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Mar 15, 2021: ICE Dropping Off Covid+ Immigrants With No Warning
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TODAY'S HEADLINES:

The Washington Post reports that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement is dropping off asylum seekers who are positive for COVID-19 at bus stops with no prior warning to the activist groups who are trying to unite them with families or find them housing, while FEMA steps in to take over housing unaccompanied minors overwhelming facilities on the border.

Meanwhile, New York State’s vaccine czar reportedly questioned local officials as to their loyalty to embattled governor Andrew Cuomo, prompting an ethics complaint on top of the existing sexual harassment scandals leveled against Cuomo.

And lastly, despite the sweeping measures included in the new covid relief bill, Democrats left one loophole in: the new stimulus payments aren’t exempt from debt collection, and it’s Congress’s job to make sure stand alone legislation fixes that as soon as possible.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

The immigration crisis has not let up in the first months of Joe Biden’s presidency, and the Washington Post reports that some forces Trump enabled are still enacting brutal policies toward people who come here seeking a better life.

The Post reports that for weeks, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has been dropping off COVID-positive detainees at bus stations with no prior warning to the activist groups or family members trying to find them homes or housing.

ICE claims that it’s their policy to notify local authorities when they release a detainee that has COVID, but some county officials say they had no idea when and where immigrants carrying the disease would be released.

Let’s be clear: this danger is in no way the fault of the immigrants themselves, who are often crammed in unsafe and overcrowded detention facilities that are hotbeds for covid.

In fact, as we reported last week, the number of unaccompanied minors has skyrocketed at the border. Recently, the New York Times reports that the Biden Administration has asked FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to step in and help house some of the children that had previously been forced into sparse adult facilities run by Customs and Border Protection.

These kids are supposed to be cared for and helped by the Department for Health And Human Services, which has a spotty record in that respect to start and has so far failed to adequately handle the influx of new immigrants as well. It seems that even if Biden has good intentions, America’s immigration system is still broken beyond any easy repair.

Cuomo Goon Squeezed Local Officials

Meanwhile, the depths of Andrew Cuomo’s alleged corruption continue to sink. The Washington Post reports that New York State’s so-called vaccine czar, a long-time Cuomo advisor, called up local officials and grilled them over their loyalty to the governor amid the ongoing sexual harassment investigation.

Cuomo called a deranged press conference on Friday where he refused to resign and said he wouldn’t quote “bow to cancel culture.” endquote. And while all this has been going on over the past few weeks, the Post reports that the man involved in determining who gets vaccines in New York State has been leaning on local officials to curry favor for the Governor.

The vaccine’s czar’s name is Larry Schwartz. He’s a self-admitted 30-year friend of Cuomo who earned the reputation as his quote “enforcer” during a long career in Albany. Schwartz even admitted making the calls to county officials, although he insisted they were of a personal nature and not in his official capacity. Still, one local official was so disturbed about the timing of one of Schwartz’s calls right after a vaccine supply meeting that he filed notice for an impending ethics complaint.

According to the post, Schwartz was asking officials what their position was and trying to ascertain whether or not they’d be changing their public statements as the evidence against Cuomo mounted. Basically, trying to see who would denounce the Governor next.

Sure, this could all be a coincidence. But if we know anything about how Andrew Cuomo does politics at this point it wouldn’t be a surprise for one of his friends, who happens to control vaccine supply in the state, to imply that staying on the Governor’s good side was important for lower-level local officials.

Stimulus Checks Vulnerable to Debt Collectors

Stimulus checks started hitting American bank accounts this weekend, in what is surely a welcome relief for many hard-working people who have been struggling to make ends meet over the past year.

But Common Dreams reports that the architects of the American Rescue Plan did not build in protections against debt collectors into the bill signed last week. That means that debt collectors and companies could immediately suck the stimulus payments out of peoples’ bank accounts. We saw this happen with the CARES act, which also lacked similar protections. While the

stimulus was a boon for some, it was also a huge windfall for predatory debt collectors seeking to make their money back as quickly as possible in spite of the recession.

The $600 payments we got in December did have protections against this, which is why it’s so damaging that the $1400 checks don’t have the same. Because of some procedural snags with the reconciliation process, lawmakers will now have to pass an independent bill protecting stimulus payments from debt collectors, and who knows how long that will take.

Oregon Senator Rod Wyden has already pledged to introduce protective legislation. But as the American Prospect already noted, for debts that have already seen a court judgement, that protection will be too late: the collectors can take it already. A stopgap measure would stop new debt judgments from swiping the stimulus checks, but for many Americans, the weekend’s windfall will be pretty short lived.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

Internal documents obtained by the Washington Post show that Facebook is conducting a sweeping internal review of what kind of content is fueling vaccine skepticism on their service. And sure enough, the Post reports that it’s turning up all kinds of QAnon adjacent material that isn’t technically against the platform’s rules. Sounds like they should make some new ones.

Senior U.S. Officials claimed that they were ready to sit down with Iran as early as today and re-enter the Iran nuclear deal, but both sides have been offering conflicting and combative statements in recent weeks that have stonewalled or derailed any negotiations. We’ll have to see if Biden’s consultant-stacked State Department can make any meaningful headway.

A peaceful vigil for Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old woman who was allegedly kidnapped and killed by a London police officer was forcefully disrupted by the UK’s largest police force on Saturday, showing that the U.S. is far from having a monopoly on out-of-control state violence.

And in the U.S., rallies marking the one-year anniversary of Breonna Taylor’s death took place in several major cities, while in Taylor’s hometown of Louisville, while Kentucky’s GOP-controlled state legislature passed a bill criminalizing insulting police officers.

MAR 15, 2021 - AM QUICKIE

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Jack Crosbie

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn