October 2, 2020

The Latest

Team, Tuesday’s debate reminded everyone what’s at stake. Thanks to you and thousands of others, climate was on the presidential debate stage for the first time in 12 years! However, Trump continued to deny the impact of climate change, emboldened white supremacist terrorist groups, and days later tested positive for COVID-19. We wish him and the millions of other Americans infected a safe recovery. But we still must do everything in our power to ensure he doesn’t get four more years in office. Read on for the latest from Team Tom, plus resources for you to take action.

🌿 Vice President Biden’s Climate Engagement Advisory Council, which Tom co-chairs, opened up their weekly meeting to the public for a conversation on the economy, environmental justice, conservation, and climate. If you missed it, you can watch the discussion here.
🎙 As part of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Annual Legislative Conference, Tom joined Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee’s panel on H.R. 40 to discuss the bill that would form a commission to study Reparations. Check it out!
🎉 Last week, YOU helped GiveGreen raise over $1.5 million for climate candidates up and down the ballot as part of the Climate Week GreenStorm fundraiser. Thank you to everyone who participated! If you missed out, you can still donate to climate champions in key battleground races.
📰 Climate change is one of the biggest issues our country faces, especially since it’s intertwined with the other crises we’re battling, including the pandemic, an economic recession, and the lack of racial justice. Tom talked to reporters about the overlapping problems and how Biden’s climate plan addresses these issues at the same time. Check out Tom in the News here.

Community Circle

Tom joined Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, founder of African American Voter Registration, Education, and Participation (AAVREP) and Angelica Salas, executive director of Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), to emphasize the critical importance of voter registration for communities of color and the justice and equity issues on California ballot initiatives.

Watch the Conjuntos Vote Ready! event here. Then make sure you and everyone you know is ready to vote.

Action Toolkit

With just one month until the 2020 Election, we must be absolutely certain we’re registered and have a plan to vote. Get all the information you need and then share with your friends.

For the first time in many years, climate was discussed on a presidential debate stage. That was possible thanks to voices like yours. Now, it’s up to us to make sure that we win for climate. Sign up to be a Biden Climate Voter and help make this election a turning point on climate change.

Worth a Review: Investigate ICE

(trigger warning for sexual assault)

It’s painfully clear that we must investigate and close Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)’s detention centers. During the past few months, several stories have shone a light on some of the horrific incidents occurring at these centers.

Not only have ICE guards failed to properly respond to the coronavirus pandemic and protect those in detention centers, but they’ve also actively made the situation worse. In some cases, they psychologically tortured those with COVID-19 by placing them in solitary confinement. Even far outside these facilities, ICE has spread the virus — such as when ICE guards were redirected to break up Black Lives Matter protests in Virginia.

In a Texas facility, there were reports of systemic sexual assault from guards. Just a few weeks ago, there was a report that an ICE detention center in Georgia was performing hysterectomies on immigrants without their consent — harkening back to America’s ugly history of eugenics and abuse of women of color. This is an act of racial genocide, plain and simple.

This year has also had the highest death toll in ICE detention centers in 15 years.

Unfortunately, these stories are just the tip of the iceberg for an organization that is explicitly designed to not be transparent. But what we know today is more than sufficient to warrant a thorough inquiry. We need to call on Congress to investigate ICE and the forced hysterectomies today to ensure it is not happening to other immigrants.

But an investigation is not enough. While the Trump Administration has absolutely made this situation worse, it is not a problem that started and will end with them. These are issues embedded within the obscurity of the detention centers themselves. We must hold ICE accountable and close all detention facilities.

Tom’s take: “The stories that have been coming out of ICE detention centers these past few months are not just wrong — they are clear violations of international human rights laws. Immigrants are human beings. The only difference between us and them is where we were born. To treat them differently is wrong. To do what has been done, from hysterectomies to mass COVID-19 outbreaks, is unconscionable.”

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