Trump Is Building a Database of American Citizens Which Seems… Bad?

By Ashley Reese  |  July 15, 2020 | 10:12pm
NewsPolitics
Trump Is Building a Database of American Citizens Which Seems… Bad?
Image: Drew Angerer (Getty Images)

President Trump is determined to find out exactly how many undocumented immigrants live in the United States, and a few states are ready to help them find out… in a roundabout way.

NPR reports that four states—Iowa, Nebraska, South Carolina, and South Dakota—are working with the Trump administration by transferring all their state I.D. and drivers license data over to the U.S. Census Bureau. (The administration tried and failed to gather this data by placing a citizenship question in the 2020 census.)

From NPR:

In the past year since the administration failed in its attempt to add the now-blocked citizenship question to 2020 census forms, the Census Bureau has been gathering state and federal records to produce anonymized citizenship data under directives from Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who oversees the bureau, and an executive order Trump issued in July 2019.
[…]
NPR previously reported that the Department of Homeland Security quietly announced last year in a regulatory document that it had agreed, despite internal concerns, to share certain records — including some from Immigration and Customs Enforcement — for the administration’s efforts to determine the number of citizens, unauthorized immigrants and other noncitizens in the country.
In addition to allowing states to redistrict using the number of citizens old enough to vote, Trump’s executive order noted that the citizenship data could assist the government in generating a “more reliable count of the unauthorized alien population in the country.”

But NPR also reports that the data is “not expected to involve information about unauthorized immigrants” because the four states require proof of residency to obtain a driver’s license or state I.D, theoretically excluding people who are undocumented from finding themselves in the data set. Still, activists and legal representatives for Latinx organizations across the country are skeptical of the precedent set by sharing information with the Trump administration.

Emphasis ours:

Attorneys with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and Asian Americans Advancing Justice – AAJC are representing Latinx community groups in Arizona and Texas in an ongoing federal lawsuit to try to stop the administration from releasing this kind of citizenship data. They’re arguing the administration is trying to prevent Latinos, noncitizens and other immigrants from receiving their fair share in political representation.

Republicans trying to reduce the political power of marginalized groups? Sounds about right!

A wise woman named Mo’Nique once said, “When you do clownery, the clown comes back to bite.” Well, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt has spent the last several months doing clownery, and now it has come to bite him… and infect him with covid-19.

Stitt has reportedly tested positive for covid-19. Pretty damning considering his rush to re-open the state and his routine dismissal of CDC guidelines. One would hope Stitt would take his L with grace and own up to being careless. But that’s asking too much, it seems.

From CNN:

Stitt, a Republican, said at a press conference that he was tested on Tuesday and that he feels “fine,” other than being a “little bit achy.” He said he’ll be quarantining and working from home, and that he was “pretty shocked” to be the first governor to get the virus. He added that he would isolating away from his family, whom he said tested negative.
“I want to use my story to remind Oklahomans that if you aren’t feeling well, we want you to get tested,” said Stitt, who added that he is not considering a statewide mask mandate as of now.

This is rich coming from Sitt, a man who was eager to re-open Oklahoma, routinely dismissed CDC guidelines, and already caught shit after tweeting a photo of himself and his children in a crowded restaurant back in March–essentially thumbing his nose at areas moving into pandemic lockdown mode. He even attended Trump’s Tulsa rally on June 20, sans face mask. (The city has seen a huge surge in covid-19 cases since the not-so-grand event.)

Again, when you do clownery…

  • Dr. Fauci appears mostly unbothered with the Trump administration’s shit-talking:
  • In other Trump administration news, they want to send the National Guard to hospitals to collect data on covid-19 patients. They’re determined to sidestep the Centers for Disease Control and hoard the data for themselves. What could go wrong? [Washington Post/New York Times]
  • Trump is going on about MS-13 again:
  • And in a CBS interview, Trump brushed off concerns about black people dying at the hands of police officers because, well, more white people are killed by cops than black people. I mean… that’s bad too, buddy. [CBS]
  • Joe Biden is up 13 points over Trump in Pennsylvania. [Politico]
  • Genius Sen. Kelly Loeffler doesn’t think Georgia needs mask mandates and still approves of re-opening the state. [WJCL]
  • Hey, look! A Republican indicted with voter fraud, a crime that only Democrats are said to commit. [Politico]
  • Looks like there were some wins for the left in Tuesday’s Texas primary.[The Appeal]
  • Ruth Bader Ginsburg is out of the hospital. [CNN]
  • Claudia Conway, teen daughter of Kellyanne Conway, is still trolling her mom on TikTok.

https://www.tiktok.com/@southernbelleinsults/video/6849325343854103813

 
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