuals Rittenhouse killed, seemed to place the responsibility for those deaths on the victims themselves, citing a curfew law that had been in effect when the crime happened.
“Everybody involved was out after the curfew,” Miskinis said. “I’m not going to make a great deal of it, but the point is that the curfew is in place to protect. Had persons not been out in violation of that, perhaps the situation that unfolded would not have happened.”
Miskinis also appeared to downplay the shootings that Rittenhouse committed, stating that in his view the teen had used his weapon that night “to resolve whatever conflict was in place” at the time.
The actions of law enforcement in Kenosha on Tuesday evening have been widely criticized, particularly regarding their interactions with militia members that came to the city, including Rittenhouse. In video recordings that have been posted to social media, officers are seen interacting with the teenager and other militia members he was associated with, handing them water bottles and thanking them for their presence that evening.
“We appreciate you guys, we really do,” one officer said directly to Rittenhouse just moments before he shot at and killed protesters.
Aside from the murder charges he now faces, Rittenhouse may have also violated a state gun law, a matter that law enforcement on Tuesday evening didn’t seem to care much about. According to Wisconsin statutes, no person under the age of 18 may openly carry a weapon, including rifles like the one Rittenhouse was wielding, unless they’re doing so for hunting purposes or for self defense.
Miskinis was not the only person in the state making controversial accusations of blame toward other individuals. Republican lawmakers, too, are trying to imply that the blame for protesters being shot at and killed rests at the feet of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.
Speaking on a right-wing radio program on Wednesday, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos faulted Evers for not sending enough state national guard troops to Kenosha and for initially refusing federal troops that were offered by President Donald Trump to go to the city. “Those people did not have to die and because of Tony Evers’s actions, they’re dead,” Vos said.
Evers has reportedly relented and agreed to allow a federal presence to enter the city, according to tweets from Trump. Federal troop presences in other cities have led to an escalation of violence by police forces. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown explained in July how federal troops in Portland earlier this year made matters worse for that city, for example.
“Things were beginning to calm down. Then Trump’s troops arrived,” Brown said in an interview with PBS. “And it’s simply like pouring gasoline on a fire.”
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
If you like what you’re reading, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment: Invest in a nonprofit news site that’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, not afraid to stand up for what’s right, and not afraid to tell it like it is.
Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.