National Populist Newsletter

Sept. 10th-17th

News:

United States

• Immigration

DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari issued his office’s audit of the agency’s massive Catch and Release network, through which officials are supposed to keep contact with the tens of thousands of border crossers they release into American communities monthly. According to the IG report, from March 2021 through August 2022, Biden’s DHS lost track of more than 177,000 border crossers released into the U.S. interior of the roughly 981,000 reviewed for the audit. (Breitbart News)

Illegal immigrants who did not qualify for the American Rescue Plan can now apply for $1,000 to $1,500 per household in Denver. (The Denver Post)

Fox News reported that Congressional Republicans are using a Homeland Security appropriations bill to push amendments to enforce immigration law. The amendments include one to bar asylum seekers who have already passed through another safe country, prioritizing the removal of certain illegal aliens, barring money from being made available for the release of illegal aliens into the nation’s interior, blocking cash from being used for migrant transportation; and barring federal funds from going to sanctuary cities. (Fox News)

• Congress

Congress is again feuding over funding the government, with members of the House Freedom Caucus insisting on placing anti-abortion measures in the amendments and Senate Republicans demanding spending cuts. Republicans have a point regarding the budget, which will produce a $1.5 trillion deficit this next fiscal year if nothing is done. Yet without the Senate, little can be done with a government shutdown that historically has produced little fruit for the GOP. There are also political consequences with the Virginia legislative election just weeks away. In 2013, Ted Cruz’s federal government shutdown likely cost the Republicans a victory in the governor’s race that year. (The New York Times)

• Election 2024

The Wisconsin-controlled Assembly passed a bipartisan bill to create a non-partisan legislative map in the same vein as Iowa. The Associated Press reported that the legislative staffers use nonpartisan criteria to draw districts subject to an up-or-down vote by the Legislature and a potential gubernatorial veto.

• Economy

Sens. Romney, Cotton, Vance, Capito, Collins, and Cassidy have introduced the Higher Wages for American Workers Act, which would raise the national minimum wage to $11 an hour and mandate E-Verify to ensure the wage increase only goes to legal workers.

The bill raises the minimum wage to $11 by 2027, has a slower phase-in for small businesses with fewer than 20 employees, raises civil and criminal penalties on employers that hire unauthorized aliens and violate I-9 paperwork requirements, and mandates E-Verify for all employers, phasing in implementation over 18 months to allow small businesses additional time to comply. (Mavern Daily Records) On a political note, this policy is much more effective than pushing for investigations into the Biden family. Forcing Democrats to vote against minimum wage increases hurts them with working-class voters.

Nearly one in 10 of America’s unionized auto workers went on strike demanding higher wages. The workers are seeking across-the-board wage increases of 36 percent over four years; the companies have countered by offering increases ranging from 17.5 percent to 20 percent. In addition to the wage increases, union negotiators are also seeking the restoration of cost-of-living pay raises, an end to varying tiers of wages for factory jobs, a 32-hour week with 40 hours of payment; the restoration of traditional defined-benefit pensions for new hires who now receive only 401(k)-style retirement plans; and pension increases for retirees, among other items. (Associated Press)

• Education

Roger Benitez, a Bush-appointed federal judge from California, ruled that schools cannot force teachers to lie to parents about children’s gender identity. "The school’s policy is a trifecta of harm: it harms the child who needs parental guidance and possibly mental health intervention to determine if the incongruence is organic or the result of bullying, peer pressure, or a fleeting impulse," Benitez wrote. "It harms the parents by depriving them of the long-recognized Fourteenth Amendment right to care, guide, and make health care decisions for their children. And finally, it harms plaintiffs who are compelled to violate the parent’s rights by forcing plaintiffs to conceal information they feel is critical for the welfare of their students."