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**MARCH 13, 2025**
On the Prospect website
Federal Workers Return to the Office. Custodial Staff Doesn't.
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There are reports of clogged sinks, overflowing trash cans, and a lack of toilet paper. BY DAVID DAYEN
Trump Administration Cuts Funding for Fair Housing Groups, Weakening Discrimination Protections [link removed]
The termination of grants to dozens of fair housing organizations threatens enforcement of the Fair Housing Act. BY ROBIN UREVICH
Amazon Uses Arsenal of AI Weapons Against Workers [link removed]
A study of a union election at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, shows that the company weaponizes its algorithmic surveillance tools to prevent organizing. BY DANIEL BOGUSLAW
Meyerson on TAP
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**** Who's Deportable Now?
If previous administrations had deported immigrants by Trump's criteria, the U.S. would be a lot smaller than it is.
If we're going to deport immigrants who came here legally because they endangered our national security, I don't see how we can toss Mahmoud Khalil out of the country. However much his advocacy of Palestine and Hamas may infuriate many Americans and the current administration, the government hasn't produced a single syllable showing how Khalil's conduct impaired American security.
Under the administration's stated criteria for sending back immigrants whence they came, one immigrant who eminently deserves deportation springs to mind. That would be Elon Musk, who just in the past month fired the federal workers who kept our nuclear arsenal secure. If that's not endangering our national security, I don't know what is. Any administration genuinely concerned about our citizenry's survival would be rigging a slow boat
to South Africa for Elon right now.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has sought to elucidate the justifications for Khalil's pending deportation. In one tweet, he said the green cards of Hamas supporters in the U.S. will be revoked "so they can be deported." Speaking to the press, he also cited the campus disruptions in which Khalil was involved, saying students and professors are "afraid to go to class because these lunatics are running around with covers on their face, screaming terrifying things."
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How many legal immigrants would have been deported during other presidencies if these had been the guidelines for deportation then? What of the supporters of the Irish Republican Army when it was waging its violent campaigns, which involved acts of terrorism, in Ireland? There were numerous Irish immigrants, including men and women of wealth and power
here in the states, who provided funds and sometimes weapons to the IRA. I don't recall any high-profile deportations of Irish American businessmen or labor leaders or, heaven forfend, church officials who sought to help the IRA. Nor do I recall any deportations of the German Marxists-including some of Marx's closest comrades-who came here in the aftermath of the European revolutions of 1848. (A few years later, some of them helped a new political party-the Republicans-get off the ground.)
As to disruptive immigrants, there were many thousands who worked on our railroads or in industrial sweatshops who went on strike in the late 19th and early 20th century, in clashes to which the government responded by sending in the Army. Repression was the order of the day; mass deportations were not.
In any event, Khalil isn't accused of any crime; he's merely been targeted because of his stated beliefs. To the extent that those beliefs encompass not just support for a Palestinian
state but also support for Hamas, that crosses a line that I consider completely unjustifiable, but millions of Americans hold other beliefs I also consider unjustifiable. The reason we're all still here is that our Constitution ensures our right to hold and advocate for our beliefs, as distinct from committing violent acts. If immigrants throughout our history had been sent back to their homelands because our government didn't like their beliefs, we would be living in a radically smaller country-assuming that we were living here at all.
~ HAROLD MEYERSON
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